A Darling of Death

by Gin Jones

  "It's picking up in this hot weather. All sorts of road rage. And sidewalk rage, front yard rage, back yard rage, you-name-it rage. And now apparently we've got murder-investigation rage." Almeida used her phone to take several pictures before straightening to her full height. She towered over Helen, but it didn't feel as annoying as when Peterson did it. "I'll send you a copy of the pictures for your insurance."

  "We don't know for sure that it's related to Danica's murder."

  "Why wouldn't it be related to the murder? Is there someone who wants you dead for some other reason?"

  Helen shrugged, oddly reassured by Almeida's deadpan question. "I've been pretty irritable lately, but I don't think I've inspired anyone's rage." Mostly, she'd inspired cold politeness. "Still, the wording is pretty ambiguous. It's not like there's room for an entire essay on the door."

  Almeida raised one disbelieving eyebrow. "And what else could it be besides a death threat?"

  "I don't know," Helen said. "The vandal could have thought that Danica was nosy, and that was what had gotten her killed. Like curiosity and the cat. And I could be next if I was nosy too. Not exactly a threat, but more along the lines of a warning."

  "That's just semantics," Almeida said, waving her hand dismissively. "Which has its place, of course, but not when it comes to safety. Besides, a well-intentioned warning doesn't generally come in the form of property damage."

  "True. Anyone who had my best interests at heart could have found easier ways to tell me I was in danger. Short as the message is, it still must have taken quite a while to scratch it into the paint, and they couldn't have known when Jack would be back."

  Almeida opened an app on her phone to take some notes. "How long was he gone?"

  Helen paused so Jack could answer, only to realize he wasn't anywhere in sight. He must have slunk off as soon as Almeida arrived, perhaps hiding in the overgrown landscaping. He'd long since learned that some of the local officers tended to blame him for the bad behavior of his extended family members, so staying out of sight was his instinctive reaction to any police presence. "He told me he was only gone for about twenty minutes, and I believe him. That isn't much time for someone to notice the car way over here, cross all the empty spaces and then scratch the message into the door."

  "It's a bit isolated, though, so he didn't have to worry about being seen easily." Almeida scanned their surroundings. "I wonder how he knew the car belonged to you."

  Helen shivered despite the heat. "Someone must have been following us."

  "And that raises another question." Almeida gave Helen a disgruntled grin. "Why on earth would anyone have been following a quiet, law-abiding citizen like you?"

  "Hank Peterson wouldn't be so sarcastic about it."

  "No. He'd just slap on the handcuffs and arrest you for interfering with a police investigation." Almeida's amusement faded. "Seriously, I'd appreciate it if you'd stay out of this. Peterson's hovering over my shoulder, just looking for an excuse to take over the investigation."

  "You're no fun."

  "Sure, I am. Remember when we had a girls' night out?" Almeida said.

  "We should do that again," Helen said, hoping to avoid the lecture she knew was coming.

  "Agreed. But now my job's on the line, and I take that seriously. That's why I've texted for a tow truck to take your car back to the station for the forensics team to analyze. This vandalism might actually be the break I've been looking for. So tell me why you think someone might have been following you."

  "Are you sure you want this on the record?"

  "Good point." Almeida shut down her note-taking app.

  "I visited Danica's business competitor today."

  "But you weren't investigating the murder, right?" Almeida's voice was more sarcastic than before.

  "Not primarily," Helen said. "I was looking into something else."

  Almeida frowned down at her. "I didn't think you'd lie to me."

  "I wouldn't," Helen said. "I had a valid reason to be there. Well, more valid than investigating a murder, at least. Something's going on at the town's nursing home, and the people in charge are working on it at the Wharton B&B. I was trying to crash the meeting. And as long as I was there, it just sort of naturally came up to wonder if the owner of the place might have had a reason to hate Danica. I'd seen how badly she treated her sparring partner. Even though they were hitting each other, they were essentially on the same side, trying to get better at Sambo. And yet she was mean to him beyond what was necessary for the sport. It made me think she was probably brutal toward anyone she considered a real rival. Like the other B&B owners in town."

