The Murder Motif: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (the Michelle Hodge Series Book 2)

by Roslyn Woods

  “What can we do to help?” Gabe asked. “Let me just say at the outset, we feel Amanda was involved in something that probably got her killed, and we feel sure Dean had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  “If it comes to trial, Dean’s lawyer may want you to testify to that at some point,” said Shell.

  “Of course,” said Linda, accepting a cup from Margie.

  “What we need now, though,” said Shell, “is to try to prove the people around Amanda were doing criminal things in contrast to Dean’s history of being a law abiding person. Here’s what we know.” She shared the information about Lana Maxwell’s gun and the fact that Amanda had been lifting items from the house. She also told them that Ray had lied to Dean about going to the bar, and it made him look suspicious. She relayed the fact that someone had been seen going in and out of her own house when she was gone in an apparent effort to find something valuable. Margie added that Shell had seen Hector Arena in Dean’s house on the Friday after the murder and that Danny’s body had been found in the river on Sunday.

  “Oh my God!” said Linda. It was the first she and Gabe had heard of Danny’s death. “This is so scary! They killed Danny, too!”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Margie.

  “So you’re saying,” said Gabe, “that this Hector person planted the gun and the sweatshirt and that someone has been hunting for something in the house where Amanda stayed after she and Dean first separated.”

  “That’s right,” answered Shell. “Only we don’t think he ever found anything, because after the searching in the house that we know about, someone was also recorded on the surveillance video at Dean’s storage searching for something. Dean wasn’t allowed to see the video, so we don’t know who it was. We also don’t know if anything was taken, but Dean knows there was nothing particularly valuable to be found in the storage unit. It was his mom’s stuff. He was there when the movers packed it all up, and he oversaw the whole move. I think it’s a good possibility that this guy who’s doing all the searching never found what he was looking for.”

  “What do you think is going on?” Gabe asked.

  “We’re guessing Danny was involved in some kind of criminal activity at the bar, and maybe he double-crossed someone? We don’t know, only that someone got mad enough to kill him, and maybe Amanda also got in the way. Hector’s involved, we think Ray’s involved, and I think it’s possible Jason Novak is involved. We’re not sure who else. Maybe most of the people working over there. Who knows? It’s all conjecture, but it’s all we’ve got.” She paused and looked at Gabe.

  “Wait a minute. Why Jason Novak?”

  “I think I saw him at Danny’s Place the night we went over there to see what we could learn about Danny.”

  “What does that prove?”

  “Nothing. It’s sounding complicated, I know. Someone was recorded at Amanda’s apartment on the morning of the killing. He was wearing a Longhorn hoodie, and his face wasn’t visible, but the detectives think it was Dean. So if it wasn’t him, it was someone who looks like him. Jason does. They’re the same height and have similar coloring. Jason also drives the kind of car that was used by the intruder at my house. I hate to point my finger at anyone, but I don’t know what else to do. If you don’t want to help—”

  “No,” Gabe answered. “We want to help. What do you want us to do?”

  “What we need is for—whoever it is—to come one more time to look for the thing they’ve been hunting,” said Shell. “The surveillance will catch them in the act of breaking and entering. But they’ve already been looking here, so we need to lure them. We’d be setting them up, I guess. I figure, if they’re innocent, they won’t show.”

  “How do you plan to do it?” Linda wanted to know.

  “I hope that’s where Gabe comes in,” said Shell. “You’ve known Ray and Jason from work, right? I was thinking you could call each of them and drop the idea that you ran into Dean and he mentioned something about finding something valuable and putting it in his closet or something, and that you’re worried about him because now he’s in jail, something like that. You can drop the idea that the house is empty. I think that might be enough to get one of them to tell Hector Arena what’s going on, and one of them, or Hector, or someone, will come over one more time to hunt for the thing they’ve been trying to find.”

  “How will the police find out what’s happening?” asked Gabe.

