by Ginny Aiken
Then, with a twist of her delicate, acrylic-nailed, pink-manicured hand, Deedee turned the doorknob. “Let’s go outside so you can see our killer view—”
Her blood-curdling shriek put an end to her words.
The Marshalls have a killer view, all right. But the killer view had nothing to do with the girl who lay sprawled in the middle of said patio’s concrete floor, her body’s lower half drenched in bright red blood.
I screamed too.
What is it with big old mansions, dead bodies, and me?
When my throat hurt too much for even one more scream and my body shook too hard to stay upright, I leaned against the brick wall of the Marshall home.
A kaleidoscope of images clicked through my mind. About a year ago, I walked out of another Puget Sound–area mansion and found my mentor’s corpse under a monstrous rhododendron. Today’s bloody body didn’t have even a shrub to provide it a decent shroud, but the pool of blood looked the same. It had the same sick, sweet stench, and its life was just as gone as Marge’s had been last year. It brought back horrible memories.
Don’t ask how I knew the girl was dead even from a distance of fifteen feet. I can’t put it into words, but trust me. Once you see someone who died a wretched, bloody death, you can never forget it.
And that brought me back to my original question. Why did I have to find yet another corpse at yet another huge, expensive house I was about to redesign?
Then the stupidity of my thoughts hit me. I can only blame it on shock. None of that mattered. Someone had died, and something had to be done about it.
A male spit out an expletive. The familiar voice brought me around. “What are you—”
“You again?”
“Yeah, Dutch Merrill. It’s me again. The Marshalls told Noreen they wanted me to redesign their home. I came to meet Deedee, she brought me out here, and this is what I found. Want to make something of it?”
“No. I want to call the cops.”
I closed my eyes and sagged against the wall again, camera still in hand, portfolio at my feet. “Please do.” My voice shook; all of me did. “We just walked out here seconds ago. I was too stunned to do more than scream.”
When he didn’t come back at me with some smart dig, I cracked an eyelid and saw his expression soften. He pulled out his cell phone, hit a button—gotta wonder about a guy with the PD on speed dial—then gave a terse, urgent description of our situation.
I stayed propped against the wall for what felt like a lifetime. I felt too shaky to attempt any movement. How could I move, think, come up with a design plan for a client?
Only then did I remember Deedee Marshall. She sat in a plaid-cushioned redwood chair, face pale, expression grim, eyes fixed straight ahead, about a foot above the body on her patio floor. She looked... I don’t know... fierce? No, that wasn’t right. What I read as ferocity was the most impressive display of self-control I’d ever seen. Where everything inside me pushed me toward an emotional edge, Deedee managed to keep from falling apart with great dignity.
I was impressed and felt the birth of admiration for the pretty blonde.
“Deedee?” I said. “Are you all right?”
Slowly she faced me. “All right?” Her voice came out wispier than ever. “Did you just ask me if I’m all right?”
With every syllable, the wispy voice became shriller, sharper, harsher.
I nodded.
She surged to her feet. “How can you ask if I’m all right when I just found this... this person in my house like... like this?”
By the end of her question, her whole body quivered with tension. Her cover-girl face had regained the color it earlier lost; it now looked redder than the enamel on a Japanese tansu chest.
At least I wasn’t the only one rattled out of her wits.
The snap of Dutch’s phone echoed in the unnatural silence. I jerked as though stuck by a staple gun.
“I can understand how you feel,” I told my maybe client. “It was a shock—still is.” I allowed myself a nanosecond glance at the body, then shuddered. “Dutch called the police.”
“Oh.” She shook her head and looked around the patio. When she saw him, her lips widened a fraction into a tight smile, that control back in place. “I didn’t know you’d arrived. I expected you earlier, right around when... ah... she....”
Deedee looked at me with vacant eyes, and I realized she’d forgotten my name. I supplied it, then added, with a hint of sarcasm, “Imagine that. You missed his arrival. He does have a gift for sneaking up on people.”
Dutch glared. “Got caught in traffic on I-5. Everyone does. I’ve told you many times, Haley, I don’t sneak, but I also don’t barge in, and there’s a world of difference between barging in and arriving.”
I rolled my eyes. “You also have a talent for showing up at the most unfortunate moment—”
I swallowed the rest of my words when a smirk tipped the corners of Dutch’s mouth and a twinkle spiced up his green eyes. I winced.
“Is that any way to refer to my very heroic rescue?” he asked.
I can’t believe I set myself up for that one. I scrambled for a change of subject, but my mind refused to turn to any but the obvious, hideous one. “Do you know her, Deedee?”
Deedee started, darted a look at the corpse, then gave a single, tight shake of her blond head. “No.”
“Then you wouldn’t know why she came here to die, would you?”
The firm, musical voice that uttered the question was way too familiar. I turned to greet Detective Lila Tsu of the Wilmont Police Department.
“Guess we’ll be seeing each other a bit again,” I said in a rueful voice. “At least you don’t have to ask me all the dumb stuff about who I am and where I live this time.”
“This time?” Deedee squeaked, her alarm almost comical.
Almost.
