Before Another Dies (3 page)

“I suppose you're right, Titus,” I said. “I'd appreciate you writing something up for the media. I assume you'll do the usual, ‘We have every confidence in the police . . .'”

“We don't know that it's a crime yet,” Larry observed. “It could be a death by natural causes. Still, you're right, we should be prepared.”

“What's going on out front?” A new voice added to the mix. Jon Adler hovered at my door. He looked at Larry and Titus. “I didn't know we were having a meeting. Why wasn't I invited?”

A thousand responses began to buzz in my brain. I have a smart mouth. It's been my burden for as long as I can remember. For most of my life, I didn't care. I considered it just quick wit, but lately I've been trying to rein in my tongue and failing more times than not.

“Because it's hard to talk behind your back when you're in our face,” Titus snipped.

Councilman Jon Adler was a pain. He caused his mother pain in childbirth and apparently found he had a gift for it. He was never happy unless he was unhappy and could find a reason for disagreeing with anyone about anything. He was as welcome as the flu. A thin, pinched-face man, he wore his emotions like a threadbare coat. An attorney, he too had run for mayor and almost won the seat. The thought chilled me. He had outspent me two-to-one but paid little attention to the only woman in the race. He attacked the other candidates with flourish and gusto. He was pit bull on the outside but easily backed down with a decent slap on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

“We're not meeting, Jon,” I said, stuffing away the more cutting remarks that came to mind. “People have been trailing through my office for the last twenty minutes. Larry and Titus are serving as buffers.”

“I'm not sure I believe that,” Adler said.

Titus's wide smile tightened like a guitar string. There was no love lost between those two. “I suppose we should tell him. We're planning to overthrow the city and make Mayor Glenn queen. You get to be the court jester.”

“Still trying to be funny, Titus,” Adler shot back. “Keep trying. You'll manage to crack a joke someday.”

“I know something I'd like to crack—”

“All right, gentlemen,” I said. “As much as I'm enjoying this, I think I'd better get back to work.”

“I'm sorry, Mayor . . . I'm sorry . . . Excuse me, please.” I squashed a smile as Floyd Grecian, my aide for the last six months, finally arrived with his usual dramatic flare. “I was reading this morning and lost track of the time. I know I'm late. It won't happen again.”

Floyd is a mixed bag of nuts. One moment he's brilliant and insightful, the next he's as lost as a puppy in the woods. Just twenty-two, he had graduated from California Baptist University in Riverside with a degree in business. A conflicted young man, he was trying to find himself and his place in the world. Right now, he was somewhere between entering the real estate market or being an actor in dinner theater. I hired him after I lost Randi Portman, something still too painful to dwell on. Floyd wasn't that interested in politics, but his father insisted that he get a job until he could figure out who he was going to be and what he was going to do. His father is the senior pastor of the church I started attending a few months ago. Hiring his son was a favor I was glad to do. Most of the time.

He pushed past Jon Adler who frowned so deeply I thought the corners of his mouth would touch his shoes. “Did you know that the police are out front and there's an ambulance and—” Floyd caught his foot on the leg of Titus's chair as he approached my desk. “Ouch! Sorry.”

“Easy, kid,” Titus said.

Floyd is a klutz. A lovable, efficient, and loyal klutz.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I found a dead man in his car.”

“Wow,” Floyd said. “Did you know he was in your parking spot?”

I looked past Floyd and saw Larry bite his lip in order to stifle the explosion of laughter that bubbled just behind his teeth.

“Yes, Floyd. I noticed that, too.” I turned to the others. “Okay, you deadbeats. I enjoy a party as much as the next girl, but we've just started a new year and I have work to do. Come to think of it, so do you.”

Titus and Larry rose, smiled, and exited. Jon hung around a little longer.

“Is there something I can do for you, Jon?”

“What are you not telling me?”

He didn't want to know. “You know, Jon, if paranoia was gold you'd be a wealthy man.”

