Hiss H for Homicide

by Toni LoTempio

  Twelve

  As Ollie hurled his entire 225-pound frame against the door. I sprinted down the steps and around the side of the house, just in time to see a shadowy form emerge from the sliding doors and take off in a sprint across the lawn.

  “Stop. Stop, thief,” I yelled at the top of my lungs, although I was fairly certain there was no one around to hear me except Ollie. However, Simon Gladstone—if that was even his name—might not know that.

  I’m no slouch when it comes to running, but apparently Simon wasn’t either. I caught a quick glimpse of him before he disappeared into the thicket of trees that lined the property. I thought I saw something white clenched in one hand, but I couldn’t be sure. In any event, what I’d seen was certainly not big enough to be an entire book manuscript. As I approached the edge, I heard the faint sound of a car engine starting, and a few seconds later he gunned it. I paused, leaned against a shady elm for a few minutes to regroup, and then trudged back to the house.

  I let myself in through the sliding glass doors and hurried to the front entrance. I swung the door wide just as Ollie advanced, shoulder to the ready. I sidestepped and Ollie went sailing past me, crashing into the stair bannister. “You could have warned me you were opening the door,” he admonished.

  “Sorry. I didn’t think. Why didn’t you follow me?”

  “I didn’t think that door would be so tough to break down,” he grumbled, rubbing his shoulder. “I’ve broken down sturdier ones than that.”

  “Maybe you’re just out of practice. Anyway, I saw him cut through the woods, but he was too fast for me.”

  “Probably a good thing,” Ollie said, dusting himself off. “What would you have done if you’d caught up to him? He might have had a gun.”

  “Oops, you’re right. Like I said, I didn’t think.” I started to turn away when a flash of black under the hall table caught my eye. I knelt down and pulled out a black leather book.

  Ollie, recovered now, towered over me. “What’s that?”

  I flipped the book open. “It’s Marlene’s appointment book.”

  His eyes widened as he stared at it. “The one you wanted to take a look at?”

  “The very same. What is it doing here? I would have thought Samms would have bagged it as evidence, seeing as his prime suspect’s initials were in it.” I flipped the pages until I came to the spot where this week’s appointments should be, and frowned. “There are pages missing.”

  He leaned in to peer over my shoulder. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “Someone made a pretty clean tear, but there is still a slight ridge here where pages should be.” I nibbled at my bottom lip. “The pages I photographed, the ones with all the names, are gone.” I glanced grimly out the wide picture window at the thick tangle of trees. “And I’ve got a pretty good idea who took them.” I quickly explained about seeing a white object clenched in Simon’s fist.

  Ollie rubbed at his jaw. “Now why would Simon Gladstone take such a risk coming here to swipe a few pages out of an appointment book? Those pages must be more important than we figured.”

  “They’d only mean something, though, if someone perhaps wanted to try and hide the fact he’d been here,” I mused. “Ollie, do you know what Dooley Franks, or Sable St. John, looks like?”

  “No, but it’s easy enough to find out.”

  Ollie reached into his pocket for his phone and called up Google Images. He typed in “Sable St. John” and “Dooley Franks,” and a few seconds later thumbnail images started to appear on the screen. He clicked on one to enlarge it. I took in the olive complexion, the dark, almost black eyes, the chocolate-colored hair that fell carelessly across the high forehead, and the word swarthy came to mind.

  “The guy looks more like a Mafia hit man than a romance novelist,” observed Ollie. “He’s definitely not our intruder.”

  “But he might have hired him.”

  “Just to get those pages out of the appointment book?”

  I frowned, thinking how closely the shade of Simon’s hair had matched the strand Nick had found near Marlene’s body. “Maybe that and more. He might have come after the manuscript.”

  We raced up the stairs, peering into first the office, then the master bedroom. Both rooms looked pretty much as I’d seen them yesterday; as a matter of fact, it would be pretty darn near impossible to tell if either one had been ransacked further.

