Double Fudge & Danger

by Erin Huss

  I shoved my phone into my back pocket and held tight to the railing as I trekked up the stairs. I'm a klutz. And falling down two flights of stairs did not sound like a fun way to die. Cedar Creek charged 4,000 dollars for a one-bedroom apartment. You'd think they could afford anti-slip grip on their steps. It was like climbing a staircase made of ice. Also, I was out of breath.

  Note to self: Work out, woman. This is pathetic.

  The second-floor door to the stairwell swung open. A person in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head bolted down the stairs, rammed me with his shoulder, and kept going. I lost my footing and landed on my knee. A sharp pain shot up my leg, rendering me momentarily paralyzed.

  I poked my head through the railing. "If you live here, then you can certainly afford some manners," I hollered after the man.

  He stopped and looked up at me with brown eyes but offered no apology. Then he turned, pushed open the door to the first floor, and disappeared.

  Real nice!

  I took a few breaths, shed a tear or two, said a few curse words, limped up the remaining steps to the second floor, and found the sign pointing to the manager's apartment.

  Antonio, the maintenance man, booked it around the corner with a toolbox and shop vac in his hands and almost crashed into me. He was an older guy and wore jean shorts and a tight white tank top. Two gold chains hung around his neck and were buried deep in his curly chest hairs.

  "There you are." I held him by the arm to regain my balance and gently put pressure on my knee again. "You got my message."

  "What happened to you?" he asked.

  "One of your residents ran me over in the stairwell."

  "Why are you in the stairwell?"

  "I don't like elevators. There's no time for chitchat. Let's get to Violet's apartment." I hobbled forward. With each step the pain in my knee grew more manageable until I was able to walk like a human and not a crazy-haired zombie. We stopped at the apartment labeled Manager.

  "So what you doing here?" Antonio flipped through his giant key ring.

  "Violet didn't answer her cell."

  Antonio shoved his key into the top deadbolt lock. "Huh…"

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "It's unlocked." Antonio pushed opened the door and peeked in. "Hello? It's Antonio with the apartment manager from next door. Hello?"

  No answer.

  I shoved Antonio out of the way and stuck my face into the apartment, not wanting to enter just yet. "Violet!" I tried. Still nothing. The nightly news was on the large television mounted to the wall. The reporter had a microphone up to Raven's mouth, the newly booted contestant from Celebrity Tango, asking her about the shocking elimination. I didn't pay attention to her response. I was too distracted by the apartment.

  Violet Pumpkin was in her early fifties, or mid-sixties (I sucked at age guesstimation). She had dark wavy hair, blue eyes, and impossibly long lashes. She'd been an apartment manager for thirty years and loved her job. Like me, she was a single mother. We had swapped stories of how difficult it was to manage with a small child at home. She gave me hope, because while I was still in the trenches of parenthood, Violet's daughter had graduated from UCLA and worked in Florida at a pharmaceutical company. She had a husband, two children, a big house with a pool, and, according to Violet, was a fully functioning and happy member of society. Which was what I wanted for Lilly.

  Violet gave me a glimpse into what my future could be. If I worked hard, someday I could manage a luxury apartment building, have a happy, successful daughter, and, wow, a gorgeous home.

  Violet's style was classic. Instead of a couch, she had high-back cream-colored chairs configured around a circular blue ottoman. A dark hutch filled with teal and silver vases, modern trinkets, and a row of succulents. Sure, the view was terrible. Through the large windows, all I saw was my complex, which was a bummer for her. But when you live in the heart of LA, it's not like you're getting an ocean view.

  My apartment was mostly made up of the furnishings residents left behind when they moved. Violet clearly made a better living than I did. Which made sense. She'd been doing it longer and sold luxury. I'd been doing it less than a year and sold shedding carpet.

  I pushed the door all the way open and noticed the footprint beneath the knob. I checked the doorframe and ran my fingers along the fresh scratches. A feeling of dread slithered through my stomach.

  Someone had kicked in the door.

