by Jessica Beck
“I could cook for you,” he said, clearly still trying to make amends.
I wasn’t exactly sure that his cooking would help matters any, though. “Tell you what. Let me say that I appreciate your kind offer, but it’s still my grill. I’d be just as happy doing the cooking.”
“Happier, I’d guess,” he said with a grin, and I knew that things were right between us again.
“Happier,” I echoed. “What sounds good to you?”
“How about one of your famous scrambles?” he asked.
“I think that sounds great. I don’t have time to make biscuits, though. Will toast do?”
He feigned disappointment. “I suppose it will have to.”
“If you can wait until we open our doors to the public, I’ll be able to make you your biscuits.” It was a hollow offer, and he knew it.
“If we wait until then, I won’t get to eat until eleven or twelve.”
“If then,” I said with a smile.
“You know what? Toast sounds great!”
“I thought it might,” I said as we went inside. I headed straight for my area and scrounged around in the fridge before I even got the eggs out. I found some bacon, ham, and sausage left over from the day before. It seemed that we were destined to have a meat lover’s scramble today. Whipping up five eggs, I lit one of the burners and grabbed a large omelet pan. Not waiting for the eggs to set, I then added the meats, crumbling everything in turn, and then I proceeded to scramble the eggs, along with the extras that I’d added as well. Pat had once called it an ugly omelet, and I’d been a little miffed by his description, so that day I’d had it all to myself, despite being so stuffed I could barely get another bite down. Since then, they’d been known as scrambles, and we shared this one over coffee, finishing up just before Skip and Edith arrived for the day. The apologies had taken care of the momentary rift between my brother and me, while the scramble had sealed the deal. We were back on good terms, all the way, and I found myself bracing for the day’s activities. We were going to not only run the Iron together today, but we were also going to try to find out what had really happened to Bones and why. It was a tall order, but if anyone could do it, I knew that we could.
“Heads up,” Pat said a little after nine as he walked by the grill. I looked around to see what he was talking about. Carter Hayes had just come in, and he was heading straight for his mail.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the three customers waiting for their orders.
“Annie, how long is it going to be? I’ve got to get to work.” Thad Jennings, a construction worker who liked to have a late breakfast at the Iron just about every day, was frowning at me as he said it, tapping his wrist where a watch would be if he’d worn one.
I grabbed a piece of bacon I’d fried up earlier and slapped it between two pieces of dry toast. “There you go.”
“Hey, this isn’t what I ordered,” Thad protested. He’d asked for a sausage omelet, which I well knew, since it was his steady breakfast request.
“I know that, but I’d hate for you to be late for work,” I said with a grin. I turned to the other two customers. “Anyone else in a hurry?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m good.”
“Great,” I said. I glanced back at Thad. “I thought you were late. You’d better start eating.”
“You know what? They can wait for me,” he said.
I smiled, taking the poor substitute for a meal back from him. “Like I said, I won’t be a minute, and then I’ll make you a real breakfast.”
“Take your time,” Thad said, avoiding all eye contact with me.
I knew that I’d been a little harsh with him, so I patted him on the back as I walked past him. “I’m glad you can stick around. I appreciate that.”
“My pleasure,” he said with a genuine smile. “I’ve been trying to get Jay to take over more responsibilities on the job site. This will be a good test for him.”
“I’m happy I could help,” I said, then I joined Pat. Carter was just opening his mailbox when I caught up with my brother, and he looked absolutely startled when he turned around and found us both staring at him. It was time for us to have a little chat, whether Carter knew it or not.
“Hey, Pat; hi Annie. What’s up?” he asked us, clearly a little startled to find us both focusing on him. As a nervous tic, Carter pulled off his thick glasses and cleaned them with his bandana, something that I’d seen him do enough before to realize that something was on his mind.
“How’s it going, Carter?” I asked him as he glanced at his mail. It looked like all junk to me.
“Fine. Well, I’ll see you both around.”
He started to walk away when Pat stepped in front of him, not necessarily in a menacing way, but it was clear that we wanted to speak with him, and he didn’t have much choice in the matter. “We heard you had a run-in with some kids yesterday,” Pat said.
“No, not that I recall,” Carter said as he tried to get around my brother.
“Are you trying to say that you weren’t on Timothy Roberts’s land yesterday and told some kids that it belonged to you?” I asked him.
Carter frowned for a moment as he pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. It was pretty clear that we’d caught him in a lie, and I was curious to see how he was going to try to worm his way out of it. “Oh, that.”
“Yes, that,” I said.
“I wanted to talk to Timothy about something,” Carter said. “We were supposed to meet out on his land, but I found these kids digging up the ground when I got there instead. That’s why I ran them off. I didn’t figure they’d listen to me if I didn’t claim that the property belonged to me, but I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“There’s just one problem with that, Carter,” Pat said.
“What’s that?”
