Dying to Kill (Angel Delaney Mysteries Book #2) Page 3

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go out there alone. Why don’t you call Nick?”

  Angel considered it. Nick Caldwell was a longtime friend and a police officer. “Not yet,” Angel decided. “She specifically asked for me. I’d like to see what’s going on. I have my cell phone so I can call in if there’s any trouble.”

  Anna went back to the stove and picked up the wooden spatula. “Go then. I’ll take care of the soup.” She stirred the mixture and settled a lid on the pot. “But just for the record, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “Neither do I,” Angel muttered as she headed for the door.

  SIX

  Angel ran for her car, dodging bullet-sized raindrops. May on the Oregon coast could be cold—especially when the wind blew in from the north, which was what it had been doing for much of the morning. She was glad she’d taken the opportunity to run during the brief sun break. The persistent wind and rain almost made her miss Florida, but not quite.

  She ducked into the car and snapped on the seat belt. Turning the key brought the engine to life and a rush of emotion. Angel’s 1972 cherry red Corvette had belonged to her older brother, Luke. The Corvette had been his pride and joy. He was the oldest of the five Delaney kids. Dad’s favorite. At least he had been until he disappeared. Luke was a lawyer and had been involved in some sort of criminal case when he went missing. On occasion, Angel thought about trying to find him. She certainly had the time now and determined to think more about that possibility later. At the moment, however, she needed to pay a visit to a very distraught woman.

  While she maneuvered the Corvette out of the driveway, Angel forced her thoughts to more pleasant matters. Like the warm and wonderful-smelling kitchen she’d just left and how Callen would react when she served him her homemade soup. The silly grin she’d been wearing earlier came back.

  Her stomach did a little flip as she thought about Callen again. The intensity of her feelings both surprised and frightened her. She didn’t like someone having so much power over her. On the other hand, Angel hadn’t felt so alive in years. Part of her wanted to cut her losses and run. The other part wanted to stick around and see where the relationship would lead. She’d promised herself and Callen that much, but with the hours he had to work, developing a relationship could take a while.

  Callen had come to a dead end on the Kelsey murder investigation. Jim Kelsey had been killed nearly three months ago. Since drugs had been found in his garage, they originally thought he’d been one of several people murdered by a drug dealer, but the evidence didn’t support their theory. His wife, Michelle, had been a suspect as well, but again they had no substantial evidence linking her to the crime other than the fact that Jim Kelsey had abused her. Michelle was first on their list, however, and falling in love with her lawyer hadn’t helped her situation any.

  The Kelsey case had become a sore spot for the Sunset Cove Police Department as well as the Oregon State Police. The police chief, Joe Brady, didn’t like loose ends, but he didn’t have enough officers to spare. Her leave had left them short staffed, and with budget cuts they really couldn’t afford to hire replacement officers. So they coped, dealing with the priority cases first.

  As an Oregon State Police detective, Callen had been assigned to lead up the investigation, but he’d come to a standstill as well. Whoever had killed Kelsey had done a great job of eliminating any evidence linking him or her to the murder. Before leaving, Callen had confided in Angel, saying they’d had to put the investigation on the back burner while he worked on finding the missing girl in Florence.

  Angel wished there was something she could do to help him—to help the department.

  Maybe there would be if you went back to work. Soon after starting with the Sunset Cove PD, Angel had considered taking the tests to qualify as a detective, but that was before the shooting incident.

  Taking additional leave is the right thing to do, Angel reminded herself. You have to take some time to heal and to figure out who you are and what you want to do. At the moment her excuses seemed lame. She’d been a police officer for four years, but did she really want to be one? Sometimes she thought she did. Like now, on her way out to the Jenkins’s place.

  She again reinforced her decision to extend her leave. She was backing up and taking a new direction, determined to achieve some balance in her life. Learning to cook was one of her new goals. Not just for Callen or her mother but for herself. She’d never be the domestic diva her mother was, but she wanted to be able to hold her own if and when Callen asked her to marry him.

