Yeah . . .
I should tell Cypher that I couldn't solve this. That, instead, I would protect Angela while the police did their job.
Except the investigation had been going on for months, and I didn't have "months" to play bodyguard. I could, presumably, swap out with Jack and go back to the lodge for the weekend, but there was no way I could do that hellish commute for more than a few weeks.
As I made notes, I glanced at Jack, reclined on the patio chair, eyes closed behind his sunglasses. Relaxed, at ease and looking utterly happy. Which made me happy. It really did. There'd been a time when, if someone showed me a snapshot of him like this, I'd have said he was obviously faking it--playing tourist to throw off some unsuspecting mark. But this was real, and it looked so good on him.
And yet . . .
Oh, hell. Let's be honest. As much as I loved seeing Jack relaxed, I couldn't help but feel the dig of unspoken expectations.
"Find anything there?"
"I'm working on it. Give me another twenty minutes, and then we'll order dinner and talk."
"No rush."
If I asked for his help, he'd give it, but otherwise, in our investigations, Jack settled into the role of junior partner. I was the "proper" detective. I'd been a cop, right? He knew I'd only been a constable, but that didn't matter. To Jack, I was the one who held a legitimate claim to law enforcement. He was "just" a hitman. A guy who'd operated on the other side of the law since he was a kid. Forget the fact that he investigated each and every job to be sure his client was being straight with him. That didn't count as detective work. Not to him.
I considered admitting I was in over my head. I imagined saying the words. I imagined him lifting his sunglasses, blue eyes glancing over at me, completely unperturbed. He'd tell me I was doing fine, that I always do fine, and I'd figure it out. Which wouldn't be just a pep talk to make me feel better. He'd believe it. He had complete faith in me.
No pressure.
I sighed.
The glasses went up, just as I imagined, pushed back onto his forehead, and his blue eyes turned my way, crow's feet in the corners deepening as he squinted against the sun.
"You okay?"
"Just . . ."
Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling inadequate. Feeling a little bit lost.
"Just getting hungry," I said.
His eyes narrowed a fraction, studying my expression.
"You need a break," he said. "Give me what you've got, and I'll take a look while you order dinner."
"What do you want?"
A shrug. "You choose." His lips curved in a smile. "I trust you."
Yep, no pressure at all.
We were on the bed, room service trays resting precariously on bunched-up covers. I'd ordered a few dishes for us to share. Jack had put some of each on his plate, and I couldn't tell if that was because he wanted to sample them all or because he didn't want to insult my choices.
Damn, I was in a mood, wasn't I?
"You okay?" he asked after ten minutes of silence.
I shrugged.
"Something's bugging you."
I took another bite of fish.
"The case?" he said.
I managed a wan smile. "See, you should be the detective."
He snorted. "Nah. I'm just hoping it's the case. Otherwise? Well, only other thing here is me. So if it's not the case? It's me."
"It's the case."
"Talk to me."
I stretched out my bare legs, and he squeezed one before reaching for another piece of bread.
"It's just . . ."
I feel overwhelmed.
I took a deep breath. "I keep going back to Cherise Hale. Victor Walling's girlfriend."
"Okay."
I crossed my legs. "Howard Lang thinks that Cherise's death proves Sheila is a viable suspect. Cherise died when a gift blew up in her face. Charles Atom's daughter died from an IED presumably intended for her dad. Someone placed another IED in Angela's car. The devices weren't exactly the same, but there were similarities. The only connection between Cherise and the other two is Sheila."
"But you don't like her for it."
"Six months ago, she kills Cherise, accidentally, it seems, with an explosive device hidden in a gift. She's a suspect in that case, but she's never charged. Then she kills Mindy Lang, and it's ruled a suicide. Okay. Then she shoots Albert Kim and tries to set it up as another suicide, but that fails, which reopens Mindy's case, and the police realize the two killings are connected. So if you're Sheila, what do you do now? Move on to Charles Atom, using a device similar to the one that killed Cherise . . . which will then pull her death into the mix and point the finger straight at you?"
