Betraying Trust

by L A Dobbs

  She had never planned to stay in White Rock. She’d come for a specific reason. But now that reason didn’t seem so important. She loved her job, and she loved working with Sam. And much to her dismay, she discovered that she wanted to stay in White Rock.

  At first when she’d come, she hadn’t put any time into decorating the cottage because she thought she wouldn’t stay. But it had been a few years, and things had crept in. Yard sale finds, flea market treasures. Now she had it exactly as she wanted, comfortable and cozy. The cottage had become the home she never knew she wanted.

  She’d even gotten a pet. Finn wasn’t a furry, cuddly pet like Lucy; he was a goldfish. A fish had been about all she could handle in the way of commitment.

  Her eyes darted to the aquarium in the corner. Finn swam around, his orange-gold scales shimmering in the fluorescent tank lighting as he darted under the ceramic bridge then past the treasure chest that opened, sending bubbles rising to the top, before weaving around several aquatic plants in the corner.

  She carefully plucked one large flake of food from the fish food container. She’d been training Finn to take food from her hand. She opened the lid and poised the flake just above the surface of the water. Finn swam up. His golden eyes looked up at her, his lips broke the surface, and he grabbed the flake before swimming down under his bridge. Odd—he usually stayed at the surface longer.

  “What’s the matter, guy?”

  Maybe he was lonely. Jo was a little lonely too. Maybe she should get a bigger pet, something that could sit in her lap. The few times Sam had come over with Lucy, it had felt good to have a dog in her cottage. It had seemed right. Now that she was sure she was staying, a pet could be the thing. The next step on the road to commitment. Not a dog, though. That was too big a step. Maybe a cat, like the stray out back. But she couldn’t have a pet in her cottage. She was just renting. Perhaps now was the time to buy a place.

  With Finn fed, her eyes turned to the bedroom, and a familiar ominous feeling settled in. The room was decorated like the rest of the house. White chenille bedspread on a queen-sized bed, the headboard of which was an old fireplace mantel painted off-white. In the corner, a gigantic robin’s-egg blue armoire sat, the sight of which speared Jo with a pang of guilt.

  Inside the armoire was the real reason she’d come to White Rock. A reason she’d never told Sam about. And now that Sam had shared his secret about his cousin and the knife, Jo felt that she should share hers. But the time had never been right, and now she thought that perhaps it was time to give up on the investigation that had haunted her most of her life. Somehow, it didn’t seem important to her anymore. It was time to move on.

  She lifted the corner of the rug at the foot of her bed and grabbed the brass skeleton key that opened the armoire. The armoire was her workstation. Inside, her laptop sat on a shelf in the middle. The insides of the doors were covered with notes and photos on the two cases she was working.

  One of those cases was Tyler’s. The other—the one that had been her obsession—was the case of her sister. Looking at the yellowed photos tacked inside the armoire door twisted Jo’s heart. She still mourned Tammy, who had been abducted when they were children thirty years ago. She’d never been found, and it had ripped Jo’s family apart. No wonder she had commitment problems.

  The police had stopped looking after the case grew cold. Years later, when a female serial killer had been caught, the cops thought she’d been the one behind Jo’s sister’s disappearance. But the killer denied it. Jo had at least hoped she could tell her where her sister’s body was. The finality of a body would be difficult, but it would bring closure.

  The cops said the killer might be holding back to use those last unclosed cases as leverage somehow. Jo wasn’t so sure. And that was why she’d become a cop and had been looking into the case herself all these years. She’d been led to White Rock when she’d heard rumors of a copycat killer in the area. But those rumors had been unfounded, and no killer ever surfaced.

  Her sister’s disappearance had eaten away at her for years, but somehow, coming to White Rock had been cathartic. She’d found herself thinking less and less about solving her sister’s case and more about solving the cases that affected her new town.

  Maybe now, after all these years, it was time to put her sister’s case to rest. Time to heal her old wounds and move on. And if she let go of her sister’s case, she wouldn’t have that secret. She’d never have to tell Sam about the real reason she’d hired on here.

