by Dana Marton
“Stolen?”
“No. Just killed.”
His mocha eyes narrowed. “You have any enemies?”
“I’ve been sick most of my life, haven’t had the chance to do much of anything, let alone anything controversial enough for someone to want to hurt me. I’m going to make up for that,” she added.
A dark eyebrow slid up his forehead. “Making enemies?”
“No. Doing all the things I missed.”
“Keep it on the right side of the law. Fought with anyone lately? Ex-boyfriend?”
“Jeremy wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Jeremy who?”
“Jeremy Denvil. Ex-fiancé.”
“Don’t know him. Lives in Broslin?”
“Actually, I’m not sure where he lives right now. But he has his own consulting company. He rents a small office in Wilmington.”
He pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote down the name.
She shouldn’t have mentioned Jeremy. “I don’t want him contacted.”
He ignored that. “How big were the bushes that went missing?”
“About a foot. I had a dozen. I was going to edge the walkway with them. In the winter, once they grew, they would catch some of the snow, so I would have less to shovel.
“Good plan.” He wrote some more. “Would they fit in the trunk of a regular car?”
She thought for a minute, trying to visualize it. “Probably.”
He put away the notebook. “I’ll walk around. See what I can see.”
Standing there and staring at him felt silly, so she went inside to put on coffee.
Twenty minutes passed before he came in after her.
“I didn’t see any tire tracks. I wouldn’t necessarily, unless they pulled up on your lawn. But the bushes were small enough to carry them out to a vehicle waiting by the curb.” His voice wasn’t exactly laced with optimism. “I’m going to file a report when I get back to the station. Just to make things official.”
“What are the chances of finding something like this?”
“Unless someone saw the car and wrote down the license plate, close to nil.” He gave it to her straight. She liked that. She wasn’t in the mood for sugarcoating.
So there went a hundred bucks. He’d probably known that before he came out, but he’d come anyway, immediately. She appreciated that.
“Would you like some coffee? Decaf.” She flashed an apologetic look. “I’m not allowed the real thing. If it’s okay for you to accept it while on duty.” She’d seen something about that on a prime-time crime show.
“I’m not on duty yet. I was just heading to the station when I heard that you called in. I keep the scanner on all the time. Occupational hazard.”
“Milk and sugar?”
“Black.” And when she handed him the cup, he said, “Why don’t we sit outside on the deck for a minute?”
She grabbed her coat before she followed him out. The morning was pretty nice, the back of her house facing southeast, full sun, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
He set his coffee on the patio table before he squatted and patted the dog. Then he straightened and pulled a tennis ball from his pocket and threw it. Peaches took off racing after it, his ears flopping in the wind.
The display of unbridled joy put a smile on her face.
“Had a couple of these in the garage. I thought I’d bring one over for him,” he told her as he sat in one of the chairs. And when Peaches brought the ball back, he threw it again. “How are you doing with the dog?”
His long legs stretched in front of him. There was no getting around the admission that he was one sexy cop. “We’re getting used to each other.”
“Still no calls?”
She shook her head. “I even put up a notice on Craigslist and a couple of other places online. Called the vets and let them know too. Put up posters at the grocery store and the post office. How can someone have a pet that’s gone missing for three days and not be driving around looking for it? They don’t even deserve him.”
“You’re getting attached.” He grinned at her.
Holy heavens. Her coffee went down the wrong way. She coughed as she choked a little. The uniform and the grin were too much. She shifted in her seat.
Peaches ran back to them. This time, instead of giving the ball to Bing, the dog dropped it at her feet, then stepped back and tilted his head at her expectantly.
She glanced between the dog and Bing. “See that puzzled look? He does that all the time. As if he doesn’t know what to make of me. He doesn’t do that with you.”
“He can probably read your ambivalent body language.”
Way to go to make her feel even more self-aware. She picked up the ball and threw it, making a mental note to wash her hands with antibacterial soap as soon as she went back inside.
“So when is the landscaper coming?” he asked.
“Haven’t found the right one yet.” The right price, actually. She was still paying off her astronomical medical bills. It didn’t leave much for extras.
“I could swing by tonight and drag them back behind the fence. Might be safer there than sitting by the road,” he offered.
There he went with wanting to save her again. “Only if I can pay you for it.”
He stared at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “You said you were good with design?”
“Do it for a living.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, his bicep making an interesting bulge under his shirt. “How about this? I put your garden into the ground tomorrow. I have the day off, since I have some weekend shifts. Then, when you have the time, you design my front yard. I’m putting the house up for sale.”
He’s moving away.
The thought shouldn’t have hit her as hard as it did. Okay, she was, on some level, attracted to him, but she didn’t want to be. And, fine, the thought that he watched out for her made her feel safer, but it shouldn’t have been that way.
As an independent, self-sufficient woman, she shouldn’t need a handsome cop to make her feel safe. She had a dog; she had locks on her doors. She needed to work on feeling that she, all by herself, could handle whatever life threw her way.
