by CJ Birch
Before shutting the door, Elle stopped and turned. Derry was kneeling next to the couch scooping newspapers into a teetering pile with shaking hands. He looked pathetic, fussing over his junk like it was treasure. “Jack’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve this. I know you don’t care, but think of it this way: If you vote yes, you’ll be partially responsible for my pay increase.”
Outside, she leaned against the door. Derry was easy to hate. It was almost enough to forgive herself for storming out. This is what happened when she wasn’t able to run. Her anger got funneled toward less productive things, like people. There was a good chance he would vote against Case to spite them both. His bitterness had been palpable. It filled the room, leaving an aftertaste almost as bad as the rot throughout the place.
As she slid into her cruiser she noticed several missed calls, four of them from Robin. That was nothing new. She’d spent yesterday screening her calls. As much as she’d been putting off visiting the two swing votes on the board, this had been a welcome distraction from everything else, including Robin. She was hoping if she ignored her long enough she would go away, thereby removing herself from temptation altogether.
Chapter Twenty-four
Elle knocked loud. If she didn’t, Mr. Rutherford would never hear it. Next door, Sandy had replaced her azaleas with gaudy pink flowers Elle couldn’t identify. She glanced up, pretending to examine Mr. Rutherford’s eaves. The light in Robin’s room was on. She knocked again, louder this time. She’d spent far too much time standing outside front doors today. At least that’s what she told herself.
“Coming. Coming. Good Lord, you’d think I was outfitted with roller skates. Give me a moment to get there before you break the door down,” Mr. Rutherford hollered. All resentment vanished the moment he opened the door and saw Elle standing there.
“Hi, Mr. Rutherford. I thought I might coax you into losing a game of cribbage.” Elle smiled for what felt like the first time all day.
“You’re the one who’s going to be doing the losing. Come on in.”
Elle handed Mr. Rutherford the bag of peas she was carrying. He looked at it like she’d handed him a bag of poop.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“They’re peas from Mrs. Keeler’s garden.” She’d visited Judge Keeler’s before coming to see Mr. Rutherford. Elle stepped inside. The place smelled like dust and baked bread.
“Giving away your bribes, huh? Very generous of you.” He shuffled down the hall much like a penguin on arctic ice. “You’re in luck today. My goddaughter was by earlier and she baked bread.” He said this as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world. “There’s still some left.”
Elle enjoyed two pieces of thick bread with elderflower honey. As she licked the last of the honey off her fingers, Mr. Rutherford dealt the cards.
Mr. Rutherford was a serious cribbage player, meaning you didn’t play for fun, you played for money. Elle once made the mistake of asking why you couldn’t have fun playing for money. Mr. Rutherford had turned those grave eyes on her and said nothing. She knew he’d grown up during the Depression and that his older brother helped keep the family afloat playing poker. He rarely mentioned his brother, but she guessed it had something to do with him going away to war and never coming back.
“So do you think he did it?” Mr. Rutherford asked an hour later.
“Do I think who did what?”
“Your brother. Do you think he killed Jessie Forrester?”
“Of course I don’t think he did it.” Elle picked up her hand and began sorting her cards into runs and pairs. She had an awful hand but continued to sort anyway, hoping Mr. Rutherford would think she had a better one.
“Then why’d you arrest him?”
“I didn’t arrest him. I’m holding him for questioning.”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I had to.”
Mr. Rutherford shook his head as he laid a three of hearts. “The only thing we have to do is die.” He looked over, waiting for Elle to go. “I like you, Elizabeth. Always have. One of the reasons I voted for you is because you stand up to people, especially that excuse for a mayor, Brady. But you’ve got a blind spot when it comes to your brother.”
“I know my brother’s a bit of a troublemaker, but he’s not capable of murder.”
