“We both know that’s not true.” Cooper refused to raise his voice even though Astra always managed to flip a switch and hit his anger button dead-on. “Why were you at Casper Creek?”
“Would it do any good if I said I wasn’t there?” Astra queried. “I mean, you have no proof.”
“Multiple people saw you,” Cooper argued. “You can deny it all you want, but we both know that you were out there. I want to know why.”
She held her hands palms out and shrugged. “Perhaps I just like hanging out in parking lots. Have you ever considered that?”
“No.” Cooper shook his head. “Did you have something to do with Velma Sanders’ death?”
Astra was good at hiding her emotions, but Nick was watching her closely for a reaction and the way her expression shifted told him the news was surprising to her. She covered quickly, turned blasé, but he was certain she’d been stunned to hear about the famous psychic’s death.
“I have nothing to do with that woman.” Astra went back to flipping through her catalog, although her movements were brisker now. “How did she die?”
There was curiosity there, Cooper realized. Astra was mining them for information as much as they were mining her. “Someone stuck a huge knife in her chest.”
“Really?” Astra’s odd eyes were back on him. “Someone killed her with a knife in front of people?”
“In the brothel,” Cooper countered. He saw no reason to lie. The news would be made public soon enough. “Apparently she was in there alone. She was gearing up to make some huge announcement. Someone stopped her from doing it.”
“And what was the announcement?”
“We don’t know. In fact, nobody knows. That information, at least for the time being, appears to have died with her.”
“Well, she was a miserable old bat, so I can’t say I’m sorry about any of this.” The smile Astra unleashed was brutally pleasant, to the point of being painful to look at. “If you’re looking at me as a killer, though, you know as well as anybody that I’m not allowed on Casper Creek’s grounds. Besides, what motive do you think I have?”
“I think you hated her,” Cooper replied coolly. “You just said it with your own mouth.”
“I did hate her,” Astra agreed. “She was a fraud. She made a name for herself doing parlor tricks and telling fortunes for the rich and famous. She didn’t have a single drop of real magic and yet she collected accolades from people who didn’t know any better.”
Cooper eyed Astra speculatively for a full beat. “You sound jealous,” he said finally. “Did you ever meet her in real life?”
“No. All I knew was that she was a fraud. I had nothing to do with her death. Honestly, why would I bother killing her? She was old.”
“You would kill anyone you thought was in your way,” Cooper countered. “We both know that.”
“No, you want to believe that. Either way, you know as well as I do that I would only go through the effort of killing someone if there was profit in it for me. What did I gain out of this?”
Cooper wished he had an answer, if only to wipe the smug smile off Astra’s face. He didn’t, though. “Stay away from Casper Creek,” he ordered, pushing himself to a standing position. “I’m going to have Jackie extend that line. The parking lot is going to be off limits from now on, too.”
“Whatever.” Astra airily waved her hand. “Do whatever you want to do. I don’t care about you or that stupid piece of land.”
“You’re a bad actress, Astra,” Cooper noted as he headed toward the door. “You might want to work on that.”
“I am what I am. I don’t intend to change.”
“And that’s why you’ll never get ahead in this world. I meant what I said. Stay away from Casper Creek. Stay away from Hannah, too. I don’t want to see you out there again.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Keep pushing and we’ll just see about that.”
9
Nine
“She’s lovely,” Nick noted as Cooper navigated his truck toward Casper Creek. “I can see why you fell for her.”
Cooper scowled. “She was different ... and it’s not as if I loved her or anything.”
Nick’s gaze was speculative. “You were just biding your time with her because there was no threat of you legitimately falling for her.”
Cooper appeared frustrated at the suggestion. “I ... no. That’s not fair. It makes me sound like I was using her. I wasn’t. I just didn’t realize at the time that I wasn’t open to loving someone.”
Nick snickered. “It’s okay. I get it. Before Maddie ... .” He trailed off and collected himself. “This is going to make me sound bad, but before Maddie I had a schedule.”
Cooper cocked an eyebrow. “A schedule?”
“Yeah. I know. It’s terrible.” Nick’s smile was rueful. “It’s just ... Maddie broke me when she left town after graduation. I knew it was going to be difficult living life without her, but I thought we would have weekends together ... and summers. I didn’t realize she planned on leaving for good.
“The thing is, we were only friends when she left,” he continued. “I knew I felt more for her and I was trying to figure out how to tell her. I was terrified she wouldn’t feel the same way. I thought I had time to figure it out, though. I didn’t want to lose her as a friend, but I wanted so much more.”
Cooper’s tone was measured. “She left because of the psychic thing, didn’t she?”
Nick nodded. “She did. She was afraid to tell me, thought it would change how I felt about her. She cut me out because it was easier than having me walk away from her.”
“You guys obviously survived.”
“It wasn’t easy. When she first came back after her mother’s death, the first time I saw her, it was like being punched in the gut. I was determined to keep her out of my life.”
“That obviously went well.”
Nick’s lips quirked. “I barely lasted two days before we were involved in an adventure. Then ... then she almost drowned and I thought my heart was going to explode. I knew by then. I’d basically stumbled across the truth and she confirmed it. I recognized remaining separate from her wasn’t an option.
