Purrfect Murder

by Louise Lynn

  Hazel nodded, and tried to give him a pleasant smile though she was afraid it came out as more of a grimace. She did have to admit that it helped. She wasn’t about to slap Tommy in the back like that.

  She sunk into the chair across from him, and Jay stepped back behind the bar.

  A classic rock song swelled on the jukebox, and Hazel leaned across the table, careful to avoid any spills.

  Tommy stared at her, his eyes wide. If she wanted to get him to tell her the truth, she might have to bend it herself a little.

  She schooled her face into a mask, and hoped she could pull it off. Tommy didn’t look as drunk as Jay had claimed, though he did seem incredibly tired. “I know you lied to the police that day about what happened in my studio when Dirk died. I want to know why?”

  Tommy blinked at her several times and swallowed heavily. His eyes were just as wide as Simone’s had been the day before, and she felt a lead weight in her stomach. She wanted to spin around and see if that hooded figure was behind her, but she didn’t. The sheriff had already gone to talk to Giorgio Vincente, so there was little reason for him to be here in this bar.

  Though, they didn’t know if Vincente had been the one in the hoodie the night before—wearing a dress, for some reason.

  “What do you mean?” Tommy said, and licked his dry lips.

  “We know Simone shot him. But it was an accident. You guys thought the gun was fake, but it wasn’t. What else can you tell me about it?” she asked, heart throbbing.

  Tommy shook his head and ran his fingers through his wavy black hair. “What can you tell me about it? It was your studio. You had a gun in there. Your assistant said if they wanted a weapon, it was there in that box, so I grabbed it. How was I supposed to know it was real?”

  Hazel blinked at that. “Wait. You’re the one who took it out of the box? What else was in the box?”

  Tommy rubbed his cheeks. “Shouldn’t you know this? One gun. Simone wanted to look at it, so I gave it to her.”

  That backed up what Simone had said the night before about only one gun being in the box. Hazel sighed. It came back to Michael—again. A terrible feeling filled her veins. But still, it didn’t make sense.

  Why would Michael do any of this?

  “And? Then she shot him?”

  Tommy glanced around and leaned forward. “Okay, so the thing is, I was really angry that day. Dirk invested all our money. We had this new LLC and we were going to make fifty percent of our investment back, but the guy he gave it to had been involved in some of the shady stuff with the old city council. He was the one in charge of the investment. It was all a scheme. My entire life savings. Gone in the blink of an eye. But Dirk told me not to worry. That he’d get the money back. So, he didn’t even act like it mattered. Well, I handed the gun to Simone, and told her to take it away from me because if I held it any longer I might shoot him. And then, Dirk said go for it. It’s not real. And she did,” Tommy said, and dropped his face into his hands.

  Hazel felt her heart hammering in her ribs. “But you told the cops that none of you pulled the trigger. And you expected them to believe that?”

  Tommy let out a few broken sobs. “I was panicking. I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t think she’d done it on purpose, and I didn’t want Simone to get in trouble because—I just didn’t. She chose Dirk, I could live with that, but I didn’t want her to end up in prison.”

  “What do you mean she chose Dirk?” Hazel asked slowly.

  “What does it sound like? I asked her out, and she picked Dirk over me,” he said and ripped apart a napkin.

  Hazel shook her head. She hadn’t known that. “How was Dirk going to fix everything, money-wise?”

  Tommy let out a snort. “I don’t know. He said something about turning everything around with Vincente and the guy finally getting what he deserved. And now he’s dead. So, what does that look like?”

  Hazel swallowed the lump in her throat. It looked like Vincente was the killer. “And what about Simone? Did she know about the Vincente thing?”

  “I should think she did. Dirk couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything,” Tommy spat. “Only now, I don’t have any evidence against the guy, so my money is still gone. I had way more reason to want Dirk alive than dead.”

  Hazel chewed on her bottom lip. “Well then, it’ll cheer you up that the police are arresting Vincente right now. If you tell them all this, they should be able to put him away for a long time,” she said, and patted his hand.

