“Great. I’m putting my career in the hands of a woman who can’t work her phone.” Palmucci shivered. “Oops, your CO does not look happy.”
“Calloway, my office, now!”
“Sucks to be you.” Palmucci gloated.
“No kidding.”
“Tell me you have something!” Rousseau said before she had a chance to close the door.
“Nothing we didn’t already know.”
“Not what I was hoping to hear.”
“We’ve just confirmed that all of the unfortunate mishaps weren’t mishaps. Fisher probably knows that we’re on to him.”
“Oh, goody. Any other happy news?”
“No, sir.”
“Calloway, what’s going on with you?”
“I wish I had a better foothold on this.” She confessed. It feels just like the last time I went up against this little puke.”
“It would help if we had a clue who we’re looking for.”
“True enough. Right now I don’t know who to trust.”
“You think there’s someone on the inside?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. At this moment, I trust you and Max. Everyone else involved with this farce is new.”
“The Feds sure, but what about Mulligan?”
“I’d like to trust her and Brown, but let’s not forget the boatload full of Feds that showed up out of nowhere, Palmucci, and the rest of the lot. Everyone came on board right about the time Beaumont showed up. I’d like to think I’m not working with that psycho’s handyman, but how can I be sure?”
“You can’t,” he said grimly.
“Please don’t make me promise to watch my ass, again.”
“Just do it. Keep me up-to-date on everything, and I mean everything.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“Get out of here. Go see your wife.”
“Good advice. Maybe the break will clear my head.”
* * *
CC didn’t make it past her desk when Wayne rushed in waving his hands frantically. CC surmised that he was either on to something that might be important or he had finally snapped.
“Credit card.” Gasping, he almost fell over when he caught up with CC.
“Wayne, catch your breath,” CC said as Mulligan joined them.
“Credit card.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that.”
“Okay.” Wayne fought to control his breathing. “The prepaid credit card that was used to book Billy Ryan’s room was used to book another hotel room.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in weeks. Where was it used?”
“The Beachside in Revere.”
“I know where that is. It’s right across the street from Blanchards Liquors.” CC’s heart pounded against her chest.
“The room was booked the night before Dr. Temple died.”
“Wayne, this is great.” CC felt a jolt of exhilaration. “We’ll swing by and find out if anyone at the hotel can help us with a description of our mystery man.”
“He’s still there.”
“Come again?” Mulligan asked.
“Whoever used the card hasn’t checked out yet.”
* * *
“Good afternoon. Is Ms. Cockburn in?” Val asked as she and Ricky showed their badges.
“No,” the petite, bored-looking woman said.
“We need to speak to her regarding one of her clients.” Val
kept her tone polite as she tucked away her badge.
“Simon Fisher?”
“Yes. How did you know that?” Val leaned closer, sensing that the young lady wouldn’t object.
“Ms. Cockburn never has more than one client at a time.”
“Really? I’m Val by the way.”
“Leila.” The slender woman giggled slightly. “It’s true. She never has more than one client at a time. Which is good because she’s always running around. I had no idea estate planning was so complicated.”
“Is that her specialty?”
“It’s all she does.”
“With only one client, how does she manage to keep you busy?”
“I have to do all sorts of stuff, background checks, booking flights and hotel rooms. You wouldn’t believe the errands she has me run.”
“When is she due back?”
“Don’t know. She called the other day to let me know that she had to extend her trip. I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet, and I get home in time to watch Ellen.”
“A real slave driver, huh?”
“She’s always sending me all over the place to pick up weird stuff.”
“Like what?” Val took a seat on the edge of the desk.
“One time I had to pick up a snake. Not just any snake, a rattlesnake. I almost peed my pants the whole drive back to the office. I mean it was in a box, still I was terrified.”
“A rattlesnake?” Val was taken aback.
