Lethal flip, p.18
Lethal Flip, page 18
I wanted to check out the office before I left. I quickly exited Sarah’s space and doubled back to the first room. Hurrying in, I made a beeline to the desk. He wasn’t as tidy in this space as the rest of his home. The surface of the desk was littered with bills, receipts, and paperwork. One item in the top bin of a document sorter caught my attention. I picked it up. It was a life insurance policy. Fernando had said Senior was the beneficiary to policies from Sarah, as his wife. But this document listed Fernando as the primary recipient. Did he lie about Senior being the beneficiary or did he forge the document? I snatched the paperwork, stashing it into my pockets.
I heard whistling from the hallway, and stopped. My stomach plummeted, and my heart skipped a beat. Fernando was home.
I hurried to the door, held my breath, and listened to the muffled whistle. He was in the bathroom. The toilet flushed, and I heard running water. I darted from the area, tiptoeing through the kitchen to the patio exit. As I crept out, the bathroom door creaked.
Outside, I ducked around the residence. Once past the pickup, I straightened, trying to appear calm. Crossing the street, I entered the renovation via the back door of the garage.
Chapter 28
Once inside the Warbler house, I collapsed in a heap on the lower-level carpet and gasped, curled in a fetal position, fighting to regain composure. When my breath evened out, I plucked out the letter, the policy, and my cell. I broke the envelope’s seal and read the note.
To Whom it May Concern: If you are reading this, I am dead. Fernando Garcia has kept me captive and drugged. He is insanely jealous. I know now he baited the cougar in Mesa. Despite my efforts to convince him I wanted no part of a relationship or marriage with him, he persists. I am too sick and too weak to fight him. Please tell my stepson, Randy, that I regret the bitterness my relationship with Fernando has caused. I still love his father. I did not divorce Randy, Sr., and he remains my soul mate. I hope Vincent Deala rots in hell.
Huh? I pondered, Sarah and both Randys must have had a beef with Vinnie. Scanning the insurance papers, Fernando was the sole beneficiary of a cool half million-dollars at Sarah’s death.
I called Myra.
She answered the first ring. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick!”
“What? Who’s worried?”
“Wayne called. He said you were going to break into Fernando’s house!”
Upstairs, there was the thump, thump, thump of a hard knock on the front door.
“Someone’s here,” I whispered. I decided to play possum. With my car out of sight, no one would know I was here.
“Who is it?”
“I’m not going to answer.”
“Good idea,” she advised. “Do you want to peek at who it is? I’ll stay on the line.”
“Okay.” I ventured upstairs and checked the peephole. I saw the backs of a man and woman leaving. They were dressed in their best Sunday church clothes and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“They look like Jehovah Witnesses. I think they left a pamphlet. I’ll get it.”
“Okay. I’ll hold,” Myra said.
I waited until the couple was out of sight and opened the door a crack. Sure enough, they’d stuffed a flyer inviting me to learn about the faith between the screen and frame.
Fernando appeared as I closed the entry, my attention focused on the pamphlet. He shoved me aside and slammed the door, throwing the dead bolt.
“You have my property!” His eyes were black and his breath labored as he blocked the exit. “You have the policy!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I’m a lousy liar and he knew it.
“You LIE!” He charged me.
“Aaaaak!” I dropped the phone, praying Myra would call the police, and ran up the stairs. He followed. I turned and faced him, “Be reasonable. Why would I have any of your papers?”
He hesitated, as if he might buy it. Slowly, I backed into the kitchen. Blocking his view, I reached behind my back to a drawer where I stashed screwdrivers, a hammer, and a carpet knife. Next to me on the counter was the vase of daisies.
“You are correct.” His respiration slowed, and his color faded from mottled purple to normal as he regained his composure. “I am sorry. I have been under a lot of pressure. Please forgive me.”
I relaxed. “All right. But you must go now. Out!” and pointed. He started for the door, then whirled towards me with his fists doubled.
