“What exactly did go wrong?” Brandon asked.

Lassiter didn’t answer immediately.

“What did he do to you?” Brandon pressed.

Lassiter took a deep breath. “He knocked me flat on my ass, for one thing. In public. In front of our friends. Then there was the supposed partnership thing. That rotten SOB cheated me out of what was rightfully mine. Then, seven years later, I find out he’s named me in his will? Big deal. I wasn’t exactly impressed. It didn’t come close to making up for what he’d done. It may have been ten years after the fact, but friends who cheat friends are lower than low.”

Lassiter’s voice broke. He turned away and swiped at his eye with the sleeve of his shirt. It was clear that the passage of time had done nothing to diminish the man’s hurt at being betrayed by a trusted friend.

“You said you were partners,” Brandon interjected after giving Lassiter a moment. “Partners in what?”

“We’d go out into the desert and find stuff—­mineral samples, geodes, artifacts, whatever,” Lassiter answered. “We’d drag it all into town and sell it. At the time Amos took off, we had a whole storage unit full of stuff set aside and ready to take to market. He made off with all of it. Cleaned out everything and sold it, most likely. Probably made a killing. Half those proceeds should have been mine.”

“You said Amos named you in his will,” Brandon said. “What exactly did he leave you?”

“An almost worthless piece of property—­five acres out in the middle of nowhere on the far side of Catalina,” Lassiter answered. “That’s where Amos was living when he pulled up stakes. The land came with a little house that wasn’t much more than a one-­room shack. He called it a cabin and claimed that it used to be a stage stop, but that could have been so much BS.”

“After Amos disappeared, did you ever go up to his place to check it out?”

“Of course I did. I went up there to see if maybe he had tried to sneak into town behind my back, but the place was emptied out, too, slicker’n snot—­just like the storage unit. I should have figured. Amos had some valuable stuff of his own that he kept there—­stuff he wouldn’t sell. That was most likely a lie, too. Anyway, I left the place just like I found it, with the door unlocked and everything. The next time I went back—­years later as the supposedly new owner—­the house had been burned to the ground. There was nothing left but a ­couple of walls and a foundation.”

“Do you still own the property?”

“Hell, no,” Lassiter exclaimed. “Why would I? I never asked for it and didn’t want it in the first place. Luckily for me, some crazy-­ass developer from back east was chomping at the bit to buy it off me. Claimed he was going to build houses out there in the middle of nowhere for some godforsaken reason. Said it was going to be some hotshot retirement community. I used the money he paid me for that place to buy this one.”

“So tell me about the fight the two of you had,” Brandon said. “When did it happen?”

“Some night,” Lassiter said. “I’m not sure of the exact date. What I am sure is that’s the last time I ever laid eyes on Amos Warren.”

Brandon knew from the autopsy that Amos Warren had been five foot eleven. John Lassiter was a good seven inches taller than that. If Amos had taken John out, he must have been one tough dude.

“You said Amos Warren clocked you that night,” Brandon prompted. “You said he knocked you on your ass?”

For an answer John pointed at a jagged three-­inch scar on his left cheek. “Yes,” he said, “and left me this to remember him by.”

“Where did all this happen?”

“In a place on Speedway called El Barrio. It’s still there on the right, just this side of the freeway.”

Brandon had seen the place often enough. He drove past it almost every day on his way back and forth to Gates Pass. It looked like a rough kind of joint, and he had never ventured inside.

“So the two of you had a disagreement,” Brandon continued. “Was this something about your partnership, or was it something else?”

“It was about a girl, if you must know,” Lassiter answered. “Her name was Ava Martin, and she was my girlfriend at the time. We were almost engaged. Amos kept harping away about her not being good enough for me, but the first time he thought I wasn’t looking, he made a pass at her and tried to get inside her pants. Hypocritical asshole! She wasn’t good enough for me, but it was fine for him to try screwing around with her.”

“What can you tell me about the fight?”

“What’s there to tell? I told him to knock it off—­to stop interfering in my life and to stop messing with Ava. I told him she was off-­limits. Next thing I knew, he hauled off and knocked me colder than a wedge.”

“Did you ever patch things up?”

“No, we never patched things up. I already told you, I never saw Amos again after that. The last I saw of him, he was sitting at the bar with a smug cat-­eating-­shit grin on his face and buying a round for every customer in the joint—­sort of like a celebration for knocking me on my ass.”

“What happened to Ava?”

“What do you think? Maybe Amos was right about her. She dumped me, too, as a matter of fact, just a few weeks later.”

“Do you know where Ava is living these days?”

“No idea,” Lassiter responded, “and who gives a shit? I heard she moved up in the world. Got herself a husband or two. No matter what Amos said, the girl had some smarts about her. By now she’s probably set for life.”

“What about you?”

“I’m doing okay,” he answered with a shrug. “I’ve got a fairly new girlfriend now. She’s a nice girl, and I don’t want her dragged into any of this if that’s all right with you.”

Brandon nodded. “I don’t see any reason why she should have to be, but I do have one more question. You and Amos worked together for a long time. Do you mind telling me how all that came about?”

For the first time, a look of regret passed across John Lassiter’s burly face. “Back when I was a kid, my family situation wasn’t the best,” he said. “My dad was a drunk, my mom whored around, and Amos was our next-­door neighbor. When things got too tough at our house, Amos took me in and looked after me. I admit, for a long time he was like a father to me. When I was a teenager and got myself in hot water, Amos was the one who bailed me out and kept me from being shipped off to juvie. But once I got over being a teenager, Amos never noticed. He couldn’t see that I had turned into a man and that I didn’t need him running my life anymore—­telling me what I could or couldn’t do, who I could or couldn’t date.”

Lassiter broke off and took a moment to pull himself back together. “So when do you think this happened?” he asked. “When do you think he died?”

“Probably right after you had that fight,” Brandon answered.

“So maybe he didn’t take off? Maybe somebody killed him and took all that stuff?”

“Maybe,” Brandon answered.

“All this time, ever since Amos disappeared, that’s what I’ve hated him for more than anything—­for taking off without a word. But if someone murdered him, maybe he didn’t desert me after all. Maybe it’s time I rethink that whole thing.”

“Maybe so,” Brandon agreed. “Desertion is one thing; murder is another. Thanks for your help.”

FORTUNATELY FOR ME, SCOTT BEAUMONT is currently a very low man on the Seattle PD totem pole. That means he’s required to work weekend shifts almost all the time. That reality may have been bad for Scott and Cherisse right then, but it was good for me that Friday night. It meant we left the Behind the Badge gala early on.

My AmEx card had gotten a good workout. Much to my amazement and even without so much as a sip of the steadily flowing wine, I had gotten into the whole charity auction groove and had come away with several pricey purchases. The first was a trip for four to Walt Disney World—­tickets, hotel, and airfare included—­that would make a great gift for my daughter, Kelly, and her family. It turns out all four of them, from my son-­in-­law, Jeremy, right on down, love anything Disney. I’m sure I paid more than I should have for that because the guy I was bidding against was an overbearing jackass. In other words, I couldn’t help myself.