“Hey, I was just curious.” Last thing Val needed in her line of work was to piss off one of the leading Fugitive Task Forces in the country. “I don’t need an answer.”
“It was a routine traffic stop,” Mills said quietly. “She was green. Just finished her probation. According to Sampson, the guy just starts shooting. Calloway was down. Max said they never saw it coming. He didn’t have time to react. He’s staring at this piece of shit aiming a gun at him, and Calloway got off a shot and took him down.”
“She killed him?” she asked, thinking that was what had provoked the strange response. Then again if she had chances were that she wouldn’t have been able to keep working the streets. Justified shooting or not a cop that wet behind the ears would have found themselves riding a desk for a really long time.
“Nope. The reason her jacket is a little light on the incident is because the guy was a CI.”
“The punk was a confidential informant? So, when she pulled him over he panicked,” she said. “Still doesn’t explain the lack of info.”
“A very special informant. Feds asked us to keep the whole thing under wraps. Calloway did as she was told. Sampson got his gold shield. Never even made the news.”
“Great. They covered it up.” Val grunted with disgust. “Well, she must love working with Feds. I’m screwed with her. What happened to the snitch?”
“Shot outside of a bar in Southie, never found the shooter.” Mills shrugged as if it was no big deal.
“No shortage of suspects, I’m sure. You weren’t kidding when you said Calloway took one for the team. She’s never going to talk to me.”
“To lock up her stepfather? She’ll work with you,” Mills said. “Told you before, Calloway’s a good cop.”
Val closed the file and thanked Mills. She didn’t miss the way every cop in the room was looking at her. She wasn’t bothered by the harshness in their eyes. She had pried into the life of one of their own. She was certain there were cops in that room who didn’t like Calloway. CC Calloway may have been a good cop, but she was also a lesbian who was outdoing most of her male counterparts. Despite any prejudice they may have harbored, she was still a cop. Val, on the other hand, was a Fed. It took her a long time to realize that locals didn’t like working with Feds, no matter how important the case. She packed up the rest of her stuff and headed back to her hotel.
After a long hot shower, she broke out her cell phone and laptop. She had to find Albert Beaumont. That was priority number one. She ran through the list of possible scenarios. If he was smart, he headed south: Mexico, Virginia, or Florida. Florida would be the best choice for someone Beaumont’s age.
“He could blend in,” she said aloud. “Retiree sick of the snow. He’d need a new identity. But he can find work. There are folks who will gladly pay a nice elderly man under the table to help him supplement his Social Security.” She wished Ricky were there, if for no other reason than she felt a little silly verbalizing her theories to no one. Deciding she needed a little objective input, she picked up her cell and called him.
Val Brown and Ricky Samaria had been friends since their days at Annapolis. They had been through things that most people only read about in spy novels. When she left the Navy, Ricky, along with their close knit circle, followed. She joined the marshal service, and he went to Quantico.
“What’s up, Brownie?” He used his pet name for her. “No good looking women in Boston?”
“Like you care,” she said and laughed. It hadn’t taken either very long back in Annapolis to realize the secret they shared. It was before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” For some reason, neither she nor Ricky had been asked. At first they thought it had been an oversight. One they had been grateful for. If asked, they would have had to lie. Lying was a violation of the honor code. But no one asked.
Later they would realize they weren’t asked because no one wanted them to answer. They, along with three other classmates, were being groomed for something bigger. In the end, the hypocrisy got to Val. Pushed into a corner by a bigoted redneck who happened to be a rear admiral, she outed herself.
The navy chose to ignore her admission. Odd, because ever since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was instituted, the military was flushing anyone and everyone who might be gay right out of the service. Still, Val Brown had always been much more than her file read. The government had no interest in allowing that information to be leaked out. The navy rested on semantics. Neither she nor her superior officer had used the exact words that would end her career. She was allowed to join the Shining Star program and retire. Now she was as out as she could be without losing her benefits.
“Ricky, I need you to look into some names for me.”
