The Root of Murder Read online

  Kathleen cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Unfortunately, in my line of work, I see a lot of folks in grief. I’ve learned that different people handle it differently,” Cameron said. “My first husband died only four months after we were married. I had a promising career in law enforcement. But I basically threw it all away to crawl into a bottle. If I numbed myself enough, I wouldn’t feel the pain. That was how I handled my grief.” She peered at her. “Luckily, I got the help I needed to turn things around before I lost everything.” She leaned across to her. “Some people drown themselves in drugs or booze, or”—she cocked her head at her—“their career.”

  Kathleen hung her head. Her hands shook as she smoothed her hair. Clearing her voice, she finally said, “Do you have any other information about John’s murder besides that you let Derek loose?”

  “We’re examining the plant’s security video for Friday night to see if we can notice any suspicious activity—like someone following him.”

  “But John wasn’t at the plant on Friday,” Kathleen said.

  Cameron paused. According to the lie John Davis had told Kathleen, he had spent the week in Seattle and was flying in on Friday. “Actually, your husband’s assistant told us that he had stopped in at the plant. He was on the phone when she’d left.”

  That was the truth. Susan Livingston had stated that. Cameron neglected to mention that not only had John Davis been at the plant on Friday, but he had been there the entire week, while Kathleen thought he was in Seattle.

  “I guess he stopped in to see what work had piled up while he was traveling,” Kathleen said.

  “According to your husband’s bank records, he had taken ten thousand dollars out of his savings account on Friday.” Cameron saw by the way Kathleen had suddenly sat up that this was news to her. “I don’t suppose you know what for.”

  Kathleen shook her head. “John and I always kept our money separate. I liked the independence of having my own money and making my own financial decisions. Maybe he took it out to invest in something. He’d do that once in a while. Or, he’d loan money to the kids to help them out.”

  “Maybe,” Cameron said. “He got it out in cash, and we can’t find any way to account for where the money went.”

  “Are you thinking his killer took it?”

  “That’s definitely a possibility. What do you know about Bea Miller?”

  “Nut case,” Kathleen said. “John had to get a restraining order against her after she’d assaulted him in the plant parking lot. She accused him of sexual harassment. You should see that woman. Who would want to sexually harass her?”

  “I did try to question her,” Cameron said. “She is in need of help.”

  “Do you think she killed John?” Kathleen asked. “Did plant security let her in to kill him? She’d had her clearances stripped away. If she got to him there—”

  “No,” Cameron said, “your husband was not killed at the plant.”

  “Then where?”

  “All I can tell you is that he was killed in Ohio. The Columbiana County Sheriff’s department and I will work together to investigate his murder.” Cameron paused to take in a deep breath. “I have to ask. Where were you Friday night? Between the hours of five in the afternoon to midnight?”

  Kathleen sat up straight. Her eyes blazed.

  “I have to ask everyone,” Cameron said, “including your children.”

  “I was here waiting for my husband to come home,” Kathleen said. “As far as anyone to corroborate, Luke was here, too. We were planning to go out for pizza when his Grandpa came home. When John didn’t come home, we left about six-thirty to go to the pizza place in town. We met my sons and their wives and children.”

  “Did you try to call your husband when he didn’t come home?”

  “I texted him to meet us at the restaurant.”

  “What about Heather?”

  “She didn’t go,” Kathleen said. “She was on a date.”

  “Now, your husband had gotten a restraining order against Bea Miller,” Cameron said.

  “Several months ago.”

  “Had she been keeping away since he got that order?”

  “I hadn’t seen her, but she had been calling him,” Kathleen said.

  “On his cell phone?”

  Kathleen nodded her head. “How she got his number, I have no idea. But she’d been calling him.”

  “Did she threaten him?”

  “Of course, she did,” Kathleen said.

  “She threatened to kill him?”

  “I don’t know if those were her exact words. John told me that she said that he knew his dirty little secret and what goes around comes around. If that’s not a threat, then I don’t know what is.”

  Cameron cocked her head at her. “Dirty little secret? She actually said she knew his ‘dirty little secret’? Did you ask John what she meant by that?”

  “I didn’t have to,” Kathleen said.

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you get it? My husband? John? Having a dirty little secret? I hate to say it, but John was probably the most boring man in the Ohio Valley.” She scoffed. “Believe me, Lieutenant Gates, he wasn’t exciting enough to have any secrets.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  That evening, dinner was at the Gardner home. Tracy had invited the family to go over a list of what needed to be completed at the restaurant in time for the wedding and grand opening. The pleasant aroma of cheeses, garlic, and oregano greeted the guests when they arrived.

  The Gardners lived in a two-story Tudor home on a four-acre lot in a rural area outside of Chester. Apple trees in their back yard was evidence of the orchard from the subdivision’s previous life. The spacious floor-plan had been customized to include a commercial kitchen for Tracy’s catering business.

  After giving J.J. a hurried hug and kiss, Tracy whisked Poppy away to the study where Joshua had exiled Izzy to work on her science project until dinner. She had put off the assignment for much too long. With a due date of Friday, the project had reached the crisis stage.

