All thought of fingerprints flew out the window as I put the flashlight under an arm, so that it shone down on the lining. Then I felt around with both hands and pried the lining back. Beneath the lining was a piece of paper and an envelope. I carefully took them out, then sat back on my haunches and studied them.
The envelope was addressed to William Rasmus at his home address, and appeared to have been printed with a computer. I looked at the postmark. It was dated a few days ago, and it was from Limon, as Holly had noted, but that was all I could tell. The postmark didn’t tell me if it was sent from the prison.
Next, I checked the letter. It was also printed on a computer, and it read, “You covered up evidence that proves Ryan Devereux is innocent. Bennett knows. The proof is there. You WILL pay.” As Holly had noted, the letter was not signed. But beyond that, she’d assumed a couple of things. First, there was no indication that Ryan Devereux had actually written the letter. Anyone could’ve printed it, and without his signature, there was no way to know for certain if Devereux had even seen the letter, let alone written it. And I didn’t know if Devereux had sent it either, based on the postmark, unless he’d had gotten out of prison and sent it from Limon. I’d have Cal check that as soon as I left this damn house, I thought. If that was the case, Devereux most definitely could have typed the letter and sent it. If not, who sent it on his behalf? A relative or friend? Something else to check.
I stuffed the letter into the envelope, then put it in my pocket. I hastily put the files and notepads back in the briefcase. I used my shirt to wipe down the outside of the briefcase, then leaned it back against the couch where I’d found it. I stood up and searched the rest of the office for his laptop, but came up empty-handed. I looked around again, and noticed the glass on the coffee table. I tried to picture what had happened.
Rasmus had probably come into the room, sat down at the couch with his drink, set the briefcase down, and then what? Did the doorbell ring and he put his drink down, got up to answer the door, and brought the visitor back into the office? They talked and then he was shot? Or had the killer broken in and waited for Rasmus, surprised him in his office, and shot him?
I slipped past the body and out of the room, then down the hall to the front foyer. I again used my shirttail to avoid fingerprints, and I checked the door. It was unlocked. And the back door had been unlocked, too. It didn’t look like someone had broken in, so that likely meant that Rasmus had known his killer. It couldn’t be Holly because she was up at Cal’s. What about Ryan Devereux? No, he was still in prison, at least as far as I knew. Who else would want Rasmus dead? A long list of enemies, I thought snidely. And then another thing occurred to me. Holly had said that Paul was furious with Rasmus. And Paul hadn’t wanted his affair with Holly to end. What if he was so jealous and angry that he came down and killed Rasmus? Or what if Holly was manipulating Paul to get him to kill Rasmus for her? That would certainly be a turn of events, I thought. A femme-fatale move on her part. I shook my head because I just didn’t see her doing that. Regardless, there were a lot of possibilities.
As I stood in the foyer, I heard a car engine out front. Had Andre come back? I dashed back down the hall to Rasmus’s office, zipped over to the window, and peeked out. The black SUV was parked in the driveway and Andre was getting out. I ran out of the office, through the kitchen, and to the back door, all the while chiding myself for taking so long. I slid the door and screen open, and when I shut them, I quickly swiped them with my shirttail. Just then, a light came on in the front foyer. I hurried across the back porch and over to the gate. I quietly eased it open, stepped through, and closed it. Then I waited for a moment and listened. A few seconds later, a yellow glow appeared over the fence as Andre turned on lights in the backyard. I edged along the garage wall toward the front of the house. And then my jaw dropped.
A figure in a hoodie was crouched at the corner of the garage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
4:25 AM
Hoodie leaned around the corner and looked toward the front of the house. I couldn’t tell whether it was the same person who’d been at Joan Bennett’s house, but it was a good guess. Had he been in the Rasmus house? Had he killed Rasmus?
I skulked forward, and even though I was trying not to make a sound, I must’ve, because the figure’s head turned left. In the moonlight I saw a man’s face, his eyes wide with surprise. He inhaled loudly, then bolted off toward the neighbor’s yard. I chased him as he dodged around a huge evergreen tree, across a driveway, and into the next yard. Then he cut down toward the street. I took a chance, and leaped forward and tackled him. We both landed with a thud on the grass right by the sidewalk. His breath came out in a rush. He kicked at me as he tried to escape, but I clutched at his clothes and managed to turn him over. I grabbed him by the front of his hoodie and held him.
“What were you doing at the Rasmus house?” I snarled in a low voice.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Good point.
He tried to pull away from me, but I punched him on the jaw. The fight went out of him and he quit struggling. I pressed down on him with a forearm while I quickly searched the pockets of the hoodie and then his jeans. He wasn’t very muscular under his clothes.
“Where’s the gun?”
“What gun?”
“The one you used to shoot William,” I said. “Did you dump it somewhere?”
“I didn’t kill him!”
“Yeah, right.”
