Deadly Deception (SCVC Taskforce) (30 page)

Two officers filled the doorway. One was tall and skinny, the other short and overweight by fifty pounds. “We need a statement,” Skinny said, looking at his notepad, “from Adam Karsni. That you?”

Adam’s eyes looked as though they would bug out of his head. “I didn’t do it!” His wild gaze shifted to Ronni and he pleaded, “Tell them I didn’t do it!”

Her face paled. She said to the officers, “Adam is bipolar and off his meds. You won’t get a reliable statement from him in this condition.”

“I’m not off my meds,” he yelled.

Skinny’s partner adjusted his belt. “We need to confirm where he was, who he was with, and—”

“Where’s Melanie?” Adam asked. When no one answered, he raked a hand across the fireplace mantel, knocking off the knickknacks and sending them to the floor. “Where is she?”

Ronni moved toward him. “Adam, calm down. Let the paramedic help you, then you can talk to the police. I’ll be with you every step of the way. We have to figure out who did this to Kristine.”

“Kristine was a whore,” he spit at her, stopping her in her tracks. “You’re a whore. You’re all whores and you won’t listen to me.”

Skinny raised an eyebrow but seemed unfazed by Adam’s outburst. “We understand Kristine Phillips was living here in the house with you and was pregnant with your child.”

Adam grabbed his head as if suffering from a migraine. “I never slept with her. Never.” He fell to his knees, still holding his head. “Not my baby. I never slept with her.”

Ronni sent Thomas a frown. Truth or delusional fiction?

During Adam’s outburst, the EMT had loaded a syringe. As Adam crouched on the floor, hands over his head, the guy moved in, nodding at Thomas and the officers to assist him.

Thomas got to Adam first, dropping to his knees behind the kid and pinning his arms down. In one swift move, the EMT unloaded the syringe of sedative into Adam’s shoulder.

Adam jerked hard, but Thomas held tight. Not for Adam’s sake, nor for the EMT’s. He did it for Ronni. She looked away, sadness evident in her face, her body language.

A few seconds later, Adam began to puddle on the floor. “I didn’t…kill…her.” His eyes turned glassy. He reached for Ronni, and even though he’d called her a whore, she took his hand.

The rest of his words slurred together as the drug won the battle. Adam’s fingers slowly released Ronni’s hand, but she knelt beside him and held on. Her sad gaze lifted from Adam’s face to Thomas’s and emotion kicked low in his solar plexus.

“We’ll take him to the west wing of the hospital, stabilize him,” the EMT said to Ronni and the officers. “I’ll notify you as soon as he’s cognizant and making sense.”

The second EMT entered the room. “Body’s in the ambulance. Police have bagged and tagged some evidence. What about this guy?”

Protocol was discussed. An agreement was reached. One of the EMTs would ride in the back of the cruiser with Adam to keep an eye on his vitals. The other would accompany Kristine’s body to the hospital where she would be officially declared dead.

Thomas helped secure Adam’s limp body in the car. Everyone at the farm stood in shocked silence. Melanie and Jacob exited the house and watched from the porch. More cops arrived, as did Cooper and the NSA gal, Bianca Marx. Lance, as a person of interest, was placed in one of the cruisers.

“I’m going with Adam,” Ronni said. Her voice was dull, her face a mask of indifference.

“You can’t help him right now.” Thomas gently rubbed her arm. “We need to debrief Cooper and see what he wants us to do. In private. Away from Jacob and Melly.”

“But Adam…” Her voice trailed off. She took a few steps away and paced back, nodding. “You’re right. I can’t help him right now. I have a job to do.”

She looked so destroyed Thomas wanted to pull her into his arms. Protocol demanded he didn’t. Not in front of all these witnesses. Not in front of Cooper.

Crime scene investigators arrived and entered the house. Jacob and Melanie were banned from going back inside, much to Melly’s dismay. “I live here.” Her voice was high and nearly hysterical as she got in an officer’s face. “What am I supposed to do for clothing? I need my purse and my personal effects.”

