An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (11 page)

Sometimes I forgot there were people working in our building that had nothing to do with police work. This poor guy was probably some computer tech here on a temporary basis.

He finally turned back to juggling his electronics.

“You’re not going to give up on that angle are you?” Louise also used her elevator whisper and stared at the display.

“No.”

“There’s no reason to believe the three murders are connected.”

This time the man jumped so hard, he bobbled his electronics. I reached over to help catch any components before they fell to the floor. He jerked back and hugged the wires and plastic boxes to his chest. His head bumped the wall behind him.

“Sorry,” he grunted.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yep.” He nodded vigorously and hugged his bounty tighter. “Fine.”

The elevator hissed to a stop and the door opened much to the relief of Mr. Electronics. He hustled out the door, and nearly tripped on a cord that hung around his ankles.

The door slid shut and we were safe to discuss the case again.

“There’s no reason to believe the murders aren’t connected.” I returned my normal speaking voice.

“You’re not going to give up on this bone even if it has no marrow?”

I shook my head. “No.”

We reached our floor and headed down the hall to the records office, where Rainey Harper held court like a librarian from hell. Rainey was the ultimate taskmaster, and whenever I saw the new recruits she had working for her, my heart went out to them. One slip would bring the admonishment of Rainey Harper, that maybe they should consider a career in another field.

Rainey was even tougher on the customers of the records office. If you didn’t know exactly what file number, county, investigating officer, and date you were looking for (in other words if Rainey would actually need to do research), you would receive her over the glasses glare and a pinched-faced, scornful sigh.

I expected to see Rainey’s glare today, but I didn’t care. It was Rainey’s job to roam the stacks in search of information, and if she hadn’t gotten used to the idea after all these years, perhaps she’d better find a new profession.

The records office was empty except for a new clerk I’d never seen before. He looked up when we entered, smiled, and set aside the document he’d been reading.

“Can I help you, ladies?”

Louise stepped up to the counter first, showed her badge, and explained to the young man what she needed. He punched a few keys on his keyboard and nodded at the screen.

“I can get that information for you, Detective.” He smiled. “It will take a few minutes.”

Louise nodded, said she would wait, and took a seat on the vinyl-covered couched that had seen its better days somewhere in the mid-sixties.

I stepped up to the counter, expecting boy wonder to look up my information before retreating to find Louise’s court documents. Instead, he turned, mumbled something to someone hidden in the stacks then disappeared.

Rainey Harper appeared like an apparition and I felt my chest tighten.

“How may I help you?” Her shriveled lips pursed together as if she’d sucked a few lemons before coming to work this morning.

I took my badge from my pocket and laid it on the counter. Rainey picked up the wallet, examined the photo and then me, as if trying to determine whether the badge was really mine. When finally satisfied that I was Detective Catherine O’Brien she handed the badge back.

“What do you need, Detective?”

“I need to find out who investigated a homicide near Duluth.”

“What county?” Her hand poised over the keyboard and her head tilted back to look through her bifocals.

“I don’t know.”

Her eyes flicked at me briefly and then back at the screen. “City?”

“I’m not sure.”

Rainey turned slowly and folded her hands on the counter. “What information do you have for me, Detective? How am I to help you find the information you need if you have no place to begin looking?”

“The murder has a possible connection to a current case.” I justified my position to counter her crankiness. “The last name of the victims should be the same.”

Or I hoped. Chad hadn’t said whether it was his mother’s or father’s mother who'd been killed.

“There should also be an address change for our current victims that will give you the county of the first murder.”

Rainey Harper studied me over the tops of her glasses. Her lemon-wrinkled lips puckered even tighter, and she glared at me for several moments. She slipped a pencil from a cup to her right and a piece of scrap paper from a tray to her left.

“What’s the name?”

“The last name is Luther. Our current victim’s first names are Jonathan and Susan.”

She jotted the information on the paper.

“And they were somewhere near Duluth,” I said.

She nodded without looking up.

“Where may I reach you if we are able to locate this information?”

I handed her my business card. Rainey took the card and paper-clipped it to the back of the scrap paper. She deposited the scrap paper into a plastic bin filled with other papers then turned back to her precious stacks.

“I am in a bit of a hurry for this information, Miss Harper. The information is relevant to an ongoing murder investigation.”

“It has our top priority,” Rainey called over her shoulder and then disappeared down one of the book-lined paths.

I glanced at the tiny scrap of paper languishing on top of the other more official looking requests. Top priority my ass, I’d be lucky if they’d be able to locate my scrap of paper in a few days.

Louise’s helper returned, a bright smile lit his face. “Okay, Detective. I have your file.”

He laid a folder on the counter and slid it across for Louise. She took the file and tucked it under her arm.

I reached into the basket and snagged my piece of scrap paper.

“Rainey said this would be top priority,” I said. “I really need this information for our,” I indicated both Louise and myself by rapidly pointing back and forth. “Current investigation. It’s very important that we get this information A. S. A. P.”

He pinched the edge of the paper between his fingers and nodded. “Of course Detective, I’ll see what I can find.”

I did my best to do a sexy wink. He gave a grimace that said I fell short of the mark.

“I appreciate your help,” Louise said and tapped her file. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I winked again, and this time I think I frightened him. Whatever it took to get my information.

