“Let's check his work history,” she said and began typing on the keyboard. “Here we are...let's see...work history...worked for...” Sarah's eyes went wide. “Worked for Ceiling Properties for four years...age twenty to twenty-four.” The connection they had been looking for.
Shocked by her findings, Sarah quickly printed off the information, logged out, and hurried back to Conrad's office. “Pete, please answer,” she prayed and snatched up the phone and called her old friend. Pete picked up on the second ring. “Pete, this is Sarah—”
“I knew it was you,” Pete groused. “I felt it in my bones.”
Sarah grinned. “You old bear,” she teased, “you can sense whenever I'm about to cause trouble?”
“I sure can,” Pete replied with a cigar stub in his mouth. “I'm standing in my office looking at a bunch of boxes full of my life’s work and wondering if I should have really put in my walking papers.”
“I think the time arrived, Pete,” Sarah answered in an honest voice.
“Me too, kiddo, me too,” Pete admitted in a sad voice. “The department has grown too cozy with city hall, it feels corrupt. Same with the politicians. Sure, there's still a few good guys left...but the rotten ones are destroying the honor I swore to uphold for all these years.”
“I know, Pete,” Sarah said. “Times are changing...people are changing...for the worse. And speaking of people, I need your help—”
“Sarah, our new detective agency isn't even open yet,” Pete grumbled. “Give me a break for a few days, okay, before you slap me across the face with demands.”
Sarah understood Pete's frustrations and felt guilty. “Okay, Pete, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It was good to hear your voice, though. I can figure this thing out, I'll just—”
“No, no,” Pete cut Sarah off as guilt stabbed him in the chest, “just…what is it, huh? I can walk and chew my cigar at the same time.”
Sarah quickly sat down and began telling Pete all about the case she was on. She explained about Mitchel Cochran and the O'Healey sisters and her new findings. “Jenson O'Healey worked for Ceiling Properties, the same corrupt property company Mitchel Cochran's daughters owned.”
Pete took the cigar out of his mouth, walked behind his old desk, and sat down heavily. “You want me to look deeper into Jenson O'Healey's past, right? Find a few skeletons in his closet?”
“Please.”
Pete tossed the cigar down and grabbed up a box of cold Chinese noodles. “Brad McDougal owes me a favor.”
“Brad McDougal...from the FBI?”
“Yep,” Pete replied, “about the only Fed I can trust. We went through police academy together.”
“Okay, Pete,” Sarah said and leaned back in Conrad's chair, “let's start digging even deeper and find out what's going on.”
“You just focus on the O'Healey sisters and take a shovel to their past and let me worry about my end,” Pete ordered Sarah. “If my gut feeling is right, those three women are innocent, like you say. We could be looking at a frame-up scheme here, kiddo.”
“That's my fear,” Sarah confessed and looked out the office window. Far away in Los Angeles it was warm and sunny, but in Snow Falls it was stormy and growing darker by the second.
5
Sarah was reading a report she had pulled on Jenson O'Healey's dad when Amanda returned from the diner with four bags bulging with to-go plates. “Uh...June Bug, I ordered a dinner plate…not a Thanksgiving meal.”
Amanda grinned, set down the bags, stomped snow off her boots, and then removed her hat and gloves. “The diner was preparing to close,” she explained. “Melissa gave me all the leftover food and only charged me for two to-go plates and two slices of pie.” Amanda tossed her hat and gloves down on the desk. “I like Melissa. She's a sweet girl with a very kind heart.”
“Melissa is a sweetheart,” Sarah agreed, smelling savory meatloaf and freshly grilled cheeseburgers. “How much food was leftover?”
“I ordered us two meatloaf dinner plates,” Amanda explained. “There are ten more to-go plates in those bags...mostly cheeseburger dinners, but beggars can't be choosers.”
“No, we can't,” Sarah agreed and then tapped the report she was reading. “June Bug, while you were gone, I discovered some very interesting facts.”
