Ideally, Maggie wanted to find something to confirm what she already knew: that Dana Cullen was Rita Grigoryan. Not just to satisfy a personal need, but also to prove to Loomis and Smits that she wasn’t imagining things. A document explaining Rita’s name change, or even a letter made out in her old name would suffice. Of course, it wouldn’t point toward who was behind her murder, but it would allow Maggie to pursue a line of inquiry that would otherwise be deemed out of bounds. All too often, breaks in cases came from the least expected sources. Rita had changed her name for a valid reason. It could prove to be significant, a case breaker. The more information Maggie could put at her fingertips now, the better she could sift out the important stuff. She had learned never to dismiss anything, and especially not something that her gut instinct had an infatuation with. Finding even the smallest gold nugget was always a good indicator that plenty more lay close by.
If the trippy decor was anything to go by, no one would ever believe that Rita had grown up to be Dana.
Maggie began with the nightstand. She put on a pair of gloves, inspecting its three drawers one by one. She found an assortment of personal items in each, including packs and bottles of nonprescription medications and a sparse collection of makeup products. Hair ties, brushes, deodorants, and skin creams. Lying facedown in the bottom drawer: a framed photograph of Dana and Thomas Cullen on what appeared to be their wedding day. The happy couple were hugging each other outside a white wooden chapel, beaming. Blue sky above and rust-colored mountains in the background. They looked like they were madly in love.
Nothing lasts forever.
Maggie left the photo standing upright on the nightstand and moved on, pulling back the louvered doors on the small closet. It was filled with his-and-hers clothing. A sagging rail of dresses and shirts. Above, a single shelf housing cube-shaped storage bins. Handwritten labels: Arts & Crafts, Christmas, Sewing & Fabric, Paints & Glitters, Keepsakes.
Maggie reached for the last box and hefted it down, placing it on the bed behind her.
It was crammed with mementos. Souvenirs, picked up at memorable stopovers along life’s journey, meaningless to anyone but their owner: a pink visor with flamingos on the plastic bill; poker chips and ticket stubs; beaded bracelets and bird feathers; photos of cityscapes, deserts, mountains; Disney fridge magnets; seashells; hotel soaps; a small alligator head; a vial of sand; a bunch of dried flowers; and dozens of other random items. But nothing to link Dana with Rita.
Her gaze snagged on a file box on the floor between two shoe racks.
She slid it out.
Inside, she found a dozen hanging file folders with handwritten labels on the tabs. Bills, Insurance, Tax.
She flicked through various documents in the folder marked Insurance, finding Cullen’s business insurance, private healthcare polices, electrical equipment warranties, regular household cover. She found a letter of cancellation stapled to the front page of a full-term life insurance policy made out in Dana’s name. An insurance company based in Arizona. Big red Xs drawn with a felt pen on each page. The cancellation letter was dated a month ago.
Why did she cancel her life insurance?
An unmarked file at the back of the box contained a year’s worth of checking account statements from a branch of Wells Fargo in Kingman, addressed in Dana’s name. Maggie fanned them out on the jazzy carpeting. Mostly, the transactions related to small amounts. ATM withdrawals and cashed checks. A few regular direct debits. The largest withdrawal of the year coming in late September, in the amount of $3,000.
Overall, Dana had a healthy balance, hovering in the high four figures. Additions coming in the form of a monthly salary from the Orange County School District.
A receipt was attached to the back of September’s statement. Last Friday, Dana had withdrawn $8,000 in cash, reducing her balance to the low hundreds.
Typically, when Maggie came across large withdrawals like this as part of her investigations, it raised an immediate red flag. To her, it indicated one of three things: the account holder was planning to disappear, a third party was pressuring the account holder to settle a debt, or the account holder was being blackmailed.
At a glance, it was impossible to say which, if any, of these scenarios fit Dana’s situation.
Maggie took a photo with her phone.
What did Dana need $8,000 in cash for?
