Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery)

by Annelise Ryan

  “I’m going to skip dinner,” she yelled back.

  “No, you’re not,” Hurley yelled back. “Get down here.”

  Emily came, but it was obvious from her expression and her body language that she didn’t want to be there. She remained silent and pouty through the entire meal, and a couple of times I caught her looking at me when I was talking with Hurley. The venom I saw in her eyes as she watched me was scary. I told myself that I was overreacting and still sensitive from the whole Jacob Ames debacle. When we were through with dinner, Emily asked to be excused, but Hurley told her she had to stay for cake and presents. I could tell she didn’t want to, and I felt sorry for her. Clearly she was in pain. So I spoke up and said it was okay with me if she wanted to go upstairs. I should have saved my breath.

  Emily glared at me, pushed herself back from the table, and sneered, “You don’t have any say in what I do or don’t do. You’re not my mother.”

  “Emily,” Hurley said, his voice on edge.

  “Well, she’s not!” Emily yelled at him. “She’s just some bitch who’s trying to trick you into marrying her by having some brat who has no business even being born. I’ll bet it’s not even yours. She used it to steal you away from Mom, and now she wants to steal you away from me so she can have you all to herself.”

  “Emily, that’s enough!” Hurley yelled.

  Emily shoved herself back from the table, got up, and ran to her room, once again punctuating her emotions by slamming the door.

  Hurley and I sat at the table, staring off into space. After several minutes of silence, I said, “That went well. At least now we know what’s bothering her.”

  “I wish you hadn’t interfered when I told her she needed to stay down here for dessert.”

  I gaped at Hurley, not believing what he’d just said. “Don’t you turn on me, too,” I told him.

  “I’m not turning on you. I’m just giving you feedback.”

  “I’ve had all the feedback I can handle for one day, thank you very much.”

  “I’m sorry she went off on you like that.”

  “Sorry doesn’t make it better, Hurley. She needs help. You need to get her to a counselor or shrink of some sort, sooner rather than later.”

  “I know.”

  “And it might be a good idea if you and I spent a little less time together. Right now she needs your full attention.”

  “You need my attention, too,” Hurley countered. Then he gave me his trademark eyebrow wiggle. “And I need your attention. Lots of it.”

  “I’m serious, Hurley. We need to help Emily as much as we can right now. The best way to do that is for you to give her as much time and attention as you can spare, and get her some professional help.”

  “She’ll get over it. She just needs more time.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “No, this is serious. Trust me. You need to make her your only focus for now.”

  “I can’t,” he said, looking at me like I was clueless. “I have a kid coming.”

  “Like it or not, you have a kid who’s already here, Hurley, a kid who’s hurting badly, a kid who desperately needs your attention. If you’re going to be a father, you have to be one all the time and in all circumstances. You can’t pick and choose who your kids are, or when you’re going to parent them. Emily is the urgent need right now. My baby isn’t.”

  “Your baby?” Hurley said tersely.

  “Our baby,” I quickly corrected.

  “You’re not going to cut me out of this, Winston.”

  “I’m not trying to, Hurley. I already told you that you can be as involved as you want, and I meant it. But there’s nothing you can do for our kid right now. That one,” I pointed toward the ceiling, “needs you, all of you, one hundred percent of you, right now. And if you can’t see that, then you’ve got a long ways to go before you’ll make a decent father.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could take them back. It wasn’t that I didn’t mean them, because I did. But they came out harsher and meaner than I meant them to, and that was the last thing Hurley needed. “I need to go,” I said.

  Hurley’s face was a storm of emotion, and I thought he was going to insist that I stay. Instead, he simply nodded and picked up his cell phone to call Brenda Joiner, who was doing my guard duty for the night. When he hung up, he said, “Brenda will be here in a few minutes. She’ll drive you home.” He got up from the table, walked over to the counter, and picked up the card and gift that were sitting there. “You might as well take this with you,” he said, setting them on the table. Then he turned and headed upstairs.

  I fought back tears as I struggled to come up with something to say to him, but before I could he hollered to me from the foot of the stairs. “Make sure you lock the door when you leave.”

  That last sentence was spoken with a frightening dead calm that upset me more than yelling would have. I swiped at the tears on my face, and looked at the gift and card on the table. I was tempted to leave them there and never open either one. But when a knock came a few minutes later, my curiosity won out. I grabbed them both and headed for the door.

  Chapter 36

  After Brenda drove me home, I went inside and set the card and gift on the kitchen table. I gave Hoover a hello kiss on the head, and then handed him off to Brenda so she could walk him. When she was done and brought him back, I thanked her and said good night. But instead of leaving, she cocked her head to one side and stared at me.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked. “Hurley sounded upset on the phone, and you look like you’ve been crying.”

  “The birthday dinner didn’t go quite the way we planned,” I said.

  “You had a fight, didn’t you?”

  “Something like that,” I said with a humorless laugh.

