Dirty Little Murder (9 page)

He held his hand up to his ear like a phone and whispered, “
Call me
.”

Jane nodded and then jerked her head in a way she hoped said “just go!”

Jake tipped back his telephone fingers like he was having a drink.
“You and me, yeah?
”
His whisper was getting louder.

She nodded again.

He tipped an invisible hat.

She kept her eye on him as he sauntered back to his little restaurant. Kaitlyn frowned at Jane. “I thought you were in love with Isaac Daniels.” Her voice was half accusatory, half concerned.

Jane took a deep breath. Kaitlyn didn’t know everything Jake had gone through, or how much he had needed her last spring. “Jake has nothing to do with Isaac.” From behind her, she thought she heard Valerie snort again.

“I’ll see you both on Friday, at Scotty’s.” Jane left the food court like she was racing the Mommy Bootcamp ladies. She booked it to her car, arriving out of breath with a burning sensation close to her heart, that she hoped was related to the run she had just had.

She had been dating Isaac exclusively for almost a year. Some
Bible
School
students were married well before their first year anniversary. She caught herself. She wasn’t a sheltered
Bible
School
student anymore. And neither were Isaac or Jake.

Jane sat in her car without starting the engine. Isaac had been gone for three weeks and instead of feeling like they were growing closer through his missionary activities, he was beginning to feel like a stranger.

Jake, on the other hand… she hadn’t laid eyes on him once in the last year. But after seeing him only two times, he was proving to be as much a trial as ever.

The next morning
, Jane was less than inclined to go to the Swanson house. Her
4:30
alarm went off, and she really wished she had just said no. Wasn’t that a thing these days? Knowing your limits was a virtue, wasn’t it? “If a man punches you in the jaw, ‘turn the other cheek’ so he can punch that side, too.” Jane pressed her face into her pillow, trying to muffle the memory of her old youth pastor’s favorite paraphrase.

She lifted her head and glared at the clock. It was
4:40
. She still had to get up, but now she had to rush, too.

Jane groped her way to her bathroom. Her roommate wasn’t criminal, like last time, but she wasn’t tidy either. And she was family. Jane couldn’t easily unload her cousin Gemma for being a pig, or for being late on the rent. Plus, the apartment was Gemma’s, so she’d have to accept her living conditions.

Jane kicked a pile of clothes out of her way. She stared at her face in the mirror. Tired, tired, tired. She had a feeling other girls her age looked bad in the morning because they had been out late having fun, not because they were up early to scrub toilets.

Cleaning clean toilets at that. She didn’t need to understand her job to do it, but Caramel could have gotten the same job done by putting her lights on a timer.

Jane spit her toothpaste in the sink. What she needed was an interesting job to do while she opened the Swanson house every morning. For example… Jane rinsed her toothbrush and tried to dismiss the idea that was beginning to form. For example (the thought wouldn’t be ignored), she could find out what exactly had happened to
Douglas
.

Jane threw on some clothes and went outside. She could have breakfast after she opened up the house for Caramel. And anyway—she knew what had happened to
Douglas
. He had drowned.

But how?

Maybe—she bartered with herself—maybe she could find out who the woman in the pictures with
Douglas
had been. If it really was the ex Mrs. Mayor Douglas Swanson, a quick Internet search would show as much.

And it might help her find out how or why
Douglas
had died.

Why had he died? As Jane drove to the house, she tried to remember as much as she could about
Douglas
. Former Mayor of
Gresham
,
Oregon
. Republican. Married twice. Acquainted with Isaac’s parents. But how? The Daniels weren’t very social people. Church and work was about all she ever heard from Isaac. And Mrs. Daniels (that’s what she liked to be called) was one of the church secretaries, so she probably hadn’t met
Douglas
at work.

Jane pulled around to the back of the Swanson house. She had only ever met
Douglas
once. She guessed he was about sixty. He had silver hair and a tan. He kept horses on his property and he had a couple of vintage cars.

None of this seemed related to drowning in a hot tub in the middle of the morning.

