by L. K. Hill
She bit her bottom lip, looking troubled.
“Or is there someone other than Mrs. Carlotta you could release your product to?”
She seemed relieved by the suggestion. “Yes. Raoul Parker receives things from most vendors for the household. He’s the one that usually signs my invoice.”
Gabe nodded. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll see if I can find him.” Pulling out his phone, he radioed Tyke. All the detectives used the same app, which turned their smart phones into walkie-talkies. It was faster and simpler than dialing one another for every little thing.
“Tyke? You there?” They didn’t bother with actual radio-speak when they used this. Well, sometimes Tyke did if he was feeling jolly, but today just wasn’t one of those days.
A five second delay. “Yeah, Tyke here.”
“When you interviewed the staff earlier, did you talk to a guy named Raoul Parker?”
Another delay. “Yes. He’s on the estate somewhere. But I don’t know where, Gabe.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. That was Tyke’s way of being preemptive about being asked to do something. Gabe raised the phone to his mouth. “I have a vendor here that needs to deliver her goods. Could you have one of the unies find him send him to the blockade on the small drive?”
A much longer delay this time. “All right. It’ll be a few minutes.”
“Thanks Tyke.”
He turned back to the young woman. She eyed him in a speculative way, but immediately straightened when he turned, her eyes inquiring.
“He’ll be here shortly, but it may take a little bit of time. Will twenty or thirty minutes’ delay get you into any trouble?”
She shook her head. “That should be all right.”
“Good. Officer—” he glanced at the uniformed cop’s name tag for the first time, “Michaels will wait here with you.” He started to turn, but she opened her mouth to speak.
“Can I ask what’s going on, Detective? I noticed a bunch of CSU vans. Was there a burglary?”
Gabe exchanged glances with Officer Michaels. “Uh…not exactly.” Her frown deepened at his answer, and her eyes went back to scanning what she could see of the estate.
Something occurred to him. It was a long shot, but worth a try. “Ms. Roberts, by any chance do you know Mr. Carlotta?”
She hesitated before answering. “I’ve met him several times, but I don’t really know him. He doesn’t have anything to do with the cosmetic company.”
Gabe arched an eyebrow, surprised.
When she saw his look, her body language became wary again. “What?”
“Nothing, it’s just…I’ve been trying to find someone who knows what he looks like. Even most of the staff doesn’t seem to know.”
She nodded. “That’s because he doesn’t deal with the staff. At all. Don’t get me wrong, Detective, I respect the Carlottas but they are very rich people and not always in the best sense of the word.”
Gabe studied her face. The sense of familiarity struck him again when she called him Detective. But he couldn’t find anything he recognized in her features. “So how is it you’ve met him, then?” he asked.
She shrugged. “When I bring the cosmetic samples, Mrs. Carlotta always has me come in and show them to her. She asks my opinion on the products. She likes me to put on a whole showcase and sell them to her. We usually do it in one of the parlors or sitting rooms but she’s taken me into her boudoir a time or two to get my opinion on an outfit or piece of jewelry.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like she values your input very much.”
She shrugged. “In a high-school, fashion-sense kind of way, but that’s all. The point is, I’ve been in more private parts of the house, where most of the staff would never venture. Sometimes Mr. Carlotta is there, so I’ve met him.”
Gabe nodded. “And what are your impressions of him?”
She frowned at the question. “He’s always cordial; not overly friendly. I think he sometimes gets annoyed when Mrs. Carlotta brings me around where he is. Considers himself above conversing with the little people, you know?” She gave another shrug.
Gabe smiled. As a cop, he formed fast opinions of people and their motivations. He read their body language and drew conclusions. His first impression of this woman was that she was grounded. She’d probably been somewhat slighted by the rich Carlottas, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the least. She stated it as simple fact; just the way things were.
“What’s this about?” she asked before he could form another question.
Gabe chose his words carefully. “Ms. Roberts, we aren’t here because of a burglary. A body was discovered early this morning on the estate.”
