I couldn’t tell if the weird look had to do with Joey, or something else entirely. I let it go for fear of the former.
“I’m not alone.” I smiled. “I have you.”
“Always glad to be of service.”
I rolled my eyes, turning back to the sandwiches and considering my next words for half a second.
“The easy road is going to lead the cops to Parker,” I said around a sigh, resuming my tomato slicing. “And the local sheriff out there is a nice guy—pretty sharp one too—but I’m not sure how far he’s willing or even able to dig into something involving Dale Sammons.”
“Just because Grant had an old rivalry with this guy…” Kyle paused as I piled honey-roasted turkey, smoked gouda, and tomatoes on fresh wheat bread from a bakery around the corner, shaking my head. “What are you not telling me?” he asked.
I put the plates on the table and snagged a bag of Doritos from the pantry. “Burke wasn’t an ‘old’ rival. Bob has been getting emails from him for years, bashing Parker.”
Kyle shrugged, lifting his sandwich. “That’s not motive.”
“The one he sent last week threatening to cut Mel up and feed her to his dogs is.”
The sandwich froze halfway to Kyle’s mouth and he flinched, shutting his eyes. “Jesus, Nichelle.”
“Sorry. But now do you see?”
“Who knows about the letters? Besides you and your boss?”
“Landers and Aaron. Bob said he called them because he was afraid to blow it off.”
Kyle put his sandwich down, one hand going to his forehead. “Damn.”
“Yup.” I bit into mine and chewed, letting my brain wander. Sometimes the best way to focus is to not.
“And Parker knew about this email? And where it came from?” Kyle said, his fingers massaging his forehead.
“Bob said he was worried about Mel and Parker was in a position to keep her safe.”
Kyle nodded. “That’s true. And it seems she’s okay.”
“But Burke is not.” I took another bite, the weekend playing in my head as I chewed and swallowed. “Parker clung to her like a Valentino on a supermodel.” I picked up a chip and tapped it on the edge of the plate, something just under the conscious surface of my thoughts. “Except…”
“What?”
Oh, shit.
“Except on Saturday morning.” The words were a hair above a whisper, my stomach doing a full somersault.
“Come again?”
My chip dropped to the floor and Darcy’s paws scritched across the linoleum toward it.
Kyle waved a hand in front of my face. “Nicey. What?”
I shook my head as the words tumbled from my lips.
“He left her sleeping in the cabin and went for a run. Before we told him Burke was dead. Why the hell would he do that, unless he already knew?”
18.
Shadow of a doubt
Kyle’s forehead dissolved into a folded mess of lines, his finger tapping on the back side of his sandwich as he chewed.
“I couldn’t say. But I still don’t buy it. If there’s one thing I know, it’s people,” Kyle said, taking a long swallow of soda. “Grant Parker isn’t any more capable of stuffing a guy into a wine barrel than Darcy is. I know you know that too.”
I nodded, trying to tamp down the traitorous thought. “Like I told Bob the other day, I thought the worst of Parker once and was a hundred and eighty degrees wrong. When someone comes up with a video of him offing Burke, I’ll reconsider.”
“Video can be manipulated.” Kyle winked before his face fell serious. “Here’s the thing—that email you mentioned and your guys at the PD knowing about it is a problem. If the local law enforcement out in BFE hasn’t yet talked to the Richmond cops, they will shortly. And if no one else is on the hook for this by then, Parker will be in a world of trouble.”
I took another bite of the sandwich and chewed slower, mostly so I didn’t have to talk. I knew Joey had ties to the Caccione family, even if I wasn’t sure how tight they were. I also knew Kyle at least suspected as much, and I didn’t really want to know exactly what he knew. He’d produced a surveillance photo of Joey about a year ago, and spent months pleading with me to stay away from him. I’d managed to keep his suspicions at bay by telling him to talk to me when he had proof.
But.
I had to keep Parker out of prison and save the wedding.
