Murder with a Twist (25 page)

I
t was Thursday afternoon and the bar was full. There was an air of excitement in the place, in part because of the resolution to the Cooper case, and in part because the last of the items I needed for the new section had arrived. I planned to open it to the public tomorrow but I was giving tours to certain select customers ahead of time.

The Capone Club was gathered in their usual corner of my bar, celebrating the successful end to the Cooper case. Everyone was there: Sam, Alicia, Holly, Kevin, Tad, Cora, Carter, Frank, Joe, Tiny, and Dr. T. Also present were Billy, Missy, and Debra, who were working, and a couple of new employees I'd hired: a bartender named Mike and a waitress named Linda, who were training. Several cops were there, too, including Tyrese and Nick. The only person missing was Duncan, but I was expecting him any time.

Yes, I was there, too, and no, I wasn't dead. But my encounter with Juanita, Meg, and Sharon was the closest I've ever come to being dead and I can say without hesitation that I hope to never come that close again.

My narrow escape was the current topic under discussion.

“It was a stroke of genius for you to leave your cell phone open after calling nine-one-one,” Frank said to me. “It not only saved your life, it gave the police recorded evidence of both Juanita's and Meg's involvement. If Tyrese here hadn't arrived when he did and shot Sharon, you would have been mincemeat.”

“I thought I was,” I told the group. “I heard the shot and I remember thinking that it sounded like it was too far away. I figured it was just another one of my weird synesthetic experiences . . . my last, in fact. I had no idea Tyrese and Nick had responded as a result of my nine-one-one call.”

“It was lucky the nine-one-one dispatcher was able to hear what was going on,” Tyrese said. “But, to be honest, you should have stayed in the car.”

“If I had, Davey might have never been found. And who knows what would have happened to Duncan.”

“Duncan would have been okay, most likely,” Nick said. “Juanita only knocked him out so she could get away with the kid. She said she had no intention of killing him. And I doubt Meg and Sharon would have done anything to him as long as he was out cold.”

“There's something I don't understand,” Tad said. “I saw this Juanita Alvarez woman on the news and she's not a big woman. How did she get the jump on Duncan in the first place?”

Nick fielded this one. “Juanita's sister and nephew had gone to the store and when Juanita saw Duncan come up and knock on the front door she knew she couldn't answer it. She figured he would eventually go around to the back, so she grabbed the fireplace poker, went out the back door of the house, and waited just around the corner for him. When he was walking down the side of the house, she jumped out and whacked him before he even knew she was there. Once she knew he was down, she ran back inside, grabbed the kids, and got their coats on so she could make a run for it. Just in case Duncan had somebody out front, she left out the back. She had already parked her car over on the next block in anticipation of just such an event.”

“I'm glad Duncan is going to be okay,” Holly said.

“He'll be fine,” I told her. “He has a bunch of stitches in his head and a whopper of a headache, but his CT scan came back normal.”

“He'll probably have a headache for a while,” Tyrese said. “If not from that concussion he got, then from all the paperwork he has to do.”

I had gotten a glimpse of some of that paperwork, along with some of the interrogations that had followed the arrests. I'd spent nearly the entire day at the police station yesterday after Duncan and I were released from the hospital. Other than a few minor scrapes, I was fine. It was Duncan who had borne the brunt of Meg's and Juanita's wrath. Juanita was going to be fine, too, eventually, but it would be awhile and a surgery or two before she was brought to justice.

Cora said, “Juanita was smart in a lot of ways, but taking on Meg Monroe wasn't one of them. Whose idea was it to put the hair in the brush and use the toothbrush from another child?”

“That was Meg,” Nick said. “She told Juanita to brush her nephew's hair and leave the hair in the brush, which was new. Juanita took the old hairbrush with her. The toothbrush was new, too, and Meg told Juanita to rub it over the gums of the same kid. I guess she hoped that we either wouldn't compare the DNA from those items to Belinda, or if we did, it would take long enough to get the results that she would have time to disappear with the boy.”

