Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  Quint debated silently for a few moments, and then relented. “Okay, call him.”

  When Toni called John and explained, he didn’t hesitate to be her escort. “Precautions seem like a smart idea to me.”

  When Quint left for work at three-thirty, Toni curled up on the couch with some paperwork. In the middle of grading a paper, her eyes drooped and her head jerked, fighting sleep. She put the papers down and crashed.

  At six o’clock the phone woke her. She checked the ID. Quint. Checking on her again. “I’m here,” she answered.

  “You better be. Have you eaten yet?” He sounded relieved, and in better spirits than when he had left.

  “No, I fell asleep on the couch.”

  “Good. That’s probably just what you needed. If you can hold off until about nine, I can meet you and feed you, like any decent host should do for his guest.”

  “I’m not a guest. I’m a sibling mooching a bed. But I am hungry. Where should I meet you?”

  “You shouldn’t. I’ll pick you up,” he said firmly. “I’ll call when I’m on the way.”

  “Okay, I’ll…” She stopped when she realized she was speaking into a dead phone.

  By the time Quint had called and Toni heard him pull up in front of the apartment, she thought her stomach must be touching her backbone. She darted out and climbed into the patrol car. “Is it okay for me to ride with you on duty like this?”

  “I told my superior I needed to feed you, and he okayed it.” He spoke over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space.

  “It seems the only time I get to have a decent talk with you is at a quick meal like this,” Toni said when they were about halfway through dinner at the Golden Corral steak buffet. “I feel like I’m in your way.”

  He grinned. “I think the detectives are learning to like having you in my way. They like the tips I’ve been feeding them so much they offered to buy your supper. Not mine, just yours.”

  Toni cocked her head to one side. “Does that mean they trust me a little?”

  He sobered. “I think so. No, I know so. Just before I called you, they were going through a box of odds and ends they took from Jesse Campbell’s home desk. One of them suggested I let you join our little guessing game.”

  “So this turns out to be a business dinner, huh?” She was intrigued, and pleased at their willingness to seek her input. She also welcomed access to any new information. “What are we guessing?”

  Quint put his fork down and reached into his pocket. “It’s a torn receipt with an unreadable signature.” He handed her a rectangular piece of paper. “There are three questions. What is it for? Who signed it? And does it have any significance?”

  Toni studied the paper and saw what he meant. It looked like it was from a business receipt book, but there was nothing to identify it. The top portion was torn off, as if it had been ripped out in a hurry, or just carelessly. Only the lower two thirds of it were there. It was made out to Jesse Campbell, showing that he had paid someone seven hundred fifty dollars. It had been signed in a hard-to-read scrawl that looked like a first name of Edna. On close study she decided the last name might be Rankin.

  “Got any ideas?”

  “What do you think this number is?” She pointed to the memo line at the lower left corner, neglecting to verbalize a guess at the last name.

  “Our best guess is that it’s the number of the check he wrote, but they haven’t found anything to match it in any bank records.”

  Toni examined the signature and number again, committing them to memory. “I’ll sleep on it,” she said, handing it back to him.

  Before she went to bed that night, Toni tried to call Kyle. She was worried about him and wanted to hear his voice. She needed to assure herself he was all right, and assure him that her support was firm. But all she got was an automated message saying he was unavailable.

  She felt a little better after calling the boys and chatting with them and her parents.

  *

  Tuesday morning Toni pondered the matter of the receipt as she watched John’s car in her rear view mirror on the way to school. What kind of things cost seven hundred and fifty dollars? Suddenly she thought she might know. She doubted that the apartment Sheila Campbell lived in at Ozark could be had for that, but there were a lot of apartments available in the area in that monthly price range. Springfield was bigger, making it a better location for a secret business headquarters—or place for liaisons with women. Could that number on the memo line be the number of such an apartment? If it was one his wife didn’t know about, Jesse probably paid for it in cash.

  Toni wished she had time to pursue the line of thought more, but she had a job to do. She pulled into the parking lot and dialed John, waving at him as he pulled up a dozen yards from her. ”I’ll be done with class by eleven, but I have to do lab prep afterward.”

  “Just call me when you’re ready to leave the building,” he said from the other side of his door window, grinning at her through the glass. “I can be here in minutes.” He watched her until she got to the door of the building. Then he waved and drove away.

  It was an easy morning, since all she had to do was monitor the exam. The students came to the desk one and two at a time as they finished, placed their exams on the corner of the desk, and left. By eleven o’clock the room was empty.

  Toni spent the next two hours setting up for the next day’s lab final. Models of the heart, eyes, ear, trachea, male and female reproductive organs, and a kidney were on display. Each work station was outfitted with microscopes with slides positioned on them, a urine dip stick, and cat bodies for dissection—like a kitty morgue, she reflected whimsically.

  As she finished putting up pictures that identified blood types, John entered the room.

  “I wasn’t busy, and I guessed at how long it would take you.” He grinned. They had been fellow teachers long enough to know the routines.

  “Since you’re being so good about this, would you mind if I make a stop at the campus book store on the way home?” she asked.

  “No problem.”

