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

by Laura Belgrave

  Kitner ushered them into his kitchen. Like the other rooms, it was small but sufficient to hold a round table and four chairs. If the blinds had been open, it might have been pleasant. He gestured for them to sit.

  “I’m an accountant and ordinarily I would’ve been at the office at this hour, but I’ve taken the rest of the week off. It’s not every day that one encounters a tragedy such as what occurred at Steven Hemmer’s residence.” He spoke evenly, but without inflection, and he had yet to make eye contact.

  Claudia murmured a sympathetic response, then introduced Moody. Kitner nodded perfunctorily, but she got the impression he wasn’t really listening. Then abruptly, tears pooled in his eyes.

  Moody reacted first. “Mr. Kitner, are you all right?”

  He blotted his eyes with a tissue. He nodded. “It’s been . . . difficult, though.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Moody. “Mr. Kitner, what happened to you was unspeakably terrifying.” He shook his head. “Even as a police officer I’ve never run into anything remotely like you did. You’re entitled to your emotions.”

  Kitner found Moody’s eyes. “Thank you.”

  Not for the first time, Claudia marveled at Moody’s nimble ability to connect with people. He was a prestidigitator with emotions, and yet everything he said or did resonated with sincerity, which of course was why she’d brought him along. She wasn’t surprised when Kitner offered to make coffee. Moody said he’d love a cup.

  “I don’t drink coffee very often myself,” he said, “but I buy an imported brand that’s highly rated for its richness. I like to keep it on hand for guests who come by.”

  Claudia wondered how often that happened. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met someone so formal in manner, speech and appearance.

  “Detective Hershey, would you like a cup as well?”

  “Sure,” she lied. Anything to relax him.

  He moved around the kitchen methodically, taking pains to measure the coffee just so, to fill the carafe precisely to the right line with cold bottled water. None of that tap water stuff for company. Claudia watched him turn a routine task into ritual while he talked politely with Moody about the weather and then stock market fluctuations. He was a diminutive man with thinning hair and rounded shoulders; she could picture him bent over ledgers and computer printouts, more comfortable in an office with a calculator than in his own home with a television. She wondered how he’d been drawn into a committee that dealt with property aesthetics.

  When the coffee was finally brewed, Kitner served it in China cups on saucers and took a seat. He inhaled, and for a moment Claudia worried he might begin to tear up again. But he didn’t. He folded his hands on the table and spoke in a voice as measured as his coffee.

  “I’m not a man of courage,” he said softly, “but I always thought myself to be a man of honor and integrity. On Friday, I learned that I am neither of those and because I’m not, a man is dead.”

  “Whoa. Mr. Kitner, don’t beat yourself up,” said Claudia. “No one—”

  “Please. If I may finish? This is difficult enough for me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kitner paused to sip his coffee. “From the beginning, I let a schoolyard bully kick sand in my face. I . . .” He hesitated, collecting his thoughts. “Bill Bonolo is big and confident and arrogant. He doesn’t walk into a room. He swaggers into it, and he can diminish a person with just a look. Perhaps for that reason I only tried to challenge him once.” Kitner nipped at his lower lip. “It was about Mr. Hemmer’s purported police record and my challenge was so feeble that even before events escalated I felt ashamed. The truth is, it wasn’t my lack of action Friday night that demonstrated everything I’m not. It’s my lack of action before events spiraled out of control. I saw a speeding car headed in Mr. Hemmer’s direction and I helped push him in front of it.”

  “Most people are less forgiving of Hemmer than you are,” Claudia said.

  “Most people don’t know the truth. I did, at least some of it, and though I can’t change what’s already happened, I can do the right thing now. It’s not enough for the little girl who lost her father and it won’t restore my integrity—”

  Claudia tried again. “You’re confusing fear with integrity.”

  “A very legitimate fear,” Moody added.

  Kitner tapped his fingertips together. Then he looked up, locking eyes first with Moody and finally with Claudia. “Bill Bonolo talked me out of what I really felt. Please don’t you do it, too, even to be kind. I bear a lot of responsibility. I’m trying to take it. I need to . . . look, just ask me anything you’d like. To the degree that I can answer, I will. Fully and honestly.”

