Last Words (20 page)

“No. Most of the prints are yours. One print is Mia’s, a couple are mine, probably from last week when we took the boat out. One print from the tarp doesn’t match any of us.”

“Todd’s, most likely. He sold me the tarp, he would have handled it. I can stop out later and get his prints, just to make sure, but I’d bet money they’re his.”

“He said something about driving their kids over to his sister’s in Annapolis today. You might want to try to catch him before he leaves.”

Hal glanced at the wall clock. “I’ll do that now. I want to talk to him anyway. He’s been after me for the past couple of years to sell him the
Shady Lady
. After today…well, I think I’m going to be looking for another boat. Doubt I’d ever set foot on that deck without seeing that poor girl, all wrapped up like that.”

Hal stood with his hands on his hips.

“God damn him, why’d he have to choose my boat?”

“He’s taking another shot at Beck,” Mia said from behind him.

Hal turned to her and asked, “Why?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Maybe he’s just pissed off and this is his way of giving him the finger. He’s showing you how clever he is, how slick, that he can get that close and still elude you. It was a risk, both times—leaving one body in Beck’s car, and another on your boat, Hal. Risk is essential to him, it’s vital.” She sat on the arm of the chair so she could face both men.

“Why?” Hal asked again.

“It ups the stakes.” She shrugged. “Then again, it could be something deeper than that, something far more personal.”

Beck leaned forward, his arms resting on the desk. “Dr. McCall said that, too. That she thought it could be personal.”

“Maybe somehow he holds you responsible for whatever kicked this off, and he’s sharing the spoils with you. Laying the victims at your feet, so to speak. ‘See what you made me do.’”

Beck ran a hand over his face. The expression on his face was pure anguish.

“If I thought for one second that something I did or said somehow kick-started this madness…”

“No, no,” Mia told him, “don’t buy into it. Whatever his thinking is, it’s strictly his choice, all the way. He has to explain his choice to himself, remember, he has to have an excuse that permits him to do these things. His thinking is twisted. He could just as easily be mentally pointing the finger at Mother Teresa or Madonna. Whatever it is, it only exists inside his mind.”

“So he rationalizes…”

“Absolutely. He has to. He has to justify his actions to himself. And remember, I’m just speculating. We don’t know that you have anything to do with his motive.”

“But your gut tells you…what?”

Mia thought it over for a moment before replying. “If he’d left the second body someplace else, I’d say the first time, leaving one of his victims in your car was a tweak.”

“But…?”

“But…leaving this one on Hal’s boat…I’d have to say, yeah, it’s more personal.”

“Maybe it’s because I was the chief before Beck,” Hal said. “Maybe it’s something to do with that, something to do with not liking the police.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s because you’re his father.” She looked from one to the other.

Beck stared at her without comment for several seconds.

“Bastard,” Hal said and started out of the room. “I’ll be at Singer’s if you need me.”

Mia turned to Beck. “If that trace is ready to go to the lab…”

“How did you know?” He asked when Hal was gone.

“Someone mentioned it,” she replied.

“Why?”

“In reference to why the body may have been left on Hal’s boat. Does it bother you?”

“Not really.” If he did, he’d already dismissed it. “I’m going to run out to the gym outside of town and see if Lisa’s still out there. She might have found some witnesses to interview, and I want to tell her about finding Mindy before she hears it on the news. Want to come along?”

“Sure…”

Mia drove, Beck’s Jeep still being impounded. He’d been meaning to call for a rental, but kept forgetting.

On their way out of town, Beck said, “By the way, I had a chance to go over the cell phone records for both Mindy and Colleen.”

“I take it there was nothing of any great use.” Her eyes shifted from the road to him and back to the road. “Assuming you’d have told me if there had been.”

“A few calls to a number that turned out to be…”

“Let me guess…untraceable.”

“Right. Damn those prepaid phones.”

“I wouldn’t have expected anything less from this guy. He’s certainly not stupid enough to call his victims from his home or work phone. Though that would have been nice.”

