Murder in the Lighthouse (Beachcomber Mystery #4)

5

W ith a bit of digging, the internet gave up countless articles about the Upland murder. It had been a local mystery for years that haunted detectives: a mother of two and a schoolteacher were found dead in the woods with no leads or suspects. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the case had gone cold within six months. Barry and Marta had shared all they could remember about Bethany’s late nights poring over old reports and witness statements. The more they had revealed, the more Brogan and Lucien realized there was a possibility that Bethany’s disappearance might be connected to her investigation into the Upland murder.

“So the records clerk for the sheriff’s department is pulled into the unsolved crime enough that it drove her to dig deeper,” Brogan repeated as she sat across from Lucien inside his office. She glanced at the whiteboard they’d started. The pertinent data was now divided into three columns instead of two—one for Sam’s murder, one for Bethany’s disappearance, and one with a photo of Connie Upland used in a newspaper article dated 1999 tacked to the top. “My guess is that Bethany’s curiosity didn’t sit well with a busy homicide unit.”

“I often wonder why that is. You’d think detectives would be eager for a new set of eyes and input. But, of course, they aren’t. They’d be mostly assholes about a lowly records clerk snooping on their turf.”

“It’s a common theme, especially at the sheriff’s department.” When that statement got her a strange look, she added, “Brent used to be the sheriff, remember? I’ve had conversations with him about how he doesn’t like outsiders poking around in his cases. He claims that it all began while working for the county. If it’s someone who isn’t a part of their tight-knit group, they won’t even consider their contribution. Seems dumb to me. But you know how we’ve had to fight Brent tooth and nail to get him to listen to us. I bet Bethany was up against that same kind of resistance.”

“But she must have stumbled onto something significant to have put her in harm’s way. And would that mean that whoever or whatever caused her to disappear had something to do with the sheriff’s office?”

Brogan tapped her pen against the desk. “If it’s a common theme in law enforcement, probably. Egos and pride can get in the way of progress.”

He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. “We should find out who might have felt threatened by her investigation into the Upland murder.”

She pulled out her notebook, ready to jot down any pertinent information. But she realized they would likely get stonewalled by the same members of law enforcement who felt threatened by Bethany. “We have no access to her computer. We can’t check her search history, emails, or her contacts. They’ve already taken her personal laptop. But…”

“What?”

“We could go to the county website and check out each of the detectives listed in the homicide unit. Although we have no idea which one she talked to about the case, we can see which one is actively assigned to her disappearance and start there.”

“You do know that we’ll be stepping onto dangerous ground if they find out we’re investigating the investigators, right?”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

Lucien shook his head and stood up, energized. “But we need to find out all we can about the Upland murder, more than what’s in these old newspaper articles. If we discover the same thing Bethany uncovered, it might have us gaining ground in her disappearance.”

“Other than breaking into the records room at the county, how do you suggest we do that?”

Lucien rubbed the back of his neck. “Family. We’ll contact Connie Upland’s relatives. Let’s look up her daughters first, then go from there.”

It took them most of the afternoon to locate Connie’s relatives. Her husband had remarried long ago and moved out of state to Colorado. However, the two adult daughters lived in the Los Angeles area. They discovered Connie’s sister, Angela Manning, had remained in Santa Cruz all these years later. According to a newspaper article written on the tenth anniversary of the murder, Angela often bugged the local detectives for an update on her sister’s case, only to be told they didn’t comment on active investigations.

Talking to Angela seemed the best place to start. During the phone call, they huddled around the speaker phone in Lucien’s office while the sister opened up because she had plenty to say.

“When it first happened, I thought it might have been Rick who killed her,” Angela admitted.

“The husband, Rick Upland?”

“That’s right. But the police swore that Rick had an airtight alibi between four and five that afternoon when Connie left school. It turns out Rick was in a meeting with six other people. They told the cops he never left, not even to go to the bathroom. In fact, he didn’t arrive home that night until almost six-thirty and had to pick up the kids because Connie hadn’t.”

“Why did you suspect Rick? Was he abusive to Connie?”

“To my knowledge, he never hit her. But Connie had confided in me a few times about how unhappy she was in her marriage. She felt stifled, trapped. It wasn’t just Rick’s controlling nature, either. He had a temper, even with the girls. He had a way of making Connie feel small and insignificant. There were moments when I could see the fear in her eyes when something would piss him off.”

“Had she ever talked about leaving him?”

“Yes, she had. She had been considering divorce for a while but was worried about how Rick would react. She was afraid he wouldn’t let her take the kids or that he would make her life a living hell if she tried to divorce him.”

“Did Connie ever mention anyone who might have wanted to harm her?” Lucien asked.

“Not specifically, no. But she did mention that she’d met someone else. She told me this man was married, too. She talked about how messy her life had become, all because she’d married the wrong man.”

“Ah,” Brogan uttered. “Do you know anything at all about her mystery guy? Was he a teacher at the same school?”

“No. I think he was a cop. I remember she called him Keith. But I never knew his last name. I was with her when she bought a Valentine’s card for him and wrote Keith on the outside envelope.”