“Don’t you ever do your own work?”
“And yours most of the time,” she teased him. “I don’t know why the FBI puts up with your crap.”
“Is this your way of sweet talking me? I thought you needed a favor.”
“Fine, you big hunk of gorgeous manhood. Us lowly marshals don’t have the same access to info you big bad FBI agents do. Give a helpless girl a break.”
He laughed. “Who are you tracking?”
“Albert Beaumont. Took a hike from Gibbon Home, Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was doing ten to twenty for a level three.”
“Child molester? Why didn’t you say so? Okay, I’ve got his file. Arrests in Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and twice Connecticut, which should have gone down as a third strike. Got out for good behavior and reoffended less than two months later.”
“I’ve got all that,” Val said. “Most of those happened in the seventies. Nothing stuck except the one in Ohio. He did three years.”
“Slap on the wrist. Then nothing until Massachusetts. Stepdaughter accused him of trying to get funny with her.”
“Again, I’m on all that.” Val tried to hurry him along. “I’ve had the team watching the usual spots: bus stations, train stations, the airport, and every no-tell motel in the area. I’ve got nothing. Don’t tell me what I can find by going through the usual channels. I need your superior hacking skills. I need to get this guy. The stepdaughter who reported him is a cop now.”
“Good for her,” Ricky muttered. Val listened to him furiously typing. “Couple of domestic calls. Seems your cop took a baseball bat to the pervert when she was all of nine years old. She did it more than once. DSS investigated. Nothing happened. They bought the party line that the kid was upset because Albert was trying to take her father’s place.”
“Ricky, move into this century.”
“The first cop, Francis Donnelly, took an interest,” Ricky muttered. “By the time he tracked down Beaumont’s history, the family had moved to Rhode Island.”
“Yeah, I’m curious about that,” Val said. “Not all of them moved. Caitlin Calloway was still enrolled at Beachmont High. Her mailing address remained the same. But from what I’m looking at, the Beaumonts sold the house. Except for school, She’s off the grid for another three years. The next mailing address I can find is when she started college. She was living with her uncle, Michael Anthony Calloway.”
“Bookie.”
“Really?”
“Middle level, not big enough for us or the mob to give a damn about. And not small enough to fly under the radar.” He quickly explained.
“One of my questions is where was this kid?” Val tried to sort it out. “She wasn’t with the family and she wasn’t living in the old house. I can’t find a connection between her and the new owners. A family by the name of Nacster.”
“You think there’s another relative that might be hiding Beaumont?”
“Possibly. I’m also curious as to where a fifteen-year-old girl was living for all that time. Tell me about the bookie.”
“Michael Calloway, better known as Mac C, holds court at the Lucky Seven in the West End,” Ricky said. “Caitlin moved in with him and enrolled in Suffolk University. Graduated on time, not at the top of the class but not the bottom. Entered the academy, did well,
not outstanding. Oh? She did us a favor back in eighty-nine.”
“Yeah, I heard about that one.”
“Arrested Jeffrey Charles West back when she was still a beat cop.” He sounded impressed. “Nice collar. Simon Fisher was another piece of work. She has an above-average closure rate. Nothing odd in her jacket, except she did threaten a drag queen once.”
“Beg pardon?”
“A Brad Quinn performs drag at Jacques Cabaret, on Broadway.”
“Oh? Interesting. According to Caitlin’s niece Emma’s birth certificate, that’s her daddy. Okay, I’ve got a couple of things that are bugging me. We have a possible sighting of Beaumont hopping on a bus heading north. If he knows about his granddaughter, I’m afraid he might try and get a little revenge,” she said. “Then there is the ex-wife, Maria Beaumont. I’m coming up empty. All I got is she divorced Beaumont’s sorry ass just after his first arrest in Connecticut. Then nada.”
“Okay.” Ricky’s voice turned serious. Val listened to his furious typing. “I got her.”
“Where is she?”
“Waltham, Massachusetts.”
“How far is that from here?”
