Double Trouble

by Scott Wittenburg

  “So what are we gonna do now?” Nick asked.

  “You are going to just lay low and not go anywhere,” Ken said. “Have you called your boss yet?”

  “Yeah. That’s what will happen next—he’ll fire my ass and then I’ll really be screwed.”

  “Surely he doesn’t think you’re guilty,” Amanda said.

  “No, but like I told you, auto sales have been down lately and he’s already laid off one guy. So it’d be no skin off his teeth to let me go, too—especially now that this has all gone down. Jesus, what a mess!”

  “You have to stay positive, Nick. It’s very important. Let us do what we need to do and you stay here out of trouble.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “I feel so sorry for him,” Amanda said as they pulled out of the Wilburn driveway. “His ex-wife—the love of his life—has just been murdered and he’s the prime suspect. All he can do now is just sit around and think, and wait, wondering if he’s going to eventually be arrested for murder. Add to that the fact that his mother has cancer and his father is jobless. That’s an awful lot to handle. We’ve got to do something, Uncle Ken.”

  “I hear you, sweetie. And the first thing I’m going to do is try to find out if there really is a neighbor claiming to have seen Nick around his and Jodi’s house on the day of the murder. I’m having a problem believing that, assuming that everything Nick has told us is true.”

  “You do believe him, don’t you?” Amanda said.

  “Honestly? I’m about ninety percent in belief. But although my gut feeling says Nick didn’t kill his wife, I still haven’t seen enough evidence to be convinced he didn’t. In this business, you have to imagine yourself as one of the jurors. Forget that you know anything about the suspect and focus on the evidence that’s being presented to you. And as a juror in this case, I’m not seeing or hearing any solid evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Nick is innocent. All I’ve heard is what he’s told me. He has no solid alibi and there’s substantial circumstantial evidence that is incriminating and can’t be overlooked.”

  Amanda fell silent, lost in thought.

  “The first thing I want to do is check out the crime scene,” Alan said. “How soon can we do that?”

  “Anytime—I have the key back at the house. Why don’t you two go on out to the Wilburn house while I go see about any progress that’s been made on the investigation? I’ll meet you out there afterwards.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Ten minutes later Alan and Amanda were heading west on Route 52 in the direction of Jodi and Nick’s former rural home.

  “I have to ask—why does everybody down here call you Mandy?”

  She made a pained face. “That was what I went by as a child. As you can see it’s sort of stuck.”

  “But you prefer Amanda?”

  “Hell yes. When my family finally moved out of this place the first thing I did was tell everyone in Mansfield my name was Amanda. I saw my new name, which is my birth name, as a symbol of my new life. Besides that, I’ve pretty much hated Mandy from the moment I heard the Barry Manilow tune the first time. Couldn’t stand that sappy song and hated it even more after I found out he’d wrote it about his dog!”

  Alan laughed. “I hear you—never been much of a Manilow fan myself.”

  “So what do you think, so far?” Amanda asked.

  “About the case? Not much to say this early on. About all I’m sure of is that we have a real uphill climb ahead of us. Like your uncle said, there really isn’t anything indicating that Nick didn’t do this. We need some solid evidence proving otherwise.”

  “Do you think he’s being set up?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know—it’s possible, I guess. But you’d have to wonder why anybody would want to set him up in the first place. Who could benefit by doing that? So far I haven’t heard squat about Jodi’s life since Nick and her split up. Is there somebody she knew who might have a motive for making off with her valuables rather than the obvious one? Was killing her the prime objective, or an afterthought after the burglary? Was all of this done just to frame Nick? It could go in several different directions.”

  “I wonder if there’s any way to prove that Nick has had those old coins since Christmas? That would sure take some of the heat off of him.”

  “My guess is that Ken has already investigated that and it was a dead end. Your uncle seems very much on the ball—I can’t see him overlooking that option. But it wouldn’t hurt to make sure, just in case. We’ll ask him about it when we get back.”

  Alan switched playlists on his iPhone, inched up the volume and settled back in his seat. He was impressed that Amanda was thinking like an investigator and it made him smile. Although he’d bet his last dollar her uncle had already grilled Nick about the coins, she had nevertheless thought of a potential angle that could help prove Nick’s innocence. That was a good thing.

  He was antsy to get to the Wilburn house. Until he stood at the actual scene of a crime, he never felt adequately oriented enough to go any further than speculation or theory. There was potentially a wealth of information to be gleaned there—and although the local authorities had already combed the Wilburn house for evidence, there was always the slim chance they had missed something that could be valuable to the case. He’d seen it happen before.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  She glanced down at the directions Ken had printed out for her. “About ten minutes.”

  “Jesus, it really is out in the boonies.”

  “I told you.”

  They had been driving on a state highway that ran parallel to the Ohio River. From the moment they left the Milldale city limits, the entire landscape switched from small town charm to countryside. Large wood frame farmhouses, vast cornfields and the occasional gas station/convenient mart dotted the landscape. To the north were rolling foothills that seemed endless, giving a nestled-in feeling to the surroundings. He imagined that this place was absolutely beautiful in the fall.

