by Kate Morris
She groaned and looked at her phone when it buzzed, “Yeah. But seriously, what if we haven’t interviewed him yet? What if he isn’t on that board?” She paused and then said, “This is Craig. He said the messages he just sent me came from Christof’s phone, not the burner phone Trix usually texts from.”
“Craig said they looked into the Neumann family and their book of business. Other than the federal investigations, constant surveillance and all that, they’re squeaky clean.”
She laughed.
“Seriously, though, chief. Think we’ve missed him somewhere?”
Lorena sighed and said, “Maybe.”
“Then, let’s start over,” Jack said with total trust in her. “We’ll still look at our possibilities, review everything again, and find some new candidates. Maybe he did know the Neumann’s and had business dealings with them. I know what it’s like to get screwed over by that family. It’s no party. With the kind of shady deals they’ve got going on in that family business bullshit, they’re bound to have a lot of enemies.”
“’Kay,” she said and went to the whiteboard to look at the timeline.
Jack tried to listen to her theories and ideas and speculations, the usual things that detectives did when working a case, but his eyelids became too heavy to stay open, and he fell fast asleep on the sofa an hour later. That was fine with Lorena, too. He took care of her when she was sick so that she could bounce back faster. She simply covered him with the soft, worn throw blanket from the back of a nearby chair and went to her bedroom with the case files.
Lorena pulled up everything the FBI had on the Neumann family and their business ties. People were already interviewed by the feds. Anyone who had anything to do with Victor locally in Portland and also when he lived in California was already interviewed. Nobody even stood out as a good candidate. Then she studied the missing girl’s diary-style entries, collection of secret photos, and planner. She finally fell asleep around three but sprang back awake at six-thirty. She let Jack sleep for another hour while she got a quick shower. Then she had to sneak through the living room to the kitchen to brew them coffee. She wanted to meet with Victor again and discuss his own brother’s demise. He might know something now that his brother was killed. It was a possibility that something he might’ve been concealing, which he hadn’t wanted coming back on him before, might not matter so much to him anymore.
Jack groaned loudly from the sofa, “That smells like metabolic heroine right now.”
“I wouldn’t know, but I did make coffee,” she joked as he rose and joined her in the kitchen. “Geez, Foster, you’d better catch a shower.”
“Thanks, partner,” he returned and patted the top of her head before leaving.
He didn’t smell bad, but his clothing was rumpled, and his salt-and-pepper hair was standing on end. She was quite sure she looked worse. Lorena let the coffee maker do its thing and went to her bedroom again where she used the hairdryer on her still damp hair. Then she got dressed in a black turtleneck with a matching camisole underneath it, a gray tweed blazer and black skinny-jeans. Layering to ward off the chill and dampness of Portland seemed important. Then she pulled on low, black leather boots that would keep the rain off her feet. When she got back to the kitchen with the files she’d taken to bed the night before, Jack was already there and pouring coffee into to-go mugs with lids.
“Thanks,” she said and received a text from Grace. She returned it with some silly emojis. “I want to talk to Victor. I’m sure they told him last night. He probably had to make the identification at the morgue this morning since the rest of the family is in California.”
“That would’ve been gruesome,” he conceded against his mortal enemy, the man who’d stolen his wayward wife.
“Yes, but if we don’t move fast on this, he might lose his daughter, too,” Lorena said as they left the houseboat and Jack locked it behind them. “Want me to drive?”
“Nah, I got this. Besides, I wanna’ get there alive.”
“I’d punch you, but I don’t want to spill my coffee. It means more.”
“Ouch,” he said. “Wait. Actually, that’s a ditto, Evans.”
She smiled at his humor.
“When’d you turn in? Or did you?”
“I did,” she answered impatiently as she got in the passenger side of the SUV. “I slept for a little while. Sleeping isn’t going to get this case solved, though.”
“No, but sleep deprivation is going to make you sicker.”
“I want to talk to the Neumann’s again,” Lorena repeated as Jack pulled onto the main road. Her phone buzzed, and she read the text. “It’s Craig. He said Christof was strangled with a wire garrote first and then stabbed to death. He’s still at the crime scene processing it.”
“Yeah, I could guess the knife,” he said.
He drove them to a donut shop’s drive-thru and ordered two more coffees and a bag of bad stereotypes. Then it was on to the ex’s house again. The freeway was congested which gave Lorena time to eat her donuts. Jack ate a blueberry muffin instead. When they pulled up to the Neumann mansion again, it was teaming with federal agents and their vehicles. If their missing daughter wasn’t bad enough, now his brother was dead, too. Lorena flipped open Hailee’s file of personal information and scanned it again before getting out with Jack.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she called out to her partner and met him at the front of the car. “What if Victor is involved in this in some way?”
“I don’t like the asshole, but I don’t think he’s involved. I get the impression he just wants her home.”
“Right, I know that, but what if he’s inadvertently involved?” she questioned.
“Bad business deal, you mean?”
“Possibly,” she said. “What if Trix knows Victor and his brother?”
