Last Chance for Murder (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Estelle Richards

  Lisa nodded. “So we do nothing right now.”

  “Actually, not quite nothing. With your permission, I’d like to rig up a little digital camera in the carriage house so we can check on her progress remotely. I’ll put the recorder/receiver in the main house.”

  “You want to put up a spycam to watch my cat?” Lisa paused. She’d just referred to the cat as ‘my cat’. Technically, she supposed it was true, as the cat lived on the property and Lisa now owned the property. But did cats usually convey?

  “Would that be ok with you?”

  “Oh! Yes, whatever you’d like.”

  Chapter 10

  Lisa’s phone chimed with an incoming text. She glanced at the phone innocently resting on the passenger seat and gripped the wheel tighter, reminding herself that it’s never ok to text and drive. But what if it was Aunt Olivia, finally getting back in touch after a worrying two-day absence? No, she would arrive at the Folly in two minutes — two minutes wasn’t too long to wait to read a text.

  Olivia had been almost completely out of touch since she took off after Roland Comstock’s Cadillac. To Lisa’s calls and texts asking where she was: no response. To Lisa’s text asking for input on the paint colors, tile samples, and aesthetic decisions for the renovation, she’d replied, “I trust you,” leaving Lisa to the worrying task of selecting a look for the place in the absence of her business partner, who was an actual artist.

  It had been a frustrating two days, made better primarily by Gideon’s steadying presence. Lisa could understand why Carly had decided to marry him and go on and have his babies. The man was a rock.

  She pulled into the back alley behind the Folly and put the car in park. No need to pull all the way in and maneuver the vehicle into a tail-first position for unloading tile samples before she read the text. She set the brake and grabbed her phone.

  The text was from Carly. “Taking Gideon to prenatal visit this AM, will make him late to work, sorry not sorry, luv u.”

  Lisa sighed. Nothing new from Olivia. When she came back, they were going to have to hash out this business partnership a little more thoroughly, and Lisa planned to insert a very definite No Disappearing Without A Word clause into the mix.

  She sat back in the driver’s seat. When Aunt Olivia had first mentioned being business partners, Lisa had been a little wary. But Olivia’s enthusiasm, and her talk of using her artistic eye to decorate the Folly in a way that suited the café, the gallery, and the innate grandeur of the old house, had won her over. Lisa thought of some of the less charitable things her mother had said about Olivia over the years — flighty, distracted, no follow-through. She’d figured that by the age of sixty such character flaws should have been smoothed out already. She sighed again, realizing that her aunt being distracted was actually a best-case scenario. If she was having a moment of inspiration, as she sometimes called these things, then nothing more sinister had happened to keep her away.

  Lisa dropped the phone back on the seat and moved the car to the back door by the kitchen, backing in so the trunk was as close to the door as possible for easy tile-sample hoisting.

  The morning air felt cool and smelled of pine. As she popped the trunk, Lisa wondered if getting a sample of every color that she might conceivably want to use had been such a good idea. The purseful of paint chips was one thing, but floor tiles were heavy. Plus, she considered, when would anyone even see the kitchen floor tile, since the kitchen was not a public area? They’d want to put down heavy duty rubber floor mats in all the high traffic areas anyway.

  After two days of worrying about her aunt while driving into Flagstaff to look at espresso machines, tile and paint, Lisa was glad to be back at the Folly. She patted the column on the little kitchen porch, feeling happy to be home.

  It would have been nice to foist some of the unloading of heavy tile samples on Gideon, but she didn’t want to wait until he got there to look at how the colors would combine in her new kitchen space. She hauled the whole lot inside and set about arranging paint chips next to tile samples, and then standing back to gaze at them with a critical eye.

  A noise on the porch made her whirl around.

  “Meow.” It was the cat.

  “Oh, mama cat, you’re looking gorgeous today.” Lisa looked closely at the black and white cat, who sat on the porch licking her paw.

