by Lane Stone
“He had a microchip.” I caught the bewilderment in his eyes, that look he got whenever anything having to do with a dog was brought up, and said, “It’s a radio-frequency device you can have implanted in your dog. Most vets and animal shelters have scanners they use to get the microchip ID number, which they call in to the pet recovery service.” I handed him the piece of paper from my pocket. “Here’s Billy B.’s phone number and address. I’ll keep the dog until you reach his family.”
“I want to find that car! That’s the key to this case.”
That, I knew, was just a matter of time, and would lead him to Rick and his father.
“Remember our last murder—”
“My last murder,” he corrected.
“Whatever. You latched on to theories right away. You might be doing that again.”
“I’m decisive.”
“I’m not indecisive,” I countered.
“It took you thirty-five years to decide where to live.” The look on his face told me he regretted saying that as soon as it was out of his mouth.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I couldn’t argue with what he’d said, because it was true. Instead I wanted to argue with his right to know it.
He put his hands on my desk and leaned toward me. “In law enforcement—real law enforcement—only rookies believe in coincidences. That’s all I’m saying.” He straightened.
“Have you forwarded the photos to me yet? Maybe I can pick up the number off the plate.”
I took out my phone and scrolled to the worst, grainiest image I could find and emailed it to him.
“If you think of anything I need to know, give me a call.” He hesitated then tapped his front pocket, which held his phone. “I’ll blow this up and call DMV. By the time I get back to the station Marie might’ve found Mr. Berger’s next of kin.”
“I need time,” I said.
“Huh?”
Damn. I’d said that out loud. “I said I’ll be glad when Lady Anthea gets here.” I needed her confidence and nerve.
With a parting admonition not to tell anyone the identity of Mr. Berger, a dagger to my conscience, he was gone.
Chapter 9
On his way out Chief Turner reminded Rick, again, to report his theft to the Milton police department, then he was gone. No one spoke until the last door had closed.
Dayle spoke first, “He can’t find his father.”
He looked down at the floor, the way a worried man does, which made Dayle start rubbing his back, drawing comforting circles, the way a woman in love does.
“So when I saw you calling someone it wasn’t the Milton police? It was your father?”
Rick exhaled. “He’s not answering.” He gave the phone in his hand a disgusted look. “Shit. What has that crazy old fool done now?”
Dayle, Shelby, and I looked back and forth at one another. Finally I started laughing. I knew that was inappropriate but I couldn’t help it. “Rick, you drink all day so you can surf sober.”
“You invented the One Evil Beer in Every Case theory,” Shelby added.
“But it’s true,” Rick said. “You’re feeling fine, the brews are going down smoothly, then, after that particular can, you’re a mess. How else would you explain it?”
“It’s not exactly a phenomenon, sweetie,” Dayle said, laughing and wrapping an arm around his waist.
“We’re just saying that for you to call someone a crazy, old fool is pretty rich,” I said. “Remember the night it took us half an hour to convince you that it was not Abraham Lincoln who said ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears’?”
“I’m still not completely convinced. Who did say it?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Beats me.”
“Ask Lady Anthea. She’ll be here tomorrow,” Shelby said.
“I’ll do that!” Rick took a deep inhale. “Sue, did you tell Chief Turner that was Pop’s car?”
“No! First, we don’t know for certain that it was your father’s car. Next, your father didn’t steal that dog food or kill one of his employees!”
Rick’s face did this slow transition from one emotion to the next. “I know he wouldn’t kill anyone.” Then he made a sound referred to in books as a chortle. “I can say with confidence he would never intentionally kill anyone.”
“The guy who was murdered in front of Sue’s house was intentionally killed,” Shelby assured him.
Rick smacked the countertop, with, I would have to say, force. “Wait! Sue, did you say kill his employee?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Dayle said. “You were outside when they told me.”
“You mean when we didn’t tell you,” Shelby corrected.
“It was Billy B. that was murdered,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to imagine the deli without him there singing opera.”
Rick took one step back and then another. Dayle’s arm was left in midair. “Billy B.?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Dad’s really going to go off the deep end. Billy B. had a way of getting him back on track when he had one of his crazy ideas.” He hesitated and then gave a sad smile. “Like the time he wanted to have a drive-thru built onto the front of Mozart’s.”
I laughed out loud. “On Second Street?”
“Yeah. Can you imagine?” Rick said.
“No, I can’t,” I said. “Traffic is almost at a standstill on Second Street during the season, and pretty heavy year-round.”
“I told him the city would never approve it, and that ended it, but it was the first and, as far as I know, the only time he and Billy B. ever argued. I’ve got to find him.” He pulled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and dialed, then sighed. “Went straight to voice mail.”
“Rick, getting back to something you said, has your father ever unintentionally killed anyone?” I asked.
“He’s come close a few times. He has one crazy scheme after another—always has. All my life. Look, Sue, I’ll reimburse you for the dog food.”