  “Dean has surveillance all over his house, and he has both audio and video in his living room. It’s linked up to our computers and phones,” she said, gesturing toward Donald and Margie. “I’m just hoping the recording will reveal something. As soon as we’re messaged that someone’s breaking in, we’ll call the police. Hopefully, they’ll be able to get there fast enough to catch him in the act.”

  Chapter 58

  He hadn’t been to the bar since his interview with the detectives. He hadn’t liked the way they had acted, and he wasn’t planning on being anywhere that would give them easy access to a discussion with him any time soon.

  As usual, the place had been closed on Sunday, and Hector had given strict orders that no one was to come in this week. A scribbled a sign was taped to the door. Closed for repairs.

  Then on Sunday afternoon, something had happened at the Onion Creek house, and Hector had called and said he was going to be staying at his mobile home out in Dripping Springs for now. He had told him he had best find what he was looking for because time was running out. He should come out to Dripping for a conversation about the search, and they could make a plan about where to go from here.

  He almost enjoyed the morning drive west from Austin. Hector had said the mobile home was just outside of town, and he had never been there. All along this part of the 290, the landscape reminded him of the foothills of California’s gold country. It was still a little bit green this time of year, but the oaks and rolling hills would soon be dry with the drab look of winter. He missed California, and he wondered if he would be able to go there once he got his money and all this trouble was settled. His GPS told him to make a right on Bell Springs Road. He followed it for a ways and then took a left going west into an unpopulated area full of trees and grassy pastures with cattle grazing here and there.

  There it was, a ratty looking trailer house that he almost couldn’t believe Hector would submit to staying in. This had to be it because there was the Mercedes. All he could think was that the place must be some kind of hideout, and he pulled his car next to the other car and parked.

  “Hector?” he called. Nothing. It was cold out here, and he pulled his jacket closer before climbing the small wooden staircase that led up to the door. He knocked and listened. “Hector? You there?”

  He could hear shuffling around inside, and in a minute Hector opened the door. “Come on in,” he grunted. “You want a beer or something?”

  “Sure, thanks,” he replied. It was pretty early for a beer, nine a.m., and it wasn’t like Hector to act friendly. He wondered if he was feeling better because of the arrest.

  “Sit down.”

  He looked around the narrow little room while Hector opened the miniscule refrigerator. The place wasn’t at all clean, and there was only a narrow little spot on the built-in bench by the window where he could sit diagonal to the spot where Hector had obviously been sitting in front of yesterday’s paper. It lay opened to the front page on the small foldout table, and Hector had clearly been reading about Dean Maxwell’s arrest.

  “You see this?” he asked, inadvertently knocking over an empty beer bottle.

  “Yeah.”

  “How about this?” Hector asked pointing at a headline toward the bottom of the page as he set the beer on the table.

  “See what?” he asked, turning the paper so he could read it. It was an article about finding a body in the river. “So?”

  “So, that’s our friend Danny,” Hector said in his rough voice. “Do you know what happened to him?”

  He swallowed and loo
ked at Hector. He knew Danny was gone. Like really gone. He had been at the Onion Creek house a few times, and he had heard Hector make jokes about Danny being in the freezer, but he hadn’t really believed him. Reading this headline gave him a vaguely sick feeling. He didn’t answer but looked at the older man wondering where he was going with this.

  “See, I’ve been giving you all this time to find the money, and I’m pretty tired of waiting. Every day you tell me today’s the day you’re going to find it. Every night you come into the bar and you haven’t found it. You’ve probably spent most of your time lazing around and getting high.” It was obvious Hector had been drinking. You could smell it for one thing, but he never talked this much. Just a cryptic remark or order here and there and an occasional oneliner was all he had ever heard. That, and a few threats.

  “The thing is, Hector, I didn’t have anything to do with taking the money. So I just don’t get why it’s my responsibility.”

  “Nothing to do with it? You were supposed to make the deposits. You’re a computer man. You were supposed to know exactly how much was coming in and how much was being deposited. You had to know he was skimming from the beginning.”

