Winter Song (Seasons Pass Book 1)

by Susan C. Muller

  Conner glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “I’m good in bed.”

  “I doubt that. You must be able to cook.”

  Perfectly brewed coffee in hand, the partners settled in to watch the videos. They moved the tapes forward and back, paused them and used slow motion. They adjusted the brightness and took notes of any car that looked suspicious.

  After three hours, the thermos was empty and they had printed photos of four cars. They called the license numbers into Records and decided to look at some older tapes while they waited.

  “Back up a little. I want to get a better look at this car.” Noah sat with his nose inches from the screen. A tiny spark of interest took root deep inside his brain.

  “That doesn’t match any of the cars we’re looking at.” Conner dialed the video back thirty seconds.

  “No, but there’s something about it that rings a bell.”

  Conner paused the tape and printed a photo of the car that caught Noah’s eye. “I don’t get it. This isn’t one of the cars we’ve been watching. It does go by a couple of times, but not on the night of the murder.”

  “If you were casing a job, would you use the same car?”

  Conner stretched his neck, rolling his head from side to side. “Probably, that’s why I’d get caught. What do you see besides the fact that it passes more than once?”

  Noah tapped one thick finger on the lower left corner of the back window. “Look at this smudge. It’s probably a parking sticker. Now look at this car. It has a similar emblem in the same spot.”

  “That’s not much to go on. Lots of cars have some type of parking sticker.”

  “Run through the tapes again. See if you find any other similar decals.” Noah picked up his coffee cup and tossed it in the trash. He eyed the empty thermos and sighed. He’d have to make do with vending machine slop for the rest of the day.

  Half an hour later, Conner had checked all the tapes twice. “Here’s one sticker in the same spot, but it’s long and narrow. I’ll send both these photos to the lab and let them work their magic. Maybe they can enhance them, but even if they do, I have a sinking feeling all we’re gonna learn is who this bozo voted for in the last election.”

  Maybe, but no matter how much work it took, if it brought them even one step closer to solving this case, Noah would stay and chase it down. When all you lived for was to close cases, one step was worth the effort.

  Whoever pulled that trigger was in a car, and he planned to find it.

  Noah sat in the break room, eating a cardboard sandwich from the vending machine. The tuna was so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth. Several slugs of Diet Coke were required to wash down each bite.

  The more he chewed, the more he thought. Which direction should he go first? He wanted to follow the car. That might lead him to the actual shooter, and the shooter trumped the client in his book. Yet the shooter was just doing a job.

  As much as it disgusted Noah, he recognized that it was nothing personal. The client, on the other hand, knew the victim. If it was the husband, he’d slept with her, promised to love her, eaten breakfast with her.

  That was betrayal.

  If Hudson ever suspected they were looking at him, he’d have time to destroy any evidence. But Hudson would be easier to turn than a professional.

  What a joke. Was he seriously considering a professional hit man? They might be the darling of B movies, but in real life, he’d never come across one. Sure, the mob and certain governments had people they used to dispose of problems, but they were employees, not some stranger who advertised over the internet.

  Husbands and wives, even business partners, turned to relatives or lovers, maybe even a shady friend, with the promise of a cash payoff. But honest-to-God hit men, out there for hire by anyone with money, ranked with the Loch Ness Monster. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

  He threw the rest of his sandwich in the trash, glad for an excuse to avoid eating it, and started down the hall, looking for Conner. Chasing the car was a long shot. The shooter would be someone Hudson knew personally. There’d be some connection to him in that house. If they got there fast enough.

  Where was that warrant?

  Conner was on the phone with Jeannie when Noah’s footsteps echoed down the hall. He hung up quickly and grabbed the license plate information faxed over from Records. Things had been smoother with his partner the last few days, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Noah had earned the right to his sour moods. In fact, Conner doubted if he would have handled things as well. Still, this tiptoeing around, pretending he didn’t notice, was getting old.

