Right Behind Her (Bree Taggert) Read online

  Matt nodded. “I’ll take the outside.”

  The EMTs loaded Harley onto a gurney and strapped him down. They’d started an IV.

  “How is he?” Bree asked as they rolled him toward the front door.

  The EMT shrugged. “Alive.”

  Bree nodded and hoped he stayed that way.

  Technically, she didn’t have a search warrant for the premises, but she could claim exigent circumstances to check entry points for signs of an intruder. She couldn’t take anything as evidence until the warrant came through.

  After donning gloves, she walked through the kitchen and living room, getting an overview of Darren/Harley Taggert’s life. She found no evidence of a significant other or children. He lived like a bachelor. He liked frozen chicken potpies, oatmeal, and bananas. He drank coffee and stocked his fridge with Fat Tire Amber Ale and Diet Coke.

  She went into the small bathroom. He was a tidy man. There were no beard hairs or dried bits of toothpaste in the sink. The shower curtain and the tiles around the tub were mold-free. One toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste stood on the vanity. The top drawer held an electric beard trimmer, a comb, and a stick of deodorant. The next drawer was full of basic first aid supplies, but the bottom drawer held a zippered toiletry kit full of female products, a toothbrush in a travel case, and bottles of girly-smelling shampoo and conditioner.

  She opened the medicine cabinet. A prescription bottle with Darren Taggert’s name on it held a common blood pressure medication. She found a tube of prescription poison ivy cream. The strongest painkiller was ibuprofen.

  She walked through the second bedroom, which had been converted into a home office. Bree inspected a row of framed photographs that hung on the wall. She was surprised to see a picture of her mother, smiling from a field of wildflowers. Grief clogged Bree’s throat. Had she ever seen her mother smile like that? Her mother was young, maybe eighteen. Bree instantly knew this was how her mother had looked before she’d married Jake Taggert, before he’d stolen her happiness and stamped out her joy.

  Bree closed her eyes for one breath. Then she moved on to the next picture. She and Erin stood in front of a Christmas tree. Neither of them was smiling. In the photo, Bree was six or seven years old. Erin was a toddler. Adam hadn’t been born yet. There was another picture of the whole family. Bree’s mother held a newborn that must’ve been Adam. Bree and Erin huddled close, looking as wary as small prey. Behind them, Jake Taggert glared at the camera. Bree’s father hadn’t been a particularly big man, but his temper had made him seem larger. She studied his face for a few seconds, trying to reconcile this moment with the one a year later when he killed his wife and then himself. Had he been born mean?

  What was Harley like? Would he know the answers to Bree’s questions? Her lack of knowledge about her family felt like a gaping wound. Was this how Adam felt? She touched the photo of her mother. Harley would have memories of her he could share.

  Please don’t die.

  She ripped her gaze off the walls and went to the desk. Current mail was stacked on the top. The drawers held paid bills and bank statements for Darren Taggert. She scanned the desktop. A piece of glass covered the surface. A few snapshots had been placed under the glass. Bree’s hand traced one of Harley as a young man sitting on a motorcycle—a Harley-Davidson—and she realized Harley had been a nickname.

  A recent photo of Harley and a gray-haired woman caught her eye. They were standing on the beach of a lake, his arm slung around her shoulders. Both of them were smiling. The girlfriend?

  Bree moved into the main bedroom. A queen-size bed and two nightstands faced a dresser. She searched the dresser drawers and found clothes for a man of Darren’s approximate size. His wardrobe leaned toward jeans and T-shirts. The last drawer contained women’s clothes: a few T-shirts, underwear, socks, one pair of jeans, one pair of pajama bottoms, and one pair of yoga pants.

  It appeared as if Harley had a regular female guest, but their relationship hadn’t reached a solid commitment.

  She opened the bifold closet doors. A shelf held a short stack of black work pants. Five red polo shirts with the logo for ABC Auto hung in a row. He owned one navy blue suit and one dark-red tie. A few pairs of boots and sneakers stood underneath the hanging clothing. Bree checked jacket pockets and slid clothing to inspect the walls behind it.

