Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books (8 page)

Chapter
9

“My mother will kill me if we get arrested,” Carrie muttered. Nervously, she connected the monitor and the keyboard to the computer that the repair form had indicated was assigned to ‘A. Lopez’. “We need her password. All the Accounting computers are networked.”

Ray scratched his head. “How do we come up with her password? It could be anything.”

“Not really. Think about it. What’s the most important thing about a password?”

He shrugged. “That it’s secret?”

“No. That you can remember it. People pick something easy. Something they can remember. Their birthdays, their kids’ names, their pets’ names.”

“Oh. Well, no problem then,” Ray snapped. “We just need to find out all that personal stuff about a complete stranger and we’ve probably got about a half-hour max to do it before the security guard runs us out of here.”

Carrie raised her right eyebrow–the one with the silver ring adorning it. “Look at the photos on her desk.”

“So? She’s got a kid. Or a grandkid, more likely.”

“Hand me that appointment book. I bet she’s got emergency numbers in there.”

Ray tossed her the black spiral date book. “I’m going to go watch for the guard.” He hurried out into the hallway.

Carrie began thumbing through the pages. “Alexander. Her grandson’s name is Alexander.” Carrie keyed in the name and then smiled as a menu screen appeared. “We’re in.”

Sam handed her a wrinkled piece of paper. “This is the file we need. Just copy the whole folder.”

Carrie popped a disk into the drive. “Athletic Department Laundry Costs?”

Sam shrugged. “As good a place as any to hide the dirt on someone.”

They watched the screen as the folder downloaded.

Ray cracked open the office door and informed them that the security guard was talking to some Hispanic woman down at the entrance and it looked like they were both headed upstairs.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Carrie said, turning off the computer.

With the disk tucked securely in Sam’s pocket, they left, using the opposite staircase from the one Ray had seen the guard about to use.

A flash of lightning crossed the sky and a crack of thunder followed.

“I hate driving in the rain. You can’t see what’s right in front of you,” Carrie said, unlocking her car door.

Ray climbed in the front passenger seat, and Sam slid into the back.

The person watching from the shadows pulled on a pair of leather gloves before walking into the Administration building.

***

The rain pounding down on the cab’s windshield, along with the dim streetlights, obscured his vision so badly that he could barely make out the sidewalk much less the small brick house. Mac slumped down a little further in the driver’s seat, thinking he was getting too old for stakeouts. He used a rag to wipe the condensation from the side window. Even Whiskey was getting nervous.

Mac glanced at the Irish wolfhound, who was riding shotgun in the battered yellow cab. The large dog whined her displeasure.

“I know, girl. Five more minutes, then we’ll go home and watch the game.”

He had barely gotten the word ‘game’ out when the back door to the vehicle was suddenly jerked open.

Seconds too late, Mac ducked and pulled a handgun from under the seat.

Whiskey growled at the intruder, then whined as a spray of rainwater landed on her face.

He took aim but all he could see was a waving purple umbrella.

“Concordia College and there’s five bucks extra if you can get there in less than 15 minutes.”

“I’m off duty,” Mac growled, hastily sliding the gun back under the front seat.

“I don’t give a damn,” his passenger snapped. “This is an emergency.” Her voice rose as she slammed the door and closed the umbrella. “I’ll report you to the–”

“But, I’ll be glad to take you there on my way home,” Mac interrupted, recognizing his passenger as Rachel Brenner. He wasted a half-second, wondering how he’d missed seeing her come out of the house, then started the cab and executed a quick u-turn, heading towards
Connecticut Avenue.

Whiskey put her front paws on the back of the seat and stared at the woman with friendly interest. Giving a welcoming whine, the dog leaned forward, stretching her body towards the backseat in order to give the woman a chance to stroke her head.

“Your dog is drooling on me,” Rachel snapped, ignoring the dog’s invitation. “Can’t you keep him back?”

“It’s a her. Whiskey. That’s her name.” Mac gave the dog a commiserating look. “Sit down, girl. The lady doesn’t like dogs.”

Whiskey whined and leaned her six-foot frame even further over the seat, giving the woman her most pitiful look.

Rachel sighed and patted the dog’s nose. “I like dogs just fine. I just don’t–”

“You just don’t like Whiskey. That’s okay. She’s sensitive but she’ll get over it.” Mac hid a smile as the woman glanced guiltily at the dog and gave her a quick scratch behind the ears.

Satisfied with her conquest, Whiskey settled back down in the front seat.

“What I was about to say was that I don’t have time….Look, I don’t want to be rude but could you and your dog just take me where I’m going. I’m not up for a conversation.”

“Okay.”

