How did she keep all that white stuff clean with two little kids?
Ten-foot-tall French doors at one end of the room opened out to a tiered cedar deck that overlooked the sloping valley behind the house. I spied an outdoor kitchen and rows of planter boxes spilling over with trailing verbena, sweet potato vine, and creeping Jenny. One of the doors was open, and a hint of hyssop drifted in to join the breakfast smells of bananas and cinnamon toast in the house.
A rustle came from the other room. Then a door slammed.
Inga stomped back in and threw a letter-sized manila envelope on the table in front of us. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she said, “Take it and get out.”
Astrid and I looked at each other, then at her.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
The woman’s familiar nervous energy hovered in the background, but at the moment it was dwarfed with rage.
“Of course it is. And it’s the last payment. Do you understand?”
“Um, we’re not here for any money.”
Her jaw set, and she started to say something. Then she paused, and doubt crept onto her face. “You’re not?”
I shook my head. “Please. Sit down. We need to talk to you.”
Slowly, she perched on the edge of a chair. Her eyes veered toward the staircase.
“Inga, where are the children?” I asked.
“I don’t have to tell you that!” Her eyes flared, and her shoulders tensed with a fierce protectiveness.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Astrid said. “What do you think we’re going to do?”
“We don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to know if they’re safe. Are they?” I asked Inga in a quiet voice.
She nodded.
“Okay.” I scooted closer to her and laid Josie’s photos on the coffee table. “We know about the Calla Club. That you worked there.”
Her lips pressed together.
“That you were a dancer.” I was guessing, but she didn’t deny it.
She looked at the envelope on the table, and her forehead wrinkled. “But you’re not here for money?”
“No.” I glanced at the envelope, too. “Who have you and Brock been paying off?”
“Brock. Oh, God. He’s going to find out. After all this, he’s still going to find out,” she said. Tears welled up in her eyes. She buried her face in her hands.
Astrid shot me a helpless look.
“I’m sorry. Truly,” I said. “But you have to tell us what happened.”
She looked up and hiccuped a sob.
“Tell us what happened to Josie,” I prompted.
“I don’t know,” Inga practically wailed. “We got home from Sacramento, and she’d been murdered. And God help me, I was glad.” Her jaw set. “When you told me that someone had killed her, Ellie, I was glad.”
No, you weren’t, I thought, remembering the anxious energy coming off her. You were scared.
Astrid looked outraged, then faded into thought. “But you didn’t kill her.”
“No!” Inga said.
“And your husband didn’t do it,” Astrid said, slowly, working it out.
“No! Why would he? He didn’t . . . know about . . .” She blinked back tears again. “But he’s going to find out now. Worse than that, the kids will know.”
And that, I realized, was what she was really worried about.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I’m confused. Are you saying you gave Josie money? And that’s why you were glad she was dead?”
Chin quivering, she nodded. “I didn’t give the money to her, but she had to have been behind it. And now that she’s out of the picture, it’s still going on. It’ll never stop!”
Astrid and I exchanged a look.
“Who did you give the money to?” I said, pretty sure I knew the answer.
“Are you sure he didn’t send you?” she asked with a bewildered expression.
“No one sent us.” I looked at Astrid. “I think she means Karl.”
Astrid blinked. “The cook at the Roux Grill?”
“He worked at the Calla Club, too, after all. Didn’t he, Inga?”
Inga nodded, looking thoughtful. “Uh-huh.”
“Tell us what happened.”
Inga looked between us, then seemed to make a decision. “I got a letter.”
“A letter or an e-mail?” I mentally kicked myself. Let her tell you.
“A hard copy letter.”
“Who was it from?” Astrid asked.
Inga said, “It must have been from Josie, right? It didn’t have a name on it, but she’d already told me she had some pictures that I was in. ‘Art photos,’” she said, glancing down at the pictures on the coffee table. “She threatened to make them public.”
“How?” I asked.
“She was going to show them in a gallery in Sacramento.”
“The pictures are brilliant photography,” I said. “But I never in a million years would have recognized you in them. Just look.”
“You wouldn’t?” she asked in a small voice, and leaned forward.
I smiled. “Except for your daisy tattoo I happened to see the other day.”
Her fingers fluttered to her shoulder. “But the letter . . .”
“What did it say?” Astrid asked.
“It came right out and said if I didn’t pay a hundred thousand dollars, she’d tell Brock I was a stripper at the Calla. That there were pictures. I thought she was my friend.” Tears threatened again, and I was relieved when she took a deep breath and seemed to force them back. “He’s very conservative. Brock, I mean. I met him at a fund-raiser where I was waitressing.” Defiance flashed in her eyes when she looked at me. “I worked for a caterer during the day.”
I nodded but managed to keep my mouth shut.
