A Novel Way to Die (20 page)

“Sorry, Mary Ann, he’s been busy with the murder investigation, so I didn’t want to
call him. But I did send him a text, and I promise I’ll ask next time I see him.”

“Well, you can let him know that I have my baseball bat ready. Oh, and I found a set
of walkie-talkies that Brother used to use back when he would go hunting with his
friends. Perhaps they will come in handy.”

Darla nodded, picturing the brick-sized walkie-talkie units of a couple of decades
past. They’d likely be more useful as weapons, she thought as she smothered a smile.
Hit someone over the head with one of those babies, and it would be lights out for
a while.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then Darla continued on. What exactly
she would say to Hilda, she wasn’t sure. To her relief, Great Scentsations was open.
She’d half expected the door to be locked, but doubtless Hilda preferred keeping busy
to sitting home in an empty apartment hoping for her missing daughter to return. Still,
the atmosphere inside the shop was far different than the spalike mood the place usually
evoked.

Instead of the usual New Age music, Gregorian chant greeted Darla as she stepped inside.
And rather than the usual candle scent of the day, the sweet aroma of incense—frankincense,
perhaps, overlaid with sandalwood—clung to the air. In fact, the shop smelled and
sounded more like a cathedral—or perhaps even a funeral parlor—than a trendy body
and bath store. And, for the first time since Darla had ever been inside the place,
no customers browsed the aisles or waited at the register.

“My customers, they sense it.”

Hilda’s voice drifted to her, the tone oddly lifeless. Concerned, Darla headed for
the back, where she spied the woman seated behind the register. Unlike the other day,
Hilda had made a halfhearted attempted at styling her hair and had put on a bit of
eye shadow and lipstick. But the makeup was too bright for her coloring—in fact, Darla
suspected that the products might have belonged to Tera—and gave her skin a gray appearance
that aged her a good ten years.

Not needing to feign concern, she asked, “What do they sense, Hilda?”

“Death.”

The single flat word sent a small shiver down Darla’s back. If this was the sort of
vibe Hilda gave off to everyone who entered, then no wonder the store was empty. In
fact, she might have hightailed it out of there herself save for the fact that, having
seen Hilda in her current state, she was now concerned what the woman might do if
left to her own devices.

“Hilda, the police are working very hard to solve Curt’s murder,” she assured her.
“And both Jake and Detective Reese are doing their best to find Tera. You must be
patient.”

“You don’t understand, Darla. If they do find her, it will be only to give me her
body so I can bury her.”

“Don’t say that, Hilda. You mustn’t give up hope. She’s only been gone a few days.
For all you know, she got mad and ran off to Atlantic City for a breather.”

“Without her phone?” At Darla’s look of surprise, the woman gave an emotionless chuckle.
“Oh, yes, your Detective Reese came by this morning and told me that they found Tera’s
phone in the trash outside that Curt’s house. And he didn’t say, but I know he thinks
I know how it got there.”

“And do you know?” Darla asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Hilda gave an elaborate shrug. “Everything is in God’s hands now. All I want is justice
for my daughter.”

Darla hesitated. Was Hilda simply a grieving mother fatalistically accepting what
was the most likely outcome to Tera’s strange disappearance, or was she a desperate
woman coolly hiding something that she knew about Curt’s murder?

Keep her talking
, Darla told herself.
Maybe she’ll let something slip that could help Reese, or even connect Hamlet’s cryptic
dots.

“If there’s anything I can do to help you through this, Hilda, let me know,” she said,
meaning it. “But for now, remember those eye compresses you told me about? I think
I should try those.”

“Certainly.” Hilda rose and gave her a jaundiced look. “And perhaps you could use
a new foundation. Those freckles are charming on a young girl but, woman to woman,
you’re a bit too old for that look.”

Biting back a retort—did anyone ever tell Julianne Moore or Bryce Dallas Howard that
she
should cover
her
freckles?—Darla followed the older woman toward the front of the store again. While
Hilda lectured on tinted organic moisturizer and concealers, Darla found her arms
filling with pricey jars and bottles. Just as she was beginning to fear she’d need
to take out a small loan to cover it all, she heard the shop door open and the sound
of a familiar voice.

“Hello, Mrs. Aguilar,” Reese said as he strode down the aisle toward them.

Just as two nights ago when he’d shown up at her apartment, he was wearing his official
prepping-for-the-promotion outfit of slacks, dress shirt, tie, and sport coat topped
by the trench. Once again, it was belted behind him to swing wide open, and this time
she could see his gold shield clipped to his belt. Definitely on official business.

