“Oh gosh, of course,” said the man, and he studied the picture for a moment. Then he passed it among some of the other bosses in the room behind him. Hazel looked around herself subtly, making like she was sopping up the atmosphere as she waited for the photo to make the rounds. There was no one looking at her. Calvin returned with another man, a man in a better suit. No nametag. Absolutely a native. Paydirt?

“I’m head of the poker room, ma’am. I’m here eight hours a day, six days a week. If the man in this picture was a regular, he came in in a dress. But I think I would have noticed that, too.”

“Maybe he’s a recent regular?”

He beckoned her around to the entrance and then impatiently waved her over the threshold. He pointed at a player. “Today’s his third time here. This guy” – he pointed at another table – “was a regular for three years, quit for a year, and this is his first month back. Three guys at the back there, on table six, are playing in this poker room for the first time. I clock everyone in, Officer, and I never forget a face.”

“Okay. Point taken. What about other parts of the casino? Maybe you’ve seen him elsewhere in here.”

The man’s expression changed slightly. She would have called this new expression shut down. “Did he play poker or not?” he said, not entirely unfriendly.

“I thought he did.”

“Perhaps your information is incorrect?”

“I suppose it could be.”

“Then I’ve answered your questions.”

“Yes, you have.”

She turned smartly and left. A little checkmark got inscribed in her mind. But what was it marking? She believed that that man had never seen Henry Wiest in his life. She decided to try the table games. In the open. But what then? Flash images at patrons? That didn’t seem like a good strategy if she wanted to get the most bang for her buck.

She followed the wall along the side of the bar and went back into the forest of slot machines, moving casually. At the other end of the casino was the high-stakes room, tucked into a corner. Looked good. She crossed quickly into the elegant-looking room. The carpeting was thicker here, and woven with a rich Indian-culture motif of leaping salmon and bears standing proudly on their back legs. There were only a couple of tables each of blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps. The cognoscenti didn’t sniff at Four-Card Poker or Crazy Twenty-One. They preferred, it seemed, to blow their cash on the classic gambling games.

There weren’t too many people here. The roulette was popular, and so was blackjack, but it seemed that throwing the dice was too much work for the rich. Three employees were standing around it, yakking. Baccarat was another universe, with people shouting and making checkmarks on cards. The blackjack tables were like covens of witches: crony old women, mostly Asian, hunched over their holdings. It didn’t seem like a place to ask too many questions.

The croupiers at the craps table, however, were bored out of their skulls, and they brightened perceptibly when she approached. “Hello, gentlemen.”

A man holding a long rake-type stick said, “Don’t arrest us, Ossifer! It’s the roulette game gots all the illegal booze!” There were three of them there, and one of the men laughed, but the one on the stool behind the table was having none of it.

“Don’t talk like that, Lane. She’s an officer of the law. OPS.”

“It’s okay, boys,” she said, backing off comically. “I’m just here on a next-of-kin job. Travers knows I’m here.”

“What does Travers know you’re here for … DI Micallef?” he said, reading her nametag.

“I’m looking for this guy.” She handed the picture to the man on the stool. The boss. “Name of Henry Wiest. I understand he plays here sometimes and I’m trying to track him down.”

“What’d he do?”

“It’s nothing he did,” she said. “There’s been a death in the family and no one can find him.”

“Maybe he’s the death in the family,” said the rake.

“Lane? Jesus. Ma’am, Detective Inspector, you’re free to look around, but this is, you know, this is a service industry and how’d it look if you were some kind of process server looking to serve this guy, your Henry, with a letter from a judge?”

“I never thought of that,” said the rake.

“You see?” said the stool. The third man was just watching.

“Yeah, I see,” said Hazel, and she took the picture back, thanking them with some kind of a bow and feeling a little stupid. She walked past the roulette table, and she was darned if the croupier didn’t give her the hairy eyeball. She was beginning to feel unwelcome.

This feeling only intensified when Commander LeJeune met her at the edge of the room. She was smiling. “I heard you were lurking. What else did we miss?”

“Well, I’m a member now,” she said, and she flashed her casino ID at the commander. “I can come and go as I please.”

“To the casino.”

“So, what are you all, like, hiding in a zebra costume and following me around?”

“Percy, from the poker room, gave me a call. He thinks on his feet, that Percival.”

“Do you take me out in chains now and parade me before your people?”

LeJeune frowned at that. “That would be slightly less-than-playful banter there, Detective Inspector. What’s got you so mad?”

“Just all the paleface stuff, the fact that an officer of the law, in the same province, incidentally, that you’re living in, gets a cross-eyed look from every Indian in the place.”

“Oh come on, Detective. You’re free to do as you please. Mi casa, and so on. And who called you paleface? Did someone actually call you paleface?” She laughed heartily.

“I never said anyone called me anything. Don’t try to paint me into that corner, LeJeune.”

“Oh, calm down. What are you looking for anyway?”

“I didn’t find it.” She wanted to get out of here, now. There was a small knot of people in attendance around them, not sure if they were listening in on something interesting or not. “If I had found something, you’d know.”

“Well, good.”

LeJeune’s even-tempered approach was grating on her nerves. She weighed the value of being conciliatory against trying to piss her off. She decided to compromise. “I presume you accept now that Henry Wiest was murdered.”

“I don’t accept anything.”

“What would you say if I told you we’d had more … activity since Henry’s death?”

“Well, I would need to know what you meant by that.”

“Cathy Wiest was attacked. In her own home. Shot with a Taser-like weapon, just like Henry was.”

For the first time, LeJeune’s expression changed. “By whom?”

“I’m going to take the Fifth on that, Commander. Until we know more. All I can tell you is that our investigation points to here.”

“It does, does it?”

“What would you have us do? Your own autopsy was wrong and you all seemed satisfied with your own conclusions. But the Wiests are my responsibility and after you gave signs of moving on, I thought it wise to run our investigation in the background. I think you would have done the same thing.”

“I shudder to think of the consequences of that,” said LeJeune. “But fine. You made your choices.”

“We did. And when we learn something, we’ll let you know.”

“Why do I feel I’m being invited to my own party, now?”

“I haven’t invited you to anything,” Hazel said, and that did it. LeJeune’s facade of total Zen collapsed and she narrowed her eyes at the detective inspector. “We did the footwork, Commander. If you want in on this investigation, it’s under my authority.”

“Cowboys and Indians?”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

Now the smile was back. “I’m not sure what I would call this. How about you do your thing, but you check in with me any time you step on reserve land?”

Hazel had no intention of letting LeJeune know anything about her movements. “Absolutely,” she said.