“That was Brock? Oh, my God.” Shelly covered her mouth.
“You heard about it?”
“I heard some of the partners talking about a murder that happened on Tuesday night. I never imagined it was Ollie. I can’t believe it. I mean . . . I just talked to him. Was it a robbery?”
“The police are investigating.” Kira took out her phone and pulled up her photo of the suspect drawing. “They have a sketch of the man they think did it.” She turned the phone to face Shelly. “He look familiar to you at all?”
“No.” She shook her head and pressed her hand to her chest. “I just still can’t believe someone would do this.”
Kira glanced at Jeremy, who was watching her closely, probably wondering what more she planned to reveal.
Not a lot. Kira didn’t want to discuss all the details of the case, especially not the detail that she’d been at Brock’s house when the shooting happened. This woman already seemed upset.
Kira put her phone away. “Like I said, I’m handling some of Ollie’s cases. Part of that is piecing together what he was working on the past few days.” She leaned closer. “Could you tell me what you do at Duffy and Hersch? I assume you’re an attorney?”
Kira assumed no such thing, but Shelly looked flattered.
“A law student, actually,” Shelly said. “This is my second summer clerking for them.”
“I see. What can you tell me about the package you sent Ollie on Monday?”
“Not much. I mean, it wasn’t from me. Drew called me on Saturday and asked me to send it.”
“Drew?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Andrew Spence. One of the junior partners.” She cleared her throat. “He called me from the airport on his way to Orlando for vacation. He said he was doing a favor for Ollie, and could I go to the courthouse first thing Monday and request a trial transcript.”
“Which courthouse?”
“Sorry. The criminal court. I go by the courts almost every day to file paperwork, so it was really no problem.”
Kira itched to pull out her notebook, but she sensed that might make Shelly more nervous than she already was.
“And do you remember the case?”
Shelly shook her head. “Not offhand. I wrote down the number, though. I can text it to you.”
“That would be helpful, thanks. So you submitted this request on Monday?”
“Yes. Mr. Spence wanted me to do it in person.”
“How come?”
“Sometimes their online orders get backed up, and I think he was in a hurry. He told me to fill out the paper form in person and to go ahead and pay the rush fee.”
Kira’s heartbeat quickened as she listened.
“And the transcript was ready Tuesday?” Kira asked.
“Monday afternoon, actually. I got a message, and I was over there anyway, so I went by and picked it up. Then I overnighted it to Ollie, like Mr. Spence asked me to.”
Kira watched her, desperately wishing she remembered the name of the case. Whatever it was, Ollie had been in a hurry to get his hands on it, which meant it was probably directly related to what he was doing the day of his murder.
“Is it unusual for Drew Spence to call you on a weekend with a request like that?” Kira asked.
Shelly blushed again. Her gaze jumped to Jeremy, then back to Kira. “Not really. He knows I work weekends. And he and Ollie were always doing favors for each other. Why?”
“Just wondering. Where’d you go to overnight the package?”
“Post Place. The one by the noodle shop across from the courthouse?”
“I know it.”
“I checked the tracking number, and it was delivered to Ollie’s office at four forty-nine the next day.”
“But Ollie called you about it? You said he left a message?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what that was about. Like I said, I checked the tracking number.” Her expression clouded. “Why?”
Kira forced a smile. “Just trying to get a picture.”
Shelly looked at Jeremy. “That’s all? I can’t help wondering if any of this has to do with . . . I don’t know, whatever he was working on with Brock Logan.”
“I’m not sure,” Kira said.
Shelly bit her lip. Then she picked up her phone and checked the time. “I’m late getting back. Was there anything else you needed? You can always call me.”
“I will, thanks,” Kira said. “And if you think of anything relevant, give me a call. Anytime.”
Shelly stood and grabbed her coffee, looking relieved to escape. “Good luck with your work. I’m so sorry about Ollie.”
“Thank you.”
Kira stayed seated and watched the woman disappear into the river of people. She turned to Jeremy.
“What did you think?” she asked.
“She was nervous. What did you think?”
“I think she’s having an affair with Drew Spence, who’s probably at Disney World with his wife and kids right now.”
“Yeah, I caught that, too,” he said.
“And it sounds like Ollie was in a big hurry to get his hands on that trial transcript.”
“Any idea what it is?”
“No.”
She glanced around the café. “You want to order anything? The line’s not bad now.”
“I’m fine.”
Kira pushed her chair back, and her phone buzzed with a text. She read it as she stood up.
“Wow, she’s efficient.”
“Who?”
“Shelly sent me that case number. Come on, let’s go.”
He followed her out, but instead of retracing their steps, Kira led him farther into the warren of tunnels. They passed another shoe-repair place and stopped beside a barbershop with an old-fashioned red, white, and blue barber’s pole out front. Kira peered through the glass before opening the door. She caught Jeremy’s puzzled look as she went inside.
The shop smelled like shaving cream. New Orleans Saints memorabilia lined the walls. Kira smiled at the tall African American man standing behind one of the occupied swivel chairs.
“Daryl, hi.”
He gave her a nod as he skimmed his shears over a customer’s neck.
