Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series (4 page)

“She was a friend.  Through the church, you know.”

“What church?”  Pete’s question sounded bland and matter of fact, but Codie suspected this was going to be important information.

“The International Congregation of the End of Days.”  Wow.  That was a mouthful.

Codie hoped her facial expression wouldn’t give away her thoughts, but she’d heard of that church before—and it wasn’t all angels and sunbeams.  What she knew of the congregation—what she’d
heard
, at any rate—was that they were a fringe cult:  not quite all controlling but pretty damn close.  She didn’t think she’d ever met any of the members, even in as small a community as Dalton, but they were a thriving enough force that their presence could be felt here and there.  Truthfully, though, she didn’t know much about them, only the rumors that occasionally made their way around town.  She only knew that they supposedly owned lots of property in Dalton as well as other areas in Kansas, Oklahoma, eastern Colorado, and parts of Texas.

Unfounded gossip, though.  She had few facts.

“Tell me what happened this evening.”

Tanner blinked and looked over at Codie before returning his gaze to Pete.  “I don’t know how familiar you are with our church, but those of us here are part of Caleb’s ministry.”

“Those of us
here
?  As in Dalton or the house?”

Tanner’s lips curled into an almost condescending smile as he realized that Pete didn’t know much about their arrangement—but neither did Codie for that matter.  “In the house.  Or
houses
, I should say.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Well…this house here.  This house is for the brothers in Caleb’s ministry, and the house next door is for our sisters.”  Codie was fairly certain the man meant
sisters
and
brothers
figuratively.

Pete nodded, jotting in his notepad before making eye contact with Tanner again.  “So was Mr. Dinsmoor’s wife visiting?”

“No.  She was the exception.  She and Caleb shared the entire downstairs and the rest of us—the men—have rooms we share with other brothers.  But because Caleb and Michelle joined mainly to symbolize Christ’s relationship with his bride the church, he thought it only appropriate that they celebrate that union together.  But, um, she still spent a lot of time in the sister house.”

Pete pulled the man back on track.  “So tell me what happened tonight.”

“Tonight we were celebrating.  Caleb’s ministry, for the moment, is completely full, meaning there’s just no more room in the inn for warm bodies.”  The man’s thin lips curled up into a smile again. 
Ah…
religious humor.  But the timing was bad.  Surely, he had to know that.  He figured it out and quickly started talking again.  “We added one more lost lamb to our fold here in the brothers’ house, and so we were celebrating the bounty that the Lord has given us.  Anyway, Michelle came home from work and said she had a headache and headed straight down to the basement.  She didn’t even give Caleb the hug she customarily does.”

Codie remembered seeing the bottle of acetaminophen next to the woman’s body, so his recollection made sense so far.

“Did she act like anything was wrong?”

Tanner shook his head.  “No, not physically, anyway.  Except for the headache, of course.”

“Some other way then?”

“Well, she’s been acting pretty down and depressed the last month or two.  When she and Caleb got married last fall, she seemed so happy, like she was on a cloud, because all she’d ever wanted was Caleb.  But by Christmas, she kind of moped around all the time.  She just doesn’t—
didn’t
—seem to have the joy of the spirit inside her anymore.”

“Where did Mrs. Dinsmoor work?”

“At a daycare center here in town.  I can’t remember which one.”

“Where were you and the members of the house all evening?  Was everyone accounted for?  Did anyone go downstairs at any time?”

“I didn’t notice anyone slip down there.  Like I said, we were all celebrating.”

Pete looked up from the notebook.  “Anything else you think I should know right now?”

Tanner’s mouth scrunched up at the corner.  “Not that I can think of.”  He paused.  “You don’t think she was murdered, do you?”

“I’m not at liberty to speculate, Mr. Johnson.  Forensics will tell us the facts soon enough.”  He placed the notebook back in his breast pocket where it was hidden again and said, “We might need you to come to the station to make a formal statement at some point, but we’re done for now.”

The easy demeanor that Tanner had displayed up to this point was replaced by a chilly sensation.  Codie wondered what the hell that even meant as they walked back toward the kitchen, Pete’s interrogation complete.

It had to mean something, but Codie hadn’t a clue what.

