“Where were you Saturday evening between 7 pm and midnight?” Javier tapped the folder in front of him with a pen.
After I had dropped the groceries, showered, and threw on dress slacks with a black blouse, I felt and looked much more socially acceptable for seeing people I knew. I found myself sitting in the police interrogation room with Javier Mendez and Dayna Afaoma sitting across from me.
I studied Javi’s face - he’d never been one to give a lot away, and today was no different. We’d been avoiding the elephant in the room, which was okay with me. I was solving a murder. I had no idea what he was doing, but getting romantically entangled with him again was the last thing in the world I needed. I chided myself again for being weak Sunday night. I wasn’t weak now. Today, I had my business face on.
Javi’d shared with me about interrogating suspects. It was his sort of pillow talk. First, he’d sit on the same side as them, or he’d have Dayna sit next to them, befriending, questioning, and drilling down on the details. Contemporary practice, proven by research, was that buddying up to your person of interest worked much better than harsh interrogation techniques. It was called the Reid technique. Buddy up, get them talking, offer an out, get a confession. Apparently, this often worked so well that the founder of the Reid technique, John Reid, became concerned that it was eliciting false confessions. To me, that spoke of a weak mind. Who would confess to something they hadn’t done? I understood if the police were beating you into a confession, but I didn’t understand how somebody could falsely confess because their police buddy made them feel important, or whatever was supposed to happen with that technique.
Javi’d also shared with me that sometimes, he’d toss the Reid technique out the window and intimidate the hell out of the suspect. Old school. I could appreciate that technique as well. I occasionally had an employee I wished I could just threaten that if they came in late one more time, I’d beat them senseless, but I had to curb that side of myself.
Now I found myself on the perp side of the table, the harsh, cold metal under my elbows, the light shining into my eyes. Was I feeling intimidated? Hell, no.
I leaned forward. “You don’t really consider me a suspect, do you?” Dayna shrugged but gave me a small smile.
“Everybody is a suspect until we rule them out, you know that, Kate.” Javier’s tone was harsh, and he looked at me expectantly. Okay, we’re playing that game now.
“We found your fingerprints in several places,” Dayna explained.
“I was home with Mr. Tuttles. We grilled chicken and corn on the cob, and we ate it with a glass or two of wine. You are free to ask him. I know he’ll back me up on this.”
Javier tilted his head, his face impassive, studying me for a moment. Perhaps he thought I’d fill the silence with some sort of confession. Well, he could wait forever, for all I cared. “No need for that,” he said, finally. “Just trying to be thorough here. And, when I heard your fingerprints were at the scene, I couldn’t resist.” He started to laugh and slapped Dayna on the back. Dayna joined in, the laughter turning from normal to uproarious. It went on for what was, to me, an uncomfortable amount of time. They were clearly having a good time with this.
“I’m sorry,” I said sternly, “but we are investigating the murder of my friend. There is nothing funny about this!”
“Sure, Kate. Nothing personal.” Javier wiped tears out of his eyes. Dayna sat up a little straighter and looked properly scolded.
Humor was a way for detectives to deal with the often harsh realities that was their job, and I honestly didn’t blame them for using a little humor to lighten the mood, especially after the way I’d walked out of Javi’s office yesterday, but I wasn’t going to let them know that. I crossed my arms and glared at them.
Javier wiped a tear from his eye and struggled to become serious. Finally, he said, “What we do need, though, is some information we were hoping you could help us with. We have the camera footage from Angela’s front door cam that shows several visitors on Saturday. Did she share with you the reasons for these visits?”
“No. I know she was very busy with her HOA duties, but she hadn’t mentioned any of these people to me, at least, not in the context of them visiting or having a reason to kill her.”
Dayna pulled out a list. “Let’s do a fast round of suspects, starting with Angie’s visitors on Saturday. Ready?”
I nodded.
“Cynthia Barron.”
“First impression: she doesn’t have the guts to kill. I could be wrong, though. She’s still acting like she’s hiding something.” Dayna nodded as she made a note.
“Beatrice, the former HOA President.”
“Strong suspect. She was very angry about being replaced.”
“I understand the election last year was contentious?”
“Yes, you could say that. Quite honestly, the neighborhood was going to pot. We’re supposed to be changing from the old landscaping to a more drought tolerant landscape, as most of the other neighborhoods around the entire southwest are. And our irrigation lines are leakier than the White House under Trump.