Mr. Rutherford chuckled, which erupted into a hacking cough. When it subsided he said, “A bit of a troublemaker? He wouldn’t be an Ashley if he wasn’t. No, I wasn’t suggesting he murdered the Forrester boy. What I meant was you care too much about what people think when it comes to him.”
Elle discarded a three and pegged two. She was ten holes away from passing the skunk line. “That’s favoritism. I’m not going to treat EJ differently than any of the other people in this town.”
“But you do treat him differently, don’t you see that? If anyone else in this town was in the same spot as EJ, would you have held them? Even though you knew they couldn’t have done it?”
Elle thought of all the evidence piled up against her brother, the knife, the T-shirt with blood, his lack of cooperation. It was staggering. Jack had linked the knife to a stab wound in Jessie’s chest. It was all circumstantial since they hadn’t found the murder weapons. But his evasiveness was suspicious and enough for her to hold him.
“Yes, I would.”
“Okay, fine. That was a bad example. Would you lock up other underage drinkers for a night?”
If Elle were being honest with herself the answer was no, but she didn’t want to concede this early, so she shrugged instead.
“Just because you’re a public servant doesn’t mean you have to serve them all the time. Sometimes it’s nice to do what you think’s best. I think it’s a shame the way you hide yourself away. That’s no way to live, Elizabeth. What happens down the road? After EJ leaves? When it’s just you? Are you going to spend every night sleeping in your office, eating by yourself at Dell’s? You can’t hide your whole life.”
For a moment, Elle wondered if that statement had a different meaning. But Mr. Rutherford had already moved on, discarding a three from his hand. He was only five holes away from winning. Even though you couldn’t peg to win, it was his crib, which meant she counted first and might be able to score enough to get across the skunk line. You paid double when you were skunked.
“How do you know so much?” Elle discarded a four. Now she just needed him to discard a five and she’d score four, enough to peg close enough.
“My goddaughter brings me bread once a week. I hear all the gossip from her.” He discarded an eight, pegging two.
Elle’s heart sank. She laid her six down on the pile.
Mr. Rutherford discarded his king on top and pegged up to the final hole. He only needed one to win. “Your count.” He grinned.
Elle picked up her hand in disgust. She had two points. Nowhere near enough to get her past that skunk line.
Mr. Rutherford picked up his crib and crowed. “Would you look at that kitty? A boatload of aces.”
Elle perked up. “What did you say?”
“Did you see my kitty? Three aces and a two.”
As Mr. Rutherford tallied his score—he was winning by a considerable amount—Elle glanced through the window into Mr. Rutherford’s backyard. He had a chicken coop set up in the far corner of the yard with a wooden plank for the chickens to come and go. But from where Elle was sitting, it appeared empty. She got up to investigate. Only the coop and the feeder, which sat bare. The yard was deserted.
“What happened to your chickens?” When he didn’t say anything, she turned to see him staring into the yard sadly.
“Dead. All of them. The last one died a few days ago.” He shook his head. “Poor Betty. Just sat there all by herself refusing to eat or move. It broke my heart.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What did they die of?”
“Some disease I can’t even say, let alone spell.”
“Is it a common disease for chickens?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t heard of anyone having an outbreak around here. And the farmers are usually chatty about that sort of thing. I’ll tell you what, I’d put money on it having to do with all that crud that woman next door sprays on those silly flowers of hers.” He shook his head, unable to understand why anyone would put effort into growing something that couldn’t be eaten or sold.
“Which reminds me. Do you remember anything unusual the night of the eighteenth?” Elle asked.
“You’re going to have to give me something better than a date. My memory, like my teeth, has seen better days.”
Elle thought back for a moment, trying to grab at some sort of marker. Then she remembered the azaleas. “It was the night someone ripped up Sandy’s flowers.”
“Huh, you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She remembered because she’d given Robin a lift into town, and it was only the second time they’d met.
“Well, then it could be that I saw something unusual, as you put it.”
“Could be?”
