Current Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mysteries) (4 page)

“It just had to be him,” Tara said.

“I’ll go tell Kelly!” we all volunteered at the same time.

“All right, Victoria, you go tell her. Just hurry.”

Unfortunately, she didn’t get away in time. “So it’s the ladies of Tiara Investigations.
 
You found the body?”

 
“We saw him get plugged.” Victoria turned toward the house.

Tara looked up at the detective. “She’s actually very sensitive.”

He did a double take at Victoria walking away. “Where does she think she’s going?” Victoria stopped where she was. “All right,” he continued, when he mistakenly thought he had regained control, “I would like you three to turn over your weapons to the crime scene investigators for analysis.”

“The dogs?”
Tara yelled out.

“For the love of Pete.”
 

I put my arm around Tara’s shoulder. “Sweetie, he means guns.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Victoria slip off to the house. Kelly was looking out a front window, but I didn’t know how long she’d been there.

Tara turned to Kent and distracted his attention. “Actually, we feel our society has way too many guns, and we did not want to add to ….”

 
“What’s the deceased’s name? Did you see who shot him?” This was through clenched teeth, clenched jaw and probably clenched butt, if I cared to look, which I didn’t. The Dirty Harry routine had lost its power over me, owing to the fact that a real human had just died, leaving behind a wife and maybe grieving parents, maybe brothers and sisters.

“His name is David Taylor, and we saw him fall. That’s all, I’m sorry to say.” And I was.

“You didn’t see anything else?”

 
“No.” I drew the word out and glanced at Tara.

“How about you?
Did you see anything?” he asked Tara.

“No.” She had understood my look and was doing her part prolonging this until Victoria could get inside.

Then he looked back at me, “Did you hear anything?”

I just shook my head. “I think we heard the bullet swish by, but we didn’t know that’s what it was.”

“How about you?
Did you hear anything?”
This to Tara.
She also shook her head. I didn’t catch his exact words, but by that time I could assume it was, “For the love of Pete.”

We stared at him, both of us thinking the same thing. The entire staff of Tiara Investigations had witnessed a murder, but we could not give him one single clue. In our year in business we had helped so many women, ourselves included, and I had a foreboding that it was all slipping away.

Just then we heard a
godawful
racket coming from our car. “What the hell?” Both Tara and Detective Kent yelled this at the same time. She had almost jumped out of her skin. In any other circumstance, that would have cracked me up. All three dogs were scratching on the SUV window and yelping at the top of their lungs.

“Are those dogs?” Detective Kent was craning his neck to see. I noticed he had stepped in front of her.
What the hell, indeed. What am I chopped liver?

Tara answered him, “We use our dogs for protection. With the type of cases we specialize in, it works out just fine. This close to menopause, gun toting just didn’t seem like a good idea. And why the hell are we talking about menopause at a time like this? ”

“We weren’t, sweetheart. We were talking about guns.” This time she wasn’t faking it so Kent would forget about Victoria. She was really getting nervous. I felt she needed a break, and I was guessing the dogs were telling us they did, too, if we ever wanted to use that car again.

 
Tara put leashes on all three and got them out of the car. A second later they took off down the dark street at a breakneck speed.

Kent stared at the sight. “Is she going to be all right?”

“She’ll be fine.”
To do – train dogs.

“No weapons in your vehicle?”

“No-o-o.”
Victoria joined me and stood by my side.
There would have been if she hadn’t gotten those dogs out in time.

“Has your vehicle been moved since the shooting?” I had read enough mysteries to know this would tell them the direction the bullet had been fired from.

I told him where we had stopped when the shot was fired.

 
“I’d like to get statements from the three of you.
At the station.
Tomorrow afternoon.”

I said we would be happy to come, like it had been an invitation. Then I looked into the night at Tara and the three dogs.

“I work out of the North Precinct. The office is on Mall of Georgia Boulevard in Buford, next to the mall. Do you need to write that down?”

Me on the outside, “We’re good.” Me on the inside,
Oh, you mean that police station at the Mall of Georgia where we followed you on your way to have lunch with your girlfriend? That police station?

I could only imagine how miserable the detective could have made our lives if we’d had guns at a murder scene. Maybe the dogs had provided the best protection after all. This little moment of reverie didn’t last long. Kelly Taylor came out the front door with two female officers. She ran up to us at the end of the driveway and grabbed my arms and swung me around.

Tears streamed down her face. “You were here! How did this happen?” From the way Victoria took half a step back and from the surprised look on her face, I guessed this level of upset was different from what she had witnessed in the house for the few minutes she had been with her. Victoria walked around us and embraced her. Kelly let go of my arms and let herself be led away by a police officer.

When I told Detective Kent we would stay with her, he said no, or at least that’s the construct I put on his laughing in my face. Tara returned with the dogs, and Victoria and I helped get them off their leashes and back in the Lexus.
 
This added to the swarm of police activity and pretty much busted his give a damn, or so I thought until he swaggered up and stood right in front of me. “You three are untrained, ill equipped and incompetent.” He had leaned over to get right in my face.
One problem.
I’m almost as tall as he is. He had to swoop back up. His comment stung, but I was still standing. Tara and Victoria saw I had the situation in hand and took this as the perfect opportunity to go the house.

“And you’re not trying to undermine our credibility with our other clients, are you?” We stared at each other like ten-year-olds for longer than I care to admit. Finally, I walked around him and joined the others on the front porch. A female police officer passed us on her way out.

