Brent obviously caught on that someone must have moved the mime and thrust the bucket of sugar over her head. “I’ll need to talk to you both.”
More people ran up the stairs. Nina drew in a halting breath.
Tall and composed in her police uniform, Misty preceded her patrol partner and Samantha’s fiancé, Hooligan, into the loft. Hooligan glanced toward Samantha, then quickly turned his attention to Brent. As the responding detective, Brent was in charge of the investigation.
“Hooligan, go back down to the street door,” Brent said. “Keep unauthorized people out.” Hooligan started down the stairs.
I told Brent, “There’s a balcony in the back of the apartment. We think the attacker climbed down Nina’s chain fire escape ladder when he heard me coming. He or she, that is.”
Brent looked at Nina. “Where would that take them?”
“It goes down to a ledge, and then you have to crawl along the ledge to the slanting roof of an addition to the building next door, make your way down that slope, and then climb down that building’s fire escape. You’d end up in the alley behind Klassy Kitchens.”
Brent asked Misty, “Can you secure the rear of the building? Radio other officers to take over. After they do, come back and help take statements.”
“Okay.” Talking into her radio, Misty headed downstairs.
Brent asked Nina, “Have you ever used your escape ladder?”
“It’s for emergencies.” She shuddered. “I’d be scared to use it unless I had to.”
Whoever attacked the mime, I thought, was probably desperate. Nina had told me she’d pulled the ladder up and put it away to keep anyone from climbing it. Judging by her description, making one’s way up to the bottom of it would be difficult and dangerous. However, Nina’s concern was legitimate, especially considering how violated she must have been feeling.
Brent, Nina, and I moved aside while Samantha and her partner wheeled the mime, wearing an oxygen mask and proper splints, toward the door. Samantha’s lips thinned. If she could save the mime merely through the strength of her will, she would. I was again struck by how wonderful my friends were.
Nina and I showed Brent the bucket and the sugar-dusted floor where I’d found the mime. I admitted, “We both stepped in the sugar and knelt in it, and it looks like the EMTs walked through it, too. Nina tracked some of it out to the balcony and back.”
Brent examined the footprints and the screen door.
Nina explained with a noticeable shiver, “I locked that door this morning before I left for work, and the screen was fine. But when I came back just now, the door was open, and the screen had that hole. The door can be unlocked without a key from inside.”
He pointed downward. “What about these spoons and things on the floor?”
“First aid,” I explained. “I made impromptu splints. Should we pick them up?”
Brent wrote in his notebook. “Leave them where they are.”
I showed him the black scuff near the bottom of one of the ladder’s legs.
He asked Nina, “Was the ladder lying down like this when you left this morning?”
“It was standing up, with its feet about here and its top above the painting.”
I prompted her, “You said that someone threw powdered sugar at your painting.”
Brent asked, “Where?”
“See those white blobs up there near the top of the painting, and dribbling here and there, all the way down?” Nina’s voice quivered. “They appeared after I left this morning.”
Brent looked at the base of the painting. “Sugar is spattering the floor.”
I pointed at the small pile of sugar near the fallen ladder. “I think this is where the bucket landed. And there’s a chip near the wall that must have broken off it.”
Without touching it, Brent took a look at the chip. He left it where it was and walked around spilled sugar, kitchen utensils, and wadded scarves to the bucket. “I’m almost positive that the chip came from the rim at the bottom of the bucket.” He looked up toward the top of the painting. “And I suspect you’re right that the bucket was either dropped or thrown from high on the ladder. It landed over there but must have been carried, upright, here.”
Nina’s eyes widened as if she were trying to blink back tears. She covered her mouth with her hand.
Misty ran into Nina’s loft. Brent had Misty write down my statement while he took Nina’s. When we were done, he told us we could go.
Nina’s forehead wrinkled. “Go?”
Brent apologized. “You’ll have to stay out of your apartment until we finish our investigation.”
