Cold Case Cop (13 page)

Patterson set his jaw.

“I can vouch for her,” Alex said.

Patterson shot him a glance. “Kirkland has a good rep, so if he vouches for you, I’ll allow it. But if one word of this gets leaked, it’s your hide, Mackey.”

She didn’t flinch. “Agreed.”

Patterson nodded and the trio walked inside the house. Now that the storm had passed, sunlight streamed through the windows. While the house had been dark and gloomy yesterday, today it was almost cheery. Out the north window was a clear view of the ocean.

“The place looks completely different during the day,” Tara said. “I can almost see why Kit picked it.”

Alex still couldn’t picture the sophisticated Kit living here. “I don’t think aesthetics had anything to do with her choosing this place. She had a reason for being here.”

“You’re right,” Patterson said. “She had a very good reason for being here.”

Friday, July 18, 10:00 a.m.

T
ara could barely contain her curiosity. “So out with it, Patterson. Why was Kit here?”

The state police officer shot her a glance that told her he didn’t like her one bit. So she shot him back another glance that told him she didn’t care one bit.

Patterson cleared his throat. “It seems Kit was running a computer-scam operation out of her house. She’s got a satellite hookup outside as well as solar panels. As long as the sun is shining she’s got the solar juice to power her operation.”

Tara wasn’t shocked. “That certainly fits Brenda’s MO.”

Patterson rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “For the sake of clarity, can we stick to one name? Kit, Brenda, Bess. Pick any one.”

“Kit,” Tara said. “It’s how most know her.”

Patterson nodded. “It seems
Kit
was busy setting up her scams within a month of arriving here. Her computer records are chock-full of stings.”

Alex studied the computer. “Patterson, mind if I poke around?”

“Help yourself.”

Alex sat down at the computer and started opening several programs. “She’s made almost a million.”

“And it all is stored offshore in the Cayman Islands,” Patterson said.

“Which means,” Tara added, “whoever has the account and password has access to the money. Is that information missing?”

Admiration flickered in Patterson’s eyes. “No, it’s not. The access numbers were all on her Rolodex. It wouldn’t have taken much to find them. Whoever killed Kit didn’t want the passwords.”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “Robinson’s place was ransacked. All the gems were taken. I’d say robbery was a motive behind that killing.”

Patterson nodded. “The gems found on Borelli match the inventory taken from the jeweler’s store. I think Borelli killed Robinson, took the gems and then came up here.”

“The question is, who shot Borelli and Kit?” Tara said as she watched Alex expertly maneuver through the computer programs.

Alex studied the screen. “It looks like Kit was working with someone in Boston.”

“Could she have been working with her former chauffeur?” Tara asked. “There were rumors in Boston that they were lovers. Maybe that’s true.”

Patterson shrugged. “I don’t know. Kit didn’t have any personal items here at the cottage that would link her to the past. I can tell you that she had two airline tickets dated for the tenth of next month. She was planning to leave for Fiji.”

“Why didn’t she leave the country earlier?” Tara said. “She could have taken off a year ago.”

“I can answer that one. Borelli wouldn’t have been able to get a passport until just recently because he was on parole for a felony drug violation. With no more probation hanging over him, he would have been free to leave the country.”

“So Kit waited for him?” Tara asked.

Alex shrugged. “Seems so.”

“Was Borelli his legal name?” Tara asked as another possibility occurred to her.

“No,” Alex said. “It was Martin.”

Tara snapped her fingers. She pulled a notebook out of her camera bag and started to flip through her notes from the other day. She tapped her finger against an entry. “Mrs. Shoemaker mentioned a half brother. His last name was Martin.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Borelli and Kit were brother and sister.”

“Did you find the gems Kit was wearing the day she married Landover?” Tara asked.

Patterson shook his head. “No. If they’d been in the sack Borelli had on him, then they were taken.”

“How much of this place have you searched?” Alex asked.

“Not much,” Patterson admitted. “But we’re going to take the place apart.”

Tara’s mind reeled through the facts. Borelli and Kit were siblings. “I’ll bet money that whoever sent me the information on the Kit/Brenda connection knew Borelli was her brother. Whoever sent me that information set me up. They wanted me to find Kit so that they could follow me and kill her.” She thought about the night her motel door had rattled. It wasn’t a case of a confused guest. Someone had been trying to get into her room. “I just can’t figure how Robinson fits into all this.”

Alex leaned back in the chair. “Robinson had a past including felony convictions for theft.”

