Colton 911: Under Suspicion
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Bonnie Vanak
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Chapter 1
On some days, life was worth living again. This wasn’t one of them.
Lifting the sheet covering the victim, Detective Harry Cartwright squatted down by the body, the eyes staring skyward at nothing. A neat round hole punctured the victim’s forehead and a small-caliber firearm rested near his outstretched right hand. Christmas lights adorned the redbrick mansion and several reindeer decorations grazed near a red sleigh filled with brightly wrapped boxes.
“How can anyone hate Santa Claus?” he mused, his gaze scanning the red suit, the immaculate white ruff ringing the cuffs.
He dropped the cloth over the body. Out of habit he touched the gold medal he always carried in his trouser pocket. The last thing he expected before coffee was a dead Santa Claus. Naperville was a peaceful suburb of Chicago, a place where Santas were more than likely to bounce kids on their knees for photo ops than end up with slugs in their foreheads. But Jimmy had driven him out here, a stop on the way to where another vic—Axel Colton—had died.
Though it wasn’t his case, Harry could no more resist a quick look at a crime scene than a dog could resist a meaty bone.
Jimmy Curry, lead investigator with Major Crimes in Naperville, thrust a steaming paper cup at Harry. He gulped the coffee gratefully, glad for the warmth scalding his throat. A veteran of the force, Jimmy had been his old partner in Naperville before Harry moved to Chicago.
“Who called it in?” Harry asked.
Jimmy jerked a thumb at a patrol cop standing nearby. “Junior here. First week on the force.”
The cop, who looked all of eighteen years old, flipped through a notebook. “Vic’s name is Devin L. Duell. Ex-con, in for breaking and entering, paroled last month. Neighborhood security guard shot him. She was making rounds and saw him trying to break in around oh six hundred. He turned, lunged at her and she fired. Single shot to the head. Homeowners are Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ladd, away for the week at a convention.”
“Where’s the security guard?” Jimmy asked.
The uniformed cop gestured to a woman standing nearby. “Maureen Markam. Robber meets security guard armed and ready.”
Harry glanced around at the snow dusting the elegant sweep of driveway, the immaculate lawn, the house locked up tight.
“You think this was a burglary?” he drawled to the patrol cop.
“Miss Markam said there’s been break-ins over the last few weeks. Some guy in a Santa suit. Meets the description.”
“Security cameras?” Harry pointed to the house behind them.
“Blacked out with spray paint. Just like the ones at Axel Colton’s house.” The newbie’s eyes brightened. “Hey, you think this has to do with the Axel Colton murder?”
Harry resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He pointed to a red sack a crime scene investigator photographed. “What’s in the bag?”
The newbie frowned. “A soccer ball and a kid’s toy truck. I still think this is a robbery gone wrong.”
Jimmy sighed. “Harry, why don’t you give the kid an education?”
“Why not?” Harry squatted by the body, lifted the sheet again. “Look here, kid. This is execution style.” He pointed to the bullet wound. “See the gunpowder residue? Close range, against the forehead.”
He dropped the sheet again, dusted off his hands. “You know the drill, Jimmy. Have your team check reports of local burglaries to see if the vic’s description matches. Interview all the neighbors. Check all incoming emails, letters, phone calls and visits to our Santa in prison before he was paroled.”
He narrowed his gaze at the security guard talking to another detective. “Something in Miss Markam’s story doesn’t match. See if she had a relationship with Santa.”
As Jimmy shooed off the newbie cop, Harry saw a familiar face among the gathering throng of bystanders outside the crime scene tape.
His day went from mildly bad to excruciating.
“Harry Cartwright!”
Dominic Anthony Russo the Third. Shock of white hair neatly swept back, his coat impeccable. Snow melted soon as it touched the man’s shoulders. Funny about Dominic making anything melt. Harry always thought the man was as icy as Chicago in winter. Even when Marie and John were alive.
Never one to obey rules, the old man ducked under the tape, ignoring the protests of the uniforms guarding the scene. Harry walked toward him before Dominic trampled all over the crime scene. He touched the medal again. It was a family heirloom, had belonged to his wife.
“Dominic.” Short and clipped greeting, hoping the old man wouldn’t cause a scene this time.
