Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  “She’s crying,” I said, instinctively narrowing my eyes to focus, though the motion did nothing to help me see better through the field glasses.

  Jackson started her engine. “Let’s see where she goes.”

  Maybe she’d do something stupid, like drive by the person’s place to find out why they never showed, lead us directly to Greg’s killers. It was unlikely, but there was nothing wrong with hoping for the best, was there?

  Ten seconds after Shelby had pulled out of the lot, we surreptitiously pulled out of our lot across the street. Shelby was headed east on Camp Bowie. Was she going home?

  I slid my binoculars back into their case. “What do you think happened back there?”

  Jackson stared through the windshield and issued a frustrated growl. “Maybe whoever she was supposed to meet changed their mind. Or maybe they somehow realized we’d seen the e-mail. Or maybe the person spotted us.”

  I reached out to turn on the heater. “Or maybe the person is dead.”

  “Wow.” Jackson slid a glance my way. “This took a dark turn.”

  “I’m just saying, if the person who sent the e-mail is someone Shelby was having an affair with, and if he’s one of the people who killed Greg, maybe the person who helped Shelby’s lover kill Greg has since killed the lover, too. Maybe that person was afraid Shelby’s lover would get caught meeting her here and would lead police to the accomplice.”

  “Could be. Sometimes people who might otherwise get away with their crimes get caught when they try to cover it up.”

  That’s irony for you.

  We followed at a distance until Shelby turned down her street to go home.

  Jackson snorted. “Well, this was one way to waste an evening.”

  As we drove back to the station in silence, I mulled things over some more. Who had sent that e-mail? Could that person actually be dead now, too? If not, what would happen now if that person realized we’d seen the message about their plan to meet Shelby at the coffee shop? We might have just frightened the person back into hiding, much like Brigit scared squirrels out of the yard and back up into the trees. I could only hope that wasn’t the case, that our attempts to gain intel hadn’t backfired.

  * * *

  Thursday morning, as Brigit and I were wrapping up a false alarm call at a home in the Frisco Heights neighborhood, Detective Jackson called on my cell.

  “I just spoke with Shelby’s boss,” she said. “She was returning my call about the blood evidence she needed to have Greg declared dead. She mentioned that Shelby returned to work today. Sounds like she decided all of a sudden, said she couldn’t bear to be at home alone anymore.”

  Once again, I wasn’t sure what to make of the behavior. A two-week bereavement period was the norm, and that time had expired. Getting back on a routine would provide a distraction, maybe even some comfort, to a person who was grieving the loss of a loved one. But could this also mean she was putting Greg behind her now? Letting go? Did it show that the insurance money didn’t mean that much to her, wouldn’t change the way she lived? Or was she simply trying to avoid both suspicion and depleting her savings while she waited for her husband to be declared dead and the insurance proceeds to be paid out? The timing, immediately after the failed meeting at Starbucks, seemed suspicious. Still, it could be mere coincidence.

  “When’s the hearing on Shelby’s petition?” I asked.

  “First week of April,” Jackson said.

  “Really? That soon?” Criminal matters often took months, if not years, to make their way through the court system. I knew civil matters were different given that only money was at stake—not freedom or lives—but the civil courts, too, were known for their sluggish pace.

  “Shelby’s boss was able to get an expedited hearing because there’s no opposing party to contend with and it won’t take long to present the evidence. Ten, maybe twenty minutes, tops. Probably didn’t hurt that she donated two grand to the judge’s campaign fund during the last election, either.”

  In only five more weeks, Shelby Olsen would be a millionaire. It must be odd to know a windfall was coming your way, especially when it was born of tragedy. Of course it was likely much less odd for Shelby, who seemed to have had a hand in the tragedy.

  During my lunch break, I decided to stop by the station, where I could nuke the leftover pasta I’d brought for lunch in the microwave and check my e-mails. After warming up my meal in the station’s break room, I carried it to a desk in the administrative area and logged into a desktop computer.

