Murder of a Cranky Catnapper

by Denise Swanson

  The plastic surgeon mutely glared at his ex-fiancée.

  Chantal turned her head and continued, “Finally, I told AJ that I wouldn’t falsify the claims anymore, and he said that if I didn’t, he’d turn the whole mess into the insurance companies’ fraud department. He pointed out that his signature on all the paperwork was just a stamp and I was the one that submitted the documents.”

  “So you quit and disappeared,” Skye said, then added, “But he found you.”

  “I wasn’t exactly hiding.” Chantal sighed. “I knew AJ wouldn’t voluntarily put the insurance claims under scrutiny. After all, even if they held me legally responsible, he’d have to give back all the money.”

  “Good point.” Wally tapped his chin, then asked, “What changed? Why was he suddenly so desperate to see you?”

  “The idiot did the same thing with the next office manager.” Chantal pressed her lips together in disgust. “He romanced her, got her to fiddle with the claims, and kept on cheating the insurance companies.”

  “And the companies wised up and he’s being investigated for fraud,” Skye guessed.

  “Exactly. That’s when he started calling and texting me. He was afraid that when the insurance investigators talked to me, I’d blow the whistle on him and his new fiancée.” Chantal smiled meanly. “When I didn’t respond to his messages, he threatened me. So when I saw him at the Legion Sunday night, I hid in the back until he left. But after everyone was gone, he broke the glass in the front door and came looking for me. I locked myself in the closet. I have no idea why there’s a deadbolt on the inside, but I was sure glad it was there.”

  “She’s lying!” AJ screeched.

  “About what?” Skye was surprised it had taken the plastic surgeon so long to accuse Chantal of deceit.

  “All of it.” AJ crossed his arms. “And you can’t prove otherwise.”

  “I bet we can.” Wally turned to Chantal and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m thinking that you saved the threatening messages and probably some paperwork that incriminates Dr. Martino regarding the insurance scam. Is that right?”

  “Of course.” Chantal tilted her head. “I have everything tucked away in my safe-deposit box.”

  “You need to get yourself a good lawyer,” Wally advised. “Then turn everything over to the insurance investigators. We’ll be charging Dr. Martino with breaking and entering, but the fraud will be handled by state or maybe federal authorities.”

  “I don’t know any lawyers.” Chantal’s chin quivered and she jerked her thumb at AJ. “And I don’t have his kind of money.”

  “You should have thought of that before you opened your big fat mouth, bitch,” AJ sneered.

  As Wally handcuffed the plastic surgeon and hauled him away, Skye slipped Chantal a business card, and said, “My sister-in-law is one of the top criminal attorneys in Illinois. Call her and tell her I sent you.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

  —WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

  Skye told Wally she’d meet him in his office and hurried to the restroom. She’d had to go for the last hour, but there was no way she was disturbing the flow of the interrogation for a potty break.

  Afterward she leaned against the sink and sighed. Things had gone much better with Chantal and AJ Martino than she had expected. It always surprised her when suspects spilled their guts. It had to be the feeling of catharsis from finally coming clean.

  Walking into Wally’s office, Skye was surprised to see Quirk pacing in front of the desk. The sergeant was scowling and so was Wally. Uh-oh. What had she interrupted?

  “Are we through here?” Quirk snarled. “Chantal is upset and I’d like to get her home.” When Wally frowned, the sergeant thrust his chin out and said, “I won’t stop seeing her just because she made a mistake. She was a victim. That asshole threatened her.”

  Ah. They’d been talking about Quirk’s budding relationship with the pretty American Legion manager. Maybe she should leave. Skye started to back away, but Wally glanced at her and gestured her forward.

  “I’m not going to order you to stop dating her.” Wally rubbed his neck. “We won’t be involved in any charges that are brought against her, so it probably isn’t a conflict of interest. But you should clear it with the city attorney because she is a witness in our case.”

  “Fine.” Quirk’s lips were pressed together in a tight line. “I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Wally picked up several sheets of paper from the top of his desk and straightened them into a neat pile.

