His eyebrow arched another fraction of an inch. “So Mr. Hazen saved your life night before last while the two of you just happened to be having a private conversation. Late at night. His wife came to see you yesterday and left with a couple of bottles of your pills. You came here this morning to see her and now she’s dead. Do I have that right?”
I blinked a couple of times and shook my head. “No. I mean, yes. But no! It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Mr. Hazen didn’t save your life?”
“Yes. I just told you he did.”
“But you didn’t come here to talk to him alone. Before the shop opened.”
“No. And the shop was open when I got here. And I told you, I didn’t come to see him. I wanted to talk to Destiny.”
“I see,” Winslow said with a smirk that told me he didn’t believe a word I’d said. Maybe honesty wasn’t such a great policy after all. “Did Mrs. Hazen happen to tell you about a conversation she had with me Monday evening?”
I started to shake my head, then remembered someone at the meeting saying that Destiny had been talking to a police officer. “She didn’t say anything to me,” I said, trying to recall just what she had said. “But she told everyone at the meeting that she might not have to go to court if she played her cards right.”
His gaze locked on mine. He didn’t look happy. “Did she now?”
“Yes, but that’s all she said.” And then I remembered what she’d said to me at Zydeco and added, “Except she did tell me yesterday that she had something in the works that would make a few people sorry, but I have no idea what she meant by that.”
“She didn’t tell you that the district attorney offered her a lesser charge if she’d give us the name of her dealer?”
That was big. I got an uneasy feeling as I remembered the two half-empty coffee cups on the desk. “Do you think she told her dealer about the offer?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” He stared at me without blinking for so long I started getting nervous.
“I don’t know what she told anyone else,” I said. “I can only tell you what she said to me.”
“Mmm-hmmm. Tell me, how long have you and Mr. Hazen been seeing each other?”
“What?”
“You and Moose,” he said with a nod at the big man across the parking lot.
My head began to buzz and my heart thumped around in my chest. “We are not, and never have been, an item. We’re barely even friendly. We just happen to be members of the same business alliance and were at the same meeting on Monday night.”
Winslow’s eyebrows beetled up onto his forehead again. “Oh? And where was that?”
I nodded toward Second Chances. “At the thrift shop next door. We left the meeting at the same time. While we were talking, the van came around the corner and he shoved me out of the way.”
Winslow pulled a notebook from his wrinkled shirt pocket and made a note. “So tell me about what happened here this morning. What time did you get here?”
I wasn’t sure he believed me, but at least he’d moved to a different line of questioning. “About an hour ago. You can check the time of the 911 call. I was here for maybe ten minutes before I placed the call.”
“Mrs. Hazen was holding a prescription bottle when she died,” Winslow said. “Any idea whose prescription it was?”
I laughed nervously. “I already told you that she came by Zydeco yesterday and that my prescriptions disappeared from my office. I have to assume the bottle was one of mine?”
He gave me a thin-lipped smile that practically screamed, Liar! “How many pills were in the bottle the last time you saw it?”
I had to think about that. I hadn’t really paid attention. “I don’t know. Twenty? Thirty? I just had it filled that morning. I hadn’t taken any of them, so whatever the prescription called for, that’s how many there were. How many are there now?”
“The bottle in her hand—one of yours—is empty. And you say you know nothing about that?”
“Of course not. I told you, she was dead when I found her and I didn’t touch anything except her wrist to check for a pulse. I thought maybe I could help her.” His questions and his attitude were making me nervous. “Can I leave now? I need to get back to work.”
His eyebrows jumped again. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is my little investigation inconveniencing you?” He slipped the notebook into his pocket and took a step backward. “By all means, Ms. Lucero. You’re free to go . . . for now.”
Winslow’s sarcasm made me nervous, but I didn’t let that slow me down. I turned around and walked away just as fast as I could.
• • •
The neighborhood was buzzing as I hurried away from the Chopper Shop. I’d been gone for at least an hour, and in that time people had arrived for work, noticed the unusual activity, and gathered on the corner to watch. I had to pass them, but I kept my head down and tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Finding Destiny and then talking to Detective Winslow had rattled me. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about what had happened.
I heard my name but I pretended not to and successfully skirted the group of curious bystanders. As I was about to cross the street, I saw Ox coming down the sidewalk toward me. He looked worried, which was understandable considering the call I’d made earlier. When he saw me, he kicked up his pace and jogged across the intersection.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when he reached me.
He gave me a quick once-over and then turned to check out the Chopper Shop. “It’s been an hour since you called. I came to make sure you’re all right. You sounded pretty shaken up on the phone.” Seeing the concern in his eyes made me feel like a jerk for being so short with him earlier.
“Well. Yeah. I guess I am,” I said. Now that I was with a friend, my hands began to tremble and my legs felt weak. “It was awful.”
“So she’s really . . .” He glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “You know.”
Nobody appeared to be paying attention to the two of us, but I kept my own voice low just in case. “Yeah. I found her inside.”
