by Sharon Pape
Although the sign vanished as magickally as it had appeared, I expected a visit from the police. After all, it was my shop being advertised on the sign. They did not disappoint. But I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be Curtis who stopped by, instead of Duggan or another detective.
“Your shop was the logical place to start,” he explained a bit sheepishly. I told him I understood, but that I’d had nothing to do with it, which he translated to mean that I didn’t know who had done it. Given the circumstances, I had no intentions of pointing out his error.
“It could have been a prank,” I said, “someone trying to cause trouble for me.” Curtis pounced on that possibility as if he were the one in jeopardy. He jotted a few notes on a pad and left clearly more lighthearted than he’d arrived. I was pretty sure he was planning to ask me out, once the murderer was caught and I was no longer under any suspicion. In that eventuality, I’d have to let him down gently. I know some women enjoy juggling boyfriends, but I’ve never been one of them.
With things back to what passed for normal at work, I was able to concentrate on the investigation again. Ever since Elise and I went to Third Eye to look at the security footage, I’d been bothered by the timeline. The one invariable, immutable fact I had to work with was that Jim was dead when Tilly and I arrived at his office shortly after five. I knew what time most of the suspects entered the building, but due to the video’s down time, not when they left. The big question in my mind, the question in flashing neon lights, was quite simple. Who was the last person to leave Jim’s office before we got there? Answer that and you had the killer.
Although I couldn’t drop in on Westfield or Silver and question them as to the precise minute they left the building that day, I could ask Ronnie when she left. Could I trust her response? Once upon a time, I would have said “yes.” Now, not so much. I decided it was still worth trying. Put on the spot, she might make a mistake. I waited until the late afternoon to make the call, so there’d be less chance of being interrupted by customers. Moms had to be home for children returning from school, and tourists were apt to be on their way to motels or hotels for the night. I dialed Ronnie’s number, wondering what tone our conversation would take.
“Kailyn?” she said warily. Although I liked caller ID as much as the next person, it did eliminate the sometimes important element of surprise.
“Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked, skipping the customary greetings. There was no point in pretending we could go back to our pre-confession relationship.
“Of course. Is something wrong?”
There was so much wrong I wouldn’t have known where to start. But I knew her question was a knee-jerk response. “I keep thinking about Jim,” I said, diving right in.
“Me too,” she murmured, more to herself than to me.
I almost got sucked into the trap of expressing my sympathy. She had no right to it. “Were you still in the office when Elise got there with our paperwork that day?” I asked.
“Yes, we chatted for a couple of minutes before I left. Wednesdays I leave a little early to visit my mother in the nursing home.”
“I know. You’re a good daughter.” A lousy, backstabbing, adulterous friend, but to the best of my knowledge, a good daughter. “I heard you put her in that great new facility . . .”
“Lakeside,” she supplied. “It’s expensive, but she gets the best care there.
“Yes, right.” I knew from Elise that Ronnie had had a difficult time when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“Were you with your mom when you heard about Jim?”
“No, I always turn off my phone during our visits. I heard the news when I played back my messages on the way home and I . . . I lost it.” Her emotion sounded genuine to my novice ears. Maybe Duggan would have known for sure if she was telling the truth. I was learning it wasn’t as easy to detect lies as I’d once thought. “I was shaking so badly,” she went on, “I had to pull over to the curb. I didn’t trust myself to drive for close to an hour. I was in such a state, I could have killed somebody.”
Or did you kill somebody and then fall apart? I wondered. I thanked her for talking to me, and she said she was glad to help. Our parting words were more uncomfortable than the rest of the conversation had been. What can you fall back on when the vocabulary of polite, social interaction is no longer appropriate? We should get together soon. When are you free for lunch? Regards to the family. All useless phrases. I was left with “Okay then, Ronnie, bye.”
I clicked off the call and Googled Lakeside Nursing Facility. The receptionist was well-spoken and pleasant. Yes, they have a sign-in sheet to keep track of who is in the building at all times. Unfortunately not everyone remembers to sign out when they leave. No, she couldn’t share that information with me. She said she was sorry and wished me a lovely day. Having a badge would definitively have helped when it came to requesting records. I briefly entertained the idea of asking Merlin for help, but then I came to my senses. If we kept exhibiting our various powers, how long would it take before the population of New Camel, and possibly all of Schuyler County, decided to start burning witches again?
I wandered up and down the aisles of my shop, unable to settle into work. There were bills to be paid, shelves and products to dust, windows to clean, but none of those chores motivated me. What I needed was some good news, something to smile about. I picked up the phone and called Travis to see if maybe he’d been more successful with the investigation on his end.
He answered on the first ring. “Please, tell me something wonderful,” I begged.
He chuckled. “Yes, Ma’am, I’ll do my best. As it happens, I do have some information for you.”
“I’m hanging on your every word.”
“Not over the phone.”
My spirits sank. “Seriously? Why not?”
