Don't Cry Over Killed Milk (10 page)

Chapter 10

 
At one-twenty in the afternoon, Damon and Rebecca walked into the Tripping Falls visitor center. Milt Verblanc manned the rangers’ desk.

“You were here the other day to see Veronica,” Milt observed when he saw Damon.

“I was,” Damon said. “This time, I’m looking for Aylin Erul.”

“It doesn’t matter to me, but I heard you’ve been snooping around,” Milt replied in a mechanical tone.

“Is that right?” Damon asked.

“Lawrence and Aylin heard the lieutenant yell at you the other day. Then Aylin looked you up on the Internet. She said you helped the police solve a murder a few months ago.”

Damon blushed. Margaret Hobbes and Gerry had reaped the lion’s share of credit for the collar. But Gerry, as an unnamed source, had praised Damon for his assistance in a couple of newspaper articles.

“I’m not snooping,” Damon fibbed. “Aylin left me a message yesterday, and I just want to discuss it with her.”

Milt shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t bother me either way. I saw her ten minutes ago. She said she was meeting with someone from the grass cutting service out near the head of Craven’s Pass.”

The Craven’s Pass hiking trail started near the falls’ third overlook. Aylin was sitting cross-legged at a wooden picnic table examining paperwork on a clipboard. The area was otherwise desolate, save for a man walking to a nearby pickup loaded with lawn equipment.

The truck rattled away as Damon and Rebecca sat down across from Aylin. Damon introduced Rebecca. He hoped her presence would mollify the shock Damon was about to inflict. Aylin’s unnatural blond hair was tucked under a brown kerchief, which matched her ranger’s uniform. She looked at them nervously.

Damon cut right to the chase. “Aylin, I saw you on my porch last night.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it.

“You slipped a note under my door,” Damon continued. “I came home late last night and saw you from my car.”

Aylin’s green eyes pierced Damon’s. Then she lowered her gaze and came clean. “I thought I saw a car turn off its headlights. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I just thought someone should know about Lawrence Drake.”

“Why not tell the police?” Rebecca asked soothingly.

“I didn’t want Lawrence to find out who revealed his fixation with Veronica. He’s a strong man, and he has a mean streak. If I told the police, it would get back to Lawrence.”

“You could have called in an anonymous tip,” Damon said with Crime Solvers in mind.

“I didn’t think of that,” Aylin said softly. Damon thought she looked pretty, in a vulnerable way.

“So why Damon?” Rebecca asked.

“When I saw him two days ago, it looked like he knew Detective Sloman fairly well.” Aylin focused on Damon. “I looked you up online. You’ve helped the police before. Even though the lieutenant asked you not to interfere, you were the only person I could think of to contact.”

“Do all of the park staff know that Drake is in love with Veronica?” Damon asked, putting his elbows on the picnic table.

Aylin shook her head. “As far as I know, I’m the only one he told, and he doesn’t act weird here at the park. I don’t even think Veronica knows.”

“Did Jeremiah Milk?” Damon asked.

“I doubt it,” Aylin said. “About a month ago, Lawrence and I were on one of the trails clearing out a hornets’ nest. I was trying to make conversation and mentioned a new lesson plan that Veronica was working on about gypsy moths indigenous to the park.”

Aylin’s irises gleamed under a radiant sun. “When I mentioned Veronica, Lawrence started gushing about how attractive she is and how nicely she treats him. I asked him why he hadn’t asked her out before she started dating Jeremiah; they had been working together for years. He said he was too shy but that she kept him company at night in his attic. That freaked me out. ‘Do you mean you have dreams about her?’ I asked. He became flustered and changed the subject. But I got the impression that he had some sort of shrine to Veronica up there.”

“But you didn’t tell Veronica,” Rebecca said.

“No way. This job is peaceful. I didn’t want to stir things up. If I told Veronica, she would’ve told Jeremiah and caused an uneasiness between him and Lawrence.”

Damon redirected his focus and asked Aylin about the other matter that was on his mind, as it was clear that the park staffers had spoken freely with each other about the investigation. “Do you know if the police spoke with Emmanuel Alvarez about some of the equipment in his garage?”

Aylin stretched her hands above her head. Rebecca kicked Damon in the calf as his eyes drifted to Aylin’s breasts. He quickly pulled his gaze away.

“The pressure washer and hedge trimmer?” Aylin asked.

“Yes,” Damon said.

“On Monday night, Emmanuel told the police his theory about how Jeremiah was killed. He said they brought him to the station in Arlington and interrogated him for two hours.”

“He told me his thoughts on the subject, too,” Damon said. “I’m not surprised the police grilled him. If those instruments were taken from Emmanuel’s garage, anyone other than a very heavy sleeper would’ve noticed.”

“Emmanuel didn’t sleep in his cabin on Saturday night when Jeremiah was killed,” Aylin said awkwardly. “He was with me. The police made me confirm his alibi.”

Damon looked at Aylin in disbelief. What was a sixty-something-year-old maintenance man doing with an attractive young woman on a Saturday night?

Aylin registered Damon’s stare and scolded him. “Don’t be such a pig. I wasn’t sleeping with him.”

Rebecca jumped in. She had a knack for diffusing heated situations before they went too far. “Do you mind telling us what you and Mr. Alvarez were doing?” she asked.

Aylin turned to face Rebecca. “I don’t mind at all. We were in Harrisonburg at my mother’s house.” Harrisonburg, Virginia, was a two-hour drive from Arlington.

