by Kate Bell
Alec nodded, thinking. “Part of me feels like it was a crime of passion, but it’s hard to tell.”
“I wonder why he was holding a candy cane when he was killed?” I asked.
John shrugged. “Maybe he just happened to be holding it and got so scared when he realized he was going to be stabbed, that he just never turned loose of it.”
“Maybe the killer gave it to him as a gift, and then turned on him. A girlfriend. I’m voting crime of passion,” I said. It seemed obvious to me.
“Passion means rage, and possibly jealousy, considering Tom had a reputation as a, um, ladies’ man,” Alec said. “I’m leaning toward that, too.”
“I once read of a woman that killed her lover by stabbing him with knitting needles,” John said. “She found out he had cheated on her with a woman that crocheted and the fact that she crocheted made her angrier than anything, so she stabbed him repeatedly with knitting needles. She told the police she needed him to understand that crocheting was an inferior form of craft.”
“Wow,” I said. “Haven’t people heard of just breaking up?”
“Not when they’re unhinged to begin with,” Alec said.
I was glad I wasn’t in law enforcement. I couldn’t imagine all the crazy people they had to deal with in the line of duty.
“John, I thought I’d mention something. The other night when we were at the Christmas carnival, Jennifer said there was a woman in a black trench coat with dark, short, curly hair. She said she was following her and it freaked her out. Did you happen to notice anyone like that?” I asked.
He frowned, thinking back. “I really don’t remember. Did she say she had any contact with her before?”
“No, Jennifer doesn’t know anyone here. She hasn’t gone out much after having discovered Tom’s body. She’s the sensitive sort and it really upset her.”
“I thought I had seen the woman, but I can’t really be sure,” Alec added. “I don’t remember seeing anyone that was behaving suspiciously.”
John shook his head. “I wish I’d have known about it at the time. I might have seen her.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I should have said something to you guys. After she told me, I kept an eye out for her, but I didn’t see her. The rest of the evening Jennifer hung out with Alec and I. She was upset over it. I don’t know why I didn’t mention it to you both,” I said, kicking myself mentally.
“Maybe it was nothing,” Alec said. “Like you said, the woman might just have been making the circuit of booths and Jennifer thought she was following her. She’s been so shaken by finding Tom’s body, she’s actually been nice to me.”
I giggled. “Well, some good came of it, I guess. I think you’re right though. I think she’s on edge.”
“Well, let me know if she sees anything else,” John said.
“Is there anything new with the case?” Alec asked.
John sighed. “Just that Leslie Warren was arrested for public intoxication. She was screaming at one of Tom’s girlfriends at the Piggly Wiggly. Accusing her of being the killer. It’s sad. I had a talk with her when she sobered up. Suggested she get into rehab and try to not waste the rest of her life.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She agreed it would be good and said she would look into it. I gave her some phone numbers. I don’t know that she’ll do it though,” he said. “It’s a hard change to make.”
I nodded. “It’s sad.”
“Who was the girlfriend she was screaming at?” Alec asked.
“Charlotte Moody,” John said. “Do you know her?”
I nodded. “She’s the aunt of a friend from high school. I wonder why she thought it was her?” I asked. “I mean, I wonder if there’s something there, and she felt like she was more likely than someone else.”
John shrugged. “She never said. I think she just happened to run across her at the wrong time is all.”
I sighed. “Probably so.”
“Well, John, we appreciate your time,” Alec said, standing up. “I’d appreciate your keeping us updated and if Jennifer sees that woman, we’ll certainly let you know.”
John stood up to see us out. “Well, I appreciate y’all finding that dagger. I agree, it’s most likely the murder weapon. It looks like something Tom would have had in his collection.”
We said our goodbyes and headed out to the minivan. Elmer was nowhere to be seen, and the receptionist didn’t look up from her computer screen as we passed.
“Well, hopefully that dagger has what we need to arrest the killer,” I said once we were outside the sheriff’s station.
Alec nodded in agreement. This thing needed to be put to rest.
Chapter Eighteen
“Got it,” I said, holding up the key to Tom’s house. Alec had wanted to put Tom’s little black book back where we found it. “We’ll be right back,” I called over my shoulder.
“Maybe we should have taken copies of it to give to John,” I said to Alec.
“What for? It’s an address book. There wasn’t anything interesting in it,” he said.
“Maybe. But I bet the killer’s name is in there,” I said as we walked next door. The sun was setting and it would be dark shortly.
“Probably so, but so are a lot of others,” he said. “I bet the white pages of the phone book has the killer’s name in it, too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said.
He unlocked Tom’s front door and let us in. It looked the same as when we left it the other day. “I wonder who’s going to come and clean his stuff out? Don’t you think they’ll sell the house?” I asked.
“I would imagine. I don’t know if he would have left it to his daughter or not, considering their relationship,” he mused. He went to the little table in the hall and opened the drawer. “That’s odd.”
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t remember these keys in this drawer.”
