END GAME: A St. James Mystery (St. James Mysteries Book 1)

by Kristi Belcamino

  “I don’t know. Maybe I can help you find your father.”

  Rafael nodded his head slowly. “Yes, I want my papa.”

  Reaching for her phone, Tommy dialed 911.

  TOMMY PACED THE BEIGE hallway outside the downtown precinct’s interrogation room. It was midnight, so the halls were empty. A uniformed officer passed and slowly ran his eyes up and down her body before glancing quickly away.

  “For heaven’s sakes, he’s just a kid. Why are they treating him like a criminal?” Tommy muttered to herself.

  Finally, a detective with short-cropped hair, came out of the room, quickly closing the door behind him. “Ms. St. James? I’m Detective Kelly. We’re done with our questioning. Thank you for contacting us. The case has been turned over to CPS and then a foster family.”

  Tommy stared at the detective and in the back of her mind registered that unlike Cameron Parker, this man was exactly her type — square jaw, sculpted cheekbones, and muscled arms bulging out of the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt. A stubble of beard pretty much put it over the top for Tommy. She pulled herself back to the conversation.

  “What? What do you mean he’s going to child protective services?” she said. “I’m here to take him back home with me until we find his father. He doesn’t want to be put in the system. He wants to go back home to Mexico.”

  “I’m sorry we can’t release him to you.”

  “This is absurd. You are so eager to kick illegal immigrants out of this country, but then when one wants to go home, you force him to stay.”

  The detective sighed. “Listen, Ms. St. James, I don’t make the rules.”

  “Can I at least say goodbye to him?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. He’s gone.”

  Not believing him, Tommy St. James yanked the door open. The room was empty. A blank wall of window was dark next to another doorway.

  “Great. Just great,” Tommy glared at the cop whom she no longer thought was cute. “I thought you guys had a little more heart. I wouldn’t have called you if I ‘d known this was going to happen. You didn’t even let me say goodbye to him? Kid doesn’t know a soul but me.”

  “Don’t worry,” the cop said, but his brow was furrowed a little as if he might be worried. “They’ll find a good home for him.”

  “He wants his own home. His family,” Tommy said, remembering Rafael’s tear-streaked face.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DETECTIVE KELLY WATCHED Tommy St. James leave in a huff. Wow, she was a spitfire, he thought as he made his way back into the detective bureau. A smile spread across his face, but then faded when he thought of the kid.

  What did she think was going to happen when she brought the boy in? He’d had no choice. Legally, he couldn’t let her take the boy back home with her. At first, nobody in the department quite knew what to do with the kid. It sounded liked he’d snuck into the country and then was shuffled around by a series of characters, including this “Big Boss” guy who didn’t even seem real. What kind of rich guy would need to adopt kids under the radar? Something was strange here. Who knew what the whole story was, but in all likelihood Tommy St. James was probably the sanest of the bunch, calling the police.

  Kelly slumped into his desk chair and looked at the picture of his kids. His daughter was six and his son was going to turn eight this year. His boy was the same age as the little Mexican kid. He only wished his son was begging to come live with him like this kid was. But thanks to his crazy ex-wife, he was lucky his kids wanted to see him at all.

  His ex had done a fine job brainwashing the kids when she moved them to Hawaii three years ago. They didn’t want to come visit him in Minnesota, so he made a yearly trip out to Hawaii to see them. Could be worse. But their mother barely let him see them alone. During the first visit, he thought everything would be normal, like when they had lived in Minnesota, but for some ridiculous reason the kids acted wary around him. They even seemed a bit scared. God only knows what Kathy had told them to make them feel this way. He tried to pry it out of the kids, but they wouldn’t say jack. He knew better than to ever say anything against their mother. Then, he’d never see his kids again. Besides, in his job, he saw how ugly it got for the kids during a divorce. He would never put his kids through that. He’d rather they think something insane about him then know the truth about their mother.

