The Drifting Gloom (Maddy Wimsey Book 2)

by J. R. Rain

  “Wow,” I mutter. In death, Angela looked far more peaceful than this woman’s description of her. It doesn’t fit the Gibson case, but I wonder if the killer might’ve observed her going off on the kid in public and decided to ‘help’ the girl. Long shot, but at this point, I’m not dismissing any theories. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help? Did you see any unusual vehicles in the area, see anyone who isn’t usually around here?”

  “Nothing really comes to mind.” Mrs. Hughes shakes her head.

  “All right.” I hand her a card. “If you think of anything else, please call us.”

  “I will.” Mrs. Hughes nods and disappears back into her house and shuts the door.

  Rick holds up a finger and turns to me. “Um, did you still want to interview her son?”

  My hair fluffs about as I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to bother him yet. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be able to give us anything we don’t already know.”

  “Uh huh. Then you know what time it is,” he says.

  I nod, sighing. “Time to tell the family.”

  “Right,” he says.

  “I hate this part. We’re gonna be here a while.”

  “Join the club,” says Rick. “Yeah. You wanna babysit the scene or should I?”

  I glance at the forensics people milling around inside. “I’ll do it. You get the coffee. Flat white for me.”

  “Be right back.” Rick smiles and heads for the car.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Small Lead

  Wednesday Morning – July 19, 2017

  I had a shitty night.

  Not as shitty as Angela Cortez’s night, but bad nonetheless.

  Caius called before I left the crime scene. He had to hop a rush flight to LA to deal with some contract issue with one of the newer bands. Something about a total meltdown and a few million bucks dangling from a thread. So, yeah. I slept alone… after getting home at near midnight.

  ‘Slept’ wasn’t quite accurate. More like stared at the ceiling all night alone. I wound up doing some nocturnal gardening in my greenhouse until the swirling fragrances of all the plants lulled my brain from a screaming plummet to a stiff free fall.

  It feels like one moment I’m roaming aisles of vegetation in a bathrobe and the next, I’m at my desk in my usual flannel/jeans ensemble, and don’t remember anything in between. At least I’ve gotten Angela Cortez’s phone records, with a Nevada number among the more recent calls. It comes up in the system as an address in Pahrump.

  Before long, I’m on the phone with a Sergeant Gutierrez with the Pahrump PD. As it turns out, Angela’s husband is out of state. Normally, Rick and I would deliver the death notification, but since he’s out of our jurisdiction, I’m calling over to the locals. It’s just not right to inform someone of a death in the family by phone.

  After I introduce myself, I give him a rundown of the situation, the Nevada phone number, and the address it’s linked to. “The husband’s name is Miguel Cortez,” I say. “Basically, if you guys could verify he’s been in the area for at least a couple days, that would rule him out as a suspect. My instinct’s saying he isn’t one, but I’d like to be sure.”

  “You got it, hon.”

  Ugh. He’s one of those. I’m a girl so, I’m ‘hon.’ “If you don’t get a bad read on him, please inform him of his wife’s death and pass along my contact information.”

  “Sure thing,” says Gutierrez. “I’ll give you a ring back in a couple hours.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Take care.” He hangs up.

  I’m reasonably certain the story’s going to check out. That crime scene didn’t strike me as a marital dispute boiling over into violence. But, yeah, stranger things have happened. Trying not to think nine-year-old Averie Cortez might be in a shallow grave somewhere beside a highway in Nevada, I move on down the rest of Angela’s phone records.

  An hour later, I’ve got nothing. Friends, a couple stores, and a few calls to Olympia Nissan. Not surprising, since I remember a Nissan sitting in the driveway. Those calls make more sense a little while later when I find she worked there. As much as I think the same person who killed Benjamin Gibson attacked Angela Cortez, I have to follow up any possible lead. Car salespeople can get pretty competitive, though I can’t say I’ve ever heard of showroom rivalry leading to murder before… and I’m not sure she’s actually a sales agent.

