"Why?" I asked, complying.
She grinned, the twinkle back in her eyes. "Just trust me."
"That phrase never ends in a good idea—" I tried to warn her, but she was already knocking on 1A's door.
Heavy footsteps approached before the door swung open to reveal an older guy with ample belly and lots of grey hair sticking out in wild tufts from his head. And eyebrows. And nose. He was dressed in shorts, a white T-shirt, suspenders, and galoshes. The outfit was incongruous enough that I wondered just what sort of apartment emergency he'd been preparing for.
"Something you need?" he asked, his voice just slightly less irritated than 2B's had been. Clearly living in Shady Meadows was irritating enough that any slight intrusion was an annoyance.
"Hi," Ava said, giving him the same big bright smile. "I was hoping you could help me."
"With?" the guy asked, frowning as his gaze went from Ava to me.
"My uncle just passed away."
I shot her a look.
"Bill Buckley," she continued. "He lived in 2C."
"Oh, gee. Sorry. I didn't know he had a niece." The man looked appropriately sympathetic.
"Thanks," Ava said, giving him another smile, albeit a slightly more somber one. "But I was here earlier, giving my condolences to his girlfriend, Sheila, and I forgot my purse inside the apartment." She shrugged. "The grief. I just don't know where my head is at these days."
"Yeah. The grief." The guy nodded his hairy head. "Sorry for your loss."
"Thanks," Ava said again. "I just went to see if Sheila would let me in to grab it, but she's not home. I'd call her at work but…well, the number is stored in my phone, and my phone is in my purse, which is in the apartment." She pointed up toward the second floor.
The guy shook his head. "Modern conveniences, huh? No one knows numbers anymore. You know my kid didn't even know my number? Just has my face stored in his iPhone thing and swipes. What happens if someone takes his phone from him, I ask you?"
Ava nodded. "I agree. I plan to memorize some important numbers. But for now…" she said, looking upward again. "I was hoping maybe you could unlock the door to the apartment so I could just slip in and get my purse?"
He frowned. "I dunno. I really ain't supposed to let anyone in when residents aren't here."
"I hate to bother Sheila again," Ava said. "She's been through so much."
He thought about that for a beat. "Yeah. I hate to bother her too." I wasn't sure if it was because it would be intrusive or because he was lazy. But he nodded. "Okay, yeah, I could unlock it for you. I mean, you are family after all, right?"
"Absolutely." Ava gave him another winning smile as the guy grabbed a ring of keys from a hook just inside his apartment door and stepped out into the sunshine with us.
"Thanks so much. I really appreciate your help," Ava said.
"Wait." The guy paused midstep and turned to face her. "Maybe I should see some ID first."
Uh-oh.
"Uh, sure," Ava said. She paused. "It's in my purse."
The super's face broke into a self-deprecating grin. "Duh. Right."
As soon as the super's back was turned again, Ava let out a sigh of relief and rolled her eyes my way.
I stifled a grin. She'd missed her calling. Forget designing jewelry—she should have been an actress.
We followed the super up the flight of stairs and past the noise and stinky apartments to 2C. He fiddled with the keys a moment, looking for the right one, before he unlocked the door.
"Thank you so much. This is really kind," Ava said, pushing past him.
I gave him a wan smile and did the same.
"We'll just be a minute," Ava promised before she shut the door behind her.
"You think he really bought that?" I whispered once we were alone.
"Possibly. But I think the longer we give him to think about it, the flimsier it will feel." Ava glanced around the dimly lit apartment, the last rays of late afternoon sunlight coming through the worn curtains providing minimal light.
"Where do we start?" I asked. The small living room looked about the same as on our previous visit. The grungy furniture was still covered in afghans and stains, a few fast food wrappers had joined the pizza box on the coffee table, and the scent of cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. It was clear that Sheila hadn't been doing much housekeeping in her grief. A small kitchen sat on the other side of the apartment, dishes piled in the sink and some pots and pans still sitting on the stove bearing the greasy remains of meals past. A short hallway lay ahead of us, leading off to two bedrooms and a bathroom, whose door stood partially open to reveal a powder blue toilet and an old oak vanity.
