Assignment Denver: The Case of the Eccentric Heiress: Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mystery One (Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Lucey Phillips

  “Do you need to be somewhere?” Detective Chamberlain asked. Her mouth was squished in a pucker, and she had one eyebrow raised. I wondered if she practiced that tough face in the mirror at home, hoping it made her look tougher. It wasn’t working.

  “Look. We walked into the shop. We saw the body. We called you. That’s it. And as a matter of fact, I do have to be somewhere. I have to call my editor and tell him that the subject of my feature just got taken away.” I put my hands on my hips and cocked my head up at her. “Can we be done here?”

  “I’ll just be needing your notes and photos from today.”

  I instinctively spun my messenger bag so it hung behind me. “Absolutely not,” I said. “Get a warrant.” I wasn’t in news reporting any more, but I remembered the law.

  “Miss Lovejoy,” she called after me as I started to walk away. “Don’t leave town. We will be getting in touch.”

  I waved at her dismissively and mumbled “jerk” under my breath as I continued my defiant march down the sidewalk. Then I remembered Colin. And I remembered that I didn’t really have anywhere I needed to be. I was trying to figure out a non-humiliating way to stop and turn back when shouts and scuffling erupted behind me.

  I turned toward the antique shop storefront to see a middle-aged pale man with a frizzy red comb-over yelling and lunging toward the door, while one uniformed officer and the detective’s partner held him back.

  “Easy, buddy! Easy!” one of them yelled.

  “I want to see my aunt! I’m next of kin! I have medical power of attorney!” the man shouted as he flailed his arms. But he was promptly overpowered by the officers.

  Colin had been photographing the incident. Detective Chamberlain elbowed past him as she ran toward the scuffle. She started talking to the red-haired man as she led him down the sidewalk, holding one of his biceps while a uniformed officer held onto the man’s other arm and walked with them.

  A news van pulled up, blocking a lane of traffic and eliciting yells from the officers. Ignoring the yells, a videographer and an overly-groomed female broadcaster exited the van. I started walking back toward Colin. We needed to regroup and find a decent travel story.

  As I passed Detective Chamberlain and the victim’s self-proclaimed next of kin, I heard him continue to plea for access to the antique shop.

  “Just let me get the lanyard, please, please,” he said. “She wore it around her neck all the time—even to sleep. Can you just let me get it? It has all her keys. There are some valuable antiques in there, and I have to make sure they’re okay.”

  “Mr. Malone, we have the property secured,” Detective Chamberlain told him.

  I increased my walking pace and shook my head. This chaos was one of the many things I didn’t miss about being a news reporter. Give me a quirky personality profile or nice culture piece any day.

  For once, Colin wasn’t staring into his camera screen. He was staring into his phone screen. When I walked up to him, he held it up for me to see. It was a message from our editor, Lance Bennett.

  “It’s already on the wire. Tell Jae to check her phone. I need to talk to her.”

  My stomach lurched as I groped around my bag for my phone. I always get a little antsy when I find out someone’s been trying to get ahold of me, but I didn’t respond because I had selfishly unglued my phone from the palm of my hand for a few minutes to, you know, live my life.

  On top of that, there were several reasons I didn’t want to call the editor. For one thing, even though I knew I’d done nothing wrong, I felt a scolding lecture coming on over the fact that I’d found a dead body and the focus of my travel story now seemed to be in police custody. Plus, I sensed a news assignment was coming my way—an even more revolting turn of events than the prospect of getting lectured.

  And finally, my and Lance’s interactions had been tense--ever since the two of us had found ourselves in an ill-advised makeout session in a vacant office at the company New Year’s Eve party several months ago. It was pretty classy.

  Lance answered on the first ring. “Jae,” he said with a sharp tone.

  “Hi, Lance.”

  “Tell me what happened. Is it true?”

  “Wait—well, I just went into this junk shop, because I’m not really feeling it with the microbrew story, and yeah, an old lady was dead in there,” I said. “I guess maybe she was murdered.”

