Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set Read online

  “Oh, the itinerary,” Lauren said, as she gathered up her handbag and briefcase. “Come on in and I’ll get it for you. Sorry it wasn’t here this afternoon. Esme was supposed to leave it in the foyer.”

  “I’ve got an early morning. Can you just email or fax it to me?”

  Lauren looked a bit annoyed. “Sure, but I’d rather you take the printed version. I think the plane tickets are here too. Well, the confirmations anyway.”

  “Okay.” I did my best to sound cheerful.

  When I looked at my watch, it was after midnight. I really didn’t feel like going into her house, but I followed her inside. When Lauren flipped on the lights, the itinerary was suddenly the last thing on our minds.

  2

  Sitting in the middle of the dining room table was Esme. Not all of Esme, just her head, eyes wide open, staring from the crystal bowl. Her hair had been cut into a short, spiky, chopped mess, and blood had pooled in the bottom of the bowl. Her body had been positioned in a chair next to an antique cabinet, with her hands cupped in her lap collecting pools of blood that had seeped from her neck, and her legs twisted in the same twist tie I’d seen in my office that day.

  I looked around the room. Everything looked the same as it had when I’d been there in the afternoon. The table was set with a series of white Nortaki china, crystal goblets, and a table runner across the middle. The runner was under the crystal bowl containing Esme’s head. The last time I’d seen the bowl, it had been empty. I avoided looking at the head and tried to concentrate on the details of the room. I’d never been to a crime scene so I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but there didn’t seem to be signs of a struggle. I looked behind Esme’s body and saw a slight darkening of the brown walls where blood from Esme’s neck had sprayed the surface. Other than the blood, the room looked pristine. Pristine if you didn’t consider the trail of blood from the body to the head on the table. It looked like a set up for a horror flick, or a bad joke. Only the acrid smell of expelled body fluids made the scene real.

  Lauren wrapped her arms around her middle and bent forward, the remains of her fast food dinner spewing forth onto the floor. Holding her hair back with one hand, she spit vomit onto the hardwood floor. Her mouth hung open and spit dribbled from her lips. It seemed she couldn’t catch her breath as she dropped to her hands and knees. She didn’t seem to notice the chunks of her dinner under her hands.

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” she said. Sucking in a deep breath, she vomited again. This time she didn’t try to pull her hair from her face.

  I stood silent, stunned. I followed cheating spouses, did skip traces, took photographs of people committing insurance fraud, and I stood guard to protect people, but I wasn’t a cop, and I’d never seen anything like this. Between Lauren’s barfing, and Esme’s decapitated head I didn’t know how to keep myself from fainting. Finally, I looked up, which helped me swallow the bile building in the back of my throat, and concentrated on the ceiling for a moment.

  Watching Lauren, and smelling the regurgitated fish filet, was too much. But I couldn’t vomit. I had to get my head together. Call the police. But I couldn’t move. I was the professional here, right? Oh, I so didn’t want to be the professional. I wanted to go back to the car and have a do-over. Lauren started to stand up, and I regained my composure, trying to be the consummate professional.

  “Don’t touch anything. I’ll call the police,” I said.

  She barely got herself into a sitting position on the floor, rocking back and forth, and whispering. I couldn’t hear what she said. I leaned closer, and choked back my vomit when I smelled hers.

  “What?” I said.

  “Henry. Where is Henry?” She wiped the vomit from her hands onto her skirt.

  I pulled my cell phone from my hip holster and dialed 911. I put the phone to my ear and listened. It seemed like an hour before the dispatcher answered.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “There’s been a murder.”

  “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “A woman was murdered, and we just got home and found her.”

  “Ma’am. What’s your name?”

  “Mimi Capurro. I’m here with the owner of the house. She isn’t doing so well.”

  “Has she been injured?”

  “No. She found the body. She’s not handling it very well.” I looked back at Lauren, who was still rocking and mumbling.

  “What’s your location, ma’am?”

