The two women sat side by side on the remains of the front steps, wiping eyes and noses, content for the moment just to be in each other’s company. Missy took Sarah’s hand and squeezed it.
“I want you to know that I love you, and Grayson loves you, and in just a few days, you’re going to become that fine young man’s wife. You two are a part of my family, and you’re both going to make me so proud,” she wrapped an arm around Sarah’s shoulders, and the young woman leaned into her gratefully.
“I’m sorry that I scared Grayson,” she murmured.
“Well, I’m taking you back to the inn with me. We’ll get you set up in our guest room and you can take a nice hot bath and give that man of yours a call. He’s been worried sick at the thought of losing you.”
“I can’t wait to hear his voice,” Sarah admitted shyly. “I’ve missed him so much.”
“Then let’s get you home. We have a wedding to finish planning,” Missy smiled and stood, offering her hand to Sarah, who clasped it as though she were hanging on for dear life.
“Yeah, let’s go home,” she nodded.
CHAPTER 8
Chas Beckett regarded the woman in his office. Petaluma Myers sat defiantly, arms crossed, legs splayed out in front of her, in the chair across from his desk.
“I don’t have no idea what you’re talking about, and I really want you to hurry up and get this over with so I can go have a cigarette,” she complained, eyeing Chas with hostility.
“Ms. Myers, if you don’t cooperate with my investigation by answering some questions, you may not be going anywhere other than a holding cell,” the detective replied mildly. “We’re here as a courtesy to you. If you’re going to make this difficult, we can certainly relocate to an interrogation room.”
“Well you don’t have to get huffy about it,” Petaluma pouted. “It ain’t like I done somethin’ wrong.”
“Where were you between the hours of one and four o’clock this morning?” the detective ignored the commentary.
“How graphic do you want the details,” she leered, giving him a lewd wink.
“Where were you?” Chas repeated, devoid of expression and wishing he had a strong cup of coffee and an air freshener.
“I was in bed with my man and we were…” she began playfully.
“Address?” the detective interrupted.
Petaluma gave him Steve’s address.
“Tell me about your altercation with Nari Lee.”
“My what, with who?” she blinked at him, befuddled.
“You had a disagreement with the young woman who worked at the flower shop,” Chas prompted, trying not to sigh.
“Oh, pshhh… that wasn’t nothing. She just thought that I was a sloppy old drunk, so I put her in her place. No biggie,” she shrugged.
The detective stared at her for a moment. “Let’s start at the beginning…”
***
After Missy had gotten Sarah settled into the guest room of the owner’s quarters in the inn, her doorbell rang, and she closed her eyes briefly before going to answer it, hoping that nothing else catastrophic had happened.
Echo brushed past Missy when she opened the door and sat down on one of the barstools in the kitchen.
“You are not going to believe this,” the wide-eyed redhead began.
“At this point, I’d believe just about anything,” Missy sighed, putting water in the tea kettle and placing it on the stove. “What now?” she asked, not certain that she wanted to know.
“Kel and the realtor were doing another walk-through at my house, and when they came back out, they saw Petaluma being loaded into the back of a patrol car.”
Missy blinked at her friend for a moment, at a loss, then plopped onto a barstool, dropping her head into her hands.
“Let me guess… drunk and disorderly?”
Echo shrugged her shoulders. “No idea.”
“Did they take Steve too?”
“Nope, just her.”
“Wow, I wonder if they had a fight and she hit him or something?” Missy mused, getting back up as the tea kettle started a low whistle.
“They didn’t. Kel said that Petaluma was yelling and clinging to Steve until they held up handcuffs. Then she went quietly.”
“Did he hear what they were saying?”
“No, but it was pretty clear that she wasn’t happy about whatever it was.”
“Great. Grayson’s getting married in a few days and his mother may be in jail.”
Neither woman had seen Sarah slip quietly into the room, and they were startled when she spoke.
“Petaluma is in jail?” she whispered, horrified.
“We don’t know that for certain, honey,” Missy held up a hand of caution. “But she did get into a patrol car.”
“Why? What happened?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I had no idea that she was even here. Grayson wasn’t sure that she’d bother coming to the wedding.”
“She’s been here for a little while, staying with my next door neighbor,” Echo explained. “It’s a long story, but as soon as we find out what’s happening, we’ll let you know.”
“Should I tell Grayson?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Let’s just see what happens first,” Missy advised. “There’s no sense in upsetting him if we don’t have to.”
***
Before he had taken his wife out of town, Jeong Lee had gone to the floral shop where his stepdaughter worked. The concerned stepfather had come into Nari’s room while Chas and his team were looking for clues, and turned over a videotape which clearly showed Petaluma yelling at and trying to intimidate his stepdaughter. The only alibi that Grayson’s mother had was Loud Steve, who had allegedly been drinking with her and engaging in other various sorts of debauchery during the time period when Nari was murdered. While the evidence in the case so far was circumstantial, it certainly didn’t paint a positive picture for Grayson’s mother, whose status was moving from being a person of interest in the case to being a suspect.
