TIED TO MURDER (Det. Jason Strong(CLEAN SUSPENSE Book 5)

by John C. Dalglish

“Was there anyone who was a particular problem? Someone who might have a grudge?”

  Steve didn’t answer right away, and Jason could tell the manager was running the events of that time through his mind. Finally, he shook his head.

  “No, no one comes to mind that was really angry. You have to understand, people under lease were allowed either to remain in their units until they bought them, or the unit was vacated. Nobody was forced out. That’s why some of the units are still rentals.”

  “Can I keep this letter?”

  Steve nodded. “Of course.”

  Jason folded it and put in his pocket. “One other thing. Can I get a list of the remaining units under lease, and the names of the people renting them?”

  Steve stood up and moved to a cabinet across the room. He pulled out a single sheet of paper and handed it to Jason. The list was short, probably less than ten names.

  Jason raised an eyebrow. “Not many left?”

  “No, just a handful.”

  Jason quickly looked over the list and spotted the names of Ruth Rogers, Fred Murphy, Darrel Patterson, and Willie Davis. He’d just found the link connecting the victims, and Jason bet the motive was somehow tied to the same list.

  Jason held up the list. “Keep this, too?”

  “Of course. Anything else? I need to make my rounds.”

  Jason extended his hand and they shook.

  “No, and thanks again.”

  He needed to call Vanessa. She should be back from the doctor appointment by now.

  ********

  Jason never got the chance to dial his partner. She called him before he got to his car. “Hi, partner.” He sensed urgency in her voice.

  “Hi. You still at Orchid Village?”

  Jason began to hear sirens, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Yeah. Why?”

  “We’ve got another one. I’m on my way.”

  Jason watched a couple black-and-whites, lights flashing, turn down one of the side lanes in the complex. “Do you have a name?”

  “Tonya Jensen.”

  His heart sank as he pulled out the renters list, already knowing the answer. There she was, Tonya Jensen, third name down. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I’ll explain when you get here.”

  He hung up and sprinted after the lights.

  Chapter 12

  When Jason got to the apartment, he found Willie Davis standing with an officer. Just coming out of the apartment was another officer, who walked over to Jason.

  “There’s an elderly lady in there. I checked for a pulse, but she’s gone. We didn’t touch anything else.”

  Jason nodded. “Okay. Who found the body?”

  “The elderly man talking to Officer Cain.” The uniform fumbled for his notebook. “The man’s name is…”

  “Willie Davis. I’m familiar with him. Create a perimeter, you know the drill.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jason walked toward the open apartment door, nodding at Willie, but not stopping to talk to him. He found it odd Willie had now found two victims, and suffered the only attack that didn’t succeed.

  Jason entered the apartment and took the few minutes before forensics and the coroner showed up to get an untouched feel for the situation.

  He found Tabby in a chair, bag over her head and tape around her neck. Apparently, she had been doing some sort of a craft project when she was ambushed. It lay on the floor by her feet.

  As he came around in front of the tiny woman, he began to shake uncontrollably. Anger took hold of him in a way he’d never felt before. How could someone be so cruel to someone so defenseless?

  Jason knew suffocation was a cruel death, and the fear Tabby must have felt as her life ebbed away made him shake even more. If he had the killer here now, he could choke the life out of him with his bare hands.

  Jason struggled to get himself under control. He was not normally emotional at crime scenes, and it would serve Tabby no good for him to lose his composure.

  He left her as she was and moved to the patio door. It was locked, and had a metal pin through the frame. Definitely not the point of entry. Checking every window in the small unit, he found them all locked.

  Back at the front door, he met Vanessa coming in.

  “What have we got?” she asked.

  Jason filled her in without meeting her gaze. He was checking the front door locks, but also hiding his anger. “Same method. She was probably surprised from behind while sitting in the chair.”

  “Point of entry?”

  “Nothing unlocked anywhere. Everything here looks untouched, as well.” He gestured toward the multiple locks and chain on the door.

  Vanessa’s face scrunched up as she peered at the doorjamb. “No sign of prying. So, our guy was either let in by Tabby, or was inside when she got home.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  They moved out of the doorway to let the forensic and med-tech folks in. The apartment began to swarm with personnel, so Jason went outside, followed by Vanessa.

  “Who found the body?” she asked.

  “Willie Davis.”

  “Again?”

  “That’s right. Bad luck, coincidence, or something else?”

  Jason could tell which one Vanessa considered likely by her reaction.

  “Poor Willie!”

  Jason followed Vanessa over to where the elderly man stood, still giving his statement to Officer Cain.

  Willie tried a half-smile as he saw the detectives walk up, but it was in vain. He appeared to be in shock. Vanessa touched the old man on the shoulder. “Willie, you okay?”

  Jason nodded at him, but didn’t get between Vanessa and Willie. He stood back, watching as Vanessa asked Willie to go over the story again.

  “I called Tabby this morning just to check up on her, but couldn’t get an answer. I tried again around eleven this morning, and still couldn’t get her, so I came over.”

  “You have a key?”

