The Dark Heart

by Julie Cave

  “Did the man inside visit Malia Shaw, specifically?”

  Watson thought about that. “He definitely went up the stairs. A few times, I saw them together outside her building.”

  “What sort of car was it?”

  “Ford Taurus, gray,” said Watson. “It was a nice-looking car.”

  “Was the car there last Monday?”

  Watson thought about this. “Yes, I believe so. Is that the day the lady died?”

  “Right. Has the car been here since the woman died?” Elise asked. “Since last Monday?”

  Watson shook his head. “No. That’s why I thought it was a little weird.”

  “Could it have been this man?” Dinah asked, showing Watson a photo of Simon Wakowski.

  Watson looked at the photo intently. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve seen this guy around the neighborhood and I know what he does for a living. No, the guy in the Taurus is taller, broader. I never got to see his face properly, but he was richer looking than anyone else who gets around here, you know what I mean?”

  “How did he look richer?”

  “Well, his car for one thing. But the way he dressed, too. He had a nice black coat; it looked expensive. He wore good shoes. I saw what looked like a decent watch.”

  “Did you ever speak to him?”

  Watson snorted. “I don’t think a guy like that would be seen dead in a place like this.”

  Dinah thought about this information. The man who matched Angus Whitehall’s description, seen by the neighbors visiting Malia Shaw often, had worn a nice, black coat. Dinah guessed that Angus Whitehall also drove a late model gray Ford Taurus.

  However, did it actually mean anything? Angus Whitehall had claimed that the dead woman was an old friend and that he’d felt responsible for her. In fact, she seemed to talk to nobody else in her life except her drug dealer, Angus, and the missing woman, Lola. Unless it was a completely random crime, it was likely that one of those three had killed Malia Shaw.

  Simon Wakowski, though he’d claimed his drug clients as his alibi, had still a window of opportunity in which he could have killed Malia. It wasn’t uncommon to see him visiting Shaw. But what was his motive? She had been a good client, always paying him on time. Why would he get rid of such a reliable customer? The only motive could be a relationship that soured or was stunted — though he had denied that.

  Angus Whitehall too, although providing an alibi, had unaccounted time during which he could have killed Shaw. He too, was a regular visitor to the apartment. His motives seemed more likely — a clandestine relationship that had perhaps gotten out of control, to a point where he worried about losing his family and his job. That would be enough motive to kill the woman.

  And what of Lola, the woman who’d vanished under cover of a frosty night? Had she disappeared because she was scared, or because she was fleeing from the scene of the crime, or because she herself was dead?

  Dinah brought up the photo of Angus Whitehall and his nativity scene on her phone. “Do you recognize this man?”

  Watson stared at the picture for several seconds. “He looks familiar . . . yes, I think that’s the man who drove the Taurus.”

  “How positive are you?” Dinah asked.

  He nodded. “I’m almost certain.”

  Dinah glanced at Elise, who raised her eyebrows thoughtfully.

  “Thanks very much for your information. You never know how useful even small bits of information can be in an investigation,” said Elise.

  “No problem,” Watson rumbled.

  Elise and Dinah left the store and stood outside on the sidewalk, trying to get a better feel of what he would have seen. The street, like in the entire town, was wide and lined on both sides with cars. As a result, it wasn’t particularly easy to see exactly what was happening on the other side of the road, but Dinah could see the stairs of the old building. Blake Watson would have had a pretty good view of whomever came and went from the apartments.

  Dinah sighed and stared up at the sky. The air was bone cold and she soon found herself shivering.

  Elise drove them both back to the office, and for once Dinah didn’t notice the bad driving. Her thoughts consumed by a gray Ford Taurus, a potential shadowy relationship, and a woman who lived and died for heroin.

  ****

  Deputy Peyton Hauser was waiting for them when Elise and Dinah arrived back at the office. He didn’t look very happy.

  “What’s wrong?” Elise asked him.

