Imminent Peril (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Book 10)

by Melissa F. Miller

  “I take it the owner isn’t just a clean freak,” Leo said drily, trying to tamp down his rising excitement.

  Cheryl barked out a laugh. “J.T. Dunmore’s a freak, all right. And according to the locals, a tweaker. But he also swears he’s just a go-between, a bag man. He holds the goods for the seller, takes the cash from the buyer, skims off his cut, and then passes it on to the seller. I’m sure he steals a little extra from both parties to the transaction along the way, but he’s a bit player.”

  “Useful, though. Because he knows a lot of names,” Leo observed.

  “Yep. And in a miracle of organization and work ethic, he put together a system to keep track. Names, dates, amounts. Not too shabby. He gave the gun dealer and would-be purchaser to the ATF, and they cut him loose.”

  “I imagine the local authorities were interested in speaking with Mr. Dunmore.”

  “Right. Here’s where you come in. He sells the cleaning supplies to a guy named Dutch. Apparently, Dutch has a bit of a reputation around town and eyebrows might go up if he bought his own bulk acid and such.”

  “He’s a cleaner?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if he’s your cleaner, but given the state of that apartment … we’re going to have a chat with him in the morning. You want to tag along?”

  “Yes.”

  Sasha would be busy with her request for an injunction, but he couldn’t pass up this opportunity. He’d find someone to watch the kids.

  “I’ll have a unit pick you up at ten. Don’t get too excited, though. It may be a nothingburger.”

  “I know. And thanks.”

  She was right; this Dutch character could be a dead end. But, in truth, Leo was pretty sure he wouldn’t be. Cleaners—criminals who specialized in removing evidence of a murder—were a rare breed. It was disgusting work. It took a special kind of evil—and an iron stomach. If Dutch hadn’t cleaned Prachi’s apartment, he would know who had.

  32

  Leo watched his wife sleep. He almost never woke before her, but when she still wasn’t home when he’d gone to bed at midnight, he’d set his phone to vibrate so he could bring her coffee in bed. He sat on the edge of the bed with her coffee mug in his hand and considered letting her sleep in. She’d be furious. But she was knocked out, her arm thrown over her eyes. Dead to the world.

  Yes, definitely let her sleep in, he decided.

  As he eased himself off the mattress, her eyes popped open and she shot up to a seated position.

  “Morning!” she chirped, instantly awake.

  “Good morning, sunshine.” He handed her the coffee.

  She took her first sip. “Thanks. Where are the kids?”

  “Playing in their boxes.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Yep. How’s the brief coming along?”

  “It’s in good shape. We’re going to file it today.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be home for dinner?”

  “Yes. But don’t get too excited. I have to leave the office to go to anger management. Then I’ll come back here for dinner with you and the kids. But after they’re in bed, I have to go back into the office to prepare for the hearing.”

  He frowned. “You’re going to wear yourself out. Maybe work from home after dinner?”

  “Maybe,” she allowed. She drained her mug and said, “What’s on your schedule for today?”

  “Hank’s going to watch the twins for me for a few hours. I’m tagging along on some local police business,” he told her.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “The police officer who checked out Prachi’s apartment for us is interviewing a man who may know something about her disappearance.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It may be a break. It may be nothing,” he cautioned her much as Minet had cautioned him the night before.

  “Wow.” She thought for a minute. “Can you ask him if he knows Kevin Marcus?”

  He cocked his head at the non sequitur. “Who? Isn’t that the Prescott & Talbott partner who was going to sue you?”

  “Right. Get this. Yesterday, Will went to a party that Kevin threw.”

  “Did your invitation get lost in the mail?”

  She snorted. “Anyway, Kevin claims that Steve Harold is judgment-proof. So Will asked him how Harold could afford Prescott’s fees. Kevin had been hitting the bubbly pretty hard, so he let it slip that Harold hadn’t retained him. The person paying the bills was some fraternity brother of Kevin’s from college.”

  Leo didn’t like how that sounded. “Did he get a name?”

