Ultraviolet. Nancy Bush
femme fatale. Now I’m thinking she might be a murderer.
I mean, couldn’t she have killed ex-husband number three? Couldn’t she? Why does Dwayne find that so impossible?
I shook my head and stared up at the fir beams that line Dwayne’s cabana’s ceiling and thought back. Upon first meeting I’d been intrigued with Violet’s tell-it-like-it-is, take-no-prisoners attitude. But she was a Purcell and I had learned, by then, that they were a secretive, squirrelly bunch, so I wasn’t sure what to think of her. It had been refreshing to be faced with a family member who initially exhibited none of their odd family traits. Key word here being initially. Violet’s definitely got her own issues.
Luckily, since Dwayne’s accident, things seem to have cooled off a bit between him and Violet, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. And okay, they haven’t progressed to much more than friends, but I know she hauled off and kissed him once. I got to witness that. Dwayne is my mentor, boss, partner and friend. I cannot have him mean anything more to me and stay sane. I know this, but I have to keep reminding myself anyway because there’s a part of me that just can’t quite leave the whole possible romance thing alone. I would like to be disgusted with myself for being so nauseatingly hopeless. I mean, why can’t I just get over it? It’s interfering with my job and my life and I don’t even think I really like Dwayne.
That memory of Violet pulling him into a kiss crossed the screen of my mind again and I had to clench my teeth.
I waited for the moment to pass.
“Are you growling?”
I jumped. Dwayne’s voice was loud. Glancing back, I saw he’d stuck his head inside the slider door.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I like to.”
We looked at each other. I would rather suck on dirty socks than admit my feelings for Dwayne.
He let it go. “Violet’s on her way over, right?”
“Yep. She wants us to talk to the police. Find out if they’re going to indict her.”
“Larrabee would have already if he could prove she was guilty,” Dwayne said.
Detective Vince Larrabee was a homicide detective with the Portland police and a longtime acquaintance, sometime friend, of Dwayne’s. I’d heard his name once or twice before Violet’s case, but now it was part of our daily dialogue, though I had yet to meet the man.
“Violet wants that information directly from the big dog. I’m a mere lackey.”
Dwayne snorted and returned to the dock. He sank into the hail-and rain-soaked chair again without comment.
It had been a lot sunnier the day Violet walked out on Dwayne’s dock and announced that she might have killed her ex-husband. I’d been so giddily happy that she and Dwayne seemed kaput that I’d let myself be talked into helping her.
She’d showed up in true Violet fashion: looking beautiful, and…well, lusty. Her hair is blond and shoulder-length, her eyes that crazy electric blue color most of the Purcells seem to share. My own hair is a little longer than shoulder length, light brown, straight and wouldn’t let itself be styled if I bought a truckload of Vidal Sassoon products. I don’t possess Violet’s curves, but my eyes are hazel and sane-looking. I’m thirty and Dwayne’s about thirty-five. I figure that evens the score.
But that day Violet hadn’t been thinking about Dwayne, not in any romantic capacity. She’d needed help.
She plopped down in one of the dock chairs and announced numbly, “My ex-husband’s dead.” I’d questioned which ex-husband, since she had a few, and learned it was Roland Hatchmere, ex number three, the only one who lived in the Portland area.
“He was killed yesterday,” she went on. “On his daughter’s wedding day. Roland was still at the house, and these robbers showed up thinking he was gone, I guess, and he wasn’t, and they killed him.”
“Wedding robbers?” I asked, looking at Dwayne, since he’d already been investigating the Wedding Bandits.
“What happened?” Dwayne asked her.
“I don’t know! The police came to see me today,” Violet said, her eyes huge. “God, I don’t believe this. They seem to think I did it.” We asked her why that was and after hemming and hawing, she finally admitted, “Because he was killed with a heavy metal platter that has my fingerprints on it.”
“Did you kill him?” Dwayne asked her.
“I don’t think so,” she responded in a small voice.
And that’s when Dwayne checked out completely, picked up his binoculars and returned to his perusal of his buddies across the bay. If I’d known then he was going to make a serious job out of it, I might have been more concerned, but instead after he told Violet I was the lead investigator, I started thinking about how much money I could make and I agreed to take the case.
Since then my job had been mostly about keeping Violet calm and focused. She lived in a certain amount of fear the authorities were going to swoop down and haul her criminal ass to justice. I soothed with words about needing real evidence and motive and whatever else I could draw from the criminology classes I’d taken and my own vast repertoire of bullshit that I like to dress up as fact.
I’d managed to piece together the events of the wedding day from Violet’s disjointed recitation. Apparently Roland’s daughter Gigi had been slated to marry Emmett Popparockskill at the Cahill Winery in Dundee, Oregon, which is about an hour’s drive from Roland’s house in Portland’s West Hills District.
The wedding was scheduled to be outdoors with the requisite flowers, arches, ring bearer and flower girl—two additions I always cheer for since they pretty much rip focus away from the bride by screwing up somehow. I swear to God they are the best part of any wedding, beyond the champagne, alcohol and food.
Violet was not invited to the ceremony as she and Gigi were not on the best of terms, but she’d stopped by Roland’s house to drop off a gift for the bride and groom—the metal platter. While there, she and Roland got into some kind of fight, which culminated with Violet whacking him alongside the head with the platter and leaving in a huff.
Roland never showed for pictures and a search went out. He was found dead on the solarium floor from a blow to the head. Murder weapon, the tray.
Violet insists she didn’t kill him. “He was perfectly fine when I left him! He was moving. Breathing. Swearing at me! I didn’t kill him. Those robbers must have. After I left, they came in and murdered him. I didn’t kill him!”
I’ve gotta say, she’s quite convincing. I would probably believe her, but…well, Roland Hatchmere died from head trauma. And Violet hit him in the head with the tray. And the police only found one set of fingerprints on the tray: Violet’s.
Now I heard the loud purr of a sports car and figured the woman in question had arrived. She gave a perfunctory knock on Dwayne’s door, then pushed in, calling loudly, “I’m letting myself in!”
“Dwayne’s on the dock,” I greeted her.
She burst inside loaded with packages from several major department stores. A cloud of perfume wafted into the room, trailing in her wake. Catching my look, she held the bags higher. “I just couldn’t stop. Am I spending all my funds to fill a need? I’d bet on it, hon. I have too much money and not enough friends. Look, I bought you something.”
I tried hard not to react as Violet dug inside one of the bags. Scary, scary thought. I don’t want to owe Violet anything. Working for her is one thing, but friendship. Clothes buying…?
To my consternation she pulled out a dress. “Purple,” I said faintly. I didn’t want to be ungrateful but the thought of Violet buying me clothes…I just know it’s not going to work somehow.
“It’s my signature color,”