The Trouble With Murder (2 page)

When the crowd had dispersed and
officers stood taking statements from the last two witnesses, the officer in
charge, dressed in a navy blue uniform, came over to me. I was struck first by
his height: easily six-five. I’m five-eight and I felt tiny standing beside
him. He was a few years older than me and exceptionally fit. The bulletproof
vest accounted for some of his bulk, but judging by his biceps, it wasn’t all
vest. His wavy dark hair, cut longer than most cops’, was slightly messy, and
his face was scruffy. His green eyes had a mesmerizing quality to them. The
little brass nameplate on his shirtfront read
ellmann
.

“I’m Detective Ellmann,” he said.
His voice was deep and sure. He pulled a notebook and pen out of his breast
pocket. “I need to ask you some questions.”

“Detective? What’s with the
uniform? Don’t detectives wear bad suits?” I looked him over, taking a closer
look at his badge. Sure enough, it said
detective
.

“Sometimes detectives wear
uniforms.” This was clearly a sore subject. “Mind if we get back to the matter
at hand?”

“Sure. Is the girl going to be
okay?”

“Don’t know yet. But her injuries
are serious. What’s your name?”

“Zoe Grey.”

“Do you live in the building?”

“No. I work for the property
management company. I was scheduled to show Stacy an apartment.”

And I’d been late.

“Do you know Stacy?”

I shook my head. “No. She called my
office this morning asking for the appointment. That was the first time I’d
talked to her.”

“I understand you were the first
person in the lobby after the assault. Can you tell me what happened?”

I told him what I’d heard and seen,
everything I knew of what happened, which amounted to a whole lot of not much.
He dutifully scribbled notes in the small notepad. When I felt the interview
was winding down, I asked if I could leave.

He studied me for a beat, and I had
the distinct impression he saw the thing I didn’t say. I didn’t like it.
Usually, I’m much better at making sure this can’t happen. I attributed this
fluke to the fact that I was still slightly stunned and unprepared for police
scrutiny.

Nearby, another officer concluded
an interview and sent his witness on her way. Spying Ellmann, the officer
ambled over. As he did, his eyes flicked my direction and he looked me up and
down. I felt a wave of disgust roll through me.

“Ellmann,” the officer interrupted.
“We’ve talked to everyone.” His nameplate said
pratt
.

Pratt was about six feet tall, with
dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. He was very slender; even the gun belt and
assorted cop paraphernalia were unable to hide how narrow his hips were.

“You the one who saw the whole
thing?” Pratt asked me.

I nodded.

Something dark seemed to skitter
across his brain and he tried to suppress a smirk.

“Since you touched the body,” he
said, again looking me up and down, “we should probably take your clothes into
evidence. I’ll bag them.”

Body?
Stacy had been alive
when she left. Had that changed?

It seemed Pratt volunteered to see
me in the buff a little too quickly.

“No,” Ellmann snapped before I
could respond. “Why don’t you take measurements of the parking lot?”

It sounded a lot like the fireman’s
c-spine direction to me, but I might have misinterpreted. Maybe parking lot
measurements would prove useful to the case.

“Stacy’s dead?” I asked after Pratt
had sauntered away, obviously grumpy. There was fear and sorrow in my voice
that surprised even me.

Ellmann looked back to me, his eyes
slightly wide. That was the only indication of what he was thinking or feeling;
everything else was carefully secured behind his well-practiced cop-face.

“No, she’s not dead,” he said. His
tone was reassuring, certain. “Last I heard from the hospital, she’s in
surgery. I’m not sure yet what her prognosis is.”

I exhaled, unaware I’d been holding
my breath.

Oh, thank goodness.

“Are you sure you don’t know her?”

I looked up at Ellmann and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“I have everything I need for now.
If there’s anything else, I’ll be in touch.” He reached into his breast pocket
and pulled out a card, which he gave to me. “Call if you think of anything, no matter
how small. And you’ll need to come to the station tomorrow to sign some
paperwork.”

I tucked the card into my pocket,
then picked my way across the parking lot back to my truck. The lot had cleared
considerably, though a small group of people was still gathered on the sidewalk
just beyond the police boundary, watching. I climbed into the truck, then
maneuvered out around the remaining emergency vehicles and drove home.

