Fractured (9 page)

The leaden sky was spitting snow again and the wind was picking up. Maybe she should have stayed in Florida. “You need to stop rescuing damsels in distress. Just a thought.”

“I didn't.” He sounded sincere and irritated. “Not in the least. I just stopped some jerk from walking away from the scene of an accident. It was nothing. No rescue was involved.”

“I don't precisely agree with that, but I do imagine you didn't expect all the attention.”

There had even been a clip on the news, mostly because of the governor's campaign against public cell phone use in situations where people really needed to be paying attention to what they were doing. That his niece had been involved had been emphasized.

Right place, wrong time apparently for Detective Jason Santiago.

“Look at it this way,” she said, turning left on Lincoln. “You will get a unique life experience. From those come the memories we tell our children about eventually.”

Her companion was his usual caustic self. “I didn't know we were planning on having children. Don't we need to do something about nine months before that event? Count me in, by the way. I'm free tonight.”

Ellie always ignored his sexual comments since he seemed to go for irreverent shock value above all else. “We could go to the mall, but Bryce told me about a place in West Allis that he really likes. Try that?”

“You already knew about this little trip then?”

“Metzger has no faith in your taste.” She couldn't insult him with what he already knew.

“And here he hasn't even been to my apartment. I've been watching decorating shows on television but just haven't done anything about it yet.”

That made her laugh. She had been to his place once or twice when he was recovering from his wounds after their last two big cases. “It's not that bad.”

“I have it on good authority it is adolescent.”

“Kate?”

“Yep.”

The snow was now like they were in a globe, frosting the ugly piles on the street corners with a coating of fresh white powder. The psychologist ex-girlfriend, the one he only mentioned now and then, seemed like an odd choice for Santiago. Ellie had to ask, “So why didn't she change it when she moved in?”

“I kind of thought she would,” he said in an offhand way. “Crap, it's snowing pretty hard. Is it really only January?”

 

Chapter 8

“The house was in foreclosure when Frank Madison died.” Jason tossed the report he'd just printed on Ellie's desk. “I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding from about the fifth person I was transferred to at the bank, was that it threw a real monkey wrench into the process. Not only does foreclosure take a while, the estate went into probate with no will. Apparently the owner wasn't paying his mortgage but records showed he owned some shares in a mining operation up north.”

She picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip before she set it down with a grimace. “Wow, that's cold and disgusting. So I guess now we know why the house wasn't up for sale.”

He nodded, sitting down in the chair by her desk. It was a nice view. Today she wore a scarlet sweater over some sort of silky white blouse and the vivid color suited her, setting off her blond hair.
Back to business, dude
. “It gets better. Frank was a grumpy asshole according to everyone, but the neighbors were right, there is a nephew. He's the one who came and took all the furniture, but the bank has been paying the taxes and electric bill so the pipes won't freeze and their soon-to-be property won't be ruined or put up for auction by the county. At the moment everyone is haggling over those mine shares and we've two lawsuits pending. Until a probate judge decides how it all is going to go, the house is just going to sit there.”

Her brows lifted over her hazel eyes. “Can I ask the million-dollar question? Does the nephew have any idea who our victim might be?”

“Not a clue.”

She sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that. I wonder how the guy got keys.”

He'd thought about that too. “If he couldn't pick one of the locks, he called a locksmith, I'd guess. Claimed he got locked out, and once he was in, he went and bought new locks and installed them himself. Instant keys and it isn't hard to do.”

“We can work that angle, I suppose. His identity would be really helpful. I assume locksmiths keep records of addresses.”

“I think our best bet is to find out how our victim discovered the house was empty.”

“Could be as simple as accessing public records on legal proceedings.”

Jason didn't agree. “I think he'd have to have known the old man had died and the bank couldn't finish the foreclosure until the estate was settled. That probably means he knew someone who knew Frank Madison.”

“He was retired and reclusive according to every single one of our interviews. Worked for the railroad for forty years and he'd been retired for fifteen. His phone records show nothing unusual; he didn't even call the nephew, just a couple of old buddies, and it was disconnected months before he died, so we are going back quite a ways.”

Jason idly picked up a pen and read the side.
Marriott Hotels
. Could be from her trip to Florida. “I would ask why a man who had resources had just stopped paying his bills, but maybe it was dementia. He was reclusive and didn't talk about himself, and a few years ago, sold his car.”

With his own father it had been the booze, but his old man actually also had the money until he got fired for being drunk on the job, and just hadn't paid the mortgage. All Jason had inherited was the bill for the funeral. Why hadn't Madison cashed in those mining shares and solved his problems?

He could tell Ellie was thinking about it. She had a certain way of narrowing her eyes and tightening her mouth just a fraction. “I suppose,” she said after a long moment, “our victim could be connected to the bank. I mean, if he was someone who was handling part of the protocol to foreclose, and found out Frank Madison died, he would know both. He'd also know that the house was going to be empty, but that the heat and lights would be on, not to mention the taxes were going to be paid so no one else would be sniffing around.”

He argued, “But it breaks down when you ask yourself why someone who works at a bank has to commandeer an empty house.”

Ellie didn't blink an eye. “It does, doesn't it? Let's go find out who might fit his profile.”

Action was always more his thing than paperwork so she wasn't going to get an argument from him. However, just as he stood up with alacrity, her cell phone rang and it was easy to see her expression was immediately smoothed to neutrality.

He wasn't perfect, but he would normally at least give her the courtesy of walking away for the sake of her privacy. Because of the look on her face when she answered, he found it impossible.

“Bryce. Hi. How was the flight?”

A cool greeting, but maybe that was just his perception.

Flight where?

