Everything to Lose

by Danielle Girard

  “Alex,” Bishop agreed. “Let me explain the origin of the tracking device.”

  Ikerd cleared his throat, but Bishop waved him off.

  “Ronald worries for me,” Bishop explained. “But I am confident that I can answer this question and assuage any of your concerns about my family’s involvement in my granddaughter’s attack.”

  Ikerd made another cough-like noise, but Bishop was silent.

  “What I will tell you is not police business. It is merely family laundry as they say,” Bishop began. “But I am confident that by knowing it, you can set aside this piece of trivia and get back to finding my granddaughter’s attacker.”

  Neither Vich nor Jamie moved. She was terrified that Mrs. Ikerd would enter with tea and interrupt Bishop’s confession. Despite Ikerd’s warning, it felt like a ruse to throw them off Bishop’s real motivation for tracking Sondra’s activities.

  If that was the case, Bishop was selling it hook, line, and sinker.

  “Sondra is a bright woman,” Bishop said. “Like her mother that way, God rest her soul. Sondra is an only child, and I blame myself for some of my daughter’s shortcomings. Her mother wanted more children, siblings for Sondra, but it never worked out. The result was that Sondra got more of her way than was good for a child. And, of course, children of her generation were offered more freedom to choose their own path. So, one must account for the times as well.”

  Jamie resisted the temptation to turn to Vich to see if he had any idea what the hell Bishop was talking about.

  “Sondra found quite a passion for art,” he continued, enunciating the word as though it were a synonym for dirt. “Artists, the lifestyle…” He removed the small horn-rimmed spectacles from his nose, then, drawing a white linen handkerchief from one pocket, scrubbed them clean. Was this guy for real? “After her mother’s death, I let the behavior go, attributing it to some form of grief and acting out. Perhaps for too long…” He replaced the glasses on his face and tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Eventually, she was introduced to Gavin and she settled down.”

  “Heath Brody was not the first?” Jamie said.

  Bishop was quick to look at her, surprised that she knew.

  “Yes,” he said after a short pause. “Brody.”

  “How long have they been together?” Vich asked.

  “One and a half?” He considered Ikerd. “Has it been two years?”

  Ronald Ikerd pressed his lips into a thin, straight line that suggested he didn’t think any of this was a good idea.

  Bishop clicked his tongue. “That’s actually relatively long for Sondra. She must be slowing down in her old age.” He chuckled thinly to himself.

  So, Heath Brody wasn’t Sondra’s first lover.

  “So, you know about your daughter’s… dalliances.”

  Both men nodded their approval at Vich’s choice of words.

  “But you didn’t try to stop her?” Vich asked.

  Bishop shook his head. For the first time, he seemed grim. “There was no stopping Sondra when she had her mind set on something. I hired Ronald to make certain that Sondra’s—” He waved a hand at Vich. “—dalliances didn’t bite the whole family in the… Well, you know what I mean to say.”

  Jamie sat back up in her chair. “If you know about Sondra’s affairs, surely Gavin knows, too.”

  “No. Mr. Borden is not aware of his wife’s proclivities.” Ikerd made it sound like a perversion.

  “How can you be sure?”

  Ikerd glanced at Bishop. The two shared some wordless conversation before Bishop said, “In the way Ronald keeps track of Sondra, he does the same of Gavin. By my request, of course.”

  “So, you track Mr. Borden’s car.”

  “We do,” Ikerd said.

  “That’s not enough to prove Gavin’s whereabouts. If he suspected you were tracking him, he could’ve followed his wife a million different ways…” Jamie stopped.

  “I am a professional, Inspector,” Ikerd said.

  “With all due respect, gentlemen, in this investigation, you’re not the professionals,” Vich said. His tone was clear, even.

  Bishop waved his hand toward Vich. Ikerd took this as permission to speak. “We also track Mr. Borden via his phone and—”

  “So—” Bishop interrupted. “We are confident that he’s not aware of my daughter’s indiscretions.”