  Marriage. She and Callen had talked about it once or twice, but Callen needed as much time to adjust to their relationship as she did. Both had been surprised by the depth of their feelings for each other. No, Angel thought, marriage is a long way off. A very long way off.

  At Highway 101 Angel headed south, then turned east along the road that bordered Sunset Cove. Phillip and Candace lived with their three children in a renovated two-story farmhouse on twenty acres. They weren’t into big-time farming but did have a few head of cattle, horses, and other animals along with a super-sized garden. Phillip Jenkins had a construction business while Candace kept up the farm.

  Seeing the farm just ahead turned Angel’s thoughts back to the woman who’d called. Like so many women, Candace had gone back to the abuse. Angel couldn’t help but speculate on what had happened. Had Phillip beaten her again and left her incapacitated? Why hadn’t she just called 911?

  Her thoughts drifted again to Jim Kelsey and the unsolved murder. Kelsey could have been Phillip Jenkins’s twin. Both men were big, burly, and abusive.

  Angel’s anxiety level rose as she drove into the Jenkins’s long driveway. After several minutes, she pulled up between a big black truck with the logo Coast Contracting and the family’s white van. The truck meant Jenkins was there, and that probably meant a confrontation. Not something Angel looked forward to. You could call Nick, she reminded herself.

  Not yet. The PD had other things to do. If she could handle the situation herself as a civilian, she would. If not, she’d call.

  The sliding door on the driver’s side of the van stood open. Groceries in plastic bags from Andy’s Market littered the floor and backseat.

  Her gaze moved to the front porch, where Candace sat on one of the two white wicker chairs. She had on jeans and a pink knit top, mostly covered by a denim jacket. Her shoes were a popular style of hiking boot—a good choice for someone living on a farm or just living in Oregon.

  Candace stood when Angel approached, and walked across the porch, then gripped the railing as if she needed the support. Angel looked around but saw no sign of Phillip Jenkins. She maneuvered around the mud holes and made her way to the sidewalk that led through a grape arbor. The rain had eased up, but wet branches dripped water on her head and down her neck as she walked under them. The air smelled fresh and clean. Rays of sun poked through the multiple layers of clouds. She bypassed the walk that led to the front of the house and headed toward the side porch and Candace.

  “Thank you for coming.” Candace’s gaze flickered over Angel and darted to the open door of the house and back.

  “Are you okay?” Angel looked the woman over for signs of injury. There were none—at least not on her face. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s been good for the last few weeks. He . . .”

  Candace crumpled, and Angel hurried to her side, intent on catching her before she fell. She helped the woman back into the chair. “What’s wrong? Has he hurt the children?” Angel looked around, her mind conjuring up images of a murder-suicide.

  Candace shook her head and lifted her haunted gaze to Angel’s. “He’s in there.” She pointed to the door. “In the living room.”

  Something about her expression and the way she moved set Angel’s stomach on edge. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I went shopping and picked the kids up from school. When I got here, I foun
d him right where I’d left him, in front of the television set. He’d stayed home today to watch a game. The Mariners were playing Oakland. That’s where he’s from, Oakland. Only when I came back, he . . .” She gasped and covered her mouth with a closed fist.

  “He’s inside?”

  She hauled in a deep breath and nodded. “There was a gun in his hand, one from his collection. He . . . he . . .” She stared at her hands. “He shot himself.”

  Angel stopped breathing. She leaned against the porch railing to put her thoughts in order. The porch was one of those wide, wraparound types with plenty of room for sitting. The floors and walls were painted white, now muddied by her own footprints leading from the rain-soaked driveway.

  A porch swing creaked back and forth as the wind swirled around them. Crisp, clean cushions in a tropical print adorned the pristine white wicker furniture. Pages of a Woman’s Day magazine flipped up and fluttered on the glass-covered coffee table. An assortment of plants finished off the scene. The place could have been featured in Better Homes and Gardens—certainly not the scene of a suicide.

