“I got it, Dean,” she said impatiently to get him to ease off the pressure. She had enough of that in her life already. “I said I’ll talk to him and I will.”
As she ended the call and tucked her cell into her overalls, she wondered about her boys. Jared wasn’t one to choose work over his brother, not at a time like this. So why was he at work? Jason’s reaction to the doctor’s update at the hospital crossed her mind. He hadn’t looked relieved. He had looked anxious. Why would good news make him anxious?
She wanted to believe this was all a classic case of Jason pushing his family away, but she was getting the nagging feeling that it might go deeper—much deeper than that.
After ringing up Kate’s materials at the register, Larry helped her load the items into the back of her truck.
“Be careful out there,” he said.
In response, she shot him a sarcastic smirk. The last killer had thrown her into the back of a van, not to mention Kate had stumbled upon countless bodies over the years. Careful wasn’t what she was, and yet nothing bad had happened. His warning was falling on deaf ears. But she told him she would watch her step and climbed up behind the wheel.
Pulling out of the loading area, she fought the urge to call Jason. First, she would talk to Jared and find out how Jason had spent the long night after they had left the hospital. Once she got a read on her darker son, she would devise how to handle saving his job with Wentworth Contractors.
She did, however, call Scott the second she pulled into a parking spot in front of the municipal building.
“Hey,” she said when his deep and comforting voice came through the line. “I’m working in your building today.”
“Oh yeah?”
“For a few hours, anyway. Got to finish Jared’s new office... We could get a late lunch slash early dinner in a few hours before I head off to Jessica Wentworth’s house.”
“We could,” he said, trailing off in such a way that indicated he would like to see her but probably wouldn’t.
“You never made it home last night.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I would’ve called or texted, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Lance is doing just fine.”
“I heard. Thank God. I’ve been reaching out to Amelia, but she hasn’t returned my calls.”
“Yeah, about that,” she said, taking a stuttering breath and choosing her words carefully. “She kind of implied she wasn’t planning on cooperating. But she’s just scared, I’m sure. She’ll come around.”
“I’m not so sure she will.”
“Why’s that?”
“Let’s just say my team found a few things at the site, and matters have gotten very complicated.”
“Scott, don’t do this to me.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t provoke me into doing something to cause a fight.”
“Kate, you’re getting a little abstract for me to follow.”
“Tell me what you know or else I’m going to go poking around. You know me.”
At this point, her impulse to solve murders was bordering on addiction. She couldn’t help herself, and Scott alluding to clues without sharing them would only incite her to drop everything and dig until she exposed every last detail.
“I have to get off the phone. I’m going into a meeting. We’ll talk tonight. Dinner?”
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“Definitely,” he said, but quickly revised his answer. “Probably. Can’t commit to a specific time, but I won’t be working all night. I promise.”
She couldn’t wait up for him. Last night had been a long one, and Kate’s life worked best when she woke up with the sun and got a jump on fixing all that was broken in Rock Ridge, but she didn’t pressure him into committing or mention her schedule, both of which could risk starting a tiff.
“Let me know,” she said. She told him she loved him and got off the phone.
When she rounded the back of her truck and evaluated the materials, the bulk of which were for Jessica’s fashion studio and not her son’s new office, Kate grabbed her toolkit and started for the entrance.
As soon as she got to the mayor’s office floor, she was hit with a wall of heat.
“It has to be a hundred degrees in here!” she exclaimed to no one in particular as she passed through the anteroom and found Jared grunting and complaining about once again moving his work station into the hall outside his new office.
He was covered in sweat, and though he had removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, his shirt was stained dark from perspiration.
“You’re telling me?” he said, setting a filing box on his desk, which was blocking the hall at an awkward angle. “Not only has the air conditioning broke, but maintenance can’t seem to figure out how to shut the air off. It’s been blasting hot air from outside all morning.”
“Did you try opening the windows?”
Exasperated, he gestured to the window at the far end of the hall. It was wide open with a fan in front of it.
“Sucking ninety degree summer air into the office isn’t my favorite strategy,” he grumbled. “And after the night I’ve had, I don’t need this.”
Nearing him, she set her toolkit on the floor in front of his desk to free her hands.
“Want to tell me about it?”
He sighed. “Friggin’ Jason.” It took him a long moment of shaking his head and staring off into space before he thought of what to say. “He would not let me pull him out of his dark hole last night. We’re all devastated.” Jared locked eyes with her and Kate nearly teared up seeing the pain flowing out of him. Jared had always been so sensitive. If Jason were hurt, Jared would take it on in an effort to lessen his twin's burden. She was distraught for the both of them over this. “I tried everything last night, but of course he did his usual Jason thing, wallowing and snapping at me. He kicked me out, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, kicked me right out of his house, even though it's big enough for the both of us. He wanted a few beers after the hospital, so we stopped off. I drank. Then he kicks me out. I slept in my damn car for three hours to sober up then drove home, got a lousy three hours’ sleep. Now I’m here and it’s hotter than hell.”
“Honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Oh! And I didn’t tell you the best part!” Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks, but he wiped them off with his forearm. “When I woke up after a horrendous three hours in my car, I went back in the house to see about sneaking some rest on the couch. I wanted to check in on him, too, you know. But he wasn’t there!”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that,” he said impatiently. “He wasn’t in his bedroom, the bathroom, the basement. He left.”
“Where did he go?”
Jared’s expression went slack. “Seriously?”
She sighed and recited, “I know you don’t know where he went. I’m with you...and I’m also stunned.”
“Me too, because before I came into work this morning, I stopped by the house. Jason was there, showering. I was pissed, you know? I asked him where he had been. I told him I was worried about him. And he says nothing. Nothing! I’m telling you right now, Mom. I love my brother, but Scott’s suspicions are starting to make sense. And trust me, I’m not overreacting because I’m mad. I’ve thought about this rationally all morning. Something’s up with Jason, and it is not good.”
Reeling now that she understood Jared’s new stance on the grand issue of Becky’s abduction, Kate forced herself to pick up her toolkit and make her way into Jared’s office. For not one moment during her entire life had she ever questioned the goodness of her sons. She had always believed they were wonderful boys who grew into amazing men. But if Jared suddenly had his suspicions about Jason...well, it didn’t bode well with Kate, mainly because she believed him. And believing him was hard to fathom.
Had Scott’s gut been right all along? Did Jason have something to
do with Becky’s disappearance? Was it an elaborate hoax? Scott had wondered if the young couple might have orchestrated the ransom for Becky’s return out of financial desperation. But if the kidnapper, whoever they were—Becky? Jason? Both of them?—had blown up half a million dollars and nearly killed Lance, then what in God’s name was this about?
Again, Daisy’s drugs being deposited at the Langleys’ mustard warehouse came to mind, as she used a box cutter to free the new shelving unit that Jared had ordered online, but she couldn’t draw any clear conclusions.
If the Langleys had double-crossed a drug dealer and Becky had been abducted as the result, how would that make Jason guilty?
Unless the drug dealers were Kate’s very own son and his fiancée...
As if to save her from the harrowing notion before chills could rush down her spine, Kate’s cell phone vibrated in her overalls.
It was Amelia Langley.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said in a tone so steady, it set Kate’s teeth on edge. “I came to Over the Moon to check on things....”
“And?”
“Someone’s been murdered in room 5.”
Chapter Three
Kate told Amelia to call the police. That she was on her way. As she walked briskly through the mayor’s office, she avoided Jared who would surely recognize her panic if she showed any indication she was rattled. To no one in particular, she announced, “Off to lunch!”
Trying to remain calm, she climbed into her truck and eased out of the parking space.
Over the Moon was a colonial mansion just modest enough to seem like a farmhouse from the outside. Inside was a different story. With receptionists, maids, and administrative assistants dominating the interior, there was no mistaking the Langleys’ wealth.
When Kate reached the front desk, the receptionist rose to her feet and smiled as though she had no idea the inn’s owner had just found a dead body in one of the rooms.
“I’m Ashley,” she said. “Welcome to Over the Moon. Can I have your name?” Her fingertips were poised over a keyboard that was resting on the desk.
“I’m here to see Amelia. Kate Flaherty. She called me. If you could just tell me how to get to room 5?”
The receptionist looked a bit thrown, but explained that Kate would find it at the top of the stairs. “Just make a right and head to the end of the hallway.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Kate scanned the parking area through the windows. The police should have been here by now. Amelia probably hadn’t called them. But why?
She found the stairs and quickly padded up. At the landing, she noticed two details—it was unusually quiet and there were only three doors spanning the hallway. As she made her way, checking the room numbers as she went, Kate wondered if Over the Moon had been hit with the same fate as the rest of Rock Ridge. With reporters infiltrating the town and covering murders, businesses would begin suffering. It appeared as though the inn already was.
When she reached room 5, she quietly rapped her knuckles on the door and asked, “Amelia?”
A moment later, she heard movement within the room, footfall that sounded rushed. Then the door popped open, Amelia looking nervous on the other side.
“Why aren’t the police here?” Kate asked, easing the door open since Amelia made no effort to.
“This inn can’t take any bad press.”
Kate wasn’t sure there would be any way to avoid that. She closed the door, and when she turned to face Amelia, her gaze locked on the body.
It was a man. Slumped on the floor, he looked as if he had fallen out of a desk chair at the back of the room. As she neared him, it became clear he had been struck in the back of the head with a blunt object. When she scanned the room, she found a metal, bookend on the floor where the left side of the bed ran parallel to the wall. The bookend, a wrought-iron antique in the shape of a mallard, had blood on it.
“One of your guests?”
Amelia didn’t answer. She was wringing her hands and pacing the room as if caught in a terrible dilemma.
“Amelia?”
“I should tell you the whole story.”
“You should tell the police the whole story,” she countered.
“I’m aware of that,” Amelia snapped, as she sat on the edge of the bed. “If I could run the whole story by you, then you can tell me how I should phrase things to Scott.”
The fact that she seemed to be devising an angle told Kate that Amelia was perhaps concerned the murder would blow back on her. This wasn’t about her inn’s business faltering. It was about her. And Kate had to wonder why.
