Fatal Brushstroke (An Aurora Anderson Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

Chapter 27

Rory and Liz stopped smoothing out the wrinkles in the white plastic cloth and stared at the digital recorder that hovered inches from Rory’s lips. Neither one had heard the intruder’s footsteps as she entered Arika’s Scrap ’n Paint through the alley door and walked into the classroom where the two young women worked. Not even the flowery perfume she usually wore had announced Veronica’s presence.

“I have nothing to say.” Rory plucked the recorder out of the overzealous reporter’s hand, accidentally chipping the woman’s crimson fingernail polish, and pressed the stop button. “I don’t want to see my name in the paper or on your blog.”

“Hey! I just got my nails done.” Veronica frowned at the scratch in the polish that matched the streaks in her hair, then made a grab for the handheld device. “Give it back.”

Rory held it above her head so the much shorter woman couldn’t reach it. “Sorry about the nails, but I’m keeping this until you tell me what you know.”

“Who else have you been harassing?” Liz said from where she stood on the opposite side of the three-foot-wide table. She reached across, indicating with a motion of her hand she wanted to examine the confiscated item.

Rory kept a firm grip on it, considering it inappropriate to listen to any of the recordings. Though she did briefly wonder if she’d hear any blackmail-worthy conversations should she hit the PLAY button.

“No! That’s private.” Veronica swatted the arm out of the way.

“Ow!” Liz rubbed the spot where the woman had slapped her, then placed both palms on the table, leaned over, and glared at her opponent. “You should have thought of that before you shoved it in my friend’s face.”

“Cut it out, both of you.” Tired of holding the recorder above her head, Rory tucked it in the front pocket of her jeans. “You’ll get this back after you tell me what’s going on.”

Veronica slumped down into a nearby chair and crossed her arms, the picture of a pouting child. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

Liz went back to work, smoothing out the tablecloth while she listened to the ensuing conversation.

Rory grabbed another chair, placing it so it faced her subject. She sat down, her knees mere inches from Veronica’s, and leaned forward. “Who are the police looking at for Trudy’s murder?”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be you right now.”

Rory leaned in closer and stared straight into the other woman’s eyes. “I need details. Whatever you’ve got.”

Veronica averted her gaze and slid her chair back. “They think someone knocked Trudy out, pumped her full of sedatives to make it look like a suicide, and left her to die in the walk-in freezer. They suspect you but, as far as I know, have no plans to arrest you...yet.”

“Are they investigating anyone else?”

“Not that I’ve heard. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re guilty.” Veronica glanced around as if looking to make sure Detective Green or one of his cohorts hadn’t slipped in unnoticed, then said in a conspiratorial whisper, “I know you didn’t do it.”

“You should tell that to the police.”

“I can’t.”

“Stop it! I thought that was you lying dead on the freezer floor. Whatever you know, you have to tell the police—now. It’s not safe.”

“Why would you think the body was mine?” Veronica seemed genuinely puzzled.

Rory didn’t understand how the woman could write about Hester’s murder online and say she knew important details about the crime and not be aware of the possible consequences. “You bragged on Vista Beach Confidential that you know where the murder weapon is. What did you expect me to believe? I thought the killer had permanently silenced you. Now’s the time to tell the police everything you’ve been holding back. Do you want another death on your hands?”

“I need to go.” Veronica slung her tote bag over her shoulder and stood up. “Can I have my property back now?”

Rory knew she’d hit a nerve, but it took her a few moments to realize what was really going on. “You don’t know where the weapon is, do you? You made it up.”

“That doesn’t sound very ethical. I guess that’s why you’re blogging and not writing for the newspaper on a regular basis,” Liz chimed in.

“You know nothing about it.” Veronica held out her hand. “Recorder, please.”

“What else did you make up? Were any of those comments from my neighbors real?” Rory asked, appalled that someone who dreamt of being taken seriously as a reporter could be so irresponsible.

