DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE

by Larissa Reinhart

  “Anything about you doing what?” Shawna clutched Luke’s free arm, pulling him from my grasp, and leaned over to grab the offending shoe. Gifting him with a fair view of her snakeskin-stretched backside.

  Talk about a spectacle.

  “Making some pitiful attempt to win my cousin back in front of poor Tara?” She spoke from her bent-over position, like a center ready to hike a peep toe stiletto.

  “No.” I floundered, my eyes searching Luke’s. This was worse than puking. What was I thinking? I turned to Shawna. “I’ll pay for your shoe. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You can’t afford to pay for these shoes,” she sneered, rising with Luke’s aid. “You probably don’t even know the designer.”

  The kitchen doors swung open, and Olivia pushed through. “What’s going on? Does somebody need help?” She glanced from me to Shawna’s cling on Luke’s arm.

  Shawna held the broken heel out, exposing the red sole to the restaurant crowd. “This girl is causing a ruckus. She saw me with her ex-boyfriend, got jealous, and tried to start a fight. Look what she did to my shoe.”

  Olivia scanned Shawna then looked toward me. “Maybe we should get you out of here.”

  “Maybe.” I agreed and cast my reddened face toward Luke. “I’m sorry.”

  His cop-cool face gave me no indication of how he felt, but he slipped an arm around Shawna’s waist and began to help her limp back to the table. Always the gentleman. And once again leaving me to stare at him from my across-the-tracks point of view.

  I cast a quick glance at Tara, who hadn’t bothered to close her mouth during the spectacle. That poor girl. I jerked my eyes back to Olivia. “Can I sneak out through the kitchen?”

  She gave me a half-smile. “Yeah, sure.”

  We bumped through the doors together and she pointed toward the delivery exit. “What was that about anyway? Crazy ex-girlfriend moment? Don’t worry, we’ve all had them.”

  “Something like that.” I shook my head. “You know, I try to rise above it all, but I always seem to get kicked back into the dirt.”

  “Mandy used to say things like that, too,” said Olivia. “That woman with the shoe sounded like a real bitch. Don’t let her get to you.”

  “Did Maranda have crazy ex-girlfriends after her, too?”

  “Just one. An art teacher at that school. I’m not sure if she was an ex-girlfriend, though. She got mad at Mandy for seeing this businessman. Another bad choice on Mandy’s part. He had a kid who went to the school.”

  “A child who was bullied and committed suicide. Very poor choice on Maranda’s part.” I grabbed Olivia’s arm. “The art teacher who bothered Maranda. Camille Vail, right?”

  “The name sounds familiar.” Olivia stared at me through dark rimmed eyes. “Did the student find out about Mandy and her dad?”

  “I don’t know, but the school bully might think so.”

  I stopped in an all-night laundromat and found Dr. Vail’s home address listed in the Line Creek phone directory. She owned one of the historic, turn-of-the-century homes that populated the blocks around the town square in Line Creek, one I recognized from a popular tour of homes during the holidays. In the dark, with only the moon and street lights to light the turreted house, the deep veranda appeared gloomy and the asymmetrical gables and eaves menacing. However, in the daylight, the Queen Anne house was a gorgeous deep violet with cadmium red-purple, blue, and green trim work. Hand-painted indigo rockers and flower boxes filled with yellow mums decorated the porch. Carefully tended flower beds mixed with annuals and perennials covered her tiny front lawn and side yards.

  My dream house.

  Wishing I could have met Dr. Vail under different circumstances, I opened the wooden screen and turned the antique door chime centered in the wooden door. The bell jangled on the other side of the door with a mechanical thrumming like my old bike bell, but louder. The effect fit the eerie mood, causing a prickle of goosebumps to rush up my spine. Inside the house, all remained quiet.

  I waited a moment, then walked the porch, my boots clattering on the wood planking. The curtained windows gave no indication whether Camille Vail was still away on her weekend jaunt. However, it was a school night and a light gleamed somewhere within. I doubled back to the porch steps and glanced at the other houses lining her street. Most had television lights flickering through the shades and curtains. The damp smell of a doused wood fire hung in the air. The street was still except for the incessant barking of a nearby dog.