“Do you think the three were working together?” Kit asked.

“Very possible,” Alex said. “Kit would need someone like Robinson to help her fence such easily identified gems.”

“Do we know how the killer got onto the island?” Tara asked.

Patterson shoved his hands in his pockets and rattled the loose change. “My men have started interviewing people and so far no one has seen anyone out of the ordinary.”

“Miller’s Cove is a mile from town,” Tara said. “I’ll bet the killer came in by private boat and walked into town.”

Alex nodded. “And then made the eight-mile trek up a rocky road at night and then turned around and walked back. That’s twenty miles to cover.”

Tara smiled. “The killer didn’t walk up the mountain.” She loved it when the pieces of a puzzle came together. “The killer drove Florence’s car.”

“You’re losing me,” Patterson said.

Alex reached for his cell. He understood where she was going with this. “Florence is a waitress in town. She thought her son had banged up the front bumper and she was angry at him because he denied it.”

“The killer drove up the mountain road at night and hit the pile of rocks we almost hit while we headed up here the next morning,” Tara continued.

Alex shoved out a breath. “Patterson, you better get your forensics team into town to check out that truck. It might have the only bit of trace evidence left of our killer.”

Two hours later, Tara watched a distraught Florence arguing with Patterson as his men dusted her truck for fingerprints. The entire inside was covered with black dusting powder. The police had lifted a lot of prints but it could take days to determine who they belonged to.

Many of the folks from town had gathered and were discussing this latest turn of events. No one had ever been murdered in Sable Point and now the town had seen two murders.

Tara spoke to several people about Kit, the woman they knew as Bess. She’d collected a handful of stories, and from what she’d been able to piece together, Bess only came into town for supplies. She liked magazines, especially about movie stars, and she favored chocolate. She didn’t mix with people at all and always wore a hat and sunglasses.

The cops hadn’t roped Miller’s Cove off yet and Tara knew if she didn’t sneak a look soon, she’d never get the chance. While Alex spoke to Patterson, Tara drove over to the cove on the narrow dirt road.

When she reached the end of the road, she grabbed her camera and started down the rocky path that led to the tiny beach. Halfway down, she slipped on a jagged rock and nearly dropped her camera. Muttering an oath, she glanced at the raw skin at her ankle before moving onto the dock.

She snapped a couple dozen pictures from all angles and then, seeing nothing else of interest, returned to town.

Kit, Borelli and Robinson—all three had criminal backgrounds and reinvented lives, and they’d all lived in Boston at the same time and had moved in the same circles.

Tara was beginning to believe that the answers to these murders were back in Boston.

Friday, July 18, 5:00 p.m.

T
ara followed Alex in her car all the way from Sable Point into Boston. They’d not stopped during the four-hour ride but as they approached the city her cell phone rang.

She flipped it open. “Mackey.”

“It’s Alex.”

On the island she’d felt so connected to him but as they got closer and closer to the city she started to feel as though she was losing the connection they’d shared. When she and Robert had met at college everything had been fine. It was only when they’d returned to Boston that the trouble had started.

“Hey.”

“I’ve got to head into work. I’ll call you later.”

I’ll call you later
. There was a loaded line. “Sure.”

“I will call,” he added, as if he’d sensed something in her voice. “I know. Hey, my exit is coming up. I’ve got to go.”

“Okay.”

She hung up. All she wanted now was to find Roxie and talk to her. She needed Roxie to banish her fears and tell her she was worrying over nothing.

Tara pushed through the doors of the bar just after five o’clock. The place was busy and Roxie was behind the bar, serving drinks. One glance told Tara tonight was going to be a packed one so she quickly changed into jeans and put on her apron. Twenty minutes after arriving home she was waiting tables.

It was too hectic for her to talk to Roxie but a couple of times she caught her aunt staring at her. Roxie knew her better than anyone and she’d likely guessed that something more had happened while Tara was gone.

At ten-fifteen, Tara moved toward the table of new arrivals. They were all sleekly dressed women who clearly didn’t fit in this part of town. Tara recognized Regina instantly. The woman stared up at her with the contented smile of a cat ready to eat a mouse.

Tara plastered on her best smile. “Welcome to Roxie’s.”

Three of the women didn’t even bother to glance in her direction. But Regina’s grin broadened. “Tara? What on earth are you doing here?”

“I work here,” she said matter-of-factly.

“But I thought you were a reporter.”

