Walking Shadows

by Faye Kellerman

  For the last half hour he had been reading about Margot and Mitchell Flint—a case of embezzlement, grand larceny, and money laundering that went back twenty-five years. At that point, Mitchell Flint had been partners with Glen Levine for a decade. The two men had grown up together. Mitchell was a lawyer by trade, and Glen was a certified gemologist and jeweler. Flint, who had a thriving practice, had bankrolled the store for his friend, who had an unerring eye for jewels but not much of a head for business. Lydia—Glen’s wife—had grown up in the area. Margot came on the scene later. The Flints were part of the small Hamilton Country Club set. Margot became a society woman, her name often mentioned in charity functions and politics. The Flints were a handsome couple: he was tall and dark, she was tall and blond. Her picture, even more than his, was everywhere.

  Lydia and Glen, on the other hand, were average in looks and stature. He had a round face with a bulbous nose; she had an attractive face—large eyes and a sweet smile—but carried a little extra weight. They had worked hard in their business, and although the two couples were friends, they traveled in different economic circles. The Flints did well, lived in a big house, and had the cars and the trappings. The Levines scraped by, wondering why all their hard work was not paying off.

  It took Glen Levine almost six years to realize that someone was stealing from the till. It took him another two years to come to conclude that it had been his partner and best friend, Mitch. But once he was sure that the proof was irrefutable, Glen enacted justice as swift as the wheels would grind. It took almost two years for Mitchell—along with his wife, Margot, thought to be the ringleader—to be tried and found guilty of embezzlement, grand larceny, and the biggest insult of them all, money laundering. Two days before they were due to be sentenced, the Flints went out for dinner and never came back. They left behind two teenaged boys and a massive amount of debt. The house and everything in it was sold off to pay the lawyers and for the judgment given to the Levines. Nothing was left for the children. An aunt and uncle took the homeless boys in.

  No one seemed to know where the Flints went or what happened to them. While on bail, they had surrendered their passports, so rumor had it that they were still in the United States, but where was anyone’s guess. A follow-up paper article with the children, ten years later, illuminated nothing. As far as the boys—now young men—were concerned, their parents were as good as dead to them. They had deserted them and cast them off like garbage to save their own skin. The rage in the interview jumped off the print.

  Wiping a cube of potato up with a napkin, Decker stared at the pictures in the paper. Mitchell had milky blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a wide smile. Margot’s blond hair was flipped back at the sides with feathery bangs in front. Her eyes were lake blue deep, and they stared from any photograph she was in. She had pouty lips that showed a hint of two big front incisors. “Do you think it’s them in those black-and-white photos?”

  “I can’t tell.” McAdams took another bite of his sandwich. “The black and whites are terrible quality, and the newspaper pictures of the Flints are over twenty years old. Maybe someone could match the faces, but I sure as hell can’t.”

  “They could have also undergone plastic surgery,” Rina said.

  “Right.” Decker put the papers down. “I know that there are two bad guys in jail for the Levine murders. It would take a lot to convince me that Gratz and Masterson didn’t do it. But just as a matter of procedure, I wonder if the police ever considered the Flints as suspects.”

  “The dates are a little funky,” McAdams said. “Why wait almost two years to kill the people who put you in jail?”

  “It takes time to plan murders of this magnitude,” Rina said.

  “What good would it do them to kill the Levines after the convictions?”

  “Revenge,” Rina said. “And it was a robbery also. The Flints were fugitives. They were in debt from legal fees and needed the money.”

  Decker said, “I’ll agree with you there. Also, I remember reading in the papers that some of the bigger jewelry pieces had never been found.”

  Rina said, “And who would know the layout of the store better than a partner?”

  “I’m sure they changed the safe combinations and the alarm code after the Levines found out they were stealing,” McAdams said.

  Rina said. “The alarm wasn’t on.” She turned to Decker. “You thought that was odd. Maybe someone had turned it off.”

