Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

  “You don’t get to say that to me,” I replied. “If you’d like help with your case, you can give us a call.” I handed him my card.

  As if on cue my desk phone rang, I checked the display. It was the Connelly’s home phone number calling. No way was I going to take that call with a Metro cop in my office.

  I stood up and offered him my hand.

  “Goodbye.”

  He shook my hand and nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  My phone continued ringing then abruptly stopped. Dammit, there’d be a message. Kurt ushered James from my office. Sam and Lee sat down.

  “This is not good,” Sam said.

  “No it really isn’t,” I replied. “For the record, I didn’t do anything to Eddie the ‘tard, but I’m having trouble feeling sorry that karma has finally caught up with him.”

  “Us all. Wonder where the rest of him is and where they found that hand…,” Sam said.

  “Not on his arm,” I muttered. “Typical freaking Eddie, he’s always been trouble.”

  The phone sat on my desk taunting me. I knew I had to listen to the message.

  I lifted the cradle and pressed four numbers, accessing my voice mail. As soon as I heard Beatrice Connelly’s voice I hit the speaker button.

  “What did you do to my Eddie? Wasn’t it enough that you killed my youngest son, now you have to take my Eddie? And as for our poor granddaughter you gave her access to the drugs that killed her. I’m sure you are in jail by now. The police were here. I told them all about you and how you hate my family and are killing us off one by one and how you killed your daughter.” She disconnected.

  The grins on Lee and Sam’s faces at the beginning of the rant slid off their faces leaving pure anger by the end.

  There was no way I could acknowledge the horror of Beatrice saying I’d killed my child so I ignored it.

  “It’s nice that we can always count on Beatrice to be level-headed and sane,” I said. “I’m sure Detective James enjoyed her ranting and earnest mutterings about how I’m killing them all off one by one.”

  Maybe I should.

  “As senseless as she sounds, he was just doing his job. She pointed her fat finger at you, he’s obliged to investigate,” Lee said, the struggle to keep rampaging anger from his voice was obvious. “He didn’t have to go about it the way he did though.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back… Beatrice won’t let this go.” She’s found a way to be annoying and lash out at me at the same time and she’ll make the most of it.

  “That’s as sure as bears shitting in the woods,” Lee drawled.

  “We can poke around,” Sam said. “See if we can find any more of Eddie.”

  “Or we could let it go and move on. Detective James will be back, until then, we’ve been asked to look into a stalking case,” I said.

  “Stalking?” Kurt said. “A serial stalker?”

  A smile erupted into laughter as a mental image took hold. Cereal stalker indeed. I could see a crazy but pretty woman stalking the Frosty Flakes in Safeway. Maybe she liked tigers or maybe she just liked sugar. I suspected it was a package deal.

  “No, not a serial stalker, at least not as far as we know,” I replied sending the Frosty Flakes image packing.

  “Who’s being stalked?” Kurt asked, taking his pen and notebook from his suit jacket pocket.

  “A celebrity,” I replied. “LAPD have asked for our help.”

  Suddenly everyone was focused.

  “We’re going to Los Angeles?” Sam sounded hopeful.

  “Not at the moment. Our guy is flying out east for some public appearances and also to vacation.”

  “Why us and not Metro?”

  “The threat assessment turned up something interesting.” I turned my gaze to Lee. “You wanna hazard a guess what that might be?”

  He shook his head.

  I continued, “If I said his name was Michael Davenport would that ring any bells? Agent Davenport?”

  Lee smiled just a little.

  Kurt and Sam both frowned.

  “I don’t know any celebrities called Michael Davenport,” Sam said. He turned to Lee, “You have a brother named Michael, don’t you?”

  Lee nodded. “Mike is my little brother.”

  Not that much younger or littler. My information said they were born in the same year. Lee was almost ten months older than his little brother.

  “Celebrity? Does he look like a rocker too?” Kurt said. “Because I could understand that.”

  “No, he looks like an action hero,” I replied. “He looks a lot like someone from a very popular series currently on television.”

  “He’s an actor?” Kurt said.

  “Yep. Michael Fisher aka Michael Davenport aka Lee’s baby brother.”

  Sam and Kurt digested the information.

  Sam was first to speak. “You never mentioned Michael was an actor.”

  “No one ever asked,” Lee replied with a grin. “So when does the kid arrive?”

  “I kinda thought you would know the answer to that,” I said.

  “Nope. He never mentioned he was coming out. I knew he was going away but I figured he was off climbing another mountain somewhere.”

  “You’re close then?” I muttered.

  Lee grinned. “We’re brothers. I’m sure he’d arrive on my doorstep at some point, and then I’d know he was in town.”

