Design on a Crime (16 page)

This nod looked like a woe sundae with a frown on
top.

"Yeah, the trunk wasn't in the middle of the hall earlier
today. You'd better send someone out here to investigate
pretty quick."

Dead silence.

By now I was shivering so hard I almost dropped the phone.
"Hey! Are you there? Where'd you go?"

"Are you done babbling?"

"I wasn't babbling. I just wanted to give you all the
information."

"Look, lady, how about if you zip it up and let me ask you
a couple of questions?"

"Fine." So much for trying to be helpful and thorough.
"What do you want to know?"

"To begin with, who are you?"

Nausea hit. "I told you already. I'm Haley Farrell, who're
you?"

The guy groaned, and I realized he sounded familiar.
"Chris? Christopher Thomas? Is that you?"

"Yes, Haley," my former classmate answered. "It's me.
Now how about we do this the right way?"

"Just get someone over here, Chris, would you please?
You'd think that just the mention of Marge's name would get
some action. She was murdered, you know."

I thought I heard him count to ten. "Yes, Haley, I know
Mrs. Norwalk was murdered. And if you'd shut up long
enough, I bet you'd hear the siren. Now, are you going to let
me do my job?"

He was right. A siren wailed closer and closer. Relief made
me shake even more, so I sagged against my Honda, and let
the tremors win. "Uh ... Chris? Do you think I could tell
whoever's on their way that stuff you want to know? I feel
sorta queasy."

"You still throw up when you get scared?"

The memory of a mammoth spider in my sixth-grade
desk didn't help. "Yes, Christopher Dylan Thomas, I still get
queasy when I'm nervous, but I don't throw up anymore.
And since talking to you does nothing for my stomach, I'll
talk to whoever's here."

I closed my clamshell phone with a click.

An unmarked, plain-vanilla sedan pulled in.

I looked over and groaned. I wasn't getting any breaks.

"Hello, Detective Tsu. Sorry to take you away from your
desk."

The elegant woman gave me her by now familiar emotionless look. "It's my job."

I was pretty tired of hearing her boast about her job.

A cruiser arrived. I directed the three cops to the door that led
to the office side. Ozzie was in the bowels of the building.

Then it dawned on me. He could've trashed all kinds of
evidence while I babbled at Chris. 'Ah ... Ms. Tsu?"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Krieger stayed inside while I came out here to report
the break-in. I ... ah ... wasn't with him all this time, and
maybe ... well ... he could've-"

"I understand." She strode into the building, her steps
surprisingly long for such a petite woman. I felt like a clodhopper giraffe lolloping along in her wake.

After Ozzie and I answered another multitude of questions, the officers pulled out the most impressive kits. They
sprinkled black powder over everything, then shone ultraviolet lights on their anything-but-fairy dust. Wherever they
found a print, they covered it with what looked like industrialstrength tape, and stored the mess in plastic zipper bags.

I'd only seen this on TV.

Too bad I had such a stake in the investigation. I would
have loved to ask these guys all kinds of questions. And even
though questions were on today's menu, the only one who
got to ask was Detective Tsu.

"And Mr. Merrill drove up at the same time you did. Is that
right Ms. Farrell?"

I'd only told her that eleven times. "Yes."

"Could he have been watching for someone to come so
that it might appear as if he'd just arrived?"

I grinned. "I like the way you think. The possibility did
cross my mind."

"Did you notice anything unusual about him?"

"He is unusual. But if you mean did he have dust all over
him or was there a cobweb hanging from his nose, then no. He was no more unusual today than yesterday or the day
before."

The graceful eyebrow rose. "You're seeing him?"

"Not like you mean."

"What do you think I mean?"

"Well, I'm not dating the guy, that's for sure. I wouldn't
want to." For many reasons, too many to tell the amused Ms.
Tsu. "I mean, he's been following me. He has this moronic
idea that I killed Marge and sooner or later he's going to
catch me doing something that'll give him the clue to break
the case."

"Moronic, you say?"

