Trespass (24 page)

Chapter 54

I
n the Pewter Mug, the jazz band that was there last week had been replaced by a bearded man playing classical guitar accompanied by a girl in a long black dress straddling a cello. Surprisingly, the mellow background music they played had drawn a rather large crowd.

I stood between the bar and the tables that surrounded the stage and looked for the person who wanted to talk to me. When no one approached me, I allowed the hostess to seat me at a table in the back of the room where I could watch the entrance for my note writer. The strains of the music were winding down when the waitress placed my drink order in front of me, a glass of white wine I hadn’t really wanted. After a few sips, I felt more relaxed and determined to see this through.

I glanced at my watch and saw that my informant was ten minutes late. The people in the room began to stir and clap as the man with the guitar announced a singer was going to perform. He introduced him as “Kane.” I had never heard of him, but the rest of the room appeared excited and clapped until he walked out and sat on a small stool in the middle of the stage. All the lights went down except for a filtered spot that poured down from the ceiling and centered on the lone singer.

His appearance had me mesmerized before he even sang a note. Dressed simply in a pair of dark jeans and a loosely woven beige shirt, he had a handsome face with quite generic features, except for his eyes, which were a brown so deep they were almost black. They gleamed out to the audience from under the ray of the spotlight. His slightly wavy, dark brown hair, amazingly long for a man, hung far below his shoulders, shiny and beautiful enough to be in an ad for hair products. Every woman in the room appeared to be captivated by him. And if they weren’t already, when he began to sing a slow, a capella version of Bob Dylan’s, “Lay,
Lady, Lay
,”
every one of them looked like they wanted to take him to their beds. His voice had an intimate, dusky quality that brought the lyrics to life, sending his admirers an intimate message.

After the first verse of the song, the cellist joined him, the low, hollow strain of the cello a perfect accompaniment. I watched him as he sang, and like the rest of the women present, I imagined he was singing only to me. The song grew more intense. Because my sensuality had been piqued by the words of the song and the piercing gaze of the singer, I hadn’t noticed the people at the next table looking in my direction. When I did, I realized why they were staring—he
was
singing to me. My heart began to race and I felt an insistent stirring above my thighs. I was as turned on by this singer as a thirteen-year-old at her first rock concert. When the waitress signaled me for another drink, I nodded.

Three women sitting at table next to the stage reached out to touch Kane. He bent forward to stroke their fingers with his own as he began the next song, one requested by a woman sitting next to the stage, “You Are So Beautiful,” another sensual love song from the past, popularized by Joe Cocker.

I listened, enthralled, before remembering my purpose here tonight. I looked around the room, but no one seemed to be watching for me. The person who said he wanted to meet me here hadn’t shown up. A tiny thread of fear rippled through me. Was he waiting outside for me to leave? I hadn’t thought this through very well. I would stay here until the singer left the stage, then call TJ. I would feel safer if someone knew where I was. It was rather late, and I knew she would be annoyed with me, but I thought she would want me to call under these circumstances. If I didn’t reach her, I could ask the hostess if someone could walk me to my car.

The room went still after Kane left the stage, so I pulled out my phone to make the call. It went straight to voice mail. I left a message for TJ explaining where I was and why and promised to call her in the morning. Before I rose from the table, the waitress appeared and placed a fresh glass of wine in front of me. “From Kane,” she explained.

I couldn’t deny the thrill I felt. Men were attracted to me, yes, but this man? He had to be at least ten years younger than me and could have his choice of any woman in this room. I felt like a teenager at her first dance when the captain of the football team looks her way. My breath caught in my throat when he sat next to me. A subtle musk scent emanated from him. I inhaled. It was nothing like the colognes most men wore, its undertones purely sensual. He smiled and held out his hand.

“Kane.”

“Gemma.” I took his hand. It felt warm in mine, his touch as sexy as if he slid probing fingers inside my blouse. His lustrous hair smelled of shampoo. I wanted to slide my fingers through his long tresses, pull him to me until we were pressed against each other and I could feel every inch of him against me.

What was happening to me? It must have been that third glass of wine that wiped out all my inhibitions. Alcohol tended to hit me harder than it did most people. I have never been one to be very impulsive, but I knew if this man asked, I would do anything he wanted.

