Dying to Kill (Angel Delaney Mysteries Book #2) Read online

  “Yes,” Lorraine said. The others nodded in affirmation. “Michelle came to meetings here before Jim died. Odd, isn’t it, that both women would be suspect in their husbands’ deaths?”

  “Weird,” Debra said. “But wives are usually suspects. Isn’t that right, Angel?”

  “Not suspects, necessarily, but they are always investigated.”

  Lorraine pursed her lips. “Do you think it’s possible that someone really did hire a hit man?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Heather said.

  “Me either.” Debra rubbed her neck and tipped her head back. “None of us would have done it, especially not after we talked about it.”

  Claire looked up, concern clouding her features. “Or maybe it isn’t a hit man at all. Maybe there’s a serial killer out there somewhere.”

  Debra’s hand flew to her chest, her lips curling in an evil smirk. “A psycho killing off abusive men? Now that’s a novel idea. Maybe mine is next on the list.”

  “Or mine.” Heather cast her friend a conspiratorial wink.

  A shiver made its way up Angel’s spine, causing the hair on the nape of her neck to rise. Didn’t jokes often reflect truth? Were these women angry enough to kill?

  EIGHTEEN

  Ladies, this is serious,” Janet said. “What do you think, Angel?”

  “I suppose either case is possible. The police have yet to find Kelsey’s killer or Phillip’s. Remember, they’ve arrested Candace, and they don’t do that without having compelling evidence.”

  “She didn’t kill Phillip.” Debra bit her lower lip. “And Michelle certainly didn’t kill Jim.”

  “How can you be sure?” Angel asked. “Maybe Candace killed both of them. Maybe that’s why your comments upset her. Or maybe Michelle . . .”

  “Honey.” Lorraine slid a nicely manicured hand along her jeans as if to smooth a wrinkle. “I know these women. They’re weak and ineffective, which is why they kept going back to their men. They held on to some kind of pipe dream that if they did all the right things, their husbands would change their ways. God forbid they’d have the backbone to just walk away. I know the type all too well.” She fixed her gaze on the floor, as if she’d run out of steam. “I keep going back to my husband too, hoping he’ll change.”

  So Barry Fitzgibbon was abusive. Interesting.

  The others offered looks of compassion.

  “Oh, Lorraine,” Janet said. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s not something I talk about. When a husband is as wealthy as mine, you tend to overlook things.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s time I did something about it.” Looking at Angel she said, “Please don’t say anything about this. Your mother . . .”

  “I won’t,” Angel reassured her. Going back to the discussion, Angel picked up the thread. “I understand what you’re saying about Candace and Michelle hoping that things will change, but anyone can reach a breaking point. It happens way too often where the woman ends up feeling trapped and feels like the only way out is to kill her husband.”

  “Or herself. I know.” Janet tugged at her skirt. “But talking about the issues and finding alternatives to deal with the problems—even meeting together once a week—keeps the women sane. They’d call me or the shelter before they did something so drastic.”

  “Are you sure?” Angel asked.

  “There are no absolutes, of course, but—”

  “Hey, Angel,” Heather interrupted. “I thought you were on Candace’s side. You said you wanted to help her.”

  “I do,” Angel assured them. “But the police are going to be looking at all the angles. I’m trying to do that too.”

  Debra stood up. “I need some coffee. Can I get some for anyone else?”

  “I’ll come with you,” Lorraine said. “We need to get the cookies out. This might be a good time for a break.”

  “Good idea.” Janet stood as well.

  Heather grabbed another cigarette and lighter out of her purse and headed back outside.

  Claire removed her glasses, letting the beaded chain catch them as she stretched, then walked over to the fireplace. Angel figured Claire to be about her own age. An attractive woman.

  “Do you have an abusive husband too?” Angel asked.

  “Me?” Claire shook her head. “I’m not married. After being around these women, I’m not sure I want to be.”

