Haunting Harold

by Jenna Bennett

  “Does the guard own one of those, too?”

  “No,” Mendoza said. “I want to talk to him about the rifle. And see if he can produce it.”

  “It’s probably at home, don’t you think? I don’t think he’d bring it to work with him.” There wasn’t much need for a rifle in the gatehouse at Somerset.

  “I just want to talk to him,” Mendoza said grimly. “I’ll take you with me, if you want—both of you—but not if you don’t stop giving me a hard time.”

  “I’m not—!”

  Zachary and I said it at the same time, and both of us subsided at the same time, with a shared look.

  Mendoza’s lips curved sardonically. “What about you?” he asked Rachel, enthroned behind her desk. “You want to come, too?”

  “I’ll stay here and hold down the fort,” Rachel said.

  “If you’re sure.” Mendoza turned toward the door and gestured me ahead of him. Zachary scurried out behind us.

  He ended up in the backseat of the gray sedan, while I sat next to Mendoza in the front. He didn’t open the door for me this time, but left it to Zachary to do. I’m perfectly capable of opening my own door, but I don’t eschew chivalry, especially when it comes from a nineteen-year-old boy I love as if he were my own.

  “Thank you.” I slid into the seat next to Mendoza, and let Zachary shut the door and crawl into the back.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Mendoza warned as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” The dashboard, full of buttons and switches none of my cars had ever had, looked intimidating.

  Zachary, on the other hand, was leaning over the console, eyes shining. “Cool!” he breathed.

  “Would you like to sit up front?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I can see just fine from here.”

  Mendoza’s tight lips relaxed, but didn’t say anything. Not about that. “Just out of curiosity,” he asked, as we exited the parking lot and headed down Music Row in the same direction Greg had taken earlier, “what are you trying to accomplish by tagging along?”

  “I just don’t want to miss anything else,” Zachary said.

  “If he’s responsible,” I told him, “I don’t want you going there alone. What if he shoots you?”

  “He won’t,” Mendoza said. “I have the rifle. And they don’t have guns as part of their uniforms. I checked.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. He could still be armed. And there is another gun in this, right? Harold wasn’t shot with a rifle.”

  “Harold was shot with the handgun that went missing in July,” Mendoza said. And added, a little less surely, “At least that’s my current theory.”

  “Who shot him? The guard?”

  He didn’t answer, just focused on driving, and I thought about it. So did Zachary. After a few moments, he said, “Do you think he’s the one who broke in?”

  “He’d know when the Newsomes were gone,” I said, acknowledging Zachary’s point with a nod. “And the other residents, too. Maybe he passed that information onto someone else. Or maybe he has a second income stream. He probably doesn’t make a lot of money, sitting in that guardhouse.”

  “I didn’t make a lot of money sitting in the Apex,” Zachary muttered. And added, “Not that I’d ever take up burglary as a second job.”

  We sat in silence another few seconds.

  “There was a golf cart parked outside the neighbor’s house the morning Harold was shot,” I said. “Tara mentioned it this morning.”

  Mendoza nodded, as we crossed over I-440 toward Green Hills proper. I peered down the interstate toward the spot where David had met his end—a habit I had developed in the past two months—and Mendoza glanced at me. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell that he knew what was going through my head.

  “A guy in a golf cart showed up on Friday afternoon, too,” Zachary piped up. “Just a couple of minutes after Harold left.”

  “Did he go inside?”

  The sedan crested the hill and passed the Boy Scout catfish before heading down toward the mall.

  Zachary shook his head. “He and Mrs. Newsome talked for a couple of minutes on the front step. Then he went back in the golf cart and she went back inside.”

  “I don’t suppose you could hear what they said?”

  But Zachary hadn’t. “I couldn’t get close enough. Sorry.”

  “No problem.” Mendoza steered the car down the hill past the mall. “We’ll just ask him when we get there.”

