SEALs of Honor: Taylor Read online

  “So,” she said, “did you and your buddies come up with any answers while I was sleeping?”

  “Several theories but, without evidence, we can’t really go in one direction or the other.”

  “I keep thinking, if I hadn’t gone out for lunch, maybe my boss would still be alive.”

  “And I keep thanking God that I took you out for lunch because chances are you’d be dead if I hadn’t.”

  “I know,” she said, “that was my second thought.”

  “One of our thoughts was that, considering how your boss didn’t want you to leave for lunch, maybe it was his job to keep you there.”

  “You mean, to be killed?” she asked, horror threading through her voice. “Why would he do that?”

  “First, we don’t know that he did,” Taylor said. “And, second, if you were to be killed, it doesn’t make sense that it would have been there. Personally, I think they were looking at you to carry the blame for whatever the hell was going on.”

  “Well, they already tried that,” she said, “and it didn’t work.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “So why is it that they’re not trying again? Well, they probably did, because, if they were after you, maybe they were trying to force you to do something for them. And, if that wasn’t the answer, maybe they were hoping, by killing your boss, you would be in hot water again.”

  She shuddered. “That’s not just a lot of hate,” she said, “that’s a completely sadistic attitude.”

  “It is, indeed,” he said, “and definitely not one we want to consider, but we have to.”

  “Is there anything we can do though?”

  “We spent some time trying to map the relationships between all the victims.”

  She studied him carefully, the question evident in her face. “Relationships?”

  He nodded. “We set aside our assumptions and started from scratch and discovered, for example, that your boss and Gary were actually uncle and nephew.”

  Her jaw slowly dropped. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Really.”

  She shook her head. “I had no idea.”

  “I know,” he said, “and we don’t know who else, if anyone, might have known each other or been related to each other. But, if your boss was acting ugly, it might well have been because he had just found out his nephew was dead.”

  She gasped and said, “Yes, he was so upset, and we didn’t really understand why.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We’re still looking for a relationship between Gary and your boss to the old couple downstairs.”

  She shook her head. “I thought they were killed to get keys to my place?”

  “That was our first thought,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right or that it’s the whole answer. It’s possible it has nothing to do with any of it, and something else altogether is involved.”

  She sighed. “I can’t imagine Mr. and Mrs. Parkins were involved in anything mean or ugly. They are way too nice. Or were, I guess.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t somehow connected, like, what if they refused to do something and that got them killed?”

  She couldn’t believe there would be a connection at all. After a few moments of silence, Midge spoke again, her voice much softer. “That’s a little too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?” she asked slowly. “Two people, blood relatives. One killed in my apartment, and one killed at my place of work? And on a day that no one else happened to be there.”

  In a very gentle voice, he said, “Now you can understand why the cops are interested in you, right?”

  “Are they on their way here again?” she asked, a perfect segue.

  He winced. “Yeah, they are.”

  She nodded dully and stared out across the balcony. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we ate a light meal,” she said. “I’ll be wanting to throw up when the questioning starts.”

  “I told them that you weren’t doing that well, and they needed to keep their questions short.”

  She waved a hand. “We have to do whatever we can,” she said. “Four people are never coming back and have no chance to do anything. The sooner the cops figure out it wasn’t me, the sooner they can move on. I also need to know what I’m supposed to do about my job.”

  “I would presume you are to wait for permission to return to work. I can confirm that for you,” Taylor said, texting Mason. “Somebody will track that information down and let me know.”

  “Did they ever find out what happened to my coworkers?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” he said. “We’ll ask the detective when he gets here.”

  She nodded, and Taylor stood as the teakettle whistled. “What can I get you?”

  “I don’t even know if I want anything anymore,” she said, depressed. “Anything that goes into my stomach now will just want to come back up when they start in on me.”

  “Hey now, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said firmly. “Remember that, and don’t let them treat you as if you’re a suspect.”

  “I am a suspect,” she cried out, jumping to her feet. “Two men—one in my bed, one in my office. Not to mention the couple downstairs. That all means I’m involved and a suspect. I just don’t know how or why.”

  Taylor grabbed her by the shoulders, then gave her a very gentle shake. “I get that. And honestly, the cops probably do too. Sure, they’re looking for a connection, but what they’re really looking for is what you know—even if you don’t know that you know it.”

  She stared up at him and blinked.

  “Did you get that?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, “surprisingly, I did. That actually makes sense.” He walked into the kitchen, and she followed him. “So, did you figure out if you have any tea?”

  He opened a drawer and said, “A collection of stuff is in here. If you find anything you like, help yourself.”

  She sorted through the drawer and mulled over her options, eventually choosing an Earl Grey because she had seen some milk in his fridge. She made herself a cup, and, when it was ready, she took it out to the balcony and sat down again. Then hopped to her feet, walked back over and grabbed her phone. “I wonder how we can find out what other relatives either of them had.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, somebody hated them enough to kill them,” she said. “I get that maybe they hated me more and wanted to set me up for this. But the thing is, I can’t imagine someone killed these two men in cold blood just to make a point.”