“You can stay with me, Nina,” I offered. “As long as necessary.”
Tears welling over, she thanked me. “I . . . my painting. I need to clean the sugar off it and finish it so it can be shipped to the gallery in time for the opening.”
Brent said gently, “We’ll get you back in here as soon as we can.”
Misty offered, “I’ll help you pack. Gather everything you might need for a week or so.”
“Do you mean I should take my outfit for the wedding on Wednesday?”
“Definitely.” Misty followed Nina into her sleeping cubby.
I told Brent that I’d brought my backpack and Nina’s tote bag into the scene after the mime was attacked.
“Okay,” Brent said. “Take them. I’ll make a note of it.”
Wearing a black nylon jacket over her white shirt and black shorts and carrying a large black duffel bag with red piping at the seams in one hand and a grass-green silk dress on a hanger in the other, Nina stumbled out of her sleeping cubby.
She and I made our way down the lit stairway. I told her, “I couldn’t find the light switch when I came in. Did you turn the lights on?”
“Yes. The switch is behind the door when the door’s open. Not a great design, but the building’s old.”
We told Hooligan good night and went up the street.
The donut car, which usually made me smile whenever I caught sight of it, looked innocently sweet but terribly vulnerable outside in the dark.
Chapter 7
Driving home, I asked Nina, “Do you have any idea why that mime was in your apartment vandalizing your painting?”
She drew a shaky breath. “No.”
“Will you be able to fix the painting before your show?”
“That depends. I might be able to brush some of the sugar off it, but the paint was still drying, and some of the sugar will have stuck to it, and I might need to scrape and repaint. That will take a couple of days, then I’ll need another couple of days for the new paint to dry. The painting needs to be shipped in two weeks at the latest to make it to the show in time. That mime set me back a few days, and now, if the investigators take a long time, my show will have to go on without that painting.”
“Could you tell if the painting was damaged by anything else, like the fall of the ladder or the bucket or the mime herself?”
“I didn’t see anything like that, so if there’s damage, it can’t be too bad. Maybe there won’t be any.” Her voice held little hope. This new, almost despairing Nina contrasted with the bright and enthusiastic Nina of that morning when she and I had been heading down the sunlit grass-covered hill toward the carnival grounds.
I wanted to turn on the donut’s colorful sprinkle lights and let them dance over Fallingbrook’s shops and restaurants. I could even broadcast music over the siren-shaped loudspeaker mounted in front of the huge donut. I restrained myself and suggested, “Don’t give up.”
I heard her nylon jacket rustle, saw her hands clench each other on her lap. “It might be beyond my control.”
“You can take time off. Jocelyn will be working with us at Deputy Donut until she goes back to school, and by then, many of the summer tourists will have left.”
“No, I can’t.”
I knew what she meant. Art supplies were expensive. She lived very frugally except for probably splurging on renting that high
-ceilinged loft with its oversized doors and wide stairway.
She fiddled with the handle that cranked down the old car’s window. “I’ll be okay if I sell some of the smaller paintings. That big one doesn’t have to be in the show, and I’m not going to put it there if it isn’t ready.”
I knew how excited she’d been to display that painting and possibly sell it. “The gallery owner really wants it to be in the show, doesn’t he?”
“Mr. Arthurs said to take my time, and if it doesn’t make it to this show, he’ll display it in his gallery later. After, he said, this show makes me so famous that my work will command higher prices.”
I turned onto my street. “That’s quite a vote of confidence. I mean, in addition to inviting you to have a one-woman show in his gallery.”
“He might have been joking.”
“He didn’t seem like the joking sort the one time I talked to him.”