The female ranger tapped a pen against her clipboard. “My mother has been having trouble with her kitchen sink. She doesn’t have much money, and plumbers are expensive. While she was up here visiting me last month, she met Emmanuel. I could tell he took a liking to her. My mother’s a fine looking woman and treats men well. The prospect of seeing her again coupled with a homemade dinner and breakfast in the morning, was enough for Emmanuel to come with me to Harrisonburg for a night.”

“Emmanuel is a plumber?” Damon asked.

Aylin rolled her eyes. “He’s the maintenance man for the whole park. He knows how to fix everything.” She excused herself, explaining that she was scheduled to give a nature talk to the public.

“Well,” Rebecca said when Aylin was out of earshot. “It looks like we’re down from six suspects to four from the park staff. Unless Emmanuel or Aylin had an accomplice.”

“I agree,” Damon said and stood up from the picnic table. “But I still don’t completely trust Aylin.” He scratched behind his ear. “If she was scared of Lawrence Drake, I can understand her wanting to leave an anonymous note. But if she was the only person Lawrence told about his obsession with Veronica, Drake would know she was the source if anyone questioned him about it.”

“True,” Rebecca said. “Should we go find Lawrence Drake?”

Damon steadied his resolve. “Yes.”

* * *

The lobby of the visitor center was empty but the doors to the management wing stood open. Down the short hall, Damon observed Lawrence Drake in the kitchenette of the rangers’ lounge.

Damon and Rebecca approached him.

“Mr. Drake,” Damon said. “We met a couple of days ago. I’m Damon Lassard. This is my friend, Rebecca.”

“Okay,” Drake said cautiously. The big man was holding a bowl of hot soup. “What do you want?”

“We were hoping to ask you a couple of questions about your colleagues here at the park,” Damon said, standing just inside in the kitchenette’s entryway.

Lawrence Drake set the soup on a small table and folded his arms across his chest.

“You’re not the police. No way I’m talking to you. Why don’t you shove off?” He sat down and picked up a spoon.

Damon held his hands up. “Sorry to bother you. But we’ll have to tell the police about your obsession with Veronica Maldive.” They were standing less than ten feet from the closed door of her office.

Drake looked up from his soup bowl and scowled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Rebecca stepped forward. Damon admired her courage in the face of the angry man. “We understand that you were jealous of Jeremiah Milk. That you’re in love with Veronica.”

Lawrence Drake pounded a fist on the table and shot to his feet. Broth flowed over the side of his bowl. “In love with Veronica? That’s bull. How dare you try to pin a murder on me? I don’t want to see either of you in this park ever again.”

Damon and Rebecca scampered out of the kitchenette and made a beeline for the parking lot. Seconds later, they were inside Damon’s Saab, zipping away from the park and Lawrence Drake.

“Looks like we touched a major nerve,” Damon said.

Rebecca agreed. “We probably shouldn’t have been so direct.” She paused, then asked, “So, now what?”

Damon thought for a minute. Finally, he said, “I’m going to drop you off at the police station. I can’t talk to Gerry, but no one said anything about you.” He glanced at her sideways. “Rebecca, you have to tell Gerry that Lawrence Drake may be in love with Veronica, and Aylin thinks he has a shrine to her in his attic.”

“Lucky me,” she sighed. “All right. I’ll do it.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Damon left Rebecca at the Arlington County police station in the Courthouse neighborhood. “I’ll wait for you at the pizza place on the corner,” he said.

Damon ordered two slices with pepperoni and pineapple and a Mountain Dew, then sunk into a booth to wait. He was irritated, wanting to discuss the case with Gerry himself.

Damon felt certain one of the park employees had murdered Jeremiah. Dottie Milk wouldn’t have known where to locate the hedge trimmer and pressure washer, so he crossed her off of his list. Emmanuel and Aylin had alibis, so that left Lawrence Drake, Alex, Veronica, and Milt Verblanc as potential killers. Unless Jeremiah had written a will leaving vast sums of money to his girlfriend, Damon couldn’t see why Veronica would want to kill him. That whittled it down to Lawrence, Alex, and Milt. Unfortunately, Damon had no idea where any of them were on the night of the murder.

Damon considered the shed’s electrical sockets. Emmanuel said that a person would have to possess a sophisticated knowledge of circuitry to know that slicing through a running power cord would blow the electricity on the main floor without affecting the basement socket. Milt Verblanc, who built robots as a hobby, might have that knowledge. Would Alex or Lawrence? Damon recalled the photograph in Alex Rancor’s office. She had been in the Air Force, and Damon knew the military recruited engineers. If Alex was trained as an engineer, she might know a thing or two about electrical wiring.

After thirty minutes, Rebecca plodded into the pizza shop. She plopped into the booth across from Damon.

“You don’t look too well,” Damon said. “Let me get you a slice and a soda.”

Damon retrieved a piece of mushroom pizza and a Diet Pepsi, then returned to the table. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Gerry is upset,” Rebecca said. She took a small bite of pizza and chewed slowly. “As you know, Margaret went to York to meet with Marcus Pontfried, so I was able to meet with Gerry alone in his office. I told him that Aylin tried to slip an anonymous note under your door but you saw her. When I relayed what the note said, Gerry was thrilled. He was grinning from ear to ear. I told him that’s why you called this morning.”

“That all sounds good,” Damon said and sipped his soda.

“It was. I said we went to the park to ask Aylin about the note because Margaret wouldn’t let you talk to the police. When I mentioned that Aylin thought Lawrence Drake had a shrine to Veronica in his attic, Gerry’s eyes lit up. I think he was ready to hug me. Then I told him that we spoke with Lawrence about it.”

Damon leaned forward. “Does he think we made a break in the case?”

“Just the opposite,” Rebecca sulked. “Gerry thinks we ruined his chances of blowing it wide open.”

Damon sat back and slumped down in the booth. “How so?”