Less Than Frank Part 3

I didn't bother to argue with her, because I could see the twinkle in her eye that told me she was just parroting her mother's comments. I'd seen the day care facility Heather was talking about, and it was one of the best ones in the county. Not only did it serve the faculty and staff of the community college, but students training in early childhood education worked a number of hours there and most of them were fabulous with their young charges. They were carefully supervised, and I felt sure that Corinna was getting the best care possible.

At the same time her grandmother was probably worried and maybe even feeling a little guilty that she couldn't take care of Corinna herself. And I'm sure she harbored some lingering resentment against Dennis for going off and deserting her daughter. That part I couldn't blame her for; I felt a lot of lingering resentment against Dennis myself. He'd left me high and dry with no place to live and little money. The resentment had faded as time went on, because it did absolutely no good to keep it. Hanging around with the Christian Friends and listening to Pastor George on Sundays were helping with the resentment quite a bit. Getting more deeply acquainted with Scripture helped, too.

Unfortunately, the last week had just given me a new target or targets for resentment. I wasn't sure whether I was more upset about Frank Collins getting killed in the driveway when Ben was around, or angry at Ray Fernandez. Surely he couldn't really think that Ben had anything to do with this? I know that his job meant he had to suspect everybody until he knew something different, but it was difficult to be on this end of the suspicion.

I'd been there myself for a brief while during the investigation into Dennis's death, and it was an unpleasant place to be. Heather had been under even more scrutiny and I'd seen how uncomfortable she felt. To have Ben in that spot, even peripherally, was even more unpleasant. And I guess if I could be totally unbiased about the facts as Ray Fernandez saw them, instead of being Ben's mom, I had to admit that there were reasons to suspect him at first.

Ben had spent the night in my apartment not to far from where Frank was killed. Someone who matched his description was seen talking to Frank in an animated fas.h.i.+on sometime in the hour or two before his death. And at least one person had seen and heard Ben having an argument with Frank on a prior occasion. Adding up all those things as cold hard facts made the situation look bad for Ben. Granted, each fact had a good explanation, but lumped together the best circ.u.mstances looked a little shady.

During the last murder investigation I'd been a part of, Ray Fernandez had been aggravating but fair for the most part. I didn't agree with all of his ideas last winter, especially when he suspected Heather of killing Dennis. Then again, though, I didn't have anything to back up my arguments that I could take to the police as proof. From the beginning I'd had the feeling that no matter what Dennis had put Heather through, she wasn't the kind of person to kill him over the grief she'd suffered. I had been right, but it had taken solid proof in another direction to get the sheriff's department to see that point of view.

Things were awfully similar now. I knew it would take proof of the actual killer to get Fernandez to suspect someone other than Ben. I prayed that we didn't have to get involved in the investigation this time. And when it came time to voice my concerns of the evening in group prayer with the Christian Friends, that's exactly what I asked for out loud. I knew that these women would be the first ones to help me if we needed to get involved, but it was the last thing I wanted to do.

Holding hands in prayer, Lexy's warm, soft fingers laced into mine on one side and Dot's slightly cooler, dry hand on the other side, I felt more at peace than I had in days. Now if Fernandez could just find the right information I'd be even happier. A pang of guilt hit me while I was praying as a thought struck me. Whoever killed Frank Collins had a mother who would be just as grief-stricken at the thought of his or her involvement as I felt about Ben. And Frank Collins had a mother himself.

Whatever action took the pain away from my heart was going to lay it even more heavily on at least two more mothers. It put the whole investigation in a different light for me, one I thought about long into the night on Wednesday when I couldn't sleep. Maybe I needed to borrow a dog from Dot and Buck. Company in the form of a dog while I fell asleep sounded like a good thing.

The thoughts about Frank's mother stayed with me through Thursday morning as I went to cla.s.ses and then finally worked a s.h.i.+ft at the Coffee Corner. Maria still seemed surprised to see me, but I needed to be out among people. Three hours in the late afternoon and early evening pa.s.sed quickly with lots of students and faculty members wanting coffee drinks and hot chocolate to get them through their late-in-the-day slumps.

When my s.h.i.+ft was almost over, Ben came up to the counter. I made him a mint hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles. "I might have wanted something different, you know," he said with a wry grin as he looked down at the mug in front of him.

