“Detective, we’ve got someone in interrogation that you might want to talk to,” Wes said, poking his head into her office the following day.
She looked up, interested. “Yeah? Who is it?”
“Some guy patrol picked up for a traffic violation but they found power tools in the back of his truck listed as stolen from the Leicki house the night of their murder. Thought you might want to get in on this.”
That got her attention. “Who is it?”
“The name’s Mark Duncan, apparently some kind of independent contractor. Said he bought the tools secondhand but he doesn’t know who he bought them from.”
She rose quickly and went straight to the interrogation room.
The man, middle-aged with a beer belly and a ruddy complexion from spending too much time outdoors, scowled from his chair, fidgeting in his cuffs and looking guilty as hell, but guilty of what?
“Mark Duncan, I’m Detective Griffin. Can you tell me where you bought the power tools found in your truck?”
“I already told the first officer. I bought them used from some guy off Craigslist. I didn’t think it was necessary to get personal details for a goddamn miter saw and a drill set. I saw the deal and I took it, okay? I paid cash and I never saw the guy again.”
“Did you know those items were listed as part of a crime scene?” Luna asked.
“What are you talking about? What crime?”
“The murder of the entire Leicki family.”
The man paled beneath his sun-weathered skin. “I didn’t have nothing to do with that. All I did was buy the tools. Hey, look, I’m just an independent contractor trying to make a living and times are tough, you know? Sometimes I buy used tools. It’s not a crime. We all do it. How was I supposed to know they were stolen?”
“Where did you meet up with the guy to make the purchase?”
Mark chewed his bottom lip as if he were reluctant to answer because he knew how it would look, but he relented. “A parking lot after hours, but I’ve bought plenty of tools from guys trying to make fast cash. It’s not my place to judge why they gotta have the money, you know?”
“You didn’t think for a second that the tools might be stolen?”
“That’s not my business,” he retorted sullenly. “A guy’s gotta eat.”
“Well, it’s your business now, isn’t it?” Luna said. “We’re going to need your phone to trace the number used to make the sale.”
“I don’t know why I’m being treated like a criminal when I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“You purchased stolen property. That’s a crime.”
“Yeah but how was I supposed to know? It’s not like they were sporting stickers saying ‘Stolen property.’”
“Most people buy their professional tools through official channels, with receipts.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, everyone’s gotta eat and tools are expensive. Sometimes you can’t always buy through the stores. It’s not like I wouldn’t want to do it that way but, hell, you don’t know what it’s like out there right now. With the price of materials going through the roof, and no one wanting to spend a dime on quality work, you cut corners where you can.”
“I sympathize with your situation but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re in possession of stolen property that was taken from a murder scene.”
“That’s my damn luck,” he muttered. “So what’s going to happen now?”
“We’re going to process the stolen property, dust it for possible prints that might still remain, as well as take your prints, and once we can determine your whereabouts on the night of the murder, we’re going to process you for acquiring stolen property.”
“Hold up, what do you mean? I didn’t have anything to do with no murder.”
“And if you can provide an alibi for the night in question, we’ll be happy to simply process you on the property charges.” She looked him square in the eye. “Do you have an alibi for the night of July 16?”
Mark shifted in his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. “I live alone. No one but my dog, Roscoe, was with me and something tells me he don’t count.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“This is some bullshit,” he muttered. “I didn’t have nothing to do with those people getting killed.”
“If you’re innocent the evidence will prove it.”
“And how exactly is that going to work if I don’t have anyone who can vouch for me?”
“Hopefully your prints aren’t on the crime scene.”
Mark stared, a bead of moisture collecting on his lip as he tried wiping it away with his shoulder. “It’s hotter than Hades in this box. Jesus, don’t you have air conditioning?”
Luna ignored his complaint. “Is there anything you’d like to tell us before we start going through your phone?”
“I didn’t know the stuff was stolen,” he insisted.
“The law doesn’t discriminate against ignorance,” she said without sympathy.
“This is messed up,” he said, shaking his head. “I swear to God, I didn’t have anything to do with any murder and I damn well didn’t know that the tools were stolen. How the hell did you even know they were stolen?”
“Roger Leicki was a fastidious individual. Not only did he register all of his tools, he kept an organized file of every tool’s paperwork. We found the paperwork for the miter saw and the drill set, but didn’t see the corresponding tools and figured that they’d been stolen at the time of the murders. All it took was running the serial numbers against the database to confirm they were the ones stolen from the scene.”
“Hold on one damn minute,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t know when those tools were stolen. They could’ve been missing way before they got killed. What proof you got that it’s connected at all?”
“As I said, Roger was a man who liked doing things in an orderly fashion. If the tools had been stolen previously, he would’ve reported it and we don’t have any record of Roger Leicki reporting any kind of theft at his residence ever.”
“Seems kinda flimsy if you ask me but you’re making the rules, not me.”