  Jo’s focus turned to the right side of the armoire, where she kept her notes and research on Tyler’s case. Here she had been, trying to find Tyler’s killer, and it turned out he had been screwing them over. She stifled the urge to rip all the notes and photos down and tear them to pieces. They still needed to find the box that key opened, and her notes might help. Now more than ever, she was afraid of what might be inside.

  She turned back to the left side and carefully removed the photos, some of them brittle and yellow with age. Over the years, she’d collected whatever she could from the detectives who had originally investigated the case. She had notebooks filled with notes, all of which led nowhere.

  She placed the photographs in a manila envelope, her gaze falling on one black and white of several shallow graves. That photo had haunted her dreams almost every night. Her sister was in a grave just like that, still waiting to be discovered and brought back home.

  The graves all had something in common. They were all near beech trees that had some of the lower branches broken. When Jo had pointed this out to the officers who had investigated, they shrugged it off. They said she was trying to read things into the case that weren’t there. The case had been twenty years old by then. The original investigators had retired. No one really cared about an old cold case in which they thought they’d already incarcerated the killer.

  Maybe they were right. Maybe, in her desperation to solve the case, she had been reading too much into the trees. It wasn’t uncommon for branches to break, especially with the harsh New England winters. Besides, she’d been all over the woods here in White Rock and never found any indication of unmarked graves near beech trees.

  She slowly put the rest of the photographs in the folder then piled it on top of the notebooks. She opened the bottom drawer, took out several layers of folded jeans, and placed the folder and notebooks on the bottom before putting the jeans on top.

  It was time to move on. It was time to start anew and focus on putting Thorne away so that she could clean up the town she intended to call her home for the rest of her life.

  Chapter Seven

  I’ve got good news and bad news,” Reese said the next morning as she came around the post office boxes into the squad room where Sam, Jo, Kevin, and Wyatt were going over the case. She held up a white bag from Brewed Awakening. “And doughnuts. Harry dropped them off.”

  As she handed the bag to Jo, Sam glanced toward the lobby, expecting to see Harry, but he wasn’t there. Apparently, he’d dropped off the treats and left. Maybe he wasn’t so annoying after all.

  “What’s the good news?” Sam asked as Jo passed him the bag of doughnuts. At his feet, Lucy’s ears whipped to attention at the sound of the bag opening.

  “We’ve got a partial on that fingerprint from the leaf that Kevin bagged,” Reese said. “Turns out it is a print.”

  Kevin pulled a cruller from the bag. “Really? Did you get a match?”

  “No match.”

  “So, that’s the bad news, then,” Jo said.

  “Not quite.” The bag came back around to Reese. She ripped off a tiny piece of a glazed doughnut and chewed it thoughtfully. “This might be good news or bad news, I’m not sure, but that partial print did match something.”

  “What?”

  “Matches the one found in the car that was left at the scene when Tyler was shot,” she mumbled while munching.

  Sam exchanged a glance with Jo. This was a new wrinkle, but what did it mean?

 
; “That’s your officer who was killed earlier this summer?” Wyatt asked.

  Sam nodded.

  Wyatt leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, what do you make of that? What do you know about the car or the circumstances? Could this have something to do with the mayor?”

  “We don’t know much. The state police took over the investigation pretty quickly, so we didn’t get a chance to look into too much.” Sam looked down at his doughnut. It was only sort of a lie. The state police had taken over. Sam had just left out the part about how he and Jo continued investigating on the side.

  “So, his death could be tied to the murder of the mayor,” Wyatt said.

  “We think Tyler stumbled onto some drug activity the night he was killed,” Kevin said.

  Sam nodded. The car contained drug residue, and that was as good a theory as any, given what Kevin and Wyatt knew about Tyler. But from what Sam and Jo knew about him, his death could have been for another reason entirely. Sam decided to change the subject and keep the focus on the Dupont investigation. “Did you guys get any information from anyone who frequents the mill?”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Not much. One of them did see a unicorn that night.”

