The Decorator Who Knew Too Much

by Diane Vallere

  If Hudson wanted more details about what had happened in the quarry, he respected my silence enough not to press for them. He checked the GPS on his phone and followed the directions, leading us to the local hospital. Minutes later I followed an orderly named Omar to a semi-private cubicle where I came into contact with one very large needle.

  Two hours and one tetanus shot later, I was sent on my way. Hudson was waiting in the lobby. He put his hand out. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything is okay,” I said. “Should we get going?”

  “Not so fast.” He stretched his arm out toward me and I fell into step with his arm around me. “We haven’t had much alone time alone since we got here.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to stay with your sister,” I joked.

  “Not my best idea.” He put his finger under my chin and raised my face. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  “We can talk later. I don’t like hospitals. Let’s get out of here first.” I knew he wanted to know the details of what had happened, but I’d finally succeeded in shaking the feeling that the men who’d threatened me were close by. I changed the subject. “Did you make any headway today?”

  “Nope. Jimmy called it quits early. I think he’s getting lost in the weeds of this project. We’re going to get an early start tomorrow before it gets too hot.” He grew quiet for a moment. “He wanted me to get you from the quarry before he left. I think he felt guilty. I told him you’re a lot more independent than he thought and you’d call it quits when you were ready. I should have listened to him.”

  “I had a pretty productive day. I sketched out some ideas for him.” For the first time since running from the quarry, I remembered the sketchpad that I’d left behind. “I left the sketches behind when I ran, but maybe I can describe them to him.”

  “He could use a visionary right about now. Whatever you designed, I’m sure he’ll love it.”

  We walked out to the Jeep and I climbed in. Before shutting my door, Hudson pressed his finger into the flesh on my upper arm. “You got some sun.”

  I looked down at my skin. The bright sun made it hard to notice, but when I peered in the neckline of my top, I could see the developing tan line. “I wore sunscreen too. The sun’s a little stronger out here than at home.”

  “No worries. Emma has two aloe plants at the house. Best thing for it.” He walked around to the other side of the Jeep and climbed in next to me. “She came to the job site around lunch time. Dropped off some sandwiches. Did you eat?”

  “Not unless you count the eraser on the end of my pencil.”

  “Then you must be hungry. I saved you a ham and cheese.”

  I ate half of the sandwich while Hudson drove back to Jimmy and Emma’s house. I stared out the open window, taking in house after house, enjoying the clean lines and the unique desert landscaping. Soon we were bumping along the winding road where we’d had the accident.

  Hudson slowed considerably, probably because he was thinking about it too. We passed the hairpin turn without incident, but as it turned out, that didn’t mean we were in for an easy evening. Red and blue flashing lights announced the presence of the police at Emma and Jimmy’s house before we pulled into the driveway.

  Two Palm Springs Police vehicles sat behind Emma’s mint-green convertible and an unfamiliar gray sedan. Hudson swung the Jeep around until it was parallel parked alongside the front hedge next to the mailbox. We both got out and approached the front door. Instinctively, I grasped Hudson’s hand. He squeezed back.

  Emma held the door open and Jimmy stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. They both wore expressions of alarm. Whatever reason the police were here, it wasn’t because something had happened to one of them. I relaxed, but only slightly.

  Officer Buchanan stepped out from inside the door. “Mr. James, Ms. Night,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “For us?” Hudson asked. “I was with Jimmy at the river.”

  “Not you. Ms. Night.”

  “But I saw you today.” Everybody looked at me, and I realized I hadn’t told any of them about my midday detour to the police station. I looked at Hudson. “I’ll explain later,” I said.

  “No need to wait until later,” said a man I hadn’t met yet. “Ms. Night, I’m Detective Drayton.” He wore a tan suit, light blue dress shirt, and navy blue necktie. Tortoise-shell Ray Ban sunglasses shielded his eyes, making it hard to gauge his expression. His hair was soft brown, lighter in the front as if he spent time in a swimming pool and the sun had bleached it out. He had a deep tan. He took off his sunglasses and scanned everybody’s faces until his gaze rested on mine.

  He held out his hand and I shook it. “After you left the station, we got a call from a couple who was hiking around some trails by the quarry. They wanted to report a body.”

  Jimmy’s hands tightened on Emma’s arms. Her face was pale, but she did not seem shocked by the news. The officers must have had a chance to fill them in before we arrived.

  “The body was bloated and the lungs were full of water. It was pretty obvious it’d been submerged for an extended period of time.”

  “What does this have to do with Madison?” Hudson asked.

  Drayton paused for one last second, in case we needed any more bombshells. “The body was tangled up with a couple of broken branches and a white straw hat with multicolored tassels. Looks like you were telling the truth about the body you saw in the river.”

  ELEVEN

  The room fell silent. I was pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing. Buchanan looked embarrassed. Drayton continued to speak. “The medical examiner is testing samples of the water in his lungs against the river to be sure, but based on your 911 call, we’d like to get more details from you about what you saw.”