"Let's try the bedrooms. If Jamie took the money, his room is the most likely place he'd stash it."
"If he took it. If Buckley still had it, it could be stashed anywhere," I reasoned, feeling more and more like this was a bad idea.
But Ava was already down the hallway, standing in front of two closed doors. She took the one on the left, opening it to reveal a queen-size bed covered in a floral duvet, a couple pieces of outdated mismatched furniture, and a pair of red sheets tacked over the windows as makeshift curtains. Women's clothing lay scattered over the unmade bed, and the floor was strewn with shoes, books, a few boxes against the wall, and a small space heater.
"Looks like Sheila's room."
"Sheila and Buckley's," I added.
Ava nodded before crossing the hall to open the door on the right, revealing what was clearly a teenager's room. The walls were plastered in posters of rock bands and sports cars, a twin bed was shoved up against the wall next to a small desk that looked like it served more as a clutter catcher than a place to study. More fast food wrappers littered the floor here, along with video games, a pair of broken headphones, and several pairs of shoes emitting a stale odor.
"Hey, you find that purse yet?" we heard the super call from the front door.
"Uh, no. Sheila must have tucked it away for me. Be just a minute!" Ava yelled.
"He's not gonna wait much longer," I cautioned.
"Then we better split up to look for the money. You take the master—I'll take Jamie's room."
Before I could protest, she was already in the teenager's room, riffling through his desk drawers.
I glanced toward the front room, expecting the super to lose patience any second, before quickly ducking into Sheila's and her former boyfriend's bedroom.
In addition to the queen bed, which took up most of the small space, there was a dresser on the far wall and a small desk wedged in the corner near the windows. On the top of the dresser sat an old, square style television with a built-in VCR. Which, judging by the layer of dust along the opening of it, got about as much use as one would expect of technology that was thirty years out of date. I opened the top drawer of the dresser, only to find several pairs of skimpy panties. I quickly closed it, feeling totally intrusive. Sheila Connolly had lost her boyfriend, her son was possibly a murderer, and now a stranger was going through her intimates drawer.
I shoved down an icky feeling and moved on to the desk.
Where the first thing I noticed was a large rectangular void in the dust on the top. Like something had been there before and was missing now. I glanced under the desk and noticed an indentation in the carpet, where something heavy had sat. "It looks like there was a computer in here," I called out to Ava.
She popped her head in the doorway. "You found a computer?"
"Negative. I found where a computer used to be." I gestured to the empty desk.
Ava pursed her lips. "You think the police took it?"
"Maybe. They'd need a warrant," I said, having spent enough time around Grant to know the basics of police procedure.
"Which means they'd have to have some reasonable idea that something incriminating was on there," Ava concluded. "Like, say, the number of a bank account in the Cayman Islands?"
"Or something that would incriminate Buckley's killer."
&nbs
p; "Well, either way it's not here." Ava blew out a frustrated breath. She glanced around the room, eyes going to the boxes stacked on the floor. "What's in those?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't had a chance to look yet—"
"Hey!"
Ava and I froze at the sound of a woman's voice yelling from just outside the door.
"You hear that music?" the woman yelled, a slight accent coloring her English.
"Yeah, so what?" the super responded.
I let out a sigh of relief. The neighbor from 2B was talking to the super. Not Sheila catching us red-handed in her bedroom.
"Robby can't even get a nap. Can't you do something about it?" she said.
"I can talk to 'em, but hey, it's a free country, lady. They wanna play music…" The rest of the super's response trailed off as I heard him follow the woman down the hall to 2A's pulsating door.
"I'm guessing no luck with Jamie's room?" I whispered as Ava made a beeline for the boxes.
