FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7) (24 page)

“Hand me that phone, Kate,” Cornelius said. “Let me call Jane and see if she’s narrowed down those real estate sales any.”

She nudged the conference room phone across the table to him.

He punched in a number. “Hit the speaker button on that squawk box, would ya?”

Skip reached over and tapped the appropriate button on the speaker.

A young woman answered.

“You’re on speaker, Jane,” Cornelius said, “in a room full of people.”

“Including civilian
consultants
,” Julie Wallace spoke up for the first time. The snide tone was back.

“Have you narrowed those–”

“Yes, sir,” Jane interrupted, her voice excited. “I got it down to 5,843 sales to either single men or companies. Then I looked a little harder at this guy’s finances. He bought that house in White Plains outright, with the proceeds from the family home, which he sold right after his wife died. But six months ago he took out a home equity loan on the White Plains house for $80,000, and his wife’s life insurance was $40,000. Yet–”

“The insurance paid off?” Kate asked. “Even though she committed suicide.”

“Yeah, because they’d had the policy for years. Forty K on each of them. But get this, there’s no sign of any of that money in his bank accounts.”

Skip leaned forward. “He bought a place with cash.”

Julie Wallace frowned at him from the other end of the table. “Let’s not jump to con–”

Jane cut her off. “That’s what I thought. So looking at the houses paid for with cash that were $120,000 or less, we have 228 properties.”

Skip glanced sideways at Julie. Why was she so pissed about him going up to New York? He knew she was a by-the-book type cop, but she seemed to be taking it personally.

“Still a mighty big haystack,” Cornelius was saying.

“How many of those are in the Towson area?” Judith asked.

“Seventy-nine.”

“Yeah, but he carted his victims over an hour away before,” Skip said, “and across state lines to boot. There’s nothing saying he’s in this area, or even near Baltimore at all.”

“Jane,” Cornelius said, “check on sales for cash within a hundred mile radius.”

Judith put her hands on the table and pushed herself to a stand. “Meanwhile, we start in Towson and work our way out.”

The others stood and headed for the door.

“Let’s hope we can find our needle in time,” Cornelius muttered.

Halfway across the outer lobby of the station, Kate suddenly stopped walking and stared at Skip.

Mac and Rose strode between them, headed toward the outer doors.

“What?” Skip said.

She lowered her eyes slightly and stared intently at his shirtfront.

He looked down. Had he spilled something on his clothes? He absentmindedly scratched his hand, where he’d gotten into poison ivy while gardening the previous weekend. It had been getting better but he hadn’t put any ointment on it recently, and the toxic little blisters were spreading again.

He looked up, still trying to figure out what she was staring at.

His wife pointed to his hand.

“Coming, Kate?” Cornelius called from where he was holding the outer door open for her.

She glanced his way, then back at Skip. Shaking her head slightly, she turned and hurried after the FBI agent.

Skip absently scratched the poison ivy again, trying to figure out his wife’s cryptic non-verbal message.

Understanding dawned. He held his hand up in the air and stared at the white line on his finger, where his wedding ring should be. He’d been taking it off at night to put the cream on the blisters.

Julie Wallace brushed past him. He grabbed for her arm but she pulled away and kept moving.

“Julie, wait! I need to explain something.”

She turned at the double doors to the outside. A sneer marred her pretty face. “Explain what? That your wife doesn’t understand you.” She pivoted on one heel and pushed open the glass door.

Manny Ortiz came in through the other door as she went out.

He cocked his head at Skip. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. What’s happening, boss?”

Skip gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Manny, do you understand women?”

