Cold Case Manhunt

by Jenna Night

  Al Downing?

  Nearly impossible to believe. Yet Seth’s fear of being in Stone River and his refusal to trust the police now made sense.

  Cassie asked the mayor point-blank, “Did you kill my husband?”

  He set his mouth firmly and refused to answer.

  “He did kill your husband!” Seth leaped to his feet and moved closer to Cassie and the two Downing men.

  “Shut up, Seth,” the mayor’s son said.

  Seth shook his head. “No!” There was a strength in his tone that hadn’t been there before.

  “Mayor Al was just about to be elected to his first term in office when it all happened,” Seth told Cassie. “Kirk was making money dealing drugs back then. Your husband was on the task force trying to combat drug trafficking in town and he saw Kirk making a transaction with Stefan Kasparov, the drug supplier. It was in the parking lot of the big truck stop near the Stuart Street exit.”

  Seth spewed the words rapidly, as though he couldn’t get his explanation out fast enough. “Kirk and Stefan were in the parking lot conducting business, when the trooper, your husband, drove up. He got out of his car, pulled out his phone and looked like he was videotaping everything in front of him.

  “Kirk panicked, because there he was with a known drug supplier. He told his dad what had happened. Old Al’s plans as mayor included making money for himself and his friends. He couldn’t let those plans be ruined because his son was stupid enough to conduct illegal business in such a visible, public place. They decided they needed to kill Jake before he could study the video, recognize Kirk, and possibly cost Al the election. And they got a couple of friends, outdoorsmen who could track and kill the trooper, to help them in return for some of the under-the-table money Al would be making once he got into office.”

  So the two “outdoorsmen” friends must have been the men who’d tracked Cassie and Leon in the forest, and kidnapped Cassie, and set up the ambush. And they were possibly the same two who’d thrown the explosives into the bail bonds office.

  “I heard and saw it all, because I’d been friends with Kirk since we were little kids,” Seth continued, still wheezing a little. “I hung around at the Downing house all the time. It was like I was part of the family and they didn’t bother to hide any of their plans from me.” He shook his head. “I was barely eighteen at the time. And too scared to know what to do or how to get out of the whole mess.”

  “You’re weak,” Kirk said, his tone sharp with disgust. “You were always weak. Becoming friends with you was the worst mistake I ever made.”

  “No! It was the worst mistake I ever made,” Seth shot back. And then he started to cry. “I’m sorry,” Seth said to Cassie. “I should have figured out a way to stop them. I should have gone to the police, but I didn’t. I don’t know what else to say, except I’m sorry.”

  For a moment or two, the forest was quiet except for the sounds of Seth’s sobbing.

  Cassie stared at the two Downing men. At least she finally had an answer. She didn’t have the exact details, like who’d specifically shot Jake, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to know. But at least now her husband’s ultimately senseless death had some kind of narrative around it. She finally had what she’d wanted: an explanation. And she didn’t feel a sense of release or relief now that she had it. All she felt was numb.

  Cassie heard the wail of police sirens followed by the grinding sounds of vehicles climbing up the rough road into Rubyville. She didn’t know how to react. At the moment, everything around her seemed unreal.

  “I’ll go meet the cops and lead them over here,” Daisy said before starting off into the woods.

  Cassie watched her leave, still dazed.

  This hollow sensation was not at all what Cassie had expected to feel when she finally learned the truth about Jake’s murder. In the end, finding out what had happened only led to more questions. The unanswerable ones about why people behaved the way they did. And about how she was supposed to go back to living a normal, everyday life knowing that Jake had died because of the stupid, petty ambitions of immoral, greedy people.

  Daisy quickly returned with three cops who took custody of Al and Kirk Downing from Leon and Martin.

  “Cassie.”

  In the midst of her emotional daze, Cassie heard Leon call her name. The care and concern in his voice felt more real than anything else in that moment. He wrapped his arms around her, held her close, until she finally gave in to the seemingly limitless tears she’d been holding on to for so long.

  THIRTEEN

  Late the next morning, Cassie sat in Sergeant Bergman’s office at the Stone River Police Department feeling like she’d been run over by a truck. Between the physical fight with the first two gunmen before they’d taken her captive yesterday evening, the following chase through the forest, and the extreme emotional upheaval of the last few days, she’d had about all she could take.

  Good thing she had Leon Bragg beside her, making her feel like she could withstand anything.

  When he’d driven her back to the North Star Ranch last night, after giving his statement to local law enforcement officers and then changing the tire on his truck, he could have gone to his own home. The danger to Cassie, after all, had passed. But she’d asked him to remain at the ranch through at least another night and he’d agreed.

  At the ranch, she’d explained everything that had happened in Rubyville to her dad, Sherry and Jay. After eating a turkey sandwich so that Sherry would stop worrying that she was in imminent danger of starving to death, Cassie had gone to bed. She’d expected to toss and turn all night while being tormented by bad dreams and traumatic memories. But that hadn’t been the case. Instead, she’d slept well. Crying in the forest the night before must have been therapeutic.

  Leon hadn’t said a word about her tears soaking his shirt.

