Murder Over Cocktails: The 2nd Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries) (17 page)

Chapter 32

O
n Sunday morning I let Bill sleep in while I went to the gym. I did my usual workout, but I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. I remembered what Jack had said about watching my back, and felt the paranoia taking hold.

Bill was gone when I got back to the boat, but he had left me a note saying he would call me later. I had a protein shake and a handful of vitamins, showered, put on clean shorts and a tee shirt, and walked up to the office. It was time to clean up the mess.

I braced myself before opening the doors, but I still felt devastated when I saw all those case files and reports scattered on the floor. I stepped inside and locked the double doors behind me.

There was one message on my answering machine. Otto Kleinhurst, the owner of Otto’s Eatery and one of my regular clients, was canning my ass because, as he put it, “I can’t use a spotter my employees will recognize from the TV news.” Otto had three restaurants in the Bay Area that I surveyed weekly. I wondered if I could sue anyone for damages.

I started a pot of coffee and sat down on the floor amidst the chaos. While the coffee was dripping I lined up the empty file folders in alphabetical order, then I began gathering up the surveillance reports, expense reports, and miscellaneous paperwork. I stacked everything up in one huge pile and started at the top, placing each item in front of the folder in which it belonged.

After about twenty minutes I stopped for coffee. I sat at my desk considering my situation, drinking Mocha Java and smoking. Things could be worse. I had a home I loved, great neighbors, and a business I enjoyed, most of the time. I had Bill and Elizabeth, my childhood friend Michael Burke, my new friend Jim Sutherland, and I had my health. This was just a temporary setback. I finished my coffee and sat back down on the floor.

At 9:45 I remembered that Jack was meeting us at 10:00. I stuffed all the smaller piles I’d been making into their respective folders and placed a glass paperweight on top of my yet-to-be-sorted floor pile. I turned off the coffee maker and rinsed my cup, then locked the office and hurried down to Elizabeth’s boat.

Jack was already there when I arrived. Most men look ridiculous in shorts, but Jack was an exception. His contoured quadriceps and calves demanded attention and the black tee shirt he wore revealed an equally well-defined upper body. Elizabeth’s cat, K.C., was sitting on Jack’s feet, nuzzling his knees and purring loudly. Elizabeth was all smiles in an off-white mini dress. They looked like a couple. Actually they looked like they could be brother and sister, but that was too creepy to contemplate.

Jack was still driving the new BMW, so we took that to Woodside. As we drove I filled them both in on what Bill had told me about Maggie’s family and how much money her brother now stood to inherit.

Elizabeth whistled softly. “That’s a nice chunk of change,” she said.

Jack didn’t comment.

We parked halfway down the dirt road to Maggie’s house and Jack and I got out. Elizabeth waited in the car to act as lookout. She would honk if the police arrived, and then distract them by asking for directions to an address a couple of miles down the road that I’d noted along the way.

Jack wore a black leather fanny pack strapped around his waist. As we approached the cottage he took out two pairs of latex gloves and handed one to me. I told him I’d unlocked the knob the previous day, but hadn’t even tried to work the bolt. He removed a small computerized lock pick from his pack, inserted a wire into the deadbolt key slot, and pressed a button. I heard a soft whirring sound and then a loud metallic clack. He turned the knob and opened the door.

“How much did that thing cost you?” I asked.

“Sixty dollars. I bought it on-line.”

I made a mental note to pick one up, as we stepped inside and closed the door behind us. I went into a room that looked like an office or maybe a library, and Jack started in the living room.

The office held a beautiful antique roll-top desk, but it was empty apart from a blank pad of notepaper and two ballpoint pens. The bookshelves contained mostly hardbound classics.
Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace,
and a few texts on chess.

I was turning to leave the room when I spotted a paperback Latin/English dictionary. I took it off the shelf and examined the spine of the book. There was a single crease, as though it had been used only once. I held it loosely in my hand, allowing it to fall open. It opened to the S’s. I scanned the page and my eyes were drawn to an underlined passage that read,
‘Sectio—(verb) the action of cutting or severing as in surgery; castration; dissection; division; separation.’
I felt the same chill I’d experienced when I looked the word up in my Windows thesaurus. I placed the book back on the shelf and went looking for Jack. He was in the kitchen going through drawers.

