Tomb With a View pmm-6

by Casey Daniels

  I grabbed my coffee and a glazed donut and took it back to my office. When I was done with both, I was also out of things to do so I gave up and headed for the memorial. Marjorie’s black Saturn was parked on the road that circled the monument, but there was no one else around. Too bad. At least if there were tourists to keep Marjorie busy, she’d have less time to annoy me.

  Determined to show her who was in charge and that it wasn’t her, I left the box of Garfield memorabilia in the trunk, fully intending to tell her that if she wanted it, she could make the long trek down the memorial steps and out to the car for it. All about attitude, I went into the memorial.

  The lights were still off.

  “Hello!” I stepped into the entryway and looked around.

  Even in the semidarkness I could see that Marjorie wasn’t in the office, and I remembered that the last time I stopped in, she’d been upstairs. No way I was walking the narrow, winding steps. It would be far easier to head into the rotunda and call to her from there, so I did. I flipped on the lights—and stopped cold.

  Marjorie lay at the foot of the statue of the president. There was a pool of blood behind her head, and her arms were thrown to her sides. Her legs were twisted in ways legs are never meant to move. She was wearing one tall, tacky black-and-white patent leather sandal. The other one was on the other side of the marble dais, its two-inch alligator green platform split in two.

  I looked up at the railing surrounding the balcony above the rotunda.

  I looked down at Marjorie’s crumbled body.

  It didn’t take a genius to see that she had fallen, and that she was dead.

  And honestly, I couldn’t help myself. All I could think was that it was no big surprise.

  Marjorie never should have worn those weird, high shoes to work.

  By the time she got over to the monument, Ella was in such a tizzy, I made her sit at the desk in the office, put her head down as far between her knees as she was able, and take a few deep breaths. She tried her best to regain the self-control she hadn’t had since I called and told her what I’d found. I stood at her side and watched a couple uniformed police officers bustle into the rotunda while the paramedics who’d arrived just before the cops stowed the equipment they realized there was no reason to use. There was no use even trying to revive a victim who was as dead as a doornail.

  I’d made the 911 emergency call right after I told Ella the news, and just like I hoped they would, the cops were taking care of the details. They’d already gone up to the balcony to check things out up there, and they’d talked to me about what I did and what I saw when I got to the memorial. I’d heard one of them make a call and assumed they were having someone come over from the nearby coroner’s office to cart away Marjorie’s body.

  I was expecting them to close the memorial until all that was done and everything (and by this, yes, I do mean all the blood) was cleaned up, but I wasn’t expecting them to pull out their yellow crime scene tape and cordon off not only the rotunda, but the stairway leading up to the balcony, and a wide swath of the grassy hillside outside the memorial.

  Since the cops had already told me not to touch anything, and not to get in the way, and not to bother them with questions, and not to leave the building, I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere asking them why they were being so careful about investigating Marjorie’s death. When I looked toward the winding marble staircase that led down into the president’s crypt and saw the light that poured in from a small stained-glass window shimmer and shift, I knew it didn’t matter. I told Ella to keep breathing, and headed to the staircase to talk to the one person who might have actually seen Marjorie take that tumble over the railing.

  “What exactly has transpired here?” President Garfield asked the question before I could, only I never would have used a word as stuffy as transpire. “More commotion! Precisely what I do not need. My cabinet is convening in exactly . . .” He pulled a gold watch from a little pocket in his vest. It wasn’t ticking. “We are scheduled to meet in less than fifteen minutes. I simply will not tolerate so many people coming and going when we have important business of state to discuss. What has happened here?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” I stepped to the side so that the paramedics and cops couldn’t see me and kept my voice down. “Marjorie Klinker, you know, the volunteer who thinks you’re the greatest president ever? She’s dead.”

  “Dead?” The president was honestly surprised. And me? I was honestly disappointed. I was hoping to get the inside track on the accident.

  “You didn’t see anything?” I asked him. “You didn’t hear anything? She took a header over the railing. You’d think she would have screamed or something.”

  “I neither saw nor heard a thing. But then, I have more important things to do than worry about what goes on here.”

  “But you are worried about it. You said you didn’t like the comings and the goings.”

  The president threw back his shoulders and I was reminded of the photo I’d seen of him in his Army uniform. He sniffed. “I should not be discommoded in any way. I have a country to run!”

  “Only you’re not running it. You’re dead.” I leaned in as close as I dared and looked at him hard. “You know that, right?”

  “Of course I do,” he muttered, and he might have said more if the door to the memorial hadn’t swung open. A streak of morning sunshine poured inside. Quinn Harrison wasn’t far behind.

  “Shit.” It was my turn to grumble, and it wasn’t just because the one man I didn’t want to deal with happened to be standing not ten feet away. If Quinn had been called in, it could only mean one thing: Marjorie wasn’t just dead. The cops thought she’d been murdered.

  If I was going to get any answers that might help with the investigation, I knew I needed to do it quick, before Quinn cornered me and started asking the same boring questions his brothers in blue had already asked.