"Yes, you might have. Did you?"

He gave me a real smile. "No, this is fine. Just wanted to keep you guessing for a minute, Mom."

Teenagers. But then, keeping me guessing had been his job for years, and it was nice to see him trying to do it in a positive way after the last few days. I smiled back at him. "How was your day? Better than yesterday, I'm sure."

"No more calls from the sheriff's department, at least. That made it better. You have any phone calls from them?"

"No, and I'm just as happy that it stayed that way," I told him. "Now go drink that while it's still hot." And don't get whipped cream in your goatee I wanted to tell him, but kept quiet.

"The rush is about over," Maria said, coming up behind me. "Why don't I make you something to drink and you can sit with him?"

"All right. But don't put mint in mine." It was one of those flavors Ben loved and I wasn't nearly as fond of. Just don't want anything else vying for attention with my chocolate, I guess.

In a few moments I was settled at a table with a warm mug of cocoa and my son, who definitely looked less shaky than yesterday. "You'll be proud of me," he said, wiping away a whipped cream moustache. "I studied for an hour this afternoon, and ate a balanced lunch. I had a salad with my pizza and everything."

"That's good. It helps to stay on top of your studies this late in the semester. And it will keep you grounded in other things instead of worrying about what went on yesterday."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Detective Fernandez was really just doing his job, Mom. I mean, Mr. Morgan heard me yelling at Frank one day, and then they both see somebody that looked like me, at least to them, another day talking with him again on the driveway. With that going on, he had to question me first."

That was an extremely mature observation coming from my eighteen-year-old son, and I told him so. We sat and quietly sipped our drinks for a while. "I still don't like that he had to question you first. Surely there are other guys involved in this somehow that would fit the same general description as you."

"I imagine there are. But none of them have a bedroom fifty feet from where that guy was killed. The good news is that one of them talked to Frank on Monday morning," Ben said. "Maybe whoever he is, he'll actually admit that to the police when they question him. If so, it would go a lot easier on me."

"At least we don't own a gun. That helps already." I took another sip of my cocoa while it was still at just the right temperature. Another few minutes and it would be too cold for me.

Ben looked down at the tabletop while the silence stretched for a minute. I could tell he wanted to talk more, but was weighing his words. "Yeah, well, judging from something he said, I think maybe Frank might have been shot with his own gun."

"How do you figure that?" Ben wasn't meeting my eye.

"I told the detective this already, but I didn't want to tell you about it, because I knew you'd freak out," he said. Then he sighed. "And see, you're already freaking out. Your eyebrows are all raised and you've got that look."

I didn't bother to argue with him, or even ask what look, because he was right. "Go on and tell me. It can't bother me much more now."

"Well, see, when we were arguing, Frank kind of threatened me a little."

I was glad he waited until I didn't have a mouthful of cocoa. "A little? How can you threaten somebody a little?"

Ben shrugged. "He just used words. He didn't push me around or anything, just got a little nasty with what he said. Frank said he kept a gun in the cab of his truck to run off troublemakers. I just backed off and told him I didn't want to make trouble, I just wanted to make sure my mom wasn't bothered. We left it at that and I walked away."

Okay, I might be able to see how from his perspective that was only a "little" threatening. Given that he was a young male of a certain age, threats probably escalated past that once in a while. For me this was verging on panic because I wasn't a young male but the mother of one. I took a deep breath and tried to think before I reacted.

"You told Fernandez all of this?"

"Yeah, I did. And he wrote it all down, too, so it must have meant something to him."

"I'm sure it did." Suddenly my warm cocoa didn't look very appealing anymore. Nothing did. I didn't know whether to be glad that Ben had told me this, or upset that he hadn't told me sooner. Either way there was little I could do about it. Still, it shook me up.

"Mom, are you going to cry about this? Because if you are it won't help things any." Ben hated to see me cry.

"Then I'll try not to. You're right, though, this upset me. Not at you so much as at Frank. It just boggles my mind that he'd do something like that. The more people tell me about him, the less surprised I am that somebody killed him. He didn't exactly make a lot of friends, did he?"

"I don't think so. He wasn't any friend of mine, anyway." Ben sighed and finished his drink. "Well, I need to go check in with the suite-mates and schedule another study session for Philosophy of Religion. I keep hearing how hard that final is going to be."

