“But what if they think that we’re up to something bad?”
“Honey, Chas used to be the head of homicide. Do you seriously believe that they’re going to think there’s any foul play on our part?”
“I hope not. Kel said that there are FBI people around, too,” she continued to worry.
“We’ll be fine,” Missy said flatly, reassuring herself as much as Echo.
The two ladies rounded a corner to the backyard and came face to face with landscaping architect, Kaplan Bartlett.
“Whoa, surprises around every corner,” the architect chuckled. “How are you today, Ms. Beckett? Ma’am,” he nodded to Echo.
“I’m doing well, Mr. Bartlett, thank you. Are you and your crew still working on the yard?” Missy was puzzled.
“No ma’am. The police have asked that we stay away for now. I just came to make sure that the things we planted already were getting watered properly.”
“Oh, that’s so nice of you,” Missy smiled.
“No problem. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Kap asked, glancing at something behind the women.
“No, I’m just going to take a look around. Thanks, though,” Missy replied.
“All right then, take care,” the architect lifted his hand in a wave and beat a hasty retreat out of the side yard.
“You just stop right there!” a voice bellowed rudely from behind Echo.
The women turned to see a red-faced man in polyester bearing down upon them. Something within Melissa Gladstone-Beckett broke at that point, and she knew that if this thin-haired little man was as obnoxious as he seemed when he blustered up to them, she’d unleash every bit of stress, fear, anger, and frustration upon him in a torrent so profound, he’d never dare to approach her again.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing here?” the sweaty man demanded, out of breath. He was squinting toward the side yard, where Kaplan Bartlett had just disappeared.
“Excuse me?” Missy said quietly, raising an eyebrow.
Echo’s eyes widened. She knew the tone. Her friend was about to blow a gasket. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was profound. Rather than being worried about it, the carefree redhead was sort of eager to see how it played out. Sometimes rude people needed a little lesson on southern manners, and Missy could dish it out with the best of them when it was necessary. She took a step back, so she could enjoy the imminent explosion.
“I’m gonna need to see some identification from you two,” the man wheezed, still trying to catch his breath. “Wendelson!” he yelled, glancing all about the yard.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, and I really don’t care. You have no right to come onto my property and ask me for anything, much less identification. You might want to get on your way before I have to escalate this situation,” the petite blonde warned, her kitten-grey eyes stormy.
“Escalate? Are you threatening me, miss?” the man was dumbfounded.
“Oh no, she’s not threatening, she’s serious,” Echo interjected, biting back a smile of anticipation. “It’s really not in your best interest to be rude to us,” she baited the sputtering little stranger.
“Now you listen to me,” the man thundered, stepping closer.
Missy didn’t budge an inch, ready for battle.
“Mrs. Beckett?” a far more reasonable voice broke into the conversation as John Wendelson, a uniformed officer from the homicide division, joined them.
“John, how nice to see you again,” she greeted him with a smile, then fixed her glare back on the intruder.
Wendelson cleared his throat. “I uh, see that you’ve met my new boss?” he inclined his head toward the sweaty man.
“Where the heck have you been?” Solinsky demanded as the news that this man was Chas’s replacement sunk in with Missy and Echo.
“I was checking the perimeter, per protocol,” Wendelson’s answer was clipped.
“You’re Chas’s replacement?” Echo’s mouth fell open in surprise, and a disbelieving grin began to curl up the corners of her mouth.
Missy, who had been ready, willing and able to launch into a tirade, suddenly stopped short, blinking at Solinsky.
“Well, somehow, not only these two slipped through, but so did the yard designer, again. Great work,” the detective shook his head with a disgusted look on his face.
“So it’s not just us, you’re rude, boorish, and offensive to everyone you meet. You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t know where you came from, but that kind of behavior isn’t considered acceptable in this part of the country, mister,” Missy raised her eyebrows and Echo covered her mouth with her hand, delighted and astonished.
“Mrs. Beckett, it’s okay, really,” Wendelson tried to smooth things over.
“No, John. It is most decidedly not okay. I will not put up with being treated that way and neither should you. If you don’t choose to talk with the chief about it, don’t worry, because you can bet your badge that I will be, first thing in the morning.”
“Daddy Warbucks has a wife, huh? And a little spitfire at that,” Solinsky commented nastily, drawing an astonished look from both Echo and Wendelson. “Now that I know who you are, the attitude makes sense, but let me tell you something about police work, little lady. I don’t care who you’re married to, or who you know in the department. This is a crime scene that I’ve secured, and you’re impeding an investigation. Now, either you hightail it outta here and let me finish my business, or I’ll be forced to take you to jail. How’s that for reality, Princess?”
“Mrs. Beckett, I’d be happy to walk you and Mrs. Kellerman out, it’s really no trouble,” Wendelson tried again.
Missy didn’t look at the younger cop, didn’t flinch, didn’t bat an eyelash.
“Try it, tough guy,” she stood to her full five feet, four inches, chin jutted toward the rude detective.
“You need to vacate the premises now,” Solinsky was simmering.
