Maddie's Gift of Mystery (A Rockcrest Cove Cozy Mystery Book 5) (5 page)

A
n hour later
, Chief Willis arrived with a team of detectives in tow. For the first time, he appeared to be a little irritated by the urgent call. “What’s this all about?” he asked as he swept into the tiny dorm room.

“Chief, did your people search Emily’s dorm room when they did their investigation?”

Willis looked a little confused. He was certainly not a man that spoke without knowing what he was getting into. His hesitation made Maddie wonder exactly what his detectives had done in the way of investigating the case.

“What’s this all about?” he asked a second time.

“So you never searched this room?”

“There was no need,” he finally responded. “We knew that Emily’s locket was found at the crime scene. Seemed like it was a pretty good waste of time to do another search at a location completely unrelated to the scene of the crime.”

Maddie scoffed at Willis’s comment. “In other words, your investigation was a joke.”

Willis looked more baffled than irritated by her statement.

“I just have to ask one question,” Maddie said, looking him directly in the eye.

“How did you determine it was Emily’s locket that was found in Jimmy’s hands?”

Willis looked over at one of his detectives, who immediately looked around for another explanation.

“If I remember correctly,” the detective started, “there was someone at the scene that identified the locket.”

“Who?” Willis demanded.

“A young woman who said she was a friend of Jimmy’s.”

“Name?”

“Maria something.”

Willis looked again at Maddie and Eleanor to try to decipher what was going on. It couldn’t have escaped his notice that the Maria Maddie had suggested he question was the same person to identify Emily’s locket and was present when the investigative team was combing Jimmy’s home. He also couldn’t avoid the fact that the two women were quite adamant about a thorough investigation of the dorm room.

“I take it you found something in here?” he asked finally.

Maddie did not speak but merely raised her hand to show the locket that she had found in the desk drawer.

Willis walked over and peered at the locket. He didn’t reach out to touch it, but he studied it carefully as it dangled from Maddie’s fingers.

“What this?” he asked.

“This,” Eleanor said, “is Emily’s locket.”

Willis looked from Eleanor to Maddie and then back again.

“That’s right,” April added.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Emily’s roommate. I’ve seen her wear it lots of times.”

“Does she have more than one?”

“No. She only has this one. It was a gift from her father and she cherishes it. If you open it up, you’ll see a picture of her and her father.” April reached out to open the locket, but Willis put his hand out to stop her. “No. Don’t do that,” he said. He signaled for a detective to come and bag the evidence.

As the detective took the locket and bagged it, Willis asked the obvious question.

“If this is Emily’s locket, then who does the other locket belong to?”

“That’s a good question,” Maddie offered.

Willis turned and surveyed the tiny room. It was really crowded in there with so many people. Outside in the hallway, a huddle of the few students remaining on campus for the holidays had gathered, trying to find out what the police were doing there. Inside there was Maddie, Eleanor, April, Chief Willis, and three detectives.

“Well, we need to do a thorough search of this room,” Willis finally conceded. “I wonder if I could ask you women to step outside so my team can get started.”

“Sure,” they all agreed.

Maddie followed the rest of them out the door, but just as she was about to exit, she turned to Willis. “Oh, and by the way, I never actually touched the locket, only the chain. So there should still be some DNA and prints on it. I think after a forensics team gets to it, you’ll be able to conclusively determine that it is in fact Emily’s locket. If you do the same with the other locket, you’ll probably get a lead on who the real killer is. And you may also discover that there are no traces of Emily ever having touched it.” She turned and joined Eleanor and April in the corridor outside to wait until the search was completely over.

An hour later, Willis stepped out of the room, surprised to see the two women still standing there. “You waited?”

“Yes.” Eleanor said, a little too sharply. “What did you find?”

Willis hunched his shoulders and spread his hands out in the form of an apology. “I’m sorry, ladies,” he said. “We scoured the room from top to bottom, and we didn’t find anything else that we could possibly link to the murder.”