  “All right, so you didn’t see what happened to Marjorie,” I whispered though I guess I didn’t have to. By that time, Quinn was already in the rotunda and talking to the patrol officers. “Did you hear anything? I mean, after the cops arrived?”

  “One of the police officers mentioned signs of a scuffle.” The president looked toward the stairway that led to the balcony. “Up there.”

  “Which means . . .” I groaned and checked on Ella. She was finally sitting up and looking just a little less pale than the ghost at my side. It was bad enough that she’d have to face the media and explain a death in the cemetery. It would be worse when she found out that the death wasn’t accidental.

  I knew I had to be with her when she heard the news. I turned to the president before I went into the office. “Why don’t you just float on up there and check things out,” I suggested. “You know, listen to what they’re saying. I have no doubt Mr. High-and-Mighty Quinn is going to be heading up there to look around. Follow him and let me know what he says.”

  President Garfield’s eyes flashed blue lightning and he pulled himself up to his full, imposing height. “Young lady,” he snarled, “I do not do such things. I am, after all, the president.”

  I knew it wasn’t polite to say whatever to a president—dead or alive—but it’s not like anyone could blame me. Then again, the way the president looked at me, his nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed, I had a feeling he wouldn’t know what I was talking about, anyway.

  6

  After that, everything happened pretty quickly. The media arrived complete with sound trucks and satellite dishes and reporters who saw the yellow crime scene tape and pounced on its implications like bees on the sugar cubes at a garden tea party.

  To her credit, Ella was helpful enough to keep everyone happy and just evasive enough to avoid answering any direct questions about murder. Understandably, by the time she was done, she was wiped. I couldn’t blame her. She trundled back to her car so she could get to the administration building and start answering the phone calls we knew were sure to start pouring i
n. I, remember, had been told not to leave.

  Like I was going to let that stop me?

  I was in the office and already had my Juicy Couture purse in hand and my car keys out when Quinn walked in.

  “Pepper Martin and murder. Why am I not surprised to be saying those words in the same sentence?”

  “It’s not like I killed her.” I’d never even considered the fact that the cops might suspect I had, and just thinking about it made my blood run cold. Rather than let Quinn know it, I dropped into the chair recently vacated by Ella. “I suppose you want to ask me all the same questions the other cop asked me.”

  “Maybe.” I’d seen Quinn in action before—work action, not that kind of action!—and I knew that when he was operating in detective mode, he could be as intimidating as hell. I refused to cave even when he took his time gathering his thoughts, the better to put me on edge.

  After what seemed like forever when I did not check out (at least not too much, anyway) his navy blue suit, his spit-shined shoes, or the trace of a morning shadow on his chin that told me wherever he’d spent the night, it wasn’t at home, I traded him look for look.

  He took a small, leather-bound notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Officer Gonzalez tells me you found the body.”

  There was no use repeating myself. I put down my purse and my car keys and folded my hands on the desk, waiting for more.

  “She was already dead?”

  “Her head was smashed on the marble floor, her blood was everywhere, and she wasn’t breathing. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that means she was dead.”

  “You didn’t touch the body? Move anything? Pick up anything that might be evidence?”

  “Oh come on, how stupid do you think I am?” I had a feeling I didn’t want to hear his answer, so I barreled on. “Like I told that other cop, I was supposed to meet Marjorie here this morning to talk about a commemoration the cemetery is planning. I showed up. I found her. She was dead. End of story.”

  “Was there anyone else around?”

  I thought back to when I arrived at the memorial. “Marjorie’s car was parked outside. There was nobody else here.”

  “Could someone have come down the steps after you arrived?” Though he didn’t need to, he waved in the general direction of the stairway that led to the balcony. “Could they have gotten past you without you seeing?”

  “Only if I was blind and deaf. If somebody was up there when I got here, they’re still up there.”

  “We’ve looked.”

  “Then whoever that somebody is . . .” I gave him time to jump in and maybe supply me with a little information, and when he didn’t, I kept on going. “They were gone before I walked in.”

  Quinn took his time flipping the page of his notebook before he asked, “You knew the victim?”

  “Since you’re going to hear it from everybody who works here, you might as well hear it from me first. Yes, I knew her. She was a volunteer here at Garden View, and the biggest pain in the behind I’ve ever met. Well . . .” My smile was so sweet it hurt. “The second biggest.”

  He ignored the dig. Too bad. I thought it was a pretty good one. “So what you’re telling me is that you think there might be someone here in the cemetery who wanted to see her dead.”

  I laughed. Let’s face it; it was the only logical response. “I said she was a pain, I didn’t say anyone wanted to kill her. Oh . . .” I thought about Gloria Henninger of the pink bathrobe and the dog. I thought about how Marjorie made Doris cry and almost leave a volunteer job she loved, and I thought about Ray, who wasn’t smiling when he left Marjorie’s house the other night. I thought about me. Oh yeah, I’d wanted to kill Marjorie plenty of times. This wasn’t the proper occasion to admit it.

  “Don’t tell me you have a theory.”

  Quinn must have read the look in my eyes, but even though it was kind of what I was going to tell him—that I didn’t have a theory so much as I had a couple interesting snippets of information to tell him about—I didn’t. That’s what he got for rolling his eyes.

