A Berry Cunning Conman: A Laugh-Out-Loud Cozy Mystery (Kylie Berry Mysteries Book 4)

by A. R. Winters

  “—then that means that only bad could come out of talking to us,” I said, finishing the thought.

  “That’s right. There’s always the chance that he could incriminate himself further, while nothing he says can get him off the hook and reinstate his career on the police force.”

  Officer Dill was a dead end, at least as far as information gathering went.

  “So tell me about some of these other trees we need to go barking up,” I said.

  “When Morgan tried to blackmail me, he was confident about it. Smug.”

  “He’d done it before,” I said.

  “Bingo. And if I had to guess, he’d done it a lot of times before. And not only that, he was strategic about it. He tried to find the one thing that he thought would give him the most leverage over me.”

  Me, I thought. Joel hadn’t wanted me to think badly of him.

  “My reputation.”

  Oh… Note to self: watch the ego.

  “If he’s blackmailed others,” Joel continued, “he’s made enemies. There’s no telling how many of them.”

  “Enemies willing to kill,” I said.

  “Apparently so.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Joel sat back in his chair and thought a moment before answering. I knew he’d made a decision when his eyes regained their focus on me. “We need to find the physical trail. We know where Morgan’s body ended up. And since he probably didn’t dismember himself, someone had to go to that location with him.”

  “To dump his body…”

  “Yeah. I haven’t been able to get any info on the coroner’s report yet, but I suspect you’re right. I doubt he died out there in that field. I believe he was already dead.”

  I thought back to that morning when I found his severed hand. What I hadn’t seen was any blood. That fit with the idea that Morgan was killed somewhere else and then taken to that field afterward.

  “So since we know where his body ended up, I say we trace Morgan’s steps backward. If we can figure out from where his journey started, we might be able to figure out who it started with.”

  “Any ideas on how to go about that?”

  Joel frowned and his shoulders fell. “None whatsoever.”

  I sank my hand into my pocket and rubbed my thumb over the face of my phone, contemplating. Zoey had entrusted me with a lot of personal information about herself. I wasn’t sure she’d appreciate me sharing that information with someone else—especially someone whose life pursuit it was to expose everybody’s deepest, darkest secrets to the public at large.

  “I might have an idea,” I finally said, “but it’s going to require you do something you’re not used doing.”

  Joel leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. “Consider me intrigued. What is it that I’ll have to do?”

  “You’ll have to not tell a story…”

  “You brought him to my home,” Zoey said, arms crossed over her chest. We were standing in the hallway outside her apartment, and Joel was standing at the far end of the hallway and was hopefully out of earshot of our quiet conversation.

  “I texted first,” I said in defense. “We need help. You were all in on helping when we were at the café.”

  “Yes, all in. As in me at my apartment, alone.”

  I paused before answering, unsure of how far Zoey’s tolerant intolerance could be pushed. Finally I said, “That’s a pretty narrow definition of ‘all in.’”

  “Yes. It’s my definition.” She was still unmoving, her mouth cast in a rigid frown since I’d arrived.

  “Fine. I’ll take him and go.”

  “Why?”

  “Why…? You look like you want to stab my eye out with a fork! Are you telling me that this is your version of a warm and inviting welcome?”

  Zoey shrugged one shoulder, and one side of her mouth twitched up. “I just wanted to make Joel nervous.” The other side of her mouth twitched up as well. “Did you tell him what I told you to tell him before heading over?”

  “What, that you would register his phone number with every national and international psychic hotline in existence for the next ten years if he leaked your private information? Yeah, I told him.”

  Zoey’s smile got a little bigger, and she chuckled. “The phone calls would never stop.”

  Angling my head away from Joel so that he couldn’t see my face, I gave in to my own smile. “That was a good one.”

  “Yeah…” Zoey said wistfully before her smile faded. “Okay, bring him in. But if he shares my personal information, I will tell the whole world his. They’ll know what toothpaste the man uses.”

  “I’ll make sure he understands.”

  Zoey disappeared inside of her apartment, and I waved Joel over. He looked reluctant at first, like a man ready to bolt and run, but he made a good show of walking with a sure and casual gait.

  “She sending us on our way?” Joel asked.

  “No, she’s waiting inside.”

  “Oh…” He coughed and looked like he wanted to be somewhere else—anywhere else. “‘Cause we can come back some other time. Follow some other leads. See if something pans out.”

  “Joel…” I laughed. “It’s not gonna be that bad.”

  He stared at Zoey’s closed door and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve heard stories. I’m pretty sure she’s blackmailing the police chief.”

  Wow… This was the second time I’d heard that. I’d completely discounted it as part of Brad’s paranoid ranting when he’d made the same claim.

  “Have you been talking to Brad about Zoey?” I asked.

  “No,” Joel said, looking worried. “Should I have?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it.” I gave him a smile that I hoped was reassuring, despite my words.

  “Right.” He squared his already square shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I tapped on Zoey’s door and then turned the handle. Per usual, it was dark inside except for the glow of six huge computer screens. They were stacked two screens high, three across.