  The other three rooms, however, were a different story. Throw rugs were thrown carelessly around, and sheets had been ripped from the beds. Closet doors stood open and drawers hung out at odd angles. The place looked as if a cyclone had ripped through it.

  I dragged my hand through my hair. “These rooms could have been like this yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to look in them. I’d have to check with Samms. Here’s the thing, though. I saw Simon Gladstone disappear into the woods, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t carrying anything with him.”

  Ollie pondered this for a moment. “A manuscript would definitely have stood out,” he agreed. “It’s bulky, unless, perhaps, he only needed to remove a few pages.”

  “A chapter? Ten, fifteen pages at most? He could have had that on him, tucked inside his jacket, maybe. But then what did he do with the rest of the book?”

  “Hid it somewhere else, or burned it. That’s what I’d do,” Ollie said.

  “There’s a fireplace in the living room,” I said. “We can check it on the way out.” I tapped the appointment book, which I still held with my other hand. Something still rankled me, some little detail I couldn’t quite put my finger on . . .

  “Initials!” I cried.

  Ollie looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Come again?”

  “Initials,” I repeated. “In that book, on those pages . . . Marlene had everyone’s name written out next to the time of their appointment, except for Desiree. Next to ten a.m., she had DS printed in large caps, and the caps looked smudged, I remember that much. Damn!” I pushed my hand through my unruly curls. “Why is it that Desiree’s name was the only one in initials?”

  Ollie shrugged. “Maybe she just didn’t feel like writing out the name?”

  “Or maybe the appointment was for another DS. Those initials might not stand for Desiree Sanders at all!”

  “It has to be her, though.” Ollie frowned. “Didn’t she say she was supposed to meet Marlene at ten a.m.?”

  “She said around ten or ten-thirty. DS was written next to ten, so maybe Marlene figured she’d be done with whomever it was in a half hour.”

  Ollie coughed lightly. “Assuming your theory’s right . . . if DS isn’t Desiree Sanders, then who is it?”

  “A good question. D could stand for Dooley, I suppose. And the S? Scarlett? Maybe she saw both of them together?”

  “That doesn’t make sense. She had Scarlett down for ten a.m. the day before. Why would she see her again with Franks?”

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “Unless there’s some reason she wanted to see the two of them together, I imagine it’s more likely that DS stands for Desiree. And speaking of Desiree . . .”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out the two squares of paper. “Think your pal down at the lab could run a match on these strands of hair for me? Tell me if they came from the same person?”

  Ollie took the squares. “Do I want to know where you got these?”

  I returned his grim stare with one of my own. “Probably not.” Depending on the test results, I had a decision to make, but like Scarlett O’Hara, I’d think about that tomorrow or whenever.

  • • •

  The main fireplace was untouched, so Ollie and I drove back to Cruz. He had an appointment with a prospective client, so he dropped me off in front of the police station. Lenny Barker was on duty at the desk. He’d been in Lacey’s class and had had an enormous crush on her as well—when you got right down to it, who in our high school hadn’t had a crush on my sister? He gave me a big smile as I approached.

  “Hey, Nora. Come to see
Detective Samms?”

  Oh, so they were calling him Detective Samms, not Agent Samms. Made me think of the first time I’d met Daniel. It had been in this very police station, and he’d been Detective Corleone at the time, but only because he was undercover. It was only later . . . much, much later . . . I’d learned he was actually Special Agent Corleone for the FBI.

  Well, now Samms was in charge, not Daniel. And he wasn’t undercover.

  I shoved both hands in my pockets and smiled at Lenny. “Yeah. He in?”

  “Yep. He’s in the back, doing paperwork. We got a ton of paperwork around here. He told me to bring you on back when you came in.”

  “Which office? The last one on the left?” The office Daniel had occupied. Lenny nodded, and I waved my hand as he started to get up. “No need. I know the way.”

