Scared Money (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 13)

by Jenna Bennett

  “Maybe not.” But two-thirty was. And that was when Devon had come home from ‘rehearsal.’

  Brittany shrugged. “Most of them have day jobs. They have to finish work first.”

  “What’s Devon’s day job?”

  “Troubleshooting,” Brittany said.

  Troubleshooting? “Does that have something to do with computers?”

  Brittany gave me a look down her nose. It couldn’t have been easy, when we were both sitting down. “Yes.”

  “But what he really wanted was to be a musician?”

  Brittany nodded. Her eyes started filling with tears again. I guess the past tense had reminded her that he was gone.

  “I saw Devon last night,” I said, in an effort to stem the flow. I had been planning to keep that tidbit to myself, but it just sort of slipped out.

  Brittany stopped chewing. After a moment’s silence, she swallowed. “Where?”

  “At the office. He said he was picking up something you’d forgotten.”

  Brittany blinked.

  “Was he picking up something you’d forgotten?”

  Brittany shook her head.

  So he’d lied. “Do you know why he was there?”

  “No,” Brittany said.

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea who would want to kill him? Or why?”

  Brittany’s eyes flickered. She shook her head.

  I got to my feet. “I should let you finish your food in peace. Call me if there’s anything you need.”

  Brittany didn’t answer, but when I glanced at her on my way out the door, she was snarfing down French fries. Once she got going, the tragedy didn’t seem to have affected her appetite all that much.

  * * *

  I MADE my way out through the garage, where Grimaldi was observing a crew of white-clad techs combing what I assumed was the crime scene for evidence. There were three of them, and they were picking up what looked like specks of dirt and putting them in small baggies. I’m sure they were gathering more than specks of dirt, but everything was so tiny, and held in the points of tweezers, that I had no idea what it actually was. Some form of evidence, undoubtedly.

  Grimaldi was standing a few yards away, her hands on her hips, watching.

  “Is that Devon’s car?” I asked, as I stopped next to her.

  Among the area the crime scene crew was combing was a dark green Jeep Wrangler with a cloth top.

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “Have you looked inside?”

  She glanced at me. “I took a quick look.”

  “Did you find anything that looked like it might have come from the LB&A office?”

  “I have no idea,” Grimaldi said. “What would something like that look like?”

  “No clue. But Brittany said she hadn’t asked him to go pick up anything for her. So he lied about that.”

  “Interesting,” Grimaldi said. “How is she?”

  “Not hysterical anymore. When I left her, she was sitting in the dining room shoveling in French fries.”

  “Did she tell you anything?”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “She said that Devon was at a rehearsal yesterday. From seven until he came home and got shot. When I told her I’d seen him at the office, she seemed surprised, so I don’t think she knew what he was doing there.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “I’ll have to find out who he rehearses with and talk to them.”

  “Brittany could probably tell you that. She also says he has a day job. Troubleshooting.”

  Grimaldi’s brows rose. “Computers?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Interesting for me, given the spoofed email. He’d probably know how to do that. According to José, it isn’t difficult.”

  “It’s interesting to me, too,” Grimaldi informed me, “since the fact that he had the skills to embezzle half a million dollars from his girlfriend’s workplace makes for a nice motive for murder.”

  I guess it did. “I asked Brittany if she could suggest someone who might have wanted to kill him. She said no, but I can’t say I believed her.”

  “I’ll make sure to ask,” Grimaldi said.

  I eyed the Jeep again. “You know, I saw a car like that in Goodlettsville yesterday.”

  “Did you?” Her tone said that she figured I’d probably seen several. And I probably had. Except I was talking about one car in particular. One I hadn’t just passed on the street.

  “The guy I told you about? The one on the ladder outside Miss Harper’s house? He drove away in it.”

  Now I had her attention. “This car?”

  “I don’t know if it was this car,” I said. “I only caught a glimpse of it, since I had to climb back down the ladder and push through the trees, and by then it was almost gone, but it looked like this.”

  “Green?”

  “It might have been green. I think it was. I can’t swear that it was this car. I didn’t see the license plate—” and there were no identifying bumper stickers or anything like that on the back of the Jeep, “—but I’m pretty sure it was this kind of car.”

  “Interesting,” Grimaldi said. “So the man on the ladder... was it Devon?”

  I blinked. I should have followed that corollary to its logical conclusion, but somehow I hadn’t gotten that far. I sounded surprised, even in my own ears. “I’m not sure.”

  “Think back,” Grimaldi ordered. “To the first time you saw him. On the ladder.”

  “I only saw him once.” And for only a moment. I’d been halfway up the driveway by the time I noticed the ladder, and almost to the house by the time I saw the man on it. It hadn’t occurred to me that he looked familiar, so maybe he hadn’t.

  I closed my eyes and tried to recall the picture. Coming out of the shade of the trees into the sunshine surrounding the house. It was blinding for a second. I saw the ladder, and followed it up. To faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt, topped by shaggy, dark hair.

  The hair fit, anyway.

