Dana Marton - Broslin Creek 05 - Broslin Bride (6 page)

Her head spun from all the movement and energy. She had to steady herself for a second before the dizzy spell passed.
Okay, all right, take it easy. Lot’s to do.
She had no time today for frivolities like passing out.
 

Since she had no car, the playground visit planned for this morning was canceled, and so was
The Wizard of Oz
later. She’d just have to make the most of the party.
 

She made herself a cup of coffee that actually helped her headache a little, then, while the girls played in their room with their plastic dolls and horses, she began vacuuming, which made the headache worse.

She sucked up dirt from the tan living room carpet first, then lifted the green sofa cushions one by one and sucked up all the fuzz-covered cheese puffs. Which visiting kids
would
find and eat, if past experience was anything to go by.
 

The couch done, she turned and jumped a foot. Chase was standing behind her, inside the front door, watching her. She turned off the vacuum cleaner, her heart racing.

“Sorry.” He took another step in and looked around. “I knocked. You probably didn’t hear me.”

Having him in her home felt weird beyond weird. She found it impossible to look at anything but him. He definitely had a strong presence, a certain energy that drew the eye. Not that his well-built body didn’t do that already.

He’d never been skinny, not even in his youth, but he’d packed on serious muscle since Luanne had last seen him up close and personal. And since she’d seen him naked before, her mind ever so helpfully provided an image of what he would look like now without his clothes, all grown up with the aforementioned muscles.

She choked on her own spit. Squeezed her eyes closed for a second. What was wrong with her? She could
not
think about a naked Chase Merritt. Did she still have alcohol in her system from last night?
Okay. Just get through this.
She opened her eyes and smiled.
 

“Did you need to ask me anything else?” She held her breath, willing him to say no, to tell her that he was just leaving.

He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to her.

The plain white card had the Broslin PD’s logo on top, his name below, then the word
detective
and a phone number. “In case you need me.”
 

Meaning
in case you want to confess
? She kept smiling so he wouldn’t think she was nervous. She was probably being paranoid. He couldn’t have guessed what she’d done. She’d covered it up. She’d fixed the problem with the car. Nobody had to find out. Ever. “Thanks. And thanks for the ride.”
 

He watched her for a long moment, the expression on his face unfathomable. He looked as if he was preparing to say something, but, in the end, he turned and walked away, stepping over a rag doll and a toy tiara in his path.

Her shoulders deflated when the door closed behind him.

That relief lasted about a second. As she turned back to work, she caught her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. She looked…almost normal. She patted down her hair and straightened her shirt, her hands freezing in midmotion.

The dazed shock that had carried her through the morning abated, the pounding in her head stopped long enough for her to have her first clear thought of the day.

She was a murderer.

As that word popped into her mind, her entire body began shaking.

I ran over Earl.

Killed him.

She’d killed, and she’d covered up the evidence. Her knees gave out, and she folded onto the couch. Filled with enough guilt, disappointment, and regret to drown in, she shook her head at her mirror self, then she crumpled completely, burying her face in her hands as she tried to just breathe.

She couldn’t do this.

Who was she kidding? She was never going to get away with murder.

The girls’ laughter reached her from their bedroom.

She
had
to get away with it.
 

But she couldn’t live with the guilt for the rest of her life. At one point, she’d have to make this right.
She could…
She let her hands drop and straightened her back a little.
Okay.
Once the girls reached eighteen and could manage without her, she was going to turn herself in.
 

In the meanwhile… She sighed. At least nobody suspected anything.

Chapter Four

Luanne looked guilty as sin. Sexy as hell too, but that wasn’t something Chase had to address at this very moment, so he was willing to table it.

The Mustang was in rough shape, he thought as he walked up to it behind the police station where Arnie had dropped off the car. The front was smashed. Of course, she
had
hit a fire hydrant.
 

He’d been damned relieved to see the chief and the boys out there working on that. He’d hated to think that Luanne might have hit something else entirely.

