by Roslyn Woods
“Come in, sweetie. Tell us what’s going on,” he said, drawing her into the house. “Leonardo! Shell’s here! Could you get her some water?” he called. Then, turning back to Shell he said, “Let’s let the girls see if they get along. Go ahead and put her down. Bitsy and Penny need to get to know each other, don’t you think?”
Shell put Bitsy down, and the two dogs barked at each other for a minute while Billie ushered Shell to a fawn-colored leather couch in the high-ceilinged living room. Billie sat just opposite her on a turquoise, armless chair and leaned forward while looking sincerely into her eyes.
“Oh! Here’s your water,” he said as Leonardo handed a glass of iced water to Shell.
“Thanks, Leo,” she croaked, her voice not working properly, as Leonardo sat down beside Billie in the matching chair.
They were both dressed casually, and Shell had never seen them in their “at home attire.” Leonardo’s running pants were navy, and he wore navy sandals. A pale blue T-shirt peaked out at the collar of a partly unbuttoned, short-sleeved gray shirt. If Shell had been thinking about it she might have guessed the designer. Billie was much the same in gray yoga pants with a lavender tee and the pink and gray bunny slippers. It was strange to be noticing that they were color coordinated in their grungies, but she did notice, the way someone rather dissociated notices the strangest things at the most inappropriate times. Shell would have laughed with Billie about the slippers if she’d had the heart, but she really didn’t right now.
“Did you go see your cousin in Dallas?” Billie asked, trying to get a conversation started.
“Yes,” Shell answered, almost whispering and still unsure of her voice, but she couldn’t go on.
Suddenly Leonardo jumped up. “I just remembered I have a basket of shirts to iron,” he said. “I’ll just be upstairs.” He got up and headed for the staircase.
Shell was grateful. She was sorry she had come, but she was here now, and she couldn’t face telling Billie about Dean in front of Leonardo. She didn’t know Billie’s boyfriend well enough that she felt comfortable talking to him about something like this.
“So…tell me,” Billie said, lowering his voice and leaning toward her. “I can see your heart is breaking.”
“We broke up. We just broke up,” she answered, and then the tears came. She didn’t expect them. A virtual flood was coming, and Billie moved over to the couch and started handing her big handfuls of tissues and patting her back while she sobbed.
“That’s right. Just let it out. Everyone needs a good cry when someone treats us wrong, and I’m sure you’ve been mistreated because you’re just an angel, and I know that about you Shell,” he was going on, trying to fill the spaces between her sobs with meaningless talk and hoping it was soothing. “You’re good and kind and talented and practically perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins.”
“Then why—why can’t I get anyone to love me?” she asked through her tears.
“Well, let’s see. I love you. Leo loves you. Margie and Donald love you. I imagine your cousin loves you, and I think Dean loves you too, even if he’s being a pill right now.”
“A pill? A pill? He just kicked me out of his life!”
“Oh, sweetheart, he’s mad about something, isn’t he? Tell me all about it. I bet this can be fixed—”
“No. No it can’t! It’s over,” she said, and she cried some more while Billie sat there with his arm around her looking perplexed.
A few minutes passed before Billie said, “Well, it never rains but it pours! This is certainly going to complicate things. Your best friend is his sister.”
“I thought of that,” said Shell, beginning to calm down, though tears continued to spill from her eyes. “And she’s having a baby soon, and I don’t want this to upset her, but there’s no way to keep her from knowing.”
“Oh goodness! Garrett’s death and then you and Dean.”
“I’m sorry to land on you like this, Billie. I guess I just needed to tell you,” she said, mopping her face with a fresh handful of tissues.
“Oh honey, I’m glad you did. What are friends for?” he asked. “You know, I’m going to open a nice bottle of wine. Let’s order a pizza and talk it over.”
“No, I don’t want to put Leo through this right now. He’s having a hard time with Garrett’s murder. He doesn’t need more troubles piled on him. I’m just going to go find a hotel for tonight and try to figure out what to do next.”
“Actually, it will be a distraction for Leo. You should stay here. We have tons of space, and we can talk about what happened and try to help you sort it out. Besides, look how well the doggies are doing.”
Bitsy and Penny had settled together on the rug in front of the fireplace like old friends.
“I don’t know,” said Shell.
“I insist you stay here! The room downstairs is always empty and always ready for guests. It has its own bath. You can get up in the night and raid the fridge if you want and we’ll never hear. We can’t hear a thing up there. If you get sick of us, you can go in your room and turn on your own TV!”
“Maybe. I don’t want to be an imposition.”
“Shell, I promise you you’re not. Leo is going to agree with me about this. I know it,” he said. “And we can show you our latest paintings up in the studio! But what I want to know now is, what on earth happened between you and Dean?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m all ears, darling.”
So Shell told Billie her sad tale, and while she told him she shed a few more tears. It helped, telling Billie. He was genuinely concerned, and he saw the whole thing through Shell’s eyes. When he knew what there was to know he had a few things to say.
