Deadly Décor (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) (5 page)

The room had recently been given a fresh coat of beige paint. There were finished murals on two walls. One that depicted teenagers standing in a group talking caught her attention. It was detailed and artistically done. A third mural was sketched on the wall on the far side of the room. She supposed each wall would have a mural of its own. The work there was good, and she caught sight of a couple of the kids studying it with interest. Two other boys were duking it out at the pool table, and teens at card tables played cards or used electronic devices. This was a place for kids to come so they weren’t lonely. Here they could escape their family life . . . or the lack thereof.

Caprice wasn’t sure where she was going to find Bella. Her sister had told her she’d be meeting Bob here around eight-fifteen, after the board meeting. It was almost eight-thirty, so maybe they had already slipped away. Caprice hoped not.

She didn’t know any of the kids in the room, so she headed for the desk, where a supervising adult was on duty. The woman wore a name tag—Reena Baublitz. She looked to be in her forties. A brunette with her hair cut in an up-to-date, chin-length wedge, the woman sat at the desk with a laptop open in front of her. Every once in a while she looked over the groups in the room, then went back to what she was doing.

Caprice decided Reena might have some answers for her.

When Reena saw Caprice approach, she asked, “Can I help you?”

“I hope so. I’m meeting my sister here, Bella Santini. She was going to speak to one of the board members after the meeting broke up.”

“Oh, the board meeting was finished . . .” Reena checked her watch, “. . . a half hour ago. They all scattered afterward. I guess they’re anxious to get back to their families on a Sunday evening.”

Caprice took out her phone and brought up a picture of Bella and showed it to Reena. “Have you seen her?”

“Yes, I did. Just a few minutes ago. I thought she was the mom of one of the kids in the arts and crafts room. We keep the young ones separated, you know, from the older ones. Projects work out best that way.”

Caprice could see Reena was going to march into the pros and cons of that method and was about to interrupt her when a scream rent the air from somewhere beyond the game room.

Bella! No, couldn’t be.

But then a second scream followed, and Caprice knew she’d been right. That was her sister’s scream.

Although Reena and the kids in the room seemed to freeze, Caprice took off, heading toward the blood-curdling sound. Was someone trying to hurt Bella . . . kidnap her . . . mug her?

As her mom had told her, the area beyond the game room was indeed in the midst of renovation. Plastic hung from the four walls. But the back door led outside. That door was hanging open.

Again she heard Bella’s voice as her sister yelled, “Help. Someone please help.”

Now Caprice heard people running behind her, but she didn’t care. She only had one thought. Get to Bella.

When she ran outside, she stopped short at what she saw. Green paint spilled across the asphalt from an overturned can. In the midst of that paint, a man lay, his head bashed in and bloodied.

Bella knelt beside him, crying, saying over and over, “He doesn’t have a pulse. I can’t find a pulse.” She was struggling with the body, trying to turn it over, apparently intending to attempt CPR.

As soon as Bella pushed the man to his back, Caprice recognized him. Bob Preston lay there in the puddle of green paint, and he looked . . . dead.

Caprice speed-dialed Vince.

Before he even had time to ask “What’s up?” as he usually did when he saw her name on his screen, she said, “Bella needs you at the police station. Hurry.”

An officer was helping Bella into a patrol car, bloody clothes and all.

Caprice was about to be isolated and questioned by a detective. Her fingerprints were already on file with AFIS—the Automated Fingerprint Identification System—since she’d stumbled into another crime scene. After one look at Bella, the officers at the scene had decided to take her to the station for what Caprice knew would be an interrogation—not merely questioning. She also guessed, as had occurred in the spring when she’d happened onto the murder scene, that her car, as well as Bella’s, would be impounded. There would be warrants issued, and the cars would be towed to the station’s garage and searched.

“What happened?” Vince inquired sharply, all lawyer now.

Caprice quickly told him.

“Are you okay?” he wanted to know.

“I’m fine. But I heard some chatter. Detective Jones will be questioning Bella, and he’s ruthless. I know what Roz went through.”

Detective Carstead was striding toward her, and she had to end her call.

“I’m leaving now,” Vince assured her. “Call someone for yourself. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll call Nikki to pick me up.”

Detective Carstead had been respectful before when he and Caprice had encountered each other in a similar situation, and he was respectful now. He’d already verified the fact that she’d come into the community center a few minutes before she’d heard Bella’s scream. As he stuck to the basic questions, she didn’t give him more than he asked for. She simply told him what had happened, what she’d heard, what she’d seen, and what she’d found.

“Did you know the deceased?” he asked, studying her closely.

Detective Carstead might not be as aggressive as Jones, but he was sharp. Before the evening was over, he’d know she contracted with Bob and his crews to paint for her. So she didn’t hesitate to say, “I often worked with him. I stage houses, and he often painted for me before a staging.”

“Did you know him on a personal level?”

She remembered their last bantering conversation. “Bob was personal with everyone. He was a great conversationalist. He could get anybody to talk about anything. But he didn’t give much away.”

