Circle of Influence (A Zoe Chambers Mystery) (10 page)

“She’s lying to me.”

“How can you tell?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “I was married to the woman. I can tell.”

“What did you find out?” Zoe dreaded the answer. What if Marcy confirmed Matt’s vicious gossip?

“Not much. She parrots exactly what McBirney said when I talked to him earlier. But she’s hiding something. It’s in her eyes.”

Zoe’s stomach did a slow roll. “I think I may know what she’s keeping from you.”

Pete lowered the cup to the table. “What?”

The intensity of his blue eyes made her squirm. “I was talking to Matt at the station today—”

“Matt Doaks? I wouldn’t exactly consider him a reliable source.”

She shook off the hope that Pete’s bitter tone carried a hint of jealousy. “He’s McBirney’s lapdog. Who would know better what’s going on with him?”

Pete shrugged. “What did he say?”

“Apparently McBirney suspects Marcy has been having an affair.”

Pete leaned back in his seat and scowled. Zoe wondered if he was thinking back to the moment he learned about another of Marcy’s affairs.

Zoe inhaled deeply to brace for the rest. Lowering her voice, she said, “He thinks the affair was with Ted.”

Pete stiffened. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered through a clenched jaw. “Do you believe him?”

Good question. “I’ve been trying not to,” she admitted. “But whether or not it’s true, what if McBirney believed it?”

Pete leaned forward and cupped his chin in his fist. His gaze burned into her brain until she had to look away. If he knew what she wanted to order for dinner, maybe he really could read her thoughts and see her doubts.

The waitress’s arrival with two heavy, steaming stoneware plates saved Zoe from Pete’s scrutiny. For a few moments there was blessed silence between them as they both organized silverware and napkins.

Pete inspected one of his barbecued ribs. “If Ted and Marcy were having an affair—that might explain a lot.”

“But they weren’t having an affair.” Zoe prayed the words coming off her lips were true.

“And you know this because?”

She stirred her coleslaw to buy time before answering. “I don’t know. But I can’t believe Ted would do that.”

“Marcy would.” He bit into the rib.

The poignancy of his voice touched her heart. “I’m sorry.”

He spun the meat between his fingers as if determining his next plan of attack. “It’s just the truth. She would. So if they were having an affair—”

Zoe’s protest died on her lips when he held up one sauce-smudged finger.

“I said if.
If
they were, then perhaps they were together Monday night after the meeting. Maybe Marcy was lying about McBirney’s whereabouts because she wasn’t home either.”

“That might explain why Ted was in McBirney’s car.” Zoe hated herself as soon as she said it.

“McBirney came home, found his wife gone, and he went looking for her.”

Zoe put down the fork and picked up the burger. Too bad she’d lost her appetite. “But the game lands? In the middle of a blizzard? They wouldn’t be parking out there. Too cold.”

“And they aren’t kids. Kids park in the game lands to make out. Adults get a room.” Pete polished off the rib and started on another. The prospect of an affair between Ted and Marcy and the motive it provided appeared to bolster his appetite. “Or maybe McBirney came home and caught them together. Killed Ted and drove him out there to cover up the crime scene.”

Zoe took a bite. She loved Parson’s cheeseburgers, but the juicy meat and the salty cheese held no appeal to her right then. “I don’t think they’d have been stupid enough to get caught at the house. Marcy would be expecting McBirney.” God, she hated the whole scenario.

Pete dropped another bare bone on his plate with a
clink
and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “You’re probably right. But he still could have found them at a motel. I’ll start asking around. Not that many places they could have gone. Are you all right?”

She looked up from the burger. “Yeah. Why?”

He tipped his head at her plate. “You’ve barely touched your food. That’s not like you.”

True. She rarely left a crumb behind. “I can’t stomach this whole idea of Ted cheating on Rose. I don’t buy it. Ted’s not like that.” She caught her mistake, and her voice broke. “He
wasn’t
like that.”

Pete reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m sorry.”

The warm touch of his skin against hers produced a flutter in her chest, like a small flock of butterflies had been set free. She curled her fingers around his.

“You’ve never really told me much about you and Ted. I mean, there was a ‘you and Ted’ at one point, right?”

