10 Suspect in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

  I glanced over at Ramirez, hesitating to voice any of my theories. I was pretty sure he'd been two seconds away from taking off without me, but I'd been just a beat quicker, simultaneously calling the teenager next door to come watch the twins as I'd slid into the passenger seat of Ramirez's SUV, promising to be a silent observer. He'd paused—both of us knowing full well that was probably not going to happen. But in the end, he'd agreed. Probably because he wasn't fond of sleeping on the couch. Smart man.

  The windshield illuminated with red and blue flashing lights as we pulled onto Allison Cash's block. Though, the commotion was not centered around her house but farther down the street, at the entrance to a small neighborhood park. Ramirez pulled up behind a squad car—one of at least a dozen I saw parked up and down the street, mixed in with other official looking vehicles and a news van from channel six.

  "Great," Ramirez mumbled under his breath when he saw the van. Then he turned to me. "You're staying here, right?"

  "Sure," I responded.

  Only as he stepped from the car, so did I.

  He shot me a look and sighed. "You're not staying here, are you?"

  I shrugged in apology. "If the tables were turned, would you sit in the car with your mom's life on the line?"

  It was a bit of a low blow, as I knew Ramirez's biggest soft spot was the seventy-five-year-old white-haired woman living in Hacienda Heights. But it had the desired effect.

  Ramirez did another sigh and shook his head. "Fine. But hang back and don't say anything, okay?"

  I gave a vigorous nod of consent and a zipping the mouth closed and throwing away the key thing, then followed a step behind him as he approached a group of uniformed officers standing sentry at the entrance to the park.

  I listened silently as he identified himself to the small group and asked for a brief rundown of the scene. They used a lot of code and police jargon that went over my head, but I did catch a few key phrases. Like "the deceased," "gunshot wound," and "lividity." I watched them gesture farther into the park, toward a grouping of trees along a fence, where ivy and other vegetation made for what looked like excellent cover for someone wanting to hide a body. Several more uniformed officers stood near the trees, and a couple of plainclothes detectives crouched close to the ground, examining something that I was pretty sure I didn't want to get a closer look at.

  I hugged my arms around myself, thinking that when I'd visited Allison's home this afternoon, she'd likely been just a few paces away. And had likely been dead for some time. It had been at least two days since anyone had seen her at home or the antique shop. Had she been here the whole time?

  The uniformed officer finished his report, and Ramirez stepped away from him, eyes going to the grouping of trees.

  "Do they know how long she'd been here?" I asked, feeling that guilt hit me again.

  Ramirez shook his head. "A neighbor walking her dog found the body this evening. ME says it looks like she's been moved. Possibly killed elsewhere and dumped here."

  I bit my lip. "She lives just down the street."

  He shot me a look. "Do I want to know how you know that?"

  "Probably not."

  He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring with the effort. "Well, it's a good possibility for a primary crime scene. There are drag marks on her back and carpet fibers under her fingernails."

  "Carpet? Like, she was killed on a rug?"

  "More likely they're from the trunk of a car."

  I let that sink in. "Like one she was transported from her house to here in."

  He nodded. "There's a road along the back of the park that backs up to the fence over there."

  I bit my lip, glancing in the direction he pointed. If the road backed right up to the drop point, it wouldn't have taken someone very strong to pull the body out of the trunk. I'd seen Allison Cash in person. She'd been slim and petite. Even as dead weight, it wouldn't be difficult for just about anyone to lift her in and out of a trunk.

  "Any idea when she was moved?" I asked, hoping to cover Mom with an alibi this time.

  But he shook his head. "Not yet. ME might get more when he does an autopsy, but at the moment, best he can pin down is that she's been exposed to the elements for at least 24 to 48 hours."

  Which was a pretty big window. "Do they still think Mom could be involved?" I asked, dreading the answer.

  "I don't," he clarified. "But they might." He gestured to the group of officers near the trees.