  Tommy pulled it into a fist then slowly released it. “Yeah, but it’s not going to get any of my money back.”

  “Still, it’s better than going to prison for murder. And I’m sure your parents wouldn’t mind hiring you at the restaurant,” Hazel said.

  Tommy met her eyes and nodded stiffly.

  She only had a few more questions to ask him, and she hoped he’d be as willing to answer those. “What happened that day on the boat two years ago? You were arguing with Vincente in the Bear’s Den before you went out on the water. And then Sara Barkley dies—”

  Tommy yanked his hand from the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Vincente is a monster, but he didn’t have anything to do with Sara’s death. Who told you that?”

  Hazel sucked in a breath. “Simone. Last night at the lodge. She said she knew what happened. The truth about Sara’s death. And I think that whoever hurt Dirk, may have had something to do with Sara as well.”

  Tommy shook his head. “Nobody hurt Sara. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore if Dirk’s dead. He just wanted us to keep quiet because it looked bad. But Sara—she didn’t fall off the boat. She jumped.”

  Chapter 15

  Sara Barkley had killed herself.

  The words swam around Hazel’s head as she rushed to her studio. Sheriff Cross never said she couldn’t come back after she left the first time, right? Well, he hadn’t made it explicitly clear, so she was going to pop in for a moment.

  It was quicker than heading all the way home and doing research there. Plus, that flowered dress kept nagging at the back of her mind.

  Sara Barkley killed herself.

  That meant her death and the current murders weren’t connected at all, didn’t it?

  If Giorgio was the one doing it to protect his dirty business model, then it all fell into place. But Hazel couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something.

  It was like when she went to take a photo and the composition was just slightly off. Enough so that most people wouldn’t notice, but she did.

  It was that attention to detail her father taught her.

  Also, the snow had thickened so much so that she knew driving home would be a hassle and take almost twice as long. Visibility was dropping, and she could hardly make out the sign on Celia’s café from a block away.

  She’d have to hurry, and hope Esther and her mom made it home safe.

  Hazel turned the lights in the studio off when she left, and didn’t bother to click any back on as she rushed into her office. She powered up the computer, but instead of looking at the photos of the figure, she did another search for Sara Barkley’s death.

  The same old articles she’d read before popped up. An online obituary. An unrelated link to the wedding—which she opened just in case she’d missed something.

  Then, of course, the last picture of Sara Barkley alive.

  Her smiling face next to Dirk. Her wavy golden blonde hair in the perfect summer sunshine, but that’s not what caused Hazel’s heart to skip a beat.

  The dress. That floral sundress clicked into place like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It was the same dress the figure had been wearing the night before. The one she and the sheriff chased to the fourth floor and then disappeared.

  But why would Giorgio Vincente dress up like Sara Barkley and chase Simone? To scare her because he knew Sara committed suicide and they were keeping that a secret?

  She chewed on her bottom lip, and her computer dinged, the sound it made when
she had an incoming email. When she noticed the return subject her heart lightened. “Dad. I knew you’d come through. Even half a world away,” she said around a smile, and opened the message.

  It was short, which wasn’t unlike him, and read:

  Hazel,

  You’re missing something. Something obvious. Look at the pictures closely. ;-)

  Love,

  Dad.

  Hazel let out a frustrated huff.

  Of course.

  Mom would go and tell them it was a ghost, while dad would force them to suss out the information themselves. But what more was she expecting after thirty-five years?

  She decided to put a pin in that and went back to the open tabs.

  The obituary didn’t have any information that could help, but the article on Sara’s marriage to Dirk did. The heading hadn’t seemed that strange before, but now, knowing Sara’s ultimate fate, it did.

  Happy at last: Sara Vanderbilt Marries Real Estate Tycoon Dirk Barkley.

  According to the article, Sara wasn’t just an heiress, but a proponent for mental health throughout the state of California.

