Deadly Fall (7 page)

“What about breathing?”

“No, I hung up fast. Why would the killer phone me?”

“We don't know that's who it was.”

Sweat beads flecked his beard stubble, despite the cool air flowing into the house. She stepped back to let him into the entranceway.

“Your number was the last one Callie phoned,” he said. “Someone likely pressed redial as a joke.”

“Twice? At sixteen-hour intervals?”

“Did you hear any background sounds? Music? Mumbled voices? Think carefully.”

She twisted the belt around her fingers. “I'm sure there was nothing. Why would the murderer joke around with the phone?”

“Why not? The calls would be traced to Callie's cell, not to the person who placed them.”

“You could trace them to a cell phone tower.”

“That didn't tell us enough.”

“Did he do it to scare me? Was it a threat?”

He pulled his tie, as though he found it choking his neck. “Callie may have, inadvertently, placed you in a difficult position. Several people we spoke with had the impression you were her main confidante. It appears she exaggerated the level of your recent friendship.”

“To whom? Sam? He called me her best friend.”

“She told someone she was having lunch with you this week.”

“We didn't because I didn't return her call.”

“Who's to know you didn't?”

Now, would he want her alibi for every noon hour this week?

“We don't think Callie was worried about being murdered,” he said. “But supposing the two of you had met and Callie had said ‘so-and-so's doing this or saying that or otherwise causing me grief.'”

“I would have given her advice, as best I could.”

“And if she hadn't taken it, or did take it and was killed?”

“I would have told you about it yesterday, when you questioned me.”

“You might have withheld information to spare her embarrassment.”

“I didn't.” Her voice cracked. She glared up at him. “Are you accusing me again?”

“What if it was subtle?” he said. “Suppose, last week or last month or last year Callie said something, a throw-away remark, that seems trivial, even to us, but with new facts could turn out to be significant. People often know more than they think.”

“I don't know anything. I've been racking my brain over this for two nights.”

“The bad guy doesn't know that,” he said. “For all anyone knows, she told you, her close friend, the one piece of information that would break open the case. Someone out there may be worried you know too much.”

“The person who phoned me?”

“One call could have been someone pressing the redial button by accident or to see whose name comes up. A second call sends a message. That's why I advise you to be on guard.”

She leaned against the console table, rubbing her throat.

“Let us know instantly about any behavior that strikes you as strange: if someone you hardly know probes you with questions or rings your doorbell or meets you by accident on the river pathway, which I would advise you to stay away from, at all times of the day.”

“Yesterday, you thought I'd killed her. Now, you suggest I may be the next victim?”

“I wouldn't jump to conclusions,” he said. “It's a matter of taking care. Your office is in a seedy neighborhood. Don't go there alone. Don't go at all after dark. Don't walk around this neighborhood at night. Continue to park on the street, not in your lane, so you come in by the front of the house.”

Vincelli bent over to study her doorknob. He gave it a hard turn.

She shivered under her robe. “Are you purposely trying to scare me?”

“This lock looks solid. I'll check the kitchen door, too. Do you have bars on your basement windows?”

“No.”

“You should install them. Everyone should. It's common sense.”

“I haven't had time. I've just moved in. I didn't expect . . .”

He took several short breaths. “I didn't mean to alarm you.” His face relaxed; his voice turned soothing, like a doctor reassuring a patient. “It's wise to be prudent, but you probably aren't in immediate danger.”

“Probably?” she said.

“Not yet.”

In her dark
living room, Paula snuggled against Hayden on the sofa. He flicked off the
DVD
.

“I'm not sure I bought that ending,” he said. “Did you?”

She had lost the plot midway, not being able to focus more than a few minutes. “The movie was meant to be light.”

He had chosen the romantic comedy, to take her mind off the murder.

“Even light could use a little meat,” he said.

“I forgot to tell you Leah invited us for lunch tomorrow.”

