Beneath a Buried House (Detective Elliot Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “What is it exactly that you want, Detective?”

  Elliot kept his impatience in check and held up the key. “I need to look inside the lockbox that this key goes to. Could you open it, please?”

  “But you’re not the owner of the box.”

  He glanced at her name tag. “No, Ms. Davenport. I have a warrant. I don’t need to be the owner.”

  “I see. Well, how did you determine that the key you have is for a box at this bank?”

  Elliot held up the envelope he’d found beneath Brighid McAlister’s bed, an envelope that had Arvest Bank emblazoned across it.

  “Yes, well I don’t know if I can do that or not, open the box that is. Can you wait until Susie gets back?”

  “Who’s Susie? And what does she have to do with this?”

  Ms. Davenport tried to look put out, but her embarrassment showed. “Susan Taylor. She’s the manager.”

  “When will she be back?”

  Ms. Davenport checked her watch. “Well, you just missed her. It’ll be an hour, maybe more.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  Ms. Davenport stood before him, wringing her hands.

  “Can you call her?”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I’m not to bother her during lunch.”

  Elliot pulled his phone and flipped it open. “What’s the number?”

  Ms. Davenport put a hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure if I should do that.”

  Hearing footsteps, Elliot turned to see the receptionist coming toward him. She smiled and handed him a sticky note with a name and phone number written on it. Elliot immediately punched the number into his phone. Behind him he heard the lady say, “For heavens sake, Rhonna. He’s a police officer.”

  When the party answered, Elliot identified himself, then said, “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Taylor, but I’m getting a little low on patience, and I need you to do something for me. There’s a lockbox at your bank, and you need to either cut your lunch short and come and open it or instruct one of your employees to do it for you.”

  As asked, Elliot handed the phone to Ms. Davenport. Glancing at Elliot, she took the phone, then turned away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I know. But this wasn’t covered in our training.”

  She was silent for a moment, then she nodded. “Yes, Ms. Taylor.”

  Ms. Davenport turned back and handed Elliot the phone. He flipped it shut and stuck it in his pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. I’ve just never had to deal with anything like this before.”

  “I understand. Could we please proceed?”

  “Of course, as soon as I can determine which box your key goes to.”

  Again the receptionist appeared. Elliot was beginning to believe that the wrong employee had received the promotion. The lady handed Ms. Davenport another key and another sticky note. “I figured you could use a little help. I looked it up for you.” She paused then added, “Everything’s going to be all right, Rhonna. All you have to do is unlock a box for the detective.”

  The two women stared at each other briefly, then the receptionist went back to her post.

  Ms. Davenport asked Elliot to follow her. About halfway down the east wall, she opened a black gate made of steel, and she and Elliot entered a long, narrow room where small brown metal drawers filled three of the walls. Ms. Davenport searched along the north wall until she found the correct number, then put her key into the slot and turned to Elliot, waiting for him to do the same.

  Elliot slid his key into the lock, but before he opened it, and before Ms. Davenport could leave to give him privacy, he said, “I want you to remain in the room as a witness to the contents of the box. You will need to prepare an inventory, which should be signed and notarized. In fact, it would be a good idea if you would ask one of your coworkers to come and act as an additional witness.”

  As soon as the efficient receptionist came into the room, Elliot turned the key and pulled the lockbox from the wall, then carried it to a table placed there for that purpose. With both bank employees watching, Elliot opened the lid to the box. Inside, arranged neatly as if in a small filing cabinet, were three brown envelopes, which had names and addresses written on them. The names corresponded with the ones on the list Elliot had found along with the key.

  Elliot grabbed the envelope labeled “Zachariah Holsted,” the only name on the list that had a red X beside it, and carefully unhooked the metal clasp that held it shut. When he removed the contents, three 5x7 photographs, and spread them across the table, Rhonna Davenport gasped.

