Darla snorted. “Well, he about bit my head off when I asked him the same question. So I’d say yes.”
Letting James know she’d be back once she closed down Hilda’s shop, she hung up and went on to the first order of business: locating the audio system and shutting off those chanting monks. Then she followed her nose to the source of the incense. It had almost burned itself to ash; still, as a precaution, she covered the small ceramic bowl with its matching lid. She left the products that Hilda had loaded her down with before Reese’s untimely appearance for another time. All that remained was to check on the back door and shut off the lights before setting the alarm and heading out the front door again.
Without the mumble of the monks to add ambient noise, Darla’s footsteps on the sleek wooden floors echoed in the small shop as she made her way to the office. She confirmed that the rear door was locked, and went to turn off the light, only to hesitate with her hand on the switch. Near the door sat a small wicker trash can, empty save for what appeared to be several torn photographs. On impulse, she stooped and plucked the handful of ragged-edged scraps from the can and carried them to the small desk.
It took but a few moments to piece together what proved to be four different photos. Surprisingly, all appeared to be taken in the same parklike setting as the now-poignant shot of Tera that appeared on Jake’s missing-person flier. And as with that photo, these obviously were of professional quality, so crisp were the colors and so perfect was the lighting. One pose immediately caught Darla’s eye. In composition, it was almost identical to the Tera photo, with its windblown subject gazing over her shoulder and coyly smiling at the unseen photographer.
The major difference was that the woman in that and the other three ravaged prints was not Maria Teresa Aguilar.
Darla turned over the pieces of that particular photograph one at a time until she found what she’d suspected might be there. Written across one back corner in pencil—for the photographer would have known better than to use anything else—was a single charming, if highly unoriginal, phrase: You are so beautiful to me. The penciled date was almost three months earlier. The sentiment was signed Curt.
Darla sighed a little as she flipped the pieces faceup again. Carefully, she fit the jigsaw puzzle that was the torn photo back together once more. Had the picture been ripped at a different angle, it might have been salvageable. As it was, the subject’s elegant beauty now was marred by a tear in the photo paper that divided her pale features perfectly in half from top to bottom.
Too bad, she told herself, for she suspected it would be a long time before Hilda ever looked this happy again.
* * *
“YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL TO ME. YEAH, PRETTY CHEESY SENTIMENT,” Jake agreed that evening as she and Darla sat together over a glass of wine in Darla’s apartment while discussing Hilda’s arrest. “I didn’t tell you before, but Curt wrote the same thing on the back of the picture of Tera that Hilda gave me. I noticed it when I took it out of the frame to scan it. Hilda said Tera gave the framed photo to her as a gift, so Hilda probably didn’t even know the writing was there.”
Darla raised her brows in surprise. She had carried the torn photo back with her when she’d left Hilda’s shop, virtuously telling herself that she wasn’t protecting the older woman, but simply preserving evidence. After all, she had rationalized, what if Hilda had a cleaning service? They might come by and tidy up the place—including disposing of the trash—before Reese obtained a warrant to search the store for evidence to back up his arrest. Feeling only a bit guilty, Darla had turned over the pieces to Jake, who had sighed and muttered a few things about chain of custody before putting the torn photo in an oversized envelope to give to Reese later.
“But that’s what I don’t understand,” Darla persisted. “Curt had been dating Tera for at least a month before he was killed. From what everyone indicated, the whole thing was going down right under her mother’s nose. Why would Hilda wait so long to finally go bat-poo crazy and kill the guy?”
“Maybe because she really, really wanted the slimeball back? I hate