Weeding Out Trouble (2 page)

There were days we actually didn't want to kill each other, but they were few and far between. One thing we did agree on was Kit.

We both adored him.

"Besides my car, Kit's Hummer is the only car in the lot."

Brickhouse clucked, a habit of hers.

And for the first time since I've known her, I felt the compulsion to cluck along with her.

Not a good sign.

"Did you try calling Daisy's house again?" I asked. No one had been there earlier when I stopped by.

"Every three minutes. He's not answering his cell either."

"It's in his truck." I'd seen it in the cup holder.

"That's not good," Tam said.

I agreed.

Tam rushed on. "I checked in with Deanna—she has everything under control at the site. Everyone's on edge, focused on getting the job done."

Deanna Parks, a novice designer, worked for me fulltime. I completely trusted her to finish the job today.

"Thanks for checking with her." As the owner of TBS, a company that provided surprise garden makeovers, my clients paid me a lot of money to make sure their yards were done to perfection. Even when beloved employees went missing.

I winced as I threw open a closet door. Thank God nothing fell out.

Like Kit's body.

Quickly, I checked a small half bath and kept moving down the hallway.

"Do you think we should call the police?" Tam asked.

I knew she must have been extremely worried about Kit if she was talking about bringing in the police. Tam had an extreme dislike of law enforcement, with the one exception of her live-in love, Ian Phillips, who happened to be a DEA agent.

"I'm not sure," I said.

I heard a cluck just before Brickhouse said, "You should call Kevin."

Kevin being Kevin Quinn, my ex-husband. He was a homicide detective with the Freedom Police Department, and had recently been freelancing for Ian Phillips.

He'd been on an undercover assignment for the DEA when he was shot. Now, a month later, he was still in the hospital, recovering after a blood infection had kept him there longer than anyone expected. He'd have a few scars and would need some physical therapy but would be just fine.

Kevin was itching to get out of the hospital, eager to go home. He wasn't one who liked to sit still for any length of time, and I secretly wondered if the hospital stay was doing more harm than good.

"I'll call." My agreement to call Kevin told me just how worried about Kit I was.

These days I tried to steer clear of Kevin as much as possible. Being near him—especially when he was hurt and my mother hen syndrome had kicked in—tended to confuse me and stir up feelings that were supposed to be long gone, taped up, and shipped off to some small iceberg in the Bering Sea.

Mostly because I'd fallen in love with another man.

I paused outside a closed door at the end of the hall. My stomach knotted. I reached for the knob, slowly turned it. "Whoa."

"Whoa what? What whoa?" Tam's voice rose.

The room was clearly Daisy's office. My superior Clueplaying abilities had nothing to do with the revelation—the plaque on the desk in the center of the room told me so.

"Daisy's office," I said. "It's been completely ransacked. There are files and papers scattered everywhere." I spotted a computer monitor, but no hard drive. "Someone took her computer too."

"Kit wouldn't do something like that," Tam said.

"Ach. He's a peace-loving kind of guy," Brickhouse said. "It's the work of some no-good burglar. Probably one of my former students. That Marvin Partridge was never any good."

I remembered Marvin. He was a doctor now, a pediatrician. I wondered what he had done to tick off Brickhouse.

A noise came from the closet, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Adrenaline surged—my fingers tingled, my heart raced.

"Is anyone there?" I said softly, barely above a whisper. Suddenly I felt the need to climb underneath the desk. I refrained, telling myself I was braver than that. Or stupid, which was more likely.

"Is someone there?" Tam screeched. "Should I call the police?"

It was hard to talk. "I don't know. I hear something. Kit?"

The closet door was cracked open. Was he in there? Hurt?

The noise stopped again.

Maybe it was just the wind.

Probably.

Definitely.

I was being delusional, which broke one of my top ten commandments.

"Nina? Are you okay?" Tam asked.

"Shh," I said, then called out, "Hello? Kit?"

