Chapter 30
Hector waited until Milo Cole had left the interrogation room before he let his head roll back. “I really hate people,” he muttered.
“I can’t hear that enough.” Chief Cherry Garret’s voice was dry as she stepped into the room.
He straightened and stood. “Chief,” he said with a nod. “Cole just left.”
“I know. I watched your interview.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He was new to the force here and it was a lot different from working in Seattle.
The politics, everything, was totally different, even though it wasn’t that far from the city.
But out here, he ended up dealing with the über-wealthy more often than not.
Some days he felt like he’d stepped into another world.
And with the exception of Cara Alexander’s murder, most of his cases had been property-related or domestic disputes.
“It was solid and you got him to open up more than I expected.” She leaned against the doorframe. Unlike his old boss, she was always dressed relatively casually. Today it was jeans, a button-down flannel, with a puffer vest layered over it.
He relaxed a little at her words. “I was surprised he didn’t ask for a lawyer.”
“Maybe it has something to do with that anonymous email you got this morning?”
He’d told her about it—he was keeping her heavily involved with this investigation. “Yeah, I’m guessing so. He seemed way more concerned about his wife discovering his affair.” Cole had been obsessed with her not finding out, even though he’d sworn that their marriage had been dead for years.
Hector had done a little digging, and from the social media pictures on his wife’s page, their marriage didn’t look dead at all.
“Who do you think sent it?” his boss asked, watching him carefully.
He didn’t see a reason to be vague. “Your friend’s employee…Sloane Gala.”
“You’re probably right. How’s her involvement going? She in your way?”
He wanted to say yes, but he shook his head.
“No. Now that I know Cole’s alibi is a lie, that means Ryan Chatelain’s is too.
” If Ryan had been with Hannah—as Milo seemed to believe— then she’d lied to him about her alibi too.
And so had her friend. He scrubbed his hand over his face.
“And I’ve found a weird pattern of…well maybe not a pattern, but there have been enough robberies in the neighborhood over the last few years that it bothers me. ”
“You’re investigating a murder. A high-profile one.”
“I know, but the motive is still murky.” And that was the thing.
The why. The goddamn why of it all. “Something about these robberies…they’ve all got to be inside jobs.
No way around it. But they happened spaced out enough, and were investigated by different detectives,” he added, because he didn’t want it to sound like he was throwing anyone under the bus, “that they were never linked. And going by the timeline and Hannah’s work proximity to all of them…
I think there’s something there.” He just wasn’t sure what yet, but his gut was telling him to dig deeper.
His boss simply nodded. “Keep me posted…but we need results.”
“I know.” He was going to get them, he had to. The Alexander family deserved justice. And some part of him, that he wasn’t sure he wanted to acknowledge, wanted Sloane to find closure more than anything.
***
Hector had been surprised when former detective Kevin Macmahon had been willing to meet up with him, but as he approached the man at the quiet booth in the back of the expensive seafood restaurant, he figured it was for the free meal.
Macmahon lifted a hand in greeting, even though he was the only single person sitting at one of the booths along the waterfront view.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” Hector said.
The other man nodded. “Of course. Those robberies always bothered me.” He had a slight East Coast accent—New Jersey, Hector guessed.
When the server approached and asked for his order, Hector simply said, “Coffee.”
“Nah, order something else. It’s on me,” the man said.
Hector must have been unable to hide his surprise, because Macmahon smiled.
“My wife’s out of town this week and I wanted to get out of the house. And I talked to Cherry, she told me what you’re working on.” He turned to the server, ordered two appetizers, then looked back at Hector once she left. “Ask anything.”
“In your notes, you had a star next to Hannah Brown’s name and some suspicion that she was involved in the robberies.
She’s only twenty-three and has no official record.
She passed the background checks to nanny and that’s not easy to do.
” At least not for the agency she contracted with.
They checked finances, fingerprints, past employers, everything.
Macmahon nodded, then paused as their server dropped off the coffee and some fancy creamer.
Which Hector would take, thank you very much. Better than the stuff at the station. As he stirred in the creamer, the retired detective answered.
