Can't Keep a Brunette Down (2 page)

"9-1-1. What's your emergency?" a woman asked.

Gilda spoke in a loud whisper, praying the killer was already long gone. "Somebody stabbed Walter. I think he's dead."

The woman sucked in a sharp breath but remained professional, as though she'd received this type of call a thousand times before. "What is your name and location, ma'am?"

"Marion," Gilda said. "It's me, Gilda. I'm at the karate school."

"Gilda? Sorry, but you sound weird." Tapping sounded through the phone. "What did you say is wrong?"

Gilda peered over the counter and peeked through the open dojo door to make sure she hadn't imagined things. Nope. Walter still lay on the mats with the sword firmly in place, the black foam blocker next to him making his salt-and-pepper hair seem even whiter than usual. She shuddered. "One of the black belts, Walter Levy. It looks like somebody killed him."

"Oh no," Marion said. "Are you sure he's dead?"

"He has a sword through his chest. How long before the police arrive?"

"The police?" Marion sounded bewildered for a moment then became all business again. "Stay on the line. I'll get them out there right away. You didn't touch anything, did you?"

"No, but—"

"Did you notice any signs of a break in?"

The door had been unlocked. She swallowed hard. "No, but—"

"Is there anyone else in the building with you?"

Her heart stuttered. "I don't think so. Nobody answered when I yelled, and none of the other instructors come in for at least another hour. I have to call Mick before he leaves town." She winced. That sounded wrong, but at least Marion already knew what she meant.

"Just stay put, and stay on the line. The police are on the way." She paused. "Do you want me to get Mick on the line?"

Mick. Crap. She needed to call him right away.

"No, I'll call him right now before he gets too far out of town. Just make sure the police are here soon."

"Gilda! Stay on the line." Marion shrieked then took a loud breath. "You need to keep talking to me, okay?"

"I'll call you right back. I promise." Gilda sighed, pressed the
end
button on the phone, and steeled herself for another look at the corpse. Body. Body somehow seemed less final. Less dead. Bodies could still be alive.

Gaze still on Walter, Gilda dialed a familiar number and coiled a strand of her light-brown hair around her right index finger. "Mick? We have a problem. I need you to come back here." She took a deep breath and fought to keep her voice even. "Now."

Noise outside the school made it hard to hear his words. "Can't. On the road—"

Her breath caught in the back of her throat and came out a strangled gasp. "I don't care where you're going. Not everything's always about you. Get back to the school now, and bring help with you." Her voice echoed through the empty karate school. "Walter Levy is dead."

More noise as the front door opened, then the second door, before footsteps neared her desk.

"Gilda? You in here? Don't move until we do a sweep," Thayer said.

She muttered then disconnected and wiped away a tear. Since her father had been an officer for nearly thirty years, she knew the police would ask if she'd noticed signs of a break-in or had seen an intruder. She called Marion back. "Police are here, and Mick's on his way. Everything's good."

"Yeah. Everything but a dead body and a killer out there somewhere." She snorted.

Once Thayer gave the "all clear" and a couple of forensics people came in, Gilda stood in the middle of the ten-by-ten-foot lobby. Nothing except dirt, probably tracked in from last night's students, and a trace of mud from this morning's rain shower that anybody could have tracked in before the adult day class. Possible evidence. Her breath stuck in her throat.

Thayer, every bit as handsome as he had been ten years ago in high school when they first met as seniors, waved her back inside and told her to sit and wait. "The ME and forensics are on their way. You're not leaving until we have a chat."

Reluctantly, she flared her nostrils and turned around. She preferred to be interrogated by Attila the Hun over the ex-boyfriend who'd repeatedly cheated on her.

"Sorry for your loss." Detective Fabio, his partner, patted her shoulder and handed her a wrapped mint. "How you doing, kid?"

"A bit shaken."

"That's normal. Eat the candy. You'll probably start to go into shock soon." Fabio shot Mick a glare.