  “We can confirm that Sondra was with Heath Brody at the time of Charlotte’s attack,” the investigator said. “I know you don’t consider Sondra a suspect, but I also understand it is police policy to confirm all alibis. I would be more than happy to provide an affidavit of Mrs. Borden’s alibi should you need one.”

  “You?”

  Ikerd twisted his mustache. “I was the one who contacted Mrs. Borden at Mr. Brody’s home when I got word that Charlotte had been brought to the hospital.”

  Sondra had been in her lover’s arms when her daughter was being attacked.

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” Vich said. “Confirming Mrs. Borden’s alibi, I mean.”

  “No,” Jamie agreed. She couldn’t imagine a situation where Sondra had thrown her daughter down the stairs. Either Borden for that matter.

  “Sondra’s affairs, while unfortunate…,” Bishop began carefully, “…do not seem relevant to my granddaughter’s attack.”

  When neither Vich nor Jamie disagreed, Bishop went on. “It would be best for the family—certainly during this trying time—if Gavin were not to find out about the relationship my daughter had with the artist.”

  “I wasn’t under the impression that it was over,” Jamie said.

  “Oh, it is,” Bishop said. “I can assure you of that.”

  “If you were tracking Sondra and Gavin,” Jamie began. “How about—”

  “I’m afraid not,” Bishop said before she could finish. “To me, Charlotte is still a sweet, young child. I can’t picture her a day past nine.” He sighed. “I suppose that makes me an old man. I ought to have been tracking her, too.”

  “Who else were you tracking?”

  Mr. Bishop said nothing.

  “I can confirm the location of Mr. Borden at that same time, if that is useful,” Ikerd said carefully. “Would you like to see?”

  “Sure,” Vich said.

  Ikerd sat up and began to peck away at an ancient-looking computer. “Reggie and I have been through this carefully.”

  “I can assure you Gavin was in his office the entire afternoon,” Bishop echoed.

  Ikerd continued to peck before hitting a button with a particularly loud jab. “Here we go.” He waved to the monitor. “It doesn’t do any of that fancy swiveling, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to come around.”

  Jamie and Vich circled behind Ikerd’s desk. On the computer screen was a map overlaid with a red blur. Ikerd clicked on the red and the image zoomed in so that the red line crisscrossed the screen. Only one rectangle remained white.

  “The red line is a device on Gavin’s phone.”

  Vich pointed to the void area. “What is that?”

  “Gavin’s desk.”

  Jamie stared at the web-like lines of Gavin’s movements. It appeared that there were two separate red lines, moving exactly side by side. “Are there two devices?”

  “Just the way the program works,” Ikerd said.

  “It appears that he only covers this one space. What are we looking at?” Vich asked.

  “I’ve zoomed it in so that we’re only seeing his individual office.” He pointed to the sidebar which showed the date and the time range between 17:27 and 19:52.

  “You’re saying Gavin didn’t leave his office from 5:30 to almost 8:00, three and a half hours, on the day his daughter was attacked?” Jamie asked.

  “Right,” Ikerd confirmed. “I started the time stamp after he returned from a business lunch, before the conference call started.” He clicked on the time clock and expanded the range by ten minutes on either side. When he hit enter, the screen zoomed out
and the red line extended to two additional locations, one within the office which might have been the bathroom and the other Jamie assumed was his parking place in the lot.

  “Is it possible that he left his phone on his desk and left the office?” Vich asked.

  “I get a signal every ninety seconds,” Ikerd explained. “Any four consecutive periods without movement show as yellow.” Ikerd expanded the time range by an hour on the front end; a yellow blur appeared, probably when Gavin had been sitting at a lunch table.

  “So, you’re saying he’s in his office, pacing around, for almost three hours?”

  “We had a partner call,” Bishop said. “We have offices in Chicago and New York as well as the San Francisco office. In addition, we’re opening one in Atlanta. Gavin, myself, and my nephew, Henry, were on a call with our attorneys, our chief accountant, and two people from the Atlanta office.”

  “That entire time?”

  “Yes,” Bishop confirmed. “The call began at 5:30 and ended when we got the news on Charlotte.”

