Dead or a Lie, page 13
“What’d you do to her?” he yelled, teeth clenched, the wad of soaked, spit-filled tobacco on the ground between us.
Helms finally eased up his grip and stood between us with one of the Miami-Dade officers next to him. “What makes you think he had something to do with this?” Helms said, face-to-face with Luke now.
“He’s been after her since he came down here,” Luke said, his eyes still on me. “You son of a bitch… What’d you do to her?”
Helms said, “I don’t believe he’s done anything to your wife. He was with me.”
“You know that for a fact?” Luke said.
Detective Helms seemed to hesitate, glancing back at me. He didn’t exactly answer. “Mr. Arnold, please. I’m going to need you to get ahold of yourself.”
One of the other officers stepped around Luke. “We’ve talked to a couple of the neighbors nearby. Nobody heard, or saw, a thing.”
A maroon vehicle pulled up and parked behind Helms. Detective Mia Collins stepped out, with her phone to her ear. She stood outside her door, nodding into the phone, then finally hung up and continued toward us.
“What’ve we got?” she said, glancing into the car before turning to me. “Do you know anything about this?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I understand you were with her earlier today, were you not?”
“You were with her?” Luke Arnold yelled. “See? I told you, this son of a bitch—”
“Get him out of here!” Detective Helms said, pointing at Luke Arnold.
The officer led him away, over toward the big truck.
I said, “I was at the station with—”
“I know where you were,” Collins said. “But I mean before you were spotted at the Save-More Storage. Were you not with her earlier today?”
I said, “no,” then glanced at Kathy’s husband standing with two cops by his truck, a permanent snarl on his face, watching me. I had to guess he didn’t know much of anything about what had occurred earlier in the day with me and Kathy. But something had led him to believe I was somehow responsible for her disappearance.
Collins walked around the other side of the car and slipped on a pair of rubber gloves she had tucked in her blue jacket. She opened the passenger-side door, where I knew right away that she’d see my blood from earlier. “Did we get a sample of this?”
Detective Helms walked around to the other side of the Mercedes and said something to her, almost in a whisper, and the two looked across the top of the car, right at me.
Collins walked around to where I stood, her gaze down. “What happened to your leg?”
“Nothing. Why?”
The detective reached down and lifted my pants from the bottom, enough to where my bandage was exposed.
“Nothing?” she said, looking me in the eye. “Any chance that’s your blood over there, inside the car?” She waited, her gaze fixed on mine, arms folded. “You might as well tell the truth, because we’ll know if it’s yours or not within a few hours.”
I swallowed hard, trying to think through my options. But I knew I wasn’t in any kind of position to tell her anything but the truth. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s my blood.”
Detective Collins glanced at Helms, as if she’d figured something out, although I didn’t see it that way.
A bloodied bandage on my leg meant nothing.
Detective Collins took me by the arm and said to Helms, “I’m going to take a moment with Mr. Walsh,” she said, pulling me over to her car where she practically slammed me into the driver-side door. “Listen,” she said, her finger in my face. “I understand you’ve got this thing about working with us—the police. I don’t know what it is, or what happened to you somewhere along the line. But this woman is missing. Some of the people here believe you had something to do with it. All of us feel you know more than you’re letting on.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” I said. “I had nothing to do with whatever happened to her.”
She held her gaze, as if expecting me to crack.
“I don’t know where she is,” I said. “It’s the truth.”
Detective Collins said, “You were the last person to be seen with her. Do you know how this looks?”
“I think you just told me,” I said. “But I don’t know what else to say.”
I was close to telling her about what happened in the park, although I was pretty curious why it hadn’t somehow become news, considering shots had been fired.
She said, “Can you at least tell me why you haven't told Detective Helms what was inside those storage units?”
I was in a tough spot. There was little reason, at that point, for me to try to hide anything else from her. Protecting Kathy didn’t seem to be necessary, now that Kathy was missing. I guess the priorities had shifted from trying to keep her out of trouble to making sure we would find her alive.
“All right,” I said. “Kathy didn’t tell me anything. I mean, I don’t know what she knows, or if she knew what was inside those storage units before we got there or not.” I went on to describe what I saw, from the appliances I knew without a doubt were stolen, to the bundles of cash stuffed in the drawer of the desk inside the storage unit.
“Let’s go,” she said, taking me around to the passenger seat of her car. “I want you to show me exactly what you saw.”
Chapter 21
I looked out the passenger window, Detective Collins turning into the parking lot at Save-More Storage. She drove directly to the office, where this time the lights were on with someone clearly inside.
Collins stepped out of the car and looked in at me. “Wait here,” She closed the door and headed straight into the office.
I sat for a moment, watching her through the blinds on the other side of the office windows, talking to a man behind the counter.
