Grams was right, of course. Twiggy is more than happy to take the reins for the day and that leaves me free to delve into my father’s history and find the real killer.
By the way, I’ve pre-decided he’s not guilty. But there’s a method to my madness. People always say that if you only have a hammer you’ll always find nails. I’m paraphrasing. So, it stands to reason that if I assume innocence I’ll find the proof. I know, pure genius. Right?
The bookcase barely slides closed before Grams swoops in with questions. “Did you say Cal was changing his will? Why on earth would he do that? Do you think he knew about Kitty and Finnegan?”
I wave my hand wildly to get her attention. “I only know what Silas told me. He met with Cal’s attorney to settle some business between your estate and Cal’s and the attorney said she met with Cal on Monday to discuss the changes. Of course, Cal never returned to sign the new documents.”
“What were the changes, exactly?”
“Silas said Cal was giving pretty much everything to Jacob and then me as something called a contingent.”
“To Jacob? You must’ve misheard, dear. Cal disowned Jacob after the murder conviction. He never would’ve put him in the will . . . unless . . . ”
“Unless what? Unless what, Grams?”
“You better dig into those files, honey. And you better search Cal’s office tonight to see if he left any clues that would tell us what changed his mind about Jacob.”
My eyes widen. “Search Cal’s office? I’m sure it was just an end-of-life, no-regrets kind of thing. You know, like you putting me in your will in spite of my dad’s edict.”
“Sweetie, I knew I was dying. I had time to put my affairs in order. Cal was murdered. There has to be another reason he wanted to leave things to Jacob.”
“Good point,” I concede. “But I’m no cat burglar, or any kind of burglar. There’s no way I can break into Cal’s office tonight.”
Grams swooshes past me and hovers above the vanity. “Oh, you don’t have to break in, Mitzy dear. I have a key in the secret compartment of my jewelry box.”
Secret doors. Secret compartments. My Grams could be mistaken for a shady character.
“I beg—”
I point to my lips and shake my head.
“Fine. Let’s see if you can find the compartment without my help.”
I sit down at the marble-top vanity and pick up the tiger-maple jewelry box. I carefully inspect all sides and the bottom. I open the lid and then slide the latch to the left. A thin drawer pops out the right side.
Grams gasps. “How did you know?”
I force myself to think of anything besides how I discovered the trick. I don’t want her to have the satisfaction of hearing my thoughts.
A ring in the top compartment catches my attention. I slip it out from between the smooth rolls of purple velvet for a closer look.
Grams silently moves closer.
I hold the ring toward her. “I like this one. It has a cool dome-y shape.”
Her reply is barely a whisper. “It’s a cabochon.”
I lean in and ask, “I heard something about a Shaun.”
She clears her throat. “Cabochon. That’s what the shape of the stone is called. It’s just an old mood ring I picked up at a pawn shop in the seventies.”
“What’s a mood ring?” I ask as I run my finger along the twisted gold rope surrounding the stone.
“Why don’t you put it on?”
Something in her voice makes my pulse race. I slip the band on the ring finger of my left hand and twist it back and forth.
She continues her explanation. “The stone changes color depending on your mood. I can’t remember them all now, but purple meant that you were feeling romantic, and I think brown or grey meant your were nervous. Some rings had pink, but—”
I hold up the hand bearing the ring and look at my grandmother.
She stops in midsentence. “What is it, dear?”
“What does black thunderstorm tornado mean?” I swallow hard.
She zooms in. “What?” She tries to touch the ring but her ghostly fingers pass right through my hand. “Darn it! What do you see?”
I pull my hand back toward me and stare into the ring.
The room disappears. Everything is black. Energy is swirling around me like flashes of lightning. I call out to Grams, but no one answers.
I feel a powerful need for alcohol. I feel intense love for my son. I feel a desire for power—and knowledge. I feel sorrow over my divorce. I miss Max.
