Haunting Harold

by Jenna Bennett

  “And you came with her, so you’d be nearby in case she needed you.”

  Tara nodded, as I pulled out the chair I’d been sitting on earlier, and seated myself again.

  “But you didn’t stay with them.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” Tara said. “And I didn’t want to be back under Harold’s roof again, anyway. Not with her there.”

  “Heidi?”

  “Of course Heidi. The woman he replaced my sister with. Before my sister was gone, even.”

  Oh-ho, I thought. “Harold cheated on Carly?”

  “He cheated on his first wife with Carly,” Tara said. “Of course he cheated on Carly with Heidi.”

  “Did Carly know about it?”

  Tara nodded, her lips tight.

  “That couldn’t have helped her mental state much.”

  She shook her head. “That’s why I blame Harold. I’m not saying he physically killed her—I’m not sure even Mama believed that, although sometimes she said she did. But I do blame him. He was too focused on himself to be there for Carly.”

  That would certainly be enough to make me blame him. “That’s why you dressed up as Carly and started haunting him.”

  Tara flushed. “Yes. I wanted him to feel bad.”

  I would have wanted that, too, if she’d been my sister.

  “There isn’t a picture of her anywhere in the house,” Tara said bitterly. “Cressie told me. There’s nothing left of Carly. When she asked, Harold wasn’t able to find a single thing that pertained to her mother. It’s like Carly never even existed.”

  So Heidi had made Harold discard everything that had belonged to Carly when she made him discard Carly’s house—or the house Carly had shared with Harold. I had no idea whether that had been the same house he’d shared with Lorraine, too. It might have been. Harold’s and Carly’s marriage hadn’t lasted long.

  “How long have you been doing it?” Mendoza wanted to know, and Tara told him she’d started pretending to be her sister on Harold’s wedding anniversary.

  “Carly died in May. We weren’t in Nashville yet, or I would have started then. But I figured the day he married Heidi was just as good. If it hadn’t been for her, Carly might not have killed herself.”

  “Tell me what happened on Saturday,” Mendoza said, and Tara made a face.

  “Harold sent Cressie a message and told her to tell me to be at the house at nine on Saturday morning.”

  “He told me the same thing,” I said. “He called late Friday night and asked me to come by because he wanted to talk to me about something. I guess maybe he wanted me to identify you as the woman—the other woman—who’d been following him.”

  I filled her in on Mitch McKetchum and how Harold had hired him to find her, and how Mitch had found me instead.

  “What were you doing, following Harold?” Tara wanted to know. And added, “Did he kill your sister, too?”

  I declined to take the bait, mostly because I don’t have any sisters. “Heidi hired me. She said Harold was acting weird, and she wanted to know why. I followed him around for a few days, and didn’t see any sign that he was cheating, but I kept seeing you. I thought you might have been an old mistress…”

  Tara made a face. “God, no. He was old enough to be my father.”

  “But as soon as I realized that your last name was the same as Harold’s second wife’s maiden name, I figured that’s why you were hanging around.”

  “What were you trying to accomplish?” Mendoza wanted to know. “Beyond making him worry and think he was crazy?”

  “Nothing.” Tara sounded angry. “I just wanted him to remember my sister. He should. I lost my best friend. Cressida had to grow up without a mother. My mother lost her daughter. And Harold’s still rich and has a new, beautiful wife. It’s like it never even happened. And I wanted him to remember her.”

  Neither of us had an answer to that. Or I didn’t. If Mendoza did, he kept it to himself. “So about Saturday,” he said.

  Tara nodded. “I left Cressie home. Harold didn’t ask for her, and she’s twelve, and responsible. I figured she’d be all right for a couple hours.”

  “Nobody’s looking to arrest you for child neglect,” Mendoza told her. “And anyway, there’s no law in this state that says a twelve-year-old can’t stay home alone. If she were eight, maybe I’d question it, but not twelve.”

