by Lillian Bell
Jasmine pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Great. “You, too?”
She shrugged. “Let’s face it, Des. You haven’t exactly adjusted to your father’s death very well.”
“Because he isn’t necessarily dead.” I picked up Orion’s leash and started walking. Fast.
“Slow down,” she said, trotting up next to me. “I’m not trying to pick a fight. I just think if your father was really alive he’d be in touch. He was a good dad. He loved you guys. He wouldn’t desert you for no reason.”
Since finding the card that had said “sorry” and his appearance on our back porch, there’d been nothing. No little gifts left on my car. No skeins of yarn left for Donna. I’d made sure to leave my car in the parking lot by the trail, where the first charm had appeared, at least three times a week, and nothing. So someone was sorry for something. That was all I knew. “What if there was a reason?”
Jasmine pulled her sweater closed. “What kind of reason?”
“Maybe he was going into Witness Protection or something.” Orion danced around me and tangled us both in the leash. I stopped to unwind us before we both fell flat on the ground. I was going to need to look into some puppy training classes.
“What do you think your dad could have seen that would put him in Witness Protection?” Jasmine stopped beside me and put her hand on my arm. “Have you seen something that might have put him in danger?”
I hadn’t. “We see all kinds of things at the funeral home. We see all sorts of people’s secrets.” None of them that I’d seen rose to that level, though. Then again, I hadn’t really been looking.
“Where are we walking anyway?” Jasmine asked.
“I thought we’d walk to the Free Press to drop off Mr. Fiore’s obituary.”
“And you wanted me there?”
I squirmed a little. “It’s good to have a buffer.” Rafe Valdez, the editor of the Verbena Free Press, and I had a relationship that was … complicated. There had been moments. Moments when it felt like there was something between us. But then there was Nate. There was definitely something there. Besides, Rafe was also my boss to a certain extent. I didn’t work for the Free Press full time, but I’d started doing some articles for him. Longer things. Not quite the investigative journalism I had always wanted to do, but close to it. It was best to keep business as business. But sometimes, when it was only the two of us, the air seemed to warm up and there was this buzzing noise in my ears and … Well, it would be better if Jasmine was there, too.
“You’re such a weenie,” she said.
We walked into the paper’s office. Rafe had actually managed to hire some staff. Vern Godfrey was now answering phones and taking ads, but Rafe still sat out in the open bull pen on the other side of the old wooden counter that ran the length of the room, right in the thick of things. Or as thick as things got in Verbena, California.
“Desiree,” he said as I walked in. “And Jasmine, of course. So nice to see you both.”
Orion barked and held up his paw to be shook.
“And who is this?” he asked, coming around the counter. Rafe kept his dark hair short and his jaw clean-shaven, but somehow there was always something about him that made me imagine him with his hair rumpled and stubble on his chin. He wore his usual dress shirt and jeans, loafers, no tie.
“Orion.” I explained about taking care of him for a bit until we could find a permanent home for him.
“He’s a cutie. You shouldn’t have much trouble. Shoot Vern a photo and a little bit of copy. I’ll run the ad for you gratis. You have papers and stuff for him?” He squatted down to pet Orion eye to eye.
“It’s all probably in Violet’s house. I’ll ask her cousin if I can poke around.” It hadn’t occurred to me to look through her files for papers on him. Maybe there’d be something on her computer.
“I don’t suppose you want to cover tonight’s city council meeting?” he asked, looking hopeful.
“You supposed correctly.” Council meetings were important to cover for local papers like the Free Press, but they were also boring as hell. “Send Vern.”
Rafe glanced over to where Vern sat talking on the phone. He lowered his voice. “They’re accepting the bids for the construction of the new bathrooms in the park. I’m not sure Vern’s got the nose for it yet.”
Did anyone have a nose for public bathrooms? “He’ll figure it out. Or he won’t. You should give him a chance.”