  One day, his daughter asked about why the divorce happened. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her mother had cheated on him with the neighbor’s eighteen-year-old son. Besides, deep down inside he felt like Kathy’s affair was ultimately his fault. If he had been a better husband and drawn the line more between his work and home life, maybe it would never have happened. But it had.

  He was a cop just like his father and his father’s father were cops. When he was working a case, he had very little energy left for anything else in his life. That’s one reason he didn’t fight Kathy’s bid for full custody. But at the time, he had no idea what a mistake that would be. Maybe the biggest mistake of his life. He hadn’t known that she would move and take his kids away from him to a tropical paradise.

  He sighed looking at the school pictures of his children that Kathy had reluctantly sent him after he badgered her. Maybe Tommy St. James was right. Maybe that little boy belonged home with his father in Mexico. The only problem was; it was out of Detective Kelly’s control. He wasn’t a rule breaker. He followed the law to the letter and if the law said the boy needed to go into a foster home, who was a thirty-three-year-old punk divorced detective to argue with that?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CLUTCHING HER ICED, white chocolate berry low-fat triple shot mocha in one hand, Tommy stomped into the newsroom and headed for the photo department.

  It was only eight in the morning, but Sandoval was already there.

  “Nice shot, St. James,” he said holding up the front page of the News. “I still haven’t figured out how you end up right where you need to be every single damn time. You got a horseshoe hidden somewhere I don’t know about it?”

  She didn’t respond to her editor.

  “Geez, you aren’t looking so hot,” he said. Then understanding struck him. “Oh, man. I forgot. I heard the vic was your friend. I’m really sorry about that. You probably think I’m an insensitive jerk, huh?”

  “No, it’s not that.” She sighed. It was partly that. But. “I didn’t get any sleep. Was at the cop shop all night.”

  Tommy explained what was going on.

  “Well them’s the breaks. Sorry about the kid, but could you really take care of a kid anyhow?”

  Tommy gave him a sharp look and he quickly backpedaled. “I mean with your schedule and all. We photogs have nothing close to a normal work schedule, or normal life for that matter. If Daphne didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom, we would’ve never been able to have kids ourselves.”

  Tommy sighed. He was right. If she were going to take care of a kid, she needed a wife. And since she didn’t bat for the other team; that was unlikely to happen. She supposed she could marry some guy who dreamed of being a stay-at-home husband, but frankly, she was usually attracted to very ambitious, passionate men. Not some big, sloppy, happy Golden Retriever-type guy who always had something sweet to say and was content to spend his days changing nappies and fixing bottles.

  “What’s onboard today?” she asked Sandoval, tired of the personal talk.

  “There’s a press conference on the murder at eleven this morning and then I got you shooting profiles of the mayoral candidates during a debate at five tonight. I’ll keep you posted on what else comes in.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE PRESS CONFERENCE at the police station was a rehash of everything they had already printed in the newspaper that day. About a dozen television and print reporters clustered in front of a small podium with the police seal on it. Tommy snapped a few shots of the police department’s press information officer giving the press conference. No suspects at this time. Despite the News running Belinda
’s name, the police were not yet confirming identification. Yada, yada, Tommy thought and stifled a yawn. It was going to be a long day.

  As she tried to covertly cover her yawn, she caught sight of Detective Kelly standing with a group of officers in the back of the room. He looked fresh as a damn daisy. He caught her eye and winked, making a mock yawning motion. She felt a hot flush crawl up her neck. Damn, he really was cute. Quickly, she looked away. The press conference was wrapping up when she spotted Cameron Parker, who had been standing near the front. He was headed her way so she quickly slipped out a side door to her Jeep. She had nothing to say to him, either.

  Sitting at her computer a few hours later, editing some photos for an upcoming Sunday spread on the new football stadium, Parker tried again. Instinctively, Tommy ducked down, slicked some pink lipstick on, and straightened her yellow sundress beneath her even as she was ashamed at doing so. Then, sitting up, she pretended not to see him standing right in front of her.