  So did the physique. Devon was built like Brittany, straight up and down. More boy than man. Same as the guy on the ladder, who’d had long, thin legs inside the jeans and skinny arms holding the scraper.

  Had he turned to look at me?

  I thought he had, but not for long enough to be recognizable. I had an impression of a pale oval of a face below and behind the dark hair, but that was all.

  “I’m not sure,” I told Grimaldi. “It might have been him. But I honestly can’t tell you for sure. Every time I’ve seen Devon, he’s been wearing black. Jeans, T-shirts, boots. This guy was dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. It didn’t even cross my mind that I might know him.”

  “No reason why it would,” Grimaldi said. “But clothes can be changed.”

  Of course they could. “Let me put it this way: I looked at the guy for a second, and I didn’t think, ‘this guy looks familiar.’ But that might have been because he wasn’t wearing what he’s always wearing.”

  “I get it,” Grimaldi assured me. “It looked like this car, though?”

  “Looked like it. But it was a ways away. I didn’t get a really good look. It could have been this car. Or it could have been one like it. Or something similar.”

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, though,” I added. “Angie, the woman in the consignment store, said the guy on the ladder was probably Magnolia’s boyfriend. She’d seen them together before. She even said she’d seen them driving away together a couple of minutes before I came into the store. You could ask her for a description of the boyfriend and the car. She’d probably do a better job than me.”

  “And I might do that,” Grimaldi said. “But for now, go on.”

  “Well, Devon couldn’t have been Magnolia’s boyfriend. He was marrying Brittany on Friday.”

  “Or so she said.”

  “Right. But why lie about it? I mean, they’ve been dating for a long time. It wouldn’t be surprising if they decided to
get married.”

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “And he has—or had—the skills to spoof Tim’s email address and reroute the money. So maybe he did that. And maybe someone killed him for it. But that’s no reason why he’d be on a ladder outside Miss Harper’s house scraping paint. It was probably someone else.”

  “Most likely,” Grimaldi nodded. “But we’ll look into it. For now, I’ll go upstairs and have another talk with your friend.”

  “She’s not my friend.” My response was automatic. “Will you tell me if she says anything that might have something to do with the missing money?”

  Grimaldi said she would. “One question. Why isn’t Mr. Briggs calling in the authorities on this? Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money to go missing. You’d think he’d want some help figuring out what happened.”

  “He did. He wanted my help.”

  “Other than you,” Grimaldi said. “You won’t even be able to trace the money to the account it’s in. I’d need a subpoena for that, so there’s no way you could.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, actually. It was possible José had the hacking skills to get me that information, but naturally I didn’t say so. “I guess it’s because, until I started looking into it, we thought the email had to have originated from inside the firm. Until I found out about spoofing, I didn’t realize that someone unrelated to LB&A could have done it.”

  “Devon isn’t exactly unrelated to LB&A,” Grimaldi pointed out.

  “I know. But he isn’t one of the agents. I guess maybe that would make it a little better.” I hesitated. “I guess it’s too soon to tell Tim that Devon might be the guilty party?”

  “Much too soon,” Grimaldi said firmly. “We have no proof that he had anything to do with it. He had a background in technology, and now he’s dead, but that’s not enough to accuse him of grand larceny. I’ll have to check his electronics and his bank accounts, to begin with. If I come across anything that seems like it might have a bearing on your problem, I’ll let you know.”

  I told her I appreciated it.

  “Where are you off to?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure. “I guess I could go back to Goodlettsville. If the guy on the ladder is there today, we’ll know he isn’t Devon.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “Let me know how it goes. And keep me updated on your mother and the Sweetwater situation.”

  “You could just call Dix,” I said.

  She turned away. “I’m busy here. If your brother wants to talk to me, he knows where to find me.”

  Fine. “I’ll see you later,” I said, and walked out to my car.

  * * *

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I was back in front of Miss Harper’s house on Lickton Pike.

  It looked much as it had yesterday. Still decrepit, still set against the same backdrop of tangled vines and trees. The ladder still leaned against the east wall, but today it was empty. And the front door hung wide open.

  I eyed it speculatively for a moment, before getting out of the car.

  To be honest, it might have been doing that since yesterday afternoon. After my encounter with the chiggers, ticks, and brambles, I’d limped back to my car, moaning and swearing—in a ladylike fashion, of course. But I hadn’t paid any attention to the house. Perhaps I should have.

  At any rate, the door stood open. The man on the ladder—Devon or someone else—must have climbed in through the window when I showed up. And then, when I climbed the ladder and it seemed as if I might be coming in, he hightailed it down the stairs and out, through the brambles over to his car.

  I should have asked Detective Grimaldi whether Devon had sported any scratches. Unless he knew of a different way to go—and he might—the man from the ladder couldn’t have taken the path I took through the trees without getting torn up.

  But that was for later. For now, the door that had been locked yesterday hung open. I made my way up on the stoop and peered around the door frame. “Hello? Anyone here?”

  No one answered.

  I carry a little canister of pepper spray in my purse. It looks like a lipstick. I have another that holds a tiny knife, that also looks like a lipstick. In this case, I figured the pepper spray would be the most useful, and fished it out. Thus armed, I made my way across the threshold into Miss Harper’s house, and looked around.

