Guns and Ammo and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  “And if they rescinded?” Because it was very likely they would. And maybe they already had. “How deep’s your hole?”

  Eddie’s desperation told me he knew more than he was saying. “Deep enough,” he said at last, wiping at the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. “But if that was the case, Fee, I’d be pissed at Blackstone. Not Grayson.”

  I left him and retreated, looking for Caleb. I found him sitting on the front step, head in his hands. But when I sat next to him to talk he stood and walked away. Well, if I’d been treated like garbage by the man I worked for then quit a job that made me feel like crap only to realize I couldn’t escape…? I thought about what it would have been like to be stuck in the apartment with Ryan due to some disaster after finding out he’d cheated.

  I wouldn’t be fit to talk to, either.

  Instead of chasing Caleb down, I made a note to try again when he was less upset and instead headed for the kitchen and Mom. She was on the CB, moved from the office to her domain, absently feeding Petunia bits of pineapple. I stooped to pat my pug, happy to hear this time the reception was decent enough Dad’s voice came through clear as a bell from the other end.

  As I filled him in on what I learned, it was Crew who answered. So those two were holed up together again, were they? Hmmm. Lots of thinking to do about what might be occupying their time.

  “I’ll look into Blackstone,” Crew said, sounding grim enough.

  But it was Dad whose tone made me shiver. “No,” he said. “You keep digging into the others. Leave Blackstone to me.”

  The handsome sheriff I adored didn’t argue. Smart boy.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Mom handed me a plate on a tray along with a small pot of tea. When I raised an eyebrow, she tsked softly, irritated.

  “Jill might be taking things seriously, as she should,” she said, “but poor Frieda can at least have some dinner while she’s accused of murder.”

  Right, I’d forgotten all about the gun shop and hunting lodge owner who we’d caught sneaking around. We’d all eaten ages ago, the time now well past 7PM and the majority of the day wasted on Jill’s endless questions (not complaining or anything). Darkness devoured the corners missed by flickering light fixtures meant to recreate flame as I carried the tray from Mom and headed for the upstairs and the room Jill had locked off from the outside. Not that someone as wily as Frieda wouldn’t be able to figure out how to pick the bulky lock on the door if she really wanted out. I had very little doubt of that. When I retrieved the key from Jill where she huddled over her notes in the office she’d claimed, she just grunted her assent and handed over the goods, letting me take my burden to her prisoner.

  Did that mean she was okay with me questioning Frieda? Had to. Because surely Jill knew letting me within spitting distance of any of the suspects meant cutting me loose to fumble through my own version of my favorite gameshow, “Did You Kill the Dead Guy?”

  Rather than give me a hard time, Frieda seemed happy to see me, helping me with the tray, acting like she was an invited guest, not a murder suspect. She even gestured for me to sit at the small table that was a perfect match to the one in my room, as was the obvious mirror and four poster bed. I settled in the chair opposite with my back purposely to the shining surface that had almost given me heart failure a time or two in other locations and watched as Frieda sniffed appreciatively at Mom’s cooking.

  “I’ve been to your place a few times since your mother started the restaurant.” She smiled as she took a bite of stew, chewing with vigor before swallowing. “She’s a great cook, that Lucy.”

  Now, maybe I was wrong, but she was either one stone-cold customer or she had nothing to do with Grayson’s death. Sociopath or innocent bystander? Not so innocent, though, out to ruin another person’s business. And yet, I could understand her frustration. I made a point to say as much while she nodded over her dinner.

  “Olivia’s methods are sound,” Frieda said, breaking the slice of fresh bread Mom provided into small chunks and dunking them into the stew juice, “and for the most part she’s done Reading a service, don’t get me wrong. But there are times that woman needs a good shaking, Fee. And this is one of them.”

  I wasn’t about to argue. “There was a point when someone was planning to build a boutique hotel, right when I was looking at the annex.” Never mind it was Vivian and I had insider knowledge in time to do something about it, not to mention Olivia having my back, for better or worse.

