Holidays Can Be Murder: A Charlie Parker Christmas Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  Knowing that I was probably just repeating someone else’s moves, I ran my hands through the suitcase, but nothing incriminating jumped out at me. I took the time to pull each item out, give it a look, and fold it neatly, making a little stack on the floor beside me. Two pair of jeans, three sweaters, an assortment of dainties—not much else. A tote bag, the kind made of canvas with handles of webbing, stood beside the suitcase and was crammed with shoes. I pulled them out—pink tennies, black pumps, black boots, silver flats—shaking each upside down in case any notes written in invisible ink or keys to bus depot lockers might fall out. No such luck.

  Tentatively, in case something sharp reached out at me, I felt around the inside of the tote. It was exactly what it appeared to be, medium weight canvas with no hidden compartments. The suitcase was another story. It was one of those ubiquitous black airline bags with wheels and a pull-out handle. Under the flimsy plastic lining, I felt the mechanism for the wheels. One side had just a touch more padding than the other and my curious fingers poked around, exploring that oddity, until I discovered a narrow slit in the lining.

  With thumb and forefinger, I reached inside and came out with the corner of a zipper-type sandwich bag. A tug at the bag brought the whole thing out and I saw, not especially to my surprise, that it contained white powder. Now I know these things are usually referred to in grams or kilos or such, but that was completely outside my realm. I’d put the contents at about a tablespoon or two.

  Probably the cocaine that had been found in her system. I wasn’t about to dip my finger into it and take a taste. How was I going to know what it would taste like anyway?

  I placed the small bag on the floor and proceeded with my search of the room. The nightstand drawer yielded a paperback romance and a pair of reading glasses that I’d bet Paula never wore in front of anyone else. The adjoining bathroom vanity held a large makeup case with a mirror encircled by a row of Hollywood-style makeup lights. Everything in the case looked standard for a woman who took great pains with her face and hair. No more little baggies. And if there had been, I was sure the police had thoroughly checked over this treasure trove and removed anything of use to them. I wasn’t interested so much in her stash as I was in where she’d gotten it.

  Since it looked as if Paula was crazy enough to travel with her powdered treasure hidden away in her airline bag, did that mean she’d brought it all with her? Or did she have a connection here in town? For a person who planned to move in and stay awhile, I couldn’t imagine the tiny bit I’d found would last very long. And based on the behavior I’d witnessed the couple of times I’d been around her, she’d probably already dipped into it more than once.

  I stood in the doorway between bedroom and bath, pondering what I might have missed.

  A purse.

  Every woman carried a purse and it would surely be where she kept those items she’d want close at hand. An address book, photos, stuff like that. I crossed the bedroom again and pulled open the dresser drawers. The top two were empty, the next two held spare linens and towels—obviously things that belonged to the household, not to Paula. The bottom drawer was where I hit paydirt. Under another stack of towels, was a black handbag, not Paula’s large everyday one, but a small quilted leather one about six by twelve inches, with a gold chain for a strap. Small and dressy enough that it could double as an evening bag, but large enough to carry the essentials. And inside, I found two very essential items: an address book and a wallet with a nice juicy section of photos. Why the police hadn’t seen fit to take these, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t passing up a chance like this.

  A quick glance told me that none of the names or faces—except one stiffly posed photo of Wilbur and Judy—meant anything to me. But maybe Wilbur could identify more of them and give me a whole load of clues.

  I realized that it was completely dark outside now and since I’d volunteered to provide dinner for everyone, it was time I hustled myself back home. I’d just closed the drapes in the guest room and switched off the light, pulling the door closed behind me when I bumped into Wilbur in the hallway.

  10

  “Oh! I didn’t hear you out here,” I gasped.

  “Um, I just thought I better check on you. See how things were coming along.” He fumbled with a ring full of keys.

  “You’re coming back to our place for dinner, aren’t you?” I sidestepped him and worked my way toward the living room. “I found a couple of items you might be able to help with—if that’s okay.” I held up the wallet and address book.

