The Murder Motif: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (the Michelle Hodge Series Book 2)

by Roslyn Woods

  “Damn!” he said. Then he walked out of the house again. Was he leaving? She looked at her laptop and watched him take the crowbar to the shed. He was prying off the latch that held the padlock, dropping the crowbar in the grass, and opening the shed door. In a minute he was carrying the ladder toward the house.

  Shell could hear his heavy footsteps as he moved across the floor carrying the ladder. He was coming toward Dean’s office. It was clear that he knew the attic access was in here. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. Now is the time.

  “Hello, Ray,” she said as she opened the office door and stepped into the living room.

  “Wha..?” he said as he dropped the ladder.

  “Did I surprise you?”

  Ray stared at her with his mouth open for a few seconds. “You did. You did, uh, I’m looking for something I left over here.” He paused and stared for a good ten seconds before he asked, “Who are you?”

  “Dean’s girlfriend. You can call me Michelle.”

  “Oh, well, gee this doesn’t look good. I can see that. But if you just ask Dean, I’m his friend and I’m here to look for something I left over here.”

  “With a ladder? You must have left it in a light fixture or something.”

  “Well…uh…I think he probably cleaned up. I was thinking it could be in the attic.”

  “Now you know, that really doesn’t sound very reasonable, does it Ray?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re Dean’s best man, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes I was.”

  “And you’re the guy who was having an affair with Dean’s wife, aren’t you?”

  Ray just looked at her now without responding. Finally he said, “You know, I think I should go.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I was hoping you’d sit down and visit with me.”

  “No, I think I should go,” he repeated.

  Shell pulled the little .25 from her jacket pocket and pointed it at Ray. “Please don’t go, Ray. I want to talk to you about this gun I found.”

  “Whoa, you don’t need to point that at me.”

  “I just want to know where it came from.”

  “You’re not supposed to have that. The police are supposed to have that.”

  “Why? That information wasn’t in the paper. How do you know if the police are supposed to have it? Besides, I found it. Here it is with this pretty little pearl handle.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It just seems like poetic justice to me, Ray. You shot Dean’s wife with this gun, and now Dean’s girlfriend is about to shoot you with it.”

  “There’s no reason for you to shoot me,” he said nervously.

  “Oh, but there is. I’m frightened. Here I am in my boyfriend’s house, and you break the back window and come in here, and I’m feeling threatened.”

  “You don’t feel threatened,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “But maybe you should. You don’t know what I’m capable of. You’re just talking like you know, but you shouldn’t talk to me like that. I don’t know how you got Amanda’s gun, but the police had to have it or they wouldn’t have arrested Dean.”

  “And yet here it is. Who murdered her, Ray? It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Look, it was an accident,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “But then you tried to make it look like Dean had done it.”

  “Somebody else did that.” Shell could see his hands were shaking.

  “The guy who killed Danny, or did you kill him, too?” she asked as she stepped backward toward to bedroom door. She could hear Sadie’s continuous growling punctuated by Bitsy’s sharp little barks.

  “I didn’t kill Danny. Look, you’ve got this all wrong. Dean was a friend of mine. He stole my girlfriend, so I was upset with him sure, but I didn’t try to make him look guilty. That was all Hector.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I think I’d like to go now.”

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Ray,” said Shell.

  Just then Ray reached in his jacket pocket as Shell opened the bedroom door and Sadie dashed toward him baring her teeth. She seemed to sail through the air as his gun went off.

  Sadie’s teeth were deep in his arm, and he was screaming, “Get her off of me!” Shell could hear sirens too, and the door opening, and a sound like boots pounding on the wood floor.

  “Let the dog keep him down!” yelled someone. “I’ve got his gun!”

  “We need an ambulance and someone to apply pressure!”

  “I don’t know how to arrest him with this dog on him!” someone was screaming.

  “Cut! Cut, Sadie!” Shell could hear her own voice. In a few moments Sadie was next to her. “It’s okay, girl. It’s okay. Lie down by me.”

  Chapter 60

  There was a beeping sound, and movement. Her mother was here, soothing her, telling her she was proud of her. Margie was holding her left hand, and there was her father standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Where’s Dean? What happened to Dean?”

  “It’s okay,” said an unfamiliar woman’s voice. “Your sister says he’s going to be okay. How are you doing?” She opened her eyes for a few seconds and saw a woman in a white coat.

  “Not so good,” she heard herself saying. “My right arm. It aches.”

  “Yes, it’s going to ache for a few days, but you’re going to be fine. I’m Doctor Monheit. You were very lucky that bullet missed the bone. I’ll check on you again in the morning. You lost a lot of blood, but you’ve had a transfusion, and you’re going to be okay. Your sister is staying, so she’ll keep an eye on you too, but the nurses will check on you all night. You’re out of danger. I’m increasing your pain medicine just a little. It should help.”

  She finally opened her eyes again many hours later. Who was that? Who was there?

  “Hey, you,” said a blurry image leaning over her.

