by Dale Mayer
He did that, and she added her mother’s laptop. Raina turned, looked around, then back at him. “I don’t really want to stay here.”
He nodded, glanced into the spare bedroom and the guest bedroom, and led the way back downstairs and outside.
“Next we have to go to my sister’s office,” she said. “Her list of clients have to be contacted. I don’t even know how her business can transfer over to someone else or what happens to all the records.”
“Hopefully the lawyer can handle that too,” Reyes said. “Come on. Let’s go there now.”
It was about fifteen minutes to her sister’s small office. He pulled into a parking space, and they walked in, surprised to find a receptionist out front.
The woman looked up and smiled. “Well, you definitely look like your sister.”
Raina nodded. “I’m Raina and this is Reyes.” She asked, “Do you work for her?”
“Partially,” she said. “We have several accountants here. I work for all of them.”
With relief Raina realized maybe her sister’s business wouldn’t be quite such a headache. “Are the other accountants here?”
The receptionist nodded cheerfully. “Yep, everybody is in, working hard.”
“Is it possible to speak to them all at once?”
Something in her voice must have alerted the receptionist that the meeting wouldn’t be pleasant. She looked from Raina to Reyes, swallowed hard and said, “I can bring them out here.”
“Please do that.” As the woman got up, Reyes asked, “Who all works here?”
She pointed to the row of business cards on her desk. “There are four accountants. Reana is one of them.”
“Interesting,” Reyes said. He picked up the business cards of the others. And, for good measure, grabbed one of Reana’s.
“Who are you?” the receptionist asked.
He gave a humorous glance. “Her ex-fiancé. But that was two years ago.”
The woman stared at him.
Raina’s words nudged her. “If you wouldn’t mind gathering the others? Then we need to go to her office.”
The receptionist fled.
They could hear voices and doors opening and closing. Within a few minutes the other accountants came out.
Raina studied them, but not one of them looked like a murderer. Then again, she didn’t know what a murderer looked like. They were all geeky, wearing glasses, and much older than Reana. As they came out, they looked at her curiously.
“What’s this all about?” asked the oldest. He had to be at least sixty, maybe sixty-five.
“It’s about my sister, Reana,” Raina said quietly. “She was murdered.”
A horrified gasp circulated among the three accountants and their receptionist. “What?” one of the men asked. “When?”
Raina took a deep breath. “Yesterday morning. I’m sorry. I should have been here yesterday, but I was caught up in things.”
One of the men harrumphed. “Well, it would have been nice if you’d caught up with us.”
Reyes stepped forward, his hand going to Raina’s shoulder. “Before you judge her for not having been here immediately, you need to understand what she was dealing with. Her mother tried to commit suicide yesterday morning, after finding out about Reana, and has since died of a heart attack this morning. Raina’s dealing with the loss of both her sister and her mother right now. And her plate is rather full.”
The man stepped back, shamefaced. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head. “This is just terrible.”
“We’ve contacted the lawyer this morning regarding Reana’s estate,” he said. “But we have no clue what’s to happen to the business side of it.”
“We do have provisions in place,” the same man said. “We’ll split up her clients, contact them individually, ask if they want to transfer to one of us. If not, they’re free to take their business elsewhere. But we’ll have to see what she has in progress.”
“What kind of bookkeeping and accounting did she do?”
“Small business and personal,” he said. “Nothing major. Nothing that would get her murdered, if that’s what you’re asking.” He glanced around. “I presume we’ll have the police here then to?”
“I texted them this morning,” Reyes explained, “saying we were coming here. So chances are they’ll be here sometime today, yes.”
She hadn’t realized he’d done that, but it figured. It was best to keep the police in the loop as they made every step.
“May I see my sister’s office please?” she asked.
They frowned and looked at each other.
“All the material in there is confidential.”
“Well, some of it is, but some of it is personal. And we’re trying to sort through her private life, so we can deal with those issues too.”
The receptionist said, “I can show you what’s hers.”
Reyes nodded. “We’d appreciate that. The police will presumably go through what they need to,” he said, his voice harder.
The men all nodded. “We’ll be as cooperative as we can be.”
“Can you tell us how she died?” one of the accountants asked.
“She was beaten and then shot,” Raina said, her voice getting fainter as she repeated the words that hurt so much. “Her body was found yesterday morning.”
“Was she murdered at home?” one of the men asked.
Reyes turned to look at him. “We only know that she was found in her vehicle.” He studied the men. “Do you have anybody in mind who might have murdered her?” he asked in a slightly challenging voice.
All the men stiffened.
“We’re all family men. None of us were involved with her on a personal level, if that’s what you’re talking about,” one of the men said. “Not only that, we have a business relationship with her, and there’s been no strife.”
“If she was found in her vehicle, it could be a stranger,” another one said.
“If it was just a gunshot, then maybe,” Reyes said quietly. “But the beating …” He shook his head. “No, that’s personal.”