“Why do you think that was?”

Considering her dad, Vince, and Grant, she asked the detective, “Aren’t most guys that way? They talk about sports, not about their childhood.”

Carstead almost smiled. Almost. He was in his late thirties, with black hair and very dark brown eyes that didn’t miss much. He asked, “Did you and Preston ever see each other socially?”

“Do you mean did we date? No.”

“How did your sister know him?”

No one had said she had. But the police would find out details soon enough. “She went to high school with him.” Caprice wasn’t going to say any more than that.

Would Vince let Bella explain her recent relationship with Bob when Detective Jones questioned her? That was hard to surmise.

After the detective put his notebook away and told her she could leave, Caprice thought about calling Joe. But she didn’t know how Bella would want her to handle this, so she didn’t. Without hesitation, she phoned Nikki.

When Nikki’s cobalt-blue sedan slowed at the curb in front of the community center, Caprice was standing outside the perimeter of the crime-scene tape.

After she climbed into Nikki’s car, Nikki shook her head. “Déjà vu.”

Nikki had picked her up at the last murder scene she’d happened on.

After Caprice had fastened her seat belt, Nikki took off with a squeal of tires. She said nonchalantly, “All the cops there are too busy to keep track of me speeding. How was Bella?”

“Very pale . . . a little green . . . still covered in paint and Bob’s blood.”

Nikki gave Caprice a sharp glance. “You’re not thinking that—”

“No, of course not. From what I could see and hear, the police didn’t find the murder weapon. The murderer must have made off with it. I don’t think Bob was murdered all that long before Bella found him.”

“She’d better tell them about her and Bob before they find out and think she’s hiding something. What did you tell them?”

“Just that they were high school classmates. Really, what else was there to say? They had once been a couple but that was years ago? They’d had coffee a few days ago?”

“That would be enough for a detective to make a connection.”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything more than I had to. If it’s all going to come out, Bella needs to tell it, not me.”

“If Vince got there in time, he’ll tell her to be quiet.”

“I know what he’s going to tell them—charge her or let her go. She’ll probably faint if he says that.”

“Where’s Joe in all this?”

“He doesn’t know yet. That’s going to be one weird conversation, no matter who tells him.”

“It should be Bella.”

Her silence told Nikki she agreed. But shoulds and woulds and ought-to’s didn’t matter much when emotions were high and a crisis imminent.

Nikki’s heavy foot sped them to the police station in record time. Night had fallen, and the halogen lights surrounding the parking lot blazed.

After Nikki parked next to Vince’s sporty luxury sedan, they approached the building, which had been refurbished not so long ago. The double glass door pulled hard, but Caprice yanked at it, eager to see Bella.

Caprice walked right up to the officer at the desk. “I’m Caprice—”

“De Luca,” the officer finished. “Yes, I know. Detective Jones said you’d probably show up. Right over there.”

He pointed to a bench that Caprice remembered being as uncomfortable as the bench that had once sat outside the principal’s office at her Catholic school. Although Caprice settled there, Nikki didn’t. She tapped her foot. There was no point asking the officer at the desk how long this would be. It would take however long it would take. Detective Jones was a pit bull and wouldn’t let go until he got answers that led him one way . . . or another.

When Detective Jones escorted Vince and Bella into the reception area, they all looked as if Armageddon was only minutes away. Bella was wearing a Tyvek jumpsuit and some kind of paper booties. They’d obviously confiscated her clothes as evidence. No one spoke. Jones gave Caprice a penetrating look, then turned on his heel and went back through the doorway that opened onto a hall, bordered by offices that led . . . to the jail.

Although the station wasn’t cold, Bella wrapped her arms around herself. “Can we go home?”

Caprice went to Bella and gave her a huge hug. “We’ll talk about this when we get back to your place. Did you call Joe?”

Bella shook her head and tears welled up in her eyes. “They took my phone.”

“You consented to give it to them before I arrived,” Vince reminded her.

Bella lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “There were two calls from Bob when we set up times to meet. I forgot about those when I gave them the phone. But it doesn’t matter because I told Detective Jones I was there to see Bob about developing an online business.”

Caprice must have had a blank look.

Bella reminded her, “My costumes for kids.”

“Come on,” Vince said before either of them said anything else. “Let’s get out of here. This isn’t a place to have this kind of discussion.”

Outside, Bella rode with Vince, probably because she didn’t want to answer more of Caprice’s questions. After they all arrived at Bella’s house and she unlocked the door, they went inside.

Caprice handed Bella her own phone. “Call Joe.”

“I have to change out of this thing,” Bella said, eyeing the phone as if it could bite her.

But Caprice just held out her phone, and finally Bella took it.

“What about the kids?” Nikki asked.

“They’re still with my neighbor. I’ll call her, too, and see if she can keep them a little while longer.”

Nikki jumped in. “Do you want me to take them overnight? They haven’t spent any time with me for a long while, and I can get them to school in the morning.”

But Bella shook her head. “No. I’m going to need to be around them. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Although Caprice wished she could overhear the phone conversation between Bella and Joe, she didn’t know what Bella said to her husband because she went to her bedroom to make the call.

