Circle of Influence (A Zoe Chambers Mystery) (27 page)

He slipped the phone into his pocket and swore under his breath. Logan’s print was on what might prove to be the murder weapon. Baronick would love that. But something felt off about it. 

When Pete returned to Zoe’s office, Sylvia was leaning toward the computer monitor as her fingers danced over the keyboard. Zoe looked up with a glint in her eyes. “Was that anything important?”

“No.” Burdening them with the latest news wouldn’t help at this point. “Did you find something?”

“Maybe.” The tension in Sylvia’s body reminded him of a cat, ready to pounce on a sparrow. 

“Well?”

“Gimme a minute,” she snapped.

He looked at Zoe who shrugged.

Sylvia clicked the mouse, studied the monitor, clicked again, and spent a moment reading what appeared on the screen. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Zoe leaned over her shoulder and Pete edged closer, squinting over Sylvia’s head.

“Crap.” Zoe’s voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

“What?” Pete demanded, fumbling for his glasses.

“I was looking through the local income tax records and noticed that seven or eight years ago, Jerry McBirney’s business was doing a slow nosedive. Then suddenly, everything turned around. As though it had gotten a shot in the arm. I didn’t know what to make of it. Then I started snooping through some of the old e-mails in here.” Sylvia looked up at Zoe, but dodged Pete’s eye.

“And?” he prompted.

“You’re not going to like this,” Sylvia said.

He realized his glasses were in his coat pocket in the other room. “Damn it. Just tell me what the hell you found.”

“Remember the ten thousand dollars that went missing six years ago?”

Of course he remembered. Up until the break in at the station, it had been the single most embarrassing moment of his career. Tax season and the township deposit had vanished. One of his officers had been assigned to take the money to the bank, but no one admitted to seeing it. Or taking it. Pete had interrogated everyone with access to the station. He’d come up empty, but the resulting internal tension led to his two top men, Fanase and Petrucci, leaving the township.

Sylvia drummed her fingers on the mouse pad. “There are a series of e-mails here over a period of a month or so. They’re between Jerry McBirney and…”

“And?”

“Marcy.”

Six years ago. Marcy had still been Pete’s wife. And she’d been assistant police secretary. Sylvia was right. He wasn’t going to like it.

“McBirney complains about his finances and how he needs an influx of capital to get his business back on its feet. Marcy mentions the daily deposit and how it just sits on her desk until an officer picks it up and runs it to the bank.” Sylvia clicked the mouse and read another e-mail. “It’s all here. McBirney put her up to it, but Marcy’s the one who took the money.”

“I vaguely remember this,” Zoe said. “The checks were never recovered, right?”

“Right. The thief probably burned or shredded them. But there was enough cash to give McBirney the boost he claimed to need.” Sylvia shook her head. “Marcy. I can’t believe it. She came to me a couple days after it happened, asking if I had the deposit slip. Claimed since the money wasn’t on her desk, she assumed someone had already taken it to the bank.”

Pete turned away from the computer. Not only had Marcy cheated on him, left him for that son-of-a-bitch McBirney, but she’d stolen money from the township he’d been sworn to protect. When he’d been all of ten feet away in his office. He remembered questioning her about it. But back then he hadn’t believed his wife capable of lying.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s all right here.” Sylvia’s voice had softened. “I’m sorry, Pete.”

No wonder McBirney had wanted the computer back.

“Ted found out, too, didn’t he?” Sylvia said. “He confronted McBirney. That bastard killed my boy to keep his own butt out of jail.”

Her scenario made sense. But it didn’t resolve all the questions spinning through Pete’s mind. If McBirney was the killer, did he have an accomplice? What else was Marcy guilty of? Sweet, vulnerable Marcy. Then, the question Pete knew better than to ask out loud.

Had Logan found these files?

A merry jingle broke the silence, and Sylvia snatched her cell phone from the desk next to the keyboard. “It’s Rose,” she announced.

As Sylvia answered the call, Pete motioned Zoe into the other room.

“If this is what Logan stumbled across, it doesn’t look good, does it?” she whispered.

“No. It doesn’t.” Pete relayed the information about the blood on the clothes.

Zoe squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead. “But we still don’t know for sure. Like you said. DNA will take weeks.”

“A fingerprint they found on the screwdriver belongs to Logan.”

She sunk down onto the sofa and covered her face with her hands.

