Grounds to Kill Read online

  Pointing my blue Neon out of downtown, I drove twenty minutes and wound up in Renton, a dozen miles southeast. I drove down a tree-lined street and idled for a few minutes in front of the tidy three bedroom rancher where I’d grown up. Even though it had been over ten years since I’d lived there, I used to go all the time when I was stressed. Sometimes I’d walk into the backyard and rub my hands along the rough bark of the old oak. It even made my hand feel better. The tree was gnarled, twisted and slightly bent. Just like my family.

  Last time I showed up to grope the old oak was last summer. I scared the bejesus out of the new family, who threatened to call the cops. So I just sat in my car and stared wistfully at the house remembering simpler times before dad got crazy and mom got dead.

  A lifetime ago, after dad stopped taking medication and decided he preferred sleeping in alleys instead of a warm bed, mom and I’d continued on as if nothing ever happened. She was impossibly upbeat as if to make up for Dad. The pretending drove me crazy. Not as crazy as dear old Dad, but a little nutty nonetheless.

  As soon as I turned eighteen, I hightailed it out of the ’burbs to take an apartment with Beth and Mallory downtown. I took college classes during the day and served drinks at night. It was new, exciting and fun. And if part of me kept glancing in doorways hoping to catch a glimpse of my father, none of my partying pals suspected. However, a few months later my body was growing weary of Jell-O shooters and tequila. I got a call from Dad. He was home, back on meds and Mom wasn’t well. I moved back to watch advanced breast cancer eat its way through Mom’s body in a matter of weeks.

  Now I gripped the steering wheel tighter and berated myself for coming to the house that guilt built expecting something different. Next time I wanted to go for a drive I’d point my Neon toward the Oregon coast like a normal person.

  Pulling away from the curb, I headed home with a brief cruise through a drive-thru to pick up a medicinal strawberry shake. It was just after one in the morning when I pulled back into the parking lot behind my building. Sitting in my car, I frowned at Misty’s Mazda still in that prime parking position next to the door. I glanced up to the fourth floor and over to the far right where lights were all turned out in my place except for the soft flicker from the TV left on for Mojo. I glanced to the left end of the same floor to Misty’s apartment. At least Arthur didn’t have to travel far to stab me in the back.

  Misty’s windows were brightly lit. I imagined she was home and watching TV. The jury was out on whether she was alone or snuggled up with Arthur. For all I knew he’d stormed out of my apartment and hopped into her bed. The thought made me see red.

  My eyebrows knitted together in a scowl as I hoisted my purse onto my shoulder. Grumbling under my breath, I pressed the key fob to lock my car as I headed for the door.

  On the concrete landing at the entrance I nearly stepped in a mountainous pile of fresh dog poo. I was able to catch myself just in time to save my shoes and prevent what could’ve been a shitty ending to a particularly crappy day.

  “Gross!” I said and added a colorful curse. Fumbling with my key ring, I produced the building key and slipped it into the lock. “If anyone should be stepping in dog doo it should be Misty.”

  For a brief moment I found myself standing at the door gazing longingly at the poop and fantasizing about Misty stepping in it or, even better, falling into it face first. Perhaps with her mouth and eyes wide open. The thought made me smile. Then a particularly evil idea began to take shape in my head.

  Minutes later I was riding up the elevator with a hunk of dog crap wrapped in a stack of Merlot’s Coffee House napkins that I’d retrieved from my car. When the elevator door slid open on my top floor, old Mrs. Rudnicki was waiting to get on. Mrs. Rudnicki was about ninety and never slept. She wore her hair in tight silver curls and her eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s. When she wasn’t blasting soap operas in the apartment across from mine, she was pacing the hall, the lobby, or the outside perimeter of our building as a one-woman security force.

  “You’re carrying poo.” Mrs. Rudnicki indicated my hand with a tilt of her pointy chin as if I couldn’t possibly be aware of what I was holding.

  “Yes, somebody let their dog do their business by the back door, and I didn’t want anybody to step in it.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t your dog?” Her penciled-in eyebrows rose and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  I hated to point out the obvious, but felt it was my obligation to educate her.

  “My dog is seven pounds. One of the best things about a seven pound dog is small poop. This was made by a much, much bigger dog.” I stepped off the elevator and Mrs. Rudnicki got on.

  “I didn’t know you were such an expert.”

  I didn’t either.

  “Well, it’s very considerate of you to pick up after someone else’s dog,” she said. However, the elevator doors slid closed with Mrs. Rudnicki looking unconvinced by my random act of kindness.

  With Mrs. Rudnicki gone to patrol the main level and outside of the building for at least a few minutes, I turned left and walked purposely toward Misty Nichols’s apartment. I could hear canned laughter from a sitcom blaring from her television as I walked closer. I paused outside her door and debated where to make my deposit. I considered scraping it on the doorknob, but she’d be opening the door from the inside and I didn’t want Misty just near poop, I wanted her in it. After stealing my boyfriend it was the very least she could do.

