The Trouble With Murder (15 page)

Changing tracks, I said, “I’ll
speak to the landlord about her payment history and that sort of thing, but is
there anything else I should know about Stacy as a renter? Any other problems
or things that might come up?”

“Look, Stacy is a freakishly good
person,” Ashley said. “She doesn’t have any bad habits, she doesn’t ever do
anything wrong, she doesn’t even swear. She’s a straight-A student, a perfect
employee, and the best roommate. Sometimes I wonder if she’s actually human. If
you don’t rent her a place, you’re a moron.”

Their goddess had spoken. All three
boys bobbed their heads again. Kelsey didn’t seem quite as sure this time.

“Is Stacy’s boyfriend moving in
with her?” she asked.

“No. Why do you ask?”

A brief flash of guilt. “No reason.
I just know he’s had some trouble, you know, with the police, in the past.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “So what?
He didn’t do most the shit they think he did, and even if he did, he’s crazy
about Stacy. He would never, ever do anything to hurt her. And he would do
anything she asked him to. He knows how lucky he is to have her.” She looked me
square in the eye. “If he did move in with her, he wouldn’t give you or anyone
else any trouble.”

I couldn’t help myself. I was
beginning to really like Ashley.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as
I stood. “Thank you so much for the information. I still need to speak to the
landlord, but at this point I don’t see any reason why Stacy’s application
won’t be approved.”

Ashley stood and all three boys
stood with her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s just hope
she lives long enough to enjoy it.”

I’d lost track of time at Stacy’s house. Jumping into the
Lincoln, I gunned it for home. Of course, the Lincoln accelerates from zero to
sixty at a whopping fourteen seconds, so I didn’t exactly make record time.
Pezzani was at the curb when I floated into the driveway.

I offered him a sail around town in
the Lincoln, but he confessed he suffers from seasickness. Instead, we went in
his red Ford Mustang. Not a fan of Mustangs myself, I couldn’t deny this car
seemed to fit Pezzani somehow.

“Where would you like to eat?” he
asked as he reached the stop sign at the end of my street.

He was dressed in jeans and a green
shirt. He was either freshly showered or he kept a bottle of something really
delicious-smelling stashed in the glove box.

“How about the Olive Garden?”

Ten minutes later we put our name
in for a table. When we were seated, our waitress appeared almost immediately.
She was short, five-three maybe, with short blonde hair secured in two
pigtails, one below each ear. Her blue eyes were painted, and she wore dangly
silver earrings. Her nametag read
megan
.

“What can I get you to drink?” she
asked after introducing herself and finishing a brief speech about specials.

She smiled a blindingly white smile
and nodded as we gave our order. “Take your time with the menu. I’ll be back
with those drinks.”

We ordered after our drinks arrived,
and the girl hustled off again. The restaurant was busy, full of the sounds of
conversation and laughter, the clinking of silverware and dishes. Delicious
food smells were everywhere and I realized, as my stomach growled, I hadn’t eaten
all day.

Pezzani and I chatted, and I
noticed it was easier, more relaxed, than it had been. I was still guarded,
cautious, distant, but I wasn’t defensive. Surprisingly, I thought I could
actually like him.

Our dinner arrived and we dug in. Everything
was delicious. When we were about halfway through, Megan came around to check
in and refill our water glasses.

“Hey, I was going to ask you,” I
began. “Do you know Stacy? I think she works here.”

Megan nodded, sadness in her eyes. “Yes.
Do you?”

“I just heard what happened to her,”
I said solemnly. “It’s horrible.”

“I know!” she gasped. “Stuff like
that just doesn’t happen here, or at least it isn’t supposed to. My parents
freaked
.
They wanted to fly out and pack up my stuff the next day.”

Pezzani was patiently watching the
exchange, amused.

“I know,” I said. “I’m totally
terrified to go out alone after dark. They still haven’t caught who did it.”

“Do they even know who did it? Last
I heard they didn’t know whether it was random or not.”

“No, I know. But it has to be random,
right? I mean, who would do something like that to Stacy?”

I saw it in her eyes before she
could completely play it off.

“I have no idea,” she lied. “Stacy
is a really great person.”

“Oh, my gosh!” I said, then leaned
forward and lowered my voice. “You know something! You know who did it! You
have
to tell the police. She could
die
.”

“Shh!” she hissed, stepping forward
and leaning toward me. “I don’t know who did it, I
don’t
. I just know
she had this fight with another girl, Tina, who works here, okay? They were in
the kitchen, and it almost came to blows. The manager almost fired both of
them.”

