Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (18 page)

After breakfast, Ellmann packed his
case files and went to work. I left the dishes in the sink and went up to the
office. I reviewed my notes and started mapping out a plan for the day. My
first move was to finish the research I’d been doing last night.

I logged back on to
the Sideline database and typed in “Lyle Young.” He had been arrested at the
same time as Todd Lindgren, also for theft. Sideline had handled both bonds. I
read through what information was available. Nothing much was helpful aside
from a notation at the end of his file that listed three known aliases for him.
I wrote them down and searched each one in the database. Nothing came back.
Next, I searched Andrew Dyer, the third name associated with the house Young
owned. Nothing popped.

I brought up Google
and searched for both men and all known aliases. Toward the bottom of the page,
I found a link to an article in a British newspaper for one of Young’s aliases.
I read through the article and learned he’d been investigated by Scotland Yard
for involvement in the theft of a one-of-a-kind diamond that had been on
display in the British Museum. The article never gave any indication about his
guilt, and I couldn’t find any details about whether or not he’d been arrested.

I added this new
information to my notes then looked them over. I went back to the page where
I’d listed what I knew about Danielle Dillon. I had no idea how this stuff
about Lyle Young fit into anything or connected to her. And maybe it didn’t.
With the story I told Ellmann about Martha Porter protecting her granddaughters
still in my mind, I noticed I’d left the sister off my list. Donna had told me
the sister’s name was Desirae Dillon. So far, I hadn’t done any looking into her.
No stone unturned and all that, I typed Desirae’s name into the Sideline
database. I wasn’t surprised when nothing came up.

I tried Google, and
half a dozen
Coloradoan
articles came back. I opened the first one and
found it outlined the arrest of a teenage girl named Desirae Dillon who was
suspected of setting her aunt’s house on fire. The aunt and her husband had
managed to escape without serious injury, but the structure was totally
destroyed. A few of the articles were associated with that case.

The next one I found
reported that a twenty-year-old man had been burned alive in his home ten years
ago. His girlfriend, Desirae Dillon, eighteen, was wanted for questioning by
the police for her possible involvement in his death. A third article described
the death of a fifty-year-old mother of five. She’d been found dead in her
kitchen, her body horribly mutilated, including by fire. The woman had fired
Desirae Dillon from her place of business earlier in the week, and Dillon was
wanted for questioning by the police for her suspected involvement.

I was getting a
picture of Desirae Dillon. Of the three types abused people become, she was the
first kind. She became the abuser. Her righteous and justifiable anger had gone
unchecked and morphed into something hideous and deadly.

Feeling like this new
information only confused things rather than clarified them, I grabbed my keys
and left.

It was only just after
eight, but it was already sixty degrees. Without watching the weatherman, I
knew it was going to be hot. I rolled up the sides of the soft top then cruised
over to the bonds office. I found Amerson coming out of a meeting with Meeker
and Sands. The fact that it was Saturday seemed to mean nothing to them.

“Grey, tell me you
brought me a body receipt.”

“Actually, I did,” I
said, holding up a slip of paper and falling in step beside him.

“Is that Dillon’s?”

“No.”

“Dix’s?”

“Cole’s.”

“I want Dillon’s. And
Dix’s.”

“Yeah, well, easier
said than done.”

“Dillon I can
understand,” he said as he went into his office and sat down at his desk. “But
what about Dix? The kid’s like ten years old and weighs a hundred pounds.”

This is a guy thing.
The entire world is laid out before them in a series of obstacles, challenges,
problems. Each task is a matter of solving the next problem. Problems, then,
are reduced to their basic elements. It makes them easier to solve.
Unfortunately, the reality was that Dix was not such a simple problem to solve.

I sat across from
Amerson.

“That may be true, but
he’s proving to be a little craftier than I originally anticipated. But don’t
worry, I’ll get him.”

He nodded. “You always
do. What happened to your face?”

“Cole.”

“Hmm. What I’m really
worried about is Danielle Dillon. Time’s running out. Where is she?”

“That’s what I’m
working on. I need some information.”

“You realize you only
have until six a.m. tomorrow to ‘work on it,’ right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can
you get me a couple addresses?”

I’d used Ellmann’s
phone earlier to call the Burbank house and the McKinnon house in order to find
out where each man was going to be today. I was told Burbank would be at his
office for part of the day and after that I could find him at the Country Club.
Mrs. Burbank had not been very forthcoming with additional information, like
where her husband worked. I asked Amerson for Henry Burbank’s place of
employment.

Amerson found it, and
I wrote it down. Mr. McKinnon was supposed to be home all day, but while I was
here, I had Amerson find a work address for him, too.

I thanked him then got
up to leave.

“I don’t suppose you
have a better picture of Dillon somewhere, do you?” I asked offhandedly.

“I might be able to
pull up the photos from her arrest,” he answered as he typed a few commands.

“What?” I stopped and
turned around.

I walked around the
desk and watched over his shoulder as he brought up the pictures. I could see
the resemblance between the girl in these photos and the mug shot I’d been
flashing around, but that’s all there was: a resemblance. No wonder no one had
recognized her. I could see now Dillon had not escaped her encounter with
Vandreen unscathed. Much like Mrs. Vandreen and the four foster children,
Dillon had bruises all over her face, arms, and torso. Amerson picked two, a
frontal shot and a profile, that seemed to show the least amount of bruising,
and printed them.

“That’s not the
picture in the file you gave me,” I said, pointing to the computer screen. “Why
didn’t the file include a current mug shot?”

