by Kathy Krevat
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “She’s still getting used to being here.”
“I’ll get out of your hair.” Bert stood up. “I just stopped by to see one of my favorite clients.” He sent my dad a warm smile. “Even though he did practically clean out his account.”
“Life happens,” my dad said, unapologetically.
“When you’re back on your feet, you can take another look and see if you want to keep getting that awesome return,” Bert said, as enthusiastic as a puppy. He tugged at his tie.
“I’ll do that,” my dad said. “Say hello to your lovely wife.”
“I will.” He shook my dad’s hand. “You feel better, okay?”
I walked him to the door. “Your dad says your business is thriving.” He smiled. “A proud papa, he is.”
“Aw,” I said. “That’s nice to hear.”
He continued. “Feel free to let me know if you need any investment advice, okay?”
“Of course,” I said. “But right now, I’m putting all the profits back into the business.”
He nodded. “Smart, smart.”
“I hope so,” I said.
He must have heard something in my voice. “Sorry. Can’t always turn off the sales guy inside.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Hank’s looking much better,” Bert said. “He’s lucky to have you to take care of him.”
* * * *
Early the next morning, I was back in the kitchen making a pot of coffee before the sun was up. A couple of hours and a few packed boxes ready to ship later, my dad was sitting under the umbrella on the back deck with his coffee, waiting patiently for Elliott to wake up. The temperature was rising quickly, and he’d be forced inside soon.
Elliott had been up late hoping for the cast list to be posted, but at midnight someone had updated the Sunnyside Youth Theater site to say it would be on the website at noon today.
The doorbell rang out “Yankee Doodle” and my shoulders tensed. The police again?
I peeked out the side window and saw Charlie’s silly crown. I relaxed.
Stripping off my gloves, I yelled out to my dad, “I’m taking Charlie back.”
Charlie waited on the porch, tilting his head as if to ask me why I wasn’t inviting him in.
“Time to go home,” I said.
When the bird didn’t move, I added in a sympathetic tone, “I know. You’re born to be a rolling stone but doomed to captivity.” I bent over to steer the bird down the stairs with gentle pushes, and he moved along.
I straightened as soon as he headed in the right direction, and we made it back to the farm with no problem. Then I had a decision to make. Put the bird back into his pen or pretend ignorance and knock on the door so I could get another look at my cute neighbor?
The decision was made for me when Joss came out of a distant small building, wearing a gray tank top and carrying a bale of hay by its strings. The strings were probably called something else in farmer language, but my brain sputtered at the sight of his flexed arms. His muscles were shining, like the cover of a romance novel.
Of course, it was already eighty degrees at eight o’clock in the morning, something that rarely happened in downtown San Diego, but was becoming normal for me here in Sunnyside. I was sweating quite a bit myself, but not in an artistic, front of the shirt emphasizing chest muscles way like Joss. My sweating was more of the eye makeup-smudging, shiny forehead, wet under-boob way.
He smiled as he recognized me. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he called out.
I pointed to Charlie. “Blame the chicken.”
He dumped the hay bale by the chicken coop and opened the gate near me. “How’s your dad?” he asked, as he bent over to pick up Charlie and tuck him under one arm.
Charlie leaned his head on his shoulder.
I was oddly touched by the chicken hug. “He was doing better, but his cough has kicked up again.”
“He’s strong,” he said, absentmindedly petting Charlie’s head.
“Feel free to stop by and visit him,” I said. “If you have time, that is.” Geez. Did it sound like I was using my dad’s illness as an excuse to invite him over?
He paused. Was he wondering the same thing or thinking of his farmer To Do list. “I’ll stop over in an hour or so,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll put more coffee on.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and opened the gate to deposit Charlie back in his pen.
I walked back toward home, dripping even more in the bright sun and totally lost in my own thoughts. Then I heard a voice coming from the house a few doors down from my dad’s. “Saw you had some trouble the other night.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun sneaking in around my sunglasses, and peered at the porch that was in shadows. “Hello?”
An older man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail leaned his hip on the wooden railing. “Your boy get into trouble? He’s at that age.”
I gasped. “No!” I struggled to control my anger that someone would falsely accuse my kid like that. He didn’t even know him.
But this was my dad’s neighbor. Maybe being a jerk was his way of showing concern. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Colbie Summers.”
“I know who you are,” he said snidely, as if he was one up on me. “I’m Horace.”
“It’s nothing that won’t be cleared up soon,” I said. “Have a good day.” It was delivered a little more savagely than most people said it.
Chapter 7
I seethed the rest of the way home.
“Judgmental jerk,” I said out loud and, too late, saw Detective Norma Chiron sitting in a dark blue car outside my house, watching me in her rearview mirror. I hadn’t noticed her there when I left. Ugh. Her window was open. Had she heard me? And how could she stay seated in the car in this heat?
