by Fiona Grace
“I think we should chain ourselves to the doors of town hall,” Devon suggested.
Now it was just getting outlandish! They were getting crazier and crazier by the second.
“How would chaining ourselves to town hall help?” she said.
Devon shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve done it before to stop a steakhouse opening up. We delayed opening for hours.”
He grinned, like this in itself was some kind of accomplishment, and clearly failing to see how this would be wholly ineffective in this situation.
“We don’t have time for any of that,” Ali said. “Twenty-four hours! That’s it. That’s all we’ve got before the proposal is put to a vote.”
“Then what do we do?” Seth said again.
More and more people were joining the small huddle now, and Ali was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. She knew when she decided to take on Marvin Chessley head to head that she’d be getting herself into this, but she still felt extremely uncomfortable being the center of everyone’s attention. Not only the center, but the leader. Everyone was expecting her to do something now, and Ali felt woefully unequipped.
Her head started to spin with thoughts.
“I need to think,” Ali murmured.
She pushed her way out of the crowd, stepping away from the noise of all the vendor’s voices as they threw their crazy suggestions into the fray, each clamoring to be heard over one another.
Ali stepped away to collect her thoughts, stepping around the side of the council building and into the shadows. She pressed her back against the brick wall and took a deep breath. This was so much more than she’d bargained for.
Just then, she spotted a thin trail of light, and looked up to see the side entrance door open a crack. Remembering how Miriyam had said Marvin had snuck out the back entrance, Ali struck on a sudden idea.
The back route led to the parking lot round the back. She’d not seen any cars come out, so Marvin must be out there, waiting for them all to leave. Perhaps if she went and spoke to him, person to person, he’d be more willing to listen to reason? They’d had a good rapport before all this nonsense, back when he’d been just a customer at her store. He’d enjoyed her baked goods, too, and was thrilled to buy her French quality pastries. There was a reason he’d come in two days in a row for breakfast! Surely, on a personal level, he didn’t want her to close down?
Ali pushed back from the wall and headed along the dark alleyway. Gravel crunched under foot as she trotted past the open back door, peering in quickly to see Rodrigo da Silva and the speaker with the goatee busy packing away the equipment, tables, and chairs, with gloomy expressions on their faces. Neither Sullivan nor Marvin had stuck around to help, of course.
When she reached the end of the alleyway, it opened out into a dark, gravelly parking lot.
Ali scanned the lot. Though there were streetlamps back here, most of them seemed to be out of order, making the lot much darker than she’d anticipated. It was actually quite eerie. Had Ali not been aware of the crowd of angry vendors standing on the other side of the building, she would’ve felt quite nervous.
She looked about, searching for any sign of Marvin, and spotted a black car on the far side of the lot, its driver’s side door open an inch. Ali could also see a leg coming out of the door, with a shiny black brogue shoe on the foot.
“Gotcha,” she said.
She crossed the lot, beelining for the car. But she didn’t want to creep the poor guy out—she knew how terrifying it was when someone randomly tried speaking to you in a parking lot.
“Marvin?” she called, as she got closer. “It’s Ali. Can we talk?”
There was no reply, so Ali called louder. “Marvin?”
She was right by the car now, close enough to see Marvin sitting inside, the Danish from her store lying on the paper bag on his lap. He’d eaten most of it, so he must’ve enjoyed it, Ali reasoned, and she hoped she could get him to see how forcing her to close business would be bad for him.
Ali knocked on the window. “Marvin?”
He didn’t move.
Playing hard to get, clearly.
She tugged the door open. Whereby Marvin Chessley’s arm slumped out of the door and hung limply. A second later, his whole upper torso slid to the side as well.
Ali jumped back and screamed as she realized what was happening.
Marvin Chessley… was dead!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ali stared in shock and disbelief at Marvin Chessley’s slumped body dangling halfway out of his open car door. Just a few minutes earlier he’d been vibrant with life, exuding confidence. Now he’d been reduced to a waxy-skinned figurine, pallid, limp and lifeless. The contrast was almost too much for Ali to get her head around.
Then suddenly, the comprehension kicked in. Marvin was dead. Or dying? Ali started to scream. “Help! Help!”
It only took a moment for her shrill cries to be answered, and she heard the sound of several rapid footsteps on the gravel, growing louder and louder until she was surrounded by people. All the vendors who’d been congregated out front of the town hall angrily discussing ways to bring down Marvin Chessley were now here, in the parking lot out back, staring dumbfounded at him hanging halfway out of his open car door.
“Is he dead?” Carys shouted.
“He can’t be!” Cillian replied. “Someone check for a pulse!”
As the bustle of panic broke around her, Ali felt strong, protective hands come down on her shoulders. Ali allowed the anonymous person to guide her back several steps, taking her away from the car and the terrible sight of Marvin Chessley’s dead body, like a child trusting a parent to shield them from horror. Meanwhile, people were beginning a coordinated attempt to help Marvin. Ali watched on as two men worked in tandem to maneuver his heavy dead weight out from his seat and onto the ground, lying him supine, and beginning to loosen his tie and shirt collar. As they worked, the half-eaten Danish from Seaside Sweets fell from his hand and landed beside him, right in a pool of light from the street lamp. It beamed down like a spotlight, and suddenly every panicked theory revolved around the Danish.
