by Mary Maxwell
“Hey, Katie,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“Nigel Summerfield,” I said. “Did he call you just now?”
“No, but I left him a couple of messages this afternoon. Have you heard from him?”
“Yeah, I was on the phone with him a second ago. And I urged him to call you. But there was something in his voice…”
“You think he’s getting ready to go rogue?”
“I don’t know what he’s getting ready to do,” I said. “But you should probably have somebody try to track him down.”
She agreed with the suggestion and then gave me a quick update. Officers Bennington and Dalton had stopped by the Moonlight Motel, but Earl Dodd told them Nigel hadn’t been in his room since the previous night. Every patrol officer in Crescent Creek had been advised to keep watch for Nigel’s rental car, but no one had reported seeing it yet.
When she finished the recap, I promised to call her again if I heard from him.
“Thanks for letting me know, Katie,” Dina said. “This Summerfield guy will turn up at some point. And when he does, we’ll bring him in for a chat.”
CHAPTER 26
It was nearly ten that night by the time I kicked off my shoes, collapsed onto the bed and groaned from the fatigue and emotion of the day. Olivia was staying with one of her high school friends, so the three of us had enjoyed a nostalgic dinner at Burger & Brew before they went off to meet a few other people for a nightcap.
“Come with us,” my sister had pleaded. “We won’t stay out too late.”
“I hope not,” I said, declining the offer. “Ivy confirmed that the book fair reopens in the morning at eight, so we need to be there by seven-thirty at the latest.”
Despite Liv’s best whining and her friend Samantha’s insistent requests, I wriggled away a few minutes before ten, stopped to fill up the car and then zoomed back home. I was still sprawled on the bed, thinking about a quick shower and cup of tea, when someone knocked on the front door.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I moaned, pushing up from the mattress. “Who on earth is bothering me at this—”
My grumbling came to a quick stop when I peered through the peephole and saw Zack Hutton. I quickly unlatched the chain, reversed the deadbolt and opened the door.
“Hey, mister! What are you doing out this late?”
“I hope you don’t mind.” He held up a white box bearing the name of a familiar restaurant. “But I saw the light was on.”
“And you just happened to have something from Luigi’s with you?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I was an Eagle Scout.”
I smiled. “Always prepared?”
“Pretty much.” He gave me a kiss and stepped inside. “Is it too late for dessert? If so, this’ll keep in the fridge.”
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Yep.” His eyes were bright and dazzling. “Hungry?”
I gave him a second kiss and nudged him toward the living room sofa.
“I’ll get forks,” I said. “What do you want to drink?”
“I’m good. We can share the tiramisu and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
I came in from the kitchen and sat beside him.
“Unless you don’t want me to get out of your hair,” he added with a mischievous wink.
“Hmmm…as much as I’d love to stay up until the wee hours,” I said, opening the Luigi’s box, “I have to get—”
“I know, I know,” he said, draping one arm around my shoulders. “You have to get up early and make the pies before the doors open.”
We shared another lingering kiss that was tender and warm and filled with desire.
“Actually,” I said when he shifted away, “I’m meeting my sister at the Civic Center in the morning.”
“Oh!” Zack nodded. “The book fair. Sorry, Kate. I spent all day taking pictures of a bunch of kindergarten students. I think my short- and long-term memory were pretty much trashed by all their screeching.”
I smiled, dipped my fork into the creamy dessert and offered the bite to Zack.
“Wow,” he said before taking the sample. “Service and a smile!”
We enjoyed the tiramisu in silence for a few minutes. Then I asked how he knew that I’d be awake. “Most nights, I’m in bed by nine-thirty,” I said.
“I ran into your sister and her friends,” Zack explained. “They were doing shots at The Wagon Wheel.”
“Oh, don’t tell me that. Liv is really hard to deal with when she’s hungover.”
He shrugged. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Katie. Liv’s friends were doing the drinking; she’s the designated driver.”
“Well, thank heavens for small mercies,” I said. “As long as she gets to bed by midnight, we’ll be okay.”
“How’d it go there today?”
“It was fine. I left Liv in charge of the booth for part of the afternoon while I ran errands.”
“Was there a big crowd?”
I nodded. “Ivy said it was a record-breaker. And tomorrow should be more of the same.”
“My buddy Ollie saw you going into Crisp Realty this afternoon,” Zack said. “You in the market for a new place to hang your apron?”
I smiled at the joke. “No, I was trying to get information about something.”
“Okay,” he said warily. “That sounds pretty darn vague.”
“It’s nothing really. I just…” I hadn’t shared too much about the Walter Shipp situation with Zack besides a quick update after I stopped by the crime scene the night before. And I didn’t want him to worry, so I mulled over how much to tell him after the day’s developments. “Okay, so you know about Walter Shipp, right?” He nodded. “Well, I’d actually learned about an anonymous threat on his life a couple of days ago.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” I answered. “And I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure if it was credible or not.”
“But now that the guy’s been kidnapped, you feel differently?”
“I planned to tell you, but…” I scraped the last of the tiramisu from the bottom of the carryout container. “The day sort of got away from me.”
