Silence of the Lamps (19 page)

In spite of her concerns about who killed Drew, Caprice found herself liking Bronson. He could be lying to her, that was true. But he seemed honest about his friendship with Drew, and what he thought about it.

Roz came back on the court about the same time Bronson’s partner stood at the bench and motioned to him.

Bronson gave Roz a wave, saying to Caprice, “If she ever splits up with your brother, let me know.” Then he smiled and jogged over to his friend, who was already on the court again.

When Roz came to meet Caprice at the bench, she asked, “Did you find out anything essential?”

“I’m not sure. He just confirmed a lot I already knew. Though he did tell me Mario and Drew had a fight a few days before Drew was killed—a serious fight. Mario neglected to tell me that.”

“He doesn’t want any suspicion coming down on him. Can you blame him?”

“No, but if the police talk to Bronson and find out, he’ll be under suspicion anyway, maybe doubly so.”

“Anything else?”

“Bronson could be interested in you.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Very serious. If you and Vince ever break up, he told me I should let him know.”

Roz glanced over at Bronson. “I never thought of him in that way. I mean, we see each other around here a lot, but he’s never shown any interest.”

“He was giving you time.”

“I see,” Roz said seriously. “That was kind of him.”

Standing there together, they watched Bronson and his partner play. Anyone could tell Bronson was a consummate athlete. He handled himself, the ball, and the racquet to perfection.

“I certainly can understand why he’s one of Kismet’s most eligible bachelors,” Caprice said.

“But I’m dating your brother, and I like it that way.”

Caprice waved her racquet at the courts. “Have you had enough of this?”

“I have if you have.” A sly glint came into Roz’s eyes. “How about an ice-cream sundae from Cherry on the Top after all this good exercise? I’m not meeting Vince until eight o’clock.”

Caprice knew she shouldn’t. She should eat a healthy meal and forget the ice cream and toppings. But Roz was her friend, and she needed a breather from worry and work. An ice-cream sundae and chatting with Roz again could be just the break she needed.

* * *

The following morning Caprice did a last examination of the hacienda that was so much more than a house. Real estate agents would be here in about fifteen minutes to take a walk-through. They’d be snapping photos and shooting their own video footage. This was an absolute gem, and Caprice was sure she and Juan had done a beautiful job of staging it. It wasn’t trying to be something it wasn’t. The house had an earthy energy that flowed throughout. Its magnificence would come through easily in the photos and on its video. If the open house tomorrow didn’t sell it, the agents and the photos and Web sites would. She was sure of it.

The woven rugs Juan had found bore geometric designs in blue and orange and fuchsia, the same colors that dominated the tiles lining the staircase. As she climbed those stairs, she peered down over the railing into the living room. Juan had found sectionals in leather and wood in a rich shade of royal blue. The end tables were topped with intricate mosaics in rust and orange. Somehow the splash of colors in each room worked together to coordinate the whole house.

She’d reached the master suite with its dark wood floor and brass bed, with a headboard that reached halfway to the ceiling, when her phone buzzed. She stepped into the master bathroom with its marble sunken tub and stand-alone shower big enough for two and pulled out her phone.

She saw Bella was calling. “Hi, Bee, what’s up?”

“We sold our house!”

“That’s wonderful. Tell me about it.”

“Two contracts came in at once, so we got full asking price.”

“I’m so happy for you, Bee.”

“I wanted to tell you because . . . I have a favor to ask.”

“What kind of favor? Do you need me to sit in on the paperwork?”

“I don’t know about that, but that’s not the favor. I know you’re busy, but I’ve been watching the stats on two houses that are online. One of them has been on sale for a year. Can you come look at them with me and Joe?”

Caprice checked her watch, estimating how long she’d be tied up here. “What time do you have in mind?”

“We’re open to what works for you.”

“How about five o’clock? That will give me all day here if I need it. I never know how long the real estate agents will take. Where do you want to meet?”

“My neighbor will be watching the kids, so why don’t you just come over here.”

“I’ll be there at five.”

“You’re the best.”

Caprice ended the call, smiling. Then she heard voices coming from downstairs. The house had a state-of-the-art alarm system, but she wasn’t the only one who knew the code. Denise Langford knew it, and she was probably letting all of the other agents in. Caprice took a last look around the upstairs and then went down to meet them.

Two hours later, after hearing more oohs and aahs, and everything in between, Caprice told Denise, “I’m going outside to the patio. I want to make sure nothing got moved around so it’s ready for tomorrow.”

She’d raised the outdoor umbrellas that would lend a festive quality to the back patio. Guests who filled their plates with Nikki’s food could go out there and sit too if they wanted. Fortunately, the weather was all clear and called for a sunny day tomorrow.