“I didn’t! I just wanted to talk to him.” It came out in a whine.
“About what?”
“He’s treating Holly like a prisoner and I was going to confront him about it. I swear, that’s all I was going to do.”
It dawned on me who he was. “You’re Paul Middleton. Kristin’s husband.”
He nodded.
“So after you got off the phone with Holly, you drove down from Loveland.”
“Yes. She told me what William was doing to her, and I was furious. I drove down here and banged on the door. He didn’t answer, so I tried the knob. The door was unlocked, so I went inside and found him lying on the floor in his office. It scared me to death. I’ve never seen a dead body.” He grimaced at the thought and gulped in a couple of breaths. I thought he might throw up. “I was leaving when I heard someone come in through the back.” He pointed a finger at me. “You?”
“I would assume so.”
“I sneaked down the hall and looped around through the kitchen. I saw a flashlight in William’s office, so I took a chance and sneaked out the back door.”
“Why did you stick around?”
“I wanted to see who had come in. I hid in the bushes, but then I heard a car, so I left through the back gate. I was about to run to my car when you saw me.” He squinted at me. “Who are you?”
I didn’t answer directly. “Holly hired me to help her get away from William.”
“Uh-huh, but it didn’t work. William figured out our plan.”
“Yeah, but how?” I paused. “Wait a minute. Your plan? Holly said she didn’t tell anyone what she was doing.” I thought fast. “She said she was going to California.” I eyed him. “And Kristin said you had business in California.” He stared at me guiltily. “She was going to meet you out there.”
“Yes,” he finally said, then groaned. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.”
I thought fast. “Why didn’t you pick up Holly yourself? Why involve Kristin and me?”
“Holly didn’t want me to pick her up at Pura Vida, just in case something went wrong, so we planned to hire someone to take her to my office in Loveland. But I’m about to land a huge client and I had to meet them earlier today. I couldn’t get out of it, so I suggested Holly leave another time, but she didn’t want to. She said she’d finally got the courage to leave and she wasn’t going to change the time. So we decided that Kristin could take her to Grand Junction and I’d meet her there when I could.”
“Why di
dn’t you buy airline tickets for the two of you? Or train tickets? William couldn’t have traced it back to you.”
He shook his head. “Once we left, William could’ve traced the ticket and he would’ve known where we were heading.”
“How?”
“He’s a powerful guy. Believe me, he would’ve been on our trail fast. He might’ve even been able to have someone in place to get us wherever we landed. By driving, we could disappear completely.”
“How’d William find out about the plan?”
“I…don’t know.”
He was a poor liar. And I remembered that Willie had overheard Holly talking on the phone to Paul. Holly had said something about “being stupid” and “no communication.” I pointed at him as another piece fell into place. “You blew it, right? What’d you do, call Holly when you weren’t supposed to?”
He threw me another guilty nod. “I was worried about her, so I called last night to make sure everything was ready to go. William must’ve overheard her talking to me.”
“And he intervened,” I observed dryly.
“Yes.” His jaw tightened. “But leaving her in the warehouse like that was the last straw.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So you drove down here and killed him.”
“I did not! You’ve got to believe me.”
The hood fell back away from his head and I thought of something else. “What about Joan Bennett? Why were you at her house?”
“Who?” He appeared genuinely clueless about the name.
“She was involved in one of William’s cases.”
“I don’t care about his cases,” he sniveled. “I just want Holly to be safe from him.”
My mind raced. “If I call your wife, she should be able to say when you left the house.”
He shook his head. “I told her I was working late, so I never went home.”
“Ah,” I said. “Holly called your cell phone.” He nodded. “And the original plan was you’d be on a plane to California, not working late.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“So we’re back to you needing to prove you didn’t kill William.” I said it, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it. First, if Paul murdered William, where was the gun he used? It wasn’t on him, so why dump it somewhere around the house? That didn’t make sense. I was back to “Who did kill William?” And who was the person in the hoodie at Joan Bennett’s house?
“I don’t have to prove my innocence to you,” he snapped.
“Did you see anyone else when you were in William’s office?”
He shook his head. “Not until I saw you. The house was quiet.”
“What about outside, when you showed up? You didn’t see anyone?”
“I’m telling you, no one was around.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Had Andre called the police?
“We have to get out of here!” Paul hissed.
“Maybe I’ll haul you back to William’s house and turn you in,” I said. “You can explain to them why you’re here.”
“No!”
The reality was I couldn’t do that, because then I’d have to explain my presence as well. And then I made a careless mistake. I turned partway around to look back toward the Rasmus house, and I loosened my grip on Paul. He suddenly whipped up a hand and slugged my nose. My head jerked back and I instinctively put my hand to my face. Paul pulled away from me, then kicked me in the side, and I fell back onto the lawn. He scrambled to his feet and tore off down the street. I leaped up and followed. He was twenty feet ahead when I heard a beeping sound and saw the blinking of taillights on a dark sedan parked two houses down. Paul slowed down as he neared the car, and I launched myself at him. We again tumbled in a heap, this time on the hard asphalt.
