2 Death Makes the Cut (18 page)

This time, I was rewarded with a small sound, a faint thumping sound. I turned, unable to pinpoint it for a moment, then I dropped to my knees and peered under the gap left between mattress and floor. From the dark shadows, a pair of beady watery eyes stared back at me, ringed white with fear. As my eyes adjusted, I could see a mass of trembling black curls and the movement of a short tail thumping uncertainly against the wall.

She wouldn’t come out. As the police entered the house, I was lying flat on my stomach trying to wriggle forward far enough to reach her.

“Ma’am, this is a crime scene. You need to get up, please,” a woman’s voice ordered.

“My dog’s under here. I can’t leave her,” I answered.

“Ma’am, you need to get up now.”

I ignored her. “Come on, Belle. Come here,” I pleaded with the dog. I don’t know why I thought that would work. She never came when called, even when she wasn’t terrified.

“Did you find her?” asked Kyla.

“Yeah, she’s hiding under here,” I called over my shoulder, voice muffled under the mattress.

“Ma’am, you can’t be in here,” the policewoman said, again, exasperated.

“She needs to get her dog,” Kyla protested.

“She can get the dog later. And I’m going to have to ask you to step outside, too, ma’am.”

There was the sound of footsteps on the wood floor in the hallway, then a familiar voice called “Jocelyn?”

“Colin!” cried Kyla. “In here.”

“What’s going on? What’s she doing? Is she hurt?”

“Poodle,” said Kyla succinctly.

I was halfway under the mattress by now, squirming forward another inch. I was suddenly extremely conscious that my rear end was all Colin could see of me, but my fingers were just brushing against curls. I couldn’t pull back now. A pink tongue hesitantly swiped against my fingertips.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Colin. And to my surprise, he lifted the mattress off me. I blinked in the light, then made a grab for Belle and sat up.

“Now why didn’t we think of that?” asked Kyla, smiling at him through long eyelashes.

In spite of her glowing admiration, Colin was staring only at me, although that wasn’t actually so surprising. Between my puffy black eye and my hair, which had come out of my ponytail and was spilling around my face, I’m sure I made an attractive picture. Plus, I had a poodle who was burrowing into my neck and trying to clean my face at the same time. He reached out a hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.

Glancing at Belle, he said, “I thought you said you were looking for a dog.”

I managed a wobbly grin. “Well, she has a lot of doglike attributes. She fulfills almost all of my carpet-staining requirements.”

Then I looked around my bedroom and felt my eyes fill with angry tears. A muscle in his jaw tightened.

“All right, let’s get you two out of here and let the officers do their job.”

He let us sit in the back seat of his Crown Vic with the air conditioner running until the crime scene investigators were finished with the kitchen. Then he went back inside. When he was gone, Kyla turned to me.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

A very good question. I put a hand up to my eye, which was beginning to throb, and wished I’d had an ice pack.

“First you’re attacked in the park, then your house is robbed. But why?” she went on.

Something about her words struck a chord with me.

“No,” I said, sitting up straighter. “No. The first thing that happened was Coach Fred getting murdered. Then the other stuff happened.”

“You think all this has something to do with Coach Fred? But you didn’t have anything to do with him,” she protested.

“He was a teacher at my school. I worked with him.”

“So what? There’s lots of teachers at your school. None of them are sitting in a cop car with a trashed house, a concussion, and a black eye. Why you?”

Another very good question. I didn’t answer. Kyla had been watching the police officers come and go through my front door. My silence caught her attention.

“Jocelyn, why you?” she repeated.

I sat motionless, thinking. “Maybe because no one else has been asking any questions.”

“What kind of questions? And who have you been asking?”

“Well, that’s what doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t anything important. I was just trying to find out two things: whether anyone had noticed anything unusual the night Fred was killed or if anyone knew anything about the marijuana in his desk. And no one did. No one told me anything important. In fact, I actually feel like I know less about it now than when I started. But maybe I missed something. Maybe what we should be asking is what do I know that has someone worried?”

She threw me a concerned glance. “You need a gun.”

