by Jana DeLeon
Gertie nodded. “I am really looking forward to the upcoming entertainment.”
“Good, since you’re going to be part of it,” I said. “If he doesn’t like losing and really hates losing to women then he’ll really hate two old ladies getting the better of him.”
“Who are you calling old?” Gertie asked.
I grinned.
Carter stepped out onto the patio, his expression grim.
“The place is a mess,” he said. “Drawers are pulled open and the contents dumped. Things were just yanked out of the closet and thrown onto the floor. A forensics team is on the way but it’s going to take forever to go through all this. Palmer said to cut you guys loose. He’ll get in touch with you later for your statements.”
“What the heck, Carter?” I asked. “Maisey called as soon as she heard the gate open. He couldn’t have been in there more than twenty minutes. What did dumping stuff accomplish?”
He shook his head. “I just don’t know. Her electronics are still there, including a brand-new laptop on the kitchen counter. I know she usually kept some cash in her nightstand and there’s none there, but I have no way of knowing if she had any there until I talk to her.”
“What about jewelry?” Ida Belle asked.
“Her pearls are usually on a hanging thingy on her dresser. They’re missing but they weren’t real. Mom never went much for expensive jewelry. She has a nice watch and her wedding ring, which she still wears, just on the other hand, but I took them from her in the ambulance.”
“Obviously we interrupted him before he could accomplish whatever he intended,” Ida Belle said.
“What about the bathroom cabinets?” I asked.
He nodded. “That was my first thought when I saw everything else, and they were open as well. I just won’t know if anything was taken until I talk to my mom. I doubt it though. She’s not exactly a painkiller sort of person and hasn’t had a reason to have anything like that on hand.”
“Still, it might be as simple as an opportunistic junkie hoping for a score,” Gertie said.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I hope so,” Carter said.
“Me too,” I said, but I was already worried. Everything felt wrong and I didn’t believe in coincidences. I could tell by Carter’s expression that he wasn’t leaning toward a simple explanation either. I also didn’t think that Palmer had the ability to figure out what was going on.
“Call me if there’s anything we can do,” I said.
He gave me a nod and headed back into the house.
“Well, what now?” Gertie asked.
“We go home and try to get some sleep,” I said. “I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
Chapter Eight
Sleep was elusive that night. Between all the running, unanswered questions, and Emmaline being in the hospital, I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to get a really good cycle in. I awakened feeling just as tired as when I went to bed. Of course, that had only been five hours before, so there was that. Still, I needed to figure out some way to decompress when I was on a case. Lack of sleep was a detriment to physical and mental performance. And it was also annoying.
When I’d been in the CIA, I went to the gun range. Emptying boxes of rounds at targets always made me feel better. And we did have a range, of sorts, in Sinful, but I had a feeling my day was going to be jam-packed. When my phone rang before I finished making coffee, I knew I was right.
“I’d like you to do a walk-through on my mom’s house this morning,” Carter said when I answered. “I want to get back to the hospital to talk to the doctor when he makes his rounds, but I wanted you to check everything out at her house first.”
“The forensics team done?” I asked.
“Yeah, for what it was worth,” Carter said. “They couldn’t find prints on the doors or drawers, so they assumed he was wearing gloves. No point in testing every object tossed on the floor. And it’s not like they’re going to chase down a single hair or skin cell in an entire home over a robbery rap for fake pearls. Not worth the resources unless it can be definitely tied to the murder, which it can’t.”
He was right. It was a waste of resources to try to find the needle in the haystack when the crime wasn’t physical. But I knew it was frustrating to Carter that so little could be done to protect his mother and now her belongings.
“Meet you there in fifteen minutes?” I said.
“Perfect.”
I headed upstairs to put on street clothes as I’d stumbled downstairs still wearing my sleeping attire, then poured the coffee in a huge metal cup and headed out. Carter was already parked in Emmaline’s driveway when I pulled up, leaning against his truck and looking generally aggravated at the entire world. I couldn’t really blame him.
He waved me to the front door.
“I covered the patio doors with plywood until I can get someone over here to replace them,” he said.
“What time did you get home?”
“Two hours ago.”
I shook my head. “You haven’t slept at all, have you?”
“I got twenty minutes in before you called last night.”
“That’s not enough. Maybe you can catch some at the hospital.”
But I knew he wouldn’t. Especially now. Even though Carter trusted Walter implicitly, that probably didn’t extend to the belief that his uncle could take down a determined assailant. The unfortunate reality was that until we knew for certain that no one was targeting Emmaline, the woman wasn’t going to be able to pee without an armed guard. I hoped we figured it all out before she was released from the hospital. It was no fun having everyone shadow you. Even when it really was for your own good.
I followed Carter inside and stopped short in the living room to stare. He’d completely undersold the extent of the damage. It looked as if a bomb had dropped. Not a single thing was in its place. Cushions were off the couch and chairs and on the floor. Every knickknack, book, and picture on the shelves had been pulled off and tossed down with the cushions. Some of the glass in the picture frames was broken.