  I followed his gaze, spying the two plainclothes detectives straightening up now. One in a rumpled, ill-fitting suit and the other in a severe bun and sensible shoes. Laurel and Hardy. I thought a really dirty word.

  "I agree," Ramirez mumbled.

  Okay, so maybe I more thought it out loud.

  Laurel noticed us and nodded, gesturing to Hardy. Then the two of them made their way across the expanse of lawn toward us.

  "Ramirez," Hardy said, addressing my husband as they approached.

  "Hardy." Ramirez nodded toward the man's partner. "Laurel."

  "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  "I got a call about a body."

  "Our body," Hardy said, puffing his chest out. Which still wasn't far enough to match the girth of his belly.

  Ramirez raised one eyebrow ever so slightly in his direction. "Yours?"

  "That's right," Laurel agreed. "Carrington case."

  "I didn't hear any mention of the case," Ramirez stated simply.

  I bit my tongue, waiting to see how this played out. I noticed none of the detectives had acknowledged my presence, but at the moment I was kinda fine with that.

  "The deceased was Carrington's partner," Hardy informed us, looking very proud of himself for making that connection.

  "Alice," Laurel supplied.

  "Allison," I corrected automatically.

  She frowned, noticing me for the first time, and pulled out her phone, checking her notes.

  "Her name doesn't matter," Hardy decided, skimming over the details. "What matters is she and Carrington worked together."

  "So you think the perpetrator in both crimes is the same person?" Ramirez asked.

  "Of course," Laurel snapped, still frowning at her phone.

  "Any evidence of that?"

  Both detectives blinked at my husband as if the word were foreign to them.

  "How was Ms. Cash killed?" Ramirez asked.

  "What?" Laurel asked, looking at her phone again, as if it might hold some answers.

  "Cause of death?" Ramirez clarified. "Carrington was stabbed. I assume Allison Cash was as well?"

  I tried to stifle a smile, since I knew he'd just been informed that she hadn't been.

  "Uh, well, no," Hardy admitted, his gaze going to his partner. "She was shot."

  "Really? That is different," Ramirez noted.

  "Crime of opportunity," Laurel shot back. "Killer used what was on hand."

  "And the killer just happened to have a gun on hand this time and not at the convention center?"

  "Now what would a lady like Mrs. Springer be doing carrying a gun around?" Hardy reasoned.

  Ramirez nodded. "Good point."

  Hardy smiled wide at the seeming praise.

  Until Ramirez added, "Mrs. Springer wouldn't be carrying a gun around. Anywhere."

  "Now, wait. That's not what I meant," Hardy protested.

  "Look, Ramirez," Laurel stepped in. "I know you've got a personal tie to the suspect. But even you can't ignore the evidence."

  "Officer Nolan said the bullets appeared to be .44 caliber?" Ramirez asked.

  Hardy nodded. "Yeah. But those aren't like any casings I've seen. Weird looking."

  "Weird? How so?" Ramirez asked.

  "Larger. More powder burns," Laurel piped up.

  "So what sort of weapon do you think it came from?"

  Hardy shrugged. "Beats me. That's for forensics to figure out."

  His ownership of the case was inspiring.

  "So, I take it you didn't find
a murder weapon at the scene?"

  "We haven't found it yet," Laurel said. Then she shot me a pointed look. "But we will."

  Despite the buffoonery at work, a chill ran down my back as I thought of Mom. Obviously she didn't own the murder weapon—or any gun for that matter. But I didn't trust Laurel and Hardy to actually worry about minor details, such as innocence.

  Let's face it—guilty or not, Mom was in trouble. And it was up to me to get her out.

  And quickly.

  * * *

  Ramirez was up and out of the house early the next morning, rising with the sun and leaving with a quick peck on my cheek and a promise that coffee was brewing in the kitchen. Once I heard his car pull out of the driveway, I willed sleep to visit me again, but it was useless. Thoughts of Peter Carrington's smug smirk, Allison Cash's discarded body, and Mom's messy chakra all haunted me, urging me up and out of bed. I dragged myself into a hot shower and applied extra eye makeup to cover up the fact I'd only slept a few fitful hours. I was just throwing on a pair of capri cut skinny jeans and a flowy white tunic top, when I heard the double trouble waking up in the nursery next door.