  At the wedding they quoted her as saying: “I’ve suffered with my own demons in the past. But I found that if I stay healthy, take my medication, and continue therapy, that I’m doing much better. I wish there wasn’t such a stigma attached to mental illness, but I’m going to continue to fight it as long as I live.”

  Hazel scrunched her nose.

  Okay. So, Sara had been mentally ill and committed suicide because of a perceived affair that may or may not have been happening.

  Still, why would Vincente dress up like her?

  She scanned further, and her eyes caught on the picture of the wedding party. Sara’s Maid of Honor looked to be in her teens, but she was the spitting image of her older sister. Golden blonde hair hung wavy and just past her shoulders. She was shorter than Sara by several inches, but more compactly built. The description at the bottom of the photo read: Avril Vanderbilt.

  She’d heard that name somewhere before.

  Quickly, Hazel clicked through the other open tabs until she found what she was looking for.

  There!

  In the article about the drowning.

  Family members devastated by Sara’s demise. Her younger sister, Avril Vanderbilt left her training as an Olympic-hopeful gymnast to attend the funeral.

  Sara had a younger sister. One who looked a whole lot like her.

  That was something new.

  Heart pounding, Hazel opened her photo program and looked through the images of the figures again. Her father said she was missing something.

  Something obvious.

  Well, if that were the case, she organized them into sets of when they were taken. The earliest one contained four photos, including the one that was Giorgio. When she zoomed in on them and looked very carefully, it slowly became apparent what she’d missed.

  The figure in the last sets of photos was significantly shorter than the one she knew was Giorgio, and he wasn’t particularly tall himself.

  She sucked in a breath and picked up her phone.

  The sheriff’s card was somewhere in her purse, and she rifled through it until she found it. Hazel dialed the number, heart throbbing as she waited.

  Finally, after three rings, Sheriff Cross’s gruff voice answered. “Sheriff Cross speaking.”

  Hazel let out a sigh. “Sheriff Cross. I—Giorgio didn’t do it. The pictures, he was only in the first one. The other times it was someone different. Someone shorter. The same figure we chased last night. And I think I know who it is.”

  “Slow down, Ms. Hart. I know Giorgio didn’t do it. He was at the lodge, due to the snow, and he has a solid alibi for both Dirk and Simone’s murders. And he has no ties to the gun in your shop. Plus, he confessed to skulking around your property that first time, but had solid alibis for the others. How do you know who did it?”

  Hazel sucked in a breath. “It was connected. You see, Sara Barkley wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide, but since everyone on the boat kept quiet, and it looked suspicious, I think a certain member of her family didn’t believe it.”

  “Who?” Sheriff Cross asked.

  “Her younger sister, Avril Vanderbilt. She was training to be an Olympic level gymnast. It makes sense that she could vanish from a balcony that quickly. I’m not certain exactly how she did it, but maybe she climbed up on the roof? Something a normal person couldn’t have done. And something Giorgio certainly couldn’t have done in his shape.”

  “What does she look like?”

  Hazel rattled off her description, based on the picture.

  “Okay,” Sheriff Cross said. “I’ll look into this.”

  Then something else sparked in Hazel’s brain—another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Wait. I don’t think she’s finished. She blames everyone on that boat for what happened to her sister, and she’s already killed two of them.”

  “Well, I still have Vincente in custody. I can keep him there. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Hazel felt her stomach sink to her toes. “No. Tommy Kholi was on the boat that day. He was at the Taproom last I saw him. He might still be there.”

  “Got it. I’ll head to the bar and check it out. Are you at home, Ms. Hart?”

  Hazel glanced around her office. “Yes. I’m at home. Safe and sound,” she said, and flinched at the lie.

  Sheriff Cross was quiet for a moment then let out a huff. “Okay. Stay there. But I might send a deputy over just to make sure. If she’s really the one who did this, she has some sort of fascination with your property.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hazel hung up.

  She had a fascination with the property because that’s where her sister’s body washed up.

