“Okay...I guess.” Kevin took a deep breath before continuing. “Could you tell her I wasn’t the one who vandalized her store. Make sure she knows that, okay?”
“Why should she believe you?”
“I would never do that. This store is one of my dad’s clients.”
“That didn’t stop you the other night at Surfside Deli.”
“That was after.”
“After what?”
“After I found out who my real parents are. I got angry. It was a mistake. I’m not proud of what I did.”
He was heading toward the back door when the store owner entered the room and dropped her daughter’s car keys on the table. “I almost forgot to return these.”
At the sound of Arika’s voice, Kevin turned around and retraced his steps. “Mrs. Anderson, could I speak with you? It won’t take long, I promise.”
“Your father told me you’d be stopping by. Let’s talk in my office.”
“Don’t, Mom.”
“It’s okay, dear. Let me handle it.” Her mother gestured for Kevin to follow her into the back room and firmly closed the pocket door that separated the classroom from the combination office-storage area.
While they finished setting up for Nora’s class, Rory periodically pressed her ear against the door, trying to make out the conversation between her mother and Hester’s troubled son. She couldn’t understand any of the words, but felt vaguely comforted that she heard no loud noises coming from the room. Before too long, Arika opened the door. Kevin was nowhere to be seen. Rory tried to question her mother about the conversation, but Arika waved her daughter aside and headed back to the front of the store.
With everyone’s help, the sales floor was soon decorated, the programs folded, and all the other tasks scheduled for that day completed. Before the group headed out to dinner, Rory tossed discarded packaging and other unwanted bits from the decorations into a garbage bag. When she went out in the alley to dump it, she found Detective Green, hands cupped around his eyes, peering through the window into the back seat of her car. She tossed the trash bag in the dumpster and hurried over to see what he found so interesting. “Can I help you, Detective?”
The policeman turned to face her with such an unusually pleasant expression on his face Rory became nervous. “Good timing, Ms. Anderson. Would you mind if I take a look in your car?”
Rory peered through the window, trying to figure out what had attracted his attention. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. As far as she could tell, everything was as she’d left it several hours ago. “Why?”
“Do you have something to hide?”
No matter how much she wanted to say no to the search, she didn’t feel as if she had a choice. Detective Green would no doubt interpret a refusal as an admission of guilt. Besides, there was nothing inside for her to be concerned about...at least she didn’t think so. “Of course not.” Rory dug the keys out of the pocket of her jeans and unlocked the doors. Nervously, she hovered in the background, waiting to see what he’d find worth investigating.
After examining the front seat of the sedan, Detective Green opened the back door. “What have we here?” He reached inside and picked up two items off the floor—an unfamiliar cell phone and an amber pill bottle.
“Those aren’t mine,” Rory hastened to say. She didn’t remember them being there when she’d stashed the paper goods in the back seat, but she’d been in a hurry and might not have seen them. Perhaps one of her recent passengers had dropped them, though no one had asked her about any lost items.
When Detective Green shook the unlabeled bottle, pills rattled around inside. He turned on the cell phone and checked the calls. After only a minute or two, he looked up from the small screen and said in a steely voice, “You need to come with me.”
At that moment, Rory longed to be a kid again when a few minutes in her mother’s comforting arms would make all her troubles go away. Once again, the murderer was covering his tracks; Rory felt it in her bones. But this time, she sensed she’d have a harder time convincing the police of her innocence.
Chapter 28
Instead of viewing the sunset with her mother and the other paint-a-thon volunteers at a beachside restaurant, Rory spent Friday evening sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a dreary room answering questions about a bottle of pills she’d never seen before and a call she’d never made.
When they arrived at the police station, Detective Green led Rory into an interview room much smaller than the ones she’d seen on television—about half the size of its fictional counterparts. There was barely enough space for furniture that had seen better days: two metal chairs and a table that had been shoved up against one wall. Either the city couldn’t afford anything larger or the police preferred a claustrophobic environment for their interrogations.
As soon as she stepped inside the room, Rory’s heart beat faster and her knees began to shake. Without saying a word, Detective Green gestured toward a chair next to the table. She collapsed onto it, grateful that he wasn’t going to force her to stand on her wobbly legs any longer, and folded her hands in her lap so he wouldn’t see them tremble. Instead of sitting down in the other chair, the detective excused himself and left her alone in the tomb-like room.
She glanced up at what she assumed was a two-way mirror above the table and wondered who was on the other side. Staring at her reflection unnerved her, so Rory positioned her chair parallel to the mirror and fixed her gaze on the opposite wall, taking several deep breaths to calm herself.
When the detective didn’t immediately return, Rory considered her situation. Whatever he’d found on the cell phone had made him suspicious enough to bring her in for questioning. She suspected whoever had murdered Trudy had planted the incriminating evidence in her car.
Rory had no doubt the two murders were connected, though she didn’t yet know how. Perhaps the restaurant owner knew something too dangerous for the killer to allow her to live any longer.
