Taking each step with care so he wouldn’t make any noise, Carl approached the front window. He moved up to the side of the glass and tried to look into the room at an angle. Seeing nothing, he shifted his weight to get a better look. He inched his way across the porch and searched the shadows of the room. He saw her, sitting in the chair next to the sofa. His eyes locked on hers. She was staring directly at him. For an instant neither of them moved. Then they both did.
Her scream followed him across the lawn as he ran. He did not look back, not daring a glance over his shoulder. He ran in the darkest areas of the neighborhood circling the street before doubling back to the rental car. Inside, he started the engine and rolled backward away from the house with his headlights off. Reaching a safe distance, he turned around, flipped on his lights and sped away, cursing himself for being so careless.
Chapter 43
(The Evidence)
Dave sat on the sofa opposite Sarah watching her every move, studying the lines of her face and the movement of her hands. They were shaking uncontrollably. Dave remained silent although he found he wanted to console her. He was calm though he felt a rage beneath the surface of his rugged exterior. Sarah fidgeted and avoided looking directly at him. He wondered what he should do or say.
Philip provided the dialogue. “Was this the same man claiming to be your dead husband?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I mean he seemed bigger. Nothing like the other guy.”
“Are you positive?” Dave asked.
“Well,” she said. “It was dark, so I can’t be sure. I don’t think it looked like the first guy.”
“You aren’t sure?”
“No.” She was sure. She knew the man outside her window had not been Allan. She couldn’t think of a tactful way to tell them the intruder looked nothing like the man she had been married to for nine years.
“Explain what happened,” Philip said. “From the beginning.”
“I told the police everything last night,” Sarah sighed.
“I know,” Philip said. “We need to hear it again. We need to hear it from you.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “There really wasn’t a beginning. I got home around eleven thirty.”
“Where had you been?” Philip said. Dave’s head snapped up.
“I went for a bite to eat,” she said.
“At eleven thirty?”
“No,” she said. “I got home at eleven thirty. I went out around nine thirty or ten.”
“And you came home at eleven thirty?”
“Right,” Sarah nodded.
“Where did you go?” Philip asked.
“A diner up north,” she said, glancing at Dave. “Why does that matter?”
“The man may have followed you home,” Philip suggested. “What was the name of the diner?”
“I don’t remember,” she said, looking at Dave who said nothing. “I was driving by and pulled in.”
“You went out to find a place to eat and pulled into a place up north you don’t know the name of?” Philip asked.
“Not exactly,” Sarah said. “I went out to drive around and clear my mind. When I saw the diner, I realized I was hungry and pulled in for a bite to eat.”
“Okay,” Philip said. “What happened after you came home?”
“Well, I wasn’t tired so I sat in the living room in that chair,” she pointed to where Philip was sitting. “I had the television on. Couldn’t find anything interesting so I flipped through the channels a while. I finally gave up and turned off the set and the lights and sat here in the dark.”
“You didn’t call in until after two o’clock,” Philip said. “You sat in the dark that long?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “A lot has happened recently and I’ve had trouble sleeping. I was sitting, thinking about everything, trying to decide what to do next. So, yes I sat in the dark that long.”
“Okay,” Philip said. “What happened next?”
“This man appeared at my window,” she pointed at the window. “I screamed. He ran. Then I called nine-one-one.”
“Did you see anything else?” Dave asked. “Which way he ran? Did he get into a car? Anything else that might help us?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t. All I could think to do was call the police.”
“That’s all right,” Dave said. “You did the right thing.”
The two detectives excused themselves and made the rounds of the neighboring houses to see if anyone else was up at two in the morning who might have seen something suspicious. They were not surprised to find no one saw a thing. They returned to their car, used the radio to check in with dispatch, then sat staring up at Sarah Tuttle’s house.
“Why are you so easy on her?” Philip asked.
“Last I checked, she was the victim here,” Dave said. “We are supposed to work for the victim. Her husband has been murdered. She may have a stalker who is becoming increasingly brave. And the braver a stalker the more dangerous.”
“True,” Philip said. “We also have an obligation, until we can prove otherwise, to consider the idea that she was the one who killed her husband or had him killed. She has no alibi for the night of his death. And the only other suspect we have is a man who claims to be the dead man. How many times have we had nuts confess to crimes they didn’t commit?”
“Okay,” Dave said. “We’ll leave her on the list. When we get the print analysis back from the lab, I guarantee there will be a match with Bolder. And we should get a copy of the phone records from the Tuttle house today as well. I bet that will tie some things together.”
“We’ll see,” Philip said. “Until then we treat Mrs. Tuttle like a suspect.”
“I know how to do my job, Philip,” Dave said. “I trained you.”
“I’m not trying to preach to you,” Philip said. “I just don’t want to see things turn bad and you be caught up in the middle of it.”
“I appreciate the concern,” Dave said without conviction. “Let’s get back to the station. Maybe we’ll have some answers waiting for us when we get there.”
