Killer Secrets

by Marilyn Pappano

  He was pretty damn sure Mila’s boss didn’t stick up for his crews. He was also pretty damn sure they didn’t get paid extra for dealing with a jerk like Greeley, even though the boss did.

  Ben called him on the radio, and Sam answered, then stood. “I need to go out back. Can you wait here? I have some more questions.”

  She nodded, and again he became aware of that sense of distance about her. As if she was holding herself together in some way he didn’t understand. Like she wasn’t here in the blazing sun being asked about the second murder in five days, but somewhere...else.

  He would like to be somewhere else with her.

  Maybe someday. But right now he had a body to examine.

  * * *

  Last night, Gramma had called Mila during the news when the latest lottery winner was announced. She bought a ticket religiously, just one, and always called Mila during the drawing so she could share the thrill of winning with her. Every one of those lottery tickets had been losers, though, and Mila always ended the conversation with “Better luck next time.”

  “You bet,” Gramma always replied. “We’ll win someday, pretty girl. We’ll be so rich we’ll buy our own state. Our own country. I’m thinking England.”

  Being rich, at least for Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Greeley, hadn’t ended the way fantasies were supposed to. When Gramma won the lottery and they bought England, they were supposed to live happily ever after. Everything was supposed to go their way. Otherwise, what was the point?

  Though she felt selfish for even thinking it, Mila wondered how far behind schedule this would put them. Presumably, like last week, they wouldn’t be allowed to finish the job since it was now a crime scene. The officers would question each of them in their own time, and if they hadn’t already, sooner or later they would wonder at the coincidence of two murders committed while the same group of people was around. Evan Carlyle hadn’t been dead long before she’d found him, and neither had Mr. Greeley. She and Ruben had both seen the last trickles of blood seeping from his wounds.

  Goose bumps rising on her arms, she took a long look around. Traffic buzzed by on the highway, barely visible. The front and sides of Greeley’s property were fenced in, but the gate from the highway was always open. The nearest houses were out of sight, but she’d heard sounds before—dogs barking, a chain saw, music—suggesting that the neighbors were a short walk through the woods. There could be a back road that left the property in that direction, or someone with a four-wheeler could have made his own trail.

  A murderer showing up at her place of work twice. What were the odds of that?

  She was so lost in the ugliness of that thought that Sam’s reappearance startled her. He must have noticed that her mind was wandering, because he’d stopped at the edge of the copse, giving her a moment to notice him. If he’d just suddenly appeared on the path in front of her, she might have managed a scream at least as impressive as Lunasha’s had been.

  Once he had her attention, he sat down again, as far toward the end of the bench as he could get, then shifted to face her. His expression was grave, his eyes shadowed. “Greeley was still alive when you—when you saw him.”

  Mila nodded.

  “You didn’t see anyone around who didn’t belong? No vehicles anywhere? No sense of someone watching?”

  She shook her head. So the killer could have been in the yard, could have been interrupted in his escape by Lunasha or Mila. That made an already disturbing experience even more so.

  “Did you leave the body alone after finding it?”

  “Ruben waited with him.” He hadn’t said anything beyond instructing Alejandro and Mario to take the women around front. She’d suspected he’d found it disrespectful to leave the man sprawled there alone on the path. Ruben was never subservient but always respectful, even though many of their customers couldn’t tell the difference.

  Sam—Oh, now you call him Sam, when this situation certainly calls for Chief—the chief wiped away sweat that had beaded on his upper lip. “So this makes two of your clients.”

  So it was sooner rather than later. Mila’s insides clenched, but she forced a steady nod.

  “Do you have any idea if they knew each other?”

  “No.”

  “How long had they been Happy Grass customers?”

  “This was our first year with Mr. Greeley. Probably would have been our last. He was never happy with anyone, and he changed services every season. We already had the Carlyle account when I started three years ago.”

  “What do you know about the rest of your crew?”

  Her gaze went to the driveway, where officers were questioning her coworkers. “I’m comfortable with them.”

  The honesty of the statement surprised her and, judging by the arch of his brows, the chief, too. Did he understand from the time they’d spent together how important that was to her? She wanted him to, more than she could explain, so she went on talking to keep herself from watching for his responses. Though his pen scribbling across the notebook didn’t thrill her, surely that was something most people would find disconcerting, and not just those with secrets to keep.

  “They’re hard workers. They never shirk their duties. They’ve never missed a day of work in the time I’ve been with them except Alejandro, who took a few days off when his son was born early and was in the neonatal unit at Hillcrest. They treat me the same way they treat each other. We’re efficient.”

  Being treated no differently...that was important, too. But she thought that, perhaps, only a person who was different could fully appreciate it.

  “Tell me about your boss.”

  She said the first thing that came to mind. “Once you’ve ruled us out, he’s the next obvious connection between Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Greeley.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “Do you know anything about Ed Lawrence’s working relationship with his clients? Any problems?”

  “No.” She took a deep breath, preparing to say more right now than she’d said at one time in longer than she could remember. Silence and no came so easily to her, but she wanted him to think of her as cooperative.