  Tara acknowledged this assurance with a wave of her hand. “I was nervous, so I left early, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, so I got there almost ten minutes early. I let myself in through the gate—”

  “Did Harold give you the code?” I interjected.

  She shook her head. “Cressie did. This summer.”

  Of course.

  “I drove up to the house, but I didn’t want to knock until nine, so I waited. And then I heard the shot—it sounded really close—and then Heidi started screaming…”

  “And you left,” Mendoza said.

  Tara and I both nodded. “I was sitting outside the guardhouse when you came down the hill,” I told her. “I saw you go by, but I guess you didn’t see me.”

  “Why would you do that?” Mendoza wanted to know. “Why not stay and see if there was anything you could do to help?”

  “I guess I panicked,” Tara said. “Like I said, the shot was really close. I think maybe part of me worried that Harold—or somebody—was shooting at me. That he really did kill Carly, and he’d gotten me there so he could shoot me because he thought I could prove it.”

  “But you don’t think he killed your sister.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tara said. “I think she killed herself. She used her own medicine and something she’d picked up in Harold’s office.”

  “But you weren’t with her when she did it?”

  Tara shook her head. “I was outside with the baby. Taking a walk. The weather was nice.”

  “And Carly didn’t want to go with you?”

  “Carly was in bed when I left,” Tara said. “You have to understand, I was the one taking care of Cressie. Carly didn’t do much of anything. She couldn’t even feed Cressie, because her milk didn’t come in. So Cressie was getting formula. And Carly felt like she was useless. Couldn’t provide for her baby. Couldn’t take care of her husband.”

  Mendoza looked sympathetic, but he told her, “Go back to Saturday. You heard the shot, and you were afraid, and you left. Did you see or hear anything else?”

  “Nothing,” Tara said. “And I’m not sure I would have noticed anything if something had been there.”

  “What about when you arrived? Did anything strike you then?”

  “I haven’t been there before,” Tara said. “I dropped Cressie off at Harold’s office this summer, and picked her up in the same place. I have no idea whether there was anything out of the ordinary going on.”

  “Just tell me what you saw, please.”

  Tara sighed. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything. It was early, so nobody was out. I saw a lady with a small dog down by the clubhouse. And there was a golf cart in the driveway of the house next door, but I didn’t see anyone but the lady and the dog. And I didn’t want to stick around, because…”

  “You were afraid,” Mendoza nodded. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted Harold dead?”

  Tara shook her head. “But I’m not sure I’d know. I haven’t had any contact with Harold in the past twelve years.”

  “What about when you were following him around?”

  “I saw you,” Tara said, with a glance at me. “Nobody else.”

  “How about Greg Newsome? Do you know anything about him?”

  I shifted on the chair, and Mendoza shot me a look, but didn’t say anything.

  ”Harold’s brother?” Tara said. “He wasn’t around when Cressie was born or when Carly died. I think he mostly lives somewhere else.”

  “And their mother?”

  “Dotes on Harold,” Tara said. “Didn’t like Carly much. Didn’t think she was good enough for Har
old. But she’s been nice to Cressie the couple of times Harold has taken her there. She’s come out to lunch with them a couple of times, too.”

  “Problems at work?” Mendoza asked.

  “Harold?” Tara said. “I have no idea. I haven’t been inside Harold’s office in more than twelve years. Everyone used to like him. The nurses all flirted with him. Carly was a nurse, too, before…”

  Before Harold had rescued her from drudgery and elevated her to wife. And then had done it again with Heidi.

  Mendoza pushed his chair away from the table, and Tara tensed. “I’m going to talk to your boyfriend Wyatt,” he said.

  “Ex-boyfriend. And he had nothing to do with this.”

  Mendoza nodded, “I have a search warrant on order. But you can speed things up if you’ll allow me to get started without that.”

  “You want to search my house?”

  She sounded half incredulous and half insulted.

  “If you didn’t shoot Harold,” Mendoza said, “and you didn’t shoot at Gina, you should want to cooperate with whatever would prove it.”

