“And if I do?” Randall’s small brown eyes went from Kendra to Matt like tennis balls moving in slow motion. “Who’s asking?”
“Detectives Abilene and Cavanaugh,” Kendra said, nodding toward her partner as she held up her identification for the man to see. Abilene took his out and did the same.
For form’s sake, Randall studied one, then the other. And then sighed deeply. “What’s he done now?”
“ ‘He’?” Kendra echoed.
“Yeah. Scottie. My grandson.” Each word sounded as if it weighed more than a ton on his tongue before he uttered it.
Kendra took out the photo she and Abilene had been showing around for the past few days.
“Is this your grandson?” she asked, mentally crossing her fingers. She held her breath, waiting for the man to answer.
He did reluctantly after a beat. “Yeah, that’s Scottie.”
“Does Scottie by any chance live with you?” Matt asked.
The old man laughed. “Does he live with me? Ever since he was three days old and his mother, my daughter, left him on my doorstep and took off.” He shrugged haplessly. “Just as well. That girl could never take care of any living thing. All her pets always died. She kept forgetting to feed them,” he confided. And then he grew very serious. “What’s this all about?” Randall asked, growing somewhat distressed. “Scottie’s a good boy,” he assured them. “He just can’t seem to get his act together.”
Kendra felt sorry for the older Scott Randall, but there were rules about discussing ongoing investigations, namely: don’t. So her hands were tied and she was forced to ignore his question.
“Where can we find Scottie right now?” she asked the old man.
He thought for a moment. “At Fashions for Less on Windom and Halladay. He’s a stock boy there. It’s not that he doesn’t work hard,” the man quickly added. “He just can’t seem to hold on to anything. This is Scottie’s fifth job since the beginning of the year,” he confessed, embarrassed. And then he looked at them again. “Please, what’s he done?”
Kendra threw him a crumb—it was the best she could do. “Hopefully something minor.”
“Have him call me when you find him,” Scottie’s grandfather called after them as they walked away from the house.
Kendra raised her voice. “We’ll do our best,” she promised, fervently hoping she could keep her word. “Poor guy,” she murmured under her breath as she and Abilene walked back to the unmarked vehicle they’d left parked at the curb.
Her partner paused and looked at her over the roof of the car. “You know, you act tough, but you’re pretty softhearted,” he noted.
She didn’t want him extrapolating from there and going in directions she wasn’t comfortable with.
“Depends on the situation,” she said crisply. She got into the car on the driver’s side. “I just felt sorry for the old man.” In her opinion, it was hard not to. “He does a good deed, takes in his daughter’s kid—a kid she thought nothing of abandoning,” she added with a shake of her head. “And now his payback might be that he raised a killer.” Although she still had a long way to go before she was convinced of that.
“Maybe not,” Matt speculated. “Nothing about this case is cut-and-dried,” he pointed out. “For all we know, this kid could be an innocent dupe in all this.”
Now that surprised her. She spared him a glance at the next light just to be sure he hadn’t morphed into someone else.
“Well, look at you, Mr. Optimist.” She grinned. “Nice to know there’s a streak of optimism buried in there somewhere.”
He shrugged off her words and said flippantly, “I guess maybe you’re contagious. I should have gotten my shots first before we got...‘started,’ ” he finally concluded.
“Maybe you should have,” she agreed.
And while they were at it, she added silently, she should have gotten hers—against him. Because God knew he was definitely getting to her. Here they were, on the cusp of possibly catching a break in the case, and all she could think of was being alone with Abilene tonight.
Something was definitely wrong with this picture. And she was really going to get hurt if she wasn’t careful.
Chapter 15
“Murder? What murder? Whose murder?”
Scottie Randall croaked out the questions, his voice getting higher and reedier with each panicked syllable he uttered. His head looked as if it was on the verge of spinning around like some character in a grade B horror movie.
