The Millionaire's Mystery (A Carriage Cove Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Ella White

  “Vickie, will you talk some sense into your cat!”

  “What is going on out here?” Vickie asked.

  Thomas took a breath to calm himself. “I’ve been trying to give Tyler his monthly deworming medication, but he just won’t take it.”

  “Really?” Vickie looked down at the cat near her feet. “You are always so good about taking your meds. What’s different today?”

  Tyler just meowed and went back over to the couch, making himself comfortable on one of the larger pillows. Thomas stormed over to him, pill still in hand.

  “Just swallow the pill!” Thomas lunged for Tyler, but the cat was much too agile for a man in his mid-fifties. He dodged out of the way and headed straight for the windowsill. “Get back here!”

  “Hold on Thomas!”

  Vickie’s words went unheeded, and Thomas rushed after the naughty cat, knocking over a table lamp in the process. Tyler dodged out of his path and made his way back to the bookcase, lodging himself in the tiny space between the tops of the books and the next shelf up. Thomas shook his head and headed for the cat, both his hands clenched into fists. Vickie worried for a moment he might crush the deworming pill in his hand.

  Tyler’s ears bent backwards as his male human approached and, just before Thomas reached him, Tyler sprinted out of his hiding spot. Thomas shoved the books as he tried to grab the cat, and this only knocked the books onto his bare feet. Thomas cried out as the corners of the books impacted his toes.

  Vickie watched as the two continued to play cat and mouse, so to speak. It was humorous at first, with Thomas chasing her cat around and Tyler ducking and dodging his every move. However, when the two began destroying things in the process Vickie became more and more concerned. The lamp hadn’t broken when it fell, thankfully, but she was worried Tyler might decide the framed pictures on the walls or the delicate plates and other items were also good barriers between him and her husband. If one of the sculptures Rachel had made when she was a child shattered, Vickie would be heartbroken!

  “Okay! That’s enough!” Vickie shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Thomas froze in place, his arm extended to grab Tyler from the top of the curio cabinet. Tyler took this opportunity to jump down and squeeze himself under the couch. Since cats are so flexible (they are practically made out of rubber) he was able to hide himself down there with no trouble. Thomas would have to remove the entire couch to get to him.

  Thomas groaned. “What do I need to do to get him to eat this pill?”

  “Have you tried hiding it in some of his food?” Vickie suggested as she replaced the lamp on the small table next to the window.

  “Yeah, I did.” Thomas shook his head. “It was like he knew it was there, and he just ate around it.”

  “Tyler has always been more clever than either of us,” Vickie stated, and a small meow came from the couch at the compliment.

  “I need to get ready for work,” Thomas moaned, placing the still-intact medication back on the dining room table. “I’ll try again later.”

  “Maybe Rachel can convince him to take it.” Vickie followed him back to the bedroom. “Can I shower first? I need to get to the café.”

  “Sure.”

  After she had showered and Thomas took over the bathroom, Vickie grabbed a few pieces of toast for breakfast before headed for the front door. She pulled it open to find Chief Miles with her hand raised, as if she was able to ring the doorbell. The two women stared at each other for a second, and Susan shook her head.

  “You surprised me.”

  “Sorry.” Vickie was amused that Susan’s surprised look was almost the same as all her other expressions. “Did you need something, Chief Miles?”

  “Yes. If you are available, I would like you to come to the station with me,” Susan explained. “We found out who this Bridgette woman is, and I figured you would like to be there when I question her. As repayment for getting us another lead.”

  Vickie glanced at her watch? “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, well, I always open my shop at seven o’clock on the dot.”

  “Can’t one of your workers do it for you?”

  “Well, I suppose so. All right.” Vickie turned to yell over her shoulder. “Thomas! I’m going to the police station with Chief Miles! I’ll see you later!”

  “Okay then!” His voice was slightly muffled from being behind another door, but Vickie heard him clearly enough.

  Susan directed Vickie to her police car, and she drove off in a hurry. Vickie made a quick call to Kimberly, letting her know she might not be at the café until later. Once she was done with that, she turned to the Chief.

  “So what have you found out about this Bridgette person?”

  “Her name is Bridgette Sommers,” Susan described. “She admits to knowing Gerard Samson and spending time with him, so we brought her in for questioning. I’ve got some guys looking through her residence right now.”

  Vickie made sure she informed Rachel about this new turn of events as Susan drove them to the precinct. It took nearly no time at all, considering how small Carriage Cove is. With all the strangeness going on, however, the town suddenly seemed much larger. After all, how could so many horrible crimes like murder and kidnapping happen in a peaceful little town?

  The pair arrived at the police station, and Susan rushed off to Interrogation Room Three. Vickie had to jog to keep up with her, but she knew the drill at this point. She went to the adjoining observation room so she could watch the interrogation.

  Immediately Vickie could see why any man might like Bridgette Sommers. She was a blonde with hair that appeared to be naturally wavy, and her thin face made her bright blue eyes look larger than usual. She was thin but not too thin, with fair skin and perfectly done nails on her tiny hands. Bridgette sat straight with an air of confidence as she watched Chief Miles sit in the seat across from her.

