Overkill (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book Four)

by Amy Saunders

  “But I heard–”

  “Are you going to believe me or not? Would you really think–?” He stopped himself, his eyes hard. “I can’t even believe you would think that.”

  “I don’t.” Shelby’s voice was borderline desperate. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Then don’t. Just come to the bonfire this weekend.”

  “You’re still going?”

  The guy, Alec something Belinda thought, shuffled his feet. “Yeah. We all need a break from this.”

  “Okay…I’ll see if I can get away.”

  “That’s better.” Alec kissed her, though Belinda thought Shelby’s body language was still uncertain. Nothing had really been resolved; he’d just evaded her questions.

  “I need to get back.”

  Alec nodded and they said their good-byes. Shelby hung around another moment, finally turning so Belinda could see her face. She thought Shelby would look worried after that conversation, but she just looked angry. After Shelby turned the corner, Belinda leaned against the van, considering that conversation. It sounded like Alec felt Shelby was accusing him of murdering his friend. Shelby claimed she wasn’t, but she was clearly concerned about that fight they were talking about. It was strange to accuse a guy you’re involved with of something as serious as murder. What about Alec, or his past, would make Shelby go there?

  Belinda felt eyes on her. She glanced around, guessing somebody thought she was acting kooky, but nobody seemed to notice her. Still, that creepy sixth sense feeling of being watched lingered. Someone could see her, but she couldn’t see them. Her heart rate jumped up just a bit. It could be in her head. Possibly. But still, she wanted out of there.

  Instead of risking Shelby seeing her, Belinda took a different loop back to the auction house, trying to appear like she’d just stepped out for a moment as she slipped back into her seat beside Victoria.

  “You lost the vase,” Victoria whispered.

  Belinda’s heart pounded from her jog back. She glanced around, but there was no sign yet of Shelby. “Who got it?”

  “Dinah.”

  Belinda felt a stab of irritation, but reminded herself it was just as well. With the truck issues, she didn’t need to spend frivolously. “It’s just as well you didn’t win,” Victoria said. “The catalog shows two vases–a pair–but only one was auctioned off, so I think it’s kind of a rip off anyway. So, what happened with you-know-who?”

  “Boy trouble…I think. I’ll fill you in after.” Though Shelby’s conversation with Alec seemed like more than just two kids in a romantic squabble. It occurred to her on the run back that Shelby might know Alec through Kevin, if Kevin and Shelby took the same art class.

  The auction closed and Belinda and Victoria bumped into Dinah outside, still without Shelby. She yanked her keys out of her purse, a cloud of receipts coming out with them. Belinda kneeled to snatch one that floated off the sidewalk under a car. “Thank you,” Dinah said, blushing. “I’m such a mess today.”

  “It’s tough getting your daughter ready to go into her first year of college.” Especially when that school was across the ocean, Belinda added in her head.

  “That’s the truth.” Dinah laughed. “For all the trouble she can be, I’m going to miss her terribly.” She huffed, her eyes starting to water. “Anyway, come by this week to get your check for the catering. I’d take care of it now, but we have a million things to do. Bye, girls.”

  Belinda and Victoria watched Dinah tromp downhill in her wedges. If they were so consumed with Shelby going off to Europe for college that she didn’t even have time to write a check, why was she at an auction buying vases? It seemed kind of unnecessary in the light of everything she had going on. Plus, they weren’t from the Ming dynasty or something you might put your life on hold to purchase.

  “Must be tough,” Victoria said, “letting the last one go.” She patted her bump tenderly.

  “Don’t start crying on me again. I can’t take it!”

  “It was just the one time!”

  Belinda slipped her a sideways glance.

  “Okay, fine,” Victoria said. “Maybe it was two or three times.”

  “Five.”

  “You’re keeping count?”

  “Well, it’s not everyone who can burst into fire hydrant tears driving by a complete stranger’s high school graduation party.”

