At the Crossroads (Buckhorn, Montana #3)(53)
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CULHANE WAS AWAKENED from a troubled sleep by the phone. He fumbled for it, his eyes still closed. Alexis stirred, still curled next to him. He found his phone. He didn’t expect another call from April. But maybe Jack had given the number to Jana. “Hello?”
“Sorry to wake you but I’ve some news you’ll want to hear.”
“Al.” It came out on a sigh. He hadn’t talked to his deputy friend since early yesterday morning when he’d asked him for help.
Alexis sat up at the name and blinked, quickly wide-eyed.
“Any chance we could meet?” Al was asking. “I’ll bring the coffee and doughnuts.”
Ten minutes later, Al tapped at the motel-room door. He was a wiry man, standing about five ten, but Culhane had seen him take down men twice his size. His fresh-faced, average-guy appearance made his adversaries often underestimate him. He just didn’t look like someone who would kick your butt with the least amount of provocation.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Al said after he brought in three coffees and a bag of doughnuts and the three of them had sat down. “But something’s fishy. Jana Redfield is picked up for shoplifting, but when she’s fingerprinted, her prints and DNA come up in the ongoing criminal investigation involving break-ins up at Big Sky. Then the sheriff lets her go. We’ve been trying to solve that case for months, and he just releases her.”
“You think she and Garwood made a deal,” Culhane said, thinking it was just like the Jana he’d known. “Which means she ratted out her cohorts. Makes perfect sense. If one of her partners in crime found out that she’d snitched on them, it could explain why she was now missing and presumed dead.”
“Bingo,” Al said. “Right after that, Garwood ran two names through the system. Leo Vernon, a parolee working as a cook at a café in Buckhorn, and Bobby Braden, a nineteen-year-old local handyman. Both had records. But he didn’t put out BOLOs on them. I think he was waiting for you to be picked up first.”
“You’d already tied Leo to Jana when you gave me his whereabouts yesterday morning,” Culhane said, feeling himself wake up as the pieces began to fall into place. “I wonder if Garwood heard that I ended up meeting both of them?”
Al laughed. “I think he heard. He was in the worst mood yesterday.”
“There’s no way he can track that information back to you, right?”
“Don’t worry,” Al said. “I’m being careful. The sheriff treats me as if I’m not all that bright, and I let him believe it.” He smiled and took another doughnut.
Culhane hated that both Leo and Bobby had been unable to tell him anything. But the sheriff didn’t know that. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Jana hadn’t just thrown the two men to the wolves. What if she’d lied and neither had been involved in the robberies? What if she was protecting someone else she was much more afraid of?
But he reminded himself that he’d seen Bobby coming out of her apartment. Bobby had known her. But neither Bobby nor Leo could have killed her because Leo was in Buckhorn at the café grill and Culhane had seen Bobby coming out of her apartment not long after he’d talked to her.
“What bothers me is that I can’t see Jana being the mastermind of the burglary operation,” he told Al. “Nor Leo or Bobby.”
Al nodded. “Whoever is robbing these expensive homes has inside information, knows exactly what to take and doesn’t seem to be worried about getting caught,” he said. “These break-ins are often in broad daylight. They all involve jewelry. Jewelry that is insured to the max.”
“Jewelry the owner just happened to leave lying around after a cocktail party or late-night dinner with friends instead of putting it in the safe, right?” Culhane said. “We aren’t talking crooks who blow safes, right?” Al nodded. “Have any of them been caught?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“These rich folks who are robbed, they’re the same people the sheriff parties with, right?”
Al smiled. “You’re thinking what I am. Insurance fraud.”
“Sure sounds like it to me. The jewelry owner collects the insurance. Later he secretly gets the item back, and the thieves get paid. If we’re right, then the sheriff has to be involved.”
Al took a sip of his coffee. “So yesterday, Garwood sends Furu and Cline over to Jana’s. Apparently they tore the place apart. I don’t believe they were looking for evidence. The crime-scene techs had already been there. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find it.”
“You think it’s something Jana stole during one of the burglaries at Big Sky?” Alexis asked. She’d been sitting quietly, drinking her coffee and listening.
“Something she shouldn’t have taken,” Culhane agreed. “How did you come up with that?” he asked her curious.
“Shoplifting,” Alexis said. “She probably has a problem with sticky fingers.”
Culhane laughed. “You nailed it. Jana’s kleptomania was a problem even seven years ago. I’m betting you’re right and that she has taken something that the sheriff needs back pronto.”
“Which would explain why she faked her death and disappeared,” Alexis said.