Fenway stared at Chad Wilkenson through the one-way mirror. Dez’s statement about Frank Mortimer’s body being in the back of his truck had been an educated guess, but he’d reacted like he’d gotten caught.
He had a piece of gauze stuck up his nose, and his forehead was forming a lump from where he’d hit it on the sidewalk.
Fenway tapped her foot. “There’s no answer at the Northwall house?”
Dez shook her head. “Celeste was just there.”
“Emma doesn’t like Celeste. Maybe she saw who it was and just didn’t answer her door.” Fenway took a step back from the glass. “I want something to go on before I walk in there. If Emma could have gotten a reaction from Redmond, anything that would give us a clue to how he notified Chad, Brad, and Tad that the body needed to be moved—that would give us leverage.”
Dez leaned against the wall. “Northwall didn’t have any opportunity to contact anyone else.”
Fenway’s head snapped up. “Only when he passed Haley Sinclair in the hallway.”
Dez folded her arms. “You seriously think his yelling at her was some sort of secret code to get Haley to talk to Chad? To get him to move the body?”
“I guess that’s pretty unlikely.” Fenway paced back and forth in the small observation room. “Do you think Emma is safe?”
Dez pursed her lips. “I—I haven’t thought about that.”
“Redmond takes all their money, basically leaving her penniless. She’ll lose her house and her car and have no means of support. She’s got a marine biology degree and a volunteer job that pays her nothing, from what I can see. So Redmond knows she has nothing to lose. He was planning to be in Belize by now, away from extradition, with tens of millions of dollars.” Fenway stopped, then turned to stare at Chad. “He never expected to get pulled back to Estancia. He’s got to think Emma knows about his betrayal and about the money being gone. And he might know that she has enough evidence against him—for the theft, for the murder, and who knows what else?”
Dez dropped her hands to her side. “So he could want her dead.”
“It’s possible.” Fenway narrowed her eyes. “Frank Mortimer might not have been the only body in the back of that pickup.”
Dez stepped next to Fenway, glaring at Chad too. “He knows he’s in trouble, but I wonder if he thinks we’re onto him for more than just the obstruction charges. Maybe Chad doesn’t know it was Frank’s body that washed up on shore.”
“Maybe,” Fenway said, “he thinks we found Emma’s body.”
Dez nodded. “But we can’t go in there asking about Emma’s dead body. If Emma’s still alive, Chad will know we have no actual evidence. And he’ll lawyer up immediately.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t yet.” Fenway stepped to the back of the room next to a plastic chair. “Isn’t Lynn Hayes the lawyer for all members of the Brotherhood?”
“Maybe you only get criminal representation when you’re the Grand Poobah.”
Fenway sat in the chair and rested her chin in her hand. “I think he’s protecting someone.”
“Redmond Northwall.”
Fenway nodded, then blinked. “That’s what I assumed—but…” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and rested her head in her hands. “I’m not seeing the complete picture.”
Dez tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s go through this.” Fenway counted each fact off on her fingers. “We find Frank Mortimer dead in the Monument Brotherhood Temple. The murder weapon is the Bloodstone Scepter, which only Redmond Northwall has access to. He’s seen putting it in his garage yesterday, where we find it, and then we capture him trying to leave the country on someone else’s passport.”
“A district attorney’s dream come true. This is as close to a slam-dunk case as you can get.”
“Except…” Fenway said, raising her head and glancing at Dez.
“The contradictory witness statements and the lack of a dead body. But now, we’ve got our corpse.”
Fenway nodded. “Do you think it’s suspicious that Frank Mortimer’s body just happened to wash up on the beach this morning?”
“Lucky, maybe. It’s not like Chad, Ben, or Travis would have wanted to keep a dead body in the temple for longer than they had to.”
Fenway sat up straight. “You think Northwall betrayed them, too? You know, ‘Monument Brothers have to stick together’ but then Northwall steals twenty-five million bucks and takes off to the Caribbean?”
Dez raised her eyebrows. “Show me a person who wouldn’t behave the same way in that situation.” She pointed to Wilkenson through the one-way mirror. “Chad put his ass on the line for Redmond. He helped push law enforcement out of the temple, he lied to the police, then he got stuck having to dispose of a dead body—all while the one man who was supposed to be his spiritual guide tries to flee the country with a woman half his age. If I were Chad, I’d be pissed off.”
Fenway stood. “You don’t think he’s protecting Northwall. You think he’ll turn on him.”
“We might have to plead him down to a lesser charge, but yes.”
“Destroying evidence is already a misdemeanor.”
“So is obstructing an officer,” Dez said, “but we could also charge him as an accessory to murder. It isn’t a slap on the wrist. That’s years of prison. A felony charge would wreck his career, his standing in the community—he’d lose everything.”
