Halloween Is Murder

by Carolyn Arnold

  He was standing outside her office door, about to go inside, and took a deep breath as he reached for the handle. This would be his first time seeing her since he’d served his notice the better part of two years ago, and he found that his nerves were welling up inside of him, as if he were back on the job and asking for a favor.

  “Why, Jimmy Voigt, as I live and breathe.” Chandra had a southern accent and skin as dark as night. She smiled, got up from her chair, and held out a hand to him.

  He shook it.

  “How are you getting by?” she asked. “You’re still with the McKinleys at their firm, working as a PI?”

  “I am.” He smiled and gestured toward the chair in front of her desk—one he’d sat in many times. “May I sit?”

  “Yes, of course.” Chandra walked back around her desk. She was still smiling as she sat down, looking at him as if she were mesmerized.

  Jimmy took a seat and shifted until he found an agreeable position.

  “Just go ahead and get comfortable.” She must have noticed his fidgeting. “What is it you wanted to discuss?”

  He had intentionally left the topic out of his phone call, but it didn’t surprise him that Chandra got to the point quickly. When she’d said she could spare five minutes, she probably meant precisely that. And the clock was ticking. “I’d like to talk to the lead detective on the Chloe Parsons case.”

  “I see.” She sat back. Any trace of a smile gone. “I take it you’re investigating this case, as well.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “It’s fully legal for us to do so,” he reminded her.

  “I am aware,” she said drily.

  “We realize it’s an open case, and our intention is not to interfere—”

  Chandra quirked a brow. “Your intention isn’t to, or you won’t?”

  “Won’t.”

  “I see.”

  Jimmy could tell he was losing her. Chandra pulled out I see when she wasn’t impressed, just as she had when he’d first mentioned what he wanted help with. He had to give careful consideration to his next words. The last thing he wanted was to come across as if he was insulting the Albany PD. “Chloe’s sister came to us, and she feels very strongly that Chloe was murdered.”

  Chandra narrowed her eyes. “And you know that we approach every death investigation seriously.”

  “I do.” He wished he had Sara’s grace and softness, but he’d have to pull from his diplomacy skills. “I also know that there are limitations that sometimes factor in, such as manpower and budgets.” And as horrible as that sounded about a death investigation, it was a sour fact, and one Chandra would be well aware of.

  She continued watching him with those intelligent eyes of hers. “Do you want to work with the Albany PD?”

  Her question caught him off guard. “Like on a consultant basis?”

  She crossed her arms and nodded.

  His shirt collar suddenly felt tight around his neck. Sean and Sara hadn’t said anything about working with the police. “Not exactly.” He winced internally.

  Chandra leaned forward and clasped her hands on her desk. “But you want to speak to my lead detective?”

  Jimmy gulped. “If that would be possible.”

  “Roland’s handling the case.”

  Jimmy’s shoulders relaxed. The way she’d been posturing, he hadn’t expected her to be so forthcoming. Roland Langstaff was an interesting choice to lead up this investigation, though, seeing as he’d never made a secret of his dislike for reporters. It seemed like quite the conflict of interest to Jimmy.

  “I see those gears turning.” Chandra met his eyes.

  “It’s just that Roland doesn’t—”

  “Like reporters?” she finished. “Yes, I know. And I believe that makes him perfect for the case.”

  Questioning the commander’s decisions never got him anywhere in the past, but he had to object. “How so?”

  Chandra’s mouth cracked into a grin. She had always liked a debate when presented respectfully. “Roland will approach things impartially. He’ll look at the evidence from all angles and do it fair justice. But I must tell you that I’ve taken a look at the file, and while it’s still early, I believe you may be wasting your time looking into this one.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “It seems to me that the reporter died of natural causes.”

  “Seems? We need to do better than that.” The words rushed out of him, and he turned away briefly, only to come back to Chandra and lock eyes.

