by Kayt Miller
“It doesn’t work like that. The detective in charge….” Is an asshole who thinks he’s the best of the best, but the few times I’ve worked with him, I haven’t been impressed.
“Please, Gage.” Her voice sounds so sad and desperate. “I’m worried about her.”
“Gage, mate.” I can’t help noticing Quinn’s voice has gotten deeper and British.
I’d love to tell you that I liked Quinn’s boyfriend, Cooke Thompson, famous rugby star, but that’d be a lie. I tolerate him for her sake. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a decent guy, but I had hopes for Quinn and me.
Shaking my head, I finally speak. “Hey, Cooke.”
“Listen, mate, Quinn’s bloody beside herself, and I can’t do shite here to help her. We’re getting on a flight day after tomorrow, but until then, can you please do whatever you can to find the real killer? You know she didn’t do it, mate.”
Mate? We’re not mates.
“Please, Gage?” Quinn’s voice comes back on the line, and it breaks my heart.
With a reluctant sigh, I say something I shouldn’t. “I’ll do some more digging. Okay?”
I can hear her blow her nose on the other end of the line, but then she says, “Thank you. Thank you so much, Gage. I know you’ll find the real killer because you’re the best police officer in Ames.”
Okay, now she’s just blowing smoke up my ass. “Right. I’ll see you when you get back.” Because she’s not going to let this go. And I don’t blame her.
“Bye, Gage.”
“Bye, Quinn.”
With a sigh, I put my car into Reverse, back out of my driveway, and head back over to Social Apartments. There’s something our eyewitness said that’s been bothering me. Might as well see if I can speak to Daisy Buchanan again. Maybe this time she’ll open the door all the way.
This time when I pull into the apartment complex, I drive directly to 1320 and park. Reaching down to my left, I pop the trunk to retrieve my Ames PD wind jacket. Since I changed into street clothes at the station, I feel as though I need to wear something identifying me as a cop doing official business, plus it’s getting colder now that fall’s setting in. Pulling that over my head, I check my pocket for my badge and contemplate adding my holster but decide against it.
When I knock on Buchanan’s door, I expect the same thing to happen as this morning, that she’ll open it an inch and that’s all, but surprisingly that’s not the case. No, this time she opens it at least six inches. It’s just enough to see her—well, most of her.
She’s short. I knew that. I’d guess close to five-two or five-three. Her hair is dark, and from what I can gather from the size of the bun on top of her head, I’d say it’s pretty long. She’s wearing glasses now, which look too big for her smallish face. I suppose it helps to see the big eyes behind them. From here, I can’t tell exactly what color her eyes are, but my best guess would be blue or perhaps gray. No matter the color, I feel a little taken aback by the size of them now that I can see two at once. Doe-eyed. That’s a good word for her.
I quickly scan down her body and note her attire. An oversized Iowa State sweatshirt hides her body and covers her down to her knees, where tights or leggings take over. Below that, I catch a flash of pink toenail polish on her bare feet.
“Officer Golden?”
“Oh, uh, yes.” I clear my throat. “Miss Buchanan, would you mind if I asked you a few more questions?”
Her long lashes flutter behind her giant lenses. “More questions?” She sounds nervous.
“Yes. A few more.”
Pushing the door open wider, she steps aside and gestures for me to enter. Which is weird because this morning, she wouldn’t budge from her front door.
“Thanks,” I say as I pass through her doorway to stand in what is a mirror image of Kara Becker’s place. Daisy’s kitchen is on my left, meaning her bedroom would be to the right after the small dining nook. “Nice place.” I say it just to make small talk. Because it’s not nice. I’d go so far as to call it a hoarder’s paradise. She’s got stuff everywhere. In the living area is a two-seater couch, but on either side of that are stacks of boxes and plastic containers that hold—I lean closer—magazines, maybe? Newspapers?
Not only that, there are boxes stacked up along the wall that should lead to a small deck space, but hers is completely blocked by brown cardboard. A small television, maybe a twenty-two-inch, rests on top of old milk crates that are filled with things. I can’t tell what they are from here, but they look to be collectible items—tchotchkes is what my mom calls them.
“Yeah, well….” Clearing her throat, she points to the sofa. “Have a seat.” She pulls up a tall stool that she takes from a spot near the kitchen. It’s hard to tell for sure, because there’s a rack that holds clothing that blocks that part of the apartment from this area.
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything?” She’s getting more nervous by the minute, but a small laugh seems to break the ice. “I’ve got water.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
I watch her step on the rung of the stool to rise high enough to get into the seat. I changed my mind—if she’s five feet tall, I’d be surprised.
“Did you just move in?” I’m not sure why I ask her that. I guess it’s due to the stacked boxes against the wall. I point to them.
Shaking her head, she answers me. “No. This stuff was my mom’s.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“Gone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”
I must have said something hilarious, because she throws her head back and laughs. Hard. Funny, I sort of like it. It’s part giggle, part hearty laugh. “She’s not dead. She’s in—” She looks up for a moment. “—California now, I think.”
