Jailhouse Glock (10 page)

“And what's that?”

“I'm going to try to rent a room in her house to check her out and see if Bernardi shared anything with her before she killed him. I'll need to list your apartment building as my former residence. Can you get your doorman to vouch for me?”

“Done. Anything else?”

“She'll probably call you to verify that I work at the insurance company.”

“Again, not a problem. The faster we can get in and out, the better. We'll do what we have to. I'll be waiting to hear how this all pans
out.”

After hanging up the phone, Jake started the engine, and drove the half block to the lady cop's house. He parked in front and exited the car before taking a deep breath and walking up the sidewalk to the porch.

Why was he so nervous? He'd been undercover a shitload of
times and had played many different roles. Why should this one be any different?

Fidgity fingers pushed the door bell—twice. The door inched open,
and he searched her eyes for any sign the landlady cop recognized him.

“May I help you?” she asked, keeping the door half closed.

He smiled, hoping it would put her at ease. When it failed miserably, he plunged ahead. “I'm new in town and saw the sign out front. I'm wondering if you rent by the month?”

Wrinkling her brow, she pushed the door closed a little more “I'm
looking for a woman tenant.”

“And why is that?”

She peered at him through the tiny slit that remained. “I just think a woman would fit in better with me and my daughter.”

“Look, I'm not going to be in town for long, and there's no way I want to stay in a hotel all that time. Will you at least think about it?”

She studied his face. “What were you doing at Cowboys Galore today?”

Question answered. She did remember him. “I was trying to get a lead on a place to live. Figured what better way than to ask the locals if one was available.”

“Is that how you found out about my house?”

He opened his mouth to confirm before he realized she was test
ing him. She'd only just put the sign out and nobody would have known. “No. The only place they knew about was near downtown, but the owner wants a six-month lease. That doesn't work for me since I don't plan on staying in Vineyard long.” He paused. “I just happened to drive by here looking at neighborhoods.”

He watched as she wet her lips before she answered. “I have two rooms upstairs, and I'd really like to get a couple of flight attendants interested. I hope you understand.”

He was losing her, and he had to do something drastic.

“I'll pay for both of them,” he blurted, hoping he wouldn't scare her off with his enthusiasm.

“It wouldn't be cheap.”

He smiled, praying she would react like every other female when he flashed that grin. All his life he'd used it on women. Once again it didn't faze her.

“It will be worth it to get out of the stuffy hotel.” He paused. “And it's only for a short time. I can give you references.”

Knowing that she had access to police data banks, he felt sure she would use more than his references to check him out. She and her buddies down at the police station had access to files that no one else did.

Sensing that she might be considering it, he handed her a business card. “Where are my manners? I'm Jake Matthews. I work for Harold's of London Insurance Company out of San Antonio.”

He hoped that would impress her, and he fought to suppress the grin when he saw that it had. Harold's was almost as well known as their famous counterpart that catered to the rich and famous.

“Wait here,” she said before closing the door. When she returned, she had a four-page application as well as an authorization page to verify employment and rental history. “Fill this out and return it at your earliest convenience. I can't promise anything, but I will consider it.”

He took the stack of papers and was about to thank her when she closed the door.

So much for his powers of persuasion. On the drive back to the hotel, he considered how to get the paranoid lady cop to trust him. Since she hadn't fallen for his ready smile, he'd have to work on Plan B.

And pray he didn't need a Plan C.

eleven

Colt Winslow stared at
the computer screen on his desk. It was the security footage taken from the cameras in the cell block on the night Gino Bernardi was murdered. Thank God those cameras had been working. He watched a dark-haired woman in a police uniform shoot the prisoner as he jumped off the cot and scrambled around his cell trying unsuccessfully to get away from her.

After the first shot took him down, the woman opened the cell door and calmly walked in, shooting him one more time at point- blank range. She'd kept her face away from the cameras as if she'd known exactly where both of them were located. Then she'd stepped over the river of blood streaming from Bernardi's head and moved to the other cell. There she'd taken aim and fired one shot into Alan Foxworthy's abdomen before calmly exiting the cell block, again shielding her face from either camera.

Dammit!

Colt was hoping the tape would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Maddy hadn't killed Bernardi. He replayed it again, concentrat
ing on the way the woman walked, on her mannerisms. He was looking for something—anything that would be a clear indicator
that it was someone else dressed up in a cop's uniform and not his sister-in-law.

But there was nothing unusual, and from the images of the lady's back and a few blurry shots of the front, no jury would be able to say for certain that it wasn't Maddy with the gun in her hand.

Frustrated, he slammed his fist on the desk hard enough to draw the attention of Tom Rogers, who had just walked into the station. He waved to the officer to indicate that everything was alright.

But everything was not alright.