Fenway nodded and strode toward the door. “Then let’s see if he wants to play ball.”
“We have you and your truck on video,” Dez said, leaning across the table and placing the folder in front of Wilkenson. She flipped it open and a photo clearly showed the F-250 and the license plate, as well as half of Wilkenson’s face.
Chad bent down and stared at the photo for a moment. “You can’t tell who that is.”
Dez chuckled, leaned back in her chair, and elbowed Fenway playfully in the ribs. “You think any jury in California would think that’s not you, Chad? It’s your truck. You filled the tank at a gas station five miles away using a credit card with your name on it—ten minutes before this picture was taken. Juries can connect the dots.”
Wilkenson was silent.
“We already have you for resisting arrest,” Dez continued. “We’re running tests on the bed of your pickup truck right now. Whose DNA do you think we might find?”
Ever so slightly, his shoulders slumped.
“We plan to make the argument to keep you locked up until we get those test results back,” Fenway said. “You’re a flight risk. We already know you won’t come quietly. So a judge would have no choice but to hold you without bail.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and spoke softly. “Dumping the body in the ocean is destroying evidence. Resisting arrest. Kicking us out of the temple so you could get rid of the body. These are facts the jury won’t be able to interpret any other way.”
Chad raised his head, glaring at Fenway. But his lower lip trembled.
“Judge Haggarty might sign an injunction, but he won’t put his job on the line for something so cut-and-dried,” Fenway said. “You don’t want to go to jail, do you, Chad?” She hesitated, then leaned forward a little more. “A good-looking guy like you? Prison—does things to a person, Chad. Your plans—house in the suburbs, a pretty wife, two-point-five children, maybe a hot young mistress in L.A. you see during the week? That’s all gone, Chad.”
“What—” Chad’s voice came out hoarse. He coughed, then took a deep breath. “What do you want?”
“You’re going to tell us who killed Frank Mortimer,” Dez said.
Chad’s face fell. “And what if I don’t know?”
Dez brought her face close to Chad’s and looked kindly into his eyes. Then she slammed her fist onto the table in front of him with a loud thump. Chad jumped.
“Don’t feed us that bullshit!” Dez yelled. “You were in the temple with the body. You helped get rid of the body! Are you covering for your Brotherhood leader?”
Tears sprang to Chad’s eyes. “But I don’t know who killed him!”
Dez looked at Chad with menace, breathing heavily. “You know what happened.”
“Okay, okay,” Chad said. “I lied to you before. I didn’t see anyone hit Frank. Ben and I were at the temple, getting things ready for a finance meeting, and when I walked into the ballroom, he was already dead.”
Dez frowned. “That sounds like another lie to me, Chad.”
“No!” Chad whimpered. “I swear, I’m telling you the truth.”
“Where was Redmond Northwall?”
Chad swallowed hard. “He’d just arrived. He was getting a bottled water.”
“You didn’t see him before?”
“Not—not really.”
“Did he have blood on his clothes? His hands?”
“No! I swear, I didn’t notice anything!”
“Why didn’t you call 9-1-1 when you found the body?”
Chad hung his head. “Northwall came out to see. His eyes went really wide when he saw who it was.” He looked at Fenway. “That’s why I don’t think he did it. He seemed surprised.”
“But he asked you to hide the body?”
“He wanted a few minutes to think about what to do. Ben wanted to call the cops.”
“You didn’t call the cops?”
“I didn’t know what to do. It’s supposed to be a sacred space. We’re not supposed to let outsiders in.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then the two of you arrived.”
Fenway nodded. “After you kicked us out of the temple, what did you do?”
Wilkenson hesitated. “I don’t know. I was supposed to take you out the door, then Ben was going to lock everything from the inside. Redmond said he’d take care of everything else. I did my part, then I went home.” He looked down at his hands.
“And that leads us to last night,” Fenway said. “When you took your truck to San Sebastian Beach and threw a body in.”
Wilkenson was silent.
“Where’s Emma Northwall, Chad?”
He looked up and blinked. “I—I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Last—” Wilkenson pressed his lips together and took a moment before continuing. “Yesterday.”
“You were about to say ‘last night’? Did you go to her house?”
He glanced from Dez to Fenway, back to Dez, then nodded.
“And she was alive and well when you saw her last?”
Wilkenson’s brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.
“You keeping quiet because you don’t want to get your friends in trouble?”
He sunk down in his seat. “I don’t know who to believe anymore. I heard Mr. Northwall stole a bunch of money and was about to leave the country.”
“Why was that?”
“I heard it was because he was innocent, but the police had too much evidence against him. That leaving the country was the only way he could stay out of prison.”