  Her facial features became shadowed as she leaned back in her chair. “Yes, and we will. As I mentioned, it’s still early.”

  “We will? So does that mean you won’t let me talk with Roland or get access to the case files?”

  Chandra scoffed. “Access to the case files? Absolutely not.”

  He knew they’d been a stretch anyhow. “But you’re fine with me speaking to Roland?”

  “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

  Jimmy had expected some resistance, but he hadn’t anticipated a solid wall. When she’d provided Roland’s name, he thought that had been permission to speak with him. Maybe his combative energy had her reneging. His temper flared to life. “Don’t you think it’s the public’s right to know what happened to one of their own?”

  “Absolutely. And when a conclusion is made, they will be informed. Until then, Albany PD is in charge of this case.” Chandra emphasized Albany PD, and by doing so, she was warning him that if he didn’t back off the investigation, he and the McKinleys would risk officially interfering with the case.

  Jimmy got to his feet. “Thank you for your time.” No sense in being rude, but he was feeling more than a tad cranky. He didn’t know anything about backing down, and neither did Sean or Sara. He’d take Chandra’s stand as a challenge to beat the police at solving the case.

  Whether that was a good or bad idea was yet to be seen.

  -

  Chapter 14

  WHO’S THE SUPERHERO?

  SEAN, SARA, AND JIMMY WERE seated side by side at the conference room table while Helen worked across the room to connect cables from a laptop to a large screen mounted on the wall.

  “All right.” Helen stood back from the computer. “I have Adam patched in from the New York office.” She always called Universal Acquisitions Corporation the “New York office,” even though its business wasn’t related to the PI firm on any level.

  The nest of Adam’s brown hair appeared on the screen.

  “Adam,” Helen started. “We’re all here.”

  He lifted his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, everyone.”

  Jimmy grumbled, and it made Sean want to smile. The two of them had this unspoken rivalry between them. It was harmless, even though Jimmy made a big to-do about it.

  “Hi, Adam,” Sara said. “How are you?”

  Helen ducked out of the room while speaking into a wireless headset. “Pay It Forward Invest…” She closed the door behind her.

  “Doing great, though I didn’t have the best luck with Chloe’s social media.”

  “What did you find?” Sean asked.

  “She has a lot of friends, but she wasn’t as active as you’d think a news reporter would be.”

  “Or a twenty-five-year-old, I’m guessing,” Sara added.

  “Exactly.”

  “When was her last post?” Sean asked.

  “Three months ago, but her timeline is full of condolences.”

  “You could have just said she was inactive,” Sean told him.

  “In relative terms, she was. I’m on mine all the time… Not during work hours, though, of course,” Adam backpedaled.

  Not that he needed to. Adam’s efficiency more than afforded him dalliances with online media.

  “So you’re basically saying you have nothing for us?” Jimmy’s face was smug all over.

  “I didn’t say that,” Adam replied curtly.
“I said that I didn’t have the best luck, not that I’m empty-handed.” Adam paused a few seconds, as if to set the stinger of his victory deeper into Jimmy. “I was able to see her interests and pages she’d liked. She was into fashion and music, specifically pop.”

  “And that’s going to help us solve the case?” Jimmy was smirking and shaking his head.

  “Listen, old man, what have you got?” Adam fired back.

  Sean turned to Jimmy on his left, and the man’s cheeks were crimson.

  “What do you have?” Sean asked. “Any luck with Chandra?”

  “No,” Jimmy responded with a shake of his head.

  The man rarely replied with a single word, and Sean knew better than to let it go. “What is it?”

  Jimmy looked sideways at Sean. “She may as well have flat-out warned us not to interfere.”

  Apprehension laced through Sean’s system and cinched his gut. The last thing he had wanted was to upset the police, and they’d managed to do just that. So much for getting in front of it and being open with them. Sean looked at Sara, who didn’t seem too fazed by Jimmy’s news.

  “So she never let you talk to the lead detective?” Sara asked.