  Rick’s gone into his work trance. Whenever he’s facing an unbelievable amount of tedium, he does this yogic transcendence thing. At the moment, his eyes are veritably rolled up into his head. I peer over his shoulder at information from some of Benjamin’s high school classmates.

  “Wow, chasing down every little lead, huh?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?” Rick leans back and wipes his eyes.

  “Olympia Nissan,” I say.

  “Tired of the Silverado? Didn’t you just get that thing like last year?”

  “No. I love my truck. Angela Cortez worked there. I wanna go rattle the trees and see if anything falls out.”

  “Oh, good idea. I could use some air. Coffee?” He flicks at the keyboard and the lock screen pops up.

  “Yeah. Can you believe they don’t offer ‘swimming pool’ as a size option?”

  “The horror.” Rick snags me by the arm and swings me around to head back to my desk. “Left your terminal open.”

  “Oops.” I lock it.

  “That’s it. I’m driving, and we stop for coffee first.”

  I flash a thumbs-up.

  ***

  For the first time in my life, I order two coffees.

  “Double-fisting?” asks Rick. “Damn, you must be tired.”

  “I’d make a pinching gesture to say ‘just a bit,’ but my hands are full.”

  The double-shot espresso disappears before we make it to the dealership. I’m still working on my second drink, the redeye, when we pull into the lot. And I don’t care if it’s unprofessional to carry a coffee while talking to potential witnesses. It’s far more unprofessional to fall asleep in front of them.

  As soon as the car stops, Rick bursts into laughter.

  “I’m not sure I want to ask.” I slurp coffee.

  “Think there’s a guy named Johnson here, too?”

  The last time we visited a car dealership for official reasons, we ran into a man named Peter Johnson. Wow, that poor guy.

  Once I stop coughing, I grab a tissue to wipe off the windshield. “Ouch. Dammit, you made me spray coffee everywhere.”

  He grins and kills the engine.

  We go in the front, attracting the eyes of three well-dressed sales agents, two men and a woman. I guess they notice the badges, since none of them approach us―or maybe this is the kind of dealership where they give people a chance to look around before a salesperson tries to crawl into a body cavity.

  A youngish woman with possibly-Korean features looks up from behind the main desk as we approach. “Hello. Can I help you?”

  “Hi.” I hold up my ID. “We’d like to talk to someone about an employee, Angela Cortez.”

  The sales agents who’d been scoping us out all flinch, but also edge closer.

  “Oh. Is there some kind of problem?” asks the woman.

  “Do you know Mrs. Cortez?” Rick eyes the creeping salespeople.

  The clerk nods. “Yes. She’s one of the sales managers.”

  I glance at Rick. “Manager.”

  “Did she do something?” asks the woman.

  “Do you have reason to suspect she might have?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Oh, not exactly. Just curious.” The woman picks up a small phone. “One moment, I’ll get the GM.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  While we wait for the general manager to appear from the deepest, darkest depths of whatever realm general managers dwell in when not countering customer offers, we approach the sales reps. They relate that Mrs. Cortez is a ‘hardass,’ but none of them consider her mean-spir
ited. We mention that she was ‘attacked,’ and ask if they can think of anyone who might want to hurt her. The sales reps give us a couple names of former sales reps who quit because of her ‘managerial style,’ though they don’t say anything that raises red flags.

  A fifty-something woman with pewter hair styled in a bob emerges from a doorway behind the desk and gets into a conversation with the Korean woman, who points at us.

  “Looks like Mrs. Cortez treated her employees like she treated her kid,” mutters Rick on the way back to the front desk.

  “More like she treated her kid like an employee.” I dislike thinking ill of a murder victim, but this woman is starting to strike me as someone who’d been wound way too tight.

  “If she wasn’t a thousand miles away, I might suspect the kid.”

  I’m about to snap ‘she’s only nine’ at him, when I see the stupid grin. “I’d like to think a daughter that young would’ve run away before getting to the point of homicide.”

  “Probably right.”

  “Hello,” says the older woman. “I’m Priscilla Laney, general manager. I understand you have some concerns regarding one of my floor managers?”

