The Case of the Broken Doll (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Alison Golden

  Smith straightened his back. “Common criminals, they are,” he said. “But they know just when to strike. It’s not stealth, it’s intelligence.”

  Barnwell narrowly stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Captains, if we were truly dealing with the gifted master criminals you’re imagining, I hardly think they’d spend their evenings raiding Gorey Marina for bits and bobs of nautical equipment.”

  “Some of it’s worth a pretty penny,” Drake objected, “if you’re selling to the right market.”

  “He means,” Smith pointed out to his friend, “that if they were like the crooks from that film… Ocean’s Eleven, that’s it, they’d be stealing the sodding Crown Jewels or some such, not ruddy bits of rope and nautical charts.”

  “Hang the bloomin’ Crown Jewels,” Drake growled. “What are you going to do about all of this?” He pointed at Barnwell, his temper was up.

  “Well, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about,” Barnwell told them.

  He explained for a few moments, hoping that his news would come across as the well-considered plan it truly was. Barnwell had been working hard. He had dragooned two extra officers from St. Helier to help patrol the marina at night and had consulted with an expert at the Metropolitan Police in London who had arranged to loan Gorey a set of sophisticated detection devices.

  “Motion sensors?” Drake asked, examining the small, black, rectangular box with its three protruding antennae.

  “Anything that moves down here,” Barnwell explained, gesturing across the marina, “right down to the size of a house cat, this baby will pick it up.”

  “Then what?” Smith said, rather nonplussed.

  “It triggers a high-definition camera system that we’re going to mount on the sea wall and on three of the boats. They’ll all be connected, and they’ll all go off at once, taking a set of pictures that will give us a complete view of the Marina.”

  Drake handled the camera as though it might explode. “Fancy,” he announced. “But what about below the waterline?”

  Smith exploded in a gale of laughter. “Christ alive, what now?” he guffawed. “You think these thieves are gonna approach by submarine like Seal Team Six?”

  “I’m just saying…” Drake tried, but Smith waved him down, crumpling with laughter.

  Barnwell hid a smirk and pressed on. “I’ve also asked the boating supplies shop to re-task its brand new CCTV cameras to scan the marina at night. With two lines for potential photographic evidence, we should have a good shot at identifying the thieves.”

  Smith recovered sufficiently to give Barnwell a clap on the back. “Well, fella, you’ve thought this through, I can tell. I just hope you get some results.”

  Barnwell left the pair and began setting up the camera system. He was proud of his plan and hopeful it would bear fruit. With luck, he’d soon have stand-up-in-court photos of the perpetrators. With a little more, he’d personally catch them red-handed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  FROM HER SMALL office at the station, Janice was distracted from her work as she listened to Constable Roach making another phone call in the reception area. She sat up straight and made a conscious effort to focus on her screen. Jack was due in a few moments, and they had more work to do. She wanted to be prepared so they could hit the ground running as soon as he arrived.

  Their topic of research was a new one. With Lyon’s illicit past laid bare, but without any hard evidence, and with DI Graham still apparently chewing on how best to proceed, Harding had suggested that she and Wentworth investigate a different area: The Beth Ridley Foundation. She wanted to do some digging and see what, or who, they turned up.

  “Okay, Sergeant,” Graham had said when she’d suggested it, “a little due diligence would be in order. You might look at all the people connected with it – organizers, supporters, donors, even the investigators they’ve hired. It’s possible that Beth’s abductor is hanging around among that lot.”

  “Surely not, sir.”

  “You’d be surprised. Wouldn’t be the first criminal to stick around and get his jollies from witnessing the chaos he created,” the DI had warned.

  All of this, happily enough for Janice, kept Jack around for at least one more day. She enjoyed working with him and was happy to give up her Saturday if it meant gaining the benefit of his expertise.

  “Damn.”

  Janice pulled herself away from her computer once again and popped her head around the office door. “Everything alright, Jim?”