“I’m not telling you this just because I like the story, though,” he continued. “It’s just ... once Maddie and I were in front of each other again we were like magnets. The thing is, I had a girlfriend at the time.”
Cooper snickered. “Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. It was ... ugly. Maddie went on to be a nurse down south after graduation. I became a cop ... and proceeded to work my way through the female population of five different towns.”
“Because you were pining for her,” Cooper surmised.
Nick bobbed his head. “I missed her so much I ached. I didn’t realize it, though. I told myself she wasn’t worth my time. Despite my best intentions, I knew I wasn’t boyfriend material. I dated a woman for three months and then cut ties.
“During those relationships, I made sure to avoid meeting their families and never attended any town events that might draw too much attention to us,” he continued. “It was a running joke in town. I thought everybody knew ... and yet when I heard Maddie was coming back I extended the relationship I was in because I needed that buffer.”
Despite the fact that he knew the story had a schmaltzy ending, Cooper found he was enthralled. “I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”
“No,” Nick agreed. “She assumed that I extended the relationship because somehow, against the odds, she was the one who finally tamed me.”
“When in reality you thought you needed protection from Maddie.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Nick confirmed. “That night she almost died, when I had to breathe oxygen back into her lungs, I knew. I needed her in my life. She was all I ever wanted.”
“And you were together that night.”
Nick shook his head, taking Cooper by surprise. “Not exactly. I managed to fight the inevitable fo
r another couple of weeks, but I didn’t put a lot of effort into it. I broke up with the woman in question, professed my love to Maddie, and that was it. We didn’t spend a night apart from then on.”
“That’s kind of sweet.”
“Only from our perspective. The woman I broke up with proceeded to stalk me and terrorize Maddie, with a little help from Maddie’s high school nemesis. It was an uncomfortable couple of months.”
“It sounds like it.” Cooper stroked his chin as he pulled onto the road that led to Casper Creek. “Is there a message in this story?”
“Just that Astra is your mistake. She’s not just going to let you go because it’s the right thing to do, the sane thing to do. She at least thinks she loves you. That’s why she enjoys messing with you.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Cooper said. “I love Hannah, though. There was something that ... clicked, I guess that’s the best word ... when we met. It was as if all the pieces of my life suddenly slipped into the correct places the second I saw her.”
Nick smirked. “I know the feeling. You need to be careful of that Astra woman, though. She’ll cause problems.”
“Your relationship mistakes obviously caused problems for you and Maddie.”
“Not as much as you might think. Those mistakes, though, were almost deadly at times. Just ... be careful. You don’t want to lose Hannah because you weren’t vigilant.”
“I won’t lose Hannah for anything.”
“I feel the same way about Maddie.” They lapsed into companionable silence for a few minutes and then Nick stirred. “Do you believe her about Velma? I mean, could she be our suspect?”
“It doesn’t feel right to me,” Cooper admitted. “I would never pretend that Astra is a good person. She’s not. She’s a horrible person, in fact. There’s always a method to her madness, though.”
“She seemed to have strong feelings about Velma.”
“She did. The thing is, Astra is the sort of person who would prefer to torture Velma, make her uncomfortable. Why kill her when there’s no benefit?”
“That’s a fair point,” Nick acknowledged. “The thing is, can we be sure there was no benefit? It seems to me that whatever announcement Velma was going to make plays into this. Maybe there was a benefit.”
“Yeah. We really need to figure out what that announcement was going to be.”
BOONE WAS AT THE SALOON WHEN NICK AND Cooper returned. He’d brought lunch and was pulling takeout containers out of a box when the two men made their presence known.
“Anything?” he asked.
Hannah, who was filling glasses full of iced tea behind the counter, lifted her head. “What is he talking about?”
Cooper scorched Boone with a dark look before focusing his full attention on Hannah. “You’re going to be mad,” he started.
“Oh, good. I love it when we have conversations like this in public,” Hannah groused under her breath.
Cooper managed a smile, although it didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “Nick and I were following up on a lead. A few of the psychics saw a woman in the parking lot yesterday.”
“Oh.” Hannah was mostly mollified. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“She had white hair.”
Her scowl was almost immediate. “Astra was here? Why?”
Maddie, who was helping Boone distribute the takeout, straightened. “That’s the evil witch you were telling me about, isn’t it?”
Hannah nodded, her hands on her hips as she regarded Cooper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cooper was calm. “You know why. I wanted to talk to her, figure out her angle on this. Whenever the two of you are in the same room together, well, things get messy.”
“That doesn’t mean you should’ve gone alone,” Hannah fired back.
“I wasn’t alone. Nick was with me.” Cooper refused to be drawn into a fight. “I thought it was best we knock that interview out of the way as soon as possible.”
“And?” Boone prodded. “No offense to the relationship drama you guys like to generate so you don’t have to focus on other things, but we have a murder to contend with.”
Rather than acknowledge he had a point, Hannah stuck her tongue out at the sheriff. “Blah, blah, blah.”