  “Oh, hey, Parker,” she said, acting distracted. “What’s up?”

  “Got a scoop for you, Snap,” he said, leaning over her cubical wall with a smug look on his face. “Just got back from the cop shop. Seems that Belinda Carter’s husband flew in today to I.D. her body.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Copped him on a murder rap.”

  “Holy crap.” Now, he had her attention.

  “Yep. The husband always did it.”

  “But I thought you told me he was in New York when she was killed?”

  “Apparently, he was in the Twin Cities yesterday and left late last night. When he got to New York, they stopped him at the airport to tell him about wifey-poo. He caught a return flight back. Took the red eye and got here this morning. Now, he’s in the pokey.”

  Tommy just raised one eyebrow and waited. Parker wouldn’t need any other encouragement. He was obviously dying to tell her what he knew — in his own special particularly smug way, of course.

  “Well, it appears that Mr. Carter filed divorce papers last week.” Parker whipped out a reporter’s notebook from the back pocket of his jeans. “He claimed that Mrs. Carter was mentally ill. He said she was obsessed with having a baby and when doctors told her she could never have children, she went off the deep end.”

  Maybe that explained why she took Rafael. Tommy still hadn’t told Parker about the kid. She didn’t want him to make Belinda look bad in the paper. But the cops knew and Martin Sandoval knew, so Parker would find out eventually. He would not be happy she held out.

  “So, how does that make him a murderer?” she asked.

  “Well, apparently, Mrs. Carter has been refusing to sign divorce papers.”

  “He wouldn’t be so stupid as to kill her. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “He might have been motivated to get her out of the picture. Apparently, there is a very impatient lady waiting in the wings to be the new Mrs. Carter.”

  “That’s still not enough Parker, and you know it.”

  She waited, blowing her breath out. She was tired of Parker’s game, trying to entice her with little tidbits. She was ready for the punch line.

  “Just spit it out Parker. Enough foreplay already.” To her surprise his ears grew red at her sexual innuendo.

  “Okay, okay. Cops found a text conversation on Mrs. Carter’s phone.”

  “They found her phone?”

  “Yeah, in the mud on the riverbank.”

  “Anyway, it went like this ...” Parker flipped through his notebook and read out loud. “From Mr. Carter: ‘You better sign those divorce papers if you know what’s good for you.’”

  “Oh my God, it sounds like a bad B movie,” Tommy said.

  “Wait, there’s more. Mrs. Carter said, now get this: ‘Over my dead body.’ And, so, of course, Mr. Carter wrote back: ‘That can be arranged.’”

  “That’s just stupid marital discord. People say asinine things like that all the time without meaning them,” Tommy said.

  “Well, the cops think in this case, Mr. Carter meant it,” Parker said. “Plus, Belinda’s dead body kind of backs that up.”

  “I guess.” Tommy looked up, an expression of doubt on her face.

  Parker stuck the notebook back in his pocket and started to walk away. “Like, I said, the husband always did it.”

  “Another good reason to never get married,” Tommy muttered under her breath.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TOMMY SAT PRIMLY ON her side of the small jail interview room, tucking and re-tucking her skirt under her as she waited for the guard to bring Mr. Carter into the small room on the other side of the glass.

  Finally, after about ten minutes of fidgeting, Tommy saw the door handle turn. The guard guided Mr. Carter into the room. From the moment he entered the room, the man’s penetrating gaze never left Tommy’s face.

  Jason Carter’s piercing blue eyes had slight purple shadows under them and his sun-bleached hair was sticking up in a few places, but it was obvious that a night in jail had done nothing to diminish his arrogance. Even in the ugly blue jail jumpsuit, he looked poised and in control. He wasn’t classically handsome, but something about him was sexy.

