“Yes, and I’m Elizabeth Hardin.”
“Well, Mrs. Hardin, what can I do for you?”
“This isn’t easy to admit but I believe my husband is having an affair.”
Oh, for the love of Hershey’s. How the hell did I manage to get myself into these things? “Well, I’m…sorry about that, truly, but I’m…kind of busy right now. I can give you a list of agencies that would be able to help you.”
I grabbed a Post It note and a pen then jotted down the information.
“Here,” I said, handing her the paper. “You should be happy with any of these.”
She looked at the paper then back at me. “I’d really prefer to hire you.”
“Thank you, but, like I said, I can’t really handle your case. I’m sorry.” I tried to make eye contact so she would not think I was lying, but she was staring at the crumpled picture on my desk. I picked up the picture and tucked it into the top drawer, then stood up. I hoped she would take the hint. She did.
“Well, thank you for your time and for the recommendations.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said, feeling like a jerk. I wanted to shout, “Hell yeah, your hubby’s cheating on you,” but I couldn’t. Lindsay was my client and I had an obligation. I wouldn’t break it, no matter how I personally felt.
I locked the door behind her and sighed in relief. That was just too close.
Since there was nothing more for me to do until I met with Sara tonight, I locked up the office then got into my car and headed straight for the Fairfield Mall. As much as I loved clothes, I usually avoided the malls thanks to my budget. But this was for my mom and I wanted to look nice, and if the dress emphasized my assets, then that was a bonus.
The clothes in my closet were all labeled a size six. Unfortunately, the first three stores I went into only went up to size four. If I’d been a size zero, there would have been plenty to choose from. Just exactly how many size zero women were there walking around? None, unless they were walking skeletons, in which case we had much bigger problems to worry about. Two hours and eight stores later I emerged from the mall with my purchases. Thanks to a thirty percent off sale I was able to buy new shoes and a purse to go with the green dress.
Back home, I hung the dress on the back of my bedroom door then tucked the shoes and purse in my closet. It was six o’clock and my stomach gave a little friendly reminder it was empty. I grabbed the containers of leftover Chinese food out of the refrigerator and piled it onto a plate, stuck it in the microwave, and reached for a beer. I remembered my late meeting with Sara and switched to a Diet Pepsi.
When the food was ready I took it into the living room and sat on the couch. The news was on and, lucky me, I was just in time to see the stories about Brian’s and Adam’s murders. They showed a short clip that was taken in front of my apartment building. Surprisingly, my name was not mentioned in either story. Either God was looking out for me or someone a lot closer was. I was grateful for whoever was responsible. There wasn’t anything about Angie’s disappearance, so it seemed the police had managed to keep it from the press so far. That wouldn’t last long. Once she was missing for forty-eight hours it would be released to the press. I wondered about her family. Would they ever see her again?
I finished dinner, washed the dishes, and took out the trash. Upstairs, I turned on the laptop and searched for information on Angie. Like other twenty-somethings she had a Facebook page. Angie had chosen a public setting, which meant anyone could look at her page, see her comments, and any pictures she posted. You could also see her list of friends and family, similar to Lindsay’s. Though this wasn’t safe, for my purposes I appreciated how easy it was to get information. I took out a notebook and a pen and started jotting down notes. Inspiration struck and I did the same for Brian, Adam, David, Kevin, and even threw Sara in for good measure.
Though broken up, Angie and Brian were still on each other’s list of friends. Both had also left their status as “in a relationship.” So maybe they weren’t as broken up as everyone had thought. Brian and group seemed to have a lot of the same friends and spent a great deal of time playing games. Each had friend lists that exceeded twelve hundred people. Jeez, I didn’t think I knew twelve hundred people. I certainly wouldn’t consider them all friends. Ahh, the life of a gamer. None of that was useful, but I was able to get contact information for several members of Angie’s family. They were all local; one sister, two brothers, and a cousin. I jotted down the information on her list and moved on to Sara’s profile. Her last update had been shortly after the police had informed her and her mother of Brian’s death. She posted a picture of her and Brian when they were kids. As sad as that was, Adam’s profile had brought tears to my eyes. He had the same large list of gaming friends but the only relative was a great-uncle out in Arizona.
My own profile had nearly a hundred family members. The friends list I had insisted contain only real friends was small, but the people on it were the ones I called when I wanted company, which, to me, was the point of friendship, but what the heck did I know.
David’s and Kevin’s profiles were similar to Brian’s—a large list of friends and a scattering of family. The difference was where Kevin posted comments several times a day, David seemed to post updates no more than once a week.
I’d kept myself busy but all I’d learned was their favorite movies and video games. I’d also learned that David, Kevin, and Brian had all been proud enough to post their mug shot pictures on their accounts. Not exactly something I would have been eager to show to the world. Six months later and I was still grateful my interrogation with Grant never progressed to the booking and fingerprinting stage.
At the time I had avoided television, newspapers, and the web. Now out of some morbid curiosity I Googled my name. There must be quite a few more Kimberly Murphys in the world; if not, I was responsible for ten thousand articles. I exited the search without opening any of the sites. The last thing I needed was to dredge up all that crap.
