Blue Steele - Box Set - Captures 1-6 (2 page)

The trailer had seen better days and so had Bobbi Reed.

Bobbi Reed was forty-four, but looked at least sixty. I caught her coming home from work on the night shift at the hospital; she was a nurse. Her daughter Rachel was with her and was quite a contrast. Rachel Reed was sixteen, shapely and had about the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen, while her curly blonde hair fell about her dimpled cheeks.

The three of us sat around the living room with the TV on, but the sound turned down. I was sipping on a cup of coffee that was surprisingly good and listening to Bobbi Reed tell me about her daughter.

“She was a saint, a saint to put up with that man.” Bobbi Reed said.

“Why do you say that? What did Vincent do to her?”

“He treated her like property and wouldn’t spend any money on her. The man owned his own accounting firm for God’s sake; he must have been rolling in money.”

“Did you know he filed for bankruptcy recently?”

“That was just a trick to fool the I.R.S., believe me, Vincent Kane is devious.”

“Maybe, but the police believe that he killed your daughter in order to collect on her life insurance.”

“He’s greedy, that’s all. He used my poor daughter from the moment he met her. Did you know that she was only fourteen when they met?”

I raised an eyebrow. “No, I hadn’t heard that.”

“Lucinda swore to me that nothing went on between them until she married him at eighteen, but I’m not a complete fool, plus, there was that trouble with the neighbor girl.”

“That was just a misunderstanding mom.” Rachel Reed said.

I looked over at her.

“What was a misunderstanding?”

“Lucinda and Vincent had a neighbor woman with a teenage daughter.” Bobbi said. “Lucinda told me that she caught the girl leaving their house one day when she came home earlier than expected. The girl was attractive and looked older than she was, but she was only fifteen for God’s sake.”

“What did the girl say?”

“She told Lucinda that she had just stopped by to talk to Vincent about donating money toward new band uniforms.”

“That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“The girl had never been in the band. If she was playing an instrument that day, it was a skin flute.”

“Mom!” Rachel said, while I laughed, despite the seriousness of it all.

“What did Lucinda do next?”

“She told the girl’s mother about her suspicions; not long after, the girl and her mother moved away. Can you imagine having to tell another woman that your husband may have been fooling around with her child? Lucinda said that their marriage was never the same after that.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“A few years ago,”

“If she believed he was a child molester, then why did she stay with him?” I said.

“I hate Vincent for killing my daughter, but there is one thing about him I can’t deny, the man’s a charmer, always was and always will be. Despite his faults, Lucinda loved him.”

The doubt I harbored at that statement must have shown on my face, because Bobbi frowned at me.

“Let me guess, people have been telling you about Lucinda’s affairs? Well, it’s true, but they weren’t affairs, it was just one man, Harold Weidman. He was Lucinda’s dentist and he wanted her to leave Vincent and live with him.”

“Why didn’t she?”

Bobbi shrugged. “Vincent charmed her out of it, said he was a changed man. Two weeks later, she was dead.”

As I was leaving the trailer, I stopped at the bottom of the steps and asked Bobbi one last question.

“You say that Vincent met your daughter when she was only fourteen, how did they meet?”

She stared at me a while before answering.

“Back then... Vincent was my boyfriend,” And then, she slowly shut the door.

***

D
r. Harold Weidman had a dental practice in a Fort Worth office building that was a short walk away from the Kimbell Art Museum.

After I explained who I was and why I was there, the doctor agreed to talk with me. We talked in one of the examination rooms, and the antiseptic smell of the place and the sight of the drills made my teeth itch. I hate visiting the dentist.

Dr. Weidman was a pleasant looking man. He was in his mid-thirties and had short brown hair with gray eyes seated behind a pair of round glasses.

“You say that you’re a bounty hunter, Ms. Steele; that’s an unusual profession for a young woman, no?”

I smiled, while hoping that he spotted no flaws in my teeth.

“Bail Enforcement Agent, and there are a few of us, doctor. Now please, tell me everything you know about Lucinda and Vincent Kane.”

“About Vincent, I know almost nothing; about Lucinda... it would take a year.”

