The Detective Read online

  “Got your subpoena for the SARs. Sending it over now. Also got one for his bank records. Bank opens at seven. I’m heading over there.”

  “Okay. You going back to your office afterward? I’ll swing by.”

  “Yeah. I’m out.”

  The line went dead. Apparently that was the end of the conversation. Brodey tossed his phone onto the couch in the general vicinity where he’d left his clothes the night before. He’d never again be able to look at that couch without picturing Lexi sprawled across it. Naked.

  Waiting.

  Yes, sir. Helluva night.

  She wandered into the room wearing only a tank top and a pair of skimpy underwear. Definitely no bra. Good morning, sunshine. She bumped the wall and dropped a few other choice words. “Stupid wall.”

  Brodey snorted. “I see you’re cranky in the mornings. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “All the time. It takes me an hour to wake up. If I could mainline coffee I’d do it.”

  Good to know for future mornings. What a switch this was, concerning himself with her morning habits. Something to get used to for sure. He blew air through his lips. “I have good news for you.”

  She threw herself across the couch, landing on top of his clothes and phone, and curled into a fetal position. “What is it?”

  “McCall got the subpoenas. We’ll have financial reports on Ed Long this morning. What’s your schedule? Besides letting me take you back to bed?”

  That got a smile out of her. “Why?”

  He smacked her on the rear and ran the backs of his fingers down her thigh, then back up again as he formed a to-do list for the day. “Because I’m meeting with McCall to go through these reports. I can get my dad to hang with you, but I know he’s got an appointment at nine. I’d like to park you somewhere safe until he can get there.”

  “Brodey,” she said, “you’re not parking me anywhere. I have two potential clients today. Both on the North Side. Big opportunities. And I’m not missing them. Bad enough I can’t keep up with my voice mail. I’m not about to start blowing off new opportunities.”

  “Lexi,” he said in that same don’t-be-an-idiot tone she’d hit him with, “I’m not asking you to blow off clients. I’m figuring out how to keep you out of trouble while you meet with them.”

  She stretched her legs and rolled to her back and—oh, mama—could he figure out a way to marry this woman without having to wake up to her cranky moods each morning? Maybe he could leave for work before she got up. And since when did he want to marry anyone? Much less a crabby, sexy-as-hell interior designer.

  She sat up, stretched her arms over her head and—yeah—that tank top didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. “Sweetheart, as soon as we finish this conversation, I’m taking you back to bed and putting a smile on that crabby face.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “I am. Sometimes being in a hurry is more fun. Now, what’s your schedule?”

  She stood, walked over to him and hooked her arm into his, leading him back to the bedroom. “My first appointment is at nine. It’s a high-rise with a doorman. You can drop me off. The other one isn’t until noon.”

  “My dad will take you. I’ll call him.”

  “Can we not talk about your dad right now?”

  “Honey, we don’t need to talk at all.”

  * * *

  MCCALL SLAPPED A manila folder, its edges perfect and untorn, on top of the scarred veneer table in the PD conference room. At least they’d moved from the interview room this time. In the battle of stale odors, the antiseptic smell in this room beat the hell out of sweat any day.

  “Anyone asks,” McCall said, “you were here for a visit. You get caught near this evidence, we’ll be pulling answers from our rears. I’m not risking evidence getting thrown out because a defense lawyer got wind you saw it.”

  Brodey set his hand on the file and dragged it across the table. If McCall was anything like him, when he received new evidence, he stored it in a new folder. The folder McCall just unloaded? That sucker was too perfect—too new—to be old evidence. “Understood. Whatcha got?”

  “Junior, your hunch paid off. These are your SARs on Ed Long.”

  Yeah, baby.

  McCall tossed another folder—this one tattered and ripped. “I also found another set of financials. They were in the bottom of the box. Someone shoved them into a separate folder. Drives me crazy.”

  “More financials?”

  “Yeah. A second money-market account. Brenda was a cosigner but he was the only one who signed the checks. We pulled copies of every one. No Brenda.”

  “Maybe that’s the account he was moving all the Ponzi scheme money through.”

  “Could be. Millions moving through that account.”

  Inside the newer-looking folder Brodey found four separate SAR reports on Ed Long, each containing his address, Social Security and driver’s license numbers. Farther down was the good stuff. The details of how and why a SAR had been triggered on one Edward G. Long. Brodey skipped over the second section to the bottom of the page and the three rows of check boxes. Beside each box were options on different forms of suspicious activity—bribery, identity theft, check fraud. The only box checked on this particular report indicated a significant transaction had occurred for no apparent purpose. Meaning, Ed Long deposited money—four times—in a manner completely out of his normal pattern.

  And, lookie here, the date range of the suspicious activity occurred three weeks before Jonathan Williams, financial fraudster, met his maker.

  “Now we’re talking.”

  “What?”

  From his messenger bag, Brodey grabbed the copies of the financial reports he and Lexi had reviewed the night before and spread them on the table. “These are Williams’s bank statements. Tons of transactions, big and small. This guy was obsessed with moving money. I’m thinking if we can match any of his transactions to Ed Long’s SARs, it’s worth taking another look at the loving wife.”

