Trap 'N' Trace
Page 13
“Did you stop anywhere? A motel, gas station, or a convenience store?” Caldwell asked. “Got any receipts?”
“I’m not under arrest, so why should I tell you anything?”
“Because,” Caldwell countered, “if you don’t talk to us, and you can’t provide an alibi, we can hold you for twenty-four hours. Who knows what other reasons we can drum up to keep you longer? I’m sure you haven’t been a saint since you were released last week.”
A flicker of fear flashed in Donnelly’s eyes. The man had something to hide, but Dayne didn’t think he killed Becca.
Donnelly shifted in the chair then tugged a wallet from his rear pants pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper that he tossed to Caldwell. The agent unfolded the paper, reading out loud for the video recording. “This is a receipt for the Red Pump Inn in Missouri. It says you arrived last Tuesday night and checked out Wednesday morning.”
Donnelly nodded. “That sounds about right.”
Which meant there was no way he could have been in Tappan Tuesday afternoon. Stabbing Becca to death.
“We’ll check it out.”
The agents left the room, but the video remained on. Dayne and Paulson watched Donnelly picking dirt from under his nails. Ten minutes more into the video, and Donnelly stared directly at the camera then flipped the bird, mouthing the words “Fuck you.”
“He’s some piece of work,” Paulson said in a disgusted tone.
“Yeah.” More like, piece of shit.
When his phone vibrated, Dayne set down his coffee cup to take the call.
“Dayne, it’s Tommy Diaz.” He quickly recognized the other agent’s voice. “We sent two agents to the Red Pump Inn in Missouri. Not only did they confirm the receipt, but they also sent us the photocopy of Donnelly’s expired driver license. He used that as ID when he checked in. They also pulled the hotel’s video. Donnelly checked in Tuesday night around seven p.m. and left Wednesday morning about eight thirty. Looks like his alibi checks out.”
He exhaled a frustrated breath. “You sure it’s him in the video?”
“Yeah. The video system at the inn was brand spanking new. The images couldn’t be any clearer.”
“Any chance he could have snuck out a side or back door, then caught a plane to New York?”
“I don’t see how,” Tommy said. “Our guys reviewed footage from cameras at all the exits and they didn’t see him leaving until Wednesday morning.”
“Thanks, Tommy.” He ended the call then gave Paulson the bad news. “Donnelly was in Missouri Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. It’s not him.” He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
Donnelly made no bones about wanting revenge against Becca. They had a history. But assuming Becca and Amy’s murders were committed by the same person, he couldn’t come up with a single reason why Donnelly would have needed to go to the Canine Haven or kill the Haven’s manager.
So far, they were ass-deep in nowhere-land. Except for his witness. Kat.
While he wouldn’t put her protection in anyone else’s hands, part of him itched for a more proactive role in the investigation. He texted one of the agents from his office who’d been reviewing Becca’s case files. A minute later, Special Agent Bart Danchuk came into the detectives’ squad room, holding a yellow pad.
Danchuk was still as skinny as Dayne remembered from their Quantico days, and his hair was still as orange as a pumpkin. The only thing new was the cheaters perched on top of his head.
After making quick introductions to Paulson, Dayne glanced at the pad in Bart’s hand. “What’ve you got?”
“For a PI in business just over a year, Becca had a lot of case files, and I do mean a lot.” He slid the cheaters onto his nose and focused on his notes. “We’ve still got five full boxes to go through. Philandering spouses, adopted people searching for their birth mothers, phony insurance claims. Nothing jumps out.”
“Which of those cases was she actively working?” Now that they’d eliminated Donnelly and his long sought-after revenge, maybe one of her current cases was connected to her death.
“Actually, she was only working one case, but there were multiple targets. An insurance fraud investigation. About three months ago, she scored a big contract with an insurance company. According to the contract, Becca was hired to investigate drivers intentionally causing accidents then faking injuries and threatening to file lawsuits. One of the company auditors figured out the number of these cases far exceeded what was normal for the industry.”
“So,” Dayne concluded, “in an effort to avoid drawn-out court battles and exorbitant legal fees, the company had been settling out of court and finally got sick and tired of having their bank account sucked dry.”
“Yep,” Bart confirmed.
“Was Becca successful in finding anyone committing insurance fraud?”
“She was.” Bart tapped the pad with his pen. “Last month two individuals were arrested, along with a doctor who was signing off on phony diagnoses. Turns out the driver of the offending vehicle and the injured driver he slammed into from behind were actually cousins who were going to split the settlement. They had different last names, and it was Becca’s surveillance photos that pounded the nail into their coffins. She actually caught them in a bar, celebrating.”
Dayne swallowed another sip of muddy coffee. “How much would that settlement have been?”
“Half a million.”
Paulson whistled. “I can think of a lot of people who’d do a lot of bad things for half a mil.”
“Where are the two people who got arrested?” Dayne asked. “Chances are they wouldn’t have gotten jail time, so they’re probably out on probation.” And could have paid Becca a visit.
“Already on it,” Bart said. “I sent the names to ASAC Barstow, and she’s sending another team to interview them.”