“Swear to God.” Leila held up her hand to emphasize the point. “What can I do? She pays mad money. Plus I have a company car. She pays for the gas, my cell phone, and lots of other things, so long as I hand in the receipts. She’s a real stickler for receipts. I guess lawyers have to be that way.”
“We have to go.” Ricky handed Leila his card. “Thank you for your help. Just let Ms. Cockburn know that I need to speak to her.”
* * *
“Feels good to be heading back.” Ricky yawned once they were in the air finally flying back to the East Coast. Val tried to take a nap while Ricky powered up his computer.
Ricky interrupted her attempt to sleep. “I got some info on Fisher’s mouthpiece. It doesn’t add up. From the looks of it, she was a professional student for a long time. Graduated from law school in Canada then here.”
“Why both?”
“She’s American, but get this, her father was the junior ambassador to Canada.”
“That’s a real job?”
“That’s not the hinky part.”
“It isn’t? Seriously? Why in the name of our tremendous deficit would we need a junior ambassador to Canada? What else you got on her?”
“Her specialty is estate planning.”
“If she’s an estate lawyer, why in the hell is she working Fisher’s case? Or need to buy a rattlesnake?”
“That would be the hinky part. It seems the closest she has come to entering a courtroom was when she represented Fisher at his last sanity hearing. I don’t like this.”
* * *
It hadn’t taken long for CC and Leigh to assemble a team. Her first call was to Mills, who gladly brought in her crew. Dark vans surrounded the nondescript motel that was conveniently located across the street from the very same liquor store where the mystery bottle of vodka had been purchased. CC, Leigh, and Mills took the lead. First they needed to speak to the desk clerk.
“Officers, what can I do for you this evening?”
“We need information.” CC shoved a slip of paper at him, not surprised when he jumped back. “We need the name and room number of the person who used that credit card.”
He stood there staring at the paper as if it held the mystery of life.
Leigh pushed past everyone. “This is taking too long.” She snatched the paper from the clerk’s hands. She nudged him aside and made herself comfortable at the computer located on the counter.
“Can you, I mean, should you be doing that?” The boy suddenly looked worried. “Don’t you need a warrant or something? Maybe I should call my boss.”
CC challenged him with a firm clasp to his shoulder. “Be a good boy and stay out of our way.”
“Got it,” Leigh said. “Room thirteen twelve, a Ben Dover.”
“Are you serious?” CC asked as the boy chuckled.
“Bend over. I didn’t get that at first. That dude must have some issues.”
“No doubt,” CC wryly remarked.
“No car.” Leigh printed the information.
“Okay, kid, sad to say we need your help.” CC snapped her fingers i
n his face in an effort to get him to stop laughing at the suspect’s unfortunate name. “By any chance, did you photocopy Mr. Dover’s driver’s license or some other form of identification?”
“Yeah, we have to.” He shrugged then he simply stared out into space.
“Get it,” CC said with a fierce growl. Her ire grew when the boy failed to move. “What’s your name?”
“Kyle Johnston,” he answered before he seemed to drift off again.
“Yo, Kyle, get the paperwork for Mr. Dover.”
“Bend over.” Kyle stumbled over to a file cabinet located behind them. “Here you go.” He handed CC a single sheet of paper.
“There’s no picture,” CC said.
“Yeah, it’s Canadian.” Kyle shrugged.
“You know what else it is?”
“What?”
“Expired. It’s out of date. Just so you know, Canada changed their driver’s licenses. They have pictures now. This expired back in eighty six.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah, bummer.” CC gave a snarl while Mills alerted the teams as to where the suspect’s room was located. “Okay, Kyle. How about you give us a room key? Then you need to just sit here and do nothing.”
“I have a feeling he won’t have a problem with that,” Leigh said with disgust. “According to the computer, the room has been accessed twice. Both times were the day Dr. Temple drowned. Housekeeping hasn’t been in the room. There was a notation that the Do Not Disturb sign was on the door each time housekeeping stopped by.”
“All that was in the computer?”
“Yes. The one hiccup is the computer only records when a keycard is used to open a door, not when someone exits.”