“I’ll check the bedroom,” I said.

“Okay. But it doesn’t look like anyone is living here.”

The bedroom was in the back of the house. I opened bedside drawers, checked under the bed, and went through the dresser. Everything was clean and empty. In the corner, facing the window that looked out onto the driveway, was a StairMaster. I stood looking at the view from that window and then walked to the other side of the room and looked out the window that faced up the hill. From this window I could see birch and willow trees climbing the lush, green hillside. I walked back to the StairMaster again. I could see the dirt driveway where it exited off of Woodside Road. I thought about why someone might prefer that view to the more scenic one of the trees and hillside. Only one reason I could think of. They wanted to know who was coming and going, and did not wish to be taken by surprise.

There were no clothes in the bedroom closet and the bathroom cabinets were empty, except for the one under the sink, where I found a bottle of bleach with the cap left off. The pungent odor assaulted my nostrils and made my eyes burn. There was no soap or shampoo in the tub. Clean towels had been hung out, perfectly folded into thirds and draped over the rack.

Jack leaned in the doorway and said he’d found nothing in the kitchen. We agreed to move on to Maggie’s safe. We locked up the cottage and walked down the hill, waving at Elizabeth as we passed the car.

We entered the main house through the sliding glass door, which Jack jimmied open in less time than it took me to scan the area, again, for surveillance cameras. I didn’t see any cameras, but the good ones are hard to spot. We walked up the stairs together.

Jack went directly to the mirror over the fireplace and pulled it away from the wall. He glanced at the combination lock, then fished a stethoscope out of his fanny pack and put it on. He listened to the tumblers as he spun the dial on the safe, and had it open in a few seconds. Impressive. The safe was completely empty.

We exited the way we’d come in and Jack locked the door behind us. Back in the car I filled Elizabeth in on the disappointments of our search while Jack drove us to the marina. He dropped us off at the gate, saying he was late for an appointment. As he pulled away from the curb something that had been nagging at my subconscious hit the surface.

“Hey, Jack,” I shouted. He stopped the car and lowered the driver’s side window. “Why did you tell Elizabeth that I should watch my back?”

“Just a gut feeling,” he said. “Elizabeth told me what the police did to your office. I’d be glad to help you get things sorted out later this afternoon.”

The generosity of his offer took me by surprise. “I can handle it,” I said. “Thanks though.”

There are some things I need to do myself. Also, I wasn’t sure how I felt about someone else having access to my case files. There was the confidentiality issue to be considered. Besides, if I accepted help I’d have to stop feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes I like to wallow.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

He waved and drove away before I could probe any deeper into this
feeling
of his. I had the same feeling, and I didn’t like it. The only danger I was in, that I knew of, was from the District Attorney.

Elizabeth and I walked down to her trawler and she poured two glasses of Shiraz. She was quiet, which meant her wheels were turning. I took my glass and moved over to the open door so I could smoke. She set her glass on the galley counter and took a legal size notepad from the shelf above the settee.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s make a list of things we don’t know. One, where the hell is Maggie’s brother?” She wrote that down as she spoke. “Two, who else was at the house in Atherton Friday night, and why on earth would they take that knife?” She looked up at me.

I shrugged. “I have no idea who might have been there that night. Who could have known where we were going? Maggie wouldn’t have told anyone, would she? So whoever it was would have had to follow us. I was watching my rear-view mirror for Bill, and I didn’t see any familiar cars.”

Jack might have a car that wasn’t familiar to me. I was sure he was driving the new BMW so I couldn’t trace his plates. I wondered if I should say anything to Elizabeth about that.

“Tell me again what you found in the cottage.” She interrupted my train of thought.

“Hmm? Oh, you mean the Latin/English dictionary? And there were two books about chess, a StairMaster in the bedroom…”

“What was in the bathroom?”

“Nothing. Just an open bottle of bleach and some clean towels.”

“Why bleach?”

