Terry Odell - Mapleton 03 - Deadly Puzzles

by Terry Odell

  Chapter 18

  Gordon stood, wiping his mouth. He tossed the napkin on the table. “I’m Gordon,” he said, hoping to forestall the trooper using his rank.

  The compact trooper, knit cap in hand, purple shadows under his eyes, and a stubble-darkened jaw, looked like he’d been working the night shift, the day shift, and the swing shift. Twice in a row. He handed Gordon and Wardell business cards. “Matt Kennedy. I need to take a report.”

  Mrs. Yardumian appeared with a coffee mug in hand. “Can I get you some coffee, trooper?”

  “I’d appreciate that, ma’am. Black with sugar.”

  “Have a seat. I could make you a waffle if you’d like.”

  “No, thanks, ma’am. Coffee’s fine.”

  Mrs. Yardumian whisked over to the sideboard and filled the mug, returning with it and the sugar bowl. “I’ll let you fix it the way you like it.”

  Kennedy set his hat on the table and added two heaping spoons of sugar to his coffee. He stirred, sipped, and sighed. “Thanks so much.”

  Mrs. Yardumian left, and Gordon refilled his own cup and sat while Kennedy took a moment to enjoy his coffee. The trooper raked a hand through his close-cropped cinnamon-colored hair, then pulled out a notebook, pen, and a small recorder. “This shouldn’t take too long. Mr. Wardell, can you recap the accident for me, please. I know you’ve explained it already, but I want to have everything recorded. It’s a matter of routine.”

  While Wardell rambled on about the elk and the ice, and how he’d trekked through the snow to get to the Yardumians’, Gordon studied the trooper’s technique. The man was young, his excitement for the job surfacing over his exhaustion. His questions were routine, but he maintained eye contact with Wardell, encouraging without leading. Sympathetic, not condescending. Definitely playing good cop—although Gordon doubted Kennedy was role playing.

  “So, the car was on the shoulder when you left?” Kennedy said. “How close to the edge of the embankment?”

  Wardell frowned. “Six inches, a foot maybe.”

  “Facing the road? Angled so an approaching car might have clipped it? Sent it over?”

  Another frown. “I was spinning. Trying to avoid the elk. I didn’t stop and draw a diagram. I couldn’t get the car started. I knew I had to find help.”

  “And you told your wife to wait,” Kennedy said, making more notes.

  “Yes. She didn’t want me to leave her, but I thought it would be better if she stayed with the car. You know, in case someone came by. She could get them to call for help. And since I didn’t know exactly where I was going, I thought she’d be warmer, safer, in the car.”

  “And she was gone when you got there?”

  Wardell was growing impatient, and Kennedy once again explained that this was merely routine, getting the facts to help them investigate. Gordon noticed the subtle repetition, the rewording of questions. Good technique—see if Wardell’s story changed. Kennedy hadn’t been with the man, hadn’t seen how distraught he was. But, if Wardell did have a part in his wife’s disappearance, he could easily channel his fear of being discovered into the role of anxious husband. Gordon tried to use that filter as he replayed everything that had happened. Could he have been wrong?

  Yeah, he’d been wrong before. Undoubtedly would be again. Meanwhile, this was Kennedy’s interview. But Gordon shifted his focus from Kennedy’s questions to Wardell’s answers, paying close attention to Orrin’s eyes. They remained on Kennedy, although they seemed focused slightly above his head.

  “Now, after you arrived here, you and Gordon went to rescue your wife,” Kennedy continued. “But she wasn’t there, is that correct?”

  “Yes. I mean no. She was gone.”

  “Times?” Kennedy asked.

  Wardell looked at Gordon. “We figured between nine and eleven, right?”

  “Right,” Gordon said.

  “So, the car could have gone over the edge any time after nine, and before eleven.” Kennedy made more notes. “And judging from the lack of evidence of your wife when you got there, she probably left before the secondary accident.”