Cooper moseyed over to Thomas and Ronni, Bianca following, but watching the show on the porch. Cooper glanced around at the various buildings. “Got a secure place we can talk?”

“Your car,” Thomas said.

He wanted to take Ronni’s hand, but he didn’t. He could hardly stand the forlorn look on her face. He touched her arm as he passed her and led the way to Coop’s SUV.

Thomas sat Ronni up front with Coop, took a seat behind them. Bianca climbed in. “Boy, she’s a piece of work.” She cocked her chin toward Melly.

“She’s actually a nice person.” Ronni stared out the windshield. “She tries hard to be everyone’s friend, and she takes care of a lot of people.”

Bianca sent Thomas a look that said she questioned Ronni’s judgment. He had to agree with Bianca.

“What happened?” Cooper asked.

He knew the general low down from the cops, so Thomas gave him a brief sitrep about what had transpired with Ronni’s adventure in town, the discovery of Kristine’s body, and the showdown between Lance and Adam. Cooper glanced Ronni’s way. “Find anything at the salon?”

She shook her head. “It appears to be just a hair and nail salon, but I discovered Jacob and Melanie are having an affair.”

Thomas laughed. “No way. She’s in love with Adam.”

Cooper shrugged. “Is that significant? This woman and Jacob?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ronni answered. “My gut says the two of them are up to something more than an affair.”

“Oh, man, this is good.” Thomas shook his head in disbelief. “Jacob’s an undercover cop with the LAPD.”

Cooper voiced surprised. “What’s he doing here?”

“Same thing we are.”

Ronni slumped in her seat and stared at a clump of people who’d gathered around Jacob and Melanie. “I don’t trust him.”

“That makes two of us.”

Cooper drummed a thumb on the steering wheel. “Just because he’s involved with Melanie doesn’t mean he isn’t doing his job.”

“In three days, we’ve found nothing to indicate Adam was stockpiling weapons, running guns, or planning any kind of attack on federal agents.” Ronni shifted, glancing over the seat at Thomas. “Nothing. And Jacob’s been here how long?”

“He didn’t say exactly, but I gathered it’s been a year or more.”

“And he hasn’t discovered anything either?”

His gut pinged.
That’s it.
That’s what had been bothering him for the past day. “He hasn’t found anything, but continues to play undercover cop. Why?”

Bianca brought out a tablet, tapped a few keys. “I’ll look into his supposed undercover operation and see what I can find. Meanwhile,”—she set the tablet down, brought out a file—“I was combing through some previous satellite surveillance and found something interesting from three weeks ago. Looks like the farm received some kind of shipment in the early morning hours of August ninth.”

Thomas took a black and white photo she handed him. The satellite image was grainy due to the fact it had been taken at night, but the white delivery truck stood out like a neon sign. He passed the first photo to Ronni and accepted a second. “This looks like the far west side of the property. But there are no roads back there.”

“There’s a path,” Ronni said, “to the honey house. I took it yesterday morning.”

Yesterday. The honey house. Thomas tried to keep the grin off his face.

“The satellite is used by immigration to monitor illegal activity crossing the border,” Bianca said. “As you can see by the time stamp, the photos were taken shortly before one a.m., but since immigration zooms in on the border between one and five a.m., the satellite was redirected before the truck was unloaded. What do you think was inside?”

Thomas eyed the photos. The ghost-white shadows of two men could be seen. One had to be the driver, but who was the other? “Beekeeping supplies?”

He was being sarcastic and Ronni chuckled. “Adam told me a lot about the bees and the honey. He said Lance goes into town and buys his supplies.”

Cooper continued drumming the steering wheel. “Plenty of weapons or drugs could be delivered in that type of truck on a back road in the dead of night.”

“Lance doesn’t strike me as the type,” Thomas reluctantly admitted.

Ronni examined one of the photos. A bead of sweat traced down the side of her neck and Thomas wanted to follow its trail. “Jacob does.”

“So now we’re casting more aspersions on the undercover cop?” Bianca asked.

