Nicole slanted me an irritated glance. “And almost every other day that week thanks to Austin trying to fix my car. At least it was drivable before he screwed around with it.”
That meant that Estelle might have been right about the car she had seen, but she’d made the wrong assumption about the driver.
Knowing I would have only another minute while her mother settled the bill, I couldn’t waste a second. “By chance, were you driving your mom’s car when you visited Bob Hallahan the night after your father’s death?”
Nicole stared at me as if she’d seen a ghost. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She knew exactly what I was talking about. “A neighbor saw the Bronco there.”
“I-I just needed to talk to him about something.”
“Would it have something to do with his relationship with Victoria?” I asked to gauge her reaction.
She opened her mouth and immediately clamped it shut again.
That would be a yes.
“How…did Jeremy say something about that to you?”
Jeremy? “He may have.”
“I had my own suspicions. Especially when he wasn’t there at Dad’s birthday dinner. But after Jeremy said that he saw Victoria and Bob together, I just had to know.”
At last, another witness. “So, they were having an affair.”
“No! They were shopping for my dad’s birthday present.” Nicole said it like she was disappointed. “My stupid brother…. No, I take that back. At least he was smart enough to not go over to Bob’s house and yell at him like I did.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, honay,” Marietta said, shifting her gaze to me. “A lot of people jump to conclusions when they see a man spending time with a woman.”
Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.
“Especially that woman.” Nicole lowered her voice when Darlene swung open the door. “Because she killed my father.”
Darlene handed a set of car keys to her daughter. “We’re all set.” Frowning, she looked at me. “What are you talking about? Is there some news?”
Pointing toward the office so that my mother would get the hint that she had heard more than enough, I waited until the door swung shut behind her to answer Darlene’s question. “No news. We’re still waiting for the lab results to come back.”
“She’s going to get away with it, isn’t she?” Darlene asked, the same murderous look in her eyes as Nicole’s.
Not if I could help it. “We’re doing everything we can.”
She grimaced. “Which isn’t much.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“Sure.”
I wanted to ask about her private conversation with Cameron and his mother after the funeral service, but I didn’t dare broach the subject with Nicole standing there. “And I would appreciate you letting me know if there’s any additional information that we need.”
The little tug at Darlene’s crow’s feet told me that she understood my meaning. “Of course.”
Turning, she kissed her daughter’s cheek and then climbed into the Bronco.
I got the sense that Nicole was waiting for her to leave, so I stood next to her while her mother drove away.
Nicole met my gaze. “I realize that you haven’t seen me at my best, but I’m not just some pissed off bitch that wants to find someone to blame for my father’s death.”
I was sure there was some truth in that statement, but since it followed another “she killed my father” line, Nicole couldn’t have laid more blame at Victoria’s feet if she tried. “I know. There just isn’t much that anyone can do until we get the test results back.”
She sighed and turned toward her car.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what was the birthday present?” Because most men I knew would balk at the idea of going shopping, unless this had been a way for Bob to spend some time with his best friend’s wife.
“A stupid fishing reel. I guess it was something Dad had wanted for a while.” She wiped away a tear. “All that money and he hardly spent any of it on himself. But you can bet who’s gonna be spending it pretty soon.”
Yep. Probably a safe bet.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Did you sign up for that online dating website?” I asked Lucille when I stopped at Duke’s to pick up Frankie’s Friday morning doughnut order on my way to work.
Looking over the cash register at me, she pursed her coral painted lips. “Did you?”
“I wasn’t the one who said she wanted to expand her horizons.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you hear.”
I didn’t, especially at Gossip Central where half-truths were served up as often as the pancakes my great-uncle was flipping on his grill.
I handed her a twenty.
“Speaking of dating,” she said, a mischievous glimmer in her eyes as she counted out my change. “How’s it going between you and Steve? He hasn’t come in for breakfast once since Tuesday.”
Probably because I’d been serving him healthier breakfasts at his house each morning. “Everything’s fine.” I’d been PMSing and hadn’t been the most fun the last couple of days, but things now felt like we were back to normal—whatever normal meant when it came to me and Steve.
She scoffed. “Everything’s fine, eh? That seems to be the catch phrase of the day.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the same thing that new kid working at McCutcheon’s Flooring said after he had a little scuffle with Jeremy outside.”
A scuffle? “When did this happen?”
“Ten minutes before you got here. Duke had to go out and break it up.”
Duke looked over and frowned at the mention of his name. Either that or he was spying on me to make sure I didn’t help myself to one of his apple fritters.
Lucille leaned closer. “I think someone’s getting fired today.”
If Cameron got fired, that would eliminate the one thing that appeared to be keeping him in town. “Well, that’s not good.”
“Hey, mess with the bull and you’re gonna get the horn.”
“Yeah.” Walking to my car with the pink bakery box I wished Jeremy McCutcheon were the kind of man to keep his horn to himself, but I knew better.