“I assume for cleaning and disinfecting surfaces,” I said.

“Did you find any cleaning supplies in the kitchen?” she asked.

“Jack did the kitchen.”

“So you don’t know.”

“No. Why does it matter?”

“If you were going to clean a bathroom, what would you use?” she asked.

“Windex for the glass. Comet for the sink and the tub.”

“Was there a toilet brush?”

“I didn’t see one. Why?”

“It depends on what’s under the kitchen sink,” she said.

“I need an ashtray. Why does it depend on what’s under the kitchen sink?”

“Because if there are no cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink maybe there’s another reason for the bleach in the bathroom,” she said. “Is there any way we can get back in?”

She got up and took a coffee mug from the rack by the sink, handed it to me, and sat back down. I flicked an ash into the cup.

“I don’t have the equipment,” I said. “What other reason could there be for the bleach in the bathroom?”

“Bleach attacks the olfactory nerves,” she said, “leaving you temporarily unable to perceive other scents.”

“You mean like perfume or scented soap?”

“Soap, shower gel, shampoo, cologne, aftershave…”

“But why?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Or in this case, the six million dollar question, plus various stocks and bonds. Who could afford to walk away from that kind of inheritance anyway? Does the brother have to be present to collect?”

“I have no idea. Maybe not. Start a new list, please. Questions for Bill. How long did Maggie’s parents own the estate? Are there any records of where Maggie and Patrick went to school? Can Patrick collect his inheritance from out of State, or from another country?”

“Slow down,” Elizabeth said, turning to a blank page. She scribbled down the first two questions, and then looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Is there any chance it wasn’t your shot that killed Maggie?”

I considered that for a moment, flashing back in my mind to the shooting.

“I don’t see how. She was only a few feet away.”

“Did you close your eyes when you pulled the trigger? You know, like a reflex?”

“I might have blinked, but I couldn’t have missed her from that distance. She was right in front of me.”

“Have the police done the autopsy yet? They can check for things like the trajectory of the bullet and what kind of gun fired it.”

“Okay, add that to Bill’s list.”

“What kind of ammunition were you using?” she asked.

“Thirty-eight special,” I said. “Plus-P load.”

Elizabeth set the pen down and picked up her wineglass. “I guess we could call Jack again, but I hate to bother him. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave. When was the last time you tried to unlock a deadbolt with your lock picks?” she asked.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“How many deadbolts have you worked on?” she continued.

“A couple of different kinds. Why?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Let’s go shopping.” She bounced up and grabbed her purse.

We started hitting hardware stores at 1:00, and purchased three different types of deadbolt locks. We took them back to the marina and disassembled them on Elizabeth’s galley counter. One of the three did not respond to my lock picks, but the other two did.

At 3:30, fueled by adrenaline and curiosity, we drove back to Woodside.

Chapter 33

E
lizabeth stood with her back to me, facing the driveway, as I fiddled with the deadbolt on the front door of the cottage. I worked at it for twenty minutes without success. My lower back was starting to ache from hunching over and my nerves were on edge. I turned and stretched, noticing that Elizabeth was no longer hovering behind me. I spotted her standing under a tree, and she had something in her hand.

“Can’t get it open?” she asked, moving toward me.

“It’s hopeless. Let’s get out of here.”

As she approached I saw what she was carrying. It was a large rock.

“Is there an alarm system?” she asked.

“I didn’t see one, but we can’t break a window. I can’t afford to get in any more trouble right now.” That sounded weak even to me, considering what we’d been doing for the past two days.

“You and Jack wore gloves, didn’t you?”

She knew we had. Before I could stop her Elizabeth heaved the rock through the glass panel to the left of the door. Then she lifted her skirt, wrapped the hem around her hand, and knocked away a few jagged edges. When there was a large enough hole, she reached through and turned the interior latch on the deadbolt, then opened the door.

“Come on,” she whispered.

She stepped carefully over the broken glass and turned to look back at me.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I said.

“Where’s the kitchen?”

I pointed to the right and followed her inside. I was in no mood for another confrontation with the police, so we would have to make this fast. I entered the kitchen and threw open the cabinets under the sink. There was nothing there. Not even a garbage container. We looked at each other.

