The Falling Girl (A Private Investigator Mystery Series of Crime and Suspense, Lee Callaway #3)

by Thomas Fincham

  “Sure,” Callaway said. “Just one more question. Where were you on the night—”

  Without letting Callaway complete his sentence, Kirkman opened his desk drawer and held up a boarding pass. “I have shown this to everyone who has walked through the door asking if I had anything to do with Gail’s suicide.”

  “I thought it was an accident,” Callaway said.

  “The police believe it could have been either.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I believe Gail was a talented person who could have done amazing things if she was still alive. She may have been suffering mentally, I don’t know. If she was, I would have tried to get her professional help. Unfortunately, her life was abruptly cut short. That’s my quote for your article.”

  Callaway examined the boarding pass, smiled, and said, “Thank you for your time.”

  NINETY-FOUR

  Fisher was back at her desk. She had checked her voicemail, and there was another message from Holt. He was flying back from Las Vegas the next day, and he was eager to get to work. He was excited and even proud that Fisher was able to wrap up Dillon Scott’s murder in less than a week. It was a great accomplishment for a detective to solve a case of this magnitude all alone.

  Fisher didn’t share his enthusiasm. She didn’t find a suspect. The suspect came to her. She had nothing to do with it.

  Which brought her back to Jimmy’s confession. Something did not add up.

  After her meeting with Wakefield, she was left with more questions than answers. Jimmy admitted to hitting Scott on the head with the bookend, but according to Wakefield, Scott did not die from the head wound. He died from a heart attack caused by alleviated sugar levels.

  Jimmy never once mentioned injecting Scott with any substance. Fisher doubted that Jimmy was even aware that Scott suffered from diabetes.

  She could feel the pressure building up. Time was running out. When Holt arrived the next day, the seventy-two hours would be up. She had that much time to charge Jimmy with the murder. Her superiors and the public were waiting on her to do just that.

  By all accounts, Jimmy truly believed he was responsible for what happened to Scott, but the medical examiner’s findings had shed a different light on his death. Maybe someone other than Jimmy had killed Scott, but in order to prove that, she had to find this person.

  Whatever personal opinion she had of Scott, the fact was that he was murdered. Scott deserved a fate far worse than what he ultimately received. He died of a heart attack, induced or not. Millions of people die from one each day.

  But millions of people did not use their power and privilege to hurt other people.

  What Scott did was unforgivable. He destroyed and damaged who knew how many young women. Some would never be able to trust another man again.

  This made her job difficult. Scott got what he deserved. But she had a duty to keep the public safe. The only way to do that was to find Scott’s killer.

  She just wished she knew where to look.

  Her eyes caught an object next to her laptop. She leaned over and picked the object up. It was a toll pass. All detectives were given one. Their jobs required them to cross cities, states, and borders, so it was easier for the department to pay for a monthly pass than reimburse them for the cost of each toll. She had used her pass when she drove through the Norton Bridge on her way to Bayview.

  She was turning the pass over in her hand when a thought occurred to her.

  NINETY-FIVE

  Callaway had gone to Kirkman’s office for one reason: He wanted to see with his own eyes that Kirkman was indeed on a flight out of Bayview on the night Gail died. Kirkman was more than willing to wave a boarding pass for him and anyone else who showed up at his door with questions. He even said so himself.

  His eagerness to provide this information was something even Jimmy noted in his diary. The boarding pass was genuine, no doubt about it, but why try to prove his innocence when he wasn’t guilty? He had a rock-solid alibi.

  Or did he?

  The boarding time on the pass was 9:20 PM. Gail fell to her death at 10:38 PM. So, if Gail died after the plane had already taken off, then there was no way Kirkman could be on the plane and in her apartment at the same time.

  Or could he?

  Callaway was waiting when his phone buzzed. He checked, and a smile crossed his face.

  Prior to going to Kirkman’s office, he had called Echo Rose. Echo was a reporter in Fairview. She had helped him out on a case while he was there. In return, he had found the names of her birth parents.

  He always hesitated about contacting her for help. He didn’t want to burden her with his problems. But Echo relished the opportunity to get justice.

  She had what you would call “exceptional skills.” She was one of the best hackers he knew. She could break into anything—given time, of course.

  The information he needed was urgent.

  He had tried to get the information himself, but neither the people at the airline nor his online search were fruitful. The flight was a year ago, and such information was not readily available.

  What Echo discovered answered the mystery that eluded the police, Jimmy, and—until now—even him. However, if the police had looked carefully at the time of Gail’s death, they would have seen a glaring hole in Kirkman’s story.

  Echo was able to gain access to Bayview Airport’s Flight Information Display System. According to the FIDS, Kirkman was indeed scheduled to be on the 9:45 PM flight out of Bayview, but that flight had been delayed two and a half hours due to bad weather on the East Coast. The flight eventually took off after midnight.

  The drive from the airport to Gail’s apartment was only twenty minutes. The delay gave Kirkman more than enough time to go to Gail’s place and be back before the flight took off.

  But if Kirkman did go to Gail’s apartment, then why did her building security cameras not catch him?

