Dead Broke (Lana Denae Mystery Series Book 1)

by Bruce A. Borders

  Reading the man his rights, Lana directed him to sit back down and then returned to her own seat.

  Eric looked up before she could say anything. “I’m not the only person in the world who fits your profile, you know.”

  “You’re the only one who fits the profile and had a connection to each of the victims,” Lana said. “Plus, you have no alibi.”

  “You still can’t prove any of this.”

  “Oh, but we can,” Lana said with a devious smile. “We found the gun you stashed in the dirt of the tree planter at the Rose City Apartments.”

  Eric managed to cover his reaction to the news, trying to maintain his innocence a little longer. “Wasn’t me. I don’t even own a gun.”

  Lana shook her head and slid a sheet of paper across the table. “Just got the report from the crime lab this afternoon. Your DNA was found on the gun and ballistic reports confirm it is the weapon that killed Roselyn Wymer. In addition, we have a witness who places you in the apartment building at the time of Mrs. Wymer’s murder, a witness who will testify that you were trying to ditch the gun by burying it in the planter. We also have a video that shows you tossing one of the victims into the river. How’s that for proof?”

  When Eric didn’t respond, Lana went on. “Despite your claims, we know there was no ‘boss.’ No one calling the shots except you.”

  Abruptly, Eric dropped his pretense and assumed the cockiness of a career criminal: conceited, confident, and defiant. “You’re right,” he said. “There’s no boss. Never was. I did it all. Stole all the identities, ripped them off and then killed them. One by one, I threw them off the bridge.” His voice then took on an almost boastful tone. “And there isn’t a thing you can do about it. You know why? ’Cause I got a deal. An immunity deal, remember?” An evil laugh escaped his lips as he finished.

  “You mean this deal?” Lana asked, tossing a familiar sheaf of papers onto the table. “The deal you didn’t bother to read before signing?”

  Eric’s face went white as, for the first time, it hit him that something may be wrong. With a worried frown, he started to sweat as he read the papers. “What is this?” he demanded.

  “Oh, that? That’s a copy of the lease agreement for my apartment.” Lana said. “Apparently, you agreed to pay my rent for the next two years.”

  “This isn’t what I signed!”

  Lana flipped to the back page. “That’s your signature. Right there in blue ink—so you can tell it isn’t photocopied.”

  As the reality sank in that he’d been tricked, Eric grew incensed. “You can’t do this!” he yelled. “You lied to me; that’s illegal! My lawyer will have your badge for this!”

  “I think your lawyer will have his hands full defending you on multiple counts of murder,” Lana said calmly. “Seven murders, in fact.”

  “This is illegal!” Eric again shouted. “I’m not responsible for anything I signed under false pretenses.” Then with a spark of hope flickering across his face, he asked, “Does your boss know about this?”

  “Not only do both the D.A. and my Captain know about it, it was the D.A.’s idea. The Captain and I went along with it, figuring with your cocky attitude, you wouldn’t bother to read anything before you signed it.”

  “It’s still illegal!” Eric said loudly. “And can’t be used in court! Guaranteed, my lawyer will have it thrown out!”

  Lana calmly smiled. “Maybe. Doubt it’ll make much difference though. Thanks to your confession just now, which was recorded by the way, your lawyer might as well give up. Looks like you’ll be going to prison for a very long time. I only wish the state of Oregon had the death penalty.”

  All the fight went out of him then and Eric sank down in the chair, dejected, deflated. The way a man looks when he knows he’s lost. Silently, he stared at the wall. The system had won. Beaten him.

  “I do have some good news, though,” Lana said cheerfully. “I’m not going to force you to pay my rent.”

  Eric didn’t find her humor nearly as funny as she did. He sat stone-faced, sulking over his misfortune.

  Lana considered asking him if he was thinking about how to decorate his cell but decided against it. She still had a few more questions; questions that she would like answered. Hopefully, Eric was still in a talkative mood.

  “So, there’s a couple of things I haven’t been able to figure out,” she said. “First, I know how you were able to shoot into the apartment but how did you open the locked door?”

  “Ever hear of a knife?”

  Lana nodded. “What really has me baffled though, is how did you aim the gun? You couldn’t have seen through the crack and around the door. So how were you able to hit your target?”

  Eric eyed her a moment. “What’s it worth to you?”

  “Not enough to cut you any kind of deal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Shrugging, Eric said, “Figure it out for yourself then.”

  At that moment, the door opened. “That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Damien said, holding up an evidence bag.

  Lana looked at him questioningly.

  “We just found this among the items we seized from his apartment,” he explained, gesturing to Eric. Then, he slid the bag onto the table. The object inside looked like a short telescope that was bent in the middle.

  “What is that?” Lana asked.

  “It appears to be a homemade device modified to refract light through the tube allowing a shooter, in effect, to see around corners. It has a laser attached and is adjustable for different angles. Actually, it’s kind of impressive.”

  Eric had sat listening. “It’s not that impressive,” he hissed, trying to downplay Damien’s discovery. “Put the dot on the target and pull the trigger. It’s not rocket science. And I didn’t invent anything. It’s called a periscope. I just made a smaller version from parts at the store.”

