Vanished (Private Justice Book #1): A Novel (10 page)

“You can go over ahead of me.”

“That was my plan.”

With one more glance at the shoe in his hand, she exited.

Ken blew out an annoyed breath. He should have disposed of the ruined shoe immediately, as he’d disposed of everything else. But he couldn’t have come home barefoot—and he hadn’t brought any backup shoes. The boots were supposed to be the only extra footwear he needed.

Running his thumb over the marred patent leather, he looked back at the closet door where Ellen had stood. It was unfortunate she’d seen it, but a scratched shoe wasn’t incriminating. Nevertheless, the sooner he got rid of it, the better. It was a loose end.

And he didn’t like loose ends.

Stifling a yawn, Cal sank into the chair in his office and checked his watch. In ninety minutes, Moira was scheduled to arrive at his house, and before he left he wanted to do some research on the donor names he’d copied down yesterday during his visit to Let the Children Come headquarters.

“You’re still here.”

At Connor’s comment, he swiveled toward the door. “Yeah. Barely.” He yawned again.

“Dev cut out half an hour ago. I figured you’d do the same. He said you had him up till the wee hours doing a trash cover at the doctor’s house.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I have a garage filled with garbage.”

The other man chuckled and leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “Been there, done that. I hear you’re going to have prettier company going through it than you had collecting it, though.”

Cal scowled. “Dev has a big mouth.”

“No arguments on that.” One side of Connor’s mouth rose. “I’m heading out, too. I didn’t plan to spend the whole day running all over the city tracking down a runaway teen.”

“Neither did I. At least it was a quick find.” He yawned again.

“Yeah. Makes you wonder how kids think, doesn’t it? Putting a bus ticket on Mom and Dad’s credit card wasn’t the smartest move.”

“Unless he wanted to be picked up, and that was his version of a distress signal.”

“Possible. The parents did seem like the fast-track, job-comes-first career types. Maybe this will be a wake-up call. Convince them time and attention are more important than a new iPod or the latest app for their son’s cell phone.”

“We can hope.” Cal massaged his neck.

“So when are you leaving?”

“In a little while. I want to check out a few of the names I got yesterday at the church.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

As Connor left, Cal swung back to his computer. He needed to be out of here in an hour, max, but it shouldn’t take long to do some quick research on six names—especially since he was trolling. Looking for who knew what? A commonality, perhaps. Some piece of information that would give him a clue as to why they had made such large, one-time donations. An aberration that would jump out at him and suggest a further avenue of investigation—or possibly a link to that suspicious Friday night.

All of which was a long shot.

Still, it was worth the effort. Worst case, he’d be no closer to answers than he’d been when he started.

Stifling yet another yawn, he got to work.

In the quiet office, without any of the usual daytime interruptions, he covered the ground a lot faster than he’d expected. In less than the hour he’d allotted, he was ready to call it a day.

Because he’d found far more than he expected.

He shut down his computer for the night, leaned back in his chair, and flexed his stiff shoulders—the price he always paid when he grew too intent on his screen and hunched forward.

Wait until Moira heard this.

M
oira slowed to a stop in front of a small story-and-a-half clapboard home and set her brake.

So this was where Cal had lived with his wife.

Where he still lived . . . with his memories.

Fighting back a wave of melancholy, she slid out of the car and locked it. No self-pity allowed. She had a different kind of garbage to deal with tonight.

She edged past the white van in the driveway and approached the front porch, passing between two empty stone urns that flanked the three steps. Based on the dried-up dirt, cobwebs, and rotted leaves inside, it didn’t appear as if they’d hosted anything living for a long while.

Maybe for five years.

Moira ascended the steps and rang the bell.

Fifteen seconds ticked by.

She tried again.

Nothing.

“Moira!”

At the summons, she angled back toward the front of the house.

Cal waved to her from the driveway and called out, “I heard the bell from the garage.”

She retraced her steps to the driveway, giving him a quick perusal en route.

Gone were the pressed slacks, crisp dress shirt, tie, and jacket he seemed to favor at the office. Today he wore decrepit jeans perforated with a few holes and a paint-splattered T-shirt sporting an Ernie’s Carwash logo.

And he looked just as appealing as he did in the more polished attire.

“Into grunge today, are we?” Her attempt at a tease came out a bit breathless.

The corners of his lips lifted. “I dressed for the job.” He eyed her own jeans and soft knit top. “I can see you’ve never done this before.”

“These are the rattiest clothes I have.”

“They’ll be a lot rattier after we’re finished.” He gestured around the side of the attached garage. “Let’s use the door in the back. I don’t typically open the front garage door when I’m doing a trash sort.”

Sixty seconds later, after she followed him around the side and entered the two-car structure, she understood why.

The floor was covered with plastic sheeting and strewn with garbage.

It didn’t smell too great, either.

If Cal noticed the odor, he gave no indication as he skirted the edge of the sheeting.

