Your Chariot Awaits (26 page)

Disappointing, but not the end of the world. I went back to the help-wanted ads in the Vigland newspaper
.
The only job possibility was at a burger place. Not my ideal choice, but if I had to sling burgers, so be it.

The job wasn't filled yet when I arrived, and the nineteen-year-old manager let me fill out an application, but I could tell I made him nervous. In looking over the workers on duty, I could see why. The males were near clones of the manager himself, the females young and cute and curvy.

“Do you ever hire older workers?” I asked.

“Well, uh . . .” His gaze followed mine to the fresh-cheeked girl handing over a tray of burgers. “We, uh, haven't so far, but we, uh,
might.”

Right. They also
might
hire a robot in a clown suit. But not likely. Age discrimination, I was reasonably certain, was alive and well no matter what the law said.

I drowned my sorrows in a cheeseburger deluxe with curly fries and a chocolate milk shake. If it weren't for DDS Molino having my limo in his clutches, I might soon be desperate enough to consider starting a limousine service.

THE BAND CONCERT was scheduled for eight o'clock. There were chairs set up, but Joella and I spread a blanket on the grass. We heard rousing Sousa marches, patriotic songs, and some surprisingly swingy numbers too.

On the way out of the park, we ran into Letty Bishop and a couple of her grandkids. “Hey, are you still interested in a temporary job?” she asked.

“At the moment I'm interested in any kind of job.”

“I think they're going to let me hire someone. I should know in a day or two. I'll give you a call.”

“Great!”

Afterward we went to KeKo's Ice Cream Parlor for straw-berry sundaes. The small size. No more pigging out, followed by expensive trips to the emergency room. We got home about ten thirty. I'd left the lights on in the living room. After what had happened in my driveway, I'd gotten uneasy about coming home to a dark house. I unlocked the door . . . and walked into a disaster area.

28

S
ofa overturned, cushions scattered. Pictures ripped off walls. Videotapes and DVDs tumbling out of the cabinet and across the carpet. Cans of chili mingled with boxes of cake mix and cornflakes spilled on the kitchen counters. Refrigerator and freezer wide open, contents strewn on the floor.

Lobster! I dashed around frantically gathering up my precious lobster tails and steaks and cheesecake and stuffing them back into the freezer.

Then I stopped short, frozen chicken cordon bleu in hand. The burglar might still be in the house, and I was worrying about lobster tails?

I stood as frozen as the chicken cordon bleu for a moment. Was that a noise from the bedroom? Or footsteps behind the house?

I ran for the garage to go over to Joella's, then turned and dashed for the front door instead. What I did not need was to find myself face-to-face with a burglar lurking in the dark garage. Joella, in her wispy little nightgown, let me in when I pounded on the door.

“Andi, what's wrong? What happened?”

“Someone broke in. The place is a wreck! I need to call 911—”

“Are you okay?”

I touched my hand to my rampaging heart. Sure, fine. If I didn't have a heart attack or stroke in the next two minutes.

Joella pulled me inside. “Detective Sergeant Molino gave me a card. I'll call him. He should know about this.”

I started to protest. I wasn't eager to see DDS Molino again. But she was right. He was the person to call. This had to be connected with the murder.

She locked the door behind me, got his business card from her purse and, very calm and collected, punched numbers into the phone. She listened a moment, then started on new numbers.

“That was his home phone. It's an answering machine. I'm trying his cell phone now.”

I plopped on the sofa, feeling a combination of panicky and drained, my thoughts jumpy as hyped-up grasshoppers. Had the murderer come back? Why? To frighten me? Or to search for something he hadn't found in the limo or Jerry's condo?

Joella sat down beside me after she hung up the phone. “He'd gone to give his sister's car a jump-start. The battery was dead 'cause she left the lights on while she and a friend went to a movie. He'll be here in a few minutes. He says don't go back over there.”

