was one scenario that she’d never actually believed would happen. She still didn’t believe it even when she heard Reese tell Hilda, “I’ll need you to turn around, ma’am, so I can place these cuffs on you.”
Hilda took a step back, the look on her face one of pure outrage. “How dare you say such a thing to me in my own store! What do you think you’re doing?”
“What I’m doing, ma’am, is arresting you for the murder of Curt Benedetto.”
EIGHTEEN
DARLA WATCHED IN DISMAY AS, WITHIN THE SPACE OF A FEW moments, Reese had handcuffed Hilda and, accompanied by the uniformed officer, was walking her toward the front door. After her first protest, the woman had made no sound, until they reached the register.
“Wait, my shop, it’s all I have left,” she cried, her Cuban accent once again slipping past her usually crisp tones as she dug in her heels and halted in midstep. Catching Darla’s gaze, she went on, “Dios mío, I can’t just leave like this! I’ll be robbed blind. Please, Darla, can’t you take care of things for me?”
“Ma’am, I need to ask you to come along,” Reese told her. “We can send an officer back to lock up later.”
“Reese, please let me handle this for her,” Darla urged. “I’ll close the place and set the alarm. You know the problems we’ve been having in this area.”
The detective gave her a hard look but finally nodded. “All right, ma’am,” he told Hilda, “you can let Ms. Pettistone know where to find your keys.”
In a choked voice, Hilda told her where to find her purse in her tiny backroom office and then gave her the alarm code. “It’s 0-6-1-1 . . . Tera’s birthday. The keypad is there by the front door. All you have to do is put in the code and press ‘Enter,’ and you’ll have ten seconds to go out the door and lock it behind you.”
“Don’t worry, Hilda,” Darla assured the distraught woman, though her own voice was trembling almost as much. “I’ll take care of things here, and I’ll let Jake know what happened, too. She can help you arrange bond or find an attorney.”
“My purse . . . I’ll need it.”
“Better you leave your bag with Darla, ma’am,” Reese told her. “I’ll give you a minute to let her find your cell phone and stick a few dollars in your pocket so you’ll have cab fare when you make bond, but the less you have to check in at the property desk, the better.”
Remembering how the woman carried half her life around in her purse, Darla was in total agreement with that. She rushed to the back room and secured the woman’s designer bag, found her phone, and then rifled through her wallet and counted out what she judged would be sufficient for a taxi ride. Returning to the front again, she tucked the cell and the cash into the pocket of Hilda’s suit jacket. She’d give the purse and keys to Jake later to hold for the woman.
By that time, Hilda appeared past speaking; still, she gave Darla a grateful nod as Reese and the officer walked her out the door. Darla followed after them in time to see the uniformed cop loading the woman into a police cruiser. Reese’s own beater was double-parked in front of the shop with one of those flashing lights on its dash. The sight of both vehicles with their strobing lights had drawn a small crowd of neighbors and passersby. Though Hilda had held her head high until the patrol car’s door closed after her, Darla knew that the proud woman must be feeling thoroughly humiliated by the situation.
That was, if she was innocent.
Darla waited until the patrol car with Hilda inside had pulled away from the curb before she rounded on Reese. “Seriously, you’re arresting Hilda for murder?”
“No, Darla, this was just a joke,” he shot back, irritation obvious in his tone. “I like going around pretending to arrest people for crimes they didn’t commit. In fact, I consider it a bad week if I don’t fake arrest at least one innocent person in front of all their friends and neighbors for no good reason.”
“Sorry, that came out wrong,” she replied in a humble tone, realizing that she’d just questioned his professional competency. “I know you wouldn’t arrest her without good cause. I just can’t believe that Hilda could be capable of killing another person.”
“Yeah, well, that’s pretty much what every friend and relative