Circle of Influence (A Zoe Chambers Mystery) (17 page)

“Who?”

“McBirney.”

Logan shook his head. “Nobody’s here. Why? Do you expect him to come back and try again?”

“He
was
back. He came out to the barn.”

Logan ran his hands through already tousled hair and his Adam’s apple rode the wave of a hard swallow. “Was he alone?”

Was he? “I didn’t see anyone with him.”

“Where’s Allison?”

“She and Patsy are riding.”

He gave a quick nod. “Good.”

“What’s wrong?” Zoe looked past him to the computer. The monitor was black. “Did you find something?”

“No.” He said it fast. Maybe too fast. “Nothing.”

“But you’ve shut it down?” Why was he calling it quits so early? She’d expected him to be digging through the old files until she had to run him out so she could go to work.

“Yeah. Uh, something’s come up. With a friend of mine. He—uh—needs my help with something. I gotta go. Now.” He reached for his coat on the sofa.

“Logan, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Again, his response came too fast.

“Logan?”

“Are you all right? I mean, did McBirney do anything to you? Do you want me to call Chief Adams for you?”

“You’re ducking my question. You found something. What?”

“Seriously. Nothing.” Logan shook his head. “I’ll come back tomorrow and look some more. Okay?” He tugged on his coat and headed for the back door.

“What about your sister?” Zoe called after him.

“Can you give her a ride home?” he asked without turning.

What was wrong with this kid? “Of course I can.”

He paused and met her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? ‘Cause if McBirney hurt you again…”

Zoe spotted Ted’s protective nature in Logan’s clenched jaw. “I’m fine.”

Logan forced a tight smile and closed the door behind him.

Merlin materialized from nowhere and wound around Zoe’s ankles. She scooped him up and rubbed his ears while she wandered into the office. What the hell was on that computer?

She deposited the cat onto her recliner and eased into the office chair. Drawing a breath, she punched the power button.

SIXTEEN

Pete clicked his pen and flipped open his notebook. “Were you and Ted having an affair?”

Marcy’s good eye grew wide. “No.” She lowered her face and her hair fell forward over it again. “But apparently that’s what Jerry thought. Since he was sleeping around, he figured I must be, too.”

This was news to Pete. “McBirney was cheating on you?”

She drew a deep breath. “Yes. With that lawyer woman.”

“Elizabeth Sunday?”

“Uh-huh.” Marcy peered up at him, a sheepish grin playing on her lips. “You probably think it serves me right.”

He hadn’t been going to say it. But now that she mentioned it…“No, I wouldn’t…”

“Sure you would. And you’d be right. My marriage to Jerry has been a nightmare right from the start. He was all charm and expensive gifts until we returned home from our honeymoon. Then he had to control my every move. He had to know about everyone I talked to…who I saw. He called me on my cell phone twenty times a day, and heaven help me if I let it go to voicemail.”

Pete reached across his desk and swept her hair away from the black eye. “And this?”

Marcy ducked from his touch, letting her hair obscure her swollen face again. “Oh, he was never physically abusive before. Well. Not really.”

Pete’s jaw ached from the tension. “You mean nothing this blatant before.” He fought back a vision of his own hands around McBirney’s throat.

She ran her tongue over her lips. “I wasn’t having an affair with Ted. But I was seeing him.”

“Seeing him?”

“I wanted to leave Jerry. But I was afraid. I knew if I just walked out, he’d track me down.”

She didn’t say that Jerry would track her down
and kill her
, but Pete sensed that was what she believed.

“We had that little field fire out at our farm last fall. Remember? Well, Ted was one of the firemen who responded. After it was out, he and I struck up a conversation of sorts while they were putting their equipment away. Anyway, he asked me how things were with Jerry. I didn’t say anything, but he must have read my mind.” Marcy picked at one of her cuticles. “Ted confided in me about what Jerry had done to Zoe and said he was worried about me.”

Zoe? What had McBirney done to Zoe? Next time Pete talked to her, he intended to get answers instead of letting his feelings for her distract him.

“We agreed to meet for coffee. I talked. He listened. He had connections in county protective services, and he put me in touch with a discreet divorce attorney.” Marcy’s voice wavered. “I was making plans to leave Jerry, and Ted was helping me. That’s all. There was no affair. But one of Jerry’s cronies spotted us together and told him. That was last week.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

Last week. And Monday night, Ted’s body was found in McBirney’s car.

Pete grabbed a box of tissues from the bookcase behind him and set it on the desk. “Who else knew about Ted helping you?”

Marcy plucked a tissue from the box and shook her head. “No one.”

“Not even Rose?”

“Oh, yes.” She dabbed at her tears. “Rose knew.”

“Sylvia?”

“No. I gave Ted permission to tell his wife only because I know firsthand what secrets can do to a marriage.” She caught his eye for a moment. “But otherwise, he promised to keep it confidential.”