With any luck, Cameron would stick around to get his reward for his part in his father’s death. Maybe even reveal himself as Jeremy’s half-brother as a parting shot.
I sucked in a breath. What if that was what had precipitated the fight? What if Jeremy had provoked him into throwing the one punch that Cameron knew would send his big brother reeling?
I rushed to my car, all the while playing the what if game. Because if Cameron had told Jeremy the truth about his identity he may have just made that mistake I’d been waiting for.
∗ ∗ ∗
During an hour spent catching up with the filing I’d neglected yesterday, I’d had plenty of time to think of excuses to ask for a follow-up interview with Cameron. The trouble was all of them were lame. Since I really didn’t expect to see him at the shop, maybe that didn’t matter. I should be able to get the answer I needed from Jeremy.
I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall next to the bank of black filing cabinets. Ten-thirty-five—a good time to go have a chat before Jeremy left for lunch.
Waving a registered letter at Patsy that Karla had asked me to take to the post office, I slipped my tote over my shoulder and skipped down the marble steps of the courthouse as quickly as my feet would carry me.
When I stepped onto the sidewalk on Main Street five minutes later, I turned to see Steve’s unmarked cruiser pacing me.
He rolled down the passenger side window. “A little early for lunch, isn’t it?”
“My goodness, you are so suspicious,” I said, maintaining a steady stride. “You’d make a good cop.”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “So, where’re you going?”
“Errands.” Not a complete lie.
�
�Would you be interested in a date later?”
If he had wanted to grab my complete attention, he’d just said the magic words. We both hit our brakes, and I leaned against his open window. “What did you have in mind?”
“Dinner, a little black dress I heard you mention, maybe some conversation.”
“You’d talk to me, too?”
“Yeah, don’t let it go to your head.”
“Golly, when you put it that way, I can hardly wait.”
“Six?”
“You’ve got yourself a date!”
He turned on Third to head back to the police station, and I walked another five blocks to McCutcheon Floors & More.
A buzzer announced my arrival as I stepped into the shop. Seconds later, Bob Hallahan emerged from a back room with a guarded look in his eyes. “May I help you with something?”
“I was hoping to have a word with Cameron.”
“He’s out doing an installation,” he said as a phone started ringing.
So much for him being fired. “Is—”
“We’re short-handed. You’ll have to excuse me a minute.”
While Bob ran to answer the phone, I browsed the laminate floor display.
“Are you being helped?” a female voice asked.
I turned to see Phyllis, who looked even more alarmed to see me than Bob had. “I was just waiting for Bob.” To try to get some information out of the keep cool guy who wouldn’t want to tell me a thing. “But maybe you can help me. Could we talk in your office?”
Averting her gaze, she clamped her lips shut.
Yes, I know. You don’t want to talk to me.
I followed her down the hall to a smaller, less cluttered version of Marty’s old office, where the colorful home page of the Second Chances dating website was displayed on her computer monitor.
She turned off the monitor, a crimson flush crawling up her cheeks as she took a seat.
“Popular site.” Much more popular than I ever would have guessed two weeks ago.
“I suppose.” She pressed her palms together as if in prayer. Probably for a do-over of the last few minutes. “Now, what can—”
“Been using it long?” If she had, or if Bob or Marty had shared any of their experiences with her, I wanted her to start talking.
“Not long. One of the guys told me about it and…well, it probably seems foolish at my age, but I thought I’d give it a try.”
“Marty was close to your age when—”
Her eyebrows arched, and I realized I’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let on about how he met Victoria. “Sorry, in my interviews someone mentioned that he met his wife online.”
That someone had been Phyllis’s sister, but she didn’t need to hear that from me.
“No, he didn’t. They met through Jeremy. He was the one who met her online.”
“Oh.”
“Shortly after that, Victoria became a customer when she needed some work done at her B & B. Marty took over when the job became a little too big for Jeremy. Hardwood, I think.”
The way Phyllis said hardwood I sensed that she wasn’t just talking flooring.
“This isn’t what you came here to talk about,” she said dismissively. “What did you want to ask me?”
I didn’t want to ask her anything. Not now. “I actually should speak with Jeremy about the matter. Is he around?”
She shook her head. “Gone for the day. Some business he had to tend to.”
I thanked her and headed out through the showroom.
Bob looked up from the deskwork he was doing. “Did you get what you needed?”
And more than I had bargained for. “I think so, thanks.”
Outside on the sidewalk I reconsidered what I’d just learned. So what if Jeremy was the one who had introduced his father to Victoria? “Does that really change anything?” I asked myself as I headed to Duke’s for lunch.
She still married the richest guy around—a guy who just happened to have a bad ticker.
She and Bob might not have been having an affair, but he still looked like a man in love. And people in love had been known to do some stupid things, beyond buying the “stupid fishing reel” Nicole told me about yesterday.
Nothing about Cameron appeared to have changed. He had still lied to me. He was still a guy who appeared to have a problem keeping his cool, and yet Jeremy hadn’t fired him. I didn’t get that last part at all. Unless he had something on Jeremy.