Amanda began taking off her coat. “Let me defrost, get some food into my tummy, have a hot coffee, and then we'll talk,” she promised Sarah. “I also need to call my hubby.”
“I understand,” Sarah promised and sniffed the air. “The food does smell good.”
“My arms were too full to carry drinks. Melissa offered to help me but the poor dear was trying to close the diner as quickly as possible and make it home while she still could,” Amanda told Sarah. “We're stuck with coffee and whatever other drinks we can find around this place.”
“Coffee will work for me,” Sarah said and set down the report she was holding. “Let's go wash up and then we'll eat.”
“Deal.”
Sarah and Amanda washed their hands in the little kitchenette in the hall and returned to Conrad's office with hungry tummies rumbling at the good smells. Amanda plopped down in her usual chair and grabbed a bag as Sarah positioned herself behind Conrad's desk. “You know,” Sarah told Amanda, “I know we're in the middle of a murder case, but in a way, this is kinda like having a girls-only night. We have food, it's snowing so no one is at the station except us, the town is shutting down, people are hurrying home...kinda fun.”
Amanda pulled the two meatloaf orders out of the bag in her hand. “I was just thinking about that while I was walking back from the diner,” she told Sarah in a warm voice. “Sure, we're stuck watching the station and trying to track down a killer, but besides that, it's kinda cozy. I've always liked being snowed in, just as long as I'm safe and warm and with people I love and trust.”
Sarah took a meatloaf container from Amanda and opened it to see the fresh slices of meatloaf and mounds of mashed potatoes covered in gravy and steaming hot buttered green beans and fried okra on the side. “Looks delicious,” she said as her mouth began to water. “I'm very particular about meatloaf and only a few places can cook meatloaf the way I like. I would have never believed a small diner in Alaska would cook the world's best meatloaf.”
“I know,” Amanda giggled. “When I first moved to Snow Falls and visited the diner, I expected greasy food and lousy coffee. I was shocked to find that the bloke in the kitchen was such a gifted chef. The first time I tasted the meatloaf I nearly fainted. And look at this,” Amanda gestured to the crispy fried okra. “Cooked to perfection...they never fail to turn out a perfect meal.”
“We're definitely blessed to have our diner,” Sarah agreed. “Forks?”
Amanda reached into the bag in her lap and pulled out a plastic fork in a bag with little packets of salt and pepper. “Here you go, love.”
Sarah took the fork, bowed her head, said a prayer of thanks, and savored her first bite of meatloaf. “Sometimes I miss my favorite diner in Los Angeles,” she confessed. “Nostalgia makes me very sad. But then I think about the diner here in Snow Falls and realize that I would miss it if I tried to go back to Los Angeles. It's strange how feelings, old and new, are always at war with each other, tugging at the heart.”
Amanda set down the bag she held on the floor, opened her meatloaf dinner, said a prayer of thanks, and grabbed her own fork. “Sometimes, love, I miss London so much my heart aches with pain. I miss the rain...the fog...the drives my hubby and I used to take in the country.” Amanda’s face turned wistful as she forked up a piece of meatloaf. “There is a cottage,” she continued, “small, cozy and very adorable, that sits out by the Irish Sea. The cottage was owned by an old man and old woman who never left the seaside.” Amanda bit into a piece of fried okra and made a delicious sound with her mouth. “One day my hubby and I were driving by and decided to visit the old man and old woman. We were on a short holiday and knew the couple from seeing them in the village from tim
e to time...we weren’t very well acquainted, just enough to pay a visit and say hello.”
“Sounds lovely.”
Amanda sighed. “That day we found the old couple dead,” she explained. “They were both lying in bed, holding hands under a homemade quilt...my hubby thought they were asleep but I knew...my heart knew,” Amanda told Sarah. “They had died as one heartbeat.”
Sarah felt her heart break. “That's very sad.”