We sat at the window and watched. The detective arrived with admirable speed. He was not in an official car, nor was he in uniform. I had difficulty picturing DDS Molino as a helpful brother . . . with a cat . . . but obviously even hard-edged detectives had a life beyond chasing murderers and snatching limousines.

Joella had dressed and was right behind me. I momentarily wondered if we'd have gotten such quick off-duty service if I, rather than cute Joella, had called. DDS Molino did, in fact, look at her and say, “You okay?”

“My place wasn't broken into, just Andi's.”

“I'm sorry about interrupting your evening,” I said. “But I think the break-in must be connected with the murder.”

“I'll check it out. You both wait here while I see what's going on.”

He was, I noted, carrying a gun in a holster strapped to his belt, even though he was in jeans. He had the gun out as he approached the door. He turned before entering, emphatically waving us back inside.

He was inside the house for some ten minutes. Then he came to Joella's door and asked me to come back to the house with him.

“I know it's difficult to tell at this point, but do you see any-thing missing?” he asked when we were inside.

My house hadn't been neat after the police search, but now my bedroom looked like the last day of a three-day yard sale, when everything has been pawed through and rejected. Clothes scattered, blankets torn off the bed, mattress shoved aside. Nightstand and dresser drawers emptied on the floor. Contents of my jewelry box dumped on the bed. I poked through the items with a stiff finger, feeling squeamish know-ing someone else had also just done so.

“I don't see my diamond-stud earrings.” I said it reluctantly, because I was sorry to lose them, but also because I was afraid how this would look to DDS Molino.

He didn't have a notebook, so he appropriated the scratch pad by the phone. “Could you describe them, please.”

I did. Plain old diamond studs. A quarter-carat each, in a plain gold setting. A long-ago present from Richard. Actually, I'd been surprised he hadn't grabbed them when he left. He'd taken most everything else of value, including an expensive bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne I'd naively been saving for our anniversary.

“Anything else?”

“An old watch that belonged to my mother, a Hamilton. It won't run anymore, but it might look valuable to someone.” I described that too.

In the bathroom, the medicine cabinet had been emptied, contents flung across the counter and into the sink. Towels and sheets yanked from the linen closet.

“Anything missing here? Prescriptions or drugs of any kind?”

“Maybe some old Vicodin painkillers I had left over from when I hurt my elbow a couple years ago.” I hesitated, trying to remember. “Although I may have thrown them out,” I hedged, again not wanting to encourage any this-is-just-an-ordinary- burglary thoughts. “How did they get in?”

He led me to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio out back. They were still open.

“Nothing high-tech about the entry. They just pried the door open. Looks as if the frame is bent. The glass is cracked too.” He frowned disapprovingly. “You should at least use a stick or rod along the bottom to hold the door in place. That would have made prying it open more difficult. Is Joella's door like this too?”

“Yes.”

“Then get something to brace her door too. What time did you leave the house?”

“About seven thirty. Joella and I went to the band concert in the park. It was a little past ten thirty when we got home. I'd left the lights on while we were gone.”

Which had undoubtedly been convenient for the burglar, I thought unhappily. Maybe I should have left cookies out for him, too, so he'd have felt extra welcome.

The detective took a flashlight and searched for tracks in the grass, both front and back, but found nothing. That didn't surprise me. Even if the burglar hadn't stayed on the narrow sidewalk leading around the house, the grass was clipped short and the ground dry, not conducive to revealing footprints of anything smaller than the Northwest's mythical Bigfoot.

The detective started to shove the door back into place. I stopped him, appalled at what he was doing.

“Shouldn't the door be dusted for fingerprints before it's touched?”

“I know it probably seems unreasonable to the general public, but the department doesn't have the money to do that kind of investigation on every minor burglary.”

“That's all you think this is?” I asked in dismay. “A minor burglary?”

“Unless you discover something more, only the earrings and watch are missing. It's basically just a big cleanup job. And I'd strongly guess whoever did this wore gloves anyway.”

