A Deadly Row

by Casey Mayes

  “No, not that I can think of,” she said. “I spoke with an officer earlier, but he barely seemed to pay attention to my answers. What else does your husband need to know?”

  “I was wondering if there was anyone in particular that your brother was close to before he died.”

  “Was murdered, you mean.” Her words were as strong as black coffee.

  “Murdered,” I corrected.

  She nodded, and appeared to be pleased by my acquiescence. “The first person I’d look at would be the mayor, unless your husband is intimidated by him like everyone else in this town seems to be.”

  “He’s aware of their confrontation,” I said. “Anyone else?”

  “How about the new chief of police?” Julia asked as she looked around the lobby. I wasn’t sure if she was looking for police officers, or just random spies, but the action made me wonder if she was a little bit unhinged.

  “What did Davis Rawles have to do with your brother?”

  She looked at me carefully. “Do you know him? Of course you do. Your husband chose him as his replacement.”

  “My husband had nothing to do with that,” I said, though that wasn’t strictly true. He’d made a recommendation, and it had to have carried some weight, but the ultimate decision hadn’t been his. “Trust me, my husband isn’t influenced by his friendships. If anything, he’s harder on people he knows than he is on perfect strangers. Why did you bring up Davis’s name?”

  “He and my brother went in together on a little business venture, and when it failed, Davis threatened to kill him. Is that motive enough?”

  “What happened?”

  “Davis and Hank bought some land in the mountains together on the speculation that a resort would be built nearby. Hank had his hands in a lot of different businesses. He wasn’t just a land speculator, but no one really knew every one of his sources of income. When the parent company dropped out on the development deal, they both lost a sizeable amount of money. Evidently it was bigger for the police chief than it was for Hank.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “Does your husband?”

  “If he doesn’t yet, he will soon, and that’s a promise,” I said. “Any other names I should add to the list?”

  “There were a few other officers who were minor investors, but I don’t know their names.”

  “Tell you what. Find out, and then leave me a message at the front desk. I’ll tell my husband as soon as you tell me. Anyone else?”

  She frowned, bit her lip, and then said, “I’ve gone over that night a thousand times in my mind, and the only other reason I can think that someone would want to kill my brother was that dance. Every woman he danced with should be interviewed, along with their significant others.”

  “I know for a fact that my husband is going painstakingly through the files, and he’s reading the police interviews right now.”

  Julia was about to say something else when I saw her face go cold. “What just happened?”

  “She was one of them,” Julia whispered, and then quickly dashed away.

  I turned to see who the mystery woman was, and was startled to see Lorna heading toward me.

  “WHO WAS THAT, SAVANNAH? SHE LOOKED AS THOUGH she’d just seen a ghost when I walked up.”

  “To be honest with you, I just ran into her. I can’t think of her name right off the top of my head.” I was lying, but I didn’t really want Lorna to know what Julia Tristan had just told me. “I’m sorry, I know I’m late.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, apparently dismissing Julia from her mind. “Are we still having breakfast?”

  “You know it,” I said. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

  While not technically true, I was hungry. In particular, I was going to order cinnamon sticks. I hadn’t been able to forget the sample I’d gotten of Zach’s, and now I wanted some for myself.

  After we placed our orders, she asked, “How was Hickory?”

  “It was good. I love catching up with my uncle.”

  “Family’s important. Speaking of that, have you been seeing much of your husband lately? I imagine the investigation’s keeping him pretty busy.”

  “We spend some time together every day,” I said. “Maybe not as much as I’d like to, but that’s the way it goes when he’s working.”

  “Has he made any progress?”

  “He has some ideas,” I said, not really wanting to get into it with her.

  “Any suspects yet?”

  “Lorna, I really don’t feel comfortable discussing it.” I looked around the dining room, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to us. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”

  “I knew one of the victims, remember? It’s so creepy. One minute we were dancing together, and the next minute he was dead.”

  “It wasn’t a matter of minutes,” I corrected her. “It was more like hours.”

  “Still, it makes you think.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  Our food arrived, and as we started eating, Lorna said, “I’ve got something for you, but I forgot to bring it.”

  “What is it?”

  She smiled at me. “It’s a surprise, actually. Can I drop it off at the hotel tonight?”

  “I’m not really sure what our plans are, but you can leave it at the front desk.”

  “No, I’d rather deliver it to you in person. How about tomorrow at breakfast?”

  “I’ll have to see. I might not know if I’m free until the last minute.”

  She smiled. “Taking another trip to Hickory?”

  “I’m not planning to, but you never know. If you don’t mind taking a chance that I won’t make it, we can pencil tomorrow in.”

  “That’s all I can ask.” She laughed gently, and then added, “Trust me, my date book isn’t exactly full these days.”

  “Aren’t you seeing anyone special?”

  “That depends on your definition. They’re all special, aren’t they?” she said with a smile.

