An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (5 page)

She flicked on the hot water and let the sink fill around the dirty dishes. From a drawer next to the sink she pulled a washcloth, ran it under the tap, and then swiped at the counter top in front of us.

“Ms. Hind,” Louise said.

“Please call me Pam.” She smiled.

“Pam, did you see or hear anything?” Louise asked. “Any loud noises? Did you notice any vehicle leaving the Luther’s house?”

Pam thought for a few seconds and then shook her head. “I didn’t notice any cars that were out of the ordinary, but my central-air unit is on the side of the house away from the Luther’s. I wouldn’t have been able to see a car pull in while I was wrapping the central-air in plastic.”

She closed the hot water tap in time to keep the sink from flooding onto the floor.

“You didn’t hear a gunshot?” Louise stacked a few plates on her side of the bar and pushed them toward Pam. “Anything that could be considered out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

The answer was too quick.

“Please, Pam,” I said. “Take your time and think. You were outside all morning. You had to have heard something.”

She picked up the plates that Louise had pushed toward her, and piled them on top of the dishes in the sink, creating an impossible tower that put the Leaning Tower of Pisa to shame.

“Maybe I did.” She sagged against the cupboard and covered her face with both of her hands.

I pressed on. “What is it, Pam?”

She whimpered into her hands. “I swore I’d never be one of those people who would ignore something, no matter how small.”

“What?” Louise asked. “You won’t be in trouble, Pam.”

She dropped her hands from her face. “Maybe not legally but morally I am in trouble, because I ignored my own instincts.”

Pam picked the washcloth from the counter and threw it at the sink. The dishes rattled and teetered but thankfully held their place.

“I moved here from the hood, Detectives. Where even if you were shot in front of a group of one hundred, no one would see anything. I made a promise to myself back then that I would not be one of those people.”

She braced herself against the countertop and dropped her head so she wouldn’t look directly at us.

“If I saw a guy beating up his girlfriend. If I saw a drug deal going down, I would call the police. I would never become so callous as to believe what was happening wasn’t my problem.”

Pam lifted her eyes to look at us.

“Like the old saying,
when they finally came for me there was no one to speak for me
.”

I knew that proverb well. My Grandmother, a Polish immigrant, had come to America after the holocaust. Though she would never speak about what she saw, she would recite,
First They Came
, at least once every visit.

“When I moved here –” Pam raised her arms and looked around at her kitchen. “I guess I thought I had finally escaped.”

“Tell us what you heard.” Louise’s tone was to the point.

Pam took a deep breath. “I heard the gun shots.”

“More than one shot?” I asked.

“Two.” She swallowed hard. “Then I heard a scream. I think it was Mrs. Luther screaming. The voice was too high pitched to be Mr. Luther.”

Her account confirmed my timeline of events. Mr. Luther's murder occurred first. This was the only explanation that made sense, unless Mr. Luther had expected his wife's death, and our killer knew how to clean up his blood trail from the first floor to attic fast enough, and well enough, to escape detection.

“The scream ended so fast that I thought maybe I hadn’t heard a scream at all. Maybe my over active imagination was getting the better of me. After all, things like this aren’t supposed to happen here.”

Things like this weren’t supposed to happen anywhere, but they did. Regardless of the price you paid for your home you couldn’t pick you neighbors, or the activities in which they were involved.

“But you didn’t see a car in their driveway?” Louise typed a few notes in her phone then turned a questioning glance toward Pam.

“No.”

“Not even in the street?” I asked.

“No. Why?”

Louise leaned back in her seat. “Mrs. Leigh across the street claims she saw a car speeding away from the house.”

Pam Hind snorted a laugh. “She also claims that she’s related to Janet Leigh, and that Elvis came to her in a vision to tell her that he isn’t really dead.”

Well, there was a small tidbit of information we didn’t have yet. Surprising, since the Janet Leigh info came out in the first thirty-seconds of our conversation with Bernice.

“Mrs. Leigh likes attention.”

Pam reached under the sink and came up with an industrial sized bottle of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. She squeezed the blue liquid over the top of the dishes in a swirling pattern.

“I may not know a lot about the people who live around me, but that much I do know. Mrs. Leigh was the first person to pay me a visit when I moved in. I had barely gotten out of my car, and she told me the whole history of the people who had lived in the house before me.”

All the more reason why Mrs. Leigh would know if there were a car in the neighborhood or not. There was always one neighbor who was the eagle eyes, and Mrs. Leigh was it, but then why would Pam Hind lie to us?

“When was the last time Chad visited his parents?” Louise asked.

Pam shrugged. “Last weekend, I guess. I really don’t keep close tabs on his comings and goings.”

From reports received from the other neighbors, everyone knew when the Spyder was in town.

“Did he seem to have any problems with his parents?”

My interest peeked. Where was Louise going with these questions? Did she really believe Chad might be involved in his parents’ death? Or, did she just want Pam to think she did?

Unfortunately, her face was unreadable, and we hadn’t discussed what line of questioning we would take. I would have to trust her instinct, which was next to impossible for me and my control-freak ways. I couldn’t participate if I didn’t know the dance, and this change in tempo had just left me up against the wall in my best party dress to tap my toe to her tune.

“I guess so.” Pam’s curiosity was as on point as mine. “They always seemed to be a
Leave It to Bea
ver kind of family.”

Pam turned a wary gaze down the hall, as if wondering if she had a killer reclining in her living room.