The men took several long, deep breaths, as if scared to say the wrong thing.
Reyes glanced at the receptionist. “Do you mind?”
She nodded and hurried toward the first door on the left.
As they stepped in, Raina was filled with a wash of memories and homesickness. On the back counter was a picture of her and her sister. Raina walked around the desk and picked it up. It brought tears to her eyes. “I’m not even sure when this was taken,” she said. “And I had no idea she kept it.”
“She’s had it here since she first started,” said one of the men.
Raina turned to see all three men jammed into the small office. She wasn’t sure if they wanted to be sure nothing implicated them. She glanced around to see her sister’s long flowing maxivest hanging on the hook on the door. Her heart slowed, then raced as she recognized her sister’s favorite sweater. She wore it all the time. Just to know it would never wrap around her sister’s shoulders made her heart ache.
“I’ll get you a box for her personal items,” one of the men said. He disappeared out the door and around the corner.
Raina sat down at the desk, reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. “I’m sorry. It’s been a very difficult two days.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. Reana will be missed,” the older of the men said. “She was very good with the clients.”
“Was she?” Reyes asked. “It seems like she was a different person to each of us.”
“Yes, I would agree with that entirely. Sometimes she was very calm and peaceful. And other times she was almost hardened.”
“Yes,” the receptionist said. “But she was usually very nice.”
Raina registered the word usually. But then the receptionist was also pretty and young, and Reana didn’t like competition, so Raina understood that not everything might have gone smoothly. She opened Reana’s drawers, lookin
g for anything personal that needed to be removed, finding a lot of pens and pencils, pads of paper. At the back was an address book. She pulled it out, flipping through it. It opened automatically to Jenny’s name. There was Jenny’s number and beside it was her brother, Jamie’s, number, reminding Raina that they hadn’t heard back from him. She shuffled through the rest and found several more names, but they were mostly scratched out. Raina could almost safely assume they were all Reana’s boyfriends at one time or another.
That was her sister; Reana dove in, and then she abruptly stepped out. And, when she was done, she was done. But apparently not with Jenny. Just more proof that Jenny had really mattered.
Raina was emotional by the time Reyes picked up the box they had packed. She thanked the others. “If you think of anybody who might have wanted to hurt her, a disgruntled client, somebody, a friend who might have come here at any time, please, please let us know.”
The men all nodded.
They left a sad trio of accountants behind as they walked out the door. They headed toward the Jeep, and Raina blew her nose again, carrying a handful of Kleenex with her all the time now.
As they sat in the Jeep, Reyes asked, “What do you think?”
“I think she was a bright light for all of them. And I think, when they went home, they went home to families, to wives and children, but, when they came back again, Reana was someone they looked forward to seeing every day. It will be a loss for them all.”
“Do you think any of them could have killed her?” He started up the engine.
She shook her head. “I didn’t get those vibes. But then again, what do I know? I’ve never seen a murderer before.”
“Unfortunately they can look exactly the same as you and me.”
*
“I do want to contact Jamie,” Reyes said.
“He still hasn’t called, has he?”
“No,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “A phone message probably won’t be heard until the receptionist shows up, won’t become a priority until then.”
“True enough,” she said. “Now we’ve collected a boxful of sadness, but we didn’t check to see if my sister was staying at my mom’s house.”
“She was,” he said. “I saw suitcases in the guest bedroom.”
“When did you look?”
“Initially when you were on the laptop,” he said. “The bed had been slept in but was made. The suitcases were in the closet at the back. They do appear to be filled with her clothes.”
“I don’t know if she’d been there the last night or not, and of course, we can’t ask my mother anymore,” she whispered.
“Exactly. I suspect Reana was meeting someone, and that person was the last one to see her alive.”
“Right.” She pulled out her sister’s address book. “I kept this out of the box,” she said. “Do you want to call Jamie?”
Just then Reyes’s phone rang. He pulled off to the side of the road. It was one of the detectives. He talked to Detective Burgess, filling him in on what they’d found at Reana’s place of work, then told him about her mother.
“The autopsy has been completed,” Detective Burgess said.
“When can the body be released?” Reyes asked.
“Not yet,” the detective said. “It will probably be another day or two.”
“Raina wants to hold a service for the two of them together,” he said. “So please, let’s not have it take too long.”
“I’ll do my best. We still haven’t found any leads. No fingerprints were on or in the vehicle, and, though we have ballistics from the gun, we don’t have any matching results back yet.”
“We only have one more person left to contact,” Reyes said. “Jenny’s brother.”
“Do you have his number?”
Reyes held out his hand for the address book and read off Jamie’s number. “I contacted him at the end of the day yesterday. If nothing else, I’d just like to confirm that Jenny did move out as she told us.”
“We’ll give him a call right now,” the detective said. “We’d like to talk to him before you two do.”