We three entered a large, sparsely furnished living room. Kelly Taylor was sitting on a citron chintz sofa, hugging her knees. The sofa and a coffee table were the only two pieces of furniture in the room. I looked down the entryway and saw a family room decorated with everything you’d expect. That room was contemporary and casual, but the living room seemed to be headed in a classic direction.

She seemed friendlier to us than she had been outside, so Tara sat down next to her and took her hand. Victoria and I stood near the wall. After expressing our sympathy, we asked a few questions. We wanted something to give Kent the next day. I guess we were just trying to save face—or prove him wrong when we were afraid to think he might be right in his characterization of the business we had built. Although we had not discussed what we would say, the three detectives of Tiara Investigations were singing from the same page of the hymnal.

Victoria went first. “What did your husband say when he told you he was going out?”

“He got a call on his cell phone. He said he had to go back to his office tonight for a nine o’clock conference call. That’s when I called you.”

“Is his office in walking distance?” I asked.

“No.”
 

She had been through so much and would be going through more in the days and weeks to come. I would not have kept on if I didn’t think it was important. “He was shot near the end of the driveway, not near the garage.”

This was met with silence so Victoria picked up. “Could he have been meeting someone in the neighborhood?”

“I, I don’t know,” she stammered. “That’s not what he said he was going to do.”

Me on the inside,
hel
-l-o-o-o, you do remember why you hired us, don’t you?
Me on the outside, “Did the police give you David’s cell phone?”

She shook her head no.

“I thought we could look at the call history.”

“I’ll check in the bedroom to see if it’s there.”

“Thank you.” Tara gave her hand another squeeze.

 
She rose from the sofa, and every step made you tired just to watch. She returned shortly with a cell phone and handed it to me.

“He left it charging.”

I gave it to Victoria to write down the phone numbers in the call history. Was the fact that he had left it behind further evidence that he wasn’t going far or for long?

The front door opened, and a petite black woman with close cropped salt and pepper hair let herself in. Her lips were pressed into a straight line, and she looked, well, pissed. This was an emotion I didn’t really understand given the circumstances. Anyway, she had First Baptist Church of Anywhere written all over her.

“Mom!”
Kelly ran to her, and they embraced.

We looked at our shoes, then at one another. Kelly needed her mom, not us. They were doing what normal families do when tragedy
comes
calling. Tiara Investigations left, and on the way out we told her we would telephone the next day.

I stopped on the porch. “Where’s Detective Kent?”

Victoria scanned the officers and vehicles that had sprouted all around. “I think he’s gone.”

“He forgot something.” I led the way back to the car. We had to walk on the lawn because there was yellow tape wrapped around trees and the mail box, cutting off the driveway.

“He forgot to say goodbye.” Tara stopped and put her hand on her hip.

“And he forgot to search Victoria’s car.”

 
We drove through the night back to our cul-de-sacs where we had houses that we hoped would keep us safe. Even when they did,
cul-de-sac
was still just a euphemism for dead end.

“Why do you think he left his cell phone at home?”

Victoria and Tara answered together, “He didn’t want to be reached.” One of the dogs barked in agreement. I was sure it was Abby, the smartest one. “We know he wasn’t going where he said he was going, but we don’t know where he was headed. Victoria, how did she take the news of her husband’s murder?”

“It took a while for her to come to the door. She must have been in the back part of the house. She was shocked, but after about a minute she started processing it.”

“Processing the reality of it?” Tara was rubbing her forehead.

“No, deciding whether or not it was a bad thing.”

“
Hm
-m-m,” we said in unison.

“We know she didn’t shoot him.” Tara threw this out, like it was common knowledge.
 

I turned around to face her. “How do we know that? Just because when she came outside she seemed to be blaming us for something?”

“I think the man the dogs were tracking shot him.”

“Is that why you let the dogs drag you down the street? Are your shoes okay?”

She gave a little laugh at that. “Who said I let them drag me? But I was holding on to those leashes for dear life so I could get a look at him.”
 

Victoria glanced at her in the rear view mirror. “So the person he was going to meet was out there?”

“Did you see anyone?” I asked.

“No, you know I don’t see that well in the dark.”

“Laser.”
I pointed to my eyes indicating a suggestion I had made before. “But you could tell it was a man?”

She pointed to her own eyes and replied to my laser suggestion with one of her own. “Night vision goggles, and yes, I could tell it was a
he
.”

“How?”
Victoria asked.

“Please.” Tara rolled her eyes.

Victoria nodded and dropped it. By then we were back at my house, but we just sat in the car in the night air.

“So someone was coming to meet David Taylor or pick him up, since he didn’t go to the garage,” I summarized. Tara and I walked around to the driver’s side and leaned on the side of the car.

“Since we didn’t hear anything, does that mean the killer was using a silencer?” Victoria leaned out of the car. “I don’t know what a gunshot sounds like. Do either of you?”

Tara shook her head.

“That sounds like something we should all know, doesn’t it?”

Tara’s eyes widened. “I hate to answer a question with a question, but why? Last time I checked we handled matrimonial cases.”

“You’re right, and besides, what are the chances we’ll be at the scene of a murder ever again?”
 
Here Victoria stopped speaking and reached her hand palm down out the window, the way we did it when we decided to start our agency. “But I don’t want to just walk away from Kelly. I feel sorry for her, and I feel we have some responsibility here.”