A House To Die For

CHAPTER ONE

I hesitated at the foot of the front stairs, my movements stopping almost in mid-air. I knew I was at the right house and I knew I was expected. Roger Jameson, another agent in our office, had asked me to do this listing presentation as he ran off to the hospital for the birth of his fourth child.

I called and told Manny you’d be coming around four pm, he'd yelled over his shoulder as he climbed into his old VW and sped away.

So why did I hesitate on these front steps? Well, for one thing, the front door stood slightly ajar. Aware of the quietness when I had stepped out of my car, I assumed that most people were at work at this hour, or if they were retirees, perhaps they were napping. But who would go to sleep with their front door open? That’s what doorbells are for. Alarms began going off inside my head, but I nevertheless climbed the few steps to the front porch.

Mr. Figueroa, I’m here. I’m Angela Rossi. Roger Jameson called and said I’d be coming to see you. Are you there? The silence remained, and I touched the door with my index finger and watched it slowly open.

Ahead of me on the floor was the body of a man. He had a hole in his head and a pool of a reddish-brown substance spread on the floor beneath him. In case I wondered what that hole meant, a gun lay on the floor at the tip of his outstretched fingers. My ears picked up a sudden sound coming from a room ahead of me, like that of a sliding glass door opening … or closing. My eyes darted around, but my brain hadn’t yet set itself to react. When it finally did, I was smart enough to not go see what that noise meant, but rather I backed out through the open doorway, across the front porch and nearly stumbled down the front steps.

AIEEEEE! I think I was beginning to hyperventilate, so I pulled out my cell phone and willed myself to calm down enough to call 911.

What is your emergency?

There’s a dead man here. I gave the address.

What makes you think he’s dead?

Other than his not standing up to greet me? "He’s lying on the floor with a hole in his head and a pool of blood on the floor. Plus, there’s a gun nearby."

Whose gun is it?

I don’t know. I’ve never met this man before. Look, I’m a real estate agent, I work for Appleby Realty, and I came here to get the listing to sell this man’s house. That’s all I know.

Police are on the way. Please stay there to direct them.

I dashed down the front path to the driveway and jumped into my Caddy, which I had parked directly in front of the single car garage, locking the doors instantly.

What had I done to deserve walking into this horror? I only wanted to help Roger out. He should be the one here, shaking in his shoes, not me. My name is Angela Rossi, a forty-three-year-old divorcee. I work as a Real Estate Agent for Appleby Realty, live alone and lead an otherwise quiet life. Which has just been shattered.

And what was that noise I heard as I entered through the partially open front door of the dead man’s house? When I saw the door ajar, why did I even enter? Dumb. That noise could have been the murderer escaping. Or was the murderer still in the house? If the dead man had committed suicide, why would someone else be there? Too many thoughts were crashing around in my brain.

As I looked out through the windshield, the garage ahead of me appeared to be swimming and I was sure that sensation was being caused by my sudden elevated blood pressure. I shut my eyes and concentrated on taking a few deep breaths, hopefully forestalling a full-blown anxiety attack.

I was able to calm down somewhat by the time the black-and-white of the San Rafael Beach Police Department pulled up behind me, effectively blocking my car in the driveway. I recognized Joe Montenegro, or Monty as everyone calls him, get out of the passenger side. I jumped out of my own car and ran over to him, now becoming quite hysterical.

I only wanted to get the listing to sell this house and now he’s dead! I cried, grabbing the lapels of his uniform.

He gently put his hands on my shoulders. Angie, selling the house surely doesn’t have anything to do with this, so why don’t we go see what happened. Just tell us where we’ll find him, then get back in your car and wait till we’re done looking around.

I pointed to a spot beyond the gaping doorway, the foyer and its macabre occupant who lay outside of our field of vision except for the bottom of one black shoe pointing upwards. Monty opened the passenger door of my car and gently helped my trembling body inside. I must tell you that he is a tall, good looking sexy guy with whom I’d had a one-night stand shortly after my arrival in town. Monty is best friends with Bill, my sister’s husband, and because of him we usually got invited to the local cop outings. On the occasion of a birthday party for the dispatcher held at Smiley’s, a local bar, I had too much to drink and Monty drove me home. And stayed a while. You can fill in the blanks.

