Haunting Harold

by Jenna Bennett

  Heidi didn’t say anything, but she looked annoyed.

  “Is there any reason to think she might have been going after Harold?”

  “She’s been friendly,” Heidi said reluctantly. “A few times, I felt like maybe she timed her visits so she’d still be there when Harold came home. Maybe so she’d have a chance to see him.”

  Or let him see her.

  “Maybe I should have another talk with her.” Or better yet, with Nick Costanza. She had dumped him for David once. If she was thinking of dumping him for Harold now, maybe Nick had wanted to prevent it from happening. Killing Harold would ensure that very nicely. And it wasn’t like anyone would even think of suspecting him.

  Except me. Although I was probably reaching.

  “Sure,” Heidi said readily. “Talk to Jacquie.”

  Or Nick. I signaled and made the turn onto Old Hickory Boulevard while I wondered whether Nick was still working at the same oil change place he’d been working at two months ago. It was probably time for another oil change anyway.

  “Do you know Nick?” I asked.

  Heidi looked blank. “Jacquie’s boyfriend? No, I’ve never met him.”

  “You’d like him,” I said. “He looks a bit like Mendoza.”

  Heidi didn’t say anything to that. “What’s going on with you and him?” she asked instead.

  I glanced over at her. “Me and Mendoza? Nothing.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not?

  I went for the simple answer. “He’s too young for me.”

  “He must be at least thirty,” Heidi said.

  Yes, of course he was at least thirty. “He’s thirty-three.” Or if you asked him, almost thirty-four. In February, which was only three or four months away.

  No, the problem wasn’t Mendoza’s age. It was mine. By the time he turned thirty-four, I’d be staring at forty-one in the distance.

  Although that wasn’t even the real problem. He wasn’t interested in me. He’d never made any kind of pass. He called me Mrs. Kelly, for God’s sake. Like I was some kind of friend of his grandmother’s.

  “You don’t look forty,” Heidi said, with a sideways glance at me as we took the corner of Granny White Pike and turned south toward Brentwood.

  “Thank you.” I think.

  “You should go for it,” Heidi said. “It would do you a world of good, after David.”

  No doubt. Although Mendoza wasn’t offering, and Greg hadn’t, either—and hadn’t called me today—so my options were limited. “I’m doing all right,” I said. “New business, new dog, new friends…”

  “That’s not the same as a new man.”

  No, of course it wasn’t. A new man would be nice. Romance would be nice. But I was a little gun-shy after David. I hadn’t had any idea he was cheating until he came out and told me. So I was afraid of having it happen again, if I got involved with someone else. I wasn’t getting any younger, and keeping husbands away from younger women is a daily battle.

  And when it came to Mendoza… sure, I’d take a fling if he offered—age difference notwithstanding—but I wouldn’t want to get involved with him permanently. Not only was he too young for me, but he was divorced because his wife had caught him cheating. And the last thing I wanted was to get involved with another cheater.

  “Greg seems like a nice guy,” I said. Partly to change the subject, and partly because I wanted to know more about him. We’d gotten along well last night, and I could see myself going out with him again if he asked. But I was also cognizant of Mendoza’s suggestion that Greg had asked me out to pick my brain and figure out what I knew because he was secretly involved with his sister-in-law and had shot his brother, so a few questions might clear up that possibility, as well.

  “He is,” Heidi said.

  “Mendoza said something about Franklin. Is that where Greg lives when he’s here? He said he has a house in Wyoming and an apartment in Italy…”

  “He’s visiting his mother,” Heidi said.

  “Harold’s mother is alive?”

  She nodded. “She lives in a retirement community in Williamson County. Greg is staying with her. He does it every year for her birthday.”

  It was her birthday? “Not much of a birthday present,” I remarked.

  “She loves Greg,” Heidi answered.

  “I didn’t mean Greg. I meant Harold.” Specifically, Harold dying.

  “Oh.” Heidi thought about it. “I guess.”