  “Why didn’t the officers find the body yesterday?” I asked.

  “There were rope marks on the victim’s ankles. It’s too early to know, but the ME thinks he was tied to something to weigh him down. Add in the water current and you have a body with an unpredictable pattern of movement. Whoever did this didn’t think things through very well. The body washed up about two hundred yards past Mr. McKenna’s job site. I doubt that was the plan.”

  Next door, a dog barked repeatedly. “That sounds like Rocky,” I said to Hudson.

  Emma overheard me. “It is. I didn’t want Heather to hear this so I asked her to take Rocky next door. Jo’s watching them.”

  “I’d really like him to be here with me,” I said.

  Emma seemed to understand. “Of course. Jimmy, do you want to come with me? I think maybe Heather should see us together right now.”

  Jimmy’s eyes cut to mine almost imperceptibly, and then to the police. “Sure, good idea,” he said. The two of them went through the house and out the back door.

  Hudson spoke up. “Detective, while I’m sure Madison likes knowing she didn’t imagine the body in the water, it seems awfully strange for you to make a trip out here to tell her she was right.”

  “He didn’t come out here to tell me I was right. Did you, Detective?” I asked.

  “Ms. Night, you believed all along you saw a body. It’s too soon for us to tell where the crime took place, so for now, we’re treating the pier as the crime scene. It would make my job a little bit easier if you could tell me what you remember.”

  “Of course I’ll cooperate,” I said. “Would you like me to come to the station tomorrow?”

  “I’d rather start right now,” he said. “Is there a good place for us to talk?”

  “We can sit in the living room,” Hudson said.

  The detective turned to Hudson. “I’d like to talk to Ms. Night alone,” he said.

  I put my hand on Hudson’s forearm. “It’s for the best.”

  Hudson looked back and forth at us. “I’ll be out back.”

&n
bsp; Buchanan and Truman followed Hudson. Seconds later, I heard the sliding glass door open and shut. Drayton gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat.”

  “First I’d like a glass of water. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you.”

  I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water and dug two small doggie snacks out of the cabinet where I’d hid them. I returned to the living room and relaxed (as much as I could, considering the circumstances) on the sofa.

  “Ms. Night, I probably don’t have to tell you this whole thing is an embarrassment to our police force. You did the right thing by calling the police when you saw the body. Now we’re in the unfortunate position of having to piece together the scene of discovery a day after the fact. I’d like to ask for your help in doing so.”

  “I already said I’d help,” I said. That’s when I noticed his cell phone, face up on the coffee table, glowed with the image of a microphone. “Am I being recorded?”

  “We both are.”

  I nodded. Detective Drayton was putting on record the fact that his department had screwed up. I wondered if that was standard procedure here in Palm Springs or if there was something more behind his action.

  “Can you walk me through what you remember from yesterday before you saw the body?”

  “Yes.” I took a sip of water and then held the glass between my hands while I spoke. I recounted arriving late at the river, walking the length of the pier and waving to the men on the other side. “I was waving my hat to get their attention and I dropped it. It fell into the water and I was trying to figure out how to get it out when I saw it.”

  “The body?”

  “Not quite. I didn’t know it was a body at first. I saw movement under the surface. It wasn’t anything noticeable, just enough for me to realize I saw something. I kept watching because I didn’t know what had caught my attention. That’s when I saw a pale face staring up at me. The eyes were blank and the hair moved back and forth under the surface.”

  “Then what?”

  “Once I processed I was looking at a body, I tried to get Hudson and Jimmy’s attention. There was no way for them to hear me so I backed away from the pier and called 911.”

  “About how much time passed between your phone call and Officers Buchanan and Truman arriving?”

  “I don’t know—I wasn’t timing it. The usual amount of time, I think.” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I froze up and stared at the recording cell phone. “I don’t mean to imply I call 911 a lot. I call it when there’s an emergency. I’ve been involved in some unfortunate situations in the past.” I flashed back to a situation two years ago when the police suspected Hudson of committing a ten-year-old murder. We hadn’t known each other as well as we did now, but even then, I’d been sure of his innocence. I hadn’t cooperated that time and it had almost cost me my life.

  “Ms. Night, you can relax. Your reputation is not being questioned. Officer Buchanan gave me the name of the police captain in Dallas and I spoke to him too. He suggested this conversation. I’m not here because you did anything wrong. I’m here because we did.”

  “How is he?” I asked. “Lieutenant Allen—I mean, Captain Allen.”

  “He seems like a nice guy. Having a hard time adjusting to being behind a desk and not out in the field, but he’s got twenty-five years of service under his belt and sounds to me like he was due for either a promotion or retirement. Hard to tell which way people are going to go when they hit the quarter of a century mark. Must be police work is in his blood.”

  “Must be,” I said. I sensed we were no longer alone and I looked up.

  Hudson stood in the doorway. “I thought you’d like to know Rock is out back with us. Do you want him in here? Or are you just about finished up?”

