Wedding Cake

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Malloy clenched his jaw and his face reddened, informing Sadie that she had pushed him further than she should have. He leaned forward and pointed a finger at her, his words tight and angry. “You are hurting this case, Sadie. My men are having to clean up the messes you keep making, and now I have the district attorney’s office involved. I have to come up with—”

  Malloy’s phone cut him off, and they both looked to it for salvation. He picked it up before it rang a second time and turned away from her in his chair.

  “What,” he said brusquely before listening for several seconds. The look on his face changed from anger to surprise. “Are you sure? . . . I want a full scan run on the number that called in that tip ASAP. . . . No, I’ll handle it myself. . . . Send Beacon with me. . . . Yes. . . . Yes.” He hung up the phone and met Sadie’s eyes. “We’re done for now.”

  Done? Hadn’t he just told her she’d broken the law? Wasn’t he about to tell her she was under arrest? What was it about the phone call that took priority over Malloy’s chance to put Sadie behind bars, which she had no doubt was exactly where he wanted her to be?

  “What was the call about?” Sadie asked, figuring she didn’t have anything to lose by asking. Clearly a tip had come in from a number that Malloy wanted tracked, just like they’d done with the numbers Jane had texted from.

  “None of your business,” Malloy said, standing up from his chair. “Go home and stop playing Cagney and Lacey while we try to figure out what to do about all of this. There are serious things happening, and every time you get yourself involved you make it worse.”

  Sadie pulled back. Is that really what he thought of her? That she only made things worse? “I found her apartment,” she reminded him, no longer feeling guilty that she hadn’t told him about the pictures of the prescriptions. “And Garrison is on the lookout for her because of our Facebook page.”

  Malloy glared at her, then walked to the door and pulled it open. “Go home,” he said sharply, then paused and let out an exasperated breath. “Actually, you can’t go home. I have a team preparing to go to your house to follow up on the listening device—which would have been done an hour ago if you hadn’t pulled this latest stunt. I need you to go somewhere else until we’ve cleared the house.” He said the last part with a touch of smugness Sadie did not appreciate in the slightest.

  “And where am I supposed to go?” Sadie asked, putting her hands on her hips.

  Malloy matched her pose and gave her a sarcastic smile. “Maybe you could go back to the hotel where I wanted you to stay in the first place.”

  Sadie glared at him. She wasn’t going to the hotel. She could go to Pete’s, but other than the air mattress he’d been sleeping on and a few boxes he’d been planning to move today, his house was empty. Still, it would be better to go to his house if for no other reason than the fact that Malloy wanted her to go to the hotel.

  “Or,” Malloy continued, “if you’re going to continue being difficult, I can put you in a cell. That might be the best option for everyone. I assure you I have plenty of legal cause to do so.”

  Sadie didn’t respond, she just stood and let herself out of his office before he got too excited about that idea. Shawn had been taken somewhere else when Malloy had directed her to his office upon their arrival, but he was outside the door when she stepped into the hall. They exchanged a look that communicated how irritated they both were at this turn of events and then headed toward the front doors of the police station in silence, Sadie looking for Pete on their way.

  She was increasingly anxious about his reaction to all of this. It was the day before their wedding, and she’d broken in to Jane’s apartment without telling him. Again, if it had worked out well, it would be an annoyance, but it hadn’t worked out well, and she had no doubt Malloy would make a point of using this against her. It put Pete in a precarious position and she felt bad for that.

  The back portion of the police station where the business took place was separated from the public areas by a glass and metal door that an officer in the reception area buzzed people through via a button located at her desk. When Sadie and Shawn reached the yellow line painted on the floor with the words “Wait for Dept. Approval” painted above it, they did exactly what the instructions said, and stopped and waited to be buzzed through.

  “Malloy hates me,” Sadie said in a pouty voice. “And everything I do makes him hate me more. He won’t even listen to why we did what we did.”

