The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  Claudia owned one of Stihl’s coffee table books. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and kept on the top shelf in her bedroom closet. She’d looked at it once. She intended never to look at it again, or even to think about it, and might have been able to keep that vow if not for Sydney Stihl’s voice on her answering machine, calling to say she was in town and could the two of them get together? She left her cell number—repeated it twice—and then simply hung up. “Goodbye” was a word she never used. Not since the plane went down.

  Claudia’s finger hovered over the delete button on her answering machine. The hour had long since slipped past midnight. Since the meeting with Suggs, Moody and Carella, she’d logged most of her time chasing details on the phone or computer. The work was tedious and for every new thread she turned up, half a dozen others unraveled. Now her back ached and her eyes burned from lack of sleep. The only voice she craved was Robin’s, but it was too late to call her. The last voice she wanted to hear was Sydney’s, because Sydney meant distraction and she meant pain, and if not for the quirk of genetics that brought both of them into the world from a single egg, Claudia would have less of each.

  For a second, she put her finger on the delete button. She wanted to press down. She wanted to throw away the package in her closet—now, immediately. She did neither. She went to bed instead, and hoped that sleep would claim her before the images from her twin sister’s book did all over again.

  * * *

  For Florida in August, when rain usually meant wind-whipped gushers that swallowed whole streets in minutes, the drizzle that rode in with dawn on Tuesday was an embarrassment. It qualified as mist more than anything else and it clung to an air so still that every scent stood out sharply enough to be almost visible. Claudia caught a powerful whiff of cow on her drive to the station. She immediately thought of Tom Dixon, whom she’d met only once but who inexplicably had the staying power of a bad song. She flashed on a time when she’d heard the jingle for a hot dog on the radio upon rising one morning. For the rest of the day, she couldn’t quite ditch it: “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener . . .” She hummed it, she sang it, she whistled it. The more she tried to banish it, the worse it clamped down on her. Tom Dixon was becoming a little like that, and she shook her head, annoyed, because she could no more avoid cows in Indian Run than advertising jingles on the radio. Then again, thinking about the cowboy was preferable to thinking about her sister. She turned on the radio to drown out both and had just about succeeded by the time she parked her car and reached her office.

  Mitch Moody was ready for her. He wore a charcoal suit, a remnant from his flirtation with law school. He’d exchanged suits for a police uniform when he realized that he could be more effective dispensing the law on the streets than trying to salvage it in a courtroom. The suit was dated, but Claudia said nothing. Most of her clothes were, too.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” he said. “Want some coffee before we head out?”

  “I’ll pass. Where’s the chief?”

  “Dodging the mayor.”

  “Lane’s already put in another call?”

  “Not yet, but the chief was leaving when I was coming in. He says it won’t take long before Lane figures out how to react to the initial crime scene report, so he’s trying to buy us some time by making it tough for Lane to reach him.”

  Lab technicians had called in a preliminary report. They’d turned up exactly what Claudia thought they would: nothing. There were no fingerprints that didn’t belong in Hemmer’s office. No unusual footprints around the house. Not even subtle indications that anyone had fooled with a door or a window to get in. Results on the desk pad and computers would take another day or two. At the moment, all that stood out as a curiosity was the lack of prints—any kind of prints—on the video.

  “Carella in yet?” she asked.

  “In and out.”

  “You’re joking. It’s not even seven-thirty.”

  “He’s showing off. This is the third time he’s played detective with you. I think he’s itching to get bumped up a notch permanently. He’s already off to see the crew at Discreet over in Flagg.”

  Discreet was death’s janitor, a cleaning service that specialized in crime scene clean-up. Sandi’s grandparents had been given a list of three such services after the scene was cleared by police. They didn’t dwell on it. They chose the name at the top.

  “You’re not expecting anything from this, are you?” Moody asked.

  “No. An officer babysat the premise while Discreet did its thing. But there’s no point in leaving it to question. If the Hemmer case gathers steam, the mayor certainly won’t.”

  “Got it.”

