Mint Chip & Murder

by Erin Huss

  I forgot what a close talker Trevor was. I also forgot how much he liked to hug, and that he was one of those kiss-on-the-cheek greeters.

  For the record: I am none of the above.

  Which made our reunion slightly uncomfortable.

  "I heard about the poor dead soul at Burbank." Trevor had my face squished between his hands, forcing my lips to pucker. "I told Patrick many times there was a disturbance there. Now I know why."

  "Who told you?" I asked through my fish lips.

  Trevor released my face but remained a solid three inches from my nose. I went cross-eyed looking at him. "A detective named Hampton arrived this morning. Here. Come into my office." Trevor draped his arm around my shoulders. "You, too, Kevin."

  Kevin muttered under his breath. Something about this is what happens when they legalize pot.

  Trevor's office was really just a big open space with yoga mats, statues, crystals, and a laptop on the floor near a beanbag.

  I sat on an overstuffed blue pillow, while Kevin opted to stand. Trevor crossed the room, opened a drawer, and returned holding some sort of branch. "This will help you, cousin." Trevor lit the end of the branch on fire and made circles of smoke around Kevin's head. "Take deep breaths."

  Kevin could not have looked more unimpressed if he'd tried.

  "What does that do?" I asked.

  "It rids negative energy, generates wisdom and clarity, and promotes healing."

  "I'm next." Not that I believed in all that…that much. But at this point, I was up for anything. Especially clarity.

  Wisdom wouldn't hurt either.

  Trevor circled the burning branch around my head. I didn't feel any different. It must take a while to work.

  Trevor put his burning stick away and sank into his beanbag. "Are you here because you took me up on my offer?" he asked Kevin.

  Offer?

  "No. I'm not a nutjob like you," he said. "What we want is to look at the archives from the Burbank building. Cambria thinks she might know who killed the chick who croaked in the attic."

  Kevin wasn't kidding when he gave me his plan.

  "You think you've figured it out who the killer was? Or who the woman was?" Trevor asked.

  "The killer. Alvin and Sherman lived in Apartment 2B right around when this woman died. I'd like to look at their file."

  "Of course you can," Trevor said. "Absolutely."

  I almost fell off my pillow. "B-but you said no."

  "No, I said yes."

  "No, you said no."

  Trevor stroked his beard. "I think we are having two different conversations. Connect with me." He put his forehead against mine. "Tell me what it is you're saying."

  I became suddenly conscious of my breath. "When Patrick asked if I could look at the archived files, he said you said no."

  "Why would I say no? The only point of keeping the files is so we can reference them at a later date if needed. Sounds like we need them now."

  "What did you say to Patrick, then?" I asked, trying to understand.

  "I said yes, of course. Sadly, I don't know who this woman could have been. All I know is that she had a beautiful spirit."

  "I call bull," Kevin blurted out.

  A flash of annoyance crossed Trevor's face. Then, as if making some sort of inner resolution, he wiggled his shoulders and smiled. "I am sensitive to people's auras. I knew there was a disturbance at the building. But I also knew there was a beautiful, protective spirit there."

  Kevin might call this bull, but I believed Trevor. The first time I met him, he talked about the disturbance at the Burbank building. It's one of the reasons he fired the previous manager and hired me. Not to brag, but I had a blue aura.

  Whatever that meant

  "I'll get the key for you," Trevor said.

  "Hold on." I grabbed Trevor by the wrist. "You told Patrick yes?"

  "Correct."

  "Do the McMillses know about the barrel?"

  "I've left a message for my aunt and uncle. I expect to hear from them shortly."

  I shook my head, trying desperately to understand without jumping to the worst-case scenario. Why would Patrick lie to me?

  Answer: He's guilty.

  No. I pushed the thought out of my head as quickly as it entered. Trevor might have been sensitive to spirits and auras and all that. But I knew people. People like Patrick. He was a good man and would never kill anyone. If he did, he certainly wouldn't store anyone in the attic of the Burbank building.

