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The feds were still hanging around the apartments. Dela slipped around the man guarding Verna’s apartment as Quinn asked him questions.
Inside the rooms were neat and tidy. The only sign of a quick getaway were the still open empty drawers on the dresser and a couple of hangers on the floor of the closet. She’d cleaned out her clothes and toiletries. From the cords draped across the bedside table, she had a computer and cellphone. Why hadn’t she taken the time to grab the computer charger? There wasn’t a photograph in the place. All that remained were items that looked as if they had been purchased at thrift stores.
Dela wondered how many times Van and Verna had moved trying to stay ahead of the FBI. If her father were still alive and she’d discovered he was wanted by the FBI would she have helped him escape capture? She shook her head. Tough call to make. Having never had a father, she didn’t know anything about that bond. If her mother had committed a crime, she would do all she could to see that she got the lightest sentence, but help her run...Truth was too firmly ingrained in her to help her mother hide.
“See anything helpful?” Quinn asked, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
“Not really. It’s been stripped clean. Kind of what we’d expected.” She walked to the doorway and waited for him to move out of the way. “Any chance we can talk to the neighbors?”
“There are agents already doing that,” Quinn said, walking into the living room.
“Any surveillance cameras set up outside?” She hoped there were and they could catch Tristan or one of the suspects visiting the duo.
“There are. I’m having Shaffer send it to my phone.” Quinn stepped out of the apartment and nearly tripped.
Dela looked down and saw a calico cat streak along the hallway. “Any idea if that’s Verna’s cat?”
A woman in her seventies stepped out of the apartment next door to Verna’s. “Did you see my Callie? She slipped out when that nice young man was talking to me.”
“Is Callie a calico cat?” Dela asked, smiling at the woman.
“Yes. She is quite the escape artist. Verna always helped me find her when she’d get loose.”
“You knew Verna well?” Dela asked.
“As well as she’d let me. I could tell she had a secret. I thought it was because she spent a lot of time over at Van’s apartment. Not overnight or anything like that. They just seemed to click.”
“What else can you tell me about the two?” Dela asked, leaning against the hallway wall next to the woman’s door. She shifted all her weight to her good leg.
“They had a fight about two weeks ago. Van was in her apartment then. I heard him stomp up to the door, pound on it, and Verna let him in. He started shouting, but it didn’t sound like him. If I hadn’t seen him go by my window and then heard him pound on her door, I would have thought someone else was in there yelling.”
“Why do you say that?” Dela found this interesting.
“Because he was yelling with an accent. I think it was Russian. I’m not good at accents, but that’s what it sounded like.” The woman nodded her head.
“What was he yelling about?” Dela noticed Quinn stood back a yard or more, writing in his notepad.
“She didn’t have to sleep with anyone to save him. He’d been doing fine on his own and didn’t need her ruining her life for him.” The woman mopped at a tear that appeared at the corner of her eye. “It was breaking my heart to hear him pleading with her to let him go.” She shook her head. “I don’t have any idea what he meant by that. Then last night I heard noise and looked out. The two of them were carrying suitcases out to her car. But he didn’t get in with her. He left on his motorcycle.”
“Thank you. You are very observant. Did Verna ever have any other visitors besides Van?” This was what they really wanted to know. Had Verna and Van been in cahoots with Paula or someone else to get rid of Tristan?
“There was a young man came by twice. The first time he and Verna left, like they were going on a date. The second time, she pulled him into the apartment as if she didn’t want anyone to see.”
“By young man, what age do you think he was?” Dela knew as people aged their idea of young and hers was different.
“In his thirties, maybe, not forty yet.”
Quinn stepped forward. “Is this the man?” He showed her a photo of Tristan.
“No, that wasn’t him. He had some size. Not as big as Van but not a wimp.”
Quinn showed her another photo. It was Jeff Twigg.
The woman smiled. “That was him. I thought what beautiful hair he had. My Albert was bald as a bowling ball most of his adult life.”
Dela wondered what Jeff Twigg would be doing dating Verna. Most likely they were setting up a crime. “Thank you. I hope you find Callie soon.”
