You cant go gnome again, p.1
You Can't Go Gnome Again, page 1
part #4 of Working Stiffs Mystery Series
YOU CAN’T GO
GNOME AGAIN
A Working Stiffs Mystery
Book 4
Wendy Delaney
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Dedication
About the Author
Acknowledgments
More by this Author
Copyright
Chapter One
“ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?”
I looked down the length of the five-foot loveseat Steve and I were lugging up a second flight of stairs to my new apartment. Since I had just signed a six-month lease on the place, it seemed a little late for him to ask that question.
“I can’t mooch off my grandmother forever.” I’d been living with her in Port Merritt, Washington, ever since the ink dried on my divorce papers seven months ago.
Even though Gram had said I could stay with her as long as I needed to get back on my feet, she and I both knew it was past time for me to leave the nest. And since that nest was located across the street from the childhood friend who had become more than a sex buddy during that time, some physical distance between us wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Not that he and I were having problems. Aside from the fact that Detective Steve Sixkiller had been keeping some late hours working on something he wouldn’t talk to me about, things had been going okay, and I wanted it to stay that way. Having a bedroom window that afforded me the perfect vantage point to track his comings and goings made me feel like a spy, like I had his house staked out.
Take last night – I should not have known that Steve didn’t get home until after midnight. Of course, the most honest man I knew had told me the truth when he cancelled our dinner date because of a case he was working on. It didn’t matter that the same thing had happened twice last week. I understood that as the only detective on the Port Merritt police force his work schedule was often beyond his control. I could only change what was within my control, and as of today that was where I called home.
He frowned.
“Trust me,” I said, huffing and puffing up the last few steps to the third floor. “It’s…the right decision. Sure, the complex has seen better days…but it’s close to the office.” No more than a five-minute commute to the courthouse, where I worked as an assistant to the Chimacam County Prosecutor/Coroner. “And the price was right.”
“Charmaine, I’m not debating your decision to get out on your own.” Steve knitted his brow as we angled the loveseat out of the stairwell. “Just your choice in furniture.”
“So this has a couple of little stains. It’s in pretty good shape considering I bought it at a garage sale.” Unlike me. My heart was pounding as if I’d just run a mile, and despite the cool February afternoon, sweat beaded on my upper lip.
“It stinks like a litter box.”
“It just needs some TLC.”
“You obviously haven’t smelled this end. It’s going to need a lot more than that.”
Heaving a sigh, I led the way to the end of the hall, where we set the loveseat down outside apartment number 306.
“You might want to leave it out here,” he said as I unlocked the door.
I pointed for him to pick up his end. “A lot of good it will do me in the hallway.”
“Okay, you’re the one who has to live with it.”
A minute later, I was sitting on my new loveseat in the middle of my otherwise empty apartment. Smiling at Steve, I patted the seat next to me.
He slowly shook his head. “Not a chance. Not until you change that litter box.”
“Come on. It can’t be that bad.”
“Get your nose down there and smell it.”
Sniffing the floral chintz like a dog looking for a good spot to mark his territory, the strong odor of ammonia assailed my nostrils. “Eeeew!”
“Told you.”
I glared at Steve. Him being right, as per usual, wasn’t the least bit helpful.
“So, what do you want to do?” he asked.
Since I’d grown up with an incontinent cat I figured that my grandmother could help me answer that question. In the meantime, I opened the slider to the covered balcony that faced a two-story apartment complex across the street. “It will have to air out on the balcony until I can get it cleaned.”
Steve’s eyes turned to the sky after we dragged the loveseat onto the balcony. “Doesn’t look like rain, but you might want to cover it with a plastic tarp.”
That sounded like something he’d have in his garage. “Maybe you can find one for me.”
“Maybe I can.” He slipped his arm around my waist. “What’s it worth to you?”
“Dinner. At your place unless you want to eat sitting on the floor.”
“I was thinking about something in a more prone position.”
“Well, I do have a bed that will be delivered later this afternoon.”
Steve didn’t respond, verbally or physically. The last time I had experienced such a lack of interest in a nooner I’d been married to a man who was cheating on me with his sous chef.
I knew that wasn’t anything close to the case with Steve, but something across the street had definitely claimed his undivided attention. “What? Did you see something over there?”
“Nope, just looking at your view.”
I didn’t bother calling Steve on his evasion of the truth. It had pretty much been an unspoken rule between us even before I participated in the university deception detection study that confirmed the human lie detector label I acquired back in junior high.
I can tell when you’re lying, but I won’t sweat the small stuff.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about what was behind his evasive answer, but before I could ask what was so fascinating about the salmon-pink apartment complex across the way, his cell phone rang.
“Hey, Jim,” he said, stepping back inside the apartment.
