A Killer Cover Up

by Danielle Collins

  Margot opened her mouth then closed it, smiling again.

  “I know that look. All right, Margot Durand, you win. But you’ll tell me if you need help?” he offered, pulling her against him in a fatherly hug.

  “You bet,” she said, squeezing back gently. “But now I’ve got to go. Need to pick up Clint from Adam’s.”

  “Give that rascal a scratch behind the ears for me, will ya?”

  Margot laughed. She never would have guessed Bentley to have a soft spot for dogs, knowing he was more of a cat person, but when he’d been forced to stay at Adam’s house during their last case, he’d bonded with the large animal.

  “I will.”

  She left the center with a wave to the women at the front and drove to Adam’s house. He’d left early that morning and had a dog walker that came once a day to take the dog out. She’d agreed to take him to her place for the remainder of Adam’s trip. She’d never considered having a dog of her own, until preparing to marry a man with one, but she had a feeling that Clint Eastwood would come in very handy the next morning.

  He waited patiently at the door for her when she came in and then licked her hand, as if reminding her that she owed him a scratch behind the ears from Bentley. After obliging, she took the bag of supplies Adam had left and put the dog’s leash on.

  “It’s just you and me, partner,” she said in her best western twang.

  Clint sat, looking up at her obediently.

  “Oh, come on,” she said with a laugh and he followed her out of the house.

  After she had his water bowl and a blanket on the floor set up for him in her house, she made herself dinner and turned on the television to hear the evening news. The next town south of North Bank, Williamston, was in the midst of elections for a new sheriff. She let the broadcaster fill her in, a few impassioned speeches by the candidates interspersed, as she pulled out magazines and a notebook. She’d waited long enough to plan some of her wedding details.

  In the corner, Clint settled down on his blanket and watched her. He looked bored and she almost laughed.

  “Trust me,” she said to the dog, whose ears perked up. “You don’t ever want to plan a wedding. It’s a nightmare.”

  His head cocked to the side and she laughed, refocusing on the list of things she had to do. The news anchor droned on about the political atmosphere of Williamston and how things seemed to be heating up with smear campaigns going on for both candidates.

  Sighing, she changed the channel to the Home Network. She’d much rather watch old houses turned new again rather than hear about people’s agendas against those running for office.

  Two hours and a quick walk up and down the block with Clint later, Margot got into bed. She—correction, they—had a meeting to get to in the morning and she wanted to be rested and ready for it.

  Margot turned off the lights and let out a deep sigh. She still had a feeling that Adam wouldn’t be happy she’d decided to go alone. Suddenly, a heavy weight descended on the bed and Margot had to clamp her mouth shut to not cry out.

  She could just make out Clint’s large form on the end of her bed, looking at her as if to ask, “This is okay, right?”

  Smiling, she patted the bed beside her, pleased when he came up and laid down next to her. That was right, she wouldn’t be going alone. She’d have the next best thing to Adam, his loyal dog.

  Margot and Clint trotted down the tree-lined path. It was nearing ten o’clock and she’d made it to the required trail, but she wasn’t sure where she needed to go. She’d stayed at the trail entrance for a while, hoping that her contact would arrive early, but then Clint had grown impatient and she decided to walk a bit.

  Clint tugged gently on the leash as Margot slowed down. They hadn’t gone far from the trail entrance but far enough that she was hidden from view of anyone coming their way along the path. Not for the first time, she wished the person who’d contacted her had given more specific instructions. Was she to walk the trail until she found someone, or would they find her?

  Margot pulled the dog back and he sat obediently next to her, looking up as if to say, Can’t we go a little further? She hoped the presence of the creature wouldn’t keep the person from making contact with her, but she felt much safer with the K9 by her side.

  Looking back the way they’d come, she didn’t see or hear anything. The trail wasn’t usually busy during the day on weekdays, something her contact no doubt had taken note of. If they had planned this much, wouldn’t they have already been there?

  She pulled out her phone and checked the time. Seven minutes past ten—the time they were supposed to meet. Nervously biting her lip, she looked down at Clint. He looked up at her with soulful brown eyes, but then his head swiveled to look down the path and he took a deep breath. The next instant, he was standing and pulling at the leash.

  “Clint,” she said sternly, trying to hold the large dog back.

  He emitted a low growl, the fur on the back of his neck raising slightly, and began pulling even harder, making it difficult for Margot to hold him back. He never acted like this and she wondered if it was a person he sensed, or something else?

  He tugged then looked back at her, offering a plaintive whine. He wanted to move further down the path. His head swiveled away again and pulled harder, making Margot take a few steps forward.

  Gaining a few inches of ground, the dog caught Margot off balance and began pulling her down the path. She called for him to stop, but he’d caught some sort of scent and she was beginning to think she wouldn’t be able to hold him back much longer. Was it an animal in the underbrush he wanted to chase?

  “Clint, no!” He ignored her, a very uncharacteristic move, and she tripped down the path away from the entrance, wondering if this would completely scare off her contact or bring her closer to them.