“According to the floor chart,” Mills said, “the room we want is at the end of the hallway next to the stairwell. The location isn’t a surprise. The last room next to a stairwell is almost always out of camera range. Plus with the stairs right there, you can avoid the elevator.” They exited the lobby and began to organize their people.
“Also, camera free.” CC tightened the tether on her Kevlar vest. “Okay, Mills, this is your area of expertise. We’ll follow your lead.”
Mills separated the teams, covering every entrance and exit of the modest motel. She, Leigh, and CC led a team dressed in black and full battle gear to the room. Mills knocked on the door to announce their presence. CC’s heart was pounding. If the mysterious Mr. Dover was in the room, they didn’t have probable cause to search his room much less arrest him. For a brief moment, CC feared that she had just ended all of their careers. There wasn’t an answer to the announcement that they were the police. She motioned for her team to prepare themselves, and she slid the keycard in.
In a burst of activity, the door flew open and the tactical team stormed into the empty room. The team searched everywhere: the bathroom, behind the curtains, even under the bed. The room was empty and in pristine condition. The small room consisted of a tiny closet, a big-screen television, a nightstand, and a king-size bed.
“The bed hasn’t been slept in,” CC grimly noted.
“The bathroom hasn’t been used either,” Sgt. Glasheen, a member of Mills’ team said. “This room hasn’t been used.”
“It was just a pit stop,” CC concluded. “He hit the liquor store across the street and hung out here until it was time to catch up with Jack Temple.”
“Maybe we’ll get something from the bogus license.” Mulligan’s tone betrayed her lack of confidence. “We’ll run the name through the database. Maybe we’ll get a hit.”
“On bend over? Seriously, it’s not even a convincing alias.” CC threw her hands up. “Might as well let CSU have a crack at the room. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” She looked around the room and felt defeated. Hotel rooms could have hundreds of random prints, hair strands, and fibers. The chances of the forensic team uncovering something that would lead them to the man behind the gun were slim to none.
Chapter 41
The only thing CC wanted after they wrapped up at the motel was to head over to the hospital and see Jamie. Instead, she was summoned to the captain’s office to receive a royal reaming, courtesy of her superior officer and a very cranky ADA. They failed to see the logic of storming into a civilian’s hotel room without probable cause or a warrant. ADA Ketchum made a point of informing her that she should kiss his ass since he was the one who woke up the manager and ended up having the corporate headquarters grant the police full access before the crime scene unit had begun processing the room.
CC offered him a humble thank-you and took her lumps. After Ketchum stormed out with a look of superiority, the captain began his own tirade. After he finished, he asked her one last question, “Why in the name of God did you ignore the basic rules and storm in like you were Clint eff-ing Eastwood?”
“This guy has already killed one cop and tried to kill another,” CC said. “And don’t bother telling me that my judgment is clouded. The cop this bozo missed was my partner. So, yeah my judgment is off.”
“Tread lightly, Calloway, or this time your instincts are going to blow up in your face.”
* * *
After being called on the carpet by her boss, CC tried to make her escape. Just as she was ready to grab her coat, the phone rang. She and Leigh were needed at a crime scene. She was tired of looking over her shoulder while spinning her wheels. Leigh jumped right in, eager to get started. The case failed to provide a distraction. It was a murder-suicide. Henri Fitzgibbons came home from work and shot his wife then himself. It took very little detective work to uncover that Mr. Fitzgibbons was unemployed and had amassed a large gambling debt.
It was a grim scene that was quickly becoming a sign of the times. Faced with an ever-increasing debt, unable to stop gambling because he was under the delusion that the next bet would score the big payoff, Mr. Fitzgibbons opted to end it all. He couldn’t leave his wife behind to endure the stigma of his failure.