Kendra and Matt had found the nineteen-year-old exactly where the teen’s grandfather had said he would be, working in the back room of Fashions for Less, stocking the shelves. They took Scottie back to the precinct with them for questioning and at the time, he seemed happy enough to get away from the airless stockroom and go with them.
But once the tone changed and the questions began coming, his affable smile melted into confusion and then shock.
“I didn’t kill nobody,” he protested again, genuinely frightened. His eyes were pleading. “You gotta believe me.”
Any second now, their suspect was going to get hysterical on them, Matt thought. Time to change tactics. He spoke to the teen slowly, calmly, doing what he could to soothe him and distance Scottie from any possible breakdown. A breakdown wouldn’t help them or answer any questions that needed answering.
“We’d really like to believe you, Scottie, but that account you’ve been taking money out of, that’s not your account.”
He shook his head and for just a second, it occurred to Kendra that she was looking at someone incapable of lying to save his life. “No, it’s not.”
“It belongs to someone who’s currently missing,” Kendra told him. She’d come up on his other side so that between them, she and Matt had become the teen’s human bookends.
“He’s not missing, he’s right there,” Scottie cried, his head swiveling to look from one detective to the other and then back again. “In his apartment.” He ran his hand along the back of his neck. “Jeez, he said there wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“Hold it,” Matt held up his hand. “In his apartment? You took the money back to his apartment? What’s the address?” he asked.
Scottie rattled off the address of the building where Summer’s body had been discovered. Ryan Burnett’s apartment building.
The superintendent had been instructed to call them, night or day, if the man returned. So far, that call hadn’t come in.
“And you didn’t think it was odd that Burnett was sending you to withdraw money for him?” Kendra asked the teenager.
The thin shoulders rose and fell haplessly. “He said he was real busy and that if I got the money out for him, he’d give me a—a—he called it a service charge,” Scottie remembered, brightening as he repeated the phrase.
Like a frantic puppy, eager to please his master and not quite sure who that master was, he looked from Kendra to Matt and then back again. “And he was alive when he took the money from me,” he said adamantly.
“And when was that?” Matt asked.
“Today,” Scottie cried. “Right after I took out more money for him.” He lowered his voice, as if to share a confidence. “I said it would go faster if he just went in and took the money out himself, but he said this was just fine for him.” He shrugged. “I guess he knows what he’s doing.”
“And this is the address you went to?” Kendra turned the paper she’d written the address on around so that Scottie could see it.
He gazed at it intently, then looked up at her. “Yeah.”
“You’re sure?” Matt pressed, his eyes pinning the teen down.
“Yeah.” This time there was less confidence in his voice. He was growing nervous again. “Why?”
Instead of answering, Kendra took out the folded photograph of Burnett that she had in her pocket. “And this is the man you gave the money to?”
He stared at the photograph as if he was waiting for it to do something. But it didn’t. Finally, he looked up.
“No, that’s not Ryan Burnett,” he told her.
“What apartment number did you go to?” Kendra asked.
“Better yet,” Matt interjected, “why don’t you just take us there?”
Scottie shook his head. “I can’t.”
Uh-oh, here it comes, Kendra thought. Maybe he was a far better liar than she’d thought and this innocent, wide-eyed thing was just an act. “And why is that?” she asked.
“You left my car in the parking lot,” Scottie whined.
Kendra exchanged looks with Matt. It was obvious her partner was thinking the same thing she was. That this particular teen was not the brightest bulb in the ceiling fixture.
“We’ll drive,” Kendra told him, gently placing her hand against the back of his shoulder and giving him a slight push toward the door. “You just lead us to the apartment.”
The teen was agreeable to that. “Okay, but then can you take me back to work? This is my first week and I don’t want them to fire me yet.”
Yet.
The last word amused Matt. The teen obviously had a game plan that involved not working too hard. With that kind of attitude, Scottie was a perfect candidate for someone with a devious mind-set to use as his lackey and errand boy.
The question was, exactly who was pulling these strings?
