“Kathy!” I yelled.
“Sh. It’s okay, Cara.” Skye’s voice floated to me from far away.
“W-w-what?” I struggled to get to my feet.
“It’s okay,” said Jason, holding me securely. “I’ve got you. You took a little tumble.”
“Put her down on the sofa, please,” said Skye. At her instruction, Jason did just that.
“Skye? Did you see? Was it her? I mean, I think it was Kathy in that trunk. Was it? She looked pretty weird.”
Skye sank down next to me on my bed. She put a hand on my back and patted it. “I think it was her. Her body. She’d been in there a while.”
“I can’t believe…”
“Hush. Don’t think about it.” Skye hugged me.
Jason pulled over a folding chair, sat down, and leaned forward with his knees spread wide. “Your first dead body?”
Skye and I exchanged glances. She took my hand and gripped it, as we recalled finding a dead man in this very building.
“No,” I said. “Not my first. But I’ve never seen anyone so far gone like that. The smell…”
“Right,” he said solemnly. “It’s the heat. It causes accelerated decomp.”
“Ugh,” I said.
“Shocking,” said MJ, fanning herself as she pulled up a chair next to Jason’s. Sticking her hand out, she added, “By the way, we haven’t met formally. I’m MJ Austin, and that’s Skye Blue.”
Jason shook hands with both women. Skye paid him polite attention, but MJ ogled Jason like he was a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop.
“I’m going to run downstairs and make sure the back door is locked. We don’t need anyone wandering in,” said Skye. “Not right now, at least. Sid won’t be here for another hour and a half.”
Sid Heckman was my newest hire. He was the same age as my son, Tommy. Whereas my boy was totally preppy, Sid was a Goth geek. Sid sported numerous piercings and a purple streak in his jet black hair. But appearances aside, when it came to computers, the kid was all business. Smart as a whip, and dedicated too.
“I’ll stay here with Cara,” MJ said to Skye. To prove her attentiveness, MJ patted my arm awkwardly. I bit back a smile. Nurturing comes easily to Skye, but it’s not second nature to MJ.
Skye nodded and left us.
“Do you have any tea?” Jason asked MJ. “I think a hot cup of it with a lot of sugar would do Cara a world of good. I’d be happy to make it.”
“Don’t be silly,” said MJ, giving him a playful punch in the arm. “I’ll make it. I’m very good in the kitchen, and in several other rooms in the house.”
Jason nodded and waved his cell phone. “Excuse me a minute. I don’t mean to be rude, but my crew is arriving at the gas station. I’m letting my second-in-command know he needs to keep everybody inside the old building and out of that cop’s hair.”
While he sent a text-message, MJ clattered around in my kitchenette. First she banged my tea kettle against the faucet, hard. Then she splashed water all over my counter. I heard her muffled curse as she turned on the burner.
Glancing over, I saw the problem. MJ wasn’t paying enough attention to what she was doing. She seemed particularly mesmerized by Jason’s backside. You’d think after getting married six times that MJ would have sworn off men. But so far, her bad luck at the altar hasn’t dimmed her enthusiasm for the opposite sex.
Fortunately, Jason was too busy to notice her fixation. When he finished messaging, he smiled at me and then took in his surroundings.
I cringed as I saw my apartment through his eyes. The place had come “furnished” with a folding chair, a battered card table, and a metal bed frame. My only additions thus far had been a new mattress, a dog crate, and a pull-out sofa. The sofa bed was a splurge, a place for my son Tommy to sleep on when he came home from University of Miami.
Other than that, I hadn’t done a thing to the place. The floor was covered in the original pockmarked linoleum. Three of the walls were a scuffed and tired beige. The other was a dark maple paneling.
The center of the living room was completely overtaken by four large cardboard boxes. Inside were items I couldn’t bear to part with—and I couldn’t bear to look at, either. The psychological weight was such that I avoided them entirely. So there they sat.
Jason nodded at me and said, “Your grandfather told me that you moved in not long ago. I guess you haven’t gotten unpacked yet.”
“I’ve been busy,” I said.
MJ snickered as she set a mug on my counter.
