The Art of Eavesdropping

by Christy Barritt

“And we just keep doing this until we turn over some information that might prove that Flash is actually innocent?”

  Michael shrugged. “That’s usually the way it works. We need to try to get these charges dropped.”

  “And if he is guilty? What do we do then?”

  “Then we’ll let the evidence do the talking. This is the difference in what we do and police work. In police work, you try to find the truth. In our line of work, you try to prove that the client is innocent.”

  “I see.” I rubbed my throat again, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

  “When we get back to the office, I’m going to write this information down so we don’t forget. I’ll also make some follow-up phone calls to make sure Art really went to that other club during the time Sarah was murdered. Then we can try to locate Bernard.”

  “It sounds like we have a plan.”

  We parked in front of Driscoll and Associates and walked toward the front door. As soon as I stepped inside, I spotted a man talking to Oscar outside his office.

  I’d never met the man before, but it didn’t matter.

  I knew who he was.

  Flash Slivinski.

  He was here at Driscoll and Associates.

  And he looked angry.

  Oscar turned to Michael and I as soon as we stepped inside. Based on the simmering heat in his eyes, he was on edge. Had Flash caught him by surprise? Either way, I braced myself for whatever this conversation might hold.

  “Elliot, I would like you to meet Flash Slivinski. Flash, this is Elliot, my newest hire. She saved my life last night so we decided to keep her on the team.” Oscar let out a deep chuckle, one that seemed to indicate he wanted to keep Flash guessing as to whether or not his words were true.

  I might laugh too if his words weren’t so true. If I hadn’t put my own life on the line, I would be out of a job right now. The thought wasn’t comforting.

  Flash looked different than I’d expected. The man was much smaller than I envisioned but seemed solid. His hair was blond but thinning, his complexion ruddy, and his motions quick and confident.

  “At least she gives you something pretty to look at around here.” Flash gave me a once-over before looking away, no hint of apology in his gaze.

  I wanted to growl beneath my breath. Michael touched my arm, as if he sensed my rising frustration. No wonder Flash had hired Oscar. The two seemed perfect together.

  They were both jerks.

  “Let’s meet in my office and talk,” Oscar said. “You too, Dor—Elliot.”

  I felt it again. That flutter of nerves that was becoming all too familiar. I had nothing to worry about, I reminded myself. I had met with dignitaries before, so I wasn’t sure why this impromptu meeting had me feeling so off-balance. Maybe it was just because I was out of my comfort zone. Maybe proving myself was more important to me than I thought.

  Velma gave me a compassionate look before we disappeared inside Oscar’s office. Oscar took a seat behind his desk, while Flash sat in the lush chair in front of him. Michael and I took two foldouts in the corner.

  “So, where do we stand with the case?” Flash asked, his motions quick and pushy. “I need evidence that I didn’t do this, and I really hope the two of you found something.”

  Part of me wanted to forget everything I had already learned. Why should I help this man? He didn’t represent anything I admired. I was sure when all this was over, it would be too much for him to even give me a thank you—if we managed to clear him.

  What would my dad do? He’d work with all of his heart and mind and strength.

  I knew that’s what I needed to do also.

  But I let Michael take the lead for now.

  He ran through what we’d learned, starting with going to Flash’s condo, leading into our visit to the club, and ending with our chat with Art today.

  “Sounds like you’ve done a lot of work for nothing.” Flash scowled and swiped some lint from his shirt.

  “We’re doing our best to uncover everything we can.” Michael remained unaffected by his words.

  “You need to work harder!” Flash slammed his hand on Oscar’s desk so hard that even the pistachios jumped.

  He clearly thought he had all the power right now—probably because he was the one paying us. But I still wasn’t convinced Flash was an innocent man. No way was I going to let him make me feel inferior.

  But I could still remain professional. That was one trait I had learned at my job in Yerba.

  I drew in a deep breath before saying, “I want to ask you about that camera we found in your condo. Any idea where it came from?”

  “Not from me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Flash narrowed his eyes, as if insulted by the question.

  “You didn’t have any secret recording devices around your house anywhere?” Michael asked.

  “No.” Flash leveled his gaze. “Anything else you need to know?”

  “Actually, I was hoping to speak to your manager, Bernard, sometime today.” Michael tilted his head, still as cool as a dewy mango in the morning. “Do you think there’s any reason that he might have killed Sarah and framed you for it?”

  “That’s a good theory, but you’re way off base.” Flash shook his head so adamantly it was like an earthquake was happening inside of him. “Bernard was in Baltimore at a big soirée. You can check online. His alibi is solid. Besides, he wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “You don’t think there’s any chance that he would . . . oh, I don’t know, tell the police that you were a loose cannon?”

  Flash’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you ask that?”

  “It’s just a question,” I said.

  “Bernard would never do that to me.” Flash leaned toward me. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  I kept my gaze level. “We’re just exploring every possibility.”

  “I can tell you this,” Flash said. “If you think I’m unpleasant, you need to meet Bernard. He’s the one who made me this way.”