She turned onto the highway. “You’re going to have to tell me which way to go here.”

“Straight, then make a right at the second light into the shopping center, maybe a mile down the road.”

“How about the victims’ computers?”

“Nothing. I had hoped we’d find there was some Realtor’s website that one or both of them had visited, but there was nothing like that, and nothing out of the ordinary. No e-mails from a Realtor—legit or otherwise—or from any of the same contacts. Nothing that rang any bells whatsoever.”

He pointed up ahead. “The shopping center is at the next light.”

She put on her turn signal and pulled into the parking lot.

“Stay to the left,” he told her. “The gym is the last building.”

“I see it.” Mia drove around and parked in one of the spaces right out front. She got out of the car and glanced to her right.

“Is that Mickey Forbes’s sporting goods store?” she asked.

He nodded and pointed to the gym.

“First things first,” he said.

“I was just wondering if he was working today, if he’d seen Lisa.” Mia followed Beck through the automatic doors leading into the gym. “He splits his time between here and the car dealership, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t know when he’s where.” Beck walked up to the reception desk. “I’m Chief Beck.”

The young woman behind the desk looked from Beck to Mia. “Can I help you with something?”

“One of my officers was planning on stopping out here today. I had someone call as a follow-up a little while ago. He was told she’d been here.”

“Sergeant Singer.” The girl nodded. “She was in a few hours ago.”

“Do you know if she spoke with anyone here?”

“She spoke with me. She had pictures of those women who were killed, the two who weren’t members but who worked out here sometimes,” the receptionist told him in a hushed voice, as if almost afraid to speak of the dead.

“You recognized them?” Mia asked.

“Sure. The older one, the one who worked at Sinclair’s Cove? She used to come in and only use the treadmill. Never did anything else. The other girl, the one from Cameron, Mindy? She came in a few times, she tried everything a few times before asking for a form to apply for membership. She never did bring it back, though.”

“Did you ever see either of them together?”

“No.”

“Did you know Colleen Preston?”

“Sure.” Her face grew sad. “Everyone knew Colleen. She was real friendly. No one could believe what happened to her. It just made us all sick.”

“Did you ever see her with either of the other two girls? Or with anyone? Any of them work with one of the personal trainers?”

“No. Sergeant Singer asked the same thing. I never saw Colleen with anyone. She just came in after work, did her thing, then left. The other two were just sort of sporadic.”

“Did you notice what time Sergeant Singer left?”

“Sometime this morning, but no, I didn’t notice the time.”

“I guess you didn’t see her leave the parking lot?” Mia asked.

“No, but you could ask over at The Coffee Counter.” Karen pointed out the door. “She said she was going to stop there.”

“Thanks,” Beck said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“It’s so horrible, what he did to those girls.” A frightened look came over the young girl’s face. “Do you think you’ll catch him soon?”

“We’re doing our best,” Beck told her.

“Me and my friends, we’re scared to go out at night,” Karen confided.

“Good,” Beck told her. “If you’re not scared, you won’t be cautious. And being cautious could mean the difference between…”

The girl’s eyes widened.

“What he means is, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Stick with your friends and stay together if you go anyplace,” Mia told her, and nudged Beck toward the door. “Thanks again. You’ve been very helpful.”

Once outside, Mia asked, “What were you trying to do, scare the living shit out of her?”

“Yes. She should be scared.”

“But not paralyzed with fear.” Mia pointed up ahead. “There’s The Coffee Counter. Maybe we’ll find Lisa at some small table, knee-deep in an interview and strung out on caffeine and donuts.”

“With luck.” He pushed the door open and held it for her to follow him inside.

The shop was small, with a long counter lined with a dozen stools, a second smaller counter where orders were given and filled, and yet another long counter with more stools. There were two tables for four, and two tables for two near the front windows. A glass case held a variety of scones, donuts, and croissants. A middle-aged man stepped from behind the counter and waved to Beck.

