Off the Record: An Avery Rich Mystery (Avery Rich Mysteries Book 1)

by Sara Gauldin

  I smiled. “Good work, Officer Henry. Let me know how the search turns out.”

  “Yes ma’am…err…sir.”

  “Either is fine. May I have the service contract, please?”

  “Oh, of course.” Officer Henry blushed red again as he handed me the stack of paperwork.

  I smiled at Officer Henry, offering my reassurance, one more time. “Thank you, officer. Let us know as soon as you're done processing the car.”

  Officer Henry grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” He headed toward the impound lot.

  I held up the car rental contract and examined it more closely. The car had been rented by a business account. The credit card that had been used to secure it belonged to WC Investments, Inc. The hair at the back of my neck rose in anticipation as I looked at the signature.

  In a cursive scroll, the renter had signed the name: W. Collins.

  “Hello, again. This name keeps coming up,” I said to Kain. He leaned toward the document to have a look.

  “Who signed it?” a female voice asked from behind me.

  Kain glanced up at me, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of my reaction.

  I turned to find the no-longer-missing Lou Johnson, standing behind me, wearing a pained expression. “Officer Johnson, I was…concerned about you. I think we need to have a talk.”

  Lou looked down at her shoes. “I thought you might say that. You’re not going to tell me the name, are you?”

  “I think you need to update me and my associate, Mr. Kain, first.” I gestured to a door across the hallway. “Shall we step into interview room three?”

  Lou took a deep breath and nodded slightly. We walked into the interview room. Kain, ever the gentleman, pulled out my chair so I could take a seat. I noticed he didn’t do the same for Officer Lou.

  “Officer Johnson, I already know you went to the morgue today after you dropped me off at my apartment. Dr. Cleary told me you wanted to take his preliminary findings with you. I can’t think of a good reason you would need that information on your own.”

  Lou looked down at her hands. “I was trying to help.” She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her.

  I leaned across the table and looked her in the eye. “Lou, I admire ambition, I do. That's how I became a detective and how I earned this job.”

  Lou brightened slightly, but continued to lean away from me in her seat.

  “Ambition is not the only skill that helped me get to where I am today,” stuck in the middle of some conspiracy that has nearly gotten me killed, I added silently. “I also am an observer. I study human nature. Everyone in this world wants something. Some people want simple things, some want much more complicated things. And those desires are what drives everyone to either live honestly, or break the rules. What I see in you, Lou, is ambition and desire. I think there is something you want very badly. At first, I thought it was a professional drive for success, but this case has led you to something you want much, much more. Isn’t that right, officer?” I looked at Lou Johnson and waited while she chewed her lip in thought.

  “I guess everyone does,” she mumbled.

  “Everyone does what?” Kain asked.

  Lou looked down and picked at her fingernail. “They want to be loved, and for their loved ones to be safe."

  “So somebody you love stands to be affected by this case?” Just like Calbert! How many people in this department were tied to this case?

  “I…I guess so,” she said. As she shifted her weight in her seat, she moved her hand and revealed a sweaty impression she'd left behind on the interview table.

  “There's no room for guessing here. You're tied to someone whom you're willing to risk your career, and the possibility of jail time to help. That's not an uncertain love. Whom are you trying to help? Is it a family member?”

  She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes.

  “A significant other, then?”

  She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together for a long moment. “You’re going to find out anyway. Tom Parker is my Fiancé.”

  “Tom Parker is in prison for his involvement in a murder,” I said. “He can’t be in too much danger in jail.”

  “I think he’s innocent,” Lou sobbed. “I went to see him a little while ago. I had to warn him he’s in danger.”

  “Tom may be next on the list, but you’re wrong about one thing,” Kain said. “Parker didn’t pull the trigger, but he was directly involved in Douglas White's murder, there's no doubt about it.”

  “How can you know for sure?” she asked.

  I leaned across the table toward Lou Johnson. “It’s true, but that’s not why we're here. We know you can’t get Parker out of jail, or you would've likely already posted bail. So what has you worried enough that you're willing to interfere in this case?” I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from her.

  “I just know Tom isn’t safe. After we were called out to the cabin where he told me Maple was staying, and there were all those bodies, I know that whoever did that was getting rid of witnesses. Those men were chopped up like they were never even human beings, and I just know that Tom will be next. There's no way they'll let him serve his time in peace. I mean, Maple hired him to work security. He isn’t even running things, and now he'll have to testify. Why would they let him slip by when his boss was dismembered?”

  “I see why you're concerned. You may be right. He may be in danger, but I can only help you if you can help me.”

  “By staying off the case?” Lou’s voice shook as she spoke her false hope.

  “No, I need you to make a formal statement. You should include everything you know about Tom Parker’s ties to Maple, and anything that's happened, or that he's told you about his work for him.”

  “And if I do, how can you help us?” Lou asked.

  “I can request that Parker be transferred into solitary while awaiting trial. And I can put in a good word with internal affairs while they look into your misconduct.”

  Lou picked at her manicure while she considered my offer. “And if I don’t make a statement?”

