Inked Up

by Terri Thayer

  She was out of time. She had to go back and face the police.

  Witnesses could put her at Trish’s. The guard knew she’d been out there several times. Whoever nearly ran her off the road might have recognized her car. If she didn’t talk to the police and let them know what she knew, she could become a suspect. She started to pull out of the parking lot.

  Light spilled out as a door leading to one of the small private rooms of the club opened. Her heart leaped to her throat and she threw her car into park.

  Mitch. It felt like forever since she’d seen him. She would throw herself in his arms and tell him what she’d been through tonight. A stroke of his hand on her hair would give her the strength to face the police.

  He was talking to someone. They’d stopped just outside the door. The other person lit up a cigarette and leaned in close to Mitch as he shook the match and extinguished the flame. A deep draw on the cigarette made a bright glow.

  She peered out over the steering wheel. The smoking man had his head down. Who was Mitch with?

  The door opened again and a figure dressed in a skirt stepped through.

  April got out of her car, shutting the door quietly. She could hear Mitch’s voice, low but insistent. She moved closer, still in the shadows.

  Not a skirt, a kilt. Ferguson. They were probably celebrating the telethon. April was a little hurt that they hadn’t invited her. Dang these men anyway. Always the boys’ club. No girls allowed.

  “I’m glad I could bring you two together,” Ferguson said, slapping the smoker on the back and reaching for Mitch’s arm and pumping it. “This was a very productive dinner.” He had a toothpick in his mouth, and his tongue worked it from side to side as he finished his sentence.

  April stepped forward into the light. “Hello,” she said.

  The smoker turned to her voice, curious to see who had greeted them. His smile was lascivious. He probably figured that would make the perfect end to their evening. A good dinner, a back room deal and a pretty woman.

  He blew a cloud of smoke, obscuring his features. She took another few steps toward him.

  The light was stronger and the smoke cleared. She recognized the face just as Mitch and Ferguson caught sight of her.

  “April?”

  “Ms. Buchert, just the lady we need to see,” Ferguson said. “I was just telling Ted here about your extraordinary fund-raising techniques.”

  The smoker was Traczewski, Trish’s husband.

  CHAPTER 22

  April drew closer. She resisted Ferguson’s arm, which was snaking around her back, pulling her close to him. She ducked away from him and stepped up to Traczewski.

  “April, have you ever met Mr. Traczewski?” Mitch was saying. April looked at him with dismay. Why was Mitch acting like the head of Border Patrol wasn’t scum?

  She would deal with that later. Right now, there was a much worse problem.

  Traczewski turned to snuff out his cigarette, exhaling with a cough and crushing the butt with his shiny shoe.

  April wasn’t sure she could speak. She opened her mouth once, but nothing came out. She tried again.

  “Mr. Traczewski, I’ve just come from your house. I had an appointment with Trish. She didn’t answer, so I went inside. She gave me the garage code. You know how she does.”

  April stopped. She knew she was babbling. Ferguson was looking at her strangely. She didn’t want to explain why she went inside. And she couldn’t tell them Rocky had been there. Mitch was waiting for her to get to the point.

  She concentrated on Traczewski. This man needed to know his wife was lying dead in their bed. Before she could get out another word, however, she was interrupted by another voice in her ear.

  “Ms. Buchert, I believe you called 9-1-1.”

  She wheeled around to find Yost coming out of nowhere. He had moved up on her silently. His car was behind hers, blocking her exit.

  He planted a hand on either hip, near his gun on one side, his walkie-talkie on the other. “We had a 9-1-1 call come in. The caller didn’t identify herself but the area code was California, 4-1-5, to be exact. I believe that would be San Fran.”

  April turned away from him. She heard him blow out his lips impatiently, like a big dumb horse.

  “I was calling in to report an incident,” April stalled, looking from Mitch to Yost to Traczewski. Ferguson’s good-ole-boy smile was fixed on his face. Mitch questioned April with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Ms. Buchert, let’s go talk in my car. You can let me in on what you think you saw,” Yost said.