  Two bowls of oatmeal, a dozen apple slices, and an episode of Paw Patrol later, I was enjoying my second cup of coffee, when Dana knocked at my front door.

  "Ohmigod, I read all about Allison Cash on Twitter. They're saying your mom is an official suspect! What happened?" she demanded all in a rush as she pushed inside.

  I quickly filled her in on everything that had happened since I'd seen her last, over a third cup of coffee and another episode of Paw Patrol, trying to recall all the details I'd learned last night.

  "So they have no idea when Allison was killed?" she asked when I'd finished.

  I shook my head. "Not so far. But no one has seen her in two days."

  Dana pursed her lips together. "I wonder."

  "Hmm?" I asked, sipping my coffee.

  "Well, we could have been some of the last people to see her alive."

  I thought back to our visit to the shop. "I doubt it. Mina was with her when we left. She didn't mention anything about Allison going home early that day."

  "Okay, so she was killed that evening? At home?"

  I shrugged. "It would make sense, considering they dumped her body in the park down the street."

  "You think a customer that Carrington sold fake items to killed her?" Dana asked.

  I shrugged. "Or maybe Benton," I decided, remembering the menace that had come off him in virtual waves. "Maybe Carrington and Cash had some scheme going with him, and it all went south."

  "But you said Felix thought the antique he bought was real."

  I sighed. "Okay, well, maybe that one was, but something else wasn't?"

  "Or maybe there are no fakes at all," Dana reasoned. "We haven't encountered any so far."

  "I hate it when you're right." I sipped my coffee, feeling deflated.

  "You know," Dana said. "What if we've been going about this all the wrong way?"

  "How so?" I sipped my coffee.

  "Well, what if Carrington's death had nothing to do with fake antiques at all. What if it was personal?"

  I raised an eyebrow her way. "You mean someone just hated both Carrington and Cash enough to kill them?"

  "Or loved one of them enough and hated the other," she said.

  "Like the Clown Lady."

  She nodded. "Right. What if Terri did talk to Carrington at the antiques show and he rejected her—called her out as delusional."

  "Or insulted one of her clowns," I cut in.

  "She kills him in a fit of passion, then later goes after the woman she believed poisoned Carrington against her—Allison."

  "I could see it," I agreed.

  "There's only one way to find out for sure," Dana said.

  I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. "Are you sure there aren't two ways? Like, one that doesn't involve going back to the den of clowns?"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Half an hour later, I'd dropped the kids off at Mom's house—who was only too happy to spend the morning with them and not thinking about dead antique dealers and the ensuing media circus—and Dana and I were facing Terri Voy's myopic gaze again as we stood on her front porch.

  "Can I help you?" she asked, her eyes magnified to twice their size behind her large lenses. They were red, and I could tell she'd been crying more since we'd last been there.

  "Maddie Springer," I said, jogging her memory. "And this is my friend Dana."

  Dana waved beside me.

  Terri frowned. "I remember you two." She put her right hand on her hip. "What do you want?"

  "I was hoping I could chat with you a bit more?"

  "Why?"

  While she'd welcomed us with open arms the last time we'd been there, I could see her stance shifting to more defensive now. Though, whether it was guilt or just annoyance at two strangers on her doorstep asking nosey questions, I wasn't sure.

  "Are you aware that Allison Cash was found dead last night?" Dana asked.

  "Yeah. I saw it on the news." If she had any emotion about the subject, it was well masked.

  "We were hoping you could clear up a couple of matters about her."

  Terri's eyes narrowed behind her glasses, going from Dana to me. Finally she shrugged and stepped back, allowing us entry. "Fine. But I'm busy, so make it quick."

