Full Bodied Murder

by Christine E. Blum

  “You busy or have a few minutes?” asked Sally.

  I looked at Peggy and she did not look like her usual rosy self.

  “Of course I have all the time in the world for you, have a seat,” I said, steering them to the conference table and looking from Peggy to Sally with a questioning expression.

  “The fire inspectors’ report came back,” Sally began.

  “Oh-kay,” I replied, starting to get nervous.

  “They say that the fire was started by a burning candle left unattended,” Sally continued.

  “They think I’m a goddamned lush,” spat Peggy. “They think I passed out and let the house burn down!”

  “Now, the insurance company is giving her some pushback even though the damage was not extensive,” Sally said.

  “And here’s the kicker, I don’t own anything but flameless candles. Got a set from my daughter last Christmas, no mess, no fuss. And I hate those damn frou-frou scented things anyway,” Peggy groused.

  “But the inspectors said they found residue from an actual wax candle?” I asked. Peggy and Sally nodded.

  “Peggy, can you tell me what you were doing just before the fire broke out?”

  “Yes, like I told all of them, I hadn’t gone to bed yet, even though it was close to midnight. I’d gotten it into my head that I needed to clean out my spice cabinet and was in the kitchen going through them. Good thing too, I had caraway seeds going back to the ’60s.”

  “Is this a regular bedtime ritual? Because I’ll pick you up and bring you back if you would tackle my linen closet,” I said, handing Peggy a coconut water from my office fridge.

  “She’s a putterer,” said Sally, pouring some sort of vitamin powder into a water bottle she had grabbed.

  “Very funny, you two. Shall I go on?”

  I nodded and clasped my hands together as if in prayer.

  “Things happened very quickly. I heard glass breaking in the living room, there was a ‘swoosh’ sound, which must have been the fire spreading, and then the house started filling with smoke. I grabbed some photo albums from the dining room shelf and ran out the kitchen door.”

  “Let me get the sequence straight. Are you sure this is the order in which things happened: first you heard glass breaking, then a ‘swoosh’ sound, then smoke?”

  “Like I just said, Halsey.”

  Peggy was sitting up now, sensing that I was about to throw out the “lush” theory.

  “How fast did these things happen?” Sally was beginning to catch my drift.

  “Oh, pretty quick, I’d say one or two minutes . . . those bozo fire inspectors weren’t listening to me,” Peggy realized.

  “Seems not, glass wouldn’t break before a fire started unless someone broke the window from the outside. And, if a lit candle fell over, there is no way that a fire would break out that quickly and cause so much smoke,” I said.

  “I don’t own any goddamned real candles,” Peggy shouted.

  “Of course you don’t, dear, so someone must have tossed one in along with an accelerant. That would account for the swooshing sound. Something like ethyl alcohol, which smells like and could be confused with a drink being spilled,” added nurse Sally.

  “Only if you don’t know your ass from your elbow,” Peggy said, climbing back up onto her horse.

  “I’m assuming that you don’t know anyone who’s mad enough at you to torch your place, and this seems more like a warning shot or your house would have been burned down to the foundation,” I said.

  “Which means that someone wants to shut you up, Peggy,” Sally said.

  “Ray and/or Inez, maybe?” I said. “You said they saw you catch them together in front of Rosa’s house. Could also have been Musso,” I went on. “Peggy, you said you would watch him some nights loading the cars on the truck. Maybe he saw you.”

  “I don’t care if he did, he’s now made this personal.”

  “That’s my point,” I told Peggy. “First Aimee, now you, I think you all should stop investigating and leave this to me. I’ve got Jack as my wingman.”

  “Really? I figured him more as a breast man,” Sally said. “In either case, we are not going to abandon you in your quest for the truth!”

  My computer pinged, alerting me that the automated search I’d set in motion for the Orchid Tree Agency was complete. I moved over to the screen to take a look.

  “Well this adds a new layer of intrigue to the equation,” I said.

  Peggy and Sally joined me.

  “It would seem that dear Tala was a mail-order bride.”

  “She’s married to Musso?” Peggy asked.

  “Let me set up another search; I’ll check wedding records in both the Ukraine and the US.”

  * * *

  That afternoon I called an emergency Wine Club at my office. This was a work session, so everyone was seated around the conference table and I limited us to two bottles of wine.

  I brought everyone up to speed, including the fact that my search hadn’t returned any marriage documents for Tala and Musso or for Tala and anyone. I’d also seen that she was supposed to be living in Texas.

  “Well that explains the visa,” said Peggy. It was great to see her back to full confidence.

  “What do you mean?” Aimee asked.

  “She may have come over here thinking she was going to be a bride, but whoever sent for her must have gotten cold feet and let her loose.”

  “She was jilted, no wonder she’s such a bitch,” Cassie added.

  “The important thing is to determine if she had a motive for killing Rosa. She certainly had opportunity.” I walked up to some charts I’d taped to the wall.

  Having done countless websites, I created a blank project flow chart and put it up on the wall to be filled in.

  “I’m going to write down the names of every suspect and then let’s fill in the evidence underneath each person,” I informed them. “Since we were just talking about her, let’s start with Tala.”