  Almeida sighed. "How many B&Bs did you visit today?"

  "Just two."

  "That's all? Did you forget to have your Wheaties this morning?" Despite her words, the detective seemed less upset than she'd been earlier.

  "Apparently there aren't that many B&Bs in town that Danica would have considered competition. Just Neil Campbell's place."

  "And the second one you visited? Did that have something to do with the nursing home too?"

  Helen wrinkled her nose. "Okay, so that one was just about the murder. I'd forgotten about checking out the Darling B&B. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, not something I'd planned. I figured if her competitor hadn't killed her—and Neil Campbell's probably got an alibi, since he said he hasn't left the Wharton B&B in weeks—then maybe one of her employees had done it. She was a bully, after all, and I doubt she was any nicer outside the gym than in it."

  "Have you decided the employees couldn't have done it either?"

  "Mostly," Helen said. "They didn't say much, though, and it was hard to tell what they were thinking. One of them—a young guy named Jeremy—was more talkative, but the others kept him from telling me anything useful."

  "I will follow up with him, not you," Almeida said firmly. "First, though, I need to have a word with Jack to see if he noticed anyone following you."

  Jack popped up from the far side of the Subaru. "I knew this was all my fault. I can't believe we were followed, and I missed it."

  "Is it possible, though?" Almeida asked.

  Jack shook his head uncertainly. "I just don't know. I'm sure I would have noticed if a vehicle had been behind us after I left both places, so that's really unlikely. It might have been harder for me to notice if the guy was only behind us after the second address, but that's no excuse. Cardinal rule of professional driving: always be aware of the surroundings. But I swear I didn't see anything suspicious on the road this afternoon. I must not have been paying enough attention. I suppose I was a little distracted by what my niece and nephew are up to."

  "You had no way of knowing there was a crazy person on the loose," Helen said.

  This time, Jack's head-shake was emphatic. "It's my job, and I failed you. I'll resign as soon as I get you home today."

  "No, you won't," she told him. "I don't think we were followed. You would have noticed. And I can't picture anyone we talked to today doing something like this. Neil Campbell is too busy to leave his place, and the staff at the Darling B&B are too worn down from working for Danica to stand up for themselves against anyone, even anonymously like this."

  Almeida peered at the car door again. "I don't know about that. Vandalism isn't exactly an act of courage. It's the type of passive-aggressive action that a person might take when he feels powerless."

  "But wouldn't that suggest the vandal isn't also the killer?" Helen said. "Murder requires some active aggression, not just the passive kind. And then why would they warn me off the investigation?"

  "You never know," Almeida said thoughtfully. "I've only been the Domestic Violence Officer for a short time, but I've witnessed for myself that some of the mousiest people you've ever seen can snap and do some serious damage, even kill, when their abusers toss that proverbial last straw at them."

  "If one of the employees had snapped, don't you think Danica would have died at the B&B rather than at the gym?"


  "Perhaps." Almeida glanced in the direction of the street where a tow truck was entering the parking lot. She waved to catch the driver's attention and indicate the Subaru that was his target. "Unless one of the employees went to the gym to consult with Danica on some emergency, and that was when she finally pushed the person too far."

  As Helen went over to the picnic tables with Almeida to get out of the way of the truck driver, she decided there were too many possibilities in the murder investigation and not enough answers. Just like with everything else in Helen's life right now. The detective had to be frustrated with the pace of the investigation too.

  Settling on the bench of the picnic table, Helen asked, "Don't you have a better suspect than Danica's depressed employees? I was hoping you'd have some solid leads by now."

  "I have leads." Almeida straddled the opposite bench of the picnic table. "I just wouldn't say they're solid. Just the usual connections: family members, significant others, people she's quarreled with. All being checked out, all equally likely, but no real evidence against any one of them."