Fenway blinked. That didn’t make any sense. Who would have told him that?
Oh, it must have been the lawyer.
“No matter what Ms. Hayes told you, Chad,” Fenway said, “you were only getting part of the story.”
“Well, whatever. I didn’t want an innocent man to go to jail.” He set his jaw and looked down, mumbling. “Wasn’t even supposed to wash up.”
Fenway sat back and blinked. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, you did. What wasn’t supposed to wash up? The body on the beach?”
Wilkenson sat back in his chair, head down. “I think I better talk to a lawyer.”
“I’m sure Lynn Hayes will be delighted to spend more time in this interview room,” Dez said, standing.
Wilkenson scoffed.
Fenway stood. “Oh, sorry—not your lawyer?”
“Just let me have a phone call. I’ll figure this out.”
Fenway and Dez walked out into the hallway and closed the door. They walked in front of the vending machine.
“Lynn Hayes isn’t Chad’s lawyer,” Dez said. “I guess I was right—only the leadership gets the benefits of representation.”
“But Chad met Emma last night,” Fenway mused. “You think he—or maybe Ben or Travis—killed her on Northwall’s orders? Dumped her body in the ocean too?”
Dez stared at the vending machine for a moment, then pushed two buttons and held up her debit card to the machine’s scanner. “Unless he felt guilty and told Emma what was going on.” A small bag of barbecue chips dropped to the bottom. “Did you get the reports from Northwall’s cellphone? The company emailed them this morning.”
“I’ll have to look at those. Did we get the burner phone report, too?”
“I think so, but I haven’t seen it. I’ve been a little busy with Chad.”
Fenway nodded, then tapped her fingers against the wall next to the vending machine. “And what did he mean that ‘it wasn’t supposed to wash up’?”
“Obviously he meant Frank Mortimer’s body.” Dez reached into the machine and pulled out her chips. “Even if he’d dumped another body in the ocean, Frank’s was the only one we found.” She opened the bag.
“But on your ocean currents app,” Fenway pointed out, “you could figure out that a body that washed up on Cypress Point Beach would have come from that area. I can only assume you could reverse that and figure out that if you were to dump a body there, it would likely not wash out to sea.”
Dez chewed a chip thoughtfully. “You have to know a little about how to read these currents, though. And it’s not exact. There are undertows, freak storms—hell, the body could have gotten tangled up in seaweed and a boat could have come by and dragged it halfway to Hawaii by now.”
“But that’s not likely.”
“No—I don’t have exact percentages. Maybe we should enlist an oceanographer’s help.”
“You don’t have to have a master’s degree in ocean currents to know that’s not a good beach to dump a body. So why dump it there?”
“I’m not sure.” Dez took another chip out of the bag and pointed it at Fenway. “And another thing. Obviously, Northwall didn’t expect us to show up so soon. The 9-1-1 call—dispatch says it was a woman. But maybe Chad—or Ben or Travis—had a moral crisis and called it in, but disguised their voice so they wouldn’t get caught.”
“I asked Sarah to talk to the cleaning company to see if we could identify the caller. Let’s see what she found.” Fenway pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. “Sarah?”
“Hi, Fenway. You’ve been busy this morning.”
“I sure have. Did anything come through on the request to the 9-1-1 dispatcher?”
“Well, it’s interesting. I listened to the tape. It’s a woman’s voice, and we assumed she was part of the cleaning crew.” Sarah clicked her tongue. “I spoke to the company that’s contracted to clean, though. They only come to the Monument Brotherhood Temple on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. So I’m not sure who made the call.”
“Is there any way—uh, I don’t know how to say this—any way it could have been a man disguising his voice to sound like a woman?”
Sarah was silent for a moment. “Why would you ask that?”
“We think maybe one of the young men who were at the Brotherhood Temple that day grew a conscience and made the call.”
Sarah cleared her throat. “No. Categorically. That was absolutely a woman’s voice. No question in my mind.”
“Gotcha,” Fenway said quickly.
Then everything clicked into place in her head.
Emma Northwall’s words rang in her mind. Perhaps she didn’t want to leave her cushy life here and travel with an old man to Belize.
Since the investigation started, no one had told Emma Northwall that Frank Mortimer had booked a ticket to Belize.
So Emma already knew. She knew all about Mortimer’s plan to steal the money—and maybe about her husband’s plan to steal it back and leave her.
Dez caught the look on Fenway’s face, pausing halfway to putting another chip in her mouth. “What is it?”
“Who’s got a marine biology degree and a reason to put her husband in jail?” Fenway set her jaw. “Sarah, call the Sheriff’s Office and have them put out an APB on Emma Northwall.”