Guarded Secrets
Guarded Secrets
Leann Harris
If I die, it won't be an accident. At the time, Lilly Burkstrom brushed aside her ex-husband's words. Then he dies–"accidentally"–in a convenience store robbery, and she starts to wonder. Turning to the police doesn't help. They don't see the danger closing in on her, not even when someone breaks into her house and her ex-husband's apartment.Only Detective Jonathan Littledeer understands her fears, having lost his own family. He's determined to keep the single mom safe. He's not going to let another "accident" claim Lilly or her daughter before he can bring the killer's guarded secrets to light.
She gasped as she looked at the mess in her kitchen.
Someone had been in here, searching for…what?
Grabbing her purse, she looked for Jonathan Littledeer’s business card. She found it and dialed the number.
“Littledeer.”
“Detective, this is Lilly Burkstrom. I just walked into my house. It looks like my ex-husband’s apartment wasn’t the only place ransacked.”
“Your house was broken into?”
“Yes.”
A crash from the bedroom made her gasp.
“Lilly?”
“I heard something crash.”
“Get out. Go next door and call nine-one-one.”
She turned and ran out the garage.
LEANN HARRIS
When Leann Harris was first introduced to her husband in college she knew she would never date the man. He was a graduate student getting a PhD in physics, and Leann had purposely taken a second year of biology in high school to avoid taking physics. So much for first impressions. They have been married thirty-eight years and still approach life from very different angles.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Leann taught math and science to deaf high school students for a couple of years until the birth of her first child. When her youngest child started school, Leann decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and began writing.
Leann presently lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband. She is a founding member and former president of the Dallas Area Romance Writers. Guarded Secrets is her second novel for Steeple Hill Books. Visit her Web site, www.leannharris.com.
Guarded Secrets
Leann Harris
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
— Psalms 46:1
Jennifer, DQ, Daniel and Crystal—
each of you is a blessing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ONE
T he door stood ajar, and panic raced through her veins. She’d locked her ex-husband’s apartment door after retrieving his clothes for the funeral.
“Mom, did you forget to lock the door? You know Daddy always made me—” Tears clogged Penny’s throat.
Lilly Burkstrom pulled her daughter into her arms.
“I don’t understand, Mom,” Penny sobbed into her mother’s waist. “Why did Daddy have to die?”
It was a question Lilly asked herself. Peter had been murdered in a convenience store robbery gone bad.
It didn’t make much sense to her, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, so how could she expect her eight-year-old daughter to understand it?
“I don’t know, sweetie. I know you miss him. I do, too.”
Penny hugged her with a desperate intensity. “You won’t leave me, will you?” She looked up, her huge brown eyes glistening with tears.
Lilly’s heart broke. She wiped the wetness from her daughter’s cheeks. “No, I won’t.” Although she and Peter had been divorced almost since Penny’s birth, they had come to terms with their failed marriage and had become friends. Peter’s recent salvation had changed all their lives. “I can take you home and do this by myself.”
Penny wiped away her tears and stepped back. “I want to help.”
Lilly pushed the door all the way open and peered inside. The condition of the apartment shocked her.
Penny gasped. “Mom, what happened?”
Lilly’s gaze swept the living room, dining room and kitchen. It looked as if a tornado had ripped through the place, throwing things everywhere. Chairs and end tables had been tossed on their sides. The sofa had been turned over, and the cushions ripped and thrown around the room. The kitchen cabinets stood open; boxes of cereal and spaghetti spilled out from the shelves. Broken dishes and glasses littered the countertops and floor.
“I don’t know.” Three days ago, when she’d been inside this apartment to get one of Peter’s suits for the funeral, everything had been fine.
“I wonder if Dad’s bedroom is this way.” Penny started down the short hall.
A loud noise came from the bedroom.
Penny froze. When she turned her head, her frightened gaze met Lilly’s.
Lilly motioned for her daughter to come toward her. Penny turned and ran to her mother. Lilly rushed them out of the apartment and down the stairs. They retreated to Lilly’s car, and Lilly whipped out her cell phone.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“I need to report a burglary.”
Detective Jonathan Littledeer greeted Lilly outside Peter’s apartment door.
“Ms. Burkstrom, can you tell me what happened here?”
She recognized the Albuquerque police detective and his partner, David Sandoval. They’d come and told her about Peter’s death. Had it only been two weeks since that happened? It seemed like it was yesterday when they announced the grim news.
Stepping inside the apartment, Detective Littledeer stopped and scanned the area between the front door and the living room.
“Someone did a job on this place,” Detective Sandoval murmured, walking around the living room.
Detective Littledeer looked around the living room and kitchen. “It looks like they did a thorough search. What do you think they were looking for?”
Detective Sandoval nodded. “Good question. I’ll take a look in the bedroom.” He disappeared into the bedroom.
“Where’s your daughter?” Detective Littledeer asked Lilly, who was standing in the doorway.
“She left with my cousin. She didn’t need to be here. It upset her.” Lilly had called her cousin Allison and asked her to come and pick Penny up. Allison was one of the few family members left in town after her parents moved to Florida. Alison had a child younger than Penny. They’d been friends all their lives, and Penny needed a friend to help her redirect her thoughts.
Spying a digital picture frame on the floor, Lilly picked it up. “Peter bought this for Penny so she could see pictures of the two of them having fun.” She placed the frame on the coffee table.
“Can you think of why anyone would do this to your ex-husband’s apartment?”
“A couple of months ago, when Peter dropped off Penny, he told me that if anything happened to him, it wouldn’t be an accident.”
“Did he tell you what he meant by that?” Detective Littledeer asked, pressing her.
“Later, when I tried to question him about it, he simply shook his head, kissed my forehead and asked me to pray for him.” She looked down at the floor. “I tried to get him to explain a couple of times after that, asking him exactly what he meant, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He acted like I had imagined it.”
“The bedroom’s in the same shape as the rest of the place,” Detective Sandoval informed them as he joined them in the living room.
“Was someone in there?” Lilly asked.
Detective Sandoval glanced at Detective Littledeer before turning to her. “Yeah.”
She stumbled to the sofa. “Penny almost went in that room.”
Detective Littledeer squatted in front of Lilly. “But you didn’t let her, did you?”
“No. I didn’t,” she replied.
He covered her hand with his. When she looked at him, he smiled. “A mother’s wisdom is from above.” He stood. “Ms. Burkstrom might have an angle on this,” Detective Littledeer told his partner.
“What’s that?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“Her ex had been threatened.”
Detective Littledeer motioned Lilly toward the kitchen table as the crime-scene people arrived and started taking prints. “Is there anything you can think of that your ex-husband was involved with that was risky?”
Lilly tried to come up with something suspect that Peter could’ve been involved with. “I really don’t know of anything. After we divorced, he started drinking and running around. He’d show up sporadically at the house and want to see Penny, and then he would disappear again for six months.
“About four years ago, he found a job and seemed to straighten up his life. He saw Penny regularly and paid his child support. Eighteen months ago, he started coming to church again and gave his life to Christ. He seemed very happy until—”
“Until when?” Detective Littledeer quizzed.
“It was last April. I remember when because it was right after tax time. He’d glanced at my tax return and got a funny look on his face. He turned to me and gave me that warning.”
Detective Sandoval walked into the kitchen and sat down next to Detective Littledeer. “The evidence team’s finding lots of prints.”
“How will you know if they are Pete’s or someone else’s?” asked Lilly.
The detectives looked at each other. Detective Littledeer met her eyes. “Your husband’s prints are on file.”
She paled.
“It was a drunk driving charge from four years ago,” he explained.
Lilly wondered if they were telling her everything. “Is that all?”
“Also, the company he was working for at the time of his death requires prints of all its employees,” Detective Sandoval added.
Frowning, Lilly asked, “Why would they do that?”
“Armored car personnel have to have their prints on file,” Detective Littledeer explained.
“We’ll also need your fingerprints,” Detective Sandoval added.
Her heart raced. “Why?”
Detective Littledeer frowned at his partner, but he turned to her. “Simply as a process of elimination. Also, bring your daughter with you so she can be fingerprinted. You can tell her that it is just a precaution. Schools now like to have the kids fingerprinted.”
He didn’t say why, but Lilly knew the sad reality of missing children. One of the women who worked with her at the church and the community garden had a child who’d gone missing.
“I’ll bring Penny by tomorrow and we both can have our prints taken.”
“What’s going on here?”
They looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway. In his early fifties, he stood with a military preciseness and his hair was cut in a burr.
“And you are?” Detective Littledeer asked.
“Mark Rodgers, the owner and manager of these apartments.” He glanced around the room. “What happened here?”
After informing the owner who they were and why they were there, Detective Littledeer asked, “Did anyone ask to see this apartment in recent days?”
“No. No one has been by to ask anything. Since Mr. Burkstrom’s lease was up at the end of the month, I wanted this place cleaned out so I could paint and recarpet. He bought a new condo off of Rio Grande Boulevard.”
“When was the last time you were in this apartment?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“I came by when this lady here got her husband’s clothes. I told her then when the lease was up.” The owner looked around at the mess. “This place wasn’t this way the last time I was here.”
“Did you see someone leave here in the last half hour?” Detective Littledeer asked.
“No. I just got back from a trip into Santa Fe. When I saw all the cop cars parked out front, I came up to see what was wrong.” He continued to look around. “You say it was a break-in?”
They nodded.
“I’ll keep an eye out. I don’t want my tenants put in any danger.” The owner shook his head. “When am I going to be able to rent this place?”
Both detectives glared at the man. He backed up and raised his hand. “Hey, I’ll give the lady until the end of the month.” He disappeared out the door.
The detectives turned to her. “How did you get in here?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“My daughter has a key. When I got Peter’s things from the cops, his car keys and his house key weren’t among them. His wallet was also missing,” said Lilly.
Detective Littledeer’s eyes darkened. “I’ll go back over the incident report and see if I can locate those keys.”
“Detectives, we’re done here,” one of the evidence techs informed them.
“I can now go through Pete’s things?” asked Lilly.
“You can. If you find anything you think would shed light on what happened, call.” Detective Littledeer gave her his business card.
“Thanks,” she said as the detectives filed out the door behind the techs.
Once alone in the apartment, Lilly scanned the mess. “Oh, Lord, what was Peter into?”
After spending a few hours trying to restore order in Peter’s apartment, Lilly drove to her little house a block from San Mateo Street Community Church. Having a job so close to home was a blessing because Penny could walk to the church after school and help her with the garden. She was the secretary, manager and community gardener for their parish. The garden had started with the pastor wanting to reach out to the community. They’d only had a few of the church ladies help with the planting that first year. Since then it had taken off. This season they’d tripled the amount they harvested from the garden.
She hit the remote for the garage door and waited for the door to open. She would be sure to gather some flowers from her garden to thank Allison for keeping Penny overnight. Allison would probably spoil both the girls with hot-fudge sundaes and let them stay up until nine-thirty. Penny needed spoiling. It had been a rough week for both of them. Once school started next week, hopefully life could return to some semblance of normal. Lilly had hoped the time Penny spent with her would reassure her daughter that she wouldn’t leave, too.
Lilly had called her parents in Florida, letting them know what had happened. Her dad hadn’t been too sympathetic. Her father never forgave Peter for abandoning his daughter.
Gathering her purse, she got out of the car. She’d boxed Peter’s shoes, clothes and dishes. She could give some of the things to several needy families in the church. Opening the door that led into the kitchen, she put her purse on the table and flipped on the light.
She gasped as she looked at the mess in her kitchen. Someone had been in here, searching for…what?
Grabbing her purse, she looked for Jonathan Littledeer’s business card. She found it and dialed the number.
“Littledeer.”
“Detective, this is Lilly Burkstrom. I just walked into my house. It looks like my husband’s apartment wasn’t the only place ransacked.”
“Your house was broken into?”
“Yes.”
A crash from the bedroom made her gasp.
“Lilly.”
“I heard something.”
“Get out. Go next door and call 911.”
She turned and ran out the garage.
TWO
T he instant he hung up with Lilly Burkstrom, Jonathan Littledeer called his partner and told him about the incident.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Dave told him.
“No.” Jon had been reluctant to contact his partner since Dave was celebrating his twins’ tenth birthday. “Today is your daughters’ birthday. Do not leave that party. If there’s anything significant, I’ll let you know.”
Dave didn’t reply. They both knew the reason why Jon wasn’t celebrating with the Sandoval family. Jon had lost both of his daughters to a rare genetic disorder—Niemann-Pick disease type C. Both Jon and his wife, Roberta, carried the recessive gene. No one had known the children had the disease until the oldest, Wendy, was two and a half. Rose had been born just a few months before Wendy got sick. She had run a high temperature and had her first seizure. When she had a second seizure after recovering from the fever, the doctors were stumped. It took a while before they were able to determine what was happening. Wendy’s body eventually wasted away and she died two days before her fourth birthday. A month after they buried Wendy, Rose had her first seizure. She died much quicker. She suffered for only thirteen months. The day they buried his sweet Rose, Jon’s wife went home after the funeral and took too many sleeping pills. Jon buried his wife one week after his youngest daughter was laid to rest.
