The Good Neighbor

“Anyway, the vic accused Ms. Burke of being a gold digger and she told him that he was no good and that Helen Russell didn’t deserve the kind of heartache he was putting her through. According to Johansen, she also told him that she wished he’d never come here and that Mrs. Russell was better off without him.” He waved toward the sheets of paper once again. “Mrs. Russell’s most recent bank statements are in there. Never knew before the lady was richer than Midas, so we’ve got our motive.”

Wade had spent more than an hour with the lady, and he’d come away with the impression that she lived comfortably. If she was wealthy, she wouldn’t be the first person he’d met who lived far more simply than their bank account permitted. He did understand where Egan’s thinking had headed; however, as he turned to look out the door and across the hall where he could see Megan. “You think she’s after Mrs. Russell’s money and killed the grandson to get it?”

Egan nodded. “We’ve got to start somewhere, and that motive makes sense. That young lady drives a Lexus RX, has a pot full of money in savings, and a job that wouldn’t appear to support having either one. I figure the vic was onto something. She makes friends with these old people, gets in their good graces, and steals from them while everyone is smiling. She killed the grandson to squash his accusation.”

“Got any evidence to support that theory?” Wade asked.

“That’s why I’ve got you, Detective. To find it.”

Wade stared at his boss a long moment, remembering all the other times he’d been pressured to button up a case and get the public settled down. Too well, he knew the cost of putting the wrong person in jail.

Wade stepped into the office and closed the door. “Since this is the first major case we’re on together,” he said, setting the papers on the corner of the desk, “a reminder about how I work. I follow the evidence where it leads me, not where anyone with an agenda wants it to go. If it proves a theory, fine. If it doesn’t, fine.”

“I get your drift.” Egan pointed at the glass door of his office, through which there was a view of the conference room door across the hall. “Call her a person of interest or a suspect or a witness. But in my book, she’s at the top of the most-likely list even if you don’t buy into my theory. In those papers is the preliminary criminal report I’ve pulled on her, along with her credit report.”

“Have you read it yet?”

The chief shook his head. “Nope. I’ve been fielding phone calls from everyone in town from the mayor to the editor of the Gazette.” With that, he once more propped his feet on the credenza, turning his back on Wade. “When you talk to her, I suggest you go in armed with the facts.”

“You said something about a couple of interesting phone calls. Johansen and who else?”

“A guy who didn’t want to leave his name, but who says he knows for sure that Megan Burke held a grudge against Robby Russell.”

“He didn’t leave his name,” Wade repeated flatly.

“No. Caller ID was blocked, but we’ve got the phone company on it. I’ll be sure to let you know when we hear something.”

Wade nodded.

“Close the door behind you,” the chief instructed as Wade left the room.

He discovered the door to the conference room was locked when he tried the knob. Nothing like making a witness even more nervous by locking her up, Wade thought. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open.

“Sorry you’ve had to wait all this time,” he said, meaning it. This close, he could see her expression was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. “Is there anything I can get for you? Coffee, something to eat?”

She shook her head, brushing her hair away from her face. He remembered her hair had been in a ponytail this morning. Now it fell to her shoulders, softly curling around her neck.

“The ladies’ room is back there. I’ve got one thing to do, which should take me no more than ten minutes.”

She nodded her understanding, stood, and came toward him. Despite her height, she seemed fragile as she slipped past him, heading for the restroom. The urge to protect her overwhelmed him for a moment—and then he looked down at the papers in his hand.

Sitting down, he scanned Egan’s notes and the record Caroline had printed. Megan was originally from New Jersey and evidently had come to Colorado to go to graduate school. She had worked as a physical therapist for several years in Denver at a rehab clinic affiliated with Denver General Hospital. Three years ago, she had moved here.

Three things stood out, and they were biggies. First, she had close to two hundred thousand dollars in savings—a lot of money for anyone, but a huge amount for someone on her wages. Second, she had changed her last name from Norris to Burke shortly after turning twenty-one. And third, she had been arrested and charged with assault and attempted murder.

He closed the file and stared down the hallway that led to the restrooms. He had been so sure she was one of the innocent ones. That, after telling Egan he didn’t make assumptions.