  No question. But by now we were getting close to Harold’s office, so I let it lie. “Keep an eye out for the yellow Beetle. Let me know if you see it.”

  Heidi nodded, and began scanning the area outside the car. I concentrated on navigating up the dark street.

  It was a business district, so pretty deserted. Once we moved past the McDonalds on the corner, there was just the row of business buildings—some low-slung, like Harold’s; some higher, like the building next door—and parking lots on our right, and on the left, that grassy slope up to what looked like a townhouse complex across the street. Lights shone up there, but the slope itself was in darkness, dotted with bushes and trees. Beyond the empty parking lots and business buildings were more businesses and, beyond that, the bright lights of Moore’s Lane and the mall area.

  The parking lot outside Harold’s building was deserted. I pulled into an empty slot—they were all empty—and cut the engine. “We’re a couple minutes early.”

  Heidi glanced at the dashboard clock. “I guess we just wait.”

  Not much else we could do. I leaned back in the seat and contemplated the mostly empty road and the brushy hillside on the other side. And then I looked left and right, to see if I could spot Zachary’s ratty little compact.

  There was no sign of it. There was no sign of anyone. No Zachary, and no yellow Beetle. No Mendoza, either.

  What looked like a dark pickup truck was parked in a corner of the lot next door, and I squinted at it. Was that Mitch McKetchum’s truck? Maybe Mendoza had asked to borrow it, so he wouldn’t have to drive his official police vehicle?

  But no, he wasn’t likely to ask his ex-wife’s new husband for any favors. Although it was possible that he was driving a dark pickup of his own. The gray sedan was official issue, but Mendoza probably had a vehicle for his personal use, too. No reason it couldn’t be a dark pickup.

  Down at the corner, a set of headlights took the turn and began making their way up toward us. I glanced at the clock. Two minutes to nine. This could be Tara.

  Heidi and I both stared as the car came closer, and then as it drove slowly by.

  “Not her,” Heidi said, unnecessarily.

  I shook my head. Not unless she had another car, which I suppose wasn’t impossible. “I hope she won’t stand us up.”

  Or stand me up, since she wouldn’t have any reason to think Heidi was here.

  “I’m going to get out of the car,” I told Heidi, “and be visible. Just in case that was her, and she’s taking a look around before she comes over. That way she’ll know it’s me.”

  Heidi nodded.

  “Hold down the fort.” I pushed my door open. The dashboard clock just ticked from 8:59 to 9:00 as I swung my legs out of the car.

  A second later, there was the sound of a gunshot, and something hit the side of my open door. I screamed, and threw myself headfirst into the car again, and pulled my feet in behind me.

  Heidi was screaming, too, her voice high-pitched and panicked. “Ohmigod! Ohmigod!”

  She was staring straight out the front window, straight in the direction of where the shot had come from, and with the door still open and the dome light on, she was outlined like a silhouette in a shooting gallery.

  “Get down!” I shrieked. And reached up and shoved my fingers into her hair and pulled. She squealed and started to hit me, but no sooner had I yanked her down on top of me, than another shot sounded, followed by the windshield exploding in a cascade of pieces of glass.

  Heidi screamed again and focuse
d on covering her head. By then I had let go of her hair and was busy trying to stuff myself under the dashboard, while I waited for the next shot.

  Chapter 12

  It didn’t come. What came were running footsteps across the parking lot, around the car, and over to my door. “Gina!”

  “Get down,” I told him. Or told the console, since that’s where my face was, still buried under Heidi.

  He touched my leg. “Are you OK? Mrs. Kelly?”

  I twisted my head around so he could hear me. “I said, get down!”

  “He’s long gone,” Mendoza told me, crouching in the open door. “Are you hurt?”

  I wasn’t hurt. I was scared, and I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t wet myself, but I wasn’t hurt. I pushed Heidi off me, with a tinkling of glass as pieces of the broken windshield dropped from her back and head and arms onto the seat and floor. “He’s not long gone. He hasn’t had time to go anywhere. He’s probably still up there, and any second now, he’s going to shoot you!”