  Callaway was able to answer that quandary right after he spoke to Douglas Hoyte.

  He went to Gail’s apartment building. As he expected, there were CCTV cameras in the front lobby and near the elevators. Callaway then went to the back of the building, where Gail had fallen to her death. The exits were next to the building’s stairs.

  Lo and behold, there were no cameras at that spot.

  Whoever had used that exit must have been familiar with the building. They had to have visited Gail before, and that’s when Callaway’s interest in Kirkman was piqued.

  He now had to prove the theory formulating in his head.

  NINETY-SIX

  Osman was still pissed that his cash cow was gone. He was hoping to milk Dillon Scott out of money for a very long time.

  Scott acted like a tough guy on film, but when push came to shove, the man was a coward. He used his money to make his problems go away.

  Osman found out Scott had paid off a lot of women. He wasn’t sure why. His contact never revealed this information to him, but this told Osman that Scott would be an easy target. He would have kept paying as long as it didn’t affect his career.

  Scott was all about being a movie star. He lived for the fame and adulation. He would have done anything to not jeopardize what he had, even if that meant delivering bags of cash to random locations.

  Osman had to hand it to him; Scott knew how to follow orders. He never deviated from Osman’s instructions. Maybe he learned that from being an actor. They were always doing what the directors wanted them to do.

  Actors were not wolves. They were sheep. And Osman was a lion.

  He smiled at the last bit. He always viewed life on the streets as a jungle, and for a while, he was food for other animals, until he met his contact and decided to take matters into his own hands.

  His contact told him the plan, but it was Osman who executed it. Without him, there would be no cash for either of them.

  His cell phone rang for the umpteenth time. He recognized the number. It was his contact. He had been calling nonstop for
the last day and a half.

  Per his contact’s instructions, Osman should have dumped the prepaid phone a long time ago, but he didn’t, and now his contact was desperately trying to reach him on that very phone. How ironic.

  He felt the phone buzz in his hand. He grunted. He knew he should answer, even though he knew what his contact was calling him about.

  He pressed a button and put the phone to his ear. “I thought you said no more calls on this phone?” he asked.

  “You ripped me off!” the voice roared. “I picked up the money from the train station bathroom, and it was missing five grand.”

  “Listen, I could have kept it all and given you nothing, but I didn’t, so consider yourself lucky.”

  “I need that money. I told you some dangerous people are looking for me.”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “We had a deal,” the voice said.

  “Scott is dead, so we got no more deal, you got that?”

  There was silence on the other end. Osman could hear breathing.

  “Come on,” the voice said, now calm. “You have to give me that money.”

  “I don’t have to give you shit,” Osman shot back.

  “Osman…”

  “Hey, no real names, okay?”

  “Sorry, I… I…” the voice stammered. “It’s just that, I’m in deep trouble, and if I don’t pay these people back, they’ll hurt me.”

  “Listen, man, we’re already in deep trouble for what we did. If I were you, I would dump that phone and never talk about this ever again.”

  Osman ended the call.

  He wasn’t worried about his contact going to the police. Osman was a low-level drug dealer who had been in and out of jail many times, but his contact had not even driven past a prison.

  His contact would keep his mouth shut, Osman knew. He had far more to lose than Osman did.

  NINETY-SEVEN

  Callaway sat outside Kirkman’s office. He wasn’t sure what his next step should be. He couldn’t very well go into his office and accuse him of anything. He believed Kirkman knew more about Gail’s death than he was letting on, but whatever Callaway had on him was circumstantial at best.

  The flight Kirkman was on was delayed a couple of hours. This still did not prove he had actually left the airport and driven to Gail’s apartment. It would require a ton of man hours to go through ample airport CCTV footage to see if he had done that. Only Fisher could compel the Bayview Airport to provide her this information, but even she would be hesitant to make such a request based on just a theory.

  If someone had seen Kirkman at Gail’s apartment prior to or after her death, that would have been different. That would have given the police a reason to trace Kirkman’s steps on the night of her death.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Callaway. What if someone did see Kirkman at Gail’s apartment? What if that person was Tamara Davis, the woman Douglas Hoyte had seen running out of the back of the building?

  When Callaway was at Gail’s building, he had seen a blanket and some clothes underneath the back stairs on the main level. It was evident that someone slept in that spot.

  Tamara Davis was homeless and an addict. Did she also use that very spot to keep warm during cold nights?

  Callaway’s theory was starting to make more sense.

  Someone was blackmailing Scott, and Scott was linked to Kirkman. They owned a production company together. Was this blackmailer using Tamara Davis to get to Scott?

  Callaway wasn’t sure how this all fit together. What he did know was that he had to find a way to get Kirkman to explain what he did during the time his flight was delayed.

  Kirkman would not be willing to talk to him. Callaway was not a police officer, and Kirkman was not a suspect. Even if Fisher agreed to bring Kirkman in for questioning, she would need something concrete to go ahead with that.