Chapter Five

AFTER TYPING IN a cursory report on the laptop in his cruiser, Pete looked over at Codie, who’d been sitting quietly and patiently, absorbed in thought, consumed by the murder scene.  “Quick coffee break,” he said, pulling the car onto the street.  He drove slowly, though, and Codie noticed that he was checking out the house next door.  The lights were on there too, in spite of the fact that it was getting quite late.

Codie figured those women knew their “sister” Michelle was dead and sleep was no longer an option.

Once they were past, Pete said, “Even though I’ve been working graveyards off and on for two years, I still can’t adjust my sleep schedule.  On my days off, I’m sleeping a lot and then back to usual.  The first night back to work sucks.”  He glanced over at her and grinned.  “Coffee is a night cop’s best friend.”

Codie had already figured that out.  This would be the third cup of coffee she would see him consume tonight, and even though she was nowhere near sleepy, she wouldn’t complain about having more.

It wasn’t long before they had turned onto the main highway through town.  Soon, Pete pulled the cruiser into a convenience store parking lot.  “We’re here,” he said, and Codie got out of the car with him.  She was glad she’d brought a little money with her, because she didn’t want Pete to feel like he had to keep buying her stuff, just because she was along for the ride, but as they were heading toward the front door and
not
stopping at the register, Pete nodded at the cashier.  “She’s with me.”

The clerk nodded back.  “Have a good night, officer.”

“You as well.”

Once they were out the door and heading toward the cruiser, Codie asked, “You didn’t have to pay for the coffee?”

He grinned that all-American quarterback smile, one of his strongest weapons.  “Lots of places give cops free drinks.  They figure it’s a way to say
thanks
for our service, but it’s also a great way to get policemen to come in and make their presence known.  Tends to keep the riffraff away.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Don’t worry.  We don’t take advantage.  We never come in when we’re off duty and demand something, and we try to spread out the love.  So like this place?  I won’t come back here for a week, ‘cause I don’t know how much the other guys come here.”  They got in the car and buckled in.  “Now, finally, we can start patrol.”  He backed out of the parking space and pulled out onto the highway.  There weren’t many cars as he drove down the road, pulling off onto Main Street a few blocks down.  “We all have routes we patrol, different neighborhoods we drive through and watch, and what’s good about that is we get familiar with what things usually look like.  We know which areas are hot spots for crime and which ones are less likely to have problems.”  He turned down a side street, heading toward a residential area.  “I’ll drive through here twice tonight, hopefully, but at least once, starting now.”  Codie tried to think of questions she wanted to ask, because she didn’t want to blow the opportunity, but she knew she’d have lots of time later, after the shift, if she needed.  He took another gulp of coffee from the paper cup.  “Mmm.  Good stuff.”

“Yeah, not bad at all.”  She’d expected gross coffee, a black tar that had been sitting for far too long and had developed an oily scum on the surface, the integrity of the flavor long gone, so much so that no amount of sugar or creamer could mask the old taste.  But the liquid was strong and fresh, almost as if the convenience store had seen them coming from miles away.  It was no Starbucks, but it’d do.

The radio that had been blaring incessantly and that she had, thankfully, started to tune out caught Pete’s attention.  He picked up the mike.  “Eighteen here.”

“Neighbors are reporting loud music on Elm Avenue.”

“On my way.  What’s the address?”

As Pete responded to the operator, Codie took another sip of her coffee.  She wondered if that was simply a sign of the times that neighbors didn’t feel comfortable enough with the people they lived near to tell them to turn down the tunes.  And how rude and inconsiderate of others to blast their music enough that their neighbors felt like they had to call the cops.  It wasn’t like it was Friday night and warranted a party; it was the middle of the week.  Kids had school the next day.  A good lot of people had to work the next morning.  Cranking the tunes was beyond rude.

Codie didn’t know if the detour was part of Pete’s regular patrol, but he didn’t act like it was an inconvenience.  In fact, he didn’t act that way about any part of his job.  He seemed to enjoy everything he did as a cop, from the expected to the routine.  Nothing was a chore.

He loved his job.

As they drove down another side street, Pete rolled down his window.  “Oh, yeah,” he said.  Codie turned her head and, above the radio chatter, she was able to hear some heavy techno dance beat.  The cruiser kept rolling, though, and soon Pete was parking in front of a residence that had its garage door open and lights on.  There was some kind of SUV inside but a guy was just outside the door, pacing back and forth while smoking a cigarette.

