Death by Association

by Paula Darnell

  “Sure, that’s fine.”

  “Stay here and be a good boy,” I told Bear as we quickly departed. Bear looked forlorn, as usual, and it was difficult to ignore his doggie version of a guilt trip, but I knew that he’d settle down and nap most of the time while I was gone.

  As we left the house, I spotted a large black pickup truck parked at the curb, and fearing that it belonged to Wes, I panicked momentarily. I certainly wouldn’t look very graceful trying to climb up into such a big truck.

  “That’s not your truck, is it, Laurel?”

  “No,” I said, relieved that it obviously wasn’t Wes’s, either. “Must be somebody visiting one of the neighbors.”

  Wes led me to a late model silver Toyota Camry, parked across the street, and opened the door for me. Nice. We were off to a good start, I thought.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, glad that I’d worn my blue silk dress.

  “Arnold’s. It’s a relatively new place that my sister recommended. She told me that Chef Arnold left a ritzy, five-star restaurant to open his own place on the east side of town. Denise is a foodie, so she’s up on the local restaurant scene.”

  “Do you have other relatives living here?”

  “Just Denise and her husband Jack. They have two grown daughters, but the girls are both attending college in California. How about you, Laurel? Any family here?”

  “My cousin Tracey, who’s my very best friend in the world—she lives in Hawkeye Haven, too—but the rest of our family all live in Seattle.”

  “Have you lived in Center City long, Laurel?”

  “About three years now.”

  “Coming from Seattle, you must’ve gone into shock with our humid summer heat and freezing winters.”

  “Uh, huh. My first winter here I thought I would die. I’d never been anyplace so cold in my life. I do miss Seattle’s moderate climate sometimes.”

  “Iowa weather can be brutal, and don’t let the natives kid you. They don’t like it any more than the transplants. I know I don’t.”

  “So you’re from Center City?”

  “Yup, born here, went to school here, and then college at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.”

  “Did you always want to be a cop?”

  “No, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I majored in business, mostly because I needed to declare a major in something, but when I graduated, the police department was recruiting. I had no other prospects, so I applied.”

  “And here you are—a detective.”

  “And here I am with the DIY Diva.”

  “How did you know that’s my handle?”

  “I’m a detective, remember? It’s on the cover of your books. I bought the only two the Book Nook had left in stock.”

  “I’m flattered, but I can’t imagine any of my books being too interesting for a guy. Which ones did you buy?”

  “Uh, something about earrings—that’s one, and the other one’s about Christmas decorations.”

  “The DIY Diva’s Guide to Making Your Own Crystal Earrings and The DIY Diva’s Guide to Holiday Decorating.”

  Wes nodded. “You’re a very talented lady. Is there anything you don’t know how to make?”

  “Food,” I laughed. “I’m the worst cook in the world. Ironically, I’m going to include a few recipes in my next book. Actually they’re for dog treats. I have one recipe I thought of myself, but I’m relying on my friends and relatives to give me some of their recipes to include in the book. Oh, darn, that reminds me—I never did get an email with Bessie’s recipe. I guess she forgot to have her granddaughter email it to me.”

  “Bessie—that’s the security guard who was attacked, the one you were having the party for?”

  “Yes, with all the excitement at the party last night, I totally forgot to ask her about the recipe again.” I paused, switching gears. “Do you think Kenny killed Victor?”

  “Let’s just say he’s a person of interest at the moment.”

  “I know he confessed to stealing Bessie’s gun, but he claimed that he didn’t mean to harm her. According to what Kenny told us last night, he’s all hung up on joining some gang at his high school, and they told him he had to have a gun to become a member. That’s the only reason he stole the gun. Somehow, I just can’t see Kenny shooting someone. He seems like such a cowardly, little weasel.”

  “You’d be surprised what people will do.”

  “I suppose so. So you think Kenny shot Victor?”