I went over and looked at the drawer. “He had relatives in town for the funeral. Maybe they put them in there?”
“I suppose. I wonder what they go to, and why someone wanted them,” he said, placing the book back in the drawer and closing it.
“I’ll go water his plant,” I said, remembering the Elephant Ears.
I opened the cupboard and took a glass out and went to the sink. The water was ice cold when I turned the tap on and filled the glass. The plant looked the same, and I wondered if I should take it to my mother. She might have liked it to remember Tom by. I wondered if that would be classified as stealing or if anyone would care. I poured a little water on the plant, and dumped the rest.
I dried the glass on the dishtowel hanging near the sink and put it back in the cupboard. Death was a terrible thing. Murder was even worse.
I hobbled back into the living room and stopped. Alec was looking through a magazine rack.
“Want to know what happened in 1989? He has a Time magazine if you do,” he said thumbing through the magazine rack beside the hall table, and then looked up at me. The smile left his face. “What’s wrong?”
I frowned. “I’m not sure. Something’s different.” I suddenly had this eerie feeling about the place. It was eerier than the first time we had searched the house.
He straightened up, and his eyes went around the room. “What?”
Then it hit me. “The vacuum. It’s gone. It was sitting right there next to the wall.”
He went to the hall closet and opened it. “It’s not in here.”
“Maybe he kept it someplace else,” I said, and went to the guest bedroom. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was trespassing in someone’s house and they might come home to discover me at any moment. I pulled open the closet, but it only had the few items of clothing it had in it before. I closed the door and looked around. Everything seemed the same. Except, I smelled lemons. My heart pounded in my chest. We were trespassing.
I headed back into the living room as Alec was coming out of the master bedroom. “It’s not in there.”<
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“Not in the guest bedroom, either,” I said. “And I smell lemons in there.”
He looked at me. “Lemons?”
I nodded.
He went into the den while I checked the bathroom. I looked under the sink, but the same cleaning supplies and toiletries were there from the other day. I headed back to the den. I suddenly wanted Alec near me.
“Maybe we should go,” I whispered.
“Yeah, in a minute,” he said, looking over the weapons’ collection. “Something’s not right.”
“What?” I asked, looking at the weapons displayed there.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started swiping. He stopped and tapped on a picture and I peered at his phone. A picture of the wall we were standing in front of was on his phone.
He looked up at the wall. “There’s a dagger missing,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, see?” he said and made the picture larger. A large dagger with blue jewels on the handle had hung on the wall at the bottom of the display.
“When did you take that picture?” I asked.
“The day of the murder. I took a lot of pictures and texted them to John. John was outside, taking pictures of the crime scene, so I took pictures inside the house,” he said. “Do you remember if that dagger was there when we were here last?”
I stared at the spot, trying to make myself remember. “Maybe?” I said. “Yes. No, wait. No, I don’t remember.”
He stared at it. “I don’t either. There were several missing on the day of the murder as well as when we were in here. I didn’t think to look at the pictures to see if anything had changed. I just assumed it hadn’t. Rookie mistake.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You can’t think of everything,” I said.
“I have enough experience, that I should think of most,” he said.
“What would someone want with a dagger and a vacuum?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he said. “Unless the killer vacuumed up some evidence and got paranoid we would check it. And you know what?”
“What?”
“We should have.” He sighed heavily. “Let’s take one more look around and then we’ll go.”
We looked through the pictures on his phone and compared them to what was here now, going through each room and carefully looking at everything.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything else missing,” Alec said when we had gone through the entire house again.
“It kind of creeps me out, knowing someone came back for that dagger,” I said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Alec said, still scanning the living room.
The air was pierced by a scream and Alec and I looked at each other wide-eyed.
“That’s Jennifer!” I said, but Alec was already out the front door.
I stumbled after him, trying to ignore the pain that shot through my knee, as Jennifer screamed again.
Chapter Nineteen
I couldn’t keep up with Alec as he ran across the lawn and back to my mother’s house. I caught sight of his backside as he swung the front gate open. Thad burst through the front door, running around the side of the house.
“Thad!” Alec shouted.
Thad looked over his shoulder, but kept running. Alec followed after him.
I got to the front steps and hesitated. Did I follow Alec and Thad or go to Jennifer? I decided the guys could handle themselves. Alec had a gun, after all. I took the front steps two at a time and ran through the front door.
Jennifer, Mama, and Sarah stood in the middle of the living room, holding on to one another.
“What happened?” I gasped.
Tears streamed down Jennifer’s face. “Someone was at the window. Someone’s out there!”
“Oh,” I said and went to them. “It’ll be okay. Alec and Thad will find whoever it is.”
“What about Thad? Whoever it was might be armed and Thad doesn’t have a weapon to protect himself,” Sarah asked, fear written on her face.
“It’ll be okay,” I repeated, hoping it was so. “Alec has a gun, and he was right behind Thad.”
