Gulping, I asked, “Is that what…what killed Fallon?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing yes. Thank the bloody gods I came to find you when I did. I think I scared off whoever did this.”
I leaned into him, groaning. My head really hurt. “You know what this means, don’t you?” I asked as he helped me to the back of the ambulance, where the bright lights from the sirens hurt my eyes.
“What, Dove?”
“I’ve been injured. That means this is a real murder investigation.”
He chuckled and pulled me into his arms, cradling my head. “Surely there has to be a better sign that doesn’t involve you scarred and injured.”
“You know what this also means? It means Cleo can’t be the one who killed Doug. You can’t do that when you’re in the pokey. So when are they going to let her out?” I demanded.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as that, Dove. It never is.”
I winced when I reached up to touch my very sore head. “So are we saying there are two killers now? C’mon. That’s crazy. Fallon said she had to tell me something important. She’s here for Tammy and Jay’s wedding. Of course she had information about Doug’s murder. Of course, she did!” I cried, close to hysteria.
All of a sudden, out of the foggy mist, Dana appeared in his typically well-kept uniform. “Can I ask you some questions, Stevie?”
So, I was Stevie now? What happened to Miss Cartwright when we were on official department time?
I was in no mood. None. But I knew I had to tell him about what Fallon said in her text.
Win intervened on my behalf, though, keeping me from snapping at Dana. “She’s taken a pretty hard hit to the head, Dana. Can this wait until she’s spoken to a doctor? I fear concussion.”
Dana slapped his bro-friend on the back, but he didn’t look at me. “You bet. Hope everything’s okay, Stevie.”
“We’ll text you when we’re done, yes, mate?”
“That’d be great,” Dana said with a nod before he moved toward the voices I assumed belonged to his fellow police officers.
Rubbing my head, I winced as Win led me to the car. “So someone with a bat clobbered me, huh? How do you know it was a bat?”
He set me inside with gentle hands. “The splinters on the ground, Dove. Or it could have been the wooden handle of something. Either way, Fallon Merriweather was hit so hard by her killer, it left behind splinters. I heard the officers discussing it with forensics.”
As I let my head fall back against the seat of Win’s car, I winced. Someone had hit me with a baseball bat. Well, that was a find how-do-you-do.
“That has to mean Fallon was coming to tell me something that might have helped the investigation. I feel it in my gut,” I said a little too fiercely, making me wince in pain.
“And my gut says you must sit back and rest, Mini-Spy.” Win brushed his knuckles along my chin. “You scared me half to death when I saw you on the ground like that. Again, I ask, whatever possessed you to go to the parking lot alone, Dove?”
“I did text you, and honestly, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But I also couldn’t find you upstairs anywhere, and I didn’t want to miss the opp to talk to Fallon. She was only a couple of minutes away. I didn’t want to scare her off if I didn’t show up. I was impulsive, I know. I’m sorry.”
“I was in the wine cellar with Deb-or-ah the Octopus, who seems to have hands sprouting from every part of her body.”
I snickered and rubbed the enormous egg on my head. “Did she get funny with you, you handsome devil?”
“Funny is an understatement,” he drawled in a dry tone. “Though, I assure you, my virtue remains intact. Now, no more talk until we’ve had you checked out by a doctor. Understood? I promise we’ll go over it all then.”
While poor Cleo sat in a cold jail cell and I’d had a brush with the person who’d likely killed Doug.
This day simply refused to get better, didn’t it?
Chapter 16
I kicked off my shoes as I flopped down into one of our kitchen nook’s chairs and opened my bag of burgers and fries. I was ravenous, and I didn’t even care that Win would mock me for eating a greasy piece of fake meat.
Lightly pressing my fingers to the Elmo Band-Aid the hospital had put over the cut on my head because they were all out of adult Band-Aids, I made sure it was in place and began to devour my food.
“Malutka! Your feet, they are raw like hamburger meat!” Arkady said with a gasp. “Zero, quickly, get first aid for my petal! You must clean her wounds.”
I’m fine, Arkady. I’m hungrier than I am in pain. Relax.”