I grabbed a paper towel from a roll hanging over the sink, dampened it, and wiped the faucet and cabinet handles. I took the paper towel with me and headed for the front door. I wiped the deadbolt latch and the doorknob where Elizabeth had touched them, grabbed the rock, and closed the door behind us using the paper towel as a mitt.

We ran back to the 2002 and roared up to Woodside Road. I didn’t stop checking my rearview mirror until we were back at the marina.

“
Jesus
,” I said, as I parked the car.

“Yeah,” she said. “I bet if the police check that cottage for prints they won’t find any.”

Back aboard the trawler Elizabeth picked up her pen and added an item to Bill’s list. “Check cottage for prints,” she said.

We decided to try calling Bill on his cell. When he didn’t answer I left him a voicemail message giving him Elizabeth’s land line and asking him to call as soon as possible. Elizabeth’s phone rang fifteen minutes later. I checked the caller ID and picked up.

“Hey, babe.”

“Hi, Nikki. Whose number is this?”

“It’s Elizabeth’s. I need some information. Do you have a pen?”

“Yeah.”

I picked up the list and read it to him. When I finished he was silent for a moment and I thought maybe I’d asked for too much.

“You’re thinking maybe the brother was at the house in Atherton the night Maggie was killed?”

“It’s a possibility. Have you found out anything about the uniforms who were at the scene?”

“I know someone who used to work in Atherton. He still has a few friends over there. I asked him to look into it.”

“Thanks. Will you call me back?”

“I don’t know if anyone is working in forensics today. I might be able to get the school records though.”

“Okay. If I’m not home I’ll be here.”

Elizabeth and I decided to wait it out together. She flipped on the TV and turned to a channel that didn’t have local news reports.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Starving.”

“I have some left-over chicken. How about a chicken salad?”

“That sounds great.”

While Elizabeth fussed around in the galley, I reread our lists. There was something about the bleach in the bathroom that didn’t make sense to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.  

Bill called while we were eating.

“The Sullivan’s were the original owners of the Woodside estate,” he began, “and both kids were raised there. They went to St. Theresa’s Parochial School. By the way, Margaret had a juvenile record. I had to dig a little to find it. She was at Hillcrest for two weeks when she was eight. Evidently her parents couldn’t control her and decided locking her up might improve her behavior.”

“What about college?” I asked.

“Three and a half years at Stanford. She dropped out when her parents died.”

“And the brother?”

“No record of him since St. Theresa’s.”

“Huh. Any information from forensics?”

“Yeah, I got a copy of the preliminary report. No one took any prints at the estate in Woodside. I’ll let you know about the ballistics tomorrow.”

“Okay. Thanks, Bill. You’re a sport.”

“Yes I am. Get some sleep tonight.”

“I’ll try,” I said. “Hey, Bill? If you’re going to suggest dusting the cottage for prints, which I assume you are, how about having the hair and fiber people check it out too?”

“You know, Nikki, this is not even my case.”

“I know,” I said apologetically. But I knew he would do it.

When we hung up, Elizabeth grabbed the notepad away from me. “I can’t read your handwriting,” she complained. “What did he say?”

“Both kids went to Saint Theresa’s, which is a local Catholic school. After that Maggie went to Stanford, but there’s no record of any college for Patrick. Maggie also did two weeks at Hillcrest when she was eight, for being incorrigible.”

“So, what do we do now?” Elizabeth asked.

“I think we’re done for the day. I’ll go to Saint Theresa’s in the morning.”

We finished dinner and said goodnight, and I walked up to my office clutching the pages of notes we’d made. I needed to go over my master schedule so I would at least know which of my remaining clients I was neglecting.

Twenty feet from my office I froze. Even in the dim exterior lights I could see that one of the doors was slightly ajar. My heart moved up into my throat as I reached into my bag for the Ruger. Then I remembered the police had my Ruger and Elizabeth had my other guns. I dug around in my bag and came up with a my keychain canister of defense spray.