My head is spinning. These aren’t my feelings. “Grams! Help me!”
I collapse.
When I open my eyes Grams is hovering above my body, calling my name. I can’t hear her voice, but I can see the panic in her ghostly face.
“Take off the ring,” she cries.
I hear that! I whip the possessed ring off my finger and drop it on the floor. I push myself to a seated position and take several shaky breaths. “What the heck happened?”
“Did you have a vision?”
I shake my head. “That’s a pretty random question, Grams.” I exhale and tell her about the blackness and the feelings.
“Maybe it’s hereditary,” she mumbles.
“What’s hereditary?”
“I used to get visions and premonitions—when I was alive. But it seems like you might be clairsentient.”
“Who’s Claire?” I hold a hand against my left temple. “I’m so dizzy.”
“It’s not a who, it’s a what. Clairsentient means that you can feel other people’s emotions, and you get messages through them. Sometimes you can even feel things beyond the veil.”
I tilt my head and look at my grandmother like she’s lost her mind. “So, you’re saying I can feel dead people?”
She nods. “Maybe.”
Apparently, my clever Sixth Sense reference is lost on her. “What’s happening to me?”
“I honestly don’t know, dear. We can talk to Silas about it tomorrow. For now, I think it’s best to get a drink of water and distract yourself with the case.”
I open my mouth to protest, but then an odd thought tumbles in. “Grams, why would I want to talk to Silas about this?”
She turns away and, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s acting a little cagey. “Oh, you know, he reads all those books in the loft. He has a wealth of arcane knowledge.”
I’m too woozy to battle Ghost-ma. I walk to the bathroom and slurp some water from the faucet.
“Honestly, Mitzy.” Grams shakes her head.
“I’d never make it all the way down those swirly stairs to get a cup.” I wipe the dripping water with the back of my hand. “Now, where were we before I had my episode.” I attempt to chuckle, but it makes my head throb.
“You were getting the key to Cal’s office.” Grams helpfully points toward the jewelry box.
I look suspiciously at the Pandora’s box, but I’m anxious to shift my focus to something I understand. “Which key is it, and why do you have a key to Cal’s office?”
“It’s the brass key that says ‘Do Not Duplicate.’” She snickers. “It doesn’t say anything about ‘Do Not Keep.’”
“And the why?”
“Oh, he gave me a key when we were married. I must’ve forgotten to return it after the divorce.” Her innocent ghost eyes widen.
“Mmhmm. Thing is, Grams, I can’t imagine that the key still works thirty years later.” I turn the key over in my hand. “He may have even moved his offices.”
“Never.” She shakes her head. “Cal Duncan’s family has owned the Midwest Union Railway since his great-great-great-grandfather drove the first spike through the rail where the tracks begin down by the docks. The president and chief engineer’s office has always been in the top floor of the Pin Cherry Harbor station. And Cal never changes something unless he has a real good reason. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it was his favorite motto.”
“Then he must’ve had a real good rea
son to change his will,” I mumble.
“Exactly,” Grams says, emphatically. “So, you’ll search his office tonight?”
I rub the letters etched into the key and surmise that breaking and entering should carry a lighter sentence than murder. Plus, technically it’s not “breaking” if I have a key, right?
Grams confirms my thoughts with a nod.
“All right. Let’s put that on the back burner for now and dive into Dad’s case.”
“10-4,” says Grams.
I chuckle and hunker down next to the stack of witness statements. There’s still nothing useful here. I go back to the list of evidence. “It says Dad had a 9mm in his possession at the time of the arrest and Darrin had a .45. I’m no expert, Grams, but I can’t imagine that ballistics could confuse those two rounds. They pulled a 9mm slug out of the victim.”
“Jacob didn’t do it. A mother knows.”
I’m not sure how to respond, so I continue with my summary. “And a 9mm slug from the damaged security camera in that room.” I lie back on the floor and look through my hovering grandmother. “All the witness statements claim to have heard two shots. Two 9mm slugs. Dad had a 9mm. I’m not seeing the magic bullet, Grams.”