  “And another swears angels are flying around in the rafters,” Kevin said.

  “Probably the pigeons,” Jo said.

  “Right. I’m afraid we won’t get much from any of them. Not only are they hard to find because most of them seem to be homeless or get shuffled between friends and relatives, but anything they say isn’t really that reliable,” Wyatt said.

  “I didn’t figure we’d get much, but we have to follow every lead. I was hoping one of them might lead us to whoever sold them drugs. Then we could find out where he gets them. Eventually, that chain leads to Thorne’s most trusted minion, and that’s the person who can give us the information to put Thorne away.” Sam glanced at the investigation photos tacked to the corkboard identical to the one in his office. “I have a few other ideas on how we can get that information.”

  “I know you guys are focusing on the Dupont case, but I did get some other calls this morning,” Reese said. “Wyatt must have made an impression on Rita. She’s requesting he come out and solve a dispute. Nettie has retaliated with a claim that Rita’s chicken flew over the fence and ate all Bitsy’s food. And Hank O’Brien claims Bullwinkle ate his wife’s petunias and she’s running around in their backyard in her bathrobe with a shotgun, ready to shoot him.”

  Sam blew out a breath. “We’d better get on that one. Her aim isn’t too good. Might hit the neighbor.”

  White Rock and the surrounding region hosted a healthy population of moose, some of which occasionally strolled into town. The locals thought it was one moose in particular that they’d named Bullwinkle. He even had a Facebook page where residents posted sightings.

  Now Sam was glad they’d hired Wyatt. They couldn’t ignore the local calls even with the ongoing murder investigation. Having another cop would help Sam and Jo to maintain focus on the murder.

  “Okay, Kevin, you take Hank, and then clock out when you’re done.” Kevin was still part-time and had come in early to read water meters on South Main Street. In a small town, the police were called upon for other duties, and in White Rock, that meant reading meters. “Wyatt, looks like you’re up for Rita.”

  Wyatt and Kevin got up to leave just as the lobby door swung open. Everyone turned toward the post office boxes. Sam figured Harry was making his return. Maybe he’d gone back to Brewed Awakening to get coffee for everyone. Sam certainly hoped so; the shop’s coffee was a lot better than the K-Cups. But Sam was disappointed.

  It wasn’t Harry with coffee. It was Henley Jamison with a load of arrogance.

  Jamison had a scowl on his pretty-boy face that made Sam want to punch him. “Good to see White Rock’s finest at work.”

  Lucy let out a soft growl, and Sam tossed her part of a doughnut. She wolfed it down as she continued to eye Jamison warily.

  Jamison didn’t wait for a reply. “I just got off the phone with John Dudley. He’s sure Dupont was murdered. I want this solved pronto. We can’t have a killer running around White Rock. When word gets out the mayor was murdered, people will be nervous. That’s bad for tourism dollars, and that might not bode well for me getting elected mayor. We need a quick conviction.”

  In Sam’s opinion, making things look good for Jamison was a reason to not solve the murder quickly. He was the last person Sam wanted as mayor. But he wouldn’t stall the case because of that.

  Sam gestured to the corkboard. “We’re working on it.”

  Jamison straightened his red silk tie. “That’s all well and good, but I’m not sure you can solve this on your own.”

  Jo scoffed. “Sure we can. We’ve solved three homicides already this summer.”

  Jamison frowned as if he wasn’t used to people talking back to him. “This is a high-profile case, and there are only two seasoned full-time officers here. One is part-time, and another is new. I don’t want it to look as if I shirked my duties in providing the best resources. There’s a killer running loose.”

  So that was what it was about: Jamison’s reputation with the voters. Not about finding the killer. Sam wasn’t surprised.

  “I think we can do the job,” Sam said. He didn’t want to argue too forcefully about keeping the investigation to themselves because that might look suspicious. Better to play along and be wary of whoever Jamison sent in to help. “We appreciate the offer, but we don’t need the help.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not negotiable.”

