Helena sat up straighter. “You aren’t in danger again are you?”
“Oh, no,” I assured her, “they’ve made changes at the DOI.”
She nodded eagerly, obviously sensing some delectable tidbit I was withholding. “You already explained about the gun. Is there something else?”
“Yeah.” I wondered how in the world she could read me so easily. “We’re required to carry at all times, but now we work with partners too,” I admitted.
Helena’s face lit, and I realized my mistake.
“Who’s your partner?” She grinned and studied me. “It’s Mark Vincent, right?”
I didn’t say anything, trying to decide if it was worth it to lie.
“Oh! It is Vincent,” Helena giggled. “I can tell by the look on your face. And that’s why you didn’t object too much to those low-cut tops.”
Great. She was onto me. Might as well come clean.
“Yes,” I said. “Vincent is now at the Mercer field office, but I can assure you that he had no influence on any of my clothing choices.”
Helena clucked at me. “Oh girl, he’s got it bad for you. Why else would he move all the way down here?”
I leaned back. There may have been a spark or two between us, but I wouldn’t say he had it bad for me. “He told me he transferred here to be closer to his son.”
Helena tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes at me. “That may be part of it. But only part.”
“No,” I said, thinking back to the conversation Vincent and I had on the subject. I didn’t want to break any confidences, but I also couldn’t have Helena thinking I was on the verge of a great romance. I’d never hear the end of it. “Justin was the main reason. Vincent was forced to break contact with him when he was young.”
Helena’s eyes narrowed further. “I don’t know if I like that.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Well, Vincent didn’t like it either, so he moved here in the hopes that Justin would move in with him while taking classes at Central Georgia College.”
“That’s good, I guess. Shows that he wants a relationship,” Helena relented. “So how have things been between you and Vincent?”
“Not as steamy as you’d hope,” I said, purposely omitting the rather intimate moment we’d shared of late. That would only provide fodder for Helena’s romantic imagination, and I didn’t know if I could handle it. “It’s been all business.”
“Yeah,” she said as she considered me over her coffee cup, “we’ll see how long that lasts.”
I finished my latte and plunked the empty cup on the table. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
Helena smirked. “Too late.”
Twenty-one
The killing had been better than in his fantasies. With one cut of the knife, he had become all-powerful. He had owned and discarded Theodore Vanderbilt at will, and it had been glorious.
His only disappointment was that the woman had gotten away from him, and he felt that loss more than he’d expected.
He needed to do it again.
As he climbed into the truck, his hands shook and sweat poured from his brow. He lifted his cap and mopped beneath it with the sleeve of his camo coat.
He was going to do it again already.
He pulled the truck sideways into a parking space at the Bait and Tackle. The lot was empty, and this pleased him. There would be no waiting around. He could simply walk in and get down to business. And so he entered the building, found Fred Thomas dusting the long glass counter, and pulled his knife from his belt.
Fred was the last connection between himself and the burned body, and he had to be erased. Crossing the showroom in a few swift steps, he found himself right behind the shorter man, and without his realizing he’d even done it, his arm was already around Fred, and the knife was at his neck.
Just one cut, and the job was finished.
The squatty little man hardly made a sound, but he began to thrash wildly in his arms. He released his grip and Fred crashed forward, falling through the display case, sending shards of glass flying. He felt them land on his skin and cut him, and he stood there watching as his own blood mingled with Fred’s.
It was over too soon, leaving blood and broken glass everywhere.
It was a mess, but he didn’t care.
Fred wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that he’d come around asking about that body.
Now to get Fred to his pit.
He looked around quickly, his eyes landing on a display of sleeping bags. He ripped the packaging open and zipped Fred into one, lifted him over his shoulder, and carried him out of the store. He hefted the body into the bed of the pickup, and it landed with a satisfying thump.
And with no witnesses and no trouble, the man disappeared from the Bait and Tackle, leaving only blood and the promise of death behind.
Twenty-two
Monday morning found me anxious to get back to the DOI so that Vincent and I could get on with the business of questioning Kathy Vanderbilt, who had also been released from the hospital and was now being held at the Mercer jail. I checked my bedside clock and found it was already 7:30, so I had to rush to dress, realizing in the process that I hadn’t done laundry in days, and with a wardrobe as small as mine, that was a real problem.
I had no clean clothes.
Then I remembered my shopping trip with Helena. I immediately grabbed one of the bags that I had stowed in the guest bedroom and began removing tags.
I ended up wearing a pair of khakis and a v-neck sweater cut low enough that the top of my lace camisole peeked out occasionally. Mentally, I shook my fist at Helena for talking me into this outfit, even if it was only mildly revealing.
I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I should change, but then I realized I didn’t have time to dither. We had work to do.
I refilled Maxwell’s food and water bowls and vowed to get him a nice cat toy as soon as the case was over. He’d been a real comfort while I was recovering from my concussion, and he deserved a reward. It wasn’t until I walked into the garage, dressed and ready for work, that I remembered my SUV was still at the MPD.