  "Violet!" I dashed inside. Nothing appeared to be missing or out of place. Except her purse and phone were on the kitchen counter.

  Crap.

  Into the master bedroom I went, my heart slamming against my chest. The bathroom was through a short, mirrored hallway, and, holy crap! It was gorgeous. Marble counters with framed mirrors. A shower with enough room for two. A jetted bathtub big enough for three. Maybe four and, oh yeah, a lake.

  The bathtub was on, and water lapped over the side and spilled onto the tile. I tried to turn it off, but it was stuck.

  Antonio pushed me out of the way and used a wrench to pull the lever. A vein popped out the side of his neck.

  "Back up. Let me try something." I placed a hand on his shoulder and used my good leg to kick the lever as hard as I could. It budged an inch.

  Well, OK, that didn't work.

  Antonio dug through his toolbox and pulled out a saw and began to cut a hole in the drywall.

  "Why don't you shut the water off to the building instead?" I asked.

  Antonio didn't answer. Instead, he ripped out a square of drywall, revealing the water shutoff valve.

  Oh, got it.

  Note to self: you don't have plumber DNA.

  Antonio turned the lever, and the faucet shut off. "Phew." He wiped his brow with the back side of his hand. "I got this if you want to go. Just need to get this water cleaned up."

  He grabbed the shop vacuum and plugged it into an outlet next to the sink. It whistled to life, and by whistle, I mean a high-pitched, break-a-window whistle.

  "I'm worried someone broke in!" I shouted over the noise.

  He looked around. "Nothing appears to be missing!"

  "Where do you think Violet is? Her purse is on the counter!"

  "She's probably in the office!"

  "I was just down there and didn't see her! I got the first call about the water leaking over an hour ago, so she's been gone at least that long, probably more…" A metal U-shaped ring on the floor caught my attention. I yanked the vacuum cord from the wall. "What's that?" I pointed.

  Antonio spun in a complete circle like he was chasing an imaginary tail. "What you talking about?"

  "That! On the floor. It looks like a toilet paper holder." I held on to the counter and bent down for a closer inspection. "It is a toilet paper holder!" I slid open the door by the vanity and came face-to-face with a…toilet. "Why is the seat glowing?"

  "It's heated."

  Heated?

  You've got to be kidding me.

  I couldn't recall there ever being a time when I sat on the john and thought, if only my butt cheeks were hot, this would go a lot smoother.

  Granted, I'd never sat on a heated toilet seat before. My butt didn't know what it was missing.

  There was a hole where the toilet paper holder had been ripped from the wall. I squatted down and used the inside of my forearm to feel the temp of the seat. It was warm. Not sure how this was relevant, but I was curious.

  "We need to call the police. I'm worried something happened to Violet. The running bathtub, the kicked in door, the toilet paper holder torn from the wall, her purse in the kitchen, the…do you feel a draft?"

  "You have a hard time staying on topic."

  "No, I don't." OK, maybe a little. "Do you feel that breeze?"

  Antonio licked his finger and held it up. "Nope. No breeze. What I think happened is, Violet ran a bath and couldn't get the water to shut off. Now she's looking for me, and if she finds me snooping through her apartment and you feeling up her toilet seat,
then she's not going to be happy."

  I ignored him. "There's a window open somewhere around here." I stepped behind the shower and found a walk-in closet large enough to fit a twin bed. Shoes were scattered, boxes smashed, and clothes piled in the corners. Paperwork was sprinkled around, and a suitcase lay open and empty.

  "Well I'll be damned," Antonio said, looking over my shoulder.

  "I'll be damned is right. Look!" I pointed to the red stains splattered on the wall beneath the open window. "That looks like blood."

  "It does." The dread in his voice matched my own.

  I stepped around the suitcase, careful not to touch anything, and tiptoed to the open window. Directly outside was the fire escape. Making it easy for someone to get out, or for someone to sneak in.

  Gulp.

  For the record: this classified as an emergency.

  CHAPTER THREE

  —Only heavy walkers rent upstairs apartments.

