Persimmon Crown Page 3

  “I just thought you could tell me about her. You know, for a follow-up article."

  He stepped out of the shadows. “She was a stingy bitch who got what she deserved,” he spat at her. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  His anger seemed to come out of nowhere. She struggled not to step back. “I didn’t…I mean, if that’s how she was.” She was relieved when a car turned into the driveway.

  The woman who got out was tall and thin, with neatly cut gray hair. She wore a flowing blood-red skirt and black, embroidered jacket. In an article Delyth would have described her as elegant. The woman looked at Delyth, then at Mike. “Mykolas, are you bothering this young woman?” She strode to where Delyth was standing, placing herself between her and Mike.

  “I approached him first,” Delyth put in. She flashed her best approximation of an apologetic smile. “I guess I’m the one who’s bothering him.”

  The woman turned to face her. “My son can be testy at times.” She extended a hand. “I’m Marija Vitkus. I believe you’ve met Mykolas.”

  “She’s a reporter.” Mike said. To Delyth it sounded like a warning.

  “Yes,” Delyth said, “for the Redwood Post.” She shook Marija’s hand and introduced herself.

  “How interesting. A reporter. And what could my Mykolas possibly have to tell a reporter?“

  “I’m working on a piece about the woman who was killed yesterday. I’m talking to neighbors to see—“

  Marija interrupted her. “I’m afraid we didn’t know her except in passing. You know, waving to be polite. I can’t remember ever talking to her. She kept to herself.”

  Delyth swallowed hard. “Mike seemed to have had a strong impression of her.”

  Still facing Delyth she said, “Did you, Mykolas?” Not waiting for a response, she added, “My son sometimes says outrageous things for effect. Pay him no mind. He knew her no more than I did.”

  Delyth wanted to say that a neighbor had seen him fighting with the victim over pilfered fruit, but she didn’t know how to contradict such a formidable woman to her face. She tried an indirect approach. “Do you know how long she’s lived here?”

  “I can’t say that I do. It seems forever.”

  “Surely you must have had some contact with her over all that time.”

  Mike stepped from behind his mother. “She said we didn’t know the woman.”

  Marija put a hand on his forearm. “That’s all right, Mykolas.” Turning to Delyth, she added, “She’s just doing her job. I’m sorry that we can’t be more helpful, my dear.” Still grasping Mike’s arm, she turned toward her car.

  Mike didn’t turn with her, continuing to glare at Delyth and forcing Marija to release his arm.

  Glancing back, Marija said, “Mykolas, I need your help with the groceries.”

  After a moment, he joined her.

  Delyth needed to get back to the office. Ted would expect some kind of follow-up on the murder. She didn’t think five-hundred words about a creepy neighbor would do; she’d have to come up with something on the way.

  She thanked them for their time. Neither of them turned as she left.

  Out of their sight Delyth released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She didn’t know which was scarier, the son or the mother. Or being the son of that mother. It made her feel sorry for him. One thing was for sure: they were both hiding something.

  FOUR

  Mollie’s whining woke Helen in the middle of the night. She hoped the dog would tire of her misery and fall back asleep, but after a half hour Helen dragged herself out of bed. When she came into the back room where the dogs slept, Mollie was standing on her bed looking up expectantly.

  Helen told the dog, “I’m not going to sleep here.”

  Coco was watching but hadn’t bothered to raise her head. “Maybe if Coco lies down with you. Come on, Coco. Move it.” She patted the blanket she’d put down for Mollie’s bed. “Come.” Coco got up, stretched then plopped down on Helen’s hand. “There, is that better?”

  The dogs lay side-by-side, not quite touching. Helen waited a few minutes. When both dogs seemed settled, she went back to her own bed. She was just falling back asleep when Mollie started up again. Helen sighed and left the warm bed a second time, careful not to disturb Frank.