  He was still holding the phone receiver. “I really thought I had something there,” Roach said, almost to himself. “Damn it all.”

  Janice put things together quickly. “Joe Melton?”

  “The very same,” Roach said. He was still staring at the phone, perhaps in the hopes it would ring and he’d hear a different kind of news.

  “Still a potential suspect?” Janice asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Ah.”

  “Owing to the remarkably good recordkeeping of our local hospital, we are now able to say categorically that Joe Melton was not responsible for the abduction of Beth Ridley. He was admitted with ‘chest pains,’ Roach explained, “and eventually treated for mild hypothermia and dehydration. He had a night in a comfortable bed, and then returned to wandering around Gorey, sleeping in the bushes, and drinking himself stupid. He was discharged the same day Beth disappeared, but not until the middle of the afternoon.”

  “So, he’s off our list,” Janice summed up. “Bugger, indeed.”

  Roach looked at her. “You know, there was something about him. I wanted it to be him. I wanted that possibility, so I could track it down, prove it, and make everyone see that he wasn’t some reformed drunk, but rather a monster.”

  Roach had a pleading look in his eyes now, which was soon met with a fluster of self-doubt. “That’s not a great way to think about a criminal case, is it?”

  Janice took a seat in the otherwise empty reception area. “It’s not, Jim, but I understand it.”

  Roach was crestfallen. His only solid contribution to the case had evaporated. Beth’s journal continued to make only partial sense, and it hurt him, almost physically, that Beth’s abductor, whether it was Lyon or someone else, remained free.

  “But, you know,” Janice continued, “our job is all about the truth. Uncovering it, describing it, and proving it. We can want a certain outcome as much and as deeply as we like, but in the end, only the truth matters.”

  Roach propped both elbows on the reception desk. “You want it to be Lyon, don’t you?”

  Janice nodded. “I’m aching for him to stand there in front of a judge and be handed some long sentence. I’ve found myself daydreaming about it.”

  “Understandable,” Roach commented.

  “Sure, but it’s still wrong,” Janice cautioned. “We’ve both been fixated on the person and not on the evidence.”

  It was Roach’s turn to nod. “You’re getting wiser by the day, Sergeant Harding, if I may say so.”

  “You may. Reckon it’s down to that brainbox who runs this place,” she smiled, heading back to her office again. Then she paused and approached the desk, speaking in hushed tones. “Do you know what our illustrious leader did the other day?”

  “What?” Roach said, happy to distract himself with a little office gossip.

  “I showed him a list of websites… I don’t know, maybe thirty or forty of them, all different and all with pretty complicated names. Some were just a string of numbers and letters. Made no sense to me at all.”

  “Yeah?” Roach said.

  “He memorized that list, Jim. All forty addresses. I couldn’t have shown it to him for more than a minute. He remembered the whole lot.”

  Roach nodded, smiling. “Impressive. Probably really handy in the field, too.

  “I shouldn’t wonder. I mean, he’s a bit of a marvel, isn’t he?” Janice said.

  “And how are you getting on with Jack?” Roach tried to keep a teasi
ng tone out of his voice.

  “Great! He’s been so helpful. He’s going to do a complete forensic investigation on Lyon’s hard disk. Do you know they can find proof of files existing even after they’ve been deleted? He’s a bit of a marvel, too.”

  From right behind her came a familiar voice. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m willing to agree with you if you force me to.”

  Roach greeted the new arrival brightly. “Morning, Jack! Welcome to a sunny Saturday at the Gorey Constabulary.”

  “I’m missing the big game right now, you know. Fourth round cup tie,” Jack said. “But I guess Saturday pays time-and-a-half, so there’s that.”

  Janice, who had been shuffling papers on a desk finally turned, gave him a smile, and gestured to her office. “Morning. Shall we get started?” As she shepherded Jack to her door, she shot Roach a glance. He shrugged, grinned at her, and returned to a stack of filing he’d been putting off for days.