  She shook her head. “Will said Kevin’s eyes bugged out of his head as if he realized he’d said too much. Naya’s going to try to run down a list of his fraternity brothers from Penn State. But it’s really weird, don’t you think? Why would someone else pay Steve Harold’s legal bills—unless Harold was working for the guy?”

  “Right.” He thought for a minute. “Listen, keep me posted on what Naya finds out. After we talk to this Dutch character, I’ll see if Officer Minet’s willing to pay Steve Harold a visit and rattle his cage about his financier.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” she said. She reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and nuzzled into him for a few seconds.

  He took her empty mug from the bedside table. “Refill?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  He laughed. “Fair enough. You want me to bring it up here?”

  “No, I’ll be down in a bit. I’m going to take a quick shower.”

  The crisis management consultant could hear Steve Harold banging around, shuffling papers, and softly cursing on the other end of the line. He waited, patient and placid, until Harold’s voice sounded in his ear.

  “Okay, I found the papers from the district attorney. She was ordered to take an anger management class that meets from six o’clock to seven o’clock at the Community Probation Office in East Liberty. You want the address?”

  “No.” He didn’t need it. He’d already looked on-line. The office was within walking distance of Prachi Agarwal’s apartment. The smart money said that’s where the two women had met.

  “Okay … so, then are you done with me?” Harold asked tentatively.

  More than you know, the consultant thought. What he said was, “One more thing. The attorneys have closed out your case. You don’t have to worry about your past coming back to haunt you.”

  “That’s a load off my mind,” Harold babbled. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  The consultant hung up without responding. He didn’t have time for niceties. He had somewhere to be.

  33

  Leo watched Eric “Dutch” Price squirm—or attempt to squirm—in his seat. But Dutch was a large man. And he was squeezed into a standard-issue chair, which left little room for squirming.

  Cheryl Minet loomed over him as best she could given his bulk. “I don’t have time for games, Mr. Price. Somebody sanitized an apartment over in Bloomfield last week. Whoever did it was a pro. I’ve heard you do good cleaning, but not that good. We were just hoping you’d know whose work it was.”

  Leo tried to keep his skepticism off his face. There was no way Dutch Price was going to fall for such blatant reverse psychology. What was Cheryl’s end game?

  The mountain shrugged its shoulders. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

  Cheryl went on, unperturbed. “I mean, they were almost pro. Whoever it was did screw up one thing.”

  “Really?” Dutch said in a tone that suggested he didn’t care at all about the answer.

  “Really. And, no, it wasn’t leaving the note. We know that was intentional. He overlooked something else.”

  Dutch’s expression might as well have been carved out of granite for all the reaction he showed. Then his eyes flicked away from her and over to Leo, who was sitting quietly in the corner. It was just a nanosecond, but it was a flash of pure fear.

  Got him.

  “Oh, yeah? I think you’re B
Sing,” Dutch countered.

  Cheryl Minet shrugged. “You can think what you want.” She turned and grinned at Leo out of Dutch’s line of sight. “I guess I didn’t introduce my friend, did I?”

  “Who—the pretty boy in the corner?” Dutch jerked his head toward Leo.

  Leo unfolded his long legs and rose from the chair. He walked across the room and stood directly over Dutch, forcing the seated man to tilt his head back to meet his eyes. “I’m a cleaner of sorts myself. I work for the federal government for an agency you’ve never heard of. An agency that doesn’t even officially exist. And Officer Minet’s right. Whoever cleaned that apartment was thorough, but careless.”

  Dutch stared at him with pebbles for eyes.

  “He forgot to check the oven,” Leo whispered it in Dutch’s ear as if it were a sweet nothing and Dutch were his lover.

  Dutch was a statue. He made no movement, no sound. But he swallowed just a little too hard.

  Leo turned and walked toward the door. Minet made as if to follow.

  “Wait—”

  They turned to face Dutch. “What was in the oven?”

