Jumping up from my chair, I moved hastily toward the door, shooting Gilley an irritated look in the process.
For his part, Gil turned on his heel and headed quickly back into the bedroom, while Shepherd got up and walked to me.
“What am I missing?” he asked, clearly onto the fact that we were trying to cover up something.
“Well, that depends. Have you checked your car insurance premiums against any major competitors lately?”
The edges of Shepard’s lips quirked in a smile. “No. Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, then, you might be missing out, Detective.” Reaching for the door handle, I opened the door and offered him my most congenial smile.
Shepherd stood there for a moment, staring out the door to the drive while the wheels turned in his mind. I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t start grilling us about the obvious ruse. “Thanks for giving me your statement.”
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. “You’re welcome. If I think of anything to add, I’ll call you.”
“That would be good,” he said, looking at me intently.
I pushed the smile a little harder onto my lips.
He started to walk out the door, but then hesitated one last time. Turning back and wiggling his finger between where Gilley had disappeared to and me, he said, “Whatever’s going on with you two, be careful.”
I didn’t say anything, because any acknowledgment would have also been an admission.
Shepherd nodded, as if he understood, and then he looked me in the eyes with that same intensity again. I felt a flicker of heat spark between us that caught me somewhat off guard. “I’d hate to see anything happen to you, Catherine,” he said softly.
My breath caught. The way he’d said that sounded oddly sincere. Intimate even, and all I could do was nod.
Shepherd nodded too, and then he walked down the steps and over to his car. I closed the door before he could look back, although I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of him looking back as a suspicious cop or looking back as a man who’d just sparked a wave of electric heat to surge through me.
I didn’t have long to dwell on it because the minute the door closed, Gilley reappeared in the hallway, still holding his laptop. “Is he gone?”
“Car insurance?” I hissed in reply. “That’s the best you could come up with?”
Gilley winced. “I forgot he was here!”
I sighed dramatically and moved back to the table. Gilley came with me. “I’m assuming you hacked your way into Heather’s security camera footage?”
“Yes! Take a look at this!”
Gilley swiveled the screen of the laptop toward me and pushed a button. A black-and-white video appeared, and immediately I understood that the footage was taken from the camera hoisted above the door, leading to Heather’s library. “That’s the security footage you were talking about,” I said.
“Yep. Heather’s camera is set to record a week’s worth of info, which is then uploaded to her iCloud account, and then it’s deleted and replaced with a new week’s worth of info. This happens every Friday at midnight, which meant that I had to fast-forward through a lot of dead space before I got to this from last Tuesday a little after five.”
As I watched the screen, something curious appeared in the bottom right corner. “What is that?” I asked, pointing to the square object.
“I didn’t know at first, but now I think I do. Just watch it for a few more seconds, and I’ll explain.”
We watched together as, at first, nothing happened, and then all of a sudden the camera angle changed dramatically. It went from being angled directly toward the door to being angled down to the ground, revealing only the front step at the top of the screen.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I think the square object we saw appear in the camera frame was the foot of a step ladder, which someone placed out of view before they climbed it and purposely moved the angle of the camera.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “So all your effort of trying to hack into Heather’s iCloud account to see who might’ve murdered her was a waste of time?”
“Not necessarily,” Gilley said, using his keyboard to fast-forward through the video again. “Watch this section taken almost exactly twenty-four hours later.”
The grainy detail of the fast-forward motion disappeared when Gilley pressed PLAY again, and I waited, as not much happened. But then a set of white boots appeared at the top of the camera frame.
I actually gasped when they came into view. “Ohmigod! That’s her! That’s the assassin!”
“The one you and Shepherd were talking about, right?” Gilley said, practically giggling with excitement. “Overheard that part of the conversation before I went back to my hacking efforts.”
“Yes. Those are the same boots worn by the woman I encountered at the church. The woman who could’ve murdered Father Stephan.”
“I knew it!” Gilley said. “The go-go boots must be her signature accessory.”
“So she did murder Heather.”
“It looks like it. See? The boots definitely go inside the house, and then about four minutes later, they appear again. Here, I’ll fast-forward a touch . . .”
Gil began to fast-forward the tape, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. You’re saying that she was in and out in only four minutes?”
“Uh, yeah. See? Here they come out again.”
The still setting of the camera aimed directly at the ground was disrupted again by the appearance of the go-go boots as they crossed the front steps away from the library.
“Well, then, she might not have been the one who murdered Heather, Gil.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there a time stamp on any of this?” I asked, rather than answer Gilley’s question.
He pointed to a series of small numbers at the bottom right of the screen. “This was at five-thirteen p.m.”
I shook my head. “Heather was already dead by then, Gilley. Shepherd said she died sometime before four-thirty.”
Gilley’s brow furrowed. “But according to the tape, nobody entered the house until this moment.”
“Nobody entered the house from that door,” I corrected. “Somebody could’ve definitely gotten in at any one of the other doors.”
