The Price of Candy (16 page)

She felt a little better now. After the
strain of having her life threatened, and having Toby die across
her legs, it was a relief to sit in the safety of the detective’s
car. He would start by scolding her for being a damn fool entering
the house. She could take that. He’d have to report it.

Triney came back over and slid in behind the
wheel. “You still okay?”

She nodded.

“First, I need your version of why Kevin Olin
was here.”

“He knew I’d be here. That was our plan. He
was to keep Abby away while I went in the house and searched for
anything that might lead to Jamie. When Abby left him unexpectedly,
he thought she might head back here so he tried to get here to warn
me.”

“So Abby was headed back here?”

“I don’t think Kevin knew where she was
headed. But he didn’t want me caught inside. After the shooting, I
was lying in the driveway with the body. Kevin was the first person
I saw after that.”

“Did you see or hear anyone after you heard
the shot? Any footsteps, any talking, any car driving away?”

She shook her head.

“Did you see Kevin drive up?”

“No, and he didn’t act as if he had heard the
shot or knew what happened. Said he just drove up.”

He continued with the interrogation,
including what Toby had to say about Privado Beach. He didn’t seem
unusually concerned. It all seemed routine and she was thankful for
that. It took some time before he stopped writing, apparently
satisfied. Finally, he clipped the ballpoint back in his pocket.
“Okay you’re free to go.”

She was surprised. “What about the other? You
didn’t say anything.” At no time had he alluded to her being in the
house illegally.

“What other?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “My
breaking and entering. Or getting the key and entering.”

“I don’t see any violation there. The owner
of the house gave you permission to enter and told you where to
find the key.”

“What? Kevin told me the judge ordered the
house transferred to Abby.”

“Yes, he did, but Kevin appealed the ruling
and as of right now the deed technically is still in his name. Abby
doesn’t have any tenant rights as she isn’t paying rent and there’s
no tenancy agreement between them. I’ll make that clear in my
report, so you don’t have any problem.” The detective flipped his
notebook closed. “That’s it Sugar. I’m glad you’re okay. Sorry you
got the hell scared out of you. Do you need a ride home or
anything?”

She had just lived through the worst day of
her life. And there were other reasons Sandy slept in the next
morning. It was late when Triney excused her from the Toby shooting
scene. Later still when she eventually fell asleep. All topped off
by a widescreen HD nightmare featuring Toby Towalski. She was on
Abby’s couch stripped bare. He was leaning back in his chair with
his legs crossed comfortably and sipping a cup of tea with his
little finger sticking out. Toward morning, she got enough of it
out of her mind to at last fall asleep.

Now it was almost noon. The shower last night
was to wash off Toby. The one this morning was routine. Afterward
she phoned Chip. He came right over.

She sat with her coffee and bowl of Special K
at a card table in the center of her studio apartment. Chip was
settled a few feet away in Sandy’s comfy reading spot: a
soft-leather armchair with a tarnished-brass floor lamp capable of
perfect over the left shoulder light, and a side table to place her
tea.

The single room served as her living room,
dining room, workstation, and kitchen. The kitchen hid behind
folding doors along one closet-like wall. Positioned along the
opposite wall was her study desk, wired for her laptop, and two
small bookcases. The bathroom was separate. A tiny alcove held her
twin-sized bed.

She once remarked she felt comfy cozy there
and would hate to leave the place behind when she became rich from
her first over-the-top lawsuit. Chip replied she didn’t have to
leave it behind; it was so small she could have it bronzed and take
it with her. One nice feature of the apartment, he said, was the
bathtub wasn’t in the kitchen.

Now he said, “I heard about a shooting last
night out in the county, however I didn’t know you were involved.
Triney called me after it was all over and said you got home all
right. Did you get my voice mail about calling me if you needed
anything?”

She nodded. “I guess Triney was worried about
me. Driving home, I saw him back there behind me. I always know
when someone’s following me, even if I’m dead tired.”

He got up and poured himself a mug of coffee.
“I don’t know why you wanted to go in Abby’s house, but it was a
really bad idea.”

