UNEASY PREY Read online

  He moved to her side and slipped his arm around her waist. To Sylvia, he said, “The doctor told us you’re too stubborn to let something like this hold you down.”

  The truth was the doctor had also used the word “lucky.”

  “So I’m gonna live?” Sylvia said, her words mushy.

  “Oh hell yeah.” Pete leaned down and squeezed her hand. “You’ll be back at our poker game next Saturday feeling like a new woman.”

  “Good. I need to win back the money you stole off me tonight.”

  Zoe thought about correcting her. Last night. But didn’t. She nudged Pete. “They told us she needs her rest.”

  “So do you.” He turned again to Sylvia. “We’ll be back later to see if you’re ready to break out of here yet.”

  “Take your time. I plan to enjoy the room service for a while.”

  Which let Zoe know how truly awful Sylvia felt.

  In the elevator ride down, Pete took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “How about some breakfast before I take you home?”

  Zoe glanced at her watch. “The cafeteria doesn’t open for twenty minutes yet.”

  “How about the Park ‘n’ Dine?”

  “I thought you and Wayne were going to interrogate the Naiman brothers this morning.”

  “We are. But we’ve been letting them sit and simmer all night. They can wait until I see you’re fed and returned home.”

  Which was the problem. “The offer for breakfast is fine. But I’m not going home.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No. I’m not. I want to be there when you talk to those creeps.”

  Pete crossed his arms. “You don’t trust me to do my job?”

  “You know I do. But I want to see them. Hear what they have to say from their own lips.”

  “You’re supposed to rest.”

  That “R” word again. “I will. After I watch you and Wayne interrogate them.”

  Pete shook his head. “Not happening.”

  Zoe turned to face him and mirrored his crossed-arms pose. “I’m a deputy coroner. They murdered Oriole Andrews. I have every right to be there as part of my investigation.”

  The elevator stopped one floor shy of their destination, and a dark-haired man in scrubs stepped in. Pete’s set jaw told Zoe the debate was far from over.

  When the doors glided open a second time, all three of them exited into a hallway leading to the lobby. The man in scrubs ducked through a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only,” leaving Zoe and Pete to stroll down the hall alone.

  “First,” he said, holding up one finger, “you aren’t investigating Oriole’s homicide. Franklin Marshall is.”

  “He always takes the good cases,” Zoe muttered.

  “Second,” Pete held up two fingers, “may I remind you, the coroner’s investigation involves the actual body and what’s on and around it. It does not involve the suspects.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Zoe shooed away the minor detail with a wave of her hand.

  “And third…” Three fingers. “…the Naimans allegedly murdered her. If we knew for certain, there would be no need for an interrogation or the entire legal process. Remember that.”

  The allegedly thing startled Zoe. “You don’t think they did it?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty damned sure they did. You’re missing the point.”

  Her headache was amping up again. “I get it. Criminal Law 101.” The hallway opened into the lobby with its white marble floors and black marble walls. She stopped and turned to him, setting her face in her best you-aren’t-changing-my-mind look. “But I am going to watch you question those two. With or without breakfast first.”

  Before he could resume the argument, she wheeled away from him and marched out the front door.

  Breakfast had been largely silent. Pete knew from Zoe’s mule-headed scowl that he wasn’t going to sway her. He had to admit, her cheeks were back to their healthy pink, her eyes seemed clear, and her appetite was as voracious as ever. If it weren’t for the gauze bandage circling her head, no one would suspect anything was wrong.

  But he knew.

  He considered turning his SUV toward Route 15 and driving her home in spite of her insistence on going with him to the county police station. She wasn’t crazy enough to jump out of a moving car. However, she might just be crazy enough to pack her stuff and move back into the bunk room at the ambulance garage.

  Damn stubborn women.

  Pete escorted Zoe into the rear entrance of the station. Wayne Baronick leaned against the wall and looked up from the file he was reading.

  “Zoe,” the detective said, surprise in his voice. He shot a questioning glance at Pete before fixing his gaze on her. “What are you doing here?”

  She struck the same no-compromises pose as she had with Pete. “I’m going to observe the interrogation.”

  Baronick looked at Pete.

  Pete shrugged. You try to argue with her.

  The detective apparently knew better. “Okay then.” He tipped his head toward a door. “Our guests are awaiting our arrival.”

  They moved into another hallway lined with more doors. Pete had been here hundreds of times, but this was Zoe’s first trip behind the scenes of the county police station. He noticed her taking it all in.

  “How do you want to play this?” Baronick asked. “Douglas has already lawyered up. He refuses to say anything other than demanding to see his brother.”

  Pete shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

  “Right. Dennis, the older one, hasn’t demanded representation. Yet.”

  “Has anyone questioned him?”

  Baronick grinned. “I’ve been saving him for the two of us.” The detective aimed a thumb at a door marked Interview Room A. “Douglas Naiman and his attorney are in there.” Baronick pointed at another door down the hall. Interview Room B. “Dennis is in that one. Do you want to split up? Each of us take one? Or do you want to double up on them?”