  The photographs, which had been taken from different angles, allowing the faces of the subjects to be in full view and easily identifiable, depicted a couple engaged in bizarre sex acts. The female was Brighid McAlister. Her partner, Elliot suspected, was Zachariah Holsted.

  Brighid McAlister was running a blackmailing scheme.

  Elliot climbed the slight incline of the drive to the Holsted property, following a hazy blue light that crackled from the open doors of a metal building crammed into the yard behind the house. Entering the shop, he saw a man leaning over a motorcycle frame.

  He approached the suspect. No one else was around, and when he drew near, the man turned off the torch and raised the face shield of his welding helmet. He wore a denim jacket and greasy denim jeans.

  “Something I can do for you, mister?”

  Elliot recognized him as the man in the photo with Brighid. “Are you Zachariah Holsted?”

  He took off his gloves and removed the welding helmet, placing them on a workbench. “Who wants to know?”

  When Elliot showed his badge, a look of fear flashed across the man’s face. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  “Do you know Brighid McAlister?”

  “Yeah, I know her. So what?” A belligerent tone crept into his voice.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  The man used one of his hands to push his greasy hair away from his face. “I don’t know. It’s been a while.”

  Elliot decided to go ahead with the big question, just to see the man’s reaction. “If you had to, could you account for your whereabouts on Monday, January sixth from 10:00 a.m. to noon?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. What’s this about?”

  “Brighid McAlister is dead, Mr. Holsted. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Jesus H. Christ. No. Hell no.”

  Elliot watched a bead of sweat run down Holsted’s face. “Then you need to think about where you were during the time period that I asked you about. It’s important.”

  The suspect shook his head. “I’m not good with stuff like that. I need some time to think.”

  “Do you own any firearms, Mr. Holsted?” Elliot already had a warrant. As soon as he’d seen the photographs, he’d called Judge Miranda Broussard again, explaining what he’d found and what he needed.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Hell yes, I’ve got firearms. Who doesn’t?”

  Elliot pulled the paperwork from his jacket pocket. “I have a warrant to search the premises, Mr. Holsted. Could you show me the guns, please?”

  Mr. Holsted dragged his hand through his hair again. “Ah, Jesus. You got the wrong guy, Detective. It doesn’t surprise me none that somebody killed her, but it wasn’t me. Whatever gave you a crazy idea like that?”

  Elliot put the warrant back in his pocket. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the explicit photos of you and Brighid in bed together. I did my homework, Mr. Holsted. Brighid McAlister was blackmailing you, or at least she was trying to. That gives you a pretty good motive to kill her, wouldn’t you say?”

  The suspect buried his face in his hands for a moment, then pulled them away and tried to regain his composure. “All right, Detective, I’ll cooperate. But let me explain something to you. I got me a good thing going here. I got a good wife and a baby d
aughter. I don’t want that messed up.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that before you jumped in bed with a prostitute.”

  “Ah, come on. What are you, some kind of saint or something, ain’t never done nothing like that before?”

  For a moment, Elliot was lost in thought. Zachariah Holsted’s question had taken him back to his high school days, and Marcia Barnes’s long blonde hair falling across his chest. It was a moment he would live to regret. Marcia wasn’t the one he was supposed to be with that night, and this had hurt someone he cared deeply about. “All right, Mr. Holsted. I’ll do what I can. But this is a murder investigation. I can’t promise it won’t come out.”

  A hint of a smile crossed Holsted’s lips. “Fair enough.”

  The suspect led Elliot into the house through a door that opened into the kitchen. Unlike the shop area, the house was immaculately clean and uncluttered, everything in its place, the result, no doubt, of Mrs. Holsted’s efforts. As soon as they were inside, Holsted called out. “Hey, baby.”

  Within seconds she appeared, a short and slightly overweight blonde wearing a miniskirt and a T-shirt that were about two sizes too small for her. Her skin was fair, almost translucent. Elliot guessed she was about nineteen, five or six years younger than Holsted. She tried to smile, but her husband squinted his eyes and shook his head. “What’s going on, Zach?”