When Caprice emerged from the sliding glass doors off the dining room onto the covered terraced patio, she approved of Juan’s concept of using outdoor furniture with brushed copper frames and colorful orange, blue, and rust cushions.

She’d walked the perimeter and was studying the rest of the yard when the back door from the kitchen opened and a man dressed in a gray uniform with T
ROY’S
D
ELIVERY
S
ERVICE
stitched onto the pocket of his shirt stepped outside. His gray cap matched.

He held up a large bag. “Are you Miss De Luca?” he asked.

The man was probably in his early twenties with a thin mustache and brown eyes that looked more sheepish than anything. He said, “You look like the woman in the photo I was sent.”

Caprice’s skin started to crawl. “What photo?”

“This was a crazy order,” the delivery man said, setting the bag onto the frosted glass-topped table. “I have a courier service in York. I received an e-mail telling me I’d get a big bonus if I delivered a package to this address and to you. Your photo was included in the e-mail. I think it had been in the newspaper. That was so I’d know exactly who to give this bag to.”

Chills ran up and down her spine now. “So you don’t know who placed the order?”

“Nope. I was just instructed that this bag would be sitting on the ledge outside of Rack O’ Ribs. I should pick it up and deliver it. No questions asked. Five hundred dollars for my trouble.”

“You didn’t think that was odd?”

“Sure, I thought it was odd. But money is money. My wife’s pregnant. We need it.”

She could certainly understand that. But still.... She studied the tall white bag and didn’t know if she wanted to know what was in it.

He motioned to the bag. “Aren’t you going to open it? It felt kind of hot underneath when I picked it up.”

Hot. Oh great. Maybe she should get the hose or the fire department or the police department.

But the delivery man said, “It feels like one of those boxes like Rack O’ Ribs gives you when you go through the drive-thru.”

She approached the table warily. The white bag was folded down at the top, and she opened it slowly. When she peeked inside she did see the Rack O’ Ribs box. What the heck?

She tore the bag wide open around the container and studied it carefully. It didn’t look threatening. Not at all. It even smelled good. It smelled like barbecued ribs. She slipped open the flap that closed the container.

Inside there was indeed a rack of ribs. But that wasn’t all. There was a waxy paper with grease pencil lettering on it. It was attached to the ribs with a paring knife. The note read,
Stop asking questions or this is what will happen to you.

Caprice must have given a little squeak because the delivery man looked at her and said, “Are you going to faint?”

But she didn’t faint. She pulled out her phone and speed-dialed Detective Carstead.

Chapter Sixteen

A half hour later, Caprice and the delivery man stood on the patio with Detective Carstead as the detective listened intently to what had happened.

“And the bag was just sitting on the ledge by Rack O’ Ribs?” Detective Carstead asked.

Troy Weyland answered quickly, as if he wanted to make sure the detective knew he wasn’t the perpetrator. “Those were my instructions. Pick up the bag sitting outside the door on the brick ledge at Rack O’ Ribs. I wasn’t supposed to look inside or anything—just pick it up and deliver it here.”

“And this is your business, courier service, so to speak?”

“Yes, I have two trucks. A friend and I went into business together about a year ago. We mostly deliver legal documents, like from lawyer to lawyer, and that kind of thing. But we’re a courier service. We don’t ask questions. We just do our job. The more deliveries we make, the more money we make. This seemed to be a simple one. I thought it was a birthday gift or something.”

“Some gift,” Caprice muttered, staring down at the rack of ribs with the knife protruding from it. Detective Carstead had brought a tech along with him, and now he nodded to him.

“Bag it all up and record it. We’ll have it analyzed for fingerprints.”

“This isn’t going to affect my open house is it?” Caprice asked the detective.

He looked angry for a minute. “You’re worried about the open house rather than your life?”

“They’re not in the same category,” she snapped, then was sorry she had. “Look, Detective, there’s nothing I can do about this. Apparently someone knew I was going to be here. That wasn’t any secret. It’s the day before an open house. I have a lot to get ready. I’ve spent valuable work time on this, and I don’t want it messed up because some idiot is trying to scare me.”

“You think that’s all it is? Scare tactics? What if it’s more? What if it’s a prelude? What have you been doing, Miss De Luca, to cause this?”

With a sigh, she told him about her conversation with Bertram Dennis, and then about “running into” Bronson on the tennis court.

To her relief, Carstead didn’t ask about how she’d come to be playing tennis on a court next to Bronson’s.

He said, “We knew about Bertram Dennis’s daughter. We’ll follow up again with him and with her about the package.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure how you get the information we do.”

“I want to clear Nikki from your persons-of-interest list.”

He scowled, gave her a narrowed-eyed look, and then maintained, “We have to consider anyone who had contact with the victim.”

