Credible Threat, page 29
Kyle sniffed the musty air and found only the barest trace of the distinctive odor of decaying flesh. Whoever had committed this crime had planned ahead.
Over the years Kyle Lasko and Mason Horner had teamed up on other cases, and they worked well together. They did a joint survey of the house with a CSI following their progress, photographing and inventorying each piece of evidence along the way.
As for the house? The place was clearly divided into two parts—one belonging to the wife and the other to their victim. On the basis of cleanliness alone, it seemed likely that Rachel laid claim to most of the common living spaces—the family room, kitchen, and living room. All those, along with the master bedroom, were neat as a pin. Empty spaces on the shelves in Rachel’s closet suggested that pieces of luggage were missing, and the absence of toiletries on the bathroom countertop indicated she had packed up her goods and taken off.
Richard’s room, on the other hand, was a mess, not due to any kind of struggle but because the man had most likely been a slob. Dirty clothes spilled out of an overflowing hamper and littered the floor. Both the tub and the basin in his bathroom were caked with grime, and the toilet was filthy enough to make Kyle gag. The toilet-paper holder was empty. A half-used roll sat on the floor next to an overflowing trash can.
“Whoever looked after the rest of the house never came in here,” he muttered over his shoulder to Mason.
There had been one notable exception to the room’s general air of slovenliness—an old-fashioned rolltop desk parked in a corner under a window and next to the sliding mirrored closet doors. Under the distinctive tambour, they found an older-model Toshiba laptop with most of the letters worn off the keyboard, along with a ledger-style checkbook. Their search warrant included electronic devices, but since the computer was password-protected, examining that would have to wait for another day and for someone with more tech skills than either of the homicide cops possessed.
The desk itself had three drawers. The shallow long one over the kneehole contained the usual items—pens, pencils, paper clips, stamps. The medium-size drawer to the right of that held Post-it notes, boxes of envelopes, and stationery, but in the bottom file-folder-size drawer they found a treasure trove of materials. Obviously Richard had been a fanatic when it came to keeping track of the family finances.
The file folder labeled “Bank of America” contained records for the couple’s joint checking account. Another folder held monthly statements for his-and-her Visa cards, both with zero balances according to the latest statement. Richard evidently hadn’t liked paying interest on carryover balances. Their Verizon bill listed charges and calls for two phones. When Mason tried dialing the first number, a phone rang in the pocket of a pair of jeans on the floor beside the bed. When he dialed the second one, it went straight to voice mail.
The last bedroom they entered was the master. Compared to the dead man’s slovenly digs, this was night and day. The bed was made. The drawers were neatly arranged. The counter in the bathroom was completely empty, and the basin and shower were both pristinely clean.
It wasn’t until they started searching the closet and located a hatbox that they finally hit pay dirt.
“Well, well, well,” Detective Horner said as he lifted a hatbox down from a shelf in the closet and removed the lid. “What have we here?”
The topmost item was a copy of St. Francis High School’s 2001 Clarion. When Horner opened it, the pages fell open, seemingly on their own, to the one featuring the swim team where the face of the coach had been completely blacked out.
Wordlessly, Detective Horner passed the open book to Kyle. He studied the photo first and then read the caption at the bottom. David Higgins was front and center as the captain. And the name of the blacked-out coach in the back row was Father Paul Needham. Seeing the name was enough to make the hair on the back of Kyle’s neck stand on end.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Horner asked.
“I believe we’ve just found the reason Rachel Higgins is after Archbishop Gillespie,” Kyle said.
“You think she’s the Lincoln Drive shooter?”
“I certainly do,” said Kyle. “This also means that I owe someone named Ali Reynolds a serious apology.”
Their examination of the hatbox alone took the better part of an hour. By the time they finished sorting through the various items as well as printouts of Rachel Higgins’s many Internet searches, Detective Horner, too, was reasonably sure that their suspect had a grudge against the Catholic Church in general and Archbishop Gillespie in particular, but they had no idea what she’d had against her husband.
