Sydney Valentine Mystery Series: Books 1-3 (Boxed Set) (A Sydney Valentine Mystery)

by Danielle Lenee Davis

  "Sí. My brother." He pointed toward the hallway. "Juan was with me here. We clean together, but not that night."

  Bernie grabbed the recorder and went down the hall. He knocked on the door, maybe to a bedroom. Television sounds came from inside. The door must've opened because the television sounds got louder. Muffled voices came from the hall.

  I studied Gonzalez. "When CSS finds out you routinely leave the building door open, they're not going to be happy."

  Gonzalez's eyes grew wide. "You tell them?"

  "Of course."

  "Okay."

  Bernie came into the room and told us that Juan had corroborated his brother's story. Of course he did. They had surely already discussed it. Time to go.

  We'd parked at Harrington's new residence. The community had two-car garages for its tenants. We went across the lot, then toward the town homes and condos. We found his condo and Bernie rang the doorbell.

  The door opened. Harrington stood there, in a black pinstriped suit and tie. "Detectives." He lifted his chin in greeting, or was it arrogance?

  "May we come in?" I moved up. "We need to talk to you."

  "All right." He opened the door wider and stepped aside. "Have a seat. I arrived a few minutes ago." He went to the bar, picked up a highball glass containing amber liquid with ice. He gulped and sighed.

  Bernie and I sat on a leather sofa. I turned on the recorder and placed it on a table. "When was the last time you saw Ann alive?" I asked.

  Harrington drank, then sat in an armchair. "The day she died."

  "What time?" I asked.

  "Five-thirty or six, maybe. I'm not sure."

  "You were having an affair," Bernie said.

  Harrington raised his brows. "Is that a question?" He was smirking.

  "Were you having an affair with Ann at the time of her death?" Bernie asked.

  Harrington sighed. "I see you've spoken to Cynthia." He cleared his throat, then swirled his drink before drinking again, almost finishing it. "Then, you know the answer to the question."

  "We'd like to hear it from you." I inched forward. "If you don't mind."

  "Well, you see, I do mind." He rose from the chair and strode to the bar. He poured another drink. Scotch. "It's personal and has nothing to do with her untimely demise."

  "Untimely demise? She was murdered," Bernie said. "Don't make it sound like she died in her sleep from natural causes."

  "You're right." Harrington grinned as he ambled to the armchair, sat down. "If you must know, we did have a brief fling in the months before she died."

  "How long did it last and when did it end?" Bernie asked.

  "It lasted six months and ended the week before she died."

  "Why did it end? Who ended it?" I asked.

  Harrington sighed. "I'd met someone else." He shrugged. "I had to choose between her and Ann."

  How about choosing his wife? Still a frat boy. No doubt about it. "What's this woman's name?"

  "I will not have her dragged into this." His eyes flashed.

  "Then you're interfering with a homicide investigation." Bernie stood. "Put the drink down. Let's go."

  "Wait. Okay." He sneered. "Her name is Patricia Riley."

  "We'll need her contact information." I prepared to write.

  "I can't do that." He leaned away. "She doesn't know anything anyway."

  "Can't or won't do it?" Bernie asked.

  "I wish I could help." He grinned again. "But, the best I can do is provide you with her cell phone number." He removed his phone from his pocket, tapped, then scrolled, and tapped again.

  "We'll need her address," I said.

  "I told you I don't have it." Harrington told us the phone number. "And you can't get her address from the cell phone carrier because I got the phone for her. It's in my name."

  "And you've never been to her home?" Bernie asked.

  Harrington shook his head. "She comes here because she's married."

  "Where does she work?" I asked.

  "Everywhere. She's a freelance makeup artist."

  "How did you meet her?" Bernie asked.

  "You two are like a tag team." His glass was almost empty again and he glanced at the bottle of Johnnie Walker across the room.

  "Answer the question," I said.

  He sipped his Scotch. "I'd met Ann for lunch and Patricia came from the CSS building as Ann went in. She approached me."

  "How does Patricia get here?" I asked.

  "She drives...a Toyota Corolla."

  "DMV," I said, turning to Bernie.

