“Well, Chad Conroy assumed that’s what we were, and we just didn’t correct that misperception. And I just needed to gather some more facts. You seem set on Gavin as the killer, and we don’t think he did it.”
Sunny barked, though Lydia wasn’t sure whether she was trying to root on her owner or if she was trying to remind her that they were supposed to go on a walk.
“We have evidence against Gavin,” Leo reminded her.
“But there were four other people there that night: Tony Porter, Chad Conroy and his girlfriend Ruby, and Lisa Warren.”
“Yes, and we are looking into them too. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have a case against Gavin Pierce.”
“Blaine Thompkins dropped a piece of paper a few days ago, and it has a list of combinations on it. I’m not sure exactly what it means yet, but Lisa Warren’s combination is on that list.”
Leo looked like he was trying very hard not to lose his temper. “Lydia, you can’t interfere with my cases like this. If you found a piece of evidence from the victim, you should have turned it over right away.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I should have done that. But I was afraid you’d disregard it. And I think the list has meaning. I was going to see if there was some similarity between her locker’s items and Michael Bridge’s.”
“Michael Bridge? Why do I know that name?”
“He was the man who was at the work dinner with Suzanne,” Lydia explained as Leo gritted his teeth. “He’s opening a music school, and I think his locker combination might have been on Blaine Thomkins’ list as well.”
“Really?” asked Leo. “You think he might be involved in this crime?”
Lydia tried not to smile. Trina was right. This was a suspect that Leo would like to throw in jail more than Gavin.
“It’s possible, but he wasn’t at the facility the night of the murder,” Lydia said. “I really think that you and Suzanne should talk to one another. It’s clear that you have unfinished business. You should just talk.”
“There’s nothing else to say.”
“You’re itching to arrest a man she had a business meal with,” Lydia pointed out. “You’re not over her. And I don’t think she’s over you.”
“I’m not going to talk to Suzanne. I’m going to talk to Lisa Warren and then Michael Bridge – in a professional capacity. I’ll see if there is any reason why the victim was looking at their lockers. I’m the one who is going to do the investigating. I don’t want to hear about you acting as an insurance investigator anymore. I don’t want to hear that you spoke to anyone with a storage locker anymore. Otherwise, I will arrest you for obstructing a police investigation.”
“Is this because I said you should talk to Suzanne?” Lydia asked half-joking.
“I’m serious. I’m going to talk to them. Not you. Now give me that list that you got from the victim.”
Lydia obliged. After Leo took the paper and gave her one more warning stare, he left. Lydia stayed where she was. She knew that she should feel happy that Leo was now taking other suspects seriously, but she just felt disappointed that she had been stopped mid-investigation.
Sunny grabbed her leash with her mouth and pulled on it. Lydia was glad that Sunny was the size she was, and not as big as a Great Dane.
“Well, we can’t go see Lisa Warren under threat of police orders,” said Lydia. “But I did promise you a walk. How about we go to the beach?”
Sunny barked in agreement. She understood the word “beach,” and if there was one thing she loved more than a walk, it was sunbathing in the sand.
Lydia brought Sunny to their favorite dog beach. It was small and often wasn’t very crowded. Lydia started toward their usual spot by some seagrass, but Sunny pulled at the leash to go the opposite way. Sunny was often very easygoing, so Lydia thought there must be a reason for the behavior.
She decided to follow where Sunny led, and that was how she came across Gwen, sitting in the sand and quietly crying.
“Oh, Lydia,” Gwen said, looking up. “I came here thinking I wouldn’t run into Daniel. I forgot that you had a dog.”
Sunny walked up to the woman and started licking her tears away. Gwen rubbed the dog’s back in thanks. Lydia slowly sat down next to her.
“Why didn’t you want to run into Daniel?”
Gwen exhaled. “I know he’s trying to help. And I know this isn’t really his fault. But I can’t help my feelings. I’m so mad.”
“Really?”
“I was mad that Daniel left instead of staying to grieve with us. Delilah was one of my best friends. And I was mad that he was so hard to contact, and it made Gavin, and I worry. Intellectually, I know that he needed space. And he did need a change after something so horrible. But it still hurt. And now I’m mad that when we came here to check on him that Gavin got arrested.”
“Well, the police are detaining him. And we’re working to make sure that the arrest isn’t official.”
“You better work hard. It will be official soon enough. And they might arrest me too.”
“Gwen, I promise that I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
Gwen just stared at her. Lydia tried to decipher the look. She felt like she was being judged, and this was worse than when she thought Gwen wasn’t sure that Lydia was good enough for Daniel. Now, Gwen seemed to be considering whether Lydia could save her and her husband or not. She didn’t seem convinced.