“Good.” Dayne appreciated that Bart was on the ball. “How many other cases like this was she actively working?”
Bart flipped a page. “Seven with the same MO, but there could be eight.”
Something about the way Bart tapped the pad faster with his pen caught his attention. “Could be?”
“Becca’s file-keeping system was impeccable. Since she got her license, she worked a total of fifty-seven cases. She numbered every file folder sequentially and kept an inventory sheet with case numbers, along with the open and closure dates of each case.”
Dayne beat Bart to the punch. “One of the case files is missing.”
“Yep.”
“Does the inventory list any subject names for each case number?”
“Negative.” Bart shook his head.
He took another drag of coffee. “Becca’s husband said she never took work files home. So, in addition to the laptop and camera, now there’s a missing file.” He tucked that tidbit of information away in the back of his mind. They had no way of knowing if the missing file was relevant, but sometimes key evidence could materialize from otherwise seemingly inconsequential bits of information. “Okay. Thanks, Bart. Let me know if you find anything else.”
“Will do.”
When Bart had left the squad room, Paulson pulled up his email. “The ME’s final report is in. So are most of the lab reports for both crime scenes.” He printed out two copies of everything, handing one set to Dayne.
“Time of death,” Paulson read aloud, “estimated to be between four p.m. and midnight, Tuesday, March twenty-eighth. Cause of death…”
Before Paulson finished the sentence, the contents of Dayne’s stomach gave a vicious roll. Not that there’d been any doubt as to the COD, but still.
“…severe lacerative trauma to all major internal organs. Specifically, forty-seven stab wounds. Probable weapon was a smooth-edged blade, approximately five inches in length and two inches in diameter.”
They both read o
n in silence.
Many of the wounds on Becca’s back contained carpet fibers, indicating they’d been inflicted when she was lying on her back on the office floor. Meaning, the fucker kept stabbing her when she was already down.
Many of the wounds were nonlethal, but there were so many to her heart and lungs the organs were all but hacked to pieces. Her neck had been stabbed so many times and with such brutal force, her head had practically been severed from her body.
He’d seen a lot of bodies in his career, but reading such a gory report on someone he knew was enough to make his lunch launch right out of his throat. To prevent that from happening, he dragged in several deep breaths.
The rest of the ME’s findings on Becca and Amy were as expected. Blood toxicology for both was negative for alcohol, methamphetamines, marijuana, and traces of any other illegal substance. Amy’s COD was strangulation. Bruises in the shape of fingers confirmed the killer had used his hands. The lab reports were easier to stomach. Unfortunately, they provided very few, if any, leads.
The only blood in Becca’s office was her own. As expected, the place was covered with fingerprints, including Becca’s and a few of her clients who had minor criminal records. Nothing that spiked high on his would-be-homicide list, but it was worth following up on. All the other prints came back “not on file” and could belong to anyone. The postal carrier, the cleaning service Becca used, her husband, just to name a few. Process of elimination would take a while, but they’d be thorough just the same. Not having prints on file didn’t mean a person wasn’t capable of committing murder. They were better off using their time following up on a possible motive.
One that was, for the moment, elusive.
“DNA results were negative.” Paulson took a slug of coffee. “No one else’s DNA was present on Katrina Vandenburg or Amy Thorpe’s neck, or on the swabs from your dog’s mouth. And before you ask, CCU called me this morning. They only just got into the cell phone. It was encrypted and took a while. They’ll keep me posted on what they find.”
“What about this footprint in the mud outside the Canine Haven?” Dayne asked, flipping to the next page. Unless the killer wore shoes with unique tread or had an abnormally large or small shoe size, that wouldn’t give them much to go on.
Paulson set his mug down. “One decent imprint, approximately size ten, nothing unique about the tread.”
“Any hits on facial recognition?” Dayne folded the report and stuck it in his suit jacket pocket.
Paulson scrolled through his emails. “Here it is.”
Dayne began pacing in front of the detective’s desk. They couldn’t be so lucky as to actually get a hit from Kat’s sketch.
Paulson grunted. “No positive hits. Over a thousand people in New York and New Jersey DMV made the ‘possible’ list.”
“Great. Another dead end.” As expected, the killer’s features were too generic.
“Someone else is dead?” Kat stood in the doorway, her lips parted and her eyes brimming with shock and disbelief.
“No,” he reassured her. The need to put her fears to rest was a fierce instinct burning inside him. “A dead end. We didn’t get any database hits on your sketch.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders sagged with relief. “So the sketch was worthless?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly, but we were hoping to get a lucky break.” So they could put this nameless fucker behind bars where he belonged.
“We’d better go.” Paulson stood and slipped on his jacket but then sat again, staring at his screen. He clicked the mouse and frowned.
“What is it?” The serious expression on Paulson’s face put Dayne’s instincts on high alert.
“CCU sent over the call log from Rebecca’s phone.”
“Print it.” Dayne was already heading to the credenza. When the sheets printed, he grabbed them and went down the list of incoming and outgoing calls. He stared at the last line item on the third and final page. Date: Tuesday. The day she was killed. Duration of incoming call: three minutes. Time: 3:50 p.m. According to the ME’s report, that was shortly before the time frame in which Becca was murdered.
