Hiss H for Homicide

by Toni LoTempio

  Yes, I had to agree. Detective work could be very tiring. Too bad not all of us had the luxury of taking a catnap.

  I started the car and then felt in my pocket and pulled out the strand of hair. Nope, definitely not the same shade as Marlene’s. Her hair had been dyed a brassy blonde. This was a much darker shade, more like Desiree’s.

  I slid the hair back into my pocket and put the car into Drive. As I pulled away, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw the upstairs curtain of the stucco house was pulled back about a half inch. I slammed on my brakes, and the curtain slid back into place.

  Nick sat up and blinked twice, annoyed at being jostled out of his catnap. He reared up, put both paws on the window and yowled. Loudly.

  “Sorry to disturb you, pal. I was performing a little experiment. We’ll have to do a little research on just who might be staying there when we get home.”

  I slowed to a crawl as I approached the stop sign on the corner just as an expensive tan colored Cadillac El Dorado whipped around the other side and sped down the road, coming to an abrupt stop in front of the Porter house. I pulled over to the curb, slid the car into Park and craned my neck out the window. A thin, stoop-shouldered man dressed in a neatly pressed suit exited the car, a bulging briefcase clutched in one hand. I was betting this was Morley Carruthers, Esquire, no doubt. He started up the drive and then paused, his gaze riveted on the police car parked there.

  I turned my head toward the stucco house and saw the curtains on the second floor part again for a fraction of a second, then fall back into place.

  I put the car back into Drive and turned the corner. Yep, that house and its tenant definitely merited a return visit.

  • • •

  Desiree listened wide-eyed as I recounted the afternoon’s events. When I finished, she sat quietly for a few moments, hands folded in her lap, eyes cast downward, examining the pattern in the rug. “Murdered,” she finally murmured. “Really?”

  I regarded her through slitted eyes. For someone who’d just learned her partner of over twenty years had been murdered, she seemed unusually calm. I’d expected some show of emotion. Crying hysterically, throwing things, maybe even a little foot pounding, but . . . nothing. She must have sensed my unease because she put a hand dramatically to her forehead and leaned back in the chair. “I’m sorry. I must be in shock. It’s been quite a week.”

  Nick looked up at me, his eyes going from my face over to Desiree’s and then back to mine. He reared his head back and gave an emphatic “meow.” I looked at him and nodded. “My thoughts exactly, Nick.” I turned to Desiree, folded my arms across my chest. “You’re a much better writer than you are an actress.”

  Her eyes widened and her tongue made little clucking sounds. “Nora, whatever do you mean?”

  “I can get a sense of when someone’s not being absolutely truthful with me, like you are right now.” I rose and took a step toward her. “You knew Marlene was dead when you asked me to go out there, didn’t you?”

  She looked away, and one hand fiddled with the chain around her neck, twisting it around her fingers. She was spared from answering by a preemptory rap on the door. “Cleaning,” came a loud voice.

  Desiree hurried to the door and opened it. A freckle-faced bellboy thrust what appeared to be a pair of light-colored slacks and a blue blouse at her. “We managed to get them done in an hour. ma’am. No problem.” He smiled.

  Desiree stood uncertainly, holding the cleaning in her hand. I stepped forward for a closer look. The freshly laundered clothes looked a lot like the ones I’d seen bundled under the sink earlier. Desiree caught me looking and thrust the clothes to the side, looking aimlessly around the room. “Dear me. I seem to have misplaced my purse. Nora, would you mind?”

  I pulled out my wallet and pressed a five-dollar bill into the boy’s hand. He tipped his cap and strutted off down the hall. I shut the door and looked over my shoulder, but by then Desiree had ditched the clothes and had returned to the chair. I walked over and stood, my hands on my hips.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Desiree.”

  Her head jerked up and her gaze bored into mine. “Yes,” she whispered, so low I had to strain to hear it. “Yes, I did.”

  I’d half expected her to deny it, so I took a step backward. “Why did you do that? Why would you put me in a position like that?”