  “Let’s both work on the one who hasn’t invoked his rights. Maybe we’ll get something from him we can use to entice the other one to open up.”

  Baronick flashed his too bright smile. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He handed Pete the file.

  Pete tucked it under an arm, opened the door to the darkened observation room next to Interview Room B, and gestured to Zoe. “You can watch and listen from here.”

  She paused as she stepped inside and turned to face him. “I want you to ask him something.”

  “What?”

  “Ask him if he knows Lauren Sanders.”

  Zoe’s eyes revealed a muddle of emotions. Fear. Anger. Determination. “I will,” he promised. He glanced at the window into Interview Room B. Their suspect sat hunched over, chewing his nails, his knee bouncing. “I definitely will.”

  With Zoe stashed safely away, Pete led the way into the cramped interrogation room. Dennis Naiman squirmed upright in his uncomfortable chair, folding his trembling hands on the table in front of him. He might be the older of the brothers, but he was also the more rattled.

  Pete eased into the chair across from Naiman and set the closed file on the table between them. Baronick grabbed the remaining chair and dragged it, the legs screeching like nails on a chalkboard, in front of the door, blocking even the intimation of escape. The detective sat and crossed his arms.

  “Good morning, Mr. Naiman,” Pete said and followed with another reading of the Miranda rights. “Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” the kid replied weakly.

  “I’m Pete Adams, Vance Township Police.” He tipped his head at Baronick. “He’s Detective Wayne Baronick, Monongahela County Police.”

  The kid’s gaze darted back and forth, settling on Pete. “I need to see my brother.”

  “You mean Douglas?”

  H
e nodded spastically.

  “No problem. He’s busy right now, but as soon as he finishes talking to the other officers, we’ll let you see him.”

  Naiman’s eyes widened for a split second. “Oh. Okay.” His knee started bouncing again, making the table vibrate.

  Pete struck a casual pose. “I think we’ve met before, haven’t we? Over at Golden Oaks. You’re Barbara’s grandson, right?”

  The kid acted as if the air had been sucked out of the room. His lips moved, but no words formed.

  “Don’t worry. She won’t hear any of this from me. That’s what’s got you worried, isn’t it? You’re afraid your grandmother will find out.”

  Naiman exhaled. The knee stilled. “Yeah.”

  “She’s really proud of you, you know.”

  Tears brimmed in the kid’s eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Doug and me…our folks were killed in a car crash when we were little. Grandma raised us. Put us through school.”

  “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

  “She is. She’d do anything for us.” Naiman’s voice quivered. “And we’d do anything for her.”

  “How long has she been at Golden Oaks?”

  Naiman slouched. “Fourteen months. She had a stroke. She was in pretty bad shape for a while. We thought we were gonna lose her. But she pulled through. Physical therapy helped, but she still needed more care than we could give her.”

  “So you placed her at Golden Oaks?”

  “It was the nicest place we could find,” Naiman said, his tone apologetic and pleading.

  “I understand completely.” Not a lie. “You want the best for those you care about.”

  “Yeah.” He sounded relieved, grateful that someone “got” it.

  Pete almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. “But that kind of place, that kind of care, gets expensive over time.”

  Naiman swiped a hand across his damp eyes. “Yeah. It does. We went through what was left of Grandma’s savings pretty fast. She’d already spent most of it putting us through college. We put the house on the market, but it hasn’t sold. We didn’t want to stick her in the county home.”

  “You started burglarizing houses.”

  He propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands without replying.

  “Dennis? Did you start stealing to help take care of your grandmother?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “You pretended to be utility workers to gain access?”

  Naiman lowered his hands. “Yeah.”

  “How many houses have you robbed?”

  The table began vibrating in time with the knee again. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “You’ve lost count?” Pete forced his jaw to relax. Getting angry—and showing it—would only put the kid on the defensive, and probably prompt him to demand an attorney.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know we found the wrecked van at the farm where you were stashing the stolen goods.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have any additional merchandise warehoused anywhere else?”

  Naiman gave a palsied shake of his head. “We haven’t had a chance to find another place. The only stuff we have is in the new van.”

  “About that haul we caught you with last night. Where’d you get it?”

  Naiman hunched over as if trying to crawl inside himself. “There was a house a couple days ago on Route 15, a mile or two from Dillard.”

  That would be the Krolls’ place. Pete had plenty of questions about that break-in, but let Naiman continue for the moment.

  “Then last night there was a place over on Brice Run Road. Between the junkyard and that house where they sell antiques.”

  “The Walkers?”

  He tried to shrug, but with his shoulders already hiked to his ears, the movement was miniscule. “I dunno. We don’t usually get their names.”

  Pete resisted the urge to reach over and rap his head on the table, once for each of his victims, while Pete recited the names to him. “Were they home at the time?”

