I dressed slowly and decided that Tuttle’s walk would have to wait. What I needed this morning, more than anything, was a box of donuts.
So far, Mr. Tuttles and Stormy had reached a certain level of respect for each other, but without his walk, Tuttles could be a bit much. If he became excited about Stormy again, he could easily get hurt. I laughed to myself at the irony that yesterday I was worried about Tuttles hurting Stormy, but this morning it was the other way around. I scooped Stormy up and placed her back in the spare bedroom with her litter and a catnip toy I bought at the store. I looked at my little white dog. “I have errands to run. Don’t bother Stormy! No barking at the door, you got it?”
Tuttles cocked his head at the sound of my voice and laid down, watching me with his big, round eyes, and I left, feeling uneasy about leaving the two of them, even though one was locked in the bedroom.
Sonya Trujillo greeted me as I entered the police station and passed me through without checking my ID. The station itself had changed a bit since I used to bring lunch to Javi so we could eat together, finding a few quiet moments in both of our busy schedules. Sonya sat behind a security screen that was now bulletproof, a safety measure nobody ever expected her to need, but one that made everybody feel safer anyway. A wide couch, worn but still showing life, sat next to the reception window for people waiting to be buzzed in, and a large old-fashioned community board advertised the City Council meetings, violin lessons, a photo of a missing dog, and an ad for buy one, get one free ice cream at the local ice cream shop all stuck into the cork board with brightly colored push pins.
One thing I’d learned from hanging around at the station: if a person desired information from the police, the best tactic was to bribe them with food, which explained the two boxes of donuts in my hands.
My heart beat hard as I walked in and saw Javi chatting with a uniformed patrolman. Neither of us wanted anybody to know what happened last night, I was sure. The kiss. When I wasn’t thinking about Angie’s murder, I was thinking about The Kiss. It had felt so right in the moment and so wrong in the morning. Luckily, years of dealing with investors had taught me how to keep my emotions in check. Nobody likes a CEO who cries.
Javi looked up in surprise when he saw me. “Kate…”
I held up my hand. “Before you say anything, I knew you’d be working long hours, and I was trying to be nice.”
“Donuts, well, yeah, that was pretty nice. Thank you.”
He avoided looking into my eyes as I busied myself opening the two donuts boxes and placing them on an open area of a desk.
Donuts never failed to bring everybody together, drawing people out of their offices and into the common area where the uniformed officers’ desks were.
Detective Dayna Afaoma and Officer Jack Emberly crowded around the donut box. “Oohh! Apple Fritter, my favorite,” Dayna said.
“You sure got a lot of donuts!” Jack took a huge bite of a chocolate old fashioned, “but they’re delicious, thank you.”
Dayna stopped eating for a second and gave me a wide-eyed stare. “Kate, I’m so sorry about your friend. I didn’t know until Javi told me that you and Angela Beech were close.” Dayna and I had been friends before I even met Javier. Not close friends, like Angie and I were, but Dayna’s brother Del worked for me at Waggles as my VP of marketing. He was an excellent employee and was the one who suggested adding in a clothing line with witty sayings, like “Waggles Mom AF” and “Can’t go out tonight, I have a dog in my lap,” with our url “WagglesDog dot com” underneath it. We gave the t-shirts away at conferences and sold them online, where people were buying them like crazy. He’d also insisted on other shirts that said, “Waggles Dad AF” and the gender neutral“Waggles Parent AF,” and I was amazed that they sold just as well. It was a new world that I was grateful others were introducing me to.
I met Dayna when she came to our offices to take her brother to lunch, and I found her to be intelligent, competent, and fun, and, truth be told, Dayna was actually my “in” with the Palm Hills Police Force. She had weathered the hot and heavy relationship I had with her boss by mostly looking away and occasionally teasing me about it. We still went to lunch together every few weeks to catch up.
“Yes, well, thank you, Dayna,” I said, my voice a bit too brusque. “The best thing we can all do is solve this case quickly. And save some of those donuts for Sonya!”
Javier leaned against a desk, a powdered sugar donut in hand. I knew they were his favorites. “Schwe’renot sharing info wish you jus because of donuts,” Javier said, his mouth full of donut.
