Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books (10 page)

Chapter
13

“Hello,” Rachel said with minimal civility. She had a headache and a strong feeling things were spinning out of control.

“Rach?”

“Dan, where the hell are you? Don’t answer that! I know I asked you to call but the police might have a trace on my phones. Somebody else has been killed.” The words came tumbling out so fast she could barely breathe.

“Rach, calm down. Are you okay? Is Sam okay?”

She took a deep breath, but her heart was beating so loud and so fast that she wondered if she were having an attack. She sank down in her desk chair.

“Dan, listen to me,” she tried to sound parental and authoritative. “Angela Lopez was killed last night.”

“Angela’s dead? What happened to her?”

“Dan, stop. Listen
…. She was murdered. Half of her face…oh God, half of her face was blown off. It was horrible. Worse than anything I’ve ever had to deal with when I was working at Grandpa’s. Then whoever killed her shot out the rear window of the cab and we tried to follow and get a license plate, but the car was too far ahead and….”

“What cab? You were in a cab that was shot at? How come you found Angela? And what do you mean you followed the getaway car? Are you crazy?”

“Dan, shut up. You’ve got to turn yourself in. This is dangerous. Somebody’s not afraid to kill people who get in the way.”

“I can’t, Rachel. If I turn myself in before I’ve got the evidence I need, the cops will stop looking for the real killer. But I need you and Sam out of it right this second. Tell Sam to let me handle everything.”

“Too late for that,” she snapped. “I’m scared, Dan. Really scared for you and the kids. Ray’s even hired a private detective to find you.”

“Ray hired… I’m not too worried about anybody that–”

“Don’t be stupid. The guy he’s hired is an ex-cop and he’s the same guy the insurance company hired to find the missing money.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, then undid the effect when she ran her hand through her curls nervously.

“How can Ray afford a
….”

“Don’t get hung up on the details,” Rachel interrupted. Her heartbeat had returned to normal and for the moment she was more mad than worried.

“Listen, I can’t talk for long. Maybe you should go away for a few days until all this gets straightened out.”

“Just where would you like me to go?
Paris might be nice this time of year. Of course I’d lose my job. I wouldn’t be able to pay Sam’s tuition. But hey, maybe I’ll just–”

“How about Grandpa’s farm? It’s vacant right now, isn’t it?”

“Dan, you know I can’t go anywhere. I believe you’re innocent, but for God’s sake, Daniel Edward Thayer, everything Mac and the police have shown me says you did it, that you stole the money, killed your boss, and then murdered that poor grandmother without so much as blinking an eye. Turn yourself in. I’ll find you a lawyer, and we’ll let the professionals do their job.” She was breathless when she finished her rant.

“Rachel, I hear you. But I’m being set up. The police will close the case once they have me in custody. I’ve got to find evidence that will clear me.”

“Well how about you start explaining some of what Mac told me.”

“Who’s Mac?”

“Mackenzie Sullivan, the private detective I told you about. He’s had my house staked out for days. And as an ex-cop, he’s buddies with the police who are investigating the case.”

“What do they have on me?”

“Did you buy a new car? A Jeep? You’ve never owned a new car in your life? What the hell….”

“It’s for you, Rach. I was going to give it to you to replace the heap you’ve been driving.”

“I never asked…I couldn’t let you buy me a car. You shouldn’t have spent your money on that gold bracelet either.”

“The bracelet was your birthday present. And yes, you could let me buy you a car. I’m making, or I was making, good money, for the first time in my life. You and Sam are my only family. I wanted you to have it.”

“We’ll talk about that another time. I assume you weren’t sending me to Aruba,” Rachel pushed. “Did you really plan a Caribbean vacation?”

Her question was met with silence.

“Dan, are you there?”

“They know about the cruise?”

“Don’t you get it?” Rachel snapped, her voice rising. “They know about everything. You can’t hide any of this stuff. Who were you going away with? Maybe she can help you.”

Dan ignored the question. “This guy Mac, what else did he tell you?”

“Not much. But I think he’d help us if you’d turn yourself in.”

“I can’t, Rachel. If I can find what I need, then I’ll be able to prove my innocence. Don’t worry; I’ve got some friends helping me. I’ve got to hang up now. I’ve been on this phone too long. Tell Sam to go back to school. And, Rach, be careful.”

“Wait,” she cried, but was left with a lonely dial tone and more questions than answers.

***

“Where have you been?” Rachel asked sharply as the three kids walked into her office.

Sam looked surprised at the tone, but shrugged his shoulders and lifted his soda can. “Carrie was showing us the staff lounge. We just wanted something to eat.”

Ray offered his bag of Cheetos, but Rachel shook her head. He passed them along to Carrie who scooped out a handful.

Rachel directed a cool gaze at her son. “You planning on ever returning to school?”

Sam suddenly found his soda can fascinating, rubbing the beading moisture around the aluminum, then drying his hand on his jeans. Ray and Carrie became equally fascinated by the orange cheesy curls in their hands.