Ms. Tsu gave an unreadable look from where she knelt at the corpse’s side. “Miss Farrell and I have had occasion to meet.”
“You mean she’s a crook?” Deedee’s voice could’ve shattered Waterford crystal.
“Maybe not a killer,” Dutch said.
“Not then,” Ms. Tsu said, her fingers on the corpse’s slender wrist.
“Hey! That’s not fair. You both know I’m not a killer.” I rounded on Dutch. “Besides, you’re the one with the slippery-slope history.”
“You killed someone?” Deedee asked in horror. Then she faced Dutch. “You build stuff that slips?”
The detective, upright again, gave a discreet cough. “Children, children,” she said, wry humor in her voice. “Let’s not rehash ancient history. There’s a dead girl on the ground, and although I’m only too familiar with the bizarre reactions people have to violence, we have to find out what happened here.”
I arched a brow and grinned. “We?”
Lila Tsu’s eyes opened a fraction wider. Since unpleasant history had brought us together in the past, I knew her well enough to catch that minimal response.
“It was just a figure of speech,” she said. “Don’t read anything into it. I... meant my officers, who are right now gathering evidence in the house and out front. They’ll be here soon. Keep in mind, you’re again at the scene of an... unexplained death.”
“Seems to me,” Dutch ventured, “that Haley was pretty helpful to you last year.”
The petite Asian policewoman drew herself up to her full height. “Haley’s knowledge of decorative antiques did come in handy in the end. But that’s in the past. This is now. Do any of you know her?”
“Because the hair’s so long and it’s all over her face, I haven’t had a good look at her features,” I said. I picked up my portfolio, unzipped it to drop my camera inside, and took another look at the girl. “I can always move some of the hair aside so we can see—”
“There she goes again,” Dutch muttered, “messing with evidence.”
Before I had a chance to refute his scurrilous accusation—I never messed with evidence; I just hap
pened to land on some—Lila spoke again, her competent, professional voice back in full force.
“That’s enough, Mr. Merrill. Don’t accuse her, and you, Haley, don’t snipe. Just because he caught you in a number of awkward situations doesn’t mean you should lose perspective here. And you know better than to disturb the scene, not to mention leave fingerprints that might prove troublesome like the last time. I’ll move her hair so you can look at her.”
The detective set her ultrachic square black leather purse on the redwood patio table to our left and then knelt by the girl again. She moved a cloak of auburn hair to one side, and I saw the straight nose with a light dusting of brown-sugar freckles over a now colorless mouth. The features looked strained, perhaps contorted by pain at the time of death.
I also saw that she wasn’t yet out of her teens, as I’d suspected. How tragic.
“I’ve never seen her,” I said around the knot in my throat.
Lila glanced at Deedee. “How about you, Mrs. Marshall?”
As if she’d been forced awake from a deep sleep, Deedee looked from the dead girl to the detective.
“Ah... no.” She shook her head—hard.
“And you, Mr. Merrill?”
A deep frown etched parallel lines between the contractor’s thick, straight brows. He clamped his lips and exhaled a short, harsh breath. “There’s something familiar about her... I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel as if I know her. I don’t think I’ve seen her before. I don’t get to know a lot of kids—don’t meet too many of them in my line of work.”
Lila crossed back to the patio table and withdrew the familiar notebook and silver pen from her purse. She’d flashed them each time she interrogated me last year. With a graceful, smoothing glide of her hand down the straight-cut thigh of her white linen pants, she sat in one of the redwood chairs, crossed her right leg over her left, then turned her gaze on Dutch.
I read the look loud and clear. I’d hated being on the receiving end of it. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Not even the children of the homeowners who hire you?”
“When I renovate an existing home, the family often moves in with relatives or into a short-term-lease place to avoid the chaos and stay out of my crew’s way.” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “New construction? Well, there’s no one there. It’s usually the husband or the wife who comes out to check the progress. But you could be right and she might belong to a family I’ve worked for.”
Lila’s pen caught the diffuse light of the sunset and reflected a soft shade of crimson as she scribbled in her notebook. I didn’t look forward to her use of the writing implement when she questioned me.
“Ah... since you’re busy with him,” I said, “do you think I could go home now? I mean, if you have questions for me, you know where to find me.”
I heard sirens in the distance. I knew what was coming, and I also knew I didn’t have the stomach to stand by while a medical examiner and crime scene investigators did their thing.
Lila turned, and our gazes locked. “You know better than to think it’s a matter of if I have questions for you. I’ll have them, and soon. By the way, Tyler says hello.”
“I’ll see him tomorrow.”
Tyler Colby runs the martial arts studio where the detective and I both practice. Once upon a time, he vouched for each of us to the other. He also pitted us in a sparring match that lasted longer than any I’ve ever witnessed. It ended in a draw.
His word still counted with me; I hoped it did with her.
“So can I? Go home, that is.”
Voices approached from somewhere around the right side of the Marshall mansion. I shot a panicked look at Lila, who cocked her head sideways, gave me a strange look, then nodded. “I do know where I can find you. You and your beautiful golden.”
I smiled. “Midas is a heartthrob, isn’t he?”