“Of course not,” I said brusquely. “You have powdered sugar all over you.” I almost reached up to brush the powdered sugar off him, but I caught myself at the last minute.
“You’d better watch it,” Jack said. “Your wife told me you were supposed to be watching your cholesterol. No worries, though. Your secret is safe with me.”
For a second, the entire world stopped as an awkwardness filled the room like a gas, expanding to all of us like some sort of helium had just been breathed in, making none of us want to speak in fear of saying the wrong thing. Even Dayna paled.
Except for Jack. The man was clueless. “Sheila was just telling me the other day that she’d put both of you on a low-carb diet.” He looked at me. “I don’t suppose any of these donuts are low-carb? Ha!”
Dayna stepped between me and Javi and brushed the powdered sugar off his shirt. “Chief, you have this stuff all over your uniform. Why don’t you go wash that off?”
He sent a guilty look my way and headed for the bathroom.
As soon as he left, I turned to Dayna, keeping my voice low. “I assume you’ve already pulled the footage from her security camera?”
Jack glanced at me and then at Dayna, grabbed another donut, and headed for his office. “I’ll leave you two to it. I don’t want to have anything to do with this.”
“Any of what, Jack?” Dayna asked innocently.
“You know what!” Jack slammed his office door shut.
“Let’s chat in my office.” Dayna led me to her tiny office, where she took a seat behind her desk and invited me to sit in the chair opposite. I often marveled at what a lithe little thing she was, short, skinny, and agile, and yet her skills as a law enforcement professional were second to none from what I’d seen in the news and heard from Javi.
“Have a seat,” she indicated the chair across from her desk. “Seriously, how are you doing?”
“It’s been rough, but I’m doing okay. I’m taking care of her cat.” My voiced hitched a little when I mentioned Stormy.
“That’s good. I know the media is in an uproar. There hasn’t been a homicide in Palm Hills in over ten years.”
“Sunhaven is supposed to be so safe. A lot of people don’t lock their doors during the day, and kids play in the street and all.” I shook my head. A murder in Sunhaven was unthinkable.
“I assume you came here looking for some info?”
I nodded and shrugged. I also needed to tell her about Cynthia.
“Well, I could use a little help since you know the neighborhood so well.” Dayna opened a notebook. “I hope it’s not too soon?”
“No, it’s fine. I really need for her murderer to be found. Anything I can do to help is fine.”
“Okay, when you entered the home, how was the door?”
“How was it?”
“Sorry, yeah, like was it ajar? Closed? Locked?”
I tried to remember back, walking around the house, looking into the windows. It was so hard to remember details right before finding Angie, as it was such a huge shock. I closed my eyes. “If it was even the slightest bit open, I would have noticed. But I didn’t have to force the door. I’m pretty sure I turned the knob and rushed in.”
“Good. That’s good. Thank you.” Dayna scribbled something in her notebook.
“When you were there, did you notice anything missing or out of place?”
I nodded. “Her computer. She has a Mac laptop of some sort. One of the small skinny ones. It was always close to her, either on the kitchen table or the island or in the family room.”
“Okay, anything else?”
I went through the memories, trying to sort them. I’d started taking mental notes after I went in the second time. “There were a lot of dirty dishes, which wasn’t typical for Angie. Since she lived alone, she usually just put them straight into the dishwasher.”
Dayna nodded. “She had several visitors that day. Did she say anything to you about that?”
I thought back. “No.”
She swiveled a series of photos around to show me. “We pulled the footage from her front door security camera. Do you recognize any of these people?”
Upside down, to me, on the desk was a list of the people seen on Angie’s security camera, written in Dayna’s clear, precise handwriting. Besides each was a notation of the time.
“Javier would have my head if he knew I was showing this to you,” she said in a low voice.
“What Javi doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” I inspected the list.
9:07 am Cynthia Barron - HOA Secretary
12:24 pm Beatrice Gransby - Former HOA Prez
2:12 pm ???
7:01 pm Felyne O’Shea - HOA Manager
Next to the list were photos of each of Angie’s visitors that day, taken from the security camera footage.
