by Lauren Carr
“Toby Winter? Lorraine’s son.”
“And Virgil referred to Toby in that recording,” she said.
“I think we’re on to something. Maybe Larry was telling the truth about him and Rachel Hilliard having nothing to do with Ava’s and Virgil’s murders.”
“Oh, it gets better,” she said. “According to the claim, Russell was driving—”
“Wait a minute,” Joshua said. “All four of them were in the truck?”
“Virgil and Toby were in the back in the bed of the truck,” she explained. “In the statement, their father says Russell hit a deer. Then, he lost control of the truck and hit a tree. The truck was still drivable, so they took it home and their father filed a claim first thing Tuesday morning on September sixth. It was Labor Day weekend and Slim’s office was closed on Monday.” Reaching across the table, she flipped open the folder. “Take a look at the pictures of the damage. Tell me what you see.”
Joshua studied the images of the crumbled passenger side front and side fender of the big green pick-up truck. Even in the yellowed pictures, he could make out red paint.
“Slim said he saw blood, too,” she said. “That’s where the deer comes in—to explain the blood on the front grill.”
“Did he believe they hit a deer?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Because of the paint transfer, Slim was convinced they hit another car when they lost control after hitting the deer. He thought Brandon Null paid the owner of the other car out of pocket so that it wouldn’t go on his driving record with the insurance company. People do that all the time.” She added, “O’Reilly’s car was red, by the way.”
Joshua peered at the image of a close up of the smashed in fender. The image of the tire was clear in the picture. “I’m assuming the truck is gone.”
“Long gone,” she said, “But this picture shows the tread of the tire. We’re reaching, but don’t you think our forensics people should be able to compare this tread pattern to that on the hubcap for Douglas O’Reilly’s car? They probably won’t be able to be conclusive in determining if this is the actual truck that struck him. What do you think?”
Joshua closed the folder and slid it across to her. “It’s worth a shot.”
She slipped the folder into her valise. “You’re not going to talk me out of it? Tell me that I’m wasting my time on a case that no prosecutor in his right mind would want to pursue?”
“Your case and mine are now connected,” Joshua said. “In order to prove motive for Russell and Lipton killing Virgil and Ava, we need to prove that they were involved in the hit and run that killed Douglas O’Reilly. Their motive for the double murder was to prevent Virgil from spilling the beans about their cover up to Ava, O’Reilly’s girlfriend.”
“Considering that all of the physical evidence is gone, that’s a pretty tall order, Mr. Thornton.”
“I think you’re up to the challenge.” Joshua picked up his spoon again. “Assuming you’re right that forensics will be unable to conclusively match the tread of the truck tire to the tread mark on O’Reilly’s hubcap, what’s next?”
“Old fashion gum-shoeing,” she said. “Four young men killed an innocent bystander changing a flat tire on his way to meet his girlfriend. By covering it up, they inadvertently made it look like a suicide? Obviously, two were feeling a lot of guilt about it. One committed suicide.” She shook a finger at him. “Remember I told you Toby Winter hung himself in Raccoon Creek. There had to be a significance to that place. It was where his life changed forever—and where he ended it.”
“And after he died, Virgil decided to make things right,” Joshua said.
“All those years, all that guilt building up,” she mused, “Toby had to have talked to someone about it. I’m going to need to talk to his mother.”
“Lorraine Winter?” Shaking his head, Joshua sucked in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t go talk to her without a backup.”
“Like you?” she asked innocently.
“Maybe Tad,” he said. “He does have a way with women. Even the most hostile soften under his spell.”
“Based on what I’ve seen of Lorraine Winter, she’s immune to any charm,” Cameron said. “But don’t worry. I can handle her. Since Toby committed suicide in my jurisdiction, I have access to the original police report. They would have had to have talked to her and taken her statement at the time. You would think that if he had told her anything about the hit and run that she would have mentioned it.”
“Unless she was too ashamed of her son being involved in something like that,” Joshua said. “I remember hearing that Toby did leave a suicide note, but Lorraine never told anyone what was in it.”
“Maybe it was a confession about the cover up of the accident,” Cameron said. “I’ll go through Toby Winter’s file and then interview his mother to see what he may have told her or left in his suicide note. If she doesn’t know anything, do you remember anyone else who Toby was close to?”
Joshua slowly shook his head. “He really kept to himself. I remember that Virgil was the only friend he had.”
“Well then, after Mrs. Winter, that leaves Russell Null and Philip Lipton,” she said. “Considering that Virgil was his brother, maybe I can get Russell to turn on Lipton for being the bad guy. Lipton certainly appeared to be the aggressor in that recording.”
She sensed, rather than saw, the man making his way to them through the doorway and the crowd coming. Joshua saw the figure making a beeline for him, and at the same time he saw Cameron raise up out of her seat to grab the gun she wore on her hip.
“Thornton!” Philip Lipton blurted out while grabbing Joshua by the shoulder. “Who do you think you are?”