“Okay, so why was the camera tilted down a full twenty-four hours before the go-go murderess entered the house?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the assassin had already entered the house an hour before, forcing Heather to take the toxin, then came back to make certain that she was dead.”
“So why not just hang out at the house for an hour?” Gilley asked. “I mean, that’s a lot of coming and going, which is risky because it’d be at least two opportunities to be seen and reported to the police.”
“I agree. Especially if she’s wearing white go-go boots and some crazy loud outfit. Still, maybe she showed up on Tuesday, found Heather and her housekeeper out of the house, tilted the camera down, and planned on coming back a day later.”
Gilley frowned. “Okay, that part could be true, but does any of the rest of this make sense to you?”
“No. It’s like some crazy hard jigsaw puzzle where we keep looking for a corner piece—something to tie some of these things together—and we can’t seem to find anything but regular pieces with no real link to each other.”
“What else did Shepherd tell you?” Gil asked next.
I took ten full minutes to give him the lowdown on my conversation with the Detective.
“Whoa,” he said when I’d finished. “So his ex was murdered too?”
“Yes. Same description of a woman seen at the site of where Heather’s husband was murdered. He believes Tony Holland was murdered because he’d done something to piss off the head of the organized crime ring he laundered money for.”
“And Shepherd has no idea how his ex was mixed up in all of this?”
“No clue.”
“And we don’t know if the go-go assass
in murdered Heather or not, even though she was at the scene, because of the timing.”
“And the cause of death,” I reminded him. “Heather was poisoned, not shot, but all the other victims were killed with a gun, including poor Father Stephan.”
“You gotta be a special kind of evil to murder a priest,” Gilley said with a shake of his head.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “Anyway, should we e-mail the footage from the security camera to Shepherd?”
Gilley’s face turned to alarm. “What? No!”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I’d prefer not to go to jail, thank you, no thank you!”
“How would you go to jail?”
“Hello? Hacking is a federal offense, Cat.”
“We don’t have to tell him that you hacked into Heather’s iCloud account. We can simply say that the footage came to us in an e-mail.”
Gilley dipped his chin and looked at me the way you look at a simpleton.
“Right,” I said, understanding his unspoken point. “He’d want to see the e-mail. Well, there has to be some way to show him this footage. It could be really important to his investigation.”
“True, but I can’t think of a way to show it to him without implicating myself.”
“What if we just sent it to him anonymously?”
“Too risky,” Gilley said. “I don’t trust that guy not to start digging, and it wouldn’t take a super genius to realize someone had hacked into Heather’s account.”
“Can’t you just erase your tracks?”
Gilley rolled his eyes. “I think you’ve been watching too many movies. I’ve left a trace. My IP address has been attempting to hack its way into Heather’s account for two days. No way am I confident that I could fully erase all of that.”
“Well, then what do we do?”
“We let the detective keep digging,” Gilley said. “The footage on the camera can’t really help him anyway. I mean, the go-go boots don’t even appear until after Heather’s dead. It’s not like this woman could’ve re-murdered her.”
I sighed. “I suppose you’re right, but I have to say, it doesn’t really sit well with me.”
“That might be the least of your worries,” Gilley said.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you’re basically an eye witness to the murder of Father Stephan. This assassin might worry that you could identify her.”
I felt the color drain from my face, and my mouth went suddenly dry. “Oh, God,” I whispered. “I hadn’t even thought of that!”
“I know, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind,” Gil said. “You need to be careful, honey. Very, very careful.”
I leaned back in my chair and put a hand over my eyes dramatically. “Move to the Hamptons, they said. It’ll be swell, they said . . . Oh! I hate my life!”
“Sorry, sugar. What can I do?”
I lifted my hand and looked over at him. “Help me solve this murder.”
“You still want to dig around in all this, knowing how dangerous it is?”
“Yes,” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll always be looking over my shoulder.”
Gilley sighed. “Fine. But we’ll need to be discreet.”
“Agreed.”
“Where did you want to start?”
“At a place I don’t think Shepherd has thought to look.”
“Where’s that?”
I pointed to Gilley’s laptop. “Google any vintage dress shops in the area, Gil. Let’s see who’s bought a pair of white go-go boots in the past year or so.”
Gilley smiled. “Oooo,” he said. “That’s good.”
I pointed again to his keyboard, and he got to typing.
Chapter 12
There were seven vintage clothing stores within twenty miles of East Hampton. Gilley and I hit four of them before five the day Shepherd took my statement, and we got an early start the next morning, covering the next three. It was at the very last one that we hit pay dirt.
At first, however, it looked like it was going to be a bust. At ten-fifteen, we walked into Vintage Is the New Black and immediately spotted a perky twentysomething with stringy long hair, clad in a yellow poncho with red bell-bottoms and a leather headband. She could’ve walked right out of Woodstock.
