Kristen tensed up but did not admit anything. She stuck with denying everything. “I still don’t know what you’re getting at. What does a muffin have to do with murder?”
“Are your chakras out of alignment or something?” I joked. “This isn’t about the muffins. It’s about the fact that you’re friends with Lisa Conklin.”
She tried to poke holes in my point. “We go to the same yoga class sometimes.”
I scoffed. “Sometimes? Try all the time. It’s no wonder that you two are friends. You have a lot in common. You both like muffins, you are ardent about going to yoga, and you both have had your marriages torn apart by Jake’s investigative findings. The only difference is, your adultery was the catalyst for your divorce, while it was Lisa’s husband who cheated on her. But, in the end, both of your marriages imploded. And, while Lisa will stand to take home a serious financial settlement in divorce court, no sum of money makes up for heartbreak she’s going through.”
Kristen wouldn’t budge an inch. “I can’t believe what you’re implying. It’s patently ridiculous.”
I kept the heat on her. “Really? It was Jake’s investigative findings that broke up your marriage. Without his work, you may still have your house and bakery. Instead, you’re working for someone else while living in an apartment. I know you still blame Jake for everything that happened to you. If that’s not enough, his latest investigative findings tore your new friend’s marriage apart as well. Two marriages, two lives irreparably changed because of Jake’s actions. You couldn’t stand for that. So, you decided to get your revenge, didn’t you?”
Kristen didn’t respond. Instead, she clammed up and averted her eyes.
Just because she could avoid making eye contact didn’t mean she could avoid answering me.
I went after her again. “Didn’t you?”
She remained quiet.
Detective Stone grew impatient and stepped in. “Ms. Cramer, we have a search warrant for your apartment. We are going to go over every inch of the place. You have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Which is it going to be?”
Kristen looked into the detective’s eyes. That was when she realized she’d come to the end of the line. There was no way to squirm out of this one.
She hesitated for a few more seconds then let out a big sigh and came clean. “Yes, I did. I killed Jake. The man took everything from me—my life, my marriage, my business. That was hard enough to deal with. But when I Lisa told me all that she was going through because of Jake’s private-eye work, I lost it. I wanted revenge and wouldn’t stop at anything less. And I got it.”
“You certainly did. The thing you don’t seem to realize is that you were putting the blame on the wrong person. Your marriage imploded because of your actions, and Lisa’s marriage fell apart because of what her husband did. Jake was just doing his job.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“It is,” I said. “After all, unlike you, I’m not going to be spending the rest of my life in jail.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After the most troubling week of my entire life, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, one did not come. A flurry of emotions swirled inside me, but relief was not among them. Surprisingly, it was nowhere to be found. In actuality, breathing easy was the last thing on my mind.
That was a particularly odd situation to be wrestling with. Typically, after closing the book on a case, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Soon after, a sense of relief would wash over me. For one to be completely absent was practically unheard of. Then again, at that moment, everything in my life defied expectations. Would things ever go back to normal again?
I didn’t know the answer to that. Only the future did, and it didn’t seem interested in sharing. Perhaps it was for the best. What if I didn’t really want to know the answer? The only thing I knew for sure was that I found myself completely rudderless and adrift in uncharted territory. As much as I wanted to find sure footing, it remained elusive.
Instead of relief, if anything, with the case now squarely behind me, the gravity of the tragic landscape that had been left behind in Jake’s wake had finally been made clear to me. While I was investigating the case, I had rightfully focused on bringing my boyfriend’s killer to justice. Now that it was time to pick up the pieces, reality set in.
As my adrenaline faded, the truth set in, and it was grim. If there was anything I could take comfort in, however slight, it was the fact that Jake’s killer would pay for their crime. While that brought me a little solace, it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t bring my boyfriend back.
Luckily, I wasn’t completely alone in my effort to pick up the pieces. Detective Stone was also wrestling with the ramifications of the events that had unfolded, as well as where to go from there.
He tried to point me in the right direction. “Normally, I’d say it was time for a congratulatory donut, but pastries don’t seem appropriate at a time like this.”
I respected his willingness to shelve his taste buds. That being said, I didn’t concur with his logic and wasn’t shy about telling him that. “I disagree. I don’t think donuts could be more appropriate right now.”
At first, the detective didn’t seem sure of how to react to my statement. He was sure he’d said the right thing—not to mention the most considerate one. While I couldn’t argue with that, I wasn’t operating on logic, but rather pure emotions.
