Loving Again: Book 2 in the Second Chance series (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

“Five daughters, remember? Ask me anything about Disney princesses, Alice, Hermione. I‘ve read it all.” He sighed. “Not one super hero or G.I. Joe.”

“At least with Hermione you got Harry Potter.”

“Yeah, a fucking wizard. But that’s not what you have for me, is it?”

Danny set her coffee cup on his desk and summarized what Amanda had told her. “She may have been wrong to withhold telling us she was there but she’s right about one thing — there are too many similarities to the Webster case for coincidence. And all those coincidences wrap it up neatly. Also like last year.”

She finished off her coffee and pitched the cup in the trashcan. “We’re being led by our noses to see Amanda St. Claire as the perp. Why the similarities to the Webster case, I haven’t figured out yet, but I will.”

“She has a motive.”

“Weak, according to the folks I’ve talked to but, interestingly, established publicly in front of half the Bullseye staff.”

“You think one of them is our perp?”

“I think Kane wanted an audience to establish she had a reason to hate him. I don’t like the time element either. The guy across the street says she was there less than ten minutes. I don’t think she could have done what was done in ten minutes. Add a left-handed perp who brought down a six-footer and the image it paints for me isn’t Amanda St. Claire.”

“Okay, for the moment, let’s accept what you say is true,” Lt. Angel said. “That still leaves her lying about being there. Why?”

“I think she saw something and is too scared to tell me. Maybe the murderer or someone she knew. I’m not sure. I wish she’d trust me enough to talk to me honestly.”

“Let me think about this for a while. Got anything else?”

“A few odds and ends. The guy who saw Amanda there also saw a ‘classy car,’ as he described it. Silver, he thought, or gray, probably a BMW. Liz Fairchild, who owns the gallery where Kane showed his work, has a silver BMW and was on the eastside that night. She was evasive about where she was, even intimated that she might have been a little drunk. I think she was at Bullseye, too.”

“Could Amanda have seen her? Maybe that’s who she’s trying to protect. I imagine they’re acquainted.”

“Yeah, they are. The Fairchild Gallery represents Amanda. Maybe they’re each protecting the other.”

Lt. Angel got up from his desk. “I’d congratulate you on your work but since you’re right, it’s Wonderland quality, I’ll save the awards and decorations until you come back with a name. I will say you’ve turned over a lot of interesting rocks. What’s next?”

“I want to find out whose fingerprints are on the kiln controller and the glass, so I’ll nag the lab. And I’m going back to the Pearl to talk to Liz Fairchild. Maybe now that she’s had a chance to think things over, she’ll have more to say to me.”

• • •

“Detective Hartmann, how nice to see you again.” Liz Fairchild greeted the police officer as she opened the door. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d come during regular gallery hours to see what my artists are exhibiting.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you, Ms. Fairchild, but this isn’t so much about art appreciation as an appreciation for the truth. Or lack of it, in this case.”

“Oh, my, you’re more confrontational than you were the last time you were here.”

“That was the good cop. I’m here today as the bad cop.”

“I thought that was a game you played with two officers.”

“We’re understaffed. Can we go back to your office for a few minutes?”

Liz led the way. “Okay,” she said when they were both seated, “what now?”

“Unless you want to spend the afternoon at the precinct with your lawyer and a couple of officers really playing good-cop/bad-cop, you can tell me the truth about what you saw at Bullseye when you were there the night of the murder.”

Liz took a deep breath and rummaged around aimlessly on the top of her desk. Eventually she looked straight at Danny Hartmann.

“Look, I didn’t lie. I just left out a few things.”

“Lot of that going around,” Danny said.

“I got a phone call while I was eating dinner. A voice whispered that if I wanted to get the contract thing straightened out with Eubie, I should get to Bullseye ASAP.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No. But I went anyway. It wasn’t much of a detour to swing by Bullseye on my way home so I thought what the hell, I might as well go see what he had to say.”

“What did you see while you were there?”

“The building was dark. No signs anyone was there, except for what was parked in the covered parking area: an old brown hatchback, Eubie’s van, and … and a red SUV. Amanda St. Claire’s. With her vanity plate, it’s easy to identify.”

