Sentenced to Death

Twenty

“That’ll be one hundred ninety-six dollars and twenty-four cents,” Tricia said, and waited for her customer to dig into her purse to extract a credit card.

“This is my first trip to Stoneham,” the chubby, middle-aged woman exclaimed. “I’ve even booked a room at the Brookview Inn so I could spend a day or two just rummaging around all these lovely bookstores.”

Rummage was the right word. The woman had practically examined each and every book on Haven’t Got a Clue’s shelves, refusing any help from Tricia. But she wasn’t going to sneer at a nearly two-hundred-dollar sale, either. Customers like this were few and far between. But now the question was, how was she going to get all these books to the woman’s car? Although it was near closing, Tricia hated to leave the shop unattended, even to help a customer carry books to the municipal lot. Especially when she was hoping to shut down early to get ready for her . . . nondate . . . with Angelica and Michele Fowler. Well, it was the closest she’d gotten to a night out on the town in . . . okay, five days. But her dinner with Grant Baker at the Brookview could hardly be classified as a date. After their frank conversation, she’d hoped he would have called. That he hadn’t . . .

“Would you mind if I left these books here and picked them up tomorrow?” the woman asked.

“Not at all,” Tricia said. Yes! Problem solved!

“I’m going to have to rearrange the trunk of my car if I’m going to get all this stuff home, and I’m just too tired to tackle that tonight. Besides, I don’t want to miss dinner at the Brookview. I hear the chef is magnificent.”

“I’ve eaten his food, and it’s pretty darn good.” Oh, how she missed Jake’s tuna salad!

“I’ll just take my receipt and be back before noon tomorrow to pick up the books.”

“They’ll be waiting for you,” Tricia said, and waved as the woman headed for the door.

She packed the books in a heavy-duty shopping bag and stowed them behind the counter. The shop door opened and for a moment Tricia thought her customer had returned, but instead it was Boris Kozlov. While Tricia had patronized the Coffee Bean on hundreds of occasions, neither Boris nor his wife had ever been inside Tricia’s store. “This is a surprise,” Tricia said in a wary greeting.

Boris looked around the shop before he approached the cash desk. He leaned in a little too close and lowered his voice, sounding like the villain in a cold-war flick. “I have someting for you.” He set a thin, plastic CD jewel case on the counter and pushed it toward her.

“What’s this?” Tricia asked.

“Someting you can use. Or at least someting your ex-employee and the new owner of the Happy Domestic can use.” Good grief. He sounded just like the cartoon character Boris Badenov.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Tricia said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Is recording from video camera. I bought the equipment to film Deborah Black putting her trash in our Dumpster. I leave it on at night to see if her mother does the same ting. Last night it filmed more than trash. There’s a twenty-minute section I thought you should see. The robbery next door to me.”

Tricia’s eyes widened. “You caught it on video?”

“Digital. I downloaded it to DVD for you.”

Tricia picked up the thin plastic case. It was scratched as though it had been in circulation for quite some time. “Why are you giving it to me and not the Sheriff’s Department?”

Boris shook his head and grimaced with distaste. “I don’t like talking to the police. Bad memories from Russia.”

“So you want me to be your go-between? They’re still going to want to talk to you.”

“Then they can talk to Alexa. I don’t want to be involved, but I do want the dura who robbed the new owner of the Happy Domestic to go to jail—for a long, long time.”

“You haven’t told me who robbed the place.”

“I tink you know,” he said, and nodded. He straightened. “I go back to the shop now. Alexa can talk to the Sheriff’s Department any time they need. Good night, Tricia.”

There was something creepy about the way he said her name. Almost like Bela Lugosi. She watched Boris slink out of the shop, grateful he wasn’t wearing a black cape and didn’t have fangs.

Tricia eyed the shiny, unmarked DVD inside the case. She did have an idea who might have robbed the Happy Domestic—the very idea being too upsetting to contemplate. She glanced at the clock. The store was due to close in another ten minutes, and as there were no customers—why wait? She’d watch the video and then call Grant Baker and report that she had the DVD in her possession.

Tricia set the jewel case back on the counter and headed for the door, turning the bolt and flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED.

The phone rang. Tricia was going to let it go to voice mail, but technically the store was still open. She picked it up on the fourth ring. “Haven’t Got a Clue. This is Tricia. How can I—”

“Ms. Miles? This is Elaine Capshaw. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”

“Not at all,” she fibbed. “Have you decided to take the job?” she asked hopefully.

