“I’ve been getting in good with the warden.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she blurted out, staring at both of them. “The two of you. Have you no fear?”
“For political reasons,” Dean clarified. “The fact of the matter is that Grant sends a lot of ex-cons to my town. There’s nothing surreptitious about our meetings.” He let that hang for a moment until Kate conveyed she believed him. “I’ve been very careful with this guy. He has access to countless prison records on a national level, holding the position he does. If I need to know about one person, I’ll ask him about ten, so he can’t figure out what I’m getting at.”
“What do you ask him about?” she asked.
“Mainly, during the hiring process I want to know if a guy was violent in prison, but we’ve been hiring admin positions, as well, women mostly, so I’ve been inquiring in that regard, too. When I told you nothing is what it seems and Becky wasn’t abducted, it’s because I was in the process of getting new information.”
“About Becky?” Jason asked eagerly, leaning forward in his chair.
“You met her when?” he asked Jason.
“My senior year.”
“And she was a transfer student,” he supplied.
“Right.”
“She didn’t transfer from another college,” said Dean. “She was an inmate.”
“What?” Jason exclaimed.
“Ashley, as well,” he went on. “In fact, they were in the same cell.”
Kate guessed, “Drugs?”
And Dean confirmed it.
“Why stage a hoax abduction?” she asked.
“Culpability, or I suppose to establish they have none.”
Kate and Jason exchanged a worrisome glance.
“The good news,” Dean went on, “is that because Donna had pulled the wool over my eyes and was using the amusement park as a hiding place to move the shipments, Grant thinks I’m corrupt, or at least he got to a point of trusting me to edge into the topic. And I’m playing along.”
Kate wasn’t sure she could hear any more of this. “Do you understand that it’s time to involve the police?”
“We will,” Dean assured her. “I just need to get a little closer.”
“We’re almost there, Mom,” said Jason.
“Jenna Johansen, the reporter,” Dean continued. “She was on the precipice of cracking this thing wide open.”
“Her murder ties into this?” Kate asked, a strange mix of astonishment and logic washing over her. Of course her murder tied into this.
“She was killed before she could get the word out.”
As Kate listened to Dean elaborate, the explanation of which seemed to contain little information and mostly speculation, Kate leaned back in her chair, wrestling down the lump in her throat. Of all the times she had ventured into dangerous territory against Scott’s warnings, she had never attempted to single-handedly tackle a conspiracy as tremendous as the one Dean and Jason were determined to take down. It was a suicide mission. She needed to tell Scott, if for no other reason than to get him to intervene for Dean and Jason’s safety. Maybe he could call in the Feds or the DEA and turn the entire case over, since it seemed to spread so far and wide that containing it could very well prove impossible, at least with Rock Ridge’s resources.
It was eleven thirty by the time they wrapped it up. Kate gave Jason a long, lingering hug. She didn’t want to let him go, but eventually did when he laughed, urging her back. She told Dean to be careful and hesitated when Jason asked her to promise not to tell Scott.
The drive home was a blur. Luckily, she knew the route so well, just as she knew every inch of this town, that she could maneuver her truck on autopilot without thinking, but slipping into deep thought.
The house was dark when she stepped inside, but as her eyes adjusted, she realized the bedroom light was still on. Scott hadn’t turned in for the night.
She made a pit stop in the kitchen, hoping to find a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator. If ever she needed a nightcap, now was the time. She only found condiments in the door so she opened the cabinet where three bottles of red wine stood in a cluster. She preferred a chilled glass of white, but reasoned that any alcoholic beverage would do and poured herself a generous glass.
She was too tired for a shower, and if she drew a bath she would likely fall asleep in the hot pool, so she forego bathing in favor of changing out of her overalls and into something far more comfortable—her sweats that were hanging in the bathroom.
In the bedroom, Scott was leaning against the headboard and reading a book, but he glanced up at her as she entered.