The police were left with cleaning up the mess. The hardest part for CC was the miserable task of informing the Fitzgibbons’ relatives and friends. The only thing left after the coroner’s wagon pulled away was to go over everything one last time before preparing themselves for a long night of paperwork. CC’s exhaustion grew with each passing moment. To her credit, Leigh had a head start on the paperwork. The woman traveled nowhere without her tablet or Blackberry.
“Coroner won’t have anything for a couple of days,” Leigh said wearily as she hung up her phone.
“Peachy.” CC tried to finish typing up her initial report. “This one seems pretty cut-and-dried. The bullet holes in their heads kind of told the whole story. I just don’t understand how people can feel so helpless that they think that murdering their family then eating a bullet is the only option left. Then again, I’ve seen the sorriest excuses of why one person decides to kill another.”
“Speaking of sorry excuses,” Leigh said, “I have a little something I dug up for the Stern case. A few years ago, Mrs. Stern was involved in an assault and battery. Apparently, she decked a fellow patron at the IHOP on Soldiers Field Road.”
“Any particular reason why, other than she’s an angry spazz?”
“The other patron took the last booster seat.”
“Well, then she was just asking for it. The victim didn’t press charges?”
“No. Mr. Stern intervened via a huge apology and monetary compensation.”
“Send it over to the DA. I’ll be a happy woman after that one goes before a jury of her peers.”
“In her mind, she doesn’t have any peers. Any word from our nomadic Feds?”
“They’ll be back sometime in the wee hours.” CC released a hearty yawn. She glanced down at her watch and blinked with surprise. “Geez, where did the night go?”
“Christ, my cats are going to be pissed,” Leigh said.
“Go. I’ll finish this up and head over to the hospital. I feel like I haven’t seen my wife for weeks.”
After Leigh had sped off
to tend to her furry little friends with a promise that she’d be back to help with the paperwork, CC wrapped up her share of it. She paused for a moment to take a quick look at the boards in the conference room. Her conversation with her captain troubled her. Without Max by her side, she honestly didn’t know who she could trust.
She stared at the names and dates in an effort to ease her troubled mind. Leigh had appeared just when things had been set in motion. She claimed she was making a career move. CC had worked with her here and there over the years. Still she really didn’t know a lot about the enigmatic blonde, only that she was divorced. Her story was plausible with budget cuts looming and her being teamed with a first-class spotlight-hogging numbnuts. If she were in Leigh’s shoes, she’d be looking for a new assignment. It was the timing that made CC uncomfortable.
Next she had Deputy Brown, who appeared to be a no-nonsense, kick-ass-and-take-names-later, Fed. Her list of friends seemed to fill the alphabet soup that comprises national security. It wasn’t a group CC wanted to piss off. Given Brown’s mysterious background, it wouldn’t be much of a leap from US Marshal to sophisticated assassin.
Rounding out the list of possible threats was her merry band of colleagues. Any number of people in her department could have turned rogue. CC didn’t want to consider the possibilities. Palmucci was most definitely someone to keep an eye on. She doubted he possessed the intelligence to be the killer, yet his stupidity on its own made him dangerous.
She grabbed her coat, unable to shake the feeling that she had wasted the past couple of days and had learned very little. All she knew for certain was that people were dying.
By the time she arrived at the hospital, she could feel the walls closing in. She exchanged greetings with the staff and set about tracking down Jamie. She finally found her in her office buried under a stack of paperwork.
“That can’t be good.”
“It isn’t.” Jamie smiled up at her and removed her glasses. “What brings you by?”
“I miss you.”
Jamie bolted from behind her desk and captured CC in a fierce hug. She smiled and gave in to the warmth of Jamie’s bone-crushing embrace. Jamie snuggled closer, while CC ran her hands down Jamie’s supple curves. She loved the feel of her wife’s body. She shivered when she heard the soft moan her touch elicited. In the back of her mind was the agonizing reminder that if things went badly this would be the last time she held Jamie in her arms. She needed the moment to last, and time was of the essence.
Checkmate (Caitlin Calloway Mystery Book 2) Page 42
