by Leslie Caine
The remark had been so corny that I’d laughed. Now the memory made me inexorably sad. My first love had been a horrible man. Never again would I be able to remember our good times without having them tainted by that realization.
I replied to Steve, “Yeah, it sounds just like him.” I rubbed my forehead, wishing I could rub away my thoughts. “I think he schemed to get me and Audrey involved in the inn, in order to convince Henry to sell it to Wendell. Meanwhile, Cam was contriving to buy up the second half of the mountain himself. All so that he could make a big profit. Regardless of how many people he was stabbing in the back.”
Chapter 27
Steve got the nonemergency number for the sheriff’s office from information. “What’s the name of that deputy?” he asked me as he waited for someone to answer.
“Penderson.”
He nodded and said into the phone, “Could I speak to Deputy Penderson, please?” After listening to the dispatcher’s response, he winced and said, “Fine, thanks.” A few moments later, he was telling Mackey the gist of our discovery.
After hanging up, he said, “Mackey says we should stay put, and he’ll be right out.”
“He makes such a terrific authority figure.” I tried to count to ten to quash my mounting resentment.
Sullivan dragged both hands through his hair, in a doubly strong tell for how great his own frustrations were. “At the party, Cameron told me that he was cooking up a venture of his own and was finally ready to be The Man himself.”
“Meaning he was going to split from Wendell. And when Audrey and I ran into Wendell this afternoon, he was talking about his having been betrayed—saying business was a dog-eat-dog world, and so forth. He could have been pretending to have found out only just then about the extent of what Cameron had in the works. To make himself look innocent of Cameron’s murder three nights ago.”
“Cameron was a really fit guy. I don’t see how Wendell could have overpowered him,” Steve said.
“I think whoever killed him had to have caught Cameron by surprise … shoved him, so that he wound up facedown in the sleigh. Once he was down …and badly injured, he’d be unable to run into the house for help.”
“Unless it was Chiffon, who’d lured him into the sleigh for some foreplay that went seriously afoul. But, yeah, Mikara, Ben, or Henry are all tall enough to have pushed him so that he could have toppled into the sleigh. And Wendell’s burly enough.”
The fact that I was spending a chunk of my evening closed up in a garage discussing the murder of my ex with my lover hit me. “We’re never going to get past this, are we, Sullivan?” I said, suddenly feeling so crushed I could barely breathe.
“Get past Cameron’s murder? Of course we are!”
“No, I mean all of it. Our clients getting us involved in murder cases. I had never known a single murder victim until you and I wound up vying over our room designs three years ago. It’s like we’ve been cursed ever since.”
“You feel cursed?”
“Yes! Don’t you?”
“Quite the opposite.” He was using his soft, sexy voice, but my sense of despair had taken root too deeply for me to snap out of this.
“I thought we’d broken the streak when we got together romantically, but now things are worse than ever. We’ve got a moron running this investigation. We could both wind up in prison for murders that we didn’t commit, and we’ll have to bribe our jailers just so we can pass each other notes through the bars of our tiny cells.”
He caressed my arm. “Will these notes be love letters or design tips for sprucing up our tiny cells?”
“I’m serious, Sullivan. I can’t take it anymore!”
“We’ll get through this, Gilbert. Mackey’s going to have to turn the investigation over to the state, or to whatever larger department governs local sheriffs. He’s clearly in over his head.”
“Yeah, but now it’s a matter of how much damage he’s already done. It might be so severe that whatever evidence might once have—”
The garage door began its noisy ascent, startling us both. Steve put his arm around my shoulders protectively, and we watched to see who’d operated the keypad.
“What are you two doing out here?” Mikara asked. Her vision dropped to the satchel that was still in Sullivan’s hand.
He squared his shoulders and stepped back from me. “We were just talking,” he said. “We found Henry’s drill…”
“We also found Cameron Baker’s briefcase,” I said, realizing there was no way to explain this away. “Sheriff Mackey’s coming to pick it up.”
