by Libby Howard
He halted the footage, backed it up a bit, then set it to play at triple speed. “Let me know if you want me to pause anywhere and slow it down.”
There was no sound, and for the first ten minutes of the tape, the only action was an employee from a neighboring business having a smoke, and one of Manny’s employees coming out to toss a trash bag into the dumpster. Finally, at nine-twenty, I could see what looked like someone near the parking garage doorway. I had Manny back it up and play it several times, even slowing it down to frame-by-frame, but from the way the camera was positioned, I could only see vague movement and a shape pitching forward.
I sat back and sighed, rubbing my forehead. So much for this idea. Hopefully Detective Keeler would have better luck with the cameras in the garage. Just when I was about to thank Manny for his time, collect my tamales, and go, I saw a figure exit the doorway into the street behind the restaurant.
“Wait. Pause it.” I leaned closer to the screen but couldn’t make out who the person was. She was female, tall, with hair that looked dark in the black-and-white video. I advanced it slowly, watching the woman walk toward the dumpster, look up and down the roadway, then lift the lid a bit to slide something in. With another quick glance, she turned and instead of going back into the parking deck, she slipped down the narrow alleyway between the deck and the theater.
The video was grainy, but I recognized her. Then I looked at the time. Nine twenty-five. I’d headed out to look for Luanne at just before nine thirty. She’d walked down the alleyway and slipped inside the propped-open fire door to the theater just as I’d started to go look for Luanne. Had she been the killer? Or had someone come up and murdered Luanne in the five minutes between her leaving the parking garage and my entering it?
And more importantly, what the heck had she stuck in the dumpster?
“When do you guys have garbage pickup?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Manny told me.
“Do you mind if I go check in your dumpster?”
He laughed. “Knock yourself out. It’s gonna be kinda smelly after the weekend, what with the heat we’ve had this month. I’ll have Sheila hold your tamales up at the bar for when you’re done.”
“Thanks.” I stood up. “Can you make a copy of the footage?” I wanted to run it by the police station, and maybe give Detective Keeler the finger as I put it on his desk.
“Sure. Tell J.T. he owes me one.”
I left my purse with him for safekeeping and headed out the back door, wrinkling my nose as I saw—and smelled—the dumpster. I’d seen it earlier when I left the parking garage, but up close, it was quite fragrant. And when I flipped the lid up, the smell nearly gagged me.
Hopping up on the lip of the trash container, I peered inside and saw only black garbage bags. Ugh. This was going to be disgusting, but whatever the woman in the image had put in here, it had obviously slid down between these bags. I lifted them out one at a time until there was a smelly line of black beside the container. Then I leaned forward, grimacing as I tried in vain to reach the other bags.
I’d have to climb in. And then I’d need to burn my clothes and spend a few hours scrubbing myself raw in a hot shower to get rid of this smell. I pulled myself up and over the edge of the dumpster, silently thanking Daisy for all those early-morning yoga sessions that meant I was still fit enough to do this sort of thing. Then I dropped as carefully as I could feet-first into the container, wincing as I felt something squish under my shoes.
Trying to hold my breath, I sorted through the bags, tossing a few more over the edge into the road and hoping that they didn’t break open. Just as I was about ready to give up and just leave the whole stinky mess to Detective Keeler, my foot hit something hard. I bent down and groped around under a few smaller bags, my hand closing on something that felt like a hard, thin rectangle.
It was a tablet. I pulled it up and saw the cracked screen, the smear of red across the surface. Blood? Or salsa from one of the broken bags? It was hard to tell, but one thing was sure—I really shouldn’t have been handling this thing without gloves on because I was confident that I’d just discovered the murder weapon.
I eyed it with smug satisfaction. This plus Manny’s video would be all the proof the police would need. Even if the red smudge was hot sauce, I was sure they could match the glass from Luanne’s head wound to this broken screen. And a quick run through their IT folks would show exactly who it was registered to.
“I believe that’s mine.”
