Twice Dipped Murder: A Rita Reincarnated Cozy

by DeWitt, Daphne

  Angie looked at me for a few moments, then turned to Darrin, who nodded.

  “She’s telling you the truth, Angie,” he said. “This woman is the real thing.”

  A wave of pride ran through me. My chest puffed up as I looked at Angie, waiting for her to make her decision.

  “Fine,” she finally said. “But this stays between us. At least until we figure out what’s going on.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  Angie sighed as she moved closer. I could tell this was hard for her, but it needed to be done. She seemed to be at her wit’s end too and, if we all worked together, maybe we could find some clarity in whatever this situation was.

  “Three months ago, I was approached by the FBI. They’d taken notice of my accomplishments as a detective, and liked my moxie,” she said.

  “They caught wind of an illegal gambling operation centered around dog shows and the people who run and participate in them. Massive amounts of money were being transferred and laundered through these shows.”

  I gasped. For all the things I thought Lionel might be involved in, a gambling ring wasn’t among them.

  “I started up in Boston, taking on the name Katherine and doing my best to infiltrate the ring as an outside influence. It was a tight-knit group though, and I had trouble finding an in. Finally, after a few weeks, they began to let me in. Still, they didn’t trust me. I only ever interacted with them through a secret online server, and even then, they never let me have full access to their site. They finally agreed to let me place a bet on the next show, and that’s what led me here” She shook her head. “I followed them from a distance after that, until finally, they set up shop here in Second Springs. Since I knew Darrin, it would be impossible for me to continue on as Katherine but, given they never knew me outside of a name on a forum board, it seemed smart for me to play both sides of this. After Lionel died, I figured you’d be looking into it, and I could get in on the ground floor of things that way too.”

  I looked at Angie, trying to decipher the expression on her face. There was a little regret, but not enough to count. She believed in what she did. She wouldn’t have changed any of it. Darrin, on the other hand, had a different feeling about what had gone down.

  * * *

  “So you lied to me?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

  “I couldn’t exactly tell you what I was doing, Darrin. It’s classified,” she answered.

  “It’s still classified, and you’re telling me now,” he said. “Though I suppose that’s alright if it helps you get to the bottom of your case.” He pointed at her accusingly. “You had pertinent information that could have helped us with a case we’ve been working on for days now, and you chose to keep it from us.”

  “I followed orders until I saw a better way,” she answered, every bit as angry and righteous as Darrin had just been. “Lionel Sulkin was already dead. Tipping you off wasn’t going to bring him back.”

  “But it might bring his killer to justice,” Darrin finished. “What’s on the flash drive?”

  She huffed angrily. “Money was transferred into an offshore bank account and then set up with a secret pin that only one person knew about.”

  “Lionel Sulkin?” I asked, quirking my mouth to the side.

  “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “He wasn’t even supposed to know about the betting. As far as I could tell, no one competing in the actual dog show was ever made aware of the betting or the money involved.” She swallowed hard. “In the same way professional athletes don’t bet on or against themselves, the handlers and owners could never be brought in. Letting them in on things would breed the wrong sort of competition. The thought was they might band together, place bets, and then throw the competitions, splitting the money up between them once they orchestrated a winner. It would destroy the integrity, and ruin the game.”

  “Yeah,” Darrin scoffed. “I’m sure these people are chock full of integrity.”

  Angie looked over at him. “Lionel must have gotten involved though.”

  “That’s my guess,” I answered. “Wanda said he was involved with something that made him a bunch of money.”

  “But then why retire?” Angie asked, looking over at me. “If he had a good thing going, and the money was rolling in, then why throw it all away?”

  “Because of Wanda,” I said, blinking hard and looking from Angie to Darrin. “He was afraid he was going to lose her. That’s what it was all about for him. She told me herself that the only reason he wanted the money in the first place was to keep her happy and, now that she had it in her head that he was doing something illegal, he figured it was only a matter of time before he lost her forever.” I nodded. “The only way to keep her was to walk away from it.”

  “And walk away from all that money too,” Darrin said.

  “Not necessarily,” I answered, piecing everything together. “He was on a winning streak, right?”

  “He was,” Angie answered. “Odds were way in his favor to take this one home too.”

  “Well, what if he knew he wouldn’t?”

  “What?” Darrin asked.

  “Part of the reason athletes can’t bet on themselves in Vegas is because it might mess with the results. Lionel can’t control everything that happens out there, but he could have controlled himself. What if he bet he wouldn’t win?”

  “You think he was trying to throw the competition?” Darrin asked. Then, looking over at Angie, added, “If Lionel would have been able to anonymously place a bet on those servers you were talking about then, with the odds so far in his favor-”

  “Throwing the competition would ensure that he made a fortune,” she finished.

  “It would be more than enough to set him up for the rest of his life,” I finished. “He’d have the money and Wanda. Things would be perfect.”

  “Except he’s dead,” Darrin reminded us. “Someone didn’t want things to be perfect for him.”