Jack grunted, his gaze going distant as he thought it through.
"Fuck, yeah," he said after a few seconds. "Makes no sense. You go after Atom? You're not gonna use an IED. It's the only thing tying Cherise to the Atom girl."
"Which then ties Sheila to the rest. Sending Cherise that 'gift' to spook her doesn't make sense. Not when her kids were there. And Sheila has never contested the divorce. She's only arguing for joint custody . . . Which she'd have gotten by now if she hadn't been investigated for Cherise's death."
"So what's her motive?"
"Exactly." I paused. "I want to talk to Sheila again. I worry that I'm basing conclusions on snap judgments. I spent a few minutes with her. That's not enough to judge someone's character."
"You've got good instincts."
"I've been wrong before."
He shrugged. "We all have. But yeah, talk to her tomorrow. See what you think."
Chapter Seventeen
Nadia
Iescorted Angela to work. Then I met up with Sheila. I'd called earlier this morning, and she'd agreed to see me.
"I start at seven," she'd said. "I'm an early bird. That means I take my break at nine, and it's a mile to the coffee shop. You seemed to be fine with walking while talking yesterday . . ."
"I am. I'll meet you at nine, then."
It turned out that the nearest coffee shop wasn't a mile from her office. She worked downtown, at a biochemical engineering firm, surrounded by coffee shops.
"I don't like those ones," she said when I commented. "And I need the exercise. That's how I'm staying off the meds."
I nodded. "Exercise can help with pain."
"It might. But exercise works for me because I hate every goddamn minute of it, so that's thirty minutes a day I'm bitching about something other than my shoulder."
She walked fast, long strides that had me half jogging to keep up. Those strides also kept her path clear, people making way for the grim-faced juggernaut. As we walked, we talked about Cherise. I didn't have to beat around the bush. One mention of the name, and Sheila knew what I wanted to chat about, and she was happy to do it.
She didn't defend herself again. She just answered my questions as I got a better sense of her relationship with her husband's new girlfriend.
Sheila had known Cherise before that. She'd been the children's babysitter at one time.
"World's oldest cliche, huh? But it wasn't quite like that. I don't think Victor was shtupping the eighteen-year-old sitter. She left for college, and I didn't see her for years. Next thing I knew, they were together. She was twenty-five by then. Right in that sweet spot. Young enough for a guy in a mid-life crisis, but not so young it's creepy."
She laughed, and there was no animosity in it, no bitterness.
"So he was having a mid-life crisis?" I asked. "You figured his relationship with Cherise was temporary?"
"She didn't seem like his type, long term. He seemed like hers, though. I have no idea how it would have worked out." She smiled. "I get the feeling Cherise might have prevailed. She had tenacity. Gumption, too, as my gran would have said."
"How did you feel about that?"
She shrugged. "Like I said, I wouldn't have been thrilled with Cherise as stepmommy, but honestly, I won't be happy to see anyone taking that role in my kids' lif
e. Someone will, though. Victor is the marrying type."
We picked up coffees. As we started back, at the same pace, I waited a few minutes before I resumed the conversation exactly where we'd left off.
"Any chance you two will get back together?"
"Hell, no. I love Victor dearly, but I love him as a co-parent. A friend. I'm hoping we'll get back to that once they find out who killed Cherise. The sad thing, hon, is that we were exactly that--friends and co-parents--for most of our marriage. That's how I got hooked on the meds."
"You were unhappy."
"Yep. I wasn't miserable. I wasn't depressed. I was just unhappy, and so was he, and I think that bothered me more than anything. I wasn't making him happy, and I began to wonder if I ever had."
"I'm sure--"
She cut me off with a look. "I don't need a teaspoon of honey to make the medicine go down. I prefer honesty, as bitter as it might be. Victor and I met in college. Engineering. I was the only girl in the program, and I thought that would mean, for the first time in my life, the boys would notice me. They'd have to."