They drove in silence. Dave did not take his eyes off the road ahead and Philip focused his gaze on the sidewalk. They weren’t above the occasional disagreement. They actually disagreed on a regular basis. History was on Dave’s side, his knowledge and experience winning out more often than not. Philip was convinced he was right to say what he had said. He felt Dave was getting too close to Mrs. Tuttle, victim or not. As long as they were on the case, the woman was an assignment. Work and pleasure did not mix.
Arriving at the station gave them the opportunity to move beyond their differences. The phone records were on Dave’s desk along with the results of the print analysis. Dave pulled the analysis out of its envelope and smiled handing it to Philip to read. A positive match was made between the print on Allan Tuttle’s credit card and Jack Bolder.
“That about wraps it up,” Dave said. “We have opportunity and proof he had contact with the victim.”
“What about motive?” Philip asked, still reading the document.
“If we can prove Bolder is the man stalking Mrs. Tuttle,” Dave said. “I think we can make the case that she was his motive. He wanted to get rid of the husband to get to the wife.”
“You do know any lawyer worth anything will be able to get him off on an insanity plea,” Philip said. “That man believes he is Allan Tuttle.”
“That man wants us to believe he does,” Dave said. “I don’t buy it. Not for a minute.”
He tore the other envelope open and pulled out the phone records for Sarah Tuttle’s phone. He scanned the list for the calls both to and from the house. The last several calls to the house stood out. They were all from the same place. Henry Cutter’s residence.
“We have him,” Dave said.
“I’m convinced,” Philip relented. “Let’s go get a warrant and pick him up.”
As they were walking out of the office, the phone rang. Philip doubl
ed back and answered the call.
“Detective Smalls,” he said.
“Smalls, this is Garcia in arson,” the man said. “We have some things left over from the investigation on that cabin your murder victim owned. Do you want it?”
“What do you have?” Philip asked.
“Mostly crap,” Garcia said. “Only thing worth anything is the fire safe.”
“You open it?”
“Of course,” Garcia said. “I investigated the fire.”
“What was inside?”
“Mostly personal items,” Garcia said. “Souvenirs, keepsakes, a photo-album. Nothing Earth shattering. You want it?”
“Just hold on to it and I’ll come pick it up,” Philip made a quick decision. “We may have things wrapped up on the case. If we need more we’ll take a look.”
“Later,” Garcia said, hanging up.
“Let’s go,” Philip said, as he started out the door a second time. On the way to the judge he explained what the call had been. Right now the important thing was to get Bolder behind bars before he had an opportunity to injure Sarah Tuttle. They could swing by and pick up the contents of the fire safe when they were done.
Chapter 44
(Monte Velmir)
“According to the biography on the back of the books he’s written,” Monte Velmir said, “Jack Bolder lives here with his wife.”
“I can read,” Ben Hunter said. “I hired you to tell me what I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Monte said. “Fact is there is no Jack Bolder living in the area. And I searched a hundred miles in every direction. No address. No phone. No driver’s license. Nothing currently on record.”
“You’re telling me there is no Jack Bolder?” the lawyer asked. “How can that be? I met the man.”
“I told you there is no Jack Bolder living in this area currently,” Monte repeated.
“Currently?” Ben took the bait.
“Right.”
“So there was a Jack Bolder living here in the past?”
“Right.”
“So he moved?”
“No.”
“Will you just get to it?” Ben snapped. “When did he live here?”
“Jack Bolder lived here his entire life,” Monte said. “He died seventeen years ago at the ripe old age of ninety-three.”
“You're telling me Jack Bolder, the writer, doesn’t exist?”
“If he does, he doesn’t live here,” Monte said.
“So the man I spoke to in this office either doesn’t live around here,” Ben thought aloud, “or he was telling the truth about using a pen name.”
“I thought about that too. So I decided to pay a visit to the woman you mentioned,” Monte flipped some pages in the file he held in his lap. “Yeah, this Sarah Tuttle. I thought I would check her out.”
“And what did you find?”
“Well, I get there and the first thing I notice is there’s a guy casing the house,” Monte said. “So I decide to lay low and park down the street where I can see the house and this guy watching the place. I’m thinking maybe he’s a cop or maybe even your Jack Bolder. So, I get out my binoculars and get a good look at him. He isn’t the man in the pictures you gave me so I figure cop. Best to keep a distance and keep my name and face out of it.”
“Did you learn anything useful?” Ben asked impatiently.
“I’m getting to that,” Monte said. “So anyway, a little while later the woman comes out, gets in her car and drives away. This guy follows. I figure I can follow her wherever she goes and hope the cop doesn’t notice or I can take advantage of the time to search the house. So I choose the house. Soon as they’re out of sight I let myself in and take a look around.”
“And you learned something?”
“I learned that Mrs. Tuttle, who was supposed to be married for nearly nine years and recently widowed, does not own a single photograph of her late husband,” Monte said. “Not even a snap shot tucked away in a drawer. I’ve been doing this job for going on twenty years and I’ve never searched a house didn’t have any pictures anywhere. It was as if no one lived there. I tell you it gave me the creeps to think about a man being erased like that.”
