by L A Dobbs
Sam knew by the furtive glances and the fact that Dupont was lurking between the shrubs and the side of the building, not to mention the way he leaned closer to Sam as if he were about to whisper something he didn’t want anyone to overhear, why Dupont was there. A tingle of excitement laced with caution ran through him.
This was it. Dupont was going to tell him about the drug drop. He was finally going to be able to get what he needed on Thorne.
“Meet me tonight. Six p.m. Reeds Ferry Mill. You know it?” Dupont whispered.
“Of course.” The abandoned mill had stood decaying outside town for decades.
“I have something you’ll be interested in, and you’ll find out what you want to know then. Don’t be late.” Dupont disappeared into the bushes. Sam’s heart knocked against his chest as he walked back into the station.
Six p.m. — only two hours from now — and he still had Dennis to process. Never mind that arresting Dennis didn’t seem nearly as important now, he had to find a way to pull them both off. And besides, there were some things he needed to put into place beforehand.
Jo had put Dennis in his office. He went in and closed the door then pulled Jo out of earshot and filled her in on what Dupont had said.
“Tonight?” Alarm darkened her gray eyes. “But we don’t have time. We have Dennis here. We need to scope out the area and figure out a plan in case we’re ambushed.”
“I know,” Sam said in hushed tones. “You go do that, and I’ll take care of Dennis. I think I have a plan as to how I can expedite the process.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced, but turned to leave anyway.
Once she got halfway to the door, Sam said, “Jo?”
She turned back, and Sam’s heart did a slow roll. Scoping out the ambush could be dangerous. He didn’t know what he’d do without her as a partner and a friend. A strange flurry of emotions tangled his words, so he simply said, “Be careful.”
She smiled. “Okay, Chief.” She opened the door and left.
Sam poked his head out of his office. Kevin sat at his desk.
“Hey, Kevin. We pulled the guy in that we think is the owl zone killer. You want to be in charge of the arrest?”
Kevin straightened in his seat, looking at Sam with surprise. “Sure!”
Sam nodded and gestured for Kevin to join him in his office. It was about time he started trusting Kevin more, especially with the new hire coming in. He wanted his team to be tight, and he didn’t want Kevin feeling left out just because he was a part-timer.
Dennis got his one phone call and then sat in the chair silently, his arms crossed over his chest. If that didn’t indicate guilt Sam didn’t know what did. He and Kevin attempted to talk to him, but Dennis remained silent.
It didn’t take long for the fingerprint to be matched to him, though, and after that the floodgates opened. Sam let Kevin take the lead on some of the questions, and before Dennis’ lawyer even showed up, they had a full confession.
It turned out Ray did have something on Dennis. Years ago, when they were first starting out, they had dumped trash into the Merrimack River in Lowell in order to make it look like one of the mills upstream was polluting. Ray was going to expose that, and it would have ruined Dennis’ standing with his company. Everything he had worked for would evaporate. Sam figured the five-thousand-dollar investment must have been either out of guilt or so that Dennis wouldn’t suspect if he found out about the book.
“So when he told you about that, you killed him,” Sam said.
“I tried to talk him out of it. I mean, he was my friend.” All the fight had gone out of Dennis, and now he fought back tears, no longer belligerent. “He even invested in my company. But he said the book would make him famous.”
“All because of some trash dumping a long time ago?” Sam wasn’t buying it.
“No, that was the thing. That one little incident was minor compared to the other things he was going to expose.” Dennis shook his head. “He didn’t even need it.”
“What other things?” Kevin asked.
Sam approved of the measured tone in Kevin’s voice and the way he took notes even though he’d switched the recorder on when Dennis had first broken down. He should have given Kevin more responsibility before, let him prove himself.
“I have no idea, but he said they were big.”
“Let’s go back to the night you killed Ray. What happened?”
