Real Murder (Lovers in Crime Mystery Book 2) (20 page)

“What a day.” Cameron and Joshua had driven home in separate cars, and when she arrived home he was waiting for her on the porch. With a sigh, she slipped into his arms.

He hugged her tight. “Yeah, well we’re getting close. We’ll get these cases closed out and then I’ll take you away for a nice long weekend.”

“Right now, all I want is a nice long bath.”

“Alone?”

Giggling, she looked up at him.

“I think I can accommodate that.” Placing his hand under her chin, he tilted her head up to kiss her softly on the lips. She pulled him in tight against her. When he pulled back, he whispered, “Consider that a preview.”

Rowl!

Startled, Joshua whirled around.

With his back arched and his fur standing on end, Irving bounced along the edge of the porch, leapt up onto the railing, and jumped down over into the rose bushes.

“I guess he saw a squirrel,” Cameron said.

“You know he hates me.”

Cameron opened her mouth to argue. Deciding against it, she shook her head. “He’ll get over it.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will,” she insisted.

“He never got over my moving his cat treats to the upper cupboard.”

“You know, there are people who can’t accept change.” She placed her hands on her hips.

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Just saying.” She went inside.

Joshua could see Irving glaring at him from the dark bushes. Like those of an unearthly creature, his emerald green eyes glowed with a fiery fury directed at him. “She’s mine,” Joshua told him in a harsh whisper. “Get your own girl.”

“He can’t,” Donny’s voice came out of the darkness.  “He’s fixed. Cameron’s it.”

Startled to be caught arguing with Irving, Joshua tried  to look innocent when Donny came up the steps from where he had walked home from a friend’s house.

“Betcha feel bad now for stealing his girl, huh?”

“Not really,” Joshua replied.

Inside the house, they found Cameron in the kitchen with Tracy and Hunter. Squeezed in between the two of them, Cameron was admiring pictures on Tracy’s cell phone.

“We have pictures of my engagement ring.” Tracy ripped the phone out of Cameron’s hand to run over and show her father.

“Why didn’t you bring it home?” Donny asked her.

“They have to size it,” Tracy said. “It won’t be ready for two weeks. So Hunter is going to bring it up to New York to give me later on this summer. That’s when we’ll set a date for the wedding.” She squealed with delight when she said the word ‘wedding.’

“It’s a custom design. One of a kind.” Hunter explained that they had found a custom jewelry shop in Pittsburgh. “The diamond is a whole carat.”

“Sounds pricy and looks expensive,” Joshua said. “Will Dolly’s lawyer release the money for that from her estate?”

“He says he will,” Hunter said. “He also agreed with you that it’ll be best to sell her house and for us to buy our own place. He’ll even help us find a place out of town.”

Cameron contained the sigh of relief threatening to work its way to her lips.

Noticing that the box he had left for Joshua that morning was now in the study, Hunter asked if he had a chance to go through it. “Did you find anything that can help us?”

While inviting Hunter to sit down, Joshua pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “Something very interesting.”

“What?”

They all sat around the kitchen table.

“Your father was on to something,” Joshua told them. “He was on the brink of uncovering a murder spree involving Congresswoman Rachel Hilliard. She used to be a call girl at Dolly’s and had all of her co-workers killed to cover up her past.”

“Do you mean Congresswoman Hilliard had a deputy killed?” Donny gasped.

Tracy’s eyes were wide.

“I don’t think so,” Joshua said.

“Why not?” Hunter asked.

“Because we got the hit man she tasked to do the job and he says he had a meeting set up, but your father didn’t show.”

“And you believe him?” Hunter asked in a tone filled with doubt.

“Actually, I do,” Joshua said. “He was straightforward about committing several murders on her behalf, including  a capital offense of killing Congressman Rod Hilliard and  two innocent passengers on his plane. Why not confess to killing a deputy?”

Cameron said, “He stated that he had an appointment to meet your father in the park at four o’clock. We found your dad’s note about the appointment, and he had the time set for four, but then crossed it out to make it one.”

