by Gerri Hill
It was 2:52 when a midnight black Toyota Camry pulled up beside the loading dock. Finn grabbed the binoculars before the car had even stopped.
“Well, well,” she murmured. Her intuition was correct after all. Jason Singleton got out, glancing at his watch, then his gaze traveled down the street.
She looked quickly at the laptop, but the security feed she was getting showed the loading dock as it had looked earlier. There was no sign of the car or Jason, even though he was obviously in the view of the security camera. She glanced at the timestamp, but it was accurate.
A few minutes later, a large truck came down the street, turning into the lot and backing up expertly to the loading dock. Again, the security feed showed nothing.
“Has to be on a loop or something,” she said out loud.
Her camera replaced the binoculars and she got shots of both license plates, the driver of the truck—a tall black man—and the two guys who got out with him, both muscular-looking, one black, one white. Jason Singleton was giving instructions, pointing, and she got several shots of him.
She jotted down the time—now 2:58—when the large freight doors were raised. All four men went inside and it was only ninety seconds later when they came back carrying a brown leather sofa. They took a furniture dolly out of the truck and used it to load two large recliners. Another smaller sofa—loveseat, perhaps?—was loaded last.
Sixteen minutes later, at 3:14, the freight doors closed and the truck pulled away. Jason Singleton got in his car and followed. He stopped on the street for a few seconds, then continued on. She watched the security feed, seeing just a flicker—a hiccup—as the empty bay and loading dock filled her screen.
“So he stops the cameras but keeps the timestamp running.”
She imagined if they were to go over the security feed, frame by frame, they’d be able to see when it was stopped and restarted, especially now that she had the exact time.
She smiled, relieved that this particular case was over. So relieved, in fact, she planned to head to the office right then to write up her report and download the photos she’d taken. Mr. Honeywell would no doubt be surprised by her findings.
* * *
As soon as she pulled up to the old building that housed Moonlight Avenue Investigations, she knew something was wrong. She stood staring at the front, trying to figure out what was different. The door was closed, but she pulled her gun off her hip even before it registered that she was seeing the smear of blood on the handle.
Her heart pounded to life as she went closer. Definitely blood. She tugged her shirt out of her jeans and used it to turn the knob, not wanting to contaminate any evidence should she have to call the police out. As soon as she walked inside, even in the darkness, she could tell the place had been trashed. She ignored the tipped-over chair in the entryway and stepped over the fallen lamp as she headed to her office. The door was open. Sammy always closed and locked it when he finished cleaning.
Using her elbow, she flipped the switch by the door, blinking against the bright light. Her office was an unrecognizable mess. Everything was turned upside down and inside out. She walked around her desk, her heart stopping as she saw him, blood pooled around his head.
She fell to her knees. “Sammy? Oh, my God. Sammy?”
His skin was cold to the touch when she rolled him over. He’d taken two shots, it seemed. One to the chest…one to the head.
“Oh, Sammy…no.”
She stood up on shaky legs, stumbling back outside, barely making it out before she lost what was left of the dinner she’d shared with Dee Woodard some six hours earlier.
Chapter Fifteen
Dee had been shocked to get a phone call from Finley Knight at 3:45 in the morning. Even more shocked by her strangled words.
“Sammy’s dead. He’s been shot.”
She looked at Finn now, the shadows on this dark street—Moonlight Avenue—broken only by the flashing lights of the police cars. Finn’s face alternated between red and blue as she leaned against one of the patrol cars, the lights swirling around her head. She hadn’t been able to console Finn earlier. The woman had been rocked by tears and was as grief-stricken as Dee had ever seen someone. They didn’t know each other well enough for the informality that had sprung up between them, but she’d offered her arms to Finn and Finn had clung to her desperately.
Now, Finn stared at the building, her tears appearing to have been pushed away, her face nearly impassive. Dee walked over to her, wishing she had coffee or something to offer her.
“How you holding up?” she asked stupidly.
It took several seconds before Finn looked at her. “Thank you for coming. And…for earlier.”
Dee nodded. “I spoke with Captain Mabanks. He’s going to let me run with this one since I was already on the scene.” She cleared her throat. “Are you up for some questions?”
Finn let out a heavy breath. “No, I don’t know who could have done this. Yes, they were obviously looking for something. No, Sammy wasn’t a target. Yes, you can take a look at some of my prior cases if you think that’ll help.”
Dee smiled slightly. “Forgot you used to do this for a living. You could humor me and let me at least ask the question before you answer.”
Finn glanced toward the building and Dee saw the expression on her face change. Dee turned, too, watching as they brought the body out.
“Sammy lived upstairs.” Finn cleared her throat before continuing. “He didn’t have a car so whoever did this would have assumed the office was vacant. Sammy probably heard them, went down to investigate.”
“I’ll…I’ll need to notify his family.”
“There’s none. I was his family.”
“Is there anyone else? Next of kin?”
Finn shook her head. “His wife died before I met him. He had three kids, I think, but he hadn’t been in contact with them in…I don’t know, twenty years or so.”
“I’ll see if we can’t locate them.” She arched an eyebrow, knowing that Finn, in her profession, could have found them easily. “You never tried?”
