Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6)

by LynDee Walker

  I rolled it off and thanked her.

  “Sure thing. Anything else I can help with?”

  I bit my lip. Worth a shot. “I wanted to ask the sheriff if anyone’s filed a missing person’s report this week,” I said. “I heard something I’m looking to confirm. On the record.”

  “You heard right. Phillip Jinkerson was reported missing yesterday afternoon. Nobody’s seen him since Saturday.”

  “Are y’all thinking he left town?” I asked.

  “His car is gone, but none of his things seemed to be missing when they searched his home.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “There was blood on the bathroom floor. Not a lot, but enough to notice. That’s probably more than I should tell you without permission though.”

  Oh, Lord. My fingernail. Not that I could blurt out that I’d (technically) trespassed and (technically) stolen some documents from their crime scene before it was a crime scene. I clicked off the call with a thank you, dialing Kyle next.

  “Morning,” he said. “I’m waiting to see a judge about the vineyard manager’s bank records as I speak.”

  “That vineyard manager is now officially missing. Like, report filed, not showing up for work missing. Ella Jane said his car is gone too,” I blurted without a hello. “And Richard Burke dropped Parker’s name at his presser this morning, and it’s possible I’m actually losing my mind, Kyle.”

  “Shit.” His voice was tight. “It’ll be okay. They’re ready for me. I’ll call you when I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  I dropped the phone into the cradle and opened my laptop, staring at the blank screen. What on Earth could I say about Richard’s little show that wouldn’t cast Parker in the worst possible light?

  It took me an hour to tiptoe across the minefield that was the Burke story, shading it with every bit of benign information I could find. I quoted Richard as saying Mitch was murdered, but left Parker out for the time being. If Aaron suddenly started returning calls, I’d have to add it. But no one else could use it without talking to the cops. Not credibly, anyhow.

  I checked Parker’s office, but it was dark. I wanted to ask Melanie if Maisy had been one of those notches on Mitch Burke’s bedpost, but her cube stayed empty all morning too, and by lunchtime I was due back at the courthouse for DonnaJo’s closing argument in the assault case.

  She nailed it again. An hour in, I had a whole notebook full of great quotes, and the defense couldn’t touch her case. It would make a nice metro front for tomorrow.

  The judge called a recess at two thirty and DonnaJo handed me a thick file folder as I walked up the aisle toward the doors.

  She smiled at my wide eyes and open jaw.

  “Thank God for summer interns,” she said. “One of them spent six hours in a warehouse the ME’s office uses for storage yesterday tracking this down. Not sure what you want with an old suicide, but I hope it helps you.”

  I squeezed her shoulder and hugged the file to my chest, batting away the urge to open it with Charlie twelve feet away. “You are amazing,” I said. “Thank you, doll.”

  I stepped outside to return a call from Kyle.

  “There you are,” he said when he picked up.

  “Sorry. Trial. Please tell me you have something.”

  “I have a couple of somethings. The first being that Phillip Jinkerson—surprise, surprise—was in pretty rough financial shape. Until about four days ago.”

  “Huh? Did he win big or something?” Because…murdered bookie in the wine barrel.

  “Not sure of the source yet, but there’s a big deposit to his checking from an offshore account.”

  “When?” I held my breath.

  “Friday.”

  Hot damn. “Murder for hire? Mr. Fulton had an alibi all ready, and that would be pretty smart of him. What if Celia was telling the truth when she said she saw Jinkerson out by the barns Friday afternoon? Could Fulton have paid Jinkerson to do away with Mitch?”

  “I feel good about this one, Nicey.” I could hear the smile in Kyle’s voice.

  “Any chance you can pull rank and find out how hard they’re searching for him?”

  “I’ll do you one better and send some agents out to assist.”

  “You’re the best, Kyle.”

  “And I’m not even done yet. Bonnie found something this morning.”

  I glanced heavenward and curled my fingers tighter around the phone. “What kind of something?”