15
Thoughts on the Case
That night, Lydia sat at her kitchen table, feeling miserable. She might be able to keep her promise to Trina but at the expense of not keeping hers to Gwen. She simply had no idea what she should do next for the case. Leo had stopped her from talking to the suspect/witness that she wanted to, and she hadn’t made any more sense of why Blaine Thompkins had listed those locker combinations.
Sunny yipped and Lydia realized that Daniel must have arrived. Lydia let him inside, and they both sat down at the table. He rubbed the dog’s ears.
“I got a call from the storage locker facility. They called all their customers,” Daniel said. “They’re open for business again. Well, part of it is. We’re able to access our lockers if they are not next to where the body was found. Apparently, a lot of people had been complaining about not being able to get to their things.”
“Are they going to beef up security too?” asked Lydia.
“He said so, but before he also told us that the boss thought that pretending to have security cameras would be a deterrent.”
Lydia sighed. “I’m so sorry, Daniel. I know that this case is so important because your friend is being accused, but I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do next. I feel like I’m letting everyone down.”
“Everyone?”
“You, Gavin, Gwen. Even my Aunt Edie!”
Lydia went and collected a postcard that she had received from her aunt. After her uncle’s death, Lydia’s Aunt Edie had been traveling the world, which was something she had always dreamed of doing and was something that Uncle Edgar had insisted that she do. The most recent card showed the ruins of a Mayan Temple.
“Her message to me wished me luck on the next investigation I inserted myself into. See?” Lydia said. “Right under the date. Even she thought I could find the answers.”
“It’s not over yet,” said Daniel. “You haven’t let anyone down. As long as you try, we appreciate it. And I bet you will still get to the bottom of this. But, even if you didn’t, Lydia, you don’t let me down.”
Lydia wanted to appreciate the sweet words that he said, but she was focused on the postcard. There was something about it that was trying to inspire a thought.
“The date,” Lydia said finally. “Maybe some of the combinations that were on Blaine’s list were dates.”
“Does that help us figure out why Blaine was collecting them?” asked Daniel.
“No,” Lydia admitted.
“Okay. Let’s try to look at everything we know about the case. Maybe going over i
t again will help us figure it out.”
Lydia nodded. “We know Blaine Thompkins was killed at his job as an attendant at the storage locker facility. He was looking into something there, but we don’t know what. Besides Gavin, there were four people inside the facility that night that could have committed the murder. Lisa Warren said that she put furniture that her large dog broke inside the locker. Chad Conroy and his girlfriend, Ruby, said that they needed to get some items for their house because they packed up extra stuff after they moved in together. Tony Porter was living in his locker.”
“Right,” Daniel said, encouraging her to go on.
“Lisa Warren’s locker combination was on Blaine Thompkins’s list, and so was Michael Bridge. Leo called to taunt me.”
“He was taunting you? Was this a big brother thing?”
“He didn’t tell me any real information about the case. He didn’t tell me what Michael Bridge had in his locker. Leo just wanted to let me know that he talked to him and didn’t mention Suzanne at all. But, of course, by calling me and telling me about this, I know that he is still in love with her.”
“It sounds like they have some unfinished business and need to talk to one another.”
“That’s what I said!”
Daniel smiled. “Great minds think alike?”
“I think so. But I wish these great minds could solve the case.”
“Well, I know that Leo didn’t tell you. But what do you think that Michael Bridge had in his locker?”
“I would guess musical instruments. Tubas and violins and such.”
“That makes sense to me,” Daniel agreed. “Though I don’t know how that helps figure out the murder. Let’s try to focus on the car. That’s what put Gavin in trouble: someone putting the body in his car.”
“You’re right,” said Lydia, drumming on the table as she thought. “So, why did the killer put the body in Gavin’s car? We’ve been thinking that it seemed like the easiest way to get rid of the body. The killer placed it in an unlocked car, and it was driven away.”
“But how did the killer know the car was unlocked?”
Lydia pondered his point. Then, another idea occurred to her, and it started a chain reaction of thoughts progressing from one to the other.
“What if we’ve been going about this all wrong?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What if the killer wasn’t trying to frame Gavin? Or wasn’t trying to distance themselves from the problem by putting the body in a stranger’s car? What if the killer just made a mistake?”
“You mean he wanted to put the body in his car and accidentally put it in Gavin’s?” asked Daniel. “But we’ve seen the cars of everyone who was there that night. Lisa had a jeep that could fit her dog. Ruby had a red smart car, and Chad had a beat-up truck. Tony doesn’t have a car right now.”
“It wasn’t their car. Not exactly. That’s how the mistake was made. Daniel, that’s it!”