  “Sure. Drake told me to come right back. I just thought I’d be sure the house was locked and some lights were left on. That’s what Judy . . .” He glanced around uncertainly.

  “Okay, then, let’s go.” I took his elbow and steered him toward the door. He gave one sharp glance toward the sofa where his mother had died, then followed me timidly.

  I switched on the porch light and twisted the little thing in the middle of the doorknob to lock it. I made a show of checking it after I closed it behind us.

  “All set?” I asked.

  Wilbur nodded absently and followed me across the lawn to our front porch. I wasn’t sure how much help he’d be when we started going through Paula’s possessions. He was clearly still dazed by the dual shock of his mother’s murder and his wife’s being arrested for it.

  Inside, the house exuded the warm fragrance of meaty chile stew and Catherine had warmed some garlic bread to go with it. We served everything at the kitchen table and the four of us sat down. Despite his glazed appearance, Wilbur put away two bowls of stew and perked up somewhat afterward. Drake and Catherine cleared the dishes and put coffee on while I pulled my chair closer to Wilbur’s and brought out Paula’s things.

  “I could use your help now, Wilbur. Can you identify the people in these photos?”

  He pushed his glasses farther up his nose and opened the wallet. His gaze caught for a moment on Paula’s driver’s license before he flipped to the photo section. The first was of a dark-haired man, probably Hispanic.

  “That’s Ray. The fifth.”

  “The recent ex?”

  He nodded. “I’m not even really sure the divorce was final. She may have just left him when she showed up here.”

  “Really? I was under the impression that they’d been apart for awhile.” Something came back to me. Paula had said the past year had been hard because of the divorce. I thought she meant it had dragged on that long.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Wilbur said when I mentioned it. “The split was pretty new. But, who knows? Mother sometimes came up with a variety of stories to suit her purposes.”

  It was the first time, I realized, that I’d heard Wilbur say anything negative about his mother.

  “Now this picture? These are my brother’s two girls.”

  “I didn’t realize you had a brother.”

  “An older half-brother, actually. He’s from her first marriage. I was from the second. After that, I think she dropped the idea that men would be permanent in her life. At least she didn’t bother to have any more kids with the others.”

  “Were they close? Your mother and half-brother?”

  He made a snorting sound. “Not at all. Amos wrote her off when the second marriage failed. He’s a very traditional kind of guy.”

  And you’re not? I clamped my lips together, hoping I hadn’t actually voiced this aloud.

  He was quiet for a moment, then seemed to realize he still had the wallet in his hand.

  “This picture of his girls must be at least ten or twelve years old. These little kids in pigtails are now in high school. Doing really well, too. Judy and I get them birthday and Christmas gifts every year. Used to spend the holidays with them when we were all in the Chicago area.”

  “Back to Ray,” I said. “I’m thinking any clues that will be useful to Judy are going to be more recent. Did Paula tell me she and Ray lived in California? Is he still there?”

  “Guess so. I have to admit
, I followed my brother’s lead in not getting too close to Mother’s husbands. It just didn’t pay.” He was flipping idly through the photos. “Come to think of it, though, she had a phone call from him right after she got here. Could the phone company tell you where it came from?”

  “Probably.” If the police hadn’t already checked this lead, they should have. Maybe Ron could pull some strings if the police wouldn’t cooperate.

  Catherine brought Wilbur a cup of tea, coffee for me.

  “In fact, when she first got on the line with Ray, I think Mother asked him something about how the weather was out in sunny old L.A.”

  I’d pulled a notepad out of the kitchen drawer and made myself a note to find a number for Ray Candelaria.

  “Was their divorce bitter?” I asked.