Had to.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come at the expense of everything that had become important to me over the past ten or so months. Crossing my fingers under the table, I swallowed and locked eyes with Kyle.
“Tell me about the Cacciones.”
His eyes widened, his turkey and cheese going down the wrong pipe. He coughed and sputtered for a minute as I popped out of my chair to pound between his shoulder blades. Wiping his eyes, he watched me resettle in my seat and cleared his throat. “Warn a guy before you drop a bombshell like that, huh?”
“Sorry.”
He tipped his head to one side. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
No, I was not.
But I straightened my shoulders and nodded. “I can’t let Parker go to prison because I’m afraid to ask a question. I ask questions for a living and I like to think I’m a better friend than that.” I shot Kyle a warning glare. “But I’m not looking for grandstanding or theories about my personal life either. Start with the bookmaking thing.”
He nodded. “What do you say we move to a more comfortable seat? This may take a while.”
My eyes found a window, the indigo twilight outside it fading to inky black.
Maybe I could still manage it all. Carefully. I stood, picked up my glass, and waved Kyle to the living room.
I had just settled on the sofa when my phone binged.
Bob.
Charlie Lewis called Andrews looking for a comment about the paper’s position on Parker’s ties to a murder victim. He’s pissed. Wants to see us both first thing in the morning, his text read.
“Of fucking course he does,” I muttered, shooting Kyle an I’m-sorry smile and tapping the Channel 4 site up in Safari.
I scrolled, cursing myself for sitting on this and wondering where the hell Charlie got her information. And what she was playing at, calling our publisher for a comment.
Nothing on the site. “So she’s digging, but she’s not sure what she’s looking for yet,” I said the words aloud, though I didn’t really mean to, my teeth closing over my bottom lip as my fingers floated up to loop my hair into knots.
“What’s up?” Kyle stretched one arm along the back of the couch from his spot in the far corner.
“Charlie. Somehow she found out about Burke.” I tapped one finger on the edge of my phone. “And she knows I know about the murder, or she wouldn’t have tipped her hand. Fantastic. Charlie being a pain in the ass is about the last thing I need this week.”
“What’d she say?”
“Nothing publicly yet.” I waved the phone, more annoyed with Charlie than I could remember being in a long time. She knew Andrews had it in for Bob. “But she called Andrews and got him all hot and bothered. Bob and I get to start Monday with an ass-chewing from the jackass who calls himself our publisher.”
“Always nice to have something to look forward to.” Kyle smiled. I knew he was trying to lighten my mood, but Andrews was the last nail in this weekend’s coffin. There was nothing for it.
“For months, I’ve worked like a dog to keep Andrews in his cave and get this wedding off the ground, and now they’re both going to fall apart over this one dead guy? I never met Mitch Burke, but I don’t love him right now, I have to tell you.”
Kyle chuckled. “From what I’ve found on this dude, I’d be surprised if many people did.”
“Tell me about it—I hit on several folks this weekend who could well and truly be our killer. But I have nothing concrete.”
“Welcome to my world.” Kyle flashed a sad smile, and my heart squeezed. He’
d been working on the Caccione family for years, even before he’d come to Richmond. With what Kyle suspected about Joey, it had to be like rubbing a whole stack of disgusting in his face, me dating him.
“I like mine better, generally speaking.” I smiled, and got a chuckle from him. “So.”
“So.” He pinched his lips into a thin line, clearing his throat and trying for a smile that came across as more of a wince. “No surprise, the Cacciones run the most extensive bookmaking operation on the Eastern Seaboard. From Bangor to Miami, if you’re betting on something, chances are you’re doing it through them.”
“Wow. And Burke?”
“Was a frequent guest of the Caccione bookmakers, according to our surveillance.” Kyle propped his left foot on the opposite knee and ran one hand through his still-unruly curls.
“In debt?” Any moron knows owing the mafia money could land you in a wine barrel.
Kyle shook his head. “Plenty of money in all his accounts.”
