Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series Read online

  Before they got to the front door, Pete said, “Codie, this is Detective Adams.” The detective looked over at her and nodded but didn’t say anything. Codie could practically feel an icy chill oozing off him and figured he needed to have that kind of veneer to do his job. That was fine. She wasn’t going on the ride-along to make friends.

  There were lots of people crowded into the huge two-story home, and it made Codie feel a little unbalanced at first. She looked around and missed part of what was being said, but then they were escorted to the basement. After Detective Adams started following a uniformed police officer, Pete placed his right hand on Codie’s arm while holding out his left hand, indicating that she should follow the detective while he brought up the rear.

  The feel of the house was tense. Codie could sense a quiet fear and anxiety, the feeling of waiting for another shoe to drop, almost like there were eggshells under their feet, but she kept silent and continued walking.

  When everyone stepped off the stairs onto the carpeted floor, she looked around the room. To the left was a door; to the right was an open living area with a large throw rug, two sofas, and several chairs and past where the rug ended was mere concrete. Two washing machines, two dryers, a small clothesline hanging from the ceiling, and some shelving took up the rest of the space. The officer led them through the door on the left. It was a large bedroom with two double beds…and a body on the floor. The detective asked the officer, “Forensics been called yet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Secure the scene.”

  “Already done.”

  The detective turned to Pete. “Statements are being taken upstairs and forensics is on the way. I’d like to have a quick peek at what we’re looking at.” Pete nodded and looked at Codie, and the three of them approached the body on the floor. Codie caught a whiff of strong—was that urine? She kept her mouth shut, but inside her head, she was thinking, Ewwww. She slowly grew used to the smell, but she started looking at the body. The men weren’t saying much. Detective Adams only once broke the silence by saying, “The name of the deceased is Michelle Dinsmoor.” The man was writing in a small notebook (how cliché, Codie thought), but Pete was just observing—and was deep in thought, near as Codie could tell.

  She was curious herself. Before they’d gotten closer to the woman, Codie had thought the woman’s head had been covered with a pillow, but she realized now that it was several white shopping bags. She noticed the woman’s gray sweatpants were soaked, and then she knew that was where the pee smell was coming from. Seeing the body up close was starting to creep her out. The bags covering the woman’s head were pulled snugly down over her face and the handles were tied over and around her neck. Jesus. Codie wondered then if the woman had been killed by suffocation or if the murderer had just wanted to cover the victim’s face after the deed was done.

  There was also an empty bottle of store-brand acetaminophen and an envelope next to the body. Codie would have loved to have opened that envelope, but she knew there was no way she was going to get to. A few minutes later, two more plainclothes cops, a man and a woman, came in the door, and Pete told her they were forensics. Then he said, “You ready?”

  Not really, but she knew she couldn’t make that call, so she nodded. Once they were heading back up the stairs, Codie sucked down a deep breath. She hadn’t realized until that point that the air had been heavy—not just with urine but death. She’d never seen a dead body before and it felt strange. The mood in the place was dark, and she was sure that also colored how she was seeing everything. Being out of the room was a huge relief.

  Upstairs, the living room full of people felt almost like an intimate party, and Pete looked around the room until he found who he was looking for. He crossed the room and stopped when he got to a balding guy in a suit. “Forensics is here. Do you need me for anything?”

  “We still have two people to interview—the victim’s husband and another housemate. They’re both in the kitchen.” After a moment, he added, “Save the husband for me.”

  Pete nodded. “Got it.” He gave Codie a look and she got the message. She followed behind him as he strode toward the kitchen.

  Two men sat at the table drinking coffee. Neither seemed to be particularly broken up about the dead woman downstairs. Codie found that odd, because she would have expected a husband to look sad—or at least a little shell-shocked. Instead, both men acted like they’d just gotten home from a football game or a concert.

  “Which one of you is the husband?”

  The man on the right—a guy with short brown hair and dimples—stood. He was probably about six-foot-four and thin. The guy didn’t smile, but he wasn’t near tears either. He held out his hand to Pete and said, “Caleb Dinsmoor.”

  Pete shook his hand and nodded, speaking again in an authoritative voice, almost scary compared to the way he usually talked. “Someone will be with you soon, Mr. Dinsmoor.” He turned to the other man. “Can I get your name?”

  “Tanner Johnson.”

  “I need to speak with you.” Looking from one man to the other, he asked, “Is there a place where we can go?”

  “We can’t just stay here?”

  Pete said, “My lieutenant will be in shortly to speak with Mr. Dinsmoor, and I think he wanted them to have a little privacy.”

  The guy named Tanner stood. “We can maybe go to the prayer room.”

  Codie loved that Pete’s facial expression didn’t change, because she was pretty sure hers did, no doubt displaying the fact that she was curious as hell, brimming with questions. Maybe those would get answered soon enough. Pete said, “Let’s go,” and they were once again moving, walking through the kitchen deeper into the large house.

  As the three of them walked toward the back of the house, Codie tried to wrap her mind around the oddness of the situation. There was a woman’s dead body in the basement. The house was packed with people, as though there had been a party of some sort, and the deceased’s husband and one of his friends had been chatting in the kitchen over a cup of java, acting as though it were just another evening.

