by L A Dobbs
Sam shook his head. “No. You already knew I had been grooming Jesse as a contact. That’s him in the photos, and the meetings were when he gave me information on drug drops during the summer. You don’t think I’m really involved in this, do you?”
Bev studied him hard before she spoke. “Not sure. I know I think Holden Joyce is a blowhard. I’ve run up against him before. He makes a lot of assumptions. I can’t stand the guy.”
“That makes two of us.”
Bev turned narrowed eyes on Sam again, her voice low and serious. “But that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong. We’ll follow the clues and play it by the book. On this case, we have to do things the right way.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Sam said, ignoring the vibration of the phone in his pocket. It was probably Mick texting about the grandson, something he didn’t want Bev to know about, especially because he agreed to go by the book.
Jo appeared in the doorway, looking over her shoulder to the squad room behind her. “I just passed Holden Joyce rushing out of here. What’s up with him?”
“He’s got a hair up his ass,” Bev said.
Sam’s phone vibrated again as Kevin, Wyatt, and Reese all crowded into the doorway. Great. Just when he wanted to get out of here and read Mick’s text, the whole crew was in his office. At least Reese hadn’t brought doughnuts. Doughnuts would cause people to linger, and he wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible.
“I don’t like that guy,” Reese said. “He gave a talk in one of our classes at the academy. What a jerk.”
“Yeah, he likes to push his weight around. I know the type,” Wyatt said.
“Don’t like him either,” Kevin added.
It was getting crowded in the office. Sam tried to inch his way toward the door. “It’s unanimous none of us like him. But one thing’s for sure. He’s getting hot on this case.”
“Yeah, well, we just have to solve it quickly so we can get him off our backs,” Kevin said.
“The key is Forest Duncan. I just know in my gut that he’s got something to do with this. All we need is one little incriminating piece of evidence to allow us to uncover the truth about him,” Sam said.
“What about his alibi?” Wyatt said. “You said he was at home, gaming. I have an idea how we might be able to prove otherwise by checking the servers.”
Sam’s brows rose. “Really? Go for it.”
“I’m on my way to Judge Firth with a warrant for his finances,” Bev said. “I’m going to personally walk it over and make sure we get it right away. I’m also having my crime scene investigators go over the crime scene photos again to look for physical evidence. I know we’ve been over it a million times, but you never know what a set of fresh eyes might find.”
“Here’s his photo that you wanted me to print.” Reese handed Sam an eight-by-eleven piece of paper along with the mail, which he added to the growing stack on his desk.
Bev looked over her shoulder. “What’s that?”
“A photo of Forest Duncan. It’s a long shot, but I just might have a lead that can connect him to Scott Elliott. And if we can do that, then maybe then we can use that connection to get him to talk.”
Chapter Twenty
And just how did Mick get this information?” Jo asked a couple of hours later as they headed toward Nashua in the Tahoe. Jo was a little leery of Mick’s methods of extracting information. Beating information out of a suspect wasn’t exactly admissible in court, but then again, they probably wouldn’t have wanted to admit that they’d used Mick to get to the grandson anyway.
Sam glanced over at her. “Not what you think. Single-malt scotch.”
Jo sat back in the seat, relieved, “Oh. That’s good. So he admitted to stealing the car?”
“No, not him. He said he helped out his friend.”
“And we think this friend was Scott Elliott.”
“Right. And now we need to show Danny Bartles the photos of Elliott and Duncan. Maybe if he thinks he’s being linked with a drug ring, he’ll be scared into telling us something more.”
“Unless he’s the leader.”
“Nah. Mick said the kid was green. He might be on the fringes, but he’s not into anything deep enough.”
“So scaring him will get him to tell us what he knows.”
“That’s the plan.”
Jo opened the bag they’d gotten from Brewed Awakening on the way out of town and pulled out a jelly doughnut. “Want one?”
“No.”
From the backseat, Lucy whined, and Jo twisted around to look at her. “Not you. These aren’t good for you.”
“They aren’t good for you either,” Sam said.
Jo looked down at the doughnut. He had a point. Maybe she’d eat only half. She ripped it in half and took the big section with the jelly and shoved a piece in her mouth.
“How are we gonna tell Bev we came by this information?” she mumbled around the treat.
“We’ll leave Mick out of it. We’ll say we tied Danny Bartles to the stolen car. It was his grandmother’s car, so it’s not a stretch, and besides, the suspicion of him having something to do with it being stolen is in our notes from Tyler’s initial investigation.”
“Yeah, but no one ever followed up on that.”
“That’s not our fault. We were removed from the investigation. We were told not to look any further, so we didn’t. Can’t help it if the Staties didn’t follow up properly.”
“But what if this Bartles guy knows more about Tyler?”
“What if he does?” Sam asked. “We can’t stop that now. Tyler was into something bad, and it’s probably going to come out.”
Jo settled back in her seat, flipped up the plastic tab on the lid of her coffee cup, and took a sip as she looked out the passenger window. The scenery had changed from the mountains and fields of northern New Hampshire to the strip malls and suburban developments of southern New Hampshire.
