CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
C HAPTER E IGHTEEN
Matt looked through the passenger window of Bree’s SUV and sized up Peter Vitale’s house. For a real estate agent, he was a poor judge of location. The house sat across the street from a junkyard, and the house next door sported unupholstered furniture and a discarded washing machine in the front yard.
“Claire said the man who chased her drove a black SUV.” Matt pointed to the black Honda Pilot parked in the driveway. He checked the vehicle registration. “It’s Vitale’s.”
“Put on your vest.” Bree reached for the radio mic to report their arrival to dispatch.
But Matt was already reaching into the back seat. They’d been shot at enough times that it was his habit to wear body armor when serving any warrant, even one as seemingly mundane as this. He secured the straps and reached for the door handle. “Let’s go.”
Vitale kept his own small yard tidy enough. Next door, a chain rattled. A large dog barked and leaped into its collar.
Bree jumped, and Matt instinctively stepped between her and the dog. She’d worked hard to overcome her fear of dogs, and he would not allow a bad encounter to thwart her progress. The chain held, but Matt kept one eye on the property as they walked to Vitale’s front porch.
They flanked the door, always cognizant of the possibility of bullets coming through it. Bree knocked. No one answered. She knocked again, then shouted, “Sheriff’s department.”
Footsteps approached. The door opened, and Vitale glared at them. “Yes?” He was dressed for work, in slacks and a long-sleeve dress shirt.
Bree handed him the warrant. “We’re here to collect your handgun.”
“Seriously?” He rolled his eyes. “Wait here.” He closed the door in their faces.
They waited. Tension knotted Matt’s shoulders as he watched the door and Vitale’s SUV.
Five minutes later, the door opened. Instead of his irritated expression, Vitale looked harried. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?” Bree asked.
“Yeah.” Vitale ran a hand over his head.
“When did you see it last?” Bree asked.
“I don’t know,” Vitale said.
A neighbor’s door slammed. They all turned to see a man blatantly staring at them from across the street.
Vitale gave the neighbor a frown, then stepped back. “You may as well come in.”
Their boots scuffed on the worn oak floor of the foyer.
Bree repeated her question. “When did you last see the gun?”
Vitale crossed his arms. “I took it to the gun range two weeks ago.”
“Which range?” Matt asked.
Vitale gave the name, which Matt recognized. That part of his story could be checked out.
“Where do you keep it?” she asked.
“In my nightstand,” he said.
“Show me.” Her tone brooked no argument.
Vitale led them down a hall to a ground-floor bedroom.
“No gun safe?” Bree asked.
“I can’t use it to protect myself if it’s in a safe.” Vitale opened the bottom drawer of his nightstand.
Matt glanced inside. A tangle of charging cables. Three books. Earbuds. No gun. “Can’t use it to protect yourself if it’s not here.”
Vitale folded his arms across his chest. “I want to report a stolen gun.”
“Did you have a break-in?” Matt asked.
Vitale threw both hands into the air. “I guess! I don’t know what the hell else could have happened.”
Bree crossed to the window and examined the frame. “Ground floor. No alarm system. A neighbor who clearly doesn’t like you.” She pointed at the man across the street, who was still staring at Vitale’s house.
“All reasons I have a gun,” Vitale smart-mouthed.
Matt winced. Big mistake.
“ Had a gun,” Bree corrected, then skewered the real estate agent with one of her signature no-bullshit glares. She had that look down cold. “Unless you’re lying. It’s awfully convenient that your gun is missing the day we come to collect it.”
Vitale paled. “Why would I lie?”
Bree stepped closer. “To avoid going to prison for murdering Josh and Shelly Mason.”
Vitale’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “If I was going to commit a murder with my gun, I would have reported it stolen weeks ago.”
Bree didn’t blink. “So, you’ve thought this through?”
If Vitale was smart, he’d shut the fuck up now. Clearly, he was not, because his jaw kept flapping. “No. Not until you came—I mean, I just realized it was missing.”
“You’re sure it’s not elsewhere in the house?” Matt asked.
“I never keep it anywhere else. I take it to the gun range about once a month. I clean it, then it goes right back in the drawer.” Vitale’s voice weakened. He was probably processing how much trouble he was in.
“Would you mind rolling up your sleeves?” Matt asked.
Vitale gave him a side-eye. “Excuse me?”
“I’d like to see your biceps.” Matt didn’t explain why. He held his breath. He couldn’t force Vitale to show them his arms, not without a warrant.
Vitale’s expression was all Fuck off , but he slowly rolled up both sleeves and pushed them past his elbows. His left arm was clear.
But Matt saw blue ink on his right bicep. “You have a tattoo.”
“Yes,” Vitale said.
“Let’s see the rest of it.”
“What the fuck?” Indignation flushed Vitale’s cheeks. “You want me to take off my shirt?”
Bree interceded. “We can’t force you, but it is important.”
Vitale looked to her and then met Matt’s eyes again. “I should call my lawyer.”
A beat of silence passed as none of them said she’s dead. But Matt was fairly sure they were all thinking it.
