SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6) (7 page)

Gwen still didn’t speak. “Well, maybe. It’s been a long time ago. Rusty passed away about a year after that, and we’ve had other dogs since then. It’s hard to remember exactly what one pet would have done in a hypothetical situation. If I had to guess, I’d say that Rusty would have been okay with a stranger in the house. I have no idea what he would have done with a knife-wielding stranger. Nothing like that ever happened – besides that once. So the
Silver Blaze
theory is out?”

I nodded.  I switched gears to talk about other people then. “What about other clients? Could it have been related to them? Did you ever notice if she’d gone through your things?”

Gwen made a face. “Yeah, actually she did. I didn’t talk about it much at the time, because it seemed mean to say something about her when she’d just been killed, but I caught her going through my parents’ room a few weeks before she died. She begged me not to tell them because they would fire her. And they would have too. They were like that.”

“Any idea what she was looking for?” I thought that perhaps my ideas about one of her clients killing her might be more applicable. If she found something criminal or dangerous, she could have blackmailed the client for extra money. If she was being paid cash already, the payments would be almost undetectable.

“Not really. My parents kept large sums of cash in the drawer of their dresser, so it could have been money. They weren’t too discreet with it. We knew about it, so it wouldn’t be a stretch for someone who had access to the house to know about it too. They also kept all their papers in the bedroom too. Their wills and that sort of thing. They never invested in a lockbox or anything remotely secure.”

I thought back to my own parents. They’d kept their papers in a manila envelope in the kitchen. Not the best place for personal papers, but they’d been able to lay their hands on them whenever they were needed. My parents had placed a higher value on convenience than security. I didn’t even have a will or any documents providing for my estate or my pets. I wondered if I needed one. I was only halfway through my 20s. It seemed early to be talking about my demise, but Belinda Frias had probably not expected to die so soon either.

“Are your parents still around?” I asked, thinking of what Sheila had told me about them dropping out of sight after the murder.

“They moved to an island off the coast of Mexico. It was a good buy, and they decided to retire and they did. We get cards at Christmas and on birthdays. Other than that, I don’t hear much from them.”

She gave me an international number to reach them. I wrote it all down. I’d heard of people living in other countries to reduce the cost of retirement. I wondered if her parents had experienced money troubles after the murder. Maybe they couldn’t sell the house or maybe one of their jobs had fallen through.

“That’s a long way for a retirement,” I said, hoping for a clarification. I wanted to know more about what had happened to these people.

Gwen shrugged. “Not if you knew my parents. They were very much into each other first, and everyone else later. The kids, my brother and I, felt like intruders sometimes, because they wanted to do things for themselves more than take us to soccer practice or choir auditions.”

I had a momentary flashback to high school. I remembered the choir director, a largish woman with a broad smile who laughed a lot. I was shocked to remember something again. I wondered if looking into Susan’s disappearance would be good for me in some way. Perhaps it would help me to remember part of my past, even if that past was painful.

“So were there other clients she had?” I realized that in my frustration at not getting an easier answer before that I’d hit her with a number of questions all at once, and I chose to go back through each one individually so that I didn’t miss anything. Sheila would have told me to focus on the task at hand and not worry about parents or high school memories. It was just hard to ignore all of them after all these years.

I was annoyed that the dog theory hadn’t worked out. The clients of Belinda Frias would be next on my list, though I didn’t know how I would get the names of all of her clients. I was sure that some names, perhaps even the killer’s name, might slip through the cracks after all these years. I didn’t know why I thought that I’d get the easy answer that it had to be a family member. I knew that TPD had looked into this case, and they had not found an answer. If it had been as easy as the family, then the case would have been solved years ago.

“The only ones I knew of were us and the people next door. They were the Wagners, but I don’t know a first name. They were always Mr. and Mrs. at that age. She did both houses the same day so she could just walk between them. It was easier for her than her husband coming to pick her up and take her to the next person’s house.” She seemed to run herself down with the last little nugget, and she turned her attention to her food.

I took down all the information and tucked my notes in my pocket. “Thanks. You’ve been a lot of help. I was at a standstill.”

She touched my sleeve. “I was wondering if you’d answer a question for me.”

“Sure,” I said, thinking that turnabout was fair play here. I was usually the one who did the questioning.

“So is it true about you and the doctor?” she asked. Her eyes were big and bright. I realized that part of her motivation for coming here was to get information in return. I tried to explain in very kind terms what had happened. We had worked on trying to solve a murder case, and she’d grown fond of me, but I was dating someone else.

When she asked me if it was serious, I had to stop and think about it. Were things serious with Sheila? I knew how I felt, but I wasn’t sure all the time how she felt in return. Her actions indicated that she cared about me, but I couldn’t answer the question definitively. Did I want her to be serious? I answered honestly, “I think so.”

She beamed. “Young love is so wonderful. I love to see young people find each other. Too many times something comes between them.”

She looked at me, waiting for me to say something, but I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wasn’t exactly young. I was two years younger than she was. That was hardly Romeo or Juliet. I was an adult, settled into my own life, though it was changing drastically at the moment. Her comments seemed wildly out of place, but at the same time, I felt like I was expected to know something that I didn’t have a clue about.

Besides, I wasn’t sure that I agreed with that sentiment. For me at least, young love was all that great. It was too fraught with emotion and drama and angst for my taste. I’d missed out on dating in school, but there were a lot of pitfalls to avoid in this whole dating thing.