“Thank you, dear. You have a good evening.”
As they walked out to the car, Quinn said, “Nice job of getting the woman to talk.”
“You just have to give someone like her the nudge to talk and they will.”
“I wonder what Twigg and Verna had to talk about,” Quinn said, starting his SUV.
“Either he was dating her, or he was trying to talk her into blacking out the camera. When she refused, Robin did it.” She thought on that a minute. “But why ask Verna first when your partner in crime worked in the same area?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Unless all of the people in the victim’s book decided to work together to kill the man blackmailing them.” Quinn drove away from the apartment building and back across town to the Pomroy’s neighborhood.
It was early but there were people being let into the Lockland residence. Quinn parked and Dela followed him up to the front door.
When Sergeant Lockland answered the door, Quinn said, “Thank you for allowing us to use your home to gather information about a homicide.”
“I’m curious to see how you conduct this questioning. And I have learned that the death of Mattie Collier is involved with your case.” The man studied Quinn and when he didn’t comment, his gaze moved to Dela.
She smiled and whisked by him into the house.
“So good to see you again,” Ms. Gray said, taking Dela by the hand and leading her into the living room. “We have all the neighbors on this side of the street and across the street here.”
Dela was impressed with all the people sitting in the living room either in the usual furniture or dining room chairs.
“Aaron doesn’t bring his work home with him. This is a fun way to be a part of some criminal activity.”
“Ms. Gray—”
“Jennifer, please.”
“Jennifer, and all of you present. This isn’t a game. We are looking for a murderer and anything you say here, needs to stay here. If the person we are looking for knows you have any knowledge that could get them caught you could become a target.”
“I agree,” both Quinn and Lockland said at the same time.
Dela grinned inwardly that the two “real” cops agreed with her.
“We need to know if you have seen anyone hanging around the Pomroy house or if you’ve seen a particular person visiting the house often the last few months.” Quinn pulled out his notepad. When someone raised a hand, he’d asked their name and where they lived. Then he let them talk.
Dela listened and one thing kept being brought up. Tristan and Paula rarely went anywhere together. But she had several people who came by during the day. One was a man in his thirties.
Quinn handed his phone to Dela. “Bring up Twigg’s photo.”
She found it and walked around the room, showing it to everyone present.
“Is that the man you saw visiting Paula?” Quinn asked.
“Yes. One time he came with a young woman. She was petite, dark hair,” A woman sitting alone offered.
Dela scrolled through Quinn’s photos and found a picture of Robin. “This woman?”
The woman smiled. “Yes, that’s the one. She drove up in a compact dark colored car. The man got out from the passenger side.”
“Did you see how Paula received them?” Quinn asked.
“She didn’t look happy to see them. But she let them in and they stayed about an hour.”
They now had an eye witness to Paula talking with the woman who had blacked out the surveillance cameras that allowed a man to be murdered.
Dela faced Jennifer. “The night after Tristan’s death, you said you saw a young woman sitting in a car in the Pomroy driveway.”
“Yes, she was in a small dark car. Do you think it was the woman who had visited Paula before?” Sergeant Lockland’s wife was getting into the whole questioning.
“I’m not sure. Did you happen to notice if Paula went out later that night?” If Mattie had tried to extort money from Paula for the book, the woman could have followed her home or sent someone to deal with Mattie.
“I’m not sure. I went to bed early.” Jennifer glanced at her husband. “Isn’t that the night you came home late?”
Lockland nodded. “But the garage door was down. I don’t know if her car was inside or if she was gone.”
“What about lights? Were any on?” Dela asked.
The sergeant closed his eyes. “On. There were several lights on, including the front door light. I thought maybe with Tristan gone she had the lights on for comfort.”
Dela wondered if the front door light was because she was waiting for the person to arrive who she planned to pay to kill Mattie.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Quinn said, closing his notepad and motioning for Dela to go with him.
She smiled at Jennifer. “You wouldn’t happen to be the neighbor who has Paula’s extra house key, would you?”
“I do have her key. Sometimes when she goes to her folk’s she has me water her plants.” The woman stood and strode out of the room.
