Wrapped up in murder, p.7
Wrapped Up in Murder, page 7
“What was this person’s name? The one who runs the program.” The police had probably spoken to them if they were known to have had altercations with Victor, but I could learn something as well.
“I’m not sure if Josh actually said. I can ask him for you. You really don’t think she did it?”
I took a deep breath before telling him, “I don’t know what to think yet. I just know if she didn’t do it, she shouldn’t be the one to pay. No matter who is pulling strings to see that happen.”
I had faith that Matt would do the right thing, even if he wasn’t talking to me right now. But, what if he wasn’t given that option?
~
I dropped Braden off at his apartment when we were done with work for the day, but I didn’t go home yet. Quin had sent me the address for Dorothy Abrams, Talia’s sister. It was in the opposite direction of my house, but Coalville wasn’t that big, so I could certainly get there and still get home before Zio missed me too much.
She might not even be home. Or want to talk to me. I had to at least try, didn’t I? No matter what Matt thought, I wasn’t looking for trouble. I couldn’t ignore it either. Not like I didn’t have faith in his ability to do his job. But, I didn’t see what they had to arrest her on, unless she’d written her confession in his blood. Then Cailyn’s insistence on her innocence didn’t make any sense.
Cailyn could be loyal to a fault, but she wouldn’t closer her eyes to that.
There had to be something else going on, but obviously Matt wasn’t going to tell me. If he would talk to me at all. I blew out a breath, not wanting to dwell on that. It’s not like this was the first time I’d gotten involved in a case. He had to know I wasn’t just going to stay out of it. We’d get through this.
I wouldn’t let myself think anything else. Once I helped him find the real killer, everything would be just fine. It had to be.
That meant I had to get out of my truck and go talk to Talia’s sister. Or at least attempt to. Hopefully, she’d be able to tell me something that would help. Or at least point me in the right direction. Why wouldn’t she want help for her sister?
I finally climbed out of my truck and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. This house was a lot different than the one I’d been at that morning. A smaller porch, a window with clear windows and a bright green wreath hanging in it. Like someone had made the effort to make this place into a home.
At first I thought no one would answer my knock. Maybe she wasn’t home, even though a car sat out in the short driveway. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was easy enough to get anywhere in town on foot. Although with the bite in the air, and snow in the forecast, I wasn’t sure why she would want to walk anywhere.
I was considering knocking a second time, if there was no answer to that, I’d go home and try another time, when the front door swung open. “What do you want?” the woman asked, her eyes rimmed with red, which stood out against her otherwise pale face. Copper hair was scraped back into a short tail, and her brown eyes looked so much like Talia’s there was no question as to their relationship.
“Dorothy Abrams?” I asked, even though there was little doubt.
She looked more cautious than angry now. “Depends on who’s asking.”
“Lou Carsley,” I held out my hand. “I’m—”
“Oh, I’ve heard all about you.”
“Ummmm,” was all I could come up with to that.
Dorothy laughed. “Don’t worry, from what I can figure out, it’s all good. At least the way Talia spins it. She does always see the best in everyone.” Her mouth turned down. “Even to her detriment.”
“Is that what you thought of Victor? That he was detrimental to her?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” she asked. “He’s dead, and he’s still causing problems for her.”
“So, you don’t think she killed him?”
“Talia?” she asked with a snort. “Right. If she found a mouse running around in her house, she’d find a way to relocate it instead of killing it. And that man was the biggest rat of all.” She let out a long sigh. “If we’re going to talk about him, you might as well come inside.”
I hesitated for a moment then followed her into the house. She didn’t seem to harbor any ill will toward me, so I was probably safe enough, and I wanted to get some answers. Who would know Talia better than her own sister, after all?
“I take it you didn’t get along with your brother-in-law,” I said as we headed into the kitchen.
“You like to downplay things, don’t you? I couldn’t stand the snake. I could see right through him, even before they were married. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. All she saw was his charm and not what lay under it.”
“And what was under it?”
“The same thing that’s always behind a manipulative, controlling—”
“Moooom, you said you were ordering pizza. I’m hungry.”
Dorothy pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Finley, I was just about to go pick it up. We have a visitor. Could you please try to remember your manners.”
The kid, a teenager I assumed from the height and the attitude, turned to look at me. “Who are you?”
“Lou’s a friend of your Aunt Talia’s,” Dorothy said quickly.
Not quite the truth, and I didn’t know why Dorothy would want to keep that from her kid, but I could roll with it. “My sister lives next to your aunt,” I told them. “She called me when…” I trailed off, not sure what Dorothy had told her kid about their uncle’s death. I glanced at her, but she didn’t say anything.
“You mean when that stupid jerkface got himself killed.”
“Finley,” Dorothy admonished them.
“You’ve called him worse than that. And you know the way he talked about me. Frankly, I’m glad he’s dead.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t say that when the cop was here,” Dorothy muttered.
“I’m not stupid, Mom. I am hungry, though. I’ll go get the pizza if you’re too busy.”
My heart still fluttered at the mention of Matt. I took a step back toward the door. “I’ll get out of your way. My dog’s waiting for me.”
