by Jessica Beck
“If we tell you something, you can count on it as gold,” I said.
He smiled slightly. “Rebecca’s already told me as much. Do you know a good locksmith? I’m afraid that I need rush service.”
“Malcolm Mason is the best,” I said. “Would you like me to call him for you?”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” he said.
I got Malcolm on the phone. “Hey, this is Victoria. Are you busy right now?”
“I’m always overworked. What’s up?”
“I need a rush job. How fast can you get to Roy Thompson’s office and change the locks?”
Malcolm hesitated, and then he said, “I don’t know, two, maybe three days, I guess.”
That wasn’t going to do at all. “I’m sorry; I didn’t hear what you said.”
“I’m really busy, Victoria.”
“Come on, Malcolm.”
“Okay,” he said grudgingly. “If I move a few things around, I can be over there in half an hour.”
“Ten minutes would be better,” I said.
“You’re killing me. You know that, don’t you?”
“See you soon,” I said, and then I hung up.
Paul looked a little alarmed. “I never expected you to go to such lengths on my account.”
“I just wanted you to know that you can believe most of us in Jasper Fork,” I said with a smile.
Moose added, “Besides, Malcolm was at the diner earlier complaining about business being so slow. He’s great at what he does, but the man’s got a lazy streak a mile long.”
The locksmith beat my ten-minute goal by three minutes. “I happened to have them in stock, but they’re going to cost you.”
“I’m willing to pay any reasonable expense,” Paul said. They haggled over a sum until they agreed on a price, and Malcolm got to work. He made quick work of it, and soon enough, he was on his way.
“That was relatively painless,” Paul said. “Would you mind taking me to my car now?”
“Happy to do it,” Moose said. “Do you mind if we make a stop along the way? I want to check out the tree at the dry cleaners she supposedly hit.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that myself,” Paul said.
We parked the truck once we found the tree in question, and we all got out to examine the scraped bark.
Paul ran a hand over it. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how to judge it,” Moose said. “The way they make cars these days, it doesn’t take all that much to total them.”
The attorney looked a little unsettled by that statement, and he was on edge until we got to the shop.
Wayne was surprised to see us so soon. “Back already?”
“Here’s the owner of the other car you got in today,” Moose said. “He wants a look at the damage.”
Wayne shook the attorney’s hand. “You need a new front left fender, but there was one at the parts warehouse, so I can have you fixed up in no time. Like I told your assistant earlier, it’s cheaper to pop a new one on this model than it is to try to repair the old one. She was going to pay cash. Is that still the way you’d like to handle it?”
He shook his head. “Call this number. My insurance company will take care of you.”
Wayne shrugged as he pocketed the card. “That’s fine. It’s all the same to me.”
“When will it be finished?” Paul asked.
“If it weren’t for the sheriff, I’d be done with it by the end of the day,” Wayne told him.
Paul looked surprised to hear that, and I suddenly realized that we hadn’t told him about the possibility that Kelly had used his car in an attempted vehicular homicide.
After I brought him up to speed, Paul frowned, and then he asked Wayne, “Do you have a vehicle I can rent in the meantime?”
“We’ll be glad to take you wherever you need to go,” Moose said.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m going back to my office in Charlotte. My associate will make the trade-off when he comes to take over here for me.”
“Rebecca will be disappointed to hear that you’re leaving,” I said.
Paul shook his head. “No more than I am. I won’t give up on her that easily, though,” he added with a grin.
“That sounds good. I’m betting that she’ll appreciate your efforts.”
We left Paul Gray at the garage and headed back to the diner. Moose and I still wanted to speak with Sylvia and Asher, but if they kept dodging us, we didn’t have much choice but to bide our time.
As for Kelly, she was now a prime suspect, more than ever, in fact.
Chapter 16
“There you are,” Sylvia Jones said breathlessly as we got out of the truck back at the diner. “I’ve been waiting for you forever!”
“What a coincidence,” Moose said. “We’ve been looking for you, too. We hear you were in an accident today.”
“What? Who told you that? I’m fine.”
“You’re car is in the shop right now,” I said.
Sylvia waved a hand at us dismissively. “Asher must have done it. Why am I not surprised that he didn’t tell me about it? Moose, Victoria, you’ve got to do something about him. I hate to say it, but my son has lost his mind. He’s dangerous!”
“Calm down, Sylvia,” Moose said. “Would you like to come in and tell us what happened?”
“I can’t,” she said as she looked wildly around the parking lot. “It’s not safe.”
“It will be safer inside than it is standing out here in the open,” I said. “If Asher comes into the diner, we’ll protect you.”
“Do you promise?” she asked. “I hate not feeling protected from my own son.”
“We’ll look out for you,” Moose said.
When we walked in, Moose nodded toward Martha, but we didn’t stop to chat. My grandmother read the clue beautifully again and gave us our space. Moose led us back to a booth near the kitchen, and I approved of his choice. We could all sneak back there in a heartbeat if Asher approached, and I didn’t care how crazy he might be; I doubted that he’d tackle Greg when my husband had access to so many sharp and dangerous weapons.