  “Maybe.” He waited a beat. “You know, alarms can be set and disarmed with more than one code. If the Levines just put in a new code and didn’t actively delete the old code, the old code might still work.”

  “You should ask Gregg Levine about that,” Rina said.

  “I would, except he doesn’t answer my calls.”

  “So why don’t you pop in on him at the jewelry store?”

  “If Yvonne’s there, I’m not going to get past the front door. She doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s impossible,” Rina said. “Everyone likes you.”

  Decker smiled. “I do have my detractors, believe it or not.”

  “You think they’d be that careless?” McAdams said. “Not to get rid of their old alarm code?”

  “I don’t know, Harvard. But regardless of whether the Flints were in on it or not, they had to be considered suspects at the time of the murders. I’m going to need to see the original files. I just have to figure out how to access them since Brady Neil’s death is just a thread of a connection to the Levine murders.”

  “When are you giving these photos back to Tran and Smitz?” McAdams said. “You know you have to do that.”

  Decker took out his cell. “I’ll call them right now. They’ve been cooperative, and for selfish reasons, I need their help. You find anything of interest in the shoebox, Rina? Anything that looks like Margot and Mitchell Flint?”

  “Most of these pictures are more like forty years old. Pictures of a young girl—probably Jaylene. Some are Polaroids. But a lot of them look like they were taken with a Brownie camera.”

  “Mitchell and Glen grew up together. Maybe they were friendly with Jaylene Boch. Joe grew up in Kansas, but she grew up here.” Decker thought a minute. “Any pictures of her with a kid?”

  Rina stared at him. “No, come to think of it.”

  “How about Joe Boch?”

  “I’m not sure what he looked like.”

  “He was older that Jaylene by about ten years.”

  “These pictures were mostly teenagers. I have no idea what Mitchell and Glen looked like as boys, but I suppose I could go down to the local high schools and check out yearbooks.”

  “If you have time tomorrow, it might help. Although even if we found pictures of them with Jaylene, I don’t know what that would tell us.” Decker played with his cell. “Maybe I should wait until tomorrow to give back the photos.”

  “Not cool, boss.”

  “I agree,” Rina said.

  “All right, all right.” He dialed Tran’s number and explained the situation. Then he said, “I didn’t want to bother you today because you seemed pretty busy. But going forward, I wanted you to know.”

  “Liar,” Rina whispered.

  Decker smiled, listened, and then said, “As long as you have a busy tomorrow morning, can I keep the photographs? I’ll drop them off in the afternoon and bring you up to speed on what I know.” Another pause. “Sure, I’ll be happy to check with Forensics tomorrow. Not a problem. Oh, one thing. Is there any way I could get access to the original Levine murder files?” Decker listened. “Could I get access to the archives?” Another pause. “Sure, I’ll talk to Chief Baccus. No problem. Thanks, Tran. I’ll see you and Randy tomorrow afternoon.”

  He hung up.

  “Just what I didn’t want. Getting Baccus involved.”

  “Why are you so opposed to dealing with him?” Rina asked.

  “Because he was the lead in the murders. I don’t want him thinking that I’m checking out his breakout case fo
r improprieties.”

  “Which is what you’re doing,” McAdams said.

  “No, I’m not,” Decker defended himself. “As far as I know, he did nothing wrong. I’m just trying to be as complete as possible.”

  “Complete how?” Rina asked. “What do the murders have to do with Brady Neil?”

  “I don’t know.” Decker was pensive. “According to his friend, Patrick Markham, Brady called him up to tell him that he’s doing well. Plus, his mother, Jennifer, told us that he always had money. Now we find out that Levine’s old business partner and his wife are fugitives. We’ve got old pictures sewn into Jaylene Boch’s wheelchair. Then we’ve got Joe Junior and Brady—who are ten years apart—working together. And one is dead and one is missing. You tell me what picture I’m seeing.”

