Chapter Six
“ W here the hell have you been? I swear to fuck, Marty, if you weren’t so busy making sure your eyeliner’s straight and your duck lips are poofy enough, we might actually be able to make a damn meeting with a suspect, an important one, on time.”
I made a face at Nina as I climbed into the SUV. “Better late than ugly, I always say.”
Wanda giggled, but Nina didn’t feel the same mirth. Shocking, right?
My gorgeous vampire turned in her seat, her eyes aglow. “Know what I say?”
“What does Nina say?” I asked in my baby voice—the one I knew made her want to clock me in the nose. She wouldn’t, but who were we if we didn’t terrorize each other?
She narrowed her eyes, her pale face alabaster and flawless in the morning light. “Nina says she gets up at the crack of dawn, going against her vampiric nature, so she can go talk to fucking suspects with her two kooky friends because they wanna play Starsky and Hutch, and her one kookier friend can’t even be bothered to be on time because she has to get her lip gloss just right. Nina says her friend is a disrespectful pain in the ass.”
I reached over the seat and poked her in the arm. “I was five minutes late, for Heaven’s sake, and it wasn’t my lip gloss I was worried about, it was Charlie. She wanted Auntie Marty to eat waffles with her. Who am I to say no to my sweet girl? Those big brown eyes, that gummy smile just like her mother’s. That’s never gonna happen.”
Nina glared at me.
I smiled sweetly, batting my eyelashes. “Cat got your tongue?”
Wanda, her hair in a sleek pony, her makeup soft and light, pointed out the windshield. “Girls, we have a lot of ground to cover. Nina, please drive. Marty, stop poking Nina.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m still trying to digest the fact that Zinnia was pregnant and it could be Ron’s child.”
Nina groaned, gripping the tan steering wheel hard. “I can’t talk about it. If I could puke, I would. If we find out R is Ron and he got this girl pregnant then whacked her, he won’t have to worry about the were council.”
I almost agreed with her, but… “We don’t know if Ron’s the father, Nina. We won’t know until they do some tests and we talk to him. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?”
She shifted in her seat, the vinyl seat squeaking. “I said if , Marty. If he did this and got the kid pregnant, I’m going to drag his man parts through his belly button.”
Wanda closed her eyes, likely praying for patience. I saw her eyelashes sweep her cheeks and the rise and fall of her chest as she took a deep breath. “Setting aside the father of Zinnia’s child, let’s get to work. Now, who’s first? We can’t see Ron until later this afternoon at visiting hours. We’re still unclear as to whether he can get bail. So we have the three security guards who guard the vault. Elroy Simmons, Richard Gordon, and Armand Dupree. Then there’s Ron’s assistant, Harris Fowler, and of course Eve.”
“Who was on duty yesterday?”
Wanda showed me a picture of a handsome young man with wavy dark hair and brilliant green eyes. “Armand Dupree. He’s agreed to meet us halfway between here and Buffalo for coffee. Turns out, the council police sent him home yesterday. He didn’t just disappear.”
“And those rocket scientists left the fucking vault unattended all day? If somebody gets their hands on that DNA, the entire population of Buffalo’s gonna be a bunch of damn ass-sniffers. Jesus and a popsicle, it’s like the council wants to eff everything up.”
Wanda held up a finger to halt Nina’s rant. “Actually, as per Stan, there was an undercover officer watching the estate all day who had the codes if the alarm went off, and they also sent over one of their men last night, when they realized it would be smart to have someone physically guarding the vault.”
The inefficiency of the council got worse by the second.
I had to agree with Nina. “I honestly don’t know what to say about the council police. It’s like watching a Keystone Cops movie play out. They’d do well to watch some Investigation ID and learn a thing or two about how to investigate. They have no protocol, no procedures, they just stomp in and muck everything up, then stomp back out.”
As Nina pulled out of the driveway, she went over what we had so far. “Okay, so we’ve got a kid who’s dead for no apparent reason—who was pregnant—a possible cheating liar willingly confessing to killing her, some werewolf dude who barreled out of Pearl’s house, breaking Widdums nail, and a letter to our victim, promising to take care of her.”
I looked at my nail, ridiculously short compared to the rest, but it had healed since yesterday. “And no time for Widdums to get to the nail salon and have it fixed.”
Nina swatted the steering wheel. “Right. How could I forget your horror and shame?” she teased.
I reached forward and squeezed her shoulder with a giggle. “It should be what kept you up last night.”
She flicked my fingers off her shoulder with a husky laugh. “Get off me, Blondie.”
We settled in then, each thinking over what we had so far as the bare trees under the glare of the early morning sun whizzed past us, when Wanda said, “You do know we’re going to have to talk to Charmaine at some point, right?”