  The cat looked back at her, flicking the tip of her tail.

  “Are you a mitten cat?” The cat’s paw, appearing and disappearing behind a flickering pink tongue, appeared to have an extra toe. Lisa moved toward her to see if it was an illusion, but the cat jumped up at her approach, letting Lisa notice something else — the cat’s formerly swollen midsection looked much lighter. She’d had her kittens.

  Lisa wished she had some milk or tuna or cat food with her. The poor cat had to be hungry.

  “I’ll bring some food next time I’m here,” she promised.

  The cat blinked at her and sauntered into the kitchen, rubbing lightly against Lisa’s leg. Lisa felt a warm flush of happiness. Something about gaining the trust and acceptance of an animal was soothing, and almost more gratifying than that of a human.

  The cat left the kitchen, wandering through the house to the front door, where she sat and twitched her tail, looking at Lisa. She meowed again, clearly waiting for her new human servant to open the door for her. Lisa laughed and opened the door for the imperious feline.

  The cat walked out onto the porch and into the courtyard where she stopped to sniff something lying on the gravel.

  Lisa stared, uncomprehending. Her eyes refused to believe what she was seeing. It was a body. It was a dead body. It was a dead body lying in the middle of her courtyard in a small pool of blood.

  “Oh, my god,” she whispered.

  She took a step onto the porch, still staring at the body. The cat scampered off to the carriage house.

  The coffee she’d slurped down on the way over threatened to come back up. Lisa took another step forward, hand over her mouth. The body was definitely a man. He was facing away from her. In a flash of horror, she realized that she recognized that head of silver hair.

  “No, it can’t be.”

  She stepped closer, gingerly moving around to the other side of the body. She crouched down and put a finger to his throat where a pulse should be. She recoiled as she felt the skin unmoving, ambient temperature, and almost waxy in texture.

  Roland Comstock was very, very dead.

  She started to get up and toppled backwards into the gravel. She crab-walked back from the body. The ground felt muddy, and she realized she was getting blood on her hands, her jeans, her shoes. The coffee threatened to come up again as she scrambled away.

  With shaking hands, she fumbled her cell phone out of her pocket and hit the phone icon. She stopped. Who should she call? She hit the favorite contacts and hit the first one.

  “Hello?”

  Oh no, why did she call Dylan?

  “Sorry, wrong number!”

  She hung up and stared at her traitorous phone. Toby, she should call Toby. He was a police officer. He would know what to do.

  She hit his contact and called her cousin.

  “Hey, cuz. I can’t talk long; I’m on shift.”

  “No, that’s good,” Lisa said, her voice shaking. “I need the police.”

  “What? What’s wrong?” His voice was instantly serious.

  “I’m at the Folly. There’s… there’s a body!”

  “Wait, a body? A body-body? Not like an animal, like call the Forest Service, but a body like call the police?”

  “That’s why I called you! You’re the police!”

  “Why didn’t you call 911? Or the main station number? You’re not supposed to call in a body on an officer’s personal cell phone!”

  Lisa blinked back tears as she sneaked another look at Roland’s corpse. “Toby, why are you mad at me? I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Hey, hey, don’t do that. It’s ok. It’s just… the
new chief, he’s kind of got a thing about… never mind. I’ll be right there. Just call 911 so dispatch can log it, ok?”

  Lisa nodded at the phone and hung up.

  She stared at the corpse another second before dialing 911.

  The operator’s professional tone soothed her and instructed her on what to do. Don’t touch the body or move anything at the scene. Stay on the line. Sit down if you’re feeling dizzy.

  Lisa sank onto the bottom step of the front porch to wait for the police to show up.

  Toby was the first officer on the scene. Lisa rushed over to him and hugged him, ignoring his stiff posture and the look of unease on his face.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Toby gave her shoulders a squeeze and then held her at arm’s length.

  “Are you ok?” he said. “What happened?”

