Tropical Punch Killer Read online

  “I always do,” Missy cracked up. “I’m glad that you like them,” she said, then seemed distracted, glancing over Echo’s shoulder. She looked at her watch and frowned.

  “Looks like I have some early customers,” she said, inclining her head toward a couple who had seated themselves at one of the outdoor bistro tables in front of the shop.

  Echo looked up at the clock. “You still have half an hour before you open,” she pointed out.

  “Well, yes, but I can’t just leave them sitting out there and ignore them,” Missy worried.

  “Why not?” Echo asked, chomping on another bite of Tropical Punch.

  “Because, it’s not polite,” she whispered.

  “No, it’s not polite to go to a shop half an hour before they open and expect to be served.”

  “Shush, negative Nancy,” Missy waved a hand at her friend. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she hoisted herself up from the chair by leaning on the table and grabbing the chair next to her. Echo instinctively reached out a hand to steady her friend. “I feel like a whale,” Missy giggled, hurrying toward the door.

  When she got outside, she saw backpacks and realized that her customers were far younger than she had guessed. They looked to be high school age, and were talking rather loudly and laughing when she opened the door.

  “Morning,” she broke in, approaching their table.

  “Hi,” the young man answered. The girl said nothing.

  “Were you folks wanting some cupcakes or coffee this morning?” Missy asked.

  “Yeah, we’d love some of both, but we don’t have any money,” the girl rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, okay,” Missy nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here a bit, but if we get busy, which we usually do in about half an hour or so, I’d just like to ask that you free up the table for customers,” she smiled at the young couple.

  “Wow…we’re just sitting here,” the girl frowned. “We weren’t bothering anyone, there isn’t even anybody here,” she challenged.

  Her tone lit a bit of a fire within Missy, but she made sure that her flare of temper didn’t show.

  “I know you’re not bothering anyone, I said that it should be available when customers come around, that’s all,” Missy’s smile masked the ire that she felt at the girl’s attitude.

  “Fine, whatever,” the girl snapped, reaching for her backpack.

  “You don’t have to leave, darlin’,” Missy began.

  “Just forget it,” the girl interrupted her.

  The young man with her kept his head down, unable to look Missy in the eye, but he too grabbed his backpack, following the girl down the sidewalk.

  “What was that all about?” Echo asked, when she saw the look on Missy’s face as she came in the door.

  “Just a couple of kids getting sassy,” Missy waved a hand in the direction that they’d taken. “No big deal.”

  “Well, good, Beulah got my cupcakes ready, so I have to run, but I need to talk to you later about an idea that Fiona McCamish has. Do you have some time this afternoon?” Echo asked.

  “Yep, come by whenever, we don’t have any major orders going out today.” Missy hugged her friend, still a little rattled by the encounter with the teens outside.

  “Take it easy,” Echo grinned, heading for the door.

  “Always,” Missy fibbed and they both knew it.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  “Excuse me, Mr. Beckett,” Holly, the receptionist at Beckett Private Investigations knocked softly on Chas’ office door and entered. “I hate to interrupt, but the Chief of Police is on line one,” she explained.

  “Thanks, Holly,” Chas nodded and picked up the phone, wondering what the Chief might need, this early in the morning.

  “Beckett, we’ve got a bad one this morning. A minor called it in. I need you to go to the scene as quickly as you can get there. I’ve got squad cars en route,” the Chief said grimly.

  Chas had agreed to act as Interim Lead Homicide Detective until a qualified replacement was found. The detective had left the department a few months earlier to open up his private investigation agency, never dreaming that it would be so difficult for the Calgon PD to find his replacement.

  “Not a problem,” Chas nodded, grabbing a pen. “Address?”

  He scribbled the address on a yellow sticky note, and assured the Chief that he was on his way.

  “New case?” his personal head of security and associate investigator, former Marine, Spencer Bengal, asked.

  “Yeah. Called in by a minor,” Chas sighed. “I hate it when homicide touches the lives of kids,” he shook his head.

  “Yeah, that’s rough,” the young man agreed. “No worries, I’ll take care of everything here. Let me know if you need me to do anything on this end.

  “Will do,” Chas agreed, grabbing his sport coat and heading for the door.

  **

  Officer Dan Barnes was keeping curious neighbors at bay at the crime scene when Chas pulled up in front of the Holman residence. The detective got out of the car and approached his colleague, scanning the perimeter for anything that looked out of place.

  “What have we got?” Chas asked in a low voice.

  “It’s not pretty in there,” Barnes shook his head. “A couple of the guys had to get out before they lost their breakfast. Two victims, husband and wife. Their fifteen-year-old daughter found them this morning. She’s on the patio out back with Jones. We had to get her out of there. She’s pretty upset,” the officer gave a brief rundown of the situation.

  “Understandably,” Chas nodded. “Any family coming to take care of her?”

  “Her brother is driving up from Miami. He’s a college student.”

  “Good. I’m going to take a look at the scene first, then I’ll talk to her. Any witnesses that you know of?”

  “Parsons and Nelson are talking to the neighbors to see if anybody saw or heard anything, and we’ve got forensics techs outside the perimeter searching for the murder weapon,” Barnes informed him.