  “So,” Jack said, setting down his satchel and taking his usual seat behind her desk. “I’ve actually made a start already,” he explained. “Did a bit of digging through the electronic records last night.”

  Janice couldn’t resist. “Didn’t you have anything better to do on a Friday night, Jack?”

  He didn’t take the bait. “Oh, I love a bit of sleuthing. Makes me feel like I’ve wandered into a crime novel.”

  Roach appeared at the door. “Sorry, Sergeant, but could I bother you for a copy of that list you were talking about?”

  “The websites?” she asked, with a glance at Wentworth. “There’s some pretty hot stuff in there, Jim. You sure you can handle it?”

  “I’ll manage,” he said, hands on hips.

  “Go ahead and print it off the Jersey Police mainframe,” she said. “It’s in the Ridley investigation directory. Lyon folder.”

  “Well,” Janice said, returning her attention to Wentworth, “what did you find?”

  Jack opened his laptop and showed her a summary, just under a page long. “The Beth Ridley Foundation,” he said simply, “is an open-and-shut case of fraud.”

  “Bloody hell.” Graham re-read Wentworth’s printout of the document for the third time. “How come no one knew about this?”

  “There’s been a crackdown on charities, sir,” Jack said.

  Jack had been struggling to heed Graham’s request to use his first name. Like everyone else, he couldn’t shake the automatic deference Graham’s presence elicited.

  “But they’ve been focusing on ones likely to be laundering money for terrorists or drug cartels, that kind of thing. Foundations of this size tend to slip under the radar. Besides, it couldn’t help but look insensitive. Ann Leach is on the foundation’s committee. Their mission is to help find her missing daughter, after all.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Graham said, handing him back the document, “but that’s not what they’ve been doing, is it?”

  Janice shook her head. “So far, I’ve found at least three different ways in which Beth’s mother has rerouted funds from the charity to a small network of shell companies that she directly owns.”

  “Amazing,” Graham allowed. “Just goes to show, doesn’t it? She plays the grieving mother like an Oscar-winner, and not the brightest bulb at that, but all the time, she’s been conniving and fiddling the books with the best of them.”

  Wentworth glanced at his notes again. “Not all the time, sir. The fraud seems to have begun about three years after Beth went missing. Before that, the private investigations, lab tests, all the rest of it, they were genuine. But after that point, an increasing number of the expenditures were bogus. Now, nearly all of them are.”

  Graham poured himself yet another cup of tea. It was more out of habit than any urgent need for caffeine. Jack and Janice had called him away from a pleasant afternoon at the library reading up on Jersey’s local history, but under the circumstances, he didn’t mind a bit.

  His initial surprise at Ann’s deceit was giving way to a determination that they must build the best possible case. “It won’t do for us to charge the mother of a missing girl and then have it dismissed on some technicality. This has to be absolutely watertight.”

  “Right, sir,” Janice agreed.

  Graham paused for a moment, thinking. “Any sniff of a suspect behind this smoke and mirrors act?”

  “Doesn’t look like it, sir.”

  “Hmm, okay then. I want you to bring this in for a landing. Build the case, interview people, get whatever help you need within reason. Jack here, for instance. He’s been very helpful, wouldn’t you say?”

  Janice gave Graham an especially careful nod. “Yes, sir. He’s an expert in this stuff.”

  “You’re too kind,” Jack said with a smile.

  “Great. Work on it together, and then liaise with the CPS to make sure all our ducks are in a row before we make the arrest. I’d love a couple of co-conspirators as well, if you can manage it. Look into siblings, accountants, and those who gave large amounts to the charity.”

  Janice made quick and detailed notes. “You’re thinking that they took the tax breaks for charitable donations, but then got a nice kickback from Ann?”

  Graham shrugged. “It’s what I’d do, if I were giving to a charity I knew was crooked. Look into it, and keep me posted.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JIM ROACH MADE a second pot of coffee and then returned to his screen. He’d been up since five and at the station since six, unable to settle into his normal Sunday routine of fitness training, lunch down the pub, and maybe an old movie on BBC2. The case was bothering him on many levels, not least his own inability to meaningfully contribute to it.