  “Can I go?” Quirk stood, obviously impatient to leave.

  “Yes.” Wally nodded, then as the man marched toward the door, he added, “Good job with the Paulks.”

  Once the sergeant was gone, Skye sat down and said, “I hope Quirk doesn’t end up jeopardizing his career for someone he just met.”

  “Me, too.” Wally sighed. “But some relationships are worth the risk.”

  “And some aren’t.” Skye wasn’t sure how she felt about Chantal. “From what she said to me after you left with AJ, her track record with men isn’t very good.”

  “Everyone’s track record with the opposite sex is bad until they meet the one that makes it good.” Wally shrugged. “Look at our past. You thought Luc was a good catch.”

  “True. And he turned out to be a fumble.” Skye felt sorry for Chantal, but she’d made her own choices. Despite what Quirk wanted to believe, the Legion manager had knowingly got involved with a married man and committed fraud for him. She could have said no. “But being beautiful only gets a woman so far. After that she needs to have some substance and I’m not sure there’s much beneath Chantal’s surface.”

  When Wally didn’t respond, Skye smiled. He was such a romantic. Changing the subject, she asked, “What did Quirk find out from the Paulks?”

  “Pretty much what you guessed.” Wally flipped through the documents he was holding. “Grant admitted that every couple of months, there’d be a message on a private Open Book group page. Anyone interested in earning a pair of the newest athletic shoes could pick up a box from the manager at one of the Dollar or Three stores. Inside were the drugs, different kinds depending what was currently popular. The boys would sell the dope, turn the money into the manager, and keep the shoes.”

  “Wow.” Skye leaned back in her chair. How had all this been going on under their noses at school? “So I take it Ruben Ramirez is being arrested as we speak?”

  “He claims he had no idea what was in the boxes he handed out or the envelopes the kids gave him to pass on to Lynch, but he’s the sheriff department’s problem, not ours.” Wally shoved his fingers through his hair. “Since the stores are spread throughout Laurel County, it’s better if they take jurisdiction in the matter.”

  “Then it wasn’t just the Scumble River stores.” Skye felt slightly better that other school districts had missed what was happening, too. “What did the locker search turn up?”

  “Two more boxes at the junior high and five at the high school,” Wally said. “And we found Lynch’s fingerprints on three of them.”

  “Good.” Skye tapped the arm of the chair with her nails. “That proves Palmer was involved. Maybe Mr. Ramirez is telling the truth.”

  “Could be. To be sure, the sheriff will have to see who the admin was for the Open Book page.” Wally shrugged, then smiled at Skye and said, “At least we’ve solved the American Legion break-in.” He tilted his head. “Or should I say you solved it, darlin’?”

  “Nope, you were right the first time.” Skye blew him a kiss. “It’s always we.”

  “Now we just have to figure out which one of Lynch’s drug connections killed him.” Wally picked up three thick files. “These are the reports from the ME, the crime lab, and the neighborhood canvas. They’re first on my agenda for tomorrow’s reading.
Since we have a better idea of the vic’s extracurricular activities, I might be able to spot a clue.”

  “Is the ME releasing the body?” Skye asked.

  “Yes.” Wally rubbed his thumb along the edge of the manila folders. “He informed Mrs. Lynch this afternoon that she could make the funeral arrangements.”

  “She’ll be relieved to finally be able to have some closure.” Feeling the baby move, Skye shifted in her chair. “The wake will probably be Saturday. I’m guessing that if we haven’t caught the killer by then, we’ll be attending.”

  “At the rate we’re going, we’d better count on making an appearance.” Wally’s voice was discouraged. “It’ll take a long time to track down all his drug connections.”

  Skye was silent for several minutes, then said slowly, “You know, in view of how Palmer was killed, I really don’t think that it was business related.” Wally raised a brow and Skye added, “Even the criminal side of his business. The method was just too personal. Why would he let an employee tie him to the bed naked? And if he was forced to do so at gunpoint, why wasn’t there any sign of a struggle?”

