Dead Wrong (17 page)

Thomas returned to the kitchen. Lynnette lay on the couch and closed her eyes, once again hoping to sleep. She thought of Carl and how he might have been killed. Once she pushed that away, she thought of the phone calls from the fat man, then the even scarier calls from The Cuban. Mixed in were images of a flag-draped coffin coming off a plane and poor little Grace not there to see her father return. She felt overwhelmed.

The newspaper sections she’d saved and stuffed in her purse were still there. She took them out and began reading random articles from the business section.

Miami, Florida
Friday, January 24

“What’re we doing here?” Maggie asked. She checked out the fancy houses, mansions almost, in the expensive neighborhood Detective Prince directed her through as though he knew exactly where they were headed. “We’re outside our jurisdiction.”

“There’s a reason, Gutierrez. Watch and listen.”

Maggie looked out her side window and rolled her eyes.
There’s a price to pay for the privilege of working with jerks.
“Okay, Detective. Whatever you say.”

“That’s a good girl. You stick with me and you’ll make the grade a lot faster than that asshole you call your partner.”

“So what’re we doing here?” she asked again as Prince pulled up behind the three Miami Police Department squad cars that flanked the driveway of a mansion big enough to hold six apartments the size of the one Maggie rented.

Prince didn’t answer. He opened his door and got out, then signaled Maggie to follow him inside. The cop at the door checked their badges and waved them through. “Upstairs,” he said.

Death smelled one way in the first few moments, worse a few hours later. But as time passed, the odors changed and the stench intensified until it became so repulsive, few humans could tolerate it. Maggie had already learned that cops, especially homicide cops, pretended they didn’t notice.

Stopped at the bedroom door by an MPD uniform, she and Prince waited. A woman’s body lay sprawled beside a king-sized bed. Two men in plain clothes stood on the other side of the room, observing the crime scene crew comb the carpet, bag the dead woman’s hands, and cover her hair with what appeared to be a surgical cap. One of the men skirted the edge of the room and approached the doorway. Prince said, “Long time no see, Detective. I understand you called to share some information. What’s up?”

“Yeah. Here’s the thing.” The Miami detective held out a plastic bag containing a piece of paper with printing on it. “We found this on the floor, under the edge of the bed. On this side of the paper are scribbled instructions for getting through the security gate and into the house.” The detective flipped the bag over. “On this side is a receipt from a car detailing company. Receipt’s made out to a Sammy Grick.”

Prince shook his head. “Don’t recognize the name.”

“I do,” Maggie said. “Fat Ass Sammy Grick. Petty thief with a bad temper. He was on the hook for a couple of murders but somehow got off. Nobody cared because the guys he iced were worse shits than he was. But Grick’s dead.”

The Miami detective raised his eyebrows. “Who’s this, Prince? Your replacement?”

Prince turned his back on Maggie. “So Grick probably got caught robbing the place and killed the lady of the house. How’d she die?”

“We’re not sure. Massive bruises on her chest, maybe broken ribs. Looks like Sammy sat on her. But I’m not so sure he robbed the place. He works for the guy who owns this cottage. Heard of Benito Ortega?”

Maggie winced. “Is this his wife?”

“Yeah. The housekeeper discovered the body.” He looked at Maggie. “You said Grick died. When did that happen?”

“Yesterday, I guess. We got a call from Denver asking if we could turn up any next of kin. Grick dropped dead in the bus station. Had a Glades address on his driver’s license. They couldn’t come up with a phone number, so they called us.”

“Who’s working the next of kin?” the detective asked.

“Me,” Maggie replied. “I checked him out because it looked like he might have crossed paths with somebody Detective Prince is tracking. They were on the same flight to Denver and she was last seen on Denver’s mall, only three or four blocks from the bus station.”

“You called us because you found out Grick lived in Glades?” Prince said.

“Yeah.” The detective held out the receipt so Prince could read it. “His car license number is on there, too. If the car’s not at his house, maybe he left it at the airport when he flew to Denver.”

Maggie looked at Prince. “Are we the ones who have to get the search warrant?”

