Rooted in Murder

by Emily James

  Knowing the car was red would have helped if someone brought a red car in to be repainted, but I couldn’t exactly have Hal, the firm’s private investigator, calling all the body shops in the area to check their records for whether someone brought a red car in to be repainted over a decade ago.

  If Daphne couldn’t tell me more about Lee’s car, maybe his parents could. “Do you have the contact information for Lee’s parents? They might be able to give me the details I need. It would help to talk to them anyway about that night and what they might remember.”

  “Can’t you just read their statements?” Daphne picked up the plates from the coffee table. They clinked together. “They would have told anything they knew to the police already.”

  It sounds like she doesn’t want you talking to Lee’s parents, the suspicious voice in my head that sounded like my dad said. I ignored it. My dad thought everyone was guilty. At first, he’d even implied Mark was guilty when he’d helped with his case before our wedding. It was more likely she didn’t want me bothering them when they were mourning the loss of their son all over again.

  I’d be respectful of their grief, something Daphne didn’t know. Since I’d started this case, I’d been a bit like a bull chasing the clowns around a rodeo ring—aiming at everything that came close to me whether it was the target I should be chasing or not. It wasn’t like me. I suspected it was because I felt the stress of knowing Grady expected certain results from me and my frustration at not being able to work the case with Mark. Neither of those gave me an excuse for being bossy, pushy, or unkind, though.

  There was a balance in there that I needed to find between getting things done and still being the person I wanted to be at the end of it. I could find that balance. Daphne didn’t have to feel the need to protect Lee’s parents from the insensitive lawyer.

  “I can’t access any of the past evidence because the police haven’t officially arrested you. They won’t give me anything until then, and I’d like to avoid you being arrested in the first place.”

  This time Daphne looked at Case without trying to hide it. She set the plates back down on the coffee table. She moved toward Case, and for a second, I thought she was going to sit on the arm of his chair. Instead, she passed by and settled on the end of the couch, as far away from me and as close to Case as possible.

  “Lee’s parents might not talk to you.” It was Case who finally spoke.

  Unless his parents were behind what happened to him or they were protecting another one of their children who might have hurt Lee, there was no reason for them to be hesitant to speak to someone who only wanted to uncover the truth about what happened to him.

  I gave Daphne my most reassuring smile. “I’m sure they’ll want to help if it means finding their son’s killer.”

  “They won’t.” Daphne leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Not if they know you’re my lawyer.”

  An uncomfortable feeling grew in the pit of my stomach like I’d eaten something that wasn’t going to agree with me. That sounded an awful lot like they thought Daphne was involved.

  But if that were the case, why didn’t they tell the police that back when Lee disappeared? Quincey would have heard about it if they had, and he would have told me.

  I was back to feeling like Daphne only shared with me what she felt she absolutely had to. “I know that you don’t want me poking around in your personal life.” I shot a glance at Case. “But a criminal defense attorney is like a doctor. Your doctor can’t help you if you hide symptoms or don’t give him the whole picture. I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on. It turns me from a doctor into a fireman, and no matter how quickly firefighters get to a scene, there’s always some devastation.”

  Daphne rubbed her hands along her shins. Her gaze shifted to Case. Something passed between them that I couldn’t read. Like a silent conversation.

  She must have seen what she was looking for because she sat up. “Gina has sickle cell anemia. We found out when she was six months old. Up until then, Lee’s parents were a huge part of her life, babysitting while I worked even. After the diagnosis, they cut us out.”

  The sick feeling in my stomach rose up into my chest. No wonder Lee was the way he was if his parents had made his acceptance conditional upon perfection. I knew what feeling like you had to earn love did to a person. It either turned you into an overachiever or a rebel. I’d chosen to try to go one way. Lee had chosen to go the other. If his parents were going to think he wasn’t worth anything, he might as well prove them right.

  I might be laying my own experience on top as a template when I shouldn’t, though. “You’re saying the Mills rejected Gina because she was sick?”

  “Because she was sick with a genetic disorder, and no one in their family had it. I tried to tell them that she got it from my side. It runs in my family. My uncle had it. That wasn’t good enough. They said Gina couldn’t be Lee’s daughter.”

  Good thing I’d checked. I had made a wrong assumption about their motives.

  It was still a sad situation. Once they decided Gina wasn’t their granddaughter, they might also have suspected Daphne killed Lee for whatever reason.

  “Has a paternity test been done?”

  Daphne shook her head. “If they wouldn’t take my word that Lee was Daphne’s dad, then we didn’t need them. Grady helps out, and so does Case.”

  Case was either a really good friend or something else was also going on here. Based on the way they seemed to want to be closer than they were, I suspected they had feelings for each other that they hadn’t shared yet.

  Case leaned on one arm of the chair. “My older brother has sickle cell, so my family knows what it takes.”

  It was almost like he’d seen the thought wheels turning in my head and wanted to give me an explanation before I came up with one he wouldn’t like.

  His explanation had one odd point to it. “Your whole family helps out?”

  The muscles in Case’s arms flexed like he’d subconsciously tensed them. “My parents were Grady’s foster parents. They were trying to get Daphne, too, to let them be together, until my mom passed away. Then my dad had all he could handle already with my brothers and me and Grady.”