“Well, I’m just furious with Dean! Margie told me what happened last year when you set up that sting so you could prove him innocent. How does he dare to not listen to you when you say you have an explanation, I want to know! If I were the kind of man who got in fights, I’d offer to punch him for you. But I suppose that wouldn’t go my way.”
“I would never have believed he’d be this—”
“Pigheaded!”
“Yes!” she agreed, “And mean!”
“What are you going to do? Are you going to try to tell him again?”
“No. I’m not going to beg him to listen to me.”
“What if he asks you?”
“He won’t. He thinks he knows everything there is to know about it.”
“I just wish he could find out some other way.”
“What other way is there? There’s no reason why he would. It would take Lisa and Brad talking to him. They’re the only people who could tell him the truth, and that conversation is never going to happen.”
“Does he know our Bradley?”
“He met him briefly last year when Brad stormed down here and proposed to me after we broke up.”
“Oh my God, sweetheart! That must have been a dramatic moment!”
“It was. Anyway, that was Dean’s only encounter with Brad.”
“Does he know you didn’t ever love Bradley?”
“I told him we were completely wrong for each other once, but I think that’s all.”
“So do you think it’s possible he’s been worried that you still carry a torch for your rich ex?”
“I think I act pretty much like I’m madly in love with Dean, so why would he think I might have an interest in the guy I left? He knows I could have been with him if that was what I wanted.”
“But people are complicated,” Billie said. “Sometimes they feel a little of this and a little of that, if you know what I mean.”
Shell looked up at Billie then. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sometimes,” he said in a whisper while glancing up at the staircase, “I think Leo is like that. I think he has regrets about someone from his past, someone he misses. It really hurts my feelings sometimes, but then he can also be so wonderful to me.”
“Have you talked abo
ut it?”
“No. We’ve only been together a year. I don’t want to make demands. I think I just need to give him time to work through it. I think eventually he’ll see what a good life we have together. I just wish he’d stay home.”
“Stay home?”
“He goes out sometimes and doesn’t come back for hours. I don’t know where he goes, and I’m pretty sure it’s okay. I don’t think he’s actually doing anything like being with someone else, but it just worries me that he needs time away from me.”
“Do you think you should just ask him about it?”
“I’ve asked him in a round about way, but I never get anywhere. We just haven’t been together long enough to be very direct about these things, but he has said some things that make it sound like he’s really committed to our relationship.”
“Well, Dean and I have only been together six months. We haven’t really made big declarations to each other.”
“He doesn’t tell you he loves you?”
“No,” she answered, and another tear spilled onto her face. “Do you think he should have?”
“And you haven’t said it to him?”
“No.”
“Because it feels wrong to be the one who says it first? Is it because you’re a girl and he’s a boy?”
“Probably. I think if I said it he’d say it back, but then I’d never know if he really meant it.”
“What about him? Maybe he thinks that about you.”
“It’s different with men and women I think, Billie. The guy is supposed to say it first.”
“Sounds a little bit sexist though, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, honey, he’s being really unfair today, but I think he’ll come around and see what a jerk he’s being about not listening to you.”
“That makes one of us.”
“I really think he will,” he said. “I’m just going up to check on Leo. Is it okay if I catch him up?”
“He’ll have to find out sometime,” Shell agreed, frowning. “But I don’t want you guys to hate Dean,” she added.
“Well, how about just for tonight? Right now I’m feeling a little hate. I’ll get over it if he sees the error of his ways and has a conversion experience.”
Shell returned a wan smile, but she didn’t feel it inside. Right now she hated Dean, too.
Chapter 20
“Wilson,” said the sergeant, standing in the doorway to his office on Wednesday morning, “I need you to get over to see Charles Davis at Commercial Real Estate. See if he knows what changed Thaddeus Dickson’s mind about renting that building.”
Gonzalez turned back toward his desk and the door was just closing when Wilson leaned his head in and pushed it open again. “When?” he asked.
“Call him now. Try to see him today.”
“What about all these names I got off Hall’s contacts?” Wilson was looking at a scrap of paper.
“What have you got?”
“Pretty sure I’ve got a lawyer here, and there are also three first names.”
“People he was close to that we don’t know?”
“Probably.”
“Give me those. And are there any texts attached to these names?”
“There are some with Marlon,” he answered, handing him the scrap of paper with the three first names—Marlon, Carmen, and Frank—and the name of what appeared to be a law firm.”
“You read the texts?”
“Yeah. Just stuff like, ‘See you at three.’ No real anything, and they’re four and five months old.”
“How about emails?”
“Not with those three.”
“Who with?”
“A lot with Parisi.”
“Anything suggestive?”
“I can’t tell. They were friendly, but I haven’t seen anything lovey-dovey.”
“How about emails from the lawyer? Any correspondence we need to look into?”
“Not sure, actually. I think there are a few, but it could just be junk mail.”
“Hmm.” Gonzalez seated himself at his desk, thinking for a few moments while Wilson waited. “Keep reading on the emails from the lawyer. I’ve got some things to do today, and I’m going to see Maxwell. I’ll ask him if he or Miss Hodge know any of these first names. If that doesn’t yield answers I can check with Morrison or Parisi. Then I’ll call them myself. Close the door when you go.”