“Wouldn’t that indicate that maybe your suspect is innocent?” Maddie asked.

Willis nodded his head, conceding that she may very well be right.

T
he case had definitely taken
a turn for the better. Maddie now had some concrete evidence to use to get the charges against Emily dropped. Even Chief Willis could see the logic behind the investigation. But that still left another problem: who really killed Jimmy? On the one hand, it was easy to assume that Maria and her brother had committed the crime, but they could find no conceivable motive for them having done so.

The next morning, as Maddie prepared for a busy day at the store, she concluded that they needed to get a little more information about Maria and Anthony. All through the morning rush, she tried to figure out a way to get to what they were up to, but nothing came to mind except to send Bailey back in as a reporter. It had worked once before, but she wasn’t sure that it would work again.

B
ailey arrived
at the school dorm early the next morning. By now the place was almost completely deserted; most of the students had gone home for the holidays, and only those that didn’t have family or the money to return home stayed on campus. It felt like a really lonely place.

Walking down the hall, it felt eerily like a scene from a horror movie, and she was surprised that her senses were heightened when the corridors were so deserted. She wouldn’t have been surprised at all if something jumped out at her from behind one of those closed doors. Looking down at the paper in her hand, she found Maria’s dorm room. She listened quietly at the door to see if she could hear anything, but all she heard were some muffled voices. She couldn’t even tell if they were male or female.

Knocking softly at the door, she noticed that the voices came to an abrupt stop. A small voice called through the door, “Who is it?”

“Maria? Maria Calvone?” she answered. “It’s Bailey. I spoke to you the other day about the newspaper article?”

The door flew open with a rush, catching Bailey by surprise. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that the place is so deserted these days, you can’t be too careful, you know,” Maria apologized. “Come on in, Bailey,” she said, welcoming her into her small room.

Bailey entered the small room and quickly scanned it with her eyes. It was set up as a single room, so Maria had no roommate to share with. It had a bed and a dresser table on the far side, and the other half of the room was sectioned off with a sofa and a coffee table for guests. It was quite nicely done for a dorm room. It appeared that Maria enjoyed entertaining from time to time. Bailey was surprised once again when the door to the bathroom opened and the mysterious man emerged.

“Oh, pardon me,” Bailey said. “I didn’t know you had company.”

“This is my brother, Anthony,” Maria said, introducing him.

“Nice to meet you, Anthony,” Bailey said. “Are you a student here too?”

He mumbled something under his breath before shaking her hand. He wasn’t very friendly, Bailey thought.

Turning to Maria, she said, “Maria, I’m sorry to have to bother you again, but my editor is demanding that I get some more information from you before we run your story. It’s purely for verification purposes. It’s all legal stuff you know. They have to make sure that they cover themselves from possible libel suits and stuff like that.”

Maria responded with a wave of her hand. “No problem,” she said. “As a law student myself, I totally understand.” She gestured for Bailey to have a seat, but Anthony remained standing. He appeared to be offended that his sister had allowed her into the room.

“All right,” Bailey said, trying to avoid the glaring eyes of the brooding brother standing over her. “I just need to verify your name and the correct spelling.”

Maria spelled it out completely for her.

“And how about your career? You did say you’re a third year law student. Is that correct?” She could feel Anthony rolling his eyes behind her back, but she refused to acknowledge him. “And can you tell me more about your relationship with Jimmy? I know we touched on it the other day, but I just need to make sure that I have all of my facts right.”

That was all that Anthony could take. She heard a loud sigh of exasperation escape his lips before he walked toward the door. “Listen, sis, I’ve got to go,” he said as he flung the door open. “Call me when you’re not so busy being a celebrity,” he exclaimed as he stormed out.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Bailey apologized. “I hope I didn’t interrupt something important. He seems so irritated.”

“That’s just the way Anthony is. He’s always brooding about something.”

“Must be difficult for you.”