“Let’s talk to Liz,” he offered and stepped aside so that she could go ahead of him. “She’s gonna be a safer bet to talk to than Victor, especially right now.”
They were permitted entry by a federal agent who was guarding the front door. Then he told them where to find the wife. Lorena felt, for hopefully the last time, very unsophisticated and inelegant as she stood before Elizabeth Neumann, Jack’s ex. His ex-wife was wearing a classic, tailored skirt suit in pale peach with a matching blouse and coordinating cream pumps.
“Jack, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said and rushed to him. She stopped just short of throwing herself against Lorena’s partner.
“I’m sorry about Christof,” he said. “Where can we talk?”
Lorena’s eyes swept the room, which was filled with dozens of agents. They definitely needed to speak with her somewhere quieter.
She led them to a second-floor office, her office, which was decorated with modern art on the walls and feminine touches of pinks splashed about the room. The furniture was white. Her desk was also white with gold trim. She offered them seats, which they both took across from her on a sofa. Elizabeth closed the door, which blocked out nearly all of the noise from below, and sat in the opposing chair.
“I don’t know what you can tell us, Liz, but anything could help,” Jack stated.
“We’re…I’m…just so shocked,” she said quietly. “I don’t even know what to say. I mean, I didn’t care for Christof. I told you that, but I certainly didn’t want to see him killed like this. Victor is swearing he’ll hire more investigators until his brother’s killer is found. Now we have Christof’s death, and Hailee is still missing. I can’t believe this.”
“Elizabeth, what have the feds told you about Christof’s death?” he asked.
“That he was murdered alongside the road. What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Neumann,” Lorena started and looked to Jack for permission. He nodded. “Your brother-in-law’s death, his murder was no random act of violence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The man who took Hailee did this,” she explained.
“Oh, my!” she gasped with genuine shoc
k.
Lorena jumped in quickly to further advise her, “Please, don’t discuss this with the press or anyone who might call from the media. It could screw up the case for us.”
“How do you know it’s the same man? How can you be so sure?”
Jack said, “He’s…he’s been communicating with Evans.”
He indicated toward Lorena, and she nodded in return.
“Hailee’s abductor is calling you or something? Why didn’t you tell me this before, Jack? Is Hailee still alive? Is she dead? Did he tell you where she is?”
She was becoming hysterical. Jack crossed the room and squatted beside her. Then he took up her hands in his and tried to calm her.
“Liz, keep your voice down. I don’t think Victor should know any of this. He’s already got a P.I. on it. Having help is great, but if the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing, he could hinder everything we’re doing and screw up the progress we’re making.”
“What progress? Do you know where he is? Is Hailee…”
“She’s alive. We think he has her alive somewhere.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He sighed and said, “We’re not, but he also knows if he kills Hailee that Evans won’t communicate with him anymore. She’s opened up the lines of communication with him by text, not phone calls…”
“That’s good,” she interrupted. “Then you can trace the phone.”
“Not so easy,” he explained. “He’s using a burner phone. But he is talking to her. We’re working really hard round the clock to figure out who he is. We’re making progress.”
“And he killed Christof? How did he know Hailee was related to him or did he? What’s going on?” she asked with confusion and frowned.
“We think that he somehow knew Christof,” Jack said. “That’s why we’re talking to you.”
“You want to know if Christof knew this man? I don’t know,” she said weakly.
“You might know more than you think,” he said. “Did Christof or Victor mention doing business with anyone who was dangerous? Anyone who was obsessed with Hailee or young women like her?”
She shook her head and said, “I don’t know, Jack. Victor never discusses his family’s business with me.”
“Damn it, Liz,” he said. “If you’re holding out on me, you’re holding out on Hailee. She didn’t deserve this to happen to her. This wasn’t her fault. If your husband and his brother were doing dirty business deals or dealing drugs- like the feds suspect is what he’s actually importing- then you have to speak up. What about your son? They’ll come for him next if this is from a bad deal. The mob and their ilk will literally hire the scum of the earth to handle their dirty work. Serial killers have worked for them before.”
She swallowed hard but didn’t answer.
“I don’t know where else to look then,” he said and rose.
“The Neumann family doesn’t deal with people like that. I don’t know if they import drugs or not, Jack,” she admitted. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know. I know about the federal investigations, but I’ve never seen or heard the brothers discussing anything like that. I mean it, Jack.”
“Fine, then how did this man know Christof? He said in a text to Lorena that he never liked Christof. Why would he say that?”
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said.
“Do you think Christof ever actually molested Hailee in any way, touched her inappropriately?” Lorena asked.
Liz shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I hope not. I told you that I didn’t like the way he was taking pictures of just her on the beach. That wasn’t the only time he ever took a lot of pictures of her. I noticed it at family get-togethers, too.”
“Do you think when her mother passed away, and Victor was taking her to a psychologist…” Lorena started but was interrupted by Mrs. Neumann.
“No, Victor never took her. I took her. We’d already been…seeing each other, so I took her. It was my idea to get her therapy in the first place, so I took her. Victor wasn’t actually all that open to it at first. But I thought that if I was a little girl who’d gone through something so horrible as losing my mother, I’d want someone to talk to. I also worried about her. Hailee’s grades had started slipping, and she was starting to lose interest in…well, everything.”