  “All right. Give me five minutes and then we’ll roll, see if we can stir anything up.”

  Claudia sought out Ron Peters, a sergeant who took care of administrative functions with the practiced efficiency of a soccer mom in a van full of ten-year-olds.

  “Hey, Sarge. Anything I need to know about that can’t wait?”

  “Nope. It’s blessedly peaceful right now. With Moody and Carella off the streets, we need it to stay that way.”

  “The chief filled you in?”

  “Yeah. He said we’re playing the Hemmer investigation low-key, which I take to mean that only half the town knows about it by now.”

  Claudia smiled. “Give it another hour. The rest will catch up.” She turned to go.

  “Oh, hey. Lieutenant? I almost forgot. You got a call just before you walked in.” He handed her a message form. “I was about to leave it on your desk, but now I can save myself those whopping ten steps to your office.”

  Sydney. Claudia jammed the note in her pocket.

  “I don’t recognize the name, but I’ll do a call-back if you want.”

  “Not necessary, Ron. I’ll check in later.”

  “Okay. And good luck out there.”

  She didn’t hear him. The jingle was back in her head.

  Chapter 11

  When Hemmer decided to take hostages, he picked Jennifer Parrish to arrive first. He obviously perceived Parrish as the weakest lamb, both physically and emotionally. She wouldn’t try to fight him. She would tape the others up as ordered. She would do whatever it took to get home safely to her kids and husband. Claudia figured that what worked for Hemmer would work for her as well.

  With Moody buckled in beside her, she steered her police-issued Cavalier through the entrance to Willow Whisper. A repairman was working on the gates, mindless of the drizzle, and paid no attention when they drove by. Five minutes later she braked to a stop in front of a two-story house and turned off the ignition. The engine shuddered and announced its age with rude sounds that ten-year-old boys would find hysterical.

  The Parrish house was nearly twice the size of Hemmer’s. The driveway was paved and anchored by queen palm trees. Thick grass so green it looked artificial bore a variety of insufferably cute lawn ornaments. Elves holding lanterns. Fawns. Pink flamingos.

  “Check out the flag on their house,” said Moody.

  Claudia looked up. The flag displayed huge daisies with smiling human faces, but just now it hung limply, as if embarrassed by its childish spectacle.

  “I feel like I just entered the Magic Kingdom,” he said, matching her strides past a spritz of periwinkles to the front door. A TV and a crying baby sounded from inside.

  Claudia rang the bell. “Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll give us the keys.”

  Jennifer Parrish opened the door a few moments later, an unhappy baby on one hip and a dishcloth in the other. She blanched.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Parrish.” Claudia nodded pleasantly, enjoying the moment. “You know, you really ought to make a practice of using your peephole. This is Officer Mitch Moody. We need a few minutes of your time.”

  Moody had already begun cooing at the baby, easing himself in.

  “I . . . it’s pretty early and—”

  “We won’t be long,” said Claudia. She wasn’t a natural with ba
bies, so instead she edged closer and peered inside, remarking on what a beautiful house the woman had.

  “It’s . . . thank you.”

  The baby was about eight months old. He regarded Moody through wet eyes, then hiccupped. Moody hiccupped back. The baby chortled and wriggled in his mother’s arm. Two other children, one about three and the other a year or two older, peeked around a corner. Moody feigned being startled, clutching his chest and sliding down the door frame. The kids laughed like they’d never seen anything so hilarious in their young lives.

  Claudia hid a smile. They were in.

  Jennifer Parrish escorted her visitors to chairs in the living room, shooing the older kids into the family room where she could still keep an eye on them while they watched cartoons. She excused herself for a minute, then returned with a bottle of apple juice. She sat on the couch, propped the baby on her lap and stuck the bottle in his mouth.

  “There’s a lot of commotion here in the mornings,” she said, trying to appear nonchalant. “First it’s Daniel getting off to work—Daniel’s my husband—and then there’s the whole routine of getting the kids fed. It’s a lot of commotion.”

  Moody nodded sympathetically. “Take a lot of energy. What’re your kids’ names?”

