Chapter 6

HIT THE ROAD, JACK

By this point, Henry Lewis and I had been embroiled in so many murder investigations that he looked more resigned than anything as he stood there in the living room of Hazel’s Airbnb. Chloe was huddled into a corner of the flowered couch, and mercifully, several of his deputies and the EMTs on the scene had already removed Jack’s body to a waiting ambulance. Several more deputies were moving around the house, dusting for fingerprints and looking for whatever evidence they could find, which probably wouldn’t be very much. According to Chloe, she hadn’t even known Jack was here until she left the main bedroom to get herself a glass of water.

“So, you were asleep the whole time?” Henry inquired. Mixed with the resignation on his face was a bit of annoyance, probably at having to drag himself out of bed and come over here in the middle of the night.

Not that I could blame him. Then again, it was probably asking a bit much to request that any criminals in the area restrict their activities to normal business hours.

Chloe nodded. She’d asked me to sit on the couch next to her, but it seemed as though she didn’t want any more contact than that, because, after a brief hand squeeze as I seated myself, she’d wrapped her arms around herself as if to stay warm, even though the room was comfortable enough.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice shook, and I could tell she was doing her best to hold back tears, since she kept blinking. “I got back from dinner with Selena and Calvin and her parents a little after eight-thirty, and then I watched some TV and went to bed around ten.”

“You locked up after you got here?” Henry asked, and off to one side, Calvin shifted his weight from one foot to another. He hadn’t said much since getting to the house and obviously wanted Globe’s police chief to understand that he was here for me and Chloe, and not because he intended to interfere in any way.

Another nod. “I checked both the front and the back doors, and all the windows were closed because it wasn’t warm enough to keep them open.”

That was for sure. The days were just beginning to warm a little, but at this elevation, it would be months before the nights were comfortable enough to leave any windows open to catch a breeze.

“I’m not sure if the windows were locked, though,” she added, now looking worried. “This is my first night here, so I don’t know how everything works.”

Henry made a few notes on the yellow pad he held. I often wondered if he even bothered to consult those notes after he wrote them down, since it seemed to me that his memory was just fine for keeping track of the details of a case. For all I knew, that yellow pad wasn’t much more than a prop.

“So, you went to sleep, but then you woke up. Did you hear a noise?”

Her teeth tugged at her lower lip. Looking at her now, with her long hair pulled into a scrunchie and not a speck of makeup on her face, I thought she appeared barely old enough to drive, let alone have graduated from college.

“I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “I just woke up sometime after midnight. For a couple of minutes, I tried to go back to sleep, but then I realized I was thirsty and wanted to get a drink of water. Since I didn’t know the house very well, I flipped on the light in the living room on my way to the kitchen. And then — ”

She stopped there, but I had a feeling everyone listening knew exactly what was going through her mind.

And then she’d seen her ex-boyfriend’s body lying on the rug, and had panicked and called me.

Or rather, she’d done what I guessed a lot of people would have done, which was to reach out to the person she knew best in town rather than calling the police right away.

Obviously, as soon as I’d calmed her down enough to get a quasi-coherent story out of her, I’d told her I’d contact the authorities and that she should sit tight and not touch anything. When Calvin and I arrived at the house, the police were already there, since they had a much shorter distance to cover.

But as far as I could tell, Henry had waited for Calvin and me to get there, apparently thinking it would be better for Chloe to have a few familiar faces nearby while he conducted his interrogation.

Not that what he was doing could be called that, precisely. It seemed to me he was going pretty easy on my little sister, probably because she didn’t look like the sort of person who would kill a fly, let alone a human being.

“Was there any sign of forced entry?” I asked Henry, partly because I really did want to know the answer, and partly because it was obvious that Chloe needed a minute or two to collect herself.

His mouth tightened a little. Was he annoyed at me for questioning him?

Well, if he was irritated, it wouldn’t be the first time.

However, his tone was civil enough as he replied, “Not that we were able to tell. But I suppose the lock could have been picked by someone who knew what they were doing.”

I glanced over at Chloe, and she immediately shook her head. “Jack doesn’t…didn’t…know how to pick locks.”

Henry looked singularly unconvinced. “Are you sure about that?”

She unwrapped her arms from around herself and instead clasped them in her lap. “I don’t know. I mean, I suppose it’s possible he was hiding that kind of thing from me, but I don’t see how. We’d been dating for the past two years. We didn’t have a lot of secrets.”