  “Any speculation as to what the murder weapon was?” Chas probed, noting that, while the neighbors stood in little clusters in the area, no one was stepping forward to ask questions or volunteer information.

  “Pretty clear from some of the wounds that it was a hammer, so that’s what they’re looking for,” Barnes grimaced.

  “A hammer? A double homicide with a hammer?” Chas frowned.

  “Yeah, I thought it was strange too,” Barnes shrugged.

  “Okay. I’m going in,” Chas steeled himself for what would undoubtedly be a gruesome crime scene.

  The seasoned detective tried to look at such things clinically, but never seemed to be able to entirely let go of his disappointment with man’s inhumanity to man.

  The carnage once he stepped inside the front door was unbelievable, and while he managed to detach himself emotionally, he could see why cops with years of experience had been profoundly affected. The first victim was a woman, lying face down in the dining room. The second victim was nowhere to be found.

  “Where’s the second victim?” Chas asked a forensic tech who was taking photos of blood spatter on the walls in the dining room.

  “Ambulance took him to the hospital just as we arrived,” the tech lowered his camera.

  “He was still alive?” Chas was surprised, considering the condition of the recliner where Mr. Holman had been attacked.

  “He was barely recognizable as being human, but yeah, he was alive somehow.”

  A text came into Chas’ phone just then, alerting him to the fact that Mr. Holman hadn’t survived the trip to the hospital, despite the best efforts of the EMTs. Once Timothy Eckels, the mild-mannered coroner was done at the scene, he’d have to transport the first victim to the county morgue, then go pick up the second.

  Chas moved carefully around the gory crime scene, taking every precaution not to disturb anything. There was a huge amount of processing for the forensics team to do, a
nd he stayed out of their way as much as possible while investigating. Checking all doors and windows, he found no sign of forced entry. The bed in the daughter’s bedroom, as well as the one in the master bedroom, looked as though it had been slept in, and there was a tangle of bedding and pillows strewn on the couch.

  There was a dark stain on a placemat on the dining room table which caught Chas’ attention, and he made a note of it. He was examining some chipped drywall near the entrance of the dining room when Timothy Eckels and his assistant Fiona came in to make initial observations, photograph the body and transport the corpse for further examination. Tim’s autopsies often revealed clues that were instrumental in building a case which ultimately led to an arrest.

  “Eckels,” Chas nodded, shaking the coroner’s hand.

  “Detective,” Tim replied absently, his attention already captured by the victim on the floor.

  Fiona’s usually perky personality was far more subdued in the face of their grim current reality.

  “Hammer,” Tim mused, crouching down beside the body.

  “Oh man,” Fiona murmured, shaking her head.

  The coroner and his assistant worked slowly, making sure that they missed no details about the condition of the body, and taking several photos. Once they had done all that they could while the victim was still in the original position in which she’d been found, they carefully moved her and continued their assessment.

  “She’s only been dead a couple of hours at the most,” Tim murmured. “Her knees are bruised, fingernails are broken, with tips of them stuck in the carpet, here,” he pointed to a spot near the victim’s head.

  “That’s weird,” Fiona commented. “You’d think that her fingernails would be stuck in her attacker, or his clothes or something.”

  Tim sighed. “Not when she was clearly attacked from behind. She was trying to crawl away. I suspect we’ll find carpet fibers under her nails.”

  “Oh wow, she must have been terrified,” the assistant breathed.

  “As the expression on her face would indicate,” was Tim’s quiet reply. “Detective Beckett, where is the second victim?” he asked.

  “He was transported to the hospital and died en route,” Chas replied. “You’ll need to pick him up at the hospital.”

  “And that,” Tim pointed to the recliner in the living room, “was obviously where he was attacked.”

  “Yes, that’s where they found him,” Chas confirmed. “Go ahead and take whatever photos you need.”

  Tim and Fiona zipped Mrs. Holman’s body into a black bag and carefully placed her on a gurney, then took her to the waiting hearse. Once the body had been secured in the hearse, they went back in to take photos of Mr. Holman’s recliner. There were clues that Tim found which told him that Mr. Holman’s corpse was going to be in even worse condition than his wife’s had been. Once they’d taken all of the photos that they needed, they filed out of the home silently. It was going to be a long night at the morgue.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Athena Holman was pale and looked even paler with smudged circles of black eyeliner under her eyes and streaks of mascara staining her cheeks. The shuddering, hiccupping fifteen year old huddled under a light blanket despite the warm, humid Florida morning, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. Dark purple and blue hair flopped limply over one eye, and she peered at the strangers surrounding her from underneath it. Chas sat down in a lawn chair across from her, and the uniformed cops who had been trying to distract her went to assist in the search for the murder weapon, which had not yet been found.

  “Athena, my name is Detective Beckett, and I know that you’re having a really rough time right now, but I need to ask you some questions, okay?” Chas handled the girl delicately.

  “They already did,” she glanced at the departing officers, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “I know, but right now, the things you have to say are very important. I want to try to figure out who did this awful thing, but I’m going to need your help. Now, you called 911 this morning. Tell me what happened before you made that call,” Chas encouraged.