Expelling a harsh breath of irritation at himself, he put everything inside a folder and waited for her return. One minute turned into two, and with each passing one, his level of irritation with himself and her grew. When she finally came down the hallway, the five minutes had felt like an hour. Her hair was once more in a ponytail, her expression more composed than it had been a few minutes earlier. He followed her into the conference room. She sat down, folding her hands neatly on the table, her gaze not quite meeting his. For some reason, that pierced his control.

He let the door slam behind him when he came into the room. She jumped slightly, but nothing in her expression changed when he sat down across from her.

“Tell me about Megan Norris,” he said. “Tell me about your arrest.”

She blinked, then something in her expression dissolved. There was simply no other word for it. In a matter seconds, color drained out of her face, leaving a white line around her mouth and making the freckles sprinkled over her nose stand out. She stared at him without speaking, but the expression in her eyes was so devastated that he imagined he was looking at a person in shock. He’d interviewed enough witnesses, suspects and victims over the last fifteen years to know when a reaction was faked, and when one wasn’t. This was as real as it got.

The tug of sympathy pulled at his chest once more while he reminded himself he had a job to do. Collect the facts, build a case. Forget that he wanted to like this woman. That he already did like her.

“Did you read the whole report?” she asked, her voice surprisingly calm. “Or did you simply stop when you saw that I had been arrested?”

The fact that she seemed to know that further irritated him. “I want you to tell me about it.”

She lifted her chin slightly. “We don’t always get what we want, Detective. If you want the story…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed, all the time holding his gaze as though he had somehow betrayed her. “Read the rest of the report.”

“And then you’ll talk to me about it.”

She nodded, the reluctance in the gesture as obvious as her tightly clasped hands.

“Fair enough. Tell me about your relationship with Mrs. Russell,” he said.

She did, her color improving little by little. They were neighbors and friends. Everything she told him echoed what Helen Russell had told him when they had talked. Mrs. Russell had described how Megan watched out for her, shoveling the snow in winter, taking her to church and the grocery store. She’d never asked for anything, which contradicted the chief’s theory that she was a gold digger. Megan’s tone of voice and demeanor suggested that she genuinely liked her neighbor. But the knowledge that she had been arrested for attempted murder colored his perceptions, as unprofessional as that was. The cynic in him kept searching for motive in everything she relayed, but the side of him that wasn’t a cop kept wanting to take what she said at face value.

When Megan fell silent, he said, “But you didn’t like her grandson.”

“I didn’t,” she agreed without any defensiveness in her voice. “Helen raised him, you know. So, I think it hurt her that he didn’t visit very often. When he showed up a couple of weeks ago needing a place to stay, she was surprised.”

Megan paused while she continued to study the detective. Common sense urged her not to volunteer anything. And the promise that she’d made to herself to live an open life after her father died last year was right there at the surface, too. Was it better, she wondered, to tell everything she suspected about Robby? Or was it better to operate the way she knew a lawyer would advise—keep her mouth shut. And if she did, would that make finding Robby’s killer harder? And if she spoke up, would Detective Prescott assume he could—and should—build a case against her?

And then she remembered a verse from her Bible-study group a couple of weeks ago. You will come to know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. It had been true for her all those years ago when the finger of suspicion had been pointed at her. It had to apply now.

“I need to tell you about two different things that happened.”

“Either of these come under the heading of your needing a lawyer?”

The question surprised her since her impression was that cops wanted information any way they could get it. Once more reminding herself that the truth couldn’t hurt her, she said, “I’ll take my chances. The first has to do with a strange thing that started about a month ago after a visit to the bank.”

“Was that before or after Russell came to town?”

“Before, by a week or so,” she replied. “Helen has this huge collection of old coins that she decided to have appraised. They were in a safety-deposit box at the bank, and she wanted help carrying them home.”

“They were that heavy?” His soft question was interested, the kind friends asked when they were getting acquainted.

Ignoring the warning in her head that this man wasn’t a friend, couldn’t be a friend, she said, “You have no idea. She kept them in a washtub.” Visualizing the plastic container, she motioned with her hands. “You know, like you’d set in the bottom of a sink. Anyway, we got them home, and she asked me to put them away on a shelf in the closet of her spare bedroom. A couple of days ago, she told me that the appraiser was finally coming to see her and asked me to get them down. At least a quarter of them were gone.” She paused, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach from that day back now.

“These coins…just how old are we talking?” Wade asked.

“Pre-civil war for a lot of the collection.”

“And Mrs. Russell showed them to you.”