“It’s kind of my job.” She smiled as she got out of her car. “You know, to judge people.” She wore a lightweight jacket over jeans.
Then I noticed another police officer in the car across the street. A man staring at me with reflective sunglasses. At least it wasn’t Little.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” I said, feeling uncertain about her friendly expression.
“Sure,” she said in a two syllable, sarcasm-infused way with what seemed to be a genuine smile. “I’d like to talk to you and your father.”
I took a deep breath. “Sure,” I said, mimicking her, and led the way to the stairs.
The other officer got out of his car.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Detective Ragnor is backing me up today,” she said.
“Detective Little too busy?” I asked. Not that I missed him.
She didn’t answer. “So who was the Judgey McJudgerson?”
“You sound like my son,” I said. No way was I answering her question. That was all I needed, for her to go interrogating my dad’s neighbors.
“I got that one from my twelve-year-old,” she said. “But daughter instead of son. They come up with the funniest expressions, don’t they?”
I stopped short, one step above her. “Look,” I said. “Please don’t use the mom card when you’re trying to get information out of me.”
Her face went blank. “I apologize.”
“Should I have my lawyer present?” I blustered.
She frowned. “I didn’t ask you anything.”
“Then why are you here?” I said.
Detective Ragnor stepped closer at my louder tone, and Norma waved him back. “This case is bothering me.”
“What part?” I asked. “The grisly murder of an innocent suburban mom or the attempt to pin it on me?”
She paused. “Both, I guess.” She rolled one shoulder in an impatient move. “You’re not s
tupid.”
“I like to think so,” I said.
“So you wouldn’t be smart enough to get rid of bloody shoes, and then drive by a dozen public garbage cans and hundreds of private ones, only to discard a towel with the victim’s blood on it at your own house.”
The overwhelming relief that she wasn’t buying the effort to implicate me fought with her disturbing mention of “victim’s blood.” “Um, thanks. I guess.”
She almost cracked a smile. “I get suspicious when I catch a case all wrapped up in a big ol’ bow like this one. I don’t like it.”
“Probably about as much as I like being framed for murder,” I said. Too bad my voice shook. I cleared my throat enough to ask, “Victim’s blood?”
“DNA results will take a while,” she said. “But I expect it will be the case.”
I took a deep breath. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to find out if your father or you have any enemies,” she said, pulling out a notebook from her pocket.
My mouth dropped open. “Enemies?” I stuttered. “I haven’t lived here long enough to make enemies.”
“I understand your previous job included evicting people,” she said, all business.
“What?” Why was I surprised? Of course she’d looked into my background. “Okay. I evicted like four people in many, many years. I had the best rate of all the apartment managers in Southern California.”
“Your building is not that far away,” she said. “If anyone was holding a grudge.”
“That makes no sense. They’d have to somehow know I was going to be at the trade show, get in and,”—I gulped—“kill Twila, and then leave the evidence at my house. And magically know that I was going to leave my Meowio knives there.”
She nodded, as if she’d already come to that conclusion. “But the event was advertised on social media and had all of the participants’ names listed.”
I’d thought of that. It still didn’t make sense for me to be the target. “It has to be the person who killed Twila. Then my dad and I came stumbling in and gave them the perfect way to deflect attention away from him and pin it on us.”
“If that’s true, the person had to know where you lived,” she said.
“Or my father,” I said. “And he knows just about everyone in Sunnyside.”
She nodded, again as if she already knew that. “I’d like to take this discussion inside.”
It suddenly occurred to me that she really hadn’t asked any questions. Definitely a police officer ploy to keep us from calling our lawyer. Although she seemed genuine when she said we were innocent. But maybe that was another police officer trick.
I decided that our little discussion could be a two-way street, and I’d ask my own questions.
I led the way up the porch steps and inside. The air conditioning was a welcome respite from the heat outside. “Dad?” I called out, hoping his robe was closed. “Detective Chiron is here.”
“Oh joy,” he said. The volume of CNN in the background went down considerably.
Ragnor opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He stayed inside, right by the front door.
“It’s okay,” Norma told him.
“What’s his problem?” I asked. “Does he think we’re some kind of threat?”
“Standard practice,” she said. “No one is supposed to go alone.”
I waited for my dad’s chair to creak, while he made himself more presentable, before we went into the living room. He surprised me by being fully dressed in real pants and a button-down shirt. Maybe he was feeling healthier.
Trouble meowed as she jumped down from my dad’s lap, and then stopped to stretch sleepily. She walked toward us and I reached down to pick her up, but she slid out of my hands to weave around Norma’s ankles.
Traitor.
Norma bent down to pet her, and Trouble leaned into her hand, purring.
“Can I get you some coffee, Detective?” I asked.
“That’d be great,” she said. “And it’s Norma.”