  Why do they always ask that, when they know where you are? Then I remembered I was calling from my cell phone. I gave her the home’s address.

  “Okay, I have a car on the way. Is anyone else in the house with you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll go check.”

  I crept down the hallway, switching from the handset to my Bluetooth headset. I heard the dispatcher snap at me. “No, ma’am, don’t go anywhere. The police will be there any minute. They’ll look for anyone else in the house.”

  Knowing full well the killer could still be in the house, I didn’t even know if we were safe, so I pulled my nine millimeter from my shoulder holster and climbed the stairs.

  “Ma’am, are you there?” The dispatcher sounded more concerned and less confident now.

  I didn’t answer. I was trying to climb the stairs quietly, and I wasn’t really listening to her.

  “Ma’am. Stay put. The police will be there any minute. Ma’am?”

  She sounded distraught now, so I felt compelled to say something. I whispered, “Call me Mimi, please. I can’t stay put, I have to see if the husband is alive. I may be able to help him, if he’s still alive. I’m okay, I have a gun.”

  Now that was the wrong thing to say. The dispatcher went on alert.

  “Mimi, did you say you have a gun?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m a private detective. I’m licensed.” Not that I’d ever had to shoot anyone before. But I could if I had to, I was sure of it.

  “Please Mimi, stop where you are. I need you to stay put until the police arrive.” I’m pretty sure she was screaming at me, but I’d blocked her out.

  I climbed the rest of the stairs and plastered my back against the wall, creeping along until I reached what I hoped was the bathroom door. Reaching across the door and turning the handle, I pushed the door open and flipped on the light, pointing my gun in front of me. The room was empty. I breathed deep, grabbed a hand towel from the counter and headed to the next room.

  Again, I led with my weapon. With the hand towel in my free hand, I twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. I waited, and when no one jumped out at me, I crept into the room. I thought I could see a body on the bed. This had to be Henry. I flipped the light on. If he was dead, he wouldn’t care. If he was asleep and I woke him, I didn’t care. He didn’t stir.

  Henry lay on his back, the bed still made. He was fully dressed, in a blue pinpoint cotton shirt with black slacks, and a black belt, his shoes next to the bed. I looked closer, but saw no movement in his chest. Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t want to touch a dead body. Wrist or neck? I cringed and put my fingers to his throat.

  There was a pulse, a good pulse. Damn, he slept the sleep of the dead. I shook him. No response. At least he was alive. He was alive and safe, but he creeped me out, so I scooted out the door and on to the next room.

  I opened the doors, flipped on the lights and did a quick check of the remaining rooms on the second floor. All were lavishly decorated, and all were empty.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I turned right and entered what appeared to be a formal living room. Like the rest of the house, it looked like a photo spread from Architectural Digest. Robin’s egg blue on adobe walls, rose chintz fabric on the sofa and chairs, and an oriental rug that had to be custom made for the space. I’d never seen a rug so large. All of the seating was positioned on the rug, with mahogany cabinets lining the walls. I saw a door on the far side of the room and headed for it.

  The door led to the ki
tchen, which looked like it occupied the entire length of the back of the house. The floors were slate, topped by oak cabinets with dark cement countertops. It was spotless. The only thing that didn’t look right was the back door. The door was Dutch, solid on the bottom, with a paned window on top, and the top didn’t look like it was fully closed. I started toward it, but stopped. I thought I heard a car. Amateur detective hour was over.

  Before I got to the dining room, the police arrived. I heard the tires on the gravel drive. I went to the door, which was still open, with my hands in the air. I didn’t want to get shot, and I wasn’t sure if they’d think I was the intruder.

  “I’m the one who called,” I said. “I’m Mimi Capurro.”

  To my relief, they didn’t have any weapons readied as they exited their patrol car. They left the headlights on, making the two officers mere silhouettes in the night. But as they climbed the steps of the porch, they became Kevlar-wearing, pistol-packing, grim-faced policemen.