  Victoria huffed, crossing her arms. “Well, fine. I’ll just keep my new baby emotions to myself.”

  Belinda put her arm around Victoria’s shoulders. “Come on, new mama. We’ve got a lot to put together.”

  Victoria acquiesced to Belinda’s lead, leaning into her. “Just wait until it’s you bursting into tears.”

  “I’m sure I can’t wait.” Belinda couldn’t help it and glanced over her shoulder. No one was watching them. It was all in her head.

  Maybe.

  Chapter 12

  While Belinda sort of attended the auction, Jonas paid a call on Angie Chen, who turned out to be Simone’s assistant as well as a teacher’s assistant at the museum. She must’ve been who Belinda and Bennett had talked to. Angie started pacing the small office and fidgeting with things on the desk the minute Jonas asked her how she knew Kevin Pratt. She’d initially asked how they knew about her, a suspicious question at best, and once she knew about the party Jarrett told him about, it seemed to agitate her more.

  “He took a class here,” Angie finally answered. “A few weeks ago, I think. I was assisting the teacher.”

  That was before Kevin and his roomies arrived in Portside as a group. But Kevin didn’t seem to have anything to do with art. They’d found no evidence in his personal or school life to suggest he had a closet passion for it. However, this class could be the reason he wound up in the ocean with a painting. “So did you see Kevin between the class and this party?” Jonas had taken a seat, but it was making him antsy watching her rearrange all the pens in the canister.

  “No,” she said a little too quickly. “Like I said, I didn’t really know him.”

  On some level, he did believe that last statement. Jonas didn’t think Angie really knew Kevin, but he also thought she knew him better than she let on. “Was he friends with anyone else in the class?”

  Angie shook her head, making eye contact again. “I don’t know.”

  “Kevin doesn’t seem to have much of a friendship with art, either. Do you have any idea what motivated him to take this class?”

  “I think he may have liked someone in the class. He wasn’t focused, and not very good, to be honest.” She let go of a small smile. It was gentle, almost like she was remembering a quirk of someone she was fond of.

  “Any guess who it was?”

  Angie pushed invisible hair behind her ear. There was nothing there to move. “I’m guessing…I’m guessing Shelby. I remember him gravitating toward her a lot.”

  “Shelby?”

  “Lachappelle.”

  “Did she reciprocate?”

  “I…I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know if she was interested in someone else? Maybe in the class or otherwise?”

  “We really didn’t deal with each other that much, so I have no idea.”

  Jonas nodded. “I’d like a list of the students in that class with Kevin.”

  “Sure thing.” She seemed happy to have a mission that didn’t involve answering his questions, and got busy locating and printing a copy of the students. After handing the list to Jonas, her phone vibrated on the desk. She checked it, her lips pressed together. “If that’s all, I need to go.”

  “That’s all. For now.”

  Angie blew past him, smiling apprehensively before shooting through the hallway and out the back door. Jonas glanced around and followed slowly. She met someone halfway in the sculpture garden in the backyard of the museum. Jonas hid behind a topiary, watching Angie throw her arms up and shake her head.

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Angie said. “She can think for herself.”r />
  “Yeah, well, I don’t think she got there on her own.” Whomever she was talking to, or arguing with, remained out of Jonas’ vision.

  “If you want everything to go back to normal, just tell her the truth.”

  “What truth?” Finally, the person moved closer to Angie, enough for Jonas to make out a face. Alec, Kevin’s Portside roommate. He wasn’t much taller than Angie, but he glowered down at her enough to make her flinch, his voice steely.

  Jonas slid out from his hiding spot and strode up to the two of them. Alec looked back in surprise, and Angie turned to see, her eyes going wide. “Detective, I thought you left.”

  “And I thought you barely knew Kevin Pratt.” Jonas dug his hands in his pockets, surveying both of them. They both looked frustrated and upset. Alec recovered first, taking on that guarded, almost defiant, expression he’d worn when Jonas first interviewed him.