“Hell no, man. I gave up on that years ago.”

~~~~~~~~

Tim left the rental car for his partner, and they once again took Kate’s Prius.

They rode in awkward silence. Kate knew Tim was too astute not to have picked up on the undercurrents between her and Skip. She prayed he didn’t say anything about it. Better awkward silence than awkward conversation.

Tim’s phone rang. He pulled it out and answered it, automatically putting it on speaker.

Jane’s voice filled the car. “Uh, there’s something I didn’t want to tell all the others.”

“You’re on speaker now, but it’s just Kate Huntington with me.”

Jane must have felt Kate was okay because she continued. “Something else I found in Delaney’s finances. He started a company, about four months ago, an online shopping network kind of thing. I checked out the website. It looks legit on the surface, but it’s not very sophisticated. To order something you have to send an e-mail. So I did, from a dummy account, and it bounced back saying the recipient’s inbox is full.”

“I take it this company is not one of the ones that has bought real estate recently,” Tim said.

“Of course not.” Jane sounded huffy. “I would have told you guys that right away, you know, earlier.”

“What do you think that’s about?” Kate asked from the driver’s seat.

“Not sure,” Tim said. “I don’t suppose there’s a physical address associated with this company?”

“Can’t find one, and trust me, I’ve looked.”

“Thanks, Jane. Keep an eye on that website, would you?”

“Okay.” She disconnected.

Tim dropped his phone into his jacket pocket, then shifted around to partially face Kate, leaning back against the window. He seemed to like that position, maybe so he could see the face of the driver better.

“I do have an idea about what that might mean,” he said. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself for now.”

Kate hesitated, unwilling to make that promise if it was a lead in Sally’s case.

“I don’t think this is related to your friend.”

Damn! This guy’s a little too astute.

“Okay, I’ll keep it confidential if it’s not about Sally.”

“I think he’s setting things up for the next house purchase.”

She glanced over at him. “I don’t understand.”

“He sets up a bogus company, makes it look like it’s making money. Fills out some tax forms, that he has no intention of filing with the IRS. Then shows them to a bank to get a mortgage in the company name for a piece of property. Maybe tells the bank the business is doing so well, he needs a warehouse.”

Kate decided her brain was even more tired than she’d thought it was. That wasn’t making sense to her. “So you think he hasn’t bought a place yet?”

“Oh, no. He’s bought something here, with the cash he had. But if he has to walk away from it, he’s got a plan going to get the next property. Most likely in another city.”

She turned and stared at him. He pointed at the windshield.

She looked back toward the road. “But why buy? That’s so complicated for him.”

“More privacy. More control.”

“Then why did he rent that apartment?”

“That is a very good question, for which I have no good answer. Maybe some glitch in the deal for the house he was buying delayed settlement, and he got impatient.”

Kate thought about that for a moment. “If he’s been researching Sally, then he probably knows she was about to retire. He only had a week left.”

“But if he’s moved her, does that mean he has the house now and it’s set up with the hidden room?”

“Maybe,” Kate said. “Or maybe the room isn’t finished yet, but he felt he had to move her anyway, once we came to the apartment.”

She drove in silence for a few minutes. The GPS informed her she should turn right at the next intersection.

“You think he’s going to keep doing this?” she said. “Moving from city to city.”

“Yeah. As you said earlier, he’s got no other purpose in life now.”

She glanced over at him.

His mouth was set in a grim line. “There’s a lot more at stake here than just your friend’s life.”

Kate thought of the pattern of five, imagined four other victims and their family and friends going through what they were now. And then Delaney would move on to another city. She shuddered as she made the turn.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

2:00 p.m. Sunday

Sally hadn’t thought it was possible but she’d finally cried herself out. She tried to roll over onto her back but found that difficult to accomplish without the use of her arms. Awkwardly she squirmed toward the edge of the bed until her feet were on the floor. After another moment of maneuvering, she was standing up. She turned slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed.

The damn clock was ticking away.

Two minutes after three.

She only had four hours left to live, unless she did something pretty soon here.

Did she even care anymore? A life without Charles was impossible to imagine. She felt the pressure building in her chest again.

He might not be dead. Her captor might have chased him away. After all, Charles wouldn’t know the guy. He’d think he’d just run into another racist with a gun. Or maybe Charles got the gun away from him, but didn’t realize she was here, in this secret room.

That thought galvanized her. What if they’d arrested the guy but he was refusing to tell them where she was. Would he let her die of starvation in here?

Of course he would. He’s a pathological killer.

She stood up too quickly. Her head swam for a moment. When she felt steadier, she walked around the bed and leaned against it to lower herself to a seated position on the floor, within kicking range of the area that was missing the soundproofing.

Let’s try some old-fashioned SOS again.
She kicked the wall with her heel three times in rapid succession. Paused, then kicked three times more slowly. And then again three times quickly. She repeated the process.

She could have sworn someone had been tapping back earlier. Where were they now?

She went through the SOS sequence a half dozen times. Her foot was beginning to hurt.

Maybe she should bang on the wall that adjoined the living room? But wait, she had heard voices before, when Kate and somebody–probably the police–had been here. If Charles were over there looking for her, surely he’d be calling her name, or making some kind of noise.

But all she could hear was the clock.

Okay, start at the beginning. He drugged me to get me here. I woke up in the straightjacket. The windows were covered with insulation and pieces of wood. And this one wall had styrofoam panels on it.

She looked at the other two walls that were not soundproofed.

Are they outside walls?

He gagged her at first, whenever he left. But he hadn’t done that today. Why not?

Something was niggling at her brain. Her eyes did another slow scan of the room.

The window! It’s gone!

She shook her head in disbelief. How could that be? Windows don’t just disappear.

Leaning back against the bed to leverage herself to a stand, she felt something cold against her waist, the chill seeping through the canvas of the straightjacket.

Her captor had apparently turned the heat down since she was complaining about being sweaty. The room was cooler than it had been before.

Wait, that’s weird.

She tried to swivel around to look at the bed and almost fell over. She’d never realized before how much one relies on one’s arms and hands for balance.

Moving more carefully, she got herself partway turned toward the bed. What she had felt against her back was the edge of a metal bedframe. She had thought it was wood–an old wooden bedstead with an old-fashioned quilt on it.

The quilt was the same, but the bed was not.

She glanced over to the section of wall where she’d clawed the soundproofing off with her toes. There were no little pieces of foam on the carpet.

Carefully she leaned down and looked under the bed. Then she stared at the wall for a moment. The soundproofing was gone from that section, but the debris from her efforts had been cleaned up.

What the hell?

It took another moment for her brain to process what all this meant.

He’s moved me!

That damn pill he’d given her had worked better than she’d thought.

