by Rickie Blair
“We have to drive past the parking lot so I can get—”
“No need. Lorne’s looking after it.”
“Lorne? How long have I been here?” I hoisted my phone to check the time. I’d been at the university over two hours. “Wow,” I said, dropping the phone into my shoulder bag. “It seemed a lot longer.”
“I arrived a while ago, but they wouldn’t let me see you at first. Said it was a crime scene.” He snorted. “Imagine them telling me that.”
“I’m glad you came.”
He seemed surprised. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Did they tell you anything else? Detective Unwin said Irina’s death was an accident.”
He snorted again. “If she told you that, she was lying.” His mouth was set in a tight line.
“It’s possible her necklace simply got caught,” I said.
“True. The machine was set on ‘auto,’ so anything that came into contact with the slot would be pulled in. But there was an emergency stop button within reach.”
“Why didn’t she push it, then?”
“Because the button was broken.”
“Couldn’t that have happened a while ago and not been fixed yet?”
“Yesss.” He hesitated.
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
“I’m afraid so. I know some of the guys, and they assumed I’d been called in on the case. By the time they figured out I was persona non grata, I’d already been in the copy room and seen the body.”
“And?”
“There were signs of bruising on her upper arms. It’s possible an assailant twisted her around to ensure she couldn’t escape after her necklace became caught.”
I gave an involuntary shudder. “And then she strangled.”
“Exactly.”
We drove in silence for a few moments while I digested this.
“Wait—you’re a police detective, Jeff. Why would you be persona non grata at a crime scene?”
“I think that’s obvious, Verity.”
“Am I a suspect?”
He hesitated. “I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“How would you put it?”
“You’re a—let’s say, person of interest in the investigation.”
Sagging against the seat as we climbed the Escarpment road, I watched the trees flash by with a sense of foreboding. I’d been a “person of interest” before, and it never turned out well. But there was another reason to feel apprehensive.
I couldn’t help wondering—what had Irina been shredding? And had it anything to do with my visit?
Chapter Fifteen
When we pulled into Rose Cottage’s driveway, my pink truck was already there. Lights twinkled in the cottage windows, smoke rose from the chimney, and the sidewalk had been brushed clear of yesterday’s dusting of snow.
As Jeff’s pickup crunched over the gravel, the front door flung open, and Emy stepped onto the porch.
“Verity,” she called, waving cheerfully. Behind her stood Lorne, also waving.
I felt as if I was returning from a trans-Atlantic journey rather than a city an hour’s drive away.
“Don’t be too hard on them. They’ve been worried,” Jeff said as he shifted into park and turned off the engine. “I had to tell them what was going on when I asked them to pick up the truck. When they got back, Emy insisted on coming up here to walk Boomer and wait for you.”
Far from being upset, I was overjoyed to see the team assembled again. Emy, Lorne, and I had shared some hair-raising adventures, and I knew they would always have my back. Although now—I glanced fondly at Jeff—I had my own knight in shining armor to do that.
Once we were indoors, I gave Emy a quick hug. “Thanks for driving Lorne into Strathcona to get the pickup. I really appreciate it. Both of you.”
“No problem,” Lorne said. “Although—do you have any idea how much your parking ticket came to? It would have been cheaper to buy a new truck.”
Emy gave him a backhanded slap and an eye roll.
Lorne was only trying to take my mind off my newly acquired status as a murder suspect, so I smiled at his joke. “Yet another reason never to go there again.”
“Was it awful?” Emy asked.
“It wasn’t fun.” I bent to pat Boomer, who’d been twirling and prancing since I walked in the door. “Where’s the General?”
“I think he’s in the basement. He hightailed it out of here as soon as we came in,” Emy said.
“He’s not fond of company. He’ll come out once you’re gone.”
Emy nodded. “That’s our cue, Lorne.”
“No, no. I didn’t mean—”
She grinned. “You need to rest. We’ll talk tomorrow. I want to hear everything.”
“And you will,” I promised.
She hesitated, biting her lip. “Verity—nobody thinks you’re a killer.”
“Thanks,” I said wryly.
At the door, she leaned in to whisper, “Sandwiches and treats in the fridge.”
“How did you manage that, with the bakery non-operational?”
She smiled, shaking her head. “I do have an oven in my apartment, you know. Besides, I needed something to do while the place is closed down.”
“You’re a true angel of mercy,” I said gratefully.
The door had barely closed behind them when my stomach rumbled again. I must be getting used to murder, after all.
After snipping the string on the white cardboard box I found in the fridge, I took it to the sofa without pausing to collect a plate. Collapsing onto the cushions, I put my feet up on the coffee table and opened the box on my lap.
Ahh. Emy’s delectable croissants—piled high with sweet potato, turkey breast, and cranberry. My favorite sandwich. I took a big bite, sighing with pleasure.
Jeff watched from across the room.
I stopped chewing long enough to say, “I never understood how you could come home from a gruesome crime scene and eat dinner—until now.” I held the box out. “Scone?”