I looked up to see a knife in my face. It was the sort of stabby thing used to fillet fish and the hand it was attached to belonged to Eva Zinovi. I backed up a few steps, nearly tripping on a garbage bag. The dumpster made it impossible for me to run away, but its height and positioning against the building made it also difficult for Eva to reach across the lip and stab me without falling in herself.
“Hand it over.” She held out the hand that wasn’t holding the knife.
“It’s the murder weapon.” It was probably a dumb thing to say, but at this point I was pretty sure that she knew I knew.
Something flickered in her dark eyes. Desperation. I eyed the knife, realizing that she was probably thinking the same thing I was—she could take the tablet and dispose of it, but I knew. And the only chance she’d have of getting away with this was if I were dead.
“It’s not a murder weapon.” Her voice was cool as she leaned forward, reaching for the tablet. “I didn’t mean for her to die. I just…. I’d just had it with her. Years I’d put up with her demands and nasty attitude, years I got her the best deals, negotiated the best contracts, and here she was a talentless hack. Actually, she was a talentless hack that almost lost us a multimillion dollar film deal.”
“You made out pretty good over the years,” I told her, holding the tablet just out of her reach. “And it was a simple fix. Luanne had already sent a new contract to Gerry. By the end of this week you would have had a contract to show the publisher and the studio that full rights had been waived to Luanne. Everything would have worked out okay.”
“No, it wouldn’t have been okay,” she snapped. “Do you know how humiliating it is to have some producer tell you that your client had a ghostwriter, and that the studio needed to have a copy of that contract in order to close the deal? A ghostwriter. And guess who looks like either a deceiving liar or an idiot in front of both the publishing house and the studio? Not Luanne. Me. I’m the one who was representing her. I’m the one left holding the bag at the end of the day. I’m the one who they’d never do business with again. Luanne would have gotten a slap on the wrist. Maybe she would have been pushed out of future contracts and the publishing house would have gone direct to the ghostwriter or negotiated a lesser deal for Luanne, but me? My career was over. And it was all her fault.”
“And it’s not now?” I pressed. “Luanne is dead, and there’s still the ghostwriter issue that’s come to light.”
“But now I’m the hero,” she countered. “Bumbling, lying, stupid Luanne dies because of her choice in footwear, and I jump in to button up the ghostwriter contract and save the day. I get my cut of everything. The film deal goes forward. And I never have to deal with that lying piece of work ever again. Now, hand me the tablet.”
She wouldn’t get away with it. Detective Keeler would see the video tape, bring her in for questioning, and some evidence somewhere would implicate her, even if it wasn’t this tablet. Still, I didn’t want to just give it over, and I wanted to make sure I lived to see the morning, so I made her reach as far as she could into the dumpster before handing her the tablet.
I kept a hold of my side, yanking as she tried to pull it back, and swinging a garbage bag toward her. She stabbed with the knife, gutting the garbage bag, and I shoved forward, pushing the bag aside and to the grimy floor of the dumpster, taking the knife with it. Unfortunately, the very action I took to disarm Eva allowed her to regain her balance and stay on the outside of the container. She shrieked in frustration and jerked th
e tablet from my hand, swinging it toward my head. I raised my hand and ducked, taking the impact of the tablet on my arm. My foot slipped on the slimy floor of the dumpster and I fell to the side, banging my shoulder on the metal. Before I could scramble to my feet, the lid of the dumpster slammed shut and I was plunged into smelly darkness.
My first thought was one of relief. Her knife was stuck in a garbage bag somewhere in this dumpster. Yes, she had the tablet, but closing the plastic lid on the container wouldn’t hold me for long. I’d just wait for a few minutes for her to leave, then lift the lid and climb out and call the cops. The lid was heavy, but it was plastic for crying out loud. I’d manage.
Then I began to hear the thumps of stuff being piled on top of the dumpster and I panicked. Standing, I shoved at the lid in vain, feeling the oppressive August heat beginning to amplify in the closed metal container, and nearly choking on the sickening smell of garbage.
