The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  The officer narrowed her eyes. “But you maced him, and this gentleman came out, correct?”

  “Yes, officer.”

  “So the situation was under control.”

  “Well, yes, but it was assault.”

  “She maced me, man. That’s assault.” Brad was still rubbing his eyes.

  “You mean battery. And it wasn’t if it was self-defense.” The lanky officer’s voice was just as firm and in control as the others. “Are you pressing charges?”

  Jane stared at Brad. He was a hot mess with streaming eyes and a red face. If she pressed charges or not, she was never getting another word out of him. While she waited the hall was so quiet she could hear a watch ticking.

  And a crash.

  On the other side of Devon’s office door.

  Followed by some just barely audible muttering.

  “It’s him!” Brad turned and banged on the door. “We know you’re in there Kyle, let us in!”

  “Calm down, sir,” The lanky officer said.

  “You can let us in there. He killed Devon Grosse and he’s been hiding out in the office ever since.”

  “Back away from the door.” This time the female officer spoke.

  Brad kept banging.

  “That’s an order. Back away from the door.” She raised her voice and stepped forward.

  “You’re in on it!” Brad shouted. “You know he’s in there and you don’t want us to know and I don’t know why, but I’m going to find out and I’m going to report it. You can’t hide this any longer.” He kicked the door, hard, cracking a significant dent in the hollow wood.

  “That’s it.” She held out her Taser. “That’s criminal mischief and attempted breaking and entering. Please put your hands on the back of your head.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Brad’s voice broke.

  “Oh heck yes,” The female officer said. She clacked handcuffs on him while the lanky one repeated the Miranda rights.

  Jane stayed put, mostly frozen in place, while the police left with Brad.

  The grizzly bearded landlord also stayed put.

  When they heard the groan of the old front door, indicating the police were outside with Brad, they both exhaled, loudly.

  The landlord pulled out a huge keychain. “That office is supposed to be empty,” he grumbled.

  Jane stared at the huge set of keys. He must have had dozens. “Are you going in?” she whispered.

  “I own this building. I can go in any room I want.”

  Jane shivered from her knees to her ears. Someone was in that room, and Brad didn’t get to see. She kept a few steps behind the landlord, with her eyes wide open.

  He had keys to all of the locks on the door, clicked and turned them, and pushed it open.

  The venetian blinds were down but not closed and the sun sent slivers of light to shine on the dust that floated in the dim room. There was a smell in the room, not of death or decay, but dirt. Dirty people. Jane gagged slightly. It smelled like a locker room.

  The landlord flipped a light on. “I don’t see anyone, do you?”

  “I think I smell someone.”

  The room was furnished with four desks, three tall metal filing cabinets, and stacks of cardboard files. It had two doors on the side wall. The landlord opened the first. It was a little bathroom. When he opened it, a great cloud of Lysol floated out, as though someone had been in there spraying moments ago.

  The landlord frowned. He tried to open the other door, but it wouldn’t budge. “What the heck?” He yanked it again. “Let go!”

  “Let go?” Jane whispered.

  “Someone is in there, cranking on the knob when I try to open it.” He turned his face back to the door. “I’ve got a gun and I said let go!” He did not have a gun, but the door flew open.

  A person leapt out, swinging a big boxy computer monitor at the landlord’s head.

  It struck him with a hollow thud.

  The landlord dropped.

  Jane jumped to the doorway, ready to use the door as a shield if she needed.

  The man who leapt out from the closet had extremely greasy red hair. His clothes were crumpled and dirty He smelled strongly of Lysol, and he was practically panting. “Who are you?” he croaked.

  “You’re Kyle Fish, aren’t you?” He was easily recognized by his red hair.

  “Who’s asking?” He backed toward his closet.

  The landlord stirred on the ground. Then he sat up, his hand to his head. “You did not knock me out,” he growled. “I stayed low as a self-defense technique.

  Jane doubted that.