“He doesn’t to me, either.” She sounded a little happier. I slowed in front of my sweet little yellow brick Victorian cottage. The porch and living room lights were on. Sitting straight up with her ears at their highest, my cat was on the windowsill looking out toward the street. “There’s Dep!” The smile was back in Nina’s voice. “Aww, she’s been watching for you.” I pulled into my driveway beside my own car, a sports car with my kayak fastened on top. Nina teased, “You must be notorious for cars with large and sometimes peculiar objects on their roofs. At least in the darkness, no one can see how the red of your kayak clashes with the red of your car.” Her shoulders drooped. “Sorry for forgetting my tote bag in your car. You wouldn’t have gotten mixed up in that mess at my place and you would have been here with Dep long ago.”
“But then you might have walked in at the wrong time. You could have been hurt.”
Nina opened her car door. “Or I could have kept it from happening.”
I reminded her, “Someone broke in.”
“Maybe I could have stopped them.”
“Maybe. Despite everything that mime did, I hope we saved her.”
We got out of the donut car. Nina reached into the rear seat and pulled out her duffel bag and her dress on its hanger. Carrying them, she climbed the porch steps ahead of me. “Samantha and the other EMT looked serious, but I suppose that’s normal for them. I couldn’t do their job.”
I admitted, “I couldn’t either, though we both did pretty well with our first aid this evening.” Working at 911 had to be easier than coping with the sorts of injuries and illnesses that Samantha and her partners faced, but I hadn’t been able to stand working at 911 after Alec was shot. I’d taken that night off to go to dinner with out-of-town friends, and a new employee had filled in for me. Brent had been with Alec and had been only grazed. He had assured me that he had radioed for an ambulance even before a civilian phoned 911, but I would always wonder if I could have sent help to Alec faster than the new 911 employee had. Brent also tortured himself with questions about whether he could have done more to save Alec.
I looped the straps of my backpack and Nina’s tote bag over one arm and opened the front door. The lamp in the living room spread a warm glow through the pine and white room with its jewel-toned furnishings and stained-glass windows. Nina and I both kicked off our shoes. Purring loudly, Dep wound around Nina’s legs. Dep was a tortoiseshell tabby, also known as a torbie. She was ginger, cream, and dark gray with tabby stripes and adorable circles that resembled donuts on her sides.
Nina put her duffel bag down and picked up the cat. “Hello, darling kitty. You’re nice to come home to.” Nina’s wistful tone barely hid the anxiety she had to be feeling. Dep must have recognized it, too. She snuggled into Nina.
I scratched the striped ginger patch on Dep’s forehead. “Sorry we’re late. I brought a friend.” Dep arched her neck and purred even more loudly.
She helped me take Nina and her things up to the guest room, open the sofa bed, and spread out sheets and my grandmother’s gorgeous blue and white quilt. Making the bed without Dep’s help would have been quicker, but less amusing.
I brought Nina towels. “Are you hungry or thirsty?” Since breakfast, neither of us had eaten much besides fritters and other delicious, but maybe not terribly nutritious, fair foods. “Tea? A snack?”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ll get you a glass and some water in case you get thirsty in the night.”
Usually, Dep trotted downstairs ahead of me. This time she stayed upstairs. She apparently thought Nina needed her more than I did.
My house was small, with no hallway on the first floor. I crossed the living room and turned on lights in the dining room. With its pine plank floors, white walls, white furniture, and stained-glass windows high on the walls beside the fireplace, the dining room was nearly as welcoming as the living room.
I went on into the kitchen. Alec had been at least as fond of cooking as I was, and we hadn’t held back when we designed and renovated our kitchen. We’d installed pine cabinets to go with the woodwork in the rest of the house, but everything else was meant to contribute to the fun of cooking—oversized stainless fridge and range, granite countertops, and handmade terra-cotta tiles in warm autumn shades on the floor.
I ran cold water into a cute pitcher with a matching tumbler that served as a lid. The set was brown ceramic. Alec’s mother, Cindy, taught art at Fallingbrook High. She had made the set and many of my other dishes. She’d made Dep’s dishes, too.