Her eyes widened. “Someone’s dead? Who?”
“Mr. Carlotta, we think.”
Her eyes widened farther, if that was possible. She studied the ground furiously, as though trying to think through the implications of the death. Gabe gave her a moment. She probably wouldn’t hear anything he said until she recovered from her shock anyway. Finally, she met his gaze again.
“You…you said ‘we think.’ Why do you think it’s him and not someone else?”
“He’s of the correct age and ethnic decent,” Gabe said. “And he’s wearing an expensive watch and suit. The kind most of the staff couldn’t afford. The problem is that Mrs. Carlotta is too distraught to come down and identify him for us, and most of the staff doesn’t know what he looks like. Ms. Roberts, would you be up to making a positive ID for us.”
She gazed at him in a strange way for several seconds, her face utterly unreadable. Then, looking anything but, she said, “Sure. Okay.”
Feeling a small measure of relief at having someone to make the ID, Gabe smiled at her. “Good. Thank you. Come with me.”
She hesitated. “My van…it’s full of…stuff.”
Gabe turned to Michaels. “Where are you stationed?”
“Here,” the officer said. “Guarding the blockade.”
Gabe turned back to Tanya. “Officer Michaels is stationed right here, making sure no reporters try to sneak onto the property.” He grinned to show what he thought of that, and she returned it. “He’ll keep an eye on your van.”
Michaels nodded and gave her a reassuring smile.
She nodded and fell into step beside Gabe. She was shorter than she looked, walking right beside him. The top of her head came only up to his shoulder. Gabe kept glancing over at the bruises, wondering where they’d come from. They walked in silence across the estate. Not until they were nearly abreast the empty pool did she speak. “Um, Detective? How…gory is this going to be?”
He stopped and turned to her. “Not very, but his throat’s been cut. How are you with blood?”
She shook her head dismissively. “Fine. I just wanted to prepare myself if he was…in pieces or something.”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I’d have warned you.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the pool before looking down at her again. “Even so, have you ever seen a dead body before?”
She shrugged. “Attended some cadaver labs in high school.”
He nodded. “That will help. And in terms of the gore factor, it won’t be any worse than those were. Still, seeing the body of someone you knew can be traumatic. It’s a whole different psychological thing, so you should prepare yourself.”
She nodded, inhaling deeply. When she exhaled, she looked more confident. He smiled at her and took her elbow gently. “Come on.”
Tyke and Cora were speaking to some CSUs beside the pool. Tyke noticed Gabe as he and Tanya neared them, and turned.
“I just sent that Raoul guy over to you,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Gabe said. “There’s a unie at the barricade that’ll keep him there until we get back.”
Tyke’s eyes shifted to Tanya. “We?”
“This is Tanya Roberts. Turns out she can ID the body for us.”
“Oh.” Tyke looked Tanya directly in the eye. “Thank you, Ms. Roberts. We appreci
ate that.”
Cora gave Tanya an appreciative smile as well. Tanya smiled back at both of them politely, but her eyes kept darting toward the body beyond them in the pool. From this position, they could only see the back of the vic’s head, so Gabe took Tanya’s elbow again and led her around the perimeter of the pool.
As soon as they were close enough to see the vic’s face in profile, Tanya stopped, clapping a hand to her mouth. Gabe turned to look at her. Her eyes had gone wide and terror was clearly written across them. The next moment, she dropped her eyes to the ground beside her. Gabe couldn’t tell if it was simply because she didn’t want to look at the corpse anymore or because, as by the barricade, when she had a dramatic reaction to something, she turned away, as if to hide it.
Gabe put a hand on her shoulder, thinking this reaction was to the body itself. Even when people thought they were prepared, they often weren’t. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “Take your time. We just need to know if that’s Mr. Carlotta or not. You can just nod your head, if you want.”