Finally he said softly, “I’ll head back tomorrow morning. But first I need to get hold of Uncle Dan.”

“Too bad, you just missed him,” Rachel said sharply.

Three heads snapped up.

“Dan called me.”

“Called you here?” Sam croaked.

“Yes. So if they’ve tapped this phone, he should be in custody within the next ten minutes,” Rachel answered harshly.

A familiar voice came from the doorway. “I don’t think they’ve got a tap on this line…yet.”

All attention turned to the private detective, ex-cop, sometime taxi driver, standing at the threshold. “Until yesterday I didn’t know that you worked here, I doubt the police have discovered that fact either.”

“How did you–”

“Never mind. Quite a party you have going here.”

“Hey,” Carrie exclaimed. “I remember you. You wanted the dog casket.”

“God! Did something happen to Whiskey?” Ray asked.

Mac held up a hand. “Whiskey is fine. Or rather she’s normal. Or at least the same as ever.”

Carrie smiled. “He was doing some pre-planning. It’s smart.”

“Pre-planning for a dog?” Sam laughed. “Right.”

“He was just under cover,” Ray chimed in. “Mac’s a private detective.”

“You don’t have a dog?” Carrie looked from Ray to Mac.

The private eye sighed.

“He has a dog, but she’s not dead,” Ray explained.

“Pre-planning is done before someone dies. That’s the whole point,” Carrie argued.

Rachel continued to watch the lob and volley without understanding the game.

“I’ll gladly buy a dog casket, if we can stop this conversation now,” Mac said.

“Anybody want to let me buy a vowel so I know what the hell is going on?” Rachel demanded, her voice rising.

“Sorry.” Mac nodded. “I met Carrie a couple of days ago when I was….”

“When you were following me around trying to find out if I were my brother’s accomplice?” Rachel said indignantly.

“Sort of,” Mac agreed. “Did you say that you just heard from your brother? What did he say?”

“Not much. He’s worried about me and the kids.”

Mac frowned. “Maybe the kids could go check out an embalming and we could talk privately.”

“I get a commission on caskets. Is he really going to buy one?” Carrie asked, as Rachel shooed the teens out the door.

“Oh, geez, somebody give her a clue,” Sam mumbled.

***

Mac sat down in one of the chairs facing Rachel’s desk. “If your brother was worried about you, he’d turn himself in.”

“He wants us to go away for a few days until things die down. But I can’t. Not now. So I need your help. I want you to talk to Ray.”

“Fine,” Mac agreed. “But I’m not sure that I can convince him to back off as long as your son is determined to keep digging.”

“Sam’s going back to school later today, even if I have to take him there myself.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to Ray, now tell me where your brother is.”

“I honestly don’t know. He didn’t tell me and maybe that’s just as well since I would probably tell you and then he’d be in jail.” Rachel twirled a pen in her fingers, focusing on the spinning motion while she tried to figure out what to do next.

“The cops have an exact time for Lopez’s death,” Mac revealed. “She was on her cell phone talking to her daughter when she was killed. They also verified that she called you. In fact she called you several times over the past few days. Less than a minute each time.”

“I didn’t talk to her. But I had some hang up calls. I thought
….” Rachel gasped. “Oh my God–her daughter?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty badly shook up. Judging from the caliber of the bullet, the police are pretty sure that it’s from the same gun that was used to kill Malwick. Course they won’t know for sure until they recover the gun.”

“So if Dan has an alibi for that time….”

“Yeah.” Mac rose from his chair. “If you hear from him again, let me know.”

“I’ll try to convince him to turn himself in. If not, I’ll try to find out where he was last night around 11 P.M.”

“Don’t play detective! If he won’t turn himself in, have him call me. Let me talk to him.”

“I’ll see,” Rachel said, reaching for a file on her desk.

“I’ve noticed that gold bracelet you wear. Looks new. Did Dan buy that for you?”

Rachel’s head shot up, a guilty blush coloring her face.

“I thoug
ht so.” Mac nodded. “Believe me, Mrs. Brenner. This isn’t amateur night at the Rialto. Somebody’s playing hardball and there are too many bodies showing up.”

Chapter
14

“So you’ve got a desk and everything,” Ray said, grinning at Carrie, as he and Sam looked around her small office in the basement. “Pretty soon you’ll be talking about quitting college and doing dead people make-up full-time.”

“I’m not quitting school but it’s not just make-up,” Carrie protested. “Rachel and I fitted Mr. Malwick with an ear this morning. How many times in life does a person get an opportunity like that?”

“An ear?”

“Yeah, of course ears aren’t that hard. People don’t really notice ears so they don’t have to be a perfect match. People see a whole face; they don’t really notice small differences.”

“Like invoices,” Sam mused. “You look at the company name and the amount. That’s it.”

Ray chuckled. “Big jump, man. What are you talking about?”

“Mailing addresses!” Sam exclaimed, speaking to no one in particular. “That’s what was different! The two invoices had different mailing addresses.”

“The files from last night? So what?” Carrie asked. “Why is that important?”

