by Terry Odell
“Probably more damn telemarketers or charity fundraisers. Don’t worry about it.” He started for his office, then turned. “Can you get Solomon for me? I’d like to see him.”
“On it.”
Colfax had his cell phone to his ear when Gordon got back. Gordon slipped behind the desk and scanned the messages Laurie had given him. He stuck the reminder about his vehicle maintenance in his “In” box. He should take care of it before the mayor dragged it out as one more example of dereliction of duty. Later. He leafed through the rest. Tempted to rip them in half and toss them in the trash, he tossed them intact in a drawer instead.
How telemarketers got his office number never ceased to amaze him, but several calls a week slid under all the normal precautions. He’d deal with these the way he’d dealt with all the others. A firm reminder of the law. The fact that he was Chief of Police usually shut them up fast.
Colfax snapped his phone closed. “Ball’s rolling on the subpoena.”
“Sounds good.” Gordon opened his email program. “And we’ve got some of those reports.” While he waited for the pages to come off the printer, he looked more carefully at the attachments. “We’ve got a preliminary report from the M.E. I thought we’d feed the Vintage Duds case into ViCAP’s database. See if there are any others that match. I’ve asked one of my officers to come in. I’d like him to handle it.”
“He ever done one?”
“No, but he’s one of my best men, and I’d like him to expand his horizons. He did the crime scene photos, so he’s had a good look at the scene. That, together with what your techs and M.E. provide, should give him plenty of data. I thought you could supervise.”
“You ever done one?” Colfax said.
Gordon bristled. Was Colfax implying that Gordon didn’t have the chops? Just because they didn’t see much violent crime and didn’t have dedicated detectives didn’t mean they didn’t know their jobs. “As a matter of fact, yes, I’ve kept my education up to date. All my staff has. But since this is a joint operation, and you’re a homicide detective, I thought it appropriate to keep you in the loop.”
“Untwist your knickers, Hepler. I’ll check his work before he submits it, and I’ll be happy to offer advice. If he asks.”
“Solomon’s man enough to ask.”
“Ask what, Chief?” Solomon walked into the room, nodding to Colfax. “Sorry, Detective. I didn’t know you were in here. Laurie told me the Chief wanted to see me. Should I come back later?”
“No, come in,” Gordon said. “I’ve been explaining to Detective Colfax how up to date we are, even in this tiny backwater of a town.”
Solomon took a step backward, a guarded expression on his face, as if he was aware he was stepping into a pissing contest and didn’t want to get sprayed.
“What do you know about ViCAP?” Colfax asked.
Solomon winged his eyebrows at Gordon.
“Answer the man, Officer Solomon. Do Mapleton proud.”
Solomon drew himself to his full height and thrust his shoulders back. “Sir, ViCAP is a nationwide data information center designed to collect, collate, and analyze crimes of violence. Sir.”
Colfax burst out laughing. “At ease, Officer Solomon. Let’s get cracking.” To Gordon, he said, “Is there another computer we can use? The form’s about twenty-five pages long. It’ll take awhile.”
“War room,” Gordon said.
Solomon looked over his shoulder, rolling his eyes, as Colfax snagged the printouts and ushered him out. Gordon gave his officer a quick, discrete salute. And a wink.
He took a moment to relish both his coffee and the quiet before printing another set of reports. While the printer hummed, Gordon thought about what Colfax had told him. Megan’s assailant had been clad in black. Johnson was wearing black. Megan thought she kicked the man hard enough so he might be limping. Johnson had shuffled across the room, as if in pain.
Talk about jumping to conclusions. But maybe…. He picked up the phone and called the Richardsons’ B&B. “One question,” he said to Lyla when she answered. “Did Mr. Johnson have any visitors?”
Another annoying Richardson pause.
“I’m not asking you to identify anyone. But we’re trying to clear a police investigation. If Mr. Johnson is involved in any way, it could be bad publicity for your business. And before you duck the question, I know darn well nobody gets into your place without a key, and you run a tight ship.”
“Let me check with Flo,” she said.
“I’m asking you.”
“What I mean is, I don’t recall any of our guests having visitors this week. But it’s possible someone came while I was out. In order to answer your question properly, I need to ask my sister. Or, if you’d prefer to ask her yourself, I’ll have her call you. It’s her turn to shop. As a matter of fact, you might run into her in town.”
“Thank you.” He hung up and rested his forehead in his palms, debating whether he should intercept Flo. She’d probably evade the question as well as her sister had.
He swiveled his chair and pulled the reports from the printer. Unlike the Richardsons, they were straightforward.
Colfax and Solomon would be focusing on all things related to the incident at Vintage Duds. He sifted through the pages searching for the car accident. As long as they were working under the assumption everything was related, it shouldn’t matter that the scene was technically out of his jurisdiction. Two scenes, actually. The place of death, and the staged accident. And maybe some more background on who the hell Karl Franklin was.
Chapter Twenty-one
“You’ve been watching too many cop shows,” Justin said. “How many routes to the house are there in this town?”
Then again, they were doing exactly what anyone would have expected by returning to the house. No need to follow them at all. Just wait. But he checked his rearview mirror more often than usual.
