A Killer Cover Up

by Danielle Collins

  Margot gently pushed the money back to Ken. “I don’t want you to pay me back for the boat. I’m happy that you’ve been able to turn your life around and that Julian had a small part in that. He would have been so proud of you.”

  Ken looked away and sniffed, overcome with emotion.

  “But,” Margot continued, moving past the moment for the man’s sake as much as her own, the tears threatening just beneath the surface. “Who is this other man you spoke of?”

  “Uh.” Ken wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Some young fellow with long hair. Said he knew this was Julian’s boat and that he had an idea something of his was still around.”

  Margot blinked. “What did you say?”

  “I pointed him to the one place where I thought he might find something and let him look. I’m not one to make trouble. Besides, the fellow said he was working on an investigative piece and was ‘on Julian’s side’ or something like that.”

  “Can you show me where that was?”

  “Sure thing.” He stood and walked over to a thin door. When he pulled it open, he showed her a metal case that looked a little like a toolbox. “It’s bolted to the floor or I’d get it for you.”

  “It’s okay.” She knelt and opened the box. “Were you here when the man looked inside?”

  “No, I was dealing with a few customers topside. He came out emptyhanded, like I thought he would.”

  Margot wasn’t so sure. If her hunch was accurate, he had come out with Julian’s journal. And there, at the bottom of the box, were three sheets of pages. The extra pages taken from Julian’s journal, his handwriting evident from the moment she picked them up.

  “This is what I needed.”

  Ken blinked. “Those Julian’s?”

  “They were part of a journal he always used to write in about his cases and his observations. Somehow, it ended up on this boat and was lost after his death.”

  “He did come here a few days before he died.” Ken’s shoulders slumped.

  “You remember?”

  “I do. He said he needed to get away for a little while to think. I took him out on the water and we fished. He could have left the journal then. I wouldn’t have noticed, but he knew the ins and outs of this ship almost as well as I did.”

  Margot wondered if Julian had suspected something was happening and needed to put his journal in a safe place. For evidence perhaps? But he would have known it would take more than his notes to compile a case against someone.

  And then there was the issue of Paul. How had he known to come to the ship? He’d said he was investigating something, but was it possible that Julian had left a trail that led Paul to uncover the reason for his death and the location of his boat?

  Then again, if Margot had looked carefully, she might have come across the information of the boat herself. She’d never had the need to, but this case had led her to it. Had it led Paul as well?

  She turned back to Ken. “Thank you for this. It’s going to be very valuable.”

  “I’m just glad I could help.”

  “And here.” She reached into her bag and grabbed one of her business cards. “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call. I didn’t know about the boat or about you, but I know Julian would have told me eventually and I would have been fully behind it as I am now.”

  Ken nodded, again too overcome with emotion to reply, but Margot didn’t need to hear anything from him. She’d gotten the answers she’d come for and she’d learned something amazing about her late husband in the process.

  11

  Margot sat on her living room floor surrounded by papers. Clint eyed her from his makeshift bed in the corner. She’d gone over and over the missing pages from Julian’s journal, but they weren’t making much sense.

  The first thing she’d done after leaving the docks was go to the police department to see Adam. After explaining what she’d discovered with Julian’s boat and the extra pages, she copied them, leaving him the originals, and took them back home with her to puzzle over.

  Adam had promised to come by when he could, but she knew he was busy and hadn’t waited on him to start. She’d laid them out and read over them, then again, and then she’d started taking notes.

  It was as if Julian had switched in to some type of code that almost made sense but didn’t at all. She’d read through large parts of his journal already, as well as reading after the missing section, and these pages were unique.

  The big question was, why Paul had left them behind? She’d thought about this after her last readthrough of the pages. It was obvious he’d picked the one section that dealt with what she assumed was why Julian was killed, but how had he known? Or was it possible Julian had cut the pages out and Paul had been quick-thinking enough to leave them behind?

  Margot began to nod to herself. It would make sense. If Paul wanted to convince her of anything—especially the fact that he was investigating Julian’s murder—he would have convinced her with the journal that he’d arranged to have delivered. He couldn’t have known he would be killed, but he wouldn’t have wanted to show all of his cards from the beginning and what better location than a ship that no one seemed to know about?

  It was all conjecture, but it began to make sense. Then the question she was left with was, why had Paul begun to investigate now after all these years.? What had been the catalyst?

  She looked back down at the notes and noticed a French phrase she couldn’t quite place. It referenced a child or kid. Why would Julian be talking about a kid in reference to whatever was going on? Perhaps it meant teen, but she wasn’t completely sure. Her French had lapsed since her husband’s death.

