A Fatal Twist of Lemon

by Patrice Greenwood

  Nat saw me out, fielding my repeated thanks for the lovely evening. The clouds had cleared off and a thousand stars were glimmering overhead in the cold spring sky. I paused to inhale the scent of the piñon forest, then climbed into my car and drove back into town.

  As I came in the tearoom’s back door I had an unpleasant sense of deja vu. Blue and red lights were flashing through the hallway from the window lights around the front door.

  I hurried down the hall to look out the lights, and was just in time to see a police car pull away from in front of the Territorial B&B across the street. Wondering if something had happened there, I let myself out the front door of the tearoom and hurried over.

  I knocked on the front door, quietly so as not to disturb Katie and Bob’s guests. After a minute Bob opened the door, a worried frown on his lean face.

  “Sorry to bother you this late,” I said. “I just saw the squad car leave, and I thought I should come over to make sure everything’s all right.”

  Bob’s mouth turned downward and he shook his head. “No, it isn’t,” he said in a broken voice. “They just took Katie away.”

  14

  “What?” I said, “at ten-thirty on a Sunday night?”

  Bob just stood there nodding his head and looking miserable. I realized he was in a state of shock, so I stepped into the hall and closed the door behind me, muting the sound of late-night traffic.

  The hall was gently lit by punched-tin sconces that cast patterns of light against the white walls. The dining room and living room of the B&B were dark. All the guests must be in their rooms. I drew Bob a little way into the living room, where comfy over-stuffed couches and sofas invited guests to lounge.

  “Tell me what happened,” I asked in a quiet voice.

  “Two cops just showed up and said they wanted Katie to go to the station with them and make a statement,” Bob said, rubbing his long-fingered hands together. “I couldn’t go with her—we have guests, someone has to be here.”

  “Do you want me to go down there and be with her?” I offered. “Maybe I can find out what’s going on.”

  Bob’s eyes flickered with hope, and a small smile softened his face, then vanished again. “What if they put her in jail? We have to get breakfast in the morning—”

  “I can help with breakfast if you need it. I’m closed tomorrow. But you won’t,” I added, speaking my hopes aloud. “If all they want is for her to make a statement it won’t take long. I’ll go check it out, and give Katie a ride home.”

  “That’s awfully good of you, Ellen. I hate to trouble you.”

  His shoulders slumped, making him look more than usual like a gangly scientist. His tall, lean frame always looked borderline geekish to me, though in fact he was a versatile handyman, better with carpenter’s tools than computers.

  “No trouble,” I said. “I owe you for all the help you gave me setting up the tearoom. I’ll give you a call from the station if there’s anything you should know.”

  I hurried back across the street, not bothering to go inside since I still had my purse slung over my shoulder. I walked around to the back of the tearoom, hopped in my car, and drove to the police station.

  I was worried because of the thing with Katie’s earring. I remembered how Detective Aragón had reacted when I asked about it, and how he had asked me not to mention it to her. Apparently the earring was a bigger deal than I had thought.

  There was not much activity in the police station late on a Sunday night. A young man in handcuffs with a shaved head and tattoos was being escorted down a hallway as I came in. The duty cop, a guy about my age, pudgy with a military buzz, looked up from the front desk.

  “I’m a friend of Katie Hutchins. I understand she’s here making a statement.”

  The cop shrugged. I bit down on rising anger, knowing it would do me no good to bristle at this guy.

  “Is Detective Aragón here?” I asked. “I have some information for him about the Carruthers case. Would you please let him know I’m here? Ellen Rosings,” I added as he reached for a pad of sticky notes.

  He scribbled on the top page, then pulled it off. “Ronnie,” he called over his shoulder.

  A tall, slim cop with body armor making odd, angular bulges in his uniform sauntered over to the desk. The pudgy cop handed him the sticky note.

  “Give this to Tony.”

  The slim guy glanced at the note, then at me, then shrugged and strolled away down a corridor. I sat on one of three institutional metal chairs against the wall. The cop at the desk paid me no further heed, and I was left to fret on my own. After half an hour I stood up, which drew the suspicious gaze of the desk cop.

  “Could you direct me to the restroom, please?” I asked.

  “Down that hall on the right,” he said, pointing toward a hallway that looked like offices.

  “Thanks.”

  I went down the hall, glancing at each door I passed. Some were closed. One on the left was open and proved to be a break room, emitting an odor of stale bread and burned coffee. A cop glanced up at me from pouring a cup of sludge. I flashed a smile and went on.

  I found the ladies’ room and went in, encountering a female cop on her way out. She gave me a swift, appraising glance, then ignored me. I began to wonder if every non-cop who entered police station was automatically suspected of ill intent.

  My intent wasn’t ill, though it might well be unwelcome. I was tired of waiting around. If I couldn’t find Katie, at least maybe I could find out what was going on with her.

  I stepped out of the restroom back into the empty hallway. To my left the cop at the front desk was talking on the phone. I turned right, trying to look like I knew where I was going. I passed a few more closed doors, then the hall I was in dead-ended in a “T” with another hallway. I turned right again, now officially lost in the bowels of the station.