  The dog suddenly veered off the path and into the underbrush. The foliage was thick and leafy with the spring rains they’d been having, and Margot felt her tennis shoes sink into the mud and make a sucking sound when they pulled free.

  Great. Now she’d have to clean off Clint’s paws before allowing him back into her home—especially anywhere near her white couch!

  He gave an excited bark and suddenly stopped, almost making Margot topple over.

  Her gaze traveled past the dog and her stomach clenched. Just on the other side of Clint, she saw a shoe sticking out from the leafy green underbrush. As she stepped to the side, she saw that it was not just a shoe. It was attached to a foot and then a leg. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach worsened as she realized what they’d just come upon.

  A body.

  The dog moved as if to get closer to the person, but she pulled him back with a sharp tug. She needed to make sure that the person—likely a man, by the size of his feet and his choice of shoe—was not alive and in need of help.

  “Stay,” she said to the dog, who sat obediently. He looked up at her and she thought she could read his expression: I just wanted to show this to you, that’s all.

  She rubbed his head and told him he was a good dog, then stepped around him and pushed back the foliage. Careful where she stepped, she knelt next to the body as it came into view. The man looked to be tall and fit, wearing jeans and an athletic jacket. His head was turned away from her and long, dark hair covered most of his features. She reached over and gingerly felt for a pulse she knew she wouldn’t find. The purple bruising on his neck made her stomach tighten in knots. His skin was cooling, though not cold, and the minute she stood up, she pulled out her phone to dial the police. This hadn’t been an accident.

  Sadly, she’d had to make similar calls in the past. As the line connected, she explained the situation and the location, then gingerly backed herself and Clint out of the bushes. She’d stay on the trail as they advised and wait for the officers and medical team to come, but she also didn’t want Clint or herself destroying any more evidence than they already had.

  A nagging feeling at the back of her nec
k made her look back to where they’d come out of the underbrush. What was it about the man’s profile that had seemed familiar? It was a gut feeling she didn’t want to ignore, but she also didn’t want to move the body.

  Pulling out her phone again, she called to Adam. When he didn’t pick up on the fourth ring, she ended the call and tried his partner, Les.

  He answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Margot?”

  She filled him in on what she’d found and that the police were on their way. “Do you think you could come? I can’t get Adam on the phone, but I know he’d likely feel better if you were here. I would too.”

  “I’ll come right over,” Les said. “Did it seem like there was foul play?”

  “Yes.” Margot’s throat constricted at the memory of the bruises and she glanced up and down the trail nervously. Clint didn’t seem to be reacting to anything though, and that gave her some comfort.

  “Okay, I’ll head over now. Sit tight.”

  She agreed and hung up, hugging herself as a cool wind blew through the trees. She’d come to the trail to find answers, but now she had more questions than before. Was the dead man her contact? Had he been killed to stop him from looking into Julian’s death? Or was he an unrelated person she’d happened to come across?

  It seemed unlikely that finding the body was a coincidence when she’d specifically been asked to come to the trail to meet with someone. Someone who was looking into her husband’s death.

  That struck closest to home, knowing that she’d had a lead on his murder—the first in over five years—and now that lead seemed to have vanished.

  Did that mean that Julian’s death wasn’t in the past as much as she’d thought it was? That perhaps someone was still out there who knew about it? Or worse, perhaps who had caused it?

  She thought back to those terrible days. Everyone had told her that it happened—cops got shot, not to mention he was a detective—but she hadn’t taken any of it. Her husband had been smart and never would have blindly walked into the type of situation he’d been found in without reason.

  She’d always considered that he’d been shot by someone he knew, but no one would listen to that. Her musings had just been the thoughts of a grieving widow and nothing based on reality or fact.

  The sounds of sirens reached her, though they were still far off. She knew it might take them at least a few more minutes to reach her since they’d have to carry their gear down the trail. On an impulse she knew she should suppress, she told Clint to stay, even though he was tied up, and pushed gently back through the branches.

  When the body came into view, she hesitated one last time, knowing that she shouldn’t touch the corpse but desperate to know the identity of the man, to have answers to the question of why his profile, or what she had seen of it, looked so familiar.

  Kneeling next to the body and careful not to disrupt more than she had to, she slowly reached out and pulled back the curtain of hair covering the man’s face. Then she gasped.

  She knew this man.

  3

  “I know this must be hard, Missus Durand,” a young officer said, holding his notepad with pen poised, “but is there anything else of note that you can tell us about what happened here?”

  She knew the young man was just doing his job, but she was desperate to talk to Adam. Though she’d tried three more times to contact him, her calls had only gone to voicemail. Now, as she waited for his partner, the young officer had placed himself in front of her like a century unwilling to let her pass until she’d divulged everything.

  But she couldn’t do that. Not yet, at least. Not only had the information in the email whetted her appetite for the truth, but the subsequent murder of her contact—because now she was certain that was who the man was—proved to her that more was going on than simply uncovering the truth.