I fetched us all coffee, and after Sylvia took a big gulp of hers, Moose said, “Tell us what happened.”
“When Asher found out about Loretta last night, he snapped. He told me that he was going to scare her off if it was the last thing he did, but when he came back to the house later, he said that it had backfired. Evidently Loretta is more like her father than any of us originally thought.”
“So, you believe her story?” I asked.
“What, that Roy was her father? There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s entirely possible. After all, my ex-husband wasn’t known for his self restraint.”
“What exactly did Asher say today that has upset you so much?” Moose asked.
“He was ranting like a lunatic about her all morning, and nothing I could say helped. I urged him to let the attorneys handle it, but he took it as a personal affront that she was going to share in his inheritance. Asher kept asking me why he should share it all with anyone else, since he’d been the one who’d done all of the work.”
What an odd thing to say. “Did you have any idea what he meant by that?”
“He couldn’t have killed his own father,” Sylvia said without the slightest conviction in her voice. “It’s impossible.”
I wasn’t so sure, but this wasn’t the time or place to bring that up. There were more pressing things to deal with at the moment. “He couldn’t have been all that happy about Kelly Raven inheriting half of it all, either,” I said.
Sylvia shook her head. “If I were her, I’d hire a bodyguard, or maybe even two. Asher said that after he’s done with his sister, he’s going after her. He isn’t planning on sharing Roy’s estate with anyone.”
“But legally, there’s nothing he can do about that,” Moose said.
Sylvia looked as though she were about to cry. “I told him that, and he said that
if the judicial system wouldn’t see things his way, he’d take care of everything himself. After he said that, Asher grabbed the keys to my Jaguar and stormed out. I thought he’d gone out to blow off some steam, but then I heard about what happened to Loretta on the radio.” Sylvia drank a little more coffee, and then she asked, “Is it bad?”
“She might die,” I said. It was a fair assessment, based on what we’d heard over the sheriff’s radio.
“Oh, no. What am I going to do?”
“We need to call the sheriff,” Moose said. “And I mean right now.”
“He’s probably still at the accident scene,” I said.
“I have a hunch that he’ll come running if he hears what Sylvia has to say about her son. Go ahead and call him, Victoria.”
I nodded, but before I dialed, I asked Sylvia, “Are you sure that you’re okay with this?”
“I can’t handle him anymore myself,” she said, and she finally started to quietly cry next to me.
Sheriff Croft picked up on the second ring and said, “Victoria, I was just about to come by the diner. I’m not a minute away. Can it wait until I get there?”
“That’s fine. We’ll tell you then.”
“Tell me what?” he asked.
“It’s about Asher.”
“Hang on. I’ll be there in a second.”
The sheriff took nearly a minute to make it to The Charming Moose, and the second he walked in, he spotted us and walked straight to our booth in back. “What’s going on?”
“Do you want to tell him, or should we?” I asked Sylvia.
“It’s my son,” she said as she dabbed at her tears. “He’s lost his mind. I’m afraid of what he might have done, or what he might still do.”
“Explain,” the sheriff said.
Sylvia did a credible job of bringing him up to speed, with just a few interjections from my grandfather and me. She finally ended with, “You’ve got to find him and stop him.”
“We’ll do our best,” Sheriff Croft said. He stood and moved away from us so he could have some privacy.
“Will he be able to find Asher, do you think?” Sylvia asked.
“He’s very good at what he does,” I replied, trying my best to reassure her. I was glad she hadn’t added anything to her question. I’d been thinking the same thing myself, only my question had been, ‘Will he be able to find him in time?’ I wasn’t one of Kelly’s biggest fans, but I was now fearful for her life. I took a chance and called her number, but there was no answer. If she had Caller-ID—and who didn’t these days—it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she’d declined to pick up when she saw who was calling her. I left a quick message telling her to find the sheriff, no matter what, and hoped that I’d been able to reach her time. Moose had listened in as I’d left the message, and he nodded his approval as I hung up. “That’s good thinking.”
“Asher wouldn’t really hurt her,” Sylvia said aloud, no doubt more to convince herself than the two of us.
“We’re just taking every precaution,” Moose said. There was a reassuring tone to his voice that always amazed me. How did he do that?
The sheriff walked back over to us, and I told him, “I just called Kelly Raven, but she didn’t pick up.”
“I’ve got a man on his way to her apartment right now,” Sheriff Croft said.
“What about my boy?” Sylvia asked.
“I’ve got officers out looking for him, too. That’s all we can do right now.”
“How’s Loretta doing?” Moose asked.
“It’s still touch and go,” the sheriff said. “There’s no doubt that it was deliberate, though. Somebody wanted her dead.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“There were no skid marks at the crime scene except hers, and from the look of her car, I’ve got a feeling that she was tapped more than once before her car finally went over that embankment.”
It just amazed me what people could do when they were driven by greed. How much was another life worth? How about two or three?