  “There was nothing in the car,” Wardell said. “Her purse was gone. So was our luggage. And we didn’t see anything like footprints, if that’s what you mean. But then it started snowing. Really snowing, so we couldn’t see anything anyway.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Wardell. I think that’s all I need from you. I’d like to speak with Gordon for a few minutes, if you’ll excuse us.”

  For the first time, Wardell seemed nervous. Reluctant to leave. But Kennedy simply stared at him, and Wardell shoved his chair away from the table and stood. “You’ll look for her, right?”

  “Of course,” Kennedy said. “In reality, the Sheriff’s Department will be handling the missing persons side of things. Our job is to investigate the accident.”

  “Do I have to go through this again?” Wardell’s fingers whitened on the back of his chair.

  “We’ve already coordinated with them. If we find any evidence of her whereabouts at the accident scene, we’ll forward it to them. Meanwhile, make sure they can get in touch with you. Do you have contact numbers?”

  Wardell gave the trooper his cell phone number. “But until I charge it, it’s no good. I was going to head to Telluride, where my uncle lives. That’s where we’ve been staying.”

  “Give me his number, and that should be it,” Kennedy said.

  Wardell complied, and left the room, with one last glance over his shoulder.

  Kennedy refilled his coffee mug and leaned against the sideboard, positioned so he could verify Wardell had left. “Your take?”

  “Upset, distraught, but understandably so,” Gordon said. “His story held up—maybe too well. His answers were automatic. But he’s doubtless been thinking of little else since it happened. I don’t know him well enough to know whether this is his normal behavior or not.”

  “I got the feeling it was well-rehearsed, myself,” Kennedy said. “But you’ve spent more time with him. And you’ve had a lot more experience than I have.” He came back to the table. “Chief Hepler.”

  Gordon paused at Kennedy’s mention of his title. “I appreciate you not mentioning I was a cop in front of Wardell.”

  “I knew you were keeping it quiet. But, since you’re a cop, I’d like your take on the scene. We’ll have our own investigators go over it to reconstruct what happened, but with the blizzard, we’re going to lose a lot of information.”

  “Nothing looked hinky to me. Just the insides of a car. Pretty much empty, like Wardell said. Maybe some snack or fast food wrappers, normal junk. I took pictures of the car.” He picked up his phone, opened the photo file.

  His pictures were gone.

  Chapter 19

  Gordon checked his photo files again, then swore under his breath. “I know I took pictures, but they’re gone. All of them.”

  “You sure?” Kennedy asked. “Maybe they went to a different folder.”

  “I’ll have to hook this to a computer and see,” Gordon said. “But I didn’t touch them after I got back from the site with Wardell.”

  “Did he have your phone? Any reason he’d tamper with it? Wouldn’t they need your password?”

  Gordon forced a relaxing breath.

  No stress. Calm. What’s done is done.

  “It’s my personal phone, not my work one. Hardly anything on it. I turned off the password protection because it was too much of a pain to keep entering it, what with wearing gloves and all.” Gordon didn’t think he needed to mention that his impaired vision made it even more of a pain to have to deal with hitting the right keys. “I had it with me, and didn’t consider someone else taking it at the time.”

  “Okay, so what do you think might have happened?” Kennedy asked.

  Gordon replayed the events in his mind. “I don’t think he had a chance to touch my phone. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  Gordon explained how his phone had gone missing after the se
cond trip to the site with Metcalf, and how it had been left on the table this morning. “I was the last one downstairs. And since I’d shut off the password protection, anyone could have picked up the phone and tampered with it.”

  “Who’d have a motive?”

  Gordon repressed a snort. “Whoever thought there was something incriminating on the phone is the obvious answer. But figuring out the motive, which will lead to the who—that’s the question.”

  “That’s pushing into the Sheriff’s Department’s area,” Kennedy said. “I’m on accident detail. I’ve got to file this report and then I’m off duty for a while. The blizzard caused at least six accidents, and then there’s the shooting—we’ve all been pulling doubles.”

  “Regular hours and cop work aren’t part of the same universe,” Gordon said. “You know anything else about the shooting?”

