A Dead Husband (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery)

by Anna Burke

  “We did, Jessica. Jerry told me it matched the description that Mrs. Gomez had given him,” Tommy gushed. “Sara does look a lot like Laura. Why didn’t she just say something to you or Laura about that right away if she saw Roger Friday night?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a touchy subject, but not a motive for murder. Sara’s story does raise a couple questions.” Jessica filled them in about the money Roger had borrowed from Dave and Sara without telling Laura. Also, about the difficulty they had getting the money back and about Roger coming up with a thousand dollars in cash Friday night.

  “I looked around in the garage for anything that seemed to be out of place. Everything was neat as a pin. I didn’t check inside the car since it was locked. I’ll go back and do that tomorrow, first thing, before the cleaning guys arrive. I think I saw an extra set of car keys in the utility room or kitchen. If not, Laura must have one.”

  “I’ll ask Laura for a key to Roger’s car before you leave tonight, Jerry.”

  “That’s great, Jessica. So, let me guess one of the questions you have now that we’ve heard Sara’s story: What was Roger doing with a thousand dollars cash in his car, or anywhere for that matter, given how tight things were? I know you said there were several cash deposits to his business account over the past few months. I presume the money from Dave and Laura would have been deposited as a check. So where has the cash been coming from? How much was it altogether?”

  “I was wondering exactly the same thing. I’ll go back and take another look at his accounts, Jerry. I’ll make a list of the dates and amounts. As I recall, all of the deposits were to his business account but I’ll recheck their personal accounts too. I still have more reconciling to do of the invoices and receipts in the file folders we took. Maybe we’ll find receipts for work he did that will match the deposit amounts. Laura’s going to help me with that in the morning before I have lunch with Paul. She’s got a lot on her plate but less now that you’re taking care of the cleanup at her house, Tommy. Most of the arrangements have been made for Roger’s burial now too,” she said, filling in the details quickly.

  “My second question about Sara’s encounter with Roger Friday night is: Who was Roger expecting to visit? To me it seems logical that his visitor a) belongs to the roadster, b) was a ‘she,’ and c) the same ‘she’ the pizza guy thought he heard talking in the background when he made his delivery to Roger’s house. Whoever was in that house with him was the last person to see him alive, if she wasn’t the one who killed him.” Jessica took a few sips before going on.

  “I know this is gross, but the forensic pathologist says there was still pizza in Roger’s stomach when he was killed, so it couldn’t have been more than a couple hours after the pizza was delivered around eight. That’s also consistent with what the forensic pathologist said based on a number of other disgusting things like blood pooling, body temperature and rigor. According to the preliminary autopsy report, Roger was shot three times. The first shot wounded him badly, and he lost a lot of blood. He probably would have died from blood loss even if the killer had not come back a few minutes later and put two more bullets into him. In the interim Roger apparently tried to save himself. He crawled through his own blood and tried to pull himself up off the floor. His cell phone was found underneath his body so I figure he was trying to call for help. The whole thing is horrific. It’s pretty clear, though, that Laura was with us, Tommy, when Roger was murdered.” Jessica took a moment to stretch out her shoulders and back that were growing more tense as she revealed each gruesome detail.

  “Any luck yet getting the phone records for the house or for Roger’s cell? I presume Roger was trying to call 911 when he was shot again, but we don’t know that. Nor do we know who else he might have spoken to that night before all this horror began.”

  “We can’t get those without the help of the police, Jessica. My friend who’s running the plate for us tells me the police have already asked for records. They’ll send copies to you as soon as they get them. Detective Hernandez might know more when you have that chat with him, tomorrow, about Sara and the Prius.”

  “Yes, and I need to tell him what else I found out today. The MT Roger had lunch with on Thursday is Margarit Tilik. She’s a tall, exotic woman who works as a translator and courier for her fiancé’s business. Not all of what he does is above board, if even some of what I learned from the esthetician at the spa today is true. I don’t know about Barb Boehner’s reliability as an informant, but I’ll give her an A-plus as an esthetician. That’s evident from the wonders worked on my face.”

