He still didn’t say anything. “Are you still there Wayne?”
“Yes, Sonia, I’m doing what you asked me to do.”
“Well, what do you think I should do? It’s not too late to call them both back and cancel.”
“Sonia, think about what you would say to me if I found out that Harry wasn’t really dead and wanted to see me?”
“That’s not fair. Your father is dead.”
“Yes, but that’s not the issue. What would you tell me?”
“You’re right Wayne. I have to do this or I’ll never have peace in my life again.”
“Sonia, you are a special person and if you really want a relationship with your mother, then you will, no matter what.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for anything like that. I’m just going to give her a chance to talk, that’s all.”
“Yes, and I’m proud of you Sonia.”
That statement both shocked and pleased her. It gave her a warm feeling. She couldn’t take time to analyze that right now. There were too many other things needing her attention.
After she hung up, Sonia lay there again thinking. This time she was thinking about Wayne and how special he was turning out to be. He had done and said exactly the right things, just when she needed them.
Too much! Her brain was going on overload. She had to get some sleep or she would be worthless tomorrow.
Chapter Eleven
Sonia was in her office early the next morning but had to wait for the chief to come back from a meeting he had over at city hall.
When Hilda finally called her to tell her the chief would see her, Sonia had been sitting at her desk staring at the file with the recorder sitting on top of it without seeing either for some time.
She rushed over to the chief’s office and as he waved her in, she closed the door behind her.
After he listened to the whole recording, he turned to her and said, “You need to check with the county attorney’s office to make sure but I don’t think this will do us any good as evidence.”
Sonia felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. “But why?”
He shook his head and frowned. “I’m fairly sure that state law says that a recording like this one is only admissible in court if one of the participants gives his consent.” He spread his hands apart. “And since Hogan is dead, I’m sure the other two didn’t give their consent. So we’re sunk.”
She leaned back in her chair and all the air escaped her lungs in one big whoosh. She’d known that. She’d just gotten her hopes up so much that she hadn’t thought about that particular detail.
“So what do we do?”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. “Well, for starters, it tells us that you were absolutely right about our esteemed city manager. He seems to be in this, whatever it is, up to his eyeballs.”
“Okay, but how do we use this information?”
“Let’s stop and think about this for a minute Sonia. It seems that whoever killed Hogan knew about this recording and that’s probably part of why they killed him. They wanted to make sure it couldn’t be used against them.”
“Yes, but now we know at least some of the ones who are behind all of this. So they aren’t totally in the clear.”
“No, they aren’t and it’s going to be up to us to find the rest of the evidence we need to nail them all including the ones we don’t know about yet. And I’m sure there are more people involved.”
“Okay, we’ll get right on it.” She rose to leave then fell back into her chair. “Don’t you think it’s best right now that no one knows we have the recording?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Chief, you need to know that Bill Hogan is taking his mother and his wife and kids to his aunt’s house in Tucson for a few days. Two of my detectives will be escorting them at least to the interstate to make sure no one is following them.”
“That’s good thinking, Sonia. They are all probably in danger.”
“I also gave him my brother’s phone number in Phoenix if he needs help on the way to Tucson.”
Winters nodded and said, “Good, I’ll give the chief down in Tucson a call and see if I can get a similar number for Hogan to call once he gets down there.”
He smiled for the first time. “You’re doing a good job, Sonia. Now, go back over there and get all your detectives going on this new evidence so we can get these people.”
As soon as she entered the detective area, she saw Stan and Grant at their desks. They both looked up as she approached and she motioned for them to join her.
Once they were all three settled at her conference table, she said, “Well, our recording tells us who two of the subjects are. Now, we need to gather more evidence on them. And by the way, the recording itself won’t be able to be used in court since the only one who would give consent is dead.”
If it hadn’t been so serious, she might have been tempted to laugh at the way both their faces fell at the news she’d just dumped on them.
She looked from one to the other and said, “Now, let’s get started brainstorming ideas on how to get the evidence we need.”
They talked around the table for half an hour before Sonia slapped her palm on the table and said, “That’s it!”
When Grant and Stan both jumped and gave her strange looks, she said, “I just knew there was something the chief said that should have rung a bell in my mind.”
They were still giving her puzzled looks.
“He said that they must have known about the recording and killed Hogan so that it couldn’t be used in court against them.”
They were still giving her blank looks.
“That’s it. How many private citizens know the state law on recordings being admissible in court?”
Grant slammed his right fist into his left palm. “That’s right. But a lawyer would know the law wouldn’t he? I had the feeling the other day when we were in Baar’s office that his lawyer was in on it this too.”
“Yes.” She smiled at the eager looks now on their faces. “Okay, we have Baar and Travers as our primary suspects. And now I think we can also add Baar’s lawyer, Wilkins, to that list.”
They were both looking at her expectantly now.