"Then go do it. Thanks for stopping by." We stood up and I hugged him. He'd gotten past that point of being embarra.s.sed by a public hug once in a while. I probably couldn't get away with it on a daily basis, but I could definitely get more hugs than I had any time since fifth grade.

I watched Ben walk away and then I took our mugs back to the counter. Maria wouldn't even let me wash them before she shooed me away for the evening. Since I needed to start studying for finals and finish up final projects for my cla.s.ses I let her have her way. Maybe after seeing Ben I could go home and get some school work done. It made a poor example for my son if I didn't get grades at least equal to his while we both attended the same school.

Driving home, I gave everything I'd learned a lot more thought. I didn't come up with any big conclusions, other than the fact that probably several people had wanted Frank Collins dead. He seemed to have gone out of his way to make enemies of people, and I didn't even know all that much about him.

Pursuing that line of thought wouldn't get me very far without more facts. I tried to shake it off and think about other things. Before I got out of the car on the driveway, I breathed a prayer to ask for G.o.d's presence and peace. I needed both. Maybe for once I could have a restful evening at home, just studying. It sounded like a good idea. I could stop by Dot and Buck's house first and "borrow" a dog to keep me company and be set for the evening. Getting back into a normal routine would be good.

Chapter Six.

Friday started off more like a normal day for me than any other had in the week. Getting a dog to join me for the night helped immediately. I was limited by which ones would happily climb the open staircase up to the apartment, but that still gave me several choices. For company, I'd gone with Dixie's sister Sophie. The mostly-lab female was the mother to the puppies that had all gone to new homes in the last two weeks. She probably felt her "empty nest" as much as I felt mine. Whatever the case, she'd been good company for me in the apartment overnight.

I got up, enjoying the chill in the air that hung around for the first few hours after sunrise. It might have been cool, but it sure wasn't anything like what I was used to in the Midwest a week after Thanksgiving. In Missouri this time of year we'd have frost, maybe even snow. And no matter what the precipitation situation, morning would more than likely mean temperatures below freezing.

Here in Southern California there are freshmen going to school with Ben who have never seen snow unless their parents have taken them up to the ski resorts. They might have gone to one of the big promotions at a theme park where a machine pulls up in a parking lot and spits cold stuff that's promoted as "snow" but I didn't count that.

The coldest mornings here might make me put on jeans instead of my shorts, and even think about a jacket, but that was about it. The crazy part about weather here is that no matter what the season, you need to dress in layers because the temperature fluctuates so much in the course of a day. When the area anywhere fifty miles around Los Angeles suffers drought, which it has for the last several years, it's easy to see that the whole region is basically desert. And like any desert, when the sun goes down the temperature may drop twenty or thirty degrees. It still makes me marvel that I'm as likely to need a sweats.h.i.+rt after dark on the fourth of July as I am on Christmas Eve.

This morning a light jacket felt good as I went out to do my normal work around the kennels. Buck let me pitch in now that he wasn't feeling uncomfortable around me because of what had transpired with Ben. So we fed dogs and hosed out kennels and mostly got s...o...b..ry wet noses pushed into the palms of our hands while we loved on the dogs.

"Thanks for lending me Sophie last night," I told him when we were done. "I'll bring her back up to the house once I give her a good walk."

"That's fine. She needs the company right now." When I went back inside she also tried to convince me that she needed some of my cereal while I ate breakfast. It didn't work. Afterward we took a brisk walk around the neighborhood, Sophie trotting along checking out every bush and tree. She had a gait that looked like prancing when she wasn't as interested in the plant life along the way. Of course she spent a major amount of time investigating, but we still managed a good walk.

When we got back to the house, Dot gave Sophie her breakfast and ushered me in for coffee, which I certainly didn't turn down. I was happy to be on friendly terms with the Morgans again. They felt like subst.i.tute family to me as well as landlords, and I didn't want to give up our relations.h.i.+p.

Now that Dot and I went to the same church, attended the same Christian Friends group and I lived in her backyard apartment, almost every area of my life would be impacted if we were on the outs with each other. Thankfully we could still be friends instead.

"You missed a visit by Detective Fernandez while you were at work and school yesterday," Dot told me once she sat down at the table with me, her own cup of coffee in hand. "But then he didn't want to talk to you anyway, so it wasn't much of a loss."