  “I got the feeling it was. Like I said, I tuned out a lot of it. I know Mother wasn’t happy with him for a long time. She hinted, but never really said, that he abused her. Of course, all that only came out after she’d left him. I overheard her telling Judy about an incident where Ray threatened her if she left, but she said she wasn’t taking any sh--, well, any bad stuff from him. She left anyway.”

  “Wilbur! Don’t you see that this could be the whole story right there? Maybe Ray decided to make good on his threat. Maybe he couldn’t stand her being gone, holidays and all, and he came after her.” I felt myself getting excited that another suspect was turning up so quickly.

  He looked skeptical. “Ray? Um, I don’t know.”

  Was Wilbur just one of those gentle types who didn’t truly believe that a man would harm a woman? I decided I might have to set him straight on that someday.

  He was pointing to another of the photos. “That was my dad,” he said. “Too bad he died before he got to see our baby.” His voice cracked slightly on the last word and he looked at me with sorrow in his gray eyes. “What will happen if Judy—”

  “Let’s deal with one thing at a time,” I told him. “I’m sure we’re going to find out who really did this long before it’s time for the baby to come.”

  I sure hoped we would anyway. We spent a few more minutes going through the address book, a cheap thing in a vinyl cover. Paula had even filled out the few lines inside the front cover with “This book belongs to:” information. At least I had her previous address and phone number in California now.

  Wilbur didn’t recognize most of the names in the book. He’d pointed out a couple of cousins from the Midwest, but didn’t know any of her friends from her years in California. He let me take the picture of Ray Candelaria from the wallet and said I could keep the address book as long as I needed it. He was beginning to look faded again by the time he went back home.

  11

  I spent a restless night pondering my next moves. I wanted to question Ray Candelaria and didn’t think I’d learn what I needed to know over the phone. A trip to Los Angeles might be in order, but I wasn’t sure I should just do it. Wilbur hadn’t actually hired us to investigate his mother’s death. As the accountant for our firm, I knew we were flush enough for the year that a plane ticket to L.A. and a night or two in a hotel wouldn’t break us. We could consider it pro bono, but I wasn’t sure how Ron would feel about that. The only conclusion I’d reached by two-thirty a.m. was that I would run it past him at a more decent hour.

  Catherine was already up when I went into the kitchen. The smell of coffee pulled at me. I let the dogs out into the back yard and poured myself a cup, then sat at the table with her. Once again, I felt so thankful that my mother-in-law and I had a good relationship.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked, fingering the address book.

  “Not much idea yet. But I need to talk to Ray Candelaria. I think he’ll know something.”

  “There’s another name in this book I’d check if I were you,” she suggested. “I think he might have sold Paula drugs.”

  “You know which one it is?”

  “Gus,” Catherine said. “Paula just dropped this on me that day we went shopping. It was so casual I almost didn’t notice. She said something like, ‘Guess I’ll have to find me a Gus here.’ I was driving and I guess something pulled my attention away and I never did ask anything about this Gus. But later, when we stopped for lunch, she excused herself to go to the ladies room and when she came back she seemed much more energetic. And her nose was kind of red. I thought, coke. She’s doing coke. But what was I going to do? I couldn’t ditch her at the mall. I just tried to get her home as quickly as possible.”

  “You never mentioned any of this! Was she, like, out of control or anything?”

  “Oh, no. It startled me at first, realizing it, but later I thought no, that’s just what Paula’s like. Not somebody I’d want as a friend, obviously, but I didn’t think it was up to me to preach to her either.”

  We’d both finished our coffee and I got up to refill the mugs. “I think I’ll go into the office today, check some of this stuff with Ron, maybe do a little more investigating. Want a piece of toast or something first?” I had let Catherine fend for herself for much of her visit, and now I was offering nothing more than toast for breakfast.

  “That’s okay, Charlie. You go ahead and get ready for work. I can make something later.”

  Thirty minutes later, I’d had a quick shower, an even quicker kiss from my hubby, and was on my way to the office. Ron had told me Christmas Day that he didn’t plan to take the whole week off and would probably spend part of the weekend catching up on paperwork. His car was already there when I arrived.

