When I walked outside several minutes later, I noticed Bill’s car was still there. He must have lost his little merry gang of paparazzi, because I didn’t see any angry mobs out here with their “Kill Bill” signs.
Where had he gone, though?
My gaze perused the strip of shops.
There was only one place that made sense: a trendy little restaurant a few shops down. I could hear live music blaring from it every time someone opened the door.
“What are you thinking?” Clarice asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure out what role this yoga studio may have played in all of this.” I glanced around one more time. “You want to take a walk?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
I followed the sidewalk, past all of the shops, trying to picture Emma Jean coming here. Had she remained in her car in the parking lot, just waiting for Bill and Katarina to come out of The Yoga Tree? She wouldn’t have been able to see much from that vantage point. Plus, staring in the front window would have been suspicious.
So where would she go to get the best, unobstructed view?
I stopped at the edge of the shopping center. Woods stretched behind the buildings, allowing privacy at the back of the shops.
I scanned the cars in the parking lot again.
My gaze stopped at one of the plates.
ISPYEJ
“What?” Clarice asked.
“I think that’s Emma Jean’s car!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
It couldn’t be . . . I peered inside the old, rundown sedan. There on the dashboard was a picture of AJ.
This was definitely Emma Jean’s car! I’d found it.
“Do you see anything?”
I squinted, trying to see through the glass. It was too dark and the flashlight app on my phone only created a glare. “No, not really. But maybe the police can find something.”
“Good job, Gabby!” Clarice said. “What do we do now?”
“In a minute, I’ll call the police. Right now, humor me as I talk this through.”
“I’m reviewing Emma Jean’s timeline. She was at work at The Crispy Biscuit on Tuesday morning. What if she came here after she got off on Tuesday night? Katarina apparently works out here on Tuesdays. That was also the night Emma Jean died.”
“Sounds plausible, but how do we prove it?”
“I’m not sure. I want to look one more place to satisfy my curiosity.” I headed behind the buildings, to dumpster and delivery-entrance land. However because The Yoga Tree was located on the end, a fence blocked us from entering on that side. We had to walk all the way around the other end of the building to get there.
There were windows at the back of The Yoga Tree, I remembered. What if Emma Jean had parked and walked around the building for a better view? She could remain in the shadows back there.
Imaginary spiders danced across my spine as I walked deeper into the darkness and farther out of sight.
I turned on the flashlight app on my phone.
That familiar feeling of being watched tingled my senses.
I glanced around but saw no one.
“What’s wrong?” Clarice asked.
“Probably nothing.” I tried to brush off my jitters.
“The probably part isn’t comforting.” Clarice shivered.
Who might be watching me? Godfrey? Was Godfrey still following me? I told him he couldn’t have a quote. But would that really deter him? Maybe he was looking for dirt on me so he could use that against Bill also.
“I don’t really love it back here.” Clarice shivered again. “Doesn’t your brother do dumpster diving or something? He would like this.”
At the mention of Tim, my heart thudded. Apparently Clarice hadn’t heard yet that Tim might be responsible for the explosion. Maybe that was a good thing.
I pushed those thoughts aside for now.
Now that Clarice mentioned it, the stench of trash was heavy back here as we passed various dumpsters.
Finally, we reached the end, where The Yoga Tree was located.
“I still don’t understand what you’re looking for.” Clarice wrinkled her nose with disgust.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for. A clue as to what Emma Jean was doing here.”
“Isn’t it obvious she was sitting in her car and spying?”
I paused by the dumpster. “Not necessarily. She wasn’t found dead in her car, for starters. That must mean she got out at some point. And somehow she got from this shopping center to the freezer of The Crispy Biscuit. What happened in the meantime?”
She glanced at the woods behind us. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. I’m just glad her body has already been found. Otherwise, I might think that stench is a dead body.”
“Dead bodies smell much worse. You know that.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” It was one of the perks to being a crime scene cleaner. You learned about various smells. Most of them weren’t good, which really wasn’t a perk at all.
“Well, I don’t see anything. I guess we leave.” Clarice twirled, ready to leave.
“Wait!” I shone my light along the back of the studio. One of the brown doors boasted a sign reading “The Yoga Tree.” The area didn’t appear to be well used. I couldn’t imagine the yoga studio had very many deliveries here since they sold no merchandise.
I shined my beam around in one last desperate attempt to find answers.
That’s when I hit the jackpot.
“Look at this, Clarice.” I moved closer to my discovery.
She squinted, leaning forward to get a closer look. “What? I don’t see anything except what looks like a can of soda that exploded.”
I took a step closer, the answer clear in my mind. “That’s not soda, Clarice. That’s blood spatter. I think we found the crime scene.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“How’d you discover this again?” Detective Adams asked as we stood behind the shopping center with mobile lights illuminating the area.