“No pictures?”
“I’m telling you. Not one.”
“Nothing to prove or disprove a man’s claim to being her husband?”
“Nope,” Monte said. “Not unless you could find the man’s fingerprints somewhere. I doubt you could, to be honest.”
“Why not?”
“The place was spotless,” Monte said. “I mean this woman must be some kind of clean freak. I was searching places no one ever cleans and there was no dust to be found. I think that’s part of why it felt so creepy. I mean there was no sign of anyone living there.”
“The whole house was cleaned?”
“Even the storage closet was dusted,” Monte said. “Who dusts their storage closet?”
“What else did you find?” Ben asked.
“Well,” Monte said, “I decided it was time to get out, so I returned to my car. I sat back to wait for her to come home. And pretty soon she does, without her tag.”
“Her what?”
“The guy following her,” Monte said. “She comes home, but the guy doesn’t follow her. I’m thinking she lost him or he gave up and went home. Then I think maybe he wasn’t a cop. Maybe instead of watching her, he was waiting for her so they could go somewhere else to rendezvous. So, I sit back to watch the place.”
“So you learned nothing?”
“There’s more,” Monte said.
Ben sighed heavily. Monte was good at his job; thorough and resourceful. What he wasn’t good at was communication, which is probably why he was alone and available to work at any time day or night.
“I’m sitting there in my car,” the private investigator continued, “and half hour after the woman comes home, this guy returns. He even parks right where he was earlier. So I get curious and decide to wait him out.”
“What happened?”
“I have to wait for a couple hours or more,” Monte said. “Eventually the man gets out of his car and goes to the trunk. He takes a bag out of the trunk and walks up to the house. At first I think he’s going to go inside, spend the night or something. But he goes around the side of the house. So, I get out and make my way around, close enough to see what he’s doing, no closer, ‘cause I don’t want to get made. I watch from a distance. Even from where I was, it’s easy to see what he’s doing.”
“Which was?” Ben prompted.
“Bugging the woman’s phone,” Monte answered.
“You’re kidding?”
“No,” Monte said. “So, I go back to thinkin’ it’s the cops for sure. You know, and she’s under investigation or something. So, I back off and head for my car. Figure I’ll watch from there. Only this guy doesn’t go back to his car. He starts circling the house. I don’t know what he’s up to so I just wait.”
“You just wait?”
“That’s all I could do,” Monte explained. “I waited to see what he would do. And a few minutes later I see him coming around to the front of the house. And that’s when things got weird.”
“Weird?” Ben’s eyebrows rose. “Weird how?”
“Well, the man walks up on the porch,” Monte said. “He sneaks up to the big window on the front of the house and looks inside. For a second he just stands there, then he starts running like hell. Runs away from the house and away from his car, cutting through shadows to get back to the car. He backs down the street with his lights off and takes off. Not typical cop behavior, so I followed him.”
“You followed him?”
“Yep,” Monte said. “Followed him to this cheesy motel a few miles from the woman’s house. I got his room number and went to the front desk to get his name. And this morning I did some checking on him.”
“You’re killing me, Monte,” Ben said. “What did you find out?”
“The guy’s name is Carlton Nicks, a licen
sed private investigator from New York,” Monte smiled broadly.
“What’s a P.I. from New York want with Sarah Tuttle?” Ben thought aloud.
“Beats me,” Monte answered. “Whatever he was looking for is going to be harder to get, now.”
“Why is that?”
“After I got the guy’s name from the motel clerk I swung back by the broad’s house,” Monte said. “Cops were there. I’m guessing she saw him at the window and called the police.”
“We need to know what this Carlton Nicks is after and who he is working for,” Ben said. “You think you can find out?”
“Sure,” Monte said. “If nothing else I could just ask him.”
Chapter 45
(The Arrest)
By the time Judge Joyce Werner signed off on the arrest warrant for Jack Bolder, the two detectives missed lunch and were pushing into the dinner hour. The judge, who was busy with her court cases for the day, refused to see them before the day’s docket was behind her. She listened intently while they explained in detail what evidence they had, what relevance it would serve in convicting the man and how they were going to guarantee the man would not walk out of her court because she issued an arrest warrant for the wrong man. After that she signed on the appropriate line and sent them on their way.
“I can’t believe you had a relationship with that woman,” Philip said within the safe confines of their car. “I can’t see you with her. I mean, even with all your faults, and there are many, you don’t strike me as the type to date evil.”
“Hey,” Dave said. “That was a long time ago. She wasn’t a judge. Hell, she was barely a lawyer. She was nice back then.”
“She dumped you, huh?”
“You know it,” Dave said. “Right after I cheated on her.”
“Ouch. Is that why she still holds a grudge?”
“It was her best friend,” Dave said. “She kind of blames me for ruining our relationship and their friendship. Like it matters now.”
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