Ox scowled so hard his forehead wrinkled. “How?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think she may have overdosed.”
Ox stared down at his feet for a long moment. “How’s Moose taking it?”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to him,” I said. “The police kept us both busy with questions. I saw him from a distance, though, and he looked pretty rough.”
“I can imagine.” Ox rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I wish I could say that it’s a shock, but it’s not. Destiny’s been messed up ever since I came here.”
Maybe so, but I doubted that made the reality of her death any easier for Moose. “I feel just awful. I should have gone after her when she left Zydeco yesterday. She was in bad shape then. I knew it and I just let her go. I didn’t try hard enough to find out where she’d gone.”
“You’re not seriously blaming yourself, are you? You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”
“I guess not. But I can’t help thinking I should have done something more. I don’t know if Edie told you, but Destiny took some pills out of my office yesterday. One of the bottles was in her hand when she died. That means my prescription might have been the drugs that killed her.”
Ox put a hand on my shoulder. “That still doesn’t make this your fault, Rita. Maybe it was your prescription but you didn’t force her to take the pills.”
I gave him a shaky smile. “Tell that to the detective over there,” I said, jerking my chin toward Detective Winslow. “He thinks I gave her the drugs.”
Ox snorted a laugh that was loud enough to make a few people turn to look at us. “Oh, come on! Be serious.”
“I am,” I said in a harsh whisper. “He pretty much accused me of being her dealer.”
“Obviously, the man’s an idiot or he’s just talking off the top of his head. He’ll probably forget all about you in ten minutes.”
I sure hoped he was right.
“Come on,” Ox said, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “I’ll walk back to Zydeco with you.”
We turned to go and I realized that the crowd on the corner had almost doubled in size while we’d been talking. I caught a glimpse of Edgar Zappa at the edge of the crowd, watching the scene unfolding from behind a pair of sunglasses, and I felt a pang of sympathy for him. I didn’t know for sure if he and Destiny had been having an affair, but what if they had been? I didn’t want him to hear about her death through word on the street. That seemed cruel.
I tugged on Ox’s sleeve. “There’s Edgar. I want to talk to him for a minute before we go back to work.”
“Edgar? Now? What’s he got to do with all of this?”
“He and Destiny were friends,” I said, downplaying the relationship I suspected between them. “He has to be curious about what’s going on.”
“Everybody here is curious,” Ox pointed out. “But okay. Let’s talk to Edgar.”
I’d have preferred to have the conversation without Ox, but I didn’t know how to say so without making him wonder why. Nothing would be gained by starting rumors flying now, so I bit my tongue and made my way through the crowd with Ox behind me. Edgar stood on the curb, his blond hair tousled by the light morning breeze. I touched his elbow lightly to get his attention.
He whipped around to face me. “Oh. Rita. Ox. Looks like there’s some excitement at the Chopper Shop this morning. Any idea what’s going on over there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I do. Could I talk to you for a minute?”
He studied my face silently for a moment. At least, I think he did. All I could see was my reflection in his sunglasses. “Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Not here,” I said. “Too many people. Let’s take a walk.”
His mouth set in a firm line and he looked back at the Chopper Shop as if he was reluctant to leave. Finally, he shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a firm nod. “If you say so. Lead the way.”
I waited to speak until we’d put the crowd behind us and I was pretty sure nobody could hear us. Even then it wasn’t easy to find the right words. “There’s no easy way to say this,” I said. “And I might be crossing a line by saying anything at all, but I know that you and Destiny . . .” I trailed off, took a deep breath, and tried again. “The police are at the Chopper Shop because I found Destiny there this morning. She’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“I mean . . . I tried to help her, but it was too late.”
Edgar’s jaw tightened visibly as realization slowly dawned. He looked from me to Ox and back again. “Are you telling me she’s dead?”
I nodded sadly. “I haven’t said anything to anyone else. I don’t want word to get out before Moose can notify the rest of her family. But I know that the two of you were friends and I thought you should know.”
Edgar pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. His eyes were such a pale blue they were a little disconcerting. “But how? What happened?”
“The police think she may have overdosed,” I said. “She had a bottle of pills in her hand.”
“But that’s impossible. She wasn’t using.”
“I’m afraid she was,” I said. “She came to Zydeco yesterday to help with the collection of supplies for the neighborhood cleanup, but I had to send her away because she was obviously high on something.”
Edgar shook his head firmly. “No. That’s not possible. I talked to her yesterday morning. She was doing fine. She wouldn’t have—” He cut himself off and rubbed his face with both hands. “She wouldn’t have,” he said again.
“But she did,” I said. “I talked to her, Edgar. She could barely stand up straight and her words were slurred. She was on something, and she admitted to taking something for a headache.”
“But she was so excited to help. She thought that would make certain people change their opinions about her. She wouldn’t have risked messing that up.”
Ox stepped into the conversation for the first time. “Hey. I know it’s a shock. Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought you did.”
