Poppy Harmon Investigates

by Lee Hollis

  Shirley shook her head. “No. And I didn’t ask. I just assumed he was at the Spa Resort Casino, gambling away my money, as usual.”

  “We can check the security cameras at the casino to see if he was there,” Matt said.

  “You can, but why bother?” Shirley said quietly, defeated. “I think we all know where he really was that night.”

  Shirley didn’t come out and say it.

  She didn’t have to, because they were all thinking it.

  Dash was probably at Olivia Hammersmith’s house.

  Trying to squeeze more cash out of her in exchange for sexual favors.

  And when she refused to give him any more handouts, he got angry and knocked her head into a coffee table and killed her.

  Chapter 46

  There was no question Dash was in tip-top shape as Poppy and Matt watched him bench-press over three hundred pounds in the small workout gym located near the clubhouse and main swimming pool in the Palm Leaf complex. He was by far the youngest one in the gym. Two wispy, frail ladies in their eighties chattered while slowly and steadily walking next to each other on side-by-side treadmills. An elderly man with a hunched back and a few strands of gray hair combed over his otherwise bald head was on the floor, on his back, trying his best to do a few crunches. And then there was Dash, shirtless, muscles bulging, sweat streaming down his face, full of youthful vigor and an overabundance of testosterone, showing off by lifting those giant round weights.

  Shirley had guessed they would find Dash at the gym. It was the only regular appointment he bothered to keep during the day. She was right. At the sight of Dash, defined arms glistening and wide chest heaving, Matt obviously hesitated in confronting him. If things got heated, the slim, unintimidating actor didn’t stand a chance. He was about four inches shorter than Dash and fifty pounds shy of Dash’s formidable body weight.

  Poppy pushed past Matt, who was still trying to work up some bravado before alerting Dash to their presence. She stopped next to the bench where he was on his back, ready to do one more rep, and looked down at him with a polite smile.

  Dash sighed, and instead of lifting, he carefully placed the metal bar back in its slot and sat up, then scooped a white towel off the floor and wiped the beads of sweat off his face.

  “What now?” he asked gruffly.

  “We spoke to Shirley,” Poppy said.

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And she told us you were not with her on the night of Olivia Hammersmith’s murder, like you said.”

  Dash scowled as he eyed Matt, spoiling for a fight.

  Matt tried hard not to shrink away, summoning as much acting skill as possible to play the part of Poppy’s brave protector but falling short of a truly convincing performance.

  Poppy wasn’t the least bit concerned about Dash going on the attack and beating up Matt. There were too many witnesses.

  Dash looked around. The two old ladies were still engrossed in their own gossipy conversation, and the feeble man had given up on finishing his sit-ups and was now bent over the water fountain, slurping loudly to rehydrate.

  Dash turned his attention back to Poppy.

  “I said that only because Shirley wanted me to.”

  “We know. So where were you?”

  Dash paused, thinking over what he should say, and then said flatly, “I was at the Spa Resort Casino all night. I was never anywhere near Olivia’s house.”

  “Yes you were,” Matt said.

  Dash stood up and puffed out his chest. “You calling me a liar?”

  Matt’s lip quivered a bit and his face went slightly pale, but he held his ground and continued. “We got ahold of the security footage from the casino on the night in question. You were seen entering at nine forty-five and not leaving until almost four in the morning.”

  Dash stared at them evenly. “Okay.” He tightened his grip on the towel in his hand, as if he was going to roll it up and snap it at them. But he didn’t. He just kept it taut in his grip, ready to strangle somebody, which was mostly just an intimidation tactic.

  Matt bravely went on.

  “And we also checked the security cameras at the Palm Leaf. You were seen driving onto the property at six o’clock that day, after the tribute for Shirley at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs. And then you were seen driving off the property again at nine o’clock.”

  “See? I wasn’t even at the Palm Leaf when Olivia was killed!” Dash yelled.

