by Libby Howard
“Between those two and the woman with the knife, it was an eventful night,” I said as casually as possible.
“Yeah. And then Luanne ends up dead in the parking garage. Those stupid shoes of hers. I always told her she was going to break her neck one day with those.” Eva met my eyes. “I’m sorry you had to find her, Kay. I’m sorry anyone had to see her like that. It must have been horrible. Why were you even in the parking garage?”
“I was looking for Luanne. Nancy wanted to have her pose for pictures with some of the guests.”
“But the parking garage?” she pressed.
I could hardly tell her a ghost led me to Luanne’s body. “I figured maybe she went out for a smoke or decided to grab a taco from the place behind the garage.”
“A taco?” Eva laughed. “I would have totally snuck out for a taco, but not Luanne. Not unless the taco was filled with organic bean sprouts and wild-caught Alaskan salmon with gluten-free corn tortillas.”
“Why do you think she was in the parking garage?” I finally got to the question I wanted to ask. “You knew her better than anyone. Why would she have walked out the fire door of the theater, through the alleyway and the entire length of the parking garage in those crazy shoes?”
Eva looked down at the stacks of papers. “Perhaps she had a private phone call she needed to make.”
Gerry hadn’t mentioned hearing from Luanne that night. In fact, she’d told me she hadn’t heard from Luanne after Friday night. Was there anyone else who Luanne would have needed to have a private phone conversation with? Because I doubted there was anyone in Milford she would have been meeting in the back of the parking garage.
“Well, the police have her phone now. They’ll figure it out if she was calling someone or not.” I stood.
“What? Why would the police have her phone? Why would they be checking to see if she was calling someone or not when she fell?” Eva had jumped to her feet as well, twisting her hands together in front of her.
“I meant they’d have the phone because it was on her body when they took it away. And last thing I knew, there was no law against distracted walking, so I doubt they’d have any reason to check her calls.” I shrugged. “Her brother probably will though.”
Eva sat back down. “Yeah. Maybe. Well, thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate you taking it upon yourself to go see Gerry and get those contracts.” She looked at me once more, her gaze sharp as it met mine. “Why did you do that? How did you know who she was and her address? From what I can see, Luanne kept that very much a secret.”
I smiled at her then turned to leave. “Oh, I work for a private investigative firm, so there’s not much I can’t figure out. Good luck, Eva. Hope things work out with the film deal.”
Chapter 20
When I walked into my office, there was a young man sitting at a chair by J.T.’s desk. My boss glanced over at me with raised eyebrows, then inclined his head.
I shot him a puzzled glance, then the young man turned and I stopped dead in my tracks.
“He said he was going to wait for you,” J.T. told me, then turned to the boy. “She’s here. Say what you need to say.”
Boy, because every man younger than thirty seemed a boy to me, and this young man in particular. I knew him. Even without the cape I knew him.
“You recognize me?” he asked, getting to his feet. “Lanie just texted me and said the police are looking for me. I didn’t have anything to do with that woman’s death. You saw me. You saw me there in the parking garage. You know I didn’t kill her.”
He’d taken a step toward me and J.T., bless his heart, angled himself between the two of us. “You just keep your distance, boy. Understand me?”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who thought every man younger than thirty was a boy.
“I take it Lanie is the woman who was arrested at the theater? The one with the knife?” I edged closer to my desk where I had a very heavy stapler, just in case. “And you were the Roman wannabe from the parking garage. I did see you there, but I didn’t see who killed Luanne. For all I know, you murdered her, then circled back around to make yourself look like you were completely innocent.”
‘Roman’s eyes grew wide. “I am innocent. It was just a cosplay. Lanie’s really into the novels and likes to act them out. We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I was supposed to patrol the area for ghouls, but after an hour of walking around the garage, I went to a pub. When Lanie didn’t text me, I went back to the garage to look for her. That’s when I saw you. I got scared that maybe Lanie had gotten carried away and took off. She called me on Sunday when she made bail and I picked her up. She didn’t even know the woman was dead. I didn’t do anything. It’s not against the law to walk around a building or parking garage. Not like I was trespassing or anything.”
“You’re going to need to talk to the police,” I told him. “I mentioned to the detective that I’d seen you in the garage, and that you seemed quite shocked to see the body, but you’ll need to give him the details of where you were. Hopefully someone at that pub can verify you were there at the time of death.”
“When were you at the garage?” J.T. asked him. “Did you hear anything before you gave up hunting for ghouls and headed for the pub?”
The guy frowned. “I probably walked around for an hour or so. A few cars left. I heard some people talking and walking around. Car doors and the sound of them starting. Oh, and that stupid machine that yells to pay before leaving every time someone comes within two feet of it.”
“Anyone on that level? Arguing? The sound of someone getting hit with something?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “Things echo in that garage. I heard two women, but I’m not sure if they were talking loudly or what. Then there was that couple smooching by their car—I think they might have come from the Mexican place. And the sound of car doors closing…that might have been someone getting hit. I’m not really sure.”
Well, that was really not much help at all.
“Are they going to arrest me?” The boy looked back and forth between me and J.T.