One man had been killed and another badly wounded in his jail cell, and their only suspect couldn't possibly have done it. He knew that in his gut, yet he also knew that whoever was framing Maddy for the murder had spent a lot of time preparing for that night. The plan had been too intricate and
too perfectly
executed for it to have been spur of the moment.

But if he believed that, then how could he explain the fact that Maddy wasn't supposed to be on duty that night? How could some
one have known that Jeff Flanagan would get a call from his ex and have
the opportunity to keep his kids an extra two days over the holidays? Or that Maddy would be the one who had graciously volunteered to change shifts with him?

He'd have to think more on that later, but for now, he was anxious to hear what Rogers had found out at Cowboys Galore. After waving for the officer to come to his office, Colt ran the tape back one more
time. Still, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the shooter walked away from Bernardi and stood outside Alan Foxworthy's cell. Colt hit the Stop button and ran it back again, this time in slow motion. Something about it wasn't right, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it
…
and it was driving him crazy.

He looked up when Tom Rogers knocked on his door and walked into the office.

“Hey, Colt, whatcha looking at?”

Colt swiveled the computer screen around for his deputy to see. “I've watched this four times already. I keep hoping something will jump out at me.” He turned the screen back to face him again. “Any luck at the bar?”

“Might have gotten a lead on the woman from the other night.”

“The one Bernardi and Foxworthy were fighting over?”

“Yep.” Rogers looked pleased with himself. “The funny thing was the bartender told us the woman had been hooking up with men there on several different occasions, and it never bothered Bernardi before that night.”

Colt eyebrow hitched. “Us?”

Rogers diverted his eyes away from Colt's narrowed ones and shifted his weight to the other leg, a maneuver Colt recognized as something his deputy always did when he was nervous.

“I was asking questions, and there was this other woman at the bar who recognized Bernardi's girlfriend from the bartender's description. She's the ‘us' I was talking about.” He paused and finally looked Colt in the eye. “Said she thinks the woman lives down the street from her. I ran by the house she mentioned on my way back here, but nobody was home.” He shifted his weight back to the other
leg. “Thought I'd stop by after work and ask her a few questions if
she's home.”

Colt stared at him for a moment. “And what did Maddy have to say about all this?”

Rogers's eyes widened, and he shook his head quickly. Way too quickly. “Maddy? How would she know about my trip to the bar? You said we weren't supposed to tell her anything at all about the case.”

“I did, indeed. I just wanted to impress upon you why giving Maddy
information would be such a bad idea. I know you want to keep her in the loop, Tom, but it's for her own good that she stays as far away from this investigation as possible, at least until we can clear her name.”

“She has to be going crazy not knowing what's happening down here.”

“Knowing Maddy, I'm sure she is, but even if she's not thinking about her own safety, we have to. There's a shooter out there who has balls big enough to walk right into our house and kill a prisoner under our noses. And if that isn't enough, to then make sure that one of ours takes the blame for it.” He shook his head. “And another thing, I'd hate to have someone's testimony thrown out because she intimidated a witness.”

“She'd never do that.”

Colt pursed his lips, thinking that Maddy and her meddling sisters wouldn't think twice about doing just that. As sure as he was sitting here right now, he knew that somehow Maddy was poking around in the case. Maybe she hadn't actually gone to Cowboys Galore, but he'd bet good money that she'd been the first person Rogers had called after he'd left the bar and gotten back into his patrol car.

Hell, he'd probably called her on the way out the door. And now
with Tessa's ghost showing up again, it was a certainty the Garcia sisters
would find a way to get involved in the murder investigation. The fact that the women had been instrumental in finding Tessa's killer had them believing they were all mini Jessica Fletchers.

But he'd have to wait to go down that road with Maddy and Lainey
, positive he was spot on to include his own wife in the middle of it all. She was loyal to her sisters and would do anything if one was in trouble. And Maddy was definitely in trouble right now.

“Just wanted to be clear about what's at stake here, Tom.”

Colt glanced out his window where Jeannie, the woman who'd taken over as his secretary when Maddy left for the police academy
the year before, was on the phone. She waved her hand in the air when
she saw him looking her way.

“Why don't you bring our bar girl in and question her here at the
station?” Colt stood up and walked to the door. “People are sometimes
intimidated by this place and tend to be a little more honest.”

Before Rogers could close the door behind him, Jeannie hung up the phone and came running past both of them into Colt's office.

“That was Flanagan,” she said, excited. “He said you need to get over to Vineyard Regional right away.”

For a moment Colt felt a little rush of hope snake up his back. Was it possible that Foxworthy had changed his story about seeing Maddy shoot him? “Did he say why?”

“Alan Foxworthy is dead.”

Colt grabbed his keys from his desk drawer and started toward the front door.

“You want me to go with you, boss?”

