Cold Snap, page 17
“Did you hear him leave the house that night?”
She shook her head.
“Did he often leave without telling you where he was going?”
“If I was asleep, he wouldn’t disturb me.” That seemed slightly evasive.
“Why do you think he went to the boat?”
“The only reason I can think of was either there was a problem with the vessel and the marina called. Or someone called him about the robbery.”
“The robbery?”
“It was eating him up—being held up at gunpoint. That’s why I made him come for a hike that day. Get him out of himself.” She drew in a breath. “He saw it as a personal failure. He believed he’d let everyone down, and he wanted the criminals punished to the full extent of the law.”
“I spoke to Saul Jones.” He watched her eyes widen and then shame bloom in her cheeks.
“Milt wasn’t usually a bad person, but he was so angry. He took it out on Saul, and I need to apologize to the man.” She looked suddenly drained of energy.
“Did Milton have any idea who robbed the bank?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t seem sure.”
A frown marred her smooth brow. “Initially, he was content to let the police investigate, but after a few days he seemed to lose faith in the sheriff’s department and started asking questions of his own. Ironic that they are now in charge of finding out who killed him.” Her hands fisted on top of the massive desk.
“Who did Milton question?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t tell me, but I’m afraid it was those questions that may have gotten him killed.”
“Did you tell this to the sheriff?”
She huffed. “I did but he didn’t seem to care.” She flicked a glance at Grady that was laden with dark emotion. “The sheriff’s main suspects for Milt’s murder are in this room, which is why I thought you might be in a position to help me—and yourself.”
“In what way?” He didn’t want to seem too eager but inside he was fist-pumping.
“You are a trained FBI agent, aren’t you? Currently with time on your hands?” When he remained silent, she added, “If you are not available perhaps you could ask your FBI friends to look into it?”
“That’s not how the FBI works.”
“I can pay you.” Her eyes hardened.
“That’s not how I work.” Despite what she might think, he couldn’t be bought. “Like you say, I’m an FBI agent, not a private investigator.”
The silence was suddenly heavy with despair.
“I don’t have access to the crime scene information. Makes investigating difficult.” At her crestfallen expression he added, “But maybe I could ask around a little as long as you give me everything you find out.”
“I can tell you what I know. Pass on anything that the sheriff or the insurance investigator tells me.”
This could give him an excuse to poke around a little. “If I agreed to make a few inquiries, no one can know.” He hated to see the hope dance in her eyes. “Not the sheriff when he says something to piss you off, not your son when he screams at you because the cops think he killed his daddy”—her eyes widened at that—“not your friends at the country club.”
Her knuckles were white with strain. “I need to know who stole my husband from me. Who destroyed the life I thought I was going to live. And somehow, I doubt Sheriff York is going to provide that.”
She seemed genuine, but Grady didn’t trust quite so easily. He’d been in law enforcement too long. “Do the cops have his cell phone and laptop?”
“They found his phone on the boat.” She covered her mouth. “I think that’s where they think he was killed. I haven’t been allowed back onboard yet. They also have Milt’s Lexus. They came and took his laptop from our home office…”
Grady tried to hide his disappointment.
“But.”
Grady lifted his head.
“I have his old one. Laptop, that is. We did that through the years. I’d inherit his older machine, which was never that old, as he liked to keep everything as up-to-date as possible.”
Grady remained quiet, knowing silence was generally voluntarily filled with information.
“The thing is, he only bought his new laptop before Christmas, and I haven’t switched over to the new one yet.” She reached down into a messenger bag that sat on the floor and withdrew a computer. Laid it on the desk.
“You have what is basically a copy of all your husband’s emails and messages?”
“All that I know about.” She swallowed. “I realize from watching movies and TV shows that maybe he had some sort of secret life, but I find it difficult to believe Milton concealed anything of note from me.”
Could Milton Bodurek be Eli Kane? Was this conversation some sort of play to help reinforce Edith’s innocence or ignorance should the cops figure that out? Could Edith be a suspect in her husband’s murder?
“Write the passcode down. Can I take the bag, too?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That’s mine, not Milt’s.”
“People might not notice if I walk out of here with a bag, but they sure as hell will notice if I have a laptop in my hand that I wasn’t carrying on the way in.”
“Yes, of course.” She reached down and put the bag on the desk. It was thin and plain black. She slipped the laptop back inside. “Do you want my cell number?”
He thought about it. Shook his head. “If you and I start texting each other the sheriff will have us conspiring to commit murder before you even have time to get your husband buried.”
She looked horrified by the realization.
“If you need to reach me, call me from here, and we can keep it more official. If you discover any information that might be useful to me or that seems out of the ordinary, let me know. If it’s urgent, come by the house or call 911.”
It was possible she was also in danger. Depending on where the threat came from.