  I had some doubts about that, but I kept my mouth shut. Men weren’t made this way. That was just an excuse. They allowed themselves to become unpleasant and rude jerks.

  Flash stared at me, seeming to study my expression. “What else do you want to know? I want to hear more of what you’re thinking.”

  “Well . . . since you asked,” I started, rubbing my throat. “I’m confused about how you blacked out on the night of the murder. The tox screen came back clear.”

  “Except for some sleeping pills, but I take those every night. Why?”

  “Were there elevated levels of the pills?” I continued.

  “I didn’t hear.”

  “Plus, it can take weeks to get definitive results like that back,” Oscar added.

  “Let’s assume there were elevated levels of the drug in your system,” I continued. “Maybe that could explain why you blacked out. Has the fact you take sleeping pills ever been mentioned in any interviews?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You could say that. I did an endorsement deal with Naroquin. It’s a sleeping pill.”

  My theory solidified in my mind. “So anybody could have known you took them . . .”

  “I suppose. What are you getting at?”

  “Let’s say someone did drug you. Who might have done that?”

  “Sarah would be the most obvious choice,” Flash said.

  “Did you guys have anything to drink when you got back to your condo?”

  “Yeah, we had some wine.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  Flash’s face looked a little paler. “Bernard gave it to me.”

  I exchanged a glance with Oscar, who leaned back in his chair and nodded.

  “If the police didn’t take that bottle, we should have it tested,” Michael suggested.

  Flash continued to study my face. “You really think Bernard did this?”

  I swallowed hard, contemplating how to respond. As I did, Oscar stared at me, something that looked close to a warning in
his eyes. Did he expect me to say something that could get us fired?

  This would be a good time to tap into some of that diplomacy I’d learned in my years of working for a politician.

  “I don’t know yet. I think you’ve made a lot of enemies,” I started. “I think there are numerous people who may have set you up. At this point, I even feel like you could be guilty. But I don’t have enough information to make a solid conclusion.”

  Flash stared at me a moment, and I fully expected him to unleash his wrath on me. Instead, he let out a deep chuckle.

  “I like you. I like people who speak the truth. You’ve got a good one here, Oscar.” With that, Flash rose from his seat and gave us one last glare. “Let me know what you guys find out.”

  He walked to the door.

  I remembered Michael’s earlier advice to me. “By the way, have you thought of anybody else who might want to make you look guilty?”

  Flash didn’t miss a beat. “The more I think about it, the more I’m certain there’s only one person who could be behind this. Emily Riviera.”

  “Who is Emily Riviera?” I asked. That was a new name to me.

  “My old girlfriend,” Flash said. “All she cares about is money. She wanted to get married, but I saw the writing on the wall and called things off. She’s never forgiven me for it.”

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  “A year ago.”

  “Why would she wait so long to do something like this?” Michael asked.

  “Beats me.” He shrugged, the action brisk and hurried.

  “Was Sarah the first girl you’d dated since Emily?” I asked.

  Flash let out another deep chuckle, like that idea was preposterous. “Was Sarah the first girl I’d dated since then?” He let out another round of chuckles. “Of course not.”

  “Then why would Emily kill Sarah?” I asked. “Why not target someone else you dated in the interim?”

  “Emily wasn’t a suspect in my mind until a couple days ago. I ran into her best friend, a girl named Mischa Harrington. She started telling me that Emily has been obsessed with me since we broke up. She thought I was her ticket into the big time and that we were meant to be together.”

  “She told you that Emily said this recently?” I clarified.

  “That’s right.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to think this through. “But if you went out with other women, what was so different about Sarah?”

  “It wasn’t Sarah,” Flash explained. “It’s the fact that Emily lost both her social status and her means. She’s a manipulator. If Emily had the idea in her head that I was the solution to all her problems, she’d do whatever it took to get what she wants.”

  “So Sarah would have been an obstacle to Emily’s plans,” Michael said.

  “Exactly. If Emily happened to see me out with Sarah, she may have had a fit of rage. She has a temper. In fact, I think she was arrested once for getting into a fight at a bar. She’s a wild cat.” He made his hand into a claw and slashed it through the air.

  The action was really quite comical and showed me that this man wasn’t as snobbish as I’d thought. There was still an awkward little boy hiding down deep inside him.

  “You didn’t think to tell us this sooner?” Michael’s jaw hardened.

  Flash let out a puff of air through his nose. “You have no idea how many enemies I have. If I started to tell you all of them now, we would be here all day.”

  I made a mental note of that to store away for later.

  It seemed like everyone around here had enemies . . . including me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  While Michael typed some notes about our conversation with Art, I sat at my desk eating my peanut butter sandwich and an apple and drinking my water. As I did, I researched Emily Riviera.

  As soon as I typed her name into the search engine on my computer, gobs of results popped up. This was a woman who wanted to be known via social media. She wanted to be an influencer, if I had to guess. It seemed as if her whole life was laid out for anyone to see.

