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“Where is she today, anyway? We need to ask her some questions as well.”

“She and Buck left this morning early to deliver a puppy. I don’t expect they’ll be home until some time in the afternoon.”

Fernandez nodded and jotted something down in his notebook. He looked back up at me then, intently. “You don’t own a gun, do you, Ms. Harris?”

I nearly knocked over my coffee in surprise. “No, I certainly don’t. I never have, and I don’t imagine I ever will. Why do you ask?”

His expression got even more serious. “Come on, Ms. Harris. Even you probably noticed that the victim was shot. I have to ask about guns. Of course I’ll find out if he owned one himself, and what type if he did. But your apartment is the dwelling closest to the scene, so it bears asking.”

“If you say so.”

There wasn’t much to the questioning after that. I provided the detective with Buck and Dot’s phone number, and promised to come down to the station soon to be fingerprinted. I wasn’t totally sure that was necessary; it had only been nine months since I’d been fingerprinted after Dennis’s death. Didn’t they keep things like that?

When I asked Fernandez, he gave me a funny look. “No, we don’t keep fingerprint cards once we’re done with them, not for private citizens who aren’t suspected of anything or have no criminal record.” So at least now I knew why I had to go back to get printed again.

“Thank you for the coffee. I appreciate you sharing,” Fernandez said, standing at my front door.

“You’re welcome.” I didn’t feel very charitable right at the moment, after the exchange about the gun. If I’d known then how much less charitable I’d be feeling about Ray Fernandez soon, I would never even have given him the coffee in the first place.

T
he rest of Monday felt strange, disjointed and downright difficult. I cut class for the day, not the brightest of ideas so close to finals, but I just couldn’t concentrate enough to imagine going and paying any attention to anything. Dot and Buck still weren’t home by the time I had to go in to campus for my shift at the Coffee Corner, the coffeehouse in the same building with the student bookstore.

When I got there, my best friend Linnette Parks, who is the assistant manager of the bookstore, was so busy dealing with textbook buy-back that she could only wave and nod when I called over the crowd that she needed to come see me when she got a break. It was ninety minutes into my shift and at the height of the afternoon rush for espressos and mochas to get everybody through that last class of the day before I saw her stunning red hair at the end of the line in front of me.

“You don’t look so good,” she said when she got up to the front of the line and I started making her the half-caf nonfat latte I knew she wanted. With some people I would have taken offense at that remark, but not with Linnette. Besides, she was more than likely right.

“I don’t feel so good, either, but I feel a lot better than Frank Collins.” I put the latte down in front of her and glared when she tried to put money in the tip jar. Since Linnette was the assistant manager next door, my boss, Maria, said that she was to get her drinks for free. Linnette took issue with this and was always trying to slip money to the staff any way she could.

“Is that the creepy contractor who’s still working on the bathroom at the apartment?”

I nodded. “It is. He met with an accident this morning some time after he got to my place. I’ve already seen your favorite detective and mine.”

Linnette had been with me the day that Dennis died, and she knew exactly what I meant, without my having to use the word “dead” or “homicide” around the crowd at the coffeeshop, which was just what I wanted. She picked up on things immediately, her hazel eyes blinking back a few tears. “That’s awful, Gracie Lee. I want to know more about it as soon as you get time.” I promised to grab the first opportunity I could to come over and talk to her, and she headed back to the bookstore with her coffee.

Apparently Maria overheard our conversation, but of course hadn’t understood it the same way Linnette had. “Your contractor had an accident on the job?”

“Well, he’s not exactly
my
contractor,” I told her in a low voice while I made another mocha for a young lady with a diamond chip in her nose that was bigger than my first engagement ring. “He was my landlord’s contractor, and the accident or whatever happened left him…uh…deceased.”

“Whoa. Did you see this happen?” Maria’s kohl-lined eyes were huge. “I have to guess you didn’t, because surely you wouldn’t have come into work if you did.”

“Well, I didn’t see what happened. But I did find the body,” I admitted. If Maria heard me talking to Linnette she’d know that soon enough anyway.

She balled up her fists in consternation at her hips. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I would have sent you home, or just told you not to come to work in the first place.”

I shrugged, going back to the counter to deliver the mocha, collect money and come back to where the espresso machines were. “You still would have needed help, especially for the afternoon rush. Monday’s always a bear.”

“This is true. But fifteen minutes from now when the rush dies down, you’re clocking out.”

