Behind the Badge, page 13
Crys’s delicate features didn’t provide Luke any insights. Her expression was determined and resolute as she led their group to the trio of security officers returning their attention with wary curiosity. Luke followed her, interested to see how she would handle the guards.
She inclined her head in greeting and took her badge from the front pocket of her black cotton slacks. She displayed her identification. “We need to speak with Roland Dragon.”
The officers straightened in their seats. The oldest of the three was seated behind one of the two computer monitors. His nametag read Gold.
He glanced at Luke before answering Crys. His dark gray eyes sparked with an interest he tried to mask behind a bored tone and bland fleshy tanned features. “Do you have an appointment?”
Luke raised an incredulous eyebrow. One or two of the officers who stood behind him snickered. How would Crys react to the attempted obstruction?
Her expression didn’t change. “Please tell Mr. Dragon, Detective Rashaad and Special Agent Gilchrist are here with four officers to serve a subpoena in a homicide investigation.”
Crys’s tone was firm but polite. She didn’t throw her authority around or try to intimidate the guards in any way. In other words, she didn’t exhibit the stereotypical behavior of a cop who abused the public’s trust to coerce bribes or solicit undue influence.
All three guard’s eyes widened in surprise.
The youngest, a thin Black man whose nametag read Ray typed something into his cell.
Luke nodded toward him. “Who’re you texting?”
“My friend, Mason.” His hand shook as he extended his arm to show Luke his cell phone screen. The message read, Dude! 5-0’s here, investigating a murder.
It could’ve been worse. Luke pinned the young man with cold eyes. “No more texting.”
Mr. Ray gave a jerky nod and pocketed the device. “Yes, sir, Detective. I mean Agent. Special agent.”
The third guard, a middle-aged woman with a messy strawberry blond ponytail, was seated in front of the second computer monitor. Her nametag read Rhoades. She pocketed her cell phone as well.
Mr. Gold picked up the telephone receiver and punched in a four-digit extension with his thick, blunt fingers. “Margot, it’s Gene at the desk.” He smiled, listening to Margot’s response. “Well, I have a feeling it’s about to get worse. The police are here. They want to speak with Mr. Dragon.” He paused again, looking from Crys to Luke and back. “Well, you’re gonna have to get him out of that meeting. They have a warrant.” Another pause. “Thanks, Margot.” Gene cradled the receiver before giving his update. “Margot is getting Mr. Dragon out of his meeting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gold, but we can’t wait.” Crys looked to Mr. Ray, the only guard not in front of a computer monitor. “Could you please take us to Mr. Dragon’s office? Now, please.”
Mr. Ray sent an uncertain look toward Gene. The older guard pushed away from his station. Standing, Gene was several inches taller and much broader than the younger guard. “I’ll take the police up, Phil. Stay here with Maeve and monitor my station while I’m gone.”
“Sure thing, Gene.” Phil hopped onto his coworker’s vacated chair. His relief was palpable.
Gene escorted Crys, Luke and the four officers to the elevators. Luke remembered Crys’s aversion to the conveyers—or maybe it was a preference for stairs?—and smothered a smile. An elevator arrived as the group entered the waiting area. Gene moved aside, allowing its passengers to disembark. Luke ignored the startled looks, curious stares and urgent whispers as employees walked past him and his colleagues, presumably on their way to lunch. Gene led Crys, Luke and the officers onto the elevator. The guard pressed the button for the ninth floor. Crys was in great shape, but Luke suspected even she was glad they hadn’t taken the stairs. The elevator carried them nonstop to their destination, the benefit of arriving during the lunch hour.
Gene led them to the glass doors separating the anteroom from the executive offices. The guard swiped his identification card in front of the electronic reader. Luke heard a swoosh-clang as the lock released and Gene pushed open the door. Luke, Crys and the officers followed Gene to a large office at the end of the hallway.
An annoyed male voice carried through the open door. “And I told you, Margot, I’m in the middle of a very important meeting. The police will have to wait.”
