by Kelly Shade
Next to the bottle was a wooden box with Cuban cigars, illegal most probably, and a big, fancy glass ashtray. There was ash in it from two cigars, but there was only one cigar butt. Jane saw there were two more in the box. She took one and lit it. Ryan and Hunt glanced at her when they heard the click of her Zippo lighter. They both looked furious but didn’t say anything. Jane felt satisfied with the fact that she could easily annoy Gray and Hunt. The smoke was terrific too. Ryan and Conner headed her way, but Blake ignored them. She put the cigar in the ashtray and hurried to the bedroom.
Again she saw a large room, almost empty. The big bed held only one pillow. Opening the nightstands and a few drawers, she found photo albums. Tim Wesley was a wealthy man, and the photos revealed it. He attended all crucial meetings, all gala dinners, and all charity events. There were pictures of him with politicians and famous people but not one with his family. Blake thought these photos weren’t worth her attention, so she left them on the bed and headed to the closet. She opened the closet door, where she saw nicely organized formal shirts and suits, ties and shoes.
She saw a box under an old umbrella stand. And here they were, family photos. All ten were dusty and looked like they were forgotten. Jane took the box and went back to the kitchen to finish her cigar and take a closer look at these old family photos. Gray and Hunt were waiting for her.
“Did you find anything?” Gray asked politely, but it was apparent he was mad at her.
“Yes and no,” Jane said. She sat on one of the bar chairs and took the cigar she had left in the ashtray. “These are nice,” she added.
“These are probably illegal, and I can lock you up for smoking them, for stealing them, for doing it during an investigation of the crime scene and of course for the thousands of other crimes you committed in the last few years.” Hunt’s face was red.
“So why don’t you?” Blake smiled and started to organize the photos chronologically by the date written on the left corner of each one. “I think this murder is a crime of passion. It is obvious he was poisoned with the drink he had. What did your coroner say?”
“Mrs. Bradley confirmed he was poisoned, but she said she could tell us more once the victim is in the morgue and the lab results are out. Time of death between 5 and 7 a.m.” Ryan wanted to show Hunt that Jane could be extremely helpful and he hoped Connor would let her finish the case.
“Okay, I presume she will call right away?” Jane asked while putting down the last photo. Gray nodded.
“Will you enlighten us about what you are doing with the photos?” Connor Hunt was calm now. Ryan wasn’t the only one who wanted Jane on the team. Hunt knew who she was. As an investigator for many years, he had caught many con artists. If a con artist was in the game for long, it meant he was sneaky, a great manipulator and intelligent. Jane was around for many years without being accused even once. Connor was smart enough to know it was better to have her on their side than against them.
“I found four big photo albums in his bedroom, but all of them contained formal pictures from work or special events. Nothing exciting really. So when I found these ten family photos, I thought they were worth looking at.” Jane was murmuring, so the men had to sit next to her to hear. “Crime of passion.” She was biting her lips and narrowing her eyes every time she picked up photo. “Someone in these pictures is the killer.”
“You sure?” Gray was astonished.
“Yeah, now tell me who so I can arrest him.” Hunt made a nasty smile.
“I’m sure.” Jane didn’t bother to tell him. “Tim Wesley didn’t have any free time. He was always working. These events he attended weren’t rest time either. He wanted to get more clients for the bank. The only family-related thing in this apartment are those photos. They were made ten years ago. Look at them.” Blake pointed at Tim Wesley in every photo. “Do you see it?”
“See what” Gray and Hunt asked together.
“He looks sadder and sadder, he lost weight over the years, and there are dark circles under his eyes. Something was terribly wrong with his family back then. I would guess he was addicted to gambling and drinking.”
“Why do you think it was gambling and drinking? Never mind. You may be right. He may know the killer, but there is still a possibility the murder is job-related. After all, Tim was a director, a lot of people must have hated him.” Hunt decided to behave.