  McAdams said, “They found out where the Flints are hiding, and Joe and Brady were blackmailing them. The Flints got tired of paying them off and had the boys murdered.”

  Decker shrugged.

  Rina said, “Why now?”

  “Maybe the Flints were running out of money,” McAdams said. “They couldn’t pay the kids off anymore.”

  “We have the photos until tomorrow afternoon,” Decker said. “Let’s enter them into the Greenbury system before we hand them over.”

  “I can do that,” McAdams said.

  Rina said, “I’ll check out the local high schools for yearbooks of Glen and Mitchell.”

  “Thanks.” Decker rubbed his eyes, then looked up. “Anything for dessert? I need a sugar fix.”

  “Biscotti in the freezer. Lemon and almond.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “I’ll get them,” Rina said. “I know exactly where they are. You can clear while I make coffee.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Decker stood up and looked at McAdams. “You can help, you know.”

  “Do I get a tip?”

  “Yeah, buy high and sell low.”

  “Actually, boss, I think you’ve got it backward.”

  “Aha!” Decker smiled. “No wonder I can’t scratch a dime in the stock market.”

  At eleven on Friday morning, after scanning the photographs into the Greenbury computer, Decker drove down to Hamilton PD, returning the originals to the detectives assigned to the missing persons case of Joseph Boch. In the detectives’ squad room, as Wendell Tran shuffled through the blurry black and whites, he said, “You think these people are Mitchell and Margot Flint? The woman is with more than one man.”

  “I don’t know who they are,” Decker answered. “Show them to Chief Baccus. He was around when the Flints went underground. Maybe he’ll recognize them. Or maybe Gregg Levine will know who they are. The Flints were family friends. He was in his teens when the couple disappeared.”

  “I’ll try Baccus first before I disturb a civilian. He’s out until the afternoon. Did you find anything else sewn into Jaylene Boch’s wheelchair seat?”

  “No.” Decker paused. “Have you gone over Jaylene Boch’s house yet?”

  “Today.” Tran looked up. “I suppose that looks negligent, but we’re a small outfit. Yesterday was unusually busy, and we had real victims to talk to.”

  “I get it.”

  “We did put out an APB on Joseph Boch. But we can’t find a car registered in his name. It’s going to be hard to find him, if he’s still alive. There hasn’t been any activity on his credit cards.”

  “How many does he have?”

  “Two—one is a Bigstore credit card, the other is a Mastercard, and neither one has had any charges since your guy, Brady, was murdered four days ago. Boch has a checking account with about fifty bucks in it. No activity there, either. Have you made any headway with Brady Neil’s murder?”

  “One detective is checking cars in and out of the area on CCTV. We’ve hooked on to one that looks promising. Stolen plate from an old Cadillac was put on a Camry. Looks like there are two people inside the car. We’re following that up. I also talked to Patrick Markham, his best friend from high school. Back then, Neil dealt mollies and weed and would steal his mother’s prescription drugs.”

  “Well, that could explain a lot about what happened to him, especially if he advanced to opiates.”

  “Of course. He could have been dealing. He always seemed to have pocket change. But drug dealers usually don’t bother with full-time jobs, especially things like being a manager of an electronics department at Bigstore. I thought at first he was stealing merchandise and that’s how he got spare cash, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “What got him killed should be bigger than a few stolen items, although I’ve seen people murdered for all sorts of reasons.”

  “Maybe it was a ring.”

  “Sure, that could explain it, especially if the ring spanned several states.” Decker paused. “I’m very curious about those black and whites in Jaylene Boch’s wheelchair. Someone took great care to hide them.”

  “Yeah, good job on finding them,” Tran said. “We need to identify the people, obviously. What about the shoebox you found in the closet. Was it hidden as well?”

  “It was on a shelf. Pretty much out in the open.”

  “Then what significance could the shoebox pictures have?”