I glanced at the clock. If I was going to meet Sara, I had to leave now to make it on time. I turned off the laptop and stuffed the papers in the desk drawer. I locked up and got in the car. Sara lived only a few blocks away from her mother. What a difference those blocks made. This side of town was low income housing. Most of the residents here were families struggling to make ends meet, good people in bad situations. Then there were the drug dealers and the users who would do whatever it took to get their drugs.
Street lights no longer worked on this block and the city wasn’t in any hurry to have them fixed. What was the point? They wouldn’t last twenty-four hours. This lower income section was at the north end of town, a few streets over and you were in Dayton.
I parked in front of the dark apartment building and wondered how long my car would be safe on the street. There were six apartments in Sara’s one-story building. Hers was on the end. I stepped over trash and abandoned toys to get to her front door. I knocked then waited. Televisions blared and several different food smells swirled around in the air. I knocked again. Just because I was on time didn’t mean Sara wasn’t running behind. Too bad that annoying voice in my head insisted this felt too much like the visit to Angie’s place.
This was different, I told myself. Sara called me. She wanted to talk. Didn’t she? This was stupid. I was letting the neighborhood and everything that had happened get to me. If Sara said she’d be here, she’d be here. I went back to my car to sit and wait. She’d be along any minute. Yeah, right. I spent the first minutes reading the romance book I had stuffed in my purse, glancing up every so often to see if Sara’s light in the front window was on. No longer able to concentrate, I put the book back in my purse and tried listening to the radio. After another fifteen minutes, I pulled my phone out of my purse and tried Sara’s number—no answer. I tried her mother’s number and again no one answered.
A knock on the passenger window elicited a small scream. I looked over to see a face pressed to the glass. I lowered the window
an inch. “What?”
“You gonna sit here all night?”
“Jeez, Brandon, what are you doing here?”
“Following you. If I’d known it would be so boring, I would have gone with the guys to play darts and drink beer.”
“Then go do it.”
“Are you gonna let me in or not?”
“Not.”
“Funny. I guess I could go back to my truck and wait with Michael.”
“You brought Michael? Are you insane?”
Brandon chuckled. “Look who’s talking.”
“You shouldn’t have involved him. You know he’ll rat me out to Dad.”
“Thanks for the confidence,” Michael said, his face joining Brandon’s at the window.
“Hell,” I muttered, flipping the locks open.
Brandon sat next to me while Michael sat in the backseat behind me.
“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal your precious truck?” I asked Brandon.
“We’re right here and the alarm is set.”
“Oh, and you’ve never written up a report for a stolen car that had an alarm?”
“It’s only five feet away.”
“Well, it’s so dark out there you can’t see a few feet in front of you.”
“Knock it off, Kim,” Michael warned.
“So, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“Same as Brandon, trying to keep you out of trouble.”
“Sorry, Kim, but it seems to have become a two-man job.” Brandon chuckled.
“You both think you’re so funny.”
“We are. Right, Brandon?”
“You bet.”
“Could the two of you shut up?”
“What’s the matter? Your date stand you up?” Michael asked.
“Jeez, you must be pretty desperate to be picking up guys from down here,” Brandon said.
“Actually, Mom is so worried the two of you won’t find anyone, I was trolling for women for you.”
“Now who thinks she’s funny.”
“Yeah, right, as if we can’t find women for ourselves,” Brandon said.
“You both forget. I’ve seen the type of girlfriends you bring home.”
“Ouch. So, are we going to discuss the real reason you’re here?” Michael asked.
“I have nothing to say to either of you.”
“Kim, we all know it has something to do with the dead guy in your apartment,” Michael said.
“He was not in my apartment!” I said through clenched teeth.
“Sorry, your neighbor’s apartment. You’re stuck with us so you might as well spill and tell us what you’re up to. We’ll figure it out anyway.”
I hated to admit Michael was right, but he was. Seeing no harm in being honest, I explained to them how Sara had asked for me to meet her here to discuss her brother’s case.
“So, where is she?”
“Jeez, Michael, don’t you think if I knew that I wouldn’t be sitting here having such stimulating conversation with the two of you?”
Brandon chuckled. “You two want to put on a pair of boxing gloves and go a few rounds?”
“No, it would be too embarrassing for Michael when he goes back to work and admits he got beat up by his younger sister.”
That got a chuckle out of them both.
“So let’s try knocking on the door again,” Michael suggested.
“Uh, hello, the light is still off,” I said.
“Well, this chick is forty minutes late. Are you going to spend all night waiting?” Michael asked.
“No, but I don’t think there’s any point trying the door again. She isn’t home.”
“Or maybe she isn’t able to answer.”
Brandon had just expressed my greatest fear, at least the greatest fear this moment. What if the killer got to her? Before I could decide what to do, Michael got out of the car and walked toward Sara’s door. Brandon and I looked at each other before following after him.
I got to the door and knocked. Surprise, surprise, there was no answer. My hand closed on the door knob and turned. The door opened and Michael grabbed my arm.
“You can’t do that. You want to be charged with breaking and entering?”
