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Lucas let out a low whistle and bemoaned, “We still haven’t gotten over the excitement of Larry Wagner and making the national news. Now this. Chief Riley’s not going to be happy.”
Oscar didn’t care.
Candace murdered?
She represented what was good and right in the world.
He had to pause a moment, get his bearings and ask the right questions. “Who reported this?”
“We got a call from Crime Stoppers.”
Anger, white-hot and immediate, sent Oscar to the door.
“Bailey and Riley are already on site.”
Officer Leann Bailey was all the help Oscar needed. Right now Chief Riley thought Oscar was wet behind the ears, good only for traffic stops and petty crimes...but this was different. Personal. Riley might take lead investigator, but Oscar would be alongside him for this, never mind the hours. He’d known Candace most of his life, and she was all of twenty-three and had been married just over a year. Who would take her life? She and her husband, Cody, didn’t seem to own anything of real value. True, her dad was a millionaire a few times over, but Candace and Cody preferred to make it on their own. Before taking the assignment here, he’d even driven up and joined her and her husband for a couple of barbecues in their backyard. Twice she’d tried to fix him up with a coworker. He should have gone, just once, to make her happy. Now...
Oscar paused as he opened the door. “They know time of death?”
“Just that it was yesterday morning,” Stillwater said.
“What was the cause of death?”
“Head trauma. Some sign of a struggle. Husband probably did it. Supposedly he’s out of town. They haven’t been able to—”
It took Oscar ten minutes to drive to his neighborhood. Already police tape cordoned off the house. He parked his motorcycle the next house down from Candace’s and swung one leg over the seat. He couldn’t proceed, though, because suddenly cotton billowed in his throat.
This was little Candace. He’d taken her to her first dance because the boy who’d invited her had backed out at the last minute, and Oscar’s little sister, Anna, had come crying to Oscar. Oh, his brothers had teased, but in the end, Oscar’d had a great time. He and his brothers had waylaid the date-breaker a few days later and made him aware that Candace and Anna were not in his little black book unless he wanted a big black eye.
The memories made it hard to move.
It occurred to Oscar that, except for fellow soldiers, this was the first death he’d be working of someone he loved. And now he was glad his case had sent him to the Sarasota Falls Police Department.
But to make a difference here, he’d have to convince himself to walk past the cordon tape, into Candace’s house, and ask Riley for the facts.
Oscar could see the facts displayed over the front yard. This was a house, cared for by two individuals building a home.
He took off his dark glasses, momentarily blinking at the sudden brightness. When his eyes adjusted, he noted a tiny lizard crawling on top of the gray block fence next to the carport. It was probably hoping for a scent of oranges, maybe the hint of an early spring breeze. No such luck. As if realizing the futility, the lizard scurried off and disappeared into a hole in the dirt.
What had it seen? Heard?
Nothing it was willing to share with law enforcement.
The neighborhood was quiet, as if nature knew there’d been a disturbance and was now withdrawing—like the lizard—leaving them to investigate the disruption.
Next to the front door, two chairs boasted bright blue cushions. They appeared new but had been used. Candace’s tennis shoes were under one of them. She’d obviously been playing in the mud again, pretending to garden. She’d complained last week about “everything dying.”
And now she was dead.
A tiny table was situated between the two chairs. On it, a pair of gardening shears sat with the same black, lumpy mud on its blades as on the bottom of the shoes. Maybe she’d been digging with the shears instead of using a trowel. There was also a pair of flowered gloves that surely were too big for Candace’s small hands. He’d watched her one day, on her knees in the sodden yard. She’d wanted perfection, every rock moved, every weed eliminated. Her fingers had gone through the loose dirt, pushing tiny holes into sections, reinventing space and filling it back in with something that would grow: new life.
A garden hose lay in the front yard. Dripping water spread onto a small section of struggling grass. If Candace died yesterday morning, it had dripped all night. Judging by the amount of sogginess, it had.
Ornamental chimes hung overhead.
No wind today.
No sign of life, literally or figuratively.
Chief Riley exited the front door, carefully closing it behind him. He joined Oscar and gestured to the yard. “You see anything out of place?”
