Deception with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Two) (4 page)

“Nowhere that you will ever be able to find me,” he said kindly.

Her eyes shot open as the hum of a lawn mower just outside her bedroom window flooded in. She pulled her pillow over her head before giving up and reaching for her phone, just after seven. “Who the hell mows the grass at seven in the morning?” she yelled, despite knowing that no one would be able to hear her. She threw the pillow at her footboard and slid off of the edge of the bed.

After quickly showering and getting dressed, she grabbed a muffin and filled her travel mug with coffee before headed for the door. She had only made it a few steps down the walkway when the humming stopped and a voice called out from just behind the shrubs lining her yard.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone would be moving in until the end of next week,” the man said. His dark hair, just a little shorter than Ben’s, was held out of his face by a backwards baseball cap. His tight black shirt showed every muscle he had, stopping just below the waistline of his oil stained cargo shorts. “I wanted to get it mowed before you moved in, and this was the only time I had free all week. I’m so sorry if I woke you up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said warmly. “I had to be up for work anyway.”

“Dad,” yelled a small voice from behind him. “We have to go. I’m going to be late!”

Rilynne peaked around him to see a young boy, no older than eight, standing on the front porch with a schoolbag in hand.

“Sorry, that’s my son. I’m afraid he gets his lack of patience from my late wife,” he said as he turned toward the boy. “Harper, can’t you see that I’m talking to our new neighbor? Where are your manners?” Harper mumbled something that sounded like an apology as he sat down on the step.

“I’m Joe Ackerman, by the way,” he said, holding out a hand. “And that’s my son, Harper. If you wind up with any balls or toys in your yard, they’re probably his.”

“I’m Rilynne Evans,” she said, taking his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Well, don’t let me keep you,” she said with a smile as she started again toward her car.

*

“Evans,” Wilcome called out as she placed her purse on the corner of her desk. “Were you able to get anywhere with the reports?”

“We’re about half way through them, but so far nothing stands out,” she said, dropping down in her chair. “We should be finished going through the rest of them by lunch time.”

“Good, let me know,” he said, walking back to his desk in the corner.

She was on her third report when Detective Matthews walked in and took his seat. “I was beginning to worry,” she said, taking in his disheveled appearance. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded, rubbing his hands over his tired looking face. “I was up until almost three with Katy. She always takes it hard when an officer is injured or killed, but she knew Shane very well. We end up having the same conversation every time there’s an incident about me taking a desk job and staying away from the ‘danger of the streets.’”

“I don’t imagine that was fun.”

“No,” he replied. “It really wasn’t. Usually we only get into it once every year or two, but this was twice in two months.”

“When was the last one?” She gave him a puzzled look.

“You and Ben Davis,” he said firmly.

“Ah,” she nodded. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you did it on purpose.” He pulled the reports out of his drawer and started flipping through them. Rilynne was glad he had looked away so he didn’t notice the guilt on her face. “Have you found anything?”

“Nothing about who might have had a problem with him,” she said, thumbing through the reports. “The ones I have managed to go through this morning were about the same as the others. He did note that he believed the operation was run on a tier system.” Matthews leaned back in his chair and listened. “At the top he believed there were two men who ran everything. They chose the homes and arranged the robberies. The next level was the actual home invaders. He thought there were two separate groups, but he wasn’t positive. The last group was in charge of fencing the objects and handling the money. They were the only ones he had any direct contact with. That was up until three months ago, at least.”

“Okay,” he said, grabbing the files and pushing up out of his chair. “Let’s lay this out.” Rilynne followed him as he carried everything to the conference room. “Tylers,” he called out. “Can you grab me a white board?”

When Tylers wheeled one in a few moments later, Matthews grabbed a marker and started drawing on it. “We know from the victims that there were always three men performing the breakins. So, if his information was correct, that puts six men here-” he drew six empty rectangles down the middle of the board. “-and two on top.” He added the two rectangles above them. “Now, we know these two men handled selling the items and depositing the funds into their account.” He taped the pictures of the two men at the bottom of the board.

“We just need to find out who the rest of the men in the operation are.” Rilynne stepped back and looked at the board. “So Villarreal was the fourth tier,” she thought aloud. “The men on the second level would hand off the stolen property to this man-” she pointed to the picture on the bottom right, “-and he delivered everything to Villarreal. He ‘sold it’-” she threw up air quotes, “-and gave the money to the other one, and he deposited it into the account. So this guy replaced the one that we arrested?”

“Yeah. There were originally three men, two handling the property and one making the deposits, but when we grabbed one, they just shuffled around a little.”

“Well, with that many people involved, how were we able to re-seize the funds before they were distributed?”

“That I don’t know,” he said, leaning against the table. “From these reports, nearly all of the money was still in the account. I do know that not all of the stolen property was delivered to Villarreal. My guess is that the second level guys are keeping some for themselves to hold them over until they split the profits. From what Villarreal noted, it doesn’t appear that they were informed after the account was cleaned out. At least, the level three men weren’t. I imagine that would have caused some trouble in the ranks.”