“We’ll have a patrolman bring you back after you take us to the apartment where you last saw Ryan Burnett,” Kendra promised.
Though he continued to look a little uneasy, Scottie’s panicky expression had disappeared. It was obvious that he took them at their word. Considering the kind of people she was accustomed to dealing with, Kendra decided that Scottie Randall was an exceedingly trusting soul—which, again, made her think of him as ripe for the picking for anyone who wanted to operate from behind the scenes.
Maybe they were finally on the right path to wrapping this up. God, she hoped so.
When they arrived at the apartment building where Summer Miller’s body was first discovered, Scottie took them up to the third floor. Ryan Burnett’s floor. But when she and Matt turned to go to the left, Scottie remained standing where he was and looked at them with curiosity.
“It’s over this way,” he told them, indicating an apartment down the hall on the opposite end of the hallway.
Definitely not Burnett’s apartment, Matt thought. The last time they were here, canvassing the floor, this was the young, friendly actor’s apartment.
Were the twists and turns in the case ever going to lead them to a conclusion?
Scottie rang the doorbell at the apartment in question. The noise coming from inside the apartment was rather loud and had most likely drowned out the sound of the doorbell.
“We’ll take it from here,” Matt told him.
Moving the teenager aside, Matt fisted his hand and pounded against the door. When there was no response, he pounded even louder.
“I can get the super,” Kendra offered, raising her voice to be heard above the blaring music inside.
Who listened to that kind of stuff without going deaf? she couldn’t help wondering.
“Might not be a bad idea,” Matt agreed, raising his voice as well.
“Can I go back to work now?” Scottie asked them hopefully.
Kendra nodded at the patrolman who’d arrived at the scene. “Take him where he needs to go. And Scottie,” she added as a footnote, as she turned to look at him, “don’t leave town.”
Scottie bobbed his head up and down vigorously and seemed rather excited about the standard warning she’d issued.
“Cool,” he pronounced, then turned to go with the patrolman.
“Cool,” she repeated under her breath. Kendra shook her head. It took all kinds.
In the interim, Matt had given pounding his fist against the door one more try. This time, he was successful and it opened.
A man somewhere in his mid-thirties or so who appeared to be feeling very little pain stood in the doorway, using the doorknob to help him maintain his vertical position. He squinted at them—predominantly at Kendra.
“You the entertainment?” he asked. It was obvious that the idea pleased him.
“Detectives Cavanaugh and Abilene,” Kendra informed him, holding up her badge as Matt held up his.
The man grinned. “Yup, you’re the entertainment,” he declared, weaving just a little as he backed up and held the door all the way open for them. He leered at her in anticipation as she passed him. “Guess it’s going to take you a while to get out of all those clothes, isn’t it?”
“Longer than you could possibly imagine,” she answered crisply.
“Hey, Tyler, who hired your strippers?” their doorman asked, tossing the remark back over his shoulder into the general throng.
“What?” Tyler Blake worked his way to the front door. Kendra noted that the genial smile on his lips faded just for a moment before he brightened and said, “Detectives, have you come to do me the honor of staying for my bachelor party? I’m getting married Saturday,” he told them, repeating a fact that he had already mentioned in the last interview he’d had with them. “You’re welcome to come to the ceremony, but right now, I’ve got to get back to the party. My best man went through a lot of trouble throwing this together at the last minute and it wouldn’t be polite not to enjoy myself.”
Matt placed a hand on the actor’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks as the latter began to retreat.
“We’ll write him a formal apology,” he promised. “Right now, my partner and I have a few more questions for you.”
Tyler turned around slowly and looked at Matt. “It can’t wait?”
“It can’t wait,” Kendra assured him firmly. “You need to come down to the station with us.”
With a resigned sigh, he said, “All right.” Tyler latched onto another man who appeared more intoxicated than the one who had opened the door. “Jeffrey, I’ve got to go talk to these people. Don’t let the party die down.”
