Murder On The Menu: The 1st Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries)

by Nancy Skopin

  I unlocked my Pendaflex drawer and slipped the photographs and yearbook pictures into Laura’s file, then glanced at my answering machine. No messages.

  I took a deep breath and made eye contact. “You feel like a beer?” I asked.

  “Sounds good.”

  We drove to Otto’s again, in Bill’s Mustang. He held the door open for me when we entered the restaurant, and I smiled. I’m not one of those women who is offended by this type of behavior. I think it’s sweet. I hold doors open for people all the time.

  There was one unoccupied booth in the lounge. I sat while he went to the bar. He came back with our drinks and after a few sips of Guinness I began to relax.

  “How well do you know Jack McCarthy?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “No one can tell me how Laura knew he was Vice before she propositioned him.”

  “She told her attorney she knew he was a cop. That doesn’t make it true.”

  He was right about that. Although some people can just tell. I can spot a cop from fifty paces.

  “What about the attorney?” I said. “What can you tell me about Gerald Kuhlman?”

  Bill looked out the window and took a sip of his beer.

  “You can talk about the investigation, but you can’t talk about the attorney?” I snapped. The adrenaline rush was burning off and I was moving from fear into anger.

  “I don’t know anything firsthand,” he replied. “And I don’t repeat gossip.”

  I stared at him, saying nothing, for about a minute. A minute is a long time to stare at someone in silence.

  Finally he relented. “I’ve heard he’s politically connected. When he makes a request it always filters down the chain of command. I don’t know from how high. I do know it makes my boss very edgy.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and let the subject drop.

  I filled him in on everything I’d uncovered so far – the fiancé who’d refused to let go and who may have been stalking Laura, the half-brother, and the inheritance. Since he’d trusted me with the info about Kuhlman, I even told him what Rod had said about Derrick molesting Laura when she was a child. He started taking notes. I told him about Fred Marcus Wulf and the Supra condoms I’d found in his medicine chest. I didn’t have a motive for him, but he’d been dating Laura and I believed she’d known her killer.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said. “I assume you know there’s been another murder.”

  “You mean the man in the bank parking lot? I heard about that on the news. Is there a connection? Same knife again?”

  “Possibly. The puncture marks were there. The male victim was a hairdresser. Andrew McConnell. So we have two women, different types and ages, and one man, all Caucasian. In each case a knife was involved and all three appear to have been killed where the bodies were found, outdoors, in public places.”

  “Do you think there’s a chance the librarian and the hairdresser might have been killed to cover up a personal motive for killing Laura?”

  “It’s feasible. Although that might make more sense if she hadn’t been the first victim. There were no defensive wounds found on Andrew McConnell or on Laura, though McConnell was stabbed in the back, so he wouldn’t have seen it coming. The librarian, Barbara Herbert, was kind of beat up. Some of her teeth were chipped from being pushed face first into a brick wall. All three victims had just had intercourse, and in each case their companion used a Trojan Supra condom.” He waited for my reaction.

  “Wait,” I said. “Andrew McConnell’s companion used a condom? Are you saying McConnell was gay?”

  “Or bisexual.”

  If there was one killer, that meant we were dealing with either a bisexual man or a woman packing a dildo. That might explain the absence of foreign pubic hair on the victims. I tried to picture Charles the jock having sex with another man, and then did the same with Rod, Derrick, and Fred/Marc. The next image to invade my consciousness was Candy in a strap-on. Not all that unlikely if you thought about it. I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Nicoli?”

  “Hmm?” I turned to face him. “Call me Nikki.”

  “Okay, Nikki. What are you thinking?”

  “Oh…I was just trying to picture it.”

  His laugh was warm and contagious.

  After we finished our drinks, Bill drove me back to the marina. He walked me from the parking lot to my office and gave me a lecture about being more careful. I unlocked the door and turned to face him. I had an impulse to kiss him, but I managed to control myself. I shook his hand instead.

  “Lock this behind me,” he said.

  I locked the door and watched him round the corner, then turned to my desk. I had two new voice-mail messages. The first call was from Marc, a.k.a. Fred, saying he’d had a good time the previous night and asking if we could do it again next Friday. I made a note to call him back. The second call was a whispered message from Buffy.

  “Hi. This is Buffy, from the Fanny Pack. I couldn’t say anything in front of the others, but I know how Laura found out that guy was a Vice cop. I told her. I knew him from before. I just meant to warn her, you know, so she wouldn’t do anything to get herself in trouble. Anyway, I thought you should know. Don’t tell Candy, okay?”

  I sat at my desk thinking about what Buffy might have done that caused her path to cross McCarthy’s. Then I remembered I wasn’t getting paid to investigate Buffy’s lifestyle.

  I checked my e-mail. The financial background on the Howards had come in from CIS. There was also a soft copy of an invoice. I printed the file and the invoice, set the invoice aside, and read the report. It was confusing at first. Assets were listed in many forms, including Derrick’s stock in his own company and its current market value. Finally I got to the liquid assets column. That didn’t look so good. If you took away their property, the company, and their stock portfolio, they were only worth a little over seven hundred thousand. Hard to believe, considering their lifestyle.