Pezzani shifted in his seat.

“Tina, Stacy’s roommate?” I asked.
“She works here?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you know?”

No, I didn’t know.

Shit.

It wouldn’t be good if Tina knew I
was here. It would probably be worse if she knew I was asking about Stacy
again. Who knew what kind of trouble she’d start if she saw me a second time.

“Do you know what were they
fighting about?” Pezzani asked, taking a sudden interest in our conversation.

Megan shrugged. “I’m not really
sure; I only saw the very end. Stacy was really upset, that’s all I know. I got
the feeling Tina had done something, or maybe said something, but I missed most
of it. The manager was pretty clear we weren’t to gossip about it, either. If
anyone does know, no one is saying.”

“But you think Tina had something
to do with what happened to Stacy?” he asked.

She shrugged again and stood up,
uncomfortable. “I really don’t know. I mean, I hope not. Who wants to say they
know a person who could do something like that? It’s sick.”

She was right; it was sick.

And she would be wise to wonder
what would happen to her if she went around accusing Tina and it turned out
Tina
was
capable of such a thing.

The rest of our dinner was rather
uneventful. In the car, Pezzani finally asked me about my interrogation. I
explained about Stacy, but I omitted most of the details about my interest in
who assaulted her and my genius plan to turn her boyfriend in for an easy
fifteen grand.

“So, what’s your interest?” he
asked. “Are you trying to figure out who stabbed her?”

“What? No.” Yes.

“Right.”

He parked at the curb outside the
house.

“Do you want to hang out for a
while? The place is sort of a mess, and I don’t have any furniture to speak of,
but I could plug in the DVD player or the stereo.”

He laughed. “Who could turn down an
offer like that?”

We went to the porch and I opened
the door. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew something was wrong. A metallic
scent I immediately recognized hung on the air, and the little hairs on the
back of my neck stood up. I couldn’t tell if Pezzani had sensed anything amiss
as he followed me in. I reached for the light switch beside the door and
flipped it on, bathing the living room in bright overhead lighting.

There, face down on the hardwood
floor, was Derrick, the giant man I’d spoken to at Tyler’s mother’s house. His
arms and legs were spread slightly to the sides, and a large dark-red pool of
blood had spread around his torso. There were three bullet holes in his back.

I froze. Pezzani stared over my
shoulder.

“You know him?” he asked casually.

“Sort of.”

“He’s dead.”

_______________

Pezzani started to call 911, but I stopped him and called
Ellmann instead. Ellmann wasn’t exactly excited to hear from me. At least, not
for the reason I was calling.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

I sighed. “Even I have standards; what
kind of joke would that be? I’m serious. There is a dead man in my living
room.”

“I’m five minutes away. Don’t touch
anything. In fact, wait outside.”

The line went dead in my ear before
I could reply, probably so I couldn’t argue. I put the phone back in my pocket.

“We’re supposed to wait outside.”

Pezzani shuffled out, me behind
him. We sat on the porch step, waiting. Neither of us said much. Nothing like a
dead body to change the course of an evening.

I saw blue and red lights bouncing
off the houses around us before Ellmann’s navy blue Charger pulled to a stop at
the curb. He switched the lights off then climbed out of the car. I noticed he
was surprised to see I wasn’t alone but worked to hide it, and he hid it well.
Pezzani and I stood and moved off the porch  as Ellmann approached.

“How was dinner?” Ellmann asked,
spying our leftovers.

“Great, until now,” Pezzani
answered innocently, unaware of the edge in Ellmann’s voice. “I have to admit,
this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me.”

He offered his hand to Ellmann,
introducing himself.

“Detective Alex Ellmann. Pleasure.”
His tone was slightly flat.

“Alex, glad you could come. Zoe
thought you were the man to call.”

“It’s Detective Ellmann,” he said
as he passed both of us and went into the house.

He used a latex glove he’d pulled
from his pocket to open the door. I caught the door behind him and held it with
my elbow, peeking into the house. He stepped inside, glancing from the body to
the parts of the house he could see from the doorway.

“Heard anything since you got
here?” he asked, reaching for the gun in the holster on his hip.

“No,” I told him. “Why?”

“Go back outside and wait there.”

He drew the gun and moved slowly
into the house. After a few steps he stopped.

“I didn’t hear the door close.”

“All right, all right,” I muttered,
backing out of the doorway and letting the screen door bang shut.

