Deadly Guild (Detective Sarah Spillman Mystery Series Book 3)

by Renee Pawlish

  “That’s your mark on the blade?”

  “Yes, my initials. Pete Palmer.”

  “How many of this particular style of knife have you made?”

  “Not that many.” He was scant on details.

  “Do you keep records of the knives you make?”

  “Yes.” He gazed almost lovingly at the knife. “Most people just go out and buy knives, whatever they can find at a store, like here. They hunt and fish. They might be ex-military.” He pointed at knives in a display case near the counter. Then he was back to the bagged knife. “But something like this? This is for someone who wanted something a little bit different, something special. They come to a blade-smith like me, and I work to their specifications. The weight of the knife, the length of the blade, the handle, all worked to perfection so the blade is like an extension of their hand. I’ve been making knives for ten years. People want them for hunting, collectors want them, some people just want to show off.” His shoulders lifted. “There’s a story behind each one.”

  I pointed at the knife. “This particular one, who did you make it for?”

  He stepped back from the counter as if it was suddenly on fire. “I have a varied clientele, and some of my customers wouldn’t want that information revealed.”

  I held out my hand and he returned the knife. “That would make me think you deal with criminals.”

  His laugh was a few short, hesitant breaths. “I’m not saying that. And I’m not saying that I do anything illegal. Everything I do is on the up-and-up.”

  I smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure that’s the case. I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, and I need to know who you made this knife for.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. That’s confidential.”

  “I can’t be the first cop that’s come here wanting to know about a knife that you made for someone.”

  “No, and I’ll tell you what I told the others. If you want that information, you’re going to have to get a warrant.” He wasn’t smug, just matter-of-fact.

  I tried for nice. “You’re sure we can’t avoid that? Time is precious, and having to track down a judge will delay things.”

  He shook his head slowly. “A warrant, or I don’t say anything.”

  My instincts don’t fail me often, but they did then. I couldn’t tell if he knew more than he was saying, or if he only had the confidentiality of his customers in mind, and knew his legal rights. I looked slowly around the store, then back at him. His gaze held the same determination as before. Sometimes, I would point out that a warrant would bring extra scrutiny to the store, and to the owner. In this case, he seemed so sure of himself, I figured I would be wasting my breath.

  “Okay,” I said. “A warrant it is.”

  He didn’t respond, so I turned around and left.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “How’d your talk with Follett go?” I asked Oakley.

  I could hear office sounds in the background, someone carrying on a loud conversation. After my visit to the hunting and fishing shop, I was on Colfax, headed back to the station.

  “Oh, he’s irritated,” Oakley said. “I told him we were handling things, going through all the evidence, checking all the tips, but it didn’t seem to be enough.” He sounded discouraged.

  “Maybe this will get your spirits up.” I told him about my conversation with Pete Palmer at the hunting and fishing shop.

  “Do you think he’s hiding something?”

  “Like who owns that knife?” I stopped at a traffic light at Broadway and stared at the car in front of me. “Could be. He certainly wasn’t going to be pushed into giving me the information.”

  “I’ll get on a warrant right away.”

  Ernie was calling, so I told Oakley I would catch up with him later.

  “I’ve been doing some research on Arnie Culbertson,” Ernie began. “You’re not going to believe this. We saw him drive a truck last night, but his wife drives a four-door Ford Fusion. A sedan.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Lola. “She said that the car she saw was a dark sedan.”

  “Yep. The Culbertson car is black. What if Arnie took his wife’s car over to the motel and took care of Nicole?”

  “You think he’d be that stupid? If somebody saw him, they’d be able to trace the car back to him, just like you did.”

  Ernie grunted. “I don’t know, maybe he panicked. Or he thought he could get away with it. He was stupid enough to be seen in his cruiser hitting on an underage girl, maybe he’s stupid enough to screw up her murder.”

  Traffic can get snarled up near Broadway, and I crept through the light, only to be stopped at Lincoln Avenue. “What else have you found out?”

  “I ran a background check, too. Culbertson’s clean, nothing to note. Finances look good. He owns a Glock and a .22.”

  “Wait. I specifically asked him if he owned a .22, and he said no.”

  “I remember. I called Wesley at the Commerce City department, told him they should double-check with Culbertson on that.”

  “Culbertson’ll say he sold the gun, or it was stolen.”

  “Uh-huh. How many people bother with the registration when they sell a gun?”

  “Same thing if it was stolen,” I said sarcastically. “No way to trace it.” I finally turned onto Lincoln. “Could you tell if Culbertson owns any specialty knives?”

  “Not so far. I’ve talked to a couple of his friends, they’ve never seen him with the kind of knife you got from the homeless guy.”

  “Did you try to talk to his wife?”

  “ ‘Tried’ being the operative word. I went by Culbertson’s house and lucked out. She answered the door, but when I started asking questions, she slammed it in my face.”

  “I’m not surprised. Culbertson probably told her he was being investigated, but not for what.”

  “I’m a nice guy, she could’ve talked to me.” He was mock hurt.