Sam crossed the room to stand next to Ray in the doorway. “I’m not sure, but Uncle Dan understands it. He’s convinced those files will get him out of trouble with the police.”

“Speaking of trouble, we need to chat.” Mac appeared behind the two teens, putting one hand on Ray’s shoulder and the other on Sam’s. Tightening his grip, he muttered, “Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler, I presume.”

***

The shorter leg on the junk store chair had turned out to be an effective tool for keeping Ray both physically and mentally off balance. Too bad Sam’s chair didn’t have the same flaw. Mac made a mental note to see if he couldn’t find a second one the next time he went shopping–or maybe he’d just bring a saw from home and make his own modifications.

“And then we copied Dan’s file to a disk and got out of there.” Ray, giving the other boy an apologetic look, reluctantly finished his recitation of their black ops activities at Concordia College. He shifted his weight abruptly as Mac glared at him and the chair tipped sideways.

As he’d had to do a couple of times in the past hour, just to prevent Ray from landing in his lap, Sam quickly stuck out a hand and pushed against Ray’s shoulder, returning him to a vertical position. “You’ve got crap for furniture, old man!”

Mac shifted his attention to Sam Brenner, finding the teen’s resemblance to his mother striking, everything from his curly dark hair right down to the stubborn set to his mouth. The detective had given the boys two choices after the incident in the funeral home–come back to his office with him or take a ride down to the police station. He had agreed to let Carrie finish her shift and then go to class. He’d have to double-check the boys’ stories against her account.

“Must be that I’m not charging my clients enough.” Mac smiled at the boy, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “If you call me old man one more time, you’re going to be spending some quality time with a dentist in the near future.”

The teen scoffed but edged his chair backwards a few inches.

“Did either of you stop to think that you were interfering in a police investigation, stealing evidence, plus committing breaking and entering?”

Ray raised a hand.

“What?” Mac’s tone was harsh, harsher than he’d intended.

An anxious Whiskey hurried in from the back room where she’d been taking a nap by the electric heater he’d plugged in to take the chill off the frigid office. She nudged her owner’s knee with her nose, as if warning him to calm down.

“We did have a key so I don’t think–”

“Neither of you thought about anything,” Mac shouted, rising to his feet. He’d been half-sitting on the edge of the receptionist’s desk while he questioned the boys, but now he paced the room.

“There is a killer running around out there shooting people on that campus–hell, two people are dead who worked in the very office you were ransacking.” Mac looked at belligerent Sam. “If you truly believe your uncle isn’t the one pulling the trigger, then by going in that office and digging around, you’ve made yourself, Ray, Carrie, and your mother a target for the real killer.”

Whiskey put the period on his pronouncement with a sharp bark.

Ray surreptitiously dropped one hand down beside his chair and wiggled his fingers. The big dog lumbered over and allowed him to stroke her head.

Mac and Sam watched Ray with the dog, letting the emotions in the room settle down to lie with the dust on the ugly carpet.

“Am I getting through to you?” Mac stared at one boy, then the other. “Don’t you two get it? This isn’t a game. People are dying.”

Ray nodded but kept his eyes on the dog. Sam crossed his arms and stared straight ahead at the cracks in the plaster wall beyond the front desk.

“Where’s the disk now?” Mac asked, trying to watch both boys’ expressions at the same time.

Ray gave Sam a quick sideways glance and began a close inspection of the tips of Whiskey’s ears.

Sam turned his eyes in Mac’s direction, raised his chin, and gave the detective a self-satisfied smile. “My uncle has it.”

Mac would have believed him except for Ray’s reaction. The teen jerked and this time the chair tossed him straight into his lying friend. The two boys went down in a tangled mess of mangled furniture and flailing limbs.

Whiskey cocked her head to one side and whined in confusion.

“You guys are lousy liars,” Mac grumbled, kicking one of the chairs aside so that he could haul the two teens to their feet. Keeping a tight grip on one upper arm of each, he added, “You’re going to keep stumbling around in this mess until both of you get hurt. Well, I’m through coddling. I’m really not the sensitive wimp you seem to take me for.”

Sam snickered and even Ray had to hide a grin.

Mac saw red. “Don’t screw with me! Where’s the damn disk?”

Whiskey barked and danced around the group in agitation.

Sam knocked away the hand that was still absently holding his arm and joined Ray near the door. “We don’t need anything from you. Stay out of our business and stay away from my family.”

Sam yanked open the door and rushed out into the dark parking lot.

Ray gave the detective a quick look, his face hardening. “Sam was right. It’s not gonna work out with you working for us and the insurance company. Send me a bill for what we owe you and I’ll pay it.”

Mac sighed as the boy slipped out the door. “Well, girl. We just got fired.”

The Irish wolfhound barked once at him and then walked back into the other room.

“Okay. I just got fired.” Mac pulled his cell phone out of his jacket and punched in a familiar number. “Lieutenant? Sullivan here. I think Thayer might make an appearance tomorrow.”

Mac paused, listening. “The funeral is my guess. His nephew has something he wants.”