His eyes told me what he wanted.

When I pulled up next to him in a parking area behind a long row of buildings in downtown Tosa, I had cooled off enough to ask myself what the hell I was thinking. My judgment was seriously lacking, probably because I was light-headed from the wine. When I stepped out of my car and Kane took me in his arms, all caution vanished.

Instead of the passionate kisses I expected, he placed his hands on either side of my face and his lips softly caressed mine, then trailed down my neck to the top of my neckline. The soft sensuality of the kiss took my breath away. He took my hand and led me up to his apartment.

I guess I had expected one of those scenes where we ripped each other’s clothes off the minute the door closed. Again he surprised me. He walked me to the sofa without turning on a light, the room lit only by a small nightlight. After I sat down, he leaned forward and kissed me, more urgently now, his lovely hair brushing the sides of my face. I ran my fingers through it and pulled him closer until he lay next to me. The tip of his tongue ran along my neck and traveled into my open neckline to the top of my bra. I couldn’t wait for him to undo it and release my breasts to his touch. When I thought I couldn’t wait a moment longer, he kissed my lips and rose from the couch.

“I’ll get us some wine,” he said and left me panting for more of him. As he left the room, he put on some soft music and lit candles that quickly filled the room with a soft, vanilla fragrance.

I heard a phone vibrating. The sound was coming from the side of the sofa, where his phone must have slid out of his pocket. I knew I should tell him he had a call, but I was curious to see who would be calling him so late. It had to be a woman. I picked up the phone and looked at the name on the screen—Drucilla. At the sight of it, my sensuality morphed into fear.

TJ believed Drucilla and Lucian could be two of the people responsible for the murders, and here I was, ready to spend a torrid night with a man who might be involved with one of them. Or worse, be one of them.

I grabbed my purse from the floor and ran for the stairs.

Chapter 55

T
he Krause residence, where Lilly Diermeyer and Arthur Krause had committed suicide sixteen years ago, sat among a row of similar brick bungalows north of Mayfair Shopping Center. Martin had lived there alone since his mother, Barbara Krause, moved out.

TJ parked a few doors down in an alley behind the house. As she crept closer, she heard the first raindrops pelting against her waterproof fisherman’s jacket. She had its hood pulled up, keeping her face in shadow and free of rain. Next to the house, a detached garage had been partly torn down. When she tried the side door to the house, she saw a large work permit in the window. Apparently the garage was being replaced. Both the side door and the front door were locked, but facing the backyard was a set of slanted doors leading to a cellar. They opened in her hand, and she descended the aging cement steps until she came to a heavy wooden door. She took a deep breath and tried it. It swung open.

Aided by a small flashlight, TJ discovered Martin Krause kept a neat basement. Unfinished, the cellar held a laundry area, furnace, water heater, and a set of weightlifting equipment along with an expensive treadmill and Stairmaster that emerged from the shadows at the other end of the space like instruments of torture.

On the first floor, TJ moved through the kitchen to two bedrooms, one on either side of the bathroom, only one of which appeared to have been used recently.

The larger bedroom, in addition to the usual bed, dresser, and chest of drawers, had a corner alcove Martin obviously used as his home office. The office area also housed an oak file cabinet, glass-doored bookshelves, and a long desk that held a computer and a row of textbooks on religion and counseling. There was a lot to go through, and since TJ had no idea what she was looking for or when Martin would be back, she would have to hurry.

The rain increased in intensity. On the plus side, its noise would make her escape easier if Martin Krause came back, but would she be able to hear him? The room had a window facing the driveway; TJ kept an eye on it as she worked.

After thirty minutes, she had yet to find anything incriminating in Martin’s office. His file on Drucilla had little to say about the girl except for her progress in religious studies.

The drawers in the bedroom furniture held nothing of interest, and she headed for the closet, looking out the window on her way to see the driveway still empty. In the large walk-in closet, a shelf above the clothing rod held about a dozen shoeboxes in addition to stacks of books and one of sweaters.