  But Frieda saw my offering for what I meant it to be—a show of solidarity. “Exactly my point,” she said, jabbing her spoon in my direction. Her short, white hair came loose from behind one ear, something she swept at with her free hand, the skin around her eyes well lined but her gaze as sharp as a newly honed knife. I wouldn’t have wanted to meet her in the woods if she had it in for me. “There’s healthy competition, and that’s fine. But I get enough of it from other towns. My operation floats, brings business to Reading. There’s not sufficient demand to warrant another like it.” She shook her head, frown creasing a deep line between her eyes. Again I realized she looked familiar. Why was that? “I’ve lived in Reading my whole life. Worked hard, supported other businesses as best I could.” She met my gaze again. “Liked your Grandmother Iris just fine, her spunk. She and a few of us old girls with the guts to run our own operations despite the men who said we couldn’t.” How hard must it have been to be a female entrepreneur when my grandmother was my age? I had no concept, outside of Hollywood and a bit of history. “All I ever wanted was a decent living for me and my family.” Fair enough.

  “So far so good,” I said. “But Eddie’s retreat threatens that.”

  She shrugged then, dropping her spoon and sitting back, most of her meal devoured. “I’ve watched my sister’s business go belly up these last few years, our grandfather’s business. Watched her struggle, despite the help she’s gotten lately from folks like you.”

  “Who’s your sister?” And as she spoke the pieces clicked together and I realized why she looked familiar.

  “Wanda Beaman,” Frieda said. “Beaman’s Fishing.”

  I’d met Wanda formally in August when the woman was part of the investigation into Lester Patterson’s murder. When the yacht club president’s death pulled me into her life, I’d done my best to help her bounce back from the loss of customers she’d been suffering since thefts at the local cottages and pollution of Cutter Lake’s waters had damaged her business. Nothing much, really, just advertising for her at Petunia’s and the occasional coffee where we talked strategy. I’d heard Wanda was planning some big things for the spring and I hoped they panned out.

  Frieda seemed disposed to trusting me thanks to her sister, apparently. “Wanda felt betrayed,” she said, regret in her voice. “How many times did I tell her she wasn’t managing things right if she was struggling? I had no idea, not until this happened. I owe my sister an apology.” She squinted at me, sipping her tea. “Wanda says you play straight, that you’re Iris through and through. I trusted that sharp minded woman who made your father, Fee, so I trust you.” She tapped the side of her mug with her thick fingers.

  How much could I trust her with, though? “You have to know Olivia has nothing to do with this place.” I found myself scowling at the floor, fully aware despite the mayor’s drive to succeed, she was smarter than to turn business against business in Reading. “This smells, Frieda. Like Geoffrey Jenkins.”

  She grunted, nodded. “I know,” she said. “That whole voting thing was just temper talking. I might not like everything that’s happened, but I wouldn’t trust that Patterson mouthpiece with a dog I hated.”

  Sowing seeds of discontent everywhere he went. Which was, I could only guess, his reason for playing both sides. But why was Marie Patterson—she had to be behind his activities—so set on reversing what Olivia created? “Do you know anything about the family matriarch?”

  Frieda’s face tightened, shrewd and contemplative. �
��I know she and your grandmother were tight as a Scot’s wallet growing up,” she said. “Doreen Douglas, Peggy Munroe, Marie Patterson and Iris Fleming. Thicker than thieves, the four of them, though I never understood what drew them together.”

  I gaped at her. I couldn’t help it. While my mind flashed to a photograph hanging on the wall in Doreen’s office. The former secretary of the yacht club had it out in the open, and I’d recognized my grandmother, Peggy. But the fourth? I had no idea it was Marie Patterson.

  If Grandmother Iris was connected to the founding family, could that mean she actually did know about the Reading hoard? And that the treasure was real and not just a fun game I’d been toying with out of the fun of discovery and connection to Daisy and Crew?