Worse, I didn’t have my purse, which meant I didn’t have my phone to call for help. All I could do was bang on the lid and kick at the metal sides of the dumpster and hope that someone would hear me and come to the rescue. It had to be close to five. People would be getting off work and maybe coming down this little road to get to the parking garage. Hopefully Manny’s staff would soon come out with another garbage bag to toss in and release me.
Hopefully one of those things would happen soon because I was quickly becoming drenched in sweat. How long before I succumbed to heat stroke? The sun would be dipping low enough that the dumpster wouldn’t be in direct light soon and would hopefully cool off. Eventually someone would come out to dump trash. Worst case scenario was I’d be found tomorrow morning when the trash collection people came. I winced, thinking about one of those giant trash trucks’ mechanical arms tipping the dumpster upright and into the truck while I screamed for help, and decided that spending the night in the smelly hot container wasn’t the worst part of that scenario.
A shadow formed in the corner of the dumpster and I shivered, grateful this time for the chill a ghost brought. And the company was nice, even if he couldn’t talk to me or do anything besides roll potatoes off counters.
Wait. Poltergeist.
“Holt! Can you open the dumpster lid? I’m stuck in here.”
The lid thumped a few times. I heard something roll off the top and stood, trying to add my strength to that of the ghost. Sadly, the lid didn’t budge more than a fraction of an inch. I sat on a garbage bag and huffed in exasperation. It wasn’t Holt’s fault. He was a ghost. I couldn’t open the lid and I was in a solid corporeal form. I guess the limit to his abilities were potatoes and wine glasses. After a few seconds, even the ghost abandoned me.
I waited, listening for anyone coming by and trying to conserve my energy and not breathe in any more of the garbage fumes than I had to. The light dimmed, filtering through the cracks where the lid had warped and didn’t fit tightly against the metal of the container, telling me that it was getting on toward evening. Five o’clock? Six? How long had I been stuck in here?
I was thinking about searching for the fillet knife while I still had a tiny bit of light, just in case I needed to defend myself, when I heard the rustling sound of something being scraped across the lid of the container.
“Hey! I’m trapped in here! Let me out!” I placed a few sharp kicks to the side of the dumpster and heard a high-pitched shriek, then the thump of something hitting the ground. The dumpster lid flew open, and I looked up to see the blonde bartender from Manny’s—Sheila.
“You scared me half to death,” she scolded. “What are you doing in there? You never came back in for your tamales. Plus, I was more than a bit irritated that you left all the trash bags piled on top of the lid instead of throwing them back in.”
I scrambled up the side of the container, throwing my leg over and gratefully taking Sheila’s offered hand.
“Normally I wouldn’t have come out here,” she continued, “but an entire tray of dishes tipped over on the stand. It was a horrible mess—enchiladas and refried beans everywhere. No sooner did I get that cleaned up then the same thing happened to another tray. I filled two garbage bags and wanted to get them out before the dinner rush started. It was really weird. Paco in the kitchen said all his potatoes kept rolling off the counters, too. Weird stuff. Like we were haunted or something.”
Holt. I owed him a big thank you the next time he appeared. A really big thank you.
“Someone locked me in and took the evidence I was looking for,” I told Sheila. “I’m glad you came out when you did, or I would have probably been stuck in there until you guys closed. I need to get my purse from Manny’s office and call the police.”
Sheila wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but you stink. Stay here and I’ll bring the purse out to you. And your tamales.”
She vanished inside the building only to come back a few minutes later holding my purse, a bag, and a USB stick. “Manny says the tamales are on the house, and here’s the footage copy you wanted from the surveillance cam.” I went to dig in my purse for a tip and she waved me away. “Catch me next time.”
“Thanks,” I called back to her as I ran for the parking garage. No doubt she didn’t want my stinky hands all over her tip. Honestly, I didn’t want my stinky hands inside my purse, fumbling with my phone, or my stinky self plopped down on my car’s upholstery as I simultaneously tried to dial the police and swipe my credit card in the exit to the garage.
I tore down the city streets, on hold for Detective Keeler and violating the hands-free cell phone laws. Milford isn’t all that big a city, and the police department had me on hold forever, so I’d actually parked and was through the metal detector before he picked up.