“Okay, let’s all listen to the recording one more time then we need to make some plans.”
Sonia played the recording for them. It was apparently a meeting of the three men, Hamilton Baar, Randy Travers, and W. C. Hogan. Hogan had obviously been trying to get the other two to admit that they had been tampering with city contracts to favor Baar’s company. It had worked perfectly. The other two had admitted it and even invited Hogan to join them so they could make even more money off city contracts.
When the recording ended, all three detectives were silent for a short time as they thought about what they could do next.
As usual, Stan broke the silence. “Man, this is so frustrating to know who is guilty and not being able to do a thing about it.”
That only drew half-hearted laughs from the other two.
Sonia picked up the recorder from the table in front of her and waved it around before placing it back on the table.
“No, Stan, I don’t think this gives us all the guilty parties. Did you notice that Baar made references a couple of times to some county and state contracts too?”
Grant leaned toward Sonia. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Do you think there might be somebody in county government or even the state involved too?”
Stan shouted out. “That’s it. Wilkins, I knew that name sounded familiar. Jim Wilkins is our representative from this district. I’ll bet they’re brothers.”
They kept at it for another hour and when the two sergeants left her office, Sonia felt that they were finally making progress on this case. But her head was so full of the details of the case that she was about to overload. She looked at the clock on the wall in front of her. Besides, she only had thirty minutes to clear her mind and prepare
for her dad’s arrival.
* * *
Wayne was already tired and he hadn’t even made it in to the office yet. He’d stopped by the estate to talk to his grandfather for a few minutes before going to the office.
Their talk had been congenial enough, but his grandfather seemed to be firm in his decision to have nothing to do with the daily affairs of the company. He continued to insist that he would only be available for advice on major decisions but that Wayne and Kelly would still make the final decisions.
In a way, that was rather frustrating to Wayne. He was nervous almost to the point of being frightened for any major decisions to come up. But, he also felt good about the fact that their grandfather had so much faith in his and Kelly’s decision making powers that he would leave it all up to them.
He had to laugh when he thought about all the little things he’d noticed since taking over his grandfather’s office. The old guy had made so many preparations for turning over control of the company that Wayne was amazed. What was more amazing was that many of the preparations had been made as much as six months ago. How had Grandfather known when to start?
As usual, he wasn’t paying much attention to his driving while in deep thought the way he was. He wasn’t aware of the fact that a beat up old pickup was right on his rear bumper until it actually hit his car.
The other driver had apparently timed the impact for when Wayne was rounding a switchback so that it only took a little push by the truck to send Wayne’s car flying off the road at the sharpest part of the curve.
Wayne had no time to react before his car was airborne. He mentally told himself to hang on as the car soared through the air, hit the side of the mountain fifty feet below, and flipped end over end twice before finally landing on its wheels.
He must have blacked out but for how long, he had no way of knowing. When he tried to open his eyes, he couldn’t at first. But after raising his head off the steering wheel, he could see but his vision was blurry. All he saw was the deployed airbag. What had happened to him? He couldn’t remember at first.
He forced himself to think then he began to remember. He was driving down the mountain from his grandparents’ estate when a truck pushed him off the road. Was he okay? That was when he became aware of sharp pains up and down both of his legs. As he continued to take inventory, he realized that his head was hurting so bad he could barely stay conscious.
Where was he? Stop and think. Were there any houses close enough for someone to have seen what had happened? Then he remembered he had been going through the last of the switchbacks when it happened. There were no houses close by on this side of the ridge he’d been going down.
His cell phone! He had to get to his cell phone. It should still be in its carrier clipped to his belt. As soon as he tried to turn himself enough to reach the phone, pain shot all through his body and his head felt as if it were about to explode. He tried to relax enough to get the pain to subside. After a few minutes, he was able to reach down slowly and after a couple of tries was successful at pulling the phone out.
He remembered hearing somewhere once that if he just pushed down on the nine long enough, it would dial 911. It worked but when the operator came on the line, he couldn’t get his jaw to move enough to be able to talk. He tried to make the words come out without moving his jaw very much.
It took several tries but he thought that he finally made the operator understand where he was and what had happened. Because she repeated back to him his location.
He dropped the phone when he tried to put it back in its holster. Oh well, he shouldn’t need it anymore. That was when he realized that his door window was completely gone. He tried to concentrate on what had happened but couldn’t.
He either blacked out again or fell asleep. The next thing he was aware of was voices yelling outside his car. Then there was a horrendous noise and a few seconds later, his door popped open.
Hands were all over him for a few minutes then they cut the seatbelt away and pulled him out to lay him down on a stretcher. He was trying to focus on the people hovering over him when he felt someone poking his legs which seemed to wake them up giving him so much pain that he passed out again.
When he tried to open his eyes again, a bright light almost blinded him. Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he heard voices again, all around him. Someone was talking to him. He had to concentrate on what they were saying.
