Terry Odell - Mapleton 01 - Deadly Secrets (27 page)

Justin pushed the compact as fast as he dared along the winding mountain road. Squinting, he lowered the visor against the setting sun.

Megan put the phone in the cup holder.

“Nothing yet?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Out of range. I can’t decide whether cell phones make life easier or add more things to worry about. I can see why Rose and Sam resisted them. They’re from the letter-writing school. We expect instant communication.”

Justin sucked in a breath, then exhaled slowly. “Megan?”

She shifted, facing him. “Did you remember something else?” Her eyes reflected the worry he knew was obvious in his own.

“No.” He ignored the heat rising to his neck, gathered what little courage he had left, and rested his hand on her thigh. “I wanted to say…no matter how this turns out, and I’m sure everything will end up okay…I’m glad you were here. It helped.”

She lowered her gaze, but he caught the pink tinge rising to her cheeks. Her hand pressed against his. “Same goes.”

Out with it, idiot. You’ll be home in ten minutes, and you’ll lose your captive audience.

Despite the fact they’d had an adult conversation at the hotel, he felt like he’d reverted to Jumbo Justin. He concentrated on the warmth of Megan’s hand. She hadn’t tried to remove his from her leg. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? “You think…after this is over…that we could get together? If you ever have an event in my neck of the woods, or something?”

She flashed a mischievous grin. “What if I don’t want to wait for an event? I’ve still got plenty of unused vacation time coming. I’d love to visit. You know, catch up. See what we’ve missed out on all these years.” Her tongue circled her lips. Her eyes twinkled.

His breath caught. “Any time.”

She removed her hand and angled herself away. But she’d squeezed his hand before removing hers, and a faint smile danced on her mouth.

He dared not break the comfortable silence for fear he’d say something stupid. Talking to women wasn’t part of his daily repertoire, and although he was ninety percent certain he’d read her correctly, he wasn’t going to blow it by making assumptions.

The road straightened as they approached Mapleton’s city limits. Megan thrust her shoulders back and faced him again, a determined look on her face. “Where should we start? House, clinic, or the police station?”

His phone signaled an incoming message. At last. He eased his grip on the wheel, feeling some of the tension leave. He was definitely hooked into the instant communication lifestyle. Megan picked up his cell. “Another text from Sam,” she said. “Nothing wrong with Rose. They’re at the house, waiting for us.”

“Thank God.”

Megan twisted in her seat to face him. “I wish I could undo all the times I forgot to call when I was a kid. No cell phones, but I thought it was babyish to have to check in when I got to a friend’s house after school, or was going to be a few minutes late. I feel so guilty about all the worry I must have caused them.”

Justin laughed. “If instilling guilt was an Olympic event, my grandparents would have taken the gold every year. And my mom would have nailed the silver.”

“I should call Gordon and tell him to ignore the other messages.”

Justin turned onto Maple. “Might as well wait until we get home.” It took all his control not to floor it for the final few blocks. A sense of homecoming washed over him as he pulled into the driveway. Except for a few fluttering remnants, the crime scene tape was gone. Had the police removed it, or had Oma yanked it down? He could see her doing just that. Probably had a fight with Opa about cleaning the house, too. He smiled. Opa could hold his own, especially if Oma’s best interest was at stake.

Megan dashed up the walkway and skipped up the porch steps ahead of him. He lengthened his stride and joined her by the door. Before he inserted his key, the door swung open.

“Come in, come in,” a man in neatly pressed khakis and a blue sport coat said. “You must be Megan and Justin. I’m Buzz Turner, with the
Mapleton Weekly.
”

The voice from the answering machine. Had Oma and Opa agreed to talk to him?

The man continued, smiling as if he were hosting a get-together. “I’m so glad you made it. Your grandparents and I have been having a fascinating chat.” He waved them in, slipping back to let them pass.

Megan stepped inside. Justin took her hand, slowing her down. Genetic hard-wiring surfacing perhaps, but he wanted her close. The man’s smile gave him the creeps. There was something annoying about his over-friendly demeanor. Then again, there was something annoying about reporters, period.

The living room looked exactly as it had when Justin and Megan had left. “Where are my grandparents?” he asked.

“Waiting upstairs,” Turner said, still smiling. “They had something interesting to show me.”

Megan shot him a wide-eyed look. He knew she was thinking exactly what he was. The journal? Had his grandparents known about it, where it was, all these years? If so, why were they sharing it with this reporter? Wondering if he’d put himself through hell for nothing, Justin massaged the nape of his neck and let Megan lead him up the staircase, Turner close behind.

