Pre-Meditated Murder

by Tracy Weber

  “Wanting a divorce gives Michael motive, I get that. But why does it matter if the marriage was legit or not?”

  “It matters,” Dale replied, “because it proves that Michael isn’t afraid of breaking the law when it suits him.”

  Michael flushed. “It was a victimless crime, Dale.”

  “Tell that to the people who’ve been waiting for over a decade trying to get into the country legally.”

  Michael scowled. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. For a moment, I thought he might be about to fire Dale.

  “Look,” Dale said. “All I’m saying is that nothing about illegal immigration is simple. There are victims on all sides and enough anger to fill up the Superdome, especially toward illegal immigrants from Mexico. Look at what happened during the last presidential election.”

  Michael didn’t reply.

  “Plenty of people would love to see you rot in prison until your prostate swells bigger than your head for marrying that woman. You need to take your crime seriously.”

  “I do take it seriously, Dale. If my life had a rewind button, believe me, I’d press it. Marrying Gabby wasn’t worth it. Not given what it’s done to Kate and me. When it comes to Gabby’s murder, though, I agree with Kate. It’s a nonissue. Until I told Kate last week, no one but Gabby, my sister, and I knew that the marriage was fake.”

  “People always know.” Dale’s expression was certain.

  “Not in this case,” Michael replied. “We were careful. We combined assets—not that we had many. We lived together. We had a real wedding, complete with pastor, dinner, guests, and a photographer. To the outside world, Gabby and I looked like a happily married couple. We made sure of it. Anyone we couldn’t fool, we avoided.”

  “Is that why you stopped speaking to Von?” I asked.

  “Yes, I was afraid—” Michael stopped. “Wait a minute. How do you know about that?”

  I glanced guiltily at Dale, whose eyes had narrowed into suspicious slits. “Who in tarnation is Von?” he asked.

  “An old friend of mine,” Michael replied. The look he flashed my direction matched Dale’s. “Kate?”

  “Well … um … Rene and I might have spoken to him this morning.”

  Dale slammed his legal pad onto the coffee table. Bella abandoned his feet and took refuge next to me on the couch.

  “Dammit, Kate,” Dale grumped. “I told you not to—”

  I held up my hands in surrender, then lowered them and began quietly stroking my dog. “It was innocent, really. At least it started that way. I was driving Rene crazy this morning, so she forced me to go to Cannon Beach with her. While we were walking around the town, we came across Puppies in Paradise.”

  Michael groaned and buried his face in his hands.

  “Puppies in Paradise?” Dale asked.

  “The local pet supply store. Michael used to work there with Von. Rene snatched Bella and went inside. I warned her that you wouldn’t approve, but honestly, we didn’t do anything that would hurt Michael’s defense. As far as Von knows, we’re just a couple of tourists in town for the Sandcastle Festival. Rene made up some stupid story about her and I being a couple, but other than that, she just asked a few generic questions about the murder.”

  Dale didn’t look convinced. “If your conversation was as innocent as you claim, how did Michael’s name even come up?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. Von’s pretty bitter about Michael and Gabriella.” I turned to Michael. “He thinks you shut him out after you got married, and for basically no reason.”

  Michael frowned. “I’m not surprised he’s still hurt. Von’s pretty sensitive, and we were close. Gabby thought he might be secretly in love with me.”

  “Is that why you ditched him?”

  Michael looked affronted. “No. Not at all. I felt cornered. Von asked too many questions about Gabby’s and my marriage. I was afraid that the first time we went out drinking, I’d blurt out something stupid and he’d figure out the truth. So I pretended to be furious with him over some lame, throw-away comment he made.” Michael grew smaller. “Abandoning my friendship with Von was only the start. I had to lie to everyone. My friends, my family, the world. Life grew very small.” His eyes begged me to understand. “I’m not a liar, Kate. Truly I’m not. Keeping up Gabby’s and my story took too much energy. That’s why I left town and started over. I knew that as soon as I left, people would start gossiping that Gabby and I were having marital problems, but she said she could handle it. She was used to putting on a public facade. I wasn’t. It almost killed me. It’s still almost killing me.”