The last place the detectives searched was the garage. There on the workbench, they found countless pieces of wood that had been smashed beyond all recognition.
“What the hell are these?” Kyle asked.
“Used to be birdhouses is my guess,” Mason answered. “The neighbor told me Richard Higgins loved making birdhouses.”
“Looks like Rachel didn’t love them as much as he did,” Kyle observed.
At midnight, finally finished with their search and while a CSI reinstalled crime-scene tape, the two detectives stood on the front porch with Horner smoking another cigarette while they took stock of where they were. The BOLO on Rachel Higgins had already been kicked over to an all-points bulletin, but Kyle and Mason knew that in this day and age the most effective way to follow someone’s movements would be by tracking their devices. Unfortunately, just like searching the dead man’s computer, that took technical skill beyond their capability and warrants beyond the scope of what they’d used to search the house itself. Hoping to divide and conquer, they returned to their respective desks at Phoenix PD where Mason went after the financial institutions while Kyle worked on the cell-phone provider.
They both knew that middle-of-the-night warrants were not easy to come by, but even with warrants in hand, getting the folks at overnight call centers to respond to their requests for information was iffy at best. The cell-phone provider came through first. Unfortunately, the last time Rachel’s phone had pinged had been around 8:46 a.m. on Thursday, from a cell phone tower less than half a mile from Menadota Drive, most likely while Rachel was still at home. After that the phone had been turned off.
Visa finally came through around three in the morning, noting that a large-purchase transaction from the Phoenician Resort had been posted around 9:00 the previous evening. Less than thirty minutes later Kyle and Mason were displaying their respective badges in the spacious lobby of the Phoenician.
“I remember her well,” a helpful desk clerk told them. “Ms. Higgins called down to the desk late in the evening—sometime around nine, I think. She said she wouldn’t be able to stay the night because her father had been injured in an accident somewhere in or around Tucson and that he’d been airlifted to Banner Medical Center, where he was undergoing surgery. She said she needed to check out and asked me to call for her car. She said she didn’t need a paper copy of the bill—that I should just e-mail her a copy of the folio.”
“What about the valet?” Kyle asked.
“The people who were working then are off duty now,” the clerk continued, “but I can get the head guy on the phone if you’d like.”
They did. When the parking crew chief answered, Mason put his phone on speaker. “Sure I remember her,” he said in answer to Mason’s question. “Before she drove off, she asked me about the best way to get to Tucson.”
“What say we check with the hospital?” Mason asked when the call ended and they were walking back through the lobby toward their cars. Kyle heard only Mason’s side of the conversation, but it was enough to tell him that no such patient had turned up at Banner Medical Center the previous afternoon or evening.
“So she was trying to send us down a two-hundred-mile rabbit hole,” Kyle concluded as Mason ended the call. “I wonder if the guys at the airport have gotten around to checking their parking lots.”
They hadn’t. “I’ve got the APB right here in front of me,” the captain in charge told Kyle, “but we’ve been busy as hell tonight, and we’re also shorthanded. Once the day-shift guys come on duty, we’ll have someone grab the Segway and do a survey. If you need it sooner than that, you’ll have to come do it yourself.”
“Thanks,” Kyle said, silencing a more sarcastic, Thanks a lot! After he ended the phone call, he turned to Mason.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” he added. “It’s four a.m. I’ve been up and working nonstop since eight o’clock yesterday morning. What say we call it a night and tackle this again after we both get some shut-eye?”
“Sounds good to me,” Horner replied. “Let’s call it a day.”
|CHAPTER 52|
Originally Ali had planned to stay at home in Sedona on Thursday night. When news of the Menadota Drive shooting surfaced, though, things changed. She gathered her clothing and headed back to Phoenix, having been invited by Archbishop Gillespie to stay at the residence rather than in a hotel.