  It didn’t take long to pull up the information we did have on Michael and his situation. “LAPD were appraised of a threat situation two days ago by Michael’s management and the studio.” I scanned the rest of the information on the screen. “Security at the studio worked with a liaison from the LAPD to tighten up weak areas after threatening letters were sent to both the studio and to Michael via his management.”

  “Sounds fairly standard so far,” Sam said.

  “Yes, it does. And this is where it gets a little messy,” I said. “The letters were shown to LAPD but they were not permitted to copy them or keep the originals. It is unknown who is sending the threats. We do know that a series of letters was sent to the studio and his manager stating that he would not leave Washington D.C. alive.”

  “LAPD haven’t taken the letters into evidence?” Sam queried, his brow furrowed.

  “No.”

  “No forensic examination of the letters?” Kurt asked.

  “No.”

  “That is highly unusual,” Kurt added. “A written death threat and these people don’t hand over the evidence. It makes no sense.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  “Did you know about this?” I asked Lee.

  “Not about the trip to D.C. and no, I did not know about those letters. I knew he’d picked up a few stalkers on and off over the years. I’d given him advice on how to deal with them,” Lee said. “Does Michael know about the latest letters?”

  That was where it all got a little bit tricky.

  “I can only go on this request in front of me. He’s barely mentioned in the police report. He did not make the complaint. It was made on his behalf. Does he know? I have no idea.” I leaned back and looked at Lee. “If he knew would he come to you for advice?”

  “Yes. He has done before. If this was a serious situation, yeah he would.” Lee said. “How the hell is he supposed to protect himself if he’s not given the facts?” He voiced exactly what I thought.

  “There is a final note at the bottom of this email from the officer who requested assistance. He notes that Michael Fisher’s management decided the best course of action was to limit his knowledge and put extra security in place.” It was all so familiar. I’d heard Rowan’s management state dumber things in the interest of protecting their client. “We have been asked to step in, because LAPD believe this is a credible threat situation and they’re not getting anywhere with the management, also, Michael will be under the biggest threat while in D.C.” I reached for the phone on my desk and found the phone number for Michael Dav
enport’s manager from the LAPD file. It didn’t take long for someone to answer.

  “This is SSA Ellie Conway of the FBI. Can I talk to Sarah McHardy please.”

  “You’re speaking to her.”

  She sounded like a twelve year old. “We’ve been asked to protect a client of yours. Michael Fisher. I’d like you to forward me the threat letters.”

  “I’m not happy about releasing the letters, agent.”

  “You’re not releasing them. We require the letters to conduct our investigation, they are evidence. Without them this is all hearsay.”

  “I don’t think that’s right.”

  Of course you don’t, you’re twelve.

  “The letters corroborate your story that there is a threat,” I said with mustered patience. “Without seeing them we cannot determine the nature or seriousness of the threat to your client. Or even if there is one. A report from LAPD isn’t evidence. We need to conduct forensic testing on the documents.”

  Silence.

  “Ms. McHardy, we need those letters. I’ll give you an address of the nearest field office and you can take them there yourself.”

  “When do you need them?”

  “Preferably before your client arrives in Washington,” I said. Really, she should have handed them over to police. It was only because the officer in charge of the case was concerned about the threat level that he bothered to let us know. With no evidence on file, he could have easily dismissed it.

  She agreed to take the letters in herself. After divulging the address and the name of an agent she should take them too I hung up.

  “Mike needs to wake up and smell the coffee,” Lee muttered. “That woman is not filling me with confidence. How good a manager can she be? Notifying police, not letting them have the evidence or give them enough information to do their jobs and not telling the client just how bad it is, sheer stupidity.”

  We were definitely on the same page regarding Mike’s management.

  “I don’t know your brother, how will he react to this news?” I was grasping at straws. He’s an actor. I knew nothing about actors. If he was highly-strung then telling him could cause more issues. If he freaked out and handled things like a diva it would make protecting him a pain-in-the-ass.

  “Like you or I,” Lee replied. “He’s my brother.”

  Ah, wonderful. He’ll arm himself with knowledge and maybe a weapon and carry on as normal. I smiled. Very familiar. On hearing that I wondered how much of him was in the character he played on television.

  This was going to be fun with a capital F. As long as he didn’t get dead on our watch.

  “Right, Lee get onto your brother and get the travel details. You don’t have to tell him over the phone what’s going on. In fact, we don’t know how tech savvy the stalker is, so probably say nothing.” I stopped in my tracks. “Scratch that whole idea. Do you two have a way of communicating that no one else knows about?”

  My cell phone buzzed. I read the text but it didn’t register.

  Lee nodded. “We do, we leave messages for one another through a veteran’s website.”

  I didn’t ask why. I have a brother. He and I leave messages for each other on website using aliases. It’s one of those things. You never know when it’ll be handy.

