AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Connor opened his notebook. “Yep. Where do we start?”
“With the timeline,” Navarro said. “We know that Roxanne was working with her sister and the sister’s boyfriend on the thefts, but let’s save that. Review the timeline of the homicides.”
“Roxanne had been sleeping with Kent Crawford, the head of security at Shady Oaks, nearly the entire time she was working there,” Connor began. “We found confirmation when we searched her cell phone.” They’d had a signed warrant, which had allowed them to hold the phone in front of Roxanne’s eyes to unlock it.
Roxanne herself had been silent, as had her sister. But Neil Fogarty, the sister’s boyfriend, was singing like a damn canary.
Funny how the charge of attempted murder of a cop could loosen a man’s tongue.
“Roxanne and Crawford had been meeting at the same Excelsior hotel he used to meet with Miss Evans,” Kit went on. Crawford had, apparently, been a regular. Evans and Roxanne hadn’t been his only sex partners. “We have security footage of Crawford and Roxanne entering a hotel room and signed affidavits from the hotel staff.”
“But they didn’t use the same hotel the night Crawford was killed,” Navarro said. “Why use the cheap motel?”
“No cameras,” Connor said. “That’s our best guess, anyway. He knew his affairs at the Excelsior would be caught on camera, but he wasn’t worried about that. The worst that could happen was that his wife would divorce him. But he knew that he and Roxanne would be heisting the coins, so…no cameras.”
“Makes sense.” Navarro waved his hand. “Please continue.”
Kit checked her notes. “We recovered Frankie’s, Crawford’s, and Roxanne’s laptops from her tiny house, and there are emails between Crawford and Roxanne detailing how Crawford would turn off the camera so that Roxanne could take the coins. These were private emails and not sent through the Shady Oaks server, otherwise Adler would have found out and Crawford didn’t want to share.”
“How did they find out about Benny’s coins?” Sam asked.
“Roxanne had found the article about Benny’s collection before she’d arrived at Shady Oaks,” Kit said. “Her sister’s boyfriend, Neil Fogarty, investigated the staff to see if anyone was a particular concern. Frankie would have been a red flag if he’d dug any deeper. Fogarty dug deep enough on Crawford to find that his spending patterns didn’t match his salary. He also knew that Crawford was sleeping around, so Roxanne could get to him that way. She tricked Evans’s assistant Lily into letting her use her computer. Lily confirmed this when we asked some pointed questions. She was afraid to say anything because she didn’t want to lose her job before she could retire. But Roxanne was able to access personnel files from Lily’s computer. She knew how much Crawford was earning and, all the while, the sister’s boyfriend was following Crawford around town, tallying up his purchases. They figured if they had to, they could use him as a confederate.”
“Which they needed,” Connor said. “Benny Dreyfus wouldn’t donate his coins, but he did believe that Roxanne was…y’know, interested in him.”
“Which Frankie knew,” Kit added. “He said as much in his letter to Georgia. It was the reason for his and Benny’s argument.”
Sam sighed sadly. “Roxanne knew that Benny wasn’t going to hand over his coins, so she’d have to steal them. For that, she needed access to the cameras. So she risked an alliance with Crawford.”
Kit nodded. “Exactly. Roxanne told Crawford in an email that the coins were in Shady Oaks. Neil Fogarty says that Roxanne picked times when Benny was more confused to press for details. Putting the nanny-cam vase in Benny’s room to record him punching in his safe code was Fogarty’s idea, but he said that Roxanne refused to place the vase in Benny’s room herself. She didn’t want to be caught on camera holding it, so Crawford forced Miss Evans to do it.”
“Also so that Evans could take the fall once the theft was discovered,” Navarro said.
Connor nodded. “We asked Ryland to search Benny’s room for the evidence that the vase had been there. He found dust that was consistent with the vase that Evans planted there.”
Kit smiled at Sam. “You and Georgia were right. The vase was smashed to remove it from Benny’s apartment.” She turned to Navarro. “When Ryland examined a pair of scrubs in Roxanne’s dirty clothes hamper in her tiny house, he found residual dust that appears to match the dust he found in Benny’s living room. The lab’s still testing to be absolutely sure, but Ryland says the dust is a match under the microscope.”
“That’ll be good enough for the brass,” Navarro said. “The prosecutor will want the lab confirmation, so keep me informed. Do we know that Roxanne killed Crawford?”
Kit frowned. “Well, we have a lot of circumstantial evidence that says yes. The lipstick on Crawford’s body matches that on the teacup that both Sam and Georgia will swear was used by Roxanne. Ryland says he got a DNA sample from the cup, and it’s Roxanne’s. Plus, we found Crawford’s car in a chop shop. Recall, it had been missing from the parking lot. The chop shop identified Roxanne as the one who sold them the car. So we have her physically in Crawford’s motel room and we have her in possession of his laptop and his car. We don’t have video proof, but with everything else, Joel says it should be enough.”
She and Connor had spent hours with Joel Haley the evening before, detailing all their evidence. While each piece of evidence wasn’t a slam dunk, all of it together painted a convincing picture.
“Good.” Navarro had been taking notes and scanned them. “So she killed Crawford first—Saturday between midnight and probably three forty-five a.m.—then went back to Shady Oaks dressed in his clothes to steal Benny’s coins at four fifteen a.m.?”
Kit nodded. “Exactly. We don’t have Roxanne going into Shady Oaks dressed in Crawford’s clothes, though. She entered through the nursing ward using poor Devon Jones’s ID.”
“Devon Jones is the young nursing assistant who saw Benny’s coins, right?” Navarro asked.
Kit nodded again. “Yes. That made Devon the best choice for a frame if something went wrong. Janice, the head nurse who Devon had told that she’d seen the coins, had reported it to Miss Evans. Evans told us that she hadn’t shared that with Crawford, but the sister’s boyfriend, Neil Fogarty, said that Evans did.”
“Poor Devon,” Navarro said. “I’m glad she had an airtight alibi for that night.”
“Me too,” Kit agreed. “Devon was on duty that night in the nursing ward, so the record of her key card being used to come and go didn’t raise any immediate flags. Roxanne went through the nursing ward and disappeared into the stairwell where there was a camera blind spot. Crawford had told her about the blind spot in the stairwell. That was in their emails. She changed into his clothes, went up to Benny’s apartment, and stole the coins, exiting through the closest rear door where we saw her on the camera.”
“She wanted the closest exit after stealing the coins because she didn’t want to be caught with them,” Connor said. “It also would have been a red flag had she used Devon Jones’s card to get in via that door. One, because Devon’s card wasn’t keyed to that door, but also because Devon was working in the nursing ward that night on the other side of the facility.”
Navarro nodded his approval. “Fine. So give me the rest of the timeline.”