“Hopefully, we can contain the damage,” Sam said.
“I’m really worried about what’s in that box.”
“If Tyler was working with Thorne, what could possibly be in there?” Sam asked. “Maybe he kept drug-deal records or something. Maybe there’s some evidence that can help us put Thorne away.”
“Or maybe there’s some evidence that makes us look bad. Why would Tyler keep evidence against his own father? Makes more sense that he was building up something against us just in case we discovered what he was up to.”
“I guess there’s no sense in worrying about it. We still haven’t discovered where the box is, and we’re the only ones who know about the key. Who needs to even know there was a box?”
“True, but I’d still feel better if we could get to it first. You never know who’s going to remember Tyler opening a safety deposit box somewhere. Or the two of us asking about one. It just makes me nervous,” Jo said.
Sam didn’t respond, but the way his jaw tightened told Jo that he felt the same way.
“What if Bartles won’t talk?” Jo asked.
“Don’t worry,” Sam said, patting his pocket. “I have an ace up my sleeve.”
Danny Bartles lived in a run-down apartment building that smelled of cheap curry, bad body odor, and stale beer. Even Lucy wrinkled her nose as Sam and Jo navigated the corridor to his apartment.
They knocked, and after a few minutes, a guy in his mid-twenties with scraggly hair and bloodshot eyes who was holding a bag of frozen corn to his head answered.
“You Danny Bartles?” Sam asked.
“Huh?”
He stared at them through blurry eyes. It must’ve taken him a second to realize that Sam and Jo weren’t his drinking buddies, and once he did, his eyes darkened with suspicion. “Who are you?”
“We have some questions,” Sam said.
Bartles started to shut the door. “I don’t think so.”
Sam put his foot in the door, and Lucy rushed in while Sam pushed the door open. Bartles stumbled back. “Hey, you can’t
—!”
Sam put his arm out to steady the man, a smile on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. Didn’t mean to push you. Lucy here gets a little excited whenever we bring her to visit someone.” Sam gestured toward the dog. “Don’t you, girl?”
Lucy practically smiled. Her whole body wagged as if she knew what Sam was up to and she was playing along to put the guy at ease.
“She likes you.” Jo smiled at Bartles, also playing along.
Bartles relaxed. Apparently, he wasn’t one of their smarter suspects. That was good. It would make it easier to get information out of him.
Then his eyes narrowed. “Wait, who are you people?”
“Chief Sam Mason.” Sam showed his badge, and Bartles stiffened. “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. We heard you might have important information on a case we’re working up north. We’re not even local, so we have no jurisdiction for anything you might be into down here,” Sam said.
“Um, I don’t really know anything. You’re wasting your time.” Bartles started backing up toward the door, reaching for the knob.
“We’d really appreciate the help. And there’s a substantial reward if it leads to an arrest.”
Bartles stopped at the mention of the reward. Jo glanced at Sam. As far as she knew, there was no reward. But then again, judging by the mismatched furniture, the particleboard bookcase with one shelf hanging down, and the dilapidated state of his apartment, she knew that one hundred bucks would probably be a big reward to this guy. Sam would be happy to pay that out of his pocket if he provided good information.
“Reward?”
“Yup. It’s a bundle too.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Earlier this summer, your grandmother’s car was stolen. You know anything about that?”
Bartles’s eyes darted from Sam to Jo to Lucy, a nervous reaction that Jo took to mean he did know something despite the word that came out of his mouth.
“No.”
“We hear that Scott Elliott had something to do with it,” Sam said.
“Who?”
“I think you know Scott, don’t you?”
Bartles shrugged. Apparently, he was either too hung over, or just plain old not smart enough to come up with a lie. “Okay, maybe I know him, but I didn’t have anything to do with any car stealing.”
“We know that, son,” Sam said in his friendliest voice. “Now, I’d like to show you some photos just to make sure we’re talking about the same person.”
Sam gestured toward the dirty brown-plaid sofa, and Bartles slumped on it while Sam and Jo each took a chair. Lucy sat on the floor between them. Sam tossed a photo of Scott Elliott on the coffee table. It was a nice photo of him with his hair combed back and a smile on his face. Jo didn’t know where Sam had gotten it, but it looked like a photo for a work badge.
“Is that the guy?” Sam asked.
“And you say there’s a reward for this information?” Bartles asked.
“Yep.”
“Yes, that’s Scott Elliott. But like I told you, I wasn’t involved in anything illegal with him.”
Bartles stared down at the photo. He adjusted the package of frozen corn on his head. “Hey, wait a minute. Some guy was asking about the stolen car and Elliott last night in the bar.”
“Oh really?” Sam asked.
Bartles frowned. “I’m not getting in the middle of anything bad, am I?”
“Nope, not at all. No one will know you spoke to us.”
Bartles’s frown deepened. “Well, if no one knows I talked to you, how can I collect the reward?”
“It’s all done anonymously,” Sam assured him.
“Okay. Well, I haven’t seen Scott in a while anyway.”
Sam glanced at Jo. No surprise there. Scott was dead. Apparently, Bartles didn’t know that.
“Did he mention anything about the car? Or where he was going with it?” Sam asked.
