Dead in the Doorway

by Diane Kelly

  He rolled over onto his back and mewed, requesting she scratch his chest now. She obliged and he thanked her with a quick swipe of his tongue. Closing his eyes, he cranked his motor. Purrrrrrrrrr.

  CHAPTER 16

  CATCHING UP

  WHITNEY

  As I entered the Home & Hearth office Friday morning, Marvin and Wanda Hartley looked up from their side-by-side desks. Both were plump, gray-haired, and nearing retirement age, but with no definitive plans to call the real-estate game quits just yet. The two offered me identical greetings. “’Mornin’, Whitney.”

  “Right back at ya,” I replied cheerily as I plunked myself down in the chair at my desk. I filled them in on my pending tasks. “A tree service is scheduled to remove the dead oak at the Mossdale Drive property tomorrow, the roofer patched the leak on Bellshire Terrace yesterday, and three potential tenants are taking a look at the duplex in Five Points this afternoon. All have good credit.”

  Mr. Hartley gave me a thumbs-up. “Great job, as always, Whitney. Our clients will be pleased.”

  Mrs. Hartley stood and eased over to the coffee maker, refilling her mug and pouring another for me. She placed the steaming mug on the desk in front of me and I thanked her with a grateful smile. She cocked her head. “How are the renovations coming on your flip house?”

  “Slowly but surely.” I supposed the same could be said for the murder investigation. Then again, it had been a mere two and a half days since Detective Flynn informed me that Nelda’s death had been reclassified from accident to homicide. But two and a half days feels like an eternity when there’s a killer on the loose and you can’t relax because you’re surrounded by suspects. “Buck and I have the place cleared. We’re planning to work on the demolition this weekend. The materials will be delivered tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait to see it when you’re done.”

  “Me neither,” Mr. Hartley concurred. “You and Buck have a knack for rehab.”

  “You two will be the first to get the grand tour once it’s finished,” I said. “After all, we couldn’t have done this without your generous loan.”

  Mrs. Hartley issued a pshaw. “You bust your behind working for us. It’s the least we could do.”

  Unfortunately, that behind I busted seemed to be growing exponentially. Colette and I had lived together only a matter of weeks, but having a professional chef for a roommate meant the refrigerator was always full of tempting treats. I could usually count on the physical labor of my carpentry and renovation work to keep me in shape, but it might not be enough any longer. I might have to start going for runs around Radnor Lake, like Detective Flynn. Then again, if I was being honest with myself, maybe I was just looking for excuses to run into him. He was easy on the eyes, after all, and his work was intriguing. He liked cats, too, which was a big plus. He didn’t seem to be emasculated by my height or my job, like some men were. I didn’t know much else about him, but I might be open to learning more, seeing where things would go. But could there really be a future for two people who’d met over a dead body? It wasn’t exactly a meet-cute story. Besides, even if I might be interested in Detective Flynn on a personal level, I wasn’t sure whether he looked at me that way. I supposed time would tell.

  I spent the early part of the day on routine tasks, leaving midafternoon to install a FOR SALE sign in the yard of a new listing the Hartleys had landed. I showed the duplex to the prospective tenants, two of which were interested in the place. I told them I’d pass their applications on to the property owner and let them know the decision as soon as possible.

  As I headed back to my SUV, my phone chirped with an incoming call from Collin. I tapped the screen to accept the call and put the phone to my ear. “Hello, Detective. Any developments?”

  “A few. Why don’t you come by my office and we’ll talk about them? I can return the playing cards to you.”

  I pulled my phone away to check the time. I had an hour before I’d need to run home to grab the potluck dishes for tonight’s poker game. I returned the phone to my ear. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I jumped into my car and, shortly thereafter, pulled into the parking lot of the police station. After checking in at the front desk, I aimed for Collin’s office. The door was open. I rapped on the frame and he looked up from behind his desk, waving me into the small, windowless space and gesturing for me to take a seat in the blue vinyl chair that faced him. Just like the last time I’d been here, innumerable stacks of files threatened to cause his desk to collapse. Guess I shouldn’t complain about my workload, huh? A half-eaten container of takeout Chinese food had been pushed aside, giving the room a savory aroma. His gray cat, Copernicus, and his black-and-white tuxedo, Galileo, seemed to eye me over his shoulder from their photos tacked on his bulletin board.