Prince nodded. “We’re on it, Detective. Let’s go, Gutierrez. I have work to do.”

One the way to the station, Prince gave Maggie the silent treatment until she had parked and turned off the engine. “Before you go,” he said. “You made me feel stupid back there. I don’t like feeling stupid.”

Maggie looked at Prince in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Save the surprise reports for my ears only next time. I don’t want to learn about something like Grick’s death and his connection to the Foster case in front of Miami P.D. detectives.”

“Okay, Detective.”

“Do you have any more tidbits of information I should hear about?”

“Like what?”

“Like how you knew Lynnette Foster had been spotted on the Denver mall and I didn’t. Or how you knew Foster and Grick had crossed paths before Grick died.”

“That info came in through dispatch. It’s all on the computer, filed under the Foster file number.”

“I don’t have time to sit in front of my computer, Gutierrez. People like you are supposed to do that and then report urgent updates to people like me.”

“It didn’t seem urgent at the time. Grick wasn’t on our radar.”

“You don’t have radar. You have assignments. Don’t go off half-cocked, trying to check things out on your own. You run any of this by your supervisor?”

“Not yet, sir, but I will do that as soon as I get inside.”

He looked at her face as though trying to figure out whether she was properly respectful or whether she was being a smartass. Then he got out of the car.

Maggie hurried to catch up with him at the precinct’s front door. “Wait. I forgot to mention one other thing.”

Prince turned around.

“After I saw that report about Grick, I called Denver P.D. The cop I talked to said when the ambulance picked up Grick and took him to the hospital, they also picked up a computer case. An emergency room security guard took a look at it when they were hunting for contact numbers for Grick’s family. He said the case contained a bunch of papers that didn’t belong to Grick. He said the documents belonged to a woman, last name Hudson. The guard called the cops and they were supposed to pick up the case, but when the officers showed up, the case had disappeared.”

“How is that relevant?”

“Lynnette Foster’s maiden name is Hudson.”

“So we’re thinking Grick stole Foster’s laptop case, and now someone else stole it from the emergency room?”

“We don’t know.”

Maggie didn’t tell Detective Prince that she’d been trying to contact Lynnette Foster by email. With a Yahoo email address, even if she no longer had her laptop, Foster could still check her messages from anywhere in the country. It was a shaky attempt to find the woman and probably not a technique Prince would approve of, especially since he seemed eager to place the full blame for Carl Foster’s murder on Lynnette. Maggie didn’t think Carl’s time of death would support Prince’s theory, but they were still waiting for a time of death.

Maggie decided to keep the line of communication open to Lynnette, but to leave Prince out of the loop, at least for now. She sat at her desk and sent her target another email.

Near Fort Collins, Colorado
Friday, January 24

Lynnette woke with the newspaper clutched in her hands and her neck twisted at an uncomfortable angle. She heard voices. Thomas and Blue talking. Lynnette got up and walked into the kitchen. Thomas signaled Lynnette to join them. “I had an idea, but it didn’t work out. I have a friend in Wyoming who’s a retired pilot. He owns a six-passenger Cessna that he keeps at the Cheyenne airport. I called him to see if he could pick us up at the Fort Collins–Loveland airport and fly us out of here if we need him.”

“He couldn’t do it?” Lynnette asked.

“He would, but this storm still covers the southern half of Wyoming and part of Northern Colorado. It’s moving toward the eastern plains, but very slowly. The jet stream, he said, was unstable. He might have to wait anywhere from six hours to a couple of days to take off. He could fly us into Burbank or Orange County, but he has no idea when.”

“So there’s no way you can deliver Grace safely to L.A. by Sunday?”

“I don’t think so.”

Lynnette felt terrible at the thought of telling Grace she couldn’t meet her father’s coffin. She was stuck here for the time being, still in the path of the dangerous men who wanted to find Lynnette.

“Will I get there in time?” Grace asked from the doorway. She rubbed her eyes and yawned.

“Grace, I’m so sorry,” Lynnette replied. “Blue’s dad did his best, but there’s no way to get you to California on time.”

Grace shifted her gaze to the weather outside the window. “Oh, well,” she said. “It was worth a try.”

