Killer Listing (29 page)

Nothing appeared to have been touched for a long, long time. Strangler figs wound their sinuous vines in and around the gravestones, giving it an abandoned look, and yet hadn’t Peter mentioned something about a gardener? Oddly enough, Darby felt the setting was more moving in its forlorn state than the elaborate, artificially landscaped cemeteries dotting the hillsides of California. This place seemed to say that death was inevitable and yet natural, as natural as the pinecones that littered the mounds of dirt and crunched underneath her sandals.

She wondered where Genevieve Walker was buried. She looked at a few more rows of gravestones and then turned back toward the Mustang. It was getting on dusk and time to head to Casa Cameron.

As she made her way back to the convertible, she noticed one grave with a fresh bunch of wildflowers poking out of a blue enameled pitcher. Curious, she walked toward it, and noticed that the name on the stone was indeed Genevieve’s.

A small metal box was wedged beside the flowers. Darby wondered what it held and leaned in for a closer look.

“Go ahead, take a peek.” The pleasant voice behind her made Darby nearly jump two feet with fright.

“Peter! You scared the heck out of me!” She smiled in relief at the affable man dressed in tan slacks and a navy blue zip-front jacket. “What are you doing here?”

“I come here often,” he explained. “I hadn’t planned on it today, but here we are.” He gestured at the grave. “I was hoping you’d find Genevieve.”

Darby looked at the small marker memorializing the woman who had helped raise Peter Janssen. “I see what you mean about this cemetery being remote. I literally stumbled upon it.” She looked at the towering pines and noticed that the sky was becoming grayer. “It’s a very peaceful place.”

“That it is,” he said. He had his hands in the pockets of his jacket as if he were waiting for something.

Darby felt her heart rate speed up. Something was off balance. She looked around for Peter’s Buick.

“Where did you park?”

He jerked his head in the direction Darby had driven. “Back at the old canning factory. I didn’t want to startle you with my engine.”

“But creeping up on me by foot was no problem?” Darby croaked out a harsh chuckle. She licked her lips; they were incredibly dry. “Peter, did you follow me?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to be alone with you.” He smiled. “Did you see the little gift I gave Genevieve?”

Darby turned back toward the box. “Yes, but I didn’t want to—pry,” she said. “And I really should be heading out.” She glanced in the direction of the Mustang, one hundred or so yards away.

“Take a look in the box.” His voice had a slight edge. “See what I’ve given Genevieve, and then you can head out to the Cameron estate for dinner.”

Darby felt a chill wash over her. How did he know about her dinner plans?

“Actually, I do need to get on the road—”

He loomed over her petite frame. “Take a look!”

Slowly, she reached for the box.

It was no bigger than a cigarette pack, made out of tin, with small pink rosebuds stamped on the lid. The metal was smooth and cool to the touch.

“I don’t want to open it.”

“Do it.” His voice was low and dangerous. Darby’s hands trembled as she pushed up on the lid.

The box’s hinges made a soft squeak of protest as the cover opened. Inside, nestled in a bed of cotton batting, was an exquisite little cocktail ring, oval shaped, with an old-fashioned cut diamond surrounded by small sapphires. Her heart nearly in her throat, she raised her eyes to Peter’s face.

“This was Kyle’s ring,” she whispered.

His eyes narrowed and he nodded, slowly, watching as horror washed over Darby like a wave. “This was her grandmother’s …”

She dropped the box and bolted toward the Mustang.

Kelly McGee was reading
through a stack of pawn shop reports when Dave DiNunzio tapped on her shoulder. “Almost quitting time. How about a pick-me-up cappuccino? My treat.”

Kelly shrugged. It was kind of sweet, the way he was trying to be friends, even if he was the most irritating man on two feet. She gave a quick smile. “Sure.”

He grinned and walked down the hallway, whistling a tune that seemed familiar.

Kelly groaned and resumed her study of the data. She was comparing the pawn shops’ new inventory against stolen property sheets, hoping to find a few matches. Jonas Briggs had asked her to be on the lookout for something specific: an ornate cocktail ring. Kelly circled an entry labeled “jewelry.” She added the shop to her list of follow-ups.

As she worked, snatches of the melody Dave had been whistling kept flitting through her thoughts. Why was it, she wondered, that the smallest bit of a song could stay stuck in your brain, even as you willed it to be forgotten? The melody was one she recalled from the radio—and maybe TV, too—although she had no idea when it was recorded. Kelly was about to scream with frustration when a fragment of the song’s lyrics came to her. She hummed a few bars and snapped her fingers. “The Gambler.” It was a song made famous by that kindly looking country singer with a big white beard. A song about playing cards.”