“Maybe we don’t think quite alike,” he said. “I don’t understand what you mean. But, it sounds like you solved the case.”
“I think I did,” said Lydia. “But we’re going to need some more proof if we’re going to free Gavin.”
16
Proof
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Daniel asked.
“I’m a little nervous too,” Lydia admitted. “But there’s no way that Leo could get a search warrant based on my surmises. We need to find something tangible that can prove the killer’s guilt.”
“But aren’t we breaking and entering?”
“We entered this storage locker facility legally,” Lydia said. “You used your keycard. And, well, I’m sure I can come up with rationalizations for the rest of it. If we use the combinations from Blaine Thompkins’s list, then we’re not breaking anything. And we can take a picture of what’s inside the locker. We don’t need to enter it.”
Daniel nodded, but still looked hesitant. They had come to the storage facility that night to try and gain the proof Lydia said they needed. They had learned that the police were patrolling this area more heavily after the murder, but Daniel and Lydia timed it so that there was no officer in the parking lot when they arrived. Lydia knew that their intentions were pure, and she hoped that made up for their actions of sneaking into someone’s locker. If it was to catch a killer and free an innocent man, she thought that she was justified.
“We don’t know which one it is, do we?”
“No,” said Lydia. “But it will be close to where the murder occurred. Blaine must have been spying, and the killer panicked and attacked him. Then, we need to find a lock with four number digits on it.”
They found the crime scene tape marking off an area, and started around there. It wasn’t long until they found a lock that opened with the combination: 0630.
“The combination is a date,” Lydia muttered.
With the lock off, Lydia took a deep breath and then rolled the locker door up. She and Daniel kept their feet outside of the locker and peered inside. It was full of wrapped items and boxes.
“What are they doing here?” a female voice asked behind them.
Lydia started to turn, but the voice’s compatriot was already acting. Chad Conroy pushed Daniel into the storage locker and then did the same with Lydia. Then, he slammed the door closed before they had a chance to stop him.
Lydia groaned. It turned out that coming when a police officer wasn’t parked in the lot was a bad idea.
“What do we do now?” Ruby asked.
“Bring the car closer,” Chad answered. “We’ll get rid of them like we meant to last time.”
Then, Lydia heard footsteps walking away.
“I think we found all the proof we need,” she said. “We just need to get out of this alive in order to tell the police.”
Lydia and Daniel both took out their cell phones but found that reception inside the locker was spotty. Neither could get a call to go through, but they kept their phones out for the light. Lydia tried to send a text to her brother, but it kept showing the icon that it was “sending” and not sent.
“It looks like car parts,” Daniel said, giving the items that they were stuck with a better look. “Not the home décor items that they told us were in here.”
“Ruby works at a rental car place,” said Lydia. “Gavin got his car from Sunrise Rentals. That’s where Ruby worked. I should have recognized the orange blazer that she was complaining about.”
“And access to the rental cars is important to the case?”
“That’s what I finally realized. The reason why they put the body in Gavin’s car was because Chad saw the rental car and, working quickly because he was carrying a dead body, he assumed it was the one that Ruby had borrowed. Jeff noticed that Gavin’s car was a rental. It had a logo on it. That must have been what Chad saw. And since it was unlocked, it further made him think that it was his.”
“And Blaine stumbled across them that night?”
“Yes. They must have killed Blaine when he discovered what they had in here.”
“I still don’t quite understand it,” Daniel admitted. “Are these car parts stolen?”
“I think that Chad and Ruby were stealing parts from the cars at Ruby’s job. I bet Blaine was suspicious about all the rental cars coming in. He was trying to get to the bottom of it and was trying to determine if any lockers contained stolen merchandise. Blaine was looking at storage units that had large pieces. Like these car parts. But also like broken pieces of furniture and musical instruments. He finally discovered what Chad and Ruby were up to after he learned their combination to the lock. It’s their anniversary. They told us they met right before the 4th of July. 0630 is June 30th.”
“This also explains why Chad and Ruby were willing to agree that Blaine was a thief right away. They wanted to divert attention from themselves.”
“But we have a new question,” Lydia said. “How do we survive this?”
Daniel looked grim, but
he found a piece of pipe from one of the packages and picked it up as a weapon. Lydia picked up a tire rim and held it like a shield.
“Hide near the sides of the door,” Daniel suggested. “It’s the only way we might get a moment of surprise.”
Lydia nodded, feeling very uneasy. She gripped the rim, trying not to let fear take over. She had basically walked them into a trap. Now, Daniel was in danger too. It was too awful.
They heard the sounds of the car stopping outside the storage locker. Then, there were deliberate footsteps outside.
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