Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 05 - A Deadly Change of Luck (15 page)

I headed toward the back of the house
, then re
checked every cupboard, every closet, every nook and cranny that might hold something I missed.  I stood in the center of the master bedroom, perplexed.  Then I pushed my way into the closet and
stared at the ceiling.  There it was—the access panel to the attic.  I reached up, grabbed the string and pulled the spring-loaded panel down.  A second string attached to a set of steps dangled within reach.  I grabbed it and pulled.  “Sam!” I shouted.

He
came
racing into the bedroom.  “What?”

“I never checked the attic.”

Moments later, I found myself crawling into a dark and dusty attic.  I clicked on the flashlight Sam gave me and let it sweep across the sea of fluffy pink insulation and cobwebs.  I found another
string,
this
one connected
to a light bulb in the rafters, and switched it on.  A few plastic bags and boxes were stacked on a single sheet of plywood that had been set next to the access opening.  I reached for them and handed them down to Sam, one by one.  When I’d emptied the attic, I climbed back down the ladder.  Sam had already begun rummaging through the boxes.

I tore open the plastic bags, but only found old sleeping bags.  I knocked over a shoebox, causing the contents to fall out.  Piles of papers, tied into small bundles with rubber bands littered the floor.  I picked up a bundle and inspected it.  “Look at this,” I said to Sam.  It was a stack of lottery tickets.  I gazed at the entire heap.  There must have been hundreds of tickets.  He picked up a stack.  I leafed through them quickly, glancing at the dates and the numbers.  They were all for Lou’s same special numbers.  My heart pounded a little faster.  We gathered up all the tickets and put them back in the box, sorting them chronologically.  There was
a ticket for nearly every draw
—two a week for the entire seven years.

I pulled the ticket I’d just bought from Otis out of my pocket and handed it to Sam.  “I just bought this today, from the store where the winning ticket came from.  Look at the store code, then look at the codes on all these tickets.”

Sam took the ticket and studied it,
then
he filed through the newly discovered box of tickets.  “He bough
t them all from the same place—
like clockwork.”

“It gets better,” I said.  “The owner’s daughter wor
ks there.  She’s a student at UCS
D, and she didn’t show up for work this morning,” I said, almost out of breath.  “She read this morning’s paper,
then
disappeared,” I added.

“You get her name?” he asked as he reached in his pocket for his cell phone.

“Casey.  Her last name’s probably
Biggsmuth
, same as her father,” I said.

Sam punched some numbers into his cell phone and waited for an answer. 
“Yeah.
  Johnson.  You got that list of Champion’s students? 

Check for Casey
Biggsmuth
, would you?”

Sam looked at me.  “Spell it,” he said.

I wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to him.  He spelled it out for Johnson.

I paced the kitchen while we waited for an answer.  It didn’t take long, since
Biggsmuth
would have been near the top of the alphabetized list.

“Great!  Put out an A
P
B.  Try to get a photo from the university.  Get someone to the airport, the bus station, and I want someone at the border crossings.  She’s on the run.”

Sam shoved his phone back in his pocket.  “I’m going to that store to talk to her father.”

I grabbed my purse and followed him out the door.

Otis
Biggsmuth
, for all he complained about his daughter, became her biggest advocate when it looked like she might be in trouble.  He forced the police to get a warrant to search her room, which allowed her even more time to escape.

By the end of the day, with officers combing the airport, bus station, and the major border crossings, it looked like Casey
Biggsmuth
might have slipped through the cracks.  She had a million dollars in cash and a lot of incentive to stay away from San Diego.

Chapt
er Fifteen

I
know Sam Wright, and when he gets his mind set on something, he’s like a pit bull with its teeth clamped firmly on a mailman’s leg.  When the search of Casey’s room didn’t turn up any clues to where she might have gone, he obtained a warrant to search the entire
Biggsmuth
household.  The crew started with the family’s trash.

Sam called me the next day to give me the good news.  A spunky new officer, eager to make a good impression, picked the tiniest piece of paper out of the mound of garbage and excitedly gave it to Sam.  It was a deposit slip from a Mexican bank, with a branch right in Tijuana.

The bad news was that Sam didn’t have any jurisdiction in Mexico.  He couldn’t legally cross the border to arrest Casey, but if she stepped one foot back into the United States, he’d have her behind bars faster than you can say
Tijuana Brass.

I munched on a carrot stick while I listened to Sam speculate on all the ways he could trap her, if only she’d come back.

“What if I could get her back here?” I said, halting his non-stop ranting in mid-sentence.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he replied.

“I mean it.  What if I could get her back here, to San Diego?  Wouldn’t that solve your problem?”

“Now you listen to me.  I’ve had enough of your antics for a life
time—
“

“I won’t do anything crazy.  You already owe Craig and me dinner.  If I pull this off, we’ll renegotiate the deal.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a long time.  I wondered if he’d worked himself up into a stroke.  “Sam?  Are you there?” I asked.