“I know. But her mother was a different story. Mary Brown, also known as Mary Bailey, Mary Barnes, Mary Johnson, and I kid you not, Mary Berry. That one was a little ridiculous, but I’m sure she made it work for her.”
That last name was the same as a famous British baker but he didn’t seem to know that, so Hector kept it to himself. “Work for her?”
“She was a con artist who scammed men out of money all across the country. Made her way from Florida to Washington via a circuitous route. Landed in Seattle when Hannah was eighteen and ended up dying from cancer.” He shrugged.
“Hannah has never been charged with anything. Never even had a juvie record, but I did some digging. She was pulled in on suspicion of a few B&Es but never charged. She only got off because of her mother’s charm.
Her mother was apparently good with sob stories, and the few detectives I managed to get a hold of all told me the same story of a woman down on her luck, just trying to make a better life for her daughter.
She begged for a second chance, promised her daughter would never steal again.
It’s clear that she used Hannah as the fall guy because she was a minor.
And it worked because Hannah never had a record. ”
Macmahon rolled his eyes and continued.
“Something about the nanny always felt off to me, especially since she was conveniently gone—as in out of the state or city—when the robberies went down. And she always had dozens of pictures posted on social media during the time of the robberies. Or even live streams in some cases.”
“Maybe she really wasn’t involved.”
“Or maybe she has a partner. I don’t know. The woman’s got a great condo that she’s not paying for from nannying. No way.”
Yeah, Hector had looked into that too, wondered about the expensive place. “Were you able to find out how she’s paying for her condo?”
He shook his head. “She has a little online store as a side hustle, but it looks like a front to me. Never could prove it though. But I did manage to get a few pictures of her and this guy, Kade Godoy. He’s a few years older than her, and unlike her, he’s got a record.
A short one, I’ll give him that, but he’s been connected to more than a handful of B&Es.
None that were ever prosecuted, but he’s got ties to a fence out of Tacoma. They’re cousins.”
He shrugged again.
“There’s something there with her, I just never could figure out what.
Or at least not prove it. And the people who were robbed all had insurance.
None of them were particularly upset. Maybe at first they were, but I didn’t get many follow-ups, not the way I did with other cases.
Once they got paid by insurance, all of them were over it.
And I probably shouldn’t have cared so much about property crimes, but I hate leaving a puzzle unsolved. ”
“Huh.” Hector paused and smiled as the server dropped off fish dip with crackers and smoked salmon bites.
After asking if they needed anything else, she left them alone once again.
“You had a few other notes I wanted to ask about. Some of the neighbors didn’t want to talk to you?” Hector asked.
Macmahon nodded as he scooped up some of the dip.
“Yeah, and I never figured that out either. I don’t think they were involved, because it was two people—men, both married—on different sides of the neighborhood.
I couldn’t link them together in any way.
They weren’t friendly with each other, had no crossover clubs, kids didn’t go to the same schools, nothing.
But they both reacted strangely when I wanted to talk to them about the robberies.
Coulda been nothing, but…” He shrugged. “I was under the impression that neither of them wanted to talk to me at all. Maybe it’s because I’m a cop.
” Another casual shrug, something he did a lot.
“You’ve been really helpful, thank you.”
“You think the robberies are linked to the murder?”
“I don’t know. But if there’s a pattern of robberies, what’s to say that someone didn’t break into the Alexander home and catch her off guard, thinking she’d be gone.
Or maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have and someone decided to make sure she never talked.
” That one lined up more with the facts at hand since she’d known her killer.
“Or maybe there’s no link at all and I’m worrying about a connection that isn’t even there.
” But he couldn’t ignore it now that there might be something else going on in the neighborhood.
“I know what you’re up against, and it’s a shame about that Alexander woman.” He shook his head slightly. “Mom of three girls… If I can help, I want to. I know you can’t stay long, but eat something. Cherry told me the hours you’ve been working.”
That surprised him, but he nodded and plated some of the dip. He needed to follow up with Hannah ASAP, but five minutes to eat wouldn’t kill him.
Something told him that Hannah was tied up in this whole thing. He just couldn’t figure out how.