Chapter 7

Tuesday Morning …

D oreen woke the next morning, her mind racing with options, theories, and scenarios as to what was going on. On the surface it seemed simple. Somebody stole the Taser, hung on to it for a while, got bored of it, was offered some money for it, or had it stolen. Then whoever took possession of it used it in an attack and killed someone.

Maybe that attack had turned into a robbery. According to Mack, who had finally given her a little bit more information last night, the victim’s pockets had been turned out, and no identification was found on the body. That sounded like a robbery or a crime made to look like a robbery. Whether the victim had been targeted or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time made for a completely different scenario.

The conversation last night had gone from theory to theory to theory, but nobody really had any idea what was going on. Until more information came to light, all the speculation was just that. No facts, no nothing. While Mack was focused on getting evidence, she knew her gut would lead her in the right direction. It always seemed to.

Quickly up and about, she got dressed and headed downstairs. She smiled when she noted some pizza was left from last night and would be great for her breakfast. Not exactly the healthiest of meals, but she would take it. Particularly right now, when she wasn’t sure where she was heading and needed some carbs to maybe top off her energy. At least that’s what she told herself to stave off any guilt. She shook her head. The guilt was still a persistent remnant of her ex’s voice in her head.

She knew it would take some time to be rid of it, but, even now, just knowing she could have pizza for breakfast—and Mathew couldn’t say anything about it—was enough to make her smile.

“Sorry about that, Mathew. Going to miss you… not .” And she knew that was mean, but, if she needed to say those things for the sake of her soul, that’s just where she was at. Groaning, she picked up her coffee, then headed outside.

The animals immediately booked it to the gardens, for one reason or another. She had a litter box for Goliath in the house, but he preferred to go outside in the garden, if he could. By the time everybody had made their way back onto the deck, she was sitting down and sipping her coffee, her notepad at the ready in front of her. She wasn’t even sure how to start this case of the stolen Taser, since there was so little to go on. The only place she could really start was with Frankie, Arnold’s friend and roommate from ten years ago. Of course Frankie couldn’t exactly be called a friend if he was a suspect in the breaking-and-entering at Arnold’s house.

Chances were, Frankie wasn’t involved, but he may well have known something about it that he didn’t share back then. That alone gave him as much of a guilty vibe as anything. People often didn’t know exactly what was wrong with somebody, but they just knew something was. In this case, Arnold had been a cop for a long time, and he had developed some instincts. At least she would like to think so.

With the animals in tow, she headed to the river. As soon as she had parked her butt beside the flowing water, she pulled out her phone and called that friend.

When he answered, he sounded sleepy, half disgruntled.

“Sorry if I woke you, Frankie,” she began.

“Who is this?” he snapped. She quickly identified herself, and a moment of stunned silence followed on the other end of the phone. “What are you doing calling me? And how did you get this number?”

“You came up regarding a B&E at Arnold’s home about ten years ago,” she replied. “You were one of the persons of interest at the time, and, since that time, the missing Taser has been identified in a series of other incidents—”

“Incidents?”

“Yeah, incidents. Your name came up from that initial investigation.”

He snorted at that. “Arnold tried to pin that on me,” he snapped into the phone, “but I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Good, then you won’t mind answering a few questions.” That silenced him, and she continued on. “That’s right, isn’t it? If you didn’t have anything to do with it, it’s definitely to your benefit to clear this up, especially so your name is removed from the record.”

“It’s not as if it’ll really be erased from the record,” he corrected, sniffing into the phone. “How come you’re dealing with this? You’re not a private eye, are you?”

“No, not yet, but I’m definitely starting to warm up to the idea.” If nothing else it would give her some validity with the cases she was involved in.

“ Huh , I suppose Arnold put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“No, why would he?” she asked curiously. And, by rights, Arnold hadn’t. She’d decided to do this on her own.

“Whatever,” Frankie muttered. “Look. The only reason he thought I might have had something to do with it is because I came into a bit of cash after the B&E.”

“Where were you at the time of the break-in?”

“I was staying with him at the time, but I wasn’t there when it happened. I was down at the bar.”

“Of course you have an alibi for that, with witnesses?”

“It would have been somewhere around the time I was walking back from the bar to the house. Arnold was on night shift, and we had argued earlier that day. When I got home,… the front door was open, and the place had been tossed.”

“Wow. So did you call him then?”

“Sure I did. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Wait until morning?”

“Yeah, as if that would have gone over well.”

“No, I don’t imagine it would have,” she agreed. “Okay, what did you do then?” There was another moment of silence, but she just waited until he spoke.

“What do you mean, what did I do then? After the cops were done looking around, and I finally had a chance to get to sleep, I went to bed. I was pretty darn sober by then.”

“Right, nothing quite like that to sober you up.”

“ Right ,” he muttered, slightly mollified.

She smiled. “And you didn’t see anything? You didn’t see any vehicle leaving the scene? You didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious at the time?”

“No, I didn’t see anything, and, of course, that just made Arnold all the more suspicious.”

“How far away was the pub?”

“About, I don’t know, maybe six, eight, nine blocks. It’s not even there anymore, but it was a darn good pub. Everything that’s good seems to disappear,” he snapped. “They had cheap booze, and that was good in my book.”

She nodded. “Do you work now?”

“What do you mean, do I work? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I just wondered where you work now,” she replied carefully.

He snorted. “Why? What you’re really wondering is whether I’m living a life of crime or whether I’m holding down a steady job, like the rest of you sticks in the mud.”

