Chapter Seven
The next morning, bright and early, I got up and did exactly the wrong thing. I knew I shouldn’t be back on the road to the mansion. I should be at my apartment, figuring out what to do with myself for the day, since I had set it aside in anticipation of winning the mansion contract. Last night was filled with fun and a great movie. I had felt like a normal person out on a normal date with my boyfriend, my best friend, and my brother. No worries about murders or murderers. But then Letty had called after we’d gotten home. And fun and games had turned into concern. Max and I had talked murder and mayhem, while I’d braced myself for the fact that if I looked into this I’d have to endure most of the people in my life telling me to get a real hobby instead of searching out clues.
Eventually, Max and I had fallen asleep and I’d put the murder aside to rest. But all along I had known that I couldn’t let Letty down, so today was different. I was on the case, whether Burton wanted me or not.
Last night I’d had nightmares about the killer getting away. I’d tossed and turned as I ruminated about Letty’s request and my promise that I would do whatever it took to help find the killer. So yes, I knew I shouldn’t get involved, acknowledged it, then shunted it aside and kept on driving.
As I drove to the mansion, I hoped that it would be unoccupied. I still had the key from yesterday morning, and as long as I didn’t touch anything, I would be fine. I just couldn’t get over the look on Caleb’s face and Letty’s words that he wouldn’t have done this. She knew because he was her nephew.
Of course, as soon as I rounded the last corner, there was Matt leaning against his police cruiser, with his arms tightly crossed over his chest. I started rummaging around in my brain for something I could say I had left behind yesterday, to give me a reason to be back where I was obviously not wanted.
My vacuum was still here, the one I had pulled out of the Dumpster before I realized I was standing on top of my friend wrapped in a carpet. Okay, that would work. Heck, I would make it work if I had to.
“You know, when Burton said I should stick around in case anyone came back who could be suspicious, I don’t believe he was thinking of you, but I guess he could have been,” he said as I emerged from my car.
I put on the injured face and went with my gut. “Matt, come on. I’m just coming back for my vacuum. I remembered I’d left it here, and I can’t be without it.”
“Yeah, not working. Besides, Burton took that in as evidence, just in case it’s the murder weapon, along with all your other cleaning implements. Try again. Better yet, don’t try at all, because it’s not going to work.” He shook his head, then just gave me a look. He was probably waiting for me to lob the next lie at him. I wasn’t going to play that game.
“Look, you and I both know that Burton and all you guys really have a lot on your plate. There’s more going on here than an angry boyfriend. How did he kill her? How did he get her rolled up in the carpet? How did he carry her out of the house in the carpet? Heck, how did he get the carpet into the Dumpster? She wasn’t small, and she had to be heavy as deadweight.” I winced since I had not meant for it to come out sounding that way, and yet it was true.
“All questions we already have under consideration. I’m not quite sure why you always seem to think we can’t do our jobs, Tallie. We were doing this long before you came in and started being the unmasked avenger. We’ll be doing this long after you finally get that hobby everyone keeps encouraging you to get.”
“My God, the notepad was enough yesterday afternoon. Now you actually sound like Burton. Your mom is not going to be happy with that. I’m not happy with that.”
“Burton is a good guy, if you’d ever give him a chance. The only reason he’s always irritated with you is that you don’t let him do his job without your nose completely up in all his business.”
I crossed my arms over my own chest, mirroring his stance. “That’s not true. When Darla died, I tried to give him all the things I’d found and the information that was coming to me, and he brushed me off, until I found the money and the killer for him. With Gina, I was not going to let him take my friend to jail when I knew she hadn’t done it. And with the home inspector, he was the one who came to me, asking me to look into things, because he was on leave. I’ve given him any number of chances. It’s not that I think he can’t do his job. It’s that I think I can help.”
Blowing out a breath, Matt finally uncrossed his arms and stuck his hands into his pockets instead. “And you have to look at it from his perspective. You’re making him look like a fool every time you solve one of these things and he doesn’t do it himself.”
“I never intend that.” Well, sometimes I had, but I certainly wasn’t going to admit it.
“Then back off.”
I couldn’t. “You have the wrong guy. Letty knows this Caleb, and she is certain he wouldn’t have killed his girlfriend. He’d just proposed to her, and they were going to dinner to celebrate. Plus, why would he come back and act surprised and then run and yell if he’d already known she was dead?”