  Coco had given up guardianship and was back in her own bed, oblivious to Mollie’s distress. “You’re a terrible big sister,” Helen told her. The dog’s ears didn’t even twitch.

  Helen got down on the floor beside Mollie and stroked the dog’s head. “You miss your mom. I guess I can stay here a little while until you fall back to sleep.”

  When Helen woke, she was still on the floor and chilled through despite the two dogs who’d settled on either side of her, wedging her tightly between them. The winter sky was starting to lighten when she pushed Mollie away. The dog grumbled but didn’t wake.

  Helen rubbed her neck, trying to work out a kink, then twisted at the waist to relieve an ache in her lower back. “I’ve got to do something about you,” she grumbled at Mollie. “I’m too old to be sleeping on the floor.”

  At breakfast she told Frank, “I need to retrieve Mollie’s own bed so she’ll feel more at home.”

  “Don’t the cops have the place quarantined or something?”

  “I’ll call Dennis Tomalson to see if it’d be okay.”

  The receptionist transferred her, instead, to Detective Griffin. Or rather, to his voicemail. She left a message.

  She had no intention of entering the house without permission, but later that morning as she walked the two dogs she saw that the front door was ajar. Yellow tape still stretched from tree to tree so she thought it must be someone from the police. She would ask if she could get the dog’s bed. When she knocked, the door opened wider with a creak.

  “Hello,” she called. “Anyone here?” She peered around the front door. “Can I come in?”

  The orderly living room from the night before was in disarray, books scattered on the floor, drawers hanging open. She felt her nape hairs rise. Her shoulders made an involuntary shiver. She told herself not to be silly; the chances of stumbling on another body were pretty slim. Of course, they weren’t zero. That disturbing thought was cut short by a crash in the back of the house and a man shouting “Shit!”

  Mollie dove into the house, tugging on the leash so hard it slipped from Helen’s hand. Without thinking she chased after the dog. “Mollie, come back.” She found her, teeth bared, body tense, growling at something or someone hidden at the back of the kitchen. Coco started barking. Helen edged through the door trying to plan how she could scoop up Mollie and escape if necessary.

  A young man stood in the shadows by a wooden desk along the far wall. “Is that your dog?” he asked. His tone seemed more annoyed than frightened, yet he kept his distance from Mollie.

  Helen figured anyone cornered by a toy spaniel couldn’t be too dangerous.

  With Helen and Coco behind her, Mollie stopped growling, but kept her body rigid and eyes boring into the man.

  Helen bent to pick up Mollie’s leash. “Mollie, sit,” she commanded.

  The dog didn’t move.

  “I thought it was Joujou,” the young man said. “But this is your dog?” He seemed intent on keeping the desk chair between him and the dog.

  “She belonged to Cécile DuQuenne,” Helen said. “The woman who…who used to live here. Who’s Joujou?”

  “Joujou was her dog.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m Madame DuQuenne’s nephew.” He looked down. “At least I was.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  "Thank you. The way it happened, it was…well, you can imagine.”

  “Were you close?”

  “Sort of.” After a beat, he asked, “How did you end up with Joujou? I don’t recall my aunt mentioning you. I didn’t get the impression she had many friends. Any friends at all, to tell the truth.”

  “I heard Mollie—I gue
ss I should say Joujou—barking inside the house the night…that night. I intended to keep her until someone claimed her, but I can see you two don’t get along, and your sister threatened to send her to the pound.”

  “My sister?”

  “Sophie. She stopped by my house about the dog.”

  He looked puzzled for a moment then said, “She isn’t my sister; she must be a cousin. I really don’t know that side of the family that well.” He stepped forward into a crooked rectangle of light shining through a window. He was tall and thin but blond where his cousin was dark. Helen could see no piercings, tattoos or family resemblance. “I’m André DuQuenne.”

  “I’m Helen Terfel.”

  He extended a hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Mollie started growling again.

  André backed off.

  “She must be defending her territory,” Helen said by way of apology.

