Murder for Millions (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 7) (17 page)

CHAPTER
39

I was two blocks from the Crescent
Creek Police Department when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I
let it go to voicemail. When the same caller tried again less than a minute
later, I figured it would be best to let the very determined individual leave a
second message. The third time the phone chirped, I nearly tossed the thing out
the window until I saw Blanche Speltzer’s name on the screen.

“Hi, Blanche!” I said, pulling into
an open spot in the CCPD parking lot. “I hope that wasn’t you calling from a
burner.”

“Calling from a
what
?” the
retired teacher squawked.

“A burner,” I said. “Those
disposable cell phones that criminals always use on—”

“Darn it, Katie!” she snapped. “It
wasn’t me. That was Duane Schulte. He knows more about the night of the fire at
Ira’s than he told the police.”

“Why was he calling me? He should
be dialing—”

“Can you pipe down and listen for
five seconds?” asked the gray-haired whippersnapper.

I didn’t say anything.

“Good! That’s more like it. I
promised Duane that I’d play the middleman so you would actually take his
call.”

My mouth opened instinctively to
ask the obvious question—
Why doesn’t he call the police?
—but I hadn’t
even formed the first syllable when Blanche beat me to the punch.

“It’s very simple, Katie. Duane’s
dealing with some rather strong emotions at the moment. Apparently, a few
minutes after he saw the smoke and called 911 the other night, he got into his
pickup and drove over to see what was going on at Ira’s. But when he pulled—” The
line beeped a few times to signal an incoming call; it was Duane Schulte again.
“—up in front, there—” I missed a couple of words as the tone repeated in my
ear. “—going at it in the parking lot with everything they had. Just like those
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots all the boys had years ago. They were punching and
jabbing and hitting one another like Muhammad Ali and Jodie Foster in that big
fight.”

I laughed softly. “Do you mean Joe
Frazier?”

“How the heck should I know? I don’t
watch ESPN.”

“It’s not important, Blanche. And I
don’t want to be rude, but Duane’s calling on my other line again, so I
should—”

Click
.

I smiled at her saucy demeanor as I
toggled over to Duane Schulte. After I greeted him and apologized for not
answering the first two times, he launched into a hushed narrative that began
with the night of the blaze at Ira’s body shop and ended with a firm
declaration that he didn’t want to do any jail time because he was
claustrophobic, hated the color orange and had an aversion to chipped beef on
toast.

“Okay, Duane,” I said when he
stopped for a breath. “I’m not a fan myself, but why do you think someone would
put you behind bars?”

“On account of not telling the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” he said.

“During the 911 call?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, first of all, you weren’t
under oath,” I began. “And that means you can’t be locked up if you didn’t call
the police dispatcher again that night after you drove over to Ira’s.”

He mumbled something. I asked him
to repeat it. He complied with the request, but didn’t increase the volume.

“Duane? I’m sorry, but can you try
once more? And please speak up a bit, okay? I’m in the car and it’s kind of—”

“I saw Ira Pemberton beating the
stuffing out of some guy!” he blurted. “I’m afraid it might be the person that
they found murdered.”

The announcement arrived from so
far out of left field that I was momentarily speechless.

“Did you hear me?” Duane asked a
second later.

“Yes, I did, but—”

“And before you tell me to call the
police,” he said, “I can’t do that. Blanche told me that you’d take care of it
for me.”

“But I don’t understand why you—”

“Because, Miss Reed! I once
testified in a trial, a long, drawn-out torture session that almost ruined my
marriage. And when I was on the stand, I misspoke about something. The defense
attorney caught my error and tried to get me charged with perjury. But…” He
stopped, coughed faintly and repeated the last few words. “…with perjury,” he
said again. “But it was a simple mistake. And it left me feeling
really
reluctant about courtrooms and judges and lawyers with bad perms and press-on
fingernails.”

I smiled. “Well, those last two
things alone could make lots of people leery about the judicial system.”

He groaned. “It’s okay. You don’t
have to make me feel better about it. I know it’s a weird phobia. But I also
know that it’s very real to me. So when I confided in Blanche about what I saw
that night, she told me to call you right away.”

I offered a few more words of
encouragement. Then I asked him to tell me everything. When he finished the story,
I offered to go with him to talk to Dina Kincaid and Deputy Chief Walsh.

“Oh, no way!” Duane barked. “That
guy was in the courtroom during the trial that I mentioned! He was in favor of
me being charged with perjury!”

“What was the outcome?” I asked,
hoping to avoid any discussion about Trent and his role with the Crescent Creek
PD.

