Chocolate Heart Murder (A Maple Hills Cozy Mystery Book 11)

by Wendy Meadows

  “Yes, please. Some water?” John asked.

  Nikki went down the hall to the break room and got a bottle of water. She walked back and handed it to John.

  “I am going to turn you over to the chief. He will be in shortly to question you some more.”

  “Okay,” said John, sipping on the water. He seemed a bit anxious, but Nikki was not sure if it was because he had just lost Kim and was dazed with shock, or because he knew something more about her death.

  Hawk and Nikki walked out of the room and shut the door. Nikki voiced her reservations to Hawk, and he agreed with her. They went to find the chief. The chief was still in his office. Hawk went in and asked if he would continue to question John.

  “Of course,” said the chief, rising from his chair. “Remind me, how come we did not know about John before?”

  “He had a falling out with Susan. She told Kim not to bring him to the wedding. We had not gotten to Kim’s apartment yet, and no one thought to mention him to us last night,” Hawk explained. He filled his father in on what John had told them about his work with addiction counseling. “I want to take a look at his office,” Hawk said, and the chief agreed.

  “I will go with you,” Nikki insisted.

  “Would you mind keeping an eye on him, maybe delay him until we get back?” Hawk asked the chief. The chief said he would sit with John and if anything else came up, he would call Hawk.

  “Do you want to ride over together?” Hawk asked Nikki.

  “Sure. Do you want to drive?” she asked.

  “Yes, I would be happy to,” he said. They got into his truck and went to John’s office.

  John’s office was an hour away. The ride over was uneventful. The roads were slippery but not too icy. The town was lit up for Valentine’s Day. Hawk and Nikki drove through the square. There were hearts on the lanterns along their main street. Hawk followed the directions to John’s office. It was in a small brick building that was not well lit, a one-story office on the edge of the run-down side of town.

  “Maybe he needed to have his office close to his clients,” Nikki commented, voicing what they were both thinking. Hawk nodded as he parked and locked his truck. He and Nikki walked toward the building. Nikki stopped and pointed next to the front door where two men sat uneasily on a bench. They looked twitchy and angry. Nikki pegged them as drug addicts. Their clothes were filthy and they looked like they had lived a lifetime acting tough. The men looked at them sideways but scattered when Hawk moved his coat and showed them his gun.

  He and Nikki walked into the building. It was hot inside, as if the winter heating was blasting. The door opened up into a small hallway. There was a worn-down upholstered bench on the side wall that Nikki would not want to sit on. There were no pictures on the wall. Across from the bench was a heavyset woman sitting at a small desk. She had a small plant that was struggling to survive in the oppressive atmosphere. The receptionist was typing on her computer and looked up when they walked in.

  “May I help you? The doctor is not seeing new patients right now,” she said. She was an older woman with black hair that was fading to gray at the temples. She seemed to be wearing a permanent scowl.

  Nikki coughed and looked at Hawk. He put on a nice smile and leaned toward the receptionist.

  “Hello, I am detective Hawk Daily, and this is my assistant Nikki Bates. We are here on behalf of the Maple Hills police department. We are conducting an investigation and we need to ask you some questions.”

  The receptionist asked for some identification. Hawk showed her his badge, and Nikki showed the receptionist her driver’s license. The receptionist found this satisfactory and buzzed them in a door beside the desk. Hawk and Nikki stepped through and the receptionist led them to a conference room. The office hallway was narrow and crowded with dusty cardboard boxes of files, and the boxes appeared to be falling apart. The conference room had a medium-sized table and four chairs. Everyone took a chair, and Hawk started asking questions.

  “So, you work for John Hammer?”

  The secretary cringed. “He goes by John Jackson here,” she said. She looked around as if to make sure no one had heard Hawk. They were alone in the building. I suppose you can’t be too cautious, thought Nikki.

  “Why are you asking me about him?” the receptionist asked Hawk with a strange look on her face.

