Dying to Kill (Angel Delaney Mysteries Book #2) (23 page)

Angel waited for the crying to subside, feeling sad for the woman and at the same time wondering how she could have fallen for a man like Phillip Jenkins.

“I’m sorry,” Becky finally said. “It just hurts so much.”

“I’m sure it does,” Angel said. “Were you out here the day he was killed?”

She nodded. “Yes, but he was alive when I left.”

“When did you get here?”

Becky shrugged. “A little after noon. I was only here for half an hour—Phillip wanted to get back to the game.”

“Was Candace here?”

“No. She’d gone shopping. My coming here made her uncomfortable—so I always waited until she’d gone to pick up the kids or run errands.”

“How convenient.”

“It was the only time we could . . . be together.”

“Right.”

“Don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Their marriage was over a long time ago.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that line. You know what I think? I don’t think Phillip ever meant to divorce Candace to marry you. I think you called his bluff and when he said no, you picked up his gun and shot him, then tried to make it look like a suicide.”

“You’re out of your mind.” She picked up her purse. “I would never kill him. We loved each other. Candace must have found out about us and . . .” The tears flowed more freely now, as if admitting their affair compounded her grief. She fumbled in her purse for a tissue and found one.

Had Becky killed the man? Phillip’s failure to get a divorce told Angel the guy was one of those have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too types. She doubted he’d ever asked Candace for a divorce. Angel made a mental note to ask Candace about it later.

When she’d finished crying, Becky gathered up the paperwork Phillip had left for her. “His password is Becky,” she said with undeniable pride.

“Thanks. Um, before you go, I have a couple more questions. Mr. Fitzgibbon didn’t seem too happy to hear about the payment to Johansson Electric. Did Phillip often use business money to pay for personal jobs?”

“Barry took far more than his share out of the business, and Phillip was only taking what rightfully belonged to him.”

“And you were helping him do it.”

“I worked for Phillip before Fitzgibbon came into the picture. Just because Barry has the money to back the big projects . . .”

“What happens now? Will you keep your job?”

“I convinced Barry that I didn’t know anything about it and that I thought it was part of my job. He agreed to let me stay.”

“Lucky you.” Angel pursed her lips. “Did Fitzgibbon have any reason to want Phillip dead?”

Becky shook her head and answered almost too quickly. “No, not at all.”

“Did he know about the relationship you had with Phillip?”

“No. No one knew, unless Candace found out . . . Phillip told me he was going to talk to her that day. I still think she killed him.”

“When would she have had a chance?” Angel asked. “She went shopping. You said he was alive after she left. Candace said she didn’t come home until after she picked up the kids. That means he died between the time she left and came back. And if you didn’t kill him, who did?” Angel opted not to mention that Candace’s alibi had an hour-long hole in it. Or that Darryl and Gracie had both been there.

“I have no idea.”

“You know what I think, Becky? I think you found out he wasn’t going to ask Candace for a divorce now or ever.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You were furious with him,” Angel pressed on. “Maybe you realized he’d been using you, and you couldn’t handle it. I think you shot him.”

Tears watered Becky’s eyes again. “I didn’t kill him. He was
alive when I left, I swear. Candace must have come back home before she picked up the kids.”

“It’ll be interesting to hear what the police have to say.”

“You’re going to tell them?”

“Of course I am. They think they have an ironclad case against Candace, but the list of suspects is getting longer by the minute, and you’re right up there at the top.”

Becky put her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll deny everything I’ve said to you.”

“That’s fine.”

Becky swung around in a huff and headed for the door. She stood in the open doorway and turned around, acting as if she wanted to say more. She didn’t. Angel heard the door slam and the Taurus start. As soon as she saw Becky’s car turn toward town, she reached for the phone and called dispatch, asking for Nick.

“Sorry, Angel, he’s out of town today—some seminar in Portland. I think it’s part of his detective training. Can someone else help you?”

“No, just let him know I called and that I have information for him about the Jenkins’s case.” Angel frowned. Nick hadn’t said anything about a seminar. Detective training? Why hadn’t he mentioned that earlier? Before she’d left the department, they had talked about taking some classes together. Looked like Nick was going ahead without her. Angel pushed the thought from her mind, not certain as to why she found the idea annoying.

She thought briefly about telling Joe what she’d uncovered, but opted not to. He probably wouldn’t want her opinion any more than Nick did. Besides that, he might ask her about her father, and Angel couldn’t deal with that. Not yet.

Forcing her thoughts back on the case again, Angel went over her interview with Becky. Phillip Jenkins was scum on life’s pond. No wonder Gracie felt as she did. Had Gracie come home and found her father with Becky?

Angel noted pieces of her conversation with Becky in her notepad, then headed for Phillip Jenkins’s office and his computer. After thirty minutes of exploring files filled with blueprints, bids, measurements, and business letters, she turned it off. She had found nothing incriminating in his business files or in his emails. In fact, there were no current emails, which caused Angel to think maybe Becky had erased them.

Of much more interest were the people in Jenkins’s life. Gracie, Darryl, Jack Savage, Fitzgibbon, Becky, and Candace. It was beginning to look like they all might have had motive to kill him.

TWENTY-THREE

C
allen flipped open his cell phone and, noting the caller, said, “Gretchen, what do you have for me?”

“Doing great, Callen. Thanks for asking. Family’s fine.” Gretchen Davis was the supervisor at the state crime lab in Portland and a longtime friend.

Callen chuckled. “Point taken. Sorry about that. I tend to get tunnel vision when I’m on a case.”