I hated that. I hated that we were going to ruin her innocence about her father, but Wanda was right. Maybe she wasn’t telling Hollis something, or maybe Hollis had missed something we might catch.
“I know you’re right. And I know we can’t put it off too long, but the girls were sleeping so soundly this morning, I didn’t have the heart to wake them.” They’d both been curled up with their pillows, sweet Charmaine’s face still a bit bloated from crying.
Wanda’s nod was sharp. “For now, let’s concentrate on our suspect pool. At least this case, we have more than zero.”
Ugh. Our last case had been a nightmare. We’d had virtually no suspects that panned out—at first, anyway. And once we did, well, you know the rest. Nina almost died.
Like I said, we learned from it. We learned a lot from it. This time, I wanted to pay better attention to things I let slip last case.
While we drove, I tried to put some thoughts together like a jigsaw puzzle. Moving the pieces, putting them back, turning over and over in my mind whether Ron was indeed the man who’d written that note, and if that’s what he meant about “taking care” of Zinnia.
Nina pulled into the parking lot of a diner called The Griddle, the scent of pancakes and bacon wafting to my nose as we exited the car and headed up the stairs to the glass doors.
The clink of dishes and the rush of waitresses taking orders greeted my eyes and ears. The booths—all in red vinyl—were worn but clean, the Formica tabletops yellowed and scarred from the clientele.
Armand was already seated when we entered, handsome, maybe thirty in human years, but looking a bit tired when he waved us to the booth he’d chosen. We made our introductions, shaking hands before we all took a seat.
He let his dark head fall to his hands when he muttered, “I can’t believe Zinnia’s dead. I really can’t believe the boss would ever hurt her. What a frickin’ mess…and poor Pearl.”
I was the first to react. “Armand, Ron’s always been good to you, hasn’t he? Was he a good employer?”
Armand lifted his eyes to meet mine. “Yeah. He was a great guy. Never thought he’d hurt a fly, let alone…” He shrugged. “Well, you know. I mean, he always gave us bonuses for the holidays, and big ones, too. He made sure Mrs. Marcus kept us fed. He was super-generous with sick days and vacation.”
“Mrs. Marcus?” Wanda asked with a tilt of her head. “Who’s she?”
That was a new name. If we lacked in other areas in this investigation, we didn’t lack in suspects.
“She does all the cooking, but he doesn’t come in until later in the day lately She wasn’t there when this went down,” he provided.
I typed her name into my phone. We needed to speak to her, too, then. “So Ron was good to you? What about Zinnia? Did you ever see him argue with her? Or see anything else happen between them, for that matter?”
I didn’t want to let all the cats out of the bag, but I had to know if he’d ever seen Zinnia and Ron together in a way that would lead one to believe they were lovers.
I shivered. The idea still left me with a case of the icks. I don’t care if Zinnia was of age. It would be one thing if they didn’t have a history, but that history they shared made a relationship of a romantic nature feel all kinds of yark-worthy.
Armand took a sip of his coffee, peering at us over the rim of the mug with his dazzling green eyes. “I never saw or heard him raise his voice almost ever. He was a good guy, Mrs. Flaherty. A really good guy. I don’t know what you mean about ‘anything else,’ though. Care to elaborate?”
I gave him my widest, biggest eyes. “I’m just covering all my bases.”
Wanda looked at him over her own mug of coffee. “What about Ron’s wife, Eve? Ever have any trouble with her? Did she and Ron ever argue?”
Armand barked a laugh, slapping his hand against the table. “Mr. Ellis is nuts about her. So nuts, sometimes he’s speechless. Follows her around like a puppy dog. No trouble there. Not that I’ve seen anyway, and I bet the rest of the guys will tell you the same. Now, if we’re talking Charmaine and Mrs. Ellis? Totally different story. They fought all the time, but nobody ever talked about killing anybody.”
“Yeah,” Nina said, fingers tapping the table. “We know they didn’t get along. Listen, you were the guy on duty yesterday morning, right? Where were you when this went down? Weren’t you supposed to be guarding the vault?”
He made a face at Nina, whose question sounded more like an accusation. “I am allowed to use the bathroom. When I do, I lock the door to the vault room with a code. The bathroom’s right off the kitchen. It’s not far from the vault, but it’s not like anyone’s ever tried to break in before, either. Us weres know the score, and the kind of trouble we’d get into if we stole something.”
“And when you came back? What did you see, Armand?” Wanda asked, her tone gentle, coaxing…an attempt to erase Nina’s clear impatience.
As people laughed and chatted around us, as the tabletop jukeboxes played various songs from the ’80s, Armand sat silently.