“I offered. He didn’t want to. He always said it was their choice to leave, their choice to abandon the family.” Finn looked at her. “When his wife died, he was all alone. He buried her all alone.” She wiped at a tear. “I was his family. He was mine.”
“I’m sorry, Finn. I truly am.”
Finn brushed at her tears again, then cleared her throat once more. “So…where do we start?”
“We? No, no. There’ll be no ‘we’ in this one, Finn.” She pointed her finger at her. “You stay out of this. I can handle it.”
Finn stood up. “Right. Whatever you say.”
“I mean it.”
Finn squared her shoulders. “That man…that lovely, beautiful, innocent man,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion, “gets all of my attention, Detective Woodard. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
Dee knew she could demand all she wanted and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to Finn. Not now, anyway. Maybe in a few days, but not now. So she nodded.
“Go home, Finn. We’ll wrap this up here in an hour or so. I’ll call you. We’ll have a little more formal question and answer session. Okay?”
Finn nodded and turned away, heading toward her car. Dee doubted she was going home. It was nearly five in the morning. She ran a hand through her hair, then went back inside.
She paused in the doorway to Finn’s office. Yes, they were obviously looking for something. All of the drawers and filing cabinets had been emptied, their contents strewn about. Books had been shoved off the shelves. The small sofa’s cushions had been ripped open as well as the chairs.
So what were they looking for?
“Detective…we’re out of here.”
She nodded. “You get some usable prints?”
“Ton of prints on the desk. I assume most belong to Ms. Knight.”
She wondered if they’d find hers mixed in there as well. Had she touched
Finn’s desk on the occasions she’d sat across from her?”
“Got a blood print on a piece of paper. Well, a partial, but enough. I think that’s our best bet.”
“Good, Jim. Good. Let me know as soon as you get something.”
He nodded. “You’ll be the first one I call.”
The forensic team was small compared to Houston’s, but she’d found them to be very competent. She hoped like hell the print panned out.
Chapter Sixteen
The sky was beginning to show some color, reminding her that no matter what happened—no matter who died—the world kept turning, the sun kept coming around, day after day.
She’d been sitting out on her pier since Detective Woodard had sent her home. She’d actually tried to work. She had a report to give to Mr. Honeywell. Instead, she’d taken out a bottle of scotch and nearly filled a glass to the top, then had slowly made her way to the end of the pier, forgoing one of the colorful Adirondack chairs in favor of sitting on the very pier itself. She sat with her feet dangling over the bay, the glass of whiskey cradled in her hands.
She tried to remember her last conversation with Sammy. He’d been fussing at her about taking better care of herself, telling her she needed to find a young woman. He fussed over her all the time. Fussed over her like she was family…like she was his daughter.
She wiped at a tear, hating that she’d broken down in front of Dee Woodard. She simply couldn’t hold on to her stoic expression a second longer. It was at that moment, when Dee had offered her a shoulder to cry on, that Finn realized how completely alone she was in this world. So alone that she took comfort from a virtual stranger, sobbing in her arms as her heart broke for Sammy.
“See you tomorrow, Sammy.”
“Good Lord willing.”
She shook her head. No. There would be no more tomorrows. Because someone had shot Sammy dead. Shot him in her office. They were looking for something. She could picture it now, could almost hear it as they tossed furniture and drawers around. Sammy had heard it all, no doubt. She could see him coming down the stairs, could see him pushing her office door open a little wider. If he’d startled them, they would have shot him there at the door. No, he saw them. He probably crept up behind them, forgetting that he was eighty-two years old. They were by the credenza, their back to the door. Had he grabbed one of them? Did he get a punch in?
She stared out at the bay, barely noticing the sun changing from red to yellow, not seeing the flock of white pelicans soaring by. What were they looking for? What could she possibly have in her possession that would warrant all of that? What did she have that someone would kill for?
Nothing. She had nothing. She frowned. Someone obviously thought she had something. She thought back over her last handful of clients. None of the cases were spectacular, nothing unusual.
Daniel Frazier. He was murdered. Connie Frazier’s lover was nowhere to be found. Her office was trashed and Sammy was killed. Was it all by chance? No. In her line of work, nothing was a coincidence.
So what did they think Daniel Frazier had given her? Why would Daniel Frazier give her anything to begin with? He was a businessman with four pizza joints. According to him, he worked his ass off. And even though he hired her to follow his wife, she’d poked around enough to know his finances were in order, no evident debt to speak of. No red flags popped up. In fact, he was doing a bang-up business. They lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but it was nothing extravagant, certainly not what his finances indicated he could afford. They appeared to be a normal family with two children—a son and a daughter—both in college. The only glaring oddity from the picture of the perfect family was that Connie was cheating on her husband with Michael Drake.
Dee had told her to stay out of it and she knew she should. If the roles were reversed, she knew she wouldn’t want a private investigator poking around in her case. But the roles weren’t reversed and Sammy was family. No way was she going to sit idly by while the police did their thing.
No way.
Chapter Seventeen
“What time did you arrive?” Dee asked as she stirred sugar into her coffee.
