We arrived at the victim’s condo to find two very concerned occupants. “We were about to call you,” a very tense Joanna Olson told Herc. “Nora’s nephew showed up about fifteen minutes ago and was surprised to find the two of us still here, but Nora had spoken to both of us in the past and reassured us in the event of her death she wanted us to have adequate time to find other employment and housing. Lenny told us that no longer applies, now that he will be inheriting the condo and will be selling it as soon as the legal work is done.”
“He waved off our suggestion he wait to go through her things,” Mrs. Lively, the housekeeper, added. “He wanted to know where she kept her jewelry. He didn’t say why, but we think he wants to hock some of it to get him by until the will is settled.”
“Did you tell him?” Herc asked.
“Most of the good stuff is in a safe deposit box he probably doesn’t know about. No point telling him until necessary,” Lively said. “We figured let him take whatever he can find, if it would get rid of him. At least for tonight. We’re sure he’ll be back for more soon.”
For once, the nurse and the housekeeper appeared to be on the same page.
“Where is he now?” Herc asked.
Mrs. Lively answered. “In Mrs. Adams’s bedroom. You can hear the slamming of drawers from here. Nora would be mortified to know someone was going through her private things, even a blood relative.”
“We’ll check on him in just a minute,” Herc told them in the voice he used for calming persons of interest. “First, we have a question. Could you describe what Mr. Adams and Kevin Rollins wore the last day they visited Mrs. Adams?”
The two women exchanged looks with each other, like they couldn’t believe Herc had asked such a question in the middle of this seeming crisis. Lively replied first. “Kevin was in his usual blue jeans and knit shirt. He changed into sweats while he worked with Mrs. Adams and then changed back before he left.”
Olson nodded. “That’s right. The same clothing routine as always.”
“And the nephew?” Herc asked.
Both women screwed up their faces, like this one was more difficult to recall. “He usually wore work clothes because he came directly from his spa, which he was remodeling. But it seems there was something different about his apparel that day,” Olson said. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”
“You’re right,” Lively added. “There was something different about him that day.”
Herc and I waited as patiently as we could, considering how important their answer would be once they arrived at it.
Olson brightened. “I know. He mentioned meeting with his banker after he left. Something about getting an extension on his construction loan.”
“It’s coming back to me, now that you brought up his bank loan, Joanna,” Lively said. “He was dressed up. Not a suit and tie but a jacket and dress pants.”
I released the breath I’d been holding. We almost had him. What he’d been wearing that day wasn’t absolutely conclusive, but it got us a lot closer to solving our case.
“Okay. You two get out of here for the night. Go to a motel until we let you know it’s okay to return. There’s a car outside. The man is a cop also. He’ll make arrangements for you.”
Once the two women had departed, Herc turned to me. “Ready, partner?”
“This is a you-and-me two-step. You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting.”
He smirked. “Gotcha.”
We knocked briefly and then walked into the late woman’s bedroom. With the hospital bed and other medical equipment already removed, the middle of the room had become a huge void. Only her chest of drawers, a bureau, a small desk and a rocking chair along the walls were left.
“Mr. Adams. We have a few more questions for you. This is Mrs. Summerfield. She’s assisting me on this case.” Herc deliberately didn’t mention my role with the Fonseca case.
Adams was dressed in tan cargo pants and an olive-green pullover, more casual than he’d been when he’d last seen his aunt. But then, he wasn’t here to impress a bank manager now. He was on a treasure hunt, pulling things from her bureau without replacing them. “A little late in the day for investigating, isn’t it, Detective?”
“Our work is never done, especially when things are coming together.” He left it at that, daring the man to ask more. But Adams continued to sift through items in the chest of drawers. “It appears you believe you’re the main beneficiary of your aunt’s estate. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here helping yourself to her things.”
Adams stopped his riffling long enough to give us a smarmy smile. “My aunt and I discussed how she wished to dispose of her worldly goods, yes.”
“So you’ve seen the will?”
“Didn’t need to, as many times as she brought it up.”
“She brought it up?”
