Davenport Mysteries 03-Perfect Crime

by Varun Vashist

  “No, you’re fine. Just answer my question,” Jake said.

  “As I said, she was wearing a scarf and large shades. I won’t be able to tell. All I know is that she came in a black Mercedes and went to that shop,” he said and looked around the street. “You’re scaring off my customers.”

  “Yeah … we’re leaving,” Jake said and looked at Kiara. “You want to ask something?”

  Kiara shook her head. Jake stared at the vendor for a second, making him wince and then turned around.

  “Good call, partner,” Kiara said in admiration. “Who do you think that was?”

  “Not sure. It can be anyone. Shirley Campbell has a bone to pick with Shawn. But, she won’t be that stupid to come here by herself. Let’s wait for Karl’s phone records to come. Whoever it is will be in our net by evening,” Jake said.

  “Yeah,” Kiara said and stopped. “Karl also mentioned about a black car in his journal, right?”

  “Yeah, so what?” Jake asked.

  “I saw two black Mercedes at the Campbell house,” Kiara said.

  “You’re right. It’s Shirley Campbell. I hope his phone records will substantiate our theory. We are definitely heading forward, partner,” Jake said, as they crossed the road.

  Kiara smiled and looked at her watch. “We have to meet Carlson in two hours and update him on the report.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have all the details by then,” Jake said as they got into the car. “Did Karl mention the date when he was given the job?”

  “I didn’t notice it,” Kiara said. “You think that’s important?”

  “Only if it’s the date after the kidnapping,” Jake said and opened Karl’s journal. “Bingo!” he said and pointed at the date. Kiara’s looked at the date, and her face lit up too. She started the car immediately.

  “So, Shirley hired Karl after the kidnapping. Meaning, she suspected that Shawn was behind it. Karl followed Shawn to Amy’s house. He found about their affair and that gave Shirley a new lead and a new idea. She had all the ammunition, and it was the perfect time to malign Shawn’s image. She made Amy’s phone and bank account details public. What a crazy lady!”

  “Not that crazy, though. She planned everything meticulously. We can’t link Karl’s death to her. She had studied Karl’s illness and used that to eliminate him. She ensured that no tracks were leading to her - there is no trace of the money mentioned by Karl, and he hasn’t mentioned her name anywhere either,” Jake mused. “Even if we find out that she hired Karl, even that won’t be enough to convict her of his murder. Hiring a detective is not a crime.”

  “You’re right. But, if we can prove that she is behind the leaking of Shawn’s affair, it would definitely strain her relationship with Shawn and Cynthia.” Kiara said.

  “Why do we care about that?”

  “We do. Because you’re forgetting that only Shawn and Cynthia have access to the account from where the money was transferred to Amy’s account. Who transferred that money? Yes, Shirley found out that money was transferred, but that was a lucky break. Even she couldn’t have possibly known that Shawn had transferred it. And the most important part: where is Amy? Why is she hiding? No one has filed any report about her, and Carlson has forbidden us to go any further in locating her. Catching Shirley Campbell will give us enough fuel to go after these threads.”

  “Wow! I didn’t think that far,” Jake said in admiration.

  “You’ll learn,” Kiara said teasingly. “Let’s meet Carlson and request some more time for filing the report.”

  Jake nodded and looked out the window. The day was going as usual for the whole world. No one in the world cared about anyone else but themselves. Maybe that was the root of all this mayhem. He just hoped that he and Kiara get to execute their plan without any interference.

  CHAPTER 10

  Carlson was not in his office. Jake checked with one of the agents, who pointed at the cafeteria.

  Carlson was sitting on the couch with his feet on the table. He had a large cup of coffee in his hand and was watching sports news on the TV.

  “He looks awfully relaxed,” Jake murmured.

  “Keep quiet,” Kiara said and walked toward Carlson. “Enjoying your cup of coffee, sir?”

  Carlson looked at her and smiled. “You bet. After so many days, I had no calls from the management. It’s even more relaxing than the holiday season. How’s the report coming along?”

  “Actually, we wanted to talk about that, sir,” Kiara said.