  I debated exactly what to do with my delivery and then noticed Misty’s door wasn’t fully closed. Maybe in his rush to leave my bed and jump into Misty’s love canal, Arthur had neglected to kick the door shut behind him. A strong visual of Misty’s nimble limbs wrapped around Arthur’s torso had me breathing fire. I nudged the door with the tip of a finger. It squeaked loudly and swung open about a foot. I held my breath expecting somebody to call out. Nothing. They were apparently too involved.

  Gr-r-r-r!

  The only sound was the cacophony of the television. Misty had no consideration for the other tenants in the building. Respectable people. Hardworking people. People like me! I glanced down at the poop in my hand and didn’t feel entirely respectable but I did feel justified. After all, what kind of an evil slut steals another woman’s man?

  I’d been in Misty’s apartment once before. It was the day she moved in and she’d pretended to want a bonding moment when she’d only needed my help to move a thousand-pound armoire. She’d sucked me in when I saw she’d placed a picture of us on the credenza in the foyer. In the picture she’d been sixteen and I was nineteen. It was taken in a good moment and when I saw the photo I was touched. Later I realized she probably used it as target practice.

  Her apartment floor plan was identical to mine. That meant her sofa would be only a few feet inside the door but angled slightly toward the far wall to view the TV perched on a stand under the picture window. If Misty was on her sofa, she’d have her back to the door. Chances were good she wouldn’t see me even if I opened the door and flung the crap right at her. As a matter of fact, it might even be possible to hightail it back to my apartment before she could react.

  I suppressed a childish giggle then had a touch of conscience. Obviously, this was an immature act and I’d be a much better person if I just walked away.

  But where was the fun in that?

  Maybe I’d get lucky and hit Misty and Arthur.

  I gave the door a slight shove with my foot and out of the corner of my eye spied the four-by-six oak framed photo of us. Even while I raised my hand high I couldn’t help but wonder why she’d kept it. The door to the apartment swung wide open and, in a moment of panic, I flung my repugnant orb forcefully without looking for my intended target.

  Just as I heard the icky thwup of excrement hitting her plasma screen TV, my gaze fell to a shape on the floor a few feet away. Misty Nichols was lyin
g in a pool of her own blood. Her throat had been slashed and her carefully painted lips were twisted into a hideous look of permanent surprise.

  Chapter Three

  “Okay, Miss Hamby, let’s go through this one more time,” the officer said.

  He’d introduced himself as Detective Kellum and he had red hair and a bulbous red nose that suggested a life wrapped around a whiskey bottle. He was ugly enough to make me seriously rethink my attraction to a man in uniform.

  “I’ve told you a dozen times already.” I ran my trembling hands through my hair.

  We were sitting in my apartment, but every time I blinked I saw Misty’s very dead face. I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. It didn’t help. Mojo came over and stood on her hind legs to be lifted onto the sofa. I picked her up and held her close.

  “Just one more time. So you were coming home from work at this late hour?” Detective Kellum prompted.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I told you, I got off work earlier today, then had dinner here with my boyfriend and then went for a drive.”

  “Because you couldn’t sleep.”

  “Right.”

  “And you drove to...” he prompted as if he hadn’t already written it down. As if I was going to change my answer. Yup, now instead of saying I drove around for a few miles, I’d just slip and say I’d killed Misty and suddenly make his job a whole lot easier.

  “Renton. To clear my head. I grew up in that area, so I find it comforting. And, no, nobody talked to me in Renton except for the teenage boy who served me my milkshake at the McDonald’s drive thru.”

  “Ri-i-ight. And you work where again?” He offered me a kind smile. No doubt the same one that made axe murderers want to confess and made his wife sleep with his best friend.

  “I work at Merlot’s Coffee House.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Because you probably drink tar made at home and follow it up with a beer chaser. “There are hundreds of independent coffee shops in Seattle.”

  “Right, but not many named after red wine instead of coffee.”

  Leave it to Kellum the red-nosed cop to point out the obvious.

  “The owner is Mervin Lo. He was going for a play on words.”

  “Hmm, so you’re saying you came home after your drive, and then you went to have a word with Miss Nichols, but when you tried her apartment, the door just swung open?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, this is where things get a little fuzzy for me, you understand. You say you panicked and—” He glanced down at the notebook in his hand and read aloud, “Threw a pile of dog shit across the room.”

  I hung my head in shame and nodded. When I glanced up, the detective was trying hard to control a smile. Probably there wasn’t a lot of humor in his line of work. He couldn’t wait to catch his buddies later and have a good hardy-har-har about the gal who threw crap at a dead body.

  “It’s the truth. Hey, you can ask my neighbor!” I abruptly remembered I had a witness who could verify that I had come off the elevator with poop that I’d cleaned off the landing as a gesture of goodwill. “Mrs. Rudnicki saw me getting off the elevator with the doggie doo. I told her that somebody had let their dog do their business at the front door so I was cleaning it up.”

  “Yeah, my partner already talked to Mrs. Rudnicki and she confirmed that was exactly what you said you were doing.”

  “Good!” I felt tremendously relieved. God bless little old Mrs. Rudnicki’s ancient heart. She’d been my neighbor for three years and so, of course, she’d stick up for me.