  Frieda’s mind was elsewhere, clearly, because she set down her mug and sighed. “I had no reason to kill this Gallinger fellow,” she said. “I didn’t even know him. My gripe was with Olivia.” She grimaced, cracked her thick knuckles of her left, then right, hand. “If I was going to kill someone?” Sparks went off in her eyes. “It would be that Dan Robles for deserting me after all these years.”

  “How long was he with you?” Did they have a more personal connection?

  “Almost twenty seasons,” she said. “No idea why he left, don’t ask. He wouldn’t say. But it’s a betrayal that cuts deep, Fee. I’m sure you understand the value of loyalty.”

  I thought about Daisy, about Rose, and nodded. “And Eddie?”

  She shrugged. “Upstart kid. I give him a year, maybe two. He’ll fold. Just annoyed I have to cut my profit because he’s poking his nose in my territory.”

  I personally felt a rather possessive surge of mine about our town too, so I didn’t fault her that attitude, despite knowing it was a bit misplaced.

  Knowing Jill would be pissed at me, I told Frieda how Grayson was killed. “You’ve been hunting your whole life,” I said. “Could you have done it?”

  She thought about it a moment before grunting softly. “Yes, I probably could,” she said. “I’ve wrung enough necks over the years I might be able to figure it out.” Yikes. Sigh. “But I have no motive.”

  “And no alibi?” While her motive might not be apparent, if we could eliminate her by her whereabouts, she’d be free to leave the room, at least.

  Frieda didn’t look hopeful. “I was camping in the woods,” she said. “Alone. So take that for what it sounds like.”

  “You were scaring the game away.” Not like it was a big shocker or anything.

  She had the good grace to look uncomfortable. “Goes against my usual instincts,” she said. “And I know, I know. It was wrong. But I had to do something.”

  I nodded. “That’s what you and Eddie were arguing about yesterday. He caught you.”

  She blinked, nodded back. “You saw us? Yes, he threatened me.” She snorted then, actually looked amused. “Like that boy could even get a bead on me. He’d be dead before he had me in his crosshairs.”

  Um, not doing a great job making herself look innocent.

  Frieda flinched then, laughed. Blushed a bit. “I’m no quitter, Fiona Fleming,” she said, “but I’m no murderer either.” She hesitated a moment before standing, offering her hand. “For what it’s worth, if you think it will help, I’ll show you my campsite. It might not provide me with an alibi, but at least you can see I’m telling the truth about where I’ve been staying.”

  Not the kind of offer I was about to turn down.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Despite her friendly offer, we had to wait until morning to check out Frieda’s campsite. I tossed and turned, wishing I was at Crew’s having spaghetti, Sunday coming and going as early Monday dawned clear and cold. With the bridge still under repair and enough flotsam clogging the water way from the continuing degradation of the dam, we were stuck on the mountain anyway, so I made the best of it.

  I could have stayed at the retreat and let Jill take care of this, but it really was a make work project as far as I was concerned. She seemed to agree, though she did insist I wasn’t to go alone. Which led to Bill trailing along behind me, Moose snuffling his way through the brush, while Frieda led the way, quiet on her feet. I felt like a bumbling gargantuan invader, snapping and crackling my way through the morning quiet woods as the massive man and dog and the bulky older woman drifted like smoke through the underbrush.

  I stumbled over a root and swore softly as I caught at a tree trunk to break my fall. “I hate the woods.”

  Bill chuckled behind me, Moose nudging me with his big nose like he knew I wasn’t happy.

  “Almost there,” Frieda said, grinning over her shoulder. Yeah, okay, laugh at the kind of city girl but mostly small town sidewalk and coffee shop girl who really had no place wandering around the back end of a mountain looking for evidence.

  Jill had agreed to let me go with such haste, Bill offering to join me, I wondered at first. Now I understood. She didn’t want to come out here herself, did she? Grumbling over the sneaky ways of deputies and my own lack of foresight, I tromped a bit more loudly than necessary, shoving at the tugging braches around me, positive I’d end up with poison ivy or a tick infestation or something equally distasteful for my efforts.

  Good mood? Check.