  “Maybe he had taken a dose of ketamine. That would impair his judgment,” Wally suggested.

  “His mother claimed that Palmer was too much of a control freak to take drugs.”

  “One way to find out.” Wally riffled through the ME’s report, then said, “She’s right. Nothing on the additional tox screen I requested.”

  “Interesting.” Skye wrinkled her brow. “So if he was killed for a personal reason, that brings up another question. If Palmer was as much of a control freak as Mrs. Lynch claimed, wouldn’t he be the one tying someone to the bed, not the one being tied?”

  “So who would he allow to tie him up?” Wally asked.

  “How about his ex-wife?” Skye’s eyes widened.

  “Son of a bee!” Wally thundered. “She’s the one person we haven’t talked to yet. She should have been first on my list.”

  “Why?” Skye hated seeing Wally blame himself for a decision he’d made before all the facts had been discovered. “Yes, she’s his ex and he treated her badly in the divorce. But that was over a year ago. What reason would she have to kill him now? We concentrated on the suspects with more pressing motives.” Skye added, “And I know it seems so much longer, but it’s only been four days since Dorothy found the body.”

  “You’re right regarding why we haven’t talked to the ex-wife yet.” The muscle in Wally’s jaw jerked. “But since we’re currently out of suspects, Felicia Lynch has become much more interesting.”

  “Where does she live?”

  Wally checked the file and said, “When she and Lynch divorced, she moved to Naperville.”

  “It’s past nine so we’d never make it to her place before ten or ten thirty,” Skye mused. “And since we have no evidence to arrest her, I’m thinking showing up on her doorstep in the middle of the night wouldn’t be the best way to get her cooperation.”

  “Agreed. I’ll go first thing in the morning.” Wally stood and stretched. “Now, we better go home so you can get some rest. You have to be up early for school.”

  “Shouldn’t I be with you when you interview the former Mrs. Lynch?”

  “That would be ideal.” Wally grimaced. “But I don’t want to wait until the afternoon. You can listen to the recording when you come to the station after work.”

  “I guess that’s the best solution.” Skye yawned. “Let’s hit the road.”

  Once they were home and Skye had fed Bingo, she trudged upstairs, so tired she could barely lift her foot to the next step. Wally was right. If she was going to make it through the next school day’s endless meetings, she really did need to get some rest.

  As she walked down the short hallway, soothing music flowed from the bathroom. Candlelight flickered, the smell of peppermint and rosemary floated in the air, and Wally beckoned her from the doorway.

  He’d filled the soaker tub with hot water and her favorite foaming bath salts. Undressing her, he eased her into the bubbles, picked up her loofah, and starting at her feet, began to bathe her.

  Nearly purring under his tender ministrations, Skye felt herself relax for the first time that day and drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Friday’s high school annual reviews were brutal. Several mothers and fathers were not happy with their children’s special education programs, and Skye had spent the morning acting as a mediator between the parents and the principal. Since Homer was anything but reasonable, she’d often found herself on the opposite side of the administration. Not a comfortable position to occupy.

  Wally had promised to text Skye after he’d talked to Felicia Lynch, but when the group broke for lunch and she checked her phone, he hadn’t contacted her. Did that mean he was still with Felicia? Or maybe he’d arrested her and was busy with the booking procedure.

  Skye had decided to eat in her office so she could scan the next student’s file while she ate, but before she’d even taken her sandwich out of the plastic bag, Trixie burst into the room.

  “Bambi says, and I quote, ‘Aunt Yolanda stole Pa’s car and lit out of town last night like her tail feathers were on fire.’ Do you have any idea why?”

  “Wally put AJ Martino in jail for breaking into the Legion.” Skye had half expected to find Yolanda waiting in her office when she’d arrived at school; now she understood why she’d been spared.

  “Why in the heck did AJ do that?” Trixie demanded, snagging a grape from Skye’s lunch.