He gave Darla a sidelong glance and added, “Darla, why don’t you do me a favor and
step over to the register for a minute?

“Uh, sure.”

She made her way to the front again in time to see a uniformed police officer about
Reese’s same height—though twenty years older and at least that many pounds heavier—enter
the store. Darla watched as the officer lurked just inside the doorway, his expression
impassive behind mirrored sunglasses. His stance, however, reflected alertness as
he kept his gaze fixed on both Hilda and the detective.

Darla set down her would-be purchases on the counter and tried to ignore the sense
of foreboding that had gripped. From the look of situation, she might not be finishing
her transaction . . . good news for her bank balance, but potentially disturbing news
for Hilda. Maybe they’d located Tera and were bringing her home, she tried to tell
herself, though surely Reese would look a bit more cheery if the girl was all right.
Or maybe the police had found Tera and instead were holding her for questioning in
the matter of Curt’s murder, and had come to inform her mother of that fact.

Of course, there was another, far more awful possibility that Darla swiftly dismissed
from her thoughts even as she strained her ears to catch every bit of any conversation
that might ensue. Said conversation, however, proved surprisingly brief.

“Detective Reese,” Hilda greeted him in a frosty tone that out-chilled the weather.
“Unless you have news about my daughter, I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Well, ma’am, for the moment we’re finished talking.”

He reached under his coat, and Darla saw in shock the gleam of metal as he pulled
out a pair of handcuffs. It took her a moment to register what the detective was doing,
for this was one scenario that she’d never actually believed would happen. She still
didn’t believe it even when she heard Reese tell Hilda, “I’ll need you to turn around,
ma’am, so I can place these cuffs on you.”

Hilda took a step back, the look on her face one of pure outrage. “How dare you say
such a thing to me in my own store! What do you think you’re doing?”

“What I’m doing, ma’am, is arresting you for the murder of Curt Benedetto.”

EIGHTEEN

DARLA WATCHED IN DISMAY AS, WITHIN THE SPACE OF A FEW
moments, Reese had handcuffed Hilda and, accompanied by the uniformed officer, was
walking her toward the front door. After her first protest, the woman had made no
sound, until they reached the register.

“Wait, my shop, it’s all I have left,” she cried, her Cuban accent once again slipping
past her usually crisp tones as she dug in her heels and halted in midstep. Catching
Darla’s gaze, she went on, “
Dios mío
, I can’t just leave like this! I’ll be robbed blind. Please, Darla, can’t you take
care of things for me?”

“Ma’am, I need to ask you to come along,” Reese told her. “We can send an officer
back to lock up later.”

“Reese, please let me handle this for her,” Darla urged. “I’ll close the place and
set the alarm. You know the problems we’ve been having in this area.”

The detective gave her a hard look but finally nodded. “All right, ma’am,” he told
Hilda, “you can let Ms. Pettistone know where to find your keys.”

In a choked voice, Hilda told her where to find her purse in her tiny backroom office
and then gave her the alarm code. “It’s 0-6-1-1 . . . Tera’s birthday. The keypad
is there by the front door. All you have to do is put in the code and press ‘Enter,’
and you’ll have ten seconds to go out the door and lock it behind you.”

“Don’t worry, Hilda,” Darla assured the distraught woman, though her own voice was
trembling almost as much. “I’ll take care of things here, and I’ll let Jake know what
happened, too. She can help you arrange bond or find an attorney.”

“My purse . . . I’ll need it.”

“Better you leave your bag with Darla, ma’am,” Reese told her. “I’ll give you a minute
to let her find your cell phone and stick a few dollars in your pocket so you’ll have
cab fare when you make bond, but the less you have to check in at the property desk,
the better.”

Remembering how the woman carried half her life around in her purse, Darla was in
total agreement with that. She rushed to the back room and secured the woman’s designer
bag, found her phone, and then rifled through her wallet and counted out what she
judged would be sufficient for a taxi ride. Returning to the front again, she tucked
the cell and the cash into the pocket of Hilda’s suit jacket. She’d give the purse
and keys to Jake later to hold for the woman.

By that time, Hilda appeared past speaking; still, she gave Darla a grateful nod as
Reese and the officer walked her out the door. Darla followed after them in time to
see the uniformed cop loading the woman into a police cruiser. Reese’s own beater
was double-parked in front of the shop with one of those flashing lights on its dash.
The sight of both vehicles with their strobing lights had drawn a small crowd of neighbors
and passersby. Though Hilda had held her head high until the patrol car’s door closed
after her, Darla knew that the proud woman must be feeling thoroughly humiliated by
the situation.