“How is Rose?” Megan asked over her shoulder. “The first message said she hadn’t been feeling well.”

“She’s fine,” Turner said. His cheerfulness had switched to more of a grunt. Hackles raised on the back of Justin’s neck, but before he could process his unease, Turner shoved them through the open door into Oma and Opa’s bedroom. The door slammed. Turner barreled past them. “I think we should all chat.”

Blood pounded in Justin’s ears. Turner stood at the bedside, a knife pressed to Oma’s throat. She and Opa were sitting against the headboard, their ankles and wrists bound with tape. Another strip covered their mouths. A purple bruise stood out against the pale skin of Oma’s cheek. Justin dashed forward.

“Very noble, but you don’t want to do that,” the man said.

Justin froze, fists clenched, breathing as if he’d run twice around the pond.

Megan gasped. “You’re him. The man in the park. How dare you hit her.”

“Shut up,” Turner said. “No noise. No moving. Not if you want her to live.”

Justin raised his hands. “We’re not going to do anything.” He shifted his gaze to Megan. “Right, Megan? We can discuss this like calm, rational adults.”

As if a man holding a knife to his grandmother, a man who’d probably killed another defenseless woman, was anything remotely approaching calm and rational.

“Cell phones,” Turner snapped. “On the floor. Now.”

“The battery’s dead,” Megan said.

“Do what I say.”

She dropped her phone onto the carpet. Justin tossed his beside it.

“And your purse,” Turner said.

Justin could feel Megan’s anger as she threw her purse to the floor beside the phones. Turner took a roll of duct tape from the night table and tossed it toward Megan.

“You, Justin. Have a seat.” Turner gestured toward the floor. “Legs out in front of you. Hands behind your back.”

Justin followed the man’s directions, his eyes fixed on his grandparents. Oma’s head was tilted away from the knife. Opa’s fists clenched beneath his taped wrists. His expression was one of pure fury, one Justin had never seen from him. One he’d never thought his grandfather capable of.

“You, Megan. Tape his wrists and ankles. And no cute stuff. I’m going to check.”

Megan hesitated. Turner jerked his arm. Oma’s cry was muffled by the tape. “Next time she’ll shed blood,” Turner said.

“Do it, Megan,” Justin said. He leaned forward so she could tape his wrists. When she ripped the tape, the sound ripped his heart. Buzz Turner had killed once. Justin’s mind whirled, trying to formulate a plan. “Cooperate. Don’t make him angry. We’ll get out of this.”

She knelt by his side and wound the sturdy gray tape around his ankles.

“More,” Turner said. “And tighter.”

When she opened her mouth, Justin shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Think of where he has that knife. Don’t do anything foolish. You can’t get to him before he hurts her.”

Her head turned toward the bed for several heartbeats. Oma and Opa’s eyes shot warnings in her direction. She puffed a sigh and continued taping.

“Done,” she announced.

“Go sit over there.” Turner pointed to a spot along the adjacent wall. “Tape your ankles in front of you.”

When Megan finished, Turner approached her, brandishing the knife. One of Oma’s cooking knives, it appeared. All Justin could think about was how angry she’d be, because that was her favorite knife, and he knew she’d never use it again.

He realized he’d assumed Oma would have the opportunity to cook again. Good. Positive thoughts.

“Hands behind you,” Turner said to Megan. He grabbed the tape, then used it to restrain her wrists. Next, he checked Justin’s bonds, running another layer of tape over Megan’s handiwork. Apparently satisfied, Turner strolled to the bed and waved the knife. “The rule is simple. You promise not to scream, and I’ll take the tape off. Understand?”

Opa nodded. Turner ripped the tape from his mouth. A trickle of blood dripped from the corner. Turner reached for the tape covering Oma’s mouth.

“Please,” Opa said. “Don’t hurt her.”

Turner shrugged. “She’s a nice enough old lady.” He eased the tape away and crumpled it. Oma licked her lips. Justin held his breath, praying she wouldn’t say anything foolish. Turner paused, as if waiting for an excuse to inflict more damage, then perched on the bed beside her. He rested his elbows on his thighs, the knife displayed prominently in his hand.

“Now that we’re all together,” Turner said, “it’s time to talk.”

Gordon narrowed his focus to Colfax’s call. “What do you have?”

“Married twice, divorced same. Grounds were abuse, both mental and physical. He’s hard up for money.”

“And on the professional side?” Gordon added notes to his legal pad.