  It was old, no question. Older than the Martin Mansion, and less ostentatious. At home, the front door opens into a big, two-story foyer with a graceful, split staircase leading up to the second floor.

  There was nothing like that here. The front door led directly into a living room, with a big stone fireplace on one end, with wide plank floors and lower ceilings than I was used to, both from the mansion and Mrs. Jenkins’s Victorian.

  A few pieces of furniture remained. An ugly flower-upholstered sofa of 1970s vintage sat in front of the fireplace, while an old secretary—the desk, not the person—stood against the back wall, next to the door to the dining room.

  It was the same in the next room. The table and chairs were gone, but an oversized breakfront stood against the wall: probably too heavy and cumbersome to make the trip to the retirement home with Miss Harper.

  So far I had seen no sign of life, and heard no indication that anyone was in the house with me. But I kept the pepper spray clenched in my now sweaty hand as I made my way from room to room.

  It all looked the same. Old, unkempt, with abandoned furniture and a lot of dust. The kitchen had Formica counter tops, similar to the tables at the diner on 12th, and the appliances must have been thirty or forty years old. I opened the fridge—it smelled—but it was empty.

  The dust on the stairs was scuffed. I looked around for footprints, and saw some, a bit bigger than mine, that looked like they might have come from tennis shoes. I dug my phone out of my bag and took a picture of one, making sure to zoom in as close as I could. Maybe Detective Grimaldi could match the sneaker to something of Devon’s. He’d died with his boots on, no pun intended, but he probably had a pair of sneakers somewhere. Most people do. Even me.

  The second floor was all bedrooms, same as in the Martin Mansion. Most of them were empty, but one—the one with the faded magnolia wallpaper and the open window with the ladder outside—had a big steamer trunk sitting under the window. I walked over and hauled on the lid.

  It was heavy, and for a second it crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn’t be trying to lift it. But then it popped up. I looked down on a paint scraper on top of a stack of what looked like old curtains and table cloths.

  The scraper must be the one the guy on the ladder had used yesterday. If I got it to Grimaldi, maybe she could pull fingerprints from it. That would tell us, one way or the other, whether the man on the ladder had been Devon.

  I took a picture of the scraper in situ before folding the top curtain panel—stained damask—around it carefully. I was just about to lift it when my phone rang.

  I had dropped it back into my purse after using it for the photograph, since I wanted both hands free for the curtain and paint scraper. Now I dug it out again. “Rafe.”

  “We have a problem,” my husband said grimly.

  My heart gave a single, heavy thud. “You got the DNA results back already?”

  “No,” Rafe said. “Carmen had her checkup this morning. They drew blood and did whatever other stuff they do to a pregnant woman almost ready to give birth.”

  Things the two of us would be dealing with within a couple of months ourselves. But now didn’t seem the right time to mention that. From my own checkups, I knew the doctor would have listened to the baby’s heartbeat and probably done a pelvic exam, though.

  “And?” I said.

  “They sent her back to her cell,” Rafe answered. “A couple hours later she went into labor.”

  Uh-oh.

  “The doc at the prison doesn’t like to handle births when he doesn’t have to, so he sent Carmen to the hospital. Denise Seaver volunteered to go with her.”

  My heart s
ank. “I have a feeling I know where this is going.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Rafe said. “They didn’t get there. Cops just found the van abandoned halfway between the prison and the hospital. The driver was dead. Stabbed multiple times. Carmen and Denise Seaver are in the wind.”

  TEN

  For a second or two, I just couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe, either. It felt as if someone had sucker punched me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me.

  Rafe must have realized it, because he waited patiently until I found my voice again. “What can I do?”

  “Dunno that there’s much any of us can do. The cops are out looking for them. They haven’t asked the TBI for help, but—”

  “It’s your baby,” I said. And between you and me, it wasn’t easy to get the words out. Nor, for that matter, to keep my voice even. “Or it might be your baby. You’re going to want to look for them.”

  He waited a second. “You have a problem with that?”

  “No.” It didn’t sound very convincing, not even in my own ears, so I repeated it. “No, of course not. I understand. It might be your baby. And even if it isn’t, she’s out there, in labor, with only Doctor Seaver to help her. I’m sure Denise Seaver has delivered babies before. But that was in a hospital, with all the necessary equipment. What if something goes wrong?”

  Rafe didn’t answer.

  “What can I do?” I asked again. “Can I go with you?”

  “Where?”

  “Wherever you’re going. I might be useful.”

  “How d’you figure that?”

  “I’m another woman,” I said. “If you find them, and Carmen’s in labor, or... or... ill, and you have to deal with Denise Seaver, I can deal with Carmen and the baby. Because I can tell you right now that Denise Seaver isn’t going to go quietly. This is her doing. She probably planned the whole thing. Maybe she gave Carmen something to induce labor when she was in the clinic this morning, and offered to go with her to the hospital. She didn’t just stumble upon whatever she used to stab the guard. She brought it with her. Somehow. I guarantee it.”