by Nic Saint
I walked out of the office and felt all eyes in the precinct on me. It was a novel experience. So this was how celebrities felt, huh? Weird. I walked to Rock’s desk, and the hush that descended upon the room was electrifying. I think they all expected me and Rock to mount the desk and start making out. One of the officers even took out his smartphone, presumably so he could start filming the lurid scene. Instead, I told Rock, “I need to ask you something.”
He gave me a smile. “And here I thought you’d jump my bones.”
“I didn’t start all this,” I said. “You did.”
“And I don’t regret it for a second.”
We locked eyes, and I felt a weakening sensation in the pit of my stomach. Oh, Lord. Making out on top of the desk suddenly felt very appealing.
I took a seat, before my knees buckled. The disappointment of the onlookers was palpable. The officer put away his phone, and everyone went about his business, the hum of a busy office returning to its usual cadence.
Virgil gave me a pained look. Ever since we were in kindergarten together, the guy has had a not-so-secret crush on me. He thinks I don’t know, but I’ll bet the whole town knows. Problem is, I like Virgil, I really do. As a friend.
“So I was over at Gemma Weston’s house just now,” I told Rock.
“What were you doing there?”
“Long story. I needed a dress for her funeral.”
“You needed a dress to go to Gemma’s funeral?”
“No, I needed to get one of Gemma’s dresses for her to wear at her funeral.”
He grimaced. “Right. I keep forgetting you work for your uncle Charlie.”
“While I was there, I noticed an empty box on the bed. Gemma says…” I abruptly stopped. Oops. “I mean, I know for a fact that the box was full of Gemma’s memorabilia. Stuff connected to Chad Harlin. Only now it was empty.”
“So?”
“So did you take it? Or any of the officers searching the house?”
He frowned and leaned back, his hands behind his head. “And this is important why?”
“Call it a hunch.” When he arched his eyebrows, I said, “Oh, yes. I get them.”
“Alice gets the best hunches,” Virgil said helpfully. “She’s usually right on the money.”
“Is that so?” Rock asked, eyeing me with renewed interest. He glanced over at Virgil. “Do you know anything about this box?”
“Already on it,” Virgil said, his fingers flying across his keyboard. After a few tense moments, he shook his head. “Nope. We didn’t take anything from the house, and definitely not a bunch of old stuff about the Chadster.”
“The Chadster,” Rock laughed. “Is that even a thing?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Chad is very proud of that moniker.”
“I expected nothing less of him. So this empty box, huh? What do your spidey senses tell you?”
I stared at him. “I don’t know yet, but I have a hunch it’s important.”
“And I bet you’ll find out.”
“Oh, yes, I will,” I said with more conviction than I was feeling.
Chapter 20
I popped in at Bell’s next. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and I hoped Fee would know what to do next.
“Gemma is growing dimmer by the second, the police have no clue, and frankly neither have I,” I lamented as I joined her behind the counter.
“And your dad doesn’t like you kissing Rock and wants you to stop following Mrs. Evergreen around. Yes, it doesn’t look like things are going well.”
“Well, if you put it like that, it sounds even worse.”
Fee placed six chocolate pear tarts into a box for Sheniece Harlot, an elderly lady with a penchant for chocolate, who thanked her profusely.
“I think what you need is a chocolate tart,” Fee said, and held one out for me.
“The entire police precinct seems to think I am a tart,” I said, popping it into my mouth. “Yum. This is pure bliss, Fee.”
“You’re not a tart. Not yet, anyway.” She gave me a cheeky grin. “I’m having high hopes you will become one soon, though.”
“Join the tart club, you mean?”
“Yep. High time you got on that old tart horse again and got out there.”
“I didn’t kiss him, you know. He kissed me.”
“And good thing he did. He could have waited a long time for you to make the first move.”
“He could probably have waited forever.” I sighed. “So what about Gemma?”
“Yes, what about me?” Gemma’s whiny voice echoed back. I looked around, but I couldn’t see her. And then I did see her; she was hovering near a tray of chocolate croissants. In life, they’d been her favorite, and she was desperately trying to pick one up.
“I don’t think that’s going to work, honey,” Fee said.
“Oh, shoot! I hate being dead! I hate hate hate hate it!”
“Yeah, it’s not much fun, is it?” I said.
“And the worst part is, now I have to attend my own funeral, and listen to all those dreadful speeches by people who never even cared about me when I was alive.”
“I’m sure your family loved you very much,” Fee said.
“Not my family. All my so-called friends who couldn’t be bothered to visit me even once after high school.”
Which reminded me. “I saw Susan Cooper the other day, remember?”
“So?” she asked, her lips in a pout.
“So maybe I should talk to her again. See if maybe she knows anything we might have missed.”
She waved an airy hand. “Whatever. See if I care.”
“I thought you and Susan were besties?” Fee asked.
“Well, we were, but that was before I saw her visit Chad.”
“You saw her visit Chad?”
She nodded. “I decided to hang around—see if he couldn’t see me, like you guys. And there she was. Susan Cooper. My best friend. Being all fussy over Chad.”
