by Cheryl Crane
“You know who it’s from?” Nikki set her iced tea on the edge of Carolyn’s desk.
“Nope.”
Slinging her handbag onto her shoulder, and placing her briefcase at her feet, Nikki accepted the envelope curiously.
“Oh, and a message. I offered to connect the guy to your voicemail, but he said it was important that you get the message today. He wants to see a commercial property you have listed.” Carolyn offered a pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT slip.
Nikki unwound the string and peeked in the manila envelope: photos. Her heart gave a little trip. Mr. M. had come through. She closed the envelope quickly and reached for the message. “Thanks.” She glanced at the note. It was from a Mr. Morrison. He wanted to see a commercial building in the Plummer Park area. At six-thirty. She sighed. She really wasn’t up to a showing tonight. “He didn’t leave a number?” she asked Carolyn.
Carolyn had taken her seat again. “There’s not one on there?”
Nikki looked at her.
“Gosh . . . I’m so sorry. I asked for it and then . . . I’m really sorry.”
So now Nikki couldn’t even call him back to reschedule. The message said the caller was a Mr. Morrison . . . Mr. Morrison? She couldn’t remember having spoken to a Mr. Morrison about that commercial property. Or any other, for that matter, but she talked to a lot of people over the course of a week, a month, a year...
Nikki dropped the envelope into her briefcase, and grabbed it and her iced chai. “Thank you, Carolyn,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Carolyn called brightly after her.
Nikki closed the door to her office before going to her desk. She dropped her handbag on the desk; she wouldn’t be here long if she was going to make the appointment in Plummer Park in late-afternoon traffic. Seated at her desk, she took a sip of her iced chai and pulled the manila envelope out of her briefcase.
The photos were eight-by-tens, in black and white, and as Mr. M. had warned, not particularly good. They were obviously taken for surveillance reasons, rather than for display. He must have printed them on photo-quality paper on his home computer’s printer.
She studied the first one: a picture of the Bernards’ side yard and Victoria’s. All was quiet on the Bordeaux side, but there were a few people scattered around the visible side of the Bernards’ pool. On the bottom of the picture was a time stamp: twelve-fifteen a.m.
A time stamp!
Nikki began to shuffle through the photos; there were more than a dozen, one every fifteen minutes. Please, please let there be some answer here, Nikki prayed silently as she looked at one and then another. Even if there were no answers, just something to go on.
The photographs weren’t as easy to interpret as she had hoped. Because they were taken from Mr. M.’s widow’s walk, they were practically a bird’s-eye view.
She went all the way through them. Then, again. As Astro had said and Mr. M. confirmed, the party broke up shortly after midnight. By one a.m., there was almost no one left in the backyard. . . except for someone in a chaise longue . . . and someone lying in the grass, just off the edge of the photo.
Was that Eddie in the grass? Was he already dead by the one-fifteen time stamp? She squinted. All she could see was an arm and part of a sleeve, partially rolled up. She flipped through several photos, which were taken between twelve-fifteen and four-thirty.
She got a magnifying glass from her desk and studied the arm; it was a dark dress shirt. Eddie had been wearing a polo and hibiscus swim shorts when he died. That definitely wasn’t Eddie lying in the grass. She used the magnifying glass to look at the man near the pool. That was Eddie in the chaise longue.
Nikki checked the time on her cell phone. She didn’t have much time before she had to leave for the appointment with Mr. Morrison. She always liked to unlock a property first, and walk around to make sure there were no dead rodents in view and no squatters. Both of which she’d encountered in her adventures as a real estate broker. (Once, she’d discovered a merry maid in flagrante delicto.)
She looked at the pile of photos again. Then again.
Eddie wasn’t in the chaise in the three o’clock photo. She flipped forward in time. Mr. M. had said there had been a bald man in the pool. She found the man in the pool, but she couldn’t really make out any details. It was just a floating head, really.
Nikki’s hands shook as she carefully stacked the photos in a pile and slipped them back in the envelope to look at again later. Right now, she had to get on the road or she was going to be late to her appointment. In light of the evidence in the photos, she was tempted to just skip the appointment. She could explain later to the potential client that she’d had a family emergency or something. But Nikki didn’t miss meetings, not even for family emergencies.
She slid the envelope of photographs into her roomy Prada handbag, grabbed her cell phone off the desk, and dropped it, too, into the bag as she went out the door. She wondered if it was time to give Dombrowski a call. She didn’t know exactly what she had in the manila envelope, but she was pretty sure she had the answer to who had killed Eddie Bernard.
Chapter 27
Nikki took North Canon to Santa Monica. The commercial building was just off Santa Monica, near Plummer Park. She found a parking place on the street right in front of the building and jumped out of her car. She wanted to turn the lights on inside, but she’d have to go to the breaker at the rear of the first floor.
She unlocked the glass door and went straight back through the building to turn on the electricity. Just as she closed the breaker panel, she heard the door out front open. “Hello!” she called. “Mr. Morrison?”
There was no answer.
Nikki slipped her Prada back up on her shoulder and headed toward the front of the building, passing from the hallway to the front room. The building was a shell that would need work, but it was in good shape and was being offered at an excellent price.
