Grounds to Kill Read online

“Yeah. I know.”

  “I live here.” I nodded toward the building. “You coming to visit somebody?”

  “Yeah.” And then as if feeling he needed to punctuate three yeah’s with the spice of something nearing conversation he added, “My Granny.”

  I put two and two together and came up with a strange family connection.

  “You’re Mrs. Rudnicki’s grandson, right?”

  He nodded quickly then turned away from me and headed toward the building.

  “A real uplifting experience dealing with you, as usual,” I muttered.

  Once in my car I had a disorienting moment when the sun came out and dazzled me with its brilliance. I dug through my glove compartment and located my shades.

  Mitch was already working with a part-timer when I arrived at ten. I told him a little about my night and he looked shocked about the break-in. The initial morning panic for caffeine had died. Once the part-timer checked out for her break, Mitch hardly acknowledged me.

  Instead, he was slamming things around and looking very pissed.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “What’s up? I’m just trying to count the ways you’re stupid,” he snarled.

  “Excuse me?” My eyes bulged.

  “First, you get broken into and your friend offers you a place to stay, but instead of keeping safe like a smart person, you go back home. Then, you go out accosting homeless people because you can’t sleep—”

  “Well, there’s a good reason why and—” I was finally ready to tell him about Dad because I figured he could help keep an eye out for him. I needed to talk to my dad and, at the very least, ask him about Misty and I had to admit that was part of the reason I’d gone back home.

  “And then, thirdly,” Mitch continued, his voice at a near shout. “You invite your ex-boyfriend over to comfort you in your time of need even though you know he’s just using you.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “How did you know I called Arthur?”

  “I didn’t. Until now.” He pushed passed me and walked into the back room when the buzzer sounded for the bakery delivery.

  Things were busy enough that we didn’t have to really talk. Which was good. Even though I was a murder suspect, had my apartment broken into and might have a father who’s a murderer, I still managed room to be worried that Mitch was disappointed with me.

  Mallory texted an invitation for me and Mojo to come for dinner. She said that Beth would be there and one other person. I replied I accepted provided the “other person” was not a blind date. She assured me it wasn’t.

  “Could you stop texting long enough to empty the trash out front?” Mitch asked with bite.

  “Sure. Could you stop snapping at me? I’ve had kind of a rough week,” I spat back.

  Pretty much that’s how things went until more part-timers arrived at three and we were put out of our forced togetherness and allowed to go home. We were both sullenly returning to our respective vehicles in the alley when movement at the other end of the alley caught my eye. Dad!

  I took off at a dead run, but by the time I cornered onto the next block he’d disappeared. I spun around trying to catch glimpses of him in the crowd, but couldn’t see him.

  “Damn!” I cried. I searched up and down the street to no avail.

  Morosely I shuffled back down the alley toward my car. To my surprise, Mitch was still there. He was leaning against his car, arms folded over his chest, and watching me with amusement.

  “I think we need to talk.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “I’ve known you two years and I’ve never seen you run anywhere for anything. What’s up?”

  “Just because I’m not a fitness geek, something’s up?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him to know he was right.

  “Follow me to my place and come in for a beer. I’ll tell you everything.”

  He agreed, but all the way home I debated how much of “everything” I could actually trust him with. After all, “everything” was a lot to handle.

  “Everything” meant confessing that Mr. Stinky was my dad and he was crazy.

  “Everything” meant telling him I had evidence my dad might be Misty’s killer.

  “Everything” meant telling him about my Hand of Doom.

  I chewed my lower lip nervously as he pulled into my parking lot and drew his Camaro up beside my Neon.

  “Ready?” he asked, as he opened my car door and looked at me curiously.

  “I’m ready. The question is, are you?”

  Chapter Seven

  Inside my apartment Mitch let out a low whistle and I realized I hadn’t quite cleaned up as much as I should have. There was still fingerprint dust everywhere and a couple of overturned drawers and contents had yet to be righted. It was a work in progress.

  “You shouldn’t be staying here. The guy could come back,” Mitch said.

  I’d been thinking about that and knew he was right.

  Mojo ran over and sniffed Mitch’s feet hello and then rang the bell at the patio door to be let out.

  “I should take her for a walk. If you want to come along, I can fill you in on what’s been going on with me. Then we can have a drink to recover from our talk when we get back, but I’m committed to dinner at Mallory’s at six.”

  He nodded in agreement and clear skepticism. I snapped on Mojo’s leash and we took her for one of her longer walks to a local park. We walked slowly, because sleep deprivation was beginning to take hold.

  I started by telling Mitch a little about my life growing up. He knew some of it, like my dad wasn’t around much and my mom died. He also knew Misty was my half sister and we didn’t get along. When I told him my dad wasn’t around because he was a paranoid schizophrenic usually off his meds, he put two and two together and came up with Mr. Stinky.

  “Oh my God, I feel awful.” He slumped his chin against his chest. “Here I was teasing you about bringing the guy coffee and going on and on about his age...”

