Читать книгу The Trouble with Murder - Kathy Krevat - Страница 10

Chapter 3

I dropped to one knee, panic making me lightheaded.

“Colbie!” my dad yelled as I disappeared, a table blocking his view.

“I’m okay,” I said weakly. “Call 911.” I shook my head and stood up.

Blood had spread through nooks and crannies in the hardwood floor, coming to rest in a large pool.

“Already waiting for the damn fools to pick up,” he said. I heard his labored breathing as he moved closer. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to report a dead body.” Then he asked, “She’s dead, right?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to move closer. I reached down to feel Twila’s neck, knowing there was no chance. No pulse. “Yeah. She’s dead.”

My eyes went to the bloody footprints that started at the other side of the body. Someone had stayed around long enough to let enough blood soak into their shoes to track it all the way outside. What kind of monster did this?

Then the back service door to the banquet room opened and someone whispered, “Holy crap.”

I turned around to see a frightened young man in a security uniform staring at me. His hand fumbled at his side.

I put my hands up, just like on TV.

And just like on TV, he yelled, “Freeze!”

* * * *

The security guard had been reaching for his walkie-talkie. Why did those things still exist when there were cell phones? Within minutes, the police arrived with lights flashing and sirens wailing. My dad and I were escorted to separate picnic tables outside the activity center to wait for someone to take our statements while an officer wound crime scene tape around the whole activity center. I sat in stunned silence.

It seemed like hours before a San Diego Sheriff car pulled up. A woman got out wearing street clothes but with an air of command that made the officer who had arrived first stand a little straighter while he answered her questions. She was about my height, with short dark hair that she pulled behind her ears and a thin face. She looked both my dad and me up and down, and then directed her partner to talk to my dad while she swung her legs over the bench to sit across from me at my table. I felt like I was somehow thrust into the middle of a movie and couldn’t get out.

“Are you okay?” the woman officer asked me in a concerned yet professional voice. She must have to ask that a lot.

I nodded. “Yes, Officer.” My voice was shaky.

“It’s Detective, but you can call me Norma,” she said. “It’s just a formality, but I need to read you your rights.”

I nodded, her calm recitation of the Miranda rights feeding into the sense that this couldn’t be happening to me.

The deputy talking to my dad looked like a tough guy, holding himself erect even on the picnic table bench. His biceps were so big they forced his arms away from his sides.

“You play ball?” I heard my dad ask, and I knew he’d bond with the guy over sports and be okay.

Norma jerked her head toward the residents gathering behind the tape, and a younger officer responded by turning the video camera he was holding toward them. She turned back to me. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I had to leave in a hurry and Twila offered to clean up for me. When I came back, she was…like that.” My mind couldn’t wrap itself around what I’d just seen. How could Twila be dead? What would her husband do? Her kids?

“The security guard said there was some kind of event here tonight.”

I nodded. “The Sunnyside Power Moms—”

She raised her eyebrows. “Power Moms?”

“Yes. We’re mothers who have home businesses, and we hosted a trade show tonight.”

She took out her notepad. “What is your business?”

“I own Meowio Batali Gourmet Cat Food,” I said. “One of my knives was used.…”

“One of your knives was the murder weapon?”

“Well, one of the ones on display,” I said. “I’d placed them on the back table to keep them away from kids.”

She wrote that down and asked as if it wasn’t important, “And why did you leave early?”

“My son texted me that my father had started coughing a lot,” I explained. “He’s getting over pneumonia, and I was worried.”

She nodded once, communicating, “Go on,” without saying a word.

I explained about his conversation with Bert Merritt. “I heard the same beeps as the security code here, so we came back to talk to him. But he wasn’t here.”

She made a note. Probably thinks she can tell security code sounds apart.

“Why would your father’s financial advisor be here?” Norma asked.

“He’s married to Sharon, the closet lady,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“She builds closets and organizes people’s stuff,” I explained. I took a deep breath and tried to quiet my spinning mind. Then I gave her the list of moms who were at the event and their businesses. By the end, she looked a little overwhelmed. I didn’t blame her. We were a pretty eclectic group.

“Back to the financial advisor,” she said. “Was he here?”

I shook my head. “Not by the time we arrived.”

“Does he know Twila?” Her voice was still calm, but I could sense where she was going.

“I don’t know,” I said, now panicking that I might be implicating my colleague’s husband.

“How well do you know Twila?” she asked.