“That’s true but look at him now; he is nothing like the person from the last photo. He gained weight; maybe exercised from time to time; eyes clear, he looks better,” Jane said.
“Yeah he looks better, except for the not-important-at-all fact–he is dead,” Ryan wanted to cheer them but he was unsuccessful.
“Stop messing around!” Hunt hissed. “Okay, Blake you have a good point. I will let you lead this case, under supervision, of course. Prove you are as great as Gray says and you are in. Gray, she is your responsibility.”
Hunt turned around and headed for the front door. “Oh, call me for every small clue you find. I have to be somewhere else so don’t screw up.” He left them alone in the apartment. The CSU was gone too. Jane and Ryan realized how quiet it was.
Ryan hurried to break the silence. “I didn’t expect him to leave us, but I guess it is better like this. So any idea what should we do now?”
“Now we are going back to my house,” Jane answered.
The ride back felt faster. In no time Jane and Ryan were in front of Blake’s house. She unlocked the garage door with her phone so that they could park there. After she turned off the alarms in the house, they went in through the back door.
Jane told Ryan to wait on the big couch, and he did. She went upstairs and came back with her laptop. Blake handed it to Gray and said, “Mr. Great Hacker, this is your chance to prove what you can do, if of course, that is what you do.” Jane was looking at him suspiciously. “But, first, I think now it is a great time to tell me what are you doing with the cops.”
It was apparent that Ryan Gray didn’t want to have that conversation, but he knew he had to. After a long breath, his head moved in an almost imperceptible nod. He started explaining. “I told you about my mother. A few weeks after her death, I was in a horrible mental state. I hacked the police database. I was drunk all the time; I wasn’t careful, and they caught me. I told them why I did it. They sent the head of homicide to talk to me and to show me the records. That was Hunt. We talked for hours. In the end, he was sure my mother’s death was a murder, not a robbery gone wrong. Of course, he couldn’t reopen the case with no concrete evidence, but he wanted to help. He offered me a deal. Instead of going to prison, he wanted to train me and hire me for his team.” Ryan was relieved. “My five-year contract expired, but we couldn’t find anything about my mother’s killer, so I stayed longer. The unit became my only family. Connor is like the father I never had. And if I have to be honest, I wouldn’t leave even if I had found the truth. I know Hunt is a jerk sometimes, maybe a little too much but he is a good man. When I met him, he was different. He was happier and open-minded. Unfortunately, one year after we met, his wife was murdered_her car exploded in front of the police station. She was all he had. Naturally, after her death, he changed to this annoying, miserable person . . . I understand him. I hope you do, too.”
Jane took the office chair near him. She wanted to say something nice, but she had lost that ability a long time ago. After so many years of manipulating and deceiving people, she had forgotten what it was like to build a friendship. It was like a sudden realization_she hadn’t had any friends since she was thirteen. Wow, that’s a long time ago, she thought. In reality, she didn’t want friends but she didn’t understand why that bothered her now.
“Okay, let’s get to work.” That was the only thing she could say. “I want you to dig up info about Tim Wesley and his family. You can do that, right?”
“Of course, I can. Give me a minute.” Ryan started to type on the laptop, and many windows popped up. He offered to connect her other laptop to the one he
was using so she could read the info while he was getting more.
While Gray was searching, Jane was printing the information and putting it on the "murder board" she made. Blake had a big white board on a stand hidden behind the bookshelf. She was always using it to make her robbery plans, to investigate or just to put her thoughts together. Now her living room looked like a police station with the board, the two open laptops, printer and many sheets scattered on the couch and the table; everything was like the precinct where Ryan worked.
While waiting for Ryan to finish his search, Blake went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee for herself and her new partner.
“Coffees are ready,” Jane said and passed the cup to Ryan.
“Thanks!” Ryan was pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t expected good treatment for months, mainly because he hadn’t told her he was a cop.