“It’s Eva Zinovi,” I blurted out breathlessly as I took the stairs to the police department entrance and yet another security check. “Manny had her on video tape exiting the parking garage right around the time Luanne was killed and then she threw something in the trash bin. I went dumpster diving and found the broken tablet, but she showed up with a knife and took it and locked me in the dumpster.”
“What? Who? You’re inside a dumpster?”
“No, I’m here in the station, waiting to go through the second scanner. The bartender let me out of the dumpster. I’ve got a copy of the footage, but you need to get Eva. Put out an APB or lock down the airport or something because she’s going to get away.”
The huge metal door on the other side of the security area opened and Detective Keeler stood there, cell phone to his ear. We stared at each other a minute, then he hung up and walked around the scanner.
I held out the USB stick and he stared at it, wrinkling his nose.
“Carrera, you stink.”
“Well, I have been trapped in a garbage container for…” I looked at my phone. “Thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes? It sure as heck seemed longer than that.
“Come on.” He waved me through the scanner and took me back to his workspace and immediately began opening desk drawers.
“Aren’t you going to call the state police?” I insisted. “Homeland Security or whoever is in charge of the airport? Do you think she’ll try to fly back to New York, or head for Mexico?”
He pulled a can out of the bottom drawer of his desk. “Shut your eyes.”
I did what he said and heard the hiss of the spray can. The overpowering scent of gardenias filled my nose.
“There. That’s better. Whatever you do, don’t sit in any of the chairs. I don’t even think this stuff will get the smell out.”
“Here.” I thrust the USB stick at him once more. “You need to catch her before she flees the country. I’m sure she’s already ditched that tablet again.”
Detective Keeler took the stick gently and plugged it into his computer. We both watched the grainy photo of the woman exiting the parking garage, slipping something into the dumpster, and walking back to the theater down the alleyway.
“See the time?” I pointed to his scree
n, careful not to touch it. “She came into the theater, and less than five minutes later, I saw her in the bathroom, cleaning up. Then I went out to look for Luanne and found her in the parking garage. Luanne had to have been killed before she walked out of the parking garage. There just wasn’t enough time for someone else to do it between her entering the theater and my finding Luanne.”
“Mmmm,” Detective Keeler mused.
“And she exited the parking garage door where Luanne was laying right in front of the step,” I continued. “She had to have hopped over her to get out that door. So, she either killed Luanne, or she callously stepped over a dead body, threw something in a dumpster, went back into the theater, then told me she had no idea where Luanne was. And the broken tablet…I’m sure it was hers. And it had blood on it, or maybe salsa, I’m not sure.”
“And she locked you in the dumpster.”
“Yes, and threatened me with a knife. She tried to stab me, but I deflected the knife with a garbage bag.”
The detective had sounded rather amused, which was irritating the heck out of me. I’d just been locked in a dumpster. A little sympathy would have been appreciated.
“I guess we’ll add assault with a deadly weapon to the charges, then.” Detective Keeler pulled the USB stick from the computer and put it inside a plastic bag, writing something on the front.
“Are you going to put a warrant out on her?” I insisted, perplexed by his casual slow-as-molasses attitude. “You might want to get on that before she vanishes in the wind. Today might be a good idea.”
He leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands, looking at me over the tops of his fingers. “We already have her in custody. While you were rooting around a dumpster, Mrs. Carrera, I was interviewing people and reviewing camera footage from the parking deck. Two witnesses saw Ms. Zinovi go out for a smoke around nine fifteen. Five minutes later, Ms. Trainor asked a witness where Ms. Zinovi was and followed her into the parking deck. Camera footage shows the two walking toward the back of the deck and obviously having a verbal altercation. With the time stamp on that video, we had reasonable suspicion to call Ms. Zinovi in for questioning. We found her hurriedly loading her things into a rental car outside of Billingsly’s. And in her possession was a tablet with a broken screen, some glass missing, and with a red substance that was most definitely not salsa on it.”