Murder Strikes Twice: A Catrina Flaherty Mystery, Book 2 (Catrina Flaherty Mysteries)

by Pendelton Wallace

  “Your photos on ChristianSingles sure don’t do you justice.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad to finally meet you after all those emails.” Hailey turned and walked down the hallway.

  “You sure look good for a first date,” he said, as he settled himself on the couch.

  “You said to dress nice,” she yelled from the bathroom. “Where are we going?”

  “I thought we’d start at the Brooklyn Café, then I know a little blues club down on the waterfront.”

  “Sounds good to me,” She shouted. “I love blues.”

  Brody already knew that. Hailey listed dozens of blues tunes on her Facebook page. “Good, we already have something in common.” Not! He couldn’t stand those guys caterwauling about losing their job and dog and the woman who did them wrong.

  Brody glanced around the apartment. Most of the furniture was garage sale modern, an unmatched sofa and recliner, a maple table with three different kinds of chairs. Hailey had lots of framed photographs. He walked over to the side table and started looking at the pictures.

  There was Hailey with a Labrador Retriever, Hailey with her friends and what had to be a wedding picture of her parents. One photo was laying facedown on the table. He lifted it to see what it was. A young girl, must be Hailey, with a teenage girl . . .

  “Ready to go.” Hailey said, as she emerged from the bathroom.

  Brody dropped the picture and checked out his date. Her dress was modest enough, not too short nor too low cut, but it clung to her body like a second skin.

  He led her downstairs and opened the door to his Mercedes for her. He didn’t miss the way her eyes went wide when she realized it was his car.

  They chatted amicably as he drove off the hill towards downtown. His mind was not on the conversation. Hailey was not the kind of girl he usually picked out. She didn’t have any appreciable assets, no cash, no jewelry, no bank accounts and no house, but she did have other assets he wanted. All he needed to do was to steer the conversation the right way.

  “Here we are,” he said, as they pulled up in front of the restaurant.

  The valets opened both car doors and the couple got out, leaving the engine running. Brody handed the valet a twenty dollar bill. “Take good care of my baby. I don’t want to find any scratches on her when I get back.”

  They entered the restaurant and were seated at a high-backed leather booth a step above floor level.

  “I may have said it before, but you look absolutely beautiful,” Brody said.

  Hailey tilted her head to one side and smiled. “Thank you, you’re not dog meat either.”

  He had to play this right, keep eye contact with her. If he let his eyes wander, she’d know what he was looking at and what he was thinking.

  “What kind of work do you do?” he asked. Rule number one: keep them talking about themselves. Women loved to talk about themselves.

  “Oh, I’m in the HR office at PACCAR. It’s just a job for now, you know. I’d like to find something more exciting.”

  “Exciting?” This was going to be too easy. “Are you a thrill-seeking girl?”

  “I guess you could say that. My family is so boring. My grandfather’s a preacher and my dad’s a software engineer. I spent a couple of years in Africa in the Peace Corps after college and that was exciting. I sailed on the Adventuress for five summers in high school and college and loved it . . .”

  “The Adventuress?” Brody wrinkled his brow.

  “Yes, she’s a sail training schooner. I got to teach underprivileged kids how to sail every summer. Anyway, I’d love to have the kind of job where I could travel, you know, to see different places and cultures.”

  Brody ordered a bottle of wine and turned back to the conversation. “That sounds perfect. You know, I’ve been looking at sailboats.” Just a little white lie.

  Hailey practically jumped across the table at him. “You have a boat?”

  “Not yet.” Brody held his hands up, palms out. “But I’ve been looking at them. I came into some money recently and I’m thinking about cruising around the world.”

  “Dude, that’s exactly what I want. Only I don’t have any money.”

  “But you know about sailing. Maybe you could help me find the right yacht.”

  ****

  Catrina had a bit of a mean streak in her. She called this meeting for eight in the morning, even though Higuera barely functioned before ten.