Not that Earl didn’t have it coming, judging by what the employees had said in their interviews. The stories they told spoke of him pushing Maria up against the wall in the supply room, grabbing Jackie in an empty guest room, pressuring employees to “work” at his house. Hundreds of dollars held back in wages. That the women hadn’t liked him was an understatement.

But none of the employees had a car with a big dent in the front, except Luanne.

The thought of Earl putting his hands on her, pressuring her, forcing her… Chase rolled his neck to ease his tightening muscles.

His phone rang just as he set his evidence kit on the ground. He glanced at the display and took the call. “Hey, Mom.”

“I ran into Cindy Jenners at the store today.”

“No.”

“She’s such a nice young woman.”

“Not interested.”

“Your sisters abandoned me.”

“They didn’t abandon you. They got married.”

“They moved to other states. I don’t have a single grandchild within driving distance. How can they be so cruel?” She gave a guilt-laden pause. “Mrs. Ottmann said she saw you talking to some blonde with Massachusetts license plates by the feed store yesterday.”

Chase closed his eyes and brushed his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids. “I was giving her a speeding ticket, okay?”

“Oh.” She sounded mollified. “Cindy Jenners teaches at the elementary school now, did you know that? Such a nice girl. I’m sure she doesn’t speed. Promise me to take a Broslin bride. I’m begging you. Please.”

Oh sweet Jesus. “I’m at work. I have to go.”

“My dishwasher stopped working,” she said quickly.

His finger hesitated on the button. “All right. I’ll come over tonight and look at it. But I swear, if Cindy Jenners is accidentally there for tea…”

“I can have whoever I want at my own house for tea, thank you very much,” his mother snapped, then mumbled something about ungrateful offspring.

“Mother,” Chase put some official, police-grade warning into his voice.

“Don’t you
mother
me in that tone, Chase Mortimer Merritt,” she said and hung up on him.
 

He groaned. His mother was an intelligent woman with plenty of energy and brains, widowed, children out of the house, retired. Lots of time on her hands, which made Susan Merritt a bachelor son’s worst nightmare. Chase loved her anyway. But if he was going to find Cindy at the house tonight instead of a broken dishwasher, he and his mother were going to have words.

He rolled his shoulders. All right. Forget Cindy Jenners and matrimonial traps. He had a job to do here.

He sat on the ground and opened his evidence kit, took out the first swab, ran it along one side of the red bumper, sealed it away, grabbed a second, swabbed the other side. He used four swabs on the grill. Other than some negligible dirt and red paint from the hydrant, he didn’t see anything suspicious with the naked eye.

He relaxed a little and eased under the car next. The fire hydrant had washed the outside, but the undercarriage was pretty dirty. He pulled the flashlight off his belt and panned it around. Stopped.

Was that hair? His neck muscles tightened all over again.

He slid back out, grabbed an evidence bag and tweezers, crawled back in, bagged the short, whitish hair, even as he told himself it could be from a cat that had slept under the Mustang. He panned the light around again. Froze.

Blood?

He used a wet swab for that. The white cotton came back dark red. His stomach sank as he took several samples.

Let the lab have it. Don’t jump to conclusions.
But he was swimming in dread and regret as he bagged the piece of evidence.
 

He went by the book, collected second and third samples, took his time, didn’t rush the process. Then he walked back into the station with his bags and his kit.

Only the captain and Leila, the admin assistant slash dispatcher, were in. No, one more. The new officer was coming from the break room with a cup of coffee, Gabriela Maria Flores, ex-inner-city cop, a recent hire, straight from Philly.

She nodded in greeting, tall and lean, crisp uniform, dark hair in a tight bun at her nape. She had a steel core that one, not to be messed with. Chase nodded back at her. “Gabi.”

He dropped the bags on Leila’s desk. “Would you please pack these up for me?”

Leila worked the front desk first shift, a single mother of three teenage boys, no-nonsense short hair, drill-sergeant attitude, a sensible woman, save for her dubious taste in footwear. Today’s affront to modesty was high-heeled pink sneakers covered in black lace.

