Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

G ot a brick wall we can run into? Because I think we’ve run out of ’em here…

On our way back to the apartments where Owen lived, to see if we could drum up someone—anyone—who had some information the police might have missed, Marty insisted we touch base with what we had so far.

Which was kind of like a pile of hot, steaming shit, but I indulged them anyway.

“So let’s go over everything we have to date,” Marty encouraged.

I groaned from the backseat. It had only been two days, but it felt like two years. Or was it three? I’d lost track. “How the fuck can we do that without your whiteboard and sticky notes?”

She popped open her iPad and held it up, a picture of the whiteboard appearing. “Like this!” Pointing to a sticky note that read “possible murder weapon,” she said, “Now, here’s what we have so far. The electrical cord the police found at Brenda’s house. We don’t have confirmation that it’s the murder weapon yet, but why else would there be a cord hidden in her house, that Darnell heard the police say belonged to the lamp, if it wasn’t?”

Wanda nodded, tapping her gloved hands on the steering wheel. “Then there’s the fingernail Nina found. I haven’t heard back from Mara about DNA yet, but we can’t find any other explanation for it being at Owen’s. If they couldn’t get DNA from it, we’re all the better, but along with the cord, if they did find a nail, and she’s got a zillion pictures of herself on her human Facebook page with those dang things on her fingers, it’ll help prove their case against her, I’d guess.”

Jamming my hands into my hoodie, I nodded. “But we think it was planted there, just like the cord at Brenda’s. Not that it’ll matter if we can’t find out if she’s being framed by someone. But framed is still the working theory, right?”

“Yep. Then we have the doorbell video of her leaving Owen’s apartment right around the time of his death. I mean, obviously she says it wasn’t her, but she doesn’t have an alibi for the night he was killed. So who was it if it wasn’t her?”

“That video…” I murmured. “I know that shit kinda damns her, but I still don’t believe it was Brenda. It sits wrong with me.”

“It sits wrong with all of us, Nina,” Wanda reminded me.

“Then there’s the picture of Winston, Brenda’s long-lost love.” Marty turned and looked at me from the passenger seat. “Did you have any success finding anything on this guy?”

“Not a fucking thing,” I replied. “But I did find that ball Brenda was talking about. Someone documented it, and it did happen, though, they don’t say it was vampires who instigated the carnage. Over a hundred and fifty people were wiped out, including her brother and his wife. No lies detected there. But I was hoping to find somethin’ on this dude Winston so maybe we could at least tell Brenda what happened to him, so she finds some peace—closure. But I can’t find a damn thing.”

Marty tapped the iPad, sliding her fingers over the screen. “So a no-go on Winston. But he’s the least of our problems. If we’re to believe Brenda, she knew nothing about the photo anyway. What we need to worry about is, who put his picture under the mantel and what this witch magic is about.”

“We can’t just go around asking people in the apartment complex if they’ve seen a fucking witch, Marty, but what else explains the sparkles Lacy talked about and the glow around that picture? Maybe whoever this person is put a spell on the picture?”

“Put a spell on it,” Wanda murmured softly. “On a picture of Brenda’s lover…”

That made me sit up straight and grip the seat under me. “Remember we talked about grudges? Maybe this is a grudge? And it has to do with Winston? But Brenda didn’t mention anything…”

“Well, she forgot to mention Owen looked like the guy she was once bananapants over, too, but there we were, in her house with the furniture barreling down on us like an NFL team. We need to talk to Robbie and see if she can help. I texted her to see if she could add anything to this sparkly picture phenomenon, but I haven’t heard back yet,” Wanda said.

I nodded. “But if Brenda didn’t know about any grudge, she couldn’t tell us about it. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here.”

“I’ll text Arch and have him ask her if there was ever any jealous rivalry over the stable boy, how’s that?” Marty offered.

Wanda pulled into the apartment complex and began to drive around, looking for a parking spot. We pulled in under a carport just beneath Owen’s section of the apartments.

“So what’s the plan? Are we just gonna skulk around with our ears to fucking doors, or are we knockin’ on ’em again?”

Wanda’s finger whipped up as she scrolled her phone. “Hold that thought. I just got a text from Arch with a link to a news report. Derek, according to a source at the police department, wasn’t even in Long Island when Owen was killed. He was in the Bahamas…”

Wanda pressed play on her phone so we could listen to the news, my stomach sinking with every word. According to the report, Derek was questioned extensively and released due to a solid alibi. Astrid must have told them about him, and the argument he’d had with Owen.

“Damn it all!” I barked from the backseat. “He was pretty much all we had in the way of suspects, for fuck’s sake!”

Wanda and Marty both blew out breaths of air, fogging up the windshield. “It isn’t over yet, Nina. Maybe they did as poor a job questioning Derek as they did when they tore up Owen’s apartment. Maybe there’s something they missed just the way they missed that fingernail behind his nightstand.”

“Maybe, or maybe he was in the fucking Bahamas, Wanda, living it up with the money he ripped off from Owen,” I spat.

Marty held up her hands—her universal sign for peace. “Let’s not give up the ship yet. Who knows what we might find here. We never got much further than Sonja before we had to run away so Nina wouldn’t get caught by the detective because she went rogue on us.”

Flicking my fingers in her face, I groused, “Piss off, Marty. I went rogue and found a clue, which was more than you two found with your lip gloss and eyeshadow, thank you very much.”

