Newlywed Dead (7 page)

“Thanks for stopping by the station,” Detective Murphy said as I stepped into his tiny office space. Detective Murphy had a big old wooden desk stuck in the farthest corner of the police station. There was a bookshelf behind him, stuffed with notebooks of cases and law books and other reference materials. His phone system was old and plastic beige. A bulky computer screen took up half the space on the desk, along with a keyboard and a mouse that battled for the rest of the space with papers, Post-it notes, and other office supplies. He had a dirty mug half full of forgotten coffee and another mug filled with pens and pencils and highlighters.

The air in his cramped office smelled of old, burnt coffee and bad aftershave.

Detective Murphy and I had developed a sort of father-daughter friendship over the last few months. He said I reminded him of his daughter, Emily, a bright young woman with a problem boyfriend. I'd done my best to hear his complaints and try to keep him from driving his daughter into defending the boyfriend. He wasn't happy with the wait-and-see game plan, but I reassured him it was best.

“Sure, no problem. You wanted to talk to me?” I settled back and studied the man. He was in his mid-fifties and had a hound-dog face with intelligent eyes. Today he wore a dress shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up. His navy suit coat draped across the back of his old creaky chair.

“How are things with you?” he asked. “I see you have a new boyfriend.”

I felt the heat of a blush. “Gage, yes, I've known him since high school.”

“Since high school? Did he know your ex?”

“Yes.” My blush deepened. “They were best friends. When I broke up with Bobby, Gage got up the courage to ask me out.”

“So you went from one guy to another?”

“Wait.” I sat up straight. “I wasn't seeing them both. Bobby and I were broken up. Gage was a friend first. It sort of morphed into something else.”

He chuckled and raised his hand in a sign to stop. “Okay, okay, I wasn't making any judgment. I was thinking of Emily. Maybe there's another guy waiting for her loser of a boyfriend to fall out of favor.”

“How's that going?” I asked. “You didn't say anything, did you?”

“No, no,” he said, and sat back. “I've taken your advice and simply been a sympathetic ear.”

“Sympathetic? Does that mean there is trouble in paradise?”

“Let's just say things are getting rocky.” He picked up his pencil and tapped the end on his desk. “I'm taking your advice and not saying anything. It's tough though. I want to tell her to kick that lazy bum out of her house.”

“You do that and she'll hold on tighter,” I warned.

“I know, I know,” he said.

“How was your visit? Wasn't she just at your house for a week?”

“The visit was good,” he said with a smile. “She admitted that she misses me. That's how I got the feeling that there is something going on. You'll be proud of me, though. I didn't tell her to move back. I asked how she liked her job and the area. She said that the job was okay, but she could get a job like that anywhere.”

“Anywhere . . . as in Chicago?” I asked.

“I didn't push my luck,” he said. “I merely mentioned that things were picking up in the area and that I had heard her best friend Kendra had gotten a job downtown and that she was really happy.”

“Nice,” I said. “Did Emily take the bait?”

“The next day when I was on the couch watching the game, she plopped down beside me, put her head on my shoulder, and said that she wanted to move back,” he said,
and his eyes sparkled. “I said, ‘Oh?'” He smiled, stretching his droopy jowls tight. “She leaned against me and acted all casual. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘but I'm afraid.'”

“She's afraid?”

“Yes,” he said, and waved his hand. “She said she was worried I'd try to control her life if she moved back.”

“Would you?” I asked, and leaned forward. “Don't answer right away,” I said, and raised my hand to cut him off. “Think about it hard. Would you want to stop by at random times like you do to me?”

“I don't stop by at random times,” he protested.

“What was last night?” I asked, and sat back.

“I wanted to talk about Ashley.”

“You could have called,” I said, making my point. “We're friends, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “You know I consider you a daughter like Emily.”

“Then you need to think carefully,” I said. “If Emily moves back, you need to respect boundaries.”

“Like?”

“Like calling before you show up at her door,” I said. “Like giving her space and not expecting to see her every other day.”

“I wouldn't,” he protested.

“Or even once a week.”

That shut him up. His mouth worked but no words came out. “Not even Sunday dinner?”

“Talk to her, ask her what amount of involvement would
make her comfortable,” I said. “Be patient and let her include you in her life.”

“This stinks,” he said, and put down the pencil. “All I'm supposed to do is stand back and let Emily run the show?”

“Yes,” I said, and nodded. “My parents and I have worked out a nice system. They call if they need anything, but mostly I call and it works out well. You'd be surprised how often I call.”

“I suppose this is your way of telling me that you want me to call before I show up at your door.”

I smiled. “It wouldn't hurt.”

“Fine,” he said. Then he straightened up. “Listen, I didn't ask you here to only talk about Emily.”

“What's up?”

“I want to talk to you again about Ashley Klein,” he said, his dark eyes concerned. “You were the first to respond. You tried CPR on her, right?”

“Yes, I did, but it didn't work.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I'm sorry?”

“Why did you step up to do CPR? There were twenty people there.”

“I don't know,” I said, and shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I talked to her earlier that night and I felt like I knew her. I couldn't just not try to save her.”

“You talked to her?”

“Yes, I sort of hung out at the bar. She seemed like a nice person, very intuitive.”

“The preliminary lab results came back. It looks like she died of a drug and alcohol overdose,” he said, his expression tightening with disgust. “Did she seem high to you when you were talking to her?”