  First, I checked Shelby’s e-mail account to see if there was evidence of any new suspicious activity. I discovered that the e-mail from LastingLovePleasurePills was now marked as unread. Hmm. Shelby must have checked her spam folder and realized she’d forgotten to cover her digital tracks. She must not know we were already on to the secret communications or she would have left it alone.

  I looked over the more recent e-mails that had come into her spam folder. There were no others from Lasting-Love, but one from SnoreSolutionzzz caught my eye. I opened it to find a message that read Snore no more! Our patented mouth guard is guaranteed to stop snoring or your money back! Again, the e-mail contained a simple photo of the device, which resembled a dental mold, as well as a link that took me to a legitimate site for the device. But also again, there were earlier unread e-mails from the same sender, as well as extra space at the bottom of the most recent message.

  I performed my copy-and-paste process once more and was thrilled to find a new message. Cops might have followed you last night. They’re less likely to watch your office. Burnett Park at noon Friday. Keep an eye out.

  The phrasing gave no clue as to who had sent the message. It could as easily be from a kidnapper as from a boyfriend. Whoever had sent the e-mail had spotted Jackson’s unmarked cruiser, after all. Damn. But at least they didn’t realize we’d intercepted the e-mails. Instead, they’d assumed we’d tailed Shelby from her house to the coffee shop. They’d be on the lookout for a tail tomorrow, too. Little did they know we wouldn’t have to follow Shelby. We would already be in place at the park, ready to ambush them and finally get some answers.

  Burnett Park was a three-acre urban park downtown. The park also served as an event venue and public art space, and included stone sculptures by famed artist Isamu Noguchi. While the park’s design incorporated trees and grassy spaces, its most distinguishing feature were its walkways. The walks were laid out in a geometric pattern of twenty-four squares in a grid. From above, they looked like starbursts. The park sat in front of a tall bank tower, one of the many skyscrapers making up the Fort Worth skyline. On fair-weather days, workers in nearby buildings often took their brown bag lunches or takeout orders to the park to enjoy some outdoor time before returning to their offices. Fortunately, while the evenings and nights remained cold, daytime temperatures had been in the upper sixties the past few days. The pleasant weather meant more people would be outside, providing more cover for us.

  The person who had sent the e-mail didn’t seem to know that Shelby hadn’t returned to work yet. Their communications must be one-way only. A smart system, because any response or communication initiated by Shelby by phone or e-mail would have been easier for law enforcement to catch and could directly implicate her in her husband’s disappearance, assuming, of course, that she was involved. This way, she could deny ever seeing these messages, or even knowing they existed. Heck, she could claim to have no idea who’d sent them, or that they must have been sent to her by mistake. They were smart to communicate via her already established e-mail account, too. Any new or unusual accounts would have been more likely to raise suspicion and undergo more scrutiny. Shelby must have thought we’d stopped looking at her e-mails after I returned her and Greg’s computers. Of course, she’d be wrong about that.

  Had I not had my epiphany about the invisible ink, the hidden, cryptic messages sent to her spam folder could have very easily flown under our radar. Could there be other clues we’d miss
ed, ones hiding right under our noses?

  The message could also explain Shelby’s sudden decision to return to work. She’d be less conspicuous walking to the downtown park from her office a few blocks away than she would driving there from her home. They feared law enforcement was keeping an eye on her, and they assumed she’d be less likely to be watched while she was at work. They would have been right, too, had I not found their secret communications.

  I printed out the message and took it down the hall to Detective Jackson.

  She read it over and looked up at me. “Heck, Megan. You’ve found more clues than I have. Maybe you should be in charge of this investigation.”

  Though I was flattered and glad to have helped, I was smart enough to realize that there was a lot more to know about running an investigation. That said, this experience reinforced the idea that two heads are better than one. When I made detective one day, I’d find a sharp aspiring investigator among the police recruits and take him or her under my wing, too, get their thoughts and ideas on the investigation and evidence.

