Chapter 6
“So do we still think she’s innocent?” I squeaked out the question, but just barely.
Win scoffed as I stared at the front of the Eb Falls Police Department building, the brick façade made brighter maroon by the oppressive gloom of the day. “We don’t know the tattoo gun is what killed him, Stephania. It could have been anything. They have to test the ink first. And as a by the by, the tattoo gun alone couldn’t kill him. People get neck tattoos all the time, and they don’t die. There would have to have been some kind of poison involved, Dove.”
Yeah, yeah. As though poison were out of the realm of possibility. Suuure.
As the snow began to really fall again, I conceded, staring aimlessly out into the curtain of white. “So then I vote killer unicorn. They’re rampant here in Eb Falls, you know. Literally everywhere, always jumping over rainbows and shooting glitter from their butts. Messy stuff, glitter.”
“Bah! Don’t talk such nonsense. You have no proof the tattoo gun is what killed him.”
Running my hand through my damp hair, I conceded again. “Nope. I sure don’t, but I’ve come to the conclusion where we’re concerned, Murphy’s Law prevails, and if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck—wait for it—surprise! It’s a duck. I’d bet a year’s worth of Twinkies something was in that ink in Coop’s gun.”
“What is this duck? This is not a duck. Arkady does not understand what you mean. Is this code for something? You can clearly see it is tattoo gun. Beautiful angel lady from Heaven stab bad Hank with tattoo needle, not duck.”
I’d laugh at Arkady’s observation if not for the fact that none of this was funny. “It’s just an analogy, Arkady. Or a metaphor…or something. What I mean is it’s an easy explanation for who murdered Hank, at least for the police. Coop’s a tattoo artist, there’s a tattoo gun on the floor right next to his body, if they discover Hank was killed with some sort of poison in that gun, it kind of all adds up, you know? It’s a nice neat package with a big shiny bow on it. Ten to one, that gun’s what killed Hank. Aside from the fact that it’s just the way our luck goes.”
“And I’ll say it again, we have no proof that gun is what killed Hank,” Win insisted, clearly aggravated with me.
I stared harder at the picture. I couldn’t see any puncture wounds, but then the pictures weren’t that great, and certainly not the quality I’d need if Hank were killed by a tiny needle laced with poison. Which had me wondering how possible that was? But I didn’t have time for that right now. I’d research tattoos and deadly needles later.
“You’re right, Win. We have no proof the tattoo gun is the murder weapon.”
But I had a feeling it played some vital part. Where were we if we weren’t stuffed into a corner with our backs against the wall?
“Fair enough. Stranger things have happened,” Win agreed.
Pushing the car door open, I took a deep breath. “We’ll look at the rest of the pictures at home later. For now, let’s go see what we can do for Trixie and find out whether Luis has shown up yet. I have a bad feeling Coop’s going to need help.” Then I cupped my hand over my eyes to ease the glare the snow wrought and took a look around the parking lot. “Do you guys see his car?” I asked, pushing my way out into the cold without really listening for an answer, cursing myself for wearing fashionable boots rather than practical ones on today of all days.
Scanning the parking lot, I didn’t see Luis’s expensive car, so I trudged inside anyway. Weather being what it was, his trip in from Seattle was bound to be difficult at best, but he never disappointed, and I didn’t expect him to now.
I don’t know how Win had managed to make the lawyer so available to me, but I was glad he was always at the ready.
As I peeked through the glass doors of the station and watched civilians and officers alike mill about, I caught a glimpse of Trixie talking to Officer Nelson, who had his arms crossed over his chest. Her hands were flying in the air and her cheeks were pink.
Which was my cue to get my backside in gear and get in there and be supportive—because this wasn’t looking good for Coop.
* * * *
Six hours later, long past my lunchtime, I sat with Trixie in the sterile waiting area of the Eb Falls Police Station while Detective Moore—whose nose was broken and cheekbone fractured—grilled poor Coop. We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since they’d hauled her off to a room for questioning, and I was beginning to become worried.
Thankfully, Luis had shown up a few hours ago and was in there with her. Hopefully, he’d be able to at least get her out on bail—which was where I had a bad feeling we were headed. My gut said they’d charge her due to so much evidence pointing in her direction.
The tattoo gun, the beef the ladies had with Hank raising the rent, the spots on her boots, likely blood though as yet unidentified, all damned Coop.