  Kennedy shook his head. “Nothing yet, although the reconstruction team is working on it. This’ll be a joint investigation, no doubt. I’m sure the sergeant will keep you in the loop if you ask.” He gathered his notes and recorder. “Thanks for your time.”

  Gordon saw him to the door, then hustled up the stairs to search his phone. As he waited for the laptop to boot, he contemplated who might have erased the pictures—or whether it had been some other technological glitch. Maybe the photos wouldn’t open when the battery was close to death. He didn’t pretend to understand the vagaries of cell phones.

  He ran the possibilities through his mind, wishing Solomon were here. That man could see nuances that didn’t occur to Gordon—off the wall, usually, but that’s what brainstorming was. Hell, he’d even settle for Colfax. The county detective was a thorn in Gordon’s side, but the man had years of putting puzzles together.

  Okay, first possibility. It was a phone glitch. No harm, no foul. Second, someone had been messing with his phone and deleted the pictures by accident. Very low possibility on that one. Third, someone deliberately erased them. But why all? Gordon didn’t keep many pictures on his phone. He’d miss the one of Angie, but he could recover that from his PC. If someone had seen an incriminating picture, why erase all of them? Because if only one or two were missing, their absence might call attention to them? That would assume Gordon would have noticed which ones were missing—he’d been snapping away, not paying close attention to what he was shooting. But would whoever erased the pictures know that? Probably not.

  Gordon plugged his phone into the laptop, then powered it on. Blinking as he waited for the computer to recognize the phone, he reached for the readers he’d left on his nightstand. They did little to help bring the screen into focus—what he needed was a third eye in the middle of his forehead to cover the middle distances.

  The laptop chirped, which meant that the phone’s information should be visible. Gordon moved the computer forward and back until he hit the distance where the screen wasn’t a blur. He squinted, looking for the folder. The damn program listings in the sidebar refused to enlarge. Finally, he found the one for the phone.

  He clicked the sub folders open. Frustration grew as he found far less than what should have been there. How—and why—would someone have deleted his ringtones, his something to do while waiting books, and his music files? And his contacts? Frustration turned to anger. Someone was after something he had on his phone. Either that, or it was a nasty practical joke.

  Come to think of it, that sounded like something Metcalf would do. He certainly had the greatest opportunity to tinker with the files, but if he were going to delete something, why not keep the whole phone? Gordon had already given it up as lost.

  Wardell’s innocent demeanor when Gordon had asked him about the phone seemed to ring true. Why would Sam or Paula have tampered with it? He could see why they wouldn’t take the phone—they couldn’t count on Gordon not checking with Metcalf, who would have told him he’d left the phone on the table. But since they’d checked out, there was no way to ask them. Although his training said he shouldn’t eliminate the Yardumians, Gordon’s instincts said they were at the bottom of his list.

  Gordon looked at the screen again. Nothing seemed unusual, but he rarely hooked his phone to the computer, so how would he know? It couldn’t have anything to do with the low battery—the data in the folders should be there no matter what. He opened the contacts folder again. Still empty. Gordon gave a quick thanks that these weren’t his work contacts. If they were, he’d be up that damn creek with no paddle.

  Could his saboteur have wanted his contacts instead of the pictures? Taken everything because it was easier? Which would have meant whoever it was would have had to have hooked the phone to their computer. Deleting everything one item at a time would have taken forever, and Gordon had to assume whoever took the data wanted it for him or herself, and wasn’t pulling a prank by trashing it all.

  That pretty much eliminated Wardell—he didn’t have a laptop with him. Paula did. Did Sam? He must have—he shot digital pictures for his sketches, and would have wanted to be able to see them. Metcalf? Maybe. Although he didn’t strike Gordon as a high-tech guy, Gordon knew better than to jump to that kind of a conclusion. Metcalf would need to stay in touch with clients, even if he was on vacation.

  Gordon took one last look at the computer, then had the brilliant idea to check the phone as well. He tapped the settings icon and checked his phone storage. Plenty of free space, which was understandable if someone had erased most of his data. He looked at the computer again.

