Chapter 45 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
Chapter forty-five
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
“Hey, I was just about to call you,” Monika answers. “Congrats on officially being an aunt!
“You too.” I smile. Scott must have called her right after he got off the phone with me. “I can’t wait for the pictures to see what he looks like.”
“I’m sure he’s super cute. How did the questioning go?”
“Bad.” I lie down on the bed to look up at the ceiling. “Please tell me that you found something.”
“Lots, actually. Is it a good time?”
“Yes. Tell me everything.”
“Everyone’s social media was private, except for Valentina.
But I still found a lot of good information, so I’ll go in alphabetical order.
Oliver Adams. You said he was cleared by the footage, but I looked into him anyway.
Nothing out of the ordinary, seems like a nice enough guy.
He has worked for the same winery for quite some time.
No immediate red flags.” I nod, agreeing with her assessment of Ollie.
“I’m sure he is who he says he is, but I’ll send through his picture from the winery website so that you can confirm, just in case. ”
I hadn’t thought about someone being at the retreat under a false identity, so I consider it confirmation that bringing Monika into this was the right choice.
“Next was Delaney Atwood,” she continues.
“I know she’s not a suspect, but I figured looking into her life might give us a clue why someone would be out to get her.
I scoured her LinkedIn profile. She had a lot of random jobs before settling into working with Cameron’s mom at Ravenwood, which means there are tons of possibilities of people she could have dated or maybe even pissed off.
I need more time to dig into her, though, because nothing is standing out to me yet. ”
“Okay,” I say, to let her know that I’m following.
“Next was Valentina Cielo.” I hold my breath, since Val is on her way over as we speak, but I am relieved at the warmth in Monika’s voice as she tells me what she found.
“Man, that chick is cool. I think I might have a crush on her. Did you know that she does cosplay modeling on Patreon? I paid for one of her videos just to see what it was all about and spent an embarrassing amount of money to watch a few more before realizing it was cheaper to just subscribe. She stays really accurate to the characters. It’s incredible. ”
I smile as she gushes over Val. “So, she’s pretty successful?”
“Yes. From my research, it looks like she is in the top ten percent of creators on Patreon. She’s probably a millionaire, easy.”
“Any red flags?”
“I mean, an amateur might see that she swings swords and daggers around just as easily as the plastic lightsabers and wonder if that means she is capable of using weapons in real life, but I really don’t get that vibe from her.”
“So, no red flags for Val?”
“None so far.”
“Then you agree with me that it has to be Judith, right?”
“Maybe, but let me tell you about Leah first. One second while I turn to the page with my notes about her.”
I check the time as she flips through her notebook, and hope that Val and Ollie take a few minutes to arrive so that we can finish our conversation.
“Leah Evans,” Monika starts a moment later.
“I found her teaching license on an online database, so she is a teacher in Jersey, like you said. She doesn’t have LinkedIn, but I’ve added her on Instagram with my fake account, so as soon as she approves me, I’ll do my deep dive and send you her picture to confirm. ”
“You have a fake Instagram account?”
“Of course I do,” she says. “Multiple, in fact, to suit different investigations. I added Leah with my generic mom of young kids account and just changed my location to Jersey. Judith’s was private too, so I added her with my thirty-year-old male personal trainer account, which seems to do well with her demographic. ”
I laugh. “Monika, that is quite possibly the most insane thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Please tell me you are joking.”
“I’m not,” she says defensively. “You said you wanted me to solve this thing, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I am grateful for your help. I’m just a bit thrown. I had no idea you were this into it.”
“I am. That’s also how I found out that Judith worked at a Dillard’s about twenty miles from Ravenwood, but she didn’t retire. She was fired for shoplifting.”
“What?” I cover my mouth to stop any more outbursts so that Cameron doesn’t come back to check on me.
“Yeah, she was charged with a misdemeanor last year. I haven’t found her mug shot yet, but I found the arrest record with her name on it.”
“Did you find out anything else about her?” While shocking, a non-violent criminal record is not the smoking gun I was hoping for.