As business as usual prevailed and people came and went, their slushy feet leaving a mess on the concrete floor, I thought about the events of the morning. The more I thought, the more questions piled up. I’d spent a little time looking up tattoo guns on my phone, and Win was right, it was more like a sewing needle than a deadly weapon.
Unless someone had laced the ink with some kind of poison. But then that would lead one to believe there was premeditation involved. So why would Coop plan to kill Hank? Over a raise in rent? Or worse, if someone else were responsible, why would they try to frame Coop for murder?
As the scent of burnt coffee and stale donuts filled the air, I fought to sit and simply stay a silent support.
But it wasn’t easy.
“Have I said thank you for calling your lawyer, Stevie?” Trixie finally asked in her dulcet tones after a long silence.
“About ten times in the last few hours,” I assured her with a laugh and a smile. “But you don’t have to, Trixie. Luis has helped me out of a jam more than once. He’s an amazingly brilliant attorney, and seeing as you’re new to town, I figured you could use the recommendation.”
“How…how much does he cost?” she asked, her voice tentative and almost shy, but it was her hands that really gave her away. She kept wringing them, twisting her fingers together over and over.
“Nothing. He costs nothing. He owes me a favor, so don’t you worry about a thing, okay? Just focus on Coop and Coop alone.”
Her hands fluttered around her face before she straightened in an obvious gesture that indicated her resolve was back intact. “I can’t let you do that, Stevie. It’s very kind, but I can’t let you. You don’t even know us.”
But I knew what this felt like. To be up against something so much bigger than me and not know where to turn because I was broke and alone with only Bel. When Win came along and changed my life, he didn’t just change me emotionally. He changed me financially. I didn’t go to bed worried about how I’d pay the bills anymore, and that kind of security makes for a good night’s sleep. I wanted to pay that forward. So did Win.
So I gave her my best point-blank look. “You can and you will. Unless you want to be the one to go into that room and tell that mean jerk, Detective Moore, that Luis isn’t Coop’s attorney and let the chips fall where they may?”
Trixie squeezed my hand, her response soft. “You have a point.”
I held out the bag of salt and vinegar chips I’d bought. They were the only thing in the vending machine that looked remotely enticing to me at this point and no way was I drinking precinct sludge. “Hungry?”
She blew her hair from her face and shook her head. “No. But thank you.”
Trixie was one patient lady. I was impressed she hadn’t lost her cool by now. Were it me, I’d have been rattling some cages, but of course, I’m impatient and sometimes impulsive. She’d also been eerily quiet about everything that was going on around us, and I was trying my best to respect that, despite the fact that I had a million questions rolling around my brain.
“You need to eat, Trixie. It’s well past lunchtime. We can’t have you passing out before they release Coop, can we? She’ll need you to be strong.”
“I’m used to fasting from time to time. It’s no big deal, really. I’m fine with just this water,” she replied, holding up the almost-empty bottle I’d bought her.
Used to fasting, huh? Trixie intrigued me almost as much as the odd Coop, and I found it impossible to keep my thoughts to myself anymore.
Sliding to the edge of my flimsy plastic seat, I turned to her. “You’re used to fasting? Do you mean like juice cleanses and stuff? I swear, I envy people like you who can stick to something like that. I’d lose my mind if I didn’t have a Twinkie every day.”
Win snickered in my ear and Arkady boldly laughed.
Her eyes lifted to meet mine, shiny and soft. She tinkled a laugh, a laugh as sweet and gentle as she appeared. “No. Not a juice cleanse. I just mean using moderation. But I get what you mean about Twinkies. Though, my personal favorite is a Funny Bone.”
“And you’d give up perfectly good food, why?” It was unfathomable to me. Who gave up a Funny Bone?
“For Lent, of course.”
Okay. So she was religious. That made sense. Oh, but wait—Coop had called her sister. Was she…? No. A nun? Seriously? With a tattoo shop? Hardly likely.
“That might explain Coop calling Trixie sister.” Win suggested the very thought I’d just had, making me nod my head.
I placed a hand on hers and smiled. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You’ve been sitting here with me for six solid hours after knowing me for thirty minutes, you can have my social security number if you want it.”
