Dead Broke (Lana Denae Mystery Series Book 1)

by Bruce A. Borders

  This time, instead of stopping the video, Ray let it continue to play. They watched with a slight indifference, almost disinterested, not expecting anything of importance.

  So, they were a little startled at what came next.

  After watching his victim fall to his doom, the killer, as if feeling someone’s eyes on him, quickly turned and looked around, searching for signs anyone was watching.

  The guilt complex, it was called. When someone knows they’ve committed a wrong, they sometimes involuntarily check to make sure they weren’t seen. Although still unrecognizable, when the killer made his scan of the area, the video unmistakably showed the man look directly at the camera.

  “He knew he’d been seen,” Lana said.

  “Yes, but if he is also the murderer in your case, he went after the wrong person,” Damien pointed out.

  “Somehow, he must have thought Roselyn Wymer was the one who shot the video,” Lana said. “Or when he went to take care of his ‘problem,’ he got the wrong apartment.”

  “Makes sense, almost,” Jamie said.

  Lana nodded her head. “Providing Nellie is telling us the truth. And that might be a stretch.”

  “I think she is,” Damien said thoughtfully. “609 is the last apartment on that side. But there’s another window at the end of the building. Not sure what it’s to, maybe a janitor closet or something. The point is, the view from the outside would seem to indicate apartment 609 is second from the end. That of course is 607, Roselyn Wymer’s apartment.”

  Again, Lana nodded. “So, the killer made a mistake. But we still have no idea who he is.”

  Ray spoke up then. “Can’t give you an ID, but I can provide a description; Caucasian male, approximately five-foot eight, around one hundred eighty pounds.”

  “That’s a start,” Lana said. “How did you determine the suspect is Caucasian?”

  “I didn’t.”

  All three detectives shot him a quizzical look.

  Ray explained. “I sent the video down to the Medical Examiner’s office and asked Mort to take a look. He said, based on... Well, I’m not sure what he based it on. He rattled off a bunch of medical terms and lost me. But I trust the man knows what he’s doing so I’m going with the killer is Caucasian.”

  “Works for me, until we have something better to go on,” Lana said. “Which rules out my number one suspect; my only suspect, Paul Borland, since he is not white.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t narrow it down more,” Ray said.

  “Actually, the video has helped narrow things down considerably,” Lana told him. “Your description eliminates all women, all non-whites, short people, anyone weighing in over one hundred eighty pounds, and so on.”

  “Still like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Jamie lamented.

  “Yes, but the haystack just got smaller.”

  “So I guess our cases have now become one.” Damien said.

  Lana nodded. “Looks that way. Then, glancing at her watch, she said, “I need to fill the Captain in on these new developments before he goes home.”

  “All right.” Jamie stood up. I think Damien and I are going to spend the evening looking over the profiles of the jumpers a little more. There’s got to be some sort of connection.”

  “You need some help?” Lana offered. “I could come by after I talk to the Captain.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Damien told her.

  “We got this,” Jamie said. Then, unable to resist getting in another dig, he added, “You go talk to the Captain, that might take a while considering it’s been over two weeks and this is your first real progress.”

  Lana rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sure to tell him how it was my witness that provided the video.” Then, with a serious look, she added. “Tomorrow, we need to finish questioning the tenants. Maybe someone else witnessed one of the other suicides, or murders.”

  “You taking over as lead now?” Jamie said in mock hostility. “That why you want to talk to the Captain? Maybe you should come over and help us go through the files after all. Just to keep you honest.”

  Lana smiled and shook her head. “Just pointing out the obvious. If you want to call that taking lead, okay.”

  “If anyone is named lead it should be us,” Jamie protested. “Our case has six murders and yours has only one.”

  “Yeah,” Damien agreed. “And ours occurred first, making your case secondary.”

  Lana didn’t answer, a thoughtful frown on her face. Turning to Ray, she said, “Do you still have that memory card in your computer?”

  Ray nodded. “Yeah. You want it back?”

  “Not just yet,” Lana said. “Could you look at the dates on the rest of the videos?”

  Ray shrugged. “Sure. Just a second.”

  “Something bothering you?” Damien asked.

  “A crazy idea occurred to me. Do you guys have the dates for the other five jumpers?”

  “Yeah, right here,” Jamie said, holding up the folder in his hand. Why?”

  “Because, we didn’t specifically ask Nellie Langstrom if she had videoed any of the other jumpers.”

  “We asked if she’d witnessed any of the others,” Damien said.

  Lana nodded. “And to you and I that’s the same thing. Are you willing to bet this case that it’s the same thing to Nellie?”

  Damien’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I have the dates,” Jamie announced, reading them off to Ray. “Any matches?”

  Ray shook his head. “None.”

  Lana said, “Well, at least she didn’t record any other murders. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know anything. If we hadn’t asked exactly the right questions before, she might have withheld more information.”

  Jamie grinned wryly, “That wouldn’t surprise me given our experience with the lady.”

  “She is a strange one,” Damien agreed.

  “I think we need to talk to her again, question her more thoroughly,” Lana said.

