by Mary Maxwell
There was a brief silence. Then Dina cleared her throat. And then she repeated her opening line about Evie’s poor performance in the art of deception.
“Which is why I’d like you to take a shot,” Dina said. “Maybe she’ll open up to you.”
“I can talk to her,” I said. “But is there a chance that she’s not lying? Maybe she doesn’t know anything about the kidnappings because the briefcase and its contents are part of a prank that someone played years ago.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t a prank,” Dina replied before a squall of static overtook her voice.
When the line cleared, I asked if she could repeat the remark again.
“Sure,” she said. “It wasn’t a prank. I asked Denny Santiago and Amanda Crane to drive out to the spot on the map and take a look around.”
“What did they find?” I asked.
Dina took a breath. “Human remains,” she said. “Badly decomposed.”
It took a minute or two for the news to sink in. Whenever I’d heard similar announcements before, I had the same reaction. My breath snagged in my throat, a chill twined around my shoulders and time seemed to slide sideways for a few moments.
“Was it Caroline Whitman?” I asked.
Dina took a long, slow breath. “We found a medical alert bracelet, but I’ll wait to share the identity until it’s confirmed by the coroner’s office. There’s still a chance the body and bracelet won’t be a match.”
“Did Caroline wear one?”
“She did,” Dina replied. “But again, we can’t assume that it’s her. We need to wait until we have confirmation.”
“I know,” I said. “But what does your gut tell you?”
She sighed again. Then she said, “I think you already know the answer to that question, don’t you?”
CHAPTER 7
Evie Hale answered the door to her two-story Mediterranean-style house late that afternoon wearing a fluttering knee-length red silk dress and matching pumps. I’d called earlier to see if she could spare a few minutes to talk about final preparations for the upcoming fundraiser for the public library. Since we both served on the event planning committee and the black tie gala was less than two months away, it was a logical reason to get together. I also sweetened the request by offering to bring along a dozen of her favorite cookies.
“My trainer would kill me if she knew I was letting these goodies in the front door,” Evie said as I passed the white bakery box to her. “Please don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”
I pantomimed locking my lips with an invisible key. “Mums the word,” I said, stepping inside. “Life’s too short to go without a little indulgence every now and then.”
We both laughed as we walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Evie asked as I sat down at the table. “Or I have some delicious lemonade.”
“I’m fine, but thanks,” I said. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. And before we get to the library fundraiser, I was hoping you would be willing to take a moment and discuss something that I’m working on for the Crescent Creek Police.”
Evie’s face tightened. “Another one of your consulting gigs?”
“Something that just came up,” I said. “And I won’t push if you don’t want to discuss it, okay?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Did I forget to pay another parking ticket?” she joked, sitting down across from me. “Or is this about the letter I sent to Deputy Chief Walsh about his officers using our company parking lot to run speed traps?”
I laughed. “It’s about something else,” I said.
Evie shifted in her chair. “I heard about the briefcase that Maureen Vinton found,” she said. “I also heard it might contain something related to what happened to me and Caroline Whitman.”
“That’s correct,” I said.
“Well, let’s move on,” she replied. “I’d be lying if I said this whole thing isn’t bringing back some terrible memories. But when the two detectives came by to tell me about what they found, I knew that I had to help.”
“That’s really kind of you,” I said.
She smiled. “The only problem is, I don’t really think I can do that much. When Caroline went missing, I was pretty messed up. It was just a few days after I was released, so my head was still pretty scrambled. I don’t think I even knew about Caroline until a four or five weeks later.”
“That would make sense,” I said. “I imagine that your parents wanted to protect you from additional stress.”
Her relaxed smile dimmed. “Maybe,” she said. “Either that or they couldn’t be bothered. My parents were in the middle of getting divorced when I was taken. All of that emotion left them both pretty wrecked.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She shifted in her chair, turning away from me slightly and crossing her arms. “My mother was unavailable, shutdown and cold. And my father was even more so. When the police were here, they both put on bright, shiny faces. It was like, ‘Our daughter was saved. And we’re really sorry to hear about the other girl, but she’s not our problem.’”
“It’s hard to know how someone will respond to that amount of stress and worry,” I said.
Evie scoffed at my comment. “I suppose. But that’s how my mother and father did it. They put on a mask when other people were around. Then they let their true selves come out if it was just our family.”
“How did you and your brother cope with that dichotomy?”
She held up one hand. “Are you kidding me? I was so out of it that I didn’t really care. I knew what they were doing, but I spent most of my time in my room after the incident. I mean, for weeks and weeks, I sat up there and listened to music and read books and tried to feel normal again.”
“How’s Dwayne doing these days?” I asked.
She sighed. “Living the life anybody would envy,” she said. “He’s on one of those European river cruises this week; looking at cathedrals, eating a ton of fresh cheese, drinking wine, flirting with French women.”