The next six months were a blur. He was drunk most of the time. The first time he shown up at work drunk, his captain suspended him. Captain Morse blistered the paint off the wall with his words and told him to clean up his act or resign.
One night after a particularly bad binge, Jon showed up at Dave’s house, railing. Most of the details of what happened were hazy, but he remembered crying and blaming God for what had happened. How Dave calmed him down, he didn’t know, but when Jon surfaced the next morning from his liquor-induced sleep, Caren, one of the twins, was standing over him. She cupped his cheek and softly pronounced that Jesus could heal his hurt.
Those sweet words rolled around in his head for weeks, until Jon went with Dave to church. Caren had been right. Jon gave his heart to Christ and started down the road to healing. Some things, such as the girls’ birthday, he had to skip, but his life was so much better. More than once, God had brought people into his life that he could comfort in the same way he’d been comforted.
The night he’d told Lilly Burkstrom of her ex-husband’s murder stood out in his mind. She’d collapsed in a chair and, although the man was her ex, Jon had seen her honest grief. But what had nearly brought him to his knees was when Penny came into the room and learned of her father’s death.
What he’d seen in Lilly’s eyes as she comforted her daughter had reached into his heart and touched him. He couldn’t figure out if it was her strength in comforting her daughter or if it was the pain in her eyes when she’d met his gaze. There was an understanding there, a shared sorrow. Pain. He didn’t know what to do with this understanding, but he found himself thinking of Lilly at odd times. Something had sparked between them, making him jumpy. He knew the Lord could use him to comfort others, but heaven knew that he didn’t want another relationship. He would be the forever bachelor.
Pulling up to Lilly Burkstrom’s house, he saw her sitting on a bench by the front walk. He parked behind the patrol car and got out.
She stood, brushing off her pants. “The patrolman just got here. He’s looking through the house.”
Stepping to her side, he asked, “So you don’t know how someone got into the house?”
“No. The front door was locked when I got home.”
He nodded. “I’ll go inside and see what’s going on.”
“Thanks.”
Jon moved into the house and surveyed the living room. It wasn’t in as much disarray as Peter Burkstrom’s apartment had been in, but the drawers of the coffee table were open and the cushions on the couch were out of alignment. He moved through the dining area and into the kitchen. Drawers hung open and cabinet doors stood ajar.
He heard someone behind him. He turned and saw the uniformed officer, Miguel Aguilar. “What are you doing here, Littledeer? I haven’t seen any bodies.”
“The lady’s ex-husband was murdered last week. She called me before she dialed 911. Earlier, the ex’s apartment was broken into and trashed. This place is in better shape, but…How’s the rest of the house?”
“It’s been tossed.”
“Any indication where the perpetrator got in?”
“The sliding glass door in the master bedroom was jimmied. It has one of those cheap locks.”
“You call for the evidence team?”
“Yeah. They’re on the way.”
He moved through the rest of the house. Whoever had broken in had been more careful than they’d been at Peter’s apartment. It sure seemed as if someone was after something—which led him to believe Lilly’s assertion that maybe her ex-husband’s death wasn’t the random event they thought it might be.
As he turned to leave the master bedroom, he noticed the framed picture on the dresser. It had been knocked on its side. He picked up the frame. Penny, who was maybe twelve or thirteen months old at the time, sat on her mother’s lap. They were both smiling. It was the kind of picture that any husband or grandparent would view with joy and pride.
He remembered the picture of Roberta, Wendy and Rose on his mantel at home. It had been taken right before they knew the killing truth. Wendy had been two and a half; Rose two months. It was a picture he hadn’t been able to look at since he’d buried Roberta.
He carefully replaced the picture and walked back outside. Lilly and an unknown woman quietly talked. When Lilly saw him, she ushered the woman toward him.
“This is my neighbor, Sandra Tillman. She thought she saw someone in the house,” Lilly explained.
“What did you see?” Jon asked.
The woman rubbed her arms. “When I went out to bring in Lucky, my dog, I saw a light flash inside Lilly’s house. I stopped and watched. The light never appeared again, so I shrugged it off as my imagination, but seeing the patrol car, I thought I’d tell Lilly what I saw.”
“Did you see a car near the house? Or anyone leave?” he asked.
The woman shook her head. “Sorry.” The slump of her shoulders gave away her disappointment at not being able to provide more information.
“Thank you for your help. I wish more people would step up to the plate. What you’ve told me is that the man, assuming it is a man and he worked alone, might have parked his car on the next street over. I’ll be sure to question the neighbors on that street.”
The woman’s spine straightened. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” She turned and walked back to her house.
“That was nice of you,” Lilly whispered to him.
“No, it wasn’t. It was the truth. I know where to look for the suspect.”
She turned, her brow raised.
“You doubt me? You think I wasn’t sincere?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought—”
“Littledeer, I’m done,” one of the evidence guys interrupted. “I’ll be sure to check for what you asked.” He moved down the sidewalk to his car.
“What did you ask him to do?” Lilly asked Jon.
“To compare the prints he lifted here and at your ex-husband’s apartment. And remember, we’ll need your and Penny’s prints.”
“You think it was the same person?” Fear tinged her voice.
He didn’t want to panic her, but she needed to know. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to overlook anything.” She didn’t need to dwell on the fear. “C’mon. Let’s go inside and fix your sliding glass door.”
“You don’t need—”
“That’s what cops do, help make the public safe. Now, if you know how to secure that door, I’ll leave it for you.”
“You win. I have to beg my friend to come over and fix things.” Shaking her head, she confided, “Zoe is one handy lady. She’s working at the local home improvement store while she puts herself through college.”
“I’m impressed.”
They walked through the living room and into her bedroom. The lock on the sliding glass door was a simple lever, which opened when turned to the right.
“It’s not broken,” Lilly said.
“True, but it’s easily opened. A slim blade here—” he pointed above the lock and motioned downward “—and the intruder’s inside.” He looked around the room, then walked out, thinking he could find what he needed in the kitchen. In the pantry, he found a broom. He brought it back into the bedroom. Holding it up, he asked, “You willing to sacrifice this for your safety?”
“Yes.”
He snapped the broom handle over his knee and placed the piece without the bristles in the door’s track. “That will do until you decide what other locking mechanism you want for the door. Zoe will know what other safety measures are out there. Oh, one of the officers secured the sliding glass doors in the living room, but you’ll need to buy new locks for those doors, too.”
“Thank you.” Turning, she glanced around the room. “At least it’s not as bad as Pete’s.” After a moment, she dashed out of the room.
He followed her into Penny’s room. It had been ransacked, too.
“Who did this? And why?” She picked up a stuffed doll and buried her face in the doll’s chest. She’d held it together through the mess at her ex-husband’s apartment and the mess here.
He moved to her side. “Lilly.”
She turned into his arms and the dam broke. She wrapped one arm around his waist and the other clutched the doll between them. His arms closed around her shoulders. The emotions tumbling around his chest he didn’t want to name, but he knew that feelings he’d thought long dead had come back to life.
Slowly, the storm of tears and fears faded. She felt safe being held in this man’s strong arms. When he looked at her, she thought she saw something responding to her in those deep brown eyes.
She wiped away the tear hanging off her chin. She looked and noticed the wet spot on the shirt covering Jon Littledeer’s chest.
“Oh,” she said, jerking backward. “I’m so sorry.”
He released her and looked down into her face. “It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I meant messing up your shirt.”
His gaze moved to his shirt, then back to her face. His lips turned up into the slightest smile. “It’s wash and wear.”
She couldn’t look at him. “That’s good.” Looking at the doll, she added, “He is, too.” Her gaze roamed the room. “I’ll have to clean this up before Penny gets back. It’s too much for her to handle.”
She started to put the doll in the toy box. Amazingly, Jon picked up another doll.
“Detective, you don’t have to do that.”
“Call me Jon.”
“But—”
He glanced down at his shirt. The wet spot seemed to glow in the light. “I don’t allow just anyone to leave wet spots on my shirt.” His smile encouraged her to relax.
She returned his smile. “Okay.”
As they worked to put things right in Penny’s room, Jon said, “What do you think your ex-husband meant when he told you his death wouldn’t be an accident?”
“I don’t know. After our divorce Pete dropped by occasionally. I don’t think anyone knew where he spent most of his time.”
“You think he was into illegal things?”
“I don’t know. He never said what he’d been doing or where he’d been.”
“Do you think he told anyone in his family?”
“His parents are dead, and I don’t know anyone else in his family.” She closed the final drawer of her daughter’s dresser.
“You know nothing of his family?”
“No. When we were in high school, his parents were killed in a car accident. Afterward, he lived with his neighbors until he graduated from high school.” With a sigh, she walked out of Penny’s room. “One down and four more rooms to go.”
“Let’s tackle that living room. I have more questions to ask.”
Straightening up wasn’t that bad. It had been a long day and she couldn’t face that mess by herself. The help was a godsend.
They got to work in the living room, putting the furniture back in place.
“Tell me about you and Peter,” Jon said after a while.
“As I told you, I knew Pete in high school. It was during my sophomore year at the University of New Mexico that I ran into him again. He’d transferred from New Mexico Highlands University to UNM. We started dating and fell in love. We married over the Christmas holidays. Around Easter I discovered I was pregnant. When we came home from the university that summer, he told me he didn’t want to be a father and wanted a divorce. He disappeared, never went back to school. Suddenly, marriage was a prison and he couldn’t breathe. I stayed with my parents and went to the community college.”
She pushed in the last cushion on the couch and sat. “I didn’t understand why he didn’t want our baby. After our divorce I saw him infrequently. Where he’d been or what he’d been doing, I don’t know.” She didn’t want to face those memories. Pushing off the couch, she walked into the kitchen.
Jon followed her. “What do you know about Peter after he got his life in order?”
“He started working for a construction company, building roads and bridges here in the state. I think he helped with some bridges in Colorado and Arizona. Sometimes he’d be gone for months at a time, but he’d faithfully call Penny on Mondays and Wednesdays. He’d come home every other week and spend time with her.”
Jon helped put the scattered cans back into the pantry as she put the kitchen drawers in order. “What was he doing around the time he died?”
“He’d gone back to school. He’d also started going to church again.” She remembered the happiness that had filled her heart when he’d come to know Jesus. She’d wanted to shout for joy. By then she and Peter had come to love each other as brother and sister.
“What are you not telling me?” Jon asked, sitting on a stool under the high counter.
“Are you married, Jon?”
He looked as if she’d slapped him. “Not any—No.”
There was so much in that no. For an instant she saw pain and grief.
“It’s odd, but I thought of Pete as a brother. It took me a while to get over the hurt, but God turned Pete and me around and healed our relationship. Both of us wanted what was best for Penny.”
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the counter. “Did he mention problems at work with coworkers and his boss?”
She settled next to Jon on the other stool. “He just recently changed jobs, but I think that had more to do with wanting to go back to school than anything else.” She stared down at the counter. “I think he wanted to stay here for Penny.”
“Do you think his job had anything to do with the murder?”
“I don’t know. He had just started driving an armored car for Sunbelt Securities.”
“And there were no problems there?”
“He didn’t mention anything. The only thing that he said was money was heavy. You could talk to his coworkers. They were at the funeral.”
He nodded. Glancing around the kitchen, he said, “I think you’re good to go.”
They’d managed to clean up the house in less than forty minutes. Her stomach growled. He grinned.
“I haven’t eaten. Cleaning up Peter’s place, I didn’t have time.”
His cell phone rang. “Littledeer here.” He shook his head. “I’m okay, Marta. No, no.” He glanced at Lilly and shook his head again. “Yes, you are right. Okay, I’ll come for cake. You have anything left to eat?” After a moment he added, “Good. Because I haven’t eaten and I’m bringing another hungry person with me.” He listened to the response, then hung up. “You’ve been invited to a birthday dinner. Want to come?”
She started to refuse, but saw something in Jon’s eyes that she recognized as a well-hidden pain. Besides, she didn’t want to stay here by herself. Not yet.
“You driving?
He smiled. “You bet.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“Just be prepared to be grilled unmercifully by two of the best,” he warned her as they got into his car.
“What are you talking about?” She couldn’t keep the hint of panic out of her voice.
“Twin ten-year-old girls.”
He said it with such sincerity that she wanted to laugh.
“I think I can handle that.”
He snorted.
“Did you find anything?” the older man demanded. He sat behind the desk like a king or president.
