A Door in the River by Inger Ash Wolfe Page B

action. Bellecourt was smiling. “I was wondering if you want to meet Lee now. I told him we were coming.”
    “Will I have to shake his hand?”
    Bellecourt grinned. “No. But I might have to kiss him.”
    “Why don’t you run off and get him.”
    “Well, he can come and meet us. I told him we were coming.”
    “I’ll be fine here for a minute, don’t worry.”
    Bellecourt dashed away, happy to be of service, and Hazel continued down the line of table games. She wishednow she’d brought a picture of Wiest with her so she could show it around, but she was already drawing on the fact that one had to have a card to get into the casino. She’d start there with the manager and establish whether Wiest was even a member.
    The amount of activity at the gambling tables was bewildering to her. She walked slowly through them, heading toward the gift shop, and at the bottom of the aisle, Bellecourt was waiting with an imposing man stuffed into a grey suit. She was holding hands with him, but when she saw Hazel, she disentangled herself.
    “Lee, this is Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef.”
    Hazel offered her hand to him before he could stick his own out. She was getting the hang of this place. “Lee …?”
    “Travers,” he said. He was a strong-looking, beautiful fellow, with a muscular neck. She placed his accent as Midwestern.
    “You’re not from here?”
    “Ann Arbour,” he said.
    “Lee was in the casino management program at U of M. There was an opening up here, and luckily, he applied for it.” She was gazing up at him hungrily. Hazel understood why Constable Bellecourt was so smitten with this wholesome Midwesterner. He looked like a movie star.
    “Lydia tells me you’re investigating the death of that guy they found in the parking lot up the road,” he said.
    “That would be true.”
    “I have to say it’s shocking when something like that happens up here.”
    “Meaning murder isn’t common on the reserve?”
    “Murder? It was a murder?”
    “Did you know Henry Wiest?”
    “Maybe we should go to my office. We could talk there without all the clanging and banging.”
    “Two cops and the casino manager’s bad for business, huh?”
    “Take a look around you, Detective Inspector. Nothing distracts these people for long. I just thought we’d hear each other better.”
    “No, that’s fine,” she said, “I’m not planning on staying long.”
    “I’ve seen the man’s picture now, but I didn’t know him,” Travers said.
    “Can you tell me if he was a casino-goer?”
    “I can tell you if he was a member of the casino.”
    “Well, that would be a start.”
    Travers unhooked a rope from its stand and went behind a row of tables where an entirely other kind of business was going on. Men in suits and women in long skirts populated this area, which was full of computers and drawers and security guards wandering back and forth. Travers was surprisingly spry for a big man, and he turned this way and that, putting a hand on one person’s shoulder, then another’s, passing a friendly word. It had to be abig job, keeping people this focused and motivated in an environment of odd extremes. He stopped at a console in the middle of the work area and typed on a keyboard. His fingers seemed too big to press the keys accurately. A moment later, he returned, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Was he a sneaky type?”
    “Sneaky?” she asked.
    “It’s not impossible to get a membership card made up in a false name. Or to come in with someone else’s card.”
    “Why would a person do that?”
    “Because they’re
sneaky
,” said Bellecourt, and she and Travers shared a little laugh.
    “No. I don’t think he was the sneaky type.”
    “Then he wasn’t here,” said Travers. “He wasn’t a member.”
    “Okay, then,” said Hazel. “Maybe the two of you could fill me in on a couple of other things, then.”
    They waited patiently, like children.
    “Does this place foot the bill for the