Suspicions with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Four) (3 page)

While Ben talked, Rilynne turned her attention to the couple bickering at the end of the bar. They must have been in their eighties, though they seemed highly energetic. The woman, whose hair was almost completely white, was standing over her husband with her hands on her hips. Rilynne couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she was noticeably upset about something. Her husband, still sitting at the bar, seemed to be more interested in his soup than the argument she was making.

“Well, I just got a call so I better be going,” he said as he finished his coffee. “I’ll walk you back. I’m sure you need to start trying on that new uniform of yours.”

Rilynne smacked him on the arm as he walked past her, but it didn’t wipe the grin off of his face.

Ben took her by the arm and walked her to the front doors of the station before heading toward his car. Instead of riding the elevator up to the homicide office, she decided to make a quick stop by the morgue.

“Dr. Andrews,” she said when she found the coroner sitting at his desk. Her first impression of him only strengthened since their introduction nine months before. His round belly, along with his fluffy white hair and beard, left him with a striking resemblance to Santa. This was only compounded by his frequent red attire and his month long vacation starting at the beginning of December. Had she still believed in Santa, she might have questioned his true identity. “How’s your grandson enjoying his karate classes?”

“Sadly, he’s quickly losing interest. He’s more concerned with hitting people on one of those video games than anything else these days,” he stated with a displeased look. “So, what case would you like me to look back over today?”

“No cold cases for me today,” she stated as she sat down in front of him. “I’m actually going undercover on the Price case. I was wondering if you could give me any clues as to where I should start looking.”

He spun around in his chair and pulled the filing cabinet drawer open. After a moment, he emerged with a file.

“Let’s see,” he said as he put his glasses on. “Brittney Price, age twenty-three, suffered numerous broken bones, as well as several contusions. Her right lung was puncture by a fragment of broken rib, which resulted in internal hemorrhaging. Judging by the injuries she received, it appears that she fell down a flight of stairs.” He put the file down and looked up at Rilynne. “I was considering the possibility of it being an accident until I discovered the bruise on her lower back. She was struck with something long and narrow at the time of her death. Other than that, I’m afraid there isn’t much I can tell you. The body was submerged, so we weren’t able to pull anything useful off of it.”

“Do you know when she was put into the lake?”

His face twisted in contemplation. “I can’t give you an exact time. I can estimate that she was in the water for at least thirty-six hours. It’s possible she was put in the water immediately after death, but I cannot give you a definite answer. The only thing I do know for sure is she was already dead when she went in.”

“If you can think of anything else, please let me know,” she said as she offered him her hand.

*

“Okay,” Wilcome said as he walked back into the conference room. “You’re now Naomi Howard, formerly of Bandera, Texas. Because they do such in depth research into their employees, we’ve included everything from high school transcripts to a library card. The agency is usually responsible for checking all references, but we’ve made sure the numbers will be operational in case someone from the Lewis manor calls.”

“What about the woman who runs the agency?” Rilynne asked.

“Believe it or not, she’s actually in a book club with Sherri,” Wilcome said. “I called her this morning, and she’s agreed to cooperate with us as long as we insure that no one will know. People like the Lewis’ won’t work with someone they don’t feel they can completely trust.”

Rilynne nodded and said, “So above anything, my identity can’t be discovered; not even after the case is closed.”

“Exactly,” he said. “With how deep this cover is, though, we’ll want to keep it intact in case we ever need to use it again.” Rilynne gave him a suspicious look that he
countered with an amused grin. “I’m not saying you’ll ever need to be a maid again. The cover is clean enough to be used for just about anything.”

Rilynne read over the file Wilcome handed her. Naomi Howard-who luckily shared the same birthday with her-had moved to Addison Valley from Bandera two years ago. Just two months shy of her twenty-seventh birthday, Naomi had been cleaning houses since she graduated from high school.

“You couldn’t have made me a little younger?” she asked. “I thought we’d been over this; I’ll be turning twenty-three again this year.”

Wilcome chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you just concentrate on familiarizing yourself with the details of the case, and I’ll work on finding a therapist to help relieve you of your delusions.”

“Oh hush,” she said. He rounded the corner out of the conference room just in time to avoid the highlighter she threw at him.

Rilynne combed over every detail of her new identity, committing it all to memory. They had even compiled a detailed history on the families she was to have worked for, so she would be able to answer any questioned asked of her. She stopped and laughed when she read over the list of books they had included as rentals with her library card.

“Seriously?” she asked as she looked up at Wilcome when he walked back in. He had a mischievous grin on his face as he started to chuckle. “Do I really look like I spend all of my time reading vampire novels and books written for teenagers?”

Wilcome’s amusement was shared between the others in the room.

“It was a joint effort,” he replied shortly. “You can blame Steele for the vampire books. I think he’ll be receiving more grief than you will, though, because he seemed to know every book in the series by name.”

“What?” Steele asked defensively. “I have a sister, and she seemed to really enjoy them. I swear it’s all she talked about for months.”

Rilynne rolled her eyes. “Next time I’m going to have say over some of this stuff.”

The men continued to laugh as she returned her attention to the file laid out in front of her.

“I’ve got it!” Matthews’ voice echoed through the room a few moments later. Rilynne looked up and found the case file sitting in front of him. “It was the butler.” Rilynne peered at him curiously, and found only a cocky smile as he leaned back in his chair.

“And why do you say that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s always the butler.”

Rilynne laughed and slowly shook her head. “I guess we don’t need to bother with any actual police work then. What are we going to do with the rest of the day?”