Yet a wave of disappointment and dismay hit her anyway. Part of her kind of liked the thought of him so close to her.
She had to force her mind to what he was saying. Right. Yard work. The trade seemed like a good deal, one that would solve her landscaping problems. She wouldn’t have to hire someone for a ton of money and, once the plants were in the ground, hopefully they would stop disappearing.
She drew a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Progress being made. I like it.” He grinned again.
So unfair. Jeremy was a good-looking guy. But he was still a kid, somehow, at thirty. Bing was a man in every way—older, with some hard edges to him. This was the guy who’d walk up to a stray Rottweiler and just handled it, seen the good in him. He was the man who could look at a small forest and offer to dig it in.
Which was a ton of work, come to think of it.
She tilted her head. “Why are you doing this? Helping me?”
“I’m not helping you. It’s an even trade.”
“And with the dog?”
“I’m helping the dog, not you. So don’t take it personally.”
She couldn’t tell if he meant that or if he was mocking her. For a long second, he held her gaze across the table. He was looking at her with the same expression that Peaches used, as if not sure what to make of her, as if not entirely certain of the wisdom of their newfound association.
His ringing phone interrupted the moment. He took the call and listened for a minute.
“All right. I’ll head right over there.” He stood, listening to more information from whomever he was talking to. Then he was moving toward the door, stopping only for a second to call back to her, “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning.”
Then he was gone, hurrying to his cruiser at
the curb.
First thing tomorrow morning.
It almost sounded like a date, which, of course, it wasn’t. They were doing a professional trade.
“It’s called a barter,” she told Peaches, who was watching her.
The dog’s tongue lolled out. He looked suspiciously as if he was laughing. Then he barked when her phone rang.
“I wanted to see how your appointment went the other day,” her mother said when Sophie picked up.
“Pretty good. Everything’s okay.” Talking about her garden vandalism would just recharge her mother’s quest to have her move home.
But it seemed she was on the warpath already anyway.
“You shouldn’t live alone. If you came home, we could talk more. I asked the elders, and they said they’d be happy to pray over you.”
“I appreciate it. But I’m okay. Really.” She did believe in God, but maybe she didn’t believe the same things exactly the same way as her mother.
“I don’t like the thought of you all by yourself, without Jeremy.”
“You didn’t like the thought of me with Jeremy either.”
A moment’s pause followed before her mother finally said, “You were living in sin.” Another pause. “You don’t have anyone else, do you?”
“No.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
They normally didn’t discuss their innermost feelings, so the question caught her off guard. She considered it carefully. Maybe part of her did still want Jeremy. Truth was, she was lonely. She missed the companionship. He’d been her first boyfriend, her only real boyfriend.
Could they work things out? Could she be more understanding? Could he learn to accept that she was changing?
Yet when she tried to picture her future with a man in it, it wasn’t Jeremy’s face she saw. It was Bing’s.
Stupid. Only because he’d just been talking to her, she was sure. Bing wasn’t the right man for her either.
He was a strong man who had his act together and knew what he wanted. She was still trying to figure out who she was, how she wanted her life to be.
“Is your back still giving you trouble?” She changed the subject and told herself to quit thinking about Bing.
* * *
They had an ID on the man Kristine Haynes had argued with the week before her death at the bank, and Mike had brought him in for questioning. Bing sailed across town in his cruiser.
“Where is he?” he asked Leila as he burst into the station.
“Interrogation room. Andre Blauel,” she said. “And the county commissioner called a minute ago. Wants you to call him back. You’re getting some kind of an award.”
He barely registered that. “I’ll deal with that later.” Awards didn’t motivate him, although the department had its share. They had a good reputation in the county. He strode to the back and pushed through the door to the interrogation room.
Chase was in there with the man already.
“Captain Ethan Bing.” Bing dropped into an empty chair and didn’t waste any time on niceties. “How did you know Kristine Haynes?”
“I coach her daughter’s softball team. Am I being charged with something?”
A man who had regular contact with the vic. He was in his late thirties, probably close in age to Bing, well built, good-looking with that movie star jaw.
Bing leaned forward. “Did you have an intimate relationship with the victim?”
“Hell, no. She was the biggest pain in the ass out of all the mothers involved with the team. Real micromanager. Her kid always had to be on top, best of everything, getting the best opportunities.”
“What did you fight with her about at the bank on April seventeen?”
The man’s jaw worked silently for a few seconds. Okay, that question had hit a nerve.
“She filed a complaint at the school against me for not supporting her daughter enough,” he said at last, looking as if steam would come out of his ears soon. “I ran into her at the bank, and I let her know I didn’t appreciate her efforts to undermine me. She was one of those tiger mothers. Should have moved to China. I told her.”
Chase fired off some questions, but the coach never got off track. His career seemed to be the most important thing to him. Chewing out a meddling mother was one thing. Killing her and risking his coaching career was another. He dreamed about moving up to the high school team. Bing didn’t think the man would do anything to jeopardize that.