  “He isn’t going to shoot me,” Mendoza said, still crouching behind the open door. “If he was going to—or she—they’d have done it by now.”

  He might have a small point there. It had probably been close to a minute since the last shot, and Mendoza legging it across the open parking lot would have made a dandy target had anyone wanted to take him out. I shook more of the broken glass off and scooted all the way around so I could look at him. “What happened?”

  “You opened your door,” Mendoza said, “and whoever was up there started shooting.”

  Beyond that. I mean, I knew that. I didn’t know much, but that particular cause and effect was clear.

  “If somebody was up on the hill,” I asked, “why are you down here?”

  He gave me a look. “First, because I wanted to make sure you were OK. And second, because by the time I was halfway up, whoever was up there would have vanished.”

  He looked past me to Heidi. “Mrs. Newsome? You OK?”

  “Fine,” Heidi said faintly. “Is it safe?”

  “Seems to be,” I said, since the shooting had stopped.

  Heidi made it to a vertical position before she asked, “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?” Mendoza and I said it together, and glanced at one another. “Who?” Mendoza said again.

  Heidi flipped the visor down to examine her face. “Carly’s sister. She killed Harold, and now she tried to kill me.”

  Mendoza didn’t say anything, so I asked, “Why would Tara want to kill you? You didn’t have anything to do with her sister’s death.”

  “For the money,” Heidi said, as if it was self-evident. “With Harold gone, I get part of the money. With me gone, Harold’s children get it all.”

  Including little Cressida, I assumed.

  “Is that how Harold’s will is set up?”

  Because that didn’t sound right to me. My inheritance from David wouldn’t go to David’s children if I died. It would go to… well, I wasn’t sure. I had no children of my own, and no spouse anymore. My mother was dead, and for all I knew, my father was, too. But it would go to whoever my heir was, not David’s kids.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Heidi asked. “Someone just shot at me!”

  At me, more accurately. It hadn’t happened until I opened my door and started getting out. But it didn’t seem germane to point that out. And that second shot might well have been meant for her.

  “Let me get you a ride home, Mrs. Newsome,” Mendoza said calmly, as blue lights started flickering in the distance. A squad car, sirens squealing, came around the corner at the bottom of the street, and a few seconds later, another approached from the opposite direction, with an ambulance on its rear bumper.

  “Nobody’s hurt,” I said.

  Mendoza glanced at me. “I want you looked at. Just to make sure.”

  “The first shot hit the car door. The second hit the windshield. Neither of them came close to us.”

  Close was a relative term, in this case. They’d come much too close for comfort. But not close enough to harm either of us.

  “Humor me,” Mendoza said, and stood up to greet the squad cars and ambulance as they screamed into the lot one after the other. I held my breath, but no more shots came. And then I saw blue lights starting to flash on top of the hill, too, and I finally felt safe.

  * * *

  Mendoza sent Heidi home in one of the squad cars after the paramedics took a look at her and said she was all right. “Make sure she gets inside safely,” he said. “Check the house first.”

  The cops—a young man in his mid-twenties, blond and wholesome-looking, and his partner in his mid-forties, with ginger hair going gray—nodded.

  “Come on, Mrs. Newsome.” The young blond took Heidi’s elbow and towed her toward the squad car while his partner rolled his eyes and followed at a slower pace.

  Mendoza turned to me. “What about you, Mrs. Kelly?”

  He’d called me Gina earlier, but there was no point in mentioning it.

  “I’m fine, too. Clean bill of health.” I could go home. If I’d had a car to go home in. But mine needed a new windshield and some bodywork before I could drive it again.

  “I’ll have the car towed,” Mendoza said. “We’ll have to dig the bullet out of it and match it to the one that killed Harold.”

  “What are the chances it’ll be different?”

  “Pretty good, actually,” Mendoza said. He had his hands on his hips and was rocking gently forward and backward as he surveyed all the activity in the lot and on top of the hill. “Harold was shot with a small caliber handgun. This had to be a rifle.”