  “Was the call recorded?” Jamie asked.

  Bishop frowned. “It was, but only so that we can have a transcript made for our records.”

  Jamie rubbed her face, then looked back up at the screen. “But wouldn’t he be on speakerphone or something? It’s like he’s actually carrying the phone around the office. Who does that for three hours?”

  “Gavin does.”

  “It’s true,” Ikerd said. “Mr. Borden uses a headset that plugs into the phone. So, the phone is in his shirt pocket while he talks but the phone is on him.”

  So, the Bordens didn’t throw Charlotte down the stairs. She’d probably known that already. But Heath Brody had been her best bet. She wasn’t sure what she expected. Once they’d ruled out Brody, this whole meeting had been a waste of time. They didn’t have a single lead. Her thoughts went to Z. Did he know something that could help them? She pushed the thought away and worked to pull Vich from his questions about how the tracking system worked.

  “This thing is amazing. If I had a daughter, I’d probably track her, too,” Vich said.

  Ikerd agreed and clicked on a few more buttons. The time narrowed to fifteen minutes and a dozen red lines crossed the screen. “The police could use something like this,” Vich said. “Track all the criminals in the city.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ikerd said.

  Jamie turned to Bishop. “You knew what your daughter was up to. But why would you track Gavin, unless you thought he was guilty of something?”

  Bishop said nothing.

  Vich snapped a photo of the screen. “I’m serious. This would actually be great for our undercover guys.”

  “Mr. Bishop?” Jamie pressed.

  “In my experience, Inspector,” Bishop began, “everyone is guilty until proven innocent.”

  “So, who else do you track?”

  Bishop gave her a wry smile.

  Vich looked up from the computer.

  “Mr. Bishop, we all know it’s illegal to track someone without their knowledge,” she said.

  “But we’re more interested in finding out who hurt Charlotte,” Vich added. “Is it possible that you are tracking someone else who might know something?”

  Bishop might be able to confirm that Tiffany Greene was at that bar with Michael Delman the day he died, but getting that information meant tipping her hand. She wasn’t willing to do that.

  “Just my children, I’m afraid,” Bishop said.

  Ikerd rose from his desk. “If there is anything else,” he said, “please feel free to contact me directly.”

  The door opened.

  “Ah, thank you, Marjorie,” Ikerd said to his wife in the doorway.

  “I’ll be happy to show you out,” Mrs. Ikerd said with a polite smile.

  Vich and Jamie followed her down the hall. As Jamie stepped into the bright sunshine, she realized that Mrs. Ikerd never brought the tea. Jamie checked her watch. They had been in Ikerd’s office for exactly fifteen minutes.

  Tea wasn’t tea. Tea was code for Marjorie to come to the door after fifteen minutes. Jamie had to give them credit for cleverness.

  Did any of Ikerd’s visitors ask about the tea?

  Chapter 36

  “You know he’s probably tracking that entire office,” Vich said on the drive back to the station.

  Jamie was fighting off a strange sense that she was missing something obvious, something right in front of her. Every step forward on the case dragged her a step back from finding out who was responsible for Charlotte’s attack. Worse, it was like they’d been running down the wrong path entirely.

  “Did you see anything on Ikerd’s computer?” Jamie asked.

  “No,” Vich said. “He only had Gavin’s tracking up on the screen. I checked the sidebars, but nothing showed. I’m sure he’s got others being tracked, but I couldn’t tell who.” He handed Jamie his phone. “I did get a picture of it. Thought I’d forward it to Roger.”

  Jamie studied the red web. “Not sure what Roger can do without the actual software program.”

  “We could try to get a warrant.” Vich shook his head as he finished the sentence. “Never mind.”

  “There has to be something we’re missing.”

  “The attack, you mean?”

  Jamie nodded.

  “Maybe it was random,” Vich said. “We’ve been entirely focused on a few people, but maybe Charlotte was pulled down the stairs by some drugged-up addict. Michael Delman happened upon her and brought her to the hospital. Or maybe Delman knew the person who did it and decided to do something right for a change.”