  “I don’t think we need to do any such thing,” Jamie said. “We,” he pointed to himself and Damien, “need to get busy studying these profiles. Got to find that connection.”

  Damien was nodding. “My partner’s right. Time is wasting.” Glancing to Jamie, he said, “My place?”

  The two were already headed to the door. “We’re confident you can handle the lady, The Nellie,” Jamie called back.

  “I don’t think so,” Lana said. “I’m late for a meeting with the Captain.”

  “Does he know you’re coming?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then it’s not a meeting.”

  “I’ve already been to see her twice in two days,” Lana protested.

  “Is there some new rule about a limit on how many times a detective can question a witness?” Jamie said to his partner. “You remember that rule?”

  Damien shook his head. “I don’t remember that rule.”

  Lana waited until they were done with their little game. “I seem to recall you promised Nellie a replacement memory card,” she said to Jamie.

  “Oh, yeah. Could you stop and pick up one for her on the way? I’ll pay you back.” Jamie paused, holding the door. “And you don’t have to worry about coming over to help with the profiles. We’ll manage.”

  Lana sighed loudly. “Fine, I’ll go.”

  Damien and Jamie pretended not to hear as the door closed and then they were gone.

  “You shouldn’t let them treat you that way,” Ray told her.

  Lana smiled. “You think I wanted to spend my evening pouring over those profiles, looking for something to connect six strangers? Not a chance. I plan on relaxing, having a nice dinner, and getting a full night’s sleep. Just as soon as I go visit Nellie, that is.”

  “What about your meeting with the Captain?” Ray asked.

  The Captain’s gone for the day,” Lana told him. “Funny thing is, those two yahoos that just left
are the ones who told me that not more than six hours ago.”

  Ray was outright laughing now. “Think they know you played them?”

  “Doubt it,” Lana said as she headed for the door. “You didn’t.”

  Chapter Seven

  A well-rested Lana was sitting at her desk enjoying a cup of coffee when Damien and Jamie showed up to work looking slightly disheveled and very tired. She glanced pointedly at the clock. “You guys get lost on the way in?”

  Pulling up a chair, Damien sank wearily into the cushioned seat and laid his head in his hands. “We were up until four o’clock, going through those files.”

  Jamie, eyes swollen and red, leaned against Lana’s desk. “Yeah, and I don’t think Damien’s wife likes me anymore.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Damien mumbled without looking up. “She never liked you in the first place.”

  Jamie, who had mercifully found the comfort of a chair, cocked his head sideways, shooting a frown at his partner. He didn’t have the energy to respond with anything that required putting words together.

  Feeling sorry for the overworked and somewhat fatigued pair of detectives, Ray hurried off to the break room, returning in moments with two large cups of coffee. Jamie and Damien nodded their appreciation as he set the coffee on the desk.

  Lana sat by amused, enjoying watching them suffer through the waking up process. “So, I take it you spent all night going through files, kept Damien’s wife up, and didn’t find anything?”

  Raising up his head slightly, Damien said, “As a matter of fact, we did find something.”

  “Care to share?” Lana prompted when neither of them offered anything more. “Or, should I go first?”

  “You go first,” they said together, glad for the temporary reprieve.

  “Okay,” Lana agreed, purposefully trying to sound perky. “I went to visit our favorite witness after leaving here last night and found that she didn’t see anything the nights of the other murders. Your turn.”

  Jamie opened one eye and squinted at her. “Hope you didn’t overdo it.”

  “How did your meeting with Captain Hayden go?” Damien asked with a yawn.

  Lana glanced at the clock before saying, “I’ll let you know in about half an hour—as soon as he gets in. Apparently, he left early yesterday.”

  “It only took a second or two for it to sink in that they had been snookered. Damien gave her a look of protest. “You knew that all along. We’re the ones who told you.”

  Lana laughed. “Yes, you did. So, you’d think you would have known it too, huh?”

  “Well, we fell for that one,” Jamie said. “So, while we slaved away all night, you just took a little detour on your way home to see a witness? How long did that take, fifteen minutes?”

  “Longer than that!” Lana said. “I also had to stop by the store, remember?” She fished a wrinkled receipt out of her pocket, handing it to him. “You owe me ten dollars.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Jamie reached for his wallet. “Take your money,” he said, thrusting a ten-dollar bill at her.

  Damien, able to appreciate the humor of the moment said, “All right, you had your fun. How about we all get back to work now? We haven’t even started the day yet.”

  “I beg to differ,” Lana replied. “My day started long before either of you showed up.”

  “I meant in relation to the case. Not having a laugh-it-up party at our expense.”

  With a slight shake of her head, Lana said. “I was referring to the case. While waiting on you two to stumble in to work, I called Kurt Stabler, Roselyn Wymer’s nephew.”

  “And?” Jamie prompted.

  Lana filled them in on what she’d learned during the short conversation with the man. The call had gone much as expected, she said, with her being the bearer of bad news. Kurt was shocked and dismayed to hear of his aunt’s passing and then horrified to learn her death was due to murder. Though saddened at the news, he offered to help the investigation in any way he could. He promised to be on a flight to Portland early the next morning or as soon as he could make arrangements.