  Right now they were waiting for Bergman to return from a meeting with the chief of police. Cassie hoped she would get some answers about Al and Kirk Downing. In particular, she wanted to make sure that Al’s government connections as a soon-to-be-former mayor could not be used to help him or his son escape justice.

  “You know, boss, you were a little slow running in the woods last night,” Leon said to Cassie from the chair beside her, turning to face her, his brow furrowed. “Maybe you need to do some jogging and get back into shape.”

  Cassie raised her eyebrows and grinned in return. “Maybe you should lay off Sherry’s desserts so you can run a little faster.”

  The man knew her well. He could tease her out of a funk whenever he wanted. And after four years of working so closely together, she knew him pretty well, too. They communicated by teasing, arguing, and talking about nearly everything other than their true feelings and relationship with one another. And that needed to change. She’d made that decision on the quiet drive home last night.

  Bergman walked into his office carrying three large cups of coffee. “I know you two are tired and I figured this would help keep you awake.” He set the cups on his desk and then handed one to Cassie and one to Leon.

  “Thanks,” Cassie said. While taking a sip, she noticed Bergman’s wrinkled shirt and the beginnings of dark circles under his eyes. “Have you been working all night?”

  The detective shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Who needs sleep?”

  “Were you or the Montana cops able to get either of the Downing men to officially confess?” Leon asked, shifting his weight in his chair.

  Bergman shook his head. “Neither of them is talking much, but we’re getting a lot of information out of Seth Tatum. Seth and Kirk had been friends since they were in grade school, and Seth spent so much time hanging around the Downing household that he felt like family to them. So they talked freely in front of him. Al and Kirk assumed they had his loyalty. And they did—until they murdered Jake Hollister.”

  Bergm
an took a sip of coffee. “We don’t have all the specific facts confirmed yet. This is a very complex case with a total of three murder charges, plus kidnapping and arson charges. The arrests last night happened over in Beckett County, Montana. But because the case includes the murder of an Idaho state trooper within the jurisdiction of Stone River, Idaho, Sheriff Grace Russell has allowed us to take the lead on the investigation and get first crack at pursuing charges against everyone involved.”

  “Will that include charges against Seth?” Cassie asked.

  Bergman nodded. “Accessory to murder after the fact. He has to answer for his actions. But he’ll probably make a deal with the prosecutor’s office in return for all the information he’s given us.” He took another sip of coffee. “Seth told us where the gun used to kill Jake was tossed in to Lake Bell. At sunrise this morning, we had divers recover the weapon. It’s already been matched with the slugs from the murder scene.”

  “Why were they so intent on killing Cassie?” Leon asked.

  “It was because they were afraid she unknowingly had information that could get them locked up. You know about Jake stopping at the truck stop and recording images with his phone that apparently captured Kirk Downing in the middle of a drug deal. We uploaded all of Jake’s digital files after his murder as a standard part of the investigation, but no one saw anything suspicious at the time. Knowing what we now know, we’ll look again. But it’s possible he was simply taking random video for some reason and never even focused on the images of Kirk Downing or Stefan Kasparov. He could have just picked the wrong time and place to shoot some video.”

  Cassie smiled softly to herself. “The forest comes right up to that parking lot. He might have seen a deer, or a hawk, or some other animal he wanted to take a picture of. He did that a lot.”

  Bergman nodded. “Unfortunately, Kirk knew Jake was a cop. He’d seen him just the day before when he’d joined his dad at city hall for a little meet-and-greet campaigning. Al was looking like a shoo-in for mayor. But he was running as a very law-and-order guy, so when Kirk admitted that he hadn’t cleaned up his act as he’d promised his dad he would, and told him that he thought Jake might have pictures of him meeting with a drug supplier, Al was furious and panicked.”

  “But there was never any investigation into any of that,” Cassie said.

  “Yeah, they waited anxiously to see if anything would happen. When nothing happened right away, Al figured that Jake hadn’t recognized his son, but that he might eventually put things together once Al was elected mayor and pictures of his family were in the news. Al had plans to not only be mayor, but to use his insider information on property development plans and contracts out for bid. He’d make his friends Lee Ryder and Jim Ellison rich, as well as make himself wealthy by having them funnel some of that money back to him.”

  The detective paused to briefly look down at his coffee cup. “Eventually, their plan worked. But first, they had to get Jake out of the way. Lee Ryder had a job in the city hall building at the time, so he paid attention and, when he heard Jake in the building one day telling someone he was going to spend the upcoming Saturday morning fishing, Ryder told Al about it. Together they all decided that this would be their chance to silence Jake. And they did. The whole group was there when it happened. And because Seth had followed Kirk around like a shadow for so long, no one really worried about him, and he ended up in the middle of it.

  “Seth left town shortly afterward,” he continued. “For five years, it looked like Al and his son and their buddies were home free. But when Seth came to town for a friend’s wedding, got arrested for driving under the influence and ran his mouth off to his cellmate, your informant, Phil Warner, the cold case warmed up again. Connie Ellison, the wife of the Downings’ accomplice Jim Ellison, worked in the administrative office at the city jail. She overheard Cassie trying to determine the identity of someone who’d been in lockup and claiming to know something about the murder of a local Idaho state trooper. Connie alerted her husband because she had suspicions that he might have been mixed up in it. That’s how the mayor and everyone else involved became aware that the cold case murder was heating up.”