Her comments threw me off, and I puzzled over them all the way back to my house. I was greeted by my two Corgis, Bruno and Bess, so I took them for a long walk to sort out my thoughts. I had contact information, or something resembling contact information for her parents and other clients of Belinda Frias. I also was told that Mr. Frias was likely in the book. While the dogs stopped to sniff everything along our way, I made up a list of people to contact.

I decided to start with the husband, since Sheila always informed me that the spouse was the most likely person in a homicide. That usually preceded any discussion we had on getting more serious, so I wasn’t exactly sure where things would end up with us. However, I enjoyed things as they were now. Still it was a depressing statement about marriage that the happily ever after was the most likely to kill you.

I found Mr. Frias’ name in the original articles and then located him via the Internet. I opted to visit him in person rather than calling him. This was the type of intrusion that would likely be met with resistance, so I thought that I’d provide fewer chances to say no by meeting him face to face. From trying to get clients for my business, I found that people were more likely to be rude on the phone than in person, and they were worse still on a computer.

Mr. Frias’ house was located on Starr Street, and I was guessing from the address and what I’d been told that it was in one of the grittier areas there. I pulled up in front of the house, whose grass was almost taller than my own. The garage door was open, and everyone could see a kaleidoscope of projects. There were paths between the stacks of materials and half-built machinery in the garage. I remembered what Gwen had said about how Belinda had kept a job for the steady income. This is what happened when that income went away.

It didn’t bode well for him as a murder suspect. He had lost his security and now he had to live like this. Whatever motive he’d once had was now gone and he was left in a rundown part of the city. Poverty had risen drastically in Toledo, and visiting places like this didn’t let you forget that. 

I knocked on the door, assuming that he was at home given that the garage door was open. After a few seconds, a man came to the door. He wore a pair of jeans with numerous holes and smudges on them along with a t-shirt that had once been white.

A Pit Bull stood behind him. The dog didn’t growl, but I knew their reputation. I was a bit tense, but as I watched the dog, I saw all the signs that said this was just a pet and not a vicious killer. The stance was off for attack, and the attitude was anything but aggressive.

“What?” the man said, stroking the dog’s head absent-mindedly as he waited for my response.

“I was hoping to ask you a few questions about your wife’s death.” I thought that an upfront approach would work best. Mr. Frias was likely busy and wouldn’t relish the chance to walk through memory lane with me. So I came to the point with my first sentence.

“Are you the police?” he said. I could see him scrutinize my appearance, but my look was anything but official. My hair was buzzed, my jeans were worn, and I had an older jacket on. I was more likely to fit in here than at the police station.

“No, actually I’m looking into my sister’s disappearance, and I think your wife’s murder might be related to it.” I explained the situation. Everyone who had lived in Toledo for over 10 years had heard of the Susan Fitzpatrick case. I rarely introduced myself as such, because I’d grown to hate the questions and looks, but now I was trying to get information out of a man who had no reason to tell me anything. By trying to give us something in common, the loss of a loved one and the media circus that followed, I hoped to get him to talk about the murder.

He nodded. “I remember that case like it was yesterday. Normally, I’d throw your ass out of here, but I understand. You’re a kindred spirit as it were. Come on in.” He stood back and motioned for me to enter. I walked in and waited for him in what could loosely be called a living room. The area had thread-bare carpeting and two wooden chairs.

“I don’t entertain much,” he said as he took one of the chairs. The dog came over and sniffed me while I tried to get comfortable in the other chair. He licked my hand a few times, but quickly lost interest and went over to his owner.

“I understand. I don’t either.” I thought back to my own home though, which had matching furniture and plush carpet. I had kept up the appearance of normality in my own life, even though I’d tried to maintain a low profile. In many respects, being overtly normal is the best way to be invisible. We see so many split-levels with two cars and a few toys out in front of the house that we neglect to pay any attention to the people who live there.

“So what do you want to know? Why would you think that these two things are related?”

I gave him a brief outline that my sister had begun to look for tickets out of Toledo the day following the murder, and I felt that it was likely that she’d seen the murder take place. He listened carefully, but he didn’t speak. He just nodded and continued to pet the dog. He didn’t seem to be overly upset about his wife’s death, but it was hard to gauge what a normal reaction was for grief after more than a dozen years had passed. If he’d been more upset, I think I would have been more suspicious. He’d apparently moved on, even if the move had been down the socio-economic scale.

“So I am looking into the murder in hopes of finding out what she might have seen and how that might be related to the murder.” I paused and waited for him to respond.

Finally, he spoke. “I’d love to be able to help you. I know that Belinda would have liked that as well. She was big on helping people. But I just don’t know anything about it. She went to work like it was any other day, and she never came home.”

“The family found the body? It wasn’t time for her to come home?” I’d actually made up a list of questions for the husband while I’d been walking the dog. I wanted to be prepared in case he was hostile, and I only had a few minutes to ask questions.

“Yeah. I only went and picked her up at the end of the day. Quitting time for her on that day was usually 6pm, but that night, she’d called and asked if I could pick her up an hour later. She said she was running behind, something about a mess from the first house she cleaned that day.”

I checked my notes. “The Wagners? That was her first house, I think.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t bother with the names. I only knew the addresses. They were the family who lived next to the Gillespies. Nice house, big place.” I wondered if he was thinking of their home in comparison to where he lived now. It would have made him pensive.

“You met them?” I asked, not sure how a cleaning lady worked. I have never had the funds to hire any help. I don’t think that she would have approved of the way I kept house anyway.