A Candidate For Murder (Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)

It was after ten-thirty, and we were back in Dana’s living room. Her husband, Clay, was still upstairs. Dana was in the wingback chair, this time looking a little green around the edges. It must be hard to have every mistake or indiscretion of your life exposed, and it made me wonder briefly how I would feel. But then, I thought,
nice people didn’t do the things that Dana did
.

“Originally, I wanted to be a nurse,” she said. “So right out of high school, I trained to become a home health aide, while I saved for tuition. I was actually very good at taking care of other people. And my clients loved me. Especially an old gentleman named Mr. Peabody, who was dying from lung cancer. He was receiving hospice care in his home. He lived alone, with the exception of a housekeeper. He had no other relatives and no real friends.” She stopped, took a breath and glanced down at her hands. “We became very close. “

“Oh God, you don’t mean…” Blair blurted.

“No, not that!” Dana said, glancing up. “For heaven’s sake, give me some credit. I’m not some Anna Nicole Smith.”

Blair nearly choked at that. I’m sure she hadn’t meant to physically compare Dana to the blond bombshell who had married a millionaire in his nineties. Besides the difference in hair color, there was the difference in, well, everything else.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The old guy put you in his will.”

She glanced at me, her gaze momentarily frozen in place. She might as well have had the word
guilt
written across her enormous forehead.

“He…he didn’t have anyone else,” she said in a wormy sort of way. “And he told me I reminded him of his daughter, who had died very young.” She paused, as if deciding whether to go on. Finally, she said, “So he had his will changed, leaving everything to me.”

“Oh, my God,” Rudy said. She dropped her head into one hand.

“It’s not like that,” Dana said, glancing at Rudy defensively. “I didn’t kill him. He died naturally…well, sort of.”

Rudy lifted her head and looked at Dana with suspicion. “Don’t tell me. You just didn’t save him, did you?”

There was a long pause. A very long pause.

Doe finally groaned as Blair muttered under her breath, “Sheesh.”

“The lung cancer made it hard for him to breathe or even to swallow,” Dana finally said. “So the housekeeper used to cut up his food into very small pieces. One day, she left his lunch in the kitchen and went to the store with instructions for me to give it to him. He…uh, choked on some broccoli. It was awful. He kept trying to get a breath, and then his face started turning blue.”

“And you didn’t do anything to help him,” Rudy said.

This time Dana stared at Rudy. “I was so young. I didn’t know what to do,” she said in a defensive tone.

“That’s not exactly true, is it?” Rudy said, her eyes narrowing. “To become a home health aide, you have to have been trained in CPR and things like the Heimlich maneuver.”

Dana turned fearful eyes in my direction, but I didn’t come to her rescue.

“How could you do that?” Blair exclaimed.

Dana turned to Blair. “He was in a lot of pain. All the time. He would’ve died in a few months anyway. This was better, don’t you think? More humane.”

“Oh jeeze,” Blair said, standing up in disgust. “You killed him as sure as if you had stuck a knife in his back. And now it’s come back to haunt you. This and your husband’s preference for little boys. I, for one, am done with you.”

Blair left for the foyer, and the rest of us stood awkwardly and followed. Dana panicked again. “No. Don’t…” she said, running after us. “Don’t go. I’ve been honest. That’s what you wanted. You promised you would help me.”

Rudy turned to Dana as she donned her coat a second time. “I keep looking for a redeeming quality. Something that will make me feel good about helping you, Dana. But I just don’t see it.”

“So you’re all just going to leave? You’re going to leave me to fend for myself?”

I had just slipped into my own coat and grabbed my purse. I looked at the girls’ faces. What I saw were varying degrees of contempt and anger. But we’d made a promise, and I thought we should keep it.

“We did say we would help,” I said to them. “And we forced her to tell us everything. None of us ever expected Dana to be an angel.”

“We didn’t expect her be a walking encyclopedia of bad behavior, either.” Rudy almost spit the words out.

