A Grand Murder Read online

  I decided to check the keycard list Mel had given us against the enemies list, to narrow our search.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What?” Louise popped her head above her computer screen. “Did you find something?”

  “We can scratch Carter from the list of suspects in Ridges’s murder.”

  “Why?”

  She stood and stretched her back.

  “Because he left the office yesterday at six—fifteen on the dot.”

  “We didn’t ask him where he was at the time of Forster’s death, did we?” she said.

  “Nope, and he didn’t offer when I all but accused him. I guess the blow to his head was harder than we thought.”

  I laughed at the image of Carter lying prone on the floor.

  “That was classic, Louise.”

  She wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at me.

  “Carter’s punctuality leaves us with another dead end, one more unanswered question.”

  “We can add it to the growing list of unanswered questions and dead ends.”

  I pushed back from the desk and rubbed my eyes.

  “Nothing in this case makes sense, and we have until the end of the day tomorrow to come up with something. I’m open to wild speculation at this point.”

  Louise took the two lists of names from me and scrutinized them.

  “What did you find on the lists? Do any names match?”

  “Four.”

  “That’s good.”

  I tilted my head and furrowed my brows.

  “Well.” She shrugged. “Four is better than four hundred. Who are they?”

  I took a deep breath and picked up my notebook.

  “Let’s see. We have a secretary who works on the executive floor. According to Tracy’s dossier, our Mr. Stanley sexually harassed her, and then paid her to keep quiet about it. She took the money but she’s harboring ill will.”

  Louise grimaced. “Sleazy and unethical, but not really a killing offense.”

  “We have a janitor who Stanley apparently ripped off in a land deal.”

  “Land deal?” Louise pushed away a stack of papers on the corner of my desk and perched on the edge.

  “That sounds possible,” she said. “What kind of land deal?”

  “The janitor had massive amounts of hunting land up north. Tracy said it was the janitor’s parents’ old farm place. Stanley convinced him to sell a portion of it, claiming he was a hunter. Instead Stanley used his political connections to get the land re—zoned for development.”

  “Nice,” Louise said.

  “The janitor can’t hunt there anymore, and he was nickel and dimed on his land price, so he’s not rich either. He lost money and lost his family’s homestead.”

  “What a jerk,” Louise said. “How could Stanley sleep at night?”

  “I know. The more I hear about him, the more a part of me is glad he’s gone. If I’d known him, I’d be on the list.”

  Louise nodded.

  For a moment I was offended that she agreed with me, but she’d known me long enough to know that what I said was true. Hiding my feelings toward people who were as slimy as Nathan Stanley was very difficult for me.

  Louise spent a good portion of each day telling me to control my feelings in a Yoda—zen manner.

  “But you’re not on the list, so who are the other two suspects?”

  “A female executive he had an affair with, dumped her publicly, and then demoted her.”

  I flicked the edge of the paper with my middle finger.

  “Jesus,” Louise said and shook her head. “What a worm. How did he get away with jilting and demoting coworkers without being sued?”

  “I know. So much for harassment laws.”

  “Who’s the last suspect?”

  “Not surprisingly another woman. This one is a lawyer. She’s the corporate attorney for the company. Dated and dumped her, too.”

  Louise straightened and arched her back.

  “Well, I say, since the mittens belong to a woman, we’ve got three likely suspects.”

  I nodded my agreement and pulled a rubber band from the drawer to wrangle my lawless hair into a ponytail.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Having a list of three good suspects seems too easy.”

  “What do you mean ‘too easy’?”

  “Think about it. When was the last time we worked a case with an enemies list? Then we’re given another list of people who were in the building and available to commit the murder, so we could match the enemies list against? We’ve been hand fed three solid suspects for at least one of the murders.”

  “Makes our job painless and tidy,” Louise said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I lifted my notebook and flipped through the pages.

  “I feel like I’m being led around by my nose, and I don’t like it. Plus what motive do any of these three women have to murder Forster? That’s a real sticking point for me.”

  “That is a problem.” She rubbed her eyes. “I hate to say it but you’re right, we don’t normally get handed a suspect list. Usually, the victim’s a saint and no one can figure out why anyone would want them dead.”

  True—only characters in movies had an enemies list. Friends failed to see flaws, and usually tried to justify abhorrent behavior brought out in a criminal investigation. Or they simply accused the police of manufacturing the evidence.

  “What do you propose?” Louise said.

  “How about some good old—fashioned police work. Like we would normally have to do without any help from anyone. Find our own clues, our own suspects, and come to our own conclusions.”

  I curved myself into the hunched posture of my grandmother.

  “Like we did in the good old days, deary.”

  A weak smile from Louise was my reward.

  “That’s fine with me but starting over means tonight’s going to be another all—nighter.”

  “Yeah I know. I’ll call Gav and let him know not to wait up.”

  An ache throbbed in my chest as I dialed our phone number. I should be used to making the not coming home tonight call by now.