  Drayton said, “Is Rock your dog?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at his watch. “Are you okay if we power through for another fifteen minutes or so?”

  “If I say no, does it undo everything I said about cooperating with the police?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” he repeated.

  I looked at Hudson. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  Fifteen minutes turned out to be enough to cover the duffel bag and empty coffee cup but not much more. Drayton’s expression changed from one of curiosity to slight confusion. His brows pulled together, creating two small dimples above the inside of each. His eyes narrowed and he changed position, from sitting straight up to leaning forward.

  He picked up his phone and spoke directly into it. “Talk to Buchanan about duffel and coffee cup,” he said, and then turned the phone off. “That should do it for tonight. I have a team at the river to collect any evidence they might find, though I’m not confident we’ll find anything. Sun’s pretty severe these days, and at night, lots of critters come around the river to take whatever is left behind.”

  “Detective, you said the hikers found the body at the quarry, right? Something happened today that might be related.” I lowered myself to the sofa again and put my hand on the bandage on my calf. “I was at there, at the quarry. Jimmy’s been using the dump site to store the fixtures he purchased in Salton and I wanted to see what he had. A couple of men approached me while I was there.”

  “Men?” he said, his eyes cutting to the bandage. “You were attacked?”

  “I was threatened, but I’m the one who did the attacking.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  I’d been over the attack in my mind too many times by now and I knew that those men had something very bad in mind when they found me. A niggling voice in my head made me question if my reaction had been in line with the situation, or if, like my dreams, it had been a side effect of the events I hadn’t yet dealt with from Texas.

  “There were four men in the quarry. They approached me. The main guy, the leader, he said things. Unpleasant things. I don’t think I imagined the threat.”

  “Describe this guy.”

  “I first saw him yesterday at the Parks and Rec office. I got the feeling he knew the woman who worked there—Lora? He was tall and gaunt, thinning black hair slicked back over his head. He had a pronounced forehead and cheekbones. He looked like a skeleton with skin on it, no flesh, no softness. His teeth were yellow, probably from smoking. And he smelled pretty bad. One of the guys called him Benji.”

  “Benji Nalder,” Drayton said. He stood a little straighter, and I sensed the name meant something to him. He looked at his phone, which hadn’t caught the last part of our conversation.

  He stepped away from the table. I followed him to the door. “Detective, your officers probably told you I came to the precinct today. I found a set of keys jammed between the slats of the pier, right by where the duffel bag was. The keys had a Chevy emblem on the fob, and I think maybe the truck belongs to the victim.”

  “Where are the keys now?” he asked.

  “Officer Buchanan advised me to take them to the Parks and Rec Lost and Found.”

  He slid the back door open and flagged Buchanan over to us. “I need you to go to Parks and Rec and follow up on a set of keys.”

  Buchanan looked at me. “Are these the keys you told me about this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  Buchanan looked at Drayton. “Parks and Rec closed at five. I’ll go see her first thing in the morning.”

  Detective Drayton nodded and turned back to me. “Thank you for your time.” He looked at the backyard. “Tell Mr. and Mrs. McKenna I’m sorry to have interrupted their evening.”

  A few seconds later, he and the other two officers passed through the interior and out the front door toward the gray sedan. As Detective Drayton’s trousers brushed against the door of the car, a film of dirt transferred onto his clothes and revealed a shiny streak of metal on the side of the car. Drayton stopped outside of the car and smacked his h
and against the side of his clothes a couple of times, and the dirt fell away like stale pixie dust past its expiration date.

  Seconds later, Rocky bounded around the corner of the house. I scooped him up and snuggled my face into his fur. Emma appeared behind him shortly. “I heard the front door open and thought you might be finished. Rocky and I have been waiting for him to drive away.” She reached her hand up and ruffled his fur. He wriggled around in my arms a bit, and then jumped back down and hopped around my feet.

  “Thanks. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without Rocky,” I said. “I don’t have family like you do. This little guy is my cornerstone.” I watched him run circles around my ankles. Mortiboy jumped up onto the inside window sill and Rocky ran over and yipped. “If we don’t want him to sound the alarm through the neighborhood, we better get outside with Jimmy and Hudson.”

  “Madison, wait.” Emma stood still, as if rooted to the yard like a palm tree. She stared intently at Rocky. “Can I talk to you? I feel like I’m going to burst and I need to confide in someone.”

  “Is this about this morning?” I asked. “Emma, I’m the last person to judge you. Relationships are hard. I just about gave up on them before your brother convinced me it was worth taking a chance. Maybe Jimmy needs some help with his anger, but if you want, we can stay elsewhere while we’re here so you don’t have the added stress of guests on top of everything else.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s not about this morning. Madison, I’m the one to blame for everything that’s gone wrong since you got here.”

  The unshed tears gave way and ran down her face. She seemed less in control of her emotions than last night, but I couldn’t let her punish herself. I pulled her in for a hug and patted her back. “Emma, you can’t torture yourself. There are two of you in this relationship. If something is wrong, there are two people to blame, not one.”