“Harry. I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you back here.” Russo flexed his fingers as if he longed to punch him.
Again.
“I’m here on official business and this is a crime scene.” Harry pointed to the sheet-covered body, one black boot sticking out from beneath it.
“Right. Cop business.” Russo shook his head. “Low pay, chasing criminals. You screwed up, Harry.”
Here we go again. Harry remained silent. Russo couldn’t say anything worse than what Harry had said to himself over the past two and a half years.
“You could have had all this, Harry.” Russo swept a hand up and down the tree-lined street and the multimillion-dollar mansions. “You should have stayed in Naperville and taken that job with my firm. Head of my security. And then Marie and John would still be alive.”
Russo fisted his hands in Harry’s jacket, bunching his tie. “You killed them as much as that crook who was after you did.”
Harry shrugged off the man’s grip. He smoothed down and straightened his tie. “I’m not a rent-a-cop. And I told you, I’ll live with their deaths on my conscience as long as I breathe. But I’m not your lapdog, Dominic. I don’t answer to you. In fact...”
He narrowed his gaze at the older man. “Where were you this morning around 6:00 a.m.?”
His ex-father-in-law sputtered. “How dare you...”
“This is an official homicide investigation.” He crooked a finger at Jimmy, who hurried over. “I asked a question. Where were you?”
“I was home with my wife! I’ll call my lawyer...”
“Call your lawyer, but that makes you look even more suspicious,” Jimmy drawled.
“Jimmy and the major case squad may have more questions for you. Don’t leave town.” Harry walked off to a string of curses from Russo that would make a sailor proud.
Harry felt a wave of relief as a uniform pulled Russo back behind the tape. Not his case. Not his problem. Not his town anymore.
He stared at his reflection in the window of a police cruiser and straightened his tie. Tiny, scowling Tasmanian devils peppered the black fabric. Marie had given him that tie for his birthday. She thought it was whimsical and fun, something he needed in his life. And then a few weeks later, a car crash ended her life and John’s and anything whimsical and fun died with his family.
Jimmy joined him, shutting his notebook. Jimmy, bless him, knew the strained relationship with his ex-in-laws.
“Intense.”
“Yep. He can be.” Harry rubbed the nape of his tensed neck. He withdrew the medal, staring at it.
Marie’s great-grandmother brought it over from Italy, passing it down to Dominic, who gave it to his only daughter. Treasured family heirloom and his wife had given it to Harry on their wedding day.
“St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes, darling,” Marie had told him with an impish smile. “Our marriage is a lost cause, according to Dad, so you might as well have it for protection.”
Damn, he felt like a wrecking ball smashed into his guts the day she died. Every time he touched the medal, it reminded him of her, but along with the good memories came the bad, the guilt...
Jimmy popped a piece of chewing gum into his mouth as Harry pocketed the medal once more. “We’ll handle this. What did you dig up on the Colton case?”
Axel Colton. Blunt force trauma, his head bashed in in his luxurious Naperville home recently. Out of Harry’s jurisdiction, but Naperville’s major crimes unit asked him to be point man on the case. With Christmas coming up, Naperville’s police department had their hands filled. The murder of wealthy Axel Colton took prominence, but the department was slammed, so they called in a favor and asked Harry to be lead detective on the investigation. The sooner Colton’s murder was solved, the sooner good citizens could sleep easy.
Didn’t hurt that Harry had met the Coltons while dating Carly Colton, Ernest and Fallon Colton’s daughter. Carly’s father and her uncle Alfred had been murdered by a serial killer Harry had helped to collar.
Harry glanced around. Too many ears and mouths, and he knew how this neighborhood gossiped. He inclined his head at Jimmy’s car. “If you’re done here, let’s roll.”
Jimmy nodded, left the investigation to two other detectives and soon they were driving away. Harry felt another wave of relief, as if he’d escaped the yawning jaws of a steel trap.
His old partner guided the car down a tree-lined street. “Why do you want to visit the crime scene again? Got any leads?”
“Maybe. Whoever killed Axel Colton wasn’t Santa Claus.”
Jimmy slid the car into a parking space before Axel Colton’s mansion. The house loomed, silent and dark in the snowfall.
Harry pulled out his phone, showed Jimmy a photo he’d come across.
