Dangerous Allies

FROM THE AUTHOR

"Disability can be isolating, especially when it affects the ability to communicate. Naomi expects to be an inconvenience, to be treated as disposable, so having someone treat her as important enough to listen to in the way she needed to be heard is almost comforting, and something almost anyone with a disability can relate to. Accommodations are rarely if ever perfect, and being seen as a person can sometimes feel impossible. Naomi is for everyone who wants to be seen as who they are."

—Julie Verne

Chapter One

It started with the shutters. Well, when asked, that was what she remembered.

What it actually started with, like most things for Diana, was murder.

* * *

Detective Diana Stapleton sighed as she pulled up to the crime scene: lights and sirens, the crackle of radios as officers coordinated around the property, floodlights on to chase out the darkness. She checked her face in the rearview mirror and tied her hair into a ponytail. She wasn’t sure why she still took night calls. Still, they’d asked specifically for her. Suspected murder, and an uncooperative witness. She shrugged on her heavy coat, shivering a little in the fall air, and fastened her scarf a little closer around her neck to keep the cold from creeping in.

The house was large and set well back from the road. She made her way to the tape and announced herself to the officer maintaining the perimeter, eyeing the house disdainfully. Ostentatious. Probably murdered by a relative who thought they were due to inherit. Most of these people tried to take as much as they could with them, though, rather than upkeep their investments. She nodded to the detectives on scene and took a more careful look at the house: crumbling facade, gutters falling away from the roof, moss clinging to downpipes. The little signs of disrepair—overgrown garden, window frames gaping away from the stone, unkempt garden beds.

Detective Frank Busco was at the front door, and Diana gloved up, slipping disposable booties from the box by the door over her boots. It was cold inside as well, with the doors open. The houses in this neighborhood were old and had been renovated in the ’70s and ’80s, when people had that kind of money. There were a lot of lime greens and patterned linoleum. The garish wallpaper grated as she peered through the door.

She entered and took a cursory look at the body. The coroner, Daisy, was already hunched over it like a crow. The younger woman—too young for her morbid career, Diana had thought initially—was large and vaguely menacing. Diana liked her. She was quiet, and her reports were always thoughtful. She seemed to like Diana too, or at least hate her less than anyone else on the squad. She deigned to speak to Diana, at least. They weren’t the kind of friends that would catch up outside of work, but they were friendly enough. Their silences were comfortable; they had nothing to prove to each other.

“We don’t need you here, Detective,” Detective Percy Hamilton said, walking over to stop her approaching his crime scene. The body lay at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a broken railing evident on the floor above.

“Trip and fall?” Diana asked, eyeing the neck. The angle looked unnatural. “No, thrown over—” Diana looked to the upstairs landing, calculating the angle. “From up there.”

“We don’t actually need your help with the body,” Hamilton said, looking annoyed. He was young, newly promoted to the homicide team, and had been trying to grow a mustache for a while. It was his case, and he was right—she’d been called in because of something only she could do. She peeled off her disposable gloves in favor of the warmer leather ones she’d tucked into her pocket at the door, then leaned against the doorframe.

“Then why am I here?”

“Witness. Next door. No one’s been able to interview her, but she called it in twice. Once early yesterday morning, and again a couple of hours ago. Uniforms came for the welfare check and found him like this. Coroner said it was suspicious, and here we are.”

With a nod and another careful look at the decaying decor, Diana left.

Officer Andy Newton was still standing by the tape with the crime scene entry paperwork on his clipboard, maintaining the perimeter and signing people in and out.

“Witness?”

He pointed at the house next door. Tall fences, offset property. Set back from the road, lots of trees. Security cameras were evident on the stone wall, mounted high on the outside of the building and next to the gate. Almost a fortress. Diana could tell it was in much better repair than the neighboring building.

She approached and pressed a button next to the gate, looking through the wrought iron, aware she was probably being watched. She pushed her coat back so the badge on her belt was visible. Lights came on inside the gate, illuminating the path with an orange, lamplight glow. Overgrown trees lined the cobblestone path, and for a moment Diana was reminded of a book she’d been read as a child.

“Be there in a minute.” The quiet, disembodied voice came from the speaker in the gatepost. Diana eyed it with a measure of distrust, then turned her attention back to the front door, partially obscured by trees. There was movement as the door opened and someone came down the walk, then paused out of eyeshot before stepping onto the path.

Diana glimpsed her then, from between the trees, like something from a fairy tale, dark-red hair caught in the breeze like a thick stain of blood, like the casting of a spell. Diana squinted through the mist curling around the strange witness. There was an old Irish myth about women who would portend the death of a loved one with a scream—it wasn’t selkies, those were Scottish. And kelpies were those bog-horses as well as some kind of Australian dog. Banshees. That was what she reminded Diana of. A portent of death. All cloaked in black, with Doc Martens boots and a wariness to her face that made Diana force herself to relax.

