What Doesn't Kill You

by Aimee Hix

  Copyright Information

  What Doesn’t Kill You: A Willa Pennington, PI Mystery © 2018 by Aimee Hix.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2017

  E-book ISBN:

  Acquired by Terri Bischoff

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Shira Atakpu

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hix, Aimee, author.

  Title: What doesn’t kill you / Aimee Hix.

  Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota: Midnight Ink, [2018] |

  Series: A Willa Pennington, PI mystery; #1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029389 (print) | LCCN 2017038985 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738755151 | ISBN 9780738754437 (softcover: acid-free paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Women private investigators—Fiction. | Missing

  persons—Investigation—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. |

  GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.I95 (ebook) | LCC PS3608.I95 W48 2018 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029389

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

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  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightinkbooks.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  I dedicate this book to my beloved daughter.

  Precious Girl, remember, if fear rears its ugly head,

  look it right in the eye and spit in its face.

  Chapter

  1

  Cop face settled down onto my features. Impassive, in control, unflappable. Involuntarily, my hand went to my holster, finding nothing. Old habits were hard to break, and apparently four months off the force wasn’t long enough.

  I should have been surprised to see Joe Reagan staring back at me, I just wasn’t. I’d known this favor was going to end up biting me in the ass. Didn’t they always? I was told he would be out of the house when I arrived to help his live-in girlfriend, Violet Horowitz, move out. So it was less than ideal that he was there, especially since he was sporting two holes in his faded t-shirt and lying in a pool of blood just inside the back door. At least he wasn’t going to show up halfway through moving her out and pitch a fit. The only other silver lining I could see was that I wasn’t going to have to fill out the paperwork.

  I looked back down through the window at his body, hand flung out toward the refrigerator. It was obvious he hadn’t much cared about appearances. Short, poorly cut hair framed a face of slack features, but he’d been decent-looking. A solid seven when his blood had been inside his body and not all over the cracked, yellowing linoleum. The t-shirt and stained jeans were more evidence that bowing to society’s obsession with appearance had not been high on Joe’s list of priorities.

  Pulling the sleeve of my hoodie down over my hand, I gave the knob a gentle twist. Locked. I hurried down the steps and around the side of the house to the front porch. There was a good, solid wood door like all houses used to have before subdivisions started popping up like candy from a Pez dispenser. With no windows, it was secure as hell and also locked. Pressing the doorbell, I listened to the ring strangle into a rattling noise. Of course.

  Blistered, peeling paint and signs of ill maintenance were everywhere. The front of the house looked even worse than the back, if that was possible. There were stains on the concrete stepping stones, the edges rounded and chipped from age and mistreatment. The fall grass was overgrown and untidy.

  I walked down the uneven wooden steps riddled with splits. Standing on the gravel walk, I looked up to the windows of the second floor but nothing moved. Not even a twitch of the curtains. I returned to the back of the house where I’d parked. I took another long look at the back door, this time for signs of forced entry or a hasty getaway. Nothing appeared out of place, but I knew it wouldn’t. I’d have noticed while knocking my knuckles raw just a few minutes ago.

  A breeze ruffled through the few dry leaves still left on the dormant trees, highlighting how quiet and removed the house was from the rest of the neighborhood. The overcast November day was eerie enough without stumbling across a body. I suppressed a shiver as I eyed the wooded lot to the side of the house. There was no menacing figure in a hockey mask. Not that I saw. The scene was certainly set for a horror flick, though. Deserted house down a quiet lane, a dead body. And me without my usual badge and gun. Not that those ever seemed to stop psycho killers in the movies.

  So, no masked killer and no Violet Horowitz in some kind of fugue state, clutching a smoking gun after killing her allegedly abusive boyfriend in what any crappy television lawyer would argue was self-defense. I really hoped she wasn’t dead in the house too, because I was not up for telling her grandparents that piece of bad news.

  Maybe Violet came home to find Joe dead and she rabbited. It was a possibility. I doubted, given what I knew about her, that she’d have been able to pull herself together enough to drive off after something like that, though.

  Most likely, Violet saw Joe was where he wasn’t supposed to be and backed out of the drive before he noticed that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be either.

  Lowest on the list of possibilities was that Violet had shot Joe. I didn’t know the girl well but if I couldn’t picture her leaving Joe, dead at someone else’s hand, and heading back to the mall, I really couldn’t imagine her gunning him down a la Dirty Harriet. If that girl even knew how to hold a gun I’d be stunned.

