SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6) (11 page)

I immediately knew who had called informed the department about the police report. It had to be Siever. I was pissed beyond belief. How could he dare to continue to intrude on my family’s life? He’d done so much harm to various people over the years that I considered him an equal conspirator with my mother.

I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that there would be payback at some point. His perfidy would have a price. It didn’t make me feel better to think that Hamlet had probably made a similar comment before the last act of the play.

I decided to make everyone’s life easier, and I hid the files. Of course, I didn’t have a grand new idea on where to hide the file. So I put them in a plastic bag, and slid them in the pan under the dog cage. It was right where Sheila had hid the files originally – the same place where I’d found them at her house. Now they were in the same place at my house. I knew that Sheila would be able to find them here if need be, but no one else would think to look there.

I didn’t hear any more from Sheila after those two texts, so I knew what I had to do. I had to solve this case and clear her name. I wanted to make sure that she’d be cleared. If the informant was an active participant in the crime, I thought that the fact would mitigate whatever reprimands would be given to her.

So I dialed the number of the last missing witness and waited for him to answer. It was a local number, but I had known that going through the 50 or so Robert Jones in the directory would have taken too long. From Sheila’s texts, time would be of the essence from here on out.

A woman answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Is Robert Jones there?” I asked, hoping against hope that I had the right phone number.

“Robert’s been dead nearly a decade.”

I cringed. My last lead in this case was gone. I decided to see if this woman knew anything about the interview. I was really grasping for what I could get now.

I tried to make my voice sound as official as I could as I spoke. “I’m working on the Frias murder case. We apparently had a statement from Robert Jones about that case, but it’s gone missing. I’m trying to look at the cold case, but obviously it’s more difficult when I don’t know what was said.”

The woman’s voice had gone up an octave when she spoke again. “Oh that case. I remember it like it was yesterday. What can I tell you about it?”

I felt a rush of hope that maybe I’d learn something here. “Do you know what the statement was about? If I could know the content, it would go a long way towards helping me solve this case.”

“Certainly. Robert had gone to the local convenience store.” She named a street address that was a mile or so from the Gillespie house. “While he was there, he saw Mr. Gillespie buying some cleaning products. He reported it to the police, and they took a statement from him.”

“I’m assuming that this was the night of the murder? It had to be, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. It was about 7pm. I remember that because Wheel of Fortune was just coming on. That used to be Robert’s favorite show, and instead he had to run to the store to buy something. He was not happy.”

“And he saw Mr. Gillespie? Was he sure?” I thought about the statements made by the family where they were all in each other’s company for the day. If the father had been at a convenient store, what did that say for the rest of the family? Had they all lied for their father? They’d given him an alibi when he’d had none.

“Yes, he was buying some lotion or some such. I don’t remember the details, but it was him. Robert was certain of it.”

I thought about what she’d just said. That fit with the other witness who had indicated that the murder had occurred in the few minutes leading up to 7pm. Now we had the fact that the Gillespie family had lied for their father. The alibi was shot, and the family was all present at the time of the murder. Mr. Gillespie had fled the country after the fact, and they had not returned. Sheila was right that things tended to become clearer long after the fact.

“Why did the police follow up on this?” I asked, thinking that this case could have been solved within days if they’d done a proper investigation of the crime.

“They did, but it was four against one. The family all swore he was there with them, and they were convinced that an older man had to be the one who was confused. Robert was angry about it, but what could he do? Unless they brought up charges, he couldn’t testify, and if he made a deal of it in the newspapers, providing that they even would print it, then his testimony wouldn’t be worth much in court. The defense would call him a publicity hound. So his only recourse was to wait and hope that that case would be solved. He died hoping.” I could hear the frustration in her words, and I knew I would have been the same way. Actually, I would likely have just made the fuss.

Now though, there was no one to testify to this event if there ever was a trial. Jones’ statement was gone, and they wouldn’t allow the second-hand record of the events into the trial. So the wait had made it more difficult to prove this. I thought back to Susan. If she’d told what she’d known at the time, then there were people who could have supported her claims and helped to convict Mr. Gillespie. Now he was gone, and she was afraid to come home.

I thought about this for a few minutes and tried to understand why it was still so dangerous for her to come home. There had to be some aspect to the case that I wasn’t getting. She’d left when she was just a teenager, and still felt that she couldn’t return as an adult. I wasn’t sure of the reasons if Mr. Gillespie was lived out of the country.

I had a few ideas on what to do next. The interview had opened up some more ideas. I was still stuck on putting together a new theory on the case, just from the evidence that was missing from the police report.

I’d started a new idea from the missing evidence when the doorbell rang. It was my mother and her sidekick, Sergeant Siever. I looked at both of them and moved away from the door so that they could come into the house.

I knew this wouldn’t end well. My mother’s lips were pressed thin, and she had that look of someone who was about to smell something unpleasant.

“You certainly get around a lot for someone who doesn’t like to go out,” I started, knowing that they had come to argue.

“I go out when I need to, and now I need to.” My mother didn’t look at me as she spoke. I recognized the gesture, but I wasn’t sure what it meant in this case. Typically that was her maneuver when she’d been caught in a lie. I just wasn’t sure what lie was applicable here.

Siever hadn’t said a word. I was glad, because I was still angry that he’d told IA about Sheila getting the file for me.

I sat down, crossed my legs, and waited. I had nowhere to go at the moment. It was my home, and I felt like I had the home court advantage. I could wait for whatever they had to say.

My mother took a deep breath and sat down on the sofa, opposite of me. Siever continued to stand where he was.

