Dust Up with the Detective (10 page)

Chapter Thirteen

It was late in the afternoon, and they were still waiting. With any luck the judge would issue the search warrant in time for them to get back to Todd’s place before it got dark. If not, they would have to wait until the morning when they could get enough manpower to serve the papers and pick the place apart.

“How’s your burger?” Jeremy asked as Blake took a bite of the bar fare.

She shrugged. “Fine,” she said, pointing at his untouched basket of food. “You gonna eat that?”

It was the reality of being a law enforcement officer that when he was given the chance to eat, he needed to take it. This job could keep him on the streets well into the night.

“I’m not hungry,” he said, pushing a fry around the basket.

She snorted as she swallowed a bite. “These burgers are the best in town. You’re missing out.” She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

He glanced at her phone, hoping at any moment it would ding with the message they’d gotten their search warrant.

“Look, it’s like a pot,” she said, motioning toward her phone. “It’s not going to boil if you’re constantly watching it.”

She was right, but he couldn’t help himself. He hated the fact that they had to leave O’Brien’s compound. Todd knew something about Robert’s death, and leaving him standing there, when they were so close to someone with answers, was torturous. Yet there’d been little they could do, or find, without a warrant. Once they got it, they would be back. Then they would hopefully get everything they needed to pin this guy down.

“Did you get a chance to look over Robert and Tiffany’s credit card reports?” he asked, still staring at the phone. “Anything that could help us get a lead on Tiffany’s whereabouts?”

“I forwarded you a copy of the email from Wells Fargo.” Blake had a pained expression.

What wasn’t she saying?

He opened up the email on his phone and went through the list of recent purchases: mining supplies, Walmart, Home Depot...normal shopping. Nothing that stood out. The only thing irregular over the last six months of his brother’s and sister-in-law’s purchases was the fact that both of them had stopped using their credit cards the day of Robert’s death.

“There’s also an email about bank records.” Blake took another bite, avoiding his gaze.

Jeremy opened the second email and clicked through their banking records. Just like their credit card there were the normal bills: electric, garbage and mortgage. He scrolled down to deposits and withdrawals. According to the records, there had been an $18,250 cash withdrawal a week before Robert went missing. The bank’s statement didn’t indicate who had pulled out the money.

He set his phone down on the brown Formica table, but he couldn’t look away from the bank statement. There was the withdrawal request and the card used, but it didn’t tell him who exactly took out the money. The longer he looked at the withdrawal, the more it seemed to pulse with life, as if the number itself was trying to tell him something.

“We need to get to the bank. See if we can get their surveillance videos and see whether it was Robert or Tiffany who pulled out the money,” he said, pushing up from his seat.

“Sit down and eat,” Blake said, motioning toward his food. “There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow. The banks are closed.”

She was right, but it didn’t stop his blood pressure from creeping higher. He waved toward the bartender as he settled back into the hard wooden chair. “Can I get a Bud Light, bottle?”

He knew he shouldn’t drink when they were working on an investigation, but he needed something to take the edge off. He just needed a moment, a second, to stop and think.

The bartender sat a bottle on a tiny napkin in front of him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a long drink. The bitter taste flooded his senses. He was more of a scotch man, but the beer would do.

A man who was sitting at the bar kept glancing over at them as Jeremy started to eat his burger. When they entered any public place it was as if every eye was on them and everyone wanted to hear what they were talking about.

He looked to Blake, but she didn’t seem to notice the attention they were drawing—she seemed hyperfocused on the burger in her hands.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, taking another drink and trying to ignore the man at the bar.

Blake took a long sip of her Coke, like she was avoiding having to answer him, but he waited her out.

“About Tiffany and what Todd said...” she started, but then stopped, as if she was unsure of what exactly to say.

“What about them?”

She remained silent as she spun the red plastic straw around in her pop.

“You think she’s dead, don’t you?” He tapped on the phone, calling her attention to the financial transactions that had suddenly stopped.

Blake looked up at him, her blue eyes were full of questions. “What do you think? You think it’s possible?”

He had been a detective for too many years to be naive. There was a good chance his sister-in-law was dead. Then again, it was more than a little fishy that someone would pull out all their money, and then they find one body but not the other. For all he knew, maybe Tiffany was the one behind Robert’s murder. Maybe she took the money, Robert found out and she killed him. Whoever had shot his brother had to be someone who could get close, close enough that he wouldn’t stop the killer when he or she came at him with a gun.

Then again, a Glock .40 caliber had one hell of a kick. Tiffany was a small woman. If she was trying to shoot Robert, could she have done it in a single shot with such precision?

