Obsessions Can Be Murder: The Tenth Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  “Well, it went about as I expected,” Amanda said. The rest of us dissipated the tension with nervous giggles. “Can she really contest the will?” she asked.

  “There’s a clause specifically writing out anyone who contests it,” Horton said. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t try. She’s got nothing to lose, obviously.”

  “I’m willing to let her off the hook for the fifty thousand,” Amanda said, “if she’ll leave town and drop all intentions of pursuing this. Can you write up something legal-sounding to that effect?”

  Blythe agreed and they sat down to sketch out some details.

  The murderous look on Frank Quinn’s face stayed with me. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. I wondered about the will’s provisions if something happened to Amanda.

  Chapter 20

  I followed Jake and Amanda’s vehicle back to Watson’s Lake, watchful at every driveway and side road for the powder-blue Olds. Amanda might think she could rid herself of the threat by throwing Earleen a bone, but I wasn’t so sure. Earleen was self-centered and spiteful, but Frank Quinn seemed dangerous. He’d hooked up with the rich widow for a reason and he didn’t seem the type to simply blow it off. I debated it for the whole drive; Frank clearly wasn’t ambitious enough to make a fortune on his own, but he might go to great lengths to get one dishonestly. It made me glad I’d not mentioned the really big money to anyone yet.

  It was after two o’clock when we hit the outskirts of Watson’s Lake. Amanda and Jake turned off the highway at Piedra Vista, heading toward their house. I’d told her I would come up there, but first I wanted to see if I could get a handle on what Earleen and Frank might have in mind. It was only slightly out of the way to cruise the main drag, and sure enough, I spotted the Olds at the Owl Bar. Adding alcohol to their tempers might be like gasoline on a fire, so it seemed prudent for me to let the sheriff know what had transpired.

  I found Michaela in her office and briefed her quickly on the lawyer’s revelations. She assured me that a deputy would be on the streets.

  “I’ve got the feeling those two will drink a little too much and may need to sleep it off in custody tonight,” she said with a wink.

  I left, unsure whether I’d really conveyed the danger, but knowing I’d done what I could for the moment. At the Zellinger place, I found the mood subdued, the natural result of the emotional morning.

  “We’ve got food, if anyone’s interested,” Jake said. “The ladies brought chicken casserole, green bean casserole, Jell-O salad, and a pineapple upside down cake. Want me to reheat the casseroles?”

  Amanda waved away the notion of food, and while I can usually go for anything at any time, I wasn’t all that hungry either. Jake made up a plate and nuked the hot foods for a minute.

  “Come on, sweetie, you need to eat.” He placed the plate on her lap and handed her a fork. “You hardly had anything yesterday, either.”

  I had to give him points in the solicitous department. I’d never seen him act quite so caringly toward his wife, even after her car accident. She sent a weak smile his way and poked at the chicken with her fork.

  He gave me an inquisitive look and I agreed to also take a plate. The three of us sat in the living room with plates on laps, wondering what next. Conversation meandered among inconsequential subjects, carefully staying away from David or Earleen. I had already told them, when I arrived, about my stop to Michaela’s office.

  Jake cleared the plates and I heard him in the kitchen, washing up. I called out an offer to help, but he assured me he could handle it.

  “This is so rare, I’m not going to say a word,” Amanda told me in a low voice. “I wasn’t even sure he knew where the plates were kept until today. I mean, this is a guy who grabs himself a sandwich and eats it off a paper towel. Doing for anyone else, well, that just doesn’t happen.”

  She glanced toward the kitchen door. “Things have been strained between us for a long time. Between money worries and the uncertainty about Dad, well, I just haven’t been sure we’d make it.”

  I came close to mentioning the other bank accounts then, but something held me back.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  Jake came back into the living room, this time bearing a tray with squares of the cake on plates and a carafe of coffee.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “You’re pretty handy with this stuff.”

