Dead Man Code: A Jarvis Mann Detective Novel Read online

“Sure, I understand. No, there is nothing in my life which should have caused this.”

  Her eyes were back down staring at the table when she spoke. I sensed I wasn’t getting the whole truth, which often seemed to be the case with my clients. But I’d hold this in reserve for now.

  “Where are you working these days?” I asked.

  “Nowhere currently. I was self-employed doing various jobs, but I can’t work right now. It is hard enough to get though the day.”

  “It’s never easy to lose a loved one. Are you getting any professional help to cope?”

  “No.”

  “I can suggest some names. People you can talk to. I, of course, can listen as well if you need to shed some of the burden. Though I’m not trained in how to respond properly, I can hear the words. Sometimes it helps to say them out loud.”

  “You can give me the names. I’m not sure if I’m ready to talk, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

  With my phone I forwarded three names of people I knew could help her.

  “How about financially?”

  “I’m good there. He had a large life insurance policy, and his workplace paid me the equivalent of a year’s worth of his salary. They said they felt guilty for not protecting their employees better on their property.”

  I wanted to say “hush money,” but resisted.

  “Anything more you want to tell me?”

  Again she looked up from her tea, a burning expression now on her face and in her eyes.

  “I want them caught,” she said bitterly. “No matter what it takes. Bring them to justice or kill them, it doesn’t matter to me. Can you do this for me?”

  I had no intention of killing again, if it wasn’t necessary. But catching them and putting them in jail was what I’d strive for. Being jovial was the right expression I wanted to convey, so I kept a straight face and said as confidently as I could:

  “You bet your ass!!”

  Chapter 4

  My first stop was at the Denver Police station down the street from me. When I walked in I figured everyone would call out my name in joyful tones, but of course it never happened. If anything I had to jump up and down a few times to get someone’s attention, as they really weren’t all that thrilled to see me.

  My main connection there was Bill Malone, an officer on the force for nearly twenty years, whose son I helped out of a messy jam a year earlier. He had been a good source of information when I needed it. But today he was out in the field working, something he rarely did because of getting shot years before, causing a painful injury which limited his physical activity. Since they were heavy in the vacation season, the department was shorthanded, so he got to spend time out from behind the desk, which he enjoyed, at least for short stretches.

  April Rainn was my other contact. She was there, but busy. I got a stern look when I said “hi.”

  “Unless you are packing some fresh Iowa sweet corn, I have no time for you.”

  She was referring to payment for information she had provided me during my Midwest case months earlier. In all the chaos it had slipped my mind.

  “Sorry. Circumstances prevented me from coming away with some. But a box is being shipped as we speak and should arrive by the end of the week.”

  “Yeah, sure. Typical man, always forgetting to bring home the goods. What do you need, Jarvis?”

  “I need a case file on a murder a few months back. A computer geek, Aaron Bailey, killed in the parking lot where he worked. Waterton Albers New Networking Systems.”

  “I remember that case. Ruled a robbery gone bad. Who hired you?”

  “His wife. She doesn’t believe it was a robbery.”

  “So she called you up!”

  “Who better?”

  April smiled.

  “Well I can’t vouch for that, other than what I heard. I’d send you to Mallard to get it, but he is on vacation too. Seems like everyone goes at once this time of year. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see if I can pull it. But it’s going to cost you.”

  “Beer, ribs and hot wings at Boone’s.”

  “You are a one-trick pony, Jarvis.”

  “When you are good at something, keep doing it. My Boone’s bribes have always worked in the past to get what I need.”

  “One of these days I may have to up the ante to get what I need. Take a seat and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I found a seat and contemplated what she was implying, though I was pretty certain I knew what it was. Our friendship was pretty open, as she talked freely around me about her life. It had always been playful banter and a fair amount of flirting. Still in recovery mode from my split from Melissa, I needed to be careful not to get drawn into a physical encounter, no matter how tempting. And oh, it was!

  About fifteen minutes passed when April returned with the file. Since she didn’t want me sitting out front flipping through sensitive information, she led me back to an open cubicle where I could look over things in private. On the way we ran into a person who disliked me greatly and who was Mallard’s partner. Dan Cummings was always tense around me. Maybe he was this way with everyone, but he always seemed to be about to blow a vein in his forehead during our encounters. Today was no different.

  “What is this asshole doing here?” he stated straight to April.

  “Working a case,” she answered back, not backing down.

  “He doesn’t work here, and if he doesn’t leave I’ll escort him out forcefully.”

  “Cummings, you need to get laid once in a while,” said April. “You’re going to have a stroke if you don’t blow off some of that tension you have built up inside.”

  His face turned red at her words.

  “Mallard said to give him the info on this case, so I did. So why don’t you go home for the day and nail the wife a couple of times, smile for once in your miserable life, and leave Jarvis and me alone.”

  Cummings turned to me, but all I could do was smile broadly, hands in the air in mock surrender.