  Holsted went to her, putting his arm around her. “Just a little trouble, baby. But don’t you worry. I’ll get it cleared up. This here’s a police detective. He wants to look around a little bit. It’ll be all right.”

  “What do you mean look around? Look around for what?”

  Elliot took the opportunity to introduce himself. He stepped forward and extended his hand. She timidly took it, her embrace soft and warm. “Detective Kenny Elliot, ma’am.”

  Her name was Courtney, and Elliot wanted to ask her how and why she’d hooked up with such a man as Zachariah Holsted, but he remembered Dombrowski’s lectures about professionalism and managed to restrain himself. “I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said. “But I’m conducting a murder investigation. I just need to look around, maybe ask a few questions.”

  Courtney Holsted’s face lost what little color it had, and she turned to her husband. “Murder? What does this have to do with us?”

  “Hopefully nothing,” Elliot said. “Does the name Brighid McAlister mean anything to you?”

  Zachariah’s jaw twitched, and Courtney looked equally nervous. As she stared at her husband, he vigorously shook his head. “No,” she said. “Should it?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m here to find out.”

  Elliot questioned Zachariah and Courtney for a few minutes, then asked to be shown around. In the living room, he noticed a brochure to some church called Open Arms Unitarian, or something of the sort.

  While Courtney looked after the baby, a cute and chubby three-year-old with curly brown hair, Mr. Holsted led Elliot into the master bedroom, where a gun cabinet sat in the northwest corner. He unlocked it, then stepped aside to allow Elliot access.

  Inside the cabinet, Elliot saw one rifle and one shotgun, both weapons standing upright in the rack. With a small flashlight he pulled from his coat he leaned forward and searched inside the cabinet, checking the floor and the walls. After that he pulled out a long, narrow drawer located halfway between the glass doors and the base. It contained gun-cleaning equipment. “Do you own any handguns?”

  Holsted shrugged. “What would a deer hunter need with a handgun?”

  “You tell me.”

  Holsted frowned. “Ah, Christ. You’re going to find out anyway.” He went to a nightstand beside the bed and slid out a drawer, from which he pulled an old army-issued .45 caliber. Handing it to Elliot, he said, “It ain’t registered, but it’s mine. I bought it at a gun show a few years back. Hell, it ain’t even loaded. The wife won’t let me with the baby around.”

  Elliot pretended to be interested, performing an inspection of the weapon, then handed it back to the suspect. It wasn’t the weapon that killed Brighid McAlister. It was the wrong caliber. “Do you own any others?” Elliot asked.

  Holsted shook his head. “That’s all I got. Hell, you got the warrant. Look around for yourself. But you ain’t going to find nothing.”

  The search of the house and the shop out back turned out just like Mr. Holsted predicted, no evidence found. Later, with the search completed, Elliot walked over to the workbench where Zachariah Holsted was standing, and it was then that the suspect removed, for the first time since their meeting, the jacket that he wore, exposing his inked-up arms. One symbol in particular, a star with a circle around it, caught Elliot’s attention. “Interesting tattoo,” he said. “What does it mean?”

  Holsted glanced at Elliot, a puzzled look crawling across his face, as if Elliot had asked about something he shouldn’t be privy to. “Hell if I know. I drink a little now and then. Sometimes I get a little carried away, wake up in strange places, or with a new one of these carved into my skin.” He shook his head. “It don’t mean nothing.”

  “It’s called a pentacle,” Elliot said. “And it can mean quite a lot, especially with it being upside down like that. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Holsted didn’t answer the question. Instead he motioned for Elliot to follow him as he went to the east end of the workbench. Grinning, he tapped the page of a calendar that hung on the wall there. “Come to think about it, I do remember where I was yesterday morning, at Cymry’s Bar for Drifter John’s birthday. I got plastered, if you know what I mean. My missy was there too. Go ask her. She’ll tell you.”

