Murder in Paradise Page 9

  “There’s no sign of him, either, and my guy can track a mayfly across concrete. Any idea where the corporal might be?”

  “Did you check the house?”

  “It’s locked with no sign of forced entry,” Paquette said. “I’m having the car towed to the station. I’ll have a word with the corporal when he collects it.”

  “If he collects it. If he figured out where my uncle’s got Sherry stashed, he may have changed cars to grab her. A client told me a black van’s been tailing me. Maybe Molinere isn’t working alone.”

  I turned to Hilliard, placing my hand on her arm. “We have to turn around. Right now.”

  Chapter 37

  We raced into Port Vale with the lights and sirens blaring. I phoned my uncle Josh on the way. He said that Sherry was fine and that no strangers had been around. He was going to keep an eye out for the corporal, and he knew to dial 911 in an emergency.

  But I doubted he’d bother.

  Hilliard wanted to take me to Port Vale PD headquarters, but since she could brief the chief as well as I could, I had her drop me at the Vale Parks Department offices. I had a personal fire to put out.

  Carly’s car was there, but she wasn’t. A cheery secretary told me she was at the beach, filling in for…well, me. I thanked her, and marched across the dunes to the park.

  It was almost deserted. The overcast was still hanging on, and only a few diehards remained. There was a nanny with three rug rats, and an older woman in a lawn chair reading a Kindle. No swimmers at all.

  Carly was in the tower chair, looking out over the water.

  “Hey,” I called.

  “What is it?” she said, without turning.

  “You’re really mad, huh?”

  “You think?” she sighed. “Actually, I’m not. I was mad, now I’m just…” She shrugged.

  “Can we talk?”

  “I’m on duty.”

  “I’d be glad to take over. That is, if I still have a job?”

  “I’m not that mad. On a scale of one to ten, I’m at level four. Seriously annoyed. That’s down from level seven, where I was after the pub. Ballistic.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said, climbing up the ladder to sit beside her. “Look, I’m really—”

  “Save it,” she said. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “What wasn’t?”

  “Any of—that stuff in the city. I can’t actually talk about it or I’ll die in prison…That’s what that lady cop said, anyway. I was the one who insisted on coming along and you were too desperate to talk me out of it. It’s okay, I get that.”

  “Carly—”

  “No! We’re both lifeguards. We know how dangerous situations work. You warned me up front, so I knew what I was getting into. I’m not hurt, I’m just…”

  “Scared?”

  “In way over my head,” she admitted, taking a deep breath. “Are you in trouble with the police, Brian?”

  I mulled on that a moment. “Not exactly. It’s more like…I’ve been causing some problems for them.”

  “Really?” she sighed. “I’m shocked. Shocked!”

  We both burst out laughing. And then laughed even harder. Not at her lame joke, but in relief. Because whatever the beef was between us, it was going to blow over. After the day we’d had, it felt awfully good to be laughing at anything at all.

  We’d both sworn to keep silent about Corzine, but Carly deserved to know the truth about everything else. So I told her all I knew. She offered sympathy in the right places, but also asked pointed questions about the investigation.

  I’d forgotten this side of her. Carly was supportive and kind, and very bright. In fact, she was sharp enough to conceal her steel-trap intelligence behind a smile. She hadn’t become the Parks Department supervisor by accident.

  She listened to my explanation as we sat shoulder to shoulder in the tower chair while the light faded into the mist over the lake. As the purple shadows came on, we rose and took a long last look over our kingdom before climbing down from our throne.

  It was truly ours alone now. There wasn’t another soul in sight.

  Without warning, Carly turned and kissed me hard on the mouth, holding me so fiercely I thought we might fall out of the tower. Then she took a step back, staring up into my eyes. Waiting.

  “That was…” I said.

  “Important,” she said. “Remember it. With the way things are, it might never happen again. So remember it.”

  “I will.”

