Home for a Spell

by Madelyn Alt

  Well, I wasn’t sure that any of the men on the Stony Mill Police Department set out to become a cop because they wanted to stop killers in their tracks. I doubted that prospect even lit up their radar screens until this last year. Most of them were just ordinary, stand-up guys who wanted a steady job that involved writing traffic tickets and stopping small-time petty criminals. Protect the populace, keep the peace. Not solving murder after murder. I couldn’t imagine any of them even guessing that they’d be signing up for that, not even as a possibility. Least of all Tom. He had, at least, tried to rise to the occasion. I would give him that.

  And poor Olds, the newbie cop they had referred to. The poor kid had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

  I kept my eye on Tom as he conferred with the one of the guys who had been assigned to working the office crime scene. He glanced down at an object in a plastic evidence bag, then held it up in the bright morning sunlight now coming at an angle through the tree leaves. His expression changed on a dime, and as I watched he said something to his fellow officer and headed back toward where Marcus and I had settled onto a park bench.

  “So, you didn’t know this guy, huh?” he said, addressing the question to Marcus.

  “Nope. I didn’t know him.”

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Nope. Never seen him before.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tom nodded, matter-of-factly. He held up the plastic evidence bag he’d just been handed by the other officer. “So, maybe you can explain this to me.”

  It was a part of a circuit board that had come out of the computer Marcus had just built for Locke and that Uncle Lou had just delivered the afternoon before. Clearly visible on the back of the board was a label that read “Quinn Enterprises,” with Marcus’s home address and phone number listed beneath. Also encased in the bag were many bits and pieces of other broken computer parts, and in the very bottom, what looked like a crushed USB flash drive.

  I opened my mouth, but Marcus beat me to it. “I built the computer for him, but I never met the man. He was an acquaintance of my uncle, Lou Tabor. He was looking for some high-powered computer tech, and I was able to provide it.” Marcus shrugged. “In fact, I just finished it. Uncle Lou delivered it yesterday.”

  “With me,” I interjected. “He delivered it when he brought me here to meet with Locke about the apartment.”

  Tom was once again scratching things down in his notepad. “Uh-huh. The apartment you were about to sign the lease for. Which we found in the dead man’s pocket.” I knew he didn’t really believe that I had anything to do with Locke’s death, but the way he kept restating the point was really starting to tick me off. “And how did all of that come about, again? All of these weird . . . connections?”

  There was that word again. Weird. Unfortunately, I really couldn’t deny that as fact. Sometimes the way things came about . . . it was weird. I couldn’t explain it. Not in any way that a normal, mundane person would be able to grasp and believe in. A very religious person, on the other hand? Well, maybe, although then we’d be drawn into discussions on the wrath of God, when really any godly wrath was simply man projecting human characteristics like revenge and jealousy on a divine being or entity or force that had always stood completely beyond man’s comprehension. Even now. Maybe especially now.

  I cleared my throat. The only thing to do was try. “Well, you see, it’s like this. I found out yesterday that Steff—you remember my best friend, Steff, who lives in the apartment upstairs—well, she’s ninety-nine percent sure that she’s going to be moving out of town when her fiancé’s residency program at the hospital is complete. Which will be soon. So, with her leaving and Marcus going back to school for his degree, I decided now would be a good time for a change of scenery for me, too. A new place, a new perspective on life. You know. That kind of thing.” I checked his face, hoping to find understanding there, but all I saw was a closed sort of neutrality. I had to keep trying. “Anyway, Uncle Lou—that’s Marcus’s Uncle Lou—he mentioned this place, and he kind of arranged the whole meet-and-greet with Mr. Locke, and it was just a big coincidence that Marcus had just built a computer for this guy that Uncle Lou needed to deliver, and with Locke managing an apartment complex that had an available property for me to look at . . . well . . . it seemed kind of meant to be.”

  “Uh-huh.” More scratching on the notepad. I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Oh, for heaven’s sake, it couldn’t be bad. I had nothing to do with any of this, and he knew me too well to believe that I had. “So, you just came here and looked at the apartment.”

  “Yes, I did!” I replied, starting to get a little hot under the collar myself. “That is exactly what I did.”

  “And what was Mr. Locke’s state of mind during your meeting?”

  “Normal? I don’t know him, but he seemed pretty normal to me. I mean, as normal as anyone else seems. I mean . . .” What did I mean? “What I’m trying to say is, he didn’t act like anything was wrong. Except . . .” What about the argument with that guy, Hollister? I supposed that was something Tom would want to know, but why-oh-why was I the one who had to witness it? He was tied to Annie Miller’s niece. Her boyfriend. Sigh. I really needed to talk to Annie.

  Tom was all over my hedging. His sharp gray eyes watched me closely. “Except?”

  I wasn’t going to have a choice. “Except . . . I did witness a disagreement he had with a very upset tenant while I was there in his office,” I told him, reluctance and guilt poking at my psyche all the while. “A man named Tyson Hollister. I don’t know if he’s the tenant or if his girlfriend is the tenant of the apartment, but . . . her name is Angela Miller. She’s Annie Miller’s niece.”

