Maddie Cochere - Susan Hunter 05 - Windy City Hunter Read online

  Darby reached the bags and boxes and was gathering them up into his arms when Mrs. Fisher’s door opened, and the man – the possible murderer – stepped out. He saw me with my head sticking out of the doorway, and I have no idea what possessed me to speak, but I blurted out, “We called the police. You won’t get away with this.” I ducked back into the condo and slammed the door.

  A terrible thought came into my mind. I had just left Darby in the hallway with a murderer who now knew we were on to him. I panicked and looked around for something I could use as a weapon.

  I opened the closet and grabbed an umbrella. Holding it up and gripping it tightly, I opened the door and rushed into the hallway. I promptly plowed into Darby as he was reaching for the doorknob. He wasn’t fazed, but I bounced off of him and the packages he was holding and fell backward onto my rump. The murderer was still in the hallway and rushed over to help me up.

  “Susan, what are you doing?” Darby asked. “Are you all right? Why do you have an umbrella?”

  “Are you ok, lady?” the murderer asked as he tried to grab my arm and help me to my feet.

  “I’m fine,” I said indignantly and yanked my arm away from him as soon as I was up. I was embarrassed and mad at myself for overreacting.

  Before any of us could say anything more, the elevator doors opened, and a large entourage of people emerged. A man in jeans and an overcoat seemed to be leading the charge. Darby pushed me back into the condo and shut the door. He set the bags and boxes down, and headed to the kitchen with the milk.

  “You know,” he called out, “they’re going to want to talk to us, but there’s really nothing we can tell them, so it should only take a few minutes. We’ll wait until they knock on the door.” He walked into the living room, gave me an affectionate look and said, “Thank you for coming out with the umbrella in case I needed help.” I felt myself blush. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell?” His look turned to one of concern.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve had a few tumbles on the racquetball court, too. My doctor says the baby is well protected from a few jolts here and there. But I told that murderer guy we knew what he did, and we called the police. Then I got scared and thought he might attack you.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Susan, you’re going to have to get your imagination under control. I don’t think for one minute he’s the murderer. He didn’t act like one, and he didn’t run. He even stayed put when the police showed up.” He checked his watch. “It’s 7:15. Why don’t you call Mick and talk with him now? If the police come over here and take longer than we think, you’ll be late calling him, and we both know how that will go over.”

  I nodded and went to the bedroom to make the call. My purse was on the nightstand. I fished out my cell phone and Mick’s number in England. He and his fifteen-year-old son from a previous marriage were in England visiting Mick’s parents who had been living abroad for two years now. They were planning to move back to the states next year in time for the baby’s birth. I had never met my in-laws, and I was both excited and anxious for when they came home.

  Mick had taken Alex out of school to make the holiday trip, and they were having a wonderful time. My doctor had approved the flight for me, but Mick was still apprehensive about my flying, the hectic schedule his parents had planned for everyone, and my unpredictable mood swings. He felt the three things combined spelled disaster. I laughed and told him I didn’t mind staying behind at all. I was still working for Slimmer’s Weight Loss as a Division Manager, and my schedule was busy for the holidays. When Darby was selected to participate in the cooking competition, Mick agreed it would be fun for me to help him. I knew he was torn about my leaving Carbide City and traveling to Chicago, but even he knew there couldn’t be trouble everywhere I went.

  Now, here we were, not even a few hours in Chicago, and the police would be questioning us about a murder. I started giggling … and I couldn’t stop.

  Darby came into the bedroom and found me flopped over on the bed and laughing uncontrollably. When he saw I wasn’t hurt, he started laughing, too. “What? What’s so funny?” I couldn’t get any words out. “Tell me,” he said. “What are you laughing about?”

  He sat down on the bed beside me, and I sat up gasping and wheezing as I tried to get the laughing under control. I finally let out a big sigh and said, “Phew, that was a bad one.”

  “Do you do that often?” he asked with his eyes wide. I could tell he was surprised, but also thoroughly entertained at my out-of-control laughter.