  And I would, because in that moment, I realized that Carly was the woman of my dreams. It was like we were two souls cut from the same cloth and finally stitched together after all these years. I knew I’d do everything I could to make her want to stay in my life this time around.

  Carly kissed me again and I felt something rustle in my shirt. I checked my breast pocket, and found the business card Dex Molinere had jammed in there that morning. “Call me,” he’d said.

  The chief wanted to know where he was. Maybe I could find out.

  I dialed the number, and let it ring.

  Chapter 38

  Ruiz

  In the parking lot behind the Port Vale Police Department, Patrolman Gene Ruiz was walking out to his ride when he heard a phone ringing nearby. He followed the sound to the unmarked State Police cruiser that had just been towed in. Had someone dropped a phone? Kneeling, he scanned the ground, and then peered under the car.

  Nothing. But the ringing continued. And he realized it was coming from inside the vehicle.

  From the trunk.

  Chapter 39

  Paquette, Hilliard, Ruiz

  “Fetch a pry bar, Gene, pop this sucker open,” the chief said, scowling. “Something feels wrong.”

  “I can call the Staties and have them send over a master key,” Hilliard suggested. “It’d be easier on the car.”

  “That boy could be bleeding out in there. Get the goddamn pry bar, Ruiz, and if I hear one damn wisecrack about woman’s intuition, you’ll be picking up your teeth with your broken arm.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ruiz trotted off. Every officer in her department loved the chief like family, she was everyone’s favorite Southern gran. But no one ever wanted to cross her.

  Paquette and Hilliard stepped aside as Ruiz crammed the bar in the seam just above the license plate and popped the trunk open.

  Ruiz took an involuntary step back.

  But the chief didn’t. She leaned in over the corpse of Dexter Molinere, chewing the corner of her lip, frowning. She pressed a finger against his carotid, though there was clearly no need. His body was already cooling. Cupping his cheek with her palm, she swiveled his head, examining the bloody third eye neatly centered between his original pair.

  She whistled softly to herself. “Heavy caliber,” she said. “I’d make it a 10 millimeter, or a .45. Definitely overkill. See the smudge around the wound? That’s a powder burn. The muzzle was less than an inch away when he fired. At that range, he could’ve used a brick.” She backed out, straightening her lanky frame, and kept frowning down at the body.

  “This was an execution,” Hilliard said. “The bullet went through, but I don’t see any spatter or ricochet marks on the vehicle. He wasn’t shot in the trunk.”

  “I’d guess Molinere was standing near the trunk when he was capped,” the chief agreed. “The shooter walked him to the car, turned him around, and pop!” She smacked her lips. “Pushed him inside as he fell, barely mussing the dust on the bumper. That tells me he’s done this kind of work before. Damn, I hate to leave his body in the dark but…” She carefully closed the trunk.

  “Call the State Police, Gene, tell ’em we got one of theirs. They’ll want their own CSI team to handle the car, but the crime scene’s ours. I want a team back out at the Lord place to scout the ground for blood and find that bullet. We have a dead officer and no one sleeps until we figure out who did this! Now go!”

  Ruiz took off at a dead run.

  The chief real
ized Hilliard was staring at her. “Something wrong, Lieutenant?”

  “No, ma’am,” Bev said shaking her head in wonder. “Not a thing.”

  A prowl car rolled up, its strobes blazing, Ruiz at the wheel.

  “If you’re waiting on me, you’re already late,” the chief said with a feral grin as she slid into the shotgun seat. “God, I love this job. Hit it, Gene.” Her car roared out of the lot.

  Hilliard scrambled into her own car, racing after the chief, burning rubber all the way.

  Chapter 40

  The chief was already rapping hard on the kitchen door when I came charging up from the beach.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “A lot,” she said, looking me up and down. “But not the thing that worried me the most, since you’re still breathing. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why are you here?”

  “We found Corporal Molinere’s car stashed in a turnout a hundred yards up your road. I had it towed in.”

