Dogs, Lies, and Alibis

by Wendy Delaney

While I hadn’t wanted to dig any deeper into the love life of my soon-to-be fourth stepfather, I had squirreled away that little relationship nut as something I needed to be mindful of.

  Especially today.

  Colt’s death and Georgie’s arrest made for headline news, and with her tight relationship with Tami, Renee would surely demand the byline. So it came as no surprise when I turned onto K Street and spotted Renee’s ice blue Subaru as one of the two vehicles parked in front of Tami’s rambler.

  It put a monkey wrench in my plans though, because I couldn’t very well conduct an interview with a reporter in the room.

  But as I parked behind a minivan, I reminded myself that I had something she didn’t have: a little badge that made me an officer of the court. About as low on the totem pole of officialdom that one could go, but even my lowly rank had some privileges. I just needed to channel Deputy Mankowitz and insist that Renee move along.

  Also, keep my comments to a minimum to avoid running the risk of them resurfacing in the newspaper.

  With my plan of action in place I approached the white stucco house. That’s when I saw Renee step outside, shutting the front door behind her.

  At first I was relieved. While my mother wasn’t the only one in the family who could deliver a rehearsed line with some authority, Deputy Mankowitz would have been a stretch. But unlike my mother I had no desire for any publicity, and a reporter was rapidly descending upon me.

  “Well, hello, Charmaine,” she said, greeting me with a smile too gleeful for the reason that had brought us both here.

  I didn’t want to lead her back to Tami’s doorstep, so I stopped to talk. “Hey, Renee.”

  Standing in front of me in skinny jeans and heels that made her long legs look even longer, Renee Ireland towered over me by at least seven inches.

  I’d always assumed she used her size and former model good looks to her advantage when trying to snare an interview. I had just never imagined myself as the interviewee in her sights.

  As a cool breeze ruffled her soft strawberry blond curls she thrust a handheld recorder in front of my face. “Are you here in some sort of official capacity?”

  “I’m just here to chat with Tami.”

  “As a representative of the coroner’s office?”

  “As you can imagine, there are some things having to do with the body that must be discussed,” I stated solemnly, counting on the fact that Renee wouldn’t want to step into the weeds of death and dying.

  She blanched as if the Grim Reaper had sent me. “Of course. But can you tell me if there have been any findings I can share with my readers?”

  I knew it was in my best interest to play dumb. “Oh, I wouldn’t know. That’s above my pay grade.”

  Puckering, Renee turned off her recorder. “Okay, I’ll call Frankie to schedule an interview.”

  You’re never going to get past Patsy, I thought, watching Renee climb into her Subaru.

  I didn’t want any more surprises, so I waited for her to drive out of sight before stepping onto the porch to ring the doorbell.

  “Tell them to go away,” a tearful voice said.

  As a death investigator for the county, I had grown accustomed to emotionally fraught home visits. It didn’t mean I liked it, but as long as no one on the other side of the door was a media member, I could handle a few minutes of less than gracious company. And based on who just cracked the door open, it appeared that company would include Colt’s older sister, Kendra Sparks.

  Kendra had been two years ahead of me in school, so we hadn’t been particularly close, but she knew me.

  Unfortunately, that failed to serve as an equalizer to the level of wariness in her eyes. “If you’re here to see my mom, it isn’t a good time.”

  I flashed my deputy coroner badge to encourage her cooperation. “I’m sorry, but I’m here on behalf of the coroner’s office.” Partially true, but I couldn’t very well lead this potential witness by admitting that the criminal prosecutor sent me to get more dirt on how Colt broke his nose.

  With a sigh Kendra opened the door and I stepped into a house that reeked of a filthy litter box.

  One long-haired gray and white cat hovered by the door while twin charcoal kitties darted down the nearby hallway.

  Kendra shut the door with a loud thud and the gray and white skittered away to join his buddies. “We have to be careful answering the door because that one likes to make a break for it.”

  Another partial truth—one that had little to do with her hesitancy to let me in.

