Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller)

Tim Kizer

Deception

Hitchhiker

Intoxication

Also by Tim Kizer:

Days of Vengeance

Sixtus

Copyright 2011, 2012 Tim Kizer

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Deception

Chapter 1

1.

It was a sloppy job, for sure. First, he killed the wrong guy. Second, he didn’t bother to put the victim’s fingerprints on those DVDs. Third… Hell, he killed the
wrong
guy, who needs third? What a blockhead.

Miranda was not ranting. No, not at all. In fact, she was glad the hitman was prone to botching up because that made her job easier. But still, when you plan to murder a multimillionaire’s son, you’d better do your homework and dot every “i” and cross every “t”, okay?

Now, let’s go back to when it all began.

2.

When Miranda entered the living room, it crossed her mind that the victim could have remained undiscovered for weeks and weeks and rotted to the bone if his friend hadn’t asked the police to check the house, having gotten worried by his disappearance. The victim’s name was Jeff Hackett, the friend’s name was Dean Harris.

After spending a few seconds in the room, Miranda realized that VapoRub she had just dabbed on her upper lip was not going to be much of a help—the stench of the corpse was overpowering. She switched to breathing through her mouth as she bent over the body. To smell this bad, this guy had to have been dead at least three days.

Hackett was lying on his back between the couch and the TV stand, his legs straight, his arms spread to the sides. He wore black jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt, which had a large blood stain in the middle of its chest area. The bullet hole was located next to the third button from the top. The severely bloated stomach, which had busted two buttons off the shirt as it expanded, made the corpse look like one of those deep sea fish that ballooned after surfacing. Miranda could see swarms of maggots on the areas of the body that were not covered by the clothing. Underneath the jeans and the shirt, the whole body could be teeming with maggots, Miranda thought. Fly larvae loved room temperature.

Miranda turned to Officer Henry Quinn, who was the first cop to see the dead body, and asked, “Have you touched anything here?”

“No, we were waiting for you, Detective,” Quinn said. 

“Okay.” Miranda shifted her eyes to the body. “Shot in the chest. At least he wasn’t tortured. Well, I hope he wasn’t.” She waited for Quinn to share his thoughts, but he kept silent.

Miranda looked around. Hackett had had a comfortable lifestyle while he was alive. A nice two bedroom house in a good neighborhood, fairly expensive furniture, lots of home electronics—and the guy hadn’t even turned thirty yet. He’d either had a six-figure job or been up to his ears in debt.

So what do she have here?

A dead body. Probable cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest. Judging by the fact that there were no other bullet holes in Hackett’s clothes and the carpet under the back of his head was not stained with blood, the killer had only shot the man once. The CSI experts would tell her the whole story later— the make of the gun, who had stood where, the angle of the bullet’s path, and so forth—and that information might even turn out useful.  

The mess in the room. The killer had thrown out most of the contents of the cabinets and bookcases on the floor as he (or she) had searched for the valuables. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was some drug addict that had run out of cash.   

“Where’s the victim’s friend?” Miranda asked. “The one who called the police.”

“He’s waiting outside. He’s name’s Dean Harris.”

“Yes, I know. Take me to him, please.”   

3.

“We work together. We own a restaurant in Cambridge. You might have heard about it; it’s called Magnolia.”

The face of Dean Harris, a friend of Hackett’s, was still pale with shock. Every question took him unreasonably long to answer. Apparently, he still couldn’t recover from the horror of seeing his friend’s dead body. He and Miranda were standing on the sidewalk across the street from Jeff Hackett’s house.

Magnolia... No, Miranda had never heard about this restaurant.

She wrote down the name of the restaurant in her notepad.

“Are you friends or just business partners?” Miranda asked.

“Both. I’ve known Jeff for over ten years.”

“When did you last see him alive?”

“Last Friday. Around seven in the evening.”

Last Friday. Three days ago.

“What made you believe that something wrong had happened to Hackett?”

“He disappeared. He didn't show up at the restaurant, he wasn’t answering his cellphone. Last night I came here and saw his car.”

“What car did he have?”

“That BMW,” Harris pointed at the gray BMW 750 parked by the curb near the beginning of Hackett’s driveway. “I figured that if the car was here, Jeff had to be home. But no one answered the door. I thought he slipped in the bathroom or had a heart attack or something.”

A heart attack at twenty seven? Well, that was not unheard of.

“It appears Jeff was a financially successful man,” Miranda said. “And he was only—what—twenty seven?”

“Yes, twenty seven.”

“Your restaurant must be doing pretty well.”

“It’s doing all right.”

“Did Hackett have any other sources of income besides the restaurant?”

Harris shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He didn’t sound very convincing, though.

“Are you sure?”

“I only know about the restaurant. I’m not saying he couldn’t have been involved in some other business. Anything’s possible.”

“I might drop by your joint someday.” Miranda cracked a smile.

“We’ll be happy to see you.” Harris smiled in reply.

“Do you have any suspicions about who might have killed Hackett?”

“I have no idea. To tell you the truth, I can’t think straight right now.”

“Has your restaurant ever been targeted by organized crime?”

“You mean: do we pay for protection?”

“Yes, you could put it this way.”

“No, Ms Murphy, we don’t pay for protection.” Again, Harris didn’t seem particularly sincere.

“Did Hackett owe anyone large amounts of money?”

“We never talked about that.”

“Did he gamble?”

“No, he didn’t gamble. He was a risk-averse guy.”