  McCall scooped up the financials and dug a pen from the inside pocket of his sport coat. “I follow. Give me the dates on the SARs and the transaction amounts.”

  “First one is for nine grand. November 5.”

  McCall scanned the pages and let out a low whistle. “Nothing.”

  “Damn. Nothing even close?”

  “Well, there’s a few in that range, but they’re odd numbers. Eight thousand one hundred and twenty, nine thousand five hundred and fifty-five. Nothing in flat amounts. You didn’t think we’d get that lucky, did you?”

  Yeah, actually, he had. But this was detective work and why he loved it.

  Performing the same exercise, they reviewed all four SAR reports. No matches. Son of a gun. He knew—knew—there had to be a connection here. Call it instinct, call it a hunch, call it whatever, but in that moment Brodey understood how detectives got tunnel vision. How they sometimes followed a path that didn’t necessarily add up, but still managed to make a case. All along, from the day he graduated from the academy, he’d sworn he wouldn’t be one of those cops who didn’t keep an open mind.

  Until now.

  He sat back, breathed in. Get it together here. The other folder, the beat-up one, sat untouched. Another account that apparently Brenda Williams had never signed checks on. Something itched the back of his neck and he slapped his hand over it. “We’re sure Brenda Williams never did anything with that money market?”

  McCall gestured to the folder. “Check it yourself.”

  Sure would. He sat forward, shoved the SARs aside and opened the other folder. “Give me that pen.” McCall tossed him the pen and Brodey went to work, scanning the money-market account’s statement. When he hit the dates for the end of November, just a few weeks prior to the murder, he slowed his scanning, rea
d each date, then checked the dates on Ed Long’s SARs. No exact matches. But they were close.

  Check the amounts.

  Quickly he scanned the amounts, sliding the tip of the pen down over the column of numbers.

  Nine grand.

  Holy hell. Two days before Long deposited nine thousand dollars into his bank account, someone withdrew the exact amount from Jonathan Williams’s account. Boom. The itch at the back of Brodey’s neck turned to a full-on burn that lit his entire body.

  “I got something.” He circled the amount and the date on the money-market statement and slid it across to McCall. “It’s a match. Could Williams’s wife have forged his signature?”

  McCall’s lower lip shot out. “I guess. Check the other SARs.”

  Brodey grabbed the reports, laid them out in front of him and matched the three additional amounts on the SARs—all totaling fifty thousand dollars—to funds taken from the Williamses’ account. He slid them across the table to McCall, who studied them for a few seconds.

  The seasoned detective banged his knuckles on the table. “Son of a—”

  “We got her. Somehow she withdrew fifty K from their money market without her husband knowing it. She had him murdered.”

  McCall pushed back from the table. “Time to chat with the grieving widow.”

  “Yep.”

  McCall pulled a face and slouched back, shaking his head. “Junior, you gotta sit this one out. I’m sorry. You can’t be anywhere near this.”

  As a general rule, competition ran hot between detectives. Who caught what case, who closed how many cases, who got what convictions, it never ended. Brodey wanted to believe he was innocent in the whole thing, but—nah—he could be a dope among dopes when it came to one-upping another guy.

  In this instance, hard-nosed McCall, King of the Dopes, appeared genuine in his apology for drop-kicking Brodey. “I know,” Brodey said. “Call me when you’re done.”

  * * *

  LEXI FINISHED HER morning appointment with the Baldwins just before ten-thirty and marveled at her luck. Not only that, but also the appointment went well—seemed to anyway. One could never tell. The extra good news in this trifecta of luck was she had time before Mr. Hayward—her bodyguard—arrived to shuttle her to her noon appointment.

  She stepped off the elevator at the lobby level in the Baldwins’ high-rise and her heels tapped against the marble floor, echoing in the three-story entry. The doorman rushed to open the door, but Lexi pointed to the corner where three leather chairs—dark chocolate, simple, but elegant design—sat unoccupied. “My ride won’t be here for a while. Do you mind if I wait in here?”

  Because if she waited outside, aside from a solid case of frostbite, one Brodey Hayward would have a mental breakdown over the risks involved with standing on a street in Chicago. In daylight.

  The doorman nodded. “Of course, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

  She set her briefcase and sample book on the floor next to her chosen chair, the one pointed away from streaming sunlight. A good dose of sunshine during a Chicago winter was nice, but not when she didn’t have sunglasses to cut the glare. Sitting down may have been a mistake. Particularly since she’d slept only a few hours the night before—thank you very much, studly Brodey—and fatigue suddenly pressed in on her. With the extra time, she could close her eyes for a few minutes. Enjoy the quiet.

  Phone calls, Lexi.

  Endless phone calls that hopefully one day soon her assistant would be fielding. Between the potential bonus from the Williams project and possibly landing one of the two clients from this morning, she’d be able to afford the assistant and a small renovation on the garage.

  And more than five hours of sleep a night.

  Well, if Brodey let her sleep. She hummed to herself and the image of what they’d done on her now-not-so-virginal sofa heated her cheeks. God, the man’s passions ran deep. He did everything—yes, everything—with intensity.

