Marge smiled at Vicky while folding paper round the scarf. In a whisper she said, “How are things?”
Vicky made a so-so gesture with her hand so the customer wouldn’t notice. Marge gave a knowing nod and said in a louder, cheerful tone, “I had thought it was going to rain, with all those clouds, but nothing so far.”
Ms. Tennings came from the back, carrying a box. “I found a few more plates. We can put them on the tray by the fireplace. Oh, hello, Vicky.”
In her eyes Vicky also read curiosity about the murder case, but with the customer present they couldn’t say much.
Vicky helped Ms. Tennings put the china on the tray and add a few accents by way of a silk flower—handmade by a studio in Wales—on a crystal vase and a mini book with quotes she used in her hen party gift sets.
That reminded her that she had to call back a potential customer, and she vanished into the back room to have some privacy for the call. It appeared the client had sent a message through the site after having seen a gift made by Vicky for the very first hen party she had ever done. “I really liked the scented candles in the holders with heart decoration, but I’m not a fan of soaps. Could we …”
“I can customize the whole package according to your wishes. Anything on my site can be incorporated, but if you have something specific in mind that isn’t there, I can also see what I can do.”
“Well, the thing is this: I met my husband-to-be on a trip to London. I was there for work; he was there with friends to cycle. I would really love something eye-catching in the packages, like maybe a miniature phone booth, or an old-fashioned postbox, or a double-decker bus. Something that immediately shouts ‘Britain’ or even better ‘London’.”
“Well, I lived there for years myself so that should be easy enough to come up with. I’ll have a think and browse and send you an email with some options and prices.”
“Great, thanks.”
Vicky made a note about what she had agreed on and slipped the paper into her pocket. Then she went back into the store. The customer was gone.
“She bought the first in Bella Brookes’ See Britain and Die series,” Marge enthused. “Didn’t know the series at all. I said she’d be in for a treat if she liked it and could read all the books in order. They’re my favorites to revisit every once in a while.”
She fell silent as she studied Vicky’s expression. “Something is very wrong, right?”
“You could say that again.” Vicky took a deep breath. “Not only is Trevor still at the station being held for possible involvement in the murder of Archibald Goodridge, but Cash also has Kaylee Goodridge there.”
“The victim’s own daughter?” Ms. Tennings looked incredulous.
Vicky nodded emphatically and related what Cash’s reasoning was based on.
“Did Kaylee know about the change to her father’s will?” Ms. Tennings asked immediately.
“I don’t think so, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. Kaylee did say when she was being questioned that she’d get nothing because her father had left everything to Gunhild. So maybe she didn’t know what the new will said?”
Vicky rubbed her forehead. “There’s another complication. Doug Davis, who works for Michael at the Gazette, asked if he could cover the case. I sort of recommended him to Cash, as he seemed like a nice guy who was eager to prove himself to Michael. Now it turns out he was snooping in police files while he was at the station. Cash is livid about it and thinks Doug must be guilty of something, while Michael is defending him and is angry at me for supporting Cash.”
Marge tilted her head. “So you’re kind of caught in the middle.”
Vicky flushed. “That’s not really the point. Doug seems to have sent a message right after he heard of the death, writing ‘he’s dead, all is well now’.”
Ms. Tennings hitched a brow. “Quite cryptic.”
“The point is: why would Doug inform someone of Goodridge’s death and why would it be a reason for joy?”
“The words ‘all is well now’ need not denote joy,” Ms. Tennings protested. “It might be reassurance. Like: he can’t hurt you anymore.”
Vicky considered this. “Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why Doug would send such a message and to whom he would send it. Michael asked him to contact him as soon as possible, but Doug claims to be following up a hot lead. I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth or leading Michael on. He could be on the run already, with this other person he informed about the death.”
Ms. Tennings said thoughtfully, “I saw Doug Davis with a girl a few days ago, and they were acting kind of furtive. Like they didn’t want to be seen together.”
“A girl? You mean, Kaylee Goodridge?” Vicky’s heart was pounding. “Maybe there was a conspiracy to kill Goodridge, but with other participants than Cash now holds at the station?”
“No,” Ms. Tennings said. “I didn’t see the girl’s face very well, but I’m quite sure it wasn’t Kaylee Goodridge. I saw her in the newspaper picture of the writing group.”
“But in that picture Kaylee wore her hair differently and had a lot of makeup on. Her own boss didn’t even recognize her.” Or had pretended that he hadn’t, to shield Kaylee.
“Kaylee is twenty,” Marge said. “How old did you think this girl you saw must be?”
Ms. Tennings pursed her lips. “Younger. I’d say sixteen at most.”
“That young? What could Doug be wanting with her?”
Ms. Tennings shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s significant. It’s just all that I can contribute at the moment, I’m afraid.”
Vicky sighed. “Cash and Michael don’t like each other, and I’m worried Cash might conclude that Michael is consciously shielding Doug, while Michael has no idea what Doug is really up to.”
“Well, we won’t know until Michael has talked to this Doug,” Ms. Tennings said. “It’s his employee, his responsibility.”