Amanda shook her head. “They were very old, love, well into their nineties,” she said and then continued. “The cottage, much to our shock, was left in my care. Their will was made out all proper.”
“June Bug, you never told me this before.”
Amanda smiled. “I would have gotten around to it,” she promised.
“Do you still have the cottage?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Amanda explained as her eyes filled with happiness. “I gave the cottage to a young couple I met walking on the beach. The couple was newly married and just beginning their lives together in the village. I knew that if I kept the cottage it would just fall into ruins—it was too far away for me to visit regularly. So, as a gift of love, I gave the young couple that cottage and made them promise to love each other forever.”
Sarah felt a tear fall from her eye. “That's very...touching, June Bug.”
“When I was walking back from the diner just now, I thought of that cottage,” Amanda told Sarah and smiled at her friend’s tear. “It's not the cottage that was special. It was the old man and woman and the love they shared that made the cottage special.” Amanda gestured around the office. “This station, by itself, is a drab place. But because it's filled with people I love and care about, well, in a way it's my own little cottage. Just as cozy as if we were in that darling little place by the Irish Sea. I just had to realize that and stop being so pouty thinking our week was ruined.”
“You're a very special woman,” Sarah told Amanda and raised her fork up into the air. “To family.”
“To family,” Amanda beamed and dug into her meatloaf. “To family who don’t mind how I eat, of course,” she giggled.
Sarah laughed. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”
Sarah and Amanda both ate their dinners, mostly sitting in silence, listening to the storm outside. When Amanda finished off her meatloaf, she put her take-out container away and let out a polite burp. “My, that was good,” she smiled and studied the bags sitting on the floor. “I think I'm going to have to wait for my slice of pie.”
“Me, too,” Sarah moaned and pushed her container away from her. “I'm stuffed.”
Amanda rubbed her tummy. “Better to be stuffed than hungry,” she said, pretending to speak in a wise voice.
“Better to be stuffed than hungry,” Sarah repeated and then froze. “Oh my,” she gasped.
“What?” Amanda asked in an alarmed voice. She darted her eyes around the office. “Did you see someone? Is the killer here? What? What?”
“Mittens' food dish was only half-full when I left the cabin this morning,” Sarah explained. “I don't know if she'll have enough food to make it through the night.”
“Is that all?” Amanda griped indignantly. “You almost caused me to have a fit because you forgot to fill a feeding dish? Good grief, love, you're going to give me gray hair.”
“Mittens has a huge appetite, June Bug,” Sarah pointed out, a wrinkle forming in the middle of her forehead the more she thought about it. “She'll go through the dog food I left her in no time. I didn't expect to be gone all day. I hope she doesn’t go digging in the garbage…”
“Love,” Amanda told Sarah in a stern but caring voice, “Mittens will live until you can feed her.”
“I...guess,” Sarah said in a worried voice. “She's such a sweet dog and she's used to her feeding times.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Who owns who?” she asked and then winked at Sarah. “Relax, love, Mittens isn't going to starve to death. We'll drive out to your cabin tomorrow and feed her, okay?”
Sarah thought about the storm howling around them and then nodded. “I'm sure Mr. Rogers will have our road plowed by then.”
“Why is it the man who buys the empty cabin on your road plows for free and the people on my street won't even help me dig out my truck?” Amanda asked with a little pout to her bottom lip.
Sarah began to answer when the phone rang. “Just a second, June Bug,” she said and answered the phone. “Hello, this is—”
“It's Pete, kiddo,” Pete said, standing on a warm beach so that the waves echoed through his cell phone all the way to Alaska. “Can you talk?”
“Of course.”
Pete looked out at the beautiful Pacific bringing in high tide and then gazed up and down an empty and breathtaking beach that only a few lone surfers ever visited. “I'm at our beach.”
“You are?” Sarah asked and let out a miserable moan. “Are our rocks still there?”
“Yep,” Pete confirmed, feeling a warm breeze touch his face. He glanced up and saw a scrum of seagulls and pelicans gliding in the wind. “Birds are out playing, too.”
