Drawing Close: The Fourth Novel in the Rosemont Series (13 page)

Chapter 28

Chuck Delgado stood in line at the
reception desk of the foreclosure company, a cashier’s check clutched in his
sweaty palm. He hummed tunelessly. He’d gotten the Wheeler house for a song.
Turns out the shady past of its newly deceased owner suppressed interest in the
otherwise desirable home. Nothing he liked better than a bargain. Not that he
wouldn’t have outbid anyone there. He had a gut feeling there was something
hidden in the house that he needed to find.

The receptionist handed an envelope to the person
in front of him, and Delgado surged forward, brushing the man aside.

“Hey, doll,” he said to the woman on the other
side of the counter. She was young enough to be his daughter. “What’s a good
lookin’ gal like you doin’ cooped up in this dump?”

“May I help you, sir?” she replied in clipped
tones.

“In many ways, my dear. Maybe we can talk about
them over a drink?”

She stared at him and remained silent.

Delgado cleared his throat. If this dumb broad
wasn’t interested in having some fun with one of the richest men in town, to
hell with her. “I’m here to pay my bid. I bought the Wheeler house—the
former Wheeler house—at yesterday’s foreclosure auction.”

“Address?” she responded, turning to her computer
screen.

“1842 West Sycamore,” he said.

She scrolled and found the entry for that address.
“Your identification, please,” she said, turning to him.

“C’mon, doll. You have to know who I am. Chuck
Delgado. Council Member Chuck Delgado.”

“I’m afraid not, sir. I’ll need to see your
driver’s license.”

Delgado shoved his hand into his pants pocket and
pulled out his wallet. He tossed it to her, and it skittered across the desk
top and landed on the floor behind her. She threw him an icy glare as she
rolled her chair around and reached down to retrieve it. She held up the
license and made the comparison.

“Payment, please,” she said.

Delgado handed her the check, now wrinkled and
soggy. She unfolded it, touching it only by the corners. She verified the
amount against her computer screen, flipped it over, and stamped the back
before slipping it into a drawer.

“Where’s my key?” Delgado demanded.

Ignoring him, she unlocked the cabinet behind her
and sorted through a stack of envelopes until she found the one marked “1842 W
Sycamore.” She removed the key from the envelope, laid it on the counter, and
turned her attention to the next person in line.

Delgado didn’t step aside. “What about the deed?
Where’s my deed?”

“We’ll mail it to you next week, ex-Council Member
Delgado. I believe you got thrown out of office when you got arrested?”

Delgado spun on his heel and marched out the door.
Dumb broad.
Some people didn’t know who they were messin’ with. He’d be
back in his council seat before Christmas.

***

The following day, Delgado lurched
to his feet and staggered to the exterior stairway leading from his office to
the parking lot where his car was sloppily angled in its usual spot next to the
dumpster. He teetered on the top landing and grabbed for the handrail. Maybe he
was a little too far gone to be driving, he thought.

One cheeky broad shouldn’t send him to the bottle.
What had he been thinking? He wanted to poke around the Wheeler house
himself—to see if that bastard Wheeler had left something behind that
would sink them all. At the very least, he needed to make sure the place was
locked up.

Delgado stepped onto the top step and came down
heavily on his generous backside. He wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight. He
gathered himself and stumbled back into his office, slid into his desk chair,
and dialed the familiar number.

“After you see the lights go out at Rosemont
tonight, go by Wheeler’s place on Sycamore. I bought it at the foreclosure yesterday.
Just make sure it’s all locked up. Don’t go in or anything,” Delgado suddenly
sounded sober. “You can come by my office to get the key. I’m workin’ late
tonight and don’t wanna be disturbed,” he said, trying his best not to slur his
words. “I’ll leave it in an envelope at the top of the stairs.”

Delgado smirked as he hung up the phone. It was
nice to have reliable help.

***

The driver in the sedan waited
until the light in the windows at Rosemont—the ones he assumed were in
the master bedroom—had remained out for a least fifteen minutes. Time to
attend to more interesting matters. He swung the sedan out of his regular spot
in the clearing below Rosemont and proceeded to his boss’s liquor store, where
he retrieved the key as instructed.