Home as it stood now wasn’t a
comforting thought for me, although I planned to remedy this on Saturday, when
I moved into my new place. The house I would live in for two more nights was
large: five bedrooms, one of which was a separate, private guest suite. There
was also a two-bedroom apartment above the garage. Every one of the five
bedrooms was currently occupied. So was the apartment.

When I was eighteen, I’d moved to
Denver for the man I’d thought I was going to marry, and while the relationship
hadn’t worked out, the new job had. It was my first taste of property
management, and I discovered I had a knack for it. I rose through the ranks
quickly and was making an obscene amount of money. Among other things, I began
purchasing property.

My mother has never been much of a
mother. It wasn’t long before she’d needed a place to stay. I wouldn’t have
thought much of this except at the time my brother, Zach, was still in her
charge. So I’d purchased a house here in Fort Collins and moved them in,
renting out the apartment and guest suite to help cover the mortgage. I’d
debated bringing Zach to live with me, ultimately deciding against it because I
didn’t want to uproot him from the only life he’d ever known, and the
metropolitan part of Denver I was living in then wasn’t the type of place where
teenagers could ride their bikes in the streets.

But this is why kids shouldn’t make
decisions like these, because I realized later what Zach had really needed was
a mother and a role model, not his friends or afternoon bike rides. His first
run-in with the police at age fifteen had gotten my attention. His second a
month later got me packing.

Initially, I’d rented a condo. But
it became clear that simply being nearer wasn’t making an impact. Zach was
arrested for the first time for smoking marijuana two weeks after I’d moved
back. I really didn’t want to live with my mother again; there was a reason I’d
moved out when I was seventeen. But I’d proven time and again I’d do anything
for my brother, and at that time, the simplest thing was to store my stuff and
move into one of the open basement bedrooms.

I’d planned on the arrangement
being temporary, just long enough to put Zach back on the right course. But
that had proved a more difficult task than my twenty-one-year-old self could
have anticipated. Zach barely graduated high school, got arrested a couple more
times, did a brief stint in juvenile detention, and had his driver’s license
revoked. Finally, at twenty, he seemed to have grown up a bit. He’d held a job
for eight months without any incident and almost perfect attendance. He’d
gotten his driver’s license back. And he had enrolled in community college
where he was going to class regularly and making a considerable effort to
maintain decent grades.

All of this meant I could move out
without feeling as if I was abandoning him again. He was even talking about
renting a place of his own with a couple of his buddies. So most my stuff was
already packed, and Saturday couldn’t come soon enough.

I was considering taking a short
vacation. Not to go anywhere, but just to have time off work. Life had been
exceedingly stressful for me lately. And so very monotonous. Somewhere along
the line I’d settled into a routine, and now it consumed my life. I thought a
few days off work would be nice. I could relax, settle into my new place, maybe
do some fun stuff, something new and different. As the house loomed nearer and
nearer, the idea sounded better and better. I made a mental note to speak to my
boss about it tomorrow.

As usual, the house was as bright
as noon when I returned. Didn’t matter that it was nearly midnight. I grabbed
my bag and shuffled to the door, doing my best to prepare myself for what I
knew was waiting. Mostly I failed miserably.

“Where the hell have you been?” my
mother snapped when I came into the kitchen. She was dressed in sweats, a rag
in one hand and cleaning products in the other. The kitchen smelled strongly of
bleach, with scents of other cleaners choking the air.

“And why are you dressed like that?”
Her familiar tone was harsh, unkind, accusing. “What kind of trouble have you
been getting into? You’re
always
in trouble. Ever since you were a baby.
Not like your brother; no child sweeter than that boy. Sometimes I wonder how
you
could be mine.”

I looked down at myself as I
shuffled to the cupboard. (I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t help it.) My
black trousers were wrinkled, and I suspected the smudge on my right knee was
blood. My blue top was equally rumpled and hanging off my shoulders slightly
crooked. It was easy to understand my mother’s alarm, given my current state and
the vain importance she placed on appearance.

I pulled down a glass and filled it
with ice water.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I
said, hardly aware of her tone anymore, but not wholly able to ignore it,
either.

“No, we will not! When are you
going to grow up? Some of us have
real
jobs and responsibilities. At
least your brother is trying to make something of himself. When are you going
to do the same? You’re
always
in trouble.”

Someone had put the record on the
player, but it wasn’t aligned correctly. The record turned, played the same few
lines, then circled back to play them again. Always the same few lines.

