They might have done this thing together. He might have killed the husband out of jealousy or because he didn’t like the way he treated her or she convinced him to do it. I don’t know, and neither do you.
Maybe Harley had been involved, and I just didn’t want to admit it. If he’d managed to get out of his restraints, he could have murdered Dennis, too.
An officer stopped me at the gate. I explained that Mrs. Risko had called me, and that she had discovered the body and she was the owner of the firm where Mr. Lane worked.
“You knew the victim?” the patrolman asked.
“Yes. I worked with Mr. Lane, and Mrs. Risko discovered the body and then she called me,” I said like a mantra, as a senior officer approached us. I parked my car in a visitor’s space and realized with a start that the approaching officer was Larkin, the older of the two detectives who had interviewed me after Charlie’s death. I hoped he didn’t recognize me. Of course, he did. There just weren’t that many murders in Grovesville, and as a ranking detective he’d grabbed them both.
“I’ll take her up,” he told the patrolman. As we headed out of the parking lot, he turned to me with a halfhearted smile. “This doesn’t seem to be your month, does it, ma’am? You have a knack for showing up at murder scenes. Sure you’re not Jessica Fletcher in Technicolor, always somewhere around when a murder takes place?” He winked then guffawed at his own joke. “You trying out for a role on Murder, She Wrote?” he added, in case I didn’t get it the first time.
“I knew the victim,” I said somberly, hoping to remind the detective that although this might be funny to him it wasn’t to me. He got the hint.
“Sorry, miss,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of killings here, and sometimes it gets to you, especially one as gruesome as this. Come on, I’ll take you up so you can comfort your friend. But I do have to tell you this: I won’t be buying any houses from Risko Realty anytime soon,” he said, with a fleeting grin. One more stab at gallows humor at my expense.
But the man had a point. This was the second time in less than a week that I’d comforted one of my coworkers in the discovery of a “loved” one, though I wasn’t absolutely sure if Dennis Lane was all that to Tanya Risko. Whatever he was, she’d found him dead the same way Vinton had found Juda, and for an uncomfortable moment I wondered if the detective was right. Was the gift responsible for this, putting me in places I shouldn’t be? At least, there was no nutmeg this time, so I should count myself lucky.
“Mrs. Risko, your friend is here,” the detective said as he knocked on the office manager’s door and led me into the stylishly decorated office. The furniture and décor befitted the upscale nature of the place. I could only imagine what Dennis’s apartment had looked like. No wonder he was always quick to grab his laptop and work from home. The night Charlie died he must have come back for it. He must have known more about Charlie’s murder than he was letting on. Or somebody thought he did.
“You okay, miss?” That thought disturbed me, and Larkin must have noticed the slight shift in my body.
“I’m Mrs. Jones,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“No ghosts this time.” He delivered a last, parting shot.
Tanya sat at the manager’s desk, the chair turned away from the door to face a large picture window. She didn’t turn around when we walked in. I wasn’t sure that she knew I was there. Her cell phone was clasped tightly in her hand, and her arm hung off the edge of the chair. I sat down in the chair beside her, putting my phone on vibrate. The last thing we needed to hear was the duck.
“Tanya, are you okay?”
She turned to confront me, eyes swollen, all color gone from her face. Her voice was so low I couldn’t hear her, so I leaned forward, touching her hand. She jumped, as if startled. I wondered if she recognized me. Her eyes were wide and she gazed into space, slowly shaking her head in disbelief.
“What happened?” I could see the lost girl with no pretense, the child her Pa Nettie loved and cared for, Harley’s first love. I could see the frightened eyes of all the battered women I’d comforted during my volunteer time in the shelter, when there was nothing to do but listen. She started from the beginning, telling her story in a halting voice.
“He called me this afternoon. We had this, uh . . . Thursday afternoon thing where we’d meet sometimes. Started when I was with Charlie, and we hadn’t met in a while, but he said he wanted us to get together today because he wanted to share something with me that might come in handy one day. He didn’t say what, just something.”
