Debts and Debtors: (A Geeks and Things Cozy Mystery Novella #3) (Geeks and Things Cozy Mysteries) (6 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kalina slid back behind the wheel and closed the driver side door. Time to tell Chris everything. Just as she reached for her phone, it began to buzz along the passenger seat with an incoming call: Jillian.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry I butted in earlier,” she said after hitting ‘Accept’.

“Forget that. Your boyfriend’s little shadow, Jimmy, just showed up and arrested Savannah.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything. This is insanity. She couldn’t have killed her husband.”

“Get her to call a lawyer. I’m going to the station to try to find out what’s going on. I promise.”

“A lawyer. God, this can’t be happening.”

“Jillian, stay calm. We’re going to sort this out. You just need to stay level headed and don’t get in their way.”

“Fine. Just hurry and get there. Please,” her sister pleaded.

Kalina revved the engine and did a quick U-turn at the end of the street, tires squealing as they tried to catch traction on the road. She raced up the street and caught sight of Mr. Mackland still lurking. Her heart thumped painfully against her ribs until he was out of sight in her rearview mirror.

Her thoughts raced as she made her way to the station. What could they have arrested Savannah for? Had they found incriminating evidence in the $30,000 or some fingerprint on the gun? She pulled into the station parking lot and killed the engine. Before she could unbuckle her seatbelt, a second car came screaming into the lot and pulled in beside her, far too close for her to get out of her car without scratching the paint. She grabbed her phone and, as covertly as possible, hit Chris’s number on speed dial. He might already be in with Savannah but maybe she’d get lucky and they were waiting for a lawyer to show up. She tried to ease the driver side door open but the driver of the other car stepped out and loomed large: Mr. Mackland. She glanced at her phone to see that it had connected and then placed it in her pocket. She eased her door shut and rolled down the window despite the chill that was settling over the day.

“Excuse me, I need to get out,” she said as politely as possible. She thought she heard Chris’s muffled voice from her pocket.

“What were you doing talking to Ms. Mayfair?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is my business if it affects my employer’s business plan.”

“Well, that’s not my fault. Leslie and I are friendly. You may not have heard but she had a bit of a rough time over the summer. Her fiancé was arrested for murder. I wanted to check on her and see how she was doing.”

Mr. Mackland shrugged one beefy shoulder and slid his hand into his pocket, pushing the edge of his suit jacket back far enough to show her the gun holstered underneath his armpit. Her mouth went dry.

“You’ve been nosing around things that don’t concern you.” His tone implied the threat of the weapon he carried.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket as if it had just started to ring with a call. “Hi, Detective Harper.”

“Kal, what’s going on? I’m about to go into an interrogation, here.”

“I needed to stop by and see you but a Mr. Victor Mackland from Carlisle Premiere Developments won’t let me get out of my car.”

Mr. Mackland stayed where he was, not even flinching at the mention of Chris’s title. Kalina tried to stare him down without showing fear but she doubted it was very effective.

“I’ll be right out.”

“Great. Thanks.”

She hung up but kept the phone in view. She tried to keep her breathing even for the thirty seconds it took Chris to make his way out to the parking lot. Her pulse slowed a little at the sight of him. At least now she didn’t have to worry about the thug pulling his gun on her. He couldn’t be that reckless.

“Are you Mr. Mackland?” Chris asked and stopped mere inches from the man.

“I am.”

“You need to move your vehicle and let Ms. Greystone get out of her car. I’d hate to have her file a harassment complaint against you.”

“She’s been snooping around where she doesn’t belong.”

“That still doesn’t give you the right to intimidate her. Now move your car or I’ll move it for you. Do I make myself clear?”

Mr. Mackland glanced between the two of them before he let out a grunt and stormed around to the driver side of his car and backed up enough for Kalina to get out. She rolled the window up and climbed out, throwing her arms around Chris without thinking.

“Thank you. He has a gun,” she whispered in his ear.

“Go inside. I’ll handle this.”

She pulled away a little before saying, “I have to show you something about the case. It’s important.”

“When I’m done here you can show me.”

“Please be careful.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before heading inside.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jillian sat at Chris’s desk and Savannah was nowhere in sight. Kalina assumed she’d already been taken to the interrogation room. For once, the monitor showing the room was turned off. Kalina pulled a chair next to her sister and let out an anxious breath.

“They haven’t questioned her yet. She asked for a lawyer,” Jillian said, her tone flat.