  “I got here and unloaded the tile, and then I found…” she choked on the words, “I found him. Roland.”

  “Did you see anyone else? Was there anyone else here?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so. I came in the back way so maybe someone was out front?”

  With his furrowed brow, Toby suddenly looked like he had as a child. Lisa remembered playing hide and seek on the grounds of the Folly, and daring each other to hide inside, giving out points for the person whose hiding space was boldest. She remembered finding the switch to release the secret door to the third floor. She’d hidden in a bedroom closet and had leaned against a panel to keep from giggling with fear and excitement. The panel had shifted under her weight and revealed a lever behind it. They’d spent that summer, the summer before high school began for Lisa, and before his eighth grade year for Toby, exploring the Folly’s many nooks and crannies. The glass doors opening out onto the tiny ornate balcony overlooking the courtyard had been her favorite discovery. From that balcony she could see over the trees and across the whole town of Moss Creek. She’d spent hours gazing out at the horizon, dreaming of a day when she would be free to choose her own path, out from under her mother’s well-meaning thumb and her father’s gentle refusal to approve or disapprove of any plan.

  Lisa looked at the body and stiffened. It was right under that third floor balcony, right where a body would land if a person leaped off the balcony — or was pushed.

  She gave a strangled cry as she imagined someone sullying the magic of that balcony with something as ugly as a fatal push.

  “Something you want to tell us, Miss Chance?” a deep voice said from behind her.

  She whirled and found herself staring into the eyes of Dale Gerrold, the chief of police of Moss Creek. She felt Toby step back from her and stiffen to attention.

  “He fell off the balcony,” she blurted.

  Chief Gerrold raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that? Did you see him fall?”

  “No, I found him like this, but look at where the balcony is and where he landed. It just makes sense,” she sputtered.

  “And did you see anyone else on the scene?” he said, eyebrow still raised.

  “No. I pulled in the back way and unloaded the tile samples before I found him.”

  “Tile samples?”

  “From the tile store in Flagstaff. We’re redoing the kitchen. Well, we’re renovating a lot of things in the house, but the kitchen is first priority, of course, since we have to upgrade it to be a commercial kitchen space.” Lisa stopped, aware that she was talking to fill in the space that Chief Gerrold had left, a cop technique she remembered her cousin telling her about when he went through the police academy.

  He kept looking at her with that blank investigation face.

  “Um, what happens now?” she said, after trying and failing to stop talking and wait for the chief to speak first.

  “I’d like you to come down to the station to give your statement and to answer some questions.”

  “I mean, what happens now to…” she gestured at the body on the gravel.

  “The medical examiner’s office will be on the scene in due time.”

  “I don’t feel well,” Lisa said, the churning in her stomach growing stronger.

  She backed up until she stumbled over the bottom step of the porch stairs, then collapsed onto the stairs where she put her head between her knees and gulped in air. She was fuzzily aware of Chief Gerrold talking to Toby, and of Toby’s posture getting stiffer and stiffer. Another police car arrived, and a female officer got out and conferred with them, after which Toby went to his car, brought out crime scene tape and started taping off a perimeter.

  The female officer came over to the steps and looked down at Lisa. Lisa wished it were Toby but was glad it wasn’t the chief.

  “Feeling better?”

  “A little.” Lisa grasped the stair railing and pulled herself to her feet. She glanced at the officer’s name tag, K. Handy. Karen, she thought, remembering work anecdotes Toby had told at family gatherings. With a name like Handy, she must have had a very interesting time in high school. And at the police academy. And down at the station.

  “I’ll take you down to the station to give your statement. It shouldn’t take long.” Officer Handy’s tone was all business, not unkind but giving nothing away.

  Lisa followed the officer to her police car, averting her eyes from the crime scene. But before Officer Handy could open the door, a car came blazing up the driveway and screeched to a halt, spraying them with gravel.