“What? No,” I said, and shook my head. “She didn't seem high or spacy. Her eyes were clear and except for the headache she seemed as normal as you and I.”

“She had a headache?”

“Yes,” I said. “She got a sharp pain and closed her eyes, pressing her temples. She told me it was a flash headache and she got them sometimes.”

“So that's what you talked about at your sister's wedding reception?” he asked.

I sat back and put my hands in my lap. “She made these great cocktails. I had never tried them before. Bobby was a beer guy. Anyway, I was interested in the cocktails because I thought I might do a 1950s theme at one of my proposals. So I talked to her about them. She told me she served them at a couple of weddings.”

“So she was a regular at the country club,” he assumed.

“No, weirdly, she told me this was her first country club gig and I believed her. She didn't really look the country club server type. But then this strange thing happened.”

“What strange thing?” he asked.

“These two kids came up. They looked about eighteen or nineteen and the guy demanded that she make him a cocktail.”

“Did she?”

“No, she refused and the guy got upset and started to
tell Ashley he was going to have her fired for insubordination, but the girl, Samantha Lyn, tells him to cool it. She orders them both sodas—Cokes, I think she said. Anyway, Ashley gave the kids a glass of soda each. The guy, Clark Fulcrum, made some threat—like he was going to tell his Mom that Ashley wouldn't serve him and she would never work another country club wedding.”

“That seems a bit extreme,” Detective Murphy said.

“Yes, I thought so, but then Samantha Lyn apologized and she and Ashley talked for a while. It seems that Ashley had a run-in with Clark and Samantha Lyn at another event. Both times, I guess, the guy was all talk and no action. You know sullen, spoiled stuff.” I shrugged. “The weird part is these kids are so young and yet their parents are pushing for them to get married. Mrs. Fulcrum called me today to set up a meeting to plan their engagement.”

“What?”

“I know, right? As soon as Clark's mom—Sugar Fulcrum—learned I planned Warren's proposal, she searched me out at the wedding and asked for my card. She and Samantha Lyn's mom are meeting me tomorrow at the Pavilion to plan ‘The proposal of the century,'” I said, and used air quotes.

“What parent would want their kid to get married under the age of twenty-one?”

“Apparently these two do. The kids should at least be of drinking age before they get married. Don't you think?”

“Yeah, I think,” he said. “Apparently Ashley thought so, too?”

“I don't know. Ashley didn't speak to me about them,”

“I see,” he said. “When was the last time you spoke to Ashley?”

“Toward the end of the party,” I said. “She showed me how to make a couple more cocktails. Then her head still hurt so I suggested she drink some coffee and she poured herself a cup. I offered to meet with her another afternoon to talk about bartending for me. She agreed and I went to the ladies' room. When I came out, she had collapsed.”

“I see.” He wrote down
coffee
on his notepad and sucked on his teeth. “Are you going back to the country club soon for anything like a luncheon or party?”

“There's nothing planned, but that doesn't mean I won't be back at the club,” I said, and shrugged. “Warren's family is big into that scene.”

“If you do go back, keep your ears open for me, will you?”

That got my curiosity up. “Why?”

Detective Murphy paused as if weighing how much to tell me. I bit my bottom lip. One thing I had learned was that if I kept quiet, he'd eventually tell me something. I was right.

“Ashley has a bit of a history,” he said.

“How so?”

“She attended Morduray College for two years.”

“Morduray College?”

“Yes, it's a small, private school in Michigan. The country club has a high population of alumni from Morduray.”

“So are you suggesting that Ashley knew people from the country club?”

“Maybe, but she may not remember,” he said. “Ashley and another girl were attacked and sustained gunshot wounds on homecoming night of her junior year there.”

“That's right,” I said. “She told me about the attack. She said she thought it was what caused her headaches. She also mentioned she couldn't remember anything but waking up in the hospital. What happened?”

“The friend, Kiera, was killed instantly. Ashley was left for dead,” he said, his expression fierce. “Although she survived, Ashley was shot in the head and shoulder and spent weeks in a coma. The head shot looked bad but she was lucky. She survived it relatively intact. When she woke up from the coma, she had no memory of the incident. She didn't know who'd shot them. She couldn't even remember who they'd been with that night.”

“You know, she showed me the scar. Does that kind of memory loss happen a lot with gunshot wounds to the head?”

“It's pretty common for an injury of that magnitude,” he said. “She'd suffered extensive brain damage from the gunshot wound. Her parents told me that the doctors feared she'd never remember completely. They were warned that a wound that bad could change her personality. Sadly, the prognosis proved to be true.

“Ashley eventually returned to Morduray after rehabilitation, but couldn't concentrate anymore, couldn't study. Her mom said she was frustrated and quit college. Without an eyewitness, there wasn't any progress on finding the killer,” Detective Murphy said. “Ashley floated from job
to job and racked up a small-time police record. She had a couple of disorderly conducts, an arrest for unlawfully discharging a weapon, plus a citation for the gun being unlicensed.”

“Oh, no, that doesn't sound like the girl I met,” I said, and tapped my chin thoughtfully. “That said, if I had been shot and left for dead, I'd probably carry a gun, too—especially if I had no idea who did it. You never know when a killer will come back and attempt to finish the job.”

He nodded. “The judge took that into consideration. Ashley was fined and did community service for those crimes. But then she dies of an unintentional drug overdose?” He looked at me. “It just doesn't add up. You say she didn't appear high when you interacted with her.”