He longed to reach out and touch her shoulder, but thought better of it. She seemed so fragile at the moment that his mere touch might cause her to crumble to pieces.

Everything that was going wrong in the lives of those he loved traced back to his own failings. As a cop. As a husband. He had to make things right somehow before he offered his heart—or even small comfort—to someone else.

Sylvia staggered through the doorway, her face gray. “Pete, can you drive me to Brunswick Hospital?”

Zoe brushed a hand across her face and leapt to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

Sylvia opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She closed it and licked her lips before trying again. “It’s Allison.”

“Oh, my God.” Zoe grabbed Sylvia’s arm. “What’s happened now?”

“She’s missing. Rose left her in the examination room to get her something to drink and when she came back, Allison was gone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Zoe said.

“No.” Sylvia patted Zoe’s hand. “Rose is upset. It’s better for you to stay here. If Pete will take me.”

Zoe bit her lip. She looked at him, her eyes moist with tears she tried to blink away.

“Of course,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As Sylvia collected her coat and purse, Pete tipped his head to bring his mouth close to Zoe’s ear. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

He responded with a short, noncommittal laugh before grabbing his coat and following Sylvia out the door.

Zoe watched Pete close the back door behind him as he and Sylvia left. Then she sank into her office chair, still warm from Sylvia’s time there. Over the past week, Zoe’s world had imploded around her. In the last hour, it had gasped its last breath. Ted was gone. Logan was most likely responsible for Jerry McBirney’s death. All because she had permitted him to use her computer to play detective.

Detective. Not judge. Not jury. Not hangman.

Damn kid.

Now Allison was sick and missing. Rose was falling to pieces, but didn’t want Zoe around to offer support. Instead, Rose blamed Zoe for everything. And why not? Other than Ted’s murder, she’d had a hand in each and every aspect of Rose’s heartbreak. Not to mention Pete’s suspension.

Merlin sauntered into the room and sprang uninvited into Zoe’s lap. She rubbed a velvety ear between two fingers, and the cat purred in bliss.

“At least you still love me,” she said.

He made two circuits of her lap before settling down for a nap.

Zoe stared at the computer screen and the e-mail message it displayed. McBirney had a lot of nerve, accusing Sylvia of theft of township property.

Another question arose. Why hadn’t she found this series of messages when she’d spent the better part of Tuesday night searching the e-mail archives? Squinting at the screen, she noticed Sylvia had opened a subfolder titled “Personal” that Zoe had overlooked.

What else had she missed?

She rested her hand on the mouse and ran the curser down the list, pausing on one with simple initials for a title. “A.B.” 

Scratching Merlin’s head with her free hand, Zoe clicked on the new discovery.

The list of the inbox messages that popped up was recent. The most current one was dated only a week ago. Logan had claimed he didn’t use the slow, obsolete computer. But someone had.

Zoe stared at the list. She recognized a few of the senders’ names including Bethany, Allison’s friend. So Allison had made use of the computer even if her brother hadn’t.

One of the other names jumped out at her. What the fuck? Zoe scanned down the list. There it was again. And again.

Matt Doaks.

Zoe clicked on one with the subject line “Sexy” and read.

Loved the pix. U R so hot. Can’t wait to C U tonite. Love, Matt.

She gagged. Pictures? She clicked on the Sent folder and found a message from Allison to Matt, dated a few hours prior to the one she’d just read. Subject line: Pix. When Zoe opened the attachment, the image swam in front of her eyes, and she blinked to clear her vision and her mind.

Allison sprawled across a bed, naked, in a pose suitable for
Penthouse
.

Zoe slammed her hand down on the mouse to close the file, but mistakenly opened another. In it, Allison, still nude, had company. Matt.

Zoe didn’t miss this time. She closed the program and shut down the computer.

Had Logan seen those? And if he had, why the hell was Jerry McBirney dead instead of Matt Doaks?

TWENTY-SEVEN

From the corner of his eye, Pete watched Sylvia worry an already shredded tissue. She said nothing the entire ride to Brunswick, but the occasional tear-laden sigh escaped her.

He made a left from Main Street onto Flannigan, which swept in a wide bend before climbing the hill to the hospital’s front entrance. As soon as he came out of the turn, he spotted the pair of Monongahela County police vehicles flanking the driveway and a team of officers blocking it.

Pulling up to them, Pete rolled down his window and showed his badge.