  “But I wasn’t in on it from the beginning. And don’t forget I was watching the bar every night for a sign of the feds.”

  “But you knew, didn’t you? And you knew Amanda was in on it, didn’t you? You probably knew what he was taking down to the penny, and you thought old Hector wouldn’t find out.”

  “Look, Danny told Amanda. She kept it from everybody. I think she was thinking the two of them would get away with it and leave Austin, but when she figured that Danny was…gone, she lost it. She was going to turn us in.”

  “All you had to do was take her phone and calm her down. Instead you shot her, and that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in today. Because of you.”

  “Hector,” he said, leaning forward, “she had a gun.”

  “So?”

  “I had to get the gun from her.”

  “And it just happened to go off while you just happened to be pointing it at her chest?”

  He put his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean for it to go off. And who knew it would kill her? It was just a little pop gun.”

  “But it did kill her. And you said the money was going to be there in the apartment, but of course, it wasn’t.”

  “There were a limited number of places she could have hidden it.”

  “Then good old Hector had to clean up your mess.”

  “And I’m grateful you took care of the gun and the sweatshirt.”

  “Do you think I give a fuck if you’re grateful?”

  “I don’t know. But now that Dean Maxwell is in jail, I can do a thorough search and find the money, and you should be back in the good shape you were in before.”

  “No, I won’t. The bar will never open again. The cops are onto us because of Amanda’s murder, asshole! I’ve got people in the business breathing down my neck. All there is left is getting out of here, and I’ve gotta have the money to do that.”

  “Okay. So I’ll get the money today.”

  “Do you think I don’t know where you’re looking? Did you think I wouldn’t hang around Hyde Park and watch you to see where you thought it was?” Hector was slurring his speech just a little. “Do you think I’m impressed with your hunting skills? You’ve had all this time and we’ve got nothing. I can do this kind of work myself, and with lots less trouble than keeping your sorry ass in my sights.”

  He swallowed and looked at Hector. He didn’t dare to ask what the older man had in mind. It was almost unthinkable that he would allow any kind of escape. He could feel a sweat breaking out on his forehead, and his hands were shaking a little. He put them in his pockets and stared at Hector across the table.

  “Drink your beer,” continued the older man. “We’re going for a walk in a few minutes.”

  So this was why he was out in the country. This was why they needed a conversation out here. He wondered if this was the place where he finished Danny. Maybe he had even given Danny a beer. He imagined how Hector had shot him and put his body in the trunk before driving him back to Onion Creek and putting him in the freezer.

  He took a sip of the beer, trying to make a plan. Then he decided there was no reason to wait. He could just take care of things now. No need to even worry about the body because he would be long gone, and no one would ever find this weapon. He could toss it in a river on his route to California.

  It was quick. He just pulled it out of his jacket pocket, aimed low, and shot. The recoil was surprising, but Hector didn’t even know what hit him.

  Chapter 59

  Shell knew the plan they had discussed with Gabe and Linda wasn’t going to be enough to do Dean much good. She had known it wouldn’t be enough even as she planned it.

  Early in the morning, she woke up and showered. She fed the dogs and made coffee while Margie and Donald slept. She sat down at the table and drank her steaming brew while she thought about everything. She was afraid, but she was resolute. Help me, Mom. Help me, Lana.

  She wrote a quick note to Margie. Taking Sadie and Bitsy for a walk. We need some exercise. Might go by Pet Smart. Be back late morning, maybe 11 or so. I’ve got my cell. She also had her laptop, but she didn’t mention that.

  It was about seven when she put on her jacket and took the dogs out to the Corolla. Shell drove slowly to the neighborhood. She parked on Duval about three blocks north of her house, and she and the dogs got out of the car. She grabbed the leashes she had left in the trunk and attached one to each dog’s collar. “C’mon girls. Let’s walk to our house.”