  “It’s all right,” I assured him. “You didn’t know.”

  “Still, I knew it bothered you and I kept teasing ...”

  We’d stopped walking so that Mojo could sniff a lamppost where every other dog had peed. This was taking a lot of concentration on her part, so we were patient.

  “Well, I’m glad you finally told me.”

  After a while we were walking again and Mitch smiled all of a sudden.

  “Geez, that wasn’t so bad.” He chuckled. “I don’t know why, but I kind of figured you were going to tell me something much bigger than that. Something earth shattering...huge.”

  “I’m not done.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That was actually the easy part.”

  I watched the set of his jaw and the firmness in his eyes while he prepared himself.

  “Okay. Go,” he said.

  So I told him about the backpack and getting it in trade for five bucks and a hoodie. Then I told him about the picture frame and how it was missing from Misty’s apartment. He waited patiently while I finally brought things around to how the evidence seemed to point to my dad. He stopped me once only to ask if I’d told this to the police.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “But you will, right?” He eyed me seriously. “You can’t keep this from them. If your dad is innocent it’ll be proven, but if he’s a danger to himself and others...”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I’m glad you told me and if you want me to be with you when you call the cops, I can do that.”

  We were back at my apartment by five, and I hadn’t even gotten to the part that told him he’d been working side-by-side w
ith a crazy person for two years.

  “You ready for that beer?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you just tell me whatever you’ve still got to say,” he said. “You’re slowly lowering the hammer. I can feel it.”

  He hadn’t moved from the front door after I’d closed it. I figured he was ready to bolt. Maybe I’d best forget about sharing HOD with Mitch.

  “Don’t do that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re thinking you’re not going to tell me the rest.” He took a couple of steps toward me, but he didn’t take off his shoes or slump onto my sofa like usual.

  “Okay...”

  I thought about how to explain things and came up empty. I’d have to wing it.

  “I’ve got this weird thing where I sometimes...on occasion...not like every day or anything...get messages.”

  “Messages?”

  “Yeah. Messages.” I took a deep breath and blurted, “From a spirit guide.”

  “A spirit guide?” The look on his face was like he was waiting for the punch line.

  “I’m not kidding. The itching in my hand? That usually means I’m getting a message.”

  “Like a long distance call, except that it’s coming in through your hand.”

  I frowned and waited until he was ready. He held up his own hands in surrender.

  “Sorry. Carry on.” He leaned back casually against the door now. I dumped the rest on him—the message that Arthur was screwing Misty and the random messages throughout my life that were always right, but not usually meaningful, insightful, or necessarily profound.

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “Beth and Mallory. That’s it.”

  “So Frick and Frack have known about this little thing you do for how long?”

  “Like, forever, pretty much.”

  He frowned and rubbed the scrub of five o’clock shadow on his chin. I let him absorb what I said.

  “I’m going to go change,” I told him. “Help yourself to that beer.”

  In my bedroom, I changed out of my work jeans and blouse and into a different pair of jeans and a T-shirt. When I came back into the room, he hadn’t moved. If anything he was pressed closer against the wall next to my door. Everything in his body projected coiled energy.

  “You staying for that beer?” I asked, sounding cool.

  “Nah,” he drawled. “I think I’ll just...” He pointed with his thumb behind him to the door and I nodded.

  “Sure. Fine,” I said, but I didn’t feel sure or fine. “I’m heading over to Mallory’s soon anyway.”

  “Good. Tomorrow’s your day off, right? So, like, I’ll see you Monday then and, hey, maybe it’ll be a nice, sunny day like today. Weather’s turning. Summer’s coming...”

  He babbled and stumbled over his own two feet on his way out the door. I just gave him a thin-lipped smile and locked the deadbolt behind him after he left.

  “Well, I did it Mojo,” I told my dog. “I scared the hell out of him. He won’t be back. Nope.” I chuckled lightly, but my throat was tight with emotion.

  Before I left for Mallory’s she called and convinced me to pack Mojo and an overnight bag.

  “You can’t stay home as long as a maniac is on the loose. What if he sneaks into your apartment with a knife in the middle of the night?”

  When she put it like that, and scared me to death, how could I say no?

  The last thing I felt like doing was packing up and leaving, but it was the only logical answer. It took me two trips to the car to bring all my overnight stuff and Mojo’s as well. For a small dog, Mojo didn’t pack light. At the last second I decided to also take Dad’s backpack and throw it into the back seat of the car.

  When we arrived at Mallory’s apartment, I was still feeling down and out because of Mitch. Mojo was vibrating with excitement, because she loved going to Auntie Mallory’s. At Mallory’s there were always organic dog biscuits, stuffed animals and plenty of over-the-top petting and attention. God help us all if we have children.

  “Come in,” Mallory exclaimed brightly when she opened the door. She was dressed in her red T-shirt that had Vegetarians Are Hot embossed over a chili pepper appliqué.

