The hallway was empty when I unlocked Jack's door. His room was a mess, with bedsheets and towels strewn all over the floor. I entered the bathroom and was alarmed to see bloodstains in the bathtub. I got over my initial shock and realized it probably came from his bandaged hand.
But how had he hurt his hand in the first place?
I flashed back to my aunt and her fear of blood. There was no way she could have checked out the bathroom without freaking out.
I studied the room. Aside from the blood, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary in the bathroom, but something immediately caught my eye in the trash can by the desk. A bloody tire iron sat in the trash can. Jack hardly seemed the sort to self-mutilate, let alone with a tire iron.
Suddenly everything made sense. A tire iron was enough to kill anyone, including a large man like Sebastien Plant. Plant just happened to be Jack's romantic rival. Jack was both tall enough and strong enough to deliver a lethal blow to Sebastien Plant. And a drunk Sebastien Plant wouldn't put up much of a fight.
I spun around and headed towards the door. I had to tell the sheriff immediately so he could cordon off the room and gather evidence. Jack obviously hadn’t expected anyone in his room. He had temporarily left the tire iron in the trash can until he could dispose of it after dark.
My heart stopped as I ran smack into Grandma Vi. She must have covertly followed me.
"You scared me half to death, Cen!" She floated to a corner above the door and regarded me with a smirk.
"You're already dead, Grandma. Why did you follow me to Jack's room?"
"It's my room, not Jack's, and I'll come in here whenever I please." She cast a disapproving glance around the room. “This is a disgrace. He’s even messier than you are.”
I ignored her insult. "Grandma, please. You can't sneak around the guests' rooms like this."
"Why not? You're exploring too."
"No, I'm not. I just came to drop off some shampoo and stuff." I showed her my handful of mini soaps and shampoo bottles.
"Nice try, missy. Don't forget that I can read your mind. If you're so suspicious of this Jack guy, why don't you let me help?"
"No, Grandma. I’ve got to go know. I need to let the sheriff know about the tire iron." I headed towards the door and froze in my tracks as a key turned in the lock.
CHAPTER 29
"What the hell are you doing in my room?" Jack Tupper III’s form filled the doorway and blocked the sunlight that streamed in from the hallway. He also blocked my exit.
"Housekeeping. Just dropping off some toiletries." My face flushed as I lamely held up my hand. It was painfully obvious that I was nowhere near the bathroom. I hadn’t even anticipated that Jack might return. He must have forgotten something.
"No need." He waved his hand towards the doorway. "I think you'd better go."
I lurched towards the door, dropping the shampoo and soap on the bureau as I brushed past him.
I slammed the door behind me and didn't look back.
I raced down the stairs, into the dining room and straight to Sheriff Gates' table. I noticed with dismay that Tonya was seated again. I simply couldn't wait any longer. "I need to talk to you."
Tonya Plant's eyes narrowed as they locked on mine.
She knew I was on to something. I felt a sudden stab of fear as I recalled Hazel and Pearl's warning. I should have waited until the sheriff was alone, but under the circumstances, how could I? Jack was probably getting rid of the tire iron right now.
"What is it?" He seemed to notice my anxiety.
"It's confidential." I glanced at Tonya, who by now was on high alert. That only meant one thing to me. She was involved in her husband's murder and suspected I was about to talk about it. What else could be urgent enough to interrupt the sheriff's interview? "Can we talk in the kitchen?"
He glanced at Tonya, who nodded. "Give me five minutes."
*****
Ten minutes later Tyler Gates faced me across the kitchen bistro table.
He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. "This is all confidential, but a tire iron fits better with the coroner's findings."
"Should you be telling all me this? Don't forget that I'm the press."
"Telling you is part of my strategy. I'm hoping you can publish a story that will flush out the real killers. Somebody in town knows something."
"So you're ruling out Aunt Pearl and her cane?"
He shook his head. "Nothing and nobody is ruled out, but it was obvious to me that the cane wasn't heavy enough to do the kind of damage we saw on Plant's skull."