“Aaaaawk!” I grunted and snatched the container of flowers, pitching the daisies and vase at his head. He ducked. The pot shattered against the wall. I yanked open the drawer with the tools and grabbed the closest one, a hammer, and held it up, threatening him.
“You killed Sarah!” I shouted, keeping him at bay.
“She wanted to crawl back to Senior! She could not do that to me. I would not let her! I took care of her!” His voice trembled, and he was close to tears.
“How did you do it?”
“She had boxes packed, ready to go back to that foul man!” He panted.
“Okay?” I looked at him blankly, the tool held high.
“She tried to leave. Her fancy wedding cake knife and fork were in one of the boxes.” He paused as though he was reliving the scene, his eyes glazed. “She even kept a reminder of their unholy union. I grabbed the fork and chased her in the house!”
“You took the serving set out of the boxes you tossed!”
“Yes. But she escaped!” His eyes grew large and his chest moved up and down with heavy breaths, and he glared. “I knew it! You were snooping!”
“How did you kill Sarah?” I demanded, yelling.
“I grabbed the bottle of sangria and hit her, and she dropped. The bottle slipped from my hands and spilled over the rug. It was perfect. She loved her sangria!”
He lunged and wrenched the hammer from my grip. I seized the carpet cutter, tripped the blade, and slashed at the hand that gripped the hammer. He howled and grabbed his fingers, a trickle of blood slid from under his grip. His eyes turned black with anger, and he dove at me with the hammer. I slashed again at his midsection and darted out of his path. Slowed momentarily, he clutched his gut and followed. I barricaded myself in the bath, frantically securing the lock.
“Go away! The police are coming!”
“First, I will kill you!” He shrieked and pounded at the door, busting the wood with blows from the hammer.
“Stop it!” I spit out a diversion. “You left the rodents! And the dead carp on my steps! You cut the rung on my ladder!”
The hammering stopped, and he gave a low, maniacal laugh that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Such tiny little threats. You were supposed to leave! You DIDN’T go! You took my Sarah’s boxes!”
Yikes. He knew I’d taken the cartons from the dumpster.
The strikes came faster and harder. THUMP! THUMP!
“But, why?” I demanded. Again, I tried to slow his progress.
“You were nosy. You were always watching me! I couldn’t breathe!” Grunting, he pounded again.
That’s true. Why did you lure the mountain lion to Sarah’s yard in Arizona?”
“Ha!” He stopped, panting. “It was genius! She blamed Senior. She ran to me!”
“You tricked her!”
“He didn’t love her like I did!”
THUMP!
The hammer made short shrift of the door. I looked around for anything besides my carpet blade to stop him. I grasped the plunger from beside the toilet in one hand, the rug knife in the other, and stood in the tub, waiting for his charge. He busted through, the force of his weight propelling him to the far side. I whacked him with the business end of the plunger and it threw him off balance. I jumped out of the tub, gripping both items as I ran.
As I dashed from the house, the noise of breaking glass and Fernando’s curses echoed. I heard his heavy footfalls behind me. He dove for my legs and the carpet cutter slipped from my hand. While I struggled from his grasp, two police cars sped into the driveway, and four officers jumped out.
“He killed her!” I yelled, still gripping the plunger. Two officers grabbed Fernando, and I rolled out from under his hold. They cuffed him and stuffed him in the squad car. Don collected my makeshift weapon, and I scrambled to my feet.
“Easy, Katelyn,” Don said.
My adrenaline surged, and I babbled, “He killed Sarah. He had life insurance on her. She was trying to go back to Senior, but he was drugging her! It’s all in the letter.”
“What letter?” He stared at me.
Oh, fiddlesticks!
“I found a letter from Sarah in Fernando’s house.” I might as well come clean. “Along with an insurance document.”
“Breaking and entering is a serious charge.”
“Patio door was open,” I muttered.
His eyebrows rose; he said, “Theft is serious. Trespassing is a crime, a misdemeanor.”
“I would have returned the items.” I avoided his deep blues. “If the police didn’t want them.”