“And what will happen to the little boy now?” Joe asked.

“He's going to stay with Belinda's family in Ohio,” I said.

Tad jumped in next. “So, Mack, that taste you experienced at the Cooper house—what was that?”

“I'm pretty sure it was from little Davey's cries. Juanita said the kid had put up quite a fuss, screaming and carrying on about his bumpy. She didn't know what that meant and in an effort to calm him down, she kept going about the house, trying different things she thought might be what he wanted. She collected some toys, some videos, even a box of juice from the fridge, but none of those seemed to work. When she went out to the garage to get the car seat, she set Davey down and he ran back to his bedroom and got a blanket from his bed. Once he had that, he calmed down and he kept calling it his bumpy. That's when Juanita figured it out. But then, after she loaded all the stuff she had into the car and went back for Davey, she found him standing in the hallway looking into his mother's bedroom. She grabbed him and headed for the front door, and that got him started again. He screamed at the top of his lungs as she took him out of the house and that's what the neighbor heard. I think the residue from those screams is what I picked up on.”

“I'm surprised Juanita bothered to take all that stuff with her,” Cora said. “It seems like a hassle and it delayed things. Plus, the neighbors might have seen her.”

“It was dark and she used her sister's car,” Tyrese said. “She was wearing all black clothing—black coat, black gloves, black boots, and a black wool cap. And she temporarily switched out the license plates on her sister's car with ones she took off another car. So even if someone had looked out and seen her or the car, they wouldn't have had any useful information. She knew they were calling for snow to come in the next few days, so she figured Saturday night was going to be her best chance for getting in and out as invisibly as possible.”

“As for Juanita grabbing all the stuff she did,” Nick said, taking over, “that was per Meg's instructions. She didn't want any receipts, or incidental camera recordings, of her buying any kid stuff anywhere because she was afraid it would provide a trail that would lead to her. So she told Juanita to grab the basics . . . some clothing, some toys the kid was familiar with, that sort of thing. She figured it would also help him adapt more easily if he had some familiar items around him.”

“Was it part of the plan to kill Belinda all along?” Cora asked.

Nick shrugged. “Meg swears she told Juanita to snatch the kid, but not to kill anyone. Juanita says Meg told her to do whatever was necessary to get the kid, but from what we overheard on the phone call recorded by the nine-one-one center from Mack's phone, it sounds like it was Juanita's doing. We don't think she planned it that way, though.”

“How did she get into Belinda's house?” Joe asked.

Tyrese resumed the explanations. “She knocked on the door, told Belinda she had just moved into the neighborhood two streets up and was looking for a day care for her daughter, and that someone had mentioned that Belinda worked for one. At some point, Belinda turned to get something to write down the address of the day care center and that's when Juanita stepped inside and closed the door. This got Belinda suspicious, so she asked her to leave. When Juanita stalled, Belinda threatened to call the police. Unfortunately, her cell phone was in her bedroom on the charger and when she went to get it, Juanita followed her. When she realized Belinda was going for her phone, Juanita used a Taser her sister had loaned her, some cheap thing the sister had brought along with her from Mexico. But the Taser wouldn't fire, so Juanita then grabbed a pair of panty hose from the bedroom trash and threw them around Belinda's neck, pulling her back. Juanita swears that all she wanted to do was disable Belinda long enough to grab Davey, but Belinda put up quite a fight. Eventually, their scuffle ended up in the master bath off the bedroom. Afraid she was losing the battle, Juanita grabbed a pair of scissors that were sitting by the sink and stabbed Belinda. Belinda then staggered out into the bedroom and collapsed.”

“That poor woman,” I said, feeling an ache in my heart when I recalled those photos at the Cooper house. “She loved that boy so much she was willing to die for him.”

“Was Meg's husband aware of what she was doing?” Frank asked.

