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If jealousy had been the driving force behind Danny’s murder, maybe I was looking at this from entirely the wrong angle. Maybe none of those women were the culprit, but instead someone they were involved with, or possibly someone who wanted to be involved with any of them and so had decided their best chance of romantic success was to make sure they were the only contender for their lady love’s affections.
That situation seemed a bit more plausible.
Probably not the man Corinne had been seeing. I was getting all my information secondhand, of course, and yet it sounded as though things were pretty serious between the two of them, that they were just about to take the big step of living together. It didn’t make any sense for Corinne’s boyfriend in Mesa to have killed Danny when he was about to be out of the picture anyway.
That left Jennifer and Susan. I hadn’t asked her, but I’d gotten the strong impression that Jennifer wasn’t currently seeing anyone, which meant there wasn’t any kind of love triangle to provide the impetus for Danny’s murder. I’d have to come up with a polite way to ask her, though, just to make sure.
As before, Susan Laughlin appeared to be the real wild card…so to speak…in all this. I really was going to have to come up with some kind of discreet way to pick her brain.
In the meantime, though, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask Danny a few questions.
Of course, now that I wanted him in the shop, he was nowhere to be seen. I shuffled the cards I’d drawn back into the deck, and then put them in their velvet bag and stowed them under the counter. With the cards now shielded from any stray energies, I called out, “Danny?”
No reply. I wasn’t terribly surprised; these things often took time.
“Danny Ortega,” I said next, my voice now firm, almost commanding. “I need to speak with you.”
Again nothing. So much for acting as though I knew what I was doing. Communing with spirits had never been my forté.
I glanced out the front window. Broad Street appeared almost deserted, although a couple of cars drove by, going just a smidgen faster than downtown’s posted twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. It didn’t look as if I needed to worry about any customers coming in.
And my appointment with Joyce Lewis wasn’t for almost three hours.
No point in hesitating. I went over to the “be back at” sign in the window and moved the hands on the little clock to the one-thirty position. That way, I was allowing myself plenty of time for lunch, too.
Might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Since my purse was under the counter, I really didn’t need to go back upstairs — except I knew if this particular errand ran long and I wasn’t back in time to feed Archie his lunch at noon, there’d be hell to pay. Grumbling under my breath, I hurried up the stairs, then let myself in and went straight to the kitchen, where I began opening a can of cat food.
As if by magic, Archie appeared.
“Isn’t it a little early for lunch?” he inquired, sounding annoyed.
“Yes,” I replied as I dumped some salmon surprise into his bowl. “But I need to run an errand, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
His whiskers twitched. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“My shop, my hours,” I responded without missing a beat. “I’ll see you later.”
Without waiting for him to reply, I let myself out and locked the door behind me. A minute later, I was backing out of my parking space and heading toward Danny’s house. I’d looked up the address earlier, figuring it couldn’t hurt to know where he might be hanging out.
Of course, just because I knew where he lived didn’t mean I’d be able to get into the place. I had to assume it was locked up tight. But maybe if I gained access to the backyard, that would be close enough proximity to coax him to come outside and talk.
I just hoped his neighbors would all be at work. Enough people in Globe already thought I was slightly nuts; I really didn’t need them to spy on me having a conversation with what looked like thin air.
Like Josie, Danny lived — used to live — in what I thought of as the “high rent” district in town. His house was also a Craftsman, but a big two-story home with a welcoming porch and stately elm trees out front. One forlorn pumpkin sat on that porch. I wondered if his housekeeper planned to come back and dispose of it before it got too rotten.
To my relief, the neighborhood looked very quiet that Wednesday morning, which made sense. Anyone who wasn’t retired would most likely be at work or at school, leading me to believe I should be able to slip into the backyard of the property without any of Danny’s neighbors seeing what I was up to.
In fact, I realized this street was set up with detached garages accessed via an alleyway, which would make my approach even easier. I pointed my Beetle around the corner and then turned down the alley, going slowly so I could read the numbers on the garages as they passed.
135.That was it.
I parked my car in front of the garage in question, which was painted a pale green with brown trim to match the house. As I got out, I cast a furtive glance in either direction up and down the alleyway, but I didn’t see anyone.
The entrance to the backyard was via a gate built into the low wooden fence that encircled the property. Clearly, it had been put there for decoration and not security, because if I hadn’t been wearing a skirt, I probably could have easily hopped over the thing.
It squeaked a bit as I swung the gate inward, but not loudly enough that I had to worry about the sound carrying very far. A narrow flagstone path led from that gate to the back porch, which was furnished with some brown-painted Adirondack chairs and a couple of matching tables. On either side, the grass looked well mowed, although it was starting to get a little yellow along the edges, thanks to a couple of frosty mornings this past week.
