by Rose Pressey
“Chuck told us Paul didn’t have any family and here it lists a wife. Her name is Kristina Constantine.”
“I think we need to find her,” Derek said.
“I think you’re right.”
“Where does she live?” Derek stopped at a red light.
“I’ll start by doing a search for her name to see if anything comes up.”
“What did you find?” Derek pushed the gas when the light turned.
“Nothing comes up, but we have Paul’s address that Chuck gave us. We could go check that out.”
“Let’s go,” Derek said.
We drove to the outer part of town, over to the address that Chuck had given us. He had also left a key so that we could enter Paul’s home. I hoped that wasn’t an issue for the police, but I supposed they’d already searched everything they needed. That meant we probably wouldn’t find anything useful, but it was worth a shot.
We pulled up to the large stucco house and got out of the car. Other houses were to the left and to the right, but no one was around. At least we wouldn’t have anyone spying on us. When we stepped up to the front door, I pulled out the key and shoved it into the lock.
“I hope he doesn’t have an alarm system,” Derek said. “Though I suppose he’s not home to set it, is he?”
“I just hope there are no surprises.” I unlocked the door and opened it up.
We eased into the space, just in case there might be someone waiting for us on the other side. The house was fully furnished. A living room and dining room were to the left and right. Since the place was so big, I didn’t know where to even start.
“Maybe we should split up so that we can cover more space quickly,” I said. “Although I’m not sure what we’re even looking for.”
“We’ll know it when we see it,” Derek said. “I’ll go to the right and you go to the left.”
“We’ll meet back here, but let me know if you find anything important.”
Derek gave a little salute and then turned to the right. I headed to the left into the living room. Black leather furniture decorated the space, with chrome and glass tables. A large abstract painting of a nude woman hung above the sofa.
I scanned the room, but there was really no place to hide anything in there. No cabinets, chests, or any drawers. Next I moved into the kitchen. Looking through all of the cabinets was a necessity, so I started pulling out drawers and opening doors. Unfortunately, there was nothing out of the ordinary, other than dishes and silverware. There had to be some desk and filing cabinet where he kept his paperwork. I assumed that was in the office. Derek would probably get there before me. He always got lucky like that. I should have taken the right.
I moved to the back of the kitchen and then to the right down a small hallway. There was another staircase that led upstairs. The staircase at the front of the house was much larger. I figured I could take the back stairs and head up to Paul’s bedroom. I hoped I found something there. There had to be some motive for a murder.
Just as I placed a foot on the stairs a big crash sounded through the house. What had Derek broken? That was seriously going to put a dent in our profit margin. Derek was totally paying for anything he broke with his share of the money.
I moved toward the main hallway so that I could find out what he had done when all of a sudden Derek ran into me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Derek held his index finger up to his lips. “You have to be quiet. We have to hide. Somebody just came into the house.”
“What? What was that noise?”
“I don’t know—it wasn’t me. That’s why I think someone is in the house. I thought I saw someone and I knew it wasn’t you. The person must’ve dropped something.”
“Where do we hide?” I asked as Derek took me by the arm. “Maybe it’s Chuck.”
“No, I saw the back of this person. It was a woman.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Derek paused. “Yes… no.”
“We have permission to be here,” I said.
“Do you really want to take a risk? Maybe the person isn’t supposed to be here. Maybe they’re the killer.”
“Good point,” I said.
Derek and I hurried up the back staircase and into the upstairs hallway.
“Where to now?” I looked around.
“Into the bedroom.” Derek pointed. “We have to hide.”
We rushed into the room and Derek eased the door shut.
“What about the closet?” I gestured.
“They’ll look there first,” he said. “We have to get under the bed.”
I didn’t like the sound of this, but I had no choice at the moment. Following Derek over to the bed, I dropped to the floor. Derek went to the other side. We scooted under the bed. This was a little too close for comfort. Derek was right next to me, body against body.
“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but at least we’ll have fun,” Derek whispered.
I was about to respond when the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs stopped me. Next the person walked down the hallway. Derek and I remained quiet so that we wouldn’t be caught. The bedroom door opened. Did the person know that we were up there? What if they found us under the bed? What if it really was the killer? We were so screwed. I didn’t have the option of casting a spell that might get us out of this situation. All I could do was recite the words in my mind, over and over again. I hope it worked.
The person walked across the room. Footsteps padded across the carpet. Then the person stopped right beside the bed. I got the feeling they knew we were under there. They stood there for what seemed like forever.
Then all of a sudden the woman said, “Come out from under the bed. I know you’re down there. I will shoot you if you make one bad move.”
Damn it, Derek. I knew we should have hidden in the closet. How did she know we were under there? Derek and I looked at each other. He motioned for us to go out on his side.
