Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 02 - Eminent Domain Read online

  Mitzy looked at the card. His name was Officer McConnell. “Thank you, sir. There was just one more thing.” Mitzy looked behind her, to where Alonzo stood in the hall. Alonzo nodded at her, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “Don’t you think the woman looks like me? I mean, just from looking at her quickly we are about the same size and have the same hair. I just—I think I may have been the target.”

  Officer McConnell frowned. “Do you think someone had a reason to kill you?”

  “I’ve had two, sort of, run-ins with known Mafia this year. I, um, I helped put one man in jail, but last time these guys tried to kill me they got away.” Mitzy looked at Alonzo again. He looked at the floor.

  “Someone tried to kill you?” Officer McConnell whipped his notebook open again.

  “Yes, sir. While I was in a scooter shop downtown, the guys that run it set it on fire.”

  “You were in the Scooter-Niks fire?” McConnell asked. He set the pencil down.

  “Yes,” Mitzy said.

  He shut his notebook again. “Okay.” He looked toward the patio where the coat waved violently in the wind. “We have closed that case already. Arson. I think you can rest easy. Murder wasn’t the motive for that fire. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yes, but—”

  McConnell slipped his pencil and notebook back in his pocket. He turned away from Mitzy and walked to the sliding door.

  “Yes, but,” Mitzy began again, “It wasn’t a case of the wrong place at the wrong time. I was an integral part of that investigation.”

  McConnell’s shoulders stiffened. “If this is at all related, I’m sure we’ll find out, Ma’am, but the Scooter-Niks arson is closed and there is no reason to think it was an attempted murder.”

  Alonzo stepped into the kitchen and stood by Mitzy. “Let it go, babe. I think he’s right. This is just an ugly coincidence.”

  The second officer came back into the condo. “You can go now. We have what we need. We’ll be in contact.” He walked down the hallway. Mitzy heard him open a door and turn the water on.

  “Come on, babe. We should get out of here.” Alonzo led Mitzy to the door by her elbow. “Let them do their work.”

  “Of course,” Mitzy said, her head turned so she could keep an eye on the patio. “But Alonzo, I think someone wants to kill me.”

  Mitzy followed Alonzo in her Miata. She had no interest in being without her car just because of a murder. She was shocked and horrified. The murder put her radar back on alert. With the sale of her condo, and a wedding date set, she had begun to relax again. She hated to think that her security came from knowing she’d be living with Alonzo soon, but on some subconscious level, she had been able to relax. Obviously, that had been a mistake.

  She turned sharp at the light, trying to keep up with Alonzo. He drove fast, made wide turns, and hugged the line. She had to lay into her gas pedal to keep up with him. She sped down the highway in the dark of the late winter afternoon, with the rain now falling in sheets. When would the killer realize she was still alive? The thought dogged her.

  She gritted her teeth as her wheels slid on the slick road. She tapped the brakes and slowed down. A breath of relief escaped her. She still had brakes, but for how much longer? When the killer learned the wrong blonde head had been smashed, what would they try next? Bullets? Brakes? Poison?

  Mitzy followed Alonzo into the parking lot of his go-to restaurant, Alessandra’s. He seemed to believe pasta could fix all of life’s ills. Mitzy doubted pasta would fix things this time, but she didn’t mind giving it a try.

  Alonzo didn’t open her car door for her, but he did wait under the awning at the restaurant. “You need gnocchi,” he said.

  “You’re right.” Mitzy led the way inside. “And garlic bread and coffee. I think we’re in time for the early bird special.”

  “Perfect. Order two of everything.”

  After they were seated and had ordered, Alonzo took both of her hands in his and looked very serious. “You have just finally begun to let your guard down. I don’t want you to let this screw you up.”

  Mitzy looked at his worried face. His bushy black eyebrows were pulled together, a deep crevice between them. The hair at his temples had started to turn silver in the last year. He frowned, deep lines framing his mouth. He had been scruffing at his hair while he drove; it stood up all over his head. He pulled one hand away from hers and scratched his chin while she sat, saying nothing.

  “There are a lot of blonde women in the world,” he said. “This is just a coincidence.”

  “But what was she doing in the condo?” Mitzy took a bite of her garlic bread.

  “Let the police find out.”

  “Of course. But who was she? Why did she go to my condo at all, much less get killed there? And how did she get in?”

  “Could she have been one of the repair people? Or one of the cleaners?”

  “Maybe. But then, how long has she been out there? All of your guys were done a week ago. The cleaners and I haven’t been there in three days. She wasn’t working with us. And if she was on your team you would have recognized her.” Mitzy bit into a soft potato dumpling. She had to take a drink of water to swallow it. “She couldn’t have been there to work. There’s just no way.”

  “Was she another Realtor? Maybe she went there to see the house?”

  “It hasn’t been listed since I took the offer.”

  “Was she the other Realtor? The buyer’s rep?”

  “No, my friend Tina represented the buyer, you know, the gal who lives in Canby? Her son plays football for Portland State? That wasn’t Tina.”

  Alonzo shrugged and ate some more bread.

  “It must have been the buyer!” Mitzy said, sitting up. “I haven’t met her yet, but I know she’s a younger woman. And who else would want to go in? Maybe she went there with Tina just to see it and Tina left her to lock up? I’d better make a call.” She pulled her phone out of her purse.

  “Put that back,” Alonzo said, jumping a little.

  “What? My phone?”

  “Yes! Don’t call a Realtor and tell her that her client is dead. Especially when we don’t know who the dead woman really is!”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “I don’t know. A neighbor? A vagrant? A burglar?”

  “She wasn’t my neighbor. Her clothes were way too nice to be a vagrant, and who would burgle an empty condo?”

  “Burgle?”

  “Yes. What could a burglar get in an empty condo?”

  “What if she broke into another condo and fell onto your porch and hit her head?”

  “Mine is the penthouse. She’d have to fall from the sky.”

  “What if she…what if she didn’t know it was empty?”

  “Could be. But how did she hit her own head that hard and fall over face forward?”

  The server came and refilled their waters. Mitzy wondered what he made of their conversation.

  “You’ll just have to watch the news like everyone else to find out what happened.” Alonzo twirled a fork load of spaghetti.

  Mitzy tried another bite of her gnocchi, but again the food clung to her throat. She took a deep drink from her lemon water. “I wonder what Detective Backman would make of this.”

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