  “Here’s what I don’t get in all of this,” Dale said. “You had to know that marrying this woman would turn your life upside down. Why did you do it?”

  Michael paused. “I loved her.”

  My hands clenched, causing my fingers to dig deeply into Bella’s skin. She jumped off the couch, shook her entire body, and trotted off to the bedroom, presumably so she could rest in peace.

  “Not that kind of love, Kate. Gabby and I dated for a couple of months, but she wasn’t my soul mate and I certainly wasn’t hers. But I cared about her. From the stories she told me about her life, I may have been the only person who did.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “She wasn’t strong like you are, Kate. She was damaged.”

  I shook off his touch. Jealous frustration bubbled up from my stomach and erupted through my vocal chords. “Fine. Gabriella was damaged. Why not act like a normal person and get her some counseling, for God’s sake. Why marry her?”

  Michael hesitated, but he didn’t flinch. For the first time since he’d told me about his marriage to Gabriella, he didn’t look guilty. “It was the only way I could think of to keep her safe. She was terrified of going back to Mexico.”

  Dale leaned forward. “Terrified? Of what?”

  “Her ex-boyfriend. He was an asshole. Obsessive, controlling, and not afraid to use his fists.” Michael’s entire body tensed. “He sent her to the hospital. Twice. Once with a badly broken arm, once with a punctured lung. The only thing he never damaged was her face.” His expression hardened. “As if that made it better somehow.”

  “Why didn’t she have him arrested?”

  “Why does anyone stay with an abuser? At first Gabby thought she deserved it. When the violence got worse, she didn’t think anyone would take her seriously. Her dad used to beat her and her mom. Reporting her dad made the next beating worse.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Dale interjected. “Mexico has one of the highest domestic violence rates in the world.”

  Michael nodded. “She didn’t find the strength to leave him until the second time he sent her to the hospital. As soon as she got out, she secretly started making plans to escape. She thought that the only way she could get away from him would be to give up her modeling career and come to the US to take that temporary crap job.”

  “Crap job?” I asked.

  “The job at the Sea Baron hotel. They work their H-2B workers like slaves.” He wrinkled his lips, as if the words in his mouth tasted bitter. “They pay minimum wage and force their immigrant workers to surrender their tips. What little money Gabby did make, she had to pay back to the hotel’s parent company in exorbitant rent. She lived with four other women in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and paid over half of her income for the privilege. They all knew it was wrong, but they were too terrified to speak out.”

  Dale frowned. “Her story isn’t uncommon. Temporary foreign workers are often victimized.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Dale. Surely they have rights.”

  “What good are rights without options? They’re tied to the company that brought them here. If they quit, they’re deported.” Dale shrugged. “Like I said, victims on all sides.”

  “No options is right,” Michael said. “Gabby told me that as tough as her
life was here, it was a thousand times better than going back to that psycho in Mexico.”

  Dale’s expression grew grim. “I’ve heard similar stories from domestic violence survivors before. I’m not sure how getting a temporary work visa kept him away from her, though. In my experience, abusers don’t give up their victims that easily. Your friend’s name and work assignment would have been in the system. A few hundred dollars in bribe money and he could easily have found her. What made her think he wouldn’t follow her here?”

  Michael smirked. “The guy was a real winner. He had an outstanding warrant in the US. Drug smuggling. She didn’t think he’d risk crossing the border.”

  I flashed on the stranger I’d seen twice now. Could he be the mysterious ex-boyfriend? “What if she was wrong? About him crossing the border, that is?”

  “What are you thinking, Kate?” Dale asked.

  “I noticed this creepy-looking guy lurking outside the community center the night Michael confronted Gabriella. I don’t know for sure what he was doing there, but he could have been watching Gabriella. I saw him again today near her apartment.”

  Dale buried his face in his hands. “Oh lord, don’t tell me you went to the victim’s apartment, too.”