  As soon as my ever-expanding bottom hit the chair, he caught me up. “Carl Dolan confirmed the peacock necklace you saw at the pawnshop was the one he’d given Nelda. I visited the shop and learned it wasn’t the only piece of jewelry Dakota had pawned, either. He’s got a long history with the store. He’s pawned several items of women’s jewelry over the last three years.”

  “Do you know where he got the jewelry?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Dakota, but he’s not answering his phone. I keep getting voice mail. I stopped by his parents’ place, but they aren’t sure where he is at the moment. They said he stayed with them from Saturday through Tuesday night, but the last couple of days he’s been purportedly searching for a job and hanging with friends. They said it’s not unusual for him to be out of touch for a few days at a time. They have no idea who his friends are, though. Never met most of them. All they could give me were vague nicknames. Skeeter. Banjo. Tubbers. He’s lost touch with most of his high-school friends, and I’m not sure where he knows these guys from. I’ve checked with Dakota’s last few employers to see if these guys might have been former coworkers, but the nicknames meant nothing to them. He’s not on social media, so that was a dead end. Our tech guys tried to ping his phone but they couldn’t get a reading. Either the battery is dead or he removed it so the phone couldn’t be used to track him.”

  “So he could be making a run for it?”

  The detective scrubbed a hand over his head and let out a loud, frustrated breath. “Looks that way. I’ve sent out an alert. If any law enforcement happens to come across him, they’ll keep him in custody until I’ve had a chance to interrogate him.”

  “What about the ad for the tax service? Did you look into that?”

  “I did. The service is legit. The owner paid his own fifteen-year-old son to hang the ads on doors.”

  “Any chance the kid has a juvenile record?”

  “Nope. He’s squeaky clean. Plays trombone in his high-school band. He’s on the chess team and honor roll, too.”

  In other words, the ad wasn’t put in place by a would-be burglar. Still, it was possible a burglar had noted that the ad remained earlier in the day last Friday, and later ventured onto the porch when night fell, spotted the key in the frog’s mouth, and decided to take a chance even though Dakota had since removed the ad.

  “What about Roxanne?” I asked. “I noticed your business card was still wedged in her door the last time I looked. Any luck there?”

  “None. Roxanne hasn’t called, either. She’s not answering either of her phones. I left a message on the answering machine for her landline. I couldn’t leave a voice mail on her cell phone because her voice-mail box isn’t set up. I don’t know if she’s avoiding my calls, or just missing them.”

  Moving on, then. “What about the driver from Hitch-a-Ride? Luis Bautista?”

  “I’ve been in touch with a dozen of his recent fares. None of them have been burglarized or robbed, and none had anything suspicious happen after riding with him. The strange thing, though, is that several of them mentioned their driver wore his hair in a man bun. The driver I talked to had short hair.”

  “Could he have
cut it recently?”

  “Again, maybe. There’s also the possibility he was wearing a beanie with a pom-pom on top and the riders mistook it for a man bun. It gets dark early this time of year, and there wouldn’t be much light in the car. He picked up nearly all of his fares from nightclubs and bars, including Dakota. Some of the riders were with friends and they told me they were too busy having a good time to give the driver much attention. They all admitted they’d been drinking heavily, so they’re not exactly the most reliable eyewitnesses.”

  None of what he’d said surprised me. In many cases, people treated ride-share services as their designated drivers. A smart choice. Much better than getting on the road and risking arrest or causing an accident, though I suspected the drivers had their patience tested by their inebriated riders. “What about social media?” I asked. “Does Bautista have any photos of himself on any of the sites?”