“Fine.” With jerky, angry movements, Vitale unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out the arm with the tattoo, revealing a small dragon on his upper arm.
Matt and Bree shared a disappointed look.
“Good enough?” Vitale’s tone returned to smart-ass.
“Yes,” Matt said. “Thank you.”
While Vitale put his arm back into his sleeve and buttoned up, Bree took the report for the stolen firearm. Then Matt followed her to the SUV. Bree used her cell phone to call Todd. “We need to dig deeper into Peter Vitale’s background. I want to know if he borrowed a crayon in preschool.” She slid the mic back into its holder and started the engine. Pulling away from the curb, she asked Matt, “Your thoughts on Vitale, now that we know he doesn’t have a tiger tattoo on his bicep?”
“He’s still on my list. He didn’t notice his gun was missing? It’s not like he kept it hidden away somewhere. How did he not look in his nightstand for two weeks?”
Bree raised a brow. “But he doesn’t have a tiger tattoo.”
Matt shrugged. “Maybe Claire got it wrong. She was under a great deal of stress. Adrenaline messes people up. Or we could be looking at two suspects.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“Yes,” Matt admitted.
“And is he stupid enough to use his own gun to commit a murder?” Bree asked.
“We both know most criminals are not that smart. He might have considered ballistics too late, then disposed of the gun when he realized it could be linked to him.”
“If he made a mistake that big, he made others.” Bree pulled away from the curb. “If that’s the case, we’ll find them, and then we’ll nail him for murder.” Her phone buzzed on the console. “That’s the social worker. Cross your fingers.” She answered it on speaker. “This is Sheriff Taggert. Tell me you found a place for Claire.”
“Well, yes,” Lindsay said. “I have a space with another couple who were recently approved as foster parents. There are no other children in residence yet, and they have an alarm system. I’ve made them aware of the situation and am placing Claire under a false name. But that’s not why I called.” Her tone turned ominous.
A sliver of warning snaked up Matt’s spine. Instinct told him the case was about to go sideways.
Lindsay continued. “I’ve been trying to dig into Claire’s background, but when I tried to verify her adoption order, I couldn’t. In fact, the judge who signed it doesn’t exist—and has never existed in that county. If she was truly orphaned, then there should be a paper trail. If she had no family to take her in, she would likely have passed through the foster care system. But I haven’t been able to find any records. The adoption order itself appears to be an excellent fake.”
“If she wasn’t adopted by the Masons, where did they get her?” Bree asked.
“Good question,” Lindsay said.
Bree tapped a fist on the dashboard. “I’ll continue to dig on my end.”
“I’ll do the same,” Lindsay said. “Because Claire had to come from somewhere.”
Bree ended the call. “Fuck.”
“That about sums it up.” Considering everything else about the Masons’ life was fiction, Matt was not surprised with Lindsay’s revelation. “So, now we have to figure out how and where the Masons got Claire?”
“Looks like.”
“Claire said that Shelly couldn’t have a baby of her own. How badly did she want a child? Was she desperate enough to not care where the child came from?”
Bree shrugged. “We can’t depend on what Claire says. The Masons clearly lied to her.”
“True.” Matt considered all the sketchy aspects of the Masons’ lives. “Most of her past seems to be a big, fat fabrication.”
Bree drove to the Masons’ house, and they got out of the car. They went upstairs into Claire’s bedroom. Bree began opening drawers and consulting Claire’s list of clothes and personal items. “We need a DNA sample for Claire to submit for rapid analysis. If the Masons didn’t adopt her legitimately, that leaves illegitimate options. She could have been stolen, trafficked, sold ... Who knows?”
“I’m on it.” Matt found a carry-on wheelie bag in the top of the closet, exactly where Claire had said it would be. He also grabbed her backpack from the closet floor. School would be starting soon. But where would she go? His heart squeezed. Claire’s entire life had been shattered. How would she cope with no one familiar to lean on? Matt gave silent thanks that Luke and Kayla had had Bree to help them pick up the pieces. She had made sure their home and school had remained consistent. She’d given up her job and life in Philadelphia, so the kids’ day-to-day lives didn’t have any more disruption. She’d put them first.
Then he resolved to keep the kids’ world large, to be there for them, to make sure they had his parents and Cady—their own metaphorical village, enough people in their lives that there was always someone to have their backs no matter what the future brought. He cursed the Masons for not providing Claire with the same. Why had they even brought a child into their lives? Were they so self-centered that they couldn’t imagine she could have a life without them?
He opened the suitcase on the bed, and Bree began filling it. Then Matt went into the bathroom, tugged on a glove, and pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?” Bree walked in, opened the drawer, and took out a purple toiletry kit.
Matt lifted Claire’s hairbrush. “Collecting Claire’s DNA.”
Bree agreed with a nod. “Take the toothbrush too.”
Matt bagged and tagged the DNA sources while Bree packed Claire’s bag and backpack. Then they locked everything in the SUV.
Matt consulted their list of neighbors who hadn’t yet been interviewed and scanned the street. A car sat in the driveway of the house diagonal to the Masons’, and the solid front door stood open. A cat looked out the glass storm door. “Looks like someone is finally home there.”