“You loved her?”

“Oh yes, from the moment I laid eyes on her.”

“Do you believe that Vincent killed her?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, probably, or else why would he have run away?”

“Did Lucinda ever mention a place that Vincent might run to, such as a childhood friend, or a relative that he was particularly close to?”

The doctor stared at me.

“We spoke of him as little as possible,”

“Yes, of course,”

“The police have asked me all of this already; do you really think that you’ll locate him before they can?”

“Yes doctor, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I have ten thousand more reasons to find him then they do.”

***

N
ext, I paid a visit to
Goldman, Harper, Rogers & Dent
. They were the law firm that was representing Vincent Kane. I had little hope of getting anyone to talk to me, but in my business, you took things as they came. Talking to Kane’s attorney could only shed light on where he might have gone and so I tried to get a few words in with him.

To my great shock, I was ushered into Gary Dent’s office in less than a minute. Gary Dent was younger than I expected, and a hunk. He was six-feet tall and slim, with wavy dark hair and a cleft chin.

As his assistant escorted me into the office, I watched as his eyes took me in from tip to tail. Normally, I wore jeans when working, but lazy girl that I am, I hadn’t gotten around to doing the laundry for a while and all my jeans were dirty. So today, I was wearing a black silk skirt with a white blouse and a pair of turquoise boots that rode up to mid-calf. As I sat and crossed my legs, Dent’s eyes widened in interest.

He held up my business card.

“A Private Investigator? I thought you were a Bail Enforcement Agent, a Bounty Hunter,”

“I’m all three actually; I became a P.I. in order to become a Bounty Hunter, that’s the law in Texas, as I’m sure you know.”

He shook his head. “Actually, no, I didn’t know that; but now, I’ll never forget it.” And then he smiled, and I felt my heart go aflutter. I am such a sucker for a great smile, and humility. A lawyer admitting that he didn’t know everything was a first for me.

“The reason I’m here Mr. Dent—”

“Gary, call me Gary, and you’re Blue. Is that really your name, Blue Steele?”

“Yes, my father was expecting a boy.”

“Thank God he was disappointed.” Gary said, and then he smiled again.

“Thank you for the compliment, Gary, but I’m here to talk about Vincent Kane.”

At the mention of Kane, Gary Dent grimaced.

“You don’t like Mr. Kane?”

“Vinnie? Yeah, I like him, no; I just made that face because I’m so pissed at Vinnie for running off. He had zero chance of going to prison for his wife’s murder.”

I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”

“He didn’t do it and we could prove it. The timeline was all wrong. Vinnie’s a smoker, cigars, at the time his wife was being murdered, he was at a store buying some. We have three witnesses that can place him there, plus the store’s security camera.”

“He was at the store at the exact time his wife was killed?”

“Well, not the exact time, but it was only twenty minutes after the neighbor swears he heard the gunshot that killed Lucinda, and the cigar shop is a forty-five minute drive away, so, unless Vinnie learned to fly, he’s innocent.”

“He could have hired someone to kill his wife.”

“Yes, but if he had done that, wouldn’t he have given himself more leeway on the alibi?”

“All right, then why would he run at all?”

Gary smiled at me again. If he kept doing that, I was going to leap over the desk and molest him.

“I’m not at liberty to say, Blue; attorney/client privilege, you know?”

I thought for a moment, and then the answer came to me.

“Money, he was hiding money from the I.R.S., and when he got indicted for murder, all of his financial dealings came to light.” I grinned. “He could actually receive a longer sentence for tax evasion than for murder; that would be a reason to run.”

Gary squinted at me. “You’re a smart one, Blue; I’ll have to remember that.”

“Vincent Kane was planning on divorcing his wife and leaving her with nothing, so he told anyone who would listen that she was gambling him into bankruptcy and then after the divorce was final, he would suddenly make a financial recovery.”

“Let’s say that hypothetically that was the truth, does that sound like a man planning to kill his wife?”

No, it sounds like a man planning to cheat her, not kill her.”

“Exactly,”

“So then, who killed Lucinda Kane?”