  “That’s not just any old lady, Jae. What have the police told you?”

  “Nothing. They questioned us—they didn’t, like, brief us.”

  Lance breathed out a sigh that sounded like he was praying for patience.

  “Jae. The gossip sites are freaking out. Someone heard the call for a forensics team come over the scanners, realized the address was Bunny Malone’s place, and basically announced that she’d been murdered.”

  “Well, yeah I guess so,” I said. “Why do the gossip sites care if someone offed an old junk collector?”

  “Because she’s the richest woman in the state of Colorado—one of the richest people in the country.”

  “Oh.” Maybe I should have known that already.

  “Yeah. Well, anyway, she’s a gold mine heir. Her death is national news, but if it’s murder, that’s an even bigger story, obviously,” Lance said. “Can you stay and cover this?”

  “Well. No. I’m supposed to be in Vegas in three days, remember? I have all my interviews set up already.”

  “Colin said the police want you to stick around.”

  “Yeah, but I think that was just a day or two.”

  Lance sighed. “Jae. We have this thing called a travel budget. It makes no sense to spend thousands of dollars putting someone else in Denver when you’re already there.”

  I took a few steps down the sidewalk, away from the crowd, watching my feet the entire time. “All right,” I said. “Colin’s staying too?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Jae,” Lance said, his voice only slightly less tense than it had been before I agreed to the assignment. “We just want to keep you there a little while. And who knows? If there’s a break in the case maybe you can wrap it up and get to Vegas on time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “No problem.”

  “I’m going to put you over to Quinn. See ya.”

  “Bye.”

  I listened to annoyingly up-tempo piano music while I waited for Quinn Patel to answer her phone. Quinn was Alt News America’s lead fact-checker. But her title didn’t exactly describe what she did.

  She was a hacker. She could get into all but the most heavily secured databases to help reporters flesh out leads or confirm their suspicions. The information she obtained wasn’t legal for us to broadcast—or even collect. But news reporters could use it to point them in the right direction and to know what questions to ask during an interview.

  Quinn was also my best friend. We’d joined ANA at the same time and had gone through orientation together, using our mutual appreciation of snark and eye-rolling to help us survive the long days of sexual harassment videos and HR lectures. We texted and talked on the phone at least a few times a day.

  We get together when I’m home, but I go home as little as possible. I know staying away wouldn’t solve anything with my family and their colorful assortment of issues, but somehow it worked. Not to mention, my career was in the best shape it had ever been.

  “What’s up, lady?” Quinn asked.

  “Lance has me doing news.”

  “I heard. Sorry about that,” she said. “Guess there’s worse places to be stuck working than Denver. And worse people to be stuck with than Colin Bloom.”

  “Agree to Denver. Disagree to Colin,” I said. “I can’t get two words out of him.”

  “He’s sensitive, Jae!” Quinn said. “He’s a brooding artist, so of course he’s not going to be chatty. Besides, when a man looks like that, talking is totally overrated.”

  “Meh, he’s good looking, but I think he knows exactly how good looking he is, which kind of ruins it, you know?”
<
br />   “Good looking?” Quinn said, sounding flabbergasted. “The man is a living, breathing piece of art—an example that God does exist and she is definitely a woman.”

  “Whatever. I heard he’s kind of a man-floozy anyway.”

  “No, that’s just jealous haters talking,” Quinn said. “I mean, you haven’t seen him hooking up with anyone, have you?”

  “No. He seems to be in a totally committed relationship with his camera.”

  She sighed. “How can you not be in love?”

  “He’s too manicured, too groomed.”

  “Oh, now you only date lumberjacks and ranch hands?”

  “Well, I don’t want my date to have better hair and better nails than me,” I said. “One or the other is okay—not both.”

  Quinn laughed. “You two need to get together. With all the traveling you do, he’s pretty much your only hope for a relationship.”

  I sighed. “Anyway.”

  “Anyway, I put together a little dossier on Miss Malone,” Quinn said. “I’m emailing it to you now.”