“Was Hackett married?”

“No.

“Did he have other close friends besides you?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Do you know them?”

“I know some of them.”

“I would appreciate it if you could make a list of Hackett’s friends, associates, and acquaintances that you know. You can send it to my email when you’re done.”

“Sure. I’ll do my best.”

“Did Jeff have a girlfriend?”

Harris nodded. “Yes. Her name is Gabi Mornell.”

“Do you know her phone number and address?”

“I have her phone number.” Harris opened the contact list on his cellphone, found Hackett’s girlfriend’s number, and showed it to Miranda, who then wrote it down.

“Did Jeff have a gun?”

“I don't know.”

“Did he have enemies?”

After a long pause, Harris replied, “He had very few enemies. And I doubt these people hated him enough to murder him.”

“How about those who fantasized about doing it? Did he have enemies like that?”

“Maybe.”

“Are his parents still alive?”

“His mother died a few years ago. His father left soon after Jeff was born.”

“Any siblings?”

“Jeff was the only child.”

“Would you mind coming to the morgue tomorrow morning to identify Jeff’s body?”

“Sure. What time?”

“I’ll give you a call later today.”

“Okay.”

There was a long silence, during which Miranda was reading her notes and Harris was staring at Hackett’s front yard that was teeming with police officers and crime scene investigators. 

“Would you like to add anything, Mister Harris?” finally asked Miranda. No matter how anti-scientific it sounded, she believed in the sixth sense, and right now her sixth sense was telling her that Harris was itching to share one more piece of information.

“Add?” Harris knitted his eyebrows. “Maybe. I’m not sure if it’s going to be of any help to you, though… You asked me about his parents.” Harris paused. “As I said, Jeff had a shitty father.” He paused again. “Have you heard of Marshall Dillon?”

Miranda shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”

“Have you heard of the company called American Discount Tires? They have stores all over the East Coast.”

“I assume they sell discount tires.”

“Yes. Marshall Dillon is its founder and majority owner. He’s very wealthy, probably worth around three hundred and fifty million dollars.”

“What does he have to do with Hackett?”

“Dillon is Jeff’s father.”

Miranda took a few seconds to digest Dean’s words. It was an interesting detail, wasn't it? The victim’s father was a multimillionaire.

“Dillon had never been close to Jeff, even though Jeff was his only child. Strange, right?” Harris continued.

“It happens.”

“You asked me if Jeff had other sources of income. It’s possible that Dillon helped him financially.”

Miranda glanced at her watch. She’d been talking to Harris for twenty minutes now. “Here’s my contact information.” Miranda gave Harris her card. “Please call if you have anything interesting for me.”

4.

So what was her theory?

It could have been a robbery gone fatal. And there two options here: either Hackett had let—or was forced to let—the burglar in or the perp had already been inside the house when Hackett came home. Crimes like that happened all the time.

Hackett opens the door, crosses the entry hall, walks into the living room, and then feels the cold metal of the gun barrel press against his back.  

“If you open your mouth, I’ll kill you,” the burglar says. A few minutes—or a an hour—later Hackett’s dead.

All the TV sets, the audio system, the laptop, and other electronics remained in the house. What had the thief—or thieves—come here for? Cash? Very likely. A restaurant owner/a multimillionaire’s son could certainly have large amounts of cash at home. There could also be lots of expensive jewelry here. It was also possible that Hackett owned valuable paintings. Paintings were easy to carry and hide, so maybe that was what the burglars had taken. Miranda was hoping that Gabi Mornell and Dean Harris could help her determine what had been stolen from Hackett’s house. She would talk to Harris tomorrow morning, after he officially identified Hackett’s body. 

It took them three hours to interview Hackett’s neighbors. Unfortunately, no one had heard or seen anything suspicious in or around Hackett’s house, which suggested that the killer had used a suppressor (also known as a silencer). The suppressor was a logical choice, considering that wood walls were bad at concealing the sound of a gunshot from passersby. The neighbors didn't remember what time Jeff Hackett had arrived home on Friday or what time he had left.  

Hackett’s pockets contained nothing unusual: the car key, the house keys, the wallet with one hundred and sixty dollars in cash and a bunch of debit and credit cards, a plastic lighter, and a half-full pack of chewing gum. 

Miranda’s intuition was telling her that the case was not going to be a cakewalk. Well, when was the last time she had a case that was?

5.

“This is not Jeff,” Harris said. “You brought the wrong body.”

Miranda looked inquiringly at Sid Holmes, the morgue employee who had delivered Hackett’s corpse for identification. Holmes shook his head and said, “That’s the right body, trust me.”

“Well, it’s not Jeff,” Harris said, his eyes fixed on the body. “There is some resemblance, but this man is not Jeff Hackett. He has a mole on his chin, and Jeff had no moles.”

Miranda drew her eyebrows together. A mole. What a curious turn of events.

Harris ran his hand over his forehead, wiping off the sweat. “Does it mean that Jeff is still alive?”

Well, it seemed that they had rushed to conclusions earlier. They had found a dead man in Jeff Hackett’s house and assumed it was Jeff Hackett. To be fair, those driver’s license photos could be quite ambiguous.

“Thank God, he’s alive.” A smile of relief appeared on Harris’ face.

“Don’t be so sure,” Miranda said. “We have no evidence one way or the other.”

“I wonder who this man is,” Harris said. “I’ve never seen him before. And what was he doing at Jeff’s place?”