“Seems to be even more of a sleaze than your typical reporter. He was fired from two papers for getting too creative with his stories. He was free-lancing until he got his job with the
Weekly.
”

“Too creative? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You gotta relax, Hepler, or the job will kill you. I mean creative, as in he’d create his own news. They never proved it, but rumor has it he
really
didn’t let the truth get in the way of a story. He was suspected of planting evidence, feeding rumors, then breaking the story himself.”

Gordon rolled that one around. “That fits with the damn press conference. But I can’t buy him killing someone, and vandalizing the Kretzers’ to break a story. Not unless he’s a total sicko.”

“You might not be far off. His second wife filed assault charges. The courts sent him to anger management classes about ten years ago.”

“I’ve never seen that kind of behavior since he’s been in Mapleton.”

“Maybe the classes took. Stranger things have happened.”

“Any way you can track down his counselor, find out what kind of a…student he was?”

“I’ll give it a shot. But it was a long time ago.”

The background music stopped. “Officer Hepler?” came from the desk phone.

“Gotta get back to you, Colfax. No, wait. Hang on one sec.” Gordon grabbed the receiver. “Hepler.”

“Sir, we checked the Kretzers’ room. There’s nobody inside, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Clothes in the closet, toiletries in the bath. No cause for alarm.” The man delivered the words as if he were indulging the whim of an annoying child.

Gordon thanked him and went back to Colfax. “Anything in Turner’s history that would give him a motive?”

“Nothing yet. It’ll take a deeper background check. I’ll let you know.”

“I’ve got searches running on this end too. There’s something I’m missing. It’s there, dancing around in my head, but I can’t get a handle on it yet.”

“Happens all the time. It’ll show up when you’re doing something entirely different. You need me for anything, call.”

“Keep your dancing shoes handy.”

Think of something else, Colfax had said. Gordon scrolled through his missed call log. Two from Justin, one from Angie. They’d rolled to voicemail.

Work before pleasure. Megan’s voice followed the robotic tones of the cell phone’s message system.

“Gordon. We’re on our way home. We got a message from Sam saying Rose wasn’t feeling well and they were going home. We can’t reach them. Could you please check? Maybe they’re at the emergency clinic. Thanks.”

The second was a repeat of the first, but with more urgency in her voice. The third was Angie. Listening to her voice made his chest ache. Work before pleasure. He groaned and called the clinic. No, the Kretzers hadn’t been admitted. He tried Doc Evans next. He hadn’t heard anything from them.

Gordon replayed Megan’s message. Definitely said Mapleton, not Denver. Had they had an accident en route? Or had Rose been taken seriously ill? He called their house. Answering machine.

He left a message, then bit the bullet and returned Angie’s call. “Something else came up. I’ll be working late.”

“You want me to bring dinner over?”

What the hell. A man had to eat. “Use the back door.”

While he waited, he told Dispatch to order a patrol car to swing by the Kretzers’ place, and he put wheels in motion to check for traffic accidents between Denver and Mapleton. He wandered to the war room and stared at the white board again. There were answers in there. Connections he hadn’t seen yet.

He added Buzz Turner’s name to the board. Was he the common denominator? Was everything connected? Karl Franklin’s staged accident. Megan’s aborted abduction. The break-in at the Kretzers’. The murder at Vintage Duds. And what about Justin’s missing journal?

He found a notepad and drew a circle in the center, then added a series of spokes extending outward. He wrote Buzz’s name in the circle. He added names he could connect to Buzz along the spokes, and jotted his notes.

Karl Franklin. Cell phone calls. At scene.

Betty Bedford. At scene.

If Buzz was responsible for the break-in at Vintage Duds, logic said he’d be the one behind the Kretzers’ break-in as well. Which tied him to Rose and Sam. Or Justin. Or Megan.

Could Buzz be Megan’s mystery man? She’d described him as average, and Turner fit that description—along with half the male population of Mapleton.

He wrote “JOURNAL” above the circle and underlined it. Was that the missing link? He added Heinrich Kaestner’s name to the page and dug for the articles Justin had left. Henry Carpenter, if he was alive, was at a nursing home in Arizona. He looked up the number and dialed.

He was on hold with someone in records when Irv tapped on the door. “Sir, Solomon reported nothing unusual at the Kretzers’ on a drive by. Did you want to talk to him? He’s checking into a possible intruder on the other side of town. Given what’s happened, I sent McDermott out as backup.”

