Nickeled and Dimed to Death

by Denise Swanson

  “In that case, we’d better contact Chief Kincaid and get him involved before the vet does the surgery.”

  “Why?” Noah asked.

  “If the vet removes the material from Tsar’s claw without a witness, it might break the chain of evidence.” I flashed Noah a grin. “I knew watching all those TV crime shows would pay off someday.”

  After I contacted the veterinarian and told him not to operate on the cat until he heard from me, I reluctantly closed the dime store for the second time that day. Then I filled a shopping bag with what I would need for our talk with the chief, and Noah and I walked over to the police station.

  Chief Kincaid was in his office and agreed to see us right away. I wondered how many more times I could play the friend-of-his-daughter card before I had used up all his goodwill toward me.

  Once we were settled in chairs facing his desk, the chief said, “There’s nothing I can do for Boone. The case is out of my hands.”

  “We understand,” I assured him. “But if we have proof that someone else killed Elise, you’d reopen the investigation. Right?”

  Frowning, he adjusted the leather blotter so that it lined up more perfectly with the edge of his desk. Then he stared at me, and when I didn’t blink, he said, “It would have to be extremely compelling evidence for me to be willing to do that, since any new investigation might weaken the case against St. Onge.”

  Hmm. I hadn’t considered that issue. I flicked a glance at Noah, and he smiled his encouragement. I took a moment to collect my thoughts. I wanted to present a concise and convincing account of what we believed had happened.

  Laying the chocolate mold and its contents in front of the chief, I straightened my spine. “It all started fourteen years ago, when Max Robinson embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from the Shadow Bend Savings and Guaranty Bank. It ended last Saturday when he killed Elise Whitmore.”

  As I told him the rest of the story, Chief Kincaid fingered his shiny brass nameplate, then rubbed the mark his thumb had made off the surface with his handkerchief. When I was finished, he looked up and said, “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  “Several points are easy to validate,” Noah said, joining the conversation. “For instance, you know I wouldn’t lie to save St. Onge, and I will swear to you that Robinson said that Whitmore broke his glass coffee table and that he showed us an injury he claimed was caused by the flying debris.”

  “Why would Robinson lie about something that can be readily checked?” The chief answered his own question before either of us could respond. “Because he’s an arrogant twit who considers himself above the law.”

  “That’s my guess,” I said. “And he probably thinks no one will dare challenge him.”

  Chief Kincaid rose from his chair and said, “Wait here.” He scooped up the flash drive and marched out of his office, closing the door behind him. I was glad that I had copied the drive onto my computer at the store and made a printout before we left.

  “Do you think there’s anyone at the station who can interpret the financial records on that drive?” Noah asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  We sat silently for what seemed like hours, but was really closer to forty-five minutes. When the chief returned, he said, “The coffee table is intact, just as Whitmore told you, and none of the tellers remembers any kind of altercation between Robinson and the victim’s husband.”

  “You walked over to the bank,” I guessed. An advantage of a small town was how close by everything was located.

  “Yes.” Chief Kincaid smiled as if I had said something clever, then pointed a finger at me. “And on the way I dropped off your flash drive with a friend of mine. He just called to say that on the surface, your analysis of its content seems accurate. He’ll need more time to be absolutely sure, but for now he’d say you’re probably right.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” I felt so tightly coiled, I ached.

  The chief took a small notebook from his breast pocket, flipped it open, and read something, then said, “Max Robinson matches the description of the man that the neighborhood watch captain reported seeing lingering near the Whitmore residence.”

  “I had forgotten about that,” Noah murmured.

  “Me, too.” I turned to the chief. “So, what happens now?”

  “We do a photo lineup for the watch captain and see if he picks out Robinson,” Chief Kincaid answered as he reached for the phone.

  We were in luck; Captain Ingram was home and willing to come to the police station immediately. While we waited for him, the chief sent an officer to fetch a picture of Max from the local newspaper files, then assembled seven other photos of men in Max’s age range.