  “You think he’s here?” I asked, nodding at the cottage.

  “Nope. I know exactly where he is. In a body bag on a bus headed to Wayne County Morgue. Somebody capped him, stashed the body in his own trunk.”

  “Jesus,” I said, wincing. “You don’t think I—”

  “Oh, hell, no. I pretty much have a handle on where you’ve been all day. I was just concerned you might have run into the same trouble he did. I tried your cell on the way out here. Have you been inside?”

  “No, I just came up from the beach.”

  “Then we’d best take a look. Lieutenant Hilliard’s scouting the ground where we found the car. That’s most likely where Molinere caught it, but we don’t know that for a fact yet. Step aside, please.”

  She drew her sidearm, a Glock automatic, and tried the knob. It turned, and the door opened.

  “Do you normally keep this locked?”

  “Usually, but it is Port Vale. So not always.”

  “Nobody does,” she sighed. “They trust their amazing local police force.”

  She pushed the door open, then paused, listening intently. “Wait out here, please.” She eased inside with her weapon at the ready.

  Wait out here, my ass. This was my home. I followed her in, and the moment I did, I knew everything was wrong.

  I glanced around, taking stock, and realized a dozen things were off. Drawers weren’t quite closed. Closet doors were ajar. Sofa cushions were misaligned, as though they’d been pulled out and then shoved back.

  Someone had searched the place thoroughly.

  Molinere?

  Possibly. But the rogue cop had been looking for his wife. He might have scrounged around for her things, her clothes, maybe a suitcase, but he wouldn’t be rummaging under the sofa cushions for her.

  Could it be somebody else? Maybe it was the same somebody who stuffed Molinere’s corpse in his own trunk…

  Chief Paquette was edging silently down the stairs. I hadn’t even heard her go up.

  “I told you to wait outside.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as you’re about to be. The bedroom at the top of the stairs has been totally trashed. That one yours?”

  I nodded. “That had to be Molinere. He was probably looking for his wife.”

  “Was she here?”

  “Never. This place is in the phone book, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Where is she now?”

  I hesitated.

  “Mr. Lord, right about now, the county coroner is tweezing shell fragments out of her husband’s brain. I need to talk to her.”

  “My uncle moved her again. She doesn’t trust the police, Chief. Every time she’s asked for help—”

  “Some jerk-off patrolman would call her old man, he’d explain it away as a little tiff with the junkie wife? I get that and I sympathize, Counselor, but this is a murder case now, not a domestic dispute. Your client’s delicate sensibilities are way down the list of crap I’m worried about. We don’t know who capped her husband or why. She could be next. So blowing me off isn’t an option. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” I nodded.

  “Where is she?”

  “With my uncle, stashed in one of the homes he’s remodeling. I don’t know which one.”

  “I think I do. Don’t worry, we’ll find him. I’m going to leave a man with you. You’re not safe here alone.”

  I was alone. The realization hit me square in the gut. Carly hadn’t followed me in from the beach. And she should have been here by now.

  I didn’t know what was wrong, but knew something was. And I’d put Carly right in the middle of it.

  “I’ll be fine,” I lied. “I just need to clean the place up. And I’d like to be there when you talk to Sherry.”

  “She’ll be at the station,” the chief said, and she headed out without looking back.

  I waited until I heard her car rumble off. Then I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the porch.

  “Carly?”

  There was a cluster of cedars twenty yards from the house. Carly stepped from behind them, into the open.

  She wasn’t alone. A man in a dark suit was standing slightly behind her.

  Luka. Garner’s bodyguard. It had to be.

  I swallowed hard, because I knew how dangerous he was. He had to have been the one who shot Dex Molinere, and stuffed the man into his own trunk.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want things to go smoothly,” Luka said. “No trouble. We talk to Mr. Garner, you give him what you stole, we all part as friends.” He gave me a faint smile. It wasn’t reassuring.