“Already on it, my friend,” Win crowed from the downstairs bathroom, where I heard water running.
“I’ve got the antiseptic ointment!” Bel called out. “I can’t believe they didn’t take care of this at the hospital. What kind of cracker jack ER are they running here?”
Win walked carefully across the kitchen with my foot spa massager filled with water as I inhaled my cheeseburger. “If she would only have held still long enough, I’m sure they would have handled all of her injuries, but you know our Stephania.” He set it down in front of my aching feet and lifted them to set them in the warm water, flipping the switch on.
Okay, so I was anxious to get home and start hunting Facebook for clues.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as the massager began to work its magic and tried to forget the image of Fallon Merriweather, staring blankly at me, and the disappointment in Dana’s eyes when I told him I hadn’t seen anything.
His lips had thinned, but that was too darn bad. I got cold-cocked. I didn’t have the chance to see anything, and he’d just have to live with that. I got the impression he thought I was keeping important information from him, but that only made me angrier with him.
I’d never do that. I’d never impede a case so I could solve it first. This wasn’t a race. I’d shown him the texts from Fallon and sent him copies.
But when I demanded to know why Cleo wasn’t set free instantly due to the fact that she obviously couldn’t kill Fallon while incarcerated, he clammed right up again. So either there were two killers, or he knew something I didn’t know.
Wiping my lips with a napkin, I popped a couple more fries in my mouth and washed them down with some grape soda before I said, “Okay, let’s get down to business.”
“Stephania, no,” Win chided softly, pulling off his jacket and tie and loosening the collar of his shirt. “You mustn’t. Rest is what you need. You heard the doctor.”
Flapping my hands dismissively, I nodded with a wince, because wow, whoever whacked me, had whacked me good. “I heard him as he pulled a couple of splinters out of my head, and he said take it easy. He didn’t say don’t try to find a murderer.”
Win had taken me to the ER and, after some x-rays and blood tests, they determined I wasn’t concussed, just banged up with a knot the size of a Fabergé egg on my head. I didn’t even need stitches. That was minor compared to some of the injuries I’ve had.
“I think when the doc says take it easy, he doesn’t mean racking the old noodle for answers. No can do, Boss,” Bel chirped, landing on my shoulder to snuggle my cheek. “It’s bed for you, young lady.”
“Bel, I’m fine and a killer is walking free. Fallon Merriweather is dead, along with Douglas Wallace, and an innocent woman is sitting in a cold jail cell while her ghost sister shows up randomly, trying to tell us something. A little whack on the head isn’t going to stop me.”
Win pulled out a chair and dropped into it, washcloth in hand. “It’s near midnight, Dove. Maybe we start fresh in the morning, yes? I like Cleo, too. In fact, she reminds me of a young spy I was in training with, but whoever is responsible for what happened to Fallon is probably long since in bed. Murderers sleep, too.”
Letting him dab the heels of my hands with a warm washcloth, I looked at him. “Is that why you were so defensive with Leslie earlier today? Because they we
re pushing Cleo around and she reminds you of a classmate?”
His handsome face went thoughtful for a moment. “I think it is. My classmate, Fiona, was very quiet, much like Cleo, but when unleashed, she was a force to be reckoned with. They resemble each other a great deal, too. I guess it brought me back to a fond memory of someone who was very good at their job and a good friend—if what spies have can be called friends. I used to have dinner with Fiona and her wife whenever we had the chance. We even partnered on some of my earliest missions. She was an incredible asset to MI6.”
“Dah,” Arkady said with a sad laugh. “I remember she was good spy when I wish she was not so good. She kick my backend once in New Guinea. Sore for two days after.”
I reached out and grabbed his hand. “And where is she now, Win?”
His eyes went sad. “She was killed on a mission is Saudi Arabia.”
I cupped his jaw, littered with dark stubble now. “Oh, Win. I’m so sorry.”
Bel flew to his shoulder and rubbed against Win’s jaw. “That stinks, buddy.”