  “I talked to Jessica,” Tracy said with a giggle. “She has a designer friend who thinks she can make your gown.”

  Izzy bounced off the sofa where she was working. “Can her friend get it done in time?”

  “She’ll try.”

  Izzy folded her arms. “‘Try’ isn’t good enough.”

  Poppy was shaking her head. “Even if she can get it done in time, a custom-made gown, it sounds expensive. I’m not going to blow our budget—not for a dress that I’m only going to wear one day.”

  “It’s your wedding day.” Tracy’s eyes bulged. “This is the most-photographed day of your life. This is your queen-for-a-day day. You’re dreaming about this special gown. It’s your dream gown. Jessica can get it for you. You have to let her friend make it.”

  Poppy continued to shake her head. “It won’t be the same gown.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  “No, it won’t,” Poppy said. “Jessica’s friend will make a gown like it, but it won’t be the gown. Thanks anyway.” She turned to leave.

  “The wedding is less than two months away!” There was a note of hysteria in Tracy’s tone.

  “I know. I helped set the date.”

  “What are you going to do if you don’t find this dream gown?”

  “I’ll get married without it.” A knowing grin crossed Poppy’s face. “But I have faith that it will turn up. Otherwise, why do I keep dreaming about it?” She left to join the others in the kitchen.

  Tracy glared at Izzy. “You know she’s crazy.”

  “She hasn’t been wrong yet.” Izzy frowned. “Except when it comes algebra.”

  Tracy returned to the kitchen where she found the conversation in full swing about Heather and Madison.

 
Tracy picked up her cooking spoon and waved it. “I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Heather and Maddie walked into that coffee shop, or wherever it is they met, and discovered that they were sisters?” With a giggle, she stirred the spaghetti sauce in the slow cooker.

  Hunter was brushing garlic butter over the bread sticks. “I can’t believe Maddie came right out and told you that she had her DNA tested,” he said to Poppy who was sitting at the opposite side of the breakfast counter. Over his shoulder, he told Tracy, “I never did think Madison was very bright.”

  “Maddie was talking to Poppy about her ancestry,” J.J. said while looking over the work drawings spread across the kitchen table. “She didn’t think far enough ahead to realize that she was providing us with a clue to connect her and Heather. She always did live in the moment.”

  “We can’t connect Madison to the Davis children until we prove someone from the Davis family submitted their DNA to the same website. Plus, we need proof that the website notified both parties of the familial connection.” Joshua sat back in his seat at the table and took a sip from his glass of Chianti. “Good luck in getting a warrant to uncover that evidence. Those ancestry websites hire teams of lawyers whose sole purpose are protecting their clients’ privacy. Even if a judge will give you a warrant, the company will fight you all the way to the supreme court.”

  “Your father’s right,” Cameron said. “Right now, we don’t have enough probable cause to get a warrant.”

  “You’ve been married to Josh too long,” Hunter said. “He’s usually the one saying we don’t have probable cause.”

  Tracy dropped the spaghetti noodles into the boiling water and stirred them. “Let’s just suppose Heather and Maddie don’t know that they’re sisters. I mean, the Miss Charlotte former dance students’ social group does exist. I belong to it and I’ve seen Heather and Madison on the website. They could have reconnected, buried the hatchet, and become friends just like they said.”

  Considering her theory, they all exchanged glances.

  Turning his attention to J.J., Hunter slowly shook his head. “Sorry, I was at the Christmas formal when Maddie hurled that punch bowl at Heather. If J.J. hadn’t pushed her out of the way, it would have been her who got hit in the face instead of him.”

  “You’re such a gentleman.” Poppy hugged J.J. and rested her head on his shoulder.

  J.J. kissed the top of her head. “I try.”

  Shaking his head, Hunter put one last swipe of butter on the bread sticks. “Nope, I just can’t visualize those two being friends.”

  “Have you eliminated their mothers as suspects?” Poppy asked.

  “I talked to Kathleen this afternoon.” Cameron shook her head. “She claims she took Luke out for pizza and met her sons and their families there. I talked to both of Davis’s sons and the restaurant. They were all there from like seven o’clock until close to nine.”

  “And the time of the murder?” Tracy asked.

  “Between eight and ten,” Cameron said. “So Kathleen has an alibi for half of the kill time.”

  “Where was the restaurant?” Joshua asked.

  “Calcutta.” Cameron arched an eyebrow when she answered. “Basically, around the corner from the crime scene.”

  They exchanged long questioning glances.

  “The witness overheard Davis arguing with two women and saw them leaving his apartment,” Joshua said.

  “But,” Cameron said, “Davis’s sons said Kathleen arrived with Luke and left with him. Would she really have taken her seven-year-old grandson to Grandpa’s safe house to meet with his other wife to confront and murder him?”

  “Maybe she left him in the car while she committed the murder,” J.J. said.

  “And dump the body?” Cameron asked. “And plant the murder weapon at his father’s house?”