Normally, in the case of a shooting death, there was more than one shot if there was any form of altercation. The first shot would be low, near the floor as the person tried to fend off the attack. Then there was some kind of kill shot. In the cases of homicide that he usually saw, the second and third shots were to the chest. But not in Robert’s case. One shot to the head. Execution-style. There was no low shot. No evidence of defensive wounds. Nothing to indicate anything other than his brother had sat there and taken a shot to the head.

It wasn’t like Robert.

His thoughts drifted to his brother’s letter.
The thing I love most would be the death of me.

Had that been Robert’s final clue that his wife had been behind his death? He had hidden the note in his waistband. He must have been afraid someone would find it...someone besides law enforcement...someone who would pat down his body when he died. Who would have been capable of doing that, and why?

Maybe whoever was after him wanted his money. Maybe it was Tiffany. Maybe she wanted to take him for every last penny before she disappeared. It was possible she’d started a fight with him in the mine, shot and killed him, then imploded the entrance, thinking that he would never be found.

Yet if she was behind the murder, why hadn’t she just stayed put? She could have told anyone that Robert had simply run off, gone to Mexico. His parents would have been upset. No doubt Jeremy would have looked into the disappearance, but if she had taken the time, she could have covered up any foul play long before he arrived. It would have taken some time and some planning, but it wasn’t out of the question.

She could have walked away with everything. The money, the house, the mine.

She had to be dead.

If she was dead, Todd O’Brien seemed like the most logical suspect. Why else would Todd have brought her up? Why had he acted so guilty when it came to her?

The guy hated Robert. Maybe he was trying to take everything of Robert’s in one fell swoop.

Normally Jeremy loved a good mystery, but not this time...not when the deceased was his brother.

He was about to ask Blake what she thought, but he stopped as the man at the bar stood up and started to walk toward them. The guy walked with a limp, like he had a problem with his hip. As he moved, Jeremy noticed the familiar line of a holstered gun concealed under the man’s blue flannel shirt.

His hand tightened on the sweaty beer bottle. It seemed everyone in Montana had a gun and many had a concealed weapon permit, but it always made him twitch. There was no way of knowing what a person was capable of.

“Sorry for bothering y’all,” the man said with a congenial smile. “I heard about your case out at the Foreman Mine.”

“Does everyone know what happened out there?” he asked Blake, who sent him a knowing smile that reminded him exactly how small the town was.

“I live just in the ravine over from the mine,” the man continued. “A few weeks back, Robert and Todd had guns out and I had to call you guys. Thought things were gonna take an ugly turn, if you know what I mean.”

Jeremy’s grip loosened on his beer bottle. “Is that right?”

The man nodded. “Yep, but normally I ain’t got no problem with Todd. He’s got land on the other side of mine. Comes through every few days to check it out, walk the fence line and make sure everything is as it should be.”

“He has land on the
other
side of yours? What do you mean?” Blake asked.

“He’s been buying up land left and right out near me. Been lots of foreclosures after the downturn in the economy and the uptick in taxes. Everyone’s been havin’ problems making ends meet. Some even been selling to him before the bank takes over.”

His thoughts instantly moved to Robert. Had he been one of the ones Todd had been buying out?

Blake’s phone chimed to life. She picked it up and then looked to him. “We have our warrant,” she whispered after a moment.

She looked beautiful as her features lit with exuberance. Obviously she loved this chase, this bringing the wicked to their knees, as much as he did. As he watched her, he couldn’t help the feeling of desire that rose in him. She wanted justice, and he wanted her that much more for it.

“You’re a smart one, friend,” Blake said turning back to the man at their table. “How many properties, that you know of, does Todd own?”

“The name’s Court,” he said. “And I dunno about how many properties Todd’s bought, but I bet he’s got at least a couple hundred acres of land.”

“And you said he has access to some through your property?”

“He pays me an easement fee. He wouldn’t have to if Robert had sold to him, but it works out great for me. It’s like free money coming in every month.” Court moved to sit down, carefully adjusting his hip and leg as he lowered his body.

“What do you do?” Jeremy asked.

“Now?” Court asked. “Now I’m retired, but before they downsized, I used to work for the mine adjacent to the Berkeley Pit. I fed the crusher. Malachite, pyrite and matrix on the front end, crushed ore on the other,” the man said with an air of nostalgia. “I walked away with a decent retirement when the mine closed, but it didn’t cover everything. Unfortunately, I had to sell off quite a bit of my land. That’s how Todd got his hands on the land on the other side of my parcel. It’s why I had to give him an easement.”

Everything was coming back to Todd. They just needed to find the link that brought it all together and proved, without a doubt, that Todd had murdered Robert.

“At least I had it easy, and he was willing to pay me,” Court continued.

“What do you mean?” Jeremy asked, trying to follow Court’s train of thought.