I followed him, closing the balcony door behind me. My goal hadn’t been to eavesdrop as much as to shield myself from the cold breeze blowing in from Merritt Bay. But there wasn’t much talking going on. Quite the contrary.
Finally, Steve said, “Okay, thanks for letting me know.” Pocketing his cell phone, he turned to me. “We need to bring up the boxes in the truck, and then I’m going to have to leave.”
“Something wrong?” I already knew the answer, but I had to ask.
His jaw line tightened. “Yeah.”
As far as I knew there was no Jim on the fourteen-person Port Merritt Police force. “Having to do with a case you’re working on?”
“A missing person.”
“From here?”
Steve slowly nodded, a grim set to his mouth.
Holy smokes! “Someone I know?”
He blew out a breath. “You’ll hear about it soon enough. Emmy Lee Barstow.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Emmy Lee’s missing?”
“Not anymore.”
* * *
After my new mattress set was delivered, I drove over to my grandmother’s house to clean out my bedroom closet.
Gram looked up from the paperback novel she was reading as I entered the living room. “Where’s Stevie? I thought he was helping you move.”
“He was, but he got a call and had to go to work.” At least that’s where I assumed he had gone since his truck wasn’t parked in his driveway. It also wasn’t parked on Marigold Street, in front of Vernon Barstow’s house. Not that I took any pride in my pesky habit of tracking Steve’s whereabouts, but since the Barstow house was located just three short blocks from my apartment building, it had been too quick and easy a detour for me to resist.
Gram clucked her tongue. “Poor boy. I think he works longer hours than anyone I know.”
It certainly seemed like that had been the case lately.
“What’s your plan for supper?” she asked.
I had thought I’d be cooking for Steve and me, but with the news about Emmy Lee all bets were off. “No plans.”
“I have leftover pot roast from the other night. Plenty for two. Maybe even three if Stevie gets home in time to join us.”
“I’ll text him.”
Almost an hour later, Steve showed up on my grandmother’s doorstep. “Got your message.” He gave me a peck on the lips and headed for the kitchen. “Am I too late?”
Gram brightened. “Just in time. And I made enough mashed potatoes for a small army, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“For your pot roast? Always.”
“Take a seat. I’m sure you’re tired after your busy day,” Gram said, shooing him into the dining room.<
Steve shot me an inquiring look. “My busy day?”
With three ceramic dinner plates in hand, I followed him to the table. “The only thing I said was that you had to go to work.”
“And let’s keep it that way.”
I set a plate in front of him. “Is Emmy Lee…”
Averting his gaze, Steve solemnly shook his head.
Criminy. “Vernon knows?”
“I told him, then drove him to the scene.”
Scene? As in murder scene? “Where—”
“Not now,” he said under his breath, pasting a smile on his face as Gram carried in a vat of gravy and announced that supper was ready.
After eating in relative silence, Gram settled in front of her television to watch the news while I finished with the dishes.
Steve tossed back the last of the coffee I had brewed for him, no doubt for the long night ahead of him. “I should get going.”
I closed the distance between us, brushing my fingers against his as I took his cup. “Can you tell me what happened to her?”
“Chow Mein, you know better than to ask,” he said, using the nickname he’d given me back in the third grade.
“But—”
“You know I can’t talk about it.”
He headed for the front door with me hot on his heels.
“Because there will be an investigation into her death?”
“You can have a conversation with your boss about that. What I can do is get that tarp I promised you.” He opened the door and a boom thundered in the distance. “Sounds like you’re gonna need it.”
As if on cue fat raindrops pelted Steve as he dashed across the street.
“Swell.” Not only was I going to have to wait until I went to work on Monday to find out what happened to Emmy Lee Barstow, I would be heading home to a wet and stinky loveseat. “Just swell.”
Chapter Two
IT WAS A safe bet that on Monday morning my office would be buzzing with the news about Emmy Lee Barstow’s death. I didn’t want to miss a minute of that buzz, so after fortifying myself with some caffeine, I threw myself together and rushed up the well-worn marble steps of the Chimacam County Courthouse around seven-thirty.
Stepping onto the gold and black tile spanning the third-floor hallway, I noticed the sheriff’s deputy sitting outside Judge Witten’s courtroom glance at the ancient brass clock mounted above the front door. Stone-faced he gave me a subtle thumbs-up.
Yes, I’m capable of arriving to work early on rare occasion. I waved. “Good morning to you, too.”
I pushed open the oak door on the right and headed down a short, threadbare hallway. As usual, Patsy Faraday, the legal assistant sitting outside Chimacam County Prosecutor Frankie Rickard’s office like a sentry at her post, was efficiently clicking at her computer keyboard.
Her cool gaze shifted to me as I slowed to see if my boss was at her desk. “You’re here early.”