  “You’re my everything,” I whispered.

  “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

  | Three

  Lance was right: This story was big. The steps in front of the Denver Police Department were crowded with news reporters from around the country. All the big cable news stations, the networks, national newspapers, and the Associated Press had come here for the press conference about Bunny Malone’s murder.

  I arrived early, but I was still at least twenty people deep in the crowd. And I could barely see anything—even when I stood on tiptoe. I guess that didn’t matter too much, as I wasn’t taking my own photos today, but I still needed to see who was talking.

  So far, my plan was to thrust my digital recorder high in the air and hope for the best. It was a ridiculous plan, but my life had taken a rather ridiculous turn when Colin and I had found that body.

  The police chief made some typical opening remarks about how this was an isolated incident and the victim appeared to be specifically targeted. I guess the purpose was to prevent visitors and residents from freaking out about a possible killer on the loose.

  My impression was that people around here weren’t quick to freak out about anything though.

  Next, the chief handed the podium over to Detective Chamberlain. A murmur swelled through the crowd. I’m sure the hushed remarks reflected my initial impression of her—she couldn’t possibly be old enough to be a detective.

  Her appearance and demeanor did nothing to contradict all the assumptions people were probably making. Detective Chamberlain wore a too-big, too-boxy, charcoal-gray blazer over an oddly frilly white blouse, and a pencil skirt that hit awkwardly below the knee. She looked like her mother had dressed her.

  She cleared her throat and leaned in close to the microphone.

  “At this time, we have no suspects in custody. However, we do have several leads,” she said. Her voice was much more timid than it had been when she questioned me.

  A reporter interrupted the detective, shouting. “Bunny Malone was eighty years old. Are you sure she didn’t die of natural causes?”

  “We have solid physical evidence indicating murder was the cause of death,” Detective Chamberlain said. “Of course, we’re not releasing those details now.”

  “Was a weapon used?”

  “We cannot release those details at this time.”

  A male reporter in the front row shouted, “Was money the motive?”

  “Obviously, the victim was a wealthy woman, so that’s something we’re taking into consideration,” the detective answered.

  Reporters continued yelling out their questions. They were all different versions of the same three unanswerable questions: Who killed Bunny Malone? Why did they do it? When is there going to be an arrest?

  There was a time when I thought I belonged in the front row, shouting, trying to ask the best questions and write the best stories. But now I was happy to stay out of the swarm—to bide my time until I could get back to my peaceful travel beat, far from crime, injustice, and suffering.

  When the police chief announced there was time for only one more question, a tall man in a navy blue pinstripe suit approached the podium.

  “I’m Elliott Gilroy. I represent the victim’s next of kin, her nephew, Patrick Malone. He has a statement he would like to make.”

  Gilroy stood beside the podium and gestured, rather dramatically, toward Patrick—the man with the frizzy red comb-over that had been at the crime scene earlier.

  He approached the podium and leaned toward the microphone. “I just wanted to say that, even though my Aunt Bunny was old, she deserves justice. I’m offering a reward of ten thousand dollars for any information that will help us catch the killer.”

  Then Patrick took a deep breath, puckered his lips, narrowed his eyes, and glanced from side to side.

  “And if these cops don’t arrest someone soon, I’ll hire my own investigator! My aunt deserves justice!”

  Waves of whispers and giggles erupted through the crowd of reporters while Gilroy took Patrick’s elbow and marched off down the steps. But when they got to the sidewalk, they were met by Detective Chamberlain’s partner, the heavyset man, and escorted into a side door of the police station.

  I sighed when I saw that Colin had already made his way down the sidewalk and appeared to be getting some close-up pictures of Patrick. Colin was a ninja photographer. I knew his photos would be good, and I needed to write a good story to do his work justice. There was also the matter of getting Lance off my back and moving on to Vegas.

  The crowd of reporters and photographers began to disperse. But I knew at least a few would be hanging around to talk with Patrick when he left the police station.

