Death by Association

by Paula Darnell

  “I’m not catching you at a busy time, am I?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I’m just about to leave the community center. Victor’s funeral reception was held here in the meeting room.”

  “You went to his funeral?” Wes sounded surprised. “I thought that you didn’t know the guy.”

  “I didn’t, but I know his daughter Courtney. She attended a couple of my classes, so I thought I should go to her father’s funeral for her sake.”

  “That was a kind gesture. Were many people there?”

  “More than I expected—that’s for sure. I saw your partner. I think she hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s—well, let’s just say she’s a little grumpy sometimes.”

  “Grumpy doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to her, Laurel.” Wes said and promptly changed the subject. “I had a great time last night. I was hoping that maybe you’re free tomorrow night. We could go to the Greek Food Festival, or if that doesn’t appeal to you, we could go someplace else.”

  “The Greek Food Festival sounds good. I’ve gone to it with Tracey each year since I moved here.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You’re not intruding. You’d be welcome, in any case, but Tracey had to cancel because she has some bigwig client in town, and she’ll be tied up in meetings all weekend. So anyway, I’d really like to go with you.”

  “Good, but I have to warn you that, even though I’m not on duty tomorrow, I’m on call. There’s always a chance that I might have to go to work.”

  “Oh, okay, I understand.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, but I thought that I should give you a heads-up, just in case. Pick you up around six?”

  “Six is fine. Fingers crossed then.”

  “See you tomorrow, Laurel.”

  “See you then, Wes, and thanks for asking me.”

  “Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”

  Smiling, I dropped my phone back into the depths of my handbag. Tracey had texted me to cancel our planned outing to the Greek Food Festival earlier in the day, and I’d been trying to decide whether to tag along with some of the neighbors or hope that Tracey might be able to go on Sunday, instead of Saturday. I love Greek food, and I didn’t want to miss the annual event, so I was happy that Wes had invited me to go with him. I really hoped that he wouldn’t be called to go to work in the middle of our date.

  “Somebody looks happy,” Luke observed as he came into the mail room.

  “Oh, hi, Luke,” I said without acknowledging his comment. My relationship or whatever it was with Wes was too new for me to feel comfortable talking about it, except to Tracey or Liz.

  “Have a class today?”

  “No class today. I thought I’d just stop in to check my mail box as long as I was already here. I went to Victor’s funeral this morning and the reception here in the meeting room afterwards.”

  “I’d have felt hypocritical going myself, so I stayed away.”

  “I went to support Courtney. She’s been a student in my classes a couple of times, and I know she’s pretty upset.”

  “Understandable, although I heard Victor wasn’t much of a father.”

  I nodded. “I heard the same thing, but he was her father, even if he wasn’t a very good one, and it’s obvious that she still had feelings for him. She was crying at the funeral.”

  “Poor kid,” Luke said. “Some people should never have children, and Victor was one of them. Say, I want to thank you again for putting Bessie’s party together. I would have done an awful job of it without your help.”

  “Thanks, Luke. I was glad to do it. Who would have guessed that Bessie’s attacker would be at the party and that he’d turn out to be Kenny? I was floored when she recognized him.”

  “Kenny’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. You would have thought he’d have done anything to avoid seeing Bessie since he knew the party was for her. His cap pulled down over his eyes wasn’t much of a disguise.”

  “No, it wasn’t, but his dragon tattoo gave him away. If she hadn’t seen the tattoo, Bessie might not have known he was the one who attacked her. He admitted stealing her gun, but do you think he’d shoot Victor?”

  “Can’t think of any reason why he’d want to kill Victor.”

  “I can think of one, but somehow I just can’t picture Kenny as a murderer. He said he didn’t mean to hurt Bessie, and I’m inclined to believe him.”

  “You said you could think of a reason. What is it? Victor never had any interaction with Kenny here. His mom got him the job, but his supervisor and I were the only people who kept track of him and his work.”