Though it unnerved her to settle into a sofa chair across from Amelia and waste time hearing her out when there was a dead person five feet away, she sat and gave Amelia her full attention.
“Remember when Clifford Green was staying here? I told you how I found out he had received a discount we don’t normally offer and I couldn’t figure out which employee did it because it was an old employee number?”
Kate nodded.
“I had my IT specialist look into it. Tommy Barkow. He did our website and installed our POS system a few years back.”
Kate wasn’t sure what that had to do with a dead man in the room, but she didn’t interject, only leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees.
Amelia went on, but prefaced her point with a qualifier. “I have no way of knowing if the two are connected....”
“Two what?”
“Oh God,” said Amelia, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t need this right now with Lance in the hospital.” Kate gave her a moment to compose herself. “Tommy found out that the employee number belonged to...”
“Who? To who?” Kate asked urgently.
“It was Becky’s number.”
Their eyes locked, but soon Amelia’s gaze fell to the floor. Kate said, “But Clifford checked into the inn after Becky was abducted.”
“Which is why I don’t want to tell Scott. It’s no secret he’s been suspicious of Jason, and no offense, but I think he has every right to be. But if he finds out Becky’s ID number was used...”
“These are two separate incidences,” Kate pointed out as a way to ease Amelia’s worry. “Aren’t they?”
Amelia glanced at the dead body and said, “That’s Tommy Barkow.”
So Tommy found out Becky’s number was used to discount Clifford and then he was murdered, thought Kate, drawing connections that only made the Becky sightings more plausible.
“Scott’s going to think Becky’s out there, and he’s going to think she killed Tommy,” said Amelia, her eyes widening with sudden panic.
Kate wasn’t about to encourage her not to tell Scott the whole truth, and it made saying anything at all a challenge.
Eventually, she asked, “Who could’ve gotten ahold of Becky’s number?”
“That’s a question for Tommy,” she said. “In terms of our computer system, archived information isn’t available to just anyone logging on. And all the numbers are private. Anyone who looks at the screen, whether they’re combing through reservations or the employee schedule, will only see names.”
“We don’t know that the person who used Becky’s number killed Tommy,” she offered, but it was a frail response.
“Oh please, Kate. It’s obvious the two are linked.”
“Not necessarily. You might have an employee who knew Clifford and wanted to cut him a break. This could have more to do with those convicts getting out than it does Becky’s abduction.”
“I don’t hire ex-cons,” she stated as if offended.
“Maybe someone fudged their paperwork, lied—it’s possible.”
“We do background checks.”
Kate wondered why Amelia was being adamant since it only served to suggest Becky was, in fact, in Rock Ridge, alive and well, and had killed Tommy.
“Amelia, it’s time to call Scott.”
Sighing from where she sat on the bed, Amelia nodded as if accepting the fac
t exhausted her. “Will you?”
Kate fished her phone out of the front pocket of her overalls and sent a call through to Scott’s cell. As she listened to the ringtone, she hoped he hadn’t set his phone on silent to focus on working the explosion scene at the amusement park.
Finally, he picked up.
She kept it brief. Amelia was gesticulating and whispering demands of what not to say, and when Kate got off the call and mentioned the police were on their way, Amelia got to her feet and neared the body.
“He was such a nice, young man,” she noted, standing over him.
Kate gently grasped Amelia’s arm and drew her away. “Let’s wait in the lounge downstairs.” As she guided Amelia through the hallway, she commented, “It’s quiet.”
“Those reporters,” she grumbled. “The few reservations we had got canceled and the guests that were here checked out.”
“What do you suppose Tommy was doing in that room?” she asked, as they crossed through the first floor to the lounge where a cocktail waitress approached and immediately asked if Mrs. Langley would like a whiskey sour.
Amelia waved off the waitress and sat on a couch in front of the windows. Outside, the sun was beating down, the grass looked so green that Kate wondered if it was sod, and the groundskeeper walked a wheelbarrow full of mulch across the yard.
“I have no idea why he was in that room,” she said. “Other than installing our Wi-Fi a good while back, Tommy only worked remotely.”
“Did you talk to the receptionist? Maybe Tommy gave her a reason for coming.”
When Amelia said nothing, but only stared vacantly out the window, Kate made a mental note to bring it up with Scott. Not that her husband needed her to micromanage the investigation.
As they waited for the police, Kate suddenly felt terrible for Scott. Rock Ridge had been coming undone with crime, and because of it, Scott had an abduction, an explosion, and now a murder on his hands. The fact that reporters were showing up would only make his efforts all the more cumbersome.
Most disturbing was the possibility that Becky could’ve had something to do with Tommy’s death. Kate knew she had seen Becky outside of Daisy’s Luncheonette a number of weeks back. And when she had watched the surveillance monitor, she had been certain it was Becky who had been lurking behind that stack of pipes. But Kate couldn’t let herself go there. Ever since Jared had expressed his distrust of Jason, any suspicion Kate had towards Becky was tangled in that of her son.
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection) Page 21