She studied the back of Pete’s hand. Safer than meeting his eyes. “Yeah. But it was really short-lived and never went anywhere. I was a raw nerve…you know...vulnerable…after the thing with Matt. And then I introduced Ted to my best friend. They were ga-ga for each other from the moment they laid eyes on one another.” She smiled at the memory. Happier times. “I always liked Ted, but I just wasn’t into him
that
way.”

Pete squeezed her hand, but said nothing.

Zoe finally risked looking him in the eye. The butterflies turned into a flock of swallows. She noticed a smudge of barbecue sauce on his chin and reached across the table with her free hand to wipe it away. He caught her wrist and looked at the sauce on her finger. Then he drew her hand closer and kissed the smudge from it.

She inhaled, forgot to exhale, and her breath caught in the flutter within her chest.

And then her cell phone chirped.

Crap.

He grinned at her and released both hands. “You’d better answer that.”

As she reached for her purse and her phone, another piercing assortment of musical notes reached her ears. Pete unclipped his own phone from his belt.

Zoe half turned in the booth as she answered hers. Rose’s frantic voice wailed at her. “Thank God you answered. I don’t know what to do. Logan’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“He’s missing. The car’s here, but he’s not. His cell goes right to voicemail. He didn’t leave a note or tell anyone where he was going.” Rose’s voice dissolved into sobs.

“Don’t worry,” Zoe said. Ha. Fat chance. “He probably just took a walk to clear his head.”

“He’s been gone for hours. It’s dark out. He would have come home by now.”

“Try to relax. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Zoe flipped the phone shut and dropped it into her purse. When she turned back toward the table and Pete, he was ending his call, too. His face was a deep shade of crimson.

“What’s wrong?” She couldn’t take more bad news. Please, don’t let it be Logan…

“Someone broke into the evidence room at the station,” Pete said. “The computer we confiscated from Sylvia has been stolen.”

TEN

Pete wheeled into the lot in front of the police station and jammed on the brakes. He almost snapped the key off in the ignition as he cut the engine. He was pissed. Someone had stolen something from his very own evidence room. Marcy was lying to him. Zoe was lying to him, too. Her face had lost all color when he told her about the break-in, and she’d insisted the call she’d received was nothing.

Bullshit. She knew or suspected something and wasn’t telling him.

Officer Kevin Piacenza met him at the office door. The kid’s eyes and nose were watery and blood-red. In sharp contrast, his skin appeared rather bluish deepening to dark circles under his eyes.

“You look like crap,” Pete told him. “Go home, and take your germs with you.”

Kevin responded by dissolving into a coughing fit that forced him to drop into one of the chairs in the room. “I’m sorry, Chief,” he wheezed. “I figured you and Seth needed some downtime, so I came in to help.” He dabbed at his nose with a wrinkled handkerchief and winced. “When I got here, I found the evidence room door was all busted up.”

The pressure inside Pete’s head threatened to blow the top of it off. Without waiting to hear more, he headed toward the rear of the building.

The station had been locked up for the night. With only the three full-time officers and four part-timers, one of whom was currently visiting family in Florida, they didn’t have the staff to man the station twenty-four hours a day. Hell, most nights, they were lucky to keep one guy on patrol. The state police filled the void when necessary, but Pete and his officers pushed themselves hard and put in too many hours.

The holding cell stood empty, courtesy of Sylvia’s attorney arranging bail.

But there was an alarm. Why the hell hadn’t the alarm gone off?

The hinges of the steel evidence room door had been removed, and it lay flat on the hallway floor. Too bad it hadn’t fallen on the asshole and smashed him.

The area around the lock displayed scrapes and gouges. From the looks of the crumpled metal, someone had used a heavy-duty pry bar to gain access.

Pete stepped over the door and into the room. Gray metal shelves held labeled boxes of evidence from a multitude of cases. Larger items sat on a counter that ran the perimeter of the room. He knew precisely where he had set the computer with its chain-of-evidence tags. The monitor and keyboard remained as he’d left them. But the tower was gone. He glanced around the room on the chance it had been moved.

“I figured you’d want to be the one to dust for prints.” Kevin’s voice rasped around stifled coughs.

