The Journey of B.J. Donovan (Moonlight Murder Duology Book 1)

by S. A. Austin

  CHAPTER 53

  Captain Ory Fortier folded his hands over a short stack of paperwork on his desk when two detectives showed up at his door with a sense of urgency about them even though they hadn’t been summoned.

  After Lucas Cantin entered the room, Gary Northcutt poked his head out in the hallway and had one last look around before shutting the door. Their eyes met. Gary slightly shook his head to let Lucas know that a certain person wasn’t watching them.

  “We need to talk to you about Officer Wentzel.” Lucas glimpsed at the outer office on the other side of Fortier’s black mini blinds in time to see Wentzel walking up to Little Dick’s desk.

  They brought Fortier up-to-date on the investigation where Wentzel was their main focus.

  “We need you to ask for a search warrant, sir,” Gary concluded.

  * * *

  Rolling his chair out from under his desk, Gary looked around for Lucas. It dawned on him that this might be a good time to call BJ. She was in a safe place, and he knew she was working on her new book, so he’d been trying to leave her alone.

  However, ever since that evening when he first met her at her restaurant, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He was truly smitten with the beautiful and mysterious BJ Donovan.

  He called Laertes Sonnier’s place. No answer. Called her cell phone. It wasn’t on. Chose not to call her house. Her husband might answer. With his hand resting on the desk phone, thinking where else to call, he reached in his pocket for the pack of cigarettes that weren’t there.

  Bad time to quit. Again.

  Lucas appeared before him. The glum expression on his face rivaled the news he shared. Their request for a search warrant had been denied. “Reason being, not only is this one of our own, but the evidence is too circumstantial.”

  They stared at one another for a moment. Nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll meet you outside.” Gary entered the men’s room.

  Arriving at Wentzel’s place on Vine Street a few minutes later, the men waited in the car and canvassed the area. They knew the rookie traveled most of downtown on foot.

  “C’mon, Lucas.”

  They parted company on the sidewalk.

  Lucas rounded the corner of the building, moving fast toward the fire escape out back.

  Gary rushed up the stairs to Wentzel’s two bedroom apartment on the third floor. He lightly knocked on the door believing that pounding on it would’ve sent the wrong message to Wentzel, if he’s home, plus bring unwanted attention from his neighbors.

  Four more rapid knocks with his knuckles. Gary withdrew a brown vinyl pouch containing a lock pick set from his overcoat. Quietly entered the apartment.

  He first had a look inside of a coat closet, the first door on the left. Lacking anything of interest, he moved forward a few feet up the hallway. Also on his left was a small windowless kitchen. Twin doors hid a washer and dryer. At the end of the hallway, his gaze encircled the living room. Two windows. He maneuvered around the furniture to get to the window above the fire escape. He drew back the curtains, threw open the window, whistled for Lucas to come up.

  Lucas climbed the rusty ornamental iron steps, his shoes clanging noisily. You’d make a lousy burglar, dude. He squeezed his medium body frame through the window, bumping the top of his head hard enough to make him grunt.

  Gary pressed a finger to his lips. “Sh!”

  Lucas silently scolded himself over his clumsiness. Retraced Gary’s steps to study the place and form his own opinion.

  Gary paused at the entrance to another hallway, noting the floor plan was nothing more than an upside down, backward capital L. Four doors, two to a side. The first on the left housed the hot water tank, heat and air conditioning units.

  The second door on the left was the bathroom, the white porcelain so clean it sparkled under the overhead light. The wall where the hallway came to an end held an oil painting of a seascape in an old frame. To the right of it, the third door appeared to be Wentzel’s bedroom.

  Gary entered, his eyes flicking all about, apprehensively.

  Lucas caught up to him. Turned his attention to the bedroom closet. The clothes were hung in an orderly manner. Shoes, polished and gleaming, were arranged in a perfect row. They were genuinely surprised the guy was such a neat freak.

  Coming back up the short hallway, the fourth door concerned them the most. It was closed.

  Lucas unholstered his gun, folded his hands around it, and pointed it at the ceiling. He put his back to the wall. With a quick snap of his head he signaled Gary to open the door.