“But my sister tops your list?”

“I’m not going to say.” He turned to Troy. “I have your information. I’ll give you a call if we need to go over this again. Thanks for letting me examine your phone and retrieve the number where the call came from.”

“It’s probably a burner phone,” Caprice muttered.

This time the detective gave her a look of respect. “We’ll check into it, but you’re probably right.”

The tech had taken charge of the bag. He’d used some kind of electronic device and fingerprinted the delivery man so they could distinguish his fingerprints from others. The police already had Caprice’s on file with AFIS—the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

The detective nodded to Weyland. “You can go. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”

The tech went into the house at the same time, and that left Caprice with Detective Carstead. He’d come through the inside of the house, and now he gazed over the vast yard, with its butterfly bushes, hydrangea, and uniform flower beds planted with pink geraniums.

Although Caprice expected Detective Carstead to give her more warnings, he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I can’t quite imagine living like this. Can you?”

“You mean the largesse of it?”

“Yeah. It’s almost too big to contemplate. A house with enough rooms to get lost in, and probably so many bathrooms no one would ever use them all.” His arm swept over the landscape. “This kind of yard where a dog or a kid would be out of sight in a minute.”

That was interesting. It sounded as if Detective Carstead dreamed of a house with a yard where he could have a family, including a dog and a kid.

She asked, “Do you have a yard now?”

He gave her a look that said he didn’t know if he should answer or not. But then he did. “Not my own. I rent an apartment on the first floor of an old house. I cut the grass for the landlord once a week, but that’s about it.”

“I know real estate agents,” she teased, “if you’re ever looking for a house to call your own.”

He actually gave her a smile. “I guess you do.” He stared at her a few moments, shifted on his feet, and then asked, “Is your sister involved with anyone?”

Thinking about his question, studying his almost embarrassed-looking expression, she asked, “Is that a question for the investigation, or is it personal?”

“It’s personal,” he admitted.

Without causing them further awkwardness, she answered, “No, she’s not, but she’s very picky.”

Detective Carstead’s eyes gleamed with what Caprice thought was amusement as he nodded. “Good to know.” Then his warning came again, but it was a little different from those he’d given her before. “Watch yourself, Miss De Luca. Remember that talking to the wrong person could be as dangerous as chasing a getaway car down a high-traffic highway.”

“I understand, Detective, I do, and I promise, I’ll keep you in my loop.”

He shook his head. “Your persistence is admirable. I just don’t want it to be regrettable.”

On that note, he left her standing on the beautiful patio, thinking about what he’d said.

* * *

Caprice wasn’t telling anybody close to her about the Rack O’ Ribs threat. She didn’t want her family worrying about her. She would take care and not go anywhere alone . . . at least not for the next few days. She was meeting Bella to look at the houses, and then she’d go home to her pets inside of her alarm system. She’d keep her phone near her hand so she could dial Detective Carstead if she needed to. Tomorrow was the open house, where scads of people would be all around her. Nobody would be able to get near her. For today and tomorrow, at least, she would stop asking questions. However, at some point, everything would come to a head. It always did. If the murderer had his eye on her, she’d want it off of her.

But for now, she’d help Bella and Joe decide whether they should buy a house.

At five-thirty, Caprice rode with Bella and Joe in their red van to the first house on their list. The real estate agent was there when they arrived. The neighborhood, maybe about ten years old, was located near the shopping center on the east end of town.

As they entered the house, Caprice knew it was considered a high rancher. That meant inside the foyer, steps led down to a family room and basement area. Another set of steps led up to the first floor, which consisted of the living room, dining area, and four bedrooms. That was the main aspect of a new house that Joe and Bella were looking for—a room for the baby that could be a guest room later, a room for Timmy, a room for Megan, and a suite for themselves.

The bedroom area in this house stretched over the garage, and Caprice thought about that garage being unheated in the winter and the cold floors. They went upstairs first without Bella and Joe making many comments. They would have to install new carpet in the living room and dining area. When they toured downstairs, they saw that the family room was large and spacious, but there was only a small basement area for storage. And, of course, the whole place would have to be redecorated to Bella and Joe’s taste.

After they’d scoped the yard, which was mostly grass with no shrubs, they all gathered on the front walk. Their real estate agent, Kayla Langtree, who was in her late thirties, wore her hair in a blunt, straight cut, neck length. Her large green eyes were her best feature.

She was only five foot three, and Joe seemed to tower over her as he asked, “Will they come down in price?”

“Every deal is about negotiation now,” Kayla said. “But this house has been on the market for a year, and they’ve cut the price three times. So I don’t know if you can get them to go lower.”