"I expected you would get at least one more set of questions this week, because he had plenty I couldn't answer Wednesday," I told her. "He wanted to know all kinds of stuff about the subcontractors for the remodel, and I couldn't remember the names."

"That was mostly what he wanted this time. I got out my folder that I've been keeping. I think I impressed him." Dot had kept her own meticulous set of records since she'd employed Frank and it had turned out to be a good idea.

"He wasn't too happy to hear about all the billing errors that I'd found in Frank's dealing with his suppliers and subcontractors. I think it just gave him three or four times the number of suspects he wanted."

"Were there that many billing errors?" I reached over to the plate Dot set out and picked up one of her apple cinnamon m.u.f.fins. They were still warm, and I figured I better get one before Buck came into the house, because once he did, he and Hondo would both want one. Buck letting the dog eat one, or at least half of his own, would upset Dot. It would upset Sophie too for that matter, because Hondo was the only dog that got to break the "no people food" rule.

"I'm generous to call them that. When I pointed them out to Frank I always called them mistakes or errors, even though I was pretty sure after the third one or so that I found that he was trying to slip things by me and by the suppliers." Dot's nostrils flared in aggravation. I could just imagine those conversations she had with Frank. He might have been a tough customer, but I didn't think he could out-argue Dot. So far I hadn't met too many people who could.

"Did he correct the errors, or whatever they were, when you pointed them out?"

Dot waggled a hand in a noncommittal gesture. "He corrected some of them. I think his subcontractors straightened out a lot of them on their own. Especially once I took to copying Frank's information and pa.s.sing it on to the subs. The plumbing contractor was particularly interested in what I had to show him."

"I remember seeing the truck here a lot, but I don't remember the guy's name."

"Frank was using Leopold Plumbing this time. I might have gotten Ed Leopold into that, because I knew one of his workers wanted the hours. After all this mess, I'm sorry I ever suggested him to Frank."

I had to imagine that Frank Collins had not been easy to work with. "Still, it sounds like you tried to do the right thing."

"I really did. Matt, the worker from Leopold, is a nice young man, and he's trying to move up in the business as much as he can." Dot took a sip of her coffee and made a face. "Ugh. I need a warm-up. Want one?"

Once she refreshed both our cups she sat down again, just in time to welcome Buck and Hondo into the house. For a change she was firm about not feeding the dog m.u.f.fins, and Buck seemed to agree with her. I noticed, however, that he took his plate and the newspaper into the living room where we couldn't see him around a corner.

"Where was I?" Dot asked after all of that.

"Matt," I prompted. "You said he needed the hours and he's trying to move up in the business. What would keep him from doing that?"

"I know him through Candace," Dot said as if that explained everything. In some ways, since I know Dot well, it did. Her daughter had Down syndrome and lived in a group home in Camarillo so if Dot knew Matt through Candace he likely had some challenges in life. "He went through some of the job training cla.s.ses that she attended at one point. He's much younger than Candace, so it must have been one of the more recent sets. And he doesn't have as many problems. I think he's dating Candace's roommate Lucy."

So there were several ties between Dot and this young man. I said as much, and she nodded. She looked a little worried as she explained all this to me. She stopped talking for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You know, Detective Fernandez asked a lot of questions about Matt."

"More than he asked about other subcontractors and their helpers?"

Dot waggled a hand. "Maybe a few more. But now that I think of it, he was focusing on the young men who worked with all the contractors. I guess that makes sense after what I told him before." Her brows wrinkled together. "And Matt is one of the taller, skinnier ones among them. He's built a lot like Ben. You'd never confuse them from the front, because Matt's dark-haired and clean-shaven...."

"While Ben is closer to blond and has that awful goatee right now, which I hope he'll outgrow soon," I finished for her so she didn't have to.

Dot shrugged. "At least he didn't dye his hair blue his first semester. I don't know how many freshmen I've seen on campus over there with blue or purple or maroon hair. Why do they think that's attractive?"

"If you figure it out, let me know," I told her. "It's not attractive to me, but I'm not eighteen, either. I don't think it's supposed to be attractive to me."