  “I’m Max Garfield and I own this building. What have you been doing in this office?” Max stood up slowly. “And for how long?”

  Kyle’s eyes darted around the room, from the windows, to Jane, to Max again. He inched his way back into the closet.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Jane couldn’t decide exactly who to call, so she texted Maggie. “I’m calling you. Just listen.” Then she dialed, and hoped Maggie would answer. She held the phone out so it would catch the conversation.

  Kyle kept his back to them, but was speaking under his breath, possibly to himself.

  “He’s nuts.” Max reached for the phone on the desk. “I’m getting the police back here.”

  Kyle swung around. He had a phone to his head. “No. Wait. Don’t call. I’m on the phone now with the feds. I’ll explain as much as I can.”

  “You’ll explain everything to the police as they haul you out of this office.” Max growled.

  “On the phone with the FBI?” Jane stepped away from the door. “What do the FBI have to do with anything?”

  “For online stalking. The feds handle all of that. For Maggie.” Kyle was shaking.

  She didn’t know what he had been eating for the last two weeks, but it didn’t look like Devon kept a well-stocked pantry at his office.

  “I’ve been monitoring Voice of the Programmer, and reporting. We’re going to find out who killed Devon. We’re going to keep Maggie safe.” His eyes still darted around the room.

  Whatever his mental health had been before he locked himself in his friend’s office, it wasn’t good now.

  “Tell it to the police.” Max was talking big game, but he hadn’t dialed yet. Perhaps he was more than a little intimidated by the young man who had knocked him to the floor with an old monitor.

  “The FBI set you up in here,” Jane said. “They have you monitoring things to help them catch the killer.”

  “Yeah. That’s right. Their behind the building, in a van. They’re right there, they promised they wouldn’t leave.”

  “Devon came here after your wedding rehearsal because he hates a crowd. Why did you come here?”

  “Because I read the posts. My sister showed me all the posts about Maggie. I followed Devon so I could ask him what to do.” His whole body trembled while he spoke.

  “What did you see?”

  Kyle clamped his mouth shut.

  “You can tell me. I’m on your side.” Jane inched forward, her face tilted up. She had a look she could use with her dad that always worked, and she tried it on Kyle.

  His eyes stopped on her for a moment, and his shoulders relaxed a smidgen. “I saw Devon running into the woods. He runs like an idiot. I’d recognize it anywhere. Then I watched someone else climb out the window and chase him.” His breathing grew rapid and his face heated up. He grabbed the closet door to balance himself. “I don’t know who it was. I can’t be sure. But I didn’t chase him. I didn’t follow him. I was scared.”

  “Of course you were,” Jane said, her voice a soothing lull. “And you called the police?”

  “Yes. Immediately. I called them and they connected me with the feds and they set me up in here to monitor what was happening.” He spoke rapidly, shaking, but his eyes resting on her, wide and asking her to believe him.

  “The FBI wanted you to do surveillance for them because they have a strong inte
rest in your Maggie’s harassment case.” She said it without any judgment, curious to see how he would react when he heard his own words reflected back. The words didn’t make sense. Would he show signs of lying?

  “Yes.” He nodded, his eyes wide, but then stopped. “No. Not exactly. I called the feds. I went with them to their office. They kept me detained. When they found the body they sent me here to monitor.”

  “But that was days later,” Jane said.

  “No, you’re right. It was before they found the body. I don’t know.”

  “Have you been eating?” Jane asked.

  “Yes. Yes. Of course.”

  A soft knock on the door interrupted the disjointed interview. “Jane?” It was Flora, a concerned look on her face. “What’s up?”

  Jane’s mouth bobbed open. She had essentially begged Flora to come after her, but now that she was here, she couldn’t figure out what to say.

  Loud footsteps echoed down the hall and moments later two well-dressed men marched into the office. “Kyle. You okay, buddy?”