“You had a long day,” he said, checking the clock on the nightstand.
“You have no idea how long this day has been,” she said with a shuddering sigh, as a wave of guilt surged up her chest. She drank down more wine and set the glass on the nightstand.
As she pulled the covers back on her side of the bed, Scott slapped his book shut and placed it on his nightstand. Without so much as a look at her, he laid down on his side, his back to her.
Maybe he’d had a long day, as well, but Scott had never been one to give her the cold shoulder before going to sleep. She had expected their usual cuddling. The fact that he was avoiding it gave her pause.
She climbed into bed and tried to sound casual, as she asked, “Is everything okay?”
In response, Scott reached for the lamp on his nightstand and flipped off the light.
Kate stared at him—his square shoulders, his white hair on the pillow. Strange, she thought, but was too mentally exhausted from her hour with Dean and Jason to allow herself to fret over Scott’s abrupt mood. She drank the rest of her wine, set the empty glass on the table, and fell asleep when her head hit the pillow.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, when Kate woke up, Scott’s side of the bed was empty. She lifted onto her elbows, listening for signs he was in the shower or the kitchen, but heard nothing. The clock on the nightstand read 7:05 a.m. and she considered going back to sleep for another hour. Her growling stomach got her out of bed. Sleep wasn’t as valuable as eating a full breakfast, she decided, as she threw her robe on and padded down the hallway, through the living room and into the kitchen.
She filled the coffeemaker with water, replaced the old filter with a new one, and measured out heaps of dark roast. As it percolated, she began making breakfast—scrambled eggs and bacon and toast, which she buttered heavily.
Avoiding the morning paper, she sat at the kitchen table with her plate and began eating, drinking coffee in-between each bite.
If Jenna Johansen had been on the precipice of cracking this thing wide open, as Dean had mentioned, then it was possible that whatever evidence she had unearthed still existed, whether with Jenna’s crew or replacement or perhaps tucked away at the Rock Ridge Tribune since it seemed most of the out-of-town reporters trusted Eric Demblowski enough to stop by his office, as Rachel Meadows had done.
What if the evidence Jenna had come across would be enough to take down the entire drug operation? If Kate could get her hands on it and give it to the authorities to handle, then Jason and Dean would no longer be in harm’s way. They wouldn’t have to venture deeper into the dark world they were tangled in, because it would no longer exist.
The fastest way to extinguish frustration was to be proactive, an attitude that came naturally to Kate. Rachel had seemed to warm to Kate the other day when she’d given the reporter a ride. And it gave her the idea to find Rachel. She didn’t know how promising it would be, but it was a place to start.
Kate put in a call to Larry before she left the house to check on the account Justina had mentioned she would set up. The funds were at Grayson’s, Larry told her, as well as the tiles she had asked him to order over the phone.
When she climbed into her truck, she gave some thought to where she might find Rachel Meadows. It was possible the reporters might still be covering Ashley’s abduction, therefore shooting s
egments outside of her house.
She drove off towards the center of Rock Ridge, and as soon as she hit Main Street, she kept her eyes peeled for the national news van.
As luck would have it, she spotted the vehicle parked along the curb in front of the Rock Ridge Tribune and pulled up behind it. After climbing out of her truck into the hot morning—the sun was beating down without a cloud in the sky to soften it—she neared the passenger’s side of the news van, but saw it was empty.
Figuring that Rachel was inside the Tribune, she was just about to turn for the walkway when she spied a folder inside the van. It was tucked between the passenger’s seat and middle console, and its tab had the name Jenna Johansen printed clearly.
Even though she told herself breaking into a news van would be a crime, her curiosity was killing her. She gaze landed on the lock just inside the door. It looked far too tall for the passenger’s side door to be locked and the realization made her heart punch up her throat.
Cautiously, she glanced over her shoulder at the Tribune. There was a terrible glare bouncing off the windows and the entrance door was shut, likely to keep the air conditioning from escaping.
