by Valerie Tate
She nodded dazedly.
“Would you care?” he asked, daring to hope.
“Of course I’d care!”
“But what about you and Hugh?”
“Me and Hugh?” It was her turn to be dumbfounded.
“I saw you together,” he explained, “that night in the donut shop. You were flirting with him.” The accusation he’d kept bottled up all those weeks burst out.
She just laughed. “Of course I was flirting with him. I’m a woman. It’s what we do when we want something.” She saw the look on his face. “So you thought ... Is that why you became so distant?” He nodded. “You idiot. Hugh has a girlfriend, well someone he hopes will be his girlfriend. She teaches school here in town but lives on her parents’ farm outside Lancaster. She was the one who called them about those horses. All this because of a little harmless flirting. You idiot!” she repeated, and that was the last thing she said for quite a while.
“Marry me,” he said when he managed to pull himself away from Alicia’s lips. “I wanted to ask you that day on the beach but it didn’t seem right the way things stood at the time.”
“I wanted you to ask me. I didn’t care about how things stood. You were the one good thing in my life and I didn’t want to lose you. And then I thought I had.”
He kissed her again.
“Does that mean yes?” he asked later, not doubting the answer.
She smiled happily. “It means absolutely yes!”
Their happy announcement meant more champagne and a promise from Shae to come back for their wedding, whenever it might be. She was heading back to the city the next day but agreed to have lunch with them before she left.
Chapter 48
They all met for one final lunch the next day. No-one had been up early thanks to the champagne the evening before. They were just finishing Mrs. Stuart’s omelets and salad when there was a knock at the door. James went to answer it and returned with two men, one a uniformed police officer.
“Everyone, this is Detective Inspector Samuel and Officer Wyatt.” He made introductions all around.
Detective Samuel was a lean, middle-aged man with a world-weary face and busy eyes.
“We’re just finishing lunch. Can we offer you anything?” Alice asked.
“No thank you. I’m afraid this isn’t a social call.”
“I assume you’re here with more information about the kidnapping.” Chris began.
The detective shook his head. “Actually, no. We’re here about the murder of William Abbot.”
There was a shocked silence. It was as if a cold wind had blown through the room, freezing the smiles on their faces.
James sat down heavily in his chair. “Murder?”
“Yes, sir. Sometime last night in his office at the APS shelter.”
“But he was in jail!” Alicia exclaimed.
“He was, until his wife bailed him out just after ten-thirty. Frankly, he’d have been better off in jail. The receptionist at the shelter found him this morning when she arrived for work. He’d been hit over the head with a golf trophy that is usually kept on a shelf in his office. The medical examiner puts the time of death sometime between eleven last night and two this morning, and I need to know where each of you was during that time.”
“WHAT?” six voices protested in unison.
Chris quietened them with a wave of his hand. “Surely you can’t think that we have anything to do with his death?”
“Well, sir, it seems that your fingerprints, along with those of Alicia Dunbar, Shae O’Neil and Hugh Jameson were found all over his office, and Alicia Dunbar’s were found on the murder weapon.” The detective looked at each of them in turn. “Can you explain this?”
Chris nodded emphatically. “Of course we can. It’s a matter of court record that the four of us searched Abbot’s office two nights ago, looking for evidence of his theft of Society funds. We handled just about everything in his office then.”
The detective, looking speculative, made a note in his book and commented, “That would seem to me to be the perfect time to commit a murder. Everyone knows your fingerprints are already all over the crime scene. What’s a few more?”
Chris took a deep breath and tried to keep his tone calm and reasonable. “But we have no reason to kill him. We won the lawsuit, we got Marmalade back, and Abbot was arrested and charged.”
“And we were all together last night having a victory celebration. Dave Jukes was here, as was Mrs. Stuart.” Alicia added, visibly shaken by the unspoken accusation in their questions.
“And what time did the party break up?”
James answered. “About ten. Shae, Hugh and Dave left at the same time. The rest of us went to bed. It had been a long, emotionally draining day. We left the clean-up for today.”
The detective didn’t say it, but they knew that allowed plenty of time for one of them to have driven to the shelter and killed Abbot.
“What about Ray Price?” Chris suggested. “He has a pretty good motive for killing him.”
Samuel nodded. “Officers are checking into his alibi as we speak. However, we have found no evidence at the crime scene to suggest he was there.”
“What reason could we have for killing him?” Alicia exclaimed, indignantly. “It was all over. We had won. We had no motive.”
“I’d say that revenge is a very powerful motive. He had caused you no end of personal and financial grief, had blackened your reputations and had tried to steal from you.” He looked again at each of them. “People have killed for much less.”
“And just how would we know he would be at the shelter last night?” Shae asked, as if throwing down a full house. “The last thing we knew was he was in jail.” The others nodded agreement.
“Easy to assume that he would make bail. After all, he wasn’t arrested for a violent crime. You could have staked out the station, waited until he was released, followed him and waited until he was alone. Perhaps you didn’t intend to kill him.” He was looking directly at Alicia. “Perhaps you just intended to confront him about what he had done. Things got out of hand. You lost your temper, grabbed the trophy and hit him.”