“What? Oh. To tell you the truth I haven’t given it a lot of thought.”

Tricia sighed. “Then how can I help you?”

“I don’t know who else to turn to.”

That didn’t sound good. “What’s wrong?”

“I got another one of those phone calls a little while ago. From a woman. I still didn’t recognize the voice. She said I shouldn’t say anything about Monty to anyone—especially not the investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board.”

“Steve Marsden,” Tricia supplied.

“Yes. But I already have.”

“Did you tell her that?” Tricia asked.

“No!”

Maybe you should have, Tricia thought with a pang of anxiety. “Did this woman threaten you?”

“She told me to keep my mouth shut—or else. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t got anyone, you see. And—”

“You should call the Milford police.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s not a bother, especially if you feel threatened.”

“I don’t want them to think I’m some hysterical woman who’s afraid to be alone after the death of her husband,” she said, and yet Tricia could hear the fear in the older woman’s voice.

“Would you like me to come over? I can call them for you. And I’ll stay with you so that you’ll have a friendly face around when they arrive,” she asked.

“Oh, I’d appreciate that. Thank you. How soon can you make it?”

Tricia glanced again at the clock and winced. Could she get there and back to meet Angelica by eight o’clock? Maybe, if she called the Milford police and excused herself soon after they arrived. “I can be there in about fifteen minutes. Will you be okay that long?”

Elaine sniffed. “I think so. And I have Sarge here to protect me,” she said, and gave a mirthless laugh. Somewhere in the background, the tiny dog barked as though agreeing with her.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Tricia said, and hung up the phone. She grabbed her purse and, on impulse, shoved the DVD into it. She locked the door behind her, and jogged to the municipal parking lot and her car.

The drive from Stoneham to Elaine Capshaw’s home on the outskirts of Milford took about ten minutes. Tricia parked her car at the curb, got out, and hurried up the walk to the house. Her stomach lurched when she saw the front door was open a crack.

She looked around, saw no sign of anyone lurking nearby, and rapped on the screen door. “Mrs. Capshaw? Elaine?”

Unlike the last time she’d arrived at the Capshaw home, there was no barking from within. “Elaine?” she yelled louder.

Still no answer.

“Sarge! Sarge!” she called. No sign of the dog, either. Elaine’s car was still parked in the driveway, so unless she’d left in a hurry, she had to still be inside the house. Gripped with indecision, Tricia considered her options. Should she charge inside like the heroine in a bad mystery—and risk running into whoever had spooked Elaine—or call for backup and feel foolish if the woman had simply fled to one of the neighbor’s homes to look for comfort?

Tricia deliberated for a full ten seconds before she turned away from the door and walked down the steps. She pulled out her phone and punched in 9-1-1. Within seconds a male voice answered: “Hillsborough County 9-1-1 Emergency. Please state your name and the nature of your emergency.”

“Tricia Miles. I want to report a break-in.” As she gave them the rest of the particulars, Tricia walked around the house, trying to peek in the windows, but as when she visited the first time, all the drapes had been drawn. She couldn’t see a thing inside.

As she rounded the corner of the house, a Milford police cruiser pulled up to the curb. A young officer got out of the car, and seemed in no hurry. Tricia reported his arrival to the dispatcher and folded her phone.

“You called the police?” the officer asked. He wore his sandy-colored hair in a brush cut, looking like he’d stepped right out of the police academy—or boot camp.

Tricia nodded. “Mrs. Capshaw called me not more than fifteen minutes ago and asked me to come over. She’d received a threatening phone call. I saw the door was open and figured I’d better call the police.”

“Did you go inside?”

She shook her head.

The officer nodded. “You stay here.” He strode up to the front door, knocked, called inside, and then entered.

Tricia bit her lip as she waited. It seemed a long time before the pale, grim-faced officer came out of the house, holding a handheld radio, probably talking to his superiors or dispatcher. Another patrol car raced down the street, lights flashing but no siren, and came to a screeching halt at the curb. The officer jumped out the car and ran for the house. Both officers went back inside, and Tricia’s stomach knotted as she feared the worst.

Before long, several more patrol cars and a fire rescue squad had arrived. Everyone along the chain of command took their shot at her and asked again and again why she was there, why she had called 9-1-1, and finally, confirmed that a woman inside the home was indeed dead. By then Tricia was so upset, it was all she could do to keep from crying. She had liked Elaine and hoped they could work together and become friends.