“Not at the first place. I did a thorough search. It wasn’t there.”
“What about his ex’s place?”
Running his hands over his short hair, the younger man said, “She showed up too soon. I wasn’t able to finish looking for what you want.” He walked across the room and looked out the window to the street ten stories below. The streetlights made it easier to see his car parked in the alley below. “If you want another search, it will cost you.”
The older man darted around his desk and charged across the room. “I pay for results. You got me nothing.”
The younger man didn’t like being threatened. “I’m not the one whose life will go in the dumper if that information is found.”
The older man’s eyes narrowed. “No, but you’ll have done the crime without being paid.”
“I can walk away anytime.” He turned and walked to the door.
“Okay, okay,” the older man huffed, adjusting his attitude. “Get me the proof and I’ll double your fee to ten thousand.”
The younger man nodded and left the other man standing in the middle of the room. He wasn’t the one who’d go the jail. Mr. Self-Importance would. He wouldn’t go to jail again for anyone. If Mr. Self-Importance wouldn’t take the fall voluntarily, his death would solve the problem.
THREE
W hen they walked into the Pizza Palace, it wasn’t hard to spot the twins. Once the twins got a look at Jon, they raced across the room, dodging tables and people, and threw themselves at him.
He scooped the girls into his arms and kissed each one. They giggled.
“Uncle Jon, I’m so glad you came,” Caren declared as she kissed him on the cheek. She glanced over his shoulder. “Who’s the lady?” she asked in a stage whisper.
“She’s a lady who is hungry. Show me where the pizza is,” he replied.
“On the table,” said Caren.
Connie, the other twin, looked over his shoulder and smiled at Lilly. “Hi.”
“Happy birthday,” Lilly said.
“I’m the older one,” Connie informed her.
“Yeah, but I’m the smarter one,” Caren countered.
He heard Lilly laugh.
As they approached the party table, Dave stood. Jon saw the question in his eyes.
After the introductions were made, Jon pulled Dave aside and told him what he’d found at Lilly’s house.
“Gives credence to what she said earlier about his death not being an accident,” David observed. “The search of both her and her ex’s place says someone’s looking for something. But what?”
“I don’t know, but it gives this case a different angle from what we thought, Dave. I think we’re going to have to look at the victim much more closely.”
Dave glanced at Lilly. “You think she’s involved in any way with Peter’s murder?”
Jon remembered her reaction to the break-ins, and her words earlier about Peter going back to church. “I don’t think so.” He had that gut feeling cops got when interviewing witnesses and suspects that told them if someone was telling the truth. “So far there’s no evidence pointing in any way to her.”
Dave sighed. “There’s no evidence for anything, Jon. These break-ins occurred out of the blue. You know that. We have to go back to square one and look at everything again.”
“I know.”
Dave pinned him with a look. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No.” But there was, his heart yelled.
Dave held Jon’s gaze.
“She was hungry. I was hungry.” Jon glanced at the twins, then met Dave’s gaze. He didn’t say anything, but let Dave see his pain. Jon missed his girls and having Lilly here helped.
Dave clapped him on the back. “Let’s go join the party.”
“You married?” Caren asked as she took a bite of her pizza. Her big brown eyes held Lilly’s.
“Caren,” Marta, Dave’s wife, gasped. Her daughter peeked at her mother.
“That’s okay,” Lilly assured Marta.
Marta glared at her daughter. “It isn’t any business of yours.”
Caren put down her piece of pizza. “I just wanted to make sure she’s not married. I don’t want Uncle Jon to get hurt anymore.”
Both women stared at her.
Caren went on. “He’s been so sad. His girls died, you know. They were sick. And his wife died of a broken heart. Uncle Jon used to drink and come to the house and fall asleep on the couch. I don’t want to see him sad anymore.”
Marta’s cheeks heated. “I’m glad you love your uncle Jon, but I don’t think your uncle wants you telling people about that time.”
Caren thought a moment, then nodded. “He’s been better since he began going to church with us.” She leaned close to Lilly. “Mom and Dad told us that sometimes he’s real sad, like on our birthday. That’s why he didn’t come join us earlier. But I’m glad you made him come.”
Marta and Lilly sat at the table, stunned into silence.
“Do you have a husband?” Connie asked. She sat on the other side of her mother.
The other twin’s question snapped Lilly out of her shock. “Not anymore.”
The girls traded looks.
“I do have a daughter,” Lilly quickly added to ward off another uncomfortable question. “I think you’d like her. She sometimes works with me at our church’s community garden. You should visit.”
Jon and Dave walked back to the table and sat down.
“What are you ladies talking about?” Jon asked.
Silence greeted his question.
“So you work in the community garden at your church?” Marta asked, ignoring Jon’s question.
Grateful to change the subject, Lilly answered, “I do. I direct the whole gardening operation. It’s turned out to be a wonderful blessing to the neighbors. It’s fun to observe the kids from the area plant vegetables and then watch as they grow. The kids are so surprised when we pull a carrot out of the ground. Or when they see a tomato appear on a vine. They thought carrots and tomatoes came from the supermarket.”
“Don’t they?” Connie asked.
All four adults paused.
“They grow in the ground or on a vine first, then are harvested and sent to grocery stores,” Lilly explained.
“Is that true?” Caren asked her father.
Trying to hide his smile, Dave said, “Yes.”
Lilly leaned close to Caren. “The kids even love eating those carrots.”
Doubt colored Caren’s eyes. “You sure?”
Lilly nodded. “I am. Come down anytime and see the garden. You can even come to the garden and help pull the carrots or harvest the tomatoes yourself. I know my daughter loves to come to the garden and harvest vegetables. It’s work, but it’s fun and you’ll enjoy it.”
The twins glanced at each other. “Okay,” they said in unison.
Lilly smiled at Jon. From his expression, she could tell that he wasn’t satisfied with her answer to what they were talking about. She didn’t want him to know they’d been talking about his wife and daughters.
Jon studied each girl. Caren calmly ate her pizza, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. Connie giggled as she ate.
“It’s a girl thing,” Lilly whispered. “You don’t want to know what we were talking about.”
Jon cocked his head.
“The pizza’s good. Try some,” Lilly said.
After a few moments, Jon shrugged and started eating pizza.
As the evening progressed, the twins retreated to the restaurant’s video game arcade. They pulled Jon from one machine to the next. He was happy to help bowl on a screen or drive a digital car.
“Mom, Mom, c’mon,” Caren called.
Marta joined her daughters.
Dave studied Lilly, who was still sitting at the table. “I’m sure the girls asked you a million questions about your personal life. I hope the girls haven’t offended you.”
She shrugged. “They’re just curious.”
“Speaking of girls, your daughter wasn’t with you at your house, was she?”
“No, I let her stay with my cousin after what happened at Pete’s place.”
He nodded and looked at his partner.
“I didn’t ask Jon to bring me here tonight,” she added, trying to reassure Dave.
His gaze returned to her. Sighing, he glanced down at the table. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. He loves the girls, but—”
She nodded her head.
“They told you about his family, huh?”
“Caren wanted to make sure I wouldn’t hurt her uncle Jon. They love him and are very protective.”
The love Dave had for his daughters shone in his eyes. “My little warriors.” He shook his head. “Jon’s been through a lot. I didn’t think he’d make it. God reached down and sent a little angel, Caren, to get him to church. She might be a missionary when she grows up.”
“What are you doing?” Marta asked, sitting next to her husband.
“Finding out what caring children I have.”
Jon parked his car in front of Lilly’s house. He turned off the engine and got out.
“You don’t have to walk me to the door,” Lilly said, climbing out of the front seat.
“I do, and I’d like to make sure that everything inside is okay.”
She nodded and he thought he saw relief in her eyes. Unlocking the front door, they walked inside. He checked all the windows and the sliding glass door in her bedroom.
“You probably should also get window locks. They are very simple to install and will prevent anyone from opening a window,” he said as they entered the living room. “They rest in the track, then the window can only be opened up to the lock. If someone wants in, they can’t force the window up and the only alternative is to break the glass. Most thieves won’t do that. They need secrecy and breaking glass won’t provide that.”
“I’ll buy those tomorrow.”
He looked around her house one last time. “After thinking about it, has anything else occurred to you as to why someone would break into your place and your ex-husband’s place?”
“No. This was my parents’ place. When Dad and Mom moved to Florida, they let me buy it from them. I work for San Mateo Street Community Church. I’ve been there for almost eight years. There is nothing here in this house that someone would want. My TVs are almost ten years old and my daughter doesn’t have any computer games.”
He nodded. “Call me if you can think of anything.”
As he drove home, he realized that going to the twins’ birthday party had been an enjoyable experience. He wondered what had been different this time.
Jon walked into the squad room. “What do you have?” he asked Dave, who sat behind his desk.
“Well, I’ve run a credit check on our victim. He didn’t spend wildly. He paid his bills and drove a five-year-old pickup. He got paid well for driving the armored car.” Looking up, Dave added, “I think I might be in the wrong business. I know Marta would like a little more take-home pay in my envelope.”
Jon ignored his partner’s comment. Dave wouldn’t trade being a cop for three times the pay. “Did Peter Burkstrom have any saving accounts that we know of?” Jon asked.
“Nothing at any bank here in Albuquerque.”
“It’s time that we started interviewing his old bosses and his last colleagues.”
“Let’s go,” Dave replied.
Their first stop was Sunbelt Securities. Dave’s team and their armored car were on their route. Jon and Dave were told to come back around four in the afternoon.
“They seemed mighty unfriendly,” Dave grumbled as he climbed into the passenger seat of the patrol car.
“I noticed that, too. Be interesting to see if Peter’s colleagues are warned about the pending interview with us.” Jon pulled out into traffic. “Let’s make a little trip to our victim’s apartment. Maybe someone saw something. Or knows something.”
As they drove to the apartment complex on the west side of the city, they passed by San Mateo Street Community Church. The garden took up an entire side of the church and wrapped around the back of the main structure.
Dave nodded toward the garden. “The girls want to see this garden. They talked about it all the way home after the party.”
Jon threw him a startled look. “Really? You’re telling me that Miss Caren, who can’t stand any dirt on her person, who doesn’t want to play outside because she might get dirty, wants to garden?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It made me shake my head in disbelief. Marta questioned her about it, warned her about the dirt, but she wants to visit the garden. Connie wants to see it, too.”
“That’s easier to believe.” Of the two twins, Connie was the more adventurous. She was the one who, at nineteen months old, found a bug in the backyard and ate it. Granted, she was a toddler when it happened, but of the two girls, Connie was the daredevil.
Jon turned into the Mission apartment complex. They knocked on the doors of several of the apartments around Peter Burkstrom’s place. At the third apartment, a young woman answered the door. After they identified themselves, Jon asked, “How well did you know Peter Burkstrom?”
“I moved into my place about seven months ago,” the woman said. “I’d just moved here from Dumas, a little town in the Texas Panhandle, and didn’t know anyone. Pete helped me move in.”
“Were you close?” Dave asked.
She shrugged. “We were friendly, but we didn’t date, if that’s what you’re asking.” She leaned close. “He was a little too old for me.”
Dave threw Jon a grin.
“No, that’s not what we wanted to know,” said Jon. “Did anything unusual happen around here recently, anything involving Mr. Burkstrom? Any falling-out with neighbors, fights? Or was he acting strangely?”
She thought for several minutes and said, “You know, about a month ago, I saw Pete arguing with a man out in the parking lot. I thought they were going to start throwing punches, but then the other guy pointed his finger at Peter, said something, turned around and disappeared around the corner of the apartment building. I saw a dark green car drive out a minute later. It was a very expensive car.”
“Do you remember the license plate?” asked Dave.
She shook her head. “But it was a luxury convertible. Black. It’s my dream car.”
Jon handed her a business card. “If you think of anything else or see anything suspicious, call us.”
She took the card and put it in a front pocket of her jeans. Jon and Dave finished canvassing the area. No one else answered their knock.
Checking his watch, Jon said, “Let’s stop by Sunbelt Securities and see if that armored car is back.”
“A little earlier than planned? You want to catch them off guard?”
The best way to catch people covering up evidence was showing up unexpectedly. They wanted to see if anyone at the armored car company needed to hide something.
“Let’s go,” Jon said.
“Mom, Mom,” Penny yelled, running toward Lilly, who rolled up the garden hose. “Can I go home with Ann? Her mom says we can swim this afternoon and then make snow cones.”
Tuesdays were the days that Ann and her mom helped in the church garden. When Lilly was first hired as the church’s secretary, manager and gardener by the new young pastor, he told her he wanted to reach out to the neighborhood. He’d come up with the idea to use the side yard of the church for a community garden.
