Keeping Mum (A Garden Society Mystery) (23 page)

“Cam, I just found some stuff you might be interested in. Are you free?”

Unfortunately, she wasn’t. The police had finally arrived to get her formal report from the night before, and she had an appointment with them in the security office in twenty minutes. She was supposed to identify who might or might not be the person who’d attacked her.

“Well then, let’s meet for lunch,” he said.

“Perfect, but let me call you. I don’t know how long this might take.”

She spent the next twenty minutes completely distracted. Rob had sounded excited about something he’d discovered, and she was annoyed she couldn’t go find out what it was right away. She was also eager to find out who had attacked her. Putting a name to the face . . . or even a face to the face . . . would help her figure out who was so worried about her finding the real answers. It could be the cornerstone to solving the murders.

The security office was in the basement of the building, and Cam almost asked them to come up and escort her. She felt jumpy and worried that someone might see this as the perfect opportunity to shut her up. She made her way down anyway, and felt safer when she saw a policeman standing just outside the elevator waiting for her and a second one in the tiny office with the security man.

“Thank you for coming down, Miss Harris. We want to get your memory of the person and everything that happened first. Security should have had you stay last night. We’ve asked, and apparently, it was a new man?” The officer looked to the security guard currently seated in the booth for confirmation. “So training will be more thorough in the future. Anyway, let’s go over some footage from around the time of the event. Does that sound okay?”

She agreed and recapped everything as well as she could remember it.

“So you think they had access to the office?”

“Maybe, but when someone is there working, the doors are often unlocked. I mean . . . I locked them—I do when I’m there alone. But I don’t think Mr. Patrick does. So someone could have snuck in earlier in the day and just hidden.”

“And how would they have known you were coming back?”

“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they planned to take something.”

“Like what?”

“Well, with what they said, I thought their interest was in that fund-raiser where Derrick Windermere was killed and the money was raised for Jared Koontz. They warned me to stay out of it, and that’s the only thing I can think of that I’ve been
in
, so my guess is some file related to that.”

“But nothing was taken?”

“Not that I know of. Maybe I surprised him.”

“How long before you arrived had it been since the door was unlocked?”

“I have no idea. You’d need to check with the Patricks to see when they left. It was only six thirty when I came in, so maybe not that long—and even if Mr. Patrick left earlier, if Evangeline was still here, the guy couldn’t have done anything until she left.”

“You hear that, Len?” the officer said to the one in the hall.

Len
. Cam looked at him more closely. There could only be so many Roanoke police officers called Len. This had to be Elle’s brother. The same brother Jake thought had removed phone records and that they knew had only pretended to investigate a kidnapping. Though that was because he knew Senator Schulz was safely with his siblings.

“Len” went out to make a few phone calls. Cam leaned in to the other officer.

“Are you sure he should be investigating this? His brother’s murder is related.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I was with the people who found Mike Sullivan’s body. Please—talk to Jake Moreno about all this.”

The police officer eyed her very skeptically but then gave the smallest hint of a nod. Lenny Sullivan was probably a perfectly good cop, but he was also possibly too close to this case to do what needed to be done. Cam wondered how he had ended up here in the first place, but then security had only thought this was breaking and entering. They wouldn’t have connected it to the murder investigation.

Whatever the case, Cam didn’t plan to spill any more information with Officer Sullivan here. Who knew what he might do with it?

“He left five thirty, she left six fifteen,” Officer Sullivan said when he returned.

“Listen, can I come look at footage later?” Cam said. “I feel a migraine coming on and I don’t think I can look at that screen.”

The police officer seemed to understand her hesitation, and so agreed. “You just come back down and go over it when you can, preferably today.”

“I understand. As soon as I feel better. Thank you.”

• • •

• • •

W
hen Cam got back up to her office, her skin seemed to crawl with discomfort about what was happening. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the involvement of the police officer who had been suspected of hiding evidence earlier in the case was ominous. She wasn’t sure whom to trust, so she went to Evangeline.

“Yes of course, someone just called,” she said.

Relief washed over Cam until Evangeline went on.

“And I had wondered why my computer was on when I got here today.”

“On? I was . . . tied up in here. Wouldn’t I have seen?”

“Well, no. The monitor was off. That was what was so strange.”

Cam remembered the flicker she’d seen as she unlocked the door. He must have known she’d hear if he actually shut it down, so had only turned off the visible part.

Cam’s stomach dropped. “And what time did you tell the officer you left?”

“Neil and I left at five thirty—we had a board meeting for our charity—a dinner that started at seven. I wanted to shower and change before we went.”

Cam dialed her phone, and Jake, for a change, didn’t sound annoyed with her.

“Lester just called me with your concerns. I’m glad you . . .”

“There’s more, Jake. I just talked to Evangeline and have proof Sullivan—the cop, Sullivan—lied to . . . you said Lester?”

“Officer Simon Lester,” he clarified. “What do you mean proof he lied?”

“He told us downstairs Neil left at five thirty, which was true. But he said Evangeline left at six fifteen. She told
me
that she told
him
they left together at five thirty. And she told him her computer was on, which he never mentioned.”

“And if they were there together, chances are nobody snuck in while they were there,” Jake said.

Cam hadn’t thought of it, but it did seem risky.

“You always lock up when you leave, don’t you?” he asked.

