Distortion (Moonlighters Series) (17 page)
Michael had laid out equipment at the center of a patio table next to the fire pit—several cameras, binoculars, and a few things Juliet hadn’t seen before. “First, we talk to the security company we found on that card in Bob’s office and see if they can give us an address. I checked, and the security companies that wired your house and the clinic were different. So there must have been another property. I’m guessing it was where they received and held the drugs when deliveries came.”
“Right,” Juliet said. “I’d forgotten about that card.”
“Second, we’ll follow Amber and hope she’ll lead us to Miller or her other contacts.”
“But don’t you think the feds are following her already?” Jay asked.
Michael shrugged. “If they are, that’s fine, but it won’t hurt for us to do it too.”
Juliet looked at the equipment, studying each item.
“You know how to use some of this,” Michael said.
Juliet nodded. She had learned through trial and error over the last few months as she’d followed Michael’s cases. She was glad he’d started paying them. She was going to need that money even more now. She’d never dreamed she’d have to use those skills to uncover her own husband’s crimes or to follow his mistress.
She reached for a camera. “This is the one I’ve used?”
“Probably,” Michael said. “It’s all set up. The zoom lens will come in handy.”
“We need to be constantly armed,” Cathy said, “except for Michael, of course.”
Juliet nodded. “Totally agree.”
“The cartridges and clips are right here,” Michael said, pointing but not touching them. He wasn’t allowed to be in possession of firearms or ammo, so Juliet assumed Cathy had provided these. “Juliet, you’ve had shooting practice. You know what to do.”
“I just don’t want to do it,” she said.
Jay got up, put his hands into his jeans pockets, and paced across the concrete. “Look, I know what you guys are doing really works. You helped solve Annalee’s murder. But I’m worried about this. I don’t like having my sisters in danger.”
Juliet regarded her younger brother. “I know, Jay. That’s exactly what I said a few months ago when we were working on Annalee’s case. I didn’t want to moonlight as a private investigator. I didn’t want Holly doing it, and I didn’t want Cathy doing it. But if we hadn’t, you would be in prison right now, and Jackson might be dead.”
She saw the color drain from his face. “I know,” he said. “It’s important. I just wish the feds would solve all this so you guys wouldn’t have to.”
“Maybe they will,” Juliet said. “But I don’t have a choice. I have to help get to the bottom of all this. My children’s lives could be in danger. We’ll never get our lives back to normal until all this is resolved. I can’t even begin trying.”
Michael spoke again. “Remember, things got this far even though the feds were watching Bob. Now Bob is dead, someone is threatening Juliet, her house is torn up . . . Believe me, the more people we have working on this, the better.”
Juliet nodded. “And whatever we find we’ll share with the feds. They’ll just be a phone call away. We won’t keep anything from them.”
Jay turned back to Michael. “I’m worried about you too, dude.”
“Why?” Michael asked.
“Because of this gun thing. You can’t shoot. I don’t want you dead, and I also don’t want you to go to prison.”
“Don’t worry. I’m careful. I know the rules.”
“But you’re the one I would’ve trusted most to take care of my sisters, and now you can’t.”
Juliet looked at Michael, wishing Jay hadn’t brought that up. Michael looked down at his feet.
“Michael takes care of us in a lot of ways,” Cathy said. “He’s taught us everything we need to know. We can do this.”
“So when do we start?” Juliet asked.
“I think pretty early tomorrow morning,” Michael said. “Whoever’s watching Amber’s house needs to be there at six thirty or so, to make sure that if she leaves, we can follow her. She’s probably unemployed since Bob’s clinic has closed. But if we follow her she may lead us to the others. Juliet and Holly, you start out watching her. Cathy and I are going to go hunting for Leonard Miller.”
“Do you have any leads?” Juliet asked.
“No, not yet. But we can ask old neighbors, stake out his mother’s old house. I think his sister lives there.”
By the end of the meeting, Juliet had a plan and a strategy that made her feel a little more confident. Anything could happen tomorrow—the people tormenting her could do something even more tragic to her family. Or the feds could make a dozen arrests and put the case to bed.