  Sighing, she looked back down at the pages. It read a bit like a fairy tale—something very out of character for Julian—talking about a child, or kid, finding magic beans. Of course, here, he was referencing Jack and the Bean Stalk, but that didn’t help. He also used random numbers for places and various code words that meant nothing to her.

  She was about to take another look at the pages when a knock sounded. Glancing at her phone sitting next to her, she saw that Adam had called. That and the fact that Clint was standing and not barking led her to believe it was none other than her fiancé at the door. She still double-checked through the peephole, then welcomed him in.

  “Evening,” he said, brushing a kiss to her cheek before slumping onto the couch. “Looks like you’ve been busy. Any luck?”

  “Sadly, no,” she admitted, looking over the papers and her notes. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

  “Neither could we. But we’ve been busy going over other things like the death of Tim Kyle. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “How did he die?”

  “It’s unclear yet, still waiting on the M.E.’s report, but it looks like an overdose.”

  “While in police custody?”

  Adam shrugged. “It could look that way, but that means a whole other mess of problems.”

  “Do you know anything more about the man himself?”

  “A little. We’re leaning toward the fact that he was actually a killer-for-hire.”

  “Really?” That would fall in line with Margot’s loose theories.

  “Yes. Tim had no association with Paul and he was in some pretty deep debt according to our analysts. It looks like he could have easily been a hitman, seeing his previous assault records and brushes with the law.”

  “So now the question is, who hired him.” It wasn’t so much a question as a statement.

  “Exactly. But we still haven’t found anything specific to what Paul’s full story was. I thought for sure when you brought those pages in, things would be brought to light, but no one can figure out what they are saying, let alone what he could have been investigating.”

  “I think it’s clear it was something going on in the precinct at the time.”

  Adam nodded. “But we have no evidence of anything. I looked into Julian’s superiors at the time and they are all
clean from what I can see. Not even a hint of something troubling, which leads me to the question of why he didn’t say anything about his suspicions at the time.”

  “I’ve thought of that too,” Margot said, hugging her knee to her chest where she sat on the floor. “But I do know that Julian was not one to point fingers. He would have waited until he had hard evidence before bringing anything up.”

  “I’d thought of that too. It looks like that might have cost him his life.” Adam’s features pinched. “Sorry, that was callous of me.”

  “No, I agree. I think it was part of his undoing. Not exactly a fault, but something he couldn’t have accounted for.”

  Margot’s phone buzzed and she looked down. “Oh my goodness!”

  “What?” Adam said, sitting up quickly.

  “Tonight is Bentley’s program,” she groaned, leaning back. “I have to go.”

  “Do you not want to?”

  “It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I definitely want to support him, and I checked in with Julia yesterday to make sure the deliveries were on schedule, but I’m just out of sorts.”

  “You want to solve the mystery, and I don’t blame you, but we should go.”

  “We?” She looked up at him hopefully. “You’ll come with me?”

  “Of course,” he said, standing to stretch. “I’ll go home, shower, and change, then come back to pick you up in half an hour. Sound okay?”

  “More than,” she said, coming toward him and slipping her arms around him.

  He wrapped her in a tight hug, kissing the top of her head.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this, but for now, it’ll be nice to have a night where we can think of something else.”

  She agreed and watched him leave, her heart full with how well her fiancé knew her juxtaposed to the reality that there was still so much they couldn’t understand about the case. Would they be able to find Julian’s killer? Or would his death always remain a mystery?

  Margot walked into the decorated senior center with a smile on her face. They had gone all-out and decorated in a classic vintage Hollywood style with accents of gold, black, and even a red carpet to welcome guests.

  “You look stunning,” Adam whispered to her as he admired her long, burgundy sheath dress.

  “You look rather handsome yourself,” she said with a smile.

  They were greeted by many of the seniors they knew and met a few others they didn’t as they were shown inside and given an explanation of the night’s activities. Game tables sat against the back wall, a silent auction to the left, dessert tables before them, and a live band crooning away from the stage.

  The fundraiser had been Bentley’s idea from the beginning. He wanted to finish off a few things that had been left undone when the new senior center was built. They’d run out of money, though the center still boasted a fresh, new feeling. This night was a way to have a little fun and raise the money as well.

  Margot and Adam made the rounds to the various sections of the room before they were roped into a chatty group gathered around a small, standing table. Bentley had brought them over to introduce them just as one of the more politically-minded seniors started talking about the local police department. Finding out Adam was a detective had only fanned the flames of conversation.

  While Margot wouldn’t leave Adam to be sucked into their conversation, she did find herself zoning out. Her mind automatically went to the case at hand and she considered the possibilities. If Julian hadn’t brought his concerns to his superiors, did that mean they’d been involved, or he’d caught on to whatever was happening at the early stages and hadn’t had time to collect sufficient evidence?