Unless, of course, Trudy had murdered her former best friend and someone else had taken the law into his or her own hands. At this point, Rory realized she didn’t have enough information to make an educated guess as to what really happened.
Rory was tempted to hightail it home. The police hadn’t arrested her, after all. But running away from the problem was only a temporary solution. Detective Green was bound to bring her in again, only next time she was sure he’d handcuff her instead of inviting her down to the station for a quiet chat. She was better off staying put and finding out as much as she could.
After she’d memorized every blemish and crack in the puke-colored wall in front of her, Rory got up and began pacing the room, but she couldn’t go more than two steps in any direction without stubbing her toes on a piece of furniture or a wall. A few bumps and bruises later, she sat back down in the chair and peered at the two-way mirror. She was tempted to wave or make faces at it just to see what would happen, but decided she had no desire to appear even more deranged than she already did to whoever was on the other side of the glass.
Rory glanced at her cell phone. Twenty minutes had passed and the detective still hadn’t returned. She decided he’d forgotten all about her. She was reaching for the doorknob, ready to march out into the corridor and demand he question her right now or send her home, when Detective Green walked in with a can of Diet Coke and a pair of evidence bags. One glance at the bags told her they contained the items he’d found in the back seat of her car.
He cocked an eyebrow at her and set everything down on the table. “Going somewhere?”
Rory sank back down onto her chair. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”
“I wasn’t gone that long.” He shoved the soda can toward her. “Thought you might be thirsty.”
Rory wondered if this was a ploy to get her DNA or fingerprints, but then she realize
d he already had the latter and, as far as she was concerned, he could have the former any time he wanted. “Thank you.” She hadn’t realized until that moment how dry her throat was. She popped the top on the can and took a sip of the ice-cold beverage.
Detective Green arranged the other chair so it faced hers, sat down in it, and leaned back as if getting ready for a casual chat with a friend. With his finger he tapped the bag containing the pills that Rory suspected matched those scattered around Trudy’s body. “Tell me about these.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I’ve never seen them before and I don’t know who they belong to. Like I told you when you found them, they’re not mine.” She took another sip of Diet Coke and peered over the can at the detective. “The same goes for the cell phone,” she added, anticipating his next question.
“Then what were they doing in your car?”
“Heck if I know.”
He leaned forward and looked directly in her eyes. It took all of Rory’s willpower to meet his gaze. “It’s better if you tell the truth. I know you called Trudy around two a.m. Thursday morning.”
“Using that phone?” Rory pointed to the cell phone that would undoubtedly prove to be an untraceable burner. “You have no proof it’s mine. It’s not registered to me. My fingerprints aren’t on it. In fact, I’ll bet it’s been wiped clean of prints.”
The detective’s expression remained impassive but, for a moment, she saw confirmation in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair and, once again, adopted a casual air. “So you didn’t call Ms. Appelbaum? Arrange a meeting with her at her restaurant?”
“I told you the last time you asked I’ve never called her...ever. Nothing’s changed.” In the time it took her to drink half of her Diet Coke, she worked out what she thought was a plausible scenario in her mind. The murderer must have called Trudy using the burner phone and lured her to Main Street Squeeze. Once there, he’d killed her and placed the suicide note in her pocket. When the police saw through the ruse, the murderer had gone to Plan B and planted the incriminating evidence in Rory’s car.
“Tell me about your relationship with Ms. Appelbaum.”
“You should be asking about Kevin’s relationship with his birth mother, not mine. Why aren’t you questioning him? You know he was in town that morning. He had plenty of time to kill her and tamper with the alarm at Surfside Deli before you arrested him. They had a big fight a couple days before. With that temper of his and his soured relationship with Trudy, he’s a much better suspect than I am. Plus—” Rory was about to tell the detective what Veronica had said about Kevin wandering around town the night Hester was killed, but decided better of it. She had no evidence to back up Veronica’s story and, when the police questioned the woman about it, there was no guarantee she’d confirm she’d witnessed Kevin’s suspicious activity. Veronica might not have a problem revealing the information to Rory, but balked at blabbing to the police.
“Plus what?” Detective Green said when she didn’t continue.
“He’s just a better suspect, that’s all.”
“The phone and pills weren’t in his possession. They were in your car.”
“Kevin stopped by the store not long ago. He could have planted them there.”
“How? Your car was locked. You unlocked it for me yourself.”
Detective Green’s question stumped her for a moment until she remembered the pile of paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils she’d bought earlier that day.
“My keys weren’t in my possession the entire time,” she said. “Some volunteers moved items out of my car into the store. They only had to leave it unlocked and unattended for a minute. That’s all it would take for Kevin to toss the pills and phone into my backseat.”
Before the detective could ask any more questions, a uniformed officer poked his head in the door and indicated he wanted to speak to Detective Green outside. She barely had time to wonder what was going on when the detective returned. “You can go now.”