  Her thoughts made her blush. Maybe she did need to have Parker come over this week. Maybe it had been too long since she had had sex. That’s why she was viewing every male in sight with desire. She’d call Parker later and see if he could come over for a few hours, just so she didn’t act like an infatuated schoolgirl every time she saw an attractive man. For Christ’s sakes, this man might have killed her high school friend.

  After rubbing his wrists for a minute, Jason Carter took a seat, picking up the phone on his side of the glass, indicating Tommy should do the same.

  “Hello, Mr. Carter. I’m Tommy St. James, a friend of Belinda’s from high school.”

  “No wonder Belinda kept you hidden away,” Jason Carter said with a smirk. “She never liked to introduce me to any woman who was better looking than her.”

  Tommy drew back and made a face. “I’m also a journalist with the News,” she said, not bothering to mention she wasn’t a reporter. “Bad mouthing your dead wife is probably not going to help your case, Mr. Carter,” she said, placing emphasis on the word dead. “Aren’t you jailed on suspicion of her murder?”

  Then, he surprised her. He laughed.

  “The cops are desperate. I didn’t do it and they know it. They are just trying to squash down the bad publicity by saying they’ve made an arrest. My attorney just got into town and I expect to be sprung by ...” he pretended to consult a watch on his bare wrist “... dinnertime.”

  “What about those texts?”

  Jason Carter didn’t seem surprised to hear Tommy knew about those.

  He waved his hand as if brushing the murder accusation away. “Said in a fit of anger. I’m not stupid enough to murder my wife after I’ve threatened her life by text. I didn’t become the founder of a multi-million-dollar company by making stupid rookie moves like that.”

  “If you didn’t kill her, then who do you think did?”

  “Dunno,” Jason Carter said, stretching his arms back behind his head, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder for a minute. “Maybe the guy whose kid she kidnapped?”

  She wondered how he knew about that. “Yeah, maybe,” Tommy said. “Who gave you the skinny about that, anyway? Did Belinda tell you?”

  “I have my ways.” He shrugged.

  He’s so patronizing and arrogant, Tommy thought. “You don’t seem very broken up by your wife’s death.”

  “Hey, listen. You probably think I’m a cold-hearted bastard, but I’m not. Belinda and I were over years ago. We’ve both just been playing the roles for the past few years, afraid to rock the boat. A few years ago — when she found out she couldn’t have any kids — it was the last straw. She’d always been mentally unstable, but that sent her over the edge. I tried to help. I swear before God I did. But she didn’t want my help. She just wanted to die. After the th
ird suicide attempt and me taking her to the best psych doctors on the planet, I finally just gave up.”

  Tommy was surprised by this information and this glimpse that showed Jason Carter might actually even have a heart. Probably a little one. Teensy eensy. Itsy bitsy.

  “She tried to kill herself?”

  He shrugged. “A few times. You know some people just weren’t cut out for this world.”

  Tommy glared at him. What an ass. She supposed he was one of those people who believed in survival of the fittest and screw the rest.

  “My father was a wise man,” Jason Parker interrupted her thoughts. “My father told me once, ‘You can’t save a man from himself.’ That applies to a woman, too,” Jason Carter said. “Belinda was no longer the woman I fell in love with ten years ago. We’ve led separate lives for years. It was over a long time ago. It wasn’t until I met someone who really loved me that I realized how far gone our marriage was. That’s why I finally asked for a divorce.”

  Tommy sensed that every word out of his mouth was the truth. That was part of the “shine” she had inherited from her grandmother. She liked to call it her “built-in bullshit detector.” She was often able to detect when someone was lying. She wasn’t perfect though. She probably batted seven out of ten on a good day. As much as she really didn’t want to like Jason Carter and thought he was too arrogant for his own good, she had to admit, he wasn’t all that bad.

  “And, the reason I’m not grieving her death you ask?” He paused and looked right at her. There was a deep sadness in his eyes that put a lump in Tommy’s throat. “The reason I’m not grieving right now, is the wife I had, that person that I married years ago, died a long time ago — maybe not physically, but that person was gone years ago.”