“Because he didn’t think we’d find her that easily. Remember, the truck was supposed to haul away the Dumpster before anyone got here. You thwarted that.”
“Yeah, I did, and the only thing I got for my help was a pat on the head and a kick in the pants.”
He scoffed while I frowned. “That’s not true.”
“It most certainly is. Burton figuratively patted me on the head and told me to go home to my boyfriend.” Now I pulled my crossed arms tighter over my chest. At least I had him talking, which meant he wasn’t running me off the property. Maybe I could get some information this way and find out what they thought they had on the poor kid that made them so sure he was going to confess to killing his girlfriend.
Matt, the devil, laughed, pushing himself off the cruiser and tucking his thumbs into his belt. “Classic Burton. More than anything, he’s just trying to keep you out of trouble, Tallie, though you seem to find it no matter where you go or how you get there. You’re a part of this town, and he’s fiercely protective of it. Every time you get involved in one of these things, he gets his nose out of joint about you getting hurt.”
“And yet last time he didn’t have any problem setting me up to be the whipping boy.”
“He most certainly did.” Matt shifted his stance to lean back against the squad car. “He agonized over that. In the end, though, he didn’t have another choice, because of the dirty cop we were dealing with.”
I highly doubted Burton agonized over anything. Especially me. It was time to change the subject. “So why are you all so sure that Caleb did this? Did he confess?”
“You just can’t let it go.”
“I’m a concerned citizen.”
“You’re a nosey parker.”
My mouth dropped open as I stared at him. “I haven’t heard that term in forever!”
Clearing his throat, he shook his head at me. “My grandmother said it the other day to my mom, and it stuck in my head. But it’s you to a T. Why can’t you stay out of these things? It’s not like we haven’t done our job before.”
“You said that before, and I’ll tell you again. It’s not that I want to do your job. I would be horrible at your job. Giving citations and dealing with nasty people all day, having to wear a bulletproof vest, and pulling people over for things I do every day? No thanks. But this kind of thing just seems to make sense in my head . . . when I see all the clues and people tell me things, whether they realize it or not.”
He took me in for a second and got an intense look in his eye. “Why don’t you go to school and become a private investigator? If you had a license, then Burton would trust you to be discreet. And while we’re not always happy to have you on board, you at least would have some real reason to be in the middle of things.”
I took a step back. Not literally, but in my mind I leaped back from that possibility. It was one thing to help in an ongoing investigation or to make sure an investigation got moving, but I certainly didn’t want to get paid to spy on cheating husbands or to find bad people—or even good people. I was not made for a life of fighting crime. I might not have always known what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I had known it wasn’t that. No thank you.
“While I appreciate your vote of confidence, I’m going to have to say no.” I shrugged and hoped he would take that as the end of the conversation. I was going to have to come back at another time to look for any clues to help with proving someone else had killed Audra and why. I debated briefly about including Matt in it, then thought better of it. He might not be willing to let me in the house, and if he did and we couldn’t find anything, then I might look like an idiot.
He shrugged. “Whatever. At least that way you’d be a professional instead of the amateur sleuth you seem determined to be. You’re not doing yourself any favors by being involved when Burton doesn’t want you here.”
“Believe me, I am fully aware of that.” I wrestled some more with the thought of asking Matt to walk the house with me. Now that the notion was in there, I couldn’t seem to shake it loose. This was the guy I used to hop in the creek with to catch crawfish on camping vacations. We shared a grandmother, though not the one who’d called his mom a nosey parker. Surely I could ask him for a favor and not get laughed at. Plus, I knew he was going to school to get his degree to advance in the police department. It would only boost his chances of getting on the fast track to a promotion if he was able to catch a break in a case. Right? Right.
I cleared my throat and looked around the driveway. I didn’t know why, but I just had this feeling that Burton was going to come tearing up the drive and yank Matt away from me, then send me to jail for interfering.
“Just say whatever is on your little bird brain. And then get moving. Burton’s due here in an hour or so, and I want to do a walk of the perimeter for him before he gets back from talking with Caleb at the station.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to go with him when his radio crackled alive. Matt, being the professional he was, turned his back to me and started to walk away. Me, being the nosey parker I was, followed him and ignored him when he tried to shoo me away.
“Go ahead, boss, but I’ve got ears here.”
“Tallie?” The tone of voice was not unfamiliar. “What’s she doing there?”
“The usual,” Matt responded to Burton.
