Murder Over Mochas

by Caroline Fardig

  He sighed. “Do something to take your mind off it. Take a nap. Watch a movie on your laptop. Day drink. Hell, do some actual work around here. Find something that will keep you occupied, or you’ll drive us both crazy.”

  I frowned at him and stalked across the hall to the kitchen, where I took out my aggression by chopping up some unsuspecting vegetables.

  The rest of the afternoon was excruciatingly long, but I did my best not to let it get to me or complain about it to Ryder. But once Pete walked into the office after he got off work, I ran to him and jumped into his arms, tears springing to my eyes.

  Ryder got up from his seat on the couch. “I’ll give you two some alone time.”

  Once the door clicked shut, Pete pulled back so he could look at me. Brushing my tears away, he said, “What’s the matter, Jules? Did something happen?”

  I sniffed, feeling foolish. “No. I’m freaked out, that’s all. I can’t handle the waiting and not knowing.”

  He smiled down at me. “I understand. I found it difficult to concentrate today knowing you could be in danger. I mean, I trust Ryder, but it still ate away at me all day.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, the only danger I was in today was of losing my mind.” I hugged him. “But now that you’re here, I feel much better.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I’m happy to help.”

  Once I composed myself, we went out to the front of the house. Maya had come over, so the four of us ate dinner together. No mention was made of the case, which I was thankful for. They actually did a fantastic job keeping my mind off my problems, until Ryder’s phone rang and he frowned, then jumped up and walked away to answer it.

  Noticing my stricken expression, Maya said, “It could be good news.”

  Pete put his hand on my back and rubbed in a circular pattern. “Yeah. Keep your chin up.”

  Ryder walked back to the table, his face unreadable. But then he broke into a big grin. “Jared Fisher is in custody.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief, and Pete leaned over to hug me. Ryder gave me a pat on the shoulder and sat back down.

  Pete asked, “So now is it over?”

  Ryder said, “It’s over. Jared Fisher stopped for a fill-up in El Paso, Texas, and used his credit card, probably not thinking after the long drive. When the transaction popped up, the LPD called the local cops, and they found him and picked him up. Done and done.”

  Maya whistled. “He was probably bloody mental by that point. El Paso is nearly twenty hours from here by car. You say he’s got three little kids?”

  I nodded.

  “That many hours stuck in a vehicle with three wee ones, and anyone would have lost his mind.”

  Ryder said to me, “Now that our killer has been caught, do you feel ‘justified’? Or are you still bummed you didn’t get to be in the middle of the action?”

  I squeezed Pete’s hand under the table. “No, I’m good. This time I’ve got better things to do.”

  —

  After Ryder and Maya left, the place emptied out quite a bit, so Pete and I decided to let the rest of our staff go home early. Just like old times, we manned the counter, keeping up a steady stream of chatter as we worked. As our last customer left a few minutes before closing time, I got a phone call from Blake Morgan.

  I answered, “Hey, Blake. Hear the good news?”

  “I heard Jared Fisher was taken into custody,” he said, his voice seeming strained. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I have…new information for you. Are you free to talk?”

  Worry washing over me yet again, I said, “Just a sec.”

  Pete asked, “What’s up, Jules?”

  I replied, “It’s Blake Morgan.” I switched the phone to speaker and said to Blake, “Okay. You’re on speaker with Pete Bennett and me.”

  Blake replied, “Hey, guys. The reason I called is that I just got a voicemail from Fisher. Or, rather, I just noticed it. I took my wife out to dinner and a movie and had my phone off for a few hours. It’s somewhat garbled, but I’ll let you listen to it.”

  The connection wasn’t the best, but we could still hear how crazed Jared’s voice sounded. “Blake, you have to help me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Mandi…or Scott. I don’t…I don’t want any more people to get hurt, so…can you find that investigator…Juliet Langley…and warn her he’s coming for her? She has something he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it.” He paused as sirens began wailing in the background. “Damn it. I have to go.”

  When the message ended, Blake said, “I tried calling the number back, but got a payphone in El Paso, Texas. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it you have that someone wants?”

