by Casey Hill
They set out in Faye’s car, Rob at the wheel. A buddy of his in college had owned a Mustang ’65 — and he had enjoyed driving that car whenever he’d had the chance, and jumped at Faye’s offer to let him take the wheel. She rode shotgun, while Reilly and Jake sat in the back.
The police chief, who knew Rob well greeted them cordially, then ushered them in to his office where Mayridge awaited. “As you can probably tell SSA Greene is a big fan of ‘on-the-job experience,’” the investigating officer joked to the recruits. “But we’re grateful for any angles you guys have to offer on this case.” Reilly guessed that like most police departments, the investigative team were over-worked and understaffed.
The chief confirmed as much. “We certainly could use all the help we can get,” he continued. “We’re short-handed and this case is growing cold real fast. We got nothing from a fingerprint scene and the crime lab’s backed up for weeks. And we can’t interview the homeowner because her boat hasn’t reached port yet.”
“I think we can help you there,” Rob told him. In turn, the group explained all they’d discovered: the “drive by” at Jake’s apartment, information about Barbara Smith, her finances, and her connections to the Halvorsen men as well as the victim, Will Thompson, finishing up with their suspicions about a panic room in the master bedroom.
When they’d finished, the chief and Mayridge thanked them and promised to inform Rob when they’d had a chance to follow up on the leads they’d provided.
As they left the chief’s office, Rob saw another officer he knew and stopped to chat. The squad room was busy, so Reilly occupied herself with watching the goings-on of the officers. As she stood there observing, a couple of uniforms walked past behind her and she caught of brief whiff of cologne.
All of sudden, she was transported back to the first time she’d run through the scene at the party house, where she was almost certain she’d come across the very same musky and potent scent, from someone at the party she’d thought. She couldn’t identify or catalogue it, but she trusted her instincts, especially her sense of smell.
Turning around, she scanned the area. She saw a few officers who could have been wearing the cologne, so she waited for Rob to finish his conversation. “Do you know any of those men?” she asked indicating the officers who’d just walked past her.
“Just one of them,” he replied, pointing out the heavier set man in discussion with a tall, somewhat lanky officer. “Let me ask the chief about the other guy,” he told Reilly, and went to find him.
“He’s new,” the chief confirmed. “Came highly recommended but so far, all I’ve seen is a lot of ego. I made him sergeant, and suddenly he thinks he’s bucking for my job.” The chief frowned. “He might not be with the department long,” he confided. “I’ve just about had it with his sloppy work. He never seems to be where he’s supposed to be.”
“What’s his name?” Rob asked.
“Ted.Ted Travers. But the guys call him Teddy Terrific because he’s always bragging about himself.”
“Would he have been one of the first responders at the Smith house?” Rob asked, and when the chief looked curious he added, “Reilly says she recognized his cologne from the night of the accident.”
“He was actually.” The chief looked dubiously at Reilly. “Your sense of smell is that good?” he asked. “Pretty handy for a crime scene investigator.”
Once they’d returned to the car, Rob filled the others in about the officer with the distinctive cologne. He also dropped a bombshell about the bottle of men’s cologne in Barbara’s bathroom cabinet. “I took a sample, so if think you could compare …” he said to Reilly whose heart raced. “I’d know it anywhere,” she commented. “And I thought it was interesting that the chief mentioned he was new. If as Jake says, he thinks a cop might have been involved ...”
Could this Ted Travers be their mysterious man in black? What Jake had said about him perhaps changing his clothes and blending in with the police afterwards, it made sense.
Faye looked up. “I’m happy to do the honors in checking Officer Travers out.”
Later, she duly sought out Jordan Nance, her fellow recruit and computer geek. After promising him she’d fill him in fully once everything was over and done with, he agreed to help her research Officer Ted Travers. They spent hours working and by the end of the day, had found some interesting information. Faye was almost bursting, but she kept the discoveries to herself, vowing to wait until the others were once again assembled at Rob’s house before relaying the information.
“It turns out our new officer on the force, the obnoxious Ted Travers, is one slick dude,” she told them. “He’s worked for about half a dozen departments in as many years; he always manages to get himself involved in something or suspected of something, but squeaks out of it somehow and moves on to another department in another city. Before this, he was a prison guard at a maximum-security prison in California. He was terminated for smuggling contraband to prisoners. None of us got a good look at him yesterday but,” she pulled a printed headshot photo of Officer Travers from her handbag and showed it to the others. They gasped, almost in unison.
The face in the photo was craggy, dark-haired, and heavy-browed. It looked a hell of a lot like Jake’s description of the man in black.
“An ex-prison guard?” Jake exclaimed. “Well I guess that explains why the fight got nasty so quickly.”
“OK, before we jump the gun on this, why don’t we go through the facts as we have them so far, see if we can figure out what Travers and Bill were fighting about,” Rob suggested.
“First who knows who,” Jake began. “Our main players are Junior Halvorsen, William Thompson Barbara Smith and Officer Ted Travers, right?”