“You figured right.” If for no other reason than the powder would likely drive Kevin into a coughing jag that would contaminate the scene. “Get on the phone, and tell Seth to get back in here. While you’re waiting for him, write up your report and a requisition for a new door. Then get the hell out of here, and don’t come back until you’re healthy.”

“Yes, sir.” Kevin’s words followed Pete as he ducked out of the room.

What idiot would lug a computer out through the front of the station, which faced the heavily travelled Route 15? On a hunch, Pete stormed down the hall to the storage room and flung the door open. No one ever left the lights on in there. And yet tonight they burned brightly. He made his way to the back door, keeping vigilant to anything that might be out of place or anything that an intruder might have inadvertently left behind.

The back door was shut. He tugged on a pair of Latex gloves, released the latch, and stepped into the frigid night air.

It only opened from the inside. Yet there was no sign of tampering. No scratches. No pry bar marks.

“Kevin,” he called back into the building.

“Yes, sir?”

“Get out here.”

Once the young officer arrived, Pete released the door and let it drift shut. The latch clicked. He grasped the handle and tugged. It didn’t budge. He tried again. Nothing. The thief might have left through the back, but he didn’t gain entrance there.

“Let me in,” he shouted.

The door swung open thanks to Kevin. Pete brushed past him and headed for the front of the building. Kevin trailed behind.

In the front office, Pete checked the alarm. “Did you disarm this?”

Kevin shook his head. “It was disarmed when I got here.”

Pete noticed that his knuckles hurt and realized he’d been clenching his fists. He knew and trusted his men. Neither Seth nor Kevin would be involved in this. Someone else—someone who had access to the alarm codes—had a hand in this theft.

But who?

Pete’s gaze drifted up to the station’s lone surveillance camera. Positioned to capture images of anyone entering the front door, it might just hold the answer.

Although Zoe had promised to come right over, she drove straight through Dillard, passing Rose’s house. Pete’s announcement about the break-in and the stolen computer had given her an idea. She almost hoped she was wrong. However that would mean Logan really was missing.

Half of the farmhouse blazed with light while her half stood in darkness. She stepped quietly onto the back porch and squinted through the lace curtains hanging in her door’s window. She thought she noticed a faint glow from the far room. Her fingers tightened on the doorknob. It clicked open. 

She burst into the room and crossed to her office. Logan scrambled to shut off a flashlight aimed at the keyboard, but only managed to knock it to the floor with a thud. Both cats bolted to different corners of the room.

Zoe flipped the light switch. Logan froze in mid lunge for the flashlight and blinked at her. If she hadn’t been so pissed at him, his sad attempt to hide his presence when he was so obviously busted would have been funny.

“Logan,” she began, keeping the timbre of her voice low and—she hoped—threatening. “What the hell have you done?”

His interrupted grab for the flashlight, which had rolled across the ancient, uneven floor, disintegrated into an awkward tumble from the computer chair. He landed on his backside.

“Um,” he stuttered. “I—um—wanted to find out what was on the hard drive, but Mom wouldn’t let me leave. So I—um—snuck out.”

“Sneaking is not your strong suit, kiddo. You’re lucky she hasn’t called the Marines.”

He blushed as he climbed back into the chair. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? That’s not gonna cut it. How did you get here?”

“I—um—hitchhiked. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to, but—”

Zoe tuned out the boy’s babbling as she looked around the room. Hitchhiked? With a stolen computer? “Where is it?”

“What?”

“The computer.”

Logan scowled. “Well, it’s right here.” He pointed to her monitor.

“Not
my
computer. The one you stole from the evidence room.”

His face went white.

She started to repeat herself, but stopped. “You didn’t take the computer?”

“I took the hard drive. You know that.”

Zoe’s mind spun like wheels on ice, going nowhere. “But someone broke into the evidence room at the police station this evening and took the rest of it. When your mom called me and said you were missing, I assumed…” As she said it, she knew full well she’d assumed wrong.

“I don’t need the rest of it. I’ve already got the…” His voice trailed off. “Shit.”

“Now what?”

“Whoever did take it is gonna find out the hard drive’s missing.”