“I agree,” Marge said. “We’d better focus on Trevor and Kaylee. I can’t see them as a murderous duo. But we need to find evidence of other people’s involvement in the death if we want to clear them. Especially with their fingerprints on the weapon.”
Vicky nodded. “I heard Kaylee was temporarily staying with Marjorie at the B&B. I want to go there and ask her if she noticed anything odd.”
Marge pulled her car keys from her pocket. “I’ll go with you. As soon as we’re done there, we can ask around if anybody saw anything suspicious near the cliffs this morning.”
Ms. Tennings took her place behind the counter. “Take your time. When it’s closing hour, I’ll lock up the store. Good luck.”
Chapter Fourteen
At the B&B several cars were parked on the driveway, and Marge left hers along the shoulder in front of the gate behind which the spacious garden stretched. There were some old trees in it that threw shade across a terrace. On a large wooden table glasses stood ready, jars with fresh fruit juice and trays full of little snacks.
“Seems like some kind of reception,” Marge said to Vicky as they walked past the cars to the front door. It had a glass pane decorated with several twined hearts hanging on colorful ribbons. Marge used the carved knocker to rap at the door.
Vicky leaned down to rub her fingers over some leaves of the plants in the pots beside the door. She inhaled the invigorating scents. “I want to grow some herbs, but somehow I never get around to it.”
“You could do it on the sink,” Marge said. “Some are very easy to care for and grow. I’ll give you some of mine.”
Vicky wanted to protest that she could buy some, but the door had already opened, and Marjorie flashed a wide smile at them. She was a stout woman in her late fifties with graying hair pulled back into a bun behind her head. She always wore a blouse over a skirt that just covered the knees. Today the blouse was turquoise and the skirt denim. On a long necklace a silvery key dangled full of glittering little fake gemstones.
“Oh, I thought you were the las
t guests,” Marjorie said. “They’re almost all here. But do come in. It’s a bit hectic right now.”
Overhead a kid screeched, and an agitated adult voice told him or her to tone it down.
There were suitcases left in the hall. A man stood signing the register while someone called from the den asking if they could turn on the TV.
Marjorie seemed to take the chaos in her stride. “I’ll just get them settled in and then I can talk to you,” she said.
She told the caller from the den the TV could be turned on, finished with the man at the desk, ran up to give the invisible parent and kid instructions on the playing area and then came running down again to rush outside and pour some drinks.
When she came back to Marge and Vicky, she wasn’t even panting. Not a bead of sweat on her forehead either.
Marjorie said, “What can I do for you two?”
“We’re actually here about Kaylee,” Vicky said.
“She’s not here.” Marjorie’s forehead wrinkled. “She had promised me she’d come here straight from her job at the computer café to help with all of these guests arriving, but she didn’t show up. Normally I’d guess she had forgotten all about the time, but today … Of course you know about her father?”
Vicky and Marge nodded solemnly.
Marjorie said, “It’s so sad. They never saw eye to eye of course, because of that Norwegian troll, but then again it’s hard to part this way. To know he was shot dead by some brute and you can never say goodbye again.”
Marge said, “Did you just call Gunhild Goodridge a Norwegian troll?”
Marjorie waved a hand. “I’m just quoting Kaylee. But listening to her stories night after night I began to believe there’s some truth to it. Gunhild lured that poor man into the marriage and then she just took what she wanted. She was always buying expensive things for her art, it seems, spending money like water.”
“I thought Archibald was so tightfisted,” Vicky said, recalling Kaylee’s remarks that Gunhild had never been able to buy anything without Goodridge checking on her.
Marjorie shook her head. “Oh, no. He did everything she asked him to. He was like wax in her hands. Kaylee said her father changed a lot after the marriage. That he became distant and cold to her while they had been quite close before. Especially after her mother died suddenly.”
“Teens do have this tendency to exaggerate,” Marge said.
Marjorie looked her over. “Well, it’s odd you say that, because at first I thought the very same thing. Kaylee came to live here and she was raving about her stepmother and I wasn’t believing her at all. But as she told me more, little things that happened in that household, I started to think she was telling the truth after all. It was just too … realistic to be made up. And what would have been her reason for lying?”
“Getting sympathy?” Vicky suggested. Marjorie’s representation of the Goodridge marriage was completely at odds with what Kaylee had said at the station and what she had herself concluded from seeing Gunhild in her home.
Marjorie shrugged. “I do feel sorry for her, but who wouldn’t? No mother, a stepmother who cares more for sculptures than for people. A father who wouldn’t see her anymore. Who didn’t want her to model while she’s so talented.”
“You let Kaylee stay here after she had to leave her home. Weren’t you worried that her parents wouldn’t like that?” Marge asked.
“Their opinion means nothing to me.” Marjorie put her hands on her hips. “Goodridge was just a bully who hurt people. And his wife … Can’t say I knew her well, but she never struck me as a warm personality.”
“How did you hear that Goodridge died anyway?”
“Ms. Templeton had been warning people walking their dogs to stay away from the cliffs. I knew that if an accident had happened, a doctor would have to come and establish cause of death. I happen to know the doctor’s sister. I called her, she talked to him, and voila.”
“Cash would really hate this,” Vicky said, shaking her head.
