Engaged in Murder (Perfect Proposals Mystery)

by Nancy J. Parra

  “That’s settled, then.” Mom stood. “Come on, girls, let’s coordinate our calendars. Oh, Felicity, I know the perfect woman to sing at your wedding . . . and Mrs. Shelton can play the organ . . .”

  I followed them into the kitchen. My thoughts were less on the planning and more on how I would figure out if Warren was guilty or not before this engagement got too far.

  Chapter 9

  “What are you doing here?” Officer Vandall asked.

  “I wondered if you needed anything further from me for your investigation,” I said. I had dressed like a professional so that the police would take me seriously. A quick glance around told me that they didn’t deal with professionally dressed people too often. Besides, I didn’t want to come off as a kook.

  I tugged my navy skirt down to ensure it hit at my knee. The fabric had a way of hiking up when I walked. Mom used to tell me all the time to slow down and walk like a lady so that wouldn’t happen. Some things a girl never learns.

  Officer Vandall tilted his head. “Did you remember something else?”

  I recognized that as a gatekeeper question. I was prepared to lie. “I have information about Warren Evans.” That statement was true, and my skin stayed blushless as he eyed me.

  He glanced at me and his mouth pursed. “Fine. I’ll see if Detective Murphy has time to talk to you now.”

  “Thank you.”

  Officer Vandall went through the door that I assumed led to the officers’ cubicles. I was left to cool my heels in the waiting area out front. I took a moment to check that the patterned blouse I wore was appropriately buttoned. The thin belt at my waist had not slid to the left.

  My hair, well, I had learned long ago that it had a mind of its own. We had come to a deal. I didn’t expect it to do anything fashionable and it didn’t stick out . . . too much.

  “Ms. Pomeroy?” I glanced up to see the hound dog face of Detective Murphy. He wasn’t unattractive. He had that older Humphrey Bogart kind of look. It made you think he put on a fedora when he walked out the door. Today his broad shoulders were encased in a white shirt. A red and blue striped tie was pulled loose at his neck. Black dress slacks and standard-issue black dress shoes finished the look. Even if I hadn’t known he was a police detective, I would have imagined that he was.

  “Yes, hello again.” I held out my hand.

  He shook it. “Detective Murphy. Officer Vandall told me you have information on the airport murder?”

  “I was the one who called 911,” I said.

  “Yes, I know.” He opened the door wide. “Why don’t you come back and we’ll chat. Can I get you some coffee? It’s cop coffee, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” I followed him down a hall that was made by the edge of cubicles and a wall that held windows and doors. From what I could tell, the doors led to small rooms. I had watched enough 48 Hours to know they were most likely interview rooms.

  His office was in the room at the end of the hall. The room was about twelve feet by twelve feet and held four desks, a bank of file cabinets, and two printers. It smelled of stale coffee and aftershave.

  “Have a seat.” He waved me toward a chair next to a desk with his name plaque. I noticed that he had the desk farthest from the door and his back was to a wall.

  I sat in the green plastic chair, my purse on my lap and my hands gripping the handle. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. It was kind of scary in the police station. Odd to think I was more frightened in here than I was when I found the body. Maybe because the man was dead. While Detective Murphy looked as if he could read my every thought.

  I steeled myself. “Do you know his name? The dead guy . . . That night all Officer Vandall would tell me is that he didn’t have any identification on him.”

  “His name was Randy Stromer. Jeb Donaldson identified him.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know a Randy Stromer. I’ve never heard Warren speak of him.” Okay, so that was a white lie. It was Warren who had told me his name.

  “He was a janitor at the airport. It’s how he got through security. We figured he was an employee as Donaldson didn’t have a record of any other nonpassengers besides you and your video man.”

  “Do you have a motive? I mean, why would anyone want to kill a janitor?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Murphy sat back. “Did you have information for me, Ms. Pomeroy, or did you have another motive for coming by?”

  I blinked. “My sister is engaged to Warren Evans.”

  “I think that’s in the report.” His gaze was flat.

  “She is my baby sister and I need to know if marrying Warren Evans is right for my sister or not.” I clutched my purse. “Felicity said you had a lot of questions for them and that Warren called in his lawyer.”

  “I do have a lot of questions,” Detective Murphy said.

  “Is my sister in trouble?”

  “You tell me, because she wouldn’t.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Felicity. Besides, I know she wasn’t at the airport until after five. I was there when she got there and I’d already . . .”

  “You already what?” He leaned forward.

  “Decorated the plane,” I said. “Before she got there. I decorated the plane and Cesar went up and hid himself.”

  “Are you withholding evidence? Because that is a crime.” He gave me the serious look of a parent who already knew their child was guilty.

  I could feel the heat of a blush race up my neck. “Is it hot in here?” I asked and fanned myself.

  “You’re avoiding the question. Are you withholding evidence?”

  “No,” I said as sincerely as possible. “No. I need to know what you know about Warren.”

  “I can’t reveal anything about the investigation.” He leaned back. “You know that.”

  “You can tell me how seriously you are looking at Warren Evans.”

  “You suspect something, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Did you know he is wealthy?”

