Coffee & Crime (40 page)

entering part. So isn't it better that we know what's in them? They could help us figure out her next move."

Ted put down the coffee and leaned his arms on the table. "It's not about evidence, it's about the right way to conduct a mission."

I guffawed. "Oh yeah, the mission. We weren't on a mission
—
it was more like a sneak and peek."

His face was dead serious. "Yeah, we were." I smirked. "Just because it didn't involve national security, doesn't mean it wasn't a mission. We went in to gather intelligence. The goal is to get in, find what you want and get out without leaving any trace that you were there. By taking something that would be missed we were compromised." He put out his hands in a ta-da gesture. "Now, we're blown." He smirked. "We should've just knocked on the door and asked her to let us in."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay Captain America, what should we have done?"

"Taken pictures of the letters and then put them back."

I nodded. "That would've been a good idea. Except you had my phone because yours was in the car. And you wasted precious time texting. Then it was too late. So it was either take the letters or leave with nothing, right? Right." I sat back and made my own ta-da gesture. "And who cares if we're blown? Lily would've figured it out anyway."

Pouting, Ted got up and grabbed my bag off the dresser. He pulled out the stack of letters, brought them back to the table, and dropped them in front of me with a thud.

"Who said you could go in my purse?"

He sat and untied the stack of letters. "Community property."

"Interesting. Does that go both ways?"

"Affirmative, what's mine is yours." He divided the letters into two stacks and gave one to me. "Read. We've got two hours before check out time."

<<>>

The letters opened a window into George's heart and soul. I didn't expect to be so touched by the words of two teenagers. It broke my heart that they'd been torn apart by circumstances out of their control. If George's father hadn't died, he would've never left Michigan. He'd have married Laura and become a lawyer more interested in justice than money. Broke and happy instead of rich and miserable.

The letters spanned almost four years. They wrote letters daily, though they saw each other every day. A private ritual meant for only them. They discussed everything from the state of the high school football team to the emergency room scare George had when he ate a cookie made with almonds and almost died.

The letters ended abruptly six months after George moved to Virginia. Laura's final letter to George was postmarked June 1989 and was stamped "Return to Sender" across the front
—
so George never received it.

I glanced at the clock. We needed to check out unless we wanted to pay for another night's stay. Still, we lingered over the letters, rereading certain sections and discussing them.

Finally, Ted put the letters aside and said, "So?"

I put my stack aside, leaned back in my chair and stretched. "Sad but sentimentality aside, a couple of things bug me." Ted encouraged me with a nod. "Why didn't Laura tell George she was pregnant? She must've known shortly after he left town. Why didn't she tell him?"

"She was afraid?"

I threw up my hands. "Of what? They shared everything
—
every thought and every experience, but she kept the pregnancy a secret?" I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. She wouldn't keep that from him. He was already living out of state, so it's not like he'd dump her."

Ted finished the last of his coffee. "Maybe she was afraid he'd come back to Michigan and ruin his life?"

I smirked. "Teenagers don't think like that. They don't think about the future, otherwise they wouldn't do half the stupid shit they do. No, I don't buy it."

Ted leaned back and stretched out his long legs. "That she wouldn't have told him or that she was pregnant?"

"Neither." I grabbed my bag and fished out the photo of little girl Lily and held it out to him. "Then there's this."

Ted looked like he wanted to spank me. "More contraband? You've been a bad little recruit
—
we'll discuss discipline later." He took the photo out of my hand with a snap, looked at it front and back then slid it across the table to me. "So?"

I turned the photo face down and the laid last letter next to it. "This." I pointed to the date Laura had written on the picture and then postmark of the last letter. "What's wrong with this picture?"

It took a few seconds for Ted to do the math. "I'll be damned." He grinned at me. "Lily was born three years too late to be George's daughter."

I scooped up the letters and photos and crammed them back into my bag. "And now it's time to go home to rally the troops."

Ted, Zelda, Eric and I sat in Joe’s office staring at a whiteboard that hadn’t been there the last time I was at Joe’s. On the board were notes scrawled in blue marker, arrows and circles connecting different data sets, and copies of the photos taken by members of the surveillance team.

Everyone talked at once
—
Joe stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle that silenced everyone. "All righty then. I got everybody's attention now?" He looked from face to face. "Good enough." He went to the white board and on a blank section of the board wrote the names of our suspects: Lily, Jake, VW Guy and Maggie.

"Here's what we know," Joe said. "First off Lily ain't George's daughter
—
chronology is all kinds of wrong. If George found out, she'd lose a passel of money. And probably go to jail for fraud. So losing a lot of money or being found out, don't matter which
—
either way, it's motive." He noted that on the board under Lily’s name.

"Jake stood to gain the settlement from the partner's insurance. Also motive." Ted said.

"Yeah, two million isn't pocket change," Zelda said. "Probably more than Lily got."

I jumped in. "And if George knew about Lily and Jake, that could be a motive for Jake too."

Joe nodded and noted each point under the appropriate suspect’s name. "Could be Jake and Lily started pussy-footing around and formed an alliance. So, they might be in it together. One might be protecting the other. Or blackmailing the other. We’re just laying out facts
—
not analyzing what they mean." He paused for effect. "Next, we know that VW guy is shacking up with Lily."

I shook my head. "We don't know if they were shacking up. Just that he was moving into the same building." I frowned. "Or appeared to be."

Zelda rolled her eyes. "Oh they were shacking up all right. Get real. And he busted Joe's head and my window." She squinted at me. "Why would he do that if not for Lily?"

I paused, not because I agreed with Zelda, but there was something about VW guy that bugged me
—
I just couldn't spot it yet.