Jane let herself into the house and began opening it up. She started by making coffee. Then she pulled open the curtains. The rooms flooded with bright, cheerful, summer morning sunlight, just like last time. The perfect
Oregon
summers she loved so much were not the perfect background for murder mystery solving. Spring rains with their heavy black clouds and soaking, nonstop showers would have set the right mood.

She might not have the right mood-setting weather, but she did have a body. A man of about sixty, who looked to be in good shape, not overweight, not under.

His wife didn’t trust him. And he was willing to hop in the hot tub first thing in the morning. Schmoozy old men in hot tubs… cocaine sprung to mind. An overdose, maybe? Jane ran the vacuum over the rugs. Pity the Swansons didn’t have a kid they could send to get the autopsy report for her.

Jane stopped mid-pass with the vacuum and closed her eyes. She pictured the scene of the death. Were there any signs of drug use in the room—beyond the weird black light and fully stocked party bar? She had barely done anything in the room. She was just going in and was headed to test the water… She gagged a little as the image of
Douglas
’s dead body filled her mind.

What about that fully stocked bar? Had alcohol played a part in his death? She couldn’t remember seeing any cups on the marble steps that surrounded the tub. No tumblers or wine glasses. Not even coffee mugs. Surely no one else had cleaned up the drinks but left
Douglas
in the water… Or had they? If he had been alive when they left the tub, they might have cleared up for him.

Jane finished the floors and moved on to her bathroom cleaning. Today, she’d start in the basement and take a peek in the hot tub room while she was in the vicinity. Maybe seeing it again would trigger a memory.

It would be her second trip back to the room since she found the body, but that didn’t seem to make the trip easier. Jane finished cleaning the unused and hardly even dusty bathroom, and stood outside the door to the room where
Douglas
had died.

She had to push the door open if she wanted to see the room again. But did she really want to? A herd of question marks thundered across her brain. She had to see that room again.

She popped the door open fast so she couldn’t change her mind.

The black light was the only one on in the room and the white stripes of the zebra rug, the white veins of the black marble steps, and the bleached streaks in Caramel’s hair glowed.

Caramel sat slumped in the hot tub, her head lolled to the side and her mouth gaping. Her arms stretched across the back of the hot tub seat, holding her body up.

Jane ran to her. She grabbed her wrist and pressed it, searching for a pulse. “Caramel? Caramel?” She was loud, but not screaming, surprised at her own lack of panic.

There it was, faint but real: a live pulse.

Jane dipped her hand in the water and splashed Caramel’s face lightly.

Caramel flinched.

“Caramel?” Jane said again.

Caramel blinked her eyes open. “Mmm.” She made a sound half way between a hum and clearing her throat.

“Caramel? Are you all right?”

Caramel wiped the water off her face. “I must have fallen asleep.” She stretched her arms and looked around her. She locked eyes on Jane. “The maid?”

“I saw you in here, and I admit, it scared me.” Jane rocked back on her heels.

“What are you doing in here?”

Jane lowered her eyes and noticed for the first time that Caramel wasn’t wearing a bathing suit. “I’m so sorry. Let me get you a towel.”

“Don’t bother.” Caramel stood up.

Jane averted her eyes almost in time. But not quite.

Caramel apparently used the hot tub and the tanning bed without her swimsuit on.

Jane kept her eyes glued to her feet, expecting to be reamed out for straying from her instructions.

Instead, Caramel padded down the marble steps, leaving behind a trail of wet foot prints.

“We liked to sit in the tub together after… in the morning. Douglas and I.” Caramel paused at the door. “I miss him so much.”

Jane managed to nod her head without looking up.

“Is there any coffee yet?” Caramel asked.

“Yes.” Jane couldn’t manage anything else.

Caramel left without another word. Her feet made soft but echoey noises as she went up the staircase. When the noise ended, Jane wished she had remembered to tell Caramel that she had already opened all of the curtains.

Jane wrapped her arms around her stomach and squeezed tight in a vain effort to suppress the nervous laughter that welled up inside. Was it hysteria or relief? Jane wasn’t sure, but she had to pull herself together. Her very naked boss was upstairs having coffee, and Jane still had four bathrooms to clean.