  “No, just the pet store.”

  “They’re in the same building,” Michael explained.

  Dale gave me a stern look. “Well, don’t. Go to the apartment, that is. The last thing we need is for the police to find you snooping around the victim’s apartment before they search it.”

  “You mean they haven’t already?” I asked.

  “Michael’s name is on the lease. Without his permission, they’ll need a search warrant.” Dale gave Michael a sharp look. “You didn’t give them permission to search her apartment, did you?”

  “I would have, but your lawyer friend said not to.”

  “Good. Requiring a warrant won’t stop them, but it will slow them down.” Dale picked up his pen. “Back to this guy you saw, Kate. Can you describe him?”

  “I only got a quick look at his face.” I closed my eyes, trying to remember. “He was five-ten or so, mid-thirties. He had darker skin. At first I thought he was Hispanic or Middle Eastern, but I’m not sure anymore. He has these creepy light blue eyes …”

  “Any tattoos, scars, or other obvious markings?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I saw.”

  Dale looked at Michael. “Ring any bells?”

  Michael frowned. “No, sorry. But Gabby’s ex was originally from Spain, so he could easily have blue eyes.”

  Dale tapped his pen on the yellow pad. “Kate’s suspicious stranger may have nothing to do with this woman’s murder, but the idea is certainly worth pursuing.” He gave me a grudging smile. “Good work.”

  Michael spoke for several more minutes about his move to Seattle and how he’d promised Gabriella that he would stick with their fake marriage until she got citizenship. He’d helped her get a decent job at an Italian restaurant in Cannon Beach, and she seemed to be settling in on her own. Then he moved to Seattle. He finished by recounting her demands for a payoff when he’d asked for a divorce. Fifty thousand dollars’ worth.

  Dale whistled. “That’s a nice chunk of change for a waitress.”

  “For a pet food store owner, too,” Michael replied. “The thing is, she knew I’d been saving to buy a house, so she probably thought I could easily come up with it. And I could have, a year ago. I told her that I’d drained my savings and invested everything in Kate’s house, but she wouldn’t budge.”

  “Any idea what she needed so much money for?” I asked.

  “None. When I asked her, she said it was none of my business. I suppose she might have started using cocaine again …”

  “Could she have been trying to smuggle someone else into the States?” I asked.

  Dale interrupted. “We could spend all night theorizing. Better to hold off on blind guesswork until we get more facts.” He made a note. “I’ll look into her financials and find out if anything came back on the autopsy’s tox screen.”

  Michael’s story ended the night of Gabriella’s death. “Seeing Gabby really upset me. I came home and had a couple of beers. Then Shannon started picking at me. She went on and on and on about Gabby and how stupid I was to let her keep using me. I had to get out of there before I blew my stack and said something I’d regret, so I grabbed her old car and drove to Cannon Beach. My memory’s pretty hazy, but I think I got a little crazy. When I came to, I was parked in the lot above Arcadia Beach, covered in sand, puke all over my shirt. There was half a bottle of whiskey on the seat next to me.”

  My breath stopped. “Arcadia Beach?”

  “Yes. At some point I must have wised up and decided to get off the road. I spent at least part of the night passed out in the parking lot.”

  I flashed on the dark blue sedan I’d seen parked above Arcadia Beach, then on the similarly colored Chevy on the street out front. “Michael, where is Shannon’s car now?”

  “Parked out front. We picked it up this morning. Why?”

  “Arcadia Beach isn’t far from where I found Gabriella’s body.”

  Michael’s skin turned gray. “I spent the night passed out close to where she was killed? You mean, if I hadn’t been a drunken idiot, I might have been able to save her?”

  I placed my hand on his arm. “You can’t think like that, Michael. I could barely see the car from the beach, and she was a ten-minute walk from there.”

  “But if she screamed …”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to hear her. Not over the surf.”

  Dale stood. “Let me get this straight, Kate. You found the body and you saw Michael’s car parked near the scene?”