She went on. “We hit it off. He liked me, even though I was a waitress and he was an important businessman. He lived in San Francisco—didn’t know anything about the Calla Club. He’d only been in Silver Wells to help support some political candidate when I met him.” She sighed, and her expression turned dreamy for a moment. “I quit the Calla and moved to San Francisco when things started getting serious. Once we got married, though, he wanted to get out of the city. For the”—her throat worked—“for the kids. So we moved to Poppyville.”
She looked down at her hands, now twisting in her shirttail. “It was perfect.” Her gaze rose to ours. “I had the perfect life. I love Brock, I really do. He’s good to me and kind, and we have Molly and Ethan.” Her face collapsed. “They’re going to hate me.”
“No, they won’t,” Astrid said. “You’re their mama.”
“Tell us about the blackmail,” I said.
“After the letter, I knew Josie was serious. So I got the money together,” she said simply. “When Karl showed up, it kind of surprised me, but, then again, not really. They’d been friends at the Calla, so he already knew about my past. When I asked if Josie had sent him, he said she had. So I gave him the money. I dared to hope that would be the end of it. I really thought it was, once I heard someone had killed Josie.” She looked down at the pristine rug at our feet. “But now Karl wants another payment.”
“Wait a minute.” Astrid stood. “What do you mean, ‘now’?”
I rose as well, alarm bells clanging in my brain.
Inga gazed up at us. “He’s coming this afternoon.” She looked at her watch. “In about ten minutes.”
“Inga!” I reached for her arm and pulled her up from the chair. “I don’t think Josie sent Karl here. You were the one who mentioned her name to him, right?”
She gave a small nod.
“Josie never wanted to blackmail you. She just wanted to show her photos in a real art gallery. She was proud of them, and she wanted you to know.” I paused, thinking. “I
bet she told Karl, too—maybe even showed him the pictures. And bingo, he saw an opportunity and decided to make a quick buck. But Josie wasn’t like that.”
I remembered how the redheaded cook had assumed I didn’t want Harris to know I’d been in his office, and that I’d want to sneak out the back way.
“But Karl is like that. And worse, I think when you asked if Josie sent him, he saw her as a rival for the blackmail money he was planning to milk from you for a long, long time.” I looked at Astrid, whose eyes had gone wide as she put it together.
“And he killed her,” she breathed.
Inga turned white and grabbed the back of the chair.
My friend had already moved toward the stairway. “Get your kids, Inga,” I said. “Astrid, will help you. We’re going to the police station. Right now.”
At the mention of her children, Inga regained her balance and ran past Astrid. My friend followed her up the stairs, two at a time.
I pulled out my cell and called 911. The call failed, and I realized there were no bars on the phone. How could cell reception be so terrible this close to town? I went out to the deck, tried again, and got through. Relieved, I said, “This is Ellie Allbright. I’m at the Fowler’s home. The old Miller place, you know?”
The response was garbled nonsense.
“Nan? Nan Walton, is that you? Can you hear me?”
More cellular gobbledygook.
“Darn it!” I hung up and called Lupe Garcia’s number. I couldn’t hear anything on the other end of the line, but the call didn’t end, so I said, “It’s Ellie. I’m at Inga Fowler’s. Karl Evers killed Josie. I’m sure of it. We’re coming to the station.”
I hung up and ran inside, casting around the room for evidence of a landline. With cell reception this horrible, the Fowlers had to have one. I spied a cordless handset tucked behind a vase on a console table across the room.
“Hurry up, you guys,” I called, taking a step toward it. “We have to get out of here!”
“And why is that?”
I whirled around to see Karl Evers had walked right in as if he owned the place.
CHAPTER 25
ALARM turned to fear, winging through my veins. Then the fear turned to terror as I saw his freckled smile drop into a sociopathic sneer. “Why, Ellie Allbright. I sure didn’t expect to see you here.”
The smell of the aftershave I’d thought my ex had started using wafted through the air, acrid and sour. I’d smelled it on Josie’s body, and in Harris’ office. Now I realized it had been a barely there undercurrent of the all the kitchen smells at the Roux Grill, and I’d put that down to Harris, too. But I didn’t remember smelling it on Harris when he came to Scents & Nonsense to complain about my hiring Maggie.
It had been Karl all the time.
“Inga!” he called. “Where are you? Get out here.”
“No!” I yelled. “Lock the door and call the police!”
Karl grabbed my arm. “Shut up.” His gaze flicked to the stairway.
Inga stood looking down at us with her hand on the rail. She was so pale that her face shone white in the semidarkness at the top of the stairs.
“Ah, there you are. Good.” He looked back at me. “She knows better than to call the cops. Don’t you, dear?”
He sneered down at me. I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. “You’re not going anywhere. Now sit down.” He pushed me back, and I landed on the sofa.
“Good girl,” he said softly. “Inga, come down here.” His gaze rose over my shoulder. “Now, please.”
