“Call one of your contacts at MPD and get him to pick everything up. They’ll need it for building the case. Before we discovered this, the killer could argue manslaughter of Lorena, a heat of the moment kind of killing, but this changes things. This is murder one.”
I made the call to Garrett and told him what we discovered. He agreed to send someone from the forensics lab over right away. Thirty minutes later, we had the unopened bottles packed up in a crate, two tampered bottles bagged and tagged, and one grateful detective in the guise of Maddox himself. I let Solomon deal with him. It was bad enough I had one guy mad at me, never mind two.
“What now?” I asked Solomon when we locked up and returned to his car. Solomon stuck the key in his pocket, resorting to silence once more. “Where do we go from here?”
“Since Maddox just told me about Junior's complaint against you, you are going to take a few days off and keep a low profile. Give some attention to that pro bono case you accepted and dumped Lily with. How many nights of surveillance has she undertaken?" Solomon asked, his voice belaying annoyance. "Your life isn’t in jeopardy on that case.”
I swallowed with a gulp. Was there any point in arguing right now? The easiest thing to do would be to absolutely ignore his advice, but the safest thing to do was follow it. That left me with an impossible decision, one that was probably going to blow up in my face no matter which path I took. “Actually, I meant literally. Where are we going?” I asked, as we passed the exit to my house.
“My place,” he said.
"What about my place?"
Solomon glanced at me. "Let's assume someone thinks you're getting too close to the truth and knows where you live."
I gulped. "They could break into your house too."
Solomon huffed. “Not a chance. You’ll be safe at my house while I get to the bottom of this mess.”
Chapter Eighteen
Although Solomon called staying at his house “relaxing,” it felt more like I was under house arrest. While I poked around his kitchen and rifled through his bookcase in search of some easy reading, he took the opportunity to return to the agency and solve my case. On the plus side, he arranged for my car to be brought over from the Vasquez house. Now it was parked outside his house, so at least, I wasn’t completely housebound.
“Solomon’s solving my case,” I told Lily. “He said, and I quote, ‘Lexi Graves you are off active duty’.”
“The bastard!” Lily screeched.
“I know, right?”
“Like, how dare he? I am incensed, Lexi! I am outraged!”
“Calm down.”
“I can’t! I’m burning with fury. Why did he take you off the case anyway? Is it the psycho? Would Solomon lock himself up if someone broke into his house?” Lily asked, without absolute conviction that no, Solomon would not.
“His house is more secure than Fort Knox. If someone broke into his house, he’d probably offer the guy a job. And no, it wasn’t the psycho. Someone poisoned Marnie Vasquez. I had to call 911.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s in the hospital, still recovering.”
“That's not your fault! Are your really letting Solomon take over your case and solve it without you?”
“Hell no. He might be digging for dirt, but there’s still plenty of work for me to do,” I said, remembering the discs safely ensconced in my bag. “I have surveillance footage to watch.”
“That’s the spirit,” agreed Lily. “That may be as dull as sitting on your ass and watching a bridal store for four hours straight, but you might see the killer!”
“And you might catch a thief!”
“We rock,” said Lily. “We rock hard. Call me if you see anything.”
I agreed I would and hung up. I had just loaded the surveillance disc into Solomon’s DVD player and set it to “play” when Lexi called back. “I need a break. Want some company?”
“I thought you were going to spend the evening with Jord?”
“Me too, but he said he can’t make it as he caught an extra shift. He’s looking at the burglary division. He said if he puts in some hours covering a shift there now, they might request him when one of the detectives retires next month.”
“Good for Jord. Come over.”
“I’ll be there really fast, just as soon as I get some feeling back into my legs.”