“Judge Brinker was on my side,”
Duane answered. “He knew that I was super nervous, so he let it slide. Although
I had to wait, like, forty-eight hours to learn my fate.”

“You know what they say,” I told
him. “‘The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.’”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometimes it takes a while to
settle legal disputes,” I said. “But in this instance, considering that you
have what sounds like potentially critical information in two open
investigations, I don’t think it’ll take very long at all for the wheels of
justice to turn.”

Duane chuckled. “Well, I hope
you’re right, Miss Reed. And I also hope the wheels of justice don’t roll right
over me.”

“I bet you’ll be fine, Duane. Now,
do you mind if I ask you a few more questions about what you saw?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ve got all
night.”

“Well, I’m on my way to a meeting,
so I need to move things along if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Miss Reed. Why don’t you
ask whatever it was you want to know?”

“Can you identify the man that Ira
was fighting with the night the fire was set?”

“I can.”

“Do you know his name?”

“I do.”

I smiled at his clipped responses.
Then I asked him to tell me the name. And as I listened to his voice, gruff and
coarse and slightly distorted by the connection, I felt a triumphant surge of
adrenaline spark through my body from the top of my head to the tips of my
toes.

“Can you pass this along to the
police?” Duane asked.

“I can.”

He laughed.

“And do you think it will help
bring the guilty party to justice?”

“I do,” I said. “I most definitely
do.”

CHAPTER
40

Velma Lancaster stood like a statue
in the elevator as we rode up to Trent’s office. Her arms were folded across
her chest and the expression on her face was a swirl of insolence and sorrow.
After she’d agreed earlier to join us for a meeting with the prime suspect, I’d
suggested that we drive from Crescent Creek Lodge to the CCPD headquarters so
Velma could meet with Dina and Trent. I was surprised when she instantly
agreed, although she insisted on taking separate cars.

Trent was waiting when I followed
Velma into his office a few minutes later. There were bottles of water on the
credenza along with a platter of cold cuts and sliced egg rolls.

“Anybody hungry?” Trent asked. “We
had some food left from our lunch meeting.”

“No, thank you,” Velma said softly.

When Trent noticed the confused
expression on her face, he jumped up, hurried around his desk and cleared a
spot on the sofa just inside the door.

“My apologies for the mess,” he
muttered. “The maid has the day off.”

A faint smile came and went on Velma’s
face. She brushed the cushion before carefully perching on the edge of the
seat.

“Did Katie explain the idea to
you?” Trent asked, returning to his desk chair.

Velma nodded silently.

“And you’re sure this is okay with
you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so. I
mean, I think I can do it.”

Dina appeared in the doorway. She
greeted Velma with a cordial smile before walking over and leaning against the
wall in one corner.

“So?” Trent said. “Where are we?”

“Do you want to review the evidence
first?” asked Dina. “Or should I outline the plan one last time?”

He slowly rotated his gaze to where
I sat on the arm of the sofa. Then he cocked one eyebrow and said, “The
evidence speaks for itself, detective. We’ve got the button that was recovered
at the Devane residence in Aspen. It matches the coat our suspect was seen
wearing by several witnesses. We’ve got security camera footage from an ATM in Provo
across the street from where the plates were stolen. We have the suspect buying
gas cans at—”

“Katie mentioned an insurance
policy,” Velma interrupted. “Isn’t that more important than those other
things?”

Trent sighed. “I believe that all
evidence is important, ma’am. But you are essentially correct; the fact that
the property policy was recently upgraded to a ten million dollar payout is more
than a little suspicious. The insurance company’s investigator was in earlier
today for a pretty remarkable conversation. Their attorneys plan to file a civil
suit accusing our friend with insurance fraud in addition to the charges that
we’ll file for his criminal activity.”

“Isn’t arson for insurance fraud
fairly common these days?” Velma asked.

Trent frowned. “Unfortunately,” he
said. “The United States Fire Administration believes that tens of thousands of
blazes are the result of arson every year designed to generate revenue for
business owners, shareholders or other interested parties.”

“So they can pay off debt?” Velma
asked casually.

“That’s one motive,” Trent agreed.
“Pay off what they owe the bank or other creditors. Or maybe they’re just
greedy people.”

“Or jerks,” Velma offered. “I’d say
he actually falls into all three of those categories.”

Trent didn’t comment. Instead, he
asked Dina to give Velma a snapshot of the tentative case as suggested by the
evidence and eyewitness testimony.