She took one end of the couch, and Trouble jumped up to lie beside her as I headed into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” I asked Ragnor quietly.
He shook his head, expressionless.
“Brownie?” I asked.
His mouth twitched. “No, but thanks.”
I moved quietly in the kitchen, all ears on what was happening in the living room.
My dad cleared his throat. “What’s this about?”
“I’m just trying to clear up a few things,” Norma said. “You can certainly get your lawyer here, but you don’t have to answer anything.”
“Cream or sugar?” I called from the kitchen, letting her know I was close enough to hear everything.
“Just cream, please,” she said.
“What do you want to know?” my dad asked, then had a coughing fit. I guess he wasn’t doing that much better.
“I’d like a list of people who might want to do either of you harm,” she said.
“Harm?” my dad asked. “Me or my daughter? And why are you asking?”
I brought the coffee back in and took the chair on the other side of my dad.
“We’re looking at all possibilities,” she said.
My dad leaned forward. “I have a lot of friends in this town, including in the sheriff’s department. They’re saying you don’t think either one of us did it.”
Her face tightened. Sunnyside was a small town. What did she expect? “What I think is not relevant. I still have to follow the evidence.”
He pursed his lips. “Well, I can tell you straight out that the evidence is going to prove we didn’t do anything.”
“We don’t have any enemies,” I said to Norma. “You need to find out who killed Twila and that’ll be the one who tried to frame me. Not the other way around.”
“We need to exhaust every option.” Her voice was firm. “I need a list of the people you evicted.”
“They were good people.” Then I remembered someone I didn’t officially evict. I bit my lip.
Norma noticed that. She noticed everything. “Who are you thinking about right now?”
I took me a moment to answer. “There was this tenant who I realized too late was a drug dealer. I was told that he gave pot to a thirteen-year-old in the complex.”
“Okay,” she said, encouraging me.
“My management wouldn’t do anything about it without proof.” I still felt angry about that.
“So what did you do?” she asked.
“Well, he got arrested a week later,” I said.
“For dealing pot?” she asked.
“For dealing meth.”
Her eyes hardened. Meth was an epidemic in San Diego, coming over the border in horrific amounts that were devastating whole communities.
She figured out what I did right away. “Did he know it was you who turned him in?”
I didn’t answer. I’d never told anyone what I’d done.
“You turned him in?” My dad laughed, sounding like he approved.
“I didn’t know about the meth,” I said. “As far as I know, he has no idea. And you’d know if he was in Sunnyside,” I insisted. “He looks like a drug dealer. He couldn’t just hang out on some suburban street without someone noticing.”
“You haven’t seen all of Sunnyside.” Her voice was grim. “Give me his name. I’ll find out where he was incarcerated. And make sure he’s still there.”
“Okay,” I said. “Did you talk to Bert Merritt?”
My dad made a face, not liking that I was still pointing the finger at his buddy.
“Yes,” Norma said. “He has a solid alibi.”
“Which is what he told me,” my dad said with a let-it-go expression. He turned back to Norma. “I might know some folks with an ax to grind.
”
* * * *
After a way too long discussion about our potential, if improbable, enemies, I walked Norma outside.
Ragnor’s expression may have edged into impatience.
“Shoulda had that brownie,” I told him and was rewarded with an actual smile.
“So Detective Little mentioned the Wilson case,” I said. “What did he mean that this was just like it?”
She frowned, maybe not liking that I was asking. Or that I heard him. Or that he said anything at all where I could hear it.
“I can’t discuss it,” she said. “But feel free to Google it. Basically, it’s a case where Little was right and I was wrong.”
Just then, a police car came zooming around the corner. Detective Little jumped out and stopped short when he saw the three of us.
“Detective Little,” Norma said. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw the lab results,” he said.
“Who is the case manager?” she said in a mild tone that held a hint of steel.
He drew his shoulders up, bristling. “You are.”
“Then what are you doing?” she asked.
“I was following up,” he said, undeterred.
Ragnor stepped closer to Norma, clearly backing her up.
My heart was pounding at the lethal look in Little’s eye. I was dying to ask, “What results?” but decided to wait for a better time. Like when Little wasn’t around.
He ripped his sunglasses off his face. “What the hell is going on?”
Norma took a step so that she stood in between us. “Check your phone,” she said.
“What?”
“Check your phone.” It was a command.
Little’s face turned beet red, looking remarkably like an angry emoji head. Someone had to check that guy’s blood pressure before his whole body exploded.
He looked at his phone and then glared at Norma. “What do you have on him that he cuts you so much slack?”
Her expression grew steely. “You think your uncle is the kind of guy I could have ‘something on’?”
When he didn’t respond, she added, “I guess you could always ask him that yourself.”
He blew out a breath, and I could almost see him counting to ten in his mind. Someone’s had anger management training.