“Still dateless but for a canine?”
“I know no better.”
I heard a snicker, and when I looked away from the detective, I saw another familiar face. This one belonged to a blue-uniformed man.
“Is that the best you can do?” he asked.
“Is there a reason you have to go out of your way to bug me? Oh, I get it. You’re stuck back in sixth grade.”
The cop roared with laughter. “Yeah, I guess I did ‘bug’ you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Christopher Dylan Thomas. A big, fat, hairy spider in my desk is the kind of bug that’s kind of hard to forget. But I’d think you’d have forgotten by now. Especially with all the pranks you played over the years.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled—he’d turned out quite well, in a blond, blue-eyed, California surfer way. Still, a woman had to cling to her dignity, even in the face of so much masculine beauty.
He crossed his arms. “I did forget all about it, but you reminded me that time you called to report a break-in.”
“You were a pain that time too. The least you can do is be a gentleman and not annoy the daylights out of a woman every time you talk to her. Especially during an emergency.”
“But it’s so much fun to ‘bug’ you.” He narrowed his gaze. “Hey! Are you about to barf? With your stomach and how you keep getting mixed up in homicides, I’d bet you’re having buckets of fun. Get it? Buckets?”
“Ahem!” Lila did not look amused. “Please resume the nostalgia some other time. Officer Thomas, you and the guys might enjoy gallows humor, but remember, you have a job to do. And, Haley? Expect my call.”
Chris’s ears reddened, but he shot straight to attention, nodded, then hurried off toward the body.
I arched a brow. “Quite an effect you have. As opposed to my lack thereof.”
“I keep a tight rein on my crime scene investigations. I’m good at my job, and I want to continue that way.”
“You know, you’ve told me that a time or twenty. I got the picture then, so I think I’m going to leave you to your job. That you do so well, you know.”
Lila frowned.
Dutch snorted.
I glared.
“One of these days,” he said, “that mouth of yours isn’t going to get you out of the trouble it got you into in the first place.”
I winced. “Okay. So this is where I take my foot out of my mouth and creep away into the sunset.”
With measured but hurried footsteps, I made my escape. As my trusty portfolio slapped my thigh, I mentally kicked myself for my verbal blunders. When I gave up on that futile endeavor, I went for wisdom. “Lord? Why did you give me a mouth with a life of its own?”
While my trusty Honda started right up, God didn’t respond as easily.
It figures. Nothing good comes easy.
At the manse I parked the car in the driveway and ran inside. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” I told my dad, “but you’ll never believe what happened.”
He set down his newspaper, laid his half-moon reading glasses on top, then smiled. “Try me, honey.”
I collapsed into my late mother’s rocker, a maple piece that holds treasured memories. “I told you earlier that I was going to meet with a potential client this evening.”
“Mmm...”
“Well, I did, but that’s when things went really, really bad. We found a dead body on her patio.”
“You did what?”
“You heard me. Deedee Marshall went to show me her patio, since she and her husband want to knock down the whole back wall of their house to take advantage of the view of Lake Union, and when we got there, we found a teenager collapsed in a sea of blood.”
He closed his eyes. His lips moved in silent prayer. A moment later he asked, “What happened?”
“Hmm... You know? I can’t really say. I know people don’t just bleed for no reason. But I don’t know if she was in an accident or...”
I met his gaze. “I don’t know why I feel this way, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an accident.”
“You said it. People don’t just bleed to d
eath. Something made the girl bleed. And there are only two logical possibilities. If you say it didn’t appear to be the result of an accident, then I’d have to say you can’t be too far off in your way of thinking.”
“I know. But I don’t want it to be.”
“What, Haley? What is it you don’t want it to be?”
Of course, Dad knew what I wanted to avoid. He knew how hard it was for me to find Marge Norwalk, the woman who helped me through the roughest moments in my life, dead in a pool of her own blood. Dad also knew, better than anyone, how I’d avoided dealing with the aftermath of the attack I suffered nearly five years ago now.
The look on his face told me I wasn’t about to get away with a dodge, be it cutesy or funny or cowardly in any way. I’d come too far in the last year to backslide now.
“I don’t want it to be, but I’m pretty sure I stumbled on another murder.”
After Dad made me put my greatest fear into words, I finally broke down and cried. He let my tears pour. Then, when my sobs began to ease, he sat in the armchair at my side. I reached for his hand.
“I’m sorry I’m so chicken, but thanks.”
“I understand why you’re hesitant,” he said, a gentle smile on his face. “But you don’t have to be. Remember God’s words to Joshua.”
I gave him a crooked smile. “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
“Wow! And in the King James, no less.”
“Mrs. Merchant didn’t like what she called newfangled versions, remember? Not even for third-grade Sunday schoolers.”
“She was good though. I’m impressed that you remember.”
“I remember the verse, but I don’t remember to do what it says—not often enough.”
“The life of faith isn’t easy, honey. It’s tough to bring your will to the cross of Christ and accept the Father’s will in its place. We humans want to know what we’re getting into ahead of time, and we like to control our days. But that’s not what God calls us to do.”