by Sharon Sala
Wyrick leaned forward. The move was barely noticeable, except to Charlie, because her hand was locked onto his forearm and he didn’t think she even knew it.
“What was her name, Edward?” Wyrick asked.
“Vivie. She called herself Vivie. I didn’t get a last name, and it didn’t matter.”
Charlie grieved at the revelation and what it was going to do to Edward. Wyrick wouldn’t look at him, but he felt her squeeze his arm.
“That’s a beautiful story,” Wyrick said. “Thank you for sharing it.”
“I never knew a bit of this, Eddie. You’re a heck of a guy and my favorite brother, but don’t tell Ted,” Carter said.
Everyone laughed, and the mood became even more cheerful when the entrée was served.
The meal finally came to an end, and when everyone began moving to the library for nightcaps, the back of Wyrick’s jumpsuit, or the lack thereof, triggered a whole new drama of its own.
“Wyrick, at the risk of getting my feet cut out from under me again, may I say the bits and pieces of your badass tattoo are intriguing. We have a dragon topiary in the heather gardens,” Carter said.
“We’ve met.” Wyrick followed Charlie to the bar.
“What’ll it be, pardner?” Charlie asked as he moved behind it.
“Sparkling water with a twist of lime,” Wyrick told him.
A couple of minutes later, he handed it to her, then poured brandy for Carter. Edward passed on any more alcohol, and not long afterward, it was his decision to go to bed that ended the evening.
Charlie and Wyrick ascended the stairs in silence and said nothing until they reached her room. The moment the door shut behind them, they looked at each other in disbelief, and then Charlie started talking.
“Can you believe what just happened? A random conversation at dinner, and all of a sudden another piece of the puzzle falls in our laps.”
Wyrick’s face was emotionless, but her voice was not. “Neither Vivian nor Edward could have dreamed what the consequences of that night would be. Edward was blind, and so much older than Vivian, that I think Miranda automatically excluded him. And she took a wild guess that Ted would’ve been too young, which left Carter, but she was wrong,” Wyrick said.
Charlie nodded. “We can’t be sure why she wanted him dead, but it now seems likely that she’s behind it all.”
“If I can find a trail of payments going out to three different people, we’ve got her,” Wyrick said.
“In the morning,” Charlie said. “We’ll search more in the morning.”
“Agreed. I’m ready to turn off my thoughts,” Wyrick said.
Charlie grimaced. “If only that was possible.”
“Right, if only,” Wyrick said.
She wasn’t about to tell him she knew how to turn off all thought and just be. She’d already revealed more about herself than she’d meant to. It was not good for her peace of mind to be living next door to the boss. It made her careless.
“See you in the morning, and great job,” Charlie said, then went into his room and pulled the adjoining door shut.
Wyrick locked herself in and spent the next few minutes getting ready for bed. Finally, she crawled between the sheets and logged out of her thoughts, just like she logged out of her computer.
* * *
Even without a motive to tie her to Carter and Jason Dunleavy’s case, Detective Bruner was coming to believe Miranda Deutsch was their best lead, but he had to be damn careful about how he proved it without some snitch in the department alerting the media. Blaming someone like her for criminal activities without the backup to prove it got people fired and police departments sued.
What he needed was motive and a money trail from Miranda to Wilma, Rey and Buddy. He’d put one of their best guys on the research, and now all they could do was wait to see what turned up. There was no one left to interview.
It was late, and he was tired of dealing with murder and deceit for today. The sun was setting as he left the precinct, and as he headed west, a beautiful sunset led him home.
* * *
Wyrick was already at work, looking for a money trail, when Charlie showed up to walk her to breakfast. He realized, as he approached the table where she was working, that the cut on her head had healed and the bruises were so faint now that he’d forgotten they’d been there.
“I’m not going to get dressed and sit through a whole hour or more of conversation when we need to figure this out before someone else winds up dead,” she said.
“If I had someone to tail, I wouldn’t be going, either,” Charlie said. “Okay if I ask Ruth to bring you up some coffee and a Danish?”
“Yes.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome,” he said before shutting the door without so much as a click.
Wyrick ignored him. She was already into Miranda Deutsch’s business.
But when Charlie showed up alone, everyone assumed she was ill.
“Is Wyrick okay?” Carter asked. “If she’s not feeling well, I can call our doctor to stop by.”
“She’s fine,” Charlie said. “She’s busy working and didn’t want to leave what she’s doing.”
“We can send her some food,” Dina said. “Sometimes I have breakfast in the suite, especially if I’m not feeling up to par.”
Ruth overheard the remark as she came in with a basket of hot biscuits and set them on the sideboard.
“I’ll see to getting a tray to her,” Ruth said. “What does she want?”
“Coffee and a Danish...or any kind of sweet roll,” Charlie said.
Ruth smiled. “I’ll get it sent right up.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said and went to the sideboard to serve himself. Those hot biscuits were calling his name.
As the meal progressed, Charlie became quieter. He couldn’t help thinking about what they knew and the Dunleavys didn’t. It wasn’t as if any of them had betrayed the others, but it was going to impact Edward and Jason the most. One had a daughter he never knew existed, and the other had fathered a child who’d been aborted without his knowledge.
