Payback, page 29
Randolph twisted around and lurched to one side to stare at Tambor. “Shit, James. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking nothing, because I didn’t do anything,” Tambor snapped back. “I got a text from a friend saying that some kids were messing around at the old Bannon place. Now that’s where my son’s soul left this earth, and it needs to be treated with respect. So I was on my way to take a look when I saw your car in the river, and you and your partner over there bobbing around in the water like two corks in a punch bowl.” His jawline went tight as he crossed his arms over his chest. “My only crime was to leave the scene of an accident, but since a police car and an ambulance were already there, that doesn’t amount to any kind of crime at all. Especially since I’m the one who called them.”
“How do you explain your truck being an exact match to the one that pushed us into the river?”
Tambor’s gaze took on another level of heat. “I don’t have to explain it. There are quite a few hunters in the area who own black trucks with grille guards. I don’t have the only one.”
Gin lifted an eyebrow. “Are you a hunter, Mr. Tambor?”
“Yes, I am,” he stated without a moment’s hesitation. “I also have a proper license to hunt, so that isn’t a crime either.”
“Do you have your phone with you, Mr. Tambor?” When the tall, wiry man nodded, Gin held out her hand. “Would you mind showing me that text message about those kids messing around at the Bannon house?”
Rolling his eyes, James dug into the pocket of his jeans and produced a cell phone. He tapped on the screen, then quickly scrolled through his messages. After several moments, he frowned, then made a frustrated sound deep in his throat. “It’s not here.”
Gin’s eyebrows winged upward. “Not there? Do you mean there isn’t any text on your phone about boys at the Bannon house after all?”
James sent her a helpless look. “I mean it was there, and now it’s not. Take a look.”
“Oh, I believe it’s not there, Mr. Tambor,” Gin stated smoothly, watching the panic leak into his gaze. “Who supposedly sent you that text?”
“A buddy of mine. And not supposedly. He sent me the text about boys being out at the old Bannon place.”
Gin looked at Trey, who produced a blank sheet of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket, along with a pen. He leaned over the table and set them both in front of James. “You write down this buddy’s name and contact information, and we’ll check your story out with him.”
When James reached for the pen, Gin purposely interrupted him. “Do you go out to the Banner house on a regular basis and leave fresh flowers there?” she asked, waiting as Tambor blinked at the sudden change in subject.
“I go out sometimes,” he admitted. “To talk to my boy. He had a lot to offer this world. Junior was a good student and might have made the NFL after he played some college ball. What happened to him wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t fair, and I need him to know that. But no, ma’am. I appreciate those flowers, but I’m not the one who puts them there.”
When he finished writing his friend’s contact information, Gin picked up the sheet of paper and handed it to Justin, who immediately left the room. When Tambor’s gaze stared at the empty spot where Justin had been standing, Gin drew his attention back to her. “Where were you the night Mark Worthy died, Mr. Tambor?”
“The same place I am every night. I got off work and went home. I got a wife plus a passel of grown kids who can’t seem to move out of the house, and all of them will tell you the same thing.”
Gin nodded then looked at the woman sitting at the far end of the line, slightly apart from the others. “Would you be the one leaving flowers at the Bannon house, Mrs. Woodrow?”
The tired-looking woman with dark circles under her eyes didn’t say a word for a long moment, then finally let out a long sigh. “This time of year they’re from my garden. During the winter, I get them from a shop in town. Like all the others here, I also lost a son at that terrible place and would say the same thing as James. What happened to my Max wasn’t right or fair. He never hurt anyone, except maybe handing out a few bruises on the football field.”
“Before we asked you to come into the station today, Mrs. Woodrow, did you know that Mark Worthy had been killed in a fire, just like your son was?”
“Michelle told me,” the woman replied in a soft voice.
When Shirley Woodrow’s chin started to tremble, Gin fought to keep her expression blank. Whatever she thought of the other three members of the Survivors’ Club, she found it hard to envision the sad, quiet woman lighting a match and burning anyone alive, even if she did believe that person had killed her son. “Where were you the night Mark Worthy died?”
