by Misty Simon
Plus, there was a barn that I hadn’t searched. Maybe there were clues to what happened in it. The carpet had to have come from somewhere, and Audra had to have been killed in a space big enough to roll out that carpet. There were a few rooms in the house that could have worked, but if the barn held all the stuff the Petrovskis had collected throughout the years, then there was a very good chance it could be where she was killed. I certainly hadn’t seen any blood on my walk-through of the house earlier.
As I maneuvered around the hearse in order to park, I tried to put the whole grisly affair aside. There wasn’t anything I could do about the death of a friend at the moment, and perhaps taking an evening to chill would bring new ideas about what had happened and who had done it.
In an effort to give myself a break, that night I laughed with Gina and Jeremy and Max, roared with laughter at the movie we went to, and was stuffed when we got home. Every time I thought of that hand in the Dumpster and the way Audra had been lifeless, I tried to submerge the images. There would be time to think about it all after I put all my effort into remembering that life was precious and should be lived to the fullest, because you never knew when it might end.
But after our night out, when I was maneuvering again around the hearse, my cell phone rang. Parking quarters were tight, so I didn’t even glance down at the phone. I’d pick it up once I had pulled the parking brake. I had to back up my car and pull in another three times before the parking job was finally done. Breathing out a huge sigh, I promised myself I’d park the big boat of a car better after I drove it for tomorrow’s funeral.
“You need to get that?” Max asked from the passenger’s seat.
When I picked up my phone, I saw Letty had called. I hesitated with the thing in my hand. Should I call her now? Wait to hear from Burton? Talk to Max first? I paused. Or none of the above? I thought when her number came across my screen again and my familiar ringtone sang in the silent car.
“I guess so.”
He kissed me on the cheek, then opened his door. “I’ll go get the fur kids settled and see you upstairs.”
On the last ring before the call would have gone to voice mail, I answered. “Hey, Letty.”
“What is going on, Tallie? I just heard from Yolanda that they have Audra’s boyfriend in custody and that girl is dead. I also heard that we didn’t get the job.” Her quick indrawn breath was the beginning of a sob fest that lasted for about three minutes. She eventually got herself under control, though I doubted it had anything to do with the empty platitudes I was murmuring over the phone.
“I’m sorry, Letty. I don’t know what’s happened, and I don’t have all the details.” I fiddled with the gear shift, wishing there was something more I could say.
“How do you not have all the details? You always have all the details, even the ones the police don’t have.” She wailed that last part.
“They think they have the right guy, since the boyfriend came to the site and started running. I was told not to get involved.”
“Are you kidding me? Tallie Graver not get involved? Who are you, and what did you do with my employer?”
I chuckled because it sounded like that was what she wanted me to do. “What do you know about the boyfriend, then? Do you think he did it?”
She hummed across the line. “I know that despite the ring, things had not been going too well. But he’s a sweet kid. She was the wild one. I can’t imagine him hurting her, and certainly not rolling her up in a carpet and throwing her away in the garbage.”
“How do you know that?” I was usually pretty quick with the information around town and was part of the gossip chain, but Letty had to have an insider that was better informed than my own.
“My friend Yolanda is filling in for Suzy down at the station while Suzy’s on vacation.”
“Oh.” That was all I could say, because my brain was positively whirling with the possibilities. Would Yolanda give me more than Suzy, who had a very big loyalty to Burton, ever had? Could I get the info without having to fight everyone?
I admit I had been surprised when Caleb bolted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he just hadn’t been able to process the information in, and so he had run to get away from it all. I didn’t think he’d murdered Audra, though. However, I also didn’t know him.
But Letty knew Yolanda, who could get info about the boyfriend’s interrogation and Audra. If she could tell me what I needed to know, then maybe I could look into it. At least just for the moment. Maybe just a little, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and neither were the police.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said to Letty, wanting to make sure that she understood I was on her side.
“Me, too, so I’m going to ask you something that I never would normally.”
I braced myself. Was she going to ask me to beg for this job? The one that was supposed to launch our unnamed company? How was I going to tell all those women that I was yanking the rug out from under them? Should I start looking for other jobs to replace it now? I gulped. “Go on.”
She paused for a moment and then blurted, “I need you to put on the nosy hat and do your thing. We need to figure out what happened to Audra, and we need that job, and I can’t rest until we do. Will you please go and find out who did this?”
“I was planning on it, but my hands could be tied on both the figuring out the murder part and the job part. I might be able to get the job, since Mrs. P has no one now, but the murder could be beyond my capabilities.” It was one thing when I was the chief suspect or when one of my closest friends was accused of being the murderer. It was also easier to be involved when I was specifically asked by the police to look into things. But with Burton already having a suspect and thinking the case was all wrapped up, I wasn’t sure how much I could do other than make sure they weren’t making mistakes, because they didn’t have all the info. “Why is this so important to you?”
There was a beat of silence where Letty choked up again. She took a deep breath and then sighed it out. “Caleb is family, Tallie. He’s my nephew, and I can’t let him go down for something I know he didn’t do.”
