“You killed another kid, Randy? How could you? After what I went through the last time for you…” Rob shook his head, his face bright red with anger. “Not this time. I’m not helping you cover this one up.”
“Like hell you’re not. If I get caught, you get caught. You’d never let your precious reputation get tarnished. I own you.”
“Not anymore. I’m coming clean, and I’m going to make sure you never do anything like this again.”
Randy laughed, pointing the gun at Rob. “Big talk from the guy who’s not holding the gun. What are you going to do, tell Mom on me?”
I gasped. No wonder Randy had looked so familiar to me. I could see the family resemblance in the two brothers’ jaw lines and noses.
Rob finally looked in my direction when I gasped. He did a double take, his face a mixture of confusion and horror. “Ellie? What are you doing here?”
Their conversation took a moment to click in my addled mind. When it did, I felt sick at the realization that Rob knew all along who’d killed Eli. “You lying bastard!” I cried, my head hurting too much to come up with anything more biting to say.
Grinning, Randy said, “Oh, do you two know each other?”
Still gaping at me, Rob didn’t respond.
Anger boiled inside me. “You do realize that you didn’t simply help your brother cover up a murder,” I spat at Rob, hauling myself to my feet and taking a few steps toward him. “You helped him kill Eli Vanover. Eli wasn’t dead when the two of you strung him up.”
Rob’s eyes went wide. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, come on. It was obvious that Eli’s death wasn’t a suicide. You two geniuses didn’t cover your tracks at all.”
Randy scoffed, “Then how come the cops haven’t picked us up yet? They don’t have a damn clue.” He regarded me for a moment, then his face twisted into a scowl. “Wait a minute. Robby, is this your new cop girlfriend you told me about?”
Rob frowned at me, ignoring his brother. I glared right back at him.
Randy began pacing around, shaking his head. “This is a problem, Robby. Your lady here lied to me earlier. She told me she was a teacher, not a cop. And now you’ve shot off your damn mouth about what we did.” He stopped pacing and gestured to me. “The bitch knows too much.”
As Randy pointed his gun in my direction, Rob leaped in front of me. A shot rang out. I screamed as Rob groaned in pain and fell back, knocking me to the floor with him.
I heard Baxter’s voice yell, “Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department! Put down your weapon!”
I looked up in time to see Randy swivel around to point his gun at Baxter, but he was too slow. Baxter put three shots into the middle of his chest, and Randy dropped to the floor.
Rob shouted, “No!” He rolled off me, grunting in pain as he crawled across the floor toward his brother.
Sterling and a wave of deputies and EMTs poured into the tiny house. Baxter hurried over to me. Picking me up off the floor, he asked, “Are you okay? Are you hit?”
Overcome with emotion, I couldn’t speak. I shook my head.
He held me in a crushing hug. His voice tight, he said, “Next time, you tell me where you’re going. I almost got here too late.”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, burying my face in his chest and squeezing my eyes shut to keep the tears from flowing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Baxter led me outside and sat me down on the tailgate of his SUV. He sat next to me. We didn’t speak for a while as we watched Sterling gently guide a shell-shocked Maddie out of the house and toward one of the ambulances.
“How did you know to come out here?” I asked Baxter.
Looking away, he said, “I had your cell phone tracked.”
I was slightly miffed at his admission, but thankful for the outcome. “But how did you know to bring the cavalry with you?”
“Long story, although lucky for us the pieces fell together fast. After our meeting, I had a message waiting for me from Tristan Sellers. Evidently, Vanover did have a stash, and he hid it in Sellers’s rollerblades. When Sellers went to put them on this morning, he found the stash. There were some drugs, but more importantly, he found the flash drive with the video we’d been looking for.”
“Finally. What was on that video?”
“An exchange between Judith Cooper and Randall Larson. Here.” He started the video on his phone and handed it to me.
The video showed Randy and Mrs. Cooper sitting on a bench on Ashmore College’s front lawn.
Her voice terse, Mrs. Cooper said, “I told you not to come here.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d pay me what you owe me,” Randy replied.
“I told you it would take me another week.”
Randy shrugged. “Change of plans. I want it now.”
“As I said before, you’ll get it. I don’t want to raise any suspicion with my husband by withdrawing such a large sum at this time.”
“That’s not my problem, Mrs. Cooper. If I happen to let it slip to anyone about our working relationship, it would seriously damage your credibility around here. You wouldn’t want anyone to find out you put a hit out on some poor innocent girl.”
“Poor innocent girl?” Mrs. Cooper let out a bark of laughter. “You have some gall asking for your money early, considering the shoddy job you did planting the evidence—I hear the police are looking at my son, not my husband. If my son is blamed for this, you might not get your money at all.”
“I’d be careful if I were you. If I don’t get my money, I’ll start with ruining your life. You won’t like where it goes from there.”
“Who do you think anyone is going to believe—some thug or me?”
Randy leaned toward her. “I can be very persuasive.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“You catch on fast, Mrs. Cooper. You’re a smart cookie.”
She gave him a cold stare. “You’ll get your money.”
“I’ll be back for it tomorrow. Pay it or else.”