  I stood at the curb in front of Cedar Creek with my face pointed toward the sky. The smog had thickened, blocking the moon from my view. But I knew it was there, and I suspected it was full.

  "I should move to Montana," I said to the detective at my side.

  He followed my gaze. "Why?"

  "I bet in Montana the sky is clear and you can see the moon, and people don't show up dead all the freaking time."

  "I hate to break it to you, but people die in every state."

  "Yeah, well, maybe Montanans don't murder as often because they're not sucking up so much carbon dioxide on the regular."

  "You don't know that anyone has been murdered."

  "Blood on the wall. Bathtub overflowing. Door kicked open. Personal belongings on the counter. Someone killed Violet. They killed her while she was going to the bathroom, and they were about to put her in the bathtub to erase all DNA evidence but got spooked when they were unable to turn off the broken faucet, and deposited her elsewhere. Which will make this case ten times more difficult to solve since you have no body, no murder weapon, and not much DNA given the bathroom, where the murder happened, is flooded."

  "You need to lay off the crime shows."

  "Probably." I turned to face the detective. He had on a gray suit, white shirt, and no tie. He was a little older than me. Early thirties. Dark blond hair. A scruffy jawline, a tiny scar under his left nostril, and superhuman good looks. He was also pretty much my boyfriend. Detective Chase Cruller. As in the donut. The best kind of donut. The melt-in-your-mouth, fluffy, perfectly sweet…

  OK, now I want a donut.

  Then I thought about Violet.

  Never mind.

  Sure, I didn't know Violet well. But I'd spoken to her the day before during a market survey. I'd been in her apartment. I'd seen the crime scene. She was a fellow apartment manager. She was me in thirty years.

  It felt personal.

  "I'm sorry." Chase slid his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. I leaned into his touch, and my eyes cut to the CSI vans parked in front of Cedar Creek.

  "Shouldn't you be in there working?"

  "Not my case. I overheard the address on the radio and came to make sure you were OK." He placed his finger under my chin and forced me to look at him. He had the most magnificent green eyes. "You OK?"

  "No."

  "Can I walk you home?"

  "No."

  "Ice cream?"

  "No."

  "Can I offer other distractions?" He winked.

  I hesitated because despite all that had happened, he did have superhuman good looks, and I was merely human. Life is short. One minute you're perched upon your fancy toilet seat, and the next you're…ugh. "Not tonight."

  Chase tucked a strand of Einstein behind my ear. "Where's Lilly?"

  "Inside with Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen." I checked my watch, suddenly realizing how late it was. "I have to get her to bed, or she'll be impossible tomorrow. I'm going to sit by her window with a knife and pepper spray all night."

  "Don't do that. These things are typically domestic. This is a secured building, and she lived on the second floor. Whoever did this knew Violet."

  He made a point. Violet and I didn't exactly run in the same circle. Chances are if the killer knew Violet, he or she didn't know me as well.

  I hoped.

  "Who is the lead on this case if you're not?" I asked.

  "Hampton… Why are you making that face?"

  Ugh. Hampton was Chase's partner. A forty-something bald man with round glasses who was as tall as he was wide. Also, "He wears his pants too high."

  "That has nothing to do with his ability to do the job."

  "OK. And maybe. But I don't see how you can efficiently work with a wedgie?"

  "Give the man a break. He's…" Chase glanced over my shoulder. "He's coming. Don't stare."

  Don't stare?

  I turned around and…you've got to be kidding me.

  Hampton strode down the walkway with his arms swinging, hips swaying, mouth terse, like a man on a mission, with his pants hiked up, and his glasses on his nose, and the worst toupee I'd ever seen. Like a squirrel crawled on top of his head and died.

  Chase gently jabbed his elbow into my side, forcing me to tear my eyes away from the monstrosity. And here I thought I was having a bad hair day.

  "Good evening, Cambria," Hampton said, giving his pants a hike. "How are you holding up?"

