The Girl With No Name

Chapter Twenty-One

The Alcott County Courthouse was the centerpiece of a small town called Bellewood which sat about forty miles south of Denton. Josie sped along, white-knuckling her steering wheel to concentrate on staying on the winding mountain back roads instead of what was happening to Luke—if he was still alive. The courthouse was besieged with news vans and roving reporters covering the Aaron King trial. They milled about, faces bent to their cell phones, like well-dressed, perfectly coifed zombies. Josie found Trinity Payne leaning against a network news van with a huge satellite dish on top of it, her fingers tapping frantically at her phone screen. As Josie approached, Trinity held up one palm and, without looking at Josie, she said, “Tell him I’m going to get a quote, okay?”

“I’ll tell him,” Josie said. “Just as soon as you tell me who he is.”

Trinity looked up, a smile lighting her face. As always, Josie was disconcerted by the resemblance between them. Almost of its own will, her right hand reached up and smoothed her black hair down over the long, jagged scar that ran from her right ear down her jawline. Trinity tossed her own shiny black locks, her blue eyes flashing. “Chief Quinn,” she said. “Are you here to ask for help with your Jane Doe? I saw her on the local news. She’s pretty. Where did you find her?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that at this time,” Josie said, smiling back. “Actually, I’m here about something else. Someone else.”

Trinity arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Your missing fiancé, or the stripper’s baby?”

“Nothing gets past you,” Josie remarked. “You’re not even reporting locally anymore.”

“I hear things. You never know what the national audience might be interested in. So, which is it?”

“Do you have information on either one of them?”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t.”

“Then it’s neither. I need to know whatever you know about Eric Dunn. I know the network has had you up and down the East Coast in the last year. I saw the piece you did about the casinos in Atlantic City going belly-up. Practically all of them, except his.”

Trinity pocketed her phone and put a manicured hand on her hip, appraising Josie fully. Josie already knew full well she wasn’t getting what she needed without giving Trinity something in return. Trinity had been a loyal ally since the missing girls case broke, but her ambition knew no bounds now that she was on the national stage.

“You’ll have to take me to lunch for that,” Trinity said.

“Is that all? Lunch?”

Trinity smiled like a Cheshire cat. “I’ll tell you what I know. Then you’ll tell me why you want to know. If there’s a story, I want it.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “Come on, then.”

“I want to eat at Harry’s Grill.”

“That’s expensive.”

“It will be worth it.”

“You better know something I can’t learn from Google.”

Trinity laughed as she walked side by side with Josie. “Oh, honey, I always know more than Google.”

Harry’s Grill was housed on the first floor of an old six-story hotel that presided over Bellewood’s Main Street, one of few high-end restaurants in the county. It was only a few blocks from the courthouse, and although Bellwood’s population wasn’t enough to support it and its exorbitant prices, the constant influx of people in and out of the county courthouse kept it in business. As the two women walked, Trinity’s four-inch Jimmy Choo heels clacked against the pavement in a steady rhythm. Pulling her cell phone back out, she fired off texts in rapid fashion as they made their way to the restaurant, where they were seated within minutes by a hostess more glamorously dressed than Josie had been at her own senior prom.

Trinity put her phone on the table and narrowed her eyes at Josie. “Before I say anything, you should know that Eric Dunn is serious as a heart attack.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that people who get in his way have a tendency to disappear.”

That didn’t surprise Josie based on what she knew about Mickey Kavolis, but she stayed silent. The waitress arrived with water glasses, introducing herself and taking their drink orders. Trinity ordered a glass of white wine. Josie had coffee. Once alone again, Trinity leaned forward. “Is this about the casino Dunn is trying to build in Denton?”

“I wish it were,” Josie said.

Trinity smiled and took a sip from her water glass. “Oh, this sounds juicy.”

“You talk first.”

With a shrug, Trinity placed her water glass back on the table, her index finger making lazy circles around its rim. “Eric Dunn is twenty-four. The son of a couple who come from old money. They’re so rich, they didn’t even have him themselves.”

“What do you mean?” Josie asked.

“I mean Mr. Dunn was old as hell with a twenty-something wife who didn’t want to ruin her figure, so they used a surrogate mom.”

“Did the father have any other kids?”