“I heard about what happened.” Mainly because I took a break from unpacking boxes to take Gram to church, where we sat next to the mother of the hotel maid who had discovered Emmy Lee Barstow’s body.
According to her daughter, an empty pill bottle had been found next to the bed, suggesting suicide.
I didn’t need Steve or Frankie to clue me in on what would happen next. After almost six months of working as one of Frankie’s deputy coroners, I knew the drill. An investigation would be launched to determine the cause of death.
“Thought that it might become a busy day,” I said, catching a glimpse of Frankie meeting with one of the criminal prosecutors in her office.
Such a meeting wasn’t an unusual occurrence and didn’t especially pique my interest this morning. “Has Karla come in yet?”
Karla Tate had been the county’s death investigation coordinator for the majority of the last ten years. One of the first things I learned after Frankie hired me was that nothing happened on a coroner’s case without it first passing Karla’s desk. Then, when some legwork was required, I’d get involved.
That was my thing—information gathering. Since I specialized in deception detection, she trusted me to conduct the majority of the interviews—the departmental grunt work needed when a relatively healthy person died outside of a doctor’s care. I’d then give my findings to Karla, she’d provide Frankie a report with our conclusions, and Frankie, the elected official who pulled double duty as the Chimacam County Prosecutor and Coroner, would then make the call as to cause of death.
I’d only worked a handful of official investigations, but this was a chain of command that I understood very well. And it had been made crystal clear that I was to stick to making the coffee and doing the filing until Karla or one of the senior staffers instructed me otherwise.
“She called in sick.” Patsy’s lips curled into a hint of a smirk. “I think you’ll be working with Shondra today.”
Shondra Alexander was the six foot tall, mocha-skinned deputy criminal prosecutor stepping out of Frankie’s office.
A former policewoman from Texas who joined the department after the first of the year, Shondra had impressed me as someone who was smart, driven, and disarmingly funny. But there was nothing disarming in the way her russet eyes were trained on me like twin laser cannons.
I immediately regretted coming into work early.
“Come with me,” Shondra said as she passed me, a blue file folder swinging from her hand.
Blue was the color used in the office to distinguish coroner’s cases from criminal cases. I didn’t need to guess whose particulars were listed inside the folder.
Laboring to keep pace with Shondra’s long strides, I followed her to her office, where she shut the door behind me.
After taking a seat behind her cluttered desk she gestured toward an upholstered chair. “Have a seat, Charmaine.”
Shondra drew in a breath and slowly released it while giving me a once-over. “I understand that you might know Emmy Lee Barstow.”
“I knew her.” Mainly from having waited tables over the years at my great-uncle Duke’s cafe.
“You’ve heard the news.”
I nodded.
“It’s always difficult when you know the deceased,” Shondra said, her tone softening. “But will you be able to compartmentalize your emotions and assist with the investigation into her death?”
I wasn’t sure why she was asking me this. Karla certainly wouldn’t have. It was a given in a town the size of Port Merritt that at least one of us would have known the subject of our investigation. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Good, because Karla Tate won’t be in today, and I have to be in front of Judge Witten in two hours. You know the expression, shit rolls downhill?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. “I had a sick kid when I got called out to the scene Saturday. Now I’ve also got a sick and cranky husband at home. While I knew I’d have to fill in as a deputy coroner now and again, and I’m willing to take point on this death investigation, what I don’t have time for today is hand-holding. Got it?”
She couldn’t have made herself more clear. “Got it.”
“Then let’s get started.” Shondra opened the file folder on the desk in front of her. “Emmy Lee Barstow. Forty-nine. Found in cabin number eight of the Crooked Lake Resort on State Route 17 at approximately twelve-ten, Saturday afternoon. As the deputy coroner on call I got notification from the sheriff’s deputy on scene around one.”
Around the same time that Steve got the call that his missing person had been found.
“Rigor was well-established throughout the body when I got there forty-five minutes later, so time of death occurred sometime Friday night after seven forty-eight, when the subject texted her husband an ‘I’m sorry’ message, or early Saturday morning. No sign of struggle. Some cash and credit cards in her wallet. Empty pill bottle found next to the body. No pharmacy label on the pill bottle so possible black market drugs. One pill recovered from the floor, imprint code indicating Oxycodone. Also an almost empty fifth of tequila—all taken as evidence by Detective Jim Pearson, who processed the scene.”
Black market drugs? Tequila? Health-conscious Emmy Lee Barstow? I’d never even seen her drink a cup of coffee.
“A patrolman found the subject’s car in the Chan’s House parking lot on 11th, but no one inside ever saw her, so it looks like she may have hooked up with someone there. The resort manager, Anita Stivek, said she rented the room to a white male in his thirties who drove a black SUV and paid with cash.” Shondra puckered her full lips. “Bogus name and address. No license plate. No distinguishing features—just a ball cap and blue jeans.