  “You should have mentioned this first thing, Maggie. What was the altercation about?”

  The look on Marcus’s face said he very much agreed with that sentiment.

  I took a deep breath. “It was about the lease. I was trying not to listen—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “—but it’s hard not to unintentionally eavesdrop when someone stands six feet away from you and insists on having it out in your presence!” I finished, a wee bit defensive. “It’s not like I was given a choice.”

  “Hm. Go on.”

  “Well, evidently Ms. Miller is wanting out of her lease, and Mr. Locke was refusing to allow her an out. Mr. Hollister was adamant that the lease was unethical, not allowing a tenant any way out if they wanted or needed to leave.”

  “Huh. Unethical maybe, but unfortunately it is standard business practice for apartment complexes these days.” When I raised my brows in inquiry, Tom grunted, “I had to sign one, too.”

  “My apartment on Willow Street allows for the tenant to terminate with thirty days advance notice, in writing,” I said. “It’s always been that way. I didn’t even have to ask for the clause to be written into the agreement.”

  “Then count yourself lucky. I’m not sure when this particular real estate trend started, but it has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people. All upholdable by law in civil court.”

  “I guess people just aren’t supposed to have emergencies or extenuating circumstances these days.”

  “You got that right. No excuses.” Then, because he had lost the thrust of the inquiries, he cleared his throat and frowned. “Back to the questions at hand. You say that Mr. Hollister was adamant. How adamant?”

  “Well, Uncle Lou had to drag him out of the office. There was a little bit of a scuffle. Lou collared him and dragged him outside to get some air, cool down a bit.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Locke and I went to look at the apartment. By the time we were finished, Mr. Hollister was nowhere to be seen.” I shrugged. “I figured Lou had done his thing and diffused the situation, and that was that.”

  “So, this Uncle Lou didn’t stay with you the entire time?”

  “No, he waited outside until we were done.”

  “And that was it? That was all there
was to the encounter?”

  “Maggie,” Marcus interrupted softly, “what about the girl?”

  Tom looked at him, hard. “Girl?” He transferred his gaze to me. “What girl?”

  With all the events of the morning, I’d almost forgotten. “When I was touring the apartment, we—Locke and me, that is—thought we heard a sound. Locke went to investigate the noise, and I stayed in the doorway, waiting for him.”

  “And?”

  “Well . . . as it turns out, there actually was an intruder in the apartment. A young girl. She had been hiding in the front closet, just a few feet from where I stood. As soon as she felt safe enough, I guess, she burst out of the closet and ran. She nearly knocked me down in the process.”

  Tom took this all in, and by the time I was done, he shook his head. “You know, you live a really . . . unusual . . . life, Maggie O’Neill.”

  I lifted my shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I can’t help it. It isn’t me. I don’t invite it, you know.”

  Once again, his gaze flicked left to Marcus, then back again. “Uh-huh.”

  Now he was questioning my lifestyle? Feh. I looked him square in the eye. “No offense, Tom, but I don’t think I’m the one you need to be worrying about here. Someone killed that man, and it sure as heck wasn’t me. And what’s more, you know it. I would think you would be more concerned about that person than wasting time harassing your crazy ex-girlfriend.” I arched an eyebrow at him for good measure.

  “Point taken. So, what can you tell me about this girl?”

  “Not much,” I said. “It happened so fast. She nearly knocked me over when she came out of the closet like that. I wasn’t expecting it . . . but then, I guess, neither was she.” I explained how she’d paused just for a moment before she hit the door running.

  “Would you recognize her?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Young. A teenager. Very blond, almost platinum. Hair in braids, wearing a baseball cap or something like it. Green eyes.”

  He stopped writing. “You actually noticed her eye color?”

  I pictured her face as I was falling backward, as her face had turned toward mine, almost in slow motion. “We had a moment.”

  “I guess so.”

  “No, I mean . . . time seemed to freeze for a second there as I was falling, and I locked onto her staring into my eyes. So, yeah, I noticed. The image kind of screen printed itself onto my brain.”

  “And then what?” Tom asked.

  “She took off. Exit, stage left. Locke came out to see what all the noise was. I told him about the girl, he took off after her. But she was already gone, so he came back in.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember. “He said something about teenage hijinks and that vandalism was always a risk in this business when there were empty apartments at hand. Locke did find a broken mirror in the apartment, though. He was pretty upset about it.”

  “Anything else that you remember?”

  “Only that Uncle Lou knows the girl—he’s a teacher at the high school,” I explained. “He said her name was Abbie Cornwall, I believe. And . . . we saw her just down the road a little later as we were leaving. She was at the park with her boyfriend.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  I blinked at him. “No way. But Lou was thinking about talking to her counselor at school about the whole thing. He said she was a good kid, but this was the kind of behavior that needs to be nipped in the bud before it becomes a habit.”

