by Mary Maxwell
“That’s my hunch,” she said. “I’ll let you know more as soon as I can. In the meantime, watch your back, Katie. If the same person killed both Wendy Barr and Richard Poole, there’s a good chance they may be aware of your work helping us on the case.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said. “I always am.”
“Thank goodness for that,” she replied.
“So, what’s next on your schedule?” I asked.
“I hope an arrest,” Dina replied. “We got video in earlier that’s completely upended the Barr investigation.”
“That sounds promising. What is it?”
Dina laughed. “It’s much better than promising. We now have video of our prime suspect.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all,” she answered. “It’s crystal clear and unmistakable. In fact, at one point as the van pulls out of Wendy’s driveway, our suspect turns her face directly toward the camera.”
“It was a woman?” I said. “Are you sure?”
“No doubt about it,” Dina told me. “We got the video from the neighbors who were out of town on the night of the murder. They live on the corner of Ogden and Prentice, and the camera faces Wendy’s duplex. I was so excited when I saw the footage that I almost kissed the witness.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
Dina laughed. “I’m not going to share the name right now,” she said. “But his wife wouldn’t be thrilled to hear what I just told you. She’s the jealous type.”
I thought for a moment about Wendy’s neighborhood, the intersection of the two streets and the angle of the security camera.
“Ah, so it was Oliver DaCosta, huh?”
“Darn you, Katie. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Cross my heart,” I promised. “But I’m really more interested in hearing about who was driving Sharon’s van on Sunday.”
I waited patiently while Dina reminded me not to breathe a word of the tip to anyone.
“Didn’t you hear what I just promised?” I asked. “Cross my heart and all that jazz.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be curious to hear if the person was on your radar as far as a potential suspect.”
Before she could say the name, I blurted it into the phone. “Am I right?” I asked, feeling my heart thumping in my chest as the anticipation swelled. “Is she the one?”
“You’re absolutely correct,” Dina said. “We issued a warrant for her arrest on suspicion of murder, but she wasn’t at home. We’re looking for her now.”
“You might check The Glam Room,” I said.
Dina laughed. “Yeah? Did you get a hot scoop from Esmé Tipton?”
“I happen to be aware that the suspect has her nails done every other Saturday at six.”
“How do you know that?” asked Dina.
“A little birdie told me,” I replied.
“Does the chickadee have a name?”
“She does,” I said. “And you’ve already interviewed her and her husband.”
Dina hummed to herself as she considered my reply. I envisioned her biting the end of her ballpoint while she tried to guess which couple I was talking about.
“Jenna?” she said.
“Which one?”
For a split second, Dina was silent. Then she said, “It has to be Jenna Gaynor. The other Jenna’s nails always look like crap. She bites her cuticles and never gets a manicure.”
“Meow,” I teased.
“Well, it’s true, Katie. Jenna Crosby is the nervous type. She doesn’t smoke or drink, so her hands take a real beating.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” I said. “But Jenna Gaynor really does get a manicure with our suspect twice a month. Their usual slot is every other Saturday at six.”
“I’ll pass that along to dispatch,” Dina said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Since I’m already downtown, I’ll swing by and see if I can get to the salon before they do.”
“Okay, but keep cool,” Dina said. “If you see her, don’t approach.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I replied. “And congratulations, Detective Kincaid! It looks like you’ve solved another one.”
“Not until she’s in custody,” Dina said with an exasperated sigh. “I want her behind bars with a signed confession in my hand.”
“It’ll happen,” I said confidently. “One way or another, she’ll be exchanging her fancy designer duds for an orange jumpsuit.”
As soon as Dina hung up, I slid the phone into my pocket and headed for The Glam Room. It was only three blocks from The Wagon Wheel, so I walked into the salon less than five minutes later.
“She just left,” Shelby said after I explained the reason for my visit. “I usually do her nails at six with Jenna Gaynor, but someone canceled and we moved up the appointment.”
“Did she say where she was headed?” I asked.
Shelby smiled. “If she did, it went in one ear and out the other. I’m a little distracted today, Katie. Is it something important?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll find her.”
“Find who?” asked Esmé Tipton, returning to the front of the beauty shop with a stack of fluffy white towels.
Shelby pursed her lips. “Jenna’s grouchy BFF!” she said. “I thought she was going to have a stroke because we don’t carry the shade of crimson that she read about in Vogue.”
“I thought that might be who you were talking about,” Esmé said with a sly smile. “She was picking up dinner from Peking Palace so she could finish something at work before heading to the airport.”
Shelby giggled with relief. “Good thing that one of us was paying attention,” she teased.
“Thanks for the help, ladies!” I said, turning for the door. “I’ll see you soon!”
CHAPTER 38
Since I visited Peking Palace fairly often for egg rolls and Kung Pao chicken, I dialed the number from memory as I walked back to the car and asked if Danielle Breen was in the restaurant.
“You just missed her,” Patricia Watkins said as I got into the car. “She was in a pretty big hurry.”