  “She also said you’re shifty, you hated Misty and you had a loud fight with your boyfriend earlier this evening.”

  Stupid old hag! I hoped she slipped, broke both hips and died a slow, painful death.

  “I am not shifty!” I snapped. “Just because Misty and I didn’t get along doesn’t mean I killed her!”

  “And the boyfriend?”

  “Not that it’s a crime but, yes, I did have an argument with my boyfriend earlier.” I blew out a long breath and carefully considered the rest of my statement. I knew they’d probably find out sooner rather than later, so I just decided to be direct. “I found out my boyfriend was cheating.”

  The detective was busy cleaning his ear with his fat pinky finger. He paused in his search of the perfect ball of ear wax, glanced at his notes, then resumed his excavating.

  “Boyfriend’s name?”

  “You don’t really need to know that.”

  He withdrew his pinky from his ear canal and looked at me with sharp, squinty eyes and a hard mouth drawn in a tight line. No doubt that exact look had made serial killers cry.

  “Name of boyfriend?” the detective barked.

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected, biting my lower lip. “Arthur Byrne. He was cheating on me with my half sister.”

  The detective’s eyes drilled into mine.

  “Arthur Byrne? Not Officer Arthur Byrne from East Precinct? Sometimes works vice?”

  “No...not vice.” I swallowed thickly because I knew I had to lay it on the line regardless of how horrible it looked. “My half sister is Misty Nichols.”

  “Misty was your half sister?” He leaned forward and a vein began throbbing at his temple.

  “Yes.” I shrank back into the cushions of my sofa. “I guess I should’ve mentioned that earlier, huh?”

  “Jesus. This day just keeps getting better and better!” he shouted.

  Snapping his notebook shut, he got to his feet and began pacing angrily.

  It was an hour later before the detective was gone and I was all alone in my apartment, scared and defenseless. I knew my best friends were away, but I still left numerous messages. I didn’t want to tell them Misty was killed, because murder didn’t feel like something that should be mentioned in a text message. Instead, I said something awful had happened. Why was nobody available in my hour of need? Then, because I felt needy and vulnerable, I dialed Mitch.

  He answered the phone with a sleepy growl after recognizing my number.

  “Jenny-boo, it’s three in the morning and I’ve got the opening shift tomorrow. You’d better be dead or almost dead.”

  “I’m not dead, but Misty Nichols is.” I sniffed loudly. “She was murdered.”

  There was a pause.

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No!”

  “Just checking.”

  My lower lip began to quiver.

  “B-but Arthur was sleeping with her.”

  “I always hated that guy.” Mitch sighed.

  “I’m scared,” I added with a small sob.

  He sighed again.

  “Aren’t there cops crawling all over your building?” After a beat he added, “You did call the police, didn’t you?”

  “Of course! They’ve been here for the last few hours, but now they’re finished taking my statement and I don’t want to be alone. There’s a killer running around here...possibly someone who lives in the very same building!”

  “But not someone who lives, like, right in the same apartment as you, right?”

  “Mitch!”

  “Fine. I’m on my way.”

  He arrived at my apartment within a half hour. He was wearing jeans, a Mariners T-shirt and had a sexy, rumpled, just-out-of-a-warm-bed look to him...except for the extreme look of annoyance on his face.

  “Police questioned me when I got off the elevator,” he said, stepping inside and kicking off his Adidas. “I had to tell them that we work together and then I had to show ID.”

  I glanced down the hall. Two men were pushing a gurney toward the elevator. A gurney with a black body bag strapped to it. I swayed slightly on my feet and Mitch grabbed my elbow to steady m
e.

  “I need a drink,” I whimpered.

  I pulled Mitch the rest of the way inside and closed the door quickly behind him. Then I turned the deadbolt and put on the chain lock.

  Mitch raised his eyebrows.

  “You’re scaring me,” he said.

  “Well, a woman was killed only a few doors down. We can’t be too careful.”

  He bent and gave Mojo a hello pat on the back then walked over to my living room and sank down onto my sofa.

  “You sure you didn’t accidentally, like, you know...stab Misty while discussing the fact that she was playing hide the salami with Arthur?”

  On my way to the kitchen I punched him hard in the arm.

  “I would never do something like that.”

  “That’s right. You’re not the violent type.” He rubbed his bicep where I hit him.

  “Vodka or beer?” I asked.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “I’m having tequila, but I’m not sharing.”

  “Okay. Beer.”

  Back in the living room I handed him a cold can from the fridge and plunked the bottle of tequila and a shot glass on the coffee table. I took two shots one after the other, relishing the burn. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to cry. I slumped back onto the sofa next to Mitch.

  “So who do you think did it?” he asked after a minute.

  “How should I know?” I thought about the gaping slash in Misty’s throat and shuddered.

  “Well, you two were close at one time, so I thought maybe—”

  “That was a long time ago,” I said curtly. This is the problem when you work with someone for a long time and you tended to over-share your life just out of boredom when things were slow. “And we were never really close. We tried to be close once, but it didn’t take.”