by Paty Jager
“No. She was murdered. Someone stabbed or shot her in the chest.” Shandra scrunched her eyes closed a second to try and shove the sight from her mind. The sound of her tires crunching on gravel shot her eyelids up, and she whipped the Jeep back onto the pavement.
“Why would someone do that? She was hard to deal with but to kill her…” Ted’s voice became muffled. “Naomi wants to know when you’ll be delivering the vases.”
“I’m headed home now. Lil is getting them boxed up. I’ll load right up, turn around, and come back down the mountain.” Her stomach growled. She’d skipped lunch and it looked like dinner was going to be late.
“So an hour and a half? We’ll have pizza at the gallery when you arrive.”
Gratitude washed over her, warming a part of her that had chilled the minute she saw Paula’s still body. “Thanks, Ted. You two are wonderful friends.”
She pushed the Bluetooth button and turned off the paved county road. The entrance to her ranch looked like any other forest service road, but two miles up a rough dirt track a beautiful meadow appeared. In the middle of the meadow sat her house, barn, and art studio. Her heart sung with happiness every time she cleared the pine trees and spotted the buildings. The first time she drove up the road she’d felt welcomed. Walking the mountainside, she’d found the type of clay needed for her vases. A sense of homecoming had washed over her, and she’d clung to her dog, Sheba’s, fur and cried with happiness.
Lil stood by the studio door, one hand holding Sheba’s collar and the other stroking Lewis, the cat, looped around her neck like an orange fur stole. The woman was hard to miss. Lil liked purple and wore it whether the clothing fit or not, using baling twine or any other string she could find to hold up pants or tie up the sleeves like old fashioned garters. Her gray hair sprang out from under her ball cap at odd lengths. Lil had come with the ranch just like the stray cat draped over her shoulders. The woman didn’t talk much, but Shandra had learned Lil grew up on the ranch with her grandparents. The ranch had sold before their deaths, and Lil refused to move. The realtor said the sheriff had removed Lil several times and the woman always returned. When Shandra heard the woman’s obsession with the ranch and saw how capable she was with animals and keeping things tidy, she hired her.
They made a good pair. Lil cleaned the house and the studio and handled most of the outside chores. She tended the horses and Sheba when Shandra went to art shows or taught classes at colleges.
The moment the Jeep motor died, Sheba broke from Lil’s hold and ran to the vehicle, placing her large paws on the window and licking the glass. Shandra laughed and slowly shoved the door open after the dog dropped to her four legs.
“I was only gone three days, girl.” She roughed up Sheba’s black, floppy, furry ears and kissed her wide forehead. No one, not even the vet, could determine what breeds made up her canine friend, but everyone agreed she was adorable if not a bit on the slobbery side.
“To her way of thinking you were gone two months.” Lil opened the door to the studio. Seven boxes stood on the prep table.
“Thank you for boxing up the vases, Lil. I was detained at the Doring Gallery. Paula called me to come by, and I found her dead.”
Lil stopped Shandra’s arm as she reached out to pick up the first box.
“How’d she die?”
“Either a gun shot or a stab wound.” Shandra peered into the other woman’s eyes. “You know anything I should?”
Lil shrugged and picked up a box, carrying it out to the Jeep. Shandra followed, placing her box next to the other one in the back. Lil stopped, stroked the cat still draped around her neck, and stared into the trees.
“Saw Paula and a man arguing behind the Quick Mart yesterday.” Her gaze slipped from the trees and peered into Shandra’s eyes. “His face was red and his hands shook.”
“Could you hear what they were saying? Did you know the man?” Shandra felt a bit of the tension she’d been harboring ease from her muscles. If she could give the detective someone to investigate besides Naomi or herself, this weekend would go a lot smoother for both of them.
Lil shook her head. “But they knew each other. They hugged when they first met, then they started arguing.” She walked back into the studio and picked up another box.