I stood my ground. In situations like these, Rudy would usually carry the day. Her take-charge attitude and her brusque manner would normally overshadow anyone else’s objections. But not this time.

“We made an agreement, Rudy. We need to follow through.” But then I turned quickly to Dana. “But you have to give the blackmail note to the police and tell them the same story you just told us.”

Her eyes opened in surprise as she took a quick intake of breath. I could feel the objection coming, so I put up my hand.

“Don’t even say it. You have no choice in the matter. You either tell the police, or we will. Along with the story about your first husband and his penchant for young boys.”

She dropped her head and nodded in defeat.

“All right, then. Do that first thing in the morning. Then meet us at the Inn at 11:00. We’ll need to make a plan.”

The next day dawned with a slate gray sky, a light breeze, but no rain. The temperature had risen to a balmy 48 degrees, and there were promises of sunbreaks later in the afternoon.

As scheduled, we met at 11:00 a.m. Dana had delivered the note to Detective Abrams, who was back from Vancouver. He had, in fact, learned much of the same information Rudy had, but he’d also been successful in tracking down some leads on Dana’s ex-husband, Vince Fragel. Not the least of which was that he’d been incarcerated for embezzlement at one time under an assumed name.

I’d forgotten to tell Dana about the man who had shown up at the Inn asking about her. Instead, Detective Abrams filled her in. The news put her on edge, and she wondered out loud if he was the one who had sent the blackmail note. But Detective Abrams had instructed Dana to return her money to the bank, and that they would find a female officer to stand in as a decoy at the appointed time for the money drop that afternoon.

“So, I guess there’s nothing for us to do,” she said as we sat around the kitchen table. “We’ll just have to wait and see who they pick up.”

Rudy was tapping her fingers on the table, gazing out the window. The Brewsters stood at the end of the dock, each with a cup of coffee. Rudy’s competitive nature had led to a college scholarship in women’s track and field, and she’d been the pitcher on the women’s softball team. Now, she played fast-pitch. But even as a female jock, she’d won the state spelling bee in high school and earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Communications from the UW. Add to that a short stint on the debate team, and you can see why I called her “The Boss.” Her verbal skills matched her pitching arm, and right now I could almost see her brain churning as it stewed on our current situation.

“What are you thinking, Rudy?” I asked. “I see smoke coming out of your ears.”

She turned her tan, weathered face toward me, her brown eyes narrowed in a squint. “The person who sent that note can’t be Dana’s ex-husband.”

“Why not?” Dana blurted.

“What time did you pick up your mail yesterday?” Rudy asked her.

“Uh…about 1:00, I think.”

Rudy looked at me. “What time did Crystal say that guy stopped by the Inn asking about Dana?”

“Around 3:00 p.m.,” I replied. “Oh, I get it. You’re right.”

“You get what?” Dana asked, looking back and forth between the two of us.

“Your ex-husband was asking where you lived yesterday afternoon at 3:00. But you’d already picked up the ransom note at 1:00. In
your
mailbox.”

I saw the lightbulb in Dana’s head sputter. She was a little slow to pick up on things.

“Dana,” Rudy said. “At 3:00 your ex-husband didn’t know where you lived. So how could he have been the one to leave the ransom note in your mailbox earlier that day?”

The lightbulb popped on full force. “Oh! So, it must have been someone else,” she said. She looked even more uncomfortable at this revelation. “So Vince is looking for me, but someone
else
is blackmailing me?”

“And don’t forget someone’s trying to
kill
you,” Blair said with a helpful smile.

Dana grimaced. “Thanks. Now what?”

“What time were you supposed to drop off the money?” Rudy asked Dana.

“At 3:30 this afternoon,” she said.

“Hmmm…that could be right after the shift change at the restaurant,” Rudy said thoughtfully. “Okay, why don’t we see if we can ID the blackmailer first?”

“How do we do that?” Dana asked.

“The restaurant,” Rudy said.

Doe turned to me. “Are you sure you want to do this, Julia? Remember what David said about staying out of this.”

“What? I can’t go have lunch?” I said. “I
like
barbeque.”

