California Schemin' - Kate George [16]
Chapter Three
I closed the door and walked away. Crap. Not what I’d wanted to come home to. I checked the rest of the rooms, but my bed was the only place where Annabelle had seen fit to notify me of her displeasure. I held my nose and went back in to open the windows. Then I went to the bed, used a wire hanger to remove the snake from the pillow and folded the whole mess up in the quilt.
I dragged the quilt downstairs and dumped the contents out behind the barn. Then I hung the quilt on the line, hoping that it would either rain or snow soon and wash some of the grossness away. If it didn’t I’d wrap it in a plastic garbage bag and take it down to the laundry. If a couple of go rounds in the industrial washers didn’t clean it up then I’d have to give the quilt up as a lost cause.
I was dragging my three-ton suitcase up the stairs when the phone rang. I left it on the landing and jogged back to the kitchen.
“You made it home safe.” The sound of Beau’s voice hit me in the stomach and made me long for him.
“Yeah, no problems. Did Fogel ever find out who it was I fished out of the river?” I hated the thought that she might remain anonymous, her family never knowing what happened to her.
“Yeah, but hang on, Fogel wants to tell you himself. I’ll pass you over.” There was some shuffling on the other end of the line. I leaned back and put my feet up on the kitchen chair next to me waiting for Fogel to get to the phone.
“The woman is Lily Carver Wallace, wife of R. Carl Wallace, member of the state senate.” Fogel sounded distracted.
“Wow. How’s he taking it?”
“Publicly devastated. Privately, not so much. Resigned I’d say, but not overly emotional.”
“The wife of a state senator. That opens a can of worms, doesn’t it? Is he liked? Not that it’s any of my business.”
“It’s your business in that they chose to involve you. He’s not well loved by a certain faction, but I fail to see what they could gain by killing his wife.”
“Did the senator and his wife get along? They weren’t in divorce proceedings or anything, were they?”
Fogel laughed. “You think like a cop,” he said. “Again, publicly, everything was as it should be. Privately, I don’t know. We’ve got people looking into it. The thing about it is, now that a senator is involved, the state police want to get involved. It’s my jurisdiction, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold on to this case.”
“What will happen at my end if the case gets transferred? Will anybody be looking out for me, or am I on my own again?” I didn’t like the sound of this. The last thing I needed was to end up involved in another murder investigation.
“I’ll stay involved as much as I can, keep an eye on what’s happening, but if I stick my nose too far into it, they’ll politely ask me to mind my own business.”
I sighed. On my own again. Not that I couldn’t take care of myself; I could. I’d just rather not face a killer on my own.
“Would it be okay if I contacted my state police and tell them what happened? I’d feel better if someone local knew what was going on.”
“Sure. Better still, give me the number, and I’ll clue them in. Is there someone in particular I should contact?”
I gave him the name of the detective who investigated my boss’s death and asked to talk to Beau. He called Beau to the phone, and I could hear more shuffling around.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked. “Sounds very suspicious.”
Beau laughed.
“Poker game in Fogel’s kitchen. His wife won’t let the guys smoke their cigars anywhere else. It’s not a huge room, and there are about ten of us. Every time anybody has to use the phone, open the fridge or go to the john, we all have to shuffle around. You wouldn’t believe it. And the phone