by Sam Cheever
“Yeah, go ahead and break it. We need to talk to him.”
Hal looked around for something to break the glass with and found a big rock. “Grab the cat,” he instructed as he stepped away from the window.
I carefully scooped her up, offering a silent prayer to the goddess of cats that she wouldn’t sink her pearly whites into me. She yowled with indignation, but let me hug her close. To my shock, she even purred a little. “Come here, Caphy girl.” My dog trotted over to me, her ears pinched against her head with uncertainty when she saw who I was holding.
I tugged her several feet away as Hal lifted the rock and threw it at the glass. It shattered violently, but most of the glass followed the rock inside. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and knocked a bigger hole that he could reach through without slicing up his arm.
Unlocking the window, Hal tugged it open.
He peered carefully through, his gaze sliding around the room. “It’s empty.”
But something shifted inside. A figure leaped up from behind the desk and ran toward the door. Hal whipped around. “He’s making a run for it. Is there a back way out?”
“Another door,” I said, nodding.
He took off around the building. “Stay here in case he comes this way.”
I frowned but realized that made sense. I walked over to the big hangar doors and tried them, settling the cat on the ground as Caphy trotted along beside me.
I heard footsteps pounding across the concrete floor inside. “Devon? Just come out here and talk to me.” The footsteps stopped, but he didn’t identify himself. Then inspiration struck. “We already found her,” I told him. “You don’t need to lie to me anymore.”
A moment later the lock on the small door clicked, and a second lock snicked open. My eyes went wide as I realized he’d installed a deadbolt too. I hadn’t even noticed the change.
The rat.
Devon came outside and stood staring at me with an angry glare on his bristled face. I was caught off guard, wondering what he could possibly be mad at me about. He was the one who’d apparently claimed squatter’s rights to my dad’s hangar.
But my heart softened when I saw how tired he looked. Purple arcs underscored his dark brown gaze. His face was thinner than I remembered, hardened from harsh circumstances and scored with deep lines where once round cheeks had been the predominant feature. His hair was more gray than brown but it was short, just touching the back of his neck, and looked clean. He also wasn’t dressed like a homeless person anymore. In fact, his clothes were respectable and looked clean. Though the big hands hanging down by his sides were calloused and work reddened.
I walked over to him. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
He shrugged. “It was her wish. She was trying to keep you safe.”
A soul-deep anger flashed through me. I was sick to death of people hurting me in the name of keeping me safe. “That’s just stupid. If somebody wanted to harm me, they’d have done it by now.”
Dev scratched his bearded chin. I was happy to see the bushy mustache was gone. “That’s just wrong, Joey. They don’t bother with you because they believe she’s dead. If they find out she’s alive, you become a very handy bargaining chip. She couldn’t risk that.”
“Bargaining chip for what? What does she know that someone would kill to protect?”
He shook his head. “It’s not my place to tell.”
I bit back frustration. I’d hit a brick wall. Two brick walls, actually. And I wasn’t going to break through unless or until they decided to tell me what was going on. But there was one thing I could still find out. “What do you know about the murder of the real estate agent?”
His gaze skittered away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Hal rounded the far end of the long building at a run. “He ducked out the back. I lost him in the trees…” My PI skidded to a halt, his handsome face showing surprise.
“I’ve got him,” I called out. But my rather obvious declaration did nothing to clear the surprise off Hal’s face. He strode quickly toward us.
“He wasn’t alone,” Hal accused as he approached. “He’s the distraction. His buddy hoofed it out the back.”
Dev’s face turned red. “That’s a pretty nasty charge, Amity…”
“That might be,” Hal responded, his hands clenching into fists. “But it’s the truth, isn’t it?”
As Devon bristled, his shoulders squaring, I realized I’d have to step in or they were going to come to blows. The two men had a rough history based on very different ideas of how to keep me safe. I lifted a hand, addressing myself to Hal. “Let’s just calm down. Dev’s going to come clean. Aren’t you, Uncle Devon?” I asked.
I’d thought using the term of trust and affection I’d used for him all my life would soften him up a bit. Or at least shame him into cooperating. But I was disappointed as he vehemently shook his head.
“If there was someone else in that building, I didn’t know it.” Some of the color leached out of his face. “It might be one of his guys. If so, then we’re all in danger.”
His words were the distraction he’d probably intended. “Whose guys? Why are we in danger?” I asked, even as an icy band of dread gripped my lungs.
Hal stepped closer. “Medford’s? You think Medford sent someone here to deal with you?”
Devon scowled at Hal’s words and turned to me. “I’m not sure about the details yet, honey. But I’ll find out. I promise.”
Hal’s head was shaking before Dev finished speaking. “Not good enough, Little. A real estate agent was killed on Joey’s property. Strangely enough, here you are again. Just like you were the last time someone was murdered on this property.”
“I told you I had nothing to do with that!” Devon yelled.
I placed a hand on his arm. He turned an angry expression to me. “Did you by any chance use the leash I had hanging on the hook by the office door?”
He frowned. “Leash? What leash?”