Playing poker …

She felt the same excited feeling as when she’d stumbled upon Kyle’s middle initial and knew it would lead to something. Carefully she put down the stack of papers in her hands and glanced toward the office door. It was swinging shut behind DiNunzio, now strolling down the aisle, clutching a tray with two coffees. He was about to give her one when she put up a hand.

“Dave,” she began, her mouth suddenly dry. “About your Thursday poker game.”

“Yeah?” he asked, shifting his weight to one side.

“Who are the players?”

_____

Wham! Darby Farr’s face met the driver’s side door of the black Mustang, thanks to a hard shove by Peter Janssen. “Nice try,” he growled. “But you’re not the only one who knows how to run.”

Darby’s head was up against the window, her cheekbone and nose throbbing from the impact. He relaxed his hold and she felt a wave of dizziness, followed by nausea. She willed them both away and tried to focus.

“Let me go. I’m sure there’s a good reason why you’ve got that ring.” She tasted blood in her mouth; his shove had loosened some of her teeth.

He chuckled. “Oh, yeah, there’s a good reason. It was on Kyle’s finger when I lopped it off.” He used both hands to push her back against the car. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to cut off a finger, even a pinkie?” He brought his face in close to hers. “Like cutting the head off a chicken, only tougher. You have to try and get your knife in between the joints.”

He pulled back again and shook his head. “Shit, Darby, I thought you were headed back to California, or Maine, or wherever the hell you came from, and you’d leave this little mystery behind.” He glanced around the graveyard, his voice and Darby’s panting the only audible sounds. “I didn’t think I’d have to hurt you.”

“I can still do that,” she said, her tongue becoming thicker. “Let me go and I’ll just get on a plane.”

“Oh sure! Right after you go running to your little law enforcement friends. No thank you. Like it or not, you’re a part of the problem now.” He paused. “Luckily, most problems can be dealt with.”

Slowly he pulled something from his jacket pocket. “Get away from the car,” he said calmly.

Darby’s mind was spinning. Peter Janssen was holding a gun and it was aimed at her heart. At only two feet away, there was no way he would miss. The words of her martial arts teacher rang in her head. “Once you see a gun, the game is over.” She tried to stall until she could figure out a way to escape.

“Peter, what’s this all about? You and Kyle were friends.”

A soft laugh from the older man sent chills down her spine. “Friends? I’m not sure if Kyle had any friends, to tell you the truth. Conniving little bitch.” He waved the gun in the direction of Genevieve’s grave. “Walk.”

Darby shuffled away from the Mustang, trying to judge how she could bolt from Peter without being fatally shot in the head or heart.

“What did Kyle do to you?” Darby’s legs felt like lead. She tried to shake them, to get them ready for escape.

“Let’s see. She stole from me, for one. She stole from me every single chance she could get.”

“Your clients.”

“Damn right. It started long before she came to work at Barnaby’s. She targeted every single person I worked with and wooed most of them away from me. Can you imagine what that felt like?”

They had reached Genevieve’s grave. Darby stopped and turned to face her captor. “You must have been furious.”

“I tried to tell Marty what kind of person she was. I warned him six years ago not to hire her, not to let her work at Barnaby’s, but he just laughed.” He waved the gun as he spoke, clearly agitated.

“And then?”

“I gave him an ultimatum, said it was her or me. If she came to work with us, I was quitting.” He gave Darby a look of cold fury. “He didn’t even care.”

“Why didn’t you quit?”

“Don’t you think that occurred to me? Where else was I going to go? Barnaby’s was my dream!”

He gave her a helpless shrug. “The truth of it was, I couldn’t leave. My sales figures were dropping—no one wanted me. So I stayed and sucked it up, year after year after year. I pretended to like Kyle Cameron. I acted like she was the best thing since air conditioning. I offered to help her out when she took her little trips with her husband, and later, McFarlin. I had Marty and everyone else believing that we were good little buddies.”

“But you weren’t making money …”

“Not enough. She was raking it in, and I was struggling. And then when the economy soured, it got even worse.”

He shook his head as if regretful. “I’m not saying she wasn’t a good agent. That woman was unbelievable. What a force for the company! But was she happy with the income she was generating? Was she satisfied? Could she leave just a few scraps for the rest of us? No, because it wasn’t about the money for Kyle. It was about winning. Everything was a fucking competition. Getting St. Andrew’s Isle was just another notch in her belt, another trophy property.” He turned to his prisoner, hollow-eyed. “For me, it was survival.”

“What do you mean?” Darby touched something hard with her toe. It felt like a rock, about the size of her fist.

“I mean, I needed that sale. I worked to keep him as a client. Tag Gunnerson was mine.” His voice was hard and bitter. “And she meets him at a party and works her magic, and the next thing I know he’s decided to list with her.” His eyes glittered in the gathering dusk. “I was counting on that sale.”

“Is that why you started doing foreclosures?” Darby was trying to make a plan of action while seeming to be interested in her conversation with a killer.

