Текст книги "A Treasure to Die For"

Автор книги: Richard Houston

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“That’s the dumbest idea you’ve had yet, Jake. Just how long do you think it will be before the neighborhood watch calls the cops on you?” Bonnie said after she quit laughing. Fred and I were having our morning coffee when I told her my plan to catch Shelia. Well, I was having coffee. Fred liked his with lots of milk and nothing else, including coffee.

“I’m not going to sit out there with binoculars like some kind of pervert. In fact, I’m not even going to be there.” Her look said more than any response could have. She sat there staring at me, supporting her chin with her index finger. It looked like she might slip, and cut herself with one of her rose-red fingernails from the expensive manicure Margot had paid for a few days ago.

“The Internet, Bon,” I said, before she could ask. “I’ll leave my car parked across the street with an IP camera on the dash that I’ll disguise as a radar detector.”

“You can do that? You can watch the house over the Internet?”

“You bet. And most of those cameras are twelve volts, so with the addition of a cheap adapter, it should plug right into the cigarette lighter.”

She stopped supporting her chin and reached for her pack of cigarettes. My mention of the lighter must have flipped some kind of switch in her brain. “Only one problem, Einstein. You might as well write NSA on your Jeep, because it’ll be about as inconspicuous as a naked hooker at communion.”

The image she painted made me laugh. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if Lakewood has some kind of law against parking overnight. It would be my luck they would tow it after twenty-four hours. I guess that’s not such a great idea.”

“No, Jake. That MP camera is a stroke of genius.”

“IP, Bon, and I forgot one important fact. It needs a router to connect to the Internet. I suppose I could search for an unprotected router in the neighborhood, but that too is a crime now. But it doesn’t matter. Does your nephew still have his roofing company?”

Bonnie was about to light up again, but stopped in midair with her lighter still lit. “Jonathan?” Recognition of my next move showed in her wrinkles. “Oh, no. Not that again.”

It was only last year I had taken a job with Jonathan in an attempt to find evidence. Shelia had threatened me with manslaughter in the death of her husband when a barbecue grill I was using exploded in her husband’s face. Long story short, I suspected Jonathan of sabotaging the grill so I talked my way into his roofing yard to search for the faulty propane bottle.

“I need to borrow one of his pickups for a couple hours. Just long enough to install the camera on the house Cory and Jennifer were renting.”

Bonnie went back to lighting her cigarette, so I continued explaining my plan. “All you have to do is call him and ask to borrow a truck to go get your treadmill. We won’t need it more than a couple hours.”

“Let me guess, you’re going to pretend to inspect their roof. That’s why you need a truck with a sign on it, so no one will ask what you’re doing there.”

“Close, but no banana. I’ll pretend to be an estimator.”

***

Jonathan’s roofing yard was only a few miles from Cory and Jennifer’s house, so even if he was tracking our mileage, I reasoned he’d never notice the little side trip we were about to make. He was waiting at the gate when we pulled up.

“I didn’t think I’d see you around here after last time,” he said after I parked my Jeep.

Bonnie got out, slammed her door, and spoke before I could. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Jon. Jake has been good enough to help me, so I’d appreciate it if you could hold your tongue.”

Jonathan smiled exactly the way Paul Wilson had that day at the bookstore when Cory had questioned him about the gold. Hannibal Lecter must have been an inspiration for both of them. “Sorry, Aunt Bonnie, but you don’t need his help. Mom would kill me if I didn’t do it for you.”

***

Bonnie went with Jon to get her treadmill when we realized he wasn’t going to let us use his truck. The ride home with Fred gave me time to rethink my plan on using the IP camera. I didn’t want to run up my credit card with the purchase anyway, so in the end I decided to find another way to smoke out Shelia, if it really was her who I had seen at Craig’s. For all I knew she was truly dead and the girl I saw was someone Crig had picked up at a bar. But on a whim, I decided to do a quick drive-by anyway.

Craig’s new SUV wasn’t in his drive, or the garage. I thought it odd he left the garage door open. If he was home, where was his car? Once again, I drove back to the Casa Bonita parking lot, put Fred on a leash and headed west on Colfax toward Saulsbury Street.

Fred stopped at a telephone pole on the corner of Pierce and Colfax. I pretended to look at some posters on the pole when I saw him lift a leg.