“Did you know the Leickis?” Luna asked.
“No?”
But it was the way he quickly answered that made her pause. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course I’m sure.”
“If I find out you’re lying, it won’t go well for you.”
Mark swallowed but compressed his lips before demanding, “I want to talk to my lawyer. I got rights.”
“You got something to hide?”
“I ain’t saying another damn word until I talk to a lawyer.”
Luna bit back a frustrated sigh. “Fine.” She motioned for Wes to come and get the suspect. Nothing more would happen with him until they had more to go on. Maybe with some luck, they’d find Mark Duncan’s prints on more than just the stolen tools.
After a career in the military, Benjamin had accumulated a few friends in high places and some friends who didn’t mind doing the odd favor that was technically outside the lines of legal.
One such friend, Codi Ellers, served with him in the Marines but went chasing after more money in the private sector in financial security. If you wanted to get technical, Codi was the most sophisticated hacker he’d ever seen, but when she wasn’t playing on the deep web, she was running financial security programs for major corporations.
She ran a dangerous game—if any of her big employers knew the stuff she was doing on her own time, they’d probably bust her ass—but Codi thrived on the adrenaline rush of not getting caught, and nothing would make her stop.
Benjamin fully expected Codi’s luck to run out at some point, but that wasn’t today, so it was a problem for another time.
He needed a favor only Codi would be willing to do.
She picked up on the first ring, which was saying something because when he called, the call usually went straight to voice mail.
“This has got to be good. You never call anymore. I’m starting to think we aren’t still friends.”
“Shut up, you’re the one who’s never around. The fact that you’re not in jail yet is a mystery.”
“Can’t catch the leaf on the wind, baby,” she said with laughter in her voice. “No, but seriously, why you calling? Everything okay?”
“Actually, no,” he answered with a heavy sigh, sharing the news about his sister. Then, finishing, he said, “The guy was getting paid for something shady, but the local police department would need bigger resources to dig into his bank accounts to see where the money was going and coming from. There’s only one person I could think of that might be able to find what Roger didn’t want found. What do you say?”
“Is there money involved?” she asked.
“I can pay you a few bucks for your trouble,” he said.
She laughed. “I’m kidding. I can’t have you paying me for illegal work. That’s a federal crime, homie. I’ll poke around and see what I can find. I’ll need some details.”
“Whatever you need,” he promised. “Just name it.”
“I’ll need basic personal information, name, age, birth date, Social Security number and mother’s maiden name, if possible.”
“I can get that. When can you start digging?”
“As soon as you get me the intel. I’ll have you send it through an encrypted channel to my private server.”
She was speaking gibberish, but as long as she knew what she was doing, Benjamin didn’t mind doing the paint-by-numbers routine. “You got it. Give me a day to get the info.”
“Cool.” She waited for a beat, then asked, “Hey, man, in all seriousness, how are you holding up?”
“You mean is my mental totally trashed? Hell yeah, I’m holding it together by a string but there’s no time for a breakdown right now. I’m not going to rest until I find out who did this.”
“What about the cop on the case? You don’t have faith in the local police?”
Luna he believed in, but her resources were thin and stretched to the snapping point already. He wasn’t about to rest the fate of Charlotte’s case on the shoulders of a department that could barely handle a handful of crime incidents on any given night. “Let’s say, small towns are great for ambience but shit for solving a murder. They don’t have the stomach for that level of violence, or the expertise.”
“The downside of Mayberry, I guess.”
“Yeah, it’s what they don’t put on the brochure.”
She chuckled but said, “You know, you never had much to say about where you grew up but something told me you didn’t have a lot of good memories. I hope being home isn’t messing with you too hard.”
It was, but it helped to have Luna around to distract him, not only in a sexual way. He enjoyed her company. Her sharp wit kept him on his toes, which was something he hadn’t realized he appreciated until he saw Luna again.
“It’s all right,” he said, leaving Luna out of it. “I appreciate your help in this. I know I shouldn’t ask but—”
“Hey, knock it off. I can count on my hand the number of people I owe my life to and the first four fingers don’t count. Anything you need, you got. You hear me?”
Benjamin’s throat threatened to close. Their unit had been assigned to an evacuation control center in Kabul. A surprise insurgent attack had nearly cost them their lives. Codi took an almost fatal hit to the kidney as insurgent fire erupted all around them. Benjamin dragged her away from the fray, saving her life. That incident had earned Codi her medical discharge, and she’d found herself in the private sector with her unique skill set.
He didn’t like to talk about that deployment. He’d managed to save Codi’s life, but not everyone in their unit survived that day.
And that was all they needed to say about that.
“Thanks,” he murmured. “I’ll be in touch.”
He clicked off and took a minute to breathe through the wall of tension that always threatened to squeeze the air from his lungs when he thought too long about that deployment. He used all his tools to get through the moment.
Thank God for therapy.
Now, he had to find the information Codi needed to start digging.