  "On it." He stood. "I'll be right outside." He strode out the door.

  "When did you move here?"

  "Five months ago."

  "Okay." I stood. "I don't have any more questions."

  He sat there and picked an invisible piece of lint from his suit jacket, ignoring me.

  "I'll see myself out." I headed toward the door. As I walked past, he flicked his hand at me in dismissal. Creep.

  Bernie stood a few feet from the door, still on his cell phone. He kept talking as we walked to the car. He slid into the driver's seat and I rode shotgun.

  Bernie disconnected. "Well, there's no DMV record for Patricia Riley."

  I buckled up. "I guess Harrington's not the only one telling lies." My cell phone buzzed. "Valentine." Harrington. I listened. "All right." I disconnected.

  "Who was that?" Bernie cranked the engine.

  "Harrington. While you were outside, he told me he moved here five months ago. Now, he's saying it was four months. Big deal," I said.

  "So, he was seeing both Baker and Riley here and Cynthia thought he'd been here for a few weeks."

  "Yep. Clueless. Maybe." I motioned for him to drive.

  His phone rang. "Yeah?" He paused. "All right. Thanks."

  "Dispatch?"

  "Judge Franklin's wife is back in town. Finally." Bernie pulled away. "No time like the present."

  "She took her sweet time getting back, didn't she?"

  Traffic had been light, so we arrived at Franklin’s home in no time. Forensics had released the property and Mrs. Franklin was able to come home when she returned from wherever she'd been. Bernie rang the doorbell and she answered the door. She wore a dark blue dress with a double-strand of pearls. Her dark hair was in a fancy twisted top knot that looked messy by design, but probably took a while to do. She told us she'd made burial arrangements. Her first name was Judy. We turned the recorder on and had our notebooks out.

  "Where have you been all this time?" I asked. "The coroner's office has been trying to reach you for days."

  "Africa. With my sisters."

  "Did you not have a cell phone with you?" Bernie asked.

  "I turned my cell phone off and purchased a new one just for the trip. Cecil and my sisters had the new number. Nobody else. Many social responsibilities are expected of a judge's spouse. I needed to get away from it all."

  "May we see your passport?" I asked.

  "I'll get it for you." Mrs. Franklin left the room and returned a few moments later without it. She told us she couldn't find it.

  "When did you leave the country for your trip?" I asked.

  "I left a month ago." She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. "This is my travel agent's information."

  "Mrs. Franklin, were there any problems in your marriage?" I asked.

  "Am I a suspect?" A line had formed between her brows. "I know the spouse is the first suspect."

  "We're investigating all possibilities," Bernie said.

  "Perhaps I should have my attorney present." She reached for her purse and removed her cell phone.

  I shrugged. "Your choice."

  She glanced at me, then Bernie. "All right." She set her purse aside. "Let me start by saying this. Cecil was a good man. However, he had certain...let's say...proclivities." She moved slim fingers over the pearl necklace. The ring on her finger sparkled. A band of small diamonds encircled it.

  "What type of proclivities?" B
ernie asked.

  Her mouth formed a thin line. "He liked being dominated."

  "I see." I scribbled in my notepad.

  "That's not so strange. Many powerful men do," she said.

  "Was that a problem for you? For your marriage?" Bernie asked.

  "I couldn't meet those needs and I loved him." She lifted a shoulder. "We had an arrangement."

  "Did the arrangement become an issue for you?" I asked.

  "It wasn't a problem until he started seeing men." Tears pooled in her eyes. "I was okay with the women. The dominatrixes. Really, I was."

  "Was he seeing anyone in particular? Do you know their names?" I asked.

  "He kept that private. I didn't want to know. You understand?"

  I didn't understand. "Where did he keep his contact information for these people?"

  She shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

  "Where did he meet them?" Bernie asked.

  "We didn't talk about it. However, a friend of mine saw him coming out of a club. A couple accompanied him."

  "Did you ask your husband about it?" I asked.

  "Of course not." Mrs. Franklin leaned away. Offended?

  "Which club?" Bernie continued to write.

  "It was called The Place. Does it sound familiar?"