  I followed Kendra into the kitchen, where Tami was hunkered down at an old Shaker-style table with a plaid dishtowel pressed to her eyes.

  “Mom?” Kendra gently said, as if waking her mother from a nap. “Char’s here to talk to you.”

  Tami lowered the towel, revealing angry, swollen eyelids. Shaking her head, tears spilled onto blotchy cheeks. “I can’t talk…right now.”

  I settled into the chair across from her and pulled a pen and notebook from my tote. “I understand. You and Kendra have suffered a terrible loss and I’m so sorry to intrude, but I’m here to help get to the bottom of what happened to Colt.”

  Yes, I had just presented myself as an ally in what should have appeared to be a quest for justice. Truthfully, that’s what I wanted, but not just for the Ziegler family.

  While Tami blinked back a fresh round of tears, a dry-eyed Kendra turned to me. “Coffee, Char? I made some fresh.”

  This caffeine addict never refused free coffee, especially when it bought me an excuse to stick around for a few extra minutes.

  “Yes, please.” I smiled across the table at Tami. “So, would it be okay if I asked a few questions?”

  Sitting up a little straighter, she wiped her eyes with the towel.

  I had a feeling that was as much of an answer in the affirmative as she was capable of giving right now. “When was the last time you saw Colton?”

  She cleared her throat. “Besides this morning at Tolliver’s?”

  Curtis Tolliver’s mortuary contracted with the county to double as the local morgue, so I had expected that Tami would have gone there to identify her son’s body.

  I nodded. “I’m mainly interested in when you last talked to him.”

  “Yesterday. Late in the afternoon. He called to tell me that he wouldn’t be coming over for dinner.”

  I made a note about the dinner. “Was that a usual thing—getting the family together on Sunday?”

  “Oh, no.” After another swipe with the towel, she cast a disparaging glance at her daughter as Kendra delivered my coffee. “Just Colton and me.”

  Picking up her mother’s empty cup, Kendra heaved a sigh. “You know why Damon preferred to visit when Colt wasn’t here.”

  Ooooh, that sounded juicy. I jotted another note while mother and daughter shot daggers at one another.

  Even juicier.

  Once Kendra retreated to the kitchen, Tami dismissively waved a bony hand. “Water under the bridge. Nothing you’d want to hear about.”

  Want to bet?

  Taking a ragged breath, Tami squeezed her swollen lids shut. “Where were we?”

  “Colton called Sunday afternoon,” I prompted. “Around what time?”

  “Maybe four-thirty.”

  “Last minute.” Kendra set the mug of coffee in front of her mother. “As per usual.”

  Tami fired a glare at her daughter that looked much like the warning shot I’d get from Marietta when I bad-mouthed one of her prospective grooms. “Don’t start. Not today.”

  Kendra took the seat separating her mother and me. “I’m just saying.”

  And I was just hoping for some elaboration. “Did Colton give a reason why he couldn’t make it?”

  Tami pushed back a wayward strand of salt and pepper hair. “He had to work.”

  “At the feed store?” Where I’d seen him at the register last month, when Gram sent me to pick up a bale of straw for her vegetable garden.

  Ke
ndra smirked. “Hardly.”

  Sitting very still, Tami stared into the steaming mug in front of her. “No, that job didn’t work out.”

  Clearly. I gave them a chance to explain, but they’d both clammed up.

  I added Ray Ortiz, the owner of the feed store, to my interview list. I doubted that Ben would be interested in Mr. Ortiz as a witness, but I would first need to speak with him to rule that out. “So where was Colton working yesterday?”

  “He was a limo driver for One Stop Party.” Tami’s thin mouth twisted into a sad smile. “It’s like I told Renee. He liked the job. Wore a chauffeur’s hat and everything.”

  I knew that party supply store—all too well, as a matter of fact. Mainly thanks to a mother who had conscripted me to help her plan her June wedding.

