Page 46 of Den of Iniquity

“Put him down?” I repeated.

“I’m a woman who works in real estate,” Greta replied. “I never go anywhere without a Taser in my pocket and a loaded handgun in my purse. After I tased him, he was out for a few seconds. By the time the Taser wore off, I had him at gunpoint. When the cops showed up, it took a few minutes for them to sort out that Loren was the one who needed to be taken into custody. After that I did some sleuthing and found out about all the other times cops had been called to the house—all the times he’d been arrested without my mother pressing charges. That’s when I insisted on the no-contact order. I more or less strong-armed Mom into selling the house and moving into an assisted-living facility where he couldn’t move back in with her.”

“It sounds like your mother was in denial.”

“You think?” Greta asked with a sad smile. “But then, when Loren turned up dead, Mom blamed me one hundred percent. Connor and I were actually in Hawaii when it happened, but as far as Mom was concerned, it was all my fault. And I suppose that’s why I agreed to talk to you—because I want to know the truth about what really happened, not so much for my mother’s sake but for mine. So what’s this all about?”

Once again, I was caught up in an interview that wasn’t unfolding anywhere near the way I had anticipated. So I backed off and pulled the standard interrogation technique of asking a question to which, thanks to Yolanda Aguirre, I already knew the answer.

“How many times was Loren taken into custody for domestic violence against your mother?” I asked.

Greta nodded. “Seven in all, but if I hadn’t caught him red-handed that last time, I never would have known about any of them. And since she never pressed charges, he was always out of jail and back at her house the very next day. Why do you ask?”

“Before I answer that question, let me ask another. As far as you know, was your brother involved with drugs?”

“To my knowledge, Loren’s only drug of choice was booze. As I said, we were never close. If he was on drugs, the only person who might have known about it would have been my mother. At the time he died, she wasn’t speaking to me, but she told my brother James that the cops had it all wrong. She insisted his death was no accident. She thought he’d been murdered.”

“Turns out, I’ve unearthed several cases with circumstances surprisingly similar to Loren’s,” I told her. “A number of weeks ago, I was contacted by a grandmother whose grandson, Darius, had died, supposedly of an accidental overdose. She thought the cops had it wrong, too. He’d been involved in drugs in the past, but, as far as she knew, Darius was clean and sober at the time of his death, and it seems he may well be the victim of a homicide. With Yolanda Aguirre’s help, I’ve now located two other cases with links to Darius’s. I suspect that your brother may be number four.”

“Are you kidding?” Greta demanded.

“Not in the least. In two cases the death was ruled accidental. In another, manner of death was left as undetermined, but one way or the other, the investigations either stopped completely or else went cold. One of the common denominators in each case is that all of the dead victims—all of them male—had a history of domestic violence arrests, arrests, yes, but few convictions.”

“Just like Loren,” Greta murmured.

“Exactly,” I agreed.

“You said ‘one of the common denominators.’ Are there others?”

“First,” I said, “tell me about your brother’s personal effects. In your mother’s interview with Ms. Aguirre, she mentioned having received them. Did you by any chance see them, or did your mother ever share any information about them with you?”

“No,” Greta replied. “At the time he died, we weren’t on speaking terms. James was here for the funeral. She might have shared something about them with him. If so, he never mentioned it to me.”

“But considering the close relationship your mother had with Loren, do you think she would have gotten rid of them?”

“Not at all,” Greta replied. “She would have hung on to them for dear life.”

“After she passed away, what happened to her belongings?”

“They all came here,” Greta answered with a shrug. “The facilities manager at the assisted-living place had everything packed up for me. I took her clothing directly to Goodwill. Everything else is still in boxes, out in the garage. Going through those is on my to-do list, but I haven’t been up to facing that, at least not yet. Did you know my mother was in the process of writing me out of her will when she passed away?”

“I had no idea,” I replied.

Greta took a deep breath. “That hurt,” she said. “The estate didn’t amount to much. It primarily consisted of the proceeds from selling her house. The cost of assisted living was eating into those at a rapid clip. Had she lived another year or so, Connor and I and James, too, would have had to pitch in to pay the freight. So taking me out of the will was sheer meanness on her part—one final slap in the face. It was one last time where Loren would have won and I would have lost, but because the new will hadn’t been witnessed and signed, it wasn’t considered valid.”

So much for following the money to find my killer. That strategy wasn’t going to work here—not at all.

“How many boxes?” I asked.

“Out in the garage, you mean?”

I nodded.

“Not that many,” Greta replied. “Six or seven in all, but the problem is, for me, they’re packed with a lifetime’s worth of emotional baggage.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” I agreed, “but they might also contain information that would help me convince law enforcement to reopen not only your brother’s case, but the others as well. I know this is a tough call, but would you allow me to sort through them for you?”

“No,” she said after a moment’s thought. “I’m a big girl. We’ll do it together.”

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