Way to be sensitive, Ox. I tried to dilute the sting of his comment with a reassuring smile. “What Ox means is that maybe something happened between the time you saw her yesterday and the time she came to help out. Maybe something upset her. If everything was okay between the two of you, maybe she had an issue with somebody else.”
Edgar nodded almost absently. “Everything was fine with the two of us. We had breakfast yesterday. We were going to meet today for lunch. Things were finally looking up for her. She had no reason to start using again.”
“Sometimes addiction is just too strong,” Ox said. “Even if things are going well, a person just needs that fix.”
Edgar shook his head. “It wasn’t like that for her. Not this time.” He paced the width of the sidewalk several times as he processed what we were telling him. His internal struggle was hard to watch. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said after several laps. “This doesn’t make any sense at all. What was she even doing here this morning? She doesn’t work this early. She’s not a morning person.”
“I wish I could tell you,” I said. “All I know is that I got there a little before nine. All the lights were on and all the bays were open. She was in the back.”
Edgar stopped pacing. “Where was Moose?”
“I didn’t see him until after the police arrived,” I said. “So Destiny didn’t tell you that she was coming in early this morning?”
“No.” He wiped his face with one hand and let out a heavy breath. “Last time I talked to her, she said she was going to her yoga class and then she was going to help you at Zydeco. She was excited about both things. The yoga was helping keep her centered and away from the drugs. Volunteering with the alliance was going to help change her image.”
He clearly wanted to believe the best of her so desperately I didn’t have the heart to tell him again how wrong he was. The truth was that she’d been high when I saw her yesterday. She’d stolen my pills. Ox was right. The addiction had been stronger than she was. But I didn’t say anything more.
After a minute Edgar pulled his sunglasses from the top of his head and wiped the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “You think I’m being naïve.”
“I think you’re being a loyal friend.”
He managed a thin smile. “Yeah. Maybe I just feel guilty. I just don’t know how I could have missed that she was slipping.”
“She probably didn’t want you to know,” Ox said. “She had plenty of practice hiding her addiction. Maybe she thought she could handle it. You know . . . keep it under control or something.”
Edgar stopped polishing and looked up at the two of us. The sadness in his eyes was almost palpable. “Yeah. Maybe.” He put his glasses back on. “I’ve got to go,” he said suddenly. “Thanks for telling me about Destiny.” And then he hurried off down the sidewalk, leaving Ox and me staring after him.
“That was tough,” I said after a moment.
Ox nodded. “Yeah. He seems pretty torn up about it. Are you sure they were just friends?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to make this all harder on Moose.”
Ox nodded. “Gotcha. My lips are sealed.”
I started walking toward Zydeco, ready to put the whole morning out of my mind. As if I could. But the more I thought about Edgar’s reaction, the more it bothered me. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he felt responsible for her death because the two of them had had an argument yesterday and now he was racked with guilt.
Ox frowned down at me and said, “You’re still thinking about Edgar. I can feel it.”
“I can’t help it. There’s something wrong with this whole scenario.”
“Yeah. A woman is dead. From an overdose.”
“It’s more than that,” I said, batting his arm lightly. “Something doesn’t a
dd up.”
“Not your problem.”
“I know, but—”
Ox stopped walking and took me by the shoulders. “Not your problem, Rita. Leave it alone. Please. We have a lot of work on the schedule and I need you to be focused on Zydeco, not chasing down bad guys.”
Way to ruin a moment. I made a face at him. “I am focused, okay? Don’t worry about me.”
And I was. Really.
At least, I would be.
Ten
I spent the rest of the morning pretending to take care of some paperwork in the office. By afternoon I felt normal enough to go back to work on the petunias. I piped the remaining blossoms and set them aside to dry, and I pretended not to be thinking about Edgar’s reaction to Destiny’s death. That wasn’t easy since word had spread around Zydeco. Destiny, her drug habit, her stint in rehab, and the state of her marriage were the only things anyone wanted to talk about.
I was feeling edgy and raw, and I kept hoping the others would run out of steam and move on. But after a couple of hours I banned the subject for the rest of the day and told them to let the poor woman rest in peace. After that, they only spoke about it in whispers or when they thought I couldn’t hear. And they moved on to my next least favorite topic—the near hit-and-run Monday night.
“Don’t you think it’s odd,” Estelle asked as she sculpted a miniature golfer from gum paste, “that we’ve had two horrible tragedies in less than forty-eight hours? It’s enough to make a person nervous.”
Dwight was still working on carving the golf course, but he shot Estelle a look from across the room. “Don’t worry too much. It’s not contagious.”
Estelle rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Well, I know that. But they do say that bad things happen in threes. What’s next? That’s what makes me worry.”
Ox laughed and shook his head. “Superstitious nonsense. There’s nothing to it.”
“But it’s true!” Sparkle insisted. “It happens all the time. Like when my brother left home and my mom broke her arm, and then three goats from the commune died all in the same week.”
Ox’s expression sobered but his eyes danced with amusement. “I stand corrected. Never let it be said that I argued with dead goats.”
The Cakes of Wrath (A Piece of Cake Mystery) Page 8