Chapter 27

W ith that, Doreen slowly meandered back to her car, knowing the second woman still watched her. Indeed, the first woman walked over to talk to the second one as well.

Noticing that, Doreen realized again that she really wasn’t welcome, quite possibly because they’d experienced theft of the vegetables, which made her sad. There was enough in life to worry about without having people stealing the food that you spent all your time and energy growing.

Back in her car, she sat here for a long moment, contemplating her options, then remembered she hadn’t checked in with Mack. She quickly phoned him. When she filled him in, he was not upset but more resigned. “And, of course, you’ll look into Jethro’s complaint.”

“I think it’s all connected. I feel it in my gut.”

“Fine, yes, go with your gut, Doreen. However, don’t forget about evidence too.… So you really think you saw the madam?”

“Yeah, I do,” she confirmed. Then she told Mack about Bernard’s phone call.

“You and Bernard are awfully close, aren’t you?”

She snorted at that. “I wouldn’t say close , but he did hear about some of the commotion and my involvement with Tammy and Jed, and, well,… he wanted to get an inside line on it.”

“Of course he did.” Mack’s tone revealed that he was bothered by it.

“It’s no big deal. I don’t care if he contacts me about something like that. Sometimes I reach out and pick his brain about things as well.”

“Right, but I will feel much better if you had less to do with these kinds of things.”

“Bernard is there because of what I did to help him,” she explained, “so getting rid of him wouldn’t be that easy, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I have enough trouble finding friends in town, so when I do find somebody who’s stable, upright, and not a murderer, I would like to keep them.”

Mack chuckled. “I’m not against your keeping him, just keep him at a distance.” And, with that, he was gone.

She stared at her phone, smiled, then sent him a text. You don’t need to be jealous of Bernard.

He sent back a thumbs-up.

They were still not completely solid in their relationship, and Mack wasn’t completely sure where he stood. She sighed at that because, of course, there was no need for it.

Mack was in her life and only Mack. Although she hadn’t had a chance to really tell him how she felt, she had thought it was obvious. Nan would immediately say that nothing was so obvious as a hidden love and that Doreen needed to do more than just make Mack think he was the main person in her life. She needed to make it clear. Making it clear wasn’t all that simple, but she was probably making it much more complicated than it really needed to be.

She quickly sent him a photo of the car and the license plate.

When he called her, he asked, “What’s this?”

“A visitor at Julie’s house,” she replied, with a note of irony. “Maybe an okay visitor, I don’t know, but at the house in question. So maybe we need to check him out.”

“Right. And we care about this why?”

“Because we think it is possibly the madam’s house. I was also looking for the son of the property owners, who was potentially looking after the home for his parents, who have supposedly moved into senior housing nearer to him.”

“And you want me to run this license plate?”

“It would be nice to know in case the son is the one living there.”

“Why would you think that?” he asked curiously.

“I’m just wondering whether he’s paying for favors or has a ladylove who he may or may not be aware has been working on the side.”

“Ah, that’s interesting. I’ll call you back in five or so.” And, with that, he was gone.

She headed home, then sat down at the kitchen table and wrote out a bunch more notes. She kept writing all these notes, but what she really should be doing was indexing everything. She needed a filing system of everything going on, similar to what Solomon had done. With that thought, she really needed a digital backup too. She groaned at that but was grateful she at least had her notepad, with lots of little bits and pieces of information.

With a shrug, she opened up a Word document and started to set up a file on the Taser killer and the prostitute ring in town. She started with the current case and then worked backward as much as she could. It would be days of work, if not more, since she had to transcribe a lot of her very messy notes. Given her penchant for writing everything down, she had lots of information to put into some sense of order.

When Mack called her back, she was buried in those thoughts.

“What’s up?” he asked. “You sound very distracted.”

“I figured I should finally set up formal notes on all the stuff I’ve been doing,” she muttered. “I probably should have been doing it all along.”

He snorted. “Documentation is huge in my world, and, yes, for you—particularly when so many cases are starting to intertwine—it would likely pay off in the end. The longer you stay here, it helps if you have a good idea of who was mixed up in what. I know that your memory is pretty sharp right now, but that doesn’t mean in another three, four, five years, you may forget names and places just based on the sheer accumulation of data, but who knows.”

“Right. I guess I should have been keeping typed-up notes from the start.”

“Look at it this way,” he explained cheerfully, “at least typing and scanning will keep you out of trouble for a little bit.”

At that, she laughed. “So, the vehicle?”

He sighed and then continued. “Yes, it appears to be the same person. The son is the owner of the car you saw at his parents’ property.”

“Wow. So much for having his folks nearby. Based on that very happy smile I saw on his face, he’s really liking the way life has turned in his direction.”

“I’m sure,” Mack noted in a dry tone. “So now the question is, what are you planning on doing?”

“I could have gotten that information by contacting him directly, so I think I’ll probably do that anyway and see if he has any idea what she might be doing to earn an income.”

“But you don’t have anything other than the suspicion that she’s into anything else, right?”

“Correct. And I know we need to tie her to Jed and to Tammy. I need to get a picture of her. I had hoped to get one when I saw her earlier, but she was in no mood for a chat. I need something sharp and clear, so I can ask Tammy if this is the other woman, if this is the Julie who lived with them at times. Did you have a chance to interrogate Jed yet?”

“It’s been an ongoing progress, but he’s not being very cooperative. His fingerprints have come up on several robberies though.”

“That’s helpful. He repeatedly told me that he didn’t kill anybody. Can you keep him in jail based on his having a gun and being involved in prior robberies?”

“It’s up to the prosecutor to figure out what he wants to charge Jed with and then to set bail. Afterward we will see if he can make bail or not.”

“I guess it depends on how useful he is to Julie, this other woman, as to whether she’ll fork out bail money or not, or maybe decide it’s a good time to cut ties.”

Mack laughed. “I do like the way you think,” he said, clearly impressed.

“Yeah, guess I’ve been around you too long,” she teased.

“Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, you have a very unique way of looking at things.”

“I’ve heard you say that a couple times now, but I’m still not exactly sure what it means.”

“I’m not sure either because you really do come up with things that a lot of people don’t. It’s just the way your brain thinks about things and processes information, as far as I can tell.”

“Let me call this guy, the Griffins’ son, and see what I can come up with.”

“Just remember that you don’t have any reason to suspect anything.”

“Outside of the fact that Jethro is losing his mind because he’s so upset about the extra noise.”

“There is that, and you could have talked to Jethro on your own and got that information.”

“I did talk to Jethro on my own, and I did get that information, so it’s hardly as if that’s anything private.”

“I hear you there. Just try to stay out of trouble.” And, with that, he was gone.