“Mind if I borrow your restroom?” she asked.
Daryl glanced at Jeremy behind her and raised an eyebrow. Then he gave another nod.
“Thanks.”
Kira ducked behind the reception desk and grabbed a key that was attached to a clunky wooden fleur-de-lis. Jeremy followed her through the shop, past a series of cramped supply rooms to a heavy gray door.
Daryl knew full well she didn’t need to use his restroom. But Ollie was a favorite customer, and Daryl let him and Kira come and go as they pleased in return for the occasional PI favor.
Kira unlocked the door and pushed it open. They were now in a private tunnel beneath a sixty-story office tower, most of which was occupied by an oil and gas company. Kira passed a restroom and a water fountain, then peeked around a corner to check for any security guards. Technically, she needed an ID badge to be down here, and she’d been stopped before.
“Want to tell me where we’re going?” Jeremy asked.
“This tunnel links to the criminal courthouse. I need to request that transcript before close of business.” She jerked her head. “Come on.”
“I thought you said the courts weren’t connected.”
“I know a back channel.”
“Of course you do.”
“Hurry.” She glanced over her shoulder and caught his look of disapproval. “And try not to be conspicuous.”
Charlotte was hiding out in a windowless conference room when Diaz found her.
“What are you doing back here?” he asked, bringing the smoky scent of barbecue into the room with him.
“Close the door, would you?”
He dropped a pair of foil-wrapped bundles on the table and sank into a chair.
“Oscar’s truck is out front.” He twisted the top off a Dr Pepper. �
�Two-for-one sandwiches. Want one?”
“No, thanks.” She sighed. “I’ve got a yogurt in the break-room fridge.”
He nodded at the binder in front of her. “What’s that?”
“The murder book for Ava Quinn. Thought I’d take a look.”
He swigged his drink. “McGrath know you’re poking around his biggest case?”
“He’s not here,” she said. “And I’m just perusing.”
Cops were extremely territorial, and McGrath was the worst of them all. Even Charlotte perusing was enough to get his hackles up.
Charlotte pivoted to the TV screen and aimed the remote control at it. “I’ve been reviewing the press conference.”
“Which one is that?”
“Day after the murder, when Quinn asked for the public’s help catching his wife’s killer.”
She pushed play on the broadcast, and she and Diaz watched as a visibly shaken Gavin Quinn stood in front of the police station with Ava’s family, pleading for anyone who had information about the home invasion and murder to contact police. Ava’s parents and brother stood beside Gavin, struggling for composure as reporters peppered them with questions. The mom and brother broke down crying, but Gavin held it together.
Charlotte paused the tape, studying the doctor’s face for hints of guilt instead of grief.
“Anything interesting in there?” Diaz nodded at the murder book.
“Plenty. For instance”—she leaned back in her chair—“I noticed in both murders, the victims were attacked at home during a robbery. Ava Quinn was confronted by her attacker at her back door, then he bound and gagged her and emptied the safe in the house before shooting her in the back. Logan and his people were also attacked at home around the same time of day.”
“Okay, lemme play devil’s advocate.” Diaz unwrapped a sandwich, and the tangy scent of barbecue made Charlotte’s stomach growl. “In our case, Oliver Kovak wasn’t at home. It was Logan’s home, and nothing was stolen except files and electronics.” Diaz tossed his tie over his shoulder and picked up his sandwich. “Sounds totally different.”
“Not totally. In both cases, someone came in and out of a house in an upper-crust neighborhood without attracting attention.”
“Mrs. Quinn’s killer didn’t attract attention because it was her husband. The crime scene was staged.”
“You assume.”
Diaz smiled. “No, McGrath does, which is why the doctor was arrested and charged. They got gunshot residue on Quinn’s hands, and he had his wife’s blood all over him.”
“Yeah, I read all that.” Charlotte waved him off. “I’ll let the lawyers duke it out at trial. My point is, in both cases, someone slipped in and out of a fancy neighborhood without attracting notice. And our guy, whoever he is, was driving a BMW.”
“You think the crimes are connected?” Diaz asked around a mouthful of food.
“How can they not be? Our perp gunned down Logan and his investigator and took off with the files for the Quinn murder case six days before trial.”
“So you do think Quinn had something to do with it?” Diaz’s brow furrowed. “He’s sitting across town under house arrest with a GPS on his ankle. And why would he want to hurt the people trying to get him off?”
“I’m not saying he did,” she said. “I’m just thinking about those case files. Why would someone kill for them?”
Diaz wiped sauce off his lip. “Maybe someone didn’t like what was in them. Thought Logan was going to expose something damaging in open court.”
“Problem is, Logan said he doesn’t know what it could be,” Charlotte replied.
“And now you’re all trusting? Of a lawyer?” Diaz smiled. “Just yesterday, you told me half the stuff people tell us is bullshit. For a lawyer, you could probably double it.”
She frowned. “You think Logan knows the motive, but he’s not telling?”
“Maybe. Defense attorneys hate us, we hate them. It’s mutual.” He shrugged. “Or maybe he thinks we’d leak the details of his case strategy to the prosecutor. Whose case is it again?”