  The only family member Helen knew about was the presumed heir, Danica's brother. Spencer was the significant other, or at least the most recent ex. And he'd quarreled with her. Loudly and maybe even violently. Of course, so had Danica's sparring partner. "Have you talked to Ronny West from the gym? He was pretty angry with her right before she died. She'd done something to his shoulder, badly enough that he was icing it. He was afraid it would keep him out of some big tournament that's coming up soon."

  "He's on my list, but I can't seem to locate him. He hasn't been at his apartment or his job. Zubov confirmed that West and Danica had been arguing, but insisted the guy wasn't violent by nature. Ironic, considering the martial arts focus of the gym."

  "Ronny isn't what I'd consider an ideal suspect anyway," Helen said, somewhat distracted by Jack popping into view again and trotting over to chat with the driver of the tow truck that was idling in front of the loaner car. "I saw Ronny sparring with Danica, and she trounced him. I'm not sure he could have killed Danica if he'd wanted to. She'd have kicked his butt."

  "Not necessarily." Almeida rolled her right shoulder and winced. "Real life fights are different from martial arts matches. It's amazing what the body can do, even injured, when it's a matter of life and death."

  "Sounds like you have personal experience with that."

  "I do." Almeida watched for a moment as the tow truck driver hitched up the loaner car to take it away. "I got great training in the Army and then another round of it in the police academy. It still didn't completely prepare me for what I faced in the service and then on the streets. In class, you're expecting an attack. In the real world, that's not true, and it changes everything. Ronny West could have surprised Danica, sneaking up on her from behind, especially since his footsteps would have been masked by the sound of the shower. You did say the water was still running when you found the body, didn't you?"

  Helen nodded. She hadn't considered the possible scenario of a sneak attack that wouldn't have required as much skill or physical ability as a sparring session. The possible suspects were increasing in number instead of being whittled down.

  "Is that really how you think it happened?" Helen asked. "Someone caught her by surprise, knocking her unconscious and into the pool of water?"

  Almeida wiped a hand over her face. "I don't know. Still waiting for the final report from the autopsy. All we've got so far is the preliminary information on the cause of death. It would be nice to know how much skill would have been needed to subdue her. Then I'd know how hard to push Zubov to answer my questions."

  "Kolya? You still suspect him?

  "I suspect everyone. It's my job. Anyone—even your favorite senior homicide detective—would suspect Zubov. He ordered Danica out of his gym shortly before she died, so he wasn't exactly happy with her. And he's hiding something. He isn't rude about it or anything, but he's as skilled at avoiding my questions as he's rumored to be at Sambo. I can't help thinking that maybe he and Danica were something more than instructor and student or mentor and mentee, and he knows that would look bad for him. He was gone for a week recently, and she was too. I've got evidence that she was at a conference in New York City, staying at a luxury hotel, but I can't find any record of where he was. No credit card transactions, no cell phone usage. Just totally off the grid for a week. Which could mean that he was with Danica, she was paying for everything, and he left his cell phone behind so their little affair wouldn't be interrupted."

  That didn't sound good for Kolya, especially when it was Almeida, and not her less thorough, more prone-to-unfounded-conclusions boss coming up with the possibility.

  "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for where Kolya was." There was always Betty's and Josie's theory about a secret soul mate. It wasn't any less likely than his having had an affair with Danica, at least if the story was stripped of the over-the-top bits. "Maybe he's seeing someone else and is trying to keep it discreet."

  "I can be discreet if he'll just open up with me," Almeida said. "What I can't do is keep Peterson from interfering if I don't produce some solid answers about Kolya's disappearances soon."

  Helen wondered if Almeida had noticed that Mia had a desperate crush on Kolya. The Tai Chi instructor had as much of a potential motive for murder as her boss did if she'd found out that he'd been having an affair with Danica. If the killer had been able to use the element of surprise to overcome the victim, as Almeida herself had suggested, then it wasn't just Ronny who could have used that to their advantage. Mia taught the beginning Sambo classes, so she had at least some martial art skills. Even if she wasn't a match for Danica in a formal setting, Mia could have used the element of surprise to improve her odds.