Brent phoned. “I need to ask you and Nina more questions. May I come over?”
“Sure.”
I took the pitcher of water upstairs. Nina was standing near my desk and looking out the window over the top of my dark computer monitor toward the maple tree and the street beyond it.
I set the pitcher on the bedside table. “Brent’s coming over to ask us more questions.”
She yawned. “Okay.”
Dep led both of us downstairs.
Brent showed up almost immediately. Dep sat down in front of him and looked up—way up—into his face. “Meow.”
He picked her up. Based on the defeated expression in his eyes, I expected to hear that the mime had worsened. Brent sat in my cobalt blue wing chair and cuddled Dep.
Nina and I faced him on the deep red, mahogany-trimmed velvet couch, another of the furnishings I’d inherited from my grandmother. Dep didn’t seem to make Brent feel better. I braced myself for bad news.
Brent took out his notebook. Dep jumped off his lap and headed toward the kitchen.
Unable to stand the silence any longer, I croaked, “How’s the mime?”
Brent stared at my face for several long seconds. “She survived until a couple of minutes after she arrived at the hospital. But that was it.”
Although I wasn’t surprised, I felt shocked and horrified. “If only I’d arrived sooner,” I whispered, “she might still be alive. I shouldn’t have toured every aisle of the grocery store.”
Nina twisted her hands together in her lap. “You couldn’t have known. And you did your best when you got there.”
“My best wasn’t good enough.” I asked Brent, “Do you know who she was?”
“We have a name for the pink car’s owner, but we can’t release it until we get a definite identification and notify her family.”
Nina’s knuckles were big, even for long fingers like hers. They were also starkly white compared to the rest of her skin. “It’s sad, but I can’t help being angry at her for breaking into my loft and trying to ruin my painting.”
Brent didn’t look up from his notebook. “How do you know that she was the one who threw sugar at your painting?”
Nina stared at him. Pasted together with tears, her long eyelashes looked even longer and thicker than usual. “Her wrists and one ankle were broken. She must have been the one who fell off the ladder, from near the top, so she must have been the one who threw the sugar.”
Brent suggested, “Someone else was there, too, right? Someone who made a hole in your screen an
d hung your fire escape ladder over the railing.”
Dep returned and jumped onto Nina’s lap. For a few seconds, all I heard was Dep purring. She was comforting even when she wasn’t on my lap. Nina drew a long, quavering breath. “Maybe two people worked together to break in and vandalize my place, and the other one attacked her.” She stared at the pillar candles I’d arranged inside my fireplace for the warmer months. “None of it makes sense.”
Brent leaned toward her. “A screwdriver was on the landing outside the door to your loft. Was it your screwdriver?”
“No. I don’t have one like that. I saw it there and figured that someone had used it to pry my doors open.” She seemed to be trying to suppress a yawn. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot.
Brent quickly said, “You’re worn out. That’s all I needed to have you fill in for me. You can go to bed, Nina. Emily and I will go over the statement she gave Misty.”
Nina set Dep on the floor and asked if I minded if she took a shower.
“Of course not.”
Dep scurried up the stairs ahead of her.
I turned to Brent and tried to inject some lightness into the situation. “I seem to have lost my cat to my house guest.”
Brent remained serious. “Is your guest room still the one in the front of the house?”
“Yes.” The cottage had only two bedrooms. Mine was the one that looked out at the walled garden in back.
“Let’s go to the sunroom where we’ll be less likely to disturb Nina.”
I translated that as, “Let’s go to the sunroom where Nina won’t hear what we say,” which was almost, but not quite, the same thing.
Could Brent actually believe that Nina was involved in the mime’s death?
Chapter 8
I led Brent through the dining room and kitchen to the sunroom. It was in the back of the house, separated from the kitchen by a half-height wall. Two other sides were windows above radiators and shelves, while on the third side, windows and shelves flanked the back door.
Beyond a Reasonable Donut Page 6