~~~~~~~~

As Kate pulled up to the next house on their list, she glanced nervously at her watch. They’d been at this for an hour and a half and had eliminated only seven properties. Tim had insisted that they observe for a few minutes at each place, to see if there was any activity.

At one house, that observation had paid off. The fifty-something owner had come out the front door with two young adults, a woman and a man who looked enough like him that they had to be related. The older man looked nothing like Delaney.

She and Tim had driven away, leaving the man to his Sunday lunch with his kids, oblivious to having fleetingly been suspected of mass murder.

Kate turned her wrist again to check her watch.

Tim flicked his eyes in her direction. “It’s only been one minute, tops, since the last time you did that.”

“This is taking too long,” she said. “We’ll never get to all the places in time.”

“Try to relax. The lieutenant has eight teams on this. We’re starting with the free-standing houses first, then the townhouses or condos.”

“Yeah, if he’s going to buy, he’d be less likely to get a place with walls adjoining somebody else’s home.”

Tim shrugged, keeping his eyes on the house they were watching. “The White Plains house was a duplex, but your husband said the kill room was on the outside wall and soundproofed. And this guy risked an apartment.”

Kate recalled the crime scene tech’s report that a section of the soundproofing panel had been clawed off the wall adjoining the apartment next door. Her chest constricted as she imagined poor Sally desperately trying to get someone’s attention. She fought back tears.