  The carpet in the closet moved under her foot. Bree stepped back and tugged up the corner. A section of subfloor had been cut. She raised the loose square to reveal a secret compartment. A black backpack sat in the hole. The fabric was covered in a thick layer of dust. Bree photographed the pack, then she lifted it out and unzipped it. Dust billowed, and she turned her head to sneeze into her elbow. Under a few changes of clothes, some protein bars, and a basic toiletry kit, she found a handgun, an envelope full of cash, and a fake driver’s license. She thumbed through the bills and counted at least $10,000.

  Plenty of people kept a go-bag, but the fake ID and gun made this one more of a getaway bag. The protein bars had expired eleven years before. Had he not opened this secret hatch for close to a dozen years?

  She stared at the gun. Could this be the weapon used to kill Jane and Frank? Maybe it had been sitting under Harley’s floorboard for decades.

  She checked the remaining compartments, then zipped the backpack, left it on the floor of the closet, and went looking for Matt, who was outside searching the yard. She found him examining the fence line behind a juniper bush.

  As she approached, he gestured to the neighbor’s fence. “We think this is where he went over the fence. There are some broken branches on a bush on the other side. There’s nobody home.”

  Bree described Harley’s getaway bag. “It’s been there a long time. I suspect he hasn’t opened it in many years.”

  “Most people don’t keep a gun and ten grand in a bug-out bag under their closet floor.”

  “So, what was Harley into?” she mused. “I didn’t find any evidence of drugs.” She explained her theory about Harley’s name.

  “Makes sense,” Matt said.

  Todd entered the yard. Spotting Bree, he hustled over. “We canvassed the whole block. No one saw anything.”

  “What do they think of Mr. Taggert?” Bree asked.

  “He’s a quiet neighbor,” Todd said. “Keeps to himself, maintains his yard, and doesn’t cause any problems. No one had anything bad to say about him. The guy on the corner says Darren helped his teenage daughter when her car wouldn’t start.”

  “Did anyone recognize Curtis Evans, Richard Keeler, Bradley Parson, or Shawn Castillo?” Bree asked.

  “No.” Todd pointed to the white house next door. “The Averys think he has a girlfriend. Sometimes they see him sitting at his firepit with a woman. She’s about sixty years old and slim with short gray hair.”

  The woman from the photos.

  “Let’s get a search warrant for the house, plus warrants for Harley’s phone and financial records,” Bree said. “I’d also like to find the girlfriend, but we’ll need a warrant to access his cell phone records. I didn’t see a cell phone lying around anywhere. On the bright side, we have a potential murder weapon for the killings of Jane and Frank.” She told Todd about the backpack.

  Todd’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think Harley is our killer?”

  “I don’t know.” Bree should remain objective, but she hoped Harley wasn’t guilty for purely selfish reasons.

  “Harley didn’t shoot himself,” Matt pointed out. “There was no gun anywhere near him.”

  “This is true. Someone else shot him today. Who and why?” Bree rubbed at an ache in her temple.

  “Maybe he knows who the killer is,” Matt suggested.

  “He could have been there,” Todd added. “He spent time at your family’s farm, right?”

  Right.

  “Let’s get the evidence bagged as soon as the warrant comes through.” She wished they had bullets or bullet casings from Frank’s and Jane’s murders. There was no way to
determine whether Harley’s gun had been used to commit those crimes.

  They didn’t know where Shawn or Curtis were or if they had gone willingly or had been taken.

  They had no idea who had shot Harley Taggert.

  Or if he would survive to identify his shooter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was afternoon before Matt and Bree made it back to the sheriff’s station. While Bree checked in with Marge, Matt carried the café take-out bag and cardboard tray of coffee cups into the conference room.

  Todd looked up from flipping through the murder book. “Is that coffee?”

  “And food.” Matt handed the chief deputy a wax paper–wrapped sandwich and a cardboard coffee cup. As tempting as it was to work nonstop, they would function better with adequate food and rest.

  Bree carried an armload of files and a bottle of water to the conference room. She set her pile on the table and accepted coffee and a sandwich. She ate robotically while she sorted her files.