That was, if she was innocent.

Darla waited until the patrol car with Hilda inside had pulled away from the curb
before she rounded on Reese. “Seriously, you’re arresting Hilda for murder?”

“No, Darla, this was just a joke,” he shot back, irritation obvious in his tone. “I
like going around pretending to arrest people for crimes they didn’t commit. In fact,
I consider it a bad week if I don’t fake arrest at least one innocent person in front
of all their friends and neighbors for no good reason.”

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” she replied in a humble tone, realizing that she’d just
questioned his professional competency. “I know you wouldn’t arrest her without good
cause. I just can’t believe that Hilda could be capable of killing another person.”

“Yeah, well, that’s pretty much what every friend and relative of every murderer I’ve
ever arrested says.”

Then his expression softened. “Believe me, the circumstantial evidence on this one
is pretty damning,” he went on. “Pictures, phone messages, that sort of thing. I can’t
tell you much, but let’s just say that your buddy Curt had a thing for serial dating
mothers and daughters. And I don’t think that Mama Aguilar was too pleased about sharing,
if you get my meaning.”

Mothers and daughters?

Abruptly, Darla recalled the last time she’d seen Curt alive. While discussing Tera,
he’d made a winking reference to putting the moves on Hilda as well. At the time,
she’d dismissed his comments as simply one of Curt’s crude attempts at humor. But
if what Reese was saying was correct, then the man’s sly comment about Hilda had actually
reflected a previous relationship with the woman. Could jealousy have been Hilda’s
motive for murder?

“What about Tera?” Darla asked, more unsettled by Reese’s words than she wanted to
let on. “Do you think Hilda . . . that is, could Tera’s own mother actually . . .”

“Do you mean, do I think Mrs. Aguilar killed her daughter, too?” He sighed and scrubbed
a weary hand over his face. “I’m not sure. And you might want to remember that we
still don’t have any proof one way or the other that the girl is even dead.”

“But what about Tera’s phone that you found in the Dumpster, and the fingernail I
found later on? Isn’t that evidence pretty convincing?”

“Just because those two items were in the container, it doesn’t necessarily follow
that there isn’t a less sinister explanation,” he replied.

Darla shook her head, recalling how she’d had the identical conversation with Jake
just a few hours earlier. Maybe Reese could supply possibility number three.

“So how did the fingernail and the phone get into the Dumpster, then?”

“My best guess at the moment is that Mrs. Aguilar walked in on a little rendezvous
between her daughter and Curt there at the brownstone. She’d had it up to there with
the two-timer, went ballistic, and offed Curt with the crowbar . . . you know, your
typical scorned woman.”

Ignoring Darla’s sharp look at that last sexist observation, Reese went on, “Then
she struggles with her daughter—maybe trying to kill her, too, or more likely just
trying to calm her down—which is when Tera loses the phone and the fake nail. The
girl breaks loose and goes running into the night to escape Mommy Dearest. Hilda spots
the phone and fingernail lying on the ground and has the presence of mind to toss
them into the trash before she hotfoots it out of there.”

“So you think Tera may still be alive?”

“I hope so, Red.” He glanced at his watch and then gave her an encouraging pat on
the shoulder. “I’ve got to head down to the precinct now so I can chat with our suspect
some more.”

Then, as Reese headed toward his car, another thought occurred to her. “Wait, what
about Barry?” she called after him.

He turned and quirked a brow. “What about your boyfriend?”

Something in his tone made her take on a defensive air as she answered, “Any reason
I can’t let
my boyfriend
know that someone has been arrested for his friend’s murder? You know, common courtesy
and all that? He’s headed out to Connecticut tomorrow for the funeral on Monday, and
I’m sure he’ll want to update Curt’s family on the situation.”

“You might want to hold off on saying anything,” was Reese’s equally cool reply. “Mrs.
Aguilar has been arrested, but she’s not officially charged with anything yet. You
never know, some judge might decide there’s not enough of a case against her and dismiss
the warrant. No need to get the family’s hopes up yet.”

All of which made sense, Darla decided as she watched Reese drive off into afternoon
traffic. Even so, his brusque manner rankled. She could only hope that poor Hilda
could hold her own against him. For despite the detective’s claim that the circumstantial
evidence was significant, something told her that Reese had arrested the wrong person.