Louise settled in behind her desk to review the file she’d managed to retrieve from Rainey’s realm. I dropped into my chair and noticed my message light flashing again.

Wasn’t this day over yet?
I checked my watch, two o’clock.

I picked up the phone and punched the message light. There's no time like the present to delete all messages from Jane Katts.

The automated voice came on the line.

You have one message
.

One? Maybe my day just got better.

The message began. “Detective O’Brien, this is Linda Myers, I’m Susan Luther’s sister. Chad Luther’s Aunt.”

She added the last bit as if I wouldn’t know who she was from her sister’s name alone.

“When you have time, I’d like to speak with you about the investigation.”

I jotted her number on the back of one of my business cards and slipped it into my pocket.

“Louise, I just got a call from Chad Luther’s aunt. She wants to speak with us about the investigation.”

Before she could reply, my phone rang. I answered on the second ring.

“Detective O’Brien, speaking.”

“O’Brien.” It was the chief and he didn’t sound happy. “I want to see you in my office now. Bring Montgomery with you.”

He hung up before I had the chance to let out a breath, let alone respond.

“We’re wanted in the chief’s office first,” I said.

“Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

The chief’s door was open again, but this time there was a woman in his office. He smiled politely at her and chatted as if she were an old friend he hadn’t seen in awhile. When he reached the punch line of his story, the woman laughed and turned her head to the side.

“Shit.” I turned away and felt a wave of nausea roll through my stomach.

“What?” Louise asked.

“It’s Jane Katts. What the hell is she doing here? We don’t have time for her right now.”

I checked over my shoulder. The chief hadn’t yet spotted us.

“Let’s just go see this Walter Wren character,” I whispered. “She’ll be gone by the time we get back.”

“O’Brien!” Tension crept up my back, stiffening my spine.

“Too late.” Louise pinched my cheek. “Big smile now. You don’t know what he knows yet. If he sees the guilt on your face, he’ll know everything.”

Without hesitation, I plastered on a pleasant smile and marched the final feet toward certain doom. Jane Katts watched me over her shoulder.

I locked eyes with her and wished, not for the first time in my life, that I had telekinetic abilities. If I had, I could mentally disembowel Jane Katts. That’s probably why God never blessed me with that particular gift.

“Hello Detective.” Jane Katts’ tone was overly pleasant. She must have trumped me in some way and now she’s was just waiting for me to concede the trick.

“Close the door behind you, O’Brien.” The chief rocked back in his chair and smiled.

There was nothing in his smile except pleasantry, which made me more nervous than the one Jane Katts had given me. A broad smile was so alien on the Chief’s face that I was certain that Jane Katts had managed to pull a switcheroo and replace the chief with a pod person of her own design; one who is not hard-edged and sand-papery as I have come to expect but instead soft, with as much grit as a nail file.

“I’m afraid there’s not enough chairs so one of you will have to stand.” The smiley version of our chief of police said.

I braced my feet a shoulder width apart and crossed my arms over my chest, I preferred to stand for whatever nasty surprise Jane Katts had in store for me.

Louise sat and introduced herself to Jane. They exchanged a handshake.

“Ms. Katts is the reporter who asked for the exclusive interview.”

He glossed over the detail about her being the reporter who had engaged in a calculated smear campaign against the department.

“She would like to change the angle of her story to get more of an inside view.” The chief’s eyes cut to my face and I saw a hint of the real chief behind whatever hoodoo Jane Katts had performed on him.

‘Uh-huh’ was the best I could manage from my anger-constricted throat.

“What does that mean?” Louise asked, and turned toward Jane Katts for the answer.

Jane smiled and crossed her right leg over her left so she angled toward Louise.

“I’d like to follow you through the investigation,” she said.

“No.”

The clipped, one-word response was the best I could manage. I would give her an exclusive interview, that included all my darkest secrets and fears, before I would let her follow me around during an investigation.

“It’s already been decided, O’Brien.”

In the chief’s eyes, I saw something I never thought I’d see – sympathy. This dictate had come down from a higher power and he didn’t like to bend this far over backward either.

“Ms. Katts feels that she may have been a little hasty in her portrayal of the department.”

“Yes,” Jane jumped in. “I’d like a chance to show our readers what a murder investigation is really like, start to finish. Not just the initial news flash and then the final outcome of the investigation.”

“The mayor feels that it’s a good idea,” chief said in a slow, make-sure-they-understand-what’s-really-going-on way.

“No offense, Ms. Katts.” Louise turned to her and smiled. “But I hate this idea. You’ve already written –”

Louise waved her fingers around as if she could Houdini the right words from thin air.

“Let’s call what you wrote half-truths about our department and this investigation.”

“As I said, I was hasty.”

The corners of my lips turned up slightly. Jane Katts miscalculated again. She poked the bear this morning when she challenged me, but compared to Louise, I’m a cub. She was about to feel the strike of a full on Kodiak.

“You were deceitful, not hasty, Ms. Katts. Now you have used whatever influence you have in the Mayor’s office, to force us into allowing you to tag along as we do our work.”

The smarmy smile that had been a mainstay on Jane Katts’ face since we walked in the door disappeared.

Louise continued without pause. “I’m only saying this because, you’re going to be underfoot during this investigation, there will need to be guidelines for you to follow.”