After that I would have dinner with Jasper and his grandfather at the pizza joint.
It would have been better to space out these two crucial events, but there was no time. Mrs. Robertson might strike again if we left her alone, and Jasper’s grandfather got to set the terms of our seeing each other, not me. On top of that, I was getting desperate. I might just need the man’s help.
Which left the difficulty of figuring out how to dress for a murder accusation followed by a grilling—I mean pleasant conversation—at a pizza place.
“I don’t have anything to wear!” I yelled down to Charlie.
In my mind’s eye I could see Charlie grinning as she yelled from the living room. “I agree. Just wear something you usually wear.”
What she was so obsessed with on the computer I couldn’t have said, but apparently she did have a sliver of attention to spare for me.
I came halfway down the stairs and glared at my blond friend. “Just wear anything to have dinner with my boyfriend’s grandfather, who happens to be the most important parental figure in his life, and who happens to hate me, and who also happens to be one of the most powerful men in the county if not the state?” I demanded breathlessly.
“Is that a run-on sentence?” Charlie barely looked up.
“Who cares!” I sputtered. Then I dashed back upstairs. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to be late. For both things. Not that there was a timetable for confronting Mrs. Robertson. I told myself that she had probably thought she could get away with the murder because her husband was on the police force at the time, but that was probably not going to make our task any easier.
We did at least have a time frame for dinner. Apparently Wolf Senior always ate promptly.
Shocker.
Dylan Wolf did not appear to leave anything to chance. That’s probably half the reason my relationship with Jasper drives him crazy, I thought, glaring at my closet.
“Maybe I could perform a spell and magically love my clothes,” I groaned. “No, it would take more than magic for that to work.”
I finally settled on a nice shirt, a cardigan, and my best pair of jeans. To finish off the look, I brushed my hair, applied a bit of makeup, and put on my cleanest shoes. Lastly I grabbed a pair of my grandmother’s pearl earrings that I liked but rarely had occasion to wear.
Then I looked at myself in the mirror and said positive affirmations. I didn’t believe myself, but I tried.
“I would have to stand here for days for any of these to help,” I groaned.
“Did you say something?” Charlie yelled from downstairs.
“NO!” I yelled back.
As I hurried down the stairs, Charlie raised her head at last and said, “You look nice. Casual but not sloppy. I like it.”
“Thanks. Wait . . . do I usually look sloppy?”
“No, but this apartment is getting rundown. I should make a cleaning chart for this weekend,” said Charlie thoughtfully. “I’ve just been so busy.”
We always knew Charlie was in a good place if she was talking cleaning charts.
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“Oh, this and that,” she said evasively.
“The secret meetings?” I pushed.
“One and the same,” she replied.
Greer had reluctantly gone to work, but she was going to try to leave early. She was still worried about telling Deacon our secret, but she was plucking up her courage.
As Charlie explained, “Greer wanted to come, but she has already taken a lot of time off from the bar, and she needs more tomorrow because she and Deacon are going to speak with their moms. Try to present a united front and all that.”
“Sounds terrifying,” I muttered.
Charlie wasn’t inclined to say any more, either about her theory on the meetings or about what she was doing on the computer, so I simply asked, “Are you ready to go?”
She put down her work and said, “Yes. Let’s go see why Mrs. Robertson killed Haley. I mean, it couldn’t have been because she didn’t like something about the wedding, could it?”
I had no answer to that.
We headed for the Beetle, since Charlie’s Volvo was still at the mechanic’s. As we passed Paws on his crate I said, “Coming?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he yawned, and trotted after us.
“Keeping late nights?” I asked.
“The search continues,” he explained.
I almost felt sorry for him, except that I was pretty sure he was actually having a good time.
Sort of.
We were about to drop in uninvited at the Robertsons’ place just before their party was set to start. Whether it was a good idea or a bad one, we couldn’t wait.
My wand was a comforting presence against my wrist. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it, but I had already used a spell to help solve the case, and I hadn’t figured out how I was going to explain what I knew without revealing that. Mrs. Robertson had left the threatening note for Henrietta, and I had seen it by looking into the past.
We were just about to leave the farmhouse driveway when a car pulled in from the road.
“Hansen,” said Charlie. She didn’t exactly sound pleased.
He pulled up next to the Beetle and hopped out.
“Are you all right?” he called out as he shot toward her.
We were already sitting in the car, so there was nothing much he could do but stand in front of her window.
“Huh?” said Charlie.
“Last night? You left me a message this morning. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. Work has been crazy,” he said. “Damn Toil Temper.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I’m fine,” said Charlie, coloring slightly.
“Good,” said Hansen, beaming. “Never doubted it for a moment.” Some of the worry had ebbed from his voice.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“An anonymous source told me you’d be going to confront a possible murderer tonight and didn’t invite me. Is that true?”
“We didn’t want to bother you,” said Charlie.
“Right after I first get to see ghosts, you don’t want to bother me?” Hansen braced his hands on his hips. For once he sounded a little exasperated.
Charlie shifted uncomfortably. “It’s going to be dangerous.”
