A Genuine Fix

by J. C. Kenney

  My client was amenable to my proposal, so I ended the call by telling her congratulations and promising I’d be in touch. Then I did a little celebratory happy dance.

  Matt was staring at me like I’d turned purple and had corn growing out of my ears. “Do you always act that way when you get off the phone?”

  “I do when I get to let one of my clients know someone wants to publish their book.” I took a seat in front of my computer. The sooner I contacted the other editors with news of the offer, the better. “What brings you by? Ready to admit I was right yesterday?”

  “Not exactly.” Matt sat in the chair across from me. He took a drink of his coffee and scratched his chin. “There’s been a development in the case. This morning, we located Georgie’s car.”

  “Excellent. Where’d you find it?” We exchanged a high five. An examination of the car should help me find the missing puzzle piece.

  “A wooded area on Mr. Winchester’s property, not far from the new park.” He flipped to a page in his notebook. “The car was unlocked. The keys were in the ignition.”

  “That’s great.” I pulled up my e-mail and typed a message to the first of the three editors. I came to a complete stop when I couldn’t bear Matt staring at me.

  “I appreciate you coming by. I wish I could return the favor, but I don’t have anything new to share. If you can give me a few minutes, I need to take care of some e-mails, and then we can brainstorm.”

  “I didn’t come to brainstorm. Your fleece that went missing Labor Day was found in the car. I need you to identify it.”

  The unexpected news took my breath away. When the fleece didn’t turn up after a few days, I’d resigned myself to the fact someone had stolen it. I should have been happy to have it located.

  Instead, I was horrified that it was found in a murder victim’s car.

  I tried to take a drink of my coffee, but my trembling fingers made it hard to hold onto the cup.

  Matt took it from me before I dropped it. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I do need you to come with me. Now, please.”

  “Five minutes.” I sent the e-mails as if I was on automatic pilot, then grabbed my purse and followed Matt out the door. I double-checked to make sure the door was locked. It seemed like I shouldn’t take anything for granted these days, even something as routine as locking my front door.

  By the time we reached his car, I was regaining my grip on the situation. It was Georgie’s work ID all over again. It sure looked like someone was working overtime to tie me to the murder.

  “Who found the car?” Asking the question gave me a sense of control over circumstances that seemed to have a life of their own.

  “Vicky Napier was on the new walking path when she thought she saw something in the woods reflecting the sunlight. It seemed suspicious to her, so she called it in. God love her, she even apologized during the call for using something that hadn’t been opened to the public yet. Jeanette responded and found the car.”

  Vicky Napier was one of my heroes. I had no reason to doubt her intentions. In fact, despite the circumstances, I smiled at the thought of seeing my beloved Mrs. Napier using the walking path at Winchester-Cobb Memorial Park, even though it wasn’t finished yet.

  We left Matt’s cruiser in the park’s gravel parking lot. It was on the construction schedule to be paved when the walking path was finished. I followed him across the park around a grove of trees and through a couple of wooden survey sticks to indicate we were crossing from park land onto the Winchester property.

  “Any idea how the car got there?”

  “I have a theory, but I’ll let you take a look first.” He gestured me forward.

  The now-all-too-familiar yellow police tape had been strung across a twenty-foot span at the edge of the woods and then headed into the greenery until it was lost from sight. There was a gap in the trees in the center of the span that formed the head of a trail that wandered through a wooded area that still belonged to Sloane. A corresponding gap in the police tape provided an entrance to the trail.

  At the edge of the trees, I stopped and turned around. We were in a clearing of sorts. Trees on both sides extended outward, shielding the trailhead from view from every angle except straight ahead. Thornwell Winchester’s house was a quarter of a mile away in that direction.

  “Sloane and I used to hike this trail when we were kids.” I wrapped my arms around myself as I broke out in goose bumps, despite the fact that it was sunny and warm. “To protect his privacy, Thornwell wanted to be able to see from his house who was using the trail. He had a pair of binoculars he used when he thought he saw someone.”

  “My thoughts, exactly. Which means the murderer not only knew Georgie, he or she knew the lay of the land around here. Any ideas about who might fall into that category?”

  “Besides Sloane and me?” I rattled off the names of people I thought knew the property well enough to find the trailhead. “Not a lot of people knew about it, but it’s not like it was the secret entrance to the Batcave.”

  Matt popped a piece of his nicotine gum into his mouth when he finished writing down the names. “We’ve contacted Sloane since the car’s on her property. Do you know if any security cameras were installed on the house after Thornwell died?”

  “Yes. One by the front door, another by the side door, and one by the back door. I doubt you’d catch anything this far away, though. Sloane’s more concerned with making sure the house doesn’t get broken into while the property’s unoccupied.”

  “Still can’t hurt to check.” He slipped on a pair of disposable shoe covers and handed another pair to me. “Let’s do it.”

  When I stared at the covers, he let out a little huff as his shoulders sagged. “They’re so our shoes don’t contaminate the crime scene.”

  “Right.” I put them on. There was a lot I still needed to learn about investigating crime.