She couldn’t linger next to the news van forever, and if she asked Rachel for the file or even simply about the file, she had little faith the reporter would answer honestly.
So she took it, yanking the door open, snatching the manila folder, and slamming the door. Her heart was galloping by the time she jumped in her truck, and she couldn’t twist the key in the ignition fast enough. Keeping her eyes glued to the Tribune entrance, she reversed away from the news van, threw her truck in gear, and peeled out into the street.
It wasn’t until she pulled into the parking lot in front of Grayson’s Hardware that she opened the manila file with high hopes of discovering the key evidence she would need to keep her son and the mayor safe.
Inside, she found what appeared to be a rough draft on a segment Jenna had been working on. The top sheet had a list of bullet-point questions, and when she turned to the next sheet, the name printed in bold across the top jumped out at her. Harold Simpson. Was it the same Harold who worked at the Langleys’ mustard facility—who had been accepting cash to look the other way when shipments of drugs passed through?
She scanned the top sheet and confirmed it, reading the fourth question. How often did Grant Conover show up at Langley’s Mustard after hours?
Excitedly, she turned to the third page, which was the beginning of a bank statement that went on for pages and pages. She first noted that the account belonged to a company called Colombia & Partners International, LLC. As she closely scrutinized the transactions, several names jumped out at her—Donna Kramer, Thomas (Tommy) Barkow, Drake Kramer, Grant Conover, Harold Simpson, Clifford Green, and Rebecca (Becky) Langley.
The transactions, all outgoing wires to the recipients listed and referencing the vague job of consulting, were for exorbitant amounts, ranging from ten to fifty thousand dollars.
Jenna Johansen had done it. She had found a document linking all the major players in the drug ring. And according to the file, perhaps the one person who would have been willing to talk to Jenna had she lived was Harold Simpson. She flipped back to the top sheet and her eye landed on the very first question. Who owns Colombia & Partners International LLC?
Dean and Jason had been right. Drake Kramer wasn’t behind it all, and neither was Becky. The fact that they were collecting payments from Colombia & Partners indicated as much.
If Kate could find out who owned the company, she would have a prayer of exposing them.
She needed to find Harold Simpson. She could pick up where Jenna had left off, but would she dare? She had begged Jason and Dean to go to the police. She wouldn’t want them going down this road, but now that she was facing the same opportunity, she couldn’t imagine walking away.
But the last person who had refused to walk away had been shot dead in the parking lot behind Carnegie Real Estate.
She decided to think things through, so she put her truck in drive and rolled around the side of Grayson’s to the loading garage where Larry had surely stacked the boxes of tiles she had ordered for fixing up Justina’s apartment building.
Larry was behind the counter when she entered through the rear door. He smiled, but immediately turned serious. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said heavily and then made an honest effort to sound like her usual, upbeat self. “Thanks so much for getting those tiles packaged up. Were you able to deduct it from the fund Justina had set up?”
“Yeah, got the accounting squared away, no problem,” he said, studying her. “You sure you’re all right?”
Brushing over his question might not be easy for Larry to accept, so she went with a partial truth. “Yesterday was a long one, and I could’ve slept for another two hours, at least.”
He seemed satisfied with her response and was quick to pour her a cup of coffee from the new machine behind him. After pressing a lid on the paper cup, he handed it to her and she peeled the tab back.
“Better than last time,” she mentioned, following him out to the loading area where she had seen the boxes.
“You might have to rent a hydraulic uni-tilt dolly,” he suggested, indicating the high-tech dolly he was using to lift the heavy stack of boxes. “And I’m not sure what to recommend in order to get up the stairs in that building.”
“If I can get the material there, I can always carry small loads up the floors.”
“Well, eat your Wheaties, because it’ll be a lot of running up and down, and even a box half full will feel like it weighs a ton.”