  Normally, I wouldn’t think being such an open book was wise—I certainly wouldn’t advise my sister to do something like this. But, in this case, I figured Emily’s oversharing about her life would work in our favor.

  I scrolled through everything she’d recently posted. There were pictures of her with other men. Pictures of her with her best friend, Mischa. Pictures with Flash, complete with the caption of, “I’m so glad that we can be friends now. You’re the best.”

  I paused. Emily had just posted that a couple weeks ago.

  Was what Flash told us true? Did she still have a thing for him, and was she hoping they would get back together?

  From pictures, she appeared to be the type who liked the clout that came with dating a celebrity. There was just something about the way she posed and flashed her smile that made it clear she ate up any attention she could get.

  From what I could tell, she was twenty-four years old. She was petite and thin, with long, dark hair that was styled in perfect waves. Her cheekbones looked even and symmetrical, as did her eyes. But there seemed to be something missing when I looked at her gaze. A certain depth or compassion.

  Those were all assumptions, of course.

  I kept scanning her information. Apparently, Emily had worked retail for a while, and she’d also done some waitressing jobs. Now she was about to open her own clothing boutique.

  It just happened to be here in Storm River.

  I went back to her Facebook page, which was mostly public. Something there caught my eye. Tomorrow night, Emily was going to a fundraiser for an animal shelter at a local mansion in town. Tickets were a thousand bucks each, and there were still five left.

  I tapped my finger on the desk for a minute. A thousand bucks each? It was insane. That would pay our rent and buy groceries.

  But attending an event like that would also be a good opportunity to get to know Emily.

  I glanced at Michael as he typed notes into his computer, and I took another bite of my sandwich.

  If Oscar paid that much for us to go to this fundraiser, we had best not walk away without any answers. The pressure would definitely be on. Yet, at the same time, it seemed like our best chance of getting to know Emily.

  I cleared my throat and presented my idea to Michael. “What do you think?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think it’s great. Let’s go talk to him and see what he says.”

  The rest of the day had been a rush. Oscar had agreed that Michael and I should go to the fundraiser, and Oscar would foot the bill. But he also had some very stern warnings about the information we were supposed to find.

  Oscar told us all of that while sipping a green smoothie and puckering his face as if it tasted like sewage. As soon as he was finished, he turned back to his TV and acted like we were dead to him.

  This man really didn’t do any of the work himself, did he? Here I thought I was going to be working for someone who was so great, and it turned out he was just a loser.

  Yet, I still wanted to see this through. I wanted answers. Sarah Vance deserved some answers.

  I spent the rest of the time in the office looking into Bernard. Even though Velma had said he had an alibi for the night of the murder, I had my doubts. I’d studied all his social media posts—there were tons—from that evening.

  No pictures were tagged during the time Sarah had died.

  Would it have been possible for Bernard to leave Baltimore, come down to Storm River, and perpetrate the crime?

  I did a few more calculations and leaned back. Based on everything I’d learned, the answer was yes. Definitely.

  Where was the man now? Was he really working in Baltimore? Or could he be in town? For that matter, was he the one who’d left that note on the car windshield?

  I had no idea.

  I sighed and glanced at my watch. I had just enough time to go home and change into my standard cleaning outfit. Then I was off
to the police station again.

  I felt more nervous about tonight than I did on the first day.

  The detective had already seen me twice. He’d almost caught me snooping through his file. If I messed up again, then I was sure to be caught and my cover completely blown.

  I could do this. I would do this.

  It wasn’t because I didn’t want to let Oscar down.

  It was because I didn’t want to let myself down.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I frowned when I walked into the police station and spotted Detective Hunter at his desk.

  His presence was going to make my job even harder. At least, when he wasn’t there, I had a fighting chance of looking at his notes. But if he was sitting at his desk the whole time, there was no way I’d be able to see anything.

  Tonight, I was back to my job of mopping again. I really hated mopping. It wasn’t that I was above it, it just wasn’t something that I enjoyed or found any satisfaction in. I’d rather be organizing or doing something where I could see notable changes. Mopping made me feel like I was pushing wet dirt from one side of the room to the other.

  As I rinsed my mop, I thought about that name I’d seen in the file. Bernard Sutherland. Why had the man’s name been in the file if he had a rock-solid alibi on the night of the murder?

  My thoughts turned over as I squeezed dirty water into the bucket. What if his name was in the file because Bernard had been one of the witnesses saying Flash was guilty?

  The thought made me freeze. I didn’t know how to prove that, but if the man’s name was in the folder there had to be a reason for it.

  I knew that Flash had blacked out sometime between the time he and Sarah entered his condo and the time he’d woken up and found her dead. What happened in that block of time?

  What if Flash wasn’t telling the truth and he’d met Sarah before? What if it wasn’t a romantic rendezvous at all? But, if not, what else would it be? I wasn’t sure.

  Still, the one thing that stumped me was motive. Aside from the physical evidence, the case just didn’t make sense. Why would Flash murder Sarah, a woman who was supposedly a stranger?