Woman in the Water (Arrington Mystery Book 3)

by Elle Gray

  Brody grins, not missing my not so subtly made point. “Okay, okay, you made your point. You don’t need to be such an ass about it.”

  I shrug. “I gotta be me.”

  “Okay, how about this… I know we have to turn over every rock to find out who killed her. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “So how about we lay a thousand bucks down. If you find nothing, no skeletons in her closet, I win. And if you do, you win,” he says.

  “Gambling on somebody’s death? That’s pretty crass, even for you.”

  “Actually, I’m gambling on her life,” he corrects me. “I’m betting on her being everything she showed to the world and didn’t have this secret, twisted, and dark life. I’m throwing money down on the idea that you’re wrong about her… and about people in general.”

  “Okay, it’s still a little crass, but I’ll take that bet,” I reply.

  “Sold,” he nods.

  “Great. Now let’s get into this,” I say. “Pull up the autopsy photos, if you would.”

  He groans but starts tapping away on his keyboard. “This is definitely not the thing I want to be looking at first thing in the morning.”

  “That makes two of us. But this is the job.”

  “I should have gone into IT.”

  “You’d be bored.”

  “I’d get over it.”

  “You never would have met Marcy,” I shoot back with a grin.

  “I hate you.”

  On the wall-mounted monitor, four pictures come up as I turn in my seat to get a better look at them. They’re about as bad as I figured they’d be. A body in water never ends up looking good. Though it was only twenty-four hours, so the damage to the corpse isn’t as bad as it could have been.

  The body is a waxy blue color, and the stomach and limbs are all a bit distended. Charlotte’s eyes are wide open as if she’s staring at something only she can see. I get to my feet and stand closer to the screen.

  “Enlarge image one, please,” I tell him.

  The image enlarges, and I find myself staring at the four-inch gash that runs from just inside the hairline, down to her forehead. It looks like the head was just cracked open. The only positive about her being submerged for a day is that the wound isn’t ragged and bloody. The pool served to wash it out, giving us a clean look at it.

  “Cause of death is blunt force trauma,” Brody reads from the report. “No water in the lungs indicates she was dead before she went into the pool.”

  I guess in the grand scheme of things, that’s a small mercy. I would imagine being killed outright with a massive blow to the head would have to be better than slowly drowning.

  We scroll through the photos sequentially, and I feel something tickling the back of my mind. Something seems out of place. Something just doesn’t seem right. Which raises red flags in my head about the crime scene. And then it hits me.

  “Show me her hands, please?” I ask.

  Brody enlarges the image first of her right hand, and after giving me a few minutes, switches to the left.

  “Notice anything odd?” I ask.

  “Besides the dead body of a really nice lady?”

  “Her hands. There are no defensive wounds,” I say as I turn back to him. “No cuts, scratches, broken nails… nothing. Confirm it on the ME’s report?”

  Brody takes a minute to scan the report. Then he raises his eyes, shakes his head, and frowns.

  “No. Nothing in the report about injuries to her hands or arms,” he replies. “So, what does that mean?”

  “It means Detective Kyle Price didn’t do his job,” I tell him. “And it means it couldn’t have happened the way Price is laying it out.”

  “How do you figure?”

  I sit down at the conference table and take a quick drink of coffee, feeling the connections being made in my head and the pieces snapping into place.

  “Price has this listed as a home invasion gone wrong. Intruder unknown, no active suspects,” I explain. “He says Mrs. MacMillan was surprised in her bedroom, a fight ensued that caused much of the damage you see, and she was finally done in when the unknown intruder bashed her over the head with— something. Weapon not recovered and also unknown.”

  Brody raises his eyebrows, not making the connection yet. “Okay…”

  “If there was this hellacious fight between Mrs. MacMillan and her attacker, she’d have defensive wounds on her hands, arms, or elsewhere. She doesn’t,” I go on, feeling the adrenaline kicking in. “Also, when I was in the house, I knew something felt wrong. Something was off.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “It felt staged. It felt like somebody knew what a home invasion should look like, or at least had an idea what it should look like in their head and went to work trashing the place.”

  Brody sits back in his seat, taking a sip of his coffee, looking skeptical. He thinks about it for a moment, then leans forward again. As he thinks it over, I pull up the list of stolen property Lee had eventually yielded to me, on my tablet. It’s a surprisingly small list for a home invasion robbery. I slide the tablet over to him, and Brody takes a minute to peruse the list.

  “What am I looking at?” he asks.

  “A list of everything taken from the home that night. Now, look at those pictures,” I say. “There’s thousands of dollars' worth of easily transportable things sitting there in plain sight, and all that was taken was what was in the jewelry box.”

  “Maybe they were in a rush.”

  I shrug. “Maybe. But they’d already killed Mrs. MacMillan. No police were en route. Why not take the other valuables too?”

  “Maybe they were freaked out and bolted.”

  “It’s possible. But the pieces aren’t lining up to me that way.”

  Brody pauses for a moment and frowns. “So, somebody went to all this trouble to trash the place, putting themselves at risk of being caught if somebody came home, to cover up a murder?”

