Carolyn Arnold - McKinley 05 - Family is Murder

by Carolyn Arnold

  “You’re going to need to see the super about that.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Apartment one-A.”

  Sean was on the move. He heard Sara behind him, thanking the lady.

  Gamer Meets Real Life

  “OH MY WORD, SEAN, WHAT is going on? First my mother up and disappears, and now Angela is supposedly home but there’s no answer.”

  “Yes, something’s definitely wrong with this picture. Assuming she was out drinking, people don’t usually get this drunk.”

  Sara nodded as he knocked on the super’s door.

  A man in his late thirties answered, a headpiece on, and a game controller in his hand. “What up?”

  “We need in Angela Banks’s apartment,” Sean said.

  “Who are you?” His eyes left Sean long enough to notice Sara. He smiled at her. “And who are you?”

  Sean fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was the perfect image of an old teenager—a gamer. People focused on the unhealthy addictions such as alcohol and drugs, but where did video games fit in? Weren’t they just as capable of depleting brain power? Sean never got the appeal anyway.

  “We’ve been trying to reach her and she’s not picking up her phone or answering her door.”

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m busy. I can’t just be letting anyone into her place.” Gamer went to shut the door. Sean put his foot out to stop it.

  Sara placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, darling, I’ve got this.”

  Gamer pulled his headset off. “Darling? Okay, now, I really want to know who you people are.”

  “I’m Sara McKinley and this is my husband, Sean.”

  “McKinley. McKinley. Why does that name sound familiar?”

  Sean knew immediately why he would recognize it. He was probably jumping to conclusions, but he’d wager Gamer had more than one hobby, and the other was television viewing.

  “We were on TV,” Sean said.

  “Ah, see that’s why you both kinda look familiar.”

  There was an awkward few seconds of silence.

  “So you’re billionaires.” Gamer was bobbing his head.

  “Yes. Please, we need in Angela Banks’s place,” Sara said.

  “All right. I’ll do it for you, but not for this guy.” Gamer jacked a thumb toward Sean before going back inside to grab the necessary key.

  Sara giggled.

  “Glad you find this amusing,” Sean said.

  The instant the apartment door cracked open, they both knew. In fact, Sean was surprised they hadn’t picked up on the smell with it shut. Decomp odor saturated the hallway as a heavy, invisible fog. Sean and Sara glanced at each other; Sean put a hand on the building manager’s chest to hold him back from entry.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Gamer, who they found out was Jeremy, didn’t seem too impressed by being restrained. His brow compressed and his dark eyes were blank and beady.

  “We used to be cops,” Sean said. “Trust us when we say you don’t want to go inside.”

  “You?” He looked past Sean to Sara, who was dressed in a cream Dior pantsuit. “Even her?”

  “Even me.” Sara moved beyond Sean, closer to Jeremy. “Go call the police. Tell them there’s a dead body in this apartment.”

  “Whoa, a dead body?” His initial shock transformed quickly into excitement. “She’s dead in there? I’ve never seen—”

  His progress was stopped by Sean, who stood in front of him. Sean had met enough guys like him in his lifetime and wasn’t about to back down. Even though the man dwarfed him, Sean stood his ground, holding eye contact and communicating via energy that Jeremy would need to go through him to get inside. To Sean’s benefit was the man’s weak mind and, despite his larger size, he wasn’t in shape. In a fight, Sean could take him down, if it came to that.

  Jeremy held up his hands and stepped back. “Fine.”

  Sara brushed by the men, speaking into a cell phone, obviously having given up on Jeremy making the call. “I’d like to report a dead body. Death suspicious.” She provided the address and apartment number and then hung up.

  Sean had followed behind her, and stationed Jeremy in the hallway to guard the door. The more residents who smelled it, and caught on to the activity around the apartment, the more would be filtering out of their places to see what was going on. A murder scene wasn’t the place for curious onlookers, but it always attracted them like ants at a picnic.

  They found Angela Banks to the right side of the door. She was shot to the chest and had fallen back onto the couch. Flies buzzed around her body.

  Sean always found it interesting how insects knew where remains were.

  “Well, two things stand out to me,” Sara said.

  “Let me guess. One is our killer must have used a silencer or the light sleeper would have heard the shot.”

  “Yes, that, and she didn’t die right away.” Sara pointed to the cordless phone on a side table.

  Bloody fingerprints marred the surface, but the phone itself must have escaped her true grasp. Smears of red were on it, but it had fallen to the floor.

  “Just a quick look. Oh my God, I’m gonna be—” Jeremy was retching and Sean braced himself for the finale.

  “Quite different than it is in video games, isn’t it.” Sean shook his head at the man’s idiocy.

  “She didn’t deserve this. She was so young. I’d give her twenty-seven,” Sara said.

  “Yes, life isn’t fair sometimes.” He didn’t want to verbalize the thoughts he was having. Mommy Dearest may very well be the killer. The fact she extended her stay at the hotel and left hours later was losing sticking factor. Maybe it had all been a ruse in the first place, a means of getting close to them. She had found out about Angela and arrived at that time for a purpose. She had eliminated the competition. There was two nagging holes in that theory, though. Why tell them she was Sara’s mother? She could have gotten close to them without going that far. And why would she leave before she got any money?

