A Christmas to Die For_Mrs. A 1

by Kristine Frost

  “I’m sure they are related. There are other things that have developed but I’m not at liberty to talk about them yet. Once I have the all clear, you’ll be the first to know.”

  ********

  As the reporters walked to the elevator, Neil said, “She seems to be taking this mess pretty well.”

  “Does she?” Tom asked.

  “She did to me,” Neil said defensively.

  “I know her a little better than the rest of you. You see I knew her when her husband died. She showed the same indomitable courage and she radiated cheerfulness. But when I took an award her husband had received to her after the funeral, I saw what she really felt.

  “She burst into tears. I forgot I was a reporter and so did she. We talked for hours about her life and her husband. I’ve never used the stuff she told me in any of the articles I’ve written about her. She has repaid me a thousand times with exclusives that other reporters didn’t get. She has made my career. She’s not kidding when she says she’s loyal to her friends.”

  **********

  The next morning Tom Cramer called. “Mrs. A., there’s a man who works at the paper who thinks he saw something the afternoon the girls were kidnapped. Can I bring him over?”

  “Of course.”

  She looked at Martin as she hung up the phone. “Tom’s bringing an informant over. Do we have something to feed them?”

  “Will brownies and coffee be okay?”

  “I think Tom mainlines caffeine.” Ruth commented.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Martin said. “Should we call Lepley?”

  “No. Let’s hear what he has to say first.”

  A few minutes later, the phone rang. Abe Bryan, her chief of security said, “Martin, Tom Cramer is here with another man. Do you want me to let them up?”

  “Yes. We’re expecting them.”

  Martin had the door open when Tom and a tall, thin young man exited the elevator.

  Quickly, Tom hurried down the hall, towing the man with him. When the got to the door, Tom pushed the man across the threshold, then almost yanked the door out of Martin’s hand. Shutting the door with a snap, Tom turned the dead bolt.

  Martin looked from Tom to the other man. “Trouble?”

  “We just about got our wings and halos when we tried to cross the street in front of this building.”

  “What happened?” Ruth asked.

  “We started to cross the street at the light when a blue van made an illegal U-turn, squealing around the intersection. I know the driver saw us because he aimed that bloody van straight at us. He gunned the engine and popped the clutch. As the tires squealed for traction, I shoved Paul one way and I jumped the other. The van went right between us.” Tom held out his hand. “I’m still shaking.”

  Ruth looked at Martin. “You’d better call Inspector Lepley.”

  Martin pulled out his cell and pushed a button. Quickly he told him what had happened.

  “He’ll be here in less than five minutes. He was on his way over.”

  A couple of minutes later, Lepley and Duncan strode in. Ruth introduced both men and Lepley asked Tom to tell him what happened.

  When he was finished, Duncan said, “It sounds deliberate.”

  “It was,” Cramer said. “The driver had to run up on the sidewalk, nearly taking out the light pole on the corner. He shot the gap between two cars before he came after us. He couldn’t have been drunk since he missed both the cars and the light pole. I guess he could have been crazy, but I don’t think so.”

  Paul looked around nervously. “I’m not so sure that I ought to talk to you if someone is willing to kill me to keep me from talking.”

  Ruth said, “I know that you’re scared, but you’ll be a lot safer once you’ve told us what you know. They won’t have any need to come after you.”

  Lepley nodded. “That’s true. It’s also true that they will keep coming after you until they get you, if you don’t.”

  “I’d rather just leave if you don’t mind.”

  Lepley shrugged. “I can’t let you do that. I’ll have to take you downtown as a material witness. We can put you in jail to keep you safe.”

  “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  Tom said, “Come on, Paul. Once you’ve told your story the bad guys will leave you alone.”

  “You have two choices. You can tell your story and leave here a free man or we’ll have to arrest you. You’ll stay in custody until the case goes to trial.” Duncan said, brutally

  “But that could be years.”