  “Who else would I be asking you about?”

  “Usually if police come in here, they are trying to get information on one of our clients. Our clients are not rich people with Beverly Hills addictions, Detective. Our clients are on a first-name basis with the police – and not in a good way. The cops show up about once a week asking if one of our clients has missed any mandated counseling sessions. I have never had anyone in here ask about John,” she insisted.

  “How long has John been in this office?” Hawk asked.

  “Dr. Jackson has been renting this office for six years.”

  “And remind us about the services he provides?”

  “He is a rehabilitation psychologist. He helps people who are addicted to various drugs. Sometimes they are court-appointed clients and some just walk in off the streets. John talks to them and counsels them on more productive ways to handle their addictions. He is not a psychiatrist. He does not dispense any medication, just counseling,” the receptionist said. “Is Dr. Jackson in some kind of trouble?” Despite the fact that she knew his real name, and knew that they knew, the receptionist insisted on using his alibi. She is trained well, thought Nikki.

  “Why would you ask that?” Hawk asked.

  “Because you are here asking questions about him,” the receptionist responded abruptly.

  “No, he is not in any trouble; we are just following up on some things he told us. Do you know if John is seeing anyone romantically?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “He keeps his business and personal lives separate.”

  “So, you were not aware that his girlfriend died?” Nikki asked.

  The receptionist inhaled quickly. “No. I did not even know he was seeing anyone. Bless him, poor John. Dr. Jackson always insisted we keep our personal lives private, well away from the clients during business hours. He never told me anything about a girlfriend. He would come into work, take a break for lunch, and then finish the day. He never went anywhere. He brought his food from home. He was in the building from 8-5 every single work day.”

  “Would you mind if we took a look in John’s office?”

  “Well, do not mess anything up,” the receptionist replied. “There are some sensitive files in there. I do not want you to look through the files as we have to follow confidentiality laws for his patients.”

  “Okay,” said Hawk. “We will stay out of the files for now.”

  The receptionist showed them to John’s office. It was small. Inside were a desk and two chairs, one in front of the desk and one behind it. There was a computer on the desk and a filing cabinet along the wall. Hawk thanked the receptionist, and she went back to her desk. Nikki looked around. The walls were bare. There were no pictures or degrees hanging anywhere. The walls were industrial wood paneling. They had been painted a dark, depressing brown. The floor was worn, speckled linoleum tile, the kind you might see in a school cafeteria. Or a prison, she shuddered. She imagined sitting here all day and shivered.

  Nikki looked at the desk. All of the paperwork listed Dr. John Jackson. There was no mention of John Hammer anywhere. If she did not know about the alias, she would have thought she was in the wrong office. Nikki turned on the computer, but she was locked out. She did not want to mess with trying to break the password at the moment. Meanwhile, Hawk was looking in a filing cabinet. There were files in alphabetical order, but nothing useful. Nikki sat in the desk chair and looked over the desk. There were more files, paper pads, and a marble paperweight. She looked through the stack of files quickly but did not see anything of note.

  “Have you found anything?” Hawk asked.

  “No. The
re is nothing here,” Nikki said, frustrated. Perhaps he really was exactly what he seemed – a good boyfriend who just happened to have a strange job. She put her purse on the desk and got out her phone. Frustrated that they had made the long drive for nothing, she figured she better text Seth to see how things were coming at the store. The phone slipped out of her hand and fell under the desk.

  Nikki sighed, pushed back the chair, and leaned down to get it. She maneuvered under the desk and got her phone. She looked up to make sure she did not bump her head on the drawer on the way out. Suddenly she stopped. “Hawk, come see this.”

  He got down on his hands and knees and looked where Nikki was pointing. On the bottom of the desk drawer was another hidden drawer with a small lock. From the top, it could not be seen. Nikki moved out from under the desk to let Hawk get a better look with his flashlight. Hawk tried to open it, but it would not budge. He looked at Nikki. Nikki smiled and looked in her purse. She pulled out a small box and handed it to Hawk.