  “Don’t let it get you down too much,” Brenda said. “Fights are inevitable when people care a lot about one another. And it’s pretty obvious that you and Hurley are nuts about each other.”

  If only it was that simple.

  As soon as Brenda went back to her car, I walked over and stared at the gift. There was a part of me that didn’t want to open it, but I knew I couldn’t resist it for long. I went for the card first.

  It was a humorous one, telling me that the EPA was going to come after me because of what the heat from the candles on my cake was doing to global warming. There was a neatly printed, handwritten note at the bottom:

  GIVEN RECENT AND COMING EVENTS I THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT GIFT FOR YOU . . . FOR US.

  LOVE,

  HURLEY

  He still hadn’t said he loved me to my face, but this was pretty darned close. The fact that it happened at a time when it seemed like we couldn’t be further apart made me want to cry. I set the card aside and opened the gift.

  It was a video camera. I stared at the box for the longest time, sorting through a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. It was definitely a thoughtful gift, given that we had a child on the way. But I couldn’t help making the connection between him and Charlie and the whole videography thing. Had the camera been her idea? Had she helped him pick it out?

  Finally, after staring at the thing for nearly half an hour, I decided I was being petty and small with my thoughts. It was a great gift, one I was sure would get a lot of use. I opened the box and took the camera out. There was a quick-start sheet that showed the basic components of the camera, and after turning it on and discovering that the battery had nearly a full charge on it, I aimed it at Hoover, who was sprawled out on the floor at my feet.

  “Hoover, wake up,” I said. “Let me take your picture.”

  Hoover dutifully snapped out of his snoring sleep and got to his feet, tail wagging, tongue lolling, eager to please even before he knew what he was supposed to be doing. I played with the zoom button, closing in on his huge brown eyes and then backing out just far enough that his big yellow head filled the screen. I had him sit and then fetch a tennis ball I tossed across the room, all the w
hile filming his every move. I’d had a little practice with the cameras at work during the week, thanks to my attempts to interject myself between Charlie and Hurley, so my technique wasn’t as bad as it might have been. But when I played back what I’d done, the images were often jumpy and shaky.

  That’s when I noticed the time and date stamp displayed in the lower-right corner. Puzzled, I glanced at my watch, then back at the time stamp. A lightbulb went off in my head. I grabbed the owner’s manual and flipped to the back pages. The company that made the camera was located in California. And the time stamp on my screen read two hours earlier than the current time.

  I tossed the camera aside, grabbed my cell phone, and called Richmond.

  “Hey, Mattie, what’s up?”

  “I think Jacob Ames might be innocent,” I told him.

  He sighed, and I could almost see him rolling his eyes. “I thought we’d discussed this.”

  “We did, and you had me convinced until today. But I just discovered something that might change things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Can you meet me at the station in ten?”

  He hesitated. “Do I have to? Can’t you just tell me what it is over the phone?”

  “No, it will be better if I show you.”

  “Fine, but this better be good.”

  “If nothing else, it’s reasonable doubt for Jacob, so it needs to be addressed.”

  “All right,” he said in a much beleaguered tone. “See you in ten.”

  I loaded up the camera and went to ask Brenda to drive me to the station. We arrived eight minutes later and went in through the back entrance. Stephanie the dispatcher was in the break room, wearing her headset.

  “Hey, Steph, how are things?”

  “It’s a quiet night so far,” she said.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  “What brings you here on a Saturday night? I thought you were having some kind of birthday celebration over at Hurley’s.”

  “I was, but we had to cut it short.” I left it at that, and Brenda shot me a look. Then she excused herself to use the restroom.

  I started to head for Richmond’s office, but Stephanie stopped me. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s going on with you and Hurley? I mean, are the two of you going to get hitched?”

  “No plans for that, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said with a dismissive shrug.

  “So are the two of you still seeing one another?”

  Good question. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because that camera girl, Charlie, said she’s interested in Hurley and wants to ask him out, but she doesn’t want to step on any toes. She said she’s gotten some mixed vibes regarding the two of you and wanted to know what was what.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That it was complicated.”

  That made me laugh, perhaps a little louder than I should have. “That it is, Steph,” I said. “If she asks again, tell her that Hurley has all he can handle for now and leave it at that.”

  “Okay,” Stephanie said, eyeing me curiously. Then she headed back to her desk up front. I made my way to Richmond’s desk and settled in. My feet hurt, my heart hurt, and I was fighting a headache. I sat a minute, rubbing my temples, and replaying the night’s events in my head. I heard someone come in through the break room door and thought it was Richmond. But instead, Junior Feller appeared in the doorway to Richmond’s office.

  “Hey, Mattie, what are you doing here?” he said. “I thought you and Hurley were celebrating your birthday tonight.”

  “We did.” I left it at that even though I could tell Junior wanted more. A second later, Charlie stepped into view.

  She saw the camera I had in my hand and said, “Oh, good. I see you got your birthday present. I told Hurley it would make a great gift.”