  “Take a right up ahead,” Amanda said.

  Alan hung a right onto a two-lane asphalt road. They passed a couple of modest frame houses before coming upon a fork in the road.

  “Bear to the left.”

  As he turned left they approached a bridge that crossed a small creek. Alan instinctively turned down the music, sensing they would be nearing the place soon. He opened his window all the way, hearing the sounds of the flowing water, birds chirping and bugs chatting. It was very peaceful out here, he had to admit.

  They passed a couple more homes before Amanda directed him to pull onto a gravel road that led up a slight hill to a two-story yellow frame house. He pulled up to the side and parked a few feet from the garage entrance.

  “Here we are.”

  “No vehicles here,” Alan said, noticing that the one-car garage was empty.

  “Mr. Brooks may have already picked up Jodi’s car.”

  He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Let’s do this.”

  They got out and headed toward the front porch. As he searched for the key in his pocket, Alan gazed around the property. There were probably a couple acres of land cleared out around the home and hillside everywhere else. A decent-sized garden had been dug out in the backyard off to the side. There wasn’t another house in sight and the quiet was almost stifling. It was as though their sudden presence at this death house had scared all of the living things away.

  He unlocked the door and entered the house. There was a small foyer leading back to the kitchen and the living room was off to the right. A stairway to the second floor stood across the foyer to his left. He studied the living room and sensed that Jodi Wilburn had been a dedicated homemaker in spite of the disarray left by the crime scene investigators. The gleaming hardwood floors, tasteful furniture, and art furnishings lent a comfortable feel to the place. He could almost imagine Nick’s ex-wife enjoying a good book as she lounged on the off-white leather sofa, rays of sun be
aming in through the large window in diagonal slants across the floor.

  “Nice place,” he said.

  “It really is,” Amanda replied. “I can’t believe that Jodi was murdered here. It seems so surreal—and creepy.”

  “I know what you mean. I haven’t been involved in many murder cases but I can vividly remember the first murder scene I investigated. There was a certain feel to the place that was indescribable but omnipresent. Like some sort of dull force field. I feel that same sensation here.”

  Alan opened the three-ring notebook Ken had given him. Inside was a copy of the police crime scene investigation along with notes the attorney had jotted down in the margins. The report stated that Jodi’s body had been discovered after her mother hadn’t heard from her the day she’d been murdered. Ken noted that Jodi always called her every morning after she’d had breakfast since the divorce. Her mother insisted she call because of concerns about her daughter living alone in such an isolated area. Around noon, having not heard from Jodi and receiving nothing but her voicemail greeting when she called, Nancy Brooks phoned her husband, who in turn drove out to the house to check on her. That’s when he found Jodi’s body in her bedroom.

  How horrible that must have been, he thought.

  Included in the notebook was a layout of the house and printed out copies of photos taken of the scene. Apparently there had been nothing of forensic value discovered in the living room with the exception of Nick’s fingerprints on some of the surfaces. The presence of his prints had appeared randomly throughout the house but primarily in obscure surfaces he had most likely been in contact with back when he used to live here.

  “Let’s go down to the basement—I want to see this hidden safe.”

  The basement door was located in the kitchen according to the layout so Alan led the way back toward the rear of the house. The kitchen had been recently updated and looked out of place in the old country home with its gleaming granite counters and stainless steel sink and appliances. Alan went over to one of the cabinets and peaked inside at the contents. The report noted that the dishes and glassware had all been dusted for prints and the only ones present had been Jodi’s.

  “This kitchen looks like it was recently updated,” Amanda noted.

  “It does. What did Jodi do for a living?”

  “Mom said she was still a hairdresser and worked at one of the salons in town. She was apparently one of the best around and had a lot of clients.”

  “She must have done pretty well for herself. A lot of money has been spent on this house from what I can see.”

  Alan went over to the basement door and opened it. He switched on the lights and headed downstairs with Amanda following behind. He looked around and saw the laundry room and made a beeline for it. Immediately he noticed a six-foot section of wall jutting out at a forty-five degree angle from the far right corner of the room, revealing a tiny room with a safe sitting in the middle of the floor.

  A false wall.

  “This is impressive,” he said as they approached the room. “The wall looks like it’s been designed to swing like a door. I wonder how Nick figured out how to build this.”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a cool idea.”

  Alan went over to the safe, knelt down, saw nothing inside and then examined the area where the false wall was attached to the corner wall of the laundry room. He noticed a steel chain running down along the hidden room wall a few inches, then disappearing into it. The chain looked like it could somehow connect inside the drywall to a water valve sticking out from the other side. Hidden inside the wall was probably a gear and pulley system that made it all work.

  Quite a gizmo, he thought. Nick was in the wrong line of work, considering the mechanical know-how required to construct this marvel.