  “Does she have a superhero suit?” Joel whispered.

  I could see his point. Zoey’s apartment was a techie haven. There were more electronics than Batman was sporting in his cave.

  Zoey sat at her desk facing us. Behind her was a wall of screens. She was deftly French braiding her hair, and that coupled with her ever-bold eyeliner made her look ready to run into battle. Fierce.

  “Kylie, pull up a chair. Joel, you get the bouncy ball,” Zoey said before turning around to face the screens.

  I wouldn’t have minded giving Joel the spare desk chair, but Zoey’s house, Zoey’s rules.

  I rolled my chair next to Zoey and sat down while Joel rolled a huge blue exercise ball into place on her other side and sat down. He bounced up and down on it like a kid until Zoey shot him a glare.

  I knew she didn’t actually care if he bounced up and down on it. I’d seen her do it myself, and she’d snorted beer out of her nose once when I fell over backward off of it. What she did care about was making sure Joel understood who was in charge. She was risking a lot by allowing him to see how deep she was able to hack the city’s management systems.

  Zoey rolled her chair away from her desk so that she could see me, Joel, and her computer all at the same time. “The operational objective is to trace Morgan’s movements backward from the place where his body was found to the first identifiable place and time that he was still alive. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Joel said.

  “I’ve been able to tap into the police investigation. They haven’t identified the vehicle that dumped Morgan where he was found, but they did take an impression of a tire track that had a unique flaw.”

  “So you’ve gotten a head start on this?” Joel asked.

  Zoey smiled, the first one she’d let Joel see since he’d arrived. “I’ve been working on this since Monday afternoon. I started as soon as I got home after we helped the police locate the body.”

/>   “You decided to investigate without me?” I asked, knowing it was silly that my feelings were hurt.

  “I knew you’d come to your senses.”

  “What happens now?” Joel asked.

  “Now you tell me what you both know about the night that Morgan died,” Zoey said.

  Joel looked at me, and I looked at Joel. I knew nothing about what happened to Morgan on the night he died. I only knew what Joel had told me about what had happened earlier that day.

  “I suspect that you know as much as we do,” Joel told Zoey. “I had an argument with Morgan around ten-thirty that morning, but when it was done he left in his car and I left in mine. That was the last time I ever saw him.”

  “What kind of car was he driving?” Zoey asked.

  “A blue Ford Fiesta.”

  “Good. That matches the car he has registered with the County Clerk’s Office.” Zoey crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. She even steepled her fingers in front of her like an evil genius about to share that details of her plans. “Here’s what I know. The plaster cast of the tire imprint taken from the field matches a possible four different car makes and models. None of them are a Ford Fiesta. That tells us that Morgan did not end up in that field by way of his own vehicle. There was another vehicle involved.”

  It all sounded so simple when Zoey pointed it out.

  “I cross referenced the make and model possibilities against a list of cars that have been reported stolen within the last two weeks. I gave preferential weight to vehicles that had gone missing within forty-eight hours of Morgan’s death. Only one vehicle was a match.”

  Zoey rolled her chair forward so that she was once more sitting directly in front of her computer. A few keystrokes later and we were staring at an old lime green Dodge truck. “These pictures are from Facebook,” Zoey said. “This truck was reported missing at five Sunday afternoon. Its owner worked a combination of construction and farm labor. The tire tread anomaly captured by the tire plaster could have been caused in either environment.”

  “What was the anomaly?” I asked.

  “The tires on the truck had deep treads, but a corner of one of the treads was sliced off, making the groove appear twice as wide.”

  “And a truck like that wouldn’t have had any trouble driving out into that field to dump Morgan’s body.” I remembered how Zoey had parked at the edge of the field and we had walked our way in.

  “Not any trouble at all,” Zoey said.

  “So we know what vehicle transported Morgan to his next to final resting place. What now?” Joel asked. “Who owned the truck? Do you believe him to be a suspect?”

  “The truck was owned by a Jenny Braughman. I haven’t been able to locate evidence to give her an alibi, but I haven’t found any link between her and Morgan. I believe her truck was merely stolen.”

  “And we can circle back to her later if need be,” I said.

  Zoey nodded. “I don’t think she’s got anything to do with this. She’s got two young kids, a husband, a steady job of ten years, and her grandmother lives with them. She works fifty to sixty hours a week, and the family is financially stable. Nothing about her fits this.”

  “Do you have any other leads?” Joel asked.

  “Sort of.” Zoey’s fingers flew over her keyboard before her hand went to her mouse. A short video clip opened of a blue Ford Fiesta traveling down the road. I wasn’t able to get a glimpse of who was inside. “This video was taken from a jewelry store’s surveillance camera. This is the last time date and time that I was able to find a record of Morgan. It was five thirty-eight.” Zoey made a few more clicks with her mouse and a map filled a screen above us.

  “The blue arrow on that map represents Morgan’s car,” Zoey said.

  “It was heading out of town,” Joel said.

  “Right,” Zoey confirmed. “And here’s the last time Braughman’s truck was caught on camera.”

