The Glow of Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Fair enough. Who has a grudge against him?”

  “I have no idea. Why are you asking me? Why would you think I know anything?”

  I smiled and leaned in close to whisper, “I was the receptionist at a big company for a summer after high school. By the time I left for college, I knew everything about that place. Who was friends, and who wasn’t. Who goes to lunch with whom. You know what I’m talking about—it’s part of the fun of the job. You’re more in the know than the boss.”

  She giggled. “It’s true.”

  “I know you don’t know me well, but I also know you respect Edwin. If you have even a teeny hint of an idea that might point me in the right direction, I sure hope you tell me. Even if all you have is a suspicion—I won’t quote you. I just need a lead, a place to start. Don’t you hate the thought that Edwin is being taken advantage of?”

  “Of course … and what with his wife being killed … it’s just awful.”

  “Let’s be methodical. Is anyone desperate for cash?”

  She scrunched up her face for a moment. “No one I know.”

  “Whoever is behind this scheme knew the antique’s history, so it has to be someone who knew Edwin or Ava well. Is there someone he’s especially close to? An old friend who pops in for lunch? Someone he’s worked with forever?”

  “Miranda, his assistant. I don’t think they’re close, but they’ve worked together for like fifteen years.”

  “Good. Thank you. How about someone who’s mad at him? Maybe someone who got fired or demoted or something.”

  The waitress placed our drinks on the Formica counter. I sipped some tea.

  Judi used her straw to stir the Coke. She lowered her voice. “You should talk to Tammy Perlow. She used to work at Towson’s. She left about six months ago.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She was brought in as a temp to scan in documents. We’re going paperless.”

  “What happened?”

  “It didn’t work out. She left pretty abruptly, if you know what I mean. She was only there about three months.”

  “She was fired?”

  “I’m not allowed to say.”

  “I understand. No problem. I asked for a hint, and you’ve given me one. I’m grateful.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t quote me.”

  “And I won’t.” I lowered my eyes to my tea. “What’s Tammy like?”

  “She’s beautiful. Like a model.”

  “Is she nice?”

  “I guess.” She stirred her Coke some more, spinning ice into the glass. “She and Edwin used to joke a lot.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw them standing around laughing, you know?”

  I nodded, reading between the lines. “Who else should I talk to?”

  “I don’t know … besides which, I’m really not supposed to talk about anyone or anything. I shouldn’t have said as much.”

  “I’ll never tell,” I said, sipping my iced tea. “Do you know where I can find Tammy?”

  She didn’t, but that was okay. I had a name, and that was what I came for. I slid two twenty-dollar bills under my glass and stood up. Forty was probably ten too much, but it was way short of what anyone might mistake for a bribe. When Judi recalled our conversation, I wanted my generosity to be part of the mix.

  “Thanks, Judi. Enjoy that lobster roll!”

  I stopped at a deli three doors down and bought a premade spinach salad, the kind with three strips of grilled chicken on top. The clerk tossed a small plastic tub of ranch dressing into the bag, along with a napkin-wrapped plastic knife and fork. Once I reached my car, I levered the seat back so I had plenty of room, lowered the windows to catch the fresh, briny ocean breeze, and perched the salad on my lap.

  Tammy was beautiful, like a model. Employed, then not, after only a few months. I considered the odds that Edwin had fibbed when he told me that he hoped his marriage would succeed. Based solely on what Judi hadn’t said, I wondered if Tammy might be Edwin’s mistress. Disappointed in his marriage, rich beyond most men’s dreams, Edwin might have set Tammy up in a posh condo and given her a fancy car and endless credit cards. Everyone was happy until Ava got wind of it and raised all sorts of hell—especially since she’d just learned that she was pregnant. Maybe Ava confronted Tammy, saw a younger, prettier version of herself, and announced the gravy train had pulled out of the station. Perhaps Tammy decided not to go quietly, but rather to take out the competition.

  People have killed for less.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I breezed through Grey Gull security as if I owned the place.