  Matt slid into a chair and scarfed his lunch while he flipped through the murder book. Unable to focus, he got up to pace. “If we assume for the moment that the same person killed Frank and Jane and shot Harley, then where are we with the investigation?”

  Todd began. “We have multiple suspects: Shawn Castillo, Richard Keeler, Harley/Darren Taggert, Bradley Parson, and Curtis Evans.”

  “Let’s take them one at a time.” Bree opened her laptop. “Can we rule anyone out?”

  Matt turned on his heel. “Richard Keeler definitely didn’t shoot Harley.”

  “But he did have an affair with Jane,” Bree said.

  Todd shuffled his papers. “We’ve established no relationship between Keeler and Frank.”

  Matt took three strides and pivoted again. “What about Mrs. Keeler? She would have been jealous and feeling betrayed.”

  Bree tapped a file with a fingertip. “Mrs. Keeler gave birth a few weeks after Jane and Frank were killed. I doubt she was in any condition to kill two people and bury their bodies in a shallow grave. We also haven’t uncovered any relationship between Frank and Mrs. Keeler.”

  “Could she have hired Frank to kill Jane?” Todd asked. “Anders thought Frank did illegal jobs. Maybe he killed for hire.”

  “If Frank was the killer, then how did he end up getting his fingertips snipped off and being buried with Jane?” Matt couldn’t connect those dots. “I don’t think Mrs. Keeler did it. Richard, though, I can totally see killing Jane if she threatened to tell his wife. He has a nasty temper.”

  “Agreed,” Bree said. “But then, who shot Harley today? Richard is still in jail waiting on his arraignment.”

  A moment of silence passed. No one had an answer.

  “So, we’re back to Frank’s and Jane’s murders.” Matt continued his pacing. “What about Bradley Parson? He didn’t like his sister.”

  “Jane was mean to Bradley’s wife and kids,” Bree said. “But did Bradley know Frank? They didn’t move in the same social circles.” She flipped through several pages in her files. “We have nothing on Bradley. His record is clean. He’s never had as much as a parking ticket.”

  “But he benefited from his sister’s death.” Matt stroked his beard. “His inheritance doubled.”

  “He has an alibi,” Todd said.

  “His wife.” Bree all but rolled her eyes. “Still, I put Bradley on the bottom of the list. The fact is, we have motive for several people to have killed either Frank or Jane, but no link between the two victims and no actual evidence. The crime was committed thirty years ago. It’s damned hard to solve cases that cold, which is why it’s interesting that Curtis and Shawn have disappeared. Yet Kayla was targeted to threaten me, and someone shot Harley.”

  Matt nodded. “Shawn is the best suspect so far.”

  Todd turned several pages in the murder book and skimmed his interview report. “Some of what he says is nonsensical. He seems too scattered to have successfully committed a double murder.”

  Matt considered his point. “Now look at the photo of him at the charity event in 1990. He looks perfectly normal there.”

  “True,” Todd admitted.

  “He had just graduated high school in that picture.” Bree tapped the end of a pen on the table. “According to Elias, Shawn started using drugs in college, and then he flunked out.”

  “He started college in August 1990,” Matt said. “Could committing those murders be what drove him to drugs?”

  “As a coping mechanism?” Bree sighed, dropped her pen, and rubbed her temples. “The timing is right, but all we have is speculation.”

  Bree’s phone buzzed and she picked it up. “It’s Mrs. Evans.” She answered the call. “This is Sheriff Taggert.” Bree closed her eyes as she listened. “No, ma’am. Not yet. I’m sorry. I’ll call you with an update as soon as I have one. Is Anders still there?”

  Matt couldn’t hear the words, but the old woman’s voice was high-pitched with worry.

  Bree nodded. “Good. If I have any news, I’ll call you immediately. Otherwise, you’ll hear from me in the morning.” She ended the call, looking devastated. “I don’t want to give Mrs. Evans another death notification. We have to find Curtis.”

  “Is Curtis still a suspect?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, but he’s not on the top of my list,” Bree said. “Maybe it’s personal, but I can’t imagine him killing his brother. Not all siblings have family bonds, but they seem to.”