  “Yes. Since Ruth and Fred, we’ve all had each other’s keys.”

  “Wasn’t the chain on?” It was Jason, and he didn’t hide his anger very well.

  Willie glanced toward Jason before answering. “No. That’s when I knew something was wrong. Tabby never left the chain off.”

  Vanessa looked at the officer and he indicated he was done. Vanessa steered Willie to a nearby bench and sat beside him. “Have you reached Grace and Ruby?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Well, it’s okay to go. When you feel up to it, you can go see them.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Vanessa looked up, Jason was still standing, watching them. She got up and walked over to him. “You don’t seriously think that old man is capable of these crimes?”

  Jason realized his anger might be affecting his judgment, but everyone needed to be looked at.

  “Probably not, but we can’t rule anyone out yet.”

  Vanessa gave him a sideways look, and Jason was grateful when she changed the subject. “What was it you said you would tell me when I got out here?”

  Jason recalled the list and pulled the paper out of his pocket.

  “This is a list of the remaining rental units and their occupants. Every one of our victims is on it.”

  Vanessa took the paper and studied it. “Has to be the connection, but why?”

  “I don’t know, but Willie is on that list, along with Grace and Ruby, and others we haven’t met yet.”

  Jason’s phone rang. “Strong.”

  “Jason, this is Patton. What have you got?”

  “A fourth victim. Same method.”

  Jason heard the lieutenant let out a long sigh. “Crap!”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “Okay. Listen, you can tell the manager they can have the Patterson apartment, but not the others. Forensics said the Patterson unit is not considered the primary crime scene, and they’re done with it.”

  �
�Okay.”

  “Get with me when you two are back from the scene. George Weber was back in this morning.”

  “Great.” Jason rolled his eyes at Vanessa. “We’ll see you then.”

  Jason hung up and Vanessa gave him an inquiring look.

  “Weber, the condo board guy, was in to see the lieutenant.”

  Vanessa waved the list at Jason. “You want to go visit the rest of the people on this list?”

  “Seems like a good idea. Who’s up first?”

  Chapter 13

  They finished interviewing the last person on the list and Jason looked at his watch. Nearly four.

  “We need to get back to the station and meet with the lieutenant.”

  Their interviews with the other people on the list hadn’t produced any new leads. They’d left each one with the same warning. ‘Be careful.’

  Vanessa had driven them around the complex, and now she dropped Jason at the office. “See you at the station?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m gonna go in and tell Steve he can have the Patterson unit.”

  “Okay.”

  She drove off as Jason went into the office. “Steve?”

  “Back here.” Steve came out to meet Jason.

  “My lieutenant said you can have the Patterson unit. The other two need to stay closed up for now.”

  “Okay, thanks. It’ll make Marcus happy.”

  “You have a waiting list or something for those units?”

  “Actually, yes. Ever since we converted.”

  “How much one of those units bring?”

  “Around a hundred-fifty.”

  “Thousand?”

  “Yup.”

  Jason was amazed. He knew the market had rebounded, but that was a lot of money. He said goodbye and headed out to his car. It didn’t take long to do the math.

  Four available units totaled over a half-million dollars in revenue. That was what he called a motive.

  He got in his car and drove back to the station. When he got up to the third floor, Vanessa was working at her desk. Jason dropped in his chair. “Guess what I just found out from Steve Jaffe?”

  She looked up from her computer. “Guess what I just found out about Willie Davis?”

  Jason smiled. “Me first.”

  She nodded and sat back, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Each one of the units that comes up for sale, after they are vacated by one of the renters, goes for more than a hundred-fifty.”

  “Thousand?”

  Jason was nodding. “That’s what I said! Yeah, a hundred-fifty thousand.”

  “Wow! That’s a lot of incentive to open up units.”

  “I know, right? What’s your news?”

  Vanessa looked back down at her computer. “Well, I thought I would prove you wrong on your suspicion of Willie Davis, so I looked into his past.”

  “And?”

  “He grew up on a Colorado cattle ranch.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Jason could tell she was disappointed. He could also see she still didn’t believe Willie could be responsible for the deaths.

  The lieutenant’s door opened and he called them into his office. He waited for Jason to sit. “What’s the status of the Orchid Village case?”

  Jason pulled out the list of rental units.

  “We found a connection between the victims. Your hunch was correct. All of the victims lived in rentals left over from the conversion to condos.”

  As was his habit, John Patton rubbed his face with both hands, thinking while stressing.

  “Well, that explains the comment from the condo board president. He said something to the effect of ‘the renters are a problem that hurts our property values.’”

  Vanessa grunted. “Class act!”

  The lieutenant rolled his eyes. “You have no idea.”

  Jason continued. “There’s another less obvious connection. The victims all knew each other from the rent meetings, but I tend to think it strengthens the first connection.”

  The lieutenant got up and went to the white board, erasing some of the writing from their last meeting. “Do we have a list of suspects?”

  Jason looked at his notes.

  “The gardener, Jose Jimenez.” Patton wrote it on the board. “The complex owner, Marcus Winston, and one of the names on the rental list, Willie Davis.”