  Recounting the details, Lana said, “It was a hard call to make. But then, those kind always are.”

  Damien and Jamie agreed and decided that she had almost redeemed herself for the rotten trick she’d pulled. They had both experienced their share of such phone calls and neither envied her.

  “So, now that we’ve got my activities out of the way, are you ready to tell me about this break-through connection you guys discovered?” Lana wanted to know.

  A little more awake, now that the coffee had started taking effect, both men began talking at once, their words running together and jumbled so not a single intelligent thought could be understood.

  “One at a time, please,” Lana said, shaking her head.

  “I’ll give you the story,” Damien said. “What we found is that all six of the victims had investments at Cascade Global Investments, a locally based brokerage firm.”

  Lana was already frowning. “According to the financials I saw, three of the victims were not in any position to be investing in anything.”

  “You’re right,” Jamie said. “We wondered the same thing. They shouldn’t have been able to afford the portfolio they had. But through the help of that great American vice known as the credit card–”

  “They used a credit card for investments? Brilliant!” Lana said, her voiced heavily laced with sarcasm. “I didn’t think that was legal.”

  “It’s not,” Damien said. “No one can legally buy or invest in mutual funds, stocks, or anything of the sort using a credit card. But there’s nothing to stop someone from getting a cash advance on the card and then using that money.”

  “Or using the card to fund it in other ways,” Jamie added.

  “How much are we talking?”

  “The amounts vary, ranging from ten thousand to one hundred fifty thousand.” Jamie answered.

  Lana stopped him. “How does anyone get a cash advance for that much? I have a good job and great credit, and I’m limited to five hundred dollars a day.”

  “Multiple cards,” Jamie explained. “Might take a few days, but ten thousand isn’t that difficult to come up with.”

  Damien spoke up. “We did find the transactions to substantiate all of this so it’s not just speculation.”

  “Okay,” Lana said, pausing a moment in thought. “So, all of our victims had investments with the same broker. How did that lead to their murders?”

  “That we don’t know,” Jamie admitted. “But the payout for some of these investments is pretty large. We were unable to determine the maturity date on any of the accounts but my guess is it’s coming up soon.”

  “It doesn’t take a financial genius to figure out what the probable motive was,” Damien added. “The collective total is just over half a million dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of motive, isn’t it?” Lana said. “But how did our killer stand to profit from their deaths? It’s rather doubtful he’d be listed as a beneficiary on so many accounts.”

  “Yeah, we already checked that; he is not.”

  Jamie added, “What’s more, these particular investments do not pay if the owner of the account dies before the maturity date.”

  “So, again, how did the killer plan to profit?” Lana asked. “And there are a ton of other questions I’d like answered. How did he find his targets? What does Cascade Global Investments have to do with this? How did our perpetrator know about the investments? And, how did he lure his victims to the Steel Bridge?”

  “Sounds like we need to pay a visit to Cascade Global Investments,” Jamie said.

  Reaching into his shirt pocket, Damien produced a wadded up piece of paper. “Got the address right here. Along with the name of the owner, and CEO, a Mr. Devin Holloway.”

  Deciding that questioning the remaining apartment tenants could wait, the three of them piled into a single car again. The drive took less than fifteen minute
s; time which Lana spent formulating a series of questions for Mr. Holloway—and shouting driving instructions to Jamie.

  Although amused at her anxiety, as usual, Jamie paid no attention, weaving his way through the maze of city streets and negotiating the traffic with uncanny precision—for the most part.

  Damien, immune to his partner’s driving habits, seemed not to notice the hair-raising adventure. “Here we are,” he announced as they came to a stop.

  “Not sure why I keep riding with you guys,” Lana grumbled, climbing out of the car. “Next time, I’m driving.”

  Jamie smiled. “I think you secretly like being chauffeured,” he said, opening the big glass door to the building.

  Flashing their badges, the detectives announced themselves to the receptionist. Informing the lady they were there to see Mr. Holloway, in seconds, they were seated in the man’s spacious—but mostly empty—office.

  “How can I help you?” Devin Holloway asked, once the introductions had been made.

  Lana cut right to the chase. “Mr. Holloway, were you aware that several of your clients have been murdered in recent weeks?”

  “Murdered?” Holloway seemed appalled. “Who? By who? And why?” After a slight pause in which the man seemed to make a conscious effort to gather his wits, he said, “To answer your question, no, I wasn’t aware. Sorry, you caught me a little off-guard with that. But why on Earth would anyone want to murder my clients?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine.” Giving the man a quick rundown of events, Lana said, “We would appreciate any help you could provide.”

  “Sure,” the man said with a quick nod. “Anything you need.” It was obvious he was still a little shaken at the news.

  Lana quickly produced a list of names and handed the paper to Holloway. “We were hoping you could give us a some additional information on these six names—what sort of investments they had and if any of them made any recent changes to their accounts, particularly with respect to linked bank accounts or an updated address.”

  “These are the ones who were, uh, murdered?”