Daisies for Innocence (8 page)

“Astrid?” I called. “What do you see in there?”

Her head popped through the vertical curtain. “Not much. But something’s off. Her bed is pristine, but the closet door is open and there are a couple of things on the floor. She wasn’t much of a clothes hog, but the girl had a real thing for boots. There are eight pairs in there. Nothing looks to be missing, but her dresser drawers are messier than I’d expect from someone who folds their socks so neatly, and one was hanging open. You know what I think?”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Either someone was looking for something, or the police have been through her stuff already.”

She pointed her finger at me. “Bingo.”

My cell buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to look at the display. The number looked familiar, and when I realized why, I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Ellie?” Astrid closed the distance between us and peered over my shoulder.

The phone buzzed again as I fished in my wallet and pulled out the card Lupe Garcia had given me that morning. Sure enough, that was the number on my phone’s screen.

Panic arrowed through my solar plexus. “It’s Detective Garcia.” I met Astrid’s eyes. “Do you think she knows we’re here?”

“Nah. How could she?” But she sounded unsure.

The phone stopped ringing. Slowly, I slid it back into my pocket. I thought of my Jeep parked at the convenience store down the street. Was Garcia calling because we’d essentially broken into a murder victim’s apartment?

“The police would have found any clues here already.” Astrid’s disappointment was obvious, and I realized that in spite of her earlier nervousness, she had been kind of enjoying herself.

“Guess we’d better go,” I said, turning toward the door and putting my hand in the pocket of my jacket. My fingers wrapped around the canister of fish food. “Darn it,” I said, pulling it out and looking across the room at the betta fish on the shelf. “I almost forgot the fish.”

It eyed me through a plastic plant frond. I could simply wipe off the food container and put it back on the shelf and hope Harris or someone else would take care of the little guy. But, of course, that wasn’t what I was going to do. I marched over, unplugged the acrylic tank, and picked it up.

I lifted the betta fish up to eye level. “Hi, there. How about you come and live with me for a while?” I looked at Astrid. “Unless you want to take it?”

She shook her head. “I have enough critters to deal with. He’s a pretty little guy. Keep him in the shop.”

“Nabby will love that,” I said wryly, checking the room one more time. The faint toast smell still hung in the air, from at least the day before. I wondered if Josie liked jam on her toast.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded at the door. “Let’s blow this joint.”

Astrid turned the knob and stepped out to the small deck with me on her heels.

“Hey! What were you doing in there?”

I jumped and almost dropped Josie’s fish. Astrid whirled at the harsh voice, glaring at the man it belonged to.

W
HAT
’
S
it to you?” Astrid demanded, fists on her hips and her chin jutted out in defiance. My friend might have been a bit hippy dippy, but she could really stand up for herself or others.

The man stood on the wooden decking in front of an apartment entrance to the left of Josie’s. The door hung open, treating us to a miasma of burnt sausage, dirty socks, and stale cigar smoke. His blue Dockers and once-white T-shirt were stained with grease, and he blinked his myopic anger through thick glasses with aviator frames that would have looked pretty cool in the 1970s.

“I’m the manager here,” he grated. “Tom Steinhart. And you have no right to be in that chick’s place.” He licked his lips in a thoroughly unappetizing way.

Chick?
I lifted the tank. “We came by to pick up
Leonard here.” As I said the words, I wanted to kick myself. What if he knew the fish’s real name? For that matter, did it even have a name?

“Hmmph. Haven’t seen you here before. And the cops said no one was supposed to go inside. Tenant’s dead.” His tone was flat.

At least now we knew it was the police and not someone else who had tossed Josie’s belongings.

I nodded gravely. “We know. That’s why we came to pick up the fish.”

His response was a disconcerting leer. “Did the cops tell you to take her stuff?”

I glanced over at Astrid. She shrugged, but I could tell Tom Steinhart was rubbing her the wrong way. My alarm bells were going off as well. Something about him smelled off—rotten—and it wasn’t coming from his apartment.

“We didn’t ask them for permission to rescue our friend’s pet,” I said firmly. “It was just the right thing to do.”

“Was that you in there earlier?” he asked.

I squinted. “There was someone else in Josie’s apartment besides the authorities?”

He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Thought I heard someone in there before the cops showed up. Didn’t give it a thought. Figured it was the chick who lived there.”

“Did you tell the police that you heard someone in the murdered woman’s apartment?” Astrid asked. Her mild tone sounded forced to me, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t want anything to do with the cops.” He ogled
me through his thick lenses. “Murder. Sheesh. Not that I’m that surprised.”

Stunned, I rested the fish tank on the deck railing, keeping my hands on both sides to steady it. “Why aren’t you surprised?” I asked. Astrid’s eyes had narrowed.

