It wasn’t, thank God. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief seeing Justina’s name flashing across the LCD screen of her cell.
“Hello,” she sang, trying to sound upbeat.
“Kate! It’s Justina. You must come by Carnegie Real Estate!”
“When?” she asked nervously, wincing at the thought of an impromptu fix-it job.
“Right now!” The real-estate agent explained. Kate thought she heard a bottle of champagne pop in the background. A bunch of women cheered. “We’re celebrating the sale of the Joste house! That damned piece of property has been hanging over our heads for years! And finally it’s out of our hair! We have you to thank. Won’t you please come by?”
Kate cringed, rested her head on the steering wheel. Was now the time to tell Justina that her buyer was now dead? The house would end up back on the market.
“Sure,” she groaned, perking up at the thought of champagne. “I’ll swing by.”
She must have been on speakerphone, because all the ladies in the background cheered uproariously.
Oh God.
“See you soon?” Justina asked, ecstatic.
“Sure,” she said dryly.
Kate supposed lies of omission were contagious, as she drove across town to the real-estate office. If she could weather Scott’s questions and still hold her tongue about Jason, then she could have a few flutes of bubbly with the Carnegie Real Estate ladies and not say a word about Donna Kramer.
Kate wasn’t sure she liked who she was quickly becoming.
From the sidewalk where she was approaching, the front door of Carnegie Real Estate was wide open and Kate could hear laughter billowing out. Through the windows she saw Justina wrapping her arm around one of the younger agents and raising her champagne flute with her free hand.
Kate stepped into the anteroom just as the ladies were clinking their glasses in celebration.
“She’s here!” sang Justina, breaking from the fray to welcome Kate to the party. Justina let out a relieved groan. “Thank God we sold that house. Am I right?”
Kate smiled, but it felt more like wincing.
“I was starting to think that art deco house was cursed,” she went on, making a light joke of the years she had spent desperately hustling to get that home sold and off the market. “Not that I didn’t appreciate the challenge, but we’re all thrilled.”
Justina led her over to one of the desks, which was serving as a refreshment table. On it was several bottles of wine, both red and white, an ice bucket chilling a bottle of champagne, a row of glasses, and a platter of cheese and crackers.
“What can I get you?” she asked, eyeing the options as if she were deciding for herself. “The white is chilled, as well as the champagne.”
Kate liked the idea of champagne more than the reality. In truth, between the sweetness and the bubbles, it usually gave her a headache before it did a relaxing buzz, so she mentioned a glass of white wine would be nice and Justina wasted no time pouring her a generous amount.
As soon as she handed it to Kate, she plucked her own flute of champagne off the table, raised it into the air, and began another congratulatory speech. Kate glanced around the room, looking from face to face. The agents were more than tipsy. Considering the day Kate had survived, she was eager to join them, except for the matter of getting home. She had a personal rule about not driving, even after one glass.
The agents cheered, as Justina concluded her toast, and collectively drew their glasses to their mouths and drank. Kate did as well, recognizing immediately that the wine was chardonnay, one of her favorites.
Justina took hold of Kate’s arm and guided her away from the others, who began mingling and complimenting one another on everything from their shoes to their filing skills.
“We have a big month coming up,” Justina said proudly. “There’s going to be a lot of work, if you can handle it.”
“Oh that’s good news,” she commented before taking another sip of her wine. There had been a lull in her fix-it work and it would be good to keep busy, both her hands and her mind, so as not to be swallowed by the fact that her own son had shot a killer before her very eyes.
“I’ve been speaking with Dean,” she went on. “And Rock Ridge can expect a flurry of tourists as soon as that amusement park of his opens its doors.”
Kate had heard the same thing, but with Scott angling in with his warrant to search the park for drugs, plus the reporters everywhere who would surely pick up on the controversial story, Kate wasn’t so sure the amusement park would do anything but drive prospective tourists away.
“So Carnegie Real Estate will be embarking on a new enterprise,” she continued.
“A new enterprise? What?”
“Well, it’s all very hush, for the time being, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that ex-convicts have been floating into town. That’s bad for business, my business, as you can imagine. And Dean holds the same concerns. So I’ve had a few meetings with him where I’ve proposed Carnegie Real Estate build a high-rise on the outskirts of town, apartment rentals. I don’t love rentals, but the idea is to rent the units to the convicts. This way we’ll keep them separate from the residents. No one looking to buy a house wants to hear that an ex-con lives next door, or even on the next block. But if they’re all located in the same building—and we’ll build some amenities nearby for them so they won’t have to come down Main Street—then I’ll have an easier time of selling the out-of-towners on the idea of moving to Rock Ridge.”
“So you’re going to build a high-rise,” Kate concluded, not nearly as enthusiastic as Justina.
“Dean’s going to throw a little town money at the project,” she said. She looked jittery with excitement, but that could’ve also been the champagne.
“I’m really glad for you, Justina, but I’m not really equipped to manage building a high-rise.”
“But you are equipped to fix the place up.”
Kate cocked her head at the implication. “The high-rise already exists?”