  “Is that you?”

  “Yeah. I’m here,” he answered.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m waiting for you to be awake enough to go home.”

  “Home?” she asked sleepily.

  “Yeah. Our house. Your house,” he said.

  “My house is your house.”

  “I hope that means what I want it to mean, you crazy girl.”

  He smiled then and came into full focus. She tried to sit up but felt a sharp pain in her right arm.

  “Don’t do that, Shell. You’re arm is injured. I can help you sit up.” Dean put his arm behind her and helped prop her up on the pillows. “Here’s some water,” and he helped her with a cup and straw. After a moment she looked at him again.

  “What happened?”

  “They dropped the charges. Ray confessed.”

  “They took him in?”

  “Yeah. He told them everything. The recording will help if there are any problems with his confession, but he’s spilling his guts as fast as he can. So you and Sadie made it all come out okay.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m okay. Glad to be out of that place.”

  “I was so worried,” she said.

  “I know. But it’s over now.”

  “I wonder why Ray’s talking?”

  “I think he thought there was no way out. I also think people sometimes just need to tell the truth.”

  “So I didn’t need to get him to talk about the gun?”

  “I don’t mean that. If you hadn’t done it, I don’t know if the police would have arrested him, and even if they had, he wouldn’t have thought they had the goods on him, so he probably wouldn’t have confessed.”

  “How hurt was he? I remember Sadie tearing into him.”

  “Gonzalez told me his right arm was torn up pretty bad, but I don’t feel sorry for him.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m furious with you, but I’ve decided to eat it for the time being,” he said, squeez
ing her left hand as he leaned close to her. “You gave me quite a scare,” he whispered.

  Margie and Donald came into the room then.

  “Hi, sweetie,” said Margie. “Are you feeling any better? You were moaning and talking all night last night.”

  “You were here, weren’t you?” Shell asked, looking at Margie, who nodded. “I’m fine. Just a little achy. You forgive me, don’t you Margie?”

  “What you did got Dean out of jail, so yes, I forgive you. You scared the hell out of me, though.” She smiled at her friend and sat on the foot of the bed.

  “Who brought the flowers?” Shell wanted to know.

  “Those are from Gabe and Linda. They came by earlier to check on you, but you were still out like a light,” said Margie.

  “That’s so kind of them,” said Shell, pausing and rubbing her head with her left hand. “I just feel so groggy!”

  “It may take a couple of days,” said Donald, “to work all these meds out of your system. You’ve been on some powerful pain killers.”

  “Actually,” said the woman in white who entered the room at that moment, “she’s going to keep taking pain killers for another day or two. I have the prescription right here. Then she can start cutting back as the pain subsides.” She looked disapprovingly at Margie for sitting on the bed, but Margie just looked right back at her and didn’t move. “I’ll be back in five minutes so I can remove that IV and get you ready to go home, Miss Hodge. Maybe your sister and the other members of your family can wait for us downstairs.” She gave Margie a look that made it clear she wasn’t buying the family member story, but in her grogginess Shell missed the look.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Shell. “How long have I been here?”

  “Let’s see,” said the nurse as she looked at the chart at the foot of the bed and glanced at her watch. “About thirty-one hours.”

  “What? What time is it?” Shell wanted to know as the nurse left the room.

  “Seven p.m.,” said Margie.

  “It’s not morning?”

  “No. It’s Thursday evening,” her friend answered. “You almost missed Halloween. But that’s good, because it gave them time to process the paper work on Ray, and the D.A. dropped the charges against Dean. He’s only been here for about four hours.”

  “Oh, my!” said Shell, looking up at Dean.

  “Shell, I was so worried when I heard,” he said shaking his head.

  “But she’s okay,” said Margie. “She’s going to be good as new in few weeks.”

  “Well, keep me awake!” Shell interrupted. “I’m feeling pretty woozy again. We’ve gotta get home to the dogs!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Donald. “Margie sent me after them last night. They’re at our house having a party.”

  “Thanks, Donald. Sadie saved the day, didn’t she?” Shell asked.

  “Bitsy helped out with some serious ankle biting,” he said with a smile. Then with a more solemn expression he added, “From the looks of it on the recording, I think Sadie knocked Ray’s aim away from your heart.”

  “We need to get our dogs home with us as soon as we can,” said Dean.

  “I can bring them over tonight,” said Donald.

  Shell woke up on Friday in her own bed, and Dean was sleeping next to her. On the rug by her side of the bed was Sadie. Bitsy was curled up in her own bed looking up.

  “Hi girls,” Shell whispered, and they both wagged their tails. She felt so much love for Sadie, and Bitsy too, but Sadie had saved her life, and she knew she could never be good enough to her. “You’re a good, good girl,” she said as she climbed out of bed and hugged the dog with her left arm. Sadie whined and wagged her tail as if she knew she had been elevated in status.

  Later, as Shell and Dean drank their coffee, Dean asked, “So how did you get Ray over here?”