  “Remember I said she thought Burke was stabbed? The nick she noticed on his collarbone had no remodeling, and there’s one on his C-4 vertebrae that lines up with it on an upward angle.”

  “Could one stab wound really kill a big guy like Mitch?” I furrowed my brow, catching sight of one of the Armani twins who’d been with Richard Burke that morning. He was talking to Jonathan Corry, the Commonwealth’s Attorney. Quite animatedly.

  Shit.

  I refocused on Kyle. “I’m sorry, can you say that again? My brain is firing in too many directions today.”

  “I said, the subclavian artery is between the two. Here’s the big thing: We’re looking for a double-edged blade. Some sort of dagger. Not a knife. Nicked the top of the collarbone and the bottom of the C4, and severed the artery in between.”

  “On an upward angle?” I asked, my brain shaping a puzzle piece.

  “Yep.”

  “So he was stabbed by someone shorter than him?”

  “Or someone who was sitting down while he stood.”

  I nodded, my eyes still on Corry and Burke’s lawyer. Corry’s face had gone from annoyed to interested. I’d bet my shoe closet I knew why, and I didn’t like it.

  “One more favor? Can I beg?” I asked Kyle.

  “Almost never necessary, but appreciated anyway.”

  “Stop it. Speaking of Bonnie, I have the ME’s file on Jolene Sammons. I don’t suppose she might peek through it? I can take it home, but I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

  “DonnaJo came through, huh? I’ll sure ask her. You going to be at the courthouse for a bit?”

  “At least another couple hours.”

  “Which court? I have to come down there anyway.”

  I told him the judge’s name and he promised to be there within the hour.

  Twenty minutes later, I slid over to let him into the back row next to me and passed him the folder. “I had another crazy idea this morning,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “The emails didn’t hit Bob’s computer until lunchtime Thursday. They aren’t signed. We all assumed they were from Burke because of the return address being the same as the others. Now I know you said Bonnie wasn’t positive about the time of death, but—”

  “I’m with you. Clever killer we’re dealing with, if you’re right.”

  “Chad is tracing the IP for the mystery dinner checkin too. It came from a computer, and Burke usually used his phone.”

  “Nice. Keep me in the loop. I have a meeting that may run late, but I’ll have my phone on vibrate if you need me.”

  “Thank you, Kyle. Call me if you find anything.”

  “Absolutely.”

  He slipped out and I turned back to the trial, watching the defense lawyer try to pick apart the police report.

  Police report. I’d stuffed the ones Ella Jane faxed over into my bag as I flew out the door to the courthouse.

  I pulled them out, squinting at the tiny letters of the officer’s narrative on the body discovery. A bunch of stuff I already knew.

  Except the part where it showed a diagram of the tool Hulk used to taste the wine and how the end had come into contact with the body.

  If I took that shape, made it silver and turned it upwards…

  I had the thing Celia swiped from the barn Sunday morning.

  34.

  Defcon 1

  A thousand and one reasons for Celia to take the siphon flashed through my thoughts, some of them way grosser than others. By the time court recessed for the da
y, I had flipped back to near-certainty that she was our murderess.

  I sped back to the office, sifting through every second of the past few days for whatever I’d missed. I texted Aaron that Sheriff Rutledge needed a search warrant for Celia’s house.

  He didn’t answer.

  But Joey did: Chef Alexei had entered the US through Raleigh Durham airport. I dropped my bag at my desk and fished out my notes, checking them against the text.

  Alexei came to America on a student visa two months after the reality TV scandal. I went back to Google.

  Three international food TV (that’s a real thing, apparently) bloggers told me the Russian Gordon Ramsay got sick from the redhead’s stew, and it was later discovered that Alexei, upon figuring out he’d borked the recipe and ruined his own, slipped an extra ingredient into hers. Though the show makes it look like every recipe is made and tasted at once, that’s thanks to crafty editing: Once it’s down to three chefs, they’re judged hours apart (all the better to stress everyone out and have short fuses ready for the cameras). So when the judge started puking a couple hours after he sampled the first dish of the day, she got cut.

