Death Wore Brown Shorts (Happy Holloway Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

A
nnie set
the lamp down and rushed to Evie. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“I’ve been hiding out at your house a few days now.” She offered an apologetic smile, but it did nothing to alleviate the feeling of being violated in Annie. “I had a key.”

“I’ve never given you a key.”

“I’ve house and pet sat for Jane many times, and no one is as efficient as she is.”

Annie frowned. “Don’t talk about Jane that way.”

Evie stood and brushed off her bum. “I didn’t mean any offense. I just mean Jane labels everything, and she has a bunch of keys on the inside wall of her kitchen cabinet. One of them is labeled with your name. A long time ago, I made a copy of it.”

Annie swallowed a few times. “That’s… I don’t know what to say to that.”

“I know. You’re my friend. She is too, and I never intended to ever use the key. A few years ago I became a different person, someone I’m ashamed to admit to now.”

“You mean you started stealing with Paul.”

Evie’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, I got the stuff for him, and he sold it. We split the profits.”

“Where did you get the stuff?”

For the first time since they began talking, Evie smiled. “You haven’t figured that much out?”

Irritation stirred in Annie, but she said nothing.

“From everybody, the nosy busybodies, strangers, anyone we came into contact with. I’ll tell you how it worked.”

Annie considered insisting she tell it to the police. She was angry and hurt, but in case Evie didn’t decide to confess, Annie wanted to have the real story. Hearsay wouldn’t work, which would be what her testimony would be, but it might help the police break the case in some other way.

“I kept attending those stupid charity events the ladies run. Sometimes the venue selected was a fancy restaurant. Often, the smaller events took place in one of our homes.”

Annie suddenly thought of all the codes they found at Paul’s apartment. They were addresses and numbers to houses. She guessed the random words were simple descriptions of the locations, like a fichus at the foot of the porch steps and so on.

“Many of our houses are big enough to entertain, and half the society ladies like to show off the gaudy furnishings they just paid for.”

Annie couldn’t dispute a word. She had attended the parties herself. Jane’s barbeques were far less formal, but the ladies loved them no less. Quite a few guests crowded her yard and her house during her events, not to mention everyone else’s in their circle.

“Aside from the parties, Annie, I was invited in to demonstrate how I can train their dogs not to leap on the furniture and to obey simple commands. I travel all over the city doing this, and I make a decent side income.”

“Then why steal?”

Evie’s expression hardened. “To protect myself. I’ll never let anyone treat me like Icky did.”

“It’s in the past. Let it go, sweetheart.”

“I will, when I know I have enough to sustain me the rest of my life, and no one can threaten my livelihood.”

“I understand your pain, Evie.”

Her friend scoffed. “How could you? You’ve never had a husband take food from your mouth. You make your living on your own, and no one can take it away. How could you understand what I’ve dealt with?”

“Everyone has their heartaches.”

Rage burned in Evie’s eyes. Annie had seen her anger many times before, but she never realized it went so deep.

“All those ladies too spoiled to struggle,” Evie complained. “One day I realized they had electronics just lying around right out there in the opening. Phones, cameras, tablets, you name it. Most of them forgot they even bought the stuff, and they have so much extra money, they don’t bother to trade in the equipment when they purchase more.”

Annie gasped. “You stole from our friends?”

Evie scoffed. “They’re not our friends, Annie. Open your eyes. You’re so naïve about the world.”

“I’m not.”

“You think everyone is good and wonderful.”

“
Definitely
not.”

She glared, frustrated obviously by Annie’s calm denial. “Anyway, yes, I stole the stuff. It was the best idea I have ever had. Steal what’s right in front of their noses, stuff they will never miss. Not one of them in three years has ever reported a robbery.”

“That’s very clever.”

“Isn’t it?” Evie laughed, a cold and bitter sound.

“How did you get the equipment out of the houses with so many guests around?”

“Silly, I didn’t steal during the parties. The parties and the in-home training was just to get my eyes on what was available and the kinds of locks or security I was dealing with.”

Annie shifted weight from one leg to the other and searched the attic for somewhere to sit down. Evie slid a sturdy box free of the others and patted it for Annie to sit.

“I’m fine. Thanks. So you broke in later?”

“Yes.”

Evie dropped to the box and folded one leg over the other as if they sat in the living room having a nice visit. Annie rubbed her palms over her pants legs. Evie eyed her agitated movements with interest. Annie tried to look casual, but the attic’s atmosphere with its dust and dirt was getting to her.

“Do you mind if we go downstairs, Evie? Now that I know you’re here, we can sit in the kitchen, and I’ll make you something to eat if you like.”