“When will your grandfather be back from his fishing trip?” Jason asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe in time for our VIP event tomorrow night.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“A little dizzy.”
“Let’s prop your feet up. Got any pillows?”
“In the bedroom. On my bed. One.”
MJ’s eyes followed him as he left the living room. Silently she mouthed one word at me, “Hot.”
I smothered a laugh.
Jason brought back the pillow and a towel. He wedged both under my knees.
“Thanks.”
“One pillow, one bed. Pretty Spartan, huh?”
“I keep thinking I’ll get around to adding furniture or sprucing it up, but something holds me back,” I said, to myself as much as to him.
“Lack of time,” said MJ. “Cara works nonstop. She never takes a day off.”
“I didn’t take much time off when we owned the restaurant either. Not really,” I said. My nesting instinct, which had previously been highly developed, seemed to have totally dried up. There’s something holding me back, a hesitancy to commit to this apartment.
Jason walked over to my window. “Nice view of the Intracoastal. Or it would be, if the windows were cleaned. Great location. How’d you find this place?”
“My parents and I used to stay here when we visited Poppy. This apartment and the store have always held happy memories,” I said, as the tea kettle began to whistle. MJ reached over and pulled it off the burner.
The door flew open, and in walked Skye, carrying a bright orange tray. A china cup and saucer in a perky blue and white calico sat on a white tea towel. The spicy scent of bergamot filled the air.
“What’s that?” asked MJ.
“After I locked the back door, I made some Earl Grey tea for Cara.”
MJ glared at her. “I had it covered. I was just waiting for the water to boil.”
“That’s good because Cara will probably need more than one cup.” Skye set the tray she was carrying on the cardboard box that doubled as my coffee table.
Jason moved to give Skye his chair, but instead of taking it, she perched beside me on the arm of the sofa.
“I know where I’ve seen you,” he said to her. “You work at Pumpernickel’s Deli.”
“Uh-huh. I work there because I have to. I work here with Cara, because I love it.”
MJ was still pouting in the kitchen, so I gulped down the cup of tea that Skye had brought me and said, “MJ? Can I have another cup of tea?”
“Sure,” she said, brightening up. “The Constant Comment is steeping. I think I hear Jack whimpering. I’ll run downstairs and take care of him.”
As soon as she closed the door behind her, Skye turned tearful eyes on me.
“Cara? I am so sorry about what happened with Lou. I didn’t mean anything when I told him about Kathy. It was part of a ‘how was your day?’ sort of conversation. Honest. I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. It never occurred to me that he’d use…that he’d betray…I should have kept my mouth shut. It won’t happen again. Please forgive me.”
A tear spilled down her face.
I had been feeling a little miffed, but I couldn’t stay mad at her. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean anything by it.”
“That’s for sure,” she sighed. “It’ll be a cold day in Miami before I trust him again.”
“Can you believe it? Could Kathy Si
mmons really be dead?” I shook my head.
“Shh,” said Skye, as she reached over and stroked my hair. “Her death has nothing to do with you. Let the cops take care of it. You’ve got other things to worry about. Don’t even go there.”
“But one day she’s here at my store, being a pest, and the next she’s gone! Then she turns up in a car parked behind The Treasure Chest!”
“She must have been out there a while,” said Jason.
“Ugh,” I said. “What a shock. The way the lid flew up. How she was staring at me. Us. I think I’m going to have nightmares.”
“I know I won’t forget it,” said Skye.
“I can’t believe that Lou treated me like a suspect.”
“I can’t either,” said Skye, crossing her arms over her chest. “I am so angry with him.”
“Don’t take it personally,” said Jason. “The detective heard that you two had words, so he needed to check out your reaction. That’s it; that’s all. “
Jason reached across the sofa to give my fingers a tiny squeeze. I should have pulled my hand away, but the warmth in his eyes, the kindness there, made me feel better. I left my fingers tucked inside his.
“Here’s Jackie!” MJ shouted as she came through the door with Jack under her arm. The minute she set him down, he raced over to see me. His little body wriggled with joy.