  * * *

  We worked at this for about an hour and ended up with the following:

  TALA

  • bitter, rejected mail-order bride

  • pushes Musso to make lots of money to buy her things

  • probably knows that Rosa and Musso once had a romance

  • getting rid of Rosa brings Musso’s attention back to her

  • her visa is running out and she needs to get Musso to marry her

  RAY

  • two-bit drug dealer, lost house to Rosa

  • cops zeroing in on him, suspect he’s getting shipments in the Marina

  • Rosa’s will was being changed to cut him out

  • killing Rosa was a way to get the house and money before the new will is finalized

  • he’s having an affair with Inez who knows everything that’s going on in the neighborhood; she could have tipped Ray off about the will

  MUSSO

  • leasing cars to movie shoots off the books

  • lives with demanding Tala who pressures him to make more money and for marriage

  • trying to keep really low profile, no debts, and no records

  • once had a romance with Rosa and wanted to marry her

  INEZ

  • having an affair with Ray

  • seems to be struggling to make ends meet, relies on recycling

  • but refused job offer from Aimee

  • how can she afford to live?

  “This is all circumstantial, we still don’t have anything concrete to take to the cops,” Peggy concluded. “I think that we need to divide and conquer, everyone take a suspect and tail them until we get some real evidence.”

  I started to wonder if Peggy had worked for the FBI in her younger life, and vowed to pick up the research I’d started on her again. This time as an ally rather than a suspect, she was clearly on my side.

  “Good idea, Peggy,” I said, retaking the floor. “How about you take Ray; Sally, take Musso; Cassie, you have Inez
; and I’ll tackle Tala. It will be a pleasure,” I said, smiling.

  “I really wish I could help, you guys, but I just can’t be gone from the yogurt shop for any amount of time.” Aimee had a hangdog expression on her face. “And this all still really scares me.”

  “You can help, Aimee. You have a ringside seat to watch what Ray and his guys are up to,” I said. “You can let Peggy and Cassie know when they appear to be getting ready to move.”

  “I can do that.” Her mood lifted immediately.

  “I’ll probably get Marisol to help me, she’ll be following me anyway.”

  At that we all looked at each other not knowing whether to high five, fist pump, or hug. We ended up toasting with our glasses in their various states of fullness.

  * * *

  I was so hepped up that night from the potential progress we were making that I couldn’t sleep. I figured that I’d download the photos from Carl’s camera so that I could make sure that I got it back to her before he came home from his golf trip.

  I popped the SD card into my reader and let it start up. I figured that I’d work backward from the last photo taken and download and erase everything along the way. I have to admit that Cassie is not a bad photographer. There were a lot of the ones she took at the Marina that would work great for my presentation to the Coast Guard.

  When I’d erased the last one, I saw a bunch that must have been taken one day when she and Peggy followed Musso. Most were mundane, him driving to the Post Office, to get gas, stopping at In-N-Out. It was when he arrived back on Rose Avenue that it got interesting. He must have parked at home and then walked because the next shot of him was taken in front of Rosa’s house. I felt my pulse quicken. There were several of him just standing there. I downloaded one and erased the rest. There was one last burst of shots, about five in a row that Cassie must have taken while holding down the shutter. She must not have been really looking because in these we see Ray approaching and he and Musso talking. Cassie surely would have told me if she’d witnessed that.

  I stopped and sat back to gather my thoughts. Had they arranged to meet? Aimee had said that she’d seen Musso and Ray’s guys talk a few times, perhaps he knew Ray as well. Maybe they had killed her together. But why?

  I had a headache and very few answers. I erased the photos and the disc was back to Carl’s last batch. I was about to eject the disc when I looked at the photo on my screen. It was a shot of Rosa’s front window, she was inside wearing only a bra and panties.

  Dear God.

  * * *

  I waited until eight a.m., hoping that it was not too early to call Sally. She said she’d been up since six, her normal routine and would be right over with fruit and yogurt. I put on the kettle.

  I don’t know why but I had a sheepish, guilty expression on my face when I opened the door.

  “Oh my, you look like you’ve seen Marley’s ghost with his pants down,” Sally said, checking me over carefully. I could see her mentally doing a checklist of my pallor, pupils, and overall demeanor.

  “It’s not me, it’s what I’ve found. I’ve been up all night, I really don’t know how to deal with this.”

  I set up my laptop on the breakfast table and hooked up the SD reader.

  “This is from Carl’s camera. Cassie borrowed it to help me and take photos in the Marina for my Coast Guard presentation. I promised to download them and return the camera so Carl wouldn’t know we’d used it.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me; you need to eat something, dear, you’re looking a little green around the gills.”

  “It’s just a cold. Cassie and I sat out too long at the café in the Marina.”

  I cued up the reader to the photo of Rosa in her bra.

  “Holy Jesus on a skateboard!” Sally whelped.

  “I know, are you okay? Do you need some wine?”

  I know I do.

  “Is this the only one? Are there more?”

  “I haven’t looked, I was too much in shock.”

  We spent the next half hour viewing hundreds of photos of the houses on Rose Avenue. There were definitely more of Rosa’s place than anyone else’s, but thankfully only two more of her half dressed. After we’d run through all of them we both took a deep breath.

