by Louise Lynn
That photo had taken hours to get.
Weeks of waiting for word from the Rangers that cougars were in the area, and tracking where they had been spotted. Then finding a spot on top of one of the National Forest cabins, with the Rangers approval, of course, and sitting and waiting.
It paid off in the end, because the full-size print sold for a good fifteen hundred dollars. And, even better, her dad loved it.
Thinking of him now sent a pain to her chest. If only he wasn’t away on assignment, she’d have someone to discuss this whole case with without her mother’s crazy ideas and Esther’s disapproving stares.
“This picture is incredible,” Sheriff Cross said as his eyes wandered the print.
“Thanks,” Hazel said hesitantly. Every time he gave her some sort of compliment, an insult came next. Or, maybe, Celia and Esther were right, and she just took them that way.
It was hard not to after the fall out with her ex-husband. It’d been a lot nastier than she ever thought it would be, and learning to trust again had been even more difficult.
“If you can shoot pictures like this, why aren’t you working for National Geographic like your father?”
Hazel frowned. “I don’t remember telling you anything about my father besides him being a stickler for historical accuracy.”
Sheriff Cross turned, smirking. “I said I was a good detective. You think I wouldn’t do my homework on you? Your father is Edgar Hart. He’s pretty famous, in his own right.”
That was true. Well, in photography circles anyway. The main public didn’t really pay attention to the names of photographers anymore. Not like they did in Ansel Adams day.
“I didn’t want to ride on my father’s coattails. And, when I went to school, I thought photojournalism was the way to go. Do you want to see these photos or not?” She shoved her hands into her pockets.
Sheriff Cross nodded and walked back into the office.
Hazel settled at her desk and pulled up all the relevant photos with the dark figure, including the ones she had taken weeks before.
“How many are there?” Sheriff Cross asked.
“Including the engagement photos, about twenty-five total. I put them in chronological order. These were taken about three and a half weeks ago.”
Sheriff Cross took the mouse and enlarged the oldest photos. The figure was obscured mostly by trees, and there was no snow on the ground then, so there was also a blanket of pine needles to contend with. “Three and half weeks ago and you didn’t tell anyone about them?”
Hazel felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “I told my sister. I didn’t think it was anything important. Sometimes, hikers get a little overenthusiastic and cross into private property.”
Sheriff Cross raised his brows. “Is there a hiking trail anywhere nearby?”
Hazel pursed her lips. “Not really, but that doesn’t keep people from wandering around. Everyone wants to get a unique shot of the lake, and that comes at the property owner’s expense, usually.”
“Plus, nobody around here seems to put up fences.”
“Well, since you’re the new sheriff, you should probably know that’s actually a city ordinance. Fences and gates are only allowed if you have dogs that need to be kept in the yard. Otherwise, it ruins the forest landscape.”
He chuckled. “I was aware. Just didn’t know if you were.”
Hazel rolled her eyes and moved on to the next set of photos. These were the ones taken the morning Dirk had been shot. The pictures of the figure weren’t nearly as clear in most of them, as whoever it was had been shrouded in deep shadows.
He leaned in toward the computer and the stool he sat on squeaked. “And this was the day Dirk was killed?”
“Yeah, about eight a.m. I was taking photos of a bear at the lake’s edge.”
“Did your cat alert you to this too?”
Hazel nodded. “Anthony Ray has an uncanny ability to tell when something is amiss outside. He always goes to the door and scratches. This time, it was the bear.”
That day, he hadn’t wanted to leave the deck. Hazel assumed it had to do with the bear. He was nosy and bossy, but he wasn’t dumb. And he wasn’t about to get in a fight with a black bear.
Even if he riled up the local skunks and raccoons from time to time.
“You sure it’s the bear that got the cat’s attention?” Sheriff Cross asked.
