Full Disclosure (8 page)

“Dining room, boss.”

Paul found her at the table, making lists of names from the address books.

“So far I've got a Linda Surette, Lisa Simkins, and Laura Saranoff for Miss L.S. Arnett is checking them out. I'll run the books for T.M. or G.N. next.”

Kim came into the dining room with a gallon Ziploc bag full of matchbooks from different restaurants. “There's a safe in the master bedroom closet, no attempt to hide it, but it will have to be drilled out to open it. Do you want me to make a call?”

“Very big safe?”

“Six by eight. The kind you tuck in jewelry to keep it from the casual burglar.”

“We'll wait to make the call until he can do his job without getting in our way.”

“Boss, I've got a gold mine.”

Paul followed the voice back to the second bedroom. A four-drawer file cabinet stood in the closet, and beside it six stacked white banker boxes. Larry had one box on the floor and another with the lid off.

“Old bank records. He kept everything in date order back to 1982. A quick scan shows the two hundred fifty thousand deposit in July 1999, and the three hundred thousand deposit in August 2002. Assuming they all went through the same middleman, I can give you the amount the lady shooter was paid for each of the thirty murders.”

Paul handed him the pad of paper from his pocket. “Good news. The file cabinet?”

“Old tax returns. At least thirty years. Insurance and warranty information. One drawer looks like personal history, playbill to a Broadway show from twenty years ago, old photos in a shoebox, that kind of thing. We're going to want to take all of this.”

“I'll get you more boxes to empty that file cabinet.”

Christopher came down the hall to join them. “The attic is empty. There is no sign anyone's been up there in the last five years. But I did find a safe in the utility room. It's behind the water heater and behind the clipboard hanging on the wall that lists where fuses go in the electric panel. Pure fluke I found it. The light in the attic wouldn't come on, and I was checking the fuse box. I don't think we get the safe open without finding the combination. We would have to move the water heater to get enough access to drill it open.”

“Boss. I need a hand in here—master bedroom.”

Paul followed Christopher down the hall to see what Kim had found.

She had moved the bed, and the rug beneath it. “There may be a cache here. The floor is soft, dead center of the room, and the boards don't feel linked into the rest of the hardwood floor. About two boards wide and four feet long.” She was rocking one of the boards, and it shifted a fraction higher than the rest of the floor.

It took five minutes of careful work and they got the first board to lift out. They easily lifted out the second board.

“What do you think? Thirty thousand, maybe forty? I don't know dimensions for hundred-dollar bills.”

“Is it real?” Kim picked up a packet. “It doesn't look like it has been in circulation. You think it might be some of the stolen cash?”

“What better way to pay your bills than with stolen money? Both of you count it, agree on the amount, then get it sealed and on its way to the Treasury guys to check out the serial numbers,” Paul said.

“This is one task I won't mind.”

Paul left them to it and returned to the dining room to see how Rita was doing with the names. They had found the kind of document stash and cash that could break a case wide open.

Paul brought in pizza and gathered his team together at the dining room table. He snagged two pieces from the second box before he took a chair. “Eat while it's hot and listen. I'll run through my list, then you let me know what I've missed.” He scanned his notepad.

“He made it easy on us. There were records, and a lot of them, all neatly organized.

“We need to drill out two safes, and move the water heater to get to the one. There could be something very interesting in that one. Jason, make some calls and make that happen.

“We're still missing the phone tapes. Rick, I want you to head to the bank when it opens. Sullivan found one safe-deposit box in this guy's name. Let's see if he kept the tapes there.

“Daniel, Larry, we need the old bank records and phone records scanned tonight and distributed to Treasury and others in the sandbox. It will take you a few hours, so get a pot of coffee. Get them scanned and distributed, and then you can sleep in.

“Kim, make arrangements for secure transport. I want all the paper we've found shipped to Chicago. We can go through the records there in a more organized fashion.

“Local PD is going to provide security here for the night.” The pizza was making him thirsty, and he glanced toward the kitchen. “Didn't we shove a case of soda in the freezer to fast-chill about three hours ago?”

Kim dropped her pizza and shoved back her chair to dart into the kitchen. “We did.” She returned carrying a case of soda. “They haven't gone to ice, but they are close.” She passed the soda cans around.

“Thanks.” Paul drank half of his, appreciating the icy coldness, before looking back to his list. “Almost done. Rita, I want you to interview the neighbors tomorrow. Where did he shop, eat lunch, and go for coffee? What was his routine? Then find any security cameras in those areas, and let's see if anything is still available going back more than five weeks. I'd love to have six months' worth of time to see who visited him.