I watched the tapes in “fast forward,” which was okay since very little happened. I had a few notes of what to look for. One of them was Kate Holm. Maddox hadn’t told me where she left the key or retrieved the cash, but I figured it had to be somewhere close to the gym. If I could see where she left it, I might be able to see who picked it up. If I spotted Carter Simons Junior on the tapes, and could prove that he had access to the scenes of the poisoning, I would be ecstatic. Now, that would be the sweetest piece of evidence to take to the team. It would exonerate the gym. As much as I watched though, I saw nothing on the camera feed covering the gym’s front entry. Sure, there were plenty of other people, entering and leaving, but no Junior.
I did see Jim, but failed to recognize him at first since it was the back of his head. When he turned to look back, I grabbed the remote and hit first “rewind,” then “play,” slowing the tape down so I could watch him in some of his final movements. Jim exited the building, wearing jeans and a jacket with the hood pushed down. Over his shoulder was his gym bag and something small dangled in his hand — his car keys, I realized when he stopped at a blue Toyota. He looked over his shoulder, and paused, like someone might’ve called him, then raised a hand. A moment later, a woman came into view… and Solomon’s doorbell rang. I paused the disc and let Lily in.
“I’m at a crucial moment,” I told her. “I just found Jim on the gym’s video footage the day before his death.”
“Is anyone killing him?” Lily asked.
“No, that was the next…”
“Then I gotta pee,” she interrupted, dashing past me to the half bath. “Let me know what happens.”
I resumed “play” and watched. Jim and the woman were having a conversation. She had dark hair in a ponytail with her back to the camera, and they both seemed a little tense. Finally, the pair of them hugged briefly and Jim got into his car. The woman turned around and my breath hitched.
“Is that Lorena?” asked Lily.
“Yeah. I just watched her and Jim have a conversation. I wish I could read lips.” Had I seen Lorena and Jim talking before, ever? I didn’t think so, but I didn’t spend a lot of time at the gym, so that meant nothing. Marnie said they were in touch and the tape confirmed recently.
“That would be so awesome.”
It would be beyond awesome and it disappointed me that I lacked the skills to lip read. I wasn’t sure anyone else could do the job either. The camera wasn’t that clear, the clarity far from high definition. However, what I could see told me the pair of them were engaged in a tense conversation, but parted affectionately enough. It also told me the two of them were still in contact, despite both having left Simonstech. Had something bound them together still? Seeing them talk definitely added to my theory that the two of them knew something about what happened to Avril Sosa. Perhaps they were discussing what to do next? Another thought occurred to me… Had they previously approached whomever was behind Sosa’s disappearance?
Lily and I watched as Jim drove away and Lorena walked off camera. Thirty seconds later, her car passed by the camera, heading towards the exit. I made a note of the time on the tape, and hit “fast forward,” my eyes glued to the screen. Nothing else happened, and eventually, the disc popped out. I exchanged the disc for another that came from the camera covering the rear of the building and the employee parking lot.
“You know, if the cop TV shows showed how long you guys have to spend sitting around doing nothing, but staring at screens, no one would ever watch them,” said Lily. She found popcorn in the kitchen somewhere, microwaved it, and the two of us shared the bowl between us. We watched as we munched. �
��Also, next time we hang out, I’ll pick the movie.”
I hit “pause,” then “rewind.” “Got something.”
“Yay. About time!”
“Only because I started the video just before Kate Holm’s shift ended.” It was risky to skip so much of the footage, but I figured I could watch the rest later. Now I had one piece of evidence, I was keen to find another, anything that would get me back on the case.
“Good call. You’re a good investigator no matter what your boyfriend says.”
I blinked. “Did he say I wasn’t?”
“Noooo!”
“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re my best friend, I tell you everything, even the crappy stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“Now let’s find out what that moron, Kate, did.” We watched Kate walk across the parking lot, past the car I knew to be hers and pause before the dumpsters. She pulled something from her pocket, then a small strip of what looked like tape before reaching around the back of the first dumpster, and seeming to pat it on the back. Her hand came back with an envelope and she opened it. “She’s going to get fired,” said Lily.