  The car door flew open and an older woman in a hot pink track suit jumped out. She pointed a long fingernail at Lisa.

  “Is that her?” she screeched.

  Officer Handy stepped forward. “Now, ma’am, this is a crime scene. You’re going to have to step back.”

  “You bet your sweet bippy it’s a crime scene. I want that woman arrested!”

  Lisa stared at the fluorescent interloper. Who was this madwoman?

  “If you have something to add to the investigation, I can take your statement down at the station,” Officer Handy said.

  “Investigation! What’s to investigate? You can see that this woman is trespassing based on where she’s standing right now! If you weren’t the police, you’d be trespassing, too.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Lisa said, getting angry. “If anyone’s trespassing here, it’s you. This is my property, and I don’t like your tone.”

  “Yours! Ha! ”

  Lisa didn’t like the sneer on the woman’s face. She muscled her way around Officer Handy and glared at the newcomer. “I’ve had a pretty rotten day, and I don’t need some fuschia-wearing nutjob hassling me. So unless you’re here to confess to a murder, maybe you ought to leave. Just who do you think you are, lady?”

  “I’m Claire Comstock. Who are you?”

  Lisa stared, mouth agape. Roland had told her that Claire Comstock was his deceased aunt, from whom he’d inherited the property. But if this was Claire Comstock, she appeared very much alive.

  “Ladies,” Officer Handy interjected, stepping between them, “I’m sure you have plenty to talk about, but I have a job to do here. Miss Chance, get in the car. Miss Comstock, come down to the station if you want to file a complaint. Now let’s go.”

  The back of the cop car proved surprisingly soundproof as Lisa watched the supposed Claire Comstock’s mouth continue to make talking motions as she stabbed her pointing finger in Lisa’s direction. As the car pulled out of the driveway, Chief Gerrold approached the angry woman.

  “That was sure strange,” Lisa said, still looking over her shoulder at the scene, now hidden in the trees.

  Officer Handy glanced at her in the rear view mirror but said nothing.

  Chapter 11

  The interrogation room was cold. Lisa shifted on the hard seat and looked around at the scarred walls painted a dull shade of off-white that might once have been white, years ago. The mirror across from her had a long scratch in it. She wondered how someone had managed to do that, to scratch the observation glass, when the entire point of the glass was to enable const
ant observation. Of course, that was the trick of the glass; you never knew when someone was watching and when they weren’t. It was a lonely room.

  How long would it take for Officer Handy to come back and take her statement? The cop hadn’t so much as cracked a smile though the entire drive to the outskirts of town. Lisa shifted again, trying to find a way to sit comfortably on the metal chair. The metal was as cold as the room, and the chill seeped through Lisa’s jeans into her legs. She hugged her arms around herself and tried to breathe.

  The last time she’d been in an interrogation room she was a teenager, full of an equal mix of guilt and defiance. Guilt because she knew it was against the law to trespass in the Folly. Defiance because she felt it was equally wrong for such a beautiful place to be closed up and off limits to the world when it wasn’t even being used by its owners. She held tight to the defiance as she was questioned, arrested, and offered a plea if she would give up the names of the other kids who were there.

  “I was there alone,” teenaged Lisa insisted, lying stoutly. “It was just me. No one else.”

  The police and the judge rolled their eyes at her stubbornness. But in the end she’d won — the rap was hers alone.

  Adult Lisa rubbed her arms to warm them. The memory of that teenaged stubbornness gave her a mixed feeling, part pride and part regret. If she’d been less stubborn, she might have stayed out of jail, might never have wasted her time with Dylan in her twenties. But could she have been less stubborn even if she’d wanted to?

  The door opened and Toby came in.

  “What happened to Officer Handy?”

  “She got called to another scene. How are you holding up?”

  Lisa shrugged. “Not really a big fan of this place.”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t be.” He was silent a moment, then set a legal pad on the table, along with a pen. “I’ll need you to write your statement.”