Checkmate (Caitlin Calloway Mystery Book 2) (20 page)

“Not very humane.”

“Not just that. Our parents’ eyesight is waning. We’re a little concerned about them playing with guns. I don’t like guns to begin with, and the thought of Dad, with his cataracts, running around with a loaded shotgun, is unsettling. My poor stepmother. I wonder if she knew what she was getting into when she married him.”

“You have guns,” Stella said. “I mean I assume that you do.”

“Two and they travel with CC. When she’s home, they’re locked up. She’s always been very careful because of Emma. What’s on the board today?”

“More folks afraid they have H1N1, an extreme case of flatulence, a broken leg, and Mrs. Bowers is back.”

“Let’s do the standard on the flu folks, and since I noticed that Tierney was late again, she can have the patient with gas.” Jamie smirked. “Tell me our patient is an elderly obese man.”

“Just so happens he is.”

Jamie laughed. “Now maybe she’ll show up on time. I like the kid, but she’s not going to make it if she doesn’t pull her head out of the clouds.”

“The clouds? With that one, I’m willing to bet her head is firmly planted deep inside her lower anatomy.” Stella scoffed.

*   *  *

Val’s head was throbbing. A migraine was brewing. She wasn’t certain who was to blame. It could be Albert Beaumont for being smarter than she had assumed. It could be the Calloway sisters

for being a general pain in her ass. Then there was Finn who was a bastard who seemed to enjoy adding to her stress. He stood there looking at her as if she could magically pull Beaumont out of her butt.

“Go over it again.” She demanded the time of playing nice had long since passed. While he glared at her, She silently vowed from this moment on it was time to kick ass. “Your team tracked him to the Marriott. He wasn’t just hanging around. He had been staying there under the name Gilbert Osborne.”

“We’ve been over this.” He snarled.

“Let’s do it again,” Val said. “The room was booked and paid for with a prepaid Visa that has since been deactivated?”

“Yes.” He grunted.

“CSU found a trashed cell phone which turned out to be a burner. Prepaid and bought in San Diego at the same Seven Eleven the prepaid credit card was purchased. Both were cash purchases, and any film we might have gotten has long since been dubbed over.”

“CSU is trying to get the phone working, and they are using Cellebrite to access the call and texts history,” Mills said.

Val should have been pleased that work was being done. That everything was in the works. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being used as a pawn in some sick game. If that was true, then any of her peers could be in on the game.

“Stop me when I get something wrong. Beaumont checked out and disappeared to parts unknown. We have no idea where this perv is hiding out or why he’s here. Is that about it?”

“Yes, the subway is right there.” Finn laid a map of the subway system out in front of Brown. “Copley station is on the Green Line. From there you can go to North Station and pick up a commuter rail to the burbs like Framingham or Lowell. He could also hop on the Down-Easter and head up to Maine. Or he could have transferred to the Red Line, back to South Station. From there he could pick up Amtrak, heading anywhere in the country, or walk over to the Peter Pan bus terminal, again headed to anywhere in the country.”

“How do you people navigate this?” All of the different routes, each color coded, boggled her mind. During her stint in the military, she had managed to navigate her way around jungles with nothing but verbal instructions and a knife. Finding her way around the city of Boston was a nightmare in comparison.

“It’s easy.” Finn had the bad manners to scoff at her. “Green downtown, Government Center, Copley, Park Street, all the way through Boylston, and to Newton if you are riding the D Line. Red will take you through Cambridge and all the way to Quincy. Blue will—”

“Stop!” Val shouted, stunning everyone in the office. She took a moment and tried to calm herself. “So, basically, he walked out of the hotel complex, and from what you’re saying, he could be anywhere. Now my question is how does a kiddy fucker who’s been locked up in segregation end up with an all-expenses-paid trip to Bean Town and a phone bought in California? According to the logs at Bridgeport, only his lawyer visited him. And the lawyer didn’t really seem interested in his well-being. Who is bankrolling him? And why?”

She was slightly amused by the confused look Finn was sporting. The rest of the team seemed to be enjoying his distress as well.