  “I–I didn’t know Kevin well,” Angie stammered. “I swear.”

  “Angie and me met at a party,” Alec said before Jonas even asked.

  “And you’re friends now?” Jonas said.

  “No,” Angie said, glaring at Alec. “We’re not.” Alec didn’t look fazed.

  “He knows where you work,” Jonas said. “And he has your number. I’m assuming the text you got a minute ago was from him.” Neither answered. Angie focused on the grass, Alec stood there seemingly disinterested.

  After having them both brought to the station, Jonas started with Alec, placing him in a small room with a table and two chairs. Angie would probably be easier to deal with at this point, but making her wait might soften her up even more. He didn’t think any amount of waiting would help Alec, so he may as well get it over with.

  “Angie texted me first,” Alec said straightaway. He’d apparently formulated a plan. “I don’t know how she got my number because I didn’t give it to her.”

  “Maybe she got it from Kevin.”

  Alec guffawed, then leaned across the table, staring Jonas right in the face. The kid was nervy, but he was also using this to hide something. “Kevin didn’t want anything to do with Angie, but she wouldn’t leave him alone.”

  “That’s what Kevin told you?”

  “No, but it was obvious. She kept texting him and was all over him at the party. Kevin wasn’t into her.”

  That idea coincided with Jarrett’s observation of Angie and Kevin’s interaction after the fight. “Let’s talk about your relationship with Kevin. Witnesses say you had a rather public fight at the party the other night. What was it about?”

  Now that the subject directly involved him, Alec wasn’t so eager to gossip. He leaned back in his seat again. “Just a guy thing.”

  “Meaning it was about a girl?”

  Alec’s eyes remained steady, but they weren’t as certain. “Yeah. It was about a girl.”

  “So what happened later, after the fight was over?”

  Alec shrugged. “We both got over it and moved on.”

  “Just like that?”

  “We were drinking. It was a stupid fight. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “So the girl you fought over didn’t mean anything to either of you?”

  “Not really. No.”

  The sad part was Jonas could buy this story. It was plausible that a couple of drunk college guys fought at a party over a girl they didn’t care much about in the long-term, then just shrugged it off the next day and moved on like nothing happened.

  “Did you know Kevin took an art class at the museum recently?” Jonas said.

  Alec’s eyes shot open. Jonas recited the class title and dates and times. Alec looked stunned. “He never said anything to me.”

  “What about these people?” Jonas pushed across the list of other class participants. “Did he ever mention any of these names?” Alec shook his head. “What about the name Simone Lefranc or mentioning something about Simone’s paintings? Or any paintings?”

  “No.”

  “Then how about him borrowing money? Selling things?”

  Alec looked at him suspiciously. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because Kevin was up to his eyes in debt.”

  Alec blinked. “I had no idea.”

  “So Kevin never acted suspicious? You roomed with him.” Even as private as Bennett was, Jonas would’ve known if something big like that was happening to him, especially when they were roomies. In fact, he did know when big things were happening because you could eat off the bathroom floor when Bennett was stressed.

  Alec hesitated, maybe debating what to say–or not to say–before answering. He was turning out to be more calculating than Jonas had figured at the start of their first interview. “He was going to a lot of yard sales.”

  “Here? In Portside?”

  Alec nodded. “He’d grabbed a flyer–off a pole or something. I saw it in his room.”

  The flyer Jonas had found in the trash. It hadn’t meant much at the time… “And that qualifies as a lot of yard sales?”

  Alec rolled his eyes. “It just sticks out. But he mentioned going too. He asked if he could take the car.”

  “Did anyone go with him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he come back with anything?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Jonas frowned. In a house full of people, and without his own car, it would’ve been tough for Kevin to hide something the size of that painting. He wasn’t even sure it made sense for Kevin to bother hiding it from his friends, except that, if Alec wasn’t lying, Kevin was hiding his debt issues. If Kevin was trying to keep that a secret, from embarrassment or whatever, then maybe he did try and hide his yard sale buys.