A shiver shot up Hazel’s spine. “Why don’t you ask him. I only know he went to the door and scratched, and I saw the bear. So, I went outside and snapped some pictures, and this is what I took. But something did get the bear to move away. I don’t think it was us. The figure was in the woods while the bear was there.”
“That doesn’t sound safe.”
Hazel shrugged. “The city does a pretty good job of keeping the bears around here as wild as possible, so if one sees you they’ll usually run away and not attack. But, during hibernation season, it’s probably not a great idea to get close to one.”
Sheriff Cross clicked forward to the pictures taken at the beach for Dirk and Simone’s engagement. Looking at their smiling faces on her computer screen made the bile rise in Hazel’s throat. Just two days before, they were both alive and now … now they were dead.
Murdered.
With a sigh, Sheriff Cross clicked back to the beginning and zoomed in as close as he could get on each one.
Hazel watched, squinting at the screen.
“Wait. There. Look,” she said, and pointed.
In one of the earliest photos, the figure had stepped out of the woods enough that the light shone on their face.
The black hood was still covering the head, but the hand was that of an older person—slightly wrinkled—and the face matched. Wrinkled and tanned orange.
“I think I know who that is,” Hazel said, heart thumping in her chest.
Sheriff Cross nodded. “Giorgio Vincente. This changes things.” He pulled out a flash drive.
He handed it to Hazel, and she copied the photos to it without a word.
As he stood to leave, she stayed frozen in place. “You still think I had something to do with this?”
Sheriff Cross let out something between a huff and a snort. “I really need to see if he’s still in town, and if so, have a word with him. But if you promise not to sneak around in the Old West studio, I don’t mind you staying for a bit. Is that a good enough answer?” His gaze bored into her head.
Hazel held up under it as best she could. “Not quite, but I guess it’s the best I’m gonna get.”
He turned and left, carefully ducking under the crime scene tape that surrounded her front entrance.
Hazel locked the door after him and stood in the foyer for a moment.
She should have taken Anthony Ray with her. But, she knew Sheriff Cross would never have allowed a cat to contaminate the crime scene. Still, his presence helped her think.
Instead, she paced back and forth. At every turn, she glanced at the Old West studio, the bloodstain still visible on the floor, and thought about everything she’d learned.
Simone may have had something to gain from killing Sara Barkley, but what did she have to gain from killing Dirk? And the fact that she’d washed up dead, meant she probably didn’t do it. Even though she was undoubtedly the one who pulled the trigger on her fiancé, she didn’t know it was a real gun.
Someone else put that gun there, and they were the killer.
What was Giorgio Vicente doing hanging around her property? And skulking around the back of Dirk and Simone’s engagement picture?
Well, Sheriff Cross was going to talk to him about that, so Hazel would have to wait her turn.
That narrowed down the suspects she could question considerably since Michael and Tommy were the only ones in the room at the time. Michael hardly even knew the Barkleys. What good would come from him killing Dirk?
She didn’t know, but he had lied about the props.
Which meant she needed to talk to him again.
> But—then there was Tommy Kholi.
He’d been on the boat when Sara Barkley drowned. He’d kept glaring at Simone yesterday when she fled. And he had an argument with Giorgio Vincente the day Sara drowned as well. Plus, he’d been arguing with Dirk that morning about money, and some sort of investment.
Did he have something to do with Hilltop Realty?
Well, there was really only one way to find out.
Still, before she did anything she marched back into her office, sat at her computer and typed out an email. She attached all the dark figure pictures to it and addressed it to her dad. Sure, he was busy in Bali at the moment, but he usually checked his email at least once a day. And he always got back to her ASAP.
She typed:
Take a look at these photos and tell me what you see. It’s important. Lives depend on it.
Love,
Hazel
With a deep breath, she hit send and swept out of her studio and down the street to CATfeinated.
Hopefully, Tommy stuck to his routine.
