Let's Fake a Deal

by Sherry Harris

  “Right.”

  “We need to call Vincenzo and then he can take you back to your house,” I said.

  “Please. Not yet. You know me better than Vincenzo does. Let’s just talk this through one more time. There must be something to help us figure out who killed Blade. I promise after we talk I’ll call Vincenzo. If we come up with something, he can run with it.”

  I thought about my pledge yesterday to Pellner that I was giving up sleuthing. But this wasn’t sleuthing. It was listening to a friend who was desperate. It’s what I would want someone to do for me if the situation was reversed.

  “Okay.” I hoped Bristow and the others just thought Michelle was out for a run and not that she’d run from them. “Tell me any little detail you can think of about Major Blade.”

  Michelle frowned. “He was well read. Especially military history. He was a runner and played baseball on the squadron intramural team. And Blade loved his single-malt Scotch whisky. I think he collected it. He certainly liked to show off his knowledge about it. Frankly, he liked to show off about everything.”

  “None of that seems to lend itself to murder,” I said.

  “We know he’s a womanizer,” Michelle said. “And that he likes married women.”

  I nodded. I’d been wondering if we’d been going down the wrong track with all of that. We knew he’d hit on Carol, but maybe the bartender had his own agenda and lied to us. Erin had called him a flirt but believed it to be harmless.

  “What other jobs has he had in the Air Force?” I asked.

  “He’s mostly been a program manager. It’s how he ended up here.”

  “Did he do a good job in his other assignments?” Michelle was above him in the chain of command, so she should know.

  “I’d been working on his OPR, so reviewing his records.”

  His officer performance report.

  “His past reviews were all glowing. He got commendations at every base. And if I’m being honest, other than the whole harassing issue, he worked hard here, too.”

  “Where else was he assigned?”

  Michelle started listing his previous bases. I sat up a little straighter with each one.

  “What?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”

  I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking because I didn’t want to get her hopes up. Every base she’d mentioned was one the Greens—I had to quit thinking of them as the Greens and start thinking of them as the Evanses—had been at, too. I wanted to leap up and pace around. What if the Greens/Evanses were linked somehow with Major Blade?

  The Air Force world could be small. People overlapped all the time at various bases. It’s how I knew Carol and Michelle, from previous assignments. But we hadn’t gone from base to base to base together. And maybe I was all wrong. Maybe the Evanses had been at the same bases as Major Blade but at different times.

  “Sarah, what is going on with you?”

  I shrugged, hiding my excitement. “Not sure. I was just wondering if there were any incidents at past bases with married women. But from the sound of his OPRs he must have been okay.”

  “Or they just passed him along anyway. Sometimes the good old boys protect each other. What’s a little ‘harmless’ flirting among friends, right?” Michelle sounded bitter. Way more bitter than I’d ever heard her sound.

  “Any chance you know or have ever worked with Ashley Evans?” I asked.

  Michelle nodded. “She works for me.”

  “Here? At Fitch?” I asked.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “How did you get along?”

  “I was her boss and I gave her a bad EPR, enlisted performance review, six months ago.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you. It was a personnel issue.”

  I formed a theory. One that might involve someone angry enough over a bad EPR to seek out some revenge. Placing a dead body in someone’s car was one heck of a way to get back. I realized with a jolt that Kate/Ashley was only a couple of inches shorter than Michelle and had a similar build. Maybe she’d been the one running in the security footage. But why would Kate/Ashley kill Major Blade or have him killed?

  I thought over everything I knew about both of them. Kate/Ashley was married, and Major Blade liked married women from everything I’d heard. Had they somehow been involved romantically? Had Major Blade known about the stolen goods?

  “Why are you asking about her?” Michelle asked.

  “I found out yesterday she, along with her husband, were the ones who set me up.” I shook my head as the image of the car exploding flashed through it again.

  “What? I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this.” Michelle thought for a moment. “Ashley called in sick yesterday, and I worked from home today. I guess they are cutting me out of the loop. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t want to focus on me. “And you’re going to be okay, too,” I said. I was more confident of that than I had been since the day we found Major Blade. “Did Blade have a motorcycle?”

  “Yeah. He loved that thing.”

  I could almost feel my synapses pinging. “What kind was it?” I asked.

  “A Honda, I think.”

  A Honda would fit with what Ralph had told me. I had a lot of theories and a few possible connections. But I needed hard evidence. Fast.

  “I need to get you to Vincenzo.” And then I had a couple of stops to make. So much for not sleuthing, but I had to make an exception just this once.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Forty-five minutes later I was in Gillganins bar. It was early enough that the bar was fairly empty. Fortunately, the bartender I’d talked to the other night was there. I caught his eye.

  “What can I get you?” he asked. “Cape Cod?”

  “Not now. I have a favor. Would you please look at a photo and tell me if you ever saw the two people in it with Major Blade?”

  “Sure, why not?” he said. “I want to help get this mess cleared up. I freak out every time I have to close and walk to my car by myself.”