I giggled and patted her hand. She had a sense of humor even in the midst of this turmoil. That was good. “Did Coop call you Sister Trixie Lavender? Or did I mishear her?”
Now her smile went a little sad and even forlorn, something I hadn’t meant to make happen. But she bobbed her head. “You did hear correctly. I used to be a nun. Coop forgets to just call me plain old Trixie most times.”
No way… Trixie was a nun. Or used to be a nun. Huh.
But this was yet another odd quirk about the lovely Coop to add to her multitude of quirks—her formal way of addressing people. However, forget that. I wanted to know why Trixie wasn’t a nun anymore. And I really wanted to know what made a nun leave the church to open a tattoo shop?
But that wasn’t to be right now. In a burst of sound and motion, Coop finally came out from behind the ugly gray door of the same room where Starsky and Hutch had interrogated me, with a frowning Luis hot on her heels.
And the poor thing looked frazzled and exhausted. Trixie was the first to hop up and rush to her, throwing her arms around Coop’s shoulders and giving her a hard hug. “Are you okay, friend?”
Coop nodded, patting Trixie awkwardly on the back with a stiff hand. But her green eyes told a different story. There was relief in them when she saw Trixie, clear as day.
As Trixie and Coop talked quietly, I approached Luis, who looked quite serious in his dapper Brooks Brothers pinstripe suit and new glasses. “So what are we up against? How bad is it?”
“Forgive me for being so bold, Stevie, but who is this woman?” he asked, looking down at me from behind his glasses.
I knew that look—the one that made people shrink, but it was usually reserved for meanie-butt Detective Moore. Thus, I was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
He tightened his grip on his expensive leather briefcase. “I mean, there is no history anywhere of any Coop With No Last Name. The moment you summoned me, I had my secretary set about the task of finding any information we could on Miss Coop because I don’t like surprises. Yet, there’s not a word about either her or Miss Lavender anywhere. They aren’t online. They’re without a Facebook page—in fact, there’s no social media for either one of them. How, I ask you, can I defend someone without so much as an address, let alone a social security card? Everything about this woman is fishy, Stevie. Even the way she addresses me as ‘Luis Lipton Esquire’ is indeed odd. What’s going on here?”
I blinked before I tugged his sleeve and pulled him to the nearest corner while Sandwich watched us with curious eyes. “Are you telling me they don’t have a Facebook page? The horror,” I mocked, pretending to clutch my pearls.
He sucked in his sagging cheeks, pushing a hand into his trouser pocket. “This is not a joke, Miss Cartwright.”
I was a little bit peeved. Luis was the best criminal defense attorney in the Pacific Northwest, and we paid him an enormous amount of money on the off chance something should come up—as in, anything from scams to murder—and suddenly he couldn’t function because Coop had no Facebook page?
“But that’s why I pay you so much money in retainer fees, because even if she doesn’t have a soul, it’s your job to find her one and fix this.”
“Stephania,” Win soothed in my ear. “Luis is a good bloke. Clearly our problem is bigger than we thought. Don’t sass the man. Find out what to do from here.”
Win was, as always, right. I think my blood sugar was low at this point, and it was making me cranky.
There was a small silence between us before I broke it by saying, “I’m sorry, Luis. I’m just hungry and tired. Tell me what we’re up against and what we can do about it.”
“First, we need to find out where she comes from. Her full name, where she’s been before coming to Ebenezer Falls and so on. Your Detective Moore was quite pleased with himself when he, too, found out she had no history to speak of. It doesn’t make for an easy defense if I can’t refer to her past good behavior or lack of criminal record when she doesn’t have anything to refer to. That said, miraculously, she hasn’t been charged. But I fear she may if her fingerprints come up on that tattoo gun they found at the scene, and the gun proves to have something lethal in it—like poison? In my experience, that’s the first thing they’ll look for. The evidence against her isn’t exactly overwhelming, but the motive they’ve created about the raise in her rent and her violent nature is a perfect storm.”
Dang it all. “So the tattoo gun…? It’s what they think killed Hank?”
“Oh, we played a fine game of possum about that gun, Detective Moore and I did. So, possibly. I believe that is the instrument they think was used to kill Mr. Morrison. And yes, it is in fact Coop’s tattoo gun. But as expected, the detectives were quite evasive. They also have an anonymous source who claims to have heard a rather loud disagreement she had with Mr. Morrison over their rent, wherein she mentioned killing him.”