“Franklin, Christopher, Sidney, work the address book, have Peter generate a quick profile on those who live locally, and go interview those that don't have a criminal record. How long were they friends, did they ever travel together, what did he do for a living, did he have family in the area? Anything useful you can get that will give us a picture of the guy. Those with a criminal connection, I want us to look at more carefully before we show up for an interview.”

He reached the end of his list, and finished his slice of pizza. “We have rooms at the Hyatt over on Juniper Street, and Wilson volunteered to shuttle us around. If we push, we can wrap this up in a couple of days. Anything else?”

He looked around the table at the group and smiled. “You're
too tired to think if you can't come up with something I missed. Get squared away for tomorrow, then let's head on to the hotel.”

Paul tugged out his folded list and scanned what was not crossed off. It had been a good three days. “We're still missing the phone tapes. I want a final search of the house for another safe—floors, walls, and stairs.”

“On it, boss.” Those waiting for their next instructions dispersed to the search.

Franklin slid a document box into the van. “That's the last one.”

“Do me a favor and open desk drawers and file cabinets just to make sure nothing got overlooked.”

“Will do.”

Paul's phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. “Hello, Kate.”

“Ann was right.”

“Yeah?” Paul felt a smile forming. Good for her.

“Eric Lorell, doing twenty-five years for murder, paid Andrew Waters to kill Officer Ulaw. We've got the money transfer traced back. The lawyer for Lorell's cell mate helped him make the arrangements. Eric just smiled when we put it to him that we knew, didn't waste time with an argument. He gave us a written confession. He'll move to death row, but I'm afraid it's not much justice.”

“It's what's possible.”

“Yeah. Glad it's done, wish it was a better result,” Kate said. “What Ann gave me went somewhere. I hear what she gave you is going somewhere too.”

“It is. Where is Ann today?”

“Missouri, I think.”

“She doesn't stay put for very long, does she?”

“A day or two occasionally. I hear you and Dave had a conversation about her the other night.”

“You don't need to play matchmaker too.”

“Moi?” Kate laughed. “Have you called her yet?”

“Thinking about it.”

“You should, you know. You'll like her.”

“I'm sure I will.” Paul smiled. “I appreciate the update. Anything else?”

“That was my excuse to call. Safe travel home, Paul.”

“Thanks, Kate.”

Paul slid his phone back in his pocket.

Ann was in Missouri. Given he was in West Virginia, the travel was relative. Ann was good at her job. He tucked away that fact and looked back at the house. So was he. He had a lady shooter to catch. The two safes and bank box had produced false IDs, valuable gold and silver coins, and several thousand in foreign currency. They didn't have a name for the lady shooter yet, but they had paper to work. It was time to get back to Chicago.

The plane trip back to headquarters was quieter than the trip out. His team was listening to music, sleeping, quietly chatting. The immediate work was done, and they deserved the break.

Paul clicked on the overhead seat light and pulled over his travel bag.

Dave's box had been a stack of books with a note:
Ann's published works. Read the O'Malleys in order.

Before he had packed, he'd spread them out on the table and reviewed the titles. The covers weren't his style, and they were romantic suspense, which wasn't his preferred category either. There were three military novels in the mix. She wrote under a pseudonym, but he had expected that.

After some checking on the O'Malley series titles, Paul had stuffed three into his bag. Now he selected the first book and opened to the first chapter.

Kate O'Malley had been in the dungeon since dawn.

He'd found Dave and Kate's story, if he wasn't missing the mark.

He looked out the window and considered waiting for another time to read it. He didn't feel like getting disappointed, and he figured that was what was going to happen. Ann was a friend of Dave's, and friendship made for a lot of allowances about what was good writing.

What did you decide to write, Ann, when you sat down to tell Dave and Kate's story?

He settled in to read. He began to hear Ann's voice in the telling, and then the story took over.

Three hours later, the flight attendant's voice announced they were landing soon. He rolled his shoulders to work out the tension. Ann had crashed a plane in her story. He had not seen that coming. She had worked at least one plane crash in real life to have caught the details she did. And right now he was about to land. He felt like chuckling at his serious wish that fiction didn't come true.

She had his attention, and she did not let go. He needed to read all her books. The more he read, the more convinced he was that he had best make the time.

Who are you, Ann? And where did this storytelling gift come from?

A
nn Silver landed at the airport in Alton, Kentucky, early Wednesday morning, and by nine o'clock was walking into the Alton Police Department. It wasn't the first time she had routed from one MHI call to the next, and it wouldn't be the last. Missouri had been raining and cool, while Kentucky was sunny and warm. She'd picked up a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast at the airport, found her sunglasses, and borrowed a car. If not for the weather, the day could have been a repeat of her prior one.

“Thanks for coming, Ann.”

“Glad to help, Ben.”