He shrugged. “We only
get what the courts give us. I have no idea why they didn’t use a current
photo. It might be because she’s all banged up in these, and once the bruises
cleared it would have been hard to know it was her.”

“That is the stupidest
thing I’ve heard.”

He retrieved the
photos from the printer and handed them to me. “Then I don’t know what else to
tell you except
tick, tock.
”

“Bite me.” I snatched
the printouts and hit the door. “And pay me for Cole! I want my three hundred
bucks.”

__________

My first stop was the Budweiser
brewery. Henry Burbank was the CEO and had been for many years. I found a
parking spot near the back of the lot and went inside. It was Saturday and must
have been a big day for tours because the place was packed. I hoped Burbank was
still here; I really didn’t want to visit him at the Country Club.

After talking to three
different people, I was finally led to Mr. Burbank’s office. It was large and
plush and masculine, like you would expect. There was also Budweiser
paraphernalia everywhere. Inside a display case in the corner of the room was a
two-foot statue. It was similar to the one I’d see in his house.

“Now, how can I help
you, young lady?”

He was dressed
casually in slacks and a polo shirt, ready for an afternoon at the club. He
lowered himself to the chair behind the desk then picked up a long cigar and
stuck it between his teeth, unlit. I sat in a chair across the desk and handed
him a card.

“Do you know anyone
named Danielle Dillon?” I asked after I introduced myself.

He thought a moment
then shook his head. “No. Should I?”

“What about this
woman? Do you recognize her?” I passed the new photos Amerson had printed
across the desk.

Burbank barely had to
look at them.

“You’re a private
investigator, did you say?” he asked. “Did my wife hire you?”

“No.” I repeated the
part about who I am and what I do. “Why would you ask if I’m a private
investigator hired by your wife?”

“This girl,” he said,
tipping his head at the photo lying on the desk in front of him. “I saw her
around the house a couple times. My wife was sure I’d brought her home, accused
me of sleeping with her. She just wouldn’t believe me. I thought maybe she’s
checking up on me.”

“Well, if she is, she
didn’t hire me. You say this girl was at your house?”

“Yeah. Saw her two or
three times. I thought she was working in the house, but she must not have been
considering my wife was sure I’d brought her over. Now, come on,” he said,
leaning back in his chair. “If I was going to stick it to somebody else, would
I bring her to
my
house while my
wife
was home? I swear,
sometimes the woman doesn’t even think.”

“Do you remember when
you saw her?” I didn’t want the conversation to veer off into
marriage-counseling territory, though between you and me, he made a good point.

“Uh, let me think.” He
tipped his head back against the chair, looking at the ceiling and gnawing on
the cigar. “Must have been a year ago, you know, give or take. Last summer, I
think.”

“If it was a year ago,
why would you think your wife had waited so long to send a PI after you?”

He shrugged. “She just
mentioned the girl again a couple nights ago.”

Surprise, surprise.
Mrs. Burbank had lied to me.

“She’d been off it for
a while,” he went on, “but I thought maybe she was back on it. That’s all she
goes on about anymore, that
girl
and that
statue.
On and on and
on.”

“Statue?” I asked,
certain I’d regret it.

“The three-foot
Aphrodite statue that was stolen last July. It was her favorite. I didn’t steal
it, but, I swear, she holds me responsible. Like I should have done something
to prevent it. I ask you, what the hell does she want me to do? I pay through
the nose for the state-of-the-art security system she just had to have, which
she doesn’t really know how to use, by the way. We even had a dog for a while.
Had to get rid of that damn thing, though, because he kept biting everyone—her
included. After the third time, she made me take it to the pound. And don’t
even get me started on what I pay to insure all this crap.” He swung an arm in
the direction of the statue in the corner, shaking his head.

I stood, thanked him, and
then hurried out of the office before he said anything else. I was partly to
blame—I’d asked the questions—but I wasn’t convinced he would have kept quiet
if I hadn’t. He seemed like a talker. This was probably why he liked to hang
out at the Country Club. He could smoke cigars and chew the fat with other guys
who were just as irritated and baffled by their wives.

The lobby hadn’t
cleared out by the time I returned, and I bumped into several people as I made
my way to the door. Finally outside, I hiked to the truck then started out of
the parking lot. As I was about to turn out of the lot, a Toyota Camry pulled
in. It squeezed past me then tried to turn into a row at the same time another
car was pulling out. Someone laid on the horn. Out of the corner of my eye, I
glanced that way as I drove out of the lot. Then suddenly I snapped my eyes to
the rearview mirror. The Camry had nearly collided with a silver Cadillac.

I’d only seen the
Cadillac from the side; there was no way to determine the license plate number.
Still, I was pretty sure they were plates I’d already seen. Unfortunately the
windows were so darkly tinted I’d been unable to get a clear look at the
driver.

Keeping my eyes glued
to the mirror, I took the interstate then started working my way back over to
the Burbanks’ house. But I saw no sign of the Cadillac. Was this another
overreaction?

I found the Burbanks’
gate open again and couldn’t help wondering if they ever closed it. Of course,
I was happy to find it open, because I wasn’t sure Mrs. Burbank would open it
for me otherwise. I parked and then went to the door. She answered a short time
later.

“Oh, it’s you again.”
She couldn’t quite keep her nose from turning up as she said the word “you.” “I
told you on the phone, Mr. Burbank is at his office.”

If I’m ever married
someday and refer to my husband that way, someone needs to smack me.

“Yes, I’ve already
been to see him. It’s you I wanted to see.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Well, Mrs. Burbank,”
I said, reaching into my pocket, pulling out the new photos of Dillon, and
holding them out to her. “You lied to me. That’s a pet peeve of mine.”