  “I’m going to call Mallard and see what he says,” barked Cummings.

  “Please do,” I replied. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled you disturbed his fishing trip for something this trivial. But go ahead and call him.”

  He was caught and knew it.

  “Besides, April makes a good suggestion. Go home and give the wife some of your best loving. I bet when you are worked up like this you make one hell of a lover.”

  He waved us off and stormed out of the room. We held out as long as we could, but both of us started laughing uncontrollably. It took a minute for us to settle down, but once I did I found a seat and started going over the file. April left me to absorb the information, after we shared a high-five.

  Most police case files have an order to them. I’d seen a few in my day, and normally the most recent info was on top, chronologically going from there back to the beginning. This one was a mess, though, as if someone had dropped it on the floor and didn’t bother to put it back in order. I sorted through, finding the beginning, the day Aaron’s body was discovered.

  A call was put into the police dispatch, saying a body had been found in the parking lot in the Denver Tech Center at around 1 a.m. Police responded, arriving several minutes later, in the nearly empty concrete structure, next to a gray four-door sedan. A WANN security person was there waiting for them to arrive, his name in the file. They closed off the area, calling for the Coroner and homicide detectives, as the person was obviously dead, apparently from a pair of gunshot wounds. Pictures of the scene were in the file, never pleasant to view, but I looked them over to confirm the information. Digging further, the identity was determined to be of Aaron Bailey, who had died of a single 9mm gunshot wound to the chest. They also found another through his right leg, with additional bruising on his face and torso, from a beating he received before he was killed. Blood was found inside the car, along with one bullet, likely from the leg wound. Another bullet on the pavement outside the car, with more blood, from the chest. No casing
s were discovered, though. There were cameras in the parking lot, but conveniently they were offline that night for several hours, for some unknown reason, blamed on a computer software failure.

  The crime unit collected as many fibers and fingerprints as they could, but found nothing substantial to work with. The wife was questioned, as were many who worked closely with the victim. No real leads or evidence pointed to anything other than a violent robbery, as money and credit cards had been stolen, along with his work notebook computer. No mention of the plastic or computer ever being found. Reward money was offered for any leads. Denver detectives put in the time they could, but with nothing to go on, it became a cold case filed away with others, with little chance of being solved. Now it was in my hands to come up with something.

  I combed through everything a second and third time, nothing more revealing surfacing. I made notes of various people involved and contacted by the police, taking pictures of pages with my phone that I could refer to later. I tucked everything back into the file, this time in the proper order, and returned it to April.

  “Has anyone else been looking through this file recently?” I asked her while handing it over.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” she replied. “Not that I babysit the filing cabinet. Anyone in the station can get to it with the proper clearance and key. Why?”

  “Just curious. The file was a mess, like someone rifled through and then got caught and put it back without cleaning it up. It may be nothing but I was wondering.”

  “Let me check something.”

  She went to a nearby computer and logged in. After typing out a few things, she pointed to the screen. I looked and the last person, at least per the computer log, to look over the case was Cummings.

  “So is this Cummings’s case?” I asked.

  “No, Mallard’s, but they work pretty close together, so it’s not surprising he would be looking it over.”

  “It says it was two weeks ago. Is it unusual for someone else to get into the file and not log it?”

  “Not really. I’m not logging I got the file for you to look at. Certainly others could have gotten their mitts on it. Besides, Cummings is pretty anal, so I doubt he’d have left the file a mess.”

  “Do you think he’ll answer me if I ask?”

  April had taken a drink of water. She nearly spit it out in response.

  “After our exchange a few minutes ago, I’d say it was a long shot.”

  “Can’t hurt to ask. He can only tell me to fuck off. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  April led me to his office, where he was filling out a report.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he bellowed.

  I turned to April. “Well, I got it half right.”

  “Jarvis wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the Bailey murder,” said April.

  “I’m not in the habit of answering questions from people I don’t care for.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” I said. “But the truth of the matter is, this case is going nowhere. Maybe I can’t solve it, but I sure can give it the time necessary to come to some conclusion. Time you don’t have, as I’m sure you are working ten different cases simultaneously.”

  Cummings leaned back in his chair, and pointed at a big stack of files.

  “Thirteen. So I’m listening.”

  “So it says credit cards and his computer were stolen. Did the plastic ever get used? And did the computer ever turn up?”

  “No to both.”

  “Did it seem odd the credit cards weren’t immediately used if it was a robbery?”

  “Yes. But unfortunately that doesn’t lead us anywhere. You would think, yes, they’d have purchased a ton of stuff right after stealing them. But not a single charge was made up until the cards were cancelled.”

  “So you didn’t think it was a robbery, then?”

  “Deep down, no. But I have no proof beyond what my police sense is telling me. And that doesn’t carry much weight. Conjecture in a police report is generally frowned upon.”

  “It shows you were the last person to check out the case paperwork, a couple of weeks ago. Any reason why?”

  Cummings gave April a hard look. She just flipped him off.

