Killer Closet Case: a Danger Cove B&B Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 6) (8 page)

With Mal all set up with a room and off showering, I had nothing but time on my hands. I decided to do a quick computer search on the dead guy in hopes of finding something—anything—to make him more than just a dead guy in my mind. The newspaper reporter had put a name to the decaying smooshed face, and I really needed to see what he looked like before he was killed. Maybe then I'd be able to sleep more than a few hours at a time.

When the search engine popped up a local contractor bearing a strong resemblance to the smooshed face, or at least it did in my vivid imagination when I took out the sunken cheeks and plumped him up a bit. I remembered my mom mentioning the company, Burke Construction, as the one the scantily dressed neighbor lady had hired.

And that he'd disappeared a short time later, after having words with my dad.

I heard a ruckus out front, shooting adrenaline throughout my body and making me jump with each clang. I scurried out onto the dark front porch to see what was happening.

The very same neighbor, Patricia, was clomping up the sidewalk toward her house in her kitten-heeled slippers. The streetlight cast just enough of a glow on her to make out the disgusted pucker on her face as she wiped at the front of her pink satin robe. I only caught a glimpse, but it appeared there was a dark stain all down the front.

The hair at the nape of my neck stood on end as I eyeballed her trash can, where she'd obviously just disposed of something. With trash pickup scheduled for the next morning, that didn't throw up any red flags. But I flashed back to her words earlier in the day when the body was found.
Finally, this ought to get rid of them.
Was it her and her hubby all along setting my parents up? It seemed like maybe she wanted my mom out of the picture, and she was obviously still holding a grudge about being picked second for the renovations. Perhaps she had her husband kill that poor Shaun guy and set my parents up and was now disposing of yet another victim.

I waited until I heard her front door click shut, then darted to her curb. I'd heard the adage about curiosity killing the cat, but it didn't stop me from looking into her trash anyway. I'd never been Dumpster diving before in my life, but there was always a first for everything.

When I opened the top of the can, the pungent smell of rotting flesh accosted me, forcing me to breathe through my mouth. I didn't have to dig at all, thankfully. I pulled up a wadded sheet of heavy plastic, just like the dead guy had been wrapped in. It had masking tape twisted around it too, and thick, dark liquid oozed back into the can from inside. Something chunky and stinky also slipped from the plastic and stuck to my hands, kicking in my gag reflex.

Squealing as softly as I could manage without attracting Patricia's attention, I dropped the bulky mess back into the can and slid the lid back on, shoved my hands out in front of me as far as I possibly could, and darted to my front door in a grossed-out Frankenstein kind of way. Not wanting to smear the carnage all over the door, I banged on the screen with one elbow while ringing the doorbell with the other. I was in a complete panic, wondering whose guts I had clinging on my fingers. Gagging, I swallowed hard and continued to breathe through my mouth so I didn't actually throw up.

After several minutes of begging through the screen and ringing the doorbell over and over, Cristal finally appeared from her room and wandered to the top of the stairs. "Bree? Someone's at the door!"

I pressed my face to the screen, accidentally turning up my nose in a pig snout. "It's me at the door, Cris," I fumed as loudly as I dared.

She traipsed down the stairs, eyeing me the whole way. "Are your hands broken? It's unlocked."

I held up my hands. Red and brown fleshy chunks smeared across my fingers were illuminated in the light from the lobby, so she could see them. It was even worse than I'd thought.

We both screamed, but she rushed to the door and let me in.

I scrambled to the employee entrance and snapped, "Open it!"

She was quick to comply, even following me over to the kitchen sink and turning on the hot water. I stuck my hands under the steaming stream and shuddered as I watched the carnage disappear down the drain as my hands rinsed clean. I pumped dish soap into my palm and lathered, wringing my hands together and scraping with my nails. I washed again and again, scrubbing with the steel wool pad from the back of the sink, but I couldn't get them clean, at least not to me.

Cris handed me a dish towel, and I wrapped my hands in it as I stumbled to my dad's chair and collapsed onto it. I just stared at the dark television set across from me.

"What…" Cris faltered. "Who's…"

"I think…" I swallowed back the giant lump in my throat. "I think the chick next door is the one responsible for the dead guy in our wall."

"How?"

I raised my hands, still covered with the towel. "I saw her at the trash can. She had blood on her robe. Mom told me she'd hired another contractor. You know who that contractor was?" I really tried to pause for effect but couldn't help myself. I blurted, "The dead guy!"

Cris swatted my shoulder. "Shut up! Our dead guy?"

I felt my brow furrow. What other dead guy would I be talking about? I bobbed my head slowly. "I just looked him up on the computer. What do we do now?"

"Uh, call the cops. Duh. She's bad news. I've seen her peeking through her curtains, watching poor Mal's every move. Maybe he's been her latest victim! Have you seen him lately?" Cris shuddered, her face contorted with panic as she spun around, looking in each corner of the area as though he might be hiding.

"I just saw him a little bit ago. He's fine." I contemplated the weight of the dead guy and began to wonder if maybe she was the patsy or maybe just the instigator. "That doesn't mean she's the actual murderer, though. Maybe she's cleaning up for her husband." I bounced in my seat and gasped. "Maybe he's the killer, and she had to kill him to keep him quiet. Her husband, or parts of him at least, is probably what's in the trash can." I pulled my hands out of the towel and stared down at them.

"We will let the police decide." She picked my phone up off the coffee table and dialed it.

I was fairly impressed with her take-charge attitude until she handed it to me.

I pressed the phone to my ear just as the female operator answered. "9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Um," I stammered. "I think my neighbor is a killer?"

"You don't sound too sure of yourself."