  Rarely did police investigators got an open invitation like that. Moody had set the stage; Claudia leaped on it. She started with the break-in at Hemmer’s house—ostensibly her reason for visiting Kitner at all. Of course, because Parrish had already alerted him to the break-in, he’d had at least a few minutes to consider his response. But he seemed genuinely mystified and almost apologetic that he couldn’t help with more than speculation. He wondered aloud if the break-in had been the work of an opportunistic thief. Anyone who watched TV or read the newspapers likely would have expected the house to be vacant after the hostage situation.

  “We’re exploring that possibility,” Claudia said carefully.

  “But you’re also concerned that perhaps one of the hostages had involvement?”

  “We have to look at everything.”

  She changed the subject, broadening her questions to the committee, the structure and history of the homeowners association, Hemmer’s requests, Bonolo’s lies. Kitner reiterated much of what Parrish had said and filled in a few gaps. Once, he left the table to retrieve association papers he believed might be useful. He smoothed the top of a file folder before handing it over, like maybe he could press out a wrinkle or two.

  “Detective, I know you’ve taken notes of our conversation, but I’ll also write and sign a detailed statement; maybe more will occur to me. I’ll get someone to witness my signature.” He shrugged lightly. “That’s the CPA in me. I . . . well, anyway, I can drop it off at the police station later today or early tomorrow. Would that be of some help?”

  Claudia nodded, hoping her face didn’t reveal the exhilaration she felt. A volunteered statement? Written? Kitner was full of unexpected treasures. But then, the guilt he felt was almost palpable. She looked at him and saw Sisyphus, forever damned to push a boulder uphill.

  “Thank you,” she said simply.

  He nodded—came close to smiling—and then, just when she thought he’d given her everything he could, he gave her something more: validation of her own actions at Hemmer’s house.

  “You’ve been maligned in the press and maybe other places; I don’t know. But I’ve gone over that evening dozens of times and from what I could tell, your actions were without flaw. I’ll add that to my written statement as well. I should have spoken up when I was interviewed immediately afterward, but . . . well, even then I couldn’t find the courage to go up against Bonolo.”

  “You’d just seen him kill a man,” said Claudia.

  “You’re doing it again,” he said mildly.

  “I . . . all right.” She looked to Moody for help, but he said nothing. “Sorry. And thank you for your assistance.”

  Moody shook Kitner’s hand and closed with a few more pleasantries as they walked back through the gloom to the door. Claudia almost asked Kitner why he didn’t open his blinds and let in some light. But she thought she knew why already. Light offered hope and optimism. Kitner had neither in reserve, nor the strength to seek them. She hoped he would get help.

  * * *

  Their luck ran out with Bonolo and Gloria Addison. Neither was home. From what Claudia had learned about Addison, she could be guzzling gin and tonics with lunch somewhere in Indian Run, or for that matter, anywhere from Tallahassee to South Miami. She owned a fast car and w
hen she wasn’t polishing her tan at the pool she used it to race from one impulse to another. How she managed all that without a job, no one seemed to know.

  Bonolo logged a lot of miles on the road, too. He worked for a bottled water company that had aggressively expanded into Central Florida and was keenly peddling its newest product, flavored water. Theoretically, Bonolo was a distribution manager. But it was a glorified title, because Bonolo mostly spent his time troubleshooting accounts in a competitive market unforgiving of errors. If a store didn’t get its delivery on time, he was there. If a store got the wrong delivery—there again. He toted cartons of bottled water in an oversized pickup truck with a grill persistently clogged by insects. He’d held the job for eight months and he hated it. He hated sucking up to customers. He hated the asshole salesmen who put him in the position of sucking up because they made promises they couldn’t keep.