“I don’t want to know what you’re up to, and if you get yourself into any trouble, don’t expect me to bail you out,” he finally said.

I smiled and took another bite of my carrot.  “Don’t worry.  By this time next week, little Miss Casey will be safe and sound behind bars.”

When I told Craig my plan, he didn’t exactly jump on my bandwagon.

“Honey,” I pleaded with him.  “She killed that poor man and now she’s gotten away with all that money.  Someone has to stop her.”

“What about Sam?” he suggested.

“He can’t do anything as long as she’s in Mexico.  You know what it’s like to get someone extradited, even if they’re already in custody, which she isn’t,” I insisted.

“But what if something goes wrong?” he asked.

“What could go wrong?”

“What could go wrong?  You could wind up in jail, for one,” he reminded me.

“Sam won’t let that happen,” I assured him.

“Wait a minute.  Isn’t Sam the one who
put
you in jail for interfering with an investigation?  Have you forgotten?”

“He won’t do that again,” I said.

“He told you that?”

“Well, not in so many words, but you know how he is.  Come on, Craig.  She killed that man, and she’s going to get away with it if we don’t do something.”

Not surprisingly, I couldn’t even get Craig to support my plan.  I’d just about given up, since I couldn’t pull it off by myself.  It wasn’t until Sam’s search of the
Biggsmuth
house turned up a ceramic mixing bowl and pestle
,
with traces of cyanide on the surface, that things changed.  That was the clincher that proved Casey’s guilt to Sam.  He called me as soon as the lab results were in and asked me to elaborate a little more on my plan to get Casey back to San Diego.

I didn’t think Casey would go further than Tijuana, since it’s close to home.  I would have been surprised if she traveled as far as Mexico City or Puerto Rico.  Even though she was a cold-blooded killer, she was also a nineteen-year-old girl who’d never lived anywhere but her parent’s house. 

I spent the next three days hanging out at a little sidewalk taco joint across the street from the bank in Tijuana where Casey made her last bank transaction.  I sat under an umbrella and sipped bottled water I had stashed in my purse as I watched people come and go.  I pretended to read a book or do crossword puzzles so I wouldn’t look too conspicuous.  When it felt like I’d spent enough time there, I’d move to another spot down the street.  I kept alternating between locations that gave me a constant view of the front door of the bank.

After two days of people watching, I began to wonder if my plan was full of holes.  Maybe Casey was more independent than I thought.  Maybe she’d travel
further south
—Brazil, perhaps.  Maybe she’d buy an airline ticket and get off the continent altogether.  I started to doubt my instinct, but I told myself I’d stick it out till the end of the week.  If she didn’t show up by Friday, then I’d throw in the towel and admit defeat.

Finally, on the third day, an elf-like character with big, dark sunglasses and a baseball cap walked nervously into the bank.  I launched myself out of my seat and hurried across the street.  When she exited, I fell into step a few yards behind her.  It was Casey.  My luck was changing.

I followed her for miles.  She walked in circles sometimes.  She was lost most of the time.  She stopped to ask directions from a couple of locals, but it seemed her Spanish was not any better than their English.  I worried that she’d notice me every time she turned around, but she was so intent on getting to wherever it was she was headed, she never even looked back.

When she finally found her destination, I had to reconsider just how lucky I really was.  She’d walked into a car dealership.  She must have made a withdrawal at the bank to buy a new car.  If she bought a car and drove off the lot, I’d lose her.  My car was parked somewhere miles away, near the bank, and I certainly couldn’t run in and buy a new car myself, just to follow her. 

I chewed my bottom lip and scanned the area.  I spotted a couple of taxis parked a block away on the opposite side of the street.  I jogged up the road and picked the one with the fewest dents.  The driver was confused when I asked him to drive me to the car lot, which was only a block away.  I asked him to wait there while I watched from the back seat as Casey shopped.  She disappeared into the sales office.  I was tempted to follow her inside, but I was afraid I might lose my taxi, so I waited.  I figured she wouldn’t be long, since she had cash and didn’t have to wait for a credit approval. 

As I expected, she soon bounced back out of the office with a set of keys in one hand and a huge smile painted across her face.  She climbed into a shiny new Volkswagen.  I was puzzled at her choice.  She had a million dollars to play with.  She could have bought a Mercedes or a Jaguar or any other extravagant automobile, but instead, she bought a bright green Bug.

As she pulled out of the dealership, I instructed my taxi driver to follow her.  I hoped she’d know her way around the streets a little be
tter than she did the sidewalks,
otherwise, this cab ride could cost me a fortune.  No such luck.  I bet we passed the same street corner no less than five times looking for whatever it was she was after.  “She lost,” the taxi driver kept announcing over his shoulder and laughing as the miles racked up on the meter.

“I know.  Just keep following her,” I urged him as I peeked into my wallet to see how much cash I’d brought with me.        