  “You have no idea,” I told him. “They could put me on trial for murder, and with my emotions on the fritz, I’d probably laugh on the stand.” I looked at him a little more seriously and said, “What am I going to tell Mick? He will freak when he finds out we witnessed a murder.”

  “We didn’t witness a murder,” he said. “There just happened to be a murder of a very rich woman who kept diamonds in her condo across the hall from us. It shouldn’t be anything to alarm him.” He looked at me skeptically. “Can you handle that?”

  I smiled and nodded my head. I was on the verge of laughter again. Or was it tears? They both felt near the surface.

  Twenty minutes later, I was saying my goodbyes and giving my love to everyone in England. It was good to hear Mick’s voice, and there was so much to talk about, it didn’t seem important to bring up the subject of the murder. I closed my phone and walked into the living room.

  Darby was reading the note from his uncle. I was going to ask him what it said, but authoritative knocking sounded on the condo door. We looked at each other with here we go looks, and I took a seat in the chair while he went up the steps to open the door.

  First through the doorway was the man wearing the jeans and overcoat. Directly behind him was the murderer. I instantly felt on edge. He already knew I thought he had killed Mrs. Fisher, and I felt intimidated.

  “Darby Tapley?” the first man asked.

  Darby nodded his head and said, “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Malloy with Chicago Homicide,” the man said. “This is Wes Bradley. I’d like to ask you a few questions. I won’t take much of your time.”

  Darby motioned for them to go down the steps to the living room. Both men sat on the sofa while Darby sat on the arm of my chair. Wes Bradley looked directly at me. I expected him to give me the I’m watching you sign again.

  Detective Malloy looked at me and asked, “You’re Susan Hunter?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I was Susan Hunter, but I’m Susan Raines now. I got married last January.”

  Wes looked at me and then to Darby before saying, “You two aren’t married?”

  Darby answered, “No. We’re best friends and neighbors back home in Ohio.”

  Wes smirked at that and shook his head. Once again, all I could think was, what a jerk.

  “Terry said this is your uncle’s condo, right?” asked Detective Malloy. Darby nodded a yes. “What are you two doing in town?”

  “I’m entered in the Cook County Cooking Competition over at the Wilder Hotel this weekend,” Darby said. “Susan came along to help me.”

  Detective Malloy nodded as though he already knew the answers to everything he had already asked and said, “Ok, let’s cut right to it. What did you two see tonight? Darby, you first.”

  “Nothing,” he said. “We stepped out of the condo, and Wes was in the hallway. A woman came up, opened the door to Mrs. Fisher’s condo, and I assumed it was Mrs. Fisher lying on the floor. The woman screamed, and Susan and I came back into the condo. We kind of thought it would be best if we didn’t get involved.”

  Detective Malloy looked at me, and said, “Ok, Susan. You’re next. What did you see?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, pointed at Darby, and said, “What he said.”

  The detective smiled and said, “Let’s hear it in your words.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “we left some boxes and bags down by the elevator, and when we left the condo to go get them,
Wes here had just come out of Mrs. Fisher’s condo.”

  Wes sat up straighter and started to say something, but Detective Malloy put his hand on his arm to silence him. “Go on,” he told me.

  “Then the woman opened the door to the condo, and we all saw poor Mrs. Fisher lying on the floor in her own blood, and Wes never flinched or anything. It was like he knew she was dead in there. And then -”

  “Wait a minute. Wait just a minute,” Wes said interrupting me.

  Detective Malloy put his hand on his arm again and said with irritation, “Hold on, Wes, let her finish.”

  “Then that woman screamed, and we ran back in here,” I said. “I didn’t want to stay in the hallway with a murderer.”

  Wes stood up, and barked down at the detective, “Ok, I’ve had about enough of this horse-”

  “Wes, shut up!” Detective Malloy barked back at him. “Sit down!”

  Wes clenched his teeth, shot daggers at me with his eyes, and sat back down on the sofa. The vein in his neck was bulging. He ran his hands through his hair a couple of times making it more messed up than it already was. He was definitely rattled. Well, good. He wasn’t going to get away with this if I had anything to do with it.