Mrs. Cooper stood up and stalked away from Randy. Randy turned his head and seemed to zero in on the camera. Getting up slowly, he began walking closer and closer. The camera angle started jiggling, and a young man’s voice said, “Shit! I think he saw us.” After that, the video cut off.
I handed the phone back to Baxter and stared at him in shock. “Mrs. Cooper was the mastermind?”
“Scary, huh? After we watched the video, we arrested Mrs. Cooper and persuaded her to tell us who the guy was. Turns out Randall Larson handles a lot of George Cooper’s business for RZL Security and he works on the side for none other than Morris Powell.”
“You’re kidding. He’s the connection to Powell Stone Supply.”
“Right. He also has a rap sheet a mile long, mostly assault and domestic. When we couldn’t locate him at home or at work, we tracked his cell phone. When I realized he was heading in your direction, I mobilized the entire county.”
I nodded, trying not to think about what might have happened to me if Baxter hadn’t shown up when he did. “So Mrs. Cooper did all this—had three kids killed and framed her husband—because her husband cheated on her? Did she forget that she married a politician?”
Shrugging, he said, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
“You and your fortune cookie sayings. At least you’ve quit with the bad puns.” I laughed, but then winced and grabbed my temple as a shooting pain coursed through my head.
Baxter’s expression grew concerned as he took my chin and turned my face toward him to inspect the area where I’d been hit. “What happened?”
“Randy pistol-whipped me. It hurts like a bitch.”
“You need to get that checked out.”
“I’m fine. I—”
I stopped suddenly as I saw the EMTs wheel Rob out of the house on a stretcher. There was a large bloody bandage covering his right shoulder. It must have been where Randy shot him while he was trying to save me. I wondered what h
e was feeling right now. He had fought bitterly with his brother, only to watch him die seconds later. Part of me wanted to go to him, to comfort him and thank him for saving my life. But another part of me was so angry it overshadowed my feelings of gratitude. Rob had helped his brother commit murder. Maybe Eli had been unconscious at the time they strung him up and Rob mistook him for dead. But when Eli started clawing at the noose and trying to get away, Rob shouldn’t have stood by and let him die. That was one thing I could never forgive.
“Don’t do that,” said Baxter.
Breaking out of my thoughts, I asked, “Do what?”
“Blame yourself for not knowing your rent-a-cop was a scumbag.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s my job to find teeny, tiny specs of evidence and to be able to think like a criminal. I’m supposed to notice everything. How did I not notice I was dating a murderer?” I even wondered if Rob had led me on in hopes of getting case information out of me, or worse yet, if he’d intended to try to convince me to alter my evidence to ensure he didn’t get caught.
“It could happen to anyone,” he said.
“That is such bullshit, and you know it.”
Baxter chuckled and got to his feet. Holding out his hand to help me up, he said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s time to get your head examined. Literally. Your ambulance awaits.”
I could feel the swelling and pressure spreading its way across the side of my face, so I didn’t argue. Before I could reach out and take Baxter’s hand, he dropped it to his side. I followed his worried gaze to the police vehicle that had just arrived. A stern-looking man in a rumpled suit got out and started making his way toward us.
“You’re going to have a shitty week, aren’t you?” I asked.
He blew out a breath. “That’s an understatement. IA doesn’t waste any time after an officer-involved shooting. I’ll be tied up for a while, but I’ll be in touch. Feel better, okay?”
“Good luck.”
I watched as Baxter handed his gun over to a deputy and was whisked away by the IA officer. I didn’t envy the coming days for Baxter. He would be put through the wringer—his competence, ethics, and judgment all called into question. And it was all because I tried to handle a situation on my own.
My head started pounding again as my mind replayed the events of this afternoon in a distorted, never-ending loop: Randy gunning down Tad, Tad bleeding out on the floor, Maddie weeping over Tad’s body, Rob getting shot protecting me, and Baxter shooting Randy. In a numb fog, I walked to the ambulance, wishing to pass out from the pain so the horrible images I’d witnessed today would quit flooding my thoughts.
***
I was diagnosed with a mild concussion, so I took a week off school to rest and recover. Mrs. Cooper’s firing of me didn’t stand. Since she was in jail for conspiracy to commit murder, she was no longer in charge of Ashmore College. The vice president had taken over her job and deemed my termination unfounded because she’d fired me over a personal issue and in a fit of rage. I still had a job, and I considered myself lucky for that.
After being briefed about what happened, Jayne came to the hospital to check on me during my seven-hour stint in the ER. Even though I tried to hide my guilt and depression from her, she saw right through me and put me in therapy for an hour a day with the county’s psychologist. The psychologist and Jayne both insisted that none of the events that had occurred were my fault. Jayne said Randall Larson had been tracking Tad and Maddie for days and had finally caught a break on the day I happened to visit them. She stressed to me that everything else that happened was a result of the bad choices Randy had made. The therapy helped somewhat, but I couldn’t manage to get the graphic images of the events of that day out of my head.
