Scheduled to Death

by Mary Feliz

We heard the shouts of the police officers telling Buck to drop his gun and lay flat on the ground. Max ran to the window in our front bedroom, accompanied by Belle. He waved us all in.

  “It’s safe now, if you want to watch,” he said.

  One of the officers had brought his patrol car up from the road. It took all three of the officers to get Buck, screaming and cursing, into the backseat, but as soon as he was settled, the car took him away.

  Paolo and the other officer talked for a moment. Then the officer walked back down the driveway to his own car and Paolo walked toward the house.

  I sighed and looked at all the kids.

  “Paolo will want to talk to Santana. Do any of you think you can go back to bed?” I asked. They all shook their heads, looking like a line of wide-eyed bobbleheads. “Hot chocolate and cinnamon toast? Bed in thirty minutes?”

  Brian looked at Ketifa. “Just say yes. It’s the only deal we’ll get. She’ll set a timer. See if she doesn’t.”

  Ketifa smiled. “I could learn a lot from your mom,” she said, patting her belly. And we all trooped down the stairs to meet Paolo in the kitchen.

  * * *

  The next morning, Max and I were up earlier than the rest of the household. We sipped coffee on the back steps and watched Belle chase the rabbits she’d never been able to catch. It was chilly on the porch, but we’d grabbed jackets. With the coffee and the company, I was toasty warm.

  “Who is Jane?” Max asked.

  “Santana, obviously. But I have no idea what the story is. She must have told Paolo at least some of it last night. We’re supposed to take her in to answer more questions when she wakes up.”

  “Do you think I should call Forrest? Will she need a lawyer? It sounds as though, at best, there’s a complicated family situation going on.”

  I nodded. “It couldn’t hurt. Would he know how to handle a situation like this?”

  “I’m not sure. What kind of situation is it?”

  I laughed and said, “I have no idea.”

  It wasn’t funny, though. Even without Buck in the picture, both Santana and Ketifa had problems I couldn’t imagine, and Boots, the only person they really trusted, wasn’t available to them. I liked to think that my own kids would never be in a similar situation, but I guessed it could happen to anyone. If things had gone wrong with the car chase, or if Max had been in his car when it crashed into the tree, what would have happened to our kids? We had wills. And I had plenty of family—parents and brothers—who would take the boys in. But would they survive that? Probably. However, I understood as I never had before how homelessness can creep up on almost anyone.

  I shook my head as if it were an Etch A Sketch and I could erase my morbid thoughts.

  “Max, if you were going to electrocute someone, how would you do it?”

  He nearly spit out his coffee. “What? Are you kidding?”

  “No,” I said. “As far as I know, no one has looked at the electricity in Linc’s house. Sarah was electrocuted. But how? Santana thinks it’s her fault, because she’d been fiddling with the lights to make them blink on and off at odd times.”

  Max looked at me as though my brains had drained out my ears overnight.

  “She was trying to simulate a haunted house, to delay the sale,” I added.

  “Hmm. Not that I’ve ever electrocuted anyone or plan on doing so, but let me think. Linc’s house is old. Was it up to code?”

  “I think so, mostly. Linc said that he’d upgraded it after his mom died. There was more work he’d need to do if he stayed there, but that was more about having all his equipment on at once than it was about safety. Knowing how safety conscious they were in the lab, I think he’d maximize the safety of the electrical system.”

  “So you’d have to do something to override the fuses or breakers—whatever the house had. And you’d need to disable any ground fault interrupters. But once you did that, the highest voltage connection in a house is the dryer—two hundred and forty volts. I’m not sure how you’d do it, but if we’re talking about Linc’s lab, I’d wire one of the outlets up there into the dryer connection. And I’d throw some water on the floor. Water and electricity don’t mix.”

  “There was water on the floor,” I said. “But I don’t know whether it was from the rain or whether the murderer put it there. I need to call Paolo.” I kissed Max. “Thanks, hon. I think you may have found the answer. If you’re right, the murderer may have left fingerprints on the dryer, the wall outlets, or the breaker box. Fingerprints that Apfel may never have looked for.” I kissed him again. “You’re the best,” I said. “This information may be all we need to nab Sarah’s killer.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed. When Paolo answered, I jumped in with no preamble or polite greeting. “Paolo, who collected the evidence at Sarah’s?”