Win gave Bel a stroke on the head before he straightened and went back to tending my hand. “Indeed. It does stink, mate. Anyway, that’s probably the reason for my reaction to Leslie today, and I’m sorry if it came off as harsh.”
“That lady Leslie is like powder keg. She always has lit fuse. I do not like,” Arkady informed us.
“Do you think she’s still our number one suspect?” I asked as I pulled my laptop to me and began to look for the page of the woman Doug had an affair with, who Tammy had found on Facebook.
Marie Boggs’ page was mostly unremarkable. Lots of memes and selfies, but very little interaction from anyone else.
Whiskey came and pressed his nose to my thigh with a mournful sigh. I reached out to scratch his velvety ears, returning his sigh. He was telling me it was his bedtime. “I know, love of my life. Give me just a few, buddy, okay?”
He flopped down at my feet and Strike followed shortly after, both of them cuddling next to one another.
“Seeing as you’re not gonna listen to your wise familiar, what do you have so far, Boss? You wanna do a rundown, because obviously it does us no good to tell you to rest.”
A rundown was exactly what I needed. I had so many bits of information floating around in my head, I needed to see if I could connect some dots or I’d never sleep.
“Yep. That’s what I need to do.” Sitting up in my chair, I let Win tend to my scratched-up hands and I blabbed all my thoughts out loud. “Jump in whenever you have something to add. First of all, it can’t be Cleo. She’s in jail for Heaven’s sake! What are they thinking?”
“I wish I knew, Dove. The video must be compelling enough to hold her. Though, maybe they’ll sing a different tune tomorrow.”
My lips thinned in anger. “She didn’t skip out of county on magic wings tonight and kill Fallon. That’s bananas.”
Win squeezed my hand. “While true, we might have two killers on our hands. Regardless, I understand your frustration, and I’ll touch base with Luis to be sure he’s on top of that fact.”
Shaking out my shoulders, I blew out a long breath and began. “Okay, so we have a dead guy named Doug who was a total creep and cheated on his wife Cleo a lot. He shows up at the motel she’s staying at for a wedding to possibly beg her to come home and maybe for some money, but she says she didn’t stick around to find out. She has this encounter with him before she goes to Tammy Parker’s bachelorette party. They argue, she claims when she left, he was alive and well, but one of the charms from her bracelet was found in the nearby bushes, suggesting there might have been a struggle”
Win slathered the heel of my hand with antibiotic ointment and wrapped it in gauze. “And yet, he ended up with a cake server in his skull, engraved with Tammy Parker and Jason Burns’ names on it, sometime around the wee hours of the morning, and there’s video of what appears to be Cleo, in a hoodie she admits to owning, leaving the crime scene.”
I blew out a breath as the foot spa eased my aching soles. “But Linda Prince says she doesn’t think it could be one of her friends because they were all sleeping when Doug was murdered. So who had Cleo’s hoodie and how did they get their hands on it? The only person awake was Linda Prince, who could have easily gotten Cleo’s hoodie. Is she our killer? Is she hiding in plain sight?”
“Certainly, it would have to be someone who had access to the hoodie and Cleo’s room. That absolutely leaves all of her friends suspect. Any one of them could have taken the hoodie. And it seems more likely it was one of them than it is some outside source. Who could get into Cleo’s room but one of them? Or for that matter, get their hands on a cake server specifically made for Tammy and Jason?”
I pointed at Win with my free hand. “You make a valid point. But what if someone from the staff of the country club did it? They’d have access to it, right? I’m sure, because the reception will take place there, they’d have all the catering and wedding accoutrement stored there, wouldn’t they?”
“Also true. Then the question becomes, who knew Doug that works at the country club and has access to Cleo’s room? He’s not from Eb Falls. That’s not enough of a connection for me, Dove. I need more.”
I nodded at Win. “Correct. He’s from Seattle, but if it was someone from the country club, they could have broken into Cleo’s room, right?”
“With a cake server on their person and in the time it took for Cleo to arrive at the motel from the bachelorette party, take off her hoodie and fall asleep—or in her case, pass out from all the alcohol? I find that doubtful.”