“Of course.” But then Cam double-checked with Evangeline. She was always careful, but it was worth the question. Evangeline affirmed it and she passed that to Jake.

“Which means he may have had help from somebody with building access,” he finished.

Cam shivered. “So it was good I didn’t go over those tapes down there?”

“Well, yes and no. Lester is a good guy. And now Len has a chance to erase them, though probably if it’s a security guy he’s working with, it was erased before anybody got there today.”

“Rob and I are meeting for lunch. Will you meet us?”

“I think I can do that.”

Cam gave him the restaurant name and hung up, passing on the warning to Evangeline that somebody in the building might be involved.

“We have our own security, you know,” Evangeline said.

“What?”

“A private system. It’s just a camera on the front door, but . . . it might help.”

Cam ran over and hugged Evangeline. “I’ll bring Jake and Rob back with me after lunch.”

“You do that. It’s on the computer at reception and I think holds a week at a time—all motion detection, so not bad to watch. Plus, that would be the last computer a thief would sit at, since they’d be seen from the hallway if anybody came—too exposed.”

Cam had to carefully hide her grin as she walked out of the building. She didn’t want some thug for hire who happened to be loitering or watching on a security camera to see that she was secretly pleased. But she was eager to share this news with Rob and Jake.

• • •

• • •

W
hen she got to the restaurant, Rob and Jake were already sitting there. Rob raised a questioning look to her, as the lunch date had been made to discuss topics Jake wasn’t in on, but when Cam launched into what she’d learned about Officer Sullivan and the probable inclusion of building security, he understood. They ate a pleasant lunch discussing other topics, and then the pair of them accompanied Cam back to her office.

Cam tried not to look at the security guard as they entered the building. She knew he’d see she wore an accusatory expression, and he might not even be the person involved. Still, entering with a police officer always caught extra attention. The man nodded and said, “Hello, Officer,” as Jake entered.

Jake waved back and followed Cam and Rob to the elevators. He looked around a lot more than he usually did, and Cam wondered if that police attitude had an on-off switch or if the fact that they usually entered the building when it was relatively quiet made a difference. At the moment, the restaurant and shops on the main floor were hopping with business.

When they entered the office, Evangeline poked her head out and waved. Jake went back to verify with her what Cam had said earlier. It gave Cam time to boot up the computer that sat at reception, where there was currently no actual receptionist.

“Evangeline!” Cam called. “What program is this?”

Evangeline and Jake came out together, and Evangeline showed Cam the folder with the files. They were labeled “Archive,” which Cam thought was clever if anyone was snooping around. That was the last place a person would look for something recent.

“There. There’s yesterday,” Evangeline said.

They opened the file and watched a jumpy set of images. Each time a figure would leave the frame, the time stamp would jump, apparently to the next person entering the frame. The camera caught the full hallway just outside the door of the office, and Cam saw Evangeline and then Mr. Patrick arrive the day before. She saw herself arrive, several appointments come and go, herself leave, the Patricks leave, and finally at six twenty, a man in a mask arrived with a security guard who was intentionally keeping his head in shadow. He opened the door, let the man in, then closed the door again and left. Cam saw herself arrive twenty minutes later.

“Well, I think we have enough for that security guard to lose his job,” Jake said. “Evangeline, do you want to call the building manager? When we aren’t sure who in security is secure, he is probably the person we want to talk to to identify this man.”

It took about fifteen minutes for the man to arrive. He was a classic sycophant and irritated Cam from the minute he stepped into the office, but he was the person they had to work with, so she tried to hold her tongue.

“He doesn’t work for
us
. I’ve never seen him before.”

“He has the uniform and keys, so somebody in the security office had to have given him both things. If we could get a list of who was working last night?”

“Oh, of course! I’ll get that right away.”

“Without letting them know why it’s needed?”

“Oh, well . . . of course. I’ll do my best.”

“Aren’t you in charge?” Cam asked. She couldn’t help herself and Rob couldn’t keep from giving a small chuckle.

“Maybe it would help if I came, too,” Jake said.

“I’m sure that’s not necessary.”

“In fact, Cam, aren’t you supposed to be looking at tapes down there? Maybe we should all go.”

Cam had to admit it, she liked when Jake was in this mode if she wasn’t on the receiving end of it.

They made their way together to the security office, and the building manager asked for the schedule.

“Get the payroll version so you make sure not to miss anything,” Jake said.

The man in the little room looked alarmed, but complied. “Did something happen?”

“Yes. You’ll hear about it soon enough,” the manager said.

Jake stepped forward, though, and said, “Do you recognize this man?”

He had printed a screen shot of the security person who undid the door. It wasn’t a clear enough shot for someone who didn’t know the man to identify, but it seemed like a coworker ought to be able to.

The man squinted and said, “Might be the new guy. Herald, Harrell . . . something like that.

The manager scanned the list. “Harlon?”

“Yeah, maybe. I mean, I can’t say for sure.”

“How long has he worked here?”

“Just a couple weeks. We were looking for somebody, and I guess he had a referral from one of the penthouse tenants.”

“Is there a file of employees with their identification, including pictures?”

“Sure. We all have a picture ID.”

The man pulled up a screen for Richard Harlon and they moved in closer.

“That rat!” Cam said.

“Why?” Jake asked. “Other than breaking and entering, I mean.”

“That was the man who came up to take our statement last night.”