So here I was in my car watching Monty and his partner Wilma approaching the house with guns drawn and I was thinking, Man, he sure has a nice butt! Geez, what is the matter with me? There’s a dead man not twenty yards away, someone possibly murdered, and I’m doing a butt analysis. I know being so scared has caused me to lose my mind. Plus, the lingering smell of Monty’s aftershave has wafted its way in the open window of my car and taken on the role of pheromone, reminding me of that ill-fated night.

Then I thought back to another party, this one a picnic, when I found out that Monty had a wife. My mouth must have dropped open as Theresa was introduced to me and I had to fight back the urge to say, that bastard. So, while I’ve been a good girl ever since, I still feel a little tingling inside and wonder what if it would be like if he were available.

After Monty and his partner disappeared into the house, I began to feel pretty isolated and used my cell to call the office. I wanted to let them know where I was, partly because I was sure to be delayed with questioning by the police and partly because I felt more connected to reality just by talking to someone. Luckily for me, my boss answered the phone. He is a really nice guy named Hank Appleby, a broker who inherited the agency when his father retired and who currently is running for Sonesta County Commissioner.

I told him where I was and about my gruesome find. I don’t think I’ll be back today, Hank. I’ll probably have to go to the police station for a while, and then I’ll head home.

Take as much time as you need, Hank said. You must be pretty shook up.

An understatement, to be sure.

As I disconnected, a movement in my peripheral vision caused me to jerk my head up. Some dark scraggly bushes alongside the garage right in front of me were moving; yet the air was still. I leaned forward to stare out the windshield just as a man stuck his head around a bush that he was holding aside with a tattooed arm. His eyes were an electric blue, almost the way you’d look with colored contacts. I couldn’t make out the design on his arm, as he moved quickly when he saw me through the windshield. He vanished around the side of the garage and I kept staring at the spot as though I could make him reappear. But all I saw was the swaying bush reasserting itself.

Just then, Wilma came down the pathway to the car and asked, Did you touch anything when you were in there? We’ll be dusting for fingerprints.

I ... I ... I think I touched the door, but not the doorknob. The door was already part way open. But wait, you have to know something ... a guy just peered out from the side of the garage. He appeared from behind this bush right here.

I pointed in the direction of the spot where I had seen those eyes. Wilma yelled for Monty and they both took off. They searched around the garage and disappeared from sight, leaving only their rapidly fading footfalls.

In about five minutes, Wilma came back. Can you describe him?

All I noticed were a pair of really blue eyes and some kind of a tattoo on his arm. The bushes were hiding his body and it seemed like the rest of his face was in shadow.

Try to picture him in your mind and maybe you’ll think of something more. We’re waiting for the EMTs and a crime scene unit. You know, this is my first homicide and I need to go by the book. If only I could remember all the book says.

You sound as nervous as I am, I said with a half-laugh.

This is a peaceful town. The worst I’ve had to face is when Mr. MacGruder beat up his wife and she pressed charges for assault. Wait till the newspapers hear about this. You may want to monitor your phone calls at home. I’m sure a bunch of reporters will want to talk to you.

Monty, who had spent some more time walking up and down the street, undoubtedly checking the neighboring properties, came back to where Wilma was leaning against the side of the car talking to me. Nobody suspicious around here, but it could be someone who lives nearby who just ducked inside their house. Maybe it’s only a really nosy neighbor.

I guess so, I replied in a very unconvinced tone. Can I go home now?

We’ll need to get your statement when we’re through here ... and some elimination fingerprints. I’ll get in touch with you later, Monty said, as I slid over into the driver’s seat. He hopped into the cruiser and backed it onto the street so I could leave. Heading home, I began seething as I realized what Roger had gotten me into.