Gordon smiled at Irv’s apologetic tone. “Have him call me on my cell once he’s clear. Thanks.”

“Oh, and Angie said you were expecting her. She’s out front.”

Shit. So much for being discrete. “Send her to my office. I’ll be there as soon as I get off the phone.” Which he hoped would be in this lifetime. Or before his dinner went cold.

The records clerk finally returned to the line, apologizing for the delay. “I thought the case was closed,” she said. “It took awhile to find the records. But why are the Colorado police interested in an old man’s death? The local medical examiner ruled it accidental.”

Accidental. Not natural causes. Gordon resigned himself to a cold dinner. “Did you know Mr. Carpenter? How did he die?” He added a bit of good cop to his tone. “It might help with a case we’re working on out here.”

“I’m new,” she said. “But I heard the rumors. That it was suicide.”

“Why would you say that?”

She hesitated. “I think you need to talk to someone in administration for details. But they’ve already gone home for the day.”

She sounded as if she was supposed to be home too. “I’ll call tomorrow. Do you keep records of visitors? Or is there someone who worked there while Mr. Carpenter was alive I could talk to?”

“I’ll have to check. Can I get back to you?”

Since Carpenter was dead, there didn’t seem to be a lot he could do now. Tomorrow, he’d follow up with the local cops, see if he could get more answers. He gave her the number to his direct line and went in search of dinner.

“Busy day?” Angie smiled as he walked into his office. “Still hunting for whoever killed Betty Bedford?”

“Yes to both.” He decided even a cold dinner wouldn’t counteract the warmth of being in the same room with Angie.

“I was afraid you’d had another emergency when you weren’t here to let me in.”

“No, just working down the hall. I didn’t think I’d be gone that long.”

“Life of a cop,” she said. “Always on the job.”

“It’s not usually like this. You probably put more hours in than I do. But I did find your intruder.” He explained about Willard Johnson. Angie’s eyes flashed momentarily, but she seemed to shake it off.

“A painless way to learn a lesson. No harm, no foul. But I’ll talk to Donna about the key and being more diligent about locking up. Ready for some food?”

His rumbling stomach answered that question. Angie took containers from a large paper bag. “It’s just salad and lasagna. But after you tie things up here, you could always stop by for…dessert.”

He turned, making sure he’d closed the door behind him. He cradled her face, capturing her pale blue eyes with his gaze. “Maybe I need a sample.” He grazed her lips with his. “Delicious. I’ll save room.”

His desk phone rang. Angie brushed his cheek with a fingertip. “I’ll let myself out.”

Gordon gave her a parting smile as he reached for the phone. “Hepler.”

When the caller identified herself as someone from the nursing home in Arizona, he shoved his dinner aside in favor of his notepad.

“I remember Mr. Carpenter well,” she said. “He was such a nice old man. I couldn’t believe the rumors. That he was a Nazi. He grew up in Pittsburgh. And Carpenter is a common name. I figured it was one of those cases of mistaken identity.”

“Did he have any family?”

“Not that I know of. He never mentioned anyone. He’d chat with other residents in the recreation areas, but no outside visitors. Not until shortly before he died.”

“When was that?”

“Let me think. Nine months ago, give or take. I’d have to look up the exact date if you need it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Gordon said. “If I may ask, how do you think he died?”

Her voice grew quiet. “He was old and dying of cancer. In a lot of pain.”

Gordon immediately wondered if Carpenter might have had a little assistance leaving planet earth, and he made a note to check with the ME. “You said he had visitors before he died. Do you keep records?”

“I remember them,” she said. “The first one, a Mr. Franklin, only came once, but Mr. Carpenter seemed more at peace after he left. The way people get when they’re putting their lives in order. But not with the other man. He came several times. Mr. Carpenter was always agitated after those visits.”

“You remember his name?” Gordon asked, pen poised.

“Mr. Turner,” she said. “I remember having to ask him to leave the last time he visited, because Mr. Carpenter had a medical crisis.”

“What kind?”

“He had trouble breathing, his blood pressure went way up. They took him to critical care for a while.”

“So he didn’t die at that time?”

“No, not until several weeks later.”

“Was anyone with him?”

“Not that I know of. The morning nurse said he’d died in his sleep.”

“So why was suicide considered?”

“He’d been depressed. That’s all I know, and I’ve probably said too much. I have to go.”

He’d just hung up when his cell rang.

“Chief, it’s Vicky. I think you should get to the Kretzers’.”

Dinner forgotten, he jerked up from his chair and grabbed his weapon.