Her eyebrows shot up at that. “I wasn’t really thinking along those lines, but, now that you brought it up, I would like to know.”

He groaned. “Look. I had a job. I was working at one of the big supermarkets here. Then I got into an argument with the boss, who was an absolute jerk,… and I got fired not too long ago, but it wasn’t my fault.”

She wondered how many times people could repeat these same things over and over again but never where they were in any way at fault. “Okay, and who was the guy you got into an argument with?”

“Oh, him. If you call him, he’ll just tell you a bunch of nonsense,” he muttered.

“Let me talk to him. You don’t have to worry about the rest of it all. I’ll decide if it’s lies or not.”

“He’ll just say that I stole from the place and that I deserved to get fired.”

“Did you?”

Yet another moment of hesitation came and then a weak attempt at anger. “That’s not a fair question, and, if all you’ll do is set me up by asking those kinds of questions, I’m not talking to you.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me. I can just hand this over to the police. They can take over for me.”

“What are you talking about?… So, you’re saying that, if I tell you, you won’t turn it over?”

“I might have to eventually, but that depends on what information comes up,” she shared, knowing perfectly well she would have to tell Mack about this. “But they may not need to come back to talk to you—unless you’re more involved in this than you’re telling me.”

“I’m not involved,” he snapped.

“Okay, so, ten years ago, the money that you came into that made Arnold suspicious, where did it come from?”

There was another ugly silence. “Maybe I need a lawyer,” he grumbled, his tone turning belligerent.

“Well,… if you really think you need a lawyer, you’re more than welcome to get one,” she replied. “I’m just asking you questions. It’s a friendly call, and a lawyer is your choice, but you should realize that will attract attention from the police. So you better figure out what you need to do.”

“I don’t like the questions,” he snapped.

“I can see that, but, if you didn’t have anything to do with the theft of Arnold’s Taser, a few ugly questions right now seems pretty minor compared to what could happen if they have reason to suspect you’re more involved than you appeared to be so far.”

“I’m not involved.”

“Then tell me where the money came from back then,” she repeated. “It’s easier to tell me than it will be to go down to the station and do it there.”

“Says who?” he snapped. “I’m not talking on the phone. For all I know you’re recording this.”

At that, she stared down at the phone. “Oh, that would have been a really good idea, but I wasn’t, no.”

“Good, but I’m not talking to you if you’ve got a wire on.”

Her face twisted as she thought about it. “And again, a wire would be interesting, but, no, that’s not part of my wheelhouse.”

“Sure, everybody says that, yet still uses the whole send you down the creek without a paddle setup.”

She smiled. “So, if you don’t want to talk over the phone, where do you want to meet?”

“What do you mean, meet ?” he asked in alarm.

“If you don’t want to talk over the phone, and we can’t get the answers the normal way, then we’ll need to meet somewhere in person, so I can get the answers face-to-face.”

“What if I don’t want to meet?”

“That’s fine too. I’ll pass on this information to the cops, and they can call you, and you can talk to them officially downtown at headquarters.”

“That’s not fair,” he muttered. “I didn’t do anything.”

“In that case, it’s easy. Just talk to me, give me the answers I need. Then I can carry on with the investigation. If it doesn’t involve you, no reason for anybody to come back to you.” She hesitated. “Unless of course you think that something will involve you, and you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” he snapped.

“Good, with that out of the way, where do you want to meet?”

“Outside, in public. But not where people can see me, yet I can still see who else is around.”

“The City Park?”

“Sure, but you’re buying coffee.”

She grinned at that. “I think I could manage a coffee.”

“Good,” he muttered. “I haven’t had any today.”

She looked down at the cup in her hand and nodded. “That can be a rough day then. When do you want to meet?”

“The sooner, the better, so I can get you off my plate, and I don’t have to deal with this anymore. I shouldn’t have to deal with it at all.”

“I get that, and, if you had nothing to do with it—”

“Yeah, but it’s not as if you’ll listen to me.”

“Am I not listening to you now? Let’s see what you have to say.”

“Fine, but, if I don’t like anything you’ve got to say, I’ll walk away.”

“Fair enough,” she replied. “I’ll see you down at City Park in an hour then.”

At that, he ended the call.

She quickly texted Mack, explaining in short form that she was meeting Arnold’s friend Frankie for coffee at City Park.

He called her back. “Why are you meeting him in person?”

“Because he didn’t want to talk over the phone,” she explained. “He’s a little on the paranoid side. I think he also feels a little persecuted over this.”

At that, Mack snorted. “Yeah, what did he do?”

“He says he didn’t do anything.”

“ Right .”

Such disbelief filled his tone that she had to laugh. “Yeah, that’s my take too, but I will talk to him and see what he has to say.”

“Did he have anything to say?”

“Yeah, up until I insisted on finding out where the money came from around the time of the initial theft that made Arnold suspicious.”

“Ah,” Mack replied, with a wealth of understanding. “You watch your back when you’re down there.”

“Will do.”

“You do know that the money probably had to do with drugs or something illegal, right?”

“Maybe, but we still need to know, and, if he didn’t tell Arnold, that’s probably exactly right. He would have thought that Arnold would turn him in.”

“Chances were good that Arnold would have.”

“And that makes perfect sense as to why Frankie’s in this situation now.”

“Maybe, yet it’s still got to be solved.”

“I agree with you completely,” she muttered. “I understand what you’re trying to say.”

He laughed. “Glad to hear it. Now take care of yourself and check in afterward.”

“Will do,” she murmured, and, with that, she ended the call and loaded the animals into her car and headed downtown.