  I arch an eyebrow at him. “Really? Given what we know about Veronica’s death now, you’re seriously asking what lengths people will go to just to cover up a murder?

  A sheepish grin crosses his face. “Point taken.”

  “I have to think it was somebody who knew Marshall would be out of town, so they wouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “So, are we thinking Price was in on it?”

  I shake my head. “No, I just think he’s a lazy idiot. Saw what he thought was the obvious answer, did as little actual police work as he could, and moved on. Lee knew it. That’s why he took over the case.”

  Brody whistles low as he seems to be processing all of the implications of everything we’ve just uncovered. On the one hand, it’s a good thing in that we know which direction not to take with this investigation. It also means Sarah was right about Price not doing his job. On the other hand, it still leaves us with a million different directions this investigation can take us.

  Everything is firing through my mind at light speed as I try to put some of the pieces together. At the moment, trying to find Mrs. MacMillan’s killer is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Our job right now is to make that haystack smaller. It’s then, though, that a realization hits me like a bolt of lightning.

  “Okay, so we think the scene was staged. And we know Mrs. MacMillan has no defensive wounds, nor was there any sign of forced entry,” I say and look over at Brody. “Know what that all adds up to?”

  He runs a hand through his hair, looking slightly distressed. “That she knew her killer.”

  I nod. “She knew her killer.”

  “Which means I might have just lost our bet,” he grumbles.

  “Yep. You may have.”

  Nine

  Worthfield Foundation; Highland Terrace, Seattle

  Half an hour north of the skyscrapers, the hustle and bustle, and congestion of downtown Seattle, is Highland Terrace. It’s an upper-middle-class enclave that’s not as wealthy as some of the surrounding neighborhoods but isn’t
in danger of being gentrified anytime soon either.

  The Worthfield Foundation, once upon a time, was a small organization dedicated to preserving and displaying works of art through a series of galleries and museums they built and maintained. They focused mainly on underprivileged children, believing art is something that can save the world and something that should be shared. The mission of the Worthfield Foundation is to engage everybody to works of art, especially from a young age.

  Over the seventy-five years since its founding, the Worthfield has expanded their definition of art to include music, written works, and even the natural world. They’re as heavily involved in environmental issues today as they are with modern art, poetry, and music. And because celebrities like to feel enlightened and cultured, the Worthfield has a great many benefactors from the world of television and movies, musicians, athletes, and even reality TV. Suffice it to say, the Worthfield does very well for themselves.

  And over the decades it’s been in existence, the face of the Worthfield has changed dramatically. As the foundation’s gotten more successful, it’s attracted more influential and wealthy donors, who naturally expect a seat at the table. Being on the board of a major charity and philanthropic organization is an esteemed position, something people can pat themselves on the back about.

  And of course, the crown jewels of these organizations are those that serve the poor and underprivileged. That racks in some major esteem points and boosts a person’s profile. Their reputation is praised high and low as a genuinely good person who gives of themselves and cares about others, especially those in need. The truth of the matter is that most of these people don’t give a tinker’s damn about the people they’re supposedly serving. They’re doing it to make themselves look good and feel better.

  Trust me. I’ve been around enough of these places in my life to know what actually goes on behind closed doors with some of these people.

  The net effect though is that with the new donors and thus, board members of these foundations, they look a lot less like those they’re serving. And my question has always been, if you have twelve rich, white people serving on the board— which happens to be the case with the Worthfield— how can they possibly relate to an underprivileged, primarily minority, community? How can they possibly serve the interests of these communities if they don’t actually understand them?

  Those questions will be answered by others. Maybe Marcy can do one of those hard-hitting exposes and get them cancelled. That’s not the reason I’m here. I park across the street and get out, walking toward the front of the large, white Greek Revival style building. Tall, white columns holding up a gabled peak line the front. They frame the front door, which sits on a porch at the top of a set of broad steps. The shutters that frame the windows are all a uniform slate gray.

  The building manages to look elegant without being ostentatious. I walk up the steps and across the porch and ring the bell. A moment later, the door is opened by a man wearing a smart suit with a bow tie. He’s clean-cut, no taller than five-five, and has a distinctly snobbish air about him.

  “Yes?” he asks, his posture stiff.

  “Paxton Arrington. I’ve got an appointment with Ms. Turner.”

  He looks me up and down, a sour expression on his face. He looks at me like he’s taking my measure and finds me wanting. It makes me want to laugh and tells me he’s either from very new money or comes from no money but is overcompensating and playing the part of somebody who does.

  “She’s expecting you. Come with me,” he says.

  He turns and leads me through a round foyer made of marble and dark woods. A massive crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling in the center of the foyer, and classical pieces of art and statuary line the walls. The man, who didn’t bother to give me his name, leads me down a hallway paneled in dark wood, with sconces shaped to look like old fashioned lanterns spaced along the walls on either side. Here too, pieces of art line the walls, but these are all modern pieces rather than classic.

  He stops beside a door and gestures to it. A small brass plaque is mounted to the wall beside the door inscribes the name of Dr. Marion Turner, Chair of the Foundation Board. I give the man a courteous nod that he doesn’t return, and I chuckle to myself as I open the door.