  “Oh.” She jostled the baby slightly. “This is Donny. That’s Dolly and Denny in the other room.”

  “Donny, Dolly, Denny.” Moody inclined his head. “Must get confusing sometimes.”

  “Always” She pushed aside a lock of errant hair. “The ‘D’ thing with their names, that was my husband’s idea.” Parrish was warming to Moody. “He’s kind of a playful guy. When our first arrived, he—”

  Claudia stood so abruptly that Parrish nearly dropped the bottle. “Mrs. Parrish, guess what? Someone broke into Steve Hemmer’s house. We’re not sure why yet, but it’s an interesting twist. Tell me, why wouldn’t the Property Alterations Committee sign off on a new paint job for Hemmer’s house? Why wouldn’t they do anything about his patio? Why really?”

  Parrish’s mouth dropped open. Claudia moved closer and took a gamble. “We’ve seen all the files by now. You must know that.” Parrish tried to look toward Moody, but Claudia was blocking her view. “We know what got approved in Willow Whisper and what didn’t, so don’t try to think this through. Just tell me why Hemmer’s requests were repeatedly spurned.”

  Little Donny squawked threateningly. In another moment, he’d start crying all over again. Parrish rocked him for a second, then mumbled she should put him down for a nap. Claudia shot a look to Moody. He moved swiftly to her side and reached for the baby.

  “Here, Mrs. Parrish, let me,” he said. “I’ll keep him and the other kids entertained. You ladies can talk.”

  “Oh, no, I . . . I couldn’t.” But she was helpless between them and didn’t resist when Moody gently eased Donny from her arms.

  “You a cutie, yes you is,” he crooned. He took the bottle from Parrish’s hand and half-walked, half-rocked into the family room. Parrish watched until they were out of view, then folded her hands in her lap and stared at them.

  Claudia settled onto the other side of the couch. She draped an arm over the back and crossed her legs. “Did you really care if Hemmer painted his house blue-gray? ‘Morning mist,’ I think he called it. Did you care?”

  Parrish shrugged.

  “Did you really care if he tore out his patio and put in one without cracks?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Just answer. Did you care?”

  “Okay, no. I didn’t care. Not personally.”

  “But you voted like you did, like what he wanted would violate community standards. They didn’t, though, did they?”

  “Standards can be hard to define. They’re—”

  “Not that hard. Yes or no?”

  “I . . . no. Not essentially. But—”

  “So why vote against what he wanted?”

  “I wasn’t the only one who did.”

  “But you were one of them. Why?”

  Parrish swiveled toward Claudia. “What is this? Why are you even asking me? Hemmer was a monster. He proved that himself! He was worse than Bill told us he was!”

  “You mean Bill Bonolo?”

  She shook her head irritably. “Yes, yes. Of course. What other Bill is there?”

  “You lost me. Bonolo told you Hemmer was a monster before Hemmer even took you hostage?”

  “Oh, come on. You know what Hemmer was about.”

  “Pretend I don’t.”

  “The porn stuff! The porn stuff!” Parrish’s eyes flashed. “He was a pervert! He kept it. He traded in it. He sold it. Before long he might’ve started going after kids. It’s how these things develop. You know they do. But Bill gave us the heads up and told us the only way to protect the community was to tire Hemmer out, get him to move away. See, if we tried to go after him criminally or civilly, we’d tarnish the whole community, and anyway, it would take years—and even then we might not be successful. I can’t believe Hemmer’s record wasn’t brought up in those newspaper stories.”

  “Let me make sure I got this right. You were on a systematic harassment campaign to make Hemmer move. You figured he’d get frustrated and just go away. That about it?”

  Parrish grew defensive. “You make it sound like something downright slimy. Slimy would’ve been if we’d exposed him to the whole community, the whole town.”

  “That was your thinking?”

  “Bill laid it out. It seemed to make sense. Who could’ve guessed how far Hemmer would take things?”

  Claudia shifted gears. “Hemmer’s record. You didn’t actually see it, did you?”