The prior healthy balance ruled out a sizable debt, and other than the carry-on in the hall, Maggie had seen no other evidence to suggest Dana was planning on leaving her husband, especially on a permanent basis.
She made a note to question Cullen about it.
She put the file box back in the closet and turned her attention to the eight-drawer dresser under the window.
Its contents were split equally between men’s and women’s clothing, with Dana’s drawers lined in scented paper. Jasmine and rose. Although Maggie had done this a hundred times, searching through someone’s drawers always felt weird, and rifling through a person’s underwear was definitely the ultimate invasion of privacy. Carefully, she worked her gloved hands through the garments, feeling for anything out of place. Despite Loomis’s conviction, she wasn’t expecting to lay her hands on the murder weapon stashed away amid Cullen’s boxers. But her fingers did locate something flat and oblong at the back of Dana’s underwear drawer.
It was a notebook, bound in black faux leather, with Disney character stickers stuck at random all over its cover. Maggie had one just like it at home, minus the stickers: a gift from Rita to mark the start of their senior year.
Maggie laid the notebook on the top of the dresser and opened it to the first cream-colored page.
A Polaroid photo was wedged into the crease of the spine.
It depicted the face of a seventeen-year-old girl, with big sad eyes and scruffy tomboyish red hair.
Maggie’s heart skipped again. “Rita.”
Like a Pierrot clown, she’d powdered her face white, using black makeup to draw fake tears on her cheeks. Maggie couldn’t recall ever seeing Rita like this before, and the ghostly image unsettled her.
Written in thick red ink in the white space below the picture was a single word:
HELGA
And Maggie’s heart leaped into her throat.
Although she’d thought about this name and its association with Rita over the years, she hadn’t seen or heard any mention of it in two decades. If anything, she’d tried her best to forget it, or at least push it behind her oldest memories where it could do the least harm. But every now and then, especially when her guard was down, it would pop back to the surface, its manifestation squeezing her heart in a cold fist.
Hardly breathing, she levered the photo from the notebook and turned it over. Scribbled on the reverse, and in the same red ink, were the words:
I am dying as I write this,
and dead as you read it.
Maggie gaped, stunned by the sheer impact of the inscription.
Did Dana know she was going to be murdered?
Maggie’s phone rang, startling her.
She dug it out, hearing Loomis say, “I’m in the backyard. Look over here,” and she lifted her gaze to the window.
Loomis waved at her from the other side of the glass.
Heat burned in her cheeks.
“Drop what you’re doing,” he said. “Something here you need to come see.”
With her pulse still beating way too fast, Maggie buried the notebook back in the drawer and made her way outside into the sunbaked backyard, hoping that her sunglasses would mask the glow in her cheeks.
What had Dana meant by those words?
As with the front of the property, Cullen had landscaped the backyard into an alpine garden, complete with golden gravel, rock mounds, and sprawling magnolia. He’d fenced it in, too, separating the yard from the neighboring properties.
Loomis stood beside an outdoor kettle grill—one of those pod-shaped ovens with three legs. He nudged the toe of his shoe against a re
d plastic gas can standing next to it. “Empty gas can,” he said. “I’m thinking accelerant for burning bodies.”
“Okay.”
“And then there’s these . . . ,” he said, lifting the domed lid.
A pair of black work boots stood on the grill plate, their soles caked in brown mud. Even from a few feet away, Maggie could smell the unmistakable tang of swamp water.
“Nice find,” she said.
She photographed the boots with her phone. Then, with gloved hands, Loomis lifted up the boots so that she could photograph the mud-encrusted treads.
“Size twelve,” he said. “Or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“You do have the ears for it. What’s that under the grill?”
Loomis placed the boots on the ground and removed the grill plate.
An oily cloth was bundled in the concave space normally reserved for the charcoal.
Maggie put on gloves and then lifted it out, weighing it in her hand. “Feels heavy.” Carefully, she unfolded the cloth to reveal a revolver.