  I step into a small antechamber that’s starkly white and thoroughly modern. Black shelving lines two of the walls, and pieces of very modern art are mounted to the third. To my left is a glass and chrome desk with a floor to ceiling window behind it that looks out over the rear grounds, which are gorgeously landscaped.

  Behind the desk is a younger woman with dark hair in a short pixie cut and dark eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. She looks up from her laptop and gives me a smile.

  “Mr. Arrington?” she asks.

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “Ms. Turner is expecting you.”

  She gets to her feet and crosses the office to a door and opens it for me. I step through the rounded archway and into an office that’s the polar opposite of the outer office. It’s richly appointed and antique, all of the furniture done in a light-colored oak and polished to a glossy shine. To my right, the wall has a pair of side by side bookcases, the shelves filled mostly with pictures in frames and crystal figurines. The wall to my left has another pair of side by sides, these shelves filled with a vast array of books.

  The walls to the left and right of the door are covered in framed prints of famous works of art. Mostly Impressionists, it looks like. And directly in front of me, behind a massive oak desk that appears to be hand-carved with intricate scrollwork, is Marion Turner. She sits in a plush office chair that seems so gigantic. Granted, it could be because of her diminutive stature. But the chair practically dwarfs her.

  “Mr. Arrington here to see you, Ms. Turner,” pixie cut introduces me.

  She leaves the office, quietly closing the door behind her as Marion Turner stands up and comes around her desk. She’s small, no more than five feet, even on a good day, and I’d guess a hundred pounds soaking wet. If that. Her sandy blonde hair is cut in an A-line, and her blue eyes sparkle in the sunshine that filters in through the windows behind her desk.

  She’s dressed in a nicely cut dark pantsuit that compliments her figure. She’s younger than I thought she would be, maybe mid-forties, but has a gravitas that speaks of somebody much older. She seems to have a presence usually more common to people who’ve got a couple of decades on her. She just commands respect.

  This is definitely not a woman who came from money. She’s got a toughness in her that can only be earned from a life spent fighting for everything she has.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Arrington,” she starts, giving my hand a firm shake. “Please, have a seat.”

  I take the seat in front of her desk, and she returns to her own chair, looking for all the world like a little girl playing in her dad’s office. I have to resist the impulse to see if she’s sitting on a booster. There’s no question in my mind, though, that her feet are not touching the floor.

  “Thank you for taking the time for me today. I’m sure you have a thousand different things you need to be doing,” I start.

  “When an Arrington comes calling, even I know that you clear your schedule,” she says.

  I laugh softly. “Believe me when I say we’re nowhere near as important as you make us out to be.”

  “I think you might be the only one who holds that opinion,” she replies. “But I will say that I am intrigued by your story. It definitely doesn’t fit in with the whole ‘spoiled rich kid, prince of the city,’ reputation.”

  “It’s a reputation I’ve worked very hard to shed,” I tell her. “And if I may be so bold, you certainly don’t fit the whole ‘stodgy old blueblood trying to earn karma points later in life’ reputation most of these foundation heads seem to possess.”

  A small smile creases her lips. “You certainly are as blunt as I’ve heard,” she says. “As for the other, I’ll take that as a compliment. I’ve worke
d hard to avoid being perceived as such.”

  “Well, trust me when I say that, having grown up around those types, I’m quite sure they’d never mistake you for one of their own.”

  “So I’ve noticed. Not that I mind, actually. The less I have in common with them, the better.”

  I cock my head and look at her. “So why take this position here? In the belly of the beast, so to speak?”

  She leans back in her seat, an enigmatic smile playing across her lips as she looks at me. Finally, she leans forward again.

  “I was born in Baltimore. Has a terrible, abusive childhood. I ran away when I was fourteen and ended up here,” she says. “And it’s no exaggeration to say that if not for the Worthfield, I would probably be dead right now.”

  “Is that so?”

  She nods. “I know the public associates us with art programs and the galleries and museums we fund. To be honest, it’s those programs and whatnot that drive donations from, as you called them, stodgy old bluebloods. They like to feel a sort of... noblesse oblige. Like they can justify their own wealth and privilege, even if earned by unscrupulous means, by saying they give a portion to charity. Or as you call it, trying to earn some karma points.”

  “To be honest, that’s how I’ve always thought of the Worthfield as well. Minus the old and stodgy part. I’ll get there, but not for a while yet.”

  She grins, but it quickly fades as the memories of her youth come back to her. I can see the pain in her eyes, but also a steely resolve.

  “What you, and apparently most of the public doesn’t know, is that the Worthfield also runs— or rather, used to run— a network of shelters and homes for the poor. The homeless. The Worthfield also used to have a series of programs to help people pull themselves out of poverty and addiction as well.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s because most of those programs have been phased out over the last three decades. It seems those stodgy old bluebloods gentrified the foundation itself, divesting from every program aimed at providing tangible support to those in need,” she says. “And even now, as hard as I try to revive them, the funding just isn’t there.”