  CHAPTER 54

  Gary twisted the knob just enough to know the door wasn’t locked. A quick get ready signal to Lucas, he swung the door inward, keeping a firm grip on the knob. Swiftly withdrew his gun.

  On reflex, the men crouched with their arms outstretched, both hands on the grip of their pistols. Facing in opposite directions, they readied themselves to return gunfire if needed.

  Walking backward, they met in the center of the room, recognizing that it’s an office not another bedroom. Lucas aimed his gun at the closet. Gary advanced, turned the knob, moved out of the way fast. The closet was completely empty.

  Holstering their weapons, trying hard not to laugh at themselves, they set about the task of learning what was so special about the room that the door needed to be kept closed.

  “Closed but not locked. Interesting,” Lucas murmured.

  Turning clockwise past the door, a waist-high three-tier metal shelf stood against the wall. A catty-cornered oak four-drawer filing cabinet in the corner. An oak computer desk with a built-in hutch. One wide rectangular window. An end table holding a large brass lamp. Loveseat with an oak coffee table. A tall and bushy plant resembling baby elephant ears. The closet. The door.

  Custom-made shutters blocked out every ray of daylight. Lucas opened them. The landing for the fire escape stretched from that window to the living room window. He quickly closed them on the off chance he might be seen.

  Several unopened envelopes were piled on top of the filing cabinet. Although wearing gloves, Gary got a pencil out of his coat, used the eraser end to separate them. Credit card statement. Utility bills. An assortment of flyers and ads addressed to Current Resident. Not one piece of personalized mail in the form of letters or cards.

  Starting at the bottom, he pulled the drawers open one after the other. Two were empty. The next to the top held four green folders of receipts labeled: rent, utilities, phone, miscellaneous. The top drawer gripped his attention. A camera, and three snapshots of BJ. Two had been taken outdoors in a parklike setting. One inside of a bookstore. Each shot taken at a distance. Each with her wearing the blond wig he secretly disliked. He resisted disturbing the order they’d been placed in. Shut the drawer, reluctantly moved away, strangely happy the drawers weren’t locked.

  “Look here.” said Lucas, still edgy over breaking into the guy’s apartment. He tilted his head at the desk, the only spot in the apartment not in pristine order.

  Besides a computer, the rest of the desk and the hutch held the usual array of office supplies. A very old Royal typewriter. Many used and unused sheets of white copy paper scattered about. Four balled-up sheets of paper had been arranged to form a perfect square. Made no sense to the detectives. Several newspaper clippings of the alley murders, piled in random order.

  Gary kept thinking about the photographs. How, and why, does this guy know BJ? He recalled one photo was taken in a bookstore. He’s just a fan? Gary didn’t think so. Why the outdoor photos? Seems to me he’s stalking.... “Damn.”

  Lucas rolled one of the balled-up papers away from the others, and smoothed it out. It was a copy of the anonymous letter Gary had received. He assumed the guy didn’t care for the wording after printing it. The same message had been handwritten on the remaining crumpled sheets of paper, the lettering done in a childlike scrawl.

  Gary got out his cell phone. Called BJ. No answer. Why is her phone off, or go un
answered, all the time? Does she have a second cell phone she doesn’t want me to know about?

  “Lucas, you know a lot about computers. Think you can get inside this one? I want to know if he sent any email to BJ Donovan.” He opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and held up one of the photos.

  Lucas observed Gary’s pained expression more than the photo. “I can try. ‘Course if his email is password protected, I dunno. Mine’s not. Just click and go. I got nothing to hide.” He glimpsed at Gary. Unlike some people.

  Gary recollected BJ saying something similar about her two email accounts.

  Lucas pulled the desk chair backward over a clear plastic floor mat. Sat down, and walked the chair forward. He turned on the hard drive and monitor. Didn’t take long for him to learn a password was indeed needed to access the email account. Why? Doesn’t Jacob Wentzel live alone? It appears that he does.