“Looks like to me like you’ve got yourself quite a fan club, Cara Mia,” said Jason, getting to his feet. “I think you’re in good hands. If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I better get back to the gas station and my work crew.”
“No reason to rush off,” said MJ. She put one hand on her hip and cocked it in an alluring way.
“Sorry about the delay,” I said.
“Not your fault.” A smile transformed Jason’s features from serious to cute. “Like your friend said, don’t even go there.”
CHAPTER 8
~Lou~
Captain Nathan Davidson and the Dr. Faraday, the medical examiner, arrived at the same time. “Female victim. Dead at least overnight,” said Faraday, after examining the corpse in the trunk. This confirmed what Lou had suspected.
“Transport will be here any minute to haul the Toyota into the lab. Once it’s there, we can remove the body. The techs will go over the vehicle with a fine tooth comb,” said Davidson. He was a lean man with a runner’s build. Years in the sun had turned his skin a dark bronze, in contrast to his light gray eyes.
As predicted, the transport arrived immediately. Davidson excused himself to oversee removal of the Toyota. Lou turned to his partner, Detective Ollie Anderson. “Our DB is probably Kathy Simmons. You read that missing person report, right?”
“You know there was a break-in at her apartment on Tuesday night?” asked Ollie, as he scratched a bump on his neck.
“Yes,” said Lou. “We’ll have to pull that report. Maybe our killer was looking for something. Could be our motive.”
“Maybe. What else do we have?” Ollie wondered.
“Kathy Simmons and Cara Mia Delgatto got into a disagreement after the media event on Monday. First Ms. Simmons insisted on buying something that Cara didn’t want to sell, and then she threatened her. When Cara stood her ground, Ms. Simmons brought up Cooper Rivers and Jodi Wireka. She even threatened to write about the corpse that Cara found when she bought the building. When that didn’t move Cara, Ms. Simmons said she was going to write about her legal problems back in St. Louis.”
Ollie gave a low whistle. “Geez. You know all this how? From Skye, right?”
Lou cleared his throat. “Let’s just say it’s been confirmed. We need to chat with Kathy Simmons’ roommate. I know that she called in a missing person’s report and she phoned in the break-in, but that could be a smoke screen. Maybe she’s trying to throw us off track.”
“Right,” Ollie said, as he scribbled in a notebook.
“Here’s the timeline as it stands,” said Lou. “On Monday night, Kathy Simmons attends the media event at this store. Quarrels with Cara. Cara sells her the item in question. MJ sends the reporter packing with a plastic container of food as a peace offering. Cara walks Kathy to this car. Early Tuesday morning, the roommate, Darcy Lahti, calls the police station to say her friend hasn’t come home, but it’s too early to file a missing person’s report. Later that morning, Kathy Simmons’ story about The Treasure Chest appears in the Shoreline News. Fast forward to this morning when Kathy’s car shows up in a tow-away spot behind Dick Potter’s gas station and adjacent to Cara Mia Delgatto’s shop.”
“But you don’t know for sure where Kathy Simmons went after she left the media event,” said Ollie. “She could have filed her story remotely or she could have gone back to the newspaper office. That means we need to check it out, right?”
“Uh-huh,” said Lou. “If she did go back to the newspaper, other people might have seen her there. A co-worker might have been the last to see her before she vanished.”
“What’re you thinking for motive?” Ollie asked. He had been a homicide detective for five years. Lou had worked on homicides nearly three times as long.
“Too early to tell. You’re the one who’s been reading up on profiling. What’s your take on all this?”
Ollie rubbed his blond eyelashes. He took a minute to gather his thoughts. “Stuffing her in the trunk of her car shows lack of respect. The car was probably parked here because someone didn’t think it would be found quickly. The gas station has been closed for several weeks. That also tells me it’s someone local, someone who knew the Gas E Bait was abandoned, waiting to be torn down. The condition of the body might tell us whether Kathy went with the killer willingly. There might be signs of a struggle. She probably didn’t go home first because there’s food in the car. Whatever happened to Kathy Simmons must have taken place shortly after she attended Cara’s media party.”