  Amanda didn’t say anything but she kissed his cheek when he handed her a plate. He polished off his cake quickly and looked surreptitiously at his watch.

  “Go, go,” she finally said. He gave her a sweet smile and yanked at his tie. Moments later he emerged from the bedroom in casual clothing, heading for the lab.

  “He never can seem to settle down in a social situation. That lab is everything.”

  “I don’t want to spoil the mood, and I don’t want to be just another workaholic,” I said, “but I feel like there are still unanswered questions. You hired me to find your father, Amanda, and that didn’t turn out as anyone hoped.” Anyone, but Earleen. But then she’d also had her major disappointments this week. “I’m wondering how much longer you want me to stay on. The police are handling the murder investigation.”

  She set down her cup and ran her fingers through her hair. I noticed that the creases beside her mouth had become more pronounced in the past week.

  “I can’t help but feel that Dad’s death is going to go unsolved,” she said. “The initial investigation was so intent on the idea that he set up the gas leak that they didn’t really investigate any evidence that pointed to anyone else.”

  “Do you know what evidence? What other suspects?”

  “Well, not directly.” She sighed. “Not really. I just know he didn’t do it, and now that he’s dead, doesn’t it seem logical that someone, whoever killed him, probably did it because they’d also set the fire and he could have identified them?”

  I had to agree with the logic.

  “I’d like you to keep looking into it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “How long has Frank Quinn been in the picture with Earleen?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly. Longer than he should have been, I suspect.” She picked up her cup again and found the coffee had gone cold. When she came back from microwaving it, she said, “I’d finished my student teaching, driving to Segundo every day because there were no positions open here at the time. So I wasn’t around Dad and Earleen a whole lot during the three or four years before the fire. By the time a job came up here in town I was so happy to get it that I really devoted all my spare time to impressing the principal and my students and their parents.

  “Dad had moved here a year after Jake and I did. We were always close, Dad and I, because of Mom . . .” She got a faraway look but went back on topic. “Anyway, we kept talking about how much we loved the lifestyle in the mountains and Dad thought that sounded appealing, so he wanted to come here, too. He and Earleen had only been married a few years and I knew pretty much when they got here that she wasn’t happy with the idea.

  “Frank Quinn was a local contractor, did okay for himself from what I gathered. But something went wrong. I remember that Dad had talked to him about building the lake house for them, but he decided not to work with Frank when a scandal broke out about his keeping a customer’s deposit and not delivering on the job. Construction Industries Commission was breathing down his neck and Dad backed away from working with him. Earleen was in on a lot of those meetings so she knew him back then.”

  “And she might have felt sorry for his situation.”

  “Maybe so. I just don’t know for sure. Like I said, my life was pretty full right then. Jake was just getting the research project set up, the grant money out of Harvard, all that. I do know that the same contractor who built Dad’s house also did the lab out back.”

  “What was his name? Maybe he’d remember something.”

  She squinted upward, remembering. “Mike Roland. Roland Construction. He’s got a se
rvice yard in that little industrial area about a block past the community center. Lives just down the road from Dad’s house. He specializes in luxury homes and really was the right contractor for Dad’s place.”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to him. If he was out at your dad’s construction site a lot he may have noticed whether Earleen seemed to be up to something.”

  Amanda’s face hardened. “I’d love to find something on her. From day one, I tried to be cordial to her—never really knew what Dad saw in her, but I stayed polite—and she tried to undermine me at every turn. She hated the fact that Dad and I were close and she really didn’t want to be living here, so near Jake and me. I still wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she didn’t rig the gas leak, just to get rid of the house and get the hell out of Watson’s Lake.”

  She blushed a little after the outburst. “Sorry, I usually don’t let personal feelings out that way.”

  “It’s okay. Look, do you mind if I take off? Maybe I can catch Mike Roland before the end of the day.”

  “Not at all. Let me know how it turns out.”