  Angel glanced toward the kitchen, where the other women had gone. “I know what you mean. Makes you wonder if there are any nonabusive men out there. I mean, I know there are. But it is kind of scary.”

  “Hmm. My father was—abusive, that is. I didn’t have much to do with him while I was growing up. He died when I was around twelve.”

  Angel didn’t know how to respond. “How sad,” she said lamely.

  “That he died? I guess it was sad, but mostly I felt relieved.” She sighed. “He wasn’t mean all the time, and in some ways I miss him.” She folded her arms. “I suffered a lot of guilt over the way I felt about his death. My counselor helped me through a lot of rough spots.”

  “Are you still in counseling?”

  “No, haven’t been for a while. I’ve gotten past the guilt, and now I’m just doing what I can to help the women here at the shelter.”

  “So you volunteer here too?”

  She nodded. “I answer phones and stay over a couple nights a week. Take notes for Janet. Gives me something to do on my time off.”

  “That’s nice.” Angel appreciated Claire’s candor and thoughtfulness but wondered if her helping other women went beyond the norm. Angel dismissed the thought—she’d begun to suspect everyone, even Janet.

  “We could use another volunteer around here.” Claire came back to her chair.

  “You’re recruiting me?” Angel grinned.

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll think about it.” From time to time Angel had considered volunteer work, outside the programs involving the police department.

  “Think about what?” Janet came back in and sat down. Rather than coffee she had a glass of ice water.

  “Coming to work at the shelter.” Claire stretched before sitting back down.

  “That’s wonderful, Angel. When can you start?”

  “Whoa.” Angel held her hands up. “I said I’d think about it.”

  “Claire is very good at recruiting people.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Seriously, Angel,” Claire said. “You should try it. Feels good to help these families. We give them a safe place until they can figure out what to do. We babysit sometimes while the women look for work. I like that part.”

  “Like I said, I’ll think about it.” And she would. She could certainly afford to give up one weekend a month or an evening a week.

  Claire reached into her bag for a diet Coke and popped the cap. One by one the women filtered back in and settled down, looking to Angel to continue.

  Angel felt uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe because of their openness. Checking her watch, she said. “I should be going soon, but I do have some questions. These are a little more personal. Feel free to tell me if you think I’m out of line, but I wanted to get a little better idea of who all of you are and, well, I’d like to know what you were doing on Tuesday between noon and 3:00.”

  Debra laughed. “I can see you’re not buying the joke bit.”

  “Not entirely.” Angel smiled to ease the tension.

  “I’ll go first,” Heather said. “I was at the casino. Spirit Mountain gives out coupon books on Tuesdays and . . .” She bit her lip and glanced around the room. “You can get a buffet for three dollars off.”

  “Tuesday.” Janet pulled out her Daytimer and flipped back. “I would have been in the office all day.”

  “I think that’s the day Claire and I went to Lincoln City to the factory outlet store,” Debra said.

  “It was,” Claire agreed. “We were there from noon to around 3:00.”

  Debra dug around in her purse and pulled out a wallet. “I
should have a receipt in here somewhere.” After a moment she produced a receipt and handed it to Angel.

  Angel studied it and handed it back. The receipt, from Coldwater Creek, put Debra Stanton there at 2:10. “Stanton?”

  “That’s right.”

  “As in Mrs. Douglas Stanton?” Angel asked. “Your husband is the president of the Sunset Cove Bank?”

  “One and the same.” She offered an almost apologetic smile.

  “I thought you looked familiar, but . . .” Angel had met Mrs. Stanton at a reception honoring a retiring police officer several months ago. This was not the same person.

  “It’s the hair,” Debra admitted. “I used to be a mousy gray.”

  “It’s . . . different. Very nice.”

  “Thank you.” She brought her coffee mug to her lips and took a sip. “I changed my hair and I’m working on my lifestyle.”