  “Joujou never liked me. I have no idea why. I’m usually good with animals.”

  “Mollie, quiet.”

  The dog ignored her.

  “Try Joujou, silence,” André suggested.

  “Why don’t you?

  “Like I said, she never liked me.”

  “Joujou, silence,” Helen commanded.

  The dog seemed to pay some attention but didn’t move or stop growling.

  “Perhaps try fermer toutes les portes. It worked for my aunt.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “A rude way to say shut up.”

  Helen laughed. “Most people would consider shut up to be pretty rude.” Then, with her best alpha-female voice, she repeated his words.

  The dog stopped growling, turned and stared up at Helen.

  “Well,” Helen said. “I guess I’m going to have to brush up my French.”

  “I suspect five or six words are the extent of her vocabulary, so it won’t be difficult.” He smiled.

  Helen didn’t know what to make of him. He seemed a pleasant young man and, she had to admit, a handsome one. But here he was in the house of a murdered woman searching for something. And she couldn’t ignore Mollie’s reaction. Did the dog remember a quarrel he’d had with Cécile DuQuenne? Or something worse? At the thought, she pulled the dogs closer to her. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Alarmed by her own temerity, she assumed her sternest teacher-waiting-for-an-explanation pose.

  “I was hoping to find a will or at least the name of her lawyer. It takes so long when someone dies intestate.”

  “You expect to inherit?”

  “She didn’t have much, of course, but I’m her next of kin. At least the only one who visited her.”

  “And your cousin.”

  “Yes, of course, my cousin.”

  “So your aunt had no children of her own?”

  “I doubt Madam DuQuenne would have put up with them. Not for long in any case.” He smiled again as if to say he was joking.

  “Did the police say you could come in?” Helen asked.

  He seemed to tense up. “I came by on the chance that I could. I had a key.”

  “So you didn’t talk with the police.”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “There’s yellow tape all around the house. No one is supposed to be in here.”

  “You’re here.”

  “I knocked because I saw the door open, then Mollie got away and I…” Even to her ears, it didn’t sound much of an excuse. She returned his smile in what she hoped was a conciliatory way. “I was hoping to find Mollie’s bed. I thought it might make her feel more at home.”

  “I believe she slept in my aunt’s bedroom. It’s on the second floor. Why don’t you try there?” He walked to the back door, well out of Mollie’s reach. “I am sorry. I have an appointment. I should be leaving. Just close up when you’re done.”

  She waited for him to leave through the kitchen door. She felt safer once he’d gone although, if he had a key, he could let himself back in. He said he knew Mollie. Or Joujou. She’d only had her two days and couldn’t think of her as anything other than Mollie. Except he could have made up the whole thing, including the dog’s name. It wouldn’t take much imagination to say a woman by the name of Cécile DuQuenne had a dog with a French name that understood French commands. If he weren’t a nephew, where’d he come from so soon after the murder? And what was he looking for? He didn’t have to tear the place apart looking for a will. Her shoulders tensed again. Why had she trusted him so readily? She called herself a gullible, old fool.

  “Let’s get the bed and get out of here,” she said to the two dogs. “You don’t have to worry,” she added to Mollie, “I’m not going to call you Joujou.”

  As soon as they reached the bedroom Mollie went straight to her bed, circled and lay down despite getting tangled with her leash.

  “A bit of home, eh girl? But you’ve got to get up now.”

  As she bent down to pick up the bed she noticed a painting of the crucifixion hanging above a chest of drawers. It was about three by four feet not counting the wide silver frame that encircled it. The Christ figure was a luminescent white against a background of dark storm clouds.

  “That must be the painting Sophie mentioned,” she said to the dogs. “She’ll be glad. I’d send her a picture if she’d left a number. Still…”

  She pulled out her phone. As she leaned closer to focus tighter on the painting, she noticed small indentations in swirling patterns around the frame.