  He stumbled into her office, coffee cup in hand. Mary Beth Henderson, a short, thin woman in her early thirties with long black hair and big brown eyes was the next one to arrive.

  Mary Beth showed up with her usual smile and a bag of bagels.

  Abiba brought a pot of coffee and cups, along with cream and sugar.

  “We’re all here,” Catrina said, leaning against her desk top. “We might as well get started.”

  Higuera and Mary Beth sat at the chairs opposite Catrina’s dilapidated desk. Abiba brought in an old steel framed chair from the outer office.

  “MB, let’s start with you. What do you have for me?”

  Mary Beth didn’t have her PI license yet, but she showed remarkable talent in digging out hidden information.

  “I did all the research you asked for.” Mary Beth’s voice was just above a whisper. “I checked out the motels. I eliminated the Motel Sixes and Travel Lodges. I figured that a high roller like Brody would only go to a classy place.”

  “What did you find?” Catrina sipped her coffee.

  “I got lucky. The fourth hotel I looked at was the Sorrento. Seems like our Mr. Barrett was a frequent flyer.”

  Catrina smiled. Higuera made an unintelligible sound.

  “The desk clerk recognized his picture. He said it was Mr. Samuel Smith, not very inventive. Then I talked to the room service attendant. I gave her a hundred dollars, it’s noted in my expense report. When she saw that Franklin her eyes lit up and she told me everything.”

  “What did she say?” Abiba asked in her upper-class British accent.

  “Barrett was a regular. He always checked in by himself, but a different woman met him every time.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Catrina mumbled.

  “The women were always dressed in the latest fashions, wore expensive jewelry and carried designer handbags.” Mary Beth let that hang in the air for a moment. “They always ordered room service, never left the room.”

  “The bastard was shopping for a new meal ticket.” Catrina’s face looked like she just stepped in dog shit. “When did this start?”

  Mary Beth set her untouched coffee cup on Catrina’s desk. “At least six months before Mrs. Barrett died. The attendant said they always stayed one night.”

  “Great work, MB.” Catrina saluted Mary Beth with a raised her coffee cup towards her. “How did you do with the medical records?”

  Mary Beth smiled. “That was a little harder, you know, with HIPAA they won’t let any patient information out.”

  “Did you get anything?” Higuera raised an eyelid.

  “I used the social engineering skills you taught me. I convinced the nurse I was an adjuster from Lauren’s health insurance company.”

  “Way to go,” Catrina said.

  “Lauren was perfectly healthy,” Mary Beth continued. “And the child was healthy too. Normal birth, no complications.”

  “How about the hit on her head?” Abiba asked.

  “That’s another story. Mrs. Barrett suffered a severe concussion from the timber hitting her on the head. She had numerous cuts and bruises. Here’s the big item: an fMRI showed parts of her brain weren’t functioning.”

  “How could she continue to do her job as an optometrist with brain damage?” Catrina got off her desk and seated herself in her chair.

  “It wasn’t that severe and the brain is an amazing organ.” Mary Beth was rolling now. “The nurse said the brain re-wires itself. It finds other paths around the damaged area and keeps on ticking. According to the reports, it took a couple of weeks to
get her brain functioning at normal levels. The nurse said she had some memory loss for the day of the accident and a couple of days after.”

  “Holy shit.” Ted sat up straight in his chair. “When she said it was an accident, she didn’t even remember it. I’ll bet that Barrett convinced her to tell that to the police.”

  “Anything else on the medical records?” Catrina wheeled herself over to the coffee pot and refilled her cup.

  “No, that’s all that was interesting. I don’t think you want to hear about her blood test and all.”

  “What about the yachts? Did you find out anything about that?” Catrina rolled back to her place behind the desk.

  “I found out that some people live in a different world.” Mary Beth wrinkled her nose. “I talked to virtually every yacht broker in Seattle until I found someone who recognized Mr. Barrett. It was a guy at Salish Sea Yacht Sales at Shilshole Bay.”

  “Nice catch,” Catrina said.