A very neutral, “I see,” and Henry made another note on his yellow pad. Then he said, “Did Jack Speros know you were here in Globe?”

So, that was Jack’s last name. Chloe hadn’t mentioned it in her panicked phone call, but I supposed that was one of the first things Henry had asked her after arriving at the Airbnb.

Her lips pressed together. “No. I just told him I was going to Arizona for a while to figure some things out. We’d already broken up by then, but he kept bugging me to get back together. That was when I said I was leaving California. I definitely didn’t say I was coming to Globe, though.”

Which begged the question of how Jack Speros could have tracked Chloe down here. Unless….

“Did you ever say anything about me to him?” I asked, and her shoulders lifted, something about the movement heavy, as though she’d had to exert more effort than usual for the shrug.

“I told him I had an older half-sister that I’d never met,” Chloe replied. “But when I told him that, I didn’t know where you lived, either. So it’s not like he would have been able to follow me here based on anything I said back before we broke up.”

Strange. To the casual observer, there really wasn’t anything to connect Chloe to me — we didn’t share the same last name, didn’t have a single thing in common except our biological father.

So how in the world was Jack Speros able to figure out where Chloe was staying? Yes, she’d told him she was coming to Arizona, but it was a big state…and Globe was only a very small corner of it.

Judging by the frown Henry wore, he was just as mystified by the situation as I was.

“Do you think Jack could have followed you?” Calvin put in. Even though he’d been doing his best to stay out of the conversation, it seemed obvious that he thought it necessary to ask the question.

“No,” Chloe said, and then her fingers tightened on themselves where they sat in her lap. “Or at least, I don’t see how. I mean, he drives a big black pickup truck, and I know I would have noticed if something like that was following me all the way from Northridge.”

“Maybe he rented a car,” I suggested, and a worried flicker went through her slate-colored eyes.

“Maybe,” she allowed. “But I was paying attention, and I didn’t notice any one particular car following me. If nothing else, they would’ve had to get off the freeway when I exited to get gas in Goodyear, and I didn’t see anyone tailing me to that gas station.”

Which seemed to put us back to square one…unless Chloe wasn’t telling us the entire truth. Or rather, while she thought she might have been paying strict attention to the road, I could see how she might have been distracted, worried about showing up on her long-lost sister’s doorstep, her mind somewhere other than the stretch of highway immediately surrounding her.

I wanted to accept that scenario, since otherwise, I couldn’t come up with a single plausible explanation for Jack Speros’s presence in Globe.

Clearly, the silence that followed her monologue didn’t sit well with her, because she sent me an imploring look and said, “I know he didn’t follow me!”

“And I believe you,” I said calmly.

One of Henry’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t bother to contradict me.

“Well, let’s leave that aside for now,” Calvin said, also in the kind of easygoing tones designed to lower the temperature in the room. “Did Jack have any enemies?”

I allowed myself the briefest glance in Chief Lewis’s direction. His lips might have tightened imperceptibly, but it didn’t seem as though he intended to tell Calvin to butt out. Right then, he was probably just glad to have someone talking to Chloe whom she seemed to trust.

Her brows lifted, not in confusion, but in something almost resembling scorn. “He was a college kid. What kind of enemies do you think he would have?”

She had a point there. Once again, I slipped a quick look from underneath my eyelashes to gauge Calvin’s reaction, but, like Henry, he’d adopted a general-purpose law enforcement stone face and wasn’t giving anything away right then.

“It depends,” Henry said, stepping in when he could tell my husband wasn’t going to respond right away. “Maybe he owed his drug dealer money. Maybe he was going after some other guy’s girl.”

Chloe’s slate-gray eyes flashed, stark against her pale face. “Jack didn’t do drugs.”

“That you know of.”

She made a disgusted noise. “We were together for two years. I would have known. He barely even drank.”

Her tone was so emphatic that even Henry seemed to think better of trying to contradict her. However, that contained reticence didn’t prevent him from saying, “But what about any romantic entanglements?”

Once again, her nostrils flared in annoyance, but she sounded measured enough as she said, “We broke up only a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t heard that he’d started seeing anyone else. In fact, he kept texting me and showing up at the house, trying to get back together with me. My dad finally had to tell him to get lost.”

Those words certainly didn’t paint a portrait of a man who was ready to move on…which again only made me circle back to why on earth anyone would have wanted Jack Speros dead, and who would have been willing to go to such lengths to make sure he was killed in the living room of the Airbnb where his ex-girlfriend was staying.