We stood and held each other for a while, listening for what was going on outside. The silence was deafening as the minutes ticked by. Shouldn’t there be some kind of sound out there? Anything?
“Why aren’t they coming back in?” Jennifer whispered.
“I don’t know,” I said. I wondered if I should go out and check, but it had gotten dark while we were at Tom’s and I didn’t want to be mistaken for the intruder.
We heard footsteps on the front porch, and my body stiffened. We all stared at the front door as it swung open and I breathed out when Alec and Thad walked through it.
“Hey,” Thad said, and Sarah ran to him. “It’s okay,” he said, taking her in his arms.
I went to Alec, and he wrapped his arms around me. “What was it?” I asked.
“We didn’t see anyone. We looked over the entire property, including the storage shed out back. Whoever it was, they got out of here, and fast.”
“I saw someone,” Jennifer said, sounding defensive.
“We believe you,” Alec assured her. “Did you get a look at them?”
Jennifer shook her head. “Not really. Sarah and I were getting ready to wrap presents in the bedroom, and I looked up and there was a face in the window. I screamed, and they left.”
“Could you tell if it was a man or a woman?” he asked.
She shook her head again and went to sit on an armchair “No. It happened so fast. I think they were wearing a hat or a hood. It was all so dark.”
Alec looked at Sarah. “Sarah, did you see anything?”
She shook her head. “I had my back to the window. When Jennifer screamed, I turned to look, but whoever it was, they were gone.”
“I’ll give John a call and let him know,” Alec said, and went into a bedroom for privacy. I figured he was also letting him know about the missing dagger, and the others didn’t need to know about that. There was no sense making them more scared than they already were.
“What were you two doing over at Tom’s house?” Mama asked me.
“Putting that notebook back in his house,” I said. “Mama, have you seen anyone over there this week? Like Tom’s family? Or his daughter?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, I thought it’s been odd that no one has been over there. I would have thought they would have wanted to go through his things and take mementos, or anything of any value. I would think they would have to put the house up for sale at some point. I have to say, I don’t look forward to new neighbors, though.”
“That does seem odd that someone hasn’t come to check on the house,” I said. “Did Tom ever mention his daughter, Leslie, having a key? I know they weren’t on speaking terms, but maybe she had one before they had a falling out?”
“No. She didn’t have one. When she and Tom got into a fight a couple of years ago, he demanded the key back and she gave it to him,” she said. “Why?”
“There was a vacuum over there the other day, and now it’s gone,” I said.
“Oh, that’s probably Mabel Townsend. She cleaned Tom’s home once a week. He felt sorry for her since her husband died about six years ago, and he paid her each week to clean. She probably took it home with her,” Mama said.
My ears pricked up when I heard the name Mabel Townsend. We hadn’t mentioned the prescription bottle I had found at Tom’s house to Mama.
“So she was there?” I asked. “Did you see her?”
“No, but I just figure that’s what happened. She has a key, and it makes sense to me,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Mom, what are we eating for dinner?” Thad asked, sitting down on the sofa and putting his feet on the coffee table. He had the remote in hand and didn’t appear to be worried about the stranger in the window anymore.
“It depends on what you’re going to make,” I said. “You’ve been awfully lazy here la
tely, mister. You can’t expect your grandmother to wait on you the whole time you’re here.”
“I’ll make something,” Sarah said, jumping up from her place beside him.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Sarah. Not like some other children I know,” I said, looking pointedly at Thad.
“I can make chili dogs, mac and cheese, and spaghetti,” Sarah said brightly.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, maybe we’ll go with the spaghetti, and make a salad and garlic bread.”
“Sounds good,” she said and headed for the kitchen.
“Jennifer, Sarah could use some help,” I said. I figured making dinner would help keep their minds off of the face in the window.
She looked up from her book and frowned. “I think I’ve been traumatized enough since I’ve been here, Mother. I need to rest.”
“Come on Jennifer, give Sarah a hand,” I encouraged.
She sighed and got to her feet, putting the book down on the coffee table.
Alec came back into the room and I realized we had run out of Tom’s house so fast we hadn’t locked the door.
“Alec, we need to go back and lock Tom’s house up,” I said. “We left in a hurry and I can’t even remember if I closed the door behind me.”
“Okay, I’ll go do that. You can stay here,” he said.
I followed him out the front door. “I’m coming with you.”
“You never follow instructions,” he said, and took my hand.
“You know you love it though,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. My banged up knee was really starting to feel the day’s excitement, but I didn’t mention it. He would insist I stay at the house and rest it if he knew.
“No, I really don’t,” he said.
“Mama said Mabel Townsend was Tom’s housecleaner. That’s the same name on that prescription medicine bottle we found,” I said once we were out of earshot from the rest of them. “She has a key.”
“Really? I guess we need to put her on the list then,” he said.
The front door was standing open, and while that didn’t surprise me, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. What if the intruder had ducked in there while Alec and Thad were searching my mother’s property?