Oh man. I did not like the emphasis she put on “you.”

“She organized our group,” I said. “She’s, was, my friend.” I bit my lip and for the first time, had to blink back tears. Twila was dead. How could this happen?

Norma stared at me, noticing my emotion, and then asked me all the same questions, but in different ways. After answering them again, I heard my dad’s hacking cough. I looked over and he seemed pale. “Look, I’m happy to help you. Twila was really great to me. But my son is alone and my dad’s still sick. I have to get him home to rest.”

She looked like she wanted to object, but I stood up. “Dad,” I called out. “Time to get back to Elliott.”

The detective interviewing my dad jumped to his feet and stepped close, puffing out his chest in a blatant attempt to intimidate me. “I’m not done.”

My dad coughed again, so hard he had to wrap his arms around his chest.

I gestured with my hand toward my dad. “He’s recovering from pneumonia.”

“It’s okay,” my dad choked out.

“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “I’m taking you home.”

The policeman scowled, obviously ticked off that I was challenging his authority.

“Detective.” Norma’s voice held a command. “They can go.”

He took a long moment to respond by taking a step back, and I could practically feel the anger emanating from him.

Norma turned to me and said, “We’ll need you both to come downtown to make a statement first thing tomorrow.”

I nodded, helped my dad to his feet, and we headed to the car. The officer made a big show of staring at the license plate of our car and writing it down on his notepad. Norma spoke to him while I was closing the door, and I hurried to open my window to hear what he said.

“This is just like the Wilson case,” he said, his voice carrying in the quiet evening. “Open and shut.”

* * * *

Elliott was both appalled and morbidly fascinated by Twila’s murder. He’d met her once at the grocery store. She’d been wearing a Minecraft T-shirt, and they’d bonded over a mutual love of the game. Elliott had been totally impressed that she made a living doing something as cool as inventing puzzles.

No matter how I spun it, making cat food would never be cool.

“Did you see her…dead?” Elliott asked. He was trying to hold Trouble on his lap, but the cat had been on edge the whole time we’d been home, as if she’d caught our agitation.

“Not now,” I said, while my dad coughed so hard in his chair I thought he was going to implode. I rushed to fill the whiskey glass and shoved it in his hand. “Do you need your inhaler?”

He shook his head, which meant he’d already used it too much today. As soon as he could breathe, he took a huge swig of the whiskey. “Thanks,” he wheezed out.

“But what did you see?” Elliott asked again.

“Elliott Dean Summers,” I said, focused on my dad. “If you don’t stop asking me questions immediately—”

Luckily for me, he didn’t force me to finish my threat, which was good because I didn’t have a good consequence in mind yet. He groaned as if under terrible torture, let the cat jump to the floor, and then stomped up the stairs to his room. It was past his bedtime anyway.

“Curious little brat, isn’t he?” my dad said, with enough affection in his voice that I wasn’t offended. His breathing was still rough, but the coughing had stopped.

I sighed. “I read that’s a good thing.”

“It is,” he said with a smile and then sobered. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

What? We didn’t do feelings in our house. I was suddenly overcome by sadness. Poor Twila. My breath caught in my throat. “I gotta…”

Then Trouble shot to the front door, her whole body on alert, at the same time I heard a noise. Normally, I’d think it was just a wild animal roaming around, but I was freaked out by finding Twila.

I stood up and my dad said, “Don’t.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. Twice in one night—a new record for calling the police.

Trouble snarled at the same time the doorbell rang.

I froze.

My dad got to his feet to join me and gestured toward the kitchen. It had a window that looked out over the front porch where we could see who was at the door.

We moved together as he talked quietly to the dispatcher. “We have a prowler,” he said, and gave the address. “Someone’s at the front door. My daughter and I are going to look out a window and see who it is.”

The person on the phone tried to dissuade him.

“No, we’re not opening the door,” he explained. “We’re looking from a side window.”

I tiptoed into the kitchen and pushed aside the curtain to see who was at our door so late at night.

Detective Norma and the detective who had talked to my dad.

Great.

Their police officer ESP must have been working overtime, because they turned together to see me at the window.

Detective Tough Guy shined his flashlight right at me. “Open the door,” he demanded, his loud voice clear through the window. “Now.”

* * * *

Norma must have reined in her partner, because he was scowling but silent when we opened the door. “We were hoping for a little more of your time,” she said.

