Justice Betrayed

by Patricia Bradley

  He spread the crime scene photos on the conference room table. It was sad when photos like these were the last ones taken of a person. He picked up one that showed the entry wound. Rachel looked over his shoulder at the photo, and he felt her shiver.

  “Looks like a small caliber gun was used,” she said.

  He nodded, very aware of her nearness. “Close range too.”

  “Like, maybe something a woman would use,” she said.

  “Good point.” He opened the folder and started reading the first page of Takenaka’s report. “Says here that Foxx was killed in his car on a remote road in Shelby County. Shot once in the head.”

  “What was he doing out in the boondocks in the first place?” she asked and picked up another folder. “It looks like Fields asked that same question. And came up with either a girlfriend or a drug deal gone bad. I’d go with drug dealer since someone wiped the car clean.”

  He tried to visualize a girlfriend shooting him. “If it were in the heat of passion, we’d more than likely be looking at a bullet to the chest. This is more of an execution-type killing.”

  “Except drug dealers like big guns. Too bad we don’t have the files that Vic Vegas put together.” Rachel finished reading Fields’s report and laid it on the table. “It doesn’t look like they had much to go on.”

  Boone looked over the top of his file. “This is interesting. According to this, Foxx gambled quite a bit out in Vegas. Borrowed money from some shady characters.”

  “In addition to the women he hit up?” Rachel asked.

  “Looks like it. Takenaka had two theories. One, he’d run afoul of a loan shark, or two, it was a lovers’ rendezvous gone bad. The detective favored the loan shark angle.” Boone tended to agree. Not many women had the nerves to shoot a man in the head.

  He looked over the list of people interviewed. Mostly family or people associated with his career in the entertainment business. He stopped at Judge Lucien Winslow’s name and scanned the interview.

  The Judge was noncommittal about Foxx, and according to the report, he’d represented the entertainer at one time. It had been a matter involving a woman who claimed the Elvis impersonator had swindled her. Lucinda Vetch.

  The name sounded familiar, and he wrote it down. Maybe she got even with him. No, the detective indicated she had an airtight alibi. Still, she could have hired a hit man. He grabbed a phone book and scanned the Vs. There weren’t too many people in Memphis with the last name Vetch, and none named Lucinda. Maybe she’d married. It was definitely a lead he wanted to check out.

  21

  COLD AIR BLEW into the conference room, chilling Rachel. She figured she should at least try to finish her sandwich, so she picked up the other half and took a bite. Sawdust would go down easier. It was her taste buds and not the turkey melt.

  She slid her gaze toward Boone. It was a little late to figure out that if ever there was a man she would risk her heart with, it was him. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t pushed her way into Homicide and had given their relationship a chance to develop. But from their first date, she’d gotten the feeling Boone was looking to settle down, and that’s what frightened her. She wasn’t ready to get married again.

  She hadn’t been ready when she married Corey. Rachel had just let Corey sweep her along with his plans until it was too late to back out. It didn’t help that her father approved of the marriage. It was only afterward that she realized she didn’t love her husband the way she should. Sometimes Rachel wondered if she was capable of loving that way at all.

  Brushing the thoughts away, Rachel picked up Takenaka’s report, and dread squeezed her chest. She should have told Boone that Vic thought Harrison’s and her mother’s cases were connected. That she thought they were.

  Maybe she should have told him the real reason her parents separated. She’d never told anyone that the Judge had been having an affair . . . But had he actually been involved with someone? All she really had to go on was what she’d overheard her mother say. What if Rachel had heard wrong? She rested her forehead against her hand. It was all so muddied in her memory now.

  They’d argued about him working all the time. And her mother had accused him of having a mistress. Rachel automatically assumed it was true when he moved out. She’d been a teenager, not really mature enough to understand their relationship.

  Why not ask her father about it? She might be a grown woman, but the idea of asking her father a question like that turned her insides to Jell-O. And since she didn’t know for sure, she’d been right to hold that information back.