I slid out from under the bed and then pushed to my feet. When we were out from the other side, the woman was standing in front of us. Her hand shook as she aimed the gun. She glared at us. I guessed her age as probably mid-fifties. She had long blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was impeccably dressed in a white dress with diamond necklace and earrings. A beige-colored Hermes Birkin bag was draped on one arm. The gun remained pointed at us with the other hand. If I had a Hermes I would put it down either.
She looked us up and down and then said, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing? You’ve got two seconds to explain before I call the police. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot first as soon as I knew you were under there.”
Yes, she was right. We were lucky because I got the impression she would have loved to have shot first and asked questions later.
“My name is Cece Cash and this is Derek North,” I stammered. “We are with the Cash and North Detective Agency.”
“North and Cash Detective Agency,” Derek whispered.
“Mr. Cochran hired us to look into the death of Mr. Constantine. He gave us a key to come in and look around.” I gestured with a tilt of my head toward my pocket. I hoped she believed us. “You can call and ask if you’d like. He’ll tell you the same thing.”
At least I hoped he would tell the same story. We’d gotten only a few details from him, so maybe he was setting us up for something. I was definitely suspicious of this whole scene and we needed to have a long talk with Chuck Cochran. Definitely a long talk before we pursued this case any longer. I needed answers, considering Chuck had said Paul had no family and then I’d realized he had a twin brother. Now the woman in front of us was his wife Kristina. I knew that because there was a photo of her in a wedding gown on the nightstand.
Kristina relaxed her stance and lowered the gun. “It’s okay. I believe you.”
“Sorry if we scared you,” Derek said.
“We didn’t know if maybe it was the killer who had come
in,” I said.
“What makes you think that there is murderer?” she asked. “My husband killed himself. That’s what the police told me.”
“Well, that’s not what his brother thinks,” I said.
“Well, his brother thinks a lot of crazy things,” she said.
“Do you know anyone who might want your husband dead?” Derek asked.
She moved over to the dresser. “Really? I mean I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in his life much for the past year. I couldn’t tell you what he might be into.”
“You were separated?” I asked.
She turned around to face us again. “You might want to ask his new girlfriend. She probably has more details into his current life than I do.”
Derek and I exchanged a look.
“He has a girlfriend?” I asked.
“Yes, he has a new girlfriend. Of course he had a different girlfriend while we were married and I was still living here. I think they broke up when he failed to give her more money though. So I guess there are a couple of people who could be interested in seeing him dead.”
Even Kristina was a suspect as far as I was concerned. Paul had been cheating on her for a while and she seemed a tad bit bitter about that, understandably so. If Paul and his wife had been separated for so long, and Paul was dating other women, then it seemed odd he still had their wedding photo on the nightstand in his room. Maybe he hoped to reconcile someday.
“Do you have the name of this girlfriend?” I asked.
I knew this was a touchy subject for her, but it would help us tremendously if we found out.
“Her name was Brianna Vonberg.”
“Do you have any other information about her?” Derek asked.
“Well, I think she was staying here with him a lot, but I don’t see any evidence of that now. Perhaps they broke up. That’s about all I know.”
At least we had a name to go on now. That was a little help.
“Thank you for all your help,” I said.
I just wondered why Kristina was here if they hadn’t been together.
“Are you here to go through some of your husband’s things?” I asked, trying to get her to offer up information.
“I just came to pick up a few things that I wanted from the house. You know, now that he’s dead,” she said with a wave of her hand.
That was interesting. I wondered what these things were, but I had no say in whether she took anything or not. I figured she needed to contact Paul’s attorney. Had Paul left everything to her? Maybe she needed to let someone know that she was here. I needed to tell Chuck that she was here, plus ask him why he hadn’t told us about her in the first place. How could we solve the case if we didn’t have all the facts?
“We’ll get out of your way now,” Derek said.
“Yes, thanks again,” I said.
“No problem,” Kristina called out.
Derek and I hurried down the stairs and to the front door as if the place was on fire. We walked down the front porch steps and away from the house, leaving the woman upstairs.
“I want to know what she’s really up to,” I said.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Derek unlocked the car door.
“We need to call Chuck right away. Maybe he can come over here,” I said as we got in the car.
Once I’d fastened my seatbelt, I dialed Chuck’s number. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer, so I had to leave a voicemail.
“Now what?” I asked.
“We’ll have to find the girlfriend. We have her name—Brianna Vonberg.” Derek started the car, but didn’t pull away from the curb.
“Maybe with that we can find something about her.”
“I’ll do a quick search.” Derek pulled out his phone and typed on the screen. After a couple seconds, he said, “Here we go. Her Facebook page.”
“Send her a message,” I said. “Maybe she’ll contact us today and we can meet up.”
Derek typed out a message quickly and hit send. Just as we pulled away from the curb his phone rang.
“How did you get her to call you back so quickly?” I asked.
“I just told her I had questions about Paul,” Derek said.