  While all this was happening, Noah had to return to his clinic to keep an appointment, but I waited. If Poppy were on better terms with her father, I would have texted her to come over and keep me company, but considering their current relationship, I was afraid she’d jeopardize the cooperation I was getting from the chief. I contemplated contacting Tryg but thought that his presence might also be detrimental.

  An hour later, Chief Kincaid returned to his office and said, “Ingram identified Robinson as the man he saw skulking around the victim’s house on Saturday night.”

  “Is that enough to get Boone released?” I crossed my fingers.

  “No, but I spoke to the prosecutor.” Chief Kincaid raised a brow. “She was not happy.”

  “Oh.”

  “I did talk her into getting a search warrant for Robinson’s house and office, and one to examine his bank accounts.”

  “How about DNA?” I reminded him.

  “And to get a court order for a sample of his DNA,” Chief Kincaid confirmed. “Now I’m heading over to the veterinarian’s office to witness the surgery on Elise Whitmore’s cat and collect the material from the animal’s claw.”

  “How long will DNA testing take?” I figured it was a lengthier process than the TV shows depicted.

  “I’ll pull in a favor or two, so if the samples are good, and barring any more urgent cases, I should be able to get the results by next Friday.”

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  To say it was a long weekend and an even longer week would be an understatement. There were a couple of bright spots. Oakley Panigrahi was thrilled with the baskets that I delivered to him on Monday morning, and Boone was granted bail that afternoon. On the downside, I’d mailed five of the chocolate molds back to Colin—the sixth was in the hands of the police—and thus was out eight hundred dollars.

  Although Chief Kincaid refused to discuss what the cops were doing to investigate Max, he did tell me they had gotten the search warrants for Robinson’s house and office and the court order for his DNA, and auditors were combing through his financial records.

  I was afraid that Max would disappear during this time, but one of Poppy’s inside sources at the PD told her that he was under twenty-four-hour police surveillance. Even Poppy grudgingly acknowledged that her father seemed to be doing everything right.

  During all this, Noah’s mother returned from her cruise. When he picked her up at the Kansas City airport, he had a talk with her before bringing her home, which he reported to me. He vowed that Nadine understood that if she did anything to upset me or tried to take any action against my family, my friends, or me, he would sever all ties with her. I, however, still had my doubts. Nadine Underwood was not a woman who was easily thwarted.

  Finally, late Friday afternoon, I got the call I had been waiting for. The DNA matched. Tsar had indeed scratched Max Robinson. After my whoop of joy, Chief Kincaid stated that the search warrants had been fruitful—his words—and that the police were bringing the bank president in for questioning. I asked if I could watch and was astonished when the chief agreed.

  After getting my weekend clerk in to run the store, I jogged over to the PD. According to the dispatcher, Max had just arrived with his attorney and they had been put in the interrogation room.
When one of the cops led me to the area behind the one-way glass, a thirtysomething brunette was already there, and the officer introduced her as the county prosecutor.

  She was wearing a severely tailored black suit as if it were armor. The frown on her face deepened when she heard who I was. Nodding silently, she turned her attention back the scene in the next room.

  Chief Kincaid, seated across from the bank president, tapped the file in front of him. “It’s all here. You might as well confess.”

  “I’m innocent.” Max crossed his arms. “I have nothing to confess to.”

  “We have your DNA at the crime scene.” Chief Kincaid pulled out a piece of paper and put it in front of Max.

  “That’s impossible.” Max smirked. “Even if I had killed Elise Whitmore, from what I understand, she never touched her assailant.”

  “But her cat did.” Chief Kincaid’s expression was impassive.

  “So a cat scratched me.” Max shrugged. “That could have happened anytime.”