  Gavin must have been waiting for my call. He answered the phone on the second ring and said, “So how late are you going to be this time?”

  I forced a cheerful laugh and said, “How does tomorrow sound?”

  “Catherine.” It was less my name, and more of a disappointed exhale. “I’m worried about you. You’re not getting enough rest.”

  “Gavin, please.”

  We’d been through this same argument how many times? I couldn’t even count any more.

  “I can handle it.”

  “For how long?” The worry in his voice easily traversed the phone lines. “Have you even eaten dinner yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  We hadn’t stopped for lunch either, but I wasn’t about to throw that fuel on this flame. This fire had enough to consume without any help.

  “Are you going to eat dinner?”

  He knew me well. I was notoriously bad at remembering to eat. Food was a low priority on the list of things I needed to accomplish in a day. There were days when he would shove a plate of food under my nose and demand that I eat.

  “You and Louise take a break. Whatever it is you’re working on can wait for an hour while you have dinner,” he said. “Make it a good meal too. No slop burgers and greasy French fries. Make sure there’s something green on the plate.”

  “Mmm, green,” I said. “Does mold count?”

  “Very funny, Catherine,” he said. “Don’t make me call your mother.”

  My mother—the ultimate worrier.

  When I joined the police force she bought an illegal police scanner so she could listen and make sure I was okay. We finally had to take away her scanner after she drove Gavin crazy, calling him every time she thought she heard my voice over the radio.

  “Don’t you threaten me, Gavin O’Brien. I
know where you live.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  My heart screamed into my throat at the hurt in his voice. The phone line went silent.

  “Gav?”

  “It’s all right,” he said. He tried to sound reassuring but he failed. “Don’t worry about me. Just have dinner and get your work done. But you are going on a long—overdue vacation with me, as soon as you’re done with this case.”

  “Vacation, hmm. That sounds like a heap of fun.”

  “Come on, Catherine. You haven’t had a vacation in three years. It’s time.”

  Had it only been three years? I remembered the hell of that vacation as if it were yesterday. Lost luggage, sunburns, and mosquitoes the size of humming birds. I can’t imagine why anyone would consider that relaxing.

  “Um, I’ll have to see if I can get the time off.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “If you can’t go with me, I’m going anyway.”

  Silence hung between us, thick as tar. He’d threatened to go on vacation without me before, but this time he was serious. I wasn’t sure what that meant for our relationship.

  “Try not to work too hard,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “I love you, sweetie,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The line went dead, and I went numb.

  Gavin was never this angry before. The fissures in our relationship were bad this time. I would have no choice but to go on vacation with him when this case was over, if I wanted to try to save my marriage.

  Nausea pressed at my stomach. I hate vacations. Ever since I can remember, all my vacations had been complete failures. Anything that could go wrong on a trip, usually did.

  I laid the handset back on the cradle and stared at it for a moment, then looked up to find Louise fixated on one of the crime scene photos.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a photo of Stanley’s office.”

  She handed me the eight by ten glossy of the large wooden desk and the wall behind it where the killer had scrawled, It’s All About Winning.

  “Yeah, so?”

  I stared at the photo, trying to figure out what she’d seen.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Look at what the killer scrawled across the wall.”

  She drew a line with her finger under the words.

  “Writing on the wall with the victim’s blood is more venomous than being dumped would produce. Even publicly dumped. Wouldn’t you say? If Forster had walked in on one of the three women on the suspect list, I don’t think they would have been enraged enough to do this.”

  She took the photo from me and brought it close to her face, then laid the picture on a pile of paper on the edge of her desk.

  “A land deal gone bad could have created this much hate, but then we have the women’s mittens. It doesn’t add up. We are definitely being led in the wrong direction. If not led, then at least misdirected.”

  “By who?”

  “Who gave us the lists?”

  “Tracy and Mel.”

  “Tracy and Mel,” she repeated.

  “But, they’ve been so helpful.”

  “Exactly. Too helpful.”

  Louise stood to pace behind her desk.

  “When was the last time we had somebody that willing to help with an investigation?”

  Good point. Most people answered our perfunctory questions, then wanted to be done with us. Not Tracy and Mel. They were going out of their way to help us with whatever we needed.

  “I was hoping they had Boy Scout syndrome.”

  “My guess is they’ve been directing our attention away from them.”

  “But what motive does either of them have to kill Stanley and Forster?”

  Louise paused for a moment.

  “Greed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s think,” she said, and tapped her temple. “Tracy admitted that she had most of her retirement savings tied up in company stock. What if Mel’s retirement was invested in Stanley and Forster too?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And Mel could easily have erased any tapes showing Tracy’s face leaving Stanley’s office the day of Forster’s murder. She erased the tapes of the accident with Carter for you.”

  I gave Louise a wink. She rolled her eyes and grimaced.