Joshua threw his hand straight up in an order for Cameron to stand down before turning to the enraged chief of the West Virginia state crime lab bureau in Weirton. In contrast to Lipton’s fury, Joshua was extremely calm. “I’m doing my job, what the voters elected me to do. Ensuring in every way possible that justice is carried out to the full extent of the law.”
“By going behind my back?”
“If that’s what it takes, Lipton.”
“Listen, Thornton.” Lipton threatened to poke Joshua in the chest with his finger. “I was nailing killers with my microscope while you were still figuring out how to woo cheerleaders with those baby blues of yours. I’ve always gone to bat for you, no matter how crazy your cock-eyed requests have seemed, and now this is how you pay me back? Sending in the FBI to take over my lab?”
“I didn’t send them in to take over your lab.”
“They came in with a warrant to collect every piece of evidence we have on four murders! Are you saying I’m dirty?”
“Are you?” Joshua asked. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were connected with the Ava Tucker and Virgil Null murders and had a conflict of interest?”
“I’m not!”
“You were there the night Virgil Null and Ava Tucker were killed,” Joshua said.
Philip Lipton’s mouth dropped open.
“As soon as you became head of the crime lab, you also checked out their evidence boxes,” Joshua added. “Makes me wonder what you did to that evidence.”
“Virgil Null was a friend! His brother had been my best friend! I wanted to see if I could uncover anything to find out who did do it.”
“But you failed to mention in all these years that you were on the scene right before the murders?”
“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Lipton grabbed Joshua by the front of his shirt.
Her hand on her gun, Cameron stepped forward.
“Stay back, Cam!” Joshua ordered her before peering into Philip Lipton’s angry eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing, and so do you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I got the tape. I heard it all. The whole conversation between you, Russell, and Virgil Null—right before Virgil and
Ava Tucker were murdered.”
Slowly, Philip Lipton released his hold on Joshua’s shirt.
A collective sigh was heard throughout the restaurant.
Lipton’s expression switched from fury to fear.
“The FBI is the least of your problems, Lipton,” Joshua said.
“What a day.” Cameron and Joshua had driven home in separate cars, and when she arrived home he was waiting for her on the porch. With a sigh, she slipped into his arms.
He hugged her tight. “Yeah, well we’re getting close. We’ll get these cases closed out and then I’ll take you away for a nice long weekend.”
“Right now, all I want is a nice long bath.”
“Alone?”
Giggling, she looked up at him.
“I think I can accommodate that.” Placing his hand under her chin, he tilted her head up to kiss her softly on the lips. She pulled him in tight against her. When he pulled back, he whispered, “Consider that a preview.”
Rowl!
Startled, Joshua whirled around.
With his back arched and his fur standing on end, Irving bounced along the edge of the porch, leapt up onto the railing, and jumped down over into the rose bushes.
“I guess he saw a squirrel,” Cameron said.
“You know he hates me.”
Cameron opened her mouth to argue. Deciding against it, she shook her head. “He’ll get over it.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will,” she insisted.
“He never got over my moving his cat treats to the upper cupboard.”
“You know, there are people who can’t accept change.” She placed her hands on her hips.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Just saying.” She went inside.
Joshua could see Irving glaring at him from the dark bushes. Like those of an unearthly creature, his emerald green eyes glowed with a fiery fury directed at him. “She’s mine,” Joshua told him in a harsh whisper. “Get your own girl.”
“He can’t,” Donny’s voice came out of the darkness. “He’s fixed. Cameron’s it.”
Startled to be caught arguing with Irving, Joshua tried to look innocent when Donny came up the steps from where he had walked home from a friend’s house.
“Betcha feel bad now for stealing his girl, huh?”
“Not really,” Joshua replied.
Inside the house, they found Cameron in the kitchen with Tracy and Hunter. Squeezed in between the two of them, Cameron was admiring pictures on Tracy’s cell phone.
“We have pictures of my engagement ring.” Tracy ripped the phone out of Cameron’s hand to run over and show her father.
“Why didn’t you bring it home?” Donny asked her.
“They have to size it,” Tracy said. “It won’t be ready for two weeks. So Hunter is going to bring it up to New York to give me later on this summer. That’s when we’ll set a date for the wedding.” She squealed with delight when she said the word ‘wedding.’
“It’s a custom design. One of a kind.” Hunter explained that they had found a custom jewelry shop in Pittsburgh. “The diamond is a whole carat.”
“Sounds pricy and looks expensive,” Joshua said. “Will Dolly’s lawyer release the money for that from her estate?”
“He says he will,” Hunter said. “He also agreed with you that it’ll be best to sell her house and for us to buy our own place. He’ll even help us find a place out of town.”
Cameron contained the sigh of relief threatening to work its way to her lips.
Noticing that the box he had left for Joshua that morning was now in the study, Hunter asked if he had a chance to go through it. “Did you find anything that can help us?”
While inviting Hunter to sit down, Joshua pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “Something very interesting.”
“What?”
They all sat around the kitchen table.