My heart sank. The last thing Emmaline needed was to come home from the hospital and see this mess in her usually neat and pretty home.
“Carter, this is awful,” I said. “Is the rest of the house like this?”
His jaw flexed and he nodded.
“What is the point of throwing all this stuff around? He couldn’t possibly have had time to look through things. It’s like a five-year-old broke in and had a hissy fit.”
“I know. I mean, some people hide things in picture frames and cushions, but the cushions have zippers that weren’t opened and nothing was slashed. The pictures weren’t taken out of the frames. And why leave behind a brand-new laptop sitting right there on the kitchen counter?”
“It doesn’t make sense. The haphazard way this was carried out looks personal, but I can’t think of anyone who holds this kind of grudge against Emmaline.”
“Me either.”
I looked up at the mantel and at the one item still in place and sucked in a breath. “Is that…?”
Carter nodded. “It was on the floor but as soon as forensics was done, I put it back up.”
“Is it…”
How does one ask their boyfriend if his father’s ashes were disturbed during a robbery?
“Everything is fine,” he said. “The urn is metal and the lid screws on.”
Relief flooded through me. “Thank God.”
I took out my phone and snapped some pictures then motioned to Carter to continue. The damage was pretty much the same in every room—a haphazard mess of books, pictures, and bedding tossed about. I took pictures in every room, but I wasn’t sure they’d contribute anything toward figuring out why this crime had happened. When we stepped into a spare room at the back of the house, I paused. It looked like an artist’s studio. And this room hadn’t been tossed.
An easel with a blank canvas positioned on it was in the middle of the room, with a
drop cloth underneath. A stand with a palette, brushes, and paint tubes on it stood by a stool in front of the easel. I was still a bit confused until I remembered that Emmaline had taken a painting class in New Orleans.
“I guess she really liked the painting class,” I said.
“I guess so,” Carter said and frowned. I figured he was thinking about Carlos, the man Emmaline had met at painting class and dated for a while. I still wondered if Carter was the reason I hadn’t seen Carlos in a while, but I wasn’t about to ask him or his mother. Some information you waited to be volunteered or you just lived without knowing.
I saw a canvas leaned against a wall, its back to us. Curiosity won out and I walked over to pull the canvas back to see what was on it. My eyes widened as I got a good look. It was a church, and I recognized it as St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square in New Orleans. She’d painted it in spring when all the foliage in the square was in full bloom and added huge pots of flowers along the front of the building.
I picked it up and turned it around for Carter to see. “Look at this,” I said. “Your mother is seriously talented.”
Carter finally seemed to check in and stared at the painting, a bit confused. “Maybe it’s not hers. She only took that one class…”
I pointed to the lower right corner. “There’s a signature—‘Em L.’”
“I guess she’s a quick study,” he said. “She always liked looking at paintings. Dragged me through every art exhibit and museum we ever drove past.”
I glanced around. “Nothing’s out of place in here.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Maybe he didn’t get to it before you guys showed up.”
“He was already outside by the time I breached the backyard, so he didn’t leave on our account. And I’m certain he didn’t hear my approach.”
“Maybe Maisey did something to set him off.”
I shook my head. “She went back in to hide after she called Ida Belle and didn’t come out until she heard the three of us talking on the back patio. But there was a loud truck pulling a trailer of rattling metal. I used the noise as cover to jump over the fence. I suppose that could have been what prompted him to leave.”
Carter nodded. “Probably so.”
I could see his mind was elsewhere, likely the hospital, so I took a couple more shots, then suggested we head out. Carter’s focus wasn’t going to be a hundred percent until Emmaline woke up, so Ida Belle, Gertie, and I needed to get answers. The sooner the better.
“If it’s all right with you, I’m going to talk to Ida Belle and Gertie about getting the Sinful Ladies to help put her house back as best they can,” I said as we headed out. “I don’t want Emmaline seeing that mess.”
Carter gave me a grateful look. “Thanks. I hadn’t even thought that far, but you’re right. The Sinful Ladies will be happy to do it and I trust them.”
He handed me the house key. “Give this to Ida Belle for them to use. I have another at my house.”
I nodded and tucked the key in my pocket. “Call me if anything changes.”
“I will,” he said, and he gave me a hard look. “Be careful. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s obvious that it’s more than what that idiot Palmer thinks. I don’t buy the timing on this break-in being a coincidence or the strangeness of how it was carried out.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
But darned if I had any idea what was going on.
I wasn’t in the mood to cook and wasn’t sure I had any food to cook, so I texted Ida Belle and Gertie to meet at the café for breakfast. It was probably a good thing we did. Everyone had heard about Emmaline and wanted an update, and the café and the General Store were the two best places to spread the word and keep Carter and Walter from getting a million concerned phone calls. But with Walter sitting at the hospital with Carter, the General Store was currently closed so Sinful was missing one of its main news dispensers.