“Read the police report out loud. I always used to read my screenplays aloud when something wasn’t working.”
I sit up and stare, dumbfounded, at the ghost. “You wrote screenplays?”
“Oh, dozens. I never got to make a film, though. Such a shame. All that talent and the world will never have the pleasure.” She sighed.
“I went to film school, you know.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t. Would I have seen any of your films?”
I shrug. “I dropped out and only worked on a few short films and commercials before selling my soul to the exciting world of coffee.”
“All our experiences make us who we are, dear. The choices you made brought you to me.” Grams smiles warmly.
I always looked at my life as a series of regrets, but if things had turned out differently . . . I may not have been so eager to escape my life in Arizona and venture off to great lakes and mysterious harbors. I basically failed “up.” That’s called the Peter Principal.
A stifled chuckle escapes from my ghostly matriarch.
I playfully shoo her away. “Enough personal reflection. We need something to investigate.” I pace in front of the open file boxes and wait for lightning to strike.
“You said both of the recovered bullets were 9mm, right?”
I nod and continue to wear a path in the plush Persian rug. “The rifling!”
“I thought you said it was a 9mm not a rifle, dear.”
“Think about every cop show you’ve ever watched, Grams. They always prove that a bullet was fired from a specific gun by doing a rifling test.” I crouch down and sift through the reports in box number three. “That makes no sense . . . ”
Grams swoops down. “What? What is it? You’re not giving me anything!”
I drop the report and stare through Grams. “The ballistics report says that the bullet recovered from the camera matched the lands and grooves on Dad’s gun.”
“Well, he always said he was the one who shot out the security camera.”
“Right. The problem is the bullet they recovered from the victim didn’t match.”
“Was there a third gun? You said Darrin had a .45.”
“No, it’s not that. The other slug was smooth. There was no rifling at all.”
“Is that possible?”
“I’m not an actual detective, Grams.” I stand and resume my path. “Who do we know that knows stuff about guns?”
“Sheriff Erick?” She snickers.
I like that she’s calling him Erick too. “Who do we know that won’t arrest us for having boxes of evidence ‘borrowed’ from the records tech at the sheriff’s station?”
“Of course, dear.” Grams swirls around and I wait. I barely know anyone in Pin Cherry. I certainly don’t have a list of everyone’s hobbies.
Grams seems to be thinking out loud. “Cal had some hunting gear, but that 9mm that Jacob stole was his only handgun.”
“What about Odell? He kinda looks prior military.”
“Yes! Good eye, dear! Odell did a short stint in the Army before we married. He was an Army chef. That’s how we got the idea to open the—”
“Grams, focus.” I snap my fingers and interrupt her reverie.
“Odell is our best bet. Maybe you can grab some lunch and ask him a few questions.”
“Lunch? Wow, I totally lost track of time.” As if to scold me, my stomach growls audibly.
“Run along, Mitzy. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Chapter 20
The diner is packed with Pinners and I’m forced to take a seat at the counter. The round, red-vinyl-covered stool scrapes a little as I spin to face the kitchen.
Odell looks up, gives me a knowing nod punctuated by promising a sizzle.
Tally slides a soda, or rather a pop—the local term—in front of me and keeps walking.
The woman has stamina. My best guess is that she’s in her sixties and she never slows down. I take a sip of my soda and snippets of conversations waft into my consciousness.
“Kitty always has the best party of the festival.”
“Such a shame about her husband.”
“I heard some vagrant murdered him in an alley.”
“You don’t say!”
The Duncan-blooded part of me wants to make a scene and tell them all to shove their gossip where the sun don’t shine, but the curious part of me hopes to overhear something useful.
Tally sets my plate down and winks.
I look up and catch Odell’s eye. “I need to talk to you,” I shout.
