Dead Drop (A Cal Murphy Thriller Book 9)

by Jack Patterson

  The door slowly swung open, and the detectives entered amid a flurry of cameras clicking behind them. Quinn leaned against the door to close it shut once he was all the way inside. Rebecca Westin turned the deadbolt and gestured for them to enter the living room just off the main entryway.

  “This is a nice place you have here, Mrs. Westin,” Kittrell said.

  “Please, call me Rebecca,” she said. “And thanks.” She paused. “Can you tell me what this is all about? Have you found the killers?”

  Kittrell glanced at her hands, which she wrung several times before she took a seat on a small couch to the right of a larger couch. The detectives sat on the larger couch.

  “Did somebody knock, Becs? I heard—” A man appeared from around the corner, wearing a towel. His hair appeared wet. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Kittrell glanced at Rebecca, who’d put her head down and was shielding her eyes with her right hand. He then stood up and offered his hand. “Detective Mel Kittrell with the Seattle PD. And you are?”

  “Wet,” the man said. He wiped his hand off on his towel. “Jonathan Umbert, Sid Westin’s agent.”

  Quinn stood up and shook the man’s hand as well before sitting back down.

  “Would you care to join us?” Kittrell said before he sat down.

  Putting up both hands in a gesture of surrender, Umbert declined. “I don’t want to intrude. Besides, I need to finish getting ready.”

  “Just go, Jonathan,” Rebecca finally said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Umbert said before he scurried down the hall.

  “I apologize, Detectives. He stopped by to check in on me after his racquetball game at the gym this morning, and he had an emergency meeting suddenly scheduled that he needed to get ready for but didn’t have enough time. I told him he could shower here so he could make it in time.”

  “We’re not here to judge, Rebecca,” Kittrell said. He glanced at Quinn with a knowing look.

  Quinn leaned forward. “But we do have a few questions for you.”

  Rebecca turned over the newspaper that had been lying on the coffee table. “Okay, I’m happy to help however I can, especially if it’ll help catch the men who murdered my husband.”

  “There have been quite a few interesting developments in the case lately, but I first want to begin by asking you about the state of your marriage. I know better than to believe everything I read in the papers, so I thought it would be best to get the answer straight from you.”

  “I appreciate that, Detective. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the media made it out to be.” She clasped her hands together and gazed out the window for a moment before continuing, “It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t horrible. We had our issues like all married couples, but I’d say we got along quite peachy.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Quinn chimed in.

  “Yes, it certainly wasn’t the house of horrors the papers made it sound like it was. Is that why you stopped by? To find out about my marriage?”

  Kittrell shook his head. “Actually, we stopped by for a different reason.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “It’s about the van used in the robbery,” Kittrell said. “We were able to track it down a couple of days ago.” He eyed her cautiously, hoping to spot an expression or gesture that might give her away. Still nothing. “It was registered to your husband.”

  “Sid had a van?” she asked incredulously. “If he did, he neither told me about it, nor did he ever show it to me. Are you sure?”

  “It’s registered in his name right here,” Quinn said as he pulled out a copy from a file folder he was holding. He set it down on the table and pointed at Sid’s name.

  “Where would he have kept it?” Rebecca wondered aloud.

  “We were hoping you could help us with that, ma’am,” Kittrell said. “Did you have a weekend home on the water somewhere or a mountain cabin?”

  She nodded. “We have a cabin in the mountains just northwest of Port Angeles, but I would’ve seen it there.”

  Kittrell kept peppering her with questions. “A storage unit perhaps?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Did you store a boat anywhere?”

  “Yes, we did have a boat that he kept at Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island, but I don’t know of any storage space there where he would’ve been able to keep such a vehicle.”

  “I know the place,” Quinn said as he stood up. “We’ll go check it out.”

  Kittrell stood up as well and looked at the widow, who struggled to put forth a believable performance that she was indeed struggling with Sid’s death. “Look, I know this may be difficult for you as people sift through your life—especially the press—but I can assure you that we’ll be discreet about how we share information publicly. We’ll do our best not to blindside you.”

  “Thank you, Detective Kittrell,” she said, shaking his hand. “I appreciate that.”

  “Ma’am,” Quinn said, nodding at her before heading toward the front door.

  Kittrell lingered behind for a moment. “And if there’s anything else you want to tell us or feel like would help with our investigation, don’t hesitate to call me,” he said, slipping his business card into her hand. “From the appearance of things, this looks like a bank robbery gone bad, but this latest information about the van used by the thieves being registered in your husband’s name does make us want to take a deeper look at this. We’re not trying to stick our noses where they don’t belong, but we want answers just like you do.”

  “Thank you,” she said, sniffling as she looked down.

  Kittrell acted as though he was done, but he wasn’t. He took a deep breath as he initiated a tactic to draw what psychologists referred to as “door knob confessions.” But with his own twist. Patients often divulge the most pertinent information in a counseling session just moments before heading out the door. And while Kittrell wasn’t in a counseling session, he was tinkering with human psychology. He’d been a detective long enough to know that closing cases consisted of good work and oftentimes a bit of luck. And sometimes it was necessary to set a trap, panic the suspect, and collect the bounty—all part of his inventive door knob confession tactic.

