by Lauren Carr
It was with trepidation that Nikki sat in the executive chair behind the glass-topped desk. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was a little girl playing in her mommy’s office.
She became aware that the desk lacked a front piece to conceal her bare legs—visible under her sheath dress. As she shifted in her seat, she muttered to herself, “I’m going to start wearing more pants.”
Sensing her anxiety, Elmo got up from his bed and went around the desk to plant his rubber duck in her hands. He gazed up at her from his black face mask on his fawn brown body. With his blunted muzzle and big head, Elmo would be considered ugly to many. But to Nikki, with his huge heart, he was gorgeous. She bent over to kiss his cold wet snout. “Thank you, you big handsome guy.”
Notepad in hand, Casey strode into the office. “I got the name of the florist shop. It’s Michelangelo’s Flowers right here in Pine Grove. They’re not that big, but they have beautiful displays. Accounting tells me that we have a contract with them to provide the live plants on our sets for the morning and noon shows.”
Nikki snatched the note with the information from her hand. “Good work, Casey. Did you order the flowers for Ashleigh’s mom?”
“Yes,” she said as Nikki ushered her to the door. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m good.” Nikki closed the door and hurried to the backpack that she had left on the leather sofa. She reached into a side pocket and dug deep to the bottom for a cell phone that she had not used in several weeks.
During her career, she had learned the value of keeping her private life separate from her investigative work. It was too easy for sources or suspected criminals to track her down via a caller ID on her regular phone. Tech savvy suspects could track her down even if she had her caller ID blocked. For that reason, she always had a disposable, pay-as-you-go phone on hand—also known as a burner phone. She purchased them with cash, used them until they were empty, and then tossed them.
She found the phone’s battery to be almost dead. After plugging it into the outlet, she pressed in the phone number for the florist shop.
When a perky clerk answered on the other end of the line, Nikki launched into her routine. “Oh, great! I’m so glad I got you. I need your help, or my mother is going to kill!”
“Excuse me.”
“She’s going to absolutely kill me!” Nikki said in the high-pitched dramatic tone of a teenager. “Last week, she told me to send flowers to Gramps at the Shady Pines Retirement Community for his birthday today and I forgot. Between cheerleading practice and band and I had a chemistry test on Friday. Ugh! Can you get them to him today? If you can’t I’m going to die!”
“Sure, what room is he in?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure it’s on Mom’s account. Her name is Debra Gregory. She uses your shop all the time. She’s usually the one who sends flowers to him. But she’s out of town with—”
“You said the address is Shady Pines?”
“That’s it! Shady Pines.”
“Is your grandfather Bernard Goldberg?”
Figures Sam Hill would have taken the name of Bernard Goldberg, a truly legendary journalist. “That’s him! That’s Gramps. What room is he in?”
“Don’t you know?”
“How would I know? I never visit him. He’s old and icky.”
The clerk let out a sigh filled with disgust. “He’s in room one-thirty-three, in case you ever decide to visit him. How big of an arrangement do you want us to send him?”
“What’s the cheapest that you’ve got?”
Chapter Eight
It was time for his mid-morning snack—or rather breakfast.
Ryan was not a breakfast eater. He was not fond of cooking, which was why his kitchen showed little evidence of use. He preferred to drink a pot of coffee before leaving early in the morning to go the Bedford branch of the crime lab that served central Pennsylvania. There, he would use the gym before showering and going upstairs to his office across from the laboratory.
It never failed. Two hours later, he would break into a protein bar to hold him over until lunch.
“You wouldn’t be needing that protein bar if you’d eat breakfast.” Helga strode across his office to drop a report in the center of his desk. “The medical examiner’s report on Ashleigh Addison.”
“You’re the lead CSI on that case.”
“But you’re my boss. It’s your job to supervise our work.”
“My stepmother owns the station where the victim worked.” He gestured with the wave of his hand for her to take the folder away.
“But you’re curious. Do you expect me to believe that your adorable journalist friend with the bedroom eyes isn’t begging you for info on the case?”
“Bedroom eyes?”
“If you tried dating, you’d know all about bedroom eyes.” She waved her hand in the direction of the case file. “Now’s your chance to score some points by helping her break the case.”
“I don’t need—”
“Oh!” Helga whipped her cell phone from her pocket. “Brett’s calling. He’s been out of country for the last three months. Maybe he’s coming home. I need to take this call.”
“Do you really think Nikki has bedroom eyes?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.” She let out a laugh. “I should only be about five minutes.” Leaving the medical examiner’s report on his desk, she walked out and closed the door behind her.
At first, Ryan refused to touch the report. If word got out that he had inserted himself into the case, then the suspect’s defense attorney would suggest to the jury that the defendant had been framed by the forensics team to protect the real killer. It would be easy for him to point the finger at Nikki Bryant, the owner of the station who wanted out of their five-year contract.
Suppose no one did find out?
Okay, just a skim through the major details. He slid his pen under the cover and flipped it to open the folder.
