“Oh, come on, Dan,” said Alec. “You can’t keep giving me the same nonsense. This time you were caught in the act—murder weapon in your hands, for crying out loud!”
“I shouldn’t have done that, I know,” said Dan, who looked even smaller and more wizened than before. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, when I saw Jack lying there, that gnome next to his head, I didn’t think. I just picked it up and…”
“Were caught by the cleaner.”
Dan nodded. “Stupid, I know.”
“Stupid is trying to convince me you didn’t do it.”
“But I swear to God, I didn’t!”
“First tell me what you were doing there. I thought you and Jack were sworn enemies?”
“We were. Which is why I was so surprised when I got his message late last night.”
“What message?”
Dan nodded to his phone, which was lying on the table between them. “Check my messages. It’s right there.”
Alec picked up the phone and frowned at the thing. “Um…” he said. “So how do you…” He fumbled around for a bit, then handed the thing to Dan. “You open it.”
Dan typed in his code and Alec immediately grabbed the phone from the editor’s hands again, earning him a sad look in response.
“So what am I looking for here?” Alec muttered, and then found the message and read aloud, “Dear Dan, I propose a truce. Our clubs have been at daggers drawn for far too long. I think it’s time we joined forces. Just think of all the wonderful things we could do if we put our heads together and stopped this ridiculous war! If you’re interested I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow at nine at the Star—room 328. I sincerely hope you’ll come. Jack.” He glanced up. “So he was proposing a truce, was he?”
“Yeah, took me completely by surprise, I have to confess, as last night at the retrospective he was less than friendly. In fact he was downright mean. Claiming my club was bound to fail with this murder charge hanging over my head, and a dozen of my members had already jumped ship and joined his club.”
“So what happened, you walked in, got into a fight and smashed his head in?”
“No! I walked in and he was already dead.”
“Who opened the door?”
“It was open. I just pushed it open further.”
“And there was nobody else there.”
“No one. And then suddenly this cleaner walks in and starts screaming her head off. I thought she was going to attack me, so I panicked and ran. Which of course I shouldn’t have done.”
Alec thought for a moment. Contrary to the day before, he now found himself wondering if the man seated across from him was telling the truth. He could see Dan smashing the head of some woman in a lovers’ tiff, but not that of Jack Warner. The two of them had been at each other’s throats for years, and if they were going to kill each other, they’d have done it a long time ago.
No, something wasn’t right here. He could feel it in his (admittedly sizable) gut.
“All right,” he said. “You’re going to spend the night in the slammer, and probably you’ll be charged tomorrow and arraigned. But I’m going to talk to this cleaner and hear what she has to say. And I’m going to try and find possible other witnesses. Cause if what you’re saying is true, someone else killed Jack, and Heather Gallop, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twice.”
Dan nodded miserably. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. Again. This is a nightmare, Alec. A regular nightmare.”
Chapter 21
Odelia and Chase arrived at the home of Daisy Rayo and Odelia found herself thinking she lived in a pretty nice house for a cleaner. Then, dismissing the thought as irrelevant, she applied her index finger to the buzzer and pressed. She could hear the sound of the bell jangling inside the house, and patiently waited on the doorstep.
“If this woman really saw Dan bent over Jack with the gnome in his hand things are looking pretty bad for your boss,” said Chase.
“Things are looking bad for him regardless of Daisy Rayo’s witness statement,” said Odelia. “An innocent man doesn’t run—or at least that’s what I’ve always been told.”
“Even an innocent man can panic,” Chase pointed out. “Especially if he’s already been arrested the day before for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Odelia looked up at this. “So you don’t think he did it either?”
Chase hesitated. “Dan doesn’t strike me as a killer, babe. On the other hand, people will surprise you. A man you never considered a killer can sometimes turn out to be capable of the most heinous crime. So frankly I don’t know.”
She didn’t know either. It was hard to imagine that the man she’d been working for was a serial killer. But that’s what the evidence clearly pointed toward, so…
She pressed her finger to the bell again, and wondered if Daisy might have stepped out.
She brought her face closer to the glass and tried to peer inside. It was hard to see anything, as the glass was of the frosted variety. So instead she bent down and looked through the letterbox.
Once her eyes were adjusted to the darkness, her blood ran cold when she saw the lifeless figure lying at the bottom of the stairs.
“My, God, I think she fell, Chase,” she said, and tried the door. Locked, of course.
“Let me try,” said Chase, and put his shoulder against the door. It didn’t budge. “Call an ambulance,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get in through the back.”
Odelia did as he said, and moments later the door swung open and Chase appeared, twigs in his hair and looking slightly out of breath. “Had to climb a tree,” he explained. “Bathroom window was open. I think I might have stepped on a rubber duck, though.”
They both entered and approached the figure lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Her neck was at an awkward angle, and even before Chase pressed his fingers to her throat to find a pulse, Odelia knew the girl was dead.
“Oh, heck,” she said, sitting back on her haunches. “What’s going on, Chase? This is the third death in two days, and all of them connected.”
“She could have fallen down the stairs,” he said, but Odelia shook her head.
“Too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? First she provides a witness statement fingering Dan for murder, and then she falls to her death less than an hour later? Something isn’t right.”
Chase glanced around, then looked past Odelia and got up. “Ma’am,” he called out, and Odelia watched him jog across the street.
She just wished she’d brought her cats along. They might have been able to sniff out some clues. And as if they’d been reading her mind, just then Max and Dooley tripped inside through the open door.
“We decided to follow you,” Max explained.
“We like Dan, and we don’t want you to lose your job,” Dooley added.
“What happened here?” Max asked.
“She fell down the stairs,” Odelia said.
“Fell or was pushed?” Max asked immediately, showing he was no fool.
Odelia shrugged. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Chase had returned. “Lady across the street just told me the weirdest thing. Said she saw Daisy enter the house this morning, then walk in again two hours later, only she never saw her leave.”
“Of course not. She fell down the stairs.”
“No, before that. She walked in, and then she walked in again.”
Odelia frowned, then shook her head. “Wait, what?”
“She said she saw Daisy enter the house at eight, after going for her morning run, which the neighbor, whose name is Mrs. Smithers, by the way, says she did every day, rain or shine. And then she saw her enter the house again at nine thirty. Only she says she never saw her leave between eight and nine thirty.”