  Carlson removed his feet from the table and gestured them to take seats. “What happened?”

  “Oh … nothing to worry, sir,” Kiara said with a forced smile. “It’s just that we need some more time.”

  “Why?” Carlson asked with surprise. “It’s pretty straightforward. Isn’t it?”

  “About that, sir,” Kiara said while looking at Jake. “Do you want anything apart from the kidnapping to be covered in the report?”

  “What do you mean?” Carlson asked while placing the mug on the table.

  “Well, the two boys who held her captive died in the rescue operation - so no issues there. But, do you want the deaths of Rafael and Karl to be detailed out in the report? Though, we haven’t investigated their deaths in detail, still we all know that Rafael died a day before the kidnapping.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Those boys must've kidnaped her, and I’m sure, Lorenzo will corroborate with that,” Carlson said thoughtfully.

  “Well…” Kiara hesitated a bit.

  “What’s happening?” Carlson shook his head. He knew Kiara had something on her mind that was going to ruin his evening.

  “Sir, according to Cynthia Hansen, the boys were in touch with Rafael the whole time. That means, neither Cynthia nor the boys knew that Rafael died before the kidnapping,” Kiara said.

  “What?” Carlson asked with shock. “Well … it’s possible that they were speaking with Lorenzo. He may be impersonating Rafael.”

  “Let’s hope your guess is right. But, do you want us to cover it in the report?” Kiara tried to steer the discussion in the direction she wanted it to go.

  “No … I mean, let me think over it. If we leave anything open-ended in the report, it will come back to haunt us,” Carlson said and got up. “You’re right. We need some time to mull it over. We still have a whole day to submit it. You just keep the rest of the report ready. I’ll tell you about how to tackle Rafael’s death later.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kiara said while trying to hide her happiness. Jake, on the other hand, had covered his face with his palms to stifle his laugh.

  “Anything else?” Carlson asked.

  “No … nothing else, sir,” Kiara said with some hesitation.

  Jake forgot about the smile and looked at her with surprise.

  “Very well, then. Thanks for ruining my evening,” Carlson said ruefully and glanced at the television one last time before leaving the cafeteria.

  “What about Karl? You don’t want to discuss it with Carlson without the phone records?” Jake inquired.

  Kiara shook her head. “I’m not sure if we should tell Carlson about it even after we have the phone records. The way he’s worried about his job, he’s not going to let us investigate it further. We have to find another way to reach the end of it.”

  “You’re right,” Jake agreed.

  “I told you not to watch the news,” Jeffrey Hansen said while turning the television off.

  “But, he’s our son,” Scarlet Hansen retorted. “We ought to help him. He’s going through hell.”

  “He died for me the day he married into that family,” Jeffrey said angrily. “I have nothing to do with him now and neither do you.”

  With that, Jeffrey walked to the door. Scarlet followed him.

  “What’s his fault? Everyone wants to advance in their career,” Scarlet said as Jeffrey was about to step out.

  He stopped and turned around.

  “He couldn’t have done it the hard way,
could he? Look where I’ve reached with hard work. They may be super rich, but even we are not beggars,” he fumed.

  “He might have lured Cynthia into this relationship to make a name for himself, but he married her, right?” Scarlet reasoned. “That has to mean something.”

  “He had no other choice. Otherwise, Michael Campbell would have killed him. I had thought of giving him another chance after Cynthia assured me that he loved her, but with this affair of his, he burned his bridges,” Jeffrey said and stormed out. Scarlet kept looking at the door while wiping tears off her face.

  She walked to the living room and took Shawn’s photograph from one of the side tables. She kept sobbing while moving her fingers across his photo.

  After a few minutes, she looked at her phone.

  She kept staring at the screen for a few more moments and then with her trembling hands, dialed a number.

  “Hello,” Shawn said from the other end.

  She couldn’t say anything.

  “Mom … is that you?” he asked.

  Scarlet started sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Mom … please stop crying,” Shawn said in a brittle voice. “I’m sorry to put you through all of this.”