“Unfortunately for you, all too real.” Veronica motioned for Rory to give her the recorder.

Rory took it out of her pocket and placed it in the woman’s outstretched hand.

Veronica stuffed it in her tote bag and started toward the back door. She’d barely taken two steps when her face turned pale and she stopped in her tracks. Rory followed the woman’s gaze to the doorway where Kevin now stood, dressed in plaid knee-length shorts and a graphic T-shirt, looking young and a little lost. He hesitated as if unsure of his reception should he step further into the classroom.

Veronica retreated and turned her head, lowering her voice so only Rory could hear. “Be careful. He was wandering around town both nights. I saw him.”

“You mean the nights Hester and Trudy died?” Rory whispered.

Veronica gave a barely perceptible nod before heading toward the exit. She knocked her shoulder against Kevin’s as she passed through the doorway, not bothering to look him in the eyes. He stared after her with a sad look on his face.

So much for the two lovebirds, Rory thought.

Kevin took a step inside the classroom. “Sorry to interrupt, but do you know if Arika—Mrs. Anderson—is around?”

Rory didn’t know what he wanted from her mother, but she didn’t trust him one bit, especially after the bombshell Veronica had just dropped. Until she was satisfied of his innocence, she didn’t want him anywhere near her mother. “She’s busy right now. Tomorrow’s a big day for the store. Can I give her a message?”

“I’d really rather talk to her myself.”

“She’s not available. You can tell me whatever you came to say. I’ll relay the message, I promise.”

“Okay...I guess.” Kevin took a deep breath before continuing. “Could you tell her I wasn’t the one who vandalized her store. Make sure she knows that, okay?”

“Why should she believe you?”

“I would
never
do that. This store is one of my dad’s clients.”

“That didn’t stop you the other night at Surfside Deli.”

“That was after.”

“After what?”

“After I found out who my real parents are. I got angry. It was a mistake. I’m not proud of what I did.”

He was heading toward the back door when the store owner entered the room and dropped her daughter’s car keys on the table. “I almost forgot to return these.”

At the sound of Arika’s voice, Kevin turned around and retraced his steps. “Mrs. Anderson, could I speak with you? It won’t take long, I promise.”

“Your father told me you’d be stopping by. Let’s talk in my office.”

“Don’t, Mom.”

“It’s okay, dear. Let me handle it.” Her mother gestured for Kevin to follow her into the back room and firmly closed the pocket door that separated the classroom from the combination office-storage area.

While they finished setting up for Nora’s class, Rory periodically pressed her ear against the door, trying to make out the conversation between her mother and Hester’s troubled son. She couldn’t understand any of the words, but felt vaguely comforted that she heard no loud noises coming from the room. Before too long, Arika opened the door. Kevin was nowhere to be seen. Rory tried to question her mother about the conversation, but Arika waved her daughter aside and headed back to the front of the store.

With everyone’s help, the sales floor was soon decorated, the programs folded, and all the other tasks scheduled for that day completed. Before the group headed out to dinner, Rory tossed discarded packaging and other unwanted bits from the decorations into a garbage bag. When she went out in the alley to dump it, she found Detective Green, hands cupped around his eyes, peering through the window into the back seat of her car. She tossed the trash bag in the dumpster and hurried over to see what he found so interesting. “Can I help you, Detective?”

The policeman turned to face her with such an unusually pleasant expression on his face Rory became nervous. “Good timing, Ms. Anderson. Would you mind if I take a look in your car?”

Rory peered through the window, trying to figure out what had attracted his attention. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. As far as she could tell, everything was as she’d left it several hours ago. “Why?”

“Do you have something to hide?”

No matter how much she wanted to say no to the search, she didn’t feel as if she had a choice. Detective Green would no doubt interpret a refusal as an admission of guilt. Besides, there was nothing inside for her to be concerned about...at least she didn’t think so. “Of course not.” Rory dug the keys out of the pocket of her jeans and unlocked the doors. Nervously, she hovered in the background, waiting to see what he’d find worth investigating.