Beside him, Luke sensed Crys stiffen with irritation. He was aggravated, too.
Crys marched into the office. Ignoring the other eight men and women seated around the long, wooden, rectangular desk, she stopped beside the older gentleman at the head of the table and held up her badge. “Mr. Dragon, I presume? As much as we regret turning your day upside down, sir, five people are already dead. We’re not waiting.”
Luke handed Roland Dragon the warrant. “You can look that over.” He tapped the top sheet. “But we’ll need all rejected claimant files between 2024 and 2026 today.”
A muscle jumped in Roland’s jaw as his eyes swept across the warrant’s first sheet. He flipped through the attached pages. “Is this some sort of April Fool’s joke? If so, I’m not amused.”
Luke frowned. It was the first day of April, wasn’t it? He shook his head. “No. Not a joke. Murder.”
Roland’s tanned features flooded with angry color. “Everyone get out.” He raised his voice. “Now.”
The other executives jumped into action, pushing their wheeled chairs from the table, collecting their files, laptops and computer tablets. How much of their speed in complying with Roland’s rude order came from their joy that the meeting was ending early? Luke recognized the look of relief in several of the executives’ faces. One attendee was smiling. His expression sobered when he saw Luke watching him. Within seconds, the group was scurrying out of the office like the proverbial rats abandoning a sinking ship.
“Not you, Margot.” Roland’s bark froze the administrative assistant in her tracks. “Get Sy.” His eyes landed on Gene. “You can leave.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Dragon.” Gene sounded more tired than offended. He nodded at Crys and Luke. His eyes found Margot on his way from the room. His expression was sympathetic.
Luke had seen Sylvester “Sy” Edmund’s name on the company’s website, identifying him as Dragon & Kelp’s acting chief legal officer. Fine. If Roland wanted to consult the company’s lawyer, Luke had no problem with that. But he wasn’t leaving without those claimant files. Judging by Crys’s strained features, she felt the same way.
He caught Margot’s startled blue eyes. “Before you do that, could you take us to where the claimant files are stored, please?”
Blood drained from Margot’s round, milky cheeks. She glanced at her boss before offering a stuttering response. “Our claimant files are stored in the basement. On hard drives. We don’t have paper. I mean, we don’t have paper files.”
Luke smiled. “Even better. Thank—”
Roland’s tone was testy. “Excuse me, Officer—”
Luke’s smile faded. “Special agent.”
“Special agent.” Roland’s smile was condescending. “Don’t supersede my orders to my staff.”
“Mr. Dragon.” Crys lifted her right hand, palm out. “We’re investigating multiple homicides involving people connected with your company. In the interest of time, how about while Margot escorts the police officers to the claimant files for the dates in question—thank you, Margot—you call Sy and ask him to meet you here?”
Roland’s eyes narrowed. “And what will you do?”
Crys circled the conference table and took the seat on Roland’s left. “We have some questions for you, Mr. Dragon, starting with where you were the night of Monday, March 23.”
The night Brock Mann was murdered. Luke took the seat across the table from Crys on Roland’s right. “You’d better call Sy.”
* * *
“Mr. Dragon didn’t have anything to do with these murders, and frankly, your intimation that he did is insulting.” Sylvester Edmund looked more like a professional wrestler than the acting chief legal officer of a large life insurance company. He was also the youngest corporate executive Crys could remember meeting. He couldn’t be older than her thirty.
Sy seemed to have been itching for a fight since he’d hurried into the room in response to Roland’s summons. His deferential reaction toward his boss in contrast to his over-the-top antagonism toward her and Luke signaled that Sy still wasn’t secure in his position. Perhaps that was due to the “acting” part of his title.
Crys directed her response to Roland. “Rita Gomez, Alfred Murphy, Sally Stead and Carter Wainscott were on the board of directors of Dragon & Kelp’s predecessors. Before becoming Dragon & Kelp’s chief executive officer, you also were on the board. You must have known them.” She searched Roland’s eyes, watching for his reaction.