“That’s our crew,” confirmed Faye. “Seems Junior is most likely Barbara’s illegitimate, disowned child. Given Officer Ted keeps a bottle of his famous cologne in Barbara’s bathroom cabinet, we can assume he’s Barbara’s current squeeze and victim Will/Bill is potentially an ex. Does that about cover it?”
Reilly said, “Sounds more like a soap opera when you put it that way.”
“Now that’s an interesting angle,” Rob said. “Let’s use that for a minute — what could a soap opera view of this crime tell us about the motive?”
“Ooh I think I see where you’re going with this,” Faye said. “In a soap opera, with all these connections, my first thought would be a jealous love triangle?”
“Maybe, but in that case, wouldn’t Bill have been going after Travers? He must have known that Ted or even Barbara wouldn’t be there, because otherwise I doubt he would have attended otherwise,” Reilly observed. “Unless . . .” she paused a moment. “Do you suppose he saw the party going on, decided to stick around and protect Barbara’s place from her blockhead son Junior?”
“And in the process, managed to interrupt a robbery?” Reilly suggested, thinking again about the safe in the panic room. Bill must have known about that.
“That’s a good theory,” Rob agreed. “One thing bothers me, though. I still think the robbery if that’s what it was, was planned rather than coincidental. Based on Jake’s remembrance of events, the men weren’t arguing when he came out of the bathroom — they waited until he’d left, like they knew each other or something. If you came upstairs in a friend’s house and found a stranger breaking in, would you stop to chat with him first, or would you restrain him and yell for help?”
“That’s true,” said Jake. “Chances are you’re going to clobber the guy first and ask questions later. So that makes me think maybe Bill and Travers know each other.”
“Or know of each other,” Reilly put in. “Maybe Bill found out about the robbery somehow, and came there specifically to thwart it?”
“Another good theory,” Rob agreed. “Let’s think about this a minute. Okay, Ted is dating Barbara. I’m thinking perhaps he knew Barbara had something of value and arranged to steal it. Bill found out and came to the party to intercept him.”
“What look?” Reilly asked.
“That look where you wrinkle your nose and kind of purse your lips a bit,” Jake said. Faye laughed and said, “Yup, he’s got it. That’s the look.”
Reilly blushed furiously, not noticing Rob looking on, trying not to grin.
After a brief pause, she cleared her throat and said, “I was thinking about Barbara’s finances. If she’s underwater, don’t you think she’d have sold off everything of value by now? What would be there to steal? Then I thought, insurance scam.”
Jake was nodding. “Makes sense. But here’s something that’s been bugging me — why didn’t Junior recognize Travers at the party? If he was involved with his mom, wouldn’t they have met?”
“Maybe he didn’t see him,” Faye suggested. “Especially as it seems Travers snuck in afterwards so Junior wouldn’t have seen him.”
“If we assume that’s true, then my guess is Junior had nothing to do with any robbery the night of the party.” Reilly said. “The chief said he seemed clean. But here’s something else — apparently Barbara’s ship left its last port the night of the party.”
“That seems rather convenient. Add to that the fact that she’s scuba diving in her living room, and you have a reason for a robbery,” Faye finished.
“Exactly,” said Jake, taking up the story. “So Barbara must have something of value in that panic room, and she figures if it’s stolen, she can collect the insurance. She asks her new boyfriend Ted for advice, and he comes up with the plan.”
“Right,” said Reilly. “And I just can’t think of any other reason for the sliding patio door off the master bedroom to be left unlocked, or the books to have been gone through. Travers had to have known about the controls in the book, though perhaps he forgot which one it was. When I looked through the photos, I saw several similar-looking volumes that could hide a set of controls.”
“So if Ted Travers is the robber,” Faye said, stating the obvious, “then he also must be our killer.”
Chapter 15
At the Academy that morning, Rob asked Reilly, Faye, and Jake to join him in his office during lunch break; he had some important news.
“I’ve called the chief with the new information last night,” he told them, “and he called me first thing with some good news. Ted Travers was arrested on a manslaughter charge at 2:00 this morning. He’ll be terminated and most likely prosecuted for his part in the attempted robbery too.”
Reilly looked delightedly at Faye. They’d done it; they’d solved the case.
“Which brings us to the next point — during the official interrogation, Travers confirmed that he was trying to find which book he was supposed to use to open the panic room but Bill interrupted. That’s about when Jake came out of the bathroom.”
“So we were right,” Reilly said, with some satisfaction.
“It turns out that Bill and Barbara are still close, and he had discovered Barbara’s faux-robbery plan and tried to talk her out of it. When he found out she planned to go ahead, he figured out the details and made a point to be at the party. When Bill confronted Travers, he told him he was not going to allow him to go through with the plan. Travers tried to bribe him with an offer to cut him in for some of the profits, and Bill was insulted. The argument ensued when Bill told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to call the police. A fight ensued and Travers did shove Bill at the railing but thought he would catch himself before falling over the balcony, or worst case scenario, would walk away with a concussion. He had no idea Bill had hemophilia.”
“What about Barbara’s son, Junior?” Jake asked. “Was he in on it too?”
“Mayridge called him back in for questioning this morning. Junior knew nothing about the plan; but Barbara had suggested that he take care of the place while she was away and he jumped at the chance to throw a party in a big, fancy house and drink all the booze. Clearly Barbara knew her son well and guessed the party would provide the perfect cover-up for the robbery.”