“I know,” I said, leaving the
kitchen. Most of the defeat and sorrow I heard in my voice was the result of
what happened to Stacy Karnes. But not all of it. In any case, there was no
point engaging her; she couldn’t be reasoned with when she was in this state.

The guest suite door opened and Donald
poked his head out. He was one of two unrelated people currently living in the
house. Not an altogether bad guy, I was fonder of Donald than any of the other
renters, past or present. He was five-nine with a slight paunch, in his late
fifties, had perfectly trimmed—if outdatedly styled—gray hair and brown eyes
that were always seen through thick, dark-framed glasses.

“What’s all the racket? I heard
yelling.” He looked me over through bleary eyes as he adjusted the glasses on
his nose. “What happened to you?”

“Work turned into a
witness-for-the-police thing when I sort of saw a woman stabbed. How was your
day?”

He shrugged and stuffed his hands
into the pockets of the red plaid bathrobe neatly tied around him. “Boring.”

“Lucky bastard.”

I rolled out of bed after hitting the snooze button three
times. I hadn’t slept well. I’d had vivid dreams that were ugly and
destructive.

My life got off to a rocky and
violent start. From violent, it phased to uncertain, but always it was hard. I’ve
been seeing a therapist regularly to help deal with what that means. Normally,
I’m rather well-adjusted, all things considered. I still have patterns of
learned behavior I have to work to overcome, but usually I’m successful and can
function without major incident in polite society.

But when I experience violence,
physical or emotional, whether I’m a participant or an observer, the result is
the same. The dreams, sometimes better described as “nightmares,” return, and I
find I can be irritable, my temper short. From the moment I’d heard the scream
last night, I’d known what I was in for. Walking into that lobby, physically
confronting the attacker, and seeing Stacy Karnes’s body had cracked some of
the retaining walls, and my past was seeping back out. I would need to get it
under control, and fast.

The coffee pot was empty, as usual.
Every morning I was the last to get up, and every morning I found the pot empty.
Eternal optimist that I am, I always secretly hoped there would be a cup left,
but there never was. Skipping it, I went back downstairs to shower.

I stripped my clothes off and
caught a glimpse before I went to the shower. Frowning, I walked back to the mirror.
I didn’t like what I saw. Perhaps it was merely the result of my uncharitable
mood brought on by the lack of sleep and caffeine, but I didn’t think so. That
wasn’t the whole story, in any case.

I’d noticed a slight weight gain
after returning home. My family life has always been a huge source of stress
for me, and stress seems to negatively affect my metabolism. The weight gain had
continued until Barry Paige had been hired, at which point it exploded. See,
Paige takes his position as my supervisor more seriously than necessary. In the
last eight months, I’d gained thirty pounds. That’s more than a woman should
gain while pregnant. I’m not pregnant. It was as if the stress I was feeling
from every direction had shut off my metabolism, allowing every ounce I ate to
slide right down to my butt and stick. My butt and my stomach and my thighs and
that place along the back of my arms. Didn’t matter that I’d become more conscientious
of what I was eating. I’m five-eight most days, five-nine on good days; I don’t
have a lot of extra height to accommodate or offset the additional weight. And
in the last two years, the additional weight totaled forty pounds. All right,
forty-seven.

Today it looked more like seventy.
This was how I knew I was feeling unfriendly. The stress had brought gray hair,
too, though I’m only twenty-five. And my skin had been nearly flawless until
recently. Now there are noticeable lines around my eyes and mouth. These
irritate me most.

I saw the look in my eye then
turned away from the mirror. My eyes fluctuate between deep green and hazel
depending mostly on my mood. Just then, they were burning green: a reflection
of the strong emotion I was feeling.

I stood under the water for several
long minutes, until I was thoroughly soaked, then reached up for my shampoo. I
knew the instant I lifted the bottle what I’d find, but (optimist, remember?) I
popped the cap and held my hand open, squeezing all the same. Nothing came out
but a
swish
of air.

Not to worry. I always keep an
extra bottle of everything stashed behind the tampons under the sink. Dripping
wet, I got back out and pulled the cupboard doors open, searching for my hidden
cache. I couldn’t find anything. Confused, I removed everything until I’d
reached the back of the cupboard. The only items remaining were deodorant and
body wash.

