listening to Nora is not something I can endure very often. She’s kinda the opposite of relaxing, even with all the drugs.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Plus you have to be suspect about anything she gives you to eat or drink. I would definitely BYOB if Nora’s involved.”
“Nora is what, sixty or so?” I asked.
“Try ten years younger,” Gertie said. “That’s what drugs and booze will do to you.”
“And all those random men,” Ida Belle said.
“Men keep you young,” Gertie said.
“Says the woman who’s not married,” Ida Belle said.
I laughed. “Okay, so I have to ask, did she work before she fell into a career of finding the best drugs and men all over the world? Was she married to a dealer who passed and left her his fortune? Because her house is well kept and professionally landscaped, her car is new, and all that travel isn’t cheap.”
Ida Belle grinned. “You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me,” I said.
“She invented some sort of pipe for weed that went viral,” Ida Belle said. “I don’t pretend to know anything about it, but she patented it and licensed the patent to some company who sends her money off every sale.”
I stared. “Good God. She probably has enough money to buy Amsterdam. What’s she still doing in Sinful?”
“People in Sinful leave her alone,” Ida Belle said. “If she lived somewhere else, there wouldn’t be people she could trust around, and probably everyone would be hitting her up for money.”
“Or weed,” Gertie said.
I grinned. Sinful never stopped surprising me.
Chapter Ten
The parking lot where Gil was killed was as unremarkable as I figured it would be. The police report had contained photos so we knew exactly where his car had been parked and which door he’d exited the building from, even where the body was. The shot was fired at close range straight into his chest. There had been no indication of defensive injuries, so he hadn’t had time to react.
“Maybe he was about to get into the car when the perp walked up,” Ida Belle said. “Gil didn’t hear him until the last second, then turned around and that was it. That would explain the lack of defensive wounds.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “If the cops had found the car that might have helped clarify positioning given blood spatter.”
I scanned the surrounding buildings, trying to find any sign of life, but it was all warehouses and other industrial-type places that weren’t open on Sundays and closed down in the evening. Unless somebody was pulling a late-nighter making tools or stocking inventory, it was unlikely anyone would have been in the area that night, much less just happen to be looking out a window when Gil had been shot.
“It looks pretty dead,” Gertie said. “So to speak.”
I nodded. “The police canvassed the building employees the next day, but no one was working that late and they suspect the night guard for the building across the street was sleeping on the job. So without witnesses or cameras, let’s think about where the killer would have approached from.”
“Too many options,” Ida Belle said. “Could have parked on another street and walked up. Could have been dropped off by an accomplice. I assume the cops tried to track the car as it left?”
“The report says they canvassed the neighboring blocks for security cameras to attempt to track but there’s no other notation about them so I’m assuming that was a dead end,” I said. “I guess short of asking the entire city to check their security footage for that night, they don’t really have a way to spot it.”
“The city has cameras in a lot of places,” Gertie said. “I wonder if they’re checking those?”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but who knows at what rate. They probably have one or two poor people sitting at desks watching security video all day looking for a needle in a haystack. We don’t even know what kind of priority Gil’s case would get, even with it being a murder.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Unfortunately, there’s not exactly a shortage. And if there’s a live victim situation, like a kidnapping or missing person, especially a child, that will take priority.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Add to that, if someone changed out the plates in the parking lot, they wouldn’t even know the car was Gil’s unless they’re running the plates on every silver Mercedes that drives down the street.”
Gertie blew out a breath. “And even if they were doing exactly that, it only means the amount of time involved with