Bolstering my courage, I glanced into the small walk-in closet. Maybe six-by-six, the shelves and floor were covered with vitamins, herbs, and powders that had been scattered in a hasty search.

There was no Kit.

"Nina!" Tam cried.

"I'm okay," I said. "There's a closet here filled with pills and powders, looks like vitamins and supplements."

"Ach. Maybe someone thought Daisy had more hardcore stuff in there. That Marvin was a pothead, as I recall."

She was right—he had been.

And I couldn't help but think that if it had been Dr. Marvin, he'd picked the right place to burgle. Because I knew something Tam and Brickhouse didn't. Daisy was a big believer in the power of medicinal marijuana—and supplied it in and around Freedom to those in need, including the residents of a retirement home I'd done a mini for not long ago, which was how I learned of her little side business.

I couldn't help but wonder who else might know.

"They're probably in Gatlinburg at one of those cute little chapels," Tam said brightly. Her diction had slipped and a drawl had crept in. Nerves, full force.

"Ach. Probably getting their marriage license right now. Just waiting for the right time to call."

"Oh, oh," Tam added excitedly, obviously buying into the fantasy, "BeBe's probably going to wear the rings they picked out around her neck on a ribbon."

Brickhouse clucked. "Lord help the place that lets BeBe through the doors."

Tam laughed.

Kit's enormous English mastiff, easily over a hundred pounds, was an adorable, clumsy, drooling, slurping machine. The image of her in a small chapel would have been quite humorous—if I were in the laughing mood.

I wasn't.

The noise started up again, and I made a quick decision. "Go ahead and call the police, Tam," I said nervously.

"Why? Did you find something?"

No, but I was seriously creeped out. "Nothing, really. I think I'm going to wait outside."

Bravery had never been one of my strong traits, and I wasn't stupid. I was getting the heck out.

Then I heard something that ripped open my heart.

Whining.

Doggy whining.

"I'll call you two back, okay?"

"Why? Did you find something?" Tam asked.

"I'll call," I said, and flipped my phone closed.

"BeBe?" I shouted.

The scratching intensified.

Checking the closet more closely, it didn't take long to notice a crack in the wall to my right running from floor to ceiling.

I pushed and pulled. There had to be a way in there.

BeBe whined and cried, but never barked.

It took a good couple of minutes before I discovered that the rug in the corner of the closet had been lifted a bit. Beneath it, I found a small button. I pushed it and a door slid open, disappearing into the framing between the closet and the darkened room beyond.

BeBe barreled out, knocking me over. Her tail thrashed and her crying brought tears to my eyes.

It took a second for me to find my feet, another to realize someone had taped BeBe's snout shut with masking tape. I carefully took it off. Her barks split the air, and my first thought was to get her water. I took her to the bathroom I'd seen in the hallway and turned on the faucet. She drank and drank.

When she had her fill, I went back to Daisy's office.

Relief flooded me as I heard sirens in the distance. At this point, breaking and entering appeared to be the least of my problems.

Swallowing over a lump of fear, I went back into the closet, BeBe on my heels.

I had to know. Had to find out if Kit was in there too.

The darkness was overwhelming. My hand shook as I felt along the wall for a switch and finally found one. I blinked against the blinding light.

Once my vision cleared, I saw it. In the middle of the room a crumpled body laid deathly still, surrounded by small white pills.

All common sense about not touching a crime scene failed me as I knelt down. BeBe sat next to me, pawing the air, crying. I swallowed over a coconut-sized lump in my throat and checked for a pulse.

I'd finally come face to face with Daisy Bedinghaus.

Unfortunately, she was dead.

Usually I was quite averse to doggy slobber, but I couldn't find the heart to push BeBe away as she continued to lick my face.

I slowed to a stop at a red light, and BeBe took one last slurp and finally settled down into the passenger seat, her giant paws dangling over the edge of the seat.

I turned up the volume on the radio a bit. Recently I'd been listening to country music, but in this time of crisis I reverted back to familiar habits. Spinning the dial, I stopped on the oldies station.