I heard her footsteps on the stairs behind me. I realized Karl was older than I’d originally thought. The red hair and Howdy Doody demeanor gave him a boyish air, but the lines around his eyes and mouth told a different story. Karl Evers was pushing forty.
Oh, and those eyes. Now that I was so close, I could see the deep-seated and carefully nurtured resentment in them.
And fear. There was so much fear in the room . . . Oh, wait. Even though I recognized Inga’s trademark disquiet, the fear that was making my hands tremble wasn’t something I was picking up from her or Karl.
That was all mine.
Karl smiled at me again. He liked how scared I was. Then the smile dropped. “Why are you here, Ellie? Did you think you could horn in on the money like Josie did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I began.
“Of course you do.” He looked down at the photos on the table. “I have one of those, too, you know.”
I tipped my head to the side, remembering the blank spot on Josie’s living room wall. “But you stole yours, didn’t you, Karl? You stole Harris’ key to Josie’s apartment. The manager there heard you going through her things next door.”
He smirked. “And where did you get yours?”
I was silent.
He looked up at Inga. “Come on over here.”
She walked around the edge of the sofa and sat down next to me. Then her trembling finger pointed to the envelope on the table. “Take it and go.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, now thank you very much for your installment, but it appears that now I have a little more to think about than what do with all that cash, don’t I? For example, what am I going to do with you ladies?”
“The police are on the way,” I said.
“Hmm. You know, I don’t think they are. I think you came here looking for a payoff from the golden goose here, just like me. And I don’t think you’d invite the cops to the party.”
I was getting pretty sick of everyone thinking I was either a murderer or a blackmailer. “You’re an idiot,” I said, still scared but now angry, too.
He blinked.
“Not everyone in the world is as money-grubbing as you are. Not everyone is as evil or walks around with a big chip on their shoulder, thinking the world owes them something.”
My words must have struck a chord, because his jaw set and his nostrils flared.
“Josie never wanted any money from Inga.” I jumped to my feet and backed toward the front door.
“Sit down,” he grated.
“But you were so sure she was as horrible as you are that you killed her, didn’t you? Josie didn’t want Inga’s stupid money, and she didn’t know anything about what you were doing. You lured her to the park and killed her for nothing!”
Karl took three steps, grabbed my arm, and yanked me into the kitchen. I slipped on the tile floor, but he pulled me to my feet and reached for the wooden knife block on the shiny granite counter. He selected a utility knife with a nine-inch-long blade, turned, and jerked me after him. In front of the sofa, he pushed me. I staggered. The sofa hit the back of my knees, and I sat down with a thump. Beside me, Inga, who hadn’t budged, sucked her breath in between her teeth.
A charged silence filled the room. I turned to glare at Inga. While Karl and I had been in the kitchen, even so briefly, she could have run out the front door. She looked at the stairway, and I got it. No way would she leave her children.
Who were upstairs. With Astrid.
And Karl had no idea Astrid was in the house. I thought of the balconies overlooking the front drive. Would it be possible for her to climb down from one of those?
He began to pace back and forth in front of us, swinging the knife in time with his steps. When he turned away, my gaze shot over to the phone I’d seen on the console. Maybe I could get to it long enough to punch in 911.
I shifted in my seat. Karl paused midstep and pointed the knife at me. “Stop fidgeting, and let me think. As you know, I’m perfectly willing to use this if you try anything stupid.”
Wide-eyed, I fell still. He resumed pacing.
My hand was in my pocket, though. Moving as slowly as possible, I uncorked the bottle of bittersweet, heather, and chestnut oils.
Truth, protection, and justice. The vola
tile oils immediately rose into the air.
Suddenly Karl stopped. I saw him sniff the air. Then he paused in front of me.
“I didn’t lure Josie to the park. I made her go with me.”
“She fought you.”
Regret flickered across his features. “She did. And she got away.”
And came to the first building on that end of town.
He blinked, then narrowed his eyes at me. “Enough with the interrogation.”
Except I hadn’t asked him any questions.
Truth: check. Now for protection and justice.
“Where are your kids?” he suddenly asked Inga.
Anxiety cascaded off Inga, but there was that ferocious mother-bear protectiveness, too. She would do anything to protect her children. Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at him.
“Where?” he demanded, sounding desperate. He pointed the knife at her.
“Where you can’t get to them,” she said, her eyes shifting for a split second to the stairs. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
Karl saw it, and his lips thinned. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. I know there’s a safe in the house.” His eyes flicked to me, and he smiled. “Josie told me that before I killed her.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“So we are going to go up to your bedroom, and you are going to open that safe, Inga. You are going to give me everything inside of it, and then I’m going to leave. Easy as pie.”
“You’ll really go?” Inga asked in a small voice.
He nodded. “Yep. Far away.”
Daisies For Innocence Page 22