  I glanced in the direction of the hill. “Nobody up there, I guess?”

  He shook his head. “By the time the first car got up to the top, it was deserted. They’re going door to door now, to see whether anyone noticed a person or a car.”

  It would be nice if someone had, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Although a yellow VW Beetle, if that’s what had been up there, was a fairly noticeable car. Not at all like, say, a black Lexus SUV. So there was a chance someone might have seen and noticed it.

  Mendoza nodded when I said so. “Then again, if nobody saw the VW Beetle, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”

  No, it didn’t. “There weren’t a lot of people who knew we were going to be here. She was one of them.”

  Mendoza nodded. “Anyone else? Did you tell your new boyfriend?”

  “Greg Newsome, you mean? No, of course not. I haven’t spoken to him today. Tara knew, since she set it up. I told Zachary and Heidi. Heidi might have told Gwendolyn and Jacquie.”

  “Jacquie?” Mendoza said.

  “When I went to visit this afternoon, Heidi had Gwendolyn Oliver and Jacquie Demetros there.”

  “The same Jacquie Demetros who was sleeping with your husband?”

  I nodded. “Turns out she and Heidi became friends during the time David was alive. They were both there at Heidi’s house helping her drown her sorrows in a pitcher of strawberry margaritas.”

  Mendoza didn’t say anything, but those elegant eyebrows arched.

  “Jacquie and Heidi bonded over their mutual admiration for you,” I added. “Gwendolyn is considering bumping off John so she can get a late-night visit from Detective Mendoza, too.”

  I thought his cheekbones might have darkened a little, but it was hard to be sure.

  “Anyway,” I continued, since this conversation was getting us nowhere, “What do you think happened here?”

  He hesitated. “On the face of it, Tara Cullinan shot Harold, and set up an appointment with you—in a dark, deserted place—so she could shoot you, too. You’re the only person that we know about who can put her in Somerset at the time of the shooting.”

  I nodded. On the face of it, that was a reasonable explanation.

  “She was on top of the hill waiting for you to open your car door so she could be sure she was trying to take out the right person. I assume she’s se
en you at some point?”

  I thought back. “For a second, outside Harold’s office on Friday. I called out to her, and she turned around to look at me.”

  “Enough to recognize you, then.”

  “Probably.”

  “When she was sure it was you, she shot at you. When you jumped back inside the car, she put a bullet through the middle of the windshield to try to get you. At no point did she realize Heidi was there.”

  That sounded reasonable, too. There was no way she could have known Heidi would be there. Not unless she’d been inside Somerset again, and had seen Heidi get in the car with me. But if so, she couldn’t have been on top of the hill and ready to shoot me when I got here.

  Mendoza nodded. “She probably doesn’t know whether she managed to hit you or not. She couldn’t wait around to see.”

  No. If it had been Tara Cullinan up on top of the hill, she would have packed up and left as soon as she put the second bullet through the windshield. Probably as soon as she saw Mendoza come running. Or sooner.

  She could be somewhere else now, though, watching. I looked around, as a creepy feeling crawled down my spine.

  “The road is blocked on both ends,” Mendoza said. “Nobody’s driving past. And there are officers and crime scene techs on top of the hill. She can’t see you.”

  “Then why do I feel like I’ve got a bull’s eye in the middle of my back?” I shifted uncomfortably.

  “Because you’re human,” Mendoza said, and put his hand there. He must have had that feeling too, in the past—or maybe he had it now—because he knew exactly where that bull’s eye was located. “Come on, Mrs. Kelly.” He nudged me forward. “I’ll take you home.”

  * * *

  “Is this what you drive when you’re not driving the sedan?” I asked, when I was installed in the front seat of the dark pickup and we were on our way down the street toward the roadblock on the corner.

  Mendoza shook his head. “Just another car from the stable.”

  “A police car?” It didn’t look like a police car. It might have a few extra antennae, but there was nothing else to indicate it wasn’t just any other car on the road. The government plate was conspicuously absent, and so was the screen and all the other stuff on the dashboard.