  As Callaway was trying to come up with a plan, he saw Kirkman exit the office building’s main doors. He looked distressed and angry. His brow was furrowed, and his shoulders were slumped. He got in his black Lexus and drove away.

  Callaway decided to follow him.

  The Lexus drove for several blocks until it entered an alley next to an industrial building. Then the Lexus disappeared around the back of the building.

  Callaway parked across the street. He debated whether to proceed further, but the alley was so narrow that only a single car could go through it at a time. What if Callaway went in and Kirkman decided to come out? Kirkman had already seen him, and he would know Callaway was trailing him.

  He gritted his teeth.

  The Lexus emerged from the alley, got back on the street, and drove away.

  Callaway had a feeling Kirkman was headed back to his office. But why was Kirkman here in the first place?

  Callaway wanted to find out.

  He put the Charger in Park and got out. He walked through the alley and reached the back of the building.

  There was nothing but empty parking space. He spotted a metal garbage bin next to the building. He walked over and lifted the lid. He only saw garbage and debris. He was about to shut the lid when sunlight reflected off an object. He leaned into the bin and pulled out a cell phone.

  The screen was cracked. Someone had tried to break it, but they had done a poor job. Many of the latest phones were made with high-grade material, which included the front glass.

  He pressed a button. To his surprise, the phone was still functioning, but the cracked glass made it difficult to see what was on the screen.

  He pulled out the SIM card and placed it in his phone. When he checked the content, he found a list of telephone calls.

  They were all to one number.

  NINETY-EIGHT

  Fisher was inside a small room at the Norton Bridge Toll Center. Three large LCD monitors were placed on the walls. The screens displayed images of the toll booth from different angles.

  Security officers were seated in front of smaller LCD monitors. They watched as attendants in each toll booth allowed drivers to pass through once they had paid the required fare. In most cases, the drivers tapped their toll cards and were let through the gates without an incident. Even those who paid at the booth were let through in less than thirty seconds. The system had to work efficiently and effortlessly each day lest it cause a backup.

  When Fisher saw the toll pass, it had triggered something in her brain. She drove an hour to the toll bridge to confirm her suspicions. The bridge was the only tollway between Bayview and Milton. If anyone had come to Milton from Bayview, they would have had to cross the bridge. This meant there would be a record of them.

  Fisher stood behind a security officer who was typing away on his keyboard. She didn’t know the exact time of Scott’s death, but she had a time frame to work with.

  In Jimmy’s confession, he said he had left Scott’s house after midnight. The limo driver, Mr. Gill, who had discovered Scott’s body, said he arrived around 8:00 AM. There was a lot of time between when Jimmy left and when Gill arrived, but Fisher doubted she would have to go through that much footage. She had a feeling Scott’s killer had shown up way before Gill did.

  She watched as the clock at the bottom of the screen showed 11:35 PM. It ticked slowly. “Can you speed it up?” she asked.

  The officer did as instructed.

  The booth was not very busy. Night had fallen, and there were not many people driving across the bridge. Whenever a car would appear, Fisher would ask the officer to run the footage at normal speed. When she realized the driver was not who she was looking for, she would ask the officer to speed the footage up again.

  This went on until the clock hit 12:23 AM.

  Fisher hoped her instincts were correct. If they were not, she had no more cards left.

  Holt would return the next day, Jimmy would be let free, and she would have to start her investigation from scratch again.

  A Jaguar pulled up to the booth. The driver leaned out of the window and paid the atten
dant. At that precise moment, the driver’s face was clearly visible on the screen. The attendant handed change to the driver, and the Jaguar drove away.

  Fisher felt her heart skip a beat. Was this the break she had been looking for?

  She asked the officer to fast-forward the footage. She also told him to keep an eye out for that specific vehicle. Fisher was certain the Jaguar would return. There was only one way in and out of Milton, and that was through the toll bridge.

  Almost an hour and a half later, the Jaguar returned. The driver paid the fare. Again, Fisher could clearly see the driver’s face as he leaned out the window. Then the Jaguar drove off.

  Fisher’s eyes narrowed. She had just seen Scott’s killer. But there was still more work to be done.

  “Can you make me a copy?” she asked the officer.

  NINETY-NINE

  Callaway was not sure whose number was on the SIM, but he wanted to find out.

  How am I going to do that? he wondered.

  The person on the other end of the line would know just by his voice that it was not Kirkman. Callaway didn’t want to spook the other person either. Kirkman was in a hurry to destroy the phone. This could mean only one thing: Kirkman did not want the phone’s contents somehow leading back to him. Callaway had tried to access the text messages on Kirkman’s phone, but the cracked glass made it impossible. While the call log was saved on the SIM, the text messages were not.

  Callaway could take the phone to a nearby electronics store and have them download the information onto his phone, but he wasn’t sure what was on the phone or how sensitive the information was. What if the store employees saw something they shouldn’t? He didn’t want to open something without knowing what was behind it.

  He could contact Echo and have her crack the phone’s texts. She was good at stuff like that. But he had already bothered her enough. Plus, Fairview was a long drive away. He wasn’t going to ask her to come to Milton. He would have to go to her.