She went back inside Hilda’s shop, locking the door behind her lest an unwitting customer
drop in before she could finish closing the place down. Then, realizing that she’d
been gone longer than she’d planned, she pulled out her phone and called James.

“An unsettling turn of events,” was his determination once she’d told him about Hilda’s
arrest. “I must say, I would not have anticipated this end. Is Detective Reese very
sure about this?”

Darla snorted. “Well, he about bit my head off when I asked him the same question.
So I’d say yes.”

Letting James know she’d be back once she closed down Hilda’s shop, she hung up and
went on to the first order of business: locating the audio system and shutting off
those chanting monks. Then she followed her nose to the source of the incense. It
had almost burned itself to ash; still, as a precaution, she covered the small ceramic
bowl with its matching lid. She left the products that Hilda had loaded her down with
before Reese’s untimely appearance for another time. All that remained was to check
on the back door and shut off the lights before setting the alarm and heading out
the front door again.

Without the mumble of the monks to add ambient noise, Darla’s footsteps on the sleek
wooden floors echoed in the small shop as she made her way to the office. She confirmed
that the rear door was locked, and went to turn off the light, only to hesitate with
her hand on the switch. Near the door sat a small wicker trash can, empty save for
what appeared to be several torn photographs. On impulse, she stooped and plucked
the handful of ragged-edged scraps from the can and carried them to the small desk.

It took but a few moments to piece together what proved to be four different photos.
Surprisingly, all appeared to be taken in the same parklike setting as the now-poignant
shot of Tera that appeared on Jake’s missing-person flier. And as with that photo,
these obviously were of professional quality, so crisp were the colors and so perfect
was the lighting. One pose immediately caught Darla’s eye. In composition, it was
almost identical to the Tera photo, with its windblown subject gazing over her shoulder
and coyly smiling at the unseen photographer.

The major difference was that the woman in that and the other three ravaged prints
was not Maria Teresa Aguilar.

Darla turned over the pieces of that particular photograph one at a time until she
found what she’d suspected might be there. Written across one back corner in pencil—for
the photographer would have known better than to use anything else—was a single charming,
if highly unoriginal, phrase:
You are so beautiful to me
. The penciled date was almost three months earlier. The sentiment was signed
Curt
.

Darla sighed a little as she flipped the pieces faceup again. Carefully, she fit the
jigsaw puzzle that was the torn photo back together once more. Had the picture been
ripped at a different angle, it might have been salvageable. As it was, the subject’s
elegant beauty now was marred by a tear in the photo paper that divided her pale features
perfectly in half from top to bottom.

Too bad
, she told herself, for she suspected it would be a long time before Hilda ever looked
this happy again.

*   *   *

“
YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL TO ME.
YEAH, PRETTY CHEESY SENTIMENT,”
Jake agreed that evening as she and Darla sat together over a glass of wine in Darla’s
apartment while discussing Hilda’s arrest. “I didn’t tell you before, but Curt wrote
the same thing on the back of the picture of Tera that Hilda gave me. I noticed it
when I took it out of the frame to scan it. Hilda said Tera gave the framed photo
to her as a gift, so Hilda probably didn’t even know the writing was there.”

Darla raised her brows in surprise. She had carried the torn photo back with her when
she’d left Hilda’s shop, virtuously telling herself that she wasn’t protecting the
older woman, but simply preserving evidence. After all, she had rationalized, what
if Hilda had a cleaning service? They might come by and tidy up the place—including
disposing of the trash—before Reese obtained a warrant to search the store for evidence
to back up his arrest. Feeling only a bit guilty, Darla had turned over the pieces
to Jake, who had sighed and muttered a few things about chain of custody before putting
the torn photo in an oversized envelope to give to Reese later.

“But that’s what I don’t understand,” Darla persisted. “Curt had been dating Tera
for at least a month before he was killed. From what everyone indicated, the whole
thing was going down right under her mother’s nose. Why would Hilda wait so long to
finally go bat-poo crazy and kill the guy?”

“Maybe because she really, really wanted the slimeball back? I hate to say this, but
I think the dirt I dug up on him was what convinced her that wasn’t going to happen.”

“Dirt?” Darla echoed, trying not to sound too eager for an accounting of said grime.

Jake stared into her wineglass for a long moment, obviously debating with herself.
Finally, she snorted and shook her curly mane. “Since Curt is dead and Hilda is currently
in jail, I guess it can’t hurt to tell you. But I need your word that nothing leaves
this room. Breathe anything to anyone, and I’ll take a crowbar to you myself.”