Crap. Now Megan had him imagining phantom attackers behind every tree.
Megan had her eyes fixed on the mirror. “It can’t hurt to be careful. Like Detective Colfax said.”
“There’s careful and there’s paranoid. The cops were doing surveillance on the house last night, according to Gordon. They would have noticed someone poking around, or lurking in the bushes.”
“That assumes someone was watching at the right time. Think about how easy it would be for someone to park a few blocks away, approach on foot, then duck into the acreage behind the house to hide. They could be there now.”
“Megan, we’re going to go inside, lock the doors, and look for the journal. If anyone’s been following us, they know we were at the police station. They’d assume we’ve got the cops on alert.”
“I hope we find it fast. This is not what I expected I’d be doing when I decided to visit Rose and Sam.”
“It’s not playing out the way I’d hoped, either.”
“Did you ever wonder if Rose and Sam know about Heinrich Kaestner? That maybe they’re trying to protect us—well, you, I guess, since I’m not a blood relation—from knowing there’s a really ugly skeleton hanging from the family tree.”
He almost hit the brakes as the question sank in. Protect him? And his parents. “No. I never did. I’ve been working under the assumption that I can keep them from finding out about that particular skeleton. Nice mixing of clichés, there, by the way.”
She scratched her nose. “I don’t suppose it makes a big difference who knows what at this point. We can’t exactly say, ‘By the way, if you’re trying to hide the Nazi in the closet, don’t bother, because we already know.’”
“I agree, we need to keep up the deception a little longer.” He turned down Maple and hit the remote for the garage door as soon as they were within range. He wheeled the car in and hit the remote again, and the door growled shut behind them.
Megan slotted the key into the mud room door and hesitated. “This feels creepy. Like we’re trespassing.”
Justin slid his hand along hers, grasp
ing the key. “We told the cops we’re going to be here. They didn’t say we shouldn’t.”
“I guess. But we didn’t tell Rose and Sam we were coming. We lied to them. I guess that’s what’s bothering me. All the deception, even though I know why we’re doing it. And then there’s that ‘someone might be trying to kill us’ factor, too.”
Justin twisted the key and pushed the door open. “If you want to go somewhere and wait, I can do this myself.”
She gave a brisk shake to her curls. “Just because it feels creepy doesn’t mean I’m not doing it.”
Holding Megan’s hand, he stepped inside. “I’ll take my grandparents’ room, and you can start in yours. I’ve already done mine. After that, I think Opa’s study would be the next best bet.”
“What about the attic? Or the crawl space over the garage? The tool shed? What if he buried it in the yard somewhere? There are a couple of acres.”
Justin rubbed his eyes. “God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
He went to the kitchen for a glass of water and caught the blinking light on the answering machine. He pressed the play button. There was a throat-clearing sound, then a male voice.
“Mr. and Mrs. Kretzer, this is Buzz Turner from the Mapleton Weekly. I’m aware you’ve had some trouble, but that’s not why I’m calling. First, I want to apologize if my Holocaust article offended you. I’d like to come by and talk to you about it, get your take, let you present your side. Will you please call me?”
Justin exhaled the breath he’d been holding as the man left his phone number.
“Should we erase it?” Megan asked. “Rose and Sam probably don’t want to be bothered.”
“That’s up to them.” He drained his glass. “Let’s get to work.”
They stepped into the living room, where most of the mess had been organized. He stood in the center of the room, wondering if what they were seeking was buried somewhere in the pile of things Oma had decreed would be donated to charity.
“It’s hard enough for me to imagine Sam destroying a book, no matter what it said. But a journal—that’s different, I suppose. Do you have any idea what it looks like?”
He shook his head. “For all I know, it could be loose pages, hidden anywhere.”
“But if they hid it, then they have to know about it, right?”
“That’s what I thought, but—”
“But if it’s disguised as something else, they might not know it’s here. Or if someone else hid it. What did that guy say?”
“That he’d been informed the journal was in Sam’s possession.”
She pursed her lips, a mannerism he was finding distracting. He fought the urge to kiss her again.
“Someone could have come for a visit, and stuck it anywhere without them knowing.” Her eyes sparkled. “What if…what if it’s a book inside a book? You know, one of those hollowed out books. Or…or a regular book’s dust cover over the secret journal. Or…or maybe someone got in while they were out, and planted it. You know, like inside a pocket, or the lining of an old coat.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Justin eyed the pile of clothes. A longer-than-long shot, but they should probably check. “Let’s do the rest of the upstairs first.”
“Maybe whoever broke in did some of our work for us. Because if it was in any of those places, like taped underneath a piece of furniture, don’t you think he’d have found it already?”
“That’s what scares me the most,” Justin said. “That we don’t find it, but we don’t know why. Whether it doesn’t exist, whether Opa got rid of it, whether it’s in the hands of someone who plans to use it to—I don’t know what. Blackmail comes to mind.”
“Or Rose got rid of it, or hid it from Sam, because she thinks she’s protecting him.” She blew out a sigh. “Too many possibilities. Let’s find the damn thing.”
Justin started up the stairs. “Agreed.”