“John Healy.” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “And I wouldn’t leak a word to that guy. He’s a prick.”
“Logan doesn’t know that.”
“Everyone knows that. At least, every woman does.”
“I mean Logan doesn’t know you think the guy’s a prick.” He polished off his sandwich with a big bite.
“Still, I don’t see Logan holding back if he knows the motive for the murder of his own investigator. Oliver Kovak worked for him for years.”
Diaz shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve interviewed Logan three times now, and I get the same impression every time.”
“Which is?”
“He says just enough and nothing more. Keeps his cards close.”
Charlotte sighed as Diaz unwrapped the second sandwich. “Did you come here just to flaunt your fiendishly high metabolism? Or are you working on something?”
He slid the envelope toward her. “Report came back on the bloody shoeprint from the breakfast room. It’s only a partial, so they couldn’t determine the size. It’s a Nike men’s running shoe, and it’s their second-most-popular style.”
Charlotte grabbed one of the folders in front of her and combed through until she found the eight-by-ten crime-scene photo of the shoeprint on the FedEx envelope.
“In other words,” she said, “there were a gazillion sold yesterday.”
“Pretty much.” Diaz picked up the crime-scene picture and looked at it. “The report says there’s some wear on the tread, so if we get a suspect and if we get a warrant and if he happens to have a pair of shoes like this sitting in his closet, we might be able to get a match. Other than that, the shoeprint is a dead end.”
“Maybe not.” Charlotte took the photo from him and studied it. “I have another idea.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
WHEN THEY made it to Ollie’s office, it was worse than Kira had imagined.
Bookshelves had been toppled, file drawers emptied, pictures pulled off the walls. The mini fridge stood open, the contents pulled out and strewn across the floor. Kira stepped over a sofa cushion that had been gutted with a blade.
“You get clearance from the police to be here?”
She turned to Jeremy. “Spears wants me to make a list of anything missing.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Yes, I got clearance.”
He really was a Boy Scout about everything.
On the other hand, their last foray into Ollie’s world had landed Jeremy in the back of a police car, so she couldn’t really blame him for asking.
Kira deposited her messenger bag on a chair. “This place stinks,” she muttered.
The office smelled like a combination of mildew and spoiled shrimp, and Kira held her nose as she stepped around Ollie’s big metal desk. All the drawers had been dumped, and the floor was blanketed in papers and office supplies. She crouched beside a pile of pens and legal pads, looking for any sticky notes where Ollie might have jotted his passwords. She didn’t find any, and she moved to the credenza, where more drawers had been yanked out. The carpet squished under her feet. She stepped around the toppled file cabinet and found Ollie’s forty-gallon fish tank lying on its side. Half a dozen dead goldfish littered the carpet.
“Those bastards.” She knelt beside the tank. The filter had formed a dam, blocking several inches of water from escaping, and a tiny orange fish darted about in the pool that remained.
“I thought the police pried their way in,” Jeremy said.
Kira stood up and looked at him. He was in the doorway, examining the hinges.
“They told me the landlord met them here with a key,” she said.
“No sign of forced entry.”
Kira stared at him for a moment before realizing what he was getting at.
“None at all?” She stepped to the door and examined it. No visible damage. The
only marks on it were black smudges of fingerprint dust left behind by police.
“Maybe the gunman swiped Ollie’s keys from Logan’s house when he took the phones and computers,” Kira said.
Jeremy grunted a response, still examining the door.
She picked her way across the room, grabbing a bottle of sweet tea that had rolled under a chair. She twisted the top off as she stepped into the cramped bathroom at the back of the office. Ollie had complained that the bathroom had a leaky ceiling and temperamental plumbing, but because it was attached to the office, the landlord charged him the “executive suite” rate.
She glanced around the space now, cringing at the slime along the baseboards and the moldy tile grout. Someone had taken the lid off the toilet and searched the tank.
“Anything missing?” Jeremy asked from the other room.
“Hard to tell. I noticed his CPU’s gone, but I don’t know what else.”
She poured the tea down the sink and then rinsed the bottle.
“What about files?” Jeremy asked. He was standing near an air vent now, examining the metal cover that someone had loosened with a screwdriver. Whoever had searched this place had come prepared.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Here, help me with this, will you?”
She set the bottle on the desk and then lifted the fish tank. Even almost empty, it was heavy.
Jeremy took the tank from her. “Now I see why it stinks.”
“Pour him in here.”
Jeremy looked at her. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
He tipped the tank, sending pebbles and plastic seaweed sliding as water streamed into the bottle. The fish remained behind, flapping and flailing, and Kira carefully pinched him by the tail and dropped him into the bottle.
Jeremy set the tank down and stepped over to a framed picture that had been pulled off the wall and tossed onto the sofa. It was a copy of the front page of the Houston Chronicle the morning after the Astros won the World Series for the first time in franchise history.
A hard lump rose in Kira’s throat.
Jeremy picked up the picture. The glass was smashed, and the paper backing had been shredded by someone obviously searching for something.
“He was a ’Stros fan?” Jeremy asked.
Her Deadly Secrets Page 10