“Cameron left his briefcase in the garage?” she asked, sounding baffled. “Is it … Did you learn who killed my sister? Can I see what’s inside?”
Steve shook his head. “The sheriff told us to stay here and not discuss the contents with anyone. I’m sorry.”
“But you must have read Cameron’s papers … and felt they were important enough to turn over to the sheriff.”
“We had to,” I replied. “Cameron’s the second victim. His briefcase is evidence.”
She gritted her teeth. “Evidence that might reveal who killed my sister!”
Headlights appeared in the driveway. “Here comes Sheriff Mackey,” I said.
Mikara turned and watched as Mackey emerged from the driver side. He’d come alone. “Evenin’, Mikara. I’m afraid I’ve got to talk to the decorators in private, so—”
“I’ll do anything I can to help the investigation,” she interrupted. “Including leaving the garage and not saying a word to anybody. All I ask, Greg, is once you arrest my sister’s killer, you’ll tell me immediately.”
“You’ll be the first to know. I swear.”
With a grim expression, she gave a final long glance at the briefcase, then turned and went back to the house without another word.
Sheriff Mackey watched her go, then walked up to us with a swagger in his step. “Did you tell her anything about what’s in the briefcase?” he asked me with an accusatory glare.
“Just that we found it and it belonged to Cameron.”
“Damn it!” He eyed Steve. “Didn’t I tell you to keep your yaps shut?!”
“She opened the garage door and saw me holding the thing,” Steve said. “What was I supposed to say?”
“That it was yours. Period.”
“We’d been in the garage for over twenty minutes,” Steve explained. “She wanted to know why. The instant she saw you heading toward us, she’d have figured out that the briefcase wasn’t mine.”
Mackey grimaced and shook his head as if we’d made an unfathomably stupid mistake. “So, you conveniently found the victim’s briefcase. In the Goodwin estate garage. Is that right?”
“We came out here to borrow Henry’s drill. I spotted Cameron’s footprint right there,” I said as patiently as I possibly could, pointing at the grimy marking. “There was no obvious reason for him to have been in Henry’s garage, so we were suspicious. We found Cameron’s leather portfolio wedged behind a sheet of plywood, behind those studs.” I pointed again.
“And right away, you knew it was evidence in the murder investigation.”
“With all due respect, Sheriff Mackey,” Steve interrupted, “when a new-looking leather satchel is discovered completely hidden behind a board in a garage, it’s pretty obvious that someone put it there deliberately.”
“You think?” he mocked.
“Yes, we do,” I declared. Unlike yourself. “Maybe Cameron’s papers were stolen, and he was being blackmailed with the threat that his big, self-serving plans would be divulged, and thereby ruined. Or maybe Wendell Barton found out about his right-hand man double-crossing him and hid the evidence out here till he could destroy it. Or maybe Cameron had a partner and was meeting with him or her, they fought, and he wound up dead.”
“Give me the briefcase,” Mackey barked at Steve, who promptly held it out to him. Mackey, who, like Steve, was wearing leather gloves, yanked the case from Steve’s grasp. He opened it
and looked in the compartments. “Is this everything?”
“As far as we know,” Steve replied.
“The two of you figure this is the part when you give the hick sheriff the crucial piece of evidence that he couldn’t possibly have found on his own, right?” Mackey’s face was red and his right hand was balled into a fist. His features were so tight with anger that a vein on his forehead bulged. “Isn’t that how things happen with you and the Crestview police all the time?”
“What are you—”
Mackey cut me off. “I got a call from a Crestview detective today. A Detective O’Reilly. Seems he wanted to know if I could maybe use some help.”
“That was nice of him,” I said feebly, not knowing what else to say.
“Nice is hardly what I’d call it. You’re covering your asses! Things aren’t quite working out the way you’d like, so you’re hoping to get assistance from someone you’ve already got buffaloed!”
“Oh, my god,” I groaned. “No, that is not what I’m doing. I want to see whoever killed Cameron and Angie get brought to justice. And you seem dead set on assuming only an outsider could have committed the crime.”