“You know how old folks are. All they can think of is making the most of their deaths. My aunt held my inheritance over my head to keep me visiting. Much better to keep me hanging on for something that will happen someday rather than give me a little something from time to time to get by.”
“That what you’re after now? Something to ‘get by’ until the will is probated?”
“I suppose you could call it that. I’m the sole beneficiary, so it doesn’t matter when I take what’s mine.”
“Actually, you’re not the sole beneficiary. Your aunt bequeathed a substantial amount of her funds to others as well.”
Adams jerked. “You’ve seen the will?”
“Your aunt’s attorney shared it with us as part of our investigation. You’re still well taken care of, but so are some others.”
“It’s that nurse, I bet. Aunt Nora promised her a little something and sealed her death certificate with her generosity.”
“One could say the same about Mrs. Lively, your aunt’s housekeeper. Or George Karolla, building maintenance supervisor. Or Kevin Rollins, her physical therapist.”
Herc was taking his time. Letting it sink in that Adams wasn’t getting it all, perhaps making him wonder if taking his aunt’s life had been worth it.
“You can’t be serious,” Adams said, becoming increasingly agitated as Herc listed the names of the others who would receive some of his aunt’s fortune.
“With so many others taking their share of the pot, was it worth it, Adams?” Herc asked.
His back still turned to us, Adams cocked his head as if he couldn’t quite believe Herc had come right out with an accusation. “What are you talking about?”
“We know you’re up to your eyeballs in debt from remodeling your spa. Per your bank, your construction loan is coming due within days. You have only a few dollars in the bank. Your aunt’s money is the only way you can pay off your loan.”
“Surely you’re not suggesting I killed her to pay it off? Not with her nurse and the housekeeper getting their share of the pie.” Denial number two.
“You had the most to lose. You had access to the condo. Could come and go as you liked without raising any suspicion. You knew where Nurse Olson kept your aunt’s medications. All you had to do was slip into the nurse’s room and switch out your aunt’s life-saving meds with one that would trigger a heart attack and placebos that would be no help staving it off. You didn’t even have to be here. In fact, it worked to your benefit not to be here when it happened, when your aunt experienced an episode with her heart requiring that medication. An episode that could supposedly be written off as not unexpected with one who suffered from heart problems.”
Herc was doing a pretty good job laying out the case. I had no illusions that what he’d spelled out so far would convince Adams to confess. But this prologue was necessary to shake the man’s confidence.
“That all you’ve got on me?” Adams asked, his tone mocking.
“For starters. Enough to convince you we’re serious.”
Adams snorted. “You’re grasping at straws. You don’t have any actual evidence.”
Herc moved farther into the room but still kept his distance from Adams. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lenny. The evidence is piling up, especially since we have an eyewitness account of a guy matching your description throwing the real meds into the trash barrel behind this building the day before your aunt’s death.”
Adams stiffened, turned to face us and shot us one of those “deer in the headlights” looks. “You couldn’t because …” He stopped himself before he said too much. Too much for him. Not enough for us.
“Because why, Lenny?” Herc said in his best no-nonsense cop speak.
Adams’s expression was part confusion, part defiance. He was stalling, trying to dig himself out of the hole of his own making. “Because there is no eyewitness. You’re making him up.”
“Him?”
“Or her. Whoever you want to invent.”
“You were right the first time. It was a him. But you knew that already. As for making him up, tell me if I also made up the written statement describing you, what you were wearing, what you were doing, where you were seen and at what time.”
We almost had him. Almost. But he was holding his ground.
“If you want to prove it wasn’t you, tell me what you were wearing that last day you visited your aunt.”
“You’re kidding?”
Herc returned question for question. “Do I look like I am?”
Adams didn’t reply at once. “My best dark sweats. I was working on the job at the spa that day but knew Aunt Nora disapproved of my showing up in grunge.”
Herc appeared to consider the response. “Sweats, huh? That’s funny, because we have two witnesses who claim you were dressed up in a jacket and dress pants that day.”
“I must’ve forgotten.”