Fabio resembled a stone gargoyle much more than the hunk on the cover of a book. He was bald and had cauliflower ears, bulging eyes, and a tree-stump neck. When he walked away toward the crime scene, his limp was more pronounced than usual as he took charge inside the dojo and the changing rooms.

In the doorway of the dojo, Gilda spied a spot of blood. Actually, two spots. One little girl had a nosebleed in class last night. Did she stand in that doorway, or had she gone through the student entrance in back? This door was for the instructors and, in an official capacity only, her. When she came to train, she used the student entrance near the changing rooms. When she needed to interrupt classes, she used the instructor entrance.

"What the hell's going on?" Mick shouted to signal his arrival. "I was already past the woods near Ponderer's Point when you called. What's so bloody important it can't wait until after the long weekend?"

She scurried back to the front, careful not to contaminate anything, and lunged in front of him before he entered the training hall. "You can't go in there."

"Of course I can. It's my dojo." He scowled and swiped a stray dark curl off his forehead. "What are the cops doing here? Someone giving you problems again?"

"I told you." When her voice cracked, she cleared her throat. "Walter's dead. The dojo is a crime scene, and you can't go inside."

Mick flinched, and his face paled. "That's not possible. I just saw him an hour ago." He paused and stared. "Are you sure?"

She hadn't checked for a pulse but figured, from the sword in his chest, death was a safe assumption. "Pretty sure."

"You really need me to go inside."

"No, you might contaminate something."

Six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, Mick sighed then picked her up and set her aside like she was little more than a foam blocker. He stepped inside the doorway and paused in  midbow.

Walter hadn't moved. Blood seeped from around the sword and reddened his white karate uniform—his expensive, custom tailored
gi
. Urine and feces perfumed the air, making her gag. Bruises she hadn't noticed earlier darkened his face.

Thayer walked toward them, arms wide. "Maybe you two should step into Mick's office while we take care of things."

"That's probably a good idea." She touched Mick's arm, more to support her spaghetti knees than to comfort him. "Are you okay?"

He hadn't moved either. Still standing in midbow, he cleared his throat and coughed. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly. "Does anybody else know?"

"Marion. She was the 9-1-1 operator."

He snorted and ran a tanned hand through his hair. "Great. I hope she remembered to call the sorry excuse we have for police before she told everyone else in town. Did you touch anything?"

"No." She swallowed hard to keep from melting down. The few bites of waffle she'd eaten earlier churned in her stomach.

Mick turned to face her, his jaw tight. "Did you search the building?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"Yeah, sort of?" He gripped her shoulders and pulled her closer. "Gilda, if someone was still in the building, you could've been killed. Don't you get that?"

"I called the police first." She tried to back away.

His fingers dug into her arms. "The killer could've heard you."

She winced. Her main concern had been for Walter, not her safety. "I'm pretty sure no one else was here."

"Pretty sure? That's not the same as a hundred percent sure, is it? Don't do that to me again. I can't afford to…" He released his grasp on her without finishing his sentence and bowed his head, running a hand through his hair. "I'll be in my office. Let me know when the cops get here."

"You can't leave me alone with—" When his door closed, she blew out a sigh. "I guess you can. After all that, why didn't
he
bother taking a look around?" That thought stopped her cold. Had he fought with and murdered Walter before leaving for Detroit? It wasn't possible. A guilty man would have kept driving and never looked back. That the two of them fought seemed likely, since they always fought. Usually about the way Walter taught classes and wanted a share of the school.

She paced the lobby while hugging her stomach. Mick seemed more worked up about her safety than Walter's. When her heart fluttered, she sucked in a deep breath. He was in shock. That's all. His reaction didn't mean anything more than that.

Already sidetracked, she took another deep breath and followed Fabio to the back hallway. Someone had used the sink, which was speckled with water. A wet piece of paper towel, tinged with diluted blood, lay on the floor. Farther down the hall, freckles of blood decorated the white tile. She hated the starkness of the white. It was a bear to keep clean but showed blood droplets beautifully. Like morbid modern art.

Gilda swallowed hard to keep from gagging.