  Both men were Latino, and both were about an inch shorter than me. But what they had in bulk made up for the height deficit. One of the officers stepped ahead of the other. These guys were young. Baby faced twenty-somethings with rookie attitudes. They approached with stern expressions.

  “I’m Officer Martinez,” one of them said. He stood with his thumbs in his belt.

  I stood in place and shivered as a chill of realization ran down my spine. This was not a dream.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?” Martinez’s expression softened.

  “I’m fine, considering.” Even though I wasn’t.

  I’d been blocking out the image of Esme’s head while I was creeping about the house, and pretending that I wasn’t scared to death the killer was going to spring out at me. But now the adrenaline rush was wearing off and I was shaking.

  I heard the dispatcher in my ear. “Okay, I’m going to disconnect now.”

  I’d forgotten about her. “Thanks,” I said, and disconnected.

  I opened the door wider, and the cops walked in.

  “Who’s been here?”

  “Just me, and Lauren Silke, the home’s owner. Her husband is out cold in the bedroom upstairs.”

  “You were upstairs when the murder occurred?” The second officer, who didn’t identify himself, asked.

  “No, I went up there to see if Lauren’s husband was home. And he is, he’s in the master bedroom.”

  Martinez pushed past me. “Ma’am, I need you to stay put. Did you touch anything when you went snooping?”

  Snooping? I resented the way he implied I was a busybody. I thought about it. “The front door. I used a hand towel to open the bedrooms upstairs. I had to check on Lauren’s husband.” I couldn’t believe I was defending myself.

  Lauren’s moaning became louder and echoed toward the foyer. I turned and ran toward her.

  Lauren still sat where I left her. “Oh God, what am I going to do?” Lauren murmured.

  I turned my head and took a deep breath, then leaned close. “I checked on Henry. He’s okay.”

  She turned on me. “Then where is he?”

  I recoiled. “He’s passed out in your bedroom.”

  “Didn’t you wake him up?” She was whining now.

  “I tried. He won’t wake up,” I said. I accidentally inhaled, smelling the acid on her breath. I backed away.

  Turning to the officers, I said. “She’s a little shocked.”

  And so were they. Both stood still, staring at the table, or more specifically, Esme’s head. The unidentified officer said, “Oh shit!”

  Officer Martinez spoke into his radio.

  Involuntarily, I followed their gaze. For the first time, I saw the weapon. A sword, with a swath of blood, lay on the chair near Esme’s head.

  Two more cops arrived. The homicide unit. The woman, Natalie Simon, I knew from other business dealings. She had blonde hair brushed into a ponytail with dark roots showing, no makeup, gray slacks, and a T-shirt. She was cute, roots and all, the kind of cute which ages well. The male detective was, holy testosterone, one of the last people I ever expected to see wearing a badge.

  3

  I couldn’t have imagined I’d ever see the man in front of me again. Nick Christianson, wow, a blast from the past. I didn’t know if I wanted him to be in my present.

  Nick’s clean smell took me away from the murder scene and back to my college days. He always had a freshly showered smell, not weighed down by cologne. I love cologne on men, but in subtle amounts, and Nick didn’t even need that.

  He’d been my on-again and off-again lover in college. He’d come from Ohio to play football for the junior college, and we’d turned to each other when our respective relationships went to hell. We talked, had sex (what I thought was great sex back then), and went on our merry way. We even ended up at the same university, San Jose State, where Nick was a star defensive back, and I was nobody after the school cancelled their track program. There went my scholarship. But Nick still had his.

  I thought he was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen. A six-three Adonis in his football uniform. His olive skin and wavy black hair made his blue-gray eyes sizzle. And that wasn’t the only thing sizzling. He claimed his heritage to be Greek and Irish. Talk about hot. In the beginning I always wondered why he was with me, this guy who had every girl in the school ready to lift her skirts, was with me. At San Jose State, I didn’t have to wonder anymore, since he never spoke to me.