  What surprised Angel more than the woman’s appearance was learning that Doug Stanton was abusive. He didn’t seem at all like Phillip Jenkins or Jim Kelsey, or like Barry Fitzgibbon, for that matter. He was a soft-spoken man, a deacon in the church, and a member of the city council. Of course, all the trappings in the world didn’t mean much, but she’d always liked Mr. Stanton. Angel remembered meeting him as a kid when she first opened a savings account for the money she earned babysitting and running errands.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Angel.” Debra raised an eyebrow, as though she knew what Angel was thinking.

  “But your husband seems like such a nice man,” Angel blurted out.

  “He is, to his customers. And to people who matter. He was nice to me too—the perfect gentleman until after I married him.”

  “You’re saying you didn’t know he was abusive before?”

  “Are you kidding? I didn’t have a clue. Oh, I know better now. There were signs, but I was too young and inexperienced to read them.”

  Janet set her glass on an end table. “Men who abuse often don’t show their true colors until after you’ve known them a while. Unfortunately, you can’t always tell if someone will turn out to be an abuser. There are signs, like Debra said, but they aren’t always easy to read. Especially when you’re hopelessly in love.”

  “They say love is blind.” Lorraine shook her head. “That’s all too true.”

  “My husband treated me like a queen before we got married, and even for a while after,” Debra said. “I guess I’m lucky that he doesn’t abuse me physically. But the things he says and does . . .” She closed her eyes, frowning at an apparently painful memory.

  “It’s important to know a person well before you get married,” Janet said. “It’s easy to get caught in an abusive relationship.”

  “How do you know?” Angel asked, thinking now of her own budding relationship with Callen. “What are the signs?”

  “Background will tell you a lot.” Janet wrapped a napkin around her drink to absorb the condensation before picking it up. “How they handle anger. How they treat you. Sometimes the abuser will go out of his way to be kind.”

  “Almost too nice,” Lorraine concurred.

  Too nice? That was how she’d classified Callen when she’d first met him. He’d come out of an unhappy childhood. His father had been an alcoholic. He and his sister, Katherine, had lived with their grandparents.

  Angel’s stomach crunched into a tight knot. Callen had told her about an incident in which he’d almost lost his job. After his wife died, he’d had a hard time and turned to alcohol. He admitted to losing control while making an arrest, thankful that a fellow officer had restrained him. When she’d been attacked after Billy Dean Hartwell’s funeral, he’d nearly come unglued. Callen had said it was out of concern for her. At another time, he’d been furious with her for getting involved with the investigation.

  Could Callen be a potential abuser? How well did she know him? In some ways he fit the pattern.

  Callen is not an abuser. Denial coursed through her. Angel pictured his kind smile, the way he’d treated her when she’d given her statement after the shooting of the twelve-year-old boy. She imagined his kisses and how sweet they were.

  Too nice.

  She’d have to be very careful not to let love blind her as it had apparently blinded these women.

  “Abusers aren’t all bad,” Janet went on, drawing Angel’s errant thoughts back into the conversation. “They often have some good traits, which is why their spouses stay with them for years. Abuse also takes many forms. While our group and the shelter focus on abused women, there are a growing number of men whose wives abuse them.”

  Angel noted the time and announced that she had to leave for an appointment but wanted to get a statement from each of the women regarding their whereabouts during the time Phillip had been murdered. To save time she had each of them write the information down and hand them to her. She thanked them for their help and insights and tucked the notes into the side pocket of her bag.

  Janet walked her to the door. “Are we still on for 4:30?”

  “Today?” Angel grimaced. “I’d forgotten.”

  “We can change it if you want,” Janet said.

  “Um, no. I’ll be there. I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Good. See you this afternoon then.” Janet waited until Angel got into her car before closing the door.

  Angel had just enough time to get to Coast Contracting and her appointment with Lorraine’s abusive husband, Barry Fitzgibbon. In a way she was glad to have the information, but she also felt more wariness about meeting him again.

  Angel walked into the office three minutes early and was greeted by the secretary, who stared at her for several seconds.