  I nod. “Is there a conference room or office somewhere we can speak in private?”

  “Of course. This way, detectives.”

  Priscilla leads us into an office adjacent to the sales floor where a big guy in an ill-fitting suit sits behind a grey steel desk and a mountain of paperwork. “This is Carl Eisenmeier, our finance manager.”

  Carl looks up at us with a warm smile. “How are you doing?” He glances at Priscilla. “I don’t have any paperwork yet…”

  “They’re detectives,” says Priscilla. “We’re just borrowing your office for a moment since it’s private.”

  “Oh, right. Do you need me to step out?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” says Rick. “We’re with homicide. Mrs. Cortez was killed, we think between two and three days ago.”

  Priscilla’s eyebrows flare in surprise. Carl’s mouth hangs open.

  “Oh, my,” says Carl. “Angela? Who’d want to hurt her? She was so sweet.”

  “Umm,” Priscilla stammers. “Are you sure it’s Angela?”

  “Unfortunately, we are.” I study the pair of them, and after a moment, feel pretty secure in assuming neither had any involvement. “What can you tell us about her? Did she have any serious problems or conflicts with any current or former employees?”

  “Anything you can think of, no matter how small, could be important,” says Rick.

  Priscilla shoots a side-eye at Carl, then looks at us. “Angela had a bit of a reputation for being demanding.”

  “She was always super friendly with me,” says Carl. “And the others. I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt her.”

  Priscilla adds, “There were a few former employees who explained their reason for leaving was Angela’s ‘motivated’ managerial style. Among peers, she had an entirely different personality.”

  “So, basically anyone she felt ‘in charge’ of, she treated differently?” I ask.

  “That’s an accurate assessment,” says Priscilla. “Though, she never belittled the sales agents, even the ones who quit. Her style was more a pushy one, trying to motivate them to hit quotas and so forth.”

  “Would you say she ever got loud with her employees?” asks Rick.

  “Oh, no. Especially not in this building. People even talking normally out on the sales floor, you can hear them by the service entrance. If anyone shouted, it would sound like an auditorium.”

  I jot that down. Guess she saved the screaming for the kid. Probably because she felt the child’s failure reflected on her more personally than an unrelated sales agent.

  We spend about an hour talking to Priscilla and Carl about Angela, then migrate to their HR office and chat with a milquetoast guy named Phil. Our victim’s file in HR has about thirty complaints from employees, but only people who reported to her as a manager. Seems she got along with superiors or others she had no responsibility for without an issue. Nothing stirs up much in the way of suspicion, though we do request a printout of employees who quit, citing her as a reason or who she played an active role in terminating.

  “Does this building have cameras?” I ask, right as we’re preparing to leave.

  “Yes,” says Priscilla.

  “One of our theories is that the killer chose his victim randomly. They may have followed her home. When was she last here?”

  Phil checks something on his computer. “Friday. She swiped out of the building at 10 p.m.”

  “Is there any chance we can look at the surveillance video for Friday?” I ask.

  Priscilla fidgets. “I’m not the right person to ask. If you’ve got no other questions for me, I am quite busy. I can send our tech person in to help you with the cameras.”

  “That’s great.” I smile at her. “Thank you for your time.”

  Rick and I talk about Angela with Phil for a few minutes, though he has little to add. It’s clear to me he had a thing for her, but kept a polite distance due to her being married. Her ‘aggressive’ managerial style appears to have caught him off guard, as he didn’t think her capable of being anything other than sweet.

  A knock at the door precedes a skinny girl with black hair poking her head in. “Are you the detectives?”

  “Yep,” says Rick.

  I nod.

  “Oh, hi.” She smiles and steps in, rocking a black T-shirt and black fatigue pants with sneakers. “I’m Natalie, the resident geek. Miss Laney wanted me to help you with the security video.”

  “Did you have any luck getting my files back?” asks Phil. “I really need that database.”

  “I was right in the middle of going through the logs,” says Natalie. “But, there’s a great mechanism for safeguarding important files.”

  “There is?” asks Phil. “What’s it cost to install?”

