4. Claire
CHAPTER 4
Claire
A n icy breeze blew over my face, tousling my flaxen hair. The change in the weather the forecasters assured us all was on the way had arrived.
Or maybe that was the chill blanketing my body from finding Mrs. Hammond dead in her bedroom.
I shivered and huddled deeper into my coat. Cold seeped through the skirt of my dress from the concrete porch beneath me. It added to the numbness slowly claiming me from what I’d seen. All that blood and Mrs. Hammond’s lifeless body. How could this happen? Mrs. Hammond wasn’t even supposed to be in town. She and her husband were supposed to be off looking for a new home in Boston.
Her husband! Eyes wide, I shot to my feet. Where was he? If the wife was here and dead, where was Mr. Hammond? Was he dead too?
I glanced around, looking for the young cop who’d arrived in response to my frantic 9-1-1 call and was surprised to see that others were now on scene. When did they get here? I shook my head. No matter. Any of them would do.
Hurrying over to the first officer I saw, I waved my hands to get his attention. “Officer?”
The man turned, a curious dip in his brow. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Hi, Officer”—I glanced at his nametag—“Turner. I’m Claire Holmes. I found the—I found Mrs. Hammond. I had a thought. She and her husband were supposed to be out of town, house-hunting in Boston. If she’s here, where is he? Have your colleagues started a search of the property? He could be here.” I didn’t want to think that he was dead, too, but it was a possibility.
Officer Turner’s frown turned serious. “We have officers canvassing, yes. Are you certain they weren’t supposed to be here?”
I nodded. “Yes. That’s why my stager and I were here.” I pointed to Lynne, who sat in her van, the driver’s door open. “It was the perfect time to prep their house and take listing pictures.”
“Okay. Let me get Detective Quartermaine on the radio. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you.” He lifted the radio mic off his shoulder.
I frowned as the officer’s words registered. “Wait. Is he already here?”
The man nodded.
My frown intensified. “How did I miss that?”
Turner shrugged. “Not sure.” Pressing the talk button on his mic, he had a short conversation with someone inside.
Hooking the small black square back onto his shoulder, he propped his hands on his gear belt. “He shouldn’t be too long. Would you like to have a seat in my patrol car to wait? I probably should have offered that sooner. It’s chilly out.” He gestured to the vehicle a few feet behind him.
“Oh. No, thank you. I’ll just—” I fluttered a hand and sighed. I didn’t know what to do.
“I think you should sit down. Come on.” He reached a hand behind my shoulder, not touching me, and guided me toward his car. “I’ll leave the back door open so you don’t feel like a criminal.”
“That’s appreciated.” I offered him a tight smile.
“Of course.” He opened the rear passenger-side door.
I eyed the vinyl seat with trepidation. “Is it clean?”
He chuckled. “We wipe them down after every suspect. I can’t promise it’ll smell the best in there, but it is clean, yes.”
Lovely. Well, hopefully with the door open, it wouldn’t be too bad. I lifted a foot and placed it in the car, folding my long body into the seat. My knees bumped the seat in front of me. It was times like this I cursed my five-foot-ten-inch height. “Boy. You guys don’t give your suspects much space, do you?”
“No, ma’am. It’s safer if they can’t move around too much. Why don’t you swing your legs out? It might be more comfortable.”
I did as he suggested. The door frame cut into my leg, but it was infinitely preferable to being squished. Folding my hands in my lap, I tried to force my mind not to wander. I didn’t want to think that Mr. Hammond could be lying dead on the property somewhere. One dead body was enough.
Thankfully, the detective was true to his word and soon emerged from the house.
“Here he comes.” Officer Turner motioned to the front porch.
I looked past him. The man striding toward us was not what I expected.
Not at all.
For one, he was handsome as sin. Thick dark hair waved atop his head. A head that topped most of those around him by several inches. Dressed in black tactical pants and a black department polo shirt under a black coat emblazoned with the state patrol logo, he had a handgun strapped to his right hip. The whole package exuded male magnetism and confidence.
And danger.
A shiver went down my spine. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.