I nodded at the list. “I know Cynthia, Beatrice, and Felyne. This jibes with what Cynthia Barron told me this morning.”
“You’ve already talked to one of our suspects?”
“She practically barged in first thing this morning to tell me she didn’t kill Angie.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I filled her in on Cynthia’s story.
“So what do you think?” Dayna asked.
“Cynthia still had something to hide, that’s for sure. When you bring her in for questioning, see if you can drill down on the relationship with her husband.”
Dayna leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers behind her head, staring at the ceiling. “If her husband was hiding things, he could have killed Angie to keep her quiet about it.”
“Yeah…that doesn’t really make sense, though. If Cynthia told Angie about it, then the cat was already out of the bag, so to speak.”
The room fell silent while Dayna watched me study the list and the photos. She made herself busy reading emails while I absorbed what I was seeing.
“Any chance you’d know why Angie had such a large number of people in and out of her house on Saturday?” she finally asked.
“No idea,” I said without looking up. “I assume this was all HOA business, but she never mentioned to me that she needed to meet with all these people.”
“Would she normally?”
“Honestly, probably not. It’s not like we were joined at the hip. She occasionally told me funny stories about meetings she’d had, but as a lawyer, she was also very careful about maintaining confidentiality where it was required.”
She picked up a photo and studied it, then handed it to me.
In the photo, Cynthia was dressed in a tight leopard blouse with gold leggings, high heels, and hair pouffed out as though she still lived in Texas. She carried a large bag with gold trim. The photo caught Cynthia in a frown, right before the door opened. I examined her face. What was she frowning about? I studied the photo. “What happened immediately after this moment? Did her demeanor change when Angie answered the door?”
“Sure did! She went from all sulky to bright and smiley.”
“Interesting.” I inspected the photo more closely. “Is that a Gucci bag?”
Dayna took the photo from me, eyes narrowed. “It definitely looks like one. Good eye. Is that something she’d normally be able to afford?”
I shrugged. “Her husband is a pretty successful businessman. I could see him splurging on something like that for her.”
I moved on to the photo of Beatrice Gransby, the former HOA President before Angie took over, dressed in a beige t-shirt that was a bit too big for her. Some women think wearing extra large clothes will hide their weight gain, but this t-shirt was doing Beatrice no favors. Beatrice, too, wore a frown, but hers wasn’t as pronounced, and because I knew her, I recognized her expression as pretty much just normal Beatrice. I’ve always hated the term, “resting bitch face,” but Beatrice always seemed to have at least resting “serious” face.
“And Beatrice?” I asked.
“She almost cracked a smile when Angie let her in.”
“That sounds normal for her. I’m surprised to see her at Angie’s front door, though.”
“She’s the former Sunhaven HOA President, right?”
I nodded. “Angie ran against her last fall for the board and won. Beatrice was extremely angry.”
“Mad enough to kill her?
“Good question. It was some time ago, so I’d think she’d have cooled off by now, but the last time I saw them together, Beatrice was definitely holding a grudge.”
“Maybe Angie found out about some crime she was committing.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea for the police should look into the HOAs finances. Perhaps there was some embezzling going on. Isn’t that what you always hear about HOA’s?”
Dayna nodded and made a note in her notebook.
The next photo was the strange man, the one with a question mark at his time slot. He was, from what I could tell, a fairly good-looking man in his 40s, dark hair with bits of gray, wearing dress pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He didn’t appear to be holding any kind of briefcase or equipment, as you would expect a salesperson or repair man to have, and his shirt held no logos to give us a clue.
“Do you recognize him?” Dayna asked.
“No, not at all. From his appearance, he doesn’t seem to be a neighbor, unless he just got home from work or something like that. It was really hot out. I can’t imagine somebody putting on slacks and a dress shirt for a quick visit with Angie on Saturday.”
“He could have been her date…”
“Seems unlikely that she’d have a date at 2 pm. What time did he leave?”
“He wasn’t there long, less than a half hour. Don’t worry—we’ll figure out who he is.”