  “I saw the golf cart on Saturday morning, too,” I said. “Not in front of the house next door, though. It came down the hill after the Beetle when I was sitting outside the gate. After the shot was fired.”

  The car nipped across the intersection of Hillsboro and Harding Road just before the light turned red.

  I continued, “Heidi told me the neighbors were out of town. It was just before I left, when I asked whether she wanted me to call someone to stay with her. Or invite one of the neighbors over. You were out in the hallway, I think. Eavesdropping.”

  I shot a look at Mendoza. He didn’t respond, but his mouth curved.

  “She said the neighbor on the left didn’t like her—my left, her right; she was facing me—and the neighbors on the right were gone for the weekend.”

  “Tara said the cart was parked outside the Spanish house,” Mendoza said. “That’s the one on the right, isn’t it?”

  “As far as I remember. The one on the other side—the one that was also broken into over the summer—is an English cottage. Did you talk to this guy on Saturday?”

  “Briefly,” Mendoza said as we flew down the road, “although not about this. I asked him about gate procedures and whether he’d let anyone in on Saturday morning who didn’t belong.”

  “Did he mention Tara?”

  Mendoza shook his head. “He did mention you, though. Harold had told him to expect you.”

  “Had he told him to expect Tara?”

  Mendoza shook his head. “That doesn’t mean anything, though. He might have assumed she had the code for the gate. Which she did.”

  Maybe.

  There wasn’t any time to worry about it, anyway. The gates to Somerset were in sight, and a few seconds later, Mendoza turned in and came to stop in front of the gatehouse. “Good afternoon.”

  The guard nodded. He was young and muscular and clean-cut, with muscles that stretched the sleeves of his uniform shirt.

  Mendoza flashed his ID. “Aaron, right? You were here Saturday morning, weren’t you? We talked for a bit.”

  Aaron indicated that they had, and looked wary.

  “I have a couple more questions,” Mendoza told him. “Nothing to worry about. Just routine.”

  “Sure,” Aaron said.

  “I understand you own a gun? A rifle, I should say.”

  Aaron nodded, and swallowed hard. I could see the color drain out of his cheeks.

  “I’d like to see it,” Mendoza said gently.

  “It’s… uh… at home.”

  Mendoza nodded. “We’ll do that later, then. The other questions are a little more complicated. But I understand you came into some money over the summer? Bought yourself a new vehicle and some other things?”

  Aaron managed a jerky nod. I guess his power of speech had left him, along with the color in his face.

  “Why don’t you come on up to the clubhouse,” Mendoza said, in a perfectly pleasant voice that nonetheless made the suggestion sound like an order, “and we’ll take care of it now.”

  Aaron swallowed. And swallowed again, before he got his voice to cooperate. “I can’t leave the gate unattended.”

  “You did it on Saturday morning,” Mendoza said genially, “didn’t you?”

  He didn’t wait for Aaron to confirm it, just added, “It won’t take long. Just a few minutes, like I said. We’ll see you up there.”

  He rolled on through the opening as the gate moved back.

  Chapter 18

 
“What was that about?” I asked when we were on the other side of the gate and on our way up the hill toward the clubhouse.

  Mendoza glanced at me. “The money? That’s what I want to know. There’s no trace of it. No inheritance or anything like that. And there’s enough of it that the IRS should have had a record if he’d gotten it in cash, in any legal way.”

  “How much money?” Zachary wanted to know.

  Mendoza shot him a look in the rearview mirror. “Enough to account for the missing paintings and other things that disappeared in the burglaries.”

  We sat in silence a moment while Mendoza crested the hill and pulled the sedan into a parking space next to a gleaming Jeep Wrangler in poison-frog green that was parked outside the clubhouse.

  “Is that the car?” I asked.

  Mendoza nodded.

  “Nice.”

  “You have the money to buy one.”

  Of course I did. However— “It’s even more conspicuous than the convertible David bought me. I’d never be able to tail anyone in that.”

  Mendoza’s lips curved, but he didn’t speak.

