Framed: A Psychological Thriller (Boston's Crimes of Passion Book 2) (8 page)

The original long cushion stool sat in front. When Riley had taken it from the attic, she had discovered it had a hidden compartment under the cushion. A wonderful place to hide a document from prying eyes.

An important document that she insisted existed. Opening the stool up, she reached down and slid the false bottom to the side. It was there…her grandfather’s will. The one he had updated well before his death…the one where Riley had been included, splitting the part of her grandfather’s estate that would have been her father’s…the will that Walter said never existed.

The one that had gotten Helen Barlow murdered.

Detective John Brophy stood in the middle of Helen Barlow’s bedroom. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. He had come alone. This murder gnawed at him to the point he had returned to the scene of the crime.

The body was long gone. Crime-scene techs had all the evidence tagged, pictures taken, and the rooms dusted for prints. For two days now, an overabundance of investigators had been building a profile of the killer and searching for other similar murders in the federal database.

Despite the effort made, Brophy had nothing, except a growing frustration. 
Damn that Ashcroft kid!
 The whole scene had been compromised by that bumbling idiot. He had ransacked the bedroom. Drawers turned out and contents littered over the floor. His fingerprints and shoe prints painted with the victim’s blood landscaped the scene.

The problem—Freddy wasn’t the killer. He couldn’t have been. The ME had put the time of death between midnight and 2:00 a.m. His friends had given him a rock-solid alibi at the time of the death, not to mention surveillance cameras caught images of Freddy going to and from one bar to another.

Not the actions of a reformed addict, but, also, not the actions of a cold-blooded killer.

The question became why, in the midst of discovering this gruesome scene, had Freddy thought it a good time to look for something? Something he obviously didn’t find. Had the murderer?

Why had Freddy and his cousin come to visit Helen Barlow that morning? What was it that the victim had that was so damn important?

All of Helen’s friends agreed that Helen hadn’t indicated she held some devastating secret on the Ashcrofts. Helen was the loyal and responsible type. No one had heard her ever utter one negative remark about her former employers. She didn’t talk of them at all.

On his arrival at the scene, he had immediately marked the contrasts of the two separate murders. The son had been shot dead with a quick shot between his eyes with a 9mm. No hesitation.

Charlie Barlow lay with his keys in hand. Brophy assessed that Barlow interrupted the assailant’s escape. From the look on his face, Charlie hadn’t even time to realize the danger he was in.

On the other hand, Helen Barlow had been brutally beaten. Rage…fury…hatred inflicted with each blow. Overkill. A crime of passion. The problem—who was it she angered?

He couldn’t find any semblance of a love connection. She had been a widow for many years and had never dated after the death of her husband.

The right side of Helen’s head had been caved in. Pieces of brain particles splattered over the wall, bed, and floor. Blood spatter coated the whole room. The killer had begun the assault on the bed and continued onto the floor when the victim obviously made a vain effort to escape.

Blood was everywhere: the floor, the rug, the wall. The mattress was saturated with the lost life force. The stench from the dried blood still lingered in the air.

Debating the murder with the other investigators, Brophy was tired of arguing over which direction to take. To further irritate him, Waters didn’t agree with him. Waters thought it was the son who had caused his mother’s death.

Waters had confirmed the gambling debts of Charlie Barlow with the wife. Martha Barlow told Waters that Charlie had been desperate for money over the last few months. Then, last week, he had told her he had taken care of the situation. She acknowledged that she had heard that often in the past. She said that none of Charlie’s crazy schemes ever worked.

The scenario that the murders happened because Charlie owed the Russians money didn’t sit right with Brophy. It made no sense. As much as he hated to agree with Tina Cruz, her analysis felt more to the point.

If Charlie’s bookie called in his debt and wanted to make a statement, they wouldn’t have killed his mother, only to kill him the next moment. They would have wanted his money.

More to the point, one of his confidential informants told Brophy that the word on the street was that Charlie had paid off his debt. If that was true, the Russians had no reason to want him dead.