  I pulled my phone out to make the call to 911. As I unlocked the screen, my eye caught sight of a depression in the mud next to the bottom stair. I bent over and took a picture of what looked like a boot print. I glanced around the property again while I dialed, this time looking for any other signs of the boot owner. It could have been Joe’s footprint for all I knew. My view of his body hadn’t extended to his feet.

  “911. What’s your emergency?”

  “I’ve got a 10-61 at 114 Jennings Circle. Last entrance, a tenth of a mile past the hydrant.”

  “Badge number, please.”

  I sighed. “I’m not a … I’m a fo
rmer LEO. My name is Willa Pennington.”

  “Dispatching cars, Ms. Pennington.”

  I pressed end on the keypad and dropped the phone into my hoodie pocket, then got in my car and cranked the engine to get the heat going.

  It was less than ten minutes before an ambulance pulled up with the promised Fairfax County Police Department car behind, both in full waffle-mode, lights and sirens blazing. I mentally crossed the fingers on both hands that the uniforms in attendance were ones I had a good rapport with. I hadn’t stepped on too many toes when I was on the force. I’d made only one actual enemy—Tony Harrison. And he hated everyone, so I was less an enemy and more just one person on a long list.

  So, of course, good ole Tony exited the driver’s door.

  Dead guy, strike one.

  Perpetually angry former colleague, strike two.

  I cut the engine and got out of the car. Harrison spotted me and narrowed his eyes. He looked like he wanted me to try something so he could wrestle me to the ground and handcuff me, and not in a sexy way. His antipathy toward humanity in general ran even deeper for women in authority, which I had been the last time I’d come into contact with him.

  The other cop, a rookie just out of the justice academy when I’d turned in my badge in June, ambled over, hands hovering over his shoulder radio and holster. Still greener than lime Jell-O. I kept my hands in full view and tried not to make any sudden, alarming moves. Just in case. Maybe my day would improve if Barney Fife Junior shot me before Harrison even opened his mouth. The kid would probably just shoot himself in the foot, but a girl could hope, right?

  Harrison eyeballed the house and then me like he was trying to decide what to do first—check out the dead body or harass me. My plan was to only answer what was asked so I kept my mouth shut. Let him find it on his own like I did. He chose the house and the wrong door.

  I watched Harrison come back from the front of the house, his lips a tight line. He tripped over the edge of a buckled out stepping stone, catching himself before he face planted. I barely maintained my serious I just found a dead body expression. He managed to glare at me harder, an impressive feat on such an overcast day. He motioned with his head to the rookie and pointed at me.

  “Ma’am? Miss Pennington?” His voice was as soft as his eyes, and if those eyes were any indicator, this kid was not cut out for regular police work and, for certain, not murder. He needed to be on crosswalk duty. Maybe directing traffic out of a church parking lot on Sunday. Officer Friendly doing the elementary school circuit.

  “Do you want me to tell you what happened today, Officer?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. I’ll need to get out my notebook first.”

  I had a feeling he’d be joining me in the former-cop ranks sooner rather than later. I hoped it wasn’t boots first.

  “I arrived at just about eleven forty—”

  “This morning?”

  I had to push down the urge to school him on the cardinal rule of witness statements: Just let them talk. Real life wasn’t like those cop shows where you had forty-two minutes and you needed to cut out all the bullshit so Detectives Pushing Retirement and Hotshot Ladies Man could solve the crime before the final commercial break. Chatty, nervous, rambling witnesses were a cop’s best friend, second only to the neighborhood busybody.

  “Yes, eleven forty this morning, Officer.”

  He nodded. I wondered if I’d be able to get through a full sentence before he interrupted me again.

  “I arrived this morning at approximately eleven forty to help my neighbors’ granddaughter move out.”

  “Of this house?”

  I nodded and looked around trying to see what was keeping Harrison. I would never have believed it if someone had told me that one day I would look forward to talking to him.

  “And then what happened?” He was patient, I’d give him that.

  “I knocked on the door for a bit but no one answered. Probably because the only person home is deceased.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone?”

  “Other than the dead guy? No. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

  I heard another set of car tires crunching on the gravel drive. The cavalry had arrived. I was freed from the purgatorious clutches of both the uniformed officers on scene. The ambulance crew looked relieved too. Detectives on scene meant they could clear out instead of just sitting on the sidelines as a corpse grew colder.

  A tall, imposing woman stepped out of the newly arrived unmarked. It appeared my luck had turned. The boxy jacket, a few years out of fashion, and the signature low bun told me that the senior investigator on the case was Det. Jan Boyd. The role model for my career before everything changed.