“This could be you, buddy, if they arrest me for what you’re about to do,” I said when I saw a poster for a lost dog stapled between a poster for a week old garage sale, and another for a missing woman. He didn’t seem to care and went about his business anyway. I was about to scold him before I did a double take of the poster. The woman could easily pass for Shelia’s sister.

I didn’t know what I expected once we’d made it back to Craig’s house. Bonnie’s theory that they used a body double to fake Shelia’s murder was beginning to make sense. Part of me was hoping his new girlfriend would answer the door and dispel my suspicions while another part didn’t want anyone to answer, especially not Craig. When no one answered, I looked around at the neighbors’ houses to see if anyone was watching, then casually walked down the drive toward the garage.

Most of the houses on the block had detached garages built at the back of the house. At least, those that had garages. It was an older neighborhood, built in the thirties and forties when garages were a luxury. It was obvious Craig’s garage was an afterthought, built in the late fifties or early sixties, because the architectural style wasn’t even close to that of the house. The garage had stucco walls and a flat roof, whereas the house was clad in asbestos siding with an asphalt shingle roof. I also discovered why the door had been left open—here wasn’t one. What must have been its door, or what was left of it, was lying against a side of the garage I couldn’t see from the street. It was one of those doors that consisted of two-foot panels that slid on rollers, and there was only one panel I could see.

The temptation to snoop inside was too great. “Stay here and warn me if anyone comes back, Freddie.” He had been following me so closely he could have been my shadow, if I had large floppy ears and a tail.

Fred looked at me like I’d just eaten a burger and didn’t give him any. “Please, Freddie. I need you to be my lookout.”

He stayed when I went into the garage, but something told me it wouldn’t last long so I had better be quick. I had no idea what I was looking for. If Craig had killed Shelia, would he be dumb enough to leave evidence in a garage less than twenty feet from the murder scene?

Once inside, I couldn’t see anything of value. It was a small garage, with a workbench on the side that must have made it difficult to park a car larger than his old Toyota. That explained why he parked his new SUV in the driveway. A quick glance showed no tools on the bench or walls, which didn’t surprise me, because they wouldn’t last long in an open garage in this part of town. I was about to leave when I decided to check the floor for oil stains, but that, too, was a disappointment. The power-steering fluid I hoped to find on the floor didn’t exist. The only discoloration I saw were dirty, dark, puddles of oil from a tired engine.

Fred’s tail beat faster than a hammer-drill on high when I returned. “I’m happy to see you too, Freddie. Are you ready to get out of here before we get caught?,”

He barked once before heading down the driveway toward the street. I swear he acted like we had just robbed a bank. I thought for sure he wanted to get away before the posse showed up, but he surprised me. Instead of going to the car, he stopped at a trash can and barked again.

I knew him too well to ignore his outburst. “Is there something in there?”

He answered with a grin.

Once more, I looked around to see if we were being watched before lifting the lid from the trash can. “Is food all you ever think about?” I asked when I saw somebody’s partially eaten, worm-infested sandwich. I was about to put the lid back and leave when I realized the worms weren’t moving. In fact, they weren’t worms at all. They were pieces of tape from an old cassette. But not any cassette, it was tape from a mini-DV cartridge, like the one my old camcorder used. I pushed the sandwich aside, and saw the rest of my tape. Someone had tried to destroy it by cutting it into pieces.

Fred barked before I finished gathering the larger pieces of tape into a bundle I could carry. “What now, Freddie?” He was looking toward the house.

This time the hair on the back of my neck rose. It was like one of those eerie feelings one gets when walking by a cemetery late at night. I felt someone was watching us and looked up in time to see a curtain moving inside the window facing us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jon waved me down after I’d turned onto Columbine Circle. His truck was parked in Bonnie’s driveway with the treadmill resting on the tailgate, where he sat smoking a cigarette. I pulled in behind him instead of going up the road to my cabin.

He flipped the cigarette aside. “It’s about time you showed up. I was about to give up on you.”

Fred wasted no time running up to our cabin the minute I let him out. I didn’t bother calling him back, for he wouldn’t be much help with the treadmill anyway.