  The man working the guardhouse was younger and more affable than A. Henderson, the guard who’d refused to allow me in on Wednesday. This man’s name tag read R. VORN. He handed me a laminated guest placard for my dashboard and told me how to find Penelope Hahn’s unit.

  Penelope’s town house was tall and narrow, positioned to optimize the water view. The glossy admiral blue of her door contrasted nicely with the mellow red brick and the crisp white trim. A wreath made of sprigs of lavender and silvery gray dusty miller twirled through and around supple twigs hung from a silver hook. The lavender scent drifted toward me in the warm breeze. I pushed the buzzer.

  Penelope opened the door, smiled warmly, and invited me in.

  After I reassured her that my scrapes and nicks were nothing, just an unfortunate scuffle with a bush, she led the way into her country-farmhouse-style kitchen. I joined her for a cup of tea and nibbled on a chocolate chip cookie. We chatted easily about Dutch cabinetry, known for its dramatic floral and geometric marquetry ornamentations, the beautiful summer weather, and therapeutic horse rides. Half an hour later, I left with a $5,000 check payable to New Hampshire Children First! tucked in my tote and drove back toward the main entrance. Before reaching it, though, I turned right, then right again, and rolled to a stop behind the silver Lexus parked in Jean Cooper’s driveway.

  Jean’s three-story town house also overlooked the pond, but the position and style were different from Penelope’s. Jean’s was built on a hill, and her front door was on the second floor.

  I climbed the flight of stone stairs to the entry level and knocked. No answer. I pressed the doorbell and listened to the tinny chimes, then cupped my eyes to peer in one of the sheer-curtain-covered windows that flanked the door. Down the hall, past a bowl of oranges sitting on a kitchen counter, I could see out the back door and clear across the water to the library.

  I returned to the driveway and glanced around. The complex grounds were fastidiously groomed. Bushes were neatly clipped. The plant arrangements—pink impatiens in the shady areas and rosy petunias in the sunny sections—were edged with gray bricks. The grass was mowed, the edges precisely trimmed. No one was in sight.

  I walked to the other side of Jean’s house. Hidden behind a ten-foot-tall Eastern pine, a six-foot-wide gravel passage gave access to the rear, separating Jean’s end unit from the next row of town houses. I slipped past the tree, crunched my way along the path, sidestepped down a short, steep incline, and found myself on a pond-front swath of lawn. The pond was surrounded by wild growth, although it was possible, I supposed, that what appeared native and natural was cultivated and staged. Pussy willows and cattails grew in tangled abandon alongside tall grasses. I recognized wispy feather reed, soft red maiden, and yellowish northern sea oats. Mixed in were Boston and lady ferns, lilies of the valley, and riverbank grapes, the dark purple fruit hanging low, the tendrils twirling around Coral Fire mountain ash on their climb to the heavens.

  Standing with my back to the water, I assessed Jean’s unit. Sliding glass doors led to a ground-level room. The drapes were drawn. No sliver of light showed through. To the right, stairs led to a deck off the kitchen, and above it, on the third level, a Romeo and Juliet balcony jutted out from what I assumed was the master bedroom.

  I tugged the sliding glass door, but it didn’t budge.

  I
climbed the back staircase and peered through the window in the kitchen door. The bowl of oranges was directly in front of me. By angling my face and pressing my right eye into the glass, I was able to see sideways to the sink. Nothing. No dirty dishes. No coffee mug on the counter. No half-eaten muffin. I turned my face the other way, and with my left eye at the glass, I had a clear sight line into the dining room. A black and beige Michael Kors tote bag rested on the glass-topped table. A bone-colored shoe lay on its side by the china cabinet, the stiletto pointing toward me, toward my heart.

  The shoe rested at an odd angle. I shifted my eye a half inch to the right. A leg.

  I gasped and stumbled backward, lurching into the railing.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

  Jean could be injured, lying there, unable to get up.

  I flew back to the door and pounded on the frame. “Jean!” I hollered. “Jean!”

  The leg didn’t move.