  “To talk to the manager. She was his former employee and ex-fiancée,” Skye said, then explained about AJ, Chantal, and the insurance fraud.

  “Wowie Kazowie!” Trixie squealed. “I thought he seemed shady.”

  “You said he was hot.” Skye sniggered.

  “Hot and shady. He seemed mighty fluent in hound dog.” Trixie ate another grape then asked, “Do you think Bambi’s aunt will be implicated? If Chantal said AJ got his new squeeze to keep doctoring the books, that would be Yolanda.”

  “My guess is the reason she left last night was to get rid of any evidence of her involvement,” Skye commented. “Yolanda may not be the typical Doozier, but she still has the cunning that the rest of them have that keeps them out of legal trouble.” Skye smiled meanly. “AJ is probably better off in jail than facing Earl now that he knows how AJ done his sister wrong.”

  Trixie giggled, then when the bell rang, she said good-bye and hurried back to the library. Stuffing the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth, Skye gathered the afternoon meeting folders and headed back into the trenches.

  Ushering the final set of parents out at three fifteen, Skye looked at her cell. There was a text from Wally asking her to meet him at the station as soon as she could. She hastily deposited the completed paperwork in her file cabinet, locked it, and rushed to her car.

  When she walked through the PD’s front door, May told her that Wally was waiting in the coffee/interrogation room. Skye was surprised to find him there alone.

  After kissing her cheek and pulling out a chair for her, he said, “Felicia Lynch had an airtight alibi.”

  “Oh?” Skye wrinkled her brow. If that was the case, why was Wally in such a hurry for her to get to the station?

  “She was in an airplane flying home from Las Vegas with her brand-new husband.” Wally drummed his fingers on the table. “She showed me the ticket to prove it.”

  “Well, that sucks.” Skye exhaled. “Our last lead bites the dust.”

  “Not quite. I asked Felicia if she was aware of Lynch’s sexual leanings. When she said that she was, I asked her who he’d allow to tie him up, rather than vice versa.” Wally smiled and pushed the button on the tape recorder in front of him. “Listen to this.”

  A woman’s voice said, “The only time he’d allow that is if he were trying to convince a first-ti
me partner to play with him.”

  From the recorder Wally’s voice asked, “So someone unaccustomed to the lifestyle?”

  “Yes,” Felicia answered. “He definitely wouldn’t ever submit to a woman after that initial experience.”

  Wally turned off the playback. “What do you think?” he asked Skye, clearly having already formed his own opinion.

  “Unless Palmer had another girlfriend ready and waiting after begging Virginia to take him back, which seems highly unlikely since he hoped she’d be going home with him, that means . . .” Skye trailed off, contemplating the likely scenarios.

  “Virginia lied to us.” Wally’s expression was grim. “For some reason she decided to go to his house and give his kink a try.”

  “That seems to be the most logical answer,” Skye said thoughtfully. “But then why did she kill him?”

  CHAPTER 24

  A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.

  —ENGLISH PROVERB

  “We need to get Virginia back in here.” Wally paced the length of the interrogation room. “But before we do, we have to figure out her motive.”

  “Do we have any witnesses of Virginia and Palmer quarreling?” Skye pulled a legal pad from her tote bag. “Maybe they had other issues in addition to their sex life.”

  “I never did get a chance to read all of the neighborhood canvas summaries.” Wally returned to the table and flipped open a folder. “I was mainly interested in whether anyone had been observed entering or leaving the Lynch residence on Sunday evening, and both Martinez and Anthony said they hadn’t.”

  “That’s a quiet street, and considering the time of death is between eleven and twelve”—Skye chewed on the end of her pen as Wally scanned the reports—“I’m not surprised that the murderer wasn’t seen.”

  “Here’s something.” Wally whistled. “A Mr. Cooperson stated that the Friday night before the murder, he saw the vic and Virginia Elders having a—and I quote—‘lively discussion’ on Lynch’s back patio.”