“I think so,” I agreed. “That looks like she left the key and collected the cash.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Lily stuffed another piece of popcorn into her mouth. In her pocket, her cell phone beeped a tune and she reached for it, wiping her butter-glazed fingers on the tissue I passed her. “It’s Sharon,” she said while I continued to watch the tape. As Lily spoke, I watched Kate stuff the envelope into her pocket, get into her car, and drive away. I made another note of the time and hit “fast forward,” and the scene quickly moved from daylight to dusk, shrouding the parking lot in darkness.
“That was Sharon,” said Lily. “She said a van has passed by the store six times in the last hour and she’s just about ready to leave.”
"Why is she there so late?"
"She felt bad that I sat there all afternoon for nothing."
“That's nice." I contemplated the strange van. "Maybe it’s a delivery driver looking for someone.”
“She thought that until the fifth trip when she closed the store. She tried not to make it obvious she was watching, but she said she felt like they were casing her store.”
“What made her think that? Did they slow down?”
“No, just a feeling she got.”
“Hmm. Hold that thought.” I almost missed it, but when I rewound the tape, there he was, a dark-clad figure, moving in the shadows of the building, and almost completely hidden from view. I had to concentrate to follow him, but again, there he was, passing under a sliver of moonlight, to approach the dumpster. He wore his jacket collar turned up and a beanie pulled down low over his ears, his face never turning towards the camera. It was like he knew it was there. He reached around the back of the dumpster, retracting his hand a moment later. Keeping his head down as he turned, he jogged back towards the building, disappearing under the camera. “That’s our guy and he just went inside.”
“Is it Carter Simons?”
“I can’t tell.” A few minutes later, the feed cut out, the tape dissolving into white noise. “I have to get this stuff to the agency. Maybe they can clean it up.”
“On the way back, maybe we could watch the wedding store for a little while?” Lily checked her watch. “It'll be like old times!"
“I guess.” I looked around Solomon’s warm and inviting living room. What else was I supposed to do? Wait at home for my boyfriend to return and ask him how the case was going without me? No, I couldn’t do that. Plus, didn’t he suggest that I spend some time on my pro bono case? I’d already left Lily doing enough monotonous surveillance so I owed her the company. I ejected the discs and slipped them into their plastic wallets. “Sure, let’s do that. Let’s go.”
At the agency, I parked outside before Lily and I went to the reception desk, rather than heading upstairs. The last thing I wanted to do was risk running into Solomon if he were in the building. Instead, I left the discs with the doorman, along with the note about the times to check, and called Lucas, asking him to come down and get them.
“Where are you going?” he wanted to know. “Solomon said you’re not working the case anymore.”
“I am, just not actively. And I’m hanging out with Lily tonight,” I told him without divulging where or why. “Do you think you can do anything with the footage?”
“I won’t know until I see it, but there’s an AV specialist upstairs in the new suite. She might be able to work her magic on it.”
“Why do we need an AV specialist?” I asked, thinking about the woman I’d seen with Solomon in the underground garage just a few days ago. Was that her? “And why is she upstairs?”
“To do extra cool stuff with audio and visuals. There’s more space up there. You should see the gadgets! And the computers!” Lucas reeled off a list of things to do with terrabytes and processing speeds and other things I never heard or conceived of. I wondered again at the new division. Why did our investigations agency need so much high tech stuff? What was Solomon expanding into? More importantly, given how badly I'd annoyed Solomon, would there be a place for me in the agency after the expansion?
“Sounds great. Is Solomon up there?”
“No, he’s in the boardroom with Delgado. They’re going over your case, trying to find hard evidence to link this Simons guy to your victims and the other Sosa chick. Want me to tell them you called? Any message?”
“Just show them the discs and no message,” I said, hanging up, hoping I didn’t sound as peeved as I felt. “Let’s go,” I told Lily and she simply nodded and followed me out.