“No joke. I think we all do. Especially with one like this.” She sighed. “The ME found defense wounds on her hands and arms. What that guy did to that little girl . . . ’Course it doesn’t help when you got kids her age.”

Callen knew what she meant. Christy was a stranger, but she could have been one of his nieces, or one of Gretchen’s girls.

“As you know, the guy wiped down the steering wheel and console. We got some good prints just the same, but I’m not sure how much good they’ll do. The Sunset PD supplied prints from the car’s owner and his family. We’re in the process of ruling them out. There’s a single thumbprint on the underside of the trunk that doesn’t seem to match any of the others. We’re running the print through AFIS. No match so far.”

“I was hoping for a name.” Callen reached for his bottle of orange juice. “Make my job much easier.” AFIS was in Salem, and Callen had a friend in the office of Latent Print Identification. He’d call him personally.

Gretchen snorted. “Dreamer.”

“Tell me more.”

“We’re certain the victim was transported in the trunk, but the blood we found in the vehicle and at the body dump wasn’t consistent with the amount of blood loss she must have had from her wounds.”

No surprise there. “So, we’re still looking for a primary crime scene.”

“Judging from the amount of blood we found in the trunk, we know she was still alive when he put her in there but she’d already been stabbed. Where he actually committed the deed is anybody’s guess. Why would he transport Christy after he’d stabbed her? What was he planning to do?”

“Bury her, maybe. I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him,” Callen said. “Looks like his plans were thwarted when the car broke down. He had to get rid of the body in case someone came along. So he dumped her and covered her with brush. Apparently he gave up on the car and walked home. Wherever that is.”

“Whoever killed that girl did a decent job of destroying his fingerprints, but we have that partial thumbprint, hair, fibers, and semen, so you find the creep and we’ll nail him.”

“That’s something. I’m heading up to Sunset Cove now. Hopefully we can get some DNA samples from the vehicle’s owner and anyone who might have had access to it.”

“Are you thinking the vehicle wasn’t stolen like the guy reported?”

“I’ll know more when I interview the owner,” Callen said.

“Well, there’s one more thing I think you’ll find interesting. There were some grease smudges on a piece of duct tape we found in the trunk. Looks like the stuff he used when he bound and gagged the victim. I think we’re looking for someone who works on cars.”

“A mechanic.” Callen thanked Gretchen and hung up, grateful that the forensic lieutenant had approved the overtime hours so they could work through the weekend.

Things were moving too slowly to suit Callen, but Gretchen’s comment sounded promising. He had the local PD and Coos County sheriff’s office in the Florence area checking out leads they’d gotten from family and friends and following up on tips phoned in by people responding to the media. Most of those tips were vague and misleading. There had been several callers who’d reported seeing Christy the day she was found. Nonetheless, these tips were important, and every once in a while they’d strike gold, like in the case in which a motorist called in to report seeing the car belonging to a man accused of killing his wife and children.

The suspect in this case had apparently struck out on foot, cutting through brush and walking along streams to cover his path. While Callen still had people combing the woods, he doubted they’d turn up anything. The guy was long gone. He’d zigzagged to throw them off the trail but was headed in a northerly direction. Maybe toward home—toward Sunset Cove where he’d stolen the vehicle. Callen suspected he may have hitched a ride, and the police had let the media know they were looking for anyone in the area who might have given their suspect a lift. So far, nothing.

Callen liked following the evidence better than he liked following his gut, but in this case he felt like he needed to do both. He’d question the owner of the car and get DNA samples from him and his sons and the mechanics—anyone who might have had access to the car. Someone who had been out of town for a few days.

It would all take time, but as long as nothing earth-shattering happened, he promised himself a few hours off tonight. He’d pick up a few groceries and make dinner for Angel. Hopefully she’d be available. He needed a night at home to unwind and get his bearings. He needed Angel by his side and in his arms. That need still surprised him. For a long time he’d been numb, longing for his Karen, talking to her as if she were still with him. Lately when he talked to her, it was to reassure her that no one, not even Angel, could take her place in his heart. Funny how he felt like he needed to apologize for his feelings. Karen had been dead for two years. Two long and lonely years.

He called Angel’s cell phone and got a busy signal. He hung up. The last few times he’d called, the line had been busy. Remembering their last conversation, his concern grew. She hadn’t been happy with Nick’s investigation of Phillip Jenkins’s death. It wouldn’t surprise him a bit to find she’d been doing some investigating on her own.

He knew all too well how tenacious she could be. He’d butted heads with her on more than one occasion when he’d been investigating a string of deaths in Sunset Cove. True, she’d been caught in the middle and wanted to clear her name, but she should have stayed out of it entirely. She should have trusted him. He’d been furious with her for handling evidence. On the other hand, her quick thinking helped them nail the killer in record time.

As Callen neared Sunset Cove, he checked the address of the owner of the car in which the victim had been transported. It was hard not to speculate, especially since Gretchen had said they were looking for someone with automotive grease on their hands. Most guys fixed cars from time to time, but this was a mechanic’s car. What were the odds?

While he drove, he admired the rugged coastline stretching out ahead of him. The Oregon coast was one of the most beautiful places in the world. It still had huge undeveloped wilderness areas and virgin forests where a man could easily get lost. Where a man could kill a teenage girl and then disappear.

“Not if I can help it.” Callen’s mouth clamped in a determined scowl. He called the deputy medical examiner for Coos County for a full autopsy report. The report was every bit as gruesome as Callen suspected it would be. The victim had been raped, beaten, and stabbed and had her hands and feet bound and duct tape put over her mouth.