  She didn’t want to be investigated as a possible suspect.

  She didn’t want everyone, or anyone, to ever know the truth about her.

  “As police chief, it’s important for you to get along with people—the ones you work for, the ones who work for you, the ones you arrest, the ones you protect. You have social relationships with your employees, your bosses, your constituents. You know their spouses’ names, their kids’ names, what sports teams they support and what churches they attend.

  “Happy Grass isn’t like that. Mr. Lawrence walks through the yard in the morning before we all head out on our routes, and he can’t call one of us by name. My crew alone is from Panama, Bolivia and Italy, and for me, Ramirez is just a name I got from Gramma. No Latina blood to go with it. But Mr. Lawrence thinks we’re all Mexican. There are four women on the crews at Happy Grass. One is Cherokee, one is Asian American, one is a blue-eyed, corn-fed blonde from Nebraska. To the boss, we’re all ‘that little Mexican gal, Maria.’ The only interest he has in us is getting the best work possible for the lowest pay acceptable.”

  Sam needed a moment to finish his notes, and she watched as black ink filled line after line in the narrow notebook. She couldn’t make out his handwriting beyond the date and time he’d printed at the top of the page. But that was all right. If he made comments to pursue later or questioned her veracity or honesty, she didn’t want to know.

  His pen had stopped moving for a moment before she realized it. She lifted her gaze to his. His next question, though, wasn’t what she’d expected. “So why do you work for him?”

  Her mouth opened, then closed again. She had a pat answer to that question: she loved being outside and taking care of plants. The few people who asked were perplexed by the idea of
wanting to be out in triple-digit temperatures and high humidity or the thought of doing someone else’s menial work, or they were just grateful someone was willing to do the dirty work so they didn’t have to.

  Gramma had never asked. She knew after eleven years of mostly indoor prisons, Mila needed the freedom of standing in the sun and the shade and the rain, of not having to hide if anyone came along, of not being forced to pretend she didn’t exist. It was far more than just a job to her. It was part of her sanity.

  Which made her response sound incredibly lame. “I—I really like what I do.”

  “But you could do it for someone a hell of a lot better than Ed Lawrence.”

  And there was the untold reason she liked her job: she already had it. She’d made it through the application and the interview and the background check, shabby as they were. How did she know, if she went elsewhere, they wouldn’t have a more extensive application and interview and a more intensive background check? Who could guarantee they wouldn’t find out that her Social Security number was a sham, that her name was fake, that her life was made up out of whole cloth?

  She fit as well at Happy Grass as she was ever going to, and Mr. Lawrence didn’t care about her past, future or present. He was less emotionally invested in her than he was in the other tools of his trade: the mowers, the trimmers, the trucks.

  She hoped her shrug appeared casual, because it felt to her like spasmodic twitches. “As long as someone’s there to put my proper name on my paycheck, I’m fine. I work with my crew, Chief. They’re the important ones.”

  A hawk soared across the sky, wings outstretched, needing virtually no effort to ride the currents, majestic and free. She had dreamed of freedom for so long that having it still sometimes felt like a dream. She still woke some nights, caught halfway between sleep and awareness, and went into a panic at the sight of the night-light or the open curtains where someone might see in. Those nights, when her heart stopped pounding, when her breathing slowed from laboring freight train to shallow and easy, she got out of bed, turned on other lights and stood at the window. Sometimes she even went outside and walked through the backyard, the mulch and pebbles dirtying the bottoms of her feet, and on very rare occasions, the little girl inside her wept with joy that she could do it without fear.

  The chief watched the hawk, too, until the bird disappeared over the woods. Then he settled his gaze on her. “You can call me Sam.”

  She’d discovered today that she could. She just didn’t think she should. Despite her freedom, there were still so many things she couldn’t do. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? I’ve been to your house three times now. I met your grandmother—who, by the way, gave me permission to call her Gramma. I had dinner at your house.” He paused, then grinned. “Poppy likes me. You can’t ask for a better endorsement than that.”

  Poppy and Gramma did like him, and their opinions meant more to her than anyone else’s. “But you’re the chief of police, and I’m...”

  “A subject in a case?”

  Sooner rather than later, she reminded herself, her heart kicking into high gear. Trembling started inside her, working its way out, tiny little tremors in fingers and muscles and—

  “I said subject. Not suspect. A subject is just someone involved in a case in some manner—a witness, a friend, a coworker, a paramedic, a firefighter. Just because I’ve questioned you a couple times as a subject doesn’t mean we have to stay on formal terms. If it does, I’ll let Detective Little Bear or Officer Gideon ask any further questions.”

  She considered it a long moment before saying, “All right.” It took another breath, another quick tightening of her nerves, for her to actually say it. “Sam.”

  He grinned again, satisfied and authoritative and handsome, and she couldn’t help but think that she’d just taken a very big step.

  She hoped it didn’t end in her falling on her face.

  * * *

  Sam finished writing his report and grabbed a bottle of water from the lounge refrigerator before heading into the conference room. He was a few minutes late, but operating on a strict schedule was pretty much impossible in the cop business. Ben was the only one waiting, his laptop in front of him. Lois, Tucker, Simpson and Daniel Harper would join them as soon as they could.