Herc pursued his advantage. “You told them you were headed to the bank to discuss your construction loan.”
“Oh, right.” He attempted to shrug it off. “That it?”
“One more thing. I’d like to see your hands. Please hold them out for me to examine.”
That request really floored him, probably because he had no idea why.
Herc crossed the room before Adams had a chance to think of an excuse why he couldn’t show his hands. Adams put out both hands, palms down. “Turn them over,” Herc said. He put on a pair of latex gloves, then made a show of inspecting each closely. After a few beats, he drew the right one out for me to see. “What do you think?” he asked me without giving away our reason.
I stepped closer. There was a deep gash on the outside edge. It appeared to have just started to heal. I nodded at Herc, not daring reveal my mounting excitement. We’d need to consult the department attorney, Carol Norris, first, but I thought this at least made a case with circumstantial evidence.
Herc released the hand and looked to me. “Perhaps you’d like to inform Mr. Adams how that wound on his hand makes our case?”
Herc had done a good job setting him up. Now it was my turn to back Adams farther into the corner. “That eyewitness Detective Morgan mentioned noticed you noticing him. He got the feeling he’d witnessed something you didn’t want him to know about. So he took off as fast as he could. But that didn’t stop you from following him, apparently not wanting to leave any details unaddressed. You weren’t quite sure who he was, but you quickly learned where he lived and stalked him for a day until you knew his identity and where he worked.”
“Apparently Morgan isn’t the only one with a vivid imagination. Is that a new requirement to be on the police force?”
“I don’t have to imagine anything. Besides the eyewitness account of you at the trash barrel, we have three eyewitnesses who saw you in the car you used to stalk that man. Thanks for telling us about the dark sweats. Because that’s what they said the stalker was wearing.”
“And this car I was supposedly driving? I suppose you’ve already checked the license plate and proven it was my car?” He actually sounded smug.
“Stolen the day of the murder.”
My comment only served to increase his self-assuredness. “I thought you had eyewitnesses placing me in this car.”
“We do. One actually came up to your window to make sure you weren’t sick or passed out. You waved him away, but not before he caught a glimpse of a bandage on your right hand, in the exact location of that gash you just showed us.”
Adams rolled his eyes. “Come now, you really think that makes me your murderer?”
Herc trusted me to drive home this final point, tying the two murders together. “The man that saw you by the trash barrel returned later that evening and retrieved the item you threw away, a vial containing a type of beta blocker and nitroglycerin that had been prescribed to Nora Adams to prevent and treat heart failure. There were telltale fingerprints on that vile. We now have it as evidence that you not only killed your aunt by removing the medication that could’ve saved her from her heart attack, but you also killed the man who saw you throwing it away. Two murders, Mr. Adams.”
“Still nothing,” he finally said, his voice shaking. He pivoted toward the chest of drawers and appeared to open one, but instead, he twisted around holding a gun. “I only brought this along in case I needed to persuade that nosy housekeeper and stupid nurse that I had as much right to be here, more, actually, than them, but it looks like it’s the only way I’ll be able to stop your need for storytelling. Put your weapons on the top of that bureau. Your phones too.”
I waited to see what Herc would do. It may have been a large bedroom, but it was still pretty tight quarters for a shootout. Herc hesitated just long enough to size up the situation before taking out his gun and setting it on the bureau top. He followed up with his phone.
I did the same with my phone. “I don’t carry a gun,” I said, making a huge effort not to show any fear in my voice.
“Good one,” Adams said.
“No, I’m working with the department on a consulting basis. I’m not allowed to carry.” It was only then I remembered the screwdriver I’d stashed in my back jeans pocket under my jacket. It might come in handy, if he didn’t pat me down to check for a gun.
He glanced furtively around the room until he spotted something behind us. “Over there. Both of you. Get in that closet.”
“Both of us?” I asked. “There’s hardly room for one of us in there.”
Adams’ mouth curled up in a wicked smile. “Either that or … ” He patted his gun.
“Do as he says, Ro.”