  This hallway was a little less presentable. Bookshelves full of binders narrowed the passage, and I felt a little claustrophobic. I continued to the end of the hall, which was blocked by a door marked “Evidence.”

  Turning back, I tried the other half of the hallway. A man in a neat, dark suit came out of a doorway and looked at me in surprise. He was about forty, with pale hair receding from a high brow.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  “I’m looking for the interview rooms,” I said. “I’m here to pick up a friend.”

  “All the way down,” he said, nodding to me to continue down the hall. “Left and then right.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What was your name, Miss?”

  “Rosings. Ellen Rosings.”

  He frowned. “Sounds familiar. Are you with County?”

  “No. I’m the owner of the Wisteria Tearoom.”

  His face brightened. “That’s right! I saw you on the news. Not my case, but everyone’s following it, you know. Not your everyday homicide. I guess the vic was pretty well known in the community.”

  “I believe she was.”

  “Pretty spectacular job. Strangled with her own necklace, right in public.”

  Having nothing to say in response, I gave him a polite smile and started forward again. He came with me.

  “I hear Tony just got a breakthrough tonight.”

  “Did he?” I asked.

  “Yeah—the lab results came through.”

  He stopped talking abruptly, as if he’d realized he shouldn’t be discussing the case with me. I tried to look disinterested, though I was burning to know what the lab results could be. We turned a corner and the man pointed to another hallway.

  “Down there and to the right,” he said.

  “Thank you very much.”

  I straightened the shoulder strap of my purse and surged ahead, hoping I had a chance of finding Detective Aragón. As it happened he found me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I turned. Tony Aragón had just come out of a door I had passed. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans an
d smelled of cigarettes.

  “Good evening to you as well, Detective,” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant. “I heard Katie Hutchins was here giving a statement. I came to offer her a ride home.”

  His dark eyes narrowed as he gave me a measuring look. “Yeah? Well, you’re going to have a long wait. She’s not going home any time soon.”

  I felt dismayed, but managed to keep calm. “Oh? Has she been arrested?”

  “Why would I want to arrest a sweet old lady like her?”

  His tone was sarcastic, but his gaze never wavered. I felt like he was some hunting animal measuring its prey, deciding whether to attack or leave me alone. I fell back on courtesy, my favorite defense.

  “I don’t know,” I replied pleasantly. “I rather think that would be up to you to explain.”

  He gave me the silent stare with which I was becoming familiar. I gazed back, rather proud of myself for not flinching or starting to fidget.

  “You can wait in the break room,” he said finally.

  “Actually, I have a new piece of information to share with you, when you have a moment.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  He stared at me, then seemed to become aware that we weren’t alone in the hallway. A couple of uniformed cops, coffee mugs in their hands, were watching with interest on one side, and my helpful blond friend on the other. Aragón glanced at all of them, then pushed open a nearby door.

  “In here.”

  I followed him into a small, barren room lit by utilitarian fluorescent lights. It contained a table and two chairs, all rather weatherbeaten. Nothing on the walls. Aragón sat on the table.

  “Okay, what’ve you got?”

  “Donna Carruthers and Vince Margolan are seeing each other socially,” I said.

  He let out a crack of laughter. “This is a murder investigation, not One Life to Live.”

  I bit back a sarcastic reply. That was his game, and I didn’t intend to play.

  “Vince is the one who purchased the property Sylvia Carruthers was trying to obtain for the Preservation Trust,” I said. “He was having a bidding war with the Trust, driving up the price. Donna might have hired him to do it.”

  Aragón grinned. “So you sniffed out the sale, eh?”

  “I suppose you already knew about it.”

  “Yeah. And unless Donna and Vince are the best actors I’ve ever run into, they didn’t conspire to murder Sylvia Carruthers.”

  I gripped the back of a nearby chair, starting to feel frustrated. “They were the last two people in the room with her.”

  “Yes, they were. And your dishwasher saw Vince in the hall after that, alone. Or didn’t you ask him?”

  I didn’t answer. A slow grin spread over Aragón’s intolerable face.

  “Thoroughness, Detective,” he said. “Got to interview every witnesss.”

  “All right, all right,” I said, annoyed with myself. “You’re the professional. I just thought maybe you hadn’t heard about the real estate sale.”

  “I’m glad you brought it up. We like helpful witnesses, we really do. Call if you think of anything else,” he said, standing up from the table and ushering me toward the door.

  “You’re laughing at me again.”

  “Nah,” he said, his mouth twisting up in a grin.

  “What about Katie?” I said, stopping in front of the door.

  His face went hard. “She’s here for questioning.”

  “Why? Didn’t you already interview her?”

  “There’ve been some new developments.”

  I nodded. “You got some lab results back. I’m guessing they were on the fibers found on Sylvia’s clothing.”

  He didn’t say anything. Taking silence for assent I went on, feeling like I was fighting for Katie’s reputation, if not her freedom.

  “I’m guessing you found fibers from Katie’s clothing on Sylvia’s left side, especially the sleeve.”

  Detective Aragón’s frown deepened. “Why are you guessing that?”