“Stop talking with your mouth full,” he said with a grin, accepting a single lemon tart and settling into the armchair opposite.
Boomer sat at my feet, whimpering. I tossed him a sliver of turkey, which he snatched up before it could hit the floor.
“So,” I said, after making a respectable dent in the box’s contents and returning the rest to the kitchen, out of Boomer’s reach. “Tell me what you know about Frank.” I returned to my seat on the sofa.
Jeff gave me a puzzled glance. “I already told you.”
“Not all of it. There must be more.”
General Chang, who had emerged from his hiding place to sniff delicately at the cardboard box, was now curled up in my lap, his good eye closed. He yawned, revealing a scraggly row of teeth.
Jeff tilted his head at the old tom. “It’s getting late. We can talk about it in the morning.”
“Oh no.” I lifted the General, who growled a quiet complaint without opening his eye, then set him beside me. “Tell me.”
“You’ve had a shock. Are you sure you want to hear this tonight?”
I leveled one of the stop-fooling-around looks I’d learned from my aunt.
He took the hint. “Your father has a criminal record.” At my raised eyebrows, he added, “Nothing violent. Fraud, mostly.”
“In Canada?”
He nodded. “He knew some dubious characters in Strathcona. I suspect that’s why he left.”
“Are you saying he broke his eight-year-old daughter’s heart to save his own skin?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“He promised to tell you himself.”
“You’ve known about this for days. And you kept it to yourself?”
“It’s not like that. I didn’t want to come between the two of you. I left it up to him to disclose his criminal background. And if he didn’t, I intended to tell you myself. I never meant to keep anything
from you.”
Usually, the lengthy explanations fell to me, so this was a welcome change. “Hmmm,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “And now?”
“And now I’m kicking myself for not telling you sooner. I should have taken Frank’s warning more seriously. Maybe then you wouldn’t be a murder suspect. I’m an idiot.”
“Ooh,” I said, reaching for my cell phone and pushing the red record button. “I’d love to have that on tape. Can you repeat that for the microphone? Just the last part—starting with, ‘I’m an—”
He leaned over to gently take the phone from my hand, turn off record, and place it on the coffee table. His expression softened. “You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
I walked around the coffee table to settle into his lap, resting a hand on his chest. “I’m counting on it.”
He clasped my hand in his own, then slid it over his heart.
I leaned my head against his shoulder, feeling the steady, reassuring beat under my palm. “Does that mean you’ll visit me in prison?”
“Have you committed some other crime I don’t know about?”
“Very funny. But it’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“I went to Irina Lasher’s office to ask her a few questions and now—she’s dead?”
“What questions?”
“About my mother.”
“Did these questions have anything to do with the bequest Frank claims she left him?”
“Not exactly. But now that you mention it—did he say anything to you about that?”
Jeff’s brow wrinkled. “Enough to convince me it’s not a bequest at all. He told me associates from his past were after some item that was hidden years ago. I assumed it was something valuable. Jewelry. Old coins. Drugs, even.” He shook his head ruefully. “I didn’t really believe anyone was after him. Given his history, I suspected he was working a scam.” He caressed my hand. “The question is—what does any of that have to do with Irina Lasher?”
I wondered how best to proceed. Lying to Jeff was not an option. We had no secrets from each other. But I didn’t want to divulge everything I’d learned about my mother’s past. Not yet. What if I was wrong? The police dropped their investigation into Randall Dignam’s disappearance. They obviously didn’t believe my mother was involved. Why reignite rumors that might cause my aunt pain or sully my mother’s reputation? It felt disloyal somehow.
Jeff was giving me a wary look. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I patted his chest. “It’s just—I don’t know as much about my mother’s past as I’d like. Frank could be telling the truth. Meanwhile, finish your tale. Tell me everything you know about my father’s lawless history.”
“Are you sure you want to hear all of it? It might be painful.”
“For Frank, maybe. Not me. My opinion of the man is already pretty low.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, guilt twisted my core. It was only a twinge, but still… my father only did one thing to make me hate him. He’d been a model dad, until the day he’d disappeared. Why did I have to focus on that one memory to the exclusion of everything else? With a snort, I dismissed my guilt. Why shouldn’t I focus on it? It was unforgivable.
“To start with,” Jeff said. “Your father was a capable auto mechanic, apparently. He was particularly good with transmissions and—”
I squeezed his arm. “Seriously, Jeff. You know I can’t tell a transmission from a gearbox. Spare me the details.”
Rearing back a few inches, he chuckled. “But those are the same thing. The transmission and the—”
“Stop, please.”
He looked puzzled. “How do you maintain your landscaping equipment?”
“I don’t. Lorne does that.”
“But didn’t you ever watch your father—”
I tapped a finger against his mouth, shaking my head.
Yes, I had watched Frank work when I was a child—memories of auto parts and oily rags littering the garage floor and that restored T-Bird flooded in. But I had worked hard to suppress those memories. For years, I ignored anything to do with internal combustion engines, even when it came to lawnmowers.