Rafe straightened up and all of a sudden he was standing much closer to me than I realized. Apparently, that air-heating-up thing happened when Jasmine was there, too. “Please, Desiree? This is the kind of stuff that people in town really need to know about. It’s their money. They should know how it’s being spent. You of all people should want to cover it.”
“What does that mean? Me of all people?” I took a step back, pretending to untwist Orion’s leash to give myself some space.
“You’re the one who’s always concerned about the community. Look at all articles you write trying to keep people from dying.” He pulled my article on drowsy driving and the one on not getting electrocuted at home out of the stack of papers and pushed them toward me. “Please?”
He looked so desperate. Over his shoulder, I heard Vern asking someone to spell zucchini. Rafe might have a point. Vern might not be ready for city council meetings. He also had a point about people in town needing to know what their elected officials were doing with their money. “Fine. I’ll cover it. How soon do you need the article?”
“Can you get it to me before midnight for tomorrow’s paper?” he asked, wincing a little since he knew what he was asking.
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. It was so Rafe. Ask for a favor and then expect me to expedite it. “Sure.”
Jasmine and Orion and I walked out of the office.
“He totally has your number,” she said, smiling. “He knows just what buttons to push.”
*
I was on my way back to town when my phone buzzed.
The text was Nate asking if I could meet him for coffee. We changed course and headed downtown. I asked him to get us a table outside. He texted back: it’s cold. I texted back: bundle up, buttercup, and ask Monique to set up a heater.
A few minutes later, I slid into the chair across from him and shivered a little. It was a little cool for patio sitting if you weren’t in direct sunlight.
Nate cocked his head to one side and looked down at Orion. Orion cocked his head and looked up at Nate. “What on earth is that?” Nate asked.
“He’s a dog.” I picked up my menu even though I knew exactly what I was ordering.
“You don’t have a dog,” Nate said.
Orion offered up his paw to be shaken.
“Nope. I don’t. This is Violet Daugherty’s dog. His name is Orion.” I shivered again.
Nate slipped off the fleece he was wearing and passed it across to me without looking away from Orion. “Interesting.”
I slid into the jacket. It smelled like him. A little spicy. A little sweet. “So what’s up?”
Nate finally looked away from Orion. “I figured out why Violet passed out while she was driving.” He tapped the file folder on the table between us. “Insulin overdose.”
That made me sit up. “Was she diabetic?”
“Nope.” He looked pleased with himself.
“Why didn’t that show up in all the tests you ran before?” Wouldn’t insulin be pretty hard to miss in all that blood work?” I picked up the menu and looked it over even though I knew exactly what I wanted.
“It did show up. I didn’t miss it.” He leaned forward. “It’s really common for people to be given large doses of insulin when they’ve had a traumatic accident.”
“Why? That doesn’t make sense.” I shut my menu and set it down.
“It makes perfect sense. Think about it. When something bad happens, that fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. The body sends out adrenaline. The adrenaline causes c
ortisol to release into the blood stream and that makes blood sugar levels rise. When someone is in an accident, their body reacts as if they’re going to have to fight off a wild beast. It thinks it needs the sugar to have the energy to battle a bear or a lion. But when they don’t have to do that, they end up with these crazy high blood sugars and no way to use them. Insulin brings the blood sugar down. So when I saw the elevated insulin levels, I didn’t think anything of it.” He shoved his hair off his forehead.
Monique came over with a coffee pot and filled our mugs. “The usual?” she looked from one of us to the other. We nodded. “With a side of bacon for me, please,” I called after her as she left.
I asked Nate, “Why do you think the insulin is an issue now if it all makes such great sense? What changed?”
Nate sat back in his chair looking very satisfied. “I went back through all the records. She was never given insulin.”
Now I sat back. “Could someone have forgotten to put it in the chart? Things probably get crazy at the scene of an accident and in the emergency room. Maybe somebody slipped up.”
He grimaced. “There’s always that possibility, but we have an awful lot of systems in place that are supposed to keep exactly that from happening. Let’s say it’s unlikely. Plus, there’s the weird injection site on her back.”