“He didn’t say who it was about?”
“No, just that I might need it to protect myself from someone who I shouldn’t be trusting.”
“Did he sound worried or scared?”
She made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, then shook her head. “Dennis was never scared. Not even of Charlie. He could be a big bully, too. Just like Charlie. Using stuff against people, just like Charlie.”
I nodded that I understood; nearly everybody else had said it, too.
“So I called Harley to see if he knew what Dennis was talking about, but . . .”
“Why would Harley know?”
She shrugged. “I just thought he might, and I’d been trying to call him, but he wasn’t answering his phone, and I wanted to see if he knew. But he didn’t answer. Do you think he’s okay?”
I was beginning to worry about Harley, too, but not for the reasons she thought. Old doubts were creeping in. Like everybody else, he had a passkey to this place.
Or maybe I was going in the wrong direction. The police weren’t treating Tanya like a suspect, not yet anyway. But you could never tell with cops. They always knew more than they let on, always kept the important stuff to themselves. Lennox came to mind and what he’d say if he knew “the widow” had been in such close proximity to another murder victim, maybe her lover.
“Do you think they let you smoke in here? I have an e-cigarette. You know, like a JUUL. It’s grapefruit. It takes my mind off stuff. Do you think they’ll let me smoke it?” That took me by surprise, reminding me how young she was.
“If I were you, Tanya, I wouldn’t do it now,” I said, which was the best advice I could give her. “What happened next?” The detective said Dennis’s murder was brutal. How brutal could somebody Tanya’s size be?
“Like I said, I called Harley, and didn’t get him, so I left him a message, and then I drove over here. I called Dennis from downstairs but he didn’t buzz me in.”
She leaned back in the chair, as if trying to remember or too tired to tell the rest.
My phone vibrated. Vinton’s name came on the screen, and I answered it.
He sounded as if he was out of breath and could hardly get the words out of his mouth. “You okay, Dessa? I’ve been scared out of my mind. There was this report on the TV, about another murder of a local Realtor. A real smart-aleck news guy said it like it was some kind of joke. I was scared it was you.”
“I’m okay.”
“Bertie? You think it’s Bertie? I—”
“No, it’s Dennis Lane, Vinton. I’m here at his place with Tanya.”
“Tanya killed Dennis Lane! Didn’t I tell you . . . ?”
“I’m not sure what happened.” I glanced at Tanya, but her mind seemed somewhere else.
“But you don’t know, do you?” I could imagine Vinton squinting his eyes with suspicion. “Thank God Harley Wilde can’t leave his house. One less suspect we have to worry about!”
“I’ll call you later, Vinton,” I said and hung up. Tanya covered her face with her hands and slowly spread her fingers apart, gazing at me like a child playing peek-a-boo. I smiled slightly like you might with a kid, letting them know you can be trusted, and she dropped her hands back in her lap.
“You called Dennis from downstairs,” I said, beginning where she’d left off.
“When he still didn’t buzz me up, I thought I’d better check on him myself. I wanted to know what he was talking about, why he sounded
like he did. I took the elevator to his floor and let myself in. I have a key.” She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, then her words poured out in a rush.
“Everything blanked after I saw him. I don’t even remember calling the cops, but I must have because they came quick. There was blood everywhere. The gash in the back of his head was so deep I couldn’t look at it. They say head wounds bleed more than anything else and they’re right. He was in the living room in front of the bar, lying on that fluffy white rug I helped him pick out when he first moved in here, and there was blood all over it, and he was dead. There was glass there, too, all around him, and the cops said that was what killed him. That stupid bottle.”
“What stupid bottle?” I said, trying to put together what she was talking about.
She looked at me as if I was the one not making sense. “That bottle he kept with all the others on his bar. He had four of them. Somebody took one and bashed in his head.”
