Deadly Target (Detective Sarah Spillman Mystery Series Book 6)

by Renee Pawlish

  “No. Hackman found video surveillance from a house near Vibrant Strength and Fitness. A dark SUV with the same license plate as the one near where Sarah was shot. The SUV was parked near the gym for about ten minutes. The windows were tinted, and I can’t see what the driver did. But the car was there.”

  “Somebody knew what they were doing, to make sure he – or she, I suppose – wasn’t seen.”

  “It sure looks that way.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Near the station.”

  “Let’s meet at the Rooster & Moon. I could use a cup of coffee.”

  “Me, too. I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Ernie called Spats and asked him to meet them at the coffee shop, then called Tara.

  “I was about to call you,” she said. “I stopped by the hospital this morning. Sarah’s looking pretty good.”

  “That’s great to hear. She’s a tough cookie. Hey, do you have time to help me with something?”

  “If I can.”

  “You’ve been looking at Joe Smith, correct?”

  “Yes. I gave Spats some information on Smith’s credit card. There’s only the one Visa.”

  “Good. I’ve got a driver’s license number for him. Can you look it up and email me a picture of it?”

  “Sure,” Tara said. “Then you can access it from your phone.”

  “Yeah, that would mean I can do that.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I never know who needs help, especially … oh, never mind.”

  “Just kidding,” Ernie said, which was mostly true. “I don’t know a ton about technology, but I can check email from my phone.”

  Tara laughed. “Okay, great. If you need anything else, let me know.”

  “One more thing. Start running that photo through facial recognition software. Start with New York, then spread out from there. Let’s see if we can get any hits on Joe Smith.”

  “You got it.”

  Ernie ended the call and texted Joe Smith’s driver’s license information to Tara. With a glance at the Enterprise Car Rental, he fired up his car and drove out of the parking lot.

  Oakley blew on his coffee, then took a big gulp. “What did you find out?” he asked Ernie.

  Oakley, Spats, and Ernie were standing in the parking lot of the Rooster & Moon, a hipster coffee house near the station. Ernie had met Sarah there several times over the years. They’d all gotten coffee to go, and were now chatting outside. Inside was a little too cozy and a little too hipster for them.

  “Hold on.” Spats held up a hand. “Get this. The credit card used to rent the SUV was issued about a week ago, and it doesn’t have any charges except for that credit for the car rental, and a charge for a Best Western Plus Hotel.”

  “Really?” Ernie said. “Where’s that?”

  “It’s near the airport.” Spats finished his coffee. “A newer place. I got Lattimore to head out there to start looking at their surveillance video at the time Joe Smith checked in.”

  Ernie looked at them. “We should head over there, see what they know about Joe Smith.”

  “It’s a long shot, but somebody might remember this guy,” Spats said. “And more on the credit card. It’s issued to Real-Time Corporation.”

  “Never heard of them,” Ernie said.

  Spats shrugged. “Me, neither. Not that it does us any good. Tara looked up that company, and it appears to be a front for another company, Diamond Dust. That’s a corporation in the Caymans. Tara said there are layers to the companies, and she can’t yet find who owns them, just one corporation leading to another.”

  “Maybe a mob kind of thing?” Oakley asked.

  “It looks that way.”

  “The manager of the Enterprise office doesn’t remember Joe Smith,” Ernie said. “But I did get a driver’s license number, and Tara emailed me a picture of it.” He set his coffee on the hood of his car and pulled out his phone. “Check it out.”

  Spats snorted as he took it. “Yeah, Joe Smith. That’s his real name.”

  Oakley smiled. “Just once, wouldn’t you like to see somebody come up with a really interesting, creative name? I mean, hell, it could still be fake.”

  Ernie nodded. “Yeah, but it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult to trace. Lots of Joe Smiths around. It’s the most common name in the whole country. Why he didn’t go all the way and choose ‘James’ or ‘John’ as his first name, I don’t know. They’re the most common first names. Anyway, here’s what he looks like.” He showed them the email from Tara, which he had, indeed, opened successfully on his cell phone.

