Deception with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Two) (5 page)

“Good idea,” he said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call in for a van. You start looking for his journal. He might have hid it up here for safe keeping.”

She nodded as he stood and walked back out of the room.

Rilynne went through every drawer in his desk, and had just started on the trunk next to it when Matthews walked back in. “Jane will be sending Jerkins and Skinner up when they get here. No sign of the journal?”

“No,” she said, still sifting through the trunk. “It isn’t in his desk, or in here.” She closed the lid and stood up. “There are a lot of places in here it could be, though.”

“Well, let’s start around the desk and work our way out. It’s probably safe to say that it isn’t anywhere that has a thick layer of dust on it.” He ran his finger across the top of a particularly dusty box tucked into the corner.

Rilynne was fairly certain that Jane had not ever venture into the attic. Where the rest of the house had been meticulously clean, as well as Jane herself, the attic was dusty and seemed to have no sense of order. It was so full that they had only searched a quarter of the room when Detectives Jerkins and Skinner walked in.

“These are the boxes that need to be taken in,” Rilynne said, pointing to the stacks surrounding the desk. While Matthews helped them carry the boxes downstairs, Rilynne continued to search for the journal.

After taking in the overwhelming amount of stuff crammed in the attic, Rilynne sat back in Villarreal’s desk chair and closed her eyes.

Shane was sitting in his chair, intently looking over the file laid out in front of him. Unlike the man that had been found, his hair was short and his face cleanly shaven. There was the sound of a door shutting through the floor, and his face instantly lit up. He quickly pulled together the file and stuffed it into the file box on the floor before rushing toward the door.

Rilynne recognized the look he had gotten when he heard his wife walking in. It was pure love. She couldn’t help but think that Jane had been a very lucky woman.

Villarreal really did seem to keep everything. In one box she even found his sister’s old school books. Judging by the dates on the homework still tucked inside, they were the ones she would have been using around the time she had died. There were also several boxes filled with children’s toys. They were too new to have been his from childhood, so Rilynne assumed he had been collecting them for when he had a child of his own. She wondered to herself if his wife had known they were there.

By the time the men finished loading all of the boxes and Matthews walked back up to rejoin the search, she had cleared all but the last corner.

“Was Shane a baseball coach or something?” Rilynne asked as she pulled open a large box filled with bats and helmets. Judging by the size, they would have been too small for him to have used for himself.

“Now that you mention it, I seem to recall something like that.” She could tell that he was searching his memory. “Yeah, he actually set up a team a few years back for the kids who had parents on the force. The kids really enjoyed it.”

The more she learned about Shane Villarreal, the more she liked him.

“I don’t think we’re going to find it here,” Rilynne said, closing the last box. “Besides, this wouldn’t be the most convenient place for him to keep it. He would have been risking his cover every time he came here.”

“I think you’re right. Maybe Jane will have an idea of where he would have put it,” Matthews said, leading the way back down the stairs.

They found Jane in the kitchen brewing a pot of tea. “Please sit.” She motioned to the stools at the end of the island. “I’ve just made some tea.”

Before Rilynne could politely decline, Matthews pulled out the seats and said, “That would be great. Thank you.” After filling the cups she had placed in front of them, she began to sip on her own.

“Jane,” Matthews said after taking a drink himself. “We were wondering if you had any idea where Shane would have hidden his journal. We hoped it might have information that could lead us to who’s responsible for his death.”

Jane sat her cup down on the counter. “What journal?” she asked with a puzzled tone.

“Well, we were told by Collin Clark that he had been keeping a journal that he wrote everything in. It would’ve had information that he’d not yet put in his reports,” Matthews explained.

Jane looked both confused and concerned. “Do you think that someone could have found his journal and discovered that he was a cop? Is that what got my husband killed?”

“It is a possibility,” Rilynne said gently. “But we don’t think that was the case. He would have taken great care to hide the journal so no one would be able to find it. But since he said he was getting close to closing the case, it might help us identify the persons who might be involved.”

Her expression did not change as she shook her head slowly side to side. “I don’t know where he would have hidden it,” she said. “He never mentioned it to me.”

Rilynne watched Jane as they finished the remainder of their tea in silence. For the first time since their arrival, she was allowing her emotions to show. It seemed almost as if a wave was passing over her, hitting her with everything from anger to confusion at once. When they were done, Matthews and Rilynne thanked Jane for her assistance and saw themselves out.

“Let’s run by Shane’s apartment before heading back to the station,” Matthew said as he climbed into the car.

*

It was really more of a long-term motel room than an apartment. Rilynne stood by the car looking over the rundown building while Matthews went into the office to get a copy of the key. “He’s in 3A,” he said, walking out a few moments later.

The room was void of any personal touches, which was to be expected for an undercover residence. The only items Villarreal had were a few sets of clothes and some hygiene items.

“I’ll start in the bathroom,” Matthews said.

Rilynne waited for him to leave the room before sitting on the corner
of the bed and closing her eyes. She only had to wait a few seconds before the room appeared again in front of her.

