The Trouble with Murder

by Kathy Krevat

  Finally she spoke. “Two moms or two questions?”

  I waited as long as I could stand it. “Moms.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Or three. Moms.” I was like a kid confessing to a parent. It made me feel marginally better to relieve the guilt, but then I worried what punishment I’d have to face. But really, what could she do to me?

  “You say this happened yesterday.” She didn’t sound angry, just curious. “Why didn’t you call before now?”

  Now that I had an answer to. I explained about my dad and she said all the right things and then returned to the subject at hand. “Any chance you could stop by and meet with a sketch artist? And have Elliott come by as well?”

  I paused. He shouldn’t have to deal with this stress on top of my dad’s illness. “I can be there this morning, but Elliott is at camp.”

  “We could have the artist stop by—”

  I interrupted her. “No. I don’t want him bothered.”

  She waited but this time I didn’t try to appease her.

  “I have some business stuff to take care of, and then I’ll come to the station,” I said, trying to take some control of the situation. “What’s the address?”

  She gave me directions and then added, “We can talk about the penalties for obstruction of justice when you get here.”

  She hung up.

  * * * *

  An hour later, I’d made any changes I could think of to my business proposal. I held my breath and hit Send, with a mixture of excitement and terror. I’d done my best. Now I just had to wait.

  Trouble sat on her windowsill, surveying her kingdom. She turned and meowed. Good job.

  “Thank you,” I said, as if I could understand her. “It’ll work out.” I told myself out loud. Except sometimes it didn’t.

  She meowed again. Get to the police station.

  “So now you’re channeling Lani,” I joked.

  My phone lit up with a Facebook notification. Maybe just a bit of procrastinating. I clicked over to the Facebook app and saw a bunch of posts in the private SPM group page. Twila had created a public page for marketing and a private page where we could share information that wasn’t for our customers to see.

  Sharon had posted a reminder that she was holding an open house of Fawn’s garage. It was tomorrow, by invitation only, and we were all invited. We should also let anyone who was interested in Sharon’s services to come by and see her work.

  If my dad wasn’t in the hospital, that open house would be a great opportunity to ask Sharon more questions. But I’d be sticking close to my dad for a while. The investigation would have to wait. As it was, I’d most likely be missing my Thursday afternoon farmers’ market the next day. That would cause a hit to my income this month, something I should not be doing with the Twomey’s decision looming.

  I headed over to the police station and told the officer working at the front desk that I was there to see Detective Chiron. He led me to a conference room and I was surprised to see a young man dressed in a button-down shirt over tan pants show up instead of Norma.

  “Hi,” he said, tossing down a white sketch pad. “I’m your friendly neighborhood sketch artist.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I sat up in my chair, sure Norma was watching me somehow. The station must be under energy conservation rules. Even though it wasn’t as hot as outside, it was way too warm. I was sure my forehead was shiny.

  “Relax,” he said, as if reading my mind. “This is a conference room. No cameras.”

  “Sure,” I said, stretching it out. “That’s not what happens on TV.”

  He laughed. “Let’s get started. Can you describe this guy?”

  He did a great job of accurately drawing what I told him. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to get right; I had to keep the vision in my head from morphing into what he was drawing. And because the guy had been wearing sunglasses, I had no idea of the shape of his eyes. Finally, I decided it was the best I could do.

  “Can I get a copy of that to show my son?” I asked. “He might be able to fine tune it.”

  “Sure,” he said. “If you wait here, I’ll get it for you.” I closed my eyes when he left, trying to fix the guy’s face in my memory. It was already a little blurry. Maybe if I saw him again. Of course, I hoped that never happened.

  Norma surprised me by bringing back the copy of the drawing herself. “Hello. Can I get you anything before we talk?” She was in the same kind of outfit as before—this time a white jacket over dark jeans.

  Ugh. I really didn’t want to sit in an interrogation room, no matter what the sketch artist called it. “Um, there’s a Philz Coffee down the street. Why don’t we go there?”

  “We can do that,” she said. She led the way out the door and we both put our sunglasses on. A wall of heat hit us. “How’s Elliott?”

  “He’s okay,” I said. “Worried about his grandfather, of course.” We stayed away from serious talk while we walked down the block and stood in line to place our order. Philz made each cup individually but the wait was worth it.

  “Large Julie’s Ultimate, creamy.” Norma ordered first and stepped to the side. “My treat.”

  “I’ll have the same,” I said to the friendly barista with lime green hair. While Norma paid, I looked around the coffee shop for a free table. College kids with laptops were camped out everywhere but once we got our coffees, we found an empty table in the corner. I took a sip and sighed—Philz had the richest coffee in Sunnyside.

  She pulled out her notebook. “Why don’t you fill me in on what you found out?”

  I’d already decided to tell her everything. That Twila had told Daria one of the moms might be doing something unethical. That Gina thought Mona had affairs with married men. That Bronx saw Twila get an upsetting phone call right before she was killed. That Sharon thought people lower on the waiting list for that development might be mad at people at the top, like Twila and Trent. That Fawn told me about Tod Walker complaining on Twila’s website.