  “I went to bed around eleven last night, and Leslie and Dad were still awake and watching TV or something,” Athena began.

  “Did you hear them arguing or doing anything specific after you went to bed?” Chas asked.

  “No, I fell asleep pretty fast. I was really tired,” Athena mumbled, her thin shoulders shaking as she stared at the ground.

  “Does one or the other of them occasionally sleep on the couch? I saw some pillows and blankets lying there,” Chas commented.

  “No. I don’t know who put those there. The blankets and stuff weren’t there when I went to bed.”

  “So, you stayed asleep for the entire night? Did you wake up at all, or see or hear anything?” Chas probed.

  “No, I never wake up in the night. I woke up this morning, and went out to the kitchen to see if anyone had made coffee, and I saw Leslie stretched out on the dining room rug in a pool of blood,” Athena swallowed hard.

  “Leslie was your stepmother?” Chas clarified.

  “Yeah,” the teenager nodded.

  “Where is your birth mom?”

  “Who knows?” Athena seemed to turn inward, crossing her arms. “I think she moved to the Midwest or something.”

  “So you don’t have a relationship with her?”

  “No, she doesn’t care about me. She left me with my dad after they divorced.”

  “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Three. I don’t really remember her that much. I tried to write her some letters when I was little, but she never replied, so I gave up on her,” Athena’s tone was bitter.

  “And how long was your Dad married to Leslie?”

  “Almost three years.”

  “Did the two of you get along?”

  Athena stared at him for a long moment, seeming insulted. “She made my dad happy,” she said finally, looking away. “I feel sick,” her skin took on a greenish haze.

  “Athena?” a scared-looking young man had somehow made his way to the house, slipping through the woods behind it, despite the police perimeter.

  The teenager jumped up, the blanket she’d been wearing around her shoulders falling to the ground, and ran into the young man’s arms. Her tears began anew as he held her tightly.

  “Are you Warren? Athena’s brother?” Chas asked.

  “Uh…no. No, I’m not.”

  “Who are you?” Chas frowned, wondering how this young man had gotten past the scores of police in the area.

  “I’m Trevor, Athena’s boyfriend.”

  “I see,” Chas stared at the nervous young man and waved down Barnes.

  “What’s up, Detective?” Barnes trotted to Chas’ side.

  “I’d like you to ask Trevor a few questions, if you don’t mind. I’ll take over when Athena and I have finished up here,” Chas directed.

  “Why does Trevor have to say anything?” Athena demanded, finally lifting her head from her boyfriend’s chest. “He wasn’t even here.”

  “Anybody who shows up at a crime scene may have useful information,” Chas said easily, noting the change in her behavior since her boyfriend was near.

  “You’re supposed to be doing stuff to figure out who did this,” the girl accused, “not wasting time by asking random people who come over a bunch of questions.”

  Barnes moved to Trevor’s side. “Why don’t you come out front with me?” he suggested, gesturing for the youth to follow, with a tone which indicated that his pleasant words weren’t actually a question or suggestion.

  “Uh, okay,” Trevor released Athena and stepped back, looking more than a bit uncertain.

  “This is so beyond stupid,” Athena pouted, sounding like a child.

  Barnes started off toward the side of the house and Trevor followed him like a reprimanded puppy, turning back more than once to look at his girlfriend.

  “Have a seat and tell
me the rest of what happened this morning,” Chas reeled her back in.

  “What’s he going to say to Trevor?” she demanded, distracted.

  “You let Trevor worry about that and you focus on our conversation,” Chas instructed, an eyebrow raised.

  Seeing that the detective meant business, Athena flopped back into her chair, crossing her arms, jaw set.

  “Now, tell me what happened when you woke up this morning.”

  “I already told the other guys about it,” Athena’s tone had gone sullen.

  “Humor me,” Chas insisted.

  The haunted look returned. “I saw Leslie down there and I got really scared. I went in the dining room, and saw my dad’s feet propped up on the footrest of the recliner in the living room, so I ran out there to get him, and he was making these awful noises in his throat, and his head was all…” her voice choked off and Chas remained silent, waiting for her to recover.

  “I tried talking to him, I yelled his name, but he…couldn’t answer, so I called 911.”

  “Then what happened?” Chas prompted.

  “The lady on the phone made me go check for a pulse on Leslie, but I didn’t want to touch her. I was so scared,” Athena shivered.

  “And did you check for a pulse?”

  Athena simply nodded.

  “Was there one?”

  “No.”

  “This is going to be a painful question, but when you touched Leslie, where did you touch her?”

  “On her neck, there was no heartbeat. The lady on the phone told me where to check.”

  “When you felt her skin, what did it feel like?”

  “What do you mean?” Athena frowned.

  “What was the texture and temperature?”

  “I don’t know, it just felt like skin, you know, normal. I didn’t know what touching a dead person would be like, but it was just like she was sleeping or something. After I did that, I ran back to my dad and I was asking the lady what I should do, but she said I needed to wait until the EMTs got here. I felt so bad, he was gurgling and making those awful noises and I couldn’t do anything,” Athena shook her head.