Shandra mulled this information over as they loaded the boxes. Sheba looked up at her with sad eyes. Shandra laughed and opened a back car door. “Okay, you can ride shotgun as long as you don’t lick the window.”
Sheba leaped into the back seat of the four door vehicle, and Shandra moved to the driver’s door. Knowing Lil went to bed early, she said, “Please, leave the porch light on and one in the kitchen. I’ll have to stay and visit with prospective buyers.”
Lil nodded and locked the studio door.
Driving down the mountain with Sheba panting and rocking the Jeep as she shifted in the back seat, Shandra didn’t feel as alone as she had on the drive from her grandmother’s funeral. Whenever she was with animals, whether it was her dog or her horses, she felt she was with family. More so than she ever did living with her mother and stepfather. That was why she and Lil got along so well. The woman understood animals and treated them like family. Whatever happened in the woman’s past, she’d suppressed it and now infused all her emotions onto the animals around her.
Driving past Doring Gallery, a chill chased down Shandra’s back. She glanced at the entrance. The yellow crime scene tape was pulled taut across the door. Beyond the door, deeper into the gallery, she thought she saw a flash of light. Did the police turn off the light in the office? “Probably not.” That had to be what she saw.
She turned down the side street and into the alley behind Dimensions Gallery. Naomi’s cherry red Mustang convertible was parked in its usual spot on the side opposite the garbage dumpster. Shandra parked with the backend of her Jeep in line with the back loading door.
“Stay,” she told Sheba, rolling the windows all down halfway and stepped out of her vehicle. She opened the backend and picked up a box. The back door clicked and Ted stepped out.
“I thought that was you turning the corner.” He grabbed a box and followed her into the building.
“I hurried back. Is Naomi here?” She wanted to ask her friend about earlier in the day before they all sat down and visited over pizza.
“She just walked down to Rigatori’s for the pizza.” Ted headed back out the door for another box.
Shandra followed and fifteen minutes later the boxes were out of the Jeep and the vases out of the boxes and sitting on a bench in the back room.
Ted leaned close to one of them inspecting the leather and feather enhancements she’d added to the mouth of the gourd-shaped piece.
“I think these are some of your best work yet.”
The awe in his voice brought a lump to her throat. From her first attempt at forming clay in a grade school art class, she’d been infatuated with molding the earth into shapes that could be useful and decorative. But she’d never believed she could make a living selling the objects she’d crafted.
“I think I’ve had some divine intervention on these pieces.”
Ted turned from his inspection and peered at her. “How so?”
“I made all of these after Ella, my grandmother, became sick. I’ve been seeing the shapes in my dreams and when I start a project before I’m aware, the shape I intended is gone and these gourd shapes appear.”
“If the people who browsed through here this afternoon are any indication, this shape is appealing to pottery collectors.”
The back door opened. Pepperoni, tomato, and yeasty scents entered the back room before a pizza box and Naomi appeared.
A big smile covered Naomi’s face, but the affection that usually softened the lines around her eyes wasn’t there. The warmth had just started appearing in her smiles the last few weeks. Her sister’s death had robbed her of her usual bubbly self.
Ted took the pizza box from his wife. “I’ll clear a spot here on the set up t
able if you two want to gather drinks and plates.”
Shandra took that cue to herd Naomi into the office. She shut the door and faced her friend.
“What were you doing about two this afternoon?”
Naomi’s eyes widened before she looked away. “I was here, in the back, uncrating paintings from Geoffrey.”
“No, you weren’t. I saw you crossing the street between here and Paula’s gallery. Then I walked into her gallery and found her dead.”
Her friend began to tremble. Shandra stepped forward, pulling her into a hug. “I didn’t tell the detective I saw you because I know in my heart you didn’t kill her, but I need to hear you say it.”
Naomi shook her head. “I didn’t kill her. But I was in the gallery.” Her head dropped, and she covered her face with her hands.
“What did you see?” A shiver spiraled up Shandra’s spine. If her friend saw the killer what would keep him from killing again to hide his deed?