I shuddered. "You'd better hurry before Jack destroys the evidence." He had been awfully careless—or maybe overconfident—to simply throw the tire iron in the trash can. Whoever cleaned the room—meaning Aunt Pearl, the very person being framed—was certain to notice it. But apparently Jack thought we were all too stupid to make the connection. Or maybe he hadn’t had time to dispose of it.
"The crime scene techs are on their way back from Shady Creek," Tyler said. "I called them back when I came in here."
"Tonya didn't hear you, I hope."
"No, she left in a hurry just after you."
Great. I had to alert Aunt Pearl and Hazel that Tonya was on to us. "Is she a suspect? She is the spouse, after all. She doesn't seem too heartbroken if you ask me."
"Everyone's a suspect until the case is solved," he said.
"She's involved somehow. You know about their affair?"
His eyes widened. "We're on it. The question is how do you know about their relationship?"
I fidgeted as I thought up an excuse. I couldn't mention that my ghost grandma had staked out Jack's room. "We saw Tonya sneaking into Jack's room."
"And you think that is proof enough of their affair? You've got to have more than that."
I did have more but nothing I could tell him. "Tonya and Jack are business partners. Jack's trying to scare us into selling our land to build a Travel Unraveled resort. Sebastien was against the idea. I think that's why they killed him."
The sheriff fell silent while he digested my statement. I got the sense he was debating how much to tell me.
"There's more." I pulled the Walmart receipt from my pocket and handed it to him as I described the Gatorade bottle in the trash. “I don't think he was drunk. Tonya poisoned him with antifreeze but then got Jack to hit him with the tire iron. When he died from the poison, she could still pin the murder on Jack." The scapegoat idea came to me as I spoke. It made perfect sense that Tonya would frame Jack. That way she could keep all the spoils for herself.
In my sensory-deprived hungry state, everything came together with a shocking clarity that had escaped me until now.
Tyler Gates nodded. "That ties in with the coroner's report. Sebastien Plant was subject to a lot of blunt force trauma, exactly the type of injuries you would get from a tire iron. But strangely enough, he didn't bleed as much as he should have."
"You mean he might have already been dead when he was hit?" I remembered seeing something similar on Forensic Files.
His eyes widened in surprise. "Yes."
I flashed back to the Gatorade bottle in Tonya's room. "Did the autopsy show signs of poisoning?"
Tyler's eyes clouded over as he picked up his phone and punched in some numbers. "That's exactly what we need to find out."
CHAPTER 30
Westwick Corners' single jail cell didn’t see a lot of action. The cell was occupied on rare occasions by drunken revelers but never, as far as I knew, by a witch. Today’s guest of honor was Aunt Pearl. She had been caught red-handed with her wand—or cane—as the sheriff believed it to be. He had followed her to the gas station after seeing her with another gas can. He confiscated it in order to prevent further pyromania. He also took her wand. Getting gas wasn’t exactly illegal, but stealing police evidence was.
The sheriff’s details were fuzzy, but somehow Aunt Pearl had gotten away. I had no doubt her magic played a part in both his memory loss and her reun
ion with her wand from the police evidence locker. I promised to bring her in to face justice.
One thing I couldn’t explain was how she had stolen her wand—or cane—in the first place. The lock was intact, with no signs of tampering.
The only good that came of Aunt Pearl’s antics was that she finally agreed to accompany me to the police station to come clean. I feared she would try to steal her wand again, but it was a chance I had to take. I convinced her that the sheriff would keep watching her unless she provided information to generate new leads. To my surprise, she agreed. Both of us knew that would include uncomfortable questions about her wand. Her behavior so far just created confusion and incriminated her, and I really hoped she would just cooperate.
Aunt Pearl hadn't been formally charged yet, but a part of me thought a jail cell was the safest possible place for her. As a witch she could bust out anytime she wanted, but that only made things worse for her. I needed to convince her to stay put while I got the goods on Tonya. Anything less just played into Tonya's master plan to frame Aunt Pearl. I had no proof of any of this, just a gut feeling and the knowledge that no one in my family, including Aunt Pearl, was a murderer.
