by Jessica Beck
“Maybe so, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s Jake’s problem now.”
“You know, there’s a real possibility that all three of us might be wrong,” I said. “Someone else could have poisoned Alex.”
“I refuse to consider the possibility,” Grace said firmly.
“Why is that?”
“Suzanne, what good would it do us if that were true? Let’s focus on the two suspects we have left on our list, let Jake handle the chief, and then we’ll deal with more options later if they all turn out to be busts.”
“Okay. I vote we talk to Maisie first,” I said.
Grace looked at me, clearly startled. “Seriously? Do you really think the crazy lady killed him?”
“I’m not sure, but poison doesn’t seem like something Shannon would use. If Alex had been run over by an SUV, then she’d be my likeliest candidate. If she were going to murder someone, she seems like the type of woman who would want it to be painful and messy.”
“Wow, you have an even lower opinion of the woman than I do,” Grace said with a laugh. “Okay, let’s go see Maisie. Do you think she’ll actually come out of her apartment this time? She wouldn’t do it when Jake was with us.”
“Who knows? At least she answered the door for us before. I’m hoping when she sees that it’s just us girls, she’ll be more willing to talk.”
“So, how should we approach her? Could we play good cop/bad cop?” Grace asked eagerly. “I love it when we do that.”
“That’s because you always get to play the bad cop,” I answered with a smile.
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m really good at it. Besides, nobody’s ever going to believe that you’re the bad cop. You’re just not mean enough.”
“To be fair, neither are you.”
“Maybe not, but I can sure play ornery,” she said with a wicked grin.
“There’s no denying that, but I was thinking this time maybe we should both be sympathetic to her,” I said. “If even one of us is mean to her, I doubt she’ll open up, but if we both try to relate to her, she might.”
“It might be tough for me to do, since it’s kind of hard relating to a stalker who might have killed her obsession,” Grace said.
“Is it? If we can’t be empathetic with the killer, chances are that we’re not going to catch one. We have to put ourselves in their shoes, and that means imagining how the murderer’s actions could seem perfectly sane and reasonable to us from their perspective.”
“Is that why you’re so good at this?” Grace asked.
“Think of it this way. Do you remember how you fantasized about being with Bobby Westlake some day?”
“Suzanne, I was in eighth grade,” she protested.
“I remember. That’s all you talked about for an entire summer. How many notebooks did you fill writing ‘Mrs. Grace Westlake, Mrs. Robert Westlake III, Bobby and Grace Westlake’?”
“At least four or five,” she admitted. “But I was just a kid.”
“I’m not beating you up about it. Bobby was really cute. All I’m saying is that you should try to put those schoolgirl emotions into a grown woman’s psyche.”
“I never really thought of it that way before,” Grace admitted, and then she looked at me a little skeptically. “It’s a little disturbing that you understand the way she feels.”
“It’s all about empathy,” I said.
“I certainly hope so. How do we empathize with Shannon?”
“It shouldn’t be that hard. We’ve both had bad relationships in the past. Just magnify them by a thousand, and that should tell us all we need to know about Shannon.”
“There’s more to it than that, though,” Grace said. “If we’re really putting ourselves in her shoes, we have to imagine that we’re the center of the universe, and all mankind was put there specifically to serve us. When one of them fails to do so in a manner that pleases us, they must pay the consequences.”
“That might be going a little too far,” I said with a chuckle.
“Trust me, I’ve known women like her all my life. I don’t think I’m overstating it one bit.”
That thought made me shudder a little. “If you say so. Tell you what. Let’s wait to analyze Shannon until after we speak with Maisie.”
“Deal,” she said.
The drive went quicker than normal this time, and I had to wonder if it was because things were finally coming to a head. I had high hopes that one of our three remaining suspects was the killer and that we’d be able to prove it soon. Maybe then the cloud over Donut Hearts would dissipate and we could all get back to our lives. It would be wonderful having Emma, Sharon, and even Phillip Martin out from under clouds of suspicion again, but the only way we were going to do that was to solve Alex Tyler’s murder.
“Maisie, can we talk?” I asked as I knocked on her door yet again. It appeared that I’d been wrong. She was going to ignore us and hope we went away, which was exactly the way she’d acted when Jake had been with us.
If she thought that was going to happen, though, she was dead wrong.
“We’re not going anywhere, and we’ve got all afternoon. You need to talk to us. We’re here to help.” I’d added that last bit in desperation, hoping for something, any kind of reaction at all that got us some face time with her.
“Help her? How are we supposed to do that?” Grace asked me softly.
I just shrugged.
And then the door opened.
The chain was in place, though, so we weren’t inside yet.
“Help me? What makes you think I need any help from the two of you?” Maisie asked us through the partially open door. I knew the chain wouldn’t keep us out if we really wanted to get in, but this was a mission of nuance, not a show of blunt force.
“The police are worried that you had something to do with Alex’s death,” I said.