Evie hesitated and then nodded. They trooped downstairs to Annie’s kitchen, and Annie began the process toward making food despite the hour. From Evie’s look of hunger, she guessed the woman hadn’t eaten in a few days.

Evie sat at the table, while Annie scoured the refrigerator. When she bent low to open the vegetable bin, her phone pressed into her leg. She considered excusing herself to go to the bathroom and call the police but doubted Evie would fall for it. Not that she was afraid, but she wasn’t sure what to think. She wanted to hear more of the story.

“So you started to break into houses later.”

“That’s the interesting part.” Evie all but stuck her chest out at her own cleverness. “I trained the dogs.”

“What dogs?”

“I only hit houses where there were dogs I have trained. Every one of those bitties have dogs. Of course a lot of them have the small cutesy kind. Sometimes I can work around it. Too many owners to count have bigger dogs, and I trained them to unlock the door.”

Annie gaped. “Dogs can turn doorknobs?”

Evie laughed. “They don’t have to turn the knob, but some clever ones can. No, they unlock the door, and I let myself in. I make sure I have the all clear, and then give a signal for them to act. It’s so easy, it’s scary. I love it.”

“The dogs are accomplices.” Evie’s story blew Annie away. Not for a million years would she have thought of such a thing.

“Every situation doesn’t work the way I want it to, and not every dog cooperates, but enough do. Enough
did
to keep us selling. I packaged the small items in a plain box and pretended to be shipping it. Paul picked it up, and did his part. No one suspected,
ever
.”

“You had an argument? He wanted more money?”

Evie frowned. “No.”

“He was strangled.”

Evie surged to her feet, and her dog whined. “I’m not a murderer! I didn’t kill Paul.”

“If you—”

A thump against the back door made them both jump. Evie stared at the door, and Annie trembled. Was someone out there listening? She recalled the night someone chased her through the trees. Come to think of it, she spotted Evie’s dog then.

Annie started to ask Evie about it, but her front doorbell rang followed by pounding on the door. In her pocket, her cell started to ring. Evie took a step toward the back door, and the dog barked. Annie looked at him. She could swear Shadow warned Evie someone was outside.

Duh, of course he warned me. He heard the sound just like we did.

Shadow’s warning wasn’t unusual, but it seemed like he didn’t want her to open the door, which was odd.

Evie sighed and sat down again. “Annie, please take care of Shadow. I don’t think Gary will do it out of spite. He hates me.”

“I couldn’t!”

“Why? He’s a great watchdog, and you live in this mausoleum alone. Look how long I lived in the attic without you knowing. He will smell and hear anyone who steps foot on your property.”

“Yes, but…”

“If you’re worried about what I taught him, no one knows the signals. Just me. If I tell him to protect you, he will. Please, Annie. I can’t bear the thought of him going to a shelter and maybe being put to sleep.”

The banging on the door started again, this time accompanied by a shout. Annie recognized Detective Lawson’s voice. She cast a glance in Evie’s direction and received a nod. Annie checked her phone display as she headed down the hall to let the detective in. Flynn shot a text to her phone.

“Annie, answer! I’m on my way there.”

She smiled. He really was a hero type.

“
T
he case is over
, Annie. I say let it go,” Flynn urged her.

“I say it’s not.”

Annie glared at Flynn as he raised his cup of black coffee to his mouth and sipped. She didn’t understand how he came all the way to Sam’s with her only to choose the most boring drink on the menu. Meanwhile, Annie stirred the whipped cream into her heavenly choice and savored a cooled mouthful.

“What makes you think so?”

“Instinct.”

He eyed her with skepticism.

“I still believe Evie didn’t kill Paul, and you have to admit, she confessed to the theft, but she keeps denying killing him or Icky.”

“Murder has a heavier charge than theft. She knows the police don’t have anything to pin the killings on her, but they do have her fingerprints on many of the goods Paul hadn’t sold yet. Even without her confession, she would be convicted.”

“You sound reasonable, but you’re wrong, my friend.”

He chuckled. “What part?”

“The murder. What have I been saying all this time?”

“Who else has reason to kill Paul and Icky?”

“Some other bad guy. They were dark characters.”

“Right after Icky told us about Evie?”

“Others might think he would inform on them, too.”

“I made friends with a guy at the station. He says Icky had a long rap sheet and that he’d been in and out of jail countless times. He’d never snitched on anyone except Evie. Honor among thieves, I guess. Probably didn’t consider her to be one of them. Or he might have had a grudge because she left him.”

Annie sighed. “I suppose you could be right. I don’t want to believe it, but I realize I never saw Evie the way she truly was. She seemed to despise us all.”