“My guess, dear old mom,”

“Bobbi Reed?”

“I’m not just Vinnie’s lawyer. We’ve been friends since college, I was there when he married Lucinda; Bobbi Reed was nowhere in sight. Vinnie met Lucinda while he was dating Bobbi, and then they broke up. A few years later, Vinnie marries Lucinda out of the blue. A suspicious man, or woman, might believe that Vinnie and Lucinda had never lost contact.”

“Even though she was just a child?”

“He swore to me at the time that he had never touched her and that she was a virgin on their wedding night.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I thought I did, but when he contacted me after being charged with murder, I realized that I hadn’t kept in touch with him since the wedding; so, maybe not.”

“But why would Bobbi Reed kill her own daughter?”

“Jealousy, Vinnie told me that Bobbi and Lucinda barely spoke for years, despite the fact that Lucinda’s little sister stayed with her from time to time. Vinnie said that Bobbi used them as free babysitters, but other than that, she wanted nothing to do with them, and then, six months ago, Bobbi offered an olive branch and she and Lucinda became best friends. You know what they say: Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.”

“Still, her own daughter?”

“Or rival, I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

“So, your theory is that Bobbi Reed killed her own daughter in order to frame Vincent Kane? I don’t know; let’s say it’s true, why now?”

“I take it you’ve met Bobbi Reed?”

“Yes, this morning,”

“Not exactly the picture of health, is she?”

“What are you saying?”

“Bobbi Reed has terminal liver cancer. According to what my investigator found out, she’s got maybe six months to live. If she wanted to get back at Vinnie and Lucinda, now was the only time she had.”

***

W
hen I was leaving, Gary escorted me to the elevator .

“How old are you Blue?”

“I’m twenty-eight, why?”

“I’m forty, too old?”

I had several thoughts then. One was serious, one was evasive, and three were just plain wiseass, but in the end, I simply answered, “No.”

“Good, so I’ll call you soon?”

“Yes.”

He gave me his best smile yet, and then the elevator arrived, and we said goodbye.

***

I
was in my office, which is also my truck, a Ford F150 that had more miles on it than I cared to think about. It was black with a tan interior and I had owned it since the day I got my license. It was a birthday gift from my father.

I was invited to have dinner with Becca and her family. As I pulled into their driveway, my phone rang. I looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was Ron, my boss, and owner of the AAAAAAAAAA Bail Bonds Company. He used the ten A’s so to be sure he was listed first in the yellow pages, but most people just referred to his company as Ten A, which was funny, because Ron’s last name was Tenney.

“Hi Ron, what’s up?”

“Blue baby, how’s my favorite bloodhound?”

“Good, how about you?”

“I’m good kid, but listen; I got an easy one for you, and it pays three grand.”

I straightened in my seat as Becca and Richie came out to greet me, behind them poured out their brood, three girls and two boys, ages two to nine. I held up an index finger and Becca stopped in her tracks, as Richie told the kids to hush.

“What is it, Ron?”

“A guy by the name of Felix Porta, he skipped a few weeks ago on multiple B&E charges, but I got a reliable tip that he’s working under the table at the Easy wax car wash, you know, the one on May Street? Come see me and pick-up the paper and then go pick-up Felix, the whole thing should only take a few hours.”

“And you say he’s worth three grand?” I said, and watched as Becca’s face fell. I had blown off the last two invitations to dinner because of work and it looked like I was going to do it again.

“Yeah, three bills, so how soon can you get here?”

I climbed out of my truck and sent Becca a smile.

“Thanks for thinking of me first, Ron, but I have to pass; I’m having dinner with my family.”

***

I
left Becca’s that night feeling good and a little wistful that I didn’t have a family of my own yet. Maybe someday,

On the ride home, an idea came to me in a flash and I pulled over to make a call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Reed, this is Miss Steele, do you remember me?”

“Of course, you’re that bounty hunter,”

“Right, could I ask you a few more questions ma’am?”

“Yes, but be quick about it; I’m just about to leave for work.”

I was quick, and she answered all my questions. After an hour of searching through county records on my laptop, I thought I knew where Vincent Kane was hiding.