  He first typed words related to law enforcement. Cops. Robbers. Detect. Arrest. Lockup. Received the same message every time. Access denied. An old email account he used to have required an eight-letter password.

  Lucas swiveled the chair in slow motion, observing everything in the room. Donovan’s novel was on the shelf. He didn’t understand how he missed such an important detail before. Next to it was a very pretty ornate box. Missed that, too. A little too girlie for a guy to own? Maybe it’s a gift. For Donovan? From Donovan? He glimpsed at her book again.

  His eyes landed on the book’s title. Lucas typed ‘suitesue’. The account opened. Emails, mostly spam, cascaded down the screen. A quick search of Sent Mail. Lucas counted thirty-seven addressed to Suite Sue. A random read showed most, if not all, were nothing more than silly flirty crap.

  “Certainly explains how he knows her.” Gary said.

  “Any clue how he got her email address?”

  “It’s on her website.”

  “Makes sense. So, is there any reason you can think of for why he calls her Suite Sue instead of BJ? And how the heck did he get close enough to her to become so... friendly? Some of these notes are downright filthy.”

  “Hold on, I think I heard something.” Gary left the room.

  Lucas brought up the last email Wentzel had sent. Walked over and picked up the box on the shelf. Opened it. Drew in a deep breath, released it in a slow whistle.

  “Shut it down,” Gary said in a loud whisper, rushing into the room. “Wentzel’s here. He’s in the hall talking with a neighbor. She probably saw me outside his door.”

  Lucas put the box in the pocket of his overcoat. About to shut down the computer, the email he’d opened demanded attention.

  Hey Suite Sue,

  You think screwing Northcutt is going to keep you safe?

  “Shiiit,” Lucas whispered.

  “C’mon. We only have a second, two at the most.” Gary pulled open the shutters, unlocked and opened the window. Oddly, there wasn’t a screen to deal with. He went out. “Hurry!”

  Lucas shut off the monitor and hard drive without closing everything down in the proper order. Rolled the chair under the desk the way it was before he used it. Tried not to think about the dents he had made in the plastic floor mat. Going headfirst through the window he fell on the fire escape, reached up and pressed the tips of his fingers over the slats in the shutters and pulled them closed. Had the window most of the way down before it jammed. Another quarter inch and he would’ve had it.

  The men ducked their heads when they heard Wentzel say “Ki moun ki Ia?”

  They raced down the stairs doing their level best not to make any more noise than they already were. Once they touched the ground, they were off and running around the corner of the building. Didn’t slow down until they made it to the next block over.

  “We forgot to close his frickin’ office door, Gary.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Any idea what he said?”

  “He asked who is there,” said Gary. “Damn. How close was that? I don’t think he had enough time to get out the window, since it was stuck, then walk over to the guardrail, look down and see us before we ran around the corner. Do you? We entered his place illegally. Cap’n Fortier will have a shit fit when he finds out.”

  “If he finds out. And I don’t think Wentzel will be the one to tell him. He has too much of his own shit to account for. One cop to another, I do hope he finds out the window’s unlocked. I’d hate to hear the guy had been robbed and murdered in his sleep on account of us.”

  Gary raised his eyebrows. “You’re a better man than me.”

  They waited on the corner of the intersection for a break in the traffic.

  “No, I have another reason for keeping the asshole alive.” Lucas showed Gary the box. Inside were a gold cross and chain, a wedding band, and a cop’s badge. The fourth item sent a chill down their spines. A red claw hair clip with a few red hairs trapped in the hinge.

  CHAPTER 55

  Northcutt and Cantin entered the captain’s office once again, this time acting no better than schoolboys who’d been sent to the principal’s office for misbehaving.

  Ory Fortier studied their hangdog expressions. “I have a feeling I don’t want to know.”

  “You don’t,” said Gary.

  Lucas placed the box on Fortier’s desk. Stepped back in line.

  “Well, gee fellas, it’s awful pretty, but honestly, you shouldn’t have. Honestly. And Christmas is still a month away. Can’t be a birthday gift. Mine’s come and gone. I’ve never heard of, nor have I ever given or received, a Thanksgiving present. So, what’ve we got here?”