  “See, those must’ve held the jewels Sophie talked about.” She was still talking to the dogs. “Sophie said they were fakes, but even fakes would look better than these pockmarks. Why do you think Cécile removed them?”

  Suddenly she thought it might not have been Cécile DuQuenne. It might have happened after she was killed. It might have been what the nephew was looking for. She snapped two quick pictures, grabbed the dog bed and left as fast as she could.

  When she got home she dumped the bed on the floor. “Balancing that thing on my shoulder with two dogs on leashes in the other hand is not as easy as you’d think,” she told Frank.

  “Why didn’t you come back for the car?”

  “I didn’t want to leave the door unlocked. I mean, I wasn’t even sure I should have been in there.” She filled the dogs’ water bowls and poured herself a glass while she told about her encounter.

  “You what? You went into the house and confronted a man who could be the killer?”

  “You don’t have to shout. He was quite nice. I was perfectly safe.”

  “People aren’t always what they seem. You have to be less trusting. You’ve lived in the boonies too long. Sometimes the nastiest people come gift wrapped.”

  She insisted she was a big girl who could take care of herself. She didn’t tell him about the painting or the missing jewels or the shiver that ran up her back standing alone in the bedroom. She’d already called herself a fool for putting herself in danger. She wasn’t about to admit it to Frank.

  FIVE

  “Wake up, lazybones. Some people have to work for a living. You need to vacate.”

  Delyth looked up at Josh standing by the bed holding a cup of coffee. He was dressed, white shirt, tie and cheap suit as usual. His hair was still damp.

  “I have a job,” she told him. “Just not policeman’s hours. This is my day off.” She sat up and took the cup.

  She and Josh frequently spent the night together. Their relationship was supposed to be casual, without commitments and expectations. Delyth was the one who’d set the ground rules, but over the past several months they’d gradually spent more time—and more nights—together. When it began, dating a detective wasn’t a conflict of interest, but now that she was covering the crime beat—the cop beat—it was a different story. Josh knew but he wasn’t bothered. “I never discuss details of an ongoing investigation with anyone,” he’d told her. “You’ll have to wait for the press releases like everyone else.” She feared telling her editor would have consequences, neither o
f them good. Ted would say she had to stop seeing Josh, or he’d pull her off crime and kill her first chance to make a name for herself. So she hadn’t told him. She justified her silence by telling herself it was only for three months. What harm could it do?

  “You showered already?” she asked after a satisfying first sip of coffee. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Part of the training. Slip out of bed, shower and get dressed without the person you’re sleeping with noticing.”

  She wasn’t awake enough to come up with a clever comeback.

  Josh went back to the kitchen and his breakfast.

  Delyth couldn’t look at food so early. Coffee got her through the first two hours of her day. Still, she got out of bed, put on rumpled clothes from the night before and joined him.

  “What you up to today?” he asked.

  Delyth had decided to use part of her day off to interview more of Mrs. DuQuenne’s neighbors. Trying to do it as part of a workday would mean having to justify the time she took investigating the murder by churning out a story for that day’s edition. Even then, Ted would probably be looking for something sensationalistic. He wasn’t too pleased with what she’d come up with after talking with Mykolas Vitkus. Delyth wanted to see where the story would lead without that pressure.

  “I’m going to interview Freddie Olsen,” she told Josh. “I have an appointment at nine.”

  “I hope his wife will be there.”

  “June? Supposed to be.”

  He opened a jar of marmalade and spread a thick layer on his toast. The thin slices of orange peel reminded Delyth of glistening worms. He gulped the whole thing down in three bites.

  She looked away. “Why?”

  “When you meet him,” he mumbled with his mouth full, “you’ll understand.” He grabbed the jam and attacked a second piece of toast.

  “How do you stay so thin?”

  “Positive thinking.”

  She drained the last of her coffee and stood. “Right now I’d better get home and change. I don’t want to look like…well, like I did what I did.” She had a hand on the doorknob.