Without further explanation, he ushered her out of the room. He didn’t even bother to tell her to not leave town like the police did on television. Though, she supposed he couldn’t really ask her to do that since Vista Beach was small enough that, on an average day, residents crossed in and out of the city limits several times.
Rory emerged from the police station onto an empty street. While she was inside, the sun had set and a gentle fog had rolled in. She shivered in her short-sleeved T-shirt, wishing she’d remembered to bring her sweatshirt with her. It was still in the trunk of her car, parked in the alley behind Arika’s Scrap ’n Paint only a few blocks away. At least, she thought the car was still there. Detective Green hadn’t mentioned anything about confiscating it. She guessed she’d find out soon enough.
Lost in thought, Rory held her car keys between the middle and index fingers of her right hand and headed down the deserted street, solar-powered streetlamps lighting her way. The lamps were spaced far enough apart they left some areas in shadow. She hurried toward her mother’s store, speeding up every time she hit a pocket of blackness made more ominous by the fog. She’d just stepped out of one of those pockets near a construction site when she heard footsteps running toward her. Before the significance of the sounds could register and she could respond, someone grabbed her arm from behind.
Lacking a weapon, or even a purse or heavily-laden tote bag, Rory used the only means she had to defend herself. Without further thought, she swung around to face her attacker, jabbed her keys in the general direction of his face, then kneed him in his manly parts, using as much force as she could muster.
Kevin doubled over in pain. Sufficient light shone from a nearby lamp so that Rory could just make out the tears that trickled down his face. “Why?” he said between gasps. “I...just...wanted...to talk.”
Luckily, her keys had missed their target, striking air instead of the young man’s eye as she’d intended. Rory felt a little guilty about kneeing him in the groin, but reminded herself he’d soon recover and, besides, he was the one who’d seized her without warning. “You could have called my name to get my attention instead of grabbing me from behind.”
Hands on his knees, still gasping for breath, Kevin leaned against the chain link fence that surrounded the construction site. “I tried...several times...but you...just...kept...walking.”
Rory moved behind a nearby bench, being sure to keep it between her and the young man she suspected of murder. “Okay. You have my attention now. What do you want?”
Gradually, his breathing returned to normal and he straightened up. Pain still etched on his face, Kevin took a step toward her and said, “That detective, did you talk to him just now? Did he say anything about me?”
Rory decided he must have seen her leave the police station. At least, that’s what she hoped. She didn’t relish the idea of the entire town gossiping about her being a suspect in another murder. His timing was quite a coincidence, though. What were the odds he’d be near the station entrance when she left...unless... “He called you in, didn’t he? To talk about Trudy’s murder.” That must have been why Detective Green had abruptly let her go. She felt relieved she wasn’t the only person he’d brought in for questioning. Maybe the detective was pursuing more suspects than she’d thought.
“What do you mean? I had nothing to do with her murder!”
“You were wandering around town the night she died and you weren’t exactly on good terms with her.” Rory thought back to the fist-sized hole in the office of Main Street Squeeze. “That was obvious the other night.”
“Sure, I was mad at her for keeping that secret from me, but I’d never hurt her.”
“What about Hester? You were on the streets in the wee hours of the morning that night, too.”
“Who told you that?” Kevin studied her for a moment, then said, “Veronica, I suppose. You can’t beli
eve everything she says. She’s still mad at me.”
“Were you with Veronica that night?”
“From eleven on.”
“All night?”
“I might have slipped out for an hour or two in the middle of the night. But, it had nothing to do with my mother. I had an...errand to do.”
Rory wondered what kind of errand the young man could be doing at two or three in the morning. He didn’t strike her as someone who had a drug problem. But, then, she knew little about such things. Although she had no personal knowledge, she supposed that, even in this town, an interested party could find someone to sell them cocaine or whatever drug was currently in fashion.
“This changes everything,” he said in a low enough voice she realized the words hadn’t been intended for her ears.
Before she could ask him what he meant, Kevin headed back toward the police station without bothering to say good-bye.
Rory stared after him until the fog swallowed him up, then ran the rest of the way toward her car, hoping she wouldn’t have another unexpected encounter in the darkness along the way.
Chapter 29
Determined to banish all thoughts of police activity and violent death from her mind, Rory headed to Arika’s Scrap ’n Paint at eight the next morning to help her mother and Liz finish the last-minute preparations for Hester Bouquet’s tribute event. The store owner intended the day to be one of celebration and fun, and Rory planned on making the most of it. Admittedly a little difficult since the honoree had been murdered and her killer was still at large.
The tole painting community had been talking about the paint-a-thon all week via emails and blog posts so Arika expected a healthy turnout for the event. Scheduled to run from nine a.m. when the store opened until eight p.m. when the final class ended, it included a raffle drawing every hour, a new class every two hours, and demonstrations scattered throughout the day.
Fatal Brushstroke (An Aurora Anderson Mystery Book 1) Page 17