Page 31 of Desire

Chapter 23

After stoppingat my office and gathering all the research I’d done on the Shipmans, I headed to the precinct to hopefully catch Webber in his office. The officer at the desk said he should be back shortly so I paced the lobby as I waited for him to arrive. After twenty minutes, I spotted him coming around the corner. When he saw me, he just waved at me and indicated that I follow him. He led me back to the same office where we first spoke about Alex.

“Have a seat, Black. How’s Bridget?”

“She’s settling in. Still recovering, but doing well. How was that lead you thought you had?”

Webber leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and crossed his arms behind his head. A sense of déjà vu washed over me.

“You know I’m not at liberty to share that information with you. This is an ongoing police investigation, and well, you’re not the police. Now, since I know that’s not all you came here to talk to me about, what can I do for you?”

“You’re right. That’s not all I came here to discuss. I wanted to show you something. You know, in case you hadn’t figured it out yourself. Tell me what you think of this.” I opened the folder I’d brought with me and slid the first set of papers across the desk. Webber shifted from his reclined position and began skimming over the information. As much as I hated to admit it, Webber was smart. I knew he’d draw the same conclusion I had. I just needed to give him time.

After a few minutes, he looked up at me. “Fuck. How long have you been hanging on to this? And how did you get this information? Never mind, I don't want to know. This sure is some interesting stuff you dug up. It appears our neighborhood child abuser has now leapt to potential murder suspect. You’re killing me here, Black. You know that, right?”

“There are inconsistencies about the car accident. I just happened to stumble upon a report that shows that the brake lines had been cut and foul play was suspected. Yet, somehow that report got buried, and the official report says they were hit by a drunk driver. How do you explain that?”

“Someone doctored the report.”

I was glad Webber and I were on the same page. “What reason would someone have to doctor an official police report? My guess is money. Someone was paid a lot of money to make a homicide look like an accident. You and I both know it makes sense, Webber. The Shipmans each had a million dollars in life insurance with Alex designated as their beneficiary. Malcolm Shipman kindly steps up as guardian and is named trustee of the account for Alex’s inheritance. The man works in retail for fuck’s sake. He has a modest—and I mean modest—personal savings account. Yet he drives a $90,000 car. Which he paid cash for. There are also some significant withdrawals. I did a little more digging, and it seems our friend Malcolm has a slight gambling problem. Did you know that the Shipmans had also taken out a life insurance policy on Alex?”

Webber sighed as he returned to his reclined position. “Let me guess. It’s for another million bucks?”

“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Obviously nothing can happen to Alex this soon after his parents’ deaths because that would certainly raise some serious red flags. But, if my suspicions are correct, then it’s only a matter of time before Malcolm Shipman becomes not only the grieving brother, but the grieving uncle.”

* * *

I leftthe station and made another stop. I needed to check on Alex. He was still in the foster home, but after my conversation with Webber, it looked like that wouldn’t last much longer. Alex had been right in that nobody was going to find any evidence of abuse. Our time was running out, because Alex would be returning to his uncle’s house soon. Webber was going to do what he could on his end to find out who might have falsified the accident report and to look into Malcolm’s gambling habits and who he might owe money to.

I pulled up to the house where Alex was staying and idled for a few minutes as I thought about what I was going to say to him. He was old enough to know the truth, but I didn’t know if now was the right time to tell him. I wanted to protect him from the ugliness, but he needed to know what he was up against when he returned to Malcolm’s. I jogged up the walk and knocked on the front door. I heard a dog barking in the background and then some yelling for the dog to shut up.

When the front door opened, a sloppily dressed man stood there, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Can I help you?”

Biting back a scathing response, I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. “I’m here to see Alex.”

The guy turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Alex, you got company.”

Footsteps raced down the stairs and Alex quickly appeared at the bottom of them. His entire body relaxed when he saw me.

“Hi, Connor.”

“Hey, kid. I was hoping we could talk for a bit.” I turned to the person I assumed, was Alex’s foster parent. “My name is Connor Black. I own Blacklight Securities. Here’s my card as well as the number where you can reach Detective Daniel Webber. I’d like to spend a few minutes speaking with Alex, if you don’t mind.”

The man looked me up and down and walked away without a word. Jesus, I really needed to talk to Webber about the choices in foster parents around here. There was something fucked about the system, because it certainly didn’t seem to have improved since I was in the foster system. I blew off the guy, and Alex and I left the house. We walked side by side down the sidewalk. I didn’t have a destination in mind, I just wanted time alone with him.

“So, what’s wrong?”

Damn, the kid didn’t beat around the bush. Another trait he got from his mother.

“I spoke to my friend, Daniel, today. You remember him, right?” When he nodded, I continued. “Well, anyway, I wanted to ask you a couple questions about your uncle. Don’t feel bad if you can’t answer them. I just wanted to speak to you first. Have you ever heard your uncle talking about owing money to anyone? Maybe on the phone some time?”

We continued walking as he thought about it. “Well, there was this one time when I heard him arguing with someone about getting their money to them. But I must have made some type of noise, because he was suddenly quiet. Then he told whoever he was talking to that he was taking care of it, and he hung up the phone. Now that I think about it, he caught me trying to eavesdrop and slapped me for it.”

“Is that the only thing you can think of? It’s pretty important, Alex.”

“Yeah, that’s the only time I remember it coming up. Why? What’s going on, Connor?”

We had reached the neighborhood park, and I headed over to a bench.

---