Chapter Seven
The next morning, bright and early, I got up and did exactly the wrong thing. I knew I shouldn’t be back on the road to the mansion. I should be at my apartment, figuring out what to do with myself for the day, since I had set it aside in anticipation of winning the mansion contract. Last night was filled with fun and a great movie. I had felt like a normal person out on a normal date with my boyfriend, my best friend, and my brother. No worries about murders or murderers. But then Letty had called after we’d gotten home. And fun and games had turned into concern. Max and I had talked murder and mayhem, while I’d braced myself for the fact that if I looked into this I’d have to endure most of the people in my life telling me to get a real hobby instead of searching out clues.
Eventually, Max and I had fallen asleep and I’d put the murder aside to rest. But all along I had known that I couldn’t let Letty down, so today was different. I was on the case, whether Burton wanted me or not.
Last night I’d had nightmares about the killer getting away. I’d tossed and turned as I ruminated about Letty’s request and my promise that I would do whatever it took to help find the killer. So yes, I knew I shouldn’t get involved, acknowledged it, then shunted it aside and kept on driving.
As I drove to the mansion, I hoped that it would be unoccupied. I still had the key from yesterday morning, and as long as I didn’t touch anything, I would be fine. I just couldn’t get over the look on Caleb’s face and Letty’s words that he wouldn’t have done this. She knew because he was her nephew.
Of course, as soon as I rounded the last corner, there was Matt leaning against his police cruiser, with his arms tightly crossed over his chest. I started rummaging around in my brain for something I could say I had left behind yesterday, to give me a reason to be back where I was obviously not wanted.
My vacuum was still h
ere, the one I had pulled out of the Dumpster before I realized I was standing on top of my friend wrapped in a carpet. Okay, that would work. Heck, I would make it work if I had to.
“You know, when Burton said I should stick around in case anyone came back who could be suspicious, I don’t believe he was thinking of you, but I guess he could have been,” he said as I emerged from my car.
I put on the injured face and went with my gut. “Matt, come on. I’m just coming back for my vacuum. I remembered I’d left it here, and I can’t be without it.”
“Yeah, not working. Besides, Burton took that in as evidence, just in case it’s the murder weapon, along with all your other cleaning implements. Try again. Better yet, don’t try at all, because it’s not going to work.” He shook his head, then just gave me a look. He was probably waiting for me to lob the next lie at him. I wasn’t going to play that game.
“Look, you and I both know that Burton and all you guys really have a lot on your plate. There’s more going on here than an angry boyfriend. How did he kill her? How did he get her rolled up in the carpet? How did he carry her out of the house in the carpet? Heck, how did he get the carpet into the Dumpster? She wasn’t small, and she had to be heavy as deadweight.” I winced since I had not meant for it to come out sounding that way, and yet it was true.
“All questions we already have under consideration. I’m not quite sure why you always seem to think we can’t do our jobs, Tallie. We were doing this long before you came in and started being the unmasked avenger. We’ll be doing this long after you finally get that hobby everyone keeps encouraging you to get.”
“My God, the notepad was enough yesterday afternoon. Now you actually sound like Burton. Your mom is not going to be happy with that. I’m not happy with that.”
“Burton is a good guy, if you’d ever give him a chance. The only reason he’s always irritated with you is that you don’t let him do his job without your nose completely up in all his business.”
I crossed my arms over my own chest, mirroring his stance. “That’s not true. When Darla died, I tried to give him all the things I’d found and the information that was coming to me, and he brushed me off, until I found the money and the killer for him. With Gina, I was not going to let him take my friend to jail when I knew she hadn’t done it. And with the home inspector, he was the one who came to me, asking me to look into things, because he was on leave. I’ve given him any number of chances. It’s not that I think he can’t do his job. It’s that I think I can help.”
Blowing out a breath, Matt finally uncrossed his arms and stuck his hands into his pockets instead. “And you have to look at it from his perspective. You’re making him look like a fool every time you solve one of these things and he doesn’t do it himself.”
“I never intend that.” Well, sometimes I had, but I certainly wasn’t going to admit it.
“Then back off.”
I couldn’t. “You have the wrong guy. Letty knows this Caleb, and she is certain he wouldn’t have killed his girlfriend. He’d just proposed to her, and they were going to dinner to celebrate. Plus, why would he come back and act surprised and then run and yell if he’d already known she was dead?”
“Because he didn’t think we’d find her that easily. Remember, the truck was supposed to haul away the Dumpster before anyone got here. You thwarted that.”
“Yeah, I did, and the only thing I got for my help was a pat on the head and a kick in the pants.”
He scoffed while I frowned. “That’s not true.”
“It most certainly is. Burton figuratively patted me on the head and told me to go home to my boyfriend.” Now I pulled my crossed arms tighter over my chest. At least I had him talking, which meant he wasn’t running me off the property. Maybe I could get some information this way and find out what they thought they had on the poor kid that made them so sure he was going to confess to killing his girlfriend.
