Ice (A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery Book 1)

by Lauren Carr

  “He can even turn on the outside spotlight with his phone,” Doris said. “When he first installed it, I was unloading the groceries from the car and all of a sudden the spotlight turned on. I heard Christopher asking in this big booming voice, ‘Need any help?’”

  Chris laughed. “I was at the barber in town.”

  “Scared the daylights out of me,” Doris told Helen. “I dropped a bag of groceries in the driveway. Broke a whole dozen eggs.”

  “That’s your house,” Helen said. “Would the Bell home set up be that sophisticated? Even so, the security system would keep record if Rodney used his phone to activate the lights, and he’d have to know that.”

  “That’s why he used a burner phone,” Chris said. “After killing Felicia and setting up the lamp and a match, he went back to the gym, got on the treadmill in the cardio cinema where it was dark. Then, just before he finished, he took out the burner phone, which he had synced with Felicia’s smart home network, and sent the command to turn on the lamp. The lamp ignited the match which started the fire—all while he was seventeen minutes away. Then he calmly walked out the front door in full view of the gym’s security cameras to record his alibi.”

  “And tossed the burner phone in a dumpster someplace,” Doris said.

  “After deleting it from the house’s network,” Chris said.

  “Prove it,” Helen said. “Rodney is the deputy sheriff. He knows that the only way we can nail him for killing Felicia is to not only prove that he could have done it, but to prove that he did do it.”

  “And we will prove it. We have to for Felicia.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Friday evening at the Stardust was a beehive of activity even when they didn’t have a special event scheduled. The glamour of the Stardust casino made it the place to hold special events.

  Chris arrived at the bank of elevators as a group of men and women laden down with musical instruments were crowding into one of the cars. When they squeezed together to make room for one more person, he declined their invitation. After the elevator began its climb, he pressed the call button.

  The third elevator was already on the sixth floor where the dinner dance was taking place in the grand ballroom. The second car was on the fifth floor where he needed to go to meet Peyton. With the hour nearing six o’clock on Friday, he assumed most of the business office employees had already left to start the Valentine’s Day weekend.

  The array of hearts and roses reminded him that the next day was indeed Valentine’s Day. While Helen had demurred the idea of going to the Bavarian Inn for dinner, memories of their first Valentine’s date made him yearn to return there with her. It didn’t seem right to take Helen to a romantic dinner and leave the rest of his girls at home. They couldn’t exclude Sierra, either. They were all “his girls.”

  I wonder if I can get a table for seven. Probably impossible, but there’s no harm in trying.

  Realizing that he had been waiting a while, Chris glanced up at the lights over the elevator doors. The two cars were on the sixth floor and showing no sign of moving. The car that had been on the fifth floor paused at the third floor before descending. When the doors opened, an elegantly dressed couple got off and headed in the direction of the lounge.

  Chris stepped onto the car and pressed the button for the fifth floor with one hand while thumbing the screen of his phone with the other. While the elevator ascended, he opened an app to make dinner reservations. Unfortunately, the Bavarian Inn wasn’t one of the restaurants listed in the app.

  Guess I’ll have to go old school and call them.

  The elevator doors opened and Chris stepped off just in time to see Mason Davenport crossing the common area toward the hallway leading to his daughter’s office.

  With a start, the CEO turned to face him. “Matheson. Good to see you again. I was on my way to see Peyton about appointing an acting director for cybersecurity.” He fell into step with Chris. “I hate to sound insensitive. Peyton’s devastated about Rachel’s murder. But cybercrime is such a huge thing nowadays and we can’t risk leaving the casino vulnerable to a breach.”

  “Did Peyton tell you that there has possibly already been a breach?” Chris asked as they crossed Peyton’s outer office. The double doors to her office were closed. “Last weekend, an investigator was here to examine your system because one of your online guests had been the victim of a ransomware attack.”

  “Peyton did brief me about that today.” Mason Davenport rapped on the door. “She was concerned about Rachel being vulnerable to the wrong type of men.”

  “What about the wrong type of women?”

  Mason peered at the door. “Women?”

  “Josie,” Chris said. “With all due respect, sir, I suspect you know who Josie is.”

  “Josie won’t be causing anymore trouble. She’s gone.” Mason laid his hand on the doorknob and turned it. “Peyton must be in the bathroom getting ready for your date.” He threw open the door and gestured for Chris to follow him into the office. The familiar scent of gun powder permeated his senses.

  “Peyton, it’s me.” Mason strode across the length of the office to the door that led into the executive bathroom. “I know it’s a bad time, but before you leave, you need to appoint an acting director for cybersecurity.” He threw open the door and stepped inside. “Oh, my God! Peyton! No!”

  Chris ran across the office and stepped into the bathroom.

  The full skirt of her red evening gown was splayed out around her like the petals of a flower in full bloom. Peyton Davenport lay on her side in the middle of the bathroom floor. The only blemish to her lovely face was a bullet hole in the temple.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I certainly didn’t see this coming,” Helen shook her head while looking down at the woman lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom. A small thirty-two caliber semi-automatic rested on the floor next to her hand.