Codie didn’t ask.  She just got out of the car when Pete did and followed closely behind.
  Better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission.

As they got close, the pacing man shouted, “Hi, officer.  What can I do you for?”

Pete’s voice was firm.  “We’ve had complaints that the music is too loud.  I need you to turn that down.”

“Oh, yeah.  Of course.”  The guy turned and walked into the house from a door inside the garage.  Pete continued to saunter closer so that he was inside the space in short order.  Codie was moving too, appearing as a shadow, but close.  Before she actually walked into the garage, she noticed the faint scent of weird chemicals, a sicky sweet smell that made the coffee in her stomach feel sour.  She saw Pete’s gait slow before he touched his belt. 
Scratch that.
  He touched his gun, a weapon she’d almost forgotten was there.  Apparently, something had his hackles up, and he was thinking there was more to this call than merely loud people.

She was starting to suspect it too.

The volume of the music blaring from the house dropped, but that didn’t stop the hairs from standing up straight on Codie’s forearms.  She knew down deep in her bones that something was wrong—dead wrong.

“Codie,” Pete said, without turning his head to look back, “I need you to get back in the car, and I want you to duck low, out of sight.”

“Shouldn’t—”

“
Do it,
” he said, his voice low but scary, letting her know there would be no arguing.  He tilted his head and spoke into the mike attached to his shoulder.  Codie thought he was calling for backup, but she couldn’t be sure.

She started to walk backwards, really not sure if the cop car would keep her safe, but she knew it was more the idea of
out of sight, out of mind
.  If the bad guys couldn’t see her, she might not be a target.

Before she could move any farther, though, the door from the house into the garage banged open and smoke trailed behind the man in a big cloudy puff.  “Hands up where I can see them.”  It was an order, and it wasn’t quiet.  Pete had suddenly turned formidable—and scary.

“But—”

“Now!”  Codie was frozen, just watching the action.  The guy dropped his cigarette on the concrete floor of the garage and held his arms out—probably not the way Pete had wanted him to, but it was definitely easy to see that he wasn’t holding anything.  With lightning speed, Pete had the guy cuffed and was patting him down, asking him questions.  Codie couldn’t hear a lot of what was said, but the guy answered one question loudly enough that Pete understood.

“My old lady’s in there tryin’ to save it.”

Pete marched the guy out of the garage and didn’t even look Codie in the eye as they passed her and he opened the back door to the cruiser, practically stuffing the guy inside.  “I’ll find her.”  Once he closed the door, he said to Codie, “I’d remind you to get in the car, but I’m sure he reeks of toxic shit.  Just stay
close
to the car, got it?”  She nodded and watched him walk back through the garage, this time with his gun in his hands.

She knew the timing was bad, but Codie was finding Pete’s masculinity to be a hell of a turn on, and she wondered why she’d rebuffed his more recent advances.  She’d have to rethink a Codie-and-Pete combo.

As Pete made his way through the garage again, she could hear the guy making noise in the cruiser—shouting, maybe?  And then it sounded like he was banging on the window, but his hands were cuffed, so she didn’t know how he could do that.  She turned around to glance and saw him pounding his head against the glass, and when she looked, he started shouting at her.  He looked panicked, but there wasn’t anything she could do, no matter what the guy was saying.  She shook her head at him and turned back around just in time to see a woman with frazzled blonde hair run out the front door.  She had a pitcher in her hands, holding it like a weapon, and she looked around frantically.  It was dark and the cop car wasn’t flashing the red-and-blues, but she spied the vehicle anyway and ran over.  Codie felt her eyes grow wide but she just stared, feeling like she couldn’t move.

“Brian?  You in there?”  When she saw Codie, she acted at first like she was going to tackle the woman, and Codie braced herself for it, preparing for a fight, but then the woman suddenly flung her arm so that the pitcher’s contents doused Codie in a cold liquid that didn’t seem to have any smell.

But it was icy, and it made her gasp while throwing her off guard.  Before she could fully get her wits about her, she heard the woman yell, “I’ll get you out, Brian!”  And then she started running down the street before Codie could even make sense of any of it.  She ran to the edge of the driveway, wondering if it would be smart or safe even to chase the woman, and she was grappling with what to do when she heard an explosion from the house behind her.

An explosion…and no sign of Pete.