  “Brody came in the first time right before the timber incident. He was looking at million dollar yachts.”

  “But he never bought anything?” Ted asked.

  “No. He just looked, but the salesman said he expected him to come back. He fell in love with a . . . a . . .” Mary Beth looked at her report. “Oh, yeah, a Cape Hatteras.”

  “That’s all circumstantial evidence,” Catrina said as she accepted Mary Beth’s report. “You got anything more?”

  “No. That’s it.”

  “Great work. Thank you, MB.” Catrina turned to her handsome young partner. “Higuera, what do you have for us?”

  The coffee took effect and Ted was hitting on most cylinders. “I did some checking on his business like you asked. I hacked into his computer systems and prowled around. Someone should tell this guy about network security. He didn’t even have a password on his WiFi network, then he had one of those hard drives with a hidden partition. He never changed the default admin ID or password.”

  “Not everyone is as smart about computers as you are,” Abiba said.

  “Okay,” Ted continued, “The first thing I noticed is that his wife, the one who made the big bucks, didn’t have an account of her own. All of their money was in joint accounts. That is, except his business. He was the only signer on that.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Catrina said, flashing back to her own failed marriage. “A control freak like Barrett isn’t going to let the little woman have any money of her own. That keeps her dependent on him.”

  “I looked at his financial records,” Ted continued. “He must take money in, because he sure spends a lot. I just didn’t see any records of him making big bank deposits. He’d put a few thousand in his business checking from time to time. It was always a cash deposit.”

  Ted stretched. “That made me curious. I took Leah’s list of donors and hacked into their bank accounts. I found some pretty big checks they wrote to Barrett.”

  “So, he gets big checks but doesn’t deposit them?” Catrina asked.

  “Yeah, I suspect he’s cashing them. That way there’s no paper trail that he received the money.”

  “That’s good.” Catrina rubbed her hands together. “That’s really good. If we can get our hands on the checks, we have his signature. That’s hard evidence. What else did you find?”

  “Well, we already know he spends a lot.” Ted pushed back the lock of black hair that always seemed to fall into his left eye. “A new Mercedes, nice clothes, expensive hotels. I did find where he wrote checks to some local charities. I think they were events his church sponsored. Small stuff. You know, it made him look good in front of his patsies. I never saw any donations to the big charities he said he represented.”

  “What an evil man.” Abiba practically jumped out of her chair. “To take in all that money for charities, then keep it for himself.”

  “I poked around a little on the websites of the charities he said he represented. Most of them had pages listing major donors. Neither Barrett nor his company were listed on any of them.”

  “Could you find out how much money he was taking in?” Catrina asked.

  “I can’t give you anything definitive,” Ted answered. “As near as I can tell it was over a hundred-thousand a year. I got that by adding up the checks written by his donors, but there could easily be lots more donors I don’t know about. This could be a major scam.”

  “I’m sure SPD will want to hear about that.” Catrina clapped her hands together. “Good work, guys. I feel like we’re starting to make some progress.”

  “Ah, Cat,” Ted said, “I have something else I think you should know.”

  “Yes?” Catrina grabbed for her notepad again.

  “While I was researching Barrett, I discovered something else. It really doesn’t pertain to the case, but she might be in danger.”

  “Who?” Catrina asked.

  “Hailey Waitley.”

  Catrina furrowed her brow. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

  “She’s the Reverend Dr. Thomas Waitley’s granddaughter.”

  “Okay, got it. So why could she be in danger?”

  “She’s started seeing Barrett. They met on Christian Singles and have had several dates. I don’t like where this is going. If he marries her, it’s probably a matter of time until he kills her.”

  “Does she have any money?” Mary Beth asked.

  “I really haven’t looked into her much yet. I know her grandfather is a minister, Barrett’s minister, as a matter of fact. He doesn’t have any money. I know her father is a software engineer and her mother is an executive at Boeing. Between them, they must have a pretty good income, but I don’t think Hailey is some sort of trust fund baby or anything.”