“No chance, Ty-man,” his friend promised with a wide, silly grin.
As they left, Kendra could foresee the neighbors calling the police about the noise shortly—if they hadn’t done so already.
* * *
“What is this about?” Tyler asked once they were at the precinct and he was seated in one of the interrogation rooms.
During the entire short ride to the station, the out-of-work actor had said nothing, as if gathering his thoughts together and deciding how he wanted to play the scene. When he finally opened his mouth, he sounded unbelievably calm in Matt’s opinion.
“I think you already know the answer to that,” Matt said quietly, his eyes riveted to Tyler’s very blue orbs—contacts?
Matt gave the impression of looking into the other man’s mind and after a few moments, it seemed to work because Tyler’s carefully reserved facade abruptly began to crack.
Tyler did not appear to be able to sustain the performance he had wanted to render.
“Just for the record, why don’t you tell me?” he finally said.
“Okay, ‘just for the record,’ ” Matt obliged him. “Why do you have Ryan Burnett’s ATM card and password and why are you emptying out his bank account?”
Tyler sat up straight, indignation suddenly emerging from every pore. “Who told you that?” the man demanded angrily.
“Scottie Randall,” Matt said matter-of-factly. Then, for leverage, he added, “We caught him on the bank surveillance tape making the withdrawals. He said you gave him the card and he seems to think that you’re Ryan Burnett.”
Unprepared to have it all unravel right in front of him so quickly and without a prepared script at the ready, Tyler panicked.
“He’s lying!”
Kendra shook her head. “Scottie’s not clever enough to make up a lie. His brain works on a much less complicated level than yours,” she told him. “Now, why don’t you save us all some time and just tell us the truth? Where is Burnett?”
Stalling, Tyler looked from her to Abilene, the
n finally said, “Ryan’s in Costa Rica. I’m supposed to wire him the money as soon as I get it. I forgot because of the party, but I’m going to do it tomorrow morning. I swear it.”
“You know what I think?” Matt said, shifting so that he was directly in the man’s line of vision despite Tyler’s attempts to turn away from him. “I think you’re lying, Tyler.”
“No, I’m not,” the other man insisted fiercely. “Ryan asked me to do this for him and then he just took off.”
Matt leaned in closer, eyeing him. “The police department was pretty good about installing a first-class air-conditioning system at the precinct for days just like today. It would take about three hours to defrost a bag of frozen peas—but you’re sweating,” he pointed out. “Why is that?”
“My body rhythm’s out of sync,” Tyler answered, a note of mounting desperation entering his voice. “I’ve always been like that. Drives my fiancée crazy.”
“That happens when a person’s nervous,” Kendra said, joining in on the psychological attack. “Especially when they’re lying.”
Tyler’s voice rose half an octave as he insisted again, “I’m not lying.”
“Aren’t you?” Kendra probed, maintaining eye contact just as Matt had. “If I call all the airlines, I’m going to find out that Ryan never booked a flight to Costa Rica, aren’t I?”
“Private plane,” Tyler blurted out. “Ryan was on a private plane. It belongs to a friend of his. I don’t know the name.”
“Not necessary,” Kendra told him. “But just so you know, there would be a flight plan filed with the control tower,” she said mildly.
“Easy enough to find out,” Matt agreed.
It was all blowing up in front of him. A drained Tyler dragged both hands through his hair, looking as if his head had suddenly become too heavy for him to hold up any longer.
His breathing grew heavier, more labored. And then he cried out, “Dammit!”
“Yes?” Kendra moved her chair in closer. “Are you asking to revise your story?”
“It wasn’t supposed to get out of hand like this. It was supposed to be so simple.” He looked now like a frightened man who was watching his future, his entire life slip through his fingers. “If she’d just married me a little sooner, none of this would have happened. It wouldn’t have been necessary. But she said she wanted to be ‘sure.’ I didn’t have time to wait for ‘sure.’ I needed to get the money now.”
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