Lenses, Lust, and Murder: A Crystal Coast Case (Crystal Coast Cases Book 2)

by A M Ialacci

  “Can you tell me? I promise not to tell anyone.”

  Ryan bit his lip and then nodded. “Dad taught me a secret code.”

  “He did?” Allie asked.

  “Practiced all the time, writing notes. Turning newspaper stories to code.”

  “So you breaking the code in the little black book last year, that wasn’t your first time?” Allie asked.

  Ryan shook his head and gave her a wry smile.

  “You’re an expert, huh?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “And no one else knows this code?” she asked. “There’s no key?”

  Ryan tapped his head.

  “Well, I suppose I had better let you crack it then, kiddo.”

  Ryan grabbed paper from the printer and sat again at the kitchen table just like he had when he had helped solve Allie’s first big case. This took much less time, because he knew the code from memory and didn’t have to work it out. Within minutes, she had a translated copy.

  Ryan,

  If you’ve found this, I’m probably not around and missing you like crazy, bud. But I need you to do something for me. I need you to get ahold of your sister and tell her you need her help. If you need to, write this down for her and show her.

  Allie, for whatever reason I’m not here to tell you this in person like I had hoped to one day soon. I’ve taken on a task that put me in danger, and maybe your mother and Ryan, too. I thought long and hard before accepting this task, but felt like the benefits to everyone outweighed the dangers involved. You know me. I never back down from a fight, which I hope I taught you, too.

  I’ve been keeping tabs on some criminal activity at the port. A Balkan mafia has been using it for human trafficking and the FBI approached me to do some undercover work, reporting back to them. Lately, I think the guys I’ve been watching are on to me, somehow. It’s only a feeling, but I can’t shake it. (I know I didn’t blow my cover, which makes me think there’s a leak on the government’s side.)

  Allie, you are an investigator, and while I’d never ask you to go after a crime syndicate or the US government yourself, someone needs to know what’s going on. I’ve left you some copies of the files the FBI gave me. Lord knows they’ll never give them to you themselves.

  I’m leaving a key, too. Go get what’s in the safe deposit box. Taxes have been paid on it. It’s some of our savings, a buyout I got from Neil Guthrie, along with what I’ve been paid by the FBI. I didn’t want to make you any more of a target than you already are by putting it in the bank.

  Be careful. These Balkans are no joke. They may think you have more evidence against them because of me. Don’t trust anyone. Including the FBI. I’ve become convinced the leak is within their agency. There’s one agent who is my contact, Nick Cruz. If he ever reaches out to you, all I can say is to trust your gut. I don’t know who the leak is.

  I showed this hiding space to Ryan and taught him the code. Hopefully this gets to you if anything happens to me. And if I’m not there, which I’m not if you’re reading this, know that I love you and Ryan very much.

  Be careful.

  Love,

  Dad

  She sat back, wiping the tears from her face, Ryan’s big eyes on her. “Well done, kiddo.”

  He smiled and reached for her hand. “Okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m okay. Will you teach me the code?”

  With a big smile, he grabbed his pencil. “Ready?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The next morning, Allie had just pulled into a spot in the Visitor Center parking lot when she got a phone call from Charlie.

  “We brought Greg Chan in for questioning,” he said.

  “Brought him in where?” Allie asked.

  “To the Sheriff’s Department. When Jenny told us about his anger issues, I asked for a warrant to search his place. They found some incriminating evidence.”

  “Such as?” she asked.

  “A pair of boots with a similar pattern to the one found by the ERT, as well as a pair of coveralls with blood on them.”

  “Coveralls?”

  “Yes. They’re testing the blood right now to determine if it’s human, and what type. If it is human, and matches Harriet’s type, we’ll send it off for DNA testing, but that could take several weeks. Same with the knife we found in his locker.”

  “So that combined with the anger issue, as evidenced by trashing the display, Harriet’s phone found in his locker, and having some kind of argument with her the day of the murder…” Allie said.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “All of that.”

  “But you really need him to confess at this point, or the blood evidence to come out in your favor. Because the rest of it is circumstantial,” she said.

  “That’s why I haven’t arrested him,” Charlie said.

  Allie paused. “Do you really like him for it, Charlie?”

  “Well, I have to go where the evidence leads me,” he argued.

  “You know as well as I do that phone was planted. He isn’t stupid enough to leave it in his own locker, turned on and charged up.”

  “Maybe he is. We haven’t talked to the kid that much.”

  Allie sighed. “Okay. Keep me posted. By the way, Ryan and his friend Frankie made some interesting discoveries last night having to do with Harriet’s phone records and hairs found on the body. I was hoping to bring those to Cruz’s attention this morning. Is he with you?”

  “He’s coming in a little later. We’re letting Greg cool his heels a little bit.”

  Allie shook her head and smiled. “Tough guy,” she said. “The games you guys play with suspects.”

  “Interrogation is a psychological game, Allie. You know that,” Charlie said. She could hear the smile in his voice. She knew he loved this part.

  “Okay, should I drop by later, or do you think Kat Matthews might be hovering?”