“Let me go!” he snarled as he pushed me away. He reached up and yanked open the car door. It swung out and I ducked, but the bottom edge grazed the top of my head.
“Argh!” I said. It didn’t seem like much of a blow, but I suddenly saw stars. Maybe it was getting walloped on the noggin twice.
Paul clambered into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. In a second, the car roared to life. He shifted into gear and the car lurched forward. I quickly rolled out into the street and the car nearly ran over me as it flew by. Tires squealed. I glanced up and saw the red taillights vanish from view. I swore a blue streak as I pushed myself gingerly to my feet and trudged back to the 4-Runner.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
4:35 AM
I sat in the driver’s seat and took a moment to regroup. I felt a couple more aches and pains, and I noticed a rip in Ace’s jacket. I hoped this wasn’t his favorite jacket, or I’d be in big trouble. As it was, I’d still need to replace this one and buy him a few beers to make up for the rip. My headache was back, too, but I tried to ignore it. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, but opened them just as a patrol car with flashing lights turned on Dahlia Street. It screeched to a halt in front of the Rasmus house. I sank down low and watched. The police officer must’ve been on his radio because he didn’t get out of the car. I pulled out Willie’s cell phone, shielded the screen so the light wouldn’t give me away, and called Cal.
“Hey, I’ve been looking up Joan Bennett, but you’ve got to give me more time,” he answered. “So far I can’t find anything –”
“Rasmus is dead.”
“You’re kidding. What happened?”
I gave him a quick update as the officer finally got out and walked to the front door. And I noted by the smaller, shapelier figure that it was a she, not a he.
“It’s a woman,” I interrupted my own story.
“What?”
I gestured at the house, as if Cal could see what I was seeing. “The cop who’s going to the Rasmus house. It’s a woman. In my encounters with cops, it’s always men. Big, burly guys who look like they want to beat me up. Why does Andre get the good-looking female instead of me?”
“Hey, Reed, it’s your turn to focus,” Cal said.
“Oh, right.” I finished telling him about Rasmus and my run-in with Paul.
“You think Paul killed Rasmus?” he asked when I concluded.
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. And I don’t think he was the person I saw lurking around Joan Bennett’s house.”
“So someone’s going after all the people involved?”
“Could be,” I said. “And I found the letter Holly saw, but it wasn’t sent from the prison.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. If Ryan Devereux sent it, it should’ve had a return address from the prison, but it didn’t. It was just from a café in Limon. I’ll bet whoever sent it used the café as cover.”
“But Holly assumed it was from him.”
“Right,” I said. “But what if I’ve been looking at this wrong? What if Devereux is out of prison?”
“And he sent the letter why?”
“To scare them. Let them know he’s on the prowl. They’d be living in constant fear, just as he must’ve been while in prison.”
“Make them suffer, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I can check the prison records to see if Devereux was released.”
“I figured you could,” I said with a touch of sarcasm.
He laughed. “Hold on.”
Another patrol car drove up, and this time the officer was a man. He hurried up the Rasmus drive and stood on the front porch. The female cop came out to talk to him, then disappeared back in the house. The cop on the porch remained.
“Uh, Reed, I’ve got some bad news,” Cal said.
“What?”
“Ryan Devereux is dead.”
“What?” I snapped. “When?”
“A few weeks ago. Let’s see, there’s a report here.” A pause. “Looks like he was in a fight and someone knifed him with some kind of shank made from a spoon. I didn’t see it earlier, I just scanned his prison file. I’m sorry I didn’t catch it.”
“It�
��s okay,” I said. Cal rarely missed anything, and I couldn’t hold it against him, after all he’d done for me.
“Ryan Devereux is dead.” I mulled that over. “The letter in Rasmus’s briefcase was postmarked a few days ago. That means it was sent after Devereux died.”
“So who sent it?”
“Maybe a family member who wants revenge.”
“I know,” he said before I could ask, “look up Devereux’s family.”
“If you don’t mind. Right now, you can do it faster than I can,” I said. “And the sooner I find this person, the sooner Holly leaves your house.”
“Good point.”
I continued to watch the activity at the Rasmus house while Cal clicked away at the keyboard. Another car drove up to the Rasmus house, and this one I recognized: A blue ’65 Mustang. A woman in jeans and a T-shirt got out. Detective Spillman, I thought. She worked homicide for the Denver Police, and we’d crossed paths many times. Lately I seemed to have earned her respect, but she was never thrilled when I lurked around one of “her” investigations. She walked up to the male officer, spoke for a while, and then walked in the house.
Night of the Hunted: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 11) Page 13