Blackberry Crumble (15 page)

She pulled the phone from her ear and pushed the end button without feeling at all guilty about hanging up on him. Well, maybe she felt a little guilty. But she felt a lot mad! Of all the arrogant, demeaning . . . She took a deep breath to calm herself.
He was only trying to help,
she told herself, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking he didn’t know her as well as she thought he did. How was that face-to-face meeting going to work out when she returned to Garrison? The very idea made her clench her eyes closed, dreading it already.

In serious need of a distraction from the phone call, she turned back to the bed and surveyed the equipment she’d bought. She picked up the compact camera, grateful for the photography class she’d taken in college thirty-five years ago. She knew how to take a decent picture; it was the downloading and technological details that were overwhelming. Now was not the time to start questioning herself, however.

With her purpose in mind, and even more determination to prove herself after talking to Pete, Sadie shoved the camera into her purse, put batteries in the new voice recorder she was going to use for notes from here on out, and fixed her hair before heading out the door.

Chin up, purse over her shoulder, and keys in hand, she marched out of her room and into the role of Sadie Hoffmiller, PI extraordinaire!

Chapter 17

Dora led her through downtown Portland and over one of the eight bridges of the city before winding around until Sadie had no idea where she was in relation to her hotel. Once she arrived at the offices for Kelly Fire Systems, she drove around the building—unobtrusively, of course—and took thirty-one photos of the office, the parking lot, the cars parked in the parking lot, and the UPS man who was making a delivery. That took about ten minutes, which then left her sitting in her car across the street doing absolutely nothing for nearly an hour. It was so boring!

She had her investigating book with her and read through the section on stakeouts, which left her feeling a bit concerned that she had no goal, which, the book had pointed out, was essential. Sure, she would learn Keith’s routine by watching him, but it would take days of observation to establish reliable patterns and that wasn’t really the point of her coming here. She was trying to prove he was a murderer—how would sitting in her car and determining what time he went to lunch every day help her with that?

Was it her imagination that she was not only looking for a needle in a haystack but didn’t know which haystack to even start with? She let out a long, labored breath and tried to talk herself out of her negativity, but it wasn’t easy. She tried to reassure herself that the newness of this whole thing was the reason she felt intimidated, but that just made her more insecure.

The dashboard clock told her it was 5:52. The workday was coming to an end. Then what would she do? Stake out his house, and wait for him to come outside with his hands up? There had to be a better use of her time than this. She flipped through the pages of the book, hoping to find some new ideas, and ended up reading a couple more chapters on finding information online, but the minutes dragged by as though tied to the back of a turtle. It was agony.

After what felt like forever, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye—a man walking toward a car in the parking lot. He was young and tall and wore a baseball cap—not Mr. Kelly. A woman left a few minutes later, tapping her way across the parking lot in really cute brown pumps that matched the brown patterned skirt she’d paired with a red shirt. She was laughing on her cell phone.
Secretary,
Sadie guessed.

The next man to come out of the building, however, headed for the white Mercedes she’d already determined was probably Keith’s. It was the most expensive car in the lot, and from what Sadie had learned about him, he was the kind of man who liked expensive cars and would park them by the road so they could easily be seen by people driving by.

Sadie sat up straight and scrambled through the papers on the seat to find the picture of Keith Kelly she’d printed off the Internet. She looked from the black-and-white photo to the full-bodied version, lining up the round face and full head of gray-white hair. She noted the double chin was more pronounced in real life—Photoshop strikes again—but the basic details were spot-on. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her as he got into his car and started the engine. She suddenly felt so obvious—like he was going to see her and know she didn’t belong here, know she was watching for him. She shifted her own car into drive and then picked up her cell phone, pretending to talk on it so that she would look occupied as Keith came out of the parking lot and passed her on the road.

“I know, right?” she said into the phone, nodding and smiling. “It’s about time something happened!”

Keeping the phone to her ear, she put on her left blinker and looked over her shoulder before pulling into traffic behind him, hanging back as far as she dared. Her heart was pounding, which she found rather pathetic since she was simply following him. What was she afraid of?

“This is silly,” she said into her silent phone. “But what choice do I have? Who knows—maybe I’ll get lucky, and he’ll lead me to his secret lab where he concocts various toxins, and one vial will have the name ‘Jim Sanderson’ written on it in his handwriting. Maybe this isn’t his first kill and he keeps a death journal I’ll find when he accidentally leaves his car unlocked!”

Keith was a couple of car lengths ahead of her as they turned left, then right, and then went over another bridge—not the same one she’d crossed on her way here. Crossing the bridge, however, meant she would be back in downtown Portland. She could feel her curiosity bubbling up, her sense of adventure and desire for justice taking hold once again. What a relief!

And then she glanced in her rearview mirror to see a police car pull up behind her and turn on its lights. Even then it took her a few seconds to realize
she
was the car being pulled over.

Chapter 18

You’ve got to kidding me,” she said, setting her phone down as he put on his blinker, telling her to pull to the right. She was going twenty-five miles an hour! What could he be pulling her over for? She looked ahead as she pulled to the curb; Keith’s car was in the turning lane. She came to a stop, and the officer approached on the left side of her car. Sadie put on the smile that had gotten her out of countless tickets over the years and rolled down the window.

“Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Sadie said. “I was under the speed limit, I believe, and my seatbelt is on.” She pulled on the strap across her chest to prove it.

“You were talking on your cell phone,” he said, looking at her with an expression that seemed both annoyed and horribly bored.

“And that’s a problem?”