  “So more than a question or two,” she said, her face impassive.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Why do people tell you things they don’t tell us?” She sounded exasperated. Then she changed her tune and looked me in the eye. “You must stop this and stay out of police business. I’m letting you off the hook about what you’ve done so far, but if you do something to impede our investigation, I’ll have no qualms about throwing you in jail.”

  I tilted my head, evaluating her expression. “I think you’ll have some qualms.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m a single mom with a sick dad,” I said. “I know there’s a heart under all that police toughness.”

  “Don’t try me.” She straightened even more in her chair. “I hear you have one of my staff looking into bad reviews of your business.”

  I blinked. “I don’t.”

  When she gave me a skeptical look, I added, “But I might know someone who did.”

  She sat back in her chair. “Enlighten me.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “But don’t you think it’s weird that I start getting bad reviews on SDHelp right around the same time…that happened to Twila?”

  She didn’t say anything but her jaw clenched.

  “Did you see that review?” I asked. “The guy who ‘wonders where I got my meat’? Don’t you think you should find out who that is?”

  “We’re working on it,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Do you have any, like, leads?”

  “No.” Her voice was firm. “I didn’t say that. I said we’re looking into it.”

  “Okay,” I said. I better ask my own questions before we finished our coffee. “Did you ever look into that drug dealer I got evicted?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s still in prison. He
tried to kill someone in there, so he’ll be locked up for a very long time.”

  “Oh.” I tried not to look freaked out. “Good. I think.” I took a deep breath and asked the question that had been weighing on my mind. “Am I still a suspect? Officially, I mean.”

  She looked like she was holding back a smile. “You are officially cleared. Our crime scene experts verified your account of what happened with you and your father that night.”

  “Really? That’s great!” I shook my head. “You couldn’t have told me that first?” I decided on another big question. “Can you tell me anything about the phone call Detective Little mentioned?”

  That shut her right down. “No.” She stood up. “I need to get back.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What about Tod Walker?”

  She stopped in her tracks. “You stay away from Todrick Walker. Do you understand me?”

  I held up both hands. “Fine. I’m glad you’re following up on everyone.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s not a suspect.”

  Then my phone rang. It was Elliott. This couldn’t be good.

  “Mom!” His voice was low but urgent. “That bald man is across the street.”

  Chapter 15

  “What?” I asked, my heart pounding. “Where are you?”

  “At camp,” Elliott said. “We’re eating lunch outside. He’s in a black SUV right across the street from the rec center!”

  “Hang on.” I told Norma what was going on.

  She immediately took out her phone and called it in to her station. Then she held out her hand for my cell. “Elliott, this is Detective Norma Chiron. I need you to act like everything is normal. Can you do that? Okay. First, can you get a picture of him? Great. Now find an adult and let them know what’s happening. And tell them to behave normally as well. The police are on their way.”

  “He’s leaving!” Elliott’s yell was clear as day.

  “That’s okay.” She was in total police mode while I could only feel relief that he was getting away from my son. “Can you see his license plate?”

  I couldn’t hear his answer, but she looked at me and shook her head. “That’s okay. You did perfectly. Here’s your mom.” She surprised me by taking off at a dead run back the way we’d come.

  “Are you okay?” I asked my son, hurrying to catch up to Norma.

  “Yeah.” Elliott sounded breathless. “I think I can hear a siren. I’m going to find Larry and tell him what happened.”

  “I’m on my way,” I told him.

  * * * *

  Assistant Director Larry did not appreciate having four Sheriff Department cars converge on the Sunnyside Recreation Center during the camp’s lunch break with sirens blasting and lights flashing. Somehow, the SUV made it out of the area, although two other black SUVs without tall bald men driving them were stopped and searched.

  Norma had one of her technical people working with the photo Elliott had taken to see if it contained any clues that would tell them who the guy was. It was hard to see how well it matched the sketch, even enlarged to show his face.

  While everyone was still milling around, I called Annie to see if she could stay a little while longer with my dad. She didn’t ask why, just told me to take all the time I needed. I ended up pulling Elliott out of camp early, and bringing him along to visit my dad in the hospital.

  “Can we stop at home and get Grandpa’s guitar?” Elliott asked.

  “Good idea,” I said. Maybe the guitar would distract my dad from realizing Elliott was supposed to be at camp.

  After stopping for a short time at home, we headed for the hospital. “Hey, kid.” I tried to sound calm. “I think the police are getting close to figuring things out, but until they do, I’m going to ask you to be more careful. You can’t be anywhere by yourself, okay?”

  “Okay.” He readily agreed. “Why is that guy following me?”

  “I really don’t think he wants to hurt you,” I said. “I’ve been asking questions about Twila’s death, and I think he’s trying to intimidate me into stopping.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Are you trying to solve the murder? Like Nancy Drew? Like Sherlock?” He seemed way more excited by the second one.