“So why exactly did you need to go out today?” I asked. The dogs were in the backyard, and hadn’t heard people come into the house. I was fine with that, because I knew it would get tense. Bess wasn’t good at handling upset people, and I was glad that she was going to miss this.

“Michael thinks it’s the wrong thing to do, but I’m going to tell you what happened with Susan. The whole story with nothing left out. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Her words seemed conciliatory but her face was still the antagonist look of someone who was being forced to do something that she didn’t want.

“That’s not what I want,” a voice said from the doorway. I looked up. Adam Gillespie was standing in the doorway with a gun.

All three of us froze in our places. I assumed that Siever had plenty of experience in high stress situations, but he didn’t appear to be in control here. His hands were shaking, and he’d gone a rather nasty shade of pasty. He made no moves.

I watched Gillespie as he moved into the room. He had the gun firmly in hand. He wasn’t shaking or moving the gun side to side. Mostly the gun was pointed directly at me, which I didn’t particularly like.

“So gee, Mom, why don’t you tell us a story? Where is dear old Susan? I’ve been waiting a long time to find out – too long if you ask me.” His face turned toward my mother, but his hand still pointed the gun at me. Siever was unguarded and unwatched, but wasn’t moving.

I wondered if Siever was involved with Gillespie. He’d pulled the pages from the police report. He’d done his best to stop me from looking into the matter. From most perspectives, he’d done more to hinder the truth than help it. Now Gillespie wasn’t even watching him as he spoke to my mother.

“Well, let’s hear it,” he shouted. The words echoed off the ceiling and through the room. The dogs must not have heard it, because they made no attempt to get inside. The Countess, though, had had enough of the drama and slowly sauntered out of the room. I knew better than to rely on her for help in the future.

“I don’t know. I’ve never known where Susan was or what happened to her. Neither do the police. It’s a mystery.” My mother paused every few words to catch her breath, which was coming in short gasps.

He turned the gun to me. “So what’s it going to be, Fitzpatrick? Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to back up your mother’s lame story?”

I cleared my throat. “You think she’s told me a thing about anything? Do you see how I live? I’m afraid of the world, scared of being snatched by an unknown terror, keeping my head down and not attracting any attention to myself. Why would I do that if my sister was alive? Why would I have wasted years of my life cowering if I knew that she was still alive?”

He scoffed at me. “You do have a point. How sad it is that you’ve never dated, and when you do you fall for Detective Green. She came by and asked a few questions about the murder too. Did you know that? She seemed to act like you were not aware of her actions. She’s a tricky one. I’d keep an eye on her.”

I mourned that the first time I had some solid advice on my love life, it came from a homicidal maniac who would probably shoot me before I could act on it. I really did need to get out more. I just needed to get out of this situation first.

“So which of you is going to tell me where Susan is?” he shouted again. Now he waved the gun back and forth between the three of us. He did it too fast for me to move on him. He would be bringing the gun back to me before I could jump him.

“She’s gone – for good,” my mother said softly. “She’ll never come back here, and you’ll never see her.”

Gillespie trained the gun on her. “Better think again. If nothing else, I bet she’d come back for her mother’s funeral, don’t you? And when she does, I’m willing to bet that she’ll bring the baby too.”

“Baby?” I said, feeling like suddenly I had stepped into the middle of a play. “Belinda Frias’s baby?”

Gillespie barked out a vicious laugh. “Boy, you didn’t tell him anything, did you? He just went poking his nose into my affairs without a clue as to what was going on. Do you want to tell him, or should I?”

My mother didn’t speak, so he continued. “Susan and I were messing around. She got pregnant. Unfortunately, I seem to be incredibly fertile, because I also knocked up the maid about the same time as well. I only wanted to be involved with one woman, not two. So the maid had to go.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I shouted. My brain had gone into overdrive. Susan had been a pregnant teen. She’d left town because she was pregnant? I had brought all of this mayhem down upon us because no one had told me that I was an uncle. I still couldn’t get a grasp on things. Why wouldn’t she just not marry him? Why run away?

“Poor dumb naïve Griff. Apparently your family didn’t tell you what was happening. You were telling the truth, I guess. It doesn’t change what has to happen, but at least you were telling the truth to me. It’s nice to know that some people are true to their word.” He smirked and pointed the gun at Siever.

“So are you going to tell me where she is, or do I get her back here the hard way?” I could see the gun tremble now as Gillespie grasped it in his right hand.

My mother pressed her lips into a thin line. That look meant that she wasn’t budging. She would be shot dead before she spoke.

Gillespie must have seen the determination in her eyes. “Fine, have it your way.” He fired twice. Siever spun around and hit the floor. I couldn’t see him well from this vantage point, but I could see the slowly pooling blood on my floor.

My mother’s tone was steely. “I won’t tell you even if you shoot all three of us. She won’t come home, and you won’t get your hands on that precious child.”

I did some quick math. The baby that they were referring to would have to be around the same age as Susan when she’d ran away. He or she would hardly be a baby or a child. It would be a surly teenager by this time with acne and attitude. Once again, I’d missed out on a family relationship because of Susan. I felt my face flush and my blood rushing in my ears. I was an outcast in a family of outcasts. Even murderers knew more about my family than I did.

“I’ll tell you,” I said, turning to face him.

He looked at my mother for a second. He took a step forward and cracked her on the head with the pistol butt. She crumpled to the floor in a heap.

“Don’t worry. She’s not dead. I might need her if you’re lying to me. So she’s safe for now. So talk.”