“I guess I’m used to it by now,” she said. “You know, you grow up with it, it doesn’t bother you as much.”

“I suppose so.”

“He’s a good brother though. He’s always been there when I needed him. Not too many people can actually say that about their brother.”

Bailey considered the kind words of appreciation Maria had for her brother. As an only child, she could only imagine what it would be like to have a sibling. The closest relationship she had was with her gran. She couldn’t even remember when the last time was that she’d seen her own mother. A melancholy feeling came over her as she asked a few more questions. Anthony’s behavior had peaked her interest, and she felt that she could probably get more information by following him.

“I suppose that’s all for now, Maria,” she said, closing up her notepad. “If I have any more questions, I’ll just give you a call if you don’t mind.” Bailey stood up to go, offering her hand to Maria, which she took graciously.

After leaving, Bailey hurried down the empty corridor, hoping to catch up with Anthony before he left the building. She knew it had only been a couple of minutes since he had left the room, but with the building so empty now, he could be anywhere. She was in luck though. By the time she reached the lobby of the building, she caught a glimpse of Anthony pulling a large canvas bag from a storage locker set aside for students.

Standing behind a corner, out of sight, she watched him carefully look over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking. Then he opened the bag to check its contents, closed it up again, and threw it over his shoulder. It was obviously holding something very heavy because of the way his shoulders drooped when he carried it. She watched as he exited the building through the main lobby, but oddly enough, he didn’t head to the parking lot like she thought he would. Instead, he turned to the right and took a small path that went around the back of the building.

Strange, she thought. It was not someplace the average visitor to a building would go, so she followed at a pretty safe distance to see what he was up to.

The back of the building had a very different view than the front. A line of dumpsters were set up against a far wall, away from the building. The stains were evidence of the students’ carelessness when taking out garbage late at night, and the smell of old and rotting food lingered in the air. Bailey stopped at the side of the building, peering around the corner to see where he was going.

Anthony walked straight toward the far dumpster and tossed the entire bag into it before ducking through a side gate that led off into the alley and disappearing. After looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was about, she slowly approached the dumpster to try to retrieve the bag, but her short legs weren’t able to get her up high enough to even look inside. Frustrated, she gave the dumpster a stiff kick, as if it would yield to her request. Her face flushed red as she thought about how foolish she looked right at that moment, but a look around told her she was entirely alone in her humiliation. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and called her gran.

Even though it was only about four thirty in the afternoon, darkness was already starting to encroach on the search. Shortly after Bailey had called Maddie, the troops were rallied and Maddie, Eleanor, and Chief Willis all arrived in short succession. They had retrieved the backpack from the dumpster and a forensics team was going over it with a fine-tooth comb. It was being dusted for fingerprints and samples of the contents were being taken and analyzed.

Bailey, Maddie, and Eleanor were standing nearby, watching the proceedings from a distance. Chief Willis would not let them get any closer than twenty feet away, but from where they stood they could see everything going on. Willis approached them, giving them a slight nod of his head. Adjusting his holster belt, he directed his attention to Maddie.

“That was quite a find,” he said. “It looks like there’s enough evidence in there to get Emily off and have Anthony arrested for the murder of Jimmy Maxwell.”

“What do you mean ‘looks like’?” Eleanor asked.

“It all looks pretty cut and dry from right here, but it has to be verified by lab testing by our forensics team. Still, all of that is just a mere formality.”

“Why do you think he waited until now to toss the bag?”

“My guess is that he figured that after you started asking questions, the lockers would no longer be safe. Since most of the students were away on holiday, it was quite likely he thought he could get rid of it now and not draw a lot of attention to himself.

“What about Maria? Will she be charged to?”

“Possibly. They were definitely in some sort of conspiracy together, but her complicity in the event may not have extended to that of murder.

“But I’m still not sure of the motive. Why would Anthony want Jimmy dead?”

“Let’s pick him up, question him, and find out.”