Vince shook his head. “She might need a criminal attorney. I can protect her rights, but only so far.”

“They’re not going to charge her,” Nikki said, seemingly sure of it.

“There’s no way to know,” Vince said.

When Bella returned to the living room twenty minutes later in shorts and a tank top, her hair was wet. She’d obviously taken a shower. Without makeup, this was an Isabella Santini whom Caprice rarely saw. Bella was usually primped and perfect. Now she looked beaten.

“What exactly did you tell Detective Jones?” Caprice asked her.

“I told him what happened. He kept asking me about it over and over again, six ways to sideways.”

“Did you tell him that you and Bob were involved at one time?” Caprice prodded.

“No, I didn’t. When he asked me how I knew Bob, I told him we went to high school together. I explained we ran into each other while you were staging Eliza’s house and decided to have coffee and talk about the idea of my costume-making business. And tonight we were going to discuss it further. Why should I tell him any more than that?”

“Why, indeed?” Vince muttered. “Because there are people in Kismet who know your history with Bob, and I’m sure some of them will be only too glad to enlighten the detective. It might not happen for a few days or a week, but it’s going to happen. Caprice knows how relentless he is.”

“Especially when he’s after one particular suspect. If he sets his sights on Bella—”

“We don’t know that he has,” Vince warned her. “Don’t borrow trouble. Where was Joe?”

Bella looked confused for a moment. “I don’t know. He’s on his way back from somewhere.”

“From a smoky place where he’s been spending all his time?” Caprice asked. “What did he say?”

“I just told him something had happened and he had to get right home. I didn’t explain. I couldn’t. Not over the phone.”

“You think it’s going to be any easier in person?” Nikki asked, being the forthright sister she was.

“I don’t know, Nik. I just know I couldn’t do it over the phone.”

Through the screen door, they all heard Joe’s van pull into the driveway. They all heard the driver’s door slam. They all heard his footsteps as he approached the front door.

He impatiently burst inside, asking Bella, “So what’s going on? As usual, I see your family’s here, and they know before I do. Did you miscarry?”

Caprice saw her sister’s spine straighten and her chin go up, defiance back in her eyes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Bella . . .” he said, exasperated.

As if she couldn’t hold it in any longer, she blurted out, “I went to the community center to meet Bob Preston. I found him murdered, and the police think I did it.”

Caprice was beat by the time Nikki drove her home.

“Do you want company? Do you want to talk?” Nikki offered.

But Caprice shook her head. “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

With understanding, Nikki reached over and gave her a hug.

A few moments later, after unlocking her front door, Caprice waved good-bye to her sister. However, as she opened the door, she suddenly remembered she’d left Shasta and Sophia both roaming free together for more hours than she wanted to count. A light on the timer beside her sofa had switched on at nine o’clock. The first disruption she glimpsed was the throw rug from the entrance way curled up and rolled. The fringes went every which way.

She called, “Shasta! Sophia!” and went into the living room. Immediately she heard doggie nails on the hardwood floor, and Shasta ran to her from behind the multicolored striped sofa.

“What were you doing back there?” Caprice asked her, noticing the dog looked almost as fearful as the day they’d found her. But then Caprice spotted the reason why. The lava lamp was tilted over onto the side table next to her huge, dark fuchsia chair. A ceramic dish she used to hold a sachet of rose petals lay in pieces on the floor, shards here, there, and everywhere. The little gauze bag was torn apart. Grateful that the dish had contained rose petals instead of something harmful, she shook her head. Affirmations on small slips of paper had also spilled from the brass silent butler that was lying open on the floor, but Caprice wasn’t troubled by the mess. When a person had pets, a person expected messes.

“I can see the two of you got into trouble. But that was my fault. I was gone too long. Come on, girl. I’m going to let you outside for a run, and then I’ll see if I can find Sophia.”

Shasta scampered around Caprice now, obviously happy to see her. She seemed to be gaining a little more weight each day.

“At least I fed both of you before I left. I’ll find you a snack when you come in, okay?”

Shasta gave a bark as if she understood it all.

In the kitchen, Caprice found the napkin holder on the floor, the napkins scattered in a path across the sunny, yellow and white linoleum. Water puddled around Sophia’s water bowl as if the pair had run through it. Really, as messes went, this wasn’t too bad to clean up. Of course, she hadn’t found Sophia yet.

As she flipped on the back porch light and let Shasta outside, she wished Bella’s mess wasn’t so . . . messy. Joe’s reaction to Bella’s summation of the crisis had been sputtering disbelief. She and Nikki had left so he and Bella could consult with Vince alone. If only Joe wasn’t so touchy about the fact that Bella’s family sometimes knew more than he did. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so he had trouble understanding the bonds between Bella, Nikki, Caprice, and Vince. He and Vince got along okay, but he and Caprice had clashed more than once. Most of the time, Caprice knew she should just keep her lips zipped. But that was hard when she wanted the best for Bella and her kids.