“Oh, yes. It was so clever. The murderer pretended to be the first to go. Then he proceeded to kill everyone, one by one, until there were none.”
Patty’s phone went off just as I started to say something. “Yes, I’ll be right out,” she said to whoever was on the other end.
“I do have to get going, Bonnie,” she said after disconnecting. “My ride is outside waiting.” Then, turning to me she said, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you again, Jake. I hope to see you and Fred next week.”
***
“What was that all about?” Bonnie asked after Patty left. “You practically accused her of breaking into my home. I hope she doesn’t think I put you up to it.”
“Sorry, Bon, It’s just that she looks so much like the woman I saw. If only we had the camcorder.”
“Forget the camcorder, I know who did it.” Bonnie had a grin on her face that stretched from ear to ear.
“Oh? And who could that be?”
The twinkle in her eyes made her look ten years old. “Shelia, of course. You know, and then there were none.”
I didn’t act surprised at her answer, for the same thought had crossed my mind. “I suppose Shelia could have faked her own murder—it wouldn’t be the first time that old trick’s been tried. But what is the motive? And more importantly, if the corpse isn’t Shelia, who is it?”
“I haven’t a clue. Maybe some tart she caught him with,” she answered, staring into space. “Or maybe some homeless soul they picked up on Colfax. Yes, that makes more sense.”
Bonnie was getting too excited. I had to think of a way to calm her down quickly before she had another heart attack. “Let’s go over to the Little Bear, Bon. I’ll buy you a drink and we can think this through.”
Fred decided to add his two-cents before Bonnie could answer, and barked. Bonnie reached down to pet him. “Of course you don’t want to sit out in a hot car, Freddie. What is your master thinking?”
“Okay, Bon, that was a bad idea,” I said before looking at Fred and adding, “Traitor.”
***
“That would explain the person I saw sneaking around in Renfield’s kitchen,” I said once we were back at Bonnie’s house, and sitting out on her deck. “It could very well have been Shelia trying to hear what I had to say.”
Bonnie had mellowed out after her second glass of bourbon and was no longer acting like a schoolgirl. “And I’ll bet she was the one who broke into my house and planted the evidence to frame me.”
I picked off a piece of meat from the chicken wing I was eating and threw it to Fred who wasn’t going to leave me alone until he got his share. Bonnie had insisted on fixing us something to eat even though I was still stuffed from the church potluck. “I suppose she could have been wearing a wig, but I really don’t think so. The person I saw was much shorter.”
“How can you be sure, Jake? You said you didn’t get a good look because she was too far away, remember?”
She had me there, memory can play tricks after a while, and now I wasn’t sure what I had seen. “Okay, suppose you are right and Shelia’s not dead. And suppose the corpse was a homeless person she and Craig lured into their home, but why? Why go to all this trouble to frame you?”
Bonnie took a deep drag on the cigarette she had been smoking, and let the smoke drift off before answering. “I can think of a million reasons. Like insurance, or maybe she was about to be arrested for something, or maybe it’s like I said before and she came home to find her doppelganger in bed with Craig.”
“Doppelganger?”
“Someone who looks exactly like her,” Bonnie answered.
“I know what a doppelganger is, Bon. I was wondering what made you think the corpse looks anything like Shelia. And come to think of it, wouldn’t the cops want to identify the body with fingerprints, or dental records or something? I would think that would be mandatory in a murder, case.”
Bonnie squashed her cigarette in an ashtray that had once seen better days as the base of a flower pot. “There you go being a negative Nancy. I need your help to prove Shelia’s alive before they arrest me for killing her. If I wanted someone to throw roadblocks in my way, I would have asked Margot.”
Fred must have detected her frustration and went over to sit by her. Or maybe it was because I didn’t have any more chicken wings and she did.
“Whoa, Bon. I was just playing devil’s advocate. I suppose it won’t hurt to check into it.”
***
Checking into Shelia pretending to be dead consisted of a futile Internet search of police regulations on body identification. One site said autopsies were mandatory in cases of murder, while another said it was at the discretion of the family. What an autopsy had to do with identifying a body that wasn’t disfigured or burnt to a crisp was beyond me, but I wasn’t surprised at the search results. I wondered if I’d be better off consulting a Ouija board.
Before I wasted anymore gray-cells trying to prove something so foolish, I decided to check and see if Shelia had ever been arrested. My twisted logic told me if she had, then her fingerprints would be on file, and I could forget about giving myself the headache of going any further, because the forensic pathologist would have checked. Once more, I knew as much as when I’d started; I couldn’t get that information without paying for it.
In the end, I decided my best bet would be to watch Craig’s house. If Shelia were hiding there, she would have to come out sooner or later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“That’s the dumbest idea you’ve had yet, Jake. Just how long do you think it will be before the neighborhood watch calls the cops on you?” Bonnie said after she quit laughing. Fred and I were having our morning coffee when I told her my plan to catch Shelia. Well, I was having coffee. Fred liked his with lots of milk and nothing else, including coffee.
“I’m not going to sit out there with binoculars like some kind of pervert. In fact, I’m not even going to be there.” Her look said more than any response could have. She sat there staring at me, supporting her chin with her index finger. It looked like she might slip, and cut herself with one of her rose-red fingernails from the expensive manicure Margot had paid for a few days ago.
“The Internet, Bon,” I said, before she could ask. “I’ll leave my car parked across the street with an IP camera on the dash that I’ll disguise as a radar detector.”
“You can do that? You can watch the house over the Internet?”
“You bet. And most of those cameras are twelve volts, so with the addition of a cheap adapter, it should plug right into the cigarette lighter.”
She stopped supporting her chin and reached for her pack of cigarettes. My mention of the lighter must have flipped some kind of switch in her brain. “Only one problem, Einstein. You might as well write NSA on your Jeep, because it’ll be about as inconspicuous as a naked hooker at communion.”
The image she painted made me laugh. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if Lakewood has some kind of law against parking overnight. It would be my luck they would tow it after twenty-four hours. I guess that’s not such a great idea.”
“No, Jake. That MP camera is a stroke of genius.”
“IP, Bon, and I forgot one important fact. It needs a router to connect to the Internet. I suppose I could search for an unprotected router in the neighborhood, but that too is a crime now. But it doesn’t matter. Does your nephew still have his roofing company?”
Bonnie was about to light up again, but stopped in midair with her lighter still lit. “Jonathan?” Recognition of my next move showed in her wrinkles. “Oh, no. Not that again.”
It was only last year I had taken a job with Jonathan in an attempt to find evidence. Shelia had threatened me with manslaughter in the death of her husband when a barbecue grill I was using exploded in her husband’s face. Long story short, I suspected Jonathan of sabotaging the grill so I talked my way into his roofing yard to search for the faulty propane bottle.