  The sick feeling in my chest turned into an ache. When I’d tricked Case to get information to help Mark, I’d banked on the fact that Case had a rescuer mentality. At the time, I’d based that guess on his friendship with Grady, assuming his machismo would make him want to save a woman in distress.

  I’d been right about the need to rescue, but I was starting to think I was wrong about its source. A man whose parents had fostered and who grew up with a sick brother would have learned to take care of people. He’d been raised to do it, and it had nothing to do with his view of women.

  “Do you know if Lee’s parents ever told their suspicions to the police after Gina’s diagnosis?” I asked.

  Daphne shook her head, and Case shrugged. It would have been a footnote at the time if they had. Chief Wilson wouldn’t have dived back into a cold case. It could explain why Chief McTavish was so focused on Daphne now.

  I might still give Lee’s parents a try. Even if they were hostile, I’d learn exactly why they suspected Daphne over anyone else. Getting pregnant by someone other than your boyfriend wasn’t a reason to kill your boyfriend.

  I got to my feet. “Thanks for…” They hadn’t really helped with the case. “For sharing that with me. I’ll still try to contact Lee’s parents. The worst they can do is refuse to talk to me.”

  I cringed internally. That could be taken as a dig at Case. He didn’t respond, so hopefully he hadn’t taken it that way.

  It still seemed odd that he wouldn’t have returned my calls, but it was likely as simple as him wanting to protect Daphne and Gina from someone he saw as being more harmful than helpful.

  My phone gave off a strangled imitation of my regular ring tone, almost like it didn’t have enough strength for the full thing. I gl
anced at the screen.

  Mr. Huffman.

  That was a call I needed to take. Russ was anxious to get things moving on planting the trees, and the police had finally released the field.

  At first it’d seemed strange that Russ wanted to expand Sugarwood. Sugar maples took forty years before they could be tapped. He’d never see these trees come to maturity. I’d be retired before anyone harvested their sap. But Russ said that was the beauty of a sugar maple bush. It was generational. My children could keep it going along with Stacey and baby Noah, since Russ planned to leave his share of Sugarwood to them.

  I waved at Daphne that I’d see myself out and answered the call.

  “Ms. Dawes-Cavanaugh?” the man’s voice on the other end of the line said.

  Great. Apparently being married wasn’t going to make my last name easier. It was just going to give people new ways to mangle it. “This is Nicole.”

  “I need to talk to you about the sale of my field. Today.”

  9

  Through my ragged cell reception, I arranged to meet Mr. Huffman at The Burnt Toast Café since he couldn’t make out half of what I was saying over the phone. Daphne came up to me during the call and put a finger to her lips to remind me to be quiet. I must have been shouting to try to get Mr. Huffman to hear me.

  I certainly wasn’t winning points with anyone today. With the way things were going, Russ would call next and tell me that all our saplings had died because I didn’t get a voice message that told me I needed to water them.

  At least meeting at The Burnt Toast meant I could get myself a cup of coffee and something sweet. The Burnt Toast carried cannoli that I loved. If I had time, I could try to talk to the owner, Mr. Dobson, about adding a maple syrup mousse to their menu. I’d gotten the idea after eating a delicious mousse on my honeymoon. The Burnt Toast already used our maple syrup for their breakfast items, but expanding our products into new venues was one of our long-term goals.

  That was assuming I had the heart for another business discussion after I talked to Mr. Huffman. If he sold his farm to someone else, we wouldn’t be able to expand Sugarwood—ever. The other three sides of the property butted up against roads.

  We had a deal, though. He shouldn’t be able to back out of the sale now. I assumed property law worked similarly to other kinds of law where being in breach of contract landed you in court.

  Mr. Huffman wasn’t there when I arrived, so I placed my order and made the call to Hal. The restaurant was so busy and my connection was so terrible that I had to give up before I could make him understand what I wanted. I didn’t want to try shouting. The last thing I needed was everyone in Fair Haven knowing I was investigating Royce Allen and Lee Mills’ missing car. It hadn’t worked with Mr. Huffman anyway. I sent Hal a text with my request.

  I’ll need more info on car, Hal replied.

  Contact Lee Mills’ parents, I texted back. It might be better if Hal contacted them anyway. The more degrees of separation from Daphne, the more likely they were to answer—or, at least, that’s what it had sounded like.

  I’d barely received his affirmative reply when Mr. Huffman showed up. He had on thick tan winter coveralls, as if he’d been working outside before he called me and hadn’t bothered to change. He took off his winter hat and laid it on the table. The hat was red and bore a seed company logo, the little white pom-pom on top held on by a thread.

  Mr. Huffman shook my hand. “I’ve never liked to have important conversations over the phone anyway. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think it’s better to talk face to face.”

  That was a mindset that seemed to be vanishing with every new generation. I still liked in-person conversation because I struggled to read people over the phone. For the generation after me, even email was fading in popularity. Stacey Rathmell, who co-managed Sugarwood, texted people more than she called them.