  “So you think Aaron committed the burglaries,” Zachary said, as Mendoza unfastened his seatbelt and opened his car door.

  “Where are you going?” I added.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder as he swung his legs out. “Just to take a look through the windows. In case I see something of interest.”

  “No search warrant for this?”

  He shook his head. “But if there’s evidence in plain view, that doesn’t matter.”

  He got to his feet and shut his door. I thought for a second, and got out, too. Zachary did the same, and we all congregated around the brightly colored Jeep.

  “So you think—” Zachary began again, looking for confirmation of his theory, and Mendoza nodded.

  “Yes. I think Aaron committed the burglaries.”

  He peered through the back window of the Jeep. “And I think it’s possible that Harold found out about it, and Aaron shot him. Using the handgun he took from Harold’s house.”

  There must have been nothing of interest in the rear of the car, because he moved on to one of the side windows. “We already know he was away from the guardhouse when Harold was shot. Tara saw the cart outside the neighbor’s house. It was a quick walk into the backyard, and from there, just a few yards to the patio.”

  He moved to the next window. “When Harold fell, he ran back to the golf cart and drove to the gate. And acted like nothing had happened.”

  That made sense, I guess. There was only one thing… “How are you going to prove it? You don’t have any evidence.”

  He smirked. “I have the rifle. And his bank records. His new car. Tara’s testimony about the cart. And you saw how he behaved just now. It won’t take long to get a confession out of him.”

  Speaking of taking long… “Shouldn’t he be on his way here by now?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Mendoza said, and took a few steps to the side, where he could peer down the hill to the gatehouse. “He’s coming. One of the golf carts is pulling out. It’s—”

  It wasn’t coming this way.

  “Dammit,” Mendoza said, “what does he think he’s doing?”

  The gate was swinging slowly aside, and Aaron had got the golf cart going and was moving straight for the opening.

  “I don’t believe it.” Mendoza ran for the sedan, with Zachary and me on his heels. I hadn’t even gotten the door all the way closed when he peeled out of the parking spot in a squealing arc. He wrenched the sedan into forward motion, and then we were going down the hill as fast as we could, while Mendoza kept muttering curses and exhortations at the gate so it wouldn’t shut.

  “Where the hell does he think he’s going?” he added, mostly to himself, as he zoomed down the hill toward the gate. “It’s a golf cart! How does he think he’s going to be able to outrun me in a golf cart?”

  “How fast can a golf cart go?” On the course, they certainly don’t move very fast. But that’s over grass. This was on a paved road.

  “Twenty, twenty-five?” Mendoza said, with a glance in both directions as we blasted past the gatehouse and onto the road. I have no idea what he would have done if anyone had been coming, because we were going too fast to stop quickly.

  Mendoza took the turn on two wheels, got the car back on all fours, and lowered his foot on the gas pedal. The sedan jumped forward.

  “It runs well,” I remarked, as the velocity pinned me back against the seat, “for a police car.”

  He glanced my way and smirked. “Police cars may not look like much, but they’re in good condition. We often have to run down the bad guys.”

  “Not literally, I hope.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to run into him. Just catch up. Hopefully he’ll have the sense to stop when I do.”

  Hopefully he would. And hopefully he wasn’t armed when he did. Mendoza might have the rifle, but there was still Harold’s handgun to worry about.

  As we barreled down the road at seventy miles an hour, Mendoza grabbed the radio and made a request for backup. “Suspect is moving south on Hillsboro Road in a golf cart—”

  “I’m sorry, Detective.” The dispatcher sounded amused. “Did you say golf cart?”

  “Yes,” Mendoza said, teeth clenched, “I said golf cart. What I didn’t say, was armed and dangerous. And I have a car full of civilians. I need someone else to transport him downtown once I catch up.”

  “No problem, Detective. Backup is on the way.” She hung up, and I’m sure had a good laugh at the picture of Mendoza chasing down a golf cart. I guess we were lucky it had all happened too quickly for any TV coverage.