Brogan and Lucien traded surprised looks, but it was Brogan who asked, “What makes you think this Keith was in law enforcement?”

“Connie met him when he pulled her over in mid-December for running a stop sign. They’d been seeing each other ever since, for almost four months when she was murdered.”

Lucien rubbed his forehead and leaned closer to the phone. “Did the detectives know this at the time? Did you tell them about her affair?”

On the other end of the line, Angela grew quiet. She took so long to answer that Lucien was prepared to repeat the question. Instead, she cleared her throat. “No, I never told the detectives. I didn’t mention it to them until four years into the investigation. By that time, it was two new homicide detectives. When I talked to them, they didn’t seem all that familiar with the case.”

Brogan chewed her lip, her mind racing with new possibilities. “We need to talk to those detectives. Do you remember their names?”

“Ken Shepherd and Pete Davito. Two in a lengthy list who came and went.”

“If those two became aware of Connie’s affair with a cop, does that mean they might have covered it up?” Brogan speculated.

“Maybe,” Lucien noted, his determination evident. “We can try to track them down. They might be willing to talk to us if they’re no longer on the force.”

Angela was not that optimistic. “You won’t get them to break ranks. They’ll never admit they were wrong about anything. I know because the list of detectives who worked on the case is in double digits now. In all these years, none of them made any progress. Were they all idiots? I don’t think so. My experience after Connie was murdered wasn’t like you see on TV, on those crime shows. None of the detectives ever promised to find her killer. Not a one.”

Brogan could understand Angela’s anger. But she needed to get to the heart of the phone call. “Were you ever contacted by a woman named Bethany Heywood?”

“No. Why? Is she another detective?”

“No. But she’s gone missing. We have reason to believe that she was looking into your sister’s murder. You see, Bethany works for the sheriff’s department. She has access to all the homicide files. She was transferring old paper files to digital when she became interested in Connie’s murder.”

“Maybe she’ll have better luck than the detectives. Wait. You said she’s missing?”

“Yeah. And we’re trying to find out if your sister’s murder is connected somehow.”

Brogan ended the call after she offered to keep Angela in the loop. But she was far from satisfied with the turn of events. She sat, arms crossed, looking out the window. “Those original detectives didn’t have all the facts until four years later. How can you solve a murder without all the facts?”

“You can’t. But ask yourself why they didn’t learn about the affair themselves during those initial days and weeks after, which means they might’ve overlooked other crucial evidence that could’ve led them to the killer.”

“Is this what Bethany discovered in the files? Did she learn that Connie was having an affair with a cop? Was that detail buried in the files somewhere? Bethany must’ve discovered his name.”

“I’ll say it again. It’s times like this I wish we had access to the actual files. It seems we’re always playing catch up.”

“That’s what websleuths do,” Brogan pointed out. “They take on cold cases with little to go on. That’s what makes us so good at our job.”

“I can’t believe Angela didn’t come clean to the police about Connie’s affair. That’s a critical piece of the puzzle.”

“So, how do we find Shepherd and Davito?” Brogan wondered.

“We hit the internet. But before we travel down that path, let’s back up a minute. Does this give us a clear connection with Bethany Heywood? If it does, we need to expect the worst.”

“Why the worst scenario?”

“As I see it, if this guy lured Sam to the lighthouse and murdered him there—Bethany’s brother—then what do you think the outcome is for her, the person who, by all accounts, stirred the pot that led straight to Connie’s killer?”

“You’re thinking she’s already dead. We just haven’t found her yet.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Why would he keep her alive but kill Sam?”

“Bethany must’ve told Sam who she suspected was Connie’s killer.”

“If we’re on the right track,” Lucien cautioned. “Bethany’s disappearance and Sam’s murder might be connected to something else.”

“Like what?”

“Bethany had a problem with someone else at work. Maybe she left voluntarily.”

“And let her brother get killed over it? That’s cold. Heartless.”

“Self-preservation,” Lucien concluded.

“Still heartless. You’re reluctant to accuse a cop of murdering his mistress,” Brogan surmised.

“Accusing cops of murder is never high on my wish list,” Lucien admitted. “They’re the toughest cases to crack for obvious reasons. Imagine pulling Theo into our half-baked theory.”

“It’s not half-baked. It’s solid.”

“Is it? Are you one hundred percent certain?”

“Well, no. We don’t have all the facts yet.”

“Exactly my point. We need something a lot more solid that connects Bethany to Connie’s killer.”

“Okay. Without access to anything of value, how do we get that?”

“I have an idea. What if we went back to 1999, specifically around the time of Connie’s murder, and looked for anything unusual happening inside the county?”

“Talk about a needle in a haystack,” Brogan muttered.

“If you have a better idea…”

Resigned to the notion, she let out a sigh. “Where do we start?”

“Remember how Barry Heywood mentioned that Bethany believed Connie’s murder was the work of a serial killer?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was right there in the room when he said it.”

“Yeah. But that doesn’t match up with Connie getting killed by a cop. Suppose she thought Connie’s death was part of a serial killer’s MO. Bethany must’ve looked at other women, other cases in town, those who had been strangled and stabbed. We should start there.”

