5 Windy City Hunter (15 page)

“My mother worked full-time,” he said. “On the weekends, she would teach me the basics of cooking and baking. Then, during the week, I would come home from school and start dinner for the family. I always enjoyed messing around in the kitchen. If I hadn’t originally become a police officer, I might have been a chef.”

“Well, I’m grateful you can do both,” I said. “What are we going to do today?”

“Darby’s arraignment has been pushed back to 4:00,” he said. “I thought I’d go back over to the Wilder Hotel and see if they have security footage of the cooking show. I want to see what Bonnie Montgomery was doing with your things before you started cooking.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I was hoping we wouldn’t let that go too long. I think she said she was only going to stay in town for a few days with her sister, so if there’s anything to find out, we need to find it out soon. Is there any word on Dee’s condition this morning?”

“The same,” he said. “Still critical.”

I looked at my watch. “How soon will breakfast be ready? Do I have time to shower?”

“You do,” he said. “The quiche comes out in twenty minutes, and it should set for another five before we cut it.”

I dashed off, grabbed clothes for the day, and hopped into the shower. My mind wasn’t on Darby’s arraignment right now. My mind was still on Bonnie Montgomery. What was up with her? Why in the world would she have touched any of our things at the competition? Why would she put a date-rape drug in Darby’s vanilla, and then hide the box in Dee’s station? Was her original intent to target the drug toward Darby or Dee? Another thought popped into my head. Maybe she had a grudge against one or more of the judges. Until I talked with her yesterday, she had been friendly and good-natured. I was still upset over her attitude about Darby’s arrest.

Dressed in a warm, hunter-green sweater, dark brown corduroys, and comfortable knee-high boots, I joined the detective for breakfast. The quiche was delicious, and I prodded him for the recipe.

“I don’t have any idea,” he said. “I put crumbled bacon, Swiss cheese, and spinach in the bottom of the dish, and then I throw everything else in a bowl, mix it up, and pour it over the bacon, cheese, and spinach.”

“What’s the everything else part? I asked.

“Eggs, salt, pepper, and there’s a good bit of cream in there, too,” he said.

It sounded easy enough. I’d look online at home and find a couple of recipes. Mick would like this. “I bet this is good cold, too,” I told him.

“You’ll find me hanging out at the refrigerator around midnight,” he said with a laugh. “It’s definitely good cold.”

It was the first I had seen him laugh since he arrived. There certainly wasn’t much to laugh about right now.

He tossed his napkin onto the table and stood up. “Susan, I’m going to grab a shower and then run over to the Wilder.”

“Ok,” I said. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll clean up the kitchen.”

Twenty minutes later, the kitchen was spotless, and the detective was pulling on his coat.

“You stay here, or at least stay in the building,” he said.

I nodded my head. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do while he was gone. I didn’t want to watch television. “Chuck, did you bring a laptop with you?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t have it on me when you called, but there’s one in my bedroom. It’s on the small desk in the corner. There are some books piled on top of it. If it’s charged and works, you could probably use it.”

He left, and I ran to the bedroom. Sure enough, there was a laptop under a stack of crime fiction books. I carried it to the living room, settled onto the sofa with my feet on the coffee table, and opened the computer on my lap. I pushed the on switch and held my breath. The screen lit up; it had power. That was a step in the right direction. The desktop was neat and clean with only a few icons, and one of them was for a web browser. I immediately went to a search engine.

My first instinct was to type in Darby’s name and read news articles about him, but common sense told me it would only be upsetting, and to let it be. I typed in the name Bonnie Montgomery. The search engine returned more than ten million hits. I needed to narrow it down. I tried Bonnie Montgomery, Tennessee. Almost five million returns. How was I going to find out anything about her?

Craig said she had been evicted from her home due to eminent domain. I tried searching her name, her state, and eminent domain all together. Thirty-six results. Bingo! There had to be something here.

The first article was for land concerning a coal mine. I moved on to the next article, and then the next. I found Bonnie in the sixth article.

Bonnie Montgomery and her husband, Frank Montgomery, have been at the forefront in trying to stop the Careywood Marketing Group from using eminent domain laws to declare their home, plus the 56 homes around it, blighted, thereby giving the marketing group the right to take the land for developing a high-end shopping mall and exclusive office buildings. The tax revenue to the city from the new development would be a boon and save the aging community.

A few more articles gave more details as to how hard Bonnie and her husband had fought. She was right about coming from a family of lawyers. There had been a slew of Montgomerys fighting the courts, but in the end, they lost, and the home had been surrendered.

I found myself feeling sympathetic toward Bonnie. It was a terrible thing to run good people out of a home they had lived in for years because it didn’t have two bathrooms, a garage, and central air. That was blighted? I’d be angry, too.

But what would tie Dee or Darby to Bonnie and her problems? I searched the articles again and came up with nothing.

Craig said Bonnie was mad at everyone. Who was everyone? I ticked off a mental checklist - the mayor, the city, the opposing attorneys. Maybe that was it. I searched the law firm of Post & Posten. Nothing triggered a connection to Dee or Darby.

The last name to search was Careywood Marketing Group. Their website was small, and there was very little information about them or how they operated. I clicked on the site map and found a link to the parent company, Brightwood, Incorporated.

The name Brightwood was familiar. I clicked the link, and I instantly knew the connection. Brightwood, Incorporated’s website was flashy with lots of bells and whistles. It had been designed by Darby, and most of the material on the site had been written by him, too. He had promoted the company’s ability to revitalize rundown neighborhoods by building shopping malls, high-end condos, and office buildings. The website made the company appear positively miraculous in their ability to reform communities. There was no mention of eminent domain or people being displaced for the benefit of the company, and I knew there was no way Darby would have taken the job if he had known how they were getting prime land for their projects.