  Oh, and the prayer room. What the hell was that?

  Codie knew she’d find out soon enough, and in a few moments, the thin blonde man named Tanner turned a doorknob and switched on the light before stepping aside to let Codie and her cop friend inside.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but she hadn’t anticipated the room she walked into. It was a stark white space without windows—whether this room had been built that way or modified later, Codie didn’t have a clue, but it was unusual. It was bright inside with the lights on. The wall to the right was nothing but several sliding doors over what Codie assumed was a closet and the other three walls were all but bare, save for a few crosses hanging strategically, so that if a person’s eyes were open, it was hard to avoid seeing at least one. Most of them were simple crosses, but one was a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The carpet was a light beige and a few gray mats were scattered here and there on the floor. There was a stack of blue plastic chairs in one corner and one short table in another that held one Bible and a couple of pamphlets, but Codie couldn’t see what was on them.

  “This is the prayer room,” Tanner said, announcing the obvious. He looked at them through pale blue eyes framed by some of the longest lashes Codie had ever seen on a grown man. “It’s a little bare, but that’s to keep our minds as free from distraction as possible.”

  Our minds? So several of them prayed together in this room? Codie had more questions and wondered if any of them would be answered, but she kept her mouth shut.

  Pete pulled a small notebook out of his front pocket, and Codie almost laughed. She’d had no idea he had one of those too…but it made sense, of course. She knew for his job he needed to record details. “If you’d like to sit, we can take some chairs off the stack.”

  “I’m all right,” Pete said, not asking Codie or the other man if they wanted to sit. She imagined he wouldn’t
want to after being crammed in the patrol car for hours on end. Standing was likely a welcome break for his legs. “Mr. Johnson, can you tell me your relationship to the deceased?”

  “She was a friend. Through the church, you know.”

  “What church?” Pete’s question sounded bland and matter of fact, but Codie suspected this was going to be important information.

  “The International Congregation of the End of Days.” Wow. That was a mouthful.

  Codie hoped her facial expression wouldn’t give away her thoughts, but she’d heard of that church before—and it wasn’t all angels and sunbeams. What she knew of the congregation—what she’d heard, at any rate—was that they were a fringe cult: not quite all controlling but pretty damn close. She didn’t think she’d ever met any of the members, even in as small a community as Dalton, but they were a thriving enough force that their presence could be felt here and there. Truthfully, though, she didn’t know much about them, only the rumors that occasionally made their way around town. She only knew that they supposedly owned lots of property in Dalton as well as other areas in Kansas, Oklahoma, eastern Colorado, and parts of Texas.

  Unfounded gossip, though. She had few facts.

  “Tell me what happened this evening.”

  Tanner blinked and looked over at Codie before returning his gaze to Pete. “I don’t know how familiar you are with our church, but those of us here are part of Caleb’s ministry.”

  “Those of us here? As in Dalton or the house?”

  Tanner’s lips curled into an almost condescending smile as he realized that Pete didn’t know much about their arrangement—but neither did Codie for that matter. “In the house. Or houses, I should say.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “Well…this house here. This house is for the brothers in Caleb’s ministry, and the house next door is for our sisters.” Codie was fairly certain the man meant sisters and brothers figuratively.

  Pete nodded, jotting in his notepad before making eye contact with Tanner again. “So was Mr. Dinsmoor’s wife visiting?”

  “No. She was the exception. She and Caleb shared the entire downstairs and the rest of us—the men—have rooms we share with other brothers. But because Caleb and Michelle joined mainly to symbolize Christ’s relationship with his bride the church, he thought it only appropriate that they celebrate that union together. But, um, she still spent a lot of time in the sister house.”

  Pete pulled the man back on track. “So tell me what happened tonight.”

  “Tonight we were celebrating. Caleb’s ministry, for the moment, is completely full, meaning there’s just no more room in the inn for warm bodies.” The man’s thin lips curled up into a smile again. Ah… religious humor. But the timing was bad. Surely, he had to know that. He figured it out and quickly started talking again. “We added one more lost lamb to our fold here in the brothers’ house, and so we were celebrating the bounty that the Lord has given us. Anyway, Michelle came home from work and said she had a headache and headed straight down to the basement. She didn’t even give Caleb the hug she customarily does.”

  Codie remembered seeing the bottle of acetaminophen next to the woman’s body, so his recollection made sense so far.

  “Did she act like anything was wrong?”

  Tanner shook his head. “No, not physically, anyway. Except for the headache, of course.”

  “Some other way then?”

  “Well, she’s been acting pretty down and depressed the last month or two. When she and Caleb got married last fall, she seemed so happy, like she was on a cloud, because all she’d ever wanted was Caleb. But by Christmas, she kind of moped around all the time. She just doesn’t—didn’t—seem to have the joy of the spirit inside her anymore.”

  “Where did Mrs. Dinsmoor work?”

  “At a daycare center here in town. I can’t remember which one.”

  “Where were you and the members of the house all evening? Was everyone accounted for? Did anyone go downstairs at any time?”

  “I didn’t notice anyone slip down there. Like I said, we were all celebrating.”