  “No, I think she’s not likely to get her hands dirty yet.”

  “Maybe I’ll swing by when Cruz does.”

  “See you then, kiddo.”

  She looked at the box, remembered what a beast it was to carry, and decided to leave it in the truck for Cruz or somebody else to come and retrieve. But she pulled out the journals, the phone records, the hair photos, and Ryan’s notes and brought them inside.

  She peeked into the situation room and saw Cruz looking at the evidence board, shirt sleeves rolled up and alone. “What’s up?” she asked.

  He jolted at the sound of her voice and swiveled his upper body around toward the door. “Oh, God, you scared me.” He laughed.

  “Did I?” she asked. “Sorry.” She grinned.

  “Did you get a chance to look at the stuff I gave you?”

  “Boy, did I,” she said. “Or rather my brother did. And his friend Frankie.”

  Cruz cocked his head, confused.

  “Do you have a minute? I know Charlie has Greg in for questioning and you’re supposed to head there in a little while…”

  “Greg can wait. What do you have?”

  “I left the box in the truck because it’s so freaking heavy, but I brought in the important bits,” she said, placing the items she had brought on the table. “Ryan is a bit of a decoder. He helped me decode a notebook detailing some blackmail on my last big case.”

  “Impressive,” Cruz said.

  “I say ‘helped me,’ but he did it all, really. And last night he took a look at the journals Charlie and I had found in Harriet’s bedside table.”

  “These are the ones that where every entry looked like a weather report, right?”

  “Yes, except they aren’t,” Allie said. “Ryan cross-referenced them with the phone records because he noticed some very strange temperature entries in what are supposed to be our warmest months.” She showed Cruz Ryan’s notes.

  “So Harriet was making a record of phone calls. Between her and two specific numbers it looks like,” Cruz said, analyzing what Ryan had put together.

  “And I was wondering if
the rest of the entries had something to do with the content of those calls,” Allie said.

  “It’s not only possible, it’s likely,” Cruz said. She could track phone calls with her cell phone bill, but coding it like this is probably a way to quickly reference what they were discussing.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Allie said.

  “Fantastic stuff. I’ll get our people on this right away. And what is this?” he said pulling the photos of the hairs toward him.

  “Ryan’s friend Frankie has some special skills when it comes to seeing color. Something called the Farnsworth Munsell Hue Test?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Cruz said, nodding.

  “I was looking at these two photos thinking, as the ERT apparently did, that they both belonged to Harriet Brennan. Except Frankie swore that they were from two different people.”

  Cruz leaned forward, getting close to the photos.

  “She said this one had a reddish color to it, making it strawberry blonde, but this,” she said and pointed to the other photo, “lacked that red hue.”

  “Making it simply blonde,” Cruz said.

  “Why would she have a blonde hair on her body, Cruz? In the brush and shrubs of Cape Lookout?”

  “Unless it belonged to the killer, or the person who moved her if that was someone else.” Cruz looked up at her wide-eyed.

  “What can we do with this evidence?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I doubt the hairs have DNA attached, but I can put the team on it. I don’t think anyone was looking at the hairs too closely. We missed that completely. I’ll have them analyze them again, of course. All of them.”

  “Hair isn’t conclusive, though, is it?”

  “Not usually, unless you can get DNA from it. But I’ll tell you what. Greg isn’t blond, is he?”

  “No, but almost all of our other suspects are.”

  “And there’s always the possibility this was a two-person job,” Cruz said.

  “What do we do?” Allie asked.

  Cruz paused, looking at her, almost through her and squinting his eyes. “We question Greg and see what shakes out.”

  “We do?”

  “Suspects often change their tune as soon as they see there are consequences for withholding information,” he said.

  “But aren’t you worried he’ll make things up to avoid suspicion?” Allie asked.

  “That’s always a possibility, but the evidence will either back up or refute his claims.”

  “I just hope we have enough evidence,” Allie said. “It all seems circumstantial at this point.”

  “It’s a marathon, not a sprint, Allie. Patience,” he said, smiling.

  She nodded.

  “Think your brother would come work for the FBI? And Frankie too?”

  Allie cocked an eyebrow. “He would in a heartbeat, I think,” she said. “She is an artist, so I doubt it.”

  “Hey, we’re not all hard-nosed G-men, you know. Some of us have soft sides, too,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do,” she said, cursing the slow blush creeping up her cheeks. “Do you want to go get that box out of my truck, or what?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” He straightened up, strode to the door, and swept his arm forward. “After you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, the damned blush staying put.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “We waited for y’all to start.” Charlie greeted them in the waiting area of the Sheriff’s Department. Karen, behind reception, gave Charlie a look when he led them back toward interrogation, and he chuckled. “She doesn’t approve of outsiders having access to the inner workings, apparently,” he whispered to Allie once they had passed through the buzz-in door.

  “I will always be an outsider around here,” Allie said.

  “Don’t feel bad. I’m a freaking FBI Agent, and I got a look, too.” Cruz laughed.

  “In here.” Charlie gestured toward a small conference room. Inside was a round table with four chairs and a monitor perched on top. “This is a live feed to the interrogation room. Anyone need any coffee or water?”