Zack reached over, took the fork from my hand and then held it in front of my mouth. After I took the bite, I fell back against the cushions.
“I hope you’re not doing anything really dangerous out there, Katie.”
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “Solving mysteries is in my blood. And so is helping people. After Ivy Minkler called the other day in a panic about an anonymous death threat she found, I couldn’t very well not get involved.” I waited for some sign from Zack, but his gaze was steady and indecipherable. I couldn’t tell if he agreed or wanted to debate the point. “But I haven’t done anything risky,” I went on. “When Ollie saw me earlier, I’d stopped to ask Eugene Crisp about some properties that Walter had looked at recently.”
“Uh-huh. And why would you do that?”
“Because there’s a chance that someone took Walter and Annabeth to one of those vacant cabins.”
Zack considered what I’d told him. Then he said, “Who’s Annabeth?”
I quickly explained about Nigel and Annabeth as well as their connection to Walter Shipp.
“They think he killed their father?”
“That’s their theory.”
“And they came to Crescent Creek to…what? Try and get Walter to confess to a murder that happened years ago?”
I nodded.
“Then why didn’t you share all of this with Trent and Dina?”
“I did.” I forced a smile. “And they’re working on it, but I…”
Zack laughed. “But you can’t help yourself?”
I took a moment to smile and squeeze his hand. “It’s not like that,” I said softly. “I’m not some reckless whack job. I have experience in these things.”
“And you want to help your friend.”
“Yeah, I wanted to help Ivy because she was pretty f
reaked out after she found the death threat.”
Zack leaned in to kiss me again. “I’m proud of you, Katie. I mean, we’re just really getting to know each other, but…” His eyes widened and we kissed again. “When Gretchen had me come by to take your picture that first day,” he said. “I had no idea you were so…” His head tilted slightly as a zigzag grin appeared. “Well, I didn’t know all that much about your work as a PI. And I suppose I figured it was like the stuff you see on TV or something. Rumpled guys in trench coats. People drinking coffee on stakeouts or using telephoto lenses to shoot pictures from down the block.”
I smiled. “Well, I did my share of all that when I worked with Rodney in Chicago. But this thing with Ivy and Walter Shipp…I’m really just playing a minor role to support what the PD are doing.”
“A minor role?”
“Very minor.” I flashed another smile. “So incredibly minor that I probably won’t be involved much more at all.”
He laughed. “Oh, sure! Like that’ll ever happen.”
I jabbed one finger into his ribs. “Hey! I’m serious. Trent and his team have this thing under control. When I hear back from Eugene Crisp, I’ll probably just pass the info along to them and sit back to see what happens.”
Zack reached over and cupped my chin with one hand. “Now, that’s one of the more reasonable things you’ve said about your amateur detective hobby.”
“It’s not a hobby,” I said. “It’s a…”
And the rest of my reply was lost as our lips met and we both yielded to the moment.
CHAPTER 27
“Hey, beautiful,” a soggy voice said. “Did I wake you?”
I put down Cooking Light and glanced at the clock. It was eleven-fifteen; a half hour after Zack had kissed me good night and headed for home. When he left, I returned a couple of emails for Sky High catering jobs, changed into my favorite flannel nightgown and climbed into bed to read a few pages of the magazine that had arrived in the afternoon mail. When the phone rang, I was engrossed in a recipe for Low-Calorie Sour Cream Donuts.
“Who wants to know?”
“It’s Trent,” he said, sounding slightly wounded. “Don’t you recognize my voice?”
I answered with a muted chuckle. “I’m just teasing, you big galoot. What’s going on?”
“Nigel Summerfield,” he said.
“What about him?”
“He’s been arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest,” Trent answered. “I’d love to charge him with utter stupidity, but I don’t think that’s part of the penal code yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said, throwing off the covers and dropping my legs over the edge of the bed. “What did he do?”
Trent gave me a quick summary. Shortly after nine o’clock, Velma Short heard suspicious noise in Walter Shipp’s backyard. When she took a look through her faithful binoculars, she saw someone in dark clothes trying to pry open the kitchen door. The officers that responded to Velma’s call found Nigel attempting to pick the backdoor lock with a garden trowel.
“The guy’s dumb as a box of rocks,” Trent said. “What kind of burglar does that?”
“He’s not,” I said.
“What?”
“Nigel’s not a burglar,” I said. “He’s upset about his sister. I bet he went to Walter’s looking for clues about Annabeth’s disappearance.”
“Whatever,” Trent grumbled. “Like I said, the guy’s only got one oar in the water.”
“Well, good luck helping him find the other one.”
Trent chuckled. “Actually, Nigel asked me to see if you’d be willing to come down to the station.”
“For what?”
“Moral support.” Trent’s voice quivered with glee. “And maybe to serve as a character witness.”
I decided not to take the bait. Instead, I told Trent that I’d be there as soon as possible. Then I rushed into my closet, grabbed the first things I saw and headed out the door. When I walked into the police station twenty minutes later, Trent burst out laughing at my stretchy green fleece leggings, Chicago Fire Department hoodie and pale blue Wellington boots decorated with little purple and yellow flowers.