“I’m sure she just wanted to console him,” Fee said.
“Yes, they both loved you and probably wanted to share their grief,” I said.
“Share their grief my foot. She tried to kiss him! And she would have succeeded if Chad wasn’t such a tool and totally fumbled the ball. All that alcohol and drugs must have affected his brain. He didn’t even realize she was making googly eyes at him the whole time. But I did. I was standing right there while my best friend was making a pass at my husband! Two days after I was killed!”
I shared a quick glance with Fee. Now this was news. “In high school the story went that Susan had a secret crush on Chad,” I said.
“Yeah, I heard that. Never thought it was true. Well, now I do.” She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. And to think she was my bridesmaid.”
“Susan knew about the wedding?”
“Of course. I invited all my besties as bridesmaids and she was the one who organized the whole thing. I figured she deserved it, as my best friend. Not.”
“And how did Chad react when Susan tried to kiss him?”
“Like I said, he turned away just when her lips would have landed on his. And good thing he did, cause I would have killed them both if they’d ended up doing it.”
“Ghosts can’t kill people, honey,” Fee said.
“Gah! Isn’t there anything about this ghost state that’s any fun?”
Fee cut her eyes to me. “Did Susan mention any of this to you?”
“Nope. All we talked about was how much she needed an extra gun.”
We stared at each other. “An extra gun? And you sold it to her?”
“Yes, I did. I even made Virgil fast-track the license so she could take it home with her straightaway.”
Fee narrowed her eyes at me. “You don’t think…”
“No. No way is she going to shoot anybody.”
Fee nodded, relaxing. “Of course not. Not Susan Cooper.”
We both laughed. We’d known Susan since forever. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d
murder another person in cold blood. The Susan I’d met at the store had seemed very together and utterly content with her life in Boston. Still, I wanted to have a chat with her. See if she couldn’t point us in the right direction. And I definitely was going to ask her about her so-called crush on Chad. Though admittedly Gemma seemed to think everyone had a crush on Chad, so I wasn’t going to believe her word on the matter until I got confirmation from Susan.
“You’re not going over to that horrible old Susan, are you?” Gemma lamented. “If you are, I’m not coming. I can’t stand to hear her whiny old voice for one second longer.” So she said in her own whiny old voice.
I called Susan and she told me to meet her at her parents’ old place. They were on a Caribbean cruise and she was staying at the house for the funeral.
I rode my bike over, and parked it against the white picket fence. The Cooper place was even bigger than I remembered. A three-story white clapboard building with wraparound porch and plenty of space inside for the five children Susan’s parents had raised. I’d been here on play dates, and remembered the place as sprawling and teeming with life.
I walked up the gravel path and knocked on the front door. Almost immediately, Susan opened the door a crack. When she saw it was me, she opened it wide. “Sorry about that. You can never be too careful these days.”
“No problem,” I said, though I’d never heard of people being attacked in their own home on a regular basis here in Happy Bays. Well, apart from Gemma, of course.
“Come on in,” she said, and led the way along a dark corridor straight into the kitchen at the end. The light was on, in spite of the fact that it was daytime, and the curtains were drawn.
I gestured at the windows. “Keeping the light out, huh?”
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t like to disturb the house too much. Mom doesn’t like it when I move stuff around when she’s away. I just use the kitchen and one of the bedrooms upstairs, trying to keep my mess to a minimum.”
She gave me an apologetic smile and I returned it, adding some wattage of my own. I was going to have to cover some tricky ground here, and I wanted her at ease and feeling benevolent. “So… how are you holding up?”
She sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s been truly horrible. Not just Gemma’s… death, but being back here. It just brings back so many memories.”
“All great ones, I should think?”
Her smile faltered. “Yes. Yes, of course. Just…” She seemed to realize she wasn’t a very good hostess, for she suddenly sprang to her feet. “I’m so sorry. Where are my manners? Would you like something? Cup of tea? Coffee? Oh, and please take a seat.”
“Thanks. Coffee is fine.” I looked around the kitchen while she poured a cup for me and added creamer and sugar. On the fridge a picture of a cruise liner was stuck with a magnet. I pointed at it. “That the boat your folks are on?”
She glanced at it. “Yes, that’s right. The Caribbean Magic. Five-star ship. They’ve really discovered sea cruises these last few years. Won’t take any other vacation. And since Dad retired, they can do so year-round.”
She placed the coffee in front of me and poured herself a cup.
“So, what I wanted to ask you,” I said when she finally joined me at the table. “I, um, talked to Chad Harlin the other day, and, well, he told me that you and he…” Oh, God. How the real cops ever got through an interview, I didn’t know. I always felt absolutely awkward asking the hard questions. The personal ones.
“Yes?” she asked, eyes wide and innocent.
I sighed, and decided to plow ahead. “Chad said you tried to kiss him.”
She uttered a startled little cry and brought her hand to her mouth. “He—Chad said that?”
“Uh-huh. He also told me you had a crush on him in high school.”
