by Tonya Kappes
“Pssssst.”
“I’ve got a gun,” I said with a trembling voice. “I’m not scared to use it.”
“For heaven’s sake, you don’t have a gun.” Mary Elizabeth’s voice broke through the cold silence. “Act like you’ve got some sense, May-bell-ine.”
“Mary Elizabeth,” I sighed with relief. “Where are you?” I asked and looked around in the dark.
“Right over here.” She stepped out from behind a camper. Her silhouette was barely visible in the darkness.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” I asked.
“I saw the lights on at the office and I couldn’t sleep with a killer on the loose. I mean, have you seen all those scary movies about camping and killers?” she asked.
“I have not. There’s not a killer on the loose.” At least I didn’t think there was until now. “Come on. Come back to my RV and get warm.”
“May-bell-line, I think we’ve reached a new level in our mother and daughter relationship.” No amount of darkness would dull those bright white teeth behind that big ol’ smile of hers.
Even though she was dressed for the Antarctic in her full-length fur coat and fur hat, the offer I made her even surprised me.
“What were you doing in the office at this time of the night?” She asked and took Fifi from me, wrapping her up in the fur coat. Fifi licked her face.
I wondered if Fifi had that good person or bad person instinct I heard dogs had. Because she really liked Mary Elizabeth.
“When we get back to the RV, you need to keep your voice down.” We hurried down through the campground. “My friend, Abby.”
“The librarian?” She asked.
“Yes. In fact, I found her standing over Nadine’s body with the knife dangling from her hand.” It sounded so bad.
“Oh, no. Why did she kill her? And why are you harboring a killer?” Mary Elizabeth had already tried and convicted Abby without knowing the facts and that was exactly what I was afraid Hank was doing. “You found her? What about your date with hunky?”
“We were coming back from the restaurant when I noticed the library light was still on, which was weird.” I pulled my keys out of my coat pocket. “We stopped and went through the unlocked door.” Why was the door unlocked? There were so many questions I had for Abby. “Why do you think she did it?”
“The library light was on. The librarian didn’t hide the fact that Nadine White was a fraud in her eyes in front of everyone and she was standing over the body with what I’m assuming is the murder weapon.” Mary Elizabeth made it sound like Hank had an ironclad case already without interviewing anyone.
“That does sound bad.” I blinked a few times before I turned to the door to unlock it. “But I know Abby and she didn’t do it. Besides,” I glanced at her behind me. “I found out some information about Valerie Young that give her a clear motive to kill Nadine.”
“Do tell.” Mary Elizabeth might’ve been a full-blown southern woman, but she loved a good gossip session, which, in my opinion, was also part of being southern whether she wanted to admit it or not.
I gave her the finger to the mouth gesture when we got inside the RV. I took the opportunity to go check on Abby while Mary Elizabeth shut the door and took all the animal off of her, including Fifi.
Abby was sound asleep, and I was glad to see it. She was so much in shock that I was afraid her mind wouldn’t quiet down enough for her to sleep. She was lightly snoring and lying on top of the covers. I took a quilt folded up on the dresser and gently placed it over her. There wasn’t anything better than sleeping with a homemade quilt, especially during the winter.
“I hope you don’t mind that I put on some coffee.” Mary Elizabeth was already preparing our mugs. “Remember how we use to find each other standing over the coffeepot in the middle of the night when you’d come home from school?”
“Yes. At school I was able to stay up as late as I wanted to, but when I came back to your house for a break, you made me go to bed by ten p.m.” It was funny how she thought the memory was endearing while I thought it was torture.
“It was only because I knew your brain needed rest and that beauty sleep is a real thing.” She tapped around the edges of her eyes. “So is good Botox.” She laughed.
“Never in a million years would I ever have thought you’d admit to Botox.” I got a closer look at her. “It looks good.”
“My house?” She poured the coffee into the mugs. “You said your house. It was your house too.”