  “Yeah, I noticed you looked a lot less scary today,” Tommy commented almost somberly.

  “Thanks, I guess,” Jessica retorted. “Anyway, it seems Barb’s had a chance to hone her skills by practicing on the lovely Margarit after run-ins with her husband-to-be. I met both Margarit and her fiancé today at the La Quinta resort. He seemed perfectly charming, as well-groomed and as expensively-dressed as Margarit, although he made no pretense of dressing in anything remotely resembling resort wear. He keeps Margarit on a short leash. She is escorted around town by men he hires as drivers. I think they’re more like guards or spies than drivers, hired by her beau who is given to bouts of jealousy. Margarit says Roger was her latest driver and she saw him several times last week. She also said that her drivers didn’t last long. Apparently, even though Alan Bedrossian hires them to keep an eye on the lovely Margarit, it’s not unusual for him to decide they’re keeping too close an eye on her. When that happens, their employment termination procedures can get pretty rough. My conversation with Margarit was interrupted before I could get much in the way of details, but more than one of her previous drivers ended up badly beaten, according to Barb.” At the mention of Alan Bedrossian’s name, Jerry Reynolds had gone on alert. Tommy looked absolutely horrified hearing this new information.

  “Oh my God, do you think he’s the one who killed Roger?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Tommy. Sounds like he’s capable of it. But why go to such lengths when a sound beating would have accomplished the same thing? If he decided to shoot Roger why would he shoot him once then wait before coming back to shoot him again? It just doesn’t make any sense. I do think it’s likely that the cash deposited in Roger’s business account came from Bedrossian. I have no idea what the going rate is for a driver or spy or babysitter, whatever Roger was hired to do. I suppose it could amount to some real money. Maybe Roger had just been paid and that’s the source of the cash he gave Sara.” Jessica stopped talking long enough to down a glass of water. The long day, the heat, and the conversation were taking a toll.

  “It occurs to me that Margarit might have been Roger’s other visitor Friday night. The enigmatic Margarit smokes clove cigarettes. Everything happened so fast today I couldn’t figure out why that seemed to matter. But as I recall, now, Laura said she smelled something odd when she got home Saturday morning. Sort of smoky and spicy, like a clover cigarette, maybe. Margarit didn’t have time to tell me what, but something was going on between her and Roger. Maybe they had a liaison at the house Friday night and she had those little clove cigarettes with her. She was plenty scared, but not totally shocked, that Roger had turned up dead. I suppose her surprise could have been feigned if she was covering for that fact that she shot Roger. I can’t imagine why she’d shoot him, but she’s more believable as a sloppy shooter than Alan Bedrossian or the slick looking security guy he had with him today. Margarit’s fear was real enough though, that’s for sure.”

  “I don’t doubt that’s the truth, the fear I mean. Jessica, Alan Bedrossian is bad news.” Jerry leaned forward. “You need to call Detective Hernandez right away. He needs to know about Maragarit and Bedrossian and their connection to Roger, immediately. Bedrossian is well known to the police in the LA area. He’s not a mob boss in the traditional sense, but a wannabe of some kind, with ties to dangerous and illicit activities. Leave Hernandez a message and drop Bedrossian’s name. I’ll bet he
calls you back first thing tomorrow morning.” Jerry was grim as he went on.

  “I don’t mean to scare you. Actually, that’s not true. I do mean to scare you. You’re right that if he shot Roger it wouldn’t have taken three bullets to kill him, so it’s not likely he’s the shooter. When a guy like Bedrossian decides he wants somebody dead, they’re dead. Who knows what’s going on? This is a great lead you’ve uncovered but you need to let the police run with this one, okay?”

  Tommy was staring wide-eyed, looking at Jessica as she took in alternate gulps of water and air, nodding her head yes. Bernadette had come back out on the patio and stood there, wide-eyed and silent too. Jerry had made his point. Jessica’s body had jumped into hyper-drive and she was working hard to head off a panic attack.

  “I hear you, Jerry. I left a message for Detective Hernandez to call me when I stopped by the station this morning. I’ll call him again and if that doesn’t work I’ll bring Uncle Don in on this too.” Jerry confirmed what she had known since her encounter with Margarit and the follow up with Barb the esthetician. She was in way over her head.