Jane created a timeline of Tim Wesley’s last days. She stood in front of the whiteboard with a marker and duct tape in hand. She wrote all they knew so far assembling the photos, articles and documents Ryan had found about the guy and then she sat back in the big comfy office chair to think. Jane had her little routine when she was investigating something–she always had a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other. She would take a few minutes to look at all the information and to let her intuition guide her.
This ritual had never failed her, and this case wasn’t an exception. The answer was right in front of her. Even though there were at least a hundred sheets on the board, she spotted an article from ten years earlier on the same date as the murder. Jane stood up and started mumbling the text. Ryan stopped typing and lifted his eyes from the laptop so he could listen to her.
“The National Bank foreclosed on eight homes because owners stopped paying the mortgage,” Jane said and started reading the article. “Two of those eight families were left on the street wondering what they would do with their lives. Is that corporate America? We interviewed Tim Wesley, who worked all his life and still couldn’t afford the huge sum he owed the bank. ‘Hello, Tim, can you please tell me what led you and your family to this horrible situation?” “I’m a full-time worker, but my salary isn’t enough. Because of my low salary, the bank made me pay an enormous interest rate as insurance and that is just ridiculous. I have no idea what we will do now . . . we have nothing” Jane sighted “Harsh!”
Now it was evident that the murder was a personal matter. The apartment wasn’t trashed, so it wasn’t a robbery. The matching dates weren’t a coincidence. There was a direct connection between what happened then and the murder. The only problem was they had to find the person who was affected enough to kill.
“Can you find his wife’s address?” Jane asked.
“I have only his brother’s. Unfortunately, there is nothing about his wife,” Ryan answered.
“Let’s go then.”
They got in the car and drove off. Ryan and Jane wanted to solve the case as quickly as possible.
***
They arrived in Jonathan Wesley’s address. It was a beautiful house in the suburbs of LA. Nice neighborhood with great one-story homes, all looking the same with small gardens in front, all carefully mowed. Blake and Gray parked near one of them and hurried to the front door. Jane knocked, and a woman opened.
“How may I help you?”
“Hello, my name is Jane Blake, and this is my partner Ryan Gray. We work with the LAPD; can we come in, please?” Jane spoke like a real police officer.
A man was sitting in the living room reading his newspaper. Probably that is the brother, Jane thought. He glanced at her and continued to read.
“Jonathan, here are Jane Blake and Ryan Gray with the police,” his wife said nervously.
“Are you Mr. Wesley?” Jane asked.
“Yes. What’s the problem now? What did Tamara do this time?” When she turned to them, Jane saw he had a large burn scar on his face, his left arm was shaking; there was a walking stick next to him, and he was painfully thin.
“No, sir, it is not about your daughter. Your brother was murdered this morning, and I’m investigating the case,” Jane said with no sign of empathy.
“Oh . . . Tamara is my niece, his daughter. How did it happen?” Mr. Wesley wasn’t surprised by the news. He looked relieved. His wife, on the other hand, started perspiring and became as red as a tomato.
“He was poisoned,” Ryan said joining in and sat next to him on the big leather couch “Can you tell me what happened ten years ago when the bank took his house?”
“Ten years ago. It was a bad time for all of us.” The man breathed deeply. “He was gambling a lot at local casinos, drinking all night. That was the reason they didn’t pay the mortgage. He was a lowly-paid paper-pusher. My brother wasn’t a good man. His wife loved him and couldn’t divorce him. After they lost the house, they moved in here with us. As you can see, there is not much space for one more family and at that time our two sons were at home, too. Debbie, his wife, couldn’t take the shame. She was a stay-at-home mom, so she didn’t have money to help with the mortgage. Despite all the support we gave her she couldn’t take it and ran away about a year ago. God knows where she is now. My brother didn’t care. Tamara, their daughter, found happiness in drugs. Tim moved out and left her here. We haven’t heard from him for more than seven years. In the beginning, he used to send money to Tami, but when he got on the board of directors, he cut off contact with all of us. I don’t even know how he got that position.” Mr. Wesley’s eyes were full of hate and disgust. He wasn’t grieving for his brother.
