hiding place for a while, she thought in evil satisfaction. “Go ahead and make yourself at home on the couch.”
While Barry settled on the sofa, she hung his jacket on the hook near the door and then headed for her small kitchen, where she stopped for a surreptitious look in the shiny surface of her chrome toaster. Relieved to find no more stray remains of her meal reflecting back at her, she filled the coffeepot with filtered water and measured out enough Kona blend for a few cups.
“Ready in a couple of minutes,” she announced as she returned to the living room.
Barry had been studying the cover of the DVD case she’d left on the coffee table. Now, as she took the wingback chair, he gave a nod of approval. “I’m a British comedy fan, too. If you ever want to borrow some of my collection, I’ll be glad to drop them off to you.”
“Sure, thanks,” she told him, favorably impressed. Had Reese made a similar offer, it likely would have been for the collected works of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis.
They sat in awkward silence for a moment while she waited for him to steer the conversation to what had happened that morning. But when he merely fiddled with the jewel case, she took the initiative.
“What about Curt’s family?” she asked in a sympathetic tone. “I didn’t know him well enough to know if he had any relatives living in the area.”
“His dad passed away a few years ago. He has a mother and a married sister—Peggy is her name—who are in Connecticut. I called Peggy this afternoon and broke the news to her. I figured it would be better if she was the one who told her mother. I told her to let me know if she needed help with the funeral arrangements or anything.”
Darla nodded; then, mindful of Reese hiding out in her powder room, she dutifully added, “I really thought when we first found him that he’d fallen down the stairs and hit his head, but now I’m not so sure. What do you think happened? Was it an accident?”
“I think someone hit him with that crowbar and killed him, Darla.”
The stark words made her shiver. Barry’s blunt assessment somehow made the likelihood of murder a given. Worse, a sudden image of an impeccably groomed Hilda Aguilar in her turquoise suit smashing a wrecking bar against Curt’s skull flashed through her mind.
No, not right.
Then, since Reese had mentioned it, she replayed the scenario in her mind but with Barry wielding the crowbar. And again, she gave a mental shake of her head.
No, he doesn’t fit the picture as a killer, either.
Aloud, she asked, “Do you think it was the scrap thieves who did it?”
He shrugged. “It could be. I hear they’re some pretty rough characters, maybe even tied in to one of those Russian gangs. Or it could have been a druggie, or someone mad about the fact we got that building for a song. Not that we did anything illegal,” he hurried to clarify, “but sometimes there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes politicking in the renovation business. You know, a little you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of thing.”
Darla stored that last comment for further thought, hoping that Reese could hear everything clearly from his bathroom vantage point. Raising her voice for the detective’s benefit, she asked, “Do you know if Curt had any enemies?
Now, Barry smiled a little.
“Are you asking me if a sweet, mild-mannered guy like my buddy Curt had ever pissed someone off enough that they’d contemplate murder? Let me put it this way: I’ve been tempted to throttle him a time or two myself, over the years. But under that obnoxious exterior he was a pretty good guy. Not a Mother Teresa or anything, but his heart was in the right place.”
“He did have a way about him,” Darla agreed with a fleeting smile of her own. “But I did hear somewhere that about half the time a murder victim knows his or her killer. So if it turns out not to be an accident, the police will probably be taking a pretty close look at all of us.”
“Yeah.” Barry dropped his gaze to the DVD case, where he appeared to be studying the product information with great interest. “I don’t mean to make this all about me, but I’m a bit worried about how that’s going to work out. I picked up that crowbar, remember? That means my fingerprints are all over it.”