He slipped his business card across the desk. The embossed seal glinted mockingly in the sunlight streaming in from the window. His personal number was written on the back. “You can at least pretend we spoke about my account if you call from here.”
Grady picked up the messenger bag and slipped his family photographs into the side pocket before slinging it over his shoulder.
“If there’s anything else, anything you’re not telling me, it would be better to say now.”
Her expression remained grief-stricken and slightly confused. “I want my husband’s killer brought to justice, Mr. Steel.” Her eyes became hard. “I actually want them to burn in hell for shooting a man who was kind and considerate, and for stealing the future I’d been looking forward to my entire married life. But I’ll settle for what we call justice if that’s all I can get. As long as they pay for what they’ve done.”
Her eyes burned into his back as he walked away.
29
Brynn grabbed the groceries from the trunk and locked the car where she’d parked it in her designated spot at the back of the house before she headed down the side of the building toward her door. She frowned at an unfamiliar sound and kept going until she reached the front garden.
The fluffy gray dog was eating noisily out of the bowl Grady must have left for him.
She held her breath, but the dog sensed her and swung his hind legs away from her, eyeing her warily while still eating.
The fear in his eyes struck her like a blow.
“It’s okay, boy.” Her heart ached that she hadn’t noticed his ghostly form haunting the town. Not until Grady had shown her.
She squatted to be less threatening, not wanting him to fear her as well as the rest of the world.
He was favoring his front left paw. She frowned. He really needed to see a veterinarian, and Grady wasn’t wrong about the blizzard that the forecasters were warning about. The windchills were expected to drop into the minus thirties with at least a foot of snow falling, probably more.
The dog finished the food and dipped his head into the water bowl, drops splashing everywhere.
She wanted to grab him but didn’t think she’d be able to catch him, and she didn’t want to scare him or get bitten. She needed to earn his trust, which was obviously what Grady was trying to do with the food.
She dug into the shopping bag and pulled out a packet of oatmeal cookies she really didn’t need and ripped it open. She tossed one into the grass beside the dog, and he sniffed it cautiously before eating it almost delicately.
Sugar probably wasn’t great for dogs, but she didn’t have anything else handy. “It’s okay, boy. I won’t hurt you.”
She tossed the next one closer, and he eased forward another foot to snatch it up before retreating again.
She broke the next one in half and tossed it closer still, crooning softly the whole time. “You poor thing. Are you cold? I think you need a bath and somewhere cozy to curl up.”
And a vet to look at that front paw.
It took time and patience but finally, when she held a cookie out to him, he leaned forward and, with infinite caution, took the morsel gently from her fingers.
Her heart gave a little jolt.
“Good boy. What a good boy.”
He crunched the cookie and stood there looking quizzically from the packet of cookies to her face. But she needed to get him somewhere she could contain him, and she had nothing resembling a leash. He wasn’t wearing a collar.
She stared at her door and climbed slowly to her feet.
The dog darted back a few feet and stopped, watching her.
She held up another smaller piece of cookie because she didn’t want to run out before she got him inside. If she could get him inside.
According to her rental agreement there was a no pets policy, but she didn’t think the current owner would object.
Small black eyes peered nervously through overgrown bangs.
What if he ran away again? What if he realized she meant to trap him?
He backed up a step.
She feared she was losing his trust and forced herself to calm down. Relax. Dogs sensed fear.
She shuffled her bags and inched slowly backward, offering another piece of treat goodness. The dog followed. Belatedly, she remembered the ham she’d bought. She ripped into the packaging. The dog looked expectantly at her.
“You poor thing.” She unlocked her door and pushed it open.
She held out a piece of ham, and the dog ate it. He licked his lips. Gave her a look as if he thought she’d been holding out on him.
She went inside and set her bags on the side table by the door. She hung on to the ham and cookies.
She gave him another slice and walked over to the small kitchenette, pulled a large metal mixing bowl from the cupboard. The dog watched her from the threshold as she filled the bowl with water and placed it on the floor.
The dog looked unimpressed, and she laughed.
“Expected one of Grady’s tins of dog food, huh?” She needed to call the guy. She was doing this for him because there was no way she could look after a dog and run the café.
Technically, it was Caleb Quayle’s dog, although he obviously didn’t want it or care for it. The idea of that man reclaiming the poor animal did not sit well with her.
She moved closer and crouched down with another piece of ham. The dog eased closer, keeping his belly low to the ground, nervous by the change in surroundings.
Sadness filled her as he licked her fingers.
She tossed a piece of meat onto the kitchen floor. He waited for a hand delivery but when she didn’t move, the dog edged closer to the food while she moved closer to the door.
It took most of the ham and all the remaining cookies before she finally reached the door and gently closed it, locking them both inside.