He drove slowly down West Sycamore. It was almost
midnight. The only light he saw from within the handsome residences lining the
street was the pale blue flicker of a television set in the front room of a
house four doors down from his destination. He angled his car into the shadow
cast by a tree across from the Wheeler house and quietly got out of the car.
His gut told him to lay low, and he always listened to his gut.

He crossed the lawn and went up the front steps in
a matter of seconds. The door was locked. He hesitated, then went to the back
of the house, fingering the key. The back door was firmly secured as well. He
trampled the bushes in the flower bed below a window to the left of the back door
and peered into the laundry room. He removed the flashlight from his pocket and
shone it into the room. Other than dust bunnies and dried leaves, all he noted
was the baseboards that he’d seen David Wheeler pulling away from the walls. He
rocked back on his heels, thinking.

The man pulled out his cell phone. The call went
to voice mail after the fifth ring. Delgado was most likely in a drunken
stupor. “The house is all locked up,” he left the message in Delgado’s voice
mail box. “It was locked when I got here.”

He turned to leave and noted the small, detached
garage at the back of the property. Judging by the disrepair of the driveway,
he guessed it hadn’t been used for its intended purpose in years. They probably
stored junk in it that should have been thrown away in the first place. He
hesitated, then wandered in its direction. Why had Delgado been so adamant that
he not enter the house, anyway? Didn’t he trust him?

He tried to lift the heavy wooden garage door but
it was painted shut. He switched on his flashlight and trained it along the
side of the building. Nestled in the wall was a windowless door. He picked his
way to it along the narrow walkway. The knob turned and the door yielded to
gentle pressure, swinging in to reveal a jumbled mess of old tires, Christmas
lights, a broken-down jungle gym, and stacks of newspapers. Even in the dim
light, he could see the undisturbed blanket of dust covering every surface.

He trained his flashlight across the room. His
boss owned all of this junk now. Delgado’s next call would probably be for him
to clean up this mess. The man bristled. That idiot didn’t deserve him.

He was about to retrace his steps and exit the
garage when his flashlight settled on an unusual feature in the abandoned,
decrepit structure. Someone had taken the time to install baseboards. Clean and
unblemished, they must have been added recently. Puzzled, he bent down for a
closer look. The work had been shoddy, with a three-eighths-inch gap bowing out
from the wall in the middle of the longest run.

He trained his light into the gap and thought he
saw a piece of paper. He took his car key, shoved it into the gap, and pried
the baseboard from its moorings. Three sheets of paper clung to the wall. He
quickly plucked them from their hiding place and spread them on the floor. All
three sheets were covered with neatly written lists of numbers.

The man turned the papers over, looking for a key
to explain them. He came up empty-handed.

Taking great pains to ease the door noiselessly
into place behind him, he locked the garage and returned to his car. He picked
up his phone to call Delgado, then stopped. He had no idea what these numbers
meant, but his gut told him that these papers were what Delgado was hoping to
find. They were the reason he’d bought this house at foreclosure in the first
place.

The man smiled. Maybe—just maybe—he’d
stumbled upon something valuable. He could always give the papers to Delgado
later, and he’d be none the wiser. He’d hang onto them for now to see what
developed. It was good to save something for a rainy day, his mother always
told him. He smiled; his mom would be proud.

Chapter 29

Maggie leaned into the microphone
in front of her. “This meeting of the Westbury Town Council is adjourned.” She
pushed back her chair and turned to Tim Knudsen.

“How did you like your first meeting as a member
of the council? You were certainly well prepared. You asked great questions.”

Tim Knudsen smiled and waved Tonya Holmes over to
join them. “Tonya and I got together for coffee earlier this week, and she went
over things with me. Showed me the ropes.”

“I’d expect nothing less of her.” Maggie smiled at
Tonya. “She’s the hardest working public representative I’ve ever seen. Always
does her homework, and votes for her constituents, every time.”

Tonya flushed. “I try.”

