Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (6 page)

I drove to the next
address and parked in front of the biggest house I’d been to yet, in a
neighborhood south of Horsetooth between Taft and Shields. I made note of
visible license plates, including the two in the driveway, and went to the
door. So far, Danielle Dillon was unlike anyone I’d ever looked for. And
everywhere I looked just made her more confusing. Today alone I’d been to four
neighborhoods I’d never been to before while looking for FTAs. Not that I was
necessarily making a correlation, but I had tracked a lot of skips to trailer
parks, and after only a few weeks in the biz, I was already intimately familiar
with a lot of the apartment complexes and lower–middle class neighborhoods
around town. It seemed to me that if the people who lived in these pricey
places were committing crimes, they were either committing serious crimes for
which bail wasn’t an option, or, more likely, they had the means of posting
their own bail and had no need for companies like Sideline. Why, then, had
Danielle Dillon needed Sideline?

I rang the bell and
waited. When the door opened, a man smiled out at me. He was about six feet
tall, and while he appeared to be only reasonably fit, I sensed something about
him; it was almost like he was radiating power. I attributed it to his wealth;
rich people bleed money. I’m pretty sure that’s a documented fact somewhere. He
had a simple, almost friendly face, blue eyes, and brown hair that was styled
neatly. I guessed him to be approaching forty. I wondered how he could afford such
a big house when most of his neighbors had to be at least ten—more likely
fifteen years—older than him.

“Hi,” he said,
smiling. “Can I help you?”

I handed him a card.
He pushed the door open a bit wider and stepped out onto the porch, accepting
the card and looking at it. Behind him, I could see through the entryway to the
living room and noticed a lit display case containing several shiny things.
From what I could make out at my distance, they were all of different origins
and time periods. I didn’t need to see them closely to know they were
expensive.

“I’m Zoe Grey. I’m a
bond enforcement agent for Sideline Investigations and Bail Bonds. I’m looking
for this woman.” I held up the picture. “Have you seen her?”

He looked at the
picture then back at me, shaking his head. His gaze lingered on the photo, I
thought.

“Nope, sure haven’t.
What’d she do?”

What is it that makes
rich people so nosey?

“I’m not at liberty to
discuss the details of her case. What about the name Danielle Dillon—that mean
anything to you?”

He shrugged. “Nope. Is
that her name?” He inclined his head toward the photo I was still holding up.

I was about to answer
when something caused me to stop. I think it was the way he asked the question.
Regardless, I rethought my answer.

“I’m sorry, I can’t
say. How long have you lived here?”

“A couple years. Why?
Did that girl you’re looking for live here once?”

“I’m just following up
on a lead. Listen, thank you for your help … I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Eric.”

He didn’t seem
inclined to offer his last name, and I chose not to push. There are other ways
to learn that sort of information.

“Eric. Thanks for your
help. Oh, hey, I was going to ask, is this your car?” I pointed to the 2014
Chevy Camaro parked in the driveway beside a 2012 Toyota FJ Cruiser.

He smiled and took
several steps across the porch, looking at the car.

“Yes. A classic
reborn. Do you like it?”

I’m a huge fan of
Chevy cars and trucks, and I think the Camaro remake, inspired by the first
generation design, is a very hot car. His was silver. I would have preferred an
orange one. I kept this last bit to myself.

“Yes. The first
generation Camaros were the best looking.”

He looked at me
appreciatively. “You’re into cars?”

“Who doesn’t like
muscle cars?” I asked, walking off the porch. “Please call me if you see the
woman in the photo or think of anything that might be helpful.”

“I’ll do that.”

After stopping at all the addresses
listed for Dillon and turning up zilch, I drove back to the office. The front
door was open until six, when the receptionist and Amerson went home, but I
wanted to slip in and out. I parked in the back and let myself in through the
rear entrance. I’m not an employee and don’t work full time, so I don’t have an
office or my own desk. But there are several cubical workstations in one of the
back rooms, set up with computers and phones for use by those of us who only
drop by occasionally. Tonight, the room was empty.

I chose a seat and
pulled out my notes. It was tedious work, but I went through each plate number
I’d written down. My first step is always to see what name came back and if it’s
known to be connected to the case. My next step is to make sure the plate came
back to the same make and model I’d found it on. Stolen plates had blown open
more than one case in the past, or so my mentor Blue had said. Lastly, I input
everything into an Excel spreadsheet so I can more easily search for patterns
later. When I’d done this, coming across no names that rang any bells or any
stole plates, I printed the list.

I’d learned the Camaro
and FJ were registered to an Eric Dunn. A quick property search told me Dunn
owned the house, having purchased it five years before. I ran his name through
the Sideline database and came up with several hits. A bit more searching told
me Dunn was a defense attorney. That went a long way in explaining how he could
afford his house.

