Murder Strikes a Pose (7 page)

my Core Strength class had departed, and I was ready to head

home. I’d steadfastly avoided George the rest of the day, and now he and Bella were gone to wherever they went each evening.

Time had cooled my fiery temper, and I felt bad about our ar-

gument. I should have known better than to suggest George get

rid of Bella. She was the closest thing to family he had. I vowed to apologize as soon as I saw him the next day.

My only goals in that moment, however, were to close up shop

and go home. At almost ten o’clock, the dueling temptations of

a hot bubble bath and a cool glass of Chardonnay beckoned me.

But first I had to prepare for the next day’s classes. I blew out the candles, swept the yoga room’s floor, and emptied the garbage

cans. I quickly wiped down the sink in the studio’s single unisex bathroom, grateful for once that the space didn’t have showers.

From there, I headed to the small alcove of yoga props just off the back entrance. I untied the chaotic tangle of cotton straps, folded the pile of carelessly tossed blankets, and created three organized stacks from the jenga-like structure of black foam yoga blocks. I finished by neatly stacking the mats.

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Practice space done, I moved to the lobby, where I vacuumed

the floor and watered my thirsty jungle of plants. I was about

to re-stock the flyers outside the studio’s front entrance, when I heard the sounds of a heated argument.

To be honest, nighttime arguments weren’t all that unusual in

this section of Greenwood. After nine at night The Loaded Muzzle

and its sister bars were the only businesses open, and the neigh-

borhood drunks weren’t exactly known for their quiet discussions

on local politics and art.

I normally ignored them, but for some reason this felt serious.

I cracked open the door and pressed my ear to the void, trying to eavesdrop. The yelling stopped as suddenly as it began.

Nothing but silence. Not the easeful silence that enveloped

your mind after the most blissful of meditation practices. Not the friendly silence that followed a fight between buddies, after they had shaken hands and made up. Not even the sad, desperate silence of loneliness. This was a more ominous silence. The silence between the jarring final notes of a horror movie’s theme song.

The silence before the knife shot through the shower curtain in

Psycho.
The silence that punctuated the seconds until the evil monster attacked the heroine from behind
.

Great. And now I had to walk out into the parking lot. Alone.

Should I call the cops?
If I called the police and it turned out to be nothing, I’d feel pretty stupid. I wasn’t a little girl anymore. By the age of thirty-two, I should be able to take care of myself. Besides, the police had better things to do than walk paranoid yoga teachers through empty parking lots.

Dad schooled me well in self-defense, but I owned little in the

way of protection. The yoga teachings were clear: violence was

not an option; therefore, I did not own a gun. I looked around

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the studio. A yoga strap would help only if I wanted to whip my

would-be killer into submission. My newly organized yoga blocks?

I could throw one at him, I supposed, but the lightweight foam

brick wouldn’t do much damage. If only I’d purchased the heavy

wooden ones instead. I supposed I could try to smother him with

one of the blankets …

“I wonder if it’s too late to open a martial arts studio?” I said to the empty room.

The deadliest options I found were a stapler and a pair of

round-nosed scissors. Vowing to buy pepper spray first thing the

next morning, I grabbed my flashlight, turned on my cell phone,

and prepared to press the autodial button for 911, just in case.

I opened the door and cautiously looked left and right. Noth-

ing. No sounds except the traffic along 85th Street; no smells but the yeasty aroma of stale beer. Nothing unusual at all. As I inserted the key into the lock, I started at the sound of someone throwing out the trash.
Good lord, you’re jumpy. No more Friday night horror
fests for you.

I played the flashlight along the pavement in front of me, wish-

ing there were more people out on the street. I had nothing but

my internal dialogue to keep me company.

See, nothing to be afraid of here, just the normal cats, cars, and
an occasional empty beer can.
I heard a metallic bang, yelped, and practically leaped out of my skin.
Just the garbage can lid. You really
need to drink less caffeine, jumpy girl.

As I tiptoed to the end of the parking lot, the flashlight illu-

minated a mound of old clothes.
How odd. Someone threw out a

jacket and pants.
I moved closer.
Actually, it looks like a whole pile
of clothes.

I froze.
Wait, are those shoes?

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My stomach churned.
Oh, no,
I silently prayed.
Please, God,
please don’t let that be what I think it is.

Acid bile rose in my throat as I moved the flashlight’s beam

across the shape. It wasn’t a pile of clothes at all. It was a person—

a man—surrounded by a pool of thick, dark fluid.

I recognized the sickening, coppery smell. It was blood. A
lot
of blood.

I resisted the urge to scream and run. Instead I turned him over

to see if he was still breathing. The minute I saw the deep indented gash in his forehead, I knew saving him was hopeless. I pressed the button to make the 911 call I now dreaded, took two steps away

from the body, and vomited.

It was George. And Bella was nowhere to be found.

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six

“Ma’am, I need you to wait in the patrol car. The detectives will be here soon to take your statement.”

“I can’t stay here,” I begged. “I have to find Bella! She’s a large black German shepherd. She never left George’s side, and she must be terrified.” I frantically looked left and right. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Please let me go look for her. She hates

being alone.”

I’m sure I sounded insane. All things considered, a stray dog

should have been the least of my concerns. But focusing on Bel-

la allowed me, if only for a moment, to avoid thinking about

George’s death. And I couldn’t think about that. Not then. It was too awful.

“Ma’am, there’s obviously no dog here, and I need you to come

with me before you destroy any more evidence.” The officer took

me by the arm and led me away from George’s body. As we walked

past the small crowd of pointing and whispering onlookers, I felt strangely guilty, as if I were the murderer, not merely a witness.