“No. Eric is his first and only child. He’d been married a few times before that but never had any kids. Wife number four convinced him that it was now or never, and there was nothing wrong with using ‘unconventional methods’ to produce an heir.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

“Well, I know that from a People magazine article from like, two years ago, when Eric Dunn’s success was front page news. But everything else I know because I prepared a story about him, and my producers wouldn’t air it.”

It was Josie’s turn to smile. “Your producers don’t air a lot of your stories.”

Trinity rolled her eyes. “They won’t air the ones they deem too controversial. At least, not yet. When I get more experience and credibility, I’ll have carte blanche.”

The waitress appeared with their drinks and took their order—soup for Josie and an appetizer and a pricey entrée with three sides for Trinity. Josie had forgotten just how much tiny Trinity could eat in one sitting.

“So, Dunn inherited his dad’s empire,” Josie prompted, hoping to keep Trinity on track.

Trinity shrugged. “Yes, and he’s done wonders with it. He’s the youngest casino mogul in the business today. When he was twenty, his father had two casinos—one in Atlantic City and one in Philadelphia. Now? They’re building casinos in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Vegas. You name it. All over the country. Eric didn’t go to college. Instead, he took over the family business after his father had a stroke. He’s good at it. Really good at it. But he’s not as… scrupulous as his father was.”

“Is dear old dad still alive?” Josie asked.

“No. Mr. Dunn died when Eric was twenty-two. He was never the same after his stroke. He was nearing ninety anyway.”

“Why do you say Eric isn’t as scrupulous as his father?”

“He cuts corners; tries to build everything on the cheap, uses non-union workers, and won’t pay them once the work is done. He bribes people to get out of obtaining the necessary permits, and rumor has it that the people who won’t take his bribes either disappear or have some kind of unfortunate accident.”

Josie’s blood ran cold. Luke had obviously gotten caught up in something involving Eric Dunn. Had Dunn made him disappear? Was she already too late? She forced down the rising emotion from within and frowned, refocusing on the conversation. “Is Dunn mobbed up?”

Trinity shook her head, taking a healthy swig of her wine. “No. I don’t think so. But he runs his business with the kind of ruthlessness a mob boss would. Surrounds himself with paid thugs who will do whatever he tells them—or pays them—to do. He doesn’t care who he hurts or who he screws. He has always been able to muscle his way out of tough situations. Well, until recently.”

Josie took her time pouring sugar and cream into her coffee, stirring it languidly. “What happened recently?”

“They were building in Philadelphia—well, they had to knock down some existing structures. Word is that Dunn bribed a bunch of municipal workers to forgo the requisite inspections and hired a bunch of guys cheap for the demolition who didn’t exactly know what they were doing. They ended up accidentally taking down two other buildings when they pressed the button.”

“Oh.”

“With people in them. One building had apartments over a coffee shop. Nine people were killed in that collapse. Lucky for Dunn, the other building was being exterminated for bed bugs so only three people died.”

“My God.”

Trinity sipped her wine and nodded. Her cheeks were rosy. “Yeah, it was really bad. I can’t believe you didn’t see this on the news last year. It went national.”

Josie vaguely remembered seeing it on an evening news program, but she hadn’t paid much attention to the particulars. Plus, the name Eric Dunn hadn’t meant anything to her back then. Josie pulled her cell phone out and googled him, wanting to put a face to the name. Most of the photos she turned up were of Dunn standing in front of a new building, cutting a ribbon with an oversized pair of scissors. He looked a bit older than twenty-four, but he had a full head of brown hair, hazel eyes that sat just too closely together, and a long straight nose that hooked ever so slightly. He was of average height and build. There was nothing remarkable about him. He looked familiar, but Josie couldn’t remember ever having met him.

“I can’t imagine that Dunn is worried about civil lawsuits,” Josie said to Trinity. “I mean, surely he had insurance—or enough assets—to cover those.”

“Of course he does,” Trinity agreed. “He’s been involved in these types of scandals before, but never on such a large scale. Last year definitely wasn’t the first time someone died on one of his construction sites. In the past, either witnesses disappeared or recanted, or he paid the families off quietly before anything went to court. The families were happy to take their money and move on.”

“But not this time?”

