“Just once I would’ve liked to go somewhere and not see you guys,” Aiden said. “By the time high school rolled around, it was like every summer and winter break we’d be together.”
“You loved it,” Stephanie said. “Remember that time in the Bahamas, and that beach party?”
Aiden grinned. “Yeah, that was fun.”
“And so was that vacation in Connecticut in ’08, and the week in D.C.,” Bennett said.
“Yeah, but remember the time I wanted to go to Europe and we couldn’t because my dad said we had to vacation with your families in Ohio? I mean, really, Ohio? Who gives a shit about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”
Cal cleared his throat.
“Okay, enough of the stroll down memory lane,” I said.
“Was Rebecca from Seattle?” Cal asked.
“That sounds right,” Bennett said.
“Good, I’ve got the right family then.” Cal turned to face us. “Rebecca’s dad died of a heart attack her junior year of college, so he obviously can’t be a suspect. Her mother, Elaine, still lives in Seattle, and Rebecca had a sister who was three years older. Her mother works at Microsoft and the sister, Sarah, worked at a hospital in a Seattle suburb.”
“Can you find their work numbers?” I asked.
“Right here.” Cal pointed at the monitor.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed one of them. “This is Fenton Hardy with HR,” I said to the receptionist, using the fictional detective from The Hardy Boys series. “May I speak with Elaine Thorndike’s supervisor?” I was bounced up the chain of command until I finally reached the supervisor. I explained that I was investigating some discrepancies with employee vacation days, and I needed to verify that Elaine Thorndike had not taken any time off recently. The supervisor complied and even stated that she was at work that day. Like I said, act like you have the right to be doing what you’re doing…
I pulled the same stunt with Rebecca’s sister’s workplace, and got the same results. The three on the couch stared at me.
“That really works?” Stephanie asked.
“Yes, but it’s a dead end,” I said when I’d finished. “Neither Rebecca’s mom nor her sister was in Denver the last few days, specifically when Brittany was killed or when Avery was killed. So if they are involved, it would be hiring someone to do their dirty work, someone we still need to find.” I turned back to Cal. “Did you look into who rented the car that followed Stephanie and me on Sunday?”
He shook his head. “You figured the name was faked, so I it didn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, but it matters now,” I said. “Can you find out anything about whoever rented the car? What state was the driver’s license from? Was it a stolen identity? How does one go about getting a fake identity? And is there a way to search hotels and see if that same identity was used to check in somewhere?”
Cal nodded. “I gotcha. Let me see what I can find out.”
“Is all that legal?” Stephanie asked.
“Reed,” Cal pleaded. Stress lines crossed his face.
I stood up. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
“Yes!” Aiden said, out the door in a flash.
We left Cal alone and went into the kitchen. The three chatted while I stared out the window, pondering all this new information. We were getting close; I could feel it.
A while later, Cal came in, holding a sheet of paper.
“Alex Jones is the person who rented the car that you chased. He checked into a Holiday Inn on 6th and Union Saturday afternoon, but he checked out Tuesday.”
I thought about that. “Those places have video, right? So when he checked in, they might’ve got a picture of his face.”
He nodded. “But what good will that do?”
I gestured at the three at the table. “Maybe those yahoos will recognize him.”
“Maybe. But how’re you going to access the video feeds? I don’t think even I can get that.”
“I’ve got another connection that might help.”
Cal shot me a bemused look as I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.
I winked at him as the call was answered. “Detective Spillman,” I said. “It’s Reed Ferguson. I need a favor.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I need to speak with your manager,” Sarah Spillman asked the woman at the Holiday Inn front desk, then flashed a badge at her.
“Uh, sure, ma’am,” the woman said. She was young, college-aged, and was flustered by the badge. She ducked into a door just around the corner from the front desk and a second later returned with a chubby man with thick gray hair.
When I’d called Detective Spillman, she’d pressed me hard about what I knew about Avery and Brittany’s deaths. I’d told her I probably knew less than she did, but that I wanted help tracking down a woman. She’d pushed even harder for why, but I didn’t tell her much, just that this was a person of interest in a case I was working. She didn’t like me throwing ‘person of interest’ at her, but she relented when I said that I’d get the information somehow, using her was just easier. After threats about arresting me if I broke the law, she agreed to meet me at the Holiday Inn at three, the earliest she could make it, then threw in a parting shot about how I amused her.
“I’m Todd Larson, the hotel manager,” the chubby man said, extending a hand to Spillman.
She shook it perfunctorily. “I’m interested in a guest that was registered here this last weekend.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, I’m just interested in verifying a particular guest,” Spillman said as she pulled him aside so that a new guest didn’t overhear.
“Of course.” Larson tried to gauge her without looking like he was. But Spillman was too slick.
“I don’t need a warrant to see the registry,” she said.
“Yes, of course,” he repeated. We walked over to the front desk and he paused at a computer. He glanced at me.
“This is Detective Reed Ferguson,” Spillman introduced me. He never thought to ask for my badge, assuming I was part of the department, which was fine by me.