“The question is,” Caprice interjected, “Do you like the house?” She studied Bella, not Joe.

“It’s all right,” Bella said, not with much enthusiasm.

“It has four bedrooms,” Joe pointed out. “That’s what we need. Even without the price going lower, it’s in our range.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good-enough reason to buy a house that you’re going to live in the rest of your lives,” Caprice advised them. “Bella, you’re not saying much.” That wasn’t like her sister at all.

Finally, a conclusion burst out of Bella. “It doesn’t have any character.”

Joe looked puzzled. “What do you mean,
character
? We can decorate it however we want. You can even paint the walls your favorite color instead of the green I like. We need to find
something
, Bella.”

Although Bella and Joe’s marriage was back on track, they still had their disagreements and their personality quirks. Joe obviously didn’t understand what her sister was talking about.

“Can you explain to Joe what you’re looking for?” Caprice asked Bella.

“I’ll know when I find it,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s just something—” She waved her hand in the air. “The house where I grew up has character. It has a red-tiled roof and casement windows and plaster walls. It has a multitiered yard and a little balcony.”

“Your parents’ house would be way out of our price range,” Joe grumbled.

“Caprice’s house has character too,” Bella protested. “It has that arched front door that you don’t see anymore, and that little copper overhang. It has a fireplace and a cute back porch.”

“Caprice’s house wouldn’t be big enough for us,” Joe pointed out, still not quite getting the message.

Caprice put her hand on Bella’s arm. “Joe, what I think she’s looking for is a house with unique qualities. This isn’t like buying a car with a checklist. It’s more like finding a house that had some love in it, even if that was just in the choice of a Quoizel ceiling lamp.

Joe shook his head. “How about we go look at the second house.” He apparently had learned to accept Bella’s thinking without arguing with it. That was smart.

As Joe drove them to the second destination, Caprice noticed they were headed toward her parents’ neighborhood. Maybe they were just going to drive through that area.

“This house is near Mom and Dad’s?”

“About a block away,” Joe said, with a straight face, not letting his feelings on the subject show.

Bella glanced over her shoulder at Caprice and just gave a shrug. “In the listing it seemed to have what we need. It’s a much older house, probably a hundred years old. But it has four bedrooms and a renovated kitchen. The picture on the Internet shows some large spruces on either side of it, so that could be why we haven’t noticed it and why I don’t remember it.”

When Joe pulled up to the curb in front of the house, Caprice remembered it. She’d once ridden her bike up and down these streets and often passed it. It was tucked between the spruces, which had grown larger over the years. There was a myrtle-covered bank in the front, and eight steps led up to the full front porch where a wooden swing was attached on the left side. A cane rocker and a small table sat nearby it. Caprice guessed if she peeked in the large plate-glass window there, she’d see into the living room.

After they climbed the steps, Joe said, “Someone’s going to have to paint these porch railings at least every other year.”

“I like the white with the pale yellow siding, don’t you?” Bella asked, ignoring his paint remark.

He gave her a shrug.

The door was an old-fashioned one with sidelights on either side. The white storm door was decorated with a black emblem of a carriage with a horse.

Once inside the foyer, Joe stared down at the parquet floor. “Is this practical with kids?”

Kayla said, “It has a polyurethane finish.”

Blue and brown tweed carpet covered the steps, which led to a landing, then turned left to the upstairs. Caprice could see the kitchen straight ahead. To her left, wooden pillars looked as if they supported the living room. The woodwork over and around the doors and the archway were a deep rich golden brown and appeared to have been taken care of over the years.

Bella ran her hand down one pillar. “Isn’t this beautiful? And look at those French doors.”

French doors led from the living room into what could either be a dining room or a family room. Bookshelves in a beautiful birch lined the wall straight ahead in that room.

“A lot of care has gone into this house,” Bella said. She turned to Kayla. “Why are they selling?”

“An older couple lives here. They’re moving into one of those retirement villages. You know—one floor, wheelchair accessible. The steps are becoming a problem for them. But they raised their family here, and as you can tell, the house has been renovated through the years and well taken care of.”

In the kitchen, Caprice glanced around and couldn’t find any fault. There was a unique corner sink with a counter that stretched across the room. The dishwasher was housed on one side of it, but on the other side were four stools for anyone to sit and snack or have a light meal. There was a large-enough area behind that for a dining room table and a hutch. A four-foot-square plate-glass window looked out over the backyard.

Kayla motioned to the left. “That’s the downstairs powder room.” She opened a second door beyond it. “This leads to the utility room and the pantry.”

“What’s the basement like?” Joe asked.

“Basic. Cement floor. Furnace.”

“And what about a garage?”

“There’s a wooden structure in the back that the couple had sided when they sided the house. It can house two cars.”