“Oh, sure. A few here and there. Nick’s age, mostly. Friends, I suppose. Can’t really describe them—they all look the same to me. Young men in jeans and t-shirts.” She frowned. “Although there was one fellow a week or two ago who looked different. Older, well off. Very nicely dressed, too. Drove an expensive-looking car. He wasn’t here long, though. Maybe ten minutes.”
Gio Abruzzi, most likely. That was one guy with killer instincts who knew where to find Nick, at least.
Mendoza made notes, asked a few more questions about times and dates that Mrs. Miller couldn’t quite remember, then thanked her for her help.
“I’ll need you to stay available,” he told her. “There’s going to be a lot of us coming and going the rest of the day, and we may have more questions later.”
“Of course, Detective.” She bent down and scooped up Patches, who had finished grooming herself. “Poor Nick. He was such a nice boy. Who would want to hurt him?”
She left the question hanging in the air as she headed back to her side of the duplex, steps slow and with the cat draped over her shoulder.
Once she had turned the corner and was out of sight, Mendoza turned to me. “All right, Mrs. Kelly. Let’s get your official statement before the cavalry arrives.”
He pulled out his phone and held it up between us. “You ready?”
I nodded, and he tapped a button and addressed the device. “This is Detective Jaime Mendoza, badge number—” he rattled off four numbers, “conducting an interview with—” he looked at me “—state your full name, please.”
“Regina Beaufort Kelly.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
He nodded. “—at 9:40AM on Saturday, November…”
I tuned out the rest of the sentence and tuned back in when he said, “Mrs. Kelly, can you tell me in your own words what brought you to this location this morning?”
I took a breath and let it out again. “How far back do you want me to go?”
“The beginning, if you don’t mind.”
I nodded. And started with Jacquie hiring me to follow Nick, about spending the last two days watching the Body Shop, about how Nick had been acting nervous and paranoid. I told him about Zachary following Nick and Sal to the Tin Roof last night, about how they’d sat there for hours before Nick drove home alone around eleven-thirty.
“Zachary can confirm the time,” I said. “He watched Nick go inside. It was probably his car that Mrs. Miller heard. He drives an old beater, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it backfired.”
Mendoza nodded. “We’ll talk to him.”
“I’ll give you his number.” I paused. “When Nick went inside, someone could have been waiting for him, couldn’t they? Although it’s more likely they came later, isn’t it? When there was less chance anyone would be awake to hear the shot?”
“The shot was probably suppressed,” Mendoza said, and added, when he saw the look on my face, “With a silencer. Otherwise, Mrs. Miller would have heard it. These walls are thin.”
“Well, I don’t think it happened when Zach was driving away. And when you talk to him, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him so. He’ll blame himself. You know what he’s like.”
Mendoza made a face, and I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything that would give whoever was listening to the recording the idea that I was anything more than just a random witness.
Not that I was anything more than a random witness. That had been made abundantly clear by the silence from his quarter over the past three weeks.
“Go on,” Mendoza prompted. “Why did you come here this morning?”
“I was watching Megan’s house. Megan’s the blonde Mrs. Miller mentioned?—”
Mendoza’s lips crimped a little at that, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded for me to go on. I gave him a look—what did he know about Megan that I didn’t?—but I didn’t ask. That, at least, didn’t need to be on the official recording.
“She wasn’t home. Her car was gone. And Nick wasn’t at work. I thought they might be together, so I came to check.”
“And found the door unlocked.”
“The kitchen door, yes. I knocked first, several times. Front door, even the bedroom window. No one answered.” I met his eyes. “The truck was here. Mrs. Miller said he’d come home last night. Zach watched him walk into the house. I had a bad feeling. And then, when I discovered that the kitchen door was unlocked…”
“You went inside.”
Well, yes. But— “I called out. Several times. And I know I probably shouldn’t have gone in?—”