“The cold duck?” I asked in amazement.
She nodded her head with a slit of a smile. “You’d think if the killer was going to kill a guy like Dennis Lane, he would have picked up a bottle of Moët,” she said.
As had happened before with Tanya Risko, her words left me speechless. She’d said “he.” Was it just a chance choice of pronoun or did she know more than she was letting on?
There were three men who held a grudge murderous enough to kill both Charlie and Dennis: Vinton, Harley, and Louella’s “Red,” who “didn’t have the heart.” I had assumed that none of them had the heart. But of course, that was the gift, whispering false glimmerings and fake truth.
Vinton could have shot Charlie from pure and simple revenge. He could have made it over here today, come up behind Dennis, surprising him and swinging that bottle with such rage it could have killed him. Or Harley, whose first love, Tanya, had been “dirtied,” then abused by Charlie. Tanya could have told him in her message that Dennis knew something about Charlie’s killer. Could he have gotten out of his apartment? And there was Red, built like a prizefighter, who would have had the biggest motive of all. They had destroyed his family, robbing his daughter of her legacy. Could that have been the real reason he came back?
“Why did you smile when you said that about the cold duck?” I asked her. “The man is dead. It’s not funny.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of funny, in a non-funny way?” she said.
I understood for the first time why this girl had no glimmer. I wondered if that meant she could be a killer, too, a sociopath who gave nothing out and took everything people had to give. She looked straight ahead, avoiding my eyes.
“He was starting to hit me, too. Dennis was, but I didn’t kill him,” she said, as if reading my mind. “Do you think I killed him, too?” she asked, her voice incredulous.
My vibrating phone saved me from answering her. It was a text from Aunt Phoenix, a new quote from Maya Angelou with the words in quotation marks followed by a flower emoji.
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. Sometimes Aunt Phoenix hit it out of the park, but this was a sure enough ground ball. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Better stick to the Pick 4, Aunt P. And give that cherry brandy a rest. I texted her back with a smirk.
Listen to your mama’s gift was her swift response, making me wonder what gift she was texting about: the amulet that didn’t talk, or the gift my mother didn’t give?
Tanya grabbed my hand to get my attention, sensing that I was ready to leave, holding it so tightly I didn’t think she was going to let me go. “You are the only one I could call. Thank you for being here. I don’t have anybody else,” she whispered before releasing me.
“I’m happy I came,” I said, hiding my doubts about this puzzling young woman and glad to be leaving.
I was getting into my car when a text came through, displaying a number I didn’t recognize. I thought it might be Lennox checking to make sure everything was okay, and I called back. It was Harley Wilde, calling from somebody else’s phone.
“Bertie!” was the only word he muttered before he hung up.
I called her cell, then her home number. There was no answer on either. Something bad had happened, I was sure of that. I backed out of the parking lot and made my way to Bertie Jefferson’s place, driving as fast as I could.
Chapter 20
I was scared for Bertie, Louella, and for myself as I headed somewhere I probably shouldn’t be going. Fear had turned my stomach into a knot. Under good circumstances, I’m not the best driver in the world: My mind wanders. Darryl used to scold me about it, but it didn’t do much good. My mind was wandering now, racing with so many questions I felt dizzy.
I pulled over to the side of the road, took a deep breath like they tell you to do when you’re anxious, and tried to get myself together. Should I call the police? What would I say? Bertie! The name Harley had uttered. It would sound like a crank call and get the attention it deserved, which was none. Did he want me to go to Bertie’s? Was he there himself? If he was, he was free of his ankle restraint, which said more about him than I wanted to admit.
They might have done this thing together. Lennox’s suspicions hit me again, along with Tanya’s question asked with disbelief. Do you think I killed him, too? I simply didn’t know.
What if it had nothing to do with Tanya or Harley? Maybe Louella had called Harley and told him to reach out to me. Or Bertie had asked him herself. And there was the matter of Avon Bailey. Could he have killed Charlie, then Dennis, and showed up at Bertie’s to lay claim to his daughter? Did Bertie try to stop him? But then how would Harley know?