  “You guys have done a great job. It would still be good to get Eric Warren to go on record about Laura’s whereabouts after we all parted ways Friday night. I think there’s plenty at this point to get Laura off the hot seat as the murderous wife.” That was small compensation for the terror she was struggling to hold at bay, but it was the only good she could dredge up from these new revelations. Jessica stood up. “I don’t know about you all, but I’m ready to call it a night. Let me go get that key from Laura, if she’s still awake.”

  Jessica roused Brien, who was still passed out after drinking 5 or 6 beers and scarfing down endless slices of pizza. “Some watch dog,” Jessica thought, “he looks more like a big old sleepy Labrador than a Pit Bull or Doberman.” He struggled to his feet as Jessica went into the house and got Roger’s car key from Laura. She also asked Laura if what she smelled Saturday morning could have been the scent of clove cigarettes. Laura wasn’t sure she had ever smelled a clove cigarette, lit or unlit. She was so exhausted and distraught, Jessica did not pursue the point, nor did her despondent friend ask Jessica why on earth it mattered.

  Jessica took the car key to Jerry. “Tommy can you get a pack of clove cigarettes when you’re out running errands tomorrow?”

  “No problem, Jessica. If Margarit bought them anywhere around here they’d be sold as little cigars, not cigarettes. I can get those easy. If she’s smoking the real thing she must have picked them up in Mexico, or maybe her boyfriend brought them back for her from somewhere else outside the U.S. Are you thinking about picking up a new bad habit?”

  Jessica knew he was trying to be funny, but her addled brain was no longer fully functional. Besides, she was too freaked out for repartee.

  “Ha, ha, ha, Tommy. I have all the bad habits I can handle at the moment. I want to see if I can jog Laura’s memory. We need a lot more than the lingering scent of a clove cigarette to place Margarit at the house that night, but it’s a place to start. Please, just get whatever you can without too much trouble.” Tommy was pouting at what he regarded as a reproach from Jessica, his bottom lip poked out. She tousled his hair and gave him a hug. “You’re doing a great job, Tommy. Sorry I’m such a wreck. Now get out of here, all of you!” She swatted Tommy on the butt. He was smiling brightly again. This was hard on all of them. Well, not all of them. Brien, who was eating again, seemed oblivious to the conversation. He had pulled a piece of leftover pizza out of one of the boxes Bernadette gave him, like she had done for Tommy and Jerry too. He was practically inhaling it as they all walked to the front door and said goodnight.

  Once they were gone, Jessica and Bernadette went back out onto the patio. The sun was had set, and the last rays of color drained from the sky, leaving it an inky blue. Mt. San Jacinto was darkly silhouetted against the night sky. They spent the next few minutes sitting there, just the two of them, basking in the evening breeze.

  “It’s a good thing you’re doing for Laura, mi niña,” Bernadette said, sensing Jessica’s dark mood.

  “I hope you’re right, Bernadette,” Jessica replied as she pulled herself up out of the lounge chair she was sitting in. She said a quick good night, seeking the refuge of her bedroom before she broke down in front of Bernadette. She stared at the divorce papers on the desk in her room as she called and left a voice mail for Detective Hernandez. A wave of nostalgia swept over her at the loss represented by those pages. Something else hit her tonight, though: a strange realization about how good her life had still been when divorce from her rat-bastard husband was the principle trauma in her life.

  CHAPTER 22

  Jessica woke before the alarm, even though it had taken some effort to get to sleep. That conversation with Jerry had left her skin crawling and her mind racing. Closing her eyes to sleep, she could still see the concern on both Tommy and Jerry’s faces. She agreed to back off and let the police handle things, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

  How convincing had Margarit been with the ruse concocted on the spot about having met Jessica at the spa? There was no reason to believe that Alan Bedrossian would care very much about who Jessica was, except that he made it his business to keep tabs on people who spent time with Margarit. From Barb’s description of the man he came across as paranoid, physically violent, and megalomaniacal, with no regard for the consequences to others. In short, a bona fide sociopath. Not the kind of guy you wanted to take notice of you.