“Technically it would just be entering.”
“I can’t watch you do this. Let go of the door.”
“If you don’t want to watch, leave.”
“Hey, Kim, did you hear that?” Brandon asked.
“Hear what?”
“Someone calling for help. Don’t you hear it?”
“Brandon, what is wrong with you?” Michael asked.
“Look, Michael, she’s going to do this whether we’re here or not. I’d rather she did it with us here to protect her. I get it, though. If you want to take off, take my truck. We’ll meet up later.”
“Just great, now you’re becoming as reckless as Kim is.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad.”
“Excuse me, but could the two of you stop talking about me like I’m not here? Besides, all this talking is getting us nowhere. If Sara’s in there hurt, we need to get her help.”
“Fine, but I’m going in. You two wait out here,” Michael growled.
Brandon and I stood listening for any sounds coming from inside the apartment. Michael returned, a grim look on his face.
“I’ll call this in,” he said.
“What? What is it? Is she in there?” I asked.
“No, but the place has been trashed. We’ll need the tech geeks out here.”
“Maybe she’s just a bad housekeeper,” Brandon offered.
“Nobody’s that bad. The place has been searched and they didn’t mind leaving a mess.”
“Not again. That’s what happened at Lindsay’s place.”
“Kim, whoever did this wasn’t messing around. Give me your keys.” Michael then turned toward Brandon. “Drive her home; I’ll meet you guys there after I’m finished here.”
“No,” Brandon and I said in unison.
“The two of you can’t be here.”
I looked at Brandon and he nodded. “We’re staying,” I said.
Michael muttered something then stormed off to call for help. With his back turned I figured this was my only chance to see for myself what had happened. I rushed in before either of them could stop me. I pulled a flashlight from my purse and turned it on. The apartment was not quite as small as Angie’s but it had been decorated with pictures on the walls, an afghan on the back of the couch, and knickknacks on every flat surface. All of this seemed to have been done to chase away the drab feeling of the place. It would have worked if not for all the destruction. With nothing more to see I turned to leave and spotted a piece of paper sticking out from under the couch. I leaned down and picked it up.
“What the hell are you doing in there? Get your butt out of there now!” Michael shouted.
I stuffed the paper in my pocket and hurried out just in time to see two patrol cars pull up, followed by an SUV. I nearly fainted when my dad stepped out of the vehicle and headed straight for us. “Oh, dear sweet buttercream, we’re in so much trouble.”
“What do you mean, we?” Brandon asked.
“Both of you, shut up and let me do the talking.”
“But, Michael…”
“I mean it, shut up.”
“So I was just about to head home to spend what was left of my evening with your mother, when I get a call that not one, but three of my children are at a crime scene. Someone care to explain what the devil is going on here?”
“It was me. I called in a break-in.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you off duty tonight?”
“Yes, sir, but as you taught us, if there is evidence of a crime, we must secure the scene and call it in and wait until assistance arrives.”
“Well, you got me there, but that doesn’t explain what the three of you are doing here.”
“Yes, well, you see…”
“It’s my fault, Dad.”<
br />
“Shut up, Kim,” Michael said.
My dad raised his hand and looked away. He turned around and headed straight for one of the officers standing by Sara’s door. After a brief conversation, he returned.
“We’re going to finish this conversation at home. Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir,” Brandon said, speaking for the first time since our dad arrived.
Brandon and Michael drove together, following behind the SUV. I brought up the rear, following behind the two of them. I knew my dad was mad.
At my parents’ house, my brothers and I took seats in the living room and waited. I could hear my mom and dad talking but could not make out the words. A few minutes later they entered the room together. They sat on the couch and my mom nudged my father.
“Okay, I’m ready to listen.”
I looked at my mom; she smiled and nodded at me. That was all it took. I told them everything, from the moment Lindsay banged on my door, the first time, to what happened tonight. Well, almost everything, I neglected to mention my going into Angie’s apartment. I didn’t think that little detail needed to be shared with anyone, certainly not with my parents. The whole time I talked I stared at my hands, folded in my lap. I stopped talking and looked up at my dad. I could have sworn his eye twitched. I waited for a response. There were a few minutes of silence, then he asked my brothers and mom to wait in the kitchen for a few minutes. Brandon and Michael moved so fast they looked like jets taking off from an aircraft carrier. My mom, however, stayed right where she was.
“Sweetheart, I think it would be best if I spoke with Kimberly alone.”
“I’m sorry, but I disagree.”
Oh no, I did not want my parents to have a disagreement over me. “It’ll be okay, Mom, I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will, Kimberly, your father and I want nothing but the best for you.”
My father sighed. If it was obvious to me, then it had to be to him as well—my mom wasn’t going anywhere.
“Yes, well, I know that you’ve been hired to look into Brian Lewis’s murder, but this is Detective Tompkins’s case. Now I don’t want any more interference from you. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, dear, she’s been hired to do a job, and it isn’t her fault if she and this detective of yours are running into each other, so to speak, while doing it.”
Death By High Heels (The Kim Murphy PI Series Book 1) Page 12
