by R. P. Dahlke
“Don’t know,” I said, putting on the brake and opening my door. “Shall we knock on the door and see?”
We took the porch steps and Pearlie took out her cards, running a finger over the raised letters as if memorizing her lines by braille.
.
Chapter Fourteen:
The door was opened by a middle-aged man, his crisply pressed and custom fitted white shirt and dress pants at odds with his rumpled face, and the dishtowel over his shoulder. Sharp gray eyes momentarily landed on me then flitted to Pearlie. Amusement tugged at his mouth and just as quickly disappeared.
“You passed a few No Trespassing signs on your way here,” he said, running a hand through salt and pepper hair that used to be deadly black.
“Seven. I counted ‘em.” Pearlie said, sticking out her hand. “We’re here to help you find your daughter’s killer.”
How on earth did she come to the conclusion that this was the dead girl’s father? And what happened to the assortment of props she had ready to hand out? I held my breath, waiting for him to shut the door on our faces.
But something seemed to shift behind those sharp, gray eyes, and instead of slamming the door, he silently waved us inside.
Pearlie winked at me as if to say, ‘And that’s how it’s done,’ and sashayed into the foyer.
The shiny wood floors smelled of a recent waxing, and the sunny interior matched what I expected from the outside: an attractive two-story country house with a staircase leading to a second floor. The hall led to an easterly facing kitchen where a window drew sunlight into the room.
As if remembering his manners, the man pointed us to a sitting room and a couple of matching club chairs.
Instead of taking a seat, he remained where he was, legs spread, arms crossed. He might’ve been amused by his morning visitors, but he was the one calling the shots. His house, his rules, and he would be asking the questions.
“Why do you think you can find my daughter’s killer?”
“Does the name Eula Mae Bains mean anything to you?”
“No,” he said, examining his neatly pared fingernails. “And who are you?”
Pearlie introduced herself as a private investigator and added, “Lalla’s father was the one who discovered the dead police chief.”
Annoyance flashed across his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry,” Pearlie said, her voice oozing sympathy. “I thought Homicide would’ve told you by now.”
“The bastards haven’t told me a damn thing,” he said, clenching and unclenching angry hands. “And what would this dead police chief have to do with my daughter’s murder?”
I interrupted her. “My father found his body in a mine pit about a mile west of here.”
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Pearlie said. “And maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with your daughter, but for lack of any other suspects, the police seem to like her dad for both murders.”
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, staring at me. “Your father—is he a criminal?”
I popped out of my chair. “Of course not! He’s a retired business man and a respected member of our community, at least he is in California, and we just got here a few days ago.”
“Let me explain,” Pearlie said. “Your property and Lalla’s were once connected and owned by my grandmother, Eula Mae Bains.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” he said, his voice stretched tight with impatience. “Thanks for coming by to tell me about the dead police chief, but I’ll be hiring a private investigator.”
“Wait,” Pearlie said. “With, or without your help, we’re going to find this killer.”
The man took in Pearlie’s curvy figure and snickered. “And why would I hire a couple of fluff-bunnies?”
I wasn’t sure if I was flattered or insulted. No one’s ever used the word fluff-bunny and Lalla Bains in the same sentence, but just in case, I added a smile. “I’ll tell you why—we’re smart, tenacious, and-and she has her P.I. license.”
Pearlie didn’t bat an eye at my bold lie, offering to root around in her purse for the non-existent license. “Rats. It’s in my suitcase. But I’m staying until we come up with a better suspect than her dad.”
When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Give us three days.”
He folded his arms over this chest. “Three days? How do you propose to find a killer in three days?”
“I didn’t say we’d find a killer,” she said. “But we can come up with suspects for you. People like you underestimate us—you did, and that works to our advantage. Who would suspect a couple of fluff-bunnies are really investigators, right? And suspects and witnesses always withhold at least one bit of information from the police, either out of fear of incriminating themselves, or because the news might be embarrassin’.”
He tilted back his head, attempting to look down his nose at me. “Is that so?”
Since I’m pushing six feet tall, I was looking him straight in the eye. “Yes. You can check with Modesto’s police chief, he knows us.”
That is if he didn’t have me shipped back to California in a straightjacket. What were we thinking, passing ourselves off as licensed investigators? Caleb would have a fit.
His face grew dark with anger. “I want my daughter’s killer brought to justice. But what’s to say the police here will be able to do the job? I want answers. I want suspects and I want them yesterday. And I don’t care how high you have to reach into this little shit-hole, I want names. If you can do that, you’re hired.”
“Wait a minute,” Pearlie said putting up a hand. “We’ll report what we find to you, but if we come up with a viable suspect, we have to notify the homicide detective, too.”
He rolled his head around on his bulky shoulders like a fighter about to go into the ring.
I put a warning hand on Pearlie.
Never mind the neatly barbered hair, the manicured nails, or the tightly pressed slacks, this was not someone Pearlie could control, and all that repressed anger could just as easily be directed at us.