  At least it wasn’t a marathon hike or anything. Honestly, if we went half a mile I’d give up Mom’s cake for a year. But I was sweating under my jacket despite the chill of the air by the time I stumbled through well-shielding boughs and into the small clearing Frieda had created to hide her tent and campsite.

  At least this much of her story was true. I turned in a slow circle, wishing I’d taken her at her word, not relishing the return slog, as Bill spoke up.

  “Frieda’s no murderer, Fee,” he said. Moose stuck his big head inside the woman’s tent and snuffled around, long, heavy tail wagging with delight as he uncovered something he probably shouldn’t have. But, he was already licking his lips, the whatever it was down his throat, by the time he backed out and grinned up at me in his lolling tongue dog way like he’d just won the jackpot.

  Frieda scratched the top of his shining black head and the dog let her, another good sign in my books. Moose was an excellent judge of character.

  “Thanks for being so forthright,” I said to the woman who nodded. “You’re not a suspect in my eyes, Frieda, but Jill might have more questions. Still, I’ll speak up for you.” No motive, and while she didn’t have an alibi, she honestly was about as far down my list of suspects as Moose.

  I turned and headed back with a heavy sigh, keeping pace with Bill while Frieda followed without comment. “What do you think?” I hadn’t asked him yet, talked to him about the crime. “Any guesses? You were out there with them yesterday, Bill. Did you overhear anything that sounded like it might be motive?”

  He didn’t comment right away, whistling for Moose who wandered a bit, giant head lifting, ears cocked. The big dog rejoined us a moment later, Bill tugging a few stray leaves from his companion’s heavy fur coat as he spoke. “I hate to speak out of turn, Fee,” he said, sounding uncomfortable.

  “A man was murdered,” I said, keeping my voice down. “There’s no such thing as out of turn.”

  Bill opened his mouth, paused. Sighed. Nodded. Just as a familiar sound I didn’t have time to identify preceded Moose letting out the most horrifically terrifying growl I’d ever heard.

  “Get down!” Something struck me in the middle of my back, sending me tumbling to the ground, Bill dropping like a rock beside me. I looked over my shoulder, heart pounding, at the sight of Frieda pressed between my shoulder blades, her face tight with anger. Only then did I register the echoing report of a gunshot, bouncing through the trees in response to the release of a bullet.

  The familiar sound? That of a rifle being locked and loaded.

  Moose was off, barking and snarling, Bill scrambling after him, while Frieda cursed softly, letting me up. I crouched next to her, heart hammering in my chest while she spu
n and looked up. I followed her sightline, spotting the hole in the tree behind us a moment later, a thin trail of smoke escaping it. Frieda’s hand on my arm held me down. Not like I was going anywhere, not with a gunman out there.

  It seemed to take forever, the older woman and me hovering in near silence, only the panting sound of my breath punctuating the stillness around us, while the sound of Bill and Moose giving chase to the shooter grew more distant. Frieda finally exhaled, eyes intent on mine, and let me go, though it took me a moment to trust my wobbling knees, to pull myself shakily upright while she went to the tree and the hole. A small pocket knife she’d stowed somewhere on her person—Jill did a great job disarming her, apparently—appeared in her hand and she quickly and efficiently dug out the slug, examining it before dropping it in my hand.

  It weighed a lot for something so very tiny. Or maybe it was just my perception.

  I followed Frieda in a daze, not even noticing the slog of the walk back to the lodge. I’d been in tight places before, under threat. Had almost drowned, dangled from a tall tree, been attacked twice by a mad man, even been at gunpoint, if in a group situation. But being shot at from a distance by an unknown foe?

  Shudder times one million.

  Bill was already filling Jill in when we entered the foyer, the itching sensation between my shoulder blades and my need to keep looking back over my shoulder only going away with the doors of the retreat safely closed behind me. The horrified look on Jill’s face helped calm me down while I dropped the slug Frieda had liberated into the deputy’s hand. Her fear turned to anger and back again. Was she thinking about Crew and the fact he’d kill her if anything happened to me?