  “Then you're both on your own. I'll step out of the way and let both of you handle whatever consequences are heading your way.” I paused for a long moment. “So what are you going to choose?”

  Lou chewed her lip for another moment before she released a long sigh. “I’ll make the statement.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad you made the right choice, Lou. Let’s get started.” I slid a notepad and a pen across the table. “Write down every detail you can remember.”

  Lou nodded, and began to write.

  Chapter 26

  “Avery, that was really impressive,” Kain said as we walked back to my desk from the interview room. “At least we know why she didn’t take our call; she had to leave her phone outside to visit Tom Parker in prison.”

  I nodded. “I just hope there's something in Lou Johnson’s statement we can use.” I held up her handwritten pages.

  “If nothing else, we know why Officer Johnson has been behaving so strangely,” Kain said.

  “Yes, but I don’t get the impression she's out to get us. She just wants to protect Tom Parker.” I carefully lowered myself into my defective chair.

  Kain raised his eyebrows. “Does she know we have to testify against him?”

  I shrugged as my computer wheezed back to life. “I don’t know, but I guess she’ll find out when the trial starts. Depending on what she's documented, she may be subpoenaed to testify against him herself.”

  A burst of activity distracted Kain from answering me. A group of officers had gathered around somebody at the top of the steps. “Adams, where the heck have you been? The Captain almost had an aneurism when you never showed up with that warrant at the murder scene.”

  I stood up to hear his answer.

  “You wouldn’t believe it. I was leaving the court house with the warrant, and the elevator broke down. I've been stuck in there for hours. I've never been so happy to get to
a bathroom!”

  One of the officers grouped around Officer Adams slapped him on the shoulder. You'd better get to the Captain with that warrant. When he called the judge and he told him you'd left with it hours ago and you weren’t answering his calls, I thought he was going to pass a brick!”

  “It’s all good. The judge was there when they finally got me out. He called the Captain. One of you folks can take the warrant out to him at the cabin. From this day forward, I’m taking the stairs!” He laughed.

  “Well, the warrant's finally available for you to search the cabin,” Kain commented with a smirk. “Will you be headed out to have a look?”

  I shook my head. “An hour ago I would have said yes--I really do want to know what's there.”

  Kain’s eyes lit up with that familiar twinkle as he tried to guess my next move. “And now you've lost your curiosity? It is getting closer to dinner time.”

  “No, just the opposite. Now that we have more concrete proof that William Collins is tied to this mess, besides overhearing his name and some vague accounting links, I feel the need to pay him a visit.”

  Kain picked up the rental contract and glanced at the name. “Oh, boy, the last person we dropped in on ended up dead.” He gave a wry smile.

  “Well, we didn’t kill Douglas White. He shouldn’t have involved himself in such a horrible situation.”

  “Fair enough. Are we going tonight?”

  “I think we should. This case is moving fast enough as it is. I need to get in front of things before too much time has passed, and the trail runs cold." I spun my chair around to face the computer and entered the name, William Collins. I needed a home address. It was already after six o'clock, so I doubted Collins would still be at work. As I searched for my suspect, a link to photographs scrolled across the screen. I clicked it. I wanted to see who I was looking for before I showed up on his door-step. The first few pictures were headshots of Collins, dressed professionally, with a strawberry blond middle aged comb-over. By the third screen, there was a collection of scanned newspaper clippings. The first clipping showed him cutting a ribbon at some new venture, but the second one caught my attention: Collins was standing on a platform shaking hands with Caroline George as they celebrated unprecedented real estate returns. They were being credited with revitalizing the metro-area real estate market.

  “That’s ironic. These heroes are making a positive impact with their real estate investments,” Kain said.

  “It’s nauseating,” I said as I prepared to advance to the next picture.

  “Wait!” Kain pointed at the picture of Collins and George. “Can you zoom in on this picture? Focus on the people standing behind them, there on the right.”

  I squinted at the figures in the background. “I can try, but with a newspaper photo, the image is most likely low resolution.” I attempted to zoom and could enlarge the area some before the picture became too degraded to recognize anyone. “I see Mr. George behind his wife, but we knew they were in bed together.”

  “Odd choice of words--they are married. That’s not who I'm looking at. Check out this guy, two people down from Mr. George. Isn’t that Tom Parker?”

  “It is! I bet he was there as their security detail. This guy who's standing next to him, with his hand to his ear like he is listening to an ear piece, looks very familiar as well.”

  Kain examined the other security person in the photo. “If I'm not mistaken, that's the same gentleman we saw in the morgue with our names written on his dismembered hand.”

  I pushed the print button. “This is the money shot. Remind me to send the photographer a thank you note. It’s just too bad their names didn’t make it into the photo caption.”

  “No, but look, Parker and Mr. Slice-and-Dice must have worked for the same security company. They have the identical symbol embroidered on the lapel of their blazers.” Kain strained his eyes as he inspected the pixilated symbol.

  “I should be able to see where Parker officially worked on his arrest report. And if not, I know who to ask." I pointed to Officer Johnson's statement on my desk.