He started with the bookshelf in his grandparents’ room. One day while his grandparents were out, he’d given the books a quick once-over, but hadn’t thought to check for switched dust jackets. Part of him wanted the journal to be out in the open. That would mean his grandparents knew about Heinrich, and Justin could simply ask them to comply with his cousin’s wishes. Or leave the decision up to them, so he could remove himself from the plans.
Three hours later, he and Megan had eliminated every nook and cranny they could think of upstairs and regrouped in the living room.
They sat beside the pile of clothes, shaking and feeling each one for any telltale rustling, or unusual weight. They’d collected an assortment of receipts and theater ticket stubs, a few dollars in change, some old peppermint candies, but nothing remotely resembling what they sought.
“It’s not here,” Megan said. “We’d have found it. We’re going to have to ask them. Maybe we should go back to Denver.”
Justin folded the last of the discarded clothing. “Shit!”
“What?”
“Vintage Duds. I mean, before it was a used clothing store, it was another bookstore.”
Megan’s jaw dropped. “Why didn’t I remember that? You mean the journal might be there?”
“It’s as good a possibility as any.”
“But Sam sold out. And then the other owner sold it, too. So any books are long gone.”
“But we don’t know where they went. If Opa sold all his books to the new owner, or if he sold them to collectors, or donated them to libraries. And what if—” Megan’s bullet-train thought processes were rubbing off on him. “What if the killer hid the book in some secret place in the store when it belonged to Opa. Maybe he wasn’t sure what to do with it at the time, but he wanted it handy. Someplace nobody would notice, even if they moved everything out.”
Megan hopped on his train. “And he came to find it? Only Betty Bedford was in the store watching for ghosts?”
“Why not? He starts asking questions, he thinks she knows about the journal. She refuses to answer—”
“Because she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he gets mad and he kills her because she’s seen his face and she can identify him.”
“Whoa. I think you’re getting into cop show territory again.” Despite the gravity of their situation, Justin couldn’t help but smile at Megan’s eagerness. But he went dead serious as he followed her line of thought. Even if Megan was being melodramatic, Betty Bedford was dead, murdered in a horrendous way, and if the killer had done it because she’d seen him, then Megan might still be a target. The killer might think Megan could identify him.
Justin rose, rubbing his sweaty palms along his jeans. “Wait here one minute.” He rushed to Opa’s study and yanked open a file cabinet drawer. He walked his fingers through the file folder tabs until he found the one he needed. He copied the name and address onto a slip of paper, put everything away and went to the living room, where Megan was organizing clothes into neat piles.
“Let’s go.” He grabbed Megan’s wrists and tugged her to a standing position.
“Where?” Megan asked.
“To the police station.”
###
Gordon slipped his eye drops into the drawer, remembering the message slips Laurie had given him earlier. Computer printouts and reading on-screen reports were no easier on the eyes than the lousy handwriting of some of his officers. This would be a good time to return those phone calls.
An alert from his email program had him closing the drawer instead. Thanks to Colfax’s string-pulling, he now had the cell phone records from Willard Johnson’s phone. He printed out the file and rubbed his eyes.
At the sound of a gentle knock at the rear entrance to his office, he turned. Was Colfax back already? What was the point of a surveillance camera outside if the monitor was somewhere else? He fanned the blinds at the window and saw the Daily Bread van in the lot. He shoved the paperwork into a folder before unlocking the door. Angie stood there, two large bags in her hands.
“Hi, Chief. I brought some lun
ch.”
He stepped aside, taking the bags and setting them on his desk. “All this for me?” The aroma of fried chicken had his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling.
She grinned. “You wish. No, it’s to share. We know how hard you’re all working to catch Betty’s killer.”
“You shouldn’t do this. You keep it up, the guys are going to expect it.”
“We prefer to think of it as a gesture of support for those who protect and serve.”
Gordon reached for the bags. “Noted and duly appreciated. I’ll take these to the break room and let Connie know so she can alert the duty officers.”
“Wait,” Angie said, intercepting his hand. She opened one of the bags and extracted a smaller one. “This one’s yours. You did some extra protecting and serving.” She set the bag aside and slid her hands along his jaw. He bent down, and she brushed a kiss against his lips. “I have to go help with service. See you tonight?”
She left him standing there, with what had to be a stupid, dazed expression on his face and a warmth below his belt. Jerked back to reality when he heard her van start, he quickly locked the door and picked up the bags. With a deep breath, he shifted brains and went to deliver lunch.
At his desk, he attacked the fried chicken and his printouts. His cop sense tingled when he saw the frequent repeats of several numbers, both in and out of Johnson’s cell. He zeroed in on the one with the most appearances and set about tracing the owner. While he jumped through the requisite hoops, he noticed what else Angie had packed in his lunch. A jumbo sugar cookie, frosted in white, with a chocolate heart piped in the center. A heart he’d never seen on any cookies in the pastry counter.
He was mulling his reaction when the door opened and Colfax breezed in. Gordon wolfed down the cookie, then wondered why he hadn’t wanted Colfax to see it. It’s not like the man knew what cookies were or weren’t sold at Daily Bread. He washed down the cookie with some too-cold coffee and wiped his hands.