  He was holding a gun at his side, instead of pointing it at Carly, or me. But I knew his reflexes were so fast that it wasn’t necessary.

  “The way you parted as friends with Molinere?”

  “Ah. That’s why the police were here? They found the body of the man who broke into your house?”

  “The police are still here,” I said. “They’re just up the road, where you left his body.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Luka shrugged, the smile totally gone. “You break into people’s houses, bad things happen.”

  He gestured with the gun. “I’m parked down the shore on the access road. I think it’s time we head to my car.”

  Chapter 41

  Luka forced me behind the wheel of Garner’s Lincoln while he and Carly rode in back. I tried to adjust the mirror to see her face, but he shook his head.

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” he grunted. “If we get stopped, your friend goes first.”

  I followed Luka’s directions to Marvin Garner’s lakeshore estate. It was a magnificent, century-old stacked-stone masterpiece. I would have been impressed, but as we rolled past the sculptured hedges that lined the long driveway, all I could think about was Carly, squeezed in the corner of the backseat with the gunman.

  I’ve never felt so totally helpless. I wanted to tear his goddamn arms off.

  He caught me watching him in the corner of the rearview mirror, and just smiled. He knew exactly what I was thinking and it didn’t worry him a bit. And that worried me a lot.

  “Stop here.”

  We left the car in the driveway, and circled the house on foot. Luka stayed behind me, well out of reach, keeping Carly close to his side. We found Marvin Garner relaxing by his Olympic pool in a red silk robe.

  He straightened in his chair as we approached, but it wasn’t out of courtesy. Beneath his cool, stony exterior, I could see he was enraged.

  “Mr. Lord,” he said, laying his tablet aside on a cabana table by his phone. “You’re proving to be a huge goddamn problem.”

  “And having me kidnapped—?”

  “You haven’t been kidnapped. You’ve disappeared. You and your girlfriend have taken off for parts unknown. And given your recent troubles, who can blame you?”

  “You can’t—”

  “Shut your mouth! I only want one thing from you. The fil
es Serena took. I know you have them. So where are they?”

  “Files?” I echoed, genuinely confused.

  But Garner has been a trial lawyer for thirty years. He’d been reading juries before I was born. He knew the truth when he saw it. And he knew I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “You don’t know what files I mean, do you?” he said, darkly.

  “No,” I said quickly, “but I can help you find them. We both want the same thing, Marvin. We want to get on the right side of whatever’s gone wrong. Walk away in one piece.” I glanced involuntarily at Luka as I said it, and he followed my line of vision.

  In that instant, I knew there wasn’t a prayer they’d let us go. We were all in too deep. But as long as I was talking, Carly was breathing. “Tell me what you need,” I said evenly. “Let me help.”

  He considered that a moment, but seemed to come to the same conclusion I had. Nothing he said to me would matter. It would all end here, one way or the other.

  “Serena was my mistress for a time,” he shrugged, as if he had nothing to lose. “When my wife left me, Serena assumed she’d take her place, but the last thing I wanted was a new wife. Serena didn’t take rejection well. After we ended things, she made copies of proprietary files, then tried to sell them back to me.”

  “Files involving Luka’s boss?” I asked.

  “Files that were vital to the firm.”

  “She was blackmailing you?”

  “Serena wasn’t shy about getting whatever she wanted,” Garner shrugged. “I can see now that you aren’t, either.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, cut the crap. This isn’t a negotiation, Brian. I need those files.”

  “I get that,” I said, “and I get how serious you are, because your goon over there killed a state trooper today.”

  When Garner didn’t even flinch, my last glimmer of hope vanished. Carly and I had no chance. He wouldn’t save us because his head was on the chopping block, too. He would do anything to get the files to save himself.

  “Maybe his friend here can tell us,” Luka added, seizing Carly’s upper arm. “Maybe he’ll tell us, if I ask her hard enough.”