  “Joe Smith, from the Bronx, New York,” Spats said as he peered over Oakley’s shoulder. “Nice shock of blond hair.”

  “Blue eyes and high cheekbones,” Oakley observed. “And a mustache.”

  They all continued to study the driver’s license photo.

  “I’ll bet the hair is fake,” Spats said.

  “He could be wearing contacts, too.” Ernie gnawed his lip. “When Smith rented the car, he was wearing a baseball cap, and he knew to position himself so the surveillance camera wouldn’t get a good angle on him, so it was hard to tell if he looked anything like this photo.”

  Spats ran a hand over his face. “Who are we dealing with? And how does this tie back to Nick Armistead?”

  “Speaking of Nick.” Oakley leaned over and rested an elbow on the top of Ernie’s car. “I’ve got some more on him. I had another conversation with his mom, and this one was a little more interesting.”

  Spats arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Oakley nodded. “She said that Rachel would frequently say things were going great between her and Nick, that if you talked to Rachel, you would get the impression that she and Nick had a great marriage.”

  “Yeah,” Ernie said. “I got the same thing from Rachel. And the neighbor, Julie, said Rachel thought the marriage was fine.”

  Oakley waved a hand to shush him. “Yes, but Nick’s mom, Tina, had a little bit different take on it. She said that at first, Nick and Rachel did seem to have an almost ideal marriage. They’d dated for a while, things were great, and they got married. And early on, the marriage was good. From what I could gather, Bill, Nick’s dad, and Tina, really like Rachel. But Tina said that recently Nick had been dropping hints that maybe there were some cracks in their relationship.”

  “Hints?” Spats asked.

  Oakley nodded. “Yeah. Nick would comment that he and Rachel had an argument, or that he was frustrated with her. He didn’t elaborate on what, but Tina said any comments like that weren’t typical of him, at least early on. And he was traveling a bit more lately, and that was unusual, too. According to Tina, at the beginning of their marriage, Nick would say he didn’t want to travel much because he didn’t want to be away from Rachel. So the increase in travel seemed a little odd.”

  Ernie gulped coffee as he mulled that over. “What else did Tina say?”

  “She also thought there might’ve been something else going on with Nick. She couldn’t pinpoint it, but she said he’d been acting kind of strange lately. I pushed her on this, and she said that Nick didn’t want to say anything at first, but then he said he was worried about something.” He held up a hand. “I know, you’re going to ask what, and she didn’t know.” He sighed in frustration. “Tina was concerned enough that she told her husband, and he said he didn’t know about anything wrong. So I called Bill separately, and Bill hemmed and hawed for a bit, then admitted that he wondered if there was something going on with Nick’s work.” Oakley looked at both of them. “I’m thinking we need to circle back around to some of Nick’s co-workers, and his boss, to see if someone might know more than they’ve been telling us. And I hadn’t been able to get hold of Tyler Deffenbaugh, Nick’s best friend. However, he finally returned my call a little bit ago. I want to talk to him, too.”

  Spats held up a hand. “I don’t have anything pressing at the moment. How about I tackle him?”


  “Sure, here’s his office number,” Oakley got out his phone. “And I’ll text you the address.”

  “I’ll call his office and arrange a meeting,” Spats said.

  Ernie pointed at Oakley. “And you and I go to the hotel? We can look around the room, interview the employees to see if they saw or remember Joe Smith.”

  Oakley tossed his empty cup into a nearby trash can. “That’ll work.” He looked at Spats. “Julie Novack’s husband didn’t know about her affair, but who knows, maybe Deffenbaugh or somebody else did?”

  “And what about Nick being in some kind of business trouble?” Spats asked.

  “That does get interesting,” Oakley said. “A couple of his co-workers said Nick seemed a little more tense lately, but they couldn’t give any specifics on it.”

  “What about Nick’s boss?” Ernie asked. “Was Nick in some kind of trouble with his job?”