  “Get onto it, tell him you need to know when to pick him up. He needs to be vigilant and looking for tails etc. He will have an LAPD escort, they have him under surveillance but probably not a marked car, tell him not to ditch the LAPD.”

  Lee pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  “Don’t call him,” I cautioned. “You don’t know who is listening on his end.”

  “Not calling,” Lee replied with a smile. “Texting a pre-arranged message so he knows to log into the veteran’s site.”

  “Nice.”

  “Can I?” Lee indicated to my laptop.

  “Go for it,” I said and stood up, picked up my cell phone and stepped away from my desk. Lee passed me and sat down.

  “It’s not right,” he muttered.

  “What’s not?”

  “Sitting in a warm chair.”

  I left him to it. Kurt, Sam, and I joined Sandra in the bull pen.

  “This could be fun,” Sam said giving me a nudge.

  “Yep, or a total pain in the ass.”

  Sandra poured me a coffee.

  “What’d the cop want?”

  “He thinks I chopped my ex-brother-in-laws hand off,” I replied.

  “You want to find out what’s going in that case?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “One moment, what was his name again?”

  “Dylan James.”

  Sandra typed fast. The three of us waited for her to work her magic. It didn’t take long.

  “I’m not asking if you just hacked into the Metro computer system but did you just hack into the Metro computer system?” I said in a hushed whisper.

  “Would I? Really?” She almost looked innocent for a nanosecond. “I so hacked their asses,” she whispered. “They found the hand on the south side of the Washington monument. It was displayed. There are photos.”

  I slipped around to her side of the desk. There were photos. It was displayed. Eddies armless hand was flying the bird. I couldn’t help but smile. Even in death and unattached his body parts were offensive. Kurt and Sam peered over our shoulders. Sam chuckled. Kurt grinned.

  “You think maybe he offended someone and they chopped the offending appendage off?” I asked. “God knows I’ve been tempted over the years.”

  Kurt tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to move a little. He wanted a closer look at the stumpy hand.

  “Sandra can you download these photos without anyone knowing?” He asked.

  “I am a magician. It is within my realm of expertise.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind forwarding them to me,” Kurt said.

  “Not at all, consider it done.”

  “What else have they got fingerprints or anything substantial?” I asked.

  “The hand, nothing left at the crime scene. That’s it.” She typed some more. “And a transcribed conversation with Beatrice Connelly where she accuses you of killing her sons. Also, Mac’s dad, on record saying his wife is insane and that he is certain you have nothing to do with any of this.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I can check back, and poke around a little as the investigation goes on.”

  “That would be handy.”

  My cell phone went again, another text message from Assistant Director Owen.

  I ignored it.

  She is not my favorite person. The only reason she would be texting me is to harass me about something, probably the Connelly situation, without my team knowing she was trying to contact me. She’s sneaky like that.

  Because I knew what she was like I forwarded her texts to the entire team and to Caine, our SAC. Caine called me back within minutes.

  “She’s on the warpath,” he said. “Hold off replying to her today.”

  “I have no intention of replying to her at all.”

  “You’re going to have to sooner or later, just don’t do it today. Leave the building. Be hard to reach.”

  “Why am I in her sights, after all these years?”

  “She’s one for holding grudges. You dressed her down in front of others once, she’s heard about Eddie and is running with it. I know her. She’s looking for a way to crucify you.”

  “Good luck. I didn’t do anything.”

  “That will make no difference to her,” Caine growled. “In her mind this has been a long time coming.”

  “Awesome. I can end this now and go to O’Hare.”

  “I know…”

  “But?”

  “But I think you should give Owen some rope and let her hang herself.”

  “I like how you think.”

  “Keep your head down and get out of the office for the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I hung up and
grinned at Kurt.

  “Caine wants me out of Dodge for the rest of the day.”

  “I’m up for a road trip. We could accidentally happen by the Metro crime scene.”

  “Yeah, nah, they’ll figure out we’ve been snooping or worse, think I actually did it!”

  “We don’t want that.”

  I hurried back to my office and checked on Lee.

  “He gets in tomorrow morning. I’ll pick him up.”

  “Great. I need to get out of here for a bit. I’ll see you and your brother here tomorrow.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I grabbed my jacket and went to meet Kurt.

  All names, characters, places, and incidents in this publication are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Soundbyte

  © 2013 by Cat Connor

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  For information regarding permission, email rebele@rebelepublishers.com, subject line: Permission.

  ISBN: 978-1301487417

  First published by Rebel ePublishers 2013

  Cover design by Littera Design

  Interior design by Caryatid Design

  Butterfly graphic © CanStockPhoto/Evgeniia Hulinska