Shirley swiped a hand along her cheek, then returned to her rigid posture. “I don’t read the papers or listen to the news, so I’m not sure what date that was, but it doesn’t make any difference. Except for church and running errand once a week in town, I don’t leave the farm. So I was there, with my husband.” She looked straight ahead, blinking back tears. “We lost our daughter in a car accident, and Max to that fire, so it’s just the two of us running the farm now.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Woodrow. We appreciate your cooperation. You are free to go.”
The older woman turned watery eyes toward Gin, and for the first time, looked directly at her. “I don’t think I’ve heard yet why you wanted us all down here, so I’d like to stay.”
“That’s fine,” Gin said before slowly turning her gaze on Paul Randolph. The man was sweating right through the jacket of his cheap-looking suit. Gin kept a silent stare on him until he began to squirm in his seat.
“I guess that just leaves me to answer your questions. I can’t sit here all day. I have a business to run. You just go ahead and ask away so Shirley and I can get the hell out of here,” Randolph stated, aligning himself with the quiet woman sitting next to him.
At the far end of the table, Michelle visibly stiffened. “How nice of you to think of the rest of us, Paul.”
He leaned over and turned his head to look at her. “Hey, the FBI only seems to be interested in the two of you, so there isn’t any reason I have to hang around.” He put his hands flat on the table and pushed himself back to an upright position, swaying slightly in his seat as he glared at Gin. “I’ll even save us some time by saying I haven’t met either you or the agent sitting next to you before today, or that guy acting like he’s guarding the door in case we all make a break for it. I also don’t own a black truck and was at the office all day yesterday and have an assistant and a couple of clients who can vouch for that. So it wasn’t me who ran you into the river. And I didn’t kill Worthy. I might have thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I was right here in New Bern.” He pointed a shaky finger at the file in front of Gin. “There’s no credit card statement of mine in there with any plane tickets, bus tickets, or train tickets to Colorado or any other damn place outside of this shit-hole town.”
“Uh-huh,” Gin intoned in a flat voice. “But you see, here’s the thing. If you were paying attention, then you know I told Mrs. Hillyer that four people died in the fire at the Oasis that night. Two members of the cleaning crew, Mark Worthy, and his friend Kevin Amlin.”
Gasps rose from around the room. Shirley’s hand flew to her mouth while Michelle’s eyes opened so wide they looked in danger of popping out of her head.
“Kevin Amlin? He burned up in that fire too?” Michelle turned a stunned gaze on her attorney. “Did you know that?”
Atwater’s astonishment instead of a confused expression clearly said that he knew exactly who Keven Amlin was. But he pulled it together and shook his head. “There wasn’t any other name specifically mentioned in the news reports besides Mark Worthy’s.”
Now Michelle turned an accusing stare on Gin. “Not once did you mention Kevin’s name. You never said a word about him dying in that fire, too.”
Gin didn’t even spare the woman a glance. “I’m not talking to you right now, Mrs. Hillyer. It’s Mr. Randolph I want to hear an explanation from.”
“Me?” Randolph’s eyes wheeled in his head before he managed to focus them again on a single point somewhere over Gin’s shoulder. “I already told you I wasn’t anywhere near Denver, and I don’t own a black truck.”
“Do you smoke, Mr. Randolph?”
“Like a chimney,” Michelle piped up, then shrunk back in her seat at Randolph’s hot glare.
“Shut up, Michelle,” he snapped before nodding at Gin. “Yeah. I smoke. So what?”
“The night of the fire, someone ran out of the club right after it exploded into flames and took off in Mark Worthy’s car. The police found the car the next day in the airport’s long-term parking lot, and inside it, they found a lighter. With fingerprints on it. Fingerprints that were an exact match to the ones on your DMV record, Mr. Randolph.” As all the color drained out of Randolph’s cheeks, Gin stood up and leaned over the table, putting her face within a foot of his. “Do you care to explain that?” She kept her gaze glued to him as he scrabbled his feet against the floor, trying to get away from her.
