by Livia Quinn
I put myself in her place. She claimed that she’d seen the body, heard a noise in the locker room and, stupid woman, went to investigate. She said the attacker escaped when she entered.
She said. I thought about Ryan’s question the night before. He seemed to think I should put Tempest Pomeroy in lockup for principle alone. No, not just on principle. I thought through the explanations Tempe had given and asked myself, if I’d ever just given a suspect in her position the benefit of the doubt without requiring more proof of their innocence. In this case, I was giving Pomeroy a pass or at the very least, I was withholding judgment until I had more to go on. It was crazy and bad detecting, but there was something else I hadn’t shared with Ryan that pointed to her innocence—in the murder at least.
I turned toward the lockers.
What did she do next? Use her x-ray vision to see that her vase, correction, her brother’s vase—was sitting on the shelf behind door number three? Right. Had someone told her it was there? If it really was her brother’s vase, what was it doing in the locker? How was it connected to the murder?
I wrote, ID lockers of members, esp. broken. Maybe her brother… I looked at my pad… River Pomeroy. “River, old boy, do you golf? Was that your locker?”
Damn, the more I looked at the evidence, the fishier her story sounded. I snapped my fingers. Fish!
I realized what had been bothering me earlier. The smell was off, not the normal decay of human flesh, more like fish and eggs left on the bank in the hot sun. Very distinctive. Most importantly, it was too soon for the body to have an odor, especially in the clubhouse where the thermostat had been set at 60 degrees.
If not for the extent of the spatter, I’d have doubted the location of the attack. My first thought after seeing the condition of the body was that the murder might have occurred somewhere else. Wouldn’t it tie up nicely if he’d been killed in the swamp and beamed straight into the clubhouse foyer? Except for the blood, of course.
I shook my head. So many inconsistencies with this case—the timeline, the evidence, Pomeroy’s story.
I went through it again. If the door was open like she said, who set off the silent alarm? And if she was there innocently, how did she know where to find her vase? Maybe she’d broken in to steal it and the victim interrupted her. But where was her weapon? Where was the brother? Maybe he’d been in the clubhouse when she got here. Did he have a confrontation with the dead man over the antique? I needed more answers from her. She was protecting someone, probably her brother.
I looked at my watch, daylight in another hour and a half. Then I could search outside specifically for footprints and the murder weapon because it couldn’t be either the wedge or that vase. No blood. Whatever had been used to kill the victim had been wielded with a lot of force and would be imbedded with blood and tissue.
I doubted the tech team would get anything off the vase the way Tempe had handled it. I made note of some questions for the club manager regarding the victim.
A beam of light moved across the floor, its source outside the clubhouse. Pulling my Glock from its holster, I eased toward the French doors, quietly pushing them open. My eyes adjusted quickly as I edged along the back of the building toward the practice green. Coming around the corner I spotted a figure.
“What the—”
Ryan wasn’t going to let me hear the end of this.
Chapter 16
Tempe
After searching my house from top to bottom and finding nothing helpful, I drove to Alliance to find out if my mother had seen River, but her house was dark. Where could she be? Oh, any number of places, but as usual, not available when you needed her.
I was exhausted, but no one had called me to tell me I was fired, so I assumed I would be expected at the mail center by seven with my taboo bounty of mail and packages. With only a few hours until then, I decided to continue my search.
I parked in the maintenance lot near the fourth green and walked up the fairway to the clubhouse. If the killer…the killer—Zeus! It was as if I was someone else. That someone had found a dead body here yesterday. Was it her or me that made the decision to return to the… just say it, Tempe… crime scene, and not return, so much as sneak past the yellow tape marked plainly, “DO NOT TRESPASS - CRIME SCENE” that surrounded the clubhouse and practice green.
The sheriff’s SUV drove up. He sat there for ten minutes before he entered through the front door and his deputy drove away. All I needed was five minutes to find the other lid, before they started searching outside. I switched on the headlight I carry in my truck and flipped it on.
After the rain, the smell of fresh cut grass was strong and delighted my senses. My tennis shoes made squeaking noises against the wet blades, and I stopped on the sidewalk surrounding the clubhouse to scrape the grass off the bottoms. I didn’t want to leave a trail of grass the sheriff could follow to find me.
It was dark and I fiddled with the headlight so it would shine on the fairway where I hoped I’d find the lid. If I was quiet and kept the light aimed away from the building, I might be able to search for fifteen minutes. The person who’d run out of the locker room exit had to have gone down the path and across the fairway. I pivoted toward the cart path—“Aiy.”
“What the—”
“Zeus’ shrunken blue ball..oney! You like to gave me a heart attack.” It was true. My heart was pounding in my chest, my breath coming in gasps. On top of that, I’d just blown my chance to search for the lid. And from the look in the sheriff’s eyes, I was in deep doo-doo.
Jack Lang grabbed me by my upper arms, cursed tautly, and let me go. More like shoved me away.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Um, I was looking for...clues?” Lightning flashed in the sky above Lang’s head. Thunder followed. He didn’t budge.