Matt, the devil, laughed, pushing himself off the cruiser and tucking his thumbs into his belt. “Classic Burton. More than anything, he’s just trying to keep you out of trouble, Tallie, though you seem to find it no matter where you go or how you get there. You’re a part of this town, and he’s fiercely protective of it. Every time you get involved in one of these things, he gets his nose out of joint about you getting hurt.”
“And yet last time he didn’t have any problem setting me up to be the whipping boy.”
“He most certainly did.” Matt shifted his stance to lean back against the squad car. “He agonized over that. In the end, though, he didn’t have another choice, because of the dirty cop we were dealing with.”
I highly doubted Burton agonized over anything. Especially me. It was time to change the subject. “So why are you all so sure that Caleb did this? Did he confess?”
“You just can’t let it go.”
“I’m a concerned citizen.”
“You’re a nosey parker.”
My mouth dropped open as I stared at him. “I haven’t heard that term in forever!”
Clearing his throat, he shook his head at me. “My grandmother said it the other day to my mom, and it stuck in my head. But it’s you to a T. Why can’t you stay out of these things? It’s not like we haven’t done our job before.”
“You said that before, and I’ll tell you again. It’s not that I want to do your job. I would be horrible at your job. Giving citations and dealing with nasty people all day, having to wear a bulletproof vest, and pulling people over for things I do every day? No thanks. But this kind of thing just seems to make sense in my head . . . when I see all the clues and people tell me things, whether they realize it or not.”
He took me in for a second and got an intense look in his eye. “Why don’t you go to school and become a private investigator? If you had a license, then Burton would trust you to be discreet. And while we’re not always happy to have you on board, you at least would have some real reason to be in the middle of things.”
I took a step back. Not literally, but in my mind I leaped back from that possibility. It was one thing to help in an ongoing investigation or to make sure an investigation got moving, but I certainly didn’t want to get paid to spy on cheating husbands or to find bad people—or even good people. I was not made for a life of fighting crime. I might not have always known what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I had known it wasn’t that. No thank you.
“While I appreciate your vote of confidence, I’m going to have to say no.” I shrugged and hoped he would take that as the end of the conversation. I was going to have to come back at another time to look for any clues to help with proving someone else had killed Audra and why. I debated briefly about including Matt in it, then thought better of it. He might not be willing to let me in the house, and if he did and we couldn’t find anything, then I might look like an idiot.
He shrugged. “Whatever. At least that way you’d be a professional instead of the amateur sleuth you seem determined to be. You’re not doing yourself any favors by being involved when Burton doesn’t want you here.”
“Believe me, I am fully aware of that.” I wrestled some more with the thought of asking Matt to walk the house with me. Now that the notion was in there, I couldn’t seem to shake it loose. This was the guy I used to hop in the creek with to catch crawfish on camping vacations. We shared a grandmother, though not the one who’d called his mom a nosey parker. Surely I could ask him for a favor and not get laughed at. Plus, I knew he was going to school to get his degree to advance in the police department. It would only boost his chances of getting on the fast track to a promotion if he was able to catch a break in a case. Right? Right.
I cleared my throat and looked around the driveway. I didn’t know why, but I just had this feeling that Burton was going to come tearing up the drive and yank Matt away from me, then send me to jail for interfering.
“Just say whatever is on your little bird brain. And then get moving. Burton’s due here in an hour or so, and I want to do a
walk of the perimeter for him before he gets back from talking with Caleb at the station.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to go with him when his radio crackled alive. Matt, being the professional he was, turned his back to me and started to walk away. Me, being the nosey parker I was, followed him and ignored him when he tried to shoo me away.
“Go ahead, boss, but I’ve got ears here.”
“Tallie?” The tone of voice was not unfamiliar. “What’s she doing there?”
“The usual,” Matt responded to Burton.
“Whatever. I don’t have time for her at the moment, and maybe she’ll come up with something useful. Caleb has an alibi, an airtight one, and he swears he didn’t kill the victim. We’re at square one. I’m sending out some guys to make sure all the evidence is collected that we need and then to try to get some answers. There’s pressure to open the mansion back up. I don’t want to hear about it anymore, but now we have to start all over again.”
“Pressure from whom?” I asked, wanting Matt to ask for me over the radio.
But Burton must have heard me, because he answered with a crackle. “Your future employer, Tallie. Mrs. Petrovski wants this place open right now, for some godforsaken reason. She’s putting pressure on my superior to get it open, and apparently, she’s decided that you’re cleaning it.”
“Your superior?”
I noticed Matt didn’t push the TALK button on his two-way this time. “His mom.”
“Oh,” I said and snickered, because I knew that pressure all too well. Mrs. P and Burton’s mother ran in the same circles, so Mrs. P must have pulled out the big guns to make sure that she could have access to her house for that potential buyer she’d referenced earlier.
“So get in there and get evidence, Matt. And, Tallie, do whatever it is you’re going to do, because no one ever listens to me anymore, anyway.” He signed off, and Matt and I shared a look.