Then a switch seemed to flip, and all that pent up anger subsided.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his eyes. “You wouldn’t be professional if you didn’t take the evidence to Homicide.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding, but he wasn’t finished.
“If we’re going to work together, we should make a plan. You know, before we take anything to the police. They have a way of taking over evidence that never sees the light of day. If we can agree on that, we have a deal.” He stuck out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Pearlie rolled her lips over her teeth in a familiar gesture. It was what she did when she was about to argue, but instead she took his hand in hers and shook it.
His behavior was a stunning, and impressive about-face to his earlier attitude. But all Pearlie could hear was the word, hired.
I almost smiled. There was no doubt in my mind who was manipulating whom. I didn’t know how Pearlie would take the news that she might not be the one in charge here. This was a man who was used to giving the orders and expecting them to be followed, not the other way round.
“By the way,” he said, “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Mac Coker.”
“Well, Mr. Coker—” Pearlie said.
“Call me Mac. So what’s next?”
“Mac, then. I think we should have a look at your daughter’s bedroom.”
A spot above Mac’s left eyebrow twitched. “The detectives have been through it already, and the room is taped off as a crime scene. I-I haven’t been up there since ….”
At the naked grief on his face, my suspicious nature took a back seat.
“You don’t need to accompany us, Mac. We can do this,” I said.
“Good,” he said thickly, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Pearlie’s face was flushed with excitement, and the minute he was out of earshot, she squeaked a quick laugh. “We did it! We just
got our first real job!”
“I don’t know Pearlie,” I said. “He as good as said he wants first crack at the killer.”
“He’s a grieving father, what do you expect?”
“You aren’t serious are you—about reporting to him first? What about Caleb?”
“Don’t be a worrywart,” she said, climbing the stairs. “When we have an airtight case against a real suspect, everyone will get what they want.”
“And you,” I added, “the licensed P.I., forgot to ask for a retainer.”
“Well then,” she said, at the slip, “we’ll just have to crack this case before the cops, won’t we?”
.
Chapter Fifteen:
Crime scene tape crisscrossed the closed door to Bethany’s room, barring any curiosity seekers.
Pearlie hesitated. “Darn it, my P.I. video lessons were very clear on this—’No contaminating the crime scene.’”
“Uh-huh,” I said, turning the knob, and with a slight shove, the door swung open and I stepped over the yellow tape and into the room.
Pearlie giggled and followed me inside.
The bedroom was much like the one I’d been raised in, high ceilings and wood-sash windows in thick painted frames. The lace curtains were closed, but I noticed the windows had blackout roller shades at the top and decorative brackets held back lined drapery. The drapes and roller shades could be a defense against summer heat, or for privacy, or against migraines. I ought to know; I still got them every so often and a darkened room helps. I would ask Mac.
I pulled back the lace curtains and looked out. There was nothing to see but more mountains and the trace of a dusty track winding away from the property.
The room faced east gathering sunshine like cups of gold spilling across the oak floors and onto an empty queen sized bed. The bed had a brass headboard, but someone, probably the forensic team, had stripped it of the linens.
To the left of the bed was a closet, to the right a small, white tiled bathroom. On a wall across from the bed was a flat screen TV. Below it was a bookcase full of romance and travel books. Books could always give a girl an exotic place to go, even if only from her room. There were pictures in stand-up frames and powder from the homicide team looking for the finger, thumb, or even palm print that might lead them to a killer. I leaned in and inspected the photos. A younger version of her father had his arm around a woman. Bethany’s mother? I noticed a framed picture of three laughing young women. Was one of them Mac’s daughter?
Pearlie reached into her purse and pulled out two pairs of purple gloves. “Non-latex in case you’re allergic. A good P.I. always carries them to a crime scene along with evidence bags and paper envelopes. Put ‘em on.”
“Which one do you think is Bethany?” I asked, pointing to the photo.
“Darn it,” Pearlie said, and licking her pencil, wrote in her notebook. “That’s the second thing a good P.I. does—ask a family member for a picture of the deceased.”
“We’ll ask her dad when we finish here,” I said, giving her a reassuring pat. Pearlie shook off my hand. She had her first job and, licensed or not, she desperately wanted this one to go right.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, and pulled out a thin digital camera. “I have to take photos, in case we miss something.”
“I suppose you have handcuffs in that purse too?” I asked.
“P.I.‘s don’t use handcuffs anymore,” she said, snapping pictures of the room. “The pros use zip ties.” She put the camera away. “Now, where to start?”
I stood where I was, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with possibilities. “You know something?”
“Make it snappy, we have work to do.”
“It’s just,” I gulped down my sudden urge to cry with happiness, “this is the first time someone’s actually given me permission to snoop.”
She laughed. “Liberating, ain’t it? I’ll take the bathroom, you do the closet.”