“What horrible vegetarian concoction are they planning this time?”

“She wants me to help her install a closet organizer.”

“She and Jarrett can't handle that?”

“Jarrett pick up a hammer and nail?”

“True.”

“Besides, as Leah says, organizing's my thing.” She cocked her head at him.

He seized the opportunity for a kiss. His mouth tasted of buttery popcorn and the garlic sausage they'd had for supper.

“You don't have to go to Leah's,” she said.

“I swear, when this trial is done, you come first.” He ran his hands down her back. “Can you get time off this November?”

“Why?”

“What would you say to a week in the Caribbean?”

This would be their first trip together. She closed her eyes and pictured turquoise waves on a crescent beach. Palm trees. The water lapping white sand. Waves unearthing a body on the beach. Callie's body on the Elbow River Trail. Isabelle's hand grazing Sam's bare arm. Detective Vincelli's deep voice:
You probably aren't in immediate danger; not yet.

Hayden raised her T-shirt above her head.
Focus. Forget the rest, for a moment. One moment.
She unbuttoned Hayden's shirt. Was Isabelle doing this to Sam at the moment, in Callie's house?
Focus. Focus.
She kissed Hayden's hairy chest. Did Sam's chest feel like this? Different? From the cling of Sam's polo shirt, his chest looked firmer than Hayden's. Sam's hand through the flowers had felt warm, warm from the shower, and moist. Hayden's were dry. His breathing grew heavy, garlicky hot. This was not going to work, not for her, tonight. She pressed her lips into his.
Fake it.

Sunday, after breakfast,
Hayden left for the office. Paula paid an impromptu visit to the liability claimant who still hadn't returned her calls. His house was a two-story split, with side-facing garage. His front door was open, with the screen door letting in air.

As she rang the bell, a man appeared. “I thought I heard someone.”

She introduced herself.

“Oh yeah, I was meaning to call.” He pushed past her, onto the driveway, and pointed up to the garage roof. “There's where my neighbor fell from.” He led her around the garage to the grassy side.

The garage roof was one-story, with long eaves. If the neighbor had landed with a lucky roll, he might have escaped with a few bruises, as opposed to the concussion and broken arm. Paula asked the homeowner what happened.

“I got my neighbor to help me put up Christmas lights,” he said.

“In September?”

“This is Calgary. You take your good weather when you can.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I laid a string of lights on the garage roof, by the eaves, and asked him to come over and help me string the higher up ones.”

“Can you show me where?”

He trotted to the driveway and pointed to the Christmas lights hooked to the eaves overhanging the second story. “I asked him to bring me the hammer and forgot to tell him about the string in the way.”

“Shouldn't he have noticed it?”

“I'm the one who put it there. He was doing me a favor. It was getting dark.”

“What do you mean by dark? Was this after dinner?”

“That's when he was available.”

They went inside so she could take a written statement. The man's wife hovered nearby, offering coffee and cookies, which Paula refused so she wouldn't spoil her lunch at Leah's. The wife hadn't witnessed the incident; nor had anyone else, to the couples' knowledge. The husband had driven their injured neighbor to emergency.

“I feel so guilty,” the wife kept saying. “I hate them going on the roof.”

“Do they do it often?” Paula asked.

The husband shot his wife a glance. She pursed her lips.

“How often?”

“We went up the once to hang up lights.”

His wife nodded in agreement.

The injured man lived directly across the street. His wife answered Paula's ring and directed her to the backyard. The man reclined in a lounge chair reading a book, his right arm in a cast. He held a beer in his left hand. His torso looked stiff. Bruised ribs. He told Paula to pull up a chair and offered her a beer.

“No thanks.” She took out her notebook and asked for his version of the incident.

“We were putting up Christmas lights . . .” His statement matched his friend's almost word for word. He told her his work in graphic design was largely done by computer and raised his right arm. “Can't type. My thinking feels off, too.”

“In what way?”