I can imagine, I thought. If I’d killed two people and sensed the cops were on my trail, I’d probably keep moving at a pretty good clip until I was south of the border.
“Thanks for the info,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”
She laughed. “Not if I don’t see you first. My brother-in-law’s coming to visit this weekend. He’s a pancake fiend, so we’ll be in for breakfast on Saturday morning.”
“I remember his visit last year,” I said with a laugh. “Didn’t he and Steve both make it through three triple stacks?”
“Who knows?” Patricia answered. “I don’t keep track. They revert to their old childhood antics whenever they’re around one another. The whole weekend will be filled with pranks, tales of drunken depravity and bad fart jokes.”
“Lovely,” I said. “That sounds like phone conversations with my father.”
She giggled. “How are your parents doing?”
“Still loving Florida,” I said.
“Can you blame them? I mean, no snow, all those sandy beaches and Disney World!”
“Not to mention bad fart jokes,” I said.
Once we’d gone back and forth with a few more tidbits of family silliness, I thanked Patricia again and wished her a good evening. Then I fired up the Ford, pulled away from the curb and started the short drive to the Sagebrush Lofts Building.
As I rounded the corner at Kellogg and Weston a few minutes later, I saw Danielle Breen walking briskly along the sidewalk. She didn’t notice me as I slowed to a crawl, but I saw two potentially incriminating details that added a sense of urgency to the mission: a red fleece glove was tucked into one of her coat pockets, and the bag that I’d seen in Frank Kanter’s truck was looped over her shoulder.
“Gotcha!” I said, swinging into the first open parking spot.
I quickly shut off the engine, j
umped out of the car and watched as our prime suspect walked through the front entrance of the office building.
“I hope that door is unlocked,” I whispered, hurrying down the sidewalk. “Otherwise, I’ll have to cool my heels out here until the CCPD arrives.”
CHAPTER 39
When I stepped into the reception area in Frank Kanter’s office a few moments later, Danielle was at her desk, unpacking the meal from Peking Palace.
“Frank’s not here,” she said in a voice tinged with frost and scorn. “And we’re not really open. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s Saturday.”
“That’s okay.” I left the door ajar and moved across the whitewashed oak planks. “I actually wanted to speak with you.”
The withering expression on her face told me that I’d just said the wrong thing. But then she sighed, glanced at the clock beside the faux Tiffany lamp on her desk and seemed to relax a little.
“What about?” This time there was less frost and scorn, more boredom and disdain. “I’m just the glorified typist around here, you know.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “Give yourself more credit.”
She removed a set of chopsticks from a slender paper wrapper and put them on the desk. Then she offered a watery grin and repeated her question.
“I wanted to discuss Wendy Barr,” I replied.
The moment she heard the name, Danielle stopped moving the Chinese food containers around on the desk. Then she shifted slightly in the chair, tilting her legs to one side and lowering one hand into her lap.
“Do you want to hear what I think happened that day?” I asked.
The right side of her mouth lifted. “What day are you talking about?”
“Last Sunday,” I said. “When I suspect that something…well, something bad transpired between you and Wendy.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she gazed at me through a partial squint.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not,” I went on, “but the police are actually more likely to work with someone who surrenders voluntarily.”
“As opposed to?” Her voice was hard and cold again. “I mean, when someone doesn’t take that route.”
Danielle seemed radically different from the woman that I’d talked with only days before, as if the familiar brunette with the spray of freckles across her nose had been replaced with a soulless mannequin made of metal and wire.
“What happens then?” she added. “What do the police do with that sort of thing?”
“They’re not quite so forgiving,” I said, “with someone who runs.”
“I’m not running,” Danielle replied. “I’m getting ready to have something to eat. Then I’m going to finish a bid proposal and prep sales materials for a presentation on Monday morning.”
I glanced at an open box of white plastic binders on the credenza behind the desk. A three-hole punch sat beside the box, ready to perforate the stacks of plastic tabs and piles of printed materials arranged neatly on the credenza. The plastic chips found on Wendy’s body! I thought. Danielle had been working on the binders in the office before she—
“What do you want, Katie?” Danielle said, bringing me back into the moment.
“I already told you.” I stopped to offer a warm smile. “I wanted to discuss what happened last Sunday.”
“I wasn’t even here last weekend,” she snapped.
I knew it was a lie. Detective Kincaid had told me earlier in the week that Danielle had admitted to being in the office on the day that Wendy was killed, although she’d claimed to have left by three o’clock.
“What about the little plastic chips from your paper punch?” I asked, pointing at the credenza. “Several of them were found on Wendy’s coat and in her hair?”
She shot a quick look over one shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
“The police found several small white chips on Wendy’s coat and in her hair,” I said. “When they compare those pieces of plastic to the materials behind you, I’d venture to guess that it’ll be a match. I noticed them when I was here the other day, but didn’t make the connection until just now.”