  He was poring over Beth’s journals once more, desperate to make meaning of her teenage musings. As he carefully turned the page, the pencil in his hand skimming the edge of the paper, he suddenly paused. He backed up and read over the looped, girlish handwriting on the previous page. As his thoughts swirled, he looked around, tapping his pencil.

  He turned back to the journal again and flipped a few pages ahead. Backward and forward he turned the leaves of the book, making notes on a yellow legal pad as he checked details. His excitement was mounting. Finally, he reached for the phone.

  “DI Graham? Yes, I know it’s Sunday, sir… Well, thanks. Erm, is there any way you could come to the station, sir?”

  DI Graham burst through the doors of the small police station like an explosion.

  “This better be good, Constable. This is the second day and the second weekend in a row I’ve been called in. I was in the middle of one of Mrs. Taylor’s overwhelming but utterly delicious breakfasts.”

  “I’m really sorry about that, sir. But I think this is important.”

  “Oh?”

  “I saw something in Beth’s journal that went click in my brain.”

  “Show me,” Graham said.

  Roach pointed to his own notes from their interview with Andrew Lyon.

  “He said he was a heavy smoker. And it connects with something Beth wrote about Cat in her journal. That he stank.”

  Graham took seconds to make the connection. “So, you think Lyon is this Cat person, and the smell she referred to was cigarette smoke?”

  “Yes, sir. She talks about him all the way through the journal. Always in rather childish language, as you can see,” Roach said, flipping through some pages he’d bookmarked with yellow tabs, “but it’s beyond dispute who she’s talking about. And, you know, ‘Lyon’, sir,” He emphasized the name.

  DI Graham raised his eyebrows, and turned his head very slightly to look at Roach.

  “As in ‘king of the jungle,’ sir.”

  “Ah.”

  Graham went into his office and sat alone, reading the journal carefully over the next ten minutes. He reappeared looking determined. Angry, even. “Right, that’s it. I know we’re waiting to have a cast iron case against Lyon for doing something to Beth Ridley, but we can needle him on the Internet stuff, and if Susan Miller
will agree to contribute anonymously to the trial, nail him on at least one set of underage abuse charges.”

  Roach nodded, “Okay, sir. So, what now?”

  “We bring him in,” Graham’s jaw jutted out. “We stop mucking around. I want him in an interview room, under arrest, so we can sweat him for forty-eight hours. Come on. Let’s go nab him before he sees the writing on the wall and spends his ill-gotten porn money on a flight to a non-extradition country!”

  Graham sat opposite Andrew Lyon and his lawyer, Mr. Sutton, in the station’s small interview room.

  “Do you understand these charges as they have been read to you?” Graham asked Lyon after reading the sheet out loud.

  Harding had produced a long list of offenses, but Graham knew that without further evidence, he’d be hard-pressed to make most of them stick.

  The pale, now rather crumpled ex-teacher nodded. For the most part, he’d been staring at the green tiled floor or the freshly-painted white walls. Anywhere but at Graham.

  “For the tape, I can verify that Mr. Lyon nodded his assent.” This wasn’t the first time in the hours-long interview that Graham had been obliged to report Lyon’s responses for the record. Sutton was making sure he said as little as possible.

  Graham knew the lawyer to be seasoned; one who worked hard for his clients, and someone with experience defending others on similar serious charges in the past.

  “I remind you once more that my client has the right to remain silent,” Sutton said. He had a haughty, reedy voice, like a private school tutor from a hundred years ago. “We’ll be filing a request that the charges are dismissed on technical and procedural grounds.”

  Graham had been expecting something of this nature.

  “We believe that your seizure of Mr. Lyon’s personal possessions are in contradiction of legal directives regarding the privacy of information,” Sutton announced, officiously.

  “Such a filing is your prerogative,” Graham said.

  “Is there anything more you would like to say, Mr. Lyon?”