Mac negotiated the cab through the half-flooded residential streets, wondering if Rachel Brenner was finally about to lead him to her brother. He couldn’t imagine what else might have precipitated this late night trip to the college.

The rain eased a little and Mac was able to pick up some speed, driving swiftly through the streets of the district.

“Any building you want me to–”

“Do you know where the gym is?”

“Sure. It’s clean across campus.”

Rachel nodded. “That’s where I’m headed.”

“Basketball season starting early?”

“Huh?” Rachel answered, looking frantically around the dark, wet campus.

“I asked if you were going to a basketball game or something.”

“No, no…I’m just…just meeting someone.” Rachel moved closer to the door, preparing to exit the cab as soon as it stopped.

He glanced back at her pale face as he eased the cab to a stop in front of the deserted gymnasium. “You want me to wait for you?”

“No.” Rachel thrust a $20 bill into his hand and flung open the door. “Keep the change.”

Mac watched Rachel walk quickly through the pouring rain around the side of the building. Once she was out of sight, he switched off the headlights and edged the taxi around the opposite side of the building to the far parking lot. He turned off the engine and coasted the last few feet, hidden in the shadows of some large dumpsters. He scanned the lot, finally spotting her moving across the pavement.

He watched her run through the rain to the corner of the parking lot, the umbrella banging off the side of her coat. She paused and pivoted around, apparently looking for something…or someone.

Mac surveyed the area but…. He tensed, noticing the car at the same time she did.

Rachel slowly walked towards a dark sedan parked at the edge of the poorly lit lot.

Squinting, Mac could barely see the outline of a person in the driver’s seat, leaning against the window. He watched Rachel knock on the window, and after a moment, open the car door.

The body falling from the car had him switching on the ignition and speeding forward, even before his brain registered Rachel’s scream.

The cab’s tires splashed water over both Rachel and the body as he pulled up alongside. “Get in!” He leaned across Whiskey and tried to open the stubborn passenger door.

“What?” Rachel backed away from him, her foot brushing the arm of the woman lying on the ground. Shocked, s
he glanced down again. “Oh, God!”

The right side of the woman’s face was missing.

Whiskey barked a warning, just before the back glass of the cab shattered.

“Lady, get in before we all end up dead.” He yanked on the passenger door handle and it fell off in his hand.

Rachel hesitated and looked uncertainly at Mac. “She needs help.”

“She’s dead. You know what dead looks like. Get in the back! I can’t get this damn door open.” He turned as the sound of squealing tires caught his attention, just managing to catch a glimpse of a dark car rapidly backing up the driveway of the gym.

“Now,” he ordered, tossing the useless handle over his shoulder.

Rachel took one more horrified look, before getting in the back of the cab. She had barely pulled the car door closed before Mac pressed his foot on the accelerator, executing a 180-degree turn.

“Keep your head down and buckle up.”

Chapter 10

“The stupid belt doesn’t have a catch on it and there’s glass all over the seat.” Rachel’s voice was getting higher as panic set in.

Whiskey stood up and leaned over the back of the front seat, whining at the woman, as though offering encouragement.

“That woman’s head was…. Oh, God, this is a nightmare. Stop the cab. We have to call the police!”

Whiskey barked in agreement.

Mac commanded Whiskey to lie down and be quiet, hoping the woman would follow suit. The dog complied.

He pulled out into the street, tires squealing, the rapid forward movement tossing his passenger sideways against the door like a rag doll.

“Stop this cab and let me out of here! Chasing a murderer is crazy.”

He glanced over at her deciding that she was safer with him than alone on the street. “Sorry, Lady. You’re along for the ride now. Did you see which way the black car turned?”

“Right,” she answered, gritting her teeth in frustration. “And don’t call me Lady.”

“West?”

Exasperated, she exclaimed, “Whatever direction ‘right’ is, that’s the direction the car went.”

 
“Thanks.” He made a sharp right turn.

Rachel was thrown cross-wise on the worn seat by the abrupt motion. Struggling to get up, she yelled, “You’re a terrible cab driver. You’re going to kill us both.”

Mac pressed the gas pedal until it was almost flat to the floor, trying to keep up with the speeding car ahead of him. The sedan’s tires squealed as it rounded narrow corners, barely missing the sides of cars in its path. He knew if he didn’t catch his prey quickly, he’d have to drop the chase. There was no way the battered yellow cab, with lousy suspension, was any match for the getaway car, which was just far enough ahead to make the license plate unreadable.

“Stop, stop, stop.”

He ignored the indignant voice behind him, sensing an opportunity as the sedan pulled within a few blocks of Truxton Circle.

“I’m calling the police, you lunatic,” she warned. “Stupid cell phone.”