The shoeboxes contained only shoes. There wasn’t time to rifle through each book like she had the ones in the office area, but she quickly flipped through them. After another run to the window, she returned to search the stack of sweaters. She felt something beneath the one on the bottom and pulled the object out, a small plastic bag, the kind with a zip top closure. Inside it was a small, blue journal.
Bingo. A diary.
It must have been stored somewhere dank for ages; the smell of mildew permeated through the plastic to her nostrils.

Could it be Lilly Diermeyer’s diary? A quick peek inside its front cover confirmed it. How Martin came to have it in his possession, TJ had no idea, but there was no time to examine its pages. After wrestling with whether to take it with her, she put it back in the plastic bag and slid it into a pocket on the inside of her rain jacket. No need to search the rest of the house; she had already hit the mother lode. Since the diary had been illegally obtained, anything she discovered in it would be useless in court. She would have to put it back in place after she read it, but she would worry about that later.

She retraced her steps out of the house and returned to her car. After driving a safe distance, she pulled over to turn on her phone. There was a voice mail from Gemma. She had received a note from someone who had information about Norman’s death and wanted to meet with her. Gemma was at the designated place, the Pewter Mug, and the person hadn’t shown up. She would wait a little longer, then return home since she’d gotten all her things moved out of the hotel that afternoon.

Damn.
Surprised that Gemma would do such a stupid thing, TJ checked the time of the message. It had come in ten minutes ago. If she hurried, she could at least catch Gemma at the Mug before she went out into the night alone.

Chapter 56

A
fter a frustrating conversation with Lukaszewski who, judging from the background noise, Tasha felt certain was in a bar, she tried once more to reach Haymaker.
Geez, was the guy alive?

She had picked him up at his apartment once when his car was in for repairs; it wasn’t far from the station. She left to check on him.

He lived on the first floor of an eight-family brick apartment building on west North Avenue. When Tasha reached his door, she listened for any signs of life, then tapped. A TV played inside, so he had to be there. She knocked louder. He didn’t answer. She stood on her tiptoes and felt above the door for an extra key. No luck. She tried a full-fisted knock. After three tries, she heard footsteps approaching the door.

Haymaker stood with one arm on the door, the other holding a package of saltines. He wore a plaid bathrobe, open over baggy shorts and a T-shirt. His face exhibited three day’s growth of blond whiskers and dark hollows beneath his eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Tasha wrinkled her nose. “I thought I’d see if you were okay. Smells like you aren’t.”

He stepped back to let her inside. She walked in, dubious about exposing herself to his germs, although she was probably being picky; she was exposed daily to every bug her kids brought home from school.

“If I wanted to have anything to do with work right now, I wouldn’t have my phone turned off.” He left the room and came back wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, then flopped onto a sofa. In front of it was a coffee table stacked with remnants of food he had eaten in the last two days and an assortment of OTC drugs next to a stale glass of water. The whole place smelled like sickness; the heat had to be set at eighty degrees.

“The case is finally going somewhere,” she said.

“Yeah? Did Lukaszewski get off his dead ass?”

“No, I’ve been talking to that PI who’s working for Rosenthal. She’s making progress. Which reminds me Rosenthal’s one of Lukaszewski’s chief suspects. He says he’s going to bring her in for questioning tomorrow.”

“What a douche,” he said. “So what’s Peacock got?”

Tasha’s phone buzzed.

It was TJ. “Rosenthal got a note to meet someone at the Pewter Mug. Said he knows somethin’ about Teschler’s home explosion. She went to meet him. I’m at the Mug now, but I missed her. Someone saw her leave with a guy who was performing here tonight. Guess who? Kane Diermeyer. He’s a singer, calls himself ‘Kane
.
’”

“I’ve heard of him, but I never would have made a connection since he only goes by his first name.”

“He lives above the music store in Tosa,” TJ said. “I’m on my way there now to see if Gemma’s still with him. If you can, swing over to her place and see if they went over there.”

Tasha started to say she would leave right away when the connection went dead. As she hurried to the door, she said to Haymaker, “I have to leave. No time to explain.”

TJ reached the parking lot behind the music store faster than she had imagined possible in Janeen’s car. As she pulled in, Gemma came rushing out of a door that apparently led to a stairway to the upper floor. She wasn’t wearing a coat, and the silk blouse she wore was open to the waist. Before TJ could intercept her, she leapt into her car and backed out.
What the fuck just happened?