The plain fact was that the Russians weren’t this messy. Barlow’s death was personal.

That’s why he returned. Brophy came back to feel the murder.

Walking over to the bed, he surveyed the room. He imagined the killer had delivered his first blow from behind, stunning the victim. Brophy raised his arm and whipped it through the air over and over again, moving down to the floor as he swung. He leaned back up and stared at the empty space, tired from exerting so much energy.

He caught his breath and walked surefooted out the door, through the hall and into the kitchen. He stopped and glanced back. From the evidence, the killer hadn’t altered his path from the bedroom to the kitchen.

Brophy scratched his head. The assailant had to have been a bloody mess. Yet, there had been no bloody foot trail to follow, except for the idiot boy. Meaning, the killer had taken the time to remove at least his bloody shoes.

In all probability, the man—yes, his instincts cried it was a man—had come prepared. Most logically, a backpack. It would hold everything he needed: Gloves. New shoes. A place to hide the murder weapon until he could get rid of it.

But he had also brought a gun…that he hadn’t hesitated to use.

Helen Barlow suffered a brutal death. She hadn’t a chance. It had been all about the pain. The killer wanted her to pay for some insult against him. The evidence suggested he had taken his time.

How could someone so ruthlessly explode their anger on a victim and then in the next breath manage to collect themselves to the point that they left few clues…if any?

A sound behind him made Brophy turn. The back door eased open. His hand immediately went to his sidearm and unsnapped the holster.

“Good evening, John.”

Brophy watched the leggy private eye walk into the house, much like she would have if she had dropped by for a visit. He frowned. “Cruz, what are you doing? You realize that this is still a crime scene.”

A smile flickered on Cruz’s face. “You always knew how to make a girl feel welcome.”

Most times, Brophy wouldn’t have hesitated to exchange banter with an attractive woman, but he wasn’t in the mood tonight. Small talk wasted time. “I take it you hunted me down, so you must want something. What is it?”

“Wasn’t hard.” She smiled smugly. “You ignored my calls, but I called Waters. He said he thought you would be here.”

Brophy swallowed back his frustration with his partner. His irritation bore more at Waters’s absence than his divulging his location to Cruz. Waters was always a softy when it came to women.

No, his annoyance at Waters stemmed from his dinner tonight. Waters was being recruited to an elite tactical unit. For the last month, Waters’s attention centered on the possibility of the new position. Wouldn’t be long before Brophy would be needing a new partner. Hell, he needed one now.

“And?”

“You were always so impatient.” Cruz moved into the center of the kitchen, surveying the crime scene. “Walking in the killer’s shoes? Have you come up with anything?”

That jostled a laugh. “What—are you my partner now?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged and pointed down the hall. “Don’t tell me anything. Let me guess. You are struggling with the brutality of Helen’s death. How the killer could so violently murder the woman and coolly shoot the son?”

“What kind of psychopath are we dealing with then? Is it one killer or two? Who was the real target of the killer?” Brophy rattled questions at her as though she were the one being interrogated.

“Helen Barlow was the target. It was a crime of passion…someone believed she had betrayed him.”

He stared at her for a moment. She sounded so confident. “
Him
?”

“Walter Ashcroft,” she stated simply. “We have been looking into him. Seems he’s not exactly the persona that he presents to the public.”

“We? Don’t tell me…”

“Kincaid. He’s outside. He wants to talk to you.”

Brophy was incredulous, but he followed Cruz out back, flicking on the outside light as he did so. Kincaid was there, leaning against Barlow’s old Buick.

He frowned as he looked at the man. He hated feeling as though he was being manipulated. Probably more than anything, his irritation toward Kincaid stemmed from the fact that they both were thinking the same thing—that the Ashcrofts were involved in some form or fashion.

His eyes met Kincaid’s. Despite their differences, they both had been around long enough to understand how politics in the real world worked. If it was an Ashcroft, he was going to have to have help taking him down…even if it meant making a pact with the devil.