  “This might help,” she suggested.

  Hawk took the box and opened it. There were lock-picking tools inside – after all of her casual sleuthing, she had finally invested in a set. Hawk grinned. He put the tools in the lock and jimmied it open and pulled out the contents. He laid them on the top of the desk. There was a passport and a couple of pictures.

  “What are these doing here?” Nikki wondered.

  The pictures were of John, but he was not with Kim. He was with another woman. They seemed to be happy. They were both smiling and holding hands. There was a desert in the background of one picture and a forest in the background of another. Nikki picked up the passport. It was unexpired. It had John’s real name and a photo of him staring into the camera with his recognizable blond hair. As she thumbed through it, she noticed stamps from Mexico and Brazil. She looked at Hawk, and they gathered this evidence into a pile. Hawk called the chief.

  “Is John still there?” he asked.

  “Yes, but he asked if he could leave soon.”

  “Try to get him to stay; we need to ask him some more questions. New evidence has come to light, and we are not sure how it ties into the case. We’ll show you when we get back. Delay him any way you can.”

  The chief agreed to delay John. Hawk put the pictures and passport into an evidence bag and put the bag in Nikki’s purse while she packed up her lock-picking tools. They put the chair back under the desk and walked out into the reception area. Hawk thanked the receptionist on their way out. She barely looked up as they passed her desk. Once they were out of the office area proper, Nikki glanced back and saw her get up to check the office. She probably thinks we snooped in the patient files.

  Nikki and Hawk walked back to the truck. Nikki looked around but did not see the two men from before. She breathed easier and got into Hawk’s truck.

  “We have to get back there before John tries to leave,” Nikki said.

  “Yes.” Hawk said grimly. “He’s going to get suspicious soon.” He started the truck and turned on his blue and white lights. They raced down the road back to Maple Hills.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Nikki and Hawk were close to the station, Nikki’s phone rang. It was Seth.

  “I heard from my friend. He said that yes, John and Kim have been seeing each other for a while,” Seth said.

  “Thank you. We are just getting to the station. Can I call you back later?” Nikki asked.

  “Yes. Take care, Mom.”

  “I will, you too,” she answered. Nikki told Hawk what Seth had told her. Hawk agreed that it was good to have some corroboration to John’s story. That still did not explain the pictures and passport. Hawk pulled into a parking space near the station. He got out and opened Nikki’s door. He held her hand so she would not slip on the icy sidewalk.

  They went into the station and the officer at the desk told them the chief was still in with John. Nikki breathed a sigh of relief. He is still here. She and Hawk walked quickly down the hallway. They got to the interrogation room and opened the door. The chief was sitting across from John, and he stood up when the door opened. The remains of two donuts were scattered across two napkins.

  “I told him you had some more questions. He agreed to wait for you because I told him we still had at least one chocolate glazed left in the breakroom,” the chief told Hawk with a wink.

  “Thank you, Chief.”

  “I have some work to do in my office. He is all yours,” replied the chief. He walked out and shut the door. Hawk walked over to the table.

  “Nikki, would you please give me what we found in John’s office?” Hawk asked Nikki.

  “With pleasure,” she said and pulled the evidence bag out of her purse.

  “What is that?” John asked.

  “That’s what we were going to ask you,” replied Hawk. He opened the bag and laid the pictures and passport on the table in front of John.

  John looked closer and turned pale. “Where did you find those?” John demanded in a soft tone.

  “In the underside of your desk drawer,” Hawk replied. “Who is that in the pictures and where were they taken? Why were you hiding them?”

  John’s shoulders slumped down. He put his head in his hand, and Nikki could tell he was crying. She walked over and sat down across the table from him. Hawk stood behind her, and they waited for John to regain his composure. John picked up his head.