She’d left the windows open but took the keys. Maybe she was afraid I’d take off in her car. But, either way, it was too hot to sit in there, my skin sticking to the leather seat.
I opened the passenger door and stepped outside and turned when Detective Helms pulled into the parking lot behind the wheel of his Dodge Durango. Looking at him through the windshield, he was on the phone, nodding, listening to whoever was on the other end.
I went over to him but he ignored me at first, then lowered the phone and put down the window. “I’m on a call,” he said, rolling his window back up.
Going back over to Detective Collins’ car, I leaned against it, looking from Collins inside the office to Helms, who had just gotten out of his Durango. He walked toward me without saying a word, then continued past and went inside the office with Collins.
I straightened up off the car when a white box truck drove around from the back of the building and exited onto the street, speeding past until it was out of sight.
Both detectives appeared to be talking to the man behind the counter, so I decided to walk around the building enclosed by the chain-link fence. Around the side I saw a wide, closed gate. I guessed it was where the truck had just driven out from, but had no way of knowing.
There was an old surveillance camera attached to the side of the brick exterior of the building. But it looked old and somewhat rusty. When I got closer, I could see the lens was shattered. There was glass on the ground below it, but mixed in with dirt and debris, it didn’t appear the camera’s lens had been recently broken.
“Walsh!” a voice yelled, and I hustled back around to the front of the building.
Collins and Helms and the man from inside the office were all looking toward me when I turned the corner.
“I told you to wait here,” Collins said, her hands on her hips.
“Sorry,” I said.
She didn’t even ask what I was doing.
The man from the office, short and sweaty-looking, not to mention a bit pudgy, had a ring full of keys in his hand.
Collins said to me, “Show us which unit.”
All three stared at me.
“I’m not sure I remember the number. But I can show you.”
Helms rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’re serious? And you call yourself a detective?”
“I’ll know it when I see it,” I said. I wasn’t sure I liked Helms very much, or his clear lack of respect for me. I wasn’t sure either one of the two detectives believed I was being straight with them.
The man from the office led the way, taking us through the locked gate at the front and along the building to the far end. He stopped and looked at me.
“Oh,” I said, and stepped ahead of the three. I eyed each unit, trying to remember the number. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten, as much as I simply hadn’t made a mental note of it. Maybe I should have. Or maybe my memory simply wasn’t what it used to be.
But I stopped when we got to unit number 1017. “This one,” I said, my eyes on the bottom where the lock had been earlier, when I was there with Kathy.
The problem was, the lock wasn’t there now.
The short man from the office gave me a look like I must’ve been confused. “I don’t believe this unit is rented,” he said. He bent down and grabbed the door’s handle, lifting it until he let go of the door and let it roll up by itself above his head.
I stood, dismayed.
There was nothing inside.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Helms said. “Walsh? I believe you’ve made a mistake.”
“No, this is it,” I said. I was sure of it now. “Somebody must’ve emptied it out.”
Helms said, “Didn’t you tell us it was loaded with appliances? And televisions?”
“That’s exactly what was in here,” I said.
“And it all just disappeared since this morning?” Detective Collins said. She turned to the man from the office and pointed at the adjacent units. “Can you open these?”
He nodded, holding up a single key. “This is the master.”
The man first opened the unit to the left. As he lifted the door we could see it was packed full of what looked like mostly used furniture, including a couch and three or four stained mattresses up against the wall. It had a strong smell, like mothballs.
Helms said, “I assume that’s not what you saw earlier?”
I shook my head, nodding back at the empty unit. “I’m telling you, this was it.”
The man from the office looked at both Collins and Helms, as if waiting for someone to give the word.
Detective Helms said, “What’s in this other one?”
The man crouched down and slid his key in the lock to the door to the right of the empty one. He said, “I believe this one is not rented, either.” He raised the door and, sure enough, the unit was empty.
I looked past the parking lot toward the street, a row of trees blocking a clear view. “Did anybody see that box truck leaving here earlier?”
Collins and Helms both looked at each other, shaking their heads.
I said to the man from the office. “Any chance you know who it was?”
The man said, “It’s self-entry. People come and go.”
“But isn’t there a way to know who it might’ve been?”
The man shook his head, looking at Collins and Helms as if he didn’t know if he needed to answer me.
I looked inside the initial unit we looked at. “This was it,” I said. “I’m sure of it now.” I looked at the man from the office. “So you’re saying these two aren’t rented? You have nobody’s name?”
He said, “That’s correct.”
Helms gave me a look, like he wasn’t about to believe a word I was saying. “You playing some kind of game with us, Walsh?”
“Why would you say that?”
Detective Collins had her eyebrows raised, as if waiting for me to give some kind of explanation.
“I’m telling you the truth,” I said. “This unit was full.” I looked at the number. “Unit one-oh-one-seven. This is it.” I turned to the storage man. “You must have employees, no?”
