Wake Up to Murder (A Ricki Rydell Mystery Book 2)

by Abby Matthews

  Facing the double doors, she had two choices. The bathrooms and the custodian’s closet were down the hallway to her right. She already got familiar with the bathroom but hadn’t checked out the janitor’s closet yet. The hallway on the left seemed to wrap around the side of the building. Ned, Jim, and Taryn had their offices down that hallway. If she wanted to do the show again, getting caught snooping around the studio wasn’t the way to win them over to her side. Still, she had to try something.

  There was so little media coverage about Kari, and no one, other than Marty and Jim, knew her in the area. She had no one to question, no clues to search for, no trail to follow. And with her now being considered a person of interest, the pressure to save herself was on. She didn’t have an alibi. She couldn’t even make one up.

  Before she started snooping, she pressed her ear to the studio door to make sure they were still taping the show. She heard Taryn’s voice followed by a man’s voice, desperately trying to defend himself. Ricki felt badly for the guy because, more than likely, he didn’t do anything wrong.

  The handle to Jim’s office door moved slightly. Not wanting to walk in and catch him off guard, she knocked softly. No answer. No stirring inside. She eased the door open and slipped in the dark room. She whipped out her cell and turned on the flashlight app. The lights in the hallway would hide any light coming from under his door.

  She didn’t exactly know what to look for. There shouldn’t be any evidence of a crime that wasn’t even committed in the building, but sometimes people hid things in strange places. Since it was Jim’s office, the only thing she could think to look for was Kari’s résumé. Marty filled her in on the particulars of Kari’s life and her professional career, but he may have overlooked something. There may have been a certain job in a certain city hired by a certain person that had something against Kari. The only red flag coming up on Jim was that he knew her and that he was a skirt chaser. That made her think of Kari’s stalker. What if Jim was that stalker? Stranger things have happened. But if Kari suspected Jim was dangerous, why would she take a job to be near him?

  Papers, receipts, magazines, food wrappers, and empty Starbucks coffee cups were strewn about Jim’s desk. Although Ricki was a bit more of a neat freak when it came to her workstation, she knew of people who thrived in the sort of chaos she saw before her. If she touched one single thing, Jim would know someone had been there. Instead, she took a mental image of what she was looking at. She checked under the desk and found a pair of flip-flops. A coat rack by the door had an umbrella and a winter coat hanging from it. The coat closet had stacks of boxes inside instead of the most obvious thing: coats.

  As she was about to wrap everything up in his office, her cell phone rang. She cringed as the ringtone blared like a trumpet in a cave. As she fumbled for the off button, the phone fell to the floor. Out of breath, her heart racing, she dove to the ground and stopped it from ringing.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway. Panicking, she crawled behind the desk and into the leg space, parking herself right next to those nasty looking flip-flops. She set her phone to vibrate and waited for the door to open. It didn’t. Hiding out under his desk was only eating into her snooping time. If Jim had anything to hide, she’d never find it anyway. The desk was too messy, the office too dark, and she was running out of time.

  She cracked the door open and peeked in the hallway before walking out. Unless they were hiding, there was no sign of anyone out there. It was only her imagination getting the better of her.

  Taryn’s office door was unlocked, and since Taryn was onstage taping a show, she waltzed right in. Opposite of Jim’s desk, Taryn had everything lined up and tucked away nicely. Ricki got to work quickly. She opened each desk drawer gently, making sure not to jostle the contents inside. Just like she imagined, Taryn’s desk matched her personality: boring and forgettable.

  In the bottom drawer, Ricki found a stack of note cards with questions Taryn had asked previous guests on the show. She was surprised at what Taryn got away with asking. Personal questions like: why have you been married five times? How many men have you slept with? Stuff you wouldn’t ask anybody on the street let alone a talk show.

  Beneath those notecards, there were folders filled with her research on each guest. On some of the printouts, there were handwritten notes in the margins in distinctly different handwriting. One of the notes said: focus on this, with an arrow and a circle around a chunk of information from an interview a guest had done years ago. A salacious bit of information about the person’s past drug use. Wake Up, Somerset was in no way shape or form a tribute to the people of Somerset County. It was nothing more than an entertainment show, exposing people’s dirty laundry. Ricki immediately thought of the website that had exposed the emails she exchanged with Marty when they broke up. Maybe Taryn wasn’t so innocent after all. She had to move on.

  She made her way to the next office, Ned’s, and found his door locked. Smart. Ricki had learned a thing or two about security in the past couple of days. At least one person around here had sense.

  She went from door to door, hoping to find something juicy inside, but no such luck. Most rooms were empty or filled with racks of clothes, boxes of whatever, equipment, and set pieces. She came to the studio this morning with low expectations, and they were met. The studio, as she imagined, didn’t hold any clues. Not surprising since Kari never made it to the studio, as far as she knew.