  Could Derrick have killed his own daughter, or paid someone else to kill her? He was controlling and abrasive, and possibly a pedophile, but he didn’t strike me as the type of person who would kill for money. Of course, half of Laura’s inheritance was probably more than four million with the accrued interest, and it did appear Derrick was low on cash.

  I lit a cigarette and opened the computer file on the case. It took me almost an hour to enter all the new information and I was yawning by the time I’d finished. I copied the updated file onto a flash drive and tucked it into my purse. Then I shut down the computer, locked the office, and headed for my boat.

  Before I reached the bottom of the companionway Elizabeth’s door slid open and she poked her head out.

  “You just getting home?” she asked.

  “I’ve been up in the office for a while.”

  She came outside and perched on her dock steps. “What did you find out from Detective Anderson?”

  “Can I tell you tomorrow? I’m beat.”

  Elizabeth’s face fell, so I sat down and gave her a quick summary. When I had finished, she sat quietly for a moment, and then said, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to picture Laura’s father having the imagination to pull it off. Did I tell you Laura’s half brother said Derrick molested her when she was a child?”

  Elizabeth tilted her head to one side. “No. You forgot to mention that.” She said this with some degree of sarcasm.

  Elizabeth is originally from New Orleans, where her mother still lives. During her first year of college she worked evenings and weekends answering a suicide hotline. She was unsuccessful dissuading one teenage girl, who had been repeatedly raped by her father, from taking her own life. The girl hung herself while Elizabeth listened on the phone. A coworker called 911 while Elizabeth tried frantica
lly to get the girl back on the line, but the EMTs were too late. She takes incest issues very seriously.

  “I have no way of knowing if he’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “You don’t think she told anyone else?”

  “It’s not something you just bring up in casual conversation, is it? Besides, according to Rod she’d just started recovering the memories in therapy.”

  “There are support groups, but they’re extremely protective. They’d never confirm whether or not she was a member. Suppose we assume Rod is telling the truth. How does he know? Did he see this happen?”

  “He says Laura got drunk one night and spilled the whole story. She apparently described what happened in a way that convinced him.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Yeah. So if it’s true, it might make Derrick a suspect if he thought of Laura as his property, and, you know, she was taking it off for the unwashed masses. But I don’t trust Rod not to make the whole thing up. I’m waiting for a background report on him. That reminds me, I have to be up early to follow Charles to work tomorrow. I gotta go.”

  “Okay. Sweet dreams, honey.”

  After a much-needed hug from Elizabeth, I trudged down the dock to my boat, tossed my clothes on the stateroom floor, set the alarm for 5:00 a.m., and climbed into bed.

  Chapter 20

  My Dream Machine began playing acoustic guitar music at 5:00, but it didn’t wake me until 5:20. I struggled into a sitting position, punched off the CD, and threw back the covers. I needed coffee. I started a pot, extra strong, washed my face, lit a cigarette, and waited for the coffee to finish dripping.

  I downed the first twenty-ounce pot and it wasn’t enough, so I made another and got dressed. I carried my insulated mug up to the office where I’d left Charles Spencer’s address. It was already 5:50. Traffic on Highway 101 is heavy after 5:30 on weekdays. I located the address and hustled out to the parking lot.

  I was on the freeway heading south by 6:00 a.m. I took the Embarcadero Road exit and turned right on Emerson. I found the Spencers’ gingerbread house easily, and parked down the street. I finished my coffee and realized that I needed a bathroom. It’s inappropriate to relieve yourself behind a bush in the residential section of Palo Alto, so I hoped Charles was an early riser.

  At 7:33 Charles Spencer opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch. Candy was right, he hadn’t changed much since college. He was still in good shape but he had a little less hair. A young woman, Ashley, I presumed, was right on his heels, looking fetching in a pink jogging suit. She was blonde, slender, and perky, and bore a noticeable resemblance to Laura. She kissed him good-bye at the car and watched him drive away, waving and smiling.

  I waited a beat and then followed Charles, who drove into downtown Palo Alto and made a right on University Avenue. He pulled into an underground garage. I parked on the street and waited, impatiently. Charles came out a minute later, walked half a block, and entered Hubner & Ross, a stock brokerage.

  I got out of the car and hightailed it to 525 University, the only high-rise on the block, hoping it would be unlocked at this hour. It was. I took the elevator to the second floor and found a ladies’ restroom.

  A few minutes later, feeling much more composed, I walked into the underground garage where Charles had left his car, and wrote down his plate number. Maybe I could get Detective Anderson to run it for me. I’d need his driver’s license number in order to request a background check.

  I walked back up to the street and entered Hubner & Ross. In spite of my jeans and tee shirt, the young receptionist greeted me with a sunny smile.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Sarah Jenkins. Is Charles Spencer in yet?” I didn’t want to tip Charles off in case one of the Howards had told him about me.

  “Yes. Is he expecting you?”

  “No, but I only need a few minutes.”