Danielle scoffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I nodded at the red fleece glove tucked into her coat pocket on one of the chairs in the corner of the room.
“And I’d guess your gloves left the microscopic red fibers found on Wendy’s clothing,” I added. “The police will be interested in running some tests on those to see if there’s a match.”
She glowered at me silently, grinding her teeth and barely breathing.
“Speaking of your gloves,” I added. “Where’s the other one?”
Her eyes blazed with rage. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “You’re delusional! I had nothing to do with Wendy’s murder!”
I waited until she’d finished. Then I said, “As far as motive, was Wendy trying to cut you out of even more of your proceeds from Kanter’s shady deals?”
She pushed away from the desk. “What deals?”
“Frank and Richard Poole have been falsifying structural reports to artificially lower the value of selected properties that they were bidding on,” I said. “I was told that it’s been going on for the past couple of years. And I’ve also been wondering what role you played in those transactions.”
She moved her right hand slowly toward the middle desk drawer.
“I have no idea what you’re blathering about,” she said, slowly opening the drawer.
“Well, I’m sorry to disagree,” I told her, “but I think—”
My voice caught in my throat when I saw the pistol that Danielle retrieved from the desk. It resembled the Beretta Pico that one of my clients carried in Chicago. It was lightweight, easy to conceal and compact. The woman that I knew when I worked as a PI used the Beretta for peace of mind after her ex-husband threatened physical violence during a long, contentious divorce. I suspected that Danielle Breen had the gun for other reasons.
“Go ahead and scream,” she said. “There’s nobody else in the building. I checked all of the offices earlier, which is something that Frank makes me do before I leave every night.”
“Why does he have you do that?” I asked.
“Because he’s a cheapskate,” Danielle said as her phone chirped on the desk. “He wants to make sure that all of the overhead lights are off, even though he still passes along electricity charges to the tenants.”
There was a faint noise in the hallway, so slight that Danielle didn’t hear it. I waited until she looked down at her phone to glance toward the elevator. The corridor was empty, but I saw a shadow against the frosted glass panel beside the office entrance.
“What the hell does he want now?” She put down the gun, lifted the phone and swiped angrily at the screen to decline the call. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
Danielle scowled. “None of your business.”
She plucked the gun from the desk again, holding it casually in her hand.
“I’m going to need you to come with me,” she said, gesturing toward the doorway that led to the offices. “I don’t really want to hurt anyone else, but I can’t have you wandering around while I finish up here and go home to pack. I have a plane to catch later tonight.”
When she turned in her chair and got up from the desk, the shadow on the frosted glass moved again and Wyatt Stafford stepped into the reception area.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
Danielle was so startled by his voice that she yelped and stumbled back into the credenza.
When her mouth opened a second time, nothing came out.
“You should probably put down that gun,” he said. “Before something bad happens.”
Stafford had one hand in the pocket of his coat. He looked down, held his gaze there for a few seconds and then swiveled back to Danielle.
“Or before you do anything that you’ll regret later,” he said, pulling a revolver from his pocket.
“Do you think I can get off a couple of rounds before you shoot that pistol?” His voice was steady and confident; making it clear that he already knew the answer. “Or do you feel extra speedy tonight?”
Although I wondered how long the standoff would continue, the end came sooner than expected when I heard the elevator open at the far end of the hallway. Within seconds, two uniformed officers from the Crescent Creek Police Department appeared in the doorway, guns drawn, faces set in unwavering determination. They were both Sky High regulars: a tall, lanky veteran named Judd Braverman, whose salt-and-pepper crew cut added a militaristic edge to his appearance; and Charlie Garcia, another longtime member of the CCPD.
“Y’all need to lower your weapons,” said Judd Braverman. “Nobody needs to get hurt here today.”
I saw movement in the hallway. It was Dina Kincaid, sliding into the room in the narrow space between the two uniformed cops.
“Danielle?” she said. “What’s going on?”
The room was pin-drop silent as everyone waited for a reply. It seemed to take forever, but eventually Danielle lowered her pistol and sat in the chair.
“I’ve lost my mind,” she muttered as her chin fell against her chest. “I don’t know what I’ve been doing these past few weeks.”
Stafford moved quickly across the room. He took Danielle’s Beretta and handed it to Charlie Garcia before putting his gun back into his pocket.
“I’ll take that one, too,” the uniformed officer told Stafford. “Until we sort out what’s going on here, I think it’ll be best.”
Stafford willingly agreed, carefully retrieving his weapon and handing it over.
“I have a concealed carry permit,” he said. “It’s in my wallet.”
“Good to know,” Charlie said. “We’ll take a look at that here in a little bit. In the meantime, sir, can I please ask you to move aside so I can get to Ms. Breen?”
Stafford responded with a silent nod before sliding across the room and standing beside me.
“Thank you,” said the CCPD officer, moving toward Danielle. “Now, let’s have everybody be cool, okay? Let’s keep it together so we all get through the evening as smoothly as possible.”