Real Murder (Lovers in Crime Mystery Book 2) (19 page)

“Yeah, I heard from him and told him nothing,” Larry said. “He contacted Rachel, too. Yeah, you’re right. He figured it was suspicious that all of them died suddenly the way they did. That’s true. He told me so. He even thought that Ava was killed by the same killer, which isn’t true because I did the rest of them, but I didn’t do her.”

“And Rachel didn’t get nervous with a deputy poking around?” Joshua was doubtful.

“Oh, yeah, she was more nervous than a cat in a room filled with rocking chairs,” Larry said. “So she told me to do him and make it look like an accident. So I called him and suggested that we meet out at Tomlinson Run Park late in the afternoon, shortly before it closed to make sure we were alone. But he never showed. The next thing I hear on the news is that a deputy went missing.”

In a flash, Joshua recalled meeting with Mike during lunch at Allison’s diner.
He was picking up his lunch on his way out to the park. It was much earlier than late afternoon. Then there was the note Mike had made in his notepad. He had scratched out four and changed it to one.

“Did you change the meeting time?” Joshua asked him.

“No,” Van Patton said in a firm tone.

“Maybe he changed it,” Joshua said more to himself than to Van Patton.

“If he did, he didn’t tell me about it.”

“Could Congresswoman Hilliard have taken care of him herself?” Sheriff Sawyer asked.

“That’s what she pays me for,” Larry said in a firm tone.

“Who else knew about your meeting with Mike Gardner?” Joshua asked.

“No one,” Larry said. “That’s how we’ve been able to get away with it all this time.”

“Someone else had to know,” Joshua said. “When you called Mike, did you call him at the police station?”

“No, his house. This was before cell phones.” With a start, he added, “When I first called to set up the meeting, I had left a message with his wife—at least I assumed it was his wife.  I left the number for the bar for him to call me back. She may have known about it.”

Staring at the wall behind Larry, Joshua was still digesting the possibilities when the sheriff asked, “What about Dolly Houseman?”

“She was off limits,” Larry said. “That woman knew her stuff. Heck, she learned from the best. Al Capone was her Uncle Al. She knew how to keep Rachel in line. Why else do you think Rachel paid her five thou every month to keep her happy? But Dolly was fair. I mean, she was a woman of honor. She never raised her rates. She was decent. I think over the years Rachel even came to respect her. I mean, it got to the point that when Rachel was passing through the area, she would even take Dolly out to lunch once in a while and give her the pay off herself. As long as Rachel paid her, then Dolly was cool.”

“But you did lie to us about Dolly calling you,” Joshua said. “Henry MacRae never came into your bar looking for a hit man, and you didn’t set him up with Anthony Tanner, and you didn’t give Dolly a heads up. So now tell us the real story.”

“Hey, I did nothing illegal there,” Larry said. “Really. I had nothing to do with it, and I had nothing to do with killing Dolly. Just take a look at what’s happened in the last few days because Dolly got offed. Those recordings ended up in your hands. You guys looked up MacRae, who is going to roll on Rachel, who is going to try getting a deal by rolling on me. Like I didn’t know this was going to happen the  second I saw her name in the newspaper?” He shook his head vigorously while waving his hands. “Dolly dying was the last thing we wanted to happen.”

The more Larry talked, the more Joshua was convinced that he and Rachel Hilliard had every reason to keep Dolly alive. Scratching his head, he asked, “Why did Dolly call you?”

“You really want to know?”

“I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t.”

“She wanted me to set her up with a hit man,” Larry said. “But I had no idea who the target was. I swear.”

“So you set her up with Anthony Tanner?” Joshua said.

“I gave her Anthony’s burn phone number, and she called him and dropped my name. I know nothing else. She never gave me the name of the target.”

Joshua leaned across the table at him. “Did Rachel  have a burn phone?”

“That was what she used to call me on, yes. Do you think we were stupid? We didn’t want to be connected to each  other.”

“Did she lose her burn phone recently?”

Larry stared blankly at Joshua.

The corners of the prosecutor’s lips curled.