  “You look annoyed,” Sam remarked as he sat down across from Ben. Truthfully, he looked the same way as always—stoic and long-suffering—but a few tics gave him away to anyone who’d grown up with him. His eyes were a shade narrower than usual, and his jaw was clenched tight enough to show the slender line of muscle on each side. He also held his head cocked slightly to the side and was less willing than usual to make eye contact.

  “You know Ed Lawrence?” Ben pushed his laptop a few inches way, straightened his head and kneaded his neck with one hand.

  “Only over the phone.”

  “Huh. To hear him tell it, you’re best buds. After I left the Greeley place, I went out to Happy Grass to talk to him. He offered to fire those four employees effective immediately if you thought he should. In fact, he offered to fire all his ‘brown’ employees.” With his dark skin and Creek Indian ancestry, Ben didn’t have to make clear what he thought of Lawrence’s offer. “Of course, he’d be out of business in a day if he did.”

  “Did you learn anything from him?”

  “He’s a snake. Even his office girl—his words, not mine—doesn’t care much for him, and she’s married to him.” Ben leaned back as Lois came in, carrying a tray of homemade cookies. “He says he gets along great with all his clients and that Greeley couldn’t have been happier with the job his people were doing.”

  Lois snorted disbelievingly. “Curt Greeley was never happy, and Ed Lawrence doesn’t tell the truth unless there’s something in it for him.” She sat next to Ben, then slid the cookies to a spot exactly in front of Sam. As soon as he reached for one, though, she pulled the tray back. “Tell us about Mee-lah-gro.”

  He tried to scowl at her, but it was a lot like trying to scowl at his mother. He’d be lucky if she didn’t grab him by the ear and tweak it until he danced in pain. “She goes by Mila, and she’s not a killer.”

  “Is that your cop-ly side talking or the manly side?”

  “I trust my intuition.”

  “Yes, but has your intuition ever told you something about a woman that you didn’t want to hear?”

  “No.”

  “Liar. Remember that lawyer you went out with? We all tried to warn you.” She exchanged grins with Ben. “That woman was too kinky for handcuffs. I don’t know where she got her ideas, but she was a dirty, dirty girl—and you knew it before things got weird.”

  Sam hated it when he couldn’t argue with Lois. On the surface, Beth DePuy had seemed amazingly right for him. She was an assistant district attorney—he arrested criminals, and she prosecuted them. They’d had everything in common. His mother had loved her. His father had been half in love with her. Everyone thought they were perfect.

  Though all along Sam had had a niggling little suspicion that something wasn’t right.

  Too kinky for handcuffs. That about summed it up.

  Thankfully, the other officers filed in then. Lois had no qualms about picking on him in private or with Ben, but she never mocked her boss in front of other employees.

  Each officer shared whatever information they’d learned in turn, then Sam looked around the table, shifting his gaze between the two detectives. “Are the cases connected?”

  “The victims had only two things in common,” Daniel said. “They both had money, and they used the same lawn service. But from what I heard, Greeley’s used every big lawn service in town and a few in Tulsa.”

  “So you think it’s a coincidence they were both killed shortly before the same lawn crew found them.” That came from Ben.

  Harper shrugged. “Coincidences happen. That’s
why someone made up the word. Two different guys. Two different circumstances. Two different weapons. Two different killers.”

  “Both men were killed in their backyards,” Ben said. “Not vastly different circumstances. And killers don’t always use the same weapon. Maybe he wasn’t intending to kill Greeley today—just checking out the place. Maybe Greeley surprised him, and the killer used the only weapon available.”

  “Yeah, like anyone takes scissors to the garden with them,” Daniel said.

  “You’re not a gardener, son, are you?” Lois shook her head with mock despair. Daniel had grown up in Los Angeles, and she was still giving him a hard time about it. “Yes, people use scissors or shears. You can damage the stalks by breaking off stems. And Greeley was compulsive. One of the yard guys said he made them measure the grass before and after they cut it and use a level when they raked the mulch to make sure it was even.”

  “And they had to use the blowers to clear the dust off the driveway,” Simpson added, “all the way out to the highway. The old guy would drive out onto the shoulder of the road, and the others would blow the blacktop clean and then they could leave.”

  Ah, to be as young as Simpson again. Sam knew from last week’s reports that Ruben Carrasco was only fifty-two. Outdoor work and tough living had weathered his skin and stooped his posture, but fifty-two was no longer nearly as old to Sam as it used to be.

  “Theories?” he asked, directing the question to the room in general but intending it for Ben. He was the most experienced, had the best intuition. Daniel had the makings of a good detective, but he had some learning to do. His thoughts went first to the obvious before he opened his mind enough to let the evidence lead him.

  Ben let Daniel go first. The younger detective shrugged. “Ordinarily, I’d say in a small town like this, rich people would know each other, socialize together and such, but it sounds like Greeley kept to himself other than making people who had to deal with him miserable. There doesn’t appear to be any reason for Carlyle to deal with him.”