“The hit man denies changing the time,” Joshua said.  “I met your father at Alison’s diner a little bit before one o’clock when he was picking up his lunch and on his way to the park to meet his CI. I think someone who knew about that  appointment moved up the time in order to get Mike out there earlier and kill him before he met with the person he thought was his confidential informant.”

“Actually, it was someone else who was planning to kill him,” Donny pointed out. “Talk about irony.”

Joshua said, “Most likely, whoever moved the time didn’t know that, which tells me Mike’s killer may not have had any connection to the case he was working on.”

“Have you eliminated Russell Null and Philip Lipton as  suspects?” Cameron asked Joshua.

“I don’t think they did it,” he said. “Remember Larry stated that he told the sheriff at the time about seeing Russell Null and Philip Lipton at the club and about them arguing with Virgil. Well, that is nowhere in the police report. I’m convinced Russell’s father used his influence to have that kept out of the case file, so Mike wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect them.”

“The only way we knew about the confrontation was Dolly’s recording,” Cameron said. “That may have been why Lipton checked that evidence box and case file as soon as he came to work for the state lab here. He wanted to make sure Russell and him were in the clear.”

“Unless Dolly told him,” Joshua said, “Mike would not have known they were at the club on the night of the murder. They would have been nowhere on his radar.”

“He would have questioned Russell because he was the brother of one of the victims,” Cameron said. “But if Mike didn’t suspect anything, Russell would have had no reason to panic.”

“Then who killed him?” Hunter asked.

“I want to talk to your mother again,” Joshua said. “According to the hit man, he had left a message with her. So she knew about that appointment. I want to know who she may have told.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Belle Fontaine uttered a gasp of pleasant surprise when she answered the doorbell to find a horde of visitors standing on her doorstep. “Well,” she demurred, “I guess I should have been expecting a visit from all of you eventually.” She opened the door wider to allow Hunter, Tracy, Donny, Cameron, and Joshua to enter. “We’re going to be family, but I was planning to invite you all for dinner.” With a wave of her hand, she  ushered them into the living room. “We can have drinks.”

Contrary to Royce’s insistence that his wife was too distraught to answer questions about the case, Belle appeared elegant in lilac-colored lounging pajamas with a form-fitting- floor-length-robe over them. She clutched a cup of tea in her hand.

Joshua kissed her on the cheek. “You look lovely, Belle.” He called into the living room where her husband looked like he had just sucked on a very sour lemon. “Not at all what I expected, Royce.”

“Why not?” she asked Joshua. “Oh, you mean about Mike. Well, that is all a shock, but I’m getting over it. I had a talk with Tad today and he’ll be releasing the body. Finally,  we can give Mike a proper burial. Did you find anything  helpful in that box that I gave Hunter?”

“What box?” Royce asked in a sharp tone.

“I remembered a box I kept in the back of my closet that I had put everything from Mike’s desk into,” Bell said. “I gave it to Hunter to take over to Joshua’s.”

“Yes,” Joshua said, “it was very helpful.” He noticed Royce move over to the bar.

“Royce,” Belle said, “I believe we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Why don’t we break that open to toast Hunter and Tracy’s engagement?”

“I don’t need any,” Cameron said. “Thank you, Belle.” In response to their host’s questioning expression, she explained, “I don’t drink alcohol. A soda will be fine for me, please.”

“I’ll have what Cam’s having,” Donny said, “especially if you can put a scoop of ice cream in it.”

“Oh, please come into the living room and tell us,” Belle said. “I want to hear all about what Josh has uncovered. I swear, if it turns out I had the answer in that box all these years, I’ll kill myself.” Slipping her hand through his arm, she escorted Joshua into the living room and pulled him down onto the sofa to sit next to her.

In the recliner across from him, Cameron arched an eyebrow at the sight of Belle with her hands clasped on Joshua’s elbow. Royce’s jealous expression brought a smirk to her lips. After a long stretch of silence, Royce cleared his throat.

“Did you find the champagne, dear?” Belle asked him.

Royce broke his glare from where his wife had another man by the elbow. “I’ll get it.” He poured a short glass of whiskey, straight up.

“What was in that box that I overlooked, Josh?” Belle asked.

“Mike’s notepad,” Joshua said. “On the top sheet, he had written out his appointment for that afternoon to meet someone at Tomlinson Run Park at four o’clock.”

