The Root of Murder Read online

  “Excuse me. What did you say?” J.J. asked.

  Turning his back to Brenda, Ross made a gesture with his hand to indicate that she had been drinking and ushered him back into the kitchen. “Moore signed a three-year lease on that apartment seven months ago.” He handed the folder to J.J. who leafed through a thick stack of legal agreements. “Looks like he’s been here a while.”

  J.J. read the date on the oldest lease. “Twelve years.”

  “Longtime resident.”

  J.J. handed the folder back to the manager, who set it on his desk. “If he’s making good money, why rent?”

  “He probably split the rent with his two friends.”

  “Maybe,” J.J. said with a shrug. “Still, it’s better to invest in a place that you own rather than rent.”

  “Obviously, there’s a connection between Shawn Whitaker and John Davis,” Joshua said.

  “And I know what it is.” Cameron extracted the picture from her bag and handed it to him.

  Recognizing the image of his old friend, Joshua shrugged his shoulders and looked down into her face.

  “Sherry Whitaker gave me that picture when she told me that he was missing. She hasn’t heard from him since he left for a cross-country haul Friday morning. She says he calls her every night when he’s on the road. John’s body was dumped on her parents’ farm the same day. She wondered if John’s murder and her husband’s disappearance could be connected.”

  “Like that Whitaker witnessed Davis’s murder?”

  Cameron tapped the man’s image in the photograph. “This is Shawn Whitaker. He was with his wife, Sherry, all last week—during the time period that Kathleen’s husband was in Seattle on a business trip.”

  “A business trip that Davis’s assistant says never happened,” Joshua said with a sigh.

  “We wanted to know where John was going after he left work.” She took the picture from Joshua’s hands. “Now we know. He was going home to his other family.”

  “I don’t believe it. John Davis was not a cheater.”

  “Which do you find easier to believe? That your friend John Davis was bouncing back and forth between two wives or that the man in this picture is his identical twin and the two of them were separated at birth?”

  J.J. trotted up the walkway with the apartment manager. “Bishop Moore has been renting here for the last twelve years,” he told them while Ross unlocked the door with his spare key.

  “Is he from around here?” Joshua accepted a pair of evidence gloves from Cameron who extracted a pack from her valise. She also handed a pair to J.J.

  “He’s from Canfield.” Ross threw open the door and held it for them to step inside.

  They each glanced around the apartment while walking through the combined living room-kitchenette, bedroom, and bath. The furnishings were a few inexpensive pieces—a sofa, chair, coffee table and small television. The kitchenette had a table with one chair. A sliding glass door opened to a bare patio.

  Cameron looked inside the fridge. It contained a carton of eggs, milk, and six-pack of beer. In the freezer, she found a half-dozen frozen dinners. “Obviously, Bishop Moore is not a gourmet.” The cupboard contained a cheap dishes that looked almost new.

  “This is definitely a crash pad,” Joshua said while poking through a shelving unit resting against one wall. “No personal items like family pictures or books. Just the bare essentials.”

  When Cameron turned to respond, she noticed Ross standing at the door. His eyes were wide. His mouth hung open. “We may be a while. How about if you leave us the key and we’ll bring it over to your office when we’re through.”

  After a moment of hesitation, the apartment manager handed the key to her. “Be sure to lock up when you leave.” He took one last glance over his shoulder before leaving.

  “Nosy,” she muttered while tucking the key into her jacket pocket.

  Joshua stepped into the kitchenette, where he took note of the empty trash can. He picked it up to show her that there wasn’t a liner in it. “Someone took out the trash.”

  “Moore took the trash out when he left. How responsible of him.”

  “I’m talking about the condition of this kitchen.” He placed the bin back on the floor next to the counter. “This is sterilized clean.”

  She frowned when she noticed a splatter of red spots on the side of the trash bin. “Not exactly sterilized.” She picked the bin up and held it sideways to show him a spray of red splatters across the bottom half of the bin. “Does that look like blood to you?”

  Joshua glanced at the knife block on the counter. “The butcher knife is missing.”

  Cameron knelt to examine the linoleum floor. She could see red stains along the seams. “We found the crime scene.”

  J.J. stepped into the bedroom doorway. “You’re going to want to see this.” He crooked his finger for them to follow him.

  In the bedroom, Cameron noticed that there was no comforter on the queen-size bed. “Now we know where the comforter Davis was wrapped up in came from.”

  The walk-in closet door was open. J.J. swept his arm for them to step inside. “Take a look at his clothes.”

  The closet had racks to hang clothes on both sides of the small room. One side contained flannel shirts, work pants hanging clumsily from hangers or loosely folded and stacked on shelves. Soiled work boots were scattered along the floor. There were jeans and thick belts with big decorative buckles.

  The other side was a picture of contrast. Suits, sports coats, dress slacks, and ties were neatly hung up. Dress shoes were arranged in a straight row against the wall.

  Joshua picked up a pair of shiny leather dress shoes. “I’m guessing this side of the closet is for the up-tight executive.”

  Cameron picked up a sweater from the floor. “And this side is the easy-going truck driver.”

  J.J. held up two cell phones from the dresser. “He had both families completely separated right down to the phones.”