Despite the snowy white capris that she was wearing, despite the dug-up, muddy ground, Missy held Arthur Solinsky’s gaze, never breaking eye contact, and lowered herself to the ground.
“This is my home, you sour human being, and neither you, nor anyone else is gonna make me leave it,” she declared, her southern accent pronounced.
Echo gave a slight shrug, hiked up her maxi skirt just a tad, and sat beside her friend with a smile, challenging the power-hungry detective.
“You are under arrest…” Solinsky began.
***
Chas drove in silence to the police station, his calm exterior giving no indication of the tempest that raged inside at the thought of his beloved wife and her new-mom best friend sitting in the Calgon jail for daring to visit her own home. He hadn’t been impressed with Solinsky when he’d first met him, and now he was ready to give the rude outsider a serious reality check. For Missy’s sake, he’d attempt to be civil, but if Solinsky crossed the line, he’d be on the receiving end of the PI’s wrath.
“Interfering with an investigation, huh?” Spencer broached the subject, looking for his boss’s reaction, so he’d know how prepared he’d have to be to intervene.
“Bogus charge,” Chas muttered, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“Well, clearly, but why would he do such a thing?” the Marine persisted.
“Napoleon complex,” the PI snipped.
Spencer nodded, and was about to say something else, when the phone on his wrist buzzed. Slipping an earbud in, he answered the call. He spoke briefly, then pulled the earbud out and talked to Chas.
“That was Holly. Fiona from the coroner’s office just called and said that they’ve ID’d the body, and have a cause of death. There might happen to be a copy of the report just laying around the mortuary if we can swing by right now.”
Chas glanced at his watch, annoyed, but wanting the report. Timothy Eckels was a by-the-book kind of guy who was doing him a huge favor by providing a copy of the report, so he couldn’t refuse to show up.
“Listen, just drop me off out in front of the mortuary. I’ll pick it up and walk it over to the station, no big deal. By the time I get there, Missy and Echo will probably be all ready to go,” Spencer suggested.
Chas nodded. “Don’t let anyone at the station see that you have the report,” he advised, a muscle in his jaw flexing.
“Noted.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
“I do not like that man, Chas. Not one little bit,” Missy insisted, whipping a batch of almond coconut cupcake batter into a froth. Echo sat on the counter nearby.
“He’s not my favorite person on the planet right now either, but he’s the new head of homicide, so unfortunately we have to work with him,” her husband sighed.
The chief had given Art Solinsky quite the dressing down for having arrested two of Calgon’s innocent and prominent citizens, and Chas had agreed to let it go at that, for the sake of the department, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. He’d given Solinsky a warning of his own, and if the man had any sense at all, he’d keep his distance from Melissa Gladstone-Beckett.
“So, I know that you and Spencer and Kel have had your heads huddled together all evening—tell us what you know about the remains that were found in the wall,” Missy instructed. Normally Chas didn’t share much about his cases with his wife, but her tone let him know that it would be the prudent thing to do this time around.
“He was a local attorney,” her husband commented. “He was stabbed so hard, so many times, that there were nicks in his vertebrae and ribs.”
Echo flinched and paled a bit at that.
“Do you have any idea who killed him? Or why?” Missy stopped stirring for a moment, then began ladling the mix into pale pink cupcake papers.
“Well, we have a couple of ideas that we’re following up on,” he was intentionally vague.
“So, who did it?” Echo asked, recovering.
“My guess would be either the former homeowner of our place, or the landscaping architect who built the wall,” Chas was candid.
“The landscaping architect? You mean that nice gentleman that we ran into yesterday before we got dragged off to jail? He doesn’t really seem the type,” Missy absently handed the empty spoon to her husband so that he could lick the batter, now that all of the mix had landed securely in the papers.
“Criminals rarely seem like villains. Most of them are quite adept at hiding their true character,” Chas shrugged, sampling the batter and giving his wife an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“But it could also be the other homeowner,” Echo pointed out. “Do we know anything about him?”
Chas’s expression grew pained. “A bit…” he hedged.
Missy ran water in the empty batter bowl, put the cupcakes in the oven, then stood and faced her husband, arms crossed.
“Out with it, Chas Beckett,” she demanded. “What do we know about the former homeowner?”
Chas sighed. “I really didn’t think that it was going to be an issue. The former homeowner is in jail,” he admitted.
Missy and Echo had identical expressions of shock. Echo recovered first.
“In jail for what?” her eyes were wide.
“Tax evasion, smuggling, a handful of other charges. He’s not going anywhere for a while,” the detective shrugged.
“So, my new house was confiscated from a criminal?” Missy’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “I’m really not sure how I feel about that.”
“His assets were seized. I made the purchase from the city of Calgon, so he had nothing to do with it,” the PI reassured her, not mentioning the hoops he’d had to jump through and conversations that he’d had with various officials to push the transaction through.
“Well, was the attorney who was killed representing the former homeowner?” Echo asked, her expression pensive.
“Yes, he was. And he’d had some run-ins with Kaplan Bartlett as well, so it could go either way,” Chas confirmed.