Henry clicked his pen and stuck it in the breast pocket of his sports jacket, followed by the yellow pad. “Well, I think that’s all we need for now, Ms. Fairfield. I’ll follow up with you if I have any more questions.”

Chloe blinked. “That’s it?”

“For now,” Henry repeated, apparently deciding to ignore the astonishment in her tone. “You’ve had a rough night, so I’ll leave you to go back to sleep.” His gaze slid toward Calvin. “Mind if I talk to you in private for a moment?”

“Not at all,” my husband replied.

A nod, and then the two of them headed outside, presumably to continue their conversation on the front porch. Chloe turned desolate eyes toward me.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

A good question. It didn’t seem right to leave her in a strange place after suffering such a shock, so I said, “Well, I think you should come and spend the night at the house with Calvin and me. I know we’d both feel safer having you there rather than here by yourself.”

If anything, she looked even paler than before. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” I told her, making sure I sounded firm and emphatic. “We have a guest room — it’s no imposition. After tonight — or whenever you feel up to it — you can decide what you want to do.” I paused there, then added, my tone a little softer, “But tomorrow morning you should really call your parents and let them know what’s going on.”

Her delicate jaw hardened. “They’re going to try to make me go back to California.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But as you’ve already pointed out, you’re an adult and can make your own decisions. Besides, Henry is probably going to want you to stick around in case he thinks of anything else he wants to ask you. All that aside, I just think it’s better if you get in touch with your parents. I mean, think what kind of a shock it would be if Henry called them out of the blue for more information.”

That argument seemed to have been the right one to deploy, because some of the fight went out of her eyes as my words appeared to sink in. “You’re right,” she murmured. “I’ll call them in the morning after…after I’ve had a chance to process all this.”

I reached over and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s a lot, I know,” I said. “And we’re all here for you. We’ll get through this together.”

From somewhere, she summoned a dreary little smile. “Thanks, Selena.” But then she shook her head, saying, “I’m sorry to drag you into all this when you’ve got much more important things to worry about.”

And her gaze strayed to my rounded belly.

“It’s fine,” I told her. “We’ll get this straightened out soon enough.”

Worried eyes met mine. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

I helped Chloe gather things for a stay of a few days at the house, and then Calvin drove us all home. The whole time, he was quiet, which let me know he had some things he wanted to discuss…but only once we were alone.

Which was fine — I got my sister settled in the guest room, and then, even though it was past one o’clock, I didn’t turn off the bedside lamp once my husband and I had settled ourselves in bed, but instead turned toward Calvin, gaze inquiring.

“Jack Speros was strangled,” he said without preamble. “The medical examiner will have the final word, of course, but it sounds like someone got him with a garrote.”

“Seriously?” I blurted. I could have understood being stabbed or even shot, but to be murdered with a weapon that sounded as if it was out of a spy novel…or maybe a Victorian melodrama?

A grim smile touched the corners of Calvin’s mouth. “That’s what Henry said. I didn’t have a chance to look at the body. But it explains why there wasn’t any blood on the living room rug.”

Right. It was a hand-hooked piece in shades of blue and green and yellow, echoing the colors in the rest of the room. Bright red bloodstains would have been immediately obvious against the close pile, and even though I knew we had much bigger problems to worry about right then, I couldn’t help being relieved on Hazel’s behalf that the thing wouldn’t have to be replaced.

Well, unless she decided it was better to get rid of the rug to eliminate any possibility of bad juju hanging around the cottage.

“Did Henry find the murder weapon?” I asked, and Calvin shook his head.

“No, his deputies searched the place, but they didn’t find anything incriminating. They even looked in the trash bins outside — nothing there, either.”

It made sense that there wouldn’t be anything in the city-provided garbage cans. Chloe had only moved in the day before, and I doubted she would have had enough time to generate the amount of trash that would have required being put outside in the large bins.

“So…now what?” I asked, and Calvin reached out and took my hand.

“We let Henry and his team do their work. In some situations, I’d say a lot hinged on what the medical examiner has to say, but because the cause of death was pretty clear and there weren’t any obvious signs of struggle, I don’t know whether he’s going to dig up all that much. Still, I suppose there’s a chance the murderer left a couple of hairs behind, or Jack Speros might have fought back enough to get some DNA evidence under his fingernails. About all we can do is wait and see.”