  “I found the thing he was looking for. And your friends, Gabe and Linda came over, and Gabe called to bait him into coming back.”

  “Did they know you’d found it?”

  “No.”

  “So how did Gabe bait him?”

  “I just told Gabe that we knew someone at the bar had been looking for something over here that was probably worth something. He called Ray and told him you’d found something valuable and were afraid the police would think it might make you look guilty. We wanted to lure them over after it, and it worked. We didn’t know who’d show up, but we figured someone would.”

  “But what was it?”

  “Money. I didn’t know what to do about it because I was afraid it would make you look like you’d hidden it here yourself.”

  “Who else knew?”

  “No one. I didn’t even tell Margie and Donald. I was afraid it would slip out somehow, and the police would learn it was here and think you—”

  “And you never doubted me.”

  “How could I?”

  “It looked like I was guilty.”

  “Not to anyone who knew you. Margie and Donald and I always knew you were innocent. And so did Rita and Carmen, and even Gabe and Linda.”

  “But they didn’t know about the money.”

  “True, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. They knew you. How could they think you were guilty of anything?”

  “I guess I just felt like the whole world was closing in on me.”

  “It was only the police who had it wrong.”

  Just then, Dean’s phone started ringing. “I better get this. It’s Jason.”

  “Of course!” said Shell.

  “Hey Jason…I haven’t seen the paper yet, but yeah, they dropped the charges…Yeah, he made a full confession…Life…We’ll find out I guess…I don’t know…You were?…I had no idea…A lot more to discuss if we can stand it…Thanks, Jason…Of course. Later.”

  Dean ran a hand through his hair after hanging up.

  “You okay?” Shell asked.

  “Yeah. Where were we?”

  “I was telling you about the money.”

  “Oh yeah. So where is this money now?” he asked.

  “It’s in the storage area under the porch where it’s been all along.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. You showed me where it was the other day without knowing it was there. Three pilot bags full of money. Stacks of twenties and hundreds. I checked online, and my guess is it’s close to two million dollars.”

  “So much?”

  “I guess bars that do well in Austin sometimes gross three or even four hundred thousand a month. If he was actually taking in a hundred thousand, say, Danny could have been laundering up to three hundred thousand a month. So it’s conceivable that Hector’s people were giving him a lot.”

  “Wow. In the past week I thought about it so much, I figured they might be laundering drug money at the bar. Yesterday, Gonzalez told me the feds had been watching the accounts there for a while and thinking that’s what they were doing. So what exactly do you think Danny did?”

  “I think he was skimming from the money he was supposed to be depositing for Hector Arena and having Amanda hide it. She used the storage area under the porch. Only, I think Hector probably figured it all out, and that’s when things went wrong.”

  “It’s hard to imagine it was happening right here and I had no idea. I’d never been around anyone criminal before. I couldn’t conceive of it!”

  “And what do we do with it now?”

  “Turn it in to the police. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “What will they do with it?”

  “I think they’ll use it for government or something. Probably expand the homicide unit!”

  Shell could hear the frustration in his voice. “I guess this whole mess has left a pretty bad taste in your mouth for law enforcement.”

  “It has, but Gonzalez is trying to redeem himself. He’s arresting people right and left who had anything to do with hiding what was really going on. And he apologized to me for everything I went through.”

  “Yeah, well y
ou deserved an apology!” said Shell. “If he’d listened to us from the beginning—”

  “I know, but he really was trying to do the right thing. I can’t say as much for Wilson. I don’t like that guy.”

  “Me neither.”

  “That’s good.”

  Shell smiled. “So who’s getting arrested?” she asked.

  “For one, Frank Alonzo, the bartender at Danny’s Place. He was one of Hector Arena’s toadies. He and his wife came up here from a place in San Antonio where Arena had been trying to set up the same kind of place. Danny came along wanting to join the team, and Arena set him up in Austin. Turns out the place in Austin took off, and they abandoned the place in San Antonio and had Alonzo and his wife move up here. They’ve arrested the woman too, but they’re not sure they can make anything stick with her. Alonzo himself was clearly participating in whatever criminal activity was going on. And he’s got a record. It won’t be hard to convict him.”

  “Who else?”

  “Somebody named Paulo Rodriguez who worked at the bar. All I know is he was in on it and also has a record. Becky Lester was arrested for lying about the fact that Amanda told her I had a gun. It’s a good thing she’s admitted to it, because there would have been no way to prove Amanda didn’t tell her that. I guess Ray told them he put her up to it. Apparently, Ray started an affair with Becky not long after the murder.”

  “Was he actually interested in her?”

  “I think he needed a working person to help pay for his habit. I imagine I financed it for a long time through Amanda. She was always asking for more money. And he needed a place to stay. Apparently he’d lost his apartment and started staying with Amanda off and on. Gonzalez said he also stayed at the bar some of the time. Then after the murder he stayed at the Onion Creek place of Arena’s. Arena kicked him out after a week or so, and he took up with Becky.”