My dad started to say, “Sure,” but I cut him off.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Detective Little and I were hoping to take a look around,” she said. “With your permission of course.”

Detective Little? I almost giggled. Probably because of nerves, but really, he must get a lot of jokes in the locker room.

“We got nothing to hide,” my dad said, laying a hand on my arm.

“To keep the lawyers happy,” she said, holding a form out to my dad, “could you sign this?”

“And we need your clothes,” Detective Little said, with an edge to his voice that rubbed me the wrong way. “And shoes.”

I went into sarcasm mode immediately. “I don’t think they’d fit you,” I managed, even though his determined expression was scaring the crap out of me.

Then Trouble joined in, making an unholy growl that sounded remarkably like “Slytherin!” and dashed straight at him. I grabbed her at the last second in mid-leap.

Since she was heading straight for Little’s crotch, he let out a tiny squeal and crossed his hands in front of himself before recovering and glaring at both of us.

“Ms. Summers,” Norma said in a no-nonsense tone. “Hold on to that cat or I will call Animal Control.”

“Really?” I said, trying to quiet the squirming cat. “You know darn well we are cooperating fully and you threaten my cat?” I took the unsigned form out of my dad’s hand. “We will give you our clothes and you can walk through with one of us present. Other than that, you get a warrant.”

They both narrowed their eyes at me and then Norma spoke. “We’re on the same side. We’re just trying to catch a killer. So no one else gets hurt.”

Which just pissed me off even more. “That won’t work either,” I said. “Do you want our clothes or not?” Trouble squirmed in my arms, clearly wanting another try at Little.

My dad watched me, not sure how to handle his own daughter talking back to the police.

Norma gave a sigh, as if disappointed in my behavior. She had a lot of tricks in that cop bag. “Could you put your cat somewhere while we talk?”

I locked Trouble in the downstairs bathroom, where she meowed loudly about the interlopers in her domain.

Norma explained the process to us, including that she’d have to be present while I undressed to take my clothes and shoes, while Little stayed with my dad. Talk about awkward. I guess Little following me to my bedroom would be even worse.

My dad led Little to the downstairs guest room, where he’d been sleeping since he got sick. Norma escorted me up the stairs past a wide-eyed Elliott who was perched on the landing, his favorite spying location. “It’ll be okay,” I told him, trying to sound reassuring. “Go back to your room.”

Norma put my clothes in a large evidence bag, just like on a crime show. “Colbie,” she said gently. “Is there a friend or neighbor you could all stay with tonight?”

“Why?” I asked.

She stayed silent.

“Cause you’ll have a warrant soon, right?” I guessed.

“You probably want to leave your phones and computers here as well,” she said. “So we don’t have to bother you again tonight.”

I stared at her, my mouth gaping open, the reality that we were her prime suspects sinking in. Then I realized that with my dad being so sick, I was her real target.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she couldn’t possibly mean it. Underneath the surface politeness was a look, more like an energy, that reminded me of Trouble when she’s stalking a bird. “The warrant will include all of your electronics.”

I waved down the hall. “Take a look now while you can, because you’re waiting outside until you get that warrant.”

She took a cursory look inside each room upstairs, but nothing screamed I killed Twila Jenkins at her because she turned to follow me down the stairs.

“All of your investigating is going to prove that I wasn’t even there when it happened, so you’d be smart to consider others,” I said.

“That’s my job,” she replied.

I collected Elliott, grabbed the cat from the bathroom, holding on to her firmly, and explained to my dad where we were going. I matched my dad’s slow pace down the stairs from the front porch while Detective Little looked around outside our house with a flashlight. We headed across the street to my dad’s best friend, Annie Quinn’s, house. My dad’s neighborhood was usually very quiet at night, and the police activity had drawn a small group watching from a polite distance on a lawn down the street.

Just as I stepped off the curb, I heard a “Yes!” from the side of the house. Was that Detective Little?

“I’ll be over in a minute,” I said, handing Trouble to Elliott, who immediately protested.

“I won’t be long,” I said. “Pinky swear.”

I held out my pinky finger, but Elliott rolled his eyes, too stressed to take part in our long-standing tradition. He took the cat and followed my dad, his shoulders hunched over with worry.

Annie opened the door as they approached. “Come in, come in, my dears,” she called out. Standing at barely five foot, she radiated motherly concern.

I waited until they all went inside and then walked around the side of my dad’s house. Little and Norma huddled over a white towel in an evidence bag.

