by L A Dobbs
Rita put a forefinger to her lips. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure. They all look the same to me. I don’t see how anyone can drive these big things. I can barely handle my Dodge Dart.” Rita paused for a moment and looked thoughtful. “I do remember one thing, though. It had those big racks on the roof. You know, for luggage and stuff.”
Bev nodded. “And you’re sure you saw it when you heard the sirens.”
“Yes, ma’am. The sirens were loud, and Bitsy doesn’t like loud noises or fast cars. She was spooked, so we had to turn around and go right home.”
“Did you see where it came from or which way it went?” Bev asked.
Rita looked at Sam as if Bev had just asked the stupidest question. “Only one place it could come from: that old mill. Reed’s Ferry. And only one place it could go to: Foster Street.”
Sam looked at Bev. “Foster Street leads out to the main road. Could’ve been headed anywhere.”
Sam turned his attention back to Rita, crouching down to talk to her at eye level. “Okay, Rita, you did good. Now I want you to go home and think about this and let us know if you remember anything more.”
“Okay.” Rita got up. “I can go now?”
“Yep. You have a nice day.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bev said.
“You too. Enjoy the fruitcake.”
Rita shuffled off, and Bev turned back to Sam and Jo.
“Well, that wasn’t much help. There have to be thousands of black SUVs around.” Bev picked up the photos of the SUVs and sighed.
Jo held up the note from Wyatt. “Two-thousand-three-hundred and forty-one, to be exact. At least that’s how many have been registered in a thirty-mile radius, according to Wyatt’s research.”
“Let’s not forget the SUV might not be one registered around here,” Sam said.
“Yeah, it’s not much of a lead,” Bev said.
“So we’re not much more ahead of where we were yesterday,” Sam said.
“What about the hair?” Jo asked. “Can we get anything off of that?”
Bev shook her head. “There’s not much to go on with that. We already know the killer moved stuff around. Until we have some suspects, the hair is meaningless. Looks like our best hope is to locate this Scott Elliott.”
The lobby door opened, and Harry rushed in. “Hey, I ran into Rita Hoelscher, and she said she left some fruitcake ...” His eyes fell on the packages on the desk. “Oh, there it is. Do you mind if I cut myself a piece? I do love her fruitcake, and she doesn’t bake it often.”
Bev, Jo, and Sam exchanged a glance.
“Not at all,” Bev said.
“Take as much as you want,” Sam added.
“You can have all of mine.” Jo gestured toward one of the loaves.
Bev nodded. “Mine too. In fact, take it all with you.”
“You sure? I wouldn’t want to deprive you …” Harry glanced from Bev to Sam to Jo, who all nodded enthusiastically.
“Please help yourself.”
Harry’s eyes lit up, and he grabbed one of the packages and opened it. He turned to Bev as he popped a piece in his mouth. “Hey, kid, what brings you down here again?”
“Helping out with the Dupont case.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed as he nibbled the fruitcake. Lucy came to sit beside him, turning pleading eyes up to him. “Oh, nasty business, that.”
“Indeed.”
“Though I think we can do better for mayor.” Harry tossed a little piece of fruitcake to Lucy then bent down to her level. Lucy put her paw up, and Harry shook it before giving her another piece, standing, and brushing crumbs from his tan chinos. “Well, I better get going. The missus will be looking for me. Thanks for the fruitcake.”
“I’ll walk you out. It’s almost quitting time,” Bev said. “How is Mabel, anyway?”
“Fine, fine. Getting ready to go to Florida already. See you later, Sam.”
Bev turned and gave them a two-finger wave. “Let me know if you locate that lead.”
Jo looked out the window as they disappeared around the edge of the post office boxes. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows from the oak trees in the town common.
“Quitting sounds good,” Sam said. “You ready to head to Holy Spirits? Reese is working late; she can stay with Lucy.”
“I sure am. And I could really use a drink.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about Mick’s SUV being identified at the mill,” Sam said to Jo when they were seated at the bar in Holy Spirits.