After examining the front seat of the sedan, Detective Green opened the back door. “What have we here?” He reached inside and picked up two items off the floor—an unfamiliar cell phone and an amber pill bottle.

“Those aren’t mine,” Rory hastened to say. She didn’t remember them being there when she’d stashed the paper goods in the back seat, but she’d been in a hurry and might not have seen them. Perhaps one of her recent passengers had dropped them, though no one had asked her about any lost items.

When Detective Green shook the unlabeled bottle, pills rattled around inside. He turned on the cell phone and checked the calls. After only a minute or two, he looked up from the small screen and said in a steely voice, “You need to come with me.”

At that moment, Rory longed to be a kid again when a few minutes in her mother’s comforting arms would make all her troubles go away. Once again, the murderer was covering his tracks; Rory felt it in her bones. But this time, she sensed she’d have a harder time convincing the police of her innocence.

Chapter 28

Instead of viewing the sunset with her mother and the other paint-a-thon volunteers at a beachside restaurant, Rory spent Friday evening sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a dreary room answering questions about a bottle of pills she’d never seen before and a call she’d never made.

When they arrived at the police station, Detective Green led Rory into an interview room much smaller than the ones she’d seen on television—about half the size of its fictional counterparts. There was barely enough space for furniture that had seen better days: two metal chairs and a table that had been shoved up against one wall. Either the city couldn’t afford anything larger or the police preferred a claustrophobic environment for their interrogations.

As soon as she stepped inside the room, Rory’s heart beat faster and her knees began to shake. Without saying a word, Detective Green gestured toward a chair next to the table. She collapsed onto it, grateful that he wasn’t going to force her to stand on her wobbly legs any longer, and folded her hands in her lap so he wouldn’t see them tremble. Instead of sitting down in the other chair, the detective excused himself and left her alone in the tomb-like room.

She glanced up at what she assumed was a two-way mirror above the table and wondered who was on the other side. Staring at her reflection unnerved her, so Rory positioned her chair parallel to the mirror and fixed her gaze on the opposite wall, taking several deep breaths to calm herself.

When the detective didn’t immediately return, Rory considered her situation. Whatever he’d found on the cell phone had made him suspicious enough to bring her in for questioning. She suspected whoever had murdered Trudy had planted the incriminating evidence in her car.

Rory had no doubt the two murders were connected, though she didn’t yet know how. Perhaps the restaurant owner knew something too dangerous for the killer to allow her to live any longer.

Unless, of course, Trudy
had
murdered her former best friend and someone else had taken the law into his or her own hands. At this point, Rory realized she didn’t have enough information to make an educated guess as to what really happened.

Rory was tempted to hightail it home. The police hadn’t arrested her, after all. But running away from the problem was only a temporary solution. Detective Green was bound to bring her in again, only next time she was sure he’d handcuff her instead of inviting her down to the station for a quiet chat. She was better off staying put and finding out as much as she could.

After she’d memorized every blemish and crack in the puke-colored wall in front of her, Rory got up and began pacing the room, but she couldn’t go more than two steps in any direction without stubbing her toes on a piece of furniture or a wall. A few bumps and bruises later, she sat back down in the chair and peered at the two-way mirror. She was tempted to wave or make faces at it just to see what would happen, but decided she had no desire to appear even more deranged than she already did to whoever was on the other side of the glass.

Rory glanced at her cell phone. Twenty minutes had passed and the detective still hadn’t returned. She decided he’d forgotten all about her. She was reaching for the doorknob, ready to march out into the corridor and demand he question her right now or send her home, when Detective Green walked in with a can of Diet Coke and a pair of evidence bags. One glance at the bags told her they contained the items he’d found in the back seat of her car.

He cocked an eyebrow at her and set everything down on the table. “Going somewhere?”