She set down a hot chocolate for him, perched on the edge of the desk, and blew on hers to cool it. The murder board behind him was filled with photos and notes, and she scanned out of habit.

“Her name is Elizabeth Verone,” Ben told her. “Fifty-two, divorced ten years, no children, a hairdresser for thirty years. She was shot in her home on May twenty-first. I'd rather you make your own judgment on the rest of it. The murder book is current as of last night, and I had a duplicate made for you.”

“Let me read what you've got and get up to speed. I'm sorry
for this, and the loss. It's always bad when it is someone you know.”

“She was a pain in this department's collective side with her fountain of collected gossip about crime tidbits she heard while cutting people's hair, but she was our nuisance, someone killed her, and the days are running off the calendar. We need this one solved and off the board.” He looked at the photos a final time, shook his head, then turned and pulled together what she would need. He handed her a thick binder and a set of the photographs. “Want me to find you a desk?”

“No need. I'll find a quiet place to read, then find you and talk it through.”

Having worked for the department before, she took the route most cops took when they needed a break, and she headed to the roof. If she was going to think murder, she would do it while she also got some sun.

It took four hours to get through the weight of it, and she rubbed her eyes as she let her mind drift for a bit. This victim didn't have family issues to tug. Family was states away with solid alibis, and that eliminated the easy answer for where to look. Their victim had told the police about enough crimes, real and imagined, that if Ann picked a file at random out of the history of this town, there would be a link of some tenuous nature to the lady who had died. No wonder the cops were hitting their heads against the wall trying to get this case to give ground. Many people would have strong emotions about this woman, and more than a few might prefer her to be dead. So who had acted?

They hadn't found the shooter.

She mulled that fact around in the back of her mind while she let her thoughts sort out what was here. The cops knew their town, knew who to question, who to suspect as possible shooters, and they had done a solid job of doing that. The
interviews were extensive, comments were cross-checked, and alibis had held.

The cops hadn't found a viable suspect for the shooting.

Ann stopped on that thought again and let herself ponder the fact for a good few minutes, stepping back through the river of information the investigation had uncovered and mentally following the flow of it, looking at how the case had unfolded. The cops should have found their shooter.

And that told her something.

She looked one last time at the photos of the murder scene, then closed the murder book and went back downstairs.

She brought in roast beef sandwiches for the cops working the shift, the meal a habit when she was a guest in their house. She settled in to share Ben's desk and enjoy a really good sandwich.

“You got through it all?”

She nodded around a bite. “Fat murder book, good investigation, and you're right. It's going cold.”

His partner, Greg Ornell, waved toward the murder board with his spoon from one of the coleslaw sides that came along with the sandwich. “It's like this perfect crime. Shoot her, no one sees you, everyone we talk to maybe had a reason to want her out of the way—it's too many needles. We're finding the needles in the haystack, but there are just too many needles.”

Ben nodded. “Too many people got rubbed the wrong way over thirty years of her life. A shooting is a cold way to end it. Someone thought about this for a long time, then got triggered somehow and said, Today I'm going to do it, and did it. She's lived here her entire life, Ann. There's too much here, and yet not enough of the right things. We don't have the evidence that can focus us in on where to look.”

“Then we work through it, and we look for what might narrow it in. Do you have a preference for how you want to do this?”

“I'd like you to tell me the story of it, Ann,” Greg suggested. “Let me see it fresh, and maybe I can spot where I can tug next.”

Ben concurred.

Ann finished her sandwich and got herself a new drink. Since she was better off in motion, she moved to the murder board. “Okay. Story first.”

Ann knew it would not be polished or smooth as she spun it out, but it would be useful, as all reviews were, to hear again the story and its mystery to be solved.

“My name is Elizabeth Verone. I'm a tidy woman, with a generous laugh. I love to gossip and pass on what I hear and ask you what you know. I'm a woman of routine, same breakfast of a morning, same route to work, same station where I've cut hair for thirty-two years. I keep cards of useful people with handwritten numbers tucked along my mirror. I get business for people, and I'm proud of that networking I do for folks. You need a plumber, I've got a name of a good one. I'm a broker of information, that's how I see myself, rather than a gossip. I want to help you out. You come and sit in my chair to get your hair shaped and styled, and I consider you one of my people. I want to know your troubles and your news, and I want to know what's going on in your friends' lives too.

“Nothing stays confidential for long if I know it. My pleasures in life are to know information about you, and share information with you.

“It's cool on Monday morning, and I stop to find a sweater before I go to work. The car needs gas, so I stop to put in five dollars, then I stop at Parker's Bakery for coffee and a donut and mention to him that Janet's daughter got a scholarship to art school and isn't that a grand thing?

