Justified

by Carolyn Arnold

  “Uh-huh.” She narrowed her eyes at the investigator. “Have they been cataloged?”

  “Yes.”

  She put on a pair of latex gloves and picked up the USB sticks. They’d have no way of knowing if there were any missing thumb drives. The killer could have taken what he was after and locked the safe behind him. It was also possible that he had copied information from these USB sticks and left them behind to look like nothing was taken.

  “We dusted for prints on the cabinet and lifted a few,” Mark started, “before the locksmith people came in. They’re at the lab for analyzing.”

  Madison nodded. “Make sure the drives get back to the lab. And make sure someone extracts the data from these and have them smoked for prints.”

  “Of course.”

  Madison turned to her partner. “This case just isn’t going anywhere near fast enough for me, Terry.”

  “I know. Patience isn’t your strong suit.”

  She glared at him. “Oh shut up.”

  -

  Chapter 10

  MADISON STOPPED THE DEPARTMENT SEDAN at a red light. “Allison isn’t going to like it, but we have to visit her again.”

  “I hope you’re joking about that.”

  “Think about it. Remember Darcy Simms? She mentioned Claire kept Allison on as a maid because she felt sorry for her, owed her for something. We’ve got to find out what.” Madison tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “What if steady employment wasn’t enough to compensate?”

  “But we know Allison didn’t do it. She’s right-handed. The killer was left-handed.”

  “But she’s about the right height.”

  “Not even close.”

  “She could have worn heels to make her taller.”

  “I mentioned that before. You never gave the comment any credit. Besides, there no evidence that heels were worn.”

  “And there isn’t evidence against it. Well, maybe it wasn’t her directly that did the murder. She could have hired someone to do it.”

  “A hired gun would have made a nice clean cut,” he stated drily.

  “What if the killer was forced to do it?”

  “Okay, so in the dead of the night, the best method of attack is to have two people sneak up on Claire. One perched behind her, another holding a gun to the killer’s head? But Claire is oblivious to all of it. She just stands still, drinking a glass of water in front of the sink.”

  “It doesn’t mean the person manipulating the killer was at Claire’s. There are other means of forcing people to do something. Blackmail, for example.”

  “Possible but unlikely.”

  “You’re such a skeptic. Maybe the blackmail had something to do with why Claire owed Allison.”

  He didn’t say anything and just looked out the passenger window.

  “Why can’t you just admit it?” she asked. “Manipulation is a possibility, and right now, we need to run with every one we get. We can’t afford to sit on our ass while waiting for, hoping for, some forensic finding that will identify our killer.”

  He waved her off with a motion of his arm, indicating to just go ahead and do what she felt she needed to do.

  The light turned green, and she stomped on the accelerator so hard that the tires spun on the icy surface before they finally bit.

  “We’ve got to figure out exactly where Claire made her money, and since neither woman wants to elaborate on that, we’ll have to go about it our own way. Call and get her bank records sent over. We need to know how much money this woman had. Deposits and the regularity of them. If she worked for herself, what did she do?” She was driving like a road warrior. At least there were no two-foot drivers in front of her slowing her down.

  “Do you have to drive so fast?” Terry mumbled as he pulled out his phone.

  MADISON STOPPED IN FRONT OF Allison’s house. Terry slipped his phone into the pocket of his jacket.

  “They’ll have the records for us within the next hour. Told them the urgency.” Terry looked from the house to Madison. “You’re seriously going to talk to her again?”

  “I’m not.” She locked eyes with him.

  The message sank in. His head shook. “Nope. I’m not going to do it.”

  “Terry, she’s hiding something.”

  “And if she is, what makes you think she’ll tell me?”

  “She might.” Madison paused a moment. “Come on, I can’t talk to her.”

  “Yeah, because the sarge will have your ass, but what’s to say he won’t chew on mine?”

  “How did you enjoy Christmas Eve with your family?” She pulled out the favor of letting him go early.

  “Hmm, let’s see. Maybe if someone never answered the call in the first place, I would have enjoyed all of it.”

  Okay, that plan backfired. “Fine, I’ll do it, but you’ll be getting a new partner and maybe end up with someone like—”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a manipulative woman?”

  She didn’t even have to say Detective Barkhouse’s name. He’d been on the force longer than either of them had been alive and had a catalog of stories to go with the years. And every time he’d tell them, they’d change slightly. Either he made them up as he went along or his mind was going. “Thanks, Terry.”

  “Hey, I never said I’d do it.”

  ALLISON LEANED AGAINST THE DOORFRAME, her energy making it clear that she wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Why are you harassing me?”

  Terry shot Madison a dirty look.

  “We just want to know why Claire owed you,” Madison blurted out.

  Allison’s composure slipped momentarily. “If I told you anything further, it would make it look bad for me.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’m not talking to you anymore. Not without a lawyer.”

  “What are you hiding? Were you involved or are you hiding who was?” Madison couldn’t keep quiet even though it made her guilty of exactly what Allison had accused her of—harassment.