“Hard to explain. It's like the lines don't link. I'm seeing my doctor about it this week.”

“Ask him to fill out a medical report. We'll reimburse you the cost.” Paula handed him her business card.

She knocked on their adjacent neighbors' doors. No one who was in had witnessed the fall. A man had heard about it, but couldn't add anything. A woman had once seen the injured man carry a case of beer to the homeowner's house. Paula asked if she'd known the pair to go up regularly to the roof.

“Why would they do that?”

“For the view?” Paula suggested.

“The back looks out to a nature park.”

Paula returned to the two-story split. Above the dining room the roof sloped back steeply enough that two men could perch up there without being viewed from the street. An odd activity, but it might be relaxing if you didn't mind heights. Had they been drinking, possibly horsing around, and of them slipped? It would be hard to prove.

“I called Skye
yesterday,” Leah said. “I got her number from her father. He sounded awful.”

“In what way?” Paula held up the closet rod. Poor Kenneth. He and Callie had been together for thirty-one years. He had adored her, hadn't wanted her to leave.

From behind, Paula heard the panting of Leah's boyfriend, Jarrett, who was in the corner lifting weights.

“The rod needs to be higher, for my full-length dress,” Leah said.

Leah was a few inches taller than Paula. Allowing enough space for shoes on the floor, they marked the spot on the wall. Paula screwed in the rod holder, wishing she had space for a convenience like this. Even with paring down, her clothes barely squeezed into her closet. Leah would have shelves for folded items and bars of varying heights.

“It took Skye's dad ages to figure out who I was,” Leah said. “At the end, he seemed to forget again.”

“I told Leah he might be senile,” Jarrett said from across the room.

Paula wiped sweat from her forehead. The open window let in more noise than air. Rock music blasted from someone's radio. A car in dire need of a new muffler roared down the lane. The apartment building owner was wasting money heating the place during this mild spell.

Kenneth, Callie's ex-husband, wasn't senile. He was distracted and he had to be the most controlled person Paula knew. She suggested they put up the rods for Leah's shirts and pants next.

“We want the shelves in the middle,” Leah said. “Jarrett and I will share the shirt and pants rods. We like our clothes mingling together.”

Paula suppressed an eye-roll. “Won't that make it hard to find your own things? Why waste time looking through each other's—”

Leah's chin jutted out. Paula picked up a shelf. She shouldn't be telling her grown-up daughter how to organize her life.

She was surprised that Kenneth hadn't returned her condolence phone message, but she would see him tomorrow.

“Did you decide if you're going to the funeral?” Paula said.

“I don't know,” Leah said. “I'm not sure Skye's handling this well.”

“When you talked to her on the phone—”

“She sounded fine,” Leah said. “Chatted away about other things—her acting, her friends. I think it's denial.”

“Who can deal with a mother's murder? Even you would grieve a little if your mother was shot.” She tapped her daughter's arm.

Leah smiled at the grim joke. “Skye's not the most honest person with herself.”

“It always amazes me how self-deceptive people can be.” Jarrett raised the barbell above his head.

Paula bit her lip to refrain from pointing out that Jarrett could lift thirty pound weights despite a shoulder injury that allegedly prevented him from installing closet organizers and working at his tile-laying job. Every time she saw him, she felt like reporting him to his disability insurer.

“Any more news about the murder?” Jarrett said. “Aside from what's in the papers, I mean. Any inside scoop?”

She had purposely avoided the subject at lunch, enjoying the eggplant casserole and Leah's and Jarrett's patter about their young lives. It had been a wonderful break.

Jarrett raised the barbell again; sweat matted his underarm hair. “Everyone thinks it's suspicious Callie's husband didn't know she went jogging every morning. I say he was treating her with respect, letting her do her own thing.”

If anyone other than Jarrett were saying this, Paula might agree.

“Leah walks to work at worse hours than that,” Jarrett said. “I don't insist on going with her.”