Justice Buried Read online

  “Then let’s try to finish our meeting before they get here,” Tomlinson said. “Tell us what you’ve learned about the camera feed.”

  Kelsey refocused her mind on the security details they’d been discussing. “Not much more than I already suspected. His normal mode of operation is to insert a recorded film that loops until he removes it, but evidently it malfunctioned Saturday night, resulting in the blank screen. Then yesterday, he inserted video into all the outside cameras. And all the IP addresses trace back to the Ben Hooks Library.”

  “Could the killer work there?” Tomlinson asked.

  “No,” Jackson replied. “Well, he could, but according to my IT, he’s more than likely just using their Wi-Fi. Do you have anything else to add?”

  “No. I’m still comparing camera feed against the incidents of theft, and as soon as I have my results, I’ll bring them to you.” Kelsey stretched her shoulder muscles. “We’ve been here for over an hour. I think I’ll run to the café and grab a peach tea. Can I get you gentlemen anything?”

  After they declined, she walked to the café. Had Brad discovered something about her father? But why would he want to talk to the other two? Another thought disturbed her. Perhaps she should have told them she had asked Brad to find her father. She was almost surprised that Tomlinson had not mentioned her father in all of this. He’d been at the museum then—she’d looked at his employment records, along with all the others. Surely Tomlinson noticed the similarities in the thefts. It was almost as if her father had returned and somehow found a way to steal the current items.

  Brad and Rachel Sloan were seated in Tomlinson’s office when she returned with her tea. She had not been expecting the detective. “That was fast,” she said, returning to her seat. “You two must have been close.”

  “We were.”

  She was puzzled by Brad’s terse words. “What’s going on?” she asked and took her former seat.

  “Yes, why did you want to see us?” Tomlinson asked, and Jackson nodded in agreement.

  Brad took out his notepad as Rachel stood. Evidently she was doing the talking, but something about them both was off-kilter.

  “I need any files you have on the P .38 automatic that was used in the 1954 assassination attempt in the House of Representatives. My information indicates it was stolen by Paul Carter,” she said, sending Kelsey an apologetic nod.

  “That’s your turf,” Jackson said, looking at Tomlinson.

  The director shifted in his chair. “The, uh, gun in question was donated by one of the men who was wounded back in 1954. Those files are archived.”

  “Can you pull them?” Rachel asked.

  “I suppose, if it’s important.”

  Kelsey sat, stunned. Why were they asking about items her father stole? Did they actually think he was the killer? She leaned forward. “Why is this gun important?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Jackson said.

  Rachel and Brad exchanged glances, then he said, “The bullets taken from Hendrix’s and Rutherford’s bodies as well as a slug Detective Sloan retrieved after yesterday’s shooting all match the gun used in the 1954 shooting.”

  Blood drained from Kelsey’s face. “Are you saying my father is the murderer?”

  Jackson turned to her. “You’re Paul Carter’s daughter?”

  “Yes.” She should have told him before now. “And if that makes any difference about my job, well—”

  “No, I’m just surprised.”

  But she saw the doubt in his eyes. “Mr. Rutherford didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” Jackson turned to Tomlinson. “Did he tell you?”

  “Didn’t say a word,” he said. “But now that I know and thinking about her résumé, it’s not surprising.”

  Kelsey didn’t know if he was complimenting her or not.

  The director turned to her. “But if I’m right that the detectives here are suggesting your father may be behind all of this, will that affect your performance?”

  Would it? “No. I want to catch this murdering thief no matter who it is.” But surely her own father wouldn’t be trying to kill her? Unless he didn’t know what she looked like. She turned to Brad. “Do you think my father has returned to Memphis and is he the person you’re trying to catch?”

  Brad looked as though he’d bit into a lemon, and Rachel . . . she just looked miserable. “Never mind,” Kelsey said. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  29

  “KELSEY, I’M SORRY, but we don’t have enough information to make that call,” Rachel said.

  “But it is a possibility?”

  Brad could barely stand to see the pain their questions were causing Kelsey. But she was holding up. Probably would hate him when she found out the truth. But he totally agreed with Rachel that they would get more information if no one knew Paul Carter was dead.

  “I’d say the MO for the thefts is the same,” Tomlinson said.

  “And how would you know this?” Brad asked.

  “I had already been working here a couple of years before Carter left. Started at the bottom and worked my way up. And I remember when we learned the gun was stolen.” He nodded at the security director. “You were here as a summer intern, if I recall correctly.”

  “I was, and was questioned like everyone else.” Jackson frowned. “Say, didn’t Mark work here as well?”

  “My brother?” Tomlinson shrugged. “I don’t believe he’d started to work here yet.”

  Mark Tomlinson. Brad flipped through his notepad to the names he’d jotted down when he went through Sergeant Warren’s files on Carter and found Mark’s name. It was in the list under people the sergeant had questioned after Carter’s disappearance—right next to Robert Tomlinson. Interesting. “So there was no confirmation anything was missing until Carter left?”

