Dying for a Change (2 page)

The man had been tall, with full, wavy blond hair turned to silver. Now it was matted with blood. Blood seemed to be everywhere. It had dripped over one eye, down the crease by his nose and onto his mustache, turning the blond tip of it red. There were splashes on the wall and over the tarp. Tarp? For the first time I noticed he was lying not on bare floor, but on a big canvas painter’s tarp. It was thrown over his legs and the lower part of his body. He was lying on his left side, almost on his stomach, with only half his face visible, but it was enough.

The slam of a car door broke the spell. In the distance, sirens screamed. I ran for the stairs and reached the bottom as the front door opened and Harvey appeared. He looked at me trying not to pant and said, “You all right?”

“
Fine,” I replied. “Where’s Bernice?”

“
In the car. Says she never wants to set foot in this house again.”

Really. What a surprise.

Several police cars and a fire truck careened into the street. Their sirens died, but their lights kept turning. The reflection through the living room windows turned the walls a soft red, sickeningly reminiscent of the upstairs closet. I stayed in the entry hall.

The first policeman through the door was middle aged and needle thin.

“
You the folks that called?” The words were clipped, his voice monotone.

Harvey nodded.

“
Where’s the body?”

I pointed up the stairs. “Master bedroom. The one with the fireplace. He’s in the closet.”

The policeman looked at me, opened his mouth to say something, but was distracted as the entry hall filled with uniformed men. Several looked around uncertainly, a couple favored us with curious looks. The thin one immediately took charge.

“
You, Gary, take these people into the kitchen, or someplace out of our way, and get their statements. Don’t let them touch anything. The rest of you, up here.”

The police trooped upstairs, followed by two paramedics, carrying black emergency kits.

“
A little late for them, isn’t it?” I asked. No one answered.

Gary motioned to us. We followed him, Harvey hanging back, casting furtive glances up the staircase. Curiosity is a powerful thing.

The kitchen was bright under its luminous ceiling. I looked around, wishing there was some place to sit down. The counter top looked inviting but I discarded that idea almost immediately and leaned instead. There was a clipboard under my elbow. My fingers somehow seemed to fall on top of it and I turned it around so I could read the logo.

“
What’s that,” said Harvey, reaching for it.

“
Excuse me,” said Gary. He pulled the clipboard away from him and gave me a shy smile. be evidence.”

I hoped not. It was collecting an impressive set of fingerprints.

Gary unzipped his jacket, pulled out a crisp new notebook and fished around in an inside pocket for a pencil. I couldn’t help staring at him. Tall, hands and feet still a little big for the rest of him, carrot colored hair, earnest hazel eyes — and freckles! He didn’t look any older than my daughter, Susannah, who was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara. A baby!

He looked up and caught me. Color started to slide up his neck and around his ears, on to his cheeks.

“
Something wrong, ma’am?”

“
No, no. Nothing,” I stammered, embarrassed.

He looked back down at his notebook, cleared his throat, gave me one more uncertain glance and began.

“
If you could tell me what you were doing when you found...uh...the body. . him?”

“
I can hardly wait to hear that answer.” The voice came from behind me. I swung around to face a tall man with light brown hair, lightly peppered with gray. A neat, sandy colored mustache topped his mouth, his intensely blue eyes laughed at me.

“
Who — no — it can’t be. Dan? Daniel Boone Dunham?”

“
It can, and it is. How are you, Ellie?”

“
But…” I continued to stammer. “Where did you come from?”

I didn’t get an answer. A uniformed policeman appeared and said, “Coroner’s here, Chief. He wants to talk to you.”

The laughter in Dan Dunham’s eyes faded. “Be right there. Gary, be sure to get full statements. We’ll get them typed later and they can sign them tomorrow. Don’t forget to get his,” he nodded at Harvey, “address and phone number. Her, I know where to find.”

Dan started to leave, but turned back when I blurted out, “Chief?”