  “Could be.” Duncan shrugged. “Personally, I’d rather leave a free man.”

  “And a man with cash in his pocket,” Martin added. “Mrs. A. is very generous.”

  “Yes, but they might kill me for revenge.”

  “I doubt it,” Lepley said.

  Cramer interrupted. “Aw, come on Paul. Tell the Inspector what you know, collect your reward and forget about the rest of the business/”

  “There’s a lot of truth in what they are saying. Most crooks don’t bother with revenge. They are too busy watching their own backsides. Most crooks aren’t into murder. You’ll be in less danger if you tell us what you know than if you don’t, especially since they know you’re here.”

  Paul groaned. “Alright. I’ll bow to the pressure. How do you want me to tell my story?”

  “Start at the beginning and go to the end.” Ruth smiled.

  “I was traveling up to White’s City where my grandparents live. I was almost to what I call the dug way up through the Guadalupe Mountains to Carlsbad, the day of the kidnapping. It was getting dark, about five o’clock. I saw three men dressed in dark clothing get out of a blue van. It looked like they helped two girls get out of the car. They were all dressed in casual clothes. One girl had dark hair and the other was a dark blond or maybe light brown hair.

  Like I said, “It was getting dark. The men helped the girls into a grey Plymouth van. The license number was ADG something.

  “How did the girls look?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t really see expressions. It was mostly images since I was doing sixty miles an hour. I can’t remember seeing any wounds or anything like that. They just walked like they were tired or defeated.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward with this information earlier?” Lepley snapped.

  “I didn’t connect what I’d seen with the kidnapping until Tom was talking about the police finding the grey van abandoned just outside Whites City. The location of the car made me think of what I’d seen.

  “When Tom told me about the reward, I decided to try for it. I’d have given the police the information anyway, but I figured that I deserved the money as much as anyone else.”

  Ruth said, “You’ve earned some of the reward money. If it turns out that this information is instrumental in getting the girls back or finding the kidnappers, I’ll add to it.”

  “Which way did the car go?” Cramer asked.

  “It headed away from the dug way, southwest on a secondary road, but a curve hid it from my view so I didn’t see if it turned south toward Van Horn or if it headed back toward El Paso.”

  “Can you describe the men?” Duncan asked.

  Paul hesitated, plainly flustered. “N-no. I don’t think so.”

  Cramer said impatiently, “Paul, if you were close enough to see those girls well enough to identify them as Mrs. A’s granddaughter and her friend, then you were close enough to describe the men in the car.”

  “I was looking at the girls. I didn’t see the men as well. I’m not sure how tall they were. I know they were five or six inches taller than the tallest girl.”

  “Antonia is 5’8”. I think she is slightly taller than Allison.”

  “So they must have been around 6 feet or 6’1” or so,” Duncan said.

  “One was a little heavier than the other. He had broader shoulders. I really didn’t get a look at their faces. Like I said, it was getting dark.”

  Mrs.
Arbuthnot said, “Here is a cashier’s check for five thousand dollars. If we get anything from your description, I’ll make sure you get more.”

  Paul stammered his thanks and followed Lepley from the apartment.

  Tom looked at Ruth, “It’s a good thing you had me bring him over. Inspector Lepley sure got a lot more out of him than I did.”

  Ruth shook her head in frustration. “He sure made a fuss. I was afraid we weren’t going to get as much from him as we did.”

  “I think he was scared.” Cramer said, He just moved here from a tiny cow town in Oklahoma population four hundred and thirty-one. He got a journalism scholarship and a job at the paper. He’s in over his head, but he’s determined to succeed. That $5,000 will help him stay in school.” Tom got up and picked up his overcoat.

  “Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate your bringing him over.”

  A few hours later, Ann rang the front door bell. “I’m back alive and in one piece.” She announced.

