“WHAT EXACTLY AM I looking at?” Steve asked, frowning at the image I was showing him on my cell phone.
“See that?” Standing by his desk, I pointed at the blurry emblem of the cougar on the car’s front grill.
“Yeah, so?”
“It’s a cat on an older-model black car, which matches a witness’s description of a car that she saw Colt Ziegler leaving in on Saturday night.”
Steve handed my phone back, the tic pulsing at his jawline warning me that now was not the time to ask that he run the license plate to get an owner name and address. “And why are you still digging into a criminal case?”
“Because you know as well as I do that Little Dog isn’t responsible for Colt’s death.”
“What I know is that you’re interfering in a police investigation, and if you keep it up you’re gonna get arrested.”
“And then you’ll have to explain to the criminal prosecutor why you arrested his assistant, who was just doing her job.”
“You mean the one who asked you to get Tami Ziegler’s statement?” A corner of Steve’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Yeah, let’s show Ben that picture so he can see how far you’re trying to insert yourself into this case.”
“You can be a real jerk sometimes.”
Leaning back in his desk chair, Steve lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, like you, I’m just doing my job.”
I hated it when he threw my words back at me.
“The owner of this car could know something about what happened Sunday night,” I said, shaking my phone at him.
“Because they hung out together the night before.”
“Well, not when you put it that way. But I’m pretty sure that he was the one you didn’t want me to see at the Roadkill Grill.”
“There’s that suspicious mind again.”
“Are you going to deny it?” And lie to my face?
Steve shook his head. “What I’m going to do is get back to work, and I suggest you do the same.”
“That’s not a denial.”
He rose from his chair and opened his office door. “Have a nice afternoon, Chow Mein.”
* * *
After spending the rest of my work day trying to locate potential witnesses for an upcoming case, once the courthouse clock struck five, I raced over to J Street with the hope of catching a certain paint crew taking advantage of some late afternoon sun.
Given the fact that the guy in the ball cap was loading a plastic paint bucket into the van I had just pulled up behind, I knew I didn’t have much time.
He turned, staring as I stepped out of the Jag, so I gave him a friendly wave.
Yes, you didn’t expect to see me again today.
“Your car,” he said with a heavy accent. “Very bad knock.”
“I know. I need to get it fixed.”
Nodding, he headed toward the house. “Hazlo pronto.”
I wasn’t sure what exactly he’d said, but I understood pronto. I had something else that needed to be done even more pronto and ran to catch up with him. “Where’s the guy who owns that black car?”
“In back.”
Coming around through the side yard, I spotted Ponytail Guy painting the trim of a back door and pasted a sunny smile on my face. “Hello!”
His eyes widened. “Hey,” he said after a second of hesitation.
I planted my hands on my hips and gazed up at the crew’s handiwork. “The new paint looks great. I’ll definitely have to show my grandmother when you’re all done.”
Applying another brush stroke of dark burgundy, he dished out a sidelong glance. “That’ll probably be tomorrow afternoon sometime.”
“That’s fine. I’m actually here to talk to you.”
He stiffened. “Me? What about?”
“I’m hoping you can help me with a problem I’m having at work.” I pointed at the stretch of overgrown grass that I’d just walked through. “Maybe you could take a two-minute break and we could talk over there.” Where there weren’t any picture windows for the homeowner to ask why I was on his property.
I was betting on a hunch that the good manners that should have been drummed into young Ponytail Guy would kick in, and he’d be willing to help a damsel in distress.
After he grumbled a few unchivalrous swear words, he set down his paint and brush, and joined me on the lawn. “Two minutes.”
He struck me as someone who wouldn’t respond well to a badge or note-taking, so instead of reaching into my tote, I extended my hand. “Sorry, I never introduced myself. Charmaine Digby.”
“Rusty Naylor.”
Memorable name. For his sake I hoped it wasn’t the name on his birth certificate.
He held up his paint-splattered hand for my inspection. “I’m probably a little too dirty for you, Charmaine,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
I picked up his double meaning loud and clear, and tried to channel my flirtatious mother as I took his hand in mine. “I’ll take my chances.”
His lips curled into a cocky grin as his gaze lowered to my chest. “So, what can I do for you?”
Just keep talking.
“I work in the coroner’s office. I’m basically the one on the phone calling to verify employer information, family members, that kind of stuff.” Which was true, only this wasn’t a coroner’s case. “And I haven’t been able to do that with Colt Ziegler, but he worked with you guys, right?”
Rusty knit his brows. “Yeah. Some.”
“Boynton House Painting, the name of the company on the card, right?”
“Right.”
“Awesome,” I said, blowing out a breathy sigh of relief so that I’d sound more incompetent than probing.
I touched his sleeve. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive. The two of you were probably friends.”
His eyes held a hard edge. “Yeah.”
“When did you see him last?”
His jaw tightened. “Saturday night.”
“Oh, the night before he passed. How sad.”
Rusty kept his mouth shut, his expression unchanged.
Obviously not that sad for him. “Did he happen to mention having any trouble with anyone in town?”
“Nope. Can’t say that he did.”