  “But you were,” Poppy said. “The police believe Olivia was killed sometime before ten o’clock. They’re still waiting for a more exact time from the coroner, but regardless, that puts you in close proximity to her house near the time of the murder.”

  Dash finally flinched as he realized he’d been caught.

  “If you weren’t at your house, where were you? No one saw you at the gym or the clubhouse. We questioned all the special friends you have at the Palm Leaf, all the ladies you often drop by to say hello to, and none of them said they had entertained you on that day, so that really only leaves Olivia Hammersmith,” Poppy said, eyes locking on Dash.

  “You can’t prove anything!” Dash wailed.

  Poppy pointed a finger in his face.

  “We have two eyewitnesses who saw you leave Olivia’s house early one morning, so we know you two had some sort of relationship”

  “Who? The old broad on wheels and her screwed-up son? I saw them watching me that morning. Last time I checked, they were both in jail for a series of burglaries, so what they say isn’t exactly credible.”

  Dash turned to walk away, but Matt advanced quickly and grabbed his arm. Dash froze in place, slowly turned his head, and glared down at Matt’s hand gripping his bicep. “You best let go right now, little man, or I’m going to pick up that barbell over there and crush your head with it.”

  Matt stayed in his tough guy character, giving it his all, although Poppy could tell he was terrified on the inside. “You can get hyped up on your steroids and threaten me all you want, big guy, but we both know you are in a heap of trouble.”

  “We haven’t told the police yet about your little side hobby, romancing the wealthier ladies of the Palm Leaf, Dash,” Poppy said. “But we’ve gotten rather friendly with a Detective Jordan of the Palm Desert Police Department, and I am sure he would love to hear all about it.”

  Dash’s bluster and bullying tone suddenly faltered just a bit. He dropped the towel he had been holding.

  The idea of falling under the spotlight of the police obviously frightened him.

  “Okay. Fine. I was there that night.”

  “At Olivia’s?” Poppy asked.

  “Yes. I went over there around eight thirty. I needed some cash to gamble with at the casino. Anyway, I didn’t want to ask Shirley, and so I figured Olivia, who I had gotten rather close to, would be happy to help me out.”

  Poppy knew exactly what he meant by close.

  “But she refused. Can you believe that? I guess I hadn’t been paying her enough attention. These women, they can be so needy. Whatever. We argued, and I may have gotten a little loud and angry, and she was worried the neighbors might hear, so she finally relented and stuffed an envelope full of cash and handed it over just to get rid of me.”

  “Which you happily accepted,” Poppy said, disgusted.

  “Sure. I had a great night at the casino, too. Came out ahead playing blackjack.”

  “So you’re saying she was still alive when you left?” Matt asked.

  “Of course she was! I never touched her! Well, she wanted me to, but I needed a casino fix and didn’t have time to spend my whole night making that silly drunk old broad happy. So I promised to come back the next day and curl her toes, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, unfortunately, I do,” Poppy said.

  “But I never got the chance, because the next day it was all over the news that she was . . .” Dash’s voice trailed off.

  “Dead,” Matt said.

  Dash shook his head. “It’s so sad
. . . .”

  “You’re actually going to miss her?” Poppy asked, incredulous.

  Dash chuckled and then spat out, “Not her. Her checkbook.”

  Poppy really wanted to hit him.

  But she refrained.

  She still wasn’t convinced he was telling them the truth.

  But she certainly wasn’t as sure as she had been before that Dash was without a doubt their killer.

  Chapter 47

  Poppy had really hoped that Dash was guilty of Olivia’s murder. Not for any noble reason, like finding justice for Olivia Hammersmith. No, if Shirley Fox’s husband was put away for murder, in Poppy’s mind, that would be some kind of karmic punishment for the fading star for sleeping with her husband. She hated herself for thinking that way, but she couldn’t help it. Despite her resolve to remain impartial until the case was solved, she just couldn’t entomb her fury and resentment. It bothered her that she was so easily capable of such angry thoughts.