  “His boss is …” Oakley stopped to pull out his notes. “Daryl Freedman. A nice guy, easy to talk to. Freedman didn’t think there was anything going on with Nick. But by that time, I’d heard of a couple of other co-workers who said Nick seemed a little stressed lately, so I asked Freedman about that. He was kind of noncommittal.”

  Spats thought about that. “You think the boss was hiding something?”

  Oakley shrugged. “Not necessarily. I think the question took him off-guard. It wouldn’t surprise me if Freedman is now hunting around to see if he’d missed something about Nick. I want to circle back with Freedman on that.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Ernie looked at Spats. “We’ll catch up with you later, see what we can put together.”

  Spats gave a mock salute and headed for his car. “We’ll talk to you soon.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Best Western Plus Hotel is a sprawling two-tone three-story brick building recently built for the burgeoning Denver International Airport area. Ernie and Oakley walked in a little before eleven, and it was busy, as people with their luggage headed in and out the front entrance. Conversations hummed in a large lobby, and planes sounded loud above them. This close to the airport, airplanes were an almost constant sound. Ernie and Oakley crossed a tiled lobby and had to wait in line while a front desk clerk helped another couple. Then they walked up to the counter. Both flashed their badges at the clerk.

  “How may I help you gentlemen today?” He was not taken by surprise.

  “We’d like to speak to the manager,” Oakley said.

  The man nodded. “I think there’s another detective here now.”

  Ernie and Oakley didn’t respond to that, just waited. The clerk turned away from the counter, went to a door behind a red wall, and tapped on it. He talked to someone and returned to the counter.

  “Mr. Edinburgh will be with you in a minute.”

  Ernie and Oakley moved to the side and watched as a tall man in a dark suit emerged from the door and approached. He introduced himself, but clasped his hands behind his back. “How may I help you gentlemen?”

  Ernie tipped his head toward the door. “Detective Lattimore is here, looking at surveillance video, correct?”

  Edinburgh nodded. “Yes, he’s in my office now, going through the video. Would you like to talk to him?”

  Oakley nodded. “Please.”

  Edinburgh gestured for them to follow him, and they walked around the end of the counter. The clerk, who was now helping a businessman to check in, glanced at them. Edinburgh took Ernie and Oakley into a large office with green striped wallpaper, dark stuffed chairs, and a large desk facing the door. Lattimore sat at a long table in the corner, a laptop and a couple of monitors in front of him. He looked up when they entered.

  “I’ve been going through the video,” he said. He smiled at Edinburgh. “The manager has been very helpful.”

  Edinburgh nodded politely. “Anything we can do to help.” He unobtrusively shut the door and sat down at his desk, and the room was quiet.

  Ernie turned to Edinburgh. “Did the maid say anything about the room when she cleaned it?”

  Edinburgh shook his head. “I wouldn’t have had need to talk to her.”

  “Would whoever cleaned the room be here now?”

  Edinburgh put a finger to his lips pensively. “I’d have to check the schedule.”

  “Could you do that, please?” Ernie asked. “We’d like to talk to that person.”

  “Certainly.”

  Edinburgh busied himself at his desk, while Ernie and Oakley moved to the table.

  “Smith checked in around noon.” Lattimore glanced over his shoulder.

  Ernie nodded. “He’s got blond hair and blue eyes. He might be wearing a baseball cap.”

  Oakley nodded toward the monitors. “What have you found?”

  “So the credit card was run at 12:10 PM. If you see here,” Lattimore tapped the monitor, “here’s a guy checking in about that time. Actually, there are two. Look.”

  Oakley and Ernie peered over his shoulder and watched as a man with dark hair and glasses talked to a female clerk as he checked in. Nearby, another clerk was helping another man check in. This man appeared to have blond hair, although it was covered by a dark baseball cap. Ernie bent closer.

  “Run the video.”

  While Edinburgh made a phone call, Lattimore worked the mouse, and the video began.

  “Look at how he keeps his head down.” Ernie was aware of Edinburgh talking on the phone, and so he talked in a low voice and made a mental note to be careful about how much he said. “He never looks toward the camera. That’s what the guy did at the car rental place.”