“On the south side of town,” she supplied. “It’s a six-story building. You might have seen it if you’ve ever driven south into Kettleton. It’s a real fixer-upper. I’d like for you to get started refurbishing the units so we can start renting out right away. Then Wentworth Contractors will build vertically. They’ll go floor by floor. It’s going to be a process, and it might not look like a high-rise for a while.”
“I see.”
“There are twelve units per floor, so it's quite a bit of work. Just think of how many convicts we can tuck away as soon as you’re ready. But we’d like this to happen fast. As soon as you’ve finished an apartment, I’ll rent it out. That is, if you’d like the work.”
“I would, certainly. I’m glad you thought of me,” she said quickly, though deep down she felt apprehensive about working in a building where ex-cons would be coming and going freely. After all, crime had been following these people around, and the more murders that occurred, the more tightly linked these characters seemed to be.
“Great,” she exclaimed. “I’ll get the paperwork squared away and let you know. I’ll also contact Grayson’s to start an account so you can pick up materials freely. I know the whole submitting budgets thing was bogging you down.”
Kate shrugged, but she had to admit it had been cumbersome.
“The tides are turning,” she sang. “And it has everything to do with getting that damned Joste house off the market.”
“About that...” Kate said with a grimace. Maybe she should let Scott explain the bad news to Justina, but Kate didn’t want the real-estate agent to be furious with her for not saying something. “Perhaps it shouldn’t come from me, but I do have some information that could affect the art deco house.”
Justina’s smile fell right off her face. “Oh don’t tell me that. Someone was murdered there?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
The woman sighed a breath of relief. “Good, because it's very hard to sell a h
ouse when you’re legally obligated to disclose someone was killed there. I’d hate for Donna to back out.”
“I can imagine,” said Kate, working up the nerve to deliver the bad news. “But I’m afraid...” she trailed off then shifted gears. “How long does escrow take to clear?”
“Typically a month, why?”
“Do you happen to know—legally, that is—what would happen regarding the sale if the buyer were to...pass away?”
Justina blinked. “What are you telling me?”
“Donna Kramer was shot this morning.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
Justina fell silent, considering the possibilities of what this would mean concerning the art deco house. Then she brightened. “Donna signed papers. The house is hers, even if she’s no longer living. I suppose her next of kin would get it, or perhaps she has a will that will clear up the matter of the beneficiary, but I think Carnegie Real Estate will be okay. I’ll contact our lawyer, though. Thanks for the heads up. Oh, and Kate?” she asked, since Kate had been staring at the wine in her hand. When Kate glanced up at her, she added, “Please don’t tell anyone.”
She promised she wouldn’t, but in the back of her mind, she wondered if it would make a difference. She was willing to bet Donna Kramer’s murder would be front-page news by tomorrow morning, if not broadcast on every channel with the six o’clock news.
“Congratulations again on the high-rise,” she offered. Her glass was half full, and Kate figured it would be a good cutting off point. “Just let me know when I can get started.”
Justina shot her an affirmative nod. Kate set her glass on the refreshment table and made her way through the real-estate agents who were discussing moving their party over to The Rail.
Dusk was setting over the parking lot as Kate made her way to her truck, having rounded the building along the sidewalk and cut into the back lot where the majority of Carnegie Real Estate agents liked to park their vehicles.
Kate found her truck, but as she motioned to open the driver’s side door, she spotted a news van at the far side of the lot through the windows in her truck. The van looked vacant, and there was no one else around. Perhaps the reporter and her crew couldn’t find street parking at Bean There up the block and had decided to sneak their van here. Or so she wondered until she heard voices murmuring out from behind it.
It sounded like a woman and a man, but she couldn’t be certain. The woman sounded distressed yet aggressive, and the man’s responses were calm and low enough that Kate couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Suddenly, the blonde reporter darted out from behind the van, her hands slicing the air as if she’d had enough of the argument. She was standing in profile from Kate’s perspective and the dusky light was growing darker by the second.
Then a shot rang out, startling Kate. She ducked and heard the distinct plop of a body hitting the asphalt. Cautiously, she straightened up and peered through her truck’s windows. The reporter was lying on the ground.
Kate’s heart was in her throat. Her ears pricked up, keen to detect where the shooter was. It had certainly been the man behind that van. All of a sudden, she heard footfall. The man was running away, but she couldn’t see him.
Without thinking, she ran to the reporter, shifting her gaze between the woman and the parking lot, searching for the fleeing shooter.
As she reached the reporter, she saw a man dive around the corner of the building towards the sidewalk. She had every impulse to run after him. He was headed towards a public, pedestrian-filled sidewalk, but when she looked at the reporter, she realized the woman wasn’t dead.
Dropping to her knees, Kate brushed the woman’s blond hair from her forehead then took in the sight of her. She had been shot in the chest. Her breathing was shallow.
“Hang on,” said Kate. “Don’t die on me.” Quickly, she fumbled for her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. “Who did this to you?”