“What’s with the clown getup?” he asked. “You know it’s not Halloween, right?”
I glared at him silently. Then I said, “Where’s Nigel?”
“Third floor conference room,” Trent answered. “I’ve got Smithfield and Morton sitting with him in case he tries a jailbreak.”
As we headed for the elevator, I asked Trent if it would be possible to drop his standup comic routine for the night.
“I’m just trying to keep the mood light,” he said with a frown.
“I give you a gold star for effort,” I replied. “But none of this is funny.”
The silent ride to the third floor felt much longer than twenty seconds, but Trent apologized as we stepped out of the elevator.
“Cold pills,” he said with a slight nod. “I read somewhere online that they can really mess with your personality.”
I shook my head but didn’t say anything. When we reached the conference room a few minutes later, Trent asked me to talk with Nigel alone.
“Why?” I asked.
Trent shrugged. “Maybe the guy will tell you something useful, Katie. So far, we keep getting the same mumbo-jumbo about how he’s innocent until proven guilty.”
“Isn’t he?”
Trent groaned. “You know what I mean. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As I stepped through the open door, Nigel gave me a big smile. He was slumped in a chair at the table. Aaron Smithfield and Bob Morton, two veterans of the PD, sat at opposite ends of the room.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “How’s it going?”
They both responded with muttered greetings before getting up and walking toward the door.
“He just had a bottle,” Aaron groused, sneering at Nigel. “Should be nighty-night time pretty soon, so we’ll have someone wheel in a crib.”
Once we were alone, Nigel let out an exaggerated sigh. “Thank you, Kate! I hoped you’d be willing to come down.”
“What were you thinking?” I said. “Why in the world did you go to Walter Shipp’s?”
He shrugged and glanced away. “I just got so…” He slowly sat up in his chair and looked at me. “Do you know how difficult it’s been? Doing nothing? Just sitting and waiting for the police to call and tell me that my sister’s dead?” He blinked and swallowed hard. “I wanted to do something, okay? I wanted to see if I could help find her.”
“By attempting to burglarize Walter’s house?” I asked. “And by entering a crime scene? Don’t you know that’s illegal? You can actually be charged for doing it, Nigel.”
“By going under the stupid yellow tape?”
I nodded. “And so—what? Tell me what you gained by pulling this stunt?”
“I know they found my sister’s rental car,” he said smugly.
“Yeah?”
“Yep. One of the officers told me it was found this evening in the parking garage behind City Hall. The cop said that it looked like Annabeth had a flat tire and didn’t want to bother with it. So she left the car and called a cab.”
My mind quickly flashed on the previous day when I saw the taxi pulling into Walter’s driveway with Annabeth in the back.
“What’re you smiling about?” Nigel asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m glad they located the car.”
He scoffed. “Be a whole lot better if they found her. Who cares about a stupid car?”
I let him glower at me briefly. Then I told him that I’d been thinking about his situation and had a few questions.
“Like what?” The self-satisfied edge had dulled somewhat. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, the letter. Why’d you write it in the first place? Did you actually intend to harm Walter Shipp?”
“We never really planned to hurt him at all,” Nigel said. “When we came up with t
he idea, it was only to force Shipp to acknowledge that he killed our father. We were going to videotape his confession and turn him over to the authorities once we recovered the money that he embezzled.”
“Did you seriously think it would work?”
Nigel glanced down at the table. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “We were desperate. And angry. When we found a journal that our father kept during his final weeks, we were convinced that Walter Shipp killed him and then transferred everything he had in the bank to an off-shore account. That included the money dad planned to give to Annabeth and I.”
“Did your father leave a will?”
Nigel nodded. “Yes, but it had been changed the day before the hiking trip to Whetstone Gulf.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “The changes included removing you and your sister as beneficiaries.”
“That’s right. And guess who became executor of our father’s estate?”
“Walter Shipp?”
He confirmed my supposition with a silent nod.
“Didn’t you protest to your father’s attorney?” I asked.
“We absolutely did,” Nigel answered. “But the man wasn’t about to be persuaded. In the revised documents, father left more than a million dollars to the attorney. We think Walter added that change, too. The lawyer’s just as corrupt as Shipp, so he was more than happy to look the other way and take a bribe.”
“What about witnesses to your father’s will?”
Nigel smirked. “We think Shipp and the lawyer forged their signatures.”
“Didn’t you file an appeal with the probate court?”
“Do you know how long that takes?” Nigel said dismissively. “And since Shipp and the money had vanished, what could the court do? Issue warrants? Make a bunch of legal noise?”
“But once you saw Walter’s picture on the book fair site,” I said, “you decided to take matters into your own hands. Is that the gist of it?”
“The letter was just supposed to be an empty threat,” Nigel agreed. “A threat that would show him how serious we were about seeking justice for our father and recovering our inheritance. We found evidence that suggests Shipp stole millions from our father. And the PI tracked down witnesses who were on the trail that day in Whetstone Gulf. They saw Walter Shipp push my father as he struggled to keep his balance on the edge of an outcropping.”