  Jackson and Tomlinson exchanged glances. “There were rumors floating around that pieces had disappeared, but he would have been the last person anyone suspected,” Jackson said.

  Kelsey’s pencil hit the table with a slap and she stood. “Do you mind if I go to my office? I’m not contributing anything, and I have work to do.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Brad said and Rachel agreed. The other two might talk more freely with her out of the room, and he didn’t want to see her hurting the way she was. “I’ll come by your office before I leave.”

  Her look indicated he needn’t bother. Once the door closed, he turned back to the two men. “Is there anyone currently working at the museum who was here when Carter disappeared?”

  “My assistant, Helen Peterson . . . Julie Webb,” Tomlinson said, then he turned to Jackson. “Whatever happened between you and Julie? You two were quite the hot item.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jackson snapped.

  “Saw you one time up in the attic, putting away boxes of files. Or at least that’s what you were supposed to be doing.”

  Jackson shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  In spite of his protest, Brad noted the relationship in his notes and added Webb’s and Peterson’s names. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought to interview Helen Peterson. Fact was, he’d barely noticed her at all. The woman seemed to fade into the background. “How long has Ms. Peterson worked here?”

  Tomlinson and Jackson exchanged glances. “I think this is the only place she’s ever worked,” Tomlinson said.

  Interesting. “Can you think of anyone else?”

  “I’ll have to run a query and see how many employees we have with twenty-eight or more years.” He scratched his jaw. “Couldn’t be that many.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Brad said. “A couple more questions, and then we’ll let you two get back to work. Do either of you know if the ammunition was kept with the stolen gun?”

  “I don’t know about then, but it wouldn’t be now,” the director said. “We keep any ammunition well away from the firearms we currently have. But Julie could answer that question, since
she was working as an assistant to the collections manager back then.”

  “Well, I want to thank you two for answering our questions,” Rachel said and smiled at the two men. “We may be back with more, so would you mind kicking that time around in your mind, see what shakes out?”

  Tomlinson nodded, but Jackson folded his arms across his chest. “You’ve asked what we think. Now I want to ask what you think happened.”

  Brad sat back and let Rachel field the question. He thought she should have asked more questions, but she was a good detective. He’d just have to trust that she knew what she was doing.

  “We don’t have enough information to hazard a guess, because that’s all it would be. What we do know is that the murders and the attack on Kelsey are connected because of the gun.”

  “Those bones that showed up here—are they connected to any of this?” Jackson asked.

  Tomlinson almost choked on a sip of Perrier water. “Don’t even breathe that possibility,” the director said. “A glut of calls have hit the museum already over Rutherford’s death. Don’t add to it. And for all we know, that box may have been a prank and not even real bones.”

  “Is that true?” Jackson said, turning to Rachel. “That the bones are fake?”

  “Unfortunately, they are real bones. Dr. Caldwell at the Forensic Center is doing an autopsy on them,” Rachel answered for Brad. “But Mr. King, I’d like to ask how well you knew Troy Hendrix. In looking over Rutherford Security’s financial records that your secretary provided, I noticed checks made out to him.”

  Brad stilled. This was the question he wanted answered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Rutherford Security, the company you are a partner in, was paying Hendrix for some type of service.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but give me a second.” Jackson took out his phone and dialed a number. When someone answered, he said, “Was Troy Hendrix working for us?”

  A minute later, he thanked them and hung up. “He’s the accountant who handles our taxes and a few other things like the financial forms for a government contract dealing with a security job due the first of the month. It seems I have a lot to learn about the company.”

  “So you didn’t know?”

  “No. I’ve invested in a lot of the business but I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations. Rutherford handled that sort of thing in the past, and I don’t know who will handle it now. Not me for sure, since I’m not a numbers person.”

  “What percentage of the business do you own?”

  “Forty-nine percent. Rutherford’s part went to his heirs, but I hope to buy them out.”

  Brad wrote Rutherford’s heirs on his pad with a dash. Check the security company’s net worth. Money was always a motive for murder. And even though the three murders appeared to be connected, they might not be, at least not for the same reason.

  Kelsey set the miniature bareback rider and brush she was using to clean it on the table and pulled off the latex gloves. She had immersed herself in cleaning the pieces of the miniature circus, hoping to put the question of whether her father could be the murderer from her mind.

  But the fact that a bullet from a gun her father supposedly stole had been fired at her wouldn’t go away. The same gun had been used on Mr. Rutherford and Hendrix. Hendrix. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, trying to bring up the image of the silhouette she’d seen through the window last Thursday night.

  Suddenly light flashed in her mind, and for a scant second, a face appeared. Then it was gone. She tried to force the image back. But it was no use.

  She stood and walked to the window. Raising it, she breathed in the scents of honeysuckle and rhododendron below the window. Somewhere a siren wailed and the whop-whop of a helicopter drew her gaze to the sky. A blue-and-white medical chopper was flying toward downtown.

  There’d been a helicopter Thursday night, something she’d almost forgotten. Could that have been the flash of light? The office was a corner room . . . the strobe lights had almost illuminated her. Could they have swept by the other window, putting the man in full view? It had only been for a second, but long enough for his face to register somewhere in her brain.