Had anything really changed?
Knowing that Jeremy and Victoria had once dated made me wonder about his feelings toward her now. How far did Victoria’s ability to wrap Jeremy around her little finger extend? And what would he be willing to do for a bigger piece of the pie?
Heck. I now had four suspects and no proof of anything.
Steve had said that we’d have some conversation with dinner. Would he be willing to listen to what I’d learned today?
I thought about the last date we’d tried to have and what a mess it had turned into.
“Date first, talk later.”
∗ ∗ ∗
“I am wearing a pair of killer stilettos so don’t you dare tell me that you’re cancelling on me again,” I said when Steve called at six o’clock sharp.
“Killer stilettos. Sounds dangerous.”
“They are, but mainly to my balance, so are you going to be here soon, or do I take these things off and make myself comfortable for an evening in?”
“I should be done here in twenty minutes. Since our reservation is in Port Townsend, to save some time why don’t you go to Eddie’s and I’ll pick you up there.”
The last time I went to Eddie’s in my black dress it hadn’t worked out so well. “Okay. Twenty minutes but—” I heard a click and looked down at my phone. Disconnected.
I grabbed Gram’s beaded black bag. “I hope the second time’s the charm.”
Ten minutes later, while Rox poured me a glass of chardonnay, I saw Bob Hallahan and Cameron come in. It was a typically busy Friday night with no tables available, but an empty barstool was next to me, so feeling brave with my cop buddy on his way, I waved them over.
“I didn’t realize this place was so formal,” Bob said over the din of the crowd. “Or perhaps this seat was being saved for someone.”
“Who won’t be here for a little while, so please,” I scooted over to make room for Cameron, “make yourself comfortable.”
“Some people around here have dates on Friday night, and some of us poor souls have to work,” Rox said, delivering my chardonnay.
“I remember date night with my wife.” A wistful smile played at the corners of Bob’s lips. “The best night of the week.”
He pointed at a stool vacated by a big guy in a Hawaiian shirt, and Cameron pulled it over while a Joan Jett song filled the awkward silence.
Rox tossed coasters in front of them. “What’ll you boys have?”
Bob ordered a couple of beers and handed Cameron a laminated menu. “Figure out what kind of pizza you want,” he said, sounding more like a father than a coworker. Then he turned to me. “I almost forgot. You wanted to talk to Cam earlier.”
Heck. My lame excuse for talking to him seemed even more lame now.
Cameron looked past Bob, sitting between us. “What about?”
“I’d heard there was some trouble outside my family’s cafe this morning.” Like it was really any of my business.
“Sorry.” He averted his gaze. “I let something get out of hand.”
I leaned closer. “It’s just that Duke is getting along in years and shouldn’t over-exert himself.” Never mind that the old coot competed in the regional Ironman competition every year.
Rox stifled a chuckle as she delivered two frosty mugs of beer.
Bob turned to Cameron. “I’m sure it won’t happen again, will it?”
Cameron heaved a weary sigh like a teenager. “No.” He glanced at the flat screen to his right. “Hey, the playoff game’s on.”
T
he second Cameron parked himself in front of the TV, Bob glanced at me. “The kid’s having a hard time with Jeremy. Cam told me that you know about his situation.”
He had told Bob? These two were even tighter than I’d thought.
“Now that his dad’s gone, he’s trying to honor Darlene’s wishes and give her the opportunity to tell Jeremy and his sister, but,” Bob reached for his beer, “I keep telling him he needs to take a step back and calm down.”
Criminy, was that why he had told Cameron to keep his cool?
Bob took a long drink. “Sometimes, you can only wait so long before you have to take matters into your own hands.”
I turned to get a better angle on his face. “Do you think he’s going to say something to Jeremy?”
“Wouldn’t you want to if you’d found out you had a brother?”
According to Marietta, I had an older half-brother and sister somewhere in France. Since I had absolutely no desire to meet them, he was asking the wrong girl. “Maybe. Speaking of Jeremy, since you know the family as well as you do, help me understand his relationship with Victoria.”
I figured if I could get him talking, I could get a bead on his feelings for the woman.
His brows furrowed. “Are you suggesting that there’s something inappropriate going on?”
“You know people around here. They talk.”
“Then they’ve got their heads up their asses if they think Victoria has been anything other than a good friend to Marty’s son. Actually, both his sons.”
While I could plainly see that Bob believed what he said to be true, I couldn’t make everything I’d witnessed with my own eyes fit into the family portrait he was painting for me.
“I hadn’t realized that she’d become that close to Cameron,” I said.
“Victoria’s determined to carry out Marty’s wishes.” He shot me a sideways glance. “I know Darlene is accusing her of being some sort of murderous gold digger, but she doesn’t know her. She never saw how good they were together.”
This didn’t sound like a man who was anything more than a faithful friend. “But Bob, Victoria stands to inherit millions.”
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