Dead Certain (9 page)

Rooting around, she found the tool kit that came with the car. She removed the spare tire and rolled it to the front of the car. “Might as well get this over with . . .”

“Do you need a hand there?” The voice seemed to come from nowhere.

Amanda jumped, her fingers tightening around the tire iron. “No, thank you. I can take care of this.”

“Hey, I don’t mind.” The man stepped from around the side of the pickup parked next to her car. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t have to change her own tire. Chivalry ain’t exactly dead, you know.”

“Thanks anyway, but I really can do this for myself.” She turned away and returned to the task at hand.

“Okay. Just trying to be friendly here.”

“I appreciate the offer,” she said, barely looking at him, “but really, I don’t need help. But thank you. It was nice of you to offer.”

“Hey, anytime,” he said somewhat sourly, as if he felt he’d been rudely rebuffed.

A minute later, Amanda heard the pickup roll off, and she slid the jack under her car, her would-be Samaritan already forgotten.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Vince lay back on the bed in his rented room and tried to organize his thoughts. He had a lot on his mind tonight and needed to make sure he had it all straight. He’d had a busy day.

He’d made his first contact with both of his intended victims. He’d only meant to check up on that Marian O’Connor, the one Archer had called the “antiques lady with the big mouth.” She’d been the one who’d called the police that night when Archer had had to teach Amanda who wore the pants in their relationship.

Vince snickered out loud.

Like anyone in their right mind would believe that a woman like Amanda Crosby would be in a relationship with Archer Lowell. Vince had seen her up close and had known right away that she was classy and smart. How deluded would you have to be to really think that a quality broad like her would look twice at a moron like Lowell? Well, that pretty much said it all about Archer, didn’t it?

However, a deal was still a deal, no matter how stupid one of the parties might be. Vince wasn’t about to go back on his word just because he was beginning to realize just how nuts Lowell really was. That would hardly be fair. If nothing else, he owed it to Curt Channing—a real stand-up guy, in Vince’s book—to keep the game going. Vince never lost sight of the fact that if he took care of his piece, then Archer, once out of prison, would be obligated to take care of Channing’s. That was the way it was going to be. A new twist on the old
eye for an eye
thing.

Marian O’Connor would be easy to take out. She was alone in her shop all day, every day, from nine or earlier in the morning till she opened at ten, then later, from when she closed at six to maybe seven, when she actually left. And she wasn’t physically strong. He’d watched her struggle with a box that the smaller Amanda had carried effortlessly. Easy enough to set this up, once he decided on a method.

A glance at the clock reminded him that he had just an hour or so to shower, dress, and pick up Dolores at her apartment. Over the past week, they’d become friends over beers and conversation down at the Dew Drop, just as he’d planned. Tonight would be their first real date. Dinner and a movie. And he had even bigger plans for Miss Dolores. Oh, yes, he certainly did.

Grinning to himself, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He had those plans already mapped out. Dinner tonight would be just the beginning. He had to let her see that he was a class guy, a gentleman. He had her figured out, all right. He’d had from the minute he first laid eyes on her. He might not be a genius, but he could read women better than most.

Dolores was what Montel or Oprah would call needy. Late thirties, single, a dull mouse of a woman. Went to church every Sunday. Owned her own business—well, half of one, anyway. But for all her talk of independence, for all she managed to do for herself, she was one of those women who, deep down inside, believed that her life wasn’t complete until there was a man in it. And she was still idealistic enough to believe that, late though he might be, her prince could still come. In fact, she was counting on it.

Prince Vinnie, that’s me,
Vince chuckled as he got into the shower.
Oh, yeah. I’m a real prince of a guy. . . .

The way he saw it, soon enough he’d be moving in with Dolores and setting up house for a while. He liked having a home, being part of a domestic scene. He hated this rented room thing. He wanted a nice hot home-cooked meal every night, wanted a woman in his bed, wanted . . . well, wanted all of the comforts of home.

However temporary that might be.

Dolores, being Dolores, would never ask him where he’d been or where he was going. If he told her he had a meeting for work at night, she’d believe him. If he told her he’d been working a sixteen-hour day, she’d believe him—a virtue under these circumstances. If he told her the truth, of course, he’d have to kill her. And he’d hate to do that. She really was a nice lady.

Of course, if it ever came down to her or him, he would have to be the one to survive. There was no question about that. But it wasn’t likely to happen. He was going to play this one really, really smart. No one would ever be able to connect the killer of a couple of antiques dealers with Vince Giordano—er, Vinnie Daniels, that is. He’d changed his look, he’d changed his name. He’d even gotten a new social security number, thanks to the real Vincent Daniels, who’d died at age two and who was buried in the cemetery behind the old Methodist church three streets down. He watched all the cop shows. He knew how to change his identity.