“Maybe the serial killer is also a cop,” she reasoned. “That would really cause a stir. That would definitely be enough to bring a killer out of hiding, enough to kill to protect his secret. That’s enough to get Bethany and Sam killed, right?”

“More than,” Lucien mumbled as he got to work.

Sitting across from each other, they started digging through the internet, aiming their searches at the Santa Cruz area in 1999, looking for other murders that were similar. It proved fruitful in many ways. Through links to newspaper articles, they discovered that the police department was under fire by internal affairs. Around the time of Connie’s murder, rumors swirled about corrupt cops. News articles revealed that copious quantities of seized drugs had gone missing from the evidence lockers. Shakedowns and frame-ups were commonplace. Residents reported that the number of illegal traffic stops had increased. A number of names were mentioned.

“For all we know, it’s not a direct connection to Connie Upland’s murder. But what if our suspect was part of that corruption and Connie somehow discovered it?”

“That’s a big if,” Lucien stated. “Connie was found nude. That usually indicates a sexual motive.”

“Her death could’ve been staged. I thought we were looking for a link to Connie. She’s dating a cop on the side. I say we check out the names of those involved in the corruption, eliminate any of them who aren’t married.”

“As long as we don’t get off track. Are we trying to solve Connie’s murder or Sam’s?”

“What’s wrong with solving all three, especially if you believe Bethany is already dead.”

Lucien lifted a shoulder. “Okay. Why not? But getting anyone to believe the same thing we do is sometimes impossible.”

“Then we’ll need to gather it all and take it to Theo, make him understand we aren’t delusional. He knows we aren’t kooks.”

“Easy to think that now,” Lucien muttered. “Where’s the list of names?”

They had checked out every name mentioned in the articles. A few had been forced out of the department. Some had taken early retirement. And not by choice. Others had quit and gone to work in the private sector, becoming glorified security guards. One had started his own company that specialized in fraud prevention for banks.

But one name stood out among all the others. Keith Shepherd, older brother to Kenneth, was forced out of the department in early 2000 under a cloud of suspicion and disappeared from the public eye altogether. They couldn’t locate his current address or any address in the past twenty-four years.

Lucien and Brogan exchanged a knowing look, realizing they might be onto something significant. Was this the same Keith, the same cop that Angela had mentioned? They delved deeper into his background, scouring the internet for any connection he might have had to Connie Upland.

As they dug further, they unearthed old news articles linking Keith Shepherd to shady dealings within the force. There were whispers of him being involved in drug trafficking and evidence tampering long before the scandal broke. And then, they stumbled upon a crucial piece of information—a connection between Shepherd and a rookie female cop named Jill Vosberg, who left the force before finishing her probationary period. She was later found strangled and stabbed in her apartment in June, just ten weeks after Connie’s murder.

It wasn’t exactly the smoking gun they had hoped for. The police connection to Connie Upland’s murder was tenuous at best. It still left them questioning what Bethany had discovered that had been so damaging.

Was it possible that Keith Shepherd had been involved in Connie’s death? Had his younger brother Kenneth been assigned to the case to make sure there was never a connection made to him? Had there been a coverup when Kenneth Shepherd and Pete Davito worked on Connie’s case?

Brogan finally broke the quiet tension. “It’s not a stretch to think Keith Shepherd might’ve killed Jill Vosberg. What if it’s not about the corruption scandal but about something far more personal that he didn’t want to get back to his wife? Like another affair.”

Lucien raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her line of thinking. “You think he could’ve gotten wind Bethany came across his name in the Upland file and connected him to Vosberg?”

“Possibly. He probably still has friends on the force, even though Kenneth retired five years ago. This time, he couldn’t rely on his brother to save him by derailing the investigation, so he had to act on his own.”

“How on earth would we ever be able to prove Bethany met Keith Shepherd that Sunday morning? Maybe this case is hopeless.”

Brogan stared at her husband. “What’s up with you? It’s not like you to be so negative. We’ve solved tougher cases than this one.”

He pointed to their whiteboard, meticulously detailing each victim. “I don’t know. It seems like we need more than that to keep it all straight.”

“What if we lay this out for Theo, layer by layer?”

He glared at Brogan. “You want to take this wild theory to a cop who just arrived in town, one who is already battling the perception with the public that he screwed up at the lighthouse? He’ll likely tell us to pound sand. And I couldn’t blame him.”

“We won’t know that until we try. It’s worth trying, Lucien.”

“Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when we get the cold shoulder.”

Brogan held her husband’s gaze, her resolve unwavering. “Theo is a good cop. Surely, he’ll see the connections once we lay it all out for him. We owe it to Bethany and Sam, no matter how far-fetched the idea may seem.”

Lucien let out a heavy sigh, knowing she was right. They couldn’t hold back something they both saw as important. “All right, let’s do it. We’ll gather everything we have on Keith Shepherd and his possible connection to both Connie Upland and Jill Vosberg and take it to Theo. We’ll let him decide how he wants to proceed. But if he kicks us out, we’ll still need to do our own thing.”

“Absolutely. No way will we let that deter us. Theo either gets on board, or we move forward without him.”