  Curious, Alan grabbed the water valve and turned it clockwise. Nothing happened. He pushed in on it and the wall immediately began moving. He quit pushing and the wall stopped. He went over and tried to push the wall with both hands but it wouldn’t budge. Kneeling down, he noticed that there was about a quarter inch of space between the bottom of the swinging wall and the floor. He took out his iPhone, turned on the flashlight and peered inside the crack. Several tiny steel ball bearings made contact with the floor. So that’s how it worked.

  He stood up and went over to push the water valve again and the wall swung in like a door until it closed altogether. The tight seam where the moving wall met the existing wall was barely visible and had been meticulously painted and textured to avoid detection.

  “Wow.”

  Alan stood back and stared at the hidden room, realizing that Jodi Wilburn had stashed her valuables in a place so well-hidden that virtually nobody could ever find it. Yet somebody had.

  Or had they?

  “If Nick and Jodi were the only ones who knew about this hidden room, how was killer able to find it?” he said.

  “I was just wondering the same thing,” Amanda replied. “Somehow the guy had to have already known it was here, you would think. Otherwise, Amanda had deliberately shown him where it was.”

  “Like he coerced her in some way?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that wouldn’t make much sense. Even if he was threatening Jodi at gunpoint or whatever, it seems she would have kept her mouth shut since giving up this hiding place wouldn’t have spared her life anyway. She had to have guessed there was no way this guy was going to leave any witnesses behind.”

  “What if she used the safe as a bargaining tool? Like she tried to make a deal with him: ‘spare my life and I’ll show you where all of my loot is hidden.’”

  “Hmm. I guess that’s a possibility. But again, she’d have to be pretty naive to believe he wouldn’t kill her anyway. From what I’ve heard about Jodi so far, she doesn’t sound like the flighty, simple type—correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “No, you’re right. She was a very bright gal and would have assumed the guy wasn’t going to let her live.”

  “Which brings us back to Nick. If it were Nick, there would be no beating around the bush with this hidden safe. He’d have simply come here, taken the goodies, killed his ex and ran off into the sunset.”

  “So now you think he did this, too?” she asked, visibly put off.

  “No, I don’t think he did it—I’m just saying it’s starting to look more and more like he could have done it. Which is a bit unsettling, truth be told.”

  “But Alan, there’s no way he would have done this! You just have to believe me—Nick is no murderer. And he has always loved and still loves Jodi.”

  “Trust me, I really want to believe that, Amanda. But like your uncle, I’m having a hard time not being swayed against it. Seems like every time we turn around on this case, we discover yet another thing that makes Nick look like the perp. I’d like to just once see something, or hear something, that makes me think somebody other than Nick could have done this. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Okay, I see where you’re coming from. But neither you nor Uncle Ken really know Nick the way I do. My mother has known Nick his whole life and she feels the same way I do. I know what you’re going to say—that this is some sort of ‘woman’s intuition’ thing. Well, call it what you want. Nick Wilburn did not murder Jodi.”

  “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll continue as I have all along with this case and give Nick the benefit of the doubt. I am going to be a believer, and keep an open mind. You’re probably not going to believe this, but I have faith in your intuition or whatever we’re going to call it. I’ve seen you use it before and it enabled me to catch Robert Markham. That’s enough for me.”

  She gave him a hug. “Thanks for saying that, Alan.”

  Alan thumbed through the notebook until he found the page he was looking for.

  “You ready to go up to the second floor?”

  “Not really. But I told myself I would, so I’m following through with it.”

  “You know it’s not necessary. You could just wait d
ownstairs until I get done up there.”

  “If I’m really going to be your partner, I’ve got to be able to face reality. And seeing where they found Jodi’s body is about as real as it gets.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Although he knew that the last thing Amanda wanted to do was see where Jodi had been found murdered, he admired her resolve to follow through with it. They had discussed it earlier, while looking through the report and crime scene photos. He had purposely viewed the photos of the body with his back turned, knowing that their graphic nature might be too much for her to bear. When she asked to see them, he suggested that she abstain—that they might give her nightmares. That had been enough to convince her, thankfully.

  Truth was, he would probably have nightmares himself. He had never been good around dead bodies. Everything about death and the concept of dying had always freaked him out. When he was a child, violent movie scenes used to terrify him to the point that he’d have to look away whenever a character was about to kill somebody or be killed. Although he knew it was all make-believe, he still couldn’t get past the universal fact that when you’re dead, you’re gone. Gone forever. Like a snuffed-out candle, everything you ever knew, loved, experienced, and hoped for was snuffed out as well. As if you never existed.

  His feelings about death had become even more intensified after Julie passed away. He had felt as though his entire life up to that point had suddenly been snuffed out as well. He had no longer wanted to live, really. He’d never been suicidal (he would never invite death to his own doorstep) but what he had known as life and living before Julie’s death had been replaced with an existence without purpose. Just like that, death had obliterated everything he’d ever cared about.