Waiting wasn’t something I tended to be very good at, but in this case, I could see why we didn’t have many other options. It sure seemed to me that whoever the murderer was, they’d gotten the drop on poor Jack, because it sounded as if he hadn’t made sufficient noise to wake up Chloe. I had no idea whether she was a sound sleeper, and yet you’d think if there had been any kind of a struggle, she would have heard something.

“Okay,” I said, and leaned over so I could press a kiss against my husband’s cheek. “Then we’ll wait.”

Chloe was understandably subdued the next morning, and I asked her if she wanted to stay at the house rather than go to the store.

“It’s a Wednesday, so I know things shouldn’t be too busy, even with the sale I’m running,” I told her. We were alone in the kitchen, since Calvin had to be at work at eight and had left more than a half-hour earlier.

But she shook her head, even as her hands tightened around the mug of coffee she held. “No, I think I’d go crazy if I had to be here by myself all day. At least at the shop, I have more things to distract me.”

That was about the same answer I would have given if I’d been in a similar situation, so I didn’t bother to argue with her. “I understand,” I said gently. “But if you change your mind, that’s okay, too.”

Her jaw set. “No, I won’t change my mind.”

So we had a light breakfast of toast and yogurt, and a while later, I drove her to Once in a Blue Moon. Her VW was still parked in the driveway of the Airbnb, and I wondered if she should bring it to my store sometime today, just so she wouldn’t have to rely on me to ferry her around. When I brought up the topic as she was unlocking the door to the shop, she nodded.

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said. “I don’t want you to think you have to be my chauffeur or anything.”

“Well, I don’t mind,” I replied. “But this way you can come and go on your own without having to rely on me, especially since I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon that I can’t miss.”

“Then maybe I should get the car now?” she suggested after sending a quick glance toward the street outside. As I’d expected, it was very quiet in Globe’s downtown that particular Wednesday morning, and I knew this was probably the best time for her to run her errand.

“Go ahead,” I told her. “I doubt I’ll have anyone beating down the door here, and it should only take about fifteen minutes to walk to the Airbnb and then drive back.”

She flashed me a quick smile, one that seemed to let me know she was beginning to bounce back from the trauma of the night before. Not that she was over Jack’s death, but only that she could begin to see her way through the tragedy.

Only a few minutes after she’d left to fetch her car, Josie came bustling in, face full of questions.

Clearly, the Globe grapevine hadn’t failed her.

“Is it true that your sister’s boyfriend was murdered in Hazel’s Airbnb?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected her, but Josie, as usual, brushed that fine detail aside.

“Still,” she said. “How terrible!”

“It is,” I agreed. “I asked Chloe if she wanted to stay home today, but she was adamant about coming into work. I suppose she just wanted something to distract her.”

Josie’s expression turned solicitous. “I can understand that. What an awful shock, even if they weren’t together anymore. Does Henry have any leads?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “But you know he doesn’t share all the details of his investigations with me.”

“Well, he should,” Josie returned, now looking indignant on my behalf. “After all, you have a much better track record at solving murders than he does.”

I smothered a smile and did my best to look suitably serious. “Calvin says we have to wait and see what the medical examiner has to say.”

As I’d hoped, that comment neatly deflected Josie from any ruminations on Henry Lewis’s and my relative competence at solving murders. “Why, was it poison?”

“No, Jack Speros was strangled,” I replied. “But there could still be some physical evidence that wasn’t immediately apparent at the crime scene.”

Josie gave a serious nod. “I can see that. But where is Chloe? You said she came in to work today, but I don’t see her.”

“She went to get her car from Hazel’s Airbnb. It’s not a long walk, and at least this way she’ll have her own wheels just in case, even though she’s staying with Calvin and me for a couple of days until the shock begins to wear off.”

That last comment made Josie take in my oversized belly, and she nodded again. “Yes, this isn’t a time when you’d want someone dependent on you to drive them around. Of all the terrible timing!”

I agreed mentally that the situation wasn’t what you could call optimal, but at the same time, I wanted to do my best to gloss things over so Josie wouldn’t think matters were any more dire than they already were.

“We’ll get past it,” I said lightly. “I think the most important thing is to just keep on keeping on, and hope that Henry can get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later.”

“I suppose so,” Josie said, although I could tell from the dubious note in her voice that she wasn’t very confident in our police chief’s ability to track down the murderer.

Well, I had to admit I wasn’t exactly sanguine, either, but since it seemed clear that he didn’t suspect Chloe of the crime, it appeared the best thing to do was wait all this out.