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be going alone,” he pointed out.
“Fine. You can come,” Charlie sighed.
“Thought so,” said Hansen, and he hurried to climb into the back seat before she changed her mind.
“Hi, Paws,” said Hansen.
Paws just gave him an inscrutable look, and the four of us drove in silence after that. Charlie was tapping her leg nervously, but I didn’t remark on it.
The Robertsons’ house was already decorated for the party. Streamers floated from the mailbox and a sign out front proclaimed the anniversary. I was relieved to see that at the moment there was only one car in the driveway.
Mrs. Robertson reluctantly let us into her bright home. The air smelled of incense, and Charlie coughed subtly.
The place was certainly decorated for a party. Gold and white streamers hung from every surface. There was music playing, and a large spread of food covered the kitchen table.
We could hardly have chosen a worse time for this conversation, but it was too late to change our minds now.
“How are the articles on Haley’s death coming?” Mrs. Robertson asked, as if this was some sort of distant topic that she barely remembered discussing. The woman should have played a game that required an excellent poker face, because she had one.
“Well, I think we might have cracked the case,” said Charlie.
“How lovely,” said Mrs. Robertson.
“We do have a couple more questions for you, though,” said Charlie.
Mrs. Robertson frowned. She didn’t want to discuss this with us right now, and I couldn’t blame her. Then again, if she was so busy, why was she running around threatening Henrietta?
“You know I have a party scheduled for tonight? I can’t really talk right now,” she said, starting to sound exasperated.
A noise sounded from the other room, and Mrs. Robertson’s eyes shifted slightly. I glanced over my shoulder but didn’t see what had made the noise, so I returned my attention to our host.
“It will only take a couple of minutes,” said Hansen.
Mrs. Robertson sighed gustily but motioned us to follow her. The living room was just as immaculate as when we’d come before, but there were more party decorations this time.
“What is it you want to know?” She sat down on the sofa as she spoke, but didn’t offer us chairs.
“Did you know that Haley got threatening messages before she died, and whoever sent them wasn’t caught?” asked Charlie.
“Yes. So? Kids playing pranks. Easy. I’m sure it has happened to a lot of people,” said Mrs. Robertson dismissively.
“Did you know that Henrietta just got a threatening message?” I asked.
“Same kids, same prank. The neighborhood hooligans wouldn’t have matured that much in just two years,” Mrs. Robertson shrugged. For all the world, there wasn’t a spark of recognition in her eyes. She had dropped the nasty letter off herself and yet she was acting as if she had never contemplated such a thing. Maybe she had missed her calling as an actress.
“You’re the one who left the letter. Someone saw you,” said Charlie. She had braced herself as if she expected that Mrs. Robertson would attack her, but the woman didn’t even rise from the sofa.
“What letter?” A deadly calm had overtaken her.
“The threatening one that Henrietta just received,” I supplied.
“You were the one leaving her the messages all this time,” said Charlie.
A silence followed, broken only by the sound of the slight breeze pushing branches against the side of the house. We now had Mrs. Robertson’s full attention, but she still wasn't going to admit her guilt. Instead, she was looking at us in bewilderment.
“Truly, I thought you were a better journalist than this,” she said, suddenly smiling indulgently, as if offering the rest of us one last chance to share in the joke.
None of us returned the smile.
Her face instantly fell into something angrier. “Are you accusing me of murdering my wedding planner? Over what? The wrong flowers? Place settings? I hardly think any of that merits murder,” she said. “And I cared about my wedding as much as anyone could.”
“Maybe the wedding planner was having an affair with Mr. Robertson,” Paws offered.
Charlie raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it was about a personal matter.”
Mrs. Robertson looked at Charlie blankly. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m afraid this is not a joke,” said Hansen.
“What’s your proof?” she demanded.
“We looked into Haley’s death,” said Hansen. “She was getting threatening messages right around that time, then your husband ended up in charge of the investigation. To say that he did a poor job investigating is putting it lightly.”
Mrs. Robertson was staring hard at all three of us. “Fine. What does that have to do with me?” she demanded.
I was going to have to mention what I’d seen at Henrietta’s. Just not the way I had seen it.
“We have a witness who saw you leaving a threatening message for Henrietta. We know it was you,” I said.
Mrs. Robertson was still looking at us as if we were crazy, her upper lip peeled back, her eyes narrowed to slits.
Then her expression changed. I would never quite be able to describe what her face did, but what she said was, “I left her an invitation to the party that my husband put together.”
More silence filled the room.
Then Hansen’s head whipped around. “Where’s your husband?” he asked.
“He didn’t do anything,” Mrs. Robertson said shrilly.
But her non-verbal reaction contradicted her words. She had obviously been jolted into a sudden realization that things were not as she had believed. Her eyes moved frantically across the floor as she relived her wedding, the two years that had passed since then, and everything her husband had ever said, including his investigation into Haley’s accident. It was clear from her increasingly terrified expression that she was finding inconsistencies and stumbling upon clues that she had missed.