"That's what I said. So if the shoe fits the idea, then I guess
you can put it on the police's favorite theory too."

The detective chuckled. "You have a way with words."

I bit down on my tongue before it got me in more trouble.
Then, when I was sure I wouldn't say anything for which
she'd lock me up, I asked, "Anything else?"

Ms. Tsu ran a neatly trimmed, rose-polished nail down
the current page on her little notebook. "I don't think so, but
you know the drill."

"Sure. You're going to show up when I least expect you
with another load of questions-or maybe even the same
ones, just worded differently."

This time she smiled. "I'm glad to see we understand each
other, Ms. Farrell. Tyler said you were sharp. Glad to see he
wasn't too far off the mark."

What was that supposed to mean? But after a comment
or two in my recent past about my mouth and its talent for
trouble, I just smiled back.

I followed the detective outside. She unlocked her boring
car, tossed her elegant black bag onto the passenger seat, and
looked up at me. "You know, Ms. Farrell. I don't believe in
coincidences."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," she said, her face expressionless again, "that too
many laws have been broken with regards to Marge Norwalk.
What's even more curious is that you're a prominent figure
in each incident."

"Just because I was at the auction doesn't mean anything.
There were 567 other people there too. And if you'll notice,
the moment I realized this place was vandalized, I called
you guys."

"True. But you have been present both times."

"Do you know where you are? Have you taken a look
around you?" I waved toward the surrounding structures.
"This isn't your most exclusive neighborhood, you know.
Anyone could've broken in."

She glanced at the building next door whose windows were
either missing or boarded up. "Come on, Ms. Farrell-"

"Look. You may as well call me Haley, since you're obviously
going to be around a whole lot."

"Very well. But you don't really believe some random homeless person broke into the warehouse, do you, Haley?"

I sighed. "No. But it's crazy for you to think I had anything
to do with it."

"As I said, I don't believe in coincidences. You were at the
auction and found the deceased. You inherited her estate
instead of her husband. You were reported as vandalizing a
garbage can at the Norwalk residence-"

"I didn't vandalize the trash! Two of the biggest rats
on earth were having themselves a feast. They're the ones
that ..."

I'd walked right into her trap. "Okay, fine. I went to talk to
Steve, but when I got there I ... er ... um ... found myself
in a ... a ... predicament."

"So I hear." She chuckled. "That must be why the cat tackled
you."

"You didn't see that. You arrived after Bali H'ai ran off-"

"Tell me you didn't name your cat Bali H'ai."

"That monster's not mine! She's Bella's, the neighbor across
the street. Besides, you weren't there when it happened."

"The cat's not important, Haley. I went to your home because I'd received a call about your exploits in the garbage
shed. I saw an interesting scenario and pulled over to watch.
I saw the cat go for you."

"Not one of my finer moments, I'll admit."

"I knew that." She shook her head. "But I also heard you've
harassed Noreen Daventry and Hugh Krieger since the garbage incident."

I went to object, but she held me off with an upraised slender finger. "Hear me out, please. Now I respond to a call about
a break-in, and I find you in the thick of it. You must admit,
I have good reason for my suspicion."

"If that's the best you can do to try to pin this on me, then
I hope you haven't missed the boat with Dutch Merrill."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, unless you're pretending ignorance, I'm sure
you've noticed he's been right behind me every one of those
times. Except maybe at the slimy lawyer's office and on Marge's will. But every other time you mentioned, Dutch
was there."

„And...?"

"And unless he was doing it for the sole purpose of driving me stark raving mad, then maybe there's a good reason
why he showed up at all those suspicious events. Suspicious
to you, that is."

"I don't see why you would suspect Mr. Merrill."

"Then you should also not see any reason to suspect me,
if your logic's going to hold water." I had a thought. "Have
you fingerprinted Dutch? I wonder if you'd hit a match with
what you guys got here today."

She sat behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. "I have
fingerprinted Mr. Merrill, but I hadn't thought to see if any of
today's prints match his. I don't see that he had any motive for
killing Marge Norwalk, much less the opportunity to do so.
He and Noreen, together with about nine other auction-goers,
alibi each other quite well."