“Kevin got Abby out of her house last night
so I could go in and look around.” She told Chip about the
encounter with Toby Towalski inside the house.

“Did he touch you?”

“I’ve been groped worse on a Philadelphia
subway.”

“I’m so sorry you suffered all that.” The
police radio on his belt squawked and he turned it down. “Who shot
him? Who did you that big favor?”

“We know Abby wanted Toby dead because she
already tried to shoot him once. Maybe she showed up with a
gun.”

“Or someone else came along who either wanted
him dead or you alive.”

“If the shooter hadn’t saved me, Toby might
have gotten me, kicking and screaming, or maybe unconscious, into
his van. I’m still not certain whether he wanted to rape me before
or after he killed me, or not at all.”

“He came after you with a knife. That’s a
clue.” He sipped his coffee and rested the mug on the side table.
“So this is about the kidnapping.”

“I couldn’t get him to talk about Jamie. His
comments to me were all inherently sexual about the Privado Beach
body.”

That stopped him. “Privado Beach? How do you
know about Privado Beach?”

“Triney told me. The late Mr. Towalski
admitted he was on the beach that night.”

“That guy, on the beach? You’ve never said
anything about that case to me. Why were you discussing it with a
sheriff’s detective? That’s a city case. I don’t get the
connection.”

“Relax Chip. Don’t take it personally. We
were talking about Kevin Olin and Triney remembered the cops
stopped him two months ago at the time of the Privado case because
he had a white SUV. So Triney explained about Privado Beach. But
Kevin checked out okay back then. That’s all. Just a
coincidence.”

“How about that, Privado Beach? This is the
first break we’ve had. It’s a minor case but it bugged all of us.
Now we know Towalski was on the beach and penetrated the body. Case
closed.”

“He didn’t exactly admit to that. But he does
have a white SUV.”

“Did Toby know the woman? He take her
there?”

“The guy I should have asked is now dead. But
I don’t think so. He wasn’t cool enough to connect with a woman
like that. She wouldn’t have bothered with him. All I know for
certain is he was there. Nothing about how the woman got there, or
who else came and went that night. Stupid me didn’t think fast
enough to ask. He spoke of trying to decide whether to rape her. So
he was alone at that point.”

“Did he undress the body?”

“Don’t think so. Said he was looking down at
the body, I assumed he meant a naked body because he was all
excited and prematured before he even touched her. So he leaves.
The body’s still there unmolested. The necrophile must have come
along later.”

“You really believe he just walked away.
Didn’t even cop a feel. Doesn’t ring true. My theory fits better
and doesn’t require a delinquent exercising heroic self-control and
a necrophile strolling by later. Remember, Sherlock, Toby’s young.
He’d be ready to go again in ten minutes.”

“Gee, I didn’t know that. It takes you over
an hour to recover.” She couldn’t resist.

He ignored the crack. “Our original theory
was she’s there alone and innocently chokes. The attacker comes
along and unexpectedly discovers her body. Now I’m thinking Toby
attacked the body. In the first place, he most likely lied to you
about everything. He’s already there. No one is around. He gets
excited and can’t resist. He touches her and one impulse leads to
another. It just seems unlikely that some other person not only
finds her, but is inclined to assault her.”

“Do you consider the beach the primary
scene?”

“Yes, we believe she choked, died, and was
assaulted there.”

“She wouldn’t have been taken to the beach
naked and dead. So either she stripped to swim or someone stripped
her after she choked. Either way, where’s her clothing? Where’s the
beach towel? Where’s the suntan lotion? No clothing left around
bothers me. It might be a key to something. Why would the attacker
take her clothes? Is Privado one of those nudie beaches?”

“No, what are you thinking?”

“I think she undressed in a car and she left
her clothes in there. Maybe she didn’t have a swimsuit. What’s the
layout of the beach? Could she have run bare assed from the car to
the beach?”

“Possibly. The parking area itself isn’t
obvious from the road, although someone on the highway could see a
car or a person if they looked over. Maybe a stripper wouldn’t
care. But you’d think she’d want something to cover up with in case
someone else showed up, like a Boy Scout troop.”

