by Dale Mayer
“You think we’ll look at him for this too?”
“I doubt that he was anything other than drunk for most of the time,” she snapped.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” the detective said. “We’ll need evidence.”
“That would be good,” Cain said softly, but no doubt something very deadly was behind it. “A lot of the world will be watching this case.”
At that, the detective looked at him, clearly startled. “Why is that?” he asked. “What’s this got to do with anybody beyond this town?”
“It has a lot to do with a lot of people,” he said. “You might want to keep that in mind, when you start dealing with it.”
“We don’t take kindly to threats,” he said stiffly.
“No threat intended,” he said. “Just saying you might want to keep it in mind.”
The detective asked a few more questions, but it was obvious he’d lost his will to proceed.
As she stood, Petra said, “I want a copy of the autopsy report.”
“Well, you can’t have it,” he said. “When the autopsy is completed, you can have the death certificate with a cause of death. But the autopsy report is not available to the public.”
“And why is that?” Cain asked.
“Because we don’t want details going out before we’ve charged somebody for this crime.”
“And didn’t you just say you were looking at Chico’s father for that?”
The detective looked at him and said, “The case is open until solved.”
“Be interesting to see what you end up with,” Cain said.
“The truth,” he snapped. “I’m not sure what you think we’re doing here, but it won’t be anything other than what can be justified by evidence.”
“It sounds like maybe the evidence will not prove anything,” she snapped. “My sister was shot, and obviously Chico shot her. But I can see needing to have some evidence to support that theory.”
“Obviously,” he said. “And, like I said, the father’s still there too.”
“Sure enough,” she said. “I’ll leave it in your hands. And I do want my sister’s body released as soon as possible.”
“Oh, it will be,” he said. He looked at Cain. “And how long are you staying in town?”
“Just a day or two,” he said. “Long enough to see this through.” And he shot the detective a hard look. The detective immediately opened his mouth, and Cain shook his head. “Don’t even go there,” he said. “I can reach the next ten people above you in this district alone,” he said. “This will be handled properly.” And, with that, he motioned Petra toward the door. “Come on. No further point in being here.”
“If you say so,” she said. As they walked outside, she asked, “Can you really reach up that high?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I want to.”
“Of course not.”
*
Something was odd about the whole thing. Cain sent Ice a brief text message. Not sure what’s going on, a cover-up in the making maybe. He didn’t get an answer right away, and he didn’t expect one.
“Will it make any difference?” Petra asked.
“No idea. But let’s make sure your sister gets justice. That’s what I would like to see.”
“She was young and flighty, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve justice,” Petra said. “I wish we could figure out what happened to the baby,” she whispered. “That’s the thing that really haunts me now.”
“How old would it be by now?”
She thought about it, shrugged, and said, “You know what? It’s so hard, since I don’t know exactly how far along she was. But, based on my father’s accident and her leaving both being eighteen months ago, I would guess the baby is less than a year for sure, probably not even that.”
“Anybody interested in the family who could have a newborn child like that?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“What about medical facilities, where she could have had an abortion?”
“Well, they certainly exist. I just don’t know which one or where.”
“We could always take a quick look and see what we can come up with,” Cain said.
“Hardly part of your workload,” she said.
He pulled out his phone and sent Ice a text. “It’s okay. It’s a part of the larger picture. We’ll need access to her social security number or whatever the equivalent is over here.”
“Okay,” she said, “I have all that at home.”
He said, “Good. We can probably sort it out fast enough.”
Once they got back, Eton looked up at them. She sighed. “It’s lunchtime. I need something for my stomach acids to work on.”
“That bad?”
“Well, definitely not good,” she said. “Not to mention the fact that the detective seemed very suspicious of Cain being here.”
“We’re used to that,” Eton said. “It goes with the business.”
She walked into the bedroom, pulled out her box of paperwork, and came back with one of her sister’s tax returns. “I have been hanging on to these for a while,” she said. “I used to help her, way back when, before she hated me.”
“What are we looking for?” Eton asked when she handed a document to him.
“Whether she had an abortion.”
“Right,” he said. “That should be fast.”
She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be fast. Some things should be private.”
“Do you want some privacy?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be private, at least harder to get to that info,” she said.
“Is it covered by medical here?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “Yes, it would have been.”
It didn’t take him but about twenty minutes. “She had an abortion almost eighteen months ago.”
Petra sat down heavily. “Well, in a sense, that’s good news, I guess, since I won’t always have to keep looking over my shoulder to see if I missed a family member somewhere. I hate the thought of a child abandoned because of my sister’s murder,” she said.
“Well, the autopsy should also prove the fact that she didn’t have a child,” he said. “So let’s make sure we check on that.”
She nodded. “Good point. They should be able to see something like that.”
“Absolutely.”