I crept forward, dropping my purse on the ground outside the office, and nudged the door open with my foot, holding the spray out in front of me at eye level. I edged my way inside and flipped the light switch, squinting in the sudden illumination.

What the cops had done to my office had been upsetting, but what I saw before me now was malicious. My leather swivel chair had been upended and the seat and back cushions slashed until the stuffing burst out. My new computer was on the floor next to the monitor, but both appeared to be intact. That was something anyway.

I skirted around the paperwork that was once again strewn across the floor and checked the kitchenette, where I found my coffee pot shattered on the floor. The TV cart with my DVD & VHS player was still tucked in the corner and appeared to be untouched.

I turned into the hallway, flipped on the bathroom light, and gasped when I saw the scrawled message on the medicine cabinet mirror.
MURDERER!
was written in what appeared to be red lipstick. I felt my knees buckle and grabbed hold of the sink to steady myself.

Was it possible that Maggie had an accomplice, a girlfriend who liked to watch, as Jim had suggested? The fact that lipstick had been used might suggest my intruder was a woman. I was relieved that whoever had left the message hadn’t waited around.

I went back to the front door, grabbed my purse off the ground, and locked myself inside. As I turned the lock, I gazed out into the night. I couldn’t see beyond the sparse overhead lights that shone around the office complex. Someone could be out there, watching me, waiting for me to go outside again.

I shuddered and turned back toward the desk. Dead center on my desk blotter was the file copy of the report I’d completed for Jack. I remembered it had been in one of my floor piles earlier in the day. Someone wanted me to know they had read it. I left the pages where they were, not wanting to smudge any fingerprints.

Who should I call? Bill? I looked at my watch. It was getting late and I was exhausted. If I called Bill he’d want to send over the crime scene techs and I’d be stuck waiting for them to finish up so I could lock the office behind them. I needed sleep and the evidence wasn’t going anywhere. I decided to call Bill in the morning.

I turned off the lights, slung the strap of my purse over my shoulder crossbody style so my hands would be free, and scanned what I could see of the marina. I didn’t spot anyone moving around, so I opened the door and stepped outside. I pulled the door closed and attempted to insert the key while looking over my shoulder. After a few tries I managed to get the key in the lock. I really needed to do something about security, but because two of my walls and both doors are glass, even the best locks wouldn’t keep out a determined predator.

I kept my finger on the defense spray trigger as I hurried toward the docks. Once I was through the locked gate I felt a little more secure. I stopped to tell Elizabeth what had happened and suggested she bolt her door tonight. She was outraged, confused, and full of questions, but I was too tired to think anymore.

I said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” hugged her, and continued down the dock.

D’Artagnon was out on the deck of his owner’s boat, so I ruffled his ears and scratched under his chin. He rewarded me with a few sloppy kisses and the propeller-like wag of his crooked tail.

As I walked on to my own boat I tried to turn my mind away from the break-in and back to the real problem. Who had taken the knife? I climbed aboard the Cheoy Lee and moved cautiously from room to room. When I was convinced that I was alone I locked the pilothouse door and the hatch above the galley. I took a Guinness Stout out of the fridge and chugged half the bottle sitting at my galley counter.

I started thinking about Maggie being a lesbian and spending her childhood in parochial school. It reminded me of something my mom had told me, about when she was a nun. She was barely more than a novice when she was transferred from Minnesota to a diocese in San Francisco, and developed friendships with some of the gay men and women in her community. She’d never met any gay people in Minnesota, so she had not questioned the Catholic doctrine condemning them. During her time in San Francisco she became convinced that the Church was wrong, at least about this particular issue.

Late one night she’d gone into the sanctuary to pray. As she knelt in the darkened church she’d heard a thumping sound coming from one of the confessionals. Shortly thereafter the Archbishop and a young man Mom knew to be gay stepped out of the confessional, both adjusting their clothing. Neither man noticed her as they beat a hasty retreat in opposite directions. There was no indication the Church would reverse its stand on the gay issue any time soon, and the hypocrisy began to eat away at her faith.

I wondered what sort of damage had been done to Maggie’s psyche, being raised Catholic and being a lesbian. I almost felt sorry for her.