  Damien shook his head in both admiration and saddened disbelief. “Such a shame to let that kind of intelligence go to waste,” he said, going back out the door.

  While happy to finally have an answer to the mystery that had stumped her almost from the start, Lana wasn’t nearly as enthralled with the explanation or fascinated with Eric’s talents as Damien. Turning back to her suspect, she posed another question. “It appears that from the beginning you set Holloway up to take the blame, was that your intention all along?”

  Smirking, Eric said. “Always pays to plan ahead.”

  “Not when you get caught anyway,” Lana commented with a frown. “I’m still wondering about one last thing though.”

  Eric eyed her curiously.

  “Why didn’t you spend any of the money?”

  Eric shrugged. “It was part of my cover. Didn’t want to raise suspicion or have anything point to me.”

  “So, you steal a million dollars and never plan to benefit from it? Why steal it in the first place?”

  Once Eric started talking, he couldn’t resist the urge to brag a little. “Well, I’d like to say it was simply for the thrill of it, but that’s not really true. I did have plans to benefit—later. Six months from now I would have been long gone with the money and no one would have ever found me. But...”

  “But then you murdered Mrs. Wymer,” Lana finished for him.

  Eric nodded.

  “And you nearly got away with it too,” Lana said.

  “Should have got away with it,” Eric lamented. “Would’ve too if it weren’t for you.”

  Hearing his words, Lana was nearly beaming. His childish self-pity was one of the best compliments she’d ever received. “Thanks,” she said.

  Eric looked confused. “For what?” he asked.

  “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand,” Lana said, heading out the door.

  Damien was the first to congratulate her. “So, you got your confession,” he said as she entered the patrol room. “Not only does he admit it, he seems proud of the fact that he stole from all those poor people and then killed them. That’s just wron
g.”

  “Like adding insult to injury,” Jamie said.

  “I think death’s a little more severe than either of those,” Lana pointed out.

  “You might be right.”

  “Might be?”

  Ray spoke up. “Dead and not a penny to their name,” he said with a shake of his head, “What a way to go.”

  “Well, who needs money when they’re dead?” Jamie asked.

  “I think most people would like to leave something to their survivors,” Lana replied.

  “Not me. I’m going to spend it all before I die,” Jamie said.

  Damien grinned. “Well, you probably won’t be murdered for your money, then.”

  “You’ll still be murdered, just not for your money,” Ray said.

  “Well, that’s comforting.”

  “Mm-hm,” Lana said. “And just like these investors, you’ll still be dead—and broke.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lana should have been elated. They’d wrapped up the case the night before, Holloway was a free man, and she’d made it home in plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep.

  She’d just hung up from giving Captain Hayden the final details and in return had been congratulated for a job well done. Praise from the Captain was a high honor. She should have been elated.

  Yet, she wasn’t.

  Something still didn’t add up; like there were a couple of loose ends that needed tied together. But she had no idea what those loose ends might be.

  It wasn’t that she thought they’d arrested the wrong guy or that they’d missed some crucial piece of evidence. Nothing that serious. And, she knew they had built a solid case. But there was... something.

  Something in Eric’s story still bothered her. It wasn’t so much anything he’d said—at least she didn’t think so—it was more of a feeling that something had slid by her unnoticed. A feeling she’d overlooked some little crumb that would somehow bring things together; something that would make everything make sense. And yet, she could find nothing that didn’t make sense.

  Whatever the something was, it kept nagging at her, refusing to let her call this case solved. The feeling had persisted all morning.

  With a frustrated sigh, she decided to start typing her case report. “Maybe something in all of my notes will jumpstart my brain,” she said to herself.

  She worked quietly for an hour, sorting through the notebooks and reports, organizing it all into some semblance of order. As she came across different events in her notes, she briefly scanned them, and then set them aside.

  Flipping open one of her notepads, she stared at what she’d written on the page. Although not sure why, she inherently knew that whatever was bothering her had something to do with what was on that page.

  Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Could it be that...” Falling silent, Lana sat lost in thought. “Yes, it has to be,” she finally said.

  Not of a mind to keep the news to herself, she called through the open door, “I can’t believe it took me this long to put two and two together.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jamie asked as Lana rushed past him on her way out of the precinct.

  “I’ll let you know when I get back—if I’m right.”

  “Oh, you’ll let us know if you’re wrong too,” Jamie promised.

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Lana said with a grin. “Not something that happens that often.” With that, she was out the door and gone.

  Climbing into her car, she again drove the route she’d gotten to know well in recent weeks. Minutes later, parking outside Cascade Global Investments, she once more headed inside to have a chat with the owner. She hoped he would agree to see her. After the recent events and the role she’d played, she could hardly blame the man if he refused.

  Devin Holloway looked up when she knocked on the open door to his office, surprised to see her. “Come to arrest me again?” he asked with a frown.

  Lana smiled wryly. “Not this time.”

  “Well then, I suggest you contact my attorney for whatever it is you want.”

