PENITENCE: An Andi Comstock Supernatural Mystery, Book 2 (95,893 words) (17 page)

“Double thank God,” Vaughn said, looking completely frazzled. “I can deal with Trev’s injury, but the other three crying and carrying on is about to drive me nuts.”

Andi walked down to meet her sister. “He’s a little fried because all four kids are having a sobfest.”

“Sympathy tears,” Natalie said.

At the door, Andi said, “Nat, this is Vaughn. Vaughn, this is my sister, Natalie. Jack and I will herd the noninjuries into the kitchen. Got any ice cream?”

“I hope so,” Vaughn said with such fervency Andi grinned. “Give them whatever they want.”

An hour later, the five-year-old twin girls were tucked into their beds and fell fast asleep. Micah had given up waiting for his brother twenty minutes earlier.

Andi went back downstairs and joined everyone in the kitchen, where Trevor was being treated to the bowl of ice cream he’d missed out on earlier.

“Thank you for making a house call,” Vaughn said, pulling out his wallet. “Here’s my card. You can bill me at this address.”

“I won’t be billing you at all,” Natalie said, slipping into her coat.

“That’s not right,” Vaughn said. “You can’t be doing this without compensation.”

She slid a glance at her sister. “Let’s just say, a friend of Andi’s is a friend of mine, and I don’t charge friends for house calls.”

“She’s not kidding,” Jack said, pointing to his cheek. “She removed my stitches, saving me a trip to my doctor’s office.”

Nat shrugged. “As I said, friends.”

Vaughn frowned, but said, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Me, too,” Andi chimed. “If Vaughn’d had to take Trev to the ER, we might not have seen them again ’til morning.” She looked at the toddler. “You doing okay, buddy?”

He nodded, his focus mostly on the strawberry ice cream he had left. “Got sewed up just like Micah.”

“And no more jumping off the stairs, right?” his father added.

The little boy looked up, his expression serious. “No moh.”

Andi and Jack pulled on their coats, as well. Vaughn gave Trevor instructions not to budge from the table and walked them to the front door.

“Thanks again, all of you. I really appreciate the quick response.”

“Any time,” Andi said, giving him a hug, and they were on their way.

A short time later, Jack dropped her off at her place. He had a seven o’clock meeting with his LT, so their romantic plans for the evening were put on hold. Andi insisted he didn’t have to walk her upstairs, and though he didn’t look happy about it, he relented.

Had she known what awaited her at the door, she might not have been so insistent that he relinquish his gentlemanly duties.

With some reluctance and more than a little dread, she hurried back downstairs to catch him before he drove away.

Jack barrelled u
p
the steps two at a time ahead of her. Andi reached the landing seconds later. In the light of the overhead fixture, she could tell that the exertion had cost him with his cracked rib.

“What the hell?” he muttered, staring at her door, trying to catch his breath.

“I didn’t touch it.”

Jack pulled out his phone and dialed EPD dispatch. “Jack Harmon,” he said when the operator answered. He gave his badge number and Andi’s address and apartment number. “Send a patrol car and someone from forensics.”

After a moment of silence while he listened, he said, “Just log it as related to a murder-for-hire case,” and disconnected.

“What do you think?” Andi asked, more rattled than she wanted to admit.

“I think it’s colder than shit out here. Let’s wait inside.” He pulled a latex glove from his pocket and wrapped it around the door knob to open it.

Once inside, Andi couldn’t let her question rest. “Jack, tell me what you think.”

“I think someone knows you’re connected to Denise and they want you to back off.”

Andi pondered that for a few moments. “Someone, but not The Liquidator?”

He opened the door and studied the photo of Andi, which had been printed out in black-and-white and adorned with a reticle, similar to what had been done with Denise’s picture in the memorial guest book. “I’ve never known of a killer-for-hire killing someone without getting paid for it.”

For some reason, Jack apparently thought that answered her question. Andi crossed her arms, trying to get warm. Even though she still had her coat on and the temperature in the apartment was set at sixty-eight degrees, she was freezing. Knowing someone wanted you dead must have that effect on you. How in God’s name was Denise dealing with it?

She tried again to process the implications of Jack’s words, but had a hard time focusing.

“Want me to make you a hot toddy?” he asked.

“No, I need to keep my mind clear.”

“Tea then?”

She nodded. “I’ll put the teapot on.”

He closed the door again. “I’ll do it. You sit.”