  At the bookstore, Toni located a textbook designed for a business technology class, paid for it, and was back in the van in less than ten minutes.

  From Quint’s parking lot, she watched John drive away. Before going inside, she checked the index of the textbook, thumbed to the chapter on proper telephone technique, and stuck a piece of paper between the pages to mark it. Then she gathered her belongings and entered the apartment.

  “I was beginning to wonder about you,” Quint called from the kitchen. He came to meet her, carrying cold sodas. “I saw you pull up.”

  Which meant he was concerned enough to be watching for her. Toni felt bad for not thinking to call him.

  His phone rang as he put the drinks on the coffee table. “Nash.”

  He listened a moment. “Okay.” He disconnected.

  Toni grinned. She was pretty sure he had ended the call before someone could finish their last sentence. She handed him the book she still had in her hands.

  Quint took it and read the title, his brow creasing in puzzlement. Then he noticed the bookmark and opened it. When he saw the chapter title, the corners of his mouth deepened. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  She nodded. “Your technique could use some improvement. But I’ll keep loving you whether it does or not.”

  He laughed, but then turned serious. “That was my sergeant. I’m supposed to be off tonight, but they’re short handed. I have to go in to work.”

  Toni hated that Quint had to work on his night off, but part of her was secretly glad to have the apartment to herself. As soon as he left, she grabbed the phone book and flipped to the yellow pages. When she found the listings for apartment rentals, she was daunted. There were so many that she couldn’t think how to tackle them, other than to work through them alphabetically.

  She started to dial the first number, but hesitated. She had already spent way too much time on a ca
se that was no business of hers. Now it looked like it wouldn’t be solved before she left town. Why should she waste any more time on the matter?

  But I’m still here right now. And I’m invested in the case.

  She checked her watch. It was only four o’clock, and there were no more lesson or lab preparations to do. Everything was completed. Her finger moved, almost of its own volition, back to the phone. She began dialing.

  “May I speak to Edna Rankin?” she asked when a man answered after six rings.

  “Who?”

  “Edna Rankin,” she repeated, hoping she had deciphered that last name correctly.

  “There’s no one here by that name.”

  That was the pattern of the calls. But, rather than becoming discouraged, Toni was emboldened by an old familiar surge of stubborn refusal that wouldn’t allow her to accept defeat. She began punching at the phone, willing it to yield an Edna Rankin.

  Perseverance finally paid off.

  “Just a moment. I’ll get her,” someone said at the Sunrise Apartments.

  Toni stared at the phone in surprise.

  “This is Edna,” a voice said, making Toni realize she needed to say something.

  “Hello, Mrs. Rankin,” she said, suddenly remembering those telemarketing calls she hated so much. “This is your lucky day. Your name has been chosen to receive…”

  “Not interested,” the woman cut her off. The line went dead.

  Toni checked the address. She wasn’t familiar enough with the city to know just where it was, so she went to Quint’s desk and rummaged around until she found a city map. She located the address in the southwest corner of town.

  Stuffing the map in her purse, she left the apartment, checking to assure herself that no one was sitting in any of the parked cars watching her. Seeing no one, and feeling paranoid for even checking, she got in the van and headed across town.

  The neighborhood was comprised of modest homes, businesses and apartments. Toni missed the entrance to the apartment complex and had to swing into the lot of a car wash to turn around and go back half a block. She parked toward the center of the units and sat there a bit to survey the premises. She noted a breezeway two doors down. Just then a couple came walking through it and headed up a set of stairs to the second level. They wore bathing suits and carried towels.

  Each unit had a small balcony with a wooden safety fence around it. None of the numbers matched the one on the receipt.

  Toni exited the van and marched to the breezeway, as if she knew exactly where she was going. She walked through it and found herself inside a courtyard. Apartments surrounded it on all four sides, like a small fort. There was a pool house in the center of it, surrounded by parched grass that wouldn’t need cutting any more if they didn’t get some rain. She could see a pool inside through the greenhouse-like clear walls.

  She turned right and walked parallel to the pool house, scanning the door numbers on both levels. When she reached the corner, she followed the sidewalk to the left and scanned all the doors across that end. At the next corner, she made another left and started walking slowly along the back row of units. She found the number she was looking for on the upper level in a location where occupants had an excellent view of the courtyard entrance and close proximity to the pool.

  Toni’s heartbeat picked up with the excitement of discovery. It had to be Jesse Campbell’s apartment, one where he conducted business—and monkey business.

  Chapter 18

  Toni glanced around, wondering where to find an office or apartment manager. Looking back at the breezeway, she decided it must be out front. She started to cut across the yard, but came to a stop as she reached the pool house. At the far end of the small building was a door with a nameplate on it that said OFFICE.

  Toni went to the door and found it locked. But then she saw a small sign beside it that said MANAGER UPSTAIRS. A small arrow pointed to the right. She went to that corner of the building and found a set of stairs going up the side of the building. She climbed them and found a single apartment sitting directly at the top of it. The name Edna Rankin was etched on the nameplate next to the door. Toni knocked.