The Covesail Marina where I live is located on the Intracoastal Waterway and consists of three finger docks, a boat lift with dry storage stacks, a mechanic’s shop, and my brother-in-law Bill Cole’s office with an apartment above. The upstairs space once housed a sail loft years ago, and when the sail-making business closed, Bill took it over and by building a few interior walls and installing a kitchen, had made it a pretty cool bachelor pad. Patty moved in with him after they were married; soon they were literally falling over each other.

Shortly after I began working at Appleby Realty, I found them a cute and affordable1980's house about midway between Patty’s office at the Judicial Center downtown and the marina on San Rafael Beach. Bill did a little more remodeling and updating of the loft, and now it is again a bachelor pad—make that bachelorette pad.

From the door at the top of the exterior stairs, you enter into a cozy living room with a big picture window that overlooks the boats sitting in their slips along the three docks. Beyond that is the Intracoastal where vessels of all shapes and sizes move north and south. The mainland of San Rafael lies on the other side of the water and the setting sun sometimes appears to be lighting the town on fire.

I dropped my stuff on the living room chair and immediately got the chardonnay out of the fridge. It’s a small, under the counter refrigerator that at first horrified me with its size, but I soon realized that cooking for one doesn’t require a gourmet kitchen. I have yet to fill it to capacity.

I needed something to stop the shakes and was tempted to make an Absolut gimlet, my ‘absolute’ favorite drink. Afraid that I’d have to go to the police station for more questions, I decided I’d better have my wits about me and settled for a glass of my cold friend from California.

While I didn’t want to interrupt the joyous occasion of the birth of his child, I also didn’t want Roger to be surprised by a television news story or worse yet, a visit by the police announcing the murder of the man he was supposed to meet with earlier in the day. In reality I wanted to scream at him for what he’d gotten me into. It took me a while pacing around my living room, finishing my glass of wine and calming down before I picked up the phone. Of course, he could still be at the hospital awaiting the birth.

No such luck.

Hello, the familiar voice responded after the second ring.

Roger, hi, it’s Angie. I wasn’t sure you’d be home. Has Ellen had the baby yet?

She popped this one out as though it was nothing. Of course, it’s baby number four and they say it gets easier each time.

So, tell me the important statistics.

Oh right. Well, it’s a boy. Eight pounds, three ounces. A real screamer, so I probably won’t be getting much sleep for a while. We’re going to name him Christopher.

That’s a really nice name. I gather Ellen’s doing fine. When will they come home? I wondered how many more questions I could come up with to avoid the purpose of my call.

They’ll come home day after tomorrow. Meantime I’m dividing my time between here and the hospital.

This is a wonderfully happy occasion for all of you and I hate to dampen your high spirits. But I’m calling with some terrible news.

I could just picture Roger’s whole face deflate. He would be a terrible poker player because all his feelings always show plainly and affect his entire demeanor.

What’s the matter Angie? Are you alright?

Well, I’m still pretty shaky, but not because anything happened to me. It’s Mr. Figueroa, the man you sent me to see this afternoon.

Yes, Manny. I know him.

"You know him personally?"

Yes, we’ve become sort of friendly. Why? Has something happened to him?

This was going to be worse than I thought.

He’s dead, Roger. At least I assume it’s him. When I got there this afternoon, I found a body in the house. There was no one else there. I didn’t feel like explaining the noise of the sliding door, or the blue eyes of the tattooed man I had seen hiding in the bushes.

Silence, then a deep sigh.

This is terrible news. And really awful for you to find him. I’m so sorry. What happened, do you know?

Well, he was lying on the floor of the foyer, and there was a pool of blood behind his head. And a gun on the floor.

Omigod. Are you sure he was dead?

I wanted to avoid telling all the details, but I couldn’t. Yes, there was what appeared to be a bullet hole in his temple. I’m so sorry. Roger. How well did you know him?