  “Your day seems to have gone pretty well.” Ruth said enviously.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t find any more clues. I beat Roger in this morning. I figured I’d better get all caught up or I’d be looking for another job. I hurried and typed his letters, then I gathered up all the files, papers, and other junk and hid them in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.

  “When he came in, it was obvious he was in a bad mood, but I handed him his letters and his sorted mail. He asked a couple of questions about Bob’s mail. Since it wasn’t anything important, I let him take them. There were a couple of letters that I thought might be important to one of the cases Bob was working on so I just stashed them in the bottom of my purse. There’s a rip in the lining and I just made sure that they got pushed up between the lining and the purse.”

  “Good thinking,” Ruth said as she lay back down on the sofa. “Doctor’s orders,” she told Ann. “He says I’ll crash and burn if I don’t rest now.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. Stress can be a killer.”

  “Ann, tell me why you don’t like Roger.”

  “It’s not so much that I don’t like him, it’s more that I don’t trust him. He’s uber charming—when it suits him, but his charm always is designed to get him something.”

  “I know people like that. When I’m around them, I wonder when the knife is going to find my back.”

  “I can’t tell you when I began to suspect that Roger wasn’t too scrupulous about some of his cases. I took a phone call once when he was out that I wasn’t supposed to have taken. I had a bad cold so I came back early from lunch. Bob was out on a case. Roger was still out to lunch. I thought the message was a little strange but I didn’t think much about it—I mean we get clients who leave cryptic messages all the time. When I gave the message to Roger he blew a gasket. At first, I thought he was going to have a heart attack, then I thought he was going to fire me, but he grabbed the message out of my hand. He stomped into his office and shut the door with more than a snap. He’s never mentioned the message again.”

  Martin said, “What was the call about? Do you remember?”

  “I’ll never forget it. The man said to tell Roger that everything was taken care of and he wouldn’t be pestered again. I asked for the caller’s name, but he said Roger would know who it was.”

  “That’s queer,” Ruth said. “And Roger was upset.”

  “Violently upset. Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Ann said.

  “Yes. Thoughts like black mail, extortion and murder,” Martin said. “I wonder if Roger knows Andrew Paradise. It would be convenient if one partner could spy for the other partner.”

  Ruth said, “Inspector Lepley thinks that Bob’s disappearance is voluntary. Do you?”

  “No, absolutely not. Bob has a number of high profile cases. One is a swindle inside the state government. I can’t tell you the details, but he was getting close to winding up the swindle case, your case and one other case. I only know what is going on because Bob told me enough so I could take messages accurately, but privately.”

  “That’s interesting. It does make it harder to know who would be after him since he has three dangerous cases going right now.” Martin said.

  “He gave me that envelope to deliver to the head judge at the State Supreme Court if he disappeared for more than thirty days. He said if he was gone that long to assume that he was dead.”

  “Did you tell Inspector Lepley?” Ruth said.

  “No. Bob asked me to keep it strictly confidential because he knew that some cops were involved and few corrupt government officials.”

  Martin said, “If you think Bob’s been taken out of circulation because of one of these three cases and you can’t go to the police, then we ought to do a little investigating ourselves.”

  “I agree,” Ruth said. “We don’t know which investigation was the problem. My gut feeling is that Roger is involved in the girls’ kidnapping.”

  Ann said, “I think I need to do a little investigating myself. Something odd happened this morning. I’ve always just tapped on either Roger’s or Bob’s door and then I go in. I did that this morning and Roger had a come apart. He was standing next to the filing cabinets. One drawer was open but there was a black line extending up the paneling to the ceiling. I pretended like I didn’t see it but he really reamed me for entering without waiting to be asked. He told me if I did it again, he would fire me.”

  “A black line in the paneling. I wonder if it’s a secret room or just a secret closet.” Martin said thoughtfully.

  “I wonder what’s in it,” Ruth said. “Your building isn’t old, so it isn’t likely that the panel was there when you moved in. I suspect it’s something Roger put.”