  I rang the bell, holding the button down, hearing the shrill, persistent buzz. The leg still didn’t move, not even a twitch.

  Using the butt end of my flashlight, I smashed the windowpane, reached around the jagged shards clinging to the putty, and unbolted the door. I dropped my tote and ran into the dining room.

  It was Jean, or had been. Her raven black hair splayed out like a fan. Her ebony eyes stared at the ceiling. I knelt beside the body and took her icy hand in mine. I shivered as if a chill wind had blown in. There was no blood, no wound, no sign of how she died. I pressed my fingers against her wrist, hoping to feel a pulse. She lay in repose, as untroubled, unsurprised, and unconcerned as Ava had been. I kept my eyes on her face, waiting for the inchoate images and fractured recollections pinballing through my memory to resolve themselves into a single coherent image or thought. Nothing occurred to me except that she was dead, and that her death had to be related to Ava’s.

  I needed to call Ellis, to report the death. Before I could stand, a man’s voice shouted, “Don’t move!”

  I froze.

  “Stay right where you are,” he snarled. His tone became marginally more civilized as he continued talking. “It looks like we have a DOA. Call nine-one-one.”

  I recognized him from his voice—he was A. Henderson, the burly Grey Gull guard who hadn’t let me knock on Jean’s door—and I guessed he was reporting to a dispatcher or his boss. I stood up and turned to face him. He was talking into his collar mic while pointing a black matte-finish Glock .22 at my stomach, a cop’s gun.

  “I told you not to move,” he growled.

  “I can’t believe Grey Gull security guards carry guns.”

  “It’s my own. Properly permitted.” His eyes narrowed for a moment as recognition dawned on him. “I remember you. You’re the girl who tried to get me to let you into the complex even though Ms. Cooper wasn’t home and didn’t authorize it.”

  I don’t like being called a girl, especially by a sixty-year-old security guard with delusions of grandeur and a gun.

  “How’d you get into the complex?” he demanded.

  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t think of a single question he might ask that I’d feel inclined to answer.

  Sirens, faint but growing louder, sounded from somewhere nearby.

  “Jean’s security alarm was on,” I said, “probably in home mode. When I broke the window, it alerted whoever monitors the system that a breach had occurred, and you came on the fly. Impressive response time.”

  Sirens blared.

  “I asked you a question, missy.”

  I lowered my eyes to his weapon and kept them there.

  The sirens abruptly stopped. Two minutes later, Ellis stepped into the kitchen, followed by Griff.

  “Josie?” Ellis said, astonished. His gaze swept past me and fixed on Henderson. “I’m Rocky Point Police Chief Hunter. And you are?”

  “Al Henderson, sir. Grey Gull security. I found the suspect kneeling over the body, sir.”

  “Lower your weapon.”

  Henderson did as he was told.

  Ellis held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”

  “I have a carry permit.”

  “Good. We’ll take a look at it.”

  Henderson didn’t want to turn over his weapon, and his dilemma was easy to read. Petulance and rebellion warred against a deeply engrained habit of following rules. Respect for authority won, and he handed over his weapon, butt first.

  “Griff?” Ellis called without taking his eyes off Henderson’s face.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Log this weapon into evidence.”

  “Evidence?” Henderson protested in what was close to a shout. “What the—?” Henderson stopped himself, took a breath, and lowered the volume. “Evidence of what?”

  Griff extracted a plastic evidence bag from his pocket, and Ellis slipped the weapon in.

  “From where I stand, Mr. Henderson, it appears that I walked in on an assault with a deadly weapon. We’re detaining you for questioning. Griff, escort Mr. Henderson out to a patrol car and take his statement.”

  “I caught this girl in the act and you’re treating me like a perp?”

  “In the act of what?”

  “Checking Jean’s pulse,” I said, interjecting myself into their battle of wills and perception.

  Ellis nodded. “That’s what I figured.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Get him out of here, Griff.”

  “This way, sir,” Griff said, as unperturbed as ever.

  Henderson stomped his way out, and Griff pulled the door closed behind them.

  “Are you okay?” Ellis asked me, his tone normal.