  I proceeded to hop down the steps and follow the inset stone path that sprang from the sidewalk, through Dr. Vail’s front garden, and toward the back fence. The dog’s barking grew louder, and as I approached the fence, a large shape slammed against the gate.

  “Hey boy,” I crooned. “It’s okay.”

  Maybe the boy was a girl, for she growled with a fierceness I reckoned came with sharp teeth and a large body.

  Perhaps Dr. Vail had turned werewolf.

  “I’m not perpetrating a break-in,” I told the dog. “I just want to know if your momma is home.”

  The dog snarled and snapped, then began howling.

  “Okay, I’m backing off.” I gave up on sneaking in through the back door, unsure what I hoped to find anyway.

  I followed the path around the side of the house and paused. Between the dog’s barks, a creaking sounded from the veranda. I dropped behind a large azalea and squinted up into the murky porch. Some shadow wrapped in a long coat stood before the front door.

  A Sunday night booty call?

  I held my breath, waiting to see if they attempted to enter or had just exited. The figure crept from the front door to the far side of the porch, hugging the shadows. The cape billowed as a breeze shook the dark leaves of a nearby sweetgum.

  Had Tinsley called on Vail in his opera cape? More importantly, was this house call made to further their argument? Maybe their departmental fight was an illicit romantic cover-up.

  Preferring to picture a different scenario than Tinsley and Vail getting it on, I scrambled through the flower beds toward the front of the house. At the sidewalk, I flashed a look around the quiet street, then ran up the steps. I cut left toward the far side of the veranda where I had seen Tinsley disappear. Rounding the corner, the porch ended at another screened door, most likely the kitchen entrance, with a set of wooden stairs dropping to the garden below.

  I peered over the porch rails into the yard, but didn’t see Tinsley. The stone path from the steps led through Vail’s well-tended side garden back toward the front sidewalk. The dog hadn’t sounded off, so it wasn’t likely Tinsley went round back. Evidently, he had cut through the neighboring yard, divided from Vail’s by a small stand of ornamental trees. His vehicle must have been parked on another street.

  But why? To keep the neighbors from talking when nary one peeped from a window? Or had he gone into the house through the kitchen? Maybe he had tried the front door and also found it bolted.

  The screen door had been well oiled, for it swung out without a sound. I tried the brass knob on the kitchen door and it turned. Vail would get my compliments for a well maintained home. I hesitated before pushing the door open, wondering if probable cause could keep me from breaking and entering charges.

  “Hello, Dr. Vail?” I called before stepping a boot over the threshold. “Anybody home?”

  Behind the house, the dog stirred into a barking frenzy.

  “Tinsley? I thought I saw you. I don’t care about your hanky-panky. I need to talk to you both,” I shouted into the still house. Faint light ringed the door on the other side of the kitchen.

  “Beautiful cherry cabinets, Dr. Vail.” I hoped my compliments would deter Dr. Vail from calling the police when she kicked me out of her house. I moved through the kitchen and pushed open the door to the dim hall. “Love this wainscoting.
Nice color choice with the red walls and cinnabar green trim. I would have chosen it myself.”

  The hall led left toward what I guessed was a powder room and closets and right toward the front entryway. I found a wooden staircase with a different floral motif painted on each riser. Overhead light glowed from the second story and filtered down the stairs and into the hall.

  “Boy, do I love what you did to these stairs.” I eyeballed the staircase, following the flowers up to the empty second floor landing. “You up there, Dr. Vail? Did I wake you?”

  I tread past the stairs and into the parlor, then rushed past the camelback couch to the marble fireplace. I gazed up at a work lit with a tiny brass lamp clipped to the top of the heavy gold frame. “Oh my Lord, is that an authentic Miro print?”