  "Sounds like Patrick has something to hide," Kevin said.

  "No!" I snapped. "He's just been…busy. That's all. There must have been a misunderstanding." I hoped.

  "There's something fishy going on," Kevin said. "That's all I'm saying."

  I felt like saying no duh, there's a dead body. Of course there's something fishy. But duh is not a very intelligent response, and Trevor was still my boss's boss.

  "How long have you been the trustee?" I asked Trevor, ignoring Kevin, who was now nudging me with his toe, wanting me to hurry. But this was important.

  "The trust was formed in 1996. It was the year I graduated law school."

  "And you didn't know about the barrels in the attic?"

  "Of course I did. As soon as I was told that I'd be managing the trust, I did a complete tour of all the properties in the portfolio. My uncle has a hard time letting go of things. I took it upon myself to clear out the attic, and I can assure you there wasn't a body in any of the barrels."

  "You moved all the barrels?"

  "Yes, I did. They were a beast to get down the stairs into the apartment. I was in much better shape back then."

  "What stairs?" I asked.

  "There were pull-down stairs in Apartment 2B, but I broke them when I took down the barrels."

  A thought skyrocketed into my brain. "How many barrels did you move?"

  "Four."

  "Four?"

  "Four."

  "Four?"

  "Four."

  "Are you sure there were four?"

  "Yes, Cambria, I moved them personally. They were big and awkward, and I nearly killed myself lowering them down the stairs. There were four."

  "Aha!"

  Trevor scratched his head. "What does aha mean?"

  "Uh…" May and Neo had both said there were five barrels. I'd counted five rings. Trevor just admitted to moving four of them. Which meant one was missing. The one with the woman. The one hidden behind the wall. Which meant she did in fact die around the time Alvin and Sherman moved out, Patrick was hired, and Kevin was sent away.

  Except, I didn't tell Trevor any of this. For all I knew, he put the woman in the barrel. It seemed unlikely, given that he was in his early twenties and she was in her mid-to-late thirties. What would have been their connection? But you never knew. So instead I said, "Aha! I'm so happy to be here!"

  Which prompted Trevor to wave his burning stick over my head a few more times.

  * * *

  Could be because I spent way too much time watching crime shows, but I'd pictured this going down a lot differently. I'd imagined Kevin having to create a distraction while I broke into a closet, used my phone as a flashlight, tried to grab as many files as I could, and stuffed them under my shirt before I was discovered.

  I did not anticipate Trevor handing over a key. Which was precisely what happened. Trevor gave Kevin and me a key to an office suite two doors down, wished us luck, and rubbed oil on our foreheads.

  "What offer was Trevor talking about?" I asked Kevin as we walked down the hallway.

  "He wants me to work for him."

  "What? Why don't you? That's a brilliant idea."

  "I don't want anything to do with him or my parents. You heard Trevor. My dad doesn't get rid of anything. He's a hoarder. But he had no problem getting rid of me. As soon as they kicked me out, they immediately took Trevor in. And he's a complete nutjob! Always has been. They never even gave him the time of day. Then suddenly they were like 'hey, want to be a millionai
re?' I'm not even sure they hate me because I'm gay. I think they just suck at being people. You know how you overly baby your kid?"

  "I do not." OK, maybe a little. But that's only because she's my baby. "Anyway. Continue."

  "My mom barely acknowledged my existence. My dad was better, but not much. There weren't bedtime stories, or sparkle toast, or any sort of physical affection. On my first day of school, my mom dropped me at the curb."

  "That's terrible, Kevin." And yet explained so much of his personality. "I'm so sorry."

  "Yeah, whatever. Don't get all sappy. It's unattractive." Kevin stopped at Suite 223. "You ready for this?"

  "For what?"

  He pushed open the door.

  I exclaimed, "Holy hell. Where are we?"

  "This was my mom and dad's office. Like Trevor said, Ernest McMills doesn't get rid of anything. Looks exactly the same as the last time I was here."