“He’d told me the day before about the book. I tossed and turned all night. I knew I had to talk him out of it, to make him see things my way. So I followed him to the owl zone. I knew no one else would be there. I didn’t want anyone to hear.”
“But you couldn’t talk him out of it,” Kevin said.
Dennis shook his head. “Things got heated. He refused, and the argument escalated. Before I knew what I was doing I’d hit him over the head with a branch.” Dennis choked on the last word and covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Kevin looked up at Sam with raised brows as if to ask, “Isn’t that what they all say?”
Sam shrugged. “And then what happened.”
“I panicked. I realized that I had to cover my tracks, to try to make it look like he was killed for some other reason.”
“And that’s where the egg came in?” Kevin asked.
“I thought I could frame that builder guy. I had eggs in my car. You never know when the chance to egg someone or something might come up. Gotta be prepared. Anyway, I figured if I put the egg on his face, people would think it was the builder sending a message because we egged his car.”
“But you couldn’t leave the shells out of habit,” Sam said.
Dennis shook his head slowly. “I’m so used to picking up trash, I didn’t even think about it.”
“And the camera?” Kevin asked.
“He snapped off a photo before I hit him. He caught me on it, I’m sure. So I had to take it.”
“And you broke into his cabin?”
“Yes. I was looking for the laptop. I needed to destroy any notes he had about the river incident.”
“Where is the laptop now?”
“I smashed it with a rock, but I still wasn’t sure if anyone could get data off it so I stashed it in my trunk. It’s in a few pieces,” Dennis said. “There was a flash drive with it, so I burned it in the campfire.”
Sam glanced at the photo of the melted flash drive among the photos on his wall, duplicates of those on the corkboard in the squad room.
“Why did you keep the key to the cabin?”
“I knew Ray was working with someone on the book, but I didn’t know if that person would come back and leave a note or something in the cabin. So I had to go back and check.”
“And did you find notes?”
“No. Nothing new ever showed up, and I couldn’t track that guy down. I know it was the guy with the funky hair, but I don’t know who he is or if he knew about the incidents Ray planned to put in the book.”
“So back to the camera,” Sam said. “You tossed it in the dump. Must have been a shock to find out Jackson Pressler nabbed it for one of his sculptures.”
“For sure. But I should have known. I tried to dump the laptop at the dump too, thinking it would be buried in trash, but some guy freaked out about it. Screamed ‘That can’t go in the dump,’ and started mouthing off about recycling. As if he needed to educate me on that. That’s why I put it in my trunk. I thought about tossing it in the river but couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“And once you heard that the camera got pulled out of the dump, you thought the memory card might have been with it and was in the sculpture. Why didn’t you take the card out of the camera?”
“I didn’t even see one in there. I was kind of in a panic, but I didn’t find it in the sculpture.”
“That’s because it wasn’t there,” Sam said. “I spread that rumor to flush out the killer.”
Dennis jerked his head up at Sam. “What? So I went
out there for nothing?”
Sam shrugged. Where was the card? Had it fallen out during the murder? Sam was sure he would have found it at the scene. It definitely wasn’t in the smashed-up camera. Maybe it would turn up, but Sam doubted they’d need it to prove Dennis’ guilt.
Dennis sighed and put his head back down. “Doesn’t matter. You would eventually have gotten the photos from the forensics on the camera.”
Sam shook his head. “Sorry, but I lied about that too. There’s no way to pull photos from that camera without a memory card.”
Dennis jerked his head up again, shock spreading over his face. “You mean I told you all this and you don’t have anything on me? Isn’t that entrapment? Where’s my lawyer?”
Sam shook his head. “Don’t think that will work. We have enough now from what you’ve told us to prove it. Especially after we get that laptop out of your trunk. But don’t worry, your lawyer will be here soon enough.”