Shane was lying in bed watching television. He turned it off, throwing the remote down on the colorful comforter, and walked over to the table. Reaching under, he pulled out something that seemed to have been taped to the bottom. It was a worn, maroon notebook.

She hopped off of the bed and dropped to her knees next to the table. She stuck her head under it, looking at the underside, but the journal was not there. Her heart sank. After a few moments of frustration, she pulled herself up and searched the rest of the room.

“It isn’t here,” she said a few minutes later when Matthews walked back out. “It looks like something had been taped to the underneath of the table, but he must have moved it.”

“I’ll have someone stop by to pack up his belongings so they can be returned to Jane,” he said, looking morosely around the room. “We should head back to the office and see if they’ve found anything useful in his records.”

Rilynne nodded and followed him quietly back to the car. She closed her eyes as the car started to move and she ran through everything she had learned so far about Villarreal. She concentrated as hard as she could, but could not will herself to see anything but the inside of her eyelids. By the time she gave up and opened her eyes, they were pulling up in front of the station.

“Let’s stop by the lab and see if they’ve gotten anywhere with the evidence before we head up to the office,” Rilynne said as they stepped through the front doors.

The lab was one floor above the homicide detective’s office. When they walked through the door, the first thing Rilynne saw was Ben slamming his fist down on his desk.

“Hey,” she called out. “What did your desk ever do to you?”

He spun around so fast that he nearly lost his balance. A grin quickly formed on her face as her mind drifted back to when they had first met. It wasn’t until she watched him nearly fall again that she realized he was no longer the clumsy man he had been several months before. “For your information, it happens to be very stubborn. Good to see you, Matthews. What can I do for the two of you?”

“Have you gotten back any results from the evidence collected?” Rilynne asked, hiding a soft chuckle.

He motioned them over. “The blood type was the same for all of the samples. I won’t have the DNA results back until tomorrow, but I’m fairly certain it all came from the victim.” Detective Matthews tensed up at Ben referring to Villarreal as ‘victim’ instead of by name, but he did not correct him. “The powder collected from his nose was a chemical match to the cocaine in the vials. We’re running a comparison against the samples we have from all of the drug busts made in the county to see if we can find its source.”

“What about the skin found under his fingernails?” Matthews asked.

“I’m running it now.” Ben leaned against his desk. “I’ll let you know as soon as we have the results back.”

“And the substance found in his hair?” asked Rilynne.

“I was just about to start on it. The same black substance was found on the left shoulder and back of his shirt. It looks like something had been dripping on him. Hopefully I’ll have an answer for you by the end of the day,” he said. “If not, I’ll have it tomorrow.”

Rilynne looked around the room and saw only one other tech. “Are you processing it all yourself?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“Yes,” he said swiftly. “Summers is back at the scene seeing if the blood spatter can tell him anything. The rest of it I’ll be doing myself.” His tone didn’t have a ring of frustration, but of determination. Rilynne gave him an understanding smile before walking with Matthews toward the door.

“I’ll find you when I have something,” Ben called out behind them.

“I take it he’s not very pleased with the new crime scene investigator that was hired?” Matthews asked when the elevator doors closed.

“That obvious?” Rilynne chortled.

“How far have you gotten?” Matthews asked as they walked into the conference room a few minutes later. The twenty-six boxes taken out of Villarreal’s house were being sorted through by the seven detectives sitting in the room.

Wilcome stood up and looked around. “We’re maybe a third of the way through. So far we haven’t found anything connected to his assignment. We’re making a list of everyone in these who may have held a grudge, and we’ll start looking into all of the possibilities as soon as we’re finished. If his death wasn’t related to his undercover case, the answer may be in here somewhere.”

Rilynne grabbed a box and took a seat.

After working her way through half of the box, Rilynne found a report for a home invasion that had taken place two years before. The home, which belonged to a young couple, had been broken into through the back door. Despite the home being empty at the time, the power and the phone lines had been cut. The entire house had been searched, and all jewelry and electronics taken. The husband had stated that a man in his mid twenties had knocked on the door an hour before he and his wife had left for the grocery store trying to sell magazines.

“Hey,” she said, patting Matthews on the arm to get his attention. “Where’s the list of the homes that had been hit by the ring?”

“It’s on my desk,” he said, giving her a confused look. “Why do you ask?”

“Do you mind grabbing it for me?” she asked. “I think I may have something.”

Matthews walked out of the conference room, and returned a few moments later with a file in his hand. He took his seat and opened it up, placing it in front of Rilynne. She looked at the report in her hand once more, and then thumbed through the pages in the file.

“Here,” she said pointing to an address and date. “This was one of the first homes that was broken into. Villarreal was the responding officer.”

“That must have been what got him interested in working the case,” he said while looking over the pages.

“Wouldn’t it risk his cover if he was involved in the case?” she asked. “What if they had been watching the house after the home invasion and saw the officers respond?”

He hesitated for a moment, looking over the rest of the report before giving an answer. “The call was almost a full year before his undercover assignment started. And you saw him, with his hair longer and his beard, even half of the officers here wouldn’t have recognized him.” He sat the report back down, rubbing his hands over his face as he mulled it over.