“You told me on the phone that you haven’t seen Tripuka since he was released yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
“How about his red truck?”
“Well…”
“Oh,” Terri interrupted. “Forgot to mention that, as of earlier this morning, Tripuka had yet to claim his truck.”
I nodded and realized Harry hadn’t barked since he was rebuked by his master.
Miss Lucille scratched just behind Harry’s ear. “I forgot to ask, does this mean that Vince is innocent of those horrible crimes?”
“Not necessarily,” Terri said. “We’re still in evidence-gathering mode.”
Miss Lucille nodded and then toyed with a gold hoop earring as she stared at the dog. A moment passed. “I guess that’s why you called me up and wanted to come over.”
“Yes, I’d like to take another look inside his apartment,” I said. “You also said you had something you wanted to share.”
“It’s something that’s kind of been tugging at me ever since all of those police and FBI cars showed up and did that search on Vince’s apartment.” Harry suddenly squirmed. “Oh, jumping junipers…” She nearly dropped him, but was able to keep her arm on him long enough to set him gently on the ground. “Go do your business, now.”
The little furball trotted toward the pavement.
“Does he have some kind of treasure he likes to find in the yard?” Terri asked.
“It’s not quite that…cute,” she said, her nose wrinkling.
I turned and watched the dog slow down near the garage door, his wet nose sniffing the ground.
“Something inside the garage?” I asked, starting to move in that direction. As I shuffled closer, I began to wonder what was behind the double garage doors, the area directly underneath Tripuka’s apartment.
“Just a bunch of old junk, including Arthur’s old car—a baby-blue Ford Fairlane. They don’t make them like that anymore.”
“When’s the last time you’ve been in the garage?”
“I can’t recall. A while, I suppose. I used to try to do some gardening, but my old knees can’t take that kind of bending and twisting. And with a few extra pounds on me, it takes a crane to get me back on my feet,” she said with a giggle.
I found the handle and tugged, nearly pulling a muscle in my back. The door didn’t budge an inch.
“That door typically gets stuck,” Miss Lucille said, padding up next to me. “I think the foundation moves a bit during the seasons. But you can walk around to the other side and see if the padlock is still on the side door. Frankly, I can’t recall seeing it there or not.”
I walked parallel to the garage, my eyes drawn to where the door met the frame. They appeared to fit right against each other. Seemed like Miss Lucille knew what she was talking about.
“Look out!” Terri yelled.
I stopped in my tracks and looked straight down.
“Harry!” Miss Lucille shook her head. “Do you really have no self-respect? My God, dog.”
The little shit was doing just that a few inches from my shoes. He looked up at me, and I could have sworn I saw a grin under that snout.
“I’m so sorry. This is very odd… I guess you’d call it his fetish. Whenever I used to let him out at night and the spotlight was on here at the garage, he would like to do his business right in the middle of the beam of light.”
Acting as if my feet practically were cast in concrete, I looked over at Terri, who was rolling her eyes again.
“Would you mind running over to the back porch and grabbing my pooper scooper?” Miss Lucille turned to Terri as she said this. Terri looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders, and she shrugged hers, then she jogged over to the porch.
“Are you talking about this small trowel?” Terri held it up.
“That and the brown bag next to it, sweetie.”
Terri brought it over and handed it to Miss Lucille just as Harry stepped away.
“One of his parents must have been a St. Bernard,” Terri said, her eyes as big as saucers. “By the way, Alex, you’re not standing on a land mine. You can move now.”
“Thanks for the guidance.” I took a few careful steps backward. “I guess I’m more used to a cat. They contain everything to a box.”
As Miss Lucille lingered near the poop, maybe wondering if we would help her scoop up the heap of mess, I glanced up at the lightbulb, which was partially covered by an antiquated, glass light fixture.
“Did you ever get this light fixed, Miss Lucille?”
“I knew it would take a ladder, and I’m not strong enough to drag that out. Vince used to do a few things like that to help me around here. But now I guess I’m on my own.”
She gave me a pitiful smile.
“Let me do that for you,” I said as I took the trowel from her.
I wasn’t just being nice. I had an ulterior motive. I finished the job and handed the bag to Terri to toss into the trash can at the far corner of the garage.
“Terri, give me a boost, will you?”
“For what?”
“I want to check something. I’m curious. Just hold out your hands.”
“Okay, I guess, since you’re shorter.” She gave me a wink and lowered her center of gravity. “Just don’t step where Harry did his business.”
“Roger that.” I put one foot into her interlocked fingers and pushed my body up while using the garage door to maintain my balance.
“Okay, hold it for just a couple of seconds.” Up close, the light didn’t look blown. I wrapped my fingers around the bulb. It felt loose. I turned it clockwise, and it rotated at least a full turn.
“I’m good.”
Terri let me drop to the ground. I patted her on the shoulder. “Thanks, partner.”
“Don’t let Nick hear you say that,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Just a figure of speech.”
I turned to Miss Lucille. “Does this light only come on when it gets dark?”
“Well, I do have a switch just inside the porch.” She smiled and looked at Terri again.