  Trepidation filled me as we passed through the opening in the tape. I had no idea what I would find when we reached Georgie’s car, and that uncertainty made my anxiety even worse.

  The trail surface was hard-packed dirt sprinkled with dead leaves that crunched underfoot with each step. There were no visible tire tracks. Some of the limbs on either side of us were broken, but many more were merely bent or had returned to their normal position. Whoever had driven Georgie’s car back here had apparently taken things slow to minimize damage to the plant life. Either that or the murderer knew there was no need to be in a rush.

  After twenty feet, the trail bent to the right and the car came into view. Or, at least, the parts of the car I could see came into view. Most of it was covered by leaves and branches that had been cut from nearby trees.

  Jeanette was taking pictures of the scene. So much for her being off the case, evidently. She stopped just long enough for us to exchange a quick greeting and shake hands. In evidence-collection mode, my friend was too busy to chat. She was the department’s best evidence tech, and I had no doubt that, if there was something incriminating here, Jeanette would find it.

  Another officer arrived carrying an evidence-collection kit as Jeanette finished taking photographs. He had gray hair and a belly that would give Santa Claus a run for his money. After a few seconds, his name came to me—Oliver Watson. For as long as I could remember, he’d attended every one of my dad’s book-release celebrations.

  I smiled at Officer Watson. He tipped his cap in return.

  The two officers conferred with Matt for a moment, then put on gloves and spread a tarp on the ground.

  “I need your help with two things.” Matt took me by the elbow and guided me to the car. He pointed toward the back seat. “First, is that your fleece?”

  My beloved Cobb Literary Agency fleece lay across the back seat. The logo was plain to see, as if someone had planted it there on purpose

  “That’s it. I only had the
one made. Any idea how it got here?”

  “Not yet. The more relevant question is why is it here? First things first, though.” He handed me a pair of exam gloves. “See all the branches leaning against the car? I want you to move them onto the tarp.”

  I stared at the limbs. They were all sizes, but many were easily three inches thick at the base and ten feet long. Not easy for someone my size to deal with.

  At a nod from Matt, I grabbed the first one with two hands and lifted it straight up. It wasn’t like it weighted a thousand pounds, but as big as is was, with dozens of smaller limbs shooting off from it in all directions, it was unwieldy. Thanks to the tight quarters in which I was working, it took me the better part of five minutes to maneuver the first one onto the tarp.

  Matt told me to stop when I dropped the fifteenth one onto the pile and put a six-inch-long scrape in my arm while doing it.

  “Want to tell me what that was all about?” I brushed bark from my shirt while I spit out bits of leaves that had made their way into my mouth.

  “Another little test to help prove you’re not the murderer. Our perp knew what he was doing. He was methodical.” He cracked a half smile. “No offense, but the way you struggled with those branches, there’s no way you could have driven the car back here, cut down all these branches, covered the car, and then got out of here without being noticed. Let Jeanette take a few pictures of your arms.”

  I extended my arms straight out in front of me for better inspection. They were red and scratched. My hands were bleeding from several tiny cuts. My friend grimaced as she photographed my irritated limbs.

  “Do you recall her arms and hands looking anything like this the day she discovered Mr. Alonso,” Matt asked Jeanette.

  “No, sir. She was in short sleeves. I would have noticed.” She ran her finger across one of my wrists. “See the beginnings of a contusion there? That’s big enough that, even if she had been wearing long sleeves and gloves the night of the crime, some kind of bruising would have been visible the following morning.”

  “Agreed.” Matt jotted down a few things in his ever-present notebook. “When you’re finished moving the branches, I want a bumper-to-bumper search of the car. I don’t want it moved until you’ve gone through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

  At Jeanette’s nod, Matt guided me away so his team could resume their work.

  “Sorry for putting you through that little exercise—”

  “Little?” I held out my bruised, scraped, and aching arms. “Look at me. You call that the result of a little exercise?”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Point taken, but you’ll survive. The key thing here is that your demo leaves you one hundred percent in the clear. No more lingering doubts.”

  “Oh. Well, then.” I lowered my arms as the anger that had been building drained away. “That’s a relief. Where’s that leave you?”

  “You said you lost the fleece on Labor Day. Is there any way it could have been earlier?”

  “No. Brent can verify I had it that morning. Why?” The empty spot inside me where the venom had been residing was filling up with excitement. Matt seemed to be onto something. The puzzle piece was almost within my grasp.

  “This is different than the situation with Georgie’s ID. In that scenario, I could see the perp holding onto it and trying to incriminate the first person to find the body. Making a quick trip up the stairs to your apartment and slipping something under the door wouldn’t take much in terms of time or guts.”

  I picked up the thread. “But by the time the killer snagged my fleece, he knew I was the one who found Georgie.”