We looked up the restaurant online and scoped out the picture of the building. It sat in a strip mall off Sunset Boulevard in the Renton Highlands. The front of the restaurant was two giant windows, making it easy to see inside. So we discussed our options and decided on a plan.

We gathered our coats and emerged from the kitchen into the breakfast room. The Kohl family opened their door and noisily began to descend the stairs just as we rounded the corner into the reception area. As I came into the entryway, the kids saw me and ran down the stairs.

“I think I saw one of the ghosts last night,” Barry said excitedly. “It was peering in the window.”

“He’s making it up,” Sherrie said, stopping behind him. “He’s just trying to scare me.”

“I am not,” Barry said, pushing her shoulder. “You’re just a fraidy cat. The ghosts won’t hurt you, will they Mrs. Applegate?”

Their parents had come up behind them.

“Barry, stop that!” Mr. Kohl ordered. “I don’t like this nonsense. I told you, it’s just a marketing ploy, like Santa Claus.”

He had clenched his gloves under his elbow as he reached into his pocket to grab his keys. I watched with amusement as the gloves began to move. It looked as if someone was pulling them from behind his elbow. Another second and they hit the floor.

He looked down in surprise.

“Where are you off to today?” I said, deflecting their attention.

“We’re heading over to my mother’s in West Seattle,” Mrs. Kohl said. “And then we’re going to take the ferry over to Bainbridge Island.”

“Well, that sounds like fun,” I said insincerely.

Mr. Kohl bent down to pick up his gloves, but they moved sideways an inch before he could retrieve them. He adjusted his stance and reached for them again. Again, they moved. The kids were already arguing over something, while their mother tried to referee. The rest of us just watched while prim and proper Mr. Kohl chased his gloves across the floor.

I finally stepped forward and stomped my foot on them. He glanced up at me, his face red with anger, and then yanked them out from under my shoe.

Rudy opened the door. “Have a great time,” she said with a big grin.

Mrs. Kohl and the kids went outside, while Mr. Kohl lingered. He leaned over to me, blowing coffee breath into my face.

“I don’t appreciate tricks. And I doubt the Better Business Bureau would either,” he said in a threatening manner. He turned and marched out the door.

“Don’t fall overboard,” Rudy called after them, as they climbed into their rental car.

÷

We took two cars to the restaurant: my Pathfinder and Doe’s Mercedes. Once there, Doe and Rudy went inside to order lunch. Blair stayed behind in the Mercedes as backup. Dana and I sat in my car, parked right in front with two pairs of binoculars.

The goal was simple: scope out the restaurant personnel to see if Dana knew any of them. Doe and Rudy purposely picked a table near the window and sat down. A few moments later a young man delivered glasses of ice water and then left. We continued to watch while the girls toyed with their water glasses and the utensils on the table. A young waitress arrived a minute later with a notepad. Dana leaned forward, peering at her through the window as Doe and Rudy ordered.

“Did you recognize either the boy or the girl?” I asked, as the young woman left with their order.

She shook her head. “No.”

We sat there for a few minutes watching people come and go. An older man and a woman parked next to us and entered the restaurant. As the door opened, I noticed a middle-aged woman near the back, wearing an apron. She was standing behind the order counter. I nudged Dana.

“What about her?” I said, pointing to the back of the restaurant.

Just as Dana adjusted her binoculars, the door swung closed. She dropped her hands in frustration. “Darn it,” she said.

“Come on, keep looking through the window. She’s bound to move back and forth and maybe you can see her.”

Dana held up the binoculars again, scanning the interior of the restaurant. “I can’t see her,” she said. “I’ll have to get closer.” She started to reach for the door handle, but I grabbed her wrist.

“No,” I said. “Whoever this is can’t see you. If they recognize you and realize that you’re here, they’re liable to run.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. Now what?”

“It’s time for Blair,” I said.

I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text to Blair. I told her to go in and sit at a table in the back of the restaurant, where a middle-aged woman was the waitress. She glanced over at me and nodded. She got out of the car and entered the building.