Maybe Fred didn’t care if Jon burned down our mountain, but I did, and walked over to his discarded cigarette to stomp on it. “Where’s Bonnie?” I asked, feeling bile rising in my stomach. I felt like telling him what an idiot he was, but held it in for Bonnie’s sake.

He pulled out his cell phone from a shirt pocket, pretending not to notice me extinguishing his cigarette. “Dropped her off at the book store. She got a call from that friend of hers on the way up here. Told me to wait for you cause you had a key.” He never once took his eyes off his phone to look at me.

“Patty?” I asked, mesmerized by the way his thumbs danced on the virtual keyboard.

“I guess. She didn’t say.” He finally looked up from his texting. “Well Smoky the Bear, if you’re ready to help me, I’ve really got better things to do than sit around yakking about a couple of old women.”

A year ago I would have told him where he could put the treadmill, but ever since Julie died I no longer let rude people upset me. She taught me that life really is too short to get upset over ignorant people, so I bit my tongue and counted to ten instead.

***

I waited until Jon was gone before calling Bonnie to see if she needed a ride home.

“Thanks, Jake, you’re a sweetheart, but it will be too late. I’m helping Patty inventory the store.”

That didn’t surprise me, for Bonnie would help anyone who asked. “Why’s she doing that?”

“She came into some money and wants to buy the place. It broke her heart when she sold the store in Boulder, and now she has a chance to get back to what she loves the most.”

“I’ll be up awhile splicing a tape back together that Fred found at Renfield’s. Call me when you’re ready to come home.”

“Craig Renfield’s? What were you doing there?” A voice in the background told me she was using the speaker mode.

“Anyone there besides Patty?”

“No, Jake. Now tell me why you went there.”

I wasn’t sure who was listening, and didn’t want some total stranger to think I went around scrounging through trash cans, so I blamed it on Fred. “Wilson told me that Renfield had Julie’s book, so I had to see if it was true. He wasn’t home, but when Fred took off chasing a cat into the backyard, I went chasing him. That’s when he found the tape.”

“And you think its tape from your camcorder?”

“What else could it be?”

“An old Alice Cooper tape that wore out after forty years. Craig Renfield strikes me as the type who likes decapitating chickens.” I could hear Patty giggle at the remark.

“Decapitating chickens?” I asked.

Bonnie laughed. “Before your time, sonny. Alice Cooper was a rock star who used to behead live chickens on stage.”

“Ask him, Bonnie,” Patty asked.

“Jake, did you ever retrieve Shelia’s copy of Tom Sawyer? Patty said it might be worth a fortune.”

“Yes, Bon. You can tell her it’s safe. Fred and I dug it up some time ago.” I wanted to know why Patty was so interested, but I also wanted to get to work on the camcorder tape, so I didn’t ask.

Bonnie said something to her friend I couldn’t make out before coming back online. “Patty would like to see it when you pick me up tomorrow. Do you mind?”

“Sure. I mean, I don’t mind, but I didn’t tell you the best part about our trip to Renfield’s. I saw a poster for a missing girl who could have been Shelia’s twin. And when I was going through the trash, I swear I saw a curtain move in the house. I think you’re right about the body double, and it was probably Shelia watching us. Once I get this tape back together, we should have all the proof we need to show it was Shelia who broke into your house, and planted evidence to frame you.”

There was a long pause. I checked my phone to see if I had lost the signal. “Bon? Are you there?”

“Sorry, Jake. Patty was talking in my other ear. She says she knows someone who can put the tape back together, and you shouldn’t try it yourself, or you may ruin it. She’ll gladly pay to have it done.”

Now it was my turn to pause. Obviously, they didn’t think I was capable of splicing the tape back together, and maybe they were right. “Okay, Bon. We’ll let the pros have a stab at it before I make a complete mess.”

“Thanks, Jake. And get some rest. I’ll call you in the morning to come and get us.”

***

Patience never was my best virtue. I had no intention of waiting to see what was on the tape. I had it back together in less than an hour, but didn’t have any way of viewing it without my camcorder. Then I remembered a converter I used to use so many years ago. It was a VHS cartridge that held a mini DV cassette and allowed it to be played in a VHS player. All I had to do was find the player and converter.

***

Somewhere around two in the morning I saw who had really tried to frame Bonnie, and knew why Patty wanted the tape so badly.

