Beaglemania (24 page)

I also started a separate new file for last night’s incident. I tried to analyze what had happened—and what the perpetrator’s motive could be.

My initial guess? I must have spoken with whoever it was since Efram’s murder—a thought that both made me shudder and cheer inside. All I had to do was figure out who it was—out of my ample list of suspects.

That person might now believe that I knew he or she was the killer and that it was just a matter of time until I proved it.

As a result, that person tried to thwart me by harming me in multiple ways.

First, potentially hurting one of my pet charges at my sanctuary. Which especially riled me.

Second, hurting me. I could live with that . . . as long as it eventually led to answers.

Third, setting things up to appear as if I had created the whole scenario myself, as if in an attempt to get the cops to focus their suspicions on someone other than me—and also making it look as if I’d botched it. That would only make the cops more certain I’d murdered Efram.

The whole thing made me furious. Sure, it was complicated—which made it all the more likely that the cops would buy into the ludicrous plot and continue to suspect me. How else could last night’s fiasco have happened, especially with our security company on high alert? Once more, I’d been the only one around that they knew of, thanks to their ineptitude. Except, maybe, for Matt.

A knock sounded on my door. Before I could drag my eyes from my computer screen and respond, Nina popped in.

“Hi, Lauren,” she said. “How are you doing today?”

I took a deep, calming breath before responding. No need to confront Nina with my anger . . . or concern. “I’m okay. My leg’s healing well—hardly hurts at all. So—how are you doing?” Like, why did you come in so late this morning?

I didn’t ask, though. She was probably exhausted, too, after last night.

When I glanced her way, Nina looked as miserable as if she was one of the dogs sometimes brought in off the street: abused-looking and forlorn. The ones we particularly hated to turn over to a city shelter in compliance with the terms of our operating permit. Dogs like the one Efram had claimed to own . . .

“Everything okay?” I repeated.

“Sure.” She lifted the edges of her lips as if she were a marionette with a sad clown’s face, being controlled by a puppeteer. “What are you up to?” She walked in and looked over my shoulder at the computer.

I didn’t try to minimize the screen. She was a lot more tech-proficient than me. Maybe she could help. “I’m working on my plans to figure out what happened to Efram,” I told her. “What happened here last night has to be connected. I’m trying to analyze everything I can about all possible suspects. If you have any other ideas, let me know.”

I prepared to show her exactly what I’d done so far, when I heard a strange noise, like a sob. Facing Nina once more, I saw how distorted her face had become. She was crying.

“What’s wrong, Nina?” I stood and took her arm, leading her gently toward one of the chairs facing me.

“You . . . you need to add me to your list,” she gasped out.

I stopped, staring at her. “What do you mean?”

She sat and looked at her hands in her lap, obviously avoiding my gaze. “I was late today because that detective who’s questioned you—Garciana?” I nodded but she couldn’t have seen me with her head bowed. “He was asking me questions again about Efram and you and—”

“He’s still questioning you about whether I killed Efram?” I felt as horrified as if he was badgering my kids about whether they thought I could murder someone I loathed. Nina wasn’t my child, but she was my subordinate here, which had its similarities.

“Well, yes. But it was more than that.” She looked up at me with flooded waiflike eyes. “They really suspect both of us, Lauren.”

Not just me, then. “Why do they suspect you?” I asked softly.

“Efram . . . I didn’t tell you, but he threatened me after the puppy mill rescue.” Her voice was a quiet siren’s wail of a moan.

“Why?”

“Because I’d told you about it and you were there, and you said you’d have Dante DeFrancisco stop paying Efram for his work here at HotRescues. I was scared. The first threats . . . well, they were anonymous and general, and I thought they were from my ex . . .”

Her abusive ex-husband. No wonder she was a cauldron of emotions now. I didn’t recall her being particularly emotional between the time of the puppy mill incident and Efram’s death. Even so . . . “But it wasn’t him, it was Efram. How did you find out?”

“They were e-mails from an address I didn’t recognize. I think Efram knew about my past. Maybe someone here had mentioned it when he was around. I don’t know. But he was playing games with me at first. After sending a couple, he called me. Said it was him, and wasn’t this a fun game? I hung up on him. But then he called back and said if I didn’t listen, if I didn’t fix things with you and with Dante, he’d do even worse things to me than my ex did. I was considering whether I should call the cops, or at least tell you . . . and then Efram was found here dead. I felt so strangely happy that someone so evil had died. I also felt scared. His death was mysterious, and I was afraid I’d become a suspect. But . . . but if I’d spoken up earlier, maybe no one would be suspecting you.” She broke into sobs again.

Interesting. But even if she hadn’t told the entire truth before, I still couldn’t bring myself to start pointing fingers at her as being my number-one suspect in Efram’s death . . . yet.

“Nina?” She looked at me again, her pallor even whiter than I’d ever seen it before. “Two questions.”

She didn’t react.

“Did you kill Efram?”

“No,” she rasped.

“Did you set Honey and me up last night?”

“No!”

I stood and approached her. She cringed, as if she thought the next abusive person in her life would be me. Which made me want to cry, too.

Instead, I knelt, put an arm around her. “Okay, then. You didn’t do either. I didn’t do either. I still have work to do to figure this out. We’ll help each other. All right?”

“Lauren, you’re the greatest.” She turned and hugged me tightly.

When she left my office a little while later, I knew she wouldn’t think I was so great if she knew what I was doing.

I’d considered it before, but now I did it: I created a page on her in my list of possible murder suspects.

It almost seemed preordained—synchronicity or whatever—that Matt called while I was putting the finishing touches on the notes in my file on him. Of course he had said that we’d talk today, after he drove me to HotRescues last night. Why not now?