  “How … how are you, son?” she asked with great difficulty.

  “Trying to survive, mom,” Shawn said in a frail voice that made Scarlet’s heart sink even more.

  “See, what you’ve done to yourself? I curse the day you left college and joined that company. You should’ve worked with your father,” Scarlet said ruefully.

  “You know that I have ideological differences with Dad. He wants to make money for his clients, and I want to earn money for myself,” he said firmly. All sadness had left his voice at the mere mention of his father.

  There were no words from Scarlet.

  Shawn understood his mistake. He took a deep breath.

  “Mom, I respect Dad. I really do. He worked hard all his life and now he’s enjoying the fruits of the hard labor. But, I don’t want to be rich when I’m sixty. I want everything now. He told me to get a degree—I did that. He told me first to prove myself by working for someone else—I did that too. The recession made me take that low-level job. I worked hard—I did for five years, fourteen hours each day. What did I get? One promotion and a small raise. How could I not exploit the opportunity when it came my way? It was my golden ticket. Cynthia liked me, and I too became fond of her with time. I never asked her family to help my company. They helped me to help Cynthia. No one lost anything—it was a win-win situation. I got the credit for saving the company, and I reached a place in my career where I always wanted to. I’m not telling this to justify anything … it’s just that you or Dad never gave me a chance to explain.”

  “Your father lost his respect and his position in the society because of you. He didn’t raise you with these morals—cheating a girl for your benefit,” Scarlet said firmly. Years of anger subdued the love toward her son.

  “Mom, whatever happened, happened in the past. I love Cynthia more than anything now. She came back, and we’ve agreed to forget about the past and start afresh.”

  “And, what about Amy?” Scarlet asked.

  There was silence from the other end.

  “As I said, we’re going to start afresh. If she has agreed to forget about the past, then why should anyone have any problem with it?” Shawn said though there was not much confidence in his words.

  “Your father likes her, and this incident has hurt him a lot,” Scarlet said.

  “I know that he met Michael. Though, I don’t know why he had to meet him,” Shawn said.

  “He just wanted to help. As I said, he doesn’t care about you, but he doesn’t want that girl to get hurt.”

  “And, how did the meeting go?” Shawn smirked.

  “I’m not going to hear anything against Jeffrey,” Scarlet said angrily. “I just hope that good sense prevails on you, and you understand how you’ve hurt everyone who cares about you.”

  “I know, Mom … you’re torn between Dad and me. It’s just that neither of us is wrong. We just have a difference of opinions,” Shawn said.

  “So, I have to continue to live without a son?” Scarlet said ruefully.

  “Mom,” Shawn said and paused, “The day will come when Dad would realize that our relationship is bigger than any of his ideologies.”

  “I hope that day comes soon,” Scarlet said and disconnected. With that, she started to sob again.

  “What the hell?” Kiara looked at Karl’s phone records in disbelief.

  “It’s someone else, isn’t it? I knew Shirley Campbell was too smart to meet Karl in person,” Jake said.

  Kiara looked at him angrily. “Will you stop patting yourself on the back and discuss the issue at hand?”

  Jake took the phone records from her and was equally dumbfounded.

  “But, this isn’t possible,” he said in confusion. “We need to talk to Carlson immediately.”

  Kiara nodded. “I think Shawn is toying with all of us. Let’s go.”

  Carlson was talking with another agent as Jake and Kiara reached his office. Kiara peeked through the door to get his attention, but Carlson was too engrossed in the discussion. She started walking across the lobby nervously.

  “Calm down. He’ll call us in a minute,” Jake said.

  After a couple of minutes, he knocked at the door. Carlson looked at him and gestured to wait. Jake looked at Kiara, who was still in her thoughts. Jake had enough of it. He pushed the door open.

  “This is very urgent, sir,” he said.

  Carlson took a deep breath. He knew Jake was not going to budge.

  “Give me two minutes, will you?” he asked in exasperation.

  Jake nodded and came out. He looked at Kiara.

  “What are you doing? Let him finish his discussion,” she said calmly.

  “What?” Jake said with disbelief. “I was doing this for you … Never mind.”