I slumped forward and decided to fiddle around and find out about Jason. “While I’m on Facebook, let me look up Jason.”
I typed his name in and found his page, but if Marie’s was unremarkable, his was equally so. Though, there were tons of pictures Tammy had tagged him in. The most recent being a picture of her smiling broadly at a hair salon in Seattle titled, “Getting beautiful for you for our big day! Thanks to Lida’s Locks and Serafina Baker for the new do!” her blonde hair fluffy and magazine worthy.
“I don’t see anything out of ordinary, do you, malutka? Lots of self pictures of Tammy, though. She like camera, eh?”
I grinned. “That’s called a selfie, my twenty-first century man, and yes. She strikes me as someone who likes being pretty and being appropriately worshipped for being pretty.”
“But does that mean she killed that poor schlepp Doug, and if she did, why?” Bel chirped the question, settling on my napkin from dinner.
I stared at the screen and decided to Google them all. “I don’t know why she’d kill him. I don’t know why any of the women with the exception of hothead Leslie would kill him. Call him names? Sure. Curse his existence, yeah. But actually murder him? Jam a cake server in his head? I don’t know.”
“But remember, Dove, it could be due to something that hasn’t come to light. Though surely, Leslie’s motive, because of her declaration of love for Cleo, makes a compelling case. In fact, hers is the most compelling. But we can’t rule out Linda and Tammy.”
“Oooo, that’s news,” Bel cooed. “Leslie loves Cleo? Does Cleo know?”
“Tammy says she isn’t sure and if she does know, Cleo’s decided to keep it to herself to keep from making waves in the group. I think we ought to ask Leslie if she ever confided in Cleo about it.”
Win taped the gauze on my hand. “Yet, Tammy says she only confessed to she and Linda.”
I winced at the sting of my palms. “Maybe she lied? It sounds like Cleo and Leslie the Agitator spent a lot of time together in college. Maybe she doesn’t want the others to know she’d already told Cleo? I don’t know, but it’s worth asking.”
“Then that leaves us with the information we have left. The message on the wall at Madame Zoltar’s in chalk. Carys and her cryptophasia. Eleanor and the phone call she overheard Leslie have, and finally, Ryan Gimble and the information he gave us about Doug having an argument with someone outside
the country club. Is that all of it?”
I groaned and took the two pain relievers Bel had brought downstairs from my bathroom to ease the ache in my head. “I think so. The only thing left is Fallon Merriweather. How was she related to the bridal couple again?”
“I believe I heard one of the staff from the hospital says she’s some sort of distant relative on the groom’s side, Dove.”
“We need to start talking to people at the motel tomorrow. Maybe someone saw Fallon with someone suspicious? And then we need to go back to the country club and ask some more questions.”
“Tomorrow,” Win emphasized.
Next, I checked Jason’s friends on Facebook to see if I could determine Fallon’s connection to the couple, but his list was hidden, as was Tammy’s, Linda’s and even Cleo’s.
Then I looked for her Facebook page, but again, ran into another brick wall. “Not much on her page, either. It’s as private as the rest were, but she definitely had something to tell me and she was afraid someone would hear. It must have to do with Doug’s murder due to the fact that she specifically mentioned everyone said we were who she should talk to. Someone killed her over whatever it was, so it had to have been important.”
“Someone hit her hard enough to crush her skull, Stephania. That was some swing,” Win commented in a somber tone.
Argh! “We need to see that video they claim to have of Cleo. I want to scour it for clues. We also need to get her the heck out of that jail cell so we can have her put a call out to Carys. Carys showed up at the country club tonight when I was talking to Ryan. She knows something, but I can’t figure it out.”
Win ran a hand over his face, his eyes tired. “Was her mouth moving?”
I gave a light shake to my head. “Nope. She was dancing around and smiling while she pointed at Ryan, which led me to believe he said something she agreed with, but I told you what he said.”
“Malutka? How is it that Cleo and Judd could see the lights on little girl’s shoes? Do they see ghosts, too?”
Where There's A Witch, There's A Way (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 13) Page 15