He nodded, but appeared confused why I’d ask.
I turned to Collins and Helms. “Shouldn’t we talk to them?”
Helms said, “We?” He laughed. “There is no ‘we.’”
I glanced at Collins, her eyes on the empty unit, like she was thinking. “Jesus Christ,” she said under her breath, then started to walk away.
I said to the man, “Can we see a list of your employees?”
Detective Collins stopped and turned to me, her voice raised. “Walsh! That’s enough. You’re not a cop. Stop acting like one. If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.”
It looked to me like the young detective was more worried about me stepping on her toes than getting any answers. I was afraid at that point neither she nor Helms were going to believe much of what I’d said. I thought maybe they assumed I was doing something to protect Kathy.
Detective Collins said to me, “What about the other unit?”
“Inside,” I said. “The next level.”
I looked back and forth, then pointed toward the back of the building, in the direction of the stairs Kathy and I had used that morning.
The storage man said, “We can take the elevator.”
With the big belly he was carrying, he didn’t appear to be the type whose first choice would be to use stairs unless absolutely necessary. And considering he sounded out of breath just from walking around the building, I figured he’d likely made the best choice.
We all walked to the front of the building and followed the man to a set of automatic sliding doors, through a lobby, and up the elevator. We stepped off into the same damp hallway I’d been in earlier. One of the hanging lights flickered.
Helms said, “Are you going to tell me you don’t know this unit number, either?”
I didn’t answer, my eyes on the unit numbers as we walked down the hall.
I said to the man, “What’s your security like in here? I saw the cameras… The one out back is busted.”
Collins gave me another one of her looks, as if I wasn’t allowed to ask any more questions.
The man continued walking ahead. “It’s somewhat outdated, but we’re having a new camera system installed.”
I said, “So your cameras don’t work?”
“Some do.” He didn’t add anything else to it.
I stopped when I was close to the unit, which I actually had remembered. It was unit 2132. “This is it,” I said, stepping back from the door so the storage man could open it.
This time, there was a lock.
“Do you know who this unit belongs to?” Helms said.
The man shook his head, crouched down, and slid his master key into the lock. “I will have to look,” he said. “But, if whoever has rented it paid cash, I don’t always know if they’re telling the truth about who they are.”
“You don’t check identification?” I said.
The man took the lock off and lifted the door. “You never know what is real and what is not,” the man said, without giving me any further explanation.
I was happy to see the desk was still in the unit. “See that?” I said, as if proud of myself. “Go ahead, look in that drawer.”
Detective Collins stepped between me and the storage guy, and into the unit. She knelt down at the desk and opened the drawer, reaching inside. She came out with a single piece of paper with tape on it, holding it up as she turned. “This is it,” she said. “The drawer’s empty.”
Chapter 22
After a drive with more questions I wasn’t able to answer, Detective Collins dropped me off at the entrance to my hotel. But right before I walked through the open door, she called out for me.
“Walsh?”
I looked back and she’d stepped out of her car, the door open, the engine still running.
I walked back toward her and she didn’t speak right away, like she was thinking. “I hope you’re not trying to hide something from us,” she said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you,” I said. “I have no reason to lie about any of this.”
“I just hope you’d tell me if there’s more to the story. I don’t understand how those units could be emptied out like that, in such a short amount of time.”
“Someone must’ve either followed us, or’d been watching us. All they’d need is a duffel bag, grab that money in five minutes and be long gone. The appliances and all those TVs, well…” I thought about the white box truck, but neither Helms or Collins seemed too concerned about it being there for some reason.
Collins said, “I know you’re not going to like this, but it’s hard for us not to believe there’s something between you and Mrs. Arnold you’re not telling us.”
I waited before I responded. I thought maybe she was hoping I’d slip up, admit something I hadn’t about me and Kathy. But there was nothing to tell. I knew she had a point, of course. It didn’t look good. “I wish there was a way I could convince you, but I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t know.”
Collins said, “What else did she say to you when she dropped you off at the hotel?”
“Do you think I’m going to change my answer from what I told you and Helms the last two times you asked me?”
Collins frowned. “Show me some respect,” she said. “Just because I’m younger than you, doesn’t mean—”
“Respect goes both ways,” I said.
Collins glared at me, eyes narrowed, then turned and got back into her car.
I said, “Can I ask you a question?”
She pulled the car door closed but had the window open, looking up at me. “It depends,” she said, with a playful look, as if all of a sudden we were buddies.
“Do you even have any real suspects?” I said.
Her surprised look, eyebrows raised, said how dare you as she stepped out of the car and stood in front of me, possibly holding herself back from throwing a punch. “What makes you think you know everything we’re doing? You have no idea who we’re looking at, what other suspects, we have, or—”
“I’m just asking a simple question,” I said.
