Dom beams and his lily-white skin blushes an adoring shade of pink. “Thanks.” He hops up and starts clearing the table, carrying the dishes to the sink. As soon as he starts loading the dishwasher, Izzy leans toward me and says, “Be careful, Mattie.”
“Of what?”
“Losing your objectivity. I know you haven’t taken a liking to this Nelson guy but don’t let a first impression override your common sense. It could get you into trouble. And the same thing goes for Erik.”
“What do you mean?”
“The evidence against him is pretty strong. I think you need to start entertaining the idea that you might be wrong about him.”
I shake my head vehemently. “I don’t believe Erik did this.”
“No, you don’t want to believe Erik did this. But if you’re honest with yourself I think you’ll realize that it’s not only possible, but probable that he did. He had motive, opportunity, and the weapon.”
“We don’t know if that gun was the murder weapon yet,” I say irritably, hearing how feeble it sounds even to me. “Can we at least wait for the ballistics report before we convict him?”
Izzy doesn’t answer. He just sighs and gives me a sympathetic look that sucks all the wind from my sails.
“Okay,” I say, feeling defeated. “I realize it’s not looking very good for Erik, and I admit that if the ballistics report comes back showing that the gun they found was the murder weapon, it will be pretty damning. But let me have my presumption of innocence until all the evidence is in, okay?”
Izzy smiles and pushes back from the table. “Okay. Now let’s go take a look at this car of yours. Dom, are you coming?”
Dom turns off the water in the sink and grabs a dish towel. “Right behind you,” he says. I lead the way to the back door and as soon as I open it, there is my car, displayed in all its morbid glory. Dom and Izzy stand quietly for several seconds taking it in. Izzy’s face slowly breaks into a wide grin. Dom clucks his tongue and tosses his towel over his shoulder. “Well, hell,” he says. “There goes the neighborhood.”
Chapter 35
After thanking Dom again for breakfast and hearing Izzy say he’ll be right behind me, I drive into the office, one of three places in town where the sight of a hearse pulling in doesn’t raise an eyebrow. As soon as I verify that there aren’t any autopsies pending, I head for the library and take out the phone number Hurley gave me for Carla Andrusson. I get an answering machine and leave a vague message stating who I am and that I want to talk with her about something important.
As I’m doing so, the door to the library opens and Arnie walks in.
I finish my message and then give Arnie a cheery “Good morning” as I hang up.
“You’re sounding chipper today.”
“I had breakfast at Izzy’s this morning. Dom made blueberry pancakes.”
“Ah,” Arnie says, nodding knowingly. “Being the recipient of anything Dom cooks is enough to cheer anyone up. That man should have been a chef.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, starting to drool again from the memory.
“Where is Izzy?” Arnie asks. “In his office?”
“I guess so. He said he had a bunch of paperwork to catch up on.”
“Well, then, you get to hear the news first,” he says, smiling enigmatically. I see that he’s holding some papers behind his back and he looks like a cat inside a room filled with clipped-wing canaries.
I brace myself, thinking he is about to pound another nail in Erik’s coffin by sharing the results of the ballistics report with me, but instead he says, “You’ll never guess what I found in that briefcase we retrieved from the Heinriches’ car.”
I think for a moment, trying to guess what kind of find would have Arnie looking so excited. “Proof of alien life?”
“Nope.”
“A top-secret government document?”
He shakes his head.
“A million bucks?”
“No, but you’re definitely getting warmer.”
I shrug. “I give up.”
He pulls the papers from behind his back and tosses them onto the table in front of me. “These are copies of the real ones,” he says.
I turn the papers around and see that they are the wills for Gerald and Bitsy Heinrich. I scan what follows but it seems to be pretty routine legalese. I shrug again, failing to see why Arnie is so excited.
“Look at the last page,” he says.
I do so and see a page full of signatures and what looks like a notary stamp at the bottom.
“Check out the date,” he says.
I do so, noting that the signatures were made on October twentieth of this year. The meaning starts to dawn on me and I quickly flip through the rest of the pages, scanning the text.
Arnie is shifting from one foot to the other, his face alight with delight, his excitement barely contained.
“Oh, my,” I say when I’ve read enough. I look up at Arnie. “Is this for real?”
“The original papers seem to be in order. And I contacted the notary. She verified everything.”
“Wow,” I say, smiling and sliding the pages back to Arnie. “This certainly changes things.”
“I know. I can’t wait to see the reactions.”
My cell phone rings and as I grab it, Arnie takes the papers and says, “I’m going to show this to Izzy. Catch ya later.”
“Don’t do anything with them until I’m there to watch,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t want to miss this for anything.”
He nods and heads out as I answer my phone. “Hello?”
“Mattie? This is Carla Andrusson, returning your call.”
“Hi, Carla. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”
“Well, you said it was urgent. Are you having some kind of dental emergency? Because if you are, you’re better off just calling the office. I don’t have—”
“No, this is about you,” I tell her, interrupting her spiel. “I need to talk to you about something personal and I wondered if we could meet somewhere?”
She hesitates, then says, “Well I’m trying to get ready for a dinner party I’m having tonight. Can this wait for a few days?”
“Not really.”
She lets out a sigh to let me know she’s perturbed and I decide I’ll need to be more forthright if I’m going to get her to cooperate. “I don’t know if you heard or not but I’m working for the medical examiner’s office now.”
“No,” she says, sounding genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“I need to ask you about something related to a murder investigation and time is of the essence here.”
There’s another pause before she caves. “Okay, but you’ll need to come over here. I have too much to do to afford any time away from home.”
“Not a problem. Can I come over now?”
“Fine,” she says, sounding as if it’s anything but. And then she hangs up without so much as a good-bye.
I head for Izzy’s office to let him know I’m leaving and find him talking on the phone. Arnie is pacing outside the door, waiting for Izzy to hang up so he can share his latest news. Though I’m dying to see Izzy’s face when he hears about the wills, I don’t want to keep Carla waiting. So I tell Arnie where I’m headed and make him promise to give me a blow-by-blow description of Izzy’s reaction later.
Belatedly I realize that pulling up in front of Carla’s house in a hearse isn’t likely to help my cause any. Apparently she was watching for me because she is at the front door wearing a panicked expression before I can turn the engine off. She is a cute, petite, redhead with exquisite porcelain skin that is quite pale under normal circumstances. Right now, standing in her doorway, she looks like a ghost. But as soon as I climb out of the car, her face relaxes and a bit of color returns to her cheeks.