  “Trying not to be seen,” Oakley murmured, aware of Edinburgh as well.

  “Yeah.” Ernie tapped Lattimore on the shoulder. “What happens next?”

  Lattimore pressed play, and the video went on. The man took what they assumed was a key card from the clerk, and he turned away.

  “He’s got a briefcase and a small bag,” Lattimore said.

  “The briefcase could hide …” Ernie didn’t have to say a rifle, but the others knew. “Does this guy show up later?” Ernie asked.

  Lattimore nodded. “They’ve got a different video feed on the front of the building.” He showed them. “You can see here that he goes outside.”

  Oakley narrowed his eyes. “Shielding himself from that camera, too.”

  “Like he knows where the cameras are,” Lattimore said.

  “He probably did,” Ernie said. “Where does he go?”

  Lattimore pointed. “He disappears into the parking lot. I’m still looking at other video to see if I can spot him.”

  “So, you don’t see him in an SUV?” Ernie said.

  Latimer shook his head. “Not that I found so far.”

  Oakley leaned against the table. “Where else did you spot him?”

  Lattimore shrugged. “That’s it. He checks in, and you see him go out that one time.”

  Ernie turned to Edinburgh. “These are all the video feeds?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s all we have.”

  “Were you working Monday?” Oakley asked him.

  Edinburgh shook his head. “No, but when Detective Lattimore told me what was going on, I called Barry Vacca. He was here that day.”

  Lattimore swiveled in his seat. “I talked to him. He doesn’t remember this guy. I also talked to the two clerks who were working when Smith checked in. They don’t remember him.”

  Ernie frowned. “Yeah, he may have had a disguise, anyway.”

  “What about when he checked out?” Oakley asked.

  Lattimore shook his head. “You can just drop off a keycard or leave it in the room, so you don’t even have to come to the front desk. I guess that’s what Smith did. I’ll keep watching the video, but I haven’t spotted him after that one time out front.”

  Oakley stepped back and looked at Edinburgh. “Could we see the room he was in?”

  Edinburgh nodded and frowned at the same time. “That particular room is n
ot occupied right now, and I’m happy to take you up there. However, it’s been cleaned since then.”

  Ernie smiled. “Yes, we’d like to see it anyway, and talk to the cleaning people.”

  “She’ll meet us at the room.” Edinburgh walked to the door and opened it. Ernie and Oakley moved into the lobby, and Edinburgh joined them.

  “If you’ll follow me.” Edinburgh stepped around the counter and crossed to the elevators. Ernie and Oakley went with him, and they waited with two couples, both with large suitcases and curious stares. They all got on the elevator, the couple got off at the second floor, then Ernie and Oakley followed as Edinburgh took them to room 303, near the end of a long hall. He used a pass key and opened the door, then stepped aside.

  “Help yourself.”

  Ernie glanced at Oakley and walked into the room. Oakley followed. It smelled of a sweet air freshener. The room was large, with a queen-size bed neatly made, a nightstand on either side. A TV sat on top of a low dresser, and a small desk had a phone and a notepad on it. Oakley picked up the notepad and studied it.

  “Can’t see any writing or traces of writing on it.”

  Ernie twirled a finger in the air. “Give the room a check. Maybe Smith left something behind that the cleaning people missed.”

  They ignored Edinburgh’s curious gaze as they searched the room, taking care to look under the bed, behind the heavy curtains, and in the closet. When Ernie finished, he went into the bathroom and searched around. It was spotless, even the trash cans were empty. When they finished, a Hispanic woman appeared next to Edinburgh.

  “Detectives, this is Rosa Diaz,” Edinburgh introduced a petite woman with long dark hair.

  Ernie went over to her and smiled. “This will just take a minute.” She shifted nervously on her feet, and he worked hard to make her feel at ease. Oakley stood aside and let Ernie talk to her. “I’m sure you clean a lot of rooms.”

  “Yes, every day.” She looked at the floor.

  “Do you happen to remember cleaning this one yesterday?”

  Her eyebrows furrowed, and her gaze darted to the bed.