  No, he didn't. It was like stepping into an episode of Extreme Hoarders, Office Space Edition.

  Boxes. Boxes everywhere. Boxes on what was once a receptionist desk. The old-style phone was still there, next to a typewriter. Boxes on the floor. Boxes by a large copier machine. Boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes.

  "There's no way we're going to find anything in here," I said.

  "Probably not."

  I took the lid off a file box and quickly determined it was filled with zoning permits. "Does being in here bring back a lot of emotions?" I asked.

  "No."

  "I don't believe you for a second. This has to be hard."

  "Then why are you asking?"

  "So we can talk about it."

  Kevin exhaled a telling sigh. "I've been kissed on the cheek by the whack-a-doodle my parents let run their fortune, been covered in oil, and I smell like"—he took a whiff of his sleeve—"what was that burning twig thing?"

  "Not sure."

  "Smells like pot."

  "My guess is sage."

  "Whatever. Stop talking and start looking."

  Fine.

  It took about an hour before we located a group of boxes filled with Burbank's archived residential files. They were in the bathroom, behind the door, being used as a makeshift table to keep air freshener and extra rolls of toilet paper on.

  I sat down and flipped through each file until I found Apartment 2B. Turned out Alvin's last name was Leo, and Sherman's was Varner. There were copies of their social security cards, bank statements, also birth dates and all sorts of personal information. Leo had long brown hair, crooked teeth, and thin eyebrows. Sherman had small facial features and a long neck. "This is fantastic."

  "You sure these guys had something do with the dead woman?" Kevin asked.

  "At this point, I don't know. They moved out right around when the woman died. They could have emptied one of the barrels, put the body in, and left." I took pictures of all of Alvin's and Sherman's information, and I sent it to Chase. Then I called Tom.

  "Missed me?" he answered.

  "No. Remember when you asked what you could do to help with my investigation?"

  "Yes, and you said I could pick up Lilly."

  "Right. One more thing. Can you run a background check and look for criminal hits on two people for me? I'll text you all the information."

  "I'll do anything for you, Cam."

  "Great. Can you please stop calling me Cam, then?"

  "Anything but that. Send me the info, and I'll see what I can find."

  We hung up, and I set the file aside.

  "I still don't understand how you got two hot guys after you," Kevin said. "I got no hot guys after me. This really isn't fair."

  "Trust me, it's not as fun as it sounds." At all.

  I continued to search through the files, opening each one, scanning the pictures, and reading through the notes. Until I got to Apartment 11A. "Look at this. Apartment 11A had a series of women from El Salvador moving in and out. They all listed Burbank Flowers as their place of employment."

  "So?"

  "So, the woman in the barrel was Hispanic."

  "That narrows it down to pretty much everyone."

  "Just listen to me. All these women were Hispanic. According to their visas, most of them were petite, and all of them had brown hair."

  "But they lived there in the seventies and eighties. I thought the lady was killed in the nineties?"

  "No, some of these women lived there in the early-to-mid nineties." I licked my finger and flipped through each page of the thick file. "There were ten roommates within the time frame. Which meant they crossed Alvin's and Sherman's paths. None of these women have move-out sheets, which is weird."

  "You think one of these ten chicks could be the corpse?"

  "I think it's possible one of these women could be the victim."

  "When you get all politically correct, it makes me want to barf. What now?"

  "We'll go to Burbank Flowers."

  "Don't you have to do your actual job today?"

  Right.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Reliable

  I called in sick.

  Well, I emailed in sick. Patrick still wasn't answering the phone. I didn't have much work to do anyway, and any resident in need could reach me on my cell or through the emergency line.

  Burbank Flowers was busy for a Wednesday afternoon. So much so, I had to stop and think if there was a holiday I was forgetting. Then I saw the Going out of Business sign above the cash register. Everything half off.

  I approached the counter. A short woman in her late forties–early fifties with a long dark braid was shoving roses into a vase. I rang the Ring for Service bell to get her attention.