  “What do you make of this? You must know Carl pretty well, you’ve been next door neighbors for what, thirty years?”

  “At least, and I would never have pegged him for doing something like this, whatever this is.”

  “It is strange that he seems to be spying on a bunch of people since he has photos of their houses. Could he just be a passive perv?”

  “Like a peeping Carl? Just so hard for me to imagine. But I do know that we should keep this to ourselves for now. Cassie would not be able to handle it, especially since they are having some money problems.”

  “Really? She sure doesn’t let on.”

  “He tries to gloss over it to her, after all, when they married he had the money and she had the looks. But he has money troubles, business is down and he does a good job of hiding it because he doesn’t want to worry her.”

  I wonder what else he’s hiding. . . .

  Chapter 21

  My cold had not really gotten better and I was going to have to sit out my first Halloween on Rose Avenue.

  I was disappointed. I was finally in a house and had a chance to hand out candy to the kids. Also Sally and Joe had invited me to a really cool sounding party a few blocks over at a house that was totally transformed for the holiday.

  I’d driven by it the night before. They had built a facade that covered the entire front of the house, depicting a Transylvanian castle overlooking a gothic graveyard. Coffins opened and closed with hydraulics, bats flew by overhead on fish line invisible at night, and on the roof they had set up an entire “mad scientist” scene with brains in jars and electrical currents and sparks running through a tin skull cap on the “patient.” Lights flashed that made you look from one corner to the other, which I was pretty sure could be seen from space.

  I have an acute sense of occasion, the day of the Super Bowl or the World Series I am passionate about one of the teams, even if I’ve never really followed them. I’m the person who wears my “I Voted” sticker until it falls off. I wear green for St. Patrick’s, red for Valentine’s, and black for 9/11. Missing Halloween did not make Halsey a happy camper.

  I was also home alone. Jack had convinced me to let him take Bardot for the second time on the recon he was doing with his detective friend in the Marina. He’d said that the night before they’d tracked and chased a guy for about an hour before he’d finally eluded them. He was pretty sure that it was Ray. He also thought it was best to work with Bardot alone on this and get her used to scent tracking without my distraction.

  “No argument here, although I’m not sure that I appreciate being called a ‘distraction,’ ” I’d told him.

  I’d worked hard to train my dog to behave even if she is selective about showing it. But he promised to take me out to dinner on Saturday, so I figured I’d let them have their fun.

  The girls had warned me that if I didn’t want to be bothered by the trick or treaters, I should have as few lights on as possible and hang a sign on the door saying SORRY, NO CANDY, SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.

  Apparently Rose Avenue was a popular Halloween destination for people coming from all over Los Angeles. Many of the houses were really decked out, and someone had spread a vicious rumor that we gave out better candy. Plus, I’d heard that we were talked about on the local radio stations.

  Sure enough, even before it got dark, a swarm of cars appeared out of nowhere and squeezed into every available spot, often partially blocking driveways. I peeked out my living room window, making sure that the only illumination came from my TV.

  Like every other year I was watching The Exorcist with the sound on low. How great is that movie? I love it so much that the theme song is my ringtone. Ellen Burstyn’s lounging pajamas alone are worth the price of admission
. And dear little Linda Blair had curses I use to this day if someone cuts me off on the road.

  I’d thrown on my trusty tank top and some sweats and was curled up on the sofa watching the rest of the movie. It felt awfully big without Bardot spooning next to me. I crunched up a pillow and settled in. Not that I missed my ex, but these are the kind of nights when I miss snuggling. Bardot filled that void and I didn’t have to listen to any annoying banter. I was probably just missing my dog.

  At some point I dozed off.

  I was woken up a couple of hours later by the guttural, piercing scream of an animal. It took me a moment to orient myself to where I was. The TV was no longer on and it was black as pitch in my house.

  SPLASH! Something was thrashing in my pool. I sat up and turned on the table lamp. Nothing. I tried the TV remote, same result. The power was out.

  Where the heck did I put the flashlight?

  The pool water went silent and I heard the gate to my backyard close.

  Shit.

  I went out but couldn’t see anything in the back either. I could hear faint sounds of kids chiming “trick or treat” from the street. I guess a blackout is no reason to halt the quest for sweet confections.

  I could smell something a bit rancid and metallic, which gave me a stomach drop reflex. To dispel the feeling, I tried to chalk it up to my regular night visitor, the skunk. I ran back inside to dig around in the hall closet for a light and jammed my shin right into the edge of the coffee table at full speed. The area with the least amount of skin hit the area on the table with the least bit of resistance.

  “Aaahhh,” I screamed and fell to the floor.

  At that moment someone started pounding at my front door. Then the door shook as if someone was trying to open it. I quickly pushed myself up from the floor and hit my head on the end table I must have fallen under.

  “Nooooo,” I whined, falling back down on my face again.

  I took deep breaths to try and dull the pain and crawled across the living room floor to the front window. For a second I thought about going for the phone and calling 9-1-1, but I didn’t want to bother them if this was just some Halloween prank. My head was throbbing and I felt dizzy and nauseous.