by Mary Maxwell
“No,” I said. “But I also haven’t read the entire case file.”
“Well, when I brought Porter in for a chat,” Dina continued, “he admitted to renting a house with Vince, but claimed that he’d never met Evie, Dwayne or Caroline.”
“Did you ask Evie about that?”
“You bet,” Dina replied. “And Evie was more than happy to throw him under the bus. She had pictures of Corbin with Caroline from a concert they all went to that summer at Red Rocks.”
“Which ‘they all’ are we talking about?”
“Evie, Corbin, Caroline, Vince, Dwayne and Justin,” she said.
“Well, that’s a motley crew,” I said.
Dina nodded. “Motley and criminal. When I stopped by Evie’s again, she also told me that she was aware that Maureen had found the briefcase at Vintage View. That was something else that she denied during our first conversation about the case.”
“Funny how the truth emerges in drips and drabs with some people,” I said.
“That’s right,” Dina agreed. “And Evie Hale is one of those types. She told me that someone at her company mentioned that we were investigating a possible link between Caroline’s disappearance and an old briefcase. That’s when she remembered Justin carrying one around that summer. She wasn’t sure if it was before or after the kidnappings, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She called her brother and he called Justin. Then Justin called Corbin.”
“Like a con man’s phone tree,” I said.
“Pretty much,” Dina said. “The only person missing right now is Evie’s brother. But as soon as we find Dwayne, I want to bring him in for questioning and see if he can find his way to the truth.”
“Any idea where he might be?” I asked.
“I’m still working on that,” she said. “I called Earl Dodd, but there’s no one at the Moonlight that matches Dwayne’s description. His SUV is still parked in front of Evie’s house, so he’s probably taking cabs or a car service to get around town.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
Dina smiled. “About Dwayne’s whereabouts?”
“Try Griffin Flint’s apartment,” I said. “When I talked to Louella the other day, she said Griff and Dwayne were thick as thieves when they were kids.”
“Do you know where he lives?” she asked.
“No clue,” I said. “But Louella can answer that question.”
“Thanks,” Dina replied. “I’ll give her a call in a minute and ask.”
“So the kidnapping conspiracy included at least three people?” I said.
“Looks that way from the fingerprints on the duct tape,” Dina replied. “I’m heading over to Evie’s house this afternoon for yet another little tête-à-tête. Do you want to come with me?”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
CHAPTER 38
Evie Hale was wrapped in a massive periwinkle blue bathrobe when she opened the door later that afternoon. Her eyes pivoted from Dina to me and then back again.
“What is it now?” she demanded. “I’m home from work because I don’t feel well, and I’m not in the mood for visitors.”
“It’s about Caroline Whitman,” Dina said. “Can we come in for a moment?”
Evie glared at us. “Didn’t I say that I’d call if I remembered anything else?”
“You did,” Dina said. “But the thing is, we’ve uncovered some new information that we’d like to share with you.”
“Okay.” Evie’s eyes burned with anger. “As long as you make it quick.”
“This won’t take long,” said Dina, stepping into the foyer after Evie moved aside.
I followed her into the house and closed the door. Once we were seated in the living room—Evie on the edge of the fireplace hearth; Dina and I on a sofa covered with red velvet—Dina began to describe her initial conversation with Corbin Porter and Katrina Stamos. As soon as she mentioned the two names, Evie began waving both hands in the air.
“Okay, whoa,” she said. “Stop right there. I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about. And I don’t want to waste my time with—”
“One second,” Dina said, pulling out her phone. “I’d like to show you a picture that Corbin gave me.”
Evie was on her feet and moving toward the front door by the time Dina had pulled up the image. I’d seen the picture earlier as we were leaving Sky High Pies. It was a bit on the dark side, but four faces were clearly visible: Evie Hale and her brother, Corbin Porter and Justin Kennedy. They were standing in front of Tipton’s Liquor Mart holding bottles of cheap wine overhead. The sunny smiles and celebratory tone suggested four friends commemorating a milestone birthday instead of a quartet of coconspirators buying liquor with some of the ransom that Sean Hale had paid a few days earlier to free his daughter from the clutches of ruthless kidnappers.
“I want you to look at this,” Dina said.
Evie spun around. “And I want you out of my house! I don’t have time to dredge up old nightmares or listen to a bunch of lies!”
Dina stood and followed her toward the entryway. I pushed up from the sofa, but stayed in the living room. The tension had exploded with such force that I decided it was best to be an observer instead of a participant in whatever was about to happen. If Dina’s hunch was right, Evie’s reaction could lead to more than verbal fireworks.
“This isn’t a lie,” Dina said. “It’s a photograph. And it was taken here in Crescent Creek after your father was duped into paying two-hundred thousand dollars for your release.”
“Get out!” Evie screamed.
Dina moved closer. “Look at the picture, Evie. It’s you and your brother with—”
“Stop talking!” Eve’s eyes darted to the phone. “I don’t want to discuss the past anymore! I’m done with it! I want to move on!”