  Allie and Cruz shook their heads and retrieved notebooks and pens from their personal belongings. Charlie shut the door behind him and soon appeared on the screen in front of them. They watched him push the table into the corner and rearrange the two chairs a few times until he had them to his liking, and then gave a thumbs up to the camera. Allie realized it wasn’t for her and Cruz but for the deputies watching elsewhere. Charlie sat, and within seconds, Greg Chan was shown into the room. He sat in the other chair as Charlie gestured to it. Then Charlie scooted a little closer to Greg.

  “Listen, Greg. I want to apologize for my gruff manner the last time we spoke. I was sarcastic and I shouldn’t have been. So, I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” Greg said with a flicker of a smile. His leg bounced nonstop and Allie could tell he was nervous. That didn’t mean anything. Yet.

  “You’re from Colorado, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know, I spent some time on the slopes there. Do you ski?”

  Greg nodded, another flicker of a smile. “Everyone skis out there. I snowboard, too.”

  “I bet you were hoping to get posted out there, weren’t you? Closer to home?”

  “Yeah,” Greg said and looked at his shoes. His leg had stopped bouncing. “I know they rarely send you where you want, though. I knew that going in.”

  “But you were hoping for a good job performance review, right? To help you get there?”

  Greg looked Charlie in the eye. “Yes, I was.”

  “But yours and Becca’s went missing, didn’t they?”

  Greg nodded. “They did.”

  Charlie paused. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “I wish I did,” Greg said.

  “So with them missing, what happens now?”

  “I guess Dwight has to re-do them.”

  “Maybe you get along better with him?”

  “Dwight? I barely know the man. He deals with big-picture stuff. Harriet was the day-to-day manager.”

  “But you didn’t get along too well with her,” Charlie stated.

  “I’ve had better working relationships,” Greg admitted.

  Charlie leaned in and spoke softer. “Got so mad after speaking with her you trashed a display in the lobby of the Visitor Center.”

  Greg blushed and looked down. “I did. I’m not proud of it. There was hell to pay for it, too.”

  “Harriet called you back in?”

  Greg nodded. “I apologized, offered to pay for the damage out of my paycheck.”

  “But she was angry?”

  “Yes, sir. But I held my tongue. I knew I was in the wrong.”

  “Seems you’ve had some issues with anger in your past, too.”

  The color drained from Greg’s face. “What do you mean?”

  “That little bar fight you were involved in. What happened there?”

  Greg hesitated before answering. “My friends and I, uh, were drinking. Got drunk. One of the regulars got a little handsy with a waitress, and I thought I was defending her honor. We made a pretty big mess.”

  “But you weren’t charged, thank goodness.”

  “Lucky. We could have been in some serious trouble.”

  “And never been hired as a ranger as a result,” Charlie said.

  Greg nodded.

  “Well, you know we found the phone in your locker. And a knife.”

  “But anyone could have had a key to that lock,” Greg protested. “I didn’t put that phone or the knife there. Why would I?”

  “And the coveralls we found at your house with the blood on them?”

  “What cover—” Greg’s eyes widened with realization. “At the bottom of the chest I keep my cold winter clothes in.”

  “Faded camo?” Charlie said.

&nbs
p; “Yeah, they’re for hunting,” Greg said. “Went with my dad a couple of years ago and he shot a buck in the neck. It was a mess.”

  The more Greg spoke, the less anxiety he seemed to display. Allie couldn’t shake the feeling they were talking to the wrong person. “Change tack, Charlie,” she murmured. “He’s not going to confess. But let’s get something that advances the investigation.”

  “All right, Greg. Tell me about how and when you got to the Cape the night of the murder.”

  The leg bounce was back. “Well, Jenny and Becca and I used the functioning NPS boat and got to the island around 7:00 or 7:15pm.”

  “You say functioning because there are two that are not designated for law enforcement and one is not working right now, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you are sure that what you’ve told me is accurate?” Charlie asked.

  The leg bounce continued as he hesitated.

  “What are you not telling me, Greg?” Charlie said so softly that Allie and Cruz almost didn’t catch it.

  Greg seemed to be holding his breath until a sort of sob escaped his lips. “Oh, God. I lied about who I was with.”

  “You did?”

  “Becca was with me in the boat, but I don’t know where Jenny was. We found her later and she helped us set up, but she didn’t come with us on the NPS boat.”

  “Are you sure about that, Greg?”

  Greg nodded, his leg stopped bouncing, and he grimaced, looking everywhere but at Charlie.

  “Stay put,” Charlie said, patting his leg. “I’ll be right back.”

  Charlie left the room on the screen and within moments, entered the conference room where they were watching. “Allie, I’m going to continue here, and I’m assuming Agent Cruz would like to stay and observe. But in light of what Greg is saying, do you want to follow up with Becca? See what she says?”

  “I’d love to.” Allie hopped out of her seat. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it for now. Then come back and let us know what she says.”

  “Will do,” she said and left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Allie pulled the door to the Visitor Center open and immediately saw Becca heading up the stairs, a large DSLR camera around her neck.