Seated next to Luke, Sy answered for him. “That doesn’t mean Mr. Dragon killed them. Making that assumption is quite a leap.”
A glance at Luke warned Crys that he was at least as exasperated as she felt. There was a tightness bracketing his onyx eyes and well-shaped lips.
Crys continued her scrutiny of Roland’s body language. “How would you describe your relationship with your former colleagues?”
Roland turned hard gray eyes to hers. His tight muscles and crossed arms were evidence of his anger. “We had a cordial working relationship, Detective Rashaad. All the directors did. We may not always have agreed with every matter, but we were able to discuss things collegially.”
His response piqued Crys’s interest. “On what matters were you likely to disagree?”
Roland’s shrug was stiff. He obviously wasn’t used to being questioned. “Business matters, Detective. Operating budgets. New products. Marketing rollouts. Those types of things. Nothing nefarious.”
Nothing nefarious. Was that a slip of the tongue? “Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill your colleagues?”
Roland was shaking his head before she’d finished asking her question. “None at all, but then I didn’t know them well outside of the board.”
Sy waved the search warrant he still clutched in his right hand. “You seem to think it has something to do with our old claims so why are you here questioning us? You should be speaking with our customers.”
Luke ignored Sy. “Where were you the night of February 8, between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m.?”
Crys recognized the date as the day before Rita Gomez, their first victim, was discovered; the night she was killed. Crys didn’t want to forget that date, or the dates on which they’d found the other victims she thought were connected to the serial homicides and her aunt’s murder.
Sy extended his right hand, palm out, toward Roland as he scowled at Luke. “Mr. Dragon doesn’t have to answer that.”
“Yes, he does.” Luke’s tone was strained patience. His expression was unreadable. “He can either answer our questions here or accept our escort to the police station.”
Roland gave a bored sigh. The sound drew everyone’s attention back to him. He tapped the screen of his cell phone, then swiped his right index finger across its surface. “February 8 was a Sunday. My wife and I hosted dinner for my daughter and her family, and Jack Quarrels, the governor’s chief of staff, and his family. I believe the evening ended sometime close to 9:00 p.m., but you can confirm that with my wife, if you so choose.” He recited his wife’s cell phone number for them.
Crys made a note of the contact information. “While you’ve got your calendar out, could you please also tell us your whereabouts for the evenings of February 23, March 18 and March 23?” Those were the nights Alfred, Sally and Carter were murdered.
Roland’s eyes gleamed with a volatile mixture of irritation and arrogance.
Crys tilted her head in question. “I said please.” In her peripheral vision, she saw Luke’s lips twitch in amusement.
Roland sighed again, then swiped and tapped the face of his cell phone. “The 23rd, my wife and I attended a fundraiser for State Senator Blaire Tiernay. March 18, we were at a birthday party for Clem Slider, the state attorney general. The 22nd was a Sunday. My wife and I hosted dinner for my daughter and her family, and State Representative Conrad Kupp and his family.”
Crys noted the who’s who list of alibis Roland provided: the governor’s chief of staff, a state senator, the state attorney general and a state representative. It was as though he’d known he’d need alibis for those dates. Who better to corroborate your whereabouts than elected public servants? “You don’t have many quiet nights alone, do you?”
Roland set his cell phone face down on the table in front of him. “No, Detective Rashaad. I’m a very busy man.”
“Too busy to plan much less carry out a series of murders,” Sy added in a sharp tone.
“Excuse us, Special Agent Gilchrist, Detective Rashaad.” Officer Alice Neat spoke from the conference room doorway. “We’ve collected all the portable drives with the claimant files from 2024 through 2026.”
“Thank you, Officer Neat.” Crys inclined her head.
“Thank you.” Luke added his gratitude.
Crys continued. “We’re almost done here. We should be right behind you.” Officer Neat nodded. Crys waited until she and her partner disappeared from the doorway before turning to Roland. “It’s possible you could be one of the intended targets. Have you received any strange or threatening messages or phone calls in the last couple of months?”