  Jonas left Alec in the room and had a clear shot of Angie waiting on the other side of the building. He strolled over and took the seat next to her casually. Angie fiddled with a large hoop earring, her eyes darting between Jonas and the floor.

  “Alec tells me you were all over Kevin at the party recently.” Maybe a little shock treatment was necessary with these two.

  Angie looked up from the floor slowly, her dark chocolate eyes burning. “Did Alec also tell you he threatened to beat Kevin to a pulp?”

  “At the party?”

  Angie shook her head. “No. This was after that. Kevin told me about it later.” She put her hands on her knees, taking a deep breath. “I saw Kevin a little beyond the art class, okay? But I was not all over him.”

  “But you liked him?”

  Angie’s eyes answered before she did. “I guess so.”

  “And did he like you?”

  “Not like that. We weren’t anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You thought he liked somebody in the class, though.”

  She looked pained, slumping against her chair back. “We met before the class, and at first, I…I hoped he might’ve joined for me. But I think he liked somebody else.”

  “You have a guess who?”

  She nodded. “I think he liked Shelby. At least, I saw him talking to her a lot.”

  “Were you upset by that?”

  “It’s not like he did anything to make me think he liked me. He didn’t. I mean, he didn’t flirt or anything.”

  “But you were still upset, seeing him talk to Shelby?”

  Angie looked down at her hands. “A little.”

  Jonas thought it was probably more than a little. But why kill Kevin? It would make much more sense to eliminate Shelby, unless Angie had turned into a full-fledged stalker. “So why did Alec threaten to beat up Kevin?”

  “Kevin wouldn’t say. Just something about a fight they’d had.”

  “About Alec accusing Kevin of stealing from him?”

  Angie looked up, surprised. “Maybe. Kevin wouldn’t go into detail.”

  Even if Kevin hadn’t told Angie directly what was going on, Jonas felt convinced Angie had figured it out. Now it was just time for him to do the same. He’d start by looking into the yard sale flyer in Kevin’s trash.
Jonas knew that was out of place, and he was going to find out why.

  Chapter 13

  Bennett squeezed a glob of gel into his palm and squished it around before running his fingers through his almost-black hair, keeping it conservative for the cookout with Belinda’s parents that night. Jonas leaned against the door frame to the bathroom while he finished getting ready, reciting all his ideas for how to deal with the scuba diving situation with Ardith, including just faking it. Tempest, his gray kitten, a sister to Belinda’s kittens, watched silently next to Jonas.

  They’d already covered the updates on the painting and murder investigation, including that Belinda had seen Shelby meet up with Alec that afternoon. But Jonas thought they’d found where Kevin Pratt had picked up the fake Simone–a local yard sale. The woman who held the yard sale identified Kevin and the painting. Beyond that, they were at a dead end. The painting belonged to the woman’s now-deceased mother. They’d found it in the attic and had no idea where it came from.

  Truthfully, Bennett was only half-listening to the personal part of the discussion, more consumed with handling that evening. It was the first official dinner with Belinda’s parents, beyond just meeting them, and he was admittedly stressed. Belinda acted like her parents were no longer concerned with recent events, but Bennett wasn’t so sure. If he were the parent in this scenario, he would be worried.

  “You could just tell Ardith the truth,” Bennett said when there was an opening. In his opinion, that was the only realistic option for this problem.

  Jonas frowned. “I really don’t want to look stupid in front of this woman.”

  Bennett gave him a look. “Too late.”

  Jonas frowned again. “That’s not my only problem, though.”

  “No kidding. You have a murder to solve.”

  “Actually, I’m talking about Colleen.” Jonas straightened his back, resting his shoulder on the door frame again. “She wants to talk. About us.”