Rory sank back down onto her chair. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

“I wasn’t gone that long.” He shoved the soda can toward her. “Thought you might be thirsty.”

Rory wondered if this was a ploy to get her DNA or fingerprints, but then she realized he already had the latter and, as far as she was concerned, he could have the former any time he wanted. “Thank you.” She hadn’t realized until that moment how dry her throat was. She popped the top on the can and took a sip of the ice-cold beverage.

Detective Green arranged the other chair so it faced hers, sat down in it, and leaned back as if getting ready for a casual chat with a friend. With his finger he tapped the bag containing the pills that Rory suspected matched those scattered around Trudy’s body. “Tell me about these.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I’ve never seen them before and I don’t know who they belong to. Like I told you when you found them, they’re not mine.” She took another sip of Diet Coke and peered over the can at the detective. “The same goes for the cell phone,” she added, anticipating his next question.

“Then what were they doing in your car?”

“Heck if I know.”

He leaned forward and looked directly in her eyes. It took all of Rory’s willpower to meet his gaze. “It’s better if you tell the truth. I know you called Trudy around two a.m. Thursday morning.”

“Using that phone?” Rory pointed to the cell phone that would undoubtedly prove to be an untraceable burner. “You have no proof it’s mine. It’s not registered to me. My fingerprints aren’t on it. In fact, I’ll bet it’s been wiped clean of prints.”

The detective’s expression remained impassive but, for a moment, she saw confirmation in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair and, once again, adopted a casual air. “So you didn’t call Ms. Appelbaum? Arrange a meeting with her at her restaurant?”

“I told you the last time you asked I’ve never called her...ever. Nothing’s changed.” In the time it took her to drink half of her Diet Coke, she worked out what she thought was a plausible scenario in her mind. The murderer must have called Trudy using the burner phone and lured her to Main Street Squeeze. Once there, he’d killed her and placed the suicide note in her pocket. When the police saw through the ruse, the murderer had gone to Plan B and planted the incriminating evidence in Rory’s car.

“Tell me about your relationship with Ms. Appelbaum.”

“You should be asking about Kevin’s relationship with his birth mother, not mine. Why aren’t you questioning him? You know he was in town that morning. He had plenty of time to kill her and tamper with the alarm at Surfside Deli before you arrested him. They had a big fight a couple days before. With that temper of his and his soured relationship with Trudy, he’s a much better suspect than I am. Plus—” Rory was about to tell the detective what Veronica had said about Kevin wandering around town the night Hester was killed, but decided better of it. She had no evidence to back up Veronica’s story and, when the police questioned the woman about it, there was no guarantee she’d confirm she’d witnessed Kevin’s suspicious activity. Veronica might not have a problem revealing the information to Rory, but balked at blabbing to the police.

“Plus what?” Detective Green said when she didn’t continue.

“He’s just a better suspect, that’s all.”

“The phone and pills weren’t in
his
possession. They were in
your
car.”

“Kevin stopped by the store not long ago. He could have planted them there.”

“How? Your car was locked. You unlocked it for me yourself.”

Detective Green’s question stumped her for a moment until she remembered the pile of paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils she’d bought earlier that day.

“My keys weren’t in my possession the entire time,” she said. “Some volunteers moved items out of my car into the store. They only had to leave it unlocked and unattended for a minute. That’s all it would take for Kevin to toss the pills and phone into my backseat.”

Before the detective could ask any more questions, a uniformed officer poked his head in the door and indicated he wanted to speak to Detective Green outside. She barely had time to wonder what was going on when the detective returned. “You can go now.”

Without further explanation, he ushered her out of the room. He didn’t even bother to tell her to not leave town like the police did on television. Though, she supposed he couldn’t really ask her to do that since Vista Beach was small enough that, on an average day, residents crossed in and out of the city limits several times.