A man in a black trench coat stood just to the left of the door, his back to her.
“Mr. Morrison.” She walked toward him. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Nikki Harper.” She was just lifting her hand to shake his when he turned around.
“We’ve met.”
Nikki saw his face first. It was Wezley Butterfield. Then she saw the gun.
Nikki put on the brakes six feet from him. She stared at the gun. In all her years of being a real estate broker, she’d encountered a lot of strange things, but never a client with a gun. “Mr. Butterfield?”
His hand was steady; a yellow-gold signet ring reflected the light from the overhead fixtures. “I think we’re probably on a first name basis, don’t you, Nikki?”
She couldn’t take her gaze off the pistol. The pistol . . . the photos . . . The paint she’d picked out for her bedroom walls . . . the ring on Wezley’s hand. Nikki’s thoughts scattered like ripples from a handful of stones hurled into a pond. She’d almost called Dombrowski on the way over. Why the heck hadn’t she called him? “I don’t know what this is about, but—”
“You know what this is about,” he said. His tone was calm. He didn’t sound inebriated. He was stone cold sober. “I need you to get in your car.”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding, Wezley.”
“No misunderstanding. You’ve been snooping around, asking questions because you believe your gardener was falsely accused of killing Eddie Bernard. You should have minded your own business. I need you to go get in your car,” he ordered. “You and I are going for a little ride.”
“Where?” she whispered, her gaze shifting from the muzzle of the pistol to his face.
“Does it matter?” He seemed almost sad.
She swallowed hard. This wasn’t the first time she’d been on this end of a pistol. She didn’t feel any calmer this time. Her gaze darted to the door. She wondered if she could—
“Let’s go,” he said. He grabbed her arm and shoved her.
“In my car?” she asked. Her bag slipped on her shoulder and she sh
oved it back up again.
Her phone was in her bag . . .
There was no way she’d have time to pull it out and, say, call nine-one-one. But maybe . . . She walked with a shuffling step as he pushed her ahead with his left hand. He held the pistol in his right. She could feel it poke into her ribs.
“You drive,” he ordered.
“Please,” Nikki begged, feeling as if she ought to be hysterical by now. But she wasn’t. Her heart was pounding, but she was in control. She was thinking. Reasoning.
They were out on the sidewalk. A car went by, but its windows were up. There wasn’t time to attract the driver’s attention.
“Unlock it,” he ordered.
She slid her right hand into her bag. “I . . . I can’t find my keys.” She fumbled in the bag, felt the key fob, and dropped it. Where was the damned phone?
Her fingers closed around her BlackBerry.
He shoved her again. “Get the car unlocked,” he ordered under his breath. He was angry now. Which, she sensed, made him even more dangerous.
She turned her head to look into the bag for just an instant. Her thumb found the buttons. She hit one and then hit the OK button; she had no idea who she was calling. “Found them.” She clicked the UNLOCK button on the key fob and pulled her hand out of her bag.
“Don’t mess with me. Where are the keys to start the car?”
It was six-forty in the evening. Where the heck were the cars? she wondered wildly. What she wouldn’t give for some L.A. traffic right now.
“It . . . it doesn’t need a key to start it, it just needs the key to be in the vicinity,” she explained.
His gaze moved to her bag. “Give that to me,” he barked.
Before she could respond, he ripped it off her shoulder. She thought about trying to run, but he was so close. If he pulled the trigger, he might kill her.
He opened the passenger-side door and threw her bag on the floor. Her Prada. Thrown haphazardly on the floor. “Get in,” he repeated.
She moved around the hood toward the driver’s door. Still no cars. She wondered what he would do if she screamed. From the wild look in his eyes, probably pull the trigger. She opened her door.
“Get in. Don’t start it.” He waved her toward the car, then got in the other side.
As Nikki got in behind the wheel, she wondered who she’d dialed. Maybe she’d get lucky and have dialed Jeremy or Amondo; they always answered their phones. It was more likely she’d dialed the dogs’ groomer or her gynecologist. That was just the kind of luck she had.
“Put on your seat belt. You’re not getting out at a red light. Drive,” Wezley ordered as he slammed the door shut.
She closed her door and put on her seat belt. She never drove anywhere without her seat belt; even when being kidnapped, apparently.
“Which way?” she asked as loudly as possible, without sounding like she was trying to be loud. All she could do was pray that whoever she called had picked up and was listening now.
“Back onto Santa Monica. East.”
“You want me to get back on Santa Monica,” she repeated. “Should I go around the block?”
“U-turn,” he said.
Nikki pulled out. “Then what?” she asked.
He had his back to the door, his body sideways so that he could hold the gun on his lap, out of view of any passersby, and still keep an eye on her. “I’ll tell you.”
She cut her eyes at him as she did what he said and made the turn. “There may be a misunderstanding, Wezley,” she said. “About Eddie’s death . . . and you.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Who?”
“Eddie’s mother.”
“Ginny? Ginny didn’t tell me anything.” Her brain was trying to run two conversations, one in her head with herself, the other with Wezley.
“Not, Ginny,” he ground out. “Eddie’s mother. Melinda.”