  “Because Katie was seated on Sylvia’s left at the tea. They probably brushed against each other as they were passing things at the table.”

  He didn’t answer, just stood there looking disconcerted. I returned his gaze, peripherally aware of the rise and fall of his breathing. A stillness fell over us in the small room, and I found I was holding my breath, waiting for I didn’t know what.

  “There’s more to it than that,” Aragón said finally.

  “Katie didn’t do it.”

  “I can only think of one reason you’d know that for certain.”

  I waved that aside impatiently. “Come on, Detective. I’d be pretty stupid to make a show of investigating a crime I’d committed myself.”

  His mouth twitched. “Yes, you would.”

  “Why did you drag her in here at ten on a Sunday night? It can’t have been just the fibers.”

  “No, it wasn’t just that.”

  “The earring, then. But why?”

  He leaned toward me, his voice a quiet hiss. “Because it was found in Sylvia Carruthers’s hand, all right?”

  I gaped at him. At first I felt horrified that it could be true, that Katie actually might have lost the earring in a struggle with Sylvia. Then I began to question that assumption.

  “That and the fiber evidence were enough to bring her in,” he added.

  “Which hand?” I demanded.

  “Huh?”

  “Which hand of Sylvia’s was holding the earring? And which ear did Katie lose it from, did you ask that?”

  He frowned. “Not yet.”

  “Well, it matters!”

  “The right hand.”

  “Okay, then it would have to be the right earring, because Sylvia was strangled from behind. If she reached up and caught hold of an earring with her right hand, it would be the right earring.”

  “Could be the left,” he said, looking annoyed.

  “Not very likely. If someone’s strangling you, you go like this,” I said, reaching up my hands to either side of my neck to grab a phantom strangler. “You don’t reach across your throat.”

  He gave a grudging nod. I was feeling more confident now, and enjoying thinking through what had happened.

  “Having the earring pulled out could have damaged Katie’s ear, too,” I said. “What kind of fastening was it, a hook or a post?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, because a hook might tear the ear if the earring was suddenly pulled downward, but a post would be more likely to pop off without damage.”

  He blinked. “It was a hook.”

  “Ah. Then I’d check Katie’s right ear for damage. I bet you won’t find any. Sylvia probably spotted the earring after Katie left, and bent down to pick it up. Did you find fibers from Katie’s dress on Sylvia’s back?”

  “That’s enough,” Aragón said, reaching past me for the doorknob.

  I didn’t step out of his way. Instead I put my hands on his chest. Just resisting, not pushing.

  “Wait,” I said quietly. “Please. I’m just trying to help, and trying to understand what happened. Were there fibers from Katie’s dress on Sylvia’s back, or just on her left side?”

  He grimaced. “Definitely on the side. The back is inconclusive.”

  He took a step back, and I let my hands fall. His face had gone flat, eyes the blank stare that he used to discomfit people he was questioning.

  “You did find fibers on her back, didn’t you?” I said.

  He frowned. “We haven’t matched them yet. Now come on, let’s go.”

  “But you collected everyone’s clothing—”

  He stepped around me and put his hand on the doorknob. “Come on, Nancy Drew, I’ve got work to do.”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me, Tony Aragón!”

  His head snapped back and he turned to face me. The surprise on his face was no more than I felt. I had spoken without thinking, and now my heart was suddenly pounding.

  I stood his gaze, w
hich was about all I could manage. After a moment his eyelids drooped, hiding his eyes.

  “Time to go,” he said softly as he turned the doorknob and pulled the door open.

  “What about Katie?”

  “She can’t leave yet.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said, rather defiantly.

  “Suit yourself.”

  We stepped out into the hallway, where the uniformed cops were still hanging around chatting. They glanced up as we emerged, and I wondered if they’d overheard us.

  “The lounge is that way,” Aragón said gesturing down the hall.

  “I can find it.”

  “Don’t go poking around.”

  I shot him a resentful glance. “I won’t.”

  His lips twitched, almost smiling. He got them under control, but relented a little.

  “I’ll let you know if it’s going to be a long time.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gathering my dignity, I turned and walked away down the hall. When I got to the intersection with the next hallway I glanced back and saw Detective Aragón watching me. I turned the corner and made my way back to the employee lounge I had seen.

  The room had the basic necessities of a staff break room, but no luxuries. A counter with a sink full of dirty mugs. Beside it a dish rack crammed with more mugs and a couple of plastic food containers. Coffee maker, microwave, cupboards, refrigerator. Two vending machines full of junk food. A table and eight mismatched chairs, at which the female cop I’d seen earlier was sitting reading a magazine. She glanced up as I sat down across the table.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to be friendly.

  She looked back at her magazine. I glanced around the room, hoping to find another magazine or something else I could read, but was reduced to admiring the posters on the walls. These consisted of mandatory worker’s rights posters, a bulletin board in desperate need of being weeded, and police recruitment posters, which seemed rather after the fact in this room but were better than bare walls.

  I got up to look at the bulletin board, mainly to admire several cartoons stuck up amid the welter of memos, announcements for events long past, and stapled articles tacked to the board. After a moment I sensed I was being watched, and turned around to see the cop staring at me.