  He turned to Cassie. “Al worried that the incriminating images of his son could have been stored in the cloud and that you might have access to that account and would eventually see them and put the story together. After the initial attack on the bridge failed, and you renewed your search for Jake’s killer, he knew he needed to put on a show of helping you while trying to get you killed.”

  “So, Lee Ryder and Jim Ellison were the original shooters in the woods?” Leon asked.

  Bergman nodded. “According to Connie, Al reminded them that if he went down for Jake’s murder, they would, too. And since they were both avid outdoorsmen, they seemed to be the best assassins when it came time to kill you. After the original attack on the bridge didn’t work, they tried to kidnap you. They were also the people who threw the explosives into the office and who ambushed you on the mountain pass.”

  “How exactly were they able to target us on the mountain pass?” Cassie asked.

  “When Ryder and Ellison went to Saddleback looking for Seth to permanently shut him up after his drunken confession in the jail cell, they met his coworker Buzz and offered him big money for any information he could get them about Seth. That included a bonus to be paid later if they actually found him.”

  “So Buzz sold him out?” Cassie asked.

  Bergman nodded. “Buzz says he had no idea there would be murder involved and that he thought the people looking for Tatum were all bill collectors. That’s why he’s stepped forward to help us now with the investigation.”

  The sergeant rubbed a hand over his jaw before continuing. “After Leon questioned him at the furniture store, Buzz called Ellison to tell him about it.” Bergman settled his gaze on Cassie. “Ellison offered Buzz a lot of money if he’d tell his boss he was sick and quickly leave work to follow Leon. He had Buzz send him pictures, and Ellison could see that you were with Leon and that the both of you were traveling with Martin and Daisy in a second truck.”

  The detective leaned back in his chair. “Ellison left Idaho, headed for Montana to take advantage of the opportunity to kill you. We believe Ellison dropped off his partner, Lee Ryder, on the pass on his way to Montana before meeting with Buzz outside the restaurant where you ate dinner. He knew you’d drive through the pass at some point to get back home. Ryder climbed the ridge and got into firing position. Later, Ellison followed you back to Stone River. When you neared the spot where Ryder was situated atop the ridge, Ellison dropped back to keep himself out of danger and directed Ryder to open fire on Leon’s truck. The intention was to shoot you or cause a fatal wreck.”

  “How did they find us in the ghost town?” Leon asked.

  “Buzz was involved with that, as well. He says that after thinking about it, he remembered that while Seth wasn’t a particularly outdoorsy guy, he liked history and enjoyed looking around and searching for old glass in Rubyville. So he wouldn’t be surprised if Seth was hiding out either in the ghost town itself or at the campground near there. He called Ellison to tell him his thoughts. We believe that immediately after that, Ellison called Al to let him know that he and Ryder were headed to the area to search for Seth.

  “We also believe Al and Kirk Downing then went to Rubyville with the intention of killing Seth and their accomplices, Ryder and Ellison. They probably figured they’d have an opportunity to kill you sometime in the future and then they’d be home free. It’s possible the Downings didn’t even know you were in Rubyville until Ryder and Ellison saw you there and let them know just before the mayor and his son arrived.”

  “So the gunshots we heard from behind the boardinghouse were Al and Kirk shooting it out with Ryder and Ellison?” Cassie asked.

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Bergman!”

  Cas
sie glanced over her shoulder to see another detective standing several feet outside the office, gesturing at the door of a conference room.

  Bergman downed the last of his coffee and stood. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ll be in touch with you.” He reached out to lightly squeeze Cassie’s shoulder as he walked by.

  After years of feeling like the edges of her life were frayed and coming undone, Cassie was looking forward to getting everything cleanly tied up. But she wasn’t quite there yet.

  * * *

  Cassie tipped her head back to let the sun shine on her face as she sat in a bistro chair at a table she shared with Leon. They were seated on the sidewalk outside the café at the Bellport Inn near the park on the edge of Lake Bell. It felt good to be out in the open and not have to worry that someone would take a shot at her.

  She and Leon had walked from the police station directly to the café since they’d both had only coffee for breakfast and were now famished.

  “It’s over,” Cassie said, taking another couple of seconds to enjoy the sun on her face before tilting her head down and opening her eyes to look at Leon.

  So much that had fueled the flames of stress in her life was now finally over. Her worry that her family or friends might be caught in the crossfire as someone tried to kill her was gone. So was the burdensome, heightened worry for her own safety. The worry that her business would fall apart because she was too busy trying to identify and capture the bad guys had vanished. And the worry that she was stuck, frozen in time, obsessed with solving the murder of her husband, was finally set free.

  She’d been holding on to the idea of finding justice for Jake pretty tightly. Now, finally, she could turn that responsibility over to the justice system and truly let it go.