  Everything looked so peaceful at this hour. People were starting to get up and off to work, but there wasn’t much bustle. Just the occasional car backing from a driveway and the sound of traffic in the distance.

  Sadie seemed to know they were walking home. It only took a few minutes to get there. Shell unlocked her own front door and went in the house. Everything looked normal. She detached the leashes and hung them up in the laundry room while the dogs ran around the house checking things out. She opened her laptop and sat in her mother’s wingback chair. She clicked on the link to Dean’s surveillance. Here she could choose a camera and watch what was going on at his house and hers. Nothing. His house looked as it had when they had all cleaned it up the other day. She looked at the outside cameras, one by one. If there was movement, her computer would make a dinging sound and the pickup camera would automatically put a picture on the screen. She turned off the sound.

  Now she must wait. If she couldn’t make this work, Dean might go to prison. That was all she could think about as she brewed another pot of coffee and sat staring at the screen on the laptop. She knew he wouldn’t approve of what she was trying to do. She knew that even Margie and Donald would think this was too dangerous. It didn’t really matter. Everything was actually falling into place. She just needed to decide when the right moment was to go over there.

  Gabe texted at 10:15. Okay. I called each of them and told them everything as planned. Now we’ll see if someone takes the bait. Let me know what you learn. I feel like a heel, but I know it’s for a good cause.

  “Okay girls. We’re going over to Dean’s house. We’re going to be very quiet when we’re there, and I’m going to need you to help me.”

  Sadie whined and wagged her tail as if she understood and approved. Bitsy gave a swift bark and wagged her tail, too.

  They went out the back door. Shell pulled Dean’s keys from her pocket and went in. The dogs pushed past her and ran around the house barking and sniffing while Shell locked the back door. They could smell that the police had been there on Monday. Sadie didn’t like it one bit. She kept moving from room to room sniffing and whining.

  Shell set her laptop up on Dean’s office desk and opened it up to the surveillance page. Then she went into the living room, unlocked the front door, and stood by the window watching the street through the shade. Sh
e began to wonder if anyone would come. It was almost eleven when Margie called.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I took the dogs for a walk,” said Shell. A very short walk, she thought. “Then I stopped by the house to check on things. I’m getting ready to go over to Pet Smart right now.”

  “Oh yeah? Well I’m watching you on Dean’s surveillance camera right now, and I can see you’re in his living room! Are you insane?”

  “Oh, Margie, I knew you’d tell me not to do this, but I have to do it. I have to try to get them to say something about the gun. Without that we’ve really got nothing.”

  “But it’s dangerous, Shell! You’re all by yourself over there!”

  “I’ve got Sadie and Bitsy.”

  “Shell, Dean wouldn’t want you to do this.”

  “Just like he didn’t want us to go to the bar or to follow Kojak, but it’s a good thing we did.”

  “Shell, please go back over to your house. At least do that!”

  “It’s too late Margie. Someone’s pulling up in the driveway right now. Maybe you could call the police. I was going to do that myself. Tell them it’s a break in and I’m in the house with an intruder. Tell them I’ve unlocked the front door for them. Will you do that for me? It’ll take them a while to get here.”

  “Jesus, Shell!”

  “I’m turning the sound off on my phone now. Wish me luck.” But she didn’t wait to hear whatever Margie might have said. She called Sadie and Bitsy into Dean’s bedroom and closed the door. Then she walked into the office and closed that door, too.

  If she watched the little boxes on the screen of her laptop, she could see the man moving from the front of the house to the back. Wow. He really did look like Dean from this distance. One camera would pick up where the earlier one left off. He was carrying a crowbar. She jumped when she heard him hitting the backdoor window with it. She could hear the glass shatter and the door opening as he came into the house. Sadie and Bitsy started barking frantically, and Sadie was jumping against the bedroom door. Shell said nothing. Let him realize the dogs were closed in there, but let him think no one else was. She could hear his footsteps approaching the bedroom door and stopping.