  “Let’s just say he’s a person of interest at the moment,” Wes repeated. His bland expression gave nothing away.

  “Okay, you win. You can’t talk about it, right?”

  “Right, not while it’s an active, unsolved case, but, believe me, it will be solved. With as many leads as we have coming in, I know from experience that something will break. But I don’t blame you and your neighbors for being concerned.”

  “Our crime wave has really affected the residents; that’s for sure. Everybody’s jumpy. I guess we all assumed that we were safe because we live in a guard-gated community.”

  “I can understand that. In fact, murder in a guard-gated community is rare. Here’s the thing: most killers have a close personal connection with their victims. In Victor Eberhart’s case, you know as well as I do that a lot of people Eberhart dealt with harbored a grudge, so it’s likely that whoever killed him won’t go after any other residents.”

  “But that’s not a certainty.”

  “No, and, in any case, it never hurts to be on your guard. Seriously, Laurel, be very careful. Take Bear with you when you’re walking around the community, and never open your door to someone you don’t know.”

  “Victor wouldn’t have opened his door unless he knew his killer, and he wasn’t afraid of whoever it was.”

  “That’s a logical assumption.”

  “Scary when you think about it.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a homicide detective, it’s that there are no guarantees in life.”

  “That’s for sure,” I sighed.

  “Ah, here we are,” Wes said as he turned into the parking lot of a strip mall on a busy east-side street.

  After he parked, I waited while he came around the car and opened the door for me. Since he’d opened the door for me when we left home, I figured he’d do the same when we arrived at the restaurant, so I curbed my inclination to open the door for myself. I’d become so used to doing everything for myself since I’d become a widow that I’d almost reached for the door handle myself.

  Although Arnold’s didn’t look like much on the outside, the tiny restaurant was cozy and inviting inside. Its tables, each one with a single rose in a bud vase, were spread with white linen tablecloths and set precisely with china, silver, and crystal. The lighting was low—a perfect setting for a romantic dinner.

  “Tonight I’m not on call, so we can enjoy dinner without any interruptions from the office,” Wes told me after our waiter had presented us with menus and recited the chef’s special of the evening—seared Atlantic salmon with lemon-dill butter. The salmon sounded good to me, and Wes barely glanced at the menu before deciding on steak. Following the waiter’s suggestions for wine, we both ordered a glass—a white for me and a red for Wes, both of which were delivered promptly along with the chef’s bread basket, filled with two warm mini-loaves of savory bread that smelled heavenly.

  After the waiter took our order, Wes said, “You’re not the only one who doesn’t cook. I practically live on fast food. A good steak will be a welcome change, but it’s probably not too great for my cholesterol, or so my son tells me.”

  “How many children do you have, Wes?” Here was the opening to talk about past relationships. I intended to follow Tracey’s advice and avoid getting bogged down in that discussion.

  “Just one. My ex-wife and I split when Derek was still a pre-schooler. She didn’t want to live on a cop’s salary, and I didn’t want to go to work for her father, selling used cars. We bot
h did our best with Derek, though. A few weeks ago, he started his first year in medical school at Johns Hopkins.”

  “Wow, that’s a top medical school.”

  “So they tell me.”

  “You must be very proud of him, Wes.”

  “I am. He’s smart, but he worked hard to get in, too. He’s always been kind of a serious, studious kid. How about you, Laurel? Any kids?”

  “No, I was married, but my husband died in an auto accident a few years ago.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes, just mentioning it, and Wes gently covered my hand with his and said simply, “I’m sorry, Laurel.”

  “Luckily, our waiter arrived just then asking if we’d each like another glass of wine, and I took a moment to compose myself before going back to Wes’s question.

  “We didn’t have any children.”

  “I thought you probably didn’t, or, young as you are, you’d have kids still at home with you.”

  “Uh, thanks. How old do you think I am?”

  “My best guess—thirty. Am I right?”

  “I wish. I’m thirty-eight.”