“Right around the corner. About thirty miles or so. She’s flying under the radar all right. Went back to the maiden name Gallagher. She’s waiting tables off the books at a restaurant called The Watch Factory. Lucky for you, the IRS is looking at them or we wouldn’t have found her. Before he bolted, did Beaumont make any friends?”
“No,” Val said. “He kept to himself. Did his therapy. His advisor said Beaumont was typical. Said all the right things in group. Outside of group, he swore up and down he was framed. He told more than one of his neighbors that his bitch of a stepdaughter used her badge to set him up. Two weeks ago, he went off to work. Had a roofing job. Never checked back in. Like I said, I’ve got a maybe of him heading towards Boston. If he was smart, he would have headed south and disappeared.”
“With an ex-wife, the daughter, stepdaughter, and granddaughter all living in the area…”
“You have to wonder if he’s planning on paying a visit to one of them,” Val said. “I’ll pay a call on the ex-Mrs. Beaumont in the morning. Thanks for the help, Ricky.”
He emailed her all the info he had collected. She needed sleep. Nothing new there. Flying by the seat of her pants was a constant in her life. The truth was, she enjoyed it. What she didn’t enjoy was failure. The upside of her job was everyone she was seeking for the most part already had their day in court. It wasn’t like in the movies. These people were criminals, no ifs, ands, or buts. On the rare occasion, her job allowed her to cross paths with someone like Stevie Calloway.
In the beginning, she had been looking forward to meeting Caitlin, the older Calloway sister. Brooks had built her up so much, Val was almost convinced that the detective was a figment of his imagination. Caitlin was okay. Not what she expected. Stevie, on the other hand, was a woman she wouldn’t mind spending a little time with.
She couldn’t help smirking while she thought of just how she might enjoy Stevie’s company. She perused the file that summed up the young web designer’s life. Born Stevie Joanna Beaumont to Albert and Maria Beaumont. Her older half-sister, Caitlin Calloway, was awarded custody of her when she was sixteen. A wall of blue showed up at the custody hearing with records proving that her loving father had a long history as a sex offender and her sister was a decorated police officer. A restraining order had been filed against both of her parents shortly thereafter.
Stevie legally changed her last name to Calloway when she turned eighteen. Graduated from UMass, Boston, with honors. Worked for Lotus, MIT, and Comtrel before opening her own web design business. Lived with a Katrina Wilson for four years. One child, Emma Liza Quinn. Shared ownership of her home with her sister and sister in-law. Paid her bills on time, no outstanding parking or speeding tickets. Stevie Calloway was a model citizen. And in Val’s humble opinion completely hot. Val tried to shrug off her attraction; she had a job to do.
“I hope I find your sick-o father soon.” Val leered at Stevie’s RMV photo. “You, I’d like to get to know better.” She yawned.
“Time for bed,” she said out loud. Another bad habit she had begun over the past few years: spending so much time alone in hotel rooms, she started talking to herself. That and seeing how long it took to find some incarnation of Law and Order on television.
“I swear a woman never designed a hotel bathroom,” she complained. “Really, I need to stop talking to myself. Maybe when this mess is cleaned up, I’ll take that vacation I’m supposed to be on.” She caught her reflection in the mirror. “Damn, I’m tired.” She shook her head. She was still speaking out loud.
Chapter 16
Elizabeth Pryce was already awake before the old-fashioned alarm clock loudly clanged its bells. She gazed out the window. Cold and misty. She smiled. She loved everything about San Francisco; it possessed a charm she had failed to find anywhere else. Almost two decades ago, she and her college roommate had discovered the bay area when they took an impromptu road trip from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. It had been an awakening for both of them.
She fell in love with San Francisco almost as easily as she fell in love with her roommate, In college, she discovered freedom, books, and the first love of her life. Janie had opened her eyes to who she was and what she wanted out of life. Janie was everything to her. The day Janie told her that she loved her was probably the happiest day in her life.
