Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (7 page)

He said, “No, she didn’t have any trouble
accepting it. That’s what’s bugging me. I’m still a good-looking
guy, right?”

I had to laugh, which was exactly the wrong
thing to do at that particular moment.

“
You mind telling me
what’s so funny? I’m going out on a limb here, Jennifer. Is it too
much to ask that you show me a little respect?”

“
I wasn’t laughing at you,
Bradford. It just struck me as funny that you’re concerned your
wife doesn’t think you’re capable of having an affair. Come on,
Cindy trusts you, and I’ve never known anybody more in love than
your wife is with you—though only the Good Lord knows why. You’ve
got something half the world is searching for. Be happy for
that.”

He took my appeasement as more than it
really was. “Don’t worry, Jen. You’ll find someone.”

“
I might if I were
looking, but the last thing in the world I need right now is a man
getting in my way. I honestly don’t know when I’d have the time for
him. Trust me, I’m happy with things just the way they are right
now.” It was true. I was long past waiting for the man of my dreams
to come along. It wasn’t that I was closing myself off to the
possibility of love sometime in the future, but I had a business to
build, and now a murder to solve before the killer decided to come
after me. That didn’t leave much time for moonlit strolls or
breakfast picnics by the lake.

I was saved from further
comment when Bradford pulled the patrol car up in front of a small
house down by the railroad tracks. It had one story, sided in
vinyl, and a roof that needed replacing, if the missing shingles
meant anything. There was a
for
sale
sign in the front yard peeking
through the high grass growing there. The state police had come and
gone, but there were ribbons of that bright yellow crime scene tape
wrapped around the steps of the front stoop.

Bradford cut off the engine, but before he
made a move to get out, he asked, “Jennifer, are you sure you want
to do this?”

I thought about the violence that had
happened inside there a little over twenty-four hours before, about
how a young woman had lost her life in a violent, horrific way. But
I never hesitated. “Bradford, I don’t have a choice. Let’s go in
before I lose my nerve.”

He shrugged. “I’m ready if you are.”

As we walked up the sidewalk, I asked, “Is
this where she lived?”

“
No, Tina and her family
lived all the way over on Hughes Drive. We haven’t figured out how
she ended up here. The state police think it had something to do
with drugs, but we both know better, don’t we?”

“
Do you have any idea who
owns this house?”

“
I was able to backtrack
and find out that it used to belong to the family of a boy she went
to school with, but nobody’s lived here for months.”

Another thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Bradford, did you tell the state cops about the telephone
call?”

“
I tried to, but they blew
me off before I could go into much detail. They were both kind of
skeptical that the phone call and the murder were
related.”

“
But you think they are,
don’t you?”

He hesitated as he removed some of the tape.
“We’re here, aren’t we? I’ve got to warn you, the body may be gone,
but there’s no doubt what happened inside.”

“
I’ll be okay,” I said as
I followed him to the door. Before he’d let me in Bradford handed
me a pair of latex gloves. “Here, put these on.”

“
I thought you all were
through here.”

“
Jennifer, this is still
an active crime scene. I don’t want the state cops to come back and
find my little sister’s fingerprints all over the
house.”

The gloves were clammy, but I put them on
anyway. It was time to face something that scared the daylights out
of me. Hopefully, it would help answer some of my questions.

Chapter 5

The smell was the first thing that hit me
when I stepped across the threshold directly into the living room.
There’s something about a house where no one is living; it takes on
smells and odors of its own accord, but there was more than that
there. I didn’t know if it was just my imagination kicking into
high gear, but I could swear I smelled death inside.

Bradford must have noticed the expression on
my face. “You picked up on that, too, huh? We found a couple of
sprung mousetraps in the kitchen. This place would have been tough
to sell before the murder. It’s like I told you: there’s not much
to see here, is there?”

“
Give me a minute, will
you?” I pulled off my disguise and laid the coat, the wig and the
sunglasses on a table near the door. As I walked around the room, I
saw a couple of shattered pieces of plastic on the floor that must
have been from the battered phone. That’s when I noticed dark brown
stains on the worn shag carpet. A patch had been cut out of the
rug, exposing the concrete underneath, and I wondered what the
evidence would yield. I didn’t spend too much time worrying about
that, though. It was up to the state police labs to find any clues
hiding there.