“Chief, how’s it going?” He greeted Beck, and nodded in Mia’s direction.

“Not so good, Steve.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” The man nodded.

“Steve, you see Sergeant Singer today?”

“She was in earlier. Asking about those girls who got killed and wrapped up.” He shook his head. “That’s some bad business, Chief.”

“The worst. Listen, did you notice what time she left the shopping center?”

“No, sorry. We were talking about those girls for a while—they’d all been in here, one time or another. She had a bunch of questions, you know, did I remember them, did I ever see them with anyone, or talking with anyone, that sort of thing.”

“What did you tell her?” Mia asked.

“I said I never really noticed who they were with. I mean, the way we’re set up here, people are always talking to one another, and half the town is in here at one point or another on any given day. One of the reasons I set it up like this, nice way for folks to meet, you know? Sort of encourages conversation. People sit next to strangers, you never know who you’re going to meet.”

Mia and Beck exchanged a long look.

“Thanks, Steve.” Beck started toward the door.

“You might stop over at the Goal Post and see what time she left there,” Steve called to him.

Beck turned around and asked, “The Goal Post?”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded. “I told her that one of those girls—the little blond one, the girl from Cameron—had a big bag of stuff with her one time. I asked her if she wanted me to put it behind the counter while she had her coffee, the place was real crowded, and the shopping bag didn’t fit under the stool. She handed it over to me and I put it on the floor, right back there.” He pointed to the far counter. “I saw the name on the bag. The Goal Post. So when the sarge asked me about the girls, I told her she might want to try over there. See if anyone remembers her.”

“Thanks a lot, Steve, you’ve been a big help.” Beck pushed the door open and stepped outside. When Mia joined him on the sidewalk, he said, “Funny, I don’t remember Mickey mentioning that one of the victims was a customer of his.”

“He may not have known.” Mia hurried to catch up with him. “He may not have been in the store when Mindy was doing her shopping.”

“You’d think the clerk who waited on her would have remembered and would have mentioned it to him, and that he’d have mentioned it to me.” They reached the sporting goods store. “Let’s see what he has to say about it…”

They entered the store and went straight to the back. A young sales person in a white polo shirt and black soccer shorts approached them.

“Can I help you?”

“We’d like to speak with Mickey Forbes,” Beck told him.

“I’m sorry, he’s not in this afternoon. He owns the car place down the road, Bay Motors? Would you like me to call and see if he’s there?”

“Was he in this morning?”

“Well, earlier, for about an hour, but…”

“How about a policewoman, in uniform?” Beck asked curtly. “Was she in?”

“This morning, she was asking…”

“Who’d she talk to? You? Or Mr. Forbes?”

“Both of us.” The young man looked confused. “She asked us both about one of the women who got killed, wanted to know if we remembered her. I didn’t. Mr. Forbes, he said he didn’t, either, but he’d have someone check to see if there were any credit card sales to her and he’d give her a call if he found anything.”

“And the officer left the store?”

The sales clerk nodded.

“And Mr. Forbes? How long after did he leave?”

“I don’t know, a few minutes, I guess.”

“Thanks. Make that call for us now, please.” Beck pointed toward the phone.

The clerk did as he was told.

“He isn’t there,” he told Beck, his hand over the receiver. “Do you want to leave a message for him to call you?”

“Yes. Chief Beck. St. Dennis P.D. He knows how to find me.”

Beck turned and left the store.

“Thanks for your help,” Mia called to the clerk as she caught the swinging door.

“Now what?” She caught up with Beck at her car.

“Now we track down Mickey Forbes and see what else he knows that he hasn’t told us.”

21

“Vanessa, any chance you might have seen Mickey Forbes today?” Beck had dialed her shop as soon as he got into the car. He leaned back against the headrest and exhaled loudly. “When was that?”

“Where did you go?”

“What time did he leave…?”

From the driver’s side, Mia could hear Vanessa’s protest.