Roland scowled. “No, I haven’t received any threats. If I had, I would have contacted the police.”
Crys searched Roland’s expression again before turning her attention to Luke, silently asking if he had follow-up questions.
He stood, handing Roland his business card. “Thanks for your time. We’ll be in contact if we have additional questions.”
“As we’ve established, Special Agent Gilchrist, I’m a very busy man.” Roland raised Luke’s business card. “If you have additional questions, you can call Sy.”
Crys exchanged business cards with Sy before following Luke out of Roland’s office. Although they needed an ID badge to gain access to the executive suite, they didn’t need one to leave.
Luke held the left-side glass door open, allowing Crys to enter the elevator lobby first. “Do you want to take the stairs?” With the lack of inflection in his voice, Crys couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her preference for walking. Either way, his flippant comment was an invitation to ease the tension lingering after their encounter with Sy and Roland. Crys accepted his offer with a smile.
“Yes, I would.” She pushed through the stairwell door, and her smile became a chuckle. Judging by Luke’s expression, he hadn’t expected her to take him seriously. Nevertheless, his footsteps were quick and confident beside her as they began the journey down the nine flights of stairs. “Roland’s hiding something.”
The stairwell was spacious with high ceilings and wide steps. It had been painted a pale tan—walls, steps, landings—with black metal railings and balusters. The air was as chilly as the rest of the building. Either Dragon & Kelp believed the colder climate increased productivity or the company had a tight utilities budget.
“I agree.” Luke kept pace beside her as she turned to continue to the seventh-floor landing. “He didn’t seem rattled or even concerned when we suggested the killer could target him.”
“I know.” Crys was distracted by the way Luke’s thighs flexed and relaxed in his dark blue slacks as he descended the stairs with her. Focus! “I realize people react to stress and threats differently, but you’d think after telling him his life could be in danger, Roland would’ve at least asked how close we were to finding the killer.”
“Or that he’d have asked us for protection.” Luke sounded distracted.
Crys glanced up at him and found him looking at her. Her cheeks warmed as she looked away. “Right.”
She continued down the stairwell in silence. Luke was quiet also, as though he was mentally reviewing their interview with Roland and Sy. Crys reviewed snippets of their meeting as well, but she was still distracted by Luke’s presence beside her. She caught whiffs of his cedar-and-sea-breeze scent. The warmth from his tall, muscular body reached out to her.
Ignoring these distractions, Crys pushed through the stairwell exit, perhaps with more vigor than she’d intended. Seated behind the security desk, Gene and Maeve jumped. Their heads swiveled to their left as Crys and Luke emerged from the doorway. Phil must have been on rounds.
Regretting her energetic entrance, Crys waved at the duo as she and Luke headed toward the front door. “Thank you for your help.”
Maeve smiled. “No problem, Detectives.”
Gene looked from Luke to Crys. “Did you get what you came for?”
Luke gave the older man a polite smile. “We’ll see.”
Crys swung open the glass door, holding it as Luke followed her out. She checked to make sure the parking lot was clear before stepping off the walkway in front of Dragon & Kelp.
Luke’s voice carried to her. “Do you want to get something to eat on the way back to the office? Or did you pack one of your lunches that always make me jealous?”
Assured the parking lot was clear, Crys moved forward as she sent a smile at Luke over her shoulder. “I can’t help it that—” In her peripheral vision, she saw a low-slung, black sports car racing toward her. Shocked, her head snapped around to face the speeding vehicle. At the same time, hands grabbed her from behind, snatching her off the ground.
* * *
“Have mercy!” Maeve’s voice squeaked with fear, growing closer to Crys’s left.
“That car was coming straight for you.” Gene’s outraged grumble came from behind Crys.
Crys felt Luke’s arms tighten around her. His heart was playing a drum solo against her ear. She was shaking from a combination of her scare and the sensation of having her body pressed so tightly against Luke’s. Crys took a deep breath to gather her thoughts. Instead, his scent scattered them, filling her head and making every muscle in her body weak.