  She looked curious, but didn’t ask any more questions. She called Charles on the intercom and asked if he had time to see a Ms. Jenkins. She hung up the phone and said, “He’ll be right out.”

  Charles stepped out of a rear office, looked at me quizzically, and extended his hand. I shook it. It was warm and dry and his grip was almost painfully firm. He held on a moment longer than was appropriate while standing a little too close.

  “I’m Charles Spencer,” he said.

  “Nicoli Hunter, Mr. Spencer. I wonder if we could speak privately for a few minutes.”

  He shot a glance at the receptionist, who shrugged. Without another word he escorted me down the hall to his office. It was small and had no windows, but it had a door, which he closed. He offered me a chair and sat down behind his desk.

  “What’s this about, Ms. Hunter?”

  “I’m a private investigator. I was hired by Kate Howard to look into the murder of her daughter, Laura.”

  Sometimes it pays to be blunt. Charles recoiled as though he’d seen a rattlesnake perched on his desk. All the color went out of his face, except for his cheeks, which turned red. How was that even possible?

  “I assumed you knew she was dead.”

  “I read about it in the paper,” he said. “Why do you want to talk to me? I haven’t seen Laura in ages.” His hands were spread, palms down, on top of his desk, and he was tilting himself back in his chair, apparently in an effort to distance himself from me.

  “It’s routine,” I said. “I’m talking to everyone who knew her.”

  That seemed to relax him a little. He let the front wheels of his chair touch the ground, and his color returned to normal.

  “I understand you handle Kate and Derrick’s investments.” I was fishing, of course. They had told me nothing of the kind. In fact, Kate had said they hadn’t seen Charles recently.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  Bingo!

  “Is it a sizable portfolio?”

  “Well, it’s not small.”

  “When was the last time you saw Laura?”

  Charles turned two-tone again, just for an instant.

  “I haven’t seen Laura in over a year. Not since we broke up.”

  Lying sack-of-shit.

  “Charles, I took some of your yearbook pictures to the Fanny Pack. I know you went to see her dance, frequently.”

  Now his whole face turned purple and he shuddered. Could an aneurysm be far behind?

  “I think you’d better leave,” he said, standing abruptly and pointing stiff-armed at the door.

  “Okay, but I have more questions.” I held out one of my cards. “Maybe we can schedule a time that’s more convenient for you.”

  He didn’t move, so I put the card on his desk and backed out of his office.

  Standing on the sidewalk in front of the brokerage, I lit a cigarette and thought about the interview. It didn’t seem likely that someone as volatile as Charles could murder anyone without leaving an evidence trail. He might strangle Laura with his bare hands in a fit of rage, but it would be done without stealth. That was assuming he was even capable of such a brutal act. He was probably just afraid I’d tell his wife that he’d been spending time at a strip joint.

  I walked back to my car and called Derrick. I got the receptionist and then Derrick’s admin, who said he would be in meetings all day.

  “Please tell Mr. Howard that if I don’t hear from him within thirty minutes, I’ll discuss the matter in question with Mrs. Howard.” I gave her my cell number.

  My phone rang before I made it the three blocks to the freeway. I let it ring a few times before answering. I was feeling vindictive.

  “Nicoli Hunter,” I said, in my most professional voice.

  “I don’t appreciate being threatened, Ms. Hunter,” said Derrick.

  “And I don’t appreciate being lied to. I’d like to speak with you in person this
morning. I’m already in Palo Alto. I can be there in ten minutes.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and I imagined steam coming out of his ears. Then he said, “You’ll have to get here quickly. I have back-to-back meetings all day.”

  “On my way.”

  When I arrived, Tanya, the receptionist, called Derrick’s admin, then looked at me apprehensively as she issued a visitor’s badge. Derrick came out to get me two minutes later. We walked up to his office in silence. He closed the door and sat down behind his desk. I stayed on my feet this time.

  “I imagine you’ve heard from Charles by now,” I began. “I’d like to know why you and your wife chose to tell me you hadn’t seen him recently when he handles your stock portfolio.”

  “If you must know,” he said, “we’d already spoken about it before you asked. We decided Charles would never hurt Laura, so there was no reason to involve him. Besides, we really haven’t seen him recently. He handles our transactions by telephone and e-mail.”

  “You decided? Like you decided there was no reason to tell me about Rod and the inheritance? Just how much interest does five million dollars accrue in four years?”

  He stared at me levelly, his face expressionless.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” I said. “I’m used to dealing with clients who want me to find the truth. When a client lies to me, it makes me suspicious. Let’s talk about Laura’s solicitation arrest. How did you manage to keep it from Kate?”

  He sighed impatiently. “When Laura was arrested she called our attorney and Gerald called me. I asked him not to mention it to Kate, and told him to arrange for Laura’s release on the condition that she wouldn’t mention it to Kate.”

  “So you blackmailed your own daughter before getting her out of jail.”

  “I will not tolerate being judged by an employee,” he said, with absolute calm.

  “Let’s get something straight, Derrick. I don’t work for you. Your wife hired me to look into Laura’s murder, so technically she is my client, but I work for myself. I am no one’s employee. Is that clear?”