I replaced the items I’d removed
and went back to the shower, colorfully cursing Bradley, the college student
renting the third bedroom in the basement. He shared a bathroom with Zach and
me, one he hardly ever cleaned, and he had a habit of helping himself to
whatever he could find. It hadn’t been until he’d brought his boyfriend home
that I’d understood why he was always using
my
products.

A quick search of the available items
in the shower left me with one option. I picked up Zach’s shampoo-and-body-wash-in-one
and sniffed at the top. It smelled like a man; no way around it. But I had to
wash my hair with something. With a sigh, I squirted some out and lathered it
through my hair. I needed to have a conversation with Bradley sometime soon.
And I was seriously considering raising his rent. Had I been planning to stay
past tomorrow, I would evict him instead.

I twisted my long hazelnut-colored
hair up and tied it in a knot on top of my head, pinning back my long bangs. (Probably
it was good Bradley wasn’t home when I got out of the shower.) My hair is a hot
mess as often as not. Reminiscent of a 90s-era Julia Roberts; it is thick, wavy,
and has a mind of its own. Today, of course, it would have to stay up in order
to cut down on the Axe smell. I did the best I could to make it look
presentable then left it to air dry. Out of habit, I tucked two extra hairpins
into my pocket, just in case I needed reinforcement later.

Early in life, my mother had
instilled the importance of such vain undertakings as makeup, hairspray,
push-up bras, and control-top pantyhose. While I’d given up most of that as a
gesture of rebellion, I still can’t bring myself to leave the house without
mascara. And for work, I always wear complete makeup. It just doesn’t feel
right not to. So, I did the makeup thing in a hurry, then pulled together a
passable outfit of brown slacks and a green top. I grabbed my bag and hit the
door.

My first appointment was at eight. It
took some negotiating, but the late walk-in client from the night before had
finally agreed to come back first thing this morning. It meant coming in an
hour early, but to get him out of my office, I’d agreed.

I checked my mirror and changed
lanes, grimacing at the recurring thoughts of the night before. I wanted to
blame the walk-in client for making me late to meet Stacy Karnes, but that
wasn’t fair. Sure, his timing had been unfortunate, but I should have been
firmer about cutting the meeting short. I was responsible for keeping my own
schedule, and I was responsible for being late.

I couldn’t help but think about how
different things would have been had I gotten there on time. I’d been a mere
moment too late to intervene before Stacy was stabbed. Had I left on time, had
the lights and traffic been different, had I arrived a minute earlier, would
Stacy be lying in the hospital today? I couldn’t help but think not. I realized,
had I been any earlier it could just as easily have been me lying in the
hospital today. Or the morgue. I also knew I couldn’t help the fact Stacy had
been in the lobby at that specific time. But she had been there to meet me, and
that left me feeling more than a little responsible for what had happened to
her. I knew this sense of responsibility and the associated guilt were the
heaviest assaults against my retaining walls.

Traffic wasn’t cooperating. My goal
had been to stop for coffee on the way to the office, but all hope evaporated
when I caught the third consecutive red light after leaving my house. If this
continued, I’d be late as it was. Being late wasn’t something I tolerated well
under the best of circumstances. After last night, I didn’t think I could
tolerate it at all. I pulled my cell phone from the cup holder, wishing it were
a perfectly blended, chocolate-flavored coffee instead, and dialed the office.
The receptionist answered on the second ring.

“White Real Estate and Property
Management. This is Sandra. How may I help you?”

Sandra York was new, having started
six months ago. Overall, she did an acceptable job, but she wasn’t a natural
for the role, and she wasn’t highly motivated to compensate for any
deficiencies.

“It’s Zoe. I need a favor. I have a
meeting at eight; I left the info on your desk last night. Can you call the guy
and let him know I’ll be five minutes late?”

“There’s a guy in the lobby. Let me
make sure that’s not him.”

She put me on hold and I listened
to elevator music for two minutes. I also managed to catch another red light.
She came back on the line just as the light turned green.

“Wasn’t him,” she said. “I’ll call
him.”

The four cars in front of me began
moving. I put my foot to the gas, easing it down while I let my left foot off
the clutch. The truck rolled forward, then the engine died. Hoping I’d stalled
it, I twisted the key. The engine sputtered but failed to catch.

In my heart, I knew this wasn’t
something simple. I hit the hazard lights in response to the angry horns
sounding behind me then tried the key again. The result was the same.

“Perfect,” I sighed, leaning back
against the seat. “Sandra, I’m going to need you to reschedule that appointment
all together. I’m going to be more than five minutes late.”