Then just as suddenly Janie was gone. Not the usual way your first love walks out. Janie went home for the winter break. She promised Elizabeth before she left that she was going to break up with her boyfriend. The night before she was to return to campus, Janie called her. Simon was history, and they were about to begin their lives together. It would be the last time Elizabeth would hear Janie’s voice. Janie never completed the two-hundred-sixteen-mile drive from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Elizabeth silently bore the pain of never knowing what had happened to her first love.
Then one day out of the blue the truth was revealed on the local news. There it was, all of her answers in one fell swoop. Janie’s body had been found. Simon had murdered her on that fateful day. Elizabeth cried for three days and then she found peace. She knew what had happened, and she could finally say goodbye.
She no longer felt fractured. She embraced her city and her life and opened her heart. A bit late in the game to start looking for love.
She padded downstairs and set the kettle on to boil.
She opened the package that had arrived just the other day. She smiled. It was a promotional gift set. A collection of herbal teas and a small jar of honey. She looked at the card. A gift for you. Then it went on with the usual sales pitch.
Elizabeth would have tossed it in the trash if it hadn’t been a collection of her favorite teas. The addition of fresh honey was something she simply couldn’t resist. She finished the tea, enjoying it so much that she set aside the card. “I should buy some,” she said, deciding that a second cup and a little more time lazing about was in order. She tried a different flavor, again adding honey.
“This is a perfect morning,” she said with a sigh. A few sips into the second cup of tea, her perfect morning turned sour. She shifted uncomfortably and a sharp pain attacked her. She barely made it into the bathroom before all hell broke loose. Her plans to spend the day wandering around the city were cast aside after her third trip to empty her stomach.
Defeated, she crawled back into bed and curled up; the pain was pure agony. She tried to understand how she had become so violently ill so quickly. She prayed to the goddess for relief. The pain increased as her body kept purging throughout the day until she was too weak to call for help. She heard the house phone ringing, then her cell. In her weakened state, she was unable to call for help.
* * *
Concerned, Myra furiously knocked on Elizabeth’s door. She had tried calling Elizabeth the previous day to confirm their plans for breakfast to
gether but hadn’t received an answer. When Elizabeth failed to meet her for breakfast, Myra tried not to panic. Just as she had done the previous day she called all of Elizabeth’s numbers.
After her constant pounding on the door went unanswered, she called the landlord. Nothing in her forty-nine years had prepared Myra for what she found in Elizabeth’s bedroom. Poor Elizabeth was curled up on the bed, her face forever twisted in agony. Myra released a shriek, and the landlord called 911.
One look at the scene, and the EMTs called for the police and the medical examiner. Dr. Logan Fergus pronounced Elizabeth Pryce dead. He was unable to determine the cause of death. All he knew for certain was she did not go gently.
Chapter 17
Val sat in a corner booth at The Watch Factory, sipping her coffee. She had finished her breakfast, and now she was focused on coffee and watching the waitress. She had hoped to pick up on snippets of conversation between Maria and her coworkers. The tired-looking woman seemed to keep to herself. She noticed the dull, defeated look in Maria’s eyes the moment she sat down.
“Warm up?” Maria waved a fresh pot of coffee over Val’s mug.
“Sure.”
“Is there a reason you keep watching me?” Maria was just as blunt as her daughters.
Val sighed, reached in her pocket, and flashed her badge. “Heard from your husband?” She was tired and convinced this woman wanted nothing more in life than to be left alone.
“Not since they carted his sorry butt off to prison,” Maria said with a grunt. “At least I hope you’re talking about my ex. Might be real hard getting in touch with my first husband, unless you got a Ouija board.”
“Not handy.”
“So what happened? I thought Bert was locked up for good.”
“Parole. Skipped out of the halfway house.”
“Ain’t justice grand?” Maria said ruefully. “So, you’re gonna follow me around? Trust me, I don’t want anything to do with that SOB. He did enough damage to my life. I got a good job here. I don’t need trouble from him or you.”
Checkmate (Caitlin Calloway Mystery Book 2) Page 12