  But she had to watch it when she was around Boone. He had a way of making her want to confide in him, when he wasn’t driving her crazy with his micromanaging. Wait a minute—that wasn’t fair. If he micromanaged, it was because he only wanted the best from his detectives. When his questions made her second-guess herself, maybe she needed to step back and reevaluate the situation.

  Was that so different from the Judge, and even Corey? Maybe not so different from her father—she figured he’d always had her interests at heart. But once she and Corey had married, Corey had undermined every thought Rachel had if it disagreed with his. She massaged her temple. Enough. Eat and get back to work.

  With dogged determination, Rachel finished the sandwich. She’d get a headache if she didn’t eat, and she couldn’t afford that. She sorted through the other items and picked up a spreadsheet Sergeant Takenaka had created. It was a timeline, starting with the first incident report. A farmer taking a load of steers to market stopped to investigate when he saw Foxx slumped over the steering wheel of his parked car. Finding him dead would have been a horrible shock.

  She scanned the timeline. The detective had interviewed Randy Culver as well as Vic and other Elvis impersonators. Where was that program Nana gave her? Her bag. She pulled it out and compared the names of some of the older performers. Takenaka had interviewed three of them. Hair on her arms raised when another name caught her eye. Monica Carpenter. “Boone—”

  “It says here Sergeant Takenaka interviewed your father,” he said, sliding a folder toward her. “And that he represented Foxx in a lawsuit.”

  The sandwich soured in her stomach. She should have realized that information would be in the detectives’ report. “After Vic mentioned the Judge had represented Foxx in a lawsuit, I asked Dad about it,” she said. “He indicated he represented him one time and that Foxx was a con artist.”

  “That’s pretty much what this report says.”

  He handed her the file, and she looked over it. Lucinda Vetch—that must be the name the Judge couldn’t remember Friday night.

  “What do you remember about Foxx?”

  “I barely remember him. He was Mom’s friend, and at fifteen, I thought her friends were old.” She laughed. “They weren’t much older than I am now.”

  “Anyone else in her circle of friends acquainted with Foxx?”

  She searched her memory, then said, “Nana remembered him. Oh, and Terri would have known him. She choreographed the routines and would have been involved with all the performers. But look at this.”

  She showed him the timeline. “Sergeant Takenaka interviewed several of the people involved in the Elvis contest, including Monica Carpenter.”

  “So Ms. Carpenter lied to you about knowing Vic Vegas.” He flipped through his notes. “I have her address. What do you say we pay her a visit?”

  “How about the others he interviewed?”

  He flipped through the report. His eyes widened. “Did you see this? Why would Takenaka interview Donna Dumont?”

  “Donna?” Rachel shook her head to clear it. “She’s a big Elvis fan, but I didn’t realize she went back that far. I certainly don’t remember her.”

  “Let’s see what she can tell us,” Boone said.

  Rachel dialed Donna’s extension and asked her to come to the conference room.

  A few minutes later Donna appeared at the door. As usual, she was impeccably dressed in a yello
w linen jacket that came to her knees over skinny white pants. And as usual her red hair was fluffed high. Rachel wondered how much gray was under the red dye.

  “Sorry to be so long, but I couldn’t find anyone to cover the desk. What’s going on? And have you had an update on Randy?”

  The office manager had already waylaid Rachel when she walked through the door with questions about Randy and if she’d learned any more about the present with Rachel’s name on it.

  “No.” She waved toward the papers. “We’re going over another case, and your name came up. Got a minute?”

  “Sure. What case?” She sat at the end of the table.

  “Man’s name is Harrison Foxx.”

  Her face clouded. “I remember him. Tragic what happened. He was a really good Elvis tribute artist, and one of the first I met when I first started going to the Elvis Week events.”

  Rachel noticed she didn’t say impersonator. “Do you remember seeing me there?”

  Donna’s eyes widened. “You were there?”

