Spawn With the Wind, page 3
part #5 of Matchmaker Marriage Mysteries Series
Annie Benoit’s house was one of those big houses. Victorian, and even bigger than Gladie’s house, which was her grandmother Zelda’s house. But Gladie’s was blue, and this house was white with red trim. It had a large turret, and I looked up to see a man looking down at me.
It wasn’t one of the officers, so it had to be one of the inhabitants. That made me clench my jaw and curse the police force. It had gotten a lot better than when I first arrived, but it was still rough around the edges. Cannes’ officers weren’t used to a lot of crime, so they were on the casual side of life. That was fine in most cases, but not in a murder case. A murder case during a burglary.
I took a deep breath on the sidewalk and looked up and down the street. It was a beautiful street. Calm. Peaceful. There had been a spate of burglaries happening lately, and it was probably the first spate of burglaries in the history of this Western town. It was a shame that folks had to be fearful in their own homes, and now one burglary had escalated to murder.
That just wasn’t cool.
Usually, Gladie liked to take murder mysteries and run with them. It was kind of her thing, like crack or Cheetos for other people. But she was out of commission for the moment, so it was the least I could do to help solve it for her. Maybe then she could relax and feel better.
Officer James met me at the front door, and he took down my name before I entered the house. I put on booties and gloves and brought my forensic kit into the living room. I stepped back a moment when I saw her. The deceased was lying in an unnatural pose on the floor between the couch and the recliner.
Officer James came up behind me. “The call came in an hour ago. The son found her after he came back from a funeral.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said. The other burglaries happened during funerals, too.
I kneeled down on the carpeted floor and inspected the victim. She was in her seventies. Her hair was done with a lot of hairspray, and she had a thick coat of makeup on her face that had smeared during the attack. There was some makeup on the carpet by her head. I took photos. Annie Benoit was well-dressed, wearing shoes that folks don’t normally wear in the house. Nice kind of shoes.
I whistled in appreciation. “Look at those rocks,” I said. Officer James leaned over me to see the deceased’s jewelry more closely.
“That diamond must have put her husband back a pretty penny,” he said.
“Where is the husband?”
“Ex-husband. They’ve been divorced for more than ten years. The son lives here, though. He’s some kind of businessman.”
That must have been the guy I had seen staring down at me from the turret. Normally, I would think it was odd for a grown man to live with his elderly parent, but that was becoming more and more common these days for financial reasons. One of these houses in the Historic District was worth about the same as a house in Beverly Hills. I also had to take into account the deceased’s age. Maybe the son had returned home to take care of her. As a detective, I had to consider every possibility, but I couldn’t make any snap judgments. That was way above my pay grade.
I bagged her hands to preserve any evidence she might have under her fingernails. I kept her honkin’ ring on her finger and smiled to myself. I had recently bought a honkin’ ring, although not quite as honkin’ as this one.
My phone rang. I stood and took off my gloves. Secret Girlfriend was on the screen. That made me smile bigger. Jesse wasn’t just a secret girlfriend. She was the one.
“Hey, babe,” I answered.
“Hi,” she said and giggled a little.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a marathon of the original Star Trek at the Ken Theater in San Diego on Friday night.”
“Oh, we’re so going, babe. My Worf costume is almost done.”
“My Deanna Troi is ready to go.”
I took a deep, satisfying breath. The marathon would be the perfect place to propose to her. I had the ring in my pocket, and right after Trouble with Tribbles, I would kneel down in the theater aisle and pop the question. It would be totally romantic.
Jesse and I met at Comic Con last summer. In a sea of over one hundred thousand people, we knocked into each other right in front of the Star Wars display. I’m six-foot-six, and she’s a foot shorter than I am, but somehow, we met eye to eye, and in that moment, I was hit with a million-watt lightning bolt out of nowhere, and I was in love.
Jesse has big brown eyes that twinkle when she smiles. And she smiles a lot. Every time she sees me, she smiles, and her smiles never waver. When I first met her, she was dressed as Princess Leia in a white dress and braids around her ears. I was dressed as Thor with no shirt. It just worked. We were like peas in a pod. Meant to be.
Yep, I was definitely going to need to get a bigger apartment. I couldn’t wait to set up house with the love of my life.
We hung up our phones, and I put fresh gloves on. After finishing up with the forensics on the victim, I took pictures of the house and did a short tour before dusting for prints. The house was furnished with expensive furniture. But everything was worn. It was a first-glance place: At first glance, it looked rich and clean, but with a little more inspection, it was clear that the house had seen better days. At one point, a lot of money had been put into the place, but that was a long time ago.
Maybe the money dried up with the divorce, I thought, and noted my thoughts down.
“It looks like he got in through the kitchen,” Officer James told me. I followed him into there. The screen of the sliding glass door had been cut away.
“Odd,” I said and noted that down, too. “I’m going to take a look upstairs.”
It was a huge house with multitudes of rooms and hallways, sort of like a puzzle or maze. It was nice, but it wasn’t my kind of place. I liked living in an apartment on Main Street. I liked waking up, going out for a run, and then picking up coffee and donuts on my way home, especially if Jesse was waiting for me in my bed, and I was bringing the coffee and donuts for her, too.