  Shawn nodded. “They made me put the department’s number instead of mine on the Facebook page. I had to promise that if anyone calls me about the page, I’ll forward them to the police department.” He let out a heavy breath. “The guy I talked to said they can’t use any of the stuff we took from the apartment because we stole it. Maybe we should have had them follow up with the address.”

  Sadie felt a twinge of guilt. If Shawn had been confident about what they’d done, Sadie could be confident too. When he questioned it, on the other hand, it made her question it as well. If she’d just left everything in the apartment, they could have told the police and had them get the warrant to retrieve it legally. She hated that she’d made such a mess of things. She hated even more that important information would be ignored because she’d taken it in the first place. Who knew what they could learn from the file box?

  They were quiet for several seconds until Sadie wondered why they hadn’t been buzzed through. She looked around for the officer who usually manned the desk and saw the young woman standing at another desk on the other side of the room, chatting with another officer—a dispatcher, Sadie thought. Sadie was irritated at the dereliction of duty until she realized that whatever tip Malloy had been talking about would have been called in, probably to the dispatcher. Malloy had wanted to handle the tip himself, which meant there was something unique about it. Unique enough that the front desk officer was distracted from her job? Unique enough to be jawed about with her coworker?

  It took mere milliseconds for Sadie to determine that the connection was entirely probable.

  Sadie gave Shawn a “wait here” look and then casually walked toward the two women, positioning herself so she was blocked from the woman sitting at the desk by the woman standing in front of it. She walked as quickly as possible without making enough noise to be overheard. She could be all but silent when she wanted to. As she came up behind the woman standing there, she caught the tail end of what the woman at the desk was saying.

  “ . . . I guess Beacon’s going with him. I triple-checked it just to be sure it was Cunningham’s address, that’s why . . . uh, excuse me, ma’am?”

  The woman’s head moved to the side and she made eye contact with Sadie, who was a couple of feet behind the woman standing. Her cover blown, Sadie pasted an innocent expression on her face and stepped casually to the side as though she hadn’t been using the standing officer as a shield.

  “We just need to be buzzed through,” she said, though her heart was racing. Something had happened at Pete’s address? She forced a smile and pointed her thumb toward Shawn still standing at the yellow line.

  The woman who should have been at the desk glanced toward Shawn. “I’ll be right there.” She waved Sadie away.

  When Sadie reached Shawn, she gave him the slightest shake of her head, and he responded with an even slighter nod, agreeing to wait for her to explain until she could do so without being overheard.

  The desk officer returned a few seconds later and buzzed them through. Once on the other side of the glass dividing wall, they collected the personal items they’d had to surrender upon arrival. Sadie slung her purse over her shoulder while Shawn slid his wallet into his back pocket. They pushed through the front glass doors into the bright summer day together. Only when they’d reached the parking lot did Shawn ask his question. “What happened? You’re scowling.”

  “We need to go to Pete’s,” Sadie said, already bracing herself for the reprimand Malloy would give her when she arrived. “Someone called in a
tip that has to do with his house. We haven’t heard anything about Jane’s antics in over an hour. I’m worried Pete’s her newest target. You drive while I text him. I hope he’s got his phone.”

  Chapter 17

  Shawn and Sadie pulled up in front of Pete’s house just as Malloy was stepping out of the unmarked police car. He’d only beaten them there by a matter of seconds. When Malloy saw her, he scowled and said something to the officer who’d come with him, Beacon.

  Sadie held Malloy’s eyes while Shawn shifted into park, then she unbuckled her seat belt, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the car to meet Malloy on the sidewalk. Shawn said something about a text from Maggie—her flight had landed early—and so he stayed in the car.

  Beacon headed toward the gate that led to the backyard of Pete’s house. Sadie itched to follow him, but she had two hundred and forty pounds of obnoxious police detective in her way.

  “I told you to go to the hotel,” Malloy said.