  “Nothing on Facebook or Twitter that I could find. He only seems to be on Instagram. His profile pic is his bulldog sitting next to that Elvis statue in front of that souvenir shop on Broadway.”

  I knew the statute he was talking about. Tourists often stopped to have their photo taken with it. Heck, I had snapped a picture or two with the hunka burnin’ love over the years myself. “What about his posts?”

  “They’re useless,” Collin said. “He doesn’t post often, and when he does it’s usually a photo of his dog.”

  He owns a dog and posts photos of him? Sure didn’t sound like a cold-blooded killer to me. Then again, maybe Bautista hadn’t intended to kill Nelda and had only done it out of necessity when she caught him in the house. Maybe she’d threatened to turn him in to the police and he’d panicked, shoved her down the steps so he could get past her and escape. Maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d killed her. After all, the fact that her death was a homicide hadn’t been publicized. “Are you going to talk to him again?”

  “My gut says something’s up with him,” Collin acknowledged, “but my brain says there’s no pattern of criminal activity and my time would be better spent chasing other leads.”

  “Which organ are you going to listen to? Your gut or your brain?”

  “It’s still up for debate.” He opened a drawer, reached in, and pulled out the box of playing cards with the W carved in the top. “Here’s the box of cards.” He slid it over the desktop to me. “The lab results came back. There were several sets of prints on the box, including Nelda’s.”

  My spine went straight. “So she could have been holding the box when she fell?”

  “Yes, or she could have simply touched the box the last time the ladies played poker. There’s no way to tell for certain how old the fingerprints are.”

  If only the kings, queens, jacks, and jokers could talk … “Were Dakota’s prints on the box?”

  “No.”

  “So he didn’t touch it.”

  “If he did, he wore gloves or used some other type of protection to avoid leaving prints. At any rate, it wasn’t wiped clean like the key and the front doorknob.”

  “That means it might not have been the object that was removed from under Nelda Dolan’s body.”

  “Might is the operative word there.”

  I didn’t like might. It was as wishy-washy as maybe. I was more than ready for some definitive answers. While the detective had managed to keep the murder investigation under wraps for now, it seemed inevitable that it would come out at some point if he didn’t solve it soon. It would be difficult enough to sell a house where a homicide had happened, but harder still to sell one when the killer was on the loose and could return to claim another victim. Plus, my mother would have a fit when she learned the death at my new flip house had been a murder. I hadn’t mentioned it to her yet. She worried enough about me already. I didn’t need to put her through more anxiety.

  As I slipped the box of cards into my purse, Collin stood to escort me out. “Continue to keep an eye on things in the neighborhood. Ask the ladies at the poker party tonight if they’ve noticed anything unusual. If you see or hear anything of interest, let me know.”

  I stood, too. “I will. By the way, I ran into Carl Dolan at the grocery store today. He and the woman working the bakery counter seemed awfully friendly.”

  “Friendly?” He stopped in his steps. “How so?”

  I told him how Carl made Dulce giggle, how he had called her “sugar” and “sweetie,” and how he had removed his wedding band already, so soon after his wife’s death.

  “If Carl has been involved with another woman,” the detective said, “it could explain why Nelda’s death had so little effect on him. He might have already checked out of the marriage, been planning to leave his wife. It could also give him a reason for doing away with her.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment, as if mentally filing the information. When he opened them, he gave me a pointed look. “It could also give this Dulce a reason for wanting Nelda out of the picture.”

  “But what would Dulce have taken out from under Nelda?”

  “Could be lots of things,” he said, raising a shoulder. “Maybe a secret cell phone that Nelda had come across in Carl’s things that had Dulce’s number on it. Or a framed photo of Carl and Dulce. A pink bakery box full of cookies with a love note in the bottom.”

  Viable suspects seemed to keep popping up, like rodents in a game of whack-a-mole. Unfortunately, they all seemed to be yanking their heads back before we could land any solid whacks and eliminate them. If only we could figure out what had been under Nelda, we’d be able to whittle down the list of suspects, maybe even down to a single person.