“What’s the therapist’s name?” Jack pressed. “We’ll want to talk to him.”
“Her, Dr. McCabe was a woman, and she passed away just a few years ago.”
“Damn it,” Jack swore. “Who else would Hailee have confided in if Christof had molested her or that she had a boyfriend in secret? The music teacher? Do you think she would’ve told him that she didn’t like or trust her uncle?”
“I doubt it. And I don’t have any proof or confirmation of Christof doing that, either. I just didn’t like the way he was with her.”
“Why wouldn’t she have confided that in you, Mrs. Neumann?” Lorena asked. “I mean, you are her step-mother.”
She sighed and adjusted her impeccably-styled, blonde hair. “Hailee and I weren’t always close. She didn’t like that I wouldn’t go against Victor for her. I tried to, but Victor is…I knew Hailee loved art. That’s something we have in common. We’ve grown closer over the years, but I could never stand up to Victor. She showed me her art and shared that with me. As a matter of fact, I even hid some of it for her.”
“But she didn’t tell you about Christof or her boyfriend,” Jack stated, rather than asked.
“None of this makes any sense. Why would this man kill Christof and take Hailee? What does he want with our family?”
“I think he felt like he was protecting Hailee from Christof,” Lorena thought aloud what she’d been suspecting. “It’s why my mind comes back to the fact that she told him that her uncle, at the very least, made her uncomfortable.”
“But I just can’t think of who she would’ve confided something so personal with.”
“Think, Liz!” he barked angrily.
“Give her a sec,” Lorena jumped in. She rose and went to the window. The fog from earlier was lifting, and she could almost see clear across the lake. Most of the expensive homes on the lake had boat docks and some, like the Neumann’s, even had an actual boathouse. “Are there rooms in that boathouse?”
“Yes, yes, there are. Upstairs, of course. Well, downstairs there’s a small storage room for life jackets and things we use on the boat. As a matter of fact, that’s where Hailee and I ended up hiding some of her art.”
Lorena’s eyes jumped to Jack’s, and he said, “Why didn’t you tell us about that?”
“I didn’t think it was important. It’s not. It’s just her art.”
“When was the last time someone was down there?” Lorena asked.
“Months, I would guess,” she said. “Victor goes down from time to time to check on everything. But the last time we took out the boat was probably last fall, in October. He rarely takes time to do things like that. He’s always too busy.”
“Stay here,” Lorena ordered.
“Wait, you’ll need a key,” she said and dug around in her desk until she found the key with the long, pink satin ribbon attached. “Victor’s paranoid. He’s always worried someone’s going to steal something.”
Lorena said, “Don’t discuss any of this with your husband.”
“No, I won’t,” she said. “Victor’s still downstairs talking with the FBI agents, the local police, and his lawyer.”
“We’ll be back,” Lorena said.
They left out the back door and walked down to the boathouse without being noticed. Lorena stepped onto the ramp and walked around on the lower dock first. A speedboat was docked there as well as a long pontoon boat meant for more leisurely tours of the big lake.
She checked out the storage room, searched it thoroughly, and went upstairs where she used the key to enter. It was a long, rectangular room with cedar on the walls and ceiling and contained a game room with a pool table, wide-screen te
levision and sound equipment. She found a full bathroom, another storage room and a small bedroom with double bunks, probably meant for teenagers to hang out or have sleepovers. Victor was so strict, she doubted he ever let Hailee have guests overnight.
“In here!” Jack called from the other room.
Lorena joined him in the storage room where he showed her the stashed artwork high on a shelf. Most of the paintings were small enough to hide away easily. They found another behind a cabinet. Many of her paintings were of flowers and the lake view and small animals. But a few were darker images of a macabre nature, faceless images on a canvas of stormy grays and black.
“And Basil Kovak isn’t on the radar anymore, so what are you hoping to discover?” Jack asked as he placed the secret works of art back where he found them.
“Remember the first day we arrived?” she asked, getting a nod. “There were muddy footprints, more than one set, leading down here. It was soggy, really wet ground, and even my shoes were leaving marks.”
“Could’ve been the feds tramping the scene.”
She nodded with a frown, “Maybe.”
“Say it,” Jack encouraged.
“What if she came out here to meet someone that day? What if this is where she usually met someone that she didn’t want her father to know about?”
“We already asked the boyfriend about the place,” he said.
“I know,” she said with a sure nod. “I don’t mean him. What if there’s someone else that she met, someone she confided in, showed her art to, told about her pervert uncle, shared the fact that she had a secret boyfriend?”
“I’m with you so far,” he conceded and stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“Either he followed us, saw us in that meeting last night with Christof, or he wanted him dead long before we interviewed him.”
“I’d say that’s true,” he said. “Except we know he didn’t come in the restaurant. After us, the only other person to enter the hotel was an old man and then a big group, a big family or something like that. I could see the front door from my seat.”
She nodded. “Right.”