Mac felt something hard bounce off the back of his head, as he made a sharp right turn onto Florida Avenue, still in pursuit, but with a widening distance between the two cars. He heard a thud as the body in the back seat collided with the right passenger door and slid to the floorboard. Luckily, he’d engaged the locks before hitting the gas, mostly to protect Whiskey. The Irish wolfhound picked up the cell phone that had landed on the front seat, hoping for some tasty morsel, but quickly spit it out in disgust.

“Be quiet and stay down,” Mac yelled over the mutterings of the enraged woman behind him.

“Don’t you ever clean the carpet in this wreck? It’s filthy. There’s gum down here!”

“It’s not really my cab, Lady!”

“I’m in a stolen cab? Oh my God! What the hell did I ever do to deserve–”

“Shut up, Rachel, so I can concentrate. I’m just gonna get a tag number–”

She crawled up on the seat just in time to be pitched back to the floor as he hit the brakes.

“You’re crazy…absolutely, stark raving… How did you know my name was Rachel?”

“Damn, damn, damn.” The cab screeched to a halt, narrowly missing a semi that was blocking the crosswalk. He could see the black sedan shoot up Florida Avenue and out of sight. He smacked his hand against the steering wheel.

Whiskey’s growl was his only warning before he felt thin fingers grab his right ear and yank, effectively turning his face towards his passenger. Attached, his body naturally followed.

Mac was looking at a demon from Hell, judging from the vision in front of him. Rachel Brenner was now sporting a complexion that was closer to the color of her purple umbrella than her normal pale tones. With her heaving chest and rage-filled eyes, he half expected to see fire shoot from her fingertips. He feared the woman had reached her limits.

Whiskey sat up, her growls becoming more menacing as she sensed an explosion coming.

Finally, the creature pinching his ear gained enough breath to express her ire. “Who the 
hell 
are you? Where are we going? And how did you know my name?”

He ignored the pain in his ear and considered his limited options.

With no answer immediately forthcoming, Rachel sighed, releasing him from her grasp. She put the strap of her purse over one shoulder and grabbed her umbrella while simultaneously reaching for the door handle with her right hand.

“Whiskey, watch her,” he ordered, pressing down on the accelerator.

The hound jumped over the seat back, putting both paws on the woman’s lap, before baring her teeth and growling.

“Oh shut up,” said Rachel, daring the dog and its master to contradict her. She futilely searched for a way to unlock the door.

Whiskey let out a series of threatening barks.

“I want out of this cab, now. I’ve got mace and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Mac took one hand off the wheel and dug for his wallet, tossing it to her over his shoulder. “Police business,” he shouted, cursing as a delivery truck pulled in front of him. “Spray anything in this cab and I’m licensed to shoot you.”

“Right,” Rachel responded, pushing at the dog who’d now settled on her lap. “I just hope your deputy doesn’t have fleas.”

Mac rubbed his abused ear, then pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “No fleas, and I think we’ve about got that ringworm cleared up. Don’t we, girl?”

Whiskey barked once as though in agreement.

Rachel cringed and redoubled her efforts to move the hound off her.

Mac kept one eye on her while he reported the murder to the police, hiding a smile as Whiskey gave the woman’s face a lick.

***

Rachel sipped the lukewarm coffee the patrolman had given her from his own thermos, and hoped her hands would stop shaking. She sat sideways in the police cruiser, the passenger door open and her feet planted firmly on the wet pavement of the gym parking lot.

She looked up and recognized the two detectives closing in on her. They were the same ones who’d waylaid her in the funeral home after the break-in at her house. Atwood and…. She couldn’t remember the older one’s name.

“So we meet again, Mrs. Brenner,” the older cop drawled. “You seem to be right in the middle of a lot criminal activity in this town. I’m thinking everyone would be safer if we locked you up.”

“Detective….” She glared up at him. “I don’t remember your name.”

“Gorden,” the younger cop offered. “I’m Detective Atwood and he’s–”

“She’s got it now, Tom,” Detective Gorden sneered. “It’s enough that she knows we’re the ones who are going to arrest her as an accessory to murder. Unless she spills what she knows about this whole mess, we can continue this conversation down at the jail.”

“Eddie, there’s no need for that tone,” Detective Atwood asserted, crouching down near Rachel’s knees. “I’m sure Mrs. Brenner wants to help us catch the killer. After all, she was almost killed tonight too.”

Rachel took another sip of coffee and wondered if the two D.C. cops had trained by watching old episodes of NYPD Blue. Their good cop/bad cop routine was pretty lame. In fact, the whole evening felt like a bad made-for-TV movie. The phone call, the rain, the body, the gunshot, the cab driver who wasn’t a cab driver–it was all too much for her to process.