“You never saw them fight about anything? Girls? The car? Friends? Money?”

Pam’s brows knitted together so tightly, I was sure she would develop a cramp in her forehead and be stuck that way permanently. She must have run through every day since she’d moved in and found nothing of great interest, because she shook her head and her brow smoothed.

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Thank you, Pam,” Louise said and then smiled. “These are just routine questions in an investigation like this.”

Pam made a silent “o” with her mouth and then gave a hesitant half smile.

“We’ll be in touch.” Louise stood.

I stood. “One of the uniformed officers will take Chad to his Aunt’s house. Is it okay if he stays here until then?”

“Of course.” Except the worried expression on her face didn’t match the lightness in her voice.

Louise had planted a seed of doubt with Pam Hind and I was peeing myself to find out why.

What remained of the afternoon sun had disappeared from the sky. Only a soft, pink glow remained on the horizon. If it hadn’t been for the spotlights of the news crews, it would have been a beautiful but chilly Minnesota evening.

Once I was certain we were out of earshot of the press and the line of gawkers who had gathered to watch, I quizzed Louise.

“Spill.” I turned to face the Luther’s front door so that my back was to the crowd, and any proficient lip readers in the crowd couldn’t see what we were saying. “What was that all about?”

Louise turned to face the front door too.

“I don’t know why, but I had to put the doubt in her mind. No one has a peachy keen, Cleaver-esque life. As long as Pam Hind believed that her neighbors were living the perfect existence she wasn’t going to dig up any useful information.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “So even if it’s not really the kid you’re trying to get dirt on, Pam will now start thinking seriously about every move the Luther’s have made without the rose colored glasses.”

“Exactly. The,
everything here is wonderful
, attitude really does nothing to further our investigation. Pam Hind, by her own admission, came from the hood. To her, I’m sure, this neighborhood and everyone in it really is perfect, compared to what she’s seen in the past.”

A bracing wind cut down the tree-lined street and Louise and I both rushed to zip up our coats.

The cold from the concrete sidewalk had permeated my suede boots creating toe-cicles. I stomped in place to drive blood into my feet.

“Where to now?” I gritted between chattering teeth. “Please tell me it’s somewhere indoors and warm.”

She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Standard drill. Talk to everyone who knew the Luthers, find out if there’s any smoking gun evidence, and solve the case. You know – typical day at the office.”

“Okay, but where do we begin?”

“Nothing really jumps out at me as the best starting place.” She shrugged. “The father’s work?”

I checked my watch. “That would be a tomorrow thing, because they’re closed by now. What about the Grandmother’s murder?”

Louise raised her eyebrows. “You think they might be connected?”

“Three murders, one family? Most families don’t experience one murder in a lifetime, let alone three.”

Even the best odds maker in Vegas wouldn’t make book on that one.

“Maybe the family is dirty,” I said. “Maybe they’re part of the mob.”

Louise’s eyes rolled heavenward. “You and that Elliot Ness fantasy.”

“What?” I splayed my arms out in front of me. “The mob used to run through Saint Paul all the time. Capone, Baby Face, even Dillinger called this town home at one time or another. Who’s to say one of the modern mob families hasn’t decided to follow in the footsteps of their underworld forefathers?”

“Catherine.”

“What?” I tried to sound equally nonplussed.

“Go home to Gavin and get a terrible night’s sleep.”

I snapped to attention and saluted her.

“If you insist.”

She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Give him my love.”

“No way, but I will give him mine.” I waggled my eyebrows, and then took off toward my car before Louise could change her mind.

“See you tomorrow,” Louise called after me.

I waved my hand in the air but didn’t turn back. “Bright and early.”

Dinner, Gavin’s special meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans smothered in his secret seasoning, was cold by the time I made it through the front door of our run down old Victorian house. I found Gavin elbow deep in dishwater. KC a mutt that followed Gavin Home from vacation was nestled at his feet. Part of my brain whispered that if I didn’t have Gavin my kitchen would look like Pam Hind’s.

“I’m sorry I missed dinner, again.” I slid my arms around Gavin’s waist and kissed his cheek.

KC raised his head and gave a low growl so I toed him toward the living room. He grudgingly moved to the other side of the table and lay down but kept a close eye on me. My relationship with KC was tentative at best, but we were learning to find space for each other for Gavin’s sake.

He turned his face toward me and kissed the top of my head. “At least you’re home before I fell asleep on the couch, again.”

I picked an apple from a bowl on the stove and felt around it for brown spots.

“It’s not my fault you fall asleep. Try watching something more stimulating than the
Weather Channel
.”

My thumb pushed through a soft spot and I threw the apple in the trash. Gavin let out a disgusted grunt but decided not to pursue the old argument we’ve had since we started dating about cutting off the brown spots. Just the thought made me nauseated.

“Nag, nag, nag.” He removed the last dish from the water, rinsed it, and pulled the plug on the dirty dishwater. “You criticize the
Weather Channel
and you criticize the other shows I watch.”

“Like what other shows?”

“
C.S.I.
”

“I like
C.S.I.
but it unrealistically raises the expectations of victims of real crimes. I’m good at my job but I can’t solve a crime in less than forty-five minutes.”

I plucked another apple from the bowl, pressed my fingers around the outside, found no soft spots, and took a bite.

“Besides,” I said, through a mouth full of Honeycrisp. “Some of the stuff they do on that show you can’t do in real life. Especially not with our budget.”