“It’s against the law.”

It is?
Sadie had never heard of that. Everyone talked on their cell phones when they drove in Colorado. Granted, it wasn’t all that safe, and Sadie avoided it out of determination to be a good example to the other drivers who might not have the same ability to multitask as she did—but against the law?

“License and registration, please, ma’am.”

Sadie sighed and reached for the glove compartment, trying not to panic. “I’m not from Oregon,” she said, handing over the rental car registration. “I didn’t know it was against the law to talk and drive, and I wasn’t really talking into the phone, just pretending. That’s not against the law, is it? To pretend to talk on the phone?”

“Right,” he said slowly, nodding. “I’ll give you credit for originality, lady, but we’re zero tolerance around here.”

“Zero tolerance?” Sadie said. Not only had she lost her quarry, but she was going to get her first ticket in twenty-five years for not-really-talking on a cell phone. She glanced back to the officer, her confidence waning quickly. “But I’m from out of state, and I wasn’t really talking.”

“Like I said, zero tolerance. Your license?”

It was a good fifteen minutes before Sadie put the pink ticket in her purse and pulled away from the curb, still aware of the police officer watching her, and trying not to feel absolutely humiliated. At least she didn’t know anyone here, but it still stung to have a piece of paper certifying that she was a lawbreaker; she’d only recently come to terms with her other confrontations with the law. To avoid too many self-recriminating thoughts, she turned at the same intersection as Keith had, but after driving several blocks, she admitted that she’d never find him. How frustrating. This was her first day as a real investigator, and although she couldn’t expect things to go perfectly, she hadn’t expected to get a ticket. Pete would love it when he found out she had, in fact, broken the law.
Biscuits!

Sadie pulled onto a side street and parked at the curb. She punched Keith’s home address into the GPS and waited while Dora calculated the route. Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the address in West Hills, where the homes were increasingly larger and more spread out the closer she got to Keith’s home. She pulled over to the side of the road across from his driveway and studied his particular residence.

It wasn’t the largest home in the neighborhood—some were monstrous—but the Kelly home was no sore thumb. It had to be at least six thousand square feet—three thousand per above-ground level—and was made of a dark brick, with even darker trim and shutters. It was set a few dozen feet back from the road, making it impossible for Sadie to get a good look around without leaving her car and crawling through the numerous trees and shrubs that surrounded the property. There was no guarantee he was even home, though, since he had a triple-car garage where the Mercedes might—or might not—be.

Surveillance would be difficult, and, Sadie noticed, there were no cars parked on the street, making hers conspicuous. It was 7:45, but the sky was still bright. A jogger passed her window, startling her. And then a lightbulb went on in Sadie’s mind.

Fifteen minutes later, she huffed her way up the hill toward Keith’s home and wondered how that jogger had managed to run up the incline when Sadie was struggling to walk the same distance. Portland was much lower in elevation than Garrison, which gave her more oxygen, but she didn’t like to think about that because it made her strain harder to justify.

As per Pete’s instructions, she’d been working on making it a habit to put her keys in her pocket—there was nowhere else to put them anyway since she’d left her purse in the car—but they kept jabbing against her thigh, which didn’t improve her mood. She’d rolled up her capris to look like knee shorts and hoped no one would notice that she was wearing sandals instead of sneakers. As for who might notice a woman out for a walk—she’d already passed half a dozen people walking their dogs, as well as a couple of women about her age walking together and another jogger.

When she reached the Kelly home, she slowed down and looked for an opportunity to get closer. The dog walker she’d been trailing turned the corner, and she quickly scanned the street. She was alone for the moment.

It took walking past the home entirely before she decided exactly what to do. After she passed the home, she darted behind a tree to the side of Keith’s house. She took a breath and then ran to the next tree. The wooded lot had made surveillance from the street difficult, but it sure was helpful now that she had gone from stakeout to stalking her prey.

Her heart thumped in her chest, but the thrill of actually doing something was enough to keep her going from tree to shrub and from tree to tree, veering toward the east side of the home. Finally she found herself with her back against the brick wall of the house. She took a deep breath, grinning at her success, and then moved toward the backyard, grateful that there were no fences or dogs. She spotted two windows and peeked inside, but only saw darkened rooms. Though it was still light outside, the trees cast most of the house in shadow, which was good for Sadie; she was trying to be as shadowlike as possible.

As she rounded the corner of the house and began moving along the back side, she heard the first signs of life and felt a shiver run through her. A television was on. Keith was home, which meant all this subterfuge was not in vain. She crouched down as she approached the next window, which had a light on, and then carefully peeked inside, her heart rate increasing once again. She inhaled sharply and ducked—Keith was mere feet away, pulling open the microwave door with his back facing her.

After taking a deep breath, she lifted her head again, stopping when her eyes just cleared the windowsill. He was still in his business attire: a white shirt and slacks. He turned around, and she pulled back slightly, but he didn’t look in her direction. While watching his every move, she lined up what she knew about the man.

He was obviously successful; he still worked hard despite being in his late sixties. Since he hadn’t left the office until almost seven o’clock, she could probably deem him a workaholic. Was he married? Divorced? May had mentioned that Keith had children who had been involved in the company when he and Jim Sanderson had finally split. He was alone right now, which seemed odd if there was a Mrs. Kelly in the picture. Was she at a book group or red-hat club meeting? Or did he live in this big, beautiful home all by himself?

Keith stopped at the counter and put down whatever he’d taken from the microwave. After fiddling with it for a moment, he peeled back the plastic layer. A TV dinner.