As he neared, I got a better view of his face. Fine lines bracketed dark brown eyes, set off by his tan skin. This was a man who spent a lot of time outdoors. Though some of his coloring appeared natural. There was an exoticness about his features that said he had some Mediterranean heritage of some sort. And despite the lines, he was younger than I expected. Early-thirties at most. There was something familiar about him too. It was in the way he moved. But I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Turner.” The detective nodded at the officer. “This my witness?”
The moment he spoke, things clicked in my brain. “You.” I stood up.
He frowned. “Yes? I’m Detective Quartermaine.”
“You’re the man from this morning.”
He blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My dog. You helped me catch her.” It might have been too dark this morning for me to get more than a general impression of his handsome face, but I would know that voice anywhere. It was like gravel over whiskey. That little bit of rasp turned an everyday baritone into something I would no doubt hear in my sleep every night for the foreseeable future.
His eyes widened. “You’re the hot-pink slipper lady?”
A blush roared to life, and I was sure I was red to the roots of my hair. Of course, he would remember my attire.
I straightened to my full height and pretended not to notice the heat flaming on my face. “I am.” I held out a hand. “Claire Holmes. I found Mrs. Hammond.”
“Right.” His large palm enveloped mine for a quick shake. “What were you doing here, Ms. Holmes?”
“I’m a realtor. The Hammonds contracted me to sell their house. I was here with my stager, Lynne Young, to get it ready for listing.” I gestured to Lynne, who still sat in her van, then shoved my hands into my pockets.
Quartermaine glanced at the van, then back to me. “Okay. Walk me through what happened. What time did you arrive?” He took a notepad from his pants pocket and a pen from the collar of his shirt.
“Oh, um, about eight-fifteen, I think. Maybe a few minutes after. I was running behind because—well, you know why.”
“Your dog?”
I nodded.
“All right. What happened after you arrived? Was Ms. Young already here?”
“Yes. She said she only beat me by a couple minutes.”
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary before you went in?”
“No. We walked up the drive and went to the front door.” I motioned to the house. “I unlocked it with my key, and we went in.”
“The front door was locked?”
“I can’t say one hundred percent. I didn’t check it before I put the key in. But it was closed. Unlike the French doors off the living room. They were open.”
He nodded once and wrote something in his notebook. “What did you do after you discovered the door open?”
“We’ve had that rash of break-ins lately, so Lynne and I decided to split up to see if anything was missing. She checked downstairs while I went up.”
One dark eyebrow winged upward. “You just decided to traipse through what could be a crime scene? Why didn’t you call the police the moment you saw the open door?”
I bristled at his chiding tone. I wasn’t an idiot. Or a child. “We thought it was possible the wind blew the door open. The weather here isn’t exactly calm.”
“Were there leaves or dirt on the floor near the door?”
I frowned. “What? Why would you ask that? Do you think the killer brought that in on his shoes?”
“Uh, no. If the door blew in from the weather, it stands to reason leaves and dirt would blow in too. Even with the snow we’ve had, stuff still floats around.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” I gave a nervous laugh, quickly cutting it off. “Sorry. I’m a little out of sorts.” Finding dead bodies would do that to a person. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I didn’t want to trouble the police if nothing was missing and there were no other signs of an intruder. I’d have just relocked the door and gone about staging as planned.”
The tiny frown that had been present almost since he walked up intensified. “You wouldn’t have called the police?”
I shook my head. “It’s not the first French door I’ve seen blow open. I’ve had it happen while I’m standing in the room. The frames shift and they don’t latch properly anymore. Sometimes not even if they’re locked. I would have assumed that’s what happened here.”
“Never assume.”
“Huh?”
“Never assume. Because assumptions can be and are often wrong.”
“Oh.” He had a point, but I doubted I’d have done anything differently. As I said, I’d seen it several times.
“All right. So, you and your colleague split up. What happened then?”
“I went upstairs. When I got to the landing, I realized I’d need to touch the doorknobs to check the rooms, and I hesitated. I didn’t want to smudge any prints if it was indeed a burglary. That’s when I noticed the master bedroom door was open.”
He tipped his head, a slight furrow between his brows. “You sound like that’s unusual.”