“The hospital is in lockdown,” the senior officer told him. “A teenaged suspect in a homicide may be on the premises, and his sister is missing.”

Sylvia broke into loud sobs.

“I know.” Pete gave the officer a hard scowl. “I have their grandmother with me. Where’s Detective Baronick?”

The officer asked him to stay put and turned away to muffle his conversation over his radio. A moment later, he turned back and directed Pete to a side entrance before ordering the other cops to let him through.

County police vehicles, Brunswick city police, and the Pennsylvania State Police had surrounded the hospital. Officers stood at each door. Flashing red and blue strobes reflected off the building’s marble and glass façade.

“You’d think they had Jack the Ripper cornered here,” Sylvia muttered.

Pete started to tell her the police presence was simply an effort to locate two missing kids. But he knew better than to bullshit Sylvia.

He spotted Baronick standing on the sidewalk, talking on a cell phone and pulled into a spot marked for doctors only.

“Stay here until I find out where Rose is,” he said.

“You just want to find out what’s going on without me being around to hear.”

“A little of that, too. Yeah.”

But she obeyed, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

He climbed out of the car, surprised by the relative warmth of the air. A steady
drip drip
of melting ice and snow from the roof punctuated the rumble of idling engines, the static of radio transmissions, and the murmur of conversation. Pete caught Baronick’s eye as he approached, and the detective held up one finger while he finished his phone call.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Chief.” Baronick tucked his phone into a pocket. “And by that I mean you
shouldn’t
be here.”

“The kids’ mother called Sylvia. I was with her and offered to drive. What’s going on?”

Baronick eyed him askance. “No sign of either of them. We’ve towed the car to the garage to finish processing it. For all we know, the boy never set foot inside the hospital. His sister disappeared from an exam room while the mother stepped outside for a minute. We’ve locked the place down, but so far there’s no sign of her.”

“Where are you keeping Rose?”

“One of the family waiting rooms. But not so fast. It’s your turn. Any chance the grandmother knows anything? Maybe one of the kids called her?”

Pete thought about the old e-mails on the computer. He really didn’t care to share that bombshell with Baronick just yet. “She doesn’t know anything about the whereabouts of either of the kids.” That much was the truth.

“You’re sure?”

“I’d stake my career on it.”

“Have you managed to come up with anything else?”

Pete considered his options. “It’s too soon to tell.”

“Come on, Pete. You know the deal. You’re suspended. I agreed to look the other way when you snoop around, but you have to keep me in the loop.”

“I will. Just give me a chance to ask a few questions. I don’t want to send you off on a wild goose chase.”

Pete watched Baronick’s face. Was he buying it?

“I want to hear from you by tomorrow morning,” the detective said.

”Deal.”

“And then I want everything you have. Wild goose chase or not. Got it?”

“Got it. Now let me get Sylvia in to see her daughter-in-law.”

Pete waved Sylvia over to the door while Baronick hailed one of the county patrol officers to usher them inside.

The police presence was less noticeable once they entered the hospital. “Did you find out anything?” Sylvia whispered as they followed their escort.

“They haven’t seen either Logan or Allison. That’s it.”

“Maybe Logan didn’t have the car. Maybe someone else took it.” A fleeting look of hope crossed her face, but faded to concern. Pete knew she’d followed that thought to a conclusion he’d already considered—one that placed Logan in the position of victim rather than suspect.

They both remained silent until the young officer directed them toward a door with a simple, “In there.”

Pete nodded to him and opened the door for Sylvia.

The small windowless room held two faded sofas, a pair of well-worn upholstered recliners, and a round table surrounded by stained plastic and chrome chairs. A niche in one corner housed a coffee pot and baskets containing packets of sweetener, stirring sticks and creamers. Rose sat slumped on one of the sofas, her mother next to her. Two plainclothes officers occupied the recliners. One of them stood when Pete and Sylvia entered.

Sylvia bustled to Rose’s side, but she didn’t look up.

“Have you heard anything?” Bert asked.

“No. Sorry,” Pete replied.

Sylvia sank into the sofa and rubbed Rose’s back. “You poor child.”

Rose sat up, and Pete tried to remember the last time he’d seen such grief on a person’s face. She opened her mouth to speak, but broke into a wail instead. Bert and Sylvia cradled her from each side, and she folded forward over the blue jacket in her lap.