by M. Z. Kelly
I took a seat as McCade held up his coffee cup. “Care for some brown?”
“Stopped on the way over. Had a latte.”
He smiled. “Figures.”
“I’ve heard good things about Detective Sexton’s work,” Sloan said to his employee. “I think you two will be a good match.”
McCade nodded at Sloan, the smile never leaving his lips. “I’ve seen the detective’s work. I can honestly say it’s some of the finest I’ve ever seen.” He glanced over at me. I did my best not to look at him because, even though I was wearing dark pants and a blazer, I was sure I was blushing all the way down to my new thong.
Bernie came over and pushed his big nose between McCade and me, maybe his way of showing jealousy. My new partner immediately took to my big dog, brushing a hand through his fur and nuzzling him. I had the sense they’d formed an instant bond.
“Why don’t you go over where we are on the case, get us both up to speed,” Lieutenant Sloan said to McCade.
My new partner closed the case file in front of him, brought out a laptop, and set it up on Sloan’s desk, angling the screen so that we all could see it. He made a couple of keystrokes and said, “This is the courthouse security footage from yesterday. I spent the better part of last night reviewing it but didn’t come up with much. As you can see the screening process at the courthouse entrance was pretty straight forward with no hiccups.”
McCade clicked the mouse on the laptop at the same time assuring us that the security screeners would all be interviewed as part of the investigation. He then said, “This is where the footage gets interesting.”
We watched as a man wearing a ski mask appeared in the corner of the video taken directly outside the upstairs courtroom. The screen shot then showed the lights going out before the emergency lights kicked in a few seconds later. McCade and I were then seen exiting the courtroom in pursuit.
“It was less than a minute between the time the lights were out and our pursuit began,” McCade said. He clicked through several more screens and we saw footage of the shooter in the hallway before he exited the building and ran through the parking lot. By some miracle no one, other than Clay Aster, had been injured during the shootout. “The motorcycle he got on was out of camera range, so there’s nothing in the way of a plate or even a make on the bike.”
“How do you suppose he was able to shoot Aster in total darkness?” I asked.
McCade shrugged. “My guess is that he must’ve had night vision googles. We both know it was darker then a well digger’s…” He smiled. “It was pretty dark in there.”
“Not much to go on then,” Sloan said. I had trouble pulling my gaze away from McCade’s blue eyes as Sloan asked, “What about the guys that took the girls?”
“Charlie Hanks was the bailiff…”
“Good man,” Sloan interrupted.
McCade nodded. “He escorted the girls back to the holding area. According to a couple of witnesses he was shot in the head by the kidnappers. The girls were then ushered outside directly to a waiting van. The whole thing went down while our shooter was on the run.”
I said, “And the men who took the girls…”
“Same as the shooter. They wore ski masks and came into the building through the sally port. We didn’t get a plate.” Buck made a couple of more keystrokes and we saw two men entering and then exiting the building through the same entrance less than a minute later. He closed the laptop.
“What about the power to the courthouse?” Sloan asked. “How did they cut the power?”
“Small explosive on the electrical panel with a timing device.”
“There has to be somebody on the inside,” I said. “They must have known there would be a delay before the emergency lights came up.”
McCade nodded. “I agree. There’s either somebody on the inside or somebody with inside knowledge that’s involved. We’re looking at every employee who’s had access to the building over the past six months.”
Sloan sipped his coffee, probably mulling over what he’d learned before asking, “Anything on the ballistics side of things?”
McCade shook his head. “The rounds were nine millimeter, went through Aster’s head and were embedded in the wall. We dug them out and are looking at data bases for a match but we’re probably barking up a rope.”
Sloan must have seen my confusion and explained, “He means that it’s a long shot.” He tossed McCade a look, found my eyes again. “You’ll get used to him.”
“What do we know about Clay Aster?” I asked, at the same time thinking I wouldn’t mind getting used to Buck McCade.
“He was wealthy, arrogant, well connected,” the lieutenant said. “Been on the island for years.”
Since I hate attorneys I knew the type well. “Any known enemies?”
Sloan shrugged. “Probably. That’s part of the leg work that’s ahead of us.” His eyes remained fixed on me. “The girls charged in the homicide. I understand one of them is a friend?”
“My friend’s niece. I’ve talked to her a couple of times over the past couple of months but don’t know her very well. I also don’t know much about the homicide and accessory charges.”
Sloan looked at McCade. “Why don’t you fill her in?”
“Two nights ago Maddie Cross met the victim Derek Shaw, age twenty-two, in a local park. According to Maddie, they’d been seeing one another off and on for a few weeks. They were sitting in Shaw’s truck, making out, and sharing a few drinks. Things started to get out of hand when Maddie said no to his advances. Shaw pulled out a gun and she said he tried to rape her. According to Maddie there was a struggle when the gun went off, killing Shaw. She claims it was self-defense.”
Sloan raked both hands through his gray hair, then rested his elbows on his desk and looked at me. “And then the other girls got involved.”
My new partner went on, “Maddie admits that she called Sissy Maddox and Clara Mills. They put their heads together and all decided to take the body up into the hills and dump it. Maddie led us back to the scene where we recovered the body late yesterday. We’re still waiting on the autopsy results.”
