Animal Instinct by Rosenfelt, David (novels for students TXT) 📕

she is wrong will be in taking all the blame on herself. We were all a part of it; every step of the way. Laurie was the one who went out to Cincinnati, but if I was allowed, it would have been me. Either way we all agreed on the best approach.”

“Obviously, it’s a terrible tragedy,” Dani says. “And just as obviously the best thing you can do now is catch the person that did this. Do you think the same person also killed Lisa Yates and Gerald Kline?”

I shake my head. “No, that was Jake Gardener. He admitted it the night he died. But that doesn’t matter; the same people are behind it.”

“This is not my area of expertise, but it seems to me that the big question at this point isn’t who did it, it’s why. Once you learn the why, the who will fall into place.”

“You’re exactly right. You sure you’re not a cop?”

“Pretty sure. So what does what happened in Cincinnati tell you?”

“That whoever we are dealing with has a long reach. That it has nothing to do with a drug deal involving Rico or anyone else. We’ll reach out to the Cincinnati cops and try and find a Rico out there, but we’ll come up empty.”

“But you know for a fact that Lisa was afraid of Rico, and that Kline was involved,” Dani says.

“That’s true, but that doesn’t mean Rico caused her death. Lisa and Kline could have been involved in a lot of bad stuff. But what happened in Cincinnati also tells me that all of this is likely tied into Lisa Yates’s work.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the only consistent thread that runs through this. Lisa and Kline met through the medical services industry. She quit her job around the same time she was starting to worry; that’s when she reserved the motel room. And Jana Mitchell was also involved in that industry.”

“But you told me that Lisa was not a decision maker, all she did was input data into a computer and then make it available.”

I nod. “That’s what Richard Mahler and the guy he replaced, Don Crystal, both told me. They were above her, at least in the computer area, so they would know. Her coworker Susan Redick said the same thing as well.”

“What does that tell you?”

“It’s got to be something she uncovered. Maybe Kline was doing something illegal, but more likely not. He was not an employee of Ardmore; he had nothing to do with them on a daily basis. But she could have confided in Kline; they were lovers. That could be why he had to be eliminated as well.”

“And Lisa confided the same thing to Jana Mitchell? Why?”

“I’m just guessing here,” I say. “But they might just have been friends. They were in the same industry; maybe they attended conventions together. Maybe their paths crossed some other way at one point in their careers; for all I know they once worked at the same place. I don’t know any of that yet; but I need to find out in a hurry.”

“Does any of what has happened help you legally?”

“Not according to Andy. We can’t connect any of it to the Kline murder, at least not well enough to get it in front of a jury. But I have seen Andy in court; he can be resourceful.”

“Does he think you can win?”

“I haven’t asked him yet. I’m afraid of the answer.”

LAURIE has clearly been affected by the Jana Mitchell murder.

She acknowledges it at the beginning of our noon meeting. Andy and Sam are also here, but Marcus is not.

“I’m sure you know how I feel,” Laurie says. “Andy obviously knows because I kept him up on the phone most of the night. Corey knows because he felt the same way about Lisa Yates.” She smiles a sad smile. “Sam, you’re off the hook.”

She continues, “The only way I can deal with it is for us to catch the people that did it. So that’s where my focus is.”

I’m impressed by her, and not for the first time. She’s a professional, and that’s how she is handling it.

“Sam, can you check airline travel records?” I ask.

“Piece of cake. I can tell you who was on a flight, what class of service, and whether they ordered a kosher meal.”

“Perfect. I want to know who flew from any of the New York airports to Cincinnati yesterday and flew back either last night or first thing this morning.”

“I’ll be on that list,” Laurie says.

“That’s okay; I think we can eliminate you as a suspect. There’s a good chance that whoever killed Jana Mitchell was sent from here; it seems unlikely that these people would have a Cincinnati hit man waiting in the wings for an assignment.”

“I’m on it,” Sam says. “Anything else?”

“Not now, but I’m sure there will be.”

I turn to Andy. “What impact will all this have on our case?”

“Hard to say. If we can connect the deaths of Lisa Yates and Jana Mitchell to Gerald Kline, that would be helpful. That shouldn’t be hard with Lisa because we have the email she sent to Doris Landry saying that she and Kline were worried about Rico. And we can show they had a relationship.

“But it would be especially helpful to connect Mitchell to Kline, since your GPS bracelet represents an ironclad alibi. Right now the difficulty will be in getting this in front of the jury; at this point we can’t pass the threshold to get it admissible. I’m going to subpoena the phone records for both women; that will at least show that they had a relationship. But more of a connection would be helpful.”

“Maybe I can help with that,” I say. “It’s a shot in the dark, but you never know.”

I place a call to Stephanie Downes, Kline’s partner, at least in name, in their business. I’m expecting to have to leave a message, but she answers the phone herself.

“Stephanie, this is Corey Douglas.”

“Hey, Corey,” she says, as if we’re buddies