  “Either way, you need to bring that picture to show Will Collins. I can’t wait to see how he explains being on stage with both suspects and two implicated security men.” Kain hopped up from his chair. “Are we going now?”

  “Yes, but first I need to arrange for some back-up. We already know this guy doesn’t play by the rules. I don’t think we will be welcome guests when we drop in. And this time, I want all my cards on the table so everything is admissible.”

  “Understood!”

  ***

  I knocked on the elaborately etched door. The camera in the plexi-glass dome pivoted toward us as I rang the bell a second time. Finally, the door swung open. A tiny, Hispanic woman looked at us as if we were invading aliens. Her eyes bulged, and her words took a moment to appear as she gaped at us like a pet gold fish.

  “Ma’am? We need to speak with Mr. William Collins,” I demanded.

  “He is very busy, come back later, and with a warrant,” she finally stammered.

  “I don’t really need a warrant to question a potential witness, but since you asked, here it is.” I handed her the document.

  “Err…Mr. Collins is not here,” she said.

  “A moment ago he was busy, was he occupied by leaving?” I asked. I thought of the uniformed officers who were surrounding the house as we spoke.

  “No, what I meant is that he is indisposed. You'll have to speak to him another time.”

  “But we came all this way,” said Kain. His eyes sparkled with the thrill of the chase.

  “I’m afraid that we can't wait. Either you go get Mr. Collins now, or I will go get him myself.” As I spoke, I heard the shouts of my fellow officers coming from behind the garage area. Before I could run back down the front steps, a black car had pulled out of the garage and was speeding, backward, down the driveway and toward the closed security fence.

  “Just aim at the tires. I need to speak to Collins!” I shouted to the officers who were chasing the car, guns drawn. The gate began to open as the car approached it, but the driver's eyes were on the police. The chase ended as quickly as it started, with the beautiful car smashing into the unyielding gate.

  “Why must they always try to run?” I grumbled as the other officers efficiently removed Collins from his car, and proceeded to pat him down against its high-gloss hood.

  Kain jogged a few steps back up the hill toward me. “Because they think they're above the law."

  Collins cried out in pain. I noticed a small, bloody stain slowly spreading across the shoulder of his starched, white shirt.

  “Did somebody discharge a weapon?” I demanded.

  “No, Detective. He must be injured from the crash,” said the nearest officer.

  “Mr. Collins, clearly you need medical attention. I bent to have a better look at the source of the blood. However, I see that someone has already bandaged your wound.

  “The seatbelt,” he moaned.

  “Call an ambulance for Mr. Collins,” I said. He remained pinned against the car while an officer read him his rights and put handcuffs on him.

  “You can’t do this to me!” he whined.

  I put the picture of the newspaper release on the hood in front of Collins. “We need to know the names of the security men in this picture.”

  Collins' eyes flashed with defiance as he looked up at me.

  “The names, Mr. Collins,” I demanded.

  “All right. They are Tom Parker and Sean Quincy. Now, take these handcuffs off me, this instant. You can see I'm injured.”

  I flipped to the next picture in my stack, one of Mr. Quincy’s dismembered head on the morgue stretcher. “He's not looking so put together in this shot. Do you want to tell me why?”

  He flinched away from the grisly image. “How would I know?”

  “Let’s see, both men worked security for you. Now one of them is jailed for the murder of Douglas White, and one of them
is dead. And you seem to have been shot, as well. Unless I've missed my guess, we'll find out you were shot at an upward angle, because Mr. Quincy was on the ground when he shot you.”

  “Why would my own security person shoot me?” Collins hissed.

  “Because he realized you were going to kill him after he took care of the other associates you wanted out of the way. You thought you were tying up loose ends, but Mr. Collins, you left a blood trail leading away from those dead men in the woods. And your DNA will prove it.”

  “You can’t prove any of that! Does anybody hear this? Avery Rich is crazy! Do you hear her making up this impossible story?” Collins shouted at Kain.

  “Impossible stories are kind of my specialty.” Kain laughed. “Besides, how did you know her first name? Her name tag only says Rich.”

  I could hear the ambulance's siren as it approached the house.

  “I’m not saying another word!” Collins shouted in my direction.

  I shrugged. “Then we'll listen to what the evidence has to say. I'm sure the evidence will be more honest than you.”

  As Collins was loaded onto a stretcher, I waved down the uniformed officers standing nearby. “Go with him. I want nobody visiting him who isn’t treating him or representing him. As soon as he's released from the hospital bring him straight to the station to be interviewed. In the meantime, I want him guarded around the clock.”

  Chapter 27

  The search of Will Collin's home was relatively uneventful. The house was devoid of any work documentation, or anything linking Collins to the victims. We got lucky when we found a good amount of used wound dressings in his bathroom. The samples were sent in for DNA analysis. I couldn’t wait until we could compare them to the blood trail leading from the murder scene in the woods.

  As soon as we left the house, Kain took the exit toward my apartment.

  “I was going back to the station,” I protested.

  “Avery, you've been going non-stop since the sun came up. The case is coming together, but most of the evidence is being tested or processed. Let that work take place, and you can come back to it in the morning, when you feel refreshed.”