“No problem, I’ll go flip the switch. After all, I made detective so I could become an errand girl,” she muttered as she jogged back over to the porch. She opened the door, leaned inside, and moved her arm upward.
The light popped on.
A moment later, she had jogged back my way, pointing at the light. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But I’ve seen it done recently. And I just wondered…”
“Do you know what this means?” she asked.
“What? What does that mean?” Miss Lucille bounced her focus between Terri and me.
“There’s a good chance that Vince purposely unscrewed the bulb so that you couldn’t determine if he was home or not the night that Emma Katic was murdered.”
“Oh…” She brought a hand to her open mouth. After a couple of deep breaths, she began to shake her head. “That no good sonofa—” She closed her lips and put a hand over them. Another deep breath. “A real lady can’t speak that way.”
“This isn’t a smoking gun, but the scale is definitely leaning in that direction, don’t you think?” Terri asked me.
“Possibly. I’m still not sold. We really need to get the DNA results back on the hair found in Vince’s apartment.”
Miss Lucille cleared her throat.
I turned to looked at her. “Yes?”
She glanced down, her eyes following a sniffing Harry around the driveway. “I’ve been a bit stressed since you brought all those technicians over and picked apart Vince’s apartment.”
“Why were you stressed?” Terri asked.
That sounded a bit harsh, so I added, “Beyond the normal stress of having your property searched to determine if you had a killer living here.”
She gave me a half-smile, her lips still moving as if she were trying to determine what to say. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that…”
Another distracting glance at the
dog, who for once, wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Yes?”
“Well, I recently had a few things go missing from the house. And, you know, I just didn’t know who could have taken them. I have a cleaning lady who comes in once a week, but I’ve known Dawn for fifteen years. She couldn’t tell a lie if it was the key to her winning the lottery.”
“You thought Tripuka broke into your house and stole your things?”
“I suspected it, yes.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I’m not proud of myself, but I waited until Vince left for work about a week ago, and used my extra key to get into his apartment and search for my stuff.”
Terri gave me a quick look, then turned back to Miss Lucille. “Did you find anything?”
“I searched everywhere, but no. I didn’t find even one of my missing items. On the one hand, I was relieved, but on the other, I was even more stressed wondering who could have taken my things. And then I thought maybe I’d just misplaced them.”
I watched Harry sniff around my shoes, hoping he wouldn’t hike his leg, then I said to Terri, “The hair evidence. It could be hers.”
She nodded.
Miss Lucille put a hand to her chest. “Did I mess up? Oh, I think I did. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You were just doing what you thought was right, to protect your home,” I said.
“I suppose.” She snuffed out a tear just before it was ready to roll down her face. I went over and put my arm around her. “It’s just been all so alarming. I wonder what Arthur would think of all this, of me,” she said, her voice emotional.
“He’d think you’re a strong woman who’s trying to do the right thing.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you.”
“Hey, Alex.”
Terri was standing at the corner, pointing at the side of the garage. I walked that way.
“What’s up?” I asked in a soft voice.
“Lookee here. The padlock is unlocked.” She raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to check it out, quietly, without an audience,” I said.
“Before you go in there, we’ve got to figure out what all this means. The lightbulb probably means Tripuka wasn’t in his apartment at the time of Emma’s murder like he said he was. So he lied about that. But on the other hand, that hair evidence could very well be Miss Lucille’s. Nothing else turned up in his apartment. He’s obviously a pro if we didn’t find anything except that tablet.”
“Right on both accounts. So we keep digging.”
I turned and opened the wooden door. It slammed back at me before I was even a full step in. Peering inside, I saw a stack of bins just on the other side of the doorway. I put my shoulder into it, but they wouldn’t budge. I then squeezed through the narrow opening. Spears of sunlight sliced through gaps in the woodwork, casting just enough light to see that the garage was almost busting at the edges. It made my garage look organized.
I pulled out my phone, opened the flashlight app, and began shuffling through the garage, my shoes creating sandpaper sounds on the gritty floor. It smelled musty, like old furniture, maybe rotting newspapers. Boxes and bins were piled as high as ten feet in some places, and each one had been sealed with duct tape. I ran my fingers across a few, picking up a heavy layer of dirt and dust. This crap hadn’t been touched in years.
Terri poked her head through the door. “Find anything?”
“Nothing. Just a bunch of storage. And I’m not peeling back duct tape on fifty boxes. Who knows what I’ll find that used to belong to dear old Arthur?”
Making my way around their old classic Fairlane—its baby-blue color now coated with a layer of grime—I could hear Miss Lucille ask Terri a question, and my partner pulled back outside.
“You’ve had better days,” I said out loud to the car, noticing at least two flat tires. I’d made my way through most of the garage, and it was obvious this place hadn’t been inhabited in years. Well, I was sure a few rats and squirrels had taken up home somewhere in the labyrinth of boxes and storage bins.
I brushed against the back of what appeared to be a headboard, and I felt a rip at my pocket, like I’d snagged it on a screw or nail. Shining my phone flashlight on the side of my khakis, I saw the pocket was ripped from the seam.
