“Were you following George Stone too?” Bernie asked.
“No. Why would I do that?” He looked at me then back to Bernie, his brow furrowing.
Bernie leaned on the table, close to his face. “Do you own a weapon?”
“I do. It’s a thirty-eight.”
Bernie looked at me, and I shrugged then stood. I was ready to get back to Walker, but I needed to check something first. I told Lane we would be back shortly, then Bernie and I left the room.
“I’m going to look at Teena’s phone records for the night she died.” I went to my desk, and Bernie followed me.
I found the records and located the time in question. She’d made a call around seven o’clock. I didn’t recognize the number. The other number she’d called was Billi’s. I thought the first was the phone Walker had with him now. She might’ve called that number before calling his other phone at 7:10 p.m.
There was also a call at 8:15 p.m. that lasted about one minute, but it was to the phone he’d shown us that first time we’d been at his house.
A much longer call was made with her phone to the phone he probably had with him today. That could be the conference call Walker mentioned. I envisioned him driving to Teena’s while on a conference call. I was speculating, but it made sense to me.
I told Bernie my thoughts, and he believed it was conceivable. I grabbed the phone records, and we went back to talk to him. We had a plan.
Bernie opened the door, and I stood in the hall, out of sight. I dialed the phone number listed on Teena’s phone bill and waited for Walker to pick up. When he did, I disconnected and entered the room.
Walker had his cell phone to his ear. He disconnected, frowning at the phone. “You’re back.” He said it as if I were an STD.
I glanced at Bernie, who nodded. I sat across from Walker.
Bernie laid Teena’s bank statements, with the account numbers redacted, on the table and slid them toward me.
“Mr. Walker, you told us you had no other business relationship with Teena Travis, other than through Mega Star,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
I gathered the printed pages for the companies I’d found on the California Business Search website and slid them across the table so Walker could see them. I pointed to the catering business. “Is this your company?”
He blanched but responded. “Yes, it is.” His lips formed a thin line.
I pointed to another line on the page. “How about this one?”
He loosened his tie, tugging on it. “Yes.”
I pushed Teena’s bank statement toward him. “Why was your company paying her so much money if there was no business relationship between you? Was it charity?”
He smirked. “I don’t remember the transactions. Sorry.”
“Mr. Walker, you don’t strike me as a man who’d forget paying someone thousands of dollars every week for who knows how long.” I shook my head and leaned back, folding my arms. “No, I’m not buying it.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Was she blackmailing you?” I stood and paced with my hands behind my back. “Did you leave one of your cell phones at home, then called yourself using Teena’s phone from her house after you killed her? Why? So that we’d think she was still alive at 8:15?”
He narrowed his eyes and glanced at Bernie, who was eyeballing him.
“How could you afford to pay her so much?” I sat on the table. “Is that why you killed her? You couldn’t afford to pay her anymore? What did she have on you?”
His breaths came quicker, and he was perspiring heavily. “Nothing.”
“Were you embezzling money from your investors, Mr. Walker? Did Teena find out? Did she get greedy? Then, when you thought Billi found out, you killed her too?” I was just fishing because I didn’t have the paper or electronic trail for the embezzling, but that was the only theory that made sense.
Walker stared at the wall, avoiding eye contact with both of us.
“Did you shoot George Stone because he was outside Teena’s house and you wanted to get to Billi?” Bernie asked. “That bullet was meant for Billi, wasn’t it?”
“Did you ask Ben Lane to write the letters to Teena?” I asked. “I noticed the letters were mailed close to sweeps months.”
Walker licked his lips and eyed the door.
“Were you trying to get Teena angry so that she performed better?” Bernie asked.
“Did Billi accidentally give me the wrong boxes? Was there something in the boxes that wasn’t supposed to be there?” I slapped my hand on the table and leaned in, getting in his face. “Why did you abduct my sister?”
He jumped and leaned away. “I have nothing else to say to you.” He stared at the table.
“You don’t have to say anything else.” I pushed away from the table and stood.
Bernie and I left the room, taking the documents with us. We were done with Walker. I had no more patience for his lies. I requested subpoenas for his phone and financials. I also filed affidavits requesting search warrants for hair samples as well as for his residence and business addresses.
I didn’t think we would find the homemade silencer Walker had used on George. He’d probably intended to use the gun on Billi, but he shot George first, so he had to stab Billi instead. He may have tossed the two-liter bottle in his trunk, and it had still been there when he’d put Mac in the trunk. That would have caused the comforter to pick up the gunshot residue. I was speculating, but it fit.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two weeks later, I walked through the house Brad had been renovating. Mac was with me, and it was a bright sunny day. Brad had finished renovating it, and I’d decided to make him an offer. Mac went outside to browse the yard while I walked through the house, trying to make decisions on furnishings. I stood at the sliding glass door and watched her. I’d come close to never seeing her again. I swallowed back my tears at the thought. She was my family and my best friend.
In the end, Forensics confirmed that the blood on my comforter was Mac’s. No surprise there. The fibers on the comforter matched those from the carpet in my apartment and the trunk of Curtis Walker’s vehicle. Strands of my hair were retrieved from Walker’s trunk. They must’ve transferred from the comforter. The short, dark hair strands on the comforter belonged to Curtis Walker. He was bald, but he had a goatee. In Walker’s trunk and garage, we found a spool of the same brand of garden twine that had been found under my bed and had been used to bind Mac’s wrists and ankles. He’d used it to support some of the lower branches of a dwarf lemon tree in his yard.
The paper trail and electronic financial trail showed that Teena had been blackmailing him for years. He confronted Billi that night at Teena’s because he thought she had notes Teena may have created, which documented his embezzlement. However, Billi didn’t know anything about it and suggested the information he needed might be in the boxes she’d given to me. I guessed she thought it would buy her some time, but he’d killed her anyway.
I thought about Teena, George, and Veronica. They were family, yet three separate people with different strategies on how to live their lives. Still, George had nearly died because he’d loved Billi Jones.
Walker loved money and had done everything he could to keep it. Teena had plenty of wealth that she’d earned honestly before the blackmail, but her greed had gotten her killed. And she’d taken Billi down in the end too.
Greed was not good, and nobody would ever convince me otherwise.
THE END
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Sydney Valentine Mystery Series: Books 1-3 (Boxed Set) (A Sydney Valentine Mystery) Page 57