  “Nope, but she let it slip that it was Roland,” Jimmy said. “Little good it does us, though. Chandra basically showed me the door. Like I said, what she did say carried a thinly veiled threat.”

  Sean rubbed his jaw and turned forward again to face the screen. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, waiting to hear what he was going to say next. While it would be easier to back down and excuse themselves from the investigation, that wasn’t necessarily the right move. He’d also made promises to Sara and Marie to see this through, and he was a man of his word. They’d just have to be careful not to cross any boundaries and get drawn into a legal battle with the Albany PD. He took a deep breath. “We’re licensed with Albany and the state of New York, and we have the right to get the truth of what happened to Chloe. We were hired to do so.”

  Jimmy was bobbing his head. “I tried relaying that logic on Chandra, but I think it hurt more than helped.”

  Sean’s mind was spinning. It would be so much easier if the police would cooperate, but in his gut, he couldn’t say he was surprised by Chandra’s stand. Not that he had to like it. But how were they going to find out what evidence had been collected at Chloe’s apartment or receive any updates on what had caused Chloe’s heart failure without their cooperation? How were they going to pin a murder on someone without means, motive, and opportunity?

  Then an idea came to him. It was a stretch, though, and grasping wasn’t in his nature. He liked to have his action plans anchored in cement. He glanced to the screen, where Adam was looking back at him. “Adam, I’m going to need you to—”

  He held up a hand. “No need to say anymore, Mr. McKinley.”

  Sean pinched his eyes shut briefly. One, he preferred Adam use his first name, and two, what exactly was the message Adam believed he had received? “No need to…?”

  “You want me to hack into the Albany PD system,” Adam said. “That’s what you were going to ask isn’t it?”

  Sara and Jimmy turned to look at Sean. He wiped a hand over his mouth and shook his head. In the past, they’d had Adam do some things that might have been shady, but inserting themselves into an active investigation this time, giving the Albany PD a heads-up about it, and then tapping into their secured files? That was a good way to land themselves in orange jumpsuits.

  “We need answers, right?” Adam came across as if he were discussing something light and meaningless like where to meet for dinner, not breaking the law. “Updates on the victim’s tox panel, evidence collected, that sort of thing.”

  Sara touched Sean’s arm. “We do need those things.”

  “We’ll have to figure out how to do without them.” He detested the thought of wearing orange, and it wasn’t because he was just starting to experiment with color.

  Sara’s face relaxed, and she nodded. “Sean’s right. There have to be other ways to get the information we need.”

  “If you weren’t going to ask me to hack into PD, what were you going to say?” Adam asked Sean.

  Sean shared what had happened with Kurt Bishop and added, “I was going to have you look into other reporters at Your Source and see if any of them had a squabble with Chloe.”

  “I can do that, but I’d say everything points back to this Jackson guy,” Adam said. “The breakup being her idea, him finding her—”

  “Pretty much everything,” Sean interrupted, cutting the laundry list short—and it was one long list that implicated Jackson. “And she was given the job she had right out of college. That would have made other enemies.”

  “Sean and I were also considering the fact that Chloe wanted to be a news anchor, but she was overlooked for a recent promotion at Your Source,” Sara said. “And when people aren’t happy with their jobs, they tend to keep an eye open for something better.”

  “You’re wondering if any other stations in the area were hiring?” Adam took a stab at what Sara was getting to.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I remember seeing that she liked Albany One on Facebook.” Adam was typing away. “I just did a search, and they are Your Source’s biggest competition, but that’s not all I found.”

  “What, Adam?” Sean punched out.

  “Albany One has an ad out for a news anchor,” the younger man said.

  “How old is the ad?” Sara asked.

  “It was posted a month ago.”

  “It could have been filled by now. Maybe Chloe was in the running or had a job offer from them already?” Sara hitched her shoulders. “She just might not have told anyone yet.”