  I kept my smile firmly in place. “No theories.”

  “You could always ask one of those dead people to help out. You know, the ones you claim you talk to.”

  I got up, the better to let him know that his big, bad interrogator persona didn’t scare me in the least. “Already have. He didn’t see a thing.”

  Inside his starched shirt, Quinn’s shoulders stiffened. “Right.”

  “He didn’t hear anything, either.”

  His smile was so brittle I waited for it to shatter. “I’m grateful you took the time to talk to him for me. If he’s here . . .” He glanced all around the office, and of course, he didn’t see anything. Then again, I didn’t, either. The president and his cabinet were MIA. “I really shouldn’t leave without talking to every witness.”

  “He won’t talk to you. And you can’t see him. You don’t have the Gift.”

  “And you do?”

  I shrugged like it was no big deal, but of course, it was.

  “Is he here now?”

  “Nope. He told me he has more important things to do. By that, I assume he meant more important things than talking to you. Come to think of it . . .” I took a step toward the door. “I’m pretty sure I have more important things to do than talking to you, too.”

  “More important than a murder investigation?”

  I grabbed my purse, the better to let him know that he was boring me and I was out of there. Just in case he missed it, I stepped around him when I said, “Looks like you’re the only one who cares.”

  “You think?” The office was small and it didn’t take me long to get to the doorway. I stopped there and looked at Quinn over my shoulder just as he added, “You’re the one who’s always getting involved in investigations. So apparently, you care, too. Maybe we could actually get somewhere with this conversation if you’d tell me why.”

  “Why I care? Or why I get involved? I’ve already told you why.”

  “Oh, that’s right! The Gift. Well, this time, I’m going to tell you something.” He closed in on me so fast, I didn’t have a chance to move, and when he looked me in the eye and lowered his voice, I swear, I knew exactly how the bad guys felt when Quinn nailed them. He had a scary side. I was supposed to quake in my open-toe mules. Which was exactly why I yawned.

  “I’m serious, Pepper.” When I made a move to walk out of the office, Quinn grabbed my arm. The familiar heat of his skin against mine was almost enough to melt my composure. No way I was going to let that happen. Not right in front of him, anyway. I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “I don’t want you mixed up with this case, you got that?”

  “That’s sweet.” I batted my eyelashes. “You’re concerned about me.”

  “I’m concerned about my case. I don’t want you getting in the way and screwing anything up.”

  My chin came up. “Like I ever have.”

  “Like you always have.” He beat me out of the office and over to the door of the memorial and stopped there just as he was about to open it. “Consider yourself warned. I don’t want you anywhere near this case. Mind your own business. And leave the mystery solving up to the professionals.”

  “Leave the mystery solving up to the professionals.”

  Oh yeah, that was me grumbling to myself and sounding all bitchy and bitter. Like anyone could blame me? It was an hour since Quinn had left with that parting shot, and even though he and his cop buddies and the paramedics were gone, I was still at the memorial. That’s because Ella had called and asked me to stick around. Apparently, a couple reporters were being pretty pushy about getting the inside track on the murder, and photos to go with it, and she wanted to make sure no one snuck around that crime scene tape and got into the building. Why didn’t I just lock up the memorial and get the hell out of Dodge? My thoughts exactly, especially once the coroner came and left with Marjorie’s body. No such luck. See, Ella also wanted me to wait for the cleaning cre
w that would be by to clean up . . . well, everything that needed to be cleaned up. For now, the place was as quiet as the tomb it was. Except for my grumbling. With time on my hands and nothing better to do, I did what I always do best: I obsessed as only a woman can who’s been insulted, minimized, and irritated beyond reason by the man she’d once loved.

  I was trying to keep myself busy and focused by looking through the latest issue of the employee newsletter, but let’s face it, reading about landscaping plans for the fall and the upcoming holiday schedule would never be enough to get my mind off Quinn. I side-handed the newsletter across the office and watched the pages hit, scatter, and skid down the wall.

  Even that didn’t make me feel one bit better.

  But never let it be said that Pepper Martin is not self-aware. I was plenty pissed at Quinn, sure, but I knew there was one—and only one—way to make myself feel better. Not incidentally, what I had in mind would also make him feel worse. I am hardly the type who’s into revenge, at least except in the most extreme cases (which this was), but as soon as I thought of the plan, things started looking up.

  I rooted through the desk for a pad of paper, and when I didn’t find one, I went over to the door and the visitors’ book we keep there for people to sign. I ripped out some of the pages in the back of the book where nobody would notice they were gone, grabbed the nearby pen, and got down to some serious self-healing. The cure for my obsession was obvious: if I was going to silence Quinn’s voice inside my head and rid myself of the memory of that condescending look he gave me when he said, “Leave the mystery solving up to the professionals,” I would simply have to solve Marjorie’s murder before he did.

  Who Wanted Marjorie Dead?

  I was writing on top of the first piece of paper almost before I sat back down. I underlined the words and tapped the pen against my chin. It didn’t take me long to fill in the blank below my heading right between the lines that asked visitors for address and e-mail.