“No…I didn’t see anyone. I saw photos of Joyce. They were…She was…” Naomi collapsed in her arms. “My baby sister posed for photos.” She hiccupped as she talked and cried. “You could see she was high by the brightness in her eyes…”
“Where did you see these photos?” Shandra held Naomi away from her.
Ted opened the door. He spotted Naomi and crossed the small room in two strides, wrapping his arms around her. “What have you done?”
His accusing glare stung nearly as brutal as the wasp that stung Shandra on her eighth birthday.
“I asked her why I saw her coming from Paula’s minutes before discovering a dead body.” They might be her friends, but they all had a lot to lose if any of them were implicated in Paula’s death.
Ted rubbed a hand up and down his wife’s back. “Is this true? Were you at Paula’s this afternoon?”
Naomi nodded, wiping her cheeks on her husband’s shirt, making a streak of darker blue.
“Why?” Ted’s voice was barely restrained as his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.
Shandra held her breath. What could Naomi have hoped to prove by confronting the woman?
“I found a wadded up note from Paula in Joyce’s things I was finally washing to take to the thrift store. It mentioned information Paula had. I knew Paula went to lunch from one to two every day and closed up the gallery.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose with a tissue.
“How did you get in?” Ted asked, watching his wife.
“I paid Juan to make me a copy of the key to the back door—”
Shandra’s heart thumped in her chest. “That will lead the police right to you.”
Ted’s eyes held the same fear that banged around inside Shandra.
“Honey, I don’t…” Ted shoved his hands in his pockets and backed away from Naomi.
The hurt in her eyes was more than Shandra could take. She wrapped her arms around her friend. “Let’s forget how you got in for the moment. What did you find or see?”
“I went straight to her office and went through her desk drawers. She had a whole file on Joyce. Photos, arrest records. Her life was even worse than she told us.” Naomi’s gaze sought her husband’s. “The photos were so awful, I just stood there staring, unbelieving my little sister could be the person in the photos. Then I heard the front door buzz and realized Paula must be coming back. I grabbed the file and hurried out the back door.” She pushed out of Shandra’s embrace and walked up to Ted. “I ran two blocks down the alley and shoved the file into the dumpster behind the donut shop. When I turned from the dumpster, the back door of Paula’s gallery was closing. I bought donuts and used the alley to return to the gallery.”
“That must have been the killer you saw entering through the back door. Did you lock it when you went out?” Shandra watched her friend concentrate.
Naomi shook her head. “No. I just ran out thinking it would lock automatically.”
“He had to have been watching and waiting for you to leave.” Dread lodged in Shandra’s chest. “The killer used your entering the gallery as his cover to kill Paula.”
Shandra believed her friend, but she doubted Detective Greer would believe Naomi’s story.
Chapter Six
Ryan sat at his sister’s kitchen table drinking coffee and wishing he’d stayed up gossiping about their siblings rather than trying to decipher Paula Doring’s ledger.
“You look like someone who spent the night on the town and came home alone.” Bridget winked and sat down at the table, placing her youngest, Wally, on her lap.
“I spent the night staring at the victim’s ledger. There were large payments made to the gallery each month, but I can’t figure out where they were coming from.”
“Blackmail?”
“That’s what it looks like. The name that follows it doesn’t match up to anything or one on any of the other information I brought with me.” He sipped the coffee and really looked at his sister over the top of the cup. She’d been unusually chipper when he’d arrived at her doorstep after midnight. He’d waited at the coroner’s office until they’d determined the murder weapon wasn’t a clean knife wound, which he’d known. The coroner also determined it wasn’t razor sharp and had caused as much bruising as slicing.
“So, what’s got your eyes bouncing and your lips in a smug smile?” He took another sip of coffee and retrieved his phone from Wally’s sticky, pudgy hands.
“Conor is getting married.” Her grin spread, and she wiggled in her chair.