  Hazel turned in her chair, ready to do as the sheriff asked and go home. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have any problems finding Avril Vanderbilt. Hazel hadn’t noticed her around town, but that didn’t mean much. Not with everyone bundled up against the weather, and everything on her mind the last few days.

  She stood, slung her purse over her shoulder, then, from the dark part of her studio, heard the floor creak.

  That could be anything. Just the building settling. It was old. Built sometime in the 1950s and repurposed about ten times since for different uses.

  Another creak.

  This one an obvious footstep.

  Hazel glanced wildly around her office and lunged for a tripod. It was heavy and easy to swing. If anybody attacked her, she could at least defend herself.

  And she wasn’t about to be as silly as most people in horror films and call ‘hello,’ into an empty room.

  Instead, she carefully set her purse back down and crept toward the open door.

  Her dark studio loomed in front of her, and her hand slipped along the wall toward the light switch. Her fingers caressed the edge of the plastic and flipped.

  A familiar figure stood in the center of the foyer, mousy brown hair wet from the snow and normally ruddy cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Michael? What are you doing here?” Hazel said but didn’t drop the tripod. He’d lied to her and the police about the gun in the Old West studio already.

  “She disappeared last night at the lodge, and I haven’t seen her since. I found her cell phone and—I think—I think it’s bad,” Michael said in a blubbering rush of syllables.

  Hazel shook her head. “Who? Are you talking about Simone?” Her heart froze in her chest.

  Michael rubbed his nose on his jacket sleeve and shook his head. “No. Why would I be looking for her? I’m talking about April. She was at the lodge with me last night and she seemed fine, and then she vanished. She said she had to use the bathroom, but she never came back.”

  Hazel let out a breath. “So why are you here? It’s a crime scene. And, you lied about the weapons. The prop guns? Did you hide them? Both Simone and Tommy said there was only one in the shop—the one that killed Dirk so�
�”

  Michael’s brown eyes widened into saucers. He shook his head. “Oh no. I’m not the one who did the guns that day. I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, I think I love her, but I don’t want to go to jail because of it.” A new stream of tears dripped down his cheeks.

  Hazel sighed, grabbed a fistful of Kleenex and stepped up to him.

  She still wasn’t close to putting her arm around him, but she felt secure enough to hand him the tissues. Plus, it would rescue his jacket sleeve from getting anymore snot on it.

  Michael took the bundle, blew his nose and scrubbed his face.

  He wasn’t making sense, but he was distressed. Hazel had seen it in L.A. when she photographed a few crime scenes and the victim’s families had been present.

  She squeezed his shoulder. “If you didn’t organize the guns that day, who did? No more lying, Michael.”

  Slowly, he met her eyes. “April did. She came back after your sister showed up and was looking at the costumes. Then she helped me for a bit, but left before you guys were done. I didn’t think anything of it. And then, after Dirk died, the box with the prop guns was on the top shelf. I didn’t put them there. I swear,” he said, and scrubbed his face again.

  April?

  Why would April want to kill Dirk Barkley?

  “Do you know April’s last name?” Hazel asked, and felt her throat constricting.

  “I think it’s Banks, why?”

  Hazel shook her head. She could be lying to him about her last name. That wasn’t unheard of. She was probably lying about her first name too—though she hadn’t done a good job. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

  It had been a long time since high school when Hazel last took any French, but the names were similar enough.

  “You said something about her that day. That she was an amazing athlete. What did you mean by that? Is she a gymnast by any chance?”

  Michael blinked. “Yeah. She was almost in the Olympics and then something happened and messed it up. She never said what it was.”

  Hazel sucked in a breath. “One last thing, what color is her hair, Michael?”

  Michael shook his head. “How did you know? She wears a wig most of the time. A brown one. I don’t know why. She said she hated her blonde hair because it draws attention. But she won’t dye it because she doesn’t want to ruin it or something. It made sense when she told me but now … You think she killed Dirk, don’t you? The one girl I fall in love with has to go and be crazy, right?”