He relaxed. “Uh huh. You need to work on your poker face,” he said with a grimace and an eye-roll. “You have the note and the policy?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take them.”
“Okay.” I headed indoors, my shoulders sagged, and he followed. There were shards of glass along with remnants of flowers and the vase littering the stairs to the upper level. “Oh, for cripes’ sake!”
“Looks like he broke a mirror.”
“Dang it, anyway!” I marched to the bathroom, picking my way through the scattered pieces.
“That’s another seven years’ bad luck.” He rubbed his chin. “I count three broken mirrors.”
“Twenty-one years!” I groaned, surveying the mess. The remains of the wood door and jamb were in shattered chunks, the pieces of mirror scattered on the bathroom floor, the main level, and beyond.”
“Sorry.” Don’s mouth twitched from holding back a laugh.
“Not funny!”
He sobered up, and said, “I need the evidence from Fernando’s.”
“I’ll get it.” I disappeared to the basement and retrieved the paperwork while he waited in the entry. “Here.” I handed both over. “These should prove Fernando is responsible for Sarah’s death.”
“We’ll need to authenticate the papers. Is there anything else?”
“Blood droplets.”
“Not marinara sauce?” He gazed, his mouth set. “Investigators documented all blood evidence.” He raised his brows.
“I took photos. They were in Sarah’s room. See?” I found my phone and started searching for the images. “So, Myra called?”
“Yes. Pretty anxious, too.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “He forced his way in.”
“You should call her.”
“I will.” I found the pictures and showed the spatter images to Don. “Fernando said he chased Sarah inside with the fancy fork and knife from the boxes she packed.”
“Yep.” He viewed the photos. “We have these,” he muttered under his breath.
Oh, oh. I bled on potential evidence and cleaned them, I thought, remembering the nicks I’d gotten from the serving pieces. My face flushed.
“Is there anything else?” Don asked.
“No. Not really.” I bit my tongue.
“We’ll do another search.”
“Will you tell me if it’s blood?”
“Katelyn, you know the answer to that.” His sigh was heavy.
“Wouldn’t this be part of the assault on me?”
“That’s a fine line; if the neighbor assaults someone who trespasses and takes items from his home.”
“Aaaaawk!”
“I have to take you in for questioning.”
Resigned, I got in the back of the squad car, and Don Williams drove to the police station. Once there, he led me to his office. I sat across from him and stared, waiting for the lecture.
“Fernando and Senior both did business with Vincent Deala. Fernando painted the refurbished appliances and Vinnie bought Senior’s business. He was Sarah’s first husband, and a small-time drug dealer.”
“OMG! Sarah’s ex!” Okay, they weren’t new appliances.
“Yes. She was beautiful, way out of Vinnie’s league, and she feared him. It was a brief marriage and ended badly when Vinnie turned to dealing drugs.”
“Figured it was drugs,” I said.
“He used his appliance store as a front.”
“Figured that too.”
Don sighed and went on. “He would only sell an appliance if he was low on his supply of drugs. When he sold one, it came off the floor. He’d drive to Mexico and buy one or two at a time. He stashed the drugs in airtight containers and hid the drugs in the appliances.”
“Don’t they have drug-sniffing dogs at the border?”
“They do. He disguised the drugs and chose the busiest times to cross, when the border patrol was overwhelmed. He looked like an ordinary guy buying a cheap appliance in Mexico.”
“Where is he now?”
“In a Mexican jail. He was caught at the border with drugs.”
“I knew that deal was too good to be true,” I muttered.
“What?” He glared at me.
“Never mind,” I mumbled.
He relaxed, “Vinnie’s drug money kept Senior in business, even during the peak of the housing industry. But Randy didn’t know where the money came from. Deala was a silent partner and funneled money when Randy needed it.”
“He didn’t ask?”
“Why look a gift horse in the mouth? It got sticky when Vinnie discovered Sarah had married Randy Sr. He’d vowed that if he couldn’t have Sarah, no one would. Then Sarah fled with Fernando, Randy Sr. followed, and then Vinnie showed up.”
“Wow.”