“I’m not following.”
“About me. Did she tell you Eddie promised me money and then reneged? Did she tell you how much trouble I was in? That I had to have that money?”
Nikki caught the light and turned off the side street, onto Santa Monica. “Eddie owed you money?”
“He promised me money. For the church. Then didn’t come through. A hundred thousand dollars.”
“For the Church of Earth and Beyond?” she asked. “Melinda. . . said nothing about Eddie . . . intending to give you money. Keep going? We’re crossing Poinsettia,” she said, trying to enunciate. Please, please, please, let someone have picked up.
“Stay on Santa Monica till Wilton,” Wezley said. “Take Wilton to Sunset.”
“East on Sunset? Are we going to your church?”
“East on Sunset. We’re not going to the church.”
She dared to steal another glance at him. He was sweating. Now, he looked scared. Not as scared as she felt, but scared. “You killed Eddie?” she said, taking a chance. Taking a big chance. But what the heck? If he was going to kill her, she at least had the right to know what had happened, didn’t she?
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I . . . I don’t even remember doing it.”
“You blacked out?”
He stared at her. “I guess. I don’t remember.”
“But . . . you killed him?”
“I don’t remember!” He shook his head. “I don’t remember any of it. But I woke up in clothes that weren’t my own. Eddie’s clothes. I must have . . . gotten rid of mine somehow. They must have had blood on them.”
“But you don’t remember killing him?” she asked, her brain still running two conversations. The answer was there . . . it was there in the pictures. She just couldn’t quite see it. But something told her Wezley was wrong. She was wrong. The killer wasn’t Wezley Butterfield.
“That morning, I had my suspicions I might have done something terrible,” Wezley said. “I remembered arguing with Eddie. Threatening him. But I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Nikki kept her hands steady on the steering wheel, hoping that whoever was listening was getting this all down to tell the police later, after they found her body. “The police questioned you, but they didn’t arrest you.”
“The detective asked a lot of questions about Eddie, about his family, and about the party, but I don’t think he thought I did it. He never said I was a suspect. I thought maybe . . . I hoped I was wrong.”
“What made you think maybe you were right?” she asked. “Oh, here we are. Wilton. Next, Sunset, east on Sunset,” she said.
Wezley was so caught up in telling his story that he didn’t notice that she was calling out the turns as she made them.
“What made you begin to realize that you had done it?” Nikki dared to ask.
“The e-mails.” He began to tremble, but he was still holding the pistol dead on her.
“The e-mails?” she repeated.
“I started getting threatening e-mails Thursday.”
That might explain why Monique hadn’t been able to get into Wezley’s e-mail for the last few days. He had changed his password when he started getting them to prevent his secretary or anyone else from reading them.
He looked at her face. “Someone knows I did it. He . . . he saw me. Saw something. He said that unless I called you off, he’d turn in the evidence.”
“But you don’t know who the e-mails are coming from?”
He shook his head. “Me being charged with murder? The whole rehab thing already hurt the church. People started questioning our teachings. Questioning my father’s authority. The publicity of a murder trial would devastate the church. It would ruin everything my father has built. We’re already in financial straits. I can’t do this to thousands of people.” He ran the back of his free hand over his mouth again. His signet ring caught the dying sunlight. “I could really use a drink.”
I could, too, she thought. Then she glanced at him again. At his ring. And it hit her. The photos. Wezley didn’t kill Eddi
e and she had the proof in her handbag. “Sunset,” she called, turning onto Sunset. “Wezley . . . what if I told you you didn’t kill Eddie?” she said slowly, still working through what she knew.
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Would you be willing to look at the evidence?”
“You don’t understand. I can’t be involved with the police. I can’t be arrested. I’m already on probation.” He shook his head yet again. “I need to just dispose of you. Then it will all be over. The gardener will be found guilty. They were his pruning shears. And the church will be spared.”
“But if you didn’t kill Eddie, your name would be cleared.”
“You’d say anything to me at this point. I’d say anything if I were in your position.”
Nikki was trying to drive as slowly as possible, but traffic was moving pretty well on Sunset. They were approaching the Church of Earth and Beyond.
“Wezley . . . what if I could show you proof that you didn’t kill Eddie?” she asked.
“But I did it.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“He says I did it. The man in the e-mails.”
“Think about it,” she said, taking a different tack. “Why would someone be sending you threatening e-mails, saying they were going to tell the police you did it? What would they have to gain?”
He blinked slowly. He was thinking. She could see that he was thinking. She could also see that the hand that held the gun was trembling.
“Why would someone do that?” she asked again. “Did the person who sent the e-mails say what stake they had in it? Why they cared if the guilt was pinned on Jorge Delgado, or you?”
He shook his head.
She passed the church, trying not to think about where he was taking her or how he intended to kill her. Was he planning on hiding her body? Or was he going to make it look like a random shooting? A robbery, maybe? No, no, she couldn’t waste precious moments or brain power thinking about that. She had to convince Wezley that he didn’t kill Eddie. Of course, the hole in the plan was what she was going to say when he asked who did kill him. That, she hadn’t figured out yet.