“Timothy was out of town when you had that confrontation with those college kids,” I told him, studying him carefully for a reaction to being caught. “There’s no way that he would have scheduled a meeting with you at that time.”
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information, Annie, but that’s not the case at all. I saw him yesterday just after lunch, and we made plans to get together out on his land. I wanted to hire on as a helper when he cut down enough trees to carve out his new homestead. He stood me up, though.”
“Funny, but Timothy hasn’t mentioned any of that to me,” I said.
Carter looked a little sly as he asked me, “Do you honestly think your new boyfriend is going to run everything he does past you first before he does it? I’d be amazed if there was a lot you didn’t know, Annie.”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Pat said. I was shaken by Carter’s statement. Could Timothy really be keeping things from me? My life was an open book, and I’d just naturally assumed that his was as well. Had I been wrong about that from the start?
Pat continued, “Carter, you know the first thing we’re going to do is check with Timothy to see if that’s true or not.”
“Suit yourself,” Carter said as he sidestepped Pat and headed for the door. “You’ll see that I’m not lying to you about that or anything else.”
As soon as Carter left, I grabbed my phone.
Timothy didn’t answer, though. He could have been with a client with his accounting firm.
Then again, he could just be ignoring me.
At the prompt for a message, I said, “This is Annie. Call me the second you get this.”
“That was kind of cold, wasn’t it?” Pat asked me after I finished my message.
“Pat, he told me that he didn’t come back until later yesterday. You know that I can’t stand being lied to.”
“Annie, this might all just be a simple misunderstanding. Timothy might have slipped when he told you, or you might have remembered it wrong.” I looked at him steadily for a few moments before my twin brother added, “Okay, you’re not likely to be the one who made a mistake, but it doesn’t mean that
Timothy’s been lying to you.”
“I suppose we’ll find that out when he calls back,” I said.
Ten minutes later, the man himself came into the Iron with a troubled look on his face.
“What was that message all about?” he asked me.
“You didn’t have to rush over here,” I said calmly, and then I glanced over at Pat. He knew that my tranquil demeanor was a storm warning sign if ever there was one. Timothy had better start treading lightly if he knew what was good for him.
“You sounded so cold that I was afraid not to,” Timothy said. “Whatever I’ve done, I apologize and beg you for your forgiveness.”
He’d tried to make light of the serious tenor of my mood, but I wasn’t having it. “When exactly did you get back into town yesterday?”
“I already told you that,” Timothy said, looking instantly uncomfortable.
“As a matter of fact, you were a little vague about the exact time you got back,” I reminded him. Pat knew when to be quiet, so I knew that he wasn’t going to say a word until this was resolved, one way or the other.
“What does it matter what the exact time was?” Timothy asked, clearly a little unhappy about my line of questioning.
“It matters to me. Isn’t that enough for you?”
He frowned and then nodded. “Okay, so maybe I’d been back a little longer than I might have let on. I was eager to get the ball rolling on clearing my homestead.”
“So you went to your property while the kids were still there, before we all went together?” I asked him icily. If it were true, it was a lie of a much greater magnitude than simply glossing over a particular time. He’d appeared to be honestly surprised by finding those holes on his land. Had he been lying about that as well?
“No!” Timothy must have realized that he’d spoken a little louder than was called for. We got the attention of everyone in the Iron, including my patiently waiting diners at the grill. In a lower voice, he added, “I was supposed to meet Carter Hayes in town. He wants to help me clear part of my land, but he never showed up. I gave up on him when he stood me up, grabbed a quick sandwich at home, and then I went straight out to my land and found you two there.”
“Carter claims that was where you were supposed to meet him in the first place,” Pat said.
“You’ve spoken with him about me?” Timothy asked, clearly unhappy about it.
“Don’t blame my brother. We both did, Timothy,” I said.
My boyfriend looked at me carefully before he spoke. “Annie, am I a suspect here?”
“You’d have to ask Kathleen about that,” I said, trying to avoid answering his direct question.
“Trust me, I will, but right now, I’m asking you. Do you think it’s possible that I killed that kid, just for digging a few holes on my property?”
Pat tried to save me from answering by speaking up. “Timothy, everyone who might have been out there needs to be cleared. You own that land. It just makes sense to get your alibi so we can eliminate you.”
Pat had tried to help, but ultimately, he’d only made it worse. Timothy bridled at the word “alibi.” “I’ve already told you the truth,” he said to my brother icily, and then he looked back at me. “Well? Do you think I’m capable of committing murder, Annie?”
“Just about everyone is, given the right circumstances,” Pat tried to add.
Timothy wasn’t having any of it. “Patrick, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what your sister has to say.”
“Given the right circumstances, yes, I do.” My voice was nearly a whisper as I spoke, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him, no matter what it might end up costing me.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?” Timothy asked me, though I knew that he’d heard me the first time.
