The River and the Roses (Veronica Barry Book 1)

by Sophia Martin

  “What?”

  “The guy we arrested isn’t named Isaac. His name is Evander.”

  Veronica shifted in her chair, which responded with a creak. “Evander Collins?”

  “Yep. Says so right here.”

  “Could Isaac be his middle name?”

  Daniel frowned. “I guess it’s possible. I’d have to check the file.”

  Veronica sucked in her lower lip.

  “How about we table that for a moment and focus on what you saw yesterday.”

  “Remind me,” she said with a deep breath.

  “You said that you saw Albert and Sylvia Gomez arguing at the restaurant.”

  “Right. And you asked what they were arguing about.”

  “Exactly.”

  Veronica sighed and closed her eyes, trying to bring the details of the vision back to her. “Something about how they had to do something,” she said at last. “It’s hard to say.”

  “Just take your time.”

  She frowned, still keeping her eyes closed. “Something about making a change. He wanted to make a change. He said they couldn’t go on like they were, and that she had to see that.”

  “Okay. What set her off? Why’d she get up and leave?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “He said they had to take steps, and prayer wasn’t enough, and she just felt so awful. She realized he was going to make her do something she didn’t want to do.”

  “Like what?” Daniel asked. “Like quit her job? Get a divorce?”

  “I don’t know,” Veronica said, opening her eyes. She gazed at him. “It’s not like they spelled it out. But whatever it was, she felt awful about it. She had to get away.”

  “Okay. What then?”

  “She left the restaurant, and someone was waiting for her outside.”

  “Really?” Daniel said, leaning forward.

  “Yeah. That’s who followed her to the park. That’s who killed her.”

  “Okay, but go back to outside the restaurant. Who was he?”

  “I don’t know! I couldn’t see his face. Everything got blurry then. It’s like she shows me these images, and when it gets to that, she doesn’t want me to see!”

  Daniel sucked in his lip and released it. “So tell me what you heard.”

  “Well, she knew him. She called him ‘baby.’”

  “Oh,” Daniel said. “A boyfriend?”

  “Maybe,” Veronica agreed. “She had a lot of really strong feelings. She didn’t want him there. She said her husband would freak.”

  “Sounds like a boyfriend!” He started scribbling in his notepad.

  “And he was angry at her. He said he didn’t care about her husband.” Veronica frowned. “I think maybe it was the guy from the viewing.”

  “The viewing?”

  “There was a man. His name was Max. At least, I think it was Max. He showed up and he got into a fight with Sylvia’s husband. They hated each other.”

  Daniel kept writing. “Maybe that’s why she won’t show you his face. Maybe she’s ashamed that she cheated.”

  “You think that it works that way?” Veronica asked.

  “Well, you said she felt guilty as hell, right?”

  “Yeah, but—she’s dead. Why carry that kind of deceit with you?”

  “I don’t know how that sort of thing works. Maybe she doesn’t want Gomez to know,” Daniel said.

  “But Max came to the funeral. Gomez must know. He hated him. He told him to leave.”

  “Sounds like a mess,” Daniel said. He started writing something else down.

  “Oh, but wait,” Veronica said, remembering. “Sylvia said something about her niece.”

  He stopped, the pen raised from the page and frozen. “Her niece?”

  Veronica squinted, trying to bring it all back. “Yeah. She said something about how this guy had to stop upsetting her husband, and he said it had nothing to do with him, and she said something like, ‘She’s his niece.’”

  “But you felt like she had strong feelings about this guy?”

  “Oh, yeah! He’s the one she felt guilty about—she felt like she’d done something so bad to him, she deserved to die.”

  Daniel closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, coming dangerously close to marking it with the pen. “But if this guy was just her niece’s boyfriend or something, that wouldn’t make sense.”

  “He started accusing her of not loving him, and she said she did.”

  “She loved him,” Daniel stated. “So where does the niece fit in?”

  Veronica wracked her brain. What did she know about Sylvia? Just that she was killed by someone she knew—knew well. She was married, had a son. She had a sister. “Oh, wait!” Veronica said.

  “What?”

  “Her sister—um, I’m not sure what happened. But something happened at a club. Maybe it had something to do with her niece.”

  “This was in your vision?”

  “No, when I went to the viewing, and Sylvia talked to me—she told me to say she was sorry to her sister, about what happened at the club.”

  Daniel noted something on his pad. “Okay. Let’s leave the question of who this guy is for a minute and get back to what happened.”

  Veronica nodded. “He knew she was afraid of him, and he liked it. He got menacing. And he was really angry, because she was going to dump him.”

  “Is that how he said it?” Daniel asked.

  “Yeah, ‘You’re going to dump me again.’”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if he was a boyfriend, that could mean they have broken up before. I’ll see if I can get another look at the records. We didn’t turn up anything relating to domestic disturbances for the Gomez’s. But maybe she filed a report at some point if this guy got violent with her before.” He wrote down some more notes while he spoke. “Although maybe not, if she’s so sketchy about revealing his identity to you. Chances are she was just as sketchy before she died. What happened next?”