  “Didn’t you have a break-in a few months ago?” he said as he grabbed the handle to the front door.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Well, I found it interesting that some of the bullets found at the scene of the bank robbery matched the markings of a bullet fired from your husband’s gun.”

  Rebecca furrowed her brow. “How would you know that?”

  “When he registered his gun, he fired a bullet and gave it to us just in case we ever needed it. It’s quite the coincidence, don’t you say?”

  She shook her head. “I—I don’t really know what to say.”

  “Your husband certainly didn’t come across as an avid fan of guns. But apparently he was. Looks like he was also skilled at keeping secrets.”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave, Detective.”

  “Perhaps you were more skilled than he was.”

  “Thank you, Detective. I’ve already had a trying enough morning with all the media reports swirling around about me. I’m not in the mood to take on more accusations. That will be all,” she said as she grabbed the door and started to close it.

  Kittrell stumbled outside in front of the gawking news media members, who captured the entire incident on film.

  “What was that all about?” Quinn said discreetly.

  “I just gave Mrs. Rebecca Westin reason to panic.”

  “In the vain of the late great Sid Westin, ‘You cheeky little devil.’”

  Kittrell suppressed a smile and headed toward their car. He didn’t want to give the media anything else to talk about. “Did you see this morning’s paper?”

  Quinn nodded. “Can’t believe you’re just now bringing this up. It would’ve been far more interesting than driving over here in silence—or listening to Mitch in the Morn
ings.”

  “We need to get a paper.”

  Quinn held up a copy he’d snagged on his way out of his apartment earlier that morning. “No need. We’ve got everything we need right here.”

  CHAPTER 16

  CAL SHUFFLED INTO THE OFFICE in time to make The Times’ sports department’s daily 3:30 PM budget meeting. The meeting consisted of an unscientific approach to culling out all the day’s news that wouldn’t be of interest to the majority of the Seattle area readers. Unlike some areas of the country where Cal had lived, Seattle sports fans were far more passionate about their teams than they were about the national perspective of a particular sport. If fans cared about the NFL, they only cared about the news coming out of the league office if it had anything to do with their beloved Seahawks. Major League Soccer fans wanted to know about Seattle FC, but nothing more. Baseball was the same way: If there was no Mariners’ news, the majority of fans didn’t care.

  But everyone cared about local celebrities and socialites. It’s why Cal’s story from the night before found its way not to the front of the sports section but to the front page of the entire paper.

  FBI Tracks PED Ring to Seattle; Eyes Late Soccer Star’s Wife read the headline emblazoned across the top of the paper.

  Cal adroitly wrote the piece based off the information given him in a way that cast suspicion on Rebecca Westin but protected the paper from any frivolous lawsuits. His article revealed that the FBI was investigating a performance-enhancing drug connection between Dr. Bill Lancaster, a doctor located in St. Louis, and Rebecca Westin. Cal’s FBI agent contact went on the record as a source and revealed that Rebecca was being investigated for being a distributor for Dr. Lancaster’s illegal activities. Reluctantly, Cal wrote the story. He’d expressed hesitation to involve himself in the reporting to Buckman fearing that he might compromise his current assignment. Buckman shrugged it off by saying that if any of his reporters were going to be digging around on this case, he wanted his star reporter doing it—even if there were two fantastic stories happening simultaneously.

  Cal couldn’t help but feel like perhaps the two were connected in some strange way, but he didn’t possess a shred of proof.

  Shifting in his seat, he looked at Josh Moore, who’d just slumped into his chair. Cal tried to get a read on his colleague and friend. “How was the funeral this morning?”

  Moore sighed. “It was a funeral. Lots of people talking about how awesome Sid was. I always hate going to funerals for people I didn’t know very well because it makes me wish I had gotten to know them.”

  “It still beats going to funerals of people you do know.”

  “Not if they’re people I never liked.”

  “Good point.”

  “Listen, I wish you’d give me a heads up about these stories,” Moore said.

  Cal tapped his pen on his pad and stared out the window of the conference room. “I didn’t want to write it at all, but Buckman insisted upon it.”

  “Either way, it makes my life more difficult.”

  Standing at the doorway, fellow sports writer Eddie Ramsey sighed loudly, drawing both Cal’s and Moore’s attention. “Cal is always making everyone’s life difficult,” Ramsey said as he sauntered into the room. “But he’s going to get his comeuppance soon enough. You can only live for so long on a reputation built ages ago. At some point, people are going to ask, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ And then they’ll look at Cal and realize the answer is nothing.”

  “Somebody’s off his meds this morning,” Cal quipped.

  Ramsey pulled out the chair next to Cal and sat down. “Cal, Cal, Cal—the guy who doesn’t realize that everybody else hates him because he’s a fraud.”

  Cal clenched his fists and prepared a witty comeback before deciding against it. Ramsey liked to get under his skin, which Cal assumed to be little more than professional jealousy. He hated that Ramsey’s comments bothered him more than they should have. Cal knew he should have ignored the petty quips and caustic cut downs, but he couldn’t. Instead, Cal spent time brooding over them.