  Tara sighed. “Fine. Knock yourself out.”

  Mendoza nodded. “I’m going to see Mrs. Kelly to her car. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” Tara said. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. I wanted Harold to remember Carly, but I didn’t want him dead. I’d never do that to Cressida. He was her father. And I’m all she has left. I’d never do anything that would cause her to lose me, too.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Mendoza told her. “Mrs. Kelly?”

  He gestured, and I headed for the front door. “Nice to meet you,” I told Tara on my way past.

  She nodded, but I guess she’d said her piece, because she didn’t speak again.

  * * *

  On the way home—or not exactly on the way, since I had to go out of my way to get there—I stopped by the Body Shop on Charlotte Avenue for an oil change.

  Not just to be nice, or because Zachary’s car needed it—although it did—but because I wanted a face-to-face with Nick Costanza. I didn’t really think it was likely that Jacquie and Heidi were in cahoots and had roped Nick into it to shoot Harold—although for the right incentive he might have done it—but I wanted to see him, and wanted him to see me. He wasn’t good at prevarication—when I’d tried to confront him just after David died, he’d run away from me—and I figured, if I could look at him, I’d know whether he’d had anything to do with what had happened this weekend. It was just as well to tie off that potential loose end, even if, as a loose end, it left a lot to be desired.

  The Body Shop, as you might have guessed, does body work on cars, as well as engine work and quickie oil changes. When I got there, four of the five bays held cars aloft, while people in uniform worked beneath them. The fifth seemed to be dedicated to in-and-out quick lubes. I got in line behind a Prius and looked around for Nick.

  And spotted him just ahead of me, chatting up the driver of the Prius. It had bumper stickers that said things like FeelTheBern and Hot Yoga and GRLPWR and #metoo, which led me to believe that the driver was probably both young and female.

  As the car inside the enclosure moved out, and the Prius moved in, Nick straightened up and turned to me. And curled his lip at the sight of Zachary’s car.

  I smirked and pulled forward. And quite enjoyed the look on his face when I rolled the window down and flashed him a smile. “Hi, Nick. Long time no see.”

  His eyes flickered, like he was thinking of running away, but then he leaned down and hissed, “What do you want?”

  “An oil change,” I said, feigning surprise. “Isn’t that what you do here?”

  He glanced into the backseat, strewn with some of Zachary’s belongings. A hoodie, some fast food wrappers, a dumbbell. “This isn’t your car.”

  No, it wasn’t. “It belongs to a friend. I’m driving it because my car got shot yesterday. Would you know anything about that?”

  His eyes opened wide. He’s a good-looking guy of the Mediterranean type. Not too dissimilar from Mendoza, but a few years younger, and not as pretty. Not dressed as well, either.

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “Just wondering where you were at nine last night,” I said.

  “I don’t have to answer that!”

  I smiled serenely. “No. You don’t. But if you won’t answer me, don’t be surprised if Detective Mendoza shows up to ask.”

  “That guy,” Nick said, with a glower. I guess maybe Jacquie had let slip—accidentally, on purpose—that she found Mendoza attractive. She seemed the type who would use something like that to keep her man in line.

  “He’s investigating Harold Newsome’s murder. You heard about that?”

  He nodded. “Jacquie told me. She went over there yesterday, to pay her respects.”

  Oh, was that what she’d been doing?

  “So about last night at nine…”

  “I was home,” Nick said with a smirk, “banging my girlfriend.”

  Lovely. “This would be Jacquie?”

  He nodded.

  She’d definitely lie for him, so not much of an alibi. On the other hand, Nick had the kind of open and honest face—kidding—and more importantly, the kind of low IQ, that made prevarication difficult for him. If he said he’d been in bed with Jacquie, he’d most likely been in bed with Jacquie.

  I hadn’t really thought he was involved anyway. It was just a loose thread I had to snip.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  “No problem.” He straightened. “Move forward.”

  The Prius was pulling away. I moved forward, into the now open bay, and settled in for my quickie oil change.