"It, uh, could be her husband, I suppose. I don't know. All I know for sure is that she just threw away plastic covered in what seemed to be blood and guts. Plastic just like the guy from my closet was wrapped in, tape and all."

"Is this Bree Milford at Ocean View?"

"Uh-huh," I muttered.

"Is this the house to the north or south of you?" I heard her typing in the background.

"Uh, south."

"How did you come in contact with these
guts
and plastic? Did you see it firsthand?"

I wedged the phone against my shoulder, stared down at my fingers, and shuddered. "It got on me," I squealed. "Can you send someone?"

"I've got a car dispatched," the woman said slowly, obviously unsure of what and who she was dealing with. "Would you like me to stay on the line with you?"

I shook my head. "No, I've got a friend here. We'll meet the officer next door." I swiped my phone off and slid it onto the table.

Cris reached out to grab my hand but quickly yanked hers away, tucking it into her armpit for a second. "Sorry." She then grabbed my elbow, helped me out of the chair, and walked with me through the lobby and onto the porch.

The shadowy yard seemed darker now, even with the streetlight glimmering through the leaves. I pulled my sweater closed and wrapped my arms around myself, staring down the hill, willing the police to hurry the heck up.

Cris put an arm around my shoulder. "It's going to be okay. This may be a big break in the case."

I nodded. "Thanks. Maybe so." I cast a glance at the trash can, hoping Patricia hadn't heard the ruckus earlier and destroyed the evidence.

A police car finally pulled up in front of the neighbor's house. We darted down to the sidewalk as the officer got out. A hulk of a man, this was no ordinary guy. Other than being in uniform, he could have just left a GQ photo shoot.

He bobbed his head toward us. "I'm Officer Stallone. Are one of you girls…" He paused and flipped through his notes on the clipboard he carried. "Summer Breeze Milford?"

Still so distraught, I didn't even bother correcting him. I raised a hand. "That's me."

"Before we bother Mrs. Koch, can you tell me what exactly happened?"

I wandered toward her garbage can, the smell of rotting flesh growing stronger the closer I got. I placed a hand on the lid to show instead of tell.

"Can I help you, officer?" Patricia sweetly inquired from the porch. She was dressed in an identical pink robe to the one she had worn earlier, but this one was clean. She smiled flirtatiously at him, then turned a sour, puckered scowl toward Cris and me.

Officer Stallone walked to the foot of the porch stairs. "Is your husband home so I can speak to both of you?"

"He's, um, sleeping. I can answer any questions you may have." She shifted, leaning against the banister, her shoulders back, breasts heaved outward. She popped a leg through the front slit of her robe and between the dowels on the railing.

"Or, maybe he's cut up into bits in your trash can," I mumbled.

"What?" She scurried across the porch near me and leaned over, glaring again.

Even though she was only a few feet from me, I cupped my hands around my mouth and repeated loudly, "I said, maybe he's cut up into bits in your trash can!"

The scowl turned into a spiteful glower. Very slowly and concisely, she growled, "I heard what you said. I just don't quite comprehend why you said it."

The screen door of the B&B slammed, and a few seconds later Mal walked up beside me. Patricia's demeanor instantly shifted back into flirty mode.

"What's going on?" he asked.

She leaned over the railing, affording the entire neighborhood a view of her lace-lined cleavage. "Are you ready to start work on my place?"

He shook his head. "Demolition on the upstairs is still scheduled to start in January."

The officer released a frustrated sigh and marched over to our side of the porch. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Kochs' screen door banged against the wall, grabbing our attention instead.

A man with graying hair, beard, and mustache filled the doorway. He was wearing nothing but a pair of stained white sweatpants, one hand stuffed down the front of them like he was afraid someone might run off with his junk. In his other hand he held a bottle of beer. "What the hell?" he slurred.

Patricia grumbled, "Go back inside, Alan. I'm handling this."

Well that shot down my theory of him being in the garbage. But that didn't mean there still wasn't a body in there though.

The officer rubbed his temples. "We just need to look inside your trash bin, Mr. and Mrs. Koch. That's all."

"No!" Patricia bellowed, trotting down the stairs, positioning herself between the can and us. She flailed her hands about, shooing us away. "There's nothing in there but leftovers I cleaned out of the fridge."

Officer Stallone stepped toward her, causing her hands to flutter faster. "Ma'am, just let us look, then."

"Why? Give me one good reason."

I moved closer, stepping between her and the officer. "Because I saw heavy plastic and got someone's guts all over my hands from something in there? Plus, I saw blood on your robe earlier."

"You mean this robe?" She ran her hands down her sides.

"Don't you have like a hundred of those? And did you know that the dead guy in my wall was
your
contractor?"

By the shocked look on her face, I was willing to guess that was a no. Sputtering, she jabbed balled-up fists onto her hips. "You mean the contractor that your father got into a shouting and shoving match with in my drive?" She spun toward the officer. "That was the last time I saw my new contractor. Pretty suspicious, if you ask me."

"No one's asking you," I blurted.

Patricia huffed, turning her scrunched-up, hateful glare back toward me. "You were rifling through my refuse like a homeless drifter? I bet your
mother
taught you to do that."

Mr. Koch barged down the stairs, finally freeing his man parts, and yanked his wife out of the way. "Oh, for Pete's sake, woman. Let them look. There's just that stuff I had you throw away after painting the living room and that moldy hamburger I told you to throw out three weeks ago."

Patricia dramatically melted into tears. "I'm so sorry, Malcolm," she blubbered. "I didn't want him to start doing the renovations. You'll still do the rest, won't you? Please forgive me." She clutched his shirt, inching toward him.

I wanted to laugh at the uncomfortable look on his face as he backed away from her, but her husband's words finally sunk in. I whipped around toward the trash can as Officer Stallone pulled the plastic out and tossed it on the ground.