“My boss is really leaning on me to come up with a timeline for where Colt was on Sunday. If you talked to him that day, that could really help me out.”
“Sorry. Didn’t see him. Didn’t talk to him.”
Liar.
“I gotta get going, but if you have any questions for my boss, you’ve got the number.”
“I sure do. Thanks, Rusty. You’ve been a big help.” Because you gave me a last name that couldn’t be that common around here. Assuming he lived locally, which would be really good to know for the criminal background check I wanted to run.
“No problem,” he muttered, turning his back to me.
“Oh, I should have asked. Is that your Cougar out there?”
He puffed his chest out a little. “Yeah.”
“I gotta show it to my dad, but he’s out of town right now.” Way out of town in France. “Do you live around here?”
“Sorta, but the job brings me into town a few times a month.”
Then I’d lay odds that he lived in or near Clatska.
“Cool. I’ll tell my dad to keep an eye out.”
I was going to keep an eye out in the coming days, too, because this guy was clearly hiding something.
I gave him a wave and dashed to my car.
Twenty minutes later, I sat alone in the clerical wing of the prosecutor’s office and stared at my computer screen while I scrolled through all the surnames in the regional database that began with NA.
I figured that Rusty had to be a childhood nickname. Someone had taken his given name and playfully twisted it to something resembling rusty nail. That told me that his first name would be an R-name a kid would want to disassociate himself from.
“Rusty,” I said, clicking on the hypertext
for Ruslan Naylor, a thirty-one year-old with a Clatska address. “Is this you?”
The age and the description of five foot eight and one hundred sixty pounds matched up well with the housepainter I had been speaking with.
Ruslan had an arrest record dating back over ten years: DUI, speeding tickets, theft in the first and second degree, and a couple of burglary charges. But the one that caught my eye was a residential burglary conviction. I didn’t have access to the amount of time Ruslan had served, but he was clearly a convicted felon.
Now, if he were a convicted felon who went by the nickname Rusty and was hanging around for a couple of days, painting my house, I’d want to make sure that I tucked my valuables away in a very safe place. Not to say people couldn’t change, but Rusty clearly hadn’t wanted to answer my questions about Colt.
Because Colt had been in possession of a diamond engagement ring he wouldn’t have been able to afford?
Or maybe Colt knew too much about some break-in that Rusty had been involved in?
I sucked in a sharp breath, recalling what Diana Ferguson had said about the break-in at Malcolm Pembroke’s house.
Colt had been the Pembrokes’ driver and would have been the perfect lookout man to coordinate the burglary with Rusty. Maybe that’s what they met about Saturday night—to put their final plan together.
I shivered with the icy realization that if Rusty Naylor wasn’t responsible for Colt Ziegler’s death, he knew the person who was.
“Holy smokes,” I said, shutting down my computer. This was why Steve wanted to keep me out of the Roadkill Grill. He must have suspected that Rusty Naylor was the link between what happened to Colt and the break-in at the Pembroke house. Since there hadn’t been an arrest I doubted he could prove it, but I could at least confirm that they’d had contact on Sunday.
I needed to tell Steve. Immediately. And it needed to be face-to-face so he couldn’t hang up on me.
Grabbing my tote, I headed for the exit and had just passed Patsy’s empty desk when I heard my name.
I hit the brakes, backed up, and locked gazes with Frankie, who was waving me into her office.
“Charmaine,” she said, “what the heck does Ben have you working on to keep you here so late?”
While the county prosecutor might be very interested in everything I’d learned about my new pal Ruslan, she needed to hear it through proper channels, meaning Ben or Steve, not me.
“I was just catching up on some paperwork.” I forced a smile. “You know how everyone around here has to have everything printed out.”
She sighed. “Indeed I do.”
I knew I should skedaddle before I said anything to get myself into trouble. At the same time, I had been presented with a rare opportunity to talk to Frankie without Patsy sitting outside her office like a guard dog, and I would have been stupid to not take advantage of it.
I inched closer to Frankie’s desk. “I understand that Colt Ziegler’s autopsy was scheduled for yesterday.”
She nodded. “Dr. Zuniga sent me his report a couple of hours ago.”
“And?”
“Much as I expected—blunt force trauma.”
“From a blow to the head?”
I got another nod.
“Was it conclusive that it was delivered by that baseball bat?” I asked, my heart pounding with trepidation.
Giving me a quizzical look, Frankie cocked her head. “Since George Junior confessed to striking a blow with the bat that night, it’s about as conclusive as we can get.”
Chapter Eighteen
AFTER I STOPPED by the apartment to feed Fozzie and give him a short walk, I drove to Steve’s house. His Ford pickup wasn’t in the driveway and I was too antsy to hang out at Gram’s and wait, so I decided to kill some time at the grocery store.
The Red Apple Market down on Main Street had a pretty good deli that catered to the local contractors and business owners who wanted their sub sandwiches piled high, their fried chicken crispy, and their salads packed fresh and ready to go. But by the time I arrived around six-thirty, the deli was unattended, with nothing left but a lowly container of chicken wings under a warmer.