  “Madison is—” Joshua looked at J.J. to confirm. “Isn’t she the same age as Tracy?”

  “They graduated the same year in high school.”

  “Could John have been a bigamist and gotten away with it for like twenty-five—”

  “Sherry Whitaker says they were married for twenty-seven years,” Cameron said. “And now I’m thinking someone found out about it. Davis or Whitaker or whatever his name is took ten thousand dollars out of Davis’s savings account on Friday—the day he was killed. He got cash. I can’t find anything to account for where that money went to.”

  “Seeing this,” Joshua said, “the first thing to comes to my mind is blackmail.”

  “What role does Bishop Moore play in all this?” J.J. asked.

  “Is there even a Bishop Moore?” Joshua asked. “Take a look at this place. I couldn’t even find any mail addressed to occupant.”

  “Minimal furniture and food in the kitchen,” Cameron said. “This is just a crash pad for Davis-slash-Whitaker to change from one personality to the other. I doubt if Bishop Moore even exists. I’ll still run a background check on him.”

  “Then the question remains,” J.J. asked, “which identity was the intended murder victim? John Davis or Shawn Whitaker?”

  Chapter Eight

  One would have found it difficult to believe that Cameron outranked Tony when he arrived at Bishop Moore’s apartment. The forensics team had only just started examining it for evidence of John Davis’s murder.

  “Are you kidding me?” The young detective laid into Cameron after she finished showing the crime scene investigators where she had found traces of blood in the kitchen. “You brought your husband to uncover crucial evidence, but left me at the office filling out a missing person’s report?” He gestured to where Joshua was leaning against the wall across from the ground floor apartment in the open stairwell.

>   “We needed the information from the missing person’s report to follow up on my suspicion that Davis and Whitaker are the same man,” Cameron said.

  “A suspicion you kept from your partner,” Tony said. “Yet you had no problem bringing in your husband, who isn’t even a member of the police force.”

  “You’re sounding like a jealous girlfriend.”

  “And you’re acting like a first-class—”

  “Hey, Cam, is that Kevin Bacon ever there?” Joshua blurted out to cut Tony off.

  Both detectives stopped to glare in his direction. Joshua crooked at finger at Cameron. Her eyes blazing, she stepped across the breezeway.

  “He’s right,” Joshua told her in a soft whisper.

  “Are you—”

  “You’ve always been the subordinate team member. Your partner has always outranked you. Think about it. If any of your partners had left you out in the cold, the way you did Tony—”

  “Hey, you invited yourself here,” she said with a hiss. “I didn’t.”

  “But who invited J.J.—after sending Tony back to the office?” Joshua shrugged his shoulders.

  “I never did played well with others.” With a low growl, she crossed the breezeway. “Okay, Seavers. You were right.”

  Tony’s eyes grew big. He shot a glance in Joshua’s direction before asking, “What was I right about?”

  “I should have read you in and invited you to follow up this lead with me instead of sending you back to the office.”

  “All right!” Tony pumped his fist up into the air.

  “Don’t get cocky,” she said. “I’m still your supervisor, and I can get your ass demoted. So don’t mess with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tony nodded his head. “Apology accepted.”

  “I didn’t apologize.”

  “But you just said you were wrong.”

  “I never said I was wrong. I said you were right.”

  “But if I was right, then that means you were wrong.”

  “Are you arguing with me, detective?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good,” Cameron said. “Now that we have that sorted out, let’s get back to the case. The murder weapon is the same type and brand of knife missing from the block in the kitchen. If we’re right, the victim was leading a double life, which means we have at least two suspects with motive to kill him in a crime of—”

  “Assuming they knew about his double life,” he said.

  “Did Sherry Whitaker give you the phone number for her husband’s dentist? Let’s have him compare Whitaker’s latest x-rays with our murder victim.”

  “How about the guy renting this apartment?” Tony asked.

  “Bishop Moore,” she said. “No one knows where he is.”

  “I’m betting he’s in the morgue listed under the name John Davis,” Joshua said. “The phone number listed on his apartment lease is for a travel agency in Youngstown that went out of business ten years ago.”

  “Run a background check on Bishop Moore,” Cameron told Tony. “I’m thinking someone knew about Davis’s double life. He withdrew ten thousand dollars out of his savings on the same day he was killed. We need to find out what that withdrawal was for. Hunt down everything you can about Bishop Moore, starting with finding out if he’s even a real person. Also, don’t forget to get in touch with Shawn Whitaker’s dentist so that we can find out if he’s alive or dead.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tony spun on his heels and took out his tablet to get to work. As he hurried away, Joshua noticed the apartment manager and a woman in an electronic wheelchair watching from the end of the walkway.

  Turning away, Joshua noticed a security camera erected in the upper corner of the breezeway. It was aimed at the walkway leading to the parking lot. “Where are these security recordings kept?” he called to the apartment manager.

  A sheepish expression filled Ross Bayles’s face. He trotted up the walkway before answering in a low voice. “Nowhere.”

  “What do you mean ‘nowhere?’” Joshua asked, though he suspected he knew the answer. The security cameras were for show, in hopes of scaring away potential criminals.