  Other staff reporters wandered into the room, filling up the chairs until Buckman finally walked in five minutes past the hour. He hated to wait for anyone and had made a practice out of being late so as to be the final person to show up at a meeting.

  “Are we ready to begin?” Buckman asked as he collected a stack of papers on the conference room table.

  A few half-hearted nods signaled to Buckman that he was in control of the room and could begin whenever he pleased.

  “Very well then,” he began. “I want to talk about today’s paper before we get into what’s on tap for tomorrow.”

  Cal pushed his chair back a couple of feet and sighed. “Here we go again,” he muttered under his breath to Moore.

  “Nice of you to join us today, Cal,” Buckman said. “But I want to start with you.”

  “What did I do now?”

  “It’s what you didn’t do that has me pretty upset right now.”

  Cal scrunched up his face and stared at Buckman. “Okay. Would you mind elaborating?”

  “Perfect,” Buckman said. “That face you made right there. Don’t move. I want everyone to look at you.”

  Cal tried to hold the awkward expression so the rest of the people around the table could observe the big mistake he was apparently making—though he wasn’t sure what Buckman was talking about.

  Buckman snapped his fingers. “Exactly. Don’t you move, Cal.” He turned toward everyone else. “That look right there—it shows contempt.”

  “Contempt?” Cal said. “Annoyance maybe, but not—”

  Buckman wagged his finger at Cal. “No, no, no. Keep your mouth shut. We don’t need you to interject any comments. We just need that expression on your face.”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Cal protested.

  “Yet, you did—with one look.” Buckman looked at everyone else in the room. “Do you see what he’s doing? Do you see how his mouth is turned down and his brow is furrowed? It’s apparent that he’s not aligned with me here.”

  “Come on, I—”

  “And that’s why you lost your press credentials at Seattle FC today.”

  “What?” Cal said, pushing his chair back from the table. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  “I wish I was, Cal. But you are done.” Buckman turned and looked at the rest of the reporters. “You see, it doesn’t matter how many awards you’ve won, if you continue to skirt the rules, eventually it will catch up with you.”

  “That’s not fair.”.

  “Fair or not, it’s accurate—and it’s the truth. You know good and well that you’ve been toeing a fine line over the past few days. Now it all caught up with you.”

  “This is absurd.”

  Buckman narrowed his eyes. “You’re the reporter I most wanted on this story, but Seattle FC scuttled that when they revoked your credentials.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just reported the news.”

  “But you didn’t abide by their policies. You thumbed your nose at them and did what you wanted.”

  “Are you listening to me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Then why are you out in the cold, blacklisted by the club? Answer me that. Besides, it’s too late now. Ramsey is taking over the story. I’ve got some other assignments for you that we’ll discuss later.”

  Cal furrowed his brow and leaned on the table. “I wrote the story that you insisted I write.”

  Buckman glared at him. “Why don’t you leave the room so we can finish our meeting? You don’t have anything for tomorrow’s paper anyway.”

  “I hear there’s a big high school swim meet downtown this weekend, Cal,” Ramsey said with a wink. “It’s got your name all over it.”

  “Shut up, Ramsey,” Buckman growled.

  Cal collected his papers and left. He didn’t mind getting chewed out by Buckman, most of the time it made him a better reporter, but he hated being treate
d unfairly. Despite his protests, Cal was forced to write the story about Rebecca Westin—and he knew that was ultimately why Seattle FC brass was upset. It had nothing to do with him finding creative ways to get interviews out of players. And Buckman knew it too, no matter what he said in the conference room in front of all the other reporters.

  Cal sat down and opened his Twitter account on his desktop. He knew it was against his better judgment—as well as against his personal policy of never reading the comments. But there was no other assignment he had looming over him. Once the web page opened, he started to scan the comments. They were cruel—and terrifying. Death threats, unfounded accusations. It was an all-out assault on his integrity as a journalist as well as his manhood. While he contemplated replying, he concluded there was nothing he could say that would assuage the attackers. They were out for blood and gleefully circled him in the digital waters.

  Without an outlet to write about what he’d learned, Cal slumped in his chair. He threw a pen at his monitor and sighed. Instead of fighting for Cal, Buckman had caved to the pressures of an organization that had grown more powerful in recent months—at least that was Cal’s assessment. He adored Buckman, but he had a distinct difference of opinion in this situation. Yet Cal wondered if he’d be able to re-establish his reputation before it was too late.

  CHAPTER 17

  EARLY THURSDAY MORNING, KITTRELL ARRIVED at the Seattle Police Department headquarters to review some of his notes from the case. He’d tried not to fret about the deadline Chief Roman had imposed upon them to find something that would assuage the city council members he was scheduled to meet with later that afternoon. But with daylight just breaking across the bay and Kittrell already at his desk, it was obvious he’d succumbed to worry.

  And so had Quinn.

  “Looks like we both had the same idea,” Quinn said, setting down a cup of coffee next to Kittrell’s stack of reports.

  “Thanks,” Kittrell said, reaching for the cup but refusing to take his eyes off the report in front of him.