“How are you going to figure this mess out?” Missy asked, looking worried. “And are we going to be safe in the meantime?”
“I’m sure we’ll be safe,” Chas nodded, not sure at all. “This house sat vacant for years with no issues or instances of criminal activity.”
“That we know of,” Echo pointed out.
“I’m working the case, as is the homicide division. We’ll get it figured out,” he ignored Echo’s comment. He didn’t see any benefit in mentioning that the FBI might be involved as well.
“Well, I know you’re the best at what you do, so I’m just going to try not to think about it,” Missy sighed.
Chas went over and wrapped his wife in a warm embrace, kissing the top of her head. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” he murmured against her hair.
“Hey you two, it’s hot enough in this kitchen already with the oven on,” Echo teased, mock-fanning herself.
The three had a good laugh and the timer went off for the cupcakes.
***
“Good morning, Mr. Bengal,” Holly greeted Spencer when he came into the office. He was dressed casually because he and Chas were slated to go see Roger Demmers, former owner of Chas’s home and convicted felon, later this morning.
“Holly, we’ve covered this,” the Marine chuckled. “Please call me Spencer, or Spence, or anything other than Mr. Bengal. It sounds like a character on a children’s show.”
Holly grinned, her cool, professional air slipping just a bit.
“It does, doesn’t it,” she agreed, handing him a stack of messages. “Okay, Spence, there’s a message on top that you’ll probably want to read first, because it may have bearing on your schedule today,” she advised.
“Will do. Where’s Ringo?”
“I believe he’s in the security center, and from the stack of food delivery containers, it looks like he’s been there for a couple of days. Maybe you should install a shower?”
“Think it’d do any good?”
“Point taken, Mr… Spence.”
“Mr. Spence, now that’s a new one.” He left her with a final flash of his killer dimples, and made his way to the security center, thumbing through his messages.
“Ringo,” he greeted the hacker, who sat before multiple screens filled with what looked like communications from another planet.
The somewhat disheveled young man took a huge bite from a donut, and, eyes still glued to the screens, responded, “Hey, GI Joe.”
One of the messages that Spencer had just scanned gave him pause.
“I need you to track something down for me,” he directed.
Ringo spun his chair around, stuffed the rest of the donut in his mouth, and gave a very muffled reply. “Lay it on me.”
“I need you to find known associates of Roger Demmers. I also want you to work your way into the correctional facility where he’s housed at the moment and find out who his cellmates are, what his daily record looks like, and who he comes into contact with on a regular basis, both staffers and inmates. And I need it yesterday. Without footprints.” He gave the hacker a pointed look.
“Piece of cake,” Ringo licked powdered sugar from his fingers and offered the box of donuts to his boss, who declined with a shake of the head.
“You are an original, Ringo,” Spencer observed on his way out.
“That’s the way I like it, Boss Man,” was the casual reply.
Spencer heard rapid-fire clicking of keys as he exited the security center. Poking his head out into the hall next to the reception desk, he made sure that no one was in the waiting area, and addressed Holly.
“If you could pick up some air freshener…” he began.
With a grin, she opened a file drawer and showed him an arsenal of citrus-scented ammunition.
“You need a raise.”
“I’ll take it.”
***
Kaplan Bartlett climbed into the driver’s seat of his midnight blue classic convertible and turned the engine over. He needed to hit the
road, needed to clear his head and get his thoughts together. He wasn’t paranoid, he’d seen the suits following him, seen the way that the new homicide detective looked at him, and he had a very, very strong feeling that something was about to go down. He wanted to be mentally and emotionally prepared for whatever legal firestorm might be about to descend upon him, so he’d plan on going to the beach for a bit. Maybe he’d even leave town for a while, just to take a break from the nonsense. He’d been down this road before. Everyone looking, everyone pointing fingers. Maybe it was finally time to make a clean break from this too-small town and start over somewhere else.
Easing the grand car onto the highway, he accelerated, picking up speed until he was doing well over the posted speed limit. It felt glorious, a simple act of rebellion that harmed no one and gave him a small sense of freedom in his overly-regulated world. A semi was edging onto the highway to his right, and a long line of cars blocked him from getting into the left lane, so he hit the brakes, and his heart leapt into his throat as his foot went to the floor without slowing his progress at all. The heart attack that caused him to lose consciousness spared him the terror of seeing the semi hurtle over the top of his prized possession. The resulting pileup of cars would block traffic on that particular thoroughfare for the better part of the day, and Kaplan Bartlett would apparently get the rest that he needed, but in a manner that he definitely hadn’t anticipated. Clinging to life by a thread, he was transported to Calgon General Hospital, where surgeons tried their best to keep him living and breathing.
***
“What have we got?” Chas asked, when Spencer rapped on the door frame of his office.
“It’s not good. We’ve got a multi-car accident involving Kaplan Bartlett, and there was enough left of the car to determine that his brake lines had been cut,” the Marine recounted grimly.
“He alive?”
“So far, but it’s not looking good.”
“Is he talking?”
“Intensive care. They don’t know if he’ll make it through the day, so no.”
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