The cab driver–Mackenzie Sullivan–that was what he’d told her his name was–was nearby talking to a tall black detective who was chewing on an unlit cigar. Every once-in-awhile he’d look over at her, checking, she supposed, to see if she was still where he’d left her. Their little talk on the way back to the gym had been full of surprises
….

As he drove them back to the murder scene, Rachel studied the photo on the ID card she’d found in the wallet and compared it to the profile of the tall, rather thin, man sitting in front of her, impatiently holding a cell phone to his ear. The photo seemed new. He looked the same in both; salt and pepper hair in need of a trim, square jaw with a small scar near the chin, and tired blue eyes with squint marks fanning the corners.

“You’re not a cop, you’re a private detective.”

He waved a hand to silence her as he gave the murder location details to the police. “We’ll be there in ten minutes…yeah, a dark-colored Nissan. I couldn’t make the plates…yeah, I know it’s one of the most popular cars in the city…I have her with me.”

Rachel supposed she was the ‘her’ in question.

He snapped shut his cell phone and turned to face her. “I was a cop for twenty years. I retired about eight months ago.”

“How did you know my name?”

He hesitated for a moment.

Glaring at him, she wondered if he was going to try to dodge the question or defer answering her.

He gave her a long look and apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Your name came up as part of an investigation I’m handling.”

He was going to have to do better than that. She countered with, “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

Rachel took a breath. The man was being deliberately obtuse. “I mean why would my name come up in any investigation you’re involved in. What’s the case? Who hired you?”

“That’s privileged information.”

“Sell that line to someone else! You were sitting outside my house and you’re not a cabdriver, so I can only assume that you were there to watch me. I want to know why. Who the hell are you?” She looked down at the ID card and read the name aloud, “Who are you, Mackenzie Sullivan?”

“Like I said, I’m a private investigator and I’m….”

It appeared to her that he was trying to guess how much she knew and then figure out how little he could get away with saying.

“I’m working on an embezzlement case.”

Embezzlement? Dan? A fresh infusion of fear coursed through her. “You think my brother-you’re- you’re
….”

“I’m just considering all possibilities
.”

“Well, dammit, you can start considering someone else! My brother is being framed and if you were any kind of detective, you’d already know that…although judging from your driving skills
….” Rachel slid towards the door.

“Just calm down, I told the police I’d bring you back to the crime scene.”

“I’d rather walk.” She glanced around the unfamiliar neighborhood. Hell, after tonight, what was out there didn’t scare her as much as what was waiting for her back at the campus. She straightened her back, and pulled on the door handle. “Unlock the damn doors!”

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll drive you back,” he insisted.

“Are you calling me stupid?” The man was impossible.

“No, Ma’am! I just meant that you don’t know where you are, the police need to talk to you at the scene, and I’d be more than happy to drive you.” He used the same tone Dan always adopted with their mother when he was trying to reason with her hysterics.

Rachel sighed, the anger draining away. She wasn’t her mother; she wasn’t the hysterical type.

She looked out at the dark street again and reason prevailed. “Okay, but just to be clear, I’m not helping you find my brother and if I see you outside my house again, I’m calling the cops or a lawyer.”

Mac nodded and put the cab into drive. He glanced in the rear-view mirror at his reluctant passenger. “Mind telling me why you were meeting Angela Lopez?”

“I do.” She crossed her arms and stared out the window as they traveled back towards the college. “Who’s Angela Lopez?”

“The woman leaking blood all over the pavement.”

“Oh.” Her posture remained defiant, but she was sure the shakiness of her voice betrayed her fears.

“Shame about her grandson.” He sighed. “No telling what will become of him now.”

She knew what he was trying to do; trying to manipulate her into talking. It wasn’t going to work. Rachel reached up and pushed a stray lock of dark curly hair behind her ear, continuing to stare out the side window.

He didn’t say anything else; just continued to drive.

The dog rested her large head on the edge of the seat back and stared at her.

Oh, what the hell. “Who is Angela Lopez? How is she a part of all this?”

“She was Vince Malwick’s secretary. Why did you want to meet her?” He glanced at her in the mirror again.

This time she met his gaze. “I got a phone call. From a woman. She didn’t give her name. Said she had something to give Dan. Something he needed to prove his innocence.”

“What?” He slowed the cab as a traffic light ahead turned red.

“I don’t know. Now, it’s your turn to share.”

Mac shrugged. “I interviewed her as part of my investigation. She worked in the same office with your brother–the same office as the guy who got his brains splattered all over the inside of the campus clock tower.”

“Dan didn’t do it. He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t steal anything.”

“How can you be sure?” he asked, turning into the campus drive. “He’s running like a guilty man.”