  “No. I just thought that since I know the moms who were at the trade show, that I could ask questions to, you know, help the police.”

  “That’s cool,” he said. “Because you know you didn’t do it, so you could help find out who did.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I didn’t know it would lead to… this.”

  “No biggie.” He pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Hey, my mom’s a badass.”

  I laughed.

  * * * *

  We got good news and bad news about my dad. His lungs were recovering nicely but he had to stay in the hospital one more night. Several of his friends were in and out during the afternoon, and Lani stopped by with Pico’s dinner for us, even sneaking my dad his favorite chicken chimichangas.

  Even though my dad was itching to get home, part of him seemed to be enjoying the attention. When he and Elliot were engrossed in a guitar lesson, I slipped out and Lani followed. I’d already texted her about the incident at Elliott’s camp and knew she wanted to talk about it. We walked out of listening range.

  “I know you’re thinking it was a mistake to look into Twila’s murder.” She had her Lani on a mission expression. “But you’re wrong. You couldn’t have known this guy would do this.”

  I didn’t think it was a mistake, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit of panic as the night approached. “I know all that. But my kid might be in danger. And my dad is in the hospital. I can’t be two places at once.”

  “The only reason for that dude to be trying to scare you would be that you’re getting closer,” she said. “You can’t give up now.”

  “I’m not giving up.” Maybe I had too much of my dad’s stubbornness in me.

  “Good. Elliott can stay with us tonight. We have a state-of-the-art security system. You know we’ll guard him with our lives,” she said, and from her it didn’t sound overly dramatic. “You stay with your dad. It’s just one more night.”

  I bit my lip, not wanting to let my son out of my sight.

  “We’ll even pick up Trouble,” she said. “You, your dad, and Elliott—and Trouble—will be together at home tomorrow night, safe and sound.”

  Something told me it wouldn’t be that easy.

  * * * *

  I spent the first few hours at the hospital clicking away on my laptop while my dad slept, updating my accounts and generating labels that I’d print out at home for orders that had come in on the website. Of course, the more time-consuming part was preparing the food for shipment, but at least I was being productive.

  Lani sent me detailed texts about Elliott’s status. He ate 4 pieces of lasagna and 3 large chunks of Italian bread. He just pretended to eat the salad.

  Then, What the heck is he reading? His book has zombie entrails on the front!

  He’s asleep and Trouble is watching over him.

  Lani also sent me her updated notes on the suspects. I filled in anything she was missing and emailed it back.

  She replied right away. I think you need a lice treatment, with several bug emojis.

  Oh man. She wanted me to check out the Lice Club Lady. That just creeped me out. I think YOU need a lice treatment, I texted back.

  I can do it! she replied. It’s just a nice oil hair treatment, and my split ends could use it!

  Unfortunately, my sense of responsibility raised its ugly head and I told her, It’s okay. I’ll handle it, and reassured her Are you sure? messages.

  Finally, I typed Get some rest! and fell asleep myself.

  * * * *

  I slept through at least two nighttime visits from nurses checking my dad’s vitals and felt so much better the
next morning. Unfortunately, my dad’s temperature was up and even though he felt much better, the doctor handling the morning rounds recommended keeping him one more day.

  My dad was very disappointed. “You don’t need to stay,” he told me. “I feel better now than I have in weeks. And Annie will be here soon. Go do your business stuff and whatever else you’re working on that you’re trying to keep a secret from me.” Did he have parent ESP going on?

  “And don’t skip that farmers’ market,” he added. “You need to show your advisor guy and Twomey’s that you got what it takes.”

  After only a little more insisting by my dad, I headed out, hoping to catch Elliott before he left for camp. Too bad he texted that he and Lani had dropped Trouble off at home and were on their way a little early to his camp.

  Trouble was delighted to see me. She meowed loudly, demanding to know where I’d been, where my dad was, and why Elliott made her sleep somewhere else.

  I sat at the kitchen table, watching her trying to grumble and eat at the same time. I was behind on my new product development. Trouble hadn’t taste-tested any new recipes since her rejection of the curry chicken.

  Someone rang my doorbell and then knocked on the door, loudly. Oh my God. What if it was Tall Bald Man? Was he crazy enough to come here after the police almost got him yesterday?

  I grabbed my phone and called Norma, hiding so whoever was there couldn’t see me. “Norma,” I whispered when she answered. “Someone is pounding on my door.”

  “Don’t open it,” she said firmly. “I’m on my way.” She hung up.

  “What?” I whispered again. How could she hang up?

  I couldn’t help it. I peeked my head around the corner and looked right into the eyes of Detective Little, who stood at the window just waiting for me.

  I pulled my head back, too late.

  “Open the damn door,” he said.

  I stayed where I was.

  “Open the door or I’ll break it down,” he said.

  I had an image of him knocking it right off its hinges like Hagrid did in the first Harry Potter movie, but Norma had said not to open it. He pounded on the door again, so hard the wall shook, and I gave in and opened the door.