“Russ,” Maggie called, trying to catch Council
Member Russell Isaac before he exited at the far end of the council chamber. He
turned, gestured to his watch in an exaggerated fashion, and continued out the
door.

“He hasn’t spoken to me in months,” Tonya said.
“The less I see of him, the better. I’ll bet he’s connected to Delgado in this
whole thing. Haynes, too. Where is Frank today, by the way? It’s not like him
to miss a council meeting.”

“He left me a voice mail that he’d be out of town
on business,” Maggie replied. “He’s been gone a lot, lately.”

“I didn’t know he had business interests outside
of Westbury,” Tim said. “Maybe he’s expanding his empire.”

“With the town’s money, if you ask me,” Tonya
said.

“We don’t have any evidence of that,” Maggie
reprimanded gently. “We don’t want to speculate. That’s how rumors get
started.”

“I know, I know,” Tonya said. “But I’m entitled to
my opinion.”

Maggie turned to Tim. “I need some information
from you. I understand that the Wheeler house was sold at a foreclosure
auction. Can you find out who bought it? I’m assuming that the bank ended up
taking it back.”

Tim spun around to look at her. “Didn’t you hear?”
he asked, looking from Maggie to Tonya and back again. “It went to a third
party—not the bank. The house was sold to the only bidder at the sale.”

“Who was the bidder?” Maggie asked.

“Chuck Delgado,” Tim replied.

Maggie’s head snapped up. They needed to serve
their search warrant and get into that house before the day was done. She
thanked Tim, again, for agreeing to step into Chuck Delgado’s newly vacated
council seat and promised Tonya she’d have lunch with her the following week.

“I haven’t heard about your honeymoon, yet,” Tonya
reminded her.

“Next week, for sure,” Maggie called over her
shoulder as she made a beeline for her office.

“I’ve got these letters ready for your signature,”
her assistant called as Maggie sailed past.

“I’ll be right out,” Maggie said brightly. “I’ve
got a call to make.”

Maggie dove into her purse for her cell phone. She
tapped her foot impatiently while Alex’s number rang and rang, finally going to
voice mail. This news couldn’t wait. She buzzed her assistant. “Can you get me
Forest Smith on the phone?”

Maggie waited for what seemed like an eternity
until Smith was on the line. “Is Alex with you?” she asked, dismissing the
usual formalities.

“He’s right here, ma’am,” Smith said. “Do you want
to speak to him?”

“Put me on speaker. You both need to hear this,”
she replied.

Smith complied. “We’re here,” Alex said. “What’s
up?”

“Chuck Delgado bought the Wheeler house at the
sale,” she blurted out.

“Damn it!” Alex exploded. “Are you sure?”

“I heard it from Tim Knudsen.”

“He would know,” Alex said. “We need to get that search
warrant served this afternoon. For all we know, he’s been through the place and
found what we’re after.”

“Maybe he bought it as an investment,” Smith said.
“He owns other rental properties in town. Maybe the fact that it had been
Wheeler’s home held some sort of macabre fascination for him.”

“Forest’s got a point,” Maggie said. “I hadn’t
thought about that. This may not be as bad as it seems.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Alex said. “In the
meantime, we need to search that house.”

***

Chuck Delgado turned onto West
Sycamore Street. It was obvious that something big was happening halfway down
the street. He proceeded cautiously in the direction of his newly acquired
property and pulled to the curb three doors down from the house. The driveway
and both sides of the street in front of the house were filled with police
cars.

He hurried toward the commotion, stepping around a
group of uniformed officers in his path. One of them held out his arm to block
Delgado’s progress.

“You’ll have to cross on the other side of the
street, sir,” the officer said.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

The officer bristled but remained calm. “It
doesn’t matter who you are, sir. This is a police action, and you can’t go
through here.”

“This is my house. I got a right to know what’s
going on.”

The officer nodded. “In that case, you need to see
Chief Thomas.” He took Delgado’s arm and escorted him up the sidewalk to the
front door.

“Look who came strolling by, Chief,” the officer
said.

Chief Thomas nodded and handed Delgado the search
warrant that Special Counsel Scanlon had delivered to the chief not more than
thirty minutes earlier.

