For Just Cause. Kara LennoxЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “THERE WERE NO PRINTS left behind, no trace evidence at all,” Billy continued. “The cops don’t have a clue.”

       Claudia felt sick to her stomach. “When did this happen?”

       “A few days ago.”

       This crime couldn’t be unrelated, could it? Theresa’s neighborhood wasn’t top drawer, but neither was it a hotbed of violent crime.

       “There was someone in the backyard just now, digging around in the dirt,” she said. “I called out, but whoever it was ran off, scared.”

       Billy’s eyebrows raised in obvious interest. He turned and climbed the stairs to the front porch to have a closer look at the plywood patch covering the window. He pushed on a corner, which gave slightly.

       “Billy, that would be breaking and entering.”

       “No one will care. The police are done with the crime scene. We’re just going to look around.” With a quick glance left and right to be sure no one was watching, he heaved his shoulder into the plywood.

       With a shriek of nails pulling free, the board came loose.

       Billy knocked it all the way to the floor inside, then climbed in. “I’ll let you in through the front door.”

       Claudia considered going to sit in her car. An arrest for B & E could jeopardize her entire practice and cause Project Justice considerable embarrassment. But probably no one would care if they looked around, and she couldn’t contain her own curiosity, so when Billy opened the front door, she stepped across the threshold.

       It was like a brick oven inside; Claudia’s skin immediately dampened with perspiration. Her dress stuck to her, clinging to her thighs and breasts.

       She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or miffed when Billy ignored her, flipping on some lights, first in the entry way, then the living room, and going into search mode.

       The place was a wreck—furniture overturned or ripped open, drawers and cabinets emptied. Here and there, black fingerprint powder marred surfaces.

       Theresa was obviously a devout woman. Pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and several saints adorned the walls. Over the red plaid sofa hung a huge print of da Vinci’s The Last Supper. And on the brick hearth was a statue of Jesus as well as an angel, a monk—maybe St. Francis—and a couple of other saints Claudia couldn’t identify.

       “Whoever did this trashed the place to make it look like a random crime,” Billy said. “But I worked in property crimes on the Dallas P.D. for a while. Burglars don’t just destroy stuff for the hell of it. They take what they want and leave. This much damage is overkill.”

       “As if the perpetrator had an emotional connection to the victim?”

       “Possibly.”

       Billy and Claudia quickly checked the rest of the house. Every room had been assaulted and vandalized.

       “Let’s check out the backyard,” Claudia said. “I want to know why that woman was digging around.”

       “Digging for buried treasure? Maybe she heard something about the missing coins.”

       In the early summer heat, it wouldn’t take long for an unwatered garden to wither and die. The backyard looked as if it had once been lovingly cultivated with flowers and a vegetable patch. Now, most everything was dead or dying. Green had turned to yellow and beige. The tall weeds rattled in the light breeze.

       “If Theresa ever comes home,” Claudia said, “she’ll be horrified by what’s happened to her yard.” She walked over to where the mystery woman had been turning up the earth. Several large holes had been dug up in one corner of the garden. “I wonder what that woman was looking for?”

       Billy squatted down and examined the other plants in the vegetable patch. “Potatoes. And onions.”

       “How can you tell?”

       He gave her a pitying look. “I take it you don’t garden.”

       “I have a landscaping service that does all that. Do you have a garden?”

       “Sure. I grow all kinds of stuff in big pots on my patio—tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash. Growing up, if my mom hadn’t grown vegetables, we’d have gone hungry. Now I just do it ’cause there’s nothing quite like a home-grown tomato.”

       She never would have pegged him as a gardener. But she was more surprised that he’d shared something from his personal life with her.

       “Hey, you!”

       Claudia jumped and looked for the source of the voice. The woman in pink, wearing a large brimmed hat and sunglasses, was peering at them over the privacy fence. Unless she was seven feet tall, she was on a ladder.

       “You’re trespassing!” the woman screeched. “You better not be taking those vegetables.”

       “No, ma’am,” Billy said. “We’re with the sheriff’s department, doing some follow-up on the crime that took place here. Did anyone talk to you about that?”

       He lied with perfect assurance. If Claudia had been called upon to spot his lies, she would have failed miserably.

       The woman, though obviously the suspicious type, didn’t even ask to see a badge.

       “Of course they did,” the woman replied indignantly. “I live next door and I know everything that goes on in this neighborhood. We all watch out for each other here.”

       “Did you see what happened that night?” Billy prompted.

       “It was late at night. I was asleep.” She dared him to contradict her. “It’s all in the statement I gave. Patty Dorsey is my name.”

       “We saw you stealing Theresa’s vegetables,” Billy said.

       Patty whipped off her sunglasses. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Theresa wouldn’t want her vegetables to go to waste. We share all the time. I give her peaches from my trees. What did you say your name was?”

       “Sergeant Billy Cantu. You wouldn’t happen to be digging around because you know something valuable is buried out here, would you?”

       She shifted from angry to curious. “What kind of something valuable?”

       “Coins, maybe?”

       Her eyes widened with surprise and delight. “Her brother-in-law’s coins? Theresa told me he’d stolen a pirate’s treasure, gold doubloons or some nonsense. I didn’t believe it at the time.” She surveyed the backyard with new eyes, perhaps seeing something a lot more valuable than a few filched potatoes.

       “Don’t be digging around here anymore,” Billy warned her. “I don’t want to bust you for trespassing, but I will.”

       “Humph.”

       “If you discover the location of any stolen pirate’s treasure, it’s your civic duty to turn it over to the police—or become an accessory. Have a nice day, Patty.” Billy tipped an imaginary hat and turned to head back inside.

       Claudia followed, her heart pounding, until they were safely inside. “Lying to that woman goes against everything I believe in. Isn’t it a pretty serious crime, impersonating a police officer?”

       “She doesn’t suspect. And even if she does, she’s too busy thinking about buried treasure to report me. Maybe we’ll