Rory emerged from the police station onto an empty street. While she was inside, the sun had set and a gentle fog had rolled in. She shivered in her short-sleeved T-shirt, wishing she’d remembered to bring her sweatshirt with her. It was still in the trunk of her car, parked in the alley behind Arika’s Scrap ’n Paint only a few blocks away. At least, she thought the car was still there. Detective Green hadn’t mentioned anything about confiscating it. She guessed she’d find out soon enough.

Lost in thought, Rory held her car keys between the middle and index fingers of her right hand and headed down the deserted street, solar-powered streetlamps lighting her way. The lamps were spaced far enough apart they left some areas in shadow. She hurried toward her mother’s store, speeding up every time she hit a pocket of blackness made more ominous by the fog. She’d just stepped out of one of those pockets near a construction site when she heard footsteps running toward her. Before the significance of the sounds could register and she could respond, someone grabbed her arm from behind.

Lacking a weapon, or even a purse or heavily-laden tote bag, Rory used the only means she had to defend herself. Without further thought, she swung around to face her attacker, jabbed her keys in the general direction of his face, then kneed him in his manly parts, using as much force as she could muster.

Kevin doubled over in pain. Sufficient light shone from a nearby lamp so that Rory could just make out the tears that trickled down his face. “Why?” he said between gasps. “I...just...wanted...to talk.”

Luckily, her keys had missed their target, striking air instead of the young man’s eye as she’d intended. Rory felt a little guilty about kneeing him in the groin, but reminded herself he’d soon recover and, besides,
he
was the one who’d seized her without warning. “You could have called my name to get my attention instead of grabbing me from behind.”

Hands on his knees, still gasping for breath, Kevin leaned against the chain link fence that surrounded the construction site. “I tried...several times...but you...just...kept...walking.”

Rory moved behind a nearby bench, being sure to keep it between her and the young man she suspected of murder. “Okay. You have my attention now. What do you want?”

Gradually, his breathing returned to normal and he straightened up. Pain still etched on his face, Kevin took a step toward her and said, “That detective, did you talk to him just now? Did he say anything about me?”

Rory decided he must have seen her leave the police station. At least, that’s what she hoped. She didn’t relish the idea of the entire town gossiping about her being a suspect in another murder. His timing was quite a coincidence, though. What were the odds he’d be near the station entrance when she left...unless... “He called you in, didn’t he? To talk about Trudy’s murder.” That must have been why Detective Green had abruptly let her go. She felt relieved she wasn’t the only person he’d brought in for questioning. Maybe the detective was pursuing more suspects than she’d thought.

“What do you mean? I had nothing to do with her murder!”

“You were wandering around town the night she died and you weren’t exactly on good terms with her.” Rory thought back to the fist-sized hole in the office of Main Street Squeeze. “That was obvious the other night.”

“Sure, I was mad at her for keeping that secret from me, but I’d never hurt her.”

“What about Hester? You were on the streets in the wee hours of the morning that night, too.”

“Who told you that?” Kevin studied her for a moment, then said, “Veronica, I suppose. You can’t believe everything she says. She’s still mad at me.”

“Were you with Veronica that night?”

“From eleven on.”

“
All
night?”

“I might have slipped out for an hour or two in the middle of the night. But, it had nothing to do with my mother. I had an...errand to do.”

Rory wondered what kind of errand the young man could be doing at two or three in the morning. He didn’t strike her as someone who had a drug problem. But, then, she knew little about such things. Although she had no personal knowledge, she supposed that, even in this town, an interested party could find someone to sell them cocaine or whatever drug was currently in fashion.

“This changes everything,” he said in a low enough voice she realized the words hadn’t been intended for her ears.

Before she could ask him what he meant, Kevin headed back toward the police station without bothering to say good-bye.

Rory stared after him until the fog swallowed him up, then ran the rest of the way toward her car, hoping she wouldn’t have another unexpected encounter in the darkness along the way.