TJ was torn between heading upstairs to confront Kane Diermeyer and following Gemma. She called Tasha and explained that Gemma wasn’t in any danger.

“Are you going in to talk to Diermeyer?” asked Tasha.

“Not sure. Gemma came runnin’ out a minute ago and took off like all hell was on her tail. Looked like Diermeyer hit on her and she wasn’t buyin’.”

“If she didn’t want his advances, I wonder why she went to his apartment. Do you think he was the one who sent her the note?”

“I should go talk to her and find out. I’ll touch base with you later.” Tasha’s questions reminded TJ they needed to talk to Gemma before confronting Kane Diermeyer. She thought about calling Tasha back, but opted not to. Tasha would figure it out.

Gemma looked surprised to see TJ. Clyde opened one eye as TJ walked in, but didn’t offer her coffee or spout a prayer. He must have been sleeping.

Dressed in only a white terrycloth robe, Gemma looked like she was ready to step into the shower. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I know I should have talked to you before I went out, but you weren’t there when I called.”

“Shoulda’ called me when you first got the note, not done anything till you heard from me.”

“When I got the note, I didn’t plan on doing anything about it.”

“There shouldn’t have been anything to think about. Going out alone was stupid enough, but messin’ around with a suspect? I saw you leavin’ that loser’s place. You pull shit like this, you make it hard for me to do my job. If you wanna do this on your own, say the word and I’m outta here.”

Gemma sat primly, her face reddening. “I do want you to keep working on this. I left tonight on an impulse. I thought I had nothing to worry about since it was a public place. Whoever sent the note didn’t show up anyway. But how did you know where I was?”

“I went to the restaurant to find you. They told me you left with Kane Diermeyer. How do you know it wasn’t him who sent the note?”

Gemma gasped. “Kane’s last name is Diermeyer?”

TJ didn’t doubt Gemma’s surprise was genuine. She hadn’t told Gemma her suspicion that there was a ringleader behind the attacks. Still, she wasn’t going to sugarcoat what she had to say. Gemma should have been more careful who she went home with, even if she didn’t suspect that Kane was the one who sent her the note.

“Been talkin’ to the cops. I thought there might be one person calling all the shots. Diermeyer’s one of them that I suspect could be the guy behind all the crimes goin’ on here. An’ if he is, you coulda been his next victim.”

Gemma said, “I left his place when I saw a message from Drucilla on his cell phone. It seemed strange that she would be calling him. That’s why I left when I did. Why would he want to kill me? It couldn’t be that he wanted to scare us off, because the police are investigating, too.”

Good point, TJ thought. “Maybe he’s not the one who wrote the note, but he could be a murderer. Whoever wrote it might have been waiting for you to leave the restaurant, then backed off when you didn’t leave alone.” That seemed like a stretch to TJ, but no use upsetting Gemma any more than she already had; the woman was visibly trembling. Kane Diermeyer had to be involved; just how deeply, TJ intended to find out.

“So why did you go with the guy?”

“The usual reason—he turned me on. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, and I guess I just needed to be close to someone. Plus, every woman in the place wanted to be with him. Childish, I know, but it seemed like a minor victory to be the one he chose.”

TJ, still amazed that Gemma would do something so immature, was about to ask her more about it when she got a text message from Tasha Wade. She had Kane at the station and was about to interview him. If TJ wanted to be there, she could observe.
Shit.
The detective had jumped the gun.
What a moron.

“Gotta go,” she said to Gemma. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’ll need to know everything about Diermeyer you can remember. Write the details for me if it’ll help. An’ don’t forget to keep your security system on.”

Tasha was waiting for TJ at the Tosa station. The detective’s brown suit jacket had sweat outlines under the arms, and her smooth bob needed attention. Tasha had only achieved her detective status recently and she clearly wasn’t used to acting on her own.

“I asked you to come over because no one else is around right now—at least none of Lukaszewski’s henchmen—so it won’t be a problem if you want to observe.”

TJ bit back her irritation. “What grounds did you haul Diermeyer in on?”