  I swallowed. Hard. “Yes. Do I have to tell that to the police?”

  Dale walked to the window and stared through it for several seconds. When he turned back around, his expression was carefully neutral. “I can’t counsel a witness to lie if the police ask a specific question.”

  “So you mean—”

  Dale waved his hand through the air. “Think about my words, Kate. Think about my specific words.”

  I took that to mean no. Not unless the police asked me something specifically related to seeing the car.

  Michael finished his story. “When I woke up, it was almost noon. I was too hung over to drive, so I walked into town, grabbed a cab, and headed back to Shannon’s.”

  “Why didn’t you call Shannon or me?” I asked. “One of us would have picked you up.”

  “I didn’t have my cell phone.” Michael gestured around the living room. “I thought I left it here, but I haven’t been able to find it. I tried calling the number but it goes to voicemail. I’m betting the battery’s dead. Have you seen it?”

  “No.” That explained why he hadn’t returned any of my calls. He hadn’t gotten them.

  As if on cue, Dale’s cell phone rang. “Dale Evans.” His greeting was businesslike. Not a trace of affected southern twang. Michael and I stopped talking and watched him intently.

  “I see.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes. Yes, I understand. I owe you one. Thank you.” He clicked off the call, wearing a grim expression. “My lawyer friend came through for us again. The police got that warrant we were talking about. They’re heading over to search Gabriella’s apartment now.” He picked up his keys. “We need to get going.”

  “I’ll follow behind with Bella,” I said, preparing to grab my own.

  Dale’s reply was firm. “Not this time, Kate. You already know too much. Given everything you’ve seen, it’s best if we keep you in the dark from here out.”

  Michael’s eyes, when they met mine, were stricken. “I’ll call you later tonight, Kate. I promise.”

  The door clicked behind them, enveloping me in silence. Bella emerged from t
he bedroom, looking confused.

  “Looks like it’s you and me again, pup.”

  Waiting.

  eleven

  It took me less than two minutes to come to a firm conclusion. Screw waiting.

  The thought wasn’t my most Zen, but I’d had enough waiting to last three lifetimes. It was time for action.

  I’d promised not to sleuth until Dale arrived in town, and I hadn’t, for the most part. Dale didn’t want me to go with them to Gabriella’s apartment. Fine. Bringing your girlfriend to the search of your murdered wife’s home was undoubtedly poor form. But I had to do something to help, even if it was futile.

  I left two notes on the kitchen table: one updating Shannon, the other imploring Michael to call me as soon as he got back. Then I loaded Bella into my car and headed for the beach. Or more specifically, to the section of beach where I’d found Gabriella’s body.

  I don’t know what I expected to accomplish. The police had already combed the area for clues, but it was the best idea I could come up with on almost no sleep and not nearly enough caffeine. I pulled into Tolovana Beach’s main parking lot at ten minutes to seven, turned off the car, and clipped on Bella’s leash. I would have parked at Arcadia Beach, but I wasn’t sure if I could get from there to where Bella had found Gabriella’s body at high tide. The sun had begun its descent into twilight, so I grabbed my emergency flashlight from the glove box and checked it. Full beam, bright light. For once, luck was with me.

  “Come on Bella, let’s go.”

  Bella emerged from the car, but not with the joyful exuberance I would have expected from a dog about to cavort in the sand. She slinked beside me, ignoring the tantalizing scents, pausing only briefly to do her business. Perhaps she still felt the tension from my meeting with Michael and Dale. That made two of us.

  As the twilight darkened, so did Bella’s mood. Every shadow became danger; every person, a potential threat. Leading her was like walking an unexploded ordnance, apt to go off at any second. She snapped at a man with a goatee and lunged after a beagle. She body-blocked me from a dozen perceived evils, including a downed piece of driftwood, a man on a bicycle, and a white plastic grocery bag floating along the shore. I shortened her leash and wrapped it tightly around my wrist. “No off-leash time for you tonight, Missy Girl.”