  Sun streaming in through the gaps in her blackout drapes beckoned Jessica to the pool for a morning swim. She decided to forego coffee and the prospect of contact with others for the time being, not wanting to confer dread upon them. Exiting her room via the sliders to the patio, she made a beeline for the pool and its cleansing waters. She paused, caught for a moment by the beauty of the morning. Startling blue skies were set against emerald green fairways encircled by mountains that exuded imperviousness to fleeting human woes. Sunlight danced on palm fronds and skittered along the surface of the water set in motion by a warm Santa Ana wind.

  “It was going to be a scorcher,” she thought as she dove into the water. She set a pace intended to revive her weary body and tame her anxious mood. By the time she climbed out of the pool, nearly an hour later, she felt ready to face the day, heat and all.

  Standing in her walk-in closet after showering, Jessica gazed at the room. She had spent another hour on the room when she couldn’t sleep last night, sorting items and organizing the clothes on racks and shelves in the closet by category and color. They looked much better after she had taken the fabric steamer to them. The tidying up effort had restored sufficient illusion of control over her life that, with a couple Benadryl, she finally fell asleep.

  She had a lot to do but had gone as far as she could without coffee. She took a peek at her face as she moved out of her dressing room, her body wrapped in a soft chenille robe. A lot of the redness and swelling were gone. The abrasion on her cheek was much less noticeable and she had to strain to see the cut on her lip. The bruising under her eyes was still pronounced, though, dark and raccoon-like. Barb had told her to be patient and to expect to use the makeup as cover up for at least a week. For now, Jessica put on the oversized sunglasses to hide the damage. Tackling the challenge of planning her day and figuring out how to dress for lunch with Paul Worthington felt like she was being asked to outfit herself for a climb of Mt. Everest.

  “I must be depressed or anxious or maybe just scared shitless,” she muttered to herself as she made her way to the kitchen for coffee.

  “You’re up early again,” Bernadette said. Anticipating Jessica’s need for coffee, she pulled a latte sized mug out of the cupboard. “I guess it’s hard to sleep with so much going on right now. I know you’re worried about Laura but she’s going to be okay. We’ll take care of her.”

  She patted Jessica as she handed her the steaming mug of coffee. Without giving it a thought, Jessica hopped up onto a
bar stool. She was rewarded for her nonchalance by a shot of pain when she bumped one of the still tender bruises on her body. She winced again as she wiggled into a more comfortable position on the bar stool.

  “You’re still hurting from that fight you were in, aren’t you?” Bernadette asked as she slid into the seat next to Jessica. Her Natori robe was a swirl of color as she moved.

  Jessica nodded in agreement as she savored the rich, dark roast coffee. She willed the warmth to give her a shred of the energy and confidence Bernadette exuded. “I’m not as young as I used to be, I guess.”

  “Oh Jessica you’re a spring chicken! What are you saying? You’re just not used to wrestling with a pendejo like that guy in the pantyhose. And you’re not going to do that anymore, right? Jerry said this new guy you were talking about is muy maleante. That’s all you need is another bad man in your life.”

  “I know you’r right, Bernadette. I used to be able to handle myself so much better, though. Maybe I should take a self-defense class or something so I’ll be more ready next time.”

  “Jessica what do you mean next time? Jerry said no next time. That’s what the police are for. What if next time the pendejo you run into has a gun, then what? Self-defense classes wouldn’t have helped poor Roger much.” Bernadette had the same pained look on her face that Tommy and Jerry had worn the night before. Jessica reached out to put her arm around Bernadette, shifting her weight on the stool. Her reward was another stab of pain.

  “It’s going to be okay, Bernadette. The chicken part of spring chicken fits me for sure. You know I’m not good with pain. As miserable as my life seems at times, I know it’s the only one I’ve got. I already called Detective Hernandez and left him a message to call me back so I can fill him in. That way he can pick up where I’ve left off with the maleante Jerry warned me about.” Jessica downed the rest of her coffee and poured another cup. Before she could take a sip, her phone rang.