  “Well, I’m going to find it and see if I can open it. I want to know what Roger is up to.”

  “Do you have one of those telephone systems where you push a button and you can hear the other person’s conversation?” Martin asked.

  “We do. It has a light, but I think I’m fast enough to hang-up before Roger does.”

  Ruth sat up and opened the end table drawer. She searched in the drawer for a couple of seconds, then pulled a small, digital recorder out of the drawer. She handed it to Ann. “You can tape his calls just in case.”

  Chapter 22

  El Paso—Next day--Bob Black’s office

  Ann opened the office door at 5:00 a.m. She attached a small bell to the office door with a piece of holly, then she hung up her coat and put her purse in a locked drawer. The crime scene tape hung loosely across the door jamb to Bob’s office. Without turning on the light, she crossed the room to close the heavy green velvet drapes that shrouded the windows. She knew the drapes were so heavy that no light would shine through.

  Then she silently slipped through Bob’s office to the door that connected with Roger’s office. She quietly turned the key in the lock. Easing the door open, she could feel her heart start to pound in her chest. If Roger is in his office, he’ll kill me for opening the door.

  Carefully, she peeked around the door. The lights were off and the drapes were closed, although there was a crack between the panels. She quickly pulled the drapes so no light would show between the panels. She turned on her flashlight and tiptoed into the room. She shined her light at the door into her office, but the lock was turned up. If the lock turned sideways then she would know that Roger was coming in.

  There was a loud crack in the hall outside. Quickly, she flew back into Bob’s office, shutting and locking the door. Then she checked her office. She’d left the light on and the door to Bob’s office open. Idiot, she told herself.

  She walked to the outer door, opened it and looked out. Since there were no curtains on the windows into the hall, she shut off the light, made sure the door was locked, then tiptoed to Bob’s office where she stopped on the threshold. She looked back. Her dark green coat stood out against the white walls.

  She ran across the room, grabbed the coat and flung it across the credenza that cove
red the wall next to the door. Making sure to lock all the doors behind her, she crept back to Roger’s connecting door. Putting her hand over the flashlight she tiptoed to the drapes, pulling them together so that no light would show outside.

  As she slid open the top drawer, she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Remembering the murder mysteries, she’d read, she checked to make sure that there wasn’t a hair or a thread or a piece of tape that would show that she had been in his desk. It took her twenty minutes to go through the unlocked drawers. When she got to the bottom left hand drawer, she found that it was locked. Carefully, using the lock picks she’d swiped from Bob’s drawer, she opened the drawer.

  Inside the drawer were a pile of letters, neatly clipped together with a big red binder clip. She thumbed through them. There’s enough here to put Roger away for a long, long time. Carefully she loosened the clip, then setting the letters on the floor, she began taking pictures of each letter using her cell phone.

  Once that was done, she set the letters aside and began looking through the journals. There weren’t any names just columns of numbers and dollar amounts. She took a few pictures of some of the pages. When she glanced at her watch, she realized that over an hour had passed. It’s after six. I can’t take any more time trying to decipher the journals. I’ve got to find that crack that I saw yesterday.

  After putting everything away and locking the drawer, she slipped between the curtains to see if Roger’s car was in the parking lot. The lot was empty. She’d parked in a neighboring guarded parking lot. She’d told the guard that she didn’t want to park in her lot that early just in case someone, not too nice, was around. He’d even let her walk through his building to get to her own so she didn’t have to walk through her dark parking lot.

  Setting the flashlight so it shown on the paneling by the filing cabinet, she began to prod and press the fake molding and the paneling. After what seemed like hours, she found a tiny bump on the paneling. When she pressed it nothing happened, but it slid to the left easily when she pushed it. The panel slid open. It was only four inches deep, but it was six feet high and three feet wide. It was obvious that it had be fitted between the studs of the old building. She was examining a stack of hundred dollar bills when she heard a car pull into the parking lot.