The garden’s success had stunned all of them. Young couples from the neighborhood helped with the garden, then started coming to church. Ann and her parents lived close to the church and helped regularly with the garden. At the end of the growing season, they passed out fresh vegetables to the neighbors. It had been a wonderful ministry. And it had brought many people into the church who had heard about Jesus.
“You’re going to desert me?” Lilly asked her daughter. “And I’m not going to get a snow cone?”
Penny laughed. “I bet you could come and have snow cones with us.” She looked over her shoulder at her friend.
Ann’s mom stood behind her daughter. “Since they worked so hard today, I thought an afternoon in the pool was what they needed.”
“Can I, Mom?” Penny turned on her acting ability and played a poor, deserving soul.
Lilly nodded. “Okay, but—”
The girls’ shrieks filled the air.
“You don’t have your bathing suit,” Lilly said.
Penny’s expression fell.
“Ann has several suits,” Ann’s mom said. “Penny can use one of them.”
Her father’s death had knocked Penny for a loop. This was the first time since Peter’s death that Lilly had seen her daughter excited. “Okay.”
Penny hugged her mother’s waist. “You’re the best, Mom.”
“I’ll be at Ann’s house at six,” Lilly said.
“Okay,” Penny agreed. The girls bounced around.
“You can have my new suit,” Ann told Penny as they walked away.
Ann’s mom walked behind the girls, shaking her head.
With her daughter occupied this afternoon, Lilly could go to Peter’s apartment and continue packing his things up.
After letting the pastor know where she was going, she left the church. The drive to Peter’s place took less than ten minutes.
She’d talked with Pastor Kent about what to do with Peter’s things. He’d found several needy families in the parish that could use clothes, dishes and a television. All she needed to do was go through Peter’s things and see what she might want to save for Penny.
She pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex and found a spot near Peter’s apartment. Pulling boxes out of the backseat, she wrestled them up the stairs. She fumbled with Penny’s key and dropped it. Picking it up, she unlocked the door and dragged the boxes into the living room. As she turned around, she spotted a man hiding behind the door.
Before she could yell, his fist shot out, hitting her on the chin, and darkness descended.
FOUR
S omething gnawed at his gut. Jon flexed his hands on the steering wheel of their police-issue sedan, trying to sort through the tension. He’d learned a long time ago not to ignore his instincts.
“What is it?” Dave asked.
Jon threw his partner a glance. “What?”
“You’ve got that look.”
He could try to deny it, but Dave and Jon had been partners long enough to read each other’s body language. “Something’s wrong.”
“Well, that clears things up.”
“You’ve followed hunches, and I’ve not complained,” Jon retorted.
“Yeah.”
“Before we pay Sunbelt a surprise visit, let’s run back to Peter’s apartment. Maybe we need to talk to the manager about that incident the neighbor mentioned. See if he has a tape of the incident.”
Dave didn’t hesitate or complain. “Let’s go.”
Jon turned the car around and headed toward Peter’s place. It was only a couple of streets away from their current position.
When they arrived at the apartment complex, Jon spotted Lilly’s car parked in the lot. Suddenly a man ran out of Peter’s second-story apartment and raced toward the stairs.
Jon slammed the car into Park, jerked the keys out of the ignition, and both men ran toward the stairs. The man spotted them, turned on the stairs and ran back up them. On the second floor, he darted in the opposite direction from Peter’s place.
“I’ve got him,” Dave yelled, reaching the second-floor landing.
Jon raced up the steps and to the open door of Peter’s apartment. “Lilly,” he yelled.
Inside the door, he saw Lilly sprawled on the floor. He knelt by her side and swept a glance over her body. She didn’t have any obvious wounds, and there was no blood. It was a good sign, but he’d encountered more than one murder victim who had died of internal injuries. Carefully, he ran his hands over her torso and limbs, searching for any hidden wounds. Finding nothing to cause him alarm, he ran his hands over her head. She wasn’t bleeding, but he noticed the red welt on her chin.
“Lilly, wake up.” He gently ran his hands through her hair.
She moaned. Jon welcomed the sound.
“C’mon, Lilly. Open your eyes.” He brushed away the hair from her face.
Her eyes fluttered open.
He let out the breath that he’d been holding. Thank You, Lord, he thought.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked in a quiet voice.
She tried to focus on his face. He saw her struggle to make sense of things. Finally, things snapped into place. “My jaw feels like an elephant sat on it.” She tried to smile, but winced instead.
She struggled to sit up. Jon helped her.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I came to finish packing up Pete’s clothes and things. When I opened the door and stepped into the living room, a man appeared behind me and punched. That’s the last thing I remember.” She tried to get up.
Jon caught her arm, helping her to stand. He directed her to a kitchen chair. “Take a moment to gather yourself.”
“How is she?” Dave asked from the doorway. Jon glanced at his partner. Dave shook his head, letting Jon know that the suspect had got away. He motioned to Lilly. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine. I just got punched in the face,” Lilly answered. She moved her jaw and winced.
Jon went to the refrigerator and removed several ice cubes from the ice bin. He took a kitchen towel, wrapped the ice cubes in it and brought it over to Lilly. “Here. Put that on your chin.”
She took the towel and followed his suggestion. “What does the guy who did this to me want?” she asked after a minute.
That was the burning question that Jon was mulling. “Obviously, whoever he is, he’s looking for something he hasn’t yet found, and he came back to look for it again.”
“I don’t understand.” She put the towel on the table. “Pete doesn’t have anything worth taking.”
“You sure?” Dave asked. “He wasn’t into anything illegal?”
Lilly shook her head. “I don’t know. But it wouldn’t make sense given the fact that there were so many signs that he took his faith seriously. Penny commented recently that her daddy had started reading her children’s Bible to her when she spent the weekends.”
Jon pointed to the towel with the ice and pointed at her chin. “Keep it on your face. You don’t want Penny to see her mom with a huge bruise on her face.”
She obeyed and placed the towel on her chin again.
Jon sat down at the table. “Whoever was in here today, yesterday, and at your house yesterday is looking for something. We need to figure out what it is, because it looks like this guy isn’t going to quit until he gets what he wants. Do you have any idea what this person is looking for?”
Worry colored Lilly’s eyes, turning them deep chocolate. “I don’t know.”
Jon placed his hand over hers. The electricity that ran up his arm shocked him. He pulled his hand back. “Can you call someone to come and help you with things here at the apartment? I’d feel a lot better if someone was here with you. And I know Penny would appreciate it, too.”
He got the smile out of her that he wanted.
“Who can you call?” Jon asked, pressing the matter. They weren’t leaving until someone was here with Lilly.
“I can ask the pastor to come and help me. And he knows several people who would gladly help.”
“Then do that. Dave and I will stay here until someone arrives.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested.
“I do.” Jon’s tone made it clear that he would brook no argument. “Remember the condition of your house?”
He had a point. They didn’t know what was going on and until they did, there was danger.
“You got security cameras?” Jon asked Mark Rodgers, the owner and manager of the apartment complex.
“There are a couple in the parking lot, but the security tapes are erased after a couple of weeks.”
“Let us have what you’ve got,” said Jon.
Rodgers hesitated. “You going to bring them back?”
Jon glared at him.
Rodgers shrugged. “Hey, they’re expensive.”
“File it with the insurance company,” Dave told him.
Rodgers didn’t look happy, but he walked back into his office. He reappeared a few minutes later with seven tapes. “I use one a day and have one for each day of the week.”
“If you keep two weeks worth of tape, how come you only have seven tapes?” Jon asked.
“Because, the tapes are not on all the time. I have the tapes running only when the tenants go to work and come home,” Rodgers explained.
It wasn’t an uncommon practice. They’d be lucky if the argument Peter had in the parking lot was caught on tape, but miracles still did happen.
“Hey, do I get a receipt for those tapes?” Rodgers asked.
Jon stepped into Rodger’s office, looked around the man’s desk, saw an envelope, turned it on its back and wrote a receipt.
“That’s my electric bill,” Rogers complained from the doorway.
“It’s also your receipt. Don’t lose it.” Jon slapped it down on the desk.
Jon and Dave headed for the patrol car.
“You’ve got to work on your technique,” Dave muttered, trying to hide his smile.
Jon threw him a look. “He wants his tapes back?”
“We’ve heard stranger things.”
Jon tried to fit the pieces of this case together as he sat behind the wheel without turning the key. “The more we look into Burkstrom’s murder, the more sense Lilly’s words make. I mean about her husband warning her about his death.” Jon glanced at his partner, wondering if they were on the same page.
“You’re right. There seem to be red flags popping up everywhere.”
“Let’s go to Sunbelt and see if anyone knows a reason why Burkstrom was murdered.”
It took only ten minutes to drive to the offices of Sunbelt Securities. One of the managers, Bryon Sands, whom they’d talked to earlier, looked up from his desk.
“Detectives? Aren’t you early?” He glanced at his watch. “The guys are still out on their run.”
“We thought we might stop by and see if the team might’ve finished earlier,” Jon explained.
Bryon Sands stood and walked to the counter separating the desks from the lobby. “Car fourteen isn’t back yet. They’re still out doing their morning run.”
“Aren’t they running a little late?” Jon asked. “One-thirty is late for a lunch break.”
Sands glanced down at his watch again. “It is, but sometimes our customers run late or change their mind. The team radioed in and told us they were about a half hour behind their normal schedule. I’ve radioed their morning clients about the delay.”
“Since that team is going to be late, we’d like to interview some of the other teams and see if they can tell us anything,” Jon announced.
Sands didn’t look happy. “Sure. Drive around back and talk to whomever you need to.”
The detectives walked back to their car.
Dave met Jon’s gaze over the roof of the car. “We have a reluctant boss. Why?”
“I wonder if we’ll get to talk to all the team members,” Jon replied. They glanced around the lot. An armored car drove in and pulled into the garage. “Maybe we should check out who is on that team.”
“I like your thinking.”
The detectives walked around the building to the garage. Several armored cars were parked at the loading dock and inside the garage. They could hear the men joking with each other. Jon and Dave walked up the concrete steps to the loading dock. One of the men looked up and his hand went to his sidearm.
“We’re Albuquerque police detectives,” Jon offered to disarm the situation. He pulled out his police ID and showed it to the man.
The man let his arm drop.
Jon said, “We’re here to ask a few questions about Peter Burkstrom.”
“He worked here only a couple of months,” the man offered.
“And he wasn’t on our team,” another man replied. He sat on a wooden box. Several other boxes had been pulled up to an old table. Three other men sat around the table. A couple of men stood behind it.
“We realize that,” said Dave. “But we wanted to see if any of you might recall some incident where Peter might have had a problem with someone?”
Jon stood back and carefully watched the reactions of the men. Most of the men shook their heads, but one man in the back shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t offer any explanation, but Jon wanted to talk to him.
Jon and Dave pulled each of the men aside to talk to them privately. The third man Jon interviewed was the man who had aroused his suspicions.
“Do you know anyone who might’ve had something against Burkstrom?” Jon asked.
The man hesitated.
“If you know anything, no matter how insignificant, tell me. It might be the key to Pete’s death.”
“About a month ago, Pete had a bad argument with one of his team members.”
“Who was that?”
“His name is Jimmy Hughes. When they got back from a run, Jimmy jumped all over Pete, calling him stupid and saying that if ‘that’ happened again, he would report Pete to the office.”
“You don’t know what the argument was about?” Jon asked, pressing.
“No, and when I tried to talk to Pete about it, he told me it was nothing and not to worry about it.”
“Did anything else happen?”
The man shook his head. “No. I watched Pete and Jimmy after that, but whatever their differences were, they seemed to patch it up.”
“Thanks.”
The man shrugged and walked away.
Before Jon could talk to Dave, the armored car they’d been waiting for drove up. The team of four men piled out of the vehicle.
“I could eat your and my lunch,” one of the men on the team commented.
They walked up the steps and greeted the other men.
“It looks like a funeral in here. What’s wrong?” the hungry man commented.
Jon stepped forward. “Detective Sandoval and I are here to talk to you about Pete Burkstrom.”
None of the team members who’d just arrived looked happy or willing to talk.
Jon and Dave each took an employee aside and started questioning them.
A few minutes later, Jon studied Jimmy Hughes. “Did you like Peter Burkstrom?”
Jimmy glanced at one of his teammates, who was talking to Dave.
Jon didn’t push him. The man had something to say, and he needed the space to say it.
“No.” Jimmy looked down at his hands.
“You wanted him dead?”
Jimmy’s head jerked up. “No. He was killed in a robbery gone bad.”
“Maybe not.”
The color drained from Jimmy’s face. “You blowing smoke?”
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Leann Harris
If I die, it won't be an accident. At the time, Lilly Burkstrom brushed aside her ex-husband's words. Then he dies–"accidentally"–in a convenience store robbery, and she starts to wonder. Turning to the police doesn't help. They don't see the danger closing in on her, not even when someone breaks into her house and her ex-husband's apartment.Only Detective Jonathan Littledeer understands her fears, having lost his own family. He's determined to keep the single mom safe. He's not going to let another "accident" claim Lilly or her daughter before he can bring the killer's guarded secrets to light.