  “Mr. Holloway, I was just wondering if I could ask you a few quick questions? Nothing to do with you really, not directly anyway.”

  “A silent Holloway sat in thought a moment and then with a weary sigh abruptly said, “Sure. Although, I can’t imagine what’s left to ask.”

  Relieved that he’d agreed without much hassle Lana quickly said, “Let me apologize beforehand, Mr. Holloway. I don’t mean to pry into your personal life but didn’t you say your wife was on an extended vacation of some sort?”

  “Yes,” Holloway answered, offering nothing more.

  “And she’s been gone for almost a year?”

  “Yes.”

  Lana nodded. “I got the impression that things were not well in your marriage. Could you tell me why she’s away?”

  Holloway looked uncomfortable. “My marriage is really not something I want to discuss.”

  “I understand,” Lana said softly. “But it may be important to the case.”

  “You already have the guilty party in custody,” Holloway said.

  Lana nodded. “We do. We have his confession as well as the murder weapon with his DNA. That’s enough to convict him.”

  “So what more do you want?”

  “What we’re missing is motive. Juries like a motive. It helps them understand. And, the more sinister the motive, the more likely it is to get a conviction.”

  With a confused look, Holloway said, “I’m afraid I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Wouldn’t more than a million dollars be a strong motive?”

  “Normally,” Lana agreed. “And at first, that’s all I thought it was. But now I’m convinced there is more to it than that. Because, in this case, we’re dealing with a guy who with a few keystrokes on his computer could’ve had all the money he wanted.”

  Holloway nodded.

  “It couldn’t have been just the money that drove him to do this; the ID theft, the secret identities, setting up your off-shore accounts, the murders, and all the other stuff. That took a lot of time and a considerable amount of planning. Why go to all that trouble when, in minutes, he could easily have that much or more. And why target Cascade Global? Just for the thrill of it? Sure, guys like thrills but they don’t usually go through that amount of work to get it. Most guys are not that perseverant or patient. Yet, this guy plotted for months. Obviously, there’s more to the story.”

  With a slight grimace, Holloway again slowly nodded. “You might be right. You asked about my wife, I’m not sure what this has to do with anything, but the reason she left is due to an affair.”

  Lana nodded knowingly. “Yours or hers?”

  “Hers.”

  “Am I correct in assuming you don’t know who the affair was with?”

  Holloway looked stunned. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because if you had known, we probably would have solved this case a lot sooner—and without arresting you in the process.”

  “I don’t see what one has to do with the other, but you are right, I don’t know the man’s name. Although, it sounds like you do.”

  “Not positive yet, but, yeah, I do have a pretty good idea.”

  “Who?” Holloway asked, still not putting it together. “My wife was pretty tight-lipped about things. Just apologized and said she planned to end it. Then she went to stay at her sister’s until I decided what I wanted to do. Claimed she still loved me and wanted us to be together but I wasn’t so sure. I’m still not.”

  Lana nodded sympathetically but didn’t answer his question. “How did you learn of the affair?”

  “I suspected something was going on and when I asked, she admitted it. But she wouldn’t give me his name. All I know is that it was a younger–” Holloway abruptly stopped as it finally dawned on him what Lana had been hinting at. “You don’t mean...”

  Lana nodded. “I
do. I think the guy your wife was involved with is our very own Eric Schmidt. I didn’t put it all together until I was going over my notes this morning and read what one of the man’s neighbors had told me about Eric’s girlfriend being an older woman. That’s when it clicked.”

  “I still fail to see how sleeping with my wife turned him into a criminal.”

  “That’s easy,” Lana said. “When your wife broke it off with him, telling him she wanted to work things out with her husband, you, he became angry and plotted his revenge.”

  “Revenge? For what? I didn’t do anything!”

  “In his mind you did. You were a threat, the one preventing him from being with your wife.”

  “Well, that’s some twisted logic.”

  “Yeah,” Lana agreed.

  “So, he decided to steal from my clients?” Holloway said with a frown. “How does that hurt me?”

  “I think it’s more than that,” Lana said. “Stealing from your clients was just a means to an end. I think he planned to ruin you, your company, and your reputation—perhaps thinking that your wife would then not want to be with you. In any event, he was fixated on destroying you and wasn’t about to let a little thing like murder get in the way.”

  Holloway quietly contemplated her words. After a brief moment, he took a deep breath and looked the detective in the eye. “Well, I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but I’m glad you came by. And I’m glad you were the one on this case. Anyone else would have had me tried and convicted by now.”

  “Thanks,” Lana said, knowing he meant it.

  “Now don’t be so modest,” Holloway said. “You didn’t give up pressing for the truth and for that I am truly grateful. Thank you,” he said again.

  “You’re welcome,” Lana said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Changing the subject, she said, “There’s something else I’ve been wondering. Why did you, a financial guy, have a criminal defense attorney on retainer?”

  Holloway gave her a blank look, and then smiled. “I see how that might have been confusing,” he said. “But Daniel isn’t on retainer. Our wives attended college together. We’ve all been friends for years.”