There was no sign of the mystery van when we reached Perfect Brides and we got there just as Sharon was locking up. With the businesses closing, there were plenty of parking spaces, but little cover, so I parked a few stores away rather than sitting on the store, which would immediately give us away. A few minutes later Sharon's car pulled around the corner and she waved as she passed.
“I pick up my dress next week,” said Lily. “I said to Sharon, maybe I should pick it up today, but she was finishing a few alterations on another dress, and said she couldn’t do the last bits on mine until tomorrow.”
“Don’t panic. Your dress will not get stolen. You’re going to look gorgeous on your wedding day.”
“I know.”
“So we’ll watch the store tonight. Everything will be okay,” I decided,” and tomorrow, you can get your dress.”
“And yours,” Lily added.
“And mine,” I agreed. “And then all we have to do is wait for the wedding.”
“And my bachelorette party!”
“That too. See? It’s all going to be fine.” I settled into my seat, pleased at just how positive I sounded. Not only that, but Lily would be able to relax for a few days before her bachelorette party. Then, providing she didn’t lose her eyebrows or get taped to a street lamp, she would make it to the wedding, looking perfect. Not that I wanted to take any credit for ensuring her dress’s safety, but I gave myself a virtual pat on the back anyway.
We had been sitting there for an hour, chatting occasionally, talking about the cases, and fantasy weddings, when Lily grabbed my arm, quieting me. “There’s the van,” she said, as a mid-sized, white van slid past. “Exactly as Sharon described it.”
“Yeah, but it’s not stopping. It just took a left.”
“I kind of expected the store to get ram-raided tonight,” said Lily. “Is it bad to admit I was almost hoping it would? Then all those nights I sat here, watching the store, wouldn’t be for nothing.”
“A ram-raid would be exciting.”
“Yeah. Guess those concrete posts in front of the store are there for that reason.”
I nodded, looking at the defensive pillars. As I turned my head, noticing how all the businesses, barring a couple of restaurants further down the street, had closed for the night, it occurred to me that every single store front h
ad its own set of thick, cement guard posts, installed to prevent vehicles from mounting the curb and crashing over the sidewalks into their stores.
“All the stores got ram-raided, right?” I asked. “That’s how the thieves got in?”
“Yep. Smashed and grabbed.”
“But this one can’t. Look! You said it yourself, no one can enter from the front.”
“Does that mean we can go home?” Lily asked, looking hopeful.
I put my palm to my forehead and groaned. “No, it means we’ve been watching the wrong side of the store.”
“There’s a back entrance,” Lily said slowly, pulling a face to match my own. “Sharon told me she parks her car in the back.”
“Let’s go.” We buckled our seatbelts, I gunned the engine, and we drove around back. I pulled onto the side street when Lily pointed out the entrance to the rear parking lot that spanned the length of several stores. “I don’t see the van. We need to get closer.”
“What if we drove in?”
“If they’re in there, stealing stuff, they might crash into my car, trying to get out. Or worse.” I shuddered to think about that. I really didn’t want to get hurt again in the line of duty by solving a mystery. My arm was already healing nicely and didn’t look like it would scar. No reason to tempt fate.
We jogged over to the wall that blocked our view, and, with our hands in pockets, strolled past the gates, like we were walking home after being out for an early evening dinner. As we passed through the gates, both of us took a not-so-casual glance inside. “There’s the van,” squeaked Lily, grabbing my injured arm. I winced, but she didn’t notice. “That’s it. That’s definitely the one! This is so exciting!”
“Keep walking,” I told her, urging her on, looking for somewhere we could hide and watch, unobserved. “The alley will do.” We passed the gates, allowing another wall to conceal us before we ducked into it. It smelled rotten, predominantly because of wet leaves, and I didn’t want to think about what I could be stepping in if I were really unlucky. We had to walk fifty feet or so before we could peek over the wall, and through the chain link fence that rose above it. The van was parked next to an open door, but I couldn’t quite make out which store it was.
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