“What the hell …” Delgado muttered.

Chief Thomas pointed to the key that Delgado was
clutching in his left hand.

“May I?” he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Delgado shoved the key into the lock. “Help
yourselves, boys,” he replied as he moved to step over the threshold.

Chief Thomas barred his progress. “You’ll need to
wait outside.” He turned to the officer. “Escort Mr. Delgado back to the curb
and make sure he stays there.”

“This is my house,” Delgado protested.

“And we’ll let you know when we’re done.” The chief
nodded to the officer who took Delgado by the elbow.

Delgado shook him off. “I don’t need no escort.”
He stormed down the steps and took up a spot along the opposite curb among the
growing crowd of neighbors and curious onlookers.

He watched as ten uniformed officers entered by
the front door and maintained his vigil while the crowd around him thinned as
people grew bored. The search lasted more than three hours, with officers
coming and going. In the last hour, Delgado counted four large black plastic
bags—containing who knew what—being taken down the front steps and
placed in a waiting police van. Three final bags were carried from the garage
and the back doors of the van were closed. Two officers got in and rolled
slowly past Delgado.

Delgado crossed the street as Chief Thomas locked
the front door. “Find what you were lookin’ for?” Delgado sneered.

Chief Thomas turned and held the key out to
Delgado.

“You’d better not have done any damage in there,”
Delgado said. “If you have, there’ll be a lawsuit on your desk before you get
back to the precinct.”

“Everything is exactly as we found it,” the chief
replied calmly. “We’ve got before and after pictures to prove it.” He stepped
past Delgado.

“You took a lot of shit out of here,” Delgado
turned after him.

The chief kept on walking.

***

Chief Thomas knocked lightly and
proceeded to enter the mayor’s office. Maggie searched his face as she ushered
him to the conference table in the corner.

“Alex told me he got you the warrant. Are you here
to report on the results of the search?”

The chief nodded and opened his mouth to speak.
Maggie held up her hand to stop him. “Let’s get Alex on the speaker phone,
first,” she said as she dialed Alex’s number.

“I’ve got the chief here with me,” Maggie said.
“He’s served the warrant.”

“Are you done?” Alex asked.

“Yes. I had ten officers with me and we spent a
little over three hours. With Chuck Delgado watching from across the street. He
showed up almost immediately after we arrived.”

“How convenient,” Alex said. “Wonder how he knew.”

“Are you insinuating that there’s a leak in my
department?” the chief snapped.

“How else—” Alex began but Maggie cut him
off.

“This is not the time,” Maggie said sternly. “What
did you find?”

“Nothing,” the chief said. “Absolutely nothing.
“The baseboards were removed in every room. We took off any crown molding, too.
Nothing there or behind any of the cupboards. We even removed the medicine
cabinets from the bathrooms. All of the floorboards were solid. We checked the
house and the garage,” he concluded. “No third report.”

Maggie’s inhaled suddenly. “Wait a minute. The
garage?’ She held her breath.

“Yes—the garage,” the chief replied.

“We didn’t check the garage. David and I didn’t
think to check the garage.” She cradled her head in her hands. “What did it
look like in there?”

“Same as the house, except it was full of junk.
The Wheelers didn’t clean it out. The baseboards were all pulled away from the
wall.”

Maggie moaned. “I’ll bet that’s where the third
spreadsheet was hidden. I’m telling you—there has to be a third
spreadsheet.”

The line remained silent as they allowed the
implications of this discovery to sink in. “Then Delgado must have it,” Alex
finally broke the silence.

Chief Thomas shook his head slowly. “Maybe, but I
don’t think so. We made a big show of taking black plastic bags out of the
house and garage and loading them into a police van. Since Delgado was watching
us from the opposite curb, we wanted to give him something to think about.”

“That was smart,” Maggie said.

“When I gave him back his key, he asked what we
found. He seemed anxious about it. If he’d already been through the place and
had his hands on that spreadsheet, he wouldn’t have been.”

“He doesn’t have a reputation for having a poker
face,” Alex said. “I’ll give you that.” He sighed heavily. “Who has that third
spreadsheet?”