I took photos of three bedrooms before I finally found the master bedroom on the top floor. It had a king-sized bed with a huge padded headboard. The carpet was thick and red, and so was the bedspread. The bedroom looked like it came out of a movie from the seventies.
There was no television in the room, but there was a lot of furniture here, too. A large window gave a view of the street and under it was a sofa, which was flanked on either side by two large armchairs. There was a coffee table, too, with nothing on it. Across from the bed was a huge dresser, and that’s where I decided to put my focus. Opening the drawers, I found a lot of underwear and nightgowns, all very Old School. The flowy kinds of nightgowns. Again, it was like something out of a seventies’ movie.
Nothing very interesting in the drawers for a burglar or a detective, but I took photos of everything. I like to overwork a crime scene. You never know what we can use later. Something may seem like nothing at first glance, but later, those photos may highlight a world of hurt for the criminal.
The top of the dresser had interested the burglar the most. That was where he had spent most of his time. Annie Benoit had six jewelry boxes, a couple that were small, but the rest were the kinds with multiple drawers and doors. There was enough space for a lot of jewelry. I guessed it was seventy years’ worth of jewelry. But now the boxes were all turned over, ransacked, and completely empty. I would have to focus my fingerprint dusting here after I finished with the photos.
Turning around, I walked across the room to the bathroom. It was one of those open kinds of bathrooms. There was a short hallway of built-in closets, and then the bathroom was open without a door. It was definitely not a Victorian floor plan. Annie and her husband must have redone the house when they moved in.
The plush red carpet went into the bathroom, right up to the bathtub and toilet. There was a faint smell of mildew there, covered over by a lot of perfume. The rest looked normal to me, like a regular set-up for an old lady who was extra careful about her looks. Lots of makeup, creams, and hair stuff. The usual.
Most of the cabinets had been opened, but it didn’t look ransacked. I guessed the burglar guessed the same thing I did. The money was in the jewelry, and there was no reason to hunt around in a woman’s bathroom.
There was a sound behind me, and I turned to see a man in his early forties. He was wearing an expensive black suit. One hand was lodged in a pocket, and the other hand hung low by his side. His shoes were polished to a shine, and his hair had recently been cut. He didn’t smile at me, but he didn’t scowl, either.
He was easy. Non-threatening.
I didn’t like him.
First of all, he shouldn’t be there. It was a crime scene. Second of all, he gave off a stink, like he couldn’t wait to sell the house, now that his mother was gone. But that was just me. I jumped to conclusions. That’s why I took a lot of notes. Rely on the facts and not preconceptions, I reminded myself.
Or I could do what Gladie would do. She would question the shit out of the son and find out everything about the deceased. Then, she would butt into everyone’s lives and wreak havoc on the town. I chuckled to myself. Gladie gave a strong injection of life into Cannes. It would be boring without her. I hoped she got back to herself quickly. I hoped her blind day was really only one day long.
“You’re the detective?” the son asked.
“Detective Cumberbatch. You are?”
“John Benoit Junior.” He put his hand out, but I didn’t shake it because I was gloved and holding the forensics kit.
“I’m sorry for your loss. You’re not supposed to be in the house until we finish. You feel me?” I admit it. My voice came out about an octave deeper than normal, and I sounded mean. I looked mean, too. As an MMA fighter, I had very little fat and a whole lot of muscle mass. Junior was short, more than a foot shorter than I was. But I had to hand it to him: he didn’t flinch. He didn’t take a step back. It must have been the suit. A nice suit gave a man confidence. My boss Chief Bolton always dressed sharp and he was packed with confidence. I never wore suits. I didn’t need to wear suits.
“I’m her son,” he said. “I want to know what happened here.”
I sighed. All right. If the man wanted to talk, who was I to tell him no? I put my forensic kit down on the carpet and pulled out my notebook and pencil. “Don’t touch a thing,” I ordered, pointing the pencil at him. “As far as we can tell, your mother was attacked and killed during a burglary. There has been a spate of burglaries in the area. Can you tell me about your whereabouts today?”
“I thought it was a burglary,” Junior said. “All of her jewelry is gone.”
“So, you weren’t here at the time?” It was another form of the same question. Why didn’t folks just answer straight out? Why did it always require a few questions to get one simple answer?”
“No, I was at a funeral. My father was there, too. My mother was supposed to show up, but she didn’t. I just figured she got a phone call or something and changed her mind.”
I noted every word, got the times from him, and his contact information, as well as his father’s contact information. I told him he had to leave the premises until we were finished and removed his mother. Then and only then could he come back. He asked how she died, and I told him it was an ongoing investigation, even though I knew she had been strangled.
My phone rang just as I was finishing the reports at police headquarters. Secret Girlfriend, the phone screen announced. I looked around to make sure I was alone and out of earshot, and I answered.
“Hey, babe,” I said and felt my body whir into action. Jesse had that effect on me. I was in a constant state of arousal, but more than that, she made me giddy. It was all I could do to not giggle like a girl. I couldn’t believe I found her. She was my unicorn. She was sexy and sweet and had gone to every Comic-Con for the past ten years. She was definitely my soulmate.
