The Sarah Woods Mystery Series (Volume 7)

by Jennifer L. Jennings

  As I got closer, the guy started his engine and took off before I had even crossed the street.

  It occurred to me too late that I should’ve noted the license plate number.

  Chapter 11

  I spent the next few hours at home calling guests who’d attended the event, but nobody seemed to have any knowledge about a missing bottle of Scotch. Feeling discouraged, I looked through all my notes and eventually settled on the photo of Blake’s BMW taken after the crash. The front was a mangled mess which had obviously totaled the car, but then there was the broken tail lights. Since the back end of the car was still in perfect condition, why were both tail lights busted?

  I surfed the web for car blogs and experts that might explain why this could have happened, but I didn’t find anything specific to tail lights. I even called a few body shops in the area and asked the question. In a head-on collision, would the tail lights bust even if there was no damage to the rear end. The car technicians I spoke with couldn’t answer my question definitively, but they implied that the tail lights would not be affected in such a crash, unless some other factors were involved.

  The only other factor I could think of was Kevin Haas. If he knew that Blake was after his wife, maybe he went out to the parking lot and smashed his tail lights with some sort of blunt object. Better to take his frustrations out on the car than to beat the crap out of Blake and suffer worse consequences.

  If Kevin threatened Blake in any way during that night, it would explain why he stole a bottle of Scotch to drown his sorrows.

  As easy as it would have been to assume this was the answer, I couldn’t simply take Nina’s word that Blake had propositioned her. But what would be her motivation to lie about it?

  With cell phone in hand, I decided to call Gail.

  “It’s Sarah Woods calling,” I said when she answered my call. “Do you have some time to talk?’

  “Oh, hi. I’m sorry, this really isn’t a good time. The police are at my house.”

  “The police? Are you OK?”

  “I had a break in. They stole some jewelry and got away. No idea who it was.”

  “Were you at home when it happened?”

  “No, I was out shopping when I got an alert on my home security system. Look, I really have to go because the detective needs to finish up his report.”

  “Of course, I understand. I’ll talk to you later.”

  When the line went silent, I didn’t know what to think. Sunday afternoon burglaries were not common, at least not in Bridgeport. I also felt that this burglary was not random.

  I knew that Gail would be tied up for some time, but I looked up her address and drove to her house, anyway.

  When I got there, two police cruisers were still parked in front of her house. A few neighbors were milling around outside on the sidewalk, talking amongst themselves, probably wondering what crime had been committed in their upper-class neighborhood.

  I parked my car across the street and waited. And waited. Finally, around six-thirty, the cruisers were gone.

  When Gail opened her front door and saw me standing there, she let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad it’s you and not one of my nosy neighbors. Come on inside. I already made a pot of coffee for the officers, and there’s some left. Would you like a cup?”

  “Sure, thanks.” As she poured a mug for me, I observed her casual attire. Without the expensive business suits, jewelry and make-up, she looked almost frumpy. Not that I faulted her for that. Sundays are meant to be a frump fest, in my opinion.

  “I don’t suppose the cops had any luck with fingerprints?” I asked.

  “They had two crime scene techs dusting the house, looking for clues, but they didn’t seem too optimistic.”

  “Don’t you think the timing of the burglary is odd?”

  She joined me at the counter with two mugs. “I don’t know what to think. My mind is a bit frazzled right now.”

  I decided to hold off on telling her about Nina and stay focused on her traumatic ordeal. “Do you want to tell me what happened today?”

  She took a sip of coffee and nodded. “A few days after Blake died, I started to notice weird things. Felt like someone was always watching me. Following me. At first, I thought it was just my imagination. That maybe my mind was playing tricks on me because of being in shock over his death. But, now I know for a fact that it wasn’t just my imagination. A man has been watching me.”

  “The burglar?”

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “So, what did he take?”

  “My jewelry box, which I kept in an old shoe box in my bedroom closet. Over five thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry was inside there, plus my grandmother’s ring. I never used a safe because, well, I figured nobody would bother to look inside an old shoe-box for valuables. I guess that logic didn’t do me any favors.”

  “How would the burglar know that you kept such valuable possessions inside a shoe box?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “The only person who knew about it was Blake.”

  A painful stab of surprise seized my chest. The revelation was disturbing, to say the least. “So, you think Blake told someone about your stash of jewelry before he died? Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t think of any other explanation. Can you?”

  “Well, maybe he was just talking to a friend casually about it. Just happened to mention that his girlfriend had an impressive stash of jewelry that she kept in her bedroom closet. Maybe it was innocent.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I hope so, anyway.”

  “Did the burglar take anything else?”

  “No, just the box.”

  “How did he get inside?”

  “The back door lock had been tampered with. I think the guy is a pro, because the cops said that it looked professional, whatever that means.”

  “Like a career thief who knew what he was doing?”

  “Yes. I assume it was a guy, but we don’t really know if that’s true. Aren’t most burglars guys?”