  “Hello Miss Sommers,” Susan greeted. “I’m Chief Susan Miles. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions.”

  “Of course you have questions.” Bridgette had an accent of some kind, but Vickie couldn’t pinpoint where it was from. “You want to know about Gerard, I’m sure?”

  “That’s right. I understand you have spent some time with him.”

  “Some special time, yes,” Bridgette answered. “We have been very close for many months.”

  “Romantically or platonically?” Susan inquired.

  Bridgette smirked. “You have no sense of subtlety, do you?”

  “I find being direct is more efficient.”

  “You sound like Gerard. Very well. We were romantically involved…until a few days ago.”

  “Why is that? What changed?”

  “I read an internet article about him and his wife,” the blonde explained plainly. “I didn’t know Gerard was married…although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given how rich and handsome he is.”

  “You didn’t know Gerard Samson was married?” Susan clearly found that hard to believe, as did Vickie.

  “No, I didn’t.” Bridgette’s eyes narrowed a little. “He told me after dinner a few days ago. We argued and split up that night. I was very upset.”

  “Do you know where he went after you fought?”

  “No, and I don’t care to know.”

  She seems rather nonchalant about her former lover being missing, Vickie thought.

  Susan seemed to be a mind reader in that moment, as she asked along those lines. “Are you aware that Dr. Samson has been missing since that night?”

  Bridgette paused, her eyes widening in shock. “No…Missing? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. No one has seen him for days.”

  The blonde woman looked down at her immaculate hands, her furrowed brow revealing her worry. “Now I understand why I’m here. You must think I had something to do with his disappearance.”

  “Now who’s being direct?” Susan joked for a moment before becoming serious again. “Would you p
lease tell me more about that night with Dr. Samson?”

  “I’m not sure what else I can tell you,” Bridgette protested. “We went to dinner before going to my house. We danced to some music, and had some dessert. Gerard said he wanted to tell me something…I thought he was going to propose, but he really just wanted to admit that he was already married. I remember he said something about leaving his wife for me, but I was too upset so I wasn’t listening. I threw him out.”

  Susan cocked her head. “You didn’t want to go along with him leaving his wife?”

  “I’m not a home-wrecker, Chief Miles,” Bridgette almost snarled. “But I’m also not someone who would kidnap someone who wronged me.”

  Susan looked to be deep in thought when the door to the interrogation room opened, revealing another officer. He passed the Chief a note on a folded piece of paper before leaving again. Susan took a moment to read the note and nodded.

  “Very well. I think that’s all for now,” she informed Bridgette. “You can go, but make sure you stay available in case I need to call you again.”

  “Sure.” Bridgette stood, and Vickie saw just how tall she really was. She walked a little towards the exit but paused. “Chief, if you’re looking for someone who might be after Gerard, you should look up someone named Chris.”

  Susan glanced up at her. “Chris who?”

  “I don’t know anything except his first name, but Gerard was getting pretty tired of him calling all the time. He might know what happened to Gerard.”

  Chief Miles nodded as Bridgette left the room. She turned to the one-way mirror and waved for Vickie to follow her out. The retired professor left the observation room and trailed after Susan as she went to her office.

  “What is it?” Vickie asked. “What did that note say?”

  “It was a report from my investigators at Sommers’ home,” Susan replied. “They couldn’t find any evidence of Gerard Samson being held there, or any evidence he’d ever been there, so there wasn’t anything we could use to hold Bridgette.”

  “Do you think she’s innocent?” Vickie contemplated aloud.

  “Statistically speaking, lots of women in affairs say they aren’t home-wreckers, so I can’t really take her word for it.” Chief Miles sat in her officer chair. “Just because I can’t hold her doesn’t mean she’s not still a suspect.”

  But you can’t let Gwen go either, apparently, Vickie thought, but she believed it was best to keep this to herself. “So what should we do next?”

  “I’ll look into this Chris person,” Susan answered. “I was able to find Bridgette, so I’ll probably be able to find him…or her, I suppose it could be a woman.”

  “Maybe another poor girl he is leading on,” Vickie said with a frown.

  “Perhaps.” Susan typed a few things into her computer. “Until then, I’ll let you get back to your café. I’ll ask one of my available officers to drive you there.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  As Vickie was heading for the precinct exit her phone started to ring. She waited until she was in the officer’s car before she answered it.

  “Hi Rachel. How are you?”

  “I’m doing well, but Dad isn’t.”

  “Oh dear. What’s happened now?”

  “He called me over a few minutes ago,” Rachel described. “Yelling something about needing help or a doctor.”

  “A doctor?”

  “Tyler still won’t take his medication, and Dad’s going crazy from it.”

  Vickie chuckled. “Maybe your father’s the one who needs medication.”

  “What will you give me to keep me from telling him you said that?” Rachel joked.

  “But Tyler does need to take that pill,” Vickie stated. “What is going on with that cat?”

  “I don’t know. He’s never not taken his pills before,” Rachel commented. “He’s probably the only cat in the galaxy who willingly takes medication.”

  “Yeah, I’ve never had a cat as agreeable as Tyler.” Vickie scratched her head. “Well, we could threaten to throw him out onto the streets if he doesn’t cooperate.”