  Although Chief Kincaid didn’t say it now, he’d told me earlier that Tsar’s paw print in the dried varnish on the Whitmore kitchen floor acted like a time stamp. The feline had to have scratched Max, then almost immediately stepped in the resin, so the DNA they found in the cat’s claw could only have been deposited there during a specific time period. The police could definitely prove that Max had been in Elise’s house shortly before her death.

  Moving on, the chief selected another page from the folder. “We also found shoes in your closet with traces of Elise Whitmore’s blood.”

  The lawyer whispered furiously into Max’s ear, and Max waved him off. “Maybe her husband planted them at my house.”

  I heard the prosecutor croon under her breath, “That’s right, jerk, ignore your attorney and keep talking.”

  “They’re your size and the wear pattern matches your other shoes.” Chief Kincaid took a third sheet from the file. “And we also have proof of your embezzlement, which Colin Whitmore is willing to verify.”

  “The jury won’t be impressed by the testimony of an extortionist.” Max’s lips curled. “He probably forged those computer records.”

  “So you admit he was blackmailing you?” the chief pounced. “And I never revealed that the proof was computer records.”

  The prosecutor muttered, “Strike one.”

  “Uh.” Max seemed to belatedly realize what he’d said but again waved off his attorney’s urgent whispers. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t worry, the forensic accountants who traced the embezzled money to your accounts will explain everything when we’re in court,” Chief Kincaid assured him. “But let’s put that all aside for a minute, because we also have a vial of Rohypnol with your fingerprints on it,” Chief Kincaid stated. “Which poor innocent woman did you use that on?”

  “None.” Max’s expression relaxed. “I’ve never drugged a woman.”

  My stomach clenched as the bank president grew more outwardly calm and whispered something to his lawyer. Damn! That couldn’t be a good sign.

  Max’s attorney said, “We’re done here.” He sat back. “My client has nothing more to say.”

  Was Max about to weasel out of everything? My mind raced until something clicked and I knew how he’d used the roofies. Turning to the officer standing between the prosecutor and me, I said, “I need to talk to the chief right now.”

  He started to protest, but something in my eyes must have made him reconsider, because he said, “Wait here.”

  A few seconds later, Chief Kincaid stepped through the door and I hurriedly told him my theory. He nodded and returned to the interrogation room.

  When the chief sat back down, he said in a conversational voice, “Did you know that Kern Sinclair is a friend of mine?”

  “So?” Max’s mouth tightened.

  “And, as I said, we have proof you were the embezzler, not him.”

  “A white-collar crime.” Max shrugged, but sweat was pouring off his forehead. “If I’m convicted, I’ll go to Club Fed.”

  “You set up Kern Sinclair.” Chief Kincaid pounded the table.

  Max jumped.

  “And when it looked as if he might not take the fall for the missing funds, you gave him Rohypnol, fed him drink after drink, and stashed a bottle of OxyContin in his glove compartment. Then you let him drive away,” Chief Kincaid thundered. “You’re as responsible for the death of the girl he hit with his car as he is.”

  “How could I know that would happen?” Max whined, as his lawyer tried to shut him up.

  “Strike two.” The prosecutor’s smile was fierce.

  “You’re just a worm who should have never been anything more than a middle-management drone.” Chief Kincaid’s face was red. “And I’m going to make sure everyone in Shadow Bend knows what you did and who you really are.”

  I had never seen the chief like this before. Every word he uttered was like a knife carving away another layer of Max Robinson’s ego.

  “You’re just like your father.” Chief Kincaid sneered. “A nobody living off your betters.”

  I’d forgotten that Gran had said Max’s dad was a drunk who barely eked out a living doing odd jobs for the town’s wealthier citizens.

  “That’s not true!” Max’s face was purple. “Unlike people like Kern Sinclair, who was handed everything on a silver platter, I clawed my way up the ladder.” His voice was low and deathly quiet and he pushed away his lawyer, who was still begging him to shut up. “I earned the presidency of the bank, not him, but I needed a lot of money to be accepted into the right social circles. It takes a lot of cash to mix with the likes of Nadine Underwood and her crowd. I deserved the chance to be that person.”