“Good. I just had a run-in with a security guy from the developer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took a drive to the waterfront to see what’s been going on and I talked to Leslie Mayfair. This security guy, Victor Mackland, followed me back here. I met him the day after Thanksgiving while Savannah was giving her statement about the break-in. He threatened me just now. Chris is handling it.”

“Threatened you?” Jillian took Kalina’s hand, going into protective older sister mode. “Did he touch you? Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. It was more an implied threat. He made sure I could see he had a gun. But I’d called Chris so he knew what was going on. I think I’ve figured some things out about Thomas’s death. I just need Chris to get back in here so I can tell him. It might help Savannah.”

“You know sometimes I don’t know why he lets you poke around in his cases.”

“Because I’m helpful? And I don’t really mean to poke around, I just get curious and have to know what happened. He appreciates it, even if he doesn’t say so.”

On cue, Chris reappeared through the front door of the station. He held a business card by the tips of his fingers. “Jimmy! Get the fingerprint kit,” he called before approaching his desk.

Kalina cleared a spot for him to work and noted Victor Mackland’s name on the card. “What happened?”

“I told him politely if he ever went near you with a loaded firearm again I’d arrest him.”

“Thanks. What’s with the fingerprint kit?”

“I have a hunch.”

“Can I tell you what I found out?”

Chris glanced at Jillian who promptly stood up and made herself scarce. Kalina took the spot her sister vacated and pulled up the photo of the paperwork from the pawn shop on her phone.

“So, after you mentioned that Mr. Chase had a gun registered to him, I paid Blake Jansen a visit. He said someone came in and bought a gun under Mr. Chase’s name.” She enlarged the photo of the signature. “I’m no expert but I’ve seen Thomas Chase sign his name once or twice and this looks off.”

“You think someone bought it using his name.”

“Yes.”

Chris brushed excess fingerprint powder into the trash and held up the card with a fresh print on it. “We found prints on the gun and the spray can that don’t match Mr. or Mrs. Chase.”

“And you think it was Mackland.”

“I’m beginning to.” He stuck the card in an evidence bag and scribbled information onto the label. “Jimmy, get this to the lab and tell them to rush it.”

Jimmy grabbed the bag and disappeared. She could tell they both wished they had equipment to check the print themselves but the department was still strapped.

“There’s more,” Kalina said and set down her phone. “I think I might know why someone would want Mr. Chase dead and why Mr. Mackland would be involved.”

Chris leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “I’m listening.”

“He was working for the developer as a debt collector. They needed to force people out of their houses so they could seize the property to build their new project. Basically, he offered to wipe people’s debts clean if they paid part of their debt and he pocketed the difference between what they paid and what he bought the debt for.”

“I understand how debt collection works, Kal.”

She felt color warm her cheeks. “Well, it sounds like Thomas got fed up with the debt collecting life because he was forgiving loans for people who have property in strategic locations that really mess with building plans.”

“That certainly establishes a motive and would also explain why Mr. Mackland was looming around the scene the other day.”

“And why he came after me,” she added.

“Right.”

The conversation died when a middle-aged man in a faded blue suit appeared in their peripheral vision carrying a briefcase. He stopped momentarily at the front desk before approaching Chris’s desk.

“I’m here for Savannah Chase,” he said.

“She’s in the interrogation room. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Kalina craned her neck to follow the attorney’s path into the room. “Why’d you arrest Savannah?”

“Mr. Mackland isn’t the only one with a motive.”

He disappeared without another word. She waited until he closed the door to the interrogation room before she flipped the switch on the monitor. She tuned out the pleasantries and turned to the computer in front of her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought to check property records before but it would be easy enough to see who held the title to the Chase home. A quick search revealed what Chris likely already knew—Savannah owned the home and had been transferred the deed about six months after she married Thomas. The dead man’s name drew Kalina’s attention back to the interview.

“We found a receipt in your home for thirty thousand dollars. You said before that Thomas didn’t have that kind of money.”

Savannah glanced at her attorney and then said, “No. I mean we weren’t poor by any means but that kind of lump sum would have been noticed in our joint account. Believe me; I keep an eye on it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“You come from a fairly wealthy background yourself, don’t you, Mrs. Chase?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your relatives were well off and you received a pretty hefty inheritance a few years ago.”

“So?”

“We traced the money transfer that was sent to Carlisle Premiere Developments. The money originated in your account.”

“Then maybe Thomas accessed it without me knowing.”

“You are the only name on the account and we called the bank. You are the only person who could have authorized a transfer out of the account. Why did you want Thomas to take the debt collection job?”