“Well, we could find out why Steele likes these books so much,” Tylers offered.

“Thanks man,” Steele said, punching Tylers in the arm. He countered by pushing his elbow back toward him, hitting Steele with just enough force to cause his chair to topple backwards.

The room filled with laughter as Steele’s feet flew up over his head and he flipped backwards. “You all right?” Tylers asked as he reached back to help Steele back on his feet.

“I’m going to get you back for that one,” Steele chuckled and pulled his chair back up.

“Oh really?” Tylers seemed unconvinced. “I’d like to see you try.”

The mischievous grin on Steele’s face was undeniable. “Don’t forget you’re dating my sister,” he said smoothly.

Rilynne was surprised when she learned Avery was dating Ernie Tylers. Not only were Steele and Tylers partners, they were best friends. They were so close, in fact, that she thought they were brothers when she first arrived in town. The belief was only aided by the fact that they looked so much alike, with the same dark hair and green eyes. The only remarkable difference between them was their difference in height, Tylers being a few inches taller. With as close as they were, she would have never imagined Steele would be all right with Tylers dating his younger sister.

Tylers’ face went instantly blank. “Low blow man, low blow.”

When the chuckling finally died down, Rilynne returned her attention to the details of her cover story. By the time she had it all down, Matthews had finished with the case file and passed it back to her.

She read through it half a dozen more times, trying to memorize every detail possible. After she was sure she’d learned everything she could, she began working through the staff files that had been pulled together.

Every member of the staff had been employed by the Lewis family for over three years, aside from the victim. Trying to get information out of the group would have its challenges. While the members of the staff were sure to have intimate details about each other’s lives, it wouldn’t be easy to get anything out of them. Much like the police department itself, people who worked so closely together had a tendency to become protective of those around them. In a way, they were more like a family than just coworkers. If a member of the staff were involved in the death, there was a definite possibility the others would be willing to assist in covering it up. All she could do was hope that if there were such a bond between them, it wouldn’t be too strong to be broken.

She carefully combed through every detail of the case until long after the sun sank below the windows in the conference room. Her eyes were starting to burn when she finally closed the files in front of her and walked back into the office.

Lori was sitting at her desk, working through the department manuals.

“I’m going to call it a day,” Rilynne said as she reached for her purse. “Do you want to follow me back to the house, or do you still have stuff to do around here?”

Lori shook her head and stood up. “I’m ready. I finished all of my paperwork earlier, so I’ve just been flipping through these so I can get an idea about the way the station is run.”

“Well in that case, I’ve got a bottle of wine with our names on it,” Rilynne said with a grin as they stepped out the door and headed toward the elevator.

“So tell me about this case you’re going to be working,” Lori said as Rilynne pressed the down button. “In an office full of men, no one seemed to know anything beyond the maid aspect.”

Rilynne rolled her eyes as the elevator doors slid open. “Of course not,” she groaned. “Follow me back to the house, and I’ll fill you in over that bottle of wine.”

The street was dark and damp. She’d heard the raindrops slapping the conference room window hours before, but hadn’t realized it rained as much as it had. There was over an inch of water sitting in the rain gage outside the front door to the station.

The storm had blown through quickly, leaving a star-speckled sky above them. Rilynne glanced up and grinned before climbing into her car. Despite all of the time she’d been in Addison Valley, she still hadn’t gotten used to the vastness of the sky.

Lori pulled into the driveway behind Rilynne. After unlocking the front door and throwing her purse down, she helped Lori empty her trunk. Unlike Rilynne, Lori seemed to over-pack. She’d only planned on living out of her suitcases for two weeks at most, but even after lugging the fifth large suitcase into the house, she wondered aloud if she’d packed enough. All Rilynne could do was laugh and roll her eyes.

After dragging everything into the guest room, Rilynne grabbed a bottle of wine out of the kitchen and threw her own suitcase onto her bed.

She worked her way through the closet, pulling out everything she thought she would need, and threw them onto the bed. Unlike the men, Lori was more interested in the case as she explained it than the fact she would be working undercover as a maid. By the time she finished pulling all of her clothes out of the closet, she had already gone over all of the details from the case file. She filled her wine glass and climbed on the bed.

“So how are things with you and Ben?” Lori asked as she hopped up on the bed next to her.

“They would be better if we ever actually got to spent time together,” Rilynne replied honestly as she placed a folded shirt into the bag. “Between injuries and our work schedules, it’s been a difficult task. The time we’ve had together has been great, though.”

Lori grabbed a shirt off of the pile and began folding. “Good. You two really are cute together,” she said. “No relationship is going to be perfect. If your work schedules are the only problem you’re running into, you’re still miles ahead of most.”

Rilynne grinned. “Speaking of relationships,” she said with a playful smile. “I told you that I had the perfect guy for you, and that hasn’t changed.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to wait for your assignment to be finished before I get to meet him,” said Lori. She had a flicker of excitement in her eyes that made Rilynne smile.

“No, it’ll be much easier than that,” Rilynne said. “He lives next door.”

“Oh really?” she asked while peeking out of the open window.

Rilynne laughed as she hastily stuffed the remainder of the pile into the suitcase. “Tell you what,” she said as she slid off the bed. “Why don’t we take the rest of this bottle out to the front porch. If you’re lucky, he might step outside so you can see him.”

Lori was already off the bed and out the bedroom door before Rilynne picked up the bottle sitting on her nightstand. Rilynne shook her head as she followed her through the house and out the front door.