  Traczewski huffed impatiently. She really wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. He was odious.

  “I saw a dead woman. Dead in her bed. In Trish’s bed.”

  Yost stiffened. “And you came here?”

  Mitch said, “She knew I was having dinner with Traczewski.”

  April’s head jerked toward him. He lied. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. Mitch moved over to put an arm around April, shielding her from Yost.

  “She came right here to tell him about his wife,” Mitch said.

  “My wife? Trish?” Traczewski said. “Dead?”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. Ferguson snatched them from his hand. “I’ve got to go home,” Traczewski said. His voice was soft, pleading. He reached for his keys.

  “I’ll follow you,” Ferguson said.

  Yost said, “Wait, just a minute, you two. I need to call this into the state police. Ms. Buchert, you need to come with me, back to the scene so you can give your statement to them. Mr. Traczewski . . .”

  But Traczewski and Ferguson were already moving across the parking lot toward Traczewski’s silver sedan. A moment later, the sedan was followed by an SUV out of the lot.

  Yost followed them at a run. He called back to her, “Ms. Buchert, you’d better be right behind me.”

  Traczewski drove past. He was alone in his car. April saw Ferguson follow him, but their cars went in two different directions when they got to the end of the drive. Ferguson went toward Lynwood and his office. Yost roared past.

  Suddenly it was just Mitch and April. April didn’t want to face him. She started to turn back toward her car, but Mitch caught her by the arm.

  “Where are you headed?” he said.

  “Away from you. If you didn’t hang out with racist wife-killers, I might like you more.”

  “I wasn’t hanging out with them. Ferguson brought Traczewski along without my knowledge.”

  April felt her heart rate slow a bit. “You weren’t meeting with him?” She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Her only excuse was that she was upset.

  “He did tell me something interesting, though,” Mitch said, scratching his chin. “Ferguson swears he has witnesses who saw Hector buying spray paint from Ernst Hardware.”

  “Did Traczewski know, too?” April asked.

  Mitch shook his head. “It was news to him.”

  “I bet he knew, I bet he was in on it with Valdez,” April said.

  Mitch was startled. “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. You’ve been working on this project under the radar for months, so to speak. No one noticed. You organized the building, got the volunteers, set up your committee to pick the family. All without any help from anyone from Lynwood. Right?”

  “Yeah . . .” Mitch said. “What’s your point?”

  “The point is that just because the family that you happened to pick was of Mexican heritage, Hector gets interested. He brings along his opposition, Traczewski, because you can’t have one without the other, and suddenly, you’re on television and you’ve got protesters and you’re having meetings with slimeballs like Traczewski.”

  Mitch looked thoughtful. It was obvious that the parade of events had just swept him along. He really hadn’t given any of it much thought. He wanted to give a family a new home. That was all.

  “What if the family whose name you’d picked out hadn’t been Latino? Ever thi
nk of that? You think Hector would be around if the Kelly or the Becker family was the one you’d picked out of the hat?”

  Mitch walked away from her. “But that’s not what happened. It was a lottery. I drew the Villarreal family. Fair and square.”

  April followed him “And you got Hector. Worse, you got Traczewski. And ever since those two have been involved, you’ve had nothing but trouble.”

  “Hector and Traczewski didn’t cause Xenia’s death, and Xenia’s death is what’s causing all the trouble.”

  “Is it? Think about it. The graffiti was done before we knew Xenia was dead. The protest the next day was planned well in advance. That was no spontaneous event.”

  “I can’t believe Hector would do anything to jeopardize the house.”

  “Mitch, open your eyes. These guys are using you to serve their own causes. They don’t care anything about Winchester Homes for Hope. You’re trying to save four families. They’re both out to promote their own agendas. You’re just a cog, a cog with an interesting story that gets them on TV.”