She laughed and shook her head. "Didn't quite work out that way. I told myself they were intimidated. I got better grades than they did. I had companies fighting for me before I even graduated. I would be more successful than any of those boys, and they knew it, so they steered clear. Truth is, I've just never been the sort of woman that men chase. Not until Victor."
"He chased?"
A smile softened her face. "He did. He wasn't intimidated--he was impressed. But he wasn't . . . Well, he wasn't my type. But I liked him as a friend, and no one else was interested so . . . Damn, that's a shitty thing to say, isn't it?"
"It happens."
Her gaze slid over me. "I'm sure you had no problem getting the boys."
"That doesn't mean I kept them. I'm a little . . . unusual."
"Aren't we all? I remember my mother telling me I just wasn't like the other girls. Now I wonder, who is? Who fits this mythical mold?"
"Guys used to say that to me. That I wasn't like other girls. I never knew what it meant--I just knew I didn't like hearing it."
"My mother meant it as a compliment--that I wasn't some insipid twit." She rolled her eyes. "I'll never say it to my daughter. She's strong, and she's unique--just like other girls. With Victor, I settled, and as cruel as that sounds, I think he did, too. He pursued me because I was the proverbial fish in a barrel. Easy to catch. I'd say our marriage was a mistake, but he gave me two amazing children, and he is a wonderful father."
Everything she said reinforced my first impression. Any animosity toward Cherise had been mild, and getting rid of her would only put another woman in her place--a potentially worse stepmom. Sheila didn't want Victor back. So what did she stand to gain by killing his girlfriend?
"I asked Detective Lee if I could see the remains of that device," Sheila said when I brought up the IED. "I wanted to point out all the problems with it. Then she'd see that if I'd done it, I'd damn well have done a better job."
"You'd have built it right."
"Hell, no. I'd have built it wrong properly. You've heard that it probably wasn't supposed to detonate, right?"
I nodded.
"If I wanted it to detonate, it would have. And if I didn't want it to . . ."
"It wouldn't have. You'd have done it wrong . . . properly."
She nodded. "I do know how to make a device like that. I won't pretend otherwise. I've worked in explosives. But I'm not going to fuck it up. I'd never send a fake bomb as a scare tactic. That's stupid. It doesn't matter if it was made to fail, it's still a criminal offense."
"What did you conclude when you saw the device?"
"Detective Lee wouldn't let me. I was a suspect. The hired expert they got"--she rolled her eyes--"was strictly amateur hour. I could have helped them figure out who might have done this. But no . . ."
"If I could get you details--"
"Sheila Walling?"
We turned to see a police cruiser stopping behind us with the window rolled down. One officer climbed out.
"Sheila Walling?" he said again. "You are under arrest for the murders . . ."
Chapter Eighteen
Nadia
Detective Lee had found the evidence she needed to charge Sheila. Not that she was telling me what it was--she was understandably busy interrogating her suspect. I hung out at the station, but I didn't push. I had too much respect for the police, even when I was sure they'd made a mistake.
I was still waiting at the police station when Howard Lang texted me to say they'd arrested Sheila. I got back to him and discovered he already had the details through his contacts in the department.
The police had recovered a hair from the IED left for Angela. That wasn't new--they'd had the hair from the start and been running a DNA comparison, which doesn't happen nearly as fast as Hollywood might lead us to believe. They'd compared the DNA to Sheila's, which she'd provided back when Cherise died. I was sure her lawyer had argued against volunteering that, but I could see Sheila saying, I didn't do this, so fuck it. Take my DNA.
That DNA matched the hair taken from the device. Lee still hadn't been quick to arrest her. She knew Sheila wasn't going to run, and she wanted more evidence. That came in today, with the results of a credit card search--the DNA match gave Lee what she needed to conduct that search. Sheila's card had been used to order bomb-making materials shortly before the IED showed up in Angela's car. It was the same material used in Angela's device . . . and also used in the previous two. That wasn't enough to charge Sheila with the murders. For now, she'd only been charged with attempting to kill Angela, but that arrest opened up Lee's search powers, and the detective was certain she'd find what she needed to connect Sheila to the murders.