  “Was there anyone else there who could confirm your story?”

  Zachariah Holsted smiled and said, “Hell yes, there was people there, lots of them.”

  “I’ll need a list of names.”

  “Sure thing,” Zachariah said. “No problem.” Then his face grew serious. “There’s something else I need to tell you, Detective. Since you’re going to be poking around at Cymry’s you’ll find out anyway, so you might as well hear it from me.”

  Elliot nodded. “Go on.”

  “Brighid McAlister hangs out there, or at least she used to.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elliot sat in his car in front of Zachariah Holsted’s house, staring at his cell phone. So far, Holsted’s alibi was checking out. Then again, he suspected Holsted’s friends wouldn’t think twice about lying for him. His alibi and the lack of a murder weapon would keep him out of jail for now, but Elliot wasn’t through with him.

  Elliot had plenty of information to sort through, though the details of the case weren’t the only things going through his mind. He thought of Holsted’s wife, Courtney, especially the way her eyes tilted when she smiled. The unsettling thoughts caused him to realize their true source. It was Cyndi Bannister. He’d purposely left the note with her number on it at home, though as he thought of her the sequence played through his head, as clearly as if he held the note in his hand. He knew without a doubt that he shouldn’t do what he was contemplating, knew it all the way to his bones, yet his fingers crawled across the cell phone, keying in the numbers that would connect him with her.

  When Cyndi answered, Elliot’s words caught in his throat. What was he thinking? She was Cunningham’s girl. Finally, in the discomfort of the silence, she spoke again. “You shouldn’t be calling me.”

  All Elliot could manage was, “You’re right.”

  “What do you want?”

  Elliot thought of the sensuous way she’d drunk from his beer and how it might feel to touch her, but what he said was, “How about dinner?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m hungry.”

  “That’s a stupid answer.”

  Elliot dried his hands on his pant leg. He felt like a teenager who’d conjured up the nerve to call a popular cheerleader. “Actually it was a stupid question.”

  “I told you to leave me alone.”


  “Really? I must have missed that part. How does six o’clock sound?”

  “Sounds like you’re serious about this.”

  Elliot fought the urge to give in and tell her just how much he wanted her. “I’d like to be.”

  The phone went silent for a moment, and he almost thought she’d hung up on him. Then she huffed. “You don’t even know where I live.”

  “I’m pretty good at finding out things like that.”

  “You’d never get past the guard.”

  Elliot wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “Oh, I don’t know. I have good credentials.”

  “I’ll meet you.”

  “Where?” Elliot asked.

  “Where are you?”

  He told Cyndi his location, and she suggested meeting at a convenience store at 21st and Harvard. He wasn’t sure she would show up, but he hoped that she would. Elliot smiled and punched the END button on the phone. He started the car and pulled away from the Holsted house.

  A few minutes later, he saw the cab coming up Harvard Avenue and knew even before the cabbie wheeled into the lot and stopped that it was Cyndi. With a slow fluid movement, she stepped from the cab and started toward him. She wore tight blue jeans and a black leather jacket with a wool scarf of red draped around the collar. Elliot climbed out and met her halfway.

  He embraced her, brushing her cheek with a kiss, and during their brief touch the scent of her perfume drove his desire, though his guilt over the clandestine meeting worked to keep it in check. When he released her, her eyes shone with the same curiosity that filled him. Once at the car, Elliot opened the door for Cyndi, then went around to his side and climbed in. “What are you in the mood for?” He realized too late that the question might be construed as loaded. He didn’t think he intended it that way, though in his present state of confusion he wasn’t totally sure.

  “How about a sandwich at the Knotty Pine?”

  Elliot knew the place, an old barbeque joint on the west side of town. It didn’t fit. He’d expected a classy restaurant. Was she mocking him? “You’ve got to be kidding.”