  Jackson set the printout down on her desk and drummed her fingers on the desktop. “We’ll need backup to keep an eye on the area with us, make sure we don’t miss our chance to nab them together. I’ll round up a couple of the other officers to help us out tomorrow. We’ll have to be inconspicuous. I’ll work on some disguises.”

  “Brigit has a hula girl outfit she could wear,” I joked.

  “As much as I would love to see that, a flower lei and a grass skirt wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. You two will be stationed inside the bank building. Bring your binoculars.”

  I gave her a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I returned to the computer to finish both my lunch and checking my e-mails. To my delight, my inbox included the reports taken by the Pueblo Police Department from the victims of the snow-plow scam.

  I took a bite of my now lukewarm pasta and pulled the first report up on my screen. Nothing in it definitively linked the Jimmie Perkins who’d been involved in the snow-plow scam to the Tommy Perkins who purportedly represented Stormchaser Roofing, Inc. Darn. I pulled up the second report. Nothing helpful there, either. A description of Perkins in the third report proved promising. The woman who’d filed the report said that Jimmie Perkins resembled Paul Newman. My thought, exactly. But while a resemblance to the Hollywood icon might not be enough alone, the fact that she said he wore a watch with a silver-and-turquoise band, the same type I’d seen Tommy wearing, pegged Jimmie and Tommy as very likely the same man.

  I shoveled the rest of my lunch into my mouth and let Brigit lick the bowl clean. After printing out the Pueblo police report, I carried it down the hall to show Captain Leone. Once he’d read it over, I’d told him that I’d also seen the turquoise watch band on Tommy Perkins. “May I have permission to arrest the guy now?”

  “You got it,” he said.

  “I’ll have to look for him. He’s vacated the Airbnb. I don’t know where he is at the moment.”

  “I’ll get a warrant to ping his cell phone. What number do you have for him?”

  I gave Captain Leone both the number for Tommy Perkins and the one he’d given me for the crew chief.

  “I’ll have Melinda put a note in the system, too,” the captain said. “If anyone comes across him in the meantime, they’ll haul his ass in. We’ll need some luck, though. I’d bet dollars to donuts he’s already back in New Mexico someplace.”

  The captain was probably right. I was a day late and a dollar short. I’d let a criminal slip through my fingers, two if you counted whoever had planned to meet up with Shelby last night. While I tried to tell myself that I’d done what I could, done even more than required of me, it didn’t relieve my sense of guilt. I’d let down the people on my beat, and that didn’t sit well with me. But, if nothing else, I was more motivated than ever to get these two cases resolved and the guilty parties behind bars.

  * * *

  Sure enough, the captain called my cell later that afternoon to tell me that the tech team had gotten no pings on either number. Either the phones had been turned off and their batteries removed, or they’d been destroyed entirely. With no way to track Perkins digitally, he’d have to be nailed the old-fashioned way—by being otherwise located, perhaps when pulled over for a traffic violation. If he obeyed the traffic laws, he might never interact with law enforcement. He might once again get away with his fraud scheme, head off to a new locale to dupe another set of unsuspecting victims. The thought enraged me to no end. I wanted that man stopped, and I wanted him stopped now.

  Frankie was off duty that evening, and we decided to go out for Mexican food and margaritas. I could use a lime-flavored libation to ease my frustrations.

  Over a basket of chips and salsa, I told Frankie about the cryptic e-mail and the aborted meeting at Starbucks. Frankie was discreet, and I knew I could trust her. The information would go no further than our table.

  She sipped her frozen drink. “So Shelby Olsen might have been having an affair and duped her husband into withdrawing the cash to pay for his own hit?”

  “It’s one theory I’m working,” I said. “But there’s a small problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “By all accounts, she and Greg were happily married. Nobody suspected they were having any problems.”