The last photo was the video capture of Felyne, with her Irish red hair, pale complexion, and freckles. Felyne dressed casually in an L.A. Lakers t-shirt and skinny jeans with flat sandals. Of the four people in the photos, Felyne had the most harried look, like somebody who had a lot going on and not enough time to get it all done.
“Felyne is the HOA manager, right?”
“That’s right.”
“As I’m not so privileged as to live in an HOA, can you remind me what an HOA manager does, exactly?”
I almost laughed. Many people hate HOA’s; they consider them to be unnecessarily controlling, lorded over by power-hungry Karens. It was true that some HOA’s had weird rules, like what time your trash cans had to be put back into the garage by or the homeowner could receive a fine. Luckily, ours had never been like that, even when Beatrice was President. I’d never had a problem adhering to the few rules Sunhaven HOA had detailed in their covenants. I’d lived in a neighborhood without an HOA ages ago, where I watched as my next-door neighbor turn his front yard into a junk yard. It was as though I could sit on my porch and watch the value of my own house go down day by day as his pile of toilet seats and old washers grew in the line of site of my front window, so I didn’t have the animosity towards HOA’s that some people did.
“The management company is the one that maintains the HOA’s finances, writes work orders for anything owned by the HOA, like, in our case, an broken irrigation line, and sends out notices to residents if they are not in compliance with all of their rules.”
“That can’t be a very fun job.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. I definitely wouldn’t want to be that person.”
“How does a President of the HOA and the manager’s relationship work, then?”
“I believe the manager, like Felyne, takes direction from the President, so, like, if the President says not to send a fine to somebody, the manager probably wouldn’t, but typically the manager is the bad guy, taking the fall for enforcement of the rules.”
“Interesting.” An amiable silence fell between us again as Dayna contemplated all things HOA. “It seems as though Angie had a lot of HOA business going on for a Saturday, doesn’t it?”
“Angie mentioned that since she was retired, she didn’t mind meeting with people on the weekends. The other board members work real jobs, so she was happy to accommodate their schedules.”
Dayna moved the photos around on the desk, sorting them into order of appearance at Angie’s home. “Still, it’s a lot of people to have visit on a Saturday.”
“It is. When you looked at the video feed, did you see anything suspicious?”
“Actually, no. Each person comes to the door and seems to be welcomed in, and then they leave with a little more chatting at the door, a wave, and then they walk very normally out of the sight of the camera.”
“Can you see Angie at any point?
“No, she never steps into the field of view. I mean, somebody could be acting, but I don’t think any of those ladies would be cool enough to murder somebody and then act normal when leaving the house.”
“The unidentified man could be a serial killer.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Doubtful, though. Any chance I could see the actual footage from the security camera at some point?”
“Kate! I can’t do that!”
“I know you can’t, Dayna. But still, is there any chance I could see it?”
“Absolutely not!”
I shrugged and took one last look at the photos, my eyebrows knitted in concentration. They all looked normal. Even the unidentified man at the door seemed normal, although I wasn’t sure what a killer would look like when he or she was standing on somebody’s porch, ringing the doorbell. Still, nothing jumped out at me as being odd, with the exception that everybody was visiting on the same day.
Javier popped his head into Dayna’s office, another donut in his hand. “I hope you’re not giving away any secrets?”
Dayna rolled her eyes. “Of course not, Chief. But you know, Kate could very well be of some help to us at some point.”
While they were talking, I took out my phone and very discreetly snapped a photo of the list of people and pics that were scattered on Dayna’s desk.
“Kate has sold her company and has now moved on to her, oh, I don’t know, baking and watching cooking shows, or whatever she’s doing with all that time on her hands.” I was glad his normal genial manner and banter was back.
“I’m right here, Javi.”
“Obviously. Let’s all keep in mind that we need to keep police business within the police department.”
“Well, I don’t bake, and I couldn’t pull Martha Stewart out of a lineup if my life depended on it. I do enjoy those old Columbo reruns, though.” I stood up to leave. “Dayna, we should do lunch soon.”
Javier gave me an appraising look as he held the door for me. “Could I see you for a moment in my office?”
I really, really, really didn’t want to see Javier in his office for a moment. “Sure.”