“Hopefully not.” Jo took a pull on her beer. She seemed a bit down, and Sam wondered if the case was getting to her. Heck, it was getting to him.
“Rita won’t remember, and no one else has come forward, so we can put that worry behind us.” Sam glanced up at the mirror behind the bar, where he saw the simple round tables and maple chairs behind him. Patches of red, blue, and green spilled in from the stained-glass windows above the mirror. Toward the door, two of the original long oak pews sat near the door, a table between them. Sam liked to watch the surprised looks on tourists’ faces as they entered. Many of them mistook the bar for an actual church because the vestibule looked exactly as it had when Holy Spirits was a church. It wasn’t until you opened those big oak double doors that you realized that instead of an altar with a cross and candles, there was a bar with liquor bottles and bar stools.
It didn’t take long to figure out there wasn’t any preaching going on in here unless your idea of preaching included yelling at whatever sports team on the television was losing.
Sam turned his attention back to his beer on the polished wood of the bar and let the din of conversation behind him fade as he took a swig. The smell of burgers and fries permeated the room, reminding his stomach that it was suppertime.
“What do you think of the hair?” Jo asked.
“Grasping at straws.” Sam spied the owner of Holy Spirits, Billie Hanson, at the end of the bar. Her lavender-tinged spiked hair bobbed up and down as she juggled pulling a beer with serving a burger. He caught her eye and tapped his bottle to indicate he was ready for another.
“That’s what I thought too, but still, maybe Scott Elliott has a pet or ... I don’t know.” Jo swung her bar stool around to face away from the bar. Sam could see the wheels in her head turning as she tried to figure out how they could use the hair. Could they? Bev had said it was in the chamber, which indicated the hair was in there when the killer loaded the gun. But how would an animal hair help them? It certainly wasn’t going to help them find the killer, but maybe once they did, it could help them prove he’d done it.
Or had the hair been planted? If someone was trying to frame him, it wouldn’t be hard to get one of Lucy’s hairs and plant it in the gun.
“Here comes Mick.” Jo inclined her head toward the door.
Sam glanced in the mirror to see his best friend walk into the bar. Mick was tall and broad. The black T-shirt stretched across his chest made it obvious that he still spent a lot of time working out, even though he was pushing forty. Apparently, it was too hot for his usual black leather jacket. His light-blue eyes scanned the bar, falling on Sam and Jo. He took the stool next to Sam, leaning across him to greet Jo.
Billie slid Sam’s beer across the bar and looked at Mick. “Usual?”
Mick nodded.
Billie pulled out a tumbler, threw in some ice, and splashed it full of whiskey before setting it in front of Mick.
Mick took a swig, let out a breath, and turned to Sam and Jo. “So what’s up? Fill me in.”
They ordered a basket of sweet potato fries and shared it as they brought Mick up to speed. Sam and Jo took turns telling him how Rita had seen his SUV, how Jamison had pulled Bev Hatch onto the case, how Jesse had given them the name of his supplier, and how the fingerprint was tied to both Tyler’s and Dupont’s murder scenes.
“So you don’t think Rita will be able to identify my vehicle?” Mick asked.
“Nah.” Sam swigged his beer.
“Good. Damn, that’s interesting about the fingerprint. I know that old lady’s grandson has something to do with the stolen car.” Mick swirled his glass, the ice cubes clinking. He swigged the rest of it down and chomped on a cube. “Makes me nervous with Bev Hatch on the case, though.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty sharp,” Jo said.
“And honest,” Sam said.
“We’re honest, too,” Jo said.
Mick raised a brow. “Yeah, but in a roundabout way. Doesn’t Bev know your dad or something, Sam?”
“My grandpa helped her mom out a bit, but I doubt that’ll hold much weight if she thinks we’ve done something wrong.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that she’s never done anything wrong?” Mick nodded for a refill as Billie swooped by with the whiskey bottle. “Anyone who has been in law enforcement for a while has done something that ain’t quite on the up-and-up. Don’t expect me to believe she never pushed the envelope, never had to do something a little bit outside of the law to make sure a killer didn’t go free.”
