Off the Record: An Avery Rich Mystery (Avery Rich Mysteries Book 1)

by Sara Gauldin

  Off the Record

  An Avery Rich Mystery

  By: Sara B. Gauldin

  Copyright 2016

  ******

  Discover other works by Sara B. Gauldin at

  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00CLHY1GY

  Or visit https://sebgwrites.wordpress.com/

  ******

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All Rights Reserved. World Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the copyright owner, except brief quotations for the purpose of reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. The names and characters come from the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. Similarly, the locations and incidents in this book, which might resemble real locations and events, are being used fictitiously and are not to be considered as real.

  Chapter 1

  The heat and humidity beat down on the pavement causing mirage ripples to writhe upward. My suit seemed oppressive as I hurried from the car to the station. I brushed a bead of sweat off of my brow as I bundled my hair into a tight bun without breaking my stride. I needed to make the right impression.

  My phone came to life, buzzing angrily in my pocket. I shifted my weight to remove it. “Hello?” I answered in one breath. I didn't have time to entertain any interruptions. The scheduled briefing began in only ten minutes.

  “Detective Avery Rich?” a man asked.

  “This is she,” I said.

  “This is Commander Calbert. I need you to report directly to my office as soon as you arrive.” His voice sounded different from when I had interviewed with him.

  “Err, yes, sir. Will I miss the briefing?” I had just rushed to the station from across town to hear about a series of home invasions. The case was proving to be more widespread and organized. I had visited a few of the crime scenes, but we were still processing the evidence collected. Could he need to talk to me about that? I hadn’t been in town long enough to be second-guessed over a judgment call.

  “Never mind that. I'm putting you on something else. I already let dispatch know not to reroute you until they hear from me. I’ll see you in my office.” The call ended with a parting click.

  I rushed down the corridor that led from the parking garage into the station. I could not help wondering what the commander had in mind. I had not heard of anything on the dispatch or picked up by the press that was dramatic enough to have him quite so edgy.

  By the time I had reached the commander’s office, I was regretting wearing heels. The idea that appearing a bit taller would garner respect really did nothing but slow me down. There were not enough shoes in Virginia to make my five-foot one-inch frame seem more formidable. As I opened the door, the commander stood up. His face seemed flushed. There was a look in his eyes I had not seen before. The man who had hired me had been calm and composed--this man was more like a caged beast.

  “We have a situation," Calbert said. “Before I get into details I need to make one thing clear to you: this is a case unlike anything you've experienced in the past. What I tell you in this room cannot be repeated without my express permission. To do so would jeopardize the entire case. Until we know the breadth of this, it can't be shared.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.” I lied. I could not imagine anything that could not be shared among colleagues. That was the strength of the police department: collaboration.

  “You know that I hired you because you came highly recommended. That is only half of the truth. I also wanted you because you have a reputation for being able to work independently. You are tough. You have a sense of integrity that has not been corrupted by years of work on the streets. And you're not from this area. I needed you here for just this type of situation.”

  “Situation, sir?” I asked. I was beginning to wonder if Calbert was having a breakdown.

  “I need you to go off of the grid for a while,” Calbert said. “There is a situation here that I cannot open a formal investigation on because it cuts too deep. There are officers here who would be a detriment, and it would take a long time to sort them all out.”

  “Sir, I keep my police work on the table so that when things go to trial there is no question. It keeps the cases tight. I’m not sure what you mean by officers being a detriment.”

  “Rich, this case is sensitive. You are moving up in the force, and it is time for you to understand that there are some cases that must be handled…differently.”

  “I understand,” I said. Whom was I kidding? I was worried about this guy. The stress from the job was clearly getting to him. However, being the newbie, I was not going to be outright disobedient to my C.O. I would be cautious. Warned or not, I was not going to step on any toes until I knew what was going on.

  Calbert scribbled a name onto a piece of paper. “Destroy this when you've found him.” He nodded towards the name he had written. “I think you'll find him at the shelter over on Huntington Avenue.”

  “Is he homeless, sir?” I asked. I wondered why I would need the help of a vagrant.

  “He is unconventionally situated. You'll understand why when you meet him,” Calbert said. His frazzled appearance had not improved. “You're investigating the disappearance of a bank president by the name of Lawrence Shultz. He was recently named as the head of First National Bank. He’s the third bank president to disappear in the last month.”

  “Has he been entered into the missing persons’ database?" I asked. I wondered if this was on or off the record.

  “He's never actually been reported missing," Calbert said. "Neither have the others. The first bank president who disappeared, Alan Morris, was a good friend of mine. I noticed he was no longer at his office, ever. I asked about him at the bank, and each time I asked they claimed he was in a meeting. I called his wife at home, but he was always unavailable to come to the phone. There was something out of place--his wife’s voice shook when she lied, and the teller could not look me in the eye when she reported him as being busy--it never let up.”