“I think he choked!”
“Check his airwaves!”
“Does anyone know CPR?”
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
The final voice was Miriyam’s, recognizable by her strong Slavic accent.
As the flurry of movement and noise erupted all around Ali, her mind spun. But the whole time, the same strong hand gripped her shoulders, as if keeping her firmly in reality. For a fleeting second, she wondered if it was Seth, until she realized he was the one on his knees beside Marvin performing CPR.
She looked over to see who the strong, grounded hands belonged to, and gasped with surprise.
“Nate?” she said, as she took in the sight of the handsome surfer.
What was he doing here? He hadn’t been among the vendors she’d been chatting with two minutes earlier, so where had he sprung from?
“Are you okay, Ali?” he asked, staring with concern into her eyes.
“Y—yes,” she stammered. “It’s Marvin. He’s…” Her voice trailed away. She was too scared to say what she already knew to be true. That Marvin Chessley was dead. And by the looks of things, he’d choked on her Danish.
She gripped her mouth with her hand, too overcome with emotion to say another word. Her pastries were meant to bring joy to people, not death.
“You didn’t poison the Danish, did you?” a voice came in Ali’s ear.
She whirled, instantaneously offended, and glowered at the speaker— an older man she didn’t even know. He was skinny and wizened, with a hunch in his back, a face creased with wrinkles, and thick, white sprouting ear hair.
“No!” she exclaimed, offended. “Of course I didn’t!”
The man didn’t seem at all phased by her evident upset.
“Wouldn’t blame you if you did,” he said with a simple shrug.
Disgusted by his callousness, she tu
rned from him with a huff and watched Seth and his gallant efforts to resuscitate Marvin.
Just then, the sound of ambulance sirens came, and Ali looked over toward the alley that led from the front of the town hall to the lot. Flashing lights were illuminating it.
‘Thank goodness we were so close to the hospital,’ she thought. ‘And that Miriyam was so quick to action, when everyone else was floundering around panicking.’
The ambulance raced across the lot toward them, and the EMT jumped out with his satchel before the driver had even put it in park. He raced ahead.
“Out of the way!” he cried, dropping to his knees.
Seth staggered back, and Ali felt the urge to reach out and touch him. But Nate’s hands were still on her shoulders, and she felt them squeeze as if to hold her in place.
The second EMT bustled past them, the door of the ambulance left hanging open in his haste. “Everyone get back,” he commanded, as he drew up beside his colleague.
They exchanged a few, hushed words, before the first abandoned all efforts to help Marvin. The second stood and turned, and began making large shooing movements with his arms, as if herding cattle.
“I need you all to get back. Get back.”
Ali knew what that meant. It was too late. With a squeak of grief, she buried her face into Nate’s chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around her.
“Dead then, is he?” the tactless old man from before asked.
“Sir, please move back!” the EMT barked. “This is a crime scene.”
A sudden stunned silence fell.
“Crime scene?” Miriyam exclaimed. “What do you mean? You mean he was murdered?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” the paramedic replied.
His confirmation drew a huge gasp from every onlooker. People started to whisper to one another in hurried, terrified tones. No one knew what to do, or where to look.
“How was he killed?” Devon asked.
“It looks like he was strangled,” the EMT replied. “So none of you go anywhere. The police are going to have a lot of questions.”
*
‘Murdered…,’ Ali thought, as she watched police cruiser after police cruiser roll into the parking lot, alarms and lights blaring. ‘Marvin Chessley was murdered!’
The sight of the cop cars filled her with fear. She had firsthand experience of how things could be misconstrued, and how a complete picture could be built with just a few bits of information. She was seen publicly arguing with him. Her Danish was found in his possession.
But she kept reminding herself that he’d been strangled, and not that he’d choked on her Danish. The police would surely understand that a woman of her size and stature could not strangle a man to death. She’d be exonerated. She had to be.
But that confidence instantly began to strain as she saw, rolling up behind the cruisers, the black-tinted windowed Merc of the murder detectives, Detective Elton and Detective Callihan.
As they emerged from their cars, Ali quickly turned her attention to the EMT who’d announced Marvin’s murder.
“Excuse me,” she asked. “You said he was strangled? Are you totally sure about that?”
She was seeking reassurance from him that this investigation wasn’t going to immediately turn in her direction. But when he opened his mouth to reply, it was already too late. Detective Elton was upon them, and she cut him off with a sharp hand, held up in a stop gesture.
“Absolutely nothing is final until the coroner’s report,” she said with a warning tone. She glowered at the EMT. “You’re dismissed. This is a crime scene now.”
Ali gulped. She’d forgotten just how terrifying Detective Elton could be.
Then she spotted Detective Sebastian Callihan and felt a whole different kind of flutter in her chest. The last time she’d seen him he’d heroically saved her from a murderous restaurateur and a strange romantic energy had passed between them. It had taken her by surprise because the preppy Detective Callihan was so far from her type, and yet the number of times she’d seen him bravely save the day now had changed her opinion of him into something altogether more favorable.
