Sinner or Saint Read online

  “Across the street, kitty-corner. He lives in the big, blue house with the old washing machine in the front yard.”

  Marlee looked at Bridget and then at Hector, mouth wide open. “Cam made the call to you guys, but it was at Della’s direction. That little turd knows where Kelsey, Patrick, and Ian are hiding!”

  Whoops! Hadn’t planned on this.

  Chapter 29

  The lights flashed red and blue on the police cruiser, running red lights and taking corners on two wheels. Marlee followed closely behind Hector, even though she didn’t have the benefit of a siren or flashers. They arrived at Della’s house at the same time and bolted toward the door.

  The amount of barking suggested Della had seventeen dogs in her home, but Marlee knew it was only her two untrained canines making the noise. They pounded on the front door while simultaneously ringing the doorbell for nearly five minutes until Della flung open the door.

  “What the hell do you three want?” Della was more disheveled than usual, her short, dark hair spiked out on one side and matted on the other. She wore a fuchsia bathrobe with a studded dog collar and black combat boots. The bruises on her face were now a dark purple. A strap of leather peeked out from the deep vee cut of the robe.

  Bridget, being the least taken aback at Della’s appearance, took the lead. “We need to talk to you about Kelsey.” She pushed past Della and Marlee and Hector followed.

  “Where is she, Della?” Hector asked, regaining his composure. “We know you were behind the anonymous call this morning.”

  Della shook her head from side to side. When she spoke, stale whiskey-breath permeated the room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re all out of your heads.”

  “Is Conrad here? Is that why you don’t want to say anything?” Marlee whispered. Judging by Della’s outfit, she wasn’t alone.

  “Conrad left a couple hours ago. Why? Do you still have the hots for him?”

  “Nope, he’s all yours, Della. I know when I’ve been beaten,” Marlee said, trying to sound genuine. “We know you were behind the call from Cam Shepherd’s house this morning. Just tell us what you know about the whereabouts of Ian, Kelsey, and Patrick.”

  Hector interjected before Della could speak. “Look, we can keep this informal if you just tell us what you know. No one else pieced it together that you and Cam are neighbors. We can keep you out of this if you’re up front with us.”

  Della shook her head. Either she didn’t believe Hector or was too worried about betraying Conrad. “My head still really hurts. Y’all need to leave.”

  “Can you just give us a clue?” Marlee pleaded. She knew Della loved lording her knowledge over others. If they could turn this into a game, then perhaps Della would cooperate.

  Della chuckled, scratching one of her dogs behind the ears. “If you remember Conrad’s sister, then you have everything you need to know.”

  “Rita Thayer? She’s still in prison. What’s she got to do with this?” Marlee asked, searching her brain for any connection Conrad’s sister would have to Kelsey. “Is she related to Cam?”

  “I’ve said all I’m going to say,” Della said as she shooed the trio out the door and slammed it behind them. Her dogs launched into another barking fit as soon as Marlee and her crew were outside.

  “What the hell does Rita Thayer have to do with this?” Hector growled as he stomped toward his vehicle.

  “Let’s all go back to Marlee’s and discuss it,” Bridget suggested.

  Marlee glared at her cousin. She didn’t care to have Hector in her home any more than necessary. And if he was coming to her house, she wanted to be the one to invite him. Nonetheless, she had to admit that Bridget had a good idea about them talking it over.

  It was only 11:00 a.m. when they arrived at Marlee’s house, ditching their coats and snow boots inside the back door. They crowded around the dining room table and all began talking at once until Bridget stood and waived her arms over her head. “One at a time. Marlee, you go first”

  While Marlee updated Hector on what she and her cousin learned in the past few hours, Bridget retrieved three coffee cups. While waiting for a fresh pot to brew, she yelled out additions and corrections to Marlee’s narrative from the kitchen. For once, Marlee divulged everything she knew, holding nothing back. Well, almost nothing. She didn’t want Hector to find out about her lock-picking tools for fear he’d seize the illegal instruments. Nor did she mention the emeralds in her possession.