  “That’s not unusual, though, is it?” Frankie asked. “People often don’t know what’s happening in other peoples’ relationships, about abuse or money problems or things like that.”

  It was true. A number of murders had made the headlines in recent years, women and sometimes even children killed by men they thought loved them and who’d seemed to everyone else to be loving husbands and fathers. While much rarer, the roles were sometimes reversed, with the wife being the one to do away with her husband. Still, I couldn’t see it. “She really seems to love him and miss him.”

  “It could be nothing more than a good act.” Frankie pointed a tortilla chip at me. “But I think you’re having trouble believing Shelby could have killed her husband because you can’t imagine ever killing Seth. It’s so inconceivable for you, that you can’t imagine anyone else doing it.”

  Was she right? Were my thoughts about this case clouded by my own personal feelings? It was hard to say. The lines often blurred between Megan Luz, the engaged young woman in love with her broad-shouldered firefighter fiancé, and Megan Luz, the dedicated and logical cop.

  We turned our conversation toward more upbeat topics. The wedding dress Beverly Rubinstein had designed for me. My fall honeymoon in Utah and the state’s gorgeous scenery. The fact that the Fort Worth Whoop Ass was currently ranked first in its league.

  “Congratulations,” I said. “That’s quite a feat.”

  “We’re a top-notch team,” Frankie said. “That goes without saying. But I have to give some credit to my lucky socks. We haven’t lost a game since I stopped washing them.”

  “Ew.”

  “Maybe you’d solve your two cases if you stopped washing your socks.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s all about the confidence, about believing in yourself.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe in myself when I let a crook slip through my fingers.”

  She sipped her margarita. “You need to stop beating yourself up about that.”

  “If I don’t beat myself up, who will?”

  She snorted. “Now you’re the one being ridiculous.”

  When we returned home that evening, I decided to take a bubble bath. I did some of my best thinking in the tub, where there were no distractions and both my body and mind could relax.

  Brigit trod after me as I went to the bathroom, but took off at warp speed when she saw me turn on the tub’s tap. “Don’t worry, girl!” I called after her. “This bath is for me, not you.”

  Once I was in the tub, she peeked around the edge of the door. Realizing she was in no danger of being bathed, she w
andered over and sniffed at the bubbles, sneezing when they popped in her nose. Snit-snit! She pawed at the bubbles, popping them with her claws. When she’d cleared a spot, she lowered her snout and lapped at the water.

  I gently pushed her away. “No, girl.” The bubble bath was too diluted to hurt her, but surely the water wouldn’t taste good.

  She ignored me and returned for another drink. I gave up. If she thought lavender water tasted yummy, who was I to tell her different? Lying back with only my face above water and closing my eyes, I let my mind and body drift.

  Earlier, I’d thought how I would take an aspiring investigator under my wing once I made detective, how doing so would not only allow me to serve as a mentor like detectives Jackson and Bustamente had done for me, but would also provide a second opinion on evidence, a fresh perspective on the cases and clues. When Brigit licked bubbles from my knee, I realized I already had someone who could give another perspective on the clues. A furry, four-footed someone.

  My mind went back to Valentine’s Day, to the horrific crime scene in the Olsen’s kitchen, to the numerous puddles of blood individually designated with evidence markers, to Brigit paying special attention to the puddle marked with the number 23. Was there something to that? Was it different somehow? The lab had confirmed that all of the blood was Greg’s. What could be different about that sample?

  My mind was still swirling when the bath water cooled and I climbed out to dry off. I might not have answers now but, with any luck, we’d get some tomorrow when we detained and questioned Shelby and whoever had sent her the mysterious e-mail.

  THIRTY-NINE

  DOWN DOG

  Brigit

  Megan led Brigit into a tall building and across a hard, cool floor. Brigit’s nails clicked as she strode along beside her partner. Brigit preferred soft ground, where her claws could dig in for traction and she could sneak up on prey without her toenails making such a racket. But when they were on duty, Megan called the shots.