“What do you know about Monday night?”

“Nothing. I was supposed to meet with Ted after the supervisors meeting, but he never showed up. I figured the snow—” Her voice broke, and she pressed the tissue to her mouth and nose.

“Did you try to call him?”

“No. But I wondered why he didn’t call me. At least, I did until you showed up Tuesday morning.”

“What time did you get home?”

“I wasn’t keeping track of time. I think it was around ten or a little after.”

“Was your husband home when you got there?”

“Yes. And he was livid.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Marcy’s left fingers brushed her right upper arm for a moment. “Not really. He broke a lamp, though. Did a lot of screaming. And he made some threats.”

“Against Ted?”

“Against me.”

Pete didn’t realize he was clenching his fists until his pen snapped. Marcy flinched.

“Sorry.” He tossed the broken one in the trash and snatched a new one from his desk drawer. “So McBirney was there at ten.”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure of the time, but it was about then. Yeah.”

“What about the Buick?”

“Huh?”

“Was the Buick there?” How hard a question was it? Yes or no?

Her mouth hung open, and her good eye flitted from one side to the other. Creases deepened in her forehead. “I don’t know. It was dark. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Damn it. “Okay. Forget about that for a moment. What do you know about the computer?”

“What computer?”

Pete almost snapped a second pen. “The one your husband demanded Sylvia be arrested for stealing.”

“I don’t really know anything about it. Jerry never talks about his work to me. All I know is what everyone else does. From the news.”

Pete studied her for indicators of a lie. The physical evidence of battery masked his usual keen ability to read her face. “What about the break-in at the station?”

“I heard about it. That’s all.”

“When was the last time you came here?”

“To your office?”

“To the station in general.”

Her brow puckered into a puzzled frown. “Not since…I haven’t been here since before our divorce.”

“Don’t suppose you shared your knowledge of the station’s security with your husband, did you?”

“What? No. Pete, what are you getting at? You think Jerry had something to do with that, too?”

He leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows at her in a silent version of “do you?”

Marcy stared at him, her face registering shock. But it dissolved and softened into something resembling surrender. “A week or two ago, I’d have said no way. Now I don’t have a clue who I’m married to. But if he had any insider information on station security, he didn’t get it from me. Besides, I’m sure you changed everything since I worked here.”

Pete rocked forward. He made a silent vow. From now on, he was going to change those codes every other week.

“You’re going to arrest Jerry, aren’t you?” she said. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but now I know for certain that he killed Ted. Because of me.” She buried her face and gave way to hiccupping sobs.

Adrenaline pumped through Pete. Jerry McBirney had motive. The victim’s body was found in his car. And now he no longer had an alibi.

Pete’s phone rang. Ordinarily, Sylvia would have answered it, and Pete considered letting it go to voicemail. But some locals had never grasped the concept of dialing 9-1-1 for emergencies.

“Excuse me,” he said to Marcy as he answered the call.

“Chief? This is Cyril Ramsey.”

Ramsey worked with the township’s road department. “Yeah, Cyril. What can I do for you?”

“I’m in the plow, out here on Cowden Road about a quarter mile east of the McBirney farm, and I’ve found a pickup truck over a hill. No one’s in it. Must’ve slid off the road on the ice.”

The adrenaline kicked up a notch. Pete flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “You got a license plate number on that truck?”

“Yep.”

As Ramsey rattled off the number, Pete matched it to the one Rose had given him. “I’ll be right there. Don’t touch anything.”

“Yes, sir, Chief.”

Pete hung up. Ted’s truck. A quarter mile from the McBirney farm. And no other houses around. If Ted had run off the road there, and had to walk…

“Yeah,” Pete said to Marcy. “I’m going to arrest your husband.”

Zoe longed for the day to be over.

The computer yielded nothing. The new software permitted her to open files listing tax records of all the township residents including Social Security numbers. Had she been interested in stealing anyone’s identity, she’d have been in heaven. She spent over an hour scanning files, and other than being surprised by some of the locals’ stated income, she found nothing of significance.

Nothing worth killing for.

She shut the computer down when Allison came in through the kitchen door. She carried muddy boots, and her cheeks glowed pink from the cold.

“Did you have a good ride?”

“It was okay, I guess. We saw a deer.”

“I’m jealous.” Damn that Jerry McBirney. On top of everything else, he’d mucked up her chance to get in the saddle on a gorgeous winter day. “Next time, I’m coming with you.”

“Whatever.” Allison deposited her boots on the rug next to the back door. “Where’s Logan?”

Good question. The boy’s sudden exit had left a nagging ache in Zoe’s gut. “He had to leave. I’m going to drop you off at home on my way to work. Speaking of which, I need to change into my uniform.”

Allison plopped into a chair and pulled out her cell phone.