  I walked down the long corridor and didn’t knock, just pushed open the frosted glass door that, right now, had no name emblazoned on it. Samms was seated behind the wide oak desk, a mountain of paper littering its top. He was hunched over, a frown on his face and a coffee cup clenched in one hand. I took a quick look around. Same scarred, beat-up file cabinets, same black Keurig coffeemaker perched atop the tallest one.

  Some things never changed.

  I cleared my throat and he looked up. The frown didn’t leave his face as he gestured with his free hand for me to sit. I walked over, eased myself into the familiar hard-backed chair.

  “Nice digs,” I said. “Kind of a comedown for you, though, isn’t it? I bet that office at FBI headquarters in Carmel would be a heck of a lot nicer, or at least that’s what I hear from Daniel.”

  “It’s all what you get used to. Fancy trappings aren’t my style. You do remember my office in Saint Leo, right?”

  “I remember a lot about Saint Leo,” I mumbled. “You were a hard-ass then, and you haven’t changed much.” I slid him a glance and I could swear the corners of his lips tipped in a brief smile; however, it was gone as soon as it appeared, the frown firmly in place. “You know, your face might freeze that way.” When I got no reaction I leaned back in the chair, shifting a bit against the hard wood. “So, where’s Peter? I’m assuming you’ve got Desiree in one of your cozy cells?”

  “Actually, they’re probably at Hot Bread, waiting for you. They left about a half hour ago.”

  I almost fell off the chair. “What? Desiree said you were arresting her for Marlene’s murder.”

  “I did.” He took a long sip of coffee—deliberately, I was certain—before he set the mug down and looked back at me. “But our friend Peter Dobbs was on it even before he got here. He has friends in high places, as you know. His uncle phoned Judge Black and arranged for him to come here for an impromptu hearing. Black agreed to release her on bail.”

  I knew Peter’s uncle, Helmut Dobbs, had enjoyed a long and successful career as a DA before retiring. I’d also hoped Peter might call upon him for help. “What’s she charged with?”

  “Second degree. The DA’s inclined to think it might have been a crime of passion.”

  “What do you think?”

  He eyed me. “Honestly? I can’t see that woman as a cold-blooded murderer. I could see her offing someone in the heat of the moment, though. She’s strung tighter than a violin.”

  We were silent a few minutes, and then I asked, “I imagine the fact you arrested her in the first place means you found the murder weapon.”

  “Out in the bushes, near the garage. It wasn’t hidden very well.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Her prints were the only ones on it. Oh, and the dead woman’s too. It looks to be the same caliber as the bullet we took out of the body. I’m just waiting for the ballistics test to confirm.”

  “Did you do a gun residue test?”

  He shook his head. “Too much time elapsed. Residue only sticks around for about three hours, you know that.”

  I did know that. I also knew that, contrary to what shows like CSI and Law & Order wanted you to believe, gunshot residue test results were often misleading. A positive GSR test did not always mean the individual fired a gun, much less the gun in question. Then again, a negative test result didn’t necessarily mean the person didn’t fire the gun, either. It all boiled down to too many variables: time, activity, the condition of the testing surface.

  I leaned forward to rest my elbows on the edge of his desk. “Does it really seem likely to you that she’d kill her partner and then put the gun where the police would be certain to find it?”

  He shrugged. “She’s an excitable person. Excitable people sometimes do irrational things.”

  “Like kill their partners?”

  Samms leaned back in his big chair, laced his hands behind his neck. “For one thing, she was afraid of the secret her partner was planning to reveal in her new book.”

  “There were lots of others afraid of the same thing, Carruthers included.”

  “True, but their prints weren’t found on the murder weapon.”

  We sat in stony silence for a few minutes before I asked, “So what else do you have on her, other than the gun?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, and you know it, Nora.”

  “Well, then can you discuss the crime scene? What about the other rooms in the house?”

  “The first floor appears not to have been disturbed. Can’t say as much for the upstairs rooms. All of ’em look like a tornado passed through.”