Celia had been wrong about Monday being crowded, but she probably hadn’t considered the forecast either. Snow fell steadily, and only a few patrons sat inside the café. Ophelia butted her head against Hazel’s leg, and she bent and gave the Persian a nuzzle before her eyes swept across the shop.
Celia leaned against the front counter, her eyes lined with bags and her hair pulled into a messy bun. She hadn’t even bothered with makeup that morning, which was unlike her.
Hazel grinned. “Too much champagne last night? Or did you ask Paul to stay for a nightcap?”
Celia rubbed her temples and shook her head. “It was so good I had three glasses, and I should’ve stopped at two. And you were flirting with the sheriff and didn’t bother watching my back.”
Hazel shook her head. “Not flirting. Did you hear the news yet?” She worried her bottom lip and kept her voice as low as possible.
Celia pinched her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. “The news that I have a ska band inside my head right now? Yes. Any other news? No.”
Maybe her mom was actually keeping a lid on the whole thing. Well, it was Hazel’s turn to blow it. The sheriff hadn’t said anything about keeping quiet. So … “Simone Wilkins is dead. They found her in the water at my property this morning,”
Celia sat up straight and brushed a renegade curl behind her ear. “What?” She kept her voice as quiet as Hazel’s. “You need a latte? Because I think I need a latte.”
Hazel gave her a relieved smile and nodded.
After Celia had both their drinks made, they huddled out onto the enclosed porch to sip them undisturbed. Casey raised an eyebrow, but said she’d watch the shop while her boss was chatting.
“The sheriff doesn’t think you did this, does he?” Celia asked and took a long sip of her drink.
Hazel blew on hers before tasting it. “I don’t think so. Actually, he let me go to my studio today as long as I didn’t mess around the Old West portion. But still—something doesn’t make any sense.”
“Since when does murder make sense?” Celia asked and stretched out her legs. She wore navy-blue leggings, and a pair of boots paired with a long cream cable knit sweater. It looked several sizes too big, but Hazel couldn’t blame her for that. Oversized sweaters and leggings were more comfortable than pajamas sometimes.
Hazel shook her head. “That’s the thing though. Murder usually does make sense, unless it’s a serial killer. In all the cases that I photographed in L.A., it usually came down to who had the clearest motive to kill someone. But in this case, all signs pointed to Simone. Then she was terrified of something and now she’s dead too?”
“So, what did she have to be scared of?” Celia said.
Her mother’s words flitted through her head, and Hazel tried to shake them away. “My mom thinks Sara Barkley’s ghost did it.”
Celia let out a huff of laughter, then groaned. “Shouldn’t have done that. Made the ska band worse. But you think it’s connected to whatever happened to Sara, right?”
Hazel shrugged. She could hardly see Celia’s cabin through the snow now. The flakes fell against the insulated glass and melted almost instantly.
“If they had something to do with her death, they would’ve been the people with the best chance of getting killed. Or, maybe I’m looking at the wrong motive. Especially because we figured out Giorgio Vincente was at my property a few weeks ago skulking around.” Hazel squeezed her cup between her palms.
Celia frowned. “Paul has serious hate for that Vincente guy. I can’t blame him. He was at your house? Why? Does he want to buy it from you?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t come and talk to me about it. He was just in a photo I took,” Hazel said, and gulped her drink. The foam stuck to her lip and she licked it off. “Anyway, the sheriff will be talking to him soon. And there’s only one other person left alive that really has anything to do with this. Which reminds me, did Tommy Kholi come by this morning?”
Celia squinted her eyes in thought. “Now that you mention it, no. I didn’t see him at all. But, Jay dropped by this morning.” A slight smile flitted across her lips.
Hazel rolled her eyes. “Jay Turner? Please, don’t go down that road again.”
Celia hit her playfully in the arm. “What road? He just came by for coffee. You think I’m not gonna give him a coffee? Well, maybe I said at one time I wouldn’t, but he apologized, and it’s not like I agreed to go on a date with him. But, he did say Tommy had been hanging around the bar incessantly.”