  As a vice president, Peyton Davenport’s private bath consisted of a steam shower and sink with brass fixtures. She also had a cosmetics vanity and closet.

  “It’s suicide.” Mason Davenport stepped in behind Helen and Chris to say in a firm tone—not unlike that of a boss directing one of his subordinates. “Her mother suffered from severe depression. Committed suicide. Unfortunately, Peyton inherited it from her.”

  With a slight shake of his head, Chris said, “Sir, Peyton didn’t seem—”

  “She hid it very well.”

  “Was she on medication?” Helen asked.

  “She refused to get treated.”

  “Then you’re saying that she was never diagnosed with depression?”

  “Not officially,” Mason said, “but you can talk to her medical doctor. Dr. Frederic Poole. I’ll give him permission to discuss Peyton with you.” He cleared his throat. “Such a tragedy. I had so hoped to keep all of this from being made public.” He sucked in a deep breath. “How long do you think this is going to take?”

  “We will have to do a complete investigation of the scene,” Helen said. “Do you know where the gun came from?”

  “It’s Peyton’s. She carried it in her purse.”

  Helen glanced in Chris’s direction. It was all just too neat.

  “Mason!” Steve Sinclair called to his client from the outer office. “You better not be talking to the police without me.”

  When they stepped into the office, they found Steve Sinclair and his son, Victor, both dressed in tuxedos. A pair of uniformed police officers waited for Helen’s orders about whether to usher them out or not. With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the officers to return to their posts.

  As expected, Steve Sinclair took command. “Whatever Mason said cannot be used in evidence.”

  “Right now, he’s only a witness,” Helen said.

  “What’s he doing here?” Victor sneered while gesturing in Chris’s direc
tion.

  “He’s also a witness,” Helen said. “He was with Mr. Davenport when they found the body.”

  “I came to talk to Peyton about appointing someone to take Rachel Pine’s place directing the cybersecurity division,” Mason said. “I had just gotten off the elevator and started down the hall when Chris arrived in the next car right after I did. We walked in together. Peyton didn’t answer the door. I assumed she was getting dressed for her date. I knocked on the bathroom door and when she didn’t answer, I figured something had to be wrong. So I opened the door…” His voice broke.

  Helen saw Chris shoot a questioning glance in Mason’s direction.

  Demanding that he say nothing else, Steve Sinclair grabbed his client by the arm and marched him out of the office.

  With his eyes narrowed, Victor stepped toward Chris. A full head shorter than Chris, Victor had to lift his chin to look up at him. Still, he pursed his lips to appear as intimidating as possible.

  Undaunted, Chris went back to the bathroom doorway to study the scene.

  “I will expect this case to be closed quickly,” Victor told Helen. “Mason Davenport is a powerful and generous man to the community. For that reason, we don’t want to put him through any more grief than necessary.”

  “Certainly,” Helen said.

  As soon as Victor left, Helen joined Chris in the bathroom. Squatting on the floor, he stared at Peyton’s dead body. “The forensics team and medical examiner will be here any minute. You noticed something out there when Mason was telling Sinclair how you two found the body. Care to share what it is?”

  “He didn’t knock on the door,” Chris said in a soft voice.

  “What?”

  He gestured toward the outer office. “He knocked on the office door, but not the bathroom door. He walked right in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have been living with four women long enough to learn three things. Always put the seat down. Never go into a woman’s purse without asking first. And never ever walk into a bathroom when the door is shut without knocking first. That door was shut, and he walked in without knocking. Either he has a death wish, or he knew she was already dead.”

  Helen gazed down at the elegantly dressed woman before them. “What woman gets all dressed up, does her hair and makeup, only to blow her brains out?”

  “Why would he kill her?”

  “His own daughter.”

  “I don’t think she was his daughter. Still—why did he kill her?”

  It was hard not to miss Doris Matheson in her fuschia, strapless gown. The mermaid design fit her body like a glove from the sequined bodice to her slender waist and hips down to where it flared out with a train.

  At sixty-five, Doris Matheson put women half her age to shame.

  As the chairperson of the committee, she felt obligated to accept the numerous dance invitations from gentlemen vying for her attention during the cocktail party. She was dancing with an arson investigator, the father of one of Chris’s childhood friends, when a long stemmed red rose was thrust over her shoulder.

  “Your prince has arrived, my lady.”

  Doris’s dance partner frowned.

  She turned to find Elliott on one knee. She refused to let him see how impressed she was. “You’re late.”

  He remained on the floor. “I learned something new today.”

  “At your age?”

  “You’re never too old to learn something new.”

  “What did you learn today, Elliott?”

  “You can’t just walk into a tux place and rent a tuxedo off the rack.” Elliott fingered the silk lapels of his formal suit. “Lucky for me, Bruce is just about my size.”

  She usually saw Elliott dressed in jeans, work shirts, and boots. Half the time, he didn’t shave. Even if the tuxedo wasn’t a perfect fit, he looked dashing. As he took her into his arms, she changed that. He looked downright handsome.