“Your father was on to something,” Joshua told them. “He was on the brink of uncovering a murder spree involving Congresswoman Rachel Hilliard. She used to be a call girl at Dolly’s and had all of her co-workers killed to cover up her past.”
“Do you mean Congresswoman Hilliard had a deputy killed?” Donny gasped.
Tracy’s eyes were wide.
“I don’t think so,” Joshua said.
“Why not?” Hunter asked.
“Because we got the hit man she tasked to do the job and he says he had a meeting set up, but your father didn’t show.”
“And you believe him?” Hunter asked in a tone filled with doubt.
“Actually, I do,” Joshua said. “He was straightforward about committing several murders on her behalf, including a capital offense of killing Congressman Rod Hilliard and two innocent passengers on his plane. Why not confess to killing a deputy?”
Cameron said, “He stated that he had an appointment to meet your father in the park at four o’clock. We found your dad’s note about the appointment, and he had the time set for four, but then crossed it out to make it one.”
“The hit man denies changing the time,” Joshua said. “I met your father at Alison’s diner a little bit before one o’clock when he was picking up his lunch and on his way to the park to meet his CI. I think someone who knew about that appointment moved up the time in order to get Mike out there earlier and kill him before he met with the person he thought was his confidential informant.”
“Actually, it was someone else who was planning to kill him,” Donny pointed out. “Talk about irony.”
Joshua said, “Most likely, whoever moved the time didn’t know that, which tells me Mike’s killer may not have had any connection to the case he was working on.”
“Have you eliminated Russell Null and Philip Lipton as suspects?” Cameron asked Joshua.
“I don’t think they did it,” he said. “Remember Larry stated that he told the sheriff at the time about seeing Russell Null and Philip Lipton at the club and about them arguing with Virgil. Well, that is nowhere in the police report. I’m convinced Russell’s father used his influence to have that kept out of the case file, so Mike wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect them.”
“The only way we knew about the confrontation was Dolly’s recording,” Cameron said. “That may have been why Lipton checked that evidence box and case file as soon as he came to work for the state lab here. He wanted to make sure Russell and him were in the clear.”
“Unless Dolly told him,” Joshua said, “Mike would not have known they were at the club on the night of the murder. They would have been nowhere on his radar.”
“He would have questioned Russell because he was the brother of one of the victims,” Cameron said. “But if Mike didn’t suspect anything, Russell would have had no reason to panic.”
“Then who killed him?” Hunter asked.
“I want to talk to your mother again,” Joshua said. “According to the hit man, he had left a message with her. So she knew about that appointment. I want to know who she may have told.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Belle Fontaine uttered a gasp of pleasant surprise when she answered the doorbell to find a horde of visitors standing on her doorstep. “Well,” she demurred, “I guess I should have been expecting a visit from all of you eventually.” She opened the door wider to allow Hunter, Tracy, Donny, Cameron, and Joshua to enter. “We’re going to be family, but I was planning to invite you all for dinner.” With a wave of her hand, she ushered them into the living room. “We can have drinks.”
Contrary to Royce’s insistence that his wife was too distraught to answer questions about the case, Belle appeared elegant in lilac-colored lounging pajamas with a form-fitting- floor-length-robe over them. She clutched a cup of tea in her hand.
Joshua kissed her on the cheek. “You look lo
vely, Belle.” He called into the living room where her husband looked like he had just sucked on a very sour lemon. “Not at all what I expected, Royce.”
“Why not?” she asked Joshua. “Oh, you mean about Mike. Well, that is all a shock, but I’m getting over it. I had a talk with Tad today and he’ll be releasing the body. Finally, we can give Mike a proper burial. Did you find anything helpful in that box that I gave Hunter?”
“What box?” Royce asked in a sharp tone.
“I remembered a box I kept in the back of my closet that I had put everything from Mike’s desk into,” Bell said. “I gave it to Hunter to take over to Joshua’s.”
“Yes,” Joshua said, “it was very helpful.” He noticed Royce move over to the bar.
“Royce,” Belle said, “I believe we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Why don’t we break that open to toast Hunter and Tracy’s engagement?”
“I don’t need any,” Cameron said. “Thank you, Belle.” In response to their host’s questioning expression, she explained, “I don’t drink alcohol. A soda will be fine for me, please.”
“I’ll have what Cam’s having,” Donny said, “especially if you can put a scoop of ice cream in it.”
“Oh, please come into the living room and tell us,” Belle said. “I want to hear all about what Josh has uncovered. I swear, if it turns out I had the answer in that box all these years, I’ll kill myself.” Slipping her hand through his arm, she escorted Joshua into the living room and pulled him down onto the sofa to sit next to her.
In the recliner across from him, Cameron arched an eyebrow at the sight of Belle with her hands clasped on Joshua’s elbow. Royce’s jealous expression brought a smirk to her lips. After a long stretch of silence, Royce cleared his throat.
“Did you find the champagne, dear?” Belle asked him.