  The door opened to frame a tall, portly woman who looked to be in her fifties. A kitchenette was visible behind her. She wore a loose caftan and a floppy brimmed straw hat. Flyaway strands of gray hair peeked from beneath it in a thick fringe. Her eyes were pale in a round fleshy face.

  “Hi, are you the apartment manager?” Toni asked.

  “Landlady, apartment manager, whatever,” the women said in a voice that made Toni think of a witch’s cackle. “I’m Edna Rankin.”

  “My name is Toni Nash,” Toni said, impulsively using her maiden name. “I’m looking for an apartment, and a friend recommended this complex.”

  “I have three units vacant out front,” Edna said, jerking her head in the direction of the breezeway. “Would you like to take a look at them?”

  “I’d prefer something back here.” Toni swept her hand in an arc that indicated the inner courtyard.

  Edna frowned. “Everything’s full in here.”

  Toni tried to cover her dismay.

  Edna’s brow creased. “How big a hurry you in?”

  “Oh, I don’t need it immediately. I don’t start my new job until the first of the month. I took a couple of days off to come look around.”

  Edna pursed her lips and studied Toni. Then she took on a conspiratorial demeanor. “I have a unit that’s paid up till the end of the month, but it’ll be vacant before then. The tenant was killed, you see. So he’s not coming back.”

  Toni feigned surprise. “That’s awful. Is there a family who will have to move out of the apartment?”

  Edna shook her head. “No, he wasn’t married. I don’t know about his family. Never saw or talked to him much.”

  “So his belongings are in the apartment?” Toni asked casually.

  “Not for long,” Edna said. “His fiancé is in there right now, cleaning it out.”

  That took Toni by surprise. “Is she alone?”

  Edna didn’t seem bothered by the question. “No, she has two young men helping her. I should be able to get in there in a day or two and start getting it ready for a new tenant. Of course, you might not be interested, knowing that the last person who lived there got his-self killed.” She ran her eyes over Toni, judging her take on such a situation.

  “Oh, that wouldn’t bother me,” Toni said blithely. “I don’t believe in ghosts and such stuff.”

  “Good. If you want to come back in a couple days, I could let you see it then.”

  “I’ll do that,” Toni said, anxious to escape now that she knew someone was in that apartment. “Thank you for your time.”

  Fiancé? Toni hurried down the steps, thinking fast. Jesse Campbell had just gotten married, and she doubted that any of his side dishes had any thoughts of marriage. Someone was in a hurry to get their hands on his possessions.

  As she reached the bottom of the steps and rounded the corner of the pool house, Toni pulled out her cell phone to call Quint. But a glance up at the balcony of that apartment brought her to a standstill. Two big guys were out there gathering the barbecue grill and deck chairs. One of them was Dean Patrick. She didn’t recognize the other one. As they went back inside the apartment with the stuff, she rushed across the grass and through the breezeway to where, sure enough, there was a moving van parked near the stairwell.

  Knowing the two young men could appear any moment, Toni slid into her van and dialed Quint’s cell.

  “Nash,” he snapped. “Make it quick, Toni. I’m on duty.”

  “This is duty,” she snapped back. “That receipt was for the rent on an apartment in the Sunrise complex. I’m there now, and there’s a woman and two guys cleaning it out. You need to stop them before they get away with a pile of evidence.”

  “Get out of there,” he ordered sternly. “I’m on my way. Where are you exactly?”

  “I’m in my van in the par
king lot.”

  “Okay, stay put—but out of sight. Don’t you go near those guys. Hear me?”

  “Gotcha. There’s a moving van parked near the stairwell. I’m sure it’s theirs.” She was talking to air.

  Toni’s heart pounded frantically as she sat watching the moving van and debating about going back to the courtyard where she could see the apartment.

  Suddenly she saw lights flashing and a police cruiser turning into the parking lot. Another followed it. Her phone rang.

  “I see you. Stay there,” Quint ordered.

  Toni watched as he stepped from the first cruiser. Someone joined him from the one that pulled to a stop next to him.

  “It’s number two-forty-eight, and it’s in the inner section, overlooking the pool,” she said, speaking fast.

  “We’ll get it.”

  Toni gripped the steering wheel so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear it crack. She hunched down and peered over the top of it, scanning the length of the complex and concentrating on the stairwell. She wanted to go where the action was, but she knew the officers didn’t need her help, or to be distracted. And she needed to play lookout for them.

  No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than movement caught her eye to the right. A woman came running around the corner of the far end of the building, her arms loaded with what looked like books and folders. Her back was to Toni, and she wore a red baseball hat with her hair pushed up under it. She sprinted to a car at the end of the lot, yanked the door open, and tossed everything into the passenger seat. As Toni climbed out of her van to get a closer look, the woman jumped in the car, backed up, and went squealing out of the lot.

  Toni ran up the sidewalk, trying to get a closer look, but the car disappeared from sight before she could get a look at the driver’s face. She made a mental note that the car was a dark green Cougar, and then wanted to kick herself for concentrating so hard on trying to identify the woman that she failed to get a license number. Her gut said Jesse’s fiancé had just made a getaway.