  “No. I’m not. I don’t know what I can say. What I’m supposed to say.” Kyle let go of the door and stared at the men. “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Never mind.” The darker of the two men spoke. “You did good work. Why don’t you come with us now?”

  Flora stepped between the men and Kyle. “And who would you be?”

  Both men popped badges out of their wallets. “Agent Smith, FBI,” the darker one said.

  “Agent Millborn, FBI. Internet crimes unit.”

  “You weren’t lying?” The words popped out of Jane before she could stop them.

  “Don’t say anything,” Agent Millborn said.

  “I don’t know what I did. I don’t know. Is Maggie okay?” Kyle stared at Jane’s phone.

  Jane put it to her ear. “Maggie, are you there?”

  The quiet noise of someone crying over the phone answered her.

  “Maggie, Kyle is here, do you want to talk to him?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was surprisingly clear.

  Jane passed the phone to Kyle.

  “Maggie?” His voice broke. “Maggie, I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

  Jane wished she could hear what Maggie said, but by the look of peace that came over Kyle’s face, she knew it must have been words of comfort.

  Jane turned to the feds. “What about the murderer of Devon Grosse? Have you found him yet?”

  Agent Smith frowned and Agent Millborn offered a condescending smile. “It’s an active investigation that we won’t comment on at this time. Hand the phone back to the girl, Kyle, and we’ll go. I think you’ve had enough of this office, buddy.” Millborn reached for the phone.

  Kyle gave it to the agent who returned it to Jane.

  Jane stared as Kyle followed the agents out like a lamb.

  Agent Smith, frown still securely in place, gave Jane one last look. “We didn’t think we’d get to use this room for as long as we did, so don’t go thinking you disrupted our business, but you need to stay out of important investigations.”

  Flora pulled her own badge out. “We’re licensed private detectives acting legally on behalf of our client.”

  Agent Smith turned without comment.

  Flora shut the door behind him. “We were acting legally, yes?”

  “Yes.” Max spoke. “I’m the landlord and I chose to let her in. The feds did not check with me to see if I would approve the use of this office for their work.” His low grumbly voice sounded particularly peeved.

  “Just like the feds.” Flora offered him a smile. “Not much you can do about that. Jane, let’s go.”

  Jane checked her phone. Maggie had hung up. “Okay.”

  They caravanned back to the SCoRI office. Jane took what was beginning to feel like her official place in the threadbare avocado velvet arm chair across from Flora’s desk.

  Flora scratched her head. “Well, here’s how I see it.” Her face didn’t give any clues about what she was going to say. “You followed your gut to look into some sidelines related to our insurance case, and to the case of someone fraudulently representing us.”

  “Yes.” Jane sat on the edge of the chair, eager to be an active participant in the conversation and not the dumb-struck youth she had felt like every time she sat in here.

  “And that led to you finding a missing man.” She rocked her head back and forth. “A presumed missing man. You at least found out where he was and had been for the sake of his bride—which was very much related to the issue of insurance fraud.”

  “If he hadn’t had the feds on speed dial, I think we could have gotten a lot more out of Kyle,” Jane said.

  “Possibly so, but he was under strict orders. There was no way he wasn’t calling them when you and Max got into the office. Maybe even as soon as he heard Brad trying to kick down the door.”

  “Whoever climbed out the office window killed Devon,” Jane said.

  “That seems like a reasonable theory.”

  “With Brad locked up and Kyle whisked away to parts unknown, how am I going to find out who it was?”

  “You have been under strict orders not to pursue that investigation. I said specifically that if you didn’t follow directions, you would be fired.” Her face was grim, but she couldn’t maintain her strict posture and her face softened, slightly. “That’s what the police are for. And anyway, with the involvement of the FBI, I suspect they either already know, or are well on their way to finding out.”

  “But what if they aren’t?”

  “Jane, this is a hard truth, but the FBI doesn’t need your help.”

  “They might not, but Maggie does.”

  “Hmm.” Flora narrowed her eyes.

