Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  Silence, Melinda, and Gloria were easy to spot as they were facing the camera. Kendra Grossman’s long bleached hair made her easy to ID too. The man on her left was Gavin Lindsey. She’d told me she was holding his right hand in her left. I couldn’t see anyone standing in front of them. That also matched her statement that whoever stabbed Silence had to be behind them.

  Marcel Allen and Chaz Lindsey were gone by this time. Cheryl Carpenter was taking the pictures, and Darryl Allen had been standing on her right. That left only Didi Stieber and Lars Sundstrom. I zoomed in on one of the pictures and spotted two heads with identical hair color. They were standing directly behind Lindsey and Kendra. Lars or Didi was likely my stabber. But which of them did it? And why?

  And that’s when I remembered, I never called Deputy Atkins about picking up the knife. Talk about being out of practice.

  “You like having a direct line to me, don’t you?” he teased when he heard my voice.

  “They always send me to you anyway. This just eliminates a step.”

  He chuckled, a pleasing sound. “What do you need me to do?”

  I explained the events at the pub and how Silence was now at the hospital. “Deputy Reed is on personal leave right now, so I’m pretty much on my own.”

  “Still working through that stuff about his ex-girlfriend?”

  “Yep. Sure hope he gets himself together soon. Anyway, I can’t leave here and need someone to go to the hospital, retrieve the knife, and check it for prints. The hospital folks should know you’re coming.”

  “Will do. I can head over there now, but by the time I get the knife and get it back to the station, I won’t likely be able to get it processed until tomorrow.”

  “Any chance it can be early tomorrow? I’ve got four people in my cells and need to charge them with something more than disturbing the peace soon.”

  “I’ll put a rush on it. It’ll go faster if I have prints to compare to.”

  “I’ll get sets from all four and send them right over.”

  “Perfect. I’m going to pass this off to someone more skilled than me. Lifting prints isn’t exactly my forte, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

  “I appreciate that. I’ll send you what I’ve got on these four. In the meantime, I’ll keep pushing them for more answers. Maybe one of them wants out worse than they want to keep quiet.”

  Out in the main room, I took the guest chair from in front of Reed’s desk, turned it to face the jail cells, and had a seat. Meeka sat at my side.

  “Is it tough cop time?” Lindsey sneered at me.

  I shrugged. “Interpret it however you want. Thought I’d give you all a chance to speed this up. A deputy from the county station is heading over to the hospital to retrieve your knife, Mr. Lindsey. We’re going to dust it for prints.”

  “How long will that take?” Kendra asked.

  “He’ll get the knife tonight, but they won’t be able to process it until tomorrow. That’s where I figured you all could help.

  “You mean we have to stay in here all night?” Kendra asked. “I told you it wasn’t me.”

  “You did say that.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at my desk. “I have pictures that Ms. Carpenter took of the fight in the pub. Those pictures show that you four were the closest to Silence during the fight. Unfortunately, they don’t show me who actually did the stabbing.”

  “You think one of us did it?” Sundstrom asked.

  Didi had gone quiet again. Like she had been when I first saw her at the campground, she was holding onto one of Lars’ arms, clutching it in front of her like a shield.

  “Silence was stabbed in the abdomen. You four were closest, so yes, I believe one of you is the guilty party.”

  Lindsey and Kendra looked at each other and then simultaneously turned to Lars and Didi, indicating they thought it was one of them. I remembered the look on Lindsey’s face when the crowd sat and Silence became visible with his knife in her abdomen. The shock was instant. His hand had gone to his side, confirming that it was indeed his knife. He incited a riot, but I didn’t think he stabbed Silence.

  My instincts were telling me it wasn’t Kendra either. According to the pictures, she would’ve had to lean in front of Lindsey to reach Silence with the knife. I couldn’t imagine Lindsey risking taking the fall for her if she’d done it. He’d turn her in. No, either Lars or Didi was my stabber.