“We knew that was going to happen sooner or later,” Zoe reminded him.

“Yeah, but cops finding out is one thing. What if—what if Mr. McBirney’s the one who took it? When he finds out the hard drive is missing, he’s gonna know I’m the one who lifted it and then—” Logan bounced out of the chair and paced across the room, rubbing his forehead. “Shit. He’s gonna kill me, too.”

Zoe sank into her recliner. She longed to assure the kid that he was way off base and nothing would happen to him. But his panicked stream of thought pretty well mirrored her own.

“We don’t know for sure that McBirney stole the computer,” she said, trying to convince both of them all was not lost. “And even if he did, why would he automatically think you were the one who removed the hard drive?”

Logan shot her a look that clearly said
Duh
. “Who else would’ve done it?”

She wasn’t sure if he meant the computer theft or the hard drive. It didn’t matter. The answer to both was the same. No one.

“This only means one thing.” Logan stood a little taller, like one of those superheroes she used to watch with him on TV Saturday mornings.

“What’s that?”

“I have to work fast to find out what’s on this thing.” He strode to the computer, rocking the chair as he flopped into it, almost landing on the floor again.

“Have you had any luck?”

“Well, sort of. But not really.”

“Sort of? What’s that mean?”

“The restoration program pulled up some files, but I can’t open them.”

“Why not?”

“Because your computer doesn’t have the right kind of accounting software installed on it.”

“Oh.” Why couldn’t something be easy just once? “So we’ve hit a dead end?”

“Not exactly.” Logan cracked his knuckles. “I called a buddy of mine and he has bootleg copies of all different kinds of software. He’s gonna get me what I need.”

“This doesn’t sound very legal.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “I’ve already stolen the hard drive, and you’re aiding and abetting or something like that. Don’t you think it’s a little late to worry about keeping things legal?”

The kid had a point. “So we’re stuck until your buddy comes up with this software we need?”

Logan’s fingers danced across the keyboard. “Pretty much. But I did find something on here I could open.”

At last. Some good news. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Show me.”

He clicked the mouse and Outlook opened on the monitor. However, none of the e-mails belonged to Zoe. She leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. Her palms itched with excitement. “This has to be it,” she whispered.

“I dunno. I’ve been reading them, and they’re pretty boring. Who cares about how much salt to order for the road department?”

“
You
do if you can’t get out to basketball practice because of ice.” She roughed up his hair. “Seriously, there’s got to be something here.” Something worth killing for.

“I know. But there are a ton of messages. Plus the sent ones.” He clicked the mouse again. “And the trash can is full, too.”

Her cell phone’s muffled chirp floated up from her coat pocket. She dug it out and checked the screen. “Rose.”
Oops
.

“Thank God.” Rose’s frantic voice greeted her. “Where are you? When you didn’t show up I was afraid something else happened.”

“Logan’s fine,” Zoe said. “I’m sorry. I should have called you the minute I knew.”

Rose’s weeping came through the line. “Where is he? Where are you?”

“At my house.”

Silence greeted her.

“Rose?”

“Your house? What the hell is he doing there?”

Zoe remembered their weak cover story. “He was worried about that computer problem I was having and wanted to try and fix it. I guess he was feeling pretty helpless sitting around home.”

The chill in Rose’s voice could have left icicles hanging from the phone. “Do not tell me he was hitchhiking again.”

Zoe chewed her lip. “Okay. I won’t.”

Rose responded with a string of profanities. “That boy is grounded for the next year. Bring him home.
Now
. I’m sure your computer can wait until after we bury my husband.”

Ouch. “Okay. See you in a few.” Zoe stuffed the phone back into her pocket. “As fast as you can,” she said to Logan, “show me how to get back into this e-mail program. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do.”

Having spent half the night and all morning studying outdated township e-mail correspondence, Zoe came to the conclusion Logan had it right.
Pretty boring
. But buried somewhere among the mind-numbing posts might be the one to explain everything that had happened in the last couple of days.

She noted the point at which she stopped reading around noon. Her shoulders ached from hunching over the computer. Her head throbbed, too, but more from tension than poor posture. And where she needed to be that afternoon and evening would do nothing to improve her stress levels.