Grounds to Kill Read online

  About fifteen minutes later he rumbled up to the curb in his Camaro and I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You shouldn’t have just sat on the curb like that,” he said. “You should’ve waited inside a coffee shop or something.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” I told him. “I made seventy-five cents.”

  He shook his head.

  “So what were you doing out here anyway?”

  I told him about looking for Dad, but only finding Shopping Cart Alice.

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

  “We’ve both got opening shift first thing in the morning,” he said. “You want to come stay at my place and we can go in to work together?”

  His voice was low and slow and when I glanced sideways at him his smoldering gaze caught mine and held. We were both very much aware he was inviting me over for more than just carpooling purposes.

  “I’ve got Mojo to walk in the morning,” I said. “But thanks.”

  I was thinking it was a real bad week for me to start up any kind of a relationship with Mitch. What with a murder investigation hanging over my head and all.

  “Okay, well, I’ll stay with you while you deal with the cops and give you a ride home.”

  The police were pretty quick to arrive. When I gave them my name, the two officers shared a look between them. Obviously my name was getting around in police circles and not in a good way.

  Afterward, Mitch walked me up to my door. When I unlocked it and stepped inside I ran to disarm the alarm system and he scooped up Mojo. Mitch was impressed that I’d taken my safety seriously and was using an alarm. Still, he told me he’d wait while I checked to make sure there weren’t any bogeymen or criminals lurking in the closets or under the bed. He was half-joking, but I was dead serious.

  “I’ll take a quick look,” I said.

  I opened one door. Nobody in my bathroom. Stepped across the hall and opened the bedroom. Nobody in there either. Luckily my apartment was small. I ducked inside my bedroom, stepping around the laundry on the floor, checked the closet and declared my apartment bogeyman free. When I stepped out of my bedroom, Mitch was right there blocking the hall.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice was low. “All clear?”

  “Y-yeah. Everything is safe and secure. Nothing to hide except my messy bedroom.” I laughed nervously.

  “Messiness never bothers me.” He took a step closer and we were only a couple of inches apart.

  “It doesn’t?” I cleared my throat.

  “Nope. Know what bothers me?”

  “Wha-what?”

  “That I’ve had to work with you for the last couple of years...right next to you...without touching you. And I’ve had to listen to you get all excited whenever a man in uniform comes in for coffee knowing that I couldn’t compete with that.”

  His body was only a breath away from me now and I tilted my head to look up at him.

  “If you felt like this, how come you never said anything?”

  “You’ve never been without a boyfriend long enough for me to make an impression. I know it’s only been a few days since you and Arthur split...”

  Now was probably a rotten time to tell him that Arthur had been in my bed more recently than he thought.

  “So even though it’s only been a little while,” he continued. “And things in your life are crazy, well, I figure it’s now or never.” He lifted my chin with the tip of my finger. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  I was grateful for the warning, because this time I braced myself.

  He lowered his lips slowly. Too slowly. I think halfway between his mouth and mine I reached up around his neck and pulled him to me. I wanted badly to give in and lose myself in the searing heat, but I had to break out of Mitch’s strong embrace. I was too worried about my dad. I felt guilty having any level of fun while there was a chance Dad could be arrested at any moment.

  “Sorry,” I said pulling away. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  He took me by the hand and led me to my sofa.

  “Sit,” he ordered, so I sat.

  Then he walked behind the sofa and began massaging my shoulders. It was deliciously painful in some areas, but he worked the knots out of my neck and shoulders with patient, expert hands.

  I closed my eyes and whimpered.

  “Tell me how I can help.”

  “Oh you are helping,” I said, and a soft moan escaped my lips. “You’re very good at this.”

  “I’m very good at a lot of things,” he said.

  And I believed him, because my muscles were singing the Hallelujah Chorus and he’d only touched my neck and shoulders. If he touched any other part of me I was liable to explode.

  After nearly a half hour of rubbing and kneading my aching, tense neck, I began to yawn and Mitch announced he’d go and let me sleep.

  “Since we both have to open tomorrow, I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”

  “That would be great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  At the door he reminded me to lock up and I did. A few minutes later, though, my phone rang and it was Mitch.

  “This might sound weird, but I think I just saw Charlie’s delivery van entering your parking lot as I was leaving,” he said.

  “Yeah. I saw him coming in the other day. Mrs. Rudnicki from across the hall is his grandmother.”

  “Huh. That’s odd.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Mitch admitted. “I’ve never liked the guy.”

  “Me either, but I love his lemon scones.”

  We said goodbyes, and when I was plugging my phone into its charger, I heard a door open and close across the hall. Mrs. Rudnicki was off to do one of her many security rounds and maybe to meet her grandson. I found myself wondering about her and Charlie.

  I decided Mojo needed a walk, so I snapped the leash on her collar and she reluctantly followed me out of the apartment. I was careful to set the alarm and lock the door behind me as I went.