An older man in uniform approached her. “Ma’am? I’m Chief Aaron Strauss of the Milford Police Department. I’m sorry to have to ask, but we’d like you to come inside and make an identification. Do you think you could do that?”

It was the last thing Tricia wanted to do, but she found herself nodding and let him take her arm, guiding her up the steps and into the house.

Despite the fact that every light in the living room had been turned on, an aura of gloom penetrated each corner of the room. Tricia’s nose twitched at the coppery tang of blood that filled the air.

“It’s pretty gruesome,” the burly police chief warned, as Tricia approached the prone figure that lay on the floor between the faded couch and the Formica coffee table.

Tricia steeled herself. She’d seen plenty of grisly corpses on television dramas—but they were actors—or dummies—with makeup and colored Karo syrup simulating injuries, not the real thing. She moved her gaze up the length of Elaine’s body. She held something in her hand—but Tricia couldn’t exactly see what it was. She dared look at the bloody mess that had been the back of Elaine Capshaw’s head, gasped, and quickly turned away.

“That’s her,” she managed, and took a couple of gasping breaths to regain her control.

“Would you like to sit down, ma’am?” the officer with the brush cut asked.

“I’m okay,” Tricia lied, and focused her attention on the framed print of a pot of red geraniums that hung on the opposite wall. “Chief Strauss, I think you ought to know that Mrs. Capshaw’s husband died in the plane that crashed in the Stoneham Square on Thursday. The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into it, but there’s a possibility her death is related to his.”

The police chief scowled. “I doubt it.”

Tricia bristled at this superior tone.

“What happened to her dog?” she asked the young officer standing next to the chief.

“He’s hurt pretty bad, ma’am,” the officer—Malcolm, by his name tag—said. “Whoever killed the lady of the house probably kicked the little dog like a football. Looks like traces of blood around his mouth. He may have bitten the attacker. We’ll have the lab team take a swab.”

“What will happen to him?” Tricia asked

“I’ll see if one of the guys can take it to the vet,” the chief said. “I’ll also have one of my men check the hospitals for dog bite reports. But my guess is they’ll have to put the dog down.” He shook his head and turned away.

Tricia’s hand flew to her throat—and instinctively she grabbed the locket’s chain and thought of the picture of Miss Marple within it. “I’d hate for that to happen. Would it be okay if I took him to the vet?” she asked Officer Malcolm.

The officer eyed the chief, who hadn’t seemed that interested. “I’ll ask the sarge. He’s a soft touch—has a whole menagerie at home.”

Tricia shook her head at the irony. “That’s the dog’s name—Sarge.”

The officer nodded. “The chief may have more questions for you later. Would you like to wait in the kitchen?”

Again she shook her head. “I’ll wait outside, if that’s okay.” At his nod of approval, she exited the house, grateful to inhale the cool, crisp evening air.

Dusk had fallen by the time one of the firemen came out of the house with what looked like a bundle of towels. “Ma’am, one of the officers said you were willing to take the victim’s dog to a vet?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll put him in your car. I don’t think you should touch him.”

“Will he bite?” Tricia asked.

He shook his head. “I’ve tied a makeshift muzzle around his jaws. When you get to the vet, let them come get him. They’ll know best how to handle him so he isn’t hurt further.”

They walked toward Tricia’s car and she opened the door to the backseat. With care, the fireman settled the dog, who whimpered softly. Sarge turned his sad brown eyes on Tricia. He seemed to be pleading, Help me!

The fireman handed Tricia a scrap of paper with an address on it. “I called the vet. They’ll be waiting for you.” He looked down at the dog and frowned. “Poor little guy. I hope he makes it.” The fireman gave Tricia a weak smile and a parting nod and went back inside to join his comrades.

Chief Strauss approached Tricia once again. “Ma’am, where can we reach you if we have any further questions?”

Tricia opened her car door and retrieved her purse, extracting one of her business cards. She wrote her home and cell numbers on the back before handing it to him.

Strauss touched the bill of his cap in farewell and walked back to the house.

Tricia got in her car and started the engine. Before she put the car in gear, she glanced at the address on the slip of paper the fireman had given her. It was the same place she took Miss Marple for her annual shots, not far from the strip mall that housed the diner and jeweler she’d visited just days before. She turned to look at the little dog. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be panting very fast. “I’ll get you some help, Sarge. I promise.”

She started the car and pulled away from the curb, hoping she could keep her word.