She met his gaze, chest heaving. Her look was intense—and again, that sense of familiarity flared—but Gabe couldn’t quite decipher it. She drew her hand away from her mouth, but it quivered on its way to her side, making it look as though she’d forced it there.
She looked back at the body, wincing when her eyes brushed over it, then shut them, looking away again.
Then, she shook her head.
Gabe was so shocked—that the body was Mr. Carlotta’s was a foregone conclusion; they just needed an official ID—that he couldn’t form a response right away.
“No? It’s not him?” The outburst came from Tyke, still standing on the other side of the pool.
Gabe realized for the first time that everyone around them—CSUs, the ME, all the officers, and of course Tyke and Cora, had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Tanya. He supposed they couldn’t help it. When someone came to ID a body and had a reaction like that…
Gabe turned squarely toward Tanya. “It’s not Mr. Carlotta?” he asked, just to clarify.
She shook her head more quickly this time, then raised her eyes to his. “That’s Kenny.”
Gabe went into detective mode—calm, inquisitive, determined. “Who’s Kenny, Tanya?”
She looked away, swallowing. “He’s…one of the gardeners. One of the staff.”
Gabe frowned. Why would one of the staff be wearing things that so obviously belonged to Mr. Carlotta? To make it look like it was Carlotta? Why? Or was it something more sinister? This case had just gotten a whole lot more interesting. “You’re sure?” Gabe asked.
She nodded again. “Kenny and I were friends. I saw him every time I came here.”
Suddenly her reaction to the body made a whole lot more sense. He took her elbow again and turned her away from the body. Looking over his shoulder, he gave Tyke a significant look. Tyke nodded, reading it, and pulled out his phone. Someone needed to have Shaun tell Mrs. Carlotta that her husband was not, in fact, dead.
The thought crossed his mind that if the woman had just come down to do the ID two hours ago, she would have saved herself a lot of grief, but he pushed the thought away. It was done with, now. Time to move forward. The next order of business would be to determine where Mr. Carlotta was. He certainly hadn’t been home all morning.
Before even that, though, Gabe wanted to talk to Tanya Roberts some more. As they left the pool behind, the law enforcement officers cast sympathetic looks at Tanya, but then quickly went back to work. They dealt with this kind of thing all the time, and had schooled themselves not to stare. Gabe walked Tanya far enough away that she would not see the body anymore before turning her to face him. Her breathing had returned to normal, though her face was still pale.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Roberts,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry it ended up being someone you knew better than…we’d realized.”
“So am I,” she barked a laugh, but it sounded sad. “Not really your fault though,” she murmured. He thought she might be on the verge of tears.
“Would you mind talking to me a bit longer?” he asked.
When she glanced up at him, it was obvious that talking to him was the last thing she wanted to do. “About what?”
“Kenny. You said you knew him. Do you know anyone who might want to hurt him?”
She glanced left and right before putting her eyes on her shoes. “No.”
It was all Gabe could do not to roll his eyes. Didn’t people realize how well detectives could read lies? It was their job. Yet, she was still in shock. She needed to be handled delicately.
“You said he was your friend,” Gabe said gently. “How well did you know him?”
She shrugged. “Not well. I saw him whenever I came here. We…exchanged pleasantries. He was nice to me.”
“But you didn’t hang out with him outside of work?”
Another pause, before she shook her head. She was proving hard for even him to read. In any other circumstances, he’d be sure she was hiding things—thinking a bit too long about her answers. Yet, he’d just watched her be traumatized by seeing Kenny’s body. Maybe she was still in shock and just couldn’t think any faster. It was hard to tell with some people. She wasn’t acting guilty, exactly, but she wasn’t being forthcoming, either.
“Gabe!” He turned to see Bailey motioning to him. He held up an index finger to ask her to give him a minute, then turned back to Tanya.
“Ms. Roberts, I’d like you to come down to the station and give a statement. Will you do that?”
She immediately shook her head. “Can’t. I have…other deliveries.” She motioned vaguely in the general direction of her van.