“Of course it is. Do you think I want to be driving a neon green bus?”

He gave an exasperated sigh and backed up, keeping the gun trained on her. She watched him bend and pick up a long tool.

“This is a gardening spade,” he said. “I ought to know—I’m the so-called gardener around here.”

He held it in his free hand and came slowly back to Darby, stopping about three feet from her. He tossed the tool at her feet and commanded, “Dig.”

A coldness washed over her. “Where?”

He waved the gun. “Right here, next to Genevieve.” His face contorted with rage. “I said, DIG!”

Darby bent over and picked it up. In a flash she had coiled and then spun as if throwing a discus, flinging the spade as hard as she could at Peter. The gun fired but she was already off, sprinting across the parched ground and toward the pines.

_____

Kelly McGee listened as Dave DiNunzio recited the names of his poker pals in a flat monotone. She recognized one man, and he had a link to Kyle.

“You were on the force in Stuart,” she said. “The Kondo Killer case …”

Dave nodded. He was fingering a small porcelain flamingo that Kelly kept on her desk, rolling it between his index finger and thumb in a jerky motion.

She took a deep breath. “Did you talk about that case on poker nights?”

The look on his face told her everything. Her mind reeled and she forced herself to focus. Peter Janssen played in the poker game; Peter had worked with Kyle. Perhaps this was a break; perhaps he knew something.

“Call Barnaby’s,” she snapped. “Let’s go talk to Peter Janssen.”

Already they were leaving the station and jumping into Kelly’s car. Dave shut the passenger side door and shook his head. “He’s not there.”

“Try his house.” Dave obtained the number, but again, he came up empty. “Let’s go to his office,” he suggested. “See what we find.”

_____

A startled Jolene Sebastian hurried behind Dave DiNunzio and Kelly McGee as they made their way through the offices of Barnaby’s International Realty. “It’s right here,” she stammered. “Peter’s desk.” She wrung her thin hands, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I wish Marty would get here.”

Kelly opened drawers and rifled through pens, notepads, a stapler, and paperclips. Dave was doing the same thing to Peter’s file cabinets, hunting for anything that might shed light on Kelly’s nascent theory. Peter had participated in Dave’s weekly poker games, and Peter had worked with Kyle Cameron. Was there more to it than that? Were they simply wasting time and taxpayer money on an innocent man’s office space?

The door burst open and Marty Glickman stormed in. “What the hell?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find some tape,” Dave muttered. Now that they had left the station, his adrenalin was pumping and he looked fierce. He fixed the angry broker with a penetrating stare. “Tell me about Janssen and Kyle Cameron.”

“What is there to tell? They worked together.” Glickman shot a look at Jolene Sebastian. The poor woman was paralyzed with fear.

“What is this all about?” Glickman demanded.

“We need you to tell us more,” Dave growled. “What did Peter Janssen think of Kyle Cameron?”

Marty Glickman rolled his eyes. “He resented her success. I’m sure a lot of the old timers did. That’s not a crime the last time I checked.”

Dave was about to retort when Kelly nudged his arm. “Take a look.”

It was an e-mail, addressed to Darby Farr, asking her to meet at Alligator Key, and signed from the office of Alexandra Cameron. “Get Cameron on the phone,” he spat.

Kelly called and listened for a few minutes. When she hung up, her eyes were flashing. “Alexandra didn’t send any e-mail. She thought Darby arranged the meeting. Fifteen minutes ago she spoke to her. She was about to leave the Key.” Kelly whipped around to face DiNunzio. “Janssen followed her down there. Think, Dave, think. Where the heck would he take Darby?”

Just then Jolene Sebastian let out a scream. She was holding a plastic container, the kind for storing leftover food, and inside was a human finger.

_____

Darby raced left and toward the grove of longleaf pines, dodging gravestones in the murky light. Crack! She heard the sound of another shot and felt the whoosh of a bullet as it sped by her ear. Peter Janssen was a good shot, a very good shot. Was there any way she could escape?

She banked to the right, hoping to reach some cover before her attacker fired again. But she was too late. A bullet whistled through the air and found its mark in her right shoulder. She felt a searing stab that radiated throughout her body. She sank to the ground in pain.

Seconds later Janssen was beside her, panting heavily. “Nice try,” he breathed. “You get a goddamn A for effort.”

He kicked her in the stomach with his boat shoe. “Get up,” he snarled.

The pain of his kick barely registered. “I can’t.”

“Get up right now or I shoot you in the head like an old coon dog.”

Darby struggled to her feet, the pain a blinding white blade slicing through her body. She swayed, feeling blood gushing from her wound.
He’s hit my brachial artery
, she thought.
I’ll bleed out before long.

“Let’s go,” Janssen urged, pointing the gun at Darby. “Walk.”