  “Exactly. He takes the fleece, then slips out here where the car’s been hidden, drops it in the back seat, and waits for them to be found. Then once they’re found…”

  I swallowed. In the flash of an eye, my throat had gone desert dry. “The killer waits for you to arrest me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Matt ground a dead leaf into the dirt with the heel of his boot. When he was finished, he raised his head until our gazes met. After a few moments, he sighed and looked away. “Yep, but it’s not going to happen. There’s no doubt in my mind you didn’t do it alone, and I don’t see even the tiniest shred of credible evidence you worked in tandem with someone.”

  “Where’s that leave us?” I held off bringing up Tommy. At this point, none of this new evidence pointed conclusively toward him, so there was no point in causing a dustup when we needed to be on the same page.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure.” He rubbed his chin. “Since you didn’t kill Georgie, whoever did went to a lot of trouble to pin it on you.”

  I let out an involuntary laugh. At the moment, it was way better to go with gallows humor than allow myself to drown in self-pity.

  That was when I had a brain blast. It started out as a tiny flicker, but as I cupped imaginary hands around it and fed it with tiny breaths of air, it grew until it became a fully grown flame and rocketed around the inside of my skull.

  A lot of trouble to pin it on me. I grabbed Matt by the arm and practically dragged him down the trail until we could talk without being overheard.

  “What about this? What if the perp killed Georgie as a way to strike out at me?”

  Matt raised an eyebrow. “Really? I know you’ve been under a lot of stress, but that’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “Okay, no. I mean…” I closed my eyes and took deep breaths as I silently counted to ten.

  The puzzle piece was there, mere centimeters from my outstretched hand. If I grabbed wildly at it, I’d miss, and the piece would spin off into eternal darkness, never to be found. I had to take my time and grasp for the piece with a steady hand.

  “We’ve been working under the assumption the perp killed Georgie and is trying to frame me so he gets away with it, right? After all, what happened after I found the body? My fleece went missing. A few days later, Georgie’s ID turned up in my apartment. Now, my fleece turns up in Georgie’s car.”

  Matt nodded. “I’m with you.”

  “And we’re further assuming I’m the one being framed because I’m the one who found Georgie. It could have been anybody, but it just happened to be me.”

  “Sure, but your point is?”

  “What if, instead of killing Georgie and framing me so the murderer gets away, the whole plot was to murder Georgie and silence me, specifically, in one single ploy?”

  “That sounds awfully complicated. Why would someone want to do that?”

  My mind was racing so fast it was hard to verbalize exactly what I was thinking. I needed to get this right before Matt started thinking I’d cracked under the pressure.

  “You can’t deny I’ve rattled a few cages since I came back to town.” I shrugged. “And I know more than my fair share of secrets about people around here. What if the murderer hated Georgie enough to kill him and hated me enough to make me look like a criminal”—I snapped my fingers—“to discredit me before those secrets got out?”

  “Let’s assume for the moment you’re right. I can imagine plenty of people who’d had enough of Georgie. Who would want to take you down that hard, though?”

  “Jax Michaels, for one. He’s never forgiven me for going after him last October. Then there’s Charissa Mody—”

  “Ah, yes. I’ll never forget the video of you going over the bar to get to her at Rushing Creek Winery. I can see how she might hold a grudge.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I have plenty of scorn for that woman, and some dirt on her, too. She was working at Hoosiers the night Georgie was killed, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but she’s got an alibi. Witnesses placed her at the bar until eleven, when it closed. She clocked out at midnight and made an ATM deposit fifteen minutes later. Then she went home. Georgie left the bar around ten. There’s no way she could have interce
pted him.”

  “But an accomplice could have. What say we go talk to her? Right now.”

  “Come on, Allie. I really don’t think—”

  “—Tommy Abbott had anything to do with it. I know. So, humor me. Let’s go talk to her. Maybe we’ll pick up on something new.” I looked over my shoulder toward Georgie’s car. “Your team’s got this. Come on.”

  * * * *

  Thirty minutes later, I walked into Hoosiers, despite my prior vow to never return. I was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt to cover my cuts and scrapes, had my case notebook under my arm, and had Matt a step behind me. We’d come up with a strategy during the drive from the park. Matt would do the talking. I would take notes and keep my mouth shut. Given my previous run-in with Charissa Mody, we hoped my silence would unnerve her.

  We figured Matt wearing a badge and carrying a gun wouldn’t hurt, either.

  Since it was a little after eleven, the bar was quiet. An elderly gentleman wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a green trucker’s cap nursed a beer at the end of the bar. Charissa was taking glasses from a dishwasher, drying them, and hanging them from a rack above her head.

  “Morning, Chief Roberson.” Charissa shot me a quick glance before returning her attention to Matt. “What can I get you this fine day?”

  “I’ll have a cup of coffee, and Ms. Cobb will have…” He made a point of turning his whole body in my direction. Message sent.

  “Water with lemon, please.” Well done, and thank you, Matt.

  “Of course.” With a smile, she nodded at Matt. “Coming right up.”

  While we waited, I made a production of opening my notebook and going through the pages. If Charissa wanted to play games, I’d play along with her. The only thing that mattered was getting information from the woman,

  She placed our drinks and menus in front of us. “Can I get you anything else?”