Chapter 23 #2
“Detective Daniel Sherwood told us that we aren’t allowed to leave town,” she shared, with a sniff. “Even though we have homes and family and jobs to go back to.”
“Right,” he muttered, “and so Detective Daniel Sherwood seems to think that you guys are guilty of something, huh?”
“No,” Doreen clarified. “Daniel knows we’re not guilty at all, but he doesn’t have any other suspects. He also knew my late husband.”
At that comment, Davis frowned at her, asking for Mathew’s full name, which she provided.
She continued. “I asked Daniel if there had been any vandalism calls or other reported cases regarding my late husband’s property.
Daniel told me no, but, according to my lawyer, who contacted the local lawyer handling Mathew’s estate, there had, indeed, been several calls of vandalism from the neighbors. ”
“From the neighbors though.”
“Yes, saying that they had seen people on Mathew’s property and knew the owner was now deceased, so they were concerned.”
“And yet Daniel told you there were no such calls?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want you to know.”
“I’m sure that’s what he’ll tell you,” Doreen replied. Davis just stared at her, and she nodded. “Then Mack checked in with your captain, who confirmed that there were reports of vandalism in the area.”
Detective Davis frowned at that.
Doreen continued. “I know it’s never a good idea to blame a cop, but he also failed to find a gun at the crime scene of dead body number two at my late husband’s property.
Plus, Daniel refused to share any progress he was making on these two deaths at my late husband’s home, even though I am the legal owner of the property now and also the executrix of my late husband’s estate.
Daniel comes over alone, never with a partner.
He was just here in an unmarked car. He seems to work alone all the time.
Is that standard procedure in Vancouver?
Maybe he knew Nancy personally, so he wasn’t in his official vehicle.
I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll find out about all that.
I’m just telling you that this woman, Nancy Singer, who thankfully we were in time to save, contacted Mathew’s probate lawyer to see if she was named in my late husband’s will.
She wasn’t. Maybe she thought she was due something from Mathew. ”
Detective Davis frowned. “So, maybe, when she found out she wasn’t in the will, she tried to take her own life.”
“I don’t know,” Doreen conceded. “I really don’t know anything about her.”
“Do you know why she’s no longer in your husband’s employment?”
“She wasn’t employed by Mathew in the days leading up to his death because he had let her go already.
I was told she apparently got a little too familiar, and my husband’s girlfriend at the time didn’t like Nancy.
Mathew thought she still had one key to one particular exterior door to the main house and worried she was getting it copied and handing them out. I don’t know for sure.”
“Good God,” Davis muttered.
Mack added, “I’ve got this contact information for Nancy Singer from both Mathew’s probate lawyer and Doreen’s personal lawyer, who handled her probate interests. And, to save you the confusion, her attorney happens to be my brother.”
Detective Davis took down the contact information and shrugged. “Of course he is. Okay, thanks. I will attempt to get to the bottom of this.”
“The bottom line right now,” Doreen pointed out, “is this young woman needs help.”
“She’s on the way to the hospital,” Davis noted, “and hopefully she’ll wake up soon.”
“I hope so,” she muttered, looking back into the apartment that she wasn’t allowed access to. “I really want to know if she had anything to do with the threatening notes I got.”
Davis frowned at her.
Doreen added, “I didn’t tell you about those, did I?”
“No, but I presume your lawyer can fill me in.”
“Yes,” she confirmed, beaming at him. “Nick certainly can. Then, of course, Daniel could as well.”
And with that, Davis nodded to Mack and said, “Good luck,” and he left.
“Why the good luck?” she asked, turning to look at him. His lips twitched. “I didn’t even tell him that we were engaged,” she muttered.
“No, but it’s obvious we’re together,” he shared.
She frowned. “In other words, he’s laughing at me, and he thinks you’re crazy to be with me.” Her shoulders slumped, and Thaddeus poked his head out of her hair. “Thaddeus loves Doreen. Thaddeus loves Doreen.”
“I know, buddy.”
Hearing that, Detective Davis, who had stopped in the hallway to speak to somebody else, turned to her. “Good God.”
She frowned. “Now what?”
“That bird.”
“That bird,” she explained, “is Thaddeus, and he’s done a wonderful job taking care of me.”
Davis’s lips twitched again, but he didn’t say anything more. He looked back at Mack, who just nodded.
“Anytime you’re up in Kelowna, you may want to check in with my department.”
“Sure,” he replied.
Doreen noted that his tone of voice alone said, Absolutely no way he ever would.
As soon as he was gone, she turned to Mack and declared, “I don’t like it down here.”
“And that’s fine.” Mack gave her a smile. “We won’t be here for long. Let’s just keep checking on what we’ve got.”
“We don’t have anybody else to check with.”
“Well, the hospital is a start,” he muttered. “We can call to ask about her status later.”
“And we’re still missing one known criminal, so we need a location on Sam.”
“Nick will contact the parole officer again, and we should get names of some of his associates.”
“Good.” She snorted. “I personally like Daniel for it.”
“Of course you do, but that doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”
“No, unfortunately it doesn’t. I have to find proof first.”
“And right about now you’re not getting any proof.”