Casey finally landed at the Oasis Beach Resort.  She pulled into the parking lot and searched for a spot far away from any other cars.  While she eased up and down the aisles, I had the driver park and wait with the other cabs in front of the hotel.  When Casey finally picked a spot and parked, I paid the driver and got out of the cab. 

I watched her disappear into the resort’s main lobby.  I pulled my cell phone from my purse and dialed Craig’s number.

“Okay, you’re on,” I said.  “I’m at the Oasis Beach Resort.  I’ll meet you out front.”

Within an hour, Craig and our co-conspirator pulled into the resort parking lot.

“Where’s your car?” Craig asked me.

“I left it back near the bank.  We can get it later.  She’s staying here, so I think our plan will work perfectly.”

Peter Champion parked his car next to Craig’s and stepped out.  He gazed at the surroundings
,
adjusted the ball cap on his head and grinned at me.  “Baby Bear has landed,” he said with a wink.

“Baby Bear?”
I asked, puzzled.

He and Craig exchanged amused glances.

“That’s his code name.  You’re Mam
a Bear, I’m Papa Bear, and he’s
—“

“Baby Bear.
 
Clever.
  And I suppose Casey’s Goldilocks?”

“I told you she’d catch on,” Craig said to Peter.  “She’s a pro at this kind of stuff.”

I scoffed at them both.  “You call Sam?”

“Right before we left.  He’s up-to-speed,” Craig answered.

“Did he say anything?” I asked.

“Just to remember that officially, he has nothing to do with this plan of yours, but unofficially, he’s behind us all the way,” Craig said.

“Which means?”

“He’ll bake us a cake with a file in it if we end up in prison,” Peter replied, chuckling.

I chuckled along with him.  “Didn’t Craig tell you that Sam put me in jail once? 
For interfering with an investigation?”

The smile left Peter’s face.  “He did?”

Craig patted him on the back.  “Not to worry, Peter.  That was back before Sam got to know my lovely wife.  She’s grown on him now.”

Peter forced a smile, but still seemed a little tense.

“Come on.  We’ve got work to do,” I said, taking Craig by the hand and leading him toward the hotel lobby.  Peter followed.

We made our way to our two-room suite, where we quickly locked the door and spread out a map of the resort on a table.  Craig pulled three walkie-talkies out of his sports bag and set them on the table next to the map.

“What are these for?” I asked, picking one up to inspect it.

“Communication,” Craig answered.

“You don’t think we’ll look a little conspicuous? 
Three adults playing with walkie-talkies?”
I said.

Craig scoffed.  “Have you looked around?  Every other person out there has a cell-phone stuck to his ear half the time.  We’ll fit right in.”

I could see there’d be no talking him out of these toys.  I set the device back on the table and studied the map.

“Do we know what room she’s in?” Peter asked.

“No.  You stay here in the room so she doesn’t spot you before we’re ready.  Craig and I’ll wander around the place.  She can’t stay in her room forever.  Chances are
,
she’ll spend some time at the pool, or the beach, or the bar.”

Craig made each of us take a walkie-talkie and test them before we left the room. 

Craig checked the beach and the pool, describing every revealing bathing suit he saw to me over the walkie-talkie.  I checked the restaurant and lounge. 

“Mama Bear, this is Papa Bear.  Do you read?” I heard Craig whisper over the walkie-talkie. 

“What is it, Craig?” I replied.

“Papa Bear,” he insisted.

I rolled my eyes and played along.  “Okay, Papa Bear.  What is it?”

“No sign of her.  Let’s meet at the appointed spot,” he said.

We rendezvoused behind a group of palm trees in front of the hotel lobby.  By six in the evening, neither of us had spotted her.  “I’ll let Peter know what’s going on,” I said as I held the walkie-talkie to my mouth.

“Okay.  Then let’s switch.  You check the beach and pool, and I’ll check inside,” Craig said.  “Let’s meet back here in an hour.”

“Okay.”

I wandered around the pool and then strolled along the beach.  Thirty minutes later, the walkie-talkie squawked,
then
Craig’s voice rang excitedly through the speaker. 

“I have Goldilocks in sight.  Looks like she’s
gonna
sample some porridge,” he said.

“She’s going into the restaurant?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Craig confirmed.  “You ready Peter?”

“On my way,” Peter’s voice answered.

Craig and I hunkered down behind a potted fern and watched Peter in action.  He turned off his walkie-talkie and strolled into the restaurant.

Peter tipped the waiter ten dollars to seat him at a table directly in front of Casey’s.  She sat alone, sipping a colorful drink with a pineapple wedge and umbrella poking out
of
the top.  When he walked past her table, he made eye contact,
then
stopped in utter surprise.

We couldn’t hear his words, but whatever he said seemed to be working its magic.

Casey gaped at him for a moment, then smiled and graciously offered him a seat at her table.  He took her hand and held on to it as he sat next to her.  The pair chatted and reminisced like they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for years.  Come to think of it, that proba
bly was exactly what they were—
or maybe they’d been more than friends.  Peter would never confess to being any more than her art teacher, but I had my suspicions.