“Oh, yeah, I guess that would work. Good thinking.”
He turned into a driveway and answered. “Yes, I did just send you a message. My name is Derek North and I wanted to ask you some questions about Paul’s death.”
Chapter 6
“Okay, great, so I’ll see you soon,” Derek said and then clicked off the phone.
“Wow, she agreed to meet you already? That was fast.”
“I guess I just have a way with people.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you say so.”
Derek did seem to have way with people, but I wouldn’t admit it.
“That means she must not be guilty of his death,” he said. “If she’s so willing to talk to us.”
“Or she’s guilty and wants to try to fake it so that nobody will suspect her. We’ll make her talk right away, then if she’s telling the truth, she doesn’t have to worry,” I said.
“Good point,” Derek said. “Nice work.”
“Where are we meeting her?”
“The restaurant over on Sunset. The new place. Have you been there yet?”
“No, I don’t have time for things like that,” I said.
Derek glanced at me. “You don’t have time to eat?”
“I just don’t have time for nice restaurants.”
“That’s a shame. Well, you’re about to find out what it’s like.” He pulled away from the curb.
“Did she say she worked there?”
“She didn’t say.” Derek turned left.
We drove the short distance to the restaurant. Derek pulled into the parking lot and we got out. I thought I would recognize Brianna from the picture she had on Facebook. We stepped into the restaurant and I scanned the dimly lit room for her. So far, I didn’t see her.
The place was nice, decorated in black and white with black paintings and white tablecloths on all the tables. Little candles flickered in the middle of the tables. It was expensive-looking, so I assumed that everything on the menu would be out of my price range. I hoped that we didn’t have to sit down for food. Maybe I could just order salad.
“I’m not sure that I can afford this place. It’s probably a hundred bucks for an appetizer,” I whispered.
Not to mention I probably wouldn’t want any of the weird stuff that was offered on the menu anyway. I was more the burgers and fries kind of girl. The most exciting thing I ate was sushi.
“There she is,” Derek said, pointing.
I spotted her over by the bar. Well, I assumed that was the woman he meant. She looked like the woman I’d seen in the photo on Facebook. Derek and I walked over to where she stood.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Are you Brianna Vonberg?”
Brianna spun around and looked me up and down. She wore a tight white t-shirt and skinny jeans that hugged her curves. Her full lips were covered with red lipstick and her blonde hair cascaded past her shoulders. Her big brown eyes soaked in Derek’s appearance. She smiled at him, then looked at me again with a frown. What was that supposed to mean?
“Yes, I’m Brianna and you must be the private investigators.”
I flashed my wallet with my business card and driver’s license inside so that I would look official. “I’m Cece Cash. This is Derek North. We’d just like to have a few words with you, if that’s possible. We’re looking into Paul’s death.”
“He killed himself,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Right. Well, that’s what we’re trying to make sure of,” I said.
She looked at Derek again and smiled. “Would you like to have a seat in the chair over here?” She headed straight toward the table in the corner of the room. "We can talk.”
Derek exchanged a look with me. “That would be great. Thanks.”
She winked at Derek as she walked away. I
poked Derek in the side so that he would follow her. He just shrugged. I rolled my eyes. She was definitely flirting with him. That was confirmed when she turned around again, flashed a giant smile at him, and then winked. That was not subtle at all. How did she know that I wasn’t dating him? Apparently she didn’t care. She didn’t seem to be grieving that much over the death of her boyfriend either.
We sat down at the table in the corner of the restaurant. Derek was sitting next to her, not by his picking, but because she had pushed her chair a little bit too close to him. I sat across the table as if I was an unwanted party in this little tête-à-tête.
“So you come here often?” I asked.
That sounded like a pick-up line, but whatever.
“Yes, I do,” she said with a giggle directed at Derek. “I should come here often, I own the place.”
She gave me another smirk—not exactly great with customer service.
“Well, good for you,” I said. “Anyway, the point of our visit is to ask questions. Have you spoken with the police?”
She looked me up and down. “Yes, I spoke with the police.”
“What did you tell them?” Derek asked.
“All I told them was that Paul and I weren’t really dating anymore.”
“So when did you break up?” I asked.
She waved her hand with a flick of her wrist. “Just like a week ago.”
That was still pretty current.
“So what do you think happened to Paul?” I shifted in the uncomfortable chair.
She shrugged. “I guess he just had too much pressure and decided to end it all.”
“Did he ever act depressed? Was he depressed or upset with you?” Derek asked.
She frowned. “Not depressed with me. I know he was happy with me, but he did have a lot of stress for money reasons. I guess, you know, being in charge of a big construction company and everything must take a lot out of a person.”
“So how long have you owned this restaurant here?” I looked around again.
“I just recently got it.” She looked at Derek and smiled again.
That was a vague answer. I figured she’d want to talk more about the place.
“Is this where you met Paul?” I pointed.