I opened my mouth to tell him and then decided just to go see for myself if it was still there. I turned away and went inside. The office door was fifteen feet down on the wall directly to the right of the entrance. It stood open. I glanced inside and was relieved to see that it was still relatively clean, as I’d left it. But there was a sleeping bag in the corner facing the door and a mug that still steamed with coffee on the desk. I glanced toward the coffee maker on the cabinet against the wall and noticed the pot was filled with coffee. Boxes of non-perishable items sat on the cabinet next to it.
Dev’s clothing spilled from a duffle bag on the floor. Two shirts were hung over the chair and the lamp, clearly having been recently washed.
The series of small hooks hanging on the wall next to the office door were full of old hats, random keys and, on one hook, the old umbrella I remembered my father using when he had to walk home during the rain.
The thought spurred a memory which stabbed my heart like a blade, bringing fresh pain that made it hard to breathe. Finding out my mother was alive seemed to have reinforced the realization that my father wasn’t.
And freshened the pain of his death.
“Is it there?” Hal asked.
I swung to face him. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t heard him approach. “No.” I glanced one last time to the hooks. The center hook where I’d always hung Caphy’s spare leash was empty except for a grease-stained ball cap. “Not here.”
“Why are you wondering about that leash?” Dev asked from where he lounged against the door frame.
If I didn’t know what a great liar he was, the perplexed look on his face would have convinced me he was innocent. “The realtor was strangled with it.”
His eyes went wide. “Then whoever did it…”
“Has been in this building,” Hal finished for him, his dark gaze narrowing with accusation.
“It wasn’t me,” Dev insisted. “I’d have no reason to kill the woman.”
“Who said it
was a woman?” Hal snapped out.
Dev’s gaze widened but he recovered quickly. “Aren’t most Realtors women?”
My heart sank. “Oh, Dev.”
“I didn’t kill her!” my parents’ oldest friend yelled. “You always assume the worst of me.” He addressed the last to me, a pained, accusing look in his eyes. Then he spun on his heel and, before we realized what he was doing, disappeared out the door and slammed it closed behind him.
Something smashed against the door as Hal ran after him, shaking the door in its frame. By the time Hal got his hand on the knob to release the door, it wouldn’t open.
He slammed his big body against the door several times before it finally crashed open.
Unfortunately, by the time he’d broken through, Devon was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Frustrated by how my day had gone so far, I asked Hal if he wanted to stay for dinner, call for a pizza or something.
He scoffed at my pizza suggestion. My PI’s body was a temple. He believed eating healthy made him sharper in his job. He was probably right. But pizza and pie were much more fun.
We ended up going into town to pick up the makings for a pasta primavera. Hal assured me it was his specialty.
He pulled into the parking lot for Junior’s Market and parked. As I climbed out, I heard angry voices and turned to find the tall, slightly pudgy form of Junior Milliard bending threateningly close to a woman who seemed vaguely familiar.
“Isn’t that Penney Sellers’ partner?” Hal asked.
The memory of my conversation with the realtor dropped into place. “Madge Watson.”
He nodded.
We stood near Hal’s car and watched for a moment, interested in the body language between the two. Madge stood with her arms crossed under her breasts, her gaze lowered and her lips compressed. She didn’t say much as Junior seemed to berate her for something. But when he reached out and poked her shoulder with a sturdy finger, her head came up and fear transformed her mulish expression.
Hal was on the move before I could suggest we step in. “Mr. Milliard,” Hal called out. “Can I speak to you for a moment?
Madge used his intervention to make her escape, hoofing it quickly toward a medium-sized white sedan.
I gave Hal and the grocer a last look, wishing I could be in two places at once but knowing Hal would fill me in on anything I missed. I hurried after the realtor. “Madge! Do you have a minute?”
She opened her car door and looked up, frowning. “I’m sorry. I’m in kind of a hurry…”
I picked up the pace. “It won’t take long, I promise.”
She swung her gaze back to Junior Milliard. I noted that the grocer was standing with his head lowered, his face flushed. He was probably getting a verbal beating from Hal for bullying a woman.
Good.
I stopped in a spot that would block Madge’s view of the two men. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I told her in a gentle tone. “That looked pretty intense.”
Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears she blinked away. “It’s fine. Just a little disagreement about the price of beef.”
I highly doubted that. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, sniffling. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
But I couldn’t excuse her. Or at least I wouldn’t. “I notice you don’t have a grocery bag in your hand.”
Her lips compressed into a tight line. “You should probably just mind your own business, Ms. Fulle.”
“You’re right. I probably should. But there’s something about having a woman die a violent death on my property that brings out the nosy in me.”
She looked into the distance, her expression softening. “I’m sorry about that.”
What a strange thing for her to say. “You have no need to apologize. You didn’t kill her. Did you?”
She shook her head, swiping angrily at a tear that had escaped her iron control. “Kill her? No. Of course not. She was a difficult person, but Penney was my friend.” Her gaze sharpened. “I didn’t know her death has been ruled a murder. I thought she’d simply fallen into your pond and hit her head.”