“Okay,” Reyes said. “We now have a service for two to arrange, two estates to handle. That’s why I need the bodies released.” He gave the detective the lawyer’s name and phone number as well. “In case you have any questions about the estate, we don’t have any answers. But the attorney should give you some.”
“That would be good,” the detective said. “It’ll help us tick off a few boxes.”
“Exactly. I don’t think Reana’s murder was for money. At this point, all I can see was passion.”
“A disgruntled boyfriend?”
“Or a disgruntled girlfriend,” Reyes said. “Reana loved Jenny, but that doesn’t mean, while she was in the middle of a breakup, she didn’t have an affair with somebody else.”
“No,” the detective said. “And, considering they didn’t steal the car or her purse inside the car, that lends some credence to the murder not being about a burglary.”
“I would say it’s definitely personal. I’m sure you agree.”
The detective sighed. “That’s the way we’re leaning.”
“But we’re not having much luck running down too many of her friends.”
“We did find a couple ex-boyfriends through your mother’s business. Apparently Reana dated some of the men who worked there. But they didn’t have much to say. Except to say it was short, sometimes sweet and sometimes not. But their relationships were all over a long time ago. … They all said she seemed sad when she was with them.”
“We’re back to that twisted-up-on-the-inside thing,” Reyes said. After signing off, he turned to look at Raina. “Not a whole lot new.” He explained the little bit they found out.
She nodded. “It will be somebody who lost his temper,” she whispered. “My sister was good at spiking tempers.”
Reyes had to agree. She’d pricked his all the time. The thing was, he’d taken a long time to boil and had very good control even then. But lots of people didn’t. “Doesn’t the gun add a different element?” he asked, thinking about it.
“I can see, after beating her up, how he’d decide that he’d have to kill her before she woke up and called the cops.”
“The detective is calling Jamie right now,” he said.
“That would be good,” she said. “Even if only to confirm Jenny’s story.”
“Do you feel any differently about Jenny?”
“No,” Raina said. “I don’t think she did it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she loved Reana. Like she really, really loved her. I think my sister was a fool to have lost that. Sometimes that kind of love only happens once in a lifetime.”
“I can see that.” He couldn’t argue with that. He had hopes himself of getting his love life back on the right track too. Especially now that he’d found Raina again.
Chapter 15
Something was in his voice. Raina glanced at Reyes. “Are you saying you really loved her, and then you lost her?” she asked curiously.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t think I ever really loved her. And I don’t think she ever really loved me. But, of course, it’s not that easy to know at this point.” He seemed to hesitate, then motioned at her list. “Where to now?”
“I feel like I’m supposed to see my mother, but she’s gone, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do there.”
“Maybe you want to say goodbye,” he said. “We could go to the morgue and see her.”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “No, I don’t feel like that’s something I need to do.”
“Fine,” he said. “Maybe we should talk to Jamie. If nothing else, he’s the last person on our list. With any luck the police have already spoken to him, so we won’t be stepping on any toes.”
“There’re all these boyfriends in her address book with their names crossed off.”
“But we don’t have the last names for a lot of
them, and we don’t know who the police have already contacted. I suggest we talk to Jamie, if he’ll even see us,” he added. “Then we’ll stop off at the police station, hand over the address book, and see if the detective can confirm anything. Then I really want to stop in at my mother’s, if you wouldn’t mind going to the greenhouses.”
“Oh my gosh,” she cried out. “I forgot about your family.” She glanced at her watch. “Why don’t we go there first? The police might need more time to talk to Jamie anyway.”
Reyes thought about it and nodded. “My family probably wants an update. Beside we haven’t told my mother about your mother.”
“Oh, Lord,” Raina whispered. “I’m not looking forward to telling her. It’s just way too sad.”
He nodded and drove on steadily.
“Your mom will blame herself, won’t she?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but she should,” he said. “I know that sounds harsh, but she really had no business speaking to your mom like that.”
“They were friends though,” Raina said. “Maybe it does make some sense.”
“It’s too late to worry about it now,” he said. They pulled up outside of the busy greenhouses and parked. He looked at the vehicles lining the parking lot. “The business is doing really well, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” she said. She hopped out, tucked the address book into her pocket and walked forward. Several of the staff members called out to her. She lifted a hand and waved but didn’t say much. With Reyes at her side, she headed toward Annemarie’s office.
Raised voices could be heard on the other side of the closed door. She glanced at Reyes.
He sighed, squared his shoulders and said, “My parents never stop arguing, do they?”
She shook her head. “No, they really don’t.” She knocked on the door.
The voices silenced. Harold called out, “Come in.”
She pushed open the door and stepped inside with Reyes behind her. Both Annemarie and Harold looked at them, smiles breaking out and Annemarie racing to Raina. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry about your sister.”
“Mom, it’s worse than that.”
Annemarie stiffened and frowned at her son. “What are you talking about?”