  Mrs. Rudnicki was nowhere to be seen, but at the very end of the hall, next to Misty’s apartment, the door to the stairwell was still easing itself shut.

  Mojo and I waited for the elevator. My little dog didn’t appreciate large amounts of concrete stairs and I’d had enough of a workout chasing after Alice earlier in the evening. On the main floor there was no sign of Mrs. Rudnicki, but Mojo was determined now to get to grass so we headed outside and she found her favorite patch of green around the corner of the building and began her sniffing-squatting ritual. Sniff. Squat. Sniff. Squat. On the third sniff-squat round I heard voices coming from the other side of the building. Angry voices. And one of those voices was the warbley, old-lady voice of Mrs. Rudnicki.

  At first I was concerned. After all, between a murder and a break-in, I was not thinking my home-sweet-home was at all safe. However, from the tone of the voices I could tell Mrs. Rudnicki was the one doing the giving and the other person was just taking it. Since Mitch had seen Charlie’s van, I assumed she was giving the gears to Charlie.

  I didn’t want to spy. Well, yes, I did want to, but I knew I wasn’t very good at it so I figured my best bet was to drag Mojo around to the other side where I could at least be within hearing distance. Usually I was the one at the other end of Mrs. Rudnicki’s wrath, so I couldn’t help but be more than a little curious.

  The garbled voices became clearer.

  Mrs. Rudnicki shouted, “I don’t believe you!”

  And a male voice replied just above a whisper, “Well, it’s the truth. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You can’t come around here anymore. That’s it. Just because I’m your nanna doesn’t mean I have to put up with your shenanigans. And I’m done giving you money too and—”

  But her words were cut
short by an angry slap!

  The sharp sound bounced off the concrete walls of the building and Mojo began to bark loudly, straining at the end of her leash. My cover now blown, I walked around the corner pretending we were just going for our usual walk.

  Charlie’s jaw was set furiously when he saw me. I cleared my throat and allowed Mojo to sniff around.

  “Good evening,” I said. “Mojo had to go out, and since the weather’s been so nice, I thought we’d take a stroll.” To emphasize my point, Mojo did one last sniff and squat. “How ya doing, Charlie? I’ve been meaning to ask you about your lemon scones.”

  He narrowed his beady eyes.

  “What about ’em?”

  “Well, the other day I was at 2-a-Tea with some friends and they were selling them there.”

  “So?”

  “So, when I told Mervin Lo to use your bakery, you agreed to make him something that would only be available at Merlot’s and that was the lemon scones.”

  “Times are tough, Jen. You going to be a tattletale?”

  “You’re a good baker, Charlie, but you’re going to lose business if you start reneging on deals like that.”

  “You serve coffee for a living. I don’t think you’re qualified to tell me how to run my business.”

  I fisted my hands onto my hips.

  “Maybe I can’t run your business, but I’m curious how well your business would do if I went around telling everyone that you hit your grandmother?”

  He opened his mouth to speak and then stormed off.

  “That was unnecessary,” Mrs. Rudnicki declared. “And none of your beeswax either.”

  “But he hit you.”

  “Really? Did you see him hit me?”

  “Well, no...but I heard it.”

  She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

  “From now on mind your own business and we’ll all be better off.”

  Tugging Mojo’s leash, I headed back inside muttering under my breath. Mrs. Rudnicki didn’t follow and I didn’t hear her come back in the building. The added security system meant unlocking, re-locking and then disarming and re-arming. It was a lot of fumbling around, but it made me feel secure without having to trade Mojo in for a dog ten times her size. I decided to drown out all thoughts of my day with late night television and laundry.

  When my alarm went off in the morning, the TV was still on, but now it was tuned to the morning news. The weather man was expounding on the summer-like weather we were going to be blessed with over the next few days. As I hit the shower I couldn’t help but hope that the sun might cast a little brightness on my dark life as well.

  I took a little extra care with my beauty routine, because things had changed between me and Mitch and I was curious to see how it went. Mojo eyed me curiously as I layered on mascara and spritzed a little cologne down below.

  “Don’t judge me,” I told the dog. “I saw the way you drooled over the scent of Zelma’s mastiff. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Mitch buzzed just after six-thirty and I told him I’d be right down. I gave Mojo fresh water and kibble even though she rarely ate while I was at work. Mostly she slept. I saw that now both my shoes with the Mastiff slobber had been dragged over to her princess bed and I thought Mojo might be lusting inside her fur brain.

  “He’s no good for you,” I told her. “You’d need a ladder just to sniff his butt.”

  When I hopped into Mitch’s Camaro, he was looking particularly hot dressed for work in his black Dockers and white polo shirt. We rode mostly in silence, each in our own thoughts. He had great FM taste and I hummed along while checking my Blackberry for messages and wondering if it was too early to text Fred.

  Once at Merlot’s, we settled into pre-opening routine, filling, stacking, prepping and hoping baked goods would arrive on time. I tidied up front while he worked behind the counter. When the line started to form outside the locked doors, I glanced over to see if Mitch was ready.