She gasped as she looked at the mess in her kitchen.
Someone had been in here, searching for…what?
Grabbing her purse, she looked for Jonathan Littledeer’s business card. She found it and dialed the number.
“Littledeer.”
“Detective, this is Lilly Burkstrom. I just walked into my house. It looks like my ex-husband’s apartment wasn’t the only place ransacked.”
“Your house was broken into?”
“Yes.”
A crash from the bedroom made her gasp.
“Lilly?”
“I heard something crash.”
“Get out. Go next door and call nine-one-one.”
She turned and ran out the garage.
LEANN HARRIS
When Leann Harris was first introduced to her husband in college she knew she would never date the man. He was a graduate student getting a PhD in physics, and Leann had purposely taken a second year of biology in high school to avoid taking physics. So much for first impressions. They have been married thirty-eight years and still approach life from very different angles.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Leann taught math and science to deaf high school students for a couple of years until the birth of her first child. When her youngest child started school, Leann decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and began writing.
Leann presently lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband. She is a founding member and former president of the Dallas Area Romance Writers. Guarded Secrets is her second novel for Steeple Hill Books. Visit her Web site, www.leannharris.com.
Guarded Secrets
Leann Harris
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
— Psalms 46:1
Jennifer, DQ, Daniel and Crystal—
each of you is a blessing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ONE
T he door stood ajar, and panic raced through her veins. She’d locked her ex-husband’s apartment door after retrieving his clothes for the funeral.
“Mom, did you forget to lock the door? You know Daddy always made me—” Tears clogged Penny’s throat.
Lilly Burkstrom pulled her daughter into her arms.
“I don’t understand, Mom,” Penny sobbed into her mother’s waist. “Why did Daddy have to die?”
It was a question Lilly asked herself. Peter had been murdered in a convenience store robbery gone bad.
It didn’t make much sense to her, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, so how could she expect her eight-year-old daughter to understand it?
“I don’t know, sweetie. I know you miss him. I do, too.”
Penny hugged her with a desperate intensity. “You won’t leave me, will you?” She looked up, her huge brown eyes glistening with tears.
Lilly’s heart broke. She wiped the wetness from her daughter’s cheeks. “No, I won’t.” Although she and Peter had been divorced almost since Penny’s birth, they had come to terms with their failed marriage and had become friends. Peter’s recent salvation had changed all their lives. “I can take you home and do this by myself.”
Penny wiped away her tears and stepped back. “I want to help.”
Lilly pushed the door all the way open and peered inside. The condition of the apartment shocked her.
Penny gasped. “Mom, what happened?”
Lilly’s gaze swept the living room, dining room and kitchen. It looked as if a tornado had ripped through the place, throwing things everywhere. Chairs and end tables had been tossed on their sides. The sofa had been turned over, and the cushions ripped and thrown around the room. The kitchen cabinets stood open; boxes of cereal and spaghetti spilled out from the shelves. Broken dishes and glasses littered the countertops and floor.
“I don’t know.” Three days ago, when she’d been inside this apartment to get one of Peter’s suits for the funeral, everything had been fine.
“I wonder if Dad’s bedroom is this way.” Penny started down the short hall.
A loud noise came from the bedroom.
Penny froze. When she turned her head, her frightened gaze met Lilly’s.
Lilly motioned for her daughter to come toward her. Penny turned and ran to her mother. Lilly rushed them out of the apartment and down the stairs. They retreated to Lilly’s car, and Lilly whipped out her cell phone.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“I need to report a burglary.”
Detective Jonathan Littledeer greeted Lilly outside Peter’s apartment door.
“Ms. Burkstrom, can you tell me what happened here?”
She recognized the Albuquerque police detective and his partner, David Sandoval. They’d come and told her about Peter’s death. Had it only been two weeks since that happened? It seemed like it was yesterday when they announced the grim news.
Stepping inside the apartment, Detective Littledeer stopped and scanned the area between the front door and the living room.
“Someone did a job on this place,” Detective Sandoval murmured, walking around the living room.
Detective Littledeer looked around the living room and kitchen. “It looks like they did a thorough search. What do you think they were looking for?”
Detective Sandoval nodded. “Good question. I’ll take a look in the bedroom.” He disappeared into the bedroom.
“Where’s your daughter?” Detective Littledeer asked Lilly, who was standing in the doorway.
“She left with my cousin. She didn’t need to be here. It upset her.” Lilly had called her cousin Allison and asked her to come and pick Penny up. Allison was one of the few family members left in town after her parents moved to Florida. Alison had a child younger than Penny. They’d been friends all their lives, and Penny needed a friend to help her redirect her thoughts.
Spying a digital picture frame on the floor, Lilly picked it up. “Peter bought this for Penny so she could see pictures of the two of them having fun.” She placed the frame on the coffee table.
“Can you think of why anyone would do this to your ex-husband’s apartment?”
“A couple of months ago, when Peter dropped off Penny, he told me that if anything happened to him, it wouldn’t be an accident.”
“Did he tell you what he meant by that?” Detective Littledeer asked, pressing her.
“Later, when I tried to question him about it, he simply shook his head, kissed my forehead and asked me to pray for him.” She looked down at the floor. “I tried to get him to explain a couple of times after that, asking him exactly what he meant, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He acted like I had imagined it.”
“The bedroom’s in the same shape as the rest of the place,” Detective Sandoval informed them as he joined them in the living room.
“Was someone in there?” Lilly asked.
Detective Sandoval glanced at Detective Littledeer before turning to her. “Yeah.”
She stumbled to the sofa. “Penny almost went in that room.”
Detective Littledeer squatted in front of Lilly. “But you didn’t let her, did you?”
“No. I didn’t,” she replied.
He covered her hand with his. When she looked at him, he smiled. “A mother’s wisdom is from above.” He stood. “Ms. Burkstrom might have an angle on this,” Detective Littledeer told his partner.
“What’s that?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“Her ex had been threatened.”
Detective Littledeer motioned Lilly toward the kitchen table as the crime-scene people arrived and started taking prints. “Is there anything you can think of that your ex-husband was involved with that was risky?”
Lilly tried to come up with something suspect that Peter could’ve been involved with. “I really don’t know of anything. After we divorced, he started drinking and running around. He’d show up sporadically at the house and want to see Penny, and then he would disappear again for six months.
“About four years ago, he found a job and seemed to straighten up his life. He saw Penny regularly and paid his child support. Eighteen months ago, he started coming to church again and gave his life to Christ. He seemed very happy until—”
“Until when?” Detective Littledeer quizzed.
“It was last April. I remember when because it was right after tax time. He’d glanced at my tax return and got a funny look on his face. He turned to me and gave me that warning.”
Detective Sandoval walked into the kitchen and sat down next to Detective Littledeer. “The evidence team’s finding lots of prints.”
“How will you know if they are Pete’s or someone else’s?” asked Lilly.
The detectives looked at each other. Detective Littledeer met her eyes. “Your husband’s prints are on file.”
She paled.
“It was a drunk driving charge from four years ago,” he explained.
Lilly wondered if they were telling her everything. “Is that all?”
“Also, the company he was working for at the time of his death requires prints of all its employees,” Detective Sandoval added.
Frowning, Lilly asked, “Why would they do that?”
“Armored car personnel have to have their prints on file,” Detective Littledeer explained.
“We’ll also need your fingerprints,” Detective Sandoval added.
Her heart raced. “Why?”
Detective Littledeer frowned at his partner, but he turned to her. “Simply as a process of elimination. Also, bring your daughter with you so she can be fingerprinted. You can tell her that it is just a precaution. Schools now like to have the kids fingerprinted.”
He didn’t say why, but Lilly knew the sad reality of missing children. One of the women who worked with her at the church and the community garden had a child who’d gone missing.
“I’ll bring Penny by tomorrow and we both can have our prints taken.”
“What’s going on here?”
They looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway. In his early fifties, he stood with a military preciseness and his hair was cut in a burr.
“And you are?” Detective Littledeer asked.
“Mark Rodgers, the owner and manager of these apartments.” He glanced around the room. “What happened here?”
After informing the owner who they were and why they were there, Detective Littledeer asked, “Did anyone ask to see this apartment in recent days?”
“No. No one has been by to ask anything. Since Mr. Burkstrom’s lease was up at the end of the month, I wanted this place cleaned out so I could paint and recarpet. He bought a new condo off of Rio Grande Boulevard.”
“When was the last time you were in this apartment?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“I came by when this lady here got her husband’s clothes. I told her then when the lease was up.” The owner looked around at the mess. “This place wasn’t this way the last time I was here.”
“Did you see someone leave here in the last half hour?” Detective Littledeer asked.
“No. I just got back from a trip into Santa Fe. When I saw all the cop cars parked out front, I came up to see what was wrong.” He continued to look around. “You say it was a break-in?”
They nodded.
“I’ll keep an eye out. I don’t want my tenants put in any danger.” The owner shook his head. “When am I going to be able to rent this place?”
Both detectives glared at the man. He backed up and raised his hand. “Hey, I’ll give the lady until the end of the month.” He disappeared out the door.
The detectives turned to her. “How did you get in here?” Detective Sandoval asked.
“My daughter has a key. When I got Peter’s things from the cops, his car keys and his house key weren’t among them. His wallet was also missing,” said Lilly.
Detective Littledeer’s eyes darkened. “I’ll go back over the incident report and see if I can locate those keys.”
“Detectives, we’re done here,” one of the evidence techs informed them.
“I can now go through Pete’s things?” asked Lilly.
“You can. If you find anything you think would shed light on what happened, call.” Detective Littledeer gave her his business card.
“Thanks,” she said as the detectives filed out the door behind the techs.
Once alone in the apartment, Lilly scanned the mess. “Oh, Lord, what was Peter into?”
After spending a few hours trying to restore order in Peter’s apartment, Lilly drove to her little house a block from San Mateo Street Community Church. Having a job so close to home was a blessing because Penny could walk to the church after school and help her with the garden. She was the secretary, manager and community gardener for their parish. The garden had started with the pastor wanting to reach out to the community. They’d only had a few of the church ladies help with the planting that first year. Since then it had taken off. This season they’d tripled the amount they harvested from the garden.
She hit the remote for the garage door and waited for the door to open. She would be sure to gather some flowers from her garden to thank Allison for keeping Penny overnight. Allison would probably spoil both the girls with hot-fudge sundaes and let them stay up until nine-thirty. Penny needed spoiling. It had been a rough week for both of them. Once school started next week, hopefully life could return to some semblance of normal. Lilly had hoped the time Penny spent with her would reassure her daughter that she wouldn’t leave, too.
Lilly had called her parents in Florida, letting them know what had happened. Her dad hadn’t been too sympathetic. Her father never forgave Peter for abandoning his daughter.
Gathering her purse, she got out of the car. She’d boxed Peter’s shoes, clothes and dishes. She could give some of the things to several needy families in the church. Opening the door that led into the kitchen, she put her purse on the table and flipped on the light.
She gasped as she looked at the mess in her kitchen. Someone had been in here, searching for…what?
Grabbing her purse, she looked for Jonathan Littledeer’s business card. She found it and dialed the number.
“Littledeer.”
“Detective, this is Lilly Burkstrom. I just walked into my house. It looks like my husband’s apartment wasn’t the only place ransacked.”
“Your house was broken into?”
“Yes.”
A crash from the bedroom made her gasp.
“Lilly.”
“I heard something.”
“Get out. Go next door and call 911.”
She turned and ran out the garage.
TWO
T he instant he hung up with Lilly Burkstrom, Jonathan Littledeer called his partner and told him about the incident.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Dave told him.
“No.” Jon had been reluctant to contact his partner since Dave was celebrating his twins’ tenth birthday. “Today is your daughters’ birthday. Do not leave that party. If there’s anything significant, I’ll let you know.”
Dave didn’t reply. They both knew the reason why Jon wasn’t celebrating with the Sandoval family. Jon had lost both of his daughters to a rare genetic disorder—Niemann-Pick disease type C. Both Jon and his wife, Roberta, carried the recessive gene. No one had known the children had the disease until the oldest, Wendy, was two and a half. Rose had been born just a few months before Wendy got sick. She had run a high temperature and had her first seizure. When she had a second seizure after recovering from the fever, the doctors were stumped. It took a while before they were able to determine what was happening. Wendy’s body eventually wasted away and she died two days before her fourth birthday. A month after they buried Wendy, Rose had her first seizure. She died much quicker. She suffered for only thirteen months. The day they buried his sweet Rose, Jon’s wife went home after the funeral and took too many sleeping pills. Jon buried his wife one week after his youngest daughter was laid to rest.