Maria looked so determined that I didn’t feel like arguing with her, even though staying busy here sounded better than going home. In the apartment, alone, I’d be too close for my own comfort to that spot where I’d found Frank this morning. Once I clocked out I’d go over and talk to Linnette, anyway. Short of talking to my mom, I couldn’t think of anything that was more likely to calm me down.

“I guess you’ll be going first Wednesday night,” Linnette said with a sigh when I had told her everything that happened this morning. In addition to being my best friend, Linnette was also the leader of a Christian Friends group at Conejo Community Chapel. The women who get together to share stuff in that group have kept me as sane as possible in the last ten months by being my prayer partners, my sounding boards and just what their name says…Christian friends to walk through the hard times with each other. Linnette had introduced me to the group last winter when she’d found me in tears in one of the bookstore aisles and I’ve been stirring things up in the group ever since, I’m afraid.

My first night there brought the revelation for one of the other members, Heather Taylor, that her missing fiancé, who was also the father of her child, wasn’t missing at all, but in a coma
and
somebody else’s husband, namely mine. Oddly enough Heather and I are both still part of the group, and when she can’t get a sitter, her beautiful daughter Corinna Grace gets passed around from person to person while we all talk and pray. It’s great for most of the rest of us to get a “baby fix” and helpful for Heather to have that many hands to take care of the baby.

We all have problems to share at Christian Friends, which meets twice a month on Wednesdays at the Chapel. Normally whoever has the biggest problem shares first. I hadn’t gone first in quite a few months, which was a nice change in my life. For a while I was first all the time. But once I’d moved to Dot and Buck’s apartment and gotten Ben settled in California before he headed off to Pacific Oaks and the dorm, my life had gotten downright calm.

It looked like that was about to change for a while, but hopefully just a brief while. I couldn’t see how I would get too involved in Frank’s death. He and I weren’t that close. It was going to be difficult for Dot because he was her relative, and even more difficult because this meant that somehow she’d have to find someone to take over a half-done remodeling job. Darnell certainly couldn’t do it himself. I didn’t envy her that task from what little I’d seen of the home repair business in Southern California.

One thing I’d learned in the last eighteen months is that this part of the country has its own speed. I’d had portions of my condo worked on in Missouri and the projects were always slower and more expensive than expected, but only to a degree. Here, everything seemed to take twice as long as promised and cost an incredible amount. And nobody was going to want to take on a job someone else had gotten this far into.

All this was going to make my life as a tenant a pretty miserable experience, but that would be nothing compared to what Dot and Buck were going to have to deal with. I figured she would be right after me in line Wednesday night, and I told Linnette so.

“That’s probably true. Was she close to Frank?” As group leader, Linnette ran our Christian Friends sessions and guided us all through the thornier issues, consulting Pastor George if things got too difficult for her to handle.

“They didn’t seem to be that close. Mostly she complained because he expected all kinds of breaks because he was family, but wasn’t giving her any in return,” I told Linnette truthfully. Frank had struck me as the kind of cousin you’d never want to kiss, but that might just be my opinion. I’d probably seen more of his day-to-day antics than Dot had, since I’d been living in the apartment he was remodeling and she had a fairly full life on the other end of the property and beyond.

“Well, maybe it will all work out fairly easily. Bring it up first thing after prayers Wednesday night and at least you’ll have us all pulling for you.” She got up and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Now that Maria sent you home, you don’t want to come over and shelve returns, do you? I’m short workers as usual.”

Normally I might have taken her up on her offer, but I found that once I’d gotten all the morning’s events told, I was beginning to feel worn out. “I think I’m actually going home. Maybe pick up some fish tacos on the way and call it an evening.” Fish tacos were one of those things my Missouri relatives couldn’t even imagine that I’d gotten almost addicted to in California. They’re really fantastic, if you like fish to begin with. They’re also nothing like a pallid Midwestern taco of packaged crunchy shell, ground beef, iceberg lettuce and cheese, either.

Picking up a couple grilled mahi-mahi tacos with avocado salsa and a cold diet soda sounded better and better. I would put my feet up, dispense with propriety and eat in the living room when I got home. I made my goodbyes to Linnette and an hour later I was watching the evening game shows on TV and nodding off over an open textbook. The fish tacos had been every bit as good as I expected them to be, but putting food in my stomach just made me realize how tired I was.