“Auntie couldn’t bear to part with her furs, even after she moved to Florida and despite the public outcry against them. She had that closet fitted out specially with a cold storage unit to protect them.”
How cold could that unit get? Enough to give us hypothermia? I searched for some way to stall him. “Don’t you want to take them with you, since you’re helping yourself to all your aunt’s goodies?”
His snarly smile morphed into an expression more civil. “How thoughtful. But no, those will come to me in due time when the will is probated. Plus, they’re much too bulky to handle tonight.” Then his mouth twisted back to his less charming self again. “Enough delaying the inevitable. Get in there before I’m forced to shoot you.”
“C’mon, Ro,” Herc said.
I backed up slowly, Herc following suit. When I felt the door behind me, I turned, twisted the knob to open it and went in. The presumed furs were sheathed in protective bags. Three of them. They only took up half the space in the back. What must have been the cold unit took up the rest. Apparently the unit was doing its job because the air was cool, cooler than the AC but not as cold as the freezer in most refrigerators.
I entered first, which was probably a mistake, because Herc barely edged in before the door was slammed shut about two inches from our faces. Next came the sound of the door being locked.
In the back of my mind I recalled that most closets these days didn’t have locks, or if they did, they were the kind with a lever or push button. If there’d been a key, it probably wouldn’t do us any good at this point. Either he took it with him or we’d never be able to retrieve it from this side, even with my screwdriver. My screwdriver! Surely we could get out of here using it, if I could just figure out how. If I could even move.
I was still for several seconds before I dared speak. Even then, it was a whisper. “That gun he pulled on us pretty much was his admission of guilt.”
“I should’ve realized he had one before he got the draw on us,” he whispered back.
“Can’t worry about that now. We need to get out of here. We can only hope Watkins and Val saw him coming out of the building and followed him.”
“If he went out the front, which I doubt. Wish now we’d taken the time to get wired.”
There was barely room for me in the confined space in front of the furs. But with Herc jammed in so close to me, movement for either one of us was limited. The best I could manage was a slow, upward movement of my left hand. The right was jammed against Herc. I felt around as best I could and to my surprise and delight, I eventually touched a string hanging down from above. I pinched it, pulled and a lightbulb above us came on.
“Holy crap!” Herc whispered.
“We got lucky. Let’s see if our luck holds.” I attempted to pull the screwdriver from my pocket, but I was so packed in with Herc and the furs, I couldn’t remove it easily. In fact, it fell to the floor on my first effort. “Can you see it down there, Herc?”
“Sorry. Can you bend down at all? I’ll bury myself in these bags of furs so you can.”
I never realized how much space one needs to bend over. I kept bumping my head on the door. If Adams was still in the room, there was no telling what he’d do to make us quiet down.
I was wearing oxfords, the requisite foot apparel for an investigator who never knew where they’d be standing or crawling looking for clues. Oxfords were great for that, but your toes couldn’t feel much outside the shoe like they could with sneakers or moccasins. I touched the screwdriver a couple times, then it rolled away from me. Finally, I managed to nudge it with one shoe toe toward the other shoe and trap it.
“What’s the plan now?” Herc asked, lowering his voice just above a whisper.
“Good question. With the door closed, we can’t get to the hinges, even with room to maneuver. Guess we’ll need to pry the lock open. Take this screwdriver and chisel away enough of the door stop to reach the strike plate. Once you get that far inside, prod the plunger to get it to recede.”
“You want me to do what?”
I repeated what I’d said.
“You’d better do it,” he said. “You know your way around a screwdriver better than I.”
“Herc!” Did he not realize how much jockeying around that would require in this tiny space?
I’d rather not describe the shifting, bumping and knocking into each other that occupied the next few minutes. It wasn’t pretty and will definitely not be one of my fonder memories of my time working with Hercules Morgan. Suffice it to say, we finally wound up in opposite positions and I began my work with the screwdriver.
All I had to do was chip my way through about a half-inch of the wooden door stop. That finally accomplished, I coaxed the plunger to move back against the spring inside the locking mechanism. In all, the operation took maybe five minutes, but it seemed like five hours. But finally, my method worked. I surprised even myself.