“Was she in her vehicle?”

“No, I didn’t see a living soul. Or a dead one.”

“So, what did you do?”

“It was pouring rain so I stayed in the car and waited for a couple minutes to see if anyone came out. No one showed so I left.”

“Any idea what time it was?”

“Around nine, I’d guess.”

“You’re sure that’s all.”

“Yes, Detective Hartmann. That’s all. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t see anyone get killed.”

“But you saw Amanda St. Claire’s SUV there about the time two people were killed and that’s why you’ve been evading my questions.”

Liz sighed. “Yes. I did and that’s why I have been.”

Guilt — actually fear of getting caught — had kept Sam from any more snooping around his partner’s desk. But the next morning, delivering a cappuccino he’d gotten for her when he got his morning latte, he saw a report on fingerprints he couldn’t resist checking out.

What it said sent him back to his computer for a quick search of the old Webster case records.

And there it was: the fingerprints found on the glass from the big kiln at Bullseye belonged to Beal Matthews, a low-level thug hired by Tom Webster to run errands for the drug ring. He’d been dimed out by the cops who’d been involved in the operation, had served time for possession and been released about two months prior because of good behavior and jail overcrowding.

But it was Matthews booking photo that made him mutter, “I’ll be damned.” Staring back at him from his computer screen was the man he seen entering The Fairchild Gallery the day he and his partner interviewed Liz.

As the printer chugged out a copy of the photo, he called Matthews’ parole officer. The p.o. said Matthews had been a model prisoner and had been following all the rules since he’d been out. Sam got a home and work address as well as the information that Matthews had recently been doing some part-time work for a business in the Pearl, but the p.o. didn’t know where. Sam did.

He grabbed the copy of the booking photo and his coffee and headed out to his pickup before anyone — read, L.T. — could stop him or ask what he was working on.

At the car repair shop where Matthews worked, the owner said his employee had called in sick that morning, a first. Matthews wasn’t at his apartment, either. An apartment Sam wasn’t surprised to see was close to both Amanda’s studio and Bullseye.

He debated stopping by the GlassCo studio but decided not to. Amanda still hadn’t returned his calls and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what that meant just yet. Deal with one crisis at a time was his motto for the day.

Instead, he checked Eubie Kane’s neighborhood. Kane’s next-door neighbor thought Matthews might have been hanging out with Kane for the month or two before he was killed. The neighbor wasn’t positive. Kane’s new friend seemed shy, didn’t like to talk, always wore a hoodie with his face obscured or a baseball cap pulled down on his forehead.

Last, he went to The Fairchild Gallery where Liz confirmed that Beal Matthews was Mike Benson. She also told Sam about the gold bracelet he’d taken from her gallery to give to his hot new girlfriend for her birthday.

He hadn’t found his suspect but at least he could confirm for the parole officer where his client had been working part-time. And the mysteries of Robin Jordan’s gold bracelet and her secret boyfriend seemed to have been solved.

Sam drove back downtown to Central Precinct sure in his belief that Beal Matthews was the man they were looking for. All they had to do was find him.

• • •

Danny Hartmann couldn’t decide if she was pissed, scared or frustrated. Acting on the fingerprint information on her desk, she’d begun the legwork to track down Beal Matthews. Only to find out that every phone call, every visit was on the heels of one from Sam. She was pissed at his going off on his own, scared he’d get caught and suffer the consequences, frustrated that he didn’t trust her enough to take her into his confidence.

She almost blew off a visit to Amanda’s studio assuming Sam had gone there, too. But when she thought about it, he’d been adamant that Amanda had been out of contact so she took a chance and went to the GlassCo studio to see if Amanda recognized Beal Matthews. Only Leo Wilson was there. He identified the man in the photo as Mike, a guy who lived in the neighborhood and who’d dropped by a few times to talk about blowing glass.

She also learned “Mike” had asked a lot of questions about how they protected themselves from robbery when the area was deserted at night and Leo had told him about the gun they kept in the office. He couldn’t say for sure “Mike” knew where it was but it was possible he’d seen it when Leo had opened the drawer for a pen and paper to write down a phone number.