“What’s the name?” Larson asked.
“Alex Jones,” I said.
He typed the name in, then pointed at the monitor. “He checked in on Saturday at 4 o’clock, and checked out Tuesday morning.”
Spillman glanced at me and I nodded. This concurred with Cal’s research.
“Do you have video cameras?” Spillman asked.
“Sure,” Larson said. “The video files are archived every two weeks, but I don’t think that’s been done to this last weekend yet. Let’s go check.”
He seemed too caught up at this point to ask about a warrant. We went with him into the manager’s office. It was small, with a serviceable desk and swivel chair, a computer, bracket shelves on one wall filled with notebooks, two cushy fabric-covered chairs on the other side of the desk, and framed picture on the other walls, the kind you buy at Hobby Lobby or Target.
He waved for us to sit in the cushy chairs. “Let’s see here,” he said as he sat down at the desk. He pushed the computer monitor around so we could see it. “We’ve got everything digital now. It’s so much easier than the old days with VHS tapes. Okay, what time did I say this guest checked in?”
“Four o’clock on Saturday,” I said.
“Right, right.” He typed for a second and an image of the front desk displayed on the screen. “I’ll forward through the footage slowly.”
We watched as the front desk person – a man – moved around, and then a woman approached. She was tall with an athletic build, wore faded jeans, a dark coat and sunglasses.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That’s Alex?”
Larson nodded. “I assumed it was a man.”
“I did, too,” I muttered. I thought about the person I chased through the park. I’d assumed then that it was a man, but I suppose it could’ve been a woman.
We kept watching the monitor. Alex messed with her shoulder-len
gth brown hair a lot, which served to block her face
“It’s like she knows the camera is there,” Larson said.
“Smart, and yet not so much,” Spillman said. “Stop the feed.”
Larson hit a key and the screen froze.
“No, not there. Go back,” Spillman ordered.
Larson backed up frame by frame. Alex, if this was indeed her, went from blocking the camera as she fussed with her hair, to a second when her hand wasn’t in front of her face, and she was turned just right. We had a fairly clear image of her face.
“That’s it,” I said.
Spillman turned to Larson. “Can you print that out for us? Make two copies.”
“I think so.” He busied himself for a minute or two, talking to himself about capturing the screen and saving the image. A moment later a printer behind him kicked into gear and spit out two pieces of paper.
“Here you go.” He handed them to us.
Spillman took them as we stood up. “Thank you for your time,” she said.
He escorted us back to the lobby. “Glad to help. Is this woman in trouble? Should I be on the lookout for her?”
She handed him her business card. “If you see her again, call me right away.”
“Of course,” he said, watching as we left.
“You owe me,” Spillman said as I walked with her to her car, a classic blue ’65 Mustang.
“I’ll –” I began but she cut me off.
“How about telling me what’s going on?”
I shook my head. “When I know myself, you’ll be the first person I call.”
“It’s your ass,” she said. Without another word, she got in the Mustang and drove off.
As I drove away from the Holiday Inn, I called Ace.
“Hi Reed, what’s up?” he asked in his characteristic drawl.
“Just checking in,” I said. “I’ve made progress. Have you noticed anything unusual since yesterday?”
“I’ve been watching like you said, and I saw a Toyota parked down the street last night, and Willie said she saw it there this morning.”
“Is the car there now?”
“Hold on.” A pause, then a loud noise rushed through the phone, and I heard a car driving by.
“You’re going outside?” I asked.
“Yeah, to look for the car.”
“Don’t make it obvious!” I said. “Act like you’re checking the mail or something.”
“You know our mailbox is right by the door,” he said. “Besides, it doesn’t matter because I don’t see the car.”
“Good.” I shook my head. If Alex Jones was out there, no sense in telegraphing that we knew she was watching us. “The other times you saw the car, was it the same person inside?”
“Someone with a hoodie.”
“A woman’s been stalking us, so that must’ve been our girl. Way to be attentive,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Let me know if you see the car again,” I said. “And call the police if she looks like she’s going to threaten you in any way. And watch out for Willie.” He agreed and we hung up.
I was flush with excitement as I headed back up 285 to Cal’s house. Piles of dirty snow edged the road, and dark clouds had returned, ominously signaling more bad weather. But I didn’t care because I felt like we were closing in on Alex. She was getting more desperate, and thus more careless, letting herself get spotted more than once. But that meant she was more dangerous as well.
“What’d you find out?” Cal asked as I let myself in his house.
I held up the picture. “This is Alex Jones.”
He took the picture and studied it, stunned. “It’s a woman.”
“Yeah, how’d you miss that?”
“The driver’s license ID looks like a guy,” he protested.
The expert in minutiae missed that the driver’s license listed gender. That was a first. “I should’ve checked the license myself,” I said.
“I don’t recognize her, do you?”
I snatched the paper from him. “I didn’t expect you to. This is for the society simpletons. Where are they?”
“In the kitchen. Reed, I do not like being a babysitter.”
