Free Zigzag by Bill Pronzini

paper. Venture capital profits. Has a rep as a cutthroat businessman.”
    â€œCutthroat meaning what? Honestly aggressive, or one of the fast and loose players?”
    â€œNone of those dudes ever got where they are without their share of dirty tricks.”
    â€œAny specifics I should know about?”
    â€œWell, Holloway’s clean enough on the surface. No ties to illegal activities, never the subject of any kind of investigation.” Tamara consulted her computer screen. “Owns the estate in Burlingame outright, bought it eleven years ago for four mil. Pays his taxes on time, what little bite there is after his accountants finish finding all the loopholes. Donates to half a dozen charities. Pays alimony to two of his three ex-wives—off the money hook with the third because she found herself an even richer sugar daddy.”
    â€œWhat about his daughter?”
    â€œMelanie Joy. Some name, huh? Only child—only one he’ll admit to anyway. Man also has a rep as a pussy hound.”
    I let that pass. “How old is Melanie Joy?”
    â€œTwenty-four. Still living with Daddy on the Burlingame estate. Real wild child for a while. Social media postings full of hints and outright declarations about sex, drugs, and gambling. But all that changed about eighteen months ago.”
    â€œChanged how?”
    â€œThis is where it gets interesting. No posts on her active site accounts for over a week, then they were all shut down and stayed that way for nearly three months. Her new Facebook and Twitter accounts are nothing like the old ones, no mention of the stuff she was into before, mostly photos and chitchat about this conservative stockbroker she’s been dating. Wild to mild.”
    â€œWhat caused the sudden turnaround?”
    â€œNo definite answer. Whatever it was, it’s been kept private. I couldn’t pick up a whisper anywhere.”
    â€œWhen exactly was her old account shut down?”
    â€œEnd of June 2014.”
    â€œNot long after Ray Fentress got himself arrested and Vernon Holloway issued his stop-work order to Kennedy Landscape Designs.”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œCould be coincidence,” I said. “There’s nothing that ties Fentress to the Holloway girl except that they were both on the estate grounds while he was working there. And nothing that ties either of them to what happened at Floyd Mears’ cabin.”
    â€œNo, but there’s a Melanie Joy tie to Sonoma County.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œGirl was heavy into gambling until that summer,” Tamara said. “Roulette, baccarat, just about any big-action game. Vegas once in a while, but mostly she favored Indian casinos closer to home. Her number one hangout was the Graton Resort and Casino in Rohnert Park. Used to go up there weekends, sometimes with her former boyfriend, sometimes with girlfriends, sometimes by herself.”
    Rohnert Park is less than fifty miles north of San Francisco, seventy-five or so north of Burlingame—an easy round-trip drive. It’s also not much more than half an hour from the Russian River resort area.
    Tamara said, “Meaningful, you think?”
    â€œI don’t know. Could be just another coincidence.”
    â€œYou always advised me not to trust coincidences when they come in bunches.”
    â€œTrue enough, but not trusting them doesn’t mean they don’t happen now and then. I just don’t see how all these links could tie together, where they’d lead if they do.”
    â€œReal puzzle, all right.”
    I ruminated for a time. “The Graton Casino,” I said then. “Vegas-style glitter palace, isn’t it? Attractive to high rollers?”
    â€œRight. Largest resort casino west of Vegas. Built by the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria, opened in 2013—I looked up their website.” Tamara tapped a couple of keys, peered at her monitor again. “Six-hundred-seat Events