Maisie’s expression froze. After a moment, she asked softly, “Is that the man who was with you before? Was he a police officer?”
“He’s investigating the murder,” I admitted, glad for the opportunity to explain Jake’s presence with us earlier.
“If he was with the police, then why were you two with him?” Maisie asked me.
I just wished that I had an answer for her.
Grace came to the rescue, though. “We thought that if we went with him, we could help you explain that you didn’t have anything to do with harming Alex.”
It wasn’t the most rational explanation that I’d ever heard in my life, but then I wasn’t the one Grace was trying to convince.
After a moment, Maisie asked, “You honestly did that for me?”
“We just want to help,” I said. “Can we come in?”
“I’m not sure. I’m late for an appointment,” she said, clearly lying.
“We won’t take three minutes of your time,” Grace replied reassuringly. My friend didn’t give herself enough credit; she was a pretty decent good cop, too.
“Fine, but just three minutes,” Maisie said as she closed the door, slid the chain off, and then let us in. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any coffee or tea to offer you.”
“We can’t stay long, anyway,” I said. “Should we all sit?”
“I suppose so,” Maisie said, and we entered her winter display again. “How can you help me?”
“We’ve been able to find out exactly when Alex was poisoned,” I said. “All you need to do is tell us where you were at the time, and we’ll turn the information over to the police. If you do that, then all of your troubles will be over.” That was about as wild an overstatement as I’d ever made, but we really needed to find out where she’d been.
“Do you mean like an alibi? I know all about them. I read murder mysteries all the time.”
“So do I,” I said sympathetically. “That’s exactly what we need.” I told her the time of death, as well as the two-hour window previous to it that the killer had needed to poison Alex Tyler’s coffee. “Do you have anyone who can vouch for where yo
u were then?”
“Is that when it happened?” Maisie asked, and it appeared as though the woman was about to burst out crying. Once we were gone, she could relive her period of mourning for as long as she wanted to, but in the meantime, we needed an answer.
“It is,” I said, reaching out and stroking her hand gently. “If you could help us help you, the suspicion about you will all be over, and you can mourn properly. Can you keep it together long enough to tell us your whereabouts?”
“I was getting my hair done,” she said. “The complete works: shampoo, color, and cut. Call Hair Razors here in town. Ask for Cindi. I can’t believe that I was pampering myself while my poor Alex was being murdered.”
She was starting to cry in earnest now, and I felt a bit like a cad, but we needed to get out of there, and fast. Otherwise we’d be consoling her all afternoon, and our investigation time was severely limited. “Is there someone you can call to be with you?”
“I don’t need to. I’m taking my neighbor to the doctor for her appointment. She’s always had a kind ear for me when I needed to share my problems.”
“Then you should go speak with her right now,” Grace said firmly. “We’ll walk you over there.”
“Okay,” Maisie said, suddenly very pliant. I felt bad about dumping her on her neighbor, but hey, the woman was paying for her ride by listening to Maisie’s woes, so that was something, anyway. At least she wouldn’t be alone. I wasn’t sure if I could abandon her like that if she hadn’t had someone to talk to.
It just couldn’t be Grace and me.
“Well, we can mark her name off our list,” Grace said as we left the hair salon ten minutes later. Cindi had been working, and she’d confirmed Maisie’s alibi.
It appeared that, at least for our part of the investigation, it had to be Shannon, or we were completely out of leads.
As we headed over to her place, I had to turn my windshield wipers on.
It was starting to snow again.
Chapter 24
“Shannon, we need to talk,” I said when she answered the door to our summons. For once, the woman looked a little disheveled, as though we’d roused her from a nap. Good. Maybe her guard would be down a little.
“What do you two want?” she asked us with a snap in her voice. “Is it that dreary business about Alex again?”
“If you call murder dreary business, then yes, it is,” I said. My patience for this woman was nearly exhausted. After all, how bad could her ex-husband have really been? I’d caught mine cheating on me, and yet we’d still managed to work out something civil between us, an odd sort of friendship, even. What had Alex’s great sin been that his murder was treated so severely?
“I don’t have much time or patience left for you two,” she said. I had to wonder about her change in attitude since the last time we’d spoken. Was it because Jake wasn’t with us? Did she truly only respond well to men?
“This will just take a minute,” I said. “All we need to know is where you were at the time of the murder, and you’ll never have to see either one of us again.”
“You actually have the nerve to come to my home and ask me for an alibi? Good-bye,” she snapped, and then she slammed the door in our faces.
“Well, that was productive,” I said with a frown.
“More than you might think. Did you see what I saw?”
“I must have missed whatever you’re talking about,” I admitted, “because I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s fine. While you were busy distracting Shannon, I had a chance to peek through the door and look around her apartment.”
“What did you see?”
“There was a man’s coat draped over a chair in the living room.”
“How can you be certain that it wasn’t hers?” I asked.
“The cut of it was obviously from a man’s suit, and the wingtip shoes beside it just confirmed it. It appears that our suspect has male company.”