“Your brother, he didn’t want nothing to do with Todd. He hated him—along with the rest of us. From what I heard, Todd wanted to buy out your brother’s place, but your brother wasn’t interested. Todd was real pushy about it, something about how it was important to his investors.”

And there it was. They had their motive. All they needed was probable cause, and they could bring down Robert’s killer.

Chapter Fourteen

Two deputies followed them down the dirt road. They pulled to a stop well away from where Todd could see them from anywhere on his main property.

Jeremy looked positively antsy as he tapped his fingers on the base of the window. Sometimes he surprised her; for a detective, the man had a lot of tells.

Blake wasn’t sure if it was because he had a young daughter or if it was something else that made him seem so different from all the other men in her life, but whatever it was it didn’t help the way he made her feel. It would have been so much easier to push him away if he was the emotionless creature that most detectives seemed to be. Instead there he was, smiling while he looked out the window as the late afternoon glistened off his short dark hair.

Damn him for looking like a Hollywood star midpose.

She forced herself to look away as one of the deputies approached her window. No one else could think there was any type of relationship forming between them. They were nothing but friends, close, old-time friends. The kiss they’d shared could be nothing but a fading memory, an impulsive whim—no matter how badly she wanted to feel his lips again.

“Deputy West, we’ll go in and take control over O’Brien while you execute the warrant. Sound good?” the deputy asked.

She glanced over to Jeremy. “That’s fine,” she said. “Just make sure you’re ready. O’Brien may or may not have killed a man. Don’t get on the wrong side of him.”

The deputy nodded and returned to his car. They crept up the road and to Todd’s driveway.

“You need to be careful,” Jeremy said, finally looking at her. “He has to know we’re coming. And if he does, he’s going to be ready. This guy thinks he’s above the law.”

“Are you worried about me, Jeremy?” she asked, sounding impish as she tried to put him on the spot about how he felt about her.

He looked at her as if he was the one searching for answers, but she tried to keep her emotions in check.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “Never mind,” Blake said, suddenly regretting the attempt to make him tell her what he felt. “I’ll be careful in there. But you need to be focused on what you need to do. Keep yourself safe.”

He closed his mouth and looked away. Instead of relief, regret filled her. She should never have hinted at her feelings. She was being ridiculous, setting herself up to take another fall. Men, she could handle. The only truly dangerous things were feelings.

They pulled to a stop in front of Todd’s house, next to one of the cars that had been covered by a tarp. She stepped beside the concealed vehicle and, out of curiosity, lifted the tarp. Underneath was a maroon late 1990s model Buick. “You see this?” she asked Jeremy as she motioned to the car.

“What about it?”

“It look familiar to you?”

Jeremy shook his head, and she dropped the tarp back into place. Whatever they were looking for was inside Todd’s house. His lights were on inside, illuminating the shadows that had started to fall over the place as dusk crept through the landscape.

She strode up to the porch, her hand on her Glock. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she tried to tell herself it was nothing more than Jeremy and his warning. This was nothing, just another search warrant being served. They would get the evidence they needed to tie Todd to the crime, arrest him and be back to normal before midnight. Heck, if things went really well, she could be home in time to tuck Megan into bed.

Thinking of Megan only made her heart beat louder in her ears.

She couldn’t lose her edge. She couldn’t let her fear beat her.

She took out her flashlight and tapped the heavy aluminum impromptu billy club against the door. “Sheriff’s department!” she yelled. “Todd, answer the door!”

She stepped back, readying herself to kick, but just as her weight shifted to her left foot and she started to raise the right, Todd appeared in the large rectangular window of the door.

“What do you want? I told you I didn’t do nothing!” he yelled through the window.

She pressed the search warrant against the glass, right in his face. “You can open the door or we can kick it down. Either way, we are coming in and searching your property!”

Todd stepped back, turning his back to them. Then she heard a slide and a click, the metallic sound of a round being racked into the chamber of a gun. She drew her gun and lifted it, pointing at Todd’s center of mass.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Todd. Just open the door and come out with your hands up!”

“I didn’t kill Robert. I didn’t do nothing wrong. Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?” Todd yelled.

“If you didn’t do anything, then just let us in. Let us complete our investigation. If you’re innocent, you have nothing to worry about. Don’t create more problems by making bad decisions. Put down the gun and open the door!”

Todd was silent, and she let the seconds tick by, hoping that he would make the choice that would keep the situation from escalating. The last thing she wanted to do was get in a shoot-out and have to call down the full SWAT team. Everyone in the state would hear about the incident by the end of the day. The higher-ups would be pissed at the level of scrutiny they would have to go through. And she’d have to face the consequences.

Jeremy lowered to his knee on the other side of the door, taking a lower charge position. “Listen to Blake. Come out with your hands up, Todd.”

