Angel's Advocate (29 page)

“And got there about four, yes. Violet Henry arranged one of the conference rooms the school sets aside for family.”

“And Henry didn’t stay with you throughout the interview?”

“No. Should she have?” Bree slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead. “Damn. Damn, I am so stupid. My conversation with Lindsey was taped, wasn’t it? Oh, I should be smeared with molasses and hung in a beehive.”

“And the tape turned over to the family by now, don’t you think?”

“Double damn, damn,
damn
.” Served her right for leaving Sasha with Belli and Miles in the car. Sasha would have alerted her to the tape recorder. She was sure of it. But she hadn’t wanted her precious dog anywhere near the tormented Lindsey.

“Here,” Hunter said in a kindly way, “beat yourself over the head with this.” He pulled a baguette from the breadbasket and offered it to her with a flourish. “I don’t need to add that civilians rummaging around in police investigations leads to precisely this kind of thing, do I?”

“If you don’t shut up,” Bree said fiercely, “I’ll stuff that stew right up your nose. And I mean it.”

There was a well-dressed couple in the booth next to their table. The woman, a little older than Bree, glanced at them, shifted nervously in her seat, and whispered to her male companion. Bree fought the impulse to stuff stew up her nose, too. “What do we do now?”

“We? Got a mouse in your pocket?” Hunter sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. But you do realize your behavior violates at least three separate tenets in your canon of ethics.”

“I’m sorry. I am
so
sorry.”

“You’re risking your license to practice law. No skin off
my
nose.”

“Thanks for the sympathetic ear,” she said sarcastically. “I didn’t stop to think. I was a fool. Worse yet, I’ve been unethical. My father,” she added gloomily, “is going to spit rocks.”

Hunter’s face softened, just a little. “Get some sleep. Back off a little. Give yourself time to calm down. You get tired or you let a case get to you, you’re going to lose your objectivity and make mistakes.”

Bree swallowed another piece of the baguette, along with the lecture. She waited until the flush had cooled from her cheeks and her blood pressure had returned to a relatively normal state. “So how’s the investigation into the murder of Shirley Chavez?”

“The call to the cell phone she made after she talked to Stubblefield’s office was to a cell phone with prepaid minutes. And we’re sifting through the forensic evidence we gathered at the murder site right now. Not much hope there, I’m afraid.” He look tired, and older, all of a sudden. “There’s nothing harder to solve than a seemingly random, opportunistic act like this one, Bree. If we don’t get a break in the case, it doesn’t look good. That eyewitness to Probert’s car crash? You wouldn’t care to pass that name along?”

Bree remembered her promise to Ron. “That person’s not going to come forward,” she said. “Not unless we get a miracle.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about the robberies. She couldn’t. Not until she knew more. Not until the pattern between these two cases started to make some sense.

And not until Sam Hunter’s respect for her had come back. Just a little.

“It’ll take a miracle to solve this sucker.” Bree stared out her office window at the graveyard. She’d resigned from representing Carrie-Alice and George. Although the morning had dawned bright and sunny, the sun never seemed to reach under the boughs of the live oak tree. Josiah Pendergast’s grave gaped wide. She imagined she could smell the dank and fetid air that rose from it, and rubbed her arms as if she were cold. At least she’d gotten some sleep the night before. And she’d gone for a run by the river early in the morning; she felt rested, and her head was clear.

But the case looked worse than ever.

“I don’t know about miracles. Some good investigative work will help. We’ve narrowed down the suspect list.” Ron placed a sheet of paper on her desk with an air of triumph. “Three of the people on this list have no alibi for the time of Mr. Chandler’s death. All three have a grudge against him or the company, and have threatened him in the past. And all three have committed felonies related to crimes against property.”

“As opposed to crimes against persons,” Petru said with an air of helpfulness. “We thought that the warehouse burglaries were of some significance.”

“I wish I knew for sure why the Chandlers are turning cartwheels to keep it quiet.” Bree took a look at the list: Stephen Hansen; Marvin Kleinmetz; Tiffany Burkhold. The name Hansen rang a faint bell. Was she thinking of the notorious spy? She hoped they weren’t whistling in the wind. What if Probert had been killed in some insane, random act? What if Shirley—no. There was no possible alternate interpretation for what had happened to Shirley. She had been murdered. It was murder, clear as daylight and twice as strong. And it had to connect to these other events. It had to. And it all had to connect to Marlowe’s.

“What’s the grudge each has against Chandler?”

“Hansen’s owner of a small family pharmacy that went totally bankrupt when Marlowe’s built that store off of Highway 80. He brought a nonsense lawsuit, lost, and threatened to kill Chandler, right there in open court. The guy’s not too tightly wrapped, according to his neighbors. One interesting thing—his pharmacology degree’s from the University of Oregon. Same year as Lindquist and Chandler, as a matter of fact.”

Bree sat up.
We were all chem majors,
Lindquist had said during the party at Plessey. Steve Hansen, Bert, and me.

“There’s more. He’s been indicted and convicted for tax fraud in the past. And he apparently has quite a gambling habit.”

“Gambling,” Bree said.

“Money is always a motive,” Ron offered. “One of the best.”

Bree bit her lip to keep from yelling hoorah! and behaving like an idiot in front of her staff. “Wow. This is looking better and better.”

“Isn’t it?”