  He sighed. “I’m missing my son’s Little League game,” he said, mournfully hitching his shoulders. “But aside from that, I can’t locate next-of-kin.”

  “For Malia Shaw?” guessed Elise.

  “Yup. I’ve scoured every record in this county — medical, government, you name it. There is nothing.”

  Dinah thought about Malia Shaw’s rental application, where she’d left next-of-kin blank. “We may have to go public nationally instead of locally,” she suggested. “Although even that might not help. Malia Shaw might not even be her real name.”

  Deputy Hauser nodded. “You want me to contact the television station and the newspaper?”

  “Yes, please. Send them the most recent photo we have, as well as a list of the aliases she may have used,” said Elise. “She has to be someone’s daughter or sister or wife.”

  Hauser looked at her gravely. “Maybe not anymore.”

  Dinah had to agree. Fractious family breakdowns, abuse, neglect, indifference. She’d seen it all; it would be sadly unsurprising to find that Malia Shaw had no family who would claim her.

  On the computer she was using, she ran a trace of Ford Taurus’s registered in the county. From there, she narrowed it down to Ten Mile Hollow, where she found five Ford Taurus’s registered to citizens of the town. One black, two white, one gray, one red. The gray one was registered to Angus Whitehall, pastor of Ten Mile Hollow First Baptist Church.

  It gave her an initial thrill, but it didn’t really prove much, other than the fact that he’d been at the apartment, which he’d admitted. She told Elise about her finding. Elise gave a big smile. “Let’s go visit him again and see if we can get anything else from him.”

  Dinah was convinced that Whitehall was lying about something, but what did it have to do with the murder? She brooded on this all the way to Whitehall’s home. They stopped outside his house and Dinah looked at it thoughtfully. The gray Ford Taurus was parked on the driveway, in full view. It seemed incredibly stupid to be so blatant in his dealings with a murdered woman, but then, most murderers were stupid. And perhaps Whitehall’s naïveté contributed.

  His wife Louise answered the door and immediately looked fearful.

  “I just want to speak with Angus again,” Elise said.

  Solicitously, Louise offered them both coffee before ushering them into the living room, where Angus was waiting. He had been reading a book, now turned face-down on a side table.

  “Hi, Detective,” he said, wearily. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

  “Well,” said Elise. “I’ve got a few more questions for you.”

  Louise came in with mugs of hot coffee and then seemed to hover anxiously.

  “Everything’s fine, honey,” he said to her. “Why don’t you take Marcus to get some ice cream?”

  Louise seemed relieved to have something to do, and she left the room. Deep in some other room, Dinah could hear her talking to her son.

  “Do I need my lawyer present?” Angus asked, his face guarded.

  Elise smiled. “No, I’m just here for a friendly chat.”

  Angus gave a half-hearted smile.

  “So, we know that you visited Malia Shaw on the day she died,” said Elise.

  “Do you?” Angus asked. He seemed watchful, afraid of using too many words.

  “Yes. Why did you visit her?”

  “I went to check on her,” said Angus. “As I do — did — every week.”

  “You didn’t think you should tell m
e that in our original interview?”

  “I wasn’t sure what our original interview was about, Detective,” said Angus.

  “What did you find when you got there?”

  Angus sighed heavily. “She was passed out. She had probably shot up not long before I got there. It wasn’t unusual to find her heavily sedated. She was using a large amount of heroin toward the end, Detective. It’s no wonder it knocked her out.”

  “What did you do when you got there?” And is it your DNA underneath her fingernails? Dinah added silently.

  “Nothing,” said Angus. “She’d slumped, half off the couch. I checked her pulse to make sure she was still alive. There was a needle nearby. I tried to make her more comfortable, so I picked her up and took her into the bedroom. I figured she’d be safe there.”

  Yeah, not so much.

  “And then you left?”

  “Right. There was nothing more I could do for her.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Mid morning? No, probably later in the morning,” Angus said, thoughtfully. “I think I remember I had an early lunch, and used the time to check on her.”

