by Dale Mayer
“Lots of times. Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what I do. But only because we have to.”
She nodded. “I just don’t like that type of a world.”
“None of us do,” he said.
Petra walked over and put on the teakettle and stared outside. Pulling out her phone, she looked up the number she wanted and dialed it. As soon as she got through to the coroner’s office, she asked about her father.
“His body can be released this afternoon,” the man said. “Let us know what funeral home you want him to go to.”
“I will, thanks,” she said. “Is there a cause of death?”
“His heart stopped,” the guy said on the other side. “Nothing else.”
She hung up, looked at Cain, and told him what he said.
“Kind of to be expected, right?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I didn’t ask about an autopsy.”
“You can if you want to,” he said.
“I know. I’m just not sure I want to get into it.”
“That’s up to you to decide,” they both said in sync.
She smiled, nodded, and finally just couldn’t let it go. She pulled her phone back out and called again. “Are you doing an autopsy on my father?”
“No,” the man came back. “Cause of death has already been cleared. No need to.”
“He had a mental problem,” she said, “but physically he was strong.”
“No. Anybody with the lack of oxygen episode he had with his original brain injury isn’t as strong as they may appear,” the man said in a sympathetic tone. “They often have problems and a much shorter life span.”
“What would it take to get an autopsy done?”
“Is there a reason to suspect anything?” His voice came back sharper.
“No, I don’t have any specific reason, except that he just suddenly died.”
“And that happens,” he said. “I’m very sorry, and I understand that it’s difficult, but that doesn’t make it wrong. If you want an autopsy at this point, you’d have to get it done through a private firm.”
“Well, I’ll have to give that some thought.” She hung up and walked back into the kitchen, telling the men about it.
“That’s kind of what we expected,” he said. “Very few cases are actually given full autopsies these days.”
“Do we suspect foul play?” she asked, sitting down at the kitchen table with a hard thump. “I mean, is there any serious reason to suspect that my aunt or my uncle might have had something to do with my father’s death?”
The two men looked at her. Cain then spoke. “We don’t have any proof obviously, so I’m not sure anything would trigger something like an autopsy.”
“Even if you just got a tox screen done though,” Eton said, “that would let you know if any drugs were in his system.”
“There shouldn’t have been any drugs,” she said. “He took no prescriptions.” She pulled her phone out yet again and called, asking to speak to the coroner again. When he came on the line, she said, “It’s me again. I’m very sorry to bother you. Is there any way we can at least do a tox screen?”
“Why is this an issue?”
“Because I need to know,” she said, “for myself.” She heard a heavy sigh on the other end.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “but remember, it takes months to get the results.”
Petra winced at that. “Okay,” she said, “and thank you.” She hung up and told the other two.
“That makes sense, but at least then you’ll know,” Cain said.
“Right. And, if they do that, then I can go ahead with the funeral arrangements.”
“Do you have any idea what your father wanted?”
“Yes,” she said. “There’s no will. All his personal effects, house, and everything were sold already to help pay for his care.”
“But you retain control of that?” Cain asked her.
She nodded. “He put my name on his accounts a long time ago, so, if anything ever happened to him, I’d have access to it without going through a big legal process. Why?”
“Just wanted to make sure. What kind of money are we talking about?”
Because he asked in a clear, concise way, she answered the same way. “He actually inherited from his family as well, so quite a bit of money is in there, over a half million US dollars. I haven’t been using it because I thought he would live a long time and would someday require a skilled nursing scenario. So I’ve been covering his expenses myself.”
“So those assets are now yours then?” Eton asked.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Cain then asked, “And, if something happens to you, then what?”
She looked at them. “Then it goes to my aunt.” She stopped, sat back in her chair, and whispered, “Oh, shit.”
Both men nodded, looking very serious.
*
“It’s something you need to be aware of,” Cain said. “There’s just you left, and, if your aunt or uncle know how much money there is, and they know that your sister’s gone now, that means that they are the only ones left, besides you. Which means, in theory, your life could be in danger.”
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “I would never have suspected or looked at my family in this way at all. My aunt has always been harsh and bitter, but I never would have thought she would hurt me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Cain said, “but it’s something that you do need to keep an eye on.”
“Wow! That doesn’t make staying here look like a very positive proposition.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” he said, “but you’d need another place to go to that would make you feel like it could be home.”
“I don’t have any place that’s home,” she said. “This is home.”
“Understood. But sometimes, sometimes it’s easier to stay because you don’t have any other plans. But, in that case, it’ll play right into your aunt’s hands. I mean, it may not be right away. It could be another year from now. What if you’re doing something, and all of a sudden you have an accident? What if you suddenly get food poisoning?” he asked. “There are so many ways to take out a person. All she has to do is bide her time.”