And when his victims were found, why, he’d sit right there at the bar in the Dew Drop and shake his head, just like everyone else would be doing, and wonder aloud who could do such horrible things and talk about being worried that there was so much crime in a town just miles from here.

Whistling, he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He felt better than he had in a long time. Focused. Powerful. He had the cops totally stumped, and he loved it. They had no clue as to who had put the bullet in Derek England’s brain. He’d committed cold-blooded murder and gotten away with it. Again.

One down, two to go.

He turned on the small radio and hummed along as he shaved before the small mirror above the sink, thinking back on how easy it had been to kill Derek. Just one
bam!
and it was done. He’d felt oddly disappointed. There’d been no challenge and therefore no real sense of satisfaction. Of course, he had experience with using a handgun to kill. But those deaths, well, they had been different. There had been passion. Purpose. Those deaths had meant something to him on a deeply personal level. Maybe that was what was missing now. That personal touch . . .

He pushed the past aside as easily as he pushed the newspaper from the chair to the floor.

It occurred to him then to wonder if he should shoot Marian, too. But then there would be a quick connect-the-dots, and then it would be murder—he chuckled aloud at the pun—to get close enough to Amanda for him to TCB.

Perhaps the victim should determine the method.

He liked the sound of that.

Meanwhile, he could think about Amanda and the chaos he’d set loose in her life. He’d felt a thrill just getting close to her earlier in the day. Just hearing her voice had excited him. He had been more than just a little pissed off that she’d blown him off the way she had. After all, he’d only been trying to help. Who did she think she was, anyway, to dismiss him like that?

He’d show her, soon enough, who was who.

Marian first, of course. Maybe he’d go into her shop one day soon, maybe even buy a little something for Dolores. Maybe even flirt a bit with middle-aged Marian, make her day before he killed her. Let her die with a smile on her face.

As if,
he thought with a smirk, his good mood returning.

He dressed quickly and ran down the steps. Dolores was waiting.

CHAPTER
NINE

Sean studied the report that had been faxed to him from the county detectives and left on his desk by Eddie Shanahan, the night duty officer. There was no longer any question that Amanda Crosby’s gun was not the gun that had killed Derek England. Somehow he wasn’t the least bit surprised. What did surprise him was that he felt a flash of relief while reading the report. In his typical fashion, he managed to ignore it.

The victim’s companion, Clark Lehmann, would have made a perfect suspect, too, but his phone records proved that he’d been at home, calling around, looking for Derek, on the night of the murder, just as he’d said. There were hardly more than forty minutes unaccounted for the entire night. Of course, conceivably, he could have killed Derek before he’d left the house, driven the car to the park where it was found the next morning . . .

Nah. There just wasn’t enough time for him to have done that. When Lehmann had said he’d called everyone he knew that night, he wasn’t kidding. His phone records bore that out. He’d made several long distance calls that accounted for most of the evening. He wouldn’t have had time to have driven the car to the park, positioned Derek behind the wheel, shot him, then walked back home.

Unless someone was working with him. Someone who met him at the crime scene, drove him home . . .

Maybe that’s how it had gone down. Maybe Lehmann and someone else—maybe Amanda—had planned it down to the minute. Maybe Lehmann had gone with Derek to Amanda’s, had somehow gotten Derek to stop at the park, where . . .

Where what? Where Lehmann jumped into the backseat, put a bullet through Derek’s head, then jumped into Amanda’s car, she drove him home, then rushed home to place the first phone call to Lehmann . . . ?

“It didn’t happen that way,” he said softly. “There was only one set of tire tracks at the park. . . .”

Besides, this was a simple murder. Somehow the murderer had gotten into the backseat of Derek’s car, put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger. Got back out of the car and calmly left the scene. There was no sign of gravel being kicked up by a car racing away. No sign of panic. Nothing to suggest this hadn’t simply been a cold-blooded murder.

He didn’t think Lehmann or Crosby was capable of that.

He glanced at the clock. Barely six in the morning. Too early to call Clark Lehmann to ask if he’d been able to come up with any reason why someone would have wanted Derek dead.

He’d already spoken with all of Derek’s friends, and every single one of them could account for their time that night. Most had been contacted by Clark at some point over the course of the evening. All of them said that they couldn’t imagine Derek stopping to pick up a stranger.

Well, somewhere between his house and the park he must have picked up someone. Someone who’d been very, very careful to leave no prints, no trace of any kind. He must have gone over the backseat of the car with one of those sticky-tape rollers, because the preliminary tests had come up with no hairs, no fibers that they couldn’t identify.

What kind of person would be that thorough?