  Detective Boyd approached us. Considering that Joe Reagan wasn’t getting any deader, it was the smart move.

  “Officer Pennington, I didn’t know you were on scene,” she said.

  “I’m not with the department anymore, Detective,” I said.

  She lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.

  I saw Harrison barreling toward our little group. Boyd waited until he had stomped the whole way from the house before directing him to take High School Cop back to their car to await the evidence collection team. He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue but didn’t make a sound before turning on his heel and walking back to the black-and-white. I doubted his silence was due to actual deference to Detective Boyd’s skills but more a personnel file thick with complaints, especially considering his stiff gait.

  “Did Harrison give you any trouble, Willa?”

  Holy shit! She knew my first name. Of course, rule number two of interrogation was to build a rapport, get the person feeling comfortable, like you were on their side, so she might have just been playing me. But even if it was just a technique, I felt more comfortable than I had been before she arrived. Harrison had that effect on … well, everyone.

  “I am sure that was on his agenda, but he must have run out of time. Although, and it pains me to admit it, he’s a decent enough cop when his personality doesn’t get in the way.”

  Boyd nodded. “And you were a better-than-decent cop.”

  I saw the hook and the bait and merely shrugged. “Personal reasons,” I said and continued on with relevant information. “The victim’s name is Joe Reagan. I’ll bet you’ll find he has a rap sheet heavy with small-time busts.”

  She looked at me again. Boyd had the best kind of cop face—blank and intimidating—which was great for the cop but not so much for anyone they were talking with. A notebook appeared in her hands while I tried to avoid confessing to Reagan’s murder, the Beltway Sniper shootings, and the Lindbergh kidnapping. She was damn good—I hadn’t killed Reagan, I was thirteen when the sniper shootings happened, and my grandparents hadn’t even been born in 1932.

  I gathered my dignity back up, hopeful Boyd hadn’t noticed my nerves, and continued my statement. “I’m here because I agreed to help my dad’s neighbors out. Their granddaughter, Violet, lived with Reagan. She had accused him of abusing her. They had pictures—

  finger marks on her arm, bruises on her hip, a bite mark. The usual abuser bag of tricks. Allegedly, I mean.”

  Her brown eyes sparked angry for a second before the blank mask settled back on her features.

  “My parents are on a cruise, so the Horowitzes asked me to help her move while Joe was at work. I think they were worried she’d back out.”

  “Or that he’d show up and teach her a lesson?” Boyd asked. “This is pretty isolated from the neighbors. Anyone on the road on the way in?”

  “Not since the parkway. These houses aren’t a subdivision, not as close to schools, no community areas, lots of land, so pricey enough. Probably an older demographic.”

  She looked around again at the rundown property. “Walk me through it, please? Start when you pull into the drive.”


  “I pulled in slowly. There was no one on the lane after the initial clutch of houses and no cars in the driveway. That surprised me. I was early, so maybe Violet hadn’t arrived from work yet. I pulled around the back of the house and backed my car in.”

  I felt Boyd turn to eye me.

  “Just in case we needed to get out quickly. I left enough room to maneuver the car if someone tried to block me in.”

  She turned around to look at the car behind us. “Good plan. Are you carrying?”

  She sounded nonchalant but I knew it was anything but an offhanded question.

  “No. I have a permitted weapon, but it’s at home.”

  “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d brought it.” Her voice had that soft, wheedling quality meant to induce me into contradicting my statement. Fat chance.

  “You’re welcome to search me and my vehicle. I’ll even consent to a GSR.” I hadn’t touched a gun since I’d handed in my badge and service weapon the day I resigned. I pointed to the back door. “At five of noon, I decided to check the house. You’ll notice the back door has no landing, just a top step and then the door. I stood on the fourth step and knocked. When I got no response, I got on the top step to look into the house. I saw Reagan’s body instantly.”

  I paused, expecting her to go look at the scene, but she motioned for me to continue.

  “I headed to the front of the house to see if I could see anything. The front door is solid with no sidelights and there are no windows except on the second floor. I rang the doorbell and got no response.”

  “Do you think she could be in there with him?”

  I looked at the old house, with its aura of defeat and oppression. “I think Violet drove up, saw her boyfriend was home, and turned right around.”

  I’d answered the question she asked, but I knew what was really on Boyd’s mind. She’d have to consider it no matter what her gut told her. If she was even considering me as a suspect, Violet had to be number one with a bullet. Pun intended.

  “I’m curious to hear your opinion of Violet Horowitz.”