She did as instructed, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the closed door. Something wasn’t computing. “If The Liquidator wouldn’t kill me gratis, does that mean he
didn’t
put that on my door?”

After a pause that went on too long, as far as Andi was concerned, he said, “I think we have to consider it.”

More possibilities flitted through her mind. “If that’s true, then he couldn’t have put the picture of Denise in the guest book, either.”

He turned on the tap, filled the pot, and set it on the stove, turning the gas on high. “That’s the problem with theories. They muck up what you thought you already knew.”

What did they already know? There was only one certainty. Clem had hired The Liquidator to kill his wife and he’d paid a deposit of ten-K up front and given the hitman a window of time when he wanted it done. According to Clem, he’d stipulated that she be shot and that it be quick because he didn’t want her to suffer. He’d also preferred that the kill happen on his birthday, if possible, which negated the designated window of opportunity in Andi’s mind.

The other thing that bothered her was that Clem told her specifically that if the job wasn’t completed by February 8, the contract was null and void and no final payment was due. With that kind of caveat in the deal, why had The Liquidator refused to cancel the contract?

When you hit a roadblock, go around it and look at the other possibilities. Vaughn had suggested it first, and her brain had chimed in later, after St. Jerome Emiliani’s intervention via Father Riley. And now Jack seemed to have reached the same possible conclusion.

Something wasn’t right.

Andi’s impression of hitmen, from what she’d read on the Internet, was that they liked everything neat and tidy. In and out. Kill and split. No lingering. No evidence left behind. No side jobs to kill anyone else who knew the target. They were solitary creatures. Few of them had ties like marriage or girlfriends, leaving them open to travel whenever and wherever they needed to go to complete the jobs they were hired to do. There was also the aspect Vaughn had mentioned, the hitman’s code of ethics.

“It’s driving me crazy, how little sense this all makes.”

“Tell me about it,” Jack said, pouring water over a teabag. He spooned in sugar and gave it a stir before setting the cup in front of her.

“If Dex Moran aka The Liquidator
didn’t
attend the memorial service, who else could’ve put that picture of Denise in the book?”

“Even if he was there, I don’t think he left either of the pictures overlaid with a reticle.”

“I can’t imagine who else it could be.”

“Right now, neither can I. However, I do know one thing—we have to step back and take a broader look at who might know about the hit, despite Clem’s assertion to the contrary.”

Andi skipped pointing out to him that he’d used the plural pronoun. “Are you suggesting that Clem still hasn’t come clean about everything?”

He pointed the spoon at her. “It’s more like I’m agreeing with you that he hasn’t been as forthright as he could be.”

“I wish we had a rack we could attach him to and stretch the truth out of him.”

He gave her a shadow of a grin. “The old means of torture did have their usefulness.”

“Somehow, I need to get him to reveal more.”

“I may be way off base here, since I can’t interview the guy myself, but that about sums it up.”

A knock on the door brought the discussion to a standstill. Jack opened it and went out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Andi stared into her teacup, mulling over how to get Clem Naylor to be more cooperative. She picked up her mug and sipped the orange-spice brew, hoping to shake the lingering chill. If only she had the energy to get up and adjust the thermostat or to go stand in front of the fireplace that Jack had turned on when they’d come inside.

Frankly, she was more than a little surprised that knowing someone wanted you dead could be so debilitating.

By the time she’d drained her cup, and warmed her innards, her malaise had vanished and in its place, anger blossomed.

Andi was pissed.

Clem swore he hadn’t told anyone else. Either he was lying, or he was still too traumatized by his death to remember. If her experience with Sherry was anything to go by, recollection of the events leading up to death did take some time, if they were ever remembered at all.

To be fair, there was one other option, though she didn’t think it likely. What if the killer had no hitman ethics and had blabbed information about the job to someone?

Whoever wanted Denise dead wanted her dead. If it wasn’t The Liquidator, or a hitman associate of his, how did the unknown someone learn about the hitman if not from Clem?

Andi dropped her head into her hands. Talk about a huge can of writhing worms. They’d been so focused on Clem’s crime, no one had even considered that Denise might have another enemy who wanted her gone.

Andi pushed back her chair and hustled into her office, where she booted up her laptop and began a Google search on the happy homemaker.

When Jack came back inside, he informed her, “I’m going to spend the night.”

“All right, but whoever put that picture up on my door isn’t going to kill me,” she said. “He’s just trying to scare me.”