“I think she hated everyone after what she suffered. You’re different. You see the good. Don’t be ashamed of it.”

Annie blushed. “Thanks. So are you going home soon?”

“Yes, I’ve hired someone to clean out Paul’s apartment. The police confiscated all the boxes and the computer. Paul didn’t have much of a personal nature except his games and a few DVDs. My leave is ending, so I have to get back.”

“It was great meeting you, Flynn, and working with you.”

“I consider us friends now. Maybe I’ll call you in as a consultant on one of my cases.”

She laughed. “I don’t believe you. You kept trying to block me from everything. Are you going to keep investigating?”

“I’ll take your suggestion and expand my range. Who knows, in a year or two, I might be able to take on enough clients to make it a full time venture.”

“And you’ve already started by making friends at the police station down here. Although, I don’t think Detective Lawson likes you very much.”

“That’s because I kept calling him and informing him of facts he should have figured out for himself.”

“Maybe he thinks you’ll apply for and get his job.” Annie felt sorry for the poor man. Flynn in the little time she’d known him was a force and pretty intelligent.

He leaned back in his chair. “No thanks. I like the freedom of freelance. Well, I have to get going. Annie, call me if you ever need me, okay? Any help for you is on the house.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

She watched him through the window as he walked to his car and climbed in. Movement at her elbow made her look up. Lila studied Flynn as well. “For a man, he didn’t seem all that bad, hun. You should have made your push.”

“I’m not interested in men.”

Lila gazed down at her. “You’re not gay, Annie.”

She flushed. “No, I meant, I’m not interested in a relationship.”

The barista winked. “Give it time.”

Time? How old did she think Annie was? She thanked Lila for the delicious coffee and took her leave as well. Driving toward home, she changed her mind and direction. The route to the station didn’t take long, and she hoped all the way there that the police would allow her to see Evie.

Annie arrived at the station and gazed around. She spotted an officer in uniform standing at a copy machine. A frown on his face, he pounded the display several times and dropped a few choice words.

“I think you’ve hurt its feelings,” Annie teased.

The carrot top officer, about twenty-two if a day, looked up and blushed. “Electronics hate me.”

“Won’t you get into trouble if you break it?”

“Not if no one knows I did it.”

She blinked, and he laughed.

“I was kidding. Can I help you, ma’am?”

“It’s Annie. Yes, please. I’d like to visit with Evelyn Westra if I can.”

He frowned again. “I don’t think she’s allowed visitors other than her attorney.”

“Surely she’s been charged, right? It’s been a few days, and she’s seen the magistrate.”

He hesitated.

Annie clasped her hands together as if she intended to pray. “Please. I was working on the case privately with Flynn Aikens, and he thinks—”

“Flynn? Oh, he’s been a lot of help! You were working with him? That’s right someone did mention a woman…”

Annie waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, but she suspected this was the contact Flynn found, a young man impressed with Flynn’s methods and personality. She didn’t blame him.

“Okay.” The officer looked around. “Five minutes, Annie. Not a second longer. Got it?”

“Got it. What’s your name?”

“Thomas, but don’t think this means you can keep coming in here asking for favors just because you get bored and want to play detective. Amateurs shouldn’t attempt police work. Flynn has an investigator’s license, and he’s been trained.”

“So if I get a license and training, it’s fine?” she asked in a reasonable tone.

He spun away and led her to the area where they locked up prisoners. Annie imagined if she had delayed much longer, Evie would have been transferred to another longer-term prison while she awaited trial. A
speedy
trial might be a constitutional right, but “speedy” seemed to be subjective in most cases.

Evie stood in the corner of her cell when Annie approached. Her eyes were dulled, and she didn’t look around although Annie was pretty sure Evie knew she stood there. For herself, Annie stood a good foot and a half away from the bars and clutched her hands together in front of her.

“Evie? How are they treating you?”

“Like a prisoner.”

Annie winced. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Why should you care? Do you still have Shadow, or did you send him to the shelter after the police dragged me away in cuffs?”

The way she worded it, one would think Shadow was her child, and she protested the law cuffing her in front of his innocent eyes. Annie had heard in general the police didn’t like to do this.

“I have him, but I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know how long I can keep him. I’m not a pet person.”

Evie sighed. “What do you want, Annie?”

“The night you tried to frame Stacy with that package and called it in, did you chase me home?”

Evie’s eyes widened. “I guess I should have known that wouldn’t work. So you were out there, huh? You saw me?”

“Yes, I was out there.”

“Maybe all of Amberlon was up. My mistake. Normally, I could move just fine through our neighborhood at all hours. Shadow always let me know when people were around.”