The closet had tight red come-get-me dresses next to plaid lumberjack shirts. Black thigh-high patent leather boots cozied up to a pair of lace-up hiking boots. Gauzy dresses, short skirts, padded vests, down jackets, lace blouses and jeans—everything cleaned and pressed. Tidy. Odd.
I tipped open the top of an empty wicker clothes basket. “Do you think Homicide would take her dirty laundry?”
She came out of the bathroom writing in her notebook. “There’s nothing in her medicine cabinet, either.”
“She could’ve been very healthy.”
“Don’t be silly. No self-respecting female goes without makeup, and there wasn’t even a tube of lipstick. No boxes of tampons or pads, either. What did you find?”
“Well, for a reclusive artist she sure had eclectic tastes in clothes.”
Pearlie tilted her head. “Can you be a bit more specific?”
I pointed to the closet. “Look for yourself.” And while she looked I added my observations. “Who wears thigh-high, patent leather boots in Wishbone, Arizona?”
“Halloween,” she said, her voice muffled by the clothes.
“Then where’s the rest of the getup?” I asked.
“Party clothes, then,” she said, backing out of the closet.
“And again, I ask—in Wishbone?”
“How should I know?” Pearlie said, wiping her hands on her jeans. She was annoyed to come up without an answer.
But shaking off the self-pity she flipped open her notebook. “Okay. My last lesson plan said to look around the room and try to guess what could be missing—that is, besides whatever goes with a pair of dominatrix boots.”
I pivoted on my heels, looking at the room as if it were mine. Though I envied her private bathroom, I had the books, TV, a CD player, and ….
“Where’s her computer?” I asked.
“Right. Every girl has one, certainly a laptop. Homicide probably took it, but I’ll note it for later.”
She squeaked and ran to the CD player, turned it on and ejected a disk.
Grinning widely, she stuck a gloved fore-finger in the hole. “She likes Robin Thicke? Me too. I just love Blurred Lines.”
“That might be evidence.”
“I sure hope so,” she said. “But since they didn’t think to take it, we’ll just hang onto it for now.”
She opened her purse, removed a baggie, dropped the CD in, and zipped it closed.
I snapped my fingers. “If the laptop went into evidence, Mac Coker would’ve signed off on a list of items removed from the house. If he can get us a copy, we’ll know for sure if Homicide has it.”
“Good idea. We’re done here,” she said, stuffing her notebook into her purse.
We found Mac Coker in the kitchen, an elderly onion in his dish-gloved hands. Seeing us, he put the onion in the sink and removed the dish gloves. “Did you find anything?”
“It’s what we didn’t find that has us puzzled.”
“Yes?” he said, turning on the water to wash his hands.
“Did the detectives have you sign for items they removed?”
“I suppose so. Is it important?”
“We’ll know when we see it,” Pearlie said, taking out her notes. “They would’ve left you a copy.”
“It’s around somewhere. Do you want it now?”
At the stricken look on his face, Pearlie’s position on the evidence list softened.
“Maybe later,” she said. “We noticed there were no meds in her bathroom. Did she take any prescription medication?”
“Why do you ask?” he said, looking from Pearlie to me.
“I noticed the blackout shades. They help with migraines, if she had them.”
“Yes. She had migraines. She would’ve had oxycodone and Imitrex in her medicine cabinet, but come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time mentioned having a headache.”
“Some people outgrow them,” I said.
“Did Bethany have a boyfriend, either here or in Chicago?” Pearlie asked.
“My daughter didn’t d
ate.”
“Never?” I asked.
He leaned against the sink, crossing his arms over his chest. His defensive posture was back.
“Bethany’s health is, was, delicate. She required privacy in order to work, and she had migraines. I did everything I could to make sure that she had what she needed without having to leave the property. You saw the No Trespassing signs. No one came here except the UPS truck and grocery deliveries.”
Her life sounded very solitary and I had to wonder why she would cut herself off from the world. “About the other artists—how many are living here?”
“Only two. Jason Stark and Reina Schmidt. I’ve just met them, but I know because I do her books.”
“There’s a picture of some girls in her room,” I said. “Was one of them Bethany?”
“Her cousins. They live in Chicago.” He looked down at his hands, as if examining them for guilt. “I don’t know why she chose to frame that picture.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d e-mail me their phone numbers.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “They never expressed any interest in her, living or dead.”
Another oddity to ponder. Then why keep a picture of distant cousins with whom she had no contact?
“Then do you have a picture of Bethany we could borrow?” I asked.
Mac sighed. “I have one.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled a photo out of his wallet, handing it to Pearlie.
Pearlie held it so I could see. The photo was ragged and pale with age. A young girl, her head tilted at a mischievous angle for the camera, smiling, her chin length hair whipping around her face as if she’d been caught dancing. She must’ve been about fourteen and she was graceful in a way that made you think she would grow into a lovely young woman. Yet there was something wrong with the angle of the photo. Or was it the camera? No. It was something wrong with the proportion of her face. Yes, that was it. Pearlie and I looked up to see the pain of our discovery reflected in Mac’s face.