“But it was the right thing to come here today,” she declared, “because that poor woman may not have survived.”
“No argument there,” Mack noted. “She’s alive. She’ll get treatment at the hospital. Whether it was an attempted suicide or something totally different, at least she’ll get help. Now can we go home to Kelowna?”
“I would love to go home,” she said, with an eye roll, “but we’re not done with the house nor with our own investigations here either.”
“True,” Mack acknowledged, “but the house should be pretty empty by the time we get there today, and I think tomorrow will be Scott’s last day. Oh, but what about the dower’s house?”
Doreen grimaced, while nodding. “We must do at least an initial run-through of that home before we leave, taking whatever we want now or it’s gone.
As usual, Scott will get to it when he’s next in Vancouver, just so he can sell this property intact.
He’ll do there what he did with the main house, the garages, the garage apartment—gut it of all valuables, donate the rest to charity, toss the remainder, ready the property for sale. ”
Mack sighed. “Glad to hear you and I will not be needed here again.”
“That’s the plan,” Doreen noted, “at least for this residence.”
“Oh my God,” Mack muttered, shaking his head.
When they arrived at Mathew’s house, they followed the noise of others speaking into the smaller formal dining room and joined the meeting of Nick, Daniel, Detective Davis—with Scott standing around, listening to the proceedings with interest.
Nick looked at Mack and shared, “She really does know how to get into trouble.”
“Maybe,” Mack acknowledged, with a smile. “On the other hand, Nancy was in far greater trouble.”
“And she is doing much better,” Detective Davis shared, “but her stomach had to be pumped, and we’re not exactly sure yet how or why she ingested the supposed drugs. A tox screen is pending.”
Doreen just nodded and didn’t say anything. She was too busy staring at Daniel, who glared back at her.
Daniel spoke up. “I can’t believe you put another detective on me.”
“Why not?” she asked, staring right back at him. “All you’ve done is ask us repeatedly the same questions, as if you can’t possibly find other suspects.”
He shook his head, his glare nonstop. “It’s a murder investigation.”
“I know, and that’s why I didn’t hold back. You’re the one who was already down there in Nancy’s neighborhood.”
“Sure,” he admitted, “but for a completely different reason.”
“So it’s purely coincidental that you happened to be in the exact same place as Nancy, a woman who had just been drugged, almost dead when we found her?”
“What has she got to do with anything?” Daniel asked. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s a known associate of the two men who were released from prison recently and who you now have in the morgue.”
He stared at her in shock. “I didn’t know that.”
“How is it you didn’t know that?” she asked in exasperation. “You were supposedly the lead detective on those cases, until the captain replaced you with Detective Clark. You were supposedly investigating those two deaths on Mathew’s property.”
He groaned, glancing at Davis.
Detective Davis considered him, then turned to Doreen.
She could clearly see that Davis wanted to say more, but he didn’t dare.
She glared at them both. “I need a cup of tea.” And, with that, she left them and marched into the kitchen.
Nick was right beside her. “Are you okay?”
“Davis and Daniel both think I’m nuts, but we go to talk to this woman, Nancy, find out that she’s in a bad way, and Daniel’s pulling out of the parking lot as we get there, not even in a marked vehicle.”
“But he is a detective, so it’s not as if he has to drive a squad car,” Nick noted.
“I know that,” she grumbled, followed with an eye roll. “However, his presence there is suspicious as hell.”
“It is not suspicious,” Daniel roared from the kitchen doorway.
“It is suspicious,” she repeated, “and just as suspicious as we seem to be to you. You won’t even let us go back to Kelowna.” At that, he glared at her, and she nodded. “See? Just as suspicious as we are of you.”
“Oh, give it a break,” Daniel snapped.
“Why should I?” she asked. “You’re trying to stop us from going home, when we had nothing to do with anything.
I’m exhausted from the work I’ve got to do here, clearing out this property,” she snapped.
“We’ve got two dead bodies, and now we have a poor woman who’s either traumatized or victimized,” she declared, not slowing down at all.
“I don’t know what to think about you at this point. ”
He glared at her and muttered, “Okay, so I was knocking on her door.” Davis joined them and eyed Daniel in shock. Daniel nodded. “She is somebody I know, and I wondered if she knew Mathew. I wanted to talk to her privately before it became official.”
Mack groaned and shook his head, “That’s never a good idea for an active-duty police detective.”
“Tell me about it,” Daniel muttered through gritted teeth.
Doreen shook her head. “And you’re telling me that you didn’t know she was in there and needed help? Didn’t the door swing open when you knocked?”
“I didn’t know she was in there and needed help,” he snapped. “I don’t know how the door popped open for you guys, but it didn’t for me.”
She stared at him, shaking her head, not sure if she believed him or not. She groaned. “That poor woman, … what if we hadn’t been there at all?”
“There’s a good chance she would be dead,” Detective Davis declared.
“There’s also a good chance that somebody knows something,” she snapped.
“Somebody always knows something,” Daniel bellowed, staring at her with fury in his gaze. Davis gave him a long glare.
She added, “It’s not on me to sort out your investigation. It’s on you. You were the lead detective after all, something you’ve reminded us of at every turn.”
Mugs added in a low growl.