  Cheryl Minet smiled. “Children’s bathtub crayons.”

  Dutch furrowed his brow. “Crayons? Are you freaking kidding me? Who cares about some dumb crayons? Not that I was there—because, like I said, I wasn’t.”

  Minet’s frosty smile vanished. “Think hard, Dutch. Just try not to strain your brain. Do bathtub crayons belong in the oven? You have a fifty/fifty shot of getting this right. Good luck.”

  He glared at her.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ Why would they be in the oven, you might ask yourself. And, if you were smart, you’d say because she wasn’t supposed to have them. Now don’t you worry your little pea-brain about the details. Just know they’re relevant to our investigation. Very relevant.”

  He made a face that suggested he was unconvinced, but Leo could see him faltering. He glanced over at Minet. He didn’t know her well, but he’d seen her in action long enough to know that she wouldn’t be above a little completely legal subterfuge.

  He leaned against the wall and gave Dutch a long, slow, smile. “We’ve got a police artist working on a sketch with a resident of that apartment building. Remember the guy walking his dog? Well, he remembers you. It makes sense. You are a distinctive-looking gentleman.”

  “Sure, right,” Dutch scoffed, but his voice was wobbly.

  “You want to take your chances, Eric? That’s fine by me,” Minet trilled over her shoulder. “Once the sketch artist finishes up, I won’t need you. Between the witness identification and J.T. Dunmore, you’ll go down for Prachi Agarwal’s murder.”

  Dutch’s nostrils flared. “I don’t do wet work. Strictly clean up.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me. If I can pin the murder on you, I can close the case. What do I care?” Minet shot back.

  “Tick tock, Dutch,” Leo added.

  The big man shook his head. “The guy who hired me, they call him the Knitter. He’s weird. Like really weird.”

  “The Knitter? What is this—a Batman comic?” Minet asked with a sneer.

  “I don’t know his name,” Dutch protested. “Nobody does.”

  “Does he pay cash?” Leo asked.

  “Usually.”

  “How’s he contact you?”

  “Cell phone. I’m sure it’s a burner, though. Are we gonna deal?” Dutch asked again.

  “You’re going to have to give us something more than a comic book supervillain who pays cash and uses an untraceable phone before I drag an ADA down here,” Minet told him.

  Dutch huffed and thought and thought and huffed. Finally, “He’s a fixer. But he calls himself a … uh … corporate crisis management consultant. Works exclusively for companies. No personal matters.”

  Minet looked at Leo as if to say ‘is that enough?’

  Leo shrugged.

  “Okay, Dutch. You cool your heels. I’ll call the district attorney’s office. Maybe do some scales to warm up your throat. It’s time to sing.”

  Sasha was staring at the wall, trying to slow her racing brain, when her telephone rang. Just minutes earlier, she’d signed the motion and supporting brief and had passed them along to Naya and Caroline to get them on file with the court.

  She looked at the telephone number scrolling across the display. Connelly.

  She punched the button to answer the call before the receptionist could grab it. “Can you talk?”

  “Your timing couldn’t be any better. I’m literally doing nothing. Naya’s getting the papers filed now.”

  “I only have a few minutes, but I want to fill you in on what happened this morning when we interviewed that guy,” Connelly said, his words coming out in a rush.

  “Did he know anything?”

  “He did.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Sasha—Prachi’s dead. This man, Dutch Price, disposed of her body.”

  Sasha’s chest turned to cement. She squeezed out a breath. “How’d she die?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn't know. He wasn't there when she was killed; he was hired by a man he calls the Knitter to clean up the mess.”

  Sasha wrinkled her nose. “What did he do with her body?” she asked, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “It was pretty gruesome,” he said in a raw voice. “He basically liquefied her. Let’s not talk about it now.”

  “Okay,” she said softly. After a beat, she asked, “What happens now?”

  “The police will track down her next of kin in India and notify them.”

  “What about this Price guy?”

  “He's talking. He’s spilling details on several cold cases, but he’s still going away for a long time. He’s got too much blood on his hands.”