“Yes,” she said. “I remember that. We actually got into an argument about it.”

“You did?” Hunter asked. “I didn’t know that.”

Belle’s gaze dropped to the floor. Her eyes became teary.  “I tried to forget about it. I was so ashamed.”

“Why?” Cameron asked.

“Because it seemed so silly after what happened,” she said. “I was mad because Mike had set that appointment for four, but he was supposed to pick up Hunter from the babysitter at five o’clock. He wanted me to take off work early to go pick Hunter up. He didn’t used to do that to me. But suddenly, out of the blue, Mike was working on this case that I knew nothing about and he refused to talk about it. He was keeping secrets from me and I was mad about it. It all seems so petty now.”

“Did you know that the appointment time had changed?” Joshua asked her.

Her face was blank.

“That was very long ago, Josh,” Royce said. “How could she be expected to remember a tiny detail like that?”

“Because that was the last time she saw and spoke to her husband,” Cameron answered. “I remember every single  detail, every instant, every second of the last time I saw my husband before he was killed.” She cocked her head at Royce. “If Belle knew, she’d remember.”

“I don’t remember the appointment changing,” Belle  said. “Mike would have let me know because then he could have picked up Hunter.”

“Someone changed that appointment,” Joshua said, “and it was not the man he was planning to meet. It was someone   else, someone who lured Mike to the park so that he could kill him.”

“Do you know who?” Bell asked.

“Someone who wanted to get Mike out of the way,” Joshua said. “Someone who knew about the appointment. The man who made the original appointment didn’t tell  anyone. So who did Mike tell? We know he told you, Belle. Who did you tell?”

“No one,” she blurted out.

“What are you implying, Thornton?” Royce demanded in a loud voice.

“You two were fighting,” Cameron told Belle. “You just admitted it.”

“Are you saying I killed my husband?” Her eyes were filled with tears.

“You were a young mother,” Cameron said. “You were working. It had to be hard. Stressful. You needed to talk to someone. Think, Belle! Who did you talk to? Who did you tell about that appointment that interfered with your schedule, forcing you to leave work early to go pick up Hunter because your husband was obsessing over a case that he refused to talk to you about?”

Her eyes widened.

“Belle?” Royce said in a tone that was an eerie mixture of an order and a plea.

She rose to her feet and turned to him.

“They’re manipulating you, Belle,” he said. “Don’t listen to them.”

“It was you, Royce.” Her voice was low and harsh. “You were my boss, but you made me think you were my friend. I told you everything.”

“Was Royce at work that afternoon?” Joshua asked in a quiet voice.

She hesitated to think. “No, he had gotten a call from someone—I don’t remember who, but suddenly he had to leave for a meeting and—I had to leave early to pick up Hunter and had to close up the whole office early because Royce wasn’t there.”

There was a crash of broken glasses behind the bar when the champagne bottle overturned and smashed several of them. Everyone was startled to their feet.

Royce stared at his hand, which was cut and dripping blood from the broken glass.

“It was you,” Hunter said in a menacingly low voice. When he stepped forward, Tracy grabbed him by the arm. Joshua held him back with a hand pressed against his chest.

“This is ridiculous!” Royce picked up a dishcloth and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. “You can’t prove anything.”

“I saw you following Mike in your Bonneville,” Joshua said. “We ran a DMV check on your vehicle registrations. You had a black Bonneville registered in your name at the time of Mike’s disappearance. You changed the appointment time, followed him out to Tomlinson Run Park, and killed him to clear the path for you to move in on Belle.”

“Playing the devoted, compassionate friend there for her in her hour of need,” Cameron said.

“That’s why you had a fit about my digging into the case,” Hunter said. “Because you knew we’d find out if we kept on digging.”

“You can’t prove any of this!” Royce said. “My wife knows the truth.” He gazed at the woman he loved. “Tell them, Belle.”

Instead, she stared at him. Her face was white.

The room was filled with silence.

Suddenly, Royce reached down under the bar and came back up with a handgun. “Everyone stand back.”

Hunter pushed Tracy behind him. Donny stepped  forward to give his sister an extra layer of protection.