  Mitch was quiet. April could see he didn’t want to believe it. She tried one more time. “Look at the facts. The anti-immigration feelings had died down. With no new legislation in the works, Hector and Traczewski were out of a job.”

  “Hector hates Traczewski,” Mitch said.

  “Maybe, but he needs him. They need each other. And they’re both using you.”

  Mitch’s eyes darkened. “Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?”

  April could see she’d hit a dead end. “Sure. Did you at least get your money from Ferguson?”

  “No. Ferguson said he’s done a bank transfer online, but I haven’t seen money yet. I’m going to run over to my sister’s and use her computer to check.”

  Cripes. Rocky. She’d forgotten about her. She pulled away from Mitch. “I gotta go,” she said.

  Mitch said, “What are you doing? Let me drive you back to Pine’s End.”

  She shook her head, fumbling for her keys. “I’ve got to go find Rocky first. She was there, at the Traczewski house, with me.”

  Mitch’s brow furrowed. “My sister was there?”

  “Yes. She saw Trish, too. In fact, I think she saw her before I did. She was up in the bedroom . . .”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I had an appointment with Trish.” April opened the door and sat on the seat, her feet on the ground. Mitch leaned on the open door.

  “What was Rocky doing there?”

  Good question. She looked up at Mitch. “Did you know she was buying the Stamping Sisters line from Trish?”

  To her surprise, Mitch nodded. “I helped her with the finances. My sister never has a penny when she needs it. I was fronting her the money. I’m hoping the business will provide her with a steady income. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to bail her out of trouble.”

  “But you don’t have any money,” April said, standing up again. Mitch had to back up to get out of her way.

  “What are you talking about, April? I still have my trust and my investments.”

  “But you’re always talking about running out of money.”

  “Meet my brother, the tightwad,” a voice in the dark said. Rocky came out from the side of the building. “You never have to worry about him. He’s always got money. He’s probably got the first dollar he ever made. Certainly has the first allowance Dad ever gave him.”

  “Rocky, this isn’t the time,” Mitch said. “You need to go talk to the police, both of you.”

  “That’s more April’s thing than mine. She’s been through this before.”

  “So have I,” Mitch said. “And it’s important. I’ll drive you both back. Leave your cars here.”

  He walked back and got his car. April and Rocky stood in awkward silence until Rocky leaned over to April.

  “Want to know why I give you such a hard time about Mitch?”

  April nodded.

  “You didn’t include me,” Rocky said petulantly.

  “Excuse me? How exactly does that work?”

  April regretted her flip words as she saw a hurt look pass over Rocky’s face. There was an undercurrent that April nearly missed. Rocky was hurt.

  “Well, not like that. You guys need your alone time. I’m okay with that. But the Winchester Homes? I wanted to work on them, too.”

  “Mitch’s been swamped,” April said, still floundering. She wasn’t sure if she could trust this new side of Rocky. Still wary that she was being punked somehow. That the real Rocky, strong, sassy and sarcastic, was hiding just beneath.

  “Mitch asked you to design the interiors of the Villarreal house,” Rocky said.

  April saw the problem now. Before she’d arrived on the scene, Rocky had been the resident artist, the go-to gal for all things decorative and pretty. April had taken her place.

  “There’s plenty of work to go around,” April said. “I’m sorry if it seemed like we shut you out. We didn’t mean to.”

  April looked at this woman and recognized her vulnerability for the first time. She had me fooled, April thought. With the tough exterior and the constant teasing, she’d really thought Rocky needed no one. Instead, it was just the opposite.

  And, if April hadn’t been around, she’d be working with her brother more closely. Rocky missed her big brother.

  April pulled Rocky in for a hug. “How about you paint the kitchen?” she said.

  April felt Rocky stroke her back. “As long as you do the baseboards. I hate cutting in.”

  The two laughed and broke apart.

  Rocky got in the front seat. April leaned in Mitch’s window.