“No need for him to know any of it,” Marjorie said. “Right?”
“Right,” Marge confirmed, poking Vicky as if to say she should keep her mouth shut. “So did Kaylee ever mention to you that her father owned a gun?”
“As a matter of fact she did. She told me he had bought it because he felt unsafe. It seems he was being threatened by some business competitor.”
“Competitor, or former business partner? Didn’t that man come to the house to speak with him and when he drove off, he was so mad he almost hurt a cyclist?”
“Oh, yes,” Marjorie said. “An anonymous witness reported it to the police. A woman. Cash tried to find out who it could have been but he didn’t get far. He even thought the witness might have made it all up, to be interesting.”
She huffed. “Just like our good sheriff to think that a concerned citizen calling in something she happened to see from her window or her garden is making it up, to be interesting or something. The witness did give him the correct license plate. I mean, that car she reported was indeed the car of Goodridge’s former business partner. So she at least knew what license plate to call in. Now you give some thought to that. It must mean she saw something, right?”
Vicky considered this. It meant the witness wasn’t making up the presence of a certain car on a certain road at a certain time. But did it also mean that she had actually seen the driver endanger the life of a cyclist?
On the other hand, what reason could anybody have had to call in an incident when there had been none?
Marjorie said, “Kaylee believed that her father was afraid. She said she did hate herself for having left him alone in that house with that troll, but that there was no other way.”
Marjorie shook her head sadly. “That girl’s devoted to her father. She’ll be devastated now that he’s dead.”
Marge glanced at Vicky. “The police think something different. Kaylee’s at the station because she’s believed to be involved in her father’s death.”
“What?” Marjorie stared at her.
“Cash thinks Kaylee gave her father’s gun to Trevor, who might have killed him in the way it was written up in the Gazette. Didn’t you read the installment in Seaside Secrets this morning?”
“Yes, I read it and I saw Trevor’s name over it and I do believe he could grab a gun and kill someone. Odd fellow he is. But Kaylee? Hurt her father? Never. She cried every night about their argument and that she wasn’t living at home anymore. She hoped he would come to his senses and ask her to move back in. She’d never hurt him.”
Vicky frowned in bewilderment. Kaylee had told Cash and her that her father expected her to crawl back home but she wouldn’t do it this time around. That statement didn’t exactly fit Marjorie’s representation of the situation. Had Kaylee played the pity card to be able to stay at the B&B for free? After all, the girl had admitted she had little to no money after her father had cut off her allowance when she left home.
Gunhild had also suggested Kaylee was lying to play people against each other. Was Marjorie a victim of Kaylee’s clever manipulation?
Vicky felt guilty a moment as she wondered, briefly, if Gunhild herself was stretching the truth, misrepresenting Kaylee’s behavior because she had never gotten along with her stepdaughter. But if you had to deal with someone who lied on a regular basis …
Vicky said to Marjorie, “Do you have any idea where Kaylee was this morning? Say between six and eight?”
“Here of course, in her bed. She got up around eight to help me get breakfast ready for the guests and then she left for her job. She’s a very brave, hardworking girl, and I can’t imagine how the sheriff can suspect her of something so ugly. How he can even confront her with his suspicions. Her father’s dead, and he’s asking her if she’s involved. He’s a monster!”
Vicky wanted to defend Cash but sensed it wouldn’t do any good here. Marjorie was like a bear protecting her cub.
Marge asked,
“Are you sure Kaylee was really in bed and not out and about?”
Marjorie looked her over. “I didn’t check if she was in bed, no. But if she says so, I believe her.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll go to the police station at once. I’ll speak to the sheriff. Poor girl. He has to be out of his mind to treat her like this.”
“But your B&B is full of people,” Vicky said quickly. She could already picture Marjorie barging in and giving Cash an earful. “Why don’t you stay here and see to them and we’ll make sure Kaylee is OK?”
Marjorie looked her over with accusing eyes. “I don’t think you would say a bad thing about Cash Rowland, let alone disagree with him to his face. I understand perfectly what’s up. I’m going there myself.”
She turned away in a flurry to get her purse.
Marge rolled her eyes at Vicky and whispered, “Now Cash is in trouble.”
Vicky suppressed a deep sigh. It seemed that all their attempts at gathering information to make it better had only made things so much worse. Everybody was upset and working against one another, muddying the waters.
But once Marjorie had something in her head, she couldn’t be stopped.
Marge took Vicky’s arm and ushered her to the door. “We’ll drive around and ask people if they know anything about shots near the cliffs this morning. Maybe somebody saw a figure, and we can deduce who it was. Come on.”
***
Nobody they talked to had heard or seen anything worthwhile, although most everybody had an opinion about Goodridge’s death. The consensus seemed to be that he had made enough enemies around town in the time he had lived here. That was in line with what Mr. Jones had told Michael at the general store, but it didn’t mean that Cash would consider those viable leads, unless he had a lot more to go on.
Marge dropped Vicky at her cottage where she fell onto the sofa, too tired to even think about making dinner. The whole day was a blur in her head, too many people talking about Archibald Goodridge and why he should or shouldn’t have died.
Written into the Grave Page 14