  The only question was whether someone as sweet and naively optimistic as Mia could kill anyone or even attack in anger. Helen certainly hoped not, and in any event, she wasn't prepared to alert Almeida to the possibility if she hadn't already considered it.

  For now, the only useful thing Helen could do was to get Kolya to come clean about where he'd been, so he, at least, could be cleared of suspicion. "I can talk to Kolya about trusting you with everything he knows about Danica if it would help."

  "Not a good idea," Almeida said, raising her voice over the sound of the tow trunk winching the loaner car into its bed. "If Peterson found out, it would be just the excuse he needed to take over the investigation. I really want to do this on my own. And get it right, of course. It wouldn't matter so much later on in my career, but I might never recover from having my first ever investigation pulled out from under me."

  Helen didn't want that to happen any more than Almeida did. Innocent parties like Kolya, Mia, and Spencer Nagle all had better chances of being exonerated if Hank Peterson wasn't in charge.

  "I won't talk to Kolya about the case," Helen said. "But he'll think it's odd if I don't talk to him at all. He's supposed to be training me to hit things."

  Almeida narrowed her eyes. "I mean it. No discussing Danica with him. At all. Or I'll turn the case over to Peterson myself."

  "You wouldn't," Helen said, but she wasn't as confident as she tried to sound.

  "I would."

  Helen was convinced. "All right. I won't talk to Kolya about Danica. I promise."

  Before Almeida could respond, the tow truck driver interrupted with a clipboard and paperwork that needed to be signed.

  Helen took advantage of the distraction to collect Jack and call Barry, an ex-monk and the only cab driver in town, with Jack's seal of approval. Helen would have preferred to ride in the front passenger seat, but for once, Jack's insistence that she behave like a proper passenger and sit in the back had a good outcome. With Jack in the front passenger seat, Barry was able to reassure him that the vandalism hadn't been his fault. The lecture about God's plan and the importance of accepting things that can't be changed continued for the duration of the ride home.

  Helen tuned out most of
the conversation as she mulled over the terms of what she'd promised to refrain from doing. She couldn't talk to Kolya about Danica; that much was clear. But she hadn't promised to steer clear of questions about where Kolya had disappeared to. If she asked him about it, she could always claim it hadn't been related to the murder investigation at all. It would simply be to satisfy her own—and Betty's and Josie's—curiosity. And if it just happened to provide him with an alibi, no one could possibly blame her for that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alone in her cottage that evening, Helen wished she'd paid more attention to the monk-turned-cabbie's advice about accepting the things she couldn't change. Then she might not have wasted the last few hours fretting about who might have vandalized her loaner car and why he'd felt the need to warn her off an investigation she wasn't even particularly involved with. She was curious about who might have wanted Danica dead, and a little concerned about Kolya and Spencer becoming suspects, but she still thought Almeida could handle the investigation.

  The next morning, she was no closer to a state of peaceful acceptance than she'd been when Barry had dropped her and Jack off at her cottage the night before. Tate might have helped reassure her if he'd been in his studio when she'd gotten home, but his car hadn't been parked outside the garage then, and it hadn't shown up yet today.

  Sitting and thinking about the problem was only making her more aware of how little control she had over anything, from the condition of her car to the state of her health. Maybe getting out and doing something physical would help. Didn't people always say that the answer to a problem would often appear as soon as they stopped trying to force it?

  Perhaps she could convince Mia to give her an impromptu lesson in hitting things. Even another Tai Chi session would be better than doing nothing. And if Kolya wasn't too busy, she might get a chance to have a little chat with him about his disappearances.

  A call to Jack confirmed that the owner of Wharton Wheels hadn't blamed him as much as he blamed himself for what had happened to the loaner car, and a second loaner car was available for Helen's use. Jack arrived half an hour later, this time in a clunky, older sedan rather than a clone of her own vehicle. Still, it was better than Jack's pickup and more than adequate to get her the couple of miles to the Zubov House of Sambo.