I chose my words carefully, since I was a guest there. “I’m trying to be impartial about this but it doesn’t sound to me like there’s enough for a murder conviction—it sounds like at the worse manslaughter or maybe even a lesser charge.”
“The charges would probably eventually get plea bargained down,” McCade agreed. “As for Sissy and Clara, they’re probably looking at some local custody time, maybe a camp program—that is if we find them.”
“That’s a big if,” Sloan said.
“Do you think this could be some kind of kidnapping for ransom?” I asked them.
McCade shook his head. “I’ve been a chucklehead a time or two, but I think it’s bigger than that. Maybe some kind of payback for what happened to Shaw.”
“A chucklehead?” I said, laughing. “Really.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” he said, apparently explaining the reference. A smile followed, eyes crinkling. I drew in a quick breath, looked away.
“What about the homicide victim’s family?” Sloan asked, refocusing the discussion. “His parents live on the island?”
“La La land, at least that’s where mama lives,” McCade said. “Daddy’s been in the wind for a number of years. I talked to his mother after the death notification. She was pretty hysterical, said her son was a good boy and blamed the girl.”
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Sloan said, summarizing what lay ahead of us. “I’m assigning Julie Spencer and Tim Baxter to work with you both fulltime on this. I want those girls found and the shooter in jail before the press decides to call me a chucklehead.”
***
McCade and I made plans to meet with the other investigators after lunch and then interview Clay Aster’s assistant, Hal Quinton. Bernie and I then left the station, walking with the Catalina detective through the parking lot to our car. He put on his hat, a Stetson like
somebody in Texas would wear, turned to me and said, “Fraid, we just drew a dead man’s hand.”
We stopped walking. I looked at him. “Come again?”
“A bad poker hand. Spencer and Baxter—this is nothing to nobody but me and you, but Baxter’s a blowhard and Spencer…” He paused, apparently searching for the right words. “She’s a little on the pushy side. Lives with her brother who’s a reporter for the local paper. They both tend to stick their noses into things like a couple of hound dogs look’n for a bone.”
I smiled at the way he phrased things. I then took a step closer to him, reached out, tugged on the lapel of his jacket, and looked at his hat. “I’m not sure about your background Buck McCade, but just so you know, you’re going to be working with a city girl for the next few days. Maybe you should see if you’ve got another coat on the rack.”
He smiled, turned, and began walking toward an old pickup truck.
“Really?” I said, laughing as he opened the truck’s door.
He looked back at me, took his hat off and brushed a hand through his short brown hair. There was that smile again, now bigger, and killing me. “What can I say? It hauls the hay, city girl.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bernie and I had lunch at an outdoor café. Before heading back to the station we took a stroll down by the harbor where dozens of boats bobbed in the blue-green water. The day was warm and clear, the fog that sometimes hugged the Avalon harbor had pushed out to sea.
When we got back to the station, Buck introduced me to Julie Spencer and Tim Baxter after Bernie settled into a corner of a conference room. Sloan had wandered off after giving us instructions to make something break on the case ASAP.
Spencer was about my age, in her early thirties, and attractive. She was thin with blonde hair and breasts that looked artificially enhanced. Despite her decent looks, she wore tons of makeup and had an irritating way of fixing her brown eyes on me like I was an alien species that had just landed on the island.
Tim Baxter was older, probably in his mid-forties, tubby and balding. He also seemed less than happy that an outsider was working their case.
“I want you two to go back to the courthouse today,” McCade said to the two Catalina cops after introductions and briefing them on the case. “We need to look at anyone who’s had access to the building over the past six months that might have a criminal record. We also need to look at relatives and friends of anyone who might’ve helped someone get past security. I also want a knock and talk on the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe somebody saw the van or motorcycle.”
“In case you forgot, we did that yesterday,” Julie Spencer said. She then cut her brown eyes to me. “And why do we have someone from Hollyweird working our case?”
“Professional courtesy,” Buck said. “Kate has lots of experience.”
A scoff. Her eyes were still fixed on me. “I’ll bet she does.”
My gaze didn’t waver from hers. “Listen, I understand your feelings about me being an outsider, but I have no desire to interfere in anything. I’m just here to assist.”
That was apparently Tim Baxter’s cue to take up his partner’s cause. “Then why don’t you go back to the courthouse, canvass the neighborhood? Let the two of us actively work the case while you pound the ground.”
“Enough,” McCade said, his voice ticking up a notch. “I’m the lead. This is my decision and it’s final.”
“Of course it is,” Baxter said, fixing his eyes on him. “Cowboy rules.”
McCade’s baby blues drilled into him. “You got an issue with me we can take it up in another place and time. Right now there’s two things you need to do: follow orders and show a little respect.”
We were gathering up our files and preparing to leave when Baxter came over to me. He was shorter than me and I looked down at his gooey features. He was even less attractive than my initial impression—a ham sandwich in a dark suit. He lowered his voice so that the others couldn’t hear us. “Just so you know you need to watch yourself.”
My brows inched together. “I’m sorry?”