“Sarah was complicated. She married Randy Sr. when she worked at the company, but Randy Sr. was always busy. She was lonely. Fernando came along, and he can be very charming. She fell for him while Senior was trying to keep the business going.”
Yeah, I get that. I understood lonely.
“But the economy was bad, and he sold,” Don continued. “Vinnie paid him handsomely, because it was a money laundering game for him. Senior followed Sarah, and took odd jobs, like carpet laying, while his son got the plumbing company up and running. She didn’t work because of her health problems that Fernando caused. Randy Jr. hated Sarah because she crushed his father’s spirit.”
“I don’t remember seeing photos of Vinnie and Sarah in the boxes Fernando threw out.”
“She hated him. She destroyed any reminders of their marriage.”
“Okay.” That made sense.
“Senior sold the business to pursue Sarah.”
“Vinnie didn’t catch on?”
“Senior followed Sarah and Fernando to Minnesota. Vinnie doesn’t like the cold.”
“So, he left them alone?” I asked.
“When the weather got warmer, he resumed his obsession for Sarah. She was a trophy, a beautiful woman. We think he was the prowler. Folks around here blamed it on kids. But Vinnie’s short, he could be mistaken for a youngster. Sarah was wrong about the cougar in Mesa. Investigators suspected it was Vincent who baited the animal.”
“OMG,” I gasped. “How do you know?”
“The shoe prints left at the scene matched Deala’s athletic shoes, size nine, according to investigators. He’d been harassing her in Mesa.”
“The rats? Was that Vinnie?”
“No, Fernando left the box with the rat. Not hard to get a shoe box.”
“But Vincent was in Minnesota?”
“Yes, then he high-tailed it back to Arizona.”
“Uh huh. Who wanted me dead?” I felt my face flush and I fidgeted. I sounded paranoid.
“It was always Fernando. He knew you were watching him.” He stopped, and gave a weary glance. “Vinnie and Fernando knew each other through the business in Mesa. Fernando copied his methods of threatening people.”
“So, Vinnie, Randy Sr., and Fernando all wanted Sarah, and didn’t want any other man to have her?” I didn’t envy Sarah’s beauty and shuddered.
“Appears so. Vincent returned to his appliance store. Once Sarah was gone, his obsession ended.”
“But didn’t he know Fernando killed her?”
“If he knew, he didn’t rat him out. He is a drug dealer, after all.”
“Why didn’t he go after Fernando?”
“He might have, except the last time he went to Mexico, he was caught at the border smuggling drugs.”
Don waited, leaned towards me, his hands propped in a steeple. “Katelyn, I’ll accept your account that the house was open. Maybe, you forgot something at his house the night before?”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.
“Uh huh.”
Chapter 29
I went back to Warbler and took pictures of the mess left by Fernando busting into the bathroom at the Warbler renovation. I wouldn’t be able to claim it on insurance. I’d already made one claim, and the damage, although annoying, didn’t reach the deductible threshold. I ordered a door for the bathroom and bought another mirror.
Eddy helped me install the mirror and the new door.
“Getting to be an expert on mirrors, babe,” he joked.
“Yeah, yeah.” I was still smarting over the twenty-one years of bad luck. Once the mirror was up and the door in, I said, “How about we do a sage burning tonight? I’ll check with Myra.”
I called Myra while Eddy hung out.
“I’ll bring the sage, wine, crystal stemware, and candles,” Myra said.
“Wonderful!”
“And snacks.”
“You’re the best.”
“Someone has to provide the proper ambiance.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. How about seven o’clock, after dinner?”
“I’ll be there.”
“It’s all set for seven tonight,” I told Eddy.
“Hey, that works. See you later, babe.” He grinned and headed out.
I locked up behind him, dashed home, fed Boots, cleaned up, grabbed a sandwich for dinner and headed back to the house. I hoped the sage burning did the trick. This would cleanse the space and I could sell the newly renovated home without any bad juju attached. Now that the murder was solved, I could rest easy and assure any potential buyers that the neighborhood was safe.
