Chapter 9 #2
“His boss comes by sometimes. Big fellow, walks with a limp. Seems nice enough.”
She paused. “And there’s been a blonde woman recently. Saw her here a few times in the last month or so. Don’t know who she is.”
Megan, I thought. Mendoza might have thought so too, if he knew who Megan was, but all he did was nod.
“Any men? Besides Sal?”
“Oh, sure. A few here and there. Nick’s age, mostly.
Friends, I suppose. Can’t really describe them—they all look the same to me.
Young men in jeans and t-shirts.” She frowned.
“Although there was one fellow a week or two ago who looked different. Older, well off. Very nicely dressed, too. Drove an expensive-looking car. He wasn’t here long, though. Maybe ten minutes.”
Gio Abruzzi, most likely. That was one guy with killer instincts who knew where to find Nick, at least.
Mendoza made notes, asked a few more questions about times and dates that Mrs. Miller couldn’t quite remember, then thanked her for her help.
“I’ll need you to stay available,” he told her. “There’s going to be a lot of us coming and going the rest of the day, and we may have more questions later.”
“Of course, Detective.” She bent down and scooped up Patches, who had finished grooming herself. “Poor Nick. He was such a nice boy. Who would want to hurt him?”
She left the question hanging in the air as she headed back to her side of the duplex, steps slow and with the cat draped over her shoulder.
Once she had turned the corner and was out of sight, Mendoza turned to me. “All right, Mrs. Kelly. Let’s get your official statement before the cavalry arrives.”
He pulled out his phone and held it up between us. “You ready?”
I nodded, and he tapped a button and addressed the device. “This is Detective Jaime Mendoza, badge number—” he rattled off four numbers, “conducting an interview with—” he looked at me “—state your full name, please.”
“Regina Beaufort Kelly.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
He nodded. “—at 9:40AM on Saturday, November…”
I tuned out the rest of the sentence and tuned back in when he said, “Mrs. Kelly, can you tell me in your own words what brought you to this location this morning?”
I took a breath and let it out again. “How far back do you want me to go?”
“The beginning, if you don’t mind.”
I nodded. And started with Jacquie hiring me to follow Nick, about spending the last two days watching the Body Shop, about how Nick had been acting nervous and paranoid.
I told him about Zachary following Nick and Sal to the Tin Roof last night, about how they’d sat there for hours before Nick drove home alone around eleven-thirty.
“Zachary can confirm the time,” I said. “He watched Nick go inside. It was probably his car that Mrs. Miller heard. He drives an old beater, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it backfired.”
Mendoza nodded. “We’ll talk to him.”
“I’ll give you his number.” I paused. “When Nick went inside, someone could have been waiting for him, couldn’t they? Although it’s more likely they came later, isn’t it? When there was less chance anyone would be awake to hear the shot?”
“The shot was probably suppressed,” Mendoza said, and added, when he saw the look on my face, “With a silencer. Otherwise, Mrs. Miller would have heard it. These walls are thin.”
“Well, I don’t think it happened when Zach was driving away. And when you talk to him, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him so. He’ll blame himself. You know what he’s like.”
Mendoza made a face, and I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything that would give whoever was listening to the recording the idea that I was anything more than just a random witness.
Not that I was anything more than a random witness. That had been made abundantly clear by the silence from his quarter over the past three weeks.
“Go on,” Mendoza prompted. “Why did you come here this morning?”
“I was watching Megan’s house. Megan’s the blonde Mrs. Miller mentioned—”
Mendoza’s lips crimped a little at that, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded for me to go on. I gave him a look—what did he know about Megan that I didn’t?—but I didn’t ask. That, at least, didn’t need to be on the official recording.
“She wasn’t home. Her car was gone. And Nick wasn’t at work. I thought they might be together, so I came to check.”
“And found the door unlocked.”
“The kitchen door, yes. I knocked first, several times. Front door, even the bedroom window. No one answered.” I met his eyes.
“The truck was here. Mrs. Miller said he’d come home last night.
Zach watched him walk into the house. I had a bad feeling.
And then, when I discovered that the kitchen door was unlocked… ”
“You went inside.”
Well, yes. But— “I called out. Several times. And I know I probably shouldn’t have gone in—”
“Probably?”
I made a face. “I was worried, OK? The car, the fact that he wasn’t answering when I knocked, the unlocked door… you can’t say there weren’t indications that something was wrong.”
He didn’t. He might have wanted to, but he didn’t. “So you walked in. And found him in the bedroom.”
I nodded. “I checked the living room first. I wouldn’t have gone into his bedroom otherwise. But the living room was empty, and the bedroom door was open. He was in bed, with the blankets pulled up to his chest. Eyes open. Bullet hole—”
My voice broke, and I had to take a moment to clear my throat. “I called you right away. I didn’t touch anything except the doorknob and the light switch. And I let the cat in by accident—Patches, the same one that…”
I indicated the short white-and-orange hairs decorating the bottoms of Mendoza’s jeans.
“And then you stayed outside while you waited for me to get here?”
I nodded. He gave me a look, and I said, “Yes. I sat on the stoop outside the kitchen door and waited for you.”
Mendoza nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Kelly.”
He tapped his phone to stop the recording before losing the official tone. “All right. I’ll need you to come down to the station later to sign a written statement once this has been transcribed, but this will work for the moment.”