  By the time the coffee was ready, it was Hector’s turn to relay his story. “The FBI has been watching Matt Lemming for a few months. He’s shady, but they can’t pin anything on him. I just found out about their investigation this morning. Ever since he took over his father’s business, the FBI has had reports about illegal dealings. He was questioned twice when a lady insisted her diamond was swapped out for a fake when she dropped it off for cleaning. Of course, Matt denied it. According to Special Agent Daily, the lady wasn’t very trustworthy herself, so they didn’t put too much effort into investigating her claim.”

  “What about the break-in at Lemming Jewelry last night? Matt told us it was a miscommunication with a staff member. A false alarm.” Marlee glanced at Hector wondering if he’d planned on keeping the 911 call to himself.

  Hector cleared his throat, giving him time to formulate his answer. “I was just getting around to that part. He told the responding officers the same story. Said he’d given a key to a friend, and when an employee who’d stayed late saw the guy, she called 911. Likely story.”

  Marlee took a sip of her coffee. “Let’s move back to our conversation with Della. She knows where Kelsey, Ian, and Patrick are holed up. I bet she also knows when they’ll be moving and the route they’ll take.”

  “She knows a lot more than she’s saying. But why is she so intent on keeping this a secret? Is it to protect Conrad?” Bridget asked.

  “Or to protect herself?” Hector questioned.

  “If she truly wanted to protect Conrad and herself, then she wouldn’t have given us a clue by mentioning Rita Thayer. And speaking of Conrad’s sister, what does she have to do with all this? She’s in prison for a few more years, so she can’t be involved. At least not directly,” Marlee commented.

  “Sure, she can. Rita might be the mastermind behind all of this from behind bars. Or Della might have given us her name just to throw us off the track. The more time we spend thinking about Rita’s potential involvement, the less time we spend on figuring out what really happened,” Bridget commented.

  “So, what’s Della’s motive? She might have given Rita’s name just to play mind games with us. But Rita could have some involvement in the whole thing. Maybe Rita was involved in this convoluted scam before she went to prison,” Hector said.

  Marlee nodded. “We know Rita and Conrad started Tech Solutions together in California.”

  “So, what else do we remember about Rita?” Bridget asked. “She’s Conrad’s sister, and she embezzled money from the game development company they ran together. She was forced to sell her portion of the company to Conrad to pay her court-ordered restitution for the money she supposedly embezzled. When she had nowhere else to go, Conrad took her in and offered her a job as his maid. To add insult to injury, he even required his sister to wear a black maid’s uniform with a white apron. The same uniform Conrad had Kelsey wear when she served us dinner.”

  “And Rita was carrying on an affair with a security guard at the art show at Marymount. She had a hand in the theft of an antique urn, which landed her in prison,” Hector continued. “She got six years and is locked up at the women’s prison over in Waseca, Minnesota.”

  “Then Bridget’s student assistant told us that Rita loved ice fishing and was out at Conrad’s cabin on Mina Lake.” Marlee’s eyes widened as she spoke. “Mina Lake! They’re hiding out at Conrad’s cabin on Mina Lake!”

  “You don’t really think Rita’s at the cabin, do you?” Bridget asked, turning around to make
sure Hector was still following them.

  “Of course not! Well, probably not. I’m sure if she’d escaped from prison, we’d have heard about it. I think Della was tipping us off that the cabin is the hideout, and the way to do that was mention Rita, knowing we’d eventually figure it out.” Marlee sounded more confident than she felt. If the Irish trio were hiding at Conrad’s cabin, then Conrad was involved in the operation from start to finish. He hadn’t been tricked by Ian O’Sullivan as he led Marlee to believe during their last conversation. And what about Della? It looked like she was up to her ears in the whole mess. But if that was the case, then why would she hint at the hideout of Ian and the others?

  The cabin was off from the main road, hidden behind rows of trees. In the summer, the cabin was completely obscured due to the leaves, but now the white siding and green shutters peeked through the barren tree branches. Marlee and Bridget approached the cabin with Hector jogging up behind them, his service revolver drawn.

  “I’ll go first,” Hector ordered. “We know Ian has a gun and isn’t afraid to use it. You two stay in your vehicle, and I’ll wait for back up.”