I didn't think it was possible but he frowned even more. Since he seldom left anyplace without the final word, he turned to Floyd. “If you were my aide, I'd fire you before you could take a new breath.” “If you were my aide, I'd fire you before you could take a new breath.”

“He's not your aide, Jon, he's mine. Now stop fouling my air.” The power of the tongue won out over the discipline of the mind. I wished I could feel sorry about the comment but I couldn't see the advantage of adding hypocrisy to my sins.

He left without a word but not before making a dismissive sigh like a parent too frustrated for words. I do my best to get along with him and his council buddy, Tess Lawrence, but I take two steps back for every one I advance. I just wish I didn't enjoy it so much.

“Thanks,” Floyd said. “Sometimes I think I cause you more problems than I solve.”

“What? Jon Adler. No need to apologize for that. You're not responsible for his attitude.”

“I was referring to my being late—again. You're so punctilious, and I'm so oblivious to time.”

Punctilious.
I love that word. It rolls off the tongue. It also describes me pretty well. I hate being late, I don't like disorder on my desk, and I'm happiest when I can check things off my to-do list. “Maybe
you
need an assistant to assist you.”

“Maybe I just need to grow up a little more.” His shoulders drooped.

“Cheer up, Floyd. You've already done one good deed today. You annoyed Jon Adler.”

“I don't think he likes me.”

“He doesn't,” I said, “but take that as a compliment.”

“The guy that parked in your parking spot was really dead?” he asked.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Then why the ambulance? A dead guy doesn't need an ambulance, right?”

I had forgotten that he mentioned an ambulance was at the scene. “That's true.” Why was there an ambulance out front? Had someone gotten hurt? I immediately thought of West. My curiosity revved up. “I don't know, Floyd. Maybe . . .” Maybe what? “I think I'll go see.” I stood and rounded the desk. Floyd reluctantly stepped to the side. He looked like he wanted to ask something but was weighing all the possible answers. “Sure, you can come with me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

chapter 3

M
ost days I love being mayor. It adds order and purpose to my life.

Other days, I would sell the whole thing to the first person who walked into my office with a dime in his hand. Fortunately, those days are rare. Most mornings my job compels me out of bed, draws me to the office where I deal with matters that would cure most insomniacs. Zoning laws, budgets, taxes, ten-minute meetings that last hours, documents written by state lawyers, county lawyers, and even federal lawyers pile up every week. In all the tedium, despite the infighting, I find a sense of purpose. And purpose is more than a luxury in my life.

I live alone. Not by choice. Well, partly by choice. Nine years ago, Peter Glenn, businessman, sales executive for his father's commercial flooring company, kissed me good-bye in the morning and drove to his death in Los Angeles. The city of Angeles was a familiar place to Peter. He was a principle in his father's firm, a company that manufactured flooring for large commercial buildings. Much of what they made ended up adorning the concrete floors of high-rise office buildings. It sounds boring, but it was the wind in Peter's sails. He loved the business, the travel, the sales, and the interaction with clients.

It was after a meeting with one of those clients that two men decided they deserved Peter's yellow BMW Z3 Roadster more than he did. In LA they call it carjacking. Peter was not inclined to give things away, especially his car. He was not brave to the point of stupidity, but intimidation was not a natural response for him. His hesitancy cost him his life.

The call came at 10:12 that evening. To this day, I tense if the phone rings after dark.

Glenn Structural Materials carried a large life insurance policy on Peter. It paid off the house and gave me investment money to live on. Peter's father still pays his son's salary. He has for the last nine years. Twice a month an executive-size check arrives in the mail and no matter how much I protest, Peter's father continues to send them. “Twice a month,” he once told me, “I can pretend that my son is still alive.”

Murder kills more than one life.

We married young, Peter and I. I was still in my senior year of college at San Diego State University. San Diego was home for Peter. I majored in political science and he in business. He was movie-poster handsome, with eyes that seemed to give more light than they received. Our years together were good, but too few. People tell me that someday, I'll get over his murder.

No one gets over a murder.