Mr. Rutherford shifted in his seat, eyeing the cards in his hands. When he looked back at Elle it was the look of a child who’d been caught sneaking cookies before dinner. “Now, Elizabeth, if I’m to tell you this you have to promise me client privilege. You can’t tell anyone.”
Elle sighed and took a seat across from him. “That’s for lawyers or doctors or priests. I’m not any of those things. In fact, Mr. Rutherford, if you do know something and you don’t tell me, you could get in trouble.”
He frowned, debating his options.
“Please, Mr. Rutherford? If you know something that could help me I’ll come by every night next week for gin.”
He waved her off. “All right.” He folded his arms in front of him and cleared his throat. “I was out that night in the yard when I noticed a young man run past me. I thought it especially odd because he wasn’t wearing a shirt.”
“What were you doing out in the yard so late? Did he see you?”
“No, he didn’t see me. When I heard the rustling, I tucked myself up against the side of the house.”
Elle’s heart stilled, putting it all together. “Which house?”
Mr. Rutherford hitched a thumb toward Sandy’s. He had the good grace to look embarrassed.
Elle rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day. “And I’m guessing you were doing a bit of complimentary gardening. That’s why you were out that late?”
He stabbed the table with his finger. “That woman killed my chickens. All twelve of them. And I think she did it on purpose. She says the squawking bothers her guests.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to destroy her property. If you have a complaint you come to me or Neil.”
Elle didn’t have anything left emotionally to deal with this right now. Later, when she had time to think about it she would come back to it, so she focused on something more important. “So you saw someone run across your yard. Were they coming from the direction of the Maverty house?”
“Yes, they came around the back of my fence.”
“Do you remember what time you saw him?”
Mr. Rutherford leaned back, eyes glazed toward the ceiling, fingers clutching the pack of cards. Finally, he nodded. “It would’ve been sometime after eleven but before midnight.”
“How can you be that sure?” Elle was somewhat skeptical. Mr. Rutherford was sagacious, but that didn’t mean his mind was infallible.
“Dallas was on that night at ten. I think that Sue Ellen’s a hoot, but the rest of them are a bunch of morons. I went out during, what’s that show with the mustached man? The one about the private detective in Hawaii?”
“Hawaii Five-O?”
“No, the other one, he’s always wearing short shorts. The hairy-chested guy.”
“Magnum, P.I.?” Elle was slightly disturbed that Mr. Rutherford even knew what short shorts were.
“Yes! That’s the one. It was on when I came back in. And it starts at eleven, so that means he ran through my yard after eleven but before midnight because the show ends at midnight.”
Elle nodded, impressed with his logic. “Do you remember what he looked like?”
“It was too dark to make out his face. But he was pasty white, if that helps.”
It didn’t. Ninety percent of Turlough was white. The sighting hadn’t been helpful, but something he’d said earlier sparked her memory.
* * *
Neil stuffed the last piece of pizza into his mouth as Elle barged into the station. The empty box lay on Heather’s desk. The crumbs, scattered in a two-inch radius, created grease rings.
“I thought I told you to go home,” he said around a mouthful of crust.
Elle didn’t even bother to point out that as sheriff, she gave the orders. “I went to visit Mr. Rutherford instead.”
“Of course you did.” He followed her to the computer in the corner.
She jabbed the space bar and the screen came alive. “Did we hear back from dispatch yet?”
“Yeah, Stan called in a ten-twenty-eight five minutes before you found him. I asked her to fax the transcript over to us. You want me to see if it came in yet?”
She nodded but didn’t look up from the computer. Her hands shook from excitement. This could be it. The answer to who killed Jessie and Stan. She was sure Stan had pulled over the person who’d killed him. She was also convinced the murders were connected. Which meant, if her hunch was right, whoever owned the car Stan called into dispatch killed both.
She could hear Neil’s heavy stomp coming up the basement stairs. He waved a sheet of paper in front of Elle, just out of reach. “You know, there are these places called homes, and how it works is, people go to them and do things like eat real food and sleep in normal-sized beds.” He placed the paper in front of her. “Isn’t that crazy?”