  “I don’t know if they have any significance,” Decker said. “I scanned everything into Greenbury’s computer system. There’s several forensic programs that takes faces and progressively ages them. There are also programs that age-regress photographs as well.”

  “You know they have apps like that on your phone.”

  “The resolution on the old photos stinks. Once I downloaded them, the resolution would be even worse. Even if they were great, those apps aren’t reliable. The good ones take money, and I can’t justify spending cash for that.”

  “It might be worth a shot.”

  “If all else fails, sure.”

  “Let me know what you come up with. I’ll see what I come up with on my end. We’ll compare notes.”

  “Thanks.” Decker winced. “Also, I’d really like to take a look at the original Levine murder files.”

  “I told you to talk to Baccus about that.” When Decker didn’t answer, Tran said, “Why don’t you want him to know about it?”

  “Chief Baccus was the lead investigator.”

  “Do you think he did something wrong?”

  “Not in the least. But no one wants their old adjudicated cases being looked over.”

  “Then why do it?”

  There was big-time hesitancy in Tran’s voice. Who could blame him. Decker was asking him to sneak around his superior. He said, “It would help me understand Brady Neil.”

  “Brady was a kid when the old man went to jail. How would it help?”

  “Put it this way: I want to see the file for the sake of completeness. I hate to put you out, but . . .”

  “The files have been archived, and that’s in a different building. It’s already Friday, and I’m swamped. I’ll see what I can do next week.” Tran looked him in the eye. “I don’t know if I can keep it from the chief. I don’t know if I want to keep it from the chief.”

  “I don’t want to upset him, but that’s got to be your decision.”

  “Right.” Tran shook his head. “Are you always this meticulous about your murder cases, looking into every detail of a background like this, or are you just bored?”

  “Maybe a little of both.”

  “I’ll get back to you next week. By the way, I got the forensics report on my desk. Several DNA profiles. More than two. First thing we need is a sample from Jaylene Boch and a sample from Jennifer Neil. Jaylene’s not hard because she’s hospitalized and they’ve drawn multiple tubes of blood from her. You should contact Jennifer Neil because Brady is your case.”

  “No problem,” Decker said. “Thanks for your cooperation. I really appreciate it. Not all departments are so helpful.”

  “Yeah, we’re all small departments around here.”

  “
Sometimes the small ones are the most territorial,” Decker said.

  “Nah, that never works,” Tran said. “Your department is small, our department is small. Working together, maybe we can create something bigger.”

  Chapter 18

  At Urgent Care, the fingerstick took all of twenty seconds, although the wait time was considerably longer. Jennifer Neil sat in stony silence until it was her turn. Afterward, Decker walked Jennifer back to the Ford Focus. She unlocked the driver’s door, and Decker helped her in.

  Before he closed the door, she said, “I don’t know why I had to go through with that. Doesn’t bring him back to life to know where he was murdered.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Decker said. “But as I explained over the phone, every detail that I find out will help me solve this.”

  “Don’t see how,” Jennifer said. “You haven’t made much progress.”

  “No, but it’s early days.”

  “I heard if you don’t solve the crime right away, your chances of solving it are real low.”

  “Sooner is always better than later. Most murders are obvious. This one isn’t. From what I’ve discovered, Brady wasn’t doing anything high risk, although he did deal drugs in high school. Whether that continued on, I don’t know.”

  She was silent.

  Decker said, “He seemed to be making something of his life. He had a job and he was going to school.”

  Jennifer’s eyes watered up. “He was a good boy.”

  “I can see that.” Decker took out a copy of the blurred black-and-white photographs found under Jaylene Boch’s wheelchair seat. “These are old snapshots. Do you happen to know who these people are?”

  She sifted through them. “Where’d you get these?”

  “I found them when I was searching the Boch house. Do you know who they are?”

  “No idea.”

  “Take another look.”

  Instead, she handed them back to him without a further glance. “No idea. If you found them at Jaylene’s house, ask her.” A pause. “How’s she doing?”