“Mr. Newcomb, can you hear me?”
He started to nod but his head exploded with pain again. When he was able to speak around the pain he said, “Yes.”
“Can you tell me where you hurt?”
If he could have, he would have laughed aloud. “All over . . . legs . . . head.”
He was left alone for a few minutes then the same voice said, “It looks like your x-rays don’t show any internal damage, but we’re going to have to go in and work on your femur. It’s pretty bad but we’ll get it fixed up almost as good as new. Okay?”
“Sure.” That was all he could get out before things began to get cloudy again. This time he realized that it must be due to the anesthesia they were giving him for the operation.
The voice he heard the next time he awakened was easily recognizable. Kelly!
He forced his eyes to open and was glad the lights were now dim. He had to struggle to see Kelly sitting next to his bed, and she was still blurry.
“Good morning big brother. The next time you want to go hang-gliding off the mountain, don’t do it in your car, okay?”
He tried to concentrate on what she was saying but it wasn’t making any sense to him. One word did get through to him though, car.
“My car . . . is it okay?”
Kelly turned her head to her side and that was when Wayne could make out Grant standing next to his wife. He simply shook his head.
Kelly turned back to him and said, “You can always get another one Wayne.”
He suddenly thought of someone more important than his car. “Sonia?”
This time Grant spoke. “She’s in an important lunch meeting and has her cell turned off. As soon as we can track her down, I’m sure she’ll be here.”
That was a comfort. He wanted to see Sonia. He needed to see her. He wanted to tell her something. He needed to tell her he loved her. He didn’t want anything else to happen before he could tell her. It was now the most important thing in his life. He had to tell her.
He was so tired that he drifted off to sleep with Kelly holding his hand and talking to him.
* * *
Sonia met her dad at the front reception area, signed him in with a visitor’s pass, and took him back to her office.
Once there, Karl stopped in the doorway, looked around, and smiled down at her. “When I made lieutenant, I went from a small cubicle to a small office with four glass walls just big enough for my desk and two visitor chairs. I felt like I was in a fish bowl, and in some ways, I guess I was.”
He waved his hand around the room. “But this, this is great baby girl, I’m happy for you. You really deserve this.”
Sonia blushed and looked around to see if anyone could have heard him. “Dad, please I’ve asked you not to call me that anymore, and especially not here.”
He laughed loudly and took a seat at her conference table. She closed the door and joined him.
He tried to talk more about her promotion and her new position, but Sonia wasn’t having it.
“No, Dad, we don’t have that much time. I need to know everything that happened twenty-eight years ago before I meet with this woman claiming to be my mother.”
Sonia was alarmed at first when the huge mountain of a man she’d always thought of as indestructible seemed to deflate right before her eyes.
He let out a huge breath and began. “I don’t really know where to start but here goes anyway. You know that my family and your mother’s family came over from Sweden together when we were both very young.”
He stopped and she realized he was waiting for he
r to respond. “Yes, you’ve told me that much.”
“Well, when we grew up, we wanted to get married, but her family was dead set against. You see, by then they had fought with my parents and moved to Boston, a hundred miles away.” He looked down at his hands. “So we eloped and came out here where I had already applied and been accepted by Phoenix P.D. to go to the academy.”
She was determined to wait him out.
“The rest is going to be things I never told any of you. Well, to make a long story short, Errika hated it in Phoenix. It was too hot, too dry, too everything for her. So when you were about three, her mother convinced her to go back to Boston for a visit. We’d been married about seven years then.”
He looked up at Sonia with moisture in his eyes. “She never came back. Then like I said the other night, a few months later, her mother sent me a letter saying that Errika had died from one of those – what do they call it when a blood vessel pops in your brain?”
“Aneurism?”
“Yes, that’s it. Her mother said that was what happened to Errika. So this woman can’t be her, Sonia. We have to find out who she is and what she’s up to.”
Sonia didn’t know what to say. This version was more than a little different from the one she had been told while growing up.
“Why didn’t you go after her?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You were too little to remember the fights we had before she left. She didn’t want to be here and she apparently didn’t want me anymore either. Once she got back there with her family, they poisoned her against me even more. I couldn’t get her to listen to anything I had to say, and then she finally quit taking my calls totally. I don’t know what all they must have said to her, but I’m sure they told her all kinds of lies about me to get her to cut things off the way she was doing. I kept expecting first her and then her parents to come out here and try to get you and your brothers.”
“But why did you say she divorced you and ran off with another man?”
“I didn’t want any of you kids to ever have any contact with her family. They hated me so much for taking her away from them that I was afraid they’d turn you against me too if you were ever around them. But I guess I didn’t have anything to worry about that way. They never tried to even see any of you after that.”
Resolved Memories (Sycamore P.D. Series Book 3) Page 16