  Matt did understand family bonds, and he agreed. Then he stopped and said, “So, where is Curtis?”

  “I can’t imagine him leaving his mother willingly,” Bree said. “He takes too much care with her day-to-day life to just abandon her. He’s trying to keep her from dying in a nursing home. He manages her meds. I can’t reconcile that person with a murderer who runs when police ask questions about his brother’s cold case.”

  Matt nodded. “Frank’s fingertips were snipped off before he was executed. Jane was lying on the ground when she was shot in the head. They were buried in a shallow grave. Their killer was definitely cold-blooded.”

  “Yes,” Bree agreed. “Shawn Castillo knew Jane. He was at the charity event. We found him at the burial site. He ran off after being arrested. He had bones in his possession. He was camping with the skull of one of the victims. His house was full of those weird drawings of people being tortured.”

  “Shawn wins the creep award, for sure,” Matt said. “We haven’t tied him to Frank.”

  “Yes. We need the link between the victims.” Bree propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands.

  Matt dropped into a chair. “We need to review everything.”

  Bree shifted forward. The front feet of her chair hit the floor with a thud. Frustration and exhaustion lined her face. “You’re right. We must be missing something.”

  She divvied up the files and reports among the three of them. Matt took the thumb drive with the surveillance videos from the charity event. “I’ll start with these.”

  “I noted appearances of our suspects.” Todd slid his laptop and a notepad across the table.

  Matt spun the notepad right side up.

  Todd pointed to the columns. “Name. Arrival time. Departure time.”

  Matt inserted the thumb drive into his laptop. He ignored the list. He’d rather view the videos fresh without any notations. The cameras had captured the doors of the building, so everyone had been filmed going in and out of the event.

  Matt fast-forwarded to the end of the night. For the next forty-five minutes, he watched a party of rich people break up. Jane and Shawn left about ten minutes apart, along with a bunch of other people. Jane was clearly hammered drunk. Shawn wasn’t walking too steadily either. Neither one of them should have been behind the wheel of a car. Keeler departed near the tail end of the event. At least he looked stone-cold sober as he climbed into his BMW.

  More people streamed from the building. Matt switched to slow motion and looked at every face. Many were sen
ior citizens. The guest list had favored older rich people, but then, he supposed they were the ones with money and free time. He spotted numerous guests who’d clearly consumed too much alcohol.

  Matt was ready to stop the video when he saw Elias Donovan rushing from the exit. He hurried to the curb in front of the valet stand and pressed an old, bulky cell phone to his ear. His head swiveled as he searched for something. Then he raised a hand and signaled. A few seconds later, a sedan pulled up to the valet stand. At first, Matt thought the driver was the club valet, but instead of getting out of the car and handing the keys to Elias, the driver remained behind the wheel. Elias opened the passenger door and jumped in. As he pulled the door closed, he motioned toward the windshield for the driver to go. As the car drove away, Matt saw the back of a third passenger’s head in the back seat. He squinted but couldn’t make out the license plate.

  So, Elias had a driver that night. No big deal. He’d been a local big shot for decades. Maybe he didn’t want to drive drunk. But something about the clip bugged Matt. He replayed the minute of tape in slo-mo. Elias’s mouth was tight, his expression strained. He didn’t look like a guy who’d just spent the evening drinking and schmoozing. Elias had looked like he’d been in panic mode.

  After a third view, Matt touched Bree’s arm. “I want you to watch this and tell me what you see.”

  She set down an interview summary and gave him her full attention. “Did you find something?”

  “I don’t know.” Matt turned the laptop to give her a better view of the screen. He pressed “Play.”

  Her brows drew together, and her head cocked.

  “Maybe it’s nothing.” Matt’s eyes burned from staring at the computer screen. He squeezed them shut several times to clear his vision. “But he seems agitated.”

  “Wait.” Bree hit “Play” again, then suddenly flinched. Her mouth dropped open and she paused the video. “I can’t believe it.”

  Matt scanned the screen. She’d frozen the video on the frame where Elias had just slid into the passenger seat and closed his car door. “Believe what?”