When Zoe came back downstairs wearing her light blue shirt and navy blue trousers with pockets up and down both legs, Allison looked up from the phone. “Could you drop me off at my friend Bethany’s house? It’s right on Main Street in Phillipsburg.”

Zoe studied the girl. She appeared more relaxed than she had since this all began. The ride and fresh air had done her good. “I don’t know. Your mom—”

“Call her. It’ll be okay. Mom likes Bethany.”

“All right.” Zoe picked up the phone, harboring a healthy dose of skepticism.

Rose’s mother answered on the first ring. She informed Zoe that Rose was asleep thanks to some pills the doctor had given her.

“Bethany?” Mrs. Bertolotti said. “Oh, yes. She and Allison have been friends since grade school. Of course you can drop her off there. Just tell her to call when she’s ready to come home.”

“Okay. Um…” Zoe hesitated to ask, but couldn’t help it. “Is Logan there, by any chance?”

“Logan? No. He called about an hour ago to say he’d be late. Why?”

“Nothing.” As long as he’d checked in. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, dear.”

By the time Zoe dropped Allison at her friend’s front door and pulled into a space in the parking lot across the road from the ambulance garage, the sun had settled low on the western horizon, and the temperature had tanked. In the minutes it took to bustle across the street and into the office, her eyelashes had about frozen.

Trish, the Northern Monongahela County EMS dayshift secretary, was gathering her purse and coat. “Hey, Zoe. Looks like you’re in for a busy night. Medic One is en route to Brunswick with a full cardiac arrest and Medic Two just pulled out on their way to a traffic accident on Millers Hollow Road. So you and Earl are up for the next one.”

Zoe thanked her. And hoped Trish was right about the busy night. Back-to-back calls all night long might keep her mind off things.

Pete adjusted the angle of the beam of light the lamp threw on his workbench. The carving on the Jaeger’s stock wasn’t turning out the way he pictured it in his mind. But why should this be any different than everything else in his life?

He’d spent most of the afternoon overseeing the retrieval of Bassi’s Ford pickup from where it had rested, almost on its side, over an embankment. Only a half-rotted fencepost kept it from rolling further down the hillside. It was little wonder no one spotted it sooner.

Any evidence outside the truck had been obliterated by the snow. After having the Ford towed back to the township garage, Pete went over the interior of the vehicle, bagging a variety of fibers and hairs, as well as lifting dozens of fingerprints. Unlike the Buick, this vehicle hadn’t been wiped clean. Before he’d even had a chance to finish processing the Ford, one of Baronick’s cronies had shown up to take possession of the evidence.

Pete set down the chisel he’d been using and fingered the others nesting in an old wooden box next to the muzzleloader. Making a selection, he inspected the blade and tested its sharpness on his thumb.

The phone jangled. He flinched, and a tiny pin drop of blood appeared where the chisel pierced his skin. Guess that one didn’t need sharpening after all. He replaced it in its box and reached to answer the phone.

“Chief,” came Kevin’s voice. “I’ve got a 2008 Chevy Malibu, registered to Jerry McBirney, parked behind Rodeo’s Bar on King’s Hollow Road.”

“Do you have McBirney?”

“No, sir. The bartender says McBirney was in earlier, but left around four-thirty p.m. No one here’s seen him since.”

Pete checked his watch. Quarter of seven. Damn it. His head throbbed. “I’ll be right there.”

He strapped his gun belt on over his jeans and checked his Glock before securing it in its holster. Grabbing a bulky pair of gloves, he slipped into his heavy black jacket.

Pete hated winter. The night air felt every bit as sharp as his chisel’s blade and cut into his lungs with each breath. He cranked the SUV’s heater onto high, but he was pulling in beside Kevin’s cruiser before the first hint of warmth reached him.

The Malibu sat alone next to the dumpster behind the bar. Most of the establishment’s patrons parked in the well-lit lot out front. Why was McBirney parked back here?

“No sign of him,” the officer said as soon as Pete climbed out of his vehicle, flashlight in hand.

Pete aimed the light at the Malibu’s windows and then at the ground. The area had been cleared of snow.

“No footprints,” Kevin said. “And no one inside the car. I’ve tried calling McBirney’s cell phone, but no answer. I called his home. Mrs. McBirney states she hasn’t seen or heard from her husband since this morning.”

Something didn’t feel right. Had McBirney left the bar with someone else? Pete strolled around the car, checking each of the doors. All locked. He aimed the light through the driver’s window. “The keys are inside.”

“Huh.” Kevin frowned. “Could be he locked his keys in the car and had to go get another set.”

“Possible. Except wouldn’t he have called his wife if he needed a spare car key? You just said she hasn’t heard from him.”

“We need a warrant to search it,” Kevin said.

As if Pete needed to be reminded. “I’m not going to search it. I’m going to wait until McBirney comes back and arrest his ass for murder.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go inside and get me a coffee. Then you can get back on patrol.”