“Well, how late are you going to
be?”

“I hope to make my nine o’clock,
but I may need you to reschedule that one, too.”

She sighed. “Fine. Let me know.”
Then she hung up.

I dropped the phone back into the
cup holder.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said to the
steering wheel. “No, I don’t need anything. Thank you. Your concern is
touching.”

I was northbound on Shields in the
far right lane, just south of Drake. About a block ahead there was a turnoff
into a parking lot. I stepped out of the truck. A passing motorist belted his
horn at me and flipped me the bird. I smiled, blew him a kiss, and waved.
Shedding my jacket, I rolled down the window and took my position in the open
door.

Despite how heavy a vehicle is,
especially an old one like mine, I’ve never found them difficult to push,
especially not my truck. This has been handy considering I’ve spent a lot of
time in the past few months pushing it. I got a few more honks and hand
gestures, and a kid hung his head out the window and shouted something dirty as
he flew past. No one stopped to help.

Once in the parking lot, the truck
picked up momentum. I jumped inside and allowed it to roll as I manhandled the
steering wheel, directing it to the far right of the lot, where it rolled to a
stop across three spaces. Climbing back out, I walked around and lifted the
hood. I stepped onto the bumper and peered over the innards of the truck.

I have very little mechanical
prowess but I figured it was merely due diligence to have a look and eliminate
all obvious problems. I didn’t know the names of any of the parts I was looking
at or their functions, but I would have been able to tell if a hose was hanging
lose or wires were sticking out somewhere. Of course, I saw none of those
things. I also knew the tank had gas.

I’d found the 1978 International
Scout II by happenstance. Shortly after moving back to Fort Collins, I’d listed
my Mercedes for sale on Craigslist. Wanting to sell the thing quickly, I’d
initially listed it low. But I realized soon enough that wasn’t drawing the
kind of attention I needed—just lots of looky-loos wondering why the pretty,
two-year-old Mercedes was so cheap. So I relisted and overpriced it. This cut
interested phone calls by more than half, down to a more manageable number and
seriously interested parties.

About four people had already
looked at the car by the time Stan had called and I’d met him in the Target
parking lot. But there was something about Stan that I’d liked. He’d wanted to
buy the Mercedes for his wife. Stan had been crazy about his wife, that was
obvious to anyone after about five minutes. Her car had recently been totaled
and she had been driving his truck, leaving him with his Scout. She’d hated the
Scout and refused to drive it.

The Scout had been either carefully
restored or impeccably maintained, I’d known from first glance. Talking around
an ever-present cigarette between his lips, Stan had told me he had purchased
the thing new in ’77 and had taken exceptional care of it. A mechanic, he had
done all the work himself. His wife may have hated it, but the Scout was a
thing of beauty; hunter green with a white removable hardtop and Army-tan
interior. And at that time, everything had worked as well as it had the day it
rolled off the manufacturing floor.

He’d noticed my interest, and he
must have already known he was dying. I had come prepared to deal, and, like I
said, there was something I liked about Stan. I’d knocked a big chunk off the
price and he’d thrown in the Scout.

For the next year, I took the Scout
back to Stan for everything: oil changes, new windshield wipers, tire-pressure
checks. He never charged me very much, and I always left the truck with him for
the day, let him tool around in it for old time’s sake. When he got too sick to
work, he gave me the name of a new mechanic: Leonard Krupp. Krupp was old
school and could work on a vehicle as old as the Scout.

But the wear and tear must have
finally caught up to the thing, because it had been to visit the new mechanic
routinely since. I occasionally consider offering to sell it back to Stan’s
wife, even though she always hated it. Sometimes I dream about driving it over
to Krupp’s, when it’s running, and sending it crashing through the front window
of his garage. I’ve considered pushing it into Horsetooth Reservoir more than
once.

When reality finally settled back
around me now, I walked back to the cab and retrieved my phone, dialing the
number for the towing company from memory.

After arranging for a tow, I called
Krupp to tell him the truck was coming back. He didn’t answer. I left a message.

Now I needed a ride. I never bother
to call my mother. Zach was at work. Friday mornings my best friend, Amy, worked
out of town. I knew she’d come get me if I called her, but I reserved calls
like that for emergencies only. I tried my friend Sadie, but the call went to
voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. Then I called Donald. Not only did he
answer, but he agreed to come get me.