Mobile number… “No Caller ID.” Dammit.
“More dead ends,” Paulson said, voicing Dayne’s thoughts.
Or is it? His pulse ratcheted up. A symbol next to the blocked call data caught his attention—a green check mark with an eyeball. An app symbol.
He’d seen that symbol before. Not that he could recall the name of the app, but he was familiar with how it functioned. “Did CCU send over the list of apps on the phone?”
Paulson shook his head. “We didn’t ask for that.”
“Get it.” Dayne’s mind raced. “Tell them to dump all data—especially call lists—from any apps on the phone.”
When Kat touched his arm, tingles pricked his skin. “Did you find something?”
“Maybe.” No sense getting overly optimistic. “Becca has an app installed on her phone that behaves similarly to a pen register or a trap ’n’ trace device.”
“What’s a trap ’n’ trace?” Kat frowned.
“A court-ordered device that captures all incoming electrical pulses. In this case, a phone number. Even if the caller blocks their number, the app captures it in a separate log. Someone blocking their number called Becca just before four p.m. on the day she was murdered. We need to find that person. Whoever that caller was, he or she could have been the last person Becca ever spoke with.”
And, possibly, her killer.
Chapter Fourteen
The funeral home was packed to the point where Dayne could barely move. Apparently, the Haven’s manager was extremely well liked, and half the county had turned out to say their goodbyes.
He and Paulson hovered in the back of the room, searching for anyone who didn’t seem to belong there. With his height, he could easily keep track of Kat’s location and still periodically scan the room and all entrances and exits.
Sweat trickled down his back. Using his forefinger, he loosened his tie. The temperature inside the viewing room felt like it was rising a degree every second. Through it all, Kat looked as cool as a cucumber. But she wasn’t.
She greeted people left and right, but when no one was looking, he glimpsed the toll this was beginning to take on her. An occasional swipe at the corner of one eye and her chest heaving from the effort it took not to lose it in front of everyone.
The Haven must have closed down for the rest of the day, because Kevin and Fiona were there, along with Emily, Francine, and Walter. For such a supposedly close friend, Colin was nowhere in sight. You’d think the guy would remove the stick from his ass long enough to come and support Kat when she needed it.
Her friends tried urging her to the casket, but she shook her head, indicating they should go ahead without her. With obvious reluctance, they left her standing in the middle of the room, and that’s when he saw it. The first real break in her armor.
She covered her mouth with her hand, and her body shuddered.
Ah, hell. As a federal agent, he could have stood by and watched her have a meltdown in the middle of a funeral home. But as a man, his heart cracked just a little bit.
“Keep an eye out,” he said to Paulson then wended his way through the crowd. Kat’s eyes were glossy, but her face was dry. Somehow she’d managed to hold back the floodgates.
He leaned in close. “Want me to go up there with you?”
She looked up at him with wounded, soulful eyes. “Would you?” Her tone held notes of disbelief and hope.
He clasped her hand, squeezing it gently. “I would.” Her look of gratitude turned his already mushy heart into a pile of goo.
“Thank you.”
The crowd parted for them as he held her hand all the way to the viewing area. Emily’s brows rose; Kevin and Fiona gave Kat quizzical looks; Francine’s eyes dipped to t
heir joined hands, and he couldn’t be certain but thought he detected a slight nod of approval. Walter looked at him with something a step above outright disapproval.
Francine whispered to Kat, whose eyes widened. He couldn’t make out her response. Whatever it was, Francine gave a little smile and patted Kat’s hand.
For the next ten minutes, he remained dutifully at Kat’s side, speaking briefly with Amy’s family then walking her to the casket. Amy Thorpe appeared to be sleeping, nestled in her final resting place—a bed of soft green velvet. When Kat knelt on the small bench, he held her hand tighter. “Oh, Amy,” Kat whispered. “None of this was supposed to happen. I’m so, so sorry.” She bowed her head for a moment, and when she lifted it, Dayne expected to see tears on her face but there weren’t any. Yet. It was only a matter of time.
When they were out the door, he led her to the SUV where Remy watched them through the window. He searched the street, making sure no one lingered nearby. And no more roses.
After getting in, Kat gave Remy a quick scratch under the chin. Moments later, he was gunning the Interceptor down Kings Highway, taking the quickest route back to the castle.
“What did Francine say to you back there?” he asked.
“It was nothing.” Kat continued staring out the window.
“Liar.” He chuckled.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t important. Really.”
“C’mon, spill it.”
“She said that we made a beautiful couple.”
He nearly drove off the road into a ditch, jerking the wheel in the nick of time. “And what did you say in response?” He held his breath, curious.
“I said ‘thank you.’ I’m sorry, I should have told her the truth—that we’re not. A couple, that is. I just didn’t want to discuss it any further.”
“No problem. I understand.” Not that he’d been harboring thoughts of them as a couple or that he ever would. Knowing what elicited such a stunned response from Kat back at the funeral home…rankled him. Just a little.
He’d become what he wanted to be—an FBI agent—and he was totally content with that. But part of him would always be that little boy who’d grown up in the filth of the streets.