  “She didn’t erase them for me. I specifically told her she didn’t need to erase the tapes.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

  Just then a young, attractive, dark—haired man approached from behind Louise. He wore faded jeans and a long sleeve t—shirt that accentuated his broad shoulders.

  His face looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before.

  “Excuse me, Detective O’Brien?”

  I straightened in my seat. Louise stopped pacing.

  “Yes, I’m Detective O’Brien,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  “You obviously don’t remember me.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry I don’t.”

  “I was at the Stanley murder crime scene.”

  He stopped like that should be enough information. I shook my head again.

  “I’m sorry, there was so much going on that day. I don’t remember you.”

  “I’m Officer Lawrence.”

  My mind ran through the faces of the uniformed officers at the scene, finally settling on the only one to volunteer information to Louise and me. He looked different in civilian, street clothing—older somehow.

  “I remember you now,” I said. “What can we do for you?”

  He jammed his hands into his back pockets and rocked on his heels. “I did a little more digging on Stanley’s neighbor.”

  “The neighbor?”

  Louise took out her phone and checked her notes to see if she had any information.

  “You mean the woman who found the body?”

  “Yeah, the woman I made the rude comment about.”

  “Oh, her,” I said and gave him a disapproving look.

  He avoided my gaze and fixed his eyes somewhere over my shoulder.

  “Something about the neighbor didn’t sit right with me, so I did a little investigating.”

  “What did you find?” Louise perched on the edge of the desk.

  “She lied to us about her name.”

  Louise sat up straighter. “She did?”

  “Yeah, and that’s not all.” He vibrated with the excitement of what he’d discovered. “Turns out she’s not even his neighbor.”

  “What are you talking about, rookie?” I said.

  “That’s Officer Lawrence, Detective O’Brien.”

  “Fine, Officer Lawrence, what the hell are you talking about?”

  My tone was flat. I was getting annoyed with this rookie, mostly because he’d found something we’d overlooked—that pissed me off.

  “The first thing that didn’t sit right was she seemed really nervous.” He held out his hands and wiggled his fingers for effect.

  “Well, of course she’s nervous. She’d just seen a dead body.”

  “No,” he said. “Sometimes the person who finds the body will act frightened or upset. Crying, shaking, physically sick, concerned that there’s a killer in the area, that sort of thing, but every time I asked this woman a question, she was evasive.”

  “Evasive?” Louise said. “How so?”

  “Shifty. She looked up, down, around.”

  He swiveled his head around for emphasis.

  “She never looked directly at me. For some reason, I couldn’t get past the idea that she wasn’t telling me the entire truth.”

  “What else have you got, Officer Lawrence? We’re on a deadline here.”

  He shot me a sour look.

  “She said she lived across the street, but as we were packing up the body to go, I watched her get into a white Mercedes Benz and drive away.”

  “So maybe she had to go to work,” Louise said. “By th
e time we were done questioning her, the timing would have been right.”

  “Not dressed like she was. If you remember, she said she’d just gotten back from a party and she was dressed for a party, not for work.”

  The woman had been wearing a provocative, low cut black evening dress. Too sexy for an office worker. Too sexy for any job I could think of at the moment that didn’t involve a pimp.

  “She claimed that she hadn’t been home all night. Normally, wouldn’t you go home and take a shower before you went to work? Or change your clothes at the very least? I know I would. Even if it meant being late for work.”

  “The Rookie’s got you there, Louise.” I grinned at him. “Go ahead. Dazzle us with what else you have.”

  “When she left I went across the street and checked with the condo manager.”

  He paused for effect.

  “And,” Louise said.

  “That woman doesn’t live at the apartments she indicated. The manager has no record of the name she gave us, doesn’t recognize the description of her—nothing.”

  “Shit,” I said and sat forward.

  This was bad. Very bad. It was quite possible that we had the killer in our hands and let her go.

  Lawrence grinned at me. “Lucky for you, Detective, I got her license plate number.”

  I grinned back. “I knew I liked you for some reason.”

  Louise sighed and splayed her hands. “Well, who is she?”

  “Her name’s Annabeth Carter,” he said.

  Louise’s face reflected the shock that rippled through me. Looks like we’d been on the right track with Philip Carter after all.

  “Quick, Officer Lawrence, was she wearing mittens?” I asked.

  He looked confused.

  I turned to Louise.

  “You talked to her, Louise. Do you remember if she was wearing mittens?”

  “I wasn’t looking for mittens at that time, Catherine,” Louise said.

  “No.” Officer Lawrence jumped in without being prompted. “I remember because I let her sit in my cruiser to warm up. She’d been freezing because she didn’t have any gloves and she only had on a light dress coat.”

  I stood and clapped him on the back. A goofy—assed grin split my face from the excitement bubbling up from the bottom of my feet.

  Finally, a bit of luck. Sometimes luck was all you needed and this could be the break we had been searching for.