  Dinah wrote this down carefully in her notebook, as a reminder to cross check with the statements they’d gotten from Whitehall’s colleagues.

  Generally, his story matched the observations of Malia Shaw’s neighbors.

  “Do you know if she has any family members?” she asked. “We’re having trouble locating next of kin.”

  Angus’s face remained impassive, but his hands began to tap dance on his knees. “No. I don’t know. I never met any.”

  “Haven’t you been friends with her for a long time?”

  “Yes. But I’ve never met any family members.” Angus looked away. “I know a little about her past, Detective. I don’t believe her relationship with either parent was stable, or loving.”

  “Do you know where either her mother or father might be now?”

  “No, sorry.”

  Elise paused a beat. “Do you know why Malia might have had false identification in her possession?”

  Angus’s hands were Irish dancing now. Dinah found herself watching his hands with fascination. “No. What do you mean?”

  “Like fake passports or drivers licenses. Do you know why she would have had these?”

  “Gosh,” he said. “I have no idea.”

  “Do you know how Malia Shaw knew Lola Albright?”

  “No. I don’t know Lola Albright.”

  Angus stood up and walked over to the picture window that looked out onto the back lawn. “Detective,” he said. “I’ve been remarkably patient with you. Now, I must ask: are you here under some misguided notion that I’m a suspect?”

  Elise smiled. “Not at all, sir. I’m just trying to learn more about the victim.”

  Are you feeling nervous? Dinah wondered.

  “The more we know about a victim’s life, the more likely it is we find the killer,” she added.

  “It would seem apparent that there were other people in her life more likely to be murderers than I,” said Angus. Ah, self-righteousness: the hiding place of the guilty, thought Dinah.

  “Do you have any suggestions?” Elise inquired.

  “Well, her drug dealer for one,” snapped Angus. “I don’t know. It’s not my job, is it? I’m sure she must have known all kinds of shady characters.”

  “Well, we’re looking into the drug dealer,” admitted Dinah. “As for other shady characters, the only one we know of for sure is you.”

  Angus flushed. “I think we’re done here,” he said, through clenched teeth.

  Elise met his gaze for several long moments before she bid the pastor farewell, thanking him for his time. She and Dinah sat in the car for several minutes, both lost in thought. At length, Elise started the car’s engine. “You know, I just cannot shake my gut feeling that Angus Whitehall knows who killed Malia Shaw — and that indeed, he might very well be the killer.”

  “I have to agree with you there,” said Dinah. “What is he hiding?”

  It was thus far the great unanswerable question.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning, as Dinah ate breakfast in the companionable chaos of family life next to Lewis and Chloe, Elise’s cell phone began to ring. She looked at it and frowned.

  “Hello?” Elise listened for a few moments. “Oh, thanks for calling.” She looked at Dinah and waved her over. “Do you mind if I put you on speaker?”

  Dinah followed her into the living room where it was quieter. Elise pulled the phone away from her ear. “Would you mind starting from the beginning so that my colleague can hear you?”

  “Hello, this is FBI Special Agent Max Shorten,” came a brisk, male voice.

  “I’m Detective Elise Jones, from Ten Mile Hollow Sherriff’s Department. With me is former FBI agent Dinah Harris. She’s consulting on the case.”

  There was a brief pause as the FBI agent processed that. “Hello, Detective. Hello, Ms. Harris,” he said. “I’m based in Richmond. Which office did you work out of?”

  “I was at headquarters in D.C.,” said Dinah, wondering if he’d heard about her fall from grace. She felt the familiar burning anxiety start up in her stomach. It doesn’t matter if he has. There’s nothing you can do about it now.

  “Well, glad to meet you,” said Shorten. “The reason for my call is that the medical examiner’s office sent us some counterfeit documentation to analyze for you.”

  “That’s right. Did you find anything useful?” Elise asked.