  “I always go back over cases when I have a few minutes. When you stare at it constantly key things get missed. Always good to go back over it with a clear mind.”

  “So did you find anything you’d missed before?”

  “No.”

  “Did the case file look different in any way to you from the last time you’d looked at it?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Mostly curious. It appeared to be a bit out of sync to me. As if someone rifled through it and then dumped everything back together in a hurry.”

  “It was perfectly fine when I filed it away. I’m a real stickler for keeping everything in order. People around here are always messing up the files and I have to clean up after them.”

  I looked around his office and could tell. It was one of the cleanest offices I’d ever seen. Even the stack of files on his desk was neatly lined up on top of one another.

  “I appreciate you taking a couple of minutes giving me your thoughts.”

  “Yes, it was a real thrill for me too. So if you two can hit the road, I have other cases to hopefully find some answers to.”

  We walked away, with me not learning much else. But I had something to start with. As we reached the front of the station entrance, I turned to April.

  “Thanks for helping me out. Dinner at Boone’s this week. I’ll call you when I have a free night.”

  April reached out her hand and I shook it. It was soft and warm to the touch.

  “Don’t show up without the sweet corn, or you may need to come across with something more intimate!”

  I smiled, and as I walked out, pulled out my phone to call Helen back in Des Moines to ship some ASAP.

  Chapter 5

  Logic told me to start at the murder scene. The office was in the Denver Tech Center, west of I-25 off of Belleview Avenue. Waterton Albers New Networking Systems had their own multi-storied building, all shiny glass and metal, a modern shrine they had built from their mega-revenues.

  Since the weather was typical of this time of year, warm and sunny, I had zipped down on the Harley, parking in the visitor space. There was a separate lot for employees, which you couldn’t access by vehicle without a magnetic keycard. But there was no issue walking in and looking around. It was four levels high, normally packed with cars, but with today being a weekend, it was only about a third full. I made my way up the stairs to the top level, where the murder had taken place. Looking around, I found the spot, a stain where the blood had flowed, still showing. It had been months, so I didn’t expect to find anything, but still, I was a thorough person who liked to look at everything with my own eyes. I pulled out my phone to see the photos I had taken of the crime scene pictures. I imagined where the car sat, how the body was found and tried to play out the events in my head.

  Aaron would have come out from the west-side stairwell, which was nearest to his car, either by himself, joined or led by someone, late that night. Once in the vehicle he was attacked, beaten and then shot in the leg. But why? Were they trying to get information out of him? If so, did they succeed and then they killed him? And why kill him outside the car and not inside? Did he try to escape and then was shot? Not likely, since he would have been shot in the back, whereas the Coroner says the bullet entered from the front. You would think killing him in the car would make more sense, as no one would likely find the body until morning. Of course, if it was a professional hit, they likely wouldn’t care. Murdering him was possibly a message for all to see. A warning to anyone else. Mandy seemed to think he might have found something which may have gotten him murdered. Could others have known as well? Right now it was all conjecture.

  I started walking around looking for the security cameras. There were several light poles on each corner, each with a mounted c
amera. All had good viewing angles of the upper level, and would have revealed much had they been working. Being a networking company, they could have easily arranged them to be down, if they were involved. It was convenient they were offline that night, which was something I couldn’t easily ignore. In a few minutes I might be able to ask this very question, as coming towards me was an electric motorized cart carrying what appeared to be two security guards, each one armed. They pulled up next to me, stepping out and flanking me, each with a hand on their unsnapped holster. I figured now was not a good time to run.

  “Don’t move, sir,” said the first guard, tall enough to play small forward in the NBA.

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” I replied.

  “What are you doing here?” asked the second guard, who could have only been in the NBA if he was Spud Webb.

  “Looking over the crime scene,” I answered. I kept my unassuming, non-dangerous smile in place.

  “What crime scene?” asked Spud, his hand shaking slightly over the gun handle.

  “The murder of Aaron Bailey. One of your employees. I’m trying to get a sense of what happened.”

  “What business is it of yours?” said the tall one.

  “I’m a private detective. I’ve been hired to find his killer.”

  They each turned their heads, looking at the other. I was hoping they weren’t deciding who got to shoot me!

  “Call it in,” commanded Spud to the other. “I would suggest you get comfortable and sit on the ground with your hands where we can see them.”

  I did as I was told, thankful it was a nice day. I hoped my sunscreen was going to hold out under the dense UV rays of the Mile-High City. I heard the tall one talking on his portable radio, though couldn’t make out completely what he was saying, as he turned when speaking into the microphone. Once he was done they both stood there ready to act, if I got aggressive. But I only smiled their way and after about fifteen minutes another cart showed up, with someone in a suit and tie straight off of a GQ photo shoot. He walked over in front of the two guards and opened up his coat to show me his shoulder holster, with a shiny silver gun. I guess he was trying to impress me, as if his gun was any more threatening than the other two.