“What are you doing?” I asked, and then I noticed that the towel was stained brown. “Is that blood?”

Norma stepped forward, as if shielding the bag from me. “Ms. Summers.”

“That’s not ours,” I insisted.

“Right,” Little said, disgusted. “And I’m sure someone is trying to frame you.”

I could imagine him using finger quotes when he said the word “frame.”

A flicker of irritation flashed across Norma’s face. “Detective,” she warned.

“What?” he asked her. “You agree with her?” His disbelief was laced with obvious dislike, but this time it was directed toward his partner.

“Norma,” I said with my voice shaking. “That does not belong to us.”

Norma grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the front of the house. “Ms. Summers,” she said through clenched teeth. “Please go to your neighbor’s so we can do our job.” She turned around.

“That’s not our towel!” I called after her, but she didn’t respond.

Annie must have been watching for me because she opened the door as I walked up her steps. “Oh my goodness. Your dad told me about your friend. Are those police nuts investigating you?”

“One of them might be,” I said, and followed her inside.

My dad was already sitting in his favorite chair, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Elliott sat in the floral love seat, clutching Trouble to his chest.

“I’m just getting Elliott’s hot cocoa,” Annie said. “What would you like?”

“Cocoa sounds wonderful,” I said. “Can I help?”

“Oh no,” she said. “You sit right there by Elliott and I’ll be out quick as a wink.”

I followed her directions, sliding an arm around Elliott’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

He put his head on my shoulder. “Pinky swear?” he whispered, holding out his pinky.

I grabbed it with my own finger. “Pinky swear,” I whispered back.

Maybe he was thinking of the time one of our friends at the farmers’ market had been arrested a year before. He’d been selling cookies containing pot at his booth and was caught by an undercover police officer. The arrest of a family friend had scared Elliott, even though it had been a good opportunity for some don’t-do-or-sell-drugs parenting discussions.

I tried to speak casually. “So, Dad, did you put a towel in the garbage?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course not.”

I smiled, trying for a no-big-deal expression, but it might have been closer to a grimace. “Elliott?”

He shook his head, his head brushing against my arm. “No. Why?”

“It’s nothing.” So, if none of us put a bloody towel in our garbage can, then who did?

Annie called out from the kitchen. “Colbie, you want some Bailey’s in yours?”

“Really tempting,” I said. “But no thanks.”

“That’s smart,” she said, as she brought out our mugs. “Best to keep your wits about you.”

Annie’s home was an inviting combination of country chic mixed with fantasy art. I moved aside a statue of a half-naked mermaid to put down a coaster for Elliott. He took a sip of cocoa.

“Thanks so much for having us during this…mess,” I said, gesturing across the street.

“No problem at all,” she said. “I just adore your family.” Then she handed me a business card. “This is my lawyer. Please call him and get advice before this goes any further.”

Seeing that embossed card made me even more nervous. “Surely the police will figure out we had nothing to do with this.” Even so, I reached out.

“Of course,” she said as she pushed the card into my hand and then patted it. “But I’ve seen a lot of injustice in my days. Just call him to make me feel better, okay?”

“It’s okay,” my dad said. “I gotta guy.”

“No,” I said firmly and turned back to Annie. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

My dad frowned.

“You’ll like him,” Annie said, turning her charm on my dad. “He’s from Boston too.”

Annie was one of those people who didn’t need much sleep to think straight and volunteered for the Sunnyside Library, Meals on Wheels, and an emergency hotline. She’d been the one who called to tell me my dad was in the hospital and convinced me to move in. And believe me, that hadn’t been easy to accomplish. She could probably convince David Copperfield to reveal how he made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

It certainly helped that my boss had just warned me that the owner of the apartment building I managed was about to sell and would start using a professional property management company. He gave me a fair shake—offering me a severance package and everything. I put our stuff in storage and moved Elliot and me in with my dad until I could figure out the next step.

My dad and I had a complicated relationship even before I got knocked up when I was eighteen. My mother had died when I was very young, and he’d never seemed interested in dating someone new. He’d been so proud that I was the first in his family to attend college and could never let it go when I dropped out. It made it hard to visit longer than a couple of hours, even knowing how much he loved Elliott, and I usually left feeling like a failure.

He reached out and patted Elliott’s leg. “It’ll work out,” he said. “Nuttin’ to worry about.”

Elliott smiled back, his shoulders relaxing just a bit, and I had to swallow the lump in my throat.