  “Open it. Sir,” said Lucas.

  Captain Fortier picked up the box, popped the lid. The song about one of these things is not like the others played in his head. The badge. A cop’s badge, as in Renee Yeager’s badge. Other items found their fixed place in his memory. Nolin. Luce. He set the box down. Using the pointy tip of a letter opener, he held the one and a half inch long claw-shaped hair clip close to his eyes. Put on his glasses. “Something’s on it. Some kind of sticky stuff. Syrup? Pinesap? Real question is, who does it belong to?”

  “With all due respect, sir, the question you should be asking is where’d the box come from?” Gary braced himself for the tongue-lashing his boss was known for.

  Fortier rose up off his chair, staying behind his desk. “Talk to me. And no matter how awful it is, and I have a feeling it’s seriously dreadful, I want you to tell me the truth and nothing but.”

  “We searched Jacob Wentzel’s place without your knowledge or consent. No warrant,” said Gary. “We went on gut instinct alone.” He glanced at Lucas who stared stone-faced at the wall. “We, I mean, I knew something was off with Wentzel’s note-taking during the briefing. He wrote about Nolin’s necklace, the cross.”

  Fortier flicked his gaze back and forth between the men. They could see the grim expression in his eyes. Made them feel bad. “A note? He wrote a note so you two geniuses presumed it was okay to break and enter?”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” said Lucas.

  Fortier sat down, put his arms on the desk, and tented his fingers. He glared at Lucas. “You mean more complicated than explaining why two decorated detectives committed a crime, a crime serious enough to cost you both your badges, all on, what did you call it Northcutt? Oooh, I remember. Fucking gut instinct,” he shouted.

  The men winced.

  “You’re overlooking a crucial element here, Captain. Wentzel had Renee Yeager’s badge in his possession,” Gary stated, flatly. “A few of us knew she tucked the thing inside her bra, so we know positively she had it with her. Unlike Nolin and Sarri, Renee wasn’t left in the alley for someone else to show up and mess with her body, or, to steal her badge just for fun. She’d been taken away. We don’t even know if she’s dead. But it’s safe to say only her kidnapper had the opportunity to seize the badge. So far, that would be Officer Jacob Wentzel.”

  “We have a plan,” said Lucas.

  Fortier scoped out the ceiling.
“I’m listening.”

  “When Wentzel goes on duty tonight, we’ll put the box back where it was. Then shadow him until he gives us probable cause for a legal search. Hopefully, when we return to his apartment later with a search warrant, and I’m sure we will, the box will still be there.”

  Gary nodded in agreement. “And hopefully, he hasn’t already noticed it’s gone.”

  Since his hand had been forced, Captain Fortier agreed to go along with their plan.

  CHAPTER 56

  Northcutt and Cantin tiptoed up the fire escape. The window was locked.

  “Damn,” Gary whispered. “So much for this great plan of action.” Wentzel might be on duty, but Gary knew he had to keep his voice down because of the neighbors.

  The men took their time. No need to rush. Fortier intentionally ordered Wentzel to patrol the north side of the city. For the next few hours he’d be miles away.

  Unlocking the front door effortlessly, they entered. Went their own way. Neither of them saw any noticeable differences other than a red coffee mug turned upside down in a slate blue dish drainer in the kitchen sink, and Wentzel’s office door partly open this time.

  Cantin positioned the little box on the metal shelf, close to the way he remembered.

  Northcutt turned on the computer. Looked at Cantin. “Might as well. Wentzel won’t be home until midnight.”

  Cantin clicked on the link for the email account. It was empty. Everything had been deleted. Inbox, outbox, saved and sent drafts. Even the recycle bin had been cleaned out.

  “Let’s assume he knows we, or someone else, accessed his account. Question is, how did he know?” Gary scrutinized everything on and around the computer desk.

  “There.” Lucas pointed to a mini camera mounted on the top shelf of the hutch.

  To one side of the camera were several crime novels between a set of bookends in the shape of a large pair of silver handcuffs. The other side held a subwoofer and two small speakers, all wired to the outdated computer.