“Hi, Remy. I just wanted to hear your voice. It’s my lunch break.”
“I’m glad you called me. I wanted to hear your voice, too.” The ring box in my pocket was burning a hole through to my leg. I was dying to give it to Jesse. Dying for her to say yes and to be her husband for the rest of my life. “I’m just finishing up here, and then I’m going for a sparring session. You want to see me after?”
“I always want to see you. What are you finishing up? I heard there was another burglary.”
“And someone died this time. We’re running the files of all the known burglars in the area, but there aren’t any known burglars in this area.”
“I know you’ll solve it. You’re amazing. Should I double lock my door tonight? Sleep with a baseball bat?”
“Babe. You’re going to sleep with me tonight. I’ll be over right after training. I’ll be your baseball bat.”
Chapter 4
Meryl the Librarian
I unlocked the door to the library two hours before we were set to open. I loved to come to work early and have the library all to myself. It was so nice and quiet—just like it was supposed to be. Back in the olden days before technology took over, it was always like this: peaceful and serene.
I stood in the center of the reading room and breathed in the scent of the books. I never got tired of it. There was something about books—old and new—that was intoxicating. I didn’t know why more people didn’t come into the library every day, just to sniff the books.
Damned Netflix. Damned video games. Damned cellphones. They were all turning readers into non-readers. Our whole town was going to grow tumors on their thumbs from texting and Instant Messaging and whatever else they did on their phones. And they would probably grow a giant eye in the middle of their forehead because they had so much screen time binge-watching garbage on Netflix instead of enlarging their minds with a good book.
Thinking of a third eye, my mind went to Gladie. Poor Gladie. It was her first blind day, and I could only imagine how upsetting it was for her. I’m a little younger than Zelda, so I wasn’t there for her first blind day, but as her best friend, I had been with her for a lot of them during her life. They were all terrible, really traumatic for Zelda. They hit her hard, like an emotional trauma, but also a physical ailment. It was like she woke up in the morning and all her limbs were gone.
I shuddered. The thought reminded me that the horror section needed some cleaning up. I turned on the lights and headed to the stacks. What a mess. The Stephen Kings were mixed up with the Dean Koontzs. What was the world coming to?
My name’s Meryl, and I’m the head librarian of Cannes’ only library. The library had been operational since the gold rush days, and there was no way I was going to let it close or devolve into something other than a library under my watch, which was always a threat in these days of video games and cellphones and social media.
I cleaned up the stacks, lickity split, and then I turned my attention to the main desk. As I organized the mini-pencils, separating the ones that needed to be sharpened, I tried to come up with a plan to help Gladie. I believed Zelda that Gladie needed Annie’s murder to be solved in order for her to feel right.
Ever since Gladie had moved into town, she had been a murder magnet. She had tripped over more bodies than a soldier in World War One. She butted her nose into everyone’s business until she figured out who murdered whom and why. She couldn’t help herself. It was like a compulsion with her. Like the people with the cleaning sickness who keep washing their hands. Gladie was just like them, except instead of washing her hands twenty times a day, she hunted down killers. It was an odd hobby.
Sharpening the pencils, I tried to think like Gladie to come up with the leads to Annie’s murder, but I couldn’t think like Gladie. Her brain worked differently than others, especially mine. I led an ordered life; Gladie seemed to fall into her life. She fell into matchmaking. Then, she fell into solving mysteries. Then, she fell into Spencer. Then, she fell into wedding planning. Then, she fell into her life.
I never fell. Not once. I had planned out my life the first time I visited a library. I was about five years old. I remember how it grabbed my attention the moment I entered. It was quiet, unlike my house, which, as the youngest of eleven children, was always a raucous affair. The library was the opposite. It was quiet and calm. Well-ordered. Everything was in its place, and everywhere were little portals into new worlds that I could visit but keep my feet safely planted on the ground.
That day, an old, blue-haired librarian approached me and showed me the picture books section. She invited me to sit on a chair that was just the right size for me, and the next thing I knew, I was entering the world of Goldilocks and The Little Mermaid.
By the time the Little Mermaid had two legs, I decided on my life: One day, I would be the head librarian of that library, and I would have blue hair. Every step I took after that day was taken with the presence of forethought. What did people call that these days? Oh, yes. Mindfulness.
I was the Dalai Lama of mindfulness. I came to the library every day when I was little. I became a volunteer when I was a teenager, and I worked part-time here in college, where I studied library science. I first dyed my hair blue when I was nineteen, and it had been blue ever since to remind me of that first blue-haired librarian who had inducted me into the library.
Dropping the little pencils into a cup by the computers, I took another deep breath, inhaling the calming odors of the books. I was right where I was supposed to be.
So, I couldn’t think like Gladie. She would never be happy as a librarian, and we were nothing alike. But I had to help her, so in this instance, I would have to think like another detective, someone more like me. I walked over to the mystery stacks and took out a Sherlock Holmes and a Hercule Poirot. I had a few moments before the library opened, just enough time to scan the books for an idea on how to solve Annie Benoit’s murder.