  The doughnut bag crinkled loudly as Jo’s fist crushed it into a ball. Sam tensed, fearing she was about to throw it at Jamison.

  Lucy looked up at her hopefully.

  Jamison frowned at her fist. “I’m bringing in the county sheriff, Bev Hatch. She’ll be here this afternoon for a briefing.”

  Jamison pivoted on his heel and strode out.

  Sam glanced at the others. Wyatt looked mildly amused. Jo looked pissed. Kevin looked thoughtful.

  “Damn, I hate it when outsiders come in,” Kevin said.

  “I know Bev,” Sam said. “She’s a straight shooter, and I don’t think she’s corrupt. Maybe this will be a good thing. We really could use the extra help.”

  “I don’t see how. Whenever someone new comes in, they mess things up,” Jo said.

  “All the more reason to get this solved quickly. I have an idea where to start,” Sam said. “We need to find whoever is working closest with Thorne, and because there’re very few clues to go on at the crime scene, I’m going to start working my way up the ladder. I have an informant I’ve been cultivating just for this. I think it’s time to pay him a visit.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kevin and Wyatt took off, Kevin using the Crown Vic, Wyatt using his own car. Sam and Jo hopped into the Tahoe with Lucy in back.

  “So what do you make of this fingerprint?” Jo asked as Sam pulled away from the curb and headed down Main Street toward the rolling layers of blue mountains in the distance.

  “Not sure. We already know Tyler was mixed up with Thorne, so his death probably was the result of a drug deal gone bad. And the fingerprint belongs to someone within Thorne’s drug organization.”

  “But who? If Tyler was with the bad guys on the side of the road that night, who shot him?”

  Sam shrugged. “More bad guys?”

  It was a puzzle. If Tyler had been working with Thorne and the blown tire was a setup, who set him up? Did Thorne have enemies Sam didn’t know about? And if so, did they have something to do with Dupont’s death? Sam wasn’t keen on the thought that he might get rid of Thorne only to have someone worse take his place.

  “You don’t think Thorne wanted to get rid of Tyler, do you?” Jo asked.

  “His own son?” The thought was abhorrent to Sam. He would jump in front of a bullet for his daughters, but Thorne was a different kind of man. “I guess he doesn’t seem to be
much of a family man.”

  “Yeah, he’s mean. Doesn’t seem to care much about anyone but himself. Though I find it funny that he’s afraid of his wife, at least according to Harry,” Jo said.

  “This fingerprint could be a bonus for us. If we find who the print belongs to, we might be able to solve both Tyler’s case and Dupont’s case and get what we need on Thorne.”

  “If.” Jo pressed her lips together and looked out the passenger window. “So I take it we’re going to visit Jesse.”

  “Yep.” Sam hadn’t had to name his informant. She knew it was Jesse Cowly, a small-time pot dealer who sold mostly to his friends and used the money to finance his own supply. Sam had been cultivating him for a while, overlooking minor infractions and looking the other way when he caught Jesse with pot. He’d been trying to build a relationship, gain his confidence, and get into a position in which Jesse owed him some favors. Now it was time to collect.

  “Good, then we can stop at Brewed Awakening.” Jo pointed toward the gigantic coffee cup sign of their favorite drive-through.

  “Glad you said that.” Sam pulled in. “The coffee at the station is okay, but I need something stronger today.”

  “So you’re thinking we’ll find out who Jesse gets his drugs from, then find out where that guy gets his drugs from, and eventually that leads us to the top of the chain,” Jo said after Sam ordered the coffees and a doughnut hole for Lucy.

  “I don’t think we’re going to have to go too far up. This isn’t New York City, so Thorne probably has only one or two guys between him and the dirty work. Whoever is closest to Thorne probably knows who killed Dupont. Might even be the killer. Either way, the higher-ups will know enough about Thorne’s operation to put him in jail.” Sam took the order, flipped Lucy a small bite of doughnut, and handed Jo her coffee.