Chapter 15
Sunday morning, and El didn’t want to sit around not when Faye had just texted to say the boathouse victim’s fingerprints officially matched Howard Mason, the retired police officer.
El wanted to race over to interview his daughter, Talia, but attending church with Gabe and his team was a priority for all of them.
Then she agreed to a quick breakfast at the inn to fuel up for a day that promised to be packed with activity.
“This is not happening.” Hayden pounded the table where he’d been eating and working on his deep dive. “Ryker moved to Phoenix to live with his mother when he got out of prison eighteen months ago.”
Gabe frowned at his teammate. “Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been the person watching the center.”
Hayden let out a long breath. “Actually, it does. He re-offended within a week of his release and is a guest of the Arizona State Prison Complex. His black van is now registered to his mother in Arizona.”
“We can strike him off as the person watching the daycare then, and as a suspect in either of our murders,” El recapped, though she hated to say it.
“But I’ll have Ulrich follow up with the mother to be sure his van is physically at her residence and not left here with a friend who might be driving it. ”
Gabe shoved his chair back hard enough for it to hit the wall, then turned his attention to El. “You ready to go? We might no longer be interviewing Ryker, but hopefully Talia Mason will give us something to go on.”
“Ready.” El put her dishes in a bin on the food table to be washed. “Thank you for breakfast, Reece. It was wonderful.”
“You don’t have to be working an investigation to come by.” Reece smiled.
El glanced at Gabe to get his reaction, but he was scowling as he started for the door. She couldn’t determine if his mood was due to striking out on Ryker or because she’d been invited to come by for breakfast at any time.
Nor did she ask him on the drive to Talia’s house.
He buried his face in his phone, doing what, she had no idea.
He only put it away when she pulled to the curb in front of Talia’s two-story home, painted a very deep gray and boasting weird contemporary angles.
They took the sidewalk up to the door in silence, too.
Gabe pounded as if his life depended on it.
A woman answered right away. “What can I do for you?”
El would never pick this woman out in a crowd to be Howard Mason’s daughter. She looked nothing like her father. Petite, blond, and blue-eyed, while he was burly, brunette, and had brown eyes.
El identified herself and handed her a business card. “Are you Talia Vogel, and is your father Howard Mason?”
“Yes.” She took the card, but not without hesitating.
“I’m sorry for bothering you on Sunday morning, but could we come in for a moment?”
Talia cast a suspicious look in their direction. “Is it about my dad? Is that why you asked about him?”
“It’s best if we come in and talk about it.” El took a step to enter, basically forcing Talia to move back.
She did, then escorted them to her light-filled family room with contemporary furnishings that fit the exterior of the house.
El and Gabe took seats on the sleek leather sofa, and she broke the difficult news to Talia.
Talia gasped and stared wide-eyed. She started sobbing and tears flowed freely. She took a cleansing breath. “Tell me it’s not true.”
“I’m sorry, but it is,” El said to this woman whose life she’d changed by this visit. “Fingerprints confirm his ID.”
Talia swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I can hardly believe this happened now when he’d retired. I’d prepared to hear this while he was on the job but not now. No, not now. My father murdered.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Vogel.” El got out a clean tissue from her pocket and handed it to her. “Do you have any idea who would want to harm him?”
“Call me Talia.” She sniffled hard and gave her nose a thorough wipe with the tissue and seemed to find some internal strength and raised her shoulders. “He was a police officer for twenty-five years. I would imagine there are any number of people who might want to harm him.”
“How about since he retired?” Gabe asked. “How long has that been, and is there anyone who he wasn’t getting along with?”
“He quit working about a year ago. He wasn’t Mr. Personality with an easy-going, fun-loving demeanor, and I suspect he’s had altercations with people since then. No offense, but he had that sharp, observant, assessing personality cops have. Not one to trust easily.”
“No offense taken.” How could El be offended when many law enforcement officers fit that profile? Herself and Gabe included.
“We’ve discovered he’d taken photos of a black van outside of Little Pines Daycare,” Gabe said, thankfully moving them forward. “Do you have any idea why he might be taking pictures there?”
“Yes, but…” Her gaze suddenly went wild, roaming the room as she shook her head. “You don’t think this has to do with what happened to him, do you?”