The following Saturday I went to school to work on the fingerprint lab I had planned for Monday’s classes. In the time I was off, I’d missed teaching, and I was ready to put everything behind me and get back to my normal life. I always enjoyed this lab in particular. It gave my students their first chance to witness the magic of how Super Glue fumes adhere to fingerprints and bring them to life. I was retrieving the last cyanoacrylate fuming chamber from the forensics storage cabinet when Baxter called me.
After I answered, he said, “I hear you’re back to the land of the living.”
“I suppose.” I felt better physically, but emotionally I was still a wreck.
“Want to meet for coffee? I can tell you all about my week from hell.”
“Coffee? What, no drinks at O’Loughlin’s?”
“I figured you were on pain meds or something and couldn’t drink.”
Fiddling with the latch on the door of the fuming chamber, I said, “Oh, right… I’m not supposed to drink for a while.”
Baxter and I made plans to meet later in the afternoon, and I went back to assembling the items I needed for my lab. When I was finished, I headed back to my office. As I rounded the corner, I bumped into someone coming the other way.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said automatically before realizing who it was.
Dudley Cooper stared down at me, his expression a mixture of surprise, hurt, and anger. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said quietly.
“I was, um…getting a lab together…for Monday.” I broke out in a sweat. I hadn’t spoken to Cooper since I lured him to his arrest.
“I’m leaving.”
My mouth dropped open. “Leaving? You mean you’re leaving Ashmore?”
“I’m leaving town.”
“Why? You were exonerated. I don’t underst—”
He waved his hand and cut me off. “It’s not about that.” His expression was hard. “My father was quick to assume I was guilty of murder and disowned me. And worse, my own mother allowed me to be accused of a crime she paid someone to commit.”
“I know you’re hurting, but what about your career? What about your research facility?” I asked.
Cooper let out a bark of mirthless laughter. “You think I could work day in and day out at that place after what happened there? Besides, who would help me run the facility?” Looking pointedly at me, he added, “My friends and colleagues all turned their backs on me and believed the worst. I can’t stay here.”
I closed my eyes, unable to meet his. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I didn’t have a choice. I was working for the Sheriff’s Department, and there was a warrant out for your arrest. They knew you’d been contacting me. If I hadn’t cooperated, I would have been charged with obstruction and put in jail myself.”
“So you chose to put me in jail instead.”
His words stung, but I didn’t defend myself. “Yes. And I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I do. Goodbye, Ellie.” He brushed past me and stalked down the hall.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel any worse about what had happened, but after talking with Cooper, I did. I trudged back to my office and fished around in my bag for my “water” bottle. I downed a swig and took sick pleasure in the way the clear liquid burned all the way down.
***
Later that afternoon, I met Baxter at a coffeehouse on Noblesville’s town square. He was already there when I arrived. I noticed he’d grown a beard during his time off. I thought it suited him—it made him look less baby-faced. I got some coffee and a chocolate bar and sat down with him.
He eyed my chocolate. “You’ve been off work for a week. What could possibly be stressing you out?” Even though he’d only known me a short time, Baxter knew my vices well—some of them, at least.
Ripping off the wrapper and taking a big bite of the chocolate, I mumbled, “I ran into Dudley Cooper earlier.”
“That must have been awkward. Have you not seen him since…?”
I shook my head and took another bite of the chocolate.
“Was he mad?”
“Um, yeah,” I said sarcastically. “He’s leaving town.”
Baxter shrugged. “I can’t say I blame him.”
“I guess not.” I studied him for a moment. “You seem pretty together after everything that went down. What’s your secret?”
“I won’t deny that it bothers me to have taken another person’s life. But at the same time, I feel like my actions were justified. The guy killed three kids, he tried to shoot you, and then he turned his gun on me. If I hadn’t stopped him, well…I think you know what could have happened.”
I shuddered. “I know. But don’t you feel…guilty? In the back of your mind, where things don’t always make sense?”
“Sometimes I have those thoughts, but I talked to the county shrink. A lot of cops think therapy is a crock of shit, but it was helpful to me.” He stopped, staring at me for a moment. “Wait. Are you feeling guilty about what happened? Is that why you’re bringing this up?”
I pretended to be engrossed in shredding my empty candy wrapper and didn’t meet his gaze. “No. I was just making conversation.”
“Liar. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not acting like yourself,” he said, concern in his voice.
“I have a concussion, you know.”
“No, there’s something else.”
I snapped, “I said I’m fine. Leave it.”
Baxter held up his hands in defeat. “Okay. Moving on. I talked to Sterling, and he said the DNA came back on the blood and epithelials underneath Vanover’s fingernails. It’s Randall Larson’s. His DNA was already in CODIS from when he was arrested for beating the hell out of his girlfriend last year.”
I sighed. Rob had told me that one of his brothers often fought with his girlfriend and got kicked out of the house. That would explain it.
“The DNA from the sweat stain you and Amanda found on Vanover’s shirt is a male familial match to Randall Larson, so as soon as we have confirmation it belongs to Rob Larson, we’ll have enough evidence to put him away. We have your audio recording of him admitting what he did, plus he entered a guilty plea, so being able to physically tie him to Vanover makes it a slam dunk. Good job.”
Bitter Past Page 28