“The old board, though, was doing practically nothing. Weed barrier was showing through, the shrubs were looking scraggly, it was a mess.
“Several people in the HOA wanted Angie to run and replace Beatrice as President. We all knew Angie would be fair, and since she recently retired, she had the time.”
“Beatrice didn’t want to go, though, is that right?”
“‘Didn’t want to go’ is an understatement. She put up a nasty fight. There were rumors going around that Angie had been fired from her law firm for misconduct, which could be traced back to Beatrice, all of which were completely unfounded, by the way. Also, Angie’s motives for running were questioned, with people asking things like why she suddenly wanted to run an HOA when she hadn’t shown any interest in the past? Of course, that was because Angie was a very busy patent lawyer before, but after she retired, she could see all the changes that needed to be made and weren’t being done.
“In return, the people who were against Beatrice were making accusations of embezzlement.”
Javier raised his eyebrows. “Embezzlement is a harsh accusation.”
“It is, and there was no proof, just gossip. That doesn’t stop our neighborhood, though. Plenty of gossip to go around. Then, Beatrice tried to suppress the vote by “accidentally” forgetting to put Angie’s biography in the annual newsletter that is distributed to all 2000 homes, so Angie wrote one up and went door to door to get people to vote for her.
“In the end, though, it came to a vote, and most people didn’t care at all about rumors and nasty gossip; they just wanted somebody to fix the place up a bit, which clearly Beatrice hadn’t been able to do.”
“That’s interesting. That would give Beatrice motive, then, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
“And I understand Angela was working hard to change the landscaping?”
“She was. Rising water costs have been driving our HOA fees higher and higher, and our previous HOA board was doing nothing about it. If anything, their inaction was costing us even more money because our 25-year-old irrigation system was falling apart under the dirt, creating leaks and increasing repair bills. Angie had a vision for new, attractive drought-resistant landscaping and to upgrade our aging irrigation system. I wasn’t sure if she could do all of that with the current budget, but apparently she and Cynthia were meeting to see where they could find extra money in the budget.”
“How did the neighbors seem to take that?”
“Pretty well, from what I saw. There were some issues with things like pulling up the vines and taking out the old shrubs, but if it meant saving money, most of the residents were on board.”
“Okay.” Dayna continued to write in her notebook. “Moving on. Brady Strong.”
“Bug Guy. No idea. I’m going with strong suspect.” Javier nodded at that one.
“Felyne O’Shea.”
“Not sure. I don’t think so, but I don’t know her well enough.”
“Let’s discuss the rest of the board.”
“Right. There’s Nick Silva, the Vice President, and then Vance and Renee Hernandez, who were the Board’s Secretary and Member at Large.”
“The Hernandez’s were married, right?” Javier asked. I nodded. “Isn’t it unusual for an HOA Board to have a married couple serving on it?”
“There’s nothing in the by-laws that says they can’t. The only requirement is that every board member has to be a homeowner in the HOA. Really, it’s hard enough to get intelligent, competent people to serve on an HOA board. Shoot, it’s hard to get anybody to serve on an HOA board. It’s a fairly thankless job. If a married couple both wanted to be on the board, I don’t think anybody cared. The only thing Angie ever said about them was that they always got the job done and brought no drama to the table.”
Dayna spoke up. “I checked up on them. Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez have been on a 16-day cruise, starting last week. I called and spoke with the purser personally. They have an airtight alibi.”
Javi turned to me. “We haven’t talked to the Vice President, Nick, yet. Any impressions?”
I thought hard. What did I know about Nick? I usually chatted with him during walks. “He doesn’t strike me as the type, but you never know. He’s one of those guys that never speaks ill of anybody, seems like he likes helping, and is kind to animals.” He sometimes had a treat for Mr. Tuttles when I met him out for a walk. People who liked animals were always okay in my book.
“If there was some kind of embezzlement going on, though…”
I nodded. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I would be surprised if Nick knew anything about it. What about Angie’s ex?”
“He was one of the first people we looked into.” Dayna flipped through her notebook, going back all the way to the beginning. “He was at work in Oregon on Saturday, and then he was seen at a bar with his girlfriend until midnight. She leaned in. “I understand he was somewhat abusive, is that right?”
I found myself clinching my jaw, a habit I had taken on whenever my job had been stressful, which was nearly all the time. I was uncomfortable talking about Angie’s secrets so openly, especially since he had an air-tight alibi. “That was how Angie and I got to know each other. I got him arrested him for domestic violence.”