“Huh.” My foot ceased bouncing. The first symptom of a gambling addiction is usually being broke. The house always wins, eventually. “I wonder how.” My fingers returned to worrying my hair, my brain flipping this new puzzle piece every which way, trying to make it fit.
No dice. I added it to my pile and looked up at Kyle.
“How does a gambler avoid the poorhouse?” I reached into a basket on the end table for a pen and notebook, scribbling that down. “Maybe he owed someone else money?”
“No large deposits from mystery sources that I noticed,” Kyle said. “But I can check again.”
“And his credit report was clean?”
“As a preacher’s sheets.”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “I suppose that depends on your preacher.” Kyle’s grandfather was a Baptist minister—who had five children.
“Gross.”
“You started it.”
“Anyway.”
I giggled, poising my pen again. “Who else didn’t like our guy?” I held my breath, thankful I’d made it through the bookmaking discussion without some sort of attack on Joey. Maybe we could get away from the Cacciones for a bit.
“He filed a police report last year about threatening messages he was getting. They were coming from a woman in the Generals’ front office.”
I snickered at the hypocrisy of Burke complaining about threats, considering his history with Parker, then focused on Kyle’s words. “Another woman. How did this guy have time to do anything else?”
“Huh?” Kyle’s brow furrowed.
“I used to think Parker was Richmond’s Casanova. Before he met Mel, that is. But this Burke fellow—I bet his bedpost has been notched right the hell into sawdust.”
“Sex—or something related to it—is often a good motive for murder,” Kyle said.
“Money too.” I scribbled a note about the woman who worked for the Generals. Maybe Parker knew something about her that Kyle’s file might not show.
“Indeed,” Kyle said. “So who are these other women? And how’d you find them?”
I told him about Ella Jane and Celia, and his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline when I got to the part about Celia’s conversation with the chef. “That’s pretty damning, Nichelle. Does the sheriff know about that?”
“I told him. But things out there are weird. I can’t put my finger on why, and my gut says this guy is a good cop, but…everyone knows everyone else, and I can’t figure out where Sammons and his family slash staff fit into the sheriff’s social circles. I don’t know what he’ll do with it. Like, he told me this morning that Celia’s mom—Dale Sammons’s only sibling—committed suicide right before their father died.”
The widening of Kyle’s blue eyes said he wasn’t sure he bought that either. “Convenient.”
“That’s what I thought. I mean, if Sammons is our guy, maybe what happened to his sister could help us figure out what happened to Burke.”
“Maybe. Without the coroner’s report on Burke, it’s hard to say anything, but it’s certainly worth some research.”
Research. “Oh!” I dove for my bag, retrieving the fingerprint copies and handing them over. “While you’re volunteering for stuff, could you run these and see if you get a hit?”
He tucked them into his pocket. “Where’d they come from?”
I told him the laptop story and he shook his head. “Watch yourself.”
“Trying. But I’m fighting the bad guys and the clock. I’d like to drive back out there and see what I might have missed. Maybe find someone to talk to about Miss Sammons while I’m at it.”
“Can I come with?”
My heart skipped, Joey’s face flashing through my head. He wouldn’t love that. But Parker and Mel had to come first this week.
I smiled. “Absolutely. Let me get through my ass-chewing and check my calendar in the morning. I’ll call you.”
Kyle left with a promise to call if he found anything earth shattering, and more assurances that we’d figure it out. I brewed a cup of coffee and opened my laptop, coming down to the wire on this story I really didn’t want to write.
“I’ve made an executive decision, Darcy,” I said as she flopped her head onto my bare foot. “If I ever get married, I’m eloping. Surely it’d be harder for dead people to find me at an unscheduled event.”
I opened my file on Burke, skimming the info I had. Couldn’t say he had mafia ties, even with the photo evidence, unless I wanted to risk a lawsuit. That kind of accusation about someone not alive to defend themselves better come with an autobahn-sized paper trail. Plus, I didn’t know what Charlie had.