“So what were they trying to steal?” Reilly asked, again wondering what a gambling addict would have of value.
“According to Travers, she had some rare coins in the panic room safe. The market is too weak at to pay her enough by selling them the moment, but years ago the insurance might have been set very high, so the theft of the coins would pay well. And she knew that if she were out on a boating trip, she would be blameless if — when — a theft occurred at her home. And as Reilly suspected, she turned to her new lover – Ted Travers serial conman — for ideas. He agreed to help her.”
“And it all backfired when Bill showed up,” Faye observed.
“Indeed it did,” Rob agreed. “And even though no one aside from us in this room and the police can know the extent of your involvement, ladies, I must say your combined efforts really did blow this case wide open.”
Reilly smiled broadly, even though Faye had done most of the investigative work and she doubted she’d done anything at all particularly helpful. Still, she enjoyed basking in Rob’s praise.
“Well, Faye did most of the work,” she admitted.
“On the contrary, your assessment of the crime scene and finding the panic room, not to mention your sense of smell at the station was the key to identifying Travers. If you hadn’t pinpointed the cologne, we never would have made the connection to Barbara and he’d still be at large. And if you hadn’t found the panic room, we wouldn’t have considered a robbery.”
Jake smiled. “So now Ted is off the force, and will stand trial for the crimes. Barbara Smith will probably plead out, but she’ll likely lose her home at the very least. Overall, I think justice will be served.”
“Good work people.” Rob smiled at them all, unaccountably proud of his Quantico recruits.
FOUR MONTHS LATER
“May I now introduce our honorary graduate speaker as chosen by her peers, ladies and gentlemen, Reilly Steel.”
Blushing heavily, Reilly stood up at Rob’s introduction and the crowd applauded as she made her way to the podium.
Even though her hands were shaking, she tried to keep her voice even.
“Fellow recruits, now newly minted FBI agents,” she began, smiling proudly at the words, her gaze sweeping over the crowd, “We have come through a lot — twenty weeks of tough training, challenges and growth, both personal and professional.”
Her gaze honed in on a familiar face in the crowd, Faye, sitting alongside a handsome figure, Jake Callahan whom her friend had been dating for several weeks now. Faye was smiling at her with such pride, she was practically glowing.
It felt good to finally have such friends.
“And now,” Reilly continued, “as we stand ready to face even bigger challenges, we celebrate our achievements — friendships made, bonds forged, and lessons learned.
And as we go forward as agents to protect our country and Her citizens, may we be imbued with strength, wisdom, intelligence and . . .” here she paused a moment, looked over at Rob, and smiled as her instructor gave her a proud nod, “an instinct for the truth.”
THE END
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Read on for an excerpt of TABOO - book one in the Reilly Steel series.
Taboo
CSI Reilly Steel #1
Casey Hill
San Francisco Bay area, California
‘Go on, Reilly, I dare you.’
‘Jess, forget it – I’m not doing it, OK?’ Reilly Steel trundled along the path on her way home from school. Her younger sister skipped along in front of her, her fluffy blond pigtails bouncing with every step. She hated collecting her sister from school — all her friends got to hang out at the mall, but no, she had to go get Jess, take her home, give her a snack, make sure she did her homework. ‘You know Dad says we should stay away from hi
m,’ she said.
Twenty yards ahead, an old man walked slowly back and forth across his yard, raking leaves. Dressed in an old flannel shirt and dirty overalls, he had a pronounced stoop, thin silver hair raked across his head and large gnarled hands wrapped round the handle of the rake. It was fall; the leaves were turning on the trees, the sun sinking lower in the sky with each passing day.
Jess looked at Reilly, her clear blue eyes shining with mischief. ‘Go on, say something to him.’
‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? We’re not supposed to talk to that guy.’
‘But why?’
Reilly exhaled in annoyance. ‘Why what, Jess?’
‘Why aren’t we supposed to talk to Mr Reynolds?’
She glanced at the older man and shivered. Randy Reynolds they called him — word was he had a taste for little girls. Jess was staring at him, her eyes wide with fascination as though she half knew the truth.
‘He’s a bad guy. He … does things to little girls,’ Reilly said, finally. She gave her sister a nudge. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’
Jess didn’t move. ‘What kind of things?’
Reilly sighed. She knew her sister well enough to recognize that look – Jess wasn’t going anywhere until her question had been answered. ‘Well, he likes to … touch girls—’
‘Touch them?’
‘Touch their bits, you know … like their private parts,’ she continued, uncomfortably.
Understanding suddenly dawned in Jess’s eyes. ‘Eeew! Why would he want to do that?’
How to explain to a wide-eyed ten-year-old when in all honesty Reilly didn’t get it herself? ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled. ‘I guess some guys just do.’
Jess looked thoughtful. ‘He’s not supposed to do that though, is he?’
‘No. Like Dad always says, nobody touches your private parts except you.’ She nudged her again. ‘Come on, let’s go. We’ve got lots of homework, and you know Dad’ll get mad if it’s not done before he gets back from work.’