  “I’m going to drive myself. See you there,” she said, moving quickly before he had a chance to react.

  She wasn’t going to let Ferguson get away with stealing Mitch’s money. She was going to his office and find out what was going on.

  CHAPTER 23

  Ferguson was running some kind of scheme, taking money from people like the Campbells and doing who knows what with it. April wasn’t going to let him do that with the Homes for Hope money.

  She pulled up to the studio. The retail store was dark, closed for business. She didn’t see Ferguson’s Porsche in the lot, but she decided to knock, just in case.

  No answer. She walked around the building, peering in the windows. She tried the front door again. It pulled slightly but didn’t budge. The handle rattled briefly. She glanced back at the road. Traffic was light at this hour, but Route 309 was a busy road and cars were whizzing by at fifty miles an hour. She was way too visible.

  She went around the back, remembering the door Ferguson had taken her to that led directly into his office.

  It was locked up tight.

  Then, suddenly, the door opened. April nearly fell off the small concrete stoop. She caught herself on the iron railing and straightened.

  “Looking for me?” Scott Ferguson was silhouetted in the doorway. He was the picture of relaxation, but he looked very different.

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” April said. She forced air into her lungs. She didn’t want to sound weak or scared. All she wanted was what she’d been promised. He had money that belonged to Homes for Hope, money that would benefit the Villarreal kids, and she wasn’t going to leave without it.

  “Come in,” he said.

  She hesitated. They would be alone in his office.

  She stayed in the doorway. “I just want to see that you transferred money into the foundation account,” she said quietly. “Mitch believes you. I want the proof.”

  “You doubt me?” Ferguson crossed his arms and leaned in the jamb. He wasn’t wearing the kilt she’d seen him in earlier. He was dressed in lightweight linen pants and a Hawaiian print shirt. Nothing like his usual attire. It was astonishing how different he looked.

  “No problem. I’ll print you a copy.”

  April was stuck now. She had to go in.

  He held the door open.

&nb
sp; She walked in. He busied himself at his desk, moving papers around.

  “I didn’t see your car out there. Your family not expecting you?”

  “I always work this late.”

  She turned her attention to his credenza. He had the usual pictures of family. But one made her take a step closer for a better look. Trish and Ferguson grinning into the camera. The picture was clearly taken on a tropical beach. Ferguson was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt much like the one he was wearing now.

  “You must be so upset about Trish,” April said, an idea forming. “Her death.”

  “Excuse me?” Ferguson responded, closing a file drawer sharply.

  April pointed to the picture. “I see your families vacationed together. Is this near your condo in Florida?”

  He looked blankly as though wondering how much she knew about him. “No, that’s the Bahamas.”

  Convenient. A place where banks didn’t care where the deposits came from. He probably had money stashed. For all she knew, the beachfront property in the picture that the Campbells had hung so proudly could have belonged to anyone. Or no one.

  “Why did you pay for Xenia’s line of Bonita cosmetics?” April asked.

  “An investment,” he said. “I’m in charge of a lot of people’s monies. I’m always looking for good investments.”

  “Trish probably wasn’t too happy when she found out.”

  “She never knew,” he said.

  April moved down the wall, stumbling slightly when her toe caught on a small plaid suitcase that was in the corner of the room. She understood.

  He was leaving town with the money he’d promised Mitch. Maybe that’s why Trish got killed. She was supposed to go with him until her husband found out. And he killed her.

  She turned back to Ferguson, to plead with him to give her Mitch’s money, but it was too late.

  Ferguson swooped a tie around her neck and pulled tight. She remembered how Xenia and Trish had died, strangled. April got one hand under the tie, keeping the pressure off her throat. She gasped for air.

  Ferguson lost his balance trying to walk backward, momentarily letting go of her and the tie around her neck. April had a split second to get out from his grasp. She spun around, and the tie dangled innocently in his hand.