Because I remembered other things, too—like the time he locked me in a car trunk while teaching me how to escape one. And how angry that made my mother.
“It’s not a game, Frank,” she said, hands on hips, while I watched their argument from the sidelines. “What’s next—you’ll lock her in a freezer?”
“That’s not a bad idea. Kids die after getting stuck in old freezers. You hear about it all the time. She should know how dangerous they are.”
Mom grabbed my arm to snatch me away. “You’ll do no such thing.” After pushing me toward the house, she whirled to confront my dad. “Verity is six years old, Frank. Six. Isn’t it bad enough that Adeline’s constantly grilling her on poisonous plants and deadly insects? Between the two of you, she’s likely to develop some sort of complex.”
I remembered wondering what a complex was. Would it be obvious, like my friend Corinna’s poison-ivy rash? I had raised my six-year-old arm for a closer look, but—nothing.
I took my finger away from Jeff’s mouth. “What did Frank’s occupation have to do with his criminal record?”
“He was suspected of working for a chop shop in Strathcona. He was never charged, but his name came up later.” At my puzzled expression, he explained. “Chop shops dismantle stolen vehicles. A good mechanic can strip an entire car in under an hour.”
“If my dad’s services as a legitimate mechanic were in demand in Leafy Hollow, why would he work in Strathcona for criminals?”
“He may not have realized what he was involved in until it was too late. Strathcona was infiltrated by organized crime back then. This particular shop was one of theirs.”
My knowledge of organized crime was confined to what I saw on television, but I knew what this meant. “You don’t cross those guys, do you?”
“Not if you’re smart. Your father was never charged in connection with that shop. The force eventually closed it down, but that was years after he left the country. It could have been a legitimate garage when he worked there.”
I studied the blank expression on his face. “But you don’t think so.”
He sighed. “If your father’s activities were legitimate, why would old associates hunt him down? The chop shop might have nothing to do with it, but Frank made dubious connections somewhere.”
“Sounds like that’s the place to start, then. Where was this chop shop?”
“Verity.” Jeff’s voice took on a warning tone I knew all too well. “Stay away from this. We’re watching Frank.”
I tilted my head. “Really?”
“Well, not all the time—we don’t have the manpower. But if anything goes wrong, the force will take care of it.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “He’s still my father.”
“Yes, and I’m giving him a lot of leeway because of it. If he genuinely wants to make it up to you, he knows where you live. You searched Rose Cottage. Did you find anything?”
“How do you know I searched the cottage?”
He smiled. “Because I know you.”
I caved. There was something about that smile that always crumpled my defenses. “I did find something.”
His eyebrows rose. “And?”
Jumping to my feet, I ran into the kitchen for the pencil case, the postcards from Adeline, and the most recent postcard. Returning to the living room, I placed the Anne case on the coffee table and handed him the postcard addressed to Claire Hawkes. “This came yesterday. Or, at least, I found it yesterday. It was mailed a couple of weeks ago.”
Jeff studied the address, the rows of meaningless numbers, even the stamp. “I don’t understand.” He handed it back.
“Me either. I thought it might be from an old friend who used to exchange word puzzles with my mother. Maybe they’ve been out o
f the country and didn’t know she was dead.”
“Maybe. Sounds more like an out-of-date mailing list to me.”
“I thought that, too.” Dropping the postcard on the coffee table, I picked up the pencil case. “But this—I found in the attic. My mother played up there as a child, according to Adeline.” Prying open the pencil case, I took out the photos. “This is my mother with her archaeology professor at a dig in rural Ontario.”
Jeff studied each photo, and the postcards from Adeline, before dropping them on the coffee table. Then he held one of the arrowheads under the table lamp for a closer look. Shaking his head, he put everything back into the case and closed it with a snap.
“This can’t be what your father’s looking for.”
“I agree.” I was glad I’d told him about the photos, but I was withholding information—as Detective Ferret Face might say.
“Verity.”
I glanced up.
“Something else is bothering you.”
“I’m upset. It’s been a horrific day.”
He tipped his head. Again with the look.
“Adeline said there were rumors my mother had an affair with her professor. It’s not true,” I added hastily. “It can’t be true.”
“Is that what you asked Irina Lasher about?”
I nodded, feeling a tightness grow in my chest. “She didn’t deny it. Not exactly.” Tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
“C’mon here.” Jeff wrapped me in a hug, dropping a kiss on my head. “You adored your mother. You knew her for the wonderful woman she was.” He pointed to the box in my hands. “Don’t let that tarnish those memories.”
It was a long speech for Jeff, and one I needed to hear. My mother never would have been involved in anything sordid or criminal. I felt a fresh twinge of guilt, followed immediately by another unwelcome thought. If Frank worked for criminals, they must have paid him. Had my mother realized the money he brought home was tainted?
Then again, maybe Frank didn’t tell Claire about his illicit activities. Maybe he hid his ill-gotten cash, or laundered it by converting it into jewels, rare coins, or even drugs, as Jeff suspected.