He led me into his office and closed the door, which only gave us a very small amount of privacy since the interior walls and doors were all made of glass. At least nobody could hear us. He sat behind his desk and indicated the chair across from him for me to sit.
“Nope,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Kate, I’m sorry.”
“You already said that last night.”
“I know…I just, I honestly came over only to offer a moment of comfort. I didn’t mean for it to go….”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“Your tone doesn’t sound like you understand.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“We’re split up.”
“Yes, we are. Neither of us wanted to compromise on time or slowing down our careers to spend more time together.”
“No, I mean me. Me and Sheila.”
“You’re split up?”
“Kind of.”
“Have you moved out?”
“Not exactly.”
“So you’re split up, but you’re living with your wife who is putting you on a diet. It definitely sounds like she doesn’t have any idea you’re split up.”
He put his hand up. “I know how it sounds. It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t sound complicated to me.” I uncrossed my arms and loosened my shoulders. “Look, Javi, I know you had the best of intentions last night, and I appreciate it. I needed somebody, and you were there. It was as much my fault as it was yours. But let’s not pretend what happened last night was okay or warranted or that it meant anything for the future.” My voice was rising, but I tried to keep it down. “You were with Tricia exactly one millisecond after you dumped me. Do you know how that felt? That I was so easily replaced?”
Wow, apparently I still had a bit of anger after three years.
“I guess I never really thought about it like—”
“Of course you didn’t!” I exploded. “It was always about you. You wanted somebody to cook for every night, when you made it home, but I sometimes worked late too. You wanted somebody who would sit by the phone when you went out on an emergency when I needed to be on the road. You always said you didn’t want a traditional relationship, but you did! And building a company took all that time away from you, but you never thought about the time your being a cop also took away from us, because that’s the man’s job. Well, guess what? Apparently now you’re married to a woman who watches your cholesterol and waits for you to come home and has no idea you’re,” I made air quotes, “split up!”
I left before he could reply, ignoring the stares from Dayna and Jack and the others.
Driving home, my head was spinning. I’d been carrying that around for three years. Why did he have to be such a jerk, and why did I find him so attractive still? Things were different now. I was retired with money to spare. Was it possible that Javi thought now that I wasn’t working so much, he’d have a chance to get back with me?
I wished for Angie to still be alive. She always gave the best advice. “He was there for you in a moment of weakness, Kate,” she’d say, “and he’s a good guy, deep down, just misguided. You have to let him work out his own issues. Let him go, again. Don’t give him another thought. He’s attached to somebody else. Go find yourself another guy. Now that you’re retired, you can concentrate on what really makes a good relationship. And what you really need to do is concentrate on my murder. Go find the person who killed me, Kate.”
I gulped. Angie was right. I needed to find her murderer.
The last person to see Angie alive might have been her killer, which was Felyne according to the camera, but then again, the only security camera she had was at the front door. I shook my head. Personally, I had a security camera pointed at every single door to my house, and I didn’t understand why anybody would go to the trouble of putting in security cameras without covering all angles, but that was probably just because, as a former business owner, I’d hired them and fired them. You never knew when an angry former employee might come looking for you, and I had had the means to hire a good security company to set up all of those cameras. You could never be too careful these days, even in a safe neighborhood like Sunhaven. In Angie’s case, anybody could have come in through the back door. No camera there.
As I walked into my home, I saw Stormy and Mr. Tuttles cuddled together in a small circle on the couch.
What the…. They’re cuddling???
“Stormy! How on earth did you get out of the guest bedroom?” I could have sworn I clicked that darn guest bedroom door shut.
Stormy got up, stretched, walked over to the window, jumped up on the ledge, and started to lick herself. It seemed Stormy was full of secrets.
Mr. Tuttles leaped up and greeted me the usual way, as though I was a soldier returning from war, barking and running in circles until I reached down and patted his head.
I gave him a bully stick as a way to apologize about skipping our normal morning walk, and he laid on the carpet, happily chewing away.
Dogs, I thought. They’re so easily bought off. Unlike men.
Stormy regarded me with haughty disdain and settled on the windowsill, her tail flicking in annoyance.