  “Is that it you two?” the detective asked. “Is there anything else you can think of? Did you see anyone on your way in or out of the condo this evening?”

  Darby and I both shook our heads no, but we stopped, looked at each other, and shouted at the same time.

  “The man,” Darby said.

  “The gorilla!” I said.

  The detective and Wes were both confused by our outburst.

  “You tell them,” I said to Darby.

  “When we were unloading all of our stuff from the elevator, a guy came running down the hallway,” he said. “He was wearing a gorilla head. He never slowed down, and he tripped over Susan’s suitcase. He ended up falling into the elevator and crashing into the corner.”

  “What else can you tell us about him?” asked the detective. “Height? Build? Clothes?”

  Darby shrugged and shook his head, so I said, “He was in a gray zippered sweatshirt. It may have been a hoodie, but I couldn’t tell because of the gorilla head. He was wearing black jeans and white tennis shoes. Nothing stood out at all. He had a normal build, not too fat, not too skinny, not too tall, not too short.

  “Well, that’s helpful,” Wes muttered under his breath.

  The detective ignored him and stood up. “Ok. Thanks for your time.” He handed his card to Darby and said, “If you think of anything else, give me a call.” He looked at Wes still seated on the sofa and asked, “You comin’, Wes?”

  “No,” he said. “I think I’ll see if they have other information that might help me.”

  I jumped up. I was alarmed and said, “You can’t leave us here with a potential murderer.”

  Detective Malloy smiled and said, “He’s not a suspect, Susan.” And with that, he let himself out of the condo.

  “You guys got anything to drink in here?” Wes asked. “Maybe a beer?”

  “If you’re a cop, you’re not supposed to be drinking on the job,” I told him. I couldn’t keep the sarcasm from my voice.

  “I’m not a cop,” he said. He looked at Darby, raised his eyebrows, and asked again, “Beer? Diet Coke? Something cold?”

  “Sure,” Darby said. “Coming right up.”

  I sat back down in the chair, and said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Why would I know you?” he asked. “You’re not from the area, and I never forget a face. I would know if we’ve met before.”

  “It was earlier today on the south side of the city at a Quickie Foods,” I said. “I was sitting in our car waiting for Darby, and you were leaving. When you drove by, you gave me that stupid hand single from your eyes to mine.”

  He stared at me for a few moments before throwing his head back and laughing a genuine laugh. “You were staring so hard at me, and I didn’t know why, so I let you know I was watching you.”

  Darby came back with a beer for Wes and bottles of iced tea for me and him. Wes was still chuckling as he said, “Thanks, man.”

  Darby sat down beside Wes on the sofa and asked, “Why did you stay behind? How can we help you?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” he said. “I work for Mountain Premium Insurance to uncover fraud, specifically art and jewelry fraud. Penelope Fisher and I have known each other for several years now, and our company has all of her jewelry insured. I know your uncle was friendly with Penelope, and I’d like to know exactly what you two know about her jewelry, and were you in her condo today?”

  I was shocked at the subtle accusation. I raised my voice and said, “We just got here. We didn’t even know the woman. How dare you think we might have been involved in this.”

  He smiled and asked, “Like you dared to think I was involved when you simply saw me standing in the hallway?”

  I felt a blush coming into my face. “Ok. You’re right. I’m sorry about that. I seem to have a healthy imagination right now.”

  Darby spoke up. “Terry, Emma, and Andy will confirm when we arrived, and I have emails from Uncle Jack that will show Mrs. Fisher was expecting us for tea at 8:00. We didn’t even have all of our belongings from the elevator into the condo when we saw you in the hallway, so there wasn’t any time for us to have seen Mrs. Fisher or be in her condo.”

  “What do you know about her?” Wes asked.