“All the while eating a pretzel.”

“We don’t know if she came to use the beach
or was just passing by, or was taken there involuntarily in some
manner.”

“I’d guess voluntarily if she’s munching on a
pretzel.”

“Soft pretzel or bagel. M.E. went with
pretzel because of mustard and salt traces.”

“That led to showing her picture in area
stores selling pretzels, I imagine.”

“Some of that. But there are limits. Remember
this isn’t murder, only a felony-two abuse.”

“Any chance it
was
murder? Someone
intentionally strangled her? I mean the tinniest little chance at
all. And don’t give me the no obvious bruises on her neck
routine.”

“The experts considered all of that.”

“What if she ate the pretzel earlier or was
eating it when the guy strangles her with a large fluffy beach
towel?”

“There would be signs.”

“I was choked last night with a dishtowel and
passed out. Do you see any marks on my throat?”

“No, but you might have internal bruising, or
something. I’m not an expert.”

“Triney said the next morning they had a tip
from a nearby property owner. He’d seen a white SUV parked there
late that night. What time was that?”

“The neighbor wasn't certain because he had
driven past that spot twice that night. Once after dinner when he
drove to a party and again later coming home around midnight.”

“Toby said it was getting dark, but he could
still see the body. In other words, it was dusk. He wouldn’t dare
hang around until midnight. But if the neighbor saw a white vehicle
early, it could have been his."

"And if the neighbor saw the vehicle late, it
could have been Kevin Olin's."

"Not necessarily. We are aware of only two
owners of white SUV's. There are plenty of others around. You know
how eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Perhaps, the neighbor
thought he saw a white vehicle, thought it was that beach, that
time, and that night."

"No, Toby is the simplest answer. The
simplest answer is usually the correct one. He was there, that says
it all.”

Sandy smiled and said, “I just studied that
in my textbook on evidence—
Lex parsimoniae
—the simplest
explanation is usually the correct one.”

“Well then apply your studies. He's
preoccupied with sex and he attacked you. Obviously, he’s capable
of committing such an offense. I like him for this.”

“Chip, your theory still doesn’t answer the
question of how she got there in the first place. She didn’t drive
herself because no car was left at the scene. No halfway sensible
woman would get in a car with Toby. Someone other than him took her
there. I wish I’d found out more about what happened on that beach,
but I was busy trying to stall him, psych him out, or whatever it
was I was doing.”

“Surviving is what you were doing. You were
lucky. If he’d attacked you inside, you wouldn’t have been saved by
some shooter outside. I’m telling you, you need to knock off all
your nosing around.”

“I screwed it all up, saying the wrong thing
at the wrong time.”

“However you handled it, you got out of
there. We’ll want a statement from you on what he told you. I’ll
set it up.”

“Can’t you wait on telling the chief? If I’ve
valuable information about that old case, maybe I can trade it to
Moran for a break on my charges.”

“Sorry, can’t hold it back. He knows about
the shooting last night and it ties into the old beach case. It’s
evidence. Remember, he’s watching both of us. I’ll hold off until
tomorrow. You’ll still be able to trade the info. Although he might
not consider any of it valuable enough to drop your charge.

“I’m going to study up on the case this
afternoon and tomorrow I’m going down to Jensen Beach and see
Congressman Kidde.”

“Freddy Kidde? What’s he got to do with
this?”

“Maybe nothing. I believe he’s part of a
triangle. Abby has ten grand and Toby’s mother has an expensive TV.
You can bet they didn’t suddenly have all that cash honestly. There
must be serious money involved if Abby tried to kill Toby last week
to get him out of the deal. Where’d they get it? In the middle of
all this, Kevin follows Abby and she goes down to see rich guy
Kidde who lives on a completely different planet than the rest of
us.”

“You’re thinking the money’s coming from
him.”

“Maybe they’re doing some dirty work for
Kidde, maybe he got himself involved sexually with Abby, or they’re
blackmailing him over something. Now we find out Toby was on that
beach that night. That is a very big deal. Think about it.
Blackmailer Toby there with the body on Privado Beach and he didn’t
take her there.”