"You've Lost that Loving Feeling" was playing, but it wasn't the Righteous Brothers singing it. It was Hall and Oates.

On the oldies station.

Oldies.

Hall and Oates.

Something was very wrong in this world.

Disgusted, I flipped off the radio.

BeBe lifted her head to check and see if she was missing anything of importance, halfheartedly licked my hand, and put her head back down on her paws.

She'd had a rough day.

We'd both had a rough day.

The light turned, and I headed for home. It was one of those gray, cloudy, stay-in-bed days.

I know I wished I'd stayed in bed.

Sleet spit at the window. My wipers slashed it away. With more than a few accidents on the roadways, Freedom's police station had seemed like a ghost town. Except for the detectives covering Daisy's case.

And me.

I'd been at the station most of the day, answering the same questions repeatedly. I'd actually found myself wishing Kevin was there to run interference. I'd even found myself wishing for Ginger Barlow, aka Ginger Ho. She was also a detective. And also Kevin's live-in lover.

Reveals how desperate I was, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, Kevin was still laid up in the hospital, and Detective Darren Zalewski, fondly known in my family as "Lewy," informed me Ginger was on vacation leave. She was probably with Kevin at the hospital, playing doctor.

That thought didn't so much as twitch a nerve, which meant either I was getting used to their relationship or I had gone numb thanks to the events of the day.

I leaned toward numb. I didn't think I could ever get used to seeing Kevin and Ginger together, all lovey-dovey.

Some things just weren't possible.

But I did wish one or the other had been with me today as the detectives interrogated me for six hours without so much as a potty break for BeBe, whom I refused to leave outside.

Right now I wasn't too fond of Lewy, though I'd always liked him up until today, despite the fact that he'd been Ginger's partner before she paired with Kevin. Joe Nickerson was a good fifteen years older than Lewy, and had a reputation for being touchy-feely. Never with me, but I'd heard stories.

Freedom was a small suburb. Its police department was like a family. Lewy and Joe had been to my house many times, and Kevin, Riley, and I to theirs. However, they hadn't taken too kindly to finding me at the scene of a homicide.

What did I expect? I'd divorced Kevin—my branch had fallen off Freedom PD's family tree. They weren't cutting me any slack.

Too bad Ana had left town. I wanted to be catty, but it was no fun being catty alone.

Right now I wished I hadn't turned down her offer to go with her to Aunt Rosa's for Thanksgiving. I would have been basking in the California sun this morning instead of finding Daisy dead, presumably from that gunshot wound to her chest.

It was the question Lewy and Joe had kept asking, over and over. The one I'd kept asking myself.

I didn't know the answer. And even if I did, I wasn't sure I'd tell them.

Reaching over, I rubbed BeBe's dark ears. Exhausted, she didn't even flinch.

My mind kept going back to the secret room where I'd found Daisy. It had been lined with grow lights—obviously she was cultivating her own marijuana. There hadn't been any plants, though. Also, two industrial shelving units had been cleared out, which made me wonder what had been stored on them.

Before the police arrived, I'd managed a good look at the white pills on the floor. I even picked one up—I could always plead ignorance if the police were able to retrieve any prints from it.

One side was unmarked. The other side had an elaborate imprinted design, but it wasn't anything I could identify. It was the image of a narrow oblong shape with what looked like tunnels trailing off it.

Unusual to say the least.

I'd placed it exactly where I found it, next to Daisy's body, and hoped Lewy and Joe wouldn't find out I'd touched it. I had no doubt I'd be locked up for tampering. They weren't in the best of moods today.

I thought about what I knew so far. Daisy was dead. Kit had been at the crime scene, and knowing him, he didn't leave BeBe there willingly.

If Kit didn't kill Daisy—and I refused to believe otherwise—then someone else knew about that room. And what had been stored in there.

Who?

In my rearview mirror I caught sight of a dark sedan following me. I could just make out that the pair of men in the front seat wore tan trench coats, collars raised to their ears.