“I’m not going to get into all that. We are adults, so let’s see where this new relationship will bring us.” I grabbed one of the mugs and opened up the junk drawer to get the notebook I’d once used to write down clues in a different murder that’d taken place on one of the hiking trails around Happy Trails.
“In order to do that, I want to know why you skipped town as soon as the clock turned on your eighteenth birthday.” She wasn’t going to let it go.
“Let’s make a deal.” I knew it was going to be a deal with the devil inside of me, but I didn’t want to talk about this right now. “Let me help Abby out. I need to focus all my attention on her. Then before you leave, we will sit down and talk.”
“On one condition.” Her voice was stern, the way I remembered it when we’d fight, and I could tell it was non-negotiable.
“What’s that?” I reminded myself that I was no longer a child in the foster care system.
“You let me help you find out who really killed Nadine White.” She lifted the cup of coffee to her lips and stared at me through the steam curling around her nose.
“What makes you an expert?” I pulled out the chair from the table and sat down, dragging the notebook in front of me.
“I watch those shows.” She sat down in the other chair. “I always solve the mystery before Quincy does.”
“Quincy? The medical examiner show?” My brows furrowed.
“What’s wrong with Quincy?” She asked with an attitude.
“Nothing.” I opened the notebook to a blank page. “That was a long time ago and technology has come a long way.”
“There’s something about good, old fashioned sleuthing. Let me prove it.” She was sure of herself.
“Fine.” I clicked the pen and wrote Nadine White’s name at the top of a blank page.
“What’s that?” She leaned on the table to see what I was writing. “Clues? I like this. Jessica Fletcher keeps all the clues in her head.” She tapped her temple.
“I like to see mine. It’s kinda like a puzzle.” I found myself getting excited as I told her how I’d written down clues in the past and it actually helped Hank figure out who the real killer was. “Just like with those cases, I have that same gut feeling that Abby didn’t do it.”
“What about Valerie Young? You mentioned her earlier?” She asked and took sips of her coffee.
I told her about how Fifi and I overheard the arguing from their camper.
“Though I couldn’t distinguish Nadine’s voice because it was muffled, it was clearly Valerie yelling.” I made bullet points under Valerie’s name and wrote down key points about the argument I’d overheard. “I was at the office because everyone who rents from me has to fill out a next of kin form in case they get hurt on a trail or something. Nadine White listed Dawn Gentry, her best friend. Get this.” I wrote Dembrowski next to White. “Nadine’s real last name isn’t White. Her real name is Nadine Dembrowski.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. A lot of authors use pen names.” Mary Elizabeth sounded sure of herself.
“Dawn told me Nadine was going to cut out the middleman in negotiating her deals, which means she’s getting rid of Valerie as her agent.” I wrote down Dawn’s name and some of the key points she told me about what Nadine had told her.
“This gives Valerie a clear motive. The average agent gets fifteen percent of the author’s royalties.” Mary Elizabeth pulled out her cell phone and started to punch away on it. “And it’s for life. Unless the a
uthor takes the agent to court to break the contract, but that rarely happens.”
“How on earth do you know all this?” I asked.
“Real Housewives.” She nodded. “All those girls get book contracts and they always complain about their agents getting so much money.”
I was taken back at how much she knew.
“According to Nadine White’s contract with her publisher for Cozy Romance in Christmas, she received a three million dollar advance. She turned the phone around and showed me a website.
“Is that fake news?” I had to ask because it wasn’t a three million dollar book.
“No. This is a site called Publisher’s Marketplace. They post all the deals made in the publishing world with agents.” She punched away. “What’s fifteen percent of three million?’
“Valerie Young would make that much?” My jaw dropped. “No wonder she was yelling and screaming at Nadine. I wonder if Nadine had told her she was cutting her out. When Nadine left to take Abby the basket, it would have been the perfect time for Valerie to set up Abby. After all, like you said, everyone heard Abby after she found out Nadine White had a ghost writer.”