“You sure did. A clue that strengthens the case against Brenda, Columbo,” Marty taunted me, craning her neck and sticking her face in mine.

I hated when she did that.

“Marty, I swear on all that’s fake blonde, I’m gonna kick your werewolf ass?—”

The sharp slap of Wanda’s hand against the steering wheel made us both jerk our eyes in her direction. “Enough! The two of you are like toddlers. Stop arguing and behave like adults. We have a murder to solve and a woman who’s going to end up exterminated by the clan because you two can’t get a grip on yourselves. Do you have any idea how awful an extermination is? Just ask Heath or Arch. Now get it together, apologize to one another, and join me when you’re done”

She popped open the door, leaving both of us in the car, simmering.

I rolled my eyes while Marty sat with her arms crossed over her chest, lips thinned.

“Okay, fine, I’m sorry.”

Marty flapped her hand upward. “Oh, you are not, you beast.”

Wanda rapped on the window with her knuckles, her stern teacher’s frown in place.

I leaned forward and planted a kiss on Marty’s smooth cheek. “I am, too,” I said with a teasing grin.

Marty sighed nice and loud, so I was sure to hear she was being forced to apologize and didn’t like it. “Whatever. I’m sorry, too. Now let’s go.” She pushed open the door, letting the falling snow drift into the car and hit me in the face.

I hopped out, too, but without nearly as much hope as I’d had before we found out stupid Derek had an alibi.

“There’s nothing like a big fat nothing burger to fuckin’ fill you up, huh?” I asked Marty and Wanda as we moved silently back down the stairs of the apartment building like we were casin’ the joint.

Night had crept in as we snuck along the balconies of people’s apartments, listening at their doors, running and hiding in the shadows when someone came up the stairs.

The bruised purple sky had gone an inky black. The snow had stopped, leaving a fresh dusting over the cars in the parking lot.

Wanda tucked her red nose into the fur around the collar of her jacket. “And it’s getting cold. I guess we can call this a wash. We need to get back and talk to Brenda—see if maybe there was someone else in the mix of her relationship with Winston. There has to be something we’re missing or something she hasn’t told us.”

Marty cocked her head. “Maybe she doesn’t remember? I mean, it was a pretty long time ago, Wanda. Like, over a hundred years.”

“Bullshit. She sure remembered who he was and that he was the love of her life. I’m pretty sure she’d remember if someone else was involved, Blondie.”

Wanda nodded as we walked toward the car. “Nina has a point, Marty. It’s a pretty big thing to forget.”

The disappointment we were all feeling was real, evidenced by the silent walk back to the car.

Just as we were about to get into the SUV, I heard, “If it isn’t the makeup ladies! Hey, how are ya?”

Crap. I fought a groan. Sonja. I’d know that husky-rough smoker’s voice anywhere.

We all turned to wave to her as she chucked a cigarette on the ground, which sizzled as it hit the fresh snow, her hand hooked around an older guy’s arm.

“Hi, Sonja!” Marty gushed with a wave as she approached us, her over-processed hair glowing in the night. “Who do we have here?”

She winked a saucy wink, tightening her grip. “My hot date for the night. His name’s Calvin.”

The guy who’d all but spit at us when we’d knocked on his door the other day, right before we knocked on Sonja’s. Interesting.

“Ladies,” he said with a nod, the snow sticking to his thick, bushy beard. “Sorry ’bout the other day. Didn’t mean to slam the door in your faces.”

Wanda gave him a smile that never reached her eyes. “Apology accepted.”

Marty grinned at him before she asked Sonja, “How’s the new skincare routine going?”

She smiled, revealing yellowing teeth, pressing the backs of her hands under her chin and batting her eyelashes. “You tell me.”

Wanda squeezed her arm and smiled warmly. “You look beautiful, Sonja, but you were always beautiful.” Her phone beeped a text, making her pull it from her jacket pocket to hold it up. “Excuse me, would you?”

As Wanda drifted off, Sonja held up her grocery bags in the hand that wasn’t latched to her lumberjack. “I gotta go, too. We’re makin’ dinner, but it was good seein’ ya. I hope you made some more sales today. I told everyone about you girls. Even that horrible Coraline Brown. Out of all of us old biddies here, she’s the one who could use it the most.”

I snickered. You gotta love the neighborhood gossip. Rocking back on my heels, I waved to her. “Bye, Sonja. Good seeing you again.”

As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, Marty whispered, “She’s going to kill herself with those cigarettes. She must’ve smoked half a pack in the forty minutes or so we were there the other day.”

Wanda trudged back toward us, her expression distressed.

“What’s up?” I asked, concerned.

“Arch just texted to let me know that Brenda’s gone.”

I tugged my knit hat down to keep the wind that had suddenly whipped up from pulling it from my head. “Gone? Where the hell did she go?”

Wanda bit her bottom lip, her eyes wide. “Arch said she left a note that said she didn’t want to cause us any grief with the clan.”

I blinked as the snow started up again, lashing at my face. “Where the hell could she go with two dogs and an iguana?” It was cold out. Doug was gonna freeze to death.

Wanda shook her head. “That’s the thing. She didn’t take Doug and the dogs…”

We didn’t say another word, but we sure as fuck dove into the car. I’d barely shut the door before Wanda was backing out and hightailing it back to the castle.

Brenda loved her pets. They were all she had. I had a hard time believing she’d take off and leave them behind.

Something smelled here, and it wasn’t just Sonja’s cigarettes.