My first reaction was to run down to the bookstore, but I decided to call the cops first. It was late, and Lakewood said they would have an officer call me back when one was available, so I did the next best thing and called Deputy White. I knew it was out of his jurisdiction, but Appleton and the murdered kids weren’t.

White wasn’t in either, so I left a long voice mail describing Fred’s find and my deduction of who had been doing all the killing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Bonnie was surprised to see us when Fred and I showed up at the bookstore, but Patty wasn’t. The lines in her forehead, and frown on her face painted a picture of complete despair.

“You know, don’t you, Jake?” Patty asked after letting us in.

Bonnie stood there with her mouth open.

“The tape, Bon. I thought it was odd that Patty didn’t want me to see what was on it.”

Turning to Patty, I continued. “If you had ever had children, you would know the fastest way to get them to do something is to tell them not to do it.”

I finished by speaking to Bonnie. “It was Patty who planted evidence to frame you, and guess who was waiting for her in his beat-up Toyota?”

“Craig Renfield? They were in it together?” Bonnie had found her voice. “Why, Patty? I thought I was your best friend.”

“No, not Renfield,” I said, before Patty could speak. “He doesn’t have the brains to weave such a web. I think he was hired help. The real mastermind is Paul Wilson, isn’t it, Patty?”

Patty nodded her head and started to speak, but sobbed instead. I motioned toward some comfortable reading chairs and waited for the women to take a seat. She wiped her face with a tissue she must have had in her skirt pocket.

“Have you ever wanted something so bad you’d be willing to kill for it?” Patty asked.

Before anyone could answer, she turned toward Bonnie, and continued. “I’m so sorry, Bon. You know how much the store in Boulder meant to me. I thought the money Paul promised me would let me start over. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Bonnie’s astonishment quickly turned to rage. Eyes that were larger than quarters a moment earlier were now smaller than a dime. “You set me up for Shelia’s murder?” She was nearly screaming.

Fred must have sensed how upset Bonnie was, and went over to her, and put his head on her lap. She instantly calmed down. “I’m sorry, Freddie. Did I scare you?”

He answered the best he could, with sad, forlorn eyes, while keeping his tail between his legs.

She reached out to rub his ears while turning to me. “I don’t understand, Jake. Why would Wilson bribe her to frame me for murder?”

“That’s not why he was paying her off. Is it, Patty?” I asked.

“No.” she answered without looking up.

I stood up, realizing it must have made me a look like a caricature from an old black and white murder movie, but spoke anyway. “Wilson paid her to get Shelia’s book, and when she wouldn’t sell, Patty killed her for it.”

I looked over for confirmation and took her silence for a yes. “Like she said, she was willing to kill to get back into the book business, and Shelia just happened to be in the way.”

Patty finally looked up. “I didn’t mean to. She was just so nasty to me, and kept calling me filthy names. She screamed for me to leave, and then picked up her nail file and threatened me. I grabbed her arm and tripped over something. The next thing I knew she was lying on the floor with the file in her neck.”

I stopped pacing back and forth and looked Patty in the eyes. “Why didn’t you go to the police then? It sounds like an accident to me. The worst they could have charged you with is manslaughter.”

“Paul wouldn’t let me. He knew the police would keep Shelia’s copy of Tom Sawyer. He said I could forget about the book store if I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“But it wasn’t the right book, so he went after my copy,” I said.

Patty had regained some of her composure and didn’t hesitate to answer this time. “Not him. I mean it was him, but he paid Appleton to steal it. But then Appleton decided to keep it.”

“So it must have been Appleton who broke into Paul Wilson’s house and stole all his notes? Is that why he killed Appleton, or did he get Cory to do it?”

“Yes and no, Jake. Yes, it was Appleton who stole Paul’s notes, but it was Craig Renfield who killed Appleton. Paul found out Renfield was a drug addict and reasoned he was really stoned the night I killed Shelia, so he convinced Renfield he had killed her, and wouldn’t tell if he took care of Appleton for him.”

She paused long enough to chuckle at whatever she was thinking. “Paul is some kind of genius, you know. He could have been Sherlock’s Moriarty. He told Renfield to borrow Cory’s truck because his Toyota might draw too much attention with its bad muffler. It was really a ploy to put the suspicion on Cory if someone saw them.”

