He really did look like Magnum PI, if Tom Selleck had been a chubby, balding man in his early sixties. Otherwise, he’d nailed the look. The mustache helped.
“Charley Davidson, I presume.” He held out a hand.
I took it. “Domino, I presume back?”
“That I am, ma’am. That I am. So, you’re really bright. I remember you.”
“Yeah, Angel told me you hit on me once.”
“Only once? Must be losing my touch.” He gave me a flirtatious wink and chuckled.
I laughed with him. It felt good. Not as good as the sip of mocha latte I took, but good nonetheless. “Is that the bar owner from the other night with Hector?”
“Sure is. Why are you so bright again?”
Taken aback, I stared at him until he became uncomfortable.
“So, yeah,” he said, changing the subject, “that’s your guy.”
“Wait, you really don’t know who I am?”
“Not a clue, sweet cakes, but we can change that real quick like.” He wriggled his brows, and I laughed softly, trying not to encourage him.
“Well, that’s refreshing. As far as you know, Hector Felix walked out of the bar alive and well.”
“Well is a subjective term, but alive.”
“And the guy the barkeep called? I’m presuming he was called in to clean up a sticky situation.”
“That was the gist I got, but I had to leave right after Hector did. Had a date.” He blew on his nails and polished them on his bright red tropical shirt.
“Okay. The barkeep, what’s his name?”
“Parish. He’s a pretty stand-up guy. Takes good care of the boys, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m sure he does.” If he was that involved with the football players, he could be providing something more than just pizza and beer.
I stepped out of Misery and walked up to Parish just as the deliveryman was finishing up.
“Mr. Parish?” I asked.
“Just Parish.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Parish McCoy.”
I held out my hand. He took it after a bit of hesitation.
“I’m Charley Davidson. I’m a private investigator looking into the homicide of Hector Felix.”
The man paled several shades, but his emotions didn’t scream guilt. They screamed, That man was crazy and threatened to kill me and my family! I could understand his misgivings.
“I’m not looking into the incident here. Not closely, anyway. I know you’re friends with the football players. Do you believe any of them would have cause to come back and kill Mr. Felix?”
“Besides the fact that he threatened their families? Their careers? No. Not at all.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, but I’m more interested in the man you called after.”
The stunned expression on his face told me he could not imagine where I was getting my information from.
“Someone else was there that night, Mr. McCoy. Someone you didn’t see.”
He ran a hand down his face in frustration and stepped back to sit on a cinder block ledge that lined the bottom of his establishment.
“I have no intention of telling the police what happened if the events of that night didn’t play into Mr. Felix’s death, but I need to know for certain. Do you still have the recording?”
“No.” He coughed into a hand, and I could see his whole life flashing before his eyes. Not literally. He just had that kind of stress humming underneath his surface. “No, I erased it.”
Now he was lying. Finally, a bargaining chip. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. McCoy. You let me see the recording, and I won’t involve the police even though my uncle is a detective for APD.”
He paled even further. With shoulders slumping and hands sweating, he led me into his bar, a clean if not outdated watering hole. Then again, maybe disco was coming back.
“Dude, you have to ditch the mirrored jukebox from the ’70s. Otherwise, nice place.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t mean it. I could tell.
We walked to a back room, where he showed me the footage from seven nights ago. Sure enough, Hector Felix was making a grand nuisance of himself. At one point, he got in the barkeep’s face, waving a broken bottle at him, threatening to cut a bitch. Either that or he was telling the barkeep he had a cup itch. Since he didn’t look like he wore athletic gear, ever, I leaned toward the former.
My lipreading kind of rocked.
Then came the gun and the football players, and, sure enough, one of them disarmed Hector with a move that one learned in the military.
“That guy,” I said, pointing at the tall African American with the most incredible biceps I’d ever seen. “What’s his story?”
He shrugged. “Military brat. His father taught him that move, if you’re wondering. He ended up with a full ride because he’s a badass tight end.”
“No shit.” Man, he had an ass. “You sure seem to know a lot about these guys.”
“I don’t have a family. They’re all I got. I treat ’em well. If that’s a crime—”
“Not at all, Mr. McCoy.”
He wasn’t lying, and he truly didn’t believe any of his boys would have gone after Hector after the fight.
“I’ll need their names and any contact information you have on them, just in case. And I’ll need a copy of this recording.” Before he could argue, I brought up another touchy subject. “What about the guy you called to take care of the situation?”
He bit down, not wanting to drag him into it.
“Mr. McCoy, I will keep you out of this if I can, but I do need the whole story.”
“He’s a friend. By the time he got here, I’d closed up shop. I didn’t even tell him why I’d called. I didn’t want him involved if he didn’t have to be.”
“He had no idea who Hector was?”
“No clue. And he couldn’t have killed him, anyway.”
“Why?”
“The man is seventy-eight.”
My mouth fell open, but I quickly closed it. Gaping mouth wasn’t a good look on anyone. “How was he going to help you clean up the mess?”
That time his mouth fell open. He couldn’t fathom where I was getting my intel. It took him a moment to answer. Finally, he said, “He wasn’t going to help me get rid of the body, if that’s what you mean. He was going to help me”—he lowered his head, embarrassed—“help me call the police and turn myself in.”
A tingling sensation ran up my spine. He was going to take the blame for the death, to sacrifice himself, for the players.
“It wasn’t what you think. He was an ass. I’d planned to tell them that he attacked me. I had no choice but to fight back.”
“But he was beaten up rather severely.”
He reached over and pulled a baseball bat from underneath his desk.
“Pretty. What’s her name?”
He grinned. “Betty.”
I liked her. “Look, Mr. McCoy, I don’t know how he died yet, but if he did die from the injuries sustained here—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “I understand.” He pushed a button and gave me the DVD from the recording. “This is the only copy. If he did die from those injuries, I go with plan A. I’m good with that. I have a feeling a jury will sympathize.”
“I agree. But just in case—”
“I know, I know.” He wrote down the names of all the players that were there that night as well as his lawyer friend.
“No one will see this, Mr. McCoy, unless absolutely necessary.”
“You gonna tell me who your informant is?”
I looked over at Domino. He sat at the bar, a mischievous grin on his face. “Tell him his brother told you.”
Realizing that I was probably walking into a trap, I said, “Your brother?”
Mr. McCoy nodded. “Yep. That would be just like him to come back from the grave to haunt me. And get me convicted of manslaughter in the first.”
I laughed softly. “If it helps, he still has a great sense of style.”
That time, Mr. McCoy barked a boisterous laugh.
I walked out with Domino asking, “Why is he laughing? What’s wrong with my sense of style?”
I would only go talk to the football players as a last resort. The odds of any of them hunting Hector down and finishing him off were slim at best. Why would they? They had their careers to worry about. Hector did threaten them, but without knowing their names, he would’ve been hard-pressed to find any of them.
On the way out, Cook texted me a picture of a woman, square-jawed with short brown hair and splotchy skin. I called my B.F.F.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“Unless the injuries sustained in the fight had something to do with Hector’s death, I don’t want to bring this to the table. I do, however, want you to check arrest records just in case there’s something we should know. I’ll give you the names when I get back.”
“You got it, boss.”
“How’s Amber’s case coming? I take it this is the assistant coach?”