“Nice, Alex.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m done with the dirty work.”
I aimed my phone in front of me and maneuvered through the maze, careful not to touch anything. As I sidestepped past an old bicycle, my phone illuminated the side of the car. Something didn’t look right. I backpedaled and focused the flashlight on the rear passenger door.
A handprint on the window.
Leaning over, I could see the outline of thick fingers, the size of the handprint almost double mine. Without touching the glass, I glanced inside. The filthy windows refracted my light, making it difficult to see much, but I was pretty sure I noticed boxes inside.
I inspected the door handle; it seemed more polished than the others, as if it had been used recently. I didn’t want to ruin a possible fingerprint, so I walked to the other side of the car, and noticed that the handles and windows on this side had a full layer of coated filth on them. I pulled open the door and at first glance found three sacks and two untapped boxes. They looked and felt relatively new. I pulled back the edges of one and had to blink to ensure I wasn’t hallucinating. I saw box after box of those figurines, many with a Christmas theme, a few in some type of Halloween colors, and a few more with Easter or Thanksgiving themes. Inside the sacks on the floorboard, I found dolls dressed in various outfits. One with blond hair had on a pink outfit, while a brunette doll was wearing a T-shirt with the peace symbol on it. Putting my knee on the seat, I leaned across and pulled open the far box.
“Paintings?”
Very odd. It was the last thing I expected to find. I thumbed through each frame and found scenes of the countryside and the city. A few of them had people; others didn’t. One was a portrait of a woman who looked like she was a cousin to Mona Lisa. Not a pretty face, with a frown almost. The quality of the work on each of the paintings seemed pretty good, at least to my untrained eyes. The name of the artist was different on each, and of course, I didn’t recognize a single one.
Maybe Erin can educate me some day. Part of me wanted to call in the FBI Evidence Response Team at that very moment. But what would that accomplish? This haul had Tripuka’s name written all over it, especially after what we had learned from Susan Miller earlier in the day.
I closed the car door and scooted out of the garage without further damage to my clothes.
“What happened to you?” Miss Lucille said as she eyeballed my dangling pocket.
“A screw or nail of some kind. I’ll live. Just needs a little sewing work, and they will be fine.” I dusted myself off.
Harry made a beeline toward the tree again, doing his barking routine at the squirrels. Miss Lucille chased after him.
“You were in there a while,” Terri said. “What did you find?”
I coughed, some of the filth catching in my throat.
“You need me to do a Heimlich on you?” Terri quipped, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I hacked out another couple of coughs, my face turning red, and then caught my breath.
“I’m fine,” I said, wishing I had a bottled water to down. After a couple of deep breaths, I gave Terri the scoop on everything I’d found.
“I’m calling our CSI team back out here. Not sure how this connects to the killings, but Tripuka is probably baiting girls with all these gifts, like he did with Susan Miller.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“Hold on.” The words produced a cough that doubled me over.
“Agent Troutt, would you like some water?” Miss Lucille said from over by the tree. She still hadn’t corralled Harry, instead letting him work off the energy, I assumed.
“That would be great, thank
you,” I shouted over Harry’s yelps.
“Can you watch Harry while I’m inside? Thanks.” She was already halfway to the back porch by the time I could say yes or no.
Terri and I glanced at each other, then padded in the direction of the dog known as “little shit,” but who produced quite the opposite.
“Careful,” I said. “You don’t want to step in any of his horse-sized crap.”
Terri held up her phone. “Now? I don’t understand why we’re waiting. He probably stole some of that from Miss Lucille. We can at least get him for burglary and B&E.”
“But is that what we really want?”
She paused, dropping her phone to the side.
Trying to ignore Harry’s incessant barking, I continued. “Tripuka is slime. But we don’t know what kind of slime. Every day, even every hour, it swings between possible serial killer, child predator, or rapist. If he’s guilty, I want to nail him on all three. But I can’t send him to prison for killing someone if he didn’t do it.”
“And you think I would?” Her mouth hung open. I may have offended her.
“Not saying that, Terri. I know you only want to bring the right people to justice. I’m just stating the obvious, I guess.”
“What’s next then?”
I looked above us, into the dense set of branches and leaves of the oak tree. “I’d ask Nick, but he can’t even walk.”
Arching her neck backward, she cupped her hand from the sunlight that had found a crack in the thick canopy. “I can’t imagine why you want me to prune her tree.”
I almost laughed, but I coughed instead. Miss Lucille had just opened the door, carrying a bottle of water. I met her halfway, said thanks, and then chugged it as fast as it would pour out of the bottle.
“Better now?” Miss Lucille asked, already doting over her little Harry.
“Yes.” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, finally able to inhale without having the instant urge to cough.
Terri walked up to me. “It finally hit me. You want me to hide in the tree on some type of surveillance gig, and then wait and see if Tripuka comes back to retrieve any of his toys he uses as bait. Am I getting warm?”
“Hot as Ezzy’s homemade salsa.”
“Sounds tasty. I’ll have to try it out sometime.”
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2) Page 44