  "Hi, this may seem odd," I said, once she turned around. "I'm an apartment manager here in Burbank, and years ago, several women from El Salvador both lived at my building and worked here. I'm trying to find information on them."

  "What apartment building?" The woman had a faint accent.

  I gave her the address, and her face lit with recognition.

  "I used to live there," she said. "Back when I first moved here from El Salvador in 1978."

  "Do you know if any of the roommates who lived in that apartment happened to disappear?"

  Maria gave me the once-over, her brow furrowed.

  "We ain't cops," Kevin added. "She's just intrusive. That means nosey. Found it in my thesaurus."

  "Thank you, Kevin," I said. "Anyway. Did any of the roommates happen to disappear? Or hang out with two men who lived upstairs—Alvin and Sherman."

  "I vaguely remember Alvin and Sherman. They used to have parties, right?"

  "So I've heard."

  "No one disappeared when I lived there."

  "Did anyone happen to have dentures?"

  "I don't think so. We came from a small village in El Salvador, and we didn't have access to dental there. I know a few of us had missing teeth. I got an implant last year." She smiled. I had no idea which tooth was fake. She had a good dentist.

  "Did you personally know all the roommates?"

  "We were all cousins or close family friends. Originally, my cousin Dominique moved there and rented the apartment. I came and moved in with her, and then Angelica came. And it worked like that for years. One person moved out—another came over from El Salvador."

  "And everyone is still alive and well?"

  "I don't keep up with everyone anymore. My cousin Angela does."

  Angela? The name sounded familiar. "And Angela is alive?" I asked.

  "She lives in North Carolina."

  I'd taken pictures of the ten woman who fit in our time frame, and I scrolled through them until I found Angela's. Two down. Eight to go. This very well could have been a pointless endeavor. But most of these were petite Hispanic women with dark hair, and no move-out information. Where was the deposit and move-out reconciliation sent? Legally, we had to reconcile every move out. Even if the resident wasn't entitled to a refund of their deposit. If we didn't have a forwarding address, we had to send it
to the apartment they'd just moved from in case there was a forwarding address at the post office. You couldn't just leave it alone. It was illegal.

  Maria gave me Angela's number, and I sent her a text message, asking her to call me. Before we left, Maria looked through all the pictures on my phone, and I was able to delete more women who she was positive were still alive. When she asked why I was looking for them, I didn't have a choice but to tell her the truth.

  Maria slapped a hand over her mouth. "And you think it was one of my cousins?"

  "Honestly, I have no idea. I'm trying to identify everyone who lived there who fit the description and was there in the midnineties."

  Maria grabbed the edge of the counter. "Then you have to speak to Angela. She is the family busybody and keeps tabs on everyone. I'll send her a text as well, to make sure she calls you."

  "Thank you." I felt bad worrying Maria. This could turn out to be nothing. Or it could turn out to be everything. The problem was, I wouldn't know until I confirmed every woman who lived in Apartment 11A was still alive.

  Kevin and I left after Maria and I exchanged information. There was a total of six women from Apartment 11A still on my phone, and I sent all their pictures to Chase, hoping he'd be able to verify their whereabouts.

  Then, my phone rang. It was Tom.

  "What's wrong?" I stepped out of the flower shop and slipped on my sunglasses. "Is it Lilly? Please tell me it isn't Lilly. Is she hurt? What happened?

  "Nothing," Tom said. "Calm down. I called about your two guys."

  Oh. That. Phew. "What do you know?"

  "From what I can tell, Alvin is still a set designer. No criminal hits aside from a few moving violations. Sherman, on the other hand, he has assault with a deadly weapon. Domestic abuse charges. Drug charges. Let me put it this way—his rap sheet is ten pages long."

  "Does he have a current address?"

  "Yes, it's 3600 Guard Way in Lompoc, California."

  I repeated the address out loud for Kevin so he could look it up. "Where is Lompoc?" I asked Tom. "Is that in the Valley?"

  Kevin tapped my shoulder and showed me his phone.