  I opened my phone to the picture of the Greens/ Evanses. A newer one that I’d seen online after the crash yesterday. The bartender took the phone out of my hand and studied the photo. He kind of nodded to himself before giving me my phone back.

  “Oh, yeah. I remember them. I’m not sure what night it was but within the last week or so before Blade was murdered.”

  “Why do you remember them?” I asked.

  “Because they were having one hell of a heated discussion over at that table in the corner.”

  “What about?”

  “I couldn’t hear what it was about. But Blade shoved the table so hard it almost fell over on them. Drinks went flying. Then he took off all red-faced. I had to clean up the mess. The couple kept apologizing for their friend’s behavior.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I put a big tip on the bar.

  “Not necessary,” the bartender said.

  “Oh, but it is.”

  * * *

  I called Special Agent Bristow from my car, but he didn’t answer. Then I sent him a text telling him I needed to talk to him ASAP. Nothing. That didn’t bode well for Michelle. I stopped by a florist’s shop and bought a huge bouquet of flowers. A mixture of tiger lilies, daisies, and carnations with some baby’s breath scattered throughout. Then I drove to the hospital in Billerica. The one where Luke had said Ashley Evans was a patient. Finding her room might be difficult, but as I recalled the hospital wasn’t that big.

  I roamed up and down corridors peeking into rooms. The flowers made it look like I was there to visit someone. Finding her room wasn’t that hard but getting into it was going to be. A police officer was posted outside the door. And not just any police officer, but Officer Jones. He spotted me before I had a chance to reverse course. I thought about turning and running, but he’d probably just arrest me for something else. So I approached cautiously.

  “What are you doing here?” we asked each other al
most simultaneously.

  “Ladies first.”

  “I was looking for Kate, uh Ashley,” I said.

  “Funny, I’m here guarding her instead of being out on patrol. Apparently, one shouldn’t arrest the district attorney’s girlfriend even if she is in possession of stolen goods.”

  I winced, realizing he’d been sent here as some kind of punishment. “I’m sorry if that got you into trouble. It wasn’t my doing.”

  He shrugged. “Actually, this is an extra duty. I need the overtime.” He got a pained expression. “And I realize I should have listened to you. But in the moment, you looked and acted guilty. Not to mention you were actually in—”

  “Possession of stolen goods.” I finished for him. “I’m making some changes to my business practices after this.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “Can I see Ashley?”

  “No. No visitors.”

  I wanted to stamp my foot, but I refrained.

  “I can give her the flowers,” he said.

  “Why don’t you just keep them?” I suggested. “A peace offering.”

  He smiled. “It’ll make my wife happy.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Are you sure I can’t—”

  “You could bring chocolates, champagne, flowers, and money for a bribe. You still aren’t getting in. Why do you want to after what she did?”

  “I haven’t been able to reason out why they would set me up.” I looked down at the floor for a moment. “I’d never met them before they hired me.”

  “It’s because you were an easy target,” Ashley called from the room.

  Officer Jones and I both turned and looked in. I stepped into the room.

  Ashley sipped from a white Styrofoam cup with a bendy straw in it. Her face was pasty. Her hospital gown looked three sizes too big. There was a bandage over her left brow and on her right arm. IV tubing went from a bag on a pole to her left arm.

  “And your husband was a jerk to my friend Tiffany Lopez,” she said.

  I took a step back and put a hand against the doorjamb so I wouldn’t fall over as thoughts swirled through my head. Talk about a blow to the gut. Tiffany had caused the original rift between CJ and me.

  “Are you okay?” Officer Jones asked me.

  I nodded. I looked at Ashley again. She watched me with a glint of glee in her eyes. That woman was sick and not just from the explosion yesterday. My only light here was knowing if I was right that she’d be in prison for a very long time.

  “What about Blade? Why kill him?” I asked. I assumed she wouldn’t answer.

  Ashley used a remote and raised the head of her bed. She set down her drink and smoothed the blankets. “I didn’t need him anymore. He kept wanting more of the take from our little scheme.”

  So Major Blade was involved with the Greens/Evanses. “You call serial burglaries and setting innocent people up a little scheme?” For a minute I thought about looping that IV tubing around her neck and pulling it tight.

  Ashley lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “But Jeb is the one who strangled him. Not me.”

  Officer Jones and I stared at each other.

  “We can testify that you said that,” I said. I tried not to sound too delighted.

  Ashley lifted the arm with the IV in it. “No, you can’t. I’m under the influence of painkillers.”

  A nurse breezed in. He wore light blue scrubs. The top had yellow smiley faces all over it. “There’s no drugs in that, honey,” he said. “It’s just liquids because you’re dehydrated.”

  Ashley’s face flushed to a shade of red only seen in roses. “Any good attorney will have my statement thrown out,” Ashley said.

  “Not when Miss Winston and I both testify to it,” Officer Jones said.

  “I heard her, too,” the nurse said. “I’ll give you my contact information.”

  Ashley doubled over and shrieked. She clutched her head. “Nurse. My head.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Help.” She slumped back against the bed.

  The nurse looked over at Officer Jones and me. “Get out.” Then she pushed a button on the wall.