  The idea of taking time off with Jeannie and the baby was all that kept him together. Handling a colicky infant had to be easier than a grumpy partner.

  When Noah glanced at the phone, Conner felt the back of his neck heat up. He’d never managed to put anything over on his partner yet, no point in starting now. “I told Jeannie how much we appreciated the thermos of coffee. It’s tough for her to make when she’s not allowed to drink any.”

  “I can’t imagine going nine months with no coffee. Beer and wine I could give up with no problem, if I had a good enough reason, but I have to have my caffeine. Is she feeling better these days?”

  A weight lifted off Conner’s shoulders. Avoiding any discussion of the most important thing in his life with his best friend had been tough. One glance said it still wasn’t easy for Noah, but the man was obviously trying. “At the moment, she’s doing great, and I’m enjoying the calm. The first three months she puked every time I looked at her. Her hormones were raging enough to make PMS look like a walk in the park. I understand the last trimester she’ll be tired, uncomfortable and grouchy, but I’ve worked with you so I figure I can handle it.”

  “I don’t complain,” Noah shot back.

  “No, you don’t. Sometimes I wish you would.” Damn. Had he really let that slip out?

  “I’m not going to get all touchy-feely at this point, if that’s what you mean.”

  “God, no. I’d probably have to shoot you if you did.”

  Noah’s eyes turned hard. “So, what is it? What do you want from me?”

  I want my old partner back. But that wasn’t going to happen. He had died in a fiery crash on the Sam Houston Tollway the last week in August, as surely as his wife had. He’d never be the same man who’d played practical jokes on him while acting as best man at his wedding. Or drove him to the airport when his mother got sick, then showed up in South Carolina in time for her funeral. That man was gone forever.

  Noah had been better the last month or so, but even that worried Conner. It felt like he had made a decision of some kind. Conner didn’t know what it was and that frightened him. Homicide was the top of the heap for a detective, but it meant looking evil in the face every day. Noah might not have the heart for it any longer.

  Conner squared his shoulders. The truth might hurt, but what they had now was death by a thousand cuts. “I want you to say whatever’s on your mind. If I screw up, tell me about it. If you think I’m slacking off, chew my ass out. Don’t shoot me dirty looks and act like you’re disappointed.”

  “A call home to check on your wife isn’t slacking off, and if I act like it is, that’s my problem. But if you screw up, your ass is grass.” Noah actually smiled. “Now, where’d you put that warrant? We need to go catch us a bad guy. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

  Gary Hudson’s face turned seven shades of purple when he opened his door to Noah and saw the warrant in his hand. He stuttered and sputtered and sprayed spit on Noah’s suit as he threw out an arm to block the door. “You can’t come in here now. I’m trying to plan my wife’s funeral. This is a disgrace. It’s harassment. I’m going to call my attorney. You’ll have to wait outside.”

  As if hiring a hit man to murder your wife is no disgrace at all.

  The sight of Hudson squirming brought a smile to Noah’s face. This was going to be fun.

>   “Call your attorney if you wish, sir, but this warrant gives us immediate access. We won’t be waiting for anyone.” He folded the warrant and stuck it in Hudson’s shirt pocket.

  Hudson gaped at him. “What’s that on your hand? It looks like a bite. You could have AIDS. Or rabies. I don’t want you touching any of my things.”

  Noah stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You don’t have to worry. It’s from my own dog and she’s perfectly healthy. But since I don’t know what germs you carry, I’ll be using these.” Noah took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on with a loud snap as he pushed his way inside.

  Conner, two uniformed officers, and a string of forensic techs streamed in after him.

  “I wouldn’t have a dog that bit.” Hudson looked like his head might explode at any moment. “I’d shoot it myself.”

  Noah eyed him with a look that had brought stronger men to their knees. “Is that a fact, sir? And do you keep a gun on the premises?”

  Hudson must have realized his error because he clamped his mouth shut and didn’t answer.