“It’s a long story. I heard Emma Jean liked to come to The Yoga Tree. But she didn’t do yoga, and no one in the studio recognized her. As we were leaving, I saw her car. Then I decided to come back here behind the businesses—”
“Just because?” He stared at me, looking slightly dumbfounded.
I nodded. What was so hard to understand about that? I was surprised they hadn’t checked out this lead before tonight. “Yes, just because. I mean, it’s good detective work. No offense. Anyway, we found this.”
“Mm hm.” He tapped his pen against his paper, and I couldn’t tell if he was humored or annoyed. Maybe both.
“I already talked to the owner of The Yoga Tree. She said the only time they really come back here is in the evening—that’s the only time they’re open for business. Since it started getting dark earlier, that would mean that every time someone took the trash out, it was dark. The employees wouldn’t have seen the blood spatter. The dumpster is on the other side of the doorway. Not even the garbage pick-up crew would have been able to see this since it was on the other side.”
“If Emma Jean was spying on her ex-husband, why go to the back of the building?” Adams asked, casting a glance at the forensic team, who took photos and collected evidence.
“Standing out front would have been too obvious. Back here it was private—and there are windows. Plus, I believe this all fits with her time of death.”
“How do you know when her time of death was?” the half-humored, half-annoyed expression returned again.
I shrugged, realizing I’d gotten ahead of myself, and brought my confidence down a notch. “I mean, I’m just basing it on what I know about her schedule. Did the medical examiner ever get back with you about her stomach contents?”
He nodded. “Her last meal was at The Crispy Biscuit. It was some kind of salad and soup. We confirmed that she ate it for dinner that evening before she left.”
So she ate, left work, came here to s
py, and somehow ended up dead. Why did the killer choose that exact moment? That exact way of killing her?
“Why would someone kill her here and then take her to the freezer at The Crispy Biscuit?” I wondered out loud.
“That’s what we need to figure out.”
“Boss, come see this,” one of the crime scene techs said.
I tried not to leer when Adams paced over toward the CSI. They talked quietly, and then the CSI slid something into a paper bag. I strained to get a better look, but it did no good. I couldn’t see a thing over the men’s shoulders, which formed a wall of sorts as they huddled together.
I waited right where I was until Adams finished. I wasn’t leaving without finding out what they’d just discovered.
Adams looked at me and sighed. “You don’t have to wait, Gabby.”
I offered my most pleasant smile. “I want to.”
He twisted his lips in agitation and then tapped his foot. “You want to know what we found?”
I nodded like an over eager puppy waiting for a bone.
“We believe we found the murder weapon,” he said.
My pulse spiked. “What was it?”
“A wrench. It fits the size, and there was blood on it.”
“A wrench?” My thoughts raced.
“What?” He tilted his head.
“What kind of wrench?”
“Earl, what’s the brand name of that wrench?” Adams called.
The CSI tech looked in the bag. “Williamson.”
My heart sank as thoughts collided in my head. It couldn’t be right . . . could it?
“What is it, Gabby?”
“That’s the brand name that Jerry Lewis uses at his shop. He has advertisements for the company all over his house.”
Thirty minutes later, Clarice and I started back to my car. Night had long since fallen and stars, along with a full moon, shone overhead. On this side of the building—the public side—no one had a clue what was happening just out of sight.
“You mind if I grab some water at that convenience store before we leave?” Clarice nodded at a mini-mart on the corner, within easy walking distance.
“Sure thing.” I was a little thirsty also, now that she mentioned it. Must be all of that yoga I’d done.
Walking would help burn off some of my adrenaline. Because something was bothering me. Someone who was careful enough to move Emma Jean from this crime scene and plant her at The Crispy Biscuit would be smart enough to dispose of the murder weapon in the dumpster. That way, the trash crews would have taken it away to the dump and it would virtually be undiscoverable. But leaving it behind the dumpster made it much easier to find and identify as the murder weapon, especially if there was still blood on it.
And would Jerry really use one of the tools he sold at his shop? Certainly other people used that brand, but it wasn’t extremely popular. It clearly was meant to point at Jerry.
I slowed my steps as I walked and rewound my thoughts for a minute. I needed to think about the flip side of the coin. I needed to consider the fact that maybe Jerry had been careless.
Maybe Jerry had followed Emma Jean here to confront her. He was probably upset because she wanted custody of their son. However, if that was true, then he’d come with malicious intent. That was the only reason he would have been carrying a wrench with him.
I could maybe—maybe—understand if the argument had turned ugly and she’d accidentally died. But Jerry planning on killing Emma Jean? I couldn’t see it.
I had a lot of questions, a lot of thoughts to sort through. My brain was on overload, though.
I glanced across the parking lot. Bill’s car was now gone. He’d missed all the excitement.
“How does Bill fit into all of this?” Clarice asked.
I glanced over at her. “What do you mean?”
“If your theory is right, then how is Bill involved in this? You said stuff has been happening to him also, right? Are the threats against him unrelated?”