Sam had heard enough. He looked at Kevin. “You think you can take it from here?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sam nodded and left. On the way out, he texted Mick about the meeting with Dupont. It was always good to have backup. Then he raced home to drop off Lucy. He didn’t want to put her in danger. He had only half an hour before they were to meet with Dupont.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Reeds Ferry Mill sat crumbling on an isolated piece of land paralleling the river. Abandoned more than forty years ago, the mill saw woods grown up around it so that the towering trees, grasses and shrubs dimmed the sunlight, providing the ambiance of twilight even though the sun had not yet set.
Jo had already checked the building for exits earlier in the day. She knew how to get out if things turned bad, but that didn’t make her feel any better. Having Sam by her side did.
Sam had told her about Dennis’ confession on the way. She wasn’t sure if putting Kevin in charge was a good idea, but what other option did they have? It was fitting, however, that Dennis’ downfall was brought on by his own obsession with picking up trash.
They’d passed Mick’s car parked on the old access road on their way in. He wasn’t in the car, but knowing he was out here somewhere watching and ready to jump to their aid if they needed him made her feel better.
The mill parking lot was now an overgrown patch of weeds and tall grass. Dupont’s car sat at the far end, near the side of the building.
It was that silent time late in the afternoon, just before dusk. A few tweets and twitters of birds and the buzzing of insects in the grass combined with the sound of the gurgling river. The mill, with its dirty brick and graffiti-scarred boarded windows, cast a long shadow over the parking lot.
Jo knew from her earlier surveillance that the rusted steel service door near the river was unlocked. She led Sam toward it, and he motioned her aside while he opened it, the hinges groaning as he swung it wide.
Inside, it was almost pitch black. The only light filtered in from cracks in the plywood that covered the two windows in the small room. Jo figured it had once been some sort of storeroom, though now it had other uses.
The smell of sweat and something earthy cloyed the air, and they paused, letting their eyes get used to the dark. Jo scanned the small room to make sure nothing was out of place from her earlier visit. Now that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light she could make out shapes. One of those shapes was the dirty mattress in the corner she’d seen earlier. Empty bags of chips and soda cans lay beside it. Kids partying or maybe vagrants. Possibly even addicts hooked on the drugs from Thorne’s supply. The thought steeled her resolve, and she continued on. Hopefully Dupont would give them the information they needed to finally nail Thorne.
“Dupont? It’s Sam.”
The mill remained quiet.
They shared an uneasy glance. Jo could feel the tension rolling off Sam. Where was Dupont?
“The main mill is through there.” Jo pointed toward a doorway, and they moved to it, the floorboards creaking under their feet. A few paces from the door, Sam motioned for Jo to stop.
“Dupont? Are you in there?”
No answer. Was this a trap?
Sam moved to the side of the doorway, pulling his gun from its holster and gesturing for Jo to get behind him. They’d worked together so long she knew what he was thinking. If someone was waiting in the room, they couldn’t very well waltz right in. Better to follow police procedure and make sure they weren’t ambushed.
Sam tapped her arm, and then in one swift movement he lunged through the doorway, his gun held steady in front of him.
Squawk!
Flap!
Jo jumped into the doorway too, her heart racing, her equilibrium thrown off by a whirlwind of activity directly in front of them. Her finger tightened on the trigger then eased off as she realized what the commotion was. Pigeons. Flapping up from the floor to roost in the rafters.
She took a quick inventory of the room, her trained eye looking for movement or unusual shapes that signaled someone might attack.
“Shit!” Sam rushed toward something in the center of the room, and Jo’s heart plummeted. It was Dupont.
He lay on his side, a dark puddle under his head, his open eyes staring toward the door they’d just come in. A bullet hole in his skull told Jo they wouldn’t be getting any information from him. A gun lay in front of him.
“Jesus Christ!” Sam knelt near Dupont, pressing his fingers to his carotid artery even though it was obvious Dupont was dead.
“What the hell happened?” Jo asked, her voice low.