“Perfect motive. Money. That’s what Columbo always said.” Mary Elizabeth’s right brow rose, her lips puckered. “MeTV is my second favorite channel.”
She yammered on about the channel while I pretended to listen. Instead, I wrote down all the reasons why Valerie Young should be looked at as a suspect.
I drew a long line across the page and wrote ten p.m. about a quarter of the way down with a vertical line.
“What’s that?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“A timeline.” I pointed to the time. “Hank and I stopped at the library at ten p.m. That’s when we found Abby standing over Nadine’s body.” Underneath the timeline, I drew another one with Nadine’s name, another one with Abby’s name, and a third one with Valerie’s name. “We need to snoop around and figure out where these three people were during the hours leading up to when we found them.”
“I get it.” She snapped her fingers. “If there’s a gap and no one can account for where they were, then we just might have a killer.”
“Let’s hope and pray Abby has a tight alibi.” I gnawed at my lip as I tried to think back to when I’d talked to Abby earlier in the day to recall if she’d said anything about what she was doing that night.
The knock on the door made me jump, Mary Elizabeth gasp, and Fifi bark.
“Who could that be at this hour?” Mary Elizabeth’s question caused me to look at the clock. It was two a.m.
“I bet it’s Hank.” I got up and opened the door, fully expecting to see him standing there since it was probably about time he’d clear the crime scene. He was pretty quick and thorough. “Can I help you?”
I asked the woman standing at the camper door, shivering.
“I’m Dawn Gentry, Nadine’s best friend.” Her teeth clattered. “The sign on the office said to come here if it was after hours.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come in.” I held the door open for her. I had totally forgotten I was on call tonight and not Dottie. Good thing because that meant Dottie had to open the office in the morning because I still needed to get some sort of sleep. Vice versa when she was on call. “Let me get you a cup of coffee.”
Dawn Gentry stood about five foot six. She tugged the knit cap off her black, pixie cut hair and vigorously rubbed her hands together. She looked like she was in her late thirties, which was where I’d place Nadine White. She had on a pair of black skinny jeans, Doc Martin black boots, and a black leather jacket with lots of silver buckles on it.
“That’d be great.” She blew into her hands. “Riding a motorcycle in this crazy weather is nearly impossible.”
Fifi didn’t jump around and on Dawn like she did every other visitor that came to the door. It struck me as odd.
“How did you get here so fast?” I questioned her.
“Nadine called me earlier to tell me about the fight she’d had with Valerie. I knew I had to get here as fast as I could, so I left Chicago early this morning.” Her shaking hands took the coffee. She held it in her hands for a few seconds as though she were warming them up. She took a drink.
Fifi ran to back to her bed and curled up.
Mary Elizabeth’s mouth was gaped open and I was in shock Dawn was standing here.
“I just can’t believe Nadine is dead. I mean, I’ve got to see it for myself.” She sat in my chair without an invitation to do so. She looked around. “Can I crash here?”
“No.”
“Yea.”
Mary Elizabeth and I chimed in at the same time.
“Yes.” I gave Mary Elizabeth a stern look. “Of course, you can stay here. But I have to warn you that one of my best friends is staying here too.”
“No biggie.” Dawn shrugged. “I’ve shared plenty of times before.”
“She’s actually the one the police believe killed Nadine.” My words met a wide-eyed Dawn. “But I really don’t think she did it.”
“I thought Valerie Young. . .” Dawn looked down at my notebook in front of her. “What’s this?”
“My daughter is good at solving crimes. Like Monk.” I was beginning to think that Mary Elizabeth watched entirely too much TV, especially amateur sleuth shows.
“Daughter?” Dawn looked between me and Mary Elizabeth as though she were trying to see a resemblance.
I pinched a grin, holding back the urge to yell foster mother, but there was no sense in it. I’d never see Dawn again after Nadine’s murderer was brought to justice and right now I wanted peace over being right.