“Neil, don’t cluck at me.” But she wasn’t really upset with the intrusion. It felt good to have Neil mother hen her. Just like old times. She fidgeted with the folders. “Did EJ eat yet?”
Neil gestured toward the empty pizza box on Heather’s desk. “Who do you think ate most of that?” Then he pointed at Elle. “Go home and eat something. Get some rest. I mean it. EJ will be fine.”
She picked up the sheet Neil had put in front of her and scanned it. “Damn.”
“What? They didn’t send the right stuff? You want me to get Jessica on the line again?”
She waved him off. “It’s fine. I didn’t find what I was hoping for. This says the car Stan pulled over was reported stolen.”
“From here?”
Elle checked the readout. “No, from Chicago.” She slumped in her chair. “It could be anyone. And now it looks like it might not even be related to Jessie’s murder.” She passed Neil the printout.
“So Stan calls in a ten-twenty-eight and finds the car stolen. Pulls it over and the driver gets out and shoots him while he’s doing his paperwork.”
“That’s my guess. Looks like Case was right. It was someone passing through. God knows where they were going.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find out who killed them. Even if it was an army of people.”
Elle groaned. The idea was so daunting. She’d gone from elation to desolation in a matter of minutes. “Put an APB out on a blue Jetta. Illinois license plate. Maybe the staties will find it for us.” She opened a browser and typed Kitty Sedona in the search bar. A couple reviews came up for Bad Kitty Koffee in Sedona, Arizona. But at the bottom there was an article about Bobby Sedona’s CFO. She clicked on that and scanned the page. It said that he’d gone missing five years ago and that they’d never found the body. Sedona had accused him of stealing from his company, but there was never any proof. At the very bottom of the page was a mention that he was rumored to have been sleeping with Sedona’s wife, Kitty Sedona.
Elle sat back in her chair. “Huh. I did find something interesting. You remember Holt?”
“The drunk at the wake? Yeah, what about him?”
> “He said he thought Jessie might have been screwing around with Bobby Sedona’s wife. That she was probably the one who gave him the majority of the money he needed to pay off his gambling debts.” She pointed to an article. “And the last guy who screwed around with Sedona’s wife went missing.”
“You think Bobby Sedona killed Jessie?”
She shook her head. “I think Sedona’s the type who has someone to do that for him.”
“Huh.” Neil lifted her out of her chair. “I want you to go home and get at least eight hours of sleep. Eat food that doesn’t start with a ‘p’ and end in an ‘a.’” He pushed her toward the door.
“What if I want pasta? Or polenta? Or—”
“Hardy har. Get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The sun hung at the edge of the horizon. But even as night set in, it did little for the heat clogging Elle’s house. It was stifling. She had all the windows and back door thrown open, but the heat stuck around, like a sticky residue.
She returned from the kitchen with her second beer, rolling the perspiring bottle on the back of her neck. It helped for a few minutes.
She plopped down on her couch in time to see Jessica Fletcher sniff a small syringe and declare it smelled like cyanide.
“Pfft.” Elle took a long swig.
She was wearing as little as possible, jean cutoffs and a tank top, and still it wasn’t enough to cool her down. She was contemplating an ice bath when there was a knock at the door.
She waited a few minutes, hoping whoever it was would go away. If it was Brady, she was tempted to arrest him for trespassing. He’d called her no less than five times today. That was some kind of record, even for Brady. She couldn’t wait for the Beer and Berry festival to be over and done with. It was easily the worst day of the year.
“If you’re going to pretend you’re not home, at least turn the TV down.” Robin’s voice came through the window.
Elle’s stomach clenched, along with a few other places. She looked around her living room in a panic. It hadn’t changed since the last time her mom had decorated. As a result, everything was too loud and colorful.