  There was a very long moment of silence after that statement. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course I am,” Vickie replied, astonished. “I would never throw an animal out on the streets! I can’t believe you’d even think I would!”

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Rachel was laughing now. “You just sounded so serious, I couldn’t be sure.”

  Vickie rolled her eyes, a habit she picked up from her daughter, although Rachel obviously couldn’t see her do it. “I’m going to the café now. Are you coming by later?”

  “Maybe. I’m meeting Jenny and her mom in a few minutes to go over the blog some more.”

  “I’m glad you’re finding something you like so much.”

  “It’s actually really cool. I’m learning a lot about candles. We might even expand it to incense if things work out well.”

  “That’s good to hear. Since you’ll be busy soon, I’ll call you later to tell you about Gerard Samson.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted.”

  “Posted…from a blogger. Nice pun, dear.”

  Chapter 6

  Chief Miles was never someone who hated technology. On the contrary, she knew how useful it could be when solving crimes. Where would forensics be without the equipment to examine DNA or fingerprints? This had been done by hand in the past, but computers had certainly helped speed up the process. Then there was digital evidence, such as audio and video, where was becoming more commonly used, by both criminals and witnesses alike. Trace evidence and toxicology also benefitted from the advances of science and technology.

  However, for some reason Susan couldn’t understand, the limits of cell phone reception never got any better, even with how far technology had come in just the last twenty years.

  “I said, you don’t know anyone named Chris?” Susan nearly shouted into her phone. She knew yelling wouldn’t actually help, but it was a natural reaction.

  “No, I’ve never heard…named Chris…” Regina was breaking up a lot over the phone. “My husband…anyone by that name…keeping a lot of secrets.”

  She was barely able to make out what Regina Samson was saying, but the gist of it seemed to be that she had no idea who Chris was, and that was a problem. Susan glanced up as she heard her door open, revealing Officer Brown showing Vickie and Rachel in. Rachel allowed her mother to sit in the chair while she remained standing.

  “Okay,” Susan replied into her phone. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but thanks for your help.

  “…welcome!” Regina called out before Susan heard the dial tone. She must have hung up. Chief Miles put her phone down and looked at the time.

  “What are you two doing here so late?”

  “It’s not that late,” Vickie debated. “And we were wondering how the search for Dr. Samson was going?”

  Susan rubbed the bridge of her nose. “No progress. Chris is such a common name, it could be anybody really. His wife doesn’t recognize it, and I can’t find any last name connected to a Chris that Dr. Samson knew. It’s another dead end.”

  “Maybe not,” Rachel interjected. “Aren’t there a lot of videos of Gerard Samson, giving presentations, lectures, interviews, or things like that?”

  “Yes, there’s no end to those,” Susan replied. “Why?”

  “Why don’t we look through all those videos and see if there’s anyone by the name of Chris?”

  “How would that help?” Vickie inquired. “Even if Chris is in one of them, we wouldn’t know because we don’t even know what he looks like. We don’t even know if Chris is a man or a woman!”

  “No, but our computer can compare the screenshots from each video and see if there’s anyone who regularly attends Dr. Samson’s lectures,” Chief Miles described, folding her hands. “We can then run the pictures through the database and see if we can get a name based on the person’s appearance.”

  “Sounds compli
cated,” Vickie commented.

  “It is, sort of,” Susan replied.

  “The internet probably has hours of footage available,” Rachel added. “It’s going to take a long time to get it all done.”

  “Well, that’s what we’re here for,” Vickie declared. “To help out. Can you show me how this is done?”

  Chief Miles led them into a larger room in the back, where a couple of desktop computers were kept. Most of them were not being used, so the trio all sat at different desks and began to work. Given Gerard Samson’s notoriety, it didn’t take much time to download all the videos involving him.

  “Click this button to take a screenshot,” Susan instructed the others. “Save it to file, and my computer geeks can run the comparison. Be sure to take a screenshot every five seconds or so.”

  “The video will change that frequently?” Vickie asked.

  “It’s not that often, when you think about it.” The Chief of Police clicked a number of buttons. “Just be glad we don’t have to do the complicated computer stuff.”

  “That sort of thing goes right over my head,” Vickie said as she got to work.

  The sound of clicking buttons and beeping computers permeated the room as the three worked. It became an almost mind-numbing routine, with the same series of button presses being ingrained into their minds. Play. Stop. Click. Send. Play. Stop. Click. Send. Vickie’s eyes began to hurt as the hours passed, and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

  She didn’t dream, but she partially woke up about halfway through her nap to the thought of how uncomfortable she was. She didn’t really care enough to move, so she just slipped back into her slumber. The feeling of someone shaking her shoulder eventually woke Vickie up, and she moaned as she stretched.

  “Yeah, these chairs aren’t really something you want to sleep in,” Susan joked.

  “Sorry. I didn’t really know how much time passed.” Vickie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked at the clock hanging on the wall. Roughly six o’clock in the morning.

  “Don’t worry about it. You weren’t the only one who fell asleep,” Chief Miles commented. “But at least we got all the work done.”