  The fact was, it wasn’t Shirley’s fault that Chester had cheated on her. She was merely a willing participant.

  The blame for Chester’s betrayal was solely the responsibility of Chester, who had proved himself a liar already by hiding the state of their finances before his death.

  But as Poppy stared at the police report addendum that Violet’s grandson Wyatt had co-opted, her secret desire that Shirley watch her husband go to prison for murder slowly began to fade away.

  Because once the coroner typed up his final autopsy report and delivered it to the police, it had quickly become apparent that, true to his word, Dash was in the clear.

  The blow to Olivia’s head, which was most likely from falling into the coffee table and which caused severe head trauma, had occurred at approximately nine thirty in the evening, give or take a few minutes.

  The coroner continued to insist that Olivia’s death was a homicide, based on the angle from which she fell. There was nothing in the vicinity for her to trip over, and even if she had stumbled over her own two feet, given the exact location of the impressions on the shaggy area rug from her slippers, it would have been impossible for her head to connect with the edge of the coffee table where it did. She would have had to have been much closer, and there would have to be distinct impressions of her footprints to prove it. There was a great deal of medical speak in the report that Poppy barely understood as she hovered over Wyatt’s computer, reading the file, but the gist of the coroner’s conclusions was crystal clear. The coroner, although not with 100 percent certainty, strongly believed that someone had given Olivia Hammersmith a powerful shove that sent her colliding into that coffee table.

  And since there were no other foot impressions on the rug besides the victim’s, and those were too far away from the coffee table to support a “trip and fall” theory, the coroner believed the killer had to have been standing several feet away from the table, somewhere on the hardwood floor.

  It just wasn’t Dash.

  On security footage Dash was clearly seen driving away from the Palm Leaf complex at 9:00 p.m. The security cameras at the Spa Resort Casino had him entering there at 9:45 p.m., which would make sense since it was about a half-hour drive from Palm Desert to the Spa Resort Casino in Palm Springs, and taking into account the time it would take to park and walk to the entrance, Dash would have arrived some time around 9:45 p.m., which was what the cameras clearly showed.

  They played the Palm Leaf security cam video again— all of them, Poppy, Matt, Violet, Iris, and Wyatt—watching carefully to see who drove onto the property and who drove off, trying to identify any recognizable cars or faces that passed underneath the bright floodlights at the main gate.

  Finally, Iris rubbed her eyes and walked away. “This is a waste of time. If the killer is someone who lives at the Palm Leaf, they won’t be seen coming or going. There are no cameras on the individual streets, so someone could have driven or just walked over to Olivia’s house and not been seen by anyone.”

  “Iris is right,” Violet sighed. “If the killer was already on the property at the time of the murder, we may never know who it is.”

  “We can’t give up yet, ladies,” Matt said, trying to be encouraging. “Let’s watch it back one more time and see if we missed something.”

  Poppy appreciated his determination.

  She knew he was trying his best to keep her from collapsing in a flood of tears, but he needn’t have worried. She was done crying.

  She just wanted this whole nightmare to finally be over.

  But as Poppy gazed at the footage on the computer screen and saw a car entering that she instantly recognized, it suddenly became clear that the nightmare was just beginning.

  “Wyatt! Go back!” Poppy cried.

  Wyatt, startled, scratched his face and then hit a button. The footage reversed, and a beat-up Subaru backed into frame just enough so the person driving was briefly caught in the light.

  “There! Stop!”

  The time code froze at 9:11 p.m.

  Nineteen minutes before the murder.

  Matt leaned in, his eyes squinting. “Is that . . . ?”

  Poppy’s heart was in her throat.

  She couldn’t speak.

  Iris and Violet returned to the desk and peered at the screen, curious to know what they were seeing.

  Violet gasped.

  Poppy managed to gather herself long enough to pick up her phone and make a call.