  A bump against the outside wall startled me into turning away from the Miro. A part of my brain told my inner artist to stop appreciating the decorating and focus on the bumps in the night. Why in the hell did I enter this house in the first place? What kind of an idiot creeps into dark houses to view the artistic details? And what if I caught Tinsley and Vail doing the hot and heavy? What then, braniac?

  That side of my brain probably needed to grow larger. I tiptoed from the piano back toward the hallway. As I crept past the staircase, my eyes cut right, following the hall as it circled the side of the stairs. On the other side of a small table, a curtained, French door stood open. Behind the table and in the open doorway lay a long bundle of cloth that I almost mistook for a partially rolled rug.

  Except the rug had bare feet. One pointed up. The other had fallen to the side. Dark toenail paint stood out against the pale skin.

  I shuddered and stopped my tiptoe walk, reaching for my cell phone shoved in the back pocket of my denim skirt. Dialing 9-1-1, I brought the phone to my ear and stepped around the tole table. Camille Vail’s long, thin body lay sprawled on the floor, her loose tunic wound around her torso and arms, like she had twisted and fallen backward. Her head had rolled to one side. The piercing eyes were closed and her mouth hung open, but something seemed odd about the up facing ear. I shoved the phone between my shoulder and chin and dropped to my knees beside her.

  “Dr. Vail.” I nudged her shoulder, then felt for a pulse at her neck. Her throat felt cool, but not cold.

  I couldn’t find a pulse. My hand slid to the back of her neck. The side felt sticky, and in the gloom, I realized the dark wood beneath her head was damp with blood.

  A sobbing gasp left my lips and hearing a voice in my ear, I jerked upright, dropping the phone on the floor. The acrid scent of blood and the more pungent odor of less desirable aromas overwhelmed me. The rise of minestrone and beer burned in my chest and little dots of light swam in my vision.

  Outside, the dog howled and yapped.

  Snap out of it, said the area of my brain which functioned under stress. Dr. Vail’s hurt. She could still be alive. Find the wound. Beneath me, I could hear a tiny voice from my phone asking me if I was still there. “Dr. Camille Vail’s unconscious and bleeding,” I hollered at the phone, then announced the address. “She may still be alive. Send an ambulance.”

  “Dr. Vail, can you hear me?” I touched her face, examining the upturned ear and then noticed half of a dark, oval burn behind her ear that extended into the short, salt and pepper hair. “Lord have mercy, that’s a gun shot wound.”

  I jerked back, my hands flying away from her body. The raised, black burn meant the muzzle had touched her head. “Not another suicide. What do I do?”

  I ripped off my sweater, held my breath, and inched the folded cloth under the side of her head lying on the floor. Blood seeped into the orange cloth and darkened the velcro leaves that had fallen around Vail’s head.

  “This is not good. Hang on, Camille. Someone’s coming.”

  Bending over Vail, I laid my head against her chest, listening for a heartbeat. As I contemplated the effectiveness of chest compressions, the room seemed to darken further. I brought my head up only to have it slam against Camille’s chest.

  “Tinsley?” I turned my head, seeking the intruder, and pushed up. A wallop against my back splayed me across Camille’s legs.

  “Holy hell,” I mumbled.

  A sharp, blinding pain cracked across the back of my skull. I tried to lift my hand, gave up, and sank into oblivion.

  Twenty-Seven

  I recognized the Line Creek hospital ER room immediately, but not the man sitting in the chair next to me. He wore blue with his worry, whereas brown seemed a more familiar color match to that particular feeling. I blinked through my aching head, and gradually placed Herrera’s name to his face.

  “Oh shit.” I sat up, then dropped back as my vision swam.

  Herrera leaned forward and patted my hand. “Just hold on there. Probably shouldn’t move. You’ve got a big bump on the back of your head.”

  “I can feel it.” I stared at the ceiling. The base of my skull throbbed and my reckoning processor had siphoned to a trickle rather than my usual tsunami of thoughts. “What am I doing here?”

  “You don’t remember calling emergency services?”

  I blinked up at the ceiling tiles. “Was I in an accident?”

  “Hon’, you called in a gun shot wound and we found you lying in the entryway of Camille Vail’s foyer, knocked cold.”