I called Vincent from the middle of my empty garage.
“I need a ride,” I said by way of greeting. “Where are you?”
“In your driveway,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling.
Well, it was good that at least one of us remembered my lack of a vehicle.
I made my way outside to find Vincent leaning against the bumper of his truck, his legs crossed casually as he waited.
I wondered how long he’d been there, but before I could ask, I spied Helena, who was pretending not to watch us from her front porch. She was already dressed for work in one of her new suits, which I remembered because of its striking deep purple fabric and the fact that it fit her like a glove. I glanced at my own new clothes and knew Helena was congratulating herself. I’d worn a new outfit, and if Vincent’s ardent attention were any indicator, I was looking pretty darn good.
And what would Vincent’s expression say to Helena?
Had she seen him drive up?
Did she think he’d been at my place all night?
Did it even matter?
No matter what, Helena, romantic soul that she was, would imagine a romantic scenario.
Briefly, I contemplated walking straight up to Vincent and hugging him, just to watch Helena’s jaw hit the deck.
But that would send all the wrong signals to Vincent, so instead I sauntered over and said “good morning” before making my way to the passenger seat.
There, that should be appropriately boring. My thought was interrupted as I felt Vincent’s hand land gently on my back.
“How is your head this morning?” he asked as he unlocked the passenger door and took my bag while I climbed inside.
Great day for him to act gentlemanly, I thought. If anything, this would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Helena was right. Something was going on between us.
He
handed me my bag, but he didn’t let me take it from him immediately. I looked up at his face and found that he was watching me intently, as if I should say something.
That’s when I realized I hadn’t responded to his question.
“Oh, my head!” I said. “It’s fine.”
He lowered his eyebrows, and I saw his concern. If I couldn’t answer a simple question about my health, then he was probably unsure of my mental status.
“Well, the concussion is causing less pain,” I added, “but I’ll be doing much better after I’ve had coffee.”
“That’ll be our first stop then.” He let go of my bag and shut the door for me.
As Vincent put the truck in reverse, I shot Helena a glance and found her giving me a subtle thumbs up.
Great. So much for disabusing her of her romantic notions.
I shouldn’t be thinking of Helena or romance. I ought to bring my focus to the case right away.
“Are we set with Kathy Vanderbilt?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Given what I learned about the rumors of her and Sheriff Harper, it’s good that we held her in Mercer and not at the Cranford jail. Best to keep them separate, just in case.”
“And right now Americus Mutual is in a tight place,” Vincent said. “Kathy has already confessed to attempting to defraud them—and she’ll be prosecuted, of course—but now Theo actually is dead. And if Kathy didn’t have a hand in his murder, she could still end up getting a million bucks.”
What he said was true. Yes, Kathy had attempted to defraud Americus, but because the life insurance policy had been in effect when Theo actually had been killed, the company would still be required to make good on their policy as long as it was proven that she had nothing to do with his murder.
We needed to untangle the matter of Theo’s murder and the origin of the body in the car.
Kathy was brought to a small, square interrogation room in the MPD. Vincent and I watched on the closed-circuit TV monitor as she fidgeted alone for a few minutes.
“Shall we?” Vincent finally asked.
I led the way into the tiny, boxlike room, and though there were two chairs set out for us, I elected to stand behind Vincent. I really wanted to pace, but the room was far too small for it.
I didn’t feel like starting off with idle chitchat. I’d spoken with Kathy enough to know how deceitful she could be.
“So tell us, Kathy,” I said. “Tell us everything that happened, starting with the day you and Theo came up with this insurance fraud scheme.”
Kathy glared up at me and then began to pick at the legs of her orange jumpsuit.
“It’ll go easier on you if you talk,” Vincent said. He tried to sound nice, but I don’t think he quite pulled it off. Forget good cop/bad cop; we were pulling a bad cop/bad cop.
Kathy said nothing.
“We think you killed Theo,” I said flatly. “And what about the woman in the LTD? Did you kill her too?”
“I did not kill Theo,” she said. Her voice came from her little mouth with great volume.
“Didn’t you?” I asked. “Didn’t you want the insurance money?”
“I did want the money, but Theo wasn’t supposed to die,” she said as her fingers left her pants and gripped the edge of the table between us. “I told you that.”
“If he wasn’t supposed to die,” Vincent said, “then how did he end up in the shed?”
Kathy looked at me directly for the first time. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I asked, my tone oozing skepticism. “It sure looked to me like he’d been in that shed for a while. He had a bed and a TV.”
“Like I said, I don’t know.”
“Well, right now, we have some pretty damning evidence against you. You just admitted to a motive: you wanted the money. You had the means: you own knives. We gathered them as evidence from your kitchen. And you had the opportunity: he was in your shed. Tell me why we shouldn’t add murder to the list of charges against you already.”
“Because I didn’t kill my husband!” Kathy’s eyes blazed at me, but behind the anger, I saw fear. And that’s probably what loosened her tongue. “If I tell you everything, you’ll figure it out. You’ll figure out what happened to Theo.”