The sergeant turned toward his computer, and Wilson stepped out and closed the door, but in a moment he was tapping on it again.
“Yes?” the sergeant answered, rotating his chair for a moment.
“I’ve also got the autopsy report. Two shots with a .38 revolver. Happened between six and seven a.m., about when we thought. Died in just a few seconds. Nothing we didn’t guess already.”
“Okay,” said Gonzalez, rubbing his face for a moment. “Those things are loud. I’m going to have to go over there in the early morning to see if I buy this idea that the neighborhood is so loud nobody heard it.”
“When?”
“I guess I’ll have to wait till tomorrow,” said the sergeant, glancing at his watch. It was 8:30.
“Why do you need to see Maxwell?” asked Wilson.
“Because I feel like it,” Gonzalez said, annoyed that Wilson wouldn’t just go away.
“Right,” said the younger man, stepping out of the office and shutting the door as quietly as he could.
Garrett Hall’s house looked the same from the front. The crime scene tape was still intact, and Gonzalez decided to walk around outside before going in. The back door window had been boarded up before the investigators had left last time, and they had put crime scene tape across that door, too, but it had torn loose. He wondered how easily that might just happen after a few days, but he doubted the weather had torn the tape. Maybe curious kids in the neighborhood? But the lock was intact, and he wondered again if there were others with keys to Garrett Hall’s home.
Maxwell’s Jeep was pulling up on the front curb when the sergeant came back through the gate. The woman he had met last October at Maxwell’s home, Carmen Espinosa, was in the passenger seat. She appeared to be speaking with Maxwell as he parked the car, and before they got out, Gonzalez saw that Maxwell was patting her shoulder and saying something to her. She dabbed her face with a handkerchief and waited until Maxwell came around and opened her door. She was old school, even if she was a cleaning lady, and Maxwell seemed to know how to behave.
Gonzalez climbed the porch steps and tore the crime scene tape from the opening. Then he tore it from the front door as well and turned to wait for them.
“Sergeant,” said Maxwell, nodding a greeting, “you remember Mrs. Espinosa.”
It wasn’t a question, but Gonzalez answered it as if it were. She did look like his sister Inez. She was smallish and roundish with dark, graying hair and a pretty, open face. She wore a green and white flowered dress with a belt that accentuated her round shape, but the overall look of her was pleasant. “Yes,” answered the sergeant, “thank you both for coming. We’re about to release the house as a crime scene, but I was hoping, Mrs. Espinosa, that you might be able to tell me if anything seems to be out of place.”
“Okay, yes, Mr. Sergeant,” she answered. Her face was flushed, and he could tell she had been crying.
“Mrs. Espinosa, I want you to know I have no interest is causing you trouble,” he added.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Sergeant. I want to help you if I can. Mr. Hall was a very good man,” she added, and it seemed as if she might say more, but she stopped herself and looked at Maxwell with a question in her eyes.
Maxwell himself looked like hell. Gonzalez hadn’t noticed it at first, but the younger man hadn’t shaved, and he actually looked like he had a hangover. It was a little surprising.
“You can speak openly with the sergeant, Carmen. He just wants to find out what happened to Garrett,” he said.
Carmen Espinosa nodded but didn’t smile, and she didn’
t offer any additional comment.
“Well,” said Gonzalez. “Let’s do this.” He took a few seconds determining which of the keys in his right hand was the right one. In a minute the door was opened, and he gestured for Mrs. Espinosa and Maxwell to go in. It was a little dark inside. He turned on the lights.
“Is it going to be a problem if we touch anything?” Maxwell asked.
“No. Everything has been dusted for prints. I’m sorry if it looks dirty, Mrs. Espinosa. I’m afraid that’s the nature of the powders the investigators use.”
She didn’t answer but nodded as she looked around Garrett Hall’s living room. Smudges of the sooty powder were everywhere. It only took her a few moments to identify the dark spot on the carpet where Hall’s body had been found. “Oh!” she said, turning toward Maxwell and putting her face in her hands.
“It’s okay, Carmen,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “The sergeant needs to see if anything is missing or changed. I know you can do this. It’s going to help the police find the killer.”
“Yes, okay, Mr. Dean,” she said, looking around the room and keeping her face averted from the spot on the carpet.
“Just walk around,” said Gonzalez. “Tell me if you notice anything.”
She nodded again and looked around the room. In a moment she shook her head. “I no see something in here,” she said.
Sergeant Gonzalez gestured for her to move into the kitchen, and one by one they went through the rooms, each time revealing nothing. They finally went into Garrett’s home office. Carmen Espinosa immediately tilted her head and looked at the desk with a curious expression on her face. “There is something gone here,” she said.
“Really? What is it?” asked Gonzalez.
“A box. A—how do you say it—carve? I dust each week. Is no here.”
“What kind of box was it?”
“It look like a box for pretty things, like jewelry or something like that.”
“What was it made of, and what size was it?”
“Made of wood, about this big,” she said, holding her hands a foot apart. “Also not so tall. Maybe four inch. Carve with—it was like star and pieces of gold in it.”