  The worst part was that she had a suspicion it could involve the police. It had been her first thought when she’d learned of the circumstances of Julian’s death, but those closest to her had assured her that it wasn’t possible.

  While she didn’t think that the young officer had anything to do with any of this, she wasn’t willing to give him much more than the barest of details regarding finding the man. Besides, that was all he’d asked about, not about why she was on the trail. It was likely that having Clint with her seemed to be reason enough.

  “Margot,” Les said, making his way past the barrier the officers had set up. A small crowd was gathering, the onlookers a mix of those out for mid-morning walks and those with curiosity greater than their feelings of propriety as they gawked at the scene in front of them.

  “Les, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Detective,” the young officer said.

  “I’ll take it from here, Officer Jordan.”

  “Yes, sir.” The young man nodded to Margot and went toward the barricade area to help his fellow officers.

  “How are you?” The concern in her eyes helped stifle the rapid beating of her heart. While she wasn’t accustomed to seeing dead bodies—despite the number of them she’d come across in recent months—she was more focused on finding the truth than delving deep into her personal feelings.

  “I need to talk to Adam, but I can’t get a hold of him.”

  “I’ve been calling him too, but I get nothing. He’ll call you back though, you know he will.”

  “Yes,” she said, knowing what he said was true, but then worry crept up. This didn’t involve him, did it? But it couldn’t. He hadn’t come down to North Bank until after her husband’s death.

  “Want to tell me what happened?”

  She weighed the pros and cons of bringing Adam’s partner in on all of this, but she knew from the many conversations she’d had with Adam that he trusted Les.

  “It all started with an email I got yesterday.”

  Les’s brow furrowed. “What? What did the email say?”

  “Do you know about what happened to my husband?”

  Les shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I’ve talked to Adam about it a little.”

  “The email asked if I wanted to help them uncover the truth about Julian and shared an image of my husband meeting in an alleyway with someone—I couldn’t make out his face—and it was timestamped on the day of his death.”

  Les’s eyes went wide.

  “The email said to meet them here, on this trail, at ten. I decided to bring Clint with me—” The dog whined at the use of his name and she rested her hand on his head, scratching behind his ears to settle him down. “—to meet this person.”

  “Did you tell anyone you’d come? Adam, maybe?”

  “No. I told no one.” She felt the flush of her dishonesty creep up her neck. “I knew he was in D.C. and…” She trailed off.

  “And you knew he wouldn’t want you meeting this person on your own.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you did.”

  “Yes and no. I came, but I never met anyone. I was actually not sure what to do since it had been almost ten minutes past the time we were supposed to meet, but then Clint scented something and…” She broke off, her attention returning to the dog. “That’s when we found the body.”

  “I see.” Les had brought out his notepad and was writing furiously.

  “But there’s more.”

  He looked up. “More?”

  “I went back to the body,” she said, feeling uncomfortable having to admit she’d tampered with evidence even though she’d been careful. “I wanted to see who it was.”

  “And?” Les looked intently at her.

  “I know the man.” Her voice cracked. “His name is Paul, though I’ve forgotten his last name. I met him once, about a year before Julian was killed, at a party in D.C. I don’t remember much about him, but I do think he was a reporter.”

  Her mind had raced to that night the instant his full face came into view. He looked the same, the six years barely touching his fine Asian features, and she remembered him standing in a
tux and looking around the room as if analyzing it.

  Julian had brought her over to meet him, saying he was singlehandedly responsible for busting open a drug ring in the heart of D.C. She remembered being impressed but seeing how humbly Paul had accepted Julian’s praise. There wasn’t much more to their conversation from that night, but she remembered liking Paul and respecting his resolve for the truth.

  The truth.

  What had Paul been looking for regarding Julian’s death? Had he stumbled across something that would have put an end to her questions and the unanswered question of why?

  “Margot?” Les interrupted her thoughts.

  “Sorry. I…” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe I knew who it was.”

  “You think he was your contact?”

  Margot wrapped her arms around herself, Clint’s dog leash dangling from one hand. “I can’t be sure, but I would guess that he is. I’m sure someone can track the email, but I’m not sure if it’ll bring up anything. He was smart. I doubt he’d have emailed me in a way that could be traced.”

  “Right.” Les looked back down at his notes. “I assume Officer Jordan took your statement?”

  “Most of it,” she admitted.

  “Okay. Why don’t you head home—if you feel safe doing that?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll get in contact with Adam somehow and I’m sure he’ll call you. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

  “Thanks, Les,” she said, gripping his arm before turning to look down at Clint. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  They walked around the established perimeter, some of the officers nodding their acknowledgement of Margot, and made their way back to her car. Once Clint was in the back seat, Margot rested her head against the head rest.

  What information did Paul have? And what was he looking for? What would he have told her? She assumed from the location she’d found his body in that he had been murdered, but how? And by whom? Did that person know that Paul had been about to meet with her, or had they gotten to him only knowing he was going to share his information with someone else?