  “I don’t know. I panicked, I guess.” She removed her hands from the chair arms and started to twist them in her lap. “I did go out there, but I didn’t kill her, you have to believe me. She was dead when I got there.”

  Now she did start to cry, very softly. Even Nick was moved. He went over, plopped his plump body down and rubbed his head against her ankles. She stroked him absently as I plucked a Kleenex from a box on the nightstand and handed it to her. She took it, blew her nose. I sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Desiree, what were you wearing when you went to see Marlene?”

  She raised her tear-stained face to mine. “What?”

  I nodded toward the closet. “I couldn’t help but notice your recently cleaned clothes. When I first came in, the bathroom door was ajar and I saw a pair of slacks and blouse just like those thrown under the sink. Did you get them cleaned because Marlene’s blood was on them?”

  She turned away from me. “Yes,” she mumbled.

  Oy. Sending bloody clothes down to the inn cleaner was not the best idea in the world. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Sure.” She blew her nose again. “Marlene called me yesterday, said she was dissolving the partnership according to the terms of our agreement, but she’d appreciate it if I’d come out around ten or ten thirty to sign paperwork. It was just a formality, but it would make things easier for her.” Desiree sniffed. “I told her she could rot in hell before I’d make anything easier for her, and she just laughed at me.

  “We hung up and I sat here, stewing. I confess, I’d also had a bit to drink. It made me a bit bolder than I’d usually be. I decided I wasn’t going to wait, I was going to confront that witch right then and there.

  “I got in my rental car and drove out there. It was late. Maybe one, two in the morning? The street was dark and deserted when I approached. I parked my car up the block and walked back and right up to the front door. I rang the bell, and there was no answer. I walked around to the side of the house, and that sliding door was wide open, which I thought odd. Marlene’s always a stickler about making sure everything’s locked, like she thought somebody would break in and drag her off somewhere. Anyway, it was open, so I went in. The house was dark, still as a tomb. I called her name several times, and I thought I heard a floorboard creak above me, so I found the staircase and went upstairs. I saw the light on in her office . . .”

  “The light was on?” I interrupted again. “Not off?”

  Desiree shook her head. “It was on. I remember that distinctly, because I stumbled over a flashlight on the rug and wondered what the heck it was doing there when the light was on. I bent to pick it up, and that’s when I saw her, lying on the floor.” Her lower lip started to tremble and she put both hands up over her face. “I could tell she’d been shot. The front of her blouse was all red. And her eyes, oh, I’ll never forget them! Wide, glassy, sightless. Ooh.” She hiccupped and blew her nose again. “I knelt down and I turned her on her side, and then back again. I saw I’d gotten some of her blood on my hands. Not a lot, but I didn’t want to touch anything with bloody hands, so I wiped it off on my clothes.”

  She started to cry again, and in spite of the fact she’d acted foolishly, I felt a wave of pity for her. “You’re going to have to pull yourself together. The police are probably going to want to question you, particularly when they realize you paid a nocturnal visit in advance of your scheduled appointment.”

  Her head snapped up, and she blinked, swiping at her wet cheeks with the back of one hand. “Why? Do you think they know I was there? They couldn’t! No one saw me.”

  I was tempted to tell her
about my experience with the house across the way but didn’t want to further upset her. Instead I rubbed her back in a comforting circular motion. “You didn’t want to touch anything with bloody fingers, but you’d already touched the sliding door, the stair rail, the office door?” At her nod I said gently, “So when they dust for prints . . .”

  A small cry like that of a wounded animal escaped her lips. “Drat. I forgot about that. But how would they know I was there in the first place?”

  “Her appointment book was in the drawer. Your initials were in it. If I found it, you can bet they will too.” I let out a breath. “There’s more. Carruthers was just arriving when I left. No doubt he’s already told the police about the partnership termination. My advice to you is not to hold anything back. It’ll only come back to bite you.”

  She slumped down lower in the chair. “I should have looked at that book and scratched my name out when I had the chance.”

  I shook my head. “It’s a good thing you didn’t. Tampering with evidence is a crime, which the U.S. government takes very seriously. A person convicted of evidence tampering under federal law could face a prison sentence of twenty years, a fine, or both.”