As she went back up to get a few hours’ sleep, she prayed that God would intervene in this mess and protect them all.
W
ednesday morning Cathy read back over the blog she’d just written, conflicted about whether to upload it or delete it. For the last two and a half years, she’d written about murder cases that interested her. But this one . . . this murder of her brother-in-law that seemed related to the murder of her fiancé . . .
interest
wasn’t the word that described it. She was inescapably tangled up in this case, and her passion just might lead her to say something that would tip off the killers.
Two and a half years ago, when my fiancé was gunned down by a man who later walked away scot-free, I started this blog in the hope of making sure murderers paid for their crimes. Along the way, some have and some haven’t. But I’ve done my share of investigative journalism. I’ve discovered evidence that prosecutors had missed, and in some cases that has led to a conviction.
But once again my family has been rocked by murder.
My sister is a grieving widow now because a man gunned her husband down in a parking lot. Her children will grow up without their father. To make matters worse, her husband had secrets that reach back to my Joe’s death. But we’re uncovering those secrets, and the killers should take note. We are coming for them. They will not get away with it this time.
No, she couldn’t write that. She couldn’t let Leonard Miller know they were closing in on him. She couldn’t let him know they had linked him to Bob, and she couldn’t yet reveal Bob’s criminal bent to the world.
So far, to Juliet’s great relief, the local media hadn’t gotten wind of Bob’s criminal life. Cathy wouldn’t be the one to reveal it. She deleted the last part and stared at the computer screen again. What was there to write, if not the truth? Always before, she had dived in without much thought to her family’s comfort. She was never part of the case—defense or prosecution—so her opinions were considered nothing more than speculation. But this was different.
This case left an acid burn in her stomach. She wanted to write about it but couldn’t.
Sighing, she deleted the rest of the blog post and decided to wait a while longer to write about this family tragedy. The moment the media connected her with Bob, they would do exactly what she would have ordinarily done. They’d barrage her with interview requests. That would instantly elevate the story to national news. She could hear it now:
Popular
blogger
Cathy
Cramer, whose fiancé was murdered two years ago,
is now dealing with another family murder—her sister’s husband,
Dr. Bob Cole . . .
No, none of them could handle having the news bloodhounds sniffing around this case. Not yet.
Her phone rang, and the caller ID said Michael Hogan. She clicked it on.
“Cathy, you busy?”
“No, just banging my head against my computer screen. Did you talk to the security company guy?”
He sighed. “No. I called his office, but he’s been on vacation in Colorado. They told me they’d have him call me, and they gave me his cell number, but I can’t reach him. I’ll keep trying him.”
“Did you ask them if we could get an address?”
“Yes, and they said it would be up to Sid.”
“Can Juliet get access to Bob’s account now that he’s dead?”
“Again, up to Sid. They said he’d probably need to see evidence that she’s his next of kin. So all we can do is wait. But start getting the paperwork together for her. Marriage license, his death certificate, that sort of thing.”
“Okay, but I thought we were going to hunt Miller,” Cathy said.
“I decided I should watch the Harper brothers.”
“Who?”
“The guys who made that first phone call to Juliet,” Michael said. “They led us to Jerome Henderson. They might also lead us to Miller.”
“I could help you after I get my blog done,” Cathy said. “My advertisers are breathing down my neck for new content. I haven’t blogged since the shooting.”
“You talking about Bob?”
“Not yet. I’ve decided it’s not wise to say more than I’ve already said.”
“Good. They might follow your blog to see what you say.”
“I’ll write about some other case, if I can just focus.”
“Okay. Give me a call when you finish and I’ll tell you where I am.”
She hung up and stared down at Michael’s picture on her phone. Ironic that she’d cropped his face out of a photo that included him, Max, and Joe. He was laughing and looked carefree. She didn’t think his eyes had carried that much joy since before Joe’s death.
If only they could get Leonard Miller put away this time. If only they could take down the crime ring that Joe had died trying to bust. If only they could get to the bottom of Bob’s role in all of this.
Then maybe they could help Juliet deal with it and get on with her grief. Cathy knew about unhealed wounds, and she wanted better for her sister.