  “What? I’m not sure. Apfel ran the scene, though he may have called in some of the Orchard View officers with more experience. He sent me off to Sarah’s cottage. Why?”

  “It wouldn’t have been the criminalists from the county lab?”

  “Not usually. The DA’s office oversees the crime lab for all the law-enforcement agencies in the county. The criminalists can’t be everywhere, so unless it’s a particularly tricky scene, the crime-lab experts wait for the evidence to come to them.”

  “Do you know if they opened up the electrical outlets in Linc’s workroom and looked for fingerprints? Did they look for prints or evidence around the dryer outlet and the surrounding wall or on the dryer itself?” I told Paolo what Max had said about how a home electrical system might be rigged to give someone a nasty shock.

  “Apfel’s gone. The files are a mess. I’ll call the electrical guy and see what he did or if Apfel even called him. Every time I asked what progress he’d made, he dodged the question. He was so focused on Linc that he wasn’t looking for other suspects. Apfel was sure he could get Linc to confess, so he didn’t look for much evidence, either. What an idiot. I’ll talk to the lab too, and see if we can get them out to Linc’s to take a look. This long after Sarah’s death, we’ll need their expertise. I’m guessing with all those boxes in Linc’s workroom, Apfel would have been too lazy to move them, let alone go into the basement. When he worked for Orchard View PD initially, it was before evidence-handling training was common practice, so he could have really messed things up in there.”

  “Thanks, Paolo. What’s the word on our gentleman caller from last night?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that. Are you bringing Santana down here later? Call before you come to make sure I’m at the station.”

  I told Paolo we were going to call Forrest and have him talk to Santana. “I know you can’t tell me anything, but her situation sounds really complicated, and I want to make sure she doesn’t say anything that makes things any worse.”

  “Good idea,” said Paolo. “She won’t need a lawyer while she’s talking to me, but she’ll need one soon enough.”

  I gasped. “It’s that bad?”

  “I shouldn’t ever tell you anything. Santana’s fine. I’ll do everything I can to keep her that way, okay? I’m not a bad guy, remember?”

  “Sorry, I know that. Thanks. I’ll call you before we come down.”

  When Santana and I reached the station a few hours later, Forrest was there to meet us with an associate who specialized in family law. I’d told Santana that we hoped they’d be able to get her on solid legal footing regarding her family situation so that she couldn’t be threatened or bullied into doing anything she didn’t want to do.

  I’d discussed some of her legal issues with Max, and we agreed to foot the bill for the time being, using some of the money from his Aunt Kay’s estate. But Forrest and his associate had agreed to work with Santana pro bono.

  I waited in the lobby for at least an hour, until Paolo came out to tell me Forrest would bring Santana back to the house when they were finished.

  “I just got a call from the team at Linc’s house,” he said.<
br />
  “Already? That was fast.”

  “They wanted to get out there before the evidence deteriorated any further. You were right. Apfel never called them. He was just going through the motions and pocketing the paycheck.”

  “Isn’t that fraud? Or a breach of ethics? Or something? He’s not just lazy, he’s a crook.”

  “Right now, I’m just happy he’s gone. I’ll let internal affairs worry about the rest. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. The results won’t be official for quite a while, but the team found fingerprints exactly where you suggested we check. A quick look showed that they’re neither Linc’s nor Sarah’s, nor those of any of the contractors Linc used to upgrade the electrical system after his mom died. We compared them to Linc’s colleagues at Stanford, and it looks like they are a match for Keenan Barnaby. He’s being questioned now about Sarah’s murder and the lab explosion.”

  “Barnaby? Keenan Barnaby? Not Walt Quintana? Barnaby’s the younger one. Quintana’s older. Are you sure you’ve got the right man?”

  “I thought you’d be thrilled that Linc’s been cleared,” Paolo said, looking disappointed at my reaction.