  I gave Pete an uneasy glance and shrugged. “I honestly have no clue.”

  Blake replied, “Well, it sounds like you better figure it out. In the meantime, you might want to get yourself some protection from your cop friend.”

  “Will do. Thanks for letting us know.” After I ended the call, I turned to Pete. “That was bizarre.”

  “No joke. But it was also scary. Maybe we should lock up and call it a night. It probably wouldn’t hurt to call the cops, too.”

  I nodded, lost in thought. “I have something ‘he’ wants? Who’s ‘he’? And what could I possibly have?”

  “You have Scott’s tablet.”

  “Not anymore. I turned it in to the Liberty PD.”

  Pete frowned. “You think this mysterious ‘he’ was the one who tossed your apartment instead of Jared?”

  “Could be. But aside from the tablet and Scott’s man bag, which no one knew we had, I was never in possession of anything pertaining to the case. During our investigation, we talked to people and gathered information, but we didn’t collect any physical evidence besides a couple of photos we took in Scott’s motel room.”

  Pete’s eyes grew wide. “Right, but you did take something from Liberty home with you.”

  “Huh?”

  “From Scott’s house—the pocket watch and the music box.”

  “But that’s my stuff. Why would the mysterious ‘he’ want my old stuff?”

  His expression suspicious, Pete headed back toward the office. I followed along, not knowing where he was going with this. He picked up the guitar-shaped music box off the desk.

  “I noticed yesterday it didn’t play music anymore. See?” He cranked the key, but no music came out. “I didn’t think much of it until now.” Rummaging around in one of the desk drawers, he found a tiny screwdriver and used it to remove the back of the music box. His eyes bulged out.

  “I think we found what this guy wants.”

  Where the guts of the music box should have been, there was a tiny flash drive about the size of my thumbnail. I plucked it out of the music box and shoved it into my laptop sitting on the desk. I sat down and clicked on the folder for the drive and found dozens of files on it, most of them JPEG photos.

  I pulled up the first one and pointed at the screen. “Look, Pete. That’s Mandi, Jared, and Dr. Devaux having drinks together. She’s handing him one of those boxes I found that held the fancy ties.”

  “These are the infamous blackmail photos. This could be what Scott was killed for. Pull up the next one.”

  The next shot was of Jared and Dr. Grantham practically sitting on top of each other in a restaurant booth. It showed him placing a sparkly necklace around her neck.

  I said, “We’re two for three on doctors he was blackmailing.”

  Pete remarked, “I can see why no one would have wanted these pics ending up on the front page of the newspaper.”

  “No kidding.”

  I pulled up the next photo, which was nearly identical to the last one.

  I switched the folder to thumbnail view. From the tiny previews, I could tell that there were several similar photos to the ones we’d already seen, so I chose one that seemed to be of different people in a different location.

  I gasped when the photo went big on the screen. “It’s the
doctor from the clinic—Dr. Miller. And she’s having drinks with…”

  “That asshat Daniel Stevenson.”

  Chapter 27

  Pete and I quickly checked through the remaining photos. Aside from the ones with Daniel cozying up to Dr. Miller, the photos were all of Mandi and Jared with the doctors we knew Scott was blackmailing—Grantham, Devaux, and Muniz.

  Pete said, “You said there was no record in Scott’s calendar of him making an appointment to go blackmail this Dr. Miller lady.”

  “Right. But I suppose he could have talked to her when he went to talk to Muniz. They work at the same clinic.”

  “He could have, or…after he took the photos it’s possible he decided against blackmailing her. Maybe because of his friendship with Daniel.”

  “Or because he didn’t have any proof of her taking kickbacks. She’s not one of Mandi and Jared’s clients, and she wasn’t on Julia’s husband’s list of doctors who openly showed a bias for Silver Spruce. She and Daniel could be innocently dating.”

  “Trust me, that sleaze doesn’t ‘innocently’ date anyone.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I don’t know.”

  Pete pointed at the screen. “Click on that Excel file. I like the name.”