When we entered, she was fussing with something in the display case. “Hey!” she sang as we came through the door. “Everything on the back rack is fifty percent off today.”
“Wonderful,” I said, plastering a friendly smile onto my face. “I’m actually on the hunt for something specific.”
She looked up from her task. “Cool. We probably have it or can get it, whatever it is.”
“Well, I’m looking for a pair of white go-go boots. A friend of mine purchased some about a year ago, and she thinks she bought them from here.”
“White go-go boots are super popular. We usually can’t keep them in stock when we get them in. What size are you?”
“Um . . . size six and a half,” I said. The other stores had simply told me that they didn’t have any and couldn’t remember selling any within the last year.
“Yikes,” the clerk said. “You have tiny feet!”
I felt my cheeks heat. I was petite right down to my toes, and I’d always wanted to be taller. It cut a little deep anytime someone commented on my size.
“So, you sell a lot of go-go boots?” Gilley asked, taking over.
The clerk shrugged. “A couple pair a year. Last year I think we sold three pairs. This year I’ve already sold four.”
I frowned. That wasn’t good. “You know,” I said, hoping to jog her memory a little more, “my friend also bought the most amazing outfit to go with them. It was this patterned dress with black lines in bright orange, neon yellow, pink, and lime green.”
The clerk’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, we get a lot of great stuff. Maybe look around and you’ll find something close? I can help you as soon as I put this back in the case.”
I moved over to the counter while Gilley made a show of pretending to look around. Or maybe he actually was looking around. Gilley did love to make bold fashion statements.
“Darn, I was really hoping to pick up a pair of those go-go boots,” I said, waiting for her to stop fiddling with the item in the glass case.
“If you’d like, I can take down your number and size, and if we get a pair in, I’ll call you.”
“Thank you,” I said. She did seem sweet.
“Grrr!” she grumbled. “I can’t get it to clasp right. I hate returns. They’re always a pain in the butt.”
It was then that I really looked down at the necklace she was struggling with. “Ohmigod!” I exclaimed.
She jumped, and the necklace went flying.
“Sorry!” I said.
The clerk looked rattled, but she covered it with a smile. “It’s cool,” she said, bending to pick up the necklace.
“Don’t touch it!” I shouted.
Again, the poor clerk startled, and this time she actually yelped.
“What’s going on?” Gilley said, coming to my side wearing a pair of chaps, a vest with an Andy Warhol–inspired print, and a cowboy hat.
Ignoring his alarmingly quick fashion statement (and my, what a statement!), I pointed to the necklace. I would’ve recognized that big white peace sign anywhere. “The woman with the go-go boots! She wore that necklace when she was coming out of the church!”
Gilley peered over the counter where the necklace lay. “What? How could she have worn that, Cat? It’s here in the store for sale.”
“No! The clerk just told me that someone returned it.” Turning to the clerk, I added, “That’s right, right? You said someone just returned it, correct?”
I was speaking in a rush, stringing my words together, and I was quivering in both fear and excitement.
“Yeah,” she said cautiously, her eyes flickering back and forth between me and the necklace on the floor. “A customer retuned it right before you guys cam
e in.”
I turned to Gilley, and he turned to me. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost, and I knew exactly how he felt. “She was here!” I said.
“Just a few minutes ago!” he said.
“She could’ve seen us coming!”
Gilley turned back to the clerk. “Do you think she saw us coming?”
The clerk looked super confused and perhaps even scared of us. “No,” she said. “She left, like, a couple of minutes before you guys walked in.”
“We need that necklace,” I said. “There could be fingerprints on it.”
The clerk held up her hands in surrender, and now she really did look freaked out. “Whoa, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I did not know there were gonna be drugs at that party.”
I shook my head. “Not your fingerprints, dear.”
“But we will need yours to single out hers,” Gilley said.
If possible, the clerk seemed even more alarmed, and she backed up against the wall away from us like a caged animal. “I think you guys should go,” she said.
“We’ve upset you,” I said. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that I believe the necklace was worn by someone who committed a pretty terrible crime—”
“What kind of crime?” she interrupted.
Gilley and I looked at each other, both of us unsure how much to reveal. He made the call. “Did you hear about that priest that was murdered?”
“The one in East Hampton?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gilley and I said.
“Ohmigod! You think that the lady who came in here to return that necklace was the one who murdered that priest?”
“Maybe,” I said carefully. “But she also just as easily could’ve been a witness. Either way, we need to find her.” Then I had a thought and looked around the corners of the shop. “Do you by any chance have security cameras?”
“Uh . . . no,” the clerk said. And then she asked, “Hey, are you guys cops?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Gilley said.
I eyed him sharply, but he simply stared confidently at the clerk. “Can I see some ID?” she said to him.
Gilley rolled his eyes and made a sweeping motion down his front. “I don’t have it on me, sugar. I’m undercover today.”
Coached to Death Page 20