“Anyhow,” Josie went on briskly, “I just wanted to check to see how you were doing. I have a zoning meeting I need to get to. Just drop me a note if you need anything.”

I assured her I would, and she headed out, moving briskly past the shop’s picture window in the direction of City Hall. Once she was out of eyeshot, though, I allowed myself a sigh. While there was no need for me to get involved in this whole mess…well, other than providing Chloe all the support and reassurance she required…I also wasn’t sure whether Henry was going to make much headway with this one. How could he, when it seemed as if there was absolutely no evidence pointing toward the killer?

Because my sister came into the shop only a moment or two after Josie had departed, I did my best to keep any doubts I harbored from revealing themselves in my expression. Instead, I asked her how everything went, and she just shrugged.

“It was fine. Actually, it felt good to walk. And now the car’s parked out back, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.” She paused there and sent me an inquiring glance. “Are you sure you’re okay with me staying at your place? Because I really can go back to the Airbnb — I’ll just burn some sage and light some white candles to cleanse the place, maybe do a salt ritual.”

That was pretty much the same thing I would have done in her situation, even though I hadn’t detected any trace of Jack Speros’s spirit lingering in the space. Some people might have thought that was all a bunch of woo-woo. However, because I’d interacted with several spirits after their murders, I knew I was fully capable of performing such a feat…as long as the spirits in question were ready to talk.

But it felt to me as though Jack’s soul was long gone, and it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to banish any negative energies that might want to hang around the Airbnb. Even if it wasn’t haunted, it could still use a decent cleansing.

“Let’s see how you feel about everything tomorrow,” I said. “Right now, I still think it’s better if you’re with family.”

Chloe’s face brightened at my comment, telling me she was happy to hear that I already considered her to be part of my family even if we’d never met before this week. “Sounds like a plan.”

She’d barely finished speaking before Henry entered the store, looking grim. Dispensing with any greetings, he looked over at Chloe and said, “Why’d you move your car?”

Her eyes widened a little at his brusque tone. “Selena and I thought it would be better for me to have the car on hand while I was staying at her house. Is there a problem?”

The tight set of his jaw didn’t change. “There shouldn’t be…as long as you’re okay with me checking the trunk.”

A nervous glance in my direction, and I gave my sister a very small nod. While I supposed we could have protested and asked for a warrant, I didn’t see the point in making trouble. Most likely, Henry had decided an inspection of Chloe’s car was necessary, even though he could have had his deputies handle that task the night before.

Maybe he’d spent all morning stewing over the complete lack of evidence in the case and had realized the one place he hadn’t looked was inside her vehicle.

“It’s out back,” she said. “Let me show you.”

And while I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether I should leave the front of the shop unattended, I decided it was better to be with Chloe right now. If someone wanted to waltz in and help themselves to a couple of Tarot decks or a few pocket crystals, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.

Instead, I followed the police chief and my younger sister out to the parking lot at the rear of the building. I didn’t see Victoria’s red Mercedes SUV and recalled that she’d told me she’d be in Phoenix for most of the day, visiting suppliers and collecting samples from some tile and stone showrooms.

But there was Chloe’s dark gray VW Beetle, now starting to get dusty after sitting outside for the past couple of nights, and a few spaces away was my Jeep Renegade.

Henry didn’t spare a glance for the Renegade and instead went straight for the VW.

“Unlock it, please,” he said.

She pulled the fob out of her jean jacket pocket — I guessed she had stowed it there after she dropped the car off back here — and touched the button to click the lock. Henry stepped forward, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and then opened the door and stuck his head inside.

Once again, Chloe sent me a questioning look, but all I could do was shrug and hope she knew the best thing to do was stand back and let Henry continue with his inspection.

Luckily, it was a pleasant day, the sun out but definitely not hot, the breeze cool without being uncomfortable. Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t have minded standing out there while he worked, but after a couple of minutes, my feet started to remind me that I was supposed to be sitting down as much as possible these days, not hanging around in a parking lot while the local police chief conducted what I knew was an entirely futile investigation.

After looking through the glove compartment and under the front and back seats, he backed his way out of the car, eyes narrowed in annoyance. However, his voice sounded even enough as he said, “Pop the trunk.”

Once again, Chloe clicked the key fob, and the trunk unlatched and opened a few inches. Henry made his way over there and began rummaging around…and then went very still. Mouth tightening, he reached into the trunk and pulled out a thin piece of wire with a wooden handle dangling at each end.

“Want to tell me what this is?”