“It’s wrong.” He looked at the horror on the faces of everyone around him. “She’s wrong. I wasn’t there. I tell you I never left town.”
“Then where were you that night, Mr. Randolph? Where were you the night Mark Worthy and Kevin Amlin burned to death?”
“Home,” he cried out, large tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “I went to the office and then I went home. I swear it on the graves of my dead sons. I didn’t kill Worthy or Amlin.”
Gin straightened her arms and moved away from the sobbing man. “Your dead sons are what we’re talking about, isn’t it?” she said in a lower, calmer voice. “And who you think killed them. One fire. Two dead Rollers.” Gin sat back in her seat. “Two gone in one fell swoop. Maybe you knew they were together in Denver, saw an opportunity for a little payback, and took it.”
Randolph bent over, wrapping his arms around his waist, then lowering his head as he kept shaking it in denial. “No. No. No.”
Gin let out a long, almost theatrical sigh. “Well, the problem is that we checked with your office assistant. It seems you disappeared right after I called you about this meeting today. And last week when that fire was set in The Oasis? You stayed home sick for three days. You never made an appearance at the office, or anywhere else, it seems. So, I’m asking you again. Where were you for those three days?”
Randolph didn’t say a word. As the minutes ticked by, his shoulders stiffened and his fists rhythmically clenched open and shut. When he finally did look up, there were still tears in his eyes, but they were rapidly giving way to fire. “I don’t know how my prints got on that lighter, but I wasn’t anywhere near Denver or that club. Not last week, not last month, not ever. I ate something bad and stayed home those three days because I was throwing up.”
“He could have been on a bender,” Michelle cut in. “He’s done that before and disappeared inside his house for days.”
“And you could have lifted that lighter from my house and planted it in that car while you were out in Denver getting rubbed and slathered up in between setting fires,” Randolph shot back. “So far, you’re the only one they can prove was there.” He threw back his head and blasted out a string of harsh laughter. “She’s got my credit card statements, Queen Bee. Just like she’s got yours. The only difference is that mine are maxed out. I couldn’t buy a plane ticket to the next town over, much less to Denver.”
“Paul, you’re getting out of control,” Tambor said quietly. “Michelle didn’t frame you for murder. There has to be another explanation for that lighter.”
“Oh, yeah?” Randolph reached over and jabbed a vicious finger into his fellow club member’s arm. “Why not? And how do I know you aren’t in it together, Mr. That’s-Not-My-Truck? What a joke. A truck that looks just like yours rams federal agents off the road and you just happen to come along a few minutes later because of a text message that also just happens to have disappeared off your phone?”
Tambor’s eyes narrowed, but his voice didn’t change. “The cops were out and didn’t find any damage to my truck.”
Randolph threw his hands up into the air. “Big deal. You mess with cars and trucks all the time. How hard would it have been for you to remove a grille guard and bolt another one on? Answer me that.”
Gin stood up and slapped a palm on the table. “It’s a good question, Mr. Tambor, and we’ll need an answer to it. But right now, I think you and Mrs. Hillyer,” —she glanced over at an uncharacteristically quiet Michelle— “should go home and give some careful thought to whether or not you want to change your story, before you end up in the same position as Mr. Randolph here.”
Randolph leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “And what position would that be, Miss Big-Shot Special Agent?”
Gin stared back at him as Justin and Trey stepped around opposite ends of the table, boxing the belligerent insurance agent into his chair. “Paul Randolph, you are under arrest.” She paused as the other three members of the Survivors’ Club and Atwater jumped up from their seats and headed for the door. “For the murder of Mark Worthy, Kevin Amlin, Dina Juarez, and Sophia Gonzalez. You’ll be held here at the New Bern Police Department until arrangements can be made to remand you into the custody of the United States Marshals Service.”