“Let’s wait and see if he stole it,” I said.
“The car you described does sound like his and he would never let anyone else drive The Bentley,” Rick said. “I can tell you that much!”
“Hold on,” Shelby said. “That was not a Bentley.”
“Whoa,” I said. Even I knew that.
“That’s just what he would tell women to be sure they didn’t cancel dates with him.”
Shelby, Dayle, and I propped our heads on our elbows on the counter, ready to listen. “After my mom died, he would talk women, more like pressure or guilt them, into going out with him but they would usually cancel as soon as they could get away. He started telling them that he would pick them up in his Bentley and his success rate went up.”
Dayle stared. “So women started going out with him?”
“Oh, hell, no. The percentage that canceled dropped, but as far as I know no one would get in that old heap.”
“The deli is always busy, and in the summer I’ve seen tourists lined up outside, so why does he drive that thing?” I asked. “He could afford a new car.”
“He’s just different,” Rick said stretching out each of the three words. He seemed about to say more but stopped and shook his head, then he put his hand on the back of Dayle’s neck, drawing her to him. “Sweetie, we need to finish the deliveries.”
They headed for the door, holding hands. “Sue, thanks for, uh, not telling Chief Turner everything you know,” Rick called over his shoulder.
“I’m afraid all that did was buy a little time,” I said. I watched the doors close and wondered what the cost to me would be. Had I just sold any chance I had of a relationship with John? Did I want to date him?
I wanted to be outside and I needed time to think and to feel.
“Sh
elby, when is the glass person coming?”
“He’s here now,” she called back. “That’s his truck in the parking lot.”
I looked to where she was pointing. Sure enough, a man was walking through our parking lot, carrying two panes of glass. Since it was February, the sky was already turning pink and I thought about the “red sky at night” line. It probably held for paddle boarders and surfers, too.
“Will you be okay if I leave for a while?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said. “I recognize that look on your face.”
I walked Abby home. So that I can run quick errands from work, I usually drive the Jeep over, but today I had walked. I couldn’t drive over the spot where Billy B. had died. Not that I planned to be a pedestrian the rest of my life, I just needed a little time to pass.
The yellow crime scene tape had been taken away and the house felt mine again.
I changed into my wetsuit and then I loaded my paddleboard, in its board bag, onto the top of the Jeep. I tossed a towel, my personal floatation device, my paddle, and a deck bag in the back and headed out.
Five minutes later I was parked at Lewes Beach, putting on water booties, and pulling on the PFD. A few minutes after that I was in the water stand-up paddling. I had attached a suction light onto the bottom of my board and I was floating in a pool of light. I felt like I was standing on the ocean itself.
The leash connecting my ankle to the board had me feeling more grounded than I had since Shelby’s call telling me that a dead body was lying in my driveway.
What did I know about Billy B.? He was just as much a part of Lewes as the Buckingham Pet Palace. Maybe more since he had been around longer. I had never had a real conversation with him. Just like everyone I knew, I had thanked him for his singing and that was all. I pulled my paddle through the water and imagined him as he sang. He had a faraway look on his face as his beautiful music filled the deli. When customers applauded, he would come out of his intense concentration and look around shyly. He made people happy for a living. Yet, someone had killed him. Why had he come to my home?
“Sue!” a woman’s voice called.
I looked at the ocean surrounding me for the source. It was Charlie, with her husband, Jerry, on their SUPs. They were headed my way and I waved.
“We heard about that guy who sings German opera getting killed,” Jerry said.
“And he was found by your garage door?” Charlie asked, the excitement showing in her friendly voice.
“His name was Billy B.,” I said.
They nodded. “I guess I knew that at some time,” Jerry said. “It’ll be weird to go to Mozart’s and not see him there.”
“The only opera I ever heard was from him,” Charlie said, with a laugh. She was looking down at the water, paddling to stay in place.
“Me, too.” I started thinking about how much I wanted Chief Turner to find his relatives.
I was only vaguely aware that Jerry was telling a joke. It had to do with a woman going to the dentist and grabbing his family jewels as soon as she was in the chair. The punchline was something like the patient saying, “So we’re not going to hurt one another, are we?” I laughed and brought my attention back to where it should have been, especially on the water.
“Where’s Rick?” Charlie was saying. “He said he was coming out.”
“I wonder if we’re ever going to get Dayle on a paddleboard or a surfboard?” I asked.
I looked at the shore and saw a Lewes police car driving out of the parking lot. The line, “So we’re not going to hurt one another, are we?” played in my head.
Chapter 10
Ordinarily when someone in law enforcement looks at me with a self-satisfied grin like the one Chief Turner was wearing on Tuesday, it meant I was about to get another ticket. Since Shelby and I were standing behind the Buckingham reception desk that was obviously not the case. He had slapped a folder down on the counter.
“I can tell there’s something in there you’re proud of,” I said.