“You think I’m this hick sheriff from the mountains.” Mackey puffed out his chest. “Well, missy, just ’cuz this town is named Snowcap doesn’t mean you can pull a snow job on me.”
He pointed at me as he spoke, his finger an inch away from my face. It took every ounce of self-restraint I had to refrain from biting it.
“Let me make this clear. This hick sheriff is going to bring you down! I’m going to get the state police to look into every one of those other murders you and your friends on the police force managed to hang on other people! Your Bonnie-and-Clyde reign has come to an end!”
He pivoted and stormed out of the garage.
I gaped at the sheriff’s retreating form till he’d disappeared into the inky blackness, then looked at Steve. He put his arms around me. Over the sound of Mackey’s revving engine as he drove off, Steve told me, “It’s going to be all right, Erin. We’ll hire a lawyer and do whatever we have to do in order to stop this craziness, but we’ll weather this storm. I promise.”
Chapter 28
The next morning, drawn by the aroma of bacon, I strode into the kitchen with my mouth watering. Chiffon was sitting at the table, sobbing into a tissue. Henry was leaning back against the counter, a pasty pallor to his features. Preferring to be a hungry coward over becoming trapped into listening to a tale of woe, I promptly whirled around and tried to leave.
“It’s all right, Erin,” Chiffon said through her sniffles. “Don’t let us delay your breakfast.”
“No, you’re not. I’m not hungry. I really had no reason to enter the kitchen. It was just force of habit.”
“Let me get you a cup of coffee,” Henry said.
“No, thanks. That’s okay,” I said. “I truly didn’t mean to interrupt, and I’m just going to head back upstairs and finish accessorizing the bedrooms on the second floor.”
Ignoring me, Henry filled a mug with coffee, adding an ample amount of milk, just the way I liked. “Here you go, Erin.” He handed it to me. “I’ll leave you two alone now. Again, I’m sorry, Chiffon, but this really is for the best for both of us.” He strode toward the mudroom.
“You son of a bitch!” Chiffon screamed at him. She sprang to her feet and hurled the box of tissues at him, striking him on the shoulder. It bounced off of him and fell to the floor. He didn’t as much as break stride as he let himself out the door.
Chiffon dashed to the counter and snatched up the pitcher that I’d only recently procured.
“Oh, my god! Not the milkmaid pitcher!” I blindly deposited my coffee mug on the nearest flat surface and raced toward Chiffon.
“That bastard!” Chiffon ignored me and started to charge after Henry, waving the ceramic pitcher in one hand.
“You don’t want to hit him with a pitcher!” I got both of my hands around the pitcher, but she’d break the handle off if she didn’t let go. “Use the frying pan,” I cried, pointing with my chin at the stove behind her.
Now if Chiffon bludgeoned Henry with the skillet, I was probably an accessory to assault and battery. But my frying pan suggestion did make her relinquish her grip on the glorious pitcher. Housing eight milkmaids inside a single kitchen wasn’t a simple feat, and the pitcher was easily my very favorite milkmaid of all.
Still sobbing, Chiffon managed an indignant “But this pan has bacon in it!” as she picked up the frying pan. She set it back down on the burner in disgust. “I’m a vegetarian!”
That was news to me; last night she’d eaten a healthy serving of lasagna with ground beef. “You won’t be able to catch him before he gets into his car, regardless.”
“No thanks to you!” she retorted, not altogether inaccurately. She stomped her foot. “I should have known this was coming when I saw him slip his car keys into his pocket first thing this morning. The man’s a slime bucket!”
“Didn’t you tell me not all that long ago that you two weren’t anything serious?”
“Yeah. We weren’t. And we still aren’t. But that doesn’t mean he can break up with me!” She swiped at her cheeks with both her sleeves.
“I’m sorry, Chiffon.” (I hoped she didn’t notice how tightly I was hugging the pitcher to my chest.) “I agree that he really should have at least made it sound like the breakup was your idea.” A dose of basic child psychology seemed to be in order. “Which I’m sure it really was, if you think about it.”
“Well, yeah, it was,” she said, sniffing. “Sort of.”