“We don’t know,” El said. “But it’s a line of inquiry.”
Talia clasped her hands together in her lap and took several deep breaths, seeming to find that internal strength again.
Strength El suspected came from being the daughter of a police officer who could die in the line of duty at any time.
“His death might be my fault. My daughter, Natalie, attends the Little Pines Daycare.”
The connection between Mason and Kenna, but…
Gabe slid forward on the sofa and locked his focus on Talia. “Please tell us how you think her attendance there could be related to your father’s death.”
“About two weeks ago, a black van was parked across the road. A man inside was watching the daycare.” Talia shivered.
“I brought it to the director’s attention.
She agreed it was suspicious, but she said there was nothing she could do about it because the guy wasn’t doing anything illegal and wasn’t on their property. ”
“What did you do?” El asked.
“Two days later, when I arrived at the daycare, he was still there. So I turned around and went home with Natalie. Then I called Dad and asked him if he would keep an eye on the guy to see what was going on.” She twisted her hands in her lap.
“I vowed to keep my sweet little girl home until that van was no longer there. I mean, Natalie might’ve loved Kenna as her teacher so much that she begged to go to school every morning, but I wouldn’t risk Natalie’s life. ”
The second connection. Maybe they were finally getting somewhere.
Eyes alive with interest, Gabe shifted even closer. “Kenna James was Natalie’s teacher?”
“Yes, and her daughter Lucy’s in Natalie’s daycare class. They’re great friends.”
Not ready to break the news of Kenna’s murder yet, El asked, “What did your father find?”
“Not much. The first day, he got the van’s plate number and tried to get his former partner to run it for him.
But he was on vacation, and none of the other officers were willing to stick their necks out for him.
So he approached the driver to ask what he was doing.
The guy went off on him. Told him to mind his own business and leave him alone or else.
My dad said he thought the guy was carrying so he backed off and returned to his truck but stayed that day until the man left.
He tailed him for a short time but lost him in traffic. ”
“Did it sound like he might’ve been mad enough to kill your dad?” El asked.
Talia’s eyes widened. “I suppose he could’ve been, especially with the way he went off on my dad.”
“What happened the next day?”
“Dad took a bunch of pictures of the van that he would develop in his darkroom. He also said when the director arrived that morning, the guy jumped out and confronted her. They were far enough away that he couldn’t hear the whole conversation, but he did hear him say at the end, ‘We need her to come through for us, and you’re gonna make sure that happens. ’”
El shared a look with Gabe. His expression said the same thing she was thinking. What in the world did that mean?
No way to tell at the moment, so El turned her attention back to Talia. “What happened after that?”
“Dad went back the next day. The van wasn’t there. He stayed all day, and the van never showed up. Then he checked on and off for the next few days. Still didn’t see the guy. So we figured it was safe for Natalie to go there and Dad stopped watching the place.”
“Did he ever get his former partner to run the plates for him?”
Talia shook her head. “He took off for his lake house and never mentioned it. The van guy never showed up again so I figured it wasn’t important anymore.”
“Have you talked to him since he went to the lake house?”
“He called me Tuesday morning to say he had more work to do there than he thought and would be staying for a couple more days.” She got her phone out and flipped through the screens. “He called at eight minutes after ten.”
“And you didn’t hear from him after that?”
She shook her head and set her phone on her lap. “There’s no cell service at the cabin. He has to climb a nearby hill to get a signal. Means he rarely called or texted. If I needed to get a hold of him, I would have to call or text and wait for him to check his phone.”
El added the time to her notebook. “Did he ever take a laptop or tablet with him to the cabin?”
“No. No way. The cabin was for fishing and only fishing. He has a tablet basically for checking email and playing games. He would never let email interrupt his life and wouldn’t take the tablet to his sanctuary.”
Her story fit with what Hayden had located.
El prepared herself for the bomb she was about to drop. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but you mentioned Kenna James. Her body was found in Lost Lake. She’d been strangled.”
“Oh, oh…” Talia raised her hand to cover her mouth. “Do you think her death is connected to my father’s?”
“Uncertain at this time,” El said. “With his connection to the Little Pines Daycare, I’m beginning to.”