  “Well,” said Shorten, “as I told the medical examiner, we were pretty sure we knew who did these. Every counterfeiter has his own distinct style. Nevertheless, we checked it out to confirm our suspicions. I called you to find out whether you want to come up here and take a visit with me.”

  “Yes, we absolutely would,” said Elise, grinning at Dinah. “When?”

  “Can you come up right now?” he asked. “If you leave now, it’ll only take a couple of hours. It’s Sunday, so there shouldn’t be too much traffic.”

  Elise got directions to the field office from the FBI agent, and she and Dinah quickly finished the rest of breakfast.

  The drive up to Richmond on I-95 was uneventful. Dinah and Elise spent the drive singing at the top of their lungs to music that helped them through training at Quantico — Guns N’ Roses, Springsteen, Mellencamp. It was a surprising reminder to Dinah that she missed having friends. In her grief and alcohol addiction, she’d pushed away everyone who cared about her. The simple joy of belting out classic tunes with her old friend was astonishing. It also took her mind off the fact that Elise was doing 20 miles over the speed limit, and often changed lanes without warning or the use of turn signals.

  Special Agent Max Shorten met them at the Richmond FBI field office, and gave them a quick tour. Dinah didn’t recognize any of his colleagues, and then he whisked them out to one of the Bureau’s unmarked cars. On the way, he gave them a quick lesson in document counterfeiting. Usually, counterfeiters were multi-tasking criminals who were involved in lots of other crimes. This particular outfit, he told her, also dealt in illegal weapons, money laundering, and drug dealing.

  “They’re a sophisticated outfit,” said Shorten. “They run everything through a talent agency, if you can believe that. It is a legitimate business, but their most profitable branches of business are the illegal ones.”

  “What are you watching them do?” Dinah asked.

  “At the moment, we’re watching them bring in arms from Iraq,” he said. “We’re in the data-gathering stage. I’m sure you remember the mind-numbing, boring surveillance. It’s the most unglamorous part of the job, but it builds the spine of our case against them.”

  “Going there today won’t spook them?”

  Max laughed. “It will, but they’ll think that’s all we know about. They’ll be so keen to hide the arms deal that they’ll confess to this meager crime.” He paused. “At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”<
br />
  The talent agency did indeed look very legitimate, and apparently, there were auditions being undertaken in one of the rooms, according to a sign that encouraged quiet. Someone behind the door was doing a good job of torturing a Mariah Carey song to death.

  Special Agent Max Shorten flashed his badge at the receptionist, who looked thoroughly bored, and gained admittance to a small boardroom. A few moments later, a small, bald man with a harmless looking, dark-featured face entered the room.

  “Haven’t seen you for a while, Special Agent,” he said, with a smile. “Who have you brought with you today?”

  “Well, Guido, you did tell me that you’d cleaned up your operations,” said Shorten. “Thought I’d take a look. This is Detective Elise Jones, from down in Ten Mile Hollow, and former FBI agent Dinah Harris, who is consulting on the case.”

  “I don’t think we do business there,” said Guido.

  “Some of your customers do, though,” said Shorten. “We found some fake passports and social security cards.”

  Guido didn’t look the least bit worried. “Uh-huh. What’s that got to do with me?”

  “You guys did them,” said Shorten, sharply. “I know your work, Guido. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, or it’ll go badly for you, understand?”

  Dinah got the impression that Guido saw this conversation as simply another business deal. She imagined his mind was already calculating what he could get in return for his co-operation.

  “So what do you want from me?” he asked.

  “I want to know about the people who bought them,” said Shorten. “And maybe this time I’ll let it slide.”

  Shorten slid one of Malia Shaw’s fake passports across the desk. Guido picked it up and examined it thoroughly.

  “This is pretty good work,” he said, at length. “You can’t seriously expect me to remember who bought them. It’s a cash business, Special Agent. I’m sure you understand we don’t keep records.”

  “Do you recognize the woman in the documents?”

  Guido shook his head. “No.”