  “That is my former wife,” he explained to Hawk and Nikki. “Those pictures were taken in Mexico and Brazil on our honeymoon. We stayed in Brazil for a week and then returned to Mexico.”

  “That is your former wife?” Nikki prodded.

  “Yes. I was married to Alexa, the woman in the photos. We were happily married and then she died. I did not realize she was an addict when we got married. By the time I realized it, she was evidently too far gone. She died of an overdose.”

  Nikki looked at Hawk and raised her eyebrow.

  “Go on,” encouraged Hawk to John.

  “I had traveled to Mexico to help addicts. I wanted to set up a clinic there. I met Alexa while I was looking for a building to rent. She was a realtor, and she found an office I could use. I set up my clinic and helped many patients there. Alexa and I grew close. She would volunteer at the clinic, and I got to know her. I proposed to her, and we got married. We were happy and in love. She was smart, sexy, and talkative. We complemented each other. I never knew she had a dark secret she was hiding from me. I have helped many addicts. I never knew I was married to one. She kept that secret hidden well. The day before she died, I found her stash. I gave her an ultimatum: get help or get out. She denied using, but I told her the evidence was right in front of me. I wanted to help her desperately, but unless she consented to my help there was nothing I could do. I stayed at a friend’s house that night. The next day she was dead. She overdosed during the night.” He closed his eyes for a moment in pain. After a moment, he continued. “I went into a tailspin and left Mexico. I am originally from Maple Hills, so I decided to come back to the states and start a practice here. I found the building you were clearly just in. It was close to where a lot of addicts squat in abandoned houses. I wanted them to be able to walk to the clinic if they had to. I met Kim five years ago. She was a wonderful woman who loved me for who I was. She knew about my former wife and my time in Mexico. Despite my mistakes, she loved me anyway. I kept the pictures in my desk because I did not want Kim to run across them in the apartment. I left my passport there because I thought it would be safe. I did not think anyone would find it.”

  Hawk thanked him for explaining. He asked John to stay a little longer. John agreed, slumping again as if the story had taken all his energy.

  Hawk and Nikki left the room and went to talk to the chief. They found him in his office looking at something on his computer.

  “Well, what did he have to say?” asked the chief when they walked in.

  “He said the pictures were of him and his former wife,” said Hawk. “He said that Kim kne
w about her, but we cannot confirm that. He also said his former wife died of a drug overdose.”

  The chief looked up, startled. “Another woman this man was with died from an overdose? I would like to keep him here for a while. I do not trust him. I need to verify some things, and I will continue to question him.”

  “I agree,” said Hawk and he looked over at Nikki.

  “He lied to his patients about who he really is. Even if he was doing it to keep himself separated from them, it is still a lie. His wife died of an overdose, and now Kim is dead from an overdose. I think you have enough evidence to justify holding him until we can figure things out,” Nikki said.

  “Well, at least now I can call the mayor and tell him we have a suspect in custody. He will be happy to hear that,” said the chief.

  “Susan and Tim deserve to know, too,” suggested Nikki. “I guess Susan won’t be happy to know she was right about Kim’s boyfriend, though.”

  “Well, I would like to be sure he is the one who did it,” said Hawk. “Until then, we are not certain what exactly is going on. If he did not do it, are Susan and Tim safe?” he asked.

  “That is a good point. Why don’t you and Nikki attend the wedding and mingle with the guests. You can keep an eye on Susan, Tim, and the bridal party.”

  “That is a good idea,” said Nikki.

  “I agree,” said Hawk.

  “Okay. Let me call the mayor, and I will make arrangements for you to attend.”

  “Actually, Susan invited all of us the other day. She was so grateful that I could deliver chocolates for the wedding and reception on such short notice that she told me to bring Hawk and the whole crew.”

  “That is perfect,” said the chief. “I will fill the mayor in on what is happening. At least he will stop breathing down my neck. I just hope he is too busy to hold a press conference.”