  “I don’t know how you do it. I can’t keep up with the one man I’ve got, let alone deal with a string of them.”

  “Practice, practice, practice,” she said.

  After we were finished eating, I said, “I hate to eat and run, but my dance card’s pretty full today.”

  “I’m just glad we had a chance to get together,” Lorna said as we started to walk out of the restaurant.

  “Me, too.”

  “Until tomorrow.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “That’s good enough for me.” Lorna could be demanding in her friendship; I knew that from past experience.

  Back in the lobby, I looked around for Julia Tristan, just in case she’d lingered, but the woman was gone. I needed to talk to Zach about her, and it couldn’t wait until lunch.

  The second I was back upstairs in our suite, I dialed his number.

  To my surprise, his assistant Steve answered.

  “May I speak with Zach?”

  In a lowered voice, he said, “Sorry, but he can’t be disturbed.”

  “Is he sitting in a corner, staring at the junction where the walls meet? Are his feet up on something? His hands are locked behind his head, aren’t they?”

  Steve sounded agitated when he answered. “How could you possibly know that? Were you just here?”

  “No, but I’ve seen it often enough. He’s got a thread he’s following in his head, and you could set off an M-80 under his chair and I doubt he’d notice it.”

  “You two are something, have I told you that?”

  “You did. When he comes out of his trance, have him call me, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  After we hung up, I paced around the room. I had a lot to talk to Zach about, but it would be less than productive doing it while he was on a track of his own. I knew better than to try to break through to him when he was that deep in thought. It would just have to wait, and I was going to have to deal with it.

  In
the meantime, I had a puzzle to create, and not an easy one, either.

  I STARTED PLAYING WITH IDEAS FOR MY NEXT PUZZLE, REmembering that I’d promised Derrick something more complicated than I’d been doing lately. I hadn’t promised him anything much more difficult though, so I decided to do a sequencing puzzle this time.

  After an hour and a half of erasing pairings and changing the numbers, I finally had a puzzle I was happy with.

  Now I just had to write the snippet, and I’d have Derrick off my back for another day.

  Puzzles are like people. Some are easy to figure out the second you see them, while others are more complicated from the start. But over time, I’ve found the most interesting people, as well as puzzles, appear to be simple initially, but are in fact much more complex once you get below the surface.

  I read it again, and still wasn’t exactly sure what I’d meant by it. Some snippets were like that, coming to my conscious mind unbidden, as if I were channeling them as I typed, if I believed in that kind of thing. Though the horoscopes appeared close to my puzzles in many of the newspapers that carried them, the two were worlds apart. My puzzles were based on logic, and used the ability to take a limited amount of information to solve a conundrum. However horoscopes were inspired by the authors and how they perceived the stars and planets, I was pretty sure that even they would agree they weren’t based on my particular brand of mathematical reasoning.

  I checked the puzzle again, solving it myself, and thought it was okay. Not great, but good enough. And until things settled back down in my life, that was going to have to suffice.

  I WAS IN THE CAR ON MY WAY TO MEET ZACH FOR LUNCH when my cell phone rang. I fumbled for it in my purse, and said, “Hello?”

  “Is this a bad time?” Sherry asked.

  “Are you kidding? It’s never a bad time to talk to you.” I was just starting to realize that what I’d missed most about Charlotte were not the beautiful architecture or the advantages to the big city like restaurants and culture, but the people I’d known there.

  And my former neighbor was at the top of the list.

  “I don’t want to interrupt any deep puzzle thoughts,” she said.

  “I just finished it and faxed it to my editor.”

  “Good. You made quite an impression on your visit back.”

  “Don’t I always? You make it sound as if it’s hit or miss.”

  “I’m not talking about me, you goof. I mean Betsy. She keeps gabbing on and on about what a thrill it was to meet you. I’ve got to be honest with you. If I didn’t love you already, I’d be sick of the sound of your name.” I could hear the smile in her voice as she said it.

  “What can I say? I may have just three fans, but they’re all very vocal about it.”

  “You’ve got more than that, and you know it.”

  I pulled into the police station parking lot and shut off the engine. “Is that why you were calling, or was there something else on your mind?”

  “I don’t know what your schedule’s like, but could you swing by the house tomorrow after the kids go to school? They only have four more days, and then they’re with me all summer.”

  “You love it, and you know it.”

  “I do,” she admitted, “but when my free time is winding down, I try to jam as much living into it as I can. What do you say? Will you throw your old friend a life preserver?”

  “Absolutely. Hey, if you’d like, we could have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. You can order anything on the menu.”

  I was about to tell her about my open tab when she interrupted. “I was thinking more along the lines of eggs and toast at my kitchen table. That’s not too mundane for you these days, is it?”

  “Are you kidding? It sounds like paradise.”

  “Great. I’ll see you around eight.”

  “Let me guess. The kids are gone by seven fifty-five.”

  She laughed, and I enjoyed the warmth of it for a moment. “You got me. See you tomorrow.”