“No, you stay here and work on getting that woman into the interrogation room,” Colt said over his shoulder. Once he was in his car, he turned on the sirens and headed for Vineyard Regional.

The minute he walked through the emergency room doors at the hospital, the feeling of doom and gloom set in. The last report he'd received from the doctor about Foxworthy had been promising. They'd expected him to be discharged in a few more days, and Colt had plans for a much lengthier interrogation when that happened. He was surprised to hear the man was dead. According to Foxworthy's surgeon, although the prisoner needed another surgery down the road and was damn lucky to have survived, his prognosis had been good.

Guess his luck had run out.

Colt rounded the corner and waved to one of the nurses he'd known
since grade school.

“Sheriff, what do you want us to do with the body?” another nurse asked, suddenly appearing beside him.

“I'll be able to answer that after I have a chance to talk to my
officer.”

He proceeded down the hallway to Room 402 and was surprised to see the chair outside the room empty. Pushing open the door, his
first thought was that someone had tossed the room. There was a cart
next to the bed with syringes and vials strewn all over the top and EKG
graph paper rippling from the monitor on top down to the floor, weirdly
resembling a slinky.

He didn't need a medical degree to know what it all meant. Apparently, they'd tried unsuccessfully to revive Foxworthy. He remembered all too clearly from several years back when he'd been called home from college after his dad had been hit by a hit and run driver. They'd worked for over an hour trying unsuccessfully to keep him alive, and the room had looked very similar afterward.

He chased that memory from his head and concentrated on the
cart. The Crash Cart, they called it.
How appropriate
, he thought, scanning
the mess in the room again.

The door to the bathroom opened suddenly, and instinctively, he reached for his gun before realizing it was only Flanagan.

“Hey, boss, how long have you been here?” Flanagan dried his hands and threw the paper towel into the trash can. “All the coffee the nurses have been pumping into me finally kicked in, and I didn't want to leave the room unguarded.”

Colt relaxed and nodded. He took a few steps and stood next to the bed, getting his first look at Alan Foxworthy. Something about a
dead man always made him uneasy, which was a real drawback, con
sidering what he did for a living.

A breathing tube was still taped to Foxworthy's nose, although it was disconnected from the machine on the wall. Someone had at least
thought to close the dead man's eyes, and if you didn't know what had gone on in this room, you might think Foxworthy had simply drifted off to sleep.

Colt touched the hand with the IV needle still in place. It was already cold. “So what do they think happened?”

Flanagan shrugged. “The doctor said it was probably a heart at
tack.”

“Heart attack? The guy's only in his thirties.”

“I know. Doc said the stress of the surgery and everything that's happened to him over the past few days must have been too much. Said this sometimes happens even without a prior history of heart problems.”

Colt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When did he die?”

Flanagan glanced down at his wristwatch. “The orderly cleaned him up around ten-ish, and Foxworthy was alive and well then. I came in to check on him when I heard him scream, but he was only hollering for his pain medicine.”

“Did he get it?”

“What?”

“The pain med. Did someone give him morphine or some other narcotic?”

Flanagan thought for a minute. “I don't remember the nurse coming
in after the orderly left. About ten or fifteen minutes later, the nurse's aide came by to take his vital signs. She's the one who found him.”

“Then what happened?”

“They called a code and worked on him for about a half hour before they realized they wouldn't be able to save him. Something about his pupils being fixed and dilated. So they stopped giving CPR.”

Colt glanced up at the IV bag, noticing it was no longer dripping and the machine that regulated it was turned off. “Have you had a chance to talk to the orderly yet?”

Flanagan shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Thought I'd better wait on you. I'll go get him now and bring him back here.”

“Good idea. He was the last one to see this guy alive. Maybe Foxworthy said something to him before he died that might help us with the case.” Colt walked around the bed, scrunching his nose at the strong urine odor coming from the catheter bag hanging on the side.

“I'll be back in a minute,” Flanagan said, before pushing open the door and walking down the hall.

Colt sat down in the chair next to the bed while he waited for Flanagan to return with the orderly. He was anxious to talk to the guy so
he could get back to the station. With Foxworthy gone, the last bit of hope
that maybe he would change his mind about his positive ID of Maddy was also gone.

And with the security footage that showed Bernardi's killer looking a lot like his sister-in-law, his job of proving she hadn't killed anyone just got harder.

He moved his neck in circles, trying to relieve the tension building there and his eyes caught sight of the clock next to the TV on the opposite wall. It had been over twenty minutes since Flanagan went for the orderly.

What in the hell was taking so long? He needed to get back to the
station to see whether Rogers had been successful in getting the woman
from the bar to come to the station and to study that security footage again. Whatever had seemed out of place to him the last time he'd looked might stand out this time. Then he remembered the department had gone high-tech the year before and everything on the computer in his office automatically downloaded to his cell phone.