“
Of police, right here in Santa Louisa,” he agreed.

“
You can’t be,” I exclaimed.

“
Why not?”

“
Because you were going to teach history in some big university,” I said, still staring at him like an apparition from another world.

“
Things change, Ellie. Now, please co-operate with this young man, and then go home. Someone will be in touch later.”

“
I didn’t know his middle name was Boone,” said Gary, looking at the now empty doorway.

“
It’s not,” I said, staring transfixed at the same place.

“
How does he know where to find you?” asked Harvey.

“
We grew up next door to each other,” I told him, wondering the same thing. I had been back in Santa Louisa a full two weeks and not once had anyone mentioned Dan’s name. What was he doing back this town where he’d vowed never to return, and how did he get to be Chief of Police? Evidently he knew I’d moved back into my parent’s house while they tried out retirement in Scottsdale, but how? More important, why hadn’t he called, or come to see me? We’d been best friends all during our childhood. Didn’t that at least merit a phone call?

Gary, standing with pencil poised, interrupted my rambling thoughts. Harvey was equally as eager to get his answers out of the way and escape to Bernice. Everyone to their own tastes.

The statements didn’t take long; there wasn’t much to say. I tried to linger in the entry hall but Harvey pushed me out the door in front of him, and I found myself in my car, threading through police cars, fire engines, and an ambulance.

I tried to concentrate on driving as I crossed the bridge over the Salinas River back into the old part of town. It was there Dan and I had grown up and where I now lived and worked. This Sunday had started out peacefully enough. It was my first day at the office to answer the phones, to handle clients who might walk in. Sharon Harper and I had picked it because we thought it would be quiet. I could take plenty of time with anyone who called. Sharon had been there in the early afternoon, beautifully dressed for a listing appointment in a soft green wool dress. Nicole Chambers, more informal in slacks and a sweater, had stayed to give me advice, and her husband, Tom, looking downright disreputable in jeans, a sweatshirt and filthy tennis shoes, was in and out. A nice, quiet afternoon for learning. Instead, I got my first clients, immediately lost them, discovered Dan Dunham, and a dead body.

My foot pushed on the accelerator and I headed for home a little faster than rain slicked streets safely allowed. I knew who the dead man was, and that meant I needed to make a phone call.

The wheels slipped a little on the old concrete driveway, but I got the car into the garage, pushed the doors shut, and entered the house through the back porch. Slipping out of my damp shoes, I threw my jacket over the washing machine, and headed for the phone.

“
Sharon,” I said. “Something’s happened that I think you should know about.”

“
Oh?” was the only response I got. Cool, reserved, Sharon Harper was going to wait until all the facts were in before committing to a comment.

“
You know the new house you have listed? The one on Morning Glory Lane? Well, I showed it this afternoon.”

“
That’s fine, Ellen.” Left unsaid, but obvious in her tone, was--and?

“
Sharon, I found a body. A dead man, in the upstairs closet.”

There was a long pause. “Say that again.”

“
A dead body, Sharon. The police are there now.”

“
A dead body.” There was another long pause. “In my listing?”

“
Yes, and I think...”

“
Do you know who it--ah...”

“
I think it’s that contractor, Hank Sawyer. Isn’t he your client?”

“
Hank — are you sure?”

“
Pretty sure,” I told her. I didn’t blame her for being incredulous. It was hard to believe, even or me who’d found him.

“
And the police are there now?” she went on, in the same flat tone of shock.

“
As we speak. They took my statement and sent me home. Listen, Sharon, shouldn’t we do...”

“
Ellen, I’m coming over.” Now she sounded like the decisive Sharon I worked for. “You need to tell me everything. Good God. Hank Sawyer. I have several of his houses listed.” The phone went dead.