So I’d hit the highlights of Burke’s career and the open police investigation. I would not mention Parker unless or until the police did. Period.
The Virginia baseball community is mourning the loss of one of its own this morning: former Virginia Tech pitching star Mitch Burke. Augusta County authorities are investigating the circumstances of Burke’s death and the discovery of his remains, and declined to comment on the record about an open investigation.
There. I reread the lead a half-dozen times. All the facts, plus right up there at the top I said Rutledge didn’t comment. Surely that would earn me a few trust points with the sheriff.
I added more about Burke’s career with the Generals, plus a space for a statement from his family, who I’d have to call in the morning (Joy. Asking people in mourning to talk to me was the suckiest part of my job), and Rutledge’s plea for people with information to call his office.
Nice. Neutral. I attached it to an email to Bob and clicked into my browser, the thing with Sammons’s sister, plus Franklin’s comments about Sammons, swirling in my head. I had less than no experience with cold case investigations. Probably hunting a toothpick in a pine forest.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting to try—for Celia, maybe for Mitch Burke, and certainly for Parker.
First stop: the local paper. Yes, it had closed the year before. Lucky for me, the internet is forever.
Though a few quick clicks proved that the paper’s website (and archives) were indeed gone, a search of the county’s online birth and death certificate database and a trip to the Wayback machine got me a screen full of coverage of Jolene Sammons’s death.
“Thirty-six. Too young,” I muttered as I looked at her long wavy red hair and inviting smile. The cutline said the photo was taken a month before she died. She didn’t look depressed, though I knew that didn’t mean much. Many people are good at hiding problems, especially in the age of social media.
I scrolled through the coverage.
The first story said she was discovered unresponsive in her own bed.
Six days later, a follow-up said the coroner’s report showed respiratory depression as cause of death, and toxic levels of oxycodone hydrochloride in Jolene’s blood.
Four days after that, Rutledge’s predecessor closed the file, stamping Jolene’s death a suicide. The story quoted him as saying OxyContin had been prescribed to her
father, who’d died two nights after her.
“Ten days. They looked at it for ten days, Darce.”
And it didn’t appear from my screen that they looked terribly hard.
Maybe Kyle and I could remedy that. I could tell from the clips there’d been an autopsy, and if they used the Richmond lab now, they probably used it then too. If I could get a hold of the file, maybe we could find something they missed.
Next on my list was chef Alexei. I clicked to the Calais webpage and found his full name, then up to the Google bar to see if the internet had anything past what Facebook could offer.
More than a thousand hits. On a tiny country vineyard chef? I scrolled.
An Instagram feed chock full of food porn, a Facebook page locked down to friends only. Normal.
Fifty-four video links: not so much.
I clicked the first and found a younger, less round Alexei lined up in a cavernous kitchen listening to a tiny man in a not-tiny chef’s hat bark orders in Russian. He stopped, and Alexei and the other chefs ran for individual cooking stations.
A Russian Hell’s Kitchen?
I clicked through more clips, watching the Calais chef prepare a second-place borscht, trays of exquisite sugar lace cookies, and a horrifying stew (by the facial expressions and volume of the little judge chef, who ended up cutting the only woman on the show even though he spit out Alexei’s concoction).
Next clip.
No Alexei.
Huh? I scrolled back up, checking episode numbers with Google translate.
He didn’t get voted off. In episode ten, the woman went home.
In eleven, she was back and Alexei was gone.
Why?
I clicked to news results and found a dozen articles from Moscow papers, all in the entertainment sections.
Staring at the type, my eyes started drifting shut. I copied two leads into the translator and got a word salad I needed to be more awake to un-toss.
Saving the links, I made a few notes and shut the computer just before one, taking Darcy out for her bedtime game of fetch before I crawled back under the covers trying not to think about what morning had in store. Settling into my pile of down pillows, I drifted off half-dreaming of Andrews yammering nonsense about cookies and stews and stealing wine.
Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6) Page 14