Enraged, Belle moved forward, but Joshua yanked her back.

Her gun already drawn, Cameron stepped in front of everyone.

Casually reaching behind his back for the gun he had tucked into his waistband, Joshua said, “Calm down, Royce.”

“No!” Tears rolled down Royce’s face.

“You killed my father,” Hunter roared, “for what? To win a woman who loved another man?”

“She loves me!” Royce argued. “Tell him, Belle!”

Belle’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Her face was pale and filled with rage, not only directed toward her husband, but also inwardly for not having seen it all before.

“Just tell us what happened,” Joshua said in a calm and low tone while easing Belle back behind her son.

“You already know,” Royce cackled while waving the gun. “After Belle told me about her fight with Mike, and how furious she was about being left to take care of Hunter all the time while he was investigating this case that he refused to even talk to her about—it was suddenly so clear. It came to me in a flash. Hey, he was a cop. Cops die or disappear in the line of duty every day. So, I called Mike. He didn’t even recognize my voice. I told him that I was an associate of his four o’clock appointment and he had a schedule conflict and wanted to know if they could meet earlier, at one o’clock in same place. I had no idea where that place was and I thought that if I suggested the place, Mike would suspect something. But I had it figured out.”

Royce tapped his temple with the barrel of the Colt handgun that Joshua recognized as a former standard police issue. “Mike said sure,” Royce told them. “Then, I went to their house and waited for him to leave and followed him. When we got to the park and he saw me get out of the car, he was confused, but—”

“Since he knew you, he had no idea that you had lured him there to kill him,” Joshua said.

“I had the tire iron tucked behind my back,” Royce said. “Mike was a big guy. I knew I had to get the jump on him. That first hit had to count. He hit the ground. He was still shaking the stars out of his eyes when I grabbed his gun off him and shot him between the eyes.”

“No!” Belle screamed. “You monster! I can’t believe—” She tried to shove through her guests to take her husband on—armed or not. Tracy threw her arms around her to take her into a bear hug, not only to comfort her, but to hold her back.

“I did it for you,” Royce called to Belle.

“You did it for yourself!” Hunter fought to force Joshua’s arm out of his path to get to Royce. “Because you wanted to have her, like a possession, like a prize. You wanted to own her and you couldn’t stand to see another man, a man who was twice the man you ever were, have a woman who has always been too good for you, and always will be.”

“Look at the life that I gave her!” Royce said. “See this house? Look at the cars and the places that we’ve been!”

“I’d give it all up to have Mike back for just one day,” Belle sobbed.

“No!” Royce yelled.

“Yes, you …” Belle searched for the word. “Son of a bitch! You hear me? You’re a monster!”

Cameron interjected, “Do you really think we should be calling an armed crazy man names, Belle?”

Sobbing hysterically, Royce looked down at the gun he was holding in his hand.

Joshua tried to ease up toward the bar. “Royce, is that the gun you used to shoot Mike?”

“I didn’t realize that I still had it until I was halfway back to Pittsburgh.” Royce nodded his head. “You know, if you had asked me an hour ago if killing Mike was worth it, I would have said it was—to have the woman I loved and to give her everything she ever wanted ...”

“But you took away the only man I ever loved,” she sobbed. “I never loved you. I only married you because I knew that love would never come my way again after Mike. He was it. I can’t ever love like that again. How could you take that away from someone you said you loved?”

“Because I wanted you so much,” Royce said. “Don’t you see? You were my Mike. Without you, I had nothing. But now—seeing that look of horror on your face—directed at me—like I’m …”

“A monster,” Hunter said. “That’s what you are.”

“We are trying to talk him into putting down the gun,” Cameron whispered to Hunter. “Insulting him isn’t helping.”

“Do you think I’m a monster, Belle?” Royce asked her.

“Belle, don’t—” Cameron ordered, but she was too late.

“Yes,” Belle said. “I despise you.”

“Well, then, that does it.”

Reaching for the gun, Joshua dove over the bar. Royce fell back against the wall so that Joshua’s reach fell short by a mere inch. Before Joshua could make another attempt to grab the gun, Royce pressed the barrel of the gun up under his chin and pulled the trigger.