“Tell me who the poor girl is. You’re about to wiggle that chair into pieces.” His older brother had been dodging matrimony for years. With two sisters and a mother who believed the oldest should be married, he’d had more girls and women shoved at him than a soon-to-be groom at a strip club.
“Lissa Chambers.”
He stilled the cup at his lips only long enough to register the narrowing of his sister’s eyes.
“You said you were over her.”
Bridget’s sympathetic tone but grilling gaze didn’t do anything for the jab of pain behind his eyes. It was just the late night and staring at the damn ledger for hours. Not that his older brother was marrying the girl he’d set his heart on marrying in seventh grade. That was until she’d dumped him to pursue a career in modeling. He’d joined the military, did his stint, and returned to learn she was no longer pursuing modeling, but wasn’t in the least interested in carrying on a courtship with a policeman.
“I am over her, just didn’t expect my big brother to marry her. The last time I saw her she was so cold and snooty I expected a blizzard to blow in. Wouldn’t have thought a Greer was good enough for her.” That was the vibe she’d given him at their last meeting.
“She’s changed since you’ve been in Chicago. She’s a teacher now. She and Conor are crazy about one another.”
Ryan rose, put his coffee cup in the sink, and picked up the ledger. “I have to head back. I’ve got a long list of people to interview.”
“Sure. If you need to talk, you know how to get a hold of me.” She wiggled the pink encased smartphone that appeared from her jean pocket.
“You know you’re my go-to sis.” He gave her a hug and kissed Wally on his curly brown hair.
“Drive safe.”
“Always.” Ryan unlocked the SUV and slipped into the driver’s seat. The engine roared to life as he shook his head. Lissa and Conor. Thinking back he should have seen it coming. Their senior year, Conor was home visiting from college for Christmas. Lissa had hung on every word that came out of his older brother’s mouth. At the time he’d been just as excited to hear about college life and hadn’t thought much about it. And it had been Conor who’d kept him informed of Lissa’s whereabouts over the years.
Enough! I have a murder to solve.
The four hour drive back to Huckleberry gave him plenty of time to formulate the path of his investigation. Juan, the employee, and Naomi Norton. He’d take the information he gathered from them and decide where to go from there. He’d send the ove
rzealous Blane looking for a blunt but penetrating object in the dumpsters around the gallery.
He kept his mind focused on the investigation until half an hour from Huckleberry when his phone rang. “Greer.”
“Hey Ry! Bridget said she told you about Lissa and me.” Conor’s tone held a bit of hesitation.
“Congratulations. It’s about time someone roped you in.” As he said the words, they felt genuine and it made him smile. Yep, he could care less that Lissa was marrying his brother.
“You mean that?”
“Yes. I’m glad you both found someone to make you happy.” Ryan slowed as he approached the turnoff.
“In that case, would you be my best man? You are the only brother I have, and Mom would twist my ear if I didn’t ask you.” Conor’s joking tone put a lump in Ryan’s throat.
They’d been close growing up. Their adult lives had slowly drifted them apart. “Sure. I’d be honored to be your best man.”
“Thanks. We appreciate this. And I can hook you up with one of Lissa’s bridesmaids.”
Ryan cringed. “No thanks. I’ll bring my own date.”
“You seeing someone Bridget doesn’t know about?”
He laughed. His little sister always knew everything about family members. “No. But I met an interesting woman yesterday. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of each other.” His mind flashed his first sight of Shandra Higheagle. He’d felt an instant attraction. Something he hadn’t felt in years. Not since seventh grade.
“She a suspect?”
“Nope. She found the body, and I’m sure I’ll need to ask her more questions.”
“The wedding is August eighteenth.”
“That’s only two months away. You’re moving kind of fast aren’t you?”
“We’ve been dating for two years.”
“Two years and no one told me?” Ryan didn’t know what hurt worse; the betrayal of his family not telling him, or the fact his brother had been the reason Lissa ignored his calls when he’d returned from Chicago and tried to start up their friendship again.