Another part of me wondered why Sheriff Gates had locked up Aunt Pearl rather than focusing on the evidence incriminating Tonya and Jack. The law operated on cold, hard facts, and I had finally found proof that pointed away from Aunt Pearl. The sheriff had plenty of reasons to haul those two in for questioning, but he had already used up the one cell available to him. I hoped he knew what he was doing.
Grandma Vi's plan for Aunt Pearl to tail Tonya had fizzled pretty quickly with Aunt Pearl in custody, so we were back to square one. I had arrived at the station minutes after Sheriff Gates' call, accompanied by Grandma Vi.
After several unsuccessful attempts to convince Grandma Vi to look for Tonya, I gave up. I understood Grandma Vi's priorities. Aunt Pearl might be seventy years old, but Pearl was still Grandma Vi's daughter. Her maternal instincts had kicked in.
"We've got to spring her out of this joint, Cen."
"Relax, Grandma. I think she's just here for questioning." Deep down I worried that the sheriff hadn't explained exactly why Aunt Pearl was in custody. Knowing Aunt Pearl, it could be any number of things. Suddenly arson seemed pretty minor compared to murder. I worried that she had taken things too far.
We waited in the small reception area of the office that served as Westwick Corners police station. A half dozen vinyl-backed chairs lined one wall of the reception area and faced a wood-paneled counter that dated back to the last city hall reno in the 1970s. I picked up a two-year-old Time magazine and flipped through the ragged pages, but I couldn't concentrate.
The police station was housed on the first floor of city hall. It was the last place I wanted to be right now. The mayor's office was in the same building and I dreaded crossing paths with Brayden.
Grandma Vi paced, or rather floated, back and forth across the waiting room and in and out of the interview room that housed Sheriff Gates and Aunt Pearl.
"Would you stop? You're frantic floating is giving me a headache."
"I can't help it, Cen. It doesn't look good for Pearl. He's really grilling her." Grandma Vi hovered above me, her apparition lighter than usual due to the emotional distress of her daughter being questioned.
The voices coming from the sheriff's private office were muted, but I was pretty sure they belonged to Tyler Gates and Aunt Pearl. No one else was here.
"You only heard snippets of conversation. Maybe you misinterpreted something." I was annoyed that Grandma Vi had snuck into the interview room to listen in. I was especially irritated that she could eavesdrop, but I couldn’t.
Grandma Vi shook her head. "The message is loud and clear to me. Sheriff Gates has no other suspects. Pearl is going down, down, down." She flashed me an exaggerated thumbs-down.
"That's just an interrogation tactic. I don't think it's such a good idea for you to listen in on them, Grandma. It just makes things more stressful for Aunt Pearl, since she can see you. She might say the wrong thing." The combination of Grandma Vi and Pearl could stir up more trouble than I could handle. Aunt Pearl could easily break out, which was why I was here. The sooner I got my crazy aunt away from the sheriff, the better.
"Sssh. Here comes the sheriff now." Grandma retreated to the corner of the ceiling directly across from me.
Tyler Gates looked unhappy, not entirely unexpected since Aunt Pearl hadn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat for him. It was only his second day on the job and he was probably regretting it already. "I'll be keeping Pearl in custody."
I jumped to my feet. "You're arresting her?" I had promised Aunt Pearl that her interview would only take an hour or so. She would be furious with me.
"Technically no, but I'm detaining her overnight. I've got enough concerns about her personal safety that I've decided to keep her in protective custody. That way I can keep an eye on her."
I thought it was everyone else that needed to worry, but I wasn't about to say that. "She can take care of herself. But if you're worried, you can release her into my custody. I promise I'll watch her like a hawk."
Tyler shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I can't do that. She's threatened to harm herself."
I didn't believe that for a second. I suspected Aunt Pearl's plan to end the questioning had backfired. "She's all talk. Her safety isn't enough reason to keep her in jail."
"That's not the only reason," he said. "She's too involved in the case."
I stood. "Aunt Pearl is not a murderer. I know it looks bad, but she didn't do it."
A faint smile played across Tyler Gates' lips. "I never said she did. She's being held for obstruction of justice, not murder."