  “Usually, but you’d be surprised.”

  While I sipped my coffee, I tossed a bunch of ideas around in my brain, hoping one of them would stick. My first thought was Trevor, Blake’s friend from high school. “The cops must have gone around to the neighbors, asking if anyone saw a stranger carrying a shoe box or a backpack, or something.”

  “Nobody saw anything. The cops seem to think that it’s a group of troubled teenagers. There’s been a few burglaries and vandalism in the area in the past few months, but that doesn’t explain how they would know about the jewelry I kept in my bedroom closet.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t hidden well enough.”

  Gail eased back against the stool and closed her eyes. “I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I have my jewelry insured?”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a scrap paper, then jotted down a name and address. I slid it over to her.

  She glanced at it, “Who is Trevor Ellis?”

  “Blake’s friend. They were close in high school, but then drifted apart after he moved in with you. I spoke to him a few days ago about Blake. Wanted to know if they had been in touch recently. He said they hadn’t, but I didn’t get a good vibe from the guy. If you give the police his information, they may want to secure an alibi.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “Also, Blake might have made some new friends that you weren’t aware of. How about the AA meetings and the gym?”

  “I’m sure he met people, but he never mentioned anyone specific to me.”

  “Which meetings did he go to and where?”

  “He went to three or four meetings every week at various times. They hold the meetings at the church on Wyman almost every day, sometimes two or three a day. There’s a website with the schedule, I’ll send you the link.”

  “Great, maybe I’ll stop by after one of their meetings and see if anyone knew Blake.” Then another idea occurred to me. “Say, Sue-Ellen told me that Blake’
s cell phone had no texts or voice messages on it.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. He sort of dumped all of his old friends. He and I would text each other, but there would be no reason for him to keep those texts on his phone.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” I didn’t want to mention that Blake could have been involved with another girl, and made sure to delete all those texts or voice messages.

  As I finished my coffee, I could tell that Gail’s energy was dwindling. “I hate to bring this up right now,” I said. “It’s about your relationship with Blake … things weren’t going so great toward the end, were they?”

  Her eyes got wide and she looked as though she might object. But then she exhaled deeply, as if in resignation. “I had a feeling he was going to leave me. He didn’t come out and say so, but I knew … well, I just knew that his interest was fading.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but he just stopped trying. It was like a light had switched off. And I saw how he flirted with other women. I wasn’t blind.”

  I wanted to mention Nina, but there was no point in adding insult to injury. “Is that why you seemed unemotional when we talked at the bar the other day? Because you knew it was over with Blake?”

  “I might seem unemotional, but I’m just numb inside. Blake meant a lot to me, and I miss him every day. But I’m also a realist. He was too young for me and I knew our time wouldn’t last.”

  When Gail got up and grabbed the empty mugs to put in the sink, I knew it was my subtle invitation to leave.

  “Gail, are you scared?”

  She turned to me. “Scared of what?”

  “Well, an intruder broke into your home today. I’d be a little on edge. Do you have a friend who might be willing to stay with you tonight?”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine. I appreciate your concern, though.”

  If a stranger had just busted the lock on my door to get inside my house, I wouldn’t be so inclined to stay by myself. “Do you have a means of protecting yourself?” I asked. “Like pepper spray, or a stun gun?”

  She laughed, but there was a hollowness to it. “Where the heck would I buy a stun gun?”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out the pepper spray canister. “Here, take this. I have a bunch of them.”

  “You carry a can of pepper spray in your purse all the time?”

  “Well, yeah. I have them all over the place. In my car, in my office, at my house ...”

  “Is your line of work dangerous?”

  “Sometimes.” I neglected to tell her that I had gotten shot.

  “Thanks for the pepper spray, but I doubt the burglar will be coming back here. He’d have to be stupid.”

  “That’s the thing, you can never underestimate a criminal. Or on the contrary, you can’t assume he’s very smart, either.”

  She took the canister in her hand and inspected it. “Have you ever had to use one of these on someone?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  “Don’t you carry a gun?”

  “I used to, but not so much anymore. I believe they do more harm than good. I don’t believe it’s necessary to use deadly force. As long as I have a means to incapacitate someone trying to hurt me, that’s good enough.”

  Gail slipped the canister into her jeans pocket. “Thank you. I feel safer now.”

  As I gathered my purse to leave, I pointed to the piece of paper on the counter. “Don’t forget to give the police Trevor’s information, OK?”

  “I won’t forget,” she said. “In fact, I’ll call the detective right now.”

  Chapter 12

  It was dark by the time I left Gail’s house. Halfway home, I noticed a green car behind me when I stopped at a red light. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it looked like the same green car I’d seen earlier in the day, outside of Nina and Kevin’s house.

  This time I wrote down the license plate number.

  He must have seen that I was checking him out in my rearview window, because he pulled the baseball cap lower on his face. From what I could tell, he was a guy in his thirties to mid-forties with dark hair, but I couldn’t even be sure of that.