Most recently, she had thought she was dropping off an invitation for Henrietta, but her husband hadn’t given her an invitation, he’d given her an anonymous threat.
Just then there was the sound of someone scrambling behind us. Hansen ducked toward the kitchen and a yell came from the direction where he’d gone. Mrs. Robertson squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“Your husband?” Charlie breathed. “Why on earth?”
“My husband could not possibly have done anything wrong,” she said harshly. “He’s a good man.”
“A good man who ran a young woman off the road to her death,” I said.
“I’d say you need to re-evaluate your criteria,” said Paws to Mrs. Robertson, even though she couldn’t hear him.
“Why didn’t you tell us someone else was here?” I asked the cat out of the side of my mouth.
“Next time,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
Then Mr. Robertson appeared. Hansen was walking in front of him, his dark blue eyes troubled.
“Are you all right?” Charlie asked.
Hansen didn’t move or speak.
Mrs. Robertson understood the situation sooner than Charlie and I had, and her loyalty stayed with the criminal she had married. “Maybe we should tie them up,” she said.
“No need,” said Mr. Robertson, who moved just far enough away from Hansen to show the gun he was pointing our way.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“What is it with guns recently?” Charlie wondered.
Both the Robertsons’ eyes widened at my friend’s dismissive attitude. Despite her bravado, Charlie swallowed hard. Terror was seeping into her slowly, but that only made her outwardly more calm, not less.
“Good question,” I agreed. I hadn’t ever imagined I’d have the kind of life where guns got pointed at me, but apparently my imagination was a little limited.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Robertson cried out. “You can’t kill all these people!”
“Oh, but tying them up just made puurrrfect sense,” said Paws.
Hansen swallowed hard as a twinkle appeared in his eyes and vanished as soon as it had come.
Mr. Robertson looked wildly at his wife. “I didn’t mean to kill her! You have to believe me.”
Mrs. Robertson had clearly been holding out some sort of hope that we were wrong about what her husband had done. By admitting it, he had shattered her delusions in one blow. Her already pale skin went several shades paler.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
Mr. Robertson started to pace. Charlie, Hansen and I all tensed.
“Haley found out I was having an affair. Purely accidentally, she caught us. We were at the movies. You had just hired her as our wedding consultant. She never said anything to me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before she told you. The girl I was seeing meant nothing to me, but I knew that wouldn’t matter to you,” he said.
Mrs. Robertson was clearly hearing a lot of awful information in a hurry. In fact, the last ten minutes had surely been the worst of her life. She lifted her hands as if to plug her ears, then dropped them uselessly by her sides.
“I sent Haley a few notes to scare her, but I wanted to do the job properly,” Robertson said, sounding desperate now.
I made eye contact with Charlie. If Robertson raised his hand again, I was going to have to pull out my wand and live with the consequences.
Charlie gave the slightest of nods. She knew the predicament I was in.
My fingers twitched, and I let the butt of the wand fall into my hand. My eyes never left Mr. Robertson as I prepared to fe
nd him off.
Hansen had been pushed to the side, but he too was watching me now. He was too far away from Robertson to help fight him, and besides, he lacked a weapon. Everything depended on me.
“I just wanted to drive past her car and scare her, but she lost control,” said Mr. Robertson. “Once that happened, I knew I couldn’t go back. It wasn’t planned, and I was as shocked as anyone when I was chosen as the investigator for the case,” he explained.
Robertson had barely finished, and there was a pause while we all wondered what would happen next, when into the silence barged Detective Cutter with Tom close behind him. They looked around the room until their eyes fell on the gun that Mrs. Robertson was holding.
“It’s both of them,” Charlie gasped.
For the next few minutes the police worked to secure the arrest of the couple, while Charlie and I stood silently by. Hansen came to stand next to Charlie, too close to be casual but professional enough that he didn’t actually reach out and touch her. I kept thinking about my wand and trying to make sure it wasn’t visible up my sleeve.
“I guess the tip we got was a good one,” said Tom as he led Mr. Robertson toward the door.
Detective Cutter growled.
“What tip?” I asked.
“Your friend Greer called,” said Tom over his shoulder. “She was worried something was going to go wrong with this escapade, and she just wanted us to come over and check on everything. We weren’t very busy, so we decided it would be best to see what was up.”
Mr. Robertson struggled a bit, and Tom’s face hardened as he left the room. Meanwhile, the detective made ready to lead Mrs. Robertson away. “Really, to kill a wedding dress shop owner. Run her off the road for no good reason.”
“There was a reason!” Mrs. Robertson said shrilly.
“I said no good reason,” said Detective Cutter.
It was in moments like that that I really liked the man.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Before he started to lead Mrs. Robertson out to his car, Cutter paused to glare at Charlie and me, then said gruffly, “Are you two okay?”
He was clearly trying to hold himself in check. I knew he didn’t like the fact that I was there, and to be fair, I agreed with him: I wasn’t that thrilled to be there myself. We told him we were fine. When Charlie thanked him for his concern, his eyes only narrowed.
Mysterious Mintwood Murmurs Page 16