  “Because the feds were no help at all with her disappearing groom. She lost a husband and a friend on the night before her wedding. The FBI, and possibly the regular old police, knew where Kyle has been, but they didn’t tell her, I did. So what if the feds have almost solved the murder? They aren’t going to tell Maggie. But I can.”

  “I like your spirit, Jane. Stubborn—but stubbornly compassionate. But I don’t think you can do it.” Flora waved her hand, dismissing Jane’s hope. “If the FBI knows but isn’t revealing the killer, you won’t discover him. And if they don’t know who killed Devon yet, with all of their resources, I don’t think you’ll be able to figure it out. You just don’t have the experience yet.”

  Implied in her words was the idea that Jane also didn’t have the necessary genius. But…she was now giving reasons it wouldn’t work instead of threatening to fire her if she tried. A glimmer of hope warmed Jane’s heart.

  “I may not have a lot of experience or appear to be a preternaturally gifted sleuth. But if you are willing to give me permission to follow up on a few leads I have, I’d like to try.”

  Flora’s lips were a thin line. “We are a small office that handles a dozen cases a year. I manage half a dozen retired investigators who serve part time.”

  “I won’t waste your time, I promise.”

  “I was just thinking, given the thin nature of our workload, and your need for supervised hours, that following up with this murder might be a good idea.” Flora smiled. “You need hours and experience and I have little to offer you. No new cases on the horizon.”

  “So I can?” Jane’s face split into a smile involuntarily.

  Flora laughed, but then pulled a serious face, as though that look of hers always hid a laughing heart. “So few girls your age would spontaneously burst into joy at the idea of finding a murderer.”

  Jane couldn’t suppress the smile that lit up her face, but she tried to keep it business like.

  “Yes. You can. But keep me up to date with regular reports. Come in every day to discuss what you learned with myself or Rocky. Remember that this is on the job training and not just a puzzle to solve.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me ma’am. This is Portland, not Texas.”r />
  “Of course, sorry.”

  Flora stood up. “If you have an angle to pursue with the rest of your day, you’d better do it. But have some lunch first, okay? You look hungry.”

  “Okay. I’ll do both.”

  Jane grabbed a hamburger on her way to the Frances house. It was time to get Brenna to spill all her beans.

  Chapter 17

  Brenna pulled Jane straight into her room. “I’ve been monitoring Shane Paige. I don’t trust him.”

  Jane’s curiosity was immediately piqued. “Is there any way to find out what he was doing the night of the wedding rehearsal?”

  Brenna pulled her eyebrows together like Jane was speaking a foreign language. “Besides asking him and hoping he doesn’t lie?”

  “Yes, besides that. A phone track or a visual from traffic cameras. Anything at all.”

  “I don’t know what you think I do with my time, but it’s not that.” Brenna rolled her chair back to her desk.

  Jane reined herself in a little. Paranoid, possibly brilliant, Brenna wasn’t going to hand over her carefully archived information for nothing.

  “What have you seen recently that has you questioning Shane?”

  “His online activity has exploded in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Pretty much corresponding to the call I made to him,” Jane said more to herself than not.

  “Exactly.”

  “What kind of online activity have you been seeing?”

  “He hangs out at Voice of the Programmer. I guess he thinks he fits in because of the game hack books and stuff.”

  “Does he write those, or his mom?”

  Brenna laughed low, with a derisive note. “I am fairly sure his mom exists as the business owner to save her precious from the tax burdens. I would be one hundred percent surprised if she even knows how to turn on a game console.”

  “So what’s Shane doing at VoP?”

  “A few things. First, he’s egging on Kyle. You know I spotted Kyle by his writing quirks. Shane was easy to ID as well, if you know what you are looking for. And Shane is really going for Kyle. Answering every post. Answering posts wrong. And now answering posts with hints that he knows his identity. I suppose he could. I’m not the only person in America who’s been trained in spotting writing styles and stuff.”