“Kincaid,” Brophy said crisply. “Well, let me hear what you have.”

“It’s only a theory in the making,” Kincaid began. “But after an encounter with Walter Ashcroft, I felt it was one that was worth looking into. Cruz dug deep. We believe we may have found a pattern.”

“Okay.” Brophy shrugged, waited.

Kincaid nodded and finally began. “The other day I witnessed Ashcroft verbally attack his niece. He seemed unhinged, making threats, trying to intimidate her. She shrugged it off and called his bluff, which told me she had dealt with this behavior before.”

Brophy said in a reasonable voice, “Tell me what you considered unhinged.”

“To start, the man was in a rage and stormed into the house early in the morning.” Kincaid continued until he had told the whole story. “Given the circumstances, seemed odd behavior for the man.”

“You are talking of the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the United States. You can’t just sling an accusation like that without evidence.” For the last couple of days, Brophy had lived and breathed this case. He had become extremely familiar with the Ashcrofts. “Not to mention, I don’t think it’s a secret that there is little love lost between the two. She is suing him.”

“That makes his behavior even more suspicious. He also has plenty of people on his payroll who could have addressed any concerns with Riley, but he had to do it. He had to have control…he’s an absolute control freak.” Kincaid looked at Cruz before he continued. “We have been talking with a few associates of his. His employees refused to talk to us, but David Bowman from TSI, WAS’s leading competition, said that there are rumors that things at WAS aren’t going so well under Walter’s reign.

“For the last two years, sales have remained steady, but a series of bad investments have the board over at WAS nervous. According to the last financial report, WAS profits have dipped fifteen percent since Walter took over after his father’s death. There is even talk about ousting Walter Ashcroft and replacing him with his younger brother, Donald.”

Brophy grunted, not surprised. He had gathered much the same in his investigation, but he gave no indication of that fact. He wanted to know what they knew. “So what does Helen Barlow have to do with any of that?”

“We’re not quite sure.” Kincaid went on, “But given the fact that the younger Ashcroft turned the room upside down while Helen’s dead body lay on the floor, he believed she had something of importance…something his father prompted him to get. One more thing…were you aware that Walter Ashcroft was involved in a suspicious death back in ’79?”

Brophy arched an eyebrow. That he didn’t know.

* * * *

On most days, the drive up to Washington Ridge, New Hampshire would have been enjoyable. Scenic in the summer and in the fall, magnificent. Today, a steady rain made the view skewed, giving Brophy time to contemplate more than the case while driving.

His mind wandered back to when Lauren and he used to take the kids to Story Land every year when they were little. A nice little getaway for the family. The area offered plenty of entertainment for the children. His ex-wife had loved the rustic life of the rural area: rushing rivers and streams along the mountain trails, frothy waterfalls, and covered bridges. More importantly, it had been affordable.

God, where had the time gone?
Jake was in college. Amelia would be graduating from high school next year. His little girl wanted to change the world…at a huge expense. She wanted to go to college at Boston University—sixty-six thousand dollars a year…
a year
!

At least, she had vision. All Jake wanted to do was party. From his grades, Brophy doubted he even went to class. He had played hockey at Curry until he had hamstring issues. After he couldn’t play anymore, his grades plummeted.

Thank goodness little Sara was still smiling and years away from thinking of college. So much had changed since the Story Land days. Nothing stays the same, he supposed, but shit, it hurt to think about, especially with Lauren moving on in her life…without him.

His ex had gotten remarried.

Brophy had wanted to go on the interview by himself. Waters was no longer his partner. The promotion had come through. Waters would be transferring at the end of the week. The captain felt it best to pull Waters back and give Brophy a partner to see this case through to the end.

Brophy told Captain Centrello he preferred to go it alone on this one. At least for the moment, Captain Centrello reluctantly agreed, because Tina Cruz would be with Brophy on his trip north. It had been the agreement for this lead.