  “Recently, there was an abduction and rape case where the perp snatched his victim and stuffed her into a box in the back of his van,” Joshua said. “He was a construction worker. He had padded the inside of the box with carpeting so that it would be sound proof. Then, he went home, picked up his family, and took them out to dinner in the wife’s car. Then, he took his family home and told his wife that he’d gotten a call to go out on a job. He got into the van in which he still had the victim locked in the box and took her to a motel where he raped her. After he was done, he put her back in the box and drove her to the edge of town where he dumped her. She went to the police and reported it. They found a witness in the parking lot from where she had been snatched. Based on his description, the police tracked down the van to the suspect.”

  “But he had an airtight alibi because he had been having dinner with his family right smack in the middle of the timeframe for when the crime had been committed,” Cameron said.

  “The victim had fibers from the carpet used to line the box on her clothes,” Joshua said. “The rapist had dismantled the box by the time the police caught up with him, but they found the fibers matching the carpet in the van. They got other physical evidence, too. If they didn’t have the physical evidence, they would have dropped him as a suspect because of this alibi. My point is this. He had used his family to create an alibi to conceal his crime. I mean, what kind of man takes his family out for a wholesome dinner while he’s got a rape victim locked up in the back of his van?”

  “A very sick man,” Cameron said.

  “You’re going to need to find out if Kathleen had made any detours on her way home after the pizza place,” J.J. said.

  “I know,” Cameron said. “I also need to find out where wife number two was at the time of the murder.”

  “What about Heather and Madison?” Joshua asked J.J. “The witness could have seen Davis’s daughters confronting him about betraying their mothers.”

  “No.” Tracy placed her hands, encased in oven mitts, on her hips.

  “Why not?” Joshua said. “We know they’re connected. Wouldn’t be the first time siblings joined forces to take out a parent who’d betrayed their family.”

  “Heather claims she was on a date the night of the murder,” J.J. said. “But she said it wasn’t a good date and ended early. She didn’t get the guy’s phone number. I told her to ask the person who’d set it up to get that information for us. Maddie was having a girls’ night out with her office manager.”

  “Are you talking about Elizabeth?” Tracy asked.

  “Elizabeth Collins,” J.J. said. “Used to be … I can’t remember her maiden name. She’s married to Aaron Collins.”

  “She works at the dance studio,” Cameron said.

  “Maddie went for a girls’ night out with Elizabeth?” Tracy asked.

  “Aaron said Elizabeth got home really late and they had gotten very drunk,” J.J. said.

  “Does that seem odd to you, Tracy?” Cameron asked. “Madison did hire her to manage the office at the dance studio. I got the impression that they were friends.”

  “Elizabeth says,” Tracy said. “She has a tendency to exaggerate her own importance. I don’t know if Madison’s Dance Studio is big enough to need someone to manage it. She only just opened it in August.”

  “Elizabeth seemed kind of put out when Maddie said Heather was redoing portions of the studio’s website,” J.J. recalled.

  “Elizabeth is a strange bird,” Tracy said. “I always felt torn between feeling sorry for her because she never quite fit in anywhere and trying to keep my distance.”

  “Are you saying she could be lying about going out with Madison Friday night?” Cameron asked.

  “Aaron confirmed the alibi,” J.J. said. “He took care of the kids.”

  “Madison did claim to have a sinus headache Saturday morning,” Cameron said. “She could have been hung over.”

  “No, that was Heather,” Tracy said.

  “Madison had a headache,” Cameron said. “Remem
ber when we ran into them outside the bridal shop? Elizabeth offered to get aspirin for her.”

  “Because she had a migraine,” Tracy said. “That’s different from a sinus headache. Heather had a sinus headache. Madison had a migraine.”

  “Both of them had headaches on Saturday morning?” Joshua asked.

  “Where did this girls’ night out take place?” Cameron asked. “Beaver? Chester? Hookstown?”

  “Calcutta?” Joshua asked.

  J.J. cringed. “I didn’t ask.”

  “If they have just recently found out that their father was a louse, then maybe they went out to vent and get drunk,” Tracy said.

  “And invited Elizabeth, the odd one along?” Hunter asked.

  “She is a girl,” Poppy said.

  “Why lie about it if they did nothing wrong?” J.J. asked.

  “Because they’re not stupid,” Poppy said. “They’re smart enough to know that if you found out that they know about their relationship that they’ll become suspects.”

  “She’s got a point,” Hunter said.

  “But there’s still another angle to look at,” Cameron said. “Both Sherry and Kathleen have stated that John was receiving threatening phone calls. Now Kathleen assumed they were from Bea Miller, a former plant employee who has definite mental issues. Sherry believed they were from an obsessive woman also named Bea who her husband, Shawn, had helped when her car had broken down.”

  “Do you think they’re one and the same?” Tracy asked.

  “They have to be,” Hunter said.

  “What are the odds that the same man would be getting threats from two separate women named Bea?” Joshua asked.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” J.J. said. “Davis had two separate cell phones. One for each family. If he was getting threatening phone calls from the same woman on both phones, then that meant whoever was calling him knew about his two lives.”

  “And had the numbers for both phones,” Joshua said, “which means whoever it was had to have known the location of his safe house. That’s the only place she could have accessed both phones to get the numbers.”