  “Laurel, honestly I’m not saying this just to flatter you, but you really do look much younger. It’s a relief, though. Now I don’t feel as though I’m a forty-five-year-old cradle robber.”

  We both laughed. I realized that we’d gotten past the topic of past relationships, only spending a couple of minutes on it, and I certainly didn’t intend to bring up the subject again on our first date. I also realized that I was now thinking of this dinner as our first date, meaning that I thought there’d be more to follow, but maybe I was getting ahead of myself. As I’d told Tracey, I’m an incompetent dater.

  When he wasn’t busy questioning me as though I were a homicide suspect, Wes was down to earth and easy to talk to. I thought it best not to mention that I’d asked Edna Elkins about the end of her nursing career because I was sure that he’d warn me off, but if I didn’t say anything about it, Wes wouldn’t have the chance. Wes probably didn’t want to discuss it with me any more than I wanted to discuss it with him, although our reasons were different. I didn’t want a lecture, and I knew that he wouldn’t approve of my snooping around in an official murder investigation. As I’d hoped, the crimes at Hawkeye Haven didn’t come up again the rest of the evening.

  Wes’s sister had made a good choice in recommending Arnold’s. Our dinners were superb, and we enjoyed meeting Chef Arnold, who made the rounds of each table to chat with his customers, making sure they were happy with their meal selections. I had planned on skipping dessert, but when our waiter offered a scrumptious tray of sweet confections, both Wes and I succumbed to temptation. We lingered over dessert and coffee. Having neglected to order decaf, I drank three cups of regular coffee, and I was sure I’d regret it when I tried to go to sleep. I noticed Wes was drinking regular coffee, too.

  When we’d finally finished our dinner, Wes paid the bill, which I knew must have been steep, with cash, leaving a generous tip for our waiter. We were at the front door, ready to step outside, when our waiter came up to us and presented me with the rose that had been in the vase on our table.

  “It’s for you, Miss. I meant to tell you earlier. We always give the ladies a rose.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said, surprised as I took the flower gingerly to avoid the thorns. “That’s really nice.”

  “Thank you,” Wes repeated to the waiter.

  “Our pleasure, sir.”

  From my point of view, the evening had been a success. I worried about what to do when we arrived back at my house. Should I invite Wes in for a nightcap? I realized that it would be nearly midnight by the time we got back to my house, but then I told myself the time didn’t matter—nobody was going to turn into a pumpkin at the witching hour. We’d been at the restaurant for three hours. In fact, there had been only one other couple still there when we’d left. The staff had probably wanted to push us all out the door so that they could go home.

  Wes and I chatted easily on the way home, and when we arrived, Wes escorted me to the front door. I asked him if he’d like to come in for a drink, but he declined, saying that he had to get up early the next morning.

  “Well, thanks for a lovely evening, Wes. I had a good time.”

  “You’re welcome. It was fun.” We could hear Bear barking on the other side of the door. “Bear’s up and at ‘em,” Wes observed.

  “Yes, and he’ll be bright and alert and ready to go for a walk by six tomorrow morning.”

  “So you have to get up early, too. I’d better shove off.” Wes leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. It happened so quickly that I was caught off guard, even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. But, as I said, I was an incompetent dater.

  Wes stepped back, smiled at me, and strode down the sidewalk, whistling as he walked to his car.

  Chapter 15

  Considering how much caffeine I’d consumed at dinner the night before, I slept remarkably well, and I almost managed to match Bear’s eagerness for our morning walk. My date with Wes had gone much better than I’d anticipated, and I was wondering when I’d see him again. Then I remembered. Victor’s funeral was scheduled for Friday morning. I’d put off deciding whether or not I would attend, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. If I went to the funeral, I’d have to start getting ready soon after breakfast.