She shook her head. "I checked under the bed, in the closet." She paused to look up. "Totally gross, by the way. I found pizza that was ripe enough to grow legs."
I shuddered. "But no cash?"
She shook her head. "Nope. Granted, I'm not sure how big of a bundle we're talking, but I'm guessing bigger than a wallet."
I nodded. "So, if Jamie took the money, he doesn't have it stored here."
"Which doesn't mean he didn't take it," Ava pointed out. "I mean, he could have it stashed at a friend's house or with a girlfriend. Maybe it's even in an account somewhere."
"Like the Caymans," I said, glancing at the empty spot on the desk again.
"Whoa."
"What?" I moved over to Ava's side.
She nodded into the boxes. "Looks like Buckley was old school. These are financial files."
"Like actual paper ones?"
She nodded. "Look." She handed me a recent bank statement. For a moment I thought we'd hit pay dirt and found the missing money. Until I looked down at the balance. $115. It was worse than mine.
"Wow. They really were living hand to mouth," I noted. Though I noticed Sheila's name wasn't on the statement. If they'd been splitting the bills, they hadn't been commingling their money to do so.
"Anything else in there?" I asked, glancing back at the front door.
Ava flipped through a few more files. "Looks like some bills, tax returns." She pulled out another yellow file folder marked Important and opened it to reveal a photocopy of Buckley's birth certificate and a letter of commendation from his early days on the force.
"What's that?" I asked, pointing to a file marked Insurance. "Maybe the life insurance policy?"
Ava pulled it from the box and opened it.
Only instead of an insurance policy, a stack of photos fell out, spilling onto the carpeted floor.
We both scrambled to pick them up, and I hoped they weren't in any particular order before. There were a couple dozen 4x6 sized photos, like you'd print off from your camera or phone. All were on glossy photo paper, though some looked more vividly colored than others.
"What are these?" Ava asked, picking the first one up. It was of two women, one with her back to the camera, leaning forward to hand the other woman something across a counter.
"Wait—that's Katy's Cookies!" I pointed to the countertop we'd seen earlier that day.
Sure enough, as Ava flipped to the next photo, Katy's face was clearly visible as the other woman stepped to the right of the frame.
"So Buckley definitely knew she was in town," Ava mused.
"Which doesn't prove she knew he was," I noted, watching Ava shift to the next photo. Which looked to be a third shot of the same two women, this one capturing their profiles.
"Why would he be taking photos of her shop?" I wondered out loud.
"Maybe he was keeping tabs on her? Making sure she didn't violate her parole."
"Maybe. But I'm not sure why he'd care. I mean—why not let her parole officer handle that?"
"Who's this?" Ava said, shuffling through more photos. The next one was a different scene entirely. It looked to be some sort of party, several people in cocktail dresses and slacks holding glasses of wine and smiling.
I shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe some of Buckley's friends?"
"Or clients." Ava moved to the next photo and pointed to the corner, where we could clearly see part of Buckley's sleeve as he took the photo—a blue security uniform.
"So Buckley took some pictures of a party he was working security for? Why?"
Ava shrugged. "Maybe he wanted to remember it?"
"Wait, I know that guy." I stabbed a finger at the face of a man in the next photo. "That's James Atherton." I turned to Ava. "Remember he was married to Leah and then to Heather?" Leah was a friend of both Ava's and mine who owned a bakery in town called the Chocolate Bar. And Heather had been James's unlucky second wife, who had been killed after a wine and chocolate party Leah and I had thrown together. While I was sympathetic to James's widower status, that was about all I was sympathetic to about James Atherton. He worked at a large corporate winery in the area, and he was even more pretentious than the wines he sold.
"Why would Buckley be taking pictures of James Atherton at a party he was working?" Ava asked.
"Beats me. Maybe they were friends?"
Ava shifted the stack of photos, flipping to the next one.
And we both froze.
"If these are pictures of friends, then what is this doing here," Ava asked slowly.