Carter noticed his silence, and when Charlie glanced up and caught him staring, Carter reacted.
“What’s wrong, Charlie Dodge?”
Charlie shifted into his poker face. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just thinking through everything we’ve learned so far, and trying to make sense of it. As you know from Detective Bruner’s visit, it’s more complicated than we first thought. I’m afraid my social manners are still in mothballs, which is where I put them when Annie had to leave our home.”
“No apologies necessary. But ask if you ever need anything,” Carter said.
“I will. If you’ll all excuse me, it’s time I got to work, too. If anything breaks, you’ll be the first to know.”
* * *
Wyrick was licking sugar off her finger and watching one of her search apps sort through data, knowing if there was any data anywhere that had to do with money and Miranda Deutsch, this app would find it for her. She’d written the program she was using, and while it was very effective, it also broke a good number of privacy laws.
She wiped her finger on her jeans and was reaching for her coffee when a digital voice from the computer program suddenly cried out, “Hallelujah!”
Wyrick grinned as a new screen opened on the monitor. It was a financial readout of a trust fund belonging to Miranda Deutsch, and up until four months ago, no withdrawals had ever been made. The first withdrawal was for half a million dollars. Within a week, another one for fifty thousand, and yet another for two hundred thousand, withdrawn the same day Jason Dunleavy was shot. And there was a matching deposit the next day.
Just then, Charlie walked in.
She jumped up, pointing at the screen.
Charlie knew from the gleam in her eyes that she’d found something.
Wyrick started rattling off her latest revelations. “First off, I found registration for a handgun in Miranda Deutsch’s name, and it
’s the same make as the one used to kill Buddy Pierce and Rey Garza. And then this!”
Charlie leaned over to look at the screen.
“This resembles a bank statement, but it’s not. What am I looking at?”
“A readout of cash withdrawals from a trust fund belonging to Miranda Deutsch. There’s the half-million-dollar amount we were looking for. And here’s another withdrawal for fifty thousand soon afterward, maybe for Buddy Pierce. And here’s the third withdrawal on the day Jason was shot, but it went back in the next day. So why—”
Charlie grinned. “You did it! Hot damn, girl, you did it! Don’t you see? The breakup between Jason and Miranda was unexpected and he’d never been a target of hers before, so she didn’t have a chance to pay anyone ahead of time. This was going to be a payment on completion of the job. And when Garza didn’t kill Jason, she killed him and put it back.”
“That’s it!” Wyrick said, then shook her head. “I know how to do all kinds of things, and I can make money hand over fist, but I still don’t understand human emotions.”
Charlie frowned. “Why not?”
“Oh, I meant because of how isolated I was from interaction with normal people.”
“Oh. Yes, I can see that,” he said. “For a minute I thought you were going to try and make me believe you were an alien life-form, and I was gonna call bullshit on the whole story.”
Wyrick laughed. “I’ve had plenty of people think I was an alien, but I’m an Earth hatchling. Now, how do we do this? I can’t tell your detective how I found this. But can we tell him it’s there, and he’ll go through the proper channels to get the same info?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Charlie said.
“So what are you waiting for?” she asked. “What I want to know—and we’ll only find out if Miranda talks—is why she wanted to kill off her birth father, or rather the man she believes is her birth father—and the baby of the man she supposedly loved.”
“Bruner’s going to need motive, so it’s time to give up the DNA and abortion info, too. Are there any records of her paying for the abortion that we can access legally?” Charlie asked.
Wyrick grinned. “Actually, she paid for it with a credit card, and I’m guessing they have an accountant who just pays the bills without questioning the expenditures. I guess she thought if it wasn’t filed through insurance, no one would know. Let me start printing hard copies of what we have.”
“This is getting too complicated to do over a phone. Are you up for a trip downtown to the police department?” Charlie asked.
“Yes.”
He hesitated. “This isn’t going to get you into any trouble, is it? Because if it is, we’ll find another way to—”
“I don’t leave tracks.”
Charlie grinned. “Then get some shoes on while I call Bruner.”
* * *
Detective Bruner was on his way to Chief Forsythe’s office. He’d been summoned, which made him nervous. The chief was going to want to know where they were in the investigations, and learning about the addition of three murders connected to the attacks on Carter and Jason weren’t going to make him happy.
He was pulling up into the parking lot when his cell phone rang. He started to let it go to voicemail, then saw it was from Charlie Dodge.
“Lord, please let this be a good call,” Bruner muttered, then answered. “Detective Bruner.”
“This is Charlie. We’ve got news. It’s convoluted as hell, but we have all the proof you need to arrest Miranda Deutsch. Your problem is going to be finding it again through proper channels to keep it legal.”
Bruner groaned. “Sweet Mother of God, you did not just say that. This is my worst nightmare coming true.”
“Is there somewhere private we can talk to lay out what we know for sure? After that, it’ll be up to you as to how you go about verifying the same information.”
“Yes, I can do that,” he said. “I’m about to go in to see Chief Forsythe. Let me get that over with. I doubt it’ll take long. It’s just our weekly ass chewing for not having all the answers. By the time you guys make it to the precinct, I’ll be back in the office.”