  Terry tugged on Madison’s elbow to get her to leave. She stood her ground.

  “Only the guilty threaten a lawyer, Miss Minard,” she said. Terry let go of her arm.

  “Only the smart do, Detective. I know how you work. You need someone to pin the blame on. Well, it isn’t gonna be me. The bitch isn’t taking me down with her. No way.” She slammed the door in their faces.

  Madison stood there recognizing how that closed door resembled the case so far—one dead end after another.

  Out in the car, Terry said, “I can’t believe I even went to the door with you. And you talk to her in a manner that screams, ‘you did it, so why not admit it?’”

  “Whatever.”

  “Don’t whatever me. You want to take me down with you? Is that the plan? I need this job.”

  “Oh, you found me out.” She lifted her hands, waving them in weak surrender. “Don’t you worry yourself. I can handle the sarge.”

  “I’ll believe that the day it happens.” He paused before continuing. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “So you go from whining to food?”

  He shrugged. “I’m hungry. And I’ve been meaning to ask you how your first night went with Hershey. How was it?”

  One would think her not saying anything about Hershey would provide him with some sort of a clue as to how it was going. Of all the avenues of conversation he could have switched over to, why had he chosen this one? He had no idea the amount of willpower it would take on her part not to bring up the messes he’d made and the cleaning up she was left with. But maybe she should let him have the truth: the fact that she didn’t need a dog, want a dog, or know what to do with one. But when she turned to face him, he had a boyish grin on his face. “It was interesting.”

  MADISON AND TERRY WERE GRABBING a bite to eat at a fast
-food restaurant, and Terry no sooner placed his cell phone on the table beside his food tray than it vibrated against the wood.

  Madison jerked.

  “Wow, you’re a jumpy one today.” Terry laughed and answered his call.

  Jumpy? Yes. After all, wouldn’t anyone be a little jumpy given a grand total of three hours of sleep? And it wasn’t even like they came consecutively. And her with a dog? Maybe when she got home tonight, she’d realize all of this had just been a long, bad dream.

  I don’t have a dog. I don’t have a dog. Maybe if she repeated it like a chant?

  Terry thanked his caller and hung up. “Okay, so they’ve got Claire’s bank records, and her credit history was impeccable. She had a platinum Visa, no limit.” His eyes took on the look of a daydreamer. “Can you imagine going into a Mercedes dealership? Yeah, I’ll take the SL550 in silver. Just charge it to my card, please. I wonder how many air miles that would be.” He was smiling, absorbed in a moment lost on her.

  “The point?” She laughed. She couldn’t help it. His fantasizing about having money was funny to observe.

  “The point is our vic wasn’t hurting for dough. She was loaded. She had a diversified portfolio valued in the low millions. Her bank account balance was sitting at two hundred twenty-nine thousand.”

  “Why have all that money sitting there earning basically nothing in interest?”

  “Good question. Don’t really know. They said there weren’t any recent transfers or deposits for large sum amounts. Just regular withdrawals for bill payments, hydro, gas, credit cards. The large deposits are made sporadically, every two to three years, approximately.”

  “How large of deposits are we talking about?”

  “Anywhere from two hundred and fifty thousand to over one point five million.”

  “Holy crap, that’s a lot of money. We’ll need to find out where the funds came from.”

  “And what I do know is if I had all that money to leave behind, I’d definitely have a will in place and life insurance.”

  “That means someone could have over a million reasons to want Claire dead.”

  -

  Chapter 11

  “WE NEED TO FIND OUT who stands to benefit.” Her cell phone rang and she answered. The call lasted a few minutes, and then she hung up.

  Terry was pressing his brow, indicating impatience. “Who was it? Do we have a lead?”

  She dragged out the silence a bit longer, just because.

  “Maddy.”

  A smile overtook her expression. “They’ve analyzed the flash drives.”

  “And?”

  “And they didn’t find any prints other than the vic’s. From a forensic standpoint, no one else touched them.”

  “What about the prints lifted from the cabinet?”

  “They came back a match to Claire, too. So either the killer never went in there at all or they wore gloves.”

  “Did they say what was on the USB sticks?”

  “All five of them contained identical data.”

  “All of them?”

  Madison nodded. “But here’s some good news. We know how Claire made her money now.”

  MADISON WALKED INTO THE LAB, Terry trailing behind her.

  “We’re still working on printing one copy of everything,” Cynthia said.

  “Why are you printing all of it?” Madison asked.

  “Trust me. You’ll prefer a hard copy.” Cynthia walked to a table and supported herself against it. She handed a stack of about an inch thick to Madison. “That is only part of it.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “Yeah, holy crap. I’m going to need more reams of paper to get all of this printed.” Cynthia adjusted her black frames on her nose and then twisted a strand of her dark hair around a finger. She glanced at the tips before releasing the hair.

  Madison fanned through the sheets. “Business contracts? They look like scans of the originals.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cynthia said.