“Handy.” Annie briefly considered if the police knew by now Shadow was trained in criminal activity. She imagined if Evie ratted out her dog, they might already have come to put him down—although she was no expert on the regulations for this type of thing.

“To answer your question, no, I didn’t chase you home. Shadow warned me you—or someone—was out there, but we steered clear.”

“I didn’t see him with you.”

“Sometimes, we don’t walk side-by-side.”

“You mean when you’re sneaking into other people’s houses?”

She scowled.

“Someone else was out there?”

“Could have been. He let me know another human was there, but he doesn’t give a count.” Her scathing tone accused Annie of suggesting such details. The fact that Shadow informed Evie was more than enough to impress Annie. She didn’t imply the dog performed circus acts.

“So you didn’t grab my ankle?”

“I had no reason to.”

“Did you try to run Flynn off the road?”

Evie slammed a fist against the bars. “I told you and the police, I’m not a murderer! I’m not going to take the charge because they’re too incompetent to do their jobs. If they even try to pin that on me, I swear, I’ll spend every last cent burying all of them!”

Evie ranted on for a few minutes until her fire died down again. Annie waited through the heat of the rage and then recalled her time was limited.

“I have one more question to ask you, Evie. Please answer. I believe it’s very important.”

“Whatever.”

“Do you still believe Mr. Potts died of a heart attack?”

“What?” Evie shook her head. “Where did that come from? Mr. Potts has been dead for years.”

“I know, but you were the one who always said he couldn’t have died of a heart attack. He was healthy and strong even at seventy.”

Evie rolled her eyes. “Nobody believed me. I’ve let it go, and I don’t get why you would bring it up.”

“Do you still believe it or not?”

“Jeez, Annie, I have more important things to worry about than an old rumor. Okay, fine. I loved that old guy. He taught me to train my first pet, and it took off from there. I know he was eccentric and a bit of a pervert, but I still loved him. No one can convince me he died of a heart attack. It came on suddenly and conveniently, but maybe I’m just in denial.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Get out of here, Annie, and don’t come back.”

Annie started to leave, but Evie stopped her. “Wait, there’s something…”

“I don’t want to hear any more right now.”

“I was in your attic.”

“I already know that!”

Evie walked over to the bars and held onto them. Annie swallowed hard. “I was bored and searched your boxes.”

“That’s a violation of privacy!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t find it yourself.”

Annie stilled. “Find what?”

“The old diary. From the name, I’m assuming it’s your relative, Hanna Holloway.”

“My great grandmother. We’ve had the house in our family a long time. I’m not surprised there were things up there from her time. I kept meaning to hire someone to come in and clean it out.”

Annie rambled to keep her mind distracted from the reality of what she had just learned. She didn’t care two figs about what her great grandmother left behind, least of all a diary. How much activity could the woman have gotten up to anyway in those days? Annie hated the cynical tone in her head, but her mood plummeted by the second.

“It’s pretty entertaining,” Evie said. She seemed to have no guilt whatsoever about having slogged through Annie’s family’s things. “Maybe the writing talent runs in your family. Anyway, what prompted me to take the diary was what she said about a treasure.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Evie shrugged. “Read it for yourself. I’ll tell you how to get into my house and where to find it.”

“The police are going to be crawling all over that place and take away whatever they feel will help to convict you.”

“They won’t find it.”

Annie started walking toward the exit.

“Annie wait! It seems like you’re really upset about something, and I don’t think it’s about me and what I did.”

She said nothing.

“There’s a ceramic frog at the base and to the right side of my porch steps,” Evie began. Annie listened with half an ear to the instructions on how to break into Evie’s house and where to find the diary. At the moment, Annie didn’t care if she ever found it or learned its secrets. As far as she was concerned, she had had enough of the Holloway blood.

She left the station and climbed into her car. Three miles down the road she had to pull over and sob her eyes out. Her chest constricted with so much pain, she almost wished she were having a heart attack. Then her life and what she had to face would slide away into the darkness.

After some time, she scrubbed her face clean and drew in a few breaths. She waited in silence a few minutes, ready for that sound that indicated her mind had cracked open. Nothing happened.

Like Evie claimed, Old Man Potts was a pervert. Unlike Evie, Annie didn’t agree it was a small matter. One afternoon, he called to Annie to help bring a potted plant in from the yard. She happened to be out jogging on one of the rare occasions when she drummed up enough will to exercise.

Glad of the excuse, she had helped Mr. Potts only to be groped on the butt. Annie had dropped the planter on his kitchen floor and run from his house crying. The next day, Mr. Potts was found lying in bed—
dead
.