Tasha looked offended. “The note, right? Whoever wrote it claimed to know something about Norman Teschler’s home explosion. We have a right to question him about that since he might be the one who sent it to Gemma. Besides, he came willingly.”

TJ still thought it premature to question the guy. Now he knew they were interested in him. She told Tasha about her conversation with Gemma.

“Do you think he drugged her?” Tasha asked.

“Didn’t think of that. I guess it’s possible.”

“Better have her tested. Some of the date rape drugs are hard to pick up if you don’t catch them right away.”

TJ called Gemma and explained what she had to do and advised her to take a cab to the hospital rather than drive. Then she followed Wade to a small corridor flanked by interview rooms. She peered through the window of a two-way mirror and saw Kane waiting in a small room next to where they stood.

Tasha smirked. “I heard him sing one time. About made my panties wet. The guy oozes sex like sound waves.”

TJ observed Kane through the one-way glass. He didn’t look like someone who could do that to her panties.
Tasha’s hormones must be outa whack from havin’ a baby.
But then there was Gemma, who had submitted to the guy and hadn’t even been pregnant. No accounting for everyone’s taste.

“Gonna record?” she asked Tasha.

“Of course. Did you bring the note?”

TJ handed over the note, encased now in a plastic evidence bag.

“Good. I’ll make a copy to take in with me.”

When Tasha left, TJ peered into the room again. It held only a metal table and three chairs. Surprisingly, the lighting was dim, unusual for an interview room. Kane Diermeyer sat in shadow, an ankle crossed over the opposite knee. Mr. Cool.

TJ wouldn’t have recognized him from the day she saw him in the music store. He was wearing a tan shirt, open at the neck to reveal the beginning of dark chest hairs, and a pair of black jeans. His hair, a wavy mane of dark brown tresses, hung more than halfway down his back. She had never seen a man with such long hair, hair any woman would envy. But to her he looked kind of weird. All that hair. TJ couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say about the note.

She watched as Tasha returned and entered the interview room with Kane. The detective took a seat at the table and placed the copy of the note in front of him.

“Tell me why you sent this to Gemma Rosenthal,” she demanded.

Good tact, TJ thought.

Kane scraped a strand of hair behind one ear, picked up the note, and after glancing at it, tossed it back across the table. “I didn’t.”

“Really? Then why did you lure Ms. Rosenthal to your apartment?”

“I didn’t ‘lure’ her, detective. She came with me because she wanted to.” His voice had a low, gravelly edge, soft-spoken and unruffled by Tasha’s questions.

“Seems like a pretty big coincidence to me,” Tasha continued. “She gets that note, the guy supposedly doesn’t show, and you take her to your apartment.”

Diermeyer smiled. “Life is full of coincidence, Detective. Here’s one for you: One of your people already questioned me about Teschler’s home explosion. I was doing a gig in Chicago that night. You might want to check your records before you make accusations.”

She could see Tasha becoming rattled by Diermeyer’s cool answers. TJ wished she could be the one asking the questions.

Tasha said, “The note says the writer has information about the explosion, not that he was the one who did it. Do you know something about what happened that night?”

Kane straightened. “Okay, Detective. I sent her the fuckin’ note. And before you ask, I don’t know anything about what happened to Norman Teschler’s house. I saw the lady at the Mug last week and wanted to find a way to meet her. That’s it. The note was just my way of hooking up with her.”

TJ shook her head.
Yeah, right. What a load of crap.
Slick, though. No wonder he gave it up so easily, the lusting-for-Gemma excuse covered his ass. He would have known the note could be traced back to him. She could tell by Tasha’s flat expression, she wasn’t buying it either.

“Then how did you even know who Gemma Rosenthal was or that mentioning Teschler would get her attention?” Tasha asked.

“A friend was with me the first time I saw her at the Mug. A friend who knows her and knows all about the house exploding.”

“Who is this friend?”

“Drucilla Krause. She lives right across from Teschler’s place.”

Convenient.

“You expect me to believe all this was a ruse to give you the opportunity to hit on Gemma Rosenthal?”

A half smile formed on his face. “It worked, didn’t it?”