  “I suppose if Victor had been giving him a hard time at work, that could have been a motive, but I was really thinking more of his mother.”

  “Rachel? You think he was defending her honor or something?”

  “Maybe her reputation. You mentioned that Victor was holding something over her so that she’d vote his way.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but how would Kenny know about that? I doubt that she’d have told him.”

  “Maybe the same way you knew. He could have overheard her talking to Victor.”

  “Mmmm. Could be, but I tend to agree with you. I doubt that he did it. He doesn’t strike me as someone who has much initiative. He wanted that gun so he could join the Dragons’ gang; otherwise, I don’t think it would have occurred to him to steal a gun. The last I heard on the local news was that “a juvenile” had been charged with the attack, but there was no mention of a murder charge, and you know if he’d been charged with murder, it would have been all over the media, maybe even on the national news since it happened in a guard-gated community.”

  “That’s true. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if anything breaks. Well, I’d better be off and tend to my dog.”

  “’Bye, Laurel.”

  Out in the parking lot, I had already unlocked my car and tossed my handbag onto the passenger seat when I heard the snap of car locks from the black Acura SUV, parked next to my car, and saw Peter Harvey approaching. Maybe I could complete my mission after all. I walked around his SUV and waved at him as he loosened his tie, pulled off his blazer, and deposited them in the back seat. A short, balding man with a florid complexion, he was perspiring profusely.

  “Mr. Harvey? I’m Laurel McMillan. I live here at Hawkeye Haven, and I’m also an instructor at our community center. Could you spare a moment?”

  “If you have a complaint to bring to the board, you should put it in writing or come to the next meeting to have your say.” Harvey had pulled the driver’s door open.

  “No, it’s not a complaint, but it does have to do with the board,” I said as Harvey climbed up into the driver’s seat. Fearing that he would leave before I could continue, I plunged ahead. “I understand that Victor Eberhart subjected several of the board members to coercion so that he could get them to vote with him.”

  “No comment.”

  “I’m not a reporter, Mr. Harvey, just a concerned resident. If it’s true that you were responsible for a building’s collapse several years ago, Eberhart could have been threatening to expose you.”

  “Who told you that?” Harvey said, gritting his teeth.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? I can’t imagine that someone in your position would want that information to become public knowledge.”

  Harvey sighed. “It isn’t true. My boss tried to blame me for the building’s collapse, but he’s the one who approved using sub-standard materials for the job. It happened a long time ago, but somehow Eberhart found out, and he threatened to go public unless I went along with him on some things. He already seemed to have the majority on his side, anyway, so it didn’t make much difference how I voted.”

  “So you voted his way?”

  “I didn’t say that. Are you trying to get me thrown off the board?”

  “No, although you might consider resigning if you
r votes can be influenced, Mr. Harvey. Where were you last Thursday night and Friday morning?”

  “What? Oh, no, you’re not going to pin that on me, young lady. I was in Des Moines at a Board of Commerce meeting. I didn’t come back to Center City until Sunday evening.”

  “I suppose you can prove that.”

  “If I have to, but since you’re not a cop, I think I’ve said all I’m going to say.” Peter Harvey slammed his door before I could say anything else. He started the black SUV and peeled out of his parking space, his tires squealing, leaving me standing there alone.

  Well, well, well. Peter Harvey certainly hadn’t been happy to learn that I knew about his past, but I also noticed that he seemed more annoyed than frightened. Unlike Edna Elkins and Luis Cardoza, he hadn’t issued me a warning, and if he had been in Des Moines when Victor had been shot, he couldn’t be Victor’s killer.

  Thus far, my inquiries hadn’t produced much of anything, and as I mentally reviewed my list of possible suspects, I realized that I seemed to have eliminated most of them, even though they all had motives, mainly because they didn’t seem like the type of people who could walk up to Victor’s door and shoot him right on the spot. But what did I really know about murderers? I remembered Wes’s words: “You’d be surprised what people will do.” I guessed that applied to me, too. A couple of weeks ago, I’d never have dreamed that there’d be a murder in my usually calm and peaceful community, let alone that I’d have the nerve to question any of the suspects.