On the way down, she worried that she’d be arriving too late, but as she approached the manor-style residence, rows of windows on both stories were brightly lit, and the vehicle directly in front of hers in the porte cochere was a racing-red Ferrari Portofino. It was new enough that a temporary license plate was still attached to the back window.
As Ali stepped out of the car, Sister Anselm came to greet her. “For a moment there, I thought I’d taken a wrong turn and wound up at one of Agatha Christie’s famous house parties,” Ali said, gesturing toward the Ferrari.
“Gavin James is here,” Sister Anselm explained, helping with the luggage. “He’s waiting to talk to you.”
The last bag out of the car was the one from Sister Sarah containing Sister Anselm’s habit.
“If Gavin is here, does that mean something’s wrong?” Ali asked.
“Not at all,” Sister Anselm said. “We’re gathered in the drawing room, where Sister Anne has laid out some refreshments.”
Gavin rose to his feet to greet Ali as she entered the room. “So glad to see you,” he said. “I wanted to give you the good news in person. Jack Stoneman has been released from custody.”
“Really?” Ali asked in astonishment. “How did that happen?”
“It turns out that discrepancy you were worried about—the thing with the shoe-print evidence—was on the money. Detective Lasko let Jack go due to lack of evidence, but they kept his shoes on the suspicion that they might have been used in an attempt to frame Jack. The poor guy had to walk out of the building in a pair of jailhouse scuffs. Not to worry, though. I took him shopping before I dropped him off at home. Got him a pair of Skechers to replace the ones in the evidence room and a dressier pair of shoes along with some slightly more suitable clothing—a new shirt and a new pair of pants—for him to wear to Father Andrew’s funeral tomorrow. I told him I’ll come by in the morning to take him to the cathedral.”
“That was very kind of you,” Ali said.
Gavin grinned back at her. “Let’s just say I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Archbishop Gillespie.”
Ali glanced around the room. The members of her proposed posse were all there—Fathers McCray, Winston, and Mike, along with Sister Anselm, but the archbishop himself was nowhere in sight.
“Speaking of whom,” Ali began. “Where’s the patient?”
“Believe it or not,” Sister Anselm replied, “he admitted he might have overdone things today and went to bed early. He has a nine a.m. appointment at the cathedral tomorrow so Father Howard can hear his confession.”
“Is his going to confession a good idea?” Ali asked.
“Whether it is or isn’t, good luck trying to talk him out of it,” Sister Anselm harrumphed. “But Father Mike has agreed to drive him there, so at least he’ll be in good hands. Father Mike will also be in charge of the archbishop’s wheelchair during the service.”
“Well, then,” Ali said, “there’ve been a few developments on our end, and with the archbishop out of earshot I need to bring you all up to date.”
She did, clueing them in on what had happened on Menadota Drive and the very real likelihood that Rachel Higgins was the archbishop’s would-be assassin. She went on to explain the iPad-based facial-recognition protocol they would be using at the funeral and ended up handing out Tasers. In addition, she had brought along B.’s Kevlar vest. Since Father Winston looked to be the closest fit, she gave that one to him.
Later Ali went upstairs to a guest room that was far more spartan than her room at the Biltmore had been the night before. She was undressed and about to climb into bed when a text came in from Detective Lasko.
I need to speak to you. Please give me a call.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Ali said into her phone, replying aloud to his request rather than texting back or phoning him. “You’re probably going to tell me to stand down, and I don’t need to hear it.”
|CHAPTER 53|
Despite Rachel’s hopes she barely slept—she was too cold, miserable, and uncomfortable. She’d turned on the engine occasionally overnight, both to get warm and to recharge her burner phone. In the course of those wakeful hours, she compulsively checked the online news.