I wasn’t sure I was
making progress on finding Danielle Dillon, but I still needed to find Dix,
too. I looked up the number to the Starbucks where he worked and used the
landline to call. A girl answered, and I heard the espresso machine hissing and
blenders whirling in the background.

“Hi. I was wondering
if Cory was working tonight.”

“He’s not here at the
moment, but I think he’s closing tonight. Hang on, let me check.”

It is frightening to
me what people will tell a perfect stranger over the phone, truly frightening.

“Yep, he’ll be here
from five-thirty to close. Would you like me to have him call you?”

“Oh, no, that’s okay.
I may just swing by.”

I hung up and dialed
my voicemail. I had a message from Amerson, the Burbanks’ accountant, and
Ellmann. Amerson called to tell me no vehicle was registered with the DMV under
the name Danielle Dillon. I’d just looked it up myself and knew the same thing.
But that message had been there a while. The accountant left the names and
addresses of the housekeeper and gardener. Ellmann just asked me to call him
back.

I added the
housekeeper’s and gardener’s addresses to my growing notes, along with the
accountant’s name and phone number, just in case. Feeling I’d come to a bit of
a standstill, I dialed Ellmann.

“I was wondering if
you had plans tonight,” he said. “Would you be interested in grabbing dinner?”

“Sure. Did you have
anything specific in mind?”

“Not really. Why? Do
you?”

“How about Pueblo
Viejo?”

“Strange choice. I
have the nagging suspicion you’re up to something. Whatever it is, can we get
ice cream first?”

Ice cream is Ellmann’s
favorite food. When in doubt with Ellmann, get him ice cream. Yesterday’s Ice
Cream Shoppe, located across the street from Pueblo Viejo, serves Blue Bell ice
cream. In Ellmann’s opinion, the only ice cream that’s better is the homemade
stuff at Pioneer Candies and Ice Cream.

“Sure.”

“You’re not denying
it?”

“Would there be any
point?”

“Probably not.”

“So I thought I’d save
us both the time.”

“Want me to pick you
up?”

“No, I better meet you
there.”

“Definitely up to
something. When do you want to meet?”

I looked at my watch.
“How about twenty minutes?”

He agreed, and we
disconnected.

I gathered my printout
and tucked the notes back into my pocket. The drive, in the heavy evening rush-hour
traffic, took nearly the whole twenty minutes. It took me another five to find
a parking space and hike over to the restaurant. Ellmann was standing on the
sidewalk waiting for me.

Ellmann is a very big
man. He’s six-six and solid muscle. I’m pretty sure he could pick up a car if
he wanted to. He has wavy dark hair, which he keeps a little longer, and his
cheeks and chin are covered in a dusting of dark growth. There were few
occasions when he wore a high and tight and went clean shaven. Fine with me;
he’s a very good looking guy.

His eyes are green, a
more jade color than mine, and have a mesmerizing quality to them. Of Italian
descent, Ellmann doesn’t really have the olive complexion, but he always looks
healthily tanned. His typical work uniform consists of jeans, which fit him
exactly right, and t-shirts, with a few button-down tops thrown in. Today was
no different. He wore a light blue t-shirt that made me want to blow off the
rest of the day and take him home.

“You look beautiful,”
he said, smiling.

“I was just thinking
the same of you.”

He pulled me into him
and kissed me. The take-Ellmann-home idea was gaining intensity and appeal the
longer the kiss went on.

“Are those handcuffs
in your pocket?” he whispered in my ear.

“Yeah.” Suddenly my
mind was dreaming of different things to do with those cuffs. I pushed away
from Ellmann. “Uh, should we eat?”

He chuckled as he
followed me inside, no doubt fully aware of the direction my brain had spun.
Ellmann tends to have an uncanny and sometimes annoying talent for knowing
precisely what I haven’t said. Only one other person in the world can do such a
thing, and that’s Amy. It had taken her years of practice. Ellmann seems to do
it naturally. Most days I like that. Some days it scares me.

Ellmann had put our name
in and requested a seat on the patio, which was all the more convenient for my
purposes. After a short five-minute wait, we were shown to a table. The
restaurant was crowded, and the sidewalks were packed.

“How was your day?” I
asked after we placed our order.

“Pretty good,” he
said, nodding. He took a sip of his drink and leaned back in his chair.
“Finally got a break in that series of muggings downtown. Caught the guy this
morning. We even recovered a lot of what was stolen.”

“That’s great.”

“It is. Shortly after
that, though, I got called in on a new case.” He dragged a hand back through
his hair. It’s what he does when he’s stressed or upset. “Caroline Marks was
murdered last night.”

I may not have known
the name Burbanks, but I knew the name Caroline Marks. She was a big deal in
Fort Collins, her family being sort of like our own version of the
Rockefellers. She was a native, her great-great-great grandfather having been a
key player in founding the town. He’d struck it rich with the railroads, and
while he had left plenty of money to his children, they’d each gone on to do
something remarkable and earn their own fortunes. The Marks family had more
money than the lot of them could ever spend in ten lifetimes.