“The police said she didn’t die from drowning. She was strangled.”
Madge’s pale blue eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
She looked genuinely surprised. “Unfortunately, yes. Have you thought of anybody who might have wanted her dead?”
“No.” She rubbed her arms and shivered. “That’s horrible. Do you think it was an angry client?” I realized she was afraid for herself. If the emotion was genuine, that certainly changed things.
“It’s definitely possible. She’s made a lot of people angry over the last weeks.”
Her gaze slid to Junior again.
I had an idea and went with it. “Is that what you and Junior were fighting about? Had Penney ruffled his feathers? Maybe he was angry at you for defending her?”
She wouldn’t meet my gaze. Finally, she sighed. “No. I wish that was all it was.”
“Tell me, Madge. Maybe we can help.”
“We?”
“Hal’s a PI. He’s helping Deputy Willager on this case.”
Something I couldn’t identify flashed through her gaze. It almost looked like fear. Whatever the emotion was, it passed quickly. She stuck a leg into her car. “I wish you luck with that. I liked Penney and I’d love to see her killer thrown into jail.”
I watched helplessly as she slammed her car door and started the engine, pulling away and leaving without a backward glance.
“No luck?”
I turned as Hal joined me. “How can you tell?”
He chuckled. “You have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “That look that says you’re not going to stop digging until you dig up some people who are speaking Chinese.”
I let him lead me back to the car. “We’re not going shopping?”
“Not today.”
I thought his change of mind was strange, but I had more important considerations at the moment. “Chinese! You’re a genius.”
He opened the car door for me. “Huh?”
“We’ll have Chinese food for dinner. You can pick something appropriately healthy and tasteless and I can order something good.”
“You’re incorrigible. You know that?”
I pecked him on the cheek. “Nope. Just hungry. And…” I added with a grin. “A much better judge of good food than you are.”
“I never realized a cat could beg,” Hal said as he fed LaLee a bite of his shrimp. The cat took it from his fingers very daintily and licked her paws afterward as if she’d been clutching the treat herself.
The pibl was not licking her paws. But she was giving me the laser gaze as I ate my dinner. Like me, Caphy preferred the gastric delights of all things fried and heavily sauced. She lay on the couch next to me with her squishy head on my thigh, her eyes following every arc of my fork from plate to mouth.
I offered her a piece of orange chicken. She took it carefully from my fingers. “Tell me what you and Junior talked about.” We’d already exhausted all angles of my conversation with Madge Watson. Madge was clearly not telling us everything she knew, but neither of us really believed she’d killed her partner. So that still left us searching for the culprit.
I gathered from what little he’d told me, that Hal had come up as empty as I had.
“Junior was evasive too,” Hal said. “He claimed Madge and Penney had tried to shake him down to get him to sell the grocery.”
“And a common theme rears its ugly head again,” I murmured.
“Yeah. But when I pressed him, he said Madge denied knowing anything about Penney trying to buy Junior’s Market. He even admitted she was convincing.”
“Then why was he so angry?”
“I think it was because he’d just found out he was the victim of title theft. He was sure the two realtors had something to do with it. It�
�s looking like Cal’s theory might be spot on.”
I was lifting another succulent chunk of orange chicken to my mouth but, at his words, my hand stopped in midair. “Someone stole the title to Junior’s Market?”
“That’s what he said.” Hal frowned. “If that’s the scheme, everyone Penney Sellers harassed in Deer Hollow is in danger.”
“But I don’t understand, why would she approach him about selling if she intended to rip him off for his title? From what I’ve heard, it’s an online process. She would never need to step foot in the place. By harassing us in person, she brought herself into the limelight.”
Hal shrugged. “According to what Cal dug up, there are different types of mortgage fraud. One scheme is to offer to help struggling homeowners refinance their homes for smaller payments. Then the thief purchases the home instead, using straw buyers, and pockets the money he borrowed for the sale and never makes any mortgage payments. The homeowner loses the title to his home and the banks are out the money they loaned to the fake buyers.”
“That’s pure evil.”
He nodded. “I’ll bet if we asked the people on this list, some of them talked to Penney Sellers about the need to refinance. Even if they only mentioned it in passing.
I shrugged. “Scott Abels mentioned he was planning to refinance his home. He might have been on a shortlist for that type of fraud.”
“He definitely could have been,” Hal agreed.
I chewed for a moment. “Poor Junior. Do you think he can get his store back?”
“I told him to talk to Arno, but I don’t know enough about this kind of theft to speak to it. The one good thing is, if Penney Sellers did steal the title to Junior’s, she’s dead so it’s doubtful she’ll take out any big loans on it or anything.”
“Unless she had a partner,” I said, thinking of Madge.
“Yeah. But either way, Junior’s suspicion and anger make him our new prime suspect.”
I didn’t like that idea at all. Junior Milliard had already suffered a big loss. He didn’t have a wife or kids. The store was his life. I’d hate to think he’d snapped and killed the realtor and was headed for prison.