The next six months were a blur. He was drunk most of the time. The first time he shown up at work drunk, his captain suspended him. Captain Morse blistered the paint off the wall with his words and told him to clean up his act or resign.
One night after a particularly bad binge, Jon showed up at Dave’s house, railing. Most of the details of what happened were hazy, but he remembered crying and blaming God for what had happened. How Dave calmed him down, he didn’t know, but when Jon surfaced the next morning from his liquor-induced sleep, Caren, one of the twins, was standing over him. She cupped his cheek and softly pronounced that Jesus could heal his hurt.
Those sweet words rolled around in his head for weeks, until Jon went with Dave to church. Caren had been right. Jon gave his heart to Christ and started down the road to healing. Some things, such as the girls’ birthday, he had to skip, but his life was so much better. More than once, God had brought people into his life that he could comfort in the same way he’d been comforted.
The night he’d told Lilly Burkstrom of her ex-husband’s murder stood out in his mind. She’d collapsed in a chair and, although the man was her ex, Jon had seen her honest grief. But what had nearly brought him to his knees was when Penny came into the room and learned of her father’s death.
What he’d seen in Lilly’s eyes as she comforted her daughter had reached into his heart and touched him. He couldn’t figure out if it was her strength in comforting her daughter or if it was the pain in her eyes when she’d met his gaze. There was an understanding there, a shared sorrow. Pain. He didn’t know what to do with this understanding, but he found himself thinking of Lilly at odd times. Something had sparked between them, making him jumpy. He knew the Lord could use him to comfort others, but heaven knew that he didn’t want another relationship. He would be the forever bachelor.
Pulling up to Lilly Burkstrom’s house, he saw her sitting on a bench by the front walk. He parked behind the patrol car and got out.
She stood, brushing off her pants. “The patrolman just got here. He’s looking through the house.”
Stepping to her side, he asked, “So you don’t know how someone got into the house?”
“No. The front door was locked when I got home.”
He nodded. “I’ll go inside and see what’s going on.”
“Thanks.”
Jon moved into the house and surveyed the living room. It wasn’t in as much disarray as Peter Burkstrom’s apartment had been in, but the drawers of the coffee table were open and the cushions on the couch were out of alignment. He moved through the dining area and into the kitchen. Drawers hung open and cabinet doors stood ajar.
He heard someone behind him. He turned and saw the uniformed officer, Miguel Aguilar. “What are you doing here, Littledeer? I haven’t seen any bodies.”
“The lady’s ex-husband was murdered last week. She called me before she dialed 911. Earlier, the ex’s apartment was broken into and trashed. This place is in better shape, but…How’s the rest of the house?”
“It’s been tossed.”
“Any indication where the perpetrator got in?”
“The sliding glass door in the master bedroom was jimmied. It has one of those cheap locks.”
“You call for the evidence team?”
“Yeah. They’re on the way.”
He moved through the rest of the house. Whoever had broken in had been more careful than they’d been at Peter’s apartment. It sure seemed as if someone was after something—which led him to believe Lilly’s assertion that maybe her ex-husband’s death wasn’t the random event they thought it might be.
As he turned to leave the master bedroom, he noticed the framed picture on the dresser. It had been knocked on its side. He picked up the frame. Penny, who was maybe twelve or thirteen months old at the time, sat on her mother’s lap. They were both smiling. It was the kind of picture that any husband or grandparent would view with joy and pride.
He remembered the picture of Roberta, Wendy and Rose on his mantel at home. It had been taken right before they knew the killing truth. Wendy had been two and a half; Rose two months. It was a picture he hadn’t been able to look at since he’d buried Roberta.
He carefully replaced the picture and walked back outside. Lilly and an unknown woman quietly talked. When Lilly saw him, she ushered the woman toward him.
“This is my neighbor, Sandra Tillman. She thought she saw someone in the house,” Lilly explained.
“What did you see?” Jon asked.
The woman rubbed her arms. “When I went out to bring in Lucky, my dog, I saw a light flash inside Lilly’s house. I stopped and watched. The light never appeared again, so I shrugged it off as my imagination, but seeing the patrol car, I thought I’d tell Lilly what I saw.”
“Did you see a car near the house? Or anyone leave?” he asked.
The woman shook her head. “Sorry.” The slump of her shoulders gave away her disappointment at not being able to provide more information.
“Thank you for your help. I wish more people would step up to the plate. What you’ve told me is that the man, assuming it is a man and he worked alone, might have parked his car on the next street over. I’ll be sure to question the neighbors on that street.”
The woman’s spine straightened. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” She turned and walked back to her house.
“That was nice of you,” Lilly whispered to him.
“No, it wasn’t. It was the truth. I know where to look for the suspect.”
She turned, her brow raised.
“You doubt me? You think I wasn’t sincere?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought—”
“Littledeer, I’m done,” one of the evidence guys interrupted. “I’ll be sure to check for what you asked.” He moved down the sidewalk to his car.
“What did you ask him to do?” Lilly asked Jon.
“To compare the prints he lifted here and at your ex-husband’s apartment. And remember, we’ll need your and Penny’s prints.”
“You think it was the same person?” Fear tinged her voice.
He didn’t want to panic her, but she needed to know. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to overlook anything.” She didn’t need to dwell on the fear. “C’mon. Let’s go inside and fix your sliding glass door.”
“You don’t need—”
“That’s what cops do, help make the public safe. Now, if you know how to secure that door, I’ll leave it for you.”
“You win. I have to beg my friend to come over and fix things.” Shaking her head, she confided, “Zoe is one handy lady. She’s working at the local home improvement store while she puts herself through college.”
“I’m impressed.”
They walked through the living room and into her bedroom. The lock on the sliding glass door was a simple lever, which opened when turned to the right.
“It’s not broken,” Lilly said.
“True, but it’s easily opened. A slim blade here—” he pointed above the lock and motioned downward “—and the intruder’s inside.” He looked around the room, then walked out, thinking he could find what he needed in the kitchen. In the pantry, he found a broom. He brought it back into the bedroom. Holding it up, he asked, “You willing to sacrifice this for your safety?”
“Yes.”
He snapped the broom handle over his knee and placed the piece without the bristles in the door’s track. “That will do until you decide what other locking mechanism you want for the door. Zoe will know what other safety measures are out there. Oh, one of the officers secured the sliding glass doors in the living room, but you’ll need to buy new locks for those doors, too.”
“Thank you.” Turning, she glanced around the room. “At least it’s not as bad as Pete’s.” After a moment, she dashed out of the room.
He followed her into Penny’s room. It had been ransacked, too.
“Who did this? And why?” She picked up a stuffed doll and buried her face in the doll’s chest. She’d held it together through the mess at her ex-husband’s apartment and the mess here.
He moved to her side. “Lilly.”
She turned into his arms and the dam broke. She wrapped one arm around his waist and the other clutched the doll between them. His arms closed around her shoulders. The emotions tumbling around his chest he didn’t want to name, but he knew that feelings he’d thought long dead had come back to life.
Slowly, the storm of tears and fears faded. She felt safe being held in this man’s strong arms. When he looked at her, she thought she saw something responding to her in those deep brown eyes.
She wiped away the tear hanging off her chin. She looked and noticed the wet spot on the shirt covering Jon Littledeer’s chest.
“Oh,” she said, jerking backward. “I’m so sorry.”
He released her and looked down into her face. “It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I meant messing up your shirt.”
His gaze moved to his shirt, then back to her face. His lips turned up into the slightest smile. “It’s wash and wear.”
She couldn’t look at him. “That’s good.” Looking at the doll, she added, “He is, too.” Her gaze roamed the room. “I’ll have to clean this up before Penny gets back. It’s too much for her to handle.”
She started to put the doll in the toy box. Amazingly, Jon picked up another doll.
“Detective, you don’t have to do that.”
“Call me Jon.”
“But—”
He glanced down at his shirt. The wet spot seemed to glow in the light. “I don’t allow just anyone to leave wet spots on my shirt.” His smile encouraged her to relax.
She returned his smile. “Okay.”
As they worked to put things right in Penny’s room, Jon said, “What do you think your ex-husband meant when he told you his death wouldn’t be an accident?”
“I don’t know. After our divorce Pete dropped by occasionally. I don’t think anyone knew where he spent most of his time.”
“You think he was into illegal things?”
“I don’t know. He never said what he’d been doing or where he’d been.”
“Do you think he told anyone in his family?”
“His parents are dead, and I don’t know anyone else in his family.” She closed the final drawer of her daughter’s dresser.
“You know nothing of his family?”
“No. When we were in high school, his parents were killed in a car accident. Afterward, he lived with his neighbors until he graduated from high school.” With a sigh, she walked out of Penny’s room. “One down and four more rooms to go.”
“Let’s tackle that living room. I have more questions to ask.”
Straightening up wasn’t that bad. It had been a long day and she couldn’t face that mess by herself. The help was a godsend.
They got to work in the living room, putting the furniture back in place.
“Tell me about you and Peter,” Jon said after a while.
“As I told you, I knew Pete in high school. It was during my sophomore year at the University of New Mexico that I ran into him again. He’d transferred from New Mexico Highlands University to UNM. We started dating and fell in love. We married over the Christmas holidays. Around Easter I discovered I was pregnant. When we came home from the university that summer, he told me he didn’t want to be a father and wanted a divorce. He disappeared, never went back to school. Suddenly, marriage was a prison and he couldn’t breathe. I stayed with my parents and went to the community college.”
She pushed in the last cushion on the couch and sat. “I didn’t understand why he didn’t want our baby. After our divorce I saw him infrequently. Where he’d been or what he’d been doing, I don’t know.” She didn’t want to face those memories. Pushing off the couch, she walked into the kitchen.
Jon followed her. “What do you know about Peter after he got his life in order?”
“He started working for a construction company, building roads and bridges here in the state. I think he helped with some bridges in Colorado and Arizona. Sometimes he’d be gone for months at a time, but he’d faithfully call Penny on Mondays and Wednesdays. He’d come home every other week and spend time with her.”
Jon helped put the scattered cans back into the pantry as she put the kitchen drawers in order. “What was he doing around the time he died?”
“He’d gone back to school. He’d also started going to church again.” She remembered the happiness that had filled her heart when he’d come to know Jesus. She’d wanted to shout for joy. By then she and Peter had come to love each other as brother and sister.
“What are you not telling me?” Jon asked, sitting on a stool under the high counter.
“Are you married, Jon?”
He looked as if she’d slapped him. “Not any—No.”
There was so much in that no. For an instant she saw pain and grief.
“It’s odd, but I thought of Pete as a brother. It took me a while to get over the hurt, but God turned Pete and me around and healed our relationship. Both of us wanted what was best for Penny.”
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the counter. “Did he mention problems at work with coworkers and his boss?”
She settled next to Jon on the other stool. “He just recently changed jobs, but I think that had more to do with wanting to go back to school than anything else.” She stared down at the counter. “I think he wanted to stay here for Penny.”
“Do you think his job had anything to do with the murder?”
“I don’t know. He had just started driving an armored car for Sunbelt Securities.”
“And there were no problems there?”
“He didn’t mention anything. The only thing that he said was money was heavy. You could talk to his coworkers. They were at the funeral.”
He nodded. Glancing around the kitchen, he said, “I think you’re good to go.”
They’d managed to clean up the house in less than forty minutes. Her stomach growled. He grinned.
“I haven’t eaten. Cleaning up Peter’s place, I didn’t have time.”
His cell phone rang. “Littledeer here.” He shook his head. “I’m okay, Marta. No, no.” He glanced at Lilly and shook his head again. “Yes, you are right. Okay, I’ll come for cake. You have anything left to eat?” After a moment he added, “Good. Because I haven’t eaten and I’m bringing another hungry person with me.” He listened to the response, then hung up. “You’ve been invited to a birthday dinner. Want to come?”
She started to refuse, but saw something in Jon’s eyes that she recognized as a well-hidden pain. Besides, she didn’t want to stay here by herself. Not yet.
“You driving?
He smiled. “You bet.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“Just be prepared to be grilled unmercifully by two of the best,” he warned her as they got into his car.
“What are you talking about?” She couldn’t keep the hint of panic out of her voice.
“Twin ten-year-old girls.”
He said it with such sincerity that she wanted to laugh.
“I think I can handle that.”
He snorted.
“Did you find anything?” the older man demanded. He sat behind the desk like a king or president.
“Not at the first place. I did a thorough search. It wasn’t there.”
“What about his ex’s place?”
Running his hands over his short hair, the younger man said, “She showed up too soon. I wasn’t able to finish looking for what you want.” He walked across the room and looked out the window to the street ten stories below. The streetlights made it easier to see his car parked in the alley below. “If you want another search, it will cost you.”