Since the detective still wanted to do some digging into Nari’s relationship with Logan Greitzer, he released Petaluma to Steve’s care, with a stern warning that if she tried to leave town, she’d be arrested for murder. Chas had looked into the background of the councilman’s son and had found some things that made him want to take a closer look. Some of the accusations that had been levelled at the entitled young man were apparently harmless, but when scrutinized together with other offenses and the fact that he’d been dating a murder victim, a more sinister picture began to emerge.
***
“Please note that there is indication of sexual activity. Samples were taken for possible DNA, and abrasions on the victim indicate that the encounter may not have been consensual. Also note that the victim was approximately nine weeks pregnant,” Tim dictated to Fiona, as he examined the remains of Nari Lee.
“Holy cow, did the perp violate her before she was murdered?” his assistant asked.
“It’s possible,” he replied absently, intent upon his work.
“There is significant bruising on the back of the head.”
“Blunt instrument?” Fiona asked, taking notes.
“Not likely. The indication is impact, as though the killer may have slammed her head against a wall, or the floor.”
“Wow, sounds like there should be plenty of physical evidence left in the place where she was actually killed.”
“One would presume,” Tim murmured. “The lobes of the ears are torn, and the tearing took place post-mortem.”
“Hmm… do you think that maybe her attacker was a thief, and they stole her earrings after they killed her?”
“I think that’s perhaps what the perpetrator would like us to believe,” the mortician blinked rapidly behind his thick glasses.
“You mean they did it as an afterthought to try to throw the police off?” Fiona raised an eyebrow.
“It’s plausible,” her boss nodded.
> “But why would someone do that?”
“Usually to cover up the fact that the victim knew them. They throw in possibilities like rape and robbery to make it seem like the random, heinous act of a stranger.”
“Makes sense. You’re really good at this stuff, maybe you should have been a detective,” she teased, knowing that Tim would be appalled at the suggestion.
“Nonsense, I’ve found my niche, thank you very much. Besides, why would I want to work with the living?” He continued his examination unperturbed.
***
“Felicia Derry?” Chas asked the young woman who answered the door of an expensive downtown apartment.
“Who wants to know?” she asked seductively, her eyes roving over the handsome detective.
“Detective Chas Beckett,” was the reply as he flashed his badge.
The woman’s demeanor changed instantly.
“I’m Felicia, what do you want?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her midsection.
“I need to ask you some questions, may I come in?”
“I have to get to work in like an hour and I still haven’t had coffee, and…” she began backing away from the door, making excuses.
“I’m here as part of a homicide investigation. We can either talk here or I can take you down to the station and we can talk there, it’s up to you,” Chas’ gaze was steely.
Felicia stopped short and stared at him with her elegant mouth open. “Homicide? Who was killed?” her eyes darted back and forth.
“Does that mean we’re talking here?” the detective asked pointedly.
“Oh! Uh… yeah, come in. Don’t mind the mess, the housekeeper doesn’t come until tomorrow,” she murmured, leading him into a tastefully decorated living room.
A Siamese cat meowed plaintively at them when they sat down, Felicia on the couch, Chas in a wing-back chair. When Felicia ignored the pampered pet, she began twining around Chas’s ankles and purring, leaving a trail of silky fur on the bottom of his trouser legs. The detective couldn’t help himself and reached down to pet the purring feline.
“She’s friendly,” he remarked, gazing into the cat’s china-blue eyes.
“She hates men usually.”
“At least she’s a good judge of character,” the detective quipped, then sat back up and took out his pen and notebook.
“So who died?” Felicia asked again.
“We’ll get to that. I wanted to ask you about the nature of your relationship with Logan Greitzer.”
“Logan? Why?” she seemed confused.
Chas merely raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to answer the question. She finally took the hint.
“I wouldn’t call what I had with Logan a relationship,” she replied at last, her tone tinged with what sounded like bitterness.
“What would you call it?” he asked, as the cat jumped lightly into his lap and lay down, purring. He’d have to use the lint roller that he kept in his glove compartment, but he didn’t mind the presence of the lovely animal at all. Missy’s dogs, a golden retriever named Toffee, and a maltipoo named Bitsy would subject him to some very suspicious sniffing when he got home.
“A sick and twisted arrangement if you must know,” Felicia’s voice was low.
“How so?”
“Logan and I had a wild night together last summer. We met at a party and continued the party afterwards on our own. When the police found us, we were naked at the beach and had some weed in our possession. Logan said his dad could get us out of trouble, but that I had to pay a price for it,” she dropped her eyes as the color rose in her cheeks.
“What kind of price?”
“Sexual favors. I had to accommodate Logan whenever he came around, and he liked to play rough, if you know what I mean, so I finally told him I felt like I had ‘paid’ enough. He was angry and used me for a punching bag, but what he didn’t know is that I had been worried about what he would do when I finally told him no, and I had set up cameras, which captured the whole interaction.”
“Did you go to the police?” Chas asked, frowning. He didn’t recall seeing any domestic violence reports under her name when he checked her records.