“I said that it’s possible. You have to be a suspect, but then in Kathleen’s eyes, I’m sure that I’m one as well.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what your sister thinks, even if she is the sheriff. I understand why she might want to know where I was at the time of the murder, but I didn’t think that you’d have to.” Timothy turned and walked away, not in any particular hurry, but not lingering, either.
“Say something to him, Annie,” Pat said urgently.
“What is there to say? I couldn’t lie to him.”
“At least stop him before he leaves. You can’t let him go believing that you don’t trust him.”
“Pat, I don’t have any choice. He got back earlier than he implied yesterday, it was his land being trespassed on, and we both know how protective Timothy can be about the things he cares about.”
“Including you,” Pat reminded me.
“Maybe before, but it appears that’s changed now.”
“Don’t give up that easily,” Pat said. “He’s perfect for you, and you can’t let our murder investigation get in the way of your life.”
“Then let’s solve this as quickly as we can,” I said. “But know this. I’m not dropping this case, and neither are you. We’ve known from the very beginning that we were going to burn some bridges if we started digging into other people’s lives.”
“I realize that, but I never thought for one second that one of your bridges was going to explode in your face,” Pat said.
“Trust me, I’m not happy about it either, but until I can look Timothy in the eye and tell him that I know he didn’t do it, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Then let’s keep digging, and do it fast,” Pat said.
CHAPTER 14: PAT
We didn’t have time to do any more investigating at the moment, though. As much as I loved running the Iron with Annie, it had a tendency of getting in the way of our unofficial inquiries from time to time. There was a steady stream of customers throughout the rest of the day—both up front where I was in charge and back at Annie’s grill—and we didn’t have much of a chance to even compare notes between the two of us. The college student’s death had understandably made waves in Maple Crest, but not as much as it would have if he’d been local. It wasn’t because anyone cared less that someone had lost their life; it was due more to the fact that no one had known Bones. That made his homicide a little more faceless than if it had been someone who’d lived among us. This was almost like a murder far away in Charlotte or Raleigh, disassociated from our daily lives. The fact that it had occurred on Timothy’s land, and right next to Annie’s, made it newsworthy, but without any real fuel to feed the flames of speculation, it just wasn’t the same. I was still wondering what our approach should be when I was surprised to see all four surviving members of the treasure-hunting expedition show up at the Iron a little before noon.
“Hi, Peggy,” I said as I approached her first. “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m upset about Bones, but at least I know that I’m not losing my mind, so that’s something, anyway,” she said. “When he vanished like that, I was beginning to have my doubts.”
“How long have you been discharged from the hospital?” I asked her.
“It just happened. The doctor wouldn’t release me until I had another interview with your sister. I couldn’t tell her anything new, so she finally agreed to let me go. The first thing I wanted to do was get some of your sister’s excellent cooking after suffering through the food there, so we all headed straight over here.”
“How did you get here?” I asked Henry. “Did you all come in the car?”
“The sheriff released the van back to us around ten this morning,” he told me. “Man, she’s tough, isn’t she?”
“Why do you say that?”
“No disrespect intended, but I knew that I was innocent and she still managed to scare me.”
“I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you. She considers it a personal affront that someone committed murder in her jurisdiction,” I said. “What are you all going to do now?”
“I guess we’re hanging around Maple Crest a little longer, since we can’t leave town just yet,” Marty
said, “not that I was shocked when the sheriff told us.”
“Don’t misunderstand us. We want to cooperate,” Gretchen added. “After all, Bones was with us. Julian, I should say.”
“Did Kathleen find out his real name?” I asked her.
“The news came in this morning. He’d been fingerprinted for something somewhere along the line, and it popped up in her database. His real name was Julian Valentine Bonetti.”
That explained why the student had gone by Bones. It had less to do with his pre-med line of studies than it did a trifecta of unusual names. “Did she happen to mention if they’d notified his next of kin yet?”
“From what we heard, all that’s left is his father, and he’s on some kind of expedition right now where he can’t be contacted. They’re expecting him back next week, so until then, we’re all supposed to keep it under our hats.”
“I’m kind of surprised your sister didn’t tell you this already,” Marty said snidely.
“You’d be amazed by what she decides not to share with Annie and me,” I answered.
“Pat, I’d love to chat, but I’m so hungry right now that I could eat the bark off of a tree,” Peggy said. “Do you mind if we have lunch?”
“No, of course not,” I said. I had more questions to ask them, but at least my twin sister was going to get a crack at them herself. I knew that Annie wouldn’t let an opportunity to interview so many of our suspects at one time pass her by. I just hoped she’d be able to get more out of them than I’d been able to.
Peggy walked back to the grill, with Gretchen and Marty close on her heels. Henry stayed back, and once the group was out of earshot, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d take it easy on Peggy, Pat. I understand that you want to find out what happened, but you need to remember that she’s been through a lot over the past twenty-four hours.”
“I get that,” I said. “How did you happen to find out that she was being discharged?”
Henry smiled. “Actually, your sister told us when she handed me the keys to the van. She’s not really a bad sort, is she?”