She finally let him off the hook. “Never mind. How about the rest of you? Anything from the surveillance on the ex-wife or the Calloway sisters?”

“Nothing,” Mills said. “He’s been on the move for thirty hours now. Damn. Wish we had checked the video earlier. The tip came in too late.”

“Yeah, I know.” Val continued pacing. “Video at the Copley? isn’t that how you got the Craigslist killer?”

“Exactly the same way, same hotel.”

“That’s right.” Val furrowed her brow. “Everyone knows that. It’s been all over the news, not just here but all over the country. It was on Dateline. Unless he’s a complete idiot, which is entirely possible, Beaumont would know not to show his face at the Copley.”

“Then why?”

“If I had the answer to that one, we’d have the bastard.” Val ran her fingers through her hair. “Okay, I take it your subway has video surveillance?”

“Of course,” Finn said.

“Mills, would you be available? I need you to come with me and help me get around the transit cops. Everyone else, get back to working your details.”

“We don’t call it the subway. Around here it’s the T,” Mills said. “Short for MBTA, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority.”

“I will never understand this city.”

“Excuse me!” Finn barked. “And just what am I supposed to be doing while you’re taking over?

“You?” Val wanted to tell him to carry on being a useless jackass. “I need you to check out every hotel, motel, rooming house and watering hole in the city. This guy had to be heading somewhere. Let’s hope it isn’t somewhere in another state.”

“You want me running traces?” He gasped.

“Got a problem with that?”

Val waited as everyone stared at Finn, who was glaring at her. Silently she dared him to say something, anything that would give her an excuse to have him thrown off the case. She egged him on with a cocky smirk that made him storm out of the room.

“Okay, now that the pissing contest is over,” Val calmly said, knowing she had won, “get back to work and keep me updated on everything.”

“That was incredibly risky,” Mills said as they made their way towards the elevator.

“Had to be done. He wants the glory. I want the bad guy. Maybe now he’ll be of some use. If not, at the very least he won’t be in the way.”

Chapter 23

When CC rolled into the station house, her mood was foul. She had just gotten off of the phone with Mills. The update wasn’t what she had hoped for. Anything short of “We got him” was a major disappointment.

“Long night?” Max asked, his chair squeaking loudly. CC couldn’t refrain from scowling at him.

“Not really. The dipstick my mother had the bad sense to marry is in the area.”

“Not just a maybe?”

“Looks like he’s been hanging around Copley Place.”

“What?”

“Staying at the Marriott.”

“Nah. How’s a guy just out of the joint and on the run manage to hole up in a posh place like that?” Max argued.

“Don’t know.” She tried to keep her composure. “Right now, we need to deal with yet another pretrial hearing for the people vs. Stern. They’re trying to get the confession tossed.” She couldn’t help smiling when Max barked with laughter. “Could happen,” she said.

“You and Mulligan wrapped her up tighter than a virgin in a convent. I’ve got twenty that says the judge barely listens to her mouthpiece.” Max scoffed at the idea.

“You’re on.”

*   *  *

Val felt like crap after poring for hours over grainy videotapes. The only thing she had to show for her efforts was a stiff neck and a possible glimpse of Beaumont heading towards the Boylston Hills stop on from what she understood to be the Green Line route. Which put him in the Calloway family’s backyard.

Back at the office, she went through everything at least twenty times. Each time she came to the same conclusion: nothing made sense.

“Why would a man just out of prison run to the one place everyone wants him dead?” She couldn’t help muttering out loud.

“Answer that and you’ll find him.” Mills took a seat at the table where Val was working. “Better still, why hide in places where you’ll be seen?”

“It’s a game. It’s always a game with these jokers. Usually it’s a lame game of tag. This time, I’m playing chess with someone who shouldn’t have lasted long after his opening move. I have a better question for you. Why didn’t Boston move faster? They got the call from Connecticut and just sat on the information.”

“Finn got the call.” Mills reluctantly mumbled.

“And?”

“And he hates Calloway.”

“Enough to let a twisted fuck like Beaumont slip through his fingers?” Val sputtered thoroughly disgusted.

“I didn’t think so, until this happened.”

“What’s his problem?”

“What do you think?”