Boone smirked and jabbed a finger in her direction. “That right there. You remind me of my daughter when you do things like that.”
“I believe he’s saying you act like a teenager sometimes, baby,” Cooper teased.
Hannah ignored him. “Just tell us if we should be loading for bear to keep Astra out of here or what.”
“Technically, I think that’s a good idea no matter what,” Cooper replied. “As for Velma ... I’m just not sure.” He slid into one of the open chairs and grabbed a container of food. Despite the upheaval of the day, he found he was hungry. “Just out of curiosity, where are the other psychics?”
“They headed downtown,” Hannah replied. “There’s some metaphysical bookstore they wanted to visit. They invited Maddie, but she decided to stay back here with me.”
“I wasn’t sure where you were,” Maddie volunteered to Nick. “I knew you would be upset if I left without telling you and our cell reception is spotty up here.”
Nick pulled his phone out of his pocket and realized he’d missed no less than eight messages from his wife while away from the town. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t realize I was cut off from contact with you.”
Maddie merely shrugged. “It’s okay, although I would like to point out that we have a bit of a double standard going on here. You left town without telling me and yet, if I were to do the same, we would end up fighting.”
Nick opened his mouth to deny the charge and then snapped it shut. She was right. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You’re absolutely right. I should’ve told you. It’s just ... it was kind of spur of the moment.”
“Once we heard that Astra had been here we thought it best to talk to her right away,” Cooper volunteered in an effort to save Nick from further grilling by his wife. “It was my idea.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Hannah intoned darkly. “We’re totally going to talk about that brilliant mind of yours later.”
Cooper sent her a saucy wink. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Oh, geez.” Boone rolled his eyes as he settled in his chair. “It’s bad enough when I have one couple to deal with. Now I have two and it’s ... so gross.”
“You love us and you know it,” Hannah teased, tapping the top of his head.
“Yes, it’s the highlight of my day,” Boone drawled. “Let’s talk about Astra. What did she say?”
“Not much.” Cooper turned serious. “She called Velma a fraud, confirmed she was in the parking lot, and pointed out there was no motive for her to commit murder. Honestly, she has a point. Unless Velma’s surprise announcement had something to do with Astra — which seems like a long possibility — then why would Astra even care?”
“I don’t know.” Boone rubbed the back of his neck, thoughtful. “I don’t trust that woman, even if she doesn’t have a motive. She’s simply evil.”
“She is,” Cooper agreed without hesitation. “That doesn’t mean she’s guilty.”
“No,” Boone agreed. He blew out a sigh and then shook his head. “While you guys were gone, I held a teleconference with the guys from the coroner’s office. They had some interesting information.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Cooper said. “Whenever you say the word ‘interesting’ in conjunction with an autopsy it usually results in some terrible monster attacking from the shadows.”
“Yes, because that’s my fault,” Boone snarked, rolling his eyes. “It’s your lucky day, though. The information is interesting, but not that kind of interesting. Dr. Welch was the one who handled Velma’s autopsy, and he says that we’re looking for a female assailant.”
Cooper blinked several times in rapid succession. “I don’t see how that’s good news,” he said finally.<
br />
“It cuts the suspect pool by fifty percent.”
Hannah stirred. “Except it doesn’t.”
Boone slid his eyes to her. “How do you figure? Now we just have to look at women and can cut out the men.”
“Except there are like three men with the psychic group,” Nick pointed out. He’d glommed on to the problem almost immediately. “Not only are all the psychics women, but so are their assistants. Maddie is one of the few people who brought a spouse, which makes me feel out of place but that’s neither here nor there. I mean ... the bulk of the people up here right now are women.”
“Oh.” Boone let out a pent-up breath. “I didn’t even notice that.”
“Shows what kind of detective you are,” Cooper teased.
Boone shot him a quelling look. “Don’t get obnoxious. I just ... didn’t think about it.” He was rueful as he turned back to Hannah. “And here I was thinking that was actionable information.”
“It’s still good info,” Hannah reassured him, patting his hand. “Just out of curiosity, though, how did they narrow it down to a female?”
“The angle of the blade in Velma’s chest,” Maddie volunteered without thinking. She was focused on her burger and fries, her mind busy. “If Velma’s assailant had been taller, the blade would’ve been angled down like this.” She demonstrated with her right hand. “We’re obviously dealing with someone shorter, especially since Velma was relatively tall. That means the blade either struck head-on or from below, which means the blade would’ve been angled up.”
Nick beamed at her. “Oh, so you do listen when I talk forensics with you. I’m so proud, Mad.” He lavishly kissed her wrist, causing those around the table to snicker before turning serious.
“So, we’re dealing with a woman,” Hannah mused. “That honestly doesn’t do us much good if we can’t narrow down a motive.”
“Especially since Velma had so many enemies,” Cooper offered, his arm going over the back of her chair so he could rub her back. “We need to know what the most horrible thing Velma ever did was. To me, that seems like it’s going to be our best option, because Hannah is right, without motive we’re flying blind.”
True Grit Spirit: A Maddie Graves and Hannah Hickok Mystery Page 9