“Because I’m at your door.” It took me a moment to absorb what he’d said. When I looked up from my phone, he was walking in. He gathered me into a hug, making me realize how restorative such a simple act could be. Hugs were definitely not celebrated enough in story or song. “Better?” he asked, tipping my chin up to look me in the eye.
I exhaled a peaceful sigh. “So much.”
“Then I’ll be sure to keep that in my repertoire. Now, are you ready for your briefing?”
I hopped up on the counter, leaving the chair for him. “Ready.”
“I did some checking on your suspects. Duggan was suspended once when he was a cop on the beat, for the use of undue force. He had to complete a course in anger management as a condition of his return to work. And that drill sergeant persona you mentioned—it came from being a marine.”
“If you consider his background in the light of his history with Jim, it’s not a stretch to believe he finally erupted and killed him. The video proves he was driving through town at the right time.”
“Yes, but don’t forget,” Travis said, “he would have had to get in and out of that building within the time the video was down and not be seen by Ronnie or Elise. There wasn’t much room for error.”
“If the killer got someone at Third Eye to shut down the camera, who would have had more clout to do it than a well-respected detective?”
“I’m afraid I’m about to complicate things for you.”
“Ronnie?”
“She’s got a juvie record from her high school days. Nothing terrible. She and another girl got into it over a boy. It was pretty brutal, but because no one saw who threw the first punch, it was basically a case of she said, she said. In the end, the judge made them both shoulder the blame with court-mandated community service and counseling. Ronnie seems to have kept her nose clean since then.”
“I’m impressed. How did you find out all this?”
Travis grinned. “A reporter needs to have confidential sources. Friends in high and low places.”
“Any more goodies for me?”
“Now you’re getting greedy. I’m still working on Silver and
Westfield.”
It struck me that he didn’t know about Elise. “I’ve got one more to add,” I said, my upbeat mood instantly snuffed out by my misery over her confession. “It’s Elise.”
I could tell by his expression that he saw the shift in me. But he didn’t say a word, until I’d emptied my heart to him. And he didn’t try to jolly me up with false cheer. He reached up and put his hand over mine on the counter. “Do you think she could have killed him?”
“No,” I said immediately. “Yes.” My throat was tight, making it hard to push the words through. I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve always believed that anyone is capable of murder, given the right circumstances. But that was an easy thing to believe, when it was only a theory. I can’t bear to think of Elise as a killer.”
“Okay,” Travis said. “We’ll leave her for last. I won’t put out any feelers, unless we run out of other options. Or Duggan cracks the case.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” He gave me a wink. “I’m just trying to rack up points with the boss.”
I smiled. “Hey, I never claimed to be the boss. We’re partners.”
“Yeah, but some partners are more equal than others. I know my place. And I’m not complaining.”
“Can I run something by you?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“I think someone needs to go back to Third Eye.”
“You want to find the person in charge of monitoring that building.”
“It’s the best way to get some solid answers instead of all these ifs and maybes.”
“I’m sure Duggan already tried that.”
“Then why hasn’t he arrested anyone yet? Someone clearly shut down that camera on purpose,” I insisted. “It can’t possibly be that difficult to figure out who did it. There are a limited number of people who work at Third Eye.”
“It’s not quite so simple. Although we can probably assume that someone was bribed or threatened into shutting down that camera at a specific time, we can’t be sure it was the individual at that monitor bank. What if he or she refused to cooperate with the killer? Then the killer would have had to find someone else to do it. That would explain the bogus emergency call to get the uncooperative employee away from his monitors for an hour or so.”
I snapped my fingers. “And if the first employee did cooperate, the emergency call would have been his alibi if the police questioned him.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I’d be surprised if the call wasn’t made on an untraceable throwaway cell.”
“So you’re telling me it isn’t worth going over to Third Eye again?”
“No. I’m telling you, it won’t be as easy and straightforward as you seem to think.”
“Not to mention, I can’t be the one to do it.”
“All right,” Travis said dryly, “what haven’t you told me, partner?”
“Nothing . . . really. You know Elise and I went there to view the camera footage. I guess I didn’t mention that the supervisor and I didn’t exactly hit it off.”
“As much as I would love to help out, the odds are someone there will recognize me from TV. Is there anybody else you can enlist?”
It had to be someone I trusted implicitly. My mother and grandmother were gone from that short list, and under the circumstances, I couldn’t very well ask Ronnie or Elise to help out. My plan seemed doomed, until I realized I still had one option.
Chapter 31
The plan was simple. At least until I added Tilly to the mix. I couldn’t have asked for a more loyal, trustworthy, or enthusiastic helper. But whenever my aunt is involved, there’s always the potential for disaster. The plan was for her to go into Third Eye and say she was thinking of hiring the security firm for her business, but first she wanted a tour of their monitoring center. On my first visit there with Elise, I‘d taken a couple of minutes to do some reconnoitering. I was mainly interested in the configuration of the monitoring center. Rather than one large, open space with all the monitors, it was divided into cubicles. Each cubicle held one person and a small bank of monitors. The setup made it easier for a worker to hide inappropriate behavior on the job. But it also cut down on too much chitchat among colleagues, a definite bonus when it came to the bottom line of a business.