“Because I need to talk to him, that’s why. Where did he go when he…Thanks. And Ness? Stay clear of him for a while, okay?”

Mia figured his ears were still ringing after he hung up the phone.

He caught her glancing in his direction, and said, “What? You think I was a little heavy handed? She’s my sister, and he’s…” He paused.

“He’s what? A guy who’s interested in her?” She stopped at the light. “It’s obvious from your conversation that she was with Mickey this morning.”

“They had lunch at Lola’s.” Beck rubbed his chin. “She said he got there around noon and left about an hour and a half ago. Went back to the car dealership.”

“So which way?” she asked. “Should I make a U-turn or go straight? I’m assuming you still want to talk to Mickey.”

“Yeah. Take a right at the next light…”

Mickey Forbes was front and center in the showroom when they arrived.

“Hey, Beck. I just got the message you called. Let me guess…you’re in the market for something to replace that old Jeep of yours. I just got a really nice Saab in on Friday, guy traded it in for a Jag. It’s right over…”

“I’m not looking for a car, Mickey.” Beck lowered his voice. “Is there someplace where we can talk?”

“Sure. Right on in here.” Mickey pointed toward an open door. “How’s it going, Agent Shields? Nice wheels you have there, Lexus is a fine car…”

Mickey ushered the pair into his office and closed the door.

“What’s going on, Beck?” Mickey sat on the edge of his desk.

“I understand that Mindy Kenneher, one of the victims, was a customer of yours,” Beck said. “How come I had to hear that from Steve at The Coffee Counter, and not you?”

“I wasn’t aware of it myself.” Mickey shrugged. “I just heard about that this morning, from Lisa. She said Steve told her about that girl coming in one day with a bag with our name on it. I told Lisa I’d have the store manager go through all the sales slips starting back in April so we could see who waited on her.”

“You can tell that?” Mia asked.

“Yeah. I’m afraid my system is a little old fashioned, but there’s a method to my madness. We hand write our slips, whether it’s cash or credit, so that we have a record of the customer. That way, we know what they bought and when.”

“What do you do with that information?” she asked.

“The names all go on a master list for sales, promotions, that sort of thing. If we know someone has bought a lot of fishing gear, for example, when we have something special, we give him or her a call. We try to keep our service specialized, you know?”

“And what did Mindy Kenneher buy?” Beck asked.

“We don’t know. My manager was scheduled to be in at two, but I spoke with him and asked him to get in as soon as possible and asked him to make finding her slip his priority. I told Lisa I’d give her a call as soon as I had something. She said she’d want to talk to the salesperson, maybe they’d remember if someone was with her at the time.”

“I need you to call everyone in and ask them to take a look at the photo.”

“Sure, Beck, but my staff always turns over at the end of May. I lose all the college kids who work here part-time during the school year when they go back home. I don’t hire part-timers again until the fall, so I don’t know that they’ll be much help.”

“What time did Lisa leave The Goal Post?” Beck changed the subject. He’d have to wait for the sales slip.

“Around eleven, I think it might have been. We were just about finished talking when her phone starting ringing. She just said for me to call her as soon as I had something, then she answered the call and left the store.”

“Any idea who she was speaking to?” he asked.

Mickey shook his head. “No idea. I didn’t hear her say a name.”

“Did you see which way she went when she left the store?”

“No, I had an appointment to meet a customer at eleven, so I left pretty much when she did.”

“Thanks.” Beck stood abruptly.

“Sure.” Mickey looked from Beck to Mia, then back to Beck. “Is there something else going on here that I’m not picking up on?”

“Nah. Nothing else going on, Mick.”

“Is Lisa all right?”

“Is there a reason she wouldn’t be?”

“No. I just…you’re asking all these questions about her, that’s all.”

“Nice of you to be concerned.”

“Hey, we’re old friends, me and Lisa. We go back a long way, Beck.”

“Right.” Beck opened the door. “Don’t forget to call me as soon as that slip turns up…”

Beck and Mia walked to her car in silence. She put the key in the ignition, then turned to him and said, “You think he’s a suspect.”