Well, he always took care of my Volkswagen. He was a terrific mechanic. I helped him get the job at Goswell’s Garage when he first came to town. We had lunch together every now and then. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he lent me some money back when we had surprisingly big medical bills for Ellen and I was waiting for a few commissions to come in. I was just at his house last night to repay him the last of it. My God, this is awful.

Why didn’t you do the listing presentation then? I heard the sharp edge in my voice and refrained from launching into a tirade.

Well first of all, he had company. I had called him to say I wanted to drop by and he never said anything about anyone else being there. Plus, he had been hinting about selling for a few months and I thought it was just that— talk. But last night when I was there, he told me it was time to get the papers together. He caught me by surprise, ‘cause I didn’t really think he was serious about it. The meeting today was just a formality, he said. I thought I was giving you something simple. You know, just a review of how we determined the asking price and stuff like that.

Right. I usually get a feel for when people are ready to act, but Roger was probably a bit distracted what with the new baby. Plus, he couldn’t have done the presentation with someone else there.

Does he have any family around here? I changed the subject. Someone needs to ID the body.

Yes, he has a sister who lives over on Orange Street. But she’s elderly and doesn’t get around too well. I think I need to go see her to break the news.

Or you could let the police do that.

Oh, well, yes, maybe. I’d better go. I have plenty to do taking care of the other three kids while Ellen’s in the hospital.

Do you have anyone to help?

Ellen’s mom is here during the day and she prepares supper. But then she goes home. She’s worn out by then.

I’m so sorry about all of this, Roger. Especially sorry that he had given me what he thought was a simple, short appointment.

Yeah, me too.

I hung up and poured another glass of wine.

What I needed was to lighten my thoughts with some music. I own a decent size collection of CDs customized for me by my son Pete Jr. Most are from the 60's and 70's, which my then-husband and I agreed was the best music generation. I put on some easy listening, which began with the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel. I turned the sound down low, so as not to interrupt the jumble in my head that I was trying to sort out.

Relaxing on the sofa, I must have drifted off, because the next I knew, an annoying buzzing sound was pushing its way into my consciousness. When I became fully awake, I realized it was now dark outside and the noise was my door buzzer. Padding barefoot to the door, I switched on the outside light before opening.

It was Monty.

CHAPTER TWO

What was Monty doing here, I asked myself as I ran my fingers through tousled hair. No time to fix my makeup and change clothes. And no need to, not under these circumstances. I opened the door and asked him in.

Are you okay? were his first words. Not everyone comes across a murder victim in their daily business routine.

So, it wasn’t a suicide? I had a visual in my mind of him with the gun lying on the floor next to his left hand.

There is no gunshot residue on his hands, which you’d have to have if you just fired a weapon. We’re waiting on a formal forensics report, but with no suicide note, we’re approaching this as a murder.

Oh. I lost my voice—a tornado of thoughts and images whirled through my mind; images I wanted to get rid of–and no words forthcoming to express how I felt.

After an awkward silence, Monty said, We need to get a formal recorded statement from you, plus elimination fingerprints and I didn’t know what condition you’d be in, so I thought I’d drive you to the station. I called Patty to tell her where you’d be, and she said she’s working late, but she’ll come to the station to take you home when we’re done.

That was very thoughtful of him. His long friendship with Bill is the reason he’s so good to all of us. I’d probably be pretty shaky after the ordeal that was facing me at the police station, so I was happy to not drive. I was already reliving my brief time spent staring at the victim, with the pool of blood that had spread on the floor beneath his head. Squeezing my eyes shut, I attempted to erase the image.

Let me just freshen up a minute and we can go, I said, searching for my shoes and bag. In the bathroom, I threw some cool water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. If I ever thought I was still an attractive divorcee, the blotchy cheeks and puffy, fearful eyes staring back at me said otherwise.

As we were about to leave, the phone rang. It was my sister, who was so nervous she was almost shouting.

What’s this Monty tells me about your walking in on a murder?

I walked in afterwards. I had a listing presentation with a man named Manuel Figueroa, who I assume is the dead man, over on Redbud Lane. Monty’s here to take me to the police station. They need to take fingerprints and stuff.