“You’re not sure?”
Daisy shrugs and, with a smile, tells me, “She sends postcards.”
“What about your father?”
The smile drops from her face fast. “He’s here.”
I point downward. “Here? As in your apartment.”
Rolling her eyes, Daisy shakes her head. “No. In Ames. He’s a professor.”
“At ISU?” Dumb question, but I have to ask.
“Yeah. American literature.”
Taking my phone out of my back pocket, I open my Notes app and begin to type. “What’s his name?”
“Why?” she snaps. “What do you need with him? And what are you typing?”
“Oh. Sorry.” I place the phone down next to my leg. Chuckling, I reply, “Habit.”
She releases a breath that makes me wonder what the deal is with Daisy and her father.
“His name is Dorian Buchanan.” After a pause, she adds with an eye roll, “Doctor Dorian Buchanan.”
“I take it you’re not close to your dad.”
She scoffs. “My father and I are definitely not close.”
“Why’s that?”
Sliding down from the stool, she crosses her arms in front of her. If I’m not careful, she’s going to ask me to leave, and I’ve got more questions. “Does that really have anything to do with my neighbor? It sounds to me like you’re digging for things that don’t relate.”
“Just curious.”
She smirks. “Curiosity killed— the cat.”
I hate that expression. It makes me think of my cat, Pepper Anderson, and I’d be really bummed if anything happened to her. I nod. “It did. But it’s also my job.”
Turning, she moves toward her kitchen. Looking back at me, she asks, “Sure you don’t want some water?”
Maybe I should just accept. It could buy me some time. “Sure. I’ll take some.” I stand and follow her. I need to see her face as she responds to my queries. “So, did you know Kara Becker very well?”
“No. I thought she’d moved out until I saw her last week getting her mail.”
“Did you speak with her?”
“I said hello to her, but that was it.”
> “Did she respond?”
Daisy shrugs. “She said hi back.”
“So you didn’t socialize with Ms. Becker?”
My question must surprise her because her head jerks up and our eyes meet. “Socialize?”
“Yeah. Did you hang out with her here?” I jerk my thumb toward the door. “At the pool or other facilities?”
“Um… no. I don’t really socialize. With anyone.”
“Why not? You’re in school, aren’t you?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I graduated two years ago.”
“Oh? You look so young.”
She chuckles. “Well, I’m not ancient. I’m twenty-three.”
“I see.”
“How old are you?” she asks, handing me a small glass or water with one ice cube.
“Twenty-seven.”
“You look older.”
Well, what do you say to that?’ “Thanks?” I must have said the right thing because she laughs again. “I’m not ancient.” I may as well play along.
“No.” She chuckles. “You’re not ancient either.” She moves closer and stops. I’m not sure what she wants, so when she waves me off, I get it. I’m supposed to move out of the kitchen doorway so she can leave. I move to the side and let her pass. She’s so close we almost touch. I can’t help noticing how good she smells. It’s sweet, pretty. Like her.
Okay. I don’t know if she’s sweet. Pretty, definitely. But from the two times I’ve interacted with her, sweet isn’t a word I’d use to describe her. Leery is one. Tentative and shy, definitely.
“So, you didn’t socialize with Kara. But you saw her now and then?” I ask.
“When she was here before, I’d see her down in the laundry room, in the lobby, that sort of thing. But we never said more than one or two words to each other.”
“Did she have other friends from the complex?”
“Not that I know of. She had visitors, but I didn’t make it a point to check out everyone who passed through her doorway.”
“So, how do you know about the redhead?”
“I told you this already,” she says, sounding irritated.
“One more time, please.”
“Fine.” She huffs. “I was coming up from the laundry room. The redhead was knocking on Kara’s door.”
“And what time was this?”
“Around ten.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I set my timer on my phone to remind me to get my clothes out of the dryer. If you don’t do that around here, people either dump your stuff on the floor or take it.” She pauses. “Or both.”
Picking up my phone, I search my photos for the mug shot of Tayler. Holding it out to her, I ask, “Is this the redhead?”
She nods. “I think so. I saw her from the back mostly but also in profile.”
I turn my phone and bring up Tayler’s photo in profile. “This her?”
“Yeah.” She nods, looking solemn.
“Did you see anyone else approach Kara’s door that night?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything? Any loud noises that night, between ten and midnight?”
“I put my headphones on as soon as I got back so I wouldn’t hear anything.”
That was a strange way to answer that question, but I won’t read too much into it just yet. Though I am curious if she really meant wouldn’t or rather couldn’t hear anything?
“Can you think of anything else that can help us with our inquiry?” Daisy shakes her head, then does something surprising. She smiles. And it nearly takes my breath away. The woman’s face lights up like a beacon. “You should smile more often,” I say without thinking.
Wrong thing to say, because it goes away as quickly as it came.
Slipping off her stool again, she walks to her front door.
I guess it’s time for me to go.
“I may have more questions for you,” I warn her.
“Okay,” she responds softly.