  “You haven’t been able to track him down?” I asked. Why would the people in this man's life be hiding him?

  “It's as though he was sucked into a void. There's no sign of him anywhere. I think word got out that I was asking around, because a couple of weeks after I was sure that he was missing, a lady called me, here, at the station, from a disposable cell phone, with a tip that a second banker, Jim Maple, was missing. The call came directly to me. The caller was very brief. She sounded terrified. I traced the call and found the phone in a trash can near Fort Ward Park. It was covered in blood.”

  “And Shultz, how did you notice he was gone?” I asked.

  “After the second disappearance that was never reported, I started doing some digging,” Calbert said. “I found out that Mr. Shultz was similarly unaccounted for. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more that I haven’t discovered yet. It's strange. Usually when someone disappears someone reports them as missing. These are business men, not transients. They have families, careers, and roots here. It is not as though they just wandered off to relocate in a new town.”

  “I’ll get right on it, sir,” I said. I could not help thinking that these men may not want to be found. “Oh, and sir, this Ryan Kain person at the shelter, how does he tie into this?”
Clearly, I was missing something.

  “Kain was a good cop, one of the best here in Alexandria. Somewhere along the line the way he saw the world became different from the way the department worked. Some people said he had lost his mind. He seemed to believe there were forces around him that couldn't be measured by the casual observer. I suppose some call his kind 'conspiracy theorists,'" Calbert said. He betrayed no emotion of judgment.

  “Do you think he can help, or do you think he's a suspect?” I asked. Was I supposed to interview the nutcase or enlist him?

  “Kain can't work within the system anymore. That much has been proven, but he sees patterns in things that others don't.” Calbert nervously glanced towards the clock.

  “Do you mean patterns like missing bankers who aren't considered missing?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Calbert said.

  “I’ll be on my way, sir," I said. I was ready to leave the office before Calbert had a stroke or a heart attack. His face was becoming increasingly red. Sweat beaded around his temples. I wondered what he knew that was upsetting him so much. It crossed my mind that I should be concerned he did not disclose whatever it was.

  As I opened the door to leave, Calbert grunted one last warning: "Keep your head low and be careful.”

  I would do that much.

  Chapter 2

  As I drove to the shelter I went over the conversation with Calbert very carefully: there were three missing bankers who weren’t missing, a homeless, crazy man who would be my partner, if he would help me, and a mission that I could not call in. The situation was a trifecta of odd, if you asked me. And to think that the day that began with normal, solvable crimes had already transitioned to an open-ended quandary.

  I pulled up at the shelter and shuffled through the parking lot to the front door. As I entered the building and approached the front desk, I sized up the business. The building was obviously a Christian-based establishment. There were posters depicting other projects championed by the nonprofit. It seemed legitimate. The older lady at the front desk greeted me politely. She looked at me and sized me up as police and not homeless right away.

  “Can I help you, officer?” she asked, pushing her glasses into place on her nose.

  “Detective, actually,” I said. I paused--I didn’t need to tell her that, except out of pride. I quietly chastised myself as I continued. “I’m looking for someone, a Mr. Ryan Kain.”

  “You will find Mr. Kain in the kitchen. He's preparing dinner,” she said. She gestured towards the back of the building.

  I smiled and nodded to the lady. As I made my way down the hallway, I glanced into the various rooms. There were all walks of people in the shelter: young and old, and persons of all races and backgrounds. All of them were here because their lives had taken them in a direction that they did not or could not manage. It was a sad situation.

  I entered the kitchen, full of people, all cooking together to make a daily meal for those who would otherwise have none. I had to speak loudly to be heard over the din of clanking dishes, a dishwasher running, and the many cooks discussing how to stretch what was on the menu a little further.

  “Ryan Kain?” I asked.

  “That’s me.” A man stepped forward. He was probably in his late thirties--not as old as I had imagined him. He had dark hair, cropped short. He wore a button-down shirt, and a pair of jeans. I noted that he was an employee, not a resident. His blue eyes twinkled as he stepped forward, but his brow creased in concern.

  “I’m Avery Rich, a detective with the Alexandria Metro police. My commander, Calbert, sent me here to ask for your help. He said you may see a certain situation in a way we might have missed.”

  His mouth twisted slightly. “I’m off the force, hon, have been for quite a while. I can’t help you solve a case.”

  “It’s not exactly a case, more of a concern. Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked.

  Kain’s eyes widened slightly. He looked at me as though I had just revealed his deepest, darkest secret. “I suppose I could listen to your situation.”

  Even though he seemed harmless enough, I wondered if I should be afraid of Mr. Kain.

  Kain led me to an office, not far from the kitchen. We entered, and he glanced nervously out of the blinds.