  “Yes, he owns forty-nine percent of the private airline at the Executive Airport. The company owns three private jets and leases them along with the mechanics and pilots.”

  “See, he’s been seeing Felicity for over a year and lied to her the entire time. He told her he was an accountant and that he worked for the airport.”

  “Both of those things are technically true,” Detective Murphy said.

  I crossed my arms. “Is he a suspect or not?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I stood. “Then I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

  “Ms. Pomeroy . . .” He stopped me. “Take my card. You look like a determined person. If you come across anything you think I might need to know, call me.”

  I took his card. “I wish I could ask the same of you.”

  “Have a good day.”

  “Right.” As I walked out, I passed Officer Vandall talking to another officer I recognized from the crime scene.

  “Evans is our number one suspect,” he said to the other officer. Then I heard the word blackmail before they grew quiet.

  “Have a nice day, gentlemen.” I pushed my way through the doors to the waiting area and my car. Officer Vandall knew I was in with Detective Murphy. I figured I was meant to overhear what he said.

  Why would Warren kill a janitor? How did blackmail fit in? I had thirty days to find out.

  Chapter 10

  “Hey, Miss Pomeroy, what are you doing here?” The kid who sat in the guard shack at the entrance to the airport looked a little less bored today.

  “Hi, Jimmy, I brought you cupcakes.” I lifted the lid on a tin holding a wide variety of cakes. “Can I come in?”

  “Wow, are those chocolate?” His blue eyes grew wide.

  “Yes, and
fudge and mocha and vanilla swirl and chocolate chip. I’m trying to figure out what to serve at my sister’s engagement party. I need a second opinion and remembered that you were here. You look like a guy who likes a good cupcake.”

  “I do like a good cupcake.” Jimmy was as skinny as any twenty-something could be. His blond hair flopped forward in his eyes. His tan security uniform appeared to be pressed this time. He hit the button that raised the arm of the gate and I drove into the parking spot beside the guard shack. I looked at the cupcakes. Bribery seemed to be my best idea yet. I hoped I could get some information out of Jimmy. Anything would be more than Detective Murphy gave me.

  Jimmy opened the door to the tiny guard shack and let me inside. There was room for two people, two stools that were bar height, and a counter that held a coffeepot, some mugs, and a microwave.

  I handed him the platter of cupcakes and took a seat on the stool away from the window. Should Jeb decide to come by, I didn’t want him to see me right off. “Wow, you have electricity in here?” I asked and pointed to the appliance.

  Jimmy sat down on his stool and put the cupcakes in his lap. “Yeah, gets cold in the winter, so Jeb thought coffee would be good. Trouble with that is you have to . . . well, you know . . . go a lot when you drink.”

  “I see.” I looked around. There definitely was not another room in the shack. “How do you take care of that?”

  He picked up a double-chocolate cupcake and peeled off the paper holder. “Hangar number one.” He bit into the cake and closed his eyes in joy.

  “Who watches the gate while you . . . you know . . . go?”

  “I call Jeb. Sometimes he comes out. Sometimes he watches the cameras.” Jimmy devoured the cupcake in a second bite and picked up another. This one was chocolate chip with fudge icing.

  “You have cameras?”

  “Sure, everyone does. It’s standard security.” He took two more quick bites and finished off the second cupcake.

  “Do the police know?”

  “Yeah.” He picked up an orange Dreamsicle cupcake. This one was orange cake with white cream filling and orange butter cream frosting on top. “Cops took all the tapes. Pissed Jeb off because he had to go buy all new ones. We generally use the same ones and tape over them.”

  Tilting my head thoughtfully, I watched as he ate the orange cake in one bite. “You still use actual tapes? I would think you would have that all digitized.”

  “Naw, it’s an old system. Jeb says it’s good enough for our low rate of crime. Might digitize now, though. It’s hard to replace tapes. Not too many people selling them anymore.”

  “Well, that’s certainly true.” My mom had been complaining that all her movies on VCR tapes would have to be bought again as DVDs and that at the rate technology was changing she didn’t want to invest in DVDs only to have to replace them all again in five years with whatever was new. “How many tapes were there?”

  Jimmy swallowed his mouthful of cupcake.

  I handed him a napkin from the stack on the counter near the coffeepot. “You have orange stuff on your cheek.”

  “Thanks.” He wiped at it, effectively smearing it across his face. “Don’t know for sure how many tapes. We have cameras set up every hundred yards around the perimeter of the airport. Then there are cameras that are pointed at the hangar doors.”

  “That’s a lot of footage.”

  He downed two more cupcakes. The kid was skinny as a rail. I had no idea where he was putting it all. If I so much as smelled a cupcake, I gained five pounds on each thigh and not in a good curvy way.

  “Not really.” He shrugged. “Only half the cameras work.”

  “Only half? Won’t someone unauthorized get in?”

  “Naw, see, Jeb had them set to randomly turn on and off. There’s no way to tell which cameras are recording and which aren’t. He said it was ingenious and it saves the company a couple grand a year.”

  “Interesting . . . Who knows about the cameras? Being random, I mean?”

  Jimmy shrugged and finished off the cakes on the platter. “I do and Jeb . . . I suppose the rest of the crew does.”