  Crap. How had he missed it? The memory card from his phone should have shown up in the computer’s directory as another drive. It wasn’t there. He checked the phone’s directory again. No card. Nothing. Shit.

  Chapter 20

  So much for feeling any guilt about leaving his phone unlocked. Nobody needed his password. All the culprit had to do was open the phone and extract the memory card. This was more than a practical joke. Gordon restrained himself from racing downstairs to confront—who? His most logical suspects were gone. Time to back up, look at the puzzle as a whole and see what pieces he had, and which ones he needed. Hell, he couldn’t even be sure he was looking at a single puzzle.

  First, there was Wardell’s missing wife. Did she even exist? How had their car ended up in the ravine? Where was the luggage Wardell claimed had been in the car?

  Next, he had the pickup accident with the dead driver. Dead by gunshot. At least two shots—one for the tire and another for the driver. Hunting accident was highly unlikely given that it wasn’t hunting season. Poachers couldn’t be ruled out, but to be shooting at an elk and happen to hit a truck’s tire and the driver—a head shot, no less—nope. No way it was an accident. If this had been Gordon’s case, he’d have ruled that out from the start.

  But it wasn’t Gordon’s case. Even someone stealing his memory card was out of his jurisdiction. Then again, nothing said he couldn’t do a little unofficial poking around. Wardell didn’t seem as innocent anymore.

  A gust of wind moaned outside. Snow swirled down from the roof. Gordon clicked a link to the weather forecast. More snow projected, but not until mid-afternoon. He unplugged his phone from the laptop, tucked his Beretta into its holster, and grabbed his warm outerwear before going down to Wardell’s room.

  Wardell opened the door at Gordon’s knock.

  “If you want a ride to Montrose, I can take you, but we should get going before the next storm hits,” Gordon said.

  “Give me two minutes to get my things. Meet you downstairs.”

  Gordon trotted downstairs and fetched his travel mug from his SUV. He brought it to the dining room and filled it from the carafe on the sideboard, then found Mrs. Yardumian in the kitchen. He explained that he’d be driving Wardell to the rental agency.

  She wiped her hands on a towel hanging from the oven door handle. “That’s so nice of you. Raffi would do it, I’m sure, but he’d be grateful for the extra time. This is our slow season, and he’s got some routine maintenance on the cabins.” She smiled. “Then again,
maybe he’d be more grateful if he had an excuse to put it off.”

  “If you’d rather—”

  She waved a hand and laughed. “No, he doesn’t need any more excuses than he can come up with on his own.”

  “Then I guess we’ll be off. Forecast says more snow, but I should be back before then.”

  Her gaze shifted to the window. “So much for the nice day.”

  Gordon grinned. “Hey, it’s Colorado. We can have a sunny morning, snow in the afternoon, and who knows what else by nightfall.”

  “You’re so right. Drive safely.”

  Wardell stood in the kitchen doorway, shifting his weight. “You ready?”

  “I am,” Gordon said.

  Wardell headed away, then, almost as an afterthought, came into the kitchen. “Thanks for your hospitality. If you’ll let me settle my bill, I’ll be on my way.”

  Mrs. Yardumian waved her hand again. “Don’t give it a thought. I hope they find your wife and she’s all right.”

  “Me, too,” Wardell said. “And thanks. The trooper said the Sheriff’s Department would be investigating. I want to get to a place where I feel like I can do something, and my uncle usually knows what to do.”

  “Why don’t you leave his contact information with the Yardumians?” Gordon said. “So they can get in touch if they find out anything.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. There’s a notepad and pen by the phone.” Mrs. Yardumian tilted her chin toward a small shelf attached to the wall.

  Wardell stepped across the room and wrote something on the pad. “Thanks again.”

  In the truck, Gordon plugged his phone into the charger, then checked the route to the car rental agency in Montrose on his GPS. “Should be there in under an hour, weather permitting.” He clicked his seatbelt shut.

  Wardell did the same, then folded his arms across his chest. “I appreciate everything you’ve done. You think the cops will find her?”