  “Are you alone?” he asked. There was a worried tone in his voice.

  “Yes.” I said.

  “You said Calbert sent you? Who else knows you're here?” he asked.

  “No one,” I said. I looked at him squarely in the eyes, and he seemed to relax a little.

  “I don’t recognize you. Are you new to the force?” Kain asked.

  “No, I'm just new to the area,” I said.

  “Calbert hired you?”

  “Yes, he recruited me.”

  I was beginning to think this was going nowhere fast. This guy was grilling me like I had committed a crime. “Look, I’m not here to cause you any trouble," I said. "I just need to tell you about a situation and see if you have any input. This is all off the books. It's not designated as an active case yet, okay?”

  Kain sat down with resolve. “Say whatever it is you came to say.” His voice was cool. His blue eyes no longer sparkled for me.

  I sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and recounted the details of the missing bankers who were not officially missing. I told him about the anonymous call and the bloody cell phone. Kain listened as though he was completely absorbed. As I finished relaying the few details I had learned, Kain stood up and began rummaging in a cabinet. He fished out a map of the city and plopped it onto the desk.

  “Show me where, which banks.” he said. He held out a pencil. I marked the locations on the map as requested. Kain snatched the map towards him and righted it on his desk. He took out a ruler and began to examine the document. After a few moments he began drawing lines between the areas I had marked, carefully measuring each location, and perfecting his lines with the ruler. “You do have a problem, Ms. Rich,” Kain said. “Your bankers are most likely dead or being kept alive to in order to elicit information.”

  I glanced at the triangle he had drawn on the map, interposed with another angle, and wondered about the other locations he had marked. “You can tell that from the map?” I asked. This guy was all kinds of nuts. Why had Calbert sent me here?

  “Some patterns are evident for those who choose to look,” he said.

  “Would you like to elaborate?” I asked.

  “Perhaps I'll explain later," Kain said. "For now, we must move along. I suspect the man who has been waiting outside has followed you. You're in danger, Ms. Rich. We need to leave through the back exit immediately.”

  “What man?” I asked. Was he seeing things now? I stepped over to the window and peeked through the slit in the blinds to see a bald man standing next to my unmarked car. He held a phone to his ear and seemed to be having an intense conversation. He gestured from my car towards the building, speaking in the direction of another someone I could not see. I caught a small glint off of the gun hooked on his belt. Whoever he was, he was armed. My hand went instinctively towards my own gun and I ensured it was ready for action.

  “It's best that we leave now, Ms. Rich,” Kain said. “I must confess that I'm not glad you brought this to my door. Observing these movements from a distance is different than involving myself directly. It seems that I'm now involved. I sincerely hope we will both survive the experience.” Kain packed as he spoke, putting food items and some money into a bag. He pulled out some papers and a disposable cell phone. He took a package, already made up from another cabinet. Lastly, he opened a small, hand held safe and removed a revolver, which he attached to his belt.

  I followed Kain to the back door. “My car is the black Mazda 6. Go, I'll cover you!” He tossed me the key and drew his weapon. I drew mine as well. Was his brand of crazy contagious?

  I opened the door, quickly scanned the street, and made a beeline for the car. I threw open the driver's door, took a protective s
tance, and looked back at Kain. Was he coming with me or donating his car? Then I remembered the pack of materials he still had slung across his back.

  His long strides brought him to the car almost effortlessly. For the second time that day I regretted my choice of shoes. On the run in heels--this was just great! I slid into the driver’s side and scooted across, handing him the keys as he swung into the seat behind me. We pulled smoothly out of the back parking lot and were headed toward the highway. I looked anxiously in the side mirrors to see if we were being followed. Kain tucked and turned as he maneuvered the car in a general northern direction. Were we headed to D.C.?

  I broke the silence. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what all of this is about.”

  “It's a rather old story, I suppose," Kain said.

  “Please fill me in,” I said. “If I'm being hunted, I would like to know why.”

  “I suppose that would be fair, since you seemed to have been involved in this as unwillingly as I have,” Kain said. As he spoke, he turned rather suddenly into the parking lot of a church. He parked near some bushes, and then pointed at the back door of the church. "This is our next stop." We headed towards the door, and he produced a key from his pocket. He opened the door and held it for me. “After you, Ms. Rich.”

  “Avery. Please call me Avery.”

  He nodded his acceptance, but did not match my attempt at familiarity.

  Chapter 3

  My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness of the church. It was dim in contrast to the blinding glare of the summer day. Once they'd adjusted I looked around. It was obvious that the church was very old, quite possibly built during the Colonial Era. Kain led me wordlessly down the hall and into a room that resembled a library, or a book room. I could smell the familiar musty smell of paper that had long been in storage. I noted the empty hulls of silver fish lying in the dust in the corners of the room.