As I looked through my binoculars, I noticed that Rudy and Doe ignored Blair’s arrival, just as we’d discussed. Blair sashayed to the back of the restaurant and took a table in the corner. I could see a person go right over and place a glass of water in front of her and hand her a menu. Blair seemed to study the menu, and then handed it back. The individual crossed back to the counter to place the order. As the person turned back, Blair pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. A moment later, Blair forwarded the picture to me.

“Here, take a look at this,” I said to Dana.

I held out my phone. Dana lowered the binoculars and refocused her eyes before glancing down at the picture on my phone. A second later, she’d grabbed it from me to study the picture more closely.

“Oh my God! I know that woman.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Sonja Kyes. She was Mr. Peabody’s housekeeper. I can’t believe it.
She’s
the one who’s blackmailing me? That bitch!”

“But why would
she
blackmail you? I thought she was gone that day.”

But Dana hadn’t heard me. She threw open the car door, got out and rushed inside before I could stop her. I followed as fast as I could, coming in behind her. Blair looked up in surprise as Dana blew past tables in the middle of the room and marched up to the cash register.

The woman she’d ID’d as Sonja Kyes looked up in surprise. She was taller than Dana by a good three or four inches, skinny as a rail, with long, stringy black hair way overdue for a dye job. She was about to hand change to someone when she recognized Dana. Her eyes opened wide, and the coins in her hand clanged across the counter and onto the floor as she backed up a step.

“How dare you,” Dana screamed, advancing on her.

Sonja turned, ready to flee, but Dana was fast when she was mad. She circled around the end of the counter and caught Sonja from behind.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Dana yelled.

Sonja whirled around and shot out with her fist, catching Dana in the jaw. Dana flew sideways into the short order counter, knocking a plate of barbeque onto the floor. She quickly reached up and grabbed a second plate off the counter and flung it like a flying saucer straight at her opponent. Sonja ducked. The plate skimmed over the front counter, barely missing a young man sitting there. He whipped around to watch the plate slam against the far wall, splattering barbeque and French fries all over the wall, the floor and several patrons sitting close by.

People began to scatter.

Meanwhile, Dana and Sonja had come together like battering rams, slapping and clawing at each other. Then, suddenly, they had their hands around each other’s throats and were yanking each other back and forth.

I thought maybe I should try to stop them.

I came up behind Dana and reached around her shoulder to grab her wrist. Blair found a way around the other end of the corner and came up behind Sonja. There was a lot of pulling and pushing, grunting and groaning, but Blair and I finally got their hands loose.

I was pulling Dana back, when her right hand slipped out of mine and slapped Sonja hard across the face. Sonja yanked her right hand away from Blair and slapped Dana. Dana howled and pulled completely away from me.

She slammed into Sonja, knocking her backwards. Blair lost her grip and suddenly, the two women were slapping each other in a mean game of patty cakes. Hands and fingers flew as they each ducked to avoid a slap. I kept trying to grab Dana’s right hand, but got smacked in the process, making my eyes water.

Just as the cook came out yelling, Sonja reached out with her foot and pulled Dana’s leg out from under her. She and I both went down, but not before Dana grabbed for Sonja, taking her down with us. Before I knew it, Blair had been knocked backwards, and all four of us were on the floor behind the counter, arms and legs flailing.

I caught glimpses of the cook behind me in his barbeque-stained apron and his little white cap. His face was twisted in anger, as he gestured at us with a grease-covered spatula, shouting something that sounded like a mixture of Spanish and French.

Doe and Rudy arrived at either end of the space behind the counter, ready to engage, but clearly holding back. As I glanced up, four customers were craning their necks over the counter, watching us with bemused smiles and cell phones out, taking pictures.

That’s when the brief wail of a siren made everyone stop.

“Julia, it’s the police!” Rudy yelled.

Breathing heavily, we quickly disentangled. The floor was sticky, so it was difficult to get my feet underneath me. I was about to push off the floor, when a burly voice called out, “What’s going on here?”