She resisted the urge to chuckle. It was fall. It was night. It was, all things being equal, quite a spooky situation. The heavy Gothic overlook of the house must be getting to her. She was just tired, only half-awake from another poor night’s sleep.

The woman didn’t come any closer, and Diana watched her curiously, the way she would watch a deer in the woods. Camouflaged against the night and the red and gold of the falling leaves, Diana might not have known she was there, save for her pale face looming in the shadows. Diana tilted her head back in acknowledgment, waiting for her to approach.

Hamilton had called her in because she knew American Sign Language. From this distance, sign would carry in a way spoken words would not.

She moved her hand into a wave to signal hello, then removed her gloves so she could finger spell her name, leading with the sign for police.

A look of relief came over the other woman’s face, and she took a step forward. She was dressed for the cold, with thick gloves that would muffle the way she used them to speak. Headphones covered her head under the hood, and she eyed Diana dubiously as she finally approached. A heavy coat and scarf engulfed her, breath huffing out into a thin mist that she moved through as she came closer. Despite her own coat, Diana shivered in sympathy. There was something eldritch about all this—the predawn air, the chill, the dew on the plants that brushed the woman’s coat, leaving shimmering patches on the thick wool that caught the eerie light.

Prepared, the woman took a piece of paper from her pocket and shoved it through the gate, waiting anxiously with her hand outstretched until Diana took it.

Diana scanned it quickly, aware of the other woman’s eyes on her. Some kind of disability, hearing sensitivity and a migraine—she could look up the details later. She digested the woman’s statement, nodding. She went to speak, but the woman—Naomi Happleburn, according to the note—drew away. Diana held the paper out as a question. When Naomi shrugged, she slid it into a pocket. Diana pulled a business card from her pocket and handed it over. Naomi took it, looked it over in the dim light, and tucked it away.

More window noise than usual? Diana signed, careful not to let her doubt show in her face as she gauged the distance between the houses.

More, Naomi agreed, making the gesture bigger, more emphatic.

Diana looked again at the neighboring property before signaling Naomi to wait as she walked back to the road to use her car radio. She signed a quick sorry, then lifted the radio to her mouth.

“Sometime in the next, say, thirty seconds, someone close a shutter?”

“She actually spoke to you?” Hamilton said, and Diana saw Naomi flinch, then held down the transmission button so no more noise would come from the set. She lifted her other hand so she could see the hands on her watch move, counting seconds. Naomi flinched again, although Diana heard nothing. She counted off another ten seconds, then cupped the speaker of the radio to muffle it.

“Ten seconds ago?”

“’Bout that.”

“She’s legit. I’ll question her, find out what else she heard.” Diana turned off the radio. She looked over at the bustle of the crime scene with a sense of detachment, then locked the car and went back to the gate where Naomi waited.

More? Different? Diana asked, and Naomi nodded. How? Diana continued, putting her fists together, thumbs up, moving her right hand forward.

Naomi took a deep breath in, then reached for the gate. Diana expected it to squeak from disuse, but obviously Naomi wouldn’t have a squeaky gate if she could hear a shutter closing twenty yards away.

Edging away from the open gate, Naomi indicated that Diana should come in.

Looking back at the road, Diana felt very isolated. She waved an arm at Andy, then pointed at the house, waiting until he nodded that he understood she was going inside. He’d be the last one off the scene, so he would at least buzz Naomi’s gate if Diana’s car was still there when everyone else left.

She let her hand brush her service pistol, the cool metal reassuring to her bare, cold fingers before she slid them back into the warmth of her coat pockets. Giving the glowing lights of the squad cars a last longing glance, she stepped through the open gate, watching as Naomi closed it behind them.

The path to the house was slippery, and Diana was careful placing her feet to reduce the crunch of freshly fallen leaves as well as to keep her footing. She followed Naomi closely, wondering what she needed to say that she couldn’t say outside. Although, with the temperature in the high twenties, Diana couldn’t blame her for wanting to go in.

A wave of warmth exuded from the building when Naomi opened the front door. Diana followed her lead and sat on a wooden bench in the foyer to pull off her wet boots. She took off her coat and hung it beside Naomi’s, then waited patiently for Naomi to indicate what she needed. Naomi looked nervous as she beckoned Diana to follow her down the hall.

The inside of this house was vastly different from the neighboring property: walls limned in soft downlights; the wood a deep, luxurious mahogany with brass fixtures; deep carpeting with underfloor heating, deliciously warm and soft against the soles of Diana’s socked feet. She could understand why Naomi preferred to do the interview inside her own comfortable home. She couldn’t hear any of the crime scene chatter—the windows were clearly double glazed at least, and Diana doubted she would be able to hear even a car door slam outside.