“No, but the good news about her prior arrest is that if the police find any prints that were left behind, they will already have Judith’s fingerprints in their database.
The fact that she hasn’t shown up for questioning doesn’t matter.
If they can match what they already have to the crime scene, all they need to do is issue a warrant for her arrest. I think that is your best chance out of this, Drew, if your gut is telling you that it’s her.
Have you or Cameron heard anything about a murder weapon? ”
My heart pitches for the third time in the last few minutes at her question. “Yes, actually.”
“Great. What is it?”
“Well, I don’t technically know what it is. They asked me to give a print back when I was at the station, so Cameron and Jalen took that to mean that they had a weapon with at least a partial print.”
“I hope you didn’t offer to do one voluntarily.”
“No. I tried to, but Jalen stopped me.”
She lets out a relieved breath. “Thank goodness. Don’t ever volunteer anything, Drew. You know better than that.”
I close my eyes in shame. “I guess not.”
“Don’t panic. Just because they asked you for a print doesn’t mean that they have one to compare it to. They might be trying to get all their ducks in a row.”
“Maybe, but isn’t it more likely that they already ran Judith’s print against what they have, and that’s why they called me back to ask for mine?”
“It depends on whether they asked the other women for prints too.”
“Well, Valentina is on her way over here right now to hang out, so I can ask her. Unless you want me to put you on the phone with her so that you can tell her how much you admire her work.”
“Ha-ha, no thank you,” Monika says. “Still be careful around her, though, because if Judith has been cleared, then that means Val is still a suspect.”
Trusting my own judgment is one thing, but if Monika doesn’t suspect her, either, then I consider that a near certainty that I have nothing to fear with Val.
“Keep digging and call me if you come up with anything, but all this talk about fingerprints reminded me of something that Jalen said earlier. He said that the murderer could have been wearing gloves.”
“Of course, they could have. But that would mean that this was a well-planned-out hit, and an enemy that determined wouldn’t pop up out of thin air.
There would be some connection out there to link them together, so I promise that if there’s something to find, I’ll uncover it.
I’ll focus all my attention on Delaney’s past from here on out. ”
“Thank you, Monika, I really appreciate you.”
“Of course. Oh, and one last thing. I looked into Cameron even though you asked me not to.”
“And?” I ask.
“The more I learn about him, the more I like him. Please tell me that you two have a plan to keep in touch after the weekend.”
I ignore her question, not willing to get into it with her right now, and deflect instead. “What did you find out to make you say all of that?”
“Well, he has invested in like, thirty businesses, mostly black-owned, across Charlotte, D.C., and New York. All of them are successful, and they all absolutely rave about him. I did find that he was an initial investor in that security company that you said his brother had ties to, so that was the only red flag I could find on him, but only as it relates to this investigation. Otherwise, he almost seems too good to be true.”
“What about that guy, Nash? Did you learn any more about him or why Cameron chose to step down from his case?”
“Nash Taylor is in prison. I called to make sure of it. I just got started looking into him, but from my research so far, the reason Cameron stepped down from the case is confidential between him, Nash, and the judge, but anyone could fill in the blanks if they just read what he was found guilty of.”
“Which was what?” I prompt.
“Assault with a deadly weapon in aid of racketeering was the main charge. They also tried to get him with drug trafficking and a few other illegal sales of firearms-related charges, but they ended up dropping them to streamline the case. He just started serving his fifteen-year sentence last year, so he’ll be there for a while. ”
“Wow,” I say, because no other word better sums it up than that.
“Yeah. But good on Cameron for having the conviction to step away. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy choice since he knew the guy from childhood.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that was really hard on him.
” I think back to how Jalen labeled Cameron as weak.
I like Monika’s word better and agree with her that it shows strength of conviction, rather than weakness.
The sound of voices rises back in Cameron’s room.
Val and Ollie are here. “Please call if you find anything else. I’ll text you once I find out if Val was asked to give a fingerprint. ”
“Sounds great, and I’ll send over everyone’s pictures as I get them for you to confirm. Thanks, Drew. I feel like we’re close.”
“Me too,” I say, more in hope than in truth.