With that, she pulled out ingredients for sandwiches. She fixed five huge sandwiches, dishing up two for Cain and two for Eton. She dug into hers, not waiting for the guys. Everybody was quiet, probably realizing Petra needed the fuel. Finally she said to Eton, “Did you find out anything while we were gone?”
“Yep. Tristan’s almost to town now,” he said.
She looked at him in shock. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “I’m pretty sure the trigger on the door we went through, when we found your sister’s body, didn’t just trigger the neighbor cop. It also brought Tristan running, who then killed the cop. Tristan’s coming now to make an appearance, like he wasn’t here before.”
Petra stared at Cain, knowing he was holding something back. “So he’s coming to clean up then?”
“That would be my guess, yes.”
“Gross,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m up to dealing with him.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yes, but only in passing because he’s Patina’s brother. He’s older than Patina and Chico and hasn’t been around here much that I know of.”
“Well, you’ll probably have a chance to form a new impression,” he said with a smile. “Because I guarantee you, he’ll be here very soon.” He checked on the security cameras going through town. “Like in less than five minutes.”
She stared at him in shock. “He’s coming here? To my apartment?”
“Well, he’s in the parking lot right now.” They both crowded around the laptop and watched as he came out of the vehicle and headed toward her front doo
r. Sure enough, two minutes later came a knock on the door.
Cain hopped up and reached the door before her. She glared at him. He shook his head and said, “He’s armed.” He opened the door wide, startling the man on the other side. When the newcomer glared at him, Cain crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What can I do for you?” He spoke in a long slow drawl he’d perfected a long time ago.
The man frowned in confusion. He gazed around Cain, behind him, until Tristan’s gaze landed on Petra. Then he smiled. “Petra!” he said, trying to step forward.
But Cain didn’t budge, leaving the newcomer no place to move.
She walked forward. “Tristan?”
“Yes,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, “or I will be when I recover from the recent losses in my family, which I’ve only just found out about.”
He frowned, as if not understanding.
She snapped, “My sister, dead with a bullet hole in her head, in Chico’s bedroom at your father’s house.”
He just stared at her in shock.
Cain had to give him kudos for his ability to act. But then Tristan had probably had a long time to practice this.
“Will you deny that you didn’t know my sister was dead and stored in a bedroom in your father’s house? Was it Chico who killed her, or was it you?”
“I didn’t kill your sister,” he said immediately. “And why would I leave her in Chico’s bedroom? That’s just—” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that looks like now.”
“It’s disgusting,” she said. “An abomination, so very wrong on many levels.”
“I’m sorry. My father is not in good mental health,” he said, immediately pointing the finger at the old drunk. “As you well know, he’s spent much of the last few years drunk.”
“Well, he’s certainly spent much of the last few months drunk,” she said, “which is about how long my sister has been lying there.”
“Of course,” he said. “That would be very logical. After he killed her, he was overcome with grief.”
“That’s funny it happened around the same time Chico left,” she said. “When were you here last, Tristan? You liked her too, didn’t you?”
“You know how I travel a lot for my business.”
Cain studied the man. Something was just a little too slick, a little too smarmy about him. Swarthy complexion, dark hair. It was as if the rich life had gotten into his system, and now he looked seedy and swollen.
Cain looked down at Petra and then back at Tristan.
“What about the guy who shot at us?” she said.
He put his hand to his chest and stepped backward. “What do you mean? Somebody shot at you?”
“Well, an alarm was set to go off if a certain door in your father’s house was opened, which was triggered to the house next door,” Cain said smoothly, not giving an inch. “Within minutes we had the shooter. Somebody associated with you.”
“I have a lot of connections in town,” he said. “Also I’m no longer associated with a lot of people. Our bad childhood resulted in connections I don’t care to continue.”
“Well, that might work for you,” Cain said in a crisp tone. “It won’t work for me though.”
“And you are?”
Cain smiled and said, “The name’s Cain. But then you already know that. Since you hired Chico and others to take me and my friends out in Perth.”
There was a movement in the back of his eye, ever-so-slight, but enough for Cain to have caught it because he was looking very closely. Cain smiled, finding Tristan’s tell.
Immediately Tristan shook his head. “You have me mistaken for somebody else,” he said. “Absolutely no way I hired anybody to try to kill you.”
He gave such a great imitation of being shocked that Cain knew most people would have serious doubts. But not him. He’d seen guys like this, many of them over the last ten years. He just gave him a hard smile. “Well, as you can see, I’m not so easy to kill,” he said.
Tristan gave him a look of active dislike, then turned to Petra. “Can we talk?”
She hesitated and then motioned to the apartment. “Come on in.”
But Tristan didn’t budge. He said, “Can we talk without him?”
“Why?” she asked, looking puzzled. And Cain had to give it to her. She was doing a very good job of playing the innocent.