  Fascinating stuff. But my eyes kept going back to the poison. Which one blogger said Alexei grew in his father’s greenhouse for the gorgeous bell-shaped violet flowers.

  American pokeweed.

  Jiminy Choos.

  I paced, texted Aaron twice more, and then tried Kyle before I shook it off and sat down to get my copy for the day finished.

  By the time I’d filed both stories and driven home, I was ready to crawl under the covers and stay there for a month.

  If only I didn’t still have six million and two things to do.

  I fed Darcy, turning the day over in my head as I rinsed and refilled her water bowl.

  My social media feeds were full of every reporter in town waxing on about the new ballpark, and how Richard Burke was setting aside his own ideals to see his late son’s wish come true. Dale Sammons’s office had issued a statement an hour after the press conference saying they’d worked through a few obstacles at City Hall and were suddenly on the planning and zoning agenda. Next week.

  How convenient.

  Something skated around the edge of my thoughts, and I put Darcy’s water on the floor and wandered to the bedroom, rearranging my shoe rack and gathering laundry. My brain felt foggy. Almost like I’d had too much to drink. Not possible, unless I counted coffee.

  I dumped a load into the washer, Andrews’s notes flashing through my head.

  Ballpark.

  Burke.

  Sammons.

  Parker.

  Mel wasn’t thrilled about this ballpark thing, and she said her opinion was influenced by Parker.

  Andrews was pushing me to cast suspicion on Parker—and talking to Sammons about selling our front page. The kind of money he’d be asking would give Sammons some major power over the Telegraph.

  Dale Sammons had to know why Mitch Burke hated Parker. And might very well be able to get into Burke’s email and social media via saved passwords on a work computer.

  Aw, hell. I’d have given anything to know which of these geese deserved chasing.

  I snatched up my phone and dialed.

  Voicemail.

  “Of course,” I grumbled as I listened to the smooth tenor say “You’ve reached Grant Parker at the Richmond Telegraph. I can’t talk right now, but please leave me a message or email me at Parker knows baseball at telegraph dot com, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Go Generals.”

  “Parker, I think I might’ve figured part of this out.” I tried to keep my voice even. Didn’t really succeed. “Call me as soon as you get this.”

  I clicked off the call and flung the phone, shuffling to the wine rack as the doorbell rang.

  “You have the most perfect timing.” I opened the door and pulled Jenna into a hug. “Has it really been a hundred years? Because it feels that way.”

  She squeezed back, laughing. “You’ve been a busy lady.”

  “I’m so sorry if I made you feel like I’ve been too busy for you.” I turned for the kitchen and waved for her to follow.

  “Eh. I’m overly sensitive these days. Just ask my husband.” She laid a box of chocolate on the kitchen table and nodded when I held up a bottle of wine and raised one eyebrow.

  “Elaborate, please,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like I have PMS all the time. I think my hormones are shifting, but I wish they’d hurry up about it. Chad has taken to being moody and snippy, and I’m so tied up with the kids and the shop, I don’t have the energy to ask why.”

  I poured two glasses of wine and set them on the table, opening the chocolates and pulling out Jenna’s chair before taking the other myself. “Sounds like a rough week, doll. For what it’s worth, Chad was pretty short with me this morning, and I haven’t heard back from him on the question I asked either. So it’s not just you.”

  Jenna sighed and sipped her wine. I covered her free hand with mine and frowned. “That face says this is more than a little problem.”

  She raised teary eyes to mine as my doorbell rang. “Fabulous time for a drop-by.” I rolled my eyes and stood. “Give me thirty seconds to get rid of whoever that is.”

  The words didn’t get all the way out before four rapid, pounding blows hit the other side of the door. “Nicey, please, you have to be here,” Melanie sobbed. “Please open the door.”

  Jenna’s eyes popped wide as I ran to the door and flung it open. A teary, snotty mess of a bride-to-be fell into my arms. “Melanie, what in Heaven’s name?” I stroked her hair and turned back to Jenna, who was already on her feet getting a third wineglass.