“Okay.” She pulled out a chair and dropped down in it. “Let’s get through the rest of these reports and see if he had found anything that could help us. I have a feeling we’re going to have to wait until we find his journal before we get any real leads, though.”

Three hours had passed by the time they laid down the last reports. “Well, it says here that he was pushing to move up to the second level. He was requesting to meet with the ring leaders for a shot.”

“Does is say if he was able to set up a meeting?” Matthews asked.

She shook her head. “That was in the last report he had submitted.”

“Let’s grab lunch and head over to see his wife. She may be able to fill us in a little bit more. After that we should probably swing by his undercover apartment and see if we can find anything of use,” he said as he walked through the office toward the elevator. Rilynne quickly grabbed her purse and followed.

It seemed like all eyes were on them as they walked through the front lobby. Rilynne was sure at this point that everyone within the station had heard about Villarreal’s murder and that they were the detectives working the case. Although she knew that all of the smiles and head nods were signs of support, having everyone watching them made her uneasy. She was glad a few moments later when they stepped out of the front doors onto the vacant sidewalk.

“How long have they been married?” Rilynne asked as she slid into the passenger seat of his car.

“They were married just after Shane graduated from the academy. I actually met Jane even before I worked with him the first time,” he said. “She would come in every few weeks or so with some kind of baked goods for the station. She makes the best cranberry orange muffins.”

Rilynne spent the remainder of their drive with her eyes on the buildings moving past them. Despite having been in Addison Valley for four months, she was still impressed by its small town charm. She often found herself getting lost at the sight of the rustic buildings and friendly citizens. Had she not seen it all first hand, she would have though such places were not real, just inventions of storytellers. She had never actually seen a place before where people would wave kindly at passing cars, or stop while walking down the sidewalk just to talk to people.

She was almost completely lost in thought by the time the car stopped.

The Villarreal’s house was a cozy little cottage tucked between two large live oak trees. It was obvious that a lot of work had gone into maintaining not only the exterior of the home itself, but also the yard surrounding it. Passing through the gate, they stepped onto a cobblestone path that weaved between a beautiful coy pond and the strategically placed flowerbeds.

The house itself was surrounded by a large deck that appeared to be wrapped all the way around. In addition to a pair of rocking chairs and a small table, it was decorated by numerous lawn ornaments and potted plants.

Matthews had just pulled his hand down after pressing the bell when the bright red front door swung open, revealing a slender woman dressed in a simple black dress. Her golden hair was pulled up in a tight bun, leaving her tear-covered face exposed.

“It’s good to see you, Jane.” Matthews reached out and embraced her.

“Please,” she said after they drew apart. “Come in, Todd.” She nodded kindly to Rilynne as she closed the door behind them and motioned to an inviting sitting room just off of the entryway.

Matthews lowered himself down on the camelback sofa, followed by Rilynne. “I’m so sorry about Shane. Is there anything that Katy and I can do for you?”

“Thank you, Todd,” she replied, wiping a single tear from her cheek. “Do you have any news about what happened?”

“We’re looking into it and are going to do everything we can to find the person responsible for this. This is my partner, Rilynne Evans,” he said gently. “We needed to ask you a few questions if you’re up to it.” Her nod was barely visible. “Good. Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to do this to Shane.”

“No,” she said softly. “Everyone loved Shane. He was always thinking of others before himself. He had even gotten involved in a mentoring program for troubled boys before he took his undercover assignment.”

Matthews jotted down a few notes. “Did Shane tell you anything about the case that he was working?”

“Only that he was getting close. He said it wouldn’t be more than a couple weeks and we would be together again.” Tears were now rolling freely down her cheeks.

“How often did you see each other?” Rilynne jumped in.

“At the beginning of his assignment we would see each other a couple times a week when we could arrange it. Lately it had been closer to once every week or two.”

“And where would you meet?” asked Rilynne.

“Sometimes he would come to the house, but we mainly met at motels,” she explained. “He thought it would be safer that way.”

Jane seemed almost numb, as if she were not actually part of the conversation. While she was obviously upset, it seemed as if it were not real to her. Rilynne knew the feeling all too well.

“We’ll need to see all of the records that Shane kept here,” Matthews said, rising from his seat. “Can you tell us where they would be?”

“Um, yeah,” she said as she walked toward the door. “They’re probably all in the attic. It’s this way.” She led them up the stairs to a door at the far end of the hall. “He kept everything up there,” she said as she pulled the door open, revealing a dark flight of stairs. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait down here.”

The attic was almost like a maze. It was clear that anything that did not have a place in the put-together rooms below was thrown in there. In the back corner, they found a desk surrounded by towers of boxes. “This must be where Shane worked while he was at home,” Matthews said, hauling one of the boxes to the floor and pulling the lid off.

“There are hundreds of files in these,” Rilynne said while sifting through another one. “It looks like he kept a file on every call he was sent out on.”

Some of the files dated back to his first year out of the academy. He had copies of every report that he had ever written, and even every traffic citation he had issued. “It’s going to take days to go through all of these by ourselves,” Rilynne said after making it just a few files into her first box. “We should have these all taken back to the station so we can get everyone working on them.”