  Zoey brought up an image of the truck. I could just make out the shadow of a person inside the truck, but I couldn’t spot anything distinctive. It was just the indistinct impression of someone’s shoulders and a head wearing what looked like a baseball cap.

  “The truck was last seen at five forty-seven, and here is the location and direction the truck was following.” Zoey brought up the map again. Instead of one arrow, there were now two. The second arrow was a bright red. I assumed it was symbolic for the immense danger that it represented to Morgan’s future at that time. But the two arrows weren’t heading toward each other. Instead the two cars were perpendicular to each other. If they were allowed to drive forever, their paths would have made a “t.”

  I stood up and drew a circle in the empty area of the map where both cars appeared to be heading. “What’s up here? Do any specific places come to mind?” I asked.

  “There’s the old greeting card factory that’s now shut down,” Joel said. “And there’s an access road leading to a deserted strip mining job. There’s the old watermill, and… Oh! There’s Jackson Stone.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Not a who,” Joel said. “A where. Jackson Stone is a stone yard. They sell gravel and other types of stone used for construction.”

  “Construction,” I said. I turned to Zoey. “Did you say that the truck had been used for construction?”

  “I did, and it has,” Zoey said. “That could bring Jenny Baughman back into the running as a suspect.”

  Joel stood up and traced on the map with his finger the landmarks he’d just listed. Zoey followed suit by drawing an electronic circle on the map at each spot he indicated. He named them off again, naming each one as he pointed. “The mining access road. The abandoned greeting card factory. The stone yard. And the old mill.”

  “Two cars went in, one car came out,” Zoey said.

  “If that’s true, that means Morgan’s car could still be at one of those locations,” I said.

  “But which one do we start with?” Joel asked.

  “The old greeting card factory has some closed circuit cameras out there. It’s used as an inexpensive deterrent against looters and squatters,” Zoey said. “The data’s not accessible off-sight.”

  “But if you were going to commit a murder, would you do it someplace where there was surveillance?” I asked.

  “Not if it was premeditative murder,” Zoey said.

  “Which of those places don’t have any surveillance?” I asked.

  “I’m not aware of any surveillance equipment at the access roads leading to the defunct strip mining, but the last time I worked a story up on it, there were huge heavy chains blocking the entrance. It could be a great place for privacy, but it would also be inconvenient to reach. And the road’s not paved. It hasn’t had any maintenance on it in a while. The truck would be able to handle them okay, but Morgan’s blue Fiesta would have struggled.”

  “So the mining access roads and the abandoned greeting card factory are not strong candidates then,” I said. “And the stone yard, it’s an active business, right? I bet they don’t like for trucks to show up in the middle of the night and drive away with tons of their product. That would mean that they probably have some sort of surveillance system in place.”

  “So that just leaves the old mill,” Zoey said.

  “That would be a good spot for a private meeting,” Joel said. “I’m not aware of any surveillance there.”

  “I think it’s patrolled by a large flock of geese,” Zoey said, “but as far as I know, that’s it.”

  I glanced at the time listed on Zoey’s computer. “I’ve got to get back to the café soon. Almost lunch. I’ve got to be there.”

  “Can’t Sam and Melanie handle it?” Zoey asked.

  “It’s just Sam right now,” I said. “I’ve got to go back.”

  Zoey narrowed her eyes at me. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “Enough. I did just fine, thank you,” I answered defensively, but I knew that Zoey’s heart was in the right place. Going
further than that, I knew she was making a valid point. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and I was running on pure adrenaline in order to keep going. “I’ll be okay. Give me until three and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Three-thirty,” Zoey said. “Get a little power nap.”

  Ah, thank goodness. I could use a nap. “Three-thirty it is!”

  Chapter 10

  I woke up from my power nap with a powerful headache. It throbbed in my temples and behind my eyes. If anything, I felt worse than before I lay down to sleep. In fact I felt so bad that I almost—almost—texted Zoey and told her that she and Joel should go without me, but my desire not to be left out of the morbid escapades prevailed.

  I wanted to find out who killed Morgan. I was pretty sure that Joel’s name would end up being cleared with or without my and Zoey’s intervention. But being part of the Scooby gang was addictive.

  So I did my best to put some octane in my step. I downed a cup of strong coffee for the caffeine and scarfed a German chocolate cupcake for the sugar. Then, as a chaser, I popped a couple of Tylenol. By the time Zoey pulled up in the back parking lot of the café, my headache had downgraded from timpani drums to child-sized bongos.

  Joel sat in the back seat, and I slid into the passenger-side front seat. I made it maybe ten minutes into the drive before Zoey’s and Joel’s chatter and the gentle hum of the car lulled me to sleep. I’d like to say that I woke up and stayed awake, but the truth is that I fell asleep at least three times until the gentle shake of a hand on my shoulder finally made me aware that the car had stopped.

  “Wha? Where are we?” I looked around. Zoey’s car was sitting with the engine off in a parking lot. We were surrounded by forest that looked as though it had gone untouched by a chainsaw or an ax for at least fifty years. It had a rich, lush undergrowth that was thick and… slightly foreboding.