I laughed, but she shook a finger at me.

“I’m serious. You need to be able to protect yourself.”

“Yes, and that worked out so well for you,” I said pointedly.

She had the grace to blush, but she went on doggedly. “You know guns. After all those summers on Uncle Herman’s ranch, you’re a better shot than I am. I don’t understand why you’re so resistant.”

“I work in a school. It is specifically illegal to carry a weapon on school grounds.”

“Well at least you could have it here.”

“If I’d owned a gun, whoever broke into my house would have taken it and now they would be able to shoot me with it.”

“So get a floor safe like Grandpa had. Keep the gun in there during the day, but leave it by your pillow at night.”

I stared at her. Something she’d just said had sparked a thought, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, like water slipping through a sieve. I tried to think, but my brain seemed to be stuffed with cotton balls.

Colin returned at that moment, opening the car door for us and retrieving the keys from the Crown Vic.

“We’ve cleared an area. You can come back in.”

We followed him to my kitchen. He had restored my breakfast table and chairs to the upright position, and, except for a couple of new scratches, they seemed to be undamaged. I wish I could say the same for the rest of my possessions. Police officers were going over every inch of my house, taking photographs, dusting for fingerprints, and examining the damage. Colin sat with us.

“Are you going to take our fingerprints for elimination purposes?” asked Kyla, interested.

“We hardly ever do that. We take the prints we find here and if they’re viable, we run them through the criminal database to see if there’s a match. If there is one, then I’ll be asking you if there’s a reason someone in that database would be in your house.”

Kyla squirmed a little. “My prints are probably in here,” she said with a sidelong glance at me.

He gave her a grin. “I already know all about you. Anyone else?”

“My boyfriend,” I answered.

His eyes sharpened, brows drawing together in a frown. “Boyfriend? What’s his name? Are you on good terms with him? Would he have a criminal record?”

“Alan Stratton,” I answered. “No, he doesn’t have a criminal record. And yes, we’re on good terms.”

“Any chance he’s ticked off at you right now?”

“What?” I asked completely confused.

Kyla spoke up, amused. “He’s asking you if there’s any chance that Alan trashed your house.”

“What? No! No way. And even in the unlikely event that I would date someone who would do something like this, Alan could not have done it. He’s in Italy.”

“Hmm,” Colin said, jotting something in his notebook. “And how long have you been seeing this person?”

“About four months. No, more like six now, I guess,” I said, counting back the months to March when we’d first met. “Anyway, what difference does that make?”

“It’s not a real six months, though,” Kyla pointed out, “since you only see each other about every other weekend. Long-distance relationship,” she added for Colin’s benefit.

Was it my imagination, or did he look pleased by that?

“Could we get back to the break-in?” I asked. “Do you know how they got in?”

“Looks like the entry was through the back door.” Colin stood and went to the door in question. The wood around the lock and frame was splintered. “Probably used a crowbar.”

“I thought a dead bolt was supposed to keep someone from doing that.”

“Yeah, but a dead bolt’s only as good as the frame it’s in. It took quite a bit of strength, and it would have made noise. We’ve got people out talking to your neighbors. Still, behind the privacy fence, it’s not likely anyone saw anything.”

A single loud noise in the middle of the night. I thought about it. Even if someone had been awakened, there would be no way for them to know what it was if the burglar had kept quiet afterward. And once inside with the door closed, he could make all the noise he wanted.

“Can you tell if anything’s been taken?” Colin asked.

I looked around at the devastation. Oddly, I hadn’t even considered that something might have been stolen. For one thing, everything that I thought of as valuable was here, even if scattered over a wide area. My television, my computer, my iPod station—all still very much here, even if they were in pieces. How would I be able to tell if something was missing? And what would someone who was not interested in my somewhat outdated electronics collection be seeking?

*   *   *

Hours later, the police, the insurance adjusters, and the neighbors had all come and gone. A couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by wanting to pray for my soul but left rather quickly at Kyla’s suggestion that they perform an unnatural act on each other. Colin restored my mattress, thankfully unharmed, to the bed frame, and Kyla found fresh sheets and made the bed for me. It was now calling my name, but I was doing my best to ignore it, instead helping Kyla and Colin clean up the last of the broken glass. The sun was well on its way to the western horizon.