  I laughed. “Be careful. Culbertson knows he’s being investigated, and if he’s guilty of what we think he is, he might kill again.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  I pulled into a parking place at the station, cut the engine, and sat for a moment. “I’m still back to this, though. If he killed Jonathan Hall, why?”

  “I’ve been noodling on that one, too. Culbertson’s a vet. What if they knew each other, and Hall also knew that Arnie liked underage girls?”

  “Oakley’s digging into that to see if he can find a connection between the two men. I’m telling you, just when I feel like we may be getting closer to something …”

  “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

  “There you go with the clichés.”

  “If the shoe fits …”

  I laughed again. “Stop it! And keep me posted.”

  He ended the call. I was about to get out of the car when Spats called.

  “Speelmahn,” he greeted me. “What are you up to?”

  I gave him a rundown on my morning. “I have pieces, nothing concrete.”

  “Maybe this’ll cheer you up,” he said, sounding eerily like me talking to Oakley. “I finally found some surveillance video of the motel. It’s a 7-Eleven that’s just down the block and across the street from the Princeton. The manager ran back the video for me. The 911 call came in around one a.m., correct?”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Good. Around that time, two cars drove out of the motel lot, both of them four-door sedans, like Lola said. And get this, I was able to get license plates on both.”

  “Really? The 7-11 must have good cameras.”

  “Yeah,” Spats said. “Apparently the old ones recently crapped out, and the owner put new ones in. These new cameras can pick up so much more, it’s incredible.”

  “Good for us, bad for the criminals. What are the license plate numbers?”

  Spats rattled them off, and I wrote them down. “I just got to the station,” I said. “Why don’t yo
u head back here as well? We can track down these plate numbers and talk to the owners.”

  “I’ll see you there soon.”

  “So the first one is Mike Densmore,” I said to Spats when he walked into the room.

  “Hold on.” He went to his desk and sat down. He was back to his fashionable self today, in a dark suit, pinstripe tie, and perfectly polished shoes. He looked great. “Have you researched him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll run a check on him.”

  “The second one is Robert Herrera,” I said. “I’ll check him.”

  “Michael Densmore.” He hummed as he typed on the computer.

  “You’re cheery,” I said.

  He looked up and smiled tentatively. “You know how things have been a little … tense … with Trissa?”

  “Yes.”

  He pondered what he was going to say. “We had a good talk last night. It was late, I was dead tired, and yet …” He searched for the right words. “Maybe that made me a little more ‘vulnerable.’ Her words. I was just sharing how hard this job can be, and how I see such crap on the streets, and I come home to her and it’s all okay. You know?”

  I nodded. “I do.” I felt that way with Harry. He’s my rock. I didn’t know how I would’ve gotten through the aftermath of the Welch shooting without him.

  “Yeah, you know,” Spats said, reading my face. He shrugged. “It was good. We’re close. I’m not sure how to explain it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  He smiled and turned back to his laptop. After a moment, he said, “Densmore is forty years old, he’s had two DUIs, but other than that, his arrest record is clean. Let me check LinkedIn and some social media sites, see what else I can find out.”

  While he did that, I looked at Robert Herrera. “My guy doesn’t have an arrest record at all. And his name is common enough, I’m not sure who the right one is. I got a driver’s license photo, but there’s so many Robert Herreras on LinkedIn and social media, it could take forever to find the correct Herrera.”

  Spats gave me a look, feeling my pain. “Densmore works at some kind of tech company downtown. Looks like he’s a programmer. All this stuff listed on his profile is Greek to me. My guess would be he wouldn’t want anybody to know he’s been to a sleazy motel on West Colfax.”

  My desk phone rang and I picked it up.

  “It’s Jack Jamison. I have the autopsy results on Nicole Lockwood.”

  “How are you?” I asked. I knew better than to start asking him any substantive questions yet. He’d tell me what he knew when he was ready, not a moment sooner.

  “I’ll be sending you the report later today or tomorrow, but I hear there might be some heat on this investigation, so I thought I’d call.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “As I’m sure you surmised, she died from two shots to the back of her skull. I didn’t find signs of other trauma, but she did have some postmortem cuts and bruises on her knees. Tests show no signs of poisons, although she did have marijuana in her system. We’ll get a full toxicology, but as you know, that will take a while. She had needle marks on her arms, so I would conclude she used harder drugs recently.” He read some technical jargon.

  “So it doesn’t appear she was somehow subdued, either physically or with harder drugs, before she was shot.”

  “You know I can’t make conclusions.”

  “Come on, Jack, give me your gut feeling.”

  He sighed. “I would doubt it, but I wouldn’t say that in court.”

  “Thanks, Jack, I appreciate it.”

  I hung up the phone and told Spats what Jamison had said.

  “So basically he told us what we already knew,” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, not that helpful.”

  He stood up and adjusted his tie. “I think I’ll go have a little chat with Mike Densmore in person. Take him by surprise, so he doesn’t have time to think up any lies. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “I can’t find anything on this guy.” I stood up as well. “I’ll drop by his house and see if he’s around.”