  He didn’t know what to believe, and whenever he thought he did, something happened to change his mind.

  Revelations

  ANGELA’S BODY WAS COLLECTED, BUT Crime Scene Investigators were still working over the apartment. Uniformed officers had been dispatched to call on everyone in the building to see if they heard anything. Two had already taken the statement from the elderly neighbor lady but all they got from her was the description of an average woman with blond hair.

  Sara stood in the hallway with her arms crossed. Things were happening quickly, and as they did, she had a hard time grabbing hold of what everything meant. Despite the evidence before her, she couldn’t accept that Leslie was a counterfeit and a cold-hearted killer.

  Sean kept passing glances at her, giving her the feeling he was assessing her emotional state at regular intervals, but she wouldn’t allow him in right now. The thought of that sent spikes through her system, as if by shutting him out she was betraying their relationship somehow. She assured herself she’d open up when the time was right, but until she had an understanding of the entire situation, she couldn’t afford to. While deep-rooted emotion clouded her logic, it still existed. She knew for a fact that whoever did this was the same person who took her mother. The one nagging thing she couldn’t let go of was that Leslie Summers was her birth mother. She felt it. She sensed it deep inside.

  It was then that she caught the whiff—despite the stench of death—there were underlying floral overtures. It was familiar. Where had she smelled it before?

  Sean left Detective Larson and came over to her, placing his arm around her waist. “You look deep in thought.”

  She appreciated his touch but didn’t level eyes with him. She inhaled deeper, the smell of decomp tearing her eyes, but she breathed in again.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She glanced at him, certain her eyes were large. She tugged on his arm and led him outside. When they were in th
e back parking lot, she scanned the area. She passed a few smiles to uniformed officers who cordoned off the building, and took Sean around the corner. Content they were out of earshot, she said, “We’re looking for a woman.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing.” The way his eyes wouldn’t hold hers, she knew what he inferred by his statement.

  “It’s not Leslie Summers.” She pleaded with her eyes.

  “All right.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. He was barring her access to his thoughts as well.

  “The same perfume was in Leslie’s hotel room as in Angela’s apartment. You said you’d trust my gut.”

  He drew out a hand and caressed her arm. “Yes, darling, okay.”

  “Please don’t pacify me.”

  He leaned in close to her and kissed her forehead. “Never.”

  She angled her head back. While his word lent itself to a dual meaning, she gave him the benefit of the doubt and nodded.

  “So, we’re looking for an armed woman,” he summarized.

  “Yes, I believe so. She took my mother.” She stalled on the realization she’d referred to Leslie as her mother out loud, but continued. “She took her at gunpoint. I don’t think she’s dead, even now, though.”

  “Agree on that. We didn’t find any blood or even evidence of a struggle.”

  “Right, so this other woman threatened her life and made her leave the hotel. She’s got to be holding her someplace or…”

  “I know, you don’t want to finish that and neither do I. We have to assume Leslie is still alive.”

  “It seems the killer’s goal is to get close to us, right? We both fully agree on that?” she asked.

  “Yes. I think it’s clear she’s willing to kill for the opportunity.”

  A black SUV with a light bar on the roof pulled in.

  “You ready for this?” Sean asked her.

  “One of the other detectives must have told him we found her.” Sara shook her head. “Some things never change do they? Little snitches.” She laughed.

  Sergeant Jimmy Voigt stopped the vehicle beside them and rolled down the window. “Stay put.”

  The car moved forward into a makeshift parking spot and Jimmy cut the engine.

  “We’ve overstayed our visit here. If he starts into it, this was all your idea,” Sean said with a wink.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, he thinks you’re beautiful—which you are—and he’ll let you get away with anything.”

  She pressed on a smile for Jimmy and spoke out of the corner of her mouth to Sean. “Thanks for putting me under the bus.” She heard him chuckle.

  Jimmy pointed toward the building and then hitched his thumbs on his belt loops. “Seems to me someone died today, and here you are laughing about it?”

  “I’m not laughing, boss,” Sean said.

  “Boss? Now I’m laughing.” While he referenced the expression, a smile didn’t touch his lips. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who was the snitch? My wager is Mills.”

  “Come on, Sean. You know it had to be called in.”

  “How’s the cognac and scotch? Do you need more?”

  “Very funny. Hello, Sara, by the way.”

  She smiled at him and noticed the subtle scowl on Sean’s face. She put her hand in his. “Thank you for helping us with the last case.”

  Jimmy’s face went a bright red. “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

  “We were able to—”

  “Like I said, don’t mention it.”

  Jimmy’s help in the last investigation had been critical in their solving the case, but with it involving the mayor’s daughter it had everyone’s attention.

  “Did you get into trouble over it?”