Cause of death: Severed jugular artery. Victim bled out within minutes.
Weapon: Large shard of broken glass found in the victim’s neck.
Was the cause of death murder or accidental death?
The medical examiner listed the cause of death as “homicide.”
Ryan reviewed the medical examiner’s notes. Ashleigh had scratches on her arms and neck. Those, along with bruises on her body, indicated that she had been in a fight. That could explain how she fell into the entertainment center. The important question was how did the shard of glass sever the jugular artery. Did she land on it during her fall into the entertainment center or did someone use the shard of glass as a weapon to stab Ashleigh in the throat?
Based on the angle and depth of the wound, the medical examiner determined the latter. Ashleigh had numerous cuts and bruises from the fall—but none like the one in her neck.
According to Helga’s crime scene report, blood splatter evidence indicated that Ashleigh had bled out on the floor where Nikki had found her body. If she had been injured in the fall, there would have been blood splatters inside the entertainment center and surrounding area. Since there weren’t, the medical examiner determined that Ashleigh had been stabbed in the neck after falling into the entertainment center.
There was enough skin under her fingernails for the medical examiner to send away for DNA analysis.
“Interesting reading?” Helga asked on her way back into the office. She slipped her phone into her pocket.
Ryan slapped the cover back on the report. “I wasn’t reading anything.” He held it out for her. “I was just checking to make sure it has all of the signatures in the necessary places.”
With a slim grin, Helga took the folder. She peered at the open case file he was studying. “That’s an old file. Are the detectives asking us to reexamine the evidence from another cold case?”
“No, this one I volunteered to look at as a favor for a friend.”
“Which friend?” The corner of her mouth kicked up. Her left eyebrow arched.
Ryan ignored her. “The on-scene examination of the murder victim had been conducted by Dr. Pruitt.”
Helga shook her head so fast that her red curls bounced. “He must have been before my time.”
“This case is from twenty-three years ago—long before either of us joined the crime lab.” He picked up the on-scene medical exam. “Witnesses claimed the murder occurred between four-thirty-five and four-forty-five. A witness spoke to the victim at four-thirty-five. The medical examiner took the liver temperature at six-ten. According to the report, the victim’s liver temperature was ninety-four-point-two.”
Helga dropped into the chair across from his desk. “Why is his body temperature so low? Do the investigators have any question about the kill window?”
“None,” Ryan said. “The witness who’d found the body actually spoke to the victim minutes before his murder.”
“Well, if there is no question about the time of death, then I’d dismiss the body temperature. There can be a lot of different contributing factors to explain the victim’s body temperature. Maybe there was an open window with a cold breeze blowing through the room. They call it an average body temperature for a reason. For example, Brett tells me that my body temperature is naturally high. He likes telling people that he’s married to a hot-blooded woman. Do you know what the victim’s average body temperature really was?”
Ryan admitted he didn’t.
“If the police have a reliable witness who actually spoke to the victim, I wouldn’t get hung up on the body temperature if I were you.”
The phone on Ryan’s desk rang. He saw that the caller ID read: Nikki.
From where she was rising from the chair, Helga read the ID. “Your friend with the bedroom eyes is calling you.”
“I know,” Ryan said.
“You should answer that.” After arching an eyebrow in his direction, Helga sauntered out of the office. She made a point of closing the door behind her.
“Sam killed Dad,” Nikki blurted out when he picked up the receiver.
“Huh? Sam? Sam Hill?” Ryan could hear the faint sound of a car engine in the background.
“Wyatt just told me. That burn mark was made that afternoon. I was right about forensics finding that ash and tobacco in the carpet. It happened when Sam stabbed Dad.”
“Wait a minute. Calm down, Nikki. If Wyatt knew Sam Hill killed your father, why hasn’t he said anything before now?”
“Because Debra asked him to help her cover it up.”
“Why would your father’s administrative assistant cover up for Sam Hill?”
“Good question. You call Daniel and have him go ask her. In the meantime, I’m on my way to the Shady Pines Retirement Community to question Sam Hill. He’s living there under the name of Bernard Goldberg.”
“He’s still alive? How did you find out he was at Shady Pines under an assumed name?”
“Debra covered up for him,” Nikki said. “I figured if he was at Shady Pines, that occasionally she’d send him flowers or something. So, I called the florist shop that she used to send flowers from the station and pretended to be her ditzy daughter. She has been sending flowers to a Bernard Goldberg in room one-thirty-three at the nursing home.”
“Maybe this person really is Bernard Goldberg. He could be a relative through marriage.”
“Or he’s Sam Hill hiding out. I’ve got a few questions to ask him.”
“Now, Nikki, you’re a little emotional—”
“You’re not stopping me, Ryan!”
“I wouldn’t try to stop you even with a SWAT team for backup. But I think you need someone there to inject a healthy dose of tranquility into your aura to calm you down before you kill an old man. You don’t want to be the top story for the evening news at your own station.”
“That old man killed my father!”