The dog started to pace back and forth now, clearly realizing he was stuck here. The fact he was so clearly distressed broke Brynn’s heart.
“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
The dog looked afraid.
Had someone beaten him?
The idea filled her with rage, but she let it go. She sat on the floor and leaned against the kitchen counter. She needed to track down Grady’s number somehow and call to let him know she had his dog. But first, she had to repeat what she’d done outside and gain this poor creature’s trust.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, baby. I’m gonna make sure you’re taken care of and that front paw of yours is all fixed up.”
He stopped and cocked his head. Listening.
When she pulled the last strip of ham out of the packet he came to her again and the small wag of his tail made tears well up. And when he finally laid beside her and rested his head on her thigh, she let them fall.
30
Grady met Ropero a few miles outside Bangor in the parking lot of a small industrial complex.
She climbed into his car. “I don’t have much time. We can’t be seen together. What do you have for me?”
Not even an “how’s the head?”
He refrained from rolling his eyes as he passed her the laptop. “Milton Bodurek’s widow, Edith, gave me this about an hour ago. Seems he’d bought himself a new computer for Christmas, which is in the hands of the Montrose County Sheriff’s Department. He gave her the old one, but she hasn’t switched it out yet with her own email and shit.”
Ropero frowned as she took it. “Think she wanted to keep tabs on him because she thought he was having an affair?”
“I think if he was having an affair, he would have wiped it first. Passwords are written on sticky notes inside.”
“Did you turn it on?” she asked suspiciously.
“No,” he said with more patience than she deserved. “I know how to do my job, Agent Ropero.”
She swore. Dragged her hand through a hunk of her hair. “Sorry. I’m being a bitch.”
“I didn’t realize you had any other setting.”
The agent surprised him with a grin. “I also apologize for steamrolling you into this case. Dobson told me I should approach you as a fellow agent, but I didn’t listen to him.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes flashed. “Because once upon a time Eli Kane was a fellow agent, too. Having a badge is not a guarantee of good character—plus, there is the issue of your daddy…”
“I am not my father.” He let the insult slide. He was in no mood to discuss the parent he’d disowned. One thing had always bothered him. “How’d Kane pass the polygraphs back in the eighties? I mean, I crap myself every time I have to take one, and I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s like confession but with electrodes helping the great God Almighty.”
Ropero grunted. “Good old Catholic guilt. That’s one thing you never outgrow.” She shifted in her seat. “The system is more robust nowadays. Back then the agents were all chums with the polygraph techs. Or they fooled it by taking a Xanax and having a good laugh with their pals beforehand.”
Grady thought about the polygrapher who’d been murdered for his part in the Stone case a year ago last Christmas. Grady had been assigned to help guard Senator LeMay and his wife’s brownstone in DC while the Bureau had searched for their kidnapped daughter.
Polygraphs were a tool to get a confession or leverage information. Not truth serum. Not even strictly admissible in court.
“The tests aren’t infallible, as you know. And my theory is, Kane was and is a psychopath who knows how to fake positive emotion rather than being someone who needs to hide stress.”
Any man who could execute his wife and kids the way Kane had done had to have something defective with their brain.
“Family annihilators usually have some sort of trigger. Did we ever figure out what Kane’s was?”
“Not really.” She stared out the front window. “According to the wife’s best friend, Kane asked for a divorce a few months before the murders, but Lisa begged for him to try to make it work. Things appeared to settle down again, and the wife told everyone they were okay now and going on a family vacation to Florida.”
“She had no clue?”
“According to this friend of hers, she and the boys were giddy with excitement.”
“Instead, he killed them.” Grady watched the wind clip the tops of the nearby trees.
“His cover story of the trip gave him three full weeks to disappear without anyone realizing he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Then he called in sick—we now know from a pay phone in New Mexico—so it was another week before his colleagues grew truly concerned and started looking for him. But it wasn’t until some hikers tripped over the family car packed up for a vacation hidden in the bushes in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park that the Feds realized something bad had happened. Search dogs found the bodies, and the rest is history.”
“Why kill them? Why not just move on?” At least his own father had spared them that. “People get rejected all the time.”
“Control? Hate?”
They both stared silently at the bare winter landscape.
“We should pull in someone from BAU to work with us on his profile. We know they’ve been studying him for years.”
“I don’t want to risk—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get what you do and don’t want, but no one from the BAU is going to tip our hand, and they might give us the insight we need.”
Her jaw worked as she stared at him. Finally, she conceded, “I’ll talk to Dobson. See what he thinks of the idea.”
Grady suspected the two agents were more than colleagues, but he wasn’t about to ask questions.
An image of Brynn popped into his head, and his pulse raced a little as he remembered the damn kiss. So innocent and so hot.