The older man darted around his desk and charged across the room. “I pay for results. You got me nothing.”
The younger man didn’t like being threatened. “I’m not the one whose life will go in the dumper if that information is found.”
The older man’s eyes narrowed. “No, but you’ll have done the crime without being paid.”
“I can walk away anytime.” He turned and walked to the door.
“Okay, okay,” the older man huffed, adjusting his attitude. “Get me the proof and I’ll double your fee to ten thousand.”
The younger man nodded and left the other man standing in the middle of the room. He wasn’t the one who’d go the jail. Mr. Self-Importance would. He wouldn’t go to jail again for anyone. If Mr. Self-Importance wouldn’t take the fall voluntarily, his death would solve the problem.
THREE
W hen they walked into the Pizza Palace, it wasn’t hard to spot the twins. Once the twins got a look at Jon, they raced across the room, dodging tables and people, and threw themselves at him.
He scooped the girls into his arms and kissed each one. They giggled.
“Uncle Jon, I’m so glad you came,” Caren declared as she kissed him on the cheek. She glanced over his shoulder. “Who’s the lady?” she asked in a stage whisper.
“She’s a lady who is hungry. Show me where the pizza is,” he replied.
“On the table,” said Caren.
Connie, the other twin, looked over his shoulder and smiled at Lilly. “Hi.”
“Happy birthday,” Lilly said.
“I’m the older one,” Connie informed her.
“Yeah, but I’m the smarter one,” Caren countered.
He heard Lilly laugh.
As they approached the party table, Dave stood. Jon saw the question in his eyes.
After the introductions were made, Jon pulled Dave aside and told him what he’d found at Lilly’s house.
“Gives credence to what she said earlier about his death not being an accident,” David observed. “The search of both her and her ex’s place says someone’s looking for something. But what?”
“I don’t know, but it gives this case a different angle from what we thought, Dave. I think we’re going to have to look at the victim much more closely.”
Dave glanced at Lilly. “You think she’s involved in any way with Peter’s murder?”
Jon remembered her reaction to the break-ins, and her words earlier about Peter going back to church. “I don’t think so.” He had that gut feeling cops got when interviewing witnesses and suspects that told them if someone was telling the truth. “So far there’s no evidence pointing in any way to her.”
Dave sighed. “There’s no evidence for anything, Jon. These break-ins occurred out of the blue. You know that. We have to go back to square one and look at everything again.”
“I know.”
Dave pinned him with a look. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No.” But there was, his heart yelled.
Dave held Jon’s gaze.
“She was hungry. I was hungry.” Jon glanced at the twins, then met Dave’s gaze. He didn’t say anything, but let Dave see his pain. Jon missed his girls and having Lilly here helped.
Dave clapped him on the back. “Let’s go join the party.”
“You married?” Caren asked as she took a bite of her pizza. Her big brown eyes held Lilly’s.
“Caren,” Marta, Dave’s wife, gasped. Her daughter peeked at her mother.
“That’s okay,” Lilly assured Marta.
Marta glared at her daughter. “It isn’t any business of yours.”
Caren put down her piece of pizza. “I just wanted to make sure she’s not married. I don’t want Uncle Jon to get hurt anymore.”
Both women stared at her.
Caren went on. “He’s been so sad. His girls died, you know. They were sick. And his wife died of a broken heart. Uncle Jon used to drink and come to the house and fall asleep on the couch. I don’t want to see him sad anymore.”
Marta’s cheeks heated. “I’m glad you love your uncle Jon, but I don’t think your uncle wants you telling people about that time.”
Caren thought a moment, then nodded. “He’s been better since he began going to church with us.” She leaned close to Lilly. “Mom and Dad told us that sometimes he’s real sad, like on our birthday. That’s why he didn’t come join us earlier. But I’m glad you made him come.”
Marta and Lilly sat at the table, stunned into silence.
“Do you have a husband?” Connie asked. She sat on the other side of her mother.
The other twin’s question snapped Lilly out of her shock. “Not anymore.”
The girls traded looks.
“I do have a daughter,” Lilly quickly added to ward off another uncomfortable question. “I think you’d like her. She sometimes works with me at our church’s community garden. You should visit.”
Jon and Dave walked back to the table and sat down.
“What are you ladies talking about?” Jon asked.
Silence greeted his question.
“So you work in the community garden at your church?” Marta asked, ignoring Jon’s question.
Grateful to change the subject, Lilly answered, “I do. I direct the whole gardening operation. It’s turned out to be a wonderful blessing to the neighbors. It’s fun to observe the kids from the area plant vegetables and then watch as they grow. The kids are so surprised when we pull a carrot out of the ground. Or when they see a tomato appear on a vine. They thought carrots and tomatoes came from the supermarket.”
“Don’t they?” Connie asked.
All four adults paused.
“They grow in the ground or on a vine first, then are harvested and sent to grocery stores,” Lilly explained.
“Is that true?” Caren asked her father.
Trying to hide his smile, Dave said, “Yes.”
Lilly leaned close to Caren. “The kids even love eating those carrots.”
Doubt colored Caren’s eyes. “You sure?”
Lilly nodded. “I am. Come down anytime and see the garden. You can even come to the garden and help pull the carrots or harvest the tomatoes yourself. I know my daughter loves to come to the garden and harvest vegetables. It’s work, but it’s fun and you’ll enjoy it.”
The twins glanced at each other. “Okay,” they said in unison.
Lilly smiled at Jon. From his expression, she could tell that he wasn’t satisfied with her answer to what they were talking about. She didn’t want him to know they’d been talking about his wife and daughters.
Jon studied each girl. Caren calmly ate her pizza, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. Connie giggled as she ate.
“It’s a girl thing,” Lilly whispered. “You don’t want to know what we were talking about.”
Jon cocked his head.
“The pizza’s good. Try some,” Lilly said.
After a few moments, Jon shrugged and started eating pizza.
As the evening progressed, the twins retreated to the restaurant’s video game arcade. They pulled Jon from one machine to the next. He was happy to help bowl on a screen or drive a digital car.
“Mom, Mom, c’mon,” Caren called.
Marta joined her daughters.
Dave studied Lilly, who was still sitting at the table. “I’m sure the girls asked you a million questions about your personal life. I hope the girls haven’t offended you.”
She shrugged. “They’re just curious.”
“Speaking of girls, your daughter wasn’t with you at your house, was she?”
“No, I let her stay with my cousin after what happened at Pete’s place.”
He nodded and looked at his partner.
“I didn’t ask Jon to bring me here tonight,” she added, trying to reassure Dave.
His gaze returned to her. Sighing, he glanced down at the table. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. He loves the girls, but—”
She nodded her head.
“They told you about his family, huh?”
“Caren wanted to make sure I wouldn’t hurt her uncle Jon. They love him and are very protective.”
The love Dave had for his daughters shone in his eyes. “My little warriors.” He shook his head. “Jon’s been through a lot. I didn’t think he’d make it. God reached down and sent a little angel, Caren, to get him to church. She might be a missionary when she grows up.”
“What are you doing?” Marta asked, sitting next to her husband.
“Finding out what caring children I have.”
Jon parked his car in front of Lilly’s house. He turned off the engine and got out.
“You don’t have to walk me to the door,” Lilly said, climbing out of the front seat.
“I do, and I’d like to make sure that everything inside is okay.”
She nodded and he thought he saw relief in her eyes. Unlocking the front door, they walked inside. He checked all the windows and the sliding glass door in her bedroom.
“You probably should also get window locks. They are very simple to install and will prevent anyone from opening a window,” he said as they entered the living room. “They rest in the track, then the window can only be opened up to the lock. If someone wants in, they can’t force the window up and the only alternative is to break the glass. Most thieves won’t do that. They need secrecy and breaking glass won’t provide that.”
“I’ll buy those tomorrow.”
He looked around her house one last time. “After thinking about it, has anything else occurred to you as to why someone would break into your place and your ex-husband’s place?”
“No. This was my parents’ place. When Dad and Mom moved to Florida, they let me buy it from them. I work for San Mateo Street Community Church. I’ve been there for almost eight years. There is nothing here in this house that someone would want. My TVs are almost ten years old and my daughter doesn’t have any computer games.”
He nodded. “Call me if you can think of anything.”
As he drove home, he realized that going to the twins’ birthday party had been an enjoyable experience. He wondered what had been different this time.
Jon walked into the squad room. “What do you have?” he asked Dave, who sat behind his desk.
“Well, I’ve run a credit check on our victim. He didn’t spend wildly. He paid his bills and drove a five-year-old pickup. He got paid well for driving the armored car.” Looking up, Dave added, “I think I might be in the wrong business. I know Marta would like a little more take-home pay in my envelope.”
Jon ignored his partner’s comment. Dave wouldn’t trade being a cop for three times the pay. “Did Peter Burkstrom have any saving accounts that we know of?” Jon asked.
“Nothing at any bank here in Albuquerque.”
“It’s time that we started interviewing his old bosses and his last colleagues.”
“Let’s go,” Dave replied.
Their first stop was Sunbelt Securities. Dave’s team and their armored car were on their route. Jon and Dave were told to come back around four in the afternoon.
“They seemed mighty unfriendly,” Dave grumbled as he climbed into the passenger seat of the patrol car.
“I noticed that, too. Be interesting to see if Peter’s colleagues are warned about the pending interview with us.” Jon pulled out into traffic. “Let’s make a little trip to our victim’s apartment. Maybe someone saw something. Or knows something.”
As they drove to the apartment complex on the west side of the city, they passed by San Mateo Street Community Church. The garden took up an entire side of the church and wrapped around the back of the main structure.
Dave nodded toward the garden. “The girls want to see this garden. They talked about it all the way home after the party.”
Jon threw him a startled look. “Really? You’re telling me that Miss Caren, who can’t stand any dirt on her person, who doesn’t want to play outside because she might get dirty, wants to garden?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It made me shake my head in disbelief. Marta questioned her about it, warned her about the dirt, but she wants to visit the garden. Connie wants to see it, too.”
“That’s easier to believe.” Of the two twins, Connie was the more adventurous. She was the one who, at nineteen months old, found a bug in the backyard and ate it. Granted, she was a toddler when it happened, but of the two girls, Connie was the daredevil.
Jon turned into the Mission apartment complex. They knocked on the doors of several of the apartments around Peter Burkstrom’s place. At the third apartment, a young woman answered the door. After they identified themselves, Jon asked, “How well did you know Peter Burkstrom?”
“I moved into my place about seven months ago,” the woman said. “I’d just moved here from Dumas, a little town in the Texas Panhandle, and didn’t know anyone. Pete helped me move in.”
“Were you close?” Dave asked.
She shrugged. “We were friendly, but we didn’t date, if that’s what you’re asking.” She leaned close. “He was a little too old for me.”
Dave threw Jon a grin.
“No, that’s not what we wanted to know,” said Jon. “Did anything unusual happen around here recently, anything involving Mr. Burkstrom? Any falling-out with neighbors, fights? Or was he acting strangely?”
She thought for several minutes and said, “You know, about a month ago, I saw Pete arguing with a man out in the parking lot. I thought they were going to start throwing punches, but then the other guy pointed his finger at Peter, said something, turned around and disappeared around the corner of the apartment building. I saw a dark green car drive out a minute later. It was a very expensive car.”
“Do you remember the license plate?” asked Dave.
She shook her head. “But it was a luxury convertible. Black. It’s my dream car.”
Jon handed her a business card. “If you think of anything else or see anything suspicious, call us.”
She took the card and put it in a front pocket of her jeans. Jon and Dave finished canvassing the area. No one else answered their knock.
Checking his watch, Jon said, “Let’s stop by Sunbelt Securities and see if that armored car is back.”
“A little earlier than planned? You want to catch them off guard?”
The best way to catch people covering up evidence was showing up unexpectedly. They wanted to see if anyone at the armored car company needed to hide something.
“Let’s go,” Jon said.
“Mom, Mom,” Penny yelled, running toward Lilly, who rolled up the garden hose. “Can I go home with Ann? Her mom says we can swim this afternoon and then make snow cones.”
Tuesdays were the days that Ann and her mom helped in the church garden. When Lilly was first hired as the church’s secretary, manager and gardener by the new young pastor, he told her he wanted to reach out to the neighborhood. He’d come up with the idea to use the side yard of the church for a community garden.
The garden’s success had stunned all of them. Young couples from the neighborhood helped with the garden, then started coming to church. Ann and her parents lived close to the church and helped regularly with the garden. At the end of the growing season, they passed out fresh vegetables to the neighbors. It had been a wonderful ministry. And it had brought many people into the church who had heard about Jesus.
“You’re going to desert me?” Lilly asked her daughter. “And I’m not going to get a snow cone?”