  “People have done that many times over,” he said calmly as he stood at her side.

  “I know that,” she said, “but I want there to be another reason. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at every stranger, wondering if he’ll shoot me to prove a point.”

  Just then came a knock on the door. She froze and then sagged in place. “It’s the cops, isn’t it?”

  “Good, if it is,” he said forcefully. “The sooner they get here, the sooner they can leave.” Turning, he headed back into the apartment.

  She put down her phone and sat quietly, waiting.

  *

  Taylor opened the door and smiled at the detective and another officer. “She’s not been awake very long, but we did get a bite to eat. She’s sitting on the balcony, having a cup of tea.”

  The two men nodded, and he led them to the small balcony for yet another set of questions. There wasn’t a lot of room, so he deliberately sat down beside her as the two men stood. He watched as they assessed the color in her face, as if wondering if she would cry or explode at them.

  “I told her that you were coming,” he said. “So, let’s get some of these questions answered, so you can move on to the next task.”

  “We don’t have too many more, so it won’t take long.” Butler turned to Midge. “We’ve confirmed you had lunch with Taylor at the restaurant. And that he dropped you off at the door of your office. The video cameras and security systems for the front en
trance were disabled, so we don’t have any clear view of when you arrived. But Taylor says he watched you walk in the door.”

  “There should be a security code tracking system,” she said. “I had to use my key to get in because the office door was locked.”

  The two cops straightened. “It was locked? Because the back door wasn’t.”

  Midge nodded. “Yes. I unlocked it, wondering if my boss had gone out for lunch himself or had just locked the door so he didn’t have to deal with anyone who came in. However, I didn’t check the back door. I just sat down and got to work. The phone lines were buzzing like crazy. I answered a few to clear them. Then I put the system on Silent, so I couldn’t hear it. It’s been an absolute nuthouse there, and, in an office of five, it was only me. I started in on the emails and some of the work, trying to prioritize the most critical. Then it seemed to me that everything went really quiet. Like, all of a sudden, I realized something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t right that I hadn’t seen or heard from my boss in all the time I’d been back. Nobody had come in or left. I got up and went back to his office. I knocked, and, when there was no answer, I tried the door and pushed it open. That’s when I saw him.”

  “Exactly what did you see?”

  “He was sitting in his chair, like always, leaned back a little. First, I thought he was asleep. It was surreal as I noted a bullet hole in his forehead.” She exhaled, as if trying to stay calm. “I’m pretty sure it’s exactly the same as what you saw.”

  “Did you happen to check if anybody was in the place? Either when you first arrived or at this point?”

  She gave him a shocked stare. “The only thing I was looking to do was staying safe.”

  “And yet, you didn’t run back outside.”

  Midge frowned. “No, I didn’t. And I don’t know why. Instead, I ran into the storage room and hid and called Taylor.”

  “So, from that position, you don’t know if anybody left the office, do you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t. I guess I should have run out to the front and stopped anybody from coming in.” She held out her hands, palms up. “I really have no idea why I did what I did,” she said, “but that’s what happened.”

  “Taylor, can you confirm the position of her boss when you saw him?”

  Taylor nodded. “Yes. It was just as she said. I didn’t see anybody when I arrived, not more than ten minutes after her call, I think.”

  “Ten minutes can be a long time,” the officer said.

  “That’s true,” Taylor said. “Do you have any reason to believe somebody else was in there?”

  “While I was there?” she cried out. “Is that possible?”

  “We don’t know,” he said. “We’re just trying to see if there was time for somebody else to have arrived. The body was just as you described it when we got there. So, maybe there was someone, and maybe there wasn’t.”

  “Or are you thinking somebody hid in the room, and, with her coming in, they couldn’t leave?”

  The detective shot him a look, and Taylor knew they were wondering that very thing.

  “But, if the security cameras were down, you have no way to know if anybody was there or not. Correct?”

  “Correct. Though a woman did see a man fleeing the building about ten minutes before you called us.”

  “Meaning, he would have been somewhere in that office the whole time I was there,” Midge asked, “and then heard me go past the office and hide in the storage room? And then he ran out?”

  “It’s possible,” the detective said.

  She shuddered. “Jesus! Why the hell didn’t I just leave? I could have called you from outside,” she cried out, looking at Taylor. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Look. In retrospect, you shouldn’t have been in that office in the first place,” he said, “not with everything that’s been going on.”

  “And yet, you wanted me to spy on everyone there?” she said, half humorously.

  “Only to find out that nobody was there,” he said, “so that didn’t work out so well, did it?”

  She looked at the two cops. “Did you track down my missing coworkers?”