“I didn’t.”

“Mrs. Chase, you need to stop lying now. You authorized the payment so Thomas could buy the debt collection package. He didn’t seem the type to get into the business of shaking people down. So the pressure had to come from somewhere else. Like you.”

Kalina pulled herself away from the questioning when she felt a presence behind her. She turned slowly to find Jimmy standing off to one side.

“Did you know their house was in the middle of the building zone?” Kalina asked.

“It’s all making sense now. Huh.”

“I’m assuming Chris knows that. And that she owns the house outright.”

The color drained from Jimmy’s cheeks and he started for the interrogation room.

“Uh, Jimmy, you might want to pick up that stuff on the printer first,” Kalina said after hitting print on the land records and the building plans.

He gave her a nervous smile and headed into the room, appearing on the monitor moments later.

“Sir, I thought you should see these,” Jimmy said and handed over the information.

Chris took the printouts and flipped through them. Kalina waited with baited breath for him to act. It wasn’t that she wanted Savannah to be guilty but everything was pointing that way. Then again, maybe Blake was right and she’d gone into her marriage to Thomas with ulterior motives. Chris set the papers down in front of him and turned to Jimmy before standing up.

“Detective, what are you doing?” Jimmy’s face failed to mask his confusion.

“This is your information, Jimmy. I think you should question our witness about what you found.”

Kalina smiled as Chris stepped back and let Jimmy sit down. Jimmy would become a good cop one way or another and it made her a little proud to know she had a hand in it. Jimmy licked his lips and clasped his hands in front of him on the table.

“Well … Mrs. Chase we’ve found records that show your home is in the middle of the development zone.”

“What information is that?” her attorney asked.

Jimmy slid the printout of the zoning plan across the table and waited while the lawyer looked it over.

“And we also found out that you own the home outright. We have the land records that show Mr. Chase transferred the deed to you two years ago.” He slid the second page across the table.

“Is there a question, Officer?”

“Well, it just seems suspicious that your husband would work for the people who are trying to buy out the rest of that area and then end up dead. I mean I suppose with him gone, there’s no one to protest when you sell the house. I mean, if it were me, that’s what I’d do.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Savannah said quietly.

“But you know who did. And we think you had knowledge of it beforehand. If you tell us everything you know, we’ll talk to the prosecutor about being lenient,” Chris said from his spot by the door.

Even over a monitor, Kalina could see the color drain from Savannah’s cheeks. Her shoulders hunched and she suddenly looked very frail. Her attorney looked between Jimmy and Chris and then loudly cleared his throat.

“I’d like a minute to speak with my client.”

“Of course,” Chris said.

He and Jimmy left the room and shut the door behind them. Kalina tried to look as if she hadn’t been eavesdropping but Chris fixed her with a half-smile.

“Thank you for that information,” he said.

“That was all Jimmy.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to contradict her but stopped and blushed. “Just trying to do my job.”

“Either way, I think she’s going to confess.”

“You think she’ll identify Mackland as being involved? I wouldn’t put it past him to kill Thomas if he was really going against the company’s orders,” Kalina said.

“I’m pretty sure whatever she tells us will be enough to get a warrant for his arrest.”

She nodded and silence settled between the three of them. Kalina caught glimpses of Savannah huddled in with her attorney. She glanced around the station, suddenly wondering what had become of her sister.

“I think your sister went outside,” Jimmy offered, as if reading her thoughts.

“Thanks. I should go check on her. I think she’s been taking this whole thing personally. She did always have a flair for the dramatic.”

The door to the interrogation room opened behind them and Savannah’s attorney appeared, motioning for them to come back in. Kalina bit her lip, torn between hearing Savannah’s confession and checking on Jillian. If she was quick she might be able to do both. On a hunch, she headed out the front of the building. Jillian sat on a bench to the right of the entrance.

“Hey,” Kalina said and sat down beside her.

“What’s going on?”

“It looks like Savannah was involved in what happened to Thomas. I think she might be confessing.”

“But she’s not a killer.”

“They think someone else killed him but she might have details about who that is. I’m sorry that you got dragged into all this.”

Jillian let out a bitter laugh. “Don’t apologize. She was my friend. She came to me and I let her into my home, offered her support.”

“People change. And they do things for all kinds of reasons. Neither of us knows what was going on in her life or her marriage to prompt her agreeing to let someone murder her husband.”

“I want to know why she did it.”

Kalina offered a hand to her sister. “Come on. We can watch from the bull pen. I think you need some closure as much as Thomas.”