  “He got rough with her, and she started to run, and she got as far as the rose garden at McKinley. She was hoping if she cut through the roses and ran into the park, she’d be able to lose him,” Veronica said. “She was in heels, though. She fell.”

  Daniel nodded. “They ought to ban high heels. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something similar. A victim tries to run but she’s in heels and she either can’t go fast enough or she falls.”

  Veronica suppressed a shudder. “It’s not what I’m thinking about when I buy shoes. Escaping an attacker, I mean.”

  “I haven’t noticed you wearing heels,” he said. She wondered how much about her he did notice. Her mind wandered to the feel of his hand clutching hers, his hand on her arm. Stop it, she told herself. He didn’t think of her that way—what would he even notice about her, anyway? Average haircut, no makeup, plain clothing. What was there to notice?

  “I’m a teacher,” she said. “Heels don’t lend themselves to standing on your feet for most of the day. It’s a little like being a nurse.”

  “Or a cop,” Daniel agreed. Veronica thought he seemed to spend a fair amount of time in his car and at his desk, but decided not to say so. He closed the notepad. “I think I’m going to go over to Sylvia’s sister’s house and ask about what happened at the club.”

  Veronica raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You mean you believe me—enough to question someone?”

  “Can’t hurt,” he said. He shifted a little. “It might be a little weird, especially if she denies that anything happened—hey, what did she say, when you told her Sylvia was sorry about the club?”

  “Well—she knew what I was talking about,” Veronica said. “She looked upset. But at that point I was getting pretty freaked out and I had to leave.”

  “Why were you freaked out?”

  Veronica sucked in a breath and eyed him.

  “What?”

  She shook her he
ad. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just that…there were a lot of ghosts there.”

  “In the funeral parlor?”

  “Yes.”

  Daniel pondered this. “Well, I guess that would be…likely.”

  “Yep,” Veronica agreed.

  “And they…freaked you out?”

  “Believe it or not, when about two dozen ghosts start crowding around me, I get the heebie jeebies.”

  “Huh,” Daniel said.

  Veronica watched him process this.

  “But, you’re a psychic. Aren’t you used to that kind of thing?”

  “No, not really. I’ve always avoided…places like that. And… well, it was just too weird.”

  “What was? Being crowded by them?”

  “Yeah, and they got… well, sort of aggressive, you might say,” Veronica said. “So did that ghost I saw earlier today in the street.”

  “Aggressive? How?”

  “Well, the ones in the funeral home… Pulling on me. And one lunged at my face and it looked like… like a skull. The one today made his face go all stretched out.”

  “Now you’re messing with me.”

  “No, I’m really not.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Okay,” Daniel said. He paused. “So you left the funeral home?”

  Veronica nodded. “Yeah. Plus everyone was leaving. After Max and Sylvia’s husband fought, one of Sylvia’s relatives asked everyone to leave. And it was awkward, asking Carla questions that were obviously upsetting to her.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s never fun to question people at a funeral. Everyone’s emotions are so raw.” He stood up. “Anyway, this was good,” he said, waving the notepad before tucking back into his coat pocket. “I have several things to follow up on.”

  “When are you going to see Sylvia’s sister?”

  “I thought I might head over there right now,” Daniel said. He patted his pocket. “I’m sure I have the address.”

  Veronica stood up, smoothing her clothes. “Let me come with you,” she said.

  “Uh—no,” Daniel said.

  “Please? Maybe Sylvia will say something to me again, or I’ll see something. I might see what happened at the club. Or we could figure out who Max is.”

  “Didn’t you just get through telling me you upset this woman at the funeral?”

  “The viewing.”

  Daniel tilted his head to the side as if to say, what’s the difference?

  “I won’t upset her this time,” Veronica said.

  “I think you’re probably wrong about that. Besides, this is a police investigation. Last time I checked, you were a high school teacher, not a cop.”

  “And you’re off duty,” Veronica pointed out. “It’s not like it’s going to be dangerous. You’re just going to knock on her door and see if you can ask a few questions.”

  “And how do you propose we explain your presence there?”

  “Well, she knows I know something happened at the club. We could just be honest and tell her I told you, and you wanted to bring me along because I might have something to contribute to her answers.”

  She gazed at him as he stood without speaking, probably trying to think of another reason not to take her. He really was handsome. The planes of his face were so distinct—like facets of a diamond. She particularly like the angle of his high cheekbone. She wanted to paint him.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “But you let me do the talking, and you don’t leave my side. If anything gets weird you do exactly what I say.”

  Veronica’s face lit up. “I promise!”

  “I hope I don’t regret this later,” he muttered as she grabbed her coat.

  Chapter 21

  Daniel pulled a red sweater and a pair of sunglasses off the front passenger seat. He tossed the sweater in the back but put the glasses on the dashboard. Veronica eyed them as she sat down—they looked too feminine to be Daniel’s. Felsen’s, maybe?

  As Daniel started the car Veronica flipped through his notebook. He had resisted giving it to her until she pointed out that her testimony would come off as strange whether she looked at it or not. She already knew too much about the case.

  “Evander Leonard Collins,” she murmured.

  Daniel remained quiet as he drove to a freeway onramp. The sunglasses slid from one end of the dash to the middle.