Finn rolled her eyes. “How many times are we going to go over it?”
“Until something jumps out at me.”
Finn leaned against the counter and refilled her own coffee cup. Dee thought it’d be better to question Finn here, at her house, rather than request they meet downtown at the station. It was obvious that Finn hadn’t slept. What was it going on? Twenty-four hours? More? She looked exhausted—physically and emotionally. Still, she couldn’t tell if Finn was being intentionally vague with her answers or if she was telling the truth.
“Dee, if you’re trying to see if I’m going to slip up and change one of my answers, you’re wasting your time. And mine. I’m not going to keep answering the same questions over and over.” She took a sip of her coffee. “No offense.”
Dee gave a rather sheepish smile. “Sorry. Again, I forgot you used to be a cop.”
“A detective,” Finn corrected.
“Of course.” Dee closed up the notepad she always used and moved it to the side. “Okay, then let’s just talk.”
“Where’s your partner?” Finn asked unexpectedly.
“My partner?”
“Each time I’ve seen you on official police business, you’ve been alone. Mabanks was always a stickler for traveling in pairs.”
Dee nodded. “Yes, well, I sometimes leave him behind. He’s young. Green. We have different methods.”
“What? Thinks he’s a big stud with a gun now that he’s made detective?”
“At first, yes. We still clash some.” She picked up her coffee cup. “Sammy has a son living in the Dallas area. He’s the only one we’ve been able to locate.” She met Finn’s gaze. “He’s been in and out of jail. In more than out the last ten years or so. Drugs, mostly.”
“Did he even know who Sammy was?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but he didn’t care. He doesn’t want to claim the body.” She watched as Finn’s fists clenched into tight balls.
“His wife is buried here in Corpus. That’s where he’d want to be.”
“If no next of kin claims him, then he’ll be cremated.”
“I’ll claim him. I’ll pay for the burial. Please don’t cremate him. Sammy was old-school. He wanted to be buried beside his wife.”
Dee nodded. “Of course. I’ll take care of it then.”
Finn seemed to relax then and she moved back to the table. “Thank you.”
Dee stared at her. “Who do you think did it?”
Their eyes held for a moment, and she wondered if Finn would offer a guess or not. She could almost see the indecision as Finn warred with herself.
“I imagine it was the same person who killed Daniel Frazier.”
Dee wasn’t surprised that’s where Finn’s guess took her. Michael Drake was at the top of Dee’s list too.
“Did Mr. Frazier give you anything to keep for him?”
“Now don’t you think I would have already told you if he had?”
Dee smiled. “I think no such thing.”
Finn gave a small smile too. “You’re probably right, but no, he didn’t give me anything. He was here at the office twice, like I said. We discussed nothing other than his wife.” Finn paused. “You think it was Michael Drake too?”
“Perhaps. But we can’t get locked in on something without evidence. Let’s see if the prints turn up anything. It could have absolutely nothing to do with Michael Drake or Daniel Frazier.”
Finn pushed her coffee cup aside. “When can I get back in my office?”
“Give me the rest of the day, at least. And I couldn’t help but notice that the building is large, yet your office area is small.”
Finn nodded. “I rent out the other side.”
“To?”
“Simon Dorsky. He’s an accountant.”
“Is it possible that he was the intended
target? I mean, his office and not yours?”
“Doubtful. He’s a one-man show. Does mostly individual tax returns with just a handful of business clients. Very tame.”
“Still, I’ll need to interview him. Can you give me his number?”
“Sure. I already called him and told him he couldn’t get into his office today. He would probably jump at the chance to meet you there. The murder has apparently inconvenienced him.”
Dee jotted down the number on her notepad then stood. “You should get some sleep, Finn. A few hours, at least.”
“I know. I plan to.”
Dee knew she was lying but didn’t comment on it. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You’ll keep me in the loop, right?”
“As much as I can, yes.” She expected Finn to protest, but she simply nodded. “I can see myself out.”
“I’m not that exhausted that I can’t walk you to the door.”
As they stood outside, Dee looked around, admiring the manicured lawn, the view of the bay, the two large palm trees swaying overhead.
“You’ve got a nice place here.”
“Thanks. I hope to slow down one day long enough to enjoy it.”
“Yes. The years get away, don’t they?”
Finn nodded slowly. “They certainly do.”
Chapter Eighteen
Finn stood in her empty office. Empty, that is, except for her old desk. The transformation had taken only a couple of days. She looked around the bare walls, but her gaze inevitably drifted to the spot where Sammy had been. The office had been scrubbed clean, the hardwood floors redone, the walls painted. Everything had been thrown out, including all the paperwork that had been strewn across the floor. It was mostly for show anyway. She kept everything electronically.
She walked over to her desk, touching the surface, her fingers running over the many scratches…scratches that were already there when she bought the thing at a garage sale all those years ago. The prints the police had collected from the desk had proven to be useless. Most were hers, of course. The bloody fingerprint that had been on one of the papers on the floor had been Sammy’s. The guys, whoever they were, were professional. Wearing gloves, most likely, not leaving any evidence behind.