As Trey and Justin wrestled the fighting Paul Randolph out the door, Gin watched them with troubled eyes. She didn’t have that feeling of closure that she always got at the end of a case. Her boss would be happy at the news of the arrest, and Paul Randolph might even be as guilty as sin in the murders at The Oasis, but her gut told her she was missing something.
Chapter Twenty-Five
While Trey and Justin were escorting Randolph to a jail cell, Gin made her way to Chief Mannis’ office. The man himself showed her in and insisted she take a seat.
“I want to thank you for all your help,” she said once the chief was settled back in his chair.
The chief’s tanned face split into a smile. “It’s not every day we have a federal prisoner sitting in one of our cells. I guess we can expect a visit from the U.S. Marshals shortly?”
Gin returned the smile. “Yeah, that’s the way it works. We track and arrest, then turn them over to the Marshals Service.”
Mannis chuckled. “Well, the tracking is the hard part, Agent Reilly. You and your team did a good job.” He sighed as he shook his head. “I guess we’ll never know if those Rollers set that fire out at the old Bannon house, but at least we know who killed two of them, and probably all five.”
“It’s a possibility,” Gin said, drawing a puzzled look from the man sitting behind the desk.
“You don’t sound convinced about something, Agent Reilly.” Mannis stroked a hand along the side of his face. “What is it? Are you thinking that Randolph didn’t start either the Bannon fire or the one at that club out in Denver? Because finding those prints, and him having no verifiable explanation for his whereabouts for three days, is pretty damning.”
Since he was right, Gin nodded. “Yeah, it is. There’s just still a lot of loose ends.” She pursed her lips. “And it almost seems as if this one was dropped right in our laps.”
“I’d call it good detective work,” Mannis declared. “And I wouldn’t question the easy ones. Take them where you can get them because they are surely few and far between.”
“That’s good advice,” Gin said with a smile.
“And don’t you worry about that swim you took in the river. We’ll find something to tie Tambor to it. He’ll at least be facing the justice system for assaulting federal agents if we can’t get him on attempted murder.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type.” Gin did her best to sound unconcerned, but the fact was that from what she’d seen at the time, James Tambor had been a far cry from being overcome by some sort of murderous road rage. He’d stopped and called for help. That seemed out of character for someone who had wanted to get rid of the federal agents. And he’d said right from the start that the black truck that had run them off the road wasn’t his.
But Paul Randolph was right. If Tambor knew his way around cars, how long would it have taken him to remove that grille and bolt on a new one? An hour? Maybe two? And if Michelle had been in Randolph’s house, she could have pocketed one of his lighters, knowing she was heading to Denver. She could get her revenge and deflect suspicion from herself by planting it somewhere it was almost certain to be found.
Still pondering everything, Gin said her goodbyes to the chief, then went in search of Trey and Justin. She found them suffering through a cup of liquid sludge that passed for coffee, with a mound of forms in front of them. “What’s all that?” she asked, pointing at the pile of paper stacked high between them.
“The red tape that has to be filled out in order to transfer a prisoner from the FBI to the Marshals Service.” Justin reached over and grabbed a chair from a nearby table. “Pull up a seat and dive in. The nearest detention center is at the Marshals’ office in Raleigh. It’s going to take them a couple of hours to get here, and we need to hand them all these forms or the transfer is a no-go.”
Trey jerked his head toward Justin. “He’s got more experience at filling this stuff out than I have.”
Justin grinned. “The really bad guys have to get to GITMO somehow.” When Gin remained standing, he looked up at her. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know.” She stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “It all seems a little pat, with too many pieces not quite fitting together, if you know what I mean.”
“Not really. You and flyboy here almost drowning in that river doesn’t seem a little too pat to me,” Justin countered.
Trey nodded his agreement, then rolled his shoulders back and forth to work out the kinks. “Look, I thought I’d get hold of the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen and have them send me their security tapes for the last couple of weeks. Maybe we’ll find Randolph lurking around the hotel, or sneaking in and out of Michelle’s room. Then both of them will be spending time with the U.S. Marshals Service.”
