Money Can Be Deadly (Sage Gardens Cozy Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

As the three friends went their separate ways, Samantha kept an eye out for Jacob. She hoped that she hadn't done anything to tip him off that she was onto him. She hesitated outside the door of her villa. Instead of just unlocking the door as she usually did she stood back a few feet and searched for anything that might be out of place.

Since everything seemed to be in order she finally stepped forward and unlocked her door. She eased it slowly open and peeked inside. She checked for anything that looked out of the ordinary before stepping in. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. She locked the door behind her. Samantha was still nervous as she walked into her office and sat down at her computer. She was looking forward to a time when the murder was solved and she could relax.

She laid her fingertips on the keys. She knew what she wanted to research but her mind drifted back to Vince. She thought of the man who had often been a daily part of her life, and yet she barely knew who he was. She wondered how life could get like that, with people remaining strangers despite daily interaction. That was the task ahead of her. Who was Vince? How was he linked to Jacob? Was there any connection at all.

One trick that Samantha had learned during her years of doing research for stories was to follow the forwarding addresses, and the family. First she looked up Vince's immediate family members. His parents were deceased many years earlier. He had one brother and one sister. The sister lived across the country which made her an unlikely source for a connection, but not completely off the table. It was possible that Jacob was an old boyfriend or husband of hers. As Samantha followed the trails between the siblings, and Jacob, she found no connection between Jacob and Vince. Despite the fact that they were both at Sage Gardens at the same time many days, there was no evidence that either of them spent any time together outside of work.

Once she began looking into Vince's brother, Carl, she started to feel she might be getting somewhere. He had lived in some of the same towns as Jacob. In fact at one point Carl and Jacob had lived in the same apartment complex. Samantha dug a little deeper and found that they had lived there at the same time. She also checked on the crime rates for the complex and found that there had been a heavy problem with drugs at the time. It made sense to her that Carl and Jacob could have gotten to know each other while living in the complex. Maybe Carl had connected Jacob with his brother, Vince. Or maybe there had been some bad blood between Carl and Jacob.

Maybe Vince had started trouble in an attempt to settle the score. Samantha now knew how the two men were connected. What she didn't know was whether the relationship between them was one of friendship or business. She sat back from the computer and smiled to herself. There was one way she thought she could find out exactly how Vince and Jacob got along. She picked up her phone and dialed the office.

“Hello?”

Samantha recognized the voice right away. It was the office assistant, Lily.

“Hi Lily, it's Samantha.”

“Oh, hi Samantha,” Lily sounded uncomfortable. She had good reason to be after Samantha and Eddy had pretty much interrogated her about her relationship with Vince. Samantha still suspected that Lily might have somehow been involved in the murder.

“I have a question that I hope that you can answer,” Samantha said warmly.

“Oh, more questions.” Lily cleared her throat. “Fine. What is it?”

“Jacob, the maintenance man. Is he a friend of Vince's?”

“Jacob? Why are you asking about him?” Lily asked grimly.

“I was just wondering if maybe you put in a good word to get Jacob his job here.”

“Why would I have?” Lily asked.

“Because Jacob and Vince knew each other.”

“Look, all I know is that one day Vince brought Jacob into the office to apply for the job. I didn't recommend anybody. But the manager liked Vince, and he hired Jacob on the spot because of it.” Lily sighed. “I still can't believe he's gone.”

Samantha felt a twinge of guilt for putting Lily through the difficult conversation. But she knew that guilt would be erased when she figured out the truth about who had killed Vince.

“What do you think of Jacob, Lily?” Samantha asked.

“I'd rather not say.” Lily was beginning to get very short. “I need to go, Samantha, I have work to do. If you have any more questions for me, why don't you get the police to ask them?” With that she hung up the phone. Samantha grimaced. She knew that Lily was quite upset. The question was, why? Was she upset because Vince was dead, or because she was about to be caught? Samantha wasn't convinced that Lily wasn't still a suspect, though she hoped it wasn't true. After hanging up with Lily she placed a call to Walt.

“Okay Walt, I have some information for you. I want you to look into Jacob's financials, as well as Vince's, and Vince's brother, Carl's.” Samantha looked over the information on her computer to make sure that she hadn't missed anything.