Appalled, Alicia realized it sounded completely plausible. “But I didn’t! I was home, in bed. I was happy. We had won. And besides that, I had just got engaged,” she added, as if that confirmed it.
A smile briefly touched the detective’s lips, but then he went on in all seriousness. “Engagements notwithstanding, it is possible and I have to consider all possibilities.”
Since they seemed to be getting in deeper and deeper, Chris decided to put an end to it. “Are you charging us with anything, Detective?”
“No, at this time. We’re merely collecting information. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions. And I know it is a cliché, but please don’t leave town without informing us.” And with that, they turned and walked out, leaving a room full of stunned people behind them.
They were no longer innocents in the courts of law and public opinion; this could be far worse than anything they had previously experienced. That it came just when they thought it was safe to take up their lives again made it that much harder to bear.
“This is a nightmare! It never ends! We just seem to move from disaster to disaster.” Alice was on the verge of tears. After the strain of the last couple of months, this was the final straw.
Shae shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry about this. I don’t think they really suspect any of us. Despite what he said, Alicia, you have no real motive. It’s just the fingerprint evidence and that can be easily explained. I think they’re just fishing.”
Chris nodded briskly. “I agree. But I’m going to call Dave anyway, just to let him know what’s happening. Also,” he added grudgingly, “we should probably be prepared for another media onslaught.”
There were groans all around.
Chapter 49
Chris was right. Within hours of the announcement of the murder, there was an encampment of media vehicles
once more outside the gate. Although no mention of the family had been made in the announcement, the press was quick to link them to the death, if only to get their reactions in the wake of all that had previously transpired.
Chris read a prepared statement deploring the murder and declaring the family’s willingness to assist the investigation in any way possible. Marmalade also made a brief appearance and had his picture taken in Alicia’s arms, a gesture Chris hoped would distract the photographers from the rest of the family. It appeared to work as they then moved on to camp out at the shelter, hoping to interview APS staff about the grizzly details.
Since the police wanted Shae to stay in town for the time-being, and she had already checked out of her hotel, Alice and James invited her to move into one of their many spare rooms. She accepted gladly.
Alicia was glad as well, and said so at dinner that evening. Hugh had been invited too, but he was having dinner with Emily and her parents on the farm in Lancaster. “It’s perfect that you are staying here. It will give us a chance to make plans.”
“Plans for what?” Chris asked suspiciously.
“Plans for how we’re going to find out who murdered Bill Abbot!” she replied emphatically. “And I think we should get started right after dinner.”
“Alicia, dear,” her mother began tentatively, “I think you’re letting this detective business go to your head. I know we all did an amazing job in solving the Marmalade mystery, but this is a murder case. The police will solve it.”
“The police think we did it!” her daughter retorted. “And I for one don’t intend to wait for them to decide whether or not they are going to arrest one of us. And, in case you’ve forgotten, they were my fingerprints they found on the murder weapon.” Since no one could argue with that, they followed her into the library.
When they were all seated, she got out her laptop and typed the heading OPERATION: MURDER INVESTIGATION.
“You know, if we had a Smart Board like they do in those high-tech cop shows, I could put this up on it and everyone could see it.”
“Or,” her mother’s tone was dry, “we could just bring in the whiteboard from the kitchen and you could write on that.”
Alicia muttered something that sounded like ‘Killjoy’, and proceeded. “Now, I think that the obvious place to start is to make a list of anyone who would have a motive for killing Abbot. Once again we have an advantage over the police. We know that none of us did it. We don’t have to waste time investigating us. So who would have wanted him dead? Who would have benefited? Who had a motive? Obviously, Ray Price goes on the top of the list, but I think we should leave him to the police for now since he’s already under scrutiny. We can concentrate on the less obvious suspects.” She looked expectantly around the room, her fingers poised for action on the keyboard. “Well?”
Chris looked around the room at the blank faces that mirrored his own. “I suppose that his bosses at the APS were pretty upset with him. Not only did he steal from them but he sullied the reputation of the Society,” he ventured with no real enthusiasm. “I’d wager to say that fund-raising is going to be difficult for a while.”
“That’s good,” Alicia said, typing quickly. “And it’s possible that someone who worked at the shelter or one of the volunteers could have been angry enough to kill him. After all, the funds he stole from the shelter affected everyone there. Hugh said some people even took pay-cuts to help cover costs, and meanwhile Abbot and his wife were spending a fortune on clothes, cars and properties.” She was adding staff and volunteers to the list when she had an uncomfortable memory of the anger in Hugh’s voice when he talked about people who abused animals. And he had said he often went to the shelter late at night to check on the animals. She tried to dismiss the idea. Hugh wouldn’t do anything like that, would he? Was it possible he had gone to the shelter to check on the horses, found Abbot in his office, fought with him …? Reluctantly she mentally added his name to the list. “Also, some of those animal rights protesters are pretty tightly wound,” she continued, forcing herself to put the thought of Hugh out of her mind. “One of them could have snapped and killed him.”