“Please just look at it,” Dina said, taking a few more steps toward Evie. “Our techs confirmed the metadata embedded in the image is original and authentic. We know this picture was taken in Crescent Creek on the afternoon of July 27, 2009, which is four days after your father paid the ransom for your release.”
Evie raised one hand and swept a curtain of bangs from her forehead. Then she slowly returned to the fireplace and sat down on the stone hearth again.
“You can’t prove that,” she said, pointing at the image on Dina’s phone. “We took tons of pictures like that all summer. That could just as easily be from May, June or the end of August.”
Dina put away the phone. “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. The metadata is irrefutable. It confirms the date and time that you and your friends posed for the picture. It also details geo-location data, the model of camera used to snap the photo and the—”
“Again,” Evie interrupted, “I call bull on your lies. Why are you trying to cause me unnecessary trauma, Detective Kincaid? I’m a victim in all of this.”
Dina smiled. “I know that’s what you want everyone to believe,” she said, “but we have sworn testimony and confessions from Corbin Porter and your brother.”
Evie’s mouth fell open. “You’re lying! My brother would never betray me.”
“I’m afraid that you’re wrong there, too,” Dina said. “Dwayne provided a full confession to Detective Armstrong, and Corbin is now in police custody.”
“Katie?” said Evie, turning her gaze in my direction. “Is she telling me the truth? Did my brother inform on me?”
“I can’t really speak to that,” I said. “I’m only consulting on the case. But I will tell you that Dina and Tyler are two of the most straightforward—”
“That’s not what I asked you!” she screamed.
I waited for a few moments as her eyes bulged and her chest rose and fell with the rapid breathing of someone in full meltdown mode. When she seemed a bit calmer, I told her that it would be in her best interest to cooperate with the police.
“Why?” she snapped. “So they can treat me with the same disregard that my father and mother di
d?”
The question was from out of left field, but didn’t seem all that surprising when she began to talk about the past. I’d never met Evie’s parents, but Crescent Creek was small enough that I heard most of the gossip and rumors over the years before I left for college. There was a repetitive sameness to the stories: her father was a passive-aggressive bully, her mother’s drinking made her an ineffective parent and every decision was shaped by money and the family’s social status.
“We were wealthy,” Evie said at one point, “and my father always told Dwayne and me that meant we were better than other people.”
“Does that also mean your family was above the law?” I asked.
She exhaled slowly. Then she said, “I was so angry with my father when I was younger. When he suddenly announced that Dwayne and I might be cut out of his will and the family trust, I was ready to do whatever it took to protect my brother.”
“Including staging your own kidnapping?” Dina said.
“It wasn’t my idea,” she said in a voice that was frail and hushed. “But I went along with it because it would give Dwayne the money he needed to leave and start over somewhere else.”
“Like Wyoming?” I said.
Evie blinked. “He went to Boston for a couple of years after North Ridge kicked him out,” she said. “He was rebellious. And impossible to contain. They finally told my father that Dwayne had to leave, but he told them my brother wasn’t welcome at home. My father actually told them that Dwayne was no longer his concern.”
“When did the idea of staging your kidnapping for profit come about?” asked Dina.
“I don’t know,” Evie said. “A couple of weeks before we did it.”
“Did you have any doubts?” I said.
She turned and shrugged. “Dwayne and Justin told me that nobody would get hurt. They’d figured it all out, so the only thing I had to do was ride my bike out to some gas station on Mariposa Road, wait for them to pick me up and then go stay at someone’s cabin for a couple of days. Once my father paid the ransom, Justin would come get me and leave me on the edge of town.”
“But that’s not what happened,” I said.
She shook her head. “No. He told me that we’d have to wait to split the money. He said that Justin would keep it in his father’s attic with the other stuff that we used.”
“Why didn’t you throw away all of the incriminating evidence?” asked Dina.
“That was Justin’s call,” she said. “My brother and I trusted him to do the right thing, but then he…”
“Then he decided to do it again and double his money?” I said.
“He got Corbin Porter involved at some point,” Evie replied. “But me and Dwayne had nothing to do with that. Justin and Corbin said they were going to kidnap Caroline, get the ransom from her father and then they’d both leave town.” She stopped, pushed the hair from her face again and took a long breath. “That was the plan, but things didn’t turn out quite no neatly.”
Evie crumpled forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “I talked to Justin once after he left town. He told me that Corbin found out about the money in the attic and took it all. That was the money from my father than Dwayne, Justin and I were supposed to split. During that phone call, Justin denied having anything to do with Caroline’s disappearance. He blamed it all on Corbin and I believed everything he said. But when I heard later that her parents had received post cards from Wisconsin, I figured Justin was sending them to try and make everyone believe Caroline had simply left town.” She swallowed hard and rubbed her eyes.
“How did your brother meet Corbin?” I asked.
“Through Vince,” she replied. “He was my tennis instructor that summer. Corbin was his roommate. I don’t even remember specifically how, but we all started hanging out and partying at their rental house.”
“How well do you know Corbin Porter?” asked Dina.
Evie sneered. “Not at all! I hated him then. And I hate him even more now. After I heard that somebody found the briefcase that Justin was supposed to throw away back then, I freaked out. I called my brother. He called Justin. And then Justin called Corbin.”