Well, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t see Coop, what little I knew of her, threatening to kill someone, meaning this made things look very, very bad.
“I wonder who the ‘anonymous source’ is?” I asked.
“That’s why it’s called anonymous. But the caller claimed Coop argued with Hank Morrison—quite animatedly, in fact. However, all the police questioning revolved around the subject of that tattoo gun. Also, the spatter on her boot, which I’m happy to report, turned out to be paint. Not blood. Still, it doesn’t look good. He was killed in their store. The tattoo gun is hers, and worse, she’s shown clear signs of violent tendencies. She assaulted an officer of the law, Stevie.”
I winced. Yes. She’d knocked Detective Moore around a little, but he’d deserved that broken nose, and I said as much. “He deserved that. He was pretty pushy. She was just looking out for me, Luis.”
He nodded his head, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “To the tune of a broken nose and fractured cheekbone? That takes some doing, and some rage.”
I rolled my eyes and blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s still breathing, isn’t he? He didn’t lose a limb.”
Luis’s eyebrow rose. “I hardly think that’s the point. That they didn’t charge her with assault still has me scratching my head. We need to know what makes Miss Coop tick. I had only a brief meeting with her before the detectives began questioning. But I had a great deal of trouble getting anything out of her.”
My head was whirling with questions, and it was a fight to stay focused on anything like hope when everything appeared so bad. Luis was a shark, and if he was stumped, that meant trouble.
“Explain what you mean by trouble getting anything out of her? She wouldn’t talk to you?”
His sigh was ragged. “If one-word sentences and the occasional grunt is ‘talking,’ we have a long way to go. She denies harming Mr. Morrison. In her very brief words, she told me she ‘found him that way’ and that was the most in only a handful of words I could wring out of her. I don’t know what she’s frightened of, but we must dig deeper into her, Stevie. That she’s so tight lipped is to her detriment. Though, I didn’t have to fret over the notion she’d say anything incriminating, which can be quite helpful in some situations, but refusing to even answer Detective Kaepernick when she asked if Coop would like something to drink is too far.”
I tamped down a snort. Coop had taken my words to heart when I told her to keep quiet. “That’s because I told her not to say anything else to anyone unless you were present. Our wires crossed.”
Luis frowned at me, the wrinkles in his forehead deep lines of frustration. “Oh, they’ve more than crossed. Now, I must head back to Seattle. I anticipate dense traffic the entire way in this weather. But I have my work cut out for me, and I must get to it before Ebenezer Falls’ finest get back the results of the fingerprinting and DNA that I’m desperately worried will match Coop’s. In the meantime, she cannot leave Ebenezer Falls. She’s not under arrest, but she’s certainly under grave suspicion. Also, they’ll need to find somewhere else to stay due to the fact that the entire building has been deemed a crime scene, and their living quarters are in a room at the store.”
My disbelief was real. “So you managed to get her out without bail?”
I’d been harsh with Luis, and now I felt like a real jerk because he’d somehow kept Coop from ending up behind bars.
Brushing the front of his suit, he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. “And that, my dear Miss Cartwright, is why you pay me the big bucks.”
With those parting words, he marched out of the police station and into the swirl of falling snow, leaving me flabbergasted at his ability to keep Coop out of jail with so much working against her. Not that I doubted Coop could hold her own in jail. She’d probably chew her way through someone’s intestines before she’d take any guff.
Regardless, I deserved nothing less than Luis’s ire for doubting him, and that only added to my ever-mounting pile of guilt.
Still, I sighed with relief as I made my way over to Coop and Trixie. I reached for Coop’s hand, which was ice cold, and squeezed it. “Coop, are you okay? You must be hungry. Let’s get you and Trixie something to eat, yes? A nice warm meal and a quiet place to talk are in order.”
“The poor thing, Dove. She looks positively broken,” Win muttered in sympathy.
“Dah, Zero. It’s a pity,” Arkady agreed.
Coop’s head whipped around, her eyes confused as she scanned the interior of the police station.
Trixie gripped her arm, her eyes alarmed. “What’s wrong, Coop?”
But Coop pulled from her grasp and instead looked to me with wide-eyed fear—her next words stunning me into complete silence. “Who is Dove, and why is Dove broken, Stevie Cartwright?”