  "As good as can be expected," I said to the ground, concentrating on the veiny cracks in the sidewalk to keep from staring. "Have you informed Violet's daughter yet?" The thought of a sheriff pounding on her door in the middle of the night to break the news her mother was missing made me sick.

  "We have someone contacting her next of kin," Hampton said. "I need to ask you some questions."

  "Of course," I said, still looking at the ground. "Whatever you want to know."

  Hampton adjusted his belt, clicked a pen, and proceeded to ask the details of how I came to be in Violet's apartment. I told him about the phone calls, how I had first stopped at Apartment 105, was denied access, and then met Antonio at Violet's. I assured him that neither Antonio nor I touched anything with our hands once we realized we were standing in a crime scene and that we'd immediately left the apartment and called 9-1-1.

  "Why didn't Dolores let you in?" he asked.

  "She said a plumber was on the way."

  "Huh?" Hampton frowned.

  "Why'd you 'huh'?" I asked. "Do you think she had something to do with it?" It would be odd to commit a murder, flood your own apartment, and call the neighboring apartment manager to come take care of it. But then again, I'd just had a resident fall off the roof because he locked himself out. Not everyone chooses logic.

  "No," Hampton said with little conviction. "We were in her apartment, but there wasn't a plumber. The damage is quite extensive though."

  Huh?

  "You said the door to Violet's apartment was open," Hampton said. "Was it wide open or cracked?"

  "Cracked. So whoever kicked it in closed it behind them. The closet window was open, so perhaps they went in the door and out the window. But how do you go out the window with a body or a hostage? Did you see anything in the stairwell or in the elevator?"

  "CSI is processing the scene now." Hampton used one foot to scratch the back of his calf. "Anything else you can remember?"

  I bent down to rub my sore kneecap, when a memory trotted into my head. "I completely forgot! As I was going up the stairs to Violet's apartment, a man in a hooded sweatshirt entered in through the second-floor stairwell door, ran me over, and exited the first story door. He didn't even stop to see if I was hurt. He could have been coming from Violet's apartment. Or maybe he's just a douchebag." The latter was indeed a possibility. Being at least 10 percent douchebag is necessary for survival when you live in Los Angeles. The timing, however, was fishy. This could have been a two-man job.

  Chase squared me and stuck his hands in the front pocket of his pants. "Did you get a good look at his face?"
>
  "I've got this." Hampton took a step between Chase and me and then stared at me with such intensity I squirmed. "Did you get a good look at this man's face?"

  I closed my eyes and flipped through my memory. "A decent look. I'm pretty sure I could point him out if I were given a lineup."

  Chase turned to Hampton. "They should have copies of every resident's identification on file here. You could also have her meet with the forensic sketch artist,"

  Hampton put a hand on Chase's shoulder and nodded.

  Chase let out a relenting sigh and nodded back.

  The two had their own nodding language that I'd yet to fully decipher. My best guess was Hampton told Chase this was his case and to shut up. Or something to that effect, because Chase closed his mouth, took a step back, and returned his hands to the front pocket of his slacks.

  "Here's what we'll do," Hampton said. Between the heat and the nodding, the blob of hair on Hampton's head had slid down to the middle of his forehead.

  I must have been staring, because Chase elbowed me again. "I'm sorry." I blinked to clear the image. "What were you saying?"

  Hampton adjusted his toupee. "We'll have you meet with our sketch artist."

  "What about Kevin?" I said. "He's been taking classes at the college to do forensic sketches. He could do it?"

  "We have an artist contracted already," Chase explained. "He's very good at what he does."

  Bummer. Kevin could have used the extra income. "Do I meet with the artist now?"

  "Come in tomorrow at noon." Hampton handed me a business card as if I didn't know where the station was. As if I hadn't been there many times before. As if I didn't have a job or responsibilities and could just take off in the middle of the day.

  Also, noon tomorrow gave me plenty of time to forget what the man looked like.

  "I don't have anything else for you at the moment." Hampton gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. "We'll do our best to bring Violet home," he said, his words sincere. He strutted back toward the whimsical doors of Cedar Creek.