I smiled in triumph. "Guess what? I sat with them the entire morning. So that clears me too. Go follow someone else,
please. Let me get my business and my life on track."

The car purred to life. "I'm sorry, Haley, but you don't have
an alibi for the most crucial time. The people you mentioned
saw you get up moments after Marge left the room. They
can't place you again until they ran to the scene of the crime.
That's where everyone agrees they saw you next."

As surely as it had happened to me years before, my throat
closed, this time from fear of what might be, whereas that time
it had from the reality of what was. Once again, someone held
all the power. Once again, I was a victim.

I had barely lived through the first attack; I didn't know if
I would survive the second.

"You don't have to stay and clean up this mess, Miss Farrell,"
Ozzie said. "I can certainly do it myself."

Sure, and in the meantime, pitch anything incriminating.
"That's fine, Ozzie. Since it looks as though I'll have to deal
with all of this one day, I'd just as soon get started now."

His sad face tightened into anger, and his lips sprouted a
white rim. "Very well, miss. Please do let me know if I can
be of assistance."

What was his deal? Hadn't he realized even the twentieth
century was done and gone? He reminded me of a Victorian
butler in a black-and-white classic movie.

"Thanks, Ozzie."

It didn't take long to realize that whatever the person who
tossed the place wanted, they thought they'd find it among
Marge's papers. A blanket of sales records hid the mahogany
desk and cordovan leather executive chair. Because of the
chaos, it was going to take time to sort through the mess and
familiarize myself with Marge's filing system.

I started a series of piles. Receipts went into one, estate
inventories into another, a year's worth of appraisals into
the next. The rest wound up on the miscellaneous pile. This
one grew at an alarming rate.

I picked up what looked like a memo, but a phrase caught
my eye. "It is exceedingly mean-spirited of you to continue to
deny me the opportunity to advance. To leave and seek employment
elsewhere at this stage in my life would be sheer folly, as you well
know.

"Forgiveness is a virtue, and while you assure me you've given
it, your actions appear far more those of an extortionist extracting
yet another drop of blood from her victim.

"I have more than paid restitution for my transgression, and
you have even said you understood the desperation that drove me
to it, yet you still seem to relish withholding the opportunity, the
right, that would otherwise be mine. I don't know how much longer I can bear the status quo. Every man has a breaking point, and
I'm afraid mine is frighteningly close. I dread to think what might
push me over the edge, and much more what I might do once that
happens."

The thinly veiled threat was signed by Ozzie.

And I was alone with him in this huge, empty warehouse.
Not good.

I folded the memo, stuffed it into the zippered side pouch
of my backpack purse, and then ran back into the hallway.
"On second thought, Ozzie," I called, my voice reedy and
shaky, "I'm heading home now. I'll wait until the power's
back. The window in Marge's office doesn't let in as much
light as I thought at first. See ya!"

Ozzie did have a motive for murder. And although I spent
a few minutes with him during the intermission, most of the
time I was on my own.

Who knows what he did while I was gone.

Some days just don't end soon enough. Today was one of
them.

I went to the dojo to clear my head of all the crud, but when
I got there, I walked right into Tyler's setup. While I'd never
seen Detective Tsu in any of my classes-until the one she taught, that is-tonight she stood front and center among
the other students.

I felt like screaming and yelling and crying and kickingnot a very adult thing. That was how I felt but not what I did.
I bowed before Tyler with all the respect he was due as my
sensei, and not once did I pout ... much.

Even when he chuckled at my discomfort.

Even though I found no humor in the situation.

Really, I didn't.

I focused like a good little judo student and did everything
he asked the class to do. In fact, I did so well that I managed
to forget he and the omnipresent Ms. Tsu were anywhere
near.

Until Master Tyler decided this was the night for sparring.

When he told me to greet my partner, I learned the true
meaning of the cliche about looks that could kill. The one I
shot could've felled a bull three counties away. It didn't do
a thing to him.