“Did you bring the seagulls bread?”
“No time to feed the birds today, kiddo. I've got some important news for you,” Pete said, growing serious. “I didn't drive way out here to feed some spoiled seabirds.”
Sarah leaned forward in Conrad's chair. “What did you find out, Pete?”
“I found out that VQY Pharmaceuticals is under investigation for selling generic pills at suspiciously high prices,” Pete explained. “VQY Pharmaceuticals has two locations. One location is in Anchorage and the second location is right here in Los Angeles. And guess what?”
“What?”
“The owner of the company is into real estate and worked with Ceiling Properties,” Pete told Sarah. Her silence on the line was testament to the shock she felt at the news. Pete grabbed a cigar stub out of his front pocket and shoved it into his mouth. “In fact, VQY bought some very cheap properties, had them appraised at high prices hardly days later, and sold them off immediately.”
“Pete, we're really onto something here,” Sarah said in an excited voice. “The pharmaceutical world is major business. Do you think we—”
“Don't get your hopes up, kiddo,” Pete cut Sarah off. “VQY is small change compared to the big fish that are out there. VQY makes generic heartburn drugs, beta blockers, antidepressants…nothing major that can contend with the big fish that you see all over the place making billions. VQY only rakes in, at best, a few million a year after costs and production.”
Sarah leaned back. “Pete, who owns VQY?”
“Charlie Moorington,” Pete told Sarah, strolling down the firm sand and allowing the warm breeze to soothe his mind. “Moorington is a young pup who hasn't reached forty yet. He's a real night-life socialite kinda guy, always in the paparazzi shots with fancy cars and expensive suits.”
“I take it he doesn't live in Anchorage.”
“No way,” Pete said. “Charlie Moorington runs the Los Angeles office. But guess who is in charge of the Anchorage office?”
Sarah sighed heavily and leaned her head into one hand. “Jenson O'Healey?”
“Bingo, kiddo,” Pete told Sarah and gnawed on his cigar again, wishing he could light it but knowing the wind was too strong for a match to stay lit. “That's all I have for now. McDougal is doing some more digging for me. I drove out to our beach because there are too many ears back at the office.” Pete looked out at the ocean. “What did you find out on your end?”
“I found out that Jenson O'Healey's dad is a recovering drug addict. The family that seemed so clean and blessed is slowly starting to show signs of trouble.”
Pete nodded. “A story on a computer screen can make anyone look clean, kiddo. But when you start to dig under the surface, you find some ugly dirt. It's that way for everybody. No one is clean except the good Lord. The rest of us are all just...messy. Some of us wise up, though, and get clean while the rest just sta
y dirty.”
Sarah looked at Amanda. Amanda, in her eyes, had a clean heart, one that was a blessing to witness. But she had a feeling Pete was in no mood for happy stories just at the moment. “Pete, Jenson O'Healey's dad was fired from his job three years ago for drug use. This didn't show on the first database I used to look at him. I had to use…uh…a separate database—”
“You mean you hacked into a secure database the Feds don't like people seeing?”
“You’re the one who taught me how to hack into places,” Sarah said in a proud voice.
“I should be shot.”
Sarah grinned. “We both should have been shot for trying to be good cops.”
“Tell me something I don't know,” Pete told Sarah. “But before we shoot ourselves maybe you better tell me what you found out.”
“I'm sure McDougal is going to discover this, but you can get a jump on him,” Sarah told Pete.
Pete chewed on his cigar. “I'm ready, kiddo. Hit me.”
“I found out that Jenson O'Healey's dad is working at VQY,” Sarah told Pete.
“Now that is interesting,” Pete said and whistled.
“It sure is,” Sarah agreed. She glanced at the office window. “Pete, right now we're pinned down by another snowstorm. There's not much I can do until tomorrow. I have the O'Healey sisters under house arrest—”
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