“So weather doesn’t bother you? I know people who would duck at the first flash of…”
He just stared at me.
Hmm. I was in trouble. I tried again, “The way I have it figured the, uh, perp might have dropped something outside when he left.”
I always know how to make matters worse.
“I was thinking the same thing myself,” he said, with an inflection I didn’t like one bit. “Since you’ve been reading up on crime scene vernacular, ever heard of the perp ‘returning to the scene of the crime’?”
I gulped.
“Mm…hm. So, you know this is making you look even guiltier than you looked yesterday.”
“But—”
“I should have arrested you, but it’s not like I had to worry about you leaving town. I can’t friggin’ get rid of you.”
It must seem like that to him, but still, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The hurt expression on my face didn’t stop his tirade.
He paced. “I’m coming up with a lot more questions. Most of them come back to you and that ugly ass bottle.” He used his index finger to accentuate his thoughts. “And then there’s the little problem of you contaminating my crime scene. And I have to ask myself, ‘Why?’ What don’t you want me to find? Maybe you did it after all.”
“I didn’t.” Surely an experienced police officer could tell when someone was telling the truth. But I was only telling a half-truth, and he’d figured that out. My fists gripped the edges of my t-shirt and twisted. I caught myself and slowly released the fabric, pretended a calm I didn’t feel.
He shrugged, jaw jutting out. “Maybe. And maybe it went like this. That Chinese piece of ugly art is worth a lot of money. And maybe that killer remodeling job is sucking more dough than your mail job can cover. You overheard about the vase on one of your visits to the clubhouse, or from a customer, met the victim here under the pretense of buying it from him, tricked him into telling you where it was, and then you killed him.” He rubbed his chin, “Yeah, it’s coming together for me now.”
“What?” My eyes went wide and a night bug actually flew into my gaping mouth. Where was he getting all this baloney?
I squirmed under his predatory gaze. Swallowing was impossible as my throat tightened around that night bug, and my mouth went dry.
“And here you are. Back at the scene of your crime.”
Now I was scared. If I hadn’t known I was innocent, he might have even convinced me I was guilty. What if he arrested me? Not only would this put a serious kink in my life, but if I was locked up, I couldn’t look for my brother. And forget about my job.
“Sheriff—surely you don’t believe that.”
His smile was feral. “But you see, it’s starting to make a lot of sense. I come back here after leaving you at your house, and in the middle of the night I find you scarfing around out here looking for ‘clues’,” he said, miming quotes with the fingers of both hands. “What are you looking for?”
“A second lid. I thought I might find it in the grass.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, just studied me like a pinned frog on a biology class slide.
“What kind of vase has two lids?” he scoffed. “And what’s so important about finding it at four in the morning?”
“The amphora is practically worthless without it. And...”
Jack
She was a terrible liar, telegraphing the next one with her whole body. I crossed my arms and went in for the kill, “When were you going to tell me about your brother?”
“Wha—um.”
I watched the emotions cycle across her face like one of those time lapsed videos of brewing thunderclouds. Shock, surprise, worry, wariness and finally, hmm, relief.
“I—oh, crap.”
The tension left her body at once, her shoulders slumping like a balloon depleted of helium.
“I’ve been so worried about him.”
This she was not lying about—the fear. The trembling in her voice was genuine.
“Where is he?”
She shook her head and sighed, “I don’t know. He didn’t come home Sunday night. And,” she blinked rapidly, placed a fist against her chest and looked off, “I should have known something was wrong.”
“Why?”
She paused. “He never stays out all night. And yesterday morning one of his subcontractors called because he didn’t show up on the job.”
“See, two things bother me about this story. You think your brother is missing but you’ve been reluctant to tell me about it. And you haven’t filed a Missing Persons report.”
“Oh, come on, Sheriff. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours. Don’t you have to wait at least forty-eight? That’s what they always say on those TV sh…um.” She looked at the floor.
She had me there.
“Then there’s the situation with his amphora.”
Uh-huh. She’d hang herself if I gave her enough rope.
“You came in when I was taking it out of the locker so I knew you wouldn’t believe me. The bottle was stolen. That’s the truth.”
Meaning the next thing that came out of her mouth...
She didn’t meet my eyes and there was just the slightest pause before she said, “Someone called me… and said he had it.”
“Ah,” I said, watching the relief cross her face. That was a lie, or I hadn’t just spent the last fifteen years reading the motives of junior officers and criminals. “So, the dead man stole it or knew who stole it; he was holding it for ransom. You met him, refused to pay, killed him, and then retrieved it.”
“No!” She actually stomped her foot. “No, no, no.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. I could almost hear her teeth grinding.
“How’d you know it was there?”
She looked up, her eyebrows forming a deep crease above her nose.
“The vase. How’d you know it was there?” I asked again in a growly whisper.
“I…” Her voice came out thready, and she looked a little scared.
Wait for it. Wait…here it comes…
“I…sorta… smelled it.”
