Casey Mayes - A Killer Column

DETECTIVE MURPHY SHOWED UP SEVEN MINUTES AFTER Zach called him. Either he was an extremely fast driver, or he’d been somewhere close by. Either way, we barely had time to get our stories straight before he rang Jenny’s doorbell.

“Let’s see it,” Murphy said as Jenny opened the door.

“Hello, Shawn, it’s good to see you, too.”

He stepped in, and she added, “Won’t you come in?”

“I don’t have time for this, Jenny. A city councilman was just robbed at gunpoint by the Capitol building, and we’re all supposed to drop what we’re doing and start a search party.”

“The power of power is something, isn’t it?” she said.

Zach stepped up. “Here’s what we found.” Always a stickler, my husband had turned his back and asked me to hide the copy of Derrick’s planner in the pile of telephone directories I’d already looked through. When I was finished, he turned back around and “discovered” the copy in the stack. That way he was technically telling the truth to another police officer. It seemed a little ridiculous to me, but my husband had his own set of guidelines and rules that he ran his life by, and I was no one to judge.

Murphy took the pages, skimmed through them, and then said, “We’ve been looking for this.”

“You knew there was a copy all along?” Zach asked innocently.

“Not a copy, but the original. I figure Kelsey Hatcher or Cary Duncan still has the original, but if they do, they’re in no mood to share it with us.” He tapped the pages. “Thanks for this. We’ll jump right on it.”

I wanted to tell him about the entry with the Richmond divorce attorneys, but Zach was probably reading my mind when he shook his head slightly. I kept it to myself, and Murphy headed for the door.

“Any luck tracking the teddy bear down?” Zach asked before he could get away.

“I’ve got a man on it, but no news yet. It might take a little time.”

“Just checking,” Zach said.

“When I know something, you will,” he said. “I’ve got to run.”

He left without so much as a good-bye, and I asked, “Why didn’t you tell him about the divorce attorney?”

“For the same reason I didn’t want you to tell him. If he finds it for himself, which he will in a few hours, trust me, it will mean more to him than if we point it out. Besides, I wanted a little deniability about reading it. Did you notice how careful he was not to ask if we’d scanned it?”

“I thought that was odd,” Jenny said.

“It’s so we’d be covered,” Zach said. He retrieved the original from under his chair, and then said, “Now we keep digging.”

“My copy is gone,” Jenny said.

“You can always help me with the telephone directories I have left,” I told her.

“Thanks, but I’d rather make us all a snack.”

Zach perked up at that. “Snack? I could go for a snack.”

I just smiled at my husband as I resumed my search of the telephone books I hadn’t examined yet. My long shot was getting longer and longer, but that didn’t mean I could give up. We needed more clues, and I wasn’t about to turn my back on another source, no matter how remote the odds were getting.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, JENNY CAME OUT WITH A TRAY FULL of cheese and crackers and some wine. “Is everyone ready for a break?”

“Why not?” Zach asked. “This planner is giving me a migraine. Derrick wasn’t the most organized man in the world, was he?”

Jenny said, “You should have seen his hotel room. That alone would be enough to prove it. The place was a complete wreck.”

“I have no problem believing that,” Zach said as he took a bite of cracker. “Half his notes make no sense at all, and those are just the ones I’ve been able to decipher from his chicken scratch writing.”

“You can do it,” I said as I took a sip of wine.

“Are you making any progress with the telephone books?”

“It’s slow going,” I admitted, “but it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.” I picked up a piece of cheese, took a bite, and then added, “Why all the telephone books if he wasn’t using them for something?”

“They’re really heavy,” Jenny said. “Maybe we were right originally and he was trying to make it seem as though the suitcases were holding something else?”

“We’ve already ruled out gold bars,” I said. “What else could be that heavy?”

Zach said softly, “Cash might be.”

“Seriously?” Jenny asked.

My husband nodded. “You’d be amazed how heavy two suitcases stuffed full of money can be.”

Jenny looked at him cryptically. “When have you moved that much cash, Zach?”

He shrugged. “It came up once on the job.”

Jenny looked at me, but I shook my head slightly, silently pleading for her to drop it. Zach didn’t like to talk about the time in Charlotte ten years before when he’d been forced to act as a courier for kidnappers. It had turned out badly, with the money taken and the victim never found, so I’d been surprised when he’d brought it up.

“Anyway,” I said, “I doubt Derrick ever had that much cash on him in his life. Besides, he’d have to take the telephone books out as soon as he was ready to leave.”

Jenny asked, “Why would he have to do that?”

“He had to get his clothes home, didn’t he? Those suitcases were just a temporary storage place.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t get it.”

“Me, either,” I said. I slapped my hands together, and added, “I’ve got two more telephone books, and then we’ll know for sure if they’re important or not.”

“I’ll help,” Jenny said.

“Thanks, but it’s become a matter of personal pride for me now.”

“Or stubbornness,” Zach said.

“Aren’t they the same thing?” I asked with a grin.

“Sometimes they are,” Zach said. “Jenny, maybe you can help me with the planner. How good are you at reading hieroglyphics?”

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

I took another sip, and reached for the fifth telephone book in the pile. As I fanned the pages, expecting nothing to happen, I was startled when an envelope slipped out and fluttered into my lap.

“I think I just found something,” I said as I finished fanning the pages of the directory. Nothing else dropped out, so I set the phone book aside and picked up the envelope.

“What is it?” Zach asked as he came over to join me on the couch.

“I’m not sure. Let’s see,” I said as I turned the envelope over and broke the seal on it.

The letter inside was brief and to the point, and I read it out loud to Zach and Jenny.

To: Kelsey Hatcher

From: Derrick Duncan

As of the end of business today, your services will no longer be required. Your final check will be sent to you via registered mail within ten days.

It was signed by Derrick, and dated the day of his murder.

“Am I wrong, or is that a strong motive?” I asked.

Zach took the letter from me, careful to handle it around the edges. “We need to call Murphy back.”

“He’s going to love this. How are we going to tell him that we found something else in the telephone books we had? It’s a little too coincidental, don’t you think?”

“That can’t be helped,” Zach said. “He has a right to know. Jenny, do you want to go catch a movie or something while we do this? It might help keep you out of it.”

She smiled gently. “It’s a little too late for that, wouldn’t you say? Call him, Zach. I can take it.”

“First, I’m going through the last book,” I said.

I did a quick examination, but it turned up empty. “Okay, now you can call him.”

Zach made the phone call, and two minutes later, I was surprised to see a car outside Jenny’s tear up the driveway with its police lights flashing.