She crept past the washrooms, past the blood spots, and into the changing area. Curtains from the stalls lay on the floor, torn off the rods that dangled from the doorways. Blood splattered the walls, the floors, the benches…everything. Only a brawl could cause that much damage. Was there a fight after the lunch-hour class?

Gilda frowned. Something else seemed out of place. Something missing that she couldn't put her finger on. She returned to her desk, grabbed her purse, and inched toward the door with hopes of escaping.

"I hope you're not thinking of leaving just yet." Thayer leaned on her desk then made a quick phone call before his gaze met hers. "I need the names of all your instructors, staff, and students."

"It might take a while. This computer's not much faster than an abacus." She stared at the computer screen, unable to remember any of her passwords. Her hands shook and her mouth was as dry as sunbaked earth. Shock had set in. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.

"I'll go through it and clean it off next weekend," Mick said from his office. Of course, Mick had said the same thing every two weeks for the past couple years.

"Take your time." Thayer seemed to ignore Mick. He pulled out a notebook and flashed Gilda a smile.

It miffed her he'd kept his quarterback body in impeccable shape, while she'd turned to chocolate chunk cookies and caramel swirl ice cream.

"Marion said you're the one who found the body. Is that right, Gilda?" Thayer asked.

"I found Walter. Yeah." She cleared her throat again, wishing she could curl up in a corner under a fluffy blanket and cry. "I came in to work and saw him lying there with the…" She choked back a sob.

"Did you touch him? Maybe check him for vital signs or anything that might contaminate the body?"

"No." She closed her eyes and turned away. "He looked pretty dead from here."

Thayer snorted. "Are you an expert on dead bodies?"

"Oh come on—give the lady a break." Mick emerged from his office and groaned. "She said she didn't touch anything, so cut her some slack."

"You back off. I asked her a question."

"I've only seen them on television." After today, Gilda vowed, she'd never watch another crime show again. Suddenly her cushy chair was more uncomfortable than ever before. "It's not exactly an experience I want to repeat."

"Did you happen to check to see if anyone else was here before you called for help?" Thayer asked.

"No," she said, although the thought had sort of crossed her mind. "I yelled, but no one answered or moved. Then I saw Walter and panicked."

"You weren't worried about your own safety? Seems to me that's the first thing an innocent person would think about." Even after breaking up two years ago, he was as arrogant as she remembered, still assured she would take him back once she came to her senses. After two minutes of interrogation, she already wanted to poke him in the eye.

"Are you implying Gilda killed Walter?" Mick's mouth dropped open. "Are you crazy? She won't even kill a spider, and she
hates
spiders."

"I work with a bunch of black belts, and the door was open when I got here. Walter normally locks it when he trains after class so no one disturbs him. Since it was open, I knew Sensei Mick had come in to grab a couple files." She shrugged. "I guessed he'd just forgotten to lock it on his way out."

Thayer raised one eyebrow. "Mick was here?"

"Earlier. Like Gilda said, I popped in to pick up a couple things while Walter taught class." Mick folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight. "Then I went home to pack and left for Detroit. Gilda called me when she found Walter."

"How far away were you?" Thayer turned to Mick.

"Just past Ponderer's Point."

"That's not very far. What were you doing between class and packing?" Thayer grimaced.

"I caught up on some paperwork then left to shower and grab my stuff for the drive to Detroit for the weekend," Mick said. "Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah." Thayer puffed up like an angry rooster. "Did anybody see you?"

"You're wasting my time. I have things to do." Mick grunted and returned to his office.

"Don't leave town." Thayer turned his focus back on Gilda and scowled. "He really doesn't like me, does he? Did Mick or anyone else here have a grudge against Walter?"

She hesitated. Not normally. Lately, however, things hadn't run as smoothly as usual, but there were no large issues that came to mind. Besides, Gilda Wright wasn't one to gossip. "Nothing serious. No."

Thayer nodded, but his eyes narrowed as he lowered his voice. "If it makes it any easier, I've heard rumors from a few parents. I know there's some division between the instructors about how to run this place. There's been talk around town of a couple of them leaving to start their own schools."