“I’ll take my break when you finish. So, in about two minutes?” He chuckles and throws down another batch of burgers.
He’s not wrong. I devour the juicy burger and french-fried pieces of perfection in roughly two minutes.
“Tally, kitchen’s on a break,” he calls above the din of the busy restaurant.
I bus my dishes and follow Odell out the back door. This has to be the cleanest alley I’ve ever seen.
“What’s on your mind, Mitzy?” He pulls out a beat up cigarette and puts it in his mouth.
I wait for him to light it.
He does not.
“What’s going on there?” I point to the unlit smoke.
“Oh, I quit fifteen years ago.”
I raise an eyebrow and gesture for him to continue.
“I carry one around in my pocket and put it in my mouth when I take my breaks. Reminds me what it took to give it up—how far I’ve come—that sorta thing.”
“Doesn’t it make it harder?”
“You’d think, but I’ve always liked to prove to myself that I’m stronger than average.”
“That why you joined the Army?”
He grins. “Who told you that?”
I clearly can’t tell him the truth. “Just a lucky guess.” I point to the haircut.
He rubs a hand over his grey buzz cut and nods. “What can I do ya for?”
I chuckle. “How folksy.”
He nods. “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but . . . ” He pokes his thumb back toward the busy diner.
“I’ll get to the point. I have a gun-related question and someone said you’d be the person to ask.”
“Boy, seems like your lucky day,” he teases.
“I’m looking into my dad’s old case—no one knows except Twiggy—and I found something odd.”
“Shoot.” He chuckles.
“They recovered two bullets from the crime scene. Both 9mm. The one they pulled from the destroyed camera had rifling that matched my dad’s gun.”
He nods. Seems like everyone knows the details of this small-town murder.
“The wackadoo thing is that the one from the victim’s wound was smooth.”
“Perfectly smooth?” Ode
ll tilts his head.
“That’s how the report makes it sound. No rifling, but it was—well, it was cause of death for the store manager, so it had to be fired.”
“Boy, that never came out in the trial.”
“Really? Do you think the cops suppressed it?”
“I doubt it was intentional. Two 9mm bullets. One perp with a 9mm gun. I s’pose they figured if one matched that was close enough. They were under a lot of pressure to convict quick.” Odell shook his head. “Small towns never like scandals.”
“Do you know what would’ve caused it?”
Odell slips the raggedy cigarette back in his shirt pocket and shakes his head. “I’ve got some Army buddies who know a little too much about guns. I’ll ask around.”
“But don’t say anything about my dad’s case,” I caution.
He points to his grey hair and says, “I wasn’t born yesterday, kid.”
“Thanks, Odell. Grams said—” I freeze and my eyes dart around like pinballs.
He leans back and narrows his gaze.
I have no idea how to cover that slip. I figure a good old-fashioned ramble and run is my only option. “I better get back to the bookshop. It’s so busy.” I continue to stammer nonsense as I yank open the back door and escape through the diner.
I practically sprint, emphasis on practically, back to Bell, Book & Candle. Grams is waiting right inside the main entrance and I start babbling as soon as I see her, utterly oblivious to the stares and whispers.
“I’m sorry, Miss Moon, you’ll have to repeat that. I didn’t quite hear you.” Twiggy walks toward me and levels a concerned stare.
I slap a hand over my mouth and hop over the “No Admittance” chain before she, or I, can say another word.
Grams surges through the bookcase and is swirling anxiously in the bedroom by the time I make my way through the secret door—human-style.
“Sorry about that, dear. I didn’t think you’d start talking the minute you saw me.”
“My fault. I was all flustered because I slipped up with Odell. I couldn’t stop myself from blurting as soon as I walked in the bookstore.” I smack myself in the forehead. “Stupid.”
She ignores my self-deprecation. “What do you mean ‘slipped up?’ What did you say to Odell?”
Fries and Alibis Page 10