  Which could mean Simon Gladstone might or might not have done some snooping. “You’re slipping, Samms. You left a key piece of evidence in the house and now it’s ruined.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Marlene’s appointment book. You didn’t remove it from the premises, and now it’s been tampered with. The page with Desiree’s initials is now missing, as well as a few other pages.”

  He shot me a puzzled look, then picked up the telephone. When the person at the other end answered he barked, “Bring me 1076, right now.” He slammed down the receiver and glared at me, his brows cutting a deep V in the center of his forehead. “Just how do you know pages are missing? You were in that house, weren’t you!”

  I squirmed a bit in the chair. “Maybe.”

  He let out a deep sigh. “Nora, Nora. Didn’t you learn anything from your last little adventure about tampering with evidence?”

  “I didn’t tamper with anything by entering. The crime tape is down. That’s an indicator the scene’s been cleared.”

  “The place was locked, and there was supposed to be a guard out there.”

  “Really?” Now it was my turn to frown. “We didn’t see a guard.”

  “We?” A long sigh came out of those gorgeously shaped lips. “Ah, don’t tell me. You and the body-sniffing cat decided to do a little exploring?”

  “Not this time. I went with Ollie.”

  “Ollie? Oh, yes, Atkins’s partner. You like to hang around PIs, it seems.”

  “Well, I for one am glad he was with me, because he kind of intimidated Simon Gladstone. If he hadn’t . . .”

  The V cut even deeper into the forehead. “Simon Gladstone?”

  “Yes. Marlene’s nephew—only he’s not. Marlene was an only child, and she never married, so he couldn’t be her nephew. He wanted us to think he was, though, but Ollie was on to him. I chased after him but he got away through the woods, and when we went inside, we found the appointment book tossed under the hall table, and those pages were ripped out.”

  A knock sounded at Samms’s door, and Lenny shuffled in, carrying a plastic bag, which he handed to Samms. I glanced at it, then did a double take. My eyes widened. My jaw dropped.

  “You mean this book?” Samms asked, as he dangled the bag in front of me.

  Sure enough, the black appointment book was clearly visible. I didn’t know what to say. My mouth moved, but no words came out. Finally I squeaked, “But that’s impossible! The appointment book was in the house. Ollie and I both saw it. And we both saw where the pages had b
een ripped out.”

  Samms put the bag on the desk in front of him and eased the book out. He flipped the pages until he came to the section he wanted, and then pushed the book in front of me. “That what you saw yesterday?”

  I leaned over. Sure enough, there were the pages I thought had been taken, right in this book. There was the DS right next to ten thirty, and Morley Carruthers’s name scrawled beside five p.m. On the opposite side, the previous day’s appointments had Scarlett Vandevere and Dooley Franks, just as I’d seen them.

  I frowned and looked closely at the book again. Something didn’t hit me right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Something’s wrong,” I muttered.

  Samms closed the book abruptly and slid it back into the plastic bag. “Tell me more about this Simon Gladstone.”

  I leaned back in my chair, drummed my fingers on the scarred arm. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “A description might be nice.”

  “Around five-ten or eleven, slight build, pale complexion, blond, blue-eyed. Good runner.”

  Samms stared off into space, eyes slitted. “Uh-huh. Anything else? How was he dressed?”

  “Pale blue T-shirt, pressed jeans. The blue of the shirt was a nice complement for his eyes—oh, and he spoke with an accent.”

  He jerked forward in his chair, his eyes alight with interest. “An accent? What kind?”

  “I found it kind of hard to place. He said he’d been studying theatre in London but was originally from Boston, so I guess that could account for it.”

  “Boston?” Samms leaned forward a little more. I thought he might actually tip the chair over.

  “Yes. Ask Ollie if you don’t believe me. And why is that so interesting to you?”

  He shrugged and picked up the phone again. “Lenny? Send a squad car out to the Porter place. Nora here tells me the guard we had on duty wasn’t around when she was out there about a half hour ago. Thanks.” He replaced the phone and pushed his chair back. “I think that’s all. Like I said, Desiree and Dobbs are most likely waiting for you over at Hot Bread. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to them.”