  The kitchen smelled of burnt coffee, which is usually an indicator that Ron has made a pot of his killer-strong brew and let some of it dribble onto the hot metal plate on the coffee maker. Having tasted this stuff in the past, I opted to make myself a cup of tea in the microwave.

  “Anybody home?” I called as I climbed the stairs.

  His voice came trailing from his office in a monotone. Phone conversation. I flipped on the light in my own office and realized that the pile of mail from the previous day hadn’t magically disappeared. I sat down to sort through it.

  “Thought you weren’t coming in this week,” Ron said.

  I hadn’t heard him approach and I nearly sloshed my tea. Recovering, I set the mug down on a coaster and shoved the mail aside.

  “I didn’t think so either, but this situation with the neighbors has kinda taken over my time for the past couple of days. Wilbur is really devastated. He can hardly answer a question coherently.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be? The papers are full of it. Having his mother murdered, then his wife accused of the crime. What a mess.”

  “Pregnant wife. Did I tell you that?” I drained my mug. “Anyway, I’ve come up with a couple of clues.”

  He grinned with a knowing little twist to his mouth. “Couldn’t resist, could you?”

  “Well . . .”

  “So, are we hired, or what?”

  “That hasn’t come up. Like I said, Wilbur’s a wreck. And I don’t know how much money they have.”

  “So ask a few questions. We can do a charitable deed now and then,” he said.

  “Would the charity include my making a quick trip to L.A.?”

  He rolled his eyes and puffed out a big sigh, but he didn’t say no. An hour later I’d made reservations for the 4:10 flight on Southwest and a room downtown. I rushed through some routine paperwork and gathered my notes before dashing home to pack and spend a little time with the family before leaving.

  By 5:10 I was airborne, somewhere over Arizona. Glass of wine in hand, I was transferring names and addresses to my little spiral notebook and pinpointing places on my roadmap of the greater Los Angeles area, which was certainly greater in scope than anything I usually dealt with. By the time I picked up my rental car and headed into the maze of freeways, it was dark and the commuting drivers were even surlier than I. I was beginning to question the wisdom of the whole trip.

  My research and mapping had indicated that Ray Candelaria’
s place was between the airport and my hotel, so it only made sense to stop there first. I exited and pulled out my map at the first stoplight. I happened to glance up and realized I wasn’t in a great neighborhood and that reading my roadmap at the intersection definitely branded me as an out-of-towner. I laid the map down and locked my doors.

  At the next well-lighted place, a 24-hour medical clinic, I pulled in and parked under a lamppost. Getting my bearings, I discovered I was only six blocks from my goal. Ray’s home turned out to be a white-stuccoed, red-tile roofed, mission styled home in a decent neighborhood. The lawn was well-groomed and elegant palms flanked the sidewalk leading up from the street. There were no cars in the driveway, but lights shone from inside the house. I pressed the doorbell and set off a short symphony.

  A woman in her thirties, with long, dark hair and twelve ounces of mascara opened the door. She wore a red and gold caftan and strappy gold sandals. One hand held a martini glass and the other stayed firmly on the doorsill.

  “Is Ray Candelaria home?” I asked.

  She appraised me slowly, top to toe. When she’d decided that a travel-worn, woman with hair in a ponytail, wearing jeans with scuffed knees, a faded turtleneck, and dingy Nikes wasn’t a threat to her, she stepped aside.

  “What was your name?” she asked, finally figuring out that she might have admitted a census taker or insurance salesperson.

  I handed her my business card from RJP Investigations.

  “Charlie? What kind of a name is that for a woman?”

  I slipped on a tight smile. I really didn’t want to go into the whole explanation of how I’d been named for two maiden aunts and that Charlotte Louise had never quite stuck to me. When I didn’t answer, she turned on her heel and headed upstairs. I waited until she’d disappeared, then looked around.