Caroline Marks had
married young and become a widow young, the result of something tragic like
cancer, if I remembered right. Never remarrying, she devoted her time to her
children and town. Pretty much every local charity and public event had her
hand in it. Every year, she gave away two scholarships to CSU to local high
school graduates she chose herself. It wasn’t uncommon for her to pay the
hospital bills of a local family in dire financial straits. She’d built a
shelter for the homeless and fully funded the soup kitchen there. She donated
money to the Lincoln Center so they could buy equipment and props for the
community theater. She donated computers and musical instruments to the local
schools. She went to the library and read books to the kids on weekends. She
was like Fort Collins’ own Mother Theresa. It was hard to think of her as being
dead, and that much harder to think of her death as murder.

Who could have done
something like that? Who would want to kill Mother Theresa?

“I can’t believe it,”
I said after a long moment. “Do you have any leads or anything?”

He shook his head.
“No. I’m still not really sure what we’re dealing with. We think her murder is
connected to a string of murders stretching across the state. The FBI is
getting involved, and a task force is being formed.”

“I just can’t believe
it.”

He sighed and leaned
forward again. “I get the feeling you have plans for the evening. I was going
to head back to work anyway. I want to go through things while it’s all fresh
and before the FBI takes over.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a
couple things to do. Hey, would you do me a favor, maybe when you need a break
later?”

“Depends,” he said
cautiously, watching me. Even after such a short time, Ellmann knows me well.

“I just need a little
information. In August, a couple named Melissa and Mitchell Conrad was murdered
in their home. I don’t know yet if it’s connected in any way to the woman I’m
looking for. There wasn’t much in the papers.”

“The name rings a
bell, I think. I’ll see what I can find. It’ll probably be nothing,” he warned.

“I know. I just need
to be sure.”

“Who are you looking
for?”

“A woman named
Danielle Dillon. I’ve got until six a.m. Sunday to find her or Sideline is out
a lot of money and an old lady loses her house.”

“Is she the reason
we’re here?”

“No. That would be
Cory Dix. Oh, I don’t have a cell phone right now, by the way.”

If he was surprised,
he didn’t show it. I suspect he wasn’t.

“What happened?”

I explained.

“I’m glad you didn’t
follow him out the window.”

“I’m not a total
idiot.”

“So, what’d Dix do,
anyway?”

I told him.

“Streaking, huh? He’s
quite the daredevil.”

“He’s a pain in my
ass,” I said, looking across the street at Starbucks. “He works there. And the
police are probably more upset about the grand theft auto part.”

“With CSUPD, it’s hard
to tell.”

Not surprisingly,
there is a bit of rivalry between the different agencies in law enforcement.
Those in Fort Collins and the state of Colorado are no different. They are
capable, for the most part, of working together, but they’re pretty hard on one
another. And all of that animosity is magnified for the FBI. I imagined Ellmann
would be pretty stressed in the coming days after working with them and a bunch
of other local agencies.

Ellmann polished off
his entire plate and then the last part of mine. We paid our bill and left,
crossing College then heading south. He held my hand while we walked.

“So, my dad called me
today,” he said.

I could tell by his
tone I should be worried.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s getting
married.”

From what Ellmann had
told me, his parents had been married young. After three children and fifteen
years together, they’d called it quits. His mother, Anja, had gotten remarried
a couple years later to a guy Ellmann and his siblings like well enough, and
she’s still married. His father, Vincent, had been sleeping with his secretary
at the time of his divorce. After a couple years, he found out she’d been
having an affair. He dumped her then moved on to someone else, then someone
else, then another. He was never without a girlfriend for very long, and the
women kept getting younger and younger. His children had gotten used to his
revolving door of women, but none of them liked it.

“Married?” I said,
unsure of exactly what else to say.

“Her name is Susan. I
guess they’ve been together for about a year. Anyway, he called to tell me he’s
coming to town. He wants all of us to meet her before the wedding. He’s already
been to see my brother in Seattle. This is his next stop. Somehow he convinced
my sister to fly out here, too.”

Ellmann is the middle
child. His brother, Charlie, is two years older and lives in Seattle with his
wife and their two children. He’s some kind of engineer doing some sort of
complex aerospace design stuff I don’t understand. Their sister, Natalie, still
lives in California, in the town where their mother had moved them after the
divorce. Ellmann had told me she’s an artist. She works at a local community
college teaching painting, sculpture, and drawing. She does her own art on the
side and has done several art shows.

“Well, okay,” I said.
“We should be happy for him, right?”

“She’s probably
younger than my sister,” he said. “He’s not a young man anymore. I can’t help
but wonder what she’s after.”

No one in Ellmann’s
family is hurting for money, least of all his father.

“Okay, so when she
gets here, we’ll get her full name and her prints and do a background check. If
she seems shady, I’m not above a little intimidation.”