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Everything seemed surreal, like the flashing, disparate images

of a childhood nightmare. Circling police lights pulsated in an

oddly patriotic collage of red, white, and blue. The zigzag aura of an impending migraine tugged at the edges of my vision, and I

knew throbbing pain was sure to follow. The officer opened the

car door and nudged me inside. I didn’t
want
to sit in the car. I wanted to go home. I wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. Barring that, I would have preferred rotting in a nice, dark prison cell, far away from all this insanity. I considered telling the officer exactly that.

I sat in the car.

“The detectives in charge will be able to answer your questions.

Now wait here and let us do our jobs.” He firmly shut the door.

It seemed like 100 years, but actually only twenty minutes

passed before detectives Martinez and Henderson had time to

question me. Petite and pretty, with dark hair, brown eyes and a

serious look, Detective Martinez obviously played the good cop to Henderson’s bad one. Bearded, slightly paunchy, and well on the

far side of forty, Detective Henderson wasn’t the slightest bit interested in my worries about Bella.

“I already told you,” I said wearily. “I don’t know anything.

Now please let me go! I have to find Bella. George wouldn’t have

wanted her to be alone.”

“Ma’am, answer the question,” he replied. “What were you do-

ing out here when you found the body?”

I would have screamed in frustration, but the sound might

have exploded my pounding head. “For the hundredth time, I

heard fighting and I got worried. I decided to make sure every-

thing was OK on my way home.”

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“If you heard a fight, why didn’t you call the police?” Hender-

son asked, leaning forward. I assumed he was trying to intimi-

date, not sicken me. But the warmth of his garlic-infused breath

sent another wave of nausea roiling through my stomach. And his

scruffy mat of saliva-encrusted facial hair didn’t help. I swallowed hard to avoid vomiting a second time. Lord, didn’t anyone shave

anymore?

“If what you say is true, you’re lucky
you
didn’t get your face bashed in.” He stepped his feet wide and glanced at Martinez.

“This kind of thing happens all the time. Couple of drunks fight-

ing over money or booze. One puts up a little too much resistance and gets beat up or worse. Could even have been a drug deal gone

bad. A young woman like you should have more sense than to get

in the middle of it.”

“I’m telling you, that’s not what happened,” I replied emphati-

cally. George had a drinking problem, but he didn’t do drugs, and he wasn’t violent.”

Henderson leaned back and crossed his arms. “All right, then,

what’s your theory?”

My eyes burned with looming, frustrated tears. “I don’t know,

maybe he got mugged.”

“Why on earth would anyone mug him? He obviously didn’t

have much money.” Henderson leaned in close again, going for the

jugular. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling us …”

Dad taught me to be tough—to stand up to bullies and never

give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry. But my head pound-

ed, my body ached with exhaustion, and I couldn’t hold back

anymore. Tears streamed down my face. “I don’t know anything!

Please, please,
please
let me go, so I can look for Bella.”

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Martinez gave Henderson a “back off now” look. “Just a few

more minutes, ma’am,” she said. “How did you know the de-

ceased?”

“I told you that already. He sells—” I bit back a sob. “I mean,

he
sold
the
Dollars for Change
newspaper outside my store. We became friends.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get,” Henderson sneered. “Why would

a pretty young thing like you be friends with a deadbeat like him?”

At that moment, Detective Henderson joined Jake the Jerk on

my short list of truly odious people. My tears stopped. The hair on the back of my neck rose. An image of my fist smashing into Henderson’s face entered my head and refused to leave. Cold-cocking

him would land me in jail, so I looked at him steadily and enunciated clearly.

“George wasn’t a deadbeat. He had an addiction. There’s a dif-

ference.”

Martinez stepped between us. “Did the victim have any ene-

mies?”

“No, George was a sweet man. People aren’t always courteous

to the homeless, but I can’t imagine why anyone would hurt him.”

I remembered the incident with Charlie. “He did have an argu-

ment with someone earlier today, but he said it was nothing—that

they had it all worked out.” I described the dispute over the black duffel bag. “The guy seemed kind of odd, but George said they

were friends.”

“We didn’t find a bag with the body, but we’ll look into it,”

Martinez assured me. “But if this ‘Charlie’ isn’t a regular in the area, he might be hard to track down. And the bag is probably

long gone by now.”

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“Did anything else seem different than normal?” Henderson

asked.

“Not really. George had some money worries, but I think he

had a plan to fix that.”

The two detectives exchanged a knowing look. Henderson

spoke. “Perhaps he decided to consort with the wrong people to

get that money and got himself killed for his efforts?”

I felt my face flush with anger.

“George was the
victim
here. You keep forgetting that. George was an alcoholic, not a criminal. And if he planned to meet with

someone dangerous, why didn’t he take his dog? Bella would never

have let anyone hurt him.”

They were about to press me further when a uniformed officer

interrupted. “Excuse me, detectives. You might want to take a look at this. We found a dog in the alley behind the pet store. It might be the one the witness has been talking about.”

I jumped out of the police car, pushed past the two detectives,

and ran as fast as my legs would take me. Bella’s low bark filled the air as I rounded the corner.

She huddled, cowering in the back of her crate. “That’s her!

That’s Bella!”

Martinez grabbed my arm before I could open the cage. “Don’t

touch anything! That crate is evidence. Wait until we call Animal Control.” Bella snarled and lunged against the door. “Besides, that dog looks dangerous. The Animal Control officers will know how

to handle it.”

Animal Control? Wasn’t that a fancy name for the dog catcher?

Were they going to take Bella to the pound?

“There’s no need to call anyone,” I quickly replied. “Bella’s not dangerous, she’s just upset. I’m sure I can calm her down.”

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“Maybe so,” Martinez replied. “But we still need to call Animal

Control. They’ll take her to the shelter and contact her owners.”