That also meant the café was packed and unfortunately, it was Ally’s day off. But Francine spotted us when we came in and rushed over to give her sympathies and said she’d be sending lunch over to the hospital for Carter and Walter. Then she waved her hands and had one of the busboys assemble us a table in a corner that usually had raffle tickets and fliers for local events and businesspeople. We gave her a huge thanks and sat, then spent another ten minutes talking to different people who approached our table, inquiring about Emmaline.
“Next time something like this happens, we should just walk in the door and start yelling out information,” Gertie said.
“It would definitely be more efficient,” I agreed.
I waited until we’d given our orders before filling them in on my walk-through at Emmaline’s house. They both listened silently but I could tell by their expressions that they were both confused and worried about the odd situation.
When I finished, Gertie shook her head.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Ida Belle agreed. “What you described sounds personal. Like the actual destruction was the intent and not looking for something to steal.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Carter and I are in agreement that the whole thing is off. No one could have properly searched all those items in twenty minutes or less, and that’s about all the time he had.”
“Unless he’d been in the house earlier and Maisey didn’t hear the gate,” Gertie said.
“But why leave and come back?” Ida Belle said. “And once he made the mistake of using that gate and potentially alerting the entire neighborhood, why do it again?”
“That’s a good point,” I said. “I think we can probably rule out an earlier arrival time. But then we’re back to what he was trying to accomplish by trashing Emmaline’s house.”
“I just can’t imagine,” Gertie said. “Everyone loves Emmaline. Even Celia had complimentary things to say, and when does that happen?”
“Then what was the point to it?” I asked. “Because there has to be one. It was a risk to break into Emmaline’s place, even though he knew it was empty. What if she’d had the alarm set or cameras inside? What if she’d woken up and sent Carter to retrieve her favorite slippers? There’s a million ways that this could have gone wrong for the intruder, so why was it worth risking just to toss things around?”
“The only thing I can figure is we’re back to it being a local—someone who knew Carter would stay at the hospital and that Emmaline didn’t have cameras inside and never set her alarm,” Ida Belle said. “But for the life of me, I can’t come up with a reason for a local to do something like that. Nor can I think of a local who’d be stupid enough to bring that kind of heat down on himself. Jurisdiction or no jurisdiction, Carter won’t let this go. He won’t rest until he knows who did this and makes them pay.”
“I agree,” I said. “But if we assume it’s not a local—for all the obvious reasons—then we’re back to a strange situation with no obvious reason behind it.”
“Maybe someone wants the cops to think Emmaline was the intended victim to draw attention away from St. Ives,” Ida Belle suggested.
I perked up a bit. “That’s a good thought.”
“Especially with Palmer heading the investigation,” Gertie said. “I don’t think it would be too difficult to distract him. He was always looking for the easy way out on everything.”
“Which explains why he never finishes first,” I said. “Okay, so for the time being, we’ll go with the break-in to Emmaline’s house being staged as a distraction to throw the police off looking too hard into St. Ives. Or at the very least, to cause general confusion with law enforcement.”
“That certainly makes more sense than someone trashing Emmaline’s home for no reason,” Gertie said.
I nodded. “The secondary business concerning the break-in is the state of Emmaline’s formerly beautiful and impeccably neat home. I told Carter I’d see if you guys could organize the Ladies to try to put it back together for her.”
“Absolutely!” Gertie said, and Ida Belle nodded.
“Since we’ll be investigating, I’ll have Marie organize them,” Ida Belle said. “I assume you have the key. If so, we can drop it off to her after breakfast.”
“Can’t get better than the mayor directing cleanup at your house,” I said.
Gertie nodded. “I’m glad you thought of it. I would hate to think of Emmaline coming home from the hospital and seeing that mess. It’s the last thing she needs.”
“And tell Marie that if she can get replacement glass for the pictures, I’ll cover it,” I said. “Or anything else that needs a little repair. I saw a broken vase and I’m sure there’s more. Anything that can’t be repaired, have them set it aside in a box and we’ll let Emmaline decide what to do with it.”
“The General Store can help with the glass,” Ida Belle said. “Walter has some sheets of glass in his storeroom for just this sort of thing. People don’t like to wait for special orders. I’m pretty sure he’s taught Scooter how to cut it. Marie will just need to get him the dimensions.”
“So what’s up first for us this morning?” Gertie asked. “I have to cut out early this afternoon. I have a hot date with Jeb tonight at his house for dinner. I need time to get sexy before I drive over.”
“Then you should have started about fifty years ago,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie waved her hand in dismissal at Ida Belle. “I assume we’re not sticking around to wait on that idiot Palmer to show up and take statements.”
“I’m actively avoiding Palmer,” I said. “If he wants my statement, he can find me. I wish him luck. I guess first up is seeing what we can run down on St. Ives. No one seems to have been aware that he was back in town, but I doubt someone as particular as he sounds was living in his car.”
“Then I guess first up is Cara Holiday,” Ida Belle said.
I grimaced. “As much as it pains me, yes.”
“You just don’t like her because she was after Carter,” Gertie said.