  “Because someone found out,” I said. “Someone who had bet a lot of money on him didn’t like the idea of him getting rich at the sake of their own pockets. So how do you stop someone who’s bound and determined to throw a competition? It’s not like you can control their actions and going to police or show authorities wouldn’t work. Uncovering one evil would uncover them all.”

  “So he gets thrown off a building?” Darrin asked. “Why not just injure him and take him out? What’s the point in killing the man?”

  “Because he knew too much,” Angie said, connecting eyes with me. “These people are very strict with their rules. Once a bet is laid, it cannot be changed under any circumstances, and even a whiff of impropriety would result in forfeiture of potential winnings.”

  She pulled in her pocket and tossed the flash drive onto the table. Of course, she had it on her person the entire time.

  “The code on this drive links to an offshore bank account with over thirty million dollars in it,” she said.

  “Thirty million dollars?” I balked. “For a dog show?”

  I 'm definitely in the wrong business.

  “Whoever placed a bet on Nancy Plumber’s dog- the dog that Lionel was handling- much be our guy.” I turned to Angie. “You were on the servers. Any idea who that was?”

  “Afraid not,” she answered. “Everyone used handles. Mine was Katherine. More than one person placed a bet on Nancy Plumber’s dog though. With Lionel handling him, he was the odds-on favorite.” She began listing off handles. Chess master, Common Core, Dapper Dan the Diamond Dignitary.” She shook her head. “That last one was a doozy.”

  “I’ll say,” I answered. “One of them was after that thirty million, and they were willing to kill to get it.”

  “People have killed for a lot less,” Darrin answered.

  “And threatened too,” I said. “Let’s not forget that Myra was threatened after Lionel died.”

  “Which makes sense,” Angie said. “Most of the bets which weren’t hedged on Lionel were for Myra�
��s dog. People pretty much thought of it as a two-way race.”

  “Which is why she was targeted,” I surmised. “If Myra could be convinced to to drop out, then Nancy Plumber’s dog would likely win, regardless of whether or not Lionel was there to do the handling.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Darrin asked, huffing loudly. “We have a hidden list of suspects gone through what I’m sure is a protected and encrypted server. All of whom are probably looking for that flash drive.”

  “Or not,” Angie answered. “The flash drive is a copy of the genuine code. I only took it as proof to deliver to my superior officers. These people are paranoid, and they’re big into going by the book.”

  “For people involved in illegal activities, they sure do appreciate their ethics,” Darrin answered sarcastically.

  “They believe in the winners getting what’s coming to them. As such, they put the code into something only the winners receive.”

  “The trophy?” I asked, looking from Angie to Darrin and back again. “The code is inside the trophy. That doesn’t make any sense though. You just said that owners and handlers aren’t traditionally allowed to participate. How would they even get the trophy?

  “They don’t have to,” Angie said. “These people have everything mapped out. A chip is placed inside of the trophy with the code’s metadata in it. Once the win in processed in the system, those who placed bets have the code delivered to them through the secure system. It’s a little convoluted, but it definitely makes sure the code is safe.”

  “The dog show is probably ending right now,” Darrin said. “Whoever pushed Lionel off that roof is probably getting their money as we speak. Then they’ll be gone.” Darrin shook his head. “We’re too late. Even if we took the trophy and got the metadata chip out of it-”

  “The information would have already been sent,” Angie said. “The money would have already been dispersed.”

  “You can still get them,” I said, turning to Angie, with my heart racing. “You have the information. You have proof. You can get them.”

  “I have the beginnings of proof,” Angie sighed. “I have a list of online handlers bouncing around an encrypted server. It’ll take us weeks to work through them, and that’s being optimistic. This murder set everything off. I can only imagine that, by the time we know who we’re looking for, the person responsible for Lionel’s death with have his or her piece of that thirty million and be on an island somewhere.”

  “And Wanda will never get justice,” I said, slumping against the wall.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Darrin said. “These people should have records. At least one of them is in town right now, right under our noses. They threatened Myra behind that diner and left behind a footprint from one of the most popular brands of dress shoe in the country and a wad of nicotine gum that didn’t make any DNA in the system.”

  Nicotine gum?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as everything clicked into place. “I know,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “I know who killed Lionel Sulkin.”

  26

  “Are you sure about this?” Darrin asked as he blew through a stop sign on Main Street. The dog show was very likely over by now and, with the winnings in the bag, our murderer would likely be rushing out of town, on his way to that island Angie had spoken about.

  Darrin’s sirens were wailing as I looked around frantically.

  “I’m sure,” I answered, my heart racing. “I’ll go over it again. Mayor Hester told me he was a nicotine fiend, Angie said that handlers and owners couldn’t be involved in the gambling, and then there was the ridiculous online handle. It was full of complex and unnecessarily beautiful words.” I looked over at Darrin. “Just like an announcer would use.” I nodded. “If I got this far, he wanted me to think it was Harold. He wanted me to think it was anyone other than himself. That was why he brought me in on this in the first place. Dr. Appleton must have heard about my track record for solving this sort of thing and decided to head me off at the pass. He figured if he started me down this path, I’d never expect him of being responsible for it.”