“You now own almost a third of his house. By this time next year, you’ll be able to come and go at will, but Henry will be officially through with his role here.”
“Serves him right. This house is too nice for him. He’s got the biggest ego and the tiniest aura of anybody I’ve ever met. There’s only room for himself in his world.” She stuck her lower lip out and glanced again at the skillet. “I’m really going to miss his pancakes, though. He used to put Mickey Mouse ears on them for me.” She started crying again.
“It’s hard to build a relationship around pancakes.” From the corner of my eye, I spotted Sullivan starting to enter the kitchen, but he assessed the situation and managed to beat a hasty retreat with greater success than I had just a minute or two earlier.
“Yeah, I know. I was trying to write a love song for Henry as a Christmas present, but the pancakes weren’t even enough to build three or four stanzas around. Let alone a lasting relationship. Men always seem to dump me,” she whined. “It’s the story of my life.”
“Chiffon, you’re only twenty-two. Your life story has barely begun to be written.”
She widened her eyes and muttered, “I can use that in a lyric.”
Hoping she would focus on songwriting and I could safely put down the pitcher, I glanced at the counter. I’d sloshed quite a bit of my coffee, which I no longer wanted. “I really need to go get some work done. Steve and I are starting to get down to the wire as far as decorating for Christmas.” The inn’s opening was less than a week away.
Chiffon’s eyes were starting to overflow again. “For an old guy, Henry was great in the sack.”
“Again, not really the stuff of a love ballad.” I gingerly set down the pitcher, calculating that I’d clean up the coffee spill from the granite countertop later, but I didn’t want to continue this conversation for another moment.
“What’s wrong with me, Erin? I realize that I’m too emotional, but that’s the place where I get my art from! I can’t be all stiff and professional and yet—”
Blessedly, my cell phone started to ring. I snatched it up. The screen indicated it was Steve—and I was already undyingly grateful. I feigned grave concern and announced: “Oh, jeez. I’m sorry, Chiffon, but this is a client, and it could be an emergency. Take care.” I strode purposefully through the double doors, saying into the phone, “Yes, this is Erin Gilbert.”
“I had a sudden idea to have breakfast out this morning,” Steve said with a smile in his voice. “Care to join me?”
“Absolutely.” Aware that Chiffon could still hear me, I added, “I’ll leave right away. I’ll bring my partner, and we’ll look into that immediately. I’m so glad you called.”
“Yeah. Me, too. We’ll have to go someplace that serves pancakes. They’re good for relationships, I hear.”
I managed to stifle a laugh as I started to climb the stairs. Mikara was heading out of her bedroom and gave me a friendly wave, which I returned. She turned toward the kitchen. I felt a pang of guilt and said, “Okay, bye,” into the phone. Mikara’s sister had been killed, and here I was, leaving her to face Chiffon’s sob story alone. Not to mention my spilled coffee. I was only marginally better than Henry; he’d done a dump-and-run, but I’d done a spill-and-run. Neither of us had the decency to clean up our own messes.
I doubled back. Already, Mikara’s voice had risen to a shout. “Well, of course he dumped you!” she cried. “What?! You didn’t have enough evidence that he’s a serial dater? You never heard how he gave me the heave-ho the week before our wedding?!”
“I wasn’t looking for marriage, though,” Chiffon replied. “Besides, I’m fun!”
“Not right now, you’re not. I’m sure you stopped being fun for Henry just as soon as you started expecting him to behave like you were his significant other. Any idiot could see he was only dating you to keep you from selling out to Wendell.”
“So what? I was only dating him till something better came along. And then you went and distracted me.”
“Excuse me,” I muttered and walked directly between them toward the sink. I grabbed my coffee cup, plus the pitcher for good measure.
“I did?” Mikara asked. “How did I distract you?”
“You’re the one who brought Alfonso here for the interview. That was my dream come true! I was so close!”
“You wanted to hook up with Alfonso?” Mikara asked in dismay. “But you aren’t even sure if the man’s straight or gay.”