I suppose it was possible that Sheila only sent the device to Angela, which explained the DNA match and purchase history. But that didn't make sense. Why would she construct a bomb to kill Angela when she was already a suspect in Cherise and Sara's bombing deaths? That was crazy. Sheila Walling was not crazy.
She was being framed.
No one as smart as Sheila was going to use her credit card to buy the materials she'd use to build an IED. She wouldn't even need to buy them--she worked in the industry, and at most, she might have to purchase a single component. As for the DNA, a hair is the easiest source to "steal." It was possible there'd been hairs left with the first two devices as well--they just wouldn't have survived the blasts.
After speaking to Howard, I called Evelyn. Normally, I'd avoid asking for her research help. Evelyn doesn't work for free. Unfortunately, she doesn't work for mere cash, either. Her system is trade. Work done for a chit owed, and Evelyn didn't cash her chits promptly. She stockpiled them as leverage.
Luckily, right now we were in a reverse-credit situation--I'd helped her more than she'd helped me. I also had leverage of my own: Jack.
If you asked Jack and Evelyn what their relationship was, Evelyn would say she was his mentor. Ask Jack, and he'd point out that she'd been his mentor and was now a colleague. They're also friends, but neither was the type to say that. Business was the more important relationship.
The truth, though, was that to Evelyn, Jack was the closest thing to family she'd ever have. The closest thing to a son. But he was the kind of son who didn't call home nearly as often as he should. He cared . . . He just got busy, and yes, sometimes he didn't have the patience for Mom's bullshit. That placed me in a position of power. I was the daughter-in-law who could encourage him to call and visit. Or discourage him. I won't say that I used my power to its full potential, but I was aware it existed, and Evelyn was very aware it existed.
Today, I set her on Sheila's credit card history. I wanted that purchase order. Mostly, I wanted to know where the goods had been sent, which would take more than a phone call from a sweet old lady. That was good, because I'd seen Evelyn's sweet-old-lady impersonation, and it sucked. Her true skill required only the use of her brain and her fingers,
traveling along the back channels of the wired world.
She called an hour later.
"Okay," she said. "I have . . . Damn it, Dee. Can you call me back when you have a better connection? There's static."
"That's surf."
A long pause.
"We're on the beach," I said.
"Why?"
I laughed. "It's Hawaii."
"And you dragged Jack onto the beach?"
"Uh, no. It was his idea."
A longer pause.
"We aren't surfing, Evelyn," I said. "Or sunbathing, really. Did you know people still do that? You'd think they'd never heard of skin cancer. Anyway, we're just sitting on the beach in our swimsuits, discussing the case. We might even go into the water." I paused. "Although, on second thought . . . Hey, Jack? How would you feel about surf lessons? Or snorkeling?"
"Sure," he said without looking over.
"You realize he only does these things to make you happy, Dee."
I glanced at Jack, lying on his back, face raised to the sun.
"You're right. He looks miserable. I am a bad, bad person."
Jack lifted his sunglasses and arched one brow.
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't torture him much longer. We have a case to pursue. So, on that note . . ."
"The mailing address was a house. A house that belonged to Sheila Walling's mother, who died a few years ago, and it seems Sheila is waiting out the housing market before selling. She still owns it, and it's been empty since her mother's death."
"You researched the house, too? Wow. Thank you. That is above and beyond. You're good. I don't know what I'd do without--"
"You still owe me."
"Nope, totally don't. That took you an hour. I remain in the black. I'm just heaping on the praise to make you feel good. You're old. You need a little sunshine to warm your twilight years."
"Fuck. You."
I laughed. "I do appreciate it, Evelyn. You know I do. If you can send me the address, that would be awesome. And I think Jack wants to talk to you."
He lifted his glasses again and mouthed, "I do?"
I mouthed, "Be nice," and then passed him the phone. "Tell her how much you're secretly hating this trip."
He snorted, took the phone and said to Evelyn. "Yeah, it's awful. Good thing you're not here. Too much sand. Too much sun. Too much lazing around drinking shit with umbrellas. You'd hate it."
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