Desperate to talk sense into her, he demanded, “Let me talk to Elmo.”
“He’s had his cell phone privileges revoked.”
“For what?”
“For trolling Doug the Pug. He may not look like it, but Elmo’s got a competitive streak in him that’s a mile long when it comes to his social media influence. Look, my GPS has an ETA of twelve minutes when I reach Shady Pines. That means you’ve got twelve minutes to meet me at the nursing home. Whether you’re there or not, Elmo and I are going in.”
Ryan hung up the phone and grabbed his keys.
In the lab, he found Helga peering through a magnifying glass at a blood stain on a pair of jeans.
“Helga, you’re in charge. I’m going to be out for a while.”
“Helping your friend?” The corners of her plump pink lips turned upward as she cast him a sideways glance.
Ryan checked the time on his cell phone. “If I don’t get to the nursing home in eleven minutes, it’s an elderly killer who’s going to be needing my help.”
Shady Pines Retirement Community was a campus comprised of three facilities. One was an apartment complex for senior citizens to enjoy carefree living with housekeeping and many other services. The next complex offered assisted living for those who were between well enough to live on their own, but not quite ready for the nursing home. Then, there was the nursing home, which provided around the clock care.
While she was able to uncover that Bernard Goldberg was a resident at the nursing home, Nikki was unable to confirm that he was indeed Sam Hill. Even if he was Sam Hill, would his mind be clear enough to explain why he’d murdered her father?
At that moment, she only wanted to face him.
After parking in the visitor’s lot, Nikki put Elmo on this leash and marched through the main entrance and up to the reception desk. Upon seeing the dog, the receptionist grinned. “Hello, are you here for a pet visit? Our residents love pet visit days.”
With a pleasant smile, Nikki extracted Elmo’s shot records and handed them to her. “Yes. This Elmo. He’s a social media influencer—”
“Oh, good for him.”
“He’s got a huge following on social media.”
The receptionist frowned and apologized while making copies of the shot records. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.” When she turned around to hand the shot records back to her, she found Elmo had his front paws on the desk. “What a cutie.” She patted him on the head. “I have heard of Doug the Pug. I do follow him.”
With a snort, Elmo dropped back onto the floor. With a scowl, he licked his snout.
“A friend of mine asked me to make sure we visited Bernard Goldberg?”
“Oh, he’s in room 133. You’re just in time. His daughter is having lunch with him today. She’ll be thrilled to see him get a visitor. I’m afraid Bernard doesn’t get many visitors.”
His daughter? I thought Sam was a life-long bachelor, who’d devoted his life for his career. Nikki blinked. Quickly, she regrouped. “Great. We’ll go see them first thing. I’d hate for us to miss him.”
She tugged on Elmo’s leash and urged him to travel the long corridor to their destination.
Disgusted about the receptionist never hearing about him while following his archenemy on social media, Elmo hung his head as he shuffled next to Nikki’s side.
“Cheer up,” Nikki said while reading and counting the room numbers on each door, traveling from 120 to 133. “She did call you a cutie.”
Elmo grunted.
One-thirty-one. One thirty-three. That’s the one.
A privacy screen was set up between the empty bed near the door and the bed on the other side of the room. She could see the edge of the back of a chair. A woman appeared to be sitting in it.
“There you are!” Nikki heard Ryan call to her from the end of hall before sh
e could step across the threshold. She turned to see him jogging toward her. “You don’t want to do this.” He grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her and Elmo, who was connected to her by the leash, away from the doorway.
“I’ve been waiting years for this moment.”
“Not this moment,” he said in a low voice. “Nikki, you are being purely emotional now. You need to think about this. If you truly want justice for your dad, let Daniel and Tanya handle this. They’re on their way here now. If you go into that room before they get here, then Sam will know that we’re on to them. That will give him time to prepare for their questions with excuses and answers. You’ll totally eliminate any element of surprise.”
Nikki grumbled. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong. She wanted to tell him that he didn’t understand. How could he? His mother had died in a car accident on an icy road. Everyone knew who was responsible for her death. Mother Nature.
Now that Nikki knew who was responsible for her father’s death, she wanted to face him, berate him, make him pay for what he had done.
Having worked closely with law enforcement during her career, Nikki had learned firsthand how the justice system worked.
Ryan was right. Confronting Sam would give him a heads up that he was a suspect in her father’s death. He’d gotten away with murder for twenty-three years. He was bound to be complacent—ripe for Daniel and Tanya to trip him up.
All complacency would disappear the second she confronted him.
Nikki jabbed Ryan in the chest. “I hate it when you’re reasonable.”
“Nikki?” she heard a soft feminine voice behind her. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”
Nikki turned around to face Debra Gregory—the woman who had protected her father’s murderer.
Chapter Nine
Nikki pulled her boxer dog in close and stroked the top of his head. “We’re taking Elmo around to visit the residents here at the nursing home. That was something we loved to do back in Nevada. What are you doing here?”