In the distance, I could hear sirens approaching. The cavalry, as Mendoza had called it.
“I need to inform Jacquie,” I said.
Mendoza’s expression hardened. “Over my dead body.”
I winced. “Don’t say that.” Not with Nick lying stone dead twenty feet away.
He relented. “Fine. But the girlfriend is always a suspect. You know that. You can’t just waltz over there and talk to her. You could be in danger.”
“She wouldn’t—” I started, and then I stopped. Could I really be sure of that? And more to the point, was I really defending the woman who had destroyed my marriage and accused me of murdering my husband?
The sirens were getting louder now. I could see flashing lights at the end of the street.
“At least let me be there when you tell her,” I said. “Please, Detective. She hired me. I owe her that much.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“I do. I owe her fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of something. Respect, if nothing else. The belief that she’s innocent until you’ve proven her guilty.”
He didn’t respond to that, so maybe I’d scored a point. “I want to see her reaction,” I added. “If you think she might be guilty, then you’d want to see her reaction, too. Don’t you? We could go together. Sort of officially-unofficially.”
Mendoza studied me for a long moment. “That’s actually not an awful idea.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
Maybe not, but he hadn’t said no again, either. For now, I decided to bide my time and keep my mouth shut. At least I wouldn’t wedge my foot in it and destroy what little progress I might have made that way.
Two patrol cars and an unmarked sedan pulled up in front of the duplex. Doors opened, and uniformed officers emerged, along with a woman a few years older than me wearing slacks and a blazer, with brown hair pulled back in a short, no-nonsense tail.
She glanced around before her eyes found Mendoza and me, waiting on the stoop, and she headed our way.
“Jaime.” She stepped onto the grass. “There you are. And not alone.”
Mendoza straightened. He had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Lieutenant. This is—”
“I can guess.” The lieutenant extended her hand. “Mrs. Kelly, I presume?”
The handshake was firm and professional, and the look she fixed me with was equally so. “Lieutenant Sam Copeland, Metro Nashville PD, homicide division. Sam to my friends. I’m Jaime’s superior, in every way that matters.”
She flicked him a look. Mendoza rolled his eyes, and Sam Copeland’s smile turned into a smirk for a moment before she added, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Good things,” I managed, “I hope.”
She didn’t answer, which could have meant any of a number of things. I decided not to worry about it, especially when she continued, “And now you’ve found another body.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” I protested.
“It never is.” Her lips twitched again, and I got the distinct impression she was enjoying this. “All right, Jaime, brief me. And make it quick—you have a lunch shift at Sambuca starting in…” She checked her watch, “an hour and seventeen minutes.”
Mendoza nodded. “I can’t be the primary on this case. The undercover work—”
“I know. I’ll take it.” Copeland pulled out her own notebook. “But I want a full brief first. Everything you’ve got.”
Mendoza filled her in quickly and professionally—the victim’s identity, the probable time of death, the connection to the organized crime investigation, my involvement. Zach’s activities last night, along with Nick’s and Sal’s.
Lieutenant Copeland listened without interrupting, her sharp eyes moving between Mendoza and me.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
I expected to be dismissed, but then she nodded decisively.
“All right. Here’s what we’re going to do.
Jaime, you’ll accompany Mrs. Kelly to inform Miss Demetros of her boyfriend’s death.
I want a full report on her reaction, anything she says, anything that strikes you as suspicious. Can you do that?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Get going. And Jaime?” She fixed him with a stern look. “After this, you get yourself over to Sambuca. No more bodies, no more crime scenes. This week you’re a waiter, not a detective. Understood?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned to the uniformed officers who were standing behind her, waiting for direction. “Collins, start securing the perimeter. Rodrigues, I need you to—”
I didn’t hear the rest because Mendoza had grabbed my elbow and was steering me down the side of the house, toward the curb and the fleet of vehicles.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll have to take separate cars. I won’t have time to come back here again if I’m gonna get to the restaurant on time. You know where she lives?”
“Near Vanderbilt,” I said. “One of those brown brick buildings on Elliston Place.”
He nodded. “I’ll see you there. Call her on the way and tell her you’re coming. Don’t tell her what happened, and don’t mention me.”
No, I wouldn’t. Not over the phone.
He got into his Jeep and took off. I climbed into the seat and pulled out my phone and found Jacquie’s number. She answered on the third ring, sounding annoyed.
“What?”
“It’s Gina Kelly,” I told her as I navigated away from the duplex and down the road. “Are you at home?”
“Yes.” She sounded suspicious.
“Good. Stay there. I need to talk to you.”
“We’re talking now,” Jacquie pointed out.
“In person.” I reached the end of the road and took a right, following Mendoza’s car. A steady stream of car were going in the other direction: the coroner’s van, another unmarked sedan, a news van that must have been monitoring the police scanner
Her tone changed. “Did you find something? Is it about Nick?”
“I don’t really want to discuss it over the phone,” I said. “I’m on my way to you. Just hang on until I get there.”
There was a pause. “Is he cheating? Just tell me.”
“No. He isn’t.” Certainly not anymore. “Just wait for me. Do you still live in the same place?”
She rattled of the address, and I told her, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” And then I hung up before she could ask any more questions I couldn’t answer, and concentrated on keeping up with Mendoza as we navigated through Bellevue.