“We suspect that the murder of
Jacob Lowry was a crime of convenience and chance,” she began. “Based on our
conversation with you, Mrs. Lancaster, as well as statements by a customer at
the body shop as well as the valet attendant at the hotel, Mr. Lowry’s stop at
Ira’s business was a spontaneous decision. He happened to be driving by late
that afternoon on his way to meet Kevin Hertel at the Wagon Wheel Saloon. We
believe that Jacob noticed that the garage doors were still up at the body shop
and decided to pay your father a visit.”

Velma took a deep breath. “I
believe you, Deputy Chief Walsh. Jacob had actually talked about meeting with
my father to discuss what happened when I was younger. My dad and I have a
somewhat civil relationship now, but there are still some things that haven’t
been fully resolved. I’d shared them with Jacob over the years, and he wanted
to help. I never believed that he would actually go through with it.” She
paused. “And now, in the end, trying to help me resolve the lingering trouble
with my dad…well, it got him killed.”

“It’s not your fault, Velma,” I
said.

She smiled weakly. “Thanks,” she
said. “Do you all know who actually shot Jacob and tried to make it look like a
suicide?”

“We believe so,” Dina said.
“Between our investigation and Katie’s contributions, we have a suspect.”

“
One
suspect?” asked Velma.

Dina glanced at me, indicating with
a faint nod that I should answer.

“Yes,” I said. “The evidence points
toward one individual.”

“Okay, fine,” she whispered,
brushing tears from her eyes. “Who is it? Who killed Jacob?”

When I told her the name, she
gasped faintly and sat back on the sofa. Her head lobbed forward, chin on her
chest as she cried.

“Velma?” I said in a hushed tone.

There was no reply, just the muted
sobs as she wept and trembled. I waited a few minutes, repeated her name and
watched as she slowly lifted her head.

“I can’t tell you exactly why,” she
said softly. “But I was beginning to suspect him, too.”

CHAPTER
41

Herman Bright was the first to
arrive, carrying a burgundy leather briefcase and a cup of coffee from Java
& Juice. When he came through the door of the meeting room at Crescent
Creek Lodge at that evening, his face was drawn and tight. He put his things on
a small side table and asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“Do you think this will work?”

Dina glanced at me. “Kate did
something like this in Chicago when she was a PI,” she said. “And Deputy Chief Walsh
has used the technique on more than one occasion.”

The insurance mogul’s eyes darted
from Dina to me and then back. “Okay, sure,” he said. “That’s yesterday’s news.
I’m wondering about today, right here, in this room in about…” He checked the
time on his phone. “…fifteen minutes or so. Will your idea be successful?”

“We’re confident that it will,”
said Dina. “And, before the others arrive, I’d like to commend you for taking
part in this effort.”

Herman shrugged. “I want to see
justice for the victims just as much as you do, Detective Kincaid. I’ve been in
business for nearly twenty years, and never once has a customer tried to
defraud my agency or—”

Dina’s phone trilled from where it
sat on the table. She offered an apologetic smile to Herman Bright before
taking the call. As she spoke in a low, muted voice, I got up and checked the hallway.
It was empty. We were now just minutes from our starting time and there was no
sign of Velma Lancaster, Carter Devane or Marla Soble. When it sounded like
Dina was wrapping up her call, I went back to my seat at the far end of the
conference table.

“That was Tyler Armstrong outside
in the parking lot,” she reported. “Our guest of honor just arrived.”

“Do you want me to go check on the
other three?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but
they’re on the way, Katie. Tyler also saw them slipping in the side door about
five minutes ago. I imagine they’ll be here any second.”

While we waited for everyone to
arrive, I pulled out my phone and checked email. There was another YouTube
video from my mother—“Cat In A Shark Costume Chases A Duck While Riding A
Roomba”—along with a note from Elle Samuelson asking if her naked wedding cake
could have alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate with cream cheese
frosting. I typed quick replies to both messages and then put away the phone as
Carter Devane stepped into the room.

“Detective Kincaid?” he said with
an overly aggressive tone. “Velma’s not coming.”

Dina asked for an explanation, but
Devane shook his head and told her that neither he nor Velma had any obligation
to join in the discussion.

“This is police business,” he said,
pulling a chair out from the table. “I’m here strictly as a courtesy.”

“Very well, Mr. Devane,” Dina said,
her upbeat and affable tone softening the sharp glint of irritation in her
eyes. “I’m sure we’ll reach a successful conclusion with or without Mrs.
Lancaster’s participation.”