  I thought about the doctor, about how involved in everything he was, about how he pushed me to take part in the dog show. He hadn’t wanted me there to investigate. He wanted to send me down a wild goose chase, one that involved Myra and all the people in the show who were innocent of this, but perhaps guilty of the gambling and other things. He knew if I found that, it would take me so long to get to the bottom of it, that he’d have plenty of time to make it off with his ill gotten gain. He had everything planned from the start.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I answered, shaking my head. “I should have known. He told me right there in the Mayor’s mansion. Harold told me he saw everything. He said he knew everything. I knew he was being dramatic for the sake of theatrics, but it was Dr. Appleton who I should have been looking out for. He pretended to be so innocent, but he wasn’t .” I shook my head. “He must have found out about Lionel and lost it. He wasn’t going to lose his shot at thirty million dollars because Lionel decided to steal enough money to retire. So he went up to his room and started fighting with him. They had an altercation.” I thought about the broken clock and about how it was hidden. “He must have overpowered Lionel, which wouldn’t be hard given his size, and brought him up to the roof, throwing him off.”

  “And it’ll pay,” Darrin said, blowing through another stop sign. “If we can’t get to him, he’ll get away and never pay for what he did.”

  “We won’t let that happen,” Angie said, shaking her head. “I’m going to catch that man, and I’m going to use him to bring the whole operation down.”

  I smiled an uneasy smile. Though I wasn’t sure we were in time to stop this, it felt nice to be on the same page as everyone for once. The truth was, now that Angie and I were on the same side of things, I didn’t dislike her near as much as I had before.

  If she kept this up, she’d quickly outpace my dog as my favorite McConnell in town.

  We skidded to a stop in front of the annex building and threw the doors open. We were obviously too late. People were already milling about outside, and news cameras were interviewing many of the contestants and spectators.

  Dr. Appleton was nowhere to be seen in the throngs of people though.

  Darrin slid out of the car, siren sounding and drawing attention.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to ask you to stay in the car?” Angie asked as she got out herself.

  “Now you’re understanding things,” I answered, getting out after her.

  I rushed toward the crowd and, to my surprise, they rushed me right back.

  “How do you feel, Ms. Redoux?” reporters asked me almost over one another. Flash bulbs blinded me, and the mass of people stopped me where I stood.

  I couldn’t see Darrin or Angie anymore. Instead, I felt a familiar hand grab my own.

  “Peggy?” I asked, looking over at the woman. “What’s going on?”

  “You weren’t here?” she said, pulling me in the other direction as the reporters followed. “I can’t believe you missed it. He was amazing, Rita. I didn’t know he had it in him. It’s was so unbelievable. The way he did all the tricks. The way he obeyed all the commands. It was inspired. It was like he was talking to an actual person.”

  “Who?” I asked as Peggy and I walked away, our backs to the still loud reporters following. “What are you talking about?”

  “Mayor McConnell,” Peggy said, smiling as broadly as her face would allow. “Hey won the dog show, Rita! You won the dog show!”

  My heart fell.

  “What?” I asked, pulling Peggy to a stop and tightening my grip on her hands. “What are you talking about?”

  She looked at me, obviously confused about my reaction. “You-you won, sweetie. It’s a good thing.”

  I swallowed hard, wondering what this meant. I was a last-minute addition to the show. Betting was already closed by the time Lionel was killed and- since I didn’t join i
n until after his death- that meant absolutely none of the participants bet on me.

  The code inside the trophy was good to no one…no one except the person who had it.

  “Where’s the trophy?” I asked, panic rising in my voice. “Who has the trophy?”

  “You’re an anxious winner, aren’t you?” Peggy mused, giggling.

  “Peggy, where is it?!” I asked as the reporters circled me again.

  Peggy’s eyes went wide as she realized the severity of what I was asking. She might not have known why I wanted to know or why it was so important, but she knew I thought it was, and that was enough for her.

  “You weren’t here. So it was presented to the handler. It was presented to-”

  My father!

  “Mr. Clarke,” I finished. “Where is he? Where did he take it?!”

  I had to talk loudly to overcome the roar of the questions being thrown at me. I ever thought I saw Candy Devine in the middle of them.

  “Someone offered to take him dinner to celebrate,” Peggy said. “It was weird because I figured he would have wanted to celebrate with Cindy, but I guess she was busy.”

  “Who took him?” I asked, swallowing hard with my heart in my throat.

  Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.

  “The doctor guy. Dr. Appleton. He offered to pay and everything.”

  My eyes began to water.

  “Rita, what’s wrong?” Peggy asked, looking at me critically. “Rita, what’s-”

  I tore away from her, running toward the squad car.

  “Tell Darrin I had to borrow his car!” I yelled.

  “His police car?” Peggy asked

  “The police car,” I finished, throwing myself behind the wheel and tearing out of the parking lot, siren still wailing.

  27

  My heart was in my throat as I drove through the streets of Second Springs faster than I had any right to.