  “There he is,” Zachary said, still leaning forward between the seats, one hand on each, and peering out the windshield.

  There he was. Making good time down the road, but we were catching up with every second that passed.

  Mendoza shook his head. “I can’t imagine what he thought he was doing.”

  “He probably just panicked,” I said, as the golf cart came closer and closer. Mendoza made no move to slow down. “What are you going to do?”

  “Go around him and pull in front. He’ll have to slow down or go into the ditch.”

  He suited words to action—or vice versa. The sedan zoomed past the golf cart and came to a quivering stop, brakes squealing, blocking the road. I slammed against the seatbelt and then the back of the seat.

  “Ooof!” Zachary said from the back of the car as the same thing happened to him.

  Mendoza already had his door open and his gun out. “Don’t move!” he yelled, as he braced both hands on the top of the car.

  I turned and looked out the other window. The golf cart had stopped, and Aaron was sitting behind the wheel looking part scared, part angry. “I’m going home!” he yelled. “You can’t stop me!”

  I shook my head—of course Mendoza could stop him—but before anything else could happen, Aaron had flung himself off the golf cart and into the ditch. A second later, he was scrambling up the other side.

  Mendoza said a bad word, because of course he couldn’t actually shoot him. He started around the car while he tucked the gun away. Zachary, meanwhile, opened his door and practically fell out on the pavement. And picked himself up and gave pursuit.

  Mendoza leapt the ditch in a single bound. He slipped a little as he landed—the slick soles of those elegant leather shoes, probably—but kept his balance and took off across the fields after Zachary and Aaron.

  I took my time getting out of the car, since I was wearing heels and a dress, and I had no desire to pelt across the grass chasing after a potential murderer.

  It wasn’t much of a chase, anyway, and pretty anti-climactic at the end. When Aaron glanced over his shoulder to see how close the other two were getting, he stumbled over something hidden by the grass, and fell flat. A second later, Zachary flung himself on top of him. A second after that, Mendoza—Armani suit
and all—landed on top of them. And a few seconds later, I heard sirens from up the street.

  * * *

  By the time Mendoza and Zachary between them had subdued Aaron, who was putting up a fight and yelling that he hadn’t done anything and they couldn’t arrest him, a black and white squad car had pulled up behind the golf cart. Two uniformed officers got out, both of them grinning. “Good job, Detective,” one of them said as Mendoza wrestled his captive out of the ditch and shoved him into the back of the squad car. “You got him.”

  Mendoza gave him a crushing look as he yanked his jacket back into place and smoothed his hair. “Just take him and leave.”

  “You don’t need help getting the cart back?”

  “Zachary’ll drive the cart,” Mendoza said. Zachary looked pleased.

  “Take him,” Mendoza nodded to Aaron, yelling and waving his arms in the back of the squad car, “to downtown and put him in holding until I get there. Threaten him with a charge of resisting arrest if he won’t calm down. And follow through if you have to. But I’d prefer to talk to him without his lawyer present, so let’s not make it easy for him to get one. All I wanted was a conversation.”

  The officers both nodded. “Anything else?”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Thirty, forty minutes. We have to return the cart, and then I have to take Zachary and Mrs. Kelly home.”

  “We’ll make sure he’s there when you’re ready for him,” one of the cops said. “See you, Detective.”

  They went back to their car and rolled away, with Aaron still carrying on in the backseat.

  Mendoza turned to Zachary. “Have you ever driven a golf cart before?”

  Zachary eyed it, still sitting there in the middle of the road with the engine humming. “No. But there’s a steering wheel. How hard can it be?”

  “Probably not hard.” Mendoza slapped him on the back. “Go on and get in. I’ll follow you.”

  He opened the door for me and waited until I’d folded myself into the front seat before he shut it. By the time he’d walked around the car and gotten behind the wheel, Zachary had turned the cart around and was rolling sedately up the road in the direction of Somerset. Mendoza executed a neat four-point turn and followed.