They walked across the street and knocked on the door. Matt could hear the cat purring through the glass. “He could give your cat a few lessons on hospitality. Every other cat I encounter is friendly. Vader treats me like I’m the enemy.”
“Not the enemy, an intruder. He’s territorial. You’re male.”
“Luke is male, and Vader loves him.”
“This is true.” Bree smiled at him. “Look, Vader and I have been together a long time. He’s temperamental, but I love him the way he is.”
“I’m trying to love him too.” Matt was an animal person, and most animals flocked to him as if he were Doctor Doolittle. Vader didn’t seem to care.
“I know, and I appreciate it.” Bree patted his arm in a way that said those efforts were also pointless.
A woman of about forty walked down the hallway. Shorts and a tank top revealed lean legs and defined arm muscles. She nudged the cat aside with a bare foot and opened the door. “Can I help you?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Bree introduced herself and Matt.
“I’m Geneva Lawrence. Come in.” Geneva opened the door wider. “I assume this is about the Masons? I heard what happened to them. It’s awful.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bree said.
The cat rubbed on Matt’s boots and purred. He stooped to give it a scratch, and it flopped down and rolled onto its back. Matt rubbed its belly.
“We’ve been on vacation.” Mrs. Lawrence led them to a huge, sunny kitchen. “I haven’t been to the grocery store yet, so I can’t offer you anything except water.”
“We don’t need anything, ma’am.” Bree pulled out her notepad. “How well do you know the Masons?”
“We’ve been neighbors for twelve years, so I should know them well.” Mrs. Lawrence adjusted her ponytail. “But I don’t. Somehow, in more than a decade, we’ve never gotten beyond the waving-in-passing stage.”
Matt went through the usual questions about the days leading up to the murder, suspicious people or vehicles, unusual behavior, et cetera, but Mrs. Lawrence had no information since they’d been in Costa Rica for the last two weeks.
“What can you tell us about the Masons?” Bree asked.
Mrs. Lawrence propped one foot on the opposite calf, standing like a stork. “Well, we don’t have kids, so we don’t have that in common. The Masons are lawyers. I believe they worked from home.”
“What do you do, Mrs. Lawrence?”
“I sell makeup online.” She smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “The income isn’t much, but it’s fun.” She propped one fist on a hip and tapped her mouth with her forefinger.
“How often did you interact with the Masons?”
“I probably waved to them once a week. That’s about it.” Mrs. Lawrence snapped her fingers. “We share a house cleaner, but Amanda isn’t a gossip. If she was, I wouldn’t use her. Who wants their personal business leaked to the neighborhood?”
“No one,” Matt said. “What’s the name of her company?”
“A-Plus Cleaning. Her name is Amanda Ward.” Mrs. Lawrence pulled out her phone and read off a number. “We’ve been using her for years. She’s reliable and thorough. Works real hard when she’s here. She’s helped me decorate for parties and clean up after. One year, I broke my arm, and she put up my Christmas tree for me. I hate that I’m considering firing her.”
Bree cocked her head. “Why?”
Mrs. Lawrence slid her phone back into the pocket of her shorts. “Because her son, Liam, recently got out of jail and is living with her.”
“Do you know what he did?” Bree asked.
Mrs. Lawrence pressed a finger to her lower lip. “I don’t remember. Nothing violent. Something to do with money. Theft, maybe?” She shrugged. “Amanda’s always been great, but I don’t know if I feel comfortable with her having access to my house anymore. Even if she doesn’t give him our key and codes, he might get them from her. He’s a criminal.”
Good point.
But Matt didn’t know the particulars of the case, so he didn’t comment on it. He and Bree asked a few follow-up questions, but Mrs. Lawrence didn’t have any more useful information.
Five minutes later, Matt followed Bree out of the Lawrences’ house.
“We need to talk to the house cleaner and her son.” Bree checked the time on her phone. “Tomorrow. Let’s go home for dinner. We can regroup and review files tonight at home.”
“Do you want to talk to the cleaner and her son at their place or bring them in?”
“Let’s bring them in. He’ll feel pressured by being in the station.”
“Liam Ward, the son of the Masons’ house cleaner, just got out of jail for a financial crime. The Masons were committing at least one financial crime. Is it possible they knew each other?”
“Who knows?” Bree asked. “Let’s drop off Claire’s bags at the station and take the DNA to forensics.”
“Then home?” Matt hoped.
Bree sighed hard. “Yes, but first, we also have to stop at Madeline Jager’s house on Grey Lake. I almost forgot. It’s sad when an alligator sighting in upstate New York seems trivial compared to the rest of your day.”
“Jager?” Matt did not want to see the county administrator. She was like a virus—or shingles—lying in wait to attack you when you were down. “I’d rather deal with murder suspects.”
“Same,” Bree agreed. “But I need to follow up on the gator personally. Jager will not get off my back unless I pay her a special visit. The political aspects of this job are almost worse than crime.”
“In my opinion, there isn’t that much difference between the two.”