  As they’d theorized before…

  “So, Sean, where are we with me hacking into—”

  “I would never officially tell you to do that,” he responded.

  Adam raised an eyebrow. “But you’re not saying not to do it?”

  “We keep this legit and legal. So no. Don’t do it,” Sean said firmly.

  “You got it,” Adam said.

  “How do you suggest we get information about the investigation, though?” Jimmy asked.

  They had to do this by the book. “The old-fashioned way. We investigate,” Sean said. “Sara and I are going to talk to Albany One and see if we can get anywhere with that lead. Jimmy, I want you to swing by Chloe’s apartment and find out if it’s been released by chance. Let us know, and if it has, we could get Jackson’s key and—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jimmy said. “Jackson—that’s the victim’s boyfriend—had a key to her place, too?”

  “How do you think he found the body without there being any signs of forced entry?” Adam served out the words as if he’d anticipated Jimmy’s comment.

  Score one for the young guy.

  Jimmy’s brow furrowed, and his face set into a scowl. “The door could have been unlocked.”

  Make that 1–1.

  Adam shook his head, speechless.

  Jimmy pointed at the screen. “Ah, I got you!”

  “Keep trying, old man,” Adam teased. Then he spoke to Sean. “So you want me to look into the other reporters at Your Source. Anything else?”

  “Keep an eye online and see if anyone who posts their condolences on Chloe’s timeline stands out to you. If they do, let us know right away.”

  Adam nodded. “Got it.”

  “We’ll regroup tomorrow, and hopefully, we’ll have something more to go on,” Sean summarized.

  “I’m just hoping we find definite proof of murder,” Jimmy said.

  Sean gripped the man’s shoulder and squeezed. “If that’s where the evidence leads, we will.”

  -

  Chapter 15

  FLYING ON A BROOMSTICK

  SARA WATCHED SEAN DRUMMING ON the steering wheel as he drove to Albany One. The music wasn’t on so he must have been keeping a beat that was all in his head. He pulled into a park
ing spot and turned the car off, but he didn’t make a move to get out of the car. His fingers were now rapping on the wheel.

  “What’s up with you?” Sara pointed to his hands.

  “I’m just feeling good.” He stopped tapping and flashed her a goofy grin.

  She was giggling as she opened her door. Sean hurried around and extended a hand to her.

  When they stepped inside the station, her gaze went to the front desk. A man was sitting there, and he smiled when his eyes caught hers.

  “Can I help you?” His attention was fixed on Sara. It was as if Sean didn’t even exist.

  “We called about an hour ago,” Sean answered. The man still didn’t take his eyes off Sara. “We have a meeting with the station manager.” Sean cleared his throat and drew the man’s gaze briefly.

  “I’d ask for your name,” the receptionist said to Sara, “but I know who you are.”

  Name, singular. Sean was invisible to this guy.

  “Since you know who we are, could you call your boss and let him know we’re here?” Sean raised his brows.

  The receptionist didn’t take his gaze off Sara as he pressed a button on his headset and spoke into it. “The McKinleys are here to see you… Yes, certainly.” He pushed the button on his headset again. “Mr. Rhodes will be right out to get you.”

  Sara stepped back from the counter, and Sean put an arm around her. She smiled at his touch. He was claiming his territory, even if subtly, and she didn’t mind it one bit.

  “Sean and Sara?” A man’s voice called out to them, and they turned around.

  “We are,” Sean replied.

  “I’m Austin Rhodes.” He held out his hand to Sean first. “I’m happy I was able to squeeze you in. If you had called earlier in the day, I doubt I would have been able to. It looks like things work out as they should.” Austin smiled pleasantly. “If you’ll follow me…” He led them to a door and pressed an ID badge against a reader. Green lights flashed as the door unlocked. The door opened out toward reception, and he held the door for them to enter ahead of him.

  Sean and Sara stepped through, and Austin ensured the door shut behind them before leading them down the corridor.