Hungry beggars couldn’t be choosers, so I grabbed it and headed to the produce section to replenish my supply of diet munchies, where I spotted Katherine Pembroke.
I didn’t know how much useful information she might have from riding in that limo with Colt Ziegler, but I viewed this unexpected meet-up as an invitation to find out.
Pretending to not see her perusing the selection of organic tomatoes, I turned my shopping cart into hers.
“Sorry, Mrs. Pembroke. I’m usually not such a reckless driver.” I met her gaze. “Good thing my grandmother isn’t here. She’d accuse me of taking after my mom.”
As a teenager, Marietta had rear-ended Katherine Pembroke’s Mercedes—the incident that introduced the then-newly married Mrs. Pembroke to my grandparents—so I figured my conversation starter would strike a chord.
An easy smile lit her full face, her pale skin bearing only the finest of wrinkles to betray her age. “Your grandmother can be merciless when she talks about your mom.”
Oh? I hadn’t realized that was a subject that came up all that often. Then again, Marietta was the local celebrity who had recently announced her engagement to one of Port Merritt High’s teachers, making her a trending community topic.
I didn’t want to add any fuel to the gossip fire that had been raging over the last month, so I stuck to the safer past history. “That’s what can happen when you total two of your parents’ cars.”
Mrs. Pembroke touched my arm with feigned concern. “She’s not driving while she’s in town, is she?”
“No. Gram and I know better than to let her drive our cars. Speaking of driving,” I said, trying to segue to the life and death of the limo driver occupying most of my waking hours this week, “I understand that you and Mr. Pembroke were two of the last people to see Colt Ziegler before…”
She shook her head. “It was so sad to hear the news about that boy.”
“I know. It was a shocker. I can’t imagine what happened, can you?”
“No. Colt was well-mannered and seemed to really enjoy his role as chauffeur, so his death came as a total shock. After having such a delightful evening at Malcolm’s retirement party, to hear about what happened on top of coming home to find our house broken into… It made me sorry that I helped the Fergusons organize that stupid party.”
Mrs. Pembroke’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “If we had just stayed home and had the quiet little celebration Malcolm said he wanted, nothing would have happened.”
My heart broke for her. “This isn’t your fault.”
“No, that young man would still be alive.”
“I happen to work for the county prosecutor,” I said while she wiped her eyes. “And it would be helpful to know if Colt mentioned any plans that he had after he dropped you off. Anyone that he planned to meet up with—that sort of thing.”
“When we arrived at the club, I offered to bring him something to eat later, but he said he was going to grab a burger. It was like when he and two other boys were painting our house.”
The house that had been burglarized the night of Colt’s death? The fact that he had been a member of the paint crew couldn’t be a coincidence.
Mrs. Pembroke gave me a sad smile. “I offered to make them some sandwiches, but he said they were heading over to the Roadkill Grill. I guess a tuna sandwich can’t compete with their hamburgers.”
I tried to remain calm while my pulse thundered in my ears. “When was this?”
“Two, maybe two and a half weeks ago.”
“Not that it’s important now, but do you happen to remember if there was a dark-haired guy with a ponytail working with Colt?”
“Rusty?
Holy smokes, they were casing the house while they were there. “Yeah, that’s his name.”
“Another nice boy. Took great care to cover my
azaleas.”
He wasn’t so nice. He ripped you off.
* * *
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” I said, following Steve into his kitchen. “But I’m telling you with absolute certainty that Rusty Naylor met with Colt before or after that burglary and knows what happened later that night.”
Steve pulled a beer from his refrigerator. “What part of ‘stay out of this investigation’ don’t you understand?”
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “I thought you’d want to know.”
He stared at the hardwood floor like he wanted to throw me down on it, and not in a fun way. “You are giving me no choice.”
Leaning over, I tried to make eye contact while the chicken wings in my stomach threatened to take flight. “What?”
“Since you won’t listen to me, maybe Frankie can get your attention.”
“Seriously?”
“What else can I do to convince you to back off?” Steve asked with an icy calm that chilled me to my marrow.
“You know I’m just trying to help.”
“What I know is that you’re going to get hurt if you keep this up.”
I reached out to him, but Steve sidestepped me to sort through his mail at the table.
Standing in the middle of his kitchen, staring at his back, I hadn’t felt this ineffectual since my ex informed me that he wanted out of our marriage.
“I’m not trying to interfere in your investigation,” I said after several seconds of awkward silence. “I just want Ben to drop the charges against Georgie.”
Steve took a swig of beer. “Do you trust me, Charmaine?”
I found it disheartening that he should even ask. “Of course.”
“Then know that I can do my job without the benefit of your assistance.”
My cheeks burning from his rebuke, I didn’t know what I could say that wouldn’t stoke the fire raging behind his eyes. So I kept my mouth shut and reached for the tote I’d slung over the back of the chair next to him.
Steve’s hand clamped down on mine. “I mean it. You need to trust me on this.”
I did, completely. But I wasn’t so sure that I’d still be employed tomorrow.
Dogs, Lies, and Alibis: A Humorous Cozy Mystery (A Workings Stiffs Mystery Book 5) Page 13