“Yes, I believe she did mention that to me. She said not to accept any calls from that phone. She was afraid it had been stolen.”

“My client has been cooperating fully,” his lawyer interjected. “What kind of deal are you prepared to offer him?”

With a single knock on the door, two federal agents  entered. In contrast to Joshua’s easy-going demeanor, the agents had stern expressions on their faces.

Joshua rose from the table. “He’s all yours, gentlemen.”

“So what do you think?” Curt Sawyer asked Joshua as soon as they were outside the interrogation room and down the hall.

Before Joshua could answer, Cameron came rushing out of the observation room. “You don’t actually believe him, do you? Dolly called him to hire a hit man? For who? Who would she want dead?”

While Curt and Cameron gazed at him, Joshua waited to allow a grin to work its way across his face. “Think about it.” He folded his arms across his chest. “If we put Larry’s statement and Anthony’s together, they do kind of match. Especially when you pair them up with Tad’s autopsy results.”

“Dolly was dying,” Cameron gasped. “She gave me those albums the same day that she died and said something about justice.”

“Are you saying she hired Tanner to kill herself?” Sawyer asked.

“If we ask Hilliard, I’ll bet we find out that she had met with Dolly recently, at which time her cell phone and a pendant necklace belonging to her disappeared,” Joshua said.

“Dolly used that phone, making sure she was careful not to lose Hilliard’s fingerprints on it, to coordinate with Tanner,” Cameron said. “Then, she arranged for him to come in to  kill her using the same MO for how Ava and Virgil were  killed. She held Rachel’s locket in her hand to make it look like she had ripped it off her killer. With the tapes coming to you, she bet on burying Rachel for her murder.”

Sheriff Sawyer said, “Van Patton just told us that Dolly was convinced Rachel killed Ava and Virgil.”

“But she also didn’t have any proof of it,” Joshua said. “That’s what she wrote in her letter to me when she sent that package.”

“Framing Rachel for her murder was the justice Dolly was looking for,” Cameron said.

Joshua turned to Curt. “Let’s dig around to see if we can get a recording of Dolly’s voice anywhere and then do a voice lineup with Tanner. If he can identify the voice of the old woman he spoke to as Dolly, then we’ll know who hired him.”

Sheriff Sawyer grabbed his cell phone from his belt.

“But he didn’t kill Dolly,” Cameron said. “A woman’s blood type was on the knife.”

“If Larry told the congresswoman about Dolly hiring a  hit man, Hilliard may have feared that she was the target,” Joshua said. “That may have motivated her to set up a face to face with Dolly to hash things out.”

“I’m going to go start looking for audio recordings for that voice line up.” Curt turned to trot down the hallway.

Joshua stopped him. “Hey, Curt, can you do a favor for me?” The prosecutor wrote a name on a blank yellow sheet  of paper on his notepad, tore it off, folded it in half, and  handed it to the sheriff. “Can you run a DMV check on this name and see if you can find a black Bonneville registered to him?”

Once Curt was gone, Joshua asked Cameron, “Have you had dinner yet?”

“Are you asking me for a date?”

He chuckled, “No, I was hoping that you’d go home and cook something.”

She pinched his arm. “Think again.”

“Cricksters?”

“Great!” She kissed him on the lips. “Then we can go over the evidence I collected from Slim. I’ll go order our sundae and meet you there.” She whirled around and headed down the hallway to the exit.

“I said dinner,” Joshua corrected her.

“That will be my dinner.” She shot back over her shoulder.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Crickster’s was
their
place.

When Joshua walked in the door, the hostess grinned at the regular customer. “Your C & J Lovers’ Delight Sundae is already on its way, Mr. Thornton, and your bride is waiting.”

As was often the case when he entered a crowded room and laid his eyes on her, Joshua felt a surge of excitement in seeing that Cameron Gates, his wife, was the prettiest lady in the room—even with a black eye, which was now a nice shade of purple.

When he attempted to sneak up behind her, he got only within four feet of her when she said, without turning around to face him, “It’s not a good idea to sneak up on a woman packing a nine-millimeter semi-automatic.”