Gabe twisted his mouth, thinking. She seemed to know a lot about the estate, and was more familiar with the family than most of the other staff. She might be able to give them a lot of insight into what had taken place. Gabe was sure she had more to say, but she didn’t strike him as a criminal. She’d been too shocked to see Kenny’s body. Granted, that sort of thing could be faked, but it was difficult, and Gabe was a good judge of character. She’d been very forthcoming with what she did know and that was not normal for people who hid incriminating things.
“What if my colleague Cora just walks you to your car and asks you a few routine questions? You can give her your contact information in case we need to get a hold of you again. Will that work?”
After a slight hesitation, she nodded. “Yeah. I suppose that’s okay.”
Gabe motioned Cora over and explained the situation. With a sympathetic smile, Cora immediately took Tanya under her wing, so to speak. She didn’t touch her, but by her expression, you would have thought they were old friends. They walked slowly back toward where Tanya’s van was parked as they talked, and Gabe smiled to himself. If anyone could get information out of this woman, it was Cora.
Just before she disappeared around a shrub, Tanya paused and looked over her shoulder at him. She gazed back at him for a moment with an unreadable expression. Cora put her arm out, encouraging Tanya to keep walking. After a moment, she did.
Gabe watched them disappear, pondering. Something about her still tickled the back of his mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Surely he would remember meeting such a pretty, together woman before. Cora would get her information, though. He would have to figure out what bugged him about her later.
Bailey was glaring at him by now, arms crossed and foot tapping. With a start, Gabe lurched into motion, striding toward her. He had a feeling this would be a long day.
Chapter 14
After speaking with the female detective, Kyra turned her order over to Raoul, who was waiting by the barricade with a yellow dolly. He signed her invoice, hoisted the small boxes onto the dolly, gave her a tight smile, and turned to make his way toward the house. Cora was still there, and watched Kyra leave. Making herself walk calmly to her van, Kyra got in without seeming to be in a hurry. She put the van in reverse and backed slowly down the winding dri
ve, all the while trying to control the shaking of her hands.
Kenny was dead. Why was he dead? She’d gone out with him only days before, and he’d told her things. And now he was dead. Was that a coincidence? Could it be a coincidence? Or had she inadvertently gotten him…No! She couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought. She hadn’t gotten someone hurt. She couldn’t have.
She’d hoped to make it back to her hotel room where she could think things through and have a meltdown in private. She didn’t make it that far. When she was several miles from the estate, she couldn’t hold the tears in anymore. Soon, her vision blurred and she couldn’t see much of anything clearly. She pulled into the parking lot of a fast food joint and put the van in park, covering her face with her hands.
When she and Kenny went out, they’d gone to a lively bar where Kyra was familiar with the bartender and sometimes got information from her. It had been packed, full of rowdy, half-drunk people. Kyra had kept a careful eye on other patrons to make sure they didn’t get close enough to hear what she and Kenny talked about. It hadn’t been a problem all night. Even the people at the tables closest to them were engaged in lively conversations of their own. There was no way they could have overheard Kyra’s conversation with Kenny. Was there?
When the bar started quieting down for the night—well after midnight—Kyra drove Kenny home. By then he was wasted. He hadn’t actually said much in the bar. Most of what he told her came when they sat in her car outside his apartment building. Certainly no one had heard that, so how would anyone have known what information he’d given her?
Kenny’s body was dressed in Mr. Carlotta’s clothes, so maybe this more to do with Kenny’s employer than with Kenny himself. Heaven knew Carlotta had a list of enemies a mile long. Perhaps Kenny was just the unlucky guy one of those enemies had used to send Carlotta a message.
Vaguely, she registered relief that Cora hadn’t asked her what she knew about Carlotta, or his family. Based on what Detective Nichols had said, Cora centered her questions on Kenny and what Kyra knew of him, which were much more easily evaded.