  “That’s still in progress,” the detective said, “and I haven’t heard an update.”

  “Do you know about Gary Sims and my boss being related?” she asked, almost throwing it out as a challenge. To see whether Taylor and his buddies had done as good of a job as the cops, or if the cops had already found that out.

  The detective looked up at her and said, “Really?”

  She glanced over at Taylor.

  “Apparently,” he said. “We ferreted that information out about an hour or so ago. Looks like they were uncle and nephew.”

  “Do you know anything about the relationship?”

  “No,” Taylor said.

  “No,” Midge confirmed.

  Taylor continued, “We didn’t know anything about it at all until we started searching, looking for any connections between the four victims.”

  The detective pursed his lips, then nodded. “Good angle,” he said. “On the surface they all look like they have nothing to do with each other. But evidently they do. Did you find any connection with the other two?”

  “No, not yet anyway,” Taylor said. “But it seems to me there has to be something more involved for all four of them to be killed like that.”

  “And yet, we were under the assumption maybe it was to get access to her apartment.”

  “That made sense to me at first too,” Midge said. “But, the more I thought about it, killing is an extreme answer if you’re just looking for a key. Maybe they couldn’t have broken into my apartment, but they sure as heck could have just crept inside the manager’s apartment and grabbed the keys and left. They didn’t have to walk up to the bed and shoot them.” She blew out a breath. “Do you have anything new about any of this to add?” she asked. “Have you found anything out?”

  Both cops shook their heads.

  She groaned. “I just want this over with.”

  “Well, in that case, I highly suggest you stay in one place. Because it seems like, wherever you go, people get killed,” the detective said, his voice hard. “And please don’t leave town.”

  Midge stiffened and glared at him. “Do you really think I killed those four people?”

  “I don’t know what to think yet,” he said. “What I can say is that I have no reason to take you off the suspect list. And that’s just as important as trying to put you on it. You have no good alibi for when this guy was supposedly killed in your apartment and how you didn’t know anything about it. Yet you were home and seen by Taylor here right around the time he was killed.”

  “No,” she cried out. “I told you that I was coming home, and then I got called back into work because of all these hacking problems and a sick employee. I’m not supposed to do overtime, and I was already not supposed to be working that day.”

  “Yes, but according to the clock, you left work at your normal time, or a little bit early. Actually ten minutes early, which would have put you back at your apartment. So, what if you came home, shot him and then left? Then you realized maybe you’d left the door open, or maybe you needed an alibi, so you stopped here at Taylor’s to tell him his door was open. That gave you an alibi for just getting home, and then you turned around and walked back out again. We didn’t get a chance to talk to your boss about you being called back into work, so we only have your word for that.”

  Taylor watched as she started to shake, looking shocked. He grabbed her hand and asked, “Where’s your phone?”

  She looked at him, not comprehending.

  He spotted the phone on her lap, then snatched it up and said, “Unlock it.”

  She quickly did as he asked, then handed it back to him.

  “So did Shorts call you or text?”

  “He called me,” she said in a daze.

  Taylor looked through her recent calls. “What is the office number there?”
<
br />   She shook her head. “I can’t even think. I’m sorry.”

  He looked it up on the website and said, “Well, no incoming calls from the office to you show up on your phone, at least not the published number.”

  She stared at him confusion. “What? Are you serious?”

  He nodded.

  “So, he used his own phone to call me? I don’t understand that.”

  “It doesn’t matter right now,” Taylor said. “What I need to do is find the call.”

  She went through her calls and pointed out the one. “This one. See?” She passed it back to him. “And look. It came in just as I was coming into the apartment.”

  “What did you do from the time you left work to the time you got home? That’s a five-minute drive at the very most,” the detective said.

  She twisted around to look at him. “I went to the bank. My face should be on the security video there. I went in and took out some cash.”

  “Why didn’t you use an ATM machine?”

  “Too many people are robbed at those or have their card number stolen by some illegal reader attached to the machine. I don’t like using those machines,” she said. “Most of the time I just get extra cash back when I buy something. Most of the stores let you do that. This time I stopped by the bank and took the money out.” She shrugged. “I’ve certainly done it many times before.”

  “So then you came home?”

  She nodded. “Then I came home.”

  “If you took cash out, will it still be in your wallet?”

  She frowned and said, “Yes, I would imagine so. Any reason why it wouldn’t be?”

  In a voice very patient and slow, as if speaking to somebody who might be a little slow herself, he said, “And how much money did you take out?”

  “I took out two hundred dollars.”

  “So, if we open your wallet, will we find that money there, proving you did go to the bank and take that money out?”

  Taylor winced as she understood what the detective was saying.

  She glanced at him. “Well, I could go get my purse and check for you, but then you would probably accuse me of putting money in there right this moment to confirm my story.” Turning to Taylor, she asked, “Would you mind getting my purse for me?”