When he pushed for an alibi for the date and time of murder next, Coach Blauel had one ready. He’d been at school, with dozens of witnesses.
By the time Leila knocked on the door to call him out, Bing was ready to leave, pretty sure the coach wasn’t their killer. If his alibi checked out—Joe would handle that—they could cross Blauel off the list.
“Just got a call from the Mushroom Mile Motel. One of the employees has seen the victim a couple of times there with an unidentified male. I thought you’d want to know right away. I got the contact information.” She held out a slip of paper with a name scribbled on it.
Maria Gonzales. “Is she there now?”
“I just talked to her.”
“Call her back and tell her to stay put. I’m coming out to see her.”
He headed out to his car, hope back on high again. The vic at a motel with a man…now that sounded like lover-boy material. Maybe they’d met at the motel when it was cold but went out into the woods as the weather was warming up—less of a chance that they’d be seen.
A possible lead in the Haynes case was worth putting his siren on. Bing zipped around traffic as he made his way over to the place. Magic Mushroom Motel, most locals called it, since there’d been a time, before the current management, when it had been pothead heaven. The night clerk had been a major dealer.
Bing’s first task when he’d become captain had been to clean the place up. It did pretty good business now with tourists who came in for the Mushroom Festival in Kennett Square, for the Chadds Ford Days, the Hot Air Balloon Festival, and the rest. The motel was close enough to Longwood Gardens and cheap enough so they got some of their traffic too.
He drove down the stretch of road locals called the Mushroom Mile because of all the mushroom producers lined up, one after the other, and the number of specialty stores that sold fresh local mushrooms.
The motel itself consisted of several buildings, the main office in the smallest one in the middle. Its roof had been crafted by Amish carpenters to resemble a mushroom cap. The giant round cap put it above the other buildings, making it visible from the highway. It probably drew some extra business.
Bing strode into the building and straight to the front desk. “I’m here to talk to Maria Gonzales.”
The front desk manager behind the counter was in her forties, big blonde hair in an ornate updo, enough makeup for an episode of Jersey Shore. A shorter woman with darker coloring sat in one of the waiting chairs, holding a newspaper. She stood immediately.
“I’m Maria Gonzales.” She held the newspaper out and pointed at the front page that held Kristine Haynes’s photo. Missing local woman found murdered.
“I know her. She used to come here,” she said in unaccented English. “I was visiting my mother in Mexico, so I didn’t know she was missing, but I just found this paper in one of the rooms, and I recognized her.”
“I appreciate you calling it in, ma’am. I’m Captain Bing, Broslin PD. I need to ask you some questions about her, if that’s all right.”
The front desk manager gave Maria an encouraging smile before looking at Bing. “You’re welcome to use one of the empty rooms.”
Maria led the way to a room in the back, her cart in front of the door. He followed her in. The beds were stripped but haven’t been remade yet. She sat at the table flanked by two sturdy hotel chairs and set the newspaper between them.
Bing brought out his notepad and pen. “Full name Maria Gonzales?”
She nodded.
“Address and phone numb
er?”
She rattled them off, clutching her hands on her lap.
He noted down her contact information. “When was the last time you saw the victim here?”
“Last Sunday. She was with a man, a tall, blond guy.”
Brian Haynes was short and balding. He would have had no reason to sneak around in hotel rooms with his wife on a regular basis, in any case.
“Could you tell me more about this man? Anything you can remember. Age, what he wore, what kind of car he was driving?”
“I didn’t see his car. I just see people come and go in the hallway when I’m cleaning. I only saw him from the back. He was as tall as you. Not too young, not too old. Always wore a suit. I saw him only twice. I saw her more. Maybe he waited until the hallway was clear to come out of the room.”
He tried to think of anything that might give him a clue. “Good tipper?”
She shook her head with a grimace. “Just one dollar.”
“When did Mrs. Haynes start coming here?”
“A year ago, maybe.”
“Remember what room they were in?”
“Always different. This Sunday they were in 211, I think.”
Bing spent another half an hour with her, trying to help her remember more, asking a slew of questions, but he didn’t get much more than that.
He thanked Maria and stopped at the front desk on his way out. “I need to know who was in room 211 last Sunday. I can get a warrant if necessary.”
“We all want that poor woman’s killer found.” The woman scrolled down her computer screen. “William Miller.”
“Do you ask for ID?” Most hotels did now, in the post 9/11 world.
She shook her head. “We’re supposed to, but a lot of people don’t like it.”
So the man could have, and most likely did, give a fake name. “Credit card number?”
She checked. “He prepaid in cash.”
“Could I have a list of previous dates when he was here?”
He waited while she ran the query, then printed him the dates, going back just a little over a year, as Maria had said. It seemed the victim and her mystery man had come about once a week.
He thought about that as he drove to the Haynes place, hoping to catch the man there. He would be still on bereavement leave, home with his daughters.