“Looks like a Smith and Wesson six-shooter,” Loomis said. “And possibly the right caliber.”
Maggie sniffed the muzzle. “It also smells of cordite, which means it’s been fired recently. Okay. Let’s get the crime scene investigators down here. I think we just struck the mother lode.”
Chapter Twelve
DUCKS IN A ROW
From inside the low-lit observation room, Maggie watched Thomas Cullen through the one-way glass as he guzzled water from a plastic bottle. His handcuffed wrists were manacled to a metal loop bolted to the table, which made drinking the water something of a contortionist act. Aside from a bathroom break, Cullen had been sitting in the brightly lit interview room for almost two hours, his impatience more visible with each passing minute.
Once or twice, he’d attempted to make conversation with the deputy standing guard in the corner, to no avail. Several times, he’d called out at the one-way mirror, imploring anyone observing from the other side to release him. But only Maggie was listening, and she had no intention of removing his cuffs.
During the last two hours, Maggie had spent half the time writing up her full homicide report for Smits. More and more these days, her job was as much about the paperwork as it was about the police work. Procedures had to be met at every point. Boxes checked and forms filled out. Too many acquittals and mistrials came as the result of felons being released over a technicality—a vital missing bit of information in a sloppy police report, or an essential piece of evidence falling out of the chain-of-custody—and no prosecutor wanted to go to court hog tied.
Smits was all about the process.
Meanwhile, in light of the discoveries in Cullen’s backyard, CSIs from Forensics were at the house, not quite taking the place apart, but as good as. According to Elkin, Dana could have been shot anywhere. Ideally, Maggie wanted the technicians to find evidence of blood spatter, proving that Cullen had used the gun on Dana in her own home before dumping and then burning her body at the lake. Any other incriminating evidence would be a bonus.
But the first thing Maggie had done after returning to the Sheriff’s Office was to submit a request to the city transportation authority for intersection camera footage within a ten-mile radius of the death scene. She’d also issued a BOLO to Florida Highway Patrol. If Dana’s car had run any reds, or if it was parked on a county road, she’d get to know about it via FHP.
At twelve thirty, Maggie had spoken with the desk sergeant to ascertain if Lindy Munson had turned up to provide her statement as instructed, only to discover that she hadn’t. To make matters worse, the number that Lindy had provided came back as unknown. Maggie had tried reaching out to Deputy Ramos—since he had been the one to give Lindy a ride home—but he was off duty until five, and wasn’t taking calls. Not to be outdone, Maggie had spoken with his supervisor, who had checked the incident report, confirming that Lindy had been safely deposited at her house at 9:14 p.m.
Maggie had spent the other half of the time in here, in the dark, watching Cullen and wondering if he had indeed killed Dana.
Some might say that Cullen didn’t look the part, that he didn’t come across as the murdering kind, as if such a thing existed. In fact, he looked about as dangerous as a plastic spoon. But Maggie knew that killers came in all shapes, sizes, colors, and creeds. When it came to murder, the benevolent became malevolent in the blink of an eye.
But did Cullen kill his wife?
Unequivocally, the evidence said so.
And Cullen had hinted at the fragility of their relationship, suggesting that tempers may have been frequently frayed.
During Cullen’s processing, Maggie had thought long and hard about the discoveries made in his backyard, and the ease with which Loomis and she had unearthed potentially incriminating evidence. Only someone extremely stupid would have left them there like that. But stupidity wasn’t the reason why Maggie felt no pity for the man sitting on the other side of the one-way glass. Since being arrested, Cullen hadn’t asked once about his wife. No mention of her whatsoever. He was upset, but it was for his own well-being. Not one single soul-searching question, such as: How did she die? Where did she die? Who did this to my wife? Can I see her?
It was odd behavior, and it blazed away like a neon sign, because in Maggie’s experience innocent spouses did ask those kinds of questions, and repeatedly. It was all part of the brain’s struggle of coming to terms with sudden tragedy. It needed answers, reassurance, confirmation. Right now Cullen was behaving like a killer.