The cotton in Oscar’s throat doubled in size, and tears threatened to spill as he shook his head. He didn’t mind. He’d watched Lieutenant Colonel Townley, who Oscar considered the biggest hero America had, break down and sob over situations he had no control over.
Men he’d lost.
Riley seemed to understand and waited while the sun beat down on them and minutes ticked by.
“You call the medical examiner?” Oscar choked out.
“You think I don’t know my job?” Riley queried.
It was the kind of sarcastic response Oscar needed to snap out of his stupor. “I’ve known the victim all my life. She’s from my hometown of Runyan, New Mexico.”
“I didn’t know that. And the state police who are already on their way will be interested, too.”
“You know who else has a home in Runyan?”
“Who?”
“Jack Little, who owns the chain of Little’s Supermarkets.”
“And that concerns us because...”
“Candace is his daughter.”
Riley said a bunch of words Oscar knew he would not want put in the report, ending with “No kidding. Why didn’t I know that?”
“She didn’t want people to know. She wanted to make friends, get established, before everyone started seeing her for her family’s name and power instead of who she was.”
“It’s time to make some phone calls,” Riley said. “Give me a few minutes.”
Oscar figured it would take more than a few minutes before he was ready to go inside. Carefully he stepped over the cordon tape and stood at the front of the driveway, looking at a pair of sandals by the side gate. They, too, were Candace’s. She always preferred going barefoot.
Riley returned, but he didn’t share who he’d called. “See anything?” he asked.
“Nothing out of place in the yard that I can see, except the hose has dripped all night. Candace never would have left it on.”
Riley nodded, waiting.
“You need to find Shelley Wagner. She lives in—”
“Shelley Wagner,” Riley interrupted. “What does she have to do with this?”
“She lives in the garage apartment across the street. I encountered her yesterday morning walking her little boy. He ran to this window and she followed. Maybe she saw something.”
“I know Shelley Wagner,” Riley said. “And I know where she lives. You say she’s involved in this?”
“I didn’t say she was involved.” If she was, no way would she have been so calm—
But she hadn’t been calm. Not exactly, not when she was hurrying away. Maybe it hadn’t been the encounter with him.
“I don’t think she is involved,” Oscar started again. “She just happened to be out here, taking a walk.” What he couldn’t tell Riley was that she walked every morning and he knew what time she returned. Oscar couldn’t share that she was paying four hundred dollars a month for her one-room apartment and that she had two thousand, three hundred dollars in her bank account.
Oscar knew because Townley via the FBI had provided the information.
“You sure it was Shelley?” Riley asked. “I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with her.”
“Just under six foot, very pregnant, not much older than Candace. Ran into her yesterday morning during my walk with Peeve.”
She’d worn sensible shoes, Oscar remembered. They’d landed silent on the sidewalk when she’d stopped to talk to him. Peeve, his German shepherd, had sniffed at them and then been distracted by a bird fluttering in a nearby bush.
“That’s our Shelley,” Riley agreed.
Oscar remembered her chasing the toddler, who’d taken off across the sidewalk and tottered into Candace’s yard and then to the picture window. He hadn’t watched what happened next. There’d been a noise, and Peeve had barked until finally a cat scurried from its hiding place. When he’d turned back to the street, Shelley had been carrying Ryan up the apartment stairs, and Ryan had been crying. Just another day. That was what he’d figured.
He’d been wrong.
He wished more than anything he hadn’t been distracted by Peeve and the cat.
“Anything else you remember about the encounter?” Riley asked. “It might be important.”
“No, except something was bothering her.”
“You could tell that by how she looked?” Riley smirked.
“I’ve a sister. She had the same look Anna gets when something is bothering her.”
Speaking of Anna, Oscar needed to call her, break the news about her best friend, let her know he would do all he could to bring the killer to justice.
Riley raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got Bailey canvassing the neighborhood, asking if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary yesterday. I’ll have her go to Shelley’s apartment. They know each other.” Immediately Riley pulled out his phone, called Bailey and gave the order.
Riley managed only a few words before he stopped talking to listen. It was all Oscar could do not to snatch the phone from his chief so he could hear, too.