  Based on Courtney’s behavior at the DIY Earrings class she’d attended a few days earlier and the fact that she hadn’t been arrested for her father’s murder, I felt certain that her alibi, which the police had had ample time to confirm, was rock solid and that the shooting had happened while she was at work. Although Victor had been an unpleasant, perhaps even an evil man, his daughter Courtney, whom he hadn’t treated very well, clearly had some daughterly feelings for him, and she’d be even more distressed than she was already if there weren’t very many people at the funeral. Not only had Courtney lost a father, such as he was, but she had also discovered his bloody body lying in the doorway of their home, a traumatic experience that she’d never forget. I decided that going to the funeral was the right thing to do, much as I would have preferred to avoid it, and I might just have the opportunity to find out more about the information on the mysterious list if some of the board members attended.

  Would Wes be there? He hadn’t mentioned Victor’s funeral during our date, but I’d watched enough true crime shows on television to know that detectives sometimes attended a homicide victim’s funeral. Although I wanted to see Wes again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him at Victor’s funeral. Having him there could definitely cramp my style if I got the chance to talk to one of the board members whose name appeared on the list I’d found.

  Taking my time getting ready—I wanted to look nice just in case Wes showed up—I rushed out the door only a few minutes before the funeral was scheduled to start. I’d deliberately chosen not to wear black because it washed me out, so much so that I might have looked like the corpse myself had I worn the fashionable, but gloomy, color. I decided to wear a sleeveless, dark brown sheath dress, figuring it would suffice as appropriate funeral attire, and, on the plus side, it didn’t necessarily look as though I were dressed for a funeral.

  When I arrived at the Meadows Funeral Home, I recognized a few other stragglers from Hawkeye Haven parking their cars, too. I followed them inside where a somber usher in a black suit greeted me at the door to a chapel-like room and handed me a memorial program. For a man who was pretty much universally despised, there was a respectable turnout. In the front of the chapel, Victor’s body was laid out in a satin-lined casket, surrounded by several floral arrangements. Seeing Victor in artificial repose gave me the creeps. For some reason, I couldn’t help thinking about the hole in his chest caused by the deadly bullet that had ended his life.

  From my vantage point at the side of the aisle in the back of the room, I could see Courtney seated in the front row with Karl on her right side and two couples I didn’t recognize sitting on
Courtney’s left. Patty sat alone in a pew a few rows back, and the HOA board members occupied another pew, although Rachel Caswell wasn’t among them. I looked for Wes, but he wasn’t there. After spotting Cynthia and Amy, sitting in a pew a couple of rows from the back, I joined them.

  Thankfully, the service was short. The officiant, an elderly white-haired man, opened the service with a brief prayer and then read Victor’s short biography, which I recognized as the same one that had run in the newspaper. The two men sitting next to Courtney turned out to be a couple of Victor’s cousins, and I assumed that the women accompanying them were their wives. When he spoke, one of Victor’s cousins mentioned that he and his relatives had driven over from Des Moines, where he and Victor had worked at the same company for several years. The other cousin reminisced about some of his vacations with Victor when they were children, and one of Victor’s golf buddies talked about Victor’s love of the game. Patty, mercifully the last speaker, spun a yarn about Victor’s having made outstanding contributions to community life in Hawkeye Haven. Reading the expressions on several faces as Patty told her fairy tale, I knew that neither the residents present nor the board members were buying any of her malarkey. Wondering whether Wes might have slipped in late, I glanced surreptitiously over my shoulder a few times during the service, but I didn’t see him. I guessed that he’d had more pressing business to take care of.

  To end the service, the officiant intoned another short prayer. Classical violin music wafted from hidden speakers while the attendees filed by Victor’s open casket and then stepped out into the hallway, where Courtney, supported by Karl, and Victor’s cousins were accepting condolences. Circling back through the door I had entered and down the hall to avoid passing by the casket, I joined the receiving line, where I nodded to Karl, gave Courtney a quick hug, and shook hands with Victor’s cousins and their wives.

  Cynthia and Amy were waiting for me near the front door.