“I really don’t like your view of my aunt,” she whispered.
The trouble was, he’d seen it too many times. “All I’m saying is, be careful.” Just then, both guys’ phones rang. Cain looked at Eton, as they pulled out their phones. “Ice, what’s up?”
“Your Tristan landed in Rome, rented a vehicle, and is headed your way.”
“Good. Let him come,” he said. “Any idea if he knows we’re here with Petra?”
“Hard to say, but, since we tracked his movements, I’m sure he or somebody above him is tracking yours.”
“Great.”
“Any news on your end?”
“Well, it’s gotten a little complicated.” He moved a few steps away, so he wouldn’t upset Petra with his monologue and quickly gave Ice a synopsis of what was going on in the small town.
“The sister’s been in the bedroom for how long?”
“We’re not exactly sure,” he said. “Definitely a few months, it seems. But, with Petra’s father passing last night, things got even more complicated.”
“Are they connected?”
“You know what? If it weren’t for everything else going on, I’d say no,” he said.
“How does that even possibly work?”
“Right,” he said. “It makes absolutely no sense at the moment, but we’re hoping that we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“True,” she said. “Let me know if you need any help with it because we can’t have this kind of crap going on everywhere.”
“Nope, we can’t,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll come up with some answers very quickly.” When he hung up with Ice, he turned and walked back to the others.
“I’m glad you have a team around you,” Petra said.
“We’ll need it apparen
tly,” Cain said. “Tristan landed in Rome late last night and is heading here.”
“And how would your people know that? That’s a hell of a long way away.”
“He flew into Rome, probably to establish an alibi for killing the cop, then rented a vehicle, and they’re tracking it.”
“Not exceeding the speed limit, it’ll take him about seven hours to get here. So why drive?” she asked, looking puzzled.
“To hide his tracks,” he said smoothly.
“And yet it didn’t,” she pointed out.
Cain chuckled. “No, but we have a pretty wide net that we’re casting,” he said. “So he has to think as wide as we are.”
“Jesus,” Petra said. “I can’t wrap my head around all this.”
“It’s all good,” he said.
“How could it be good?” she asked, shaking her head. “Is he coming after someone?”
“Maybe,” he said. “What about you and making your calls?”
“I’ve contacted the funeral home to make arrangements for my father. I probably could have a memorial at the same time for my sister, but I haven’t gotten that far yet,” she said. “Regardless, it’ll just be a small family gathering. Most of the people who my dad knew from here aren’t around anymore anyway. The small town I grew up in was very different from what it is now.”
“Of course,” he said.
She said, “So, in my case, everything is moving forward.”
“And your sister’s autopsy?”
“Yes. I need to call about that too. But, in that case, I probably need to talk to the police first because I don’t know when—well, you know.”
Just then, her phone rang. She groaned and whispered, “It’s the police.” He listened, while she talked to somebody quietly, then said, “Yes. I’ll come straight down.” She hung up her phone, looked at the other two, and said, “Well, you get to stay here, while I get to be questioned about my sister now.”
“Don’t let them bully you,” Cain said. “You’re the one who’s fully justified to be asking them for answers. The fact that they won’t have very many doesn’t change that fact.”
She smiled, nodded, and stood. “God, what a shitty day.”
“Want company?”
She looked at him in surprise.
He frowned, tilted his head, and said, “You don’t have to be strong all the time, you know?”
“Will you stop them from badgering me?”
He chuckled. “Me just being there is likely to do that,” he said.
She hesitated, shook her head, and said, “I’ll be fine.” She walked to the front door. There she stopped.
“You might be fine, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.”
She turned, looked back at him, caught Eton’s expression, then looked back at Cain, and said, “If you wouldn’t mind, I could use the company.”
“I wouldn’t mind in the least.” He hopped to his feet and handed his laptop to Eton. “I’ve got my phone. Keep in touch.”
Eton smiled, nodded, and said, “See if you can find out anything useful while you’re at it, huh?”
Cain walked up behind her, opened the door, then closed it behind them, after they stepped through.
“You sure you don’t mind?” she asked, chewing on her lip.
“Not only do I not mind,” he said, “I relish the opportunity. I’ve dealt with the police a lot in my life.”
“That surprises me,” she said with a laugh. “I’d have figured you to be the kind of guy always avoiding the police.”
“Oh, I do that too,” he said. “But mostly because their job and my job don’t always align very well.”
“Shouldn’t it though? Aren’t you on the same team?”
“Yes, that’s true, and maybe it should,” he said, “but the devil is in the details. They don’t always approve of our methods.”
“True,” she said. “Still, it’s not helpful.”
“Nope. Let’s go,” he said. “Do we walk or drive?”
She frowned. “Let’s drive,” she said.