Petru made a grumbling noise. Ron smirked. “As for these others: Marv Kleinmetz is a union organizer, with a long history of thumping people’s heads. He’s been trying to organize the Marlowe’s workers for years. He was fired for theft last year, and Marlowe’s prosecuted. He was released from prison a week before Probert’s accident out on Skidaway. And he’s a big-time deer hunter.” He raised his eyebrows at Bree’s puzzled look. “The deer-jacking flashlight, remember? Not conclusive, to be sure, but inertia plays a large part in human behavior. You tend to use what’s at hand.”

“Did you get any details on the theft?”

Ron’s smile was beatific. “He was in charge of inventory control. When he was hauled off to the pokey, the store manager replaced him with Chad Martinelli and Shirley Chavez. Ready for the finale?”

“Ready.”

“He’s the registered owner of a .38.”

“Well,” Bree said. “Well, well, well. And the third person?”

“Tiffany Burkhold is a former employee. She was fired from Marlowe’s four and a half months ago—a couple of weeks before the car crash.”

“So she would have worked with Shirley.”

“Oh, she worked with Shirley, all right. Shirley caught her swiping prescription drugs from the pharmacy and turned her in. Tiffany lost both the Marlowe’s job and her part-time job as a teller at the Bank of Savannah. She wrote a letter threatening Probert personally. Stubblefield, Marwick got a restraining order on behalf of Chandler. She does have a record as a juvenile. It’s sealed, but it’s relevant. She was involved in a series of snatch-and-grabs as a kid.”

“Shirley turned her in?”
The one time I didn’t mind my own business, it came back to bite me in the ass.

“So Tiffany’s still paying for offenses committed how long ago?”

“Twenty-five years, at least.”

“Yikes.” Bree traced the names on the paper with her finger. “Did you turn these names over to Sam Hunter?”

Ron nodded. “First thing this morning. He said to tell you he’s on it.”

“Shirley’s death changes things,” Bree said.

“Lieutenant Hunter said to tell you he’s on that, too.”

Bree bit her thumb and brooded.

Ron sat on the edge of his desk and swung his legs jauntily. “So what’s next, chief?”

“There’s something very off, here.” Bree frowned. “All three of these people made public threats against Chandler himself. And Chandler responded the way any citizen should: he called the cops. And he used the court system.”

“So why the deep silence over the warehouse robberies, perhaps?” Petru said.

“Exactly.” Bree bent over the list again. “I like Hansen for it. I like Kleinmetz for it. Tiffany, not so much.” She looked up. “Uncle Jay, a.k.a. John Lindquist,” she said. “I really, really want to talk to Uncle Jay. And then Tiffany Burkhold. And then Kleinmetz. In person. Hansen. Do we have an address for him?”

“Not yet. He seems to have disappeared. But I’ll find him.” Ron shook his head. “You think this is all connected with Marlowe’s?”

She thought of the keys. “It has to be.”

Lindquist agreed to meet her at the manufacturing plant, which was located near the Marlowe’s retail operation on Highway 80. On the way to the meeting, Bree had a brain wave of an idea. She stopped at the store, made several purchases, and tucked them away in her briefcase.

Both the research center and warehouse were located a quarter mile from the Marlowe’s store, at the very rear of the Marlowe’s property. It was pretty clear which was Marlowe’s property and which was not: all of the trees and shrubbery had been cleared from the land, to be replaced by lots of concrete and grass mowed within an inch of its life. Parts of the research center were still under construction. A large sculpture of the Marlowe’s logo in front of the two-story building was in the final stages. The concrete pad around the base was newly poured and drying in the sun.

Concrete trucks and bulldozers rumbled past Bree as she pulled into the traffic circle at the main entrance.

Lindquist himself met her at the front desk, and insisted on creating a photo ID for her before he led her inside. “Corporate espionage,” he said. “Bert agreed with me, by the way. The security in this place rivals that at Fort Knox.”

Bree didn’t think he was kidding. Guards with guns swarmed all over the place. Security cameras were tucked into every possible corner. They whirred and rotated as Lindquist led the way to the labs.

Lindquist’s office was as utilitarian as the man himself. A steel gray carpet covered the floor. The furniture was chrome, glass, and black leather. One entire wall was made of glass, and overlooked a fully staffed chemical laboratory. The air-conditioning was set so low Bree wished she’d worn a sweater. He seated her at the small glass conference table, and then pushed a switch. A set of blinds whispered down from the ceiling, closing the lab from Bree’s view.

“I don’t have much time,” Lindquist began.

“I don’t either.” Bree bent down and pulled out the products she’d bought at the store twenty minutes earlier. “Lindsey’s vitamins,” she said, “and something that wasn’t her choice.” She set the bottle of vitamins next to the sole ornament in the room, a glass paperweight bearing the Marlowe’s logo. She tossed the syringe and vials onto the tabletop. They bounced across the glass toward Lindquist, and then fell to the floor. “Well, Uncle Jay? These are Lindsey’s. I sent the contents to a private lab in Atlanta for testing not half an hour ago. What do you think they’ll find?”

He looked at the exhibit with absolutely no expression. “The vitamins are a mix of B
₁₂
and B
₆
, as well as D, E, and C. I take them myself. Everyone connected to the family does. You’d benefit from them yourself.” He set the vials aside. “And we thought that Lindsey’s supply might be on its way to the labs in Atlanta. Is that why you’re here, Miss Beaufort? Because I can guarantee”—he leaned forward and dropped his voice to a hiss—“
guarantee
that you won’t find anything but legal compounds in those samples.”