  “And who is that person?” Chief Kincaid gripped the table edge, perhaps to stop himself from taking a punch at the man. “A murderer?”

  “Someone important and powerful.” Max grew more composed and his words held utter conviction. “Unlike my ineffectual father, I refused to drink myself to death. Instead I got rid of the people who thought they were better than I was, or were in my way. No entitled snob or blackmailer or blackmailer’s wife was going to stop me.”

  “Strike three,” the prosecutor crowed.

  I could see that every cell in the chief’s body was rigid with rage and dogged determination to bring Max Robinson to justice. Then he relaxed and smiled.

  “Perhaps your victims couldn’t stop you.” Chief Kincaid gathered his papers and tapped them into a neat pile before inserting them into the folder. He stood up. “But I can. We have enough evidence to put you away for good.”

  “Surely we can talk about a deal.” Max appeared to suddenly come out of a daze. “A reduced sentence, if I admit that I drugged Sinclair.” He grabbed the chief’s fingers. “Otherwise, there’s no way to prove he was under the influence.”

  “That will be up the prosecutor.” Chief Kincaid shook Max off, then opened the door to the interrogation room and said to the officer standing on the other side, “Lock up this piece of shit. I need to go wash my hands.”

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  The prosecutor had assured me that she’d be looking into how the evidence against Max might affect my father, but she cautioned me about being too optimistic. Even if they agreed to a reduced sentence to get Max’s testimony regarding the roofies, it might not be enough to free my dad.

  Still, finally knowing for sure that he was innocent made me feel better than I had in a long time. And even though nothing had changed and Dad was still in prison, Gran was elated. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that securing his release from jail might be a long, hard fight. We didn’t have the money to hire a private lawyer, so we’d have to rely on the public defender.

  However, as I sat in Gossip Central, I couldn’t help but smile. It was Saturday evening, and Poppy, Noah, Boone, Tryg, and I were celebrating the official dismissal of the case against Boone. Gossip Central had started out life as a cattle barn, and when
Poppy had turned it into a club, she had decorated the place to reflect its origins. The center area contained the stage, dance floor, and bar, while the hayloft was available for private parties. She’d converted the stalls into secluded lounges with individually themed decor.

  We were in our favorite alcove, the one we’d nicknamed The Stable. Poppy and Tryg were cuddled together on a brown leather love seat, while Boone and Noah had chosen the pair of saddle-stitched club chairs facing the couch. I had dragged in a stool from the bar and positioned it between the two men.

  “Did they ever figure out who called in the false information about Boone hiding the gun?” Poppy asked.

  “It was Robinson,” Tryg answered. “They traced the call back to his phone, and he admitted that he had gotten nervous when Noah and Dev made the appointment to talk to him. So he called in the fake tip to turn the attention back on Boone.”

  I tilted forward to grab my margarita glass from the wood-and-wrought-iron feed box that served as a coffee table, then asked, “What I still don’t understand is why Elise never told on Willow.”

  “Yeah,” Poppy agreed. “You’d think she’d want to destroy the woman who screwed her husband.”

  “The only thing she would say to me about it was that her silence was golden on that matter,” Boone said. “I assumed there was some monetary reward that Colin had bribed her with.”

  “However, now that we know Colin was a blackmailer, maybe he threatened her with something,” I proposed.

  “Now that you mention it,” Boone wrinkled his nose, “Elise did say that she and Colin both had skeletons in their closets. And she was extremely worried about the promotion she was up for, so maybe he had something on her that would ruin her chances to be the one picked for the VP job.”

  “Willow said that Colin kept Elise quiet by threatening to reveal one of her secrets,” Noah commented.

  “So why wouldn’t he use that threat to demand Elise give him back his possessions?” Tryg asked.