Sean reviewed what he knew about Clark Lehmann. Members of Lehmann’s family and many of his friends had already been interviewed. All had agreed that there was no question that Derek and Clark had been devoted to each other. No one knew of any friction between them, nor was there any talk of any problems in their relationship. They’d just returned from a vacation they’d planned together, and by all accounts the two men had had a wonderful time. And while they’d had reciprocal wills, there was no question that of the two, Clark Lehmann—heir to a sizable fortune—was far better off financially than Derek was. All Clark stood to inherit was Derek’s half of the house and a vacation property. Maybe half a million dollars, all told. A lot to someone like Sean. Peanuts to someone in Lehmann’s position.

Amanda, on the other hand, inherited Derek’s half of the business. Admittedly, it wasn’t worth a whole lot, especially since Derek had just spent most of their nest egg on one item that was going to be returned to its rightful owner with no reimbursement to the business. Nothing there worth killing for, as far as Sean could see, but the two witnesses he’d be interviewing that afternoon might shed a little more light on the relationship between Crosby and England.

Maybe it had been a robbery—random or otherwise—after all.

And there was still the possibility that the killer was someone who knew about Derek’s purchase of the goblet on the black market. Someone who had followed Derek from Italy, or someone he’d told about his find.

Sean began to make a list of all the questions he’d need answered about that goblet, starting with its authenticity. He had only Amanda’s word for what the item actually was. Well, her word, and the emails from this Daria McGowan. He’d have to check her out, too, make sure she was who Amanda claimed. He made a note to call Dr. Abraham at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Perhaps he could corroborate Amanda’s version of what the goblet was and its potential value to a collector.

And he’d need a list of collectors of this sort of object. Maybe have Amanda go through her list of customers and see if she could figure out who the intended buyer might have been. And wasn’t there a possibility that the intended buyer was another dealer? Guess he’d have to stop by her shop this morning and ask.

Of course, he’d planned on stopping at Crosby & England anyway on his way back from the prison after he’d had a little chat with Archer Lowell. Which reminded him that he needed to leave now if he was going to arrive by eight.

He’d intended to make this trip on Monday, like he’d told Amanda he’d do. But a major accident out on River Road involving several cars and a tractor trailer had resulted in three fatalities, and the investigation—not to mention the paperwork—had consumed much of the past two days.

Well, no harm, no foul, he told himself. Archer Lowell wasn’t going anyplace any time soon.

The Avon County prison—also known as High Meadow—sat on 265 acres in the middle of what had at one time been a cow pasture. Now housing developments encroached from every side. Though why in the world anyone would pay big dollars to live in the shadow of a prison, Sean could not fathom. The developers could build their berms and plant their trees and erect their stone walls, but they couldn’t change the fact that just beyond those flimsy little barriers lived some of the most hardened men—and women—in the state.

Nice place to raise your kids,
he thought dryly as he turned off the main road and stopped at the guard post. He reached for his identification, but was waved through by the guard, who called, “Go on up, Chief.” He drove to the visitors’ lot, which lay just beyond the row of reserved parking for prison VIPs. The warden’s spot was still empty. Sean rolled down his windows and leaned back against the seat. He could wait.

He mentally ran through the questions he planned to ask Archer Lowell. He’d read the file through twice over the weekend and was probably more current with the story than Lowell himself was at this point. Though Sean doubted anything would change, as far as Lowell was concerned. It was obvious from the file that Lowell believed that he and Amanda were star-crossed lovers; obvious too that he’d believed Derek was his rival for Amanda’s affections. He apparently hadn’t known that Derek was gay, hadn’t realized that the two were best of friends, hadn’t realized that Derek was in the shop all the time because he was half owner of the business. According to the interview, Lowell believed that Derek was in love with Amanda, that he was trying to wrest her away. It was textbook classic. The court-appointed psychiatrist who examined Lowell had been fully prepared to testify that Lowell suffered from delusions as well as erotomania. While Amanda was an acquaintance of Lowell’s, he could hardly be called her peer. Which was, of course, typical in a case like this, where the victim was often of higher social standing.

And Lowell’s pattern of stalking had also been lifted right out of a textbook. He wrote notes to Amanda, called her home and shop at all hours of the day and night, left gifts for her. He’d become angry when she asked him—then told him—to stop contacting her. He’d later told police that he and Amanda loved each other and would be with each other if Derek didn’t stand in the way. Derek was trying to come between him and Amanda. That was why he’d threatened Derek.

A black Impala pulled into the lot and parked in the spot Sean had been watching. He got out of the car and walked over to the sidewalk to wait for the warden to turn off his engine.

“Hey, Mercer. Whatcha doing out here?” Warden Fred McCabe rolled his large self out from behind the wheel of the car. Newly promoted from assistant warden to warden, he took his time getting from one place to another.