  Patton looked back at Jason. “The same guy on our victim list?”

  Vanessa wasn’t buying it. “Jason thinks Willie discovering two of the victims, and having his own close call, is suspicious. I don’t see any way he could be responsible.”

  The lieutenant wrote the name down anyway. “Right now, I’m not ruling anybody out. Anybody else?”

  “Just the complex manager, Steve Jaffe. He’s on site most of the time, and has a ranch background.”

  The lieutenant wrote Jaffe’s name, followed by a question mark as suspect five, and lastly, he added the name George Weber.

  Vanessa and Jason spoke at the same time. “The condo board chairman?”

  “Like I said, no one is ruled out.” He wrote a dash next to each name. “Motive and opportunity for each?”

  Vanessa pointed at the gardener’s name. “He has a record of peeping, and opportunity. He also has no solid alibi.”

  Jason spoke about Marcus Winston. “He has an alibi, although a shaky one. He also has probably the biggest motive. Each unit will sell for over a hundred-fifty.”

  The lieutenant stopped and looked at the detectives. “Thousand?”

  Jason and Vanessa exchanged glances before laughing. “That’s what we said!”

  “What’s his alibi?”

  “His secretary in Austin. She said he was there on each of the dates in question.”

  “Well, let’s shake down his alibi, make sure it’s solid. What about Mr. Davis?”

  Jason’s suspect, so he chimed in again. “He’s been around each time, knows all the victims, and has a ranch background.”

  “Is he physically capable of doing the killings?”

  Jason shrugged, but Vanessa said, “No.”

  “Does he have a motive? Is he angry with these people? Are they racists?”

  Vanessa answered. “No, no, and no.”

  Jason could tell Lieutenant Patton was skeptical, but it wouldn’t be first time a name appeared on a victim list, and a suspect list, at the same time.

  “I just want to keep an open mind about him.” Jason said.

  John Patton nodded. “Fine. What about Jaffe?”

  “Clean record. Job means he’s been around when the killings occurred.”

  The lieutenant studied the board before continuing.

  “Okay. The question mark obviously refers to a total unknown, someone flying under the radar.” He turned and underlined the condo board chairman’s name. “Vanessa, check this guy out. Let’s leave no stone unturned. Any questions?”

  The two detectives shook their heads.

  “Good. I’ve got a meeting with Lieutenant Banks this afternoon, and I won’t be free until tomorrow. Let’s meet again in the morning.”

  Jason couldn’t help himself. “Sarah Banks?”

  “Yes, Detective. Lieutenant Sarah Banks, and don’t bother asking any more questions, because you aren’t getting any more answers.”

  They laughed and left the office.

  Jason went to his desk, picking up the phone while Vanessa sat down at her computer. He punched in the number for Nina Jefferson.

  “Missing Persons.”

  “Is Nina Jefferson in?”

  “No. Who’s calling?”

  “Jason Strong.”

  “She’s still in Austin, Detective. She’s testifying on an old case.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Jason hung up and pulled out his cell phone. He had Nina in his contact list and maybe he could catch her out of court.

  He pushed her number and waited.

  “Hello?”

&n
bsp; “Nina, this is Jason.”

  “Hi, Jason. How’s things?”

  “Good. Are you having fun in court?”

  She grunted. “The party never stops. How’s Sandy and the baby?”

  “Good.”

  “Have you found out if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  Jason laughed. “Actually, we’re still trying to decide if we want to know.”

  “It’s a lot easier to shop when you know the sex of the baby.”

  “I bet. Listen, the reason I called was to ask you a favor.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Do you still have contacts on the force in Austin?”

  “You know I do! They all owe me big time up here.” She laughed. “What do you need?”

  Jason could hear her pulling up a sheet of paper. “I need to know about a man named Marcus Winston. He’s got a big retirement complex under construction in Austin, called Orchid Village, and I need to know if everything is on the up and up with this guy.”

  “No problem. I’ll make a few calls and get back to you.”

  “Thanks, Nina.” Jason hung up.

  Vanessa was watching him and waiting. “I ran a record check on the condo board guy. Nothing. Apparently, his only crime is being a jerk.” She pushed a piece of paper toward Jason. “Not even a parking ticket.”

  Jason didn’t bother to look at the paper. “Let’s call it a day. See you back here in the morning?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Chapter 14

  When Jason got home, he found Sandy crying, sitting on the couch in the family room.

  “Sandy, what’s wrong?”

  She looked at him with red eyes, tears rolling down her face. Jason sat next to her on the couch, his heart in his throat. His first thought was of their child.

  “Honey, what is it? Is everything okay with the baby?”

  She nodded. “It’s not the baby.”

  Jason took a deep breath.

  “It’s Penny,” she sobbed.

  Jason’s heart started pounding again.

  Penny was their Great Pyrenees pup. Thick, white fur with giant eyes, she had pawed at Sandy’s leg during a visit to the Humane Society, and his wife had melted. They began filling out the paperwork to adopt her immediately. She was just like a child to them. “What about her?”