  “Of course I’m happy,” I said. “I am thrilled, in fact. I’m just so confused about Barnaby and Quintana. Belle and I both liked Barnaby better than Quintana. Shows what we know.”

  “He’s almost certainly a sociopath,” Paolo said. “And a gifted manipulator. He saw you had a dog and played on your emotions.”

  “He was at Stanford the night of the explosion,” I told Paolo. “Acting just a little off. I saw him there around maybe two-thirty or three.”

  “Let me send a text to the captain,” said Paolo, pulling out his phone. “That may help the team interviewing him ramp up the pressure to get him to confess.” He finished punching in the message and frowned. “Maggie, I know you must be completely sick of all of us down at the station, but I’ll need another statement from you about when you saw him and what he said.”

  “I don’t mind. Let me check the log on my phone. I may be able to pinpoint the time more closely. I phoned Stephen just after I spoke to Keenan.” I scrolled through my phone, continuing to talk as I did so. “I’m trying to remember his exact words. All I remember really are impressions. He seemed . . . disconnected. The fact that so many of the labs and probably much of people’s work was destroyed didn’t seem to bother him. Even the kids watching seemed to have more empathy with those whose lives would be disrupted. But Keenan just seemed happy that his own lab hadn’t blown up. Looking back at it now, it seems really creepy.”

  Paolo continued staring at his phone, then looked up and beamed. “This is great news, Maggie,” he said, tapping the screen on his phone. “Jason’s old mentor, Findley O’Brian, has been called out of retirement and will take over Apfel’s hours until Jason is fully recovered.”

  I threw my arms around Paolo and hugged him, letting go as soon as I remembered how uncomfortable it made him. “That’s wonderful news. We have to celebrate. And you have to tell me all the details. Can you come for dinner? Or can I bring you dinner here? Can we get coffee?”

  Paolo shook his head. “I’ve got a pile of paperwork that will keep me busy for at least a week, assuming everyone in Orchard View behaves himself and I don’t catch any new cases. All the celebration I need is a good night’s sleep and a lull in the murders, explosions, and car chases. I joined this department thinking that because this was Silicon Valley, the work would be all cybercrime, all the time. I aspired to computer forensics. Not death, destruction, and bombs.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  Chapter 22

  At the end of any big project, assignment, or job, allow plenty of extra time to tidy up the details that inevitably remain after you consider the job “done.”

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald,

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Saturday, November 22, 5:00 p.m.

  A little more than two weeks later, Tess and I, with a little help from everyone we knew, welcomed a record number of guests to her holiday tea. The Sinclair home was trimmed with holiday garlands and a photographer had taken beauty shots of every room for a sales brochure. The notoriety the house had earned following Sarah’s death, Linc’s arrest, and the announcement of Linc’s innocence had exploded into a macabre interest. Rumors that must have stemmed from Santana’s effort to prove the Victorian was haunted meant everyone in Orchard View and the surrounding towns wanted a look inside.

  As if determined to shed its undeserved goth reputation, the house showed like a dream. Fairy lights sparkled inside and out. Garlands festooned the mantles and banisters. Tess had placed realistic-looking flickering electric candles on every surface. Servers dressed in turn-of-the-century costumes passed trays of petit fours and canapés, and the high school’s madrigal singers helped set the mood, followed by a string quartet clad in formal Victorian evening wear.

  Linc hadn’t had the energy to finish tidying up his workroom, but Santana had agreed to help him with it after the tea. With special lighting, a blackboard covered in chalked calculations, a skeleton on a stand, and several trays of beakers filled with glowing red and green liquid, Tess had transformed the cluttered workroom into a vision that conjured images of the dark laboratory of Mr. Hyde in the home of kindly Dr. Jekyll. It played wonderfully into the house’s recent history and the period atmosphere.

  The crowd was thinning and I was gathering crumpled napkins and empty teacups when Tess blew into the room from the kitchen. Her hair had escaped her Gibson-girl bun.

  “Maggie, I’m all out. Do you have any more business cards or flyers?”

  I patted my pockets and shook my head. “If the box in the kitchen is empty, then I’m out too.”