As I walked through the small house, I kept
wondering what had brought Tina there in her last hours. Had she
been running, looking for refuge at an old boyfriend’s house, or
had she been lured there to her death? The first scenario would
mean she was being chased, while the second was much darker. If the
woman who had killed her had tricked Tina into coming to such a
far-off place, then that meant the murderer had known her, and
fairly well, to know of her connection to the empty house. I gave
the bathroom a perfunctory look, but something caught my eye as I
turned to tell my brother that I wasn’t going to be much help.
Kicked behind the toilet, I found a teardrop earring with its back
missing. It was small enough for a man or a woman to wear, though
I’d never been all that comfortable with men wearing earrings of
any size or shape. When I started to retrieve it, Bradford said
behind me, “Hold on; what did you find?”

“
There’s an earring back
there. Any chance Tina lost one in the struggle?”

“
I’m not sure.” He
carefully picked it up, sealed it in a tiny evidence bag, then
said, “Let me check the report.” Bradford scanned a sheaf of
documents. “Sorry, she didn’t have pierced ears. It’s probably been
here awhile.”

He started to hand me the earring when I
asked, “If it wasn’t Tina’s, could it belong to the killer?”

“
Come on, Jennifer, that
thing’s probably been here since the Claytons moved. Do you
honestly think the killer left it behind?”

“
Bradford, the back’s
missing. I’m betting she didn’t even realize she lost it until she
got home.”

“
So what was she doing in
the bathroom?” my brother asked.

“
Maybe she was cleaning
up. You said yourself it was pretty bloody.” I leaned over and
tried the faucet, but no water came out.

He shrugged. “Sorry, Sis. It was a nice
theory, but it doesn’t hold water.” If Bradford knew he’d just made
a pun, he didn’t show any awareness of it.

I had a sudden thought. “There’s more than
one way to get water in a bathroom.” I grabbed the toilet reservoir
lid, thankful that I had gloves on for a reason that had nothing to
do with fingerprints. As I pulled if the lid off, I saw that there
was still water inside and worst of all, there were splatters of
blood on the sides of the tank. “I was right. She washed up in here
after all.”

Bradford leaned over and looked down at the
reddish pink water. “Well I’ll be dipped in Tabasco. I don’t know
how we missed this.”

“
It proves my point,
doesn’t it? There’s more reason than ever to believe that the
earring belongs to the killer.”

My brother looked at me with new respect in
his eyes. “I’m impressed, Jennifer.” He looked sheepish, and I
asked him what was wrong. “I’m not sure how I’m going to tell the
state police that my sister found this.”

“
That’s easy; you don’t.
Tell them you came back to have another look around, which is true,
and you found this, which might be stretching the truth just a
little, but who cares?” He rubbed his chin. “Jennifer, that last
part’s not even close to what happened. I don’t know if I can do
it.”

“
I swear, men can be so
anal sometimes. My brother was more concerned with propriety and
society’s rules than I’d ever been. I was more of a
results-oriented kind of gal myself. “Tell them what you want to,
but if you mention my name, you’re crazy. Just imagine what kind of
paperwork you’d have to fill out for letting a civilian into a
crime scene. Isn’t it just easier my way?”

“
You don’t get it, do you?
It might be less of a hassle in the short run, but what happens
when I have to testify in court that I’m the one who found this I
earring? There’s something called the chain of evidence, and I’m
not about to lie under oath just to keep from getting a little
heat. No, we’re doing this by the book.” He thought about it thirty
seconds, then reached into his wallet, pulled out a one-dollar bill
and handed it to me.

“
What’s this, a finder’s
fee?” I asked as I took the buck.

“
No, that’s your retainer.
I just hired you as a consultant to help me investigate the crime
scene. I’m doing it because I’m after a woman’s perspective. Do you
get what I mean?”

“
Hey, I’ve never been a
cop before. Do I get a badge and a gun and everything?”