He let out a grunt of disgust. “You’re some kind of soothsayer now, are you? Or maybe you read the tea leaves?” His eyebrows went up and he affected a disingenuous tone. “Oh, I know! He sent you a text with his photo attached.”

“No need for sarcasm, Detective. I’m simply using my powers of deductive reasoning.”

“Andi, you have no idea in hell what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do, so button your lip and listen.”

Jack scowled at her in a way that made Andi relish the kiss-and-make-up they’d engage in later. “Since we now question that The Liquidator put the picture in the memorial book, we also have to question the veracity of him being paid in full for completing the job.”

“Andi, where’s this coming from?”

“Remember Saint Jerome Emiliani?”

Jack nodded, but his expression gave away both his impatience and his skepticism. “What’s he got to do with whatever that brain of yours is cooking up now?”

“He said when you reach a dead end, consider all the other possibilities. This is me at a dead end, which I equate to being at the end of my rope. Instead of giving up, I’m going to tie a knot and hang on.”

“Okay,” Jack said, drawing the word out.

“Once before, and again at the wedding dinner, Vaughn suggested something similar to me.”

“Oh, great. So, Vaughn’s a cop now, too.”

She leveled a stern glance in his direction. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

He expelled a martyred sigh. “Exactly what was it Vaughn said?”

“He recommended that I consider the possibility that the person who answered my text messages wasn’t The Liquidator. He quoted Sherlock Holmes to me. ‘Once you eliminate the impossible—’”

“‘whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’”

“You’ve read Sherlock Holmes!”

“No, I have not! Think about it, Andi, it’s practically a cop’s motto and a credo many professions could utilize—scientific study, archaeological mysteries, crime-solvers…game-app writers.”

She smirked. “Subtlety is not your strong suit, is it?”

He lifted his broad shoulders, grinning.

“Okay, I get your drift, already, but seriously, Jack, who would do this stuff with the pictures besides someone else who wants Denise gone? We need to be looking at her, not trying to find The Liquidator.”

He stared at her for a minute as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

She sucked in a deep breath and hurried on. “As sure as God parted the Red Sea for Moses, the killer—whoever it is—is coming to us, and now that Clem’s dead, we don’t have clue one who hates Denise enough to want her dead.”

Jack’s scowl intensified and he remained silent for what seemed like minutes. “I hate it when you play cop…especially when you may be right.” He glanced at the laptop. “Find anything?”

“She made quite a squawk at the kids’ school over the new curriculum last fall. According to one school newsletter article I found, she received threats from some of the other parents about it.”

“Over complaining about the school curriculum?” Jack asked with amazement.

“Apparently, it eases testing and reduces homework. I can imagine, there’s a certain part of the populace that would welcome that, if they didn’t want to spend time helping their kids with their studies every night.”

Jack still didn’t look convinced.

“School curriculum is a contentious subject, with people coming to blows over it, literally. We just haven’t heard about it because we don’t have kids in school.”

“Whatever happened to civil discourse?” he muttered. “Anything else?”

“I found an article in
The Edge
about a neighborhood dispute. It had to do with one of the residents wanting to subdivide for infill lots.”

“I wouldn’t want a bunch of houses built behind me, either. They have to put in a long, shared driveway when they infill and there’s no place for visitors to park.”

“Not to mention you lose your privacy.”

Jack nodded. “This sounds more like what we’re looking for. Property issues generally involve finances and hot tempers, both of which can get people riled up and sometimes killed. Did you find the resident’s name?”

Andi scrolled back up and read off the screen. “Davis MacLeary.”

“MacLeary? That sounds familiar. Do a search on him and see what comes up.”

Andi entered his name into the browser, followed by
Edgerton
.

Jack peered over her shoulder. “That’s why,” he said, pointing to the lead article. The headline read,
CITY FILES SUIT AGAINST PROMINENT SURVEYOR.
The tagline beneath read,
Boundary errors resulted in discrepancies
.

“I remember now,” Andi said. “His company made egregious mistakes in marking the property corners of the new city hall. Adjacent landowners forfeited property over it, because the mistake was identified after the building was under construction.”

“It was Sue City for a while. If I recall correctly, lawyers were crawling out of the woodwork, looking to find people who might have used MacLeary over the years.”

“But the thing with Denise was an infill rezoning.”

“Which still involves surveys and neighbors protesting and filing lawsuits. Infill is a hotbed of controversy.”

“I wonder how it resolved.”

“We’re not going to find out tonight, but tomorrow morning, I’m going to pay a visit to Denise.”