  Collin walked me to the front doors of the station. “You’re surrounded by persons of interest. Stay in touch and stay aware.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice.

  CHAPTER 17

  FULL HOUSE

  WHITNEY

  I ran home to round up the side dishes Colette had so generously offered to prepare for me. She’d arranged a beautiful fresh fruit salad in a glass trifle bowl. The orange slices, strawberries, blackberries, kiwi, grapes, blueberries, and raspberries were layered like a delicious, colorful rainbow. She’d also prepared phyllo triangles stuffed with sautéed spinach and mushrooms and baked to a golden brown.

  She covered the cookie tray containing the latter with foil. “Just two or three minutes in the oven at three fifty will warm them right up.”

  “Perfect. The ladies will love these.” I gave my best friend a hug. “What would I do without you?”

  “Starve,” she teased. She also handed me a small ceramic crock. “Red beans and rice. You can take the girl out of New Orleans, but you can’t take the New Orleans out of the girl.”

  Colette loved Cajun and creole foods. It just so happened that cooking these regional dishes was one of her specialties. I enjoyed them, too, though I could tolerate far less spice than she could. She often had to make a wimpy portion for me, leaving out all but a dash of hot sauce.

  As I left, I gave Sawdust a peck on the head and a scratch under the chin. He mewed up at me, a lonely look in his eyes. “Sorry, little guy. I know I haven’t been around much lately. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow morning. We’ll cuddle on the couch together and watch TV.” Sawdust’s favorite shows were Deadliest Catch and Wicked Tuna. Given that he ate his fair share of tuna, I think the programs gave him an unrealistic view of where cats fell on the food chain. Those fish were huge! But we all engage in some sort of self-delusion on occasion. For instance, I was currently deluding myself that I wasn’t going to take a bath on the Walsh house. Instead, I was determined to remain optimistic that Buck and I would actually earn a profit, despite the house being the scene of a murder.

  After loading the food into the back of my SUV, I retrieved an adjustable wrench from my toolbox and slid it into the outer pocket of my purse, where it would be within quick reach if needed. After all, as Collin had pointed out, the women I’d be playing poker with tonight were persons of interest in a murder investigation. O
ne could never be too careful. Of course, the pepper spray was in my purse, too, but I figured we’d all be in close proximity at Mary Sue’s house tonight and a noxious spray could backfire and disable me, too, if I used it.

  Properly armed now, I headed for Songbird Circle. The night was already dark as I drove into the cul-de-sac, but the streetlights and coach lights mounted on either side of the Dolans’ garage door provided enough illumination for me to see two shiny, brand-new cars parked on the right side of driveway. At the front was a metallic red Mazda Miata convertible with a black top. Nice. Behind it sat a Ford Mustang in bright orange, the signature color of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. Fun! While the price stickers remained affixed to the windows of both cars, the Mustang was the only vehicle of the two that sported a huge bow on top. The left side of the driveway sat empty, Carl evidently having ventured out in his white Chevy Impala.

  I had little time to ponder the new vehicles before a “Yoo-hoo!” pulled my attention to Roxanne’s front door, where she emerged wearing a stylish peacoat and carrying a covered pot, thick quilted oven mitts serving as gloves. I raised a hand in greeting and waited as she set the pot down on the park bench on her front porch, removed the oven mitts from her hands, and tucked them under her arm as she turned to lock her door. Before she inserted the key, she bent down and picked up Detective Flynn’s business card, which had fallen to the floor in her front hallway. She quickly looked it over, shoved it into her coat pocket, and locked up. After slipping her hands back into the oven mitts, she grabbed her pot again and headed my way.

  “Hi, Roxanne!” I called in greeting as she approached. “What’s in the pot?”

  “Italian white-bean soup,” she said. “The perfect thing for a cold night like this.”

  “Sounds delicious.” I angled my head to indicate the new cars in the Dolans’ driveway. “Someone’s done some car shopping.”