  “Did he give you the Knitter? And why is he called the Knitter?”

  “Price says he doesn’t know the man’s real name—and he was introduced to him as the Knitter, so he’s got no insight into the nickname. But what he does know concerns me. This Knitter calls himself a corporate crisis management consultant.”

  “A consultant?” she echoed.

  “Right. And apparently he specializes in fixing problems for companies. I think you're right that the scene with Steve Harold and the bar was a set up. Playtime Toys must have hired this Knitter to take care of its problems meeting its deadline.”

  “Sonofa … so instead of fixing their bad product and putting money into the database, what? They decide to just silence Prachi? And to cause a delay, they messed with my career? What kind of business does that?” She shook with anger.

  “A dirty one. I know you’re mad. But listen, you have to be careful until we find this guy.”

  “Do the police have any leads?”

  “No. Officer Minet wanted to go rattle some cages at Playtime Toys, but I’d rather not tip them off that we’re onto them if we can avoid it. I suggested we go get Steve Harold and put some pressure on him—see if he gives up the Knitter.”

  “Is she listening to you? I mean, you don’t have any jurisdiction, do you?” Even after three-and-a-half years of marriage, she was foggy on the details of what her husband actually did for the government. It was better that way.

  “No. For now, she’s happy to coordinate with me. I dropped a plum in her lap. When I go to get the twins from Hank, I’ll talk to him about making our involvement more official. This Knitter sounds like someone who should be on someone’s radar within the organization.”

  “What about the police artist’s sketch—did Officer Minet show it to this Dutch person?”

  “She did. He said it resembled the Knitter, but it wasn’t a lock. The problem is he’s a fairly innocuous, middle-aged, upper-middle-class white man with no distinguishing marks. Hell, I’d bet half the partners at your old firm would be a match for this sketch.”

  “Hey, that reminds me. Remember how Naya was going to try to track down Kevin Marcus’s fraternity brothers? Somehow—don’t ask me how—she got h
er hands on a Penn State yearbook from the 1970s. There’s a group picture of Kevin’s fraternity, captioned with names and everything. Maybe the guy who paid Steve Harold's legal fees is in the picture. If Harold IDs him, maybe he can lead the police to the Knitter.”

  “Or he is the Knitter,” Connelly said matter of factly.

  She must be tired, she thought. Because that elegantly simple possibility had escaped her. “Oh, right. Or that. Anyway, do you want us to send over the picture?”

  “Definitely. Hang on.”

  She heard a muffled exchange between him and someone else in the room—presumably Officer Minet. Then he was back on the line, rattling off a fax number. “Ask Naya to send it right over, okay? We’ll show it to Dutch and then take it with us when we go to get Harold.”

  “A fax? What year is it there—1998?”

  “I’m sure it’s an e-fax. Let’s focus, shall we?”

  “Sorry. My brain is fried.” She laughed at her own denseness.

  “You need to get some sleep tonight,” he told her in a voice laden with concern.

  “I will.”

  “In the meantime, please be careful. If this Knitter dude was hired to neutralize you, there’s no reason to think he’s not going to keep trying.”

  That woke her up like a glass of ice water down her back. “Great.”

  “Don’t worry. Minet’s going to try to get approval to send a black and white to sit outside the building.”

  She swallowed a laugh. It was a fundamental difference between them that he thought the prospect of being surveilled by law enforcement was comforting, not creepy. “Okay.”

  “I gotta go. I love you.”

  “Love you more. Kiss the babies for me—and tell Hank thanks for taking them today.”

  “Intra-agency child care benefit,” he cracked.

  She hung up, ripped the sheet of paper with the fax number from her notepad, and headed for Naya’s office. She bumped into Naya in the hallway.

  “I was just coming to see you,” Sasha said.

  “I was coming to see you,” Naya responded. “The request to enjoin Playtime Toys from selling the bathtub crayons was accepted at 2:24 p.m. and assigned to Judge Zarelli.”