  Apparently, I was forgiven for refusing to give him Mac’s name as my source for the info about Orson Thompkins.

  “Yes. Given the situation, I’m doing pretty well.”

  I stepped aside so he could see Jean’s corpse.

  He squatted beside her body, taking in details without touching anything, then stood again.

  “What did you touch?”

  “Her wrist. The rug. That’s it.”

  “Why did you break in?”

  “I saw her leg.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “I knocked and rang the bell and shouted, and the leg didn’t move. The guard got here less than a minute or two later, probably in response to the broken glass setting off a silent alarm.” I glanced at Jean’s body. “How did she die?”

  “The ME will be here soon,” he said, ignoring my question.

  Daryl Lucher, the police officer who made killer barbecue, stepped into the kitchen.

  “No one but the ME and the crime scene team gets in without talking to me first,” Ellis told him.

  “Got it,” Daryl said.

  I picked up my tote bag from where I’d dropped it in the kitchen, and we left.

  “Your cuts seem to be healing nicely,” Ellis said as we walked down the stairs.

  “I got lucky.”

  “How’s Ty doing in D.C.?”

  It felt surrealistic to be chatting only steps away from a corpse. “Navigating the political landscape carefully. He’ll be home for the weekend, thank God. We should have our July Fourth barbecue on Sunday.”

  “You’re right. It’s easy to put off stuff, then put it off again, then the next thing you know, you’re buying your Thanksgiving turkey. I’ll tell Zoë.”

  We walked up the gravel pathway to the front.

  “I need to get the canvass and other things going,” he said. “Can you stick around for a little?”

  “Sure.”

  I took a seat on the second step of the front staircase, glad to have the sun on my face.

  Dr. Graham, the medical examiner, pulled up in her official vehicle. She spoke to Ellis for a minute, not longer, then walked toward the back.

  Two women came out of a town house three doors down on the right and stood on the sidewalk, taking in the scene. One looked to be closer to eighty than seventy. She was short and thin with gray crimped hair, and she leaned heavily on a wooden walking stick. Her
companion, a curvy blonde, was young enough to be her great-granddaughter.

  Officer F. Meade rooted around the trunk of a patrol car for a few seconds until she located a roll of yellow and black crime scene tape. She began cordoning off the area, wrapping the tape around a silver birch near the curb, then heading to a light post in the neighbor’s front yard.

  Ellis read something on his BlackBerry, then started off toward Griff and Henderson. Henderson sat sideways on the backseat of a patrol car, his feet on the pavement. Griff leaned against the door frame, nodding at something Henderson said.

  Another man, a stranger, hovered near the hood of Griff’s police vehicle, maybe trying to eavesdrop. He looked about fifty. He was a little above average height and slender. His gray collared T-shirt was snug, not like it was too small, but like he cared about the way his clothes fit. He also wore black Bermuda shorts and black moccasins. The Grey Gull logo was embroidered in black over the shirt pocket.

  He hurried toward Ellis.

  “Are you in charge?” the stranger asked.

  “Yes, I’m Police Chief Hunter. And you are…?”

  “Kirk Trevis, the manager on duty.” His eyes were big with worry. “No one will tell me what’s going on.”

  “We don’t know what’s going on yet.”

  “Is Ms. Cooper all right?”

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s lived here the whole time I’ve been a manager—five years. She’s a wonderful woman. Always courteous to the staff, which is more than I can say about some residents.”

  Another car rolled to a stop, double parking. Detective Brownley stepped out. I could see how blue her eyes were from where I sat, a trick of the sun’s angle, perhaps.

  “When did you see Ms. Cooper last?” Ellis asked him.

  “I don’t know. Why? Please—tell me why you’re here.”

  “We’ll let you know what we can as soon as we can. I promise you that. When did you see her last?”

  “Yesterday,” Kirk said. “She stopped by the office to ask a question about renting out her condo. I gave her the forms. She was fine. We chatted about the weather. She was heading to the pool.”

  “When was she thinking about renting?”