Part 26 (1/2)
I didn't ask. I didn't ask. ”Oh, thank you. I'll be here. Tell Stephen I'm home for the day.” Dummy! It's night. It's ten o'clock in Miami.
”I will. It's good to talk to you, Mrs. Esposito.”
”Thank you. Nice to meet you...”
”Callie.”
”Of course. I'm just a little slow on the draw...it's been a long day. I...uh...just realized the time. Stephen can call me tomorrow. Okay?”
”Sure, Mrs. Esposito. Bye now.”
Who the h.e.l.l is Callie? Somebody important. Hopefully, Stephen wasn't having casual s.e.x.
Who the h.e.l.l are you kidding? Stephen is a healthy twenty-four-year-old male.
That's not you, Grandma?
Rae buzzed around the kitchen, hoping sustenance would clear her head. There was morning coffee left in the Krupps and leftover lasagna in the fridge.
Two minutes in the microwave should make the lasagna palatable. While it was nuking, she played the phone message that had been left on her machine: Mrs. Esposito, Sam's voice, the bank has returned copies of the checks to Deidre. I'll have them available for you tomorrow.
Rae picked up the phone. Her first reflex was to call Veronica. But what if Veronica wanted her to wear a wire? Rae replaced the phone in its cradle. What to do? Sleep on it. Fat chance she'd get any sleep tonight. Might as well warm up the coffee.
Chapter 49.
Rae heaped her entire Bayfield audit file on Veronica's desk the next morning. ”Here's everything I have to date. There is no evidence of misappropriation of funds. The only screwy things are the page of checks, which we won't revisit, and the GST tax which I've estimated. If Deidre's disburs.e.m.e.nt checks went to Camacho, you'll soon know that. If she cashed the checks and gave him the cash, you're back to square one.”
”I'm back to square one? Wait a minute. What're you doing? Quitting on me?”
”When I pick up the bank copies of the disburs.e.m.e.nts to Deidre and examine them, my work will be finished.”
”You've got a contract. You're finished when I say you are,” Veronica said.
”Not when you trash my conclusions. I don't need that.” Rae turned toward the door.
Veronica grabbed her arm. ”I was needlessly rude to you yesterday. I had no right to take out my frustrations on you.”
”That's true,” Rae said. You acted like a roaring b.i.t.c.h.
”I still haven't made contact with Nate Farris.”
”Are you worried something might've happened to him?” Rae's anger softened, replaced by her usual curiosity. If she left the case in a huff, she might miss something besides billable hours.
Veronica shook her head. ”They wouldn't be that stupid. He's checked into a Holiday Inn in Arvada. We've had surveillance on him.”
”You think he's having second thoughts?”
”I do.” Veronica sighed. ”About those checks? You're probably right. It makes sense, but there's nothing the D.A. can use. There are too many ways they can neatly explain it away. Nate's story seemed solid. If he recants, I don't even think we can use the Demerol.”
”Why not?” Rae asked.
”Because the information that it might be in her purse came from Nate. With him recanting, the worst we'd have on Morgan is possession of a controlled substance. That is, if his recanting doesn't also shoot down our probable cause for seizing her purse. There's nothing on the packets or syringes that identifies where they came from. Her prints aren't even on the packets.”
”She was wearing gloves when I met her,” offered Rae. ”Like my mother used to wear when she got dressed to go to church or something. People don't dress like that for every day.”
”None of it matters if we don't have Nate's testimony.” Veronica thumbed through the doc.u.ments Rae had deposited on her desk. ”I see there was a stop-payment put on the check to Kevin. The second check. And the stop is dated after Kevin's body was discovered.”
”Yes. Sam is meticulous. I would have been surprised if he'd overlooked that.”
”Rae, I owe you.” Veronica looked her straight in the eye. ”I'm going to try to keep you in the loop from now on. Starting with Reggie's autopsy. He died of a myocardial infarction.”
”A heart attack.”
”I didn't order a tox screen. Why waste the taxpayers' money?”
Rae suppressed comment on that one. ”What about IAB? Have they taken any action?”
”Too early, but I'm sure they will.”
Veronica paused and seemed to be searching for the right words.
To say what? Rae twitched in her chair.
”All this talk about wires,” began Veronica.
I knew it! Here it comes. I won't-- Veronica cut her off in mid-thought. ”I was wearing a wire when I brought Morgan into Wehr's apartment. She's been our primary focus from the beginning. Since Deidre's death.”
Rae gaped. ”What about JJ Camacho?”
”We suspected he might have been acting on her orders.”
”Raping her daughter? Taking her money? Give me a break!”
”No,” Veronica's voice rose in pitch. ”Of course not. That was before we knew Deidre was her daughter. But the whole bit about Sam sending Beth and Josh away without her knowledge. Claiming she thought Beth was missing. All smoke and mirrors.”
”You never suspected Danny?”
”I'm a realist, Rae. Danny had the least to gain from Deidre's death, and nothing to gain from Kevin's. My idea was to get Morgan away from her lawyer. She wasn't officially a suspect, so we could do that. I had no idea what was on the tape. Just that it was bound to be emotional. Then when I saw it, I hoped that when she saw it, she would crack and admit to killing Kevin.”
”I guess she didn't.”
”As a matter of fact, she did crack. But not in the way I'd expected. Her face just crumpled up and she kept repeating 'My baby, my baby.' She rocked back and forth till I thought she was going to have a seizure. But she never shed a tear, and she never said a word that might implicate her in either murder.”
Rae nodded, remembering Morgan's behavior the day before. ”Everybody has a breaking point. Yesterday may be the closest Morgan's come to hers.” She got up from the chair, preparing to leave Veronica's office.