Reaching into my breast pocket, I retrieve my card. “My cell number is on the back. If you think of something or you’re concerned about anything, give me a call.”
“Concerned? About what?”
“Well, your neighbor was murdered….”
“Oh.” Her lashes flutter. “Right.” When she looks up at me, I can tell what I said has struck a nerve. With a quiver in her voice, she asks, “Should I be worried? Am I in danger?”
“My professional opinion is no, you’re not in danger, but we don’t know everything yet.” Pointing at my card, I say, “If you’re concerned about anything, call me.”
“All right. I will.”
“Good.”
Grabbing the doorknob, I pull her door open and step into the hallway. Turning back, I watch her door shut and listen for her to lock it. When the familiar click sounds, I move back over to Kara’s apartment. Police tape is crisscrossed over her doorway, and someone has placed a bouquet of flowers at the threshold. Bending at the waist, I look for a card or something indicating who set them here. When I don’t spot anything, I turn back and look at Daisy’s door.
Her muffled voice sounds from behind the thin wood. “No, I don’t know who left the flowers.”
I want to laugh at her response. She must have read the look on my face. “Thanks.”
Once I’m outside of the complex, I pull my phone out of my pocket and press the button to stop the recording. Since she wouldn’t let me take notes, I chose to record our conversation. Because I didn’t notify her of that, it’d be inadmissible, but at least I’ll be able to make my notes with more accuracy.
With that, I’m off to find something to eat. I’m starving. Then I need a good night’s sleep.
Chapter Four
Gage
Sleep eludes me. Too many things are whirling around in my head, which sucks because that means I’ll have gone a couple of day without decent sleep. It can’t be helped. All I can think about is Kara Becker’s murder. Looking at the clock on my nightstand, I see I’ve got time to get a workout in, shower, and get to the station before they take Tayler over to the courthouse for her arraignment. I’m not due to work until three o’clock this afternoon, but I feel the need to get there early. Perhaps Tayler will be able to answer a few questions that are nagging at me. I’ll have to be careful about it, because I don’t want to piss off Detective Trumbull, but I think Tayler will tell me things she wouldn’t say to Dan. At least I hope so.
After a five-mile run, I shower, then grab a large coffee and breakfast sandwich from a drive-through. I’m good to go. The jog was good for a couple of reasons: it woke me up and also cleared my head some. The harder my feet beat down on the ground in a steady rhythm, the more I realized Quinn and the other Beedle women were right—Tayler isn’t capable of killing someone. Threatening Kara? Yes, definitely. Now the question is how do I prove it? One way would be finding out what they discovered yesterday during the search of Tayler and Quinn’s place yesterday. Dan had a search warrant executed. If Tayler swung that club, there would be, at the very least, blood traces on clothing and shoes. Some of the results from that search should be available today. If they took any of Tayler’s property to forensics, I’ll be able to find that out as well.
Which leaves me with Tayler. I need to get to her before the arraignment. I press on the gas to get to the station quicker.
“Thanks for agreeing to talk to me, Tayler.”
The captain saw me the minute I stepped into the station and did the unexpected—he asked me to see if Tayler would talk to me since she and I knew each other. Now we’re in one of the interrogation rooms, like the ones you see on television with the two-way glass. Captain Billings and Dan Trumbull are on the other side, watching from what we call “the booth.”
“I need to get out of here, Gage.” Tayler looks tired, pale, and honestly, shaken. I don’t blame her.
I decide to just go for broke. “An eyewitness places you at Kara Becker’s door just after t
en the night of the murder.”
Tayler sits back in the hard chair, places her hands in her lap, and slumps her shoulders. “I went there to tell her to stay away from Quinn.”
“Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”
She leans forward slightly. “Robbi sent me a text telling me she’d spotted Kara at Cy’s.”
I nod, already knowing about that.
“I knew Quinn was coming back soon, so I wanted to be sure Kara knew to stay away from her.” She sighs. “So I found her address online and decided to pay her a visit.”
“Was the night of the murder the first time you’d been to her apartment?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’d tried two other times, but she was never there.”
“Until that night?”
“Yeah. That night, I knocked, and she opened the door right away.”
Tayler stops speaking, so I urge her on. “What happened next?”
“She said, ‘Hey, Tayler.’” She blinks. “Which was weird and sort of overly familiar because she doesn’t, or, I mean, she didn’t really know me.”
There’s a long pause. I attempt to stay quiet, but she’s taking too long between thoughts. “What did you say to that?”
“I said “hey” back.” Tayler chuckles softly.
The room is silent again. Before I can nudge her to continue, Tayler does it on her own. “Then she shocked the crap out of me by inviting me into her place.”
That is surprising.
“What did you do?”
Shrugging, she says, “I went in, and she shut the door.”
Now, I need to know where she went in the apartment. If she touched anything. “Did you go into the living area? The kitchen? Her bedroom?” Hopefully fingerprints will come back later today, and we can either verify her claim or not.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t go any farther than her little hallway, right by the kitchen.” I nod. Now Tayler’s got her elbows on the table, and she’s leaning closer. “She was cooking something.”