  I found the fenced yard of Roland Construction easily enough, right where Amanda’d described it, and I parked on the road to take a look. A chain link fence enclosed about two acres. A long, one-story metal building with four garage doors must have mainly housed tools and materials because two pickup trucks and a cement mixer on a small trailer sat outside. At the near end of the building, a section with windows appeared to be the office (also, a sign with the company logo above the door said so). Everything looked buttoned up tight and I assumed Mike Roland was either out on a job or possibly at home. I was just deciding to drive up toward the Simmons place, in hopes that I could find Mike’s home, when I heard a vehicle approach.

  The white truck whipped into the driveway and lurched to a stop at the padlocked gate. A tall guy got out, rangy in well-fitted jeans and a T-shirt, his dark hair ruffling in the breeze. He pulled a key from one of those little retractor devices on his belt and applied the key to the padlock. The wide gate rolled back smoothly for him and he got back into the truck and drove it up to the office. I followed as he unlocked the office door and switched on a light.

  “Mike Roland?”

  He spun in surprise. “Oh, didn’t see you there.”

  “I’m glad you came along. I’m Charlie Parker, RJP Investigations. We’re working with Amanda Zellinger to look into the incident at her father’s house a few years ago.”

  “You were at the funeral this morning, weren’t you? Right up front with Amanda?”

  “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Well, I wanted to pay my respects but I got this job going out on Lakeview Road, so I couldn’t hang around too long. Sorry I missed the graveside part.”

  I waved it off. “I don’t think Amanda necessarily expected everyone to be there.”

  “How’s she doing? I never got to know her too well. She came out to the job site a few times when I built her dad’s place, but I guess she’s pretty busy. Works at the school, right?” He took a seat behind the desk and indicated the other chair for me.

  “Right. She’s coping okay. She’d kept her hopes up for four years that her dad would show up alive and well one day, but . . .”

  “Yeah, a tough break. I never did buy into that idea that David Simmons would torch that house. He loved the place. We designed it together, you know. He wanted everything just so. The floorplan was his, entirely. The wife got her say in decorating it, but the design and layout was entirely David’s.”

  “So, Earleen wasn’t around much during the construction?”

  “Well, I didn’t say that. She hung out, mostly whenever David came out, which was every day. Walked around and nitpicked little stuff like a crooked nail here and there. No legitimate complaints, really, just being a pain in the butt. Almost every job’s got a client like that. Often it’s the man, cause they think they’ve gotta exert some control. Wives are usually more interested in what color they’re going to choose for the bathroom, whether we should texture the walls or leave them plain for wallpaper. That kind of stuff.”

  “Amanda said they’d talked to Frank Quinn about bidding the job, but that was about the time his troubles began.”

  “Troubles.” He poofed air through pursed lips. “That’s putting it mildly. You don’t want to mess with Construction Industries, especially don’t want them having any reason to give you the old proctology exam.” He blushed. “Sorry, that was a bit graphic.”

  It didn’t bother me, but I caught myself blushing when he did.

  He cleared his throat. “Shame, too, because Frank was actually a respected contractor around here for years. Got himself in a bind with some loans and thought he could make it up the quick way. When the client cancelled a job and wanted their deposit back it came out that he hadn’t actually put it in an escrow fund at all but had spent it. The stuff hit the fan then, all right.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t just leave town and start over somewhere else. Go to another state, lie about his past—that kind of thing happens, doesn’t it?”

  “All the time. I think Frank might have had some other reason to stick around by then.”

  “Earleen Simmons?”

  “Didn’t want to say it, but yeah. They were pretty discreet at first. Careful not to flaunt it around David, but the signs were there. I’m out all day in my truck, driving all over this area. Both their cars at the bar at the same time, her car half a block from his house, little stuff. People raised their eyebrows a little but there wasn’t anything blatant, not till after David left.”

  “At what point did she actually move in with Frank?”

  He shifted in his chair. “Oh, gosh, few months maybe? I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that happened. I’m not sure where she stayed right after the house blew up. Seems maybe she went to California for a little bit, but I might be confused about that.”