I took the saucer out from underneath my coffee mug, put it on the ground, and poured some water in it for Orion. “Could it have been the only spot they could get to? You know, right after the accident?” There might be a perfectly good explanation.
“I doubt it. If it had, there would have been other marks there, too.” Nate pulled out a folder. “Let me show you.”
It’s not every girl who gets treated to photos of dead bodies on a breakfast date. I felt super special.
“So here are a bunch of areas where IVs were started and blood was drawn.” He pointed to several bruised spots on her arms. “Here are the bruises on the backs of her hands that made me suspicious in the first place.”
He wasn’t joking. Her hands looked terrible. Black and blue and one pinky sticking out in a weird direction.
Then he showed me the photo of her back. The one little spot there was all by itself in a sea of unblemished skin. “See? There’s nothing else here. There’s no reason for anyone to have given her an injection there.”
“So what you’re saying is that someone injected Violet with insulin and that the insulin made her pass out.” I shut the folder.
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “It would have made her sweaty and confused. She might even get combative. Eventually she’d lose consciousness and possibly have seizures.”
Monique showed up with my pie with bacon on the side and Nate’s cinnamon roll. I took one strip of bacon and fed it to Orion who licked my hand in gratitude. Monique bent down to pet him and got a kiss on the lips in response. She laughed.
“Did you talk to Luke?” I asked Nate.
He sighed. “I did.”
“I take it that it didn’t go well.”
He shook his head. “He felt my evidence of foul play was ‘weak sauce,’ and I really couldn’t fight him on that. The fact that she didn’t have bruising on her hands where I think she should is one of those negatives that you can’t use to prove a positive in a court of law.”
“What about the insulin?” I asked.
“I think some of what I was telling him about that went a bit over his head. He still didn’t think it was enough to open a criminal investigation into a single-car accident.” Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “He had one other good point.”
“What’s that?”
“Why? Why would anyone want to kill Violet?”
*
By the time I got home from the city council meeting and had written up my notes, I was exhausted. I texted Rafe once I’d uploaded it. He texted back right away.
Rafe: I knew I could count on you.
Me: Jasmine says you know just how to manipulate me.
Rafe: Is that necessarily a bad thing?
Me: Depends. Are your intentions good or evil?
Rafe: Would good AND evil be possible?
Me: You’re impossible.
Rafe: Yet here I am.
Me: Good night, Rafe.
Rafe: Sweet dreams, Desiree.
I was more than happy to curl up in my bed with a cup of hot chocolate, a book, and Orion who was better than a hot water bottle when it came to warming up cold feet. It wasn’t long before I was doing the slow blink I’d warned people was a sign they should pull of the road. I shut my book, turned off the light, and was asleep in seconds.
Unfortunately, it felt like only seconds later that a loud noise woke me up. It hadn’t been seconds. It had been closer to hours and I was seriously disoriented, trying to figure out where I was and how to make that damn noise stop. It took a few minutes, but I finally realized that it was coming from Violet Daugherty’s purse that was hanging off the back of my desk chair. I grabbed it, opened it up, and pulled out her cell phone, hitting the buttons frantically to make it stop. By the time I did, Donna, Greg, and Uncle Joey stood at my bedroom door.
“Is everything okay?” Uncle Joey asked.
“Do you need help?” Greg asked.
“What the hell was that?” Donna asked.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tried to focus on the screen. “It’s the security system at Violet Daugherty’s house. Someone tried to break in.”
*
Fifteen minutes later, I was back in Violet Daugherty’s front yard. This time I was with Carlotta Haynes, Verbena police officer and Jasmine’s girlfriend. Carlotta was a whip-thin African-American woman, straightened hair pulled back into a neat bun. She actually made the uniform look pretty good. Not an easy feat. Carlotta shook her head. “Some people. They see the obituary and know the house is empty and decide to do a little breaking and entering.”