  “I was surprised when you asked me to be your date,” she said as they danced to an updated version of Unforgettable.

  “Too soon?”

  “I just didn’t think—”

  “Doris, I told you that I loved your tuna casserole,” he said. “Only a man head over heels in love with you would eat that tuna casserole and proclaim it love worthy.”

  “I see your point, Elliott,” she said. “I guess I’m a little out of practice.”

  “If you need someone to help you get back up to speed, I’m here for you, Doris.”

  She kissed him on the jaw.

  A broad grin crossed his lips. He leaned in to kiss her lips, only to have her spin around and drag him across the dance floor to where a short balding man danced with an even shorter woman in a bad wig.

  “Elliott, wouldn’t you like to dance with Carla? Dr. Poole’s wife is a huge fan of traveling to exotic places. Carla, Elliott here used to be with the State Department and he’s traveled all over the world—absolutely everywhere.” With that Doris shoved Elliott toward Carla, who gushed to be dancing with the tall muscular man.

  The expression on Dr. Frederic Poole’s face was an even mixture of fear and wonderment to suddenly find himself with the desirable Doris Matheson in his arms.

  “Uh,” Frederic wet his lips, “to what do I owe the pleasure, Doris?”

  “I’m doing you a favor, Fred. I’m giving you seventy-two hours’ notice.”

  “Notice of what?”

  “January 1994. Do you remember that?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Twenty-four years ago to be exact,” she said. “I’ve been told that you just so happened to be in the hospital parking lot when a young woman in labor was dumped there. She was unconscious and in cardiac arrest. You took her straight into the OR and delivered her baby by caesarian. Supposedly, the baby died.”

  Frederic’s face fell. “I do remember that. Heartbreaking.”

  “Do you know the rest of the story?”

  “What rest of the story?”

  “That woman and her baby were abandoned in the morgue,” Doris said. “The name on record was Tamara Wilcox, which proved to be a phony name. Our church gave them a proper burial.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Doris. You are one of the most generous, charitable women our community has.”

  “Now, here’s the heads up,” she said. “It’s been brought to my attention that Sandy Lipton, who was nine months pregnant, disappeared on the same day that Tamara Wilcox showed up at the hospital. Sandy Lipton was your patient.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that we are having Tamara’s and her baby’s bodies exhumed,” Doris said. “Monday morning. If Tamara is Sandy, we will find out. And the first person people are going to come to for answers will be you since you were both Sandy’s and Tamara’s doctor.”

  His face clouded over.

  The music stopped.

  Frederic dropped his hands from her waist and stepped back. “Doris, do you have any idea the damage you’ve done?”

  “My son has been accused of horrible perverted things. People in this town still look at him like he’s a monster, which he is not. I don’t care what it takes or who it hurts—I’m going to clear his name. Now you have a choice. You can keep a shred of your dignity by telling the truth or let me drag your name through the mud. You’ve known me for almost fifty years, Fred. You know I’ll do it.”

  Frederic tugged at his collar.

  Carla hurried up to them. “Oh, Fred, have you talked to Elliott? He’s been to China—though he couldn’t really tell me much about his trip. He said if he did he’d have to kill me. Still—he is a fascinating man—just fascinating!”

  When she touched his arm, Frederic pulled away. “I need to go find Sinclair.”

  “You do that, Fred,” Doris said as Elliott stepped up to
her with two glasses of champagne. “You have seventy-two hours to cough up the truth and clear Christopher’s name.” She accepted a glass of champagne and held it up in a toast. “After that, it’s high noon.”

  “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you,” Helen said as she and Chris made their way down the corridor to the elevators.

  The police had commandeered one of the cars for the medical examiner and crime scene investigators. They could hear the music from the band on the top floor drifting down the elevator shaft.

  “Victor Sinclair is a jerk, but he does have a point,” Helen told Chris. “Mason Davenport is one of the most powerful men in the Shenandoah Valley. Without any physical evidence, we can’t accuse him of murder based on—”

  “My eyewitness testimony?”

  “Did he knock on the bathroom door, or didn’t he? It’s a tiny detail—”

  “That means a hell of a lot,” Chris said while watching the numbers over the two elevators that were free. One was at the lobby. The other was on the sixth floor. “If he didn’t knock, then he knew that she wasn’t alive to invite him in.”

  The elevator in the lobby began its ascent—illuminating the lights above the door.

  “And if you’re wrong, then we could be accusing a very powerful man of killing his own daughter for no reason.”

  Chris watched the elevator make its way up to their floor. Meanwhile, the elevator on the sixth floor wasn’t moving.

  The familiar ding indicated the arrival of the first elevator which was going up. As the doors opened, a couple stepped out. The woman gasped upon seeing the police. “I’m sorry, I thought we were on the top floor. I didn’t expect anyone to be around the business offices at this time of night.” They scurried back onto the elevator and pressed the button.

  “They didn’t expect anyone to be around at this time of night.” Chris turned to Helen. “Where’s Mason Davenport’s office?”