There could not be enough people willing to wear something like that to make it worthwhile for a manufacturer to make them, Chase thought, and put the shoes down as one of the womanly mysteries.

Leila pulled a large, heavy-duty envelope from the bottom drawer and dropped everything inside, sealed the tab, and handed the package back to him. “Is that Luanne Mayfair’s Mustang out back?”

Chase nodded.

“I hope she’s not in trouble.”

He made some noncommittal sounds, and she let the topic drop. She knew better than to ask questions about an ongoing investigation.

Captain Bing gestured from his office, so Chase walked over to talk to the man.

“Anything?” Bing was in his midforties but had grown five years younger in the last couple of months. Marriage clearly agreed with him.

“Not yet.”

“Is that Luanne Mayfair’s car out back?”

Chase nodded. “She hit a fire hydrant.”

“I’m guessing you already checked that.”

“Checks out.”

“What’s in the evidence bags?”

Chase hesitated, hating to say the words. “Some blood and hair from the car. Could be roadkill,” he quickly added.

Bing raised an eyebrow. “We have a hit-and-run, then a car with blood and hair.” He shook his head. Reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Let’s hope for the roadkill scenario. I like Luanne.” He thought for a moment. “She worked with Earl.”

“She did.”

“You’re thinking of her for the homicide?”

“Just covering all the bases.”

Bing shook his head again. His lungs filled, then deflated. “Motive?” he asked in a tone that said he really didn’t want to be asking that question.

Chase didn’t want to answer it. “Same as for all the other employees. Earl was a sleazebag who cheated people out of their wages when he could. He also pressured his staff into sexual favors.”

Bing’s face hardened. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”

“Good question. I suppose people don’t want to lose their jobs in this economy.”

Bing stayed grim as he thought. Shook his head. Gave a disgusted grunt at last. “All right. Let’s walk through this. Opportunity?”

Chase was equally grim as he responded. “Luanne was at Finnegan’s last night. Earl was killed in the alley behind the bar.”

Bing leaned back in his chair, putting both hands on his desk. “So we’ve got motive and opportunity. And for means, her Mustang. Dented. With blood and hair on it.”

“Fire hydrant and roadkill,” Chase put in, wanting badly to believe it.

“Or she could have hit the fire hydrant to destroy evidence. Makes her look even guiltier.”

Chase nodded. He’d already considered all of this, hated the picture the details painted when added up together. “Could have been an accidental hit-and-run. Then she panicked and tried to cover it up.”

Bing watched him. Flattened his lips. “We’ve put in for arrest warrants on less evidence.”

They had. “It’s Luanne. She’s got the twins.”

And Bing nodded. “Let me know when the lab results come back.” His eyes narrowed after a moment. “You think she has a lawyer?”

“I got the impression she doesn’t have a lot of money.”

Bing nodded again. “Any other suspects? Girlfriend, wife, ex-wife?”

“No current girlfriend. Three ex-wives. The last ex-wife, Veronica, works the front desk at the motel. I already talked to her. Solid alibi, bridal shower with a dozen other women. The second ex lives in Downingtown. The first is down in South Carolina. I’ll be checking them out next.”

Bing considered that for a second. “All right. I want to know as soon as you have something.”

Chase went straight to his desk, grabbed a permanent marker, and wrote his name, contact information, and the case number on the evidence envelope, then set that aside for the time being. He got his notes out, including the interviews with the maids, signed in to his computer, and updated the case file.

He looked for any other angle besides Luanne, all other possibilities. Standard procedure. Once a suspect was identified, it was too easy to focus only on him or her, look at all evidence from that light, and maybe miss something significant. So he set aside the possible evidence from the Mustang and considered the case afresh, as if Luanne wasn’t in the picture.

Maybe Earl had been accidentally killed by someone driving through town. A stranger. Hit-and-run. That would have been Chase’s favorite option. Except the evidence didn’t bear out that hypothesis.