“Sounds rough,” I teased. “He must be doing well for himself.”
“Daddy’s little boy,” she said. “Our father was a wicked man. Everyone in town seemed to know that my brother wasn’t in our father’s will, but that was a cruel lie. Dwayne became a multimillionaire the second our father’s heart stopped ticking. On the other hand, I got the bills, the company teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and a ton of crap.”
I’d heard the buzz around town. Sean Hale left the vast majority of his estate to his son, while Evie received the house we were sitting in, a company burdened with debt and a fleet of vintage sports cars that no longer ran. Despite the challenging financial situation, she’d managed to turn Hale-Hathaway Roofing around and climb out from under the mountain of debt within a few years.
“Well, you’ve certainly made it into a success again,” I said. “You should be very proud of yourself.”
“I am,” Evie said. “But you didn’t come here to discuss roofing. What else did you want to know, Katie?”
“There are a few more questions,” I said. “Beginning with what you thought when you heard that Caroline Whitman went missing. Can you remember who—”
“I already told you,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of that until much, much later. Because of what I’d just gone through, you know, the kidnapping and everything, my family kept me in the dark about Caroline.”
“Do you remember how you heard about it?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure that someone told me later, but I don’t remember who.”
“And your parents?”
“What about them?”
“They were aware of Caroline’s disappearance, right?”
“How could they not be?” she said. “A week after my father paid the ransom for my release, another girl went missing. It was like a crime spree or something.”
“They must’ve been so relieved that you returned home,” I sai
d.
“My mother was,” Evie replied. “But I always got the feeling that my father resented handing over all that money to a punk kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”
I made a mental note of the response. It sounded like Evie’s father possibly suspected someone but never shared that notion with the CCPD.
“What do you mean by ‘a punk kid from the wrong side of the tracks’?” I asked. “The police never had a suspect for your abduction.”
She laughed. “Oh, I know that. I’m just repeating what my father always said. He blamed everything on people who had less than we did. He was such a judgmental man. All crime was committed by poor people. They were also responsible for all the ills of the world.”
While I was thinking about my next question, loud footsteps suddenly thundered overhead.
“Sorry about the racket,” Evie said. “My houseguest can’t seem to grasp the concept of treading lightly.”
“Someone from Wyoming?” I asked. “I saw the SUV parked at the curb in front.”
Evie smiled. “No, she’s from…” The footsteps overhead returned, loud and insistent. “Well, she’s certainly not very light on her feet, is she?” Evie joked. “Good thing she never wanted to be a dancer.”
“I can’t imagine what it sounds like downstairs when I clomp around,” I said. “My sister used to tease me when we were kids. She said that I walked like a Clydesdale.”
The silence that followed began to feel awkward and uncomfortable, so I asked if Evie knew who drove the SUV in front of her house.
“Someone visiting my neighbors,” she said.
“Which house?” I asked.
“Right across the street,” she said. “Mr. and Mrs. Kilgore.”
“What a small world,” I said. “The Kilgores are friends of my parents.”
Evie offered a fleeting smile. Then she checked the time on her phone.
“I should probably think about getting on with my day in a few minutes,” she said. “What did you want to discuss about the library gala?”
“You know what?” I said. “That can wait. I more or less wanted to get your input on some last-minute tweaks to the tablecloth and napkin options for the committee meeting next week.”
“I can come in for breakfast,” she suggested. “Then we can take a look at the samples.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, pushing back from the table.
Evie held up one hand. “Before you go,” she said, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Okay, so Detective Armstrong told me that you consult on cases for the police,” Evie said. “Isn’t that hard to do when you’re running Sky High Pies?”
“It takes some juggling,” I answered. “But I’m pretty good at time management.”
She smiled. “Do you give lessons? I’m forever running behind. Then I have to apologize to everybody. It makes me crazy when I think about how much time I spend saying how sorry I am.”
“It’s like anything else,” I said. “It takes practice.”
“Well, who has time for practice?” She laughed again, but this time it sounded more natural. “Especially when you’ve got too much to do already.”
I could tell that she had more to say, so I nodded and waited.
“You know,” she continued a moment later, “I’m sure that you all think it’s incredible for the old briefcase to turn up with stuff from Caroline’s case, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.”
“Well, it’s the proximity of the two incidents,” I said. “And I know that you’ve already talked to Dina Kincaid and Tyler Armstrong, but they thought it might be helpful to go over it one more time with me.”
“It’s not going to change anything,” Evie said. “I told them everything that I can remember about those awful, horrible men.”
“The men that took you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, yeah. What other men would I be talking about?”
“How well did you know Caroline Whitman?” I asked, ignoring the nasty edge in her voice. She sighed. “I didn’t really know her at all. We were the same age. We went to school together. And she was good friends with Samantha Barstow. Do you know Sam? She owns that company that stages homes for real estate brokers.”