I decided to clear up the lingering confusion. “The problem is, this is not something that one donut or even twenty will fix.”
He sighed. “That’s depressing but true. How about a donut anyway?”
I shook my head then found myself saying something I never thought I would. “I’m not in the mood.”
Being such a normally tight-lipped man, he was having trouble figuring out where to go from there. I could see in his eyes that he was ill equipped for such an emotionally weighty situation. To be fair, he was an officer of the law, not a professional grief counselor. Even the kindest of people found themselves verbally handcuffed during such times of great turmoil. Given the grim circumstances he found himself knee deep in, he was doing his best.
“I wish there was more I could say, but the only thing that seems to fit is that I’m really sorry that this happened to you.”
“I know you are.”
“I realize I’ve already said that to you, but everything else I keep thinking just seems like platitudes. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m afraid words can only do so much at a time like this.”
“Trust me, in this case, the thought really does count,” I replied.
Stone became discouraged seeing that nothing he said cheered me up. He wasn’t the only one. Despite my best efforts to try and find a silver lining, I was still at a loss.
The detective decided to take the conversation in a different direction. “On another note, that was some fine detective work back there.”
What the detective saw as a job well done, I viewed as a close call. Solving a murder investigation was always a bit of a high-wire act. No matter how skilled a sleuth was, luck always played a part. I could pretend I’d done it all on my own, but I’d just be lying. In this case, finding the killer had as much to do with luck as anything I’d done.
“I got lucky,” I said.
I knew a lot of people who would have basked in the limelight, letting their egos take center stage. To me, that just seemed like a waste of time. Of course, credit wasn’t something I was interested in. Not then, or really at any time. My life’s desire was neither to carve out a name for myself as a sleuth, nor to jockey for respect. Investigating murder cases was something I’d fallen into strictly by accident. That went a long way to explaining why I didn’t have grand designs.
I was more than happy to let luck take a hundred percent of the credit for this case getting closed. So, what did matter to me? Having the killer behind bars
and trying to cobble together what was left of my life.
I explained that to the detective. “I’m just happy this case is closed. I was worried the killer was close to getting away.”
My humility, while refreshing to the detective, would not be left at just that.
“Thanks to you, he won’t,” Stone said.
I had to take a moment to acknowledge what the detective was doing. Unlike me, Stone was a man with a sizable ego. For him to push that aside to give me credit was a significant gesture. The fact that he was doing it willingly was even more remarkable.
While I was the one to ultimately break the case wide open, he deserved kudos for his efforts as well. “Last time I checked, you put in a lot of work on this as well.”
“True, but I’m not too proud to give credit where it is due,” he replied. “I know it won’t bring Jake back, but at least justice has been served.”
After all his effort, he’d finally hit on the only bright side there was to the situation.
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s nice to know that Jake will be able to rest in peace.”
My thoughts then drifted off as I looked into the distance. Before my head had a chance to get lost too deep in the clouds, the detective brought me back down to earth.
“Just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I know it may not seem like it right now, but you’re doing plenty. Thanks for being so kind.”
He smiled back. “You’re welcome.”
Silence threatened the conversation, bringing an awkwardness to it. The present had been talked to death. He turned to the future.
The detective broke the tension. “So, what are you going to do now?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. For the first time since I can remember, my future is a big question mark.”
The blank look on his face made me realize he hadn’t expected an existential dilemma from me.
Detective Stone revised his statement. “I meant tonight, not in the grand scope of things.”
That question, unlike the previous one, was easy to answer. “Oh. That’s simple. There will most certainly be chocolate. And alcohol. Can’t forget that.”
“Sounds like you have a good plan.”
“It’s a start, for sure. After all, it’s hard to go wrong with chocolate.”
Epilogue
Chocolate was good to me that night. After a few truffles, my mood significantly improved. It wasn’t a fluke that in times of great stress, women so often turned to chocolate for comfort. Those sugary little treats delivered in a big way. Unfortunately, the effect was only temporary—at least on my mood. When it came to my waistline, chocolate made its presence felt almost immediately.
The next day was disturbing for a number of reasons. The first was the bloated number I saw on my scale. Next was that a new reality was beginning to set in. Sure, the case was behind me, but in its wake, I was forced to stare down a life without Jake in it. The sobering gravity of that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a shell of my former self and wondered if I’d ever be whole again.
The next few days did not give me promising answers. As the week came to a close, I found myself feeling colder than I’d ever been before. I wasn’t just talking weather-wise, although a freak windstorm sweeping through the area didn’t help temperatures any. If home was where the heart was, my heart certainly wasn’t in Frozen Pine.
Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable in my own hometown, haunted by the memories of all I’d lost. My friends kept telling me it was all part of the grieving process and that only time could heal the wounds I was trying to recover from.
They were saying the right words, trying to comfort me as best as they could, but deep down, I knew there wasn’t truth to their words. My heart told me a darker story. It wasn’t alone. My mind followed suit. At the back of my head, the same question kept cropping up, refusing to be ignored.
It all tied into the conversation I’d had with the detective after wrapping up the case. By accident, the discussion had taken a turn to my distant future when the detective was really only asking about my plans for that particular evening. But, mistake or not, once the seed had been planted in my head, I couldn’t get it out. If anything, it kept growing, making me wonder just what my future had in store for me.
Finally, when I’d eaten all the chocolate in my house, and I’d run out of wine, I was forced to stare down more than just a trip to the supermarket. An uncertain path was ahead of me, but one thing was clear—the life I knew was gone.
The detective’s words reminded me of that. Of course, he didn’t mean to send me into an existential crisis. Just the opposite, really. He was trying to make me feel better. It was my mind that took his question and ran wild with it.
Regardless of intentions, I was living in a new world—one without Jake in it. It was ironic—I felt dead inside, yet I was the one who was still alive. I had to remind myself of that when I wandered around like a zombie. Although it didn’t seem like it, I was the fortunate one. So, even though it was difficult for me to do so, I had to find a way to pick up the pieces.
If I gave up, it would be doing his memory a disservice. After all, if the roles had been reversed and I had died, I wouldn’t want him to stop living. I’d want him to find happiness again. I knew he’d feel the same way about me. The question became, how could I cobble my life back together? And what would happiness even look like without him?
That was yet to be determined. They were simple questions to ask but very difficult to answer. In the face of such a haunting question mark, I did what came naturally to me. Namely, resisting change. Even though my better judgment told me I couldn’t revisit the past, I found myself trying to settle into old, familiar patterns. Still, as much as I tried to convince myself my life could go back to normal, or at least, a close facsimile of it, deep down, knew I was just deluding myself.
The next month was spent going through the motions. I went to work, came home, turned off my brain as I watched reality TV, then zonked out, only to repeat the same thing the following day. It wasn’t much of a life, mostly because I wasn’t truly living at all. In essence, I was just existing moment to moment, trying to survive the day rather than get the most of it.
Finally, on a particular frigid Thursday afternoon, a blizzard shook me out of my stupor. As I sat inside, hiding from the cold, impatiently waiting for the storm to end, I got a nasty case of cabin fever. It was then I realized the futility of my actions. I was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If I wanted things to change, I’d have to switch things up.
So, I did. I decided to swap out my frozen surroundings for greener pastures. I vowed not to be haunted by the ghosts of my hometown any longer. I knew what a future in Frozen Pine looked like, and I wanted a different ending to my story—a happy one.
That was when I began packing. At that moment, I didn’t know exactly where I was headed—I just knew it wouldn’t be Frozen Pine, and that my final destination would be a lot warmer. I wanted to put Alaska in my rearview mirror, the sooner the better.
It wasn’t the most radical of ideas. I’d tried leaving town before, but this time, nothing would hold me back. The minute I made my mind up, my mood improved instantly. Surprisingly, even though I looked out at an uncertain future, I wasn’t crippled by anxiety.
If anything, I was excited to be able to carve out a new path. This had a chance of working out very well for me. For one thing, I’d be leaving the cold behind for good. Perhaps, I’d leave my bad luck in the dust as well. At least, I could hope. Either way, I’d be able to leave the ghosts behind.
When the blizzard finally let up, I stared out the window at the sun setting in the distance, my mind racing with possibilities and a newfound hope. When I left town a month later, I didn’t look back. I kept on driving, my mind focused squarely on the future. Even though my days in Alaska were gone, they were far from forgotten. I didn’t know exactly where
the road was going to take me, but I’d take the memory of Jake everywhere, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The End.
Sign up for my mailing list and get a free copy of my next book: http://eepurl.com/b3_tVf
Pick up other books by Meredith Potts right here: http://www.amazon.com/Meredith-Potts/e/B01GH44H6A/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
Meredith Potts boxed set list:
Cozy Mystery 16 Book Set
Hope Hadley 8 Book Cozy Mystery Set
Merry Christmas Cozy Mystery Gift Set
Merry Christmas Cozy Mystery Gift Set Page 20