  Jimmy waved a hand of dismissal, while his apparent hike in blood pressure told the other half of the story. “What is it you’re always saying, Sean? All’s well that ends well. Water under the bridge. All right, so, lay it out for me. And it better be good.”

  Jimmy didn’t pull out a notebook, so Sara sensed he was appealing to them more on an individual level. “Jimmy, I found my birth mother. Or I should say, she found me.” Sara sensed Sean’s energy withdraw a bit.

  “And that’s her in there?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.” He looked between them.

  Sara looked to Sean and he filled Jimmy in on the events that led them to Angela’s apartment.

  “So, she applied to be your live-in maid?”

  “The victim, yes,” Sara said.

  “But she never showed up because she was murdered. Then, in her place, this woman, named Leslie—I remembered the name right?”

  “Yes.”

  “She shows up at the time of Angela’s interview, originally acts as if she is Angela, but then says she’s your mother.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then, your mother, Leslie, goes missing. There’s no sign of a struggle, no blood, nothing to indicate she was hurt.”

  “Correct, but—”

  “I’m sorry, Sara, and no offense, but I’m having a hard time putting all of this together. Or, at least in a way you’d agree with. It seems you really buy this Leslie as your birth mother.”

  “I know how it sounds…” Sara’s heart was fluttering in her chest. She was glad that she withheld the fact about the identical perfume at the hotel and the apartment. He would have immediately concluded they should be on the lookout for Leslie Summers. She was thankful for Sean’s keeping quiet about that fact as well.

  Sean tightened his hold on Sara.

  “See, I have a problem,” Jimmy began, “you’re the ones who found the body.”

  “You know us, Jimmy. We’d never kill a person,” Sean pleaded.

  “I know it. You know it. Even the cops around here know it, but we’re going to have to take you in for questioning and go over the lot.”

  “For appearance’s sake,” Sean exhaled the words on a breath.

  “You got it.”

  “Man, I don’t miss all of that.”

  Confession

  LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, Jimmy released Sean and Sara, but cautioned them to stay out of this and let the police handle it. He promised to keep them apprised of the results when they had them.

  “Guess the pony show is over and we’re free to go.” Sean pulled out of the station lot and headed for their home.

  Sara didn’t respond, and he turned to find her looking out the window.

  “Is everything all right, darling?”

  She looked at him with misted eyes. He was tired of witnessing her sadness. He wanted to keep a bright smile on her face at all times. Was he failing that badly?

  “We still don’t even know for sure if she’s my mother, and now we might never know. I was this close, Sean.” She pinched her fingers to near touching.

  With her action, a thought struck him, but it wouldn’t necessarily get them anywhere. At the end of it, they’d need Jimmy’s help, but he had made it very clear to let things rest. “I just thought of something.”

  “What? We didn’t have a chance to get her DNA.”

  Their eyes sparked. “The dishes from last night,” they said in unison.

  Her face fell as quickly as it had lit up. “All of them have been washed.”

  “Well, let’s think this through. Did she touch anything when she was there? A picture frame? The tap on the water cooler?”

  Sara’s eyes enlarged. “She touched the piano when I played.”

  “You were very good by the way.” He was pleased that before they had called it night, she had consented to playing a couple of tunes.

  She brushed away his compliment, her eyes determined. “We’ll have to see if we can lift one.”

  “But it could belong to the previous owner.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. I polished it up to a fine shine, my dear. The only prints would be ours or hers. Oh, never mind, this isn’t going to work. Even if we got a print ther
e’s no way to run it. Jimmy’s out on this one.”

  He had hoped that with their discussing it out loud, they would have discovered a way around that. There was another one that threatened a storm, though. It was time for him to come clean with Sara about Adam. He’d somehow managed to keep it to himself until they got home. They were back in the sitting room, where they had been the night before, with Leslie. Sara’s eyes seemed fixed on the piano, the coffee in her cup going cold.

  “Darling,” Sean began.

  She turned to him.

  “I need to tell you something.” He took her hand in his. “But I need you to promise that you won’t get mad.”

  She laughed. “Why do people start sentences like that? The first thing it does is get a person on edge.”

  He smiled at her, but he felt it fade. “I asked for Adam’s help with something.”

  She sat up straighter on the couch, and pulled her legs up. “What kind of something?”

  This is where his throat went dry and his palms became sweaty. “I was only thinking of you and protecting you.”

  “You had him look into my past?” The energy firing in her eyes made him queasy, but it was too late to turn around at this point.

  “I did.”

  “You had him look into my past? How could you do that?”

  “To protect you. Us.”

  “Protect your money you mean.”

  “Please, Sara, it’s not like that.”

  She bit on her bottom lip, and again the tears welled in her eyes. He hated himself right now.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  Her words stabbed as if a knife to his heart.

  She continued. “I’m sorry but that’s how I feel. Why must you always assume the worst about people?”

  “I just wanted to—”

  “I know, Sean, and you’re a very thoughtful person, for the most part.”

  He closed his eyes when her hand caressed his arm.

  “Sean.”

  His eyes shot open at the tone of her voice.

  “Leslie rented a sedan. Remember?”