Joe cautioned Zelda to zip it and continued. "And, just before Lily headed out to the golden state, her mama died suddenly — under questionable circumstances."

The background check turned up Lily's real birth certificate. And a P.I. friend of Joe's discovered Laura Carson, Lily's mother, had terminal cancer. Along with a part-time hospice nurse, Lily had provided home care. Despite Laura's prognosis, her doctors were surprised by her sudden death. I shrugged. "How can you be surprised when a terminal patient dies?"

"Because her condition had improved some on account of a new treatment. Then the next thing they know she's dead." Joe shrugged. "I ain't saying Lily did it, but since she took care of her mama, she probably knows how to use needles and administer injections and such."

"And emptying the injectors would've been a piece of cake for her."

"Right you are, Miss Zelda."

I frowned and let out a sigh. "That’s a lot of trouble to go to for money. Kill her mother, then traipse across the country to scam George? Why? Because she found some old love letters of Laura's?"

Zelda scowled. "She's an evil bitch."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "That's not a motive, Zee. Why didn't she just take out life insurance on her mom? Or find some local rich guy to scam? Why George?" I turned to Joe. "Did your contact turn up a criminal record on Lily?"

Joe pursed his lips. "Nothing so far."

"And as far as motives go, Maggie Manston stood to gain more than any of them. All that money. Plenty of motive." I blew out a sigh. "Not to mention revenge for George’s affair with Tina Seratta."

"Right, if George rewrote his will, maybe Maggie stood to lose a lot," Zelda agreed.

Joe held up a hand. "Hold on now, we ain't got any evidence of that. The will I saw didn’t cut Maggie out in any way, shape or form. So let’s stick with what we know." He looked around the room to each of us and no one protested. With a sharp nod he said,

"So to recap, this is what we got." He pointed to Lily’s column and said, "Lily. She’s too old to be George’s daughter, so it was a scam. She’s having an affair or some kind of relationship with Jake. She’s got some connection to VW Guy. Her mother died under her care. And she’s got the motive of wanting George’s money and covering up her scam."

He moved on to Jake’s column. "Jake was pilfering money from the trust fund. George was breaking up the partnership. And he was fooling with George’s daughter. His motives are covering up his embezzlement, the insurance money and covering up his affair with Lily."

He tapped on Maggie’s column. "And the missus knew George was leaving her for another woman, and she stood to lose her marriage, her position and probably a lifestyle she didn’t want to give up. Motives are obvious - jealousy, revenge and money."

He moved on to VW Guy’s column and frowned. "Mister so called 'VW Guy' is the mystery. We don’t know who he is or why he’s involved. But he was seen outside my place after I was robbed and attacked, then later on, outside the hospital when I was in the emergency room. And was last seen moving into Lily’s apartment building. As to motive, it’s anybody’s guess, but I suspect if he’s living in Lily’s building, he has a connection to her." He motor-boated his lips. "Could be doing her bidding for all we know."

I groaned and threw up my hands. "But what does it all mean? Any of them could’ve done it. What we need is a way to exclude some of them."

The room fell silent, as each of us consulted our own thoughts. We'd done a good job of unearthing a lot of suspicious facts, but there was no smoking gun. And the D.A. would be more likely to press charges against us for our methods in obtaining the information than to charge Lily or any of the others.

Zelda looked at Eric. "I still think George left us something. In those files."

Eric sucked the inside of his cheek. "I've got a guy who maybe can crack the encryption. I'll know more tomorrow." He scratched his head. "I’m starting to wonder if George had access to NSA software or something — I’ve never seen anything like this."

Ted frowned. "But you had no trouble cracking the password on the phone?"

"Right, it was a piece of cake."

Ted held out his hand. "Can I see the phone?"

Eric shrunk back. "What? Why?"

Ted shrugged. "Because it’s an anomaly. He left a phone that took a few minutes to crack and a flash-drive that the Pentagon can’t crack. Doesn’t make sense. Especially since there was nothing on the phone but a video."

Eric looked away and stammered. "It’s not here. It’s in a secure location." Curious faces turned to him. He shrugged defensively. "After the break-in, I moved the more sensitive stuff."

"So where is it then?" Joe asked.

Eric stared at his shoes. Zelda elbowed Eric gently. "Come on, tell us."

Despite Zelda's prodding, Eric refused to reveal his secure location
—
probably because it was where he kept all his other secret hacker stuff.

I stretched and yawned loudly. "Okay then, meeting adjourned? When Eric cracks the files, he'll tell us." I frowned. "But let's face it, for all we know, there's nothing in those files."

Eric raised his head and said, "Nah Scotti, I think you're wrong about that. Nobody goes to that kind of trouble for nothing." He lowered his voice, "But we need to be more careful. Jake, Lily, the cops
—
they're out there. I sense these things." He got up and looped an arm through his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. "Ted, I'll text you when I know something."

Zelda scrunched her face. "Ted?"

"He's logistics central, right?" Eric said.

Ted nodded, took out his phone and started texting. "Right."

Zelda volunteered to walk Eric out to his car, claiming to be security central since she always carried pepper spray.

Joe and I went to the kitchen for coffee and a nosh. The coffee pot was empty, and the cupboards were bare. "I can make a pot and Zelda probably has a package of cookies in her backpack."

Joe stretched and yawned. "Don't bother yourself, time for this old country boy to get his shut-eye."

Ted wandered into the kitchen. "Not yet."

I looked toward the front room. "Where's Zelda?"

"She's outside sucking face with Eric." To Joe he said, "I think we can narrow our field of suspects."