  An image of a young officer walking in on Kathleen and someone’s husband in the evidence room suddenly filled her mind. A young officer.

  She thought back to Julian’s notes. What if he had been talking about the officer when he’d referenced the child or kid in his journal? Just who was that officer? She’d all but dismissed him, thinking that, if he’d played any role, it had been as a hindrance to Julian’s investigation. She’d put more thought into the man Richard had talked about, Ben. It would have been easy—likely even—for him to be involved with something untoward due to his work in the poor sections of town, but what if that wasn’t the case at all?

  Suddenly, her mind zeroed in on the conversation Adam was in the middle of. It was one of those moments that rarely seemed to happen, when everything coalesces and clarity drops into the mind all of a sudden.

  “What did you say?” she said, interrupting the older man.

  “Uh…” He looked over at Adam as if he could provide an explanation for her rude interruption.

  “I said it’s a scandal, that’s what.” The man sent his glance back to Adam.

  “No, right before that.”

  “I was saying it’s a shame what the youth are involved in these days. And you can take me on record for that.” A few of the other partakers around the table nodded in agreement.

  “Adam,” she said, shaking her head. “We need to go.”

  “All right,” he said, looking surprised and yet a little relieved. “Sorry, fellows, but it looks like we’re going to have to make our exit. It’s been really great getting to chat with you all. Good evening.”

  They said good-bye and Adam turned to follow Margot. She rushed to Bentley and kissed him on the cheek—leaving behind a red smear—before making their excuses. He seemed to know that it was about a case and merely waved them on.

  Once they were outside, Adam took her hand and pulled her to a stop. He draped his jacket over her shoulders before asking what she’d uncovered.

  “I think I know what’s going on—why Paul was killed and why Julian was all those years ago, but it’s going to take some digging. Are you game?”

  “Always, my dear,” he said, pulling her toward him by the lapels of his jacket. “Just promise me you won’t go after him by yourself.” His smile glinted in the moonlight.

  “Are you kidding?” She offered a genuine smile for the first time in a week. “That’s why I brought you along.”

  12

  Margot and Adam rushed back to the North Bank police station and Adam had to pull Margot back to keep her from running down the hallway to where Dexter had set up a spot for himself. She had agreed immediately to let him off work for as long as Adam needed him as an independent contractor with the department to go over the video footage and the online aspects of the case.

  She knew what she would ask him to do, but Adam was right to calm her down as she rushed through the drab halls. It wouldn’t do to create a scene or Chief Hartland might not let her back there again.

  “Dexter,” she said, a little out of breath, “can you run some searches for us?”

  He blinked blearily, pulling his gaze up from the computer. “Margot?”

  “Hey,” Adam said, coming around her. “Apparently we have some things to ask of you.”

  “Sure, no problem. You look nice, by the way,” he said with a lopsided smile, before turning back to his screen. “Hit me with it.”

  “Can you pull up employment records from the year Julian died?”

  “You got it.” Dexter’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

  “Then look into arrest records.” His eyes flicked up to hers then back to the screen.

  “Got it,” he said a few seconds later. “Wow.”

  “What?” Adam said, coming to stand behind him.

  “This guy—he’s at the top by, like, a lot.”

  Adam leaned down but Margot had a feeling she knew what they were seeing. “It’s a younger officer, isn’t it? First name Eli?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Margot frowned. “Wait, what do you mean?”

  “His full name is Elliot Cary.”

  Margot blinked.

  “What?” Adam asked under his breath.

  “Elliot Cary, as in the same Elliot Cary running for sheriff’s office in Williamston?” Mar
got asked.

  “I don’t know, let me see.” Dexter tapped in a few commands, then began to nod slowly. “One and the same.”

  “What are you thinking, Margot?” Adam asked.

  What she thought first was that things had just become much more complicated than she’d expected, but that it also made sense.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here—” She met Adam’s gaze and he gave her a subtle nod. “—but I think that Elliot—aka Eli—was the person Julian was investigating before his death.”

  Dexter looked up from the screen.

  “I think that he was using his youth to his advantage. Something that older man said tonight reminded me of something in Julian’s coded journals. He kept talking about a child or a kid. I think that kid was Eli and I think that Eli either disguised himself or used someone else to sell drugs he took from evidence to youth in the town. Then, working both sides of the law, he picked up the kids with drugs. Do the arrest records confirm that?”

  Dexter looked back at the screen and clicked through. “Yes. Actually, it looks like it’s about eighty percent teens and young people that Eli arrested.”

  “It makes sense with what we heard from Richard and what I gained from seeing Kathleen.” She had told Adam about her meeting with the woman and he nodded, urging her on. “I think Eli was more cunning than anyone gave him credit for. He was repurposing drugs and benefiting from it. What does his service record say after that, Dexter?”