  The name of the file was “Kickbacks and Assholes.xlsx.” Overly organized Scott had done his homework and put it all in a nice, neat spreadsheet. Column A was a list of purchase dates. Column B was a list of items. Column C was the price of each item. And Column D (evidently the “assholes” column) showed which Silver Spruce employee had ordered said item.

  “This lists the kickback swag we found in Mandi’s work bag—ties, cuff links, scarves, and earrings. There’s also restaurant and bar receipts—a couple hundred dollars a pop. Hotels, airfare, fishing cruises.” I paused, realizing Pete was more on target than I’d given him credit for. “Then there’s also medical-type stuff—a defibrillator, heart monitors, X-ray machines, scales, exam tables…even computers. Daniel is the one who purchased all of that.”

  The rest of the thumbnails looked like screenshots, so I clicked on each of those. They were all shots of purchase orders and receipts for the items listed in Scott’s swag spreadsheet.

  As I was staring at the screen trying to process this information, Pete said, “You’re looking thinky. What’s up?”

  “Besides the medical stuff, the other kickbacks on Scott’s spreadsheet are things that we know were given to Grantham, Devaux, and Muniz.” I brought the spreadsheet back up and pointed to the screen. “What Daniel purchased is essentially a list of the brand-spanking-new medical equipment Ryder and I saw at the Liberty Minute Clinic—which has been hovering on bankruptcy for years. When I asked Dr. Miller about it, she got all offended that I insinuated the stuff was Silver Spruce kickbacks and told me it had all been donated through a nonprofit organization.”

  I got on the Internet and found a place to search for Indiana nonprofit businesses and entered “Health and Wellness Indiana” into the search bar. It immediately popped up a listing. When I pulled up the business details, under “Incorporator” there was only one name listed: Daniel Stevenson.

  I flipped back to the photo of Daniel and Dr. Miller and sat back in the chair, staring at it in disbelief. “He’s running a front. He’s using this fake nonprofit to conceal the mountain of medical equipment he’s giving his girlfriend. You know, I’d even be willing to bet Silver Spruce isn’t fully aware of how much of their money he’s funneling into it. Look at the amounts on the spreadsheet. There’s over a hundred grand worth of medical equipment on here. The couple thousand Mandi spent on Muniz for a weekend fishing trip to the Caribbean is pocket change in comparison.”

  Pete’s expression had become increasingly uneasy as I spoke. “More importantly, Jules, your boy Dan is the mystery man, and this…” He gestured to my laptop and the flash drive. “This is what Jared Fisher warned you he’d stop at nothing to find. Call Ryder, call 911, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I pulled out my phone and called Ryder, only to get his voicemail. After the week we’d had, I expected he and Maya were taking some much-needed alone time. “Hey, Ryder, um…sorry to bother you, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got trouble.” I gave him the short version of Jared’s message and brought him up to speed on Daniel’s nonprofit front. “I think we’re not quite out of danger yet. Pete and I are going to head to the station with the flash drive now. Talk to you soon.” To Pete, I said, “You ready? We should probably check out the kitchen and see if everything is turned off before we leave.”

  Pete grabbed my arm and pulled me up out of the chair. “We can deal with that later. I say we leave now and call the cops on the way. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  As I reached back down to retrieve the flash drive, a voice behind us said, “You’re right, Pete. If you two don’t give me what I want, things are going to get real bad real fast.”

  Pete and I turned around to find Daniel Stevenson aiming a gun at us from the doorway.

  Glancing past us toward the desk, Daniel said, “I turned your place upside down twice and couldn’t find that stupid music box. I came here to persuade you to tell me where it is, or even to try to buy it from you. But it looks like you’ve found out why it’s so important to me. I’ll take the flash drive and that laptop now.”

  Trying not to let my voice shake, I said, “Wait. What’s up with the music box? How did you know I had it?”

  “Mandi, rest her soul, was too stupid to keep it in a safe place. It took her two days after you broke into her house to realize it was gone.”

  Pete cleared his throat. “So Mandi knew about the flash drive with Scott’s blackmail pictures? Why didn’t she destroy it?”

  Daniel sighed. “Because the bitch got greedy. She knew I wanted it, so she decided it was worth something. I don’t appreciate blackmail of any kind.”