  Angel pocketed her hands and hauled in a deep breath, wishing she hadn’t agreed to come. The last thing she wanted to do was walk into that house, but she had to, and when she’d seen Jenkins for herself, she’d call dispatch. This was the part she’d hated most about being a police officer—looking at death. It reminded her how fleeting life could be. How a bullet to the head had stopped her partner in her tracks. How a twelve-year-old boy had died in her arms.

  Stop thinking about it. Angel ordered the images away and stepped closer to the door.

  “I have to take a look,” Angel heard herself saying. Blood pounded in her ears. Her stomach knotted as she steeled herself and headed for the open doorway.

  “Wait,” Candace ordered. “Take your shoes off. Please.” Her tone softened. “It’s a house rule. He hates it when the floor is dirty.”

  The man is dead. I doubt he cares. Angel kept her thoughts to herself. The woman was obviously in shock. A dirty floor was the least of her worries, but Angel obliged, leaving the dazed woman on the porch alone. She slipped out of her loafers and set them just inside the door on a rug apparently placed there for that purpose. The rug held a pair of man-sized work boots, which she surmised belonged to Phillip, along with several pairs of children’s shoes.

  Not certain as to why, she tiptoed across the highly polished white linoleum floor, noticing the immaculate kitchen and the gleaming counters. When she reached the center of the room, Phillip Jenkins came into view. She stopped, frozen in place.

  Phillip Jenkins sat in his brown leather recliner with his stocking feet up and head back, looking as though he’d fallen asleep. A bowl half filled with popcorn and a can of beer sat on the end table to his right. A gun hung from his left hand. The bullet had entered his skull just above his left ear. Not much blood, Angel noted. Candace had said he’d killed himself, but in Angel’s mind, suicide didn’t jive with what she was seeing. Jenkins had settled in to watch a baseball game on television. The set was still blaring. The game over.

  She felt more than heard Candace come up behind her. “I cleaned him up the best I could.”

  “What did you say?”

  But Angel had heard every word. She just couldn’t believe them.

  SEVEN

  There was mud on the floor and blood on the chair and the carpet,” Candace explained. “Phillip hates things to be messy and . . .”

  Angel groaned and rubbed her forehead. It wouldn’t be the first time a person had cleaned up a crime scene. And this was obviously a crime scene. The man had been murdered. “You may have destroyed vital evidence.”

  “Evidence? I don’t understand. He killed himself. Why do you need evidence?”

  “Come on.” Angel led Candace out of the kitchen and back to the porch. “I need to call the authorities.”

  “I know. I suppose I should have called them instead of waiting for you, but I couldn’t. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I understand.” But she didn’t, not really. Why had Candace called her mother’s place asking for her? To give her more time to clean things up? For moral support? Angel put her shoes back on and joined Candace on the porch. Pulling the cell phone out of her pocket, she dialed 911 and reported the death.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Candace when she’d finished making the call. While she wanted to believe the woman’s story, she couldn’t quite dismiss Candace as the killer. Destroying evidence and failing to call the police provided more than enough reason for suspicion.

  Angel glanced at the still-open van door. “Where are the children?” Her mind jumped in with more scenarios. Had Phillip injured or killed the children? Had Candace come to the end of her rope? Had she gone psychotic and killed them all?

  “They’re in the barn. I told them to feed the animals.”

  Thank God. Angel released the breath she’d been holding.

  “Mommy?” One of the children stood in the barn’s yawning dark doorway. “Can we come in the house now? We’re cold.”

  Candace turned toward the child. “Not yet.”

  “Do they know about Phillip?” Angel asked quietly.

  “No. I came in with some of the groceries and asked them to bring some in too. When I saw him, I sent them to the barn. I don’t know how I can tell them. They loved their dad. He was good to them when . . .”

  When he wasn’t drinking. She’d heard the line a hundred times before.

  Candace frowned. “I should put the rest of the groceries away.”

  “No, just leave them where they are. It’s fine.” Candace had done too much already.

