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The ringing of the bedside phone woke Dela.
“Yeah?” she croaked into the phone and tried to read the clock through blurry eyes. 6:45, possibly?
“You weren’t answering your cell phone so I had them put me through on this phone,” Wallace’s soft voice held a tremor of excitement.
“I turned off my cell phone so my mom wouldn’t wake me up early.” She knew the techie wouldn’t get her sarcasm. But it felt good to say it.
“You left a note wanting me to look into Verna Pyle and Van Branson . Verna started working here two months after Van. They both gave previous employers that are fake.”
She sat up in bed. “Why didn’t that get caught when they applied and were interviewed?”
“You’ll have to ask HR. Not my department.”
“What else did you discover?” She remained in bed, but pulled a notepad and pen out of the bedside table.
“There isn’t any record of Van before three years ago.”
“I know that. He said it was because he was born at Big Muddy during the Rajneesh era.” She had been wondering if his not having personal identification because of that was true. “Do you know anything about that culture and if they registered the children?”
“I’ll look into it. But Verna also has nothing before she attended college. And they both live in the same apartment building.” Wallace said it as if he thought the two were living together.
“He’s twice her age.” The image of Verna as they’d questioned her popped into Dela’s head. The young woman had the same eyes as Van. “Check and see if you can find any marriage records for Van and try to find a birth certificate for Verna.” She jotted these questions down on her notepad. If they were related, why were they keeping it quiet?
“I’ll check on it.” The line went dead.
Dela stretched and slipped her foot over the end of the bed. She’d been so tired when they’d finished with Verna last night, Quinn had insisted on driving her back to the casino. He said Shaffer could bring her car back in the morning and Quinn could give him a ride back to town. That kind of thoughtfulness was beginning to wear on her notion she didn’t need someone in her life making things easier.
Using her crutches, she stood, and swung her way over to the bathroom. A quick shower and she’d be ready to tackle the videos Marty found and interview Robin Everly. It was the surveillance member’s day off, but she’d have Marty call the woman in for something. Quinn planned on being here around nine because she needed her car to get to the realty office to sign the papers on her new place at ten.
After her shower, she sat in her underwear going through the steps of putting her prosthesis on when there was a knock on the door. Only a handful of people knew she was staying in the room and she’d told housekeeping not to bother cleaning until she was gone.
Using her crutches, she swung over to the door and looked out the peephole. A groan slithered up her throat. “Quinn, what are you doing here so early?” she asked through the door.
“Let me in, I brought sweet rolls and coffee.”
“I’m not dressed.” And I only have one leg.
“I’ll wait here while you get dressed.”
He didn’t know about her prosthesis and how long it took her to get dressed, considering she had several layers of liners and a sleeve and the leg to put on before she could actually put her pants on.
“Go down to the security office. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Am I interrupting something?” His judgmental tone threw her off.
“What do you mean by that?” she snarled back. How dare he insinuate she didn’t want him in the room because she had a man over. It was none of his business if she had or hadn’t.
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“That you think I don’t deserve happiness?” She smacked her head against the door. What was she doing making these comments through a door where more than Quinn would hear them? “Just, please, go to the office. I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”
She hobbled back to the bed and continued putting on the items that kept her stub protected and the prosthesis on her leg. Before the interaction with Quinn, she’d been intrigued by what Wallace discovered about Van and Verna and ready to jump into finding out what she could about Robin Everly. Now she wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Quinn.
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
Thirty minutes later she walked into the security office.
Margie motioned to the interview room. “There’s a grumpy FBI man in there. You might want to deal with him after about a gallon of coffee.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Dela grasped the handle and walked in.
Quinn sat with his back to the door. The pale blue, short-sleeved shirt he wore stretched across his broad back as he studied papers on the table in front of him.
She wondered if this act of back to the door was his way of telling her he didn’t care if she showed up or not. His accusation still rang in her mind. Was he jealous? She’d tossed that around as she’d dressed.
“What did you have besides coffee and sweet rolls to show me?” she asked, walking around the table and sitting across from him.
The special agent studied her. “You look rested for as late as I brought you back to the casino.”
“I learned how to function with little sleep in the army. Did Shaffer bring my car over?”