  That answered that question, much to my dismay. “It is a great gift. Did you help him pick it out?”

  “I recommended some features and a couple of places he could buy from,” she said. “But he made the final choice and paid extra to get it delivered in time. Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No, at least not so far. Do you know where he bought it from?”

  “He ordered it online from a company out in California. But it’s a reputable place. If there’s a problem I’m sure they’ll back it up.”

  “Back what up?” Richmond said as he joined the group.

  “My new video camera,” I said, showing it to him.

  “That’s nice,” he said. “Now what was so important that I had to come in here?”

  “This is,” I said, nodding toward the camera.

  Richmond’s eyes narrowed. “You had me come down here so you could show me your new camera?”

  “Basically, yes. Not the camera per se, but rather what I filmed on it tonight, right after I took it out of the box.”

  I turned the camera on, put it in playback mode, and showed him the screen. He watched Hoover do his tricks, watched me zoom in and out, and shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. I could tell he was getting impatient. “Don’t pay any attention to what I filmed,” I told him. “Look at the time and date stamp.”

  Richmond stared at the screen for several seconds and then said, “So?”

  “So it says I filmed this at 5:18 P.M., but I filmed it literally minutes before I called you. That was, what, twenty minutes ago at most. And that means that I really filmed it at 7:18 PM. The reason it says 5:18 is because that’s the time the manufacturer set and they’re located in California.”

  Richmond looked away, staring off into space. “Holy crap,” he said. “Derrick Ames ordered his camera from the East Coast.”

  “Yes! And it had just arrived. If I remember correctly, Jonas said he found the box on top of the trash, and the owner’s manual was sitting on the table, still folded up. Odds are Derrick did exactly what I did when I took mine out of the box. He started using it without changing any of the settings.”

  “And that means that the video of Jacob fighting with his father happened an hour before the time of death.”

  Junior and Charlie were listening to our conversation, and Charlie piped up and said, “Does that mean the kid didn’t do it?”

  “No,” Richmond said, frowning. “But it does mean that our best piece of evidence may be useless.”

  “I don’t think he did it,” I said. “There was something about the way he looked and talked that day in the conference room. I think he was telling the truth. He fought with his father, but then he left, and his father was still alive. That means someone else came by the house after Jacob left. And that someone is the person who actually killed Derrick.”

  “Or Jacob just stayed there for an hour and argued with his father before killing him,” Richmond countered.

  “But that doesn’t explain why he took the laptop, or why he wiped the hard drive, or Derrick’s last utterance, that payday thing. None of the evidence fits well with Jacob as the culprit. I think the killer is still out there.”

  “But what about the blood on Jacob’s clothes and shoes?” Richmond posed.

  “He admitted that he had a fight with his father. He also admitted to punching his father in the face, and we know from the autopsy that Derrick had a bloody, broken nose.”

  Richmond sagged into a nearby chair. “Damn,” he said. “We’re back to square one.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that laptop. If the killer isn’t Jacob, and the killer took the laptop, why? There had to have been something on that computer that would have pointed to the killer.”

  Richmond shook his head. “We got copies of all his e-mails from his ISP, and he had an online calendar, too. There was nothing in any of that to point a finger at anyone else.”

  “Then maybe it was something else he had saved
on that computer, like a document.”

  “Or a financial sheet of some sort,” Charlie suggested. We all turned and stared at her. “You said he uttered the word payday,” she said with a shrug. “To me, that suggests something to do with money.”

  Much as I hated to admit it, Charlie’s idea was freaking brilliant. I looked over at Richmond. “What about that thumb drive we found? Was there anything on that?”

  Richmond stared at me blankly for several seconds. “Now that you mention it, I don’t remember seeing anything about that thumb drive. I think I put it out of my head once we determined Jacob was good for it.”

  “Did somebody look at the contents?”

  Richmond chewed on his lip, looking guilty. “I’m not sure, but I’ll look into it right now. Do you want to help?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got something else I want to do. It is my birthday, after all.”

  “Right,” Richmond said. “Happy birthday.”

  “If you find something, give me a call.”

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll help you,” Charlie said to Richmond. “It will be kind of exciting, like a treasure hunt.”

  With that, Charlie and Richmond headed for the evidence locker, which was in the basement of the building. I headed back to the break room and asked Brenda to take me to my office. I’d had an epiphany of sorts, a new idea that might or might not pan out. Either way, I intended to follow up on it.

  Chapter 37

  Brenda drove me the one block to my office—insisting that it was safer than walking—and pulled into the underground garage. After making sure the garage was secure, we got out, and I let us in with my key fob. The place was dark and empty, which used to spook me when I first started working there but no longer did. The dead don’t frighten me anymore; only the living do.

  We headed for the library, though I did stop and sign us in at the front desk. I got on my computer, accessed the shared file system, and pulled up the record for Derrick Ames. Once I had his file open, I navigated to the demographic page. Then I took out my cell phone and dialed a number I found there.