Julie Garwood - Slow Burn

"It looks like Roger knew just about everything there was to know about Kate MacKenna. He had all of her phone numbers, her work and home addresses, the make and model of her car, the license plate number, her business associates' phone numbers and addresses, her sisters' cell phone numbers. He even had Isabel MacKenna's ex-boyfriend's name and phone number."

"He had Reece Crowell's name?"

"And he'd underlined Carl Bertolli's address and had the date and time for the gallery party. He had the address for the warehouse, too."

"My God, he had it all, didn't he?"

"I'm just getting warmed up. We already bagged the calendar we found in the kitchen next to the phone. It was covered with prints. It looked like someone else besides Roger had made notes. There were two distinct handwritings. I sent it to the lab over an hour ago and put a rush on it. We should have a preliminary report any minute now. Besides times and places, there were flight numbers. Kate's flight numbers. He knew when she was going to Boston, and he knew when she was coming home."

Dylan was having a difficult time controlling his anger. How long had the son of a bitch been stalking Kate? Had he been inside her house? It would have been easy for him. She never locked the damned doors.

"Have you looked at his car yet?"

"Yes," Kline answered. "It's a white Ford with tinted windows. This has to be the car Kate described to Hallinger, the one that tried to run her down."

"Getting all this information took a lot of time and care." Dylan rubbed the back of his neck. "What else?"

"There were two dates heavily circled on the calendar."

"The dates of the explosions."

"That's right," Kline said. "Roger made a lot of notations. One was real interesting. 'Jackman got the baskets.' 'Two hundred thousand' was written next to it. That has to be the amount he paid for the explosives."

"Nate told me Jackman's been picked up."

"Yes," he replied. "Right now he's sitting in an interrogation room in Vegas waiting for his attorney."

"Roger's notes aren't going to be enough to hold him long, and you still don't know who was behind the camera when Compton MacKenna filmed his farewell address."

"We know it wasn't one of the nephews because he didn't trust any of them, and he didn't want them to know what he was up to," he said. "That was real apparent in the video. There are a couple of people looking good to us, though. One's the housekeeper. We just found out she made a fat deposit in her account about six weeks ago. We're bringing her in to have a little talk." He added, "And we're also interested in Compton MacKenna's attorney. I'm not worried. We'll find whoever it was."

Dylan took his time walking around the apartment and studying the papers and the handwritten notes. Nice tidy package, he thought. Roger couldn't have been more accommodating if he'd tried. He'd left just enough hints to connect Jackman, but not hard evidence to nail him.

Something didn't compute. Dylan made a second examination of the information the agents had collected, but each time a question was answered, another one popped up. What was Reece's name doing in Roger's notes? Why did he leave information for them to find and yet leave no suicide note? Where did he get another gun so quickly? There was nothing orderly in Roger's life, so why was this so organized?

One perfect shot… knew just where to aim.

The paramedics had come in to bag the body. Agent Kline moved out of their way and noticed Dylan staring down at the papers, frowning. "Something bothering you?" he asked.

Dylan nodded. "This doesn't feel right. It isn't working for me."

They both watched the body being carted away. "What you've got here is a nice, tidy package," Dylan said.

Kline shrugged. "It can happen this way… all of it coming together…"

"Yeah? Since when does it happen this way? Everything laid out nice and easy for you? The only thing missing from the table are arrows pointing to the evidence on those papers." He shook his head. "I don't like nice and tidy, and do you know why? It makes me think that maybe all this was staged."

"Miss MacKenna is on another line. Would you like to hold, or may I take a message?" the receptionist inquired.

He didn't leave a message, but he did relax. It was okay. Kate was where she was supposed to be.

He was crossing the busy street heading to his car when his phone rang. Nate was on the line.

"We've got a problem. Ewan MacKenna hasn't shown up at the police station. His attorney's still there waiting for him, and he swears he doesn't know where his client is. Can't find Ewan's car, either. We've sent some men to his house. No car, no Ewan. He left in a hurry, too, because his front door was wide open. Police went in and searched. Nothing."

"What happened to Ewan's surveillance?"

"Evidently some idiot pulled it when Roger was found with all that evidence. I've got some guys checking a couple of Ewan's favorite health clubs."

"You better get someone over to the hospital to make sure Bryce and Vanessa haven't disappeared."

"I was just about to send someone. I'll talk to you later."

Dylan pulled his car key out of his pocket and was inserting it in the door when he saw Agent Kline rushing across the street waving to get his attention.

"Glad I caught you. Ewan MacKenna's missing," Kline said as he caught up to him.

"Yeah, I heard," Dylan answered.

"Well, there's more. I just got a call from the lab. They found a match to the fingerprints on the calendar, and they just happen to belong to Ewan MacKenna himself. Maybe you're right. Maybe the crime scene was staged. So now I guess we've got a whole new kettle of fish to deal with here."

Kline folded his arms, looked at the ground for a second as he thought, and then said, "Here's my original theory: Someone the old man trusts films the video and makes himself an extra copy. He sells it to Roger. Roger watches it and knows he's got to get rid of Kate or he's not gonna see a dime. So what does he do? He calls Jackman and cuts him in because he needs his connections. This all makes sense, right? But now I've got to consider that either Ewan is in on it with Roger and Jackman, or maybe the video is sold to Ewan. Roger doesn't know anything about it. Ewan watches it, and he cuts Jackman in, and the two of them set Roger up to take the fall. It could have happened that way because, I'm telling you, there sure as certain isn't any brotherly love going on in that family."

Dylan draped his arms across the car door and listened to the agent's hypothesis.

Kline continued to think out loud. "Still nice and tidy, right?" he asked. "Now I've got to wonder about the timing. Why did Roger kill himself when he did?"

"I don't think he did kill himself," Dylan said.

Kline's shoulders hunched a bit more. "Yeah, maybe."

Dylan got in the car and rolled down the window. "Hopefully, evidence will prove it."

"If Roger was murdered, Ewan becomes the number one suspect. He's capable of murder."

"In that family… they're all capable of murder."

"I'll let you know when we find Ewan," Kline said. He jogged back across the street and into the building.

Dylan couldn't get rid of the uneasy feeling that he was missing something. He was looking at it but not seeing it. He locked in on Kline's comment about timing. Maybe that was it. The timing was wrong. Yeah, that's what was bothering him.