We didn’t remain in the closet any longer than we had to.
Herc checked the bureau for his gun and our phones, but of course they weren’t there. We raced out of the house only to find a ring of police cars blocking anyone’s exit. Off to the side, Adams strained at cufflinks while in the custody of two officers. The captain and my daughter raced up to us.
Val ran to me and hugged me tight. “Mom! You’re okay. We were so worried when we heard that guy had run out of the back of the house.”
Herc addressed Watkins. “You got him?”
“Those two officers did,” Watkins replied. “They caught him coming out the back.”
“He had a gun,” Herc said. “Was there a shootout?”
“Not with eight police revolvers aimed at him,” Watkins said.
With Val participating in this capture, I was glad Watkins had brought in the troops.
The excitement over, Herc and I returned to the house to look for his gun and our phones. Val kept calling us as we searched. Finally, we found all three in a drawer in the kitchen. After that, we headed off to join the captain and Val, who’d already returned to the department.
Herc, who should’ve been celebrating capturing a double murderer, was unusually quiet during our drive to the department. Solving a case sometimes did that, but I suspected he was beating himself up for letting Adams get the draw on him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I told him privately, “and we both know you couldn’t have helped it. I’ll give you some time to lick your wounds before telling you to get over yourself.”
“That’s supposed to cheer me up?” he replied.
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re a hero right now. Don’t cheat the others out of this win. Everyone’s been working hard to gather the evidence we used to convince Adams we had him.”
“He never confessed, Ro. What if he continues that line?”
“He pulled a gun on us, Herc. I was bluffing about our finding his fingerprints on the vial, but they could be there, unless he was wearing gloves. Plus, he ran. We were laying out a solid case against him, and we scared him.”
“Yeah, well.”
“That’s not the reason for your mood, though, is it? This is the second time a suspect has gotten your gun away from you. Both times when I was your partner. Are you asking yourself if working with me again is making you vulnerable? Or perhaps you think you’re getting too old to respond to a younger opponent?”
“Some support you’re offering. Here I am down in the dumps and you’re trying to help me go lower.”
I let that comment hang in the air a few seconds before replying. He didn’t mean it. We both knew that. “I said what I said to get my comments out in the open rather than letting you stew about them on your own and continue to magnify their importance. I can’t answer those questions for you, but I’m here to support you whatever you decide.”
He reached over and gripped my hand briefly. “Thanks. If it’s okay with you, I don’t want to talk any further about this now. But I heard what you said about the hero part. We’ve got five more minutes of driving before we’re there. I’ll see what I can do about adjusting my attitude.”
“You should probably call Al and update him on the Adams case. He won’t be thrilled, but he needs to know and come in to share in the celebration.”
“How’s that supposed to help me adjust my attitude?”
“I need to get back to my reno project. You need to make nice with Al.”
“Aw, Ro, really? It’s been great working with you again.”
“The feeling’s mutual, but I only agreed to help you out with the one case because Al was tied up with the Adams murder.”
“But you’ll still be able to help if other murders occur, won’t you?”
I should’ve known when I said yes to helping on the Fonseca case that he’d take it as a sign we were renewing our partnership on a longer-term basis. “I have another job now. My own business, which has been put on hold to help you.”
“But—”
“No, Herc. My days solving homicides are over.”
“Not even as a consultant?”
I hoped not. I’d enjoyed detecting again. But I didn’t dare admit that to Herc or he’d interpret it as my signing on again. As if my physical condition would ever allow that to happen. I could only put myself through being back on the force so long before the regrets snuck in again. It had taken me too long to dispel them the first time. “I’ve got a business to build first. You keep ignoring that.”
We were pulling into the police department parking lot when a text came in from Ryder.
I hope you solved that case because our building permit just got approved. Time to come back to Nailed It.
“Great timing,” I told Herc after sharing the text with him. “It’s like the spirit of good old Morty has been holding off approval until we nailed his murderer. Time for me to nail some drywall.”