“Until I know better, everyone’s a suspect.” He snapped his seatbelt.

Beck stared out the window for several minutes while Mia drove, then took his phone from his pocket and dialed.

“Hal, did you speak with Todd? Has he heard from Lisa?”

Mia braked to avoid hitting the car ahead of them which had made a left turn without signaling.

“When you’re done there, I want you and Duncan to make another search of those abandoned buildings down around the river. Make it every abandoned or empty place in town. And get Garland to run a list of the properties and their owners. Thanks…”

He hung up and seemed lost in thought.

“So, what did Hal have to say? Has Todd heard from Lisa?” She slowed as the cars in front of her began to stop.

“Hal said he caught Todd just as he was leaving to pick the kids up from the babysitter to drive them over to his sisters. He said they do this every summer. His kids stay with the aunt and uncle and cousins for a week or so, then everyone goes to the grandparents for a week. Todd’s parents own a very jazzy horse farm. According to Lisa, it’s really a showplace. Acres and acres of farmland, dozens of horses. They breed thoroughbreds.” Beck reached for the radio dial, then stopped. “Would you mind some music?”

“No, go ahead. Anything is fine.” She rolled down her window and stuck her head out. “Looks like there’s some road construction up ahead. Everything’s stopped.”

“Damn, I forgot they’re repaving this section.” He looked around. “We’re stuck now. The last turn off was about a quarter mile back.”

“So what else did Hal say?”

Beck scanned through several stations until he found something he liked. “Todd told Hal he’d just spoken with Lisa right before Hal got there. Said the connection was really bad and all he understood was that she was interviewing some witnesses and she’d be back to the station when she was finished to write up her reports. Then he said the call cut off.”

“Sounds like Lisa needs a new phone.”

“I guess so. The important thing is that she’s okay.”

“Did you think she wasn’t?”

“I don’t know.” He thought it over for a few seconds, then said, “I guess knowing how this guy is—how clever and how slick—for a while there, I felt as if she’d disappeared, too. It was just a bad feeling I got when no one was able to contact her. She’s a really good cop, like I said.”

“And a good friend, I’d guess.”

“Yes. She’s a good friend.” He nodded. “She was the first woman officer Hal hired. She was here when I started.”

“Do you think she resented that you were brought in over her?”

“Lisa?” He seemed surprised by the question. “No. She didn’t want the job, made no bones about it. Her kids were still real young then, and she’s always made them her priority. The kids and Todd, that’s what she lives for. She loves the job, there’s no doubt in my mind, but it’s always been second for her.”

“Smart woman.”

“Very.” A song came on that he apparently didn’t like, because he started scrolling through the dial again. “I think the only person who resented me for a while was Duncan. I think he’s always wanted to be chief, but he’s never really reached that level of competency, you know what I mean? Administratively, that is. He’s a good cop but a piss poor record keeper and as Hal said, he just isn’t a leader. He’s come around since then, though. We get along just fine now.”

“You must have been a police officer somewhere before you came to St. Dennis,” she said, craning her next to see if any of the cars were moving. They didn’t appear to be. “You must have proven yourself to have even been considered for the job here, even if….”

“Even if my father was the retiring chief and head of the search committee?” He finished the sentence for her. “Yes, I’d been in law enforcement for years.”

He seemed reluctant to say more, but Mia was curious and persistent.

“Where?” she asked.

“I was with the Newtown police department here in Maryland for six years, and before that I was in the service.”

“Which branch?”

“What difference does it make?”

She smiled. “That means Special Forces.”

He turned up the radio and acted as if he hadn’t heard.

“So which was it?” she asked.

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“Only when I absolutely have to.” She slanted a glance at him, but he ignored her. “So what about these abandoned places you told Hal to look into?”