“If anything bad goes down, your partner…” He looked over at McCade, his voice coming down another notch. “All I’m saying is that he might not have your back.
***
Half an hour later, McCade and I were on the road headed for Clay Aster’s office to interview his legal assistant. Bernie sniffed the island air from the rear passenger seat as we drove.
Most of the roads on the island were narrow, the inhabitants and tourists using golf carts to get around. We were forced to take a wider surface street and backtrack to Aster’s office. Along the way, I told my new partner what Tim Baxter had said.
McCade looked over at me, rubbed the back of his neck. “Son of a gun. He really said that?”
I nodded. “Maybe he was just trying to get under my skin. He and his partner aren’t thrilled with me being here, in case you didn’t notice.”
He sighed and I saw that his face was flushed. It was the first time I’d seen him angry. “It’s a lot deeper than that.”
“I’m listening.”
He took a moment, apparently gathering his thoughts or maybe trying to control his anger. He clenched the steering wheel, breathing in and out before he began.
“Me and Ben Howard, my recently retired partner, were in a shootout a little over a year ago. Some guy robbed a convenience store and we happened to be in the area. We got separated during the pursuit and Howard was shot.” He glanced over at me. “There was some talk that I abandoned Howard, that I wasn’t there for him. It’s not true.”
I knew all too well how false accusations could be made, even by other cops who sometimes liked to stir up trouble. “How did the situation end?”
“I called in an ambulance, later tracked the shooter down. There was a pretty intense standoff, but the guy surrendered and I arrested him.” He blew out a lung full of air, cracked his window. “Howard was never the same after the shooting. It’s probably the reason he pulled the plug.” He glanced back over at me. “I guess what I did wasn’t enough for some people.”
We drove on in silence for a couple of minutes before he pulled to the curb in front of Aster’s office.
“I’m not worried,” I said, glancing over at him as he parked the car.
He turned to me as he pulled the keys out of the ignition. “About what?”
“You having my back.”
He nodded. “Appreciate that.” His smile finally came back.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Course.”
“Your name. Is it really Buck?”
The smile spread. “Born Everett William McCade, Jr. Named after my daddy, God rest his soul. He was also a Buck so it just seemed ‘bout right to me.”
Now it was my turn to smile. “You’re definitely more of a Buck than an Everett.” I opened the door. “Let’s go solve a murder, Buck.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clay Aster’s office was in a Victorian two-story residence, the largest house in a block of homes that had been converted to offices and businesses. Everything about the mansion suggested the ego of the man who had practiced law here.
The home had a wide wrap-around porch supported by massive round columns that were set off by hand carved corbels. I turned back to the street for a moment, letting Bernie sniff at some potted plants.
The law office had a sweeping view of the harbor. I remembered reading somewhere that back in the 1950’s, before there was smog, on a clear day you could see Catalina from the Hollywood Hills. I imagined that back in that era someone with a good pair of binoculars would have also been able to see Clay Aster’s mansion on the hill.
As Buck opened the door to Aster’s office, he removed his hat. I noticed that he was wearing a pair of Wranglers and boots. As I admired this other view, the one of his lean, muscular frame, I made a mental note to ask him more about his background. I still found myself having trouble concentrating around him.
&nb
sp; The only saving grace in the traumatic events surrounding Jack’s death had been my escape to the island. If clear air, blue skies, and soft breezes could be therapeutic, I’d had almost three months of the best therapy possible. My surroundings and Buck McCade again told me it was time to take a couple of steps forward in trying to move on with my life.
The law office was closed because of Aster’s death, but we’d called ahead and made arrangements to meet with Hal Quinton, Aster’s legal assistant, and his secretary, Carly Lucia.
We took seats in a living room that had been converted to a waiting area. The room was furnished with antiques that included lots of intricately carved tables, armoires, decorative lamps with silk shades, a lounge and chairs that made me feel like I’d stepped back in time. On the walls were several photographs of Aster, and various degrees and awards he’d received over the years.
“I’m not sure how we can help with any of this,” Hal Quinton said after I settled Bernie into a corner and we introduced ourselves to Aster’s legal secretary, Carly Lucia. Quinton took a seat next to Lucia on one of the lounges across from us. He was probably in his mid-fifties with sparse gray hair and eyes that continuously blinked beneath wire rimmed glasses. He brought to mind the image of an ancient owl dressed in a dark blue suit.
Aster’s secretary was another story. Black hair, unblemished skin, low cut blouse exposing perky breasts, red pouty lips, dark violet eyes maybe because of contacts, and legs that seemed unnaturally long and beautiful. Something about her reminded me of a woman who had fangs and called herself, Morgana, Mistress of Evil, from a show I’d watched as a child. I noticed Morgana giving Buck the eye as he answered Quinton.
“We need the names of anyone who might be a suspect, maybe someone Mr. Aster represented that was unhappy with him, it could also be an associate, a friend—anyone who might have had a reason to kill your boss.”
Quinton blinked three times, glanced over at Lucia, and back at Buck, now blinking again. “I told the investigators yesterday that I can probably put a few names together. As you can imagine, anyone who represented as many defendants as Clay did over the years was bound to end up with a few detractors, but no one specific comes to mind.”