How horrible. At least Monty’s there. I’ll pick you up at the station as soon as I can, but it may be an hour or so. Is that all right?

Fine. I have no idea how long this’ll take.

The night had become cloudy as if in counterpoint to the glorious day. A murky sky hung like a shroud over the entire city. We were silent for the drive. I guess Monty was enveloped in his own thoughts about the murder, since this event had to be a shock. Even though police are trained for this, we just don’t have much violent crime on the Beach, or even in the county, for that matter. I’m sure it was affecting him. He glanced over at me occasionally, possibly wondering if I was going to fall apart.

In order to keep my composure, I tried to push my thoughts in a more pleasant direction and what did I come up with? Him making love to me in my motel room after that fateful party, both of us moaning to the paper-thin walls. Well, I guess that did fall at the opposite end of the spectrum, and my face warmed as I felt a blush creep up my cheeks. Good thing it was dark out.

The San Rafael Beach police station is a plain one-story mud-color stucco building trimmed in chocolate brown. Lighting across the front was so bright it almost mimicked daytime and caused me to blink. The large parking lot was nearly empty as it was most every night, since this little town is not a hotbed of crime. We drove around to the back of the building where the police cruisers park and used the rear door.

Just inside to my right was the kitchen, which held a refrigerator (bigger than my own), a microwave, a small sink and the inevitable coffee pot. Monty poured a cup for each of us. By this time, I was starting to tremble, and he held my right hand while he placed the cup into it.

Wilma was sitting at one of the two Formica-topped tables finishing her own cup and she appeared to be pretty drained.

She looked up. Hey guys. Sorry you had to come in like this, Ms. Rossi.

Oh, please call me Angela, or Angie. I hate formalities.

She went back to staring down into her coffee cup and sighed. She’s about five feet three and a little on the chunky side, with short, dark curly hair and a fair complexion. I would guess she’s in her mid-thirties. She had dark circles under her brown eyes and any makeup she may have worn was long gone.

Thank heavens Monty was the one taking my statement because I ended up stuttering and mumbling my way through it. I told him again about the man who seemed to be hiding in the bushes and that I saw his electric blue eyes and some sort of tattoo on his arm.

Which arm? Monty interrupted.

I closed my eyes to bring back the image. Left arm, I’m pretty sure. He moved quickly when he saw me, so I’m not even positive about that.

That’s okay, Angie. You’re doing fine.

Did I tell you earlier that I thought I’d heard a sliding glass door opening ... or maybe closing ... on its track when I first entered the house, so maybe ole blue eyes had been inside. If he was in a hurry, I bet he left fingerprints. Right, as if the police wouldn’t check for that.

My own prints were taken by Vince DiCarlo who, at fifty-eight years of age was not only the oldest on the force—by many years–but had been there the longest. My partiality to Italian men knows no age limits. He still had swarthy skin and lively brown eyes, even though his hair was heavily streaked with gray. I liked Vince since I first met him at that birthday party at Smileys (you know the one I’m talking about). He’s been a widower for several years and appears now to be married to the job. I’ve heard that he has a grown son, an only child, who lives in California and doesn’t visit often.

He led me into his little work area, carefully took my prints and even helped me clean the ink off my fingers, all the while making small talk about some of the more interesting cases he’s worked on in his twenty-eight years on the force. Some were from when he was on the police force up in Atlantic Beach, and some from his years here. None of them involved a murder.

Then he walked me to the waiting area at the front of the building and said, Okay, doll. You can wait here. Take that old brown chair. It looks bad, but it’s the most comfortable.

I sat down and waited for Patty to arrive. I realized how alone I felt and thought of Peter, my ex, and I almost wished he were here to offer his strength. That was one of the things I loved most about him; he was my Rock of Gibraltar and I leaned on him heavily whenever there was trouble. I hadn’t considered before that I’d have to face future life crises alone, and that left me with a lump in my throat and a knot in the pit of my stomach. Anger