“The obituary hasn’t been printed yet,” I pointed out. I pulled my fleece jacket tighter around me, wishing I’d put on jeans instead of leaving on my pajama pants and just jamming my feet into UGG boots to haul booty over there.
Carlotta shrugged. “You printed that article about falling asleep at the wheel. Someone could have seen her name in that and figured out her house would be empty.” Her words made little puffs of steam in the air.
Or if someone had somehow orchestrated Violet’s car accident as Nate suspected, they’d know the house was empty, too. Could someone have wanted her out of the way so they could steal something from her? I hadn’t seen anything in the house remotely valuable enough for that. “You know, the neighbor down the street mentioned seeing a car drive by. Maybe it was somebody casing the joint.”
“Listen to you with the cops and criminals jargon!” She smiled, but then turned serious. “Do you think you’ll be able to tell me if there’s anything missing?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. I was only in the house once and I was mainly looking for dog food.” I gestured down at Orion who had stayed so close on my heels as I got dressed that it had never occurred to me not to bring him with me.
“Let’s look anyway.”
I followed her around the back where someone had bashed in the window by the back door and reached in to unlock the door. I shined the flashlight from my phone on the broken glass. “Is that blood?” I asked.
Carlotta peered at it. “Probably. It’s harder to bust in that way than people think. It’s easy to cut yourself.”
“You can test for DNA! Maybe the person will be in the system.” Case closed. Problem solved. Perhaps even Violet’s murder solved.
Carlotta stared at me. “It’s a B & E, not a homicide, Desiree. I doubt our resources will run to DNA tests, especially if the alarm system scared them off and there’s nothing missing.”
I knew Luke wasn’t impressed with Nate’s theory, but maybe Carlotta could be swayed. “What if it is a homicide?”
“What? You think there’s a dead body in there?” Carlotta
turned around to stare at me.
“Not in there.” I explained about Violet and the insulin in her system.
Carlotta listened, never interrupting. I got to the end. It didn’t take long. “Nate explained all this to Luke, right?”
I nodded. “Luke didn’t think there was anything to it.”
She snorted. “For good reason, Desiree. That’s a lot of random stuff to string together to turn a tragic car accident into a murder. Why would anyone want to kill Violet anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Let’s see what’s inside,” she said.
I tied Orion up to the table on the back patio. We walked in, crunching over glass. Whoever had come in had started pulling out drawers and emptying them before, I presumed, the alarm had started clanging. They hadn’t gotten far, but the laundry room was a mess. Nothing else seemed disturbed.
“Okay. I’ll follow up with the neighbor to see if I can get a description of the car she saw,” Carlotta said.
“That’s it?”
“You need to call an emergency window-repair place, but then yeah, that’s it.” She ushered me out the back door. “Whoever did this isn’t somebody who’s real experienced. It could even be kids. A professional would know how to break in without cutting themselves. In fact, a professional probably wouldn’t break into a place with an alarm system.”
Why would anyone break into a place with an alarm system? Even a bunch of kids would have seen the sign. I added it to my mental list of things that just didn’t seem right.
Chapter Four
The Verbena Free Press
October 7
By Desiree Turner
City Council News and Notes
On October 6, Verbena City Council named the second week in April Verbena Safety Week and all voted in favor of Ms. Lombardi’s fifth grade class’s petition to name the double chocolate chip muffin the official muffin of Verbena. A letter from Kecia Wilcox was read into the record. Ms. Wilcox visited Verbena’s sister city, Qufu, China. She liked all the bicycles, but China was more humid than she expected.
Bids were officially submitted by the Sterling Company, Winters Construction, Canty Construction, and Montgomery Construction Company for the contract to build new bathrooms in four of Verbena’s parks. Fumiko Winters of Winters Construction said, “I feel like our bid is highly competitive. We’d bring fresh ideas to Verbena. Canty Construction renovated the Civic Center here and paved the Senior Center parking lot. I think Verbena’s ready for some new blood.”