  “Hi,” Angel said. “I’m here to see Mr. Fitzgibbon.”

  “Right. I’m sorry, it’s just . . . um . . . you must be Angel Delaney. I thought I recognized your name. I just didn’t make the connection until this minute. You’re the police officer who got into all that trouble for shooting that kid. I saw you on television. Mr. Fitzgibbon said you’d be coming in. I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I’m Becky Reed.” She held out a hand, and Angel shook it. Her hand felt cool, clammy, and limp.

  The tall, slender blonde wore her shiny long hair straight. She kept tucking the strands behind her ears.

  “Mr. Fitzgibbon is in his office—said to send you in as soon as you came.”

  “Thanks.” Angel eased open the door to the office.

  Barry Fitzgibbon stood as she walked in, then came around his desk to shake her hand. Polite, posed, but not glad to see her. His eyes told her that—cool as they had been the day before, calculating. Hazel, she decided, neither brown or blue. They fit his personality—at least what she could see of it so far. She could see no indication of his abusive tendencies. Maybe he saved that for his wife. From what she’d heard, Jenkins was nice around other people too.

  Fitzgibbon went back behind his desk. “Now, what can I do for you?” His leather chair made a swishing sound as he settled into it.

  She eased into the straight-back chair across from him.

  “As I said yesterday,” Fitzgibbon continued, “I’m not sure I have much to offer.”

  Angel pulled a notepad out of her bag along with a pen. “I appreciate your willingness to talk to me. As to what helps and what doesn’t—well, you never know.” She hadn’t given a lot of thought to what she would ask the man. Primarily because she hadn’t had much time to prepare. Maybe that was just as well. She’d begin with the obvious and work up. “How long had you and Jenkins worked together?”

  “He built some condos for me in the San Francisco area. I liked his work and asked him if he wanted to move up this way.”

  “How was he to work with?”

  “Good. Excellent. We got along great.”

  Angel noted a slight hesitation and told him so.

  He frowned and worked his jaw back and forth. “Sometimes Phillip wanted to get more involved with the financial aspect of the business. We had a few arguments,
but nothing serious. I occasionally had to remind him that our partnership worked because of our distinct and separate responsibilities and that we both needed to remember that.”

  “So you’re saying he wasn’t much of an expert on finances.”

  “Humph. That’s putting it mildly. Jenkins was a spender. He liked expensive things and tended to . . . well, let’s just say that Candace had to manage their finances at home or they’d have been bankrupt.”

  “I’ll bet he liked that,” she said with a sarcastic tone.

  Fitzgibbon gave her a condescending look. “Actually, he preferred it. He knew his limitations. It’s one of the things I liked about him.”

  “But you said he wanted to get involved in the financial aspect of the company.”

  “Yes, and when I reminded him of our deal, he would always back down.”

  Angel wasn’t sure she believed that. “Jenkins had a temper. Did he ever threaten you?”

  “No. And I never threatened him, either. Although I did tell him a while back that if he didn’t go into treatment for his alcohol problem, I’d be forced to dissolve the partnership.”

  “Really. Seems like a threat on your part.”

  “I suppose so. More of an intervention, actually. I prefer to think of it as a confrontation designed to make him a better person.”

  Okay, I guess I could buy that. “Was Phillip doing a good job?”

  “Yes. He was a very talented man. You can go to any of the people he built homes for.”

  “What about the cliff house?”

  He raised an eyebrow and leaned back. “How did you know about that?”

  “My mother, actually. Candace told her about it.”

  “That has nothing to do with Phillip’s work. There are several lawsuits pending on it, but the owners were certainly not of a mind to kill him over it. Most people settle these things in court, and these people are doing just that. Besides, if anyone is to blame, it’s the original property owners. We think there may be fraud involved.”

  “You mean the owners knew about the fault before selling it?”

  “We’re looking into the possibility, but as I said, that’s not going to help Candace, and I’d just as soon not discuss it.”