  Chapter 16

  I knew that I should probably tell Wes what I’d learned, but I rationalized that it wouldn’t hurt to keep it to myself a while longer. If the police solved the murder soon, I might never tell him I’d talked to the board members. Sooner or later, the detectives would question the board members whose names had appeared on the list, but I surmised that they might try to confirm that the information on the list was accurate before that happened. Based on my conversations with Edna Elkins, Luis Cardoza, and Peter Harvey, I felt sure that the information on the list was true. I hadn’t talked to Rachel Caswell, who was dealing with her son’s crime now, but Luke had overheard Victor threatening her. Each one of the four board members whose names appeared on the list had had reason to fear Victor, and a lot of other people had reason to hate the man, but only one person had acted, and whoever that person was had gained possession of Bessie’s gun. Kenny had admitted to stealing it but claimed that he’d dumped the gun after the attack. If Kenny hadn’t shot Victor, then the killer must have found the weapon. Had the murderer, already planning to kill Victor, stumbled upon an opportunity to pick up a weapon? Or had the killer decided to shoot Victor solely because he or she had conveniently found a gun that had been stolen?

  Confused by the numerous possibilities, I drove home to pacify Bear, who began to bark loudly when he heard the garage door going up. He stopped barking and ran to me as soon as I entered the house, giving doggie yelps of joy that he was no longer home alone. Opening the back door, I let Bear out into the backyard to romp while I changed from my dress to shorts and a t-shirt. I could hear my smartphone chiming from the depths of my handbag, which I’d left on the kitchen counter, but I decided to ignore it for now. After we’d played Bear’s favorite games of fetch-the-ball and tug-of-war for half an hour, I called it quits, and we went into the house, where Bear ran to his water bowl and slurped away until it was nearly empty. Panting, he plopped down on the tile floor.

  “You’re hot, aren’t you, boy?” I said, patting his back.

  I checked the setting on the air conditioner, turned it down a few degrees so that we could both cool off, and poured myself a glass of iced tea. Remembering that the phone had rung earlier, I fished it out of my purse and checked for messages. I saw that Liz had called but hadn’t left a message, so I returned her call.

  “Hello, Laurel.”

  “Hi, Liz. I saw that you called. What’s up?”

  “I’m getting forgetful in my old age, Laurel. I was planning to go to Victor’s funeral this morning, but I forgot to set my alarm clock last night, and by the time I woke up, it was too late.”

  Since I’d known her, Liz had never been an early riser. She was definitely a night person. She liked to stay up until the wee hours and sleep until mid-morning or later.

  “I thought you might be planning to go to the funeral since you and Victor’s wife were such good friends. I didn’t decide to go until this morning.”

  “I should have been there, too. I’m sorry I let Courtney down. I’m going to send her some flowers with a note.”

  “That would be a nice gesture, Liz—flowers just for Courtney, rather than a funeral arrangement. By the way, she mentioned that she’s moving tomorrow. You could probably get Floral Creations to deliver a bouquet later this afternoon to her at Eva and Karl’s house, though.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m going to call them right away. How about bringing Bear over this evening for a swim?”

  “Sure, he’d love it. We’ll see you later.”

  “Okay, I’m going to call the florist right now before I forget about that, too.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, I busied myself with my notes and project plans for my upcoming DIY for Dog Lovers book, pausing just long enough to feed Bear his dinner. Still full from all the goodies I’d consumed at the reception, I skipped dinner and continued working. I was writing how-to project instructions for making a dog bed of thick memory foam with a soft, washable cover, like the ones I’d made for Bear, when Liz called to ask me whether I still planned to bring Bear to her pool for a swim. I explained that I’d lost track of time and that we’d be right over, and Liz said that she’d unlock her backyard gate for us.