So I live alone, in a three-thousand-square-foot house on the beach. It's a beautiful place, but even places of beauty have dark corners.

Peter was on my mind as I exited my office with Floyd following closer than my shadow. Almost a decade had passed and I'd adjusted to the solo life and to the fact that two hoods with a hand gun widowed me, but certain things launched the old memories. Seeing a dead body in a car added to the list. But, like Floyd, I was eager to know what else was going on in the front parking lot. Less than half an hour had passed since I walked into the office and less than an hour since I had called Chief Webb, but my curiosity had reached the outer limits of its patience.

We walked down the corridor and into a larger area filled with a half-dozen desks, most empty. At one time, all the secretarial work was done by employees seated at these ugly gray desks. We remodeled the office wing of city hall a few years ago, expanding the council members' offices to include an additional office for one primary staff member. It increased privacy and made communications easier. Part-time and temp help used these desks. One of my greatest challenges was keeping down the cost of doing city business. It won me no awards and made a few enemies, but such things came with this job.

The open area bordered the lobby and was separated by a short pony wall. The wall was the demarcation line between the public world and the realm of civil servants. To one side of the large lobby was the city clerk's office; on the other side was the building department. These offices need direct public access. Council members' offices were off limits to the public unless they had appointments. Politics brings out the anger in some people. It is good to have at least a symbolic barrier between them and us.

A wide desk sat just inside the pony wall and seated behind it like a sentry in a castle tower was Fritzy, a gray-haired woman who had left middle age in her wake. Her real name was Judith Fritz and a sweeter woman never walked the earth. Her smile was wide, as were her hips and everything connected to them. In a world where magazine covers and movie screens dictated beauty, Fritzy was comfortable with who she was and how she appeared. A little dye from a box would have matched her hair to her dark eyebrows, but such things never seemed to cross her mind. Her beauty was self-generated and poured out of her like light streaming from a lighthouse. Two or three years ago, Jon Adler had the audacity to suggest that the city “might benefit from a younger, more attractive receptionist.” The silence that filled the conference room was as cold as arctic water. No one spoke but a message was delivered so clearly that Jon never brought it up again. I hope Fritzy never changes.

“Good morning, Madam Mayor,” Fritzy said as we approached the lobby. “Did I miss you when you came in?”

“Good morning, Fritzy. I came in the back way. Had to park in the back lot this morning.” Members of the council and key staff can enter the building through a private entrance, allowing us to avoid whoever might be sitting in the lobby.

“There's a dead guy in the front lot,” Floyd said with enthusiasm.

Fritz cringed, then looked at me. I rolled my eyes. Floyd's mouth often worked without the encumbrance of premeditation.

“A man passed away in his car last night,” I said. “The police are investigating.”

“Yeah, he parked in the mayor's spot, too,” Floyd added.

“I didn't know,” Fritzy admitted. “I thought I heard a lot of whispering around here.”

Fritzy lives in an older part of the city and the shortest route to city hall brings her in over the back streets. She wouldn't have seen the front lot.

“I'm going out for a few moments, and I'm taking Floyd with me. Will you take messages for me?” It was an unneeded question—that was part of her job—but courtesy never hurts, or so my mother has told me many times.

“Of course. Be careful.”

I smiled. I wasn't sure what I should be careful of, but it was always good to know someone cared.

The sun had climbed a few more degrees along its course when we pushed through the large golden oak doors and into the outdoors. The air smelled of ocean salt, and a gentle breeze was picking up from the west. It would have been another picture-postcard day in Santa Rita had it not been for the blight of death parked in my space.

We moved from the front of city hall along the meandering concrete walk that split the carpet of lawn that lay between the black asphalt of the parking lot and the arched mission-style building that served as our local seat of government. The lot was more crowded than when I had left. Just as Floyd had said, an ambulance had been allowed into the lot. A white van was parked to one side. Two men, both smoking, leaned against the Ford and looked bored. The county emblem was on the side of the van as was the word CORONER.