  Conner started up the stairs, chuckling. Before he had climbed halfway, a young blonde scurried down, brushing past him.

  “This is Madeline Davies, my secretary. She’s helping me plan Crystal’s funeral.” A muscle on the side of Hudson’s face twitched.

  Conner looked down to the first floor. “From your bedroom?”

  Hudson pulled himself up and tried to look indignant. “The funeral home called and asked me to bring over a dress for Crystal. I needed a woman’s opinion.”

  The secretary pulled out a tissue and blotted her eyes. “Crystal always took such care with her appearance. I know she’d want to look her best.”

  Noah stepped back and appraised the secretary. A few hairs had come loose and curled around her face and most of her lipstick was gone, but it was late in the day. Maybe that was to be expected. It wasn’t until she turned around that he noticed the back of her blouse was untucked.

  If she was helping pick out clothes, she must have been doing it by trying them on, modeling them for Hudson.

  “Miss Davies, please give my partner your contact information, then you and Mr. Hudson can wait in the kitchen with one of these officers.” The secretary sniffed loudly and stalked toward Conner, her stilettos clacking on the marble floor and perfume trailing in her wake.

  Noah spun on his heels and marched to Hudson’s home office. The information would be in there. He knew it.

  Hudson’s office outshone anything Noah had ever seen, and he’d been in a multitude of homes and offices in his years on the force. The mahogany desk was polished to a high gleam and the flat screen computer monitor rivaled most people’s TV. To the side sat printers, copiers, faxes, and machines Noah didn’t recognize. On the wall, a bank of screens monitored the perimeter of the house. Several of the screens were blank and Noah pushed buttons and turned switches until they came to life. Now many of the rooms inside the house were displayed. In the kitchen, Hudson and his secretary sat inflexible as a church spire, staring straight ahead.

  Too guilty to even talk?

  Noah watched as Conner searched the drawers of a nightstand in a small, side bedroom. He pulled out several sex toys and laid them across the bed.

  Noah flipped a switch and Conner’s voice floated out of a speaker hidden behind a set of books. “Take these and we’ll check them later to see whose DNA is on them. If it isn’t Mrs. Hudson’s, we’ll have proof he was having an affair.”

  A techie dropped the item in an evidence bag and chuckled. “You know what they say… A man only buys toys if his own toy isn’t up to the job.”

  So Hudson had his entire house bugged. Any time Crystal used the phone, he could hear every word. Had she talked to Laurel about her suspicions? If he was that paranoid, he must have made tapes to cover the times he wasn’t home.

  A side room contained file cabinets and Noah began rifling through them. Finally he gave up and started filling cardboard boxes with the papers. This was more than a one day job. If he rushed, he’d miss something. Better to take them back to the office and comb through them slowly.

  He was almost finished when he stumbled on an accordion file tied with a bow. Inside were four mini-cassette tapes. As excited as Noah was to discover the tapes, the ten stacks of hundred dollar bills was a bigger find.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t against the law to keep ten thousand dollars hidden in a file cabinet. But it was damn suspicious.

  Hudson shot out of the kitchen as Noah passed carrying boxes of papers. “You can’t take those. They’re work papers. How am I going to conduct business without my files?”

  Noah shifted the boxes to his hip. “Your papers will be returned to you as soon as copies have been made. Until then, you’re in mourning, Mr. Hudson. You shouldn’t try to work. You need to plan your wife’s funeral and take time to grieve. I’m sure your clients will understand.”

  Hudson stood at the door with his mouth open and his arms out, but Noah kept walking.

  An hour later, Noah was carrying a computer to the forensics van when Laurel Bledsoe’s car pulled into her driveway. Even across the lawn he could see her eyes widen in surprise. He had made two more trips to the van when he saw her approaching him, her high heels sinking in the soggy grass.

  She had a coat wrapped around her shoulders and the frost on her breath framed her face. Her hair was up and back in some type of simple style, exposing ears tinged with red from the cold. “Is it true? Are you arresting him? I know I thought he had something to do with it, but somehow I can’t believe a person I’ve had in my home would do such an evil thing.”