“Where is Tamara now?” Jane prepared to leave and nodded for Ryan to stand up.
“She still lives with us. Now she is working at Heidi’s Bar, a few blocks down the street,” said Mrs. Wesley with a shaky voice “You don’t think she has something to do with it, do you? “
“Thank you for your time! Have a good day!” Jane went through the door without even trying to answer the question. Ryan ran after her.
They got in the car and started the engine.
“We are going to that bar, aren’t we?”
“Yeah” said Jane and smiled. “And one more thing, the blue tie and the brown pants you were wearing at the Jefferson party didn’t match at all.” She opened the glove compartment and removed a little round thing that looked like a magnet. “And here is your GPS tracker; I was surprised you didn’t search for it. “
“Well, I did. I really had the confidence I found you, but now I know you wanted it to be found. Thanks for ruining that for me!” Ryan was impressed but not happy.
“Honesty is the best policy, partner!” Jane Blake was glowing.
They stopped the car in front of Heidi’s Bar, and Blake and Gray went in to search for the girl. The bar was dark, smoky and full of people divided into two groups. All looked like criminals and when Gray and Blake appeared, half of them stood up, ready for attack. Jane was taking confident steps. When she was in an unknown place, she had a specific way of narrowing her eyes which made her look evil. She put a hand on her gun in case something happened. All the men remained seated in their places. Ryan was prepared, too. He was walking behind Jane with his weapon in one hand and phone in the other. They went to the bar and sat down.
“We are searching for Tamara Wesley,” said Ryan, while showing his badge.
“Why?” the ugly old woman with too much makeup didn’t have any respect for the police. She was chewing her gum loudly and washing glasses without any intention of helping them.
“Her father was murdered,” Jane said indifferently. “Can you call her now?”
The bartender almost swallowed her bubble gum, and, while coughing, she went to get Tamara from the kitchen. After a few seconds she came back with a skinny young woman. Her face was puckered because of all the drugs she had taken; her eyes bulged, and even though she was properly dressed, her bones protruded. Ryan stared at her with compassion. Jane gestured the girl toward the exit, and they all went out to talk. Tamara refused the invitatio
n to get in the car. Jane leaned on the side of the SUV and said softly, “My name is Jane Blake. I know it has been a long time since you saw your father, but I think you still care for him. He was murdered, and we are trying to catch the killer and put him in prison. Please tell me everything you know about your father. Any detail may help.”
“First, don’t call him father. Second, I don’t care who killed him. You know what?” Tamara’s words were full of hate and disappointment. “When you find the killer, call me. I would like to buy him a drink!”
“Will do,” said Jane and her tone changed into the cold voice she used when she was irritated. “Where were you this morning between 5 and 7 a.m.?”
“Here Drinking. You can ask anyone at the bar and my aunt. She came around 5:30 a.m. to beg me to go home and get my life together. We fought until 6:30 and I remember that because her alarm went off and she had to go to work.” Tamara seemed sad.
“Thank you.” Jane was just about to leave the girl, but she turned around and said, “It is not the end of your world. You are alive. Whatever happened is in the past. Think about what your mother is going through now. You are a piece of white trash now, drinking, partying, smoking, fucking with everyone. If you keep going like this, your murder will be the next case I have to solve, and everyone will remember you as a drug addict slut. Is that what you want? Think about that. If that’s who you are, fine, but--if not--go home, apologize to your family and for God sake, eat something!”
“You have no idea what is home for me!” Tamara was pissed.
“I guarantee you, after tonight things will change.“ Jane went to the car and drove off.
Ryan was stunned. He was sitting in the passenger seat and trying to find the right words for a conversation starter.
“Harsh!” he mumbled.
“Sometimes people need to hear the ugly truth.” Jane looked calm. Even when she was talking to Tamara, she looked peaceful. Blake said all those nasty words with a monotone voice and a straight face.