“Good points,” said Lou. “How’s it coming with the statements?”
“The uniforms are checking out the nearby merchants,” Ollie said. “That Valerie Blaze is a real ball of fire.”
Valerie Blaze was a fresh-faced newbie with a lot of ambition. Lou had seen this sort of gung-ho attitude before, and he had mixed feelings. Either these over-eager types burned out quickly, or they matured into good officers. He wasn’t sure which way Valerie was heading, but he knew that Captain Davidson had high hopes for the young woman. Davidson had said, “It would be good for us to have a female on the squad. Rounds us out, and gives us a different perspective.”
“She sure is,” said Lou. “Looks to me like you’ve got everything under control, Ollie. I’m going over to The Treasure Chest. I need to remind everyone there to keep their mouths shut. We don’t want word of this leaking out until we contact Kathy Simmons’ next of kin.”
CHAPTER 9
Lou knocked loudly on the store’s back door, but no one answered. Next he rang the bell. After the third ring, Skye appeared. She opened the door a crack, but instead of inviting him in, she blocked the entrance and stared at him angrily. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Lou.”
“Can I come in? I don’t want to stand out here and talk.”
“Be my guest. You’re the big man with the badge.” Instead of walking away, she flounced. He’d never seen someone flounce before, although he’d read about it.
Skye had definitely flounced.
“Where’s MJ?” he wondered, as he looked around the back room.
“She’s keeping upstairs an eye on Cara,” she said. “Can you believe that Jason carried Cara all the way up to the second floor? He’s hanging around to make sure she’s all right. Just goes to show you what a good guy he is.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Lou.
“He obviously cares about someone other than himself,” said Skye, as her eyes darkened in anger. “I had you all wrong, Lou. I thought you were different. Not like all the other men in my life. They only cared about what was important to them. I thought you might actually care about me. My feelings. My f
riends. My life.”
“That’s not fair,” said Lou, crossing his arms over his chest. The posture felt weird. Defensive. He uncrossed his arms but couldn’t decide where to put them. Finally he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
“Look,” he tried to sound conciliatory, “I’ve got a job to do.”
“That’s your excuse? Pretty weak. You’ve got a job to do? And that includes using my words against my friends? Taking advantage of our friendship—yours and mine—to further your career? Don’t you have any decency?”
Our friendship? The words stung Lou. He’d thought of Skye as his girlfriend. Granted, he’d never asked her to take on the role. In fact, he’d never taken her out on a proper date. But didn’t she know how much he cared about her?
Showalter weighed in with, “How could she know how you feel about her? You’ve been too much of a wuss to tell her!”
Lou felt the heat rise in his neck. “Decency? You want to talk about decency? I’ve got a dead woman stuffed in a car trunk out there, Skye!”
“Look. I specifically told you that Cara has not left this store for days. You cannot possibly believe she had anything to do with this!”
“First of all, you’ve been at Pumpernickel’s, working your shifts, so I hardly think you can swear to what Cara’s been doing. Second of all, I had to hear what she had to say. Had to make sure that’s the same car she saw Kathy Simmons climb into. Establishing a timeline is important. Especially with a murder on my hands.”
“But you guessed Kathy’s body was in the trunk of the car, didn’t you? You wanted to watch Cara’s reaction! What a jerky thing to do!”
He’d never seen Skye so angry. Suddenly, his collar seemed two sizes too tight. The temperature in the room seemed to have gone up ten degrees. But he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. His dad used to say, “I’m not sorry because I know I’m right. Even if I’m not right, I know you are wrong!”
“I’m a detective working a case, and Cara is a suspect.”
“A suspect?” Skye shrieked at him. “Lou! Do you hear what you’re saying? You’re accusing Cara, my friend—yours, too—of doing what? Killing someone she’s barely met? Lifting a woman twice her size into the trunk of a car? Hello? How could Cara do that? It’s not like she’s on steroids. When would she have done it? Huh? You’ve jumped to conclusions because I told you about her argument with Kathy Simmons. I told you what happened, because I trusted you! Boy, oh, boy, what a dumb bunny I was!”
Second Chance at Life Page 3