Jane took the stairs two at a time. No use trying to hide from her work (or her boss). It was better to just get the rest of it over with as fast as she could.

She ducked around the kitchen—sneaky avoidance being an instinct after all—and hit the hall half-bath. She did the other two guest bathrooms in record time, too, but no matter how fast she finished those, she still had to contend with the master bath. But she would face it like a professional adult—with her eyes closed if she had to.

She rapped the master bedroom door with her knuckles. There was no reply so she pushed it open. “Caramel?” She attempted to sound relaxed and normal, but her nerves made her voice crack. Still no reply, so she made her way to the en suite. The door stood open. The room was empty.

A giddy wave of relief washed over Jane. Finding both the bedroom and bathroom empty was a bit of luck she hadn’t counted on having. Just from her own sense of gratitude, she gave the bathroom an extra close clean.

Jane straightened the hundreds of make-up bottles and compacts and the mountain of hair stuff piled on Caramel’s side of the vanity. Even the mirror was filthy on one side. The other side—
Douglas
’s—was spotless.

In fact, there wasn’t an old razor or bottle of aftershave to be seen. Nothing on the counter proved there had ever been a man in the bathroom. And it wasn’t that
Douglas
had kept his stuff in some other bathroom. Jane had just cleaned them all. There were no razors, tweezers, or Old Spicy man stuff of any kind, anywhere.

Jane eased open the drawers on the “man” side of the double sink vanity. Empty except for a spare roll of toilet paper.

Caramel missed her husband so much that she had already cleaned out his bathroom, and his office, and had already resumed hot morning soaks in the tub where he had died.

Jane shuddered.

Jane had wanted her morning’s work to be more interesting, but she hadn’t bargained on it being
that
interesting. And she hadn’t answered any of the questions she had about
Douglas
’s death.

For example… how had he died? Heart attack? Overdose? Slipped and drowned? Head held under the water until he died?

Jane thought she ought to call the detective. She might be able to pump him for a little information.

She was back at her apartment munching a bagel and sipping a Yo-Heaven smoothie she had grabbed from a drive through. Kaitlyn would hate her drinking it. Jake would love it.

And Jake would probably be able to schmooze information out of the cops.

Or not. That cop had been a cute guy. A bit too old for her, but probably more likely to spill investigation secrets to her than to Jake.

She’d have to give the detective idea some thought. She wasn’t a natural at weaseling information out of people, and she didn’t have a good reason to call him—yet.

She did have a free hour or so and a nice fast Internet connection, so she began hunting for information on Douglas Swanson’s first wife.

It took a few pages of digging, but she did find what she was looking for. An old article from the Gresham Report—about fifteen years old, in fact—with a big picture of Mayor Swanson and his wife Alexandra.

Alexandra was not the woman she had seen in the pictures. The woman in the pictures was a young, athletic-looking blonde. Maybe not natural blonde, but pretty close. The ex Mrs. Mayor Swanson was a petite woman with a frail look about her and dyed, red hair. Not fake looking like Caramel’s blonde hair, but probably not her natural color either.

So if Alexandra wasn’t in all of those pictures on the desk, who was? And why were they on the desk?

Jane wished the Swanson house had been a big old mansion with lots of fireplaces. She could have dug through the ashes to see if the pictures had been burnt. Lacking that, what could she do?

She could keep her eyes open. That was something anyway.

After cleaning two more clients, Jane went home for lunch.

She was certain the woman in the pictures with
Douglas
wasn’t his wife, but it was clearly someone he was close to. A daughter, which wasn’t likely, if she was remembering the body language correctly, or a lover, which seemed pretty icky but reasonable.

Douglas
didn’t seem like the kind of man to go bar-hopping, so his lover would have to come from some other part of his life—work, most likely. She pulled up every site she could find about
Gresham
politics. Her list of local officials, from the chief of police to school board, was long. Pictures were almost impossible to find for most of the names, so she had resorted to Facebook. One tab with Google results, the other with Facebook search results. So far, no matches, but Jane was sure she was on the right track.