“I don’t know if she did or not,” Sam said.
“Count on it. Any sheriff worth his or her salt is forced to, but that’s beside the point. We’ll just make sure she doesn’t catch wind of anything you guys might have done wrong.” Mick raised his brows and took a gulp of his drink.
“I don’t know about that, but I know one thing: the sooner we get rid of Thorne, the better. For all of us.”
“You can say that again.” Mick’s expression turned somber, and Sam thought about the knife. Thorne still had it, so Mick had as much at stake as anyone to get rid of him.
“Sounds like things hinge on that fingerprint, and the only lead we have on that is the grandson and possibly this Scott Elliott,” Sam said. “We need to talk to these people alone first. One of them might know where Tyler kept that box. There’s no telling what’s in there. We might not want anyone else to get a look at it.”
“Right. So you guys work on Elliott, and I’ll work on the grandson.” Mick took another sip of his whiskey, his face thoughtful. “Something doesn’t add up, though.”
“Lots of things don’t add up,” Jo said.
Mick swung his stool to face them and put his elbow on the bar, leaning in closer to Sam and Jo. “You said that the fingerprint found in the car when Tyler was killed matched the one on the leaf near the mill. The same person was at both places.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know who that is. The fingerprint didn’t match anyone in the database.”
“Right. But we do know that Tyler knew that person. And if that person was at the roadside when Tyler was killed, he is probably tight with Thorne. If that’s the case, then that person likely broke some laws somewhere along the way.”
Realization dawned on Sam. That was what he loved about Mick. He could always count on him to come up with a logical solution. “And if he did break some laws, Tyler might have covered for him.”
Mick smiled and nodded.
“But where does this Scott Elliott fit in? He’s never been fingerprinted.”
“Could be the person who was with Tyler was higher up. Elliott is low on the pole, right?”
“Yep,” Sam agreed. “We’re trying for a warrant to lift a print from his house.”
“This could be another lead,” Jo said. “We can look through Tyler’s calls to see if there was anyone he might have let off the hook.”
Sam glanced at her. “That’s a great idea. See? This case is starting to open up.”
Jo tilted her beer bottle and clinked it with Mick’s and Sam’s. “Great. I’ll get on that first thing in the morning.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jo got in early the next day. She wanted to research Tyler’s arrest records without everyone else in the office figuring out what she was doing. Too bad everyone else had the same idea about coming in early.
Sam was already in his office with Lucy, the door slightly ajar. Reese was at the reception desk, handing out permits for yard sales. Kevin was typing a report. Jo noticed he seemed a little jittery, glancing up as if she’d caught him at something whenever she walked past his desk. She guessed the case was getting to everyone. Especially her. But that might be good, because it was taking up all her thinking time, and for the first time in years, she hadn’t thought about her sister’s case. That was a good sign, a sign that it really was time to put her sister’s case behind her.
She didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing, so she sat at her desk, typing on her laptop. The squad room was quiet, the sound of laptop keys clacking and the smell of coffee permeating the air. At the front desk, Reese was trying to referee an argument between Joan Cummings and Myrtle Winters. Both Joan and Myrtle wanted to have yard sales at the weekend, but they each felt the other’s sale would take traffic away from their sale and were trying to convince Reese to deny the permit to the other.
Jo let the squabble become background noise and focused on her work. Tyler had gone on a lot of calls this past year, and some of them were a little odd.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Wyatt’s question startled her. He leaned over to look at her screen.
Jo closed her laptop. “No, thanks.”
Wyatt gave her a funny look and then turned to go back to his desk. “Okay. Let me know if you do. I finished up my paperwork.”
As Wyatt walked back to his desk, Kevin spun around in his chair and handed him some papers. “Here. You can type these up if you’re looking for something to do.”
Wyatt took them silently and got to work.