  Pete looked up from the notebook. “Anything else you think I should know right now?”

  Tanner’s mouth scrunched up at the corner. “Not that I can think of.” He paused. “You don’t think she was murdered, do you?”

  “I’m not at liberty to speculate, Mr. Johnson. Forensics will tell us the facts soon enough.” He placed the notebook back in his breast pocket where it was hidden again and said, “We might need you to come to the station to make a formal statement at some point, but we’re done for now.”

  The easy demeanor that Tanner had displayed up to this point was replaced by a chilly sensation. Codie wondered what the hell that even meant as they walked back toward the kitchen, Pete’s interrogation complete.

  It had to mean something, but Codie hadn’t a clue what.

  Chapter Five

  AFTER TYPING IN a cursory report on the laptop in his cruiser, Pete looked over at Codie, who’d been sitting quietly and patiently, absorbed in thought, consumed by the murder scene. “Quick coffee break,” he said, pulling the car onto the street. He drove slowly, though, and Codie noticed that he was checking out the house next door. The lights were on there too, in spite of the fact that it was getting quite late.

  Codie figured those women knew their “sister” Michelle was dead and sleep was no longer an option.

  Once they were past, Pete said, “Even though I’ve been working graveyards off and on for two years, I still can’t adjust my sleep schedule. On my days off, I’m sleeping a lot and then back to usual. The first night back to work sucks.” He glanced over at her and grinned. “Coffee is a night cop’s best friend.”

  Codie had already figured that out. This would be the third cup of coffee she would see him consume tonight, and even though she was nowhere near sleepy, she wouldn’t complain about having more.

  It wasn’t long before they had turned onto the main highway through town. Soon, Pete pulled the cruiser into a convenience store parking lot. “We’re here,” he said, and Codie got out of the car with him. She was glad she’d brought a little money with her, because she didn’t want Pete to feel like he had to keep buying her stuff, just because she was along for the ride, but as they were heading toward the front door and not stopping at the register, Pete nodded at the cashier. “She’s with me.”

  The clerk nodded back. “Have a good night, officer.”

  “You as well.”

  Once they were out the door and heading toward the cruiser, Codie asked, “You didn’t have to pay for the coffee?”

  He grinned that all-American quarterback smile, one of his strongest weapons. “Lots of places give cops free drinks. They figure it’s a way to say thanks for our service, but it’s also a great way to get policemen to come in and make their presence known. Tends to keep the riffraff away.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.”

  “Don’t worry. We don’t take advantage. We never come in when we’re off duty and demand something, and we try to spread out the love. So like this place? I won’t come back here for a week, ‘cause I don’t know how much the other guys come here.” They got in the car and buckled in. “Now, finally, we can start patrol.” He backed out of the parking space and pulled out onto the highway. There weren’t many cars as he drove down the road, pulling off onto Main Street a few blocks down. “We all have routes we patrol, different neighborhoods we drive through and watch, and what’s good about that is we get familiar with what things usually look like. We know which areas are hot spots for crime and which ones are less likely to have problems.” He turned down a side street, heading toward a residential area. “I’ll drive through here twice tonight, hopefully, but at least once, starting now.” Codie tried to think of questions she wanted to ask, because she didn’t want to blow the opportunity, but she knew she’d have lots of time later, after the shift, if she needed. He took another gulp of coffee from the
paper cup. “Mmm. Good stuff.”

  “Yeah, not bad at all.” She’d expected gross coffee, a black tar that had been sitting for far too long and had developed an oily scum on the surface, the integrity of the flavor long gone, so much so that no amount of sugar or creamer could mask the old taste. But the liquid was strong and fresh, almost as if the convenience store had seen them coming from miles away. It was no Starbucks, but it’d do.

  The radio that had been blaring incessantly and that she had, thankfully, started to tune out caught Pete’s attention. He picked up the mike. “Eighteen here.”

  “Neighbors are reporting loud music on Elm Avenue.”

  “On my way. What’s the address?”

  As Pete responded to the operator, Codie took another sip of her coffee. She wondered if that was simply a sign of the times that neighbors didn’t feel comfortable enough with the people they lived near to tell them to turn down the tunes. And how rude and inconsiderate of others to blast their music enough that their neighbors felt like they had to call the cops. It wasn’t like it was Friday night and warranted a party; it was the middle of the week. Kids had school the next day. A good lot of people had to work the next morning. Cranking the tunes was beyond rude.

  Codie didn’t know if the detour was part of Pete’s regular patrol, but he didn’t act like it was an inconvenience. In fact, he didn’t act that way about any part of his job. He seemed to enjoy everything he did as a cop, from the expected to the routine. Nothing was a chore.

  He loved his job.

  As they drove down another side street, Pete rolled down his window. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Codie turned her head and, above the radio chatter, she was able to hear some heavy techno dance beat. The cruiser kept rolling, though, and soon Pete was parking in front of a residence that had its garage door open and lights on. There was some kind of SUV inside but a guy was just outside the door, pacing back and forth while smoking a cigarette.

  Codie didn’t ask. She just got out of the car when Pete did and followed closely behind. Better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission.