Kansas City Secrets (5 page)

When the poodle finally stopped dancing around long enough to lick his knuckles, Max figured it was safe to open the gate and go inside. Apparently, Rosie March had spent a bit of her newly acquired wealth on more than security. Though this was by no means a mansion, the old house had plenty of room for one woman, and was well taken care of. New roof and shutters. Freshly painted siding and trim. The pool in the middle of her backyard was long and narrow, meant for swimming laps instead of sunbathing beside. Yet there was still plenty of green space for the dogs to roam. He shrugged and petted the pooches, who were leading as much as following him on his stroll around the yard. Nothing looked out of place here, but then his real purpose for volunteering to do recon was so the lady of the house would take the panic level down a few notches and talk to Trent.

And he could get his head together and remember he was a cop. He needed to do better. So far, the only thing he knew for sure about this investigation was that Rosie March smelled like summer and her hesitant touch stayed with him like a brand against his skin.

Max rubbed at the spot on his chest. So what did that mean? He was lonesome enough or horny enough to think he was attracted to Miss Prim & Proper just because she'd touched him? Or was that a stamp of guilt because his big, brusque attitude had frightened the woman when he should have been calming her?

“Idiot!” Max punched the palm of his hand.

The German shepherd barked at the harsh reprimand and darted several paces away. “Easy, girl.” He held out his hand and let the big dog cautiously sniff and make friends again. “I'm not mad at you. I'll bet your mama never raises her voice like that, does she.” He cupped a palmful of warm fur and scratched around the dog's ears. Who was he to call Rosie the Redhead crazy? He wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders himself today. “Don't you be afraid of me, too.”

While the shepherd forgave his harsh tone and pushed her head into the stroke of his hand, the poodle rolled on her back in the grass, completely comfortable with his presence there. Max chuckled. “At least somebody around here likes me.”

And then he became aware of eyes on him. Not a shy gray gaze worried about what uncouth thing he'd say or do next. But spying eyes. Suspicious eyes.

With his senses on alert, Max knelt down between the two dogs and wrestled with them both, giving himself a chance to locate the source of the curious perusal. There. East fence, hiding behind a stand of sweet corn and tomato plants. Nosy neighbor at nine o'clock. With a clap of his hands, the dogs barked and took off running at the new game.

Max pushed to his feet and zeroed in on the dark-haired woman wearing a white bandanna and gardening gloves. “Morning, ma'am.”

Her eyes rounded as though startled to be discovered, and she tightened her grip on the spool of twine she'd been using to tie up the heavy-laden tomato plants. “Good morning. Are you the police?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He tapped his badge on his belt. “Detective Krolikowski, KCPD. And you are...?”

“Arlene Dinkle. We've lived here going on thirty years now,” she announced. “There's not going to be trouble with Rosemary again, is there?”

Again?
The dogs returned and circled around his legs. Max sent them on their way again. “Trouble?”

Mrs. Dinkle parted the cornstalks that were as tall as she was and came to the fence. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “There was a man who used to stay with her sometimes. Don't think the whole neighborhood didn't notice. Things haven't been right at this house for a long time.”

Maybe he could pick up some useful information on this recon mission, after all—and make up for the interview he'd botched out on the front porch. Max strolled to the fence to join her. “You mean Miss March's fiancé? He stayed here?”

“A couple of times a week. When he was alive.” The older woman clucked her tongue behind her teeth. “Some folks think she killed him, you know. Between those rumors and her juvenile delinquent brother, she definitely brought down the quality of this neighborhood.”

That shy, spooked lady on the front porch brought down the neighborhood? That delicate, feminine facade could be the perfect cover for darker secrets. And if Bratcher had been here on a regular basis, she'd have had plenty of opportunity to slip him the poison that had killed him.

But he was having a hard time aligning the image of a calculated murderess with the skittish redhead who protected herself with an unloaded gun. She wasn't that good of an actress, was she? “You know anything about that murder?”

“I should say not.” Unlike Rosemary March, Max could read this woman with his eyes closed. Arlene Dinkle liked to gossip. Although he found her holier-than-thou tone a little irritating, the cop in him was inclined to let her. Judging by the streaks of silver in her black hair, she'd been sticking her nose into other people's business for a long time. “Now there's all that publicity with that legal settlement or wherever her nine million dollars came from. Did you know there were reporters at her house two months ago? One of them even came to our home to find out what we knew about her.”

“And you told this reporter about Miss March entertaining her fiancé overnight, what, six, seven, years ago? Did you ever see any indication that Mr. Bratcher was violent with Rosie?”

“Rosie? Oh. You mean Rosemary. Yes, there was that one time she came to our house to use our phone—said her lawyer friend who was getting her all that money after her parents' plane crash—oh, the Colonel and Meg were such good people—I don't understand how their children could turn out so—”

“What did Rosie say about her lawyer friend?” Max cut her off before she rambled away on a useless tangent.

She snorted a laugh that scraped against his eardrums. “
Rosemary
said he'd trapped her inside the house until she agreed to sign some prenuptial agreement and marry him. Made no sense at all. They were already engaged. She pounded on our door in the middle of the night, woke Otis and me both out of a sound sleep. Blubbering about how we needed to call the police.” The dogs were circling again. Disapproval seeped into Arlene's tone and she pulled back from the fence. “That's when she got the big dog. Washed out of K-9 training. But I swear that dog would still take a bite out of you if you look at her crosswise. The little one digs in the topsoil of my garden, too. Reaches right under the fence. Rosemary ought to put up a privacy fence. She certainly can afford to do it.”

Really?
Then how would you spy on her?
Max kept his sarcasm to himself and followed up on the one key word that might actually prove useful in an investigation. “You said
trapped
. Was Rosie—Miss March—injured in any way that night? Did you believe her when she told you that her fiancé hurt her? Threatened her?”

“Oh, she had some blood on her blouse and she was cradling her arm. I thought maybe she'd been in a car accident or had fallen down the stairs. We let her use the phone right away, of course, and sat with her until the ambulance and police arrived. But we saw her fiancé drive away, so I wondered why she just wouldn't use her own phone.”

“If Bratcher hurt her, she was probably afraid he'd come back. Getting out of the house would be a smart survival tactic.”

Arlene straightened, as though insulted that he would doubt her word against Rosie's. “Richard Bratcher was an upstanding member of the community. Why on earth a handsome, charming man like that would ever have to resort to anything so—”

“Arlene.” Max caught a glimpse of movement at the sliding glass door on the Dinkles' patio before another man's voice interrupted the tale. “I'm sure the detective isn't here to chat with you. You let him be.”

Arlene whirled around on the man with salt-and-pepper hair who must be her husband. “He asked me questions. We were having a conversation.”

“Uh-huh.” The lanky older man extended his hand over the fence. “I'm Otis Dinkle. We've lived next door to Rosemary and her family since she was a little girl. Is everything okay?”

At least Arlene had the grace to look a little ashamed that she hadn't asked that. Max lightly clasped the older man's hand, assuming that his presence meant he wasn't getting any more facts or nonsense from his wife. “Max Krolikowski, KCPD. I'm not sure, sir. My partner and I are looking into an old case.” Maybe this was as good a time as any to test the veracity of Rosie's claims about receiving threats. “But I understand there may have been a disturbance here yesterday?”

“You mean like a break-in?”

Max nodded. “Or a trespasser on the property?”

“Not that I've seen.” Otis tucked his fingers into the pockets of his Bermuda shorts and shrugged. “She was gone all day yesterday. I didn't see any activity after she took the dogs out for their morning walk.”

“Her new attorney dropped her off last night,” Arlene added. “Her dead fiancé's brother. I knew there was something funny going on. The two of them probably—”

Otis put up a hand, silencing his wife's opinion. “She didn't even let him into the house, Arlene. I don't think it's anything serious.”

Max arched a curious brow. So the gossipy missus wasn't the only one watching the March house. “You saw her come home last night?”

Otis nodded. “We keep an eye on each other's place. Maybe chat in the front yard or across the fence when we're both out mowing. Other than that, though, Rosemary keeps pretty much to herself. We used to do stuff with her parents, but now that they're gone, she's just not that social.”