“Taking things this far usually means something on the job o a woman.” Val quickly surmised still not understanding why someone in Finn’s position would let a slime ball like Beaumont slip through their fingers. “Since Calloway is one of those disgusting happily married types, I’m guessing that it was something that happened on the job.”

“Wrong.”

*   *  *

“Will you stop playing with that thing?” CC regretted letting Max use her phone.

“This thing is amazing. Look, this is the boat I want.”

“Donald Trump doesn’t have a ride that nice.” CC snatched her phone back. “Perhaps you should lower your sights. Shirley must be ready to throttle you. How did you go online with this?” She waved the phone in his face.

“Here.” He showed her once again how to use her phone to Google. “And this is how you send pictures or video. You can even do it while it’s in the holder you wear on your belt. Or you can do a conference call, even a videoconference call, if you wanted to.”

“Why would I want to?”

“You know, I’m the old fogey and I got this mastered.”

“I just want to make phone calls.”

“Seriously.” Now Leigh grabbed the phone from CC. “This is an amazing phone. Mine isn’t this nice. Half the reporters in there today are using something like this to stream a video to their producers. See you can send live video by doing this.” CC’s eyes glazed over as Leigh explained what appeared to be a simple task.

“The judge said no TV,” CC said. “We’re not even supposed to have our phones in the courtroom.”

“I’ll be streaming,” a sultry voice said.

“Laura Carson. Come to watch the circus?” CC greeted the former defense attorney who was now under the employ of a major television network. “Tell me the truth. Don’t you miss the courtroom?”

“I spend almost every day in a courtroom. I just don’t have to defend lying sociopaths anymore.” Laura scoffed. “I still believe in the justice system. I just feel safer reporting the facts instead of creating excuses. Nice phone. Maybe you’ll learn how to work it before the new model comes out. You do know that your ineptitude could cost you your butch card.”

“According to my wife, I never had one. Are we going to be seeing more of you, Laura? I take it you’re covering the Stern trial or, as you news people call it, the Whacko Soccer Mom trial. Where do you come up with these monikers?”

“My producer,” Laura said and groaned. “Any chance you’ll change your mind about doing an interview for my piece on West?”

“Nope.”

“You have a call,” Mulligan told CC.

“I didn’t hear it.”

“I reset you to vibrate since we have to be in the courtroom,” Mulligan explained. “It’s someone named Brooks.”

“Cop from San Diego,” Max explained.

“There’s a case I wanted to pitch,” Laura said, suddenly excited. “My producer shot it down. Not enough bodies and no trial. It wasn’t newsworthy.”

CC liked Laura. In her day, the leggy blonde had been one hell of a lawyer. CC teased her about going Hollywood, but CC got it. Too many guilty clients walking the streets versus sitting in front of a camera wasn’t a difficult choice for Laura.

“Brooks, what’s going on?”

“Hate to bug you this early.” He apologized.

“Middle of the day for me.”

“I keep forgetting.” He tried to joke, but CC could hear an odd note in his voice. “Look, I’ve got a bad feeling about something and need to talk to someone about it.”

“I’m due in court in a few.” She stepped away from the others so she could better hear Brooks. “You’ll have to make this quick.”

“It all started with the father, Malcolm Fisher.”

“What do you mean?” Her mind was already trying to process why he had called her. “Was he into something?”

“No, not him. Elizabeth Pryce died about a week ago.”

“Elizabeth Pryce?” CC searched her mind for the name. “Right, Janie Jensen’s girlfriend. What happened?”

“The medical examiner has it listed as undetermined. I don’t have all the details. It happened up in San Francisco. I couldn’t get much, just it might be some kind of virus.”

“Okay.” CC pulled a notepad and pen out of her pocket and started to scribble. She had no idea what was going on. So far, Brooks wasn’t telling her anything earth-shattering.

“A couple of days ago, Bitsy Marsden was murdered.” Brooks’ grave tone sent shivers down CC’s spine.

“Marsden was Fisher’s neighbor,” CC said. She suddenly felt out of sorts. “The one who every time Fisher asked her out when they were teenagers, she turned him down. Then one of her pets would wind up mutilated.”