Dorothy looked a little bemused by that, but I needed to get out of there. I wasn’t sure if it was the mention of Matt having talked to them that unsettled me, or the clear animosity toward the victim. I didn’t know what he’d done to Dorothy or her kid, but I was sure whatever it was wouldn’t paint him in a good light.
And might mean I had been inside a house with a killer.
~
“Hey, Lou,” Ross said as I walked into the house. “I didn’t expect to see you on a Thursday. What do you want?”
“I can’t come and visit my older brother?” I asked as innocently as possible.
He raised one eyebrow. “You don’t even have the big lug with you.”
“Matt isn’t talking to me right now.” When his other eyebrow shot up, I realized first that he didn’t know, and that he was probably talking about Zio, not my boyfriend. If he was even still that.
“Are you okay, Lou?” Ross set a hand on my arm.
I nodded, though I was afraid if I opened my mouth to say so, I might prove the opposite. His brows drew together, but before he said anything else, a loud wail came from deep in the house. “I’ll get them,” I said quickly. “Is it dinnertime? Doesn’t Eli usually make it home for that? I didn’t see his car out there.”
Ross sighed. “He’s working late today. He spent most of the morning with Talia Abrams, and it put him behind on the rest of his caseload.”
I winced. I hadn’t considered how we’d be taking him from his other work, but I hadn’t been sure what else to tell Cailyn.
“Don’t do that,” Ross said. “He’s glad to help. You know that.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I continued on to the nursery and picked my nibling up out of their crib. “Auncle Lou is here. There’s nothing to fret about,” I told them as they continued to sniffle. “Is Daddy making you sleep instead of giving you your dinner?”
“I’ll go get it started,” Ross said, “while you continue to smear my name to my child.”
I let out a low laugh and cuddled Jordan against my chest, leaning down to pull in a whiff of their baby scent. And caught the acrid scent of urine instead. I wrinkled my nose but took Jordan over to the changing table on the side of the room and stripped them out of the green and red one-piece, now wet around the leg holes. Once I’d put on a clean diaper and found a pajama set with ‘Daddy’s little helper’ on the front and an embroidered toolbox on the back of the pants—where had they found that— I carried them out into the kitchen, where Ross had a small plastic bowl of something goopy sitting on the tray of the high chair.
“You’re going to feed that to your child?”
“We’re introducing solids,” Ross said. “You’re supposed to start with rice cereal. No matter how unappetizing it looks.”
“Very,” I said, but I put Jordan in the high chair and picked up the tiny spoon. Some of the cereal dripped off the spoon as I held it out to Jordan, who opened their mouth like a little bird.
“Well, at least they seem to like it,” I said.
“As interesting as this is to watch, and as much as I appreciate the help, I’m sure it’s not why you came over here. What’s going on, Lou?”
I didn’t look over at him as I spooned a little more of the goop into Jordan’s mouth. “What can you tell me about Chantal Sparrow?”
I practically heard his neck snap around. “Why are you asking about her?”
“You went to school with her, right?” I asked. “That’s what she told me.”
He didn’t answer me at first, and I wasn’t sure if he would. “Are you investigating again?” he asked. “Even after everything that’s happened? Why would you do that?”
At least he didn’t accuse me like Matt had done. He would at least let me explain. “Cailyn asked for my help. She doesn’t do that. What was I supposed to do, tell her no?”
Ross shook his head. “You wouldn’t do that. She’s not going to be any happier if you get yourself killed.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I told him. “I’m just talking to some people.”
“Uh huh,” Ross said. “What happened the last time you were ‘just talking to some people’? Weren’t you run off the road and then shot.”
“Shot at,” I corrected. “The bullet hit a teacup. Why do I have to keep reminding people of that?”
“It could have been you. None of us want to lose you. Is this why Matt’s not with you?”
“He was so angry, Ross. All I did was talk to Deke, and Cord said she’d tell me what she could from the autopsy. He acted like I’d…deceived him.”
“Some people aren’t good at handling their fear.”
“He was in the army.”
“So? He didn’t have to worry about losing you then.”
I frowned, not so sure he was worried about that now. “He hasn’t spoken to me since Tuesday.”
“Do you want me to talk to him? I could—”
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t need my older brother to butt into my love life.”
“Perish the thought,” he said, but his brow remained knit in concern.
“You still haven’t told me what you know about Chantal,” I said. “That could help more than anything else.”
“I highly doubt it,” Ross said. “We didn’t actually interact that much. I remember her being standoffish. But, that was more than twenty years ago. People can change in that time.”
“I doubt it,” I said, thinking about the woman I had spoken so briefly to.
“I have probably talked to her more in the last couple years than I ever did in school.”
“You have?” I perked up. Here I thought I’d run into a dead end.
“Her family’s business has a branch that offers funding to business startups. Sometimes she thinks an applicant has a good idea, but the foundation passes on them because they don’t have a solid plan in place. The ones she really believes in she refers to me to see if I can help them build up the foundation they need.”
“Oh, so it’s just about work. You wouldn’t know anything about her relationship with her stepbrother.”