  “No, he’s not under arrest. We’ve got a warrant to search his house, cars and office. Experts will be going over his computers and I’ll need another warrant for his service providers to dump the logs on all the phones. I’m glad you came over. I need you to identify something. Have you ever seen this? I found it hidden in a bowl, inside something called a Butler’s Pantry, whatever that is.” Noah waggled a cheap, throw-away phone.

  Laurel eyed the phone and shook her head. “It’s not Crystal’s. And I’ve never seen Gary with anything like that. He fancies himself a techno-wizard. He only has the latest, most expensive gadgets. Whenever a newer model came out, he had to have it. He would never own something like that. Crystal gave him a new iwhatever for Christmas, but it wasn’t fancy enough and he exchanged it the next day. He acted like she had insulted him.”

  Well, he can’t claim this is an old one he forgot to dispose of. He downloaded new minutes for it two weeks ago and half of them are gone. Noah sealed the plastic bag holding the phone and signed his name to it.

  She shivered and hugged her coat tighter. “Will you be much longer? I’d really like to talk to you about something. Do you think you could come over for a few minutes when you finish? I could give you a hot drink. You must be cold.”

  Noah stalled. “Tea?”

  “Oh, I think this deserves coffee. Or something stronger if you’re off duty.”

  “I’ll probably be another hour.”

  She smiled and when he smiled back, it hit him how much he was looking forward to that coffee. That didn’t mean shit, he told himself. He was only curious about what she had to tell him, nothing more, damn it.

  The sun was sinking fast and it coated the few remaining clouds with an orange tinge. With the sky so clear, the temperature would likely flirt around the freezing mark before the night was over, at least on the north side of town. Noah didn’t care. He’d wrapped his pipes months ago, and any plants that couldn’t take the cold were dead already. He hadn’t bothered to cover them this year.

  As he trudged across the Hudson’s manicured lawn to Laurel’s somewhat shabby yard, he rubbed his hands together and blew on them for warmth.

  Laurel opened the door and stood silhouetted in the light. Wow. How could he ever have thought of her as The Lump?

  She grinned. “I thought we w
ere good enough friends by now for you to come to the back door.”

  His mother had divided people into front door friends and back door friends. He hadn’t thought of that in years. “Next time I’ll try the back door, I promise.”

  But why would there be a next time? She wasn’t a suspect and he had no reason to interview her again. He felt his shoulders sag slightly at the thought that this might be his last cup of coffee with her.

  Shoot, he’d even have taken tea.

  He followed her through the house to the kitchen and pulled out what he’d begun to think of as his chair. The smell of coffee hit him in the gut. His half a tuna sandwich had worn off hours ago.

  She filled his cup, passing him sugar and flavored creamer, as he studied her. For the first time since he’d met her, some portion of her face wasn’t red and raw, and he realized how attractive she was. Well, why not? If he could appreciate the sunset, he could appreciate an attractive woman. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. He wasn’t dead yet.

  She nodded toward a folder of papers on the table. “Thank you for giving me your friend’s name. I called him this morning and when I mentioned you, he worked me right in.”

  “Wonderful. Will he be able to help you?”

  “Only time will tell, but he says he can. He’s going to get on it right away. He says Peter can’t pull half the underhanded tricks he’s trying to do.”

  At least things were looking up for somebody. He spent most of his time dealing with the chaos caused by selfish, greedy people. He had to take good news wherever he found it. She obviously felt better about life. She’d dressed in nice clothes, fixed her hair and makeup, and was sitting up straight, looking him in the eye. She hadn’t even said “Sorry” one time. “I’m glad it’s working out for you. Roy’s one of the best. He’ll take good care of you.”

  “Well, the thing is, I need to apologize.”

  The contrast was almost immediate. She slumped in her chair and hung her head, avoiding looking at him.