Jo reopened her computer, her pulse quickening when she noticed a few discrepancies. There was one person Tyler had noted in a few calls, but he never brought that person in. Forest Duncan. It could be a coincidence. She needed to dig deeper to see if there was any pattern.
“Holy crap!” Reese’s excited voice carried over the post office boxes, and Jo glanced up. Apparently, the yard sale arguers were gone, because the only sound that came from over the wall of post office boxes was the rustling of papers. Lucy must have heard, too, because she trotted out, followed closely by Sam. Reese appeared around the post office boxes, a piece of paper in her hand.
“What is it?” Kevin asked.
“I got an ID on that fingerprint. The one from the crime scene. I had a flag in the system for them to fax it to me if anyone got a hit. And someone got a hit.”
“Really?” Wyatt stood up at his desk. “That’s great. We got a break in the case.”
“Yeah, part of it’s great,” Reese said. “The print did belong to that guy you were looking for yesterday—Scott Elliott.”
Jo’s spirits picked up. “I knew he was involved.” Apparently, all that work Sam had done to groom Jesse had paid off.
“Let’s go pick him up.” Sam pulled his keys from his pocket. “Where did the hit come from? I assume he was arrested and printed.”
“Figured it was only a matter of time before he’d be arrested.” Jo jumped up from her chair to join Sam.
“Yeah, that’s the part that isn’t so great,” Reese said, stopping Jo in her tracks. “You can’t pick him up.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dead.”
Sam pressed his lips together and glanced at Jo. They needed Elliott alive to find the person further up the chain. Jo glanced back at her laptop. Unless ... This Forest Duncan guy might be closer to the top. If he had been involved with Tyler and Tyler was Thorne’s son, Tyler must have been pretty close to the top, and it made sense the top minions would work together.
Maybe if they pulled Forest in, they’d get all the information they needed. Maybe it didn’t matter that Elliott was dead. But Jo couldn’t mention that in front of anyone else. If she did, she’d have to explain why they were looking into Tyler, and then they’d have to explain about the DNA paper they’d taken off of Dupont’s body. Bringing up the fact that she was looking into a pattern on whom Tyler had arrested and released would mean that they�
�d have to admit they’d been holding back evidence on his case.
“Dead? How?” Kevin asked.
The lobby door opened, and Bev Hatch came around the post office boxes with a white doughnut bag from Brewed Awakening in her hand. She took one look at their faces and said, “I see you’ve heard the news.”
Sam turned to her. “You mean that the print from the leaf got a hit but the suspect is dead?”
Bev nodded once. “Yeah, found in a shallow grave down in Belknap County.”
“Murdered. So he killed Dupont, and then someone killed him to cover it up.” Sam brushed his hands through his short hair. “We just lost our best lead.”
“He might not be the killer.” Bev passed Sam the bag.
“What?” Sam passed the bag along to Jo without taking a doughnut.
“It’s still early, and I didn’t get the full report, but I talked to Dean Adams, the medical examiner handling the autopsy. He said there was no gunpowder residue on Elliott’s hands.”
“Well, it’s been more than a week since Dupont was killed. I’m sure it would be gone by now,” Sam said.
“No. Elliott’s been dead for a week at least, he thinks. If he died right after the murder and he pulled the trigger, he’d likely still have residue. Look, we already knew more than one person was at the scene where Dupont was murdered. This Elliott guy was probably killed because he witnessed it. Maybe he wasn’t even working with the killer. Maybe he just stumbled on it.” Bev shrugged. “I have no idea. But we’ll work closely with the investigation into his death. Maybe we can get some leads.”
“Let’s hope so,” Sam said.
“I’m in touch with the sheriff in Belknap County, but now that we have a solid link between Tyler and Dupont, I think we need to start going over Tyler’s case again.” Bev looked at Sam out of the corner of her eye, and Jo’s heart clenched as she picked out a jelly doughnut and passed the bag to Kevin. The narrow-eyed look told her that Bev suspected something might not be on the up-and-up.
“Sure,” Sam said. “But we need to find out more about Elliott and his death and —”