I thought through everything I’d learned. I couldn’t mention that information he knew about Munich, which may very well play into all of this. I’d wondered myself many times if there were two separate crimes going on.
“The threats against Bill are, most likely, because people jumped to conclusions and thought he had something to do with Emma Jean’s death,” I finally said. “They were looking for a legitimate reason to hate him other than his big mouth. They thought they’d found it and jumped on the band wagon.”
“But didn’t you say someone tried to abduct Katarina in the parking garage also?”
My moment of victory at finding the crime scene—and, consequentially, the murder weapon—was quickly fading. “That’s right. It could have been random.”
“That’s a lot of random.”
My sneakers thudded against the asphalt. “I agree. But stranger things have happened. Sometimes we fight the truth when, in fact, reality truly is stranger than fiction.”
“There’s something that bothers me even more,” Clarice continued.
I waited for her moment of insight.
“How did Bill and Katarina end up together?”
I held my breath before letting it out in a gushing chuckle. “Everyone has been wondering that. It’s amazing what money and newfound fame will get you.”
“Despite that, they’re such an odd pair. Even if Katarina is money grubbing, she has to have standards. It’s not like Bill is filthy rich and about to die so she’ll get everything from him by default.”
“Agreed.” I looked over and saw another car pulling into the parking lot. It was going fast. Was it a police officer hurrying to the scene?
I kept watching the vehicle as Clarice talked about why Katarina and Bill didn’t work as a couple. She muttered something about the rule of pretty and ugly and how she bet they were even voting for different candidates.
As the headlights got brighter and brighter, I realized one thing.
That car was headed right at us.
I grabbed her arm. “Clarice, run!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clarice and I darted away from the two-ton bullet headed our way. My muscles strained—they were already tight from yoga—as I looked for shelter of some sort.
I knew better than to duck between cars. If that vehicle charged into the row of cars, we’d be smashed between them like an accordion.
No, we had to make it to the convenience store. It was our best hope.
I glanced back once more. The car was close—too close. I quickly estimated that we had ten seconds to get to safety or we’d be toastier than The Crispy Biscuit.
We were almost to the building. Almost.
With one last burst of speed, we finally reached the entry to the convenience store. We were going so fast that we both slammed into the glass. We’d had no time to open the door. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for a crash. For pain. Agony.
Someone shouted in the distance. Tires squealed. I held my breath.
But there was nothing.
I dared to pull my eyes open and look around.
Only feet away, the vehicle swerved, narrowly missing hitting the building.
As it drove away, I spotted the dent in its bumper.
And no license plate.
This was the same person who’d tried to snatch Katarina and who had followed Riley and me, I realized.
What in the world was going on? I was getting closer to finding the right answers, I realized.
Then a worse thought occurred: Was Jerry driving that vehicle? He worked as a mechanic. He probably had access to all kinds of vehicles.
My heart pounded in my ears.
“He tried to kill us!” Clarice leaned against the building, bent over as she tried to catch her breath. “Why would someone do that?”
“That’s the question.”
I leaned against the wall also, trying to gather my wits.
A couple of people walked over to see if we were okay. We insisted we
were.
“I’m not sure what good it would do to try to kill you now if the crime scene has already been discovered,” Clarice said.
“I agree. Something weird is going on.” I had to keep looking for answers. Until an arrest was made, I was on the case.
Until then . . .
“You call Adams this time,” I muttered, handing Clarice my phone. “He’s sick of me.”
The next morning, I had a workshop in a town about an hour and a half north of here in the city of Seaford. Thankfully, I had enough supplies in the back of my car to make do—the rest had been destroyed in the fire. I’d left quite a few in my trunk for easy storage.
As I stepped out of our temporary hotel home, a familiar face caught my eye.
Godfrey.
I let out a sigh and paused on the sidewalk in the midst of vehicle and pedestrian rush hour. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” He sneered and tugged his khaki beret lower.
“You’re not an old friend. What do you want, and why are you following me?”
“Meow.” He made little cat claws and scratched the air before snapping from his melodrama. “I just wanted to talk.”
“I’m not giving you a quote about Bill in an effort to ruin his career and get Philip Munich elected.” I hated politics more and more every day.
He had the nerve to look offended. “I get that. You think I’m here just for you?”
“Aren’t you?”
He wiped at his shoulder as if brushing off my insult. “I’m headed to a fundraiser rally tomorrow. You did hear that Philip Munich was going to be in town, didn’t you?”
“It seems like I did hear that somewhere. Where’s that taking place again?”
“At the theater down the street from you.”
Down the street from me . . . Frustration pinched at me. “You know where I live?”
“Where you lived,” he corrected with a glean in his eyes.
I scowled, the pinched frustration I felt turning into downright anger and my hands flying to my hips as I stared Godfrey down. “You’ve been following me? Do you drive a SUV with a dented bumper, by chance?”
Cunning Attractions: Squeaky Clean Mysteries, Book 12 Page 17