Jimmy whistled. “Your latest love conquest?”
“Hardly. Her name’s Sara Sandoval. Came across her photo when I was checking out Vita Yates, Axel’s ex-wife. Met her at Yates’ Yards, the nursery where she works, when I was chasing a lead on Nash Colton, when we thought he might have killed Axel.”
“Quite a looker.”
“Yeah, reminds me of Carly Colton.” Harry pocketed his phone. “I used to date Carly.”
“Lucky you. You questioning this Sara? What connection does she have to Axel?”
“I plan to talk to her.” Harry rubbed his beard, his jaw tight. “I did a little digging. Found something at the crime scene as well.”
He laughed.
His former partner glanced at him. “What’s so funny?”
“The Coltons.” Harry snorted. “Everywhere you turn, there they are.”
But in this case, his dating Carly, and attending a couple of family dinners with her, proved beneficial to the case.
Because after meeting her at Yates’ Yards, he realized Sara Sandoval wasn’t just a pretty face who reminded him of Carly Colton. But unlike with Carly, he’d felt instantly smitten, the chemistry between them like an electric shock.
Harry knew he had to forget the attraction he’d felt upon seeing her. The family resemblance was plain. Sara was related somehow to Axel Colton.
He’d made it a rule to never get involved with suspects.
Especially during a homicide investigation.
What did you do when all your hopes and dreams shattered like brittle glass?
You picked up the pieces and started all over again. Survived. She knew how to survive. Hadn’t she done exactly that since the day her mother told her the truth about her real father?
Sara Sandoval took in a deep breath of the chilled Chicago air. Paste on a bright smile, push forward. But first...
The Yates were kind enough to give her time off after Sara requested it for personal reasons. She insisted on working from home. Go home and rest, they’d said.
Vita and Rick, her employers at the nursery, thought she simply had a stomach bug. They didn’t know her connection to the dreadful news about Axel Colton’s death.
No one did. Easy enough to hide in plain sight from everyone with her last name. Her marketing expertise had gained her a job while she’d watched the Coltons from a distance.
She’d gone home but had not rested for the past few days. She’d worked on the accounts she’d scored for the nursery and between working, tried to reconcile herself to what happened.
Shivering, Sara used her key to open the lobby door to her apartment building and shouldered her way inside before the door banged shut. She took the stairs to the third floor, the bags filled with groceries feeling like lead weights. But the elevator was finicky again, and she didn’t want to get trapped.
At Apartment 302 she knocked loudly. Widow Pendleton was slightly deaf.
The door opened to reveal an elderly woman, a yellow knit shawl draped around her shoulders, her rheumy blue eyes peering behind spectacles. The woman brightened upon seeing Sara.
“Sara my dear! Come in!”
Sighing, Sara went into the kitchen and set one bag down on the cracked linoleum table. “Mrs. Pendleton, I told you, you need to use the peephole before answering the door and find out who is there.”
“No one comes much to visit these days, dear. Except you.” Her face crumbled. “My Amy never visits, not since we had a falling-out last year.”
The widow reached into a cookie jar and withdrew some worn dollar bills. “How much do I owe you, dear?”
“Keep it. It wasn’t much.” Sara thought of her slim budget and winced, but it seemed more important for the widow to have food than she did.
Vita will probably ply me with chicken soup when I go back to work at Yates’ nursery tomorrow. Her kindhearted employer was like a second mom to Sara.
“Now, Sara...you’re always doing everything for me. Please, take the money.”
Pride was a tough thing to swallow. Sara knew about that, and sensed the elderly woman disliked handouts. “I’ll tell you what. Make me one of those delicious apple pies you enjoy baking and we’ll call it even.”
Mrs. Pendleton frowned. “You can’t have apple pie for dinner.”
“Says who? The apple pie police?” At the woman’s chuckle, Sara added, “I love to eat homemade apple pie.”
The woman beamed. “I’ll get started on the pie right away.”
After they said their goodbyes, Sara walked down the hallway to her own apartment. When she was inside, she set the bag down, shrugged out of her winter coat and then put away the few purchases.
Though it was almost noon, she had no appetite. Instead, she made coffee and paced the kitchen. Before it finished dripping, she poured herself a cup.