“If you tell us the truth, we’ll deal fairly with you,” Vincent said.
Kathy’s bold expression faltered, and she began to fidget in her chair. “I…,” she began and then stopped herself.
No one spoke, and the intensity of the silence became palpable.
Finally, Kathy slumped forward in defeat, and I knew she was going to cave.
With her eyes riveted on the table in front of her, she began to talk. “Theo and me, we were tired of being in debt and working all the time. I still had nursing school to pay for, and I hated my new job. Theo hated the junking business. Carter was doing all the work there anyway.”
“But he didn’t want to sell it?” I asked, remembering what Carter had told us earlier.
“Carter and I begged him to sell, but Theo kept saying we couldn’t afford it. We had taken out that loan to remodel, and we’d only be able to break even on a sale. We wouldn’t make any profit. We wouldn’t have enough money to live on, so I’d have to keep working at the doctor’s office, and Theo would have to find something else to do to earn a living.”
“And you didn’t want to work?” Vincent asked.
“Hell, no,” Kathy said without a hint of shame in her voice. “Who wants to work?”
Ignoring her question, I asked, “So that’s when you came up with the car fire idea?”
“No, we had the idea a year back. It was just a dream that we used to talk about, really. One day, we’d fake Theo’s death and use the life insurance money to go on vacation permanently in the Caribbean. We had it all planned out—the car accident, the fire—but we never could figure out how it would work without a body.
“But one day last week, Theo comes home from hunting and says, ‘I figured out how we can do it. We can get that money and move to the tropics.’ I thought he was crazy, but then he tells me he found a body.”
“Found it?” Vincent repeated. “Where?”
“Yeah, found it, but he didn’t say where,” Kathy said, leaning forward to explain. “I didn’t believe him either, so I told him to prove it, and he brings me outside and opens the trunk of the LTD and there she is.”
“He just walked you outside and showed you a dead body, and you didn’t think of calling the police?” Vincent demanded. “At the very least, he’s stolen a body. Or killed someone.”
“I was shocked,” Kathy admitted, “but there was this old woman in the trunk of Theo’s car. He’d already gotten us into this whole thing. I had to go along with it.”
“And he never told you where the body came from,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me and narrowing my eyes at her.
Kathy gave me a level stare. “He never told me,” she said, enunciating each word.
“Who was the woman? Did you recognize her?”
“No,” Kathy said.
I studied her face. She kept looking between Vincent and me and that spot on her pants she’d been picking. She seemed nervous, but was she lying now? I wasn’t sure.
“And you didn’t suspect that Theo killed her?” Vincent asked.
“Hell, no. Theo wasn’t that way. He wasn’t a killer. He was just a nice, normal guy.”
A nice, normal guy who thought it was okay to desecrate and burn a body so he could fake his own death in order to collect his life insurance money and move to a tropical island.
Nice and normal.
“Right,” I said.
“So you helped Theo set up the accident,” Vincent prompted.
Kathy’s gaze shifted between us as if she were considering the merits of denying it. “Yeah,” she said. “I drove him out to 403 and helped him get the lady in the car. We dumped gas all over and tried to light the car on fire. It was harder to light than I thought it w
ould be, and I had to get one of those grill lighters to do it.
“We got the fire going and left. Theo decided to hide out in the shed because we knew police would be coming to the house eventually. And that was the whole plan. I’d call the insurance company and get the money. That’s it.”
“That’s all? Theo would just hide in the shed until you got paid?”
“Yeah,” Kathy said.
“Then why is Theo dead?” Vincent asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened the morning we came to arrest you and search your home?” Even though I’d asked her these questions while she’d held Marston hostage, I wanted to hear her answers again. “You weren’t in bed when we arrived. Where were you?”
“I heard Theo screaming around 4 AM, so I ran outside to see what was the matter. And that’s…that’s when I saw what I saw.”
“What did you see?” asked Vincent in a more restrained tone.
“Theo dead, and a man covered in blood holding a knife.” Kathy stopped. She seemed to need to gather herself to tell the rest of her tale. “We stared at each other, and then he reached out and grabbed my arm. ‘Come here, bitch,’ he said.”
Kathy’s hands were back on the table, but now, instead of gripping the edge, they shook. Her pinched facial expression told me that she was experiencing the true trauma of her husband’s murder. And if she were telling the truth, she had come face to face with his killer, which could explain how Theo’s blood came to be on the arm of her pajamas.
“Could you see who it was?” Vincent asked.
“I don’t know who it was.” Kathy sniffled, and a tear landed on the metal table between us. “I couldn’t tell. His face was all covered in blood, and I couldn’t tell.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“I ran into the woods to hide, and he followed me, but I got away from him in the dark. I had just sneaked back into the house when I saw the black van pull up. At first, I thought it was the knife guy back to get me, but then I realized it was the cops. Either way, I hid in the attic.” She paused and looked at me. “The rest you know.”
Death Benefits Page 17