Nick shook his head. “It doesn't appear so. We have questioned him at length and his story has stayed pretty consistent. He had no idea what Meg was up to, which is amazing when you consider that the woman had to have been planning this for a long time. All of her efforts to reinvent herself, to hide her identity and such, make it clear that she was planning to take Davey and then disappear. She knew what a drunkard Jamie was and that he'd make a lousy father, and she was afraid that Belinda would be so horrified by the way Meg treated Jamie that she would never let her near the child. Since her original family was destroyed and she was too old to have more kids of her own, Meg thought Jamie's child would give her a second chance at it. So she started scheming, beginning with the faked death and the identity change. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that her marriage to Monroe was also part of the plan. She was well off enough financially before the marriage, but his money gave her much more in the way of resources.”

Tyrese jumped in with more. “Juanita was the final piece of the puzzle. Meg is a longtime member of the country club where Juanita's husband worked. She liked and respected Alberto as a hardworking man who put in long hours, and met Juanita when she used to come to the club to pick up Alberto. When Juanita got pregnant, Meg overheard them talking about how hard it was going to be to coordinate things once the baby came along because they only had one car. So Meg offered to cosign on a loan so Juanita could buy a second car. Meg moved in with Douglas Monroe several months before they got married and she talked him into hiring Alberto to take care of the pool. Juanita quickly took it over and one day, Meg happened to overhear a phone conversation Juanita was having with one of her sisters about establishing a new identity for someone who wanted to come over from Mexico. It was in Spanish, but it turns out Meg is fairly fluent.

“Knowing she had something on Juanita, and seeing how Juanita's little talent with false identities might help her own cause, Meg basically blackmailed Juanita into helping her. Juanita saw a chance to make a little side money, and she didn't want to jeopardize the family members she'd brought over the border, so the two women worked out a deal. They spent over two years talking and planning it all out. That camper that Juanita was using was bought using cash that Meg gave her, though it was one of Juanita's sisters who made the actual purchase. Then Juanita stole some plates to put on it and went about wooing Jamie at night, thinking that she could figure out a way to snatch Davey by learning more about his and Belinda's habits and routines.”

“If Juanita hadn't gotten greedy at the end, they might have all gotten away with it,” I said. “But apparently Juanita wanted to relocate with her sisters and she needed more money to do that. She knew Meg had the resources, and she also knew how badly Meg wanted the kid.”

“Juanita's husband wasn't in on it, either?” Cora asked.

“It doesn't appear so,” Nick said. “He was clueless and pretty devastated by it all.”

“Well, at least Sofia will still have a parent,” I said, thinking that at least one child would come out of this half okay.

Billy, who had been tending bar and eavesdropping when he could, answered the bar cell phone and, after listening for a few seconds, walked over and handed it to me. “It's Duncan,” he said.

I got up and walked away from the group, heading for my office so I could talk to Duncan in private. “Hello there, stranger,” I said once I was inside behind closed doors. “Everyone here is wondering when you're going to put in an appearance.”

“Something has come up, Mack,” he said, and I didn't like the tone in his voice. “I can't drop by right now.”

“Why not?”

“My superiors aren't too happy that I dragged you along with me to Juanita's sister's house. In fact, they aren't too happy that I involved you in any of this. They've said it sheds a bad light on the department, that it looks like we're using voodoo to help solve cases, that I put a citizen in unnecessary danger, yada, yada, yada. I've been suspended for two weeks and they're doing an investigation to determine if I can keep my job.”

“Oh, no, Duncan,” I said, feeling my heart ache.

“We'll just have to hope for the best until the verdict comes down.”

“And what about after the verdict comes down? If they let you come back to work, does that mean I can't help you anymore?”

“I suppose. I don't know. The fact that we did solve the case weighs in our favor, and I've been pretty upfront with my immediate boss as to how big a part you played in that. But he's afraid of the publicity and how it might impact our reputation, our funding . . . that sort of stuff. He said your involvement makes the police force look like a bunch of bumbling idiots. And he doesn't even know about Cora, Tad, or Kevin and the roles they all played in this.”

“I'm so sorry, Duncan. I never meant to get you into trouble.”