“Whatever. I don’t have time for her at the moment, and maybe she’ll come up with something useful. Caleb has an alibi, an airtight one, and he swears he didn’t kill the victim. We’re at square one. I’m sending out some guys to make sure all the evidence is collected that we need and then to try to get some answers. There’s pressure to open the mansion back up. I don’t want to hear about it anymore, but now we have to start all over again.”
“Pressure from whom?” I asked, wanting Matt to ask for me over the radio.
But Burton must have heard me, because he answered with a crackle. “Your future employer, Tallie. Mrs. Petrovski wants this place open right now, for some godforsaken reason. She’s putting pressure on my superior to get it open, and apparently, she’s decided that you’re cleaning it.”
“Your superior?”
I noticed Matt didn’t push the TALK button on his two-way this time. “His mom.”
“Oh,” I said and snickered, because I knew that pressure all too well. Mrs. P and Burton’s mother ran in the same circles, so Mrs. P must have pulled out the big guns to make sure that she could have access to her house for that potential buyer she’d referenced earlier.
“So get in there and get evidence, Matt. And, Tallie, do whatever it is you’re going to do, because no one ever listens to me anymore, anyway.” He signed off, and Matt and I shared a look.
“Things aren’t going so well for him?” I leaned back against my car and waited for Matt to respond. I didn’t know if he’d actually answer me, but it was worth asking.
“We had a big drug bust go down and found opioids in the area. He’s angry. We almost had a kid die on his watch. He’s trying to handle that with our diminished force, and now with this murder, things are going to take some maneuvering to get it all done.”
He probably shouldn’t have told me that, but I hoped he knew he could trust me. “All right, let’s make a deal. Let me help you so I can be involved, and we just won’t bother Burton with how much I’m actually doing. He said I could help, even if it was grudgingly, so let’s take him at face value. That way, I can do my thing, you can do yours, and Burton can feel like progress is being made, so he can concentrate on other things without worrying about us.”
Matt cupped his hand against the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Tallie. He sounded like he was saying you could help only because he’s frustrated and defeated. Under normal circumstances, he would not want you in on this, and you know it. And what if he changes his mind? I don’t want to get into trouble. I’m trying to move up in the department, not be busted down to traffic control.”
“ ‘Doesn’t want’ doesn’t mean ‘doesn’t need.’” I focused on that one thing. I could help. I knew I could. And this way, everyone could get what they needed. Including justice for Audra and freedom for Caleb, with no doubts haunting my cousin. Even if Caleb had an airtight alibi, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t keep looking at him if they couldn’t find someone else.
“I’m not going to touch that one.” His eyes looked tired, and I didn’t want to press, but I knew I was going to, anyway.
“Just let me help like I normally do. I won’t look for anything in particular, but if I find something, I’ll give it to you. How about that?”
“This is a bad idea. I can feel it in my gut. What if you get hurt? Burton would never forgive me.”
Why did they persist in making this so hard? “It’s a good idea, a brilliant one even, and Burton is going to think you’re amazing for solving this thing for him while he does his thing. Think about it.”
“I will . . .” He trailed off, looking over my shoulder. I didn’t want to turn around, just in case it was Burton coming to yell at me.
In the end I couldn’t keep myself from looking, though. As always. I’d rather know about the attack, so I could brace myself. But instead of Burton, it was a shiny, brand-new sports car in bright yellow. It pulled up to us, and Preston Prescott leaned out the window.
“Tallie, I was told I might find you here. And Matt. Good!” Preston climbed out of his car, all smiles and shooting his cuffs. “I’m glad you’re here, too. Aunt Marg wants me to help in any way I can. She wants this taken care of before the news gets out that there’s been a death in the house and the press is here to cover the thing. So what can I do first?”
Matt looked at me with a grimace; I looked back with a smile. Things were about to get interesting.
“Well, Preston, if you could look through the house with us to see if there’s anything missing, that would be great.” I spoke first because I knew Matt was going to try to send him off with a wave and a handshake. This might not be the way Burton would want this handled, but surely we could rule out any fingerprints that belonged to Preston, anyway, since this was his aunt’s property. And if Mrs. Petrovski really was going to offer me the job, then I wanted to rub Preston’s nose in the fact that I would be here working, despite all his attempts to derail and discredit me.
Before Matt could do more than growl low in his throat, I hooked my arm through Preston’s and walked him up to the front door. “Let’s start downstairs, and we can go up from there.”
“Tallie, if I could have a word with you.” Matt stood his ground and tried to stare me down.