I remembered getting a call from Angie in the middle of the night, her voice rough, scared. I’d seen bruises on her arms. I pulled my gun out of the gun safe, an acquisition after a fired employee made online threats to me personally, the misogyny of a man being fired by a woman coming out in many different versions of threats of rape, sodomy, and cutting my head off. The gun, gun safety course, and concealed carry permit followed soon after.
I dialed 911 on the quick drive over an burst in through the unlocked door to see Donny’s hand tight around Angie’s neck. Mascara tears lined her face, and as if in slow motion, I pointed my gun at him and told him to let her go. An icy coldness came over me, and when he glanced at me as I aimed my gun at his head, a silent message, sent and received, convinced him to let her go.
I’ll never forget the red and purple blotches on her neck and the way she couldn’t speak for several minutes as she gasped for air. Had I arrived minutes later, she would have been dead. The police arrived right at my heels and arrested him on the spot, with him swearing and making threats to her. He’d be my prime suspect if he didn’t have an alibi.
“As far as I know, Angie hasn’t had any contact with him in years.”
“He’s out anyway, unless you think he hired a hit man.”
I shook my head. “That’s not really his style.”
Dayna checked her notebook. “I did look into your Ivan Sokolov, the so-called stalker. Thanks for the lead on that one, by the way. Harmony mentioned him this morning but didn’t have a name. I was able to trace him to Australia, assuming I’ve got the right Ivan Sokolov, but it’s early morning there right now, so I haven’t had a chance to call. Don’t worry, though. We’ll track him down.”
Dayna flipped a couple of pages, her eyes scanning over all her notes. “Computer,” she said finally. “I assume she had one?”
I nodded. “She had some sort of Apple laptop. It was small and thin. Whenever I was over, she had it on the coffee table in the living room. Sometimes she’d carry it into the kitchen if there was something she wanted to show me. It’s safe to say the killer took it, then, isn’t it?”
“It’s a good assumption. We looked everywhere for it. Her daughter, Harmony, didn’t know anything about it, either. We did open Angie’s phone.” I chose not to ask how they were able to open it. “She sent lots of texts to Harmony and the grandkids. It’s mostly chat about how their day was and cat memes and reels. Lots and lots of cat reels. But we looked at her calendar on it, and we didn’t see anything suspicious or unexpected.”
Dayna tapped her pen on the table. “We’ve conducted several interviews with neighbors, and nobody reported anything unusual that night. Her back door showed no signs of a break-in.”
That was interesting. It meant Angie must have known who had knocked on the back door to get in, making it more likely it could have been one of her visitors, at least in my opinion, although she could have also just left that door unlocked. As Sunhaven was a gated community, people generally felt safe and didn’t feel a need to keep all of their doors locked during the day when they were home.
“Obviously, we collected fingerprints, swabbed the candlestick holder for DNA, and we collected all the usual things - garbage that had some tissues, a couple of items found on the floor, the plates and glasses, those sorts of things.”
Dayna looked up at me. “Is there anything else you can think of that we should know?”
“Harmony gave me all of Angie’s passwords for her accounts. It might be a good idea to have somebody read as many emails as possible to see if there were any threats in there.”
Dayna nodded in surprise. “That’s handy! I didn’t even think to ask her about passwords.”
Javier looked at his watch and stood up. “I’ll leave you ladies to finish up, then. Thanks, Kate. We do appreciate your help.” He avoided my eyes once again as he left.
Dayna’s face remained impassive as she looked at me, waiting for the door to click closed.
“What’s the evidence saying?”
“You know I can’t tell you that! I was waiting to ask you about what you and Javi were talking about yesterday!”
“How’s your brother doing these days? Enjoying all the new money from his stock options paying out?”
“Kate! You can’t pull that. What happens with Del has nothing to do with what happens in this room!”
I crossed my arms and grinned. “Has he bought a new yacht, yet?”
Dayna laughed. “No, no yachts. He is looking at buying his own home, though.”
I grinned. “Good for him! Okay, how about this. I’ll tell you about me and Javi if you share with me the results from the lab.”
Dayna’s eyes twinkled with conspiratorial knowledge. “Deal!”
“You go first.”
She consulted her notes. “We received all of the fingerprint results. It’s exactly what you’d expect—dishes and the countertop all contained fingerprints from our four visitors.”