The challenge to Ronni’s judgment made Thomas urge to defend her. For the second time that day. “Pretty much.” He glanced out the windshield—anything to get his eyes off Ronni’s neck—and saw the subject of their discussion eyeballing him from the front yard.

Thomas fanned himself with the photograph in his hand. The SUV was an oven. “I suggest we leave no rock unturned. Never know what might crawl out. What about that gal in the hospital? Did she ever regain consciousness?”

Cooper started the car, turned on the AC, and booted the fan up to high. “She did, but says she doesn’t remember anything about guns or teargas. Says she was angry over Adam asking her to leave when she wouldn’t lay off the booze, so she might have made shit up.”

“Great,” Ronni said. “Yet another dead end with false information.”

The air felt amazing. Thomas leaned toward the vent.

“False information?” Cooper asked.

Ronni sighed. “Seems like I have more false information than truth.”

He appeared unperturbed. “That’s why we needed eyes inside the cult. Don’t ever rely on paper reports for proof.”

Ronni nodded, and Cooper nailed her with a heavy look. “So who killed the woman, Agent Punto?”

Thomas could see her go on the defensive. “Lance had the most motive.”

His partner still had a blind spot for her brother. “Melanie claims it was Lance, too, but she threw credibility Adam’s way when I talked to her. The way Adam has been acting, we can’t rule him out.”

Ronni gave him the stink eye.

Cooper saw it. “The cop I spoke to said they found the possible murder weapon—a Walther .22—in Adam’s nightstand. It had been recently fired and not cleaned.”

Her body stilled. She didn’t even appear to breathe. “Thomas and I searched his room yesterday. There was no handgun in his nightstand or anywhere else. There was a rifle under his bed.”

“No mention of a rifle,” Cooper said. “He could have had the handgun on him, or hidden it somewhere you didn’t check.”

She visibly swallowed, looked away. Seconds passed.

The house was a monstrosity. Lots of hidey holes. But…

Thomas handed Bianca her photos. “The kill was too clean for Adam. Premeditated. You didn’t see him before he was tranquilized, Coop, but I’d bet my movie collection Adam couldn’t have pulled it off. He was a mess. Confused, shaking, he couldn’t even fend off Lance when the guy attacked him. The killer did use a small caliber pistol, and he knew exactly where to aim it. I found a pillow with a bullet hole and burn marks. He smothered the sound with a pillow. Too calculated for Adam’s state of mind.”

Relief eased the lines around Ronni’s mouth. She gave him a quick little smile.

Yeah, he was gone. He’d stand up for Adam again if it landed him that smile.

Cooper met Thomas’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Why would the gun be in Adam’s nightstand?”

Thomas grabbed a wild idea circulating in his head. “Lance might be setting him up.”

Ronni warmed to the idea. “Lance was jealous that Kristine was pregnant with Adam’s child.” She brainstormed out loud, explaining the twisted love triangle to Cooper and Bianca. “So maybe Lance’s way of evening things was to shoot her and make it look like Adam did it.”

“Except,” Thomas interjected, “Lance claims he’s never owned, or fired, a gun. He could be lying, but bottom line, if he was jealous and angry enough to kill someone, why not kill Adam?”

Bianca returned her photos to her briefcase. “I’ll do a background check on him as well.”

“If he killed Adam, though,” Ronni countered, as if she hadn’t heard Bianca, “who would he blame? He needed to get rid of Adam without getting caught, and he felt betrayed by Kristine. Maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Adam’s child every day, so he killed Kristine, killing her unborn child at the same time, and made Adam the scapegoat.”

It was a decent theory. “Why did Adam claim the baby wasn’t his?”

Ronni lifted her brows. “Nothing Adam said can be taken as truth.”

“Valid point.”

Cooper shifted the car into drive. “Both Adam and Lance will be tested for gunshot residue, and we’ll see if any fingerprints turn up on the weapon. Meanwhile, you two hang out tonight and keep an eye on things. The cops will be interviewing everyone, including you guys. See what you can find.”

Thomas had the feeling they were going to find plenty.

Chapter Thirty-three

The night and the farm were filled with nervous energy.