He closed his green eyes briefly, his olive complexion going pale. “So much blood. And Zinnia…” He inhaled, then shuddered. “It was awful, but I told the council police everything I saw—which was nothing. I swear, I didn’t hear anything and…” He leaned forward, his eyes darting about the diner. “I’m a were,” Armand whispered. “You’d think I’d have heard something that…that ugly .”
Nina popped her lips, her impatience clearly growing. “So you didn’t hear anything and you didn’t see anything? Nothing ?”
He ran a hand over his face as though he could wipe away the memory. “Just Zinnia. She was so nice to all of us…” He gulped then, his Adam’s apple bobbing awkwardly.
I smelled his sadness, I know we all did. His grief made me reach across the table and squeeze his lean hand. ”How long have you worked for Mr. Ellis, Armand?”
“About five years. He really is a great guy, Mrs. Flaherty. They’re all really nice to us. They’ve always made us feel like family.”
Nina toyed with a napkin, folding and unfolding it. She always fidgets when she’s growing bored. “What about the other security guards? Anything strange goin’ on with them?”
His dark eyebrow rose. “Elroy and Richard? We don’t fraternize much because we really only see each other when we change shifts, but I’ve never seen anything strange.” He paused a second, holding up a finger. “Wait. Richard…”
Wanda’s head popped up, her eyes wide. “What about him?”
His face said he didn’t love sharing this information. “He…he liked Zinnia.”
Nina leaned across the Formica table. “Explain.”
“He asked her out a few times for a few months. He crushed hard on her. Shoot. I forgot all about that. Anyway, I heard him a few days ago when we were changing shifts. He asked if she wanted to grab some coffee or maybe dinner sometime.”
Wasn’t that interesting? “Was he ever forward with her? Pushy?”
Armand shook his head. “No, it was nothing like that. Not that I saw, anyhow. It kinda became a joke, actually. He’d ask her out, she’d tell him no, tell him she was seeing someone, and then they’d laugh about it.”
Seeing someone? Who had Zinnia been seeing? Had she meant Ron?
Wanda set her purse on the table, pulling out her lip balm and smoothing it over her mouth. She always did that when she was holding back. She said it kept her from saying something she shouldn’t. “Did it appear to make her uncomfortable at all? Women spend far too much time catering to a man’s feelings, pushing their own aside in favor of appeasing.”
Instantly, his eyes went wide. “No, no, Mrs. Jefferson. It wasn’t like that. I’m mostly evolved. I’m not like the ancients. I get what you mean, but Rich was a good guy. He would never…” Armand shifted in his seat. “I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s capable of something like that. But I guess, who knows anymore, right?”
I gnawed the inside of my cheek before I asked, “You said she told Richard she was seeing someone. Did she ever mention to Richard, or you, who she was seeing?”
Armand shook his head. “Not to me, she didn’t. You’d have to ask Richard if she told him.”
Nina popped her lips. “Right.” She stuck her hand out to him over the table. “Welp, thanks for the help. Call or text one of us if you have any more information.”
Nina was obviously over this portion of the investigation, but I had another question. “One more thing before we let you go, Armand. Did you ever notice Zinnia with any other men?”
He shook his head again. “I never saw her with anyone but the Ellises and her mother or some of the staff. No one I didn’t know.”
I stuck my hand out, too, to shake his before I slid out of the booth “Good enough. Thank you for seeing us, Armand. If you think of anything else, will you text us?”
“You bet. Anything I can help with, let me know.”
We exited the booth as we thanked him again and headed for the SUV, pushing against the cold wind that had picked up as we talked with Armand.
Tucked inside the vehicle, we all looked at each other. Wanda spoke first when she asked, “So, do we think Armand is innocent. Is his alibi sound enough?”
“I didn’t smell anything off, if that’s what you’re asking. But it’s not like we haven’t missed shit before,” Nina said.
She was referring to our last case, and how we were fooled to the bitter end.
I clucked my tongue. “There’s no way we could have smelled anything foul from our last case, Nina, and you know it. As an aside, I didn’t smell anything but Armand’s sadness. Plus, you know our sense of smell isn’t always one hundred percent accurate anyway. There are lots of factors that play a role.”
Wanda looked at the time on the dashboard. “Okay then, we have an hour until we have to meet Richard and Elroy?—”
“Richard!” I yelped, slapping the seat beside me.
Wanda looked over her shoulder, forehead wrinkling in a frown. “One of the security guards? What about him?”
We were well on our way to making another mistake, and I can’t believe we didn’t catch it.
“What letter does his name start with?”
Both Wanda and Nina groaned, replying in unison, “R!”
R.
Okay, so we dodged a bullet.
For now.