Damn. Hank Sawyer was a friend of Sharon’s, one of the town’s most prominent contractors, and an important client. I’d thought it only right to tell her what had happened, but hadn’t expected her to rush over here. Now I’d have to do something. Offer her coffee? A sandwich? Nothing I’d read in Miss Manners covered anything quite like this. Wine. I’d open a bottle of wine. But first I was getting out of this wool skirt and shedding both bra and panty hose. Sweats, tube socks, moccasins and a fire were going to happen, in that order.

The doorbell rang as I sat an open bottle of local chardonnay and two glasses on the round coffee table between my two long sofas. Sharon had made good time. Only it wasn’t Sharon.

“
Surprise, Ellen.” Nicole bounced into the room, waving a brown paper bag at me. Tom was right behind her, pushing his glasses back up on his nose, grinning broadly.

“
We brought you a bottle of wine to celebrate your first showing,” Nicole said. “Where’s your opener? What a great fire, just what we need on a night like this.”

“
Ah--there’s one on the table,” I said. “I’ll get a couple of glasses.”

“
I’ll get them,” Tom offered. He handed me his coat and Nicole’s. I hung them on pegs in the entry, and followed them back into the living room.

“
We’re only going to stay a minute,” Nicole said, pulling the wine from the bag, “just long enough for a toast, but we couldn’t let a momentous event like your first clients pass by without a little celebration. Besides, we wanted to know how everything went.”

“
Glasses are in the kitchen,” I told Tom. I took the sack from Nicole, wadded it up and placed it on the fire. Celebrating was not in order. As to how things went? Not wonderful.

Tom turned toward the kitchen door, his shoe scuffed on my wood floor, and he stumbled.

“
Serves you right for buying such ugly shoes,” Nicole told him.

“
Only ones I could find on a Sunday,” he replied. “Besides, they’re not so bad.”

“
They’re hideous,” she called after him. “Why he had to buy shoes today I’ll never know.” She worked the cork out of the bottle of merlot. “The only place open on Sunday is the new little shop those Indian brothers run over on Peach. Tom could have waited until tomorrow.”

“
And gone to the Emporium,” he finished. “There are so many choices in this town.

Nicole laughed, took the glasses and started to fill them. “Were you expecting someone, Ellen?” She indicated the extra glass on the table. “We don’t want to interrupt.”

“
Sharon’s coming,” I said.

“
Sharon?”

Tom ‘s eyebrows went up in surprise. “I didn’t know you were friends.”

“
We aren’t,” I replied. “That is, we are, but not really. Anyway, that’s not why she’s coming. Something happened this afternoon. I called her and …”

The doorbell rang again, cutting me off.

“
Sit down,” I said. “That’s her, and you might as well hear all this now as later.”

“
Oh.” Sharon paused in the doorway, eyeing Tom and Nicole. “I didn’t know Ellen had called you also.”

“
She didn’t,” Nicole told her. “We came by to celebrate her first clients. Evidently something happened? Ellen was about to tell us.”

Sharon examined the two warm up jackets hanging in my entry, then looked dispassionately at all of us. Tom was in jeans, an old UCLA sweat shirt and the new, truly ugly running shoes. Nicole had on leggings, UG boots, and a baggy sweater. They suited her small body and tangled mop of bronze curls. All five foot six of me was wrapped in bright red sweats, adding considerable bulk to my size ten frame. My light brown hair, which frizzed in rain instead of curling, I’d pulled back off my face with combs. We did not look like business professionals. Sharon, however, was dressed in a trim navy blue suit, white silk blouse, navy low-heeled pumps, and panty hose. Poor thing.

I hung her wool coat on a hanger in the entry way closet and followed her into the living room. She was already seated on one end of a sofa, looking slightly out of place against its flowered chintz background. She reached up to take the glass of wine Tom offered.

“
Ellen hasn’t told you?” she said.

“
Ellen hasn’t said anything, but maybe she should,” Tom said, picking up his own glass. “This is beginning to sound ominous. Do we hold the toast for awhile?”