She followed Naomi to the kitchen, careful of her footfalls as the hallway carpeting gave way to tile. Naomi held up a box of instant coffee sachets that jarred against the surrounding opulence. Diana considered the noise of a coffee machine, the sound of beans grinding, the hiss of a milk steamer. She nodded, and Naomi poured two mugs, adding water that steamed straight from the tap, stirring with an unusual-looking spoon that made no noise against the side of the mug.

Diana examined her mug when it was handed over; there was a silicone ring on the base to muffle any noise it might make when it descended on a surface. When she sipped, the coffee was richer than she’d expected—dark and warming with a light hazelnut aftertaste. Sitting down in the offered chair at the kitchen table, she faced her witness.

The headphones remained on, but without the scarf covering part of her face Diana could see the other woman better. She was short—shorter than Diana, in fact—with the kind of thin frame someone frail typically had. Diana had presumed her to be elderly, but she was probably a few years younger than Diana’s own fifty-one years. She had deep-brown eyes that were startlingly dark against her pale skin. Her teeth were straight at the front when she smiled, which she did once, hesitantly, ducking her head before her eyes could quite meet Diana’s.

Her hair was a dark red, almost russet, and it was tucked out of the way for the headphones, which had rainbow tape on the stems. Diana pulled out her notepad and pen, but Naomi shook her head, getting up from her chair and disappearing deeper into the house, leaving Diana with nothing but her coffee for company.

It was good company.

Naomi came back with an electronic tablet, drawing on it for a minute before she handed it over. Diana took it with interest. On the screen was a blueprint, the address matching the house next door. It looked modern, like it had been created digitally rather than drafted manually, and there was a real estate logo in the corner. Naomi had circled the windows on the main floor.

“It doesn’t match,” Naomi said finally, her voice lower than a whisper as she sat beside Diana. “I’m sorry—my batteries—I had a migraine yesterday and ran down my hearing aids. They provide more sound isolation, but I had to charge them.”

Diana nodded. Tomorrow? she gestured, but Naomi shook her head, spelling the name of the man who had lived next door, letter by letter with her fingers. David. Using a stylus, she indicated the windows she had circled. There were eight.

“I heard nine. There was a long gap between the fifth and the sixth. There usually isn’t. I assume he used to go…based on the amount of time it would take to walk between…” Naomi marked out a route on the blueprint as she spoke. “I can see him start from here,” Naomi added, marking a window that faced west, toward her house. Diana suspected she’d need binoculars to cover that kind of distance, but the woman was earnest. “And he always closed this one last. We used to joke that we would send an SOS if anything happened to one of us, since our windows looked in on each other—he was deaf and alone and I’m…” Naomi sighed, and then shrugged.

Diana breathed slowly, and almost under her breath on the exhale asked, “And why do you think the windows are important?”

Diana had tried to keep level with the volume Naomi was using, and Naomi met her eyes with something akin to gratitude. She hadn’t flinched, and Diana found herself feeling strangely proud of that.

“He does the same thing at dawn and dusk every day. Same routine. Last night was different. I was the one who called the police when he wasn’t up at dawn this morning, and I called again at dusk. I thought he might have had an accident.”

Suspicious, but not unreasonable. She wasn’t lying about the noise sensitivity thing; her house had too many accommodations that were obviously long-term for it to be a ruse. But someone who could hear their neighbor close their shutters from that kind of a distance, someone with that kind of sound intolerance could easily be the kind of person to kill said neighbor over making those kinds of noises, especially if the neighbor had been deaf and unaware of how loud he was. Regardless, Diana nodded. She’d been in the force too long to simply discount witness observations, no matter how strangely they were presented. Diana thought she’d seen it all; this was new.

Naomi hesitated, then drew another circle on the blueprint. Diana raised her eyebrows.

“Was he—was he here when you found him?” Naomi asked. She’d come closer, somehow, her voice still low.

Diana shook her head and took the stylus, her bare fingers brushing Naomi’s. She circled the base of the stairs—not far from where Naomi had circled, but a floor below. Diana shouldn’t be giving out this sort of information to a potential suspect, but Naomi had been right about where the old man had been killed, and she wanted to see where this was going. Naomi concentrated, her eyes running over the blueprint again, the fingers of one hand tapping the table to mark time between when the index finger of her other hand paused at a window. She stopped again where she’d drawn the circle.

Diana watched, drawing her lips over her teeth so they wouldn’t clink against the mug as she took another sip, the coffee warming her from the inside. She pitied the detectives at the cold, open property next door. Witness homes were always an unpredictable facet of murder investigations. To be warm and inside on a night like this with a coffee that didn’t taste like sink water more than made up for the eerie silence of the house.

“He stopped here. I don’t know why. And he was in a rush for the rest. He went faster, I think, after he stopped.”

“And the shutters stayed closed all day yesterday?”

Naomi nodded.

“And that was unusual?”