  I backed out of the room and Officer Jones followed me.

  “I can’t believe she said those things,” I said to Jones.

  “Neither can I.”

  A doctor and another nurse pounded down the hall toward us and ran into Ashley’s room.

  “Figures,” Officer Jones said. “Just when you think you have solid information.”

  “She’s faking it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I glanced at her heart monitor before we left. Her heartbeat and blood pressure were normal. I don’t think they would have been if something was terribly wrong.”

  “So she’s trying to make a case that an attorney could use in court?”

  “That’s what I think. I need to get going. I hope I never see you again.” I said it with a smile.

  “Back at you,” he said.

  My phone bing ed. A text from Special Agent Bristow responding to my earlier call and text. But all it said was he was at the Ellington police station and too busy to talk right now. After what I’d just heard, we’d see about that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Forty-five minutes later, I had cajoled, pleaded, and threatened my way into seeing Bristow. I sat across from him in an interview room at the Ellington Police Department. I was fairly certain Michelle was sitting in another room down the hall as I’d seen Vincenzo’s car in the parking lot.

  Bristow didn’t look happy. He probably didn’t take well to threats, which had come in the form of me telling him if he didn’t see me I’d go to my brother and Bristow could read what I had to tell him in the newspaper. Two chairs, one table, a big two-way mirror, and two glasses of water were all there was in the room. A security camera was up in one corner. As far as I could tell it was off, but I didn’t care if it wasn’t.

  “I thought you’d given up sleuthing,” Bristow said. He had a fresh haircut, but it didn’t offset the worn-out look around his eyes.

  Apparently, he’d been talking to Pellner about me. “You’re interviewing the wrong person down the hall,” I said. “I had to make sure you got it right.”

  Bristow just looked at me with the stoic look he was so good at.

  “Ashley confessed,” I said.

  “What?” That took the stoic look right off of his face.

  I explained what happened. Words tumbled out so fast that Bristow was having trouble following. I took a breath and went through it again.

  “I’m not sure that will hold up,” Bristow said.

  “I have a theory to go with her confession,” I said.

  Bristow leaned forward and put his forearms on the scarred table between us. “Theories don’t convict people. Evidence does.”

  Yeesh. I’d heard that from CJ more than once. “And some information from Ashley Evans. I think you’ll find that my theory will fit the evidence.” I sounded kind of snotty. I needed to take it down a notch, because without his help I had no way to prove what I was going to tell him. I paused. “You will have to fill in some of the blanks with information I don’t have access to.”

  “I’m all ears.” Bristow said it, but not like he meant it.

  I blew out a puff of air. “First, I’ll tell you what I think happened and then give you my best guesses as to why.”

  Bristow raised his eyebrows when I said guesses. I should have thought of a better way of phrasing it.

  “Major Blade and the Evanses have been stationed together repeatedly.”

  “Not a crime,” Bristow said, but he looked more interested.

  “Major Blade had a thing for married women. Ashley Evans was young and married the first time I think they were stationed together. Maybe the fact she was forbidden fruit since she was enlisted and he an officer might have made her even more tempting.”

  I took a drink of water. My throat felt suddenly constricted saying all of this out loud. “So
early in his career they had an affair. What Blade didn’t realize is how twisted Ashley is. That she’d use the affair to blackmail him and get him involved in their robbery ring.”

  “Why would he put up with that?”

  “She could end any chance of his ever doing well in the Air Force. Even a rumor of that could have ended his career. Look what’s happening to Michelle because of the IG complaint.” I leaned forward. “And from what I’ve heard Major Blade was ambitious.”

  Bristow nodded.

  “However, I think he’d had enough of dealing with the Evanses. The bartender at Gillganins saw them arguing. Blade stormed out.”

  “That doesn’t mean they killed him.”

  “When we first found Blade’s body, I noticed there weren’t any defensive wounds on his hands. He must have been strangled from the back. One person is in the front seat like they are going to drive him home. One is in the back and uses something to strangle him. Michelle couldn’t have done that on her own.”

  “We always thought two people were involved. Michelle and someone else.” He looked at me and I knew he was thinking about Luke. “Why involve Colonel Diaz?” Bristow asked. “Why use her car?”

  He didn’t refute my theory of how Blade was killed. I must be on the right track. “Ashley worked for Michelle, and Michelle gave her a bad performance report.”

  “That hardly seems like a reason to try to set someone up for a murder,” Bristow said.

  “Not to you or me or anyone reasonable. But she’s twisted.” I filled him in on what she’d said at the hospital about CJ, Tiffany Lopez, and me. Bristow had been on that case, so it didn’t take too much explaining. I also mentioned Blade being an inconvenience. “I don’t think she spent a long time planning setting me up, but she saw an opportunity and took it.”

  “She has her own sick system of justice.” Bristow sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

  I just waited, letting what I’d told him sink in before I continued. “Ashley must have been at Gillganins the night Michelle and I drank there. She would have seen what went on between Michelle and Blade. After we left, they argued with Blade, killed him, and set up Michelle.”