  Spoke to Nick, I texted Mendoza, while my hood—Zachary’s hood—was raised and clanging and banging started from below the floor. Says he was with Jacquie at 9 last night.

  Behind me, Nick moved to chat up the next customer in line.

  You were supposed to go home, Mendoza texted back.

  I am. Just stopped by because Zachary’s car needed an oil change.

  He didn’t respond to that. He didn’t have to; I knew what he was thinking, and it wasn’t complimentary.

  Anything new where you are? I tried.

  A minute passed, then— Rifle hidden under tarp on patio. Tara says not hers.

  Well, of course she would say it wasn’t hers. Then again, if she’d been driving away from Harold’s office as the shots were fired last night, and Zachary had been looking at her, then she hadn’t been the one doing the shooting.

  For a crazy moment, I considered twelve-year-old Cressida as the shooter. If her grandmother had brought her up to hate Harold, maybe Cressie had shot him. Maybe she’d been in the car with Tara when it blew past me at the guardhouse on Saturday morning. Tara had made a point—a big point—of making sure Mendoza and I knew that she’d left Cressida at home alone when she drove to Somerset. It hadn’t struck me as suspicious at the time, but now I wondered whether maybe she’d mentioned it on purpose. I hadn’t been able to see inside the Beetle on Saturday morning, so there might have been two of them inside it.

  And Tara could have dropped Cressida off on top of the hill last night, before driving down to meet me. Even if someone had seen her later, out and about, nobody would have looked at her and thought she was the shooter. Not a cute twelve-year-old in leggings and a denim jacket.

  Zachary had tailed Tara home, though. She hadn’t gone back for Cressie during that time. And she probably wouldn’t have had time to do it between the time Zachary left and before I showed up and parked across the street, followed by Mendoza. Cressida wouldn’t have been able to make it home on her own. And no one had left or come back in the time Mendoza and I had been sitting there.

  Or if they had, Mendoza hadn’t mentioned it to me. I’d been asleep.

  Suspecting Cressida was crazy, though.

  Wasn’t it?

  She hadn’t mad
e any move toward the patio this morning. Tara hadn’t, either. If they knew that the gun was hidden out there, wouldn’t they have tried to come up with some excuse for trying to get rid of it?

  Then again, they hadn’t known that Mendoza had already arranged for a search warrant. Maybe he’d hoped that if they just answered his questions, he’d leave again, without looking for the gun.

  In the midst of this cogitation the phone rang. I assumed it was Mendoza, until a glance at the display showed me otherwise. I arched my brows and put the phone to my ear. “Greg?”

  “Gina,” Greg Newsome’s voice said warmly. “Can I take you to lunch?”

  Oh. Um… “If you give me a couple of hours.” I looked at the clock on the dashboard. “I’m at the Body Shop. I have to make it home first. And you’ll have to come pick me up. I’m without a car today.”

  “My pleasure,” Greg said, and sounded like he meant it. “Noon?”

  Noon sounded good to me. That would give me time to get back to Hillwood, get Zachary on his way, and get a shower and get changed and minimize the ravages of a night spent in the front seat of a truck. That kind of thing is fine when you’re young and beautiful. When you pass forty, it takes a lot more work to look dewy fresh.

  Of course I wasn’t about to tell him any of that. I was going to tell him that noon sounded good, though, when my phone signaled another call. I took it away from my ear and peered at it. This time it was Mendoza. Of course.

  “Do you have to take that?” Greg inquired.

  “It’s the police. I probably should.”

  “Noon, then?”

  “Noon’s great. I’ll see you then.” I switched over to Mendoza’s call. “Detective.”

  “Mrs. Kelly. What’s this about the Body Shop?”

  “I wanted to talk to Nick,” I said. “He says he was banging Jacquie at nine last night.”

  There was a beat. “In those exact words, I guess?”

  “It isn’t an expression I usually use, so yes.” He didn’t say anything else, and I added, “You found the gun?”