  He patted his thin hair, but strands stuck back up after he moved his hands away, the static electricity left behind by his hat giving them a life of their own.

  “The thing is,” he said, “I need to know if you’re serious about this sale.”

  He’d mentioned another offer before. Had they increased it? We already had paperwork signed, but I’d feel bad if he could have gotten a lot more money for the property. I’d have to talk to Russ about it and see what we could do if that was the case.

  My dad would tell me not to let on that we needed him more than he needed us. I didn’t want to operate that way in this case. I wanted the deal to be fair to everyone, and I had to believe that Mr. Huffman would value my honesty. He seemed to care about who got his land next and how they planned to use it. He didn’t want to sell to a faceless corporation.

  The waiter set down our orders. Mr. Huffman’s coffee had so much cream in it that he might as well have ordered a latte. At least then his drink would have still been warm when it arrived. I waited for the waiter to leave again.

  “We’re very serious,” I said. “Your field gives us our only chance to expand. Sugarwood hasn’t been in my family long, but I hope it stays in my family long after I’m gone. I want to leave my children the best possible setup.”

  At the mention of children, he started nodding his head along with what I was saying. “It’s about family for me, too.” He placed his hands flat on the table. “With all the mix-ups about the paperwork before and now you refusing to sign the new documents…If you’ve changed your mind or can’t get the money, I just need to know. My wife and I don’t have retirement savings or a pension. All we have is what we’ll get from these sales. We need to sell.”

  Refusing to sign the documents?

  Oh no. Tom texted me that the documents were ready days ago, right before Grady called me that Daphne had been brought in for questioning. With the case and my sickly phone, I’d forgotten all about it.

  I tucked my hair behind my ears. After all the delays around this sale, I couldn’t blame Mr. Huffman for wondering what was going on.

  “I’ve been busy at work, but I promise I’ll go today and get them signed.” I held out my hand for us to shake on it. “You have my word.”

  He shook my hand, but his grip wasn’t as firm as the first time. “I hate to push. It’s just that we’ve barely gotten by without losing the two farms. When the crops were bad or my machinery broke down, we had to take out loans. At one point, I was out every night trying to keep kids from driving through the fields because we couldn’t afford even that small loss. My wife never even got a honeymoon or a vacation that didn’t involve staying with relatives. Selling now means we can pay our debts and live out our golden years with dignity.”

  My Uncle Stan and Russ had managed Sugarwood well enough that we had reserves to see us through a bad year. But they had both been good businessmen, and Stacey was shaping up to be a good businesswoman. Not everyone had those skills. If the crops produced a low yield, a farmer could easily go under.

  I couldn’t imagine living under that kind of pressure for so many years, only to then have to worry about the bottom falling out of the land sale when the time came.

  I hadn’t realized the personal implications for him. “I’ll go right now.”

  He tapped the table next to where the waitress had set my order. “Finish your food first and talk a little shop with me. What’s been keeping you so busy?”

  There wasn’t too much I could tell him that wasn’t confidential. Hopefully he didn’t think I was being rude when I didn’t offer details. “I’ve been retained by Daphne Scherwin as her defense counsel. The police have been questioning her about the death of Lee Mills. His bones were the ones my dog found on your land.”

  Mr. Huffman looked a little queasy at the mention of the bones. He’d said he used to hunt, but there was a difference between seeing the bones of an animal and seeing the bones of a human being.

  He chugged the last of his coffee. “That’s good. Whoever killed that boy probably had a decent reason. I was always surprised no one decked him before R
oyce Allen took a swing at him. Maybe if more people stood up to him sooner, stopped him, he wouldn’t have ended up the way he did.” He held up his coffee mug in the direction of the waiter, indicating he’d like another cup. “But I meant I wouldn’t mind hearing all your plans for expanding your bush. I get enough murder stories from those CSI shows my wife watches on TV.”

  Another half an hour passed before Mr. Huffman and I parted ways. The pace of life in Fair Haven had always been slower than in DC, but Mr. Huffman came from a generation where you didn’t do your business and run. You got to know the people you were doing business with.

  I liked it. It made me think of how I wanted to get to know my clients, not only because I could mount a better defense for them, but also because I always wanted to see them as people first. Mr. Huffman liked to know the people he was doing business with because he could trust them more.

  By the time we finished, it was too late for me to stay around and talk to Mr. Dobson. McClanahan & Associates would be closing in half an hour, and I’d promised to sign the papers today. Russ had probably been there the same day he was asked.

  We parted ways at the door, and I climbed into my car. I put on my signal to indicate my intention to pull out of my parking spot and checked my mirror.

  Something black was scribbled all over it. How had that happened? I hadn’t driven close enough to anything to get something on it, and it didn’t look like anyone had hit it.

  If a police officer saw me driving with my mirror that dirty, I’d be pulled over for sure. I dug a leftover fast food napkin out of my console and rolled down my window.

  The black squiggles were words.

  My head felt like I’d accidentally bumped it into a shelf, and my eyes didn’t want to focus. Words written on my mirror couldn’t be good. No one wrote anything good on another person’s car mirror.

  I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths. I had to see what they said. I couldn’t sit here forever.