“If that’s it, I’m going out on patrol myself,” the sheriff said. “First, I have to stop by the garage and have a look at those cars, though.” His radio squawked, and he said, “Excuse me,” as he stepped aside.
“What’s that all about?” Sylvia asked hopefully. “Have they found my Asher?”
“We’ll know in a second,” I said.
The sheriff walked back, and from the troubled frown on his face, it was clear that the news hadn’t been good.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Kelly Raven’s apartment door was standing wide open when my officer got to the scene. It appears that there was some kind of struggle there.”
“Was it Asher?” Sylvia asked, the dread thick in her voice.
“We have no idea. There were no witnesses. I’ve really got to go now.”
“What about me?” Sylvia shrieked. “You can’t just leave me here alone! He might come after me next.”
The sheriff shrugged. “I can’t do anything except lock you up in one of my cells for your own protection. I don’t have a single officer I can spare to look after you right now.”
“You want me to go to jail? I won’t!” she said adamantly.
“Are there any friends you could call?” he asked. It was clear that there were other things the sheriff would rather be doing than babysitting Sylvia Jones.
“To harbor me and keep me safe? No, there’s no one.”
How sad was that? I was about to offer her our sanctuary at the diner when Moose said, “Come on, Sylvia, I know that you’re friends with Anita Bidwell. Call her.”
“I couldn’t,” Sylvia said. “How can I explain what’s happening?”
“You’ll find the words. I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I just take you over there in my truck? She’ll have a harder time turning you down if you just show up on her doorstep.”
“Are you suggesting that I visit her without even phoning first?” Sylvia looked even more horrified by that prospect than she’d been about spending time locked up in jail.
“You don’t have much choice, Sylvia,” I said.
“It’s as good a plan as any,” the sheriff said.
“I don’t suppose I have any real choice, do I?” she asked.
“It’s going to be all right,” he told her, and then my grandfather turned to me and added, “I’ll be back before long.”
“Be careful,” I answered.
Two minutes after they left, my cell phone rang.
It was Wayne at the garage. “Hey, Victoria. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, always for you,” I said.
“Would you mind coming over to the shop? There’s something here you should see.”
“Can you give me a hint what it is?” I asked. I didn’t like going anywhere without Moose when it concerned the case we were investigating.
“Believe me; you’re going to want to see this for yourself. It’s easier to just show you than to explain it to you, if you know what I mean.”
I made an executive decision right then and there. After all, the repair shop was out in the open. How dangerous could it be going by myself? “I’ll be there in five minutes,” I said.
“That’s great,” he answered.
As I approached the front, Martha asked, “Victoria, are you leaving so soon?”
“I’m going to go see Wayne at the repair shop,” I said. “Send Moose over there when he gets back, would you?”
“I’d be happy to. Should I have him call you first?”
I pulled out my telephone and saw that it was nearly out of its charge. “Do me a favor and put that in the charger for me, would you? I’ll pick it up when I get back.”
“Do you want mine in the meantime?” she asked.
“Since when did you start carrying a cell phone around with you?”
“Don’t tell your grandfather,” she said with a grin. “I’m going to keep it a secret as long as I can.”
> “He won’t hear it from me. Thanks, but I’m sure that I’ll be fine,” I said.
“I hate to sound ungrateful, Wayne, but have you told the sheriff what you’re about to share with me?”
The mechanic grinned as he wiped his hands on a rag. “He’s the one who suggested that I call you. He’s well aware of what I found.”
“Then I’d love to see it.”
“Follow me,” Wayne said.
We walked into the service area, and I noticed that two cars were on lifts, side by side at the same level. One was pointed in one direction, while the other one was just the opposite.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” I asked as I studied both cars.
“One belongs to the Jones family, and the other one is Paul Gray’s vehicle. Look a little closer. Don’t you see it?” Wayne asked.
“All I see are two cars. One has a dented front fender, and the other has a busted back one.”
Wayne nodded. “That’s all true enough, but try to imagine how they might have happened. Study both fenders, and take your time.”
I looked, but I really didn’t see anything. “I’m not sure why I’m doing this. One hit a tree and a car, and the other sideswiped a parked car. What do they have in common?”
Wayne stepped between the cars as he explained, “This is the front left fender, and this is the right rear.”
“Okay, I can see that much.”
“Now look closer.”
I stepped up, and studied one ding, and then the other. “The paint on this fender matches the paint on that one,” I said.
“Excellent,” Wayne said as he nodded in approval.
“So, does that mean that Kelly hit Asher while she was driving Paul Gray’s car?”
“Not necessarily. Asher could have just as easily have hit the car Kelly was driving. There’s no way to tell, based on the impact.”
“Why would one of my suspects hit the other one?” I thought about the possibilities, and then I said, “Hang on a second. If these cars hit each other, who knocked Loretta Jenkins off the road?”
“We won’t know that until the police lab does a lot more tests. The sheriff’s going to confiscate both fenders for further analysis, but at this point, there’s no visual evidence that either one of them hit the Jenkins car.”