  “Uh-huh.” Scratchy, scratchy, scratchy. Someone needed to give this man a gel pen. “So, let me get this straight one more time. You were going to sign a lease for an apartment that you had never heard about before yesterday, at an apartment building where a tenant was complaining in front of you about the terms of the lease, where there was a girl hiding in the closet who nearly knocked you over, and the manager said this is all just fun and games, just part and parcel of running an apartment complex?”

  Well, when he put it like that . . . I just nodded. What else could I do? It was the truth.

  He squinted at me—or was that against the morning sun that was now glinting off his sunglasses? “Um . . . why?”

  Marcus looked like he might be wondering the same thing, although he had the good manners not to say it out loud.

  “It was a really good deal,” I said, coming to my own defense.

  “It would have to be,” Tom replied.

  “Three months’ free rent, no security deposit, and a temporary lease to be sure I would like the place before signing my life away.”

  Tom chewed on this tidbit for a moment, frowning. “Why on earth would an apartment complex need to issue deals like that to entice prospective tenants?” he asked at last. “I’ve never heard of a deal like that being offered. To anyone. Anywhere.”

  I started to respond, but all of a sudden his questions had me wondering, too. Now that I had a chance to think without pressure. “He was a lodge brother with Marcus’s Uncle Lou. At the Eternal Order of Samaritans. That was his explanation for offering me the special get-acquainted rent deal. It was the same way Lou hooked him up with Marcus for the computer. Lodge brothers take care of their own. I told him I would have to look over the lease. That I would need some time to think it over. That was late yesterday afternoon,” I said slowly. “He called me an hour or two later to let me know someone else was interested in the apartment. He said if I was interested, he wanted to offer me first chance at it, but if I was willing to let it go, there was another interested party who was ready to sign a lease, and no hard feelings. I know what it sounds like,” I said, avoiding his gaze, “but it felt like the right thing to do last night.” At least, I thought it did. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure.

  “He had another interested party. If that’s true, it could be important. We’re trying to establish his comings and goings last night. We’ll be checking phone records to see who all he had contact with right up to the estimated time of death.”

  That piece of information would come from the medical examiner, but by the brief glimpse I had had of Locke’s face, he had been in the water since last night. At least that was my non-medically guesstimated opinion.

  “From what I gathered yesterday afternoon,” I told him, trying to be helpful, “he was itching to set up the new equipment from Marcus. He seemed very excited to have it. Whether he had further plans, I don’t know.”

  Tom nodded. To Marcus he said, “I’ll need you to write down Lou Tabor’s address and contact information. And I need the two of you to stick around a little bit longer, if you would.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  Tom started to walk away, then turned back on an afterthought. “Oh. One more thing. The flash drive that was picked up from the office. Something you provided him?”

  Marcus shook his head. “No, sorry. Never seen it before. It must have belonged to Locke, I would guess. But I’m sure that will be more clear once you access it.”

  Tom grimaced. “It was crushed underfoot.”

  “It may still be accessible,” Marcus told him. “If the memory chips remained intact within, you may still be able to get to the data.”

  For the first time I had known the two of them, they locked gazes with something other than testosterone-driven dislike. Just before he turned away again, I heard Tom mutter, “Thanks,” so softly that it might have been the wind.

  Might have been. But wasn’t.

  Could that be change I hear in that non-wind?

  A girl could only hope.

  Chapter 8

  Marcus and I were silent as we continued to wait. And watch. And listen. Shamelessly. I couldn’t deny that part of myself that had been roused the moment the investigation started proceeding around us. How could I fight such an intrinsic part of my true nature, an insatiable curiosity about the world as it transpired around me? So while the officers did their things around us, I pr
etended not to be paying attention . . . but I was taking note of everything within ear-shot. In detail. I saw the bloody hand weight being bagged as evidence. And I knew that two guys had been enlisted to sweep the office for evidence and prints, just as I knew that two more were going door-to-door at the apartment complex, asking for residents to come down and give preliminary statements about anything they might have witnessed last night, or at any other time, and what they might know about the man who had managed the apartment complex. There were only a couple of residents home at present, but they all came down as requested, each speaking with the particular officer they had been assigned to.

  Marcus was taking all of this in as well, I noticed.

  He put on his sunglasses when he caught me watching him . . . but it was too late.

  “What?” I asked him, transferring my gaze suspiciously back and forth between him and the . . .

  Female residents. The young, pretty, female residents of the apartment complex.

  “So you’ve noticed,” he said as a lightbulb went off in my head.

  “I noticed.” I gave him a haughty tilt of my nose. “Your shades aren’t dark enough.”

  He laughed and tipped my chin back toward him. “Your jealousy is showing. Don’t you trust me?”

  He was right, and I knew it. And the thing was, I did trust him. He had never given me a single reason not to. Not as a friend, and not as a boyfriend. I sighed and made a face, feeling foolish and yet still vulnerable. “They’re all very . . . pretty.”

  “That’s what I noticed. And before you slug me,” he said, grinning, “what I mean by that is . . . well, what are the odds? It makes me wonder what the rest of the residents are going to look like. Or do you think by some strange chance that the prettiest ones just happened to be the ones who were at home this morning?”