Detective Callihan gave her a curt nod as he joined Detective Elton at her side. Detective Elton, on the other hand, glowered at her, as she said, pointedly, “Miss Sweet here has already got a million questions about the case.”
Detective Callihan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sure she does, as does everyone else here.”
Detective Elton stared at him, blankly, not reacting to his obvious attempt to stick up for her. But Ali was grateful. Whatever prejudices Detective Elton may have toward her, Detective Callihan was the only person ever able to make her see sense. But she was still nervous as she watched them approach the body of Marvin Chessley to begin their investigation.
The paramedics had covered him in a blanket to maintain his dignity, but it hadn’t covered the Danish, and Detective Callihan crouched beside it as if instantly honing in on it. Ali gulped as he craned his head over his shoulder, searching for her.
“Ali?” he said, once their eyes met. “Isn’t this one of yours?”
She nodded. “He bought it from me this morning. Then he saved it until the meeting to eat it, so he could psyche me out with it.”
Detective Callihan’s eyes narrowed skeptically, clearly not understanding what she was referring to, or even how a person could psyche another out with a Danish.
“The town meeting,” Ali explained, pointing at the hall. “Marvin and I were in a debate.”
Callihan’s eyebrows flew up, and he ripped back the blanket to see the face of the dead victim for the first time.
“Councilman Chessley?” he said with breathless shock. He looked over at Detective Elton hovering behind him. “This is the brand-new councilman. What’s it been, two days on the job?”
“Three,” Detective Elton corrected. “Looks like our victim didn’t take very long making enemies.”
She scanned the crowd of onlookers with her narrowed, hawkish eyes. Her gaze settled suspiciously on Ali.
“Who found him?” she asked. Or barked. Detective Elton never said anything without aggression.
“I did,” Ali said meekly.
The fact that the victim had one of her Danishes lying beside him already made her look bad. How much worse would it look that she was the first to find him?
As if picking up on her growing panic, Nate tightened his arms around her protectively. She felt a mixture of comfort and constraint and had no idea what to do about it.
Detective Elton tipped her head down to Detective Callihan. “I’ll interview Miss Sweet.”
He nodded without protest. It was well known now that Detective Elton didn’t trust him when it came to Ali Sweet. He had too much of a sweet spot for her.
Detective Elton ushered Ali away from the others, though not as far as Ali would like. She was still within ear and eyeshot of the lot of them, and it made her feel like a spectacle.
“Tell me what happened,” Detective Elton asked, retrieving her small notebook from the breast pocket of her biker jacket and flipping to a fresh page.
“I came out here to speak with him,” Ali said. “We’d just been debating, and it ended poorly. I was hoping that if I spoke to him man to woman, he’d see sense and hear me out. So I came out here and saw his car door was open, and his foot was out on the ground. I figured he was just waiting until people had gone before he drove home, because he didn’t want to pass the mob out front. I called his name a few times, but he didn’t answer. When I tugged on the door handle, he sort of slumped half out. He looked dead. That’s when I started screaming for help.”
“You didn’t try CPR?”
Ali shook her head. “I guess I could just tell instinctively he was dead.”
Detective Elton narrowed her eyes at that comment, and Ali instantly regretted it. But it was the honest truth. She couldn’t explain how or why but she had known right away that Marvin Chessley was beyond help. Maybe i
t was because of the other murders she’d been embroiled in? Not that she wanted to remind Detective Elton of any of those.
“You forgot the Danish!” someone shouted from the crowd.
Ali glared over. It was the old man again, the nosy old codger. He was going to land her in hot water if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.
“The Danish?” Detective Elton asked, quick as a flash. “What about the Danish?”
“It was on his lap,” Ali admitted. “When I got to him. It looked like he’d only just gotten round to eating it, there were only a couple of bites eaten.”
“Right…” Detective Elton said, drawing out the word as if in complete disbelief. “So let me get this right. A man you were in a public debate with is found dead moments later with one of your Danishes in his lap?”
Ali gulped. “That’s the long and short of it.”
Detective Elton snapped the notebook shut, hastily enough to make Ali startle. It was a very final movement, almost as if she was declaring it was case closed.
Detective Elton joined Detective Callihan at his side.
“They can all vouch for each other,” he told her, pointing his pen at the crowd. “Everyone was out the front of the town hall until they heard Miss Sweet shout for help. Then they all came back here to see what was happening.”
“And Miss Sweet was the only one who stepped away from the group?” Detective Elton asked.
Detective Callihan flashed a sympathetic glance at Ali. he knew as well as she did that this did not look good.
“That’s correct,” he said in a morose, clipped tone.
Ali felt panic rising in her breast. This was a disaster. She looked like the prime suspect.
She looked around at the others, all safe with their matching alibis. But then she spotted Nate lurking a little way back from the others and her heart seized. He had not been with them outside. He had only appeared here, in the parking lot, when the last time she’d seen him, he’d been walking the other direction.