“But if it's connected to the murder—”

“You think it is?”

“Of course I do. Isn't a murder and then a break-in on the same property too much of a coincidence? And if they were just ordinary burglars, wouldn't they have taken more than the few little things that are missing?”

DDS Molino looked around. He didn't say anything, but I could see what he was thinking:
And that something more would
be . . . ?

Okay, I could see his point. No burglar was likely to bother with my toaster or my old VHS tape of
Grease.

“So why do you think the killer would be in your house?”

“To search for something connected to the murder. Or to frighten or intimidate me by vandalizing my home.”

“To intimidate you into doing something? Or
not
doing something?”

Put that way, frightening or intimidating me seemed less of a possibility. Yes, I was frightened. But what did that accomplish? It wasn't as if I was in a position to finger anyone for the crime of murder, and this would silence me.

“Okay, they were searching for something, then.”

“Such as?”

“Something the killer didn't find in the limo or in Jerry's condo. Maybe that flash drive Jerry always carried! Or his cell phone. They weren't on his body.”

“Is there any chance they could be in here?”

“Well, no, I don't think so,” I admitted reluctantly. Jerry had never spent nights here. “But the killer doesn't know that.”

“And why would this flash drive be important?”

I hesitated, suddenly wary of these questions. DDS Molino was not a stupid or unobservant man. So what was the point in acting so dense? Because I was still a suspect, and he was try-ing to catch me in some incriminating remark? I barged ahead anyway.

“Because he was undoubtedly using it as a backup for what-ever was on his computer. The killer knows the flash drive exists and is afraid if he doesn't find it first, that you'll find it. And there's something on it that incriminates him!”

“We'd already searched the house. It wasn't here.”

“But the killer doesn't necessarily know that either. Have you ever heard of something called the Twenty-first Minutemen?”

“No. What is it? Some rock group?” He sounded more impatient than interested.

“They're the group I first mentioned when you questioned me about Jerry. I don't know if it's located in Vigland or else-where in the area, but it's kind of a semimilitary group. Minutemen of the twenty-first century, or something like that. Big on conspiracy theories and do-it-yourself survival.”

“So why would they be after Jerry Norton?”

“He did a Web site for them, then shut it down. He thought at least a few of the members might be dangerous.”

I started to mention Donny Loperi's name in connection with the group, then hesitated. Elena had said if the police came after him, he'd know who'd put them on his trail. He'd surely blame Elena if they sought him out for questioning now. And if he did blame her . . . I shivered. I didn't want her dead body on
my
conscience.

“I'll send someone over in the morning to dust for finger-prints. I don't think anything will show up, but just in case.”

He sounded as if he was making a big concession on the fingerprint issue, which rather annoyed me, but all I said was, “I'd appreciate that.”

“Don't touch anything more until then. And I think it would be better if you don't stay here tonight.”

I didn't need any encouragement in that direction. “I can sleep on Joella's sofa.”

“Good. And brace that sliding glass door at her place.”

I locked the front door, which seemed a bit superfluous, considering that the sliding glass door in back couldn't be closed because of the bent frame. He walked me over to Joella's door.

“I wonder how the burglar happened to choose tonight? I'm usually home in the evenings. Odd that they'd strike on the rare night I wasn't.”

“If it's an ordinary burglary, probably just an opportunistic thing. They saw a place that looked like no one was home and broke in. If it's something else, although I consider that unlikely, maybe someone has been watching your place.”

I didn't find that possibility unlikely. I shivered again at the thought of someone sneaking around, peering in windows without my knowing it.

“Well, thanks for coming,” I said at Joella's door. I realized I should have picked up some pajamas before I left the house, but I wasn't about to ask DDS Molino to go back with me while I pawed through my scattered lingerie.

He was headed toward his car when Joella locked the door, but a minute later the doorbell rang.

“It's me again,” the detective said through the door. “I for-got to tell you something.”