“Oh? Do you think his brother had something to do with this?” Walt asked.

“I think that we're missing something. Supposedly Vince is the one who got Jacob the job. So, if he did that, why would Jacob turn around and kill Vince? They were obviously friends, at least at one point. Maybe the financials will tell the truth.” She frowned. “Something has to lead to the truth.”

“Money always tells the truth,” Walt spoke with confidence. “I'll get on it right now.”

“I'm going to go speak with Jo. I think we're going to need her help.”

“Good luck with that.” Walt chuckled a little. “She doesn't seem to be in a very helpful mood.”

“Well, maybe if you were a little kinder to her, Walt…”

“Samantha, I'm not sure why you insist on involving her. You know that you're just playing with fire, don't you? A woman like Jo, she doesn't have loyalty to anyone,” his tone softened as if he was trying to be gentle.

“I don't agree with that,” Samantha spoke sternly. “I might know a little bit more about her than you do, Walt.”

“No matter what you know, statistically speaking…”

“I know, I know. Once a thief, always a thief.”

“Precisely.” Walt hung up the phone.

Samantha frowned and tucked her phone into her purse. Walt might be right, but sometimes to catch a criminal you had to be a criminal, or at least have some firsthand experience.

***

After hanging up the phone with Samantha, Walt logged into his computer. It only took a few minutes to track down Jacob’s assets.  Walt gasped as he saw that Jacob owned a large house, a very expensive car and a boat. Walt imagined that the drug dealing had bought him that, not a job in maintenance.

He then did a search on Vince.  Vince was in a completely different financial position. He was in huge debt.

He then did a search on Carl, Vince’s brother. He discovered that Carl and Vince's parents had been killed in a car accident when the brothers were young. No money had been left behind.

“So, they were orphans, along with their sister,” Walt said softly. From his research he believed that Vince was in more debt than he could find proof of, probably illegal debt and it was not a surprise to Walt that the young man had ended up dead.

Eddy sorted through the papers he had spread out before him on the table. Although everything was on the computer, he did much better with hard copies. Each piece of paper had a list of the crimes that either Vince or Jacob had committed. He also found a history of crimes that Jacob and Vince’s brother, Carl, committed together. It was really rather overwhelming to see that three men could cause such destruction and chaos. Their history of crime went back to their juvenile records. Eddy couldn't get the information from those, but he guessed it was more of the same.

There were arrests for assault, arrests for possession and distribution of drugs, as well as arrests for petty theft. He wondered how it came to be that the two men could even be hired with such records. But he understood that knowing the right person could make all the difference. As he swept all of the papers up into a pile there was a knock at his door. He looked up at it for a moment. His mind had been immersed in crime and for an instant he forgot that he was no longer an active police officer with a gun constantly on his hip. He brushed his palm along his side, instinctively looking for it. He shook himself out of the memory and walked over to the door. When he opened it he found Samantha standing outside.

“Sorry to just drop in.” She offered an apologetic smile.

“You know you're always welcome, Sam.” Eddy stepped back to allow her inside. Then he closed the door again.

“I was going to call to give you this information, but I was on my way to look for Jo, so I figured I'd stop by. I think there is a pretty strong connection between Jacob and Vince.”

“I can see that, too.” Eddy gestured to the pile of paper on his dining room table. “They have been arrested together more than once.”

“So, it is likely that Jacob was involved in Vince's death. Maybe we'll be able to get Simon off the hook with this information,” her voice started to rise with excitement.

“Well, that's not exactly true,” Eddy muttered. “What we have is a connection, not a crime. So, Vince and Jacob knew each other. That doesn't mean that Jacob killed Vince. If they were friends why would he?”

“Okay, that is something that we don't know yet. But it seems they were working hand in hand. So, they both must have been involved in something dangerous.” She frowned.

“Yes, which means that we are wading deeper and deeper into a dangerous situation,” Eddy said grimly. “I think we need to slow down and think this through.”

“Eddy, if we slow down then Jacob is likely to disappear. He is probably only still hanging around till he manages to get the money. Then he’ll disappear,” Samantha spoke with conviction. “We can't let that happen, Eddy. I wanted to see if Jo could break into the shed where Jacob keeps his stuff and see if there is something of Jacob's that can prove his guilt, then we might be able to get all of this settled quickly.”