“Is that when Dwayne drove down from Wyoming?” said Dina.
“Yes. He didn’t trust me to handle the situation if the whole thing went to hell.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Oh, c’mon,” Evie said in a whiny, singsong tone. “Don’t be stupid. We found out that you were helping the cops, snooping around town and asking questions. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before everyone knew the truth. That’s why Justin stopped at your place the other day and bought all those damn cupcakes. After I told him that you really were a former private investigator and everything, he wanted to see you for himself.”
“Did you suspect that Justin was in danger when he came back to town?” Dina asked.
Evie closed her eyes. “I still can’t believe…” Her voice faltered. “I told Corbin to keep cool. Katrina begged him to leave Justin alone. But he was…” She paused again, opening her eyes and looking at Dina. “It was like he was possessed once he learned that you were investigating Caroline’s disappearance again. All the years that he walked around like a cocky jerk, thinking he ruled the world because he got away with everything back then, I never imagined that he’d flip out again. He called me every so often, threatening to tell the world the truth about everything, but I always paid him off.”
“So he was blackmailing you?” I said.
She shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it. I always knew that Corbin was violent and unpredictable.”
“Did you know what he did to Caroline?” Dina asked.
Evie closed her eyes again. “Justin’s story that Caroline had tried to get away made sense. He said that she got out of the duct tape around her wrists, made a run for it and Corbin just started strangling her. By the time Justin was able to push him off of her, Caroline was dead.”
Dina cleared her throat. “So you’ve known for ten years that Corbin Porter killed your friend Caroline?”
“I thought about telling my father the truth,” Evie said, “but I was afraid that the police would do something to me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Isn’t it a crime to lie to them?”
“It’s also a crime to kill someone,” I said.
“But that was Corbin,” she said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Except remain silent,” Dina said in a gentle tone. “Sometimes not doing anything is the worst choice you can make.”
CHAPTER 39
When I knocked lightly on the door to his room at the Regional Medical Center, Tobias was propped up in his bed with a blanket around his shoulders and a box from Daylite Donuts on his lap. Louella Flint stood beside him, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin while he sang the praises of the bear claw that he held in one hand.
“Best medicine for whatever ails you!” he said, motioning for me to come into the room. “Just pure joy drenched in sunshine!”
Louella scowled. “That’s nothing but sugar, flour and fat,” she said. “I’m surprised the nurses let you keep those things.”
Tobias winked at her. “What’re they going to do? Rip ’em out of an old man’s hands while he’s teetering on the edge of the abyss?”
I walked over and stood at the end of the bed. “Is this a bad time?” I asked. “I can always come back.”
“It’s a perfect time,” Louella said. “I’ve been trying to get our friend here to stop acting like he’s got one foot in the grave, but the old fool is using it to his advantage with the staff.”
Tobias tapped the box of donuts. “Where do you think these beauties came from? One of the nurses knows a woman who works the morning shift. She brought this box in so I could have my favorites before I kick the bucket.”
Louella frowned. “Nobody’s kicking the bucket today, Toby.”
“How do you know?” He
smiled. “Are you a medical professional?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’ve got a license in detecting bull hockey. Not to mention that I heard your doctor telling one of the nurses that you’re going home in the morning.”
Tobias took a bite of the bear claw. While he relished the sugary treat, I asked Louella if she’d heard the latest about the Caroline Whitman case.
She nodded. “We were actually just talking about that. Life is so tender and fragile. It’s a horrible shock how some people seem to disagree with that sentiment. They think nothing of harming someone else, whether it’s the kidnappings and murder ten years ago or the thug that warned Tobias about cooperating with the police.”
“That thug is behind bars now,” I said. “His name is Corbin Porter. He’s been charged with the kidnapping and murder of Caroline Whitman as well as murder in the death of Justin Kennedy and assault for attacking Tobias.”
“He killed Arthur Kennedy’s son?” asked Tobias.
“Yes,” I said. “The police found Justin’s car in Porter’s garage. The front seat was drenched in blood and Corbin’s fingerprints were everywhere.”
“Who is this Corbin Porter?” asked Louella. “How did he get involved with Caroline’s kidnapping?”
“He met Evie and Caroline when he shared a rental house with Vince Stafford here in Crescent Creek,” I explained. “He’s constantly broke, so he couldn’t resist the temptation to earn a small fortune helping Dwayne and Justin stage Evie’s kidnapping. Then he got greedy and tried the same thing with Caroline, but the outcome was disastrous because she tried to escape. When he heard about the briefcase found in Vintage View, Corbin attacked Tobias to try and keep the truth from coming out. The poor guy had no idea that it was far too late for that.”
“What about the perfume?” she asked. “We all thought Tobias was attacked by a man and woman because he smelled perfume right before he was clobbered on the head.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Best guess would be Corbin hugged his girlfriend that morning and some of her fragrance transferred to his clothes. The police questioned her, but she had an alibi that was corroborated by a dozen witnesses. When Corbin was assaulting Tobias in his store, Katrina Stamos was teaching a yoga class on the other side of town.”