  Desiree’s eyes still gleamed with unshed tears. “But don’t they have to prove that you did so willingly? Doesn’t a prosecutor have to prove the person knew the item with which they allegedly tampered was evidence in an ongoing investigation?”

  “That’s true,” I admitted, “but—”

  “He’d also have to prove,” Desiree went on, “that the person charged with evidence tampering intended to interfere in the investigation when the alleged evidence was destroyed. So, if it was done accidentally, then no crime was committed.” Desiree spread her hands wide, palms up. “It was just an unfortunate accident.”

  “That’s also true,” I admitted. I gave her a sharp look. “I didn’t realize you knew so much about the law.”

  A sly smile teased the corners of her lips. “The character in our last book was a law student. You’d be surprised at the wealth of legal information one can find on the Internet. Who knows, someday maybe attorneys will be obsolete.”

  I laid my hand on her arm. “You said she was dead when you got there. If you’re telling the truth then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” I thought about the strand of hair in my pocket, the one so close to Desiree’s own shade. “Did the two of you fight, or have any physical contact?”

  She tossed me a puzzled glance. “We had words, but get physical? You mean slap or something? Lord, no. When Marlene and I fought, we fought with words, barbs.”

  She sounded sincere, and yet . . . I studied her a minute, taking in the flushed face, the shallow breathing. “You aren’t hiding anything, right? You’ve told me everything?”

  She averted her gaze downward and mumbled, “Yes.”

  Oh, no, I thought as my gut twisted. I knew it. She’s lying.

  What else is she hiding?

  Six

  I tamped down my reservations, pulled out my phone and put it in camera mode. I called up the picture I’d taken of Marlene’s appointment book and showed it to Desiree. “Those are names of other people Marlene had appointments scheduled with. Are any of them familiar to you?”

  Desiree took the phone and squinted at the image. “It’s not a very clear picture.” She pointed with the edge of her nail at the first name. “I recognize Morley Carruthers but . . .” She squinted at the other names.

  I leaned over to peer at the screen. “That one the day before at ten a.m. Looks like Sheila . . . Susan, no . . . Scarlett something?”

  “Oh, it must be Scarlett Vandevere. She writes the Shelby Daye romance series. We met her at a RomCon five years ago.”

  “RomCon?”

  “Romance convention. Scarlett had just gotten her first book contract, and Marlene took her under her wing.” Desiree sniffed. “It’s a wonder Scarlett became a best-selling author after that, because everything Marlene could have possibly taught her would fit on the head of a pin.”

  “Is Scarlett from around here?”

  “Pebble Beach, I think. She’s old money. That was her selling point, you know. Rich girl makes good career-wise. Now this next name . . .” Desiree held the phone at an angle and squinted. “Dudley? Damon? Oh, wait, I know. It’s Dooley. Dooley Franks.” Desiree’s lips twitched. “Ever hear of Sable St. John?”

  I let out a low whistle. “Who hasn’t? She wrote that soft-porn book that sold almost a million copies, right?”

  “Yep. Only Sable isn’t a she.”

  My eyes widened. “You mean . . .”

  “Yep.” She tapped the screen with one long nail. “Hard to believe a guy could write so . . . eloquently about sex, isn’t it? And seeing Dooley Franks on the cover would hardly have the same impact.”

  “Could that have been what Marlene was holding over his head? That Sable St. John is actually a man?”

  “It might have been, if he and his publisher hadn’t revealed that little fact two months ago at Book Expo America. Apparently people found it fascinating America’s beloved smut author was a man. His sales doubled. So it’s got to be something else.”

  “Does he live around here too?”

  Desiree shook her head. “Nope. He still lives in his family home in Indiana. He raised chickens before he hit it big, can you believe it? He wrote that first book in his spare time and hit it big. His first convention Marlene latched right on to him. She introduced him to his agent, one of the biggest scumbags around—oh, wait!” She snapped her fingers. “I did read somewhere he was making a series of appearances here on the West Coast, to publicize his new book. If I’m not mistaken, this week and next he’s in Carmel and Monterey.”