“Sure,” I said. “She’s in for breakfast every so often.”
“Well, you should talk to her. She and Caroline were super tight back when we were all in high school.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll definitely do that.”
“Okay, so if that’s all I should probably go back to getting ready,” Evie said, checking the time on her phone. “My friend and I are going to dinner and then a movie. We have reservations at Café Fleur for six-thirty.”
“That sounds nice,” I said, getting up and pushing the chair back under the table.
As I walked past the refrigerator, I saw the back of a post card attached to the door with a magnet. The message was short and sweet: See you soon. But the initials beneath it left me momentarily speechless: CW.
I hesitated to try and make out something beneath the signature. But before I could translate the handful of smaller words, Evie called my name from the foyer.
“You coming, Katie?”
“Be right there!” I leaned closer to the card, feeling a chill down my spine as I read the rest of the message. “It’ll be just like old times.”
CHAPTER 8
At four-thirty the next afternoon, shortly after delivering special orders to a couple of our regular customers, I pulled into a parking spot in front of Vintage View, the antiques and secondhand shop on Blossom Street in downtown Crescent Creek. Every square inch of the store was crammed with an eclectic selection of merchandise, including secondhand clothes, used appliances, framed artwork, hand-me-down house wares, old sports equipment and a large assortment of books. The owner was an elderly widower named Tobias Armantrout. I still hadn’t unraveled the mystery of how Tobias stayed in business. My sister told me that her theory involved trafficking in stolen jewels, pirated DVDs and black market adult diapers. I suggested she take her theory back to the drawing board because Tobias had served as an officer with the Crescent Creek Police Department until he retired at the age of sixty-five with a full pension and two hunks of lead in his hip from a long ago bank robbery.
“Afternoon, Tobias,” I said, closing the door quietly. “How are you today?”
He glanced at me from behind a copy of Sports Illustrated. “Still alive,” he said. “And still kicking. How about yourself, Pie Lady?”
I wasn’t crazy about the moniker, but Tobias and my grandfather had been best friends. He was one of the first local residents to patronize Sky High Pies after Nana Reed opened the doors more than four decades earlier. During his initial visit, he started calling my grandmother the Pie Lady of Crescent Creek. When she passed the torch to my mother, the nickname followed. And now that I was the third generation at the helm of the business, Tobias almost never used my real name.
“I’m doing okay,” I said as he closed the magazine. “I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.”
He nodded. “What’s the first one?”
“I was wondering if you have a copy of The Big Sleep.”
“Raymond Chandler, huh?”
“That’s the one,” I said. “I want to send it to my brother. He and I got into a pretty heated argument last week about hardboiled crime fiction. He said Chandler’s a hack and I should—”
“Are we talking about Brody?” asked Tobias.
I nodded. “My younger brother,” I said. “Do you remember him? He’s in San Diego now.”
Tobias frowned deeply. “That little tadpole was always a pain in my backside,” he grumbled. “Used to come in here when he was in high school and bug the living daylights out of me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I never knew about that.”
The old man shrugged. “He was just a boy with time on his hands. No real harm done.”
&
nbsp; “What did he do?”
“He and his friends thought it was highly amusing to mix up the books that I keep in alphabetical order,” answered Tobias. “So you’d go looking for Agatha Christie and she’d been tucked between Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey.” He shook his head, grinning widely. “Or they’d go way in the back there…” He gestured toward the rear of the narrow space with one crooked finger. “And one of them would make farting noises. Then they’d all cackle like hyenas, as if it was the first time in the history of the world that anyone had done such a thing.”
“Yep,” I said. “That’s my baby brother. And, to be honest, he still thinks it’s hysterical.”
Tobias muttered and carefully slid off the stool where he was perched. “So, we’re looking for The Big Sleep?” he said. “Let me check the inventory, Kate.”
I expected him to wander around the store until he located the Raymond Chandler section. Instead, he reached beneath the counter, pulled out an iPhone and started clicking and swiping through a series of screens.
“Well, darn the luck!” Tobias looked up and shook his head. “I had a copy until last Wednesday at one-fifteen in the afternoon. But someone swooped in, used their credit card and asked me to gift wrap it with Happy Birthday paper.”
I smiled at the precise reply. “Can you tell me who bought it?”
“Absolutely not!” Tobias said sharply. “That’s privileged information. I respect the privacy of my customers just as much as I imagine you did when you were a PI.” He slowly bent down and returned the phone to its resting place under the counter. “I’ll bet that people asked you to divulge confidential information about your cases all the time back in the Windy City.”
I thought for a second. “Not really,” I said. “I mean, besides my mother and sister. They were always curious about what I was doing.”
“That’s because they love you so much,” Tobias said, lowering himself onto the stool again.
I laughed. “No, it was because they’re busybodies. They did it when I lived in Chicago; they’re still doing it today.”