I got back on the road and found Bertie’s house on a poorly lit block of single-family homes. She lived in an older neighborhood that had seen better times, a struggling street filled with struggling folks working hard to keep what they had, like Bertie did. A child’s pink bike lay on the sidewalk in front of Bertie’s small one-story house; Erika’s, I assumed. I remembered how excited Bertie had been when she bought it on eBay, like with those hot-pink gloves she was so proud of, despite Vinton’s criticism. I felt a pang of sympathy and affection toward my friend, with her quick temper and kind heart. What had happened to her? Was she okay?
I parked down the street from the house, midway between a gray Ford, about the same age as mine, and a black Chevrolet. A late-model Mercedes sitting in front of the stairs to her yard got my attention. Fancy cars like that weren’t usually found in this part of town. Most folks here drove cars like mine, always secondhand and often on their third owner. This one looked new, as if it had just driven out of a car wash. It belonged to somebody with money or power, and that wasn’t Bertie. I peeked into the car as I walked past. The two well-dressed women talking and sitting inside looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them. I must have seen them at some posh spot where I rarely went and they’d made an impression.
When I walked up to the house, my breath caught in my throat. Harley Wilde, agitated and weeping, sat on the stairs, his head in his hands. He pointed to Bertie’s place. I didn’t think I could move because I knew the worst had happened.
Yet there was no trace of nutmeg.
Out of nowhere, a police cruiser—lights flashing, sirens blaring—pulled up behind the Mercedes, and two officers jumped out. One was short and plump with red hair and freckles, the other lanky and tall with cocoa-colored skin. Guns drawn, they rushed over to where Harley sat and surrounded him. Harley raised his hands above his head and slowly stood up, tripping over the restraint attached firmly to his right ankle. The redhead shoved him toward the police car and pushed him down on the hood.
“He’s still got it on,” said the lanky officer to his partner, who glanced at the restraint with a puzzled look.
Neither noticed me standing off to the side. They did, however, see the two women sitting in the car and turned to confront
them, the red-haired officer demanding to see a driver’s license, which the driver promptly gave him.
“Oh, crap,” he said, loud enough for me to hear him. He handed it to the other officer, who shook his head and gave it back. Then he turned to the driver. “Mrs. Grace, are you all right?” he asked, his voice tightly polite.
“Of course I’m all right,” said Laura Grace from the Aging Readers Club, mink coat tossed carelessly around her shoulders. Hands above her head, she climbed out of the car. Margaret Sullivan, in a blue peacoat, hands held high, followed suit.
“This man is a felon. Were you ladies aware of that?” stammered the redhead.
“He’s not a felon yet because he hasn’t been tried and convicted,” snapped Laura Grace, hands still up. “And if you knew the laws you’re enforcing, you would know that.” She paused to stare intently at the other officer. “I know you,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You were in my sixth-grade Bible study group at St. Mark’s. Please give your mother my best.”
“We’re the ones you should be arresting,” said Margaret Sullivan, looming over the short policeman. “We kidnapped him. We ordered him to get into the car. We’re responsible for him being here, not the other way around.”
“Maybe we should call Chief Grace,” the tall policeman said in a low voice.
“And say what? We just pulled over your mother for kidnapping a prisoner?”
“We got to do something!”
“I should be treated like everybody else,” said Laura Grace. “The law is the law.”
“I guess they can put their hands down,” said the short officer, which the ladies did.
The officers exchanged quick glances, neither knowing what to do. The short one stayed to guard the “prisoners” while the other put a call in to the precinct. Between arresting Harley and the ladies of the Aging Readers Club, they paid no attention to me. I looked around the side of Bertie’s house and saw the back door was ajar. I quickly slipped inside.
A Glimmer of Death Page 20