He shrugged and twisted around to see what Charles Andrews’s Dachshund, So-Long, was rooting for behind the leg of the bench placed beneath Lady Anthea’s portrait. “What’s that one doing?” he asked.
“He’s foraging for dog food left over from what happened yesterday morning,” Shelby answered.
“Uh, uh.” I had tried to interrupt her but had jumped in a beat too late.
Out of all the crabby, complaining, attention-seeking eighty-year-olds in the world, Lewes just had to have one with decent hearing.
He called to us from across the room where he was giving Joey, our second groomer, his exact instructions on how So-Long was to be groomed, spoken to, looked at, and, as I had once added in a staff meeting, we had to laugh at the dog’s jokes. And Dachshunds don’t have that keen a sense of humor. “Not everyone can have the housekeeping standards my wife had,” Mr. Andrews said. He had been a widower since before Buckingham’s opened. I’d never met the woman but she had my condolences.
I stole a sideways glance at Shelby. “Are we getting off that easy?” I whispered.
“What happened here yesterday morning?” Mr. Andrews demanded.
Nope, we weren’t.
“We had a break-in,” I said, as gently and apologetically as I could.
“What?!” He charged over to the dog and scooped him up like the robber was still on the premises and had an enthusiasm for small black and brown dogs.
“Everything’s under control, Mr. Andrews,” John said. He gave me a slow smile and gently pulled the manila folder back to hide it from the older man. “Nothing to worry about.”
Then he tilted his head toward my office. I turned that way and he came around the reception desk to follow.
I sat behind my desk and he sat in the chair reserved for anyone who might want to talk to me, before tossing the folder onto the desk.
I opened it and asked, “Is there really nothing to worry about?”
He leaned forward and lowered an eyebrow. “Are you worried? You slept like a baby last night.”
“How would you know how I slept?” Involuntarily my eyes darted to the door, then to each wall. I willed myself not to look out the window behind my desk.
“I drove through your neighborhood.” He was speaking slowly, the way you talked to an animal you were afraid would bolt. I had been drawn to his baritone voice from the first time I met him, and now the measured cadence he was using calmed me, in spite of myself.
It was true that I had slept straight through until it was time to get up for my five o’clock beach run, but wasn’t that for me and Abby to know?
He cleared his throat. “Shelby’s statement and yours are in there. You’ll see where you need to sign.” We had taken turns yesterday going to the police station, about three miles away in downtown Lewes, to give said statements. “Plus a few photos from the traffic cam I think you’ll find interesting. The techs really came through.” He was warming to his topic, because it was tech-related. “They cleared the images up and, even with low lighting, we can make out a face.”
I moved the statements aside and studied the photos. “Billy B.,” I said when I saw the man with hollow cheeks and an insignificant mouth through the windshield of the old car. “Why did you do this?” I ran a finger over his face, then I picked up my statement and signed it.
“I couldn’t get enough numbers off the license tag from the traffic cam or from your photos. Taylor identified the make. It was a Renault R8 from the early sixties. Mr. Berger didn’t have a car registered in Delaware, but I doubt there’s more than a few in the state, so we should know who it belongs to by this afternoon. It could be his but registered to a family member.”
“Have you reached anyone in his family to notify?”
John shook his head. “Mr. Ziegler, the owner of Mozart’s, didn’t show up for work yesterday. No one�
�s heard from him. He has a number of longtime workers and they opened up the deli.” He stopped talking and studied my face. “Ziegler? Is he related to Rick Ziegler?”
I nodded. “That’s his father.”
“And Rick was here yesterday talking to you.”
I didn’t answer. I could have reminded him that Rick was delivering the raw dog food, but when the truth came out, the dodge would just embarrass both of us.
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
Technically, the twenty-four hours Rick asked me for had expired but I had wanted some kind of go-ahead from him before I talked to Chief Turner. “Rick’s father didn’t come into work this morning, either?” I asked.
“No.”
“You checked his house?”
“He lives above the store and hasn’t been home as far as we can tell.”
“The car’s his,” I said.
John was back to being Chief Turner. “He’s probably the murderer.”
“That’s exactly what I was afraid you’d say!” I said, and my shoulders slumped.
“I am going to bring him in for questioning for the murder of his employee. A possible scenario is that the victim stole the car, committed a crime, and Ziegler killed him and took his car back.” He jumped up so violently that he almost took the chair with him, and I cracked up laughing.
“Sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes.
He turned back around and moved the chair off his thigh. He was laughing, too. “I can’t stay mad at you,” he said.
“You give it a pretty good try,” I reminded him.
“Does Rick know where his father is?” he asked.
“No, and he’s worried.”
“If I can talk to him, he might be able to tell me who the victim’s emergency contact is.”
“I know,” I said, nodding.
He turned and went back to the lobby. I picked up Shelby’s statement and followed him out.
Charles Andrews was gone and Joey had taken So-Long to the grooming suite in the back.
Chief Turner pointed at Lady Anthea’s portrait. “She’s flying in today, right?”