  “All four of you were right there, front and center. One of you must’ve seen something.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Lindsey insisted. “See, if it was, I would’ve taken my knife back. It’s custom made. Cost me five hundred bucks. No way I would’ve left it behind.”

  Twisted as that was, I believed him.

  “I already gave you my statement,” Kendra said. “I’m sticking to exactly what I said before.”

  I turned to Lars and Didi. They remained mute.

  “All right.” I stood and returned to my office. I had a little less than two hours before Schmitty and Elsa called. While I waited, I cleaned my office. Something I hadn’t done in months. It was satisfying, mindless work that kept me busy until the phone rang at precisely four thirty. I made a show of wandering out to the main room to answer on Reed’s extension.

  “It’s Elsa. Do you want us to come back?” She sounded hopeful that I did.

  “I’m not sure. Hang on.” I turned to the cells. “My guards are ready to return for the night. Unless one of you has something to tell me.” No one said a thing. “Come on back, Elsa. Soon as you’re ready.”

  When they walked into the station twenty minutes later, I handed the keys to Elsa.

  “You know the drill. Call me if there’s an emergency. I should be at Pine Time all night.” I felt like a parent going over instructions with the babysitter. “Feel free to order food from The Inn. Grapes, Grains, and Grub is closed today.”

  I said good night to my suspects and headed home to find out the latest on Silence.

  Chapter 20

  I entered my house to find Tavie, Melinda, and Gloria in the kitchen. They were a much more subdued group than Wednesday night but seemed in slightly better spirits than last night.

  “What’s going on in here?” I asked.

  “Tripp is up in the attic,” Gloria said. “He really wants to get that space done for you.”

  I laughed. “For us, you mean.”

  Melinda shook her head. “Yeah, but mostly for you. He’s worried about you.”

  Tripp was talking to our guests about me? Not sure I liked that.

  Gloria agreed with her. “He said that when you come home from a long day, he wants you to have your own place to go to. He said you used to live in the boathouse.”

  “That place looks so cool with that big deck and all,” Melinda said. “Why don’t you two live there?”

  “It’s not the whole building, only the top floor,” I explained. “The bottom is the boat garage. The upper area was perfect for me and Meeka, but it’s way too small for three of us. Tripp and I would be in each other’s way all the time.”

  They’d done it again. These three had a way of making us talk about personal things. I didn’t like Tripp talking about me, and I didn’t like that I was talking about him.

  Tavie must have sensed my frustration. She left her post, the dishwashing station, and took me out into the great room.

  “They get a little nosey,” she said. “You left early this morning. You must be exhausted after such a late night last night.”

  “I am starting to run down. I was able to eliminate two more people, though. We should have fingerprints off that knife tomorrow.”

  She clasped her hands. “Does that mean you’ll know who did it?”

  “I hope so. Unless I’m way off base, I’m down to two suspects. I don’t want to promise anything, though.”

  Her head bobbed up and down in agreement. “I understand. I won’t say anything to the girls.”

  “You went to the hospital today. Do you have any news on Si
lence?”

  “No change from yesterday, which I guess is okay in this case. They’re continuing the antibiotics and watching for sepsis.” Her voice broke, and she waved me off when I attempted to comfort her. “I’m not a patient person. After working so hard to get my life going in a good direction, I have little tolerance for anything that deviates from that. I just want to know she’s going to be okay.”

  “Maybe they can move her,” I suggested. “They’re a good hospital, so it’s not that, but you’d probably be more comfortable at home.” I groaned and slouched back on the couch. My words weren’t coming out right. “Not that I’m trying to kick you out. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

  Tavie patted my hand. “I understand what you’re saying, and you’re right. Once they know she’s on the mend, and I firmly believe she will pull through, I’ll ask that she be transferred.” She paused before saying, “Why don’t you go see Tripp. You spent all day on our issue. Go see your man.”