  “Till then.”

  I got out of the car and headed toward the front entrance. I suddenly realized that I needed to call Lorna and cancel our breakfast date tomorrow. I was just punching her phone number in when I ran into Davis on the steps outside.

  “Hey, Chief,” I said as I killed the phone call.

  “I still can’t get used to being called that,” he admitted.

  “Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it. Is Zach upstairs?”

  Davis shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been barred from the task force room, if you can believe that. In my own building!”

  “It shouldn’t come as some kind of big surprise. You know how Zach works.”

  “I realize that the man likes his privacy, but Steve Sanders comes and goes as he pleases.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” I said as I tucked my phone back into my purse. “Zach’s the only one with a key. If he’s not there, Steve has to wait outside the door in the hallway like everyone else.”

  That made Davis smile, so I had to ask, “What’s so amusing about that?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, the police chief said, “You know he was expecting to get my job, don’t you?”

  “I heard he was being considered for it,” I admitted.

  “Well, he jumped the gun and started making promises he couldn’t keep. When he lost out to me, he made a lot of people mad at him around here. To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised when Zach chose him to help out on this case.”

  “That’s not the way it happened at all. Steve volunteered, and I think Zach didn’t have the heart to say no.”

  Davis nodded. “That makes more sense.” He paused a moment, and then asked, “So, tell me. What exactly is going on up there? You’ve got more access to the investigation than I do.”

  “He’s still collecting information,” I said.

  “I heard he’s left the building a few times. Any idea about exactly where he went?”

  What was going on here? Even if I knew, I wasn’t about to tell anyone what my husband was doing in his investigation, even if it was his boss asking the questions. “You’d need to ask him that. I’m just a simple puzzle maker.”

  “We both know better than that, Savannah.” His phone went off as he was getting ready to tell me something else, and after a moment of whispering, he said, “Sorry, I’ve got to take this. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “See you,” I said.

  I walked upstairs and found my husband still in his corner, with his feet propped up and a blank stare on his face. I tried to back out of the door silently, but my elbow hit it and rattled it in its frame.

  That brought him out of his thought process.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. I was just about finished anyway.”

  “I hope that’s true, and that I didn’t wreck anything for you.” I looked around the room. “Where’s your minion?”

  “I didn’t need him today, so I sent him back to the squad room.”

  “I bet he wasn’t too happy about that.”

  “No, not so much. How did you know that?”

  I put my purse down on one of the tables. “I just had a chat with your boss.”

  “Funny, I thought that was your title,” he said with a grin.

  “No matter how hard I wish it, it still hasn’t come true,” I replied with a smile of my own.

  “If it’s not you, then I assume you were chatting with Davis. What did he have to say?”

  “It’s funny, but if I didn’t know better, I would think he was grilling me for information about your investigation.”

  Zach shook his head, and his smile was replaced with a scowl. “He shouldn’t have done that. When I wouldn’t tell him, he came to you.”

  “Well, it’s a cinch he didn’t go to Steve.”

  Zach looked intently at me. “What do you mean by that?”

  “There’s more bad blood between them than I realized. I’ve got the feeling that neither ma
n likes the other, regardless of what they might say.”

  “Not all personalities get along.”

  “It goes deeper than that,” I said.

  “Woman’s intuition?”

  “No, keen observation skills honed over the years.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?” Zach asked.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “Are you at a place you can get away for lunch?”

  “Honestly, I can be gone longer than that. I’ve squeezed about all I can out of this information. It’s time to do some fieldwork.”

  “All right. Now you’re talking. Before you decide the order we interrogate suspects in, there’s new information you need to know.”

  “Slow down, Savannah. I never said you’d be a part of the active investigation.”

  “Zach, I know a lot of the players, and some of these people won’t talk to you if it’s a part of your investigation. Trust me, we’ll get more out of them if I’m there with you.”

  “And why do you say that?”

  “Look at me. Am I the least bit intimidating?”

  “Are you kidding me? I’d rather face an angry mob than take you on sometimes.”

  I touched his arm lightly. “Thanks, I appreciate that, but these people don’t know me. You’re this big and dark bruiser of a man, and sometimes when you ask questions, it’s like you’ve got a hammer behind your back. Me, I overwhelm them with softness, and then I move in for the kill.”

  “Maybe. But even if it’s true, I’m not about to put your life in danger.”

  “I was the one the killer took a photograph of, remember? Don’t you think it’s safe to say that I’m already in a little bit of trouble here? Why not take advantage of my offer?”

  He paused for a second, and then said, “Okay. You’re right.”

  I nearly questioned what I was hearing, but I knew if I got cute at that moment, I’d lose the tiny foothold I’d worked so hard to attain. “I appreciate that.”

  “No gloating? No celebratory dance?”

  “No, sir. Just my thanks.”

  He whistled softly under his breath.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just when I think I have the game figured out, you change the playing field on me.”