  Trust me. I was not going to linger in the house of a million eyes.

  We followed Terri into the living room, where she moved a couple of clown dolls off the sofa to allow us seating. "So what do you want to know?" she asked.

  "You didn't have many good things to say about Allison the last time we were here," I noted.

  Terri shrugged. "She wasn't a very good person."

  "Now she's a very dead person," Dana pointed out.

  "Am I supposed to be sad about that?" she asked, eyes narrowing again behind her lenses.

  "You clearly hated Allison. Now Allison is dead," Dana said.

  "And you think I had something to do with that?" Terri laughed, the sound high pitched and unsettling. Like mania was lurking just on the other side of it.

  "Did you?" Dana pushed.

  "No," she said emphatically

  Which didn't hold a lot of weight, as it was exactly what she'd say if she had killed her.

  "Where were you two nights ago?" I asked.

  "Is that when she was killed?" Terri asked, shifting her gaze to me.

  I nodded. "Last anyone saw of her was that afternoon. At the antique shop."

  "Thursday night…" Terri frowned, as if thinking back. "I was here. At home."

  "Alone?"

  "No. I had my friends with me."

  "Can you give us the names of those friends?" Dana said, pulling out her phone to take notes.

  Terri frowned in concentration again. "Bubbles, Boo-Boo, Honeypots, Mr. Tickles…"

  I blinked at her. Good lord, I think she meant the clown dolls. I looked to Dana. She was staring at Terri, stylus hovering over the phone, the same thought apparently occurring to her.

  "Wait—do you mean the dolls?" I asked.

  "They are not dolls. They're collectibles."

  Sure. But they weren't alibis.

  "Were any non-collectible friends here with you that night?" I asked. "Like…living ones?"

  Terri shrugged. "I didn't have any visitors, if that's what you mean."

  "So you were home. Alone. No one saw you?"

  Her gaze ping-ponged from Dana to me. "Look, I didn't hurt Allison. I mean, why would I? Peter is already gone." She ended the statement with a sniffle and covered her mouth with her hands.

  "Maybe you blamed her for Peter being gone?" I asked.

  Her head popped back up at that one. "Well, shouldn't I?" she asked. "She was the one poisoning him. But I didn't kill her. I knew it was only a matter of time before she was going to get what she deserved, the lying, cheating faker."

  Something about the way she said fake suddenly clic
ked in the back of my mind.

  "What do you mean 'get what she deserved'?" I asked her.

  Terri blinked some more at me. "I-I mean karma comes back to you."

  "Especially when someone tips off the police that you're a faker," I said, taking a wild stab.

  "P-police?" Her voice suddenly sounded small, her gaze going to her clown doll, as if he'd protect her.

  "The tip to the police about Yesterday's Treasures selling fake antiques. It was you. You called it in," I said, feeling more confident in the statement now.

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You wanted to hurt Allison, so you called in the tip."

  She stared at me for a long minute, and I thought she was going to tell me to get out of her clown infested house. But finally her shoulders slumped, and she gave in. "Yes. I called in the tip," she confessed. "But it was all true," she rushed to add. "Allison and Peter were really selling fake antiques."

  "Why do you say that?" Dana jumped in.

  Terri sighed and grabbed the stuffed clown from beside her on the sofa, running her fingers over its curly red hair. "I stopped in to the shop to see Peter one day a couple of months ago. I missed him, you know? I just wanted to see him for a few minutes."

  I nodded. "Go on."

  "He was appraising a bracelet for a woman. She wanted to sell it to him, but he told her it was a fake. A cheap reproduction. Not worth more than the price of the silver."

  I could picture the scene, as he'd said much the same thing to my mom at the show.

  "Anyway, a couple weeks later I was at the auction house. I was hoping to get Peter alone for a few minutes." She blushed.

  "Did he say something about the bracelet?" Dana asked.

  Terri shook her head. "No, I never got to talk to him. He was too busy. But I did see the same bracelet go up in the auction that day."