Penny laughed. “I bet you could come and have snow cones with us.” She looked over her shoulder at her friend.
Ann’s mom stood behind her daughter. “Since they worked so hard today, I thought an afternoon in the pool was what they needed.”
“Can I, Mom?” Penny turned on her acting ability and played a poor, deserving soul.
Lilly nodded. “Okay, but—”
The girls’ shrieks filled the air.
“You don’t have your bathing suit,” Lilly said.
Penny’s expression fell.
“Ann has several suits,” Ann’s mom said. “Penny can use one of them.”
Her father’s death had knocked Penny for a loop. This was the first time since Peter’s death that Lilly had seen her daughter excited. “Okay.”
Penny hugged her mother’s waist. “You’re the best, Mom.”
“I’ll be at Ann’s house at six,” Lilly said.
“Okay,” Penny agreed. The girls bounced around.
“You can have my new suit,” Ann told Penny as they walked away.
Ann’s mom walked behind the girls, shaking her head.
With her daughter occupied this afternoon, Lilly could go to Peter’s apartment and continue packing his things up.
After letting the pastor know where she was going, she left the church. The drive to Peter’s place took less than ten minutes.
She’d talked with Pastor Kent about what to do with Peter’s things. He’d found several needy families in the parish that could use clothes, dishes and a television. All she needed to do was go through Peter’s things and see what she might want to save for Penny.
She pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex and found a spot near Peter’s apartment. Pulling boxes out of the backseat, she wrestled them up the stairs. She fumbled with Penny’s key and dropped it. Picking it up, she unlocked the door and dragged the boxes into the living room. As she turned around, she spotted a man hiding behind the door.
Before she could yell, his fist shot out, hitting her on the chin, and darkness descended.
FOUR
S omething gnawed at his gut. Jon flexed his hands on the steering wheel of their police-issue sedan, trying to sort through the tension. He’d learned a long time ago not to ignore his instincts.
“What is it?” Dave asked.
Jon threw his partner a glance. “What?”
“You’ve got that look.”
He could try to deny it, but Dave and Jon had been partners long enough to read each other’s body language. “Something’s wrong.”
“Well, that clears things up.”
“You’ve followed hunches, and I’ve not complained,” Jon retorted.
“Yeah.”
“Before we pay Sunbelt a surprise visit, let’s run back to Peter’s apartment. Maybe we need to talk to the manager about that incident the neighbor mentioned. See if he has a tape of the incident.”
Dave didn’t hesitate or complain. “Let’s go.”
Jon turned the car around and headed toward Peter’s place. It was only a couple of streets away from their current position.
When they arrived at the apartment complex, Jon spotted Lilly’s car parked in the lot. Suddenly a man ran out of Peter’s second-story apartment and raced toward the stairs.
Jon slammed the car into Park, jerked the keys out of the ignition, and both men ran toward the stairs. The man spotted them, turned on the stairs and ran back up them. On the second floor, he darted in the opposite direction from Peter’s place.
“I’ve got him,” Dave yelled, reaching the second-floor landing.
Jon raced up the steps and to the open door of Peter’s apartment. “Lilly,” he yelled.
Inside the door, he saw Lilly sprawled on the floor. He knelt by her side and swept a glance over her body. She didn’t have any obvious wounds, and there was no blood. It was a good sign, but he’d encountered more than one murder victim who had died of internal injuries. Carefully, he ran his hands over her torso and limbs, searching for any hidden wounds. Finding nothing to cause him alarm, he ran his hands over her head. She wasn’t bleeding, but he noticed the red welt on her chin.
“Lilly, wake up.” He gently ran his hands through her hair.
She moaned. Jon welcomed the sound.
“C’mon, Lilly. Open your eyes.” He brushed away the hair from her face.
Her eyes fluttered open.
He let out the breath that he’d been holding. Thank You, Lord, he thought.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked in a quiet voice.
She tried to focus on his face. He saw her struggle to make sense of things. Finally, things snapped into place. “My jaw feels like an elephant sat on it.” She tried to smile, but winced instead.
She struggled to sit up. Jon helped her.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I came to finish packing up Pete’s clothes and things. When I opened the door and stepped into the living room, a man appeared behind me and punched. That’s the last thing I remember.” She tried to get up.
Jon caught her arm, helping her to stand. He directed her to a kitchen chair. “Take a moment to gather yourself.”
“How is she?” Dave asked from the doorway. Jon glanced at his partner. Dave shook his head, letting Jon know that the suspect had got away. He motioned to Lilly. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine. I just got punched in the face,” Lilly answered. She moved her jaw and winced.
Jon went to the refrigerator and removed several ice cubes from the ice bin. He took a kitchen towel, wrapped the ice cubes in it and brought it over to Lilly. “Here. Put that on your chin.”
She took the towel and followed his suggestion. “What does the guy who did this to me want?” she asked after a minute.
That was the burning question that Jon was mulling. “Obviously, whoever he is, he’s looking for something he hasn’t yet found, and he came back to look for it again.”
“I don’t understand.” She put the towel on the table. “Pete doesn’t have anything worth taking.”
“You sure?” Dave asked. “He wasn’t into anything illegal?”
Lilly shook her head. “I don’t know. But it wouldn’t make sense given the fact that there were so many signs that he took his faith seriously. Penny commented recently that her daddy had started reading her children’s Bible to her when she spent the weekends.”
Jon pointed to the towel with the ice and pointed at her chin. “Keep it on your face. You don’t want Penny to see her mom with a huge bruise on her face.”
She obeyed and placed the towel on her chin again.
Jon sat down at the table. “Whoever was in here today, yesterday, and at your house yesterday is looking for something. We need to figure out what it is, because it looks like this guy isn’t going to quit until he gets what he wants. Do you have any idea what this person is looking for?”
Worry colored Lilly’s eyes, turning them deep chocolate. “I don’t know.”
Jon placed his hand over hers. The electricity that ran up his arm shocked him. He pulled his hand back. “Can you call someone to come and help you with things here at the apartment? I’d feel a lot better if someone was here with you. And I know Penny would appreciate it, too.”
He got the smile out of her that he wanted.
“Who can you call?” Jon asked, pressing the matter. They weren’t leaving until someone was here with Lilly.
“I can ask the pastor to come and help me. And he knows several people who would gladly help.”
“Then do that. Dave and I will stay here until someone arrives.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested.
“I do.” Jon’s tone made it clear that he would brook no argument. “Remember the condition of your house?”
He had a point. They didn’t know what was going on and until they did, there was danger.
“You got security cameras?” Jon asked Mark Rodgers, the owner and manager of the apartment complex.
“There are a couple in the parking lot, but the security tapes are erased after a couple of weeks.”
“Let us have what you’ve got,” said Jon.
Rodgers hesitated. “You going to bring them back?”
Jon glared at him.
Rodgers shrugged. “Hey, they’re expensive.”
“File it with the insurance company,” Dave told him.
Rodgers didn’t look happy, but he walked back into his office. He reappeared a few minutes later with seven tapes. “I use one a day and have one for each day of the week.”
“If you keep two weeks worth of tape, how come you only have seven tapes?” Jon asked.
“Because, the tapes are not on all the time. I have the tapes running only when the tenants go to work and come home,” Rodgers explained.
It wasn’t an uncommon practice. They’d be lucky if the argument Peter had in the parking lot was caught on tape, but miracles still did happen.
“Hey, do I get a receipt for those tapes?” Rodgers asked.
Jon stepped into Rodger’s office, looked around the man’s desk, saw an envelope, turned it on its back and wrote a receipt.
“That’s my electric bill,” Rogers complained from the doorway.
“It’s also your receipt. Don’t lose it.” Jon slapped it down on the desk.
Jon and Dave headed for the patrol car.
“You’ve got to work on your technique,” Dave muttered, trying to hide his smile.
Jon threw him a look. “He wants his tapes back?”
“We’ve heard stranger things.”
Jon tried to fit the pieces of this case together as he sat behind the wheel without turning the key. “The more we look into Burkstrom’s murder, the more sense Lilly’s words make. I mean about her husband warning her about his death.” Jon glanced at his partner, wondering if they were on the same page.
“You’re right. There seem to be red flags popping up everywhere.”
“Let’s go to Sunbelt and see if anyone knows a reason why Burkstrom was murdered.”
It took only ten minutes to drive to the offices of Sunbelt Securities. One of the managers, Bryon Sands, whom they’d talked to earlier, looked up from his desk.
“Detectives? Aren’t you early?” He glanced at his watch. “The guys are still out on their run.”
“We thought we might stop by and see if the team might’ve finished earlier,” Jon explained.
Bryon Sands stood and walked to the counter separating the desks from the lobby. “Car fourteen isn’t back yet. They’re still out doing their morning run.”
“Aren’t they running a little late?” Jon asked. “One-thirty is late for a lunch break.”
Sands glanced down at his watch again. “It is, but sometimes our customers run late or change their mind. The team radioed in and told us they were about a half hour behind their normal schedule. I’ve radioed their morning clients about the delay.”
“Since that team is going to be late, we’d like to interview some of the other teams and see if they can tell us anything,” Jon announced.
Sands didn’t look happy. “Sure. Drive around back and talk to whomever you need to.”
The detectives walked back to their car.
Dave met Jon’s gaze over the roof of the car. “We have a reluctant boss. Why?”
“I wonder if we’ll get to talk to all the team members,” Jon replied. They glanced around the lot. An armored car drove in and pulled into the garage. “Maybe we should check out who is on that team.”
“I like your thinking.”
The detectives walked around the building to the garage. Several armored cars were parked at the loading dock and inside the garage. They could hear the men joking with each other. Jon and Dave walked up the concrete steps to the loading dock. One of the men looked up and his hand went to his sidearm.
“We’re Albuquerque police detectives,” Jon offered to disarm the situation. He pulled out his police ID and showed it to the man.
The man let his arm drop.
Jon said, “We’re here to ask a few questions about Peter Burkstrom.”
“He worked here only a couple of months,” the man offered.
“And he wasn’t on our team,” another man replied. He sat on a wooden box. Several other boxes had been pulled up to an old table. Three other men sat around the table. A couple of men stood behind it.
“We realize that,” said Dave. “But we wanted to see if any of you might recall some incident where Peter might have had a problem with someone?”
Jon stood back and carefully watched the reactions of the men. Most of the men shook their heads, but one man in the back shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t offer any explanation, but Jon wanted to talk to him.
Jon and Dave pulled each of the men aside to talk to them privately. The third man Jon interviewed was the man who had aroused his suspicions.
“Do you know anyone who might’ve had something against Burkstrom?” Jon asked.
The man hesitated.
“If you know anything, no matter how insignificant, tell me. It might be the key to Pete’s death.”
“About a month ago, Pete had a bad argument with one of his team members.”
“Who was that?”
“His name is Jimmy Hughes. When they got back from a run, Jimmy jumped all over Pete, calling him stupid and saying that if ‘that’ happened again, he would report Pete to the office.”
“You don’t know what the argument was about?” Jon asked, pressing.
“No, and when I tried to talk to Pete about it, he told me it was nothing and not to worry about it.”
“Did anything else happen?”
The man shook his head. “No. I watched Pete and Jimmy after that, but whatever their differences were, they seemed to patch it up.”
“Thanks.”
The man shrugged and walked away.
Before Jon could talk to Dave, the armored car they’d been waiting for drove up. The team of four men piled out of the vehicle.
“I could eat your and my lunch,” one of the men on the team commented.
They walked up the steps and greeted the other men.
“It looks like a funeral in here. What’s wrong?” the hungry man commented.
Jon stepped forward. “Detective Sandoval and I are here to talk to you about Pete Burkstrom.”
None of the team members who’d just arrived looked happy or willing to talk.
Jon and Dave each took an employee aside and started questioning them.
A few minutes later, Jon studied Jimmy Hughes. “Did you like Peter Burkstrom?”
Jimmy glanced at one of his teammates, who was talking to Dave.
Jon didn’t push him. The man had something to say, and he needed the space to say it.
“No.” Jimmy looked down at his hands.
“You wanted him dead?”
Jimmy’s head jerked up. “No. He was killed in a robbery gone bad.”
“Maybe not.”
The color drained from Jimmy’s face. “You blowing smoke?”
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Leann Harris
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: If I die, it won′t be an accident. At the time, Lilly Burkstrom brushed aside her ex-husband′s words. Then he dies–"accidentally"–in a convenience store robbery, and she starts to wonder. Turning to the police doesn′t help. They don′t see the danger closing in on her, not even when someone breaks into her house and her ex-husband′s apartment.Only Detective Jonathan Littledeer understands her fears, having lost his own family. He′s determined to keep the single mom safe. He′s not going to let another «accident» claim Lilly or her daughter before he can bring the killer′s guarded secrets to light.