“Dev and I got their regular trash and their recycle bin. I pulled out the loose paper and put it over there.” He gestured to a small pile off to one side. “That mound is everything else—aluminum, glass, plastic, miscellaneous. I got rid of some of the messier items before you arrived.”

Hard to believe, given the yucky stuff spread in front of her.

Hands on hips, she inspected the mini disaster area. “Where do we start?”

“My guess is the paper will yield the best information. We should be able to go through the rest quickly. Why don’t we get that out of the way first?”

“You’re the boss.”

“Can I get you a soda before we plunge in?”

“Sure.”

As he disappeared into the house, she wrinkled her nose and gave the piles of trash another scan. Good thing she liked Cal. That was the only thing palatable about this job.

The door from the house opened and he reentered, diet Sprite in hand. He’d remembered her selection from the night they’d shared a pizza at his office.

Nice.

After pulling the tab, he handed it to her. What a contrast to Jack. Not only had her ex-fiancé neglected to open her sodas, he’d also never managed to remember she preferred her lattes skim, no whip, and with a shot of caramel. Even after two years.

“Before we tackle this stuff, I do have some news.”

She took a sip of her soda and gave Cal her full attention. “That sounds promising.”

“It is.”

As he recounted his visit to the Let the Children Come office—including the playacting he and the other Phoenix partners had done—she tipped her head and studied him.

“What?” Cal gave her one of his probing looks.

She shifted her weight and shrugged. “I know pretexting is a common PI technique—but does the . . . dishonesty . . . ever bother you?”

He leaned back against a workbench on the wall of the garage and folded his arms, his gaze steady. “Undercover law enforcement operatives use it all the time. Do you have an issue with them?”

“No. I’ve had occasion to talk to undercover detectives in my investigative work, and I’ve been totally impressed. They take a lot of personal risk in the name of justice. But this is a civilian operation.”

“Also focused on justice.”

Justice First
.

The Phoenix motto echoed in her mind.

When she didn’t respond at once, a muscle contracted in Cal’s cheek. “We don’t do anything illegal, Moira. We’re all well-versed in the boundaries of the law. But we do use every technique available within those boundaries to get the job done and bring the bad guys to justice. When we use a pretext, we’re playing a part, just like an undercover operative is—and we’re doing it for an honorable purpose, just as they are. Our ploy paid off yesterday, by the way.”

His voice had cooled a few degrees, and a twinge of guilt nipped at Moira’s conscience even as he piqued her interest with his final comment. She hadn’t intended to question the integrity of the Phoenix operation, not after Cal’s willingness to take the case pro bono purely in the interest of seeking justice for the woman with the terrified eyes.

“I didn’t mean to suggest you were doing anything underhanded, and I trust that you respect the law. It’s more a moral than a legal issue, I guess.” She smiled to mitigate any implied criticism. “I grew up with a philosophy-professor father who passed on any number of sayings from the sages. Some of them stuck. Like, ‘Truth is the beginning of every good thing.’ Plato.”

“I have another one for you. ‘Each morning dispense justice, rescue the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor.’ Jeremiah. Or I could offer this from Proverbs. ‘On the way of duty I walk, along the paths of justice.’”

Her gaze flicked down to his cross-etched wedding band.

It was clearly more than jewelry.

“I’m impressed. But there are a lot of Bible verses about truth too.”

He let out a slow breath, crossed his legs at the ankles, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ve thought long and hard about the moral issue you raise, Moira. And I dealt with it long ago, during my first year as a beat cop. When you’ve seen the stuff I’ve seen, it’s a lot easier to justify pushing ethics to the limit in the interest of justice.” His jaw hardened. “Even then, the bad guys sometimes win.”

A flash of pain ricocheted through his eyes, and Moira knew instinctively it wasn’t caused by generic disgust at man’s inhumanity to man, but by something a lot more personal.

He turned away to retrieve some latex gloves from the bench, the gesture sending a clear message. He didn’t intend to share whatever story had prompted that reaction. And she couldn’t blame him. Not after her implied criticism.

Time to make amends.

“For the record, I agree with everything you said. I just think it’s an interesting moral question. I’m sorry if I came across as judgmental.”

When he shifted back toward her and handed over a pair of gloves, the anguish in his features had disappeared. “I’m sorry too. I tend to get defensive about my work. Credible, competent, principled PIs have to overcome a lot of stereotypes—some of which are warranted. Like the ones that made you cautious on your first visit to our office.” One side of his mouth curved up, and he held out his hand. “Truce?”

“Truce.”

His brown eyes locked with hers as he gave her fingers a firm squeeze—and held her hand longer than necessary.

Or was that only wishful thinking?

She cleared her throat when he released her fingers, lowering her head to tug on the gloves. “So how did the visit yesterday pay off?”

“According to the tax filing for Let the Children Come, the organization is primarily funded by a couple of donors each year, plus Blaine. I did some checking on those other big donors for the past three years and I found an interesting coincidence.” He snapped on one of his gloves. “They’re all dead.”

Moira stared at him, trying to make sense of that. “How did you find that out? And . . . how could they donate if they were dead?”