The reporter began gasping, trying to breathe and choking on air, as she tried to mouth a name, but Kate couldn’t understand her. The 9-1-1 operator blared through the earpiece and Kate rushed to explain that she needed an ambulance, a reporter had been shot behind Carnegie Real Estate. As soon as Kate got the word that help was on its way, she dropped her cell and pressed her palms to the bullet wound, hoping she had a prayer of stopping the bleeding.
“Who did this to you?” she demanded, but the reporter’s eyes were fluttering shut.
Could it have been Dark Donnie?
Or her son?
Were they one in the same?
Chapter Three
Kate sat with a blanket over her shoulders and a cup of coffee in her hands as she watched the flashing lights of cop cars and an ambulance illuminate the parking lot in stark alternation. Medics surrounded the body of the female reporter, whose name was Jenna Johansen, according to her news crew. They were standing in a cluster beside one of the police cruisers, answering the cops' questions and looking over at Jenna’s body in confused horror.
No one had said Jenna was dead—not loudly enough for Kate to hear, anyway. But they didn’t need to. The way the medics were transporting Jenna onto a gurney was without any sense of urgency. The woman was no longer living. Even though the ambulance had swung into the parking lot within three minutes of Kate’s call, it had been too late. Kate had seen the bullet wound. It was slightly lower than the reporter’s heart, but not low enough to only damage her lung. No one could live through such a gunshot wound.
The numerous murders that had been cropping up all over Rock Ridge had everything to do with the drug ring, and Kate couldn’t help but suspect Jenna Johansen had something to do with it. It seemed highly unlikely. Jenna was young, a perky reporter from out of town, eager to make her big break. There was no way she could’ve been involved in the drug ring, not as an insider. But she had certainly been sniffing around. Maybe she learned something that would’ve risked whoever was at the top of the pyramid. It was possible, but Jenna’s argument with the shooter had seemed personal, as if she knew the guy.
Scott worked his way from police officer to police officer, getting briefed on the information they had collected from the news crew. Judging by the frown on his face, Kate guessed Jenna’s news crew hadn’t been especially helpful.
He broke from the fray and watched the medics push Jenna’s gurney into the back of the ambulance and shut the doors. As the ambulance rolled off, turning into the street, Scott strode over to Kate, who had been sitting in the bed of her truck, her legs dangling over the side.
“Did you talk to Garrison?” he asked.
“Briefly,” she said. “I didn’t see much, and I never saw the shooter. All I know is that the shooter was a man and he took off running on foot.”
“Is there any chance he saw you?”
“I really don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure.” She didn’t have to ask him why he was interested in finding out whether or not the shooter may have seen her. Kate could read the concern on his face. If the shooter were scared there had been a witness and committed Kate’s face to memory, she could easily be next. “Why a reporter?” she asked out loud.
“You think this could be connected to Donna Kramer and all the other drug-related murders?”
“Didn’t you once tell me there are no coincidences?”
“All I know is that I’ve had two murders in one day with no clue as to the killer.”
“Killer? You mean killers.”
“God, I hope not,” he said. “We won’t know until forensics has a look at Jenna’s body, but both Jenna and Donna had been shot in the heart, which tells me they could share the same killer.”
Kate prayed that wasn’t the case. At least Jason killing Donna had been in the spirit of protecting an innocent life. She didn’t want another murder to come crashing down on his head, especially if he didn’t do it. And he couldn’t have, could he? Could Kate have been in the same parking lot as her son and
not sense he was there? Not sense it was him? She’d only briefly seen the shooter as he dodged around the corner. Had he looked like Jason from behind? The man had been entirely nondescript. She couldn’t even remember the color or length of his hair. It had been too dim.
“I won’t keep you here,” said Scott. “But since talking with Garrison, have you remembered anything else? Anything the guy was wearing? Anything that could help me out?”
Kate took a moment to rack her brain but nothing came to mind. “No, I’m sorry. I told Officer Garrison everything I know. I feel like I should’ve run after the guy.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he cut in. “Ever. You’re not a cop. You could’ve gotten hurt if you followed him. He could’ve turned and shot you. You did the right thing.”
“What is happening to this town?”
Scott sighed, resonating her helplessness. “Why don’t you go on home. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Kate slid off the back of her truck into his arms. Scott held her for a long moment, and when she urged him back to look up at him, she asked, “Any leads on Donna’s killer?”
She was almost too scared for his answer.
“We recovered a shell casing, which will tell us the weapon. Hopefully it won’t trace back to an unregistered weapon, but even if it does, there’s only one place to buy firearms in town. I’m planning on heading over to Drake’s Firing Line as soon as I get this crime scene squared away.”
“You think Drake is just going to tell you who the gun belongs to?”
“He won’t have to tell me. I’ll get a search warrant and have my IT guys comb through all his computer records.”
“How did it go at the amusement park?” she asked, as he walked her around to the driver’s side door of her truck.
Again, he sighed, but this time in frustration. “It was clean. Every inch of the place was clean. Not a trace of drugs.”
“Which means someone tipped them off.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe drugs were never there. Rumors have been flying around and it’s hard to know what’s valid and what isn’t until we check it out. But I’ll tell you one thing, we focused our man power on that park, and with Donna’s murder, the department is getting spread too thin.”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection) Page 31