J
uliet parked on the street that ran parallel to Amber’s. From their vantage point, she and Holly could see straight past the houses between them to Amber’s front door and driveway on the next street over. With her camera’s zoom lens she could look through the window to see movement inside the house.
Though Michael had balked about her buying this minivan with blacked-out back windows, she’d bought it anyway. It was great for transporting her kids, along with their soccer gear and a million other things that moms were required to load into their cars, and it also made surveillance easier. But Michael claimed that the best vehicle for PI work was a small nondescript car, not a clichéd van that he feared would attract suspicion. He alternated between his gray Trailblazer and an old Chevy Caprice. He usually made Holly drive the Caprice instead of her taxi when he sent her to do surveillance.
It didn’t matter, usually, because most of the PI work Juliet
did was in an office on a computer. But she was glad to do this one on the street. Following her husband’s mistress, the mother of his baby, might uncover more secrets about the people who had made her a widow. But there was more. Revenge pulsed through her in a way that shamed her. She had never hated anyone before, and had never sought revenge for anything in her life. Vengeance was God’s, and she trusted him with it. This sudden thirst for vengeance was foreign to her, and she knew it needed prayer.
She sat in the backseat, her zoom lens trained on the house. Holly sat on the bench seat behind her, watching through binoculars.
They sat there for the next hour, listening to the radio and trying to keep their minds occupied. It was 9:00 a.m. now, and Amber hadn’t come out of the house.
“This could be a really boring day,” Holly said. “If she doesn’t do something soon, I’m going to have to find a bathroom.”
Through the zoom lens, Juliet saw the garage door going up. She caught her breath. “She’s coming out!”
Juliet zoomed in closer and saw Amber with the baby on her hip. She was decked out in a business suit, a short blazer, and a skirt with high heels. The baby wore a onesie, and his feet were bare.
She snapped pictures, just in case they needed them later, then clicked on her digital voice recorder. “Subject leaving residence at 955 Anchor Boulevard at 9:03 a.m., with baby.” She watched Amber buckle the baby into his car seat in the back then go around to the driver’s side.
“Why is she so dressed up?” Holly asked, ignoring the tape. “Maybe she has a new job.”
“If she did, I think the FBI would have mentioned it.”
“A job interview, then? She could be dropping the baby off at daycare along the way.”
Amber started her car and backed out, so Juliet handed the camera to Holly and, pulling her baseball cap low over her forehead, got into the driver’s seat. She started the van and turned it around in a driveway, then slowly drove up the street, not wanting to hit the stop sign until Amber had turned and passed them. Then she quickly got to the stop sign, turned left, and followed at a distance behind Amber, dictating every turn as she went.
“Did you see the baby?” Juliet asked as she drove.
“Yeah,” Holly said. “Weird. He looks exactly like Abe.”
“Who looks like Bob.” Tears stung Juliet’s eyes again, but she forced them back. She didn’t have time for that now. Amber turned off the main road, cut across to another highway, turned left. Juliet followed her, allowing two or three cars to get between them. Finally Amber turned into a bank parking lot, the same bank where Juliet and Bob had accounts—Centennial Bank. But Juliet had never used this branch.
“Quick, just pull over here on the road,” Holly said. “We have a good view without going into the parking lot.”
Juliet pulled over and slid into the rear seat again. She took the camera from Holly and zoomed in. Amber was out of the car with the back door open, talking to the baby. She closed the door without getting him out and high-heeled in.
“She’s leaving the baby in the car!” Juliet said. “It’s too hot for that.”
Holly’s hand went to her stomach. “I wonder if she left the car on for the AC.”
Juliet looked up at the bank sign that had the temperature. “It’s ninety-five degrees. The baby could bake in there.”
“What do you think she’s doing?”
“Maybe she’s got an account.”
“She could have driven through if she wants to make a withdrawal or deposit. She’d only go in if she had to talk to a loan officer. I’m going in.”
Juliet glanced back at her. Holly grabbed the bag she always carried on surveillance and pulled out a blonde wig. Pink hair didn’t blend in well, but usually it didn’t matter. She rarely needed to cover it up.