Good luck with that, cousin.
“Come along, and you can talk to me while we hunt through the rooms and make sure nothing is missing.” I was taking a chance that Matt would not follow me and would instead call Burton, to have him haul tail out here to stop me, because he was nervous that Burton didn’t actually want me to help. I was also taking a chance of contaminating the scene and possibly messing up evidence. I wasn’t stupid. But I wanted to know if anything was missing in the house, though I had no reference for what had been in there before, since I’d never gotten those pictures from Bethany.
I sincerely wished I had.
Preston, surprisingly, did not shake me off or even make angry faces at me. He was going right along with the plan, as if we had always gotten along. I’d work my mind around that later. He waited at the front door for me and then produced a key to open up the mansion.
“Wait!” Matt yelled from the spot he had yet to move from. “At least let me call this in to Burton. I don’t want to get my ass handed to me for not following protocol. Just give me a second.”
I sighed but complied, stilling Preston’s hand to prevent him from turning the knob on the door. “It really would be better if we wait to get the okay. I don’t want to mess anything up. I just want to know what happened.”
“What are we looking for?” Preston asked, shooting his cuffs again. Was this his thing? I didn’t remember it from back in the day, but then, I didn’t remember a lot from days gone by with Preston. Only that he’d been a pain. We should have been the best of friends. He’d been a partyer, and so had I, living the high life, not taking responsibility for much, and going from one inane thing to another.
I actually had no idea how Preston made money. Maybe he was just a trust-fund baby. I knew his family had money, as evidenced by the fact that they had let a house the size of my parents’ three-story funeral home go to rot and were able to afford to clean it up from the ground to the attic. Obviously, I would have loved to benefit from that money at this point, but dealing with him was not my favorite thing to do in any circumstance. He had always gotten on my nerves and made me feel like I didn’t belong. With trying to trash my chances at cleaning his aunt’s mansion, he hadn’t exactly changed my mind about him. And now that he was acting like we got along, I didn’t quite know what he was aiming for. It could be anything. I wasn’t going to take him seriously no matter how nice and accommodating he was being. At least he wasn’t wearing a cravat today, so that was one less thing I had to overlook in his laundry list of faults.
“Anything that is missing or has been misplaced. When was the last time you were here before yesterday?”
“Wow. I wouldn’t even know. Other than yesterday, it’s been a long time, as far as I can remember. No one ever really comes out here anymore.” His eyes widened to the size of a turkey platter. “Are you sure it wasn’t some domestic dispute? I’ve also heard that some kids have used this as a hangout. Maybe we shouldn’t go in, after all. Or do they have the killer in hand?”
“Uh, we’re just looking around with Matt while you’re here. I don’t know if they have anyone yet.” Of course, that was a lie, since the police had no one in custody, but I didn’t think I should tell Preston that.
He backed away from the door. “I don’t think I want to go in there. What if we touch something we’re not supposed to? I don’t want to be scrutinized for prints or falsely accused if I touch the one thing I shouldn’t.”
I sighed, because really what else could I do? I did understand, but I also knew that the longer we waited, the more time we would lose in the effort to find the person who murdered Audra and put him or her behind bars to face justice. Audra had been a sweetheart and shouldn’t have had her life ended so soon. I didn’t know why someone had felt the need to kill her and wrap her up in a carpet. I might never know, but I at least wanted to know who had done it. I had Letty depending on me for closure, after all.
Matt chose that moment to join us at the wide front stoop. “Okay, look, Burton is on board, barely, with us doing this. But we all have to wear gloves, and please, don’t touch anything that you absolutely do not have to touch. Doorknobs and whatever are fine, but don’t be running your hands over anything. The crime-scene guys are on their way back over here to go over everything once more, but it would help to know if anything in particular is missing.”
He sounded doubtful, and I wondered how much he’d had to fight Burton to get him to agree to this. It was one thing for Burton to have me help because he was in a bad spot. It was something else entirely to have another person come in to the house with Matt and me. Maybe I should offer to clean Burton’s house for free. Then again, I knew what a messy bachelor he was, and I didn’t think I wanted to put myself in the position of having to pick up his dirty clothes.
In we went. The house was spacious, and so this could take hours, but I had nothing else going on at the moment, since I had scheduled the whole day to be here cleaning. I had a funeral to drive for tonight, but that was it, and Max was at his job across the river.