  I went to change clothes first, pulling on leggings and a big sweatshirt, then climbed the stairs to the attic. At the top, I stopped and looked around my soon-to-be attic home with surprise.

  “It’s clean.”

  Startled, Tripp spun to face me with a large sponge in his hand. “Hey. Did you just get home?”

  “Couple minutes ago. The dust is gone.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I worked on today.” Two folding yard chairs sat in the middle of the space. He pointed to one, indicating I should sit, and took the other. “I re-vacuumed every square inch of this place, walls and ceiling included. Now, I’m wiping down the walls with a damp sponge to get any last bits off.”

  “Then you’ll start painting?”

  “We’ll be putting the texture coat on tomorrow. That will need to dry before we can paint but shouldn’t take long.”

  “So we can actually move in soon?”

  He went through the to-do list. “The primer and paint shouldn’t take more than two days. Another two or three days for the flooring then kitchen and bathroom fixtures. I’m guessing ten days. Two weeks at most.”

  This made me ridiculously happy. A place to be away from the guests. I loved our guests, I loved owning a B&B, but on those days when I’d dealt with tourists for eight or ten straight hours, it didn’t matter how much I loved them. I just wanted my own space to slip away to.

  With Tripp. My own space with Tripp.

  “Too bad we’re not going to have a deck,” I mused. Regardless of how nice this would be, there were things I’d miss about my boathouse apartment.

  He frowned and returned to the wall he’d been working on. “How did it go today? Any confessions?”

  “No, but I’ve narrowed the suspects down to two. Atkins got the knife from the hospital, and I should have prints in the morning.” I watched him wash away the last of the spackle dust. The next time I came up here, paint, or at least primer, would be covering all evidence that spackling had even happened. We’d know it was there, of course, but when entering a home that someone else had built, you had no idea what lay beneath the completed surface.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked. “Narrowing down two criminals to one?”

  “No. I was actually thinking about how important all this prep work is that you’ve done. If you don’t lay a good foundation, the final results won’t look like what you’d envisioned.” I paused then quickly amended, “You as in the universal you. Not you you.”

  “I understood what you meant. No matter how long I took on this part, it wouldn’t be perfect. There would still be imperfections. That’s what the texture coat is for. It will cover up any less than perfect spots.”

  As he crouched down to rinse out his sponge in the big bucket of water, I said, “But once you start putting the pretty stuff on, you don’t want to have to go back and try to fix things. It’s important to do all that hard work up front.”

  He looked at me with eyes narrowed, hands frozen in a squeeze around the sponge. “You’re not talking about the walls anymore, are you?”

  I blinked. “I’m not?”

  He shook his head, then dropped the sponge into the bucket. He crossed the room and positioned his chair to sit in front of me. “The walls are a metaphor for something else. What are you thinking about?”

  I stared into his light-hazel eyes, and my heart seized. But with fear, not love. Not that I didn’t love him. I did very much. That’s partly what scared me. “I—”

  “Tripp? Jayne?” A small voice called from the bottom of the stairs. A second later, Gloria appeared. Her eyes went wide when she saw us. “Sorry, I’m interrupting something.”

  “No, nothing,” Tripp answered too quickly.

  “Okay.” She looked like she didn’t believe him. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Great.” I stood. “I’m starving.”

  Tripp took one of my hands. “Jayne—”

  “Dinner’s ready.” I pointed down the stairs. “We can talk about metaphorical walls later.”

  This was the exact wrong time to talk about us. Mostly because nothing was coming out the way I meant it today. I was so tired. Honestly, I could have crawled into bed right then and slept until morning.

  The dining room table was set for the five of us. River was with Morgan and Briar again. A platter of pork chops sat at the center flanked by a casserole dish of scalloped potatoes and a bowl of homemade applesauce on one side, a big bowl with a mixed lettuce salad on the other.

  “This looks great,” I said, taking my assigned seat closest to the hallway.