He nodded and took her hand. “Let’s make it look as if we’re friends.”
“Actually I was counting you as one,” she said. She squeezed his fingers and pointed to her car up front. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 10
When Petra parked behind the police station, she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know why this is bothering me so much.”
“It should bother you,” he said. “Just think about it. You’ve been to hell and back, and somebody has done this to your sister and left her there. Then, at the same time, you’ve also endured the loss of your father. What could the police and their questions possibly do to you at this point? They surely can’t do any more to you than life has done already.”
She chuckled at that. “Are you sure?”
“Well, no,” he said, “because it can surely be a pain in the ass to deal with some of these people.”
“True,” she said, “but let’s go.” She led the way inside, and, as she walked in, she went to the woman behind the desk and introduced herself, saying she was here to see Detective Conus.
The woman smiled and said, “Take a seat. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
At that, Petra walked over and took a seat on a hard bench. After a few minutes, the bench started to bite into her butt. “Seems like they could spring for more comfortable seating, if they’ll make us wait out here,” she muttered.
“I think it’s part of the plan,” he said, chuckling.
She smiled. “Maybe so, but it’s still a pain in the ass. Literally.”
“Yep, it is.”
A moment later the door opened, and a detective stood there, looking at her, waving her in. The two of them walked toward him. He looked up at Cain and asked, “And who are you?”
His accent was thick and broken. Cain answered in kind, introducing himself. “I’m a friend of Petra’s,” he said.
The detective looked at Petra, and she looked back with a steady stare. He just shrugged and said, “Well, come in then, if she wants you here.” As they walked inside a nearby office, and everybody was seated, the detective asked, “When did you last hear from your sister?”
“I told you last night, not for many months. Apparently though my uncle thinks he saw her not too long ago.”
“Seriously?” The detective raised his head from making notes and looked at both of them.
“According to what the uncle said this morning, yes,” Cain said.
“Okay, I’ll have to talk to him about that then,” he said.
“Perfect,” she said. “As for me and my sister, I haven’t seen her since right before she left, about eighteen months ago. Last time we talked face-to-face, she left, upset and angry.”
“Why?”
“She was pregnant,” Petra said bluntly. “So I don’t know if she aborted the baby or had it and gave it up for adoption or what.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Who else can confirm this?”
“My uncle, most likely,” she said.
“About the pregnancy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how much my uncle knew or didn’t know about that,” she said.
“And your aunt?” Detective Conus asked.
“Same thing.”
“Your father?”
At that, she felt something inside her crumble.
Cain immediately reached across, grabbed her hand, and told the detective, “Her father passed away last night.”
The detective’s gaze widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. Can you tell me what happened?”
She nodded, composed herself, and said, “Apparently, just from one moment to the next, he was gone. I found out this morning. His body is at the morgue right now.”
The detective made several notations on his notepad. “I’ll check into it,” he said.
She nodded.
He continued, “Can you tell me anything about your sister?”
>
“She hooked up with Chico,” she said. “And, after that, everything went to hell and back.”
“I’m sorry, and she was found in Chico’s house, correct?”
She looked at him. “Technically speaking, it was Chico’s father’s house, but Chico did live there, at least part of the time. And my sister was found in Chico’s bedroom. But, unless you’re new here, we both already knew that, as did everybody else in town.”
“Just trying to get as much information as I can,” he said quietly.
She nodded, not saying anything, but, from her perspective, he was being deliberately obtuse.
He looked at Cain. “How long have you been here?’
“Not very long,” he said. “Why?”
“Just wondered what you might have had to do with any of this.”
“Nothing,” he said. “I was staying at her aunt and uncle’s bed-and-breakfast.”
“And what made you choose that bed-and-breakfast?”
“I came here on business,” he said, “and I was looking to enjoy the flavor of the town,” he spoke easily, the words rolling off his tongue smoothly.
But something about it the detective didn’t like. “I might need references from you.”
“And why is that?”
The detective didn’t have an answer.
“You’re welcome to have them,” Cain said. He brought out his phone and handed off Ice’s name and number.
“Relationship?”
“Business associate and friend,” he said.
“I suspect you’re in town for a whole different reason.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I would think that Chico would be at the top of your list too.”
“Chico has a bad rep in town,” the detective said, “but he’s never been charged with anything.” There was almost a word of warning in his voice.
Cain gave him a saber-toothed smile and said, “That’s nice. And why is that?”
The detective stiffened at that. “We don’t like troublemakers here,” he snapped.
“Good,” he said, “because I’m not one. But it seems like a few people around here are.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Maybe, maybe not, but we’ll see what happens when we look at the autopsy report on that young woman found in Chico’s bedroom. His father was there in the house the whole time.”
