The phone rang. Tricia was going to let it go to voice mail, but technically the store was still open. She picked it up on the fourth ring. “Haven’t Got a Clue. This is Tricia. How can I—”
“Ms. Miles? This is Elaine Capshaw. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“Not at all,” she fibbed. “Have you decided to take the job?” she asked hopefully.
“What? Oh. To tell you the truth I haven’t given it a lot of thought.”
Tricia sighed. “Then how can I help you?”
“I don’t know who else to turn to.”
That didn’t sound good. “What’s wrong?”
“I got another one of those phone calls a little while ago. From a woman. I still didn’t recognize the voice. She said I shouldn’t say anything about Monty to anyone—especially not the investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board.”
“Steve Marsden,” Tricia supplied.
“Yes. But I already have.”
“Did you tell her that?” Tricia asked.
“No!”
Maybe you should have, Tricia thought with a pang of anxiety. “Did this woman threaten you?”
“She told me to keep my mouth shut—or else. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t got anyone, you see. And—”
“You should call the Milford police.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother.”
“It’s not a bother, especially if you feel threatened.”
“I don’t want them to think I’m some hysterical woman who’s afraid to be alone after the death of her husband,” she said, and yet Tricia could hear the fear in the older woman’s voice.
“Would you like me to come over? I can call them for you. And I’ll stay with you so that you’ll have a friendly face around when they arrive,” she asked.
“Oh, I’d appreciate that. Thank you. How soon can you make it?”
Tricia glanced again at the clock and winced. Could she get there and back to meet Angelica by eight o’clock? Maybe, if she called the Milford police and excused herself soon after they arrived. “I can be there in about fifteen minutes. Will you be okay that long?”
Elaine sniffed. “I think so. And I have Sarge here to protect me,” she said, and gave a mirthless laugh. Somewhere in the background, the tiny dog barked as though agreeing with her.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Tricia said, and hung up the phone. She grabbed her purse and, on impulse, shoved the DVD into it. She locked the door behind her, and jogged to the municipal parking lot and her car.
The drive from Stoneham to Elaine Capshaw’s home on the outskirts of Milford took about ten minutes. Tricia parked her car at the curb, got out, and hurried up the walk to the house. Her stomach lurched when she saw the front door was open a crack.
She looked around, saw no sign of anyone lurking nearby, and rapped on the screen door. “Mrs. Capshaw? Elaine?”
Unlike the last time she’d arrived at the Capshaw home, there was no barking from within. “Elaine?” she yelled louder.
Still no answer.
“Sarge! Sarge!” she called. No sign of the dog, either. Elaine’s car was still parked in the driveway, so unless she’d left in a hurry, she had to still be inside the house. Gripped with indecision, Tricia considered her options. Should she charge inside like the heroine in a bad mystery—and risk running into whoever had spooked Elaine—or call for backup and feel foolish if the woman had simply fled to one of the neighbor’s homes to look for comfort?
Tricia deliberated for a full ten seconds before she turned away from the door and walked down the steps. She pulled out her phone and punched in 9-1-1. Within seconds a male voice answered: “Hillsborough County 9-1-1 Emergency. Please state your name and the nature of your emergency.”
“Tricia Miles. I want to report a break-in.” As she gave them the rest of the particulars, Tricia walked around the house, trying to peek in the windows, but as when she visited the first time, all the drapes had been drawn. She couldn’t see a thing inside.
As she rounded the corner of the house, a Milford police cruiser pulled up to the curb. A young officer got out of the car, and seemed in no hurry. Tricia reported his arrival to the dispatcher and folded her phone.
“You called the police?” the officer asked. He wore his sandy-colored hair in a brush cut, looking like he’d stepped right out of the police academy—or boot camp.
Tricia nodded. “Mrs. Capshaw called me not more than fifteen minutes ago and asked me to come over. She’d received a threatening phone call. I saw the door was open and figured I’d better call the police.”
“Did you go inside?”
She shook her head.
The officer nodded. “You stay here.” He strode up to the front door, knocked, called inside, and then entered.
Tricia bit her lip as she waited. It seemed a long time before the pale, grim-faced officer came out of the house, holding a handheld radio, probably talking to his superiors or dispatcher. Another patrol car raced down the street, lights flashing but no siren, and came to a screeching halt at the curb. The officer jumped out the car and ran for the house. Both officers went back inside, and Tricia’s stomach knotted as she feared the worst.
Before long, several more patrol cars and a fire rescue squad had arrived. Everyone along the chain of command took their shot at her and asked again and again why she was there, why she had called 9-1-1, and finally, confirmed that a woman inside the home was indeed dead. By then Tricia was so upset, it was all she could do to keep from crying. She had liked Elaine and hoped they could work together and become friends.
An older man in uniform approached her. “Ma’am? I’m Chief Aaron Strauss of the Milford Police Department. I’m sorry to have to ask, but we’d like you to come inside and make an identification. Do you think you could do that?”
It was the last thing Tricia wanted to do, but she found herself nodding and let him take her arm, guiding her up the steps and into the house.
Despite the fact that every light in the living room had been turned on, an aura of gloom penetrated each corner of the room. Tricia’s nose twitched at the coppery tang of blood that filled the air.
“It’s pretty gruesome,” the burly police chief warned, as Tricia approached the prone figure that lay on the floor between the faded couch and the Formica coffee table.
Tricia steeled herself. She’d seen plenty of grisly corpses on television dramas—but they were actors—or dummies—with makeup and colored Karo syrup simulating injuries, not the real thing. She moved her gaze up the length of Elaine’s body. She held something in her hand—but Tricia couldn’t exactly see what it was. She dared look at the bloody mess that had been the back of Elaine Capshaw’s head, gasped, and quickly turned away.
“That’s her,” she managed, and took a couple of gasping breaths to regain her control.
“Would you like to sit down, ma’am?” the officer with the brush cut asked.
“I’m okay,” Tricia lied, and focused her attention on the framed print of a pot of red geraniums that hung on the opposite wall. “Chief Strauss, I think you ought to know that Mrs. Capshaw’s husband died in the plane that crashed in the Stoneham Square on Thursday. The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into it, but there’s a possibility her death is related to his.”
The police chief scowled. “I doubt it.”
Tricia bristled at this superior tone.
“What happened to her dog?” she asked the young officer standing next to the chief.
“He’s hurt pretty bad, ma’am,” the officer—Malcolm, by his name tag—said. “Whoever killed the lady of the house probably kicked the little dog like a football. Looks like traces of blood around his mouth. He may have bitten the attacker. We’ll have the lab team take a swab.”
“What will happen to him?” Tricia asked
“I’ll see if one of the guys can take it to the vet,” the chief said. “I’ll also have one of my men check the hospitals for dog bite reports. But my guess is they’ll have to put the dog down.” He shook his head and turned away.