“Because I don’t like him,” he said.
“Well, I don’t have any problem with him being around,” she said. “As a matter of fact, after being shot at, I feel much safer.”
“You don’t honestly think I had something to do with that, do you?”
“After finding my sister dead in Chico’s bedroom,” she said, “I’m not exactly sure what to think.”
“It wasn’t me,” he said. “Think about it. How will that even work? Everything was locked from the inside—as I understand.”
“And how would you know that?” Cain asked.
“The cops,” he said instantly. “I figure your sister probably committed suicide.”
He said it in such an apologetic tone and with just the right delivery that Cain almost groaned. But at least Petra didn’t appear to be taken in by it.
“And why would she do that?” she said, shaking her head. “My sister was not suicidal.”
“But you didn’t know her at the end, did you?” he said ever-so-gently. “She was not a happy person. We fought constantly. She wanted to get back together again, but I hadn’t been with her for a long time, and that wasn’t what I wanted for my world anymore,” he said. “She was really fairly unstable.”
“In what way?” she asked.
“Everything. Ever since she aborted her child, she was wrought with guilt and felt terrible. In fact, she even wanted me to get her pregnant again.”
“So, it was your child she aborted in the first place,” Petra said. “That would make sense in her mind potentially. But, no, I don’t believe she killed herself.”
“And why is that?”
“Because she wasn’t suicidal. That isn’t who she was.”
“And like I said, you didn’t know her then.”
She said, “But the idea of suicide still doesn’t sit well.”
“You’re already dealing with the loss,” he said. “Give it a couple weeks and then maybe some of this will make some sense.” He smiled at her. “I know she didn’t want to see you when she came into town the last time.” He was twisting the knife that he had driven in earlier. “She was so depressed and figured you wouldn’t want to see her because she’d had the abortion. I think, in her mind, she was thinking, if she got pregnant again, she could contact you, and the two of you could make up.”
“I highly doubt she even thought that long and hard about how to fix our relationship,” she said. “And, when we parted, it wasn’t that bad.”
“But she also wasn’t very sound mentally, so her state of mind was anything but normal.” He looked at the two men and said, “And since you won’t spend some time with me, so I can share with you her last moments, or at least in the days and weeks beforehand,” he quickly stumbled back from his mistake, “I’ll leave you for another time.” He looked back at Cain. “Since you’re so good at staying alive, good luck with that.” Then he turned and walked away.
Cain heard her gasp, as she looked up at him. “Did he just threaten you?”
“Guys like that always threaten,” Cain said absentmindedly. He closed the door slowly, turned to look back at Eton and said, “Well?”
“Hard to say,” Eton said. “I’ve got some photos, and I’ve got voice recordings. But we don’t really have too much to go on.”
“What are you checking?” Petra asked, feeling like she’d come in the middle of the conversation.
“A couple phone messages were left on the phone of one of the guys who tried to kill us in the museum. I’m checking to see if it was Tristan’s voice on the message.”
“Ah, you’re
looking for that definitive link, that he ordered the killing?”
“That he ordered the attack, anyway,” he said. “It’s always a little hard to know at this point in time.”
“Well, he definitely killed my sister. Now I feel a little bad for blaming Chico for it.”
“Well, the suicide angle is interesting,” He looked at Cain. “Is it possible?”
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t think so. Of course forensics will need to confirm if any GSR is on her hand and on her forehead, but, even then, the angle isn’t something you would be particularly prone to do. Most people stick the gun in their mouth or at their temple, thinking that will do it. In this case, it was a nice rounded bullet hole in the center of her forehead, and I didn’t see a gun.”
“And, of course, the door being locked from the inside supports the suicide theory,” Eton said, with a nod.
“Exactly. If truly a suicide, the gun would be nearby the body. We saw no obvious gun in sight, but we didn’t look around long enough to rule it out either,” Cain said.
“No, but one is needed in order to make that suicide theory stick,” Eton said. “So, provided enough goop and tissue were found in the barrel of the weapon,” he said, “I’m quite sure that the police will have found a weapon. That suicide will be the official statement.”
“That’s not fair,” Petra cried out in outrage.
“Nothing’s fair,” Cain said. “Remember that.”
“Once again, I’m not sure I like your perspective on life.”
Chapter 11
Petra looked at Eton and said, “Now what do we do?”
“Well, now that Tristan’s openly here, we’ll trail him to see who he visits, so we can connect more dots.”
“You don’t want to have an official talk with him?”
“We’d love to,” Cain said cheerfully. “But Tristan won’t talk. Not the truth anyway. He’s got his story down, which is why I’m pretty damn sure a gun will be found at the crime scene. Your sister’s death will be blamed on her, as a suicide, or, if that fails, he’ll pin it on his father.”