  The woman didn’t argue. She assumed the same position she’d been in when Angel had first pulled into the driveway, straight backed and staring at some spot on the cloud-scattered horizon.

  Angel watched the sky as well. Another storm system was approaching. Her morning patch of sunshine had already become a distant memory.

  Angel looked over to the barn. The children stood just inside the doorway, apparently reluctant to disobey their mother’s orders. “Mom!” one called out. “We’re hungry.”

  Candace lifted her gaze to Angel. “Can I get them a snack? I have some cheese and crackers and fruit in the van.”

  “Sure. I’ll come with you.”

  They were heading down the porch steps when Nick Caldwell pulled up in an unmarked car and whipped into a parking spot beside her Corvette. Being a friend of her brothers, Nick had practically lived at the Delaney house while they were growing up. Angel loved him like a brother and had a lot of respect for him as a fellow officer.

  “Hey, Angel, what are you doing out here?” Nick was six years her senior, tall and slim but muscular. He’d been her oldest brother, Luke’s, best friend.

  Angel left Candace at the van and hurried over to talk to Nick, relieved to be handing the problem over to the authorities. After a quick hug she filled him in. “Mrs. Jenkins asked me to come out. I thought maybe he’d beaten her up, but . . .” She nodded toward the house. “He’s dead.”

  Nick groaned, his feelings apparently echoing her own. The last thing they needed in the small coastal town was another murder.

  “It gets worse.” Angel ran a hand through her thick curls still damp from the earlier downpour. “She cleaned the place up.”

  “That’s just great.” He rubbed his neck. “Did she shoot him?”

  Angel shrugged. “I don’t know. Says she didn’t. She claims she went shopping and picked her kids up from school, then came home and found him. She seems to think he killed himself—at least that’s the story she told me.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  Angel shook her head. “He was stretched out in a recliner, watching a baseball game.”

  Another vehicle pulled in, Bo Williams, a sheriff’s deputy. Behind him came an ambulance, Dr. Bennett, the medical examiner, and two people in a white SUV. The place was beginning to look like a used c
ar lot. Bo and Nick began setting up the crime scene, roping off the house with yellow tape. A man and a woman stepped out of the SUV. The OSP insignia blazoned on their navy blue caps and coveralls indicated they were from the Oregon State Police crime lab. They were wearing black boots and carried their evidence-gathering equipment in aluminum cases.

  “You must be Angel Delaney.” The woman stretched out her right hand as they fell into step beside Angel. “I’m Jill Stafford, and this is Terry Bartlett.”

  “Hi.” Angel shook the extended hands in the order they were offered.

  “Detective Riley has been telling us about you.” Terry winked. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  “Thanks. It’s nice to meet you too. What has Riley been telling you?” She grinned. “On second thought, I don’t think I want to know.”

  Jill chuckled. “It wasn’t what he said so much as the way he looked when he said it. You’ve made quite an impression on him.”

  Callen had made quite an impression on Angel as well, but she didn’t say so. She walked as far as the door and debated whether or not to stay with Candace to lend moral support.

  Nick took over as lead and asked Bo to keep an eye on Candace until he could question her. “Angel,” he said, putting an arm across her shoulder, “I’d like you to come in with us. I need you to go over things with me again. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Sure.” Relieved not to have to stay with the widow, she put on the shoe coverings he handed her then followed him inside. The lab techs had already begun processing the crime scene, with Terry taking photos and Jill making preliminary assessments.

  While watching the medical examiner check out the body, she told Nick again what had happened, then added, “I just don’t think Phillip Jenkins would kill himself. Not just because he was watching a game. He was too . . . arrogant and self-assured. That night I came out on the domestic violence call, he didn’t seem the least bit repentant. He was more upset about our being there and interfering than he was about hurting his wife.” She glanced at the television screen that was still turned to a sports channel. “Look at the food and beer and the recliner. He was all set up to enjoy the game, not to kill himself.”