  I thanked him for the information, sensing that he’d come back to get some paperwork done before dinnertime and I was keeping him from it. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked back to the Jeep. He’d sent out flirtatious signals but kept eyeing my wedding band and knew I was off limits.

  Where had Earleen gone immediately after the fire? I’d have to ask Amanda about that. She’d told the police that she’d been in Santa Fe overnight when the explosion happened; now I wondered if she were with Frank. Might explain why she couldn’t produce a receipt for the room, if he’d paid for it.

  I circled the block and came out on the main street, west of my motel. As I turned left I passed the Owl Bar and easily spotted Frank’s powder-blue car outside. They’d been in there, drinking, for over four hours now. A familiar black Harley sat near the door. I didn’t like the looks of that. A sheriff’s department cruiser waited across the street, a deputy who appeared to be working a crossword puzzle sat at the wheel and he glanced up as my vehicle went by. I felt better, knowing Michaela had taken me seriously.

  In front of my cabin at the Horseshoe I parked and remembered that my Beretta was in the glove compartment. It had seemed like bad form to carry it into the funeral service. I slipped it into my purse and locked the Jeep.

  Still satiated with chicken casserole and pineapple upside down cake, I headed for my room with no intention of going out again. It felt good to get out of my dress slacks and the itchy blue sweater that looked good but wore a red spot on my neck. A T-shirt and jeans were much more to my liking. I made a few notes about leads I still wanted to follow, then settled down to an old movie on television.

  Although it was a picture I normally loved, an old Ingrid Bergman flick, I couldn’t lose myself in the story this time. Earleen’s threats at Blythe’s office today kept coming back to me. She and Frank were getting desperate. After failing to get the insurance settlement on the house, she’d hoped for half the estate in a divorce, and been thwarted both times. The reading of the will today had clearly come as a total shock to her and she now faced a
life of mediocrity in Frank’s depressing little house. I took some comfort in the fact that they’d spent the afternoon getting drunk and that a deputy would catch them before they could get out on the road. Abandoning the movie, I picked up the book I’d been reading and did manage to lose myself in it for a couple of hours.

  By bedtime I felt more than ready to burrow into the covers for a full eight hours. I’d just drifted off, into that magical realm where sleep occupies ninety-nine percent of consciousness, when the other one percent detected the creak of a floorboard on my porch.

  Chapter 21

  My heart thudded and adrenaline flowed to every cell, bringing me to one hundred percent alert. I froze in position, lying on my side, with my eyes the only body part able to move. The bedside clock showed 10:47. I lifted my head slightly from the pillow, to free up both ears for listening. Another creak sounded, closer to the door. I reached over the edge of the mattress and connected with the strap of my purse which, fortunately, I’d not looped over the chair across the room this time.

  The doorknob clicked.

  I tugged at the zipper of my bag and reached inside for the Beretta. I flipped off the safety and waited, blinking rapidly to clear my eyes and hoping to pick out shapes in the near-total darkness.

  The knob made another small noise, more urgent this time. I’d engaged the chain, but if the intruder managed to get the knob open and if he gave up the pretense at stealth, I knew the chain would accomplish absolutely nothing. I raised the Beretta, knowing the light from the parking area outside would highlight my target for only a few seconds, if I got lucky.

  I held my breath.

  The knob rattled loudly this time, then I heard the sound of a police siren out on the road. My visitor must have heard it, too, because suddenly the booted feet made two quick steps—not quiet ones—down the porch steps. I whipped the blankets aside and dashed to the window, holding the muzzle of the Beretta toward the floor.

  By the light of the mercury vapor lamp in the center of the Horseshoe common, I could barely make out a running figure that disappeared between two cabins on the opposite side. I debated giving chase and gave up the thought in about two-tenths of a second. I’m not fond of putting my life on the line. Plus, I sleep in only a T-shirt and panties. The town of Watson’s Lake did not need that to talk about in the morning.