Chris admitted it was possible. “They were all over the street around the station when we left. They might have still been there when he made bail.”
“How can we find out if they were still there?”
“I’ll call Dave and get him to call the station and ask the desk officer. He could say we’ve been having problems with them and are checking on their movements.”
“That sounds good.” She added animal rights protester to the list. “OK, who else?”
When no-one volunteered a new idea she said in all seriousness, “Well, it could have been a Mob hit.”
There was another stunned silence. Chris refused to meet her eye and James covered his mouth with his hand to hide a smile.
But her mother shook her head and said, “Alicia dear, this isn’t Chicago.”
But she persisted. “Just hear me out. Perhaps he borrowed money from a loan shark promising to pay it back with the money from the estate. Then, when he lost the case and was arrested, the loan shark realized he wasn’t going to get his money back and killed him to make an example of him.” She looked expectantly at the faces around her.
“I don’t want to burst your bubble, honey,” Chris said, unable to hide his amusement, “but I don’t think we have many loan sharks in Dunbarton.” All the same, she added loan shark to the suspect list. “Does anyone else have any ideas?” she asked with some annoyance.
Chris stood up. “I don’t think we’re going about this is in the right way. When we look at suspects, we have to consider how he was killed. If someone had gone there intending to kill him, he would have taken a weapon with him. Clearly this was not the case.” The others nodded agreement and Alicia reluctantly deleted ‘loan shark’. “This was a crime of opportunity, or even passion. Detective Samuel didn’t say if there was a struggle, so it’s difficult for us to know which, but we need to look for someone who killed in the heat of the moment, someone who was there when he got to his office or who saw the lights and went to confront him.” The idea of a crime of passion made Chris think of the passion Hugh felt in his job and how much he had hated Bill Abbot. He had access to the shelter. He could have confronted Abbot, fought with him even. But while he could see Hugh punching Abbot hard enough to kill him, he couldn’t see him picking up a golf trophy and smashing his head in with it so he dismissed the thought.
Shae was sitting, her head propped up on her hand, an introspective look in her eyes. “You know, I’ll bet his wife was plenty pissed with him. It’s possible that she didn’t know what he was doing, and once faced with his criminal activities and the prospect of losing everything, was angry enough to kill him.”
“Yes,” Alicia said excitedly, forgetting her annoyance, “and maybe she did know about it and was furious that he was stupid enough to get caught.”
Shae was on a roll. “And you can’t tell me that she would want to have to start shopping at Walmart! That woman has ‘high-maintenance’ written all over her.”
Alicia was typing furiously.
“I wonder if he had a life insurance policy,” James suggested, getting into the spirit of things.
“I could get Dave to try to find out without arousing any suspicions.” Chris said thoughtfully. He looked over at Alicia and smiled. “You know, we might just be able to do this.”
“I never doubted it,” she said, without looking up. “Okay, are we agreed that our prime suspect is his wife, Jennifer?” They all nodded. “Then we need to find out everything we can about her.”
“Not only about her,” Chris added. “We need to know about their marriage as well.”
“And we need to do it without anyone realizing what we’re up to. I can imagine that the police would take a dim view of our meddling in their case.” James interjected a sobering note of caution. “After all, we don’t want to give them any more reason to suspect
us than they already have.” He was right and the others knew it. They all had a lot riding on the outcome.
Chapter 50
Alicia had made careful notes of all their plans. Under the heading ‘Plan of Action’, she had listed each of the lines of investigation they were pursuing and who was doing what.
PLAN OF ACTION
Chris - call Dave and get him to find out about the insurance policy and find out anything he can about the Abbot household finances and if P.A.W.W. was still at the station when Abbot left
Mom - find out where J.A. gets her hair done and make an appointment - hair stylists know all the dirt about everyone
Shae - try to discover where she shops for clothes - it’s unlikely you’d find Armani in any shop outside Toronto and Shae has connections in all of the exclusive stores in T.O. (Just how much does she spend on clothes?)
Me - visit the shelter on the pretext of learning if Horace has been found - chat with the staff and see what they have to say about Abbot’s death
She mentally added, ‘Call Hugh and find out what he was doing when Abbot was killed’. She felt disloyal even thinking about it, but if he had an alibi, she could stop worrying.
James had said he was going into the office. Someone had to make a living.
Chris spoke with Dave that morning and he agreed to make discreet inquiries with the local insurance companies and to speak with the desk officer at the police station about the protestors. It didn’t take long to discover that Bill Abbot carried a $500,000 insurance policy which paid double for accidental death, including foul play. It came as no surprise to anyone that his wife was the beneficiary. A quick internet credit check revealed substantial credit card debt as well as large mortgages on the house and the other properties, and monthly lease payments on the two cars.
They had less joy with the protestors. The desk officer informed him that they had left early in the evening when it seemed as if Abbot would be in jail overnight.
Chris called Alicia with the information. She crossed P.A.W.W. off the list and recorded the Abbot financial information on the whiteboard under the heading ‘Results of Investigations - Motive’. It was a good start.