“Probably not, but if they do, I know a good bail bond company.” My boss grinned and handed the guy a card before escorting him out the door.
“I wasn’t sure about that guy,” J.T. confessed when he came back in. “No way was I going to leave you alone with him. He was nervous as all heck, sweating and fidgeting around in his chair.”
“Well, he’s a lot less scary without the cape,” I told him. “I don’t think he did it. I saw the look on his face when he came around the corner in that parking garage and found Luanne sprawled across the floor.”
“So who did do it?” J.T. eyed the few remaining scones in my container. “Did you manage to sweeten that detective up with those things?”
I snorted. “Not enough. I got some information out of him, but he got more out of me. And I’m pretty sure he’s not interested in using us as consultants. I got the ‘we’ll call you if we have any more questions’ spiel.”
“So, what did you find out?” J.T. pulled out his chair and plopped down.
“That Luanne was hit on the back of the head with something hard enough that she fell forward onto the step and broke her neck. That whatever was used to hit her had some sort of glass in it because there were a few small shards in her hair and scalp.”
“A bottle?” J.T. mused.
“That’s what I thought but it would need to be a clear bottle. And if it shattered enough to leave small shards behind, where was the rest of the glass? I didn’t see anything on the ground around Luanne, and if someone threw a bottle at her or whacked her on the head with one, there should have been chunks of broken glass.”
“Maybe he picked them up?”
I scowled. “Big pieces, yes, but do you really think a murderer would hang around long enough to clean up every tiny little bit of broken glass?”
“You’re right. And shards small enough that the first responders didn’t notice would make me
think of a thinner glass than a bottle.” J.T. looked around his desk. “How about a cell phone?”
I looked down at mine. “Aren’t they shatterproof? I mean, I’ve seen the screens crack, but not enough to have glass fall out of them.”
“Not all of them are shatterproof, and I absolutely have seen one break to the point that little bits of glass fell out of it. If they didn’t have a screen protector and had one heck of a pitching arm, they could have hit her hard enough to leave glass behind.”
“Or what if the screen was already cracked? It might not even take a heck of a pitching arm to leave glass behind in that instance. And with Luanne’s crazy shoes, it wouldn’t take much to knock her forward onto the ground.”
“Then the killer scoops his broken phone up off the ground and runs off,” J.T. concluded. “In and out in no time. And they’d probably still have the murder weapon, because they’d want to transfer all their pictures and contacts and everything to a new one.”
“Not necessarily,” I told him. “Most people have their phone contents backed up on a cloud service. The killer could easily throw it away, get a new one, and be back in business with a few minutes of download.”
“There would still be a record of that,” J.T. countered. “Once the police have a suspect, they can check to see if the guy loaded his stuff onto a new phone sometime after Saturday night.”
“The problem is the police don’t have a suspect.” I rolled my eyes. “Actually, they probably have too many suspects. Even if we rule out that Roman impersonator, there’s still tons of people who had motive, and just as many who had opportunity. Detective Keeler is going to try to find the murder weapon and try to track the killer that way.”
“Is he going to pull surveillance from the garage?”
I nodded. “But he doesn’t think he’ll find much. Most of the cameras are on the pay machines, the stairwells, and the place where the cars exit. There’s a camera in the general area where I found Luanne, but Keeler thinks it’s probably not pointed the right way and would be such poor quality that he might not be able to get anything from it.”
J.T. narrowed his eyes. “He might want to check with Manny.”
“Who the heck is Manny?” Did I mention J.T. knew pretty much everyone in the county? Another reason he and Daisy would be a good fit, in my opinion.
“Emmanuel Clarke. He owns the Mexican place that backs up to the parking garage. A few years back he had some problems with his dumpster being set on fire and put in a few security cameras. And unlike the city of Milford, Manny actually sprung for some fairly expensive ones. Didn’t want his building catching on fire because some idiot liked to throw lit cigarettes or whatever in his dumpster.”
My heartbeat picked up at the thought that we might have a lead that Detective Keeler didn’t. I eyed my phone, thinking of how smug I’d feel calling him with the tip.
“Go talk to Manny first.” It was as if J.T. had read my mind. “Tell him I sent you. Check out if there’s anything on his tapes, then walk into the Milford PD, plop them down on Detective Keeler’s desk, and give him the finger.”
I laughed. “Giving him the finger probably isn’t going to make Detective Keeler or anyone else at Milford PD ever want to use us as consultants.”
He grinned. “Okay, so don’t give him the finger. But do let him know that we’re available for low, low rates.”
I knew J.T. and his rates were far from low, but he was right. It would be awesome to put another notch in our investigative successes belt—well, in my investigative successes belt. I’d already provided a lot of valuable information, but to walk up to the detective with a tape that clearly showed the crime…
“So, I’m okay to take the rest of the day off?” I asked J.T.
He waved his hand at me. “This is business, Kay. We might not have a paying client on this one, but it’s publicity and that’s business. Go. Say ‘hi’ to Manny for me. And make sure to get a pork tamale while you’re there.”