“I think you should walk with a limp,” I told Tilly. “It’s a good excuse to go slowly. That way you’ll have time to find the Harkens monitor.”
“With my poor feet, I was made for this assignment,” she giggled. In preparation, I’d taken her back to Jim’s office building. We stood beneath the camera for her to get a good view of what she would see when she found the correct monitor.
“Once you find it, be sure to take a good look at the person at that console,” I said.
“What if their back is to me?”
“Make an excuse to walk up to him or her to get a better look.”
“I know. I’ll pretend to recognize the person and go over to say hello. Then, when I’m closer, I’ll apologize for the mistake.”
“Perfect.”
“I told you, dear, no worries.”
If only. “When you’re done, come back to the car, and we’ll wait for lunchtime. With any luck, the person at that monitor will leave the building, you’ll point them out to me, and I’ll try to convince them to answer a couple of questions.”
“If they’re not willing, I can always try rummaging around in their heads a bit,” Tilly said with a hopeful twinkle in her eyes.
Although I wasn’t thrilled about letting her take advantage of anyone that way, the potential good it could do far outweighed the bad. It seemed like everything in life boiled down to an equation in the end. And Merlin was right. Most things fell in the vast gray areas between black and white.
* * *
The next morning I drove to my aunt’s house for our visit to Third Eye. It was a beautiful day. Thunderstorms had swept through overnight, taking the heat and humidity with them. The air was dry, the sky a crisp, cloudless blue. If the person we were after didn’t go out for lunch on such a day, he had to be related to a mole.
Merlin glared at me from the doorstep, while I maneuvered Tilly and her lavender muumuu into the passenger seat of my car. When he’d heard where we were going, he’d offered to help us and was greatly offended when I’d nixed the idea. There were only so many variables I could handle at one time. I’d make it up to him at dinner with pizza, extra mushrooms, and for dessert, an ice cream sundae at the Confection Connection. Ice cream had nearly unseated pizza as his favorite food.
Tilly and I arrived at Third Eye at ten o’clock. I helped her out of the car at the main entrance in deference to both her real foot woes and her supposed limp. She’d brought along a cane that once belonged to her late husband, claiming it was hard to limp convincingly without something to lean on. After she went inside, I parked in the second row of the lot, a location we’d agreed upon. I didn’t want to leave the engine running for however long Tilly would be gone. Instead I opened all the windows to let the fresh breeze waft through. Time dragged. I’d never realized how difficult waiting could be without a distraction. Especially when it was coupled with anxiety for my aunt’s well-being. I told myself that everything must be going okay, because I hadn’t received any panicked phone calls from her or heard police sirens heading this way. When was I going to learn not to count those unhatched chickens?
Five minutes later the main doors opened and out came Tilly, suspended between two beefy security guards. They each had her by an arm and, being so much taller than she, were carrying her so neither her feet nor the cane touched the ground. She was struggling wildly to get away, wielding the cane like a weapon, but only managing to swat at the air. It took a lot to make my aunt angry. Compared to fire-breathing dragons like Morgana and Bronwen, she was an absolute lamb and usually assumed the role of peacekeeper when they had their backs up. But if you pushed Tilly to the limits of her patience, you were not going to get off unscathed.
&
nbsp; When I saw the three of them emerge from the building, I chose my feet over the car as the most direct route to them. I jumped out, sprinted across the lot and the near side of the circular driveway, through the grass island in the center and then across the far side of the driveway to the walk where they were standing. During the fifteen seconds I was racing to her aid, I tried unsuccessfully to imagine what she could have done to deserve such ignominious treatment. As I drew closer, I could hear her demanding to be put down and threatening retribution of epic proportions. What the guards didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that she actually could wreak real havoc in their lives. Plus I had no doubt Merlin would be glad to lend his efforts to her cause.
I’d almost reached them when they set her down on the pavement. My heart lurched into my throat as I watched her sway precariously back and forth, before finding her balance. At least the guards had the decency to stay beside her, until she appeared to be steady on her feet. They were turning to go back inside when I ran up to her.
“Are you okay, Tilly?” I asked. Her face was beet red with anger and indignation. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam venting from her ears.
“I’m fine, in spite of those two oafs,” she said loudly enough for them to hear. “If they had half a brain between them, they’d realize what I could do to them.” Thankfully the guards didn’t bother to turn around. They shook their heads and shared a laugh as they disappeared inside. I would have loved to give them a proverbial piece of my mind too, but I knew I had to be the reasonable one, the calmer of stormy seas. I asked Tilly if she wanted to wait for me to come around with the car.
“I don’t want to spend another second at this godforsaken place,” she said, still projecting her voice for the benefit of anyone in the zip code.