  “Check her out, MB.” Catrina looked worried. “We don’t need any more bodies on this case.”

  ****

  Mary Beth Henderson sat at her desk all morning, combing through the paperwork on another case, the Jorgensen divorce. Somewhere in here there had to be a clue. Leah was so good at finding this kind of stuff, why had Cat assigned it to her?

  Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the phone number. Who could that be?

  She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Miz Henderson, this is Jack Petty, at Salish Sea Yacht Brokers . . .” The voice had a familiar Texas drawl.

  The yacht broker, what could he want?”

  “Yes?”

  “Ah remembered that you were in here a few days ago askin’ ‘bout Brody Barrett.”

  She perked up. “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought I should give y’all a call. He just bought a Hans Christian 40.”

  “He bought a what?”

  She heard a chuckle through the phone. “You’re not a sailor, are ya? A Hans Christian 40 is a big, tough ocean-going sailboat.”

  The palms of Mary Beth’s hands tingled as she reached for a notepad. “How far could a boat like that go?”

  “Miz Henderson, it could go anywhere. Anywhere in the world.”

  Oh, my gosh!

  “Wow! I didn’t know he was a sailor.”

  “Well, ma’am, Ah don’t think he is. He don’t know the first thang ‘bout sailin’, but the pretty young thang who was with him, she knew a lot. She asked all the right questions.”

  “A girl? Can you describe her?”

  “Sure, she’s hard to miss. A tiny little thang, no bigger ‘n a minute. Blonde hair, blue eyes and, if you’ll pardon me miss, she was built like Sofia Vargara. Easy on the eyes.”

  That must be Hailey Waitley.

  “Thank you so much for calling, Mr. Petty. I can’t tell you how important this is.”

  “Well that’s not why ah called y’all. Somethin’ about this deal just didn’t feel right. For one thang, they insisted on immediate delivery. They didn’t even wait for a survey.”

  “Ah . . . what’s a survey?” Mary Beth put her pad aside and opened a Word document.

  “A survey is like havin’ yer house inspected be
fore ya buy it. Ya know, ya want to know if there’s termites or the plumbin’ don’t work. It’s like that with a boat. Ya haul it out of the water and have a professional crawl all over it to find any problems. They didn’t want that. They said if I couldn’t deliver the boat this week, they’d go somewhere else.”

  “It sounds like they were in a hurry to go somewhere.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Petty, thank you again. Oh, by the way, can you tell me where the boat’s located?

  “Uh, let me see.” Mary Beth heard some papers being shuffled. “Here it is, it’s at Seattle Marina.”

  “One more thing. What’s the boat’s name? How will I recognize it?”

  Petty chuckled. “Miz Henderson, it’s a big white sail boat. A sloop, that means she only has one mast. Her name is Dawn Treader.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Petty, good bye.”

  She slammed down the phone and thought. Cat needs to know about this. Right now!

  ****

  Catrina put her Explorer on cruise control and motored down I-5 with her mind half on her driving. The other half wandered to the past.

  She couldn’t drive down this stretch of road to Tacoma without thinking of Mandy Alcott. Mandy was the horribly abused wife of the Tacoma Police Chief. Catrina helped Mandy take the kids and leave him. Sweat broke out on her forehead as she recalled the scene in the K-Mart parking lot. Mandy and her husband’s brains splattered all over the windshield of their Camry, the kids screaming. She should have killed the bastard when she had the chance. She’d never let that happen again.

  The ringing phone snapped Catrina back to the present. She saw from the message on her radio readout that it was Mary Beth. She took a calming breath and pushed the “talk” button on her steering wheel.

  “Hi, MB, what’s up?”

  “I just heard from the yacht broker.”

  Catrina wrinkled her brow. “Yacht broker?”

  “Yeah, you know the guy who was trying to sell Brody Barrett a boat.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Catrina scanned her mirrors. “What did he want?”

  “Mr. Barrett just bought a boat. A big sail boat that the broker says can go anywhere in the world.”