  “No.” Naiman squirmed in the chair. “We stopped in earlier today and knew they had dinner plans with their kids tonight.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  He swallowed hard. “Their calendar.”

  “What?”

  “Their calendar,” Naiman repeated. “While we’re doing our water company thing to see what they’ve got, we also check out their calendars. Old people don’t put their appointments on their phones. They mark them on their calendars. We’d see when they were gonna be out of the house for a doctor’s appointment or whatever. And then we’d go back. We hated doing it. But it was the only way. No one was supposed to get hurt. Old folks have insurance. They’d get their stuff replaced with newer stuff.”

  “No one was supposed to get hurt?” Pete dropped the casual pretense and leaned menacingly across the table. “That didn’t work out so well, did it?”

  Naiman shivered as if they were seated in a freezer. “We didn’t mean to hurt that woman. She surprised us. No one was supposed to be there.”

  “Which time?”

  The question seemed to startle him. He stuttered, “What do you mean?”

  “Which woman didn’t you mean to hurt? The one you hit in the head and left to freeze to death in the snow? Or the one you shoved down the steps and left to die in her basement?”

  Naiman’s eyes had grown so wide, white showed around his dark irises. “What?” He choked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What basement? Yeah, Doug hit that woman who was sneaking around the house a couple days ago. But he said he didn’t hit her that hard. And—and Doug said he saw someone else there. I’d have called 911 myself for her if I’d thought no one was gonna find her. You mean she’s—she’s dead?”

  “No.” Pete reined in his anger and forced his voice to stay calm. Naiman was on the verge of hyperventilating, and Pete needed to keep him talking. “She has a concussion, but that woman is fine.”

  Naiman’s knee stilled as he closed his eyes. “Thank God.”

  “But Oriole Andrews wasn’t so lucky.”

  His eyes snapped open again. “Who?”

  Pete opened the folder, retrieved an autopsy photo showing a very deceased Oriole, and shoved it in front of Naiman. “The old woman you tossed down her basement stairs. What happened? Didn’t expect to find her at home?”

  He recoiled from the photo. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. We never—we wouldn’t—”

  Pete played back the kid’s answers in his mind. Doug had been the one who struck Zoe. “You wouldn’t,” Pete said. “But what about your brother? Maybe he pushed her down the stairs and didn’t tell you about it.”

  “No. Doug wouldn’t do—” Naiman stopped, his forehead creased. Cringing, he ventured another look at the photo. “Oriole Andrews. That’s the old lady in the house on the hill in Dillard, right?”

  “That’s her. She wasn’t as lucky as the young woman you left in the snow.”

  “No.” Naiman shook his head vehemently. “No. She was alive when we were there.” He met Pete’s gaze and held it. “Yeah, we cased her place. Did our water-company routine. But we never went back. For one thing, she didn’t have anything worth stealing. But mostly because she reminded us of Grandma.” He looked over at Baronick and then back at Pete. “You have to believe me. We didn’t—we would never hurt an old lady like that. Ever. And we sure as hell wouldn’t kill her.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Zoe’s head throbbed and her legs threatened to buckle, but the concussion was only partly to blame. Listening to Dennis Naiman, watching him melt down, had been more than she’d bargained for. When Pete gathered his folder and stood to leave the interrogation room, she collapsed into a chai
r she’d refused earlier.

  The door to the observation room swung open, and Pete and Wayne stepped inside.

  Pete took one look at her and knelt next to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Just tired.” She studied his face. “I believe him. Do you?”

  He shot a glance at Wayne before meeting her gaze. “Yeah. I do.”

  “I’m not convinced the punk isn’t a damned good liar,” Wayne said. “And I’m sure not ready to drop homicide from the list of charges we’re bringing against these assholes.”

  “You’re gonna start looking at other suspects in Oriole’s death though,” Zoe said. “Aren’t you?”

  Wayne looked like he’d sucked a lemon. “I guess we have to.”

  Pete climbed to his feet and faced the detective. “But let’s not release that part to the press. Let the public believe we have the killers in custody.”

  Wayne scowled. “Don’t you think that could be dangerous? If the killer’s still out there, do we want the elderly to let down their guard?”

  “If the killer is still out there, Oriole’s homicide may have been personal. Besides, if our killer thinks we have someone in custody for the crime, he’ll do two things.” Pete held up one finger. “He won’t risk reopening the case by harming anyone else.” Pete held up a second finger. “He might let his guard down and let something slip.”

  A predatory smile crept across Wayne’s face. “I like it.”

  Zoe stood and gave Pete’s shoulder a gentle jab. “Speaking of the press, you didn’t ask Naiman about Lauren Sanders.”

  “No, I didn’t. But he did say his brother saw someone else.”

  And he’d admitted it had been his brother who hit her. Not Lauren. However, Zoe wasn’t appeased. “Of course he did. You were putting the screws to him about leaving me there. He didn’t say whether or not he knew her. She might have been the one who warned them about me.” Zoe played out a new possible scenario. “She might have called them. You never found her cell phone, did you?”