  Stealthily, she made her way down to the other hallway to the janitor’s closet. She expected to see the usual: mop, broom, bucket, and bottles of industrial strength cleaner, but it was more than a mere closet. It was a large room, cement floor stained with grease, smelling of floor wax and musty mops. A water heater and the HVAC system sat on one side of the room. On the other side, there was a new washer and dryer. The old ones sat in the corner with a note that read: Stan is coming to pick these up next Tuesday. The date on it was from two months ago. You had one job, Stan.

  There was a door to another room on the inside wall. A red placard on the outside read: Server Room. Do Not Enter. Because it said not to enter, Ricki went and jiggled the door handle. It was locked, but whatever was inside the room generated a high-pitched hum.

  Sandwiched between the back of the furnace and the wall, Ricki found a bedroll—a thin mattress with a sleeping bag and pillow on top of it. Over in the corner, behind that bedroll, there was a duffel bag, crumpled over like a decrepit old man. It didn’t have a name on it or any markings whatsoever to indicate who it might belong to.

  Taryn had mentioned the building sat empty for a long time before she tracked the owner down in order to rent it out. The bedroll could have been left over from a squatter looking for a warm place to stay in the winter months or a vagrant passing through on his way to somewhere else. It wasn’t surprising to see it in the warmest room in the entire building. The old television studio sat at the top of the hill and rarely saw a lot of traffic, so she imagined if anyone wanted to hide out here, they could do it without getting caught.

  All of that was well and good, but this bedroll looked fresh. It looked like it had been slept in only the night before. The sheet covering the top of the mattress was relatively clean, the same with the pillow case. If it belonged to a squatter, she imagined it would have smelled like body odor and perhaps urine. But it didn’t. To be sure, Ricki inched her nose near the top of the sleeping bag and waved her hand over it to stir up any hidden smells. While it didn’t smell like it had been washed just the day before, it didn’t smell like it had been there for years either.

  Since the bed clothes smelled relatively fresh, she imagined that whoever slept in them wasn’t too far away. She rifled through the duffel bag.

  Inside, she found women’s underwear and socks, a couple of bras, a box of tampons, a few pair of jeans, and a handful of button down shirts. Whoever owned this duffel bag and bedroll, didn’t plan on staying for a long period of time. Jim and Ned were both from out of town, but she didn’t kno
w where they were staying. Taryn was a local, so more than likely, she was staying with family. As for the crew, Ricki had no idea. She met most of them in passing.

  She rummaged through the clothes and found a leather wallet, worn around the outside edges from where the owner had it in his pocket. Inside, she found a thick stack of twenty dollar bills, several prepaid credit cards, and a driver’s license. Her fingers tingled with excitement as she pulled it out of its slot. Her excitement quickly deflated.

  The owner of this driver’s license had defaced it. Partially burnt, partially scratched but only over the photo. Height, weight, and date of birth were also scratched out. The name was made barely visible, mostly from the scorch marks. Ricki turned it this way and that until she could make out the name. Denise Myers. The address and state were clearly visible. Chicago, Illinois.

  Her time was running out. She reached for her phone and snapped a picture of it before stuffing everything back inside the duffel bag. Once that was done, she checked under the mattress. Nothing. The time on her cell phone reminded her she had about five minutes to get the heck out of the building or she was going to get caught. The emergency exit in the mechanical room would go off if she tried to escape that way. The only way out was the front door.

  Thinking she still had plenty of time, she swung the door open not expecting to see anyone in the hallway, but Jim came around the corner just as she was about to step out of the room, almost catching her. She pushed the door shut gently and threw herself against the wall. She thought she felt her heart stop and struggled to catch a breath. He must have gone in the men’s room, and when she was certain he was occupied, she darted out of the room and ran outside, not stopping until she reached her car.

  Out of breath and trembling, she drove off, vowing to start working out on Monday. Tuesday at the latest. Maybe Wednesday as she had a dentist appointment on Tuesday. It took a good thirty seconds to catch her breath and calm herself.

  When she had the chance, she pulled off into a parking lot at the local dollar store. If there was one person who might know someone from Chicago, it would be Marty. She sent him a text asking if he knew anyone named Denise Myers, attaching the picture she had taken along with it. She knew it was a long shot. Chicago was a big city. Even in her own town, she didn’t know everyone who lived there. Still, she had to take a chance if she wanted to save herself and find who killed Kari.

  Seventeen

  “I’m going to drive past you real fast so you can pull me over,” Ricki said.

  “What? Who is this?” Chris said.

  “What do you mean who?”

  “Ricki?”

  She could hear the roar of road noise in the background. Chris was hiding somewhere out on the highway, trying to catch speeders. “Can you pull me over for driving too fast?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not going to break the law, and if you distract me from my job, I could get in trouble.”

  “I need your expertise on something. Besides, it’s too late. I’m headed in your direction right now.”

  “You better not be talking on your phone. What did I tell you about that?”

  “Can I get a ticket for that?”

  “Yes. What’s going on? Do you really want a ticket for talking while driving?”

  Ricki was fast approaching where her brother usually hid his police car—a clump of trees along the northbound lane on the highway. “You’ll see me in a minute. Still talking. Still talking. There you are. Still talking. Blah blah blah blah blah. Turn your lights on. Still talking on the phone.”