Last night. That kiss . . .

So what?

“Are we on tomorrow for your visit here to see the animals rescued from the puppy mill?” he asked.

“I’d love to,” I said, meaning it. We set up a time, and I smiled at my phone as I hung up.

Then I frowned at my computer screen. All of what I was sticking there was interesting, but would it really help me zero in on Efram’s killer? I wasn’t a detective. I knew nothing about investigations except what I saw on TV cop shows, and, as I’d considered before recently, I knew from everything I’d read that they were all about drama and nothing about reality.

I needed information. Guidance.

Even if I didn’t explain why I needed it.

I lifted the phone once more, took a card out of my top drawer—one I’d stuffed in there, never intending to look at it again—and called Detective Stefan Garciana.

Detective Garciana worked out of the LAPD’s Devonshire Division. I arrived at the Devonshire Community Police Station, a low brick and concrete building on Etiwanda Avenue, at exactly the time he’d agreed to see me, three that afternoon.

I was shown by a woman in uniform—probably a rookie, judging by her apparent age—into a room no larger than a closet, with nearly all its space occupied by a large table. Used to seeing interrogation rooms on TV shows, I looked around. Sure enough, there was a camera. Would I be recorded? Probably, but I didn’t intend to say anything incriminating. I was there to learn all I could.

Detective Garciana entered a minute later, wearing—of course—a suit. A dark one. He looked even more rested than the last time I’d seen him. Maybe more intimidating, too.

But I wasn’t intimidated easily. Although I might allow him to think so, if it made it easier to get what I wanted from him.

“So,” he said, “did you come here to confess, Ms. Vancouver?” His Hispanic features seemed more pronounced than I’d seen before, here under the artificial bright lights. His eyes glowed, too, as if in anticipation. Or glee. If he really thought I’d ventured here to confess to something—Efram’s murder or feigning the situation with Honey at HotRescues last night, or both—he’d undoubtedly feel pretty cocky, as if he had won a game that had been in play for over a week now.

“Actually, no,” I replied. “I’m here for advice. Research, really. One of my kids is doing a paper at college on law enforcement and asked me to do some research at the LAPD.” I’d considered how to approach this and decided that some semiwhite lies were in order. Garciana would certainly not be pleased to tell me how I could do his job since he obviously wasn’t doing it right.

“Do you always do your kids’ work?” His tone was dry, and the pleasantness had all but disappeared from his expression.

“Only when it sounds interesting to me. What I’d like to find out is the kinds of things you look for during a background check on a suspect. Also, which of those things are the red flags that make you believe you’ve found the perpetrator.”

“Those are pretty broad questions.” He’d been leaning toward me over the table, but now he moved back and crossed his arms—his body language pronouncing his lack of enthusiasm over how this conversation was going. Maybe because he wasn’t controlling it . . . or me.

“I know. But my child will really appreciate any input you can give me.” I shifted in my seat, too—not because I was uncomfortable with our discussion, but because my injured leg hurt.

“Your child . . . or you? Are you trying to figure out what makes me so sure you’re a primary suspect in the Efram Kiley murder? I’ll bet your lawyer wouldn’t be happy to learn you’re here. You shouldn’t feel happy to be here, either.”

“I’m not. But I’m looking for information anyway. So . . . what makes you decide someone’s a viable suspect?” A lot of possibilities came to my mind. Would he confirm them?

For example, opportunity had to be high on his list. Efram Kiley died at HotRescues, and I happened to be there that night. I figured that’s why he’d zeroed in on me. That, plus I’d been arguing with Efram—motive.

I wasn’t going to voice my thoughts aloud, though. I wanted the detective to tell me what was on his mind—hopefully, beyond the obvious.

“You know, I took time from a busy afternoon to talk with you. I’d hoped we’d make some progress in the Efram Kiley situation, if not the incident in which you were hurt last night. You don’t strike me as stupid, Ms. Vancouver. I think you know why you’re an obvious suspect. The basics of police investigation—motive, means, and opportunity? You could learn them all on the Internet or TV. In both of these matters, you had them all.” His voice grew louder and more irate the more he talked. Obviously, he was practicing those intimidation techniques of his on me, just as I wanted to use him to practice my inquisition skills.

Neither of us was getting anywhere.

Then he finally said something helpful. “You want to know how I conduct an investigation? Very methodically. By the book.” He leaned closer again. “I also think a lot about it
not
by the book. My SOP isn’t exactly like the standard operating procedures of my fellow detectives.”

“What do you mean?” I suddenly felt as confused as if he’d sent me home with a free pass, deleting me from the suspect list.

“I like to think way outside the box. Even as I’m focusing on the most probable suspects, I also spend time doing the same analysis of the least likely. Just in case, I spend nearly as much time and energy looking into their backgrounds, their MM and O, and anything else I think could be helpful in each case.”

“Really? That’s fascinating,” I said, meaning it. I jotted notes on a memo pad I’d brought along, ostensibly for my kid working on a paper. This was something I could use in my own computer files on everyone I suspected.

“But you know what?” I had a feeling Garciana was about to burst the little balloon of possibilities he’d just inflated in my mind. “That’s all just an exercise to keep my mind open as long as it needs to be. Because . . .”

He paused dramatically. I was fairly sure I knew what came next.

“Because?” I prompted anyway, waiting for the theoretical knife stab that might feel nearly as bad as the real thing.

“Because reality is almost never like the garbage you see on TV or read in books, where the cop, or viewer, or reader, doesn’t really know till the end who did it. Reality is that the person most likely to have done it, judging by their motive, means, opportunity, and attitude, is the actual culprit.”