  Who the heck was this guy?

  As I waited for the light to turn red, I could feel his front bumper kissing my rear bumper. Was he trying to provoke me? I didn’t want to get out of my car to ask what his problem is. For all I knew, he was pissed that I had stolen his parking spot somewhere, and now he was after me to get revenge. Wouldn’t be a stretch considering all the road rage fatalities the news kept reporting.

  When the light turned green, I flattened my foot to the gas pedal. Off like a shot, the green car could or would not keep up with me. When I came to my street, I kept on going through the intersection instead of taking the right, just in case this person was intending to follow me home. I drove all around Bridgeport for the next half an hour, just to make sure I had lost him.

  I thought about calling the police to report the suspicious behavior, but then again, the guy didn’t do anything wrong. But the fact that he nudged my bumper was disconcerting.

  Finally, I headed home. The green car was nowhere in sight, so I quickly locked the car and made my way into the house. Securing the dead bolt on both doors, I finally felt secure enough to settle down and have a glass of wine.

  I went on my computer program that granted me access to car registration information, and I typed in the license plate number from the green car.

  Name on the registration belonged to a Randy F. Leeman. The name didn’t ring a bell and neither did the address, which was in a mobile home park on the opposite end of town. I looked up Randy to see if he was a felon, but his record was clean. No arrests. He was forty-nine years old, and his driver’s license photo showed an average looking guy with pattern baldness and a double chin.

  The guy driving the green car was wearing a baseball cap, so it was hard to know if it was the same person.

  This didn’t make any sense. Assuming that Randy Leeman was the guy driving the green car, why was he following me?

  I decided to call Carter and tell him about the weird coincidence. As I suspected, he was alarmed but kept his cool.

  “This Leeman guy must be involved in your case, somehow,” he said. “I wish I was home with you right now. I can catch an earlier plane if you want me to.”

  “That’s not necessary, but I’m glad you’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  “Why don’t you call Andrew and have him spend the night?”

  “I’m sure my brother has better things to do. I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you remember the first time you saw the green car?”

  “Yeah, it was earlier today. I went to question a woman and I saw the green car parked behind my car when I left her house. He drove away as soon as I saw him.”

  “Did you get a good look at his face?”

  “No, but he’s got to be in his late thirties to late forties. It was hard to tell. At any rate, he didn’t look familiar.”

  There was a pause before Carter said, “You have the guy’s address, right?”

  “Yeah, the one listed on the car registration.”

  “Don’t go there by yourself, Sarah.”

  “I don’t plan to. I’ll call Andrew tomorrow and see if he’ll go with me.”

  “I like that idea better.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about laying this on you, especially when you’re out there. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m staying in the house with all doors locked until morning.”

  “Fine. Just … keep your eyes open for anything weird. And don’t hesitate to call 911 if you need to.”

  When I hung up with Carter, the irony was not lost on me. Just an hour ago, I was giving Gail my pepper spray, afraid she might need it if the thief decided to come back.

  That made me wonder; was there a connection between her burglary and Randy Leeman?

  I double checked the guest list from the night of the event. Randy was not on ther
e. Nobody had the last name Leeman.

  The only thing I could think of, maybe Randy Leeman knew Blake from the AA meetings. Or maybe from the gym.

  Just as I was about to settle down to watch a movie, a loud rapping on the front door nearly sent me to the ceiling. Then I heard a familiar muffled voice calling out.

  “Sarah, it’s just me, Andrew.”

  I let out a sigh of relief and went to unlock the door. “Jeesh, you almost gave me a heart attack. What are you doing with your overnight bag?”

  “Carter called me about ten minutes ago. Said I should come spend the night.”

  “For crying out loud, this isn’t necessary.” I gave him a long hug because secretly I was thrilled.

  He looked around, rubbing his hands together. “You got any wine in this joint?”

  “My dear brother, you have come to the right place.” I handed him a bottle of Pinot Noir, the same one Max had given to me as a gift. “Here, open this.” Then I took his coat and his bag and brought them to the guest bedroom.

  My half-brother Andrew was five years younger than me, and I never knew he existed until a year ago. My mother had given him up for adoption, while somehow able to keep her pregnancy a secret from me and my dad. She had made up a story about having to go away for a six month nurse’s training, which was only partially true.

  Turns out, Andrew had always known about me, and he had waited forty years to finally send me a letter. Since then, we’ve been making up for lost time.

  When I returned to the kitchen, he was pouring the wine into two glasses. “This will be fun. Kinda like a pajama party.”

  “So, what did Carter say to you when he called? That I had a stalker circling the house with a chainsaw, ready to chop down the doors to get at me?”

  “Yes,” he said with a straight face. “That’s exactly what he said.”

  I laughed. “I don’t even know if the guy in the green car was following me. Could be just a coincidence.”

  “Well,” he clinked his glass to mine. “It’s a good excuse for you and I to get to know each other better.”