  “You told me I couldn’t go home. Where else do you think I would go?” She raised her eyebrows as though daring him to argue with her logic. She’d thought of it on the drive over and was quite proud with herself. “What are you doing here?”

  When he didn’t answer right away, she pretended to put the details together on her own. “Does this have anything to do with the tip you received when I was in your office?”

  The slight tightening of Malloy’s jaw told her she was on the right track, and she could almost hear his brain racing to come up with a different explanation. She spoke again before he could come up with anything. “What was the tip about?”

  Sadie looked past him at the house that would be Pete’s for only another week. The day after she and Pete would return from their honeymoon, the new owners would close on the house and Pete would hand over his keys. Beacon let himself into the backyard and closed the gate behind him. Did the tip have something to do with the backyard, then? She looked at Malloy again. “Did you tell Pete there was a tip regarding his home?”

  Sadie knew he hadn’t told Pete because when she texted Pete, he’d known nothing about it. He’d been talking to the owners of another one of the stolen phones but cut the interview short, calling Sadie for more details and saying he was on his way to meet them. She explained what had happened, but left out the part about her and Shawn having been caught with armloads of Jane’s stuff outside her apartment. Pete had enough to worry about right now.

  “It’s not typical for us to call the subject of a tip prior to substantiating it,” Malloy said. His voice was as tight as his expression.

  “Even when he’s a good friend?”

  “Especially if he’s a good friend,” Malloy spat back. “Do you have any idea the number of conflicts I’m up against with this investigation? It’s a very complicated situation that is becoming more complicated thanks to you and your constant meddling!”

  “I’m not the one who called in a tip about Pete’s house,” Sadie reminded him, trying to remain calm. “I’m not the enemy here.”

  His face reddened slightly. “I don’t know how to make it more clear to you that we are handling this and you are not!”

  “And I don’t know how to make it more clear to you that this is my situation, and I’m not going to sit by idly and hope that you get things figured out when I’ve already seen the progress we’ve made without you!”

  She thought Malloy’s eyes might pop out of his head as rage filled his face. “I can have you arrested!” he yelled, pulling himself up to his full height.

  Sadie was not cowed. She’d had it with this man. “For what? Being unlikable?”

  “For breaking and entering that woman’s apartment!”

  Oh, yeah, that, Sadie thought, somewhat diffused.

  Malloy continued, “And for interfering with a police investigation!”

  The sound of tires squealing into the driveway interrupted them. Pete jumped out at almost the same moment his car came to a stop. He looked at Sadie as he strode toward them, the sides of his jacket flaring out as he did so.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Malloy. “What are you doing here?”

  Malloy let out a breath and looked at Sadie with narrowed eyes. He might not know what she’d told Pete or how she knew the tip had been about his house, but he knew Sadie was the reason Pete was here. “An anonymous tip was called in,” he said finally. “Beacon and I came to check it out.”

  “What kind of tip?” Pete asked.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Malloy said irritably. “I have to follow procedure.”

  “Beacon went into the backyard,” Sadie said, causing both men to look at her. From the look on Malloy’s face she knew that she had to give him some credit for not slapping handcuffs on her right then.

  Pete turned toward the back gate without another word. Sadie followed; she didn’t want to be left alone with Malloy. Pete pushed opened the back gate with one hand.

  Beacon was walking through the flowerbeds on the west side of the yard. Pete’s late wife had been an avid gardener, and though she’d passed away nearly six years ago, she was still reflected in the array of flowers and shrubs in the yard. These days, Pete paid a landscaping company to keep up the yard; he didn’t have the green thumb she’d had.

  “Beacon!” Pete yelled, taking purposeful steps toward the younger man. “What are you doing?”

  “Cunningham!”

  Sadie came up short at the sound of Malloy’s voice behind her. She stepped aside to allow Malloy to catch up to Pete on his own but still stayed close enough to overhear what was happening. Malloy grabbed Pete’s arm, and Pete spun toward him while simultaneously pulling his arm away. His expression was thunderous as he glared at Malloy, who was a few inches shorter than Pete. “What is going on here?” he yelled, genuinely angry.