  “Personally? No. But Bill has connections. He’d seen it.”

  “It keeps coming back to Bill Bonolo.”

  “He’s president of the homeowners association.”

  “But he wasn’t a member of the PAC. He didn’t vote on property changes.”

  Parrish looked unhappy. “That doesn’t mean we didn’t respect his opinions.”

  “Did he share his opinions on anyone who requested a property change? Or just Hemmer?”

  She looked away. “Other people didn’t come up the . . . same way. They were ordinary. I . . . only Hemmer had a record.”

  “Uh-huh.” Claudia stood. She turned and gazed through a window behind the couch. The backs of the lawn ornaments faced her now. The elves looked less like mischievous fairies and more like malevolent trolls. But maybe it was the mist. Claudia shook it off and turned back to regard the woman on the couch. “Hemmer didn’t have a record, Mrs. Parrish. He didn’t have so much as a parking ticket.”

  For a long moment, Parrish said nothing. Then her mouth opened, closed, opened again. When she finally spoke, Claudia had to lean in to hear.

  “He took us hostage, though.” Her voice trembled. “That tells you something about the man, doesn’t it? I mean, it shows you . . . Look, we’re not bad people. We were just trying to—”

  “Spare me,” Claudia said flatly. “If you want absolution, go talk to a priest. If you want understanding, go talk to a shrink. I’m a cop and the way I see it you and your twisted committee held Hemmer hostage long before he took you as one.”

  High-pitched giggles sounded from the family room. Moody’s laugh resonated above them all. A long moment passed, then one more. When Parrish finally did talk, her voice was so unexpected that it almost seemed loud, though she spoke barely above a whisper.

  “Bill Bonolo has a . . . commanding presence,” she said listlessly. “You couldn’t challenge him on anything. Kurt tried once, in his own way.” Her eyes flickered to Claudia’s face, then away. “It was when Hemmer’s record first came up, when Bill said he’d seen it and we needed to take measures to protect the community. Kurt didn’t exactly dispute the idea, but he suggested we get a copy of the record and keep it on file, just in case things got nasty. I thought that made sense, but . . .”

  She studied her hands.

  “And?
Mrs. Parrish? Stay with me now.”

  Parrish didn’t lift her eyes, but she continued. “Bill shot Kurt down before I could even open my mouth. He accused Kurt of calling him a liar. He got loud and red in the face. Kurt let it go and after that, we all just let things sit.”

  “So Bonolo intimidated the whole committee?”

  “In retrospect, I think . . . well, I know that was true of me and Kurt.” Parrish wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know about Gloria Addison. When the Hemmer thing came up, she got kind of . . . intense. She backed everything Bill said and I thought she honestly did believe what he was saying. But that was the only time she seemed to care about anything the committee did. The rest of the time, she seemed . . . bored. I don’t know why she even wanted to be on the committee.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Why did I what?”

  “Want to be on the committee?”

  Parrish’s eyes fell back to her hands, her anchors. “I . . . thought I could make a difference in the community.”

  And that you did, thought Claudia. She ran the woman through a few other lines of questioning and then tore Moody away from the kids. They were out of the Magic Kingdom by nine-fifteen.

  * * *

  They expected that Kurt Kitner would already have left for work and were startled when he opened the door to their knock. Nothing in his expression showed surprise. Either he was more security conscious than Jennifer Parrish and had looked through the peephole, or he already knew they’d be coming. Claudia bet the latter and Kitner confirmed her guess before she had a chance to say anything.

  “Jennifer called the minute you left her. She’s only three-quarters of a mile from here, but she had time enough to tell me why you’d been there.” He opened the door wide, but retreated before Claudia could introduce Moody. They looked at each other and shrugged, then followed him into a house steeped in gloom.

  Kitner led them wordlessly past a small combination living room and family room, which held a sofa and loveseat, a coffee table and one bookcase. The walls appeared to be some sort of deep blue, but the blinds were closed and Claudia couldn’t tell. She looked for a TV or stereo—anything that might hint at real human habitation—but there was none. Everything ached with stillness.