“I open the shop a few minutes early. Amy wants her hair trimmed and to talk about her boy getting in trouble with Henry's boy Lou last weekend. Paula is next and wants her hair colored, and I nudge her into talking about what real estate has sold recently, and if there are any new homes coming up for sale.

“I have two perms and then a lull, so I sit with Jenny and Karen by the dryers, and we read through the new magazines for this month. The talk turns to men. Nathan is back in town and
that runs for ten minutes of reminiscing. Jeffery stayed overnight with Melinda, if the parked car was any clue. I mope about how I haven't been on a date in ages and want a decent dinner out and movie, just to have a nice change of pace in my day.

“I lock the shop door at five p.m. I've been on my feet most of the day and I'm tired, so I take myself straight home. I putter in the kitchen and fix myself a cheeseburger and salad. I eat alone while I go through the day's mail. I trade off grocery shopping with my neighbor and we rotate the weeks each of us will shop. Since this is her week, I dump the store flyer into the trash with the other junk mail.

“I start a load of laundry, towels and other whites. While they run through, I go out back and water the six new roses I planted this year around my patio.

“I decide I should mow at least by the garage so I won't have to do it all on Saturday. I get out the mower and do the stretch alongside the garage and in front of the flower bed. I need to bag the grass but don't like to do the job, so I half rake at the tall grass and pile it by the dead stump and call it done. I put the mower and the rake away and I close the garage door. I come inside and drop my headphones and iPod on the dining room table.

“Someone has been in my kitchen. There are groceries on the counter and ice cream ready to go into the freezer. I call out for my neighbor Susan DeMarko, thinking she came over while I was mowing. I hear water running in the guest bathroom. So I walk into the kitchen and open the refrigerator to finish putting the groceries away.

“The window shatters and I'm shot.

“Head shot kills me instantly and I drop right where I'm standing. The refrigerator door swings back and stops at my shoulder. The pickle jar in my hand shatters and splatters pickle juice over the lower cabinet doors.

“My friend hears the shot, hears me fall, comes into the kitchen, sees the blood, and starts screaming. She goes flying
out the front door shouting for her husband, who comes running. He calls the cops while the wife screams hysterical that Elizabeth is dead, someone shot Elizabeth. No one enters the house until the cops arrive.”

Ann looked over the pictures on the board and wondered again at the horror of it. A nice neighborhood, not rich but not poor, quiet of crime, and a woman shot in the head without warning. A few more cops had joined them now, and she scanned faces to confirm she had the latest facts right. “There are no other sniper-type shootings anywhere in the surrounding states, no local shootings since this one. It wasn't a random thing where she's the first victim of many.” Nods around confirmed it.

Ann returned to the story, thinking about the why of it. “All right, it was me, Elizabeth Verone. Someone wanted me dead. Does someone want my gossiping to stop? I knew about real estate, who was sleeping with whom, and who came and went from the town. That's just what I happened to learn about today. Add up a year of days, and I know a lot of bits and pieces of news that might mean something if I put together the details.

“I know something someone doesn't want me to say. I talk about everything I know, so you're going to have to kill me to shut me up. Maybe I've already talked, and you are paying the price for it. Maybe I've shattered our world with my gossip, and you hate me with everything that's in you. I know something you don't want me to tell, or I've said something already and hurt you bad, and you've decided you're going to be the one to shut me up forever.” She paused to drink while she switched roles to the one who had come to kill.

“I came with a rifle to the back of your house planning to kill you. I came during the daylight hours rather than at night, so I stay in the woods to avoid being seen by neighbors. I don't want you to see me in case I miss.

“You're outside in your yard. So why don't I shoot you when you mow, when your back is turned as you walk back and forth and your attention is on the ground in front of you?

“I don't shoot you in your backyard because I'm in a perch quietly tucked away and already zeroed in on your kitchen window. I know I won't miss that shot, so I'm just waiting for you to appear in the window at the kitchen sink. My nice little target and right there in my rifle sights.

“So why didn't you shoot me while I was fixing myself dinner? I was in the kitchen for quite some time. You hadn't set up behind my house yet? You weren't there before I got home from work? You came in afterwards? You shot me in the side of the head as I looked in the open refrigerator. You didn't want to see my face when you killed me?”

Ann closed her eyes and put herself into the mind of the shooter. “I was looking for just the right opportunity to kill you. I didn't kill you in the backyard. I waited for you to go back inside. I shot you through the kitchen window when you opened the refrigerator to put away the groceries. Was I really planning to kill the neighbor who came over with the groceries, and I shot you by mistake?”

Greg pointed at her and interrupted—“That's interesting. That is interesting, Ann. The neighbor was the intended target, not Elizabeth.” He pivoted toward Ben, and his partner was already nodding.