  “What if he’s at work?” Spats asked.

  I frowned. “I don’t know. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” I’d had too much time at my desk the last month, and I didn’t want to sit around staring at the computer any more than I had to. I needed to be moving, doing something active.

  We both headed downstairs to our cars, and I drove west again. I soon parked in front of a small home in a neighborhood near the Princeton Motel. The yard was tiny, the lawn a late September dry. Two rickety barrel planters on either side of the porch steps were bare of flowers. I went up the steps and rapped on the door. My energy belied my mood. I felt like we were doing a lot, just not getting anywhere.

  “Hey.” The woman who answered the door said. She wore shorts, and she was wiping something off a yellow T-shirt. Somewhere in the house, a toddler wailed.

  “Is Robert Herrera available?”

  “He’s at work.” She glanced over her shoulder, flustered. “You want to give me your name, and I’ll have him call you? Or you can stop by later.”

  I showed her my badge. “I need to talk to him about an open investigation.”

  “What’s this about?” Now she was apprehensive. “Bob’s not in some kind of trouble?” The toddler’s protestations reached a high pitch. “Hold on a second.”

  She spun around and shut the door. I could still hear the baby, then the crying suddenly stopped. The door opened again, and the woman had a small girl propped on her hip. “What’s going on?” the woman asked.

  I held back telling her anything. “I’m afraid I can’t divulge the details, but I do need to speak to Robert.”

  “He goes by Bob, and he’s at work.”

  “Where’s that?”

  The little girl fussed a bit, but stayed relatively quiet. “He works at Byers Industries in Golden. He’s in IT. I don’t know the address. It’s near the Coors plant.”

  “I’m sure I can find it,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

  I turned around before she could ask more, and hurried to my car. I knew she’d be on the phone with Bob right away, and I needed to get to his workplace before he had a chance to dodge me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bob Herrera worked a block off of Washington Street, the main street in downtown Golden. As I got out of the car, the hops smell from the nearby Coors Brewery assaulted my nostrils. I’m not much of a beer drinker, and I didn’t find the smell appealing. Cirrus clouds swept a blue sky as I strolled into the office building, a two-story reddish box with lots of windows to take in the view of the mesas and foothills that surrounded the town. I didn’t see stairs, so I took an elevator, the old thing groaning as it deposited me up one floor. Byers Industries was on the right, the lobby done in bright blue and white, almost garish. I walked up to a counter where a receptionist was working at a computer, her forehead pinched in concentration. I asked for Bob Herrera, and she called back to him, then went back to whatever project was causing her such consternation, making no attempt to muffle unhappy sounds.

  I was sure that Bob’s wife – I’m assuming that’s who the woman with the toddler was – had called ahead, so Bob would be expecting me. I took it as a good sign that he hadn’t left the office. I bounced on the balls of my feet until a tall, twenty-something man with a thin mustache hurried into the reception area. Before I could say anything, he pointed at the doors.

  “Let’s go outside.” His voice was deep and tinged with irritation. He’d definitely heard from his wife.

  I followed him into the hall. A couple came out of the elevator, and Bob nodded at them, then hurried around a corner to a stairwell. He didn’t say a word to me. We went outside and sat at a metal bench near the building entrance. A tall tree blocked the sun’s rays, and it was pleasant.

  “Are you the cop that stopped by the house?” he asked. I nodded and introduced myself. He paused to
tug at his shirtsleeve, worked to calm himself down, then pasted a smile on his baby face. “What’s going on? I haven’t done anything wrong. Why didn’t you tell my wife anything?” The questions came fast, his voice a nervous jangle.

  “Are you sure you would want me asking questions around your wife?”

  He put an arm up on the side of the bench and turned toward me, the face now full of bewilderment. “Yes. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  I matched his casual stance. “We have a video camera showing a car with your license plates leaving the Princeton Motel around one a.m. yesterday morning.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The Princeton Motel? Isn’t that that dive on Colfax? I pass it all the time, but I’ve never been there.”

  He was either an incredibly good liar, or he was telling the truth. Now I was puzzled. “You’ve never been there?”

  He shook his head and scowled. “Never. Why would I go there? I can imagine what those rooms are like, and I’m sure you know hookers use that place all the time, and the drug use. And,” he paused and held up a finger, “oh … my license plates were stolen the other night. Someone must’ve put my plates on their car.”

  I considered what he said. “Your license plates were stolen.” I couldn’t help repeating him, not expecting this turn in the conversation.

  He nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah, and I can prove it. I have a doorbell cam, and you can see a car stop near mine. Someone gets out and takes the plates.”

  “Did you get a good look at the person? Man or woman?”

  “I don’t know. He wore a dark hoodie. What’s this about?”

  I deflected the question. “I need to see that video.”

  He nodded. “Sure, I can get it for you any time. I have access to the video online.”

  He didn’t really mean any time, but I did. “I’m on an active murder investigation, and I need to see it right away.”

  He glanced up at his building. “Oh my god. Okay, I guess I could show it to you on my work computer. I just need to clear it with my boss.”