  “I know she calls herself The Queen of Diamonds, because she owns a ton of diamonds, and she keeps all of her jewelry with her in her condo. She also decorates with the queen of diamonds, like the playing card. Uncle Jack said she has embroidered towels with the emblem, pillows, dinnerware, statues, all things queen of diamonds.”

  Wes nodded his head, but furrowed his brow. I thought he was looking at Darby suspiciously now. Maybe he was surprised Darby knew so much about her.

  “Uncle Jack didn’t say much more,” he continued. “Just that she had been a New York socialite, married a billionaire who passed away about fifteen years ago, and she was an eccentric, tough old cookie, and he adored her. I think he mentioned she’s lived in this building for at least twenty-five years. He said on the day he moved in, she knocked at his door and invited him over for tea and bear claw pastries.”

  “Did he ever mention any of her diamonds specifically?” Wes asked.

  “He said she showed him a necklace once that had a large diamond and was worth a half million dollars, but he said she wore diamonds all the time, even in her hair, and sometimes he would see them loose on the coffee table.”

  Wes continued to frown, and he looked more intently at Darby. “Other than today, have you been in Chicago at any other time in the past two months?”

  “Of course not,” he said. It was obvious he was taken aback by the question.

  “What do you do for a living?” Wes asked.

  “I’m a freelance web and marketing writer. I work from home,” he said.

  Wes nodded as though the answer was working into his theory. “So, you don’t have anyone to corroborate your comings and goings, do you?”

  “He most certainly does!” I spouted. “He shares an apartment with his partner, Nate. Between Nate, my husband, Mick, and me, we can account for plenty of times we’ve seen him. He wouldn’t have had any time to go to Chicago and back without one of us knowing he was gone for an entire day.”

  Darby was serious and subdued as he asked, “Why were you here to see Mrs. Fisher today? If you didn’t know she had been murdered, why were you here, and why are you suspicious of me?”

  Wes took a final swig of his beer and set the bottle down on the table before saying, “She filed a claim for some missing diamonds last month. It was a small pouch of loose diamonds worth about fifty thousand dollars. The fact that you seem to know so much about her, her condo decor, and her diamonds, right down to her loose diamonds, seems suspicious.”

  “If it’s any hel
p, Wes, I’d be happy to send copies of my emails from Uncle Jack to you,” Darby said. “He really is fond of her, and he wanted us to meet her, so he filled me in on some details about her life. Although, I don’t think he put into writing the specific information about her diamonds. I think we talked about those on the phone when we finalized the arrangements for us to stay here.”

  “Where is your uncle?” Wes asked.

  “He’s in Tokyo for a banker’s conference. He’ll be back sometime next week.”

  Wes stood up, pulled out his wallet, and struggled to extract a business card from the overstuffed leather. He finally handed a bent card to Darby and said, “My email is on my card. You can send your correspondence with your uncle to me there. Call me if you think of anything else I should know.”

  Darby walked with Wes to the door. I wasn’t upset over the questioning, and I realized I was famished. We hadn’t had anything to eat other than snacks since lunchtime on the road.

  “Well, what did you think about all of that?” Darby asked as he dropped onto the sofa.

  “It was just like on television,” I said. “They accuse everyone, no matter how absurd it may seem, and then they hope something sticks to somebody. I’m not worried about it, but I am starving. What do you want to do about dinner?”

  “Uncle Jack’s note said we should eat anything and everything in the kitchen. He stocked up for us. Plus, we have the pastries I bought earlier.” He thought for a moment before saying, “I’m not in the mood to cook, and he left numbers for pizza shops that will deliver, so how about a pizza?”

  “Ooh, pizza sounds really good tonight,” I told him. “I haven’t been eating pizza lately because spicy foods haven’t been agreeing with me, but how can we be in Chicago and not get a pie?”

  Darby agreed and went to the kitchen for the numbers to call. Now that I had my taste buds set for pizza, I hoped at least one of the shops would deliver in this weather.

  I grabbed the television remote from the coffee table and started surfing for something to watch. A cooking show was always a safe bet for the two of us, and most of them had holiday recipes right now, so that would be an added bonus.