“Or she might get caught breaking in.” Eddy shook his head. “I don't know about that.”

“You said yourself that we needed more proof of Jacob's involvement.” Samantha placed her hands on her hips. “How else do you think we're going to get any solid evidence? If the cops even question Jacob he'll probably destroy any evidence and disappear.”

“That may be, but we can't just go around breaking into places, Samantha.”

“We won't be. Jo will be. What are the chances that she won't be able to break into a simple garden shed, Eddy? She's broken into museums and mansions with the highest security. I think that she can handle a padlock.” Samantha laughed a little.

“So, you're just going to run off and get Jo involved? What happens if it goes sideways, Samantha?” He locked eyes with her. “What do you think is going to happen to Jo?”

Samantha glanced away guiltily. She hadn't really thought about that. But she was still determined.

“It's her choice if she wants to take the risk. I'm sure she can handle it. There's nothing wrong with her using her skills to help rather than to hurt. I'll let you know when Jo and I find the evidence that we need.” She turned and walked out of Eddy's villa.

Eddy contemplated going after her, but he decided against it. As she said, it was her choice if she wanted to take the risk.

He turned back into the villa just as his phone began to ring. He answered it quickly.

“Hello?” Eddy sounded a little annoyed.

“What's wrong? It's Walt,” Walt said perplexed.

“I know it's you, Walt.” It was clear that Eddy was exasperated. “What is it that you want?”

Walt narrowed his eyes. He thought about questioning Eddy further to figure out why he was annoyed, but he decided the information that he had to offer was more important.

“I did some research like Samantha asked me into the financial histories of Vince, his brother, and Jacob. I've found some interesting information.”

“Ah yes, Samantha just left here. She was looking for Jo.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she is going to try to get Jo to break into the shed that Jacob stores his tools and personal items in,” Eddy didn't sound terribly pleased about the idea.

“She does like to tap into Jo's…” he paused a moment, “creative talents.”

“That she does,” Eddy said sternly. “What did you find?”

“Jacob's assets are far too luxurious and expensive for a maintenance worker. He's either got his hands into something illegal, has a rich family, or he is very overpaid.”

“Hmm, sounds like Samantha might be right then. She was determined that Jacob was the one who killed Vince.”

“I think it's a very real possibility.” Walt took a breath. “I noticed something else as well.”

“What?”

“Vince was up to his ears in debt. For a young man, I'm not sure how he racked up so much debt in so little time. That is only the legal debt. He probably had more owed to loan sharks as well.”

“Well, that is very telling.” Eddy cleared his throat. “I suppose that if Vince was hurting for money he might have decided to increase his pay from Jacob, without letting Jacob in on the deal.”

“Yes, I think that’s very possible. Of course that's only what it looks like. It's possible that the funds were coming from somewhere else entirely.”

“Sure, it's possible. Listen why don't you meet us down by the garden shed. If Samantha can convince Jo to break in, then we might be able to get even more evidence against Jacob.”

Walt frowned. He considered leaving it at that, but he simply couldn't. “You don't have a problem with that, Eddy?”

“With what?”

“With encouraging Jo to fall back into old habits? If they are even old habits, for all we know she could still be an active criminal.”

Eddy was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone was lower than usual, “Listen Walt, not everything in life is as simple as right and wrong. I mean, technically when a police officer kicks down a door to stop a crime, he is breaking in. Only his crime is sanctioned. In this case, getting a search warrant for the garden shed will take time, and by the time it's done Jacob will likely be long gone. Is it right? I can't say for sure. But isn't it wrong to let a murderer go free?”

“But the old saying, two wrongs don't make a right,” Walt reminded him.

“Of course. But two wrongs don't always make another wrong either.”

“Huh.” Walt thought about arguing that point, but instead he nodded. “All right then. I'll meet you by the garden shed.”

“See you there.” Eddy hung up the phone.

Walt sat at his desk for a moment. He noticed that some of his pens were out of order. Carefully he eased them back into place. Walt was always happier when things had a place and an order. When it came to Jo, he didn't know where to put her. Was she a criminal? Was she reformed? He sighed and stood up from his chair. He was fairly certain that the debate raging in his mind was not one that was going to be settled any time soon.