“You survived,” I said.
We went into the kitchen, where the three remaining members of the inauspicious secret Smith organization were huddled around the table, looking decidedly bored. Before I left, I’d taken all their cell phones and given them to Cal for safekeeping. This way, they couldn’t blow our cover by texting someone their current location. They weren’t happy, and neither was Cal, who’d implored me not to leave him alone with them.
I sat down and put the picture on the table. “Do you recognize her?”
“Who’s that?”
“Alex Jones. She’s the one who’s after you,” I said.
They stared at me, as shocked as Cal had been.
“Why’s she after us?” Aiden asked.
I looked at each one in turn. “You don’t know?” Shrugs.
Stephanie took the picture first and studied it. She scrunched up her face. “I don’t know.” She handed it to Aiden.
He stared at it, then passed it to Bennett.
“Anything?” I asked hopefully.
They all shrugged.
I cursed.
“Hey, it was a long time ago,” Bennett said.
I thought for a moment. “Okay, let’s go back to Rebecca. Maybe something will jog your memory.”
“What do you want to know?” Aiden asked.
“You said Rebecca was pretty radical,” I began. “And she lived in your house.” I pointed to Stephanie. “What kinds of activities were you all involved in?”
“There’s stuff like Friday tea, and dances,” Stephanie said. “But Rebecca didn’t care too much about those. I mean, she went, but she was more politically active.”
“Like what?”
“She was involved in that one group,” Aiden said. “The ones that supported gays and lesbians.”
“Yeah,” Stephanie said.
“Was Rebecca a lesbian?” I asked. “Scott Robinson was her boyfriend, right?”
Stephanie threw me a look of impatience. “Hello. People can be bi. Besides, Smith’s really into that and…” her voice trailed away.
I stared at her. “What?”
“Give me that picture.” She swiped it off the table and studied it again. “Was this girl in that group?” she asked as she slid the paper to Aiden and Bennett.
“Yeah,” Bennett said slowly. “Her name was Emily, no…Em. Something with an ‘m’?”
“Melissa,” Aiden said.
Stephanie slapped the table. “Megan!”
They all fixed me with a triumphant gaze.
“Megan? Megan what?”
Blank looks. Almost like the Goofball Brothers … plus one.
They muttered among themselves, then shrugged.
“She was in one of those lesbian activist groups with Rebecca,” Stephanie said.
“Okay,” I said. “Progress. The clandestine information specialist and I will find her last name.”
Cal’s lips twitched into a small smile.
“Clandestine what?” Stephanie asked.
I pointed to Cal. “We’ll figure out Megan’s last name. We have her first name, and we know she was involved in some gay-lesbian organization. Let’s start by checking to see what organizations Smith has listed, and then see if we can find rosters, pictures or anything else that might list Megan as a member. And that should give us a last name.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Cal said. I couldn’t believe I had to walk him through how to find Megan’s last name. He was really starting to come undone.
He must’ve sensed what I was thinking because he whirled around and stomped out of the kitchen.
“You’re slipping,” I murmured to his back as we went down the hall to his office.
“Yeah, so sue me,” he said. “Babysitting is hard and I’m tired.”
I laughed as we all settled into his office.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Got it,” Cal said a few minutes later. “It’s either Megan O’Reilly or Greene.”
“Greene!” the three kids said at once.
Cal grinned.
“Not bad,” Stephanie said.
“It was easy.” He carefully ignored me rolling my eyes – sure, it was easy once I told you what to do. “I checked what groups Rebecca Thorndike belonged to, and then I was able to find the members of each group. Those are the two Megans who are also members.”
“That’s great work,” I said.
Cal tapped the monitor. “And I’ve got a search running right now, checking hotel registrations.”
“Man, I’m going to introduce my father to you,” Aiden said. “He could use all this insider information.”
“Reed,” Cal said. The pleading tone was back.
I gestured at the three. “Hey, why don’t you go watch TV?”
“Fine,” Stephanie said. All three managed to huff out of the room.
“They’ll probably turn me in,” Cal muttered as he turned back to the monitor.
“No, underneath all the posturing, they’re scared.” I sank onto the couch. “If Megan is using another alias, do you think you can find it?”
“I don’t need to. There’s a Megan Greene registered at a Regency Inn off Hampden and Wadsworth.”
I pumped a fist. “Yes!” Then I paused. “Why’d she stay under her real name?”
“She must not have had time to get another alias,” Cal said. “Hotels usually ask for a credit card to keep on file, and some kind of ID.”
“Why not stay at a dump? Unless she didn’t have cash.” I shook my head. “If I had to guess, she’s desperate and not thinking clearly – and more dangerous.”
“Now what?” he asked.
“It’s time to turn the tables on her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Here’s the plan,” I said. “We’ll go to her hotel room. If she’s gone, which is likely the case because she’s out looking for us, we’ll get into her room and see if we can find anything incriminating.”
Reed Ferguson Mystery series Box Set 2 Page 27