“Anyways, it’s getting late and we need to get some sleep if we are going to prove that Abby didn’t kill Nadine.” I grabbed my notebook and closed it. No one, not even Hank, was allowed to look at my notebook. Besides, I didn’t know Dawn very well and I didn’t trust her fully. At this point, everyone was a suspect.
“You’ll call me first thing in the morning?” Mary Elizabeth asked, making me remember our little deal. She put on her furs.
“Yes. First thing.” I guided her to the door.
“You think you’re going to be okay with a stranger?” She whispered and gave a side glance to Dawn who was peeling off her clothes down to her skivvies. “She’s odd.”
“I’ll be fine.” I didn’t tell her that I’d seen way worse during my ten years in New York City.
“Okay. Now call me.” Mary Elizabeth slipped out of the door and into the dark night.
“You can sleep on the sofa bed.” I quickly pulled the pillows off and opened it, unfolding the twin mattress hidden inside. “I’ll take a captain’s chair.” I gathered my cell phone and took the notebook up to the front of the RV where the passenger seat would recline back enough for me to rest my eyes for a few hours.
Once I heard Dawn snoring away, I reached over and grabbed my cell phone. Swiping up, I touched the screen to turn on my flashlight. I opened the notebook to Nadine’s investigation and drew a line across the page under Valerie’s timeline.
“Dawn Gentry,” I wrote, wondering exactly where she’d been when Nadine was murdered because if she left Chicago early this morning, which was only a little over four hours from here, where’d she been the rest of the time?
Twelve
“Mae. Mae.”
Faintly, I heard my name being called. The shaking made me open my eyes.
“Who’s that girl sleeping on your couch?” Abby was sitting in the driver’s seat of the RV.
It took me a minute to remember what’d happened the night before.
“Abby,” I gasped and sat straight up. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m in shock. I only remember finding Nadine on the floor of the office with a knife stuck in her neck.” She blinked back the wall of tears on her lids. “I don’t even remember driving here.”
“You didn’t.” I looked at my phone. It was seven a.m. I’d only gotten about three hours of sleep, but suddenly found myself wide awak
e. “The girls from The Laundry Club hurried to the library once they’d heard what was going on and Betts brought us back here.”
“Who killed her? Did Hank say?” She asked, as innocent as a newborn baby.
“Honey.” I reached over and touched her. “Hank thinks it was you.”
“Me?” She started to sob.
“But I know you didn’t do it,” I whispered and looked over my shoulder at Dawn.
She was sprawled out on the twin sofa bed. One leg dangling onto the floor while the other was hiked up on the back of it. Her arms over her head. She’d slept in her black lacy underwear and bra. It was weird.
“I didn’t,” Abby insisted. “Why would they think that?”
“You did call her a fraud in front of everyone at the library yesterday and you were holding the knife when we found you.”
She blinked a few times and stared out the windshield as if she were trying to think back into her mind.
“Abby, I need to ask you.” I braced myself for either a meltdown or her going off on me. “Did you kill Nadine White?”
“No,” she gasped. The lines between her brows deepened. “I just told you I didn’t do it.”
“Then someone has gone to great lengths to make everyone think you did.” I glanced back when heard the sheets on the twin sofa bed shift. Dawn had rolled over to the side, her hiney facing out. “After Nadine dropped off your basket of goodies, what happened?”
“Basket of goodies?” Abby had a confused look on her face. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Valerie said Nadine was putting together a basket of signed books for you and the library to apologize and make peace with you. When Hank and I drove through downtown on our way to the Red Barn Restaurant, we saw Nadine walking up the steps of the library with a basket in her hands.” I tried to recall any details of the basket, but all I could see in my mind was her walking up and I thought about how it was the last time she’d be outside alive.
I shook the thought out of my head. Images like that weren’t going to help anyone, especially Abby.