  “People kept breaking them or they’d break on their own,” Ross said. “They were more trouble than they were worth. So …” His voice trailed off.

  Clad in a heavy winter coat, a woman with short salt and pepper hair trotted around the crowd of curious onlookers. Digging into her handbag, she craned her neck to study the police activity. With a pleasant grin in Joshua’s direction, she extracted a key chain.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Ross said before flashing a pleasant grin at the tenant heading toward them.

  Realizing that he was blocking the door to her apartment, Joshua stepped aside.

  “What’s going on?” she asked while turning the key in the deadbolt to her door.

  “Police are investigating a suspected crime scene.” Not wanting to give away too much information on an open case, Joshua tried to be as vague as possible.

  She pulled the key from the deadbolt. “Is Bishop okay?”

  “We’re still investigating.”

  “I assure you our apartments are completely safe and secure,” Ross said before hurrying away.

  “Did you know the man who lived in that apartment?” Joshua asked.

  She hesitated before nodding her head. “He’s very nice. Charming even. He travels a lot in his job with the travel agency. He’ll bring me little gifts from places he’s been.”

  “What kind of gifts?”

  “Little things. Nothing really expensive, but sweet stuff.” She opened the door and invited Joshua into her apartment. The layout was identical to the one across the stairwell.

  After setting her purse on the kitchen table, she pointed at a blue painted vase with paper flowers acting as center piece. “He brought me that vase from France.”

  He picked up the vase to examine it. “I didn’t catch your name, by the way?”

  With a laugh, she said, “How stupid of me? I just assumed with all the police around that you were a detective.”

  “Lawyer.” He shook her hand. “Joshua Thornton.”

  “Rosie Danza. Let me show you what else he brought me.” She hurried to a curio cabinet in the living room.

  Joshua read a tiny label on the bottom of the vase. “Duty Free.”

  “Bishop brought me this doll from China.” Rosie went on to show him a wide variety of gifts she had received from her neighbor. Many were small decorative items or jewelry.

  “He certainly has given you a lot of nice things,” Joshua said while examining many of them. “What was exactly your relationship with Mr. Moore?”

  “Now you sound like a detective investigating a murder.” Her smile fell. “We were just friends. Maybe I hoped that we could have become more later on, but I’ve been gun shy since my divorce and he knew that. We’d just have dinner once in a while. That’s all.”

  “When was the last time you saw your neighbor?”

  “Did something bad happen to—” She gasped. “They killed him, didn’t they?” She dropped onto the sofa. “I knew I should have called the police, but I didn’t want to seem like one of those nosy busybody neighbors.”

  “Right now, no one knows where Bishop Moore is.” Joshua sat next to her. “What happened? When did you think about calling the police?”

  She took in a shuddering breath. “I think …” She paused. “Friday. It was Friday night. It was after dinner. Seven. Maybe it was closer to eight? I’m not sure. But I heard a lot of yelling and he’s usually very quiet. Very. So it was unusual. It was a big loud fight.”

  “Physical?”

  Rosie shook her head. “Yelling. Shrieking. Crying. Definitely two women and him. But they were doing all the talking.”

  “Two? You’re sure.”r />
  Rosie pointed out her living room window to the parking lot. “I was nosy enough to look out the window after I heard the door slam shut over there. I saw two women leaving. They went down the walkway and over to the visitors’ lot. I didn’t see what they were driving when they left.” She bit her bottom lip. “To tell you the truth, I only saw them go down the walkway.” Her eyes grew wide. “Maybe they doubled back and did something awful to Bishop.”

  “Could you describe them?”

  “Tall. Skinny. Pretty, I’m sure. I didn’t see either of their faces, but I saw their backs. One was blond. The other was brunette.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “Was he dismembered?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Joshua asked.

  “I heard what sounded like a saw later on that night. It not something that you usually hear around here. That’s why I wondered if maybe they killed him and cut him into little pieces and carried him away. I mean, think about it. How would they have gotten rid of the body?” She noticed Joshua looking at her with curiosity. “I read a lot of murder mysteries.”

  There was a knock in the door. Rosie jumped to her feet to answer it.

  Cameron was in the doorway. “Have you seen a good-looking man with silver hair?”

  Rosie swept her arm in Joshua’s direction. “He’s all yours.”

  “He most certainly is.” Cameron crooked her finger for Joshua to follow her. “The investigators have located our crime scene.”

  Joshua followed her into the kitchen where they had dimmed the lights in order to illuminate the floor and cabinets under an ultraviolet lamp. The floor and cabinets glowed with purple streaks and blood splatters.

  “We sprayed the area with luminal and this is what we turned up,” the head of the crime scene unit explained. “Based on all this blood, this is definitely a crime scene. They did a good job of covering it up. Some of the blood had drained into the seams for the linoleum.”

  “I bet the killer used bleach to clean it up,” Cameron said.

  “We found traces of bleach all right,” the investigator said. “But he did miss a few drops of blood that splattered onto the underside of the cupboard above the sink.” He pointed to the upper cabinet. “We’ll be able to get DNA. If it’s a match to your victim, then I believe you found a crime scene.”