  Bernie's head had snapped up. He'd thought Franklin looked familiar when we first saw the body in the park. Maybe he had seen the judge before after all.

  "We know where the club is located," I said.

  "Do we have permission to search his home office? He may have kept something with the contact information of the people he'd been seeing," Bernie said.

  Mrs. Franklin gasped and her hand flew to her throat. "Do you think one of those people killed him?"

  "We don't have any suspects yet, but we need to look into every possibility," Bernie said.

  "Well, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't allow you to look." Mrs. Franklin stood. "It's this way."

  "I need to get your signature for consent before we start." Bernie gave her the form and she signed it, then led us to her husband's office.

  Judge Franklin's office contained a built-in mahogany bookcase that covered two walls. A desktop computer and an all-in-one printer combo sat on a large antique-looking desk near a window. A laptop sat on the corner of the desk. He might have met his partners online.

  "May we have your consent to take his computer and laptop?" I asked.

  "If it would help. Yes, of course." Mrs. Franklin reached for the form Bernie handed her. She signed it and gave it back.

  We looked inside the desk and didn't find an address book or even scraps of paper with names and phone numbers written on them. The office was well organized. Judge Franklin's murder might not have been related to his professional life after all. From the sound of it, he had led a risky personal life that might well have gotten him killed. Perhaps he’d been here having a little fun while the wife was away. How did it relate to the murder of Baker and Menifee? I drew a blank.

  "Did he use this office?" Bernie asked.

  "Oh, yes. Frequently," Mrs. Franklin said.

  Bernie went to our car to get boxes for the items we were taking. I continued to walk through the room. I hadn't found anything by the time he returned. We filled the boxes and loaded them in the car. The Computer Forensics Unit would go through the computers looking at files, emails, web history, and so on. For now, our job was to get it to them, then wait while we continued our own investigation.

  "Any idea how Judge Franklin's habits might have anything to do with Menifee and Baker?" Bernie backed out of the driveway.

  "We've been focusing on Baker and Franklin over the past few days. I'd like to talk to Camps and ask him why he thinks Menifee was in that parking lot. They didn't have a therapy session that night."

  "Let's do that tomorrow." Bernie pulled onto the 15 north.

  Why would Menifee be there when she didn't have a therapy appointment? Who knew she was there? Was it a random killing? It didn't seem like it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We had pulled up to the curb near the Campses' home in Calimesa late the next morning. A Ford Fiesta and Toyota Prius were parked in the driveway in front of a two-car garage. Bernie rang the doorbell and we waited. The television volume decreased inside the house—after a little bit the door opened.

  "May I help you?" asked the woman in the doorway. I recognized her right away. Bernie and I had seen her at CSS. She was the one Bernie couldn't stop gawking at—Fran's sister, Rebecca.

  I nudged Bernie aside. "I'm Detective Valentine." I showed her my ID and jerked a thumb in Bernie's direction. "This is Detective Bernard. We'd like to speak to Mark Camps."

  With one hand on the doorframe and the other on her hip, she glanced back over her shoulder. "He's busy. Taking a shower, I think." Interesting. Had she been in there with him?

  "May I ask who you are?" Bernie spoke up.

  "I'm Rebecca." She strutted through the doorway with a gym bag, closing the door behind her. "And I'm leaving. My personal trainer is waiting." She winked at Bernie and pursed her lips. "Ciao." She turned on a spiked heel and sashayed in the direction of the driveway.

  "She's prettier than Fran." Bernie watched her slide into the driver's seat of the Fiesta. "But, now I see the resemblance."

  "I don't think she's prettier. Edgier and more slut-like for sure." I rang the doorbell. "Who goes to the gym dressed like that, anyway? Personal trainer my ass." I jabbed the doorbell.

  Camps came out, hair slicked back and a small round Band-Aid on his chin. "Detectives. Something wrong?" He looked past us to the street.

  "Do you have a minute to talk?" Bernie asked. "We have more questions."

  "Okay. Come in." Camps moved aside. "What are your questions?" He closed the door, but didn't offer us seats. We stood in the entryway. The room smelled of bacon and burnt coffee. Yummy. Not.