He grasped both of her shoulders from behind, bent over the back of the booth, and kissed her on the top of the head. “Clearly that concussion didn’t affect your observation skills.” He went around and slid into the booth across from her. Spotting the sundae in the middle of the table, he picked up the spoon that she had set at his place. “Ladies first. Dig in.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She snatched the cherry  resting on top of the whipped cream. After dropping it into her mouth and chewing it, she said, “You weren’t kidding about Slim.”

“I hope my mind is half as sharp as his when I’m his age.” With a shake of his head, he scooped up a spoonful of the chocolate ice cream. “Did you know he bowls three times a week? Plus, he jogs on alternate days.”

“Stays active,” she said.

Spotting a folder on her side of the table, Joshua asked, “Is that from Slim?”

She nodded her head. “Claim filed by Russell and Virgil Null’s father for a wrecked truck that happened the first weekend in September in nineteen sixty-six.” She slid the folder across to him with one hand while continuing to eat the  sundae. Between bites, she said, “Russell and Virgil were out gallivanting around on Friday night with two other friends, Philip Lipton and Toby Winter.”

“Toby Winter? Lorraine’s son.”

“And Virgil referred to Toby in that recording,” she said.

“I think we’re on to something. Maybe Larry was telling the truth about him and Rachel Hilliard having nothing to do with Ava’s and Virgil’s murders.”

“Oh, it gets better,” she said. “According to the claim, Russell was driving—”

“Wait a minute,” Joshua said. “All four of them were in the truck?”

“Virgil and Toby were in the back in the bed of the truck,” she explained. “In the statement, their father says Russell hit a deer. Then, he lost control of the truck and hit a tree. The truck was still drivable, so they took it home and their father filed a claim first thing Tuesday morning on September sixth. It was Labor Day weekend and Slim’s office was closed on Monday.” Reaching across the table, she flipped open the folder. “Take a look at the pictures of the damage. Tell me what you see.”

Joshua studied the images of the crumbled passenger  side front and side fender of the big green pick-up truck. Even in the yellowed pictures, he could make out red paint.

“Slim said he saw blood, too,” she said. “That’s where the deer comes in—to explain the blood on the front grill.”

“Did he believe they hit a deer?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Because of the paint  transfer, Slim was convinced they hit another car when they lost control after hitting the deer. He thought Brandon Null paid the owner of the other car out of pocket so that it wouldn’t go on his driving record with the insurance company. People do that all the time.” She added, “O’Reilly’s car was red, by the way.”

Joshua peered at the image of a close up of the smashed in fender. The image of the tire was clear in the picture. “I’m assuming the truck is gone.”

“Long gone,” she said, “But this picture shows the tread of the tire. We’re reaching, but don’t you think our forensics people should be able to compare this tread pattern to that on the hubcap for Douglas O’Reilly’s car? They probably won’t be able to be conclusive in determining if this is the actual truck that struck him. What do you think?”

Joshua closed the folder and slid it across to her. “It’s worth a shot.”

She slipped the folder into her valise. “You’re not going to talk me out of it? Tell me that I’m wasting my time on a case that no prosecutor in his right mind would want to pursue?”

“Your case and mine are now connected,” Joshua said. “In order to prove motive for Russell and Lipton killing Virgil and Ava, we need to prove that they were involved in the hit and run that killed Douglas O’Reilly. Their motive for the double murder was to prevent Virgil from spilling the beans about their cover up to Ava, O’Reilly’s girlfriend.”

“Considering that all of the physical evidence is gone, that’s a pretty tall order, Mr. Thornton.”

“I think you’re up to the challenge.” Joshua picked up his spoon again. “Assuming you’re right that forensics will be unable to conclusively match the tread of the truck tire to the tread mark on O’Reilly’s hubcap, what’s next?”

“Old fashion gum-shoeing,” she said. “Four young men killed an innocent bystander changing a flat tire on his way to meet his girlfriend. By covering it up, they inadvertently made it look like a suicide? Obviously, two were feeling a lot of guilt about it. One committed suicide.” She shook a finger at him. “Remember I told you Toby Winter hung himself in Raccoon Creek. There had to be a significance to that place. It was where his life changed forever—and where he ended it.”