  “What in the hell? How did that happen?” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the last I could recall was the look of distress crossing Tara’s face as she knocked back a glass of Chianti.

  Did someone slip a mickey in my minestrone? How did I end up in Camille Vail’s foyer? Who was shot? I patted my head and felt gauze. Surely, a gunshot wound to the head would hurt more than this. “Was I shot?”

  “No, walloped from behind. But I hoped you could tell me what happened.” Herrera stood and stretched. “You’ve been talking gibberish for the past five hours with that concussion. Lots of ‘I know you. Who are you?’”

  “My head hurts like hell.” I crawled into a sitting position. The room spun and I breathed through my mouth to make it stop. “What time is it?”

  Herrera glanced at his watch. “Early.”

  I rested my head in my hands and tried to sift through the cobwebs shrouding my memory. “I went to Little Verona’s to talk to Coach Newcomb and Maranda’s friend, Olivia.”

  “What happened at Little Verona’s?” Herrera flipped open a notebook.

  “I shoved Shawna Branson into a palm,” I mumbled. “She broke her shoe. Which I think is pretty expensive.”

  “Who is Shawna Branson?”

  “A two-faced snark who wields cleavage as a weapon. She’s not an artist, no matter what she claims. And she thinks I’m not good enough for her cousin.”

  “Step-cousin,” spoke a rich baritone.

  I tore my hands off my face, resulting in a seismic rumble in the back of my head.

  Luke stood in the doorway, pushing an empty wheelchair. “Don’t say anything more, Cherry.”

  Herrera glared at Luke. “This woman is a witness to a suspicious death. And overly involved in another death.”

  “I’m a witness to a suspicious death?” I sucked in a long breath. “Whose death?”

  Luke moved the wheelchair next to the hospital bed and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Cherry is also an assault victim. Sugar, don’t say anything just now.”

  “I can’t remember what I’m not supposed to say.” I looked from one man to the next and experienced a tilt-a-whirl without the carnival.

  “I need to know why Cherry was in Camille Vail’s house,” said Herrera. “She’ll remember soon. The effects of the concussion are wearing off.”

  “I’m taking her home,” said Luke. “I already spoke to the hospital staff and got her discharged. Cherry needs to rest.”

  “She’s under my custody. And she’ll
be more comfortable here than at the station.”

  “Holy crap.” The men’s sharp barks drilled into the shifting plates of my head quake. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Cherry will make a report in the morning. You’re not getting anything out of her now.” Luke squeezed my shoulder. “And tomorrow, she’s going to wait for a lawyer.”

  “Lawyer?” My voice shook.

  “Give me a break, deputy. There’s a woman dead with a potential witness.” Herrera mopped his face, exposing his exhaustion. “Fine, take her home. But I’m coming to get her if she doesn’t show at the Line Creek station tomorrow.”

  A nurse bustled into the room. The men remained mute as she checked my head, handed me a sheet of instructions, and helped me into the wheelchair. I looked at the hospital gown I wore with my denim skirt and boots.

  “Where’s my top?”

  Luke looked at Herrera and back to me. “We’ll talk about that later. Come on, hon’. Let’s get you home.”

  Fearing more time spent with Herrera, I nodded, then regretted the action.

  Luke wheeled me out of the small room, down a corridor, through a set of double doors, and past the line at the reception booth. Across the hall in the glassed-in waiting room, Todd, Casey, and Nik scooted off chairs and hurried to my side.

  “I’m taking her home,” Luke announced.

  Evidently, my concussion produced auditory hallucinations. Or maybe our relationship had progressed beyond flirting and parking lot snogging during my blackout. I shifted to catch Luke’s attention, but he was too busy freezing Casey with his don’t-try-me-I’m-the-law stare.

  Casey glared at him through raccoon eyes. “The hell you are. You’ve caused my sister enough trouble. Cherry needs to be with family. Bad enough they wouldn’t let anyone but cops back there with her.”

  Todd’s hands tapped against his jeans. “How’re you feeling, baby?”