“Why am I not surprised? I’m just not sure what good that information does us at the moment,” I said. “It’s not as though she was cheating on Alex with another man. They’d been divorced for awhile, remember?”
“I know, but whoever is in there might just be able to provide her with the alibi that she doesn’t want to supply herself.”
“What are the odds of that happening?” I asked.
“Suzanne, it’s not as crazy as you might think. Alex was poisoned around lunchtime on a weekday, isn’t that right?”
“Right.”
“Well, it’s around lunchtime on a weekday right now. Maybe our mysterious stranger was with her on the day of the murder. If we hang around, we might get lucky and be able to get an alibi out of him. What do you think? Is it worth a shot?”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “Even if it doesn’t pan out, it’s brilliant thinking on your part.”
“Thank you, ma’am. After all, I’ve learned from the best.”
“There’s one other thing, though,” I added after a moment’s thought. “Maybe we should hold back before we interview him, just to see what we can find out about the man before we confront him.”
“Sounds good to me, as long as we don’t lose him.”
“We won’t,” I reassured her. “Now all we have to do is hang around and see who pops out,” I said just as Shannon’s door began to open.
There was nowhere Grace and I could hide to keep from being spotted.
It appeared that we were going to be having this particular conversation sooner rather than later.
“Chief Willson?” I asked incredulously as the police chief for Granite Meadows slunk out of Shannon’s apartment still adjusting his tie. “How long have you been dating the wife of one of your officers?” I asked.
The chief shook his head. “I can’t believe you two are here. Shannon warned me that you might still be lurking around in the shadows.”
“We’re not the ones sneaking around,” I said. “Seriously? How long have you been fooling around with Alex’s wife?”
“She’s his ex-wife,” he corrected me, “and I don’t have to explain anything to you. As a matter of fact, we just started seeing each other a month ago.”
“Is it every lunchtime, or is this one special?” Grace asked with a sweet smile.
“It’s the best time for both of us to get together, not that it’s any business of yours. Listen, no one knows about this, so you both need to keep your yaps shut, do you understand?”
“Chief, were you here the day Alex Tyler was poisoned?” I asked him firmly, ignoring his request.
He stared hard at me for a full ten seconds before he spoke. “Are you asking me for my alibi or Shannon’s?”
“At this point, does it matter?” I asked him.
With a prolonged sigh, he finally replied, “We were together.”
“Can you prove it?” Grace asked.
“We get food delivered,” he said sullenly. “Mandarin Palace can confirm that we were here. Now leave me alone.”
“With pleasure,” I said as I stepped aside to let him pass.
He got into an unmarked patrol car and sped off, his tires squealing as he left.
“Can you believe that?” Grace asked me.
“I’m not all that surprised, given what we know about Shannon. It appears that she has a taste for police officers; she just traded one in for another with a higher rank. I need to tell Jake about this.”
“Have him meet us at the restaurant,” Grace said.
“To confirm their alibi?” I asked as I pulled out my cellphone.
“That, and the fact that I’m hungry. Why don’t we kill two birds with one stone and eat while we’re there?”
“We might as well,” I said, the resignation heavy in my voice. “We just lost our last two suspects. I don’t have a clue where we should go from here.”
Chapter 25
“What looks good to you?” Jake asked as he studied the menu. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I fe
el like chicken.” The snow was intensifying. Outside, through the window near our table, we could see the world fast becoming coated in white. The flakes were fat and sticky, clinging to everything they touched, and I was glad that we were in vehicles that could handle it.
“How can you think about food at a time like this? Aren’t you the least bit upset that the delivery man just confirmed Shannon’s and Chief Willson’s alibis?” I asked him.
“Suzanne, if I let things like that interfere with my ability to eat, I’d weigh next to nothing, and to what avail? Starving myself doesn’t help anyone.”
“That’s a man after my own heart,” Grace said, and then she looked at her own menu. “I have an idea. Why don’t we get three entrees and then split them?”
“Sounds good to me,” Jake replied. “Suzanne?”
“Sure. Okay. Whatever you want to do.”
“Wow, that wasn’t very enthusiastic,” Grace said. “Follow your husband’s lead so we can all enjoy this meal.”
“Well, if you two aren’t worried about our prospects, then neither am I,” I said. “Chicken sounds good to me. There are a dozen ways we can get it. How about you, Grace?”
“Chicken, in all of its glorious possibilities, sounds perfect.”
Halfway through the meal, Jake said, “George isn’t going to be too happy that we’re back to square one. He was hoping that someone would have solved this case by now.”
“There’s always Manfred,” I said with a smile.
“Don’t even joke about that happening. If that half-wit ends up solving this case right out from under me, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look myself in the mirror.”
“Would you have been that upset if we’d solved it ourselves?” Grace asked him as she stabbed a piece of spicy chicken.
“No. If you two were to do it, I’d stand on the sidelines and applaud.”
“What makes us different?” I asked him. “Is it because we’re amateurs?”