I noticed that Dot and Buck had gotten home sometime while I was away, and Dot had left a message on my answering machine. “This is Dot. I’ve already talked to Detective Fernandez, and he told me all about Frank. I’m so sorry you had to be involved in this. Call me when you get home,” she had said. Dot sounded a little shaky but not terribly upset. I guess when you’ve seen everything she has in seventy years, it’s hard to get real upset about most things. I knew I should call, but that would mean more than just talking on the phone, knowing Dot, and I didn’t have the energy to go over and talk to them at this point.

We ended up talking briefly the next morning amidst a lot of commotion on the driveway. The first person to show up was somebody I should have expected sooner. Sam Blankenship had been the lowliest reporter on the food chain at the Rancho Conejo edition of the
Ventura County Star
when Dennis was killed. Sam used his coverage of what, at first, just looked like a suspicious death at Conejo Board and Care to boost himself higher in his editor’s regard. Now he actually covered part of the crime beat.

His fortunes hadn’t improved enough to do much for his wardrobe yet. He still wore battered khakis and a barely presentable shirt but he had some charm that made people talk to him. This morning was no different. The company that owned the portable toilet had sent out a driver and one of their big trucks to remove the facility. “First time I’ve ever had a call like this one,” the driver told Sam as he operated the hoist equipment that lifted everything onto the back of the truck. “I’m supposed to take the whole unit, contents and all, to the sheriff’s department because it’s evidence. Can you believe that? And I thought my job was bad.”

I hadn’t thought before that there might be things inside the unit that would tell Fernandez and his crime-scene techs more about the murder. Given that evidence and where it might be found, I didn’t want their job, either. Dot stood out on the driveway with the rest of us watching all this while Buck was tending to the kennels. “Does this mean that this is where you found Frank?” she asked.

“It was. He was fully clothed and everything. It wasn’t like he’d been in there for the normal purposes. I think whoever it was that shot him put him in there to hide the evidence.”

We didn’t say much more for a few minutes. Sam asked the driver a few more questions, and jotted down notes that I knew included what he’d overheard me tell Dot. I didn’t mind; he would ask me the same questions sooner or later anyway. Dot stood quite a few feet from me, watching silently, which was odd for her. Maybe Frank’s death had affected her more than I had thought. “I’m so sorry that this had to happen, Dot. Do you know how his wife is taking all this?”

“I haven’t talked to her. We aren’t all that close. But I talked to one of Frank’s aunts, the one cousin in that bunch I usually talk to, and everybody’s shocked. Gathering from what she said, I think the biggest surprise is that nobody did this earlier. If I’d known before what a scoundrel Frank Collins was, I would never have insisted we hire him, even if he is family.”

Whoops. That was a lot more information than I wanted, and I had no idea how to respond. Dot didn’t seem to need a response anyway. In fact, she stopped herself from saying any more. “I shouldn’t be talking, I expect. I’m supposed to go in to the sheriff’s department and talk to that detective later today, and he said not to say anything to anybody. Buck’s going with me and we’re both being fingerprinted.”

“Ben and I are supposed to go do the same thing. Maybe we’ll meet you down there.”

“Maybe so,” Dot said, with less enthusiasm than usual. She went back to the house as the man finished loading his “evidence” on the back of the flatbed truck. He got in the truck and pulled out of the driveway, and Sam turned his attention to me.

“So you found the body, huh? And he was in what that guy just hauled away?” Sam had a look that said he didn’t know whether to laugh or shudder.

“That about sums it up.” I didn’t want to say too much for fear of the grief I’d get from Fernandez.

“Look, I’ve talked to the sheriff’s department already and gotten as much as I could. It’s obviously a homicide because there were too many circumstances that ruled out suicide. I know the guy’s name and that he’s a general contractor. Was he working on your place?”

“He had been. And it’s not my place, Sam, it’s a rental. I think to get any more information you’ll have to talk to the owners.”

“That’s the lady who just went in the house and who else?”

“That gentleman over there.” I pointed to Buck, who had finished with the kennels and was running Hondo through his paces. The big shepherd had trained as a stunt dog for movie work and could look like a ferocious attack dog.

Sam didn’t move from where he stood. “Maybe a little later, then. Have a nice day, Ms. Harris.”

Ben was hard to reach that day, and we didn’t get down to the sheriff’s department. Buck had told me that he’d take over the kennel work for a few days. It was strange, but when he told me, he was as standoffish as Dot had been earlier. I was really wondering what was going on. It was almost as if by finding Frank’s body, I was somehow responsible in their eyes for his death. Maybe things would simmer down in a few days and we could all start treating each other normally again. Or maybe not, and I’d be looking for a new place to live. What a depressing thought. Real estate out here is unbelievable, even rental units.