He shrugged. “She was a little snot—that’s for sure. Wouldn’t give me the time of day. Even complained to the owners about me one time.”

“Why would she do that?” Astrid asked sharply. My own distaste for the man ratcheted up another level.

He turned to her, looked her up and down much as he had me, and sniffed. “No reason.”

“There had to be a reason,” she said.

“Astrid—”

“I imagine the police would like to know about Josie’s complaint,” she said.

Tom Steinhart paled.

“Was something unsatisfactory about the apartment?” I asked.

His lips pooched out, and then he sucked them back in, a gesture that struck me as weirdly obscene though I couldn’t have said exactly why.

“I gotta go.” He turned to go back into his apartment. Before closing the door, he said over his shoulder. “Better not see you two around here again.”

“Sheesh!” Astrid breathed when we were halfway back to the car. “What a toad.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” I said.

She looked at me.

I grinned. “About toads, I mean. They’re very beneficial in the garden.”

Astrid rolled her eyes, but echoed my smile.

“You never ran into Mr. Steinhart when you fed Josie’s fish, I take it.”

“Thankfully, no.” She shuddered.

I stopped on the sidewalk. “Here. Take this for a sec.” I handed her the betta fish and pulled out my phone. There was one new voice mail. Bracing myself, I held the phone to my ear and waited. Astrid watched me with interest.

“Ms. Allbright, this is Detective Garcia. I wanted to let you know that we will be releasing the crime scene next to your place of business tomorrow. It’s been determined that the murder victim—” She paused, and when she spoke again her professional brusqueness had been replaced with a softer tone. “Josie Overland wasn’t attacked on your property, though she did ultimately die there. We found evidence that she was assaulted in Raven Creek Park. I’ll come by in the morning to make it official. Good-bye.”

Returning my phone to my pocket, I began walking again. “Josie was killed in the park,” I said slowly.

My mind was racing, though. She obviously hadn’t died right away, or she wouldn’t have made it to the boardwalk. Unless someone had moved her? Surely the police would have found evidence of that, though. I wondered if they could tell when she’d been attacked. All I knew was that it had to have been after she left the Roux Grill at midnight.

“In the park? Then why . . .” Astrid trailed off.

“She must have made her way to my place to try to get help.” And I’d been sleeping like a baby by that time.

•   •   •

A
RE
you sure you don’t want to come stay with me tonight? The sofa pulls out,” Astrid said. We were standing in front of Scents & Nonsense as the sun lowered in the western sky. Several hundred yards away, a Poppyville police cruiser was parked at the junction of Corona Street and Raven Road, very near where I’d seen Josie’s car. It didn’t look like anyone was inside.

“Nah. I’ll be fine,” I said.

“Aren’t you worried?”

“About what?” I asked.

She spluttered. “
Murder
, Ellie. You could be in danger.”

I blinked. The idea that whoever had killed Josie might want to do me harm as well had honestly never occurred to me. After all, other than my cranky ex-husband, I didn’t have any enemies. That I knew of, at least. Now, a frisson of fear tickled the edges of my nerves. I pushed it away. I’d moved past feeling afraid and unsure during the last year, and I wasn’t going to start in again now.

“This is my home,” I said. “And no one’s going to drive me out of it.”

She looked to the sky as if for suggestions on how to deal with me, then met my eyes. “If she was killed in the park, how do you know it wasn’t some vagrant who happened onto Josie by accident? And if so, who’s to say he isn’t still around? That he won’t do it again? I just hate to think of you here by yourself.”

I pointed to the police car. “If it was someone passing through, I bet the cops have chased him off by now.” And an attack by a random transient didn’t begin to
explain why Josie would have been on this side of town so late.

She took a deep breath. “Keep Dash by your side.”

“Of course.”

Astrid suddenly smiled and waggled her eyebrows. “Or you could call Ritter to come over for the night. To protect you. I bet he’d be happy to oblige.”

I felt myself redden. “That’s ridiculous.”

She laughed. “Lordy, Elliana. You are going to have to make some kind of a move as soon as possible if you want to knock Cynthia Man Trap off his radar. In twenty-four hours she’s already started staking a claim.”

“Could you please stop talking about my mild interest in Ritter in clichés? And no, I’m not going to ‘make a move’ by inviting him over to protect me for the night. What’s wrong with you?”

The humor left her face. “Oh, gosh. Ellie, I’m sorry. I was just kidding around. You really like him, don’t you?” she asked with a gentle smile.

I opened my mouth, then shut it again.

She raised her eyebrows, waiting.

“Like I said—mild interest.”