“He’ll get it here later. He had something personal come up.” Quinn opened the folder sitting under the paper he’d been reading.
“I need the car before ten. I have to sign the papers at the realty then.” She watched him slide the folder toward her.
“I can take you.”
“I’ll call my mom. I’m sure she’d like to know what I’m buying.” As much as she really didn’t need her mom saying it was too much work, she did want her approval, even though there was no way mom would talk her out of buying the place.
“I thought your mom was against you moving out?” He raised an eyebrow.
“She is. But I’m an adult and she might be happier with it, if I include her in fixing up the place.” Dela glanced down at the folder. “Wow! She made a beeline for the Caymans. How did she get out of the country without the FBI grabbing her? And how did she get the information on the bank account there?” Paula Pomroy had purchased a small house in the islands. It appeared she planned to stay, thinking they couldn’t extradite her to the U.S. on murder charges. However, Dela had looked it up. The U.S. had an extradition treaty with the Caymans. Paula would be arrested and sent back if they could conclusively link her to Tristan’s murder.
“She must have used a fake passport. Which means she’d been planning this for a while.” Quinn shoved the paper he’d been reading at her.
It was forensics on the corkscrew. It had been the murder weapon of Tristan. But it was inconclusive if it had killed Mattie. Her gaze collided with Quinn’s. “Two killers, or one killer and two murder weapons?”
“We’ll know shortly. Marty told me you had him call in Robin Everly. She should be here around nine.” Quinn picked up the coffee cup sitting by his left elbow.
Dela scanned the table. “Where’s my coffee and rolls you’d offered earlier?”
“Figured you were eating while you dressed for it to take you thirty minutes to get ready.”
Double Frickin’ shit! This guy acted like her keeping something from him was illegal. Her life was her life and if she didn’t want him to know about her half a leg, he could just go screw himself. She glanced at her watch. 8:05.
“I’m going to go grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast. Text me when Robin shows up, unless you want to hear what Wallace told me about Van and Verna. In which case, I’ll be at the coffee shop.” She stood and walked out of the room.
Once she was seated in the coffee shop, she texted Marty. Let me know when Robin shows up. I’ll come to you.
Copy.
She looked up from texting and watched Quinn walk across the coffee shop and up to her booth.
“What did you learn about...” he stopped as the waitress arrived.
“I’ll have coffee, a cheese omelet, and toast. No hash browns,” Dela ordered.
“I’ll have the same,” Quinn said.
When the waitress was out of earshot, he began again. “What did you learn about Van and Verna?”
Dela told him what Wallace had told her.
“They both have missing backgrounds and are living in the same apartment building, yet no one here has ever seen them together?” Quinn pulled out his phone. “I’ll see what I can dig up on them.”
The waitress arrived with their coffee. As she walked away, Quinn put his phone in his pocket. “What do you think this Robin Everly has to do with the murder besides possibly blanking out the cameras?”
“I’m not sure. Do you have the copy of the page with the money Tristan was collecting from people?”
Quinn dug in his folder and pulled out a paper.
Dela studied it, particularly the sums next to R.E. “He blackmailed different sums for each person. But R.E. and Jeff Twigg have the same amount listed.”
“Do you think she is the woman who helped Jeff cheat the house?” Dela thought out loud. If so, she really wanted to get her hands on the woman.
“We’ll know when we see her,” Quinn said, leaning back as their breakfast arrived.
“Possibly. If she wore a wig or disguise, it might not be as easy for someone to recognize her. I would have thought when we were watching the video of Jeff and the woman, Marty would have said something.” Dela began eating, wondering what they would learn from Robin. And if Paula was as greedy as she seemed, they might be able to get her back to the states to collect the life insurance on Tristan. At least a letter could be sent stating Paula needed to sign papers at the insurance office to get the money and see if that would bring her back.
“Did you ever run the license plate of the woman who helped Jeff?” That would connect Robin if she was the one helping him.
Quinn glanced up from his plate of food. “I did turn it in, but now that you mention it, I never heard back.” He pulled out his phone and started texting.
Dela finished off her breakfast and sipped her second cup of coffee, watching Quinn glare at his phone.
Her phone buzzed.
Robin is here. Marty texted.