“St. Dennis is full of them. Down by the river, there are some old oyster shacks, some old buildings where boats were built and stored about a hundred years ago. They were used for different things through the years, then were boarded up. They’re pretty ramshackle, for the most part. On the other side of town, we have an area that’s about to be up for renovation. There are a few places that have been vacant for a while. The owners are waiting for the right market to sell, I guess.”

“Sounds like the perfect place to keep a woman chained up.”

“We did check them out last week, but only from the outside, so I want to take a closer look. If I wanted to keep someone hidden for a few weeks and not attract any attention, I’d be thinking hard about one of those buildings.”

“And you think he’s keeping them in St. Dennis?”

“Pretty certain. Daley and Meyers have said they’ve searched high and low in their respective towns, and nothing’s been found. Of course, neither Cameron nor Ballard has the number of vacant buildings that we have.”

“Why is that?”

“They’re newer towns. St. Dennis is a couple hundred years old. Our buildings have been around longer, and some of them have been used for different purposes over the years. We’ve gone through a period of renovation and restoration, and now we’re being discovered, so the old properties are increasing in value. And the other towns are not built on the water, the way we are. For generations our people made their living from the bay, so it follows we’d have old buildings near the water that are no longer being used because the businesses they served are gone.” He seemed to think that over, then added, “There are some old crabbers’ shacks out near the bay, past Sinclair’s Cove. I think I asked Duncan to look into them but I don’t remember that he said he did.”

He took out his phone as the traffic started moving.

“Garland,” he said, “I need Duncan. Is he around? Find him for me, please. And call the mobile phone service. It looks like Lisa needs an upgrade.”

“Well, that should make Lisa happy. Getting a new phone, that is.”

“Hey, I live to please.” He played around with the radio dial for a minute, then said, “She’s almost like a sister to me, maybe even more like a sister than my sister. I’ve actually known Lisa longer than I’ve known Vanessa.”

“That must have been quite a surprise,” Mia said, “finding out you had a sister.”

“When it comes to Maggie, anything is possible. That woman is always full of surprises.”

“Like bringing you here unannounced to Hal?”

“Yeah, that was a good one,” he said dryly. “Pissed me off more than you could imagine, her dragging me here, never saying a word about where we were going or what she intended on doing. Just telling Hal that I was his problem, turning heel and walking away, leaving me standing there…”

Even now, years later, the pain in his voice and in his eyes was unmistakable.

“Looks like it turned out okay, though. With Hal, I mean.”

“Only good thing she ever did for me.” He nodded. “Still, you have to have something seriously wrong with you to do that to your own kid.”

“But in the end…”

“In the end, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. She really couldn’t handle me. And I guess that last time I got into trouble was the last straw, as far as she was concerned. And Hal was a terrific dad. Just took to it straight away, never questioned for a second whether I was his or not. Here he was, a small town cop, living alone…”

“He never married?”

“Nope. Always said the only woman he ever loved was my mother.” Beck shook his head as if the thought was incomprehensible to him. “How crazy is that?”

“She must have had something going for her. Hal’s no fool.”

“Yeah, well, he is when it comes to Maggie. I swear, if she walked back into St. Dennis today, he’d let her.”

“She must have had a reason to do what she did, Beck.”

“Oh, she had a reason, all right. Her new husband didn’t like me.” His face hardened. “And I guess when you have to decide between your kid and your meal ticket, your stomach is going to win out every time. At least, for some it will.”

“This new husband, he was Vanessa’s father?”

“Right. One mean son of a bitch.”

“But Vanessa told me they split up before she was born.”

“Guess he didn’t like kids, his or anyone else’s.”

“Was he abusive?”

“Abusive?” Beck frowned. “What made you ask that?”

“I don’t know.” Mia shrugged. “I was just thinking, she brought you to Hal right after she married this guy. Then, before she even had Vanessa, she split with him. Maybe she was trying to protect you. Both of you.”

“And her reason for sending Vanessa out here?”

“Maybe she just thought it was time you got to know each other.”

“More likely she was trying to get Vanessa out of her hair.”