  She nodded. “I was with my mom, Gabby Winslow. She was in charge of the gala.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have known any of the important people,” the office manager said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m kind of embarrassed to say I was starstruck. I loved Elvis growing up, and some of those guys were really good.”

  “What do you remember about Harrison Foxx’s murder?” Boone asked and handed Rachel the file.

  The tiniest of shrugs accompanied the older woman’s lifted brows. “How awful I felt. It crushed me, just knowing someone who’d been murdered. He was only thirty-five.”

  Rachel scanned the file. “It says here you went out to dinner with him once.”

  Her lips spread in a wide smile. “Yes. It was like being with a celebrity. People stopped by our table and asked for his autograph. I think that’s what made his death so hard. I never got to really know him. Who knows where our relationship might have gone.”

  And now she had her cap set for the Judge, and if Rachel weren’t rooting for Terri, she wouldn’t mind seeing Donna and the Judge get together. But knowing her father, that wasn’t going to happen—he was too much like Rachel. “Do you know of anyone who had it in for him?”

  Donna thought a minute. “Not really. Like I said, I didn’t get a chance to know him that well.”

  “How about the other performers? Was anyone jealous of him?” Boone asked. “Or maybe girlfriends?”

  A frown creased her brow. “There was this one incident . . .”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Harrison had invited me backstage at another event, downtown, I think. A woman jumped all over him, claimed he owed her some money. Embarrassed him. He told me later she was crazy, but I didn’t believe her, anyway.”

  The man was dead, and Rachel refrained from telling her she should have believed it. “Do you remember her name?”

  “It was Monica. Monica Carpenter from the contest.”

  Boone leaned forward. “How about Vic Vegas. Did you know him?”

  “The man that was here Friday? I saw him at Blues & Such Friday night, and those were the only times I can remember ever seeing him, although I probably have. I can’t believe he’s dead too.” She gasped and turned to Rachel. “That case he wanted you to investigate—was it Harrison’s?”

  Rachel had forgotten she mentioned at the gym why Vic came to see her. “Yes,” she said.

  “You were there last night. Did you see anyone around Culver’s table?” Boone asked.

  Donna’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No, I was watching the performers. I hope he’s going to be all right.”

  “It’s still too soon to tell,” he said.

  “That’s the impression I got from the news reports. Someone said he used the wrong insulin.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I overheard one of the waitresses talking when I left. They think someone tried to kill him. Is that true?”

  “We don’t have all the lab reports back yet,” Boone said. “But if you hear anything else, let us know.”

  22

  RACHEL PICKED UP THE TAKENAKA REPORT again and scanned it, stopping when she came to Lucinda Vetch’s name. “Did you get an address for Ms. Vetch?”

  “Not a home address, but I did find a Lucinda Vetch with a modeling agency. But it being Sunday, I only got her answering machine. Maybe Monica Carpenter knows her. She seems to know everyone else, so I think it’s time to go talk to her again.”

  Boone drove them the short distance to Monica Carpenter’s condo in Midtown and parked beside a black BMW in front of the event planner’s house number. Rachel was surprised to see the front blinds were closed and a Sunday paper on the stoop. “Do you think she’s home?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  They walked to the condo, and after Rachel rang the doorbell twice, Monica Carpenter answered the door in a robe, her brown hair hanging in a single plait over her left shoulder. The oversized glasses were missing. While Rachel hadn’t been sure of her age, the harsh August sun exposed the fine lines her makeup had covered yesterday. Definitely a contemporary of Foxx and Vegas.

  “What do you want?” Carpenter used her hand to shield her eyes from the overhead sun.

  “We’d like to ask you a few more questions,” Rachel said, taking the lead. “May we come in?”

  “You could have called.”

  “I’m sorry,” Boone said. “We were in the neighborhood and thought you’d probably be home. We really do need a few more answers. Can we come in or would you prefer we ask them here while your neighbors look on?”