  After five minutes, the door opened, and a middle-aged officer came out.

  “He’s calling you,” he said, looking at both. “You guys are always in a hurry. Our work is also important.”

  Jake was about to say something when Kiara pulled him from his arm. “Come on.”

  “What’s your problem?” Carlson thundered as they got inside.

  “We’ll explain everything’ sir. But, you have to be patient,” Kiara replied.

  “What have you done now?” Carlson asked.

  “Sir, we’ve been doing some investigation on our own” Jake said as softly as he could. “We knew you wouldn’t have approved of it. So, we wanted to share the details once it was over.”

  “And now it’s over? Come on. We just had a discussion half an hour back. You didn’t tell me anything. What possibly you could’ve found in 30 minutes?” Carlson asked and looked at Kiara. “If this is going to put me into any new trouble, I’m not going to spare you.”

  “Sir, please listen to us with an open mind,” Kiara pleaded.

  “Go ahead,” Carlson said reluctantly.

  “Sir, we still feel there are quite a few open ends that need further probing,” Jake said.

  “What open ends?” Carlson asked.

  “Sir, we know that Cynthia was kidnapped because Shawn wronged the Mafia and Cynthia came back because we got hold of the alleged Mafia kingpin,” Kiara said. “But, what about his contact here, Rafael? He died before executing the plan, but the kidnapping still went on smoothly. That would mean Lorenzo knew about his death and had to arrange someone new at the last moment. Now, if we assume that the two boys who had Cynthia with them were the last-minute arrangement, then how were they not aware of Rafael’s death and why would Cynthia tell us that they were speaking to Rafael?”

  “Why are we having this discussion again? Of course, she’s lying,” Carlson said at once.

  “Why would she lie?” Jake asked with a smile. He was liking the way the discussion was progressing. It was as if he was interrogating
Carlson.

  “She will only lie if the kidnapping was staged,” Kiara explained.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Carlson shook his head.

  “You’re right. That does seem outlandish,” Jake said. “But, if she isn’t lying, then that would mean that the boys were actually speaking to Rafael.”

  “That’s impossible,” Carlson said.

  “No, it’s possible,” Jake said. “Lorenzo might not have told them about Rafael’s death and approached them as Rafael to keep the illusion going on. He or some of his other local contact was in constant touch with these boys, pretending to be Rafael.”

  “You’re repeating what I told you earlier. Why has it become so important suddenly?”

  “Because,” Jake said with pride, “he wanted to mislead the police. He made us believe that Rafael was behind the kidnap by planting Rafael’s phone outside Liberty Plaza a day before the kidnapping. He knew we would go after the phone records, and they will lead us to Rafael. Once he was found, we traced his phone to Rome when Shawn and Cynthia went there on vacation. We followed the lead and concluded that Rafael met Shawn in Italy. We brought in Shawn for questioning. He refused to accept anything, and we couldn’t do anything about it. A day after that another suicide happened at the other end of the city, and what we found was an incriminating proof of Shawn Hansen’s affair with Amy Brooks. We brought him in again for questioning—he again disagreed, but there was a small note that threatened him, and he got so scared after reading it that he confessed to the affair and gave us the actual reason for the kidnapping.”

  “But, Lorenzo is in our custody. Where is the misleading part?” Carlson asked with confusion.

  “Sir, we were struggling to locate Lorenzo for two days. But, as soon as the affair became public, we got hold of Lorenzo. Doesn’t that seem a little convenient?” Jake questioned. “I understand your confusion. We were equally dumbfounded, and that’s why we thought of a new angle.”

  “What angle?”

  “We thought that what if Karl Bennett was not a lunatic and was actually hired by someone? Though, he wasn’t a good detective; he did specialize in following people and getting information about their whereabouts. What if someone desperately wanted to frame Shawn Hansen and used Karl’s services for that, and later on used his illness to eliminate him so that there won’t be any traces leading to them? And, it was really easy. The police thought that he was not on his medication and had lost his mind; the neighbors corroborated with it, and the case was closed.”