  While Bridget turned to ask Hector a question, Marlee sidled up to the house and peered in a window. The curtains parted in the middle, and no light came from the room. She saw Patrick and Kelsey sitting on a couch watching Days of Our Lives on the mounted flat-screen television, while Ian paced about the room, talking on his cell phone. Kelsey and her father were so engrossed in the soap opera that they paid no attention to Ian as he wildly gestured while talking on his phone.

  She couldn’t see a gun or any other weapon, but Marlee knew better. It wasn’t a toy that had knocked her unconscious at Della’s house. Nothing seemed amiss in the cabin. Potato chip bags and candy wrappers littered the coffee table with Coke cans placed on a side table. Otherwise, the house looked unoccupied. Della’s off-white Suburban was parked behind the cabin, only visible when walking to the backside of the structure.

  A crunch on the gravel drew Marlee’s attention away from the cabin. Three unmarked police cars drove up, sirens and lights off so as not to call attention. Four men and two women sprang from the cars and, along with Hector, surrounded the cabin. Hector and a slight male officer pounded on the front door, and within ten seconds, all the officers infiltrated the cabin with their weapons drawn.

  Ian still held his cell in his hand and a faint “Hello? Hello?” could be heard. Kelsey and Patrick remained on the couch, but now their attention was pulled away from their soap opera.

  “Down on the ground! All of you! Down on the ground!” Multiple officers shouted the same thing repeatedly as a stunned Kelsey and a dumbfounded Patrick quickly moved to a prone position on a large brown area rug. Ian remained on his feet, furiously glancing for a way out of the cabin. Concluding there was no way out, he sank to his knees and sprawled on the floor.

  Hector ran over to Ian and grabbed his phone. “Yes?” The detective had a lilt in his voice as he tried to imitate an Irish accent. Mostly he sounded like a leprechaun on the Lucky Charms commercials.

  “I see. Yes, I understand. No, I’m coming down with a cold. And yes, the television is turned up a bit too loud.” Hector carried on a conversation in his corny accent, turning away from Marlee and Bridget lest they make him laugh. “Where should we meet ya?”

  After concluding the conversation, Hector turned to face everyone in the room with a broad smile. “Guess who’s coming out here to meet us?”

  Within minutes, Marlee, Hector, and three police officers moved their vehicles away from Conrad’s cabin. In order for this plan to work, there couldn’t be any evidence of police presence at the house.

  As they crunched through gravel to get back to the cabin, Marlee reached out and grabbed Hector’s jacket. “Do you really think this will work?”

  He shrugged as they marched toward the cabin. “It might be the only chance we have to figure out what’s going on. Everything is as clear as mud right now.”

  Once inside the cabin, Marlee, Patrick, Kelsey, and two of the police officers were hidden in a back room. Ian remained in the front room, handcuffed to a chair and gagged to prevent him from calling out. Hector and two officers remained in the living room with Ian, hidden behind the drapes.

  A white Cadillac pulled up to the cabin, and Conrad Thayer swung his feet onto the gravel driveway. His outlandish costumes were not limited to his home in town. Today he was dressed as Elton John in a shimmering pink spandex jumpsuit with a silver cape and four-inch heeled boots. He wore a shaggy wig of a dirty blond color and topped off his look with round, pink glasses.

  Conrad heaved himself from his car and hobbled to the cabin. He let himself in and was immediately swarmed by police. “What’s going on here?” Conrad yelled looking around. “My god, Ian! All this time you’ve been hiding at my cabin?”

  I’m not sticking to the story. Those bastards will pin everything on me if I don’t talk first.

  Chapter 30

  If everyone hadn’t already been staring at Conrad Thayer in his ridiculous getup, they would’ve sprained their necks to get a good look at him. Conrad stood wide-eyed, looking for an explanation for why so many people, including police officers and criminals on the run, were in his lake cabin.

  “We know you’re up to your eyeballs in this, Conrad. Time to come clean,” Hector said as he moved toward the plump Elton John impersonator. Hector launched into reading the Miranda rights before anything else could be said.

