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CHAPTER 3
The rain slanted against the windshield as Savannah drove north from the TCSD toward Deception Bay and Siren Song. She’d stopped by her house—once her parents’, now hers and her sister’s—and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, her one true craving, before heading out to Siren Song and Catherine Rutledge.
The meeting over the Donatella homicides had run long, mainly because everyone in the conference room had wanted to have their say. Sheriff Sean O’Halloran, white-haired, with bright blue eyes and a growing girth, which worried him mightily, had started by saying, “A woman called in. An employee for Bancroft Development.” He glanced down at the notepad in his hand. “Ella Blessert. She works in the Seaside office and does some bookkeeping and general office work. She claims Marcus Donatella was having an affair with his administrative assistant, Hillary Enders, whose boyfriend found out about the affair and killed Marcus and his wife out of jealousy but made it look like payback for the real estate debacle. The boyfriend’s name is . . .” He frowned down at his notes. “Kyle Furstenberg.”
“Did you talk to Blessert?” Lang asked the sheriff.
“I took the call,” Clausen answered. “She didn’t want to be overheard, so she just gave us the brief version.”
“How does Blessert know this?” Lang asked.
Clausen shook his head. “All I know is she became friendly with Enders. Girlfriends. They’d go to lunch whenever Blessert went to the Donatella trailer at Bancroft Bluff, where Enders worked.”
Lang said, remembering, “When that project was finished, Donatella moved the construction trailer to his next project, the restaurant they were building just outside the city limits of Garibaldi. What happened to Enders?”
“She moved with them,” Savannah answered. “I interviewed Hillary Enders at the time of the homicides,” she reminded them. “The restaurant was only half completed when the Donatellas were killed, so that’s when construction stopped. The trailer’s still there, but we took all the files from it. The Donatellas were in that project alone, not with the Bancrofts.”
“The project’s dead, right?” Lang said. “Died with the Donatellas.”
Savvy looked to O’Halloran, who nodded and said, “Seems to be. The Donatellas didn’t have children, and no one in the family’s stepped up.”
Everyone thought that over, but nothing had really changed since the last time they’d gone over the particulars, except the information about Marcus’s supposed affair with Hillary Enders.
“Clausen, make a date with Blessert and see what else she has to say. If she doesn’t want to be overheard, bring her to the station, or at least get her out of the office somehow,” the sheriff said.
“Okay,” the detective answered. Clausen was in a race with O’Halloran on whose girth could grow the widest, although currently Savannah had them both beat.
“What about Enders and Furstenberg?” Lang asked.
“Go ahead and follow up with them,” the sheriff instructed.
“Shouldn’t it be me?” Savvy asked. Since I interviewed Hillary first?
“Since you’re a short timer, let’s have Lang do the follow-up,” O’Halloran said.
“I’m out for only a month or so. I’m not the baby’s parent,” she protested.
The sheriff nodded, as if she’d answered her own question, which, actually, she had.
Clausen said, “Enders is living in Seaside now, according to Blessert. No job since she worked for the Donatellas. Just drifting, apparently.”
Savannah held her tongue, though she still wanted to jump in. Knowing why she was being overlooked didn’t make it any easier.
“What took Blessert so long to come forward?” Lang asked.
“Maybe she didn’t want to give up her friend?” O’Halloran hiked his shoulders.
“Blessert made it sound like Enders and Furstenberg had a falling-out after the killings,” Clausen added. “Maybe Blessert just decided the time was right.”
The three men were looking at each other and subtly edging Savannah out. She tried to hold down her rising blood pressure, but it was a trick. Working to keep the edge out of her voice, she said, “Marcus and Chandra Donatella were tied up and shot in the back of the head execution-style. Is Kyle Furstenberg the kind of guy who would do something like that?”
When Savvy first interviewed Hillary Enders, the girl had been clearly shaken to the core and lost, asking, “Why? Why?” over and over again and squeezing Savannah’s hand as if she were afraid to let go. If Hillary’s boyfriend was a stone-cold killer, it didn’t read right that he would be with someone like Hillary.
“I’ll shake down Furstenberg and see what falls out,” Lang said. “And I’ll try to get Hillary Enders to the station. See what she says while surrounded by ‘the law.’”
“What should I do?” Savannah asked.
All three of them turned to her as if they wondered why she was still in the room. She could read their collective expressions: nothing. They didn’t want her anywhere near a crime scene in her condition, nor did they want her interviewing witnesses, informants, and the like. They didn’t want her around police work of any kind until after she’d given birth.