Larry loaded up the back of her truck then hoisted the hydraulic dolly into the bed and shut the tailgate. After letting him know to detract the dolly rental from Justina’s account, she climbed in behind the wheel and eased around Grayson’s, coming out on the other side and hanging a right onto the street.
As she drove, she flipped the manila-filing folder open from where it rested on the passenger’s seat and found the sheet with Harold Simpson’s home address. She recalled that when she had spoken with Amelia and Lance weeks ago after she first suspected them of involvement with the drugs at the facility, they had told her that they had fired Harold after discovering he was accepting cash in exchange for allowing the drug dealers to store their product in the factory.
Kate was familiar with the area Harold lived in, but slowed to a crawl when she reached his street in order to check each house number as she passed by.
Finally, she found Harold’s house and pulled up to the curb. A car was parked in the driveway, and she could hear the whirl of air conditioning units in the first-floor windows.
After grabbing the manila-filing folder, Kate ventured into the heat and padded up the walkway. She said a silent prayer—two, in fact—that Harold would be home and that he would be willing to talk. Jason was at the forefront of her mind, as well as Scott. Why did it have to be the case that keeping Jason’s confidence was an act of betrayal against Scott and vice versa?
She pounded on the door, hoping this impromptu meeting would ultimately end the terrible conflict roiling inside her.
The door popped open a crack and she saw a single, beady eye staring out.
“Who are you?” asked the man, who had to be Harold, unless her luck was running out.
“I have some questions, Harold. I’m Kate—” She cut herself off, omitting her last name in case it would scare him off. “I’m here in Jenna Johansen’s stead. Do you have a few minutes?”
He widened the door and Kate saw that he was roughly her age, in his mid-forties with a full head of dark, brown hair and a crisp jawline, all of which made him look like he could play the TV version of a factory worker, too attractive to be real.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to her interview,” he said, but before he could shut the door in her face, she stopped it with her palm. “That woman died because of me.”
“No, she died because someo
ne shot her. That’s on you. You were going to do the right thing by talking to her, and you can still do the right thing before anyone else gets hurt or killed.”
Harold looked past her at her truck parked along the curb, and read out loud, “Mrs. Fix It?”
“I’m a handywoman,” she said, holding her head high. “And I fix a hell of a lot more than broken cabinets and rickety chairs.”
He found that amusing, chuckling with a snort, which caused his boozy breath to waft in her face. He was tanked.
“Really, Harold. If we could talk, please. I’m here now.”
Grumbling, he widened the door and Kate slipped inside.
She followed him into the living room, noting the cabin-like decorum that conveyed he might be a middle-aged bachelor. The deer head on the wall was wearing a beer funnel hat, straw tubes arching around into its mouth.
Jesus.
“I’ll get right down to it,” she stated the second he faced her and plopped onto the plaid couch. “I have Jenna’s questions here,” she said, yanking free the sheet that contained them. “Who owns Colombia & Partners International LLC? Who was paying you and the others?”
Harold hiccupped and lolled his gaze up at her as if preparing to answer.
Before he could say a word, Kate heard the faint click of a gun being cocked behind her. She whirled around and found Rachel Meadows aiming a revolver at her chest. Behind her and from around the corner, Samuel Yeats stepped into view. He was also holding a gun.
“No one is stealing that interview from me,” declared Rachel. “No one.”
Harold hiccupped again, as he said, “I forgot to mention, Rachel Meadows beat you to the punch.”
In an instant, Kate understood, and she directed her statement to the plucky reporter. “You killed Jenna.”
“No,” she said easily. “I was in Boston.”
“So you convinced Samuel to pull the trigger? That’s what you were arguing about in the news van that day.”
“I built that story,” Rachel said with conviction. “I slaved away, staying up late, working on my own time remotely. And then the network just handed it all over to Jenna since she was the first to drive out to this dump of a town. Why? Because she’s prettier? Because she has a better voice for delivering a story? I don’t think so.”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 84