Once I’d told Letty what was going on, I’d also told her to please call everyone and tell them they had the day off. I would be juggling schedules for the next few days to find other jobs for them to do so they didn’t lose money, but there was nothing that could be done about it until this was taken care of.
Room by room, we went through the house. Preston was surprisingly pleasant as he explained that he didn’t see anything missing or anything that had been moved. I made absolutely sure I didn’t touch anything, but of course I ended up tripping over a wrinkle in a rug and falling against a wall. Face to nasty wallpaper would not be a favorite place of mine if I was to list a top ten places I liked to find myself. Fortunately, the gloves kept me from touching anything with my bare hands when I hit the wall, but the wall gave just a little under my weight. I knew having Max here to feed me had increased my poundage a little, but not enough to make a wall give. At least I hoped not.
I pushed on the wall, but nothing happened. I pushed again and still nothing. So weird. But Matt and Preston had already moved on to the next room. I put the info in my mental bank, then scrambled to keep up with them. It was something I might need to talk about with Mrs. Petrovski. If she had actual rot in the walls, behind the wallpaper, then she might have a bigger job than even I would be able to handle. Cleaning, yes. I could do that. Even the cleanup after construction, if asked. Replacing structural walls was totally not on my résumé.
I whisked into the second bedroom upstairs in time to hear Preston say, “There should be a rug here.”
Sure enough, there was a dusty outline on the floor. Outside the outline, the floor was dull, but inside it, it was highly polished. Turning in a circle, I looked for the window. As I did so, I wondered if the opening’s dimensions would allow the killer to toss Audra, wrapped up in the carpet, out the window and into the Dumpster. Not that I really wanted to think about that, but the logistics kept bothering me. I had a hard time imagining how one person could have done this. Maybe there were two killers . . .
And the window was right there, the sill low enough that the carpet could have been tipped downward and then released to fall into the waiting Dumpster below. The Dumpster sat empty now, as the police had taken out all the debris, and the coroner had taken away the body, along with the carpet. The new coroner would take care of the body and would hopefully do a better job than our last one.
I peered down into the Dumpster. The thing was clean, and the truck that was sent to pick it up had gone away empty.
“Hey, did anyone ever find out who sent that truck out here?” I asked.
Matt was talking, and he stopped in midsentence. I’d been listening with half an ear to his and Preston’s conversation, but nothing had been said that I needed to pay attention to. Preston had just been saying over and over again that nothing was missing, as far as he could recollect. Nothing except the carpet, anyway.
“I’ll make a note.” Matt took out his notepad and did just that, frowning as his pencil ran over the curled paper.
Maybe a career change to private investigator wouldn’t be such a far stretch. I asked the questions and thought the thoughts of someone trying to get to the bottom of a mystery. I had no idea how much schooling that would take or if I would have to do some kind of internship, but it might be worth looking into. It wasn’t the tea shop I’d dreamed of, but maybe it would be better. And then I’d be able legally to get all up in Burton’s business. Wouldn’t that chap his hide?
I was smiling over that when Matt and Preston moved into the next room. I felt a little like a puppy when I trotted along behind them, but I didn’t want to be left behind. So far we hadn’t found anything of note. Everything appeared to be where it belonged, and everything was accounted for, other than the rug.
I didn’t know why I had thought that some huge sign was going to pop out of a wall and say HERE. HERE IS WHERE BAD THINGS HAPPENED. AND THIS IS WHERE YOU SHOULD LOOK TO FIND OUT ABOUT THEM. But I had, and being proven wrong was disappointing. Usually, by this time I would have found a scrap of paper with a cryptic message or a clue of some sort. Here there was nothing.
Finally, we made it through the rest of the house, and my disappointment did not recede. I’d fought to get us into the house, and then we’d found nothing at all. I might have just used a card that I wouldn’t be able to use again.
We met the crime-scene guys out front, and Preston offered to go through the house with them again, just in case they needed anything.
I didn’t stick around to listen to their answer. I decided to head home, make myself something to eat, and then try to figure out what my next move would be, because at this point I had a dead body, no viable suspects, no known motive, and not a single question to ask or anyone to ask it of, except the person who had done this.
I guess there was also why, but without a who, the why wouldn’t make sense.
I bade farewell to Preston and Matt, and returned to my car. When I got behind the wheel, I decided to call Letty before I left the mansion. She didn’t pick up, so I cranked my engine over and headed home. I had a few hours until Max would be home. I would use the time to look up Audra and would wait for Letty to call back.