"Oh." My shoulders relaxed as I absorbed the news. On the one hand I was relieved, but I also feared the havoc she could wreak from inside the police station.
"I'm sorry, but I had no choice,” he said. “I'm getting pressured from the governor to solve the case, and your aunt keeps stirring up trouble. She can't just remove evidence like that."
"Oh?" I felt like a broken record, but I couldn't think of anything else to say without incriminating myself.
"Somehow she removed her cane from the evidence locker. It was securely locked up so I'm not even sure how she got in there. The lock wasn’t picked and I have the only key. Pearl won't tell me how she did it, but I caught her with the evidence."
His soft brown eyes locked on mine, and I shivered despite the sweltering heat in the tiny office.
"Yes, she needs her cane."
"I suggested she get another one, but she refused. I was willing to cut her some slack, but I draw the line at interfering in a murder investigation," Sheriff Gates said.
"No, you're right to do that." I could get a lot more done without constantly chasing after Aunt Pearl. She would no doubt escape from custody, but I'd deal with that when the time came. In fact, her incarceration freed me up to do some more sleuthing on Jack and Tonya.
Tyler Gates motioned me to sit down. He took the seat beside me. “I was just talking with the coroner. Calcium oxalate crystals were found Sebastien Plant’s kidneys. He had ethylene glycol poisoning.” He held a manila file folder labeled Plant - Coroner’s Report in his left hand.
My hands flew to my mouth. “I was right about the antifreeze.”
He nodded. “We’ve got Tonya on the Walmart surveillance video around the same time as the Walmart receipt.”
Finally some solid evidence that pointed towards someone other than Aunt Pearl. “So Tonya’s officially a suspect now?”
“I can’t say any more right now, and neither can you. I just wanted to confirm that we did follow up on the information you provided. You can’t report on this until after my news release later today.”
I stood, relieved that the heat would be off Aunt Pearl. “Can I go see my aunt now?” I glanced upwards but Grandma Vi had vanished. I suspected she was already commiserating with Aunt Pearl in her c
ell.
"I don't see why not. But remember, no mention of the coroner results yet." I promised as he beckoned me to follow him down the short hallway to the lone holding cell. Aunt Pearl sat on the bed and looked up as we approached. It was a jail cell, but it also had some homey touches like a patchwork quilt on the bed and a braided throw rug on the linoleum floor.
Aunt Pearl seemed unimpressed with the decor. She scowled as I neared the bars. “I want a lawyer."
I ignored her and stared pointedly at the sheriff.
He frowned. "Uh, right. I'll leave you two alone for a few minutes."
Westwick Corners was broke, so I was fairly certain the cell wasn't equipped with expensive cameras or listening devices. Even if we were under surveillance, I had questions that needed answering. "What's up with Tonya? You were supposed to follow her."
"That's why I was at the gas station. I followed her there but she got into a Centralex Developments truck." Aunt Pearl spat in the sink as she said the company name, like it had left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Did you see who was driving the truck?"
Aunt Pearl nodded. "It was that long-haired hippie guy that's been hanging around the hotel."
"You mean Jack Tupper? The one staying in Grandma Vi's old room?"
I was startled by a low voice cursing from above and looked up to see Grandma Vi shaking her fist and muttering to herself.
"That's the one," Aunt Pearl said. "I couldn’t follow them because I was on foot. That's when the sheriff harassed me. Since when is it a crime to get gas?”
“You shouldn’t have run away from him, Aunt Pearl.”
“He was going to arrest me, Cen. For what?” She waved her arms. “I’m innocent. I want a lawyer.”
According to the sheriff, Aunt Pearl wasn't technically arrested yet, but I didn't want to derail the discussion. "What direction was the Centralex truck headed?"
"They took the highway onramp towards Shady Creek."
My heart sank. "Now we've lost both of them. We'll never know what they're up to." Tonya and Jack each had powerful motives. Tonya had just gained sole control of the Travel Unraveled business empire, and the two of them as lovers—if that's what they were—eliminated the one roadblock to their relationship. Tonya needed to get rid of Aunt Pearl in order to move forward with her development plans, so it made perfect sense to frame Pearl for the murder.
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