  “You got something you still gotta do?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He came around the counter and put his hands on my shoulders. “Let’s not let this get weird.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. I like you and once things get back to whatever classifies as normal in your life I want to take you out on a date. A real date. Dinner. Maybe a movie.”

  “That would be nice.” I smiled.

  “But in the meantime we have to work together and I don’t want it to be different.”

  “Me either.”

  “So we’re cool.”

  “As a cucumber,” I agreed.

  When I turned to walk to the door, he snapped a dish towel at my ass and things felt right as rain.

  The regulars hustled in first. The purists with their orders for solos and doppios, some in their own thermos cups. Many in the morning are on the run. They’re running late for work, but they’d sooner be even later than face their bosses without a good cup of joe. Those who stayed opened their laptops, iPads or whatever WiFi-sucking devices they’d brought along and hunkered down for an hour or three.

  Mitch and I worked like a finely oiled machine at the till and I continued to give him flack when he made pretty barista art, but he laughed it off. Even though things were somewhat like usual at the same time they were not. There was an undercurrent of doom vibrating through me. Mitch saw it too. At one point he covered my left hand with his to help calm my twitchy fingers as I doodled uncontrollably on the pad of paper left by the register.

  It was almost time for me to take a break and things weren’t too busy, so I told Mitch I’d zip in the back and make some calls. I was thinking I’d dial my insurance company and wrap things up with a “What’s up?” text to Fred to see if he had any new information. I figured it would take me maybe ten minutes.

  There were a couple of preppy girls that came in and I had them pegged for long-winded sweet drinks so I hung around a minute longer. One fooled me and ordered a café Americano. The other was true to form and had a crème frappe with vanilla, almond & caramel extra whipped with mocha sauce.

  As I took the orders I was rubbernecking out the glass windows. I kept checking and hoping to see Dad. No luck. The only bright spot in the day was that it was payday, so I would at least be able to afford the deductible for my car. Provided I didn’t eat for the rest of the week.

  “Just taking a quick break,” I told Mitch.

  In the back I sat at a cluttered desk to make my calls. The call to the insurance company took half an hour, but Mitch held down the fort out front quite well on his own and the yoga moms had arrived. They sure as hell didn’t mind waiting while he handled all their orders by his lonesome self.

  Finally, as I was about to text Fred, he texted me.

  His text to me read: Do u no Alison Walker

  My reply: no

  Followed by: r u sure

  My reply was: y

  A second later my phone rang and it was Fred.

  “Are you at work? Got a second to talk?” he asked.

  “I’m on a break, but I’m overdue. Who’s Alison Walker?”

  “Homeless woman. I was downtown this morning asking about your dad. When I was talking to Toothless Joe he said word on the street was that Alison Walker went missing and you were the last person seen with her.”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “Did this Alison Walker happen to go by Alice?”

  “Not sure. Why?”

  “Remember I told you about the woman who had Dad’s backpack? That was her. The guy at Bread of Life Mission told me her name was Alice. I saw her last night and I asked her if she’d seen my dad. Maybe it’s not the same person.”

  “Maybe.” But Fred sounded doubtful.

  “Even if it’s the same person, she lives on t
he street, right? Who would report her missing between last night and this morning?”

  “Alison Walker is a regular at the Salvation Army Women’s Shelter on Pike. She had some health issues, so they kept pretty close tabs on her, and she’d been bunking there nightly for months. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll check and see if they’re one and the same and I’ll text you when I know.”

  I gave him a description of the Alice I knew and ended the call.

  The feeling of doom was back. I held up my left hand and stared at HOD.

  “If you got something to say, now would be a good time.”

  Right at that moment, Mitch stuck his head in the back office area.

  “Um. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

  He stared at my face and then at my hand. I quickly tucked my left hand under my right armpit.

  “Nope. Things getting busy out there?”

  “Yeah, I could use a, um, hand.”

  A large gaggle of men and ladies in blue had descended on Merlot’s. There were maybe twenty of them. Only a few days ago this would’ve made me giggle like a school girl, because of my love of a man in uniform. Now it caused my stomach to clench in fear.

  The good news was they didn’t seem to be here to arrest me or to announce they’d arrested my dad. The bad news was there were many of them and among the pack was a face I knew too well. Arthur’s.

  Sure, he’d been to Merlot’s before. If he was on duty nearby he’d stop in and grab a coffee to go so it wasn’t like this was special. But it was still odd.

  Most of the orders were straight black coffees; milds or darks with room to add their own amounts of half-and-half or skim. So it didn’t take more than ten minutes to reach the back of the group where Arthur casually chatted with his peers like this was an everyday occurrence.

  “So what brings you here?” I asked him through gritted teeth, trying to keep cool.

  “Nothing special. We’re all off to a workshop around the corner.”

  “A workshop on what?” I asked.

  “The CRT is holding a class called ‘Increasing the Effectiveness and Forensic Capabilities of the TASER Program.’” He shrugged. “It’s mandatory.”