Page 63 of Daybreak

“And what is your job here?” Blake asked.

“Groundskeeper, basic repairs on the property,” Reggie said.

Blake nodded. “And you, ma’am? What is your position here?”

Linda was still teary and shaken. “Personal chef and minor household stuff. We have a weekly cleaning crew who cleans the whole house. I do the little stuff in between.”

“So, you made dinner for him last night? How was he behaving? Did he seem different in any way?” Blake asked.

“Oh, he wasn’t here for dinner last night. He had a big to-do at the Cattlemen’s Restaurant for his Dixon Down and Dirty managers.”

Blake shifted focus to Whistler. “And where were you last night?”

“As his chauffeur, I took Mr. Dixon to the restaurant, then parked in the lot to wait for it to be over.”

“How long were you there?” Blake asked.

“Right at three hours, sir.”

“Do you know who he was dining with?”

Whistler shrugged. “Like Linda said…the managers. Not sure how many of them were there because I didn’t go inside. The list is probably on his laptop, but that was not in my job description.”

Blake made a couple of notes. “Okay… So, when the dinner was over, what was his mood. How was he behaving?”

Whistler shrugged again. “He has a temper. I got the impression that something at the dinner set him off. He was kind of wound up, but the boss and I did not have a chatty relationship, so he would not have shared anything with me. I am an employee, not a friend.” Then he wiped a hand across his face. “Was an employee. I still can’t believe he’s dead.”

Blake frowned. “So, you expected to take him to work today?”

“He didn’t tell me not to, but he also didn’t tell me goodbye last night, either. He just told me to park the limo and go home, so I did.”

“What do we do now? We live here,” Reggie said. “If this is a crime scene, do we have to leave?”

Blake frowned. “Do you have someplace else to go for a few days?”

“No. It’s here or a hotel. We could stay in a hotel, I guess,” Linda said.

“Nobody is going anywhere until we’ve viewed security footage. Sit tight. I’ll be back,” he said, then spoke to an officer in the foyer and headed up the stairs.

Whistler knew the drill. The officer was standing guard on them until they were cleared, and he already knew what they would see—him letting Dixon out, parking the limo, and driving away. Then sadly, nothing more.

* * *

Upstairs was a whole other scene. It was the list of informants lying beneath Dixon’s elbow that had caused the biggest stir. The congealed blood all over the desk, wall, and floor, and the gun still in his hand took second place.

The forensic team had already bagged the list as evidence, along with the gun and everything on the desk. They’d bagged his laptop and were in the act of gathering DNA from every surface, knowing full well that they would also have to take samples from the staff as a process of elimination, because their DNA was all over the house and in every room.

Sheets and another officer located the security system, but to their dismay, realized the system had been turned off. They booted it back up and then began watching within the time they left to go to the business dinner, to right after they came home. At that point, there was nothing more. They’d been hopeful answers would be in that video, but it was blank after that. Either Dixon had done it before he did himself in to keep from having his suicide revisited on video forever, or someone came into the house and did it to him and erased the evidence. But there was no evidence of forced entry, and the Townsends had already told the first officers on the scene that the house was still locked up when they awoke, and the security alarm for the doors was still set. The missing time frame seemed to suggest that Dixon turned it all off upon entering, then did what he did.

“But why the informant list?” Detective Blake asked.

“Maybe he knew something we don’t. Maybe he knew the Feds were coming after him again. We need to find out. Maybe this list was his suicide note. ‘Yes, I’m dirty, but so are you’.…meaning cops. If he killed himself without outing them, then they would be free and clear. Maybe he’s just mean enough and resentful enough to want to take them down with him. We need to talk to the managers before any more suppositions are made,” Sheets said.

“What about the staff?” Blake asked. “The Townsends live on-site.”

“And they heard nothing. Seems fishy,” Sheets said.

“Their suite is on the lower level, and down a long hall behind the kitchen area. They may have had the television on or were already asleep. The door to the office was shut when Reggie found him. It was a small revolver. Easy to believe they heard nothing,” Blake said.