  She scooped up Mojo and made cooing noises. Mallory already had a couple of tiny bowls on the floor in the kitchen, one with fresh water and one with vegetarian doggie kibble. I’d once tried explaining to Mallory that dogs, by their very nature, were carnivores and she stated she would not slaughter any creature to feed another, but if Mojo wanted to go out and bring down a cow or deer on her own, she was allowed. That was our last discussion on the matter.

  Once Mallory placed Mojo on the floor, the seven-pound dog knew exactly where to hightail it to for her own dinner party. I went around the corner to join Beth at the table and stopped short.

  “It’s okay,” Mallory said, putting a hand on my arm. “Really. It’s okay.”

  “Do you know who that is?” I asked, then answered for myself, “It’s Fred. It’s the Fred.”

  “I know,” Beth said. “I brought him.”

  “And you knew about this?”

  Mallory nodded.

  Fred stood up from the table and Mojo scampered over, sniffed the cuff of Fred’s pants and left to rekindle her romance with a stuffed toy. I folded my arms across my chest and looked him over from the top of his beginning-to-recede hairline, all the way down to his sensible loafers pausing only a minute at the beer-enhanced waistline.

  “Apparently my friends have lost their minds,” I said to him.

  “Hi, Jen,” he said. “Good to see you.”

  “Huh.”

  Fred sat back down at the table, flanked on either side by Beth and Mallory, and I took a seat across.

  “So, after Mallory told us that Fred was now a private detective, that gave me the idea that I should call him up to help with your little problem,” Beth announced, puffing up with pride over this decision.

  “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” I demanded. “First of all, I’ve got no money to pay a private investigator. Second, if I did have money to pay a PI, then I certainly wouldn’t choose one that had screwed me over once before.”

  I squinted my eyes at Fred and frowned until he began to squirm.

  Beth began to offer up protest, but then Fred held up a hand and said, “No. She’s right. First things first. Jen, I owe you a big apology. I already told Mallory and Beth how sorry I am and now I’ll say it to you. I’m sorry. Real sorry. I was an ass back in high school. My parents were getting a divorce and I took that as a license to just treat people like crap. A couple of years ago I went through my own divorce and now I’ve got my shit together and I’m a better person.”

  “Even if I cared enough to forgive you, I still have no money to pay you.”

  “Beth and I worked out a deal,” he said with a big smile.

  I tilted my head and looked at Beth like she’d lost her mind.

  “Does that deal have anything to do with reintroducing his torpedo of lust to your love canal?”

  “No!” Beth laughed. “He needs help with his taxes and can’t afford an accountant.”

  Mallory got up and got everyone wine. Fred announced he was two years sober and had water instead. I got up and paced the floor for a minute and thought about my options. Basically, I had the police breathing down my neck about my role in a murder, and it looked like either my dad or I would be cooling our jets inside a prison cell very soon if things didn’t turn around. After weighing my alternatives, I decided I really had no choice at all.

  “Okay.”

  Everyone seemed immensely relieved.

  I gave Fred the lowdown on Misty’s murder right down to my poop throwing and I gave him credit for not cracking even the tiniest of smiles. Then I f
illed him in on everything about Dad and the lost dog flyers and what Detective Kellum said about Misty noting in her journal that I was going to kill her. I did not give him any information about HOD, my own mystical abilities or lack thereof.

  Fred asked a few questions and noted everything on a very professional looking iPad. Then he asked to see one of the lost dog flyers.

  He examined the flyer carefully and admitted he couldn’t see how it could be connected with anything.

  “Your dad being in the shape he’s in, well, this probably only makes sense to him, Jen.”

  I reluctantly agreed.

  “But the fact that it was in the apartment and only showed up after you saw Misty’s body doesn’t prove he was there, it only proves someone was there.”

  I liked the way he was thinking.

  “I’m going to make some phone calls to contacts I have at Seattle PD and see if there’s anything we don’t know about the murder investigation. Then I’m going to find an old snitch I have, Toothless Joe, and ask him about your dad.”

  “Why would Toothless Joe know about my dad?”

  “Because Joe’s been on the streets for fifty years and he knows everything about everybody who lives on the streets.”

  I had to admit that I was beginning to feel optimistic about the whole thing.

  “And you’ll keep me posted?”

  “Yes. Anytime I know anything, you’ll know. Give me your cell number and I’ll text you updates. I also need a recent photo of your dad, if you got one.”

  I dug one out of my purse and asked Mallory to use her scanner to make a copy since it was all I had. She did and then handed it to him.

  “That picture is five years old, but it’s the best I can do,” I said. “Add a five o’clock shadow, long hair and empty eyes and you’ll get the idea.”

  “Okay.” Fred got up to leave. “One more thing, you definitely need to tell the cops about there not being a flyer on Misty’s face when you found her. I understand why you’re protecting your dad, but you should still do the right thing here.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “So if I turn up evidence that your dad is guilty, I’ll let you know, but then I gotta tell the cops.”