“She’s here,” Dela said, sliding out of the booth and shoving money under her plate.
“They’re having trouble finding the license plate. It appears it is off of a car that was totaled several years ago.” He stood, leaving money by his plate.
“Wouldn’t a car like that get pulled over if it didn’t have stickers?” She knew when she returned home and pulled her car out of her mom’s garage the plate had stickers from the last time she’d been home on leave, four years prior. She’d prayed all the way to DMV that a cop didn’t pull her over.
“Not if they were stealing tags and putting them on. As long as they didn’t do anything illegal there would be no reason for a cop to check out the plate.” Quinn walked beside her across the casino floor and up to the hidden surveillance door.
She held her ID in front of the lock and the door popped open. They entered and she scanned the four people on duty. They were all long-time employees. Dela walked over to Marty’s office and walked in.
He was sitting on his chair with his back to the monitors. Robin sat across the small room from him. Her gaze landed on Dela and then Quinn. She started to stand.
“Stay where you are,” Dela said, pulling up a chair beside Marty. She tried to remember what the woman looked like that had been helping Jeff steal from the casino. She couldn’t conjure up the face. “Marty, could you pull up the video of Jeff, please.”
The head of surveillance swung his chair around and started tapping the keys.
“Robin, it has come to our attention that every time Verna was away from her bank of monitors, cameras were turned off in areas that benefited a killer.” Dela studied the woman.
“I don’t know what Verna told you, but she isn’t an angel.” Robin crossed her arms.
“Here you go,” Marty said.
Dela shifted so she could see the monitor and keep an eye on the woman. The view of Jeff dealing and then the woman waving money at him and the exchange of chips rolled across the monitor. Robin stiffened when Marty stopped the video with the woman’s face in full view.
“That looks like you only with a long brunette wig.” Dela said. “You and Jeff were skimming money from the casino. Tristan Pomroy found out and blackmailed you. Did you and Jeff decide you didn’t like paying him and plan to murder him?”
“No! We didn’t kill him. Honest. The little twit was taking more than we were even skimming from the casino. We wanted out. Woman to woman, I went to Mrs. Pomroy. I asked her if she could get her husband off our backs.” Her lips tipped into a crooked grin. “She hadn’t even known he was blackmailing people. I told her about the little book and asked if she could find a way to stop him.”
“When was this?” Quinn asked.
“About three months ago. She said, she’d see what she could do. Then a month ago, she came to me and said she knew I worked in surveillance and could I black out cameras. I told her I could. She contacted me a week later with the date, time, and cameras that were to be blacked out.” Robin held up her hands. “I didn’t have any idea she was going to kill her husband. I thought she was going to do something we could use against him to keep him from taking all of our money.”
“Yet, when you knew he had been killed you didn’t come forward, did you?” Dela glared at the woman.
“You would have thought I had something to do with it.” The woman stared at her.
“You did. You gave the woman a reason to kill her husband and helped her hide it.” Quinn said. “What cameras did she want you to black out and when?”
As the woman mumbled the times, dates, and cameras to Quinn, Dela stared at the stilled video. How would they pin this on the wife when she was out of the country? They could take down Jeff and Robin’s statements and hope they came up with DNA proof or something that would prove Paula killed her husband, but unless they found that or got a confession from her, Robin would be the only one being held accountable for Tristan’s death. Something still bugged her. Why would the woman blatantly walk in and purchase a corkscrew and then use it to kill her husband? That would be the most incriminating evidence against her. And it didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t she asked for the gift shop camera to be blacked out too?
“Did she say anything about blacking out the gift shop that night?” Dela asked.
Quinn studied her.
Robin shook her head. “No.”
“We still don’t know why Tristan went up to the housekeeping supply room on ten.” Dela leveled her gaze on Quinn. “Did you ever compare the phone records of the husband and wife? Did she call him to meet her there?”
Quinn pulled out his phone and started texting.
Dela stood. “I’m going to see what else Wallace pulled up on Tristan’s computer.” She stopped at the door. “Tribal police need to arrest Jeff Twigg for stealing from the casino and Robin needs to be taken in custody for accessory to that and murder.”
Quinn and Marty nodded and she walked out of the surveillance offices.