As far as Rachel was concerned, the news from Phoenix PD concerning what they termed “the incident on Menadota Drive” was devastating. The male homicide victim had been identified, but that information was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Just because the information wasn’t being released to the media didn’t mean the cops were sitting on it. By now every law-enforcement officer in the Valley was probably looking for her, and if they had found her hatbox and looked through what was inside, what were the chances she’d be able to get anywhere near the Cathedral of the Holy Mother, much less gain entrance to the sanctuary?
By the time morning came and traffic picked up inside the garage, Rachel had concocted a plan. This was a Catholic funeral honoring a priest. Who would be there? Nuns and priests, most likely, lots of them. Maybe with a little help from a costume shop, Rachel would be able to blend in.
According to the Internet, there were only three year-round costume shops operating in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, and the closest one of those was near Metrocenter. At 7:00 a.m., still chilled to the bone, Rachel unloaded her luggage from the trunk. With her bulky cataract sunglasses covering much of her face, she strolled into the terminal.
Fortunately, there were a few restaurants operating outside the security lines, and she was able to grab some breakfast before taking a cab to the costume shop. The cabdriver, sullen and reeking of too many cigarettes, exchanged barely a word with her during the half-hour drive, and that was fine. He cheered up when she offered him fifty bucks to wait for her while she picked out a costume.
She was there at nine thirty when the shop’s doors opened for the day, and a smiling clerk stepped forward to greet her.
“We’re having an after-Halloween costume party at lunch today at my assisted-living place,” Rachel said, spinning out a string of lies with practiced ease. “I’ve decided to go as Sister Mary Frances, who was my third-grade teacher. Can you help me? Would you happen to have any nun habits in stock?”
They did, of course, and Rachel returned to her waiting cab half an hour later carrying a bag that contained what she felt would be a foolproof disguise. Not wanting to use the same cab she’d taken from the airport to go to the funeral, she asked to be driven to the mall itself.
Once inside the mall, she located the nearest restroom and used that to change into her new duds. Fortunately, the rented habit came complete with prodigious pockets. She stuffed the Ruger, her three-by-five confession cards, the Disneyland snapshot, and the rest of her cash into one of those. Then, dressed as a nun, she divested herself of everything else by strolling through the mall, dragging an almost empty Rollaboard behind her, and dropping bits and pieces of her remaining possessions—purse, clothing, and cosmetics—into trash cans along the way.
Rachel had called for a cab the moment she finished changing her clothes, but it turned out that getting a cab at the shopping mall was a lot more challenging than catching one from the airport. She soon realized she should have kept the cab she’d used to get from the costume shop to the mall. As time went by and hers still didn’t show up, she became more and more frantic. It took three more increasingly hostile calls before the cab finally arrived. When it did so, it was already 11:10, and the mall was a good twenty minutes away from where she needed to be.
“Sorry,” the driver apologized as she climbed into the backseat.
Sorry didn’t cover it, not nearly. “Just hurry,” she said. “The funeral’s already started.”
|CHAPTER 54|
As Father Mike rolled Archbishop Gillespie’s wheelchair into the nave of the Cathedral of the Holy Mother at ten to nine, Francis breathed a deep sigh. Entering this holy place always made him feel as though he was coming home.
The cathedral was built during the sixties by an architect whose guiding principle had been simplicity rather than ostentation. The building was constructed with an east-west orientation. The main entrance faced the afternoon sun, while behind the altar six narrow but soaring floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows captured the morning rays. Today those windows colored the entire sanctuary with glowing slices of jewel-shaded sunlight. One of those splashed across Father Andrew’s casket, already laid in its place of honor at the head of the center aisle.
Banks of flowers were arrayed on either side of the casket. Father Andrew had always loved flowers, and Archbishop Gillespie knew he would have been pleased by the massive floral display.
“The temporary ramp they put in yesterday is over there on the left,” Father Mike was saying, pointing. “The procession will turn left at the casket, and then we’ll make our way up onto the dais.”
Francis Gillespie was well aware of the effort installing that ramp must have taken. Someone, Father Daniel most likely, must have moved heaven and earth to make it happen.