  Her gaze darted past them, and she reluctantly stepped back. “Might as well. I doubt you’ll leave until I talk to you. The living room is on the right.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel murmured as she stepped past her. Vaulted ceilings gave the sense of the room being larger than it was. She scanned the area. Monica Carpenter’s taste in decorating ran to vintage fifties.

  A gallery of Elvis’s 78-rpm covers hung on one wall, serving as a backdrop for a black piano. A jukebox claimed a corner, and a boxy red sofa and chair rounded out the mid-fifties theme. Stale cigarette smoke permeated the room. Rachel sat on the firm sofa while Boone took the chair.

  Monica picked up a pack of Marlboros from the top of the piano and tapped out a cigarette. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

  “Your house.” Your death, Rachel wanted to add. Instead, she took out her notepad and a pencil. Maybe the smoke wouldn’t trigger an allergy attack.

  After Monica lit the cigarette, she pulled out the piano bench and picked up a small black ashtray. How long had it been since Rachel had seen one of those? She waited while the other woman took a long draw and then blew smoke out the side of her mouth.

  “What questions do you have that you didn’t ask last night?”

  “Just a few we missed.” Rachel put the date at the top of the pad. “Is it okay to call you Monica?”

  “Sure.”

  Interrogation 101, make friends with the suspect—although she didn’t think it would work in this instance. “How long have you been in the entertainment business?”

  “Since I was eighteen. Started out as a singer, but I recognized right away I wasn’t good enough. Started working backstage, learned the business inside and out.” She took another drag. “It didn’t take me long to figure out I could earn more money planning events, so I made it a practice to talk to the agents I ran into, and I met some big names along the way. When I decided to go out on my own, everything was in place.”

  “When I asked about Vic Vegas, you indicated you didn’t know him. But—”

  “I never said I didn’t know him.”

  “But you let me believe you didn’t. Why?”

  Monica’s shoulder came up in a dismissive shrug. “I had the Supreme Elvis contest to think about, and when a police detective asks questions about someone, it’s never good.” She studied the red tip of
the cigarette. “There’s a lot of advertising dollars riding on the contest, and when you said Vegas was dead, I could see money flying out the window if the show was shut down. Sorry if you think I was misleading you, but I don’t want to lose this client. Not at my age—it’s too hard to get new ones.”

  Boone leaned forward. “So you did know him?”

  She shifted toward him. “Not well. Over the years, we crossed paths. Seems like he was always around. Never made it big, though.”

  “How about Harrison Foxx? How well did you know him?”

  Her face flushed and a struggle appeared in her eyes. Then she pulled another cigarette out and lit it off the one she was smoking. “He owed me money when he died.” She stubbed the short butt in the ashtray. “But I’m sure you already know that.”

  “Why did you loan him money?”

  “Harrison was a good-looking man. He borrowed money from a lot of women.” She gave Rachel a sly look. “But your mother could have told you that if she weren’t dead.”

  Rachel’s pencil lead snapped. “How did you know who my mother was?”

  “Are you saying Gabby Winslow loaned Foxx money?”

  Rachel and Boone spoke at the same time.

  Monica shot her a “gotcha” grin. “Which question do you want answered?”

  Rachel clamped her mouth shut, clenching her jaw until it ached.

  “How about both of them, one at a time,” Boone said.

  “Harrison told me of at least one occasion when Gabby had loaned him money. Pretty sure he never paid it back. As for how I knew Gabby was your mother, you look just like her when she was your age, and I googled you after you left yesterday.”

  “Did you kill Harrison?” Rachel asked.

  “Goodness no. Why would I want to kill him? He owed me money.”

  Rachel made a note about the loan. “If he was such a loser, why did he have so many women after him?”

  “He was some kind of good-looking, for one thing.” Monica’s features softened and her eyes became unfocused, then she snapped out of it. “When you were with Harrison, even in a crowd, he made you feel like you were the only person in the room.”