Hazel looked at her watch. It was already after noon, which meant the Taproom was open. “Then I guess I’ll see if Tommy’s there, and try to chat with him.”
She stood and finished her latte.
Celia grabbed her by her sleeve. “You think Tommy’s a murderer, and you want to go question him?”
Hazel let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if he’s a murderer, but he’s obviously hiding something. And he’s the only one I haven’t talked to. Plus, he was in the studio that day. No matter if Vincente was snooping around my place in a black hoodie, he never stepped inside. So how would he plant the gun that killed Dirk?”
Celia pinched the bridge of her nose and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not any good at stuff like this. Make sure you talk to him in a public place though. And be careful.”
Hazel gave her a smile. “Sure thing.”
Chapter 14
The Taproom sat right in the center of town, and it was the only building that didn’t stick to the alpine aesthetic. It was square and flat roofed, but it was painted a deep forest green that matched the ones next to it. The sign was made of copper, and usually glinted in the bright sunlight.
Today, it was nearly shrouded by the flurry of snow that fell.
Hazel herself had never been particularly fond of bars in general, and this one in particular. Not that she’d been old enough to step inside before she left Cedar Valley at eighteen, but she’d visited enough in the years since to know it wasn’t her thing.
For one, the floor seemed perpetually sticky. And the dim lights called forth too many shadows that seemed to huddle in the corners and threatened to jump out and grab her. An old jukebox stood in one corner, and a pool table in the other with the green felt wearing thin in places.
Jay Turner seem to have owned the Taproom for ages, though that couldn’t have entirely been the truth. He’d inherited it from his uncle who died of a heart attack at fifty, and Jay had taken over as soon as he turned twenty-one.
Jay was as handsome and outdoorsy as Paul, but back in high school he’d broken Celia’s heart. And since then, as far she knew, they dated a few times on and off with it always ending badly.
Honestly, Hazel just wished Celia would move on with someone who was good for her, but that didn’t seem to happen. Then again, who was she to judge her best friend for terrible taste in men when she married a man who ended up cheating on her.
Bars in the middle of the day
were even more depressing than those at night. For one, only a few people sat at the bar, mostly old regulars who Hazel herself didn’t have much to do with. She hovered at the door and her eyes wandered the open space. The tables were all shoved against the wall and difficult to make out in the gloom.
“A customer! Why Hazel Hart. I didn’t think you’d step foot in my fine establishment unless someone forced you.” Jay Turner smirked in her direction.
His smirk was about one million times worse than Sheriff Cross’s, and she couldn’t believe she found herself thinking that.
“I’m looking for someone. Tommy Kholi?”
The light behind the bar shone brighter than any place else, and it seemed to surround Jay in a halo. “He’s in the corner. Though I’m not sure how coherent he’ll be. I cut him off about two hours ago.” He swept a cloth across the bar.
Hazel glanced in the corner and noticed Tommy with his head on the table and an empty glass next to it. She wrinkled her nose. “How long has he been here?”
Jay laughed. “Since I opened at ten a.m.”
Hazel glanced at her watch again. It was nearly one which meant— “You cut him off an hour after he arrived? What was he drinking?”
“Last I heard, you’re a photographer and not a cop. That change recently?” Jay asked, and leaned across the bar.
Hazel frowned. “No, just curious.”
“You know what they say about curiosity.”
Hazel couldn’t help but feel as if that was a shrouded threat. Though, she didn’t think Jay was involved with any of this mess. It wouldn’t surprise her if he was involved in some other sort of mess though.
“Yeah, well.”
Jay laughed again and walked out from behind the bar. “Just messing with you. Lighten up.”
Then he stomped to Tommy’s table and slapped him on the back.
Tommy jumped up and looked around, eyes wide and bloodshot. “What? What’s happening?”
Jay grabbed him by the chin. “Hazy Hart here needs to ask you a few questions. So, wake up and let her do that.”