That left only one place to go — Amanda’s house.

“This isn’t a good time, Detective Hartmann,” Amanda said when she opened the door.

“It’ll only take a minute.” Hartmann pulled Matthews’ picture out of her leather bag. “Have you ever seen this guy?”

Danny watched Amanda’s expression harden. “I said, I can’t talk to you right now. Please go.”

“This is important. Leo says this guy dropped by the studio on several occasions. Maybe you saw his car? We think it’s an old Toyota hatchback.”

Shock broke through her neutral expression but Amanda still didn’t say anything.

Danny waited a few moments to see if there was more. “Nothing rings a bell?”

Amanda just stared at her.

“Couple other things might interest you: he’s been living about two blocks away from your studio and Bullseye.” She paused. “Oh, and he worked for Tom Webster selling drugs. Got out of prison a couple months back.”

The look of steely determination returned. “I have to go, Detective Hartmann.” Amanda started to close the door.

Danny put a foot on the threshold to keep the door from shutting. “We think he killed Eubie Kane and Robin Jordan. I also think he set out to mimic the circumstances of the Webster murder. Any idea why he’d want to do something like that?”

Amanda looked straight into Danny’s eyes. “Do you know how hard it was to get past the hell I went through last year because of what Tommy and a couple of your less-than-honorable colleagues did? I had to leave town to get away from the gossip even after the court acknowledged I wasn’t guilty of anything other than bad judgment in my personal life.”

“I appreciate what happened to you, Amanda.”

“I doubt that, Detective Hartmann. Portland can be a small town and it’s easy to have your reputation wrecked by careless police work and bad press coverage. I hope you never find out how easy.”

She pushed the door against Hartmann’s foot. “So, in case I haven’t been clear, listen up. I had nothing to do with what Tommy did; I had nothing to do with what happened at Bullseye. Other than that, I have nothing to say to you. And if you want to talk to me again, I need advance notice so I can have my lawyer with me.”

Hartmann removed her foot from the doorway. Amanda slammed the door.

• • •

“Hartmann. My office. Now.” L.T. bellowed from the door of his office. Everyone within earshot turned to see what was going on. No one could remember hearing Chris Angel yell like that before.

Sam looked up from his computer at his partner. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “I have no idea,” and did as she had been commanded. Sam went back to what he’d been working on, afraid there would be another shoe dropped soon.

Less than five minutes later at an identical decibel level, Angel yelled, “Richardson. Now you.”

Angel closed the door behind him and waved Sam to a chair. Danny was sitting in another chair, looking subdued, the remains of a blush on her cheeks. He’d never seen her look so deflated.

“I got three phone calls this morning from a parole officer and two citizens asking why we were so disorganized that there were multiple visits within an hour from police officers asking the same questions. You know anything about that, Detective Richardson?”

“I don’t think so.”

“The hell you don’t. You were one of the officers asking questions about Kane/Jordan. After I directly told you to keep out of the case.”

“Multiple? Who … ?” He looked at his partner who nodded her head.

“Yeah, she was the other one. But she didn’t bother to tell me what you were up to. Did you ask her not to?” the lieutenant asked.

“I didn’t tell her anything. I wasn’t going to risk her career.”

“Just yours.”

“Which is mine to risk. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing.”

“You disobeyed a direct order. You mucked around with witnesses. You could have made them useless in a prosecution. You put your partner in an untenable situation.” Angel blew out a breath. “What the fuck should I do with you?”

“Put me on administrative leave,” Sam said.

“So you can have an even freer rein to mess around in this case? Like hell I will. I was leaning more toward protective custody.”

Sam did a double take. “I didn’t do anything illegal.”

“The hell of it is, I’m at the place where I need you to be involved in this case. If you’d waited one more day … ”

“What do you want me to do?” Sam asked.

“I’m not sure I trust you to do what I ask.”

“I apologize. I thought I was onto something. I should have kept you in the loop. Now, please, let me help.” He hoped he sounded sincere. Because he was, about one thing — he sincerely believed he’d do anything to get back on this case.