  I studied Human Performance, with an emphasis on prevention and care of athletic injuries, so I saw him almost every day during football season and spring training. He didn’t ignore me as much as avoid me. I missed our talks. I knew more about him than anyone, and then I didn’t know him at all.

  Looking at Nick now, he’d changed very little. He looked older; naturally, he’d had a rough fifteen years. From college, he’d gone on to play for two different NFL teams. After six years in the NFL, he’d violated their drug and alcohol policies, and they booted him. Can we say, stupid? After that, I’d lost track of him. Not that I was keeping track exactly, but his name and face had been in the sports section almost daily while he tried to fight the charges.

  I’d had a long day, and with the adrenaline hangover ensuing, I felt nauseated. If I had to see Nick again, I wanted to look my very best. Between the head on the table and Nick standing in front of me after all these years, I’d reached my daily limit. I turned and barfed into the potted palm. I hardly even noticed the liquid that had splattered onto the floor and my pants. My stomach roiled again before I even lifted my head.

  Nick turned to his partner. “Natalie, get her out of here, she’s messing up my crime scene.”

  Natalie put her arm around my waist and walked me out to the porch. “That was a pretty gruesome scene in there. Are you alright?”

  “Other than embarrassed, I’m fine,” I said. Puking always made me sweat and I felt wet, sticky, and gross. I pushed away from Natalie.

  She handed me a piece of Big Red chewing gum.

  “Thanks.” I popped it in my mouth, and chewed the taste of puke away.

  “Why don’t you sit out here,” she said, as we headed to the porch.

  “No, I want to stay. Lauren Silke is my client.”

  “Client?” Natalie said.

  “Yeah, I’m her bodyguard for the next week. She’s had some threats and an altercation, so she hired me as a bodyguard for her book tour.”

  “We’ll have to talk more about this. I’m going back in,” Natalie said. She helped me onto the wicker rocker on the porch.

  “I’m better, I’ll come too.” I pushed myself up. Not so smart of me. I sat back down.

  “I really don’t want you back in the house,” Natalie said.

  “I don’t really want to go back, but I need to stay with Lauren. I won’t touch anything.”

  “How about just loitering around the doorway?”

  I nodded. “Hey,” I said as she turned to go. “Where’s Oliver?”

  Ol
iver Bernardi, her usual partner, was as old as dirt, and had likely retired.

  “He took his wife to the Bahamas. Can you believe it?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine Oliver in anything but a polyester suit and fat tie. The thought of him on the beach with his wife made me smile. Or maybe it wasn’t actually the thought of Oliver, but the thought of Nick in Oliver’s place.

  “So I get stuck breaking in the new guy.” She rolled her eyes toward the house.

  “New guy, huh?” Feigning ignorance is my forte.

  “Just transferred from the SFPD. Burglary/Homicide. He’s cute, but he’s an asshole.”

  Didn’t I know it? “I didn’t really notice,” I lied.

  “Knows it all, and then some. Hey, I gotta get back inside. Stay by the door, okay?”

  Being nosy, I slowly stood up, waited for the dizziness to subside, and walked over to the front door and leaned against the door jamb.

  “Ms. Silke, can you stand up?” It sounded like Martinez.

  “Get her up and outside,” Nick said. He sounded pissed, and not in the mood to deal with Lauren’s moaning.

  “I’ll help,” Natalie said.

  Martinez and Natalie, on either side of Lauren, came toward me. Lauren sagged between them, making it an effort to move. They deposited her on a bench next to the rocker.

  “Talk to her while I check the rest of the house,” Nick said to Natalie.

  “Her husband is asleep upstairs. Third door on the right,” I offered from my position by the door.

  “We’ve got it from here. We’ll question you later if needed.” Nick’s words were clipped.

  In all this, our driver had remained in his car. Weird. He was still here, and he never got out to see what was going on? Feeling better I trotted down the stairs to talk to him.

  “Hey, you okay in there?” I tapped on the window.

  He startled awake and rolled down the window.