  “I can’t believe how well it’s gone. I’m going to be super-busy for the next three months, at least.” Tess grabbed one of the chairs from the nearest table. “We should think about doing another one of these events in the spring.” She moved to lift the chair onto a cart the rental company had provided, but then changed her mind and sprawled onto it, sighing.

  Linc, acting as busboy, brought out a gray dish tub from the kitchen and began loading it with teacups and saucers. When he reached our table, he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Did I hear you say you thought this afternoon was a success?” he asked Tess.

  “Stupendous, overwhelming, soared beyond expectations.” Tess spoke effusively, waving her arms in the air to dramatize her enthusiasm.

  “Does that mean you wouldn’t be horrified if I told you I wanted to stay in the house?”

  Tess’s mouth dropped open and her eyes threatened to pop out of her head like those of an astonished character in a children’s cartoon.

  “Surprised, yes. Horrified, no. But where did this come from?” she asked.

  “Does this have to do with Boots and the Plotters?” I said.

  Linc shook his head and toyed with the handle of an empty teacup. “Not at all, Maggie, that’s a whole separate issue that I’ve got a plan for. No, I’ve been staying at Sarah’s so that Newton wouldn’t have to climb the stairs while he was healing, but he’s nearly fully recovered. And we want to come home. Sarah and I were happy here and I can picture her in every room. I know that Santana tried to convince people it was haunted, and in a way, it really is. In a good way.”

  “But . . . she died here,” Tess said.

  “She lived here too. We fell in love here. And it’s my home more than Sarah’s cottage is, though I may bring some of her furniture over and a few of her things.” He looked around the room as if picturing Sarah’s artwork and books in the room. “But living at Sarah’s house without her is awful. We’d planned to live there and spent most of our time there, but that means I feel her absence there more than I do here. In this house, I hear her laughing at my dreadful housekeeping skills and reminding me to pack my lunch or walk Newton.” He brushed tears from his eyes, but he smiled. “It’s a good
thing. In this neighborhood, I’m close to work and I know where everything is. And the neighbors know about Sarah. I won’t have to keep explaining my story. Everyone already knows it.

  “I’m going to hang onto Sarah’s cottage for a while in case I change my mind. The grief counselor I’m going to says not to do anything too big for at least a year. I’m hoping to lease it at a below-market rate to the new school librarian for six months and renegotiate a rental agreement after that.”

  “So April found someone—” I was going to say “someone to take Sarah’s place,” but I couldn’t complete my sentence. No one could take Sarah’s place.

  “They found a former high-school librarian who worked with at-risk youth,” Linc said. “April says she’s full of ideas about how to augment Sarah’s programs and how to fund them.”

  The front door blew open, followed by a metallic clatter. Jason hobbled in on crutches with Stephen following behind. I leaped up to grab a chair for Jason, but he’d grown so adept with the crutches he barely needed help. Stephen caught my eye and smiled. “He’s so dang independent—makes everyone around him feel useless.”

  Jason sat down and deftly whirled his crutches, then leaned them against the table. If I’d tried a move like that, there would be broken teacups on the floor and a knot growing on someone’s forehead.

  “All healed?” Linc asked. “No more infection?”

  “Healing fast and getting better every day. I told the chief I want to come back in January—three mornings a week to start and building up from there.”

  “What happened with Detective Awful?” I asked. Tess and I had been working long hours to get Linc’s house ready for the tea, and I’d scarcely had a chance to check up with anyone else.

  Jason leaned over and planted a loud kiss on my cheek before answering my question. “Internal affairs never tells anyone anything. We know they’re investigating his negligence in handling the crime scene and evidence in the investigation of Sarah’s death, but we don’t know any of the details. The most important thing, though, is that he’ll never be back. Findley’s great. It’s fun to be working with him again. Apparently the chief had called Findley originally to fill in for me, but Fin was off on a cruise to Alaska with his wife to celebrate Mrs. O’Brian’s retirement. Findley had been first up in the reserve rotation, not Apfel. It was a simple matter to cut Apfel loose.”