I looked out the kitchen window to where I could see my apartment. "This all keeps going back to the apartment one way or another doesn't it? Did Frank have anything to do with building your apartment when it was new?" I seemed to remember him making claims in that regard, but I wasn't sure how truthful they might have been.

"In a way he did. He was somebody else's 'helper' at that point. I'm not too sure how much better he's gotten at the business, to tell the truth," Dot said with a grimace. "When we were building he mostly pounded nails and painted, the kind of work it didn't take much skill to do. He certainly hung around enough after things were done and we were moving the girls in."

"Was he married then?"

"Not yet, although he did marry rather young. I think he would have waited longer, but he made a mistake there and found a girl whose family insisted they get married immediately. If I remember right, Tracy has several older brothers." Dot still wore a look of distaste over Frank's behavior.

That made me think of another question I wanted to ask her. "Does Candace's original roommate from the apartment still live around here?"

"No, and we might have Frank to blame for that, too," Dot said tartly. "Susie got very interested in boys and young men shortly after the girls moved into that apartment together, and I know Frank egged her on. I always hoped it wasn't more than that."

I felt my stomach give a little lurch. "But you're not sure?"

"Not totally, no. I always felt thankful that Candace didn't ever go through much interest in relations.h.i.+ps and, well, s.e.x to be perfectly honest. Developmentally she tests out at about thirteen, where all of that starts to really catch fire for a lot of girls, but it never did for her. Susie was another story."

"Did it lead to problems?"

"Some. Her parents had a lot of talks with her, and Buck and I certainly kept a close eye on the place, since they were on our property. We were trying to give the girls as much freedom as we could and still monitor them. I suppose most of Susie's behavior was pretty natural. But either she just didn't have many inhibitions or she didn't have any impulse control. After about six months her mother decided that they'd had enough and Susie moved to a group home in a very sheltered environment out past San Bernardino. We haven't heard from them in years."

"Wow. Sounds like it was heavy stuff to deal with."

"Definitely. The more I think about Frank Collins, and hear things about him, the more I could just kick myself for giving him another chance remodeling that apartment this time. And now you and I are both in a fix because I have no idea what we'll do about getting somebody to finish up there."

I'd thought about that, and had no great ideas to offer. "The bulk of what's unfinished is in the bathroom. Maybe Ed, the plumbing guy, would want to take over."

"It's worth a try. I might call him and see what he thinks of the idea."

"Great." I stood up and gave Dot a quick hug. "But I have to get going. Thanks for the coffee and the chat. They were just what I needed." Like a good guest I rinsed my cup and put it in the sink and cleaned up any crumbs I'd left behind. I called out a goodbye to Buck in the other room and headed for the apartment. I probably had as much studying and catching up to do as my son, with finals coming up soon.

Sat.u.r.day morning, as Buck and I worked in the dog runs, a familiar car pulled up on the driveway. The nice, s.h.i.+ny sedan shouted "unmarked car" even without Ray Fernandez getting out of it with a steaming carry-out cup of coffee in hand. He looked sharp for a Sat.u.r.day in nicely faded jeans and a tweedy sport coat. A silk T-s.h.i.+rt appeared to be the one concession to the weekend. His outfit made me wonder if Armani made blue jeans. I had no clue, but if they did, Fernandez would wear them. His certainly fit him well in a way that looked cla.s.sy.

He strolled over to the dog runs, and greeted us with a nod of his head. His expression was mostly unreadable thanks to dark sungla.s.ses. "Mr. Morgan, Ms. Harris." It was hard to tell if he was saying h.e.l.lo or taking roll call.

We both said h.e.l.lo to him, and Buck made a move to turn off the hose he was using to clean out a run. I finished sweeping with the wide broom, taking care not to push anything in Fernandez's direction. Those loafers of his probably cost more than the bulk of my closet contents put together.

"I'll be done here in a minute, Detective. Did you want to speak to both of us?" Buck asked as he went to the front gate of the run.

Fernandez held up his free hand. "Don't stop on my account, Mr. Morgan. I really came by mostly to ask you to come to the station at some point and look at a few pictures for me."

"That must mean you found something. Did you find the gun?" I blurted out.

Fernandez inclined his head, and I expected him to shut me down, but he surprised me instead. "We did. It was in the storage tank of the unit we towed in as evidence." Once again I didn't envy the crime-scene tech who had that job.