  Jamie wanted badly to believe that Michael Delman had been acting in good faith. “More likely, it was Delman himself.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  “Then, who killed Michael Delman?” she asked.

  “That’s where we ought to be looking at Bishop and the Bordens,” Vich said. “You should tell Hailey about that tracking deal. They could check where the Bordens were when Delman was shot.”

  Hailey. Jamie did not want to think about Hailey Wyatt. She had until 3:00 to respond to the subpoena for Z’s DNA. The smartest course would be to bring Z into the station after baseball practice. Get it over with.

  “Sorry,” Vich said.

  “Not your fault.”

  “There’s no way Z’s involved,” Vich said, and Jamie told herself that there wasn’t the slightest doubt in his statement.

  The question of Z’s involvement rested in the air. As it would until she could scare him into talking to her. Or until some piece of evidence either condemned or exonerated him.

  She’d read how teenagers were dangerous to themselves and sometimes to others. Their brains aren’t fully developed until they’re twenty-five. Inhibitions are lowered. Less control over themselves and their reactions.

  Like Z slamming the door? Was that a moment of emotional overload?

  Teenagers also lie more easily—even when presented with the risks and the possible repercussions.

  Even then, they fail to really understand the consequences of their actions.

  Hailey and Hal were right. Obtaining Z’s DNA was necessary. It might not prove whether he was there, but it would certainly help answer the question of whether or not he’d had a hand in the actual assault. A question she had refused to face head-on because she’d been so sure she could get him to tell her. To confess to whatever it was he was hiding. But she couldn’t.

  On the sidewalk, an old woman wheeled a shopping cart, her back a strange hump that reached higher than her head. A professional woman in a dress and heels moved quickly around the old woman without so much as a glance. As though the older woman was a lesser creature, a nonhuman. How poorly humans treated each other. Not protecting those who needed protecting and instead working tirelessly to shield those who could not be harmed.

  She considered the defense attorneys she’d come into contact with in her years on the force. Plenty of them had gotten their clients
off. Even guilty ones. The thought was followed by a sharp pang in the mother place.

  “Something will break,” Vich said.

  Jamie was thankful when he pulled the department car into the parking space beside hers and she could get out. She’d gotten used to working with Vich, but right now some alone time would be good. Plus, they had to split up; there were too many cases for them to focus on Charlotte alone.

  With the pressure from the mayor’s office, Captain Jules had instructed them to shift their focus to some of the new cases. Jamie wished she could do that. No matter how she tried, Jamie wasn’t able to get her mind off Charlotte. Because taking her mind off Charlotte meant taking her mind off Z, and any mother knew that was impossible.

  Once alone, Jamie called Abigail Canterbury. Again. This was the third message she’d left so far. Jamie checked in on two of her victims—one at the young woman’s apartment and one who was staying at her mother’s home—and made some follow-up calls to set up interviews with two witnesses.

  At a little past 2:00, she drove to Canterbury’s home address. The building was along a block of converted warehouses, south of Market Street. The woman who answered the door was petite, dressed in a black skirt and white button-down shirt. She wore simple black flats and her hair pulled back. She didn’t look a day over twenty-six.

  “I’m looking for Abigail Canterbury.”

  “I’m Abigail.”

  Jamie hesitated. She’d assumed the woman was Canterbury’s help. “I’m Inspector Vail.”

  Canterbury said nothing.

  “I have been trying to reach you to discuss a cleaning person who was at the residence of Gavin and Sondra Borden,” Jamie explained.

  Still nothing.

  Jamie checked the street address above the doorway. “You are Abigail Canterbury?”

  Finally, Canterbury said, “I’m sorry. My father had a stroke.” She touched the place on her wrist where a watch might sit. “I haven’t checked my messages…”

  Jamie was taken aback. “I apologize for bothering you, but I’m trying to locate a woman who did some cleaning at the Bordens’ house recently.”

  “I’ve had a few people there,” Abigail said. “Mrs. Borden hasn’t found anyone she particularly likes, so we’ve been sending new staff every week or so.”