  “Does management? I mean, someone like Warren Evans, would he know?”

  “Sure, he signed off on the thing when Jeb proposed it.”

  That was not a good sign. “Do the cops know about that?”

  “Don’t know.” Jimmy twisted and reached behind him. There was a mini fridge under the cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of water and offered me one.

  “Thanks.” I twisted off the cap and sipped. Jimmy guzzled his own bottle. “Surely Jeb told the investigators.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Can’t see why he would. The tapes cover random spots. There really is no way to tell what was turned on and what wasn’t.”

  “Aren’t they time stamped?”

  “Oh, huh, maybe . . . sure. I suppose they could tell then.”

  I twirled my bottle of water between my fingers. “I was questioned for a long time about what I saw. It was really tough to remember. Did the police question you, too?”

  “Yeah.” Jimmy nodded. “They asked all kinds of questions. I told them what I know. Jeb said that was the right thing to do.”

  “Was it difficult?”

  “Naw, I have a good memory.”

  “I heard it was a janitor that was killed.”

  “Yeah, poor Stromer. The guy had his troubles, but he didn’t need to be killed over it.”

  “Right?” I agreed. “I mean, who doesn’t have troubles these days.”

  “I know, especially when you have a gambling problem.” Jimmy looked both ways as if someone else might overhear and leaned in toward me. “I hear he was in deep with the casinos. He even sold his house.”

  “Ouch.” I winced.

  Jimmy’s mouth curled and he shrugged. “Didn’t stop him. He thought he could win it all back, but that didn’t work. Them casinos sucker you in.”

  “What did he do once his house was gone?”

  Jimmy looked around again. “I hear he had something over Mr. Evans.”

  “You mean, he tried to blackmail Warren Evans?”

  “No, I mean, he told him he knew his secret, and if Mr. Evans wanted him to keep his mouth shut, he’d have to pay.”

  “I see.” I sat back. Things were not looking good for Warren or Felicity. “Did you tell the cops this?”

  “Naw, they didn’t ask.”

  “Did anyone else know what Stromer did?”

  “Sure, he bragged to everyone that he had Mr. Evans over a barrel. The guy was sure to give him a couple grand. Strom was going to win back his house and enough money to buy Mr. Evans out.”

  “Huh, so anyone could have told the cops about Stromer bragging he’d get money from Mr. Evans.”

  “Sure, I guess so.” Jimmy checked out the window. “Someone’s coming. You have any more cupcakes?”

  “No, that was it . . . only a dozen.”

  “Too bad . . . you should go before Jeb sees you.”

  “Right.” I got up and picked up the platter. “Just one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Which cupcake did you like best—for my sister’s engagement party . . .”

  “Oh.” He drew his eyebrows together. Then his expression brightened. “The chocolate ones!” He nodded and raised a finger. “Definitely chocolate, although the orange were good . . . No, chocolate. It’s an engagement party and all. I think chocolate equals love or some such thing.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped out of the shack. Okay, so there were several chocolate ones—red velvet, chocolate chip, dark chocolate. Sigh. I mentally shrugged. I didn’t really want his opinion anyway. I got in my car and he opened the gate for me to drive out.

  I dialed Warren.

  “Hey, Pepper, how’s the engagement party planning goin
g?” he asked as he answered my call.

  “Hi, Warren, things are going fine. I’ve got a line on a beautiful venue downtown. We never did talk budget,” I said. “It’s kind of important.”

  “Sure, sure, you know how I feel. Spare no expense. If Felicity wants it, make it happen.”

  “Right.” I tried not to roll my eyes. “Listen, I heard that the dead janitor talked about you a lot. Did you know him well?”

  “Sure.” Warren sounded distracted. “I knew him. Randy Stromer was a hard-core gambler. It was tough to see him throw away his money.”

  “I heard that he was blackmailing you.” I let that sentence float out on the air a bit. I would have loved to ask him to his face. People gave away things in their expression, but there wasn’t time for that. “Was he?”

  “Randy? No,” Warren said. “Who told you that?”

  “I heard it through the grapevine.” I turned into the parking lot of the bakery I’d gotten the cupcakes from. J’s Bakery was in Elk Grove Village and had some of the tastiest cakes in town. They weren’t the famous downtown cake girls, but they had been in business for nearly a hundred years. There was something about good old-fashioned baking that appealed to both me and Felicity.

  “I don’t know what grapevine you’re tuned in to, but Randy did not blackmail me. To begin with, I haven’t done anything worth blackmailing over. Unless you were thinking about the money I offered him to go into rehab for his gambling addiction. Pepper, I even offered to send him back to school once he got his addiction under control.”

  “So he had no reason to blackmail you . . .”

  “He had no reason. I swear.”

  “Maybe you should have your lawyer tell the police that,” I suggested.

  “I did.” He sounded upset. “They asked if I had proof. I don’t know what kind of proof they wanted me to have. I don’t make a habit out of recording conversations.”

  “Did you look up rehab places on the Internet? Or maybe offer to pay his tuition at a certain school? Have them track your Internet searches. That’s proof.”