I just hoped Susan wouldn’t immediately pick up the phone and call Chad to confirm my story. Then again, the Chad I’d seen wouldn’t remember anything he’d told anyone, so my little fib was relatively safe.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, dear. This is so embarrassing.” She nodded. “It’s true. I had a crush on Chad. Have had a crush on him since… forever.” She opened her eyes and stared at me. “And I did try to kiss him. I didn’t even know he’d noticed. He just turned away just when I leaned in and I found myself kissing air. So horribly humiliating.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“No, but Chad will.”
“I’m sure he won’t remember.”
She smiled. “Yes, his mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”
That was probably the understatement of the year. “So you hoped Chad would like you back, now that Gemma was gone?” I asked.
She nodded, bringing a nervous hand to her brow. “Something like that. Honestly I wasn’t thinking. I just went to visit Chad to offer him my condolences, but when I saw him, I just couldn’t help myself. It just… happened.”
“I get it,” I said, and I did, though not with Chad. My kissing inclinations ran more along the lines of tall, handsome cops who answered to the name of Rock Walker.
“Do you?” she asked, inching forward. Relief was etched on her face. “Because I’m a married woman, and a mother, and throwing myself into the arms of another man is the last thing I should be doing right now. Especially the widower of my best friend.”
“It’s all right. There’s just one thing I need to ask you.”
“Ask me anything, Alice,” she said, taking a sip. “You’re a true friend.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s just… Where were you Tuesday night between seven and eight when Gemma was killed? I have to ask,” I added, and took a sip of my own coffee. It was quite delicious. “Just routine stuff.”
She nodded and gave me a tight smile. “I was home. In Boston. The minute I heard Gemma had been killed I took the first flight out and arrived here around midnight.”
I glanced over at the fridge again, at the picture of the Caribbean Magic, while I processed these words. “So who called you with the terrible news?”
“Some police officer. I don’t remember his name.”
I got up and walked over to the fridge, pushing aside the magnet and taking off the picture of the cruise liner. Something about it seemed off to me. When I examined it closer I knew what it was: the postage stamp. I flipped it over and the handwriting immediately struck me as familiar, and so did the words: ‘Love you bundles, Babes—your Chadster.’ I swallowed away a lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.
“So let me get this straight,” I said, still studying the card. The postage stamp indicated it had been sent from Key West, five years ago. I remembered that Chad’s parents used to vacation out there all the time. “A cop called you and you immediately took a flight out, arriving at midnight?”
“That sounds about right.”
“But… the fastest flight is still more than three hours. And then you still had to drive out here from the airport.” It was doable, but only just. And then only if the police had called her at eight, when the body was found, which was very unlikely. Why would they call Susan? She wasn’t next of kin. She was just an old school friend.
“I might have gotten my timing mixed up,” Susan said. There was something strange in her voice that had me turn around… only to see that Susan was directing a small-caliber gun at me. The Colt that I’d sold her.
“Susan?” I asked. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t give me that crap, Alice Whitehouse,” she snapped, her friendly demeanor falling away like a mask. “You always were a nosy parker, weren’t you? You and that fat baker friend of yours, Felicity Bell.”
“Fee isn’t fat,” I said automatically, wondering how I’d gotten myself into this mess.
“And the pope doesn’t live in Rome. So you figured it out, huh? How?”
Actually, I hadn’t figured it out. Susan just hadn’t been careful enough. But it didn’t seem like a good idea to rattle her
. “I discovered an empty box in Gemma’s bedroom that used to contain all the postcards and letters she ever got from Chad.” I held up the postcard in my hand. “Postcards just like this one.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have taken them. I couldn’t help myself, though, and I figured no one else knew about that box but Gemma herself. And she’s gone.”
“So you killed her?”
Susan smiled. “Yes, I did. There, you got your confession, Miss Smarty Pants. Fat good it’ll do you.”
I sighed. “You’re going to kill me, too.”
“Well, not because I get a kick out of it. Killing Gemma was fun. She had it coming. She’d driven that poor Chad to drink with her whining and nagging and pushing and needling. How he could stand to be around her I don’t know. I was so glad when Gemma told me she’d kicked him out. I hoped now that he was out from under her toxic influence he’d finally see me for who I was: the woman who truly loved him—had always loved him.”
“But you’re married. You told me Craig is the most wonderful man.”
“He’s second choice. I took him because I couldn’t have Chad. So when Gemma announced she was giving Chad a second chance, I knew I had to act.”
“This was never going to work, Susan. Chad loves Gemma.”
“You don’t know that!” she cried, gesturing with the gun. “He only thought he loved her, cause of the spell she put on him. With her gone, he was like a sleepwalker waking up. And I was going to be there to help him recover.”
“So why did you buy the gun?”
She hesitated. “I tried to kiss him—to tell him how I felt about him, but he simply ignored me.”
“Not waking up from the spell yet, huh?”
She grimaced. “That’s enough lip from you, missy. Outside. Now.”
She gestured to the kitchen door, and I saw what she had in mind. A shallow grave in her parents’ yard. “You were going to kill Chad, weren’t you?”
“If I can’t have him, no one can,” she said, sticking the gun in my back and shoving me along to the door and outside onto the porch.