  Or her brain was playing tricks on her. She would wait and see if it happened again before she told anyone. She turned as someone knocked on her open door. Helen Peterson.

  “May I come in?” she asked.

  “Sure. I was taking a break from the circus.”

  Helen entered her office. Again, she was dressed conservatively, this time in white linen slacks and a pale blue jacket over her darker blouse. She pointed to the bareback rider. “I don’t envy you, restoring all these small pieces.”

  “I’m actually enjoying it,” Kelsey said and sat behind her desk. She’d marveled at the detail Clyde Parke had put into the figures he carved. The man had loved woodworking and had spent twenty-five years creating his masterpiece. Knowing that she was restoring something created in 1930 satisfied the part of her that loved being a conservator.

  “What?” she asked at Helen’s wide-eyed stare.

  “Looks like a bunch of tedious work to me. I’m just surprised you’re taking so much time with it when it’s not your real job,” she said. “Mind if I sit?”

  Kelsey’s body tensed. “Of course not, but what are you talking about?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re really working for Jackson.”

  Why would Helen know that? Surely that information wasn’t in Kelsey’s employee file at the museum. “So Mr. Tomlinson confides in you?”

  She smiled. “Not really, but not much gets by me. You’ve spent way more time with Jackson than the conservator ever has, so there had to be a reason, and you just confirmed my suspicion.”

  Kelsey decided not to confirm nor deny her statement, but she would have to be more circumspect about meeting with Jackson. Hopefully, no one else had noticed. She picked up her brush and tapped it on the desk to knock out any dust. “How long have you worked here?”

  “Since I was eighteen. Started out as a guide for the tours and worked my way up to the director’s assistant. Robert is the third director I’ve worked directly with.” She hooked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “So, what do you do for fun?”

  “Not much.” The woman could change directions faster than Lily. “I read. And go to church on Sundays, entertain my niece . . .” Kelsey stopped. “And I climb rocks.”

  “Well, I’m having a party Saturday night, if you’d like to come.”

  Ms. Peterson must not be too observant if she didn’t know Kelsey had a bodyguard and someone shooting at her. Wouldn’t that ruin her party if he decided to attack? “Maybe. Can I let you know?”

  “Sure. It’s only Tuesday, and the party will be real casual.” Helen tapped her fingers on the chair. “I saw the police here earlier. Have they learned anything about yesterday’s shooter?”

  Finally, the reason for her being there. “Not that I know of,” she said. “Did you see anything?”

  “Oh goodness, no. I had gone to lunch.” She leaned forward. “Have you heard who the target was?”

  “Maybe there wasn’t a target, just some druggie firing a gun.”

  “Maybe.” Helen looked doubtful. “And what about those bones that arrived yesterday. What do you know about them?”

  “Nothing yet, except they aren’t ancient.”

  “Well, I think it’s odd that all of this is happening. Do you think these things are connected?”

  “Why would they be connected?” Kelsey glanced toward the miniature horse waiting for her to finish.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m hindering you from your work.” Helen stood. “But think about coming to my party.”

  “I will.” Not. The woman was just plain nosey. Kelsey couldn’t imagine spending a couple of hours being grilled by her at a party.

  30

  AFTER THEY LEFT THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE, Rachel
turned to Brad. “Scared you there for a minute, didn’t I.”

  Brad laughed. “I thought you’d forgotten to ask Jackson King about Hendrix and then moved into who got Rutherford’s share of the business.”

  “His answer makes what was complex even more so. What if the murders have nothing to do with the thefts?” Rachel said. “Hendrix was a CPA with ties to Rutherford, and worked a lot of accounts. He could have stumbled onto money laundering or some type of fraud and mentioned it to the wrong person.”

  “Or he could have discovered some type of discrepancy in the security firm’s books,” Brad said as they approached the hallway to the conservator’s office.

  “That’s true. What are you going to tell Kelsey?”

  He hooked his thumb in his belt. “I don’t know yet. Certainly not telling her about her father here. Cynthia Allen wants to be present when I do.” He snapped his fingers. “I haven’t called her back.”

  Rachel checked her watch. “I’ll be finished for the day by the time I stop by the Forensic Center to see if Dr. Caldwell has any new information.”

  After Rachel left, Brad dialed Cynthia Allen’s number, half hoping she wouldn’t answer. He hated delivering bad news over the phone. She answered on the second ring.

  “Did you find Dr. Gilbert?”

  “I did.”

  “What did you find out?”

  He hesitated.

  “The remains—it’s Paul, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “After you called earlier, I knew it had to be. I’ve never quite bought the idea that Paul stole those items and walked away from Kelsey.”

  “Do you know who was the first one to suggest the thief was your ex-husband?”

  “It was so long ago, I’ll have to think about that.” She paused. “When do you plan to tell Kelsey?”

  He thought a minute. “We’re supposed to go to the house on Snowden at five thirty for her to pick out what she wants to keep from the shed. If you can be there . . .”