  “I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about. I just had a call on my house phone that there was some suspicious activity at my cabin, so I drove right out to see what was going on.”

  “Why wouldn’t you call the police if you thought someone broke in?” Marlee asked, pushing her way out of the back bedroom and standing in front of Conrad.

  “The person who called me had my cell phone. I thought I lost it yesterday but turns out someone stole it. Whoever it was just called me and said there were several cars parked here and it looked like a party.”

  “Nice try. We just heard you talking to Ian a few minutes ago. I’m the one who asked you where we should meet,” Hector said, slipping into his best attempt at an Irish accent.

  “But that wasn’t me! How dim are you? Whoever you spoke with is the person who has my cell phone. It’s the same person who called me about the cars here at the cabin,” Conrad insisted.

  Hector shook his head. “I know your voice when I hear it, and it was definitely you I was talking to. No use denying it. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Conrad threw up his hands in frustration, a quick motion that resulted in two rookie police officers pulling their guns on him and yelling, “Freeze!”

  He froze in place, putting on a good show of being frightened. “I didn’t do anything, and I don’t have a gun. Please point your pistols elsewhere!”

  Everyone had now moved to the living room and crowded around Conrad and Ian, waiting for one of them to clarify the situation. The officers put away their weapons, waiting to see if Hector could obtain a warrant for a search of the cabin.

  “It’s a go,” Hector said as he finished his phone call to a magistrate judge. “We can search anything in the cabin and in the outbuilding. The officers, after having a quick conversation, dispersed to search Conrad’s lakeside property. Hector was the only law enforcement officer remaining in the living room with Ian, who was still handcuffed to the chair, and Conrad, who was now sitting on the couch. No one saw a reason to immediately handcuff Conrad even though he would be hauled into the police station with the rest of the suspects in the caper. His high-heeled boots prevented him from doing more than a shuffle.

  Patrick sat on the couch beside Conrad, shaking his head. “What have I done?” he asked over and over.

  “Shut up, Patrick!” Ian barked after working the tape loose from his mouth. “Don’t say anything to incriminate us.”

  “You know all about working the system, don’t you Ian?” Marlee ask
ed, reaching over to rip the remaining tape from his mouth. It peeled off with an audible thwack, and Ian winced as his stubbled face underwent a pruning. “You’re all going away for a long time unless one of you starts talking. We all know how this works. The first one to talk gets the best deal.”

  Marlee looked around the room. “My money is on Patrick or Kelsey,” she whispered into Ian’s ear. “They’re both desperate enough to cut a deal, and they’ll leave you to swing.”

  “And where is your little friend, Kelsey?” Ian spat.

  Kelsey wasn’t in the living room, and a quick look around the cabin proved she wasn’t there. “Where the hell is she?” Marlee muttered, looking at Bridget and Hector. The screen in the bathroom was pulled out, and the window was cranked wide open. Peering outside the open window they saw footsteps in the snow leading away from the cabin and into the trees.

  “She took off when we were distracted,” Hector said, summoning his officers to check the surrounding area. “She’s on foot, or she’s hiding in an outbuilding or a cabin that’s closed up for the winter. Three officers continued the search of the cabin while one searched the outbuildings, one followed the tracks in the snow, and one took off in her police car.

  Kelsey’s tracks led to the area where Marlee, Hector, and the officers parked their unmarked squad cars. Of note, Marlee’s SUV was gone, as was her purse, which she had left on the back seat.

  “That little thief!” Marlee shouted. “And it’s not just my car. My purse was in there too. We were in such a hurry to stash our vehicles before Conrad arrived that I didn’t think to lock it and take the keys with me. Well, at least I didn’t leave the emeralds in the car.”

  “Emeralds? You have the emeralds?” Hector barked as he whirled to face Marlee. “Since when?”

  “Since right after Ian and Patrick left Della’s house and took Kelsey with them. Bridget and I went back to my place and searched her room. The emeralds were in an inside pocket of her suitcase,” Marlee said, looking at the ground as she reached inside her coat and handed over the cloth pouch.