“Sorry, Lou. You should talk to Cailyn. She’s the one who lived next to him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard what she thinks about him. I hoped for an unbiased opinion.”
He laughed. “Good luck getting anything like that in this town.”
Jordan let out a sharp scream then, making me drop the spoon. Ross shook his head. “Sorry we ignored you for too long, Jordan.” He picked them up out of the highchair and bounced them slightly as the two of them danced into the living room.
That made me smile, and I was more determined not to let my family down. Even if it meant continuing to break a promise I’d never had a chance of keeping.
~
“Who are these people?” Cord asked as she came into my living room that evening. Cailyn was on the couch, her boots up on the table. I didn’t think she’d looked over as I added names to the board. I wasn’t completely sure why she’d come over since she’d hardly said anything to me the whole time she’d been here.
She knew everyone who was here, so she had to mean the new names on the board.“A couple more names I got while talking to people. Jãco Carrico runs a non-profit for immigrants. Braden’s boyfriend interned there and told him Jãco got into it a few times with Victor.”
“Victor hated that person,” Cailyn said, though when I looked over, she still had her head down. She rubbed Zio’s head, though. “And not just because ze helped immigrants. The non-profit specialized in finding housing and employment for gender-expansive immigrants. Victor didn’t care if they could have been killed for who they were, he still thought they should be sent back without question.”
I felt a moment of disquiet at that. Were we really looking for the killer of someone who didn’t believe people like me, and a lot of my friends, deserved to exist? I couldn’t think about that. Even if true, if Talia hadn’t been the one to kill him, she shouldn’t be in jail. That’s why I was doing this.
“Chantal gave me Douglas Vaz’s name. Someone Victor worked with or under. She wasn’t really clear, just that he’d know the most about why Victor was fired from his latest position. I called, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.” I’d call him again tomorrow, but for now, I didn’t figure I could do much more.
“That was like the fifth job he’d been given at the company,” Cailyn said. “Talia had been hopeful he’d finally find his place there. That he could be happy there even if…”
I set the marker down and turned toward my sister. “Even if what?” I asked when she left that sentence unfinished.
“I promised her I wouldn’t say anything about it. Not to anyone.”
“And is keeping a secret going to help keep her out of prison?” Cord asked.
Cailyn looked up and it surprised me to see that her eyes were wet. I thought I’d seen here cry more in the last week than I had in the last thirty-some years. “Even if she wasn’t there to see it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” The tips of my fingers tingled. “Was she dying or something?”
Cailyn’s eyes flared at that. “No. She was not dying. Why would you ask that?”
Cord stepped between us. “Think about how you worded that,” she told Cailyn. “I nearly jumped to that conclusion as well. It’s a hazard of the profession. Why wouldn’t she have been there to see that?”
Cailyn sighed and rubbed one hand over her face. “She was leaving him. I told you that already. She loved his sorry behind, but she had started realizing some things and walk talking to a therapist, and she knew she needed to get out before it was too late.”
“Why would it be too late?” I asked, but Cord had sucked in a breath.
Cailyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “She was pregnant. She knew if Victor found out, he’d use the baby against her. She needed to get out before that happened.”
I glanced at Cord. That certainly changed things.
Chapter 11
“Douglas, this is Lou Carsley again,” I said into my phone late the next morning as I pulled into the library’s parking lot. “I’m not trying to hassle you, but I’d like to speak with you. Will you please call me back?” I left my number. Again. And hung up before slipping the phone back into my pocket.
He hadn’t called me back the night before, and I wasn’t sure what else I could do. I kept running into dead ends. I couldn’t talk to Talia’s therapist, even if Cailyn had been able to give me their name. Cord had pointed out that patient confidentiality was a thing.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk to Talia at all. As far as I knew she was still being held in the town’s jail, and hadn’t been bound over for trial yet. Eli was helping her, but he hadn’t said anything to me about the case yet.
I didn’t know if he would. Not with the way the last couple times had gone. I would be more careful this time. It’s not like I sought out trouble. Right now, all I was looking to do was return these books to the library. Once I’d taken care of that, and seen if anything else had come in I might like to read, I’d head over to the diner for lunch then home.
I grabbed the three books I’d checked out the week before then climbed out of the truck and walked up to the library. The door squealed open. The cold may be seizing up the hinges. Or they needed to take some oil to it.
I could do that for Jody if ze wanted. And apply some stuff to it that would help prevent that happening before it warmed up again. “I have come bearing books,” I called out as I approached the desk. Jody looked up and smiled at me, waving me toward the book return slot. Ze returned to waiting on the customer I hadn’t noticed. Probably because they couldn’t even see over the top of the counter.
I chuckled as the little kid made exuberant motions with their arms and Jody nodded along as if ze truly did follow the kid’s story. For all I knew, ze did. Better zer than me. I slipped the books into the slot then headed back toward the fiction section, stopping at the new releases. There had been a recent surge of queer fiction, and I loved it. Especially as it no longer seemed to be restricted to two men having a relationship and being forced out. There was so much more to us than just one story.