Naomi nodded again as Diana jotted down the details in her notepad, careful that the tip of her pen didn’t scrape the paper. “And you didn’t see or hear anyone come onto the property?”

“Not from the road. No cars. I would have heard a bike—I usually do. I might not have heard someone walk up on foot from the far side of the property, but I didn’t hear his front door close at all yesterday or the day before.”

“Back door?”

Naomi shook her head.

“And no one came while he was out?”

“He was home every day this week. He goes for groceries today—yesterday. He should have gone out yesterday, and he didn’t. I’m not—I’m not obsessed with him or anything. I just hear him. He has a predictable routine, which makes living next to him bearable.”

“What about when you were asleep?”

Naomi gave her a look that she couldn’t interpret. “I didn’t sleep. Migraine.”

“Could someone have come from the back of the property? Or the other end of the road?”

Naomi shook her head, dropping her eyes back to the tablet. “I know the cops out there think I’m a freak. But I didn’t hear anyone. I know what his doors and windows sound like, and none of them closed. I heard the police break down the front door when they came.”

“And you don’t think this was an accident?”

Naomi laughed noiselessly. “You don’t call out this many police at this time of night for an accident.”

Diana sighed. She had nothing solid to go on, but she had the feeling her witness was telling the truth. Naomi was too earnest to do otherwise. However, nothing she’d said had been particularly helpful. And Naomi could also be wrong. She could have been mistaken about what she’d heard, or whatever she’d heard could be unrelated to the death of the man next door.

But if Naomi was right and the old man did have a habit which was suddenly interrupted, then this cryptic series of taps she made between windows might be significant.

Diana pulled out her phone.

“Mind if I record you doing the—” Diana indicated the tablet, and Naomi shook her head, waiting for her to start recording then repeating the pattern.

Diana finished her coffee, swallowing as quietly as she could, then lifted her chair to pull it back from the table as she stood so the legs didn’t scrape against the floor.

“Can I have your number? I won’t call. I’m guessing it’s easier for us to text?”

Naomi nodded and pulled Diana’s card from her pocket, sending a text a moment later. She flinched at the ding from Diana’s phone, and Diana grimaced in sympathy. It had been loud, in the silent house, but she hadn’t thought to mute her notifications. She rubbed her fist over her chest in apology, but Naomi shook her head, pointing at herself. She’d sent the text, not asking if Diana had alerts on.

“I can, um, if you give me an email, I can send through the camera footage I have of the road and that side of my house. Or I can make a guest account to my online archiver.”

Diana stared at her in shock. She hadn’t indicated—at all—that she had solid evidence. Although given the technology at the front gate, she shouldn’t be surprised; someone with the kind of money this house would cost—as well the renovations it had clearly had—and who heard everything would have technology set up to monitor whatever made noise around her house.

“That—that would be very helpful. As have you been, also. Thank you.”

Naomi shrugged diffidently and stood to lead Diana back to the front door. At any other time—when it wasn’t the middle of the night, when she wasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation—Diana would love a tour of the house. There was something so cozy about the lighting and the warmth of the furniture. Tempting bookshelves lined the hall, and Diana looked longingly at their overflowing shelves.

When they reached the door, Diana pulled her boots back on, and then her scarf and coat and gloves, watching Naomi watch her, careful of her movements, of her boots on the stone floor of the foyer. Naomi opened the door and looked up at her.

“It was surprisingly nice to meet you, Detective,” Naomi said, her voice just above a whisper.

Diana nodded, feeling the cold night air already seeping into her bones. She’d come out here on what seemed like a wild goose chase. But despite the creepiness of the grounds, the locked gate behind her, and the dead body next door, she’d had at the very least an interesting night. It wasn’t often she was surprised by people anymore, but Naomi had managed it.

“Likewise,” she said, giving her most professional smile, and headed down the path. She paused and looked back when Naomi didn’t follow, but Naomi signed automatic and pointed at the gate. Diana nodded and continued. The gate opened for her seemingly on its own and closed again behind her once she was clear of it.

She looked back at the woman silhouetted in the doorway and watched as the door closed off Naomi’s inner sanctum. She drew her coat tighter around herself and shivered, then headed back to the crime scene.

Cheryl S.
I loved this story. very unusual slow burn romance and mystery thriller combo. It kept me on edge and turning the page to read what happens next...Great story, I was sad to reach the end.

Fiona S.
There was something truly compelling about Dangerous Allies that drew me in from the very first page and had me struggling to put my Kindle down. I loved both the suspense of the investigation and the extremely slow burn nature of the developing connection between the two main characters. It is a fantastic story from a new sapphic author.

Tempe R.
This wasn’t your everyday sapphic crime romance, but was very unique in several ways that made it a very compelling read because of things such as the disabilities of the victim, additional crimes, the witness and the resulting relationship of the two main characters.