“Nobody else’s fingerprints?”
“Just those four. And yours, and Angie’s.”
My shoulders slumped. If all four were in the house that day, and one of them was the killer, it would be hard to prove. “What about the candlestick holder?”
“Wiped clean. Although the killer got rid of their fingerprints from it, we did find microscopic bits of Angie’s hair and skin on one of the corners that prove it was for sure the murder weapon. From reconstruction of the crime, we think the murderer picked it up, hit Angie in the head with it twice, then cleaned it with something before fleeing.”
I gave the situation a little thought. “If it was one of The Four, doesn’t it seem like if they hit Angie in a fit of passion, then they would have also wiped their fingerprints off the dishes they used?”
“So, the lack of that person’s fingerprints could be a clue.” Dayna shrugged. “That’s one way of looking at it. I’ll take a closer look at the fingerprint evidence to see if anything seems unusually free of any prints. The other is that whoever killed her ran before thinking to do that. Or they didn’t care because they knew their face was on that camera. There’s about a million possibilities here.”
“Ran, but stopped to pick up her computer along the way….”
“Here’s another interesting fact. The broken jelly jar, that got jelly all over the floor? It had Angie’s, Cynthia’s, and Felyne’s prints on it.”
“All three of them at least handled the jelly, then…Dayna, this whole jelly thing has taken on a life of its own.”
“What do you mean?”
“The gossip in the ‘hood is that Felyne and Cynthia were arguing at the local coffee shop. Somebody heard the word ‘jelly.’”
“That’s weird.”
“It is.”
“I’ll make a note to have the jelly analyzed. Maybe there’s something there.” Dayna’s notebook was already half full.
“What about alibis?”
Dayna’s eyebrows knitted together as she deciphered her notes. “Beatrice and Cynthia claim to have been with their husbands that night, and Brady Strong, Bug Guy, was with his girlfriend.”
“So none of them really have an alibi.”
“Pretty much, assuming their significant others would lie for them if need be. Felyne claimed to have left Angela’s house and gone to a bar, but we’re still checking that one. As she was the last one to visit, it will be hard to clear her.”
“Do you think she could have killed Angie and then left without looking guilty on the security camera?”
“Maybe. Or she might have left normally, and then gone around to the back of the house where there were no cameras, killed Angie, and fled.” Dayna shrugged. “Anything is possible at this point.”
Dayna popped her fingers, a habit that had always made me cringe. “Nick Silva says he was home alone, so also no alibi there.” She paused.“There’s one more thing I’m not supposed to tell you, but I am. Angie’s hand had some tiny fibers in it.”
I perked up at that news. “Fibers from what?”
“We’re not positive yet, but it appears to be black cotton, probably from a shirt or sweater. Angie was wearing jeans shorts and a yellow blouse. We looked at the photos of her visitors that day, and nobody was wearing black. Angie’s hand was sticky, more than likely from the jelly that crashed to the floor, and we figure she touched the person who assaulted her. All we have to do now is find the clothing that matches the black fibers.”
“It’s been very hot. I’d hate to be in a black cotton sweater, even a sleeveless one.”
Dayna nodded in agreement. “Who knows, though. Maybe the person decided to dress in all black before their visit to Angie.”
“That makes it more likely, then, that even if it was one of The Four, they left and then came back, as they would have been in different clothes. Now we need to find the owner of that black sweater!”
“Easier said than done, I would imagine. Probably most people own a cotton sweater.”
“True, but at least it’s something.”
For the first time, we were getting somewhere with this investigation.
“Now, Girl, dish! What’s going on with you and Javi?”
I filled her in on the recent happenings, feeling a little guilty about giving away Javi’s secrets along with mine. But it was a worthwhile trade - I’d gotten a lot of useful information from Dayna that I’d never know.
Dayna strummed her fingers on the table. “Huh.”
That’s all she has to say?
“It has occurred to me,” I said, “that with being retired and having, let’s say, extra spending money, Javi is suddenly more interested in me.”
“Yeah, but he’s not the type to lie. He and Sheila must really be in the process of breaking up. She’s likely trying to keep up appearances.”
I sat, considering her words. “So what would you do if you were me?”
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
“I did the night I found Angie, but now I’m not so sure.”
Dayna leaned in close and kept her voice low. “In that case, run. No good will come of this. Run!”