Chapter 21
I parked in the garage, fairly close to where I’d found Luanne, and walked around a bit, examining it all with fresh eyes. It was about half full—no doubt a mixture of people who worked in the downtown area and those enjoying a nice summer day walking among the shops and parks in the area. Heading out into the narrow alleyway, I decided to retrace my steps from Saturday night before heading over to the Mexican place.
The theater’s fire door was shut tight, the alley dirty with grime and soot but in spite of a few cigarette butts, surprisingly clean. Heading through the open doorway to the garage, I climbed the few stairs, tried not to jump as the machine sternly told me to pay before returning to my car, then headed toward the rear exit. My footsteps sounded abnormally loud in the echo of the building. Sound seemed to be so amplified here that if the Roman impersonator had been in the parking deck at the time of Luanne’s murder, I felt sure he would have heard something—the voices, the scuffle, a scream or a cry as she fell, the rushed footsteps of the murderer running away.
I stood in front of the rear door and stared at the three steps, envisioning the scene from two nights ago. Luanne’s ghost was there—a faint shadow that flitted from the stairwell to the doorway then back again. She didn’t seem to notice me, and again I got the feeling her spirit wasn’t long for this world. The area was squeaky clean compared to the rest of the parking garage, but I could still see in my mind Luanne’s form sprawled at the bottom of the step along with the misty gray of her ghost.
“She would have been standing here,” I mused out loud as I took the position. “Facing this way. So whoever hit her would have been here. Unless he or she threw something at her.”
They would have had to be fairly close though because with the parked cars and the way the vestibule was put together, an attacker farther than a few feet wouldn’t have had a clear shot at Luanne. I hadn’t even seen her until I’d come around that last line of cars. Was Luanne here talking with someone? Or was she on her phone, facing so she was looking out of the parking garage into the lights of the small road and the back of the businesses? There was nothing here to tell me whether she was attacked by someone she knew, or while she was distracted on the phone.
Or whether she was trying to flee. Maybe someone had hit her over the head and she was running away in those crazy shoes and tripped. Maybe that’s why there hadn’t been any other glass at the scene.
But there hadn’t been glass or blood in the path I’d taken to get here from the theater, and my gut told me that Luanne hadn’t run all over the parking deck in those shoes. Even from the theater to here was a stretch for someone who loudly proclaimed she couldn’t walk three blocks in her footwear of choice.
Sighing in frustration, I climbed the three steps and out into the daylight of the little road that ran behind the theater and other businesses. It was a named road, but in reality, little more than a wide alleyway. There were parking spots marked here and there, no doubt for the people who owned the different businesses and came in and out through their back entrances. Six dumpsters lined the road, tucked neatly against the buildings. Each door had a light above it, ensuring some safety for the folks who worked here and might need to enter and exit through these doors at night. Hopefully that meant the video from the Mexican place would be reasonably clear.
Sure enough, a shiny black camera was mounted high beside one doorway, pointed to cover the steps and the dumpster. I went to stand near it and realized that while it might have caught some footage of the doorway to the parking garage, it wasn’t angled to get a good view of what was happening right inside. But I was standing on the ground and the camera was a good ten to twelve feet up, so it was worth a look.
Walking down the roadway, I headed around to the front of the businesses. The faint sounds of Mariachi music grew louder as I neared Taco Bonanza. Inside, the atmosphere was festive with a sea of colorful chairs and tables, rows of sombreros on shelves near the ceiling, and a huge mural of a couple performing the tango
in front of Mayan ruins along the rear wall. When I asked for Manny, the blonde girl at the bar stuck her head through the back doorway and shouted for him.
A tall, dark-haired, middle-aged man came toward me. I couldn’t take my eyes off his mustachios, waxed into little curls at the end as if he were a villain about to tie me across a set of train tracks.
“Manny Clarke.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it, half expecting him to twirl the ends of the mustache with his other hand.
“Kay Carrera.” I dug a business card out of my bag and handed it to him. “My boss is J.T. Pierson. He asked me to stop by and see if I could look at your surveillance footage from Saturday night. There was a woman—”
His eyes widened, and he pocketed my card without even looking at it. “The woman who died? Saints above, is that a crime now? She didn’t fall?”
I bit my tongue, not wanting to let something out that wasn’t public knowledge yet. “She was a well-known author, and I was helping with the event. We just wanted to see if your camera caught what happened when she fell.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Insurance liability and all that. I get it. I swear it seems like every time someone slips and falls, they get a million-dollar settlement. Sorry this woman died and all that but sliding on a banana peel doesn’t mean the city should pay a bunch of money to her estate.”
I shrugged, trying to look as if I were no more in the know that he was. “It’s probably nothing. J.T. just asked me to swing by and see if you could show me the footage.”
He waved for me to follow him. I turned to quickly ask the bartender to put in couple of tamale orders to go for me, then went after Manny, through the kitchen and into a tiny back room that doubled as dry-goods storage and an office.
The chair squawked as he sat. He clicked on a graphic and pulled up a program, fast forwarding through a set of black and white images. “When did it happen?”
“Between nine and nine-thirty, give or take a few minutes.”