Felicia shook her head. “No. I used the same tactic that Logan did. I told him that I had the evidence, and that if he ever darkened my doorstep again, I’d use it. I also told him that if anything happened to me, my sister would go to the police with her copy of the tape.”
“Did he know your sister?”
She barked a harsh, dry, humorless laugh. “Detective, I don’t have a sister. Logan didn’t even know me well enough to know that I was lying about that. He wasn’t exactly big on conversation.”
“I noticed,” Chas commented dryly. “Has he bothered you since then?”
“He texted me once and I told him where he could go and how to get there.”
“So, why are you telling me this now, if you didn’t want to go to the police before?”
“Because I figure that if you’re here asking about a homicide and the first name you mention is Logan Greitzer, either he upset the wrong person and got killed, or he killed someone and this stupid assault tape will be the least of his worries,” she shrugged. “Besides, if he’s either dead or going to jail, I don’t have to watch my back anymore.”
“Do you have the tape?” Chas asked.
“I have several. I made lots of copies, because, even though I don’t have a sister, I do have friends who look out for me, and they have copies. They don’t know what’s on the tape, but they have copies.”
“Do any of your friends know about Logan?”
“No, I never mention him to anyone, he’s a pig,” Felicia’s lower lip trembled slightly before she intentionally set her mouth in a hard line.
“Just for the record, what do you do for a living?”
“I work in a jewelry store.”
Chas nodded and handed her his card.
“Thank you for your time. If you think of anything else that you can tell me about Logan, please give me a call.”
“There’s nothing else to tell. Thankfully, I hardly know the scumbag.”
CHAPTER 9
Spencer knew better than to open his eyes when he regained consciousness. The only way he’d be able to learn more about his immediate environment would be to convince his foes that he was still unconscious. He made certain to keep his breathing at a slow, even pace, as though he was sleeping, and didn’t allow his eyelids to even flicker. He couldn’t swallow, that was a dead giveaway, so he simply allowed the saliva that pooled in his mouth to slide down the back of his throat on its own, thankful that he at least had been left lying on his back.
Listening to the breathing in the room, he detected at least four other people, and hoped that two of them might be Janssen and Steve Arnold. He did wonder if the foreign operatives had been sent in to rescue Steve, in which case, he and Janssen would be outnumbered. Looking through slitted lids, he noticed that the room in which he was being kept was not well lit. He tried to identify his location by any particular smells, and could only detect the scent of hamburgers hanging in the air. They had to have been recently consumed, and apparently someone in the room had been fond of raw onion.
Surely the operatives wouldn’t have selected the kitchen as the best place for confining two of the most skilled men of “Command.” Spencer and Janssen were known for being masters of escape, and had finessed their way out of captivity on too many occasions to count. Many times they had allowed themselves to be “captured” so that they could gain access to inner sanctums which would otherwise be closed to them. The two seasoned Marines were a formidable force, and Spencer was confident that it would only be a matter of time before they subdued the foreign operatives so that they could decide what needed to be done with Steve Arnold.
An ampule, designed to wake him up, was cracked open under his nostrils, and he pretended to regain consciousness, making note of all that he saw, immediately upon opening his eyes.
He di
dn’t recognize the swarthy man standing over him with an automatic weapon.
“Wake up,” the operative ordered, kicking Spencer in the ribs.
The Marine had been secured to a portable cot, with rope and duct tape. There were bonds and strips of tape across his legs, arms, torso and neck, and though he felt like he had some freedom of motion, he didn’t move, not wanting the foreign operatives to know that he wasn’t as tightly bound as they thought. He wasn’t being kept in the kitchen either, though there was a plate with a half-eaten burger near his head that was probably placed there to confuse his senses and arouse his hunger. They were in one of the bunk rooms of the confinement facility, rather than in a cell, which Spencer found strange until he realized that the cells had windows, where outsiders could see whether or not there were lights or shadows moving about inside, whereas the bunk rooms had concrete walls with no windows, a perfect place to hunker down and wait for your prey to come to you.
Steve Arnold had blood on his shirt, but didn’t appear to be wounded. He was also secured to a cot and was giving Spencer what looked like an apologetic look, something that was quite unusual for him. It took a tremendous amount of strength for the Marine not to react when he saw Janssen strapped to a cot like he was. His friend’s color was grey, and he was sweating profusely. His eyes were glazed and staring off into an uninhabited corner of the room, and now that Spencer was more in tune with sensory information, he could smell the infection that oozed from bullet wounds that Janssen had sustained. It did not look good for the scarred Marine, and Spencer’s blood boiled. He had to get his friend some medical attention immediately. Janssen was not going to leave this world suffering on a cot in the middle of nowhere. No way. When his friend passed into the hereafter, it would most certainly be as the result of a valiant warrior’s death.
The phone in the hand of the other foreign operative rang, and he answered in Farsi. Clearly he had no idea that Spencer, Janssen, and Arnold knew the language well enough to speak and understand it, so he stayed in the room to have a conversation with someone who was apparently a high ranking official.
Spiced Latte Killer: Book 10 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 5