  I considered doing the same. That guy was colorful, angry, and unrehearsed—basically a reporter’s dream. But I really didn’t feel like wasting part of my day on the old “stake out and ambush routine,” a routine I’d left behind three years ago when I got this travel reporter gig.

  Instead, I texted Quinn, asking her for any background she could find on Patrick, and for his address. I could get a better story going one-on-one with him anyway.

  I found Colin and asked him if he wanted to go back to Mission Key with me. He shrugged. This was getting old.

  It’s one thing to be quiet, and I guess I can appreciate the tortured artist thing. But we were colleagues traveling together. Couldn’t he at least cough out a complete sentence for me?

  Unlike Quinn, I held no illusions that Colin and I belonged together romantically. But I was down for a little collegial conversation. Even some lame chit-chat about the weather would be all right. Anything, really.

  Just because I couldn’t force Colin to talk didn’t mean we both had to suffer in silence. I could do enough talking for the both of us.

  So I talked. While we walked to the car, I blathered on about how warm my new boots were, how much I was liking Colorado—corpses aside, of course—and I started brainstorming ideas to flesh out my travel story.

  “I pretty much have to start from scratch. I mean, they did take Mitch in today. If he’s going to be an actual suspect, we’d look stupid doing some sort of puff piece about his craft beers, you know?”

  Colin was wearing his dark Ray-Bans again. It was always sunny here. When we got to Vegas, well, if we could wrap this story up in time, he’d have few excuses to hide behind his sunglasses in the dim casino lighting. With his perfectly-groomed short beard and knit toboggan, Colin did look good in his sunglasses.

  I continued talking. “Did you taste any of Mitch’s beer? He gave me a sample and it was so bitter. I don’t really drink. My mom drinks enough for the both of us. Anyway, maybe you have to develop a taste for it. Like when you’re a kid and you think coffee tastes like dirt.”

  I glanced at Colin’s profile as he walked beside me. For a second, I thought I could see the corner of his mouth rise into an almost-smile.

  “You
r turn to drive,” I said as I handed him the keys to our rented Nissan. From now on, if he didn’t want to speak up, we could just do things my way.

  Colin was surprisingly confident behind the wheel. He didn’t even need the navigation as he took us past the Convention Center, onto 25, and over to Mission Key.

  After a graceful and effortless parallel parking job, in front of a bookstore down the block from Mitch’s brewery, I announced, “Nice. You’re driving from now on.”

  Colin didn’t reply. But when he climbed out of the car, he put the keys in his pocket instead of handing them back to me.

  “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch at the brewery,” I said, smiling.

  “We can expense it,” Colin said.

  “It’s a gesture,” I replied. “Don’t cheapen it.”

  Then Colin laughed. I immediately planned my next text to Quinn, admitting the man does have a sexy laugh.

  It was four in the afternoon, so the restaurant in Mission Lager House wasn’t very crowded. A middle-aged woman sat at one end of the bar and two younger men were seated a couple yards away from her.

  Two men and a woman sat at a round table in the corner. The men wore polo shirts with a local news station’s logo embroidered on them. I didn’t recognize them from the press conference, but they had probably been there. Their jackets and bags were tossed on a nearby table. I felt like rolling my eyes. Wherever they go, broadcasters act like they own the place.

  “Let’s eat at the bar,” I said.

  If Colin really was warming up to me, I didn’t want to press my luck by trying to keep conversation going through a long face-to-face lunch. He could just watch the soccer games on the televisions behind the bar.

  And hopefully, I could get some gossip from Robyn, who was tending the bar. I hadn’t spent much time talking to her when we visited earlier, but she seemed nice. And bartenders are wonderful sources—they know all the gossip.

  Robyn looked like she was in her early fifties and had a thick build. Her shiny dark brown hair was in a ponytail, with a pen and a pencil poking out from it. She wore glasses with blue frames, jeans, brown and blue cowboy boots, and a long sleeve Mission Lager House t-shirt.