“So this is the husband.”
Maggie turned as Smits entered the room. He was drinking an energy juice from a can, and he was sweating.
“Doctor’s got me on some newfangled meds,” he said in response to Maggie’s questioning look. “Something to descale my arteries. Bleach, if the missus has her way. Has me sweating like a whore in church.” He nodded at the observation window. “Where we at? I hear Cullen declined legal representation.”
“He’s swearing his innocence.”
“That’s what they all start out saying.”
Outside his home, Maggie had read Cullen his rights and then shipped him back to the Sheriff’s Office, where he’d been Mirandized for a second time before being processed, photographed, fingerprinted, and swabbed for DNA. All the while, Cullen had professed his innocence.
“He’s insisting he has nothing to hide,” Maggie said.
“Does he have an alibi?”
“He hasn’t given one. But lack of an alibi isn’t consistent with guilt.”
Smits almost choked on his drink. “Detective, you found a .38 Special at his house, hidden in a kettle grill. It’s the same caliber as the murder weapon. If ever there was a slam dunk, this is it.”
“All the same, I’d like to see what Forensics make of the evidence before I come to any definitive conclusion.”
Smits wiped his mouth. “Detective, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Your job isn’t to determine innocence or guilt. That’s for a grand jury to decide. Your job is to collect evidence and present it in a convincing way. Let me hear your working theory.”
Maggie kept the agitation out of her voice. “Cullen killed his wife. Either at the death scene or somewhere else we have yet to determine. Crime scene investigators are at his home address as we speak, looking for blood trace and anything else to link him to the murder. Seeing as Dana’s car is missing, we think Cullen drove it to the lakeside dump site before setting his wife on fire.”
“Passable. With those arms of his, he looks capable of carrying a deadweight.”
“We’re thinking he then dumped the car elsewhere, to make it look like Dana was nowhere near home when she was abducted and killed.”
“By somebody else.”
“Yes. We’ve issued a BOLO on the vehicle. A white Chevy Cruze. If it’s anywhere on a county road, FHP will find it before nightfall.”
Smits
turned his gaze to Cullen. “He had to make his way back home from the lake somehow. It’s almost a two-mile walk. You say Loomis canvassed the neighborhood?”
“Last night, with a half dozen deputies. And no one reported seeing anyone on foot anywhere along Ocoee Parkway.”
“This guy isn’t a ghost. We need to expand the reach and talk with anyone who was in a position to see Cullen walking home last night. I’ll get patrol knocking on doors. Have you checked in with the taxi companies?”
“It’s on our to-do list. I’ve also put in a request for traffic camera footage. There’s a couple of toll cameras on the Beltway, but I’m not expecting much from them.”
Smits sipped his drink. “Things creep at the weekend. Don’t hold your breath. What about the handgun?”
“It’s with Firearms.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“I called Robbie Zee.”
Robbie Zeedeman was OCSO’s resident firearms expert. Born in South Africa, he’d acquired most of his weapons knowledge evading gunfire on the streets of Cape Town.
“He came in on his day off?”
“Don’t worry, Sarge. He won’t be posting overtime. He owed me a favor.” Maggie glanced at her watch. “He should be doing the test fire right about now.”
“I hear no bullet casing was found at the scene.”
“It’s not surprising. The lakeshore is heavily wooded. Overgrown. We performed an outward spiral search, but we might need to do a more thorough grid search with metal detectors.”
“Unless he threw it in the lake. In which case, you’ve got to ask yourself, why he didn’t toss the gun as well? After all, he tossed the purse.”
Maggie had already asked herself the same question. “People do strange things in the heat of the moment,” she said. “You can’t always explain their actions.”
Maggie had once been in hot pursuit of a felon who had dumped his pistol in a baby’s stroller as he ran through a park. Luckily, no harm had come to the child. But it exemplified the mindless mentality of people pushed to their limit.
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