The sound of the doorbell made me start, and Kyla gave me a sharp look before going to answer it. A kid stood there with a couple of pizzas, and she paid him and returned with the boxes. I relaxed and breathed in the smell of melted cheese and pepperoni. My stomach grumbled.

We sat at the kitchen table to eat. Belle, who’d been sleeping curled up on one of the slashed cushions of the couch, hopped down and waddled over to beg halfheartedly from Colin. I noticed he slipped her a pepperoni when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“You know,” said Kyla, her mouth full of food, “you should come stay with me tonight.”

Colin nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

I frowned. “Why? Do you think these assholes are going to be coming back?”

“No, not really, but I just figured you’d sleep better if you didn’t have to worry about it,” said Kyla.

I looked at Colin.

He shrugged. “She’s right. I doubt they’d come back. They had plenty of time, and they’ve done a pretty thorough job. I wouldn’t think they’d have any reason to return.”

“So I’ll just stay here. This is my house, and I’ve got Belle. We’ll be fine.”

“Belle isn’t exactly what I’d call protection.”

“She barks, though. No one could slip in without me knowing. And, like Colin said, if they were looking for something, they had time to find it. They must have known I wasn’t here and chose that time to break in, so they aren’t after me personally. There’s no reason that I can’t stay here.”

Kyla didn’t like it, but she couldn’t find a flaw in my logic. She pulled out her phone to check the time.

“I’m supposed to go out tonight,” she said. “I’ll cancel and stay here with you. We can watch a chick flick.” Then she looked over at my smashed television. “Or maybe not.”

“No, no movies tonight,” I said, feeling a pang of disappointment. That would have been a perfect diversion. “But there’s no reason for you to cancel your plans. I’m exhausted. I’ll probably just read for a while and go to bed early. You have fun,” I added by way of encouragement.

Shaking her head, Kyla rose and collected her purse. “I don’t see how, since I’ll be thinking about you the whole time. Keep your phone close. You can call me if you need anything or if you start feeling bad again.”

I nodded and rose. We were halfway to the door when I realized Colin was still sitting at the table. I looked at him inquiringly.

“Oh, I’m not leaving. I’ll sleep on your couch.”

I frowned, but Kyla gave a broad grin. “Now I’ll be able to have fun.” She gave a relieved laugh and was gone.

I locked the door behind her and returned to the table.

“You can’t stay here,” I said, sinking into a chair.

Taking a stand would have been more impressive if done standing, but I felt like three-day-old roadkill. All I wanted was a hot shower and my bed.

He grinned and rose, carrying the plates to the sink. “No need to thank me,” he said with a little wave of his hand.

“I’m not thanking you. I’m telling you to get out.”

He did not seem bothered. “Now is that any way to talk to your own personal police protection?”

“I don’t need personal police protection. I need privacy. And sleep. Especially sleep. So why don’t you scamper off and do whatever it is you do on a Saturday night. But thank you,” I added belatedly. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Really.”

“Nice try. I’m still not leaving.”

Perplexed, I considered my options. It wasn’t as though I could physically eject him, although the image of his splayed body catapulting through the door with a high-pitched squeal was oddly soothing. I decided to try reason one more time.

“You can’t possibly do this for all your cases.”

“Don’t usually need to. By the time I’m called in, the victims are usually deceased.”

“But I’m not a victim,” I protested.

He blinked, his expressive eyebrows shooting upward. “Perhaps we need to work on your grasp of English. What do you think the word ‘victim’ means? You’ve been attacked, your house has been all but destroyed, and…” here he searched for a third item “… your poodle was terrorized.”

A victim? Me? I glared at him. The term annoyed me because it made me feel helpless and powerless, which I definitely wasn’t. Little old ladies were victims, not me. “Look, I’m not happy about all this, but I have insurance, a dog, and a baseball bat. I am not a victim.”