“Mm hmm. With those baby blues? Oh, sorry—cliché. But I saw how he looked at you in the Roux.”

I looked down and smiled. Then I met her eyes. “I used to like him. A lot, actually. But I was a kid then. I don’t even know him now. That’s what worries me.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t get it.”

“I liked Harris, too. A lot. At first, I mean.”

Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh, for Pete’s
sake. You can’t possibly be afraid Thea’s brother is anything like Harris.”

“No . . .” I drew the word out. “I just don’t trust my own judgment when it comes to men.”

She turned to go, but gave me a knowing look over her shoulder. “Uh-huh. A little attention from Ritter Nelson, and I think you’re going to get over that in a hurry.”

Astrid’s warning about safety came back to me as I stepped into the shop and put the fish tank on the counter. I plugged it in and continued out to the back patio of the Enchanted Garden. Dash greeted me with a wiggling behind, grinning up at me until I bent and gave him a good scratch behind the ears. When I straightened, he promptly rolled over onto his back and looked at me upside down.

“You goofball,” I said, smiling.

He sneezed.

I looked out at the garden, breathing in the calm it always provided. This was my sanctuary, but death had come so close to tainting it forever. Even if Harris hadn’t tried to implicate me in Josie’s murder, the fact that she’d worked for me and died in front of my shop was enough to make me want to know who killed her.

And why.

My eyes scanned the banks of flowers. Tendrils of jasmine twisted around the base of a shepherd’s crook. A hollowed gourd hung from the crook. It swayed in the slight breeze, and a brightly colored finch clung to the opening, pecking at the thistle seed inside. Morning glories wound up copper trellises, the day’s blooms furled
in the gloaming. Night-blooming Nicotiana shook off the fading light and began filling the garden with sweetness.

The flapping of the police tape by the gate drew my attention. Anger began to build out of the numbness I’d been steeping in all day. Not fear, despite Astrid’s worries. Anger—like Maggie’s.

Just yesterday morning I’d realized that after a long year of change and deliberately forging a new life, I was finally settled and happier than ever before. I had found the best parts of me again. Josie, too, had seemed happy. Sure, she’d been dumb to get involved with Harris, but I’d done the same thing at one time. Josie’s innocence had been a strength, not a weakness.

Now someone had stolen not only her strength, but her very life.

Anger flared again, and I found myself searching the shadows for any sign of threat. A plaintive meow sounded from behind me. I let out my breath, turned, and slid open the screen door. Nabby shot past my ankle, pausing to look toward the gate. His tail fluffed, and he hissed once before threading his way through the plants to his favorite spot on the low terraced wall where he liked to survey his domain.

I went inside and put the canister of fish food on the counter by the tank. The betta fish circled a couple of times, then stopped, eyeing me with piscine skepticism.

“You’ll like it here,” I told him. I wished I knew his name—or if it was even a “him.” How could you tell? But Astrid had use the male pronoun, and I figured she’d
know if anyone did. “How about if I just keep calling you Leonard?”

The fish didn’t disagree.

I went back out to the garden, closing the door behind me. Nabby had disappeared, but I wasn’t concerned. Despite the easy access to the wilds beyond the fences and hedges of the garden, he was loath to venture outside the immediate environs of the shop.

Dash stayed at my left heel every step of the way to my little house. I let him out to the meadow to do his business and made myself a peanut butter and tomato jam sandwich. I took it, along with a bottle of hard cider, out to the back porch, intending to watch the sunset again. But everything was different now. The sandwich stuck in my throat. I took a long pull on the cider to try to wash it down.

What if Astrid was right, and a transient had killed Josie in the river park? That seemed awfully convenient, especially since, to the best of my knowledge, there was no homeless population on this end of town. There were those few men and women whom Gessie allowed to pitch tents at the back of her stable property, away from the tourist clientele she took out on trail rides. But Bongo Pete, the woman who called herself Queenie, and a couple of others were well-known in town and certainly not violent.

It could have been someone passing through,
I thought, giving the last bite of sandwich to Dash and finishing off the cider. But that still raised the question of why Josie had been in the river park after midnight. Maggie had confirmed that Josie had worked her usual
shift at the Roux Grill. She’d also mentioned a bitter fight between Harris and Josie. Bet he hadn’t mentioned
that
to Detective Max Lang. What had they been fighting about? Maggie hadn’t had a chance to fill me in before Astrid dragged me away.

Could it possibly have been something serious enough for Harris to stab his girlfriend over? I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. Harris was a lot of things, but to my knowledge he’d never once been violent.

Beside me, Dash busied himself with licking peanut butter off the roof of his mouth.

The temperature had dropped with the sun, and I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jacket.