Darby’s name appeared prominently on the site at least three times. Even though he was an independent contractor, he brokered his contract so that his name would appear a set number of times over the course of a job. This would often lead to future work from other companies.

There were a lot of unanswered questions here, and my mind was running down all of them. I went to get my phone so I could call Detective Bentley, but he entered the condo before I could walk up the steps from the living room.

“Chuck,” I said excitedly, “I found out why Bonnie Montgomery laced Darby’s vanilla with the drug.”

“Good,” he said, “because I ran into a dead end.”

“How?” I asked. “Didn’t the hotel have the footage?”

“Nope,” he said shaking his head. “Because the venue is so large, every section isn’t monitored. They added additional cameras for the contest, but the extra cameras were only filming during the cooking times. There isn’t any footage of your section from when you first arrived.”

I was disappointed, but not defeated. “Let me show you what I found,” I said.

He sat down, read all of the articles I had bookmarked, and looked through the Brentwood website. “This is good, Susan,” he said. “This is definitely the link between Bonnie and Darby, but it doesn’t prove she put the drug in his vanilla. It’s a good start though.” He stood from the sofa and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to try Darby’s uncle again,” he said. “If I don’t get him, I’m going to touch base with Detective Malloy and see if they’ve tracked him down yet.”

I nodded my head and repositioned myself with the computer on my lap. There was one more thing that was bothering me. Why would Bonnie have a date rape drug on her in the first place? How would she get it?

I searched back through the articles, and read a few more I hadn’t yet perused. The very last article had a possible answer. Bonnie was a retired nurse. I searched the drug Rohypnol and found it was used to treat short term insomnia. She could have her own prescription for the drug, or, at the very least, she would know how to get it.

“Any news?” I asked as the detective re-entered the living room.

“None,” he said. “It’s as though Jack Tapley has dropped off the planet, and that’s not good, especially if he was involved in the theft and the murder.”

I was surprised to hear him say that. “You don’t honestly think Jack had anything to do with Mrs. Fisher’s murder, do you?”

“Susan, it’s a possibility,” he said. “You have to be prepared for the fact that Jack may have allowed all of this to unfold this way, and he’s letting Darby take the rap for the murder.”

I couldn’t believe it, but there had been a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right with Darby’s uncle. The fact that the necklace was found in his condo, and that Jack couldn’t be reached, was unsettling.

“Chuck, do you have your badge?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“We need to go see Bonnie Montgomery before she leaves Chicago,” I said. “She doesn’t need to know you’re from Ohio and that you don’t have any jurisdiction here. You can tell her what you know, and see what she says.”

He paused, and I knew he was contemplating the suggestion. “Susan, that’s another good idea,” he said. “Grab a coat, and let’s go.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I assumed we would be walking the two blocks, so I ran to bundle up with gloves, scarf, and a matching tam.

We didn’t talk much on our way to the hotel. I gave him the information about Bonnie being a retired nurse, but he was walking at a fast clip, and it was hard to carry on a conversation. His legs were longer than mine, and he walked faster than I was used to, so it was a bit like a workout, but the exercise felt good, and my spirits were lifted.

We had the puzzle of the businessman, Craig, and Wes solved. The Chicago authorities would either catch the art thieves or they wouldn’t, but I felt better knowing Craig wouldn’t be charged, and he would be able to get on with his art career. And now, we had all the information we needed to clear Darby of the charges pending against him toward Dee. I felt butterflies in my stomach. Or maybe those were flutters from the baby. I had felt some flutters recently, but I had yet to experience a first kick. I was pretty sure the feeling today was butterflies as I was nervous and anxious about talking with Bonnie again.

Once inside the hotel lobby, Detective Bentley strode to the front desk, flashed his badge, and asked the room number for Bonnie Montgomery. He turned from the desk and joined me as I stood waiting by the elevators.

“She’s in 1324,” he said as we stepped inside. He pushed the button for thirteen.

My heart was racing, and it made me feel foolish. There wasn’t anything to be worried about. I found her to be unpleasant yesterday, but that didn’t mean she would be the same way today.

The detective rapped hard on her door. We only had to wait a moment before the door was opened.

“Susan? What are you doin’ here?” she asked. She seemed genuinely surprised to see me, and not necessarily in a good way.

“Bonnie, I’m detective Chuck Bentley,” he said cordially and with a smile as he showed his badge. I was impressed. He didn’t sound threatening, yet he wasn’t too friendly. His good looks coupled with the smile kept him from presenting an intimidating appearance. “Can we talk to you for a few minutes?”

She hesitated, so I smiled. It dawned on me that I needed to appear friendly, too.

She stepped back. “I only have a few minutes,” she said. “My sister will be here soon.”

“We won’t be long,” he said.

A suitcase was open on the bed, and clothes were strewn across the bed. A dresser drawer was open. She shoved some clothes aside to sit down on the bed while motioning for us to take seats in the only chairs in the room – an upholstered one in a corner and a wooden one at a small desk. Detective Bentley pulled the chair out from the desk and turned it to face her. He leaned forward with his forearms on his knees and folded his hands in front of him.

“Bonnie, do you know what happened to Delma Snider?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I assumed she was crossin’ the street and hit by a car.”

“She was drugged,” he said. “She staggered into traffic and was hit by a car. She’s still in critical condition, and she might not live.”

“So,” she said nonchalantly. Her tone indicated she didn’t care. “I don’t know her. I’m sorry she might not live, but that doesn’t have anythin’ to do with me. I’ll never see her again one way or the other.”