Tara shrugged. Regina wasn’t fooling anyone. She knew exactly what she was doing. “I’ve got bills to pay, like most, and the extra money helps.”

Regina tried to suppress a giggle, as if a second job were something to be embarrassed about. “Oh, right, sure.”

Tara didn’t feel the least bit of shame. She had student loans to pay and an aunt to help. Period. “So what can I get you ladies?”

Regina tossed a glance at her friends. “Four white wines. The best you have.”

“Sure.” As she moved to the bar, Roxie caught her gaze.

Roxie lifted a plucked eyebrow. “So what do the snooty-dos want?”

“Four wines.” And then, mimicking Regina, she said, “Your best.”

Roxie pulled a jug bottle with a twist top from under the bar and started to fill four glasses. “What are they doing here?”

Tara grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bar and popped them in her mouth. She’d not eaten since lunch. “Who knows? But I’m flashing back to junior high when Missy Bevins told me to stay away from Wally Cantrell.”

Roxie set the wineglasses on Tara’s tray. “You lost me there, kid.”

“Regina is Alex’s ex-wife. Regina has figured out that Alex might have a thing for me.”

Roxie’s eyes glinted. “A thing between you and Detective Good-Looking? Is it a good thing?”

“It was while we were on Sable Point. We’ll see if it lasts.” She didn’t sound hopeful because she didn’t want it to fall apart. She didn’t want to get hurt again.

“Kirkland ain’t no Robert, honey. He’s a man who doesn’t back away from what he wants.”

Tara wished she had the same conviction. Alex hadn’t called her since her return and it was bothering her more than she’d ever admit. “I know.”

Roxie reached for Tara’s tray. “Why don’t you let me deliver their drinks? I’d like to get a gander at the ex.”

Tara smiled. “Thanks, but I can handle Regina and her buddies.”

Roxie leaned forward. “Doll, I’ve run interference for you since you were a peanut. I don’t mind doing it tonight.”

“Thanks. But this is something I have to do.”

Roxie twirled her finger around her large gold hoop earring. “Expect the snooty-dos to hate what you put in front of them. They didn’t come here to have a drink.”

“I figured as much.” She hoisted the tray and headed to Regina’s table. She served the drinks. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Regina took a sip of her wine. She wrinkled her nose. “This is the best you have?”

Tara shrugged. “Sure is.”

Regina set her glass down and glanced at her friends, who all looked as if they’d just tasted something awful. “It’s not acceptable.”

“Why are you here?” Tara asked. Her feet hurt, her back ached and she still had a couple of hours of work to do on her article. She had no patience for games tonight. “This isn’t your part of town and this isn’t your kind of place.”

Regina’s eyes hardened. “You are direct.”

Tara arched an eyebrow, waiting for Regina’s response to her original question.

Regina rose and her friends followed. Her eyes had darkened with anger. “All right, if you want to be direct then I can be direct as well. Alex might be having a bit of fun with you now, but he will get bored with you. He belongs with me, not you.”

Tara didn’t flinch but she felt the sting of the barb. “You drove across town to tell me that? Well, great. Consider your message delivered.” She held out her palm. “That’ll be twenty bucks for the wine.”

Regina raised her chin. “I’m not paying anything. The wine was undrinkable.”

Tara’s gaze didn’t waver. And then, in a voice loud enough for all to hear, she said, “Roxie, call the cops. We have a few deadbeats.”

Regina’s lips flattened. “How dare you?”

“You ordered the wines and now you will pay for them or I report you all.”

“You are so common.” Regina snapped open her purse and pulled out a twenty. She tossed it on the table.

The women stalked out but Tara felt no sense of victory. She snapped up the bill and collected the untouched wine.

Regina had hit the heart of Tara’s insecurities just as Missy had when she’d called Tara a bastard in front of Mrs. Young’s sixth grade class. Tara cursed herself for being so insecure or for caring that anyone would think she wasn’t good enough.

“Let it go,” she muttered as she headed back to work.

By the time Tara ushered the last customer out the door it was past midnight and she was so tired she could barely see straight.

Roxie locked the front door as Tara cleared the last of the dishes off the tables. “Anything else you want to tell me about the good detective?”

“Maybe another day.”

Roxie snapped her fingers and began to fish under the bar. She dug out a brown manila envelope. “I almost forgot. You got an envelope this afternoon.”

Tara opened the envelope. “It’s from Pierce. He wants to meet.”