“And after he died, Virgil decided to make things right,” Joshua said.

“All those years, all that guilt building up,” she mused, “Toby had to have talked to someone about it. I’m going to need to talk to his mother.”

“Lorraine Winter?” Shaking his head, Joshua sucked in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t go talk to her without a backup.”

“Like you?” she asked innocently.

“Maybe Tad,” he said. “He does have a way with women. Even the most hostile soften under his spell.”

“Based on what I’ve seen of Lorraine Winter, she’s immune to any charm,” Cameron said. “But don’t worry. I can handle her. Since Toby committed suicide in my jurisdiction, I have access to the original police report. They would have had to have talked to her and taken her statement at the time. You would think that if he had told her anything about the hit and run that she would have mentioned it.”

“Unless she was too ashamed of her son being involved in something like that,” Joshua said. “I remember hearing that  Toby did leave a suicide note, but Lorraine never told anyone what was in it.”

“Maybe it was a confession about the cover up of the  accident,” Cameron said. “I’ll go through Toby Winter’s file and then interview his mother to see what he may have told her or left in his suicide note. If she doesn’t know anything, do you remember anyone else who Toby was close to?”

Joshua slowly shook his head. “He really kept to himself. I remember that Virgil was the only friend he had.”

“Well then, after Mrs. Winter, that leaves Russell Null and Philip Lipton,” she said. “Considering that Virgil was his brother, maybe I can get Russell to turn on Lipton for being the bad guy. Lipton certainly appeared to be the aggressor in that recording.”

She sensed, rather than saw, the man making his way to them through the doorway and the crowd coming. Joshua saw the figure making a beeline for him, and at the same time he saw Cameron raise up out of her seat to grab the gun she wore on her hip.

“Thornton!” Philip Lipton blurted out while grabbing Joshua by the shoulder. “Who do you think you are?”

Joshua threw his hand straight up in an order for Cameron to stand down before turning to the enraged chief of the West Virginia state crime lab bureau in Weirton. In contrast to Lipton’s fury, Joshua was extremely calm. “I’m doing my job, what the voters elected me to do. Ensuring in every way possible that justice is carried out to the full extent of the law.”

“By going behind my back?”

“If that’s what it takes, Lipton.”

“Listen, Thornton.” Lipton threatened to poke Joshua in the chest with his finger. “I was nailing killers with my microscope while you were still figuring out how to woo cheerleaders with those baby blues of yours. I’ve always gone to bat for you, no matter how crazy your cock-eyed requests have seemed, and now this is how you pay me back? Sending in the FBI to take over my lab?”

“I didn’t send them in to take over your lab.”

“They came in with a warrant to collect every piece of evidence we have on four murders! Are you saying I’m dirty?”

“Are you?” Joshua asked. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were connected with the Ava Tucker and Virgil Null murders and had a conflict of interest?”

“I’m not!”

“You were there the night Virgil Null and Ava Tucker were killed,” Joshua said.

Philip Lipton’s mouth dropped open.

“As soon as you became head of the crime lab, you also checked out their evidence boxes,” Joshua added. “Makes me wonder what you did to that evidence.”

“Virgil Null was a friend! His brother had been my best friend! I wanted to see if I could uncover anything to find out who did do it.”

“But you failed to mention in all these years that you  were on the scene right before the murders?”

“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Lipton grabbed Joshua by the front of his shirt.

Her hand on her gun, Cameron stepped forward.

“Stay back, Cam!” Joshua ordered her before peering into Philip Lipton’s angry eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing, and so do you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I got the tape. I heard it all. The whole conversation between you, Russell, and Virgil Null—right before Virgil and Ava Tucker were murdered.”

Slowly, Philip Lipton released his hold on Joshua’s shirt.

A collective sigh was heard throughout the restaurant.

Lipton’s expression switched from fury to fear.

“The FBI is the least of your problems, Lipton,” Joshua said.