“So it was Renfield driving away in the Datsun, and Wilson must have been in the F150 with Appleton?” I didn’t feel like commenting on Wilson’s intellectual capabilities.

“Yeah, he nearly spoiled his pants when he came back to get his notes and saw you and Bonnie standing on the deck with a shotgun.”

“Was Appleton already dead then, or did they shoot him full of drugs at the park?” I knew I had to get all the details before she realized what she was saying and quit talking.

Patty’s body language confirmed my fear, and she turned to Bonnie, crying again. “Please don’t go to the police, Bon. I’m so sorry, but hanging me won’t do anyone any good.”

It looked like Bonnie was about to explode. “You didn’t mind seeing me swing from a rope, and now you want me to forgive you?”

“Who do you think wrote Appleton’s suicide note?” Patty answered, no longer crying. “That was my idea so the police wouldn’t suspect you. I made Paul put it in the truck with Appleton.”

Bonnie just stared without answering, so Patty tried pleading with me instead. “I can get your book and ring back, Jake.”

“You know where the backpack is?” I asked.

“Your book wasn’t in there. Not when the kids got hold of it. That was another clever lie Paul made up to get you to go after the backpack. Appleton kept all Paul’s notes and his other loot in there, including Bonnie’s manicure kit, which he must have found at the signing when it fell out of Bonnie’s purse. He had it wrapped in a bloody shirt for some reason we will never know.”

She stopped and dried eyes that were no longer wet. “Anyway, Paul thought he might be able to use your book and ring as some kind of blackmail, so he removed those from the backpack before giving it to Renfield to put in the Datsun. That idiot Renfield forgot about the backpack and left it in the Datsun. When Cory found it, he must have realized what the notes meant, so he and his girlfriend went looking for the gold mine. That’s why Paul wanted it back so badly, for his notes, not your book. He realized the notes on the table you found were copies made from the flash drive. The originals were in the backpack.”

“Then where is Julie’s book?” I didn’t mention I thought it was Wilson who made the copies, and not Appleton, because I didn’t want her to stop talking. The notes I found at Appleton’s were printed on a dot-matrix printer. Appleton had an ink-jet. Only Wilson would have been old enough to own an antique printer.

Her tears were completely gone and replaced by a smile she must have borrowed from Wilson. “Are you going to the police?”

“No,” I lied. “Bonnie’s off the hook and if I get Julie’s book, well I never heard any of this did I?”

Patty got up and walked over to the check-out counter. A minute later she came back with Julie’s ring and copy of Tom Sawyer. She looked over at Bonnie before giving them to me. “Is it a deal, Bon?”

Bonnie nodded her head, and Patty handed everything to me.

“Thank you, Patty, but you realize you’re still in trouble, don’t you?”

Her eyes turned dark. “You promised!”

“Not me, Patty. You’re forgetting about your partner in crime, Paul Wilson,” I said, watching her eyes grow wider.

Bonnie gave me a look that mirrored Patty’s.

“The tape, girls. Why else would he plant the tape in Renfield’s trash and lure me into going there to find it? It’s his chance to kill two birds with one tape.” Any other time I’d expect a chuckle from my clever pun, but wasn’t surprised no one laughed.

“But he must know I’d tell everything once that tape was discovered,” Maggie said.

Fred raised his head and started to growl, and we all turned in time to see Paul Wilson emerge from the back of the store.

“But you won’t tell, my dear. Neither will any of you.” He stood with his Hannibal Lecter smile, and an automatic pistol pointing at us.

I grabbed Fred by his collar before he did something stupid. “You’re forgetting about your other partner, Paul. Renfield is bound to realize he’s next on your list and confess to save his butt.”

His smile grew bigger. “He won’t be talking to anyone but Saint Peter. Who do you think was behind his curtains watching to make sure you took my bait?”

“That was you?”

His smile faded when he pulled back the top of his gun to arm it. “And since dead men don’t tell tales, the tape should be all the cops need to think Patty killed everyone once I leave this gun in her hands.”

I let Fred go so I could grab for the gun, but Fred was on him before he could get off the first round. Fred bit into his arm, and Wilson dropped the gun, but not before firing a shot through the ceiling, and then we heard the sirens.