“Do you have a warrant to search the Pomroy house?” Sergeant Lockland asked.
“We do. My associate Special Agent Shaffer is bringing it.” Quinn smiled. “Would you like to help us do the search?”
The sergeant’s eyes lit up. “I wouldn’t mind helping out.”
Dela held back her smile. She understood Quinn was drawing the man in to get more information out of him.
The neighbors were all filing out of the door, when Jennifer returned with the key. “Here you go. Just bring it back, in case Paula calls and needs me to take care of anything.”
“I’ll bring it back. I’m going to help them do the search.” Lockland took the key from his wife.
Dela asked, “She didn’t ask you to water her plants before she left? Or called since and asked the favor?”
“No. Which is strange. She usually does say, hey, I’m going to be gone, could you check on the plants.” Jennifer’s brow wrinkled. “Did you talk to her at her parents’?”
“She’s not there.” Quinn herded Dela out of the house. Sergeant Lockland walked ahead of them across the lawn and over to the Pomroy residence.
“Where’s your associate with the warrant?” Lockland asked.
At that moment headlights turned the corner.
“That’s him there.” They all stood on the porch waiting for Shaffer to park, exit his vehicle, and walk up to the porch. He showed the papers to Lockland, who then placed the key in the lock.
“Think we’ll find any evidence?” Dela asked as the door opened.
“I hope so. If not, it’s going to be pretty hard to get her convicted.” Quinn walked through behind her.
The house appeared the same as the last time they’d visited. Everything in its place. The play pen sat in the same spot in front of the window.
“Lockland, you take the kitchen. We’re looking for a corkscrew or anything that connects her to this list of people.” Quinn showed the sergeant a page in his notepad. The man headed to the kitchen.
Shaffer started searching the living room.
“Let’s check the den.” Quinn led the way to the room they’d searched after Tristan’s death.
Dela walked over to the desk that she’d looked through on their earlier visit. Items were out of place on the top. The drawers had been rummaged through. Papers and things not neat and tidy like the first time. “Either Paula was looking for something or someone else was.”
Quinn picked up the phone and hit the redial button. He listened and hung up. “The last person she dialed was Edmond. That was his voicemail.”
“Can you find out when she made that call?” Dela had a feeling the two had been working together. To what end, she wasn’t sure.
Quinn walked out of the den talking on his phone.
Dela checked out the dining room, laundry and half-bath. She climbed the stairs using the railing. Upstairs she found the child’s room. It looked as if a tornado had passed through. Toys and clothes strewn about. The next room was a guest room, judging from the still new scent of wood and paint and lack of clothing or personal items in the room. The bathroom was next. Again, must have been the guest bath. Nothing personal. The master bedroom and bathroom looked much like the child’s room. Clothing thrown about, items missing from the bathroom. All the products a male would use were still in the cabinet and in the shower. A small notepad sat on a bedside table. Dela picked it up and studied the blank page. There appeared to have been writing on the page before.
She dug around and found a pencil. Lightly shading the indented area, she brought up what looked like a flight number. “Quinn!”
The special agent appeared in the door. “Yeah?”
“This needs bagged, and the number looked up to see if it is a flight to the Cayman Islands.” She pointed to the notepad.
He pulled out his phone, texting the information before he pulled an evidence bag out of his inside pocket and picked the notepad up by the corner, dropping it into the bag. “We need more evidence.”
Dela wandered out of the bedroom and down the hall to one more door. She opened it and found a desk, chair, and pamphlets about the Cayman Islands. Some pamphlets were tossed in the trash can and three others were on the desk. There were several different photos of her, just the right size to fit on a passport. Someone had made a fake passport for her. They’d already figured this out, believing Paula was in the Cayman Islands.
She grabbed the pamphlets in the trash and then dumped the rest of the contents on the desk. A square photo lay on top of the small mound. A photo of Ronald Edmond. Paula would need a man with Tristan’s ID to go into the bank and withdraw or transfer the money. Or even keep it in the account but be able to use it.
Quinn walked into the room. “Anything else?”
“We need to find Ronald Edmond.” She held up the photo of the man.