  Malloy had either overcome his procedural hesitation or he knew it was impossible to stick to. “We got a tip about marijuana plants in your yard.”

  Pete froze for the count of a breath. “What?”

  Beacon cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. “Eight so far, five flowering females.”

  “What!” Sadie and Pete said at the same time.

  “Interspersed with the landscaping.” Beacon waved toward a shrub at his feet, and Pete moved toward him quickly, coming up short as he looked at whatever Beacon was pointing at. His head moved slightly and he stepped a few feet to the left, then his eyes moved again and he took a few more steps in the same direction. He then stopped and looked to a few more specific points.

  From where Sadie stood at the edge of the patio she couldn’t see anything other than flowers and shrubbery planted so close together that she couldn’t tell where one plant ended and another began. She certainly couldn’t pick out the pointy leaves of a marijuana plant. But Pete’s expression confirmed what Beacon had said—there were marijuana plants growing in the flowerbeds.

  Sadie instantly remembered the indoor grow lights she’d seen in Jane’s apartment. She gasped and opened her mouth to tell them about it, but Pete started talking before she had a chance.

  “You know I didn’t plant these,” Pete said to Malloy. “The very idea that I would is ridiculous. And an outdoor female plant wouldn’t flower until fall. Obviously they’ve been transplanted.”

  “You know I have to follow up on a tip like this,” Malloy said, regret in his voice. “I had hoped it was leading us on another wild-goose chase and there would be nothing here.” He turned to Beacon. “Have you inspected the entire yard?”

  “Only this side,” he said, waving to the west side.

  Sadie scanned the rest of the yard. If Beacon had found eight plants in just one half of the yard, how many more could be in the other half? Sadie didn’t know what the importance was of some being flowering or female but Pete obviously did. Her stomach sank. Even though she wanted to argue that Jane was obviously behind this, Malloy couldn’t ignore this many marijuana plants. Six per adult were allowed under Amendmen
t 64 in Colorado, but they had to be in a secure area, not a backyard. From Pete’s silence she knew he was thinking the same thing, except he knew so much more about the law enforcement’s responsibility regarding such a situation.

  Sadie heard the hinge of the gate and looked over her shoulder to see Shawn entering the backyard. He joined her on the patio, observing the scene silently like she was. She leaned toward him and whispered what the tip had been. Shawn’s eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. Pete was still standing in a flowerbed, then he took slow steps back onto the lawn where he stopped in front of Malloy.

  “The landscape company I use for maintaining all this”—he waved his arm to include the entire yard—“was here a week ago. You can call Robert at Redman’s Landscaping, and he can verify that there were no marijuana plants here at that time. Surely there is someone who can determine how long ago these were transplanted. I had no idea these were here, and if I had known, I’d have alerted you to it.” He spoke with a professional calmness that made Sadie’s heart ache. Couldn’t Jane have left him alone? First Shawn’s bank account, then Sadie’s e-mail, and now Pete’s home. Would this affect the sale? Would Pete be arrested?

  “I don’t doubt any of that,” Malloy said to Pete with a softness that reminded Sadie that Malloy’s investigation had been anything but easy. “And I’m sure we will find adequate proof that there’s a conspiracy here, but my belief in your integrity can only change the course before us so much.” He glanced toward Sadie, and she was taken aback by the genuine concern on his face—the first she’d seen all day. He looked back at Pete. “I have tried to handle this situation to the best of my ability, but I can’t ignore this. I have a responsibility to my position and have already brought in the DA for Sadie’s burglary charge.”

  Pete looked at Sadie, and she gave him a penitent look. She would explain it to him but right now she had another detail she needed to share. “There were grow lights in Jane’s apartment,” she said. “In the bedroom closet.”