“You’re sure?” Ending the call, Riley shook his head in disbelief. “Bailey’s talking with Shelley’s landlord right now. Apparently she’s packed most of her stuff and fled. Shelley Wagner’s gone.”
Not what Oscar had expected. He glanced up at Shelley Wagner’s apartment. Bailey and Shelley’s landlord, Robert Tellmaster, were just coming out the door.
Oscar turned to Riley. “I need to see the...the crime scene.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “The State boys wouldn’t like that. It’s best—”
Oscar took a breath, opened and closed his hands a few times before balling them into fists. “Candace didn’t deserve this. She’s—was—a kindergarten teacher, great sense of humor, could play second base like...” Oscar was rambling, which was out of character. But he knew the victim, knew her well. Loved her like a sister.
The two men stood, sizing each other up. Oscar didn’t so much as blink. He had two inches on Riley, but that didn’t seem to matter. Maybe Oscar needed to check—Riley sure looked ex-military.
“One minute is all I ask,” Oscar finally said. “I won’t go in. I won’t touch anything.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ve been in this house several times. You asked me about what I noticed outside. I can tell you about the inside.”
Riley didn’t like it, Oscar could tell, but he marched to the front door and opened it, backing out of the way. Oscar didn’t hesitate.
He saw Candace first, lying belly-down on the floor. She wore a pink nylon shirt and jeans. One foot still had a sandal. The other was bare. Her brown hair was matted and her head was next to a leg of the coffee table. The table was scooted a few feet from its regular position near the middle of the room. Blood smeared a corner. The couch was bare, except for two pillows and an upended book. The television was off and a few movies were stacked next to it. Across from the couch there were a dozen antique wall clocks. All told the correct time of fifteen minutes after ten. Two easy chairs were in the room. Nothing on them. No animals—Candace’s husband, Cody, was allergic. Oscar couldn’t bring Peeve when he visited.
A large wedding portrait hung over the couch.
Except for Candace, nothing appeared out of place.
He stepped back, bowing his head to say a quick prayer, mostly thinking of how devastated Cody would be.
“Everything is as it should be.” Oscar proceeded to fill Riley in on his and Candace’s history, last time he’d seen her, family and friends. After a few minutes, he asked, “What do you know about Cody’s whereabouts?”
“He’s supposedly at a two-day meeting in Albuquerque. We’ve got the police there looking for him. He’s not answering his cell, and it doesn’t look like he was in his hotel room last night. No one’s seen him since yesterday morning.”
“I know Cody. He wouldn’t kill his wife.” Oscar heard the conviction in his own voice yet knew the husband was always the first suspect in a case like this.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Riley said, but Oscar could tell he didn’t mean it.
It was after eleven when he made it back to his office and started searching the computer for information about where Shelley might be. With Ryan, she’d need to stop. And since she was eight months pregnant, she’d likely need to stop, too. A lot.
He called Townley, who was able to tell him that Shelley had withdrawn two hundred dollars from an automatic teller before she left town. If she used her debit card again elsewhere, she could be tracked.
Townley suggested that Oscar head for Santa Fe. It was big enough to get lost in. “She has no known relatives except her father,” Townley reminded him. Oscar added the address of the father’s care center to his notebook. Townley sent a file detailing Shelley’s history, including names of college roommates, instructors, people she’d worked with.
Oscar printed it out and compared it to the file Sarasota Falls had on her, looking for repeated names. There weren’t many, as her local file had more to do with her connection with Larry Wagner.
Wagner had stolen and scammed roughly seven hundred thousand dollars from the good people of Sarasota Falls.
Over three hundred thousand of that came from the sale of Shelley’s family home and its furnishings.
Riley was good. Thorough. He’d ferreted out two women who’d had affairs with Wagner during his short marriage to Shelley. One worked at the bank. The other wasn’t named, but a desk clerk at the Sarasota Falls Inn swore Wagner had checked in with a high-class blonde at least five times. The signature on file matched Wagner’s handwriting. Unfortunately, the female hadn’t signed any receipts, and Wagner hadn’t called her anything but Sugar.
Picking up the phone, Oscar called Riley. “I’m going to head over to the care center where Shelley’s dad is.”
“Good idea. Wait for me. I’m coming in.”
“State police arrived?” Oscar asked.