“People with the means to donate those kinds of amounts—we’re talking several hundred thousand dollars here—aren’t
nobodies, so I googled the name of the first person, looking for news articles or other mentions in the press. I found an obit from the year of the donation. That prompted me to check the obit archives to see if the others were there. They were. As for how they made the donations, I’m assuming they were bequests through wills.”

She wove her fingers together and frowned. “That’s weird.”

“There’s more. The last address for all of them was a nursing home. All different ones.”

Her stomach clenched. “Like the kind Blaine visits as part of his church outreach?”

“Yeah.”

“Were they members of his congregation?”

“Based on what the secretary said yesterday about the church being very modest in size and wealth, my guess is no. But I plan to check that out.”

She rubbed her temple as she processed this new information. “Okay. So . . . maybe he befriended other people when he was visiting members of his own congregation in the nursing homes? Maybe they were impressed with his work and decided to leave a lot of their money to his organization? He’s a very charismatic man.”

“That’s possible. But why two a year? Doesn’t that regular infusion of capital seem a little too convenient?”

A shiver snaked through her at the sinister implication of his questions. “This is creeping me out.”

Cal gestured at the mess on his garage floor. “Not too creeped out to tackle this, I hope.”

“No. It actually gives me more of an incentive.”

He snapped on his other glove. “Why don’t you start on one side and I’ll start on the other? We’ll work toward each other.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” She followed him over to the jumbled pile.

“Anything that gives us useful insight into the doctor’s life or raises a red flag of any kind.”

“Okay.” She took a swig of her soda, set it on a nearby shelf beside a half-empty bag of birdseed, and dived in.

They worked in silence for several minutes, until she extracted an empty bottle of brandy.

“Is this relevant?”

Cal looked over. “Find any other evidence of alcohol?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Liquor doesn’t appear to be one of their vices. Probably not that important.”

They went back to work, exchanging occasional comments as they sorted through the mess.

“This is interesting.” Cal sat back on his heels.

Moira checked out the badly scratched patent-leather shoe he’d extracted from a grocery bag. The kind guys wore with tuxes.

Her pulse quickened. “That’s suspicious.”

“No kidding.” Cal pulled its mate out of the bag. That one was in perfect condition. “I doubt this kind of damage was done at the Opera Theatre benefit.”

“Maybe he wore it again after that, and damaged it then. I mean, why would he wait this long to throw it away if he scratched it at the Opera Theatre event? That was a month ago.” Moira straightened up, rubbing her lower back. “And what does all this have to do with the woman I saw on the road?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find some answers in the paper stuff.” He riffled through the few remaining items on the ground between them, gathered them up, and tossed them into a trash can. “Let me set up a folding table and some lawn chairs. That will be easier on our backs.”

Another thoughtful gesture. And more proof of the man’s keen observation skills.

Five minutes later, a pile of paper between them, they took seats across from each other and plunged into the jumble that included junk mail, scribbled notes, statements, and receipts, many of the documents stained and ripped.

This time Moira grabbed the golden ring.

“I think I’ve got something.” She held up several cash register receipts that had been torn in half. “There are a bunch of these, all credit-card purchases. Blaine must do what I do—collect them, match them against the monthly statement, and then pitch them.”

“That could be a gold mine. Let’s piece them together and see what we have.”

He stood, picked up his chair, and circled the table to sit next to her. Close enough for their shoulders to touch whenever he leaned over to shuffle through the pile of receipts to search for a match to the half in his hand.

Focus, Moira!

“Look at this.” Cal laid a receipt on the table and smoothed it out.

She peered at the hard-to-read type, some of it obscured with a brown, coffee-like stain. Super Clean, Inc.

“Is that a dry cleaner?”

“Nope. They do car detailing. And from the amount, I’d say Blaine went the whole nine yards. Check out the date.”

She scanned it again.

April 16.

On the day after the Opera Theatre benefit, Blaine had paid a hefty sum to have his car cleaned to the nth degree. As if he’d driven through mud somewhere.

Like out in the country.

“This is looking more and more suspicious, isn’t it?” She glanced at Cal.

“Very. Let’s match up the rest of these.”

She made the next find as she pieced together a receipt from Home Depot.

“I’ve got a purchase of some kind of boots, coveralls, and work gloves—three days before the benefit.”

Cal scanned the receipt. “The doctor doesn’t strike me as the type who would normally do physical labor.” He put that receipt on top of the one for the car detailing.

Ten minutes later, as Moira fitted together the last receipt, nothing else overtly suspicious had emerged. But they’d already found more than she’d expected.

“What about this pattern of receipts from a place called the Woman’s Exchange?” She indicated the three she’d set aside
.

“I found one of those too.” Cal went through his pile and extracted it. “It’s one of those genteel places for ladies who lunch.”

They lined up the four receipts on the table in front of them.

Moira scrutinized the information on the slips. “Same time every Friday. Must be the wife. And she must be meeting a close friend if they do this every week.”