It is none of your business
.

He did move toward his desk then, because when it came down to it, he liked to think he was a decent human being. There were times in his past when that mattered so much it kept him off the streets, even when he'd been pretty low. Decent. If he could call himself nothing else, that had meant something.

By the time he'd grabbed his wallet and shoved it in his pocket and checked the battery on his cell, Ellie walked by and said pointedly, “Ready?”

“At all times,” he answered smoothly and followed her out the door. At least it wasn't snowing this particular afternoon but the brightly shining sun was indicative of a high pressure system that held the Midwest in a vise grip of frigid temperatures. His breath went out in clouds as they crossed the parking lot and luckily she'd already pressed the automatic starter, so when they got into her car, it was warming up. He said, “This is kind of funny, but when a friend of mine moved down to Virginia from here, he had a plug to keep his battery warm because he came from Duluth, and one day his new neighbor asked him if he had an electric car. The guy was serious. I about died laughing when he told me that story.”

Her smile was reluctant, but at least it happened. “It snows there too.” She started the vehicle.

“Sure, it snows.” He squinted at the brilliant sky. “But butt-cold is something entirely different.”

“Can you not utter a single sentence without something crude in it?”

“Occasionally, but it takes some effort.” He warily sensed she wanted an argument and wasn't sure if he wanted to be the man to have it with her at the moment. Ellie was usually pretty even and controlled, and he'd seen her manage under duress before. Right now she didn't seem to be managing.

He might be basically decent but he wasn't subtle. “Hey, something wrong in Shangri-la?”

She took a right turn a little too fast and the car skidded on the slick street. “I don't know. I don't live there.”

*   *   *

Bryce hadn't told
her exactly when he was leaving.

It was all semantics at the end of it. He'd
said
he was leaving, he'd been packing in bits and pieces, but she resented the freedom he had to get up and go, even if she was happy for him about the book deal.

Still …

He was gone.

And there was no way to ignore the brutal truth that it was, when it came down to it, her fault. Maybe part of it was payback for not telling him before her abrupt departure to Florida about her mother's diagnosis, but she hadn't been ready to talk about it. For that matter, she still really wasn't. It was frightening, especially with her father gone from a heart attack several years ago, and Bryce had two healthy whole parents, whom she liked very much, but that wasn't the point. Could he even begin to understand?

The main bank branch was a white building with a faux colonial front facing a busy street and there was a queue of customers when Ellie produced her badge and asked if she might speak to the branch manager.

“We're on a fishing trip,” she said when she and Santiago were shown with alacrity to the man's office. “I guess what we really need is an idea if this type of inquiry could even help us. I assume you can answer that question.”

Josh Hansen was surprisingly young, energetic, and immediately punched up the computer on his desk. “I can try and see who had access to the foreclosure. I'm sure you realize, Detective, it could be a broad base of people. There are those that process the paperwork on various levels and it is also filed in court on a civil litigation basis. Let me try to see who handled the paperwork on our end.”

Efficient. She liked that. No wonder he'd been promoted so young.

“Can you get names of anyone who has accessed the files?”

“That might take some digging.” He was busy, pushing keys. “I can get anyone who might be
able
to look through it though. Not the same thing.”

“If it is one of your employees, he won't be showing up for work.” Santiago remarked, “If an address near that neighborhood pops, I'd love to hear it.”

“What happened?”

“Bad things.” Santiago looked bland. “Really bad things. Can we just leave it there? We're homicide detectives. Doesn't that say it all?”

Josh—he looked like a Josh with his ingenuous face—nodded. “Sure. Okay. Do you need a court order for this? Am I breaking some sort of rule?”

Ellie shook her head. “We have to have a court order for specific records, but we're just looking for a lead. Point us in the right direction. If we need a judge's signature after that, we'll get one, of course. This is just one branch, and we get that, but can you let us know if we are even remotely looking in the right place? Could one person working for your company access the foreclosure and also know about the owner's death because he lived close by? That's what we want from you.”

“A to B. Gotcha.” He typed in a few more words and hit some keys. “I'm not positive what I'll come up with but I'll cross-reference the addresses and see if anything shows in our records.”

Despite how cooperative he was, nothing did, and Ellie had thought it wasn't likely to pan out anyway. When he rose apologetically, she shook his hand. “Thanks for your efforts. Here's my card if you think of anything.”

Back to square one.

Santiago didn't seem thrilled either as they walked out of the building. “Well, that was a bust.”

“It would have been too easy,” she commented. “And we both know nothing about what we do is easy.”

“You'd think we'd catch a break now and then.”

It wasn't like she disagreed. “We do, it's just disproportionate to how hard we have to work for it. So, all brilliant ideas welcome right now.”

He was a distinct pain, but he was also fairly canny. He said concisely, “I want to look at that house again.”

Ellie was totally on board. They needed to reconstruct that scene.

“I think we should.”

He hunched his shoulders. “Why is it so fucking cold here, dammit?”

“Would you stop griping about it? It's Wisconsin in winter. You should have paid attention in school. The latitude is a dead giveaway it might get chilly in January.”

“I wonder if Miami is hiring right now?”

“Then you'd be complaining about the heat.”

“Nah, I'd just walk around in my Speedo.”

“Oh lord,” she said in amused disgust.

But at least he'd made her laugh, and she really, really needed it at the moment.

Two very dead men, no motive or suspect, and Bryce was gone. She wasn't having a good day. “What are we looking for we might have missed the first time?”

Santiago glanced across the snow-crusted street, his expression remote. “I sensed there was something
there,
you know? Maybe it was nothing, but on the other hand, it might have
been
something. I don't like it when I get these gut feelings.”