“It is. I have this habit where I close doors at my listings. It started as something I did after an open house to make sure no one was hiding in any of the rooms. I do it after showings and when I take listing photos, too, so I know I didn’t miss anything. And I know I shut that bedroom door when I left Friday. Since the Hammonds were out of town, it made me wonder why the door was open. No one else should have come through the house.”
“Why were you in the house on Friday?”
“To take pictures for Lynne. She couldn’t meet me here that day to do a walkthrough, but we wanted to get the staging set up as soon as possible, so I took pictures for her Friday night. The Hammonds left earlier that afternoon for Boston, right after they signed the papers contracting me to sell the house.”
He nodded. “Okay. Continue. What did you do after you noticed the open door?”
“I went inside. The room was a mess. Covers half off the bed, a lamp on the floor. Clothes—everywhere.” My hands fluttered.
“How did you find Mrs. Hammond? She was on the far side of the bed, not visible from the doorway.”
“After I saw the mess, I wanted to check the closet. I noticed a floor safe when we did our first walkthrough, and I wanted to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with.” I swallowed hard and moisture gathered in my eyes. “I didn’t make it that far. I saw her and—” I broke off and closed my eyes, sucking a breath in through my nose.
Forcing the thoughts away, I looked at the detective. “I left the room and called 9-1-1.”
He made a note. “What happened after that?”
“Lynne and I left the house to wait outside like the dispatcher asked us to.”
Again, his head bobbed. “Okay. I think I have what I need from you for now. I’ll?—”
I held up a hand. “What about Mr. Hammond?”
Detective Quartermaine paused. “We haven’t spoken to him yet. Wait.” He narrowed his eyes, then glanced around the yard. “Did you find him dead too?”
I could see a healthy dose of skepticism in his expression, but also a smidge of doubt.
“No. I didn’t leave the front porch after I called the police. But I am wondering if he’s dead somewhere on the property. They weren’t supposed to be here, and they were supposed to be together in Boston. Have your officers looked for him?”
“They have, Ms. Holmes. There is no one else on the grounds.”
My shoulders slumped. “That’s a relief.” But another thought hit me, making me tense again. “But if he’s not here, then where is he?” My eyes widened. “Do you think whoever killed Mrs. Hammond kidnapped him?”
Officer Turner coughed. He raised a fist to cover his mouth and cast a quick look at Detective Quartermaine. I narrowed my eyes, studying the officer’s face, then looked at the detective. A smirk played with his firm lips.
A frown took over my expression. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you? Some airheaded blonde who’s spouting wild conjecture?” I crossed my arms and glared at Detective Quartermaine. “Who’s assuming now, hmm?”
Turner covered a laugh with another cough. Detective Quartermaine returned my glare.
“I have your statement, Ms. Holmes. Don’t worry about Mr. Hammond. I’ll track him down, I assure you. In the meantime, if you hear from him, let me know and have him call me.” He took a card from another pocket and held it out to me.
I took the white rectangle from his fingers. “May I leave now?”
“Yes. But stay available in case I have more questions.” He said the last as he backed away, his attention turning to Lynne, who was no doubt next on his list of people to interview. I hoped he was friendlier to her than he was to me.
I pressed my lips into a tight line and nodded. Not that he saw me. I wanted to say more and call him out on his rudeness, but I didn’t figure that would endear me to him. Plus, I really did just want to leave. “Officer Turner?” I turned to the younger man. “Would you be so kind as to move your squad car so I can get my vehicle out?” I gestured to my Land Rover.
“Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry.”
“No problem. I know you’re just doing your job. Thank you.” As he hurried away, I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to settle my nerves. Striding to my car, I debated just going home. My concentration was shot. All I could think about was Mrs. Hammond lying on the floor in a pool of blood. I didn’t even know how the woman died. Was it a stabbing? Gunshot? And where was Mr. Hammond? I hoped he was okay.
Shaking my head, I unlocked the car and got in. For a moment, I just sat there and stared at the house. How was I supposed to work the rest of the day?
Oh, come on, Claire. You’re a professional.
Damn straight, I was.
Squaring my shoulders, I pushed the button to start the engine. As a professional, I had obligations. And besides, working would help control my thoughts. If I went home, I’d just spend the day worrying and wondering.
With a nod to myself, I put the car in gear and backed out of the drive. Work it was.