  Reading the notes Daniel had taken on Evander, her eyes stopped. “It says here he has a brother.”

  “Oh?”

  “A deceased brother,” she added.

  Daniel’s eyes flicked over to her but he didn’t comment.

  “Is there any way to find out the brother’s name?” she asked. “Maybe how he died?”

  Daniel sighed. “You really think this is important?”

  “I don’t see ghosts every day,” she said.

  He frowned at her. “I was under the impression you did.”

  “No,” Veronica said. She gazed out at the freeway ahead, watching the cars switch lanes. “It’s not that often. I think it takes something extra for them to… to show themselves to me. They have to really want it. So it must be important.”

  Daniel gave a short nod. “Okay,” he said, an edge of resignation in his tone. He pulled out his cell and punched some numbers with his thumb. “Hey. Can you look something up for me?”

  Veronica chewed on her thumb nail, listening. She could hear the voice on the other end. It sounded like Felsen.

  “Collins had a brother,” Daniel said. “Can you get me his name? He’s dead, and I’d like to know how.”

  Felsen said something.

  “I’m just checking out a hunch,” he said. “It’s probably nothing. Do you mind?”

  Felsen’s voice got louder, and Veronica made out, “You’re not talking to that scam artist, are you?”

  “Lara, I’m just checking something out. It’ll be a dead end, I’m sure. Can you call me with the info when you have it?”

  “You’re being a sucker, Dan. I can’t believe you’re letting her get to you.”

  “Look, if you’re not going to get me the info on the brother, I’ll have to call Cooper, and I still owe him for that time in Old Sac.”

  Felsen made a loud frustrated noise. “No problem,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, and hit end. He dropped the phone in a cup holder.

  “Wow,” Veronica said. “She hates me.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Daniel said. “She just thinks you’re trying to trick me. Lara doesn’t trust me to know better.”

  “Why not? You get tricked a lot?”

  Daniel smirked at her. “No. But she thinks she’s smarter than me. She’s probably right.”

  Veronica raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest, leaving the notebook closed in her lap. He didn’t know how hostile Felsen had been with her, and he didn’t know how she’d threatened Veronica with the Bo Bedragar case, so he didn’t realize that this was more than Felsen having some sort of superiority complex. What was really going on, Veronica couldn’t figure out.

  As Daniel changed lanes, the sunglasses whizzed off the dashboard. In a reflex Veronica jerked out a hand to catch them. Her eyes blurred.

  ~~~

  “I’m here to report a murder!” bellowed a tall man. His voice sounded distorted, as if he might be missing teeth. He wore a heavy khaki jacket, dirty jeans and scuffed boots. He looked a bit like Isaac Collins, but beefier.

  The man stood in the doorway of Daniel’s police station. Veronica walked up to him, catching sight of herself in the panes of glass that flanked the door: she was a young male uniformed officer. How odd. As the officer approached the man in the doorway, he held up his hands as if to calm him. “Sir, if you’ll have a seat, someone will be with you.”

  “I saw it,” the man who must be Evander Collins said to the officer. �
�I saw that lowlife shoot my brother.” He laid one heavy hand on the cop’s shoulder.

  “Okay, sir, someone will take your statement, but you have to wait here—”

  “Listen!” Evander shouted into the cop’s face. His breath reeked of cheap gin and he slurred the “s.” “I saw it!” He shook the shoulder. The combination of the shake and the breath made Veronica feel ill. She wondered if the officer felt it, or just her—he seemed to control any reaction he had very well.

  “What’s this?” came Felsen’s voice, and she walked into the waiting area.

  Evander stopped pulled his hand from the officer’s shoulder and blinked at her, his face slackening.

  Felsen gave him a hard glare. “This man is drunk, officer.”

  “He claims he witnessed a murder.”

  “Is that so? Well, he’s no good to us like this. Come back when you’re sober, sir,” she said to Evander.

  The big man dropped his hand from the cop’s shoulder and continued to gawk at Felsen.

  “Officer, escort him out,” Felsen said. The cop took Evander’s elbow to lead him out of the station, but Felsen stopped him. “Actually, allow me.”

  The officer watched as Felsen steered Evander outside, meeting with no resistance. Then she began talking to the drunk, although whatever she was saying he couldn’t hear. It looked intense, however. Evander responded, frowning deeply. Veronica willed the officer to open the door, catch a snippet of their conversation, but all he did was stand and watch. Felsen gestured: a flat palm slicing the air twice, angled slightly to wave Evander away. Leaned back from her, but then raised his eyebrows. His face took on a cunning quality as he next spoke. Pointing off in the distance first, he then shaped something with his hands—something at an angle. He grimaced at Felsen, and she glowered back at him.

  Evander swaggered away.

  ~~~

  Veronica sucked in a breath as the vision ended, and she dropped the sunglasses on the floor of the car. She turned and looked at Daniel.

  “Evander Collins tried to report his brother’s murder and Felsen sent him away,” she stated. Since she had no clear idea of what their conversation had been about, she decided not to mention it.

  Daniel glanced over at her and then looked back at the road.

  “What?”