  Both of which were minutes away from Cruz, as was Pebble Beach. “So it’s likely these were in-person meetings. You have no idea why she’d have wanted to meet with them?”

  Desiree’s spine went ramrod straight, and once again her gaze dropped to study the rug. “No,” she mumbled. “None.”

  I didn’t want to flat out accuse her of lying, but it was all I could do to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until those capped teeth rattled. I brushed a stray lock of hair out of my eyes and stood up.

  “Okay, then. I’m going to go back home and see if I can worm anything out of the man in charge of the investigation, and then I’m going to check out the whereabouts of Scarlett and Dooley. My advice to you is to lay low. Don’t speak to anyone. If the police get in touch with you, don’t refuse them, but you might want to have a lawyer present, as a cautionary measure.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer right now. Could you possibly recommend someone?”

  My mind instantly flew to the young attorney who’d represented my sister when she’d been accused of murder. I nodded. “Yes, I could. His name is Peter Dobbs. He practices in Saint Leo, which isn’t far from here. If you’d like, I could give him a call and explain the situation. If he can’t help out, I’m sure he can recommend someone.”

  “Would you? That would certainly be a load off my mind.” Desiree let out a giant sigh, then suddenly swept me into her arms and crushed me against her ample bosom. “Thank you, Nora. Your mother was right. You are cool and competent in a crisis. I couldn’t ask for a better person on my side.”

  I nodded. Actually, I had another reason for wanting to enlist Peter’s help. The young man had a winning way about him, an easy manner that made people want to confide in him. Lord knew he’d managed to break through my sister’s barricade, and not many people could claim that honor. Maybe he could get Desiree to admit whatever it was she was hiding. At any rate, it was worth a try.

  I rose, slung my purse over my shoulder. “Try to get some rest in the meantime,” I advised Desiree. I glanced around, looking for Nick, and spied him by the bathroom door. When I took a step toward him, he ducked inside. I threw Desiree an apologetic look and hurried after him. “Nick, come on. No exploring. We have to go.”

  “
Merow.”

  He was seated atop the toilet, his paw jabbing at an overhead shelf. I looked and saw a brush and comb lying there. The brush was clean, but there were a few stray hairs clinging to the comb. I plucked them out, wrapped them in a square of toilet paper, and slipped them into my pocket. “Good work, Nick,” I whispered.

  If any cat could manage a shit-eating grin, it was him.

  • • •

  Back in the SUV, I dialed Peter’s number and got his voice mail. I left a message asking him to call me regarding a possible case and drove back into town, where I pulled up in front of our local bar and grill. The Poker Face was owned and operated by my former high school sweetheart, Lance Reynolds, and his brother Phil. Lance had, at one time, aspired to a nine-to-five job but he’d decided he wasn’t cut out for that life at around the same time his brother decided he wasn’t cut out to be an accountant. Since Lance liked to mix drinks and his brother loved to, well, drink, it seemed a match made in heaven. Lance and his brother had made a lot of improvements since buying the bar a dozen years ago from its former owner. Petey’s Bar and Grill had once been a thriving business, but thanks to mismanagement on the part of the owner, who’d hit on some hard times, they were able to get it at a greatly reduced price. Renaming it the Poker Face had been Phil’s idea. What can I say? He loves Lady Gaga.

  The bar was housed in a narrow, high-ceilinged building on Main Street, not far from Poppies, the flower shop owned by Chantal and her brother Remy. The centerpiece of the establishment was the polished wooden bar that ran long and deep along one entire wall. Directly across from the bar was a row of booths that had been newly upholstered. Two rows of tables ran parallel to the big plate-glass window that read The Poker Face, etched in gold lettering. A copy of their limited menu was also on display in the window. Lance knew he couldn’t compete with me, or any other restaurant in town for that matter, and didn’t even try. His menu consisted of a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a club sandwich, fries and potato skins—and whatever sludge his cook Jose passed off as coffee that week. But the real attraction was the drinks Lance took such care in making. If I were the Michelangelo of sandwiches, he was the Raphael of mixology.