I had no answer for that. Because the guy in the picture was Grant.
He was standing outside of some brick building, his phone to his ear, eyes going off in the opposite direction, like he wasn't aware he was being photographed.
Ava flipped to the next one and the next. Three more photos of Grant in various places and poses.
"You did say they knew each other, right?" Ava asked, clearly fishing for a way to explain them.
I nodded, my throat dry. "But only through Buckley's partner, Eckhart. Grant said he didn't really know Buckley."
"Maybe he was downplaying their friendship?" Ava asked.
"You mean lying to me," I croaked out. For some reason I couldn't take my eyes off the photos. Clearly Buckley had known Grant. Well enough to have pictures of him. Why? And why had Grant lied?
"You find that purse yet, lady?" the super's voice came from the front door.
Ava shoved the photos back into the file and put it in the box. "Yeah! Be right out!" she called, putting the lid back on it.
I pulled her purse out of my bag and handed it to her as we quickly slipped out of the bedroom and to the front door, where an impatient looking super was waiting. "What took you so long?" he asked.
"Sheila had it tucked away for me," Ava lied with a big smile on her face as we stepped outside. She held her handbag up. "Right here, see?"
The super frowned as he locked the door behind us, but clearly we'd taken up too much of his time already, so he just grunted as he turned and headed back toward the stairs.
Ava and I moved to follow him, but as we reached the bottom of the stairs, Ava stopped so abruptly that I almost slammed into her back. Then she spun and shoved me behind the overflowing dumpster.
"What the—?" I stopped as I looked past her and saw what had caused her shift in course.
Trudging across the parking lot with a scowl firmly in place was Jamie Connolly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I ducked behind the trash bin, trying not to inhale too deeply, as Ava and I both squatted down low.
"Hey, you're Buckley's kid?" I heard the super call.
"No!" came Jamie's emphatic answer.
"He was living with your mom, though?" the older guy prompted.
"What of it?" It didn't sound as if Jamie's mood had improved any since we'd seen him at the Links. If anything, the hard edge was even more pronounced.
"His niece came by. You just missed her," the super said, his voice trailing off as he walked t
oward his apartment.
I held my breath and dared to peek out from behind the dumpster as I watched Jamie stare after the super.
But either he didn't care if Buckley had had a niece or just didn't care about people in general, as he just turned and stomped up the stairs, the scowl never changing.
I tried to think small, unnoticeable thoughts as I listened to him clomp up the flight of metal stairs and make his way down the hallway overhead. His footsteps paused, presumably outside the door to 2C as he unlocked it, and then I heard the sound of a door slamming shut.
"Let's go," Ava hissed in my ear.
She didn't need to tell me twice, as I was already up and running down the cracked pavement to the parking lot. My heart didn't stop pounding until I was safely inside my Jeep. Ava threw herself in the passenger seat beside me, and we both breathed deeply for a moment.
"That was way too close," Ava finally said.
"And pointless," I added, turning the car on. "We still have no idea if Buckley had the bribery money, let alone if it was what was worth killing over."
Ava looked disappointed for a moment before she said, "But we do know now that Buckley knew Katy was in town."
"I wonder why he was taking pictures of her," I thought out loud.
"Well, it looked like he was on the job in those party pictures. Maybe someone hired him to watch Katy?" Ava speculated. "Maybe even an old friend on the force?"
"Maybe." Which immediately made me think of Grant and the pictures Buckley had had of him. I was about to say more when my phone rang from my purse, making both of us jump.
I pulled it out and checked the readout.
Grant.
I froze, guilt washing over me. Did he know where we were? Had he been watching Buckley's place?
"Who is it?" Ava asked.
"Grant." The word stuck in my throat.
"Are you going to answer it?"
I took a deep breath and swiped the call on.
"Hey," I said, wishing my voice didn't sound like I'd just been caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
Killer Among the Vines (Wine & Dine Mysteries Book 7) Page 12