Sara picked up her mug of coffee and brought it over to the postage-stamp-sized table. On the table a scrapbook lay open.
She hadn’t looked at this album in a long time. So very long, until this morning.
The mug was warm beneath her fingers. She read the inscription, her throat tight.
WORLD’S GREATEST DAUGHTER!
She’d taken the cup home from Yates’ Yards and planned to return it. The Yateses had an assortment of customized coffee mugs in the employee break room. Sara had gone through the entire collection. Her favorite proclaimed WORLD’S GREATEST DAD. She always selected that cup when it was clean and she wanted coffee from the break room. But she hadn’t seen it for days now, so she’d settled for WORLD’S GREATEST DAUGHTER!
The irony of the sentiment wasn’t lost on her.
Sara cut out the photo of Axel Colton from a recent newspaper article on his death. Snip, snip, the scissors moving methodically as if she were cutting wrapping paper for a gift and not a photo from a news article about a murder.
Four quick strokes of the glue stick across the back. She placed the photo on the empty page.
Something splashed onto the newspaper cutting. Sara swiped a hand across her face. No tears. Don’t let anyone ever see you cry.
Axel Colton was dead, along with her dreams of ever knowing her real father.
Since February, she’d been observing the Coltons. A few times she’d seen her birth father from a distance. Every time she saw him, she tried to work up the courage to approach him, tell him the truth about her origins.
Each time she’d failed.
Now she had nothing but regrets, and a photo album filled with clippings.
With an angry swipe, she sent the album sailing off the table. It landed on the cheap linoleum and lay open, like a wound.
Hands shaking, she sipped her coffee and stared out the window at the streets of Chicago below her. Snow had fallen, then stopped. It would be another cold winter.
Was this move here, and the changes she’d made, all for nothing?
You have cousins. You have other family. Confess to them who you really are and there’s a chance they’ll accept you. It’s not too late.
Her throat squeezed tight as she realized her mother might not like the idea of Sara cozying up to the Coltons. She’d been less than enthusiastic when Sara told her she was moving to Chicago to finally meet her birth father.
Now Axel was dead. Her mother had been mysteriously out of reach since Jackson, Myles Colton’s son, had been kidnapped last month. The little boy had been safely found, the thirty-million-dollar ransom paid with fake bills and the man who picked up the ransom money found dead.
Vanishing like this after Axel’s death didn’t bode well for Regina. If anyone had reason to kill Axel Colton, it was her mother.
Sara called Regina and left another voice mail.
“Mom, call me. It’s urgent. Please call me as soon as you get this message!”
Sara hung up and began to pace the tiny kitchen, sidestepping the album. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.
She needed to come clean with the Yateses and tell them who she was, and hope for the best. They’d hired her for her expertise in marketing the nursery. Maybe they wouldn’t fire her for her origins.
Sara glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above the window. Almost noon. She couldn’t simply stay here any longer. She had to get out, clear her head.
As she headed for the winter coat hanging on a peg in the hallway, the downstairs buzzer rang. Sara frowned.
Surely Mrs. Pendleton couldn’t have baked a pie that quickly. Few people knew she lived here. She hadn’t made many friends since moving in, simply because she’d been too busy with work...and stalking her birth father.
I’m a father stalker.
Not anymore.
Sara pressed a button by the door. “Yes, who is it?”
“Detective Harry Cartwright, Chicago Police Department. I need to talk with you.”
Her heart did a happy dance for a minute. The detective who’d been at Yates’ Yards when he informed Vita about Axel’s death. Sara had fainted and had woken up to see his handsome face furrowed with concern.
After buzzing him through, Sara smoothed down her cranberry sweater and opened the door the length of the chain lock when he knocked.
He put a badge up for her inspection.
“Sara Sandoval? I have a few questions. May I come inside?”
Sara unhitched the chain and opened the door, letting him inside. The rush of pleasure faded as a cold chill rushed down her spine. The detective wasn’t here to pay a social visit.
“What’s this about?”
“Axel Colton. I’m investigating his murder.”
Sara bit her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. Sooner or later, she knew it would come to this.
The sharp-eyed detective seemed like the type who would never stop until he got the answers he wanted from her.