“I wasn’t even here the day your brother died. I swear,” Todd argued. “I’d gone to Missoula for the day.”

Jeremy sent her a questioning glance. Was such a thing possible?

“That’s great, Todd. That’s what we need to know. Is there anyone who can testify to your whereabouts?” Blake asked.

They were met with another long silence. If Todd was smart, he was thinking about the consequences that would befall him if he continued to play such a dangerous game. Yet she doubted he was that smart. More than likely he was thinking about a way to cut and run.

“I drove to Missoula, went to Costco and came back.”

“What time did you leave?” Blake asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t keep a journal!” Todd spat.

His insolence didn’t help his case.

“Come out, Todd. Let’s talk about this like adults. Let’s get this straightened out. There’s no need for you to get into more trouble,” Blake said.

In truth, the moment he exited that house he’d be down on the ground and arrested for felony assault on a police officer, but at least he’d come out alive.

“You’ve always been gunning for me, West,” Todd said. “I ain’t never done nothin’ but pay my taxes and try to make a damned living in this forsaken town. What’s so wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Todd. But there is something wrong when your neighbor turns up dead and you won’t tell us what you know. Come on, now—make the right choice. This is your last chance. If you come out now, we don’t have to get ugly. Put down your gun. Step outside.”

Todd stepped from the door, and she watched through the window as he made his way to the center of the room. Then he looked at her and smiled. It was the grin of the crazed, cheeks high, a wild glaze in the eyes.

“I never wanted things to go like this,” he said as he raised his gun.

The sound of the gunshot ripped through the air, the cacophony roaring in Blake’s ears.

“Get down!” Jeremy yelled, reaching over and pulling at her bulletproof vest.

Todd fired again. Blake dropped to the ground. Her face pressed against the cold, jagged wood of the porch. It ripped at her skin, but all she could focus on was the
thump, thump, thump
of her heart and the burning heat rising from her chest.

She looked up. There were two holes in the wall to the side of the door—right where she had been standing.

Jeremy covered her body with his, protecting her from the gunfire. The weight of his body comforted her and made her feel safe. Jeremy wanted to protect her, to keep her away from the evils of the world. He may have said he didn’t care about her, that what they felt wasn’t real, but his actions said otherwise.

The heat in her chest intensified, stealing her breath. She reached down and touched the spot right near her armpit. Warm, sticky wetness coated her fingertips. Raising her fingers, she saw blood.

A third shot cut through the air. There was a thump as something hit the floor.

“I’m fine,” she said, wiping her fingers off on the boards of the porch. “It’s okay. I’m fine,” she repeated in an effort to calm herself.

“Suspect is down!” the officer from behind them yelled.

There was the crackle of radios and hurried orders. She could hear the dispatcher talking as she spread the news of the shoot-out radio-wide.

Everyone would know. Everyone would judge her. And soon everyone would know she’d failed at keeping herself and her unit safe.

Jeremy stood up, weapon ready. The backup officer stepped around him and kicked in the door, sending splinters of wood and glass raining down. She moved to stand up, but the pain in her chest kept her pinned to the ground.

“He’s down,” Jeremy said, glancing back at her.

His mouth opened in horror.

“Blake...” he said with a long, shocked exhale.

She tried to stand up again, just to prove to him that she was okay, but as she pushed herself up, her arm collapsed beneath her.

Two shots. Two hits.

Jeremy dropped to his knees beside her and rolled her over. “We have an officer down! Officer down!” he screamed, panic searing his voice.

She closed her eyes as the pain racked her body. Her chest was tight, and she struggled to breathe. The world shrank as her body went into shock and her vision tunneled.

“You’re going to be okay.” Jeremy reached down and ran his hand over her hair, comforting her. “Everything’s going to be okay. EMTs are on their way.”

“Don’t go,” she pleaded.

“I’m not going anywhere. As long as you need me, I’ll be at your side,” Jeremy said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

She stared into his eyes. At their centers was a veil of fear. She wrapped her fingers around his. “And I’ll be at yours.”

He leaned down, surprising her as he kissed her lips. Some of the pain she was feeling slipped away, replaced with the warmth she felt in his kiss—a kiss that she’d keep in her heart regardless of what life, or death, would bring.

“Suspect is down, but breathing!” the deputy in the house yelled. “Looks like he tried to off himself!”

Jeremy leaned back and looked inside. “I’ll keep you safe. He won’t be able to hurt you again.”

Numbness started to fill her, moving from the bullet wound in the side of her chest and spreading through her body. Her thoughts went to her daughter. She had to make it out of this alive. Leaving her daughter wasn’t an option.

“Megan...” Blake said, struggling to catch her breath as darkness shrouded her vision. “Tell Megan that I’ll be okay. Tell her I’ll be coming home.”

And then all she saw was blackness.