Just once I’d like to be wrong. “Right. The place already stunk worse than any crime scene I’ve ever known, and you’re telling me you smelled it? I have to hand it to you. If they gave out blue ribbons for fabrication, you’d win hands down.”
I reached for my handcuffs.
“What are you doing?” She stepped back.
“I’m taking you in.” I could hold her for a day or so. Maybe spending some time in our no-star resort lockup worrying about losing her job would get me some answers. But I had a big problem with arresting her. According to the ME the time of death was indeed noon-ish, which meant I knew who Tempest Pomeroy was with and who her alibi was.
Me.
Chapter 17
Jack
I installed Pomeroy in the empty jail cell but didn’t lock it, although I was tempted to see if she’d try her hand-me-down skills on one of my locks. Pulling a case file from the desk drawer I remembered I’d promised to call Jordie.
“Where’s Tempe?”
The voice sounded like it belonged on a classic western, laced with tequila and cigarettes. I turned to face a tall man dressed in black. I could almost hear the cheesy “Good, Bad, and Ornery” music in the background. His name would have been Diablo.
I hadn’t even heard the door open. I thought of the covert operatives I’d met while serving in the Mideast. Intimidating, with his wet slicked black hair, dark eyes and stubbled jaw—this man would be hazardous to your health. His face held no expression, hands hanging loose at his sides, but I recognized a seasoned warrior when I saw one. Battle-ready.
“Who’s asking?”
“Dylan McGuinness, Special Investigator.” He pulled his black leather jacket aside to expose his badge.
What was he to Tempe? I wondered, as I pointed to the chair by the door. “Have a seat.”
He hesitated for a minute then, moving mindfully, taking stock of his surroundings, lowered himself onto the chair. Spring-loaded… dangerous… and proprietary were my impressions.
“What is your relationship with Tempest Pomeroy?” I asked and was blindsided by an irrational stab of… jealousy?
His lip quirked in tandem with an eyebrow. “What’s it to you? I’m here on official business, Sheriff…” he eyed the name plate on the desk, “…Lang.” I didn’t know the man but felt an instinctive dislike and distrust. What was his association with Tempe?
“State your business then—McGuinness, was it?”
I wasn’t sure how it happened, but we seemed to be in some kind of pissing contest. “Ms. Pomeroy didn’t have a phone call so how did you know she was here?”
“Why didn’t she get a phone call, if you’ve arrested her?” His thumb and index finger rubbed his whiskered chin and it wasn’t lost on me that he hadn’t answered my question.
I was feeling a perverse sense of non-cooperation. I didn’t just not want to answer. I wanted to have it out with Diablo…take it outside, so to speak. Where was that coming from? Talk about irrational. And I prided myself on my rationality. I regrouped.
“Well, she’s not exactly arrested—yet. I’m still thinking on it.”
McGuinness’ narrowed eyes failed to conceal the workings of his quick lethal mind, and if I guessed correctly, a fondness for my prisoner.
Her comment about misplaced trust came to mind, and I felt myself bristle. I made fists under the table trying to push down the ugly green emotions roiling up inside me. Once again, I had nothing to go on, but my instincts were screaming in his presence.
“So, what do I have to do to spring her?”
“Depends. If you can keep her away from my crime scene, I’m tempted to let you have her,” I said, with implied double meaning.
He nodded. “I might be able to handle that. She has a sit-down with her boss in less than an hour, and if she doesn’t end up suspended, she’ll
be busy working all day. I have to get a couple statements from her this evening or tomorrow.”
I winced as I remembered her comment about being fired over picking up Jordie. “How well do you know her?”
McGuinness’ head tilted, and he hesitated before answering. One black eyebrow arched, he asked, “What’s it to you?”
Ah, there it was.
“Just curious if you know her brother, River.”
He nodded. Contemplating again. This guy wasn’t one to run off at the mouth.
“I know River.” He inhaled, his shoulders relaxing finally. “I talked to Tempe earlier; she was concerned about him.”
Oh, she did, did she? “Why talk to you?”
“I guess she thought I might be able to help.”
“Again, why you? Why not the cops, her mother?”
“I was a friend of the family.”
“Was a friend?”
“Am a friend.” McGuinness’ head tilted again, and he placed his elbow on my desk. One big fist came up to casually prop up his chin. “Sheriff, is this going somewhere? Should I be calling a lawyer?” The man didn’t rattle.
“You know about the body we found at the clubhouse.” It wasn’t a question. I got the feeling he knew a lot more about this whole situation than I did.
“I was in touch with her because of UM’s involvement and an ongoing investigation that happened prior to this incident. When I talked to her, she was upset that River hadn’t shown up on his job site, yesterday morning.”
“So her concern about her brother has something to do with this stolen amphora?”
Oh, he was good. There was just the slightest flash of—alarm? Recognition? It was gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“His amphora probably went missing about the same time he was last seen.”
I would come out better questioning the unskilled liar in my cell than this PI but even pros slip up now and then. He’d known when River was last seen.