  Claudia had learned some of Bonolo’s current history through discreet background checks. Kitner had supplied the rest; Bonolo routinely favored board meetings of the homeowners association with colorful descriptions of how he’d spent his time saving someone’s ass. You’d think the guy put in sixty-hour work weeks. Kitner thought he must. Claudia had already learned differently. Bonolo’s job was on the line. He’d taken to missing appointments and he was padding his expense reports. Right now, he could be with a client in Okeechobee or Bartow—or not. The thought made her smile. She loved inconsistencies, and this was one of them. Too bad it would have to wait.

  Chapter 12

  Crinkum-crankum. If it was a bona fide word, it wasn’t one Claudia had ever heard before. Neither had the chief, who figured it for some kind of fancy spice or maybe even one of those sissified herbal concoctions you’d hear about practically every day. Carella said nah; it was probably an obscure crossword puzzle word. His wife worked the crosswords every day and ranted about how they were loaded with words you’d swear were bogus. Moody pictured crinkum-crankum as something out of a fairy tale or movie for children; it had a fantasy sound to it. A story about witches maybe?

  Suggs didn’t bother to conceal a yawn. It was late and they’d just about beaten crinkum-crankum and the rest of the Hemmer case to death. They were tired and hungry. Worse, the bloom of optimism they’d felt after the Parrish and Kitner interviews had been replaced with the nagging sense that a long day had actually produced little more than continued speculation. Crinkum-crankum was just more of the same and even Claudia found it hard to work up genuine enthusiasm for it. That a forensics analyst at the sheriff’s office had managed to distill the word from Hemmer’s desk pad through digital imaging was interesting, yeah, but so what? The word didn’t exactly scream “clue” like bloody handwriting on a wall would.

  She hid her own yawn. The Hemmer case started thin. It was still thin. Neither Bonolo nor Addison could be found. Kitner hadn’t dropped off his statement yet. The sheriff’s office had given them crinkum-crankum, but wouldn’t put Hemmer’s computers on a priority list.

  Claudia had two choices. She could retrieve the computers and get a pricey private firm to explore Hemmer’s hard drives, or she could wait her turn. That could take weeks.

  “Could be we need a foreign language dictionary,” Suggs said halfheartedly.

  “Pardon me?” she said.

  “Crinkum-crankum, Hershey. Crinkum-crankum.” He frowned. “You still with us?”

  “I am.”

  He grunted. “Okay, the reason I’m thinkin’ about a foreign language dictionary is because this ‘crinkum-crankum’ could be Italian. Lots of vowels in it.”

  “Could just as easily be Welsh,” said Carella. “Lots of consonants, too.”

  Claudia had looked the word up in her office dictionary—English language, of course—but wasn’t surprised not to find it there. The book was paperback, old, and so worn it looked like the Yellow Pages at a public phone booth. She’d also run a search with the spell-check on her word processor, but the closest it came to crinkum-crankum was “crinkle.” Maybe she’d fare better with her hardcover dictionary at home and said she’d try that.

  The discussion faded like vapor and she caught Moody discreetly eyeing his watch. She looked at her own. Eight-fifteen already.

  “The hell with it,” said Suggs. “Let’s bag it for the night.” He squirmed in his chair and gave Claudia a sour look. “Last time you involved me in one of your cases I got an ulcer. If I keep my ass in this chair any longer for this one, I’m gonna wind up with hemorrhoids.”

  Carella snickered, and everyone stood. They filed out of the chief’s office, wishing each other a good night, anxious to get home where someone would have the lights on and maybe a hot meal waiting. Claudia wistfully watched them leave. With Robin still at camp, her house would be dark and bleak. She thought about it, then doubled back to her own office to catch up on work unrelated to the Hemmer case.

  She was behind on everything. Peters had left shift reports from Monday night and today. She scanned them, then thumbed through two days’ worth of incident reports. Indian Run had been blessedly dull, with little more to show for it than call-outs on loud stereos, trespassers, a domestic disturbance, illegal drag racing, fender-benders, a disorderly conduct, and two-bit bar fights—nothing that required her involvement. Peters had left another message from Sydney, which she crumpled and tossed, and the chief had routed a memo bellyaching about people letting food go bad in the refrigerator. She tossed that, too, then stuffed files and notes into her briefcase. A few minutes later she slid into her car and cheerlessly headed for home, still brooding on the Hemmer case.