  “I know you don’t drink, but are you smoking something?”

  “I don’t see your lights in my rearview mirror.”

  “This better be good.”

  Ricki watched as her brother pulled out onto the highway and turned his lights on. She pulled over onto the shoulder and waited for her brother to approach the car.

  “If I get in trouble for this, you are going to pay for more than just a citation. Now, what do you want that you couldn’t wait until I got home?”

  “Don’t ask me how I found it, but I might have a clue to Kari Olson’s murder.”

  Chris hovered to the side of the car like all police officers do. She liked that he was making it look realistic. He was always good at make-believe as a kid.

  “I found a driver’s license and wondered if you could search it for me.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m not allowed to use department resources for personal reasons. Besides, if you have information about the Olson case, go to Steve.”

  Ricki couldn’t go to Steve. Not yet at least. If she went to Steve, she would have to explain why and how she got a hold of that driver’s license, and she couldn’t do that. Snooping, also known as breaking and entering, was against the law. “It’s probably nothing which is why I came to you first. If I find out it’s something, I’ll go to him and explain everything. Sort of.”

  Chris pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “What did you get yourself into now?”

  Instead of answering his question, she opened the photo gallery on her phone and swiped through the pictures to find that particular one. She shoved it in his face. “Can you do a check on her?”

  Chris took the phone and examined the picture. He resized it to get a better look. “Why is it burnt and scratched like that?”

  “I imagine she did it to hide the photo identification. Why? I don’t know.” Ricki had a good idea that whoever owned that license was probably on the run. For all she knew, the girl was an abused woman, escaping a bad relationship. Although, her gut told her otherwise. “Can you work some police magic for me?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she scratched the ID number out and I have no way of scanning the barcode. Besides, it’s a fake.”

  “How can you tell just by looking at a picture?”

  Chris placed both hands on Ricki’s car and leaned forward. “I look at driver’s license every day of my working life. Believe me, I’ve seen everything, and this is fake. For one, it’s an older Illinois license, probably expired, and, whoever did it, was an amateur. This is basic college student working out of his dorm room handiwork right here.”

  Ricki took her phone back, disappointed. That left open another question, a bigger question. If this was a fake ID, then what was the real name of the owner of that bedroll and duffel bag? “Is there a way that you can run the name and the address? Anything?”

  “Only if you promise to tell me where you found it?”

  “How about this? You do the search and if it comes out that it’s real, I’ll tell you how I found it.”

  Chris shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Give me the phone.”

  Ricki quickly swiped through her photos and brought the picture up again. While Chris was busy in his car, she listened to the radio, hoping to hear something more about Kari. Her murder wasn’t getting the media attention she thought it deserved. It wasn’t unusual for someone to drown in Lake Somerset. It also wasn’t unusual for someone to hit their head while falling into Lake Somerset and then drowning. Maybe that was the reason.

  “Okay, here’s what I found out.” Chris returned her phone. “The address is real. The name is fake. The person who used to live at that address is…”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.”

  “Kari Olson?”

  “You’re a smart girl.”

  Ricki squeezed her eyes shut and rested her head on the steering wheel. “How? What?” She looked up at her brother. “Are you saying Kari Olson isn’t really Kari Olson and is Denise Myers?”

  “I’m not saying that at all. All I’m saying is her name came up in the search for that address. That’s all I can find out. I don’t have enough information to go on, and I could get in serious trouble and so could you for using the resources reserved
for police business.”

  The last thing she wanted to do was get her brother in trouble, or herself for that matter, but this just took an interesting twist and now her curiosity was overruling her common sense.

  “Now it’s your turn. You tell me what you’re up to, and maybe I can help you out a little more. Make it quick. There’s some chatter, and I might be called away.”

  Ricki could trust her brother even if he was kind of by the book when it came to his police duties. Besides, all she had was a bunch of speculation and a photo of a fake ID. “Let’s just say I did some stealthy surveillance and found some things hidden behind a furnace and water heater that would indicate someone might be squatting on someone else’s premises or hiding out for whatever reason.”

  “Remember that part I said about making it quick. Now would be that time. Get to the point.”

  “I was snooping. I found a duffel bag filled with women’s clothing, and at the bottom of the duffel bag, was this driver’s license.”

  “I must’ve missed the part when you said where.”

  “That was conveniently left out. But if you really want to know, the television station.”

  Chris’s eyes grew big. “Did you break in?”

  “No, don’t be silly. I would never break in. I walked in. It just so happened that everyone in the studio was busy recording a show, giving me free access to the rest of the building.”

  Chris’ mouth hung open. He was either unsure of what to say or he was about to let her have it. “Ricki, I love you like a sister, because you are, but you can’t do this stuff. You’re not a detective even if you want to be one in the worst way possible. Do you understand?”

  “Don’t talk down to me like that. Nobody got hurt, not even me. I didn’t even get caught, although, it was close. Now, can we get back to this Denise person. Is Denise Myers really Kari Olson?”