  One friend in crisis at a time would be way easier to manage.

  I tried to pull back and make eye contact with Mel, but she clung to my shoulders, still bawling.

  “Melanie, honey, I need you to talk to me.” I kept my tone soothing. Impressive, considering I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. What now?

  “Grant. He never came home and he’s not answering his phone, and now there’s a police detective at my house. I’m scared, Nicey. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  I froze, my arms tightening around Mel, my brain flat refusing to process anything for a few blinks.

  Glass shattered in my kitchen as Jenna gasped, and my legs remembered how to work. I half-carried Melanie to the sofa, looking around for my phone. No dice.

  Not Parker.

  Please, God, no.

  I swallowed a frustrated scream and pulled in a deep breath, keeping my voice even and clear. “Hey Siri, text Kyle.”

  The magic of technology.

  I settled Mel into the pillows as the phone binged and my Australian man-voiced robot friend asked, “What would you like to say to Kyle?”

  Lifting Mel’s foot, I snatched up the phone, putting the microphone close to my face as I handed her a box of tissues.

  “Hope your meeting is over. We just hit Defcon 1. Call me.”

  35.

  Chasing Parker

  The twenty-five seconds it took Kyle to ring my phone were just about enough time for me to totally lose my shit.

  I balled my free hand into a fist, nails digging into my palm as I gulped air, trying to hold it together. I couldn’t flip out in front of Melanie.

  Jenna rushed to the couch with a brim-full glass of red, perching next to Mel and pressing it into her hand.

  “Small sips and deep breaths, honey. It will all be okay,” she said.

  I shot Jen a grateful smile and hustled out onto the porch when the phone buzzed, putting it to my ear as I shut the door behind me.

  “Jesus, Kyle, Parker’s missing.” My voice cracked halfway through the last word. Saying it out loud made it more real.

  “What?” I heard rustling in the background, like he’d dropped a stack of papers. “Start at the beginning.”

  “I don’t really know where that is. Mel showed u
p here a few minutes ago, a hot mess because he never came home, won’t answer his phone, and there’re cops at her house.”

  “What did the cops say?”

  “I haven’t talked to them. I called you.”

  “No, what did they say to Melanie?” His strained patience came through loud and clear.

  “Oh. I haven’t had a chance to ask. Kyle…” I bit down on panic before I spoke again. “I have a really bad feeling. We have to find him. Now.”

  “Okay.” I could practically see his hand moving to his hair. “Okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes. See if you can calm her down, and find out what she knows.”

  “Thank you.”

  I clicked off the call and turned back for the door, flinching when the phone buzzed in my hand. I lifted it and glanced at the screen. Aaron.

  Shit.

  “Hey,” I said, putting it to my ear.

  “Do you know where Grant Parker is?” His voice was tight.

  “Nope.”

  “Nichelle, I need you to tell me the truth,” he snapped.

  “Detective White, I’m not known for lying.” I put more frost into my voice than the snow queen could’ve mustered.

  He blew out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. This is bad. Really bad. Sheriff Rutledge has a warrant for Parker’s arrest. Richard Burke is screaming for someone’s head—preferably mine and Landers’s, because he knows we had Parker in here the other day and let him leave.”

  Shit, double shit.

  “Warrant?” I asked.

  “The lab is pretty sure Burke was stabbed. We found a pocket knife at Burke’s place with Parker’s prints on it today.”

  My eyes fell shut. A hundred years later, I pulled in a shuddering breath. “He didn’t do this, Aaron.”

  “I know he’s your friend, Nichelle, but the evidence—”

  “The lab also told Kyle today that Burke was probably killed Thursday morning,” I cut him off. “Bob didn’t even get the email threatening Mel until like noon. So where’s your motive?”

  “The official lab report says time of death is difficult to pinpoint because of the sugars in the wine.” Aaron sighed. “I know you don’t want to believe this, and I don’t even blame you, but if you know where he is, you have to tell me.”