Bartles adjusted the bag of corn again and looked down at his bare feet. “Nope.”
It didn’t take a degree in psychology to know that Bartles was lying. Even Lucy could tell, as evidenced by the way she glanced up at Jo.
Sam took out another photo, this one of Forest Duncan, and placed it on the coffee table. “Do you know him?”
“No, man. Why are you asking about all this?”
“And you don’t know about anything else that Scott Elliott was into?”
“No. Like I said, I only told him where Gram kept the keys. It’s not like I went with him or was into anything that he was into.”
“Well, you must have known him pretty well to tell him where your grandmother kept the keys,” Sam prodded.
Bartles’s eyes darted from Sam to Jo as he realized he’d messed up. He jiggled his leg nervously, the frozen-corn package crunching as his hand tensed on it. “No, I didn’t know anything.”
“Really? Because if you don’t tell us what you know, you could be in deep trouble, and I don’t mean with the cops.” Bartles’s eyes jerked from the photos on the table to Sam.
“Huh?”
Sam tossed another photo on the table, this one of Scott Elliott in the shallow grave.
Bartles’s eyes widened. He jumped up from the chair, the freezer pack thudding to the floor. “Shit! What happened to him?”
“Someone killed him. Guess he knew too much. Now, don’t you want to make sure we find the person who did this and put him away before he thinks you might have known too much?” Sam asked.
“Okay. Shit.” Bartles paced the room nervously, the freezer pack thawing on the floor, forgotten. “Okay. I did some stuff with Scott. We hotwired a few cars. But I swear I didn’t get into anything that would get anyone killed. And I swear I don’t know that guy in the other picture.”
“But you must’ve known something about what Scott Elliott had going on?” Sam leaned back in the chair, as patient as ever. “Come on, Danny, we know you guys all talk.”
“I don’t know anything. I swear.” Bartles continued pacing before he stopped in front of the coffee table. “Well, he did have something going on up north. I have no idea what, but by the way he talked, it was something big. I was trying to cut my association with him because ...” He pointed at the photo of Elliott in the shallow grave. “Well, you know, because I didn’t want to end up like that.”
“Drugs?” Jo asked.
Bartles shrugged. “He didn’t talk much about it, but probably.”
“So how do you know it was someone up north?” Sam glanced at Jo.
“One day, we were driving around, looking to score some pot, and he got a weird call.”
“From who?”
“No idea, but he U-turned and got all serious about following some guy. Said he was a cop from up north.” Jo straightened in her seat. Even Lucy came to attention, sensing that this was important.
“A cop? What was his name?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. Beginning of summer.”
“Well, what did you do? Did you meet up with him?” Had Tyler been distributing drugs down here?
“No, it was weird. We followed him, but it must have been a wild goose chase because all he did was go into Penny’s Peak Ski Area.”
“Why? Did he drop something off or meet someone? Why were you following him?”
Bartles shrugged. “I guess he just wanted to see what he was up to.”
Jo glanced at Sam. This didn’t make much sense. If Tyler was working with Scott Elliott, why would he have been secretly following him?
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. That’s why it was weird. The ski area’s closed. It’s summer. But I guess the cop must’ve just been hungry, because he got out and went to the vending machines.”
“Was the cop tall with dark curly hair cut just below his ears?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, that’s the guy!”
She locked eyes with Sam. She’d just describe
d Tyler Richardson.
“Scott seemed really disappointed that the cop hadn’t done anything more than get a candy bar. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting, but by that time, I knew he was into some weird shit, and I didn’t want to get into it. I figured the less I knew, the better,” Bartles slumped back down on the couch. “You don’t think the people who killed him are going to come after me, do you?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. We’ll make sure they don’t,” Sam said. “Can you tell me where the ski area is?”
“Yeah.” Bartles seemed more than eager to help them now, probably wanting the cops to put the bad guys away before he ended up in a shallow grave. “It’s right off of exit eight, about two miles to the east. You can’t miss the signs.”
“Okay, thanks.” Sam got up, and Jo and Lucy followed him to the door.
Just before they stepped out into the hallway, Bartles yelled, “Hey, what about my reward?”
Sam turned around and looked at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll mail it to you.”
They stepped into the hall and made a beeline for the Tahoe.
Chapter Twenty-One
The ski hill wasn’t hard to find. The dirt parking lot was empty. The tall metal terminals and cables of the chairlift cut a path up the hill. Sam figured they put the chairs away at the end of the season. In the winter, the place would bustle with skiers in colorful snow gear, but now it was so quiet you could practically hear the grass grow.
The mountain was simply an overgrown hill compared to what Sam was used to up north, but for skiers who didn’t want to drive the extra few hours to the Canadian border, this was a fairly popular place to ski. There was a nice lodge at the top, also closed for the season. Here at the bottom was a building that sheltered vending machines. “This must be where Tyler stopped,” Jo said.
“We don’t know for sure that it was Tyler.” Sam followed her to the building. The vending machines were set under a roof with the sides open. A few machines were visible from the parking lot, but as they got closer, Sam saw the row extended out of sight to the corner of the building.