  For reasons not yet clear, Bonolo wanted Hemmer out of Willow Whisper. Through old-fashioned intimidation and lies, he’d enlisted the property alterations committee to help. In the short term, his tactics failed, not because the committee didn’t go along, but because Hemmer didn’t react predictably. But in the long term, Bonolo still got what he wanted because Hemmer was dead, killed on a stage he himself had set. Best yet, Bonolo emerged a hero after taking him down personally.

  So why wasn’t that enough? Why continue the smear campaign by planting a video? Why—

  Claudia swerved to avoid an armadillo scuttling across the road. She swore out loud, then glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see the witless creature shuffle into shadow. Somewhere, she’d heard that armadillos were the only mammals besides humans that were vulnerable to leprosy. Booey, no doubt. Yeah. It had to be Booey who’d told her that. He kept thousands of factoids parceled off in some obscure part of the brain that was beyond the reach of average people. But then, nothing about Booey was average.

  Claudia braked for a stop sign and sighed. She could go whole weeks and not think of him. She liked it that way, partly because he was the chief’s nephew and partly because he made her nuts. Here he was, though, on her mind for the second time in two days. That hardly qualified as an omen, but it sparked an idea. Carella knew computers better than anyone in the police station. Booey knew computers better than Carella. If she had to guess, he could probably hack into a Swiss bank and access the names of all the account holders. Not that she would ask. Not that he would do it. But maybe he could do for her what the sheriff’s computer guru wouldn’t.

  She pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine. There it was, the dark house. She let herself in, snapped on a light, picked up the phone before she had her purse off her shoulder, and made arrangements. So all right; it wasn’t a big deal. Still, momentum was momentum, and she was surprised to find that in nudging the investigation forward even a little, she felt more restless than satisfied.

  She looked around sourly. It was just shy of nine o’clock. A man was dead. He shouldn’t have been dead. There had to be more she could do than make phone calls, something that would put her in motion and burn off the restlessness that plagued her the more she thought about it. Forty minutes and one cigarette later, she had an inkling of what that might be. She retrieved her purse and headed back out into the night. This
time she left a light on.

  * * *

  The gates at Willow Whisper were working. To get in, a visitor had to stop at a mounted panel that contained an electronic listing of names and telephone access codes for each house, locate the desired homeowner’s name, and dial the corresponding code on a keypad. The homeowner’s phone would ring, and after a tinny conversation to verify the visitor’s identity, the homeowner could open the gate by tapping in a designated number on his own phone.

  Claudia didn’t need to fool with any of it. Police officials maintained emergency access codes for gated communities and she was privy to the code for Willow Whisper. She punched it in and the gate rose like a practiced salute. As whims went, this one showed promise. She smiled and glided through, then guided the Cavalier toward Bonolo’s house. If her luck held, he’d be less elusive at night than during the day.

  She passed Hemmer’s house, which looked even more forlorn than her own, then took a left and finally a right onto a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. Not for the first time, it struck her just how deserted Willow Whisper appeared at night. Garages dominated the houses to which they were attached, effectively concealing living areas in the back. The only visible signs of life came from the occasional glow of light spilling from the rear of houses. Paradise was all about privacy, and Willow Whisper had scored a homerun with that one.

  Bonolo’s house was the last of eight two-stories on the cul-de-sac, which wrapped around a circular fountain and allowed only one-way traffic. Claudia had barely entered the cul-de-sac when she spotted Bonolo’s truck backing out of his garage. By the time she completed her circle around the fountain, he was headed in the opposite direction. She could accelerate and pull him over. She could wait for him to return. Or she could tail him and see where the son of a bitch was going, because he was a son of a bitch—of that she felt certain. Never mind that he had no police record, no liens on property, no lawsuits past or present; something about him gave off the stink of malevolence.