  When the person on the other end answered, Poppy spoke in a shaky voice. “I need to see you right now. Where are you?”

  Chapter 48

  They stood facing each other in the parking lot of a popular yoga studio in Palm Springs.

  Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she looked trim and fit in a light purple high-low tank, a maroon sweat jacket, and black leggings. Underneath her arm was a rolled-up yoga mat, the same color as her top. Her sneakers matched, too. She had always had a definitive style and sense of fashion.

  Her face was drawn and defeated, and her shoulders slumped forward, as she stared solemnly at her mother.

  “I had a feeling the second you called that you knew . . . ,” she said softly, glancing from Poppy to Matt, who stood resolutely behind Poppy, mouth agape, devastated, still trying to process what they had just learned.

  Iris and Violet had wisely chosen to stay behind at the garage office so as not to overwhelm her with a crowd during the confrontation.

  “Heather, why did you come to the Palm Leaf that night if not to see me . . . ?”

  Heather gazed guiltily at them and sniffed back tears that desperately wanted to push their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “I went to see her.”

  “Olivia Hammersmith?” Poppy whispered.

  Heather nodded.

  “Why?” Poppy asked.

  Matt was too broken up to speak.

  “Because of the book she was writing. She was threatening to blab everything she knew about Shirley Fox’s love life and expose all her past lovers.”

  Poppy gasped as the realization hit her. “Including Chester.”

  “Yes . . . ,” Heather said, unable to hold back the tears any longer. “Mother, I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want to see you go through any more pain.”

  “Oh, Heather . . . ,” Poppy cried.

  “I didn’t go there planning to do her any harm, I swear. It just happened. It was a horrible accident. I begged her to omit Chester from the manuscript, I even offered to pay her what little I could scrape together from my savings, but she refused. She was so rude and dismissive. We argued. Things got heated. She was drunk and belligerent and kept yelling at me to leave, but I just stood there, trying to reason with her, which just made her madder, and then she came at me in a boozy rage and slapped at me and tried to physically push me out the door, and then I don’t know what happened, but I shoved her to get her away from me. . . .”

  “Hard enough to send her flying into the coffee table . . . ,” Poppy murmured, in a state of sh
ock as the hard reality of what had happened slowly sank in and settled into a sense of dread.

  “I heard this loud crack as her head hit the edge of the coffee table, and she was facedown on the floor. I kept apologizing to her, but she didn’t answer me, and then I saw a pool of blood forming on the carpet, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran out of there . . . and I’ve been guilt ridden ever since.”

  “The skin under Olivia’s fingernails belongs to you,” Poppy said.

  Heather nodded and then bunched up the fabric of the maroon sweat jacket she was wearing, revealing remnants of scratches on the back of her left arm.

  “I wasn’t a suspect, so they never requested a DNA sample.”

  “It was self-defense,” Matt offered, trying to make the best of a miserable situation.

  “I still killed her, and I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life,” Heather cried.

  Poppy finally snapped out of her stunned state.

  She couldn’t allow this to happen.

  Her daughter had already been through enough emotional trauma.

  The shocking discovery of her beloved stepfather’s infidelities.

  His sudden death only a few months earlier.

  The total loss of her inheritance, which clouded her entire future.

  No.

  Poppy was not going to let her daughter suffer anymore.

  She was going to figure a way out of this mess.

  She tried to think.

  There had to be an answer.

  “Mother . . .”

  Poppy held up a hand to silence her daughter.

  She was busy racking her brain.

  Maybe if they just kept quiet about the whole unfortunate incident, the police would never have to know what really happened.

  That was probably the best course of action.

  Yes, she could get Matt, Iris, and Violet, and even Wyatt, if they bribed him with enough video games, to make a pact and keep the secret.

  “Mother . . .”

  A police cruiser with its lights flashing pulled into the parking lot.

  Poppy stared at her daughter.