“You didn't see anyone lurking around the house who shouldn't be?”

“Her dogs would have raised a ruckus. I didn't hear anything like that.”

“They were locked up inside, Otis,” Arlene reminded him.

“So, no intruders?” Max clarified. “Nothing you saw that seemed...off to you?”

Otis scratched at his bald spot, considering the question. “No, sir. Other than she didn't go for her regular swim this morning. It's been pretty quiet around here since her brother got put in jail. But then, we're retired. We don't keep late hours.”

Yet he spied over the fence often enough to know Rosie's morning routine and when she came home at night. Curious.

“Well, if you do see anything suspicious, give us a call, would you?” Max reached into his back pocket and handed the man a business card with his contact information.

Arlene clutched the ball of twine against her chest. “Are we in any danger?”

“I don't think so, ma'am.”

Otis held the card out at arm's length and read it. “I'll be. Cold Case Squad? This isn't about a break-in. Are you investigating her fiancé's murder, Detective Krolikowski? You think she did it?”

If poison wasn't such a premeditated means of murder, he might have been willing to dismiss his suspicions about Rosie as a justified case of self-defense. “Do you?”

“If you'd said Stephen, yes—that kid always was the rebellious sort. Good thing he was in rehab that week or you cops would have come down really hard on him. But honestly, I can't see Rosemary raising a hand to anybody. But what do I know? Like I said, she keeps to herself.” He winked as a grin spread across his face. “It's those quiet ones you can't trust, right?”

With Arlene's snort of derisive agreement, Max reached down to pet the German shepherd, dismissing the Dinkles. He'd stomached about all he could of polite conversation today. “Remember to give me a call if you see or hear anything suspicious.”

“Will do.”

Max clapped his hands and played one more game of try-to-catch-me with the dogs while the couple went back to their back porch, arguing about people breaking in next door and whether or not the neighborhood was safe anymore. As he watched the two dogs run a wide circle around the perimeter of the yard, Max shook his head. If the Dinkles were his neighbors, he'd probably avoid socializing, too.

So what, exactly, would make a healthy woman of means isolate herself the way Rosie March had? Keeping a low profile was generally rule number one for someone who'd committed a crime. Was it the publicity surrounding the lawsuit and sudden fortune she'd won? There were probably friends and family coming out of the woodwork, trying to get a piece of that nine million dollars. He'd hate that kind of spotlight, too. Was she ashamed because her brother had killed a woman, robbing her for a fix? Nobody knew better than him what it felt like to miss the signs of a loved one spiraling out of control. Or was Miss Rosie March just plain ol' afraid of her own shadow because life had dealt her a raw hand? That could explain the frequent 9-1-1 calls and why she'd unpack her daddy's Army pistol.

Max had a feeling there were a whole lot of secrets that woman was keeping. Ferreting them out would require a degree of insight and patience he lacked. KCPD had better send out someone else from the team, like Olivia Watson, so they could talk woman to woman, or cool and unflappable Jim Parker, or even nice guy Trent—without his bad-cop partner tagging along to make a mess of things.

Max watched the Dinkles settle into patio chairs, shaking his head as Otis plugged in earbuds while Arlene peeled off her gloves and prattled on about too many cops and dogs and reporters for her liking. Max tuned her out, too, and whistled for the dogs to return. “Come here, girls!”

He finally conceded that this outing hadn't been a total waste of his time. He'd done some decent police work, confirming that Rosie had a motive for killing Richard Bratcher. Although Arlene had dismissed the violent details that had soured Max's stomach, a woman who'd been held hostage by her abuser might feel she had no other way out of the relationship than to murder the man who terrorized her.

He liked the dogs, too. As much as the dogs he'd served with overseas had detected bombs and alerted his unit to insurgents sneaking past the camp perimeter or lying in wait out on a patrol, they'd been the unofficial morale officers. There was little that a game of fetch or a furry body snuggled up in the bunk beside him couldn't take his mind off of for a few minutes, at least.