  I woke a groggy Bear from his after-dinner nap, but once he saw me bring out his leash, his energy level increased considerably. By the time I opened Liz’s back gate, he was bouncing around me in anticipation, and I had to hold him back long enough to close and latch the gate.

  “Bear’s raring to go, I see,” Liz observed as I took the big Lab’s collar and leash off and he dashed for the pool. By the time I’d settled myself next to Liz on the patio, Bear had swum the length of the pool.

  “He does love the water,” I said, watching my dog splash about in the pool.

  “Iced tea, Laurel?” Liz asked. She set a tray with two glasses and a tall pitcher of iced tea with lemon slices on the table between us.

  “Sure, thank you,” I said, as she poured tea over ice cubes in one of the glasses.

  “I’m still gathering the courage to tell Luke that he’s my grandson. We had a nice talk at the party Wednesday night, and I can tell that he’s a good man, but I can’t help wondering whether he’s going to be happy to find out that I’m his grandmother. After Leonard’s reaction to the news, I’m not so sure Luke will welcome it, either.”

  “I remember that you were planning to tell Leonard. So he didn’t take it too well?”

  “Not at all. He’s very angry. You know, Laurel, my son has never quite approved of me. He’s always thought of me as an embarrassment to him. Now that Leonard knows that I had a child long before he was ever born, and I gave my baby up for adoption, he’s even more embarrassed that I’m his mother.”

  “That’s such a shame, Liz.”

  “Even when he was a little boy, he acted ashamed of me. He’s never liked the way I dress or the way I look.”

  “You always look fabulous, Liz.”

  “Not to Leonard. He’d prefer me to look mousy.”

  “That’s too bad,” I murmured. I’d been afraid that Leonard wouldn’t react well to learning that he had a nephew he’d never heard of. I also suspected he was afraid that Liz would leave Luke some of her money.

  “Guess I’m too old to change now,” Liz sighed. “I’m determined to concentrate on what comes next—telling Luke that he’s my grandson. There’s nothing I can do to pacify Leonard, anyway.”

  “When are you going to tell Luke?”

&n
bsp; “Monday, I hope. I had planned to try to catch him today, but I chickened out, and it’s too late now. I checked with the office, and he’s not scheduled to work this weekend, so I’m going to invite him to come over after work on Monday.”

  “Liz, I don’t know Luke too well, but he certainly comes across as a fine man. It might be a bit of a shock to him, but I hope he’ll be happy to know you’re his grandmother.”

  “I’m so nervous. He may take the news worse than Leonard did. You never know. Anyway, I thought I’d tell him about his grandfather and me and maybe show him some of my photo albums if he wants to see them. I was looking through some of them before you came.” Liz motioned to a stack of albums lying on top of the cabinet behind her.

  “May I?” I asked, picking them up.

  “Of course. Let me show you Luke’s grandfather. This is the only picture I have of him.” Liz picked up one of the albums and flipped to a large glossy black-and-white photo of a young Liz and a tall, good-looking, teenager, his arm casually draped around her.

  “Why, Liz, Luke looks like an older version of his grandfather! I remember you told me how much alike they looked, but seeing this picture really brings it home. How old was your husband when the picture was taken?”

  “Seventeen, and I was fifteen. Scandalous, I know, but we were in love. Of course, we lied about our ages so that we could get married. I told the justice of the peace that I was nineteen, and Dennis said that he was twenty-one. At our ages, we were supposed to have permission from our parents to marry, but the JP never questioned our story.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” I said, thumbing through the rest of the album.

  Bear had finally tired of swimming and jumping in and out of the pool. Stretching, he shook off the water and trotted towards us, but I met him with a thick towel before he could reach us and wiped him vigorously. He followed me back to the patio, where he lay between Liz and me and promptly fell asleep.

  Liz looked at the sleeping dog and said, “I wish I could fall asleep so easily. I battle insomnia most nights.”