  I took a sip of what tasted like Italian roast blended with diesel fuel and longed for some milk to dilute it, but I didn’t want to give Kendra an excuse to leave the table, so I pushed the mug to the side. “Had Colton been working there for long?”

  Tami blinked. “I don’t think so, and—”

  “And don’t get the wrong idea,” Kendra cut in. “This was some easy money that I think my cousin and his wife were tossing his way.”

  I looked across the table at Tami for confirmation.

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “What’s this cousin’s name?” I asked.

  When her mother hesitated to answer, Kendra jumped in. “Eric Caldwell.”

  I stared at her in stunned silence for a split second because I’d experienced three years of high school with Eric and Colt, and had never heard anyone mention that they were related.

  I added Eric’s name to my list. “So, someone must have booked a limo for Sunday and Colton called to let you know that he wouldn’t make it for dinner.”

  Tami nodded.

  “Did he mention anything else when he called?”

  She shook her head.

  “How about before that? Did he say anything about experiencing any trouble with anyone in the last few weeks?”

  The older woman shifted in her seat. “Weeks? No.”

  I slanted my gaze to Kendra, who folded her arms and shifted her focus to her mother’s untouched coffee mug.

  Since Kendra had checked herself out of this conversation I made a mental note to schedule some time alone with her.

  I gave her an out because we both knew that I’d come here to speak with her mother. But Kendra obviously had some strong feelings about her little brother, chief among them enough anger to make my coffee boil. And I wanted to know why.

  Tami furrowed her brow, squinting across the table at me like a mole struggling to face the dim light of the kitchen. “But like I told Steve this morning, this problem with George Bassett had been going on for twenty years.”

  “Problem?” I asked, trying to keep my expression carefully neutral.

  “That menace using my son like a punching bag.”

  There was no possible way that could be true of the gentle giant I knew.

  Looking for cracks in Tami’s conviction, I swept my gaze over her face. She probably had enough tension in her jaw to bite through steel, so I wasn’t surprised to hear her lay into Georgie.

  But as much as she might believe every word she was saying, that didn’t make it true.

  “You should have seen my boy after that monster broke his nose a couple of years back. He was black and blue for a month.”

  I gave Kendra a sidelong glance to gauge her reaction to the accusations her mother was making. No escalation of emotion. If anything, Kendra appeared markedly calm compared to her mother.

  But also increasingly twitchy.

  Something didn’t add up.

  “Did you see your brother after he was hurt?”

  Without making eye contact, she shrugged. “I wasn’t…uh…”

  “She wasn’t talking to him at the time,” Tami huffed, aiming her mole squint at her daughter.

  Oh?

  I angled in my seat to get a better view of Kendra’s face. “So you never discussed this incident with him?”

  Pressing her pale lips together, she shook her head. “He told me later that it was no big deal. Beyond that, no.”

  I seriously doubted that was the whole story, but before I could ask a follow-up question, Tami pounded the table with her fist. “No big deal? Your brother’s dead!”

  Kendra broke into tears for the first time since my arrival. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, fighting to douse the fire burning behind my own eyes as I bore witness to their pain. “I know how difficult this is.” I touched Kendra’s shirtsleeve. And I will talk to you later, when your mother isn’t around.

  “Mrs. Ziegler, you said that this thing with George Bassett had been going on for twenty years.”

  She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “Off and on since high school.”

  “Can you give me another example of the ‘on’?” Because I was quite confident that no one else in town would be able to come up with one.

  “When Colton moved back home.” Tami squinted down at her coffee. “This would have been when he was around twenty-five.”

  I scribbled while she talked.

  “For days, he barely came out of his room. At first I thought it was…you know…” She lowered her voice. “Drugs. But after two weeks of him doing nothing but watching TV on my couch, he finally admitted that there was someone he didn’t want to run into. I told him that he couldn’t live his life in fear, and insisted that he level with me about what was going on.”

  I waited while she took a sip of coffee, my pen poised over my notebook. “What’d he say?”