“Wanted to have a few words with one of your boys.”

“Inmate or employee?”

“Inmate.” Sean extended his hand when McCabe drew close enough to shake it.

“Who do you need?” They headed for the prison entrance.

“Archer Lowell.”

“Lowell?” McCabe frowned. “What would you want with him?”

“Need to ask him some questions about his stalking techniques.”

McCabe stopped in midstride. “He hasn’t been in contact with her, has he? Because if he has, I’ll have his sentence doubled. The district attorney himself warned that little shit that he was to have no contact with his victim. I guess it didn’t hurt that her brother was a detective down there in Lyndon, you know? Heard he’s working for the county now.”

“I heard.” Sean paused. “Do you know him personally? The brother, I mean . . .”

“Evan? Sure. He’s a good cop. Maybe the best they had.” McCabe held the door open for Sean. “Man, he was incensed when he heard about how she’d reported everything and how old chief Anderson blew her off.”

“I know the story.”

“Well, suffice it to say that Evan raised so much hell with the D.A. that there was no choice but to fire the poor bastard. There were some who thought Crosby went a little too far with that.” McCabe waved to the receptionist and started down the hall to his office, Sean right behind him. “Course, that bastard Lowell had tried to kill his sister. Guess it would tend to piss off just about anyone, you know. I mean, if it had been your sister . . .” He opened his office door and stood aside for Sean to enter. “So why the sudden interest in Lowell?”

“Amanda Crosby’s business partner was murdered last week in Broeder.” Sean took a seat on a chair that was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked.

“That gay guy? The one who was shot through the head?” McCabe took off his jacket and hung it on a shiny brass coatrack that looked out of place in the dull surroundings. “I heard about that. Didn’t realize he was the same guy, though.”

“The same guy who’d been threatened by Lowell, the same guy Lowell thought was out to steal his girl . . .”

“Yeah, right. Like a woman like that Crosby girl was gonna give the time of day to a punk like Archer Lowell.” McCabe looked disgusted. “He beat her up, you know? Broke a few of her ribs, broke a couple of her fingers. Messed up her face, too, I heard.”

Sean held up a hand to stop him. “I read the reports.” He didn’t want to discuss Amanda’s beating at the hands of Archer Lowell. He’d seen the pictures, and they’d made him not only ill, but angry.

“Other than the fact that this guy was threatened by Lowell over a year ago, what’s the connection?”

“I don’t know that there is one. I just want to talk to him.” Sean wasn’t ready to share with anyone the possibility that Amanda may have drawn the attention of someone who appeared to be following in Lowell’s footsteps.

“I’ll have him brought up.” McCabe grabbed the phone and gave the order to bring Archer Lowell to interview room twelve as soon as possible. “You remember the way?”

The first thing that occurred to Sean when Archer Lowell shuffled into the room was that he looked way too young to be harbored here with so many hardened criminals. The second thing was that there appeared to be little or no life in his eyes.

No sign of
intelligent
life, Sean amended.

“Who are you?” Lowell asked as he sat down in the plastic chair.

“Chief Mercer, Broeder police.”

“Yeah, I heard they fired Anderson’s ass.” Lowell nodded. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk about the crime that got you in here.”

“Wasn’t no crime,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t?”

“No, man. Me and Amanda . . . she and I were . . . well, you know.”

“Lovers?”

“We would have been,” Lowell said sullenly.

“What happened?”

“You’re the chief of police, you got the file, you can read. Figure it out.”

“I read about how you were obsessed with Amanda.”

“Hey, man, she loved me. Maybe she still does, all I know.”

“Do you still love her?”

“No, man, I got no use for her now. It’s all confusing, you know?” He scratched his elbow. “I mean, we were going to be together. Should have been together, but it all got mixed up. First that old biddy next door got involved. . . .”

“You mean her next-door neighbor?”

“Nah, I mean the old lady with the shop across from hers. Bigmouthed bitch.”

“Marian O’Connor?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Anyway, she told the cops I was bothering Amanda, told them she’d seen me around the shop at night. And then that guy got involved. He was hanging around her all the time. Every day, man, he was right there, in her face.”

“You’re referring to her business partner?”

“Huh?”

“Derek England was her business partner.”

“Whatever.” Lowell shrugged.

“He was murdered a week ago.” Sean leaned forward to watch Lowell’s face.

“What?” His brows drew together slowly. “The dude is dead?”

Sean nodded.

“Ha. What do you know about that?” Lowell sat back in his chair. “Someone took the dude out.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who, would you?”

“Me? You crazy?” Lowell scoffed. “I didn’t even know about it till just now. Why would you even think that?”