  I looked around the living room. "Does Rebecca live here?" A wedding picture of Camps and Fran hung on the wall above the fireplace.

  "Rebecca?" Camps' brow furrowed.

  "Yes. Your sister-in-law?" Bernie had folded his arms in front of his chest, feet spread wide. "Does she live here with you and Fran?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Is she living here now?" I asked.

  "Rebecca is irresponsible and occasionally lives here."

  "You didn't answer the question," I said. "Is she living here now?"

  "Temporarily." His eyes shifted away. "Why do you ask?"

  "We just saw her," I said. "We asked for you and she told us you were busy. Then, she left."

  "Oh." Camps frowned.

  "Is there a problem?" Bernie chimed in. "You seem confused."

  "It's just that she said she wanted to lay down because she had a headache." He rubbed his forehead.

  "Who?" I asked.

  "Uh, Rebecca." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I'm surprised she left without telling me you were here."

  "Well, she did," I said.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't hear the doorbell. You said you had questions?" He headed to the living room. "Please, have a seat." He grabbed a teddy bear and baby blanket off the ottoman, lifted the lid to its storage compartment and tossed them both inside.

  Bernie and I got out the recorder and our notebooks after we'd settled in. Camps turned the television off.

  "Do you have a child?" Barbara, the guard, had told us Fran wanted a baby.

  "No." Camps rubbed the back of his neck before sitting.

  "Where's Fran?" I asked.

  He lifted a shoulder and felt his chin until he found the Band-Aid. "Obviously she's not here, or she would've answered the door while I was in the shower." He pulled off the Band-Aid, then laid it on the table.

  "All right." Time to get in his face. "This concerns Beatrice Menifee. Why would she go to that particular CSS building on the night she died?"

  Camps swept his hands over his face. "Actually, I've been wondering that myself." He leaned, elbows on his
thighs. "We haven't had therapy in that building in several months, but she’d missed a few sessions."

  "And what reason have you come up with for her being there?" Bernie asked.

  "Maybe she forgot we moved. Perhaps she had her nights mixed up or she was having a problem and needed someone to talk to." Camps shrugged.

  "If she had her nights mixed up, wouldn't she have gone to the building you're currently using?" I asked.

  “Since she missed sessions, she may have gone to the old building out of habit, forgetting we moved.” Camps bit his lip, then licked them.

  "Would she normally call you if she needed to talk?" Bernie asked.

  "Certainly. She has in the past."

  "Then why wouldn't she have called that night?" I asked. "Rather than just show up in the wrong place?"

  "There are times when clients desperately feel the need to talk...in person. Maybe she was confused."

  "Had she needed to do that with you before?" I asked. "Desperately needed to talk in person?"

  "No. Never." He leaned forward again. "But..." He tapped his chin. "...if she wasn't on her medication..."

  "What kind of medication? What was she being treated for?" I asked.

  "She was taking lithium. She'd been diagnosed as bipolar several years ago." He sighed.

  "Diagnosed by whom? I didn't see anything about her being treated by a psychiatrist," I said.

  "She was diagnosed before CPS became involved and she continued to see him. Off and on. She'd been self-medicating with drugs and alcohol for years."

  "Okay. This still doesn't tell us why she was there that night," Bernie said.

  "I'm sorry, but I don't know." He rubbed his palms on his slacks. "I wish I could help you." He started picking at his nails.

  "Where were you that night?" I asked.

  Camps' head snapped up. "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "I think Fran and I went out to dinner, then came home." He didn't sound certain.

  "Where did you go and what time did you arrive?" I asked.

  "I can't say for sure, but I think we arrived at the Olive Garden around 7 o'clock."

  "You have anything to add?" I glanced Bernie's way.

  "Not a thing." Bernie grabbed the recorder.

  We let ourselves out and went back to our car. It had rained while we were inside. The air smelled musty and felt heavy...humid. I rode shotgun while Bernie drove to Bob's Big Boy for lunch. While we waited for the check, I went to the ladies room and thought about Fran. My phone chirped as I washed my hands.