  “That he owed money to George Bassett—said that big ape was going to kill him if he didn’t pay up.”

  Criminy. “Usually when someone says something like that, it’s for effect.” Even if Georgie said it, he couldn’t have possibly meant it.

  She fixed me with her mole eyes. “Colton’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Chapter Five

  THE SIX-FOOT INFLATABLE gorilla waving at passing motorists from the corner of the parking lot made One Stop Party’s location at the north end of town impossible to miss. I’m sure it wasn’t the unofficial greeter the mayor wanted visiting tourists to see as they drove down from Port Townsend. But considering that the gorilla had replaced a blow-up bulldog that lifted its leg every time a car blasted by, no one I knew was complaining.

  A chime sounded when I stepped inside, and the middle-aged woman stocking a shelf with glass cake toppers turned to me with a bright smile. “Welcome to One Stop Party.”

  “Those are pretty,” I said, pointing to a heart-shaped one with twin swans at the base.

  She set down the box she’d been holding. “Planning a wedding?”

  Not voluntarily. “Actually, I’m here to see Eric or Mrs. Caldwell.”

  The woman’s smile slipped. “Eric isn’t a store employee.”

  “Oh, I thought he had something to do with hiring a limo driver.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “What about Mrs. Caldwell? Is she here?”

  “Bethany?” She scoffed as if I had asked a stupid question. “She rarely makes an appearance, but her mother is the store owner. Would you like to speak with her?”

  I was already here, so why not? “Yes, please.”

  I followed her to the far corner of the store where the woman who had booked the limo for Marietta’s wedding was sitting at a desk cluttered with paper and framed photos.

  “Diana? This young lady is interested in our limo service.”

  Leaning back in her chair, the attractive sixty-something wearing a cool smile pulled off her glasses and tucked a lock of her silver-blond bob behind her ear. “Excuse the mess.” She removed a couple of catalogues from the chrome chair next to her desk. “Please.”

  I took a seat and grabbed my notebook.

  “So, you’re intereste
d in our limo service,” she said.

  “Yes, I—”

  “Wait.” She pointed a slender finger at me. “Didn’t we book a limo for you a few weeks ago?”

  “For my mother—her June wedding.”

  “Ah yes, Marietta Moreau. I must say that we’re thrilled to provide the limousine service for her big day.”

  “About that.” I showed her my badge. “I need some information about your driver, Colton Ziegler.”

  She gave my badge a hard stare. “I don’t understand. Has something happened with the limo?”

  The limo? “No. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you, but Colton died early this morning after sustaining a head injury.”

  Flashing a diamond-encrusted wedding band as she covered her mouth, Diana sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh my gosh!”

  “My condolences on the loss of one of your employees, Mrs. Ferguson, isn’t it?”

  “Correct.”

  “Ma’am, we need to establish a timeline for Colton’s whereabouts last night.”

  She raised her hand like a traffic cop. “You’ll need to speak to my daughter about that. She manages our limo service out of her home.”

  “Her name and phone number?”

  After Diana Ferguson supplied me with her daughter Bethany’s contact information, she slipped her glasses on and made a few mouse-clicks. “What about the limo?” she asked while focused on her computer screen.

  “What about it?”

  “We have a booking for this Friday, so was it damaged?”

  Steve hadn’t mentioned any damage, but that wasn’t a question for me to answer. “I’m not aware of any damage, but since it’s over at Bassett Motor Works, there must be some issue with it.”

  Puckering, she tossed her glasses to her desk and turned to me. “Great, that’s all we need on top of everything else.”

  If this woman needed to vent about her inconvenience to a sympathetic ear, she was looking at the wrong girl. I only cared about the everything else part.

  “Sorry.” Standing, I snapped my notebook shut to nip this bitch session in the bud.

  “What a dreadful night. First the break-in at the Pembrokes’ and now this.”

  I sat my ass back down. “What break-in?”

  “We were at the club for Malcolm Pembroke’s retirement party last night, and this morning I heard from Katherine that they were robbed!”