Fort Collins, Colorado
Friday, January 24

Albert pulled the rental car GPS unit forward on its holder and turned it on, then called Ortega. “I’m less than five minutes from Fort Collins. The rental car has a GPS. I need the address where Foster’s hiding out.” As soon as he had the information, he dropped his phone on the seat and started tapping the GPS screen. When he felt the tires slip on the road, he grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and slowed down. The road looked dry ahead, so he tried to enter the address into the GPS again.

The car began a slow skid sideways. Albert returned his attention to the road and tried to steer into the slide. The front right fender of his car scraped against a concrete barrier and sent him careening across two lanes of traffic to the median. Spinning and bouncing like a bumper car, he watched several vehicles go off the road ahead of him. His car slid to a stop against a snow bank. Another car crunched into his driver’s-side door. A third car rammed into his rear. Albert let out a long, slow breath and reached to unfasten his seatbelt.

Before he could do so, he heard the fast-approaching roar of a huge engine from behind, heard the grate of metal on metal. The airbag exploded into his upper body. He felt nothing, but for one brief instant, he hoped he had not been decapitated.

Near Fort Collins, Colorado
Friday, January 24

Lynnette frowned at Grace while Thomas and Blue looked on with puzzled expressions on their faces. “Grace, what did you mean when you said it was worth a try?”

Grace plopped into one of the kitchen chairs. “When I said that about my dad being dead. He isn’t. I’m sorry, Lynnette, but I want to be there when he comes home, before he gets a chance to talk to my mom and—”

“What? I thought your mom was dead,” Thomas said.

“She’s not dead. She’s just . . . she doesn’t want me to live with her anymore.”

“What in the world ever possessed you to tell a story like that?” Thomas asked. “I believed you.”

“I knew it,” said Blue. “I knew you were lying. Do you have any idea how much time my dad spent trying to figure out a way to get you to California in time to meet your dad’s coffin? Shame on you, Grace.”

Lynnette could understand Grace’s frustration with everything that had happened. From the rough flight and the weird fat guy on the plane to the confrontation with the guy in the tweed jacket at the Denver library, Grace had been involved in several uncomfortable if not terrifying situations. And on top of that, she might actually have a very un-motherly mother.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “Really sorry. What will you do with me now?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “We’ll work something out.”

“Not Social Services, okay?”

Thomas sighed. “We’ll work something out. Don’t worry. We can’t do much right now, so we might as well take it easy, eat breakfast, check on the weather reports.”

Later in the day, Lynnette, Thomas, Blue and Grace put dinner on the table while they listened to one of the cable news channels on the TV in the living room. Occasionally Blue leaned through the doorway and used the remote control to change the channel.

While they let the spaghetti sauce simmer, Lynnette pulled her laptop from its case, set it up on the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area, and plugged it in. After it powered on, Blue signed Lynnette in to the wireless network.

Thomas set a pot of water to boil for the pasta and spread garlic butter on slices of French bread. After opening a can of peas, he dumped them in a small saucepan. “Not the fanciest fare, but it’s the best we can do at the moment. And there’s ice cream for dessert.”

No one argued. The thought of going out in freezing winds and deep snow on slick streets to find a restaurant or grocery store hadn’t appealed to anyone. They had napped instead.

For the first time since Grace had grabbed Lynnette’s laptop case away from the man in the tweed jacket, Lynnette checked her email. Grace asked Blue if she could use the remote, then took it with her to one of the armchairs and began to flip through the channels. Blue sat beside Grace and stared at the television. Thomas continued to bustle about the kitchen. A couple of minutes later, he placed a glass of red wine on the counter in front of Lynnette.

“You could probably use this,” he said.

“Definitely. Thanks.”

Lynnette opened her Inbox to find two hundred and seventy unopened messages. She began by deleting the newsletters and advertisements. Even then, it appeared every email friend she ever had was trying to contact her. She counted over a dozen from her former boss at
The Indy Reporter.

Her eyes focused on one address she didn’t recognize. She scanned her Inbox and found one more recent email from the same sender.
[email protected]
. She moved her cursor to the first MGutierrez email and—