  “The paperwork is probably in a secure spot,” Madison went on. “A safe-deposit box at a bank, for instance. Terry, could you—”

  “I’m on it.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  “Putting copies on flash drives is a high-tech way of storing data. Less mess, less clutter. And it keeps the information handy,” Cynthia said.

  Madison’s brain was stuck on the number of duplicate files. “You told me all five sticks had the same data. I wonder why she had five copies of the same thing.”

  “Maybe the victim was eccentric or paranoid,” Cynthia offered a guess.

  “So she was crazy?”

  “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion based solely on this. We all have our idiosyncrasies. My aunt Olivia used to twist the light switches on lamps, on, off, on, off. It was like the light going out wasn’t enough to signal her brain that the power was off.”

  Madison fought the urge to burst out laughing, but she was grinning.

  Cynthia pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you dare. She wasn’t crazy.”

  “She sure sounds like she was.”

  “Well, like I said, we all have weird things about us, except for me of course.” Cynthia laughed.

  Madison’s focus went back to the papers in front of her. “The dates on the contracts go back as far as twenty-one years ago.”

  “Claire Reeves would have been twenty-two at that time.”

  “College age.” Madison flipped more pages.

  Cynthia continued. “There are eight companies in there. She bought in as a silent partner and, based on the financials, she sold when the numbers turned around. After looking at these quickly, most of the businesses are still operating even though buying back Claire’s share nearly bankrupted all of them at the time she wanted out.”

  “That leaves us with at least eight people who could have been motivated by revenge.”

  “Yep. And the last time Claire did this, at least according to the files, was three years ago. The company’s name is Proud Yankees, and the owner was listed at the time as Barry Parsons. It’s an embroidery company specializing in patriotic symbols. I’ll work on getting a list of all the names together for you, but this gives you a place to start.”

  “You said she bought into these companies as a silent partner, but what exactly was she contributing?”

  “Hard to say, but one thing’s for sure, their cash flows certainly turned around. She must have had a golden touch. Look at these numbers.” Cynthia took the profit and loss statement from Proud Yankees just before Claire bought in and pointed to the net loss. Then she flipped over some pages and showed Madison the numbers from just before Claire was bought out. “They’d improved but not enough to offset the amount of her buyout. It nearly bankrupted Proud Yankees. The liquid assets weren’t there yet.”

  Not that Madison could have identified any of this from the grouping of figures in front of her. She was never good at accounting. She preferred thinking on her feet and running with clues. She’d be bored to death number crunching. What Madison did understand was what Cynthia was telling her. “That would make for good motivation. Maybe we’ll be able to prove Barry Parsons was at Claire’s the night of her murder. Speaking of proof, have you analyzed the condoms yet or the semen collected from Claire?”

  “We’re working on it, Maddy. Haven’t got all the answers for you yet. But I am confident in saying that based on the quantity of sperm, there should be viable DNA. Jennifer still has to extract, process, and run it through CODIS. She’s also got the swab from Claire’s wound on the top of her priorities.”

  CODIS, or the Combined DNA Index System, is a collective database that houses DNA profiles of the United States.

  “Let me know as soon as you have that list of business names together,” Madison said. She put the pile of paper on the table. Cynthia had been wrong about on
e thing: Madison didn’t need the files printed.

  Terry hung up. “Dead end with Claire’s main banking institution. She didn’t have a safe-deposit box with them.”

  “Okay, well, she had to keep the original legal paperwork somewhere. We’ll have to work our way around the major banks in the city and hope we get lucky. We should also get someone back at the house to look for any hidden safes.”

  “Do you know how long that will take?” Terry’s voice held a definite whine to it.

  “I’m sure you can manage it, buddy. Casanova…” She only brought out his nickname at opportune moments. He was tagged with it because his mother was a fan of Cary Grant, but instead of just naming him directly after the famous actor, he got the variation.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where now?”

  “Where do you think? To see Barry Parsons.”

  He looked confused and she then realized he had been on with the bank at the time when she and Cynthia had been discussing Parsons. “I’ll explain on the way. And I’m sure you can manage multitasking by now.”

  “Not like I have much of a choice.”

  “Oh, before you guys go,” Cynthia said. “The trace under the fingernails came back as strawberry mixed with blood.”

  “Strawberry?”

  “We had found the green tops from them in her garbage, but toxicology has confirmed that strawberries were in her stomach along with a trace amount of alcohol. Nothing that would knock her out. At most she would have been a little relaxed.”

  Champagne and strawberries—two bitter memories for Madison, as they brought back being engaged to a cheating loser. Of course, it was easy to say that he was a loser, but the truth was that the recollection made her both angry and hurt, leaving her with an emptiness in the pit of her stomach, the kind that came with heartache. The worst part was the man—Toby Sovereign—still wasn’t completely out of her life. He was another detective who worked for the department.

  She shook her thoughts and said, “Let’s go.” She headed for the door, but didn’t hear Terry’s steps behind her and looked over her shoulder. “Now.”