  I replied, “Clearly. Is that why you killed her and pinned everything on her?”

  Smiling, Daniel said, “If I admitted that, then I’d have to kill both of you.”

  Pete nodded. “Fair enough. Give him the flash drive, Jules, and then he can be on his way.”

  I so wanted the chance to grill Daniel about the kickback scheme and to find out who killed Scott, but he seemed way too calm about the whole situation here. For this reason, I was going to assume he was a sociopath and not try to be a hero. I reached behind me and grabbed the flash drive, then held it out to him.

  “Take it and go,” I said.

  He gave me a mock wounded look, but didn’t move to take it from me. “Juliet, I thought we were friends, but I’m sensing that the moment I leave here, you’re going to call your cop buddies and tattle on me.”

  I shook my head and tried to muster a smile. “Tattle on what? The flash drive doesn’t belong to me, so as long as you keep quiet that I stole it in the first place, I’ll keep quiet that you coerced us at gunpoint to give it to you. Deal?” I tossed the flash drive across the floor, and it landed at his feet.

  Daniel kept his eye (and his gun) on us as he stooped down to pick up the drive. “That’s a decent offer, except you’re a smart girl who’s seen what’s on here. I’m afraid you know too much. Both of you know too much.” He regarded us for a moment, deep in thought. “Does this place have a walk-in freezer?”

  “No,” Pete lied—badly. His reply sounded more like a question than an answer.

  Grinning at him, Daniel said, “Oh, come on now. I bet that’s not true. Let’s go have a look in the kitchen. Bring the laptop.”

  Pete leaned toward me and muttered in my ear, “This guy’s nuts.”

  I got the laptop and followed Pete out of the room. Daniel kept himself far enough away that neither of us could have lunged at him without running the risk of getting shot. There was nothing we could do except follow his orders. However, once we got to the kitchen, we’d be on my turf. Plenty of things in there could be used as weapons.

&n
bsp; When we entered the kitchen, Daniel said, “What’s that? Looks like a walk-in freezer to me. Pete, you lied to me.” He pointed his gun straight at Pete’s chest.

  I screamed, “Daniel, don’t!”

  Daniel laughed. “You guys are so jumpy. Set that laptop and your phones on the counter here.”

  I had to keep him talking, because I could see where this was going. If he managed to trap us in that freezer and no one looked for us until morning, we’d be popsicles. I put the laptop on the counter, and did the same with my phone. Pale and sweating, Pete tossed his phone onto the counter. Pete had been through a lot in the last year and had toughened up, but he didn’t have much experience in dealing head-on with armed crazies.

  Daniel picked up Pete’s phone and studied it. It was a mess. The screen was shattered and had a nearly dime-sized hunk out of it. The back of it was all banged up and seemed to be held on with electrical tape. “Does this thing even work anymore?”

  “It makes calls. That’s about it.” Pete turned to me. “I dropped it on the sidewalk yesterday after my chat with Delaney. I was a little jittery.”

  Daniel picked up my phone as well and then tossed them both into the deep fryer, which was still on.

  I groaned. “Great. I’m going to have to replace another phone now. And probably the deep fryer, too, once those phones get all hot and crispy and the toxic waste seeps out of them.”

  Smirking, Daniel said, “You won’t need a phone when you’re dead. Get in the freezer. Both of you.” He opened the freezer door and glanced inside. “Is this an emergency release?” he asked, nodding toward a knob on the inside of the door.

  I’d been hoping he wouldn’t think to check for one of those.

  Pete said, “If I said no would you believe me?”

  “Nice try. Grab a frying pan or something and break it off.”

  Frowning, Pete said, “I don’t think I want to do that, because then we couldn’t get out.”

  Daniel walked a few steps toward me, still staying well out of reach, and pointed the gun at my head. “Do it, wiseass.”

  His eyes fearful and anguished, Pete did as he was told, finding a massive cast iron skillet under the prep table. He walked slowly to the freezer and heaved the thing like an axe, bringing the side of the pan down against the top of the knob. The plastic knob cracked and split in half, and the metal rod that went through the door bent slightly.