“This time, he may have criminal culpability. Of course, his lawyers claim he had nothing to do with the hiring of workers or anything on site. They deny all allegations of bribes. But two of the municipal workers have already killed themselves, and three of the workers operating the heavy equipment had drugs in their system. The DA is trying to pin Dunn with something that will put him away. The families won’t take any of his money.”

“What about the workers?”

“Oh, they’ve already been charged with manslaughter and a host of other things. They’re going down for sure. But like I said, the DA isn’t satisfied with that. This is too big for Dunn to muscle or buy his way out of.”

“But surely this guy has access to the best attorneys that money can buy,” Josie said.

“Sure he does. But rumor has it that there is direct evidence that he was personally involved in overseeing this demolition.”

“What kind of evidence?” Josie asked as she kept scrolling through her search results. A photo of Dunn walking into one of his casinos with a blond woman on his arm caught her eye. She tapped it to enlarge, but all she could see was the back of the woman’s head. Dunn had turned and waved a hand at the camera, but his date kept her gaze forward.

“Tapes—video, audio. No one is entirely sure which, but it is one or both.”

“And these rumors are circulating where, exactly?”

“His organization. I talked to a lot of people. No one would go on record, but that’s the story I kept getting.”

Josie went back to the search page and found two more photos of Dunn with a short blond woman, but in neither of them could she see the woman’s face. “Someone heard it from someone who heard it from someone… that’s not reliable, and you know it.”

“Yes, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Look, Eric Dunn is not a good person. The people who work for him are not good people.”

“Has he ever been accused of domestic violence?” Josie asked.

“Not officially. I mean there have been rumors, but nothing ever made it into a police report.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

Trinity arched a brow. “Why? Are you in the market? I know Luke is missing, but I would have thought you’d hold out hope for his return.”

“That’s not funny,” Josie said.

“I’m sorry,” Trinity answered. “That was in poor taste. Dunn does have a girlfriend. Her name is Kim something.”

Josie pulled up the photo she had taken of their mystery witness earlier. “This her?”

“Your Jane Doe? I don’t know. I never met her. I just know he’s had a girlfriend named Kim for about a year now. He was never the monogamous type; she stood out to his workers because she was around so long.”

“You have no last name?”

“No. She wasn’t the story. He was.”

Josie went back to the Eric Dunn Google search and typed in “Eric Dunn girlfriend”. The images loaded slowly. Many were with what Josie assumed were ex-girlfriends. Most were supermodels whose height exceeded Dunn’s.

“Can you get me a last name?” Josie asked as Trinity’s appetizer arrived.

As Trinity started digging into the steaming, crab-filled mushrooms she motioned for Josie to have some, but Josie declined with a wave of her hand. “Tell me why you’re so interested in Eric Dunn?” Trinity diverted.

Josie weighed her options. Trinity had burned her before—using something Josie had said in confidence in a newscast and getting Josie put on unpaid suspension because of it, but that had been before the missing girls case, before Trinity had been accepted back onto the national news scene, her once-shattered credibility intact again. They had a tenuous trust these days. Even without telling Trinity, there was no guarantee that Mickey Kavolis’ death or the location of his body would remain secret.

“We found one of Dunn’s security team buried on Luke’s property. Gunshot wound to the head.”

Trinity’s eyes widened. She nearly choked on the clump of half-chewed food in her mouth as she said, “Are you serious?”

She asked all the same questions Josie had asked her team—how they knew he worked for Dunn; where they found the rental car; whether Kavolis had been reported missing by Dunn or anyone else; what Luke’s connection was to Dunn—and Josie answered them as best she could, but with as little information as possible.

Trinity used her index finger to swipe the last of the fallen cheesy crab meat from her empty plate and licked it just as their main courses arrived. Josie had little appetite and her hand trembled as she lifted her spoon and stirred her soup.

“You think Dunn has Luke?” Trinity asked.

“You don’t know Luke,” Josie said. “Not really. He isn’t into… criminal stuff.”

“So, he’s a state trooper. Some cops are dirty. Or don’t you remember that?”

Josie bristled. “Not Luke,” she said, even as her mind drifted back to his unmade bed and the nightstand on her side of the bed. “He wasn’t dirty—isn’t dirty. But he got into something. I don’t know what, but something.”

Trinity said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

It was as close to nice as Trinity ever got. “Thank you,” Josie said.

“What will you do?”

Josie pushed her soup away, untouched. “Bring him home.”