  “Nothing.” Natalie winks at him. “We tend to call it ‘don’t delete files you need.’”

  Rick covers his mouth to hold in a laugh.

  Natalie looks at us. “C’mon, detectives.”

  She leads the way out, her loose-fitting pants making a repetitive swoosh-swoosh noise.

  “How’d you swing the dress code exemption?” asks Rick.

  “Because I need to crawl under desks and cabinets to plug crap in. At least, that’s what I tell them. Besides, I’m not ‘customer-facing.’” She hangs a left, goes past two blue doors, and ducks into a plain white one.

  The room’s one-quarter office and three-quarters ‘shelves of tech.’ A long table on the left side holds three monitors, a couple keyboards, and one television with an eight-way split from security feeds.

  “Give me just a couple minutes…” Natalie kicks a backless stool over to the TV and plops down.

  As the video feed minimizes to a desktop, she pulls up another program and clicks like a madwoman through a series of screens. “Okay. Here are the feeds for yesterday. The system starts a new file at four in the morning, so each day runs from 4:00 a.m. to 3:59 a.m. You guys want me to grab some extra chairs, or should I burn this off to a DVD?”

  “DVD would be excellent, thank you,” says Rick. “We’d rather not get in your way.”

  “Sure thing.” Natalie kicks off the floor, sliding the rolling stool over to a file cabinet, from which she grabs a case of blank DVDs. “It’ll take about ten minutes to burn. Feel free to hang out or come back, whatever you want.”

  After smiling at us, she zips back to the terminal and sets up the burn.

  “We’ll be back,” I say. “Might as well make the rounds and talk to everyone.”

  “Okay. I’ll be here.”

  For the next half hour or so, we interview everyone we run into touring the place, except for customers. It’s routine, and useless. Angela feels like a Jekyll-and-Hyde type situation. Except for sales reps, everyone loved her. Opinions on the sales floor varied from ‘she’s hig
hly motivated’ to ‘Attila the Hun in female form.’ Upon our return to the ‘IT room,’ Natalie hands us a plastic clamshell case.

  “Here’s the Friday files. Twenty-four hours each from eight cameras. They take a still image every few seconds so it works out to about eighteen hours of video. Hope you have loads of popcorn.” Natalie gives us a ‘sucks to be you’ eyebrow wag, and returns to her desk.

  Yeah, sucks to be us. Sucks to be Angela Cortez more. I stare down at the clear plastic, and sigh. Goddess, please let this be useful.

  ***

  Once we get back to the station, we commandeer one of the media rooms and pop the DVD in. If my theory is correct, there’s no guarantee the killer was around the dealership on Friday. Indeed, he could’ve scoped it out any time over the past two weeks. Is it a coincidence that both victims had been managers? Hmm.

  Anyway, I pop the DVD in, pull the video up, and skip straight to 9:55 p.m.

  “Going right for the ending, huh?” asks Rick. “Are you one of those monsters who reads the last chapter of a book first?”

  “No.” I drum my fingers on the desk. “It’s a theory of mine that’s only supported by stuff no judge would believe in and no conviction could rest upon.”

  “You could always call it a ‘hunch.’ Cops do that all the time, magic notwithstanding.” He leans back in his chair as if gearing up for a few hours of staring at grainy images.

  I focus mostly on the three panels showing exterior views of the parking areas. “Yeah, hunches don’t get warrants, though.”

  “No, but they can lead to evidence that can get warrants.”

  At 10:01 p.m., according to the timestamp on the video, a side door opens and a figure I’m pretty sure is Angela Cortez steps out. The time compression effect of the system taking a still image every couple seconds causes her to blip across the parking lot to a silvery car. By 10:03, she’s driving out of the lot. Another set of headlights comes on deeper in the lot, and a small pickup truck emerges from the shadows.

  I sit forward, my breath catching in my throat.

  The truck follows Angela out onto the street and goes the same direction. Tinted windows piss me off. I can’t see anything about the driver at all. I’m all too aware that whoever is driving that truck could be a serial killer. I let my breath out, sit back.