“I’m bringing Wyrick.”
“Works for me.”
“Then we’ll see you later,” Charlie said and disconnected.
Wyrick had made a quick change into pants and a blue-and-white-striped tank top and white knee-high boots.
Charlie was on the phone with Carter when she returned.
“Wyrick and I have an appointment with Detective Bruner. We’re leaving now, but we’ll fill you in after we get back.”
“New info?” Carter asked.
“Yes.”
“By the way,” Carter said. “Dina and Kenneth left a short while ago. Jason is being released from the hospital. It’ll be good to have all the family together again.”
“Glad to hear it,” Charlie said. “Then we can fill everyone in at the same time. Do you still have security on the grounds?”
“Yes, they’re here.”
“Stay close to the house,” Charlie said and ended the call.
Twenty
As soon as Bruner got back to his office, he went to see if they had an open conference room. If what Dodge and his assistant were going to give him was this controversial, he needed to hear it in total privacy first. As soon as he had one reserved, he went down to the lobby to wait for them.
He wasn’t there long before they arrived. Even from this distance, there was no mistaking Charlie Dodge. He moved like a man on a mission, and the woman beside him was just as compelling.
Bruner went to meet them, greeting each of them with a handshake.
“I have a conference room reserved.” They rode the elevator in silence, and then walked to the room the same way. Once they were inside, Bruner relaxed, but Wyrick obviously did not.
She walked the room from corner to corner, looking for cameras.
“Is it possible for people to listen in?” she asked.
“No,” Bruner said. “And believe me, I don’t want this information out, either, until we have a lock on everything we need to get an arrest warrant.”
Charlie sat down. “I’m going to let Wyrick explain most of what we’ve learned, because she broke the case. Neither of us saw this coming, so trust me when I say we know how you feel.”
“Have a seat,” Wyrick said.
“It’s that bad?” Bruner asked.
Charlie shrugged. “It’s that crazy.”
Bruner sat as Wyrick began pulling pages from a manila envelope.
“This is what we know for sure,” she said and started ticking off the various points, laying papers in front of him to corroborate each one she made.
“Miranda owns a handgun that’s the same make as the one that killed Buddy Pierce and Rey Garza. While she was using these guys, she paid them out of a trust fund. There are withdrawals that coincide with paying off three different people. Charlie will explain the last withdrawal.”
Charlie picked up the story. “There was a third withdrawal on the day Jason Dunleavy was shot, which was redeposited the next day because Jason survived, which is why she shot Garza. He failed her, like all the others had.”
“Why did she go after Carter?” Bruner asked.
Wyrick pulled out another page and laid it in front of him.
“The answer begins here. I found an odd expenditure for a DNA kit. Curiosity got the better of me and I followed up on it. To make a long story short, Johannes Deutsch is not her birth father. On the ancestor site, she found a distant relative in Ireland who had already linked herself to a man in America named Dillon Dunleavy, who turned out to be the father of Edward, Dina, Carter and Ted.
“At that point Miranda bought two more DNA kits, collected a sample from Jason and one from herself, which she sent to a private laboratory. It verified Jason was her first cousin. After that discovery she had an abortion, but she still didn’t know which of the three Dunleavy brothers was her birth father.”
Bruner held up a hand. “Stop! Wait! What am I missing here? She’s related to a family she’s trying to kill, and she aborted a baby she was having with the man she wanted to marry? I don’t get it.”
“There’s more,” Charlie said. “We think she made an assumption as to which brother would be her natural father because of her mother’s age at the time. Edward was thirty. Carter was twenty-five, and Ted was sixteen. Her mother was twenty, so she picked Carter as the logical one, but she was wrong. We found out through an innocent conversation at dinner the other night that it was Edward. He was already blind, and it was a one-night stand at a New Year’s Eve party. He only knew her name as Vivie, and shortly thereafter, Vivie aka Vivian Morrow, married Johannes Deutsch. Eight and a half months later, Miranda was born. And just so you know, we haven’t said a word to any of the Dunleavy family about what we learned. We waited until we could turn it all over to the police. It’s going to be hard for them to hear.”
Bruner wiped his hands across his face. “Hard for them to hear? I’m having a struggle of my own. My personal opinion? Miranda Deutsch is a psychopath.”
Wyrick pointed to the file. “You have a hard copy of everything to back up what I said, and as dumb as it sounds, she paid for her abortion with a credit card. I’m also willing to bet that she wrote Wilma’s suicide note in her own handwriting. Whatever else she is, she’s a stupid criminal.”
Charlie leaned across the table. “It’s in your court now, and I expect total anonymity for Wyrick.”
Wyrick frowned at Charlie. “I already told you I don’t leave tracks.”
Bruner stood. “Thank you, ma’am. You’re a wonder. And thank you, Charlie Dodge, for picking up the slack when we dropped the ball on Carter’s disappearance. I’ll get my guys on the paperwork, and I’ll let you know when we arrest her.”
“Make it snappy,” Charlie said. “I’m here until Carter is safe. That was our deal, but we’re both ready to go back to Dallas.”