My brother was not amused by my grin.
“Jennifer, this is serious. It’s one thing to let a civilian in
here, but if you’re on my payroll, I’ve got a way out of this
without taking a real hit.”

I folded the dollar bill and slid it into my
pocket. “Sorry, I know this is important. So what do we do
now?”

“
I want you to finish
looking around, and then I’m going to call the cops who missed
this.”

I finished exploring the place, but if there
was anything else there, I couldn’t see it. “Bradford, I just had a
thought. Is there any way we could go look around Tina’s room in
her parents’ house? There might be something there that could help
us.”

He seemed reluctant to agree, so I added,
“Hey, I’m on the payroll now, remember? If I’m going to be a
consultant, I need to see everything.”

“
Maybe hiring you wasn’t
such a great idea after all.”

I smiled. “Maybe not, but you’re stuck with
me now. So what do you say?”

“
Why not? I’m already in
it this deep. What’s a few more feet over my head?”

“
That’s the spirit,” I
said as I opened the front door, ready to step outside.

He pulled me back in abruptly. I said, “Hey,
what are you doing, Bradford?”

“
Aren’t you forgetting
something?” He gestured to the table and I saw my disguise still
sitting there. Okay, that was a boneheaded mistake, but I was new
at all this subterfuge stuff. “Thanks,” I said as I snugged the wig
in place and belted the jacket up. Once we were outside, I felt
really conspicuous in my Halloween outfit, but Bradford was right.
If the killer was watching the house, I didn’t want her to know
that I was snooping around. I wondered if she realized she’d lost
that earring yet. When she did, I had a feeling that there was
going to be another break-in at that house. “Bradford, shouldn’t
you assign somebody to watch the house in case she comes back?” I
explained my reasoning to him. “I wish I could afford to do it, but
I’m shorthanded as it is, and there’s no way I’ve got the manpower
to do any surveillance.”

“
You could always ask the
state police for help,” I said.

“
Tell you what, why don’t
you let me handle that end of it, okay? You don’t want to lose that
dollar, do you?”

I covered my pocket with my hand. “You’ll
have to arrest me to get it back. I think it’s the first buck you n
ever gave me in your life.”

“
I didn’t give you
anything; you earned it.” As he held the door to the squad car open
for me, he said, “Now let’s see what you can turn up at the Mast
house.”

We were halfway there when the radio in
Bradford’s cruiser squawked. “Chief, are you out there?”

“
Right here, Jody. What’s
up?”

“
There’s a wreck on Third
and Milton. The caller was pretty hysterical. It sounds like there
might be a fatality or two.”

“
I’m on my way,” he said
as he pulled over to the curb. “Sorry, Jen, but the Mast house is
going to have to wait. I don’t know how long I’ll be, so we’ll
check out Tina’s house another time.”

“
Her parents are coming
back tomorrow, right?”

“
First thing in the
morning. Listen, I don’t have time to debate this. Hop
out.”

As I jumped out of the car, I said, “Come by
my apartment as soon as you’re finished. We need to look around
before her parents get home.”

“
We’ll see,” Bradford said
as he sped away. I knew he had to respond to the accident, but it
was frustrating not being able to go to Tina’s and see what I could
find there. Maybe I could drive over and check it out myself. I
didn’t have a key, but neither did Bradford. I was willing to bet
one of the neighbors did, though, and with my new official status,
it shouldn’t be too tough getting them to let me in. Okay, maybe I
was reaching, but it was still worth a shot.

I was about half a mile from my car, and as
I walked down the road I was suddenly very glad I’d decided against
the high heels I’d planned for my disguise. The shoulder, what
there was of it, was filled with debris and castoffs that tend to
collect at the side of large roads everywhere. It was dark out, and
though a few cars passed right by me, no one offered to give me a
ride. To my surprise, I saw Sara Lynn’s car approach, and before I
could stop myself, I started to wave her down. She raced past me
like she owed me money, and only then did I remember that I still
had on my disguise. I must have done a pretty good job at that if
my own sister couldn’t recognize me.