“Someone shot him.” Sam glanced around the room. “Happened a while ago, the blood is already starting to congeal. I’m sure they’re long gone, otherwise the pigeons wouldn’t have been settled on the floor.”
Jo’s mind raced. Dupont had been about to give them information on Thorne, and now he was dead.
“Damn it! Now we’re not going to find out what he knew about Tyler,” she said, speaking in the same hushed tone as Sam even though no one was there to hear them.
“Or when Thorne is going to make his drug run.” Sam pointed to Dupont’s right hand, curled in a fist, cradling a piece of crumpled paper. “What’s that?”
Jo took the pencil out of her pocket and worked the paper out of Dupont’s fist. It had been torn from a bigger piece, a photocopy barely legible. On the top right was a logo. Jo’s heart froze as she recognized it. “This is the logo from the DNA testing lab. I recognize it from the Donnelly case.”
Sam frowned. “Why would Dupont have a scrap of paper from the DNA testing lab?”
“Must have been part of what he was going to show us.” Jo took the scrap to the window so she could see better, her mind whirling.
They needed to get out of here. No. They couldn’t leave the body, and there was too much evidence they’d been here. They needed to think up a reason they had come in the first place. There would be no record of anyone calling anything into the station.
She was so busy thinking about how to avoid having to tell anyone the real reason they were there that it took her brain a few seconds to register what her eyes saw on the paper. Her mouth dropped open.
“Umm … Sam, you’d better look at this.” She held the paper out, and Sam came to stand beside her. “This is DNA testing. A 95 percent match on Thorne and Richardson.”
“What the … .” Sam squinted at the paper and held it to the light.
Sam’s eyes met Jo’s. “You mean Tyler Richardson was related to Thorne?”
Jo nodded slowly.
This put Tyler’s death, the mysterious key under his desk and the twenty-five grand that appeared in his bank account in a whole new light. Had Tyler been a mole in the police department, giving Thorne — his relative — insider information? That would explain some of the instances when Thorne had narrowly escaped being caught. He’d been tipped and was able to move his operation at the last minute.
A movement caught Jo’s eye. Someone in the doorway. Sam s
aw it at the same time, and they both spun around with their guns up.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Are you guys okay?” Mick stood in the doorway, his eyes widening as they drifted from Sam and Jo to Dupont’s body. “You shot him?”
“Found him that way.” Sam holstered his gun. “What are you doing in here? I didn’t give the signal.”
“I heard you call out for Dupont, then nothing. Thought I better make sure you were okay.” Mick walked further into the room, taking care to avoid the blood that had spread around Dupont. “You think Thorne had someone do this?”
“Probably. Must have found out he was going to tip us off. Now we’ll never know what he was going to tell us. Except maybe what’s on this paper.”
Jo looked at the paper in her hand.
“What’s that?” Mick asked.
“DNA test. Looks like Tyler might have been related to Thorne.”
“What? Whoa, wait a minute. You mean Tyler was working for Thorne?”
Sam shrugged. “No idea. It doesn’t make sense. Tyler was one of the best. I can’t imagine him being a mole for Thorne.”
“It would explain some of the botched arrests that seemed as if someone had tipped Thorne off,” Jo said.
“You sure he didn’t kill himself?” Mick pointed to the gun.
Sam shook his head. “The position of the gun isn’t right. The body fell to the left, but the gun is in front of him. He would have died instantly, so it should have fallen to his side and be behind him.”
“What the heck? Why did they leave it?”
Sam looked around. “I don’t know. This whole thing stinks. We need to call this in right away. Anyone could have seen us driving here. I wasn’t thinking we might need to watch out for that. It will look suspicious if we were just hanging around in here before we call the medical examiner and ambulance.”
Jo whipped out her phone. “I think Kevin is still on duty. Wait. What about the paper? How do we explain that? How do we even explain being here?”
“We don’t explain the paper. We tell the truth. Well, mostly. That Dupont wanted to meet secretly to pass along information on Thorne.”