Surprisingly frustrated at being
excluded from the potentially dangerous search of the house for a murderer, I
plopped back down on the step to wait. I heard a couple doors close and the
occasional footstep, but I didn’t hear any yelling or screaming or gunfire.
Seemed safe to say the house was empty. Aside from one large dead man who didn’t
belong, that was.

Ellmann emerged from the house, his
phone pressed to his ear, and squeezed past me off the porch, walking back to
his car. He disappeared from sight for a moment as he leaned into the trunk.
When he reappeared again, he was no longer on the phone. He walked back to us
carrying a clipboard and wearing a grim look.

“Party’s about to start,” he said.
“First of them will be here in a couple minutes.” He pulled a stack of forms
from the clipboard and handed them to us. “Need you to fill these out. They’re
witness statements.” He looked to me. “Unfortunately, we’re going to be here a
while, and I’m not sure how long they will hold your house as a crime scene. Is
there somewhere else you can stay?”

I sighed.

I’d just moved out of the only
place I had to go. I’d been in my new place for a total of two days. I’d just
bought a kitchen-f of groceries.

“I’m not staying anywhere else,” I
said defiantly. “This is my house.”

“The dead body is in the middle of
it, Zoe,” Ellmann said. “You won’t be able to get past the crime scene to the
rest of the house. You can’t stay here.”

“I’ll sleep in the kitchen and use
the backdoor.”

Ellmann sighed and pushed his hand
through his hair.

“Don’t put it past her,” Pezzani
said.

“I don’t,” Ellmann said. “That’s
what scares me.”

The first of what would turn out to
be a dozen responders pulled to a stop at the curb beside Ellmann’s vehicle and
hurried up the driveway. Ellmann directed him to begin canvassing the
neighborhood. There were no blinds on the windows, and a large caliber gun had
been used; someone should have seen or heard something.

“Let’s start with you,” Ellmann said
to Pezzani. “I need to ask you a bunch of questions, but I’m guessing you don’t
know much, so we’ll be able to get you on your way pretty quickly.”

I thought this was a poke at
Pezzani’s intelligence, not a comment regarding his usefulness as a witness,
but Pezzani didn’t seem to take it that way. Maybe I was reading too far into
it.

As I watched them walk away, I found
it interesting to see them side-by-side. I didn’t know either particularly
well, but they seemed pretty different, and yet strikingly similar in many
ways. It was also interesting to see Ellmann’s reaction to Pezzani and finding
us together after a dinner date. I supposed it had something to do with the
hero/rescue thing he’d been trying earlier, but it seemed more like
caveman-possessive stuff. Where was it coming from?

I sat on the porch writing out an
objective report of the facts in relation to discovering a dead man on my
floor. As people continued to arrive, Ellmann continued issuing orders, setting
people to work on specific tasks. The crime scene people—two men I’d never seen
before—were the last to arrive. Troy can’t work all the time, I guess. After
ten minutes of questioning, Ellmann let Pezzani go. I spoke to him briefly in
the front yard before convincing him to go home. He offered me a place to stay
twice before he left, and both times I assured him I’d be fine.

“Now it’s your turn,” Ellmann said,
flipping to a blank page in his notebook.

I lifted myself up onto the hood of
the Charger, my heels on the tire. He gave me an annoyed look but chose not to
say anything.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“‘He’ who?”

“The dead guy.”

“No idea.”

He dropped his arms and looked at
me. “Zoe, there is a dead man in the living room of the house you moved into
yesterday
,
shot and killed by a .45 revolver. Believe me, this is
not
the time to
play games.”

“I didn’t shoot him.”

“I don’t think you did, but that
doesn’t change the fact that this could be very bad for you. Tell me straight
what’s going on.”

“Because you can help me?”

He looked at me for a long moment.
Probably trying to decide if I’d done something horrible that would be
difficult or dangerous to cover up or explain. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes, I can help you. But only if I
know exactly what’s going on. You’re already mixed up in some other very bad
business. If you get into too much trouble, there won’t be anything I can do.”

“Other business?”

“Stacy Karnes, Tina Shuemaker, and
Tyler Jay.”

I groaned. “You know, I just want
to say, for the record, it was horribly inconsiderate for whoever attacked
Stacy to do so while she was in the lobby of my building waiting to meet me,
okay? It’s been nothing but trouble for me.”

“Is that because it aggravated some
insatiable need you have to stick your nose into everything, regardless of
societal norms, political correctness, and the interest of your safety?”

“Now, is that really necessary?”

“Am I wrong?”

“It just sounds
awful
when
you put it like that.”

“Even so, maybe you can explain what’s
going on.”