  “It does,” Tripp agreed, taking his seat across from me at the opposite end. “I’d better stay on my toes. I might be out of a job soon.”

  “Your job is safe,” Tavie assured him. “As soon as Silence is strong enough to move, we’ll leave you two to get back to normal life.”

  “Unfortunately,” I began as I filled my salad bowl, “events like this are normal around here.”

  The pork chops and potatoes were very good, but dinner was nowhere near as laid-back and fun as it had been two nights ago. That was partly because there was this unshakable tension between Tripp and me that everyone felt. Mostly, though, it was because everyone was worried about Silence. We chatted about nothing in particular while we ate. As soon as we were done, Tripp went right back up to the attic, leaving me with our guests.

  “You may run things differently in your B&B,” Tavie said, “but I’m pretty sure it’s not your job to entertain us. Owners of a hotel certainly wouldn’t.” She flicked her fingers at me in a shoeing motion. “Go do your own thing.”

  “I don’t mind sitting with you.”

  “You’re exhausted, Jayne. Your eyes look ready to slam shut. It’s still early. I think the girls and I will go for a short walk.”

  “It’s chilly outside,” I told her. “Make sure you bundle up. I’d suggest you walk along the lake, but there are large stones that make it tricky at night, and there’s an almost full moon which means the tide is in.”

  “I was thinking we’d just go up the driveway. I love walking at night with all the different sounds. It even smells different. Have you noticed that?”

  There was an instant tugging at my heart. How long had it been since I’d sat outside at night and listened to my whispering trees? How long had it been since Tripp and I had done that together?

  I cleared the emotion from my throat. “I have noticed that. The campground should be empty right now. It’s closed, but you can wander along the road that runs past all the sites. It loops around and will bring you back to the drive and home again.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Tavie said. “We’ll see you in the morning, Sheriff.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the kitchen was spotless, and the three women had gone off on their walk. Other than the sound of Meeka’s claws clicking on the hardwood floor as she trotted over to the back door, the house was silent.

  “You want to go out?” I asked her.

  She wagg
ed her tail in response.

  I shoved my feet into my extra-warm, heavy-soled slippers, grabbed my jacket and a blanket, and went outside with her. I took in a deep breath and the chilly lake-scented air replaced the warm cozy feeling I’d had after eating dinner. Invigorated, I stared across the yard at the boathouse sundeck and thought for a minute about sitting up there. After moving my things out of the apartment, we pushed all the furniture to the far side of the deck and covered it for the winter. If I went up there now, I’d have to stand at the railing. We’d also pulled the dock in for the winter, so sitting there wasn’t an option for me either. I could just sit here on the covered back patio; we hadn’t done anything with that furniture yet. I wanted a little more solitude than that, though, so standing at the boathouse railing sounded like a better option.

  As I climbed the stairs to the sundeck, a puff of wind blew across the lake and made the trees sway. It almost felt like a greeting. Where have you been? We’ve missed you.

  I pulled the blanket tighter around me and leaned against the railing. Even though the bit of snow we’d gotten a few days ago had melted, the temperature consistently dropped below freezing at night now. Meeka had discovered that the shallow edges of the lake had started to freeze. Thinking herself a brave explorer, she tried to step on the ice one day last week. It held her for approximately a second before she broke through. It took hours before she stopped shivering but at least she learned her lesson and stayed away from the lake now.

  “What’s going on with me?” I asked the nearly full moon. “I was so excited to move into the house with Tripp. I really do love him, but lately all I want is space to myself.”

  I stood there as though expecting the trees, the lake, or the moon to actually answer me. The only thing I heard was Meeka barking. She was standing by the back doors of the house, barking for someone to let her in. I whistled for her and burst out laughing when she leapt into the air with a surprised ruff. She raced across the yard to the boathouse and stood staring up at the deck but didn’t climb the stairs. Funny that she didn’t think to come look for me up here. That used to be automatic at the end of the night. It seemed she considered the house to be home now.