  Phone calls, Lexi. Banishing thoughts of Brodey, she let out a long, satisfied sigh. Phone calls meant happy clients, happy clients meant more revenue, more revenue meant an assistant, an assistant meant free time to spend with Brodey and all his magical intensity.

  Phone calls it is.

  On cue, her cell rang. Happy clients. She dug in her coat pocket and checked the screen. Ah. “Hi, Brenda.”

  “You witch!” she spat, the word stabbing like a ten-inch knife.

  Lexi lurched back, her shoulders slamming against the back of the chair. She checked the phone’s screen again in case she’d seen the wrong name. Nope. Brenda Williams. “Brenda? Are you all right?”

  “Do I sound all right? I was just visited by a detective. Someone named McCall. Apparently, that other detective you hired has stirred things up.”

  Uh, she hadn’t hired him. Maybe her connection to Mrs. Hennings got the ball rolling, but Lexi wasn’t the one who agreed to let them help with the investigation. Although, this didn’t seem to be the time to argue that. “What happened?”

  “He walked in here and asked me if I murdered my husband!”

  Lexi gasped, but Brenda kept rolling.

  “It’s not bad enough that I’m dealing with the fallout from his crimes—the humiliation and betrayal alone—never mind trying to explain it to our children. And now this? You brought that Jenna and her brother into my life and now I have the police accusing me of murder.”

  Energy spewing, Lexi shot out of her chair and paced in small circles, around and around, rubbing her head with her free hand. “Brenda, wait, please. This is obviously a mistake.”

  “You bet it’s a mistake. And it’s one that better get resolved before they arrest me. And what about my children? I trusted you and now I need a lawyer!”

  “Okay. Hold on. Please. Let me talk to Brodey.”

  Brenda made a huffing noise. “Absolutely not. You’ve done enough. All I need from you are the keys to my house.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re fired. I want the keys to my house here by noon today. Or I call the police and tell them you refused to give them back. Then it’s on to social media, letting this city know what you’ve done to me. Noon, Lexi. Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  A sharp click sounded. “Brenda?”

  No response.

  No, no, no.

  Lexi stared at the phone in her hand, her blood racing and yet fierce cold turning her feet numb. Call back. As upset as Brenda was, even if she answered, there’d be no reasoning with her. The clock on the phone blinked: 10:58 a.m. One hour until her next appointment. One hour. In that time, she could cab it home, grab the keys and run them to Brenda’s house. While there she’d talk to her. Get Brenda to calm down and understand that even if she had connected her to the investigators, she didn’t control them.

  One hour to do all that and get to her next appointment. “Who am I kidding?” she muttered.

  Damn it. All she’d done was try to help. To give a grieving widow some answers. And this was what she got? She got fired.

  Because of Brodey.

  No. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t blindside and humiliate her this way. If he knew about McCall, he’d have warned her.

  Buried somewhere in this mess she’d find a logical explanation.

  Please let there be an explanation.

  “Ma’am,” the doorman said, “are you unwell?”

  Unwell. One way to put it.

  This was not happening. She’d worked too hard to allow this fiasco to destroy her reputation.

  There goes the assistant.

  “I’m fine,” she said, grabbing her things. “Thank you. Would you be able to get me a cab, please?”

  While waiting on her cab, she called Brodey. The truth was always somewhere in the middle and
she needed his version. Then she’d talk to Brenda again. No problem. Misunderstandings happened all the time.

  That was all this was—a misunderstanding.

  She hoped.

  By the third ring, he hadn’t picked up and her stomach did a vicious twist. She tipped forward, drawing deep, even breaths—don’t freak out—until the pain leveled off.

  Please answer your phone.

  A slight click sounded—he’d picked up—and the pressure in her belly released. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “It’s Brodey. You know the drill.”

  Voice mail.

  Refusing to panic, she focused on there being a logical explanation for him not picking up her call. He was a good man. He wouldn’t ignore her. Any number of things could be occupying him.

  The beep sounded and she straightened, determined to battle the hysterical female controlling her body. “It’s me,” she said, hating the pathetic tremble in her voice. “I need you to call me back. Brenda Williams just fired me.”

  Ten minutes later and a block and a half from her house, the cab came to a halt in the middle of snarled traffic. Can’t get a break today.

  She grabbed a twenty from her wallet and shoved it over the seat. “I’ll jump out here. I can walk the rest of the way. Keep the change.”

  On her tight schedule, she wasn’t about to wrangle over change. She hauled her sample book and briefcase out of the car and did a quasi-run-walk down the block. Sample books were not made for carrying long distances, and halfway to her cottage, she stopped and swapped everything to the other side. A blast of frigid wind smacked her cheeks and she sucked tiny ice picks of air.

  Her phone rang. Scooting sideways, she dumped her sample book on the ground and scrambled for her cell in her coat pocket. Brodey. Excellent. Now they’d straighten this thing out and she’d prove to herself she didn’t have rotten taste in men.

  “Hi,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “Where am I?” he snapped. “Where are you? My dad was early and the doorman at the address you gave him said you left.”