Murder & Spice
Page 8
“Boss?” Jones called out as he led Cassy and her two companions inside. “Where is he, Marcie?”
Marcie, a stony-faced woman who seemed permanently stuck at her desk in the station’s foyer, apparently never going home or going to sleep, answered wearily.
“In his office, with the girl.”
“Can you tell him to come out?” Jones asked.
With a single raised eyebrow, Marcie made Jones cower. Reluctantly, she picked up her handset and dialed the three-digit internal number. Elsewhere a phone rang, and then stopped.
“Deputy Jones is at my desk, he wants to talk to you—”
“Alone,” Jones interjected.
“Alone.” There was a pause as Marcie got her reply. She nodded wordlessly then replaced the handset. “He’s coming.”
Cassy looked to Patty, then to Dot to avoid Marcie’s withering gaze. Why she hadn’t been made sheriff was anyone’s guess. She would have prevented half the crimes in town with those fierce green eyes.
Noyce arrived, dressed in his civilian clothes. Cassy saw that he’d left the door to his office ajar. Through the gap, Cassy spotted someone tall, elegant and white moving inside.
“Couldn’t this have waited, Jones?” Noyce said on arrival. Then he noticed Cassy. “What do you want, Mrs. Dean?”
“For the last time, it’s Miss. Not that it really matters. Except that sometimes it can be important, like if it means the difference between having a motive for murder and not.”
“What’s she talking about, Jones?” Noyce asked.
“You’d better listen to her; she told me enough that I think we’d better hear her out.”
Sweat beaded on the sheriff’s forehead. He already knew.
“It’s a sign of deep compassion and love that a man would wear his wedding band long after the relationship has fallen apart. Such devotion is a little sad, too. Hopeless, don’t you think?”
Noyce moved no muscle but looked Cassy right in the eye. She continued.
“I can imagine someone keeping it after a loved one dies, but what does it say about that someone when their spouse is still alive?”
“What are you getting at, Miss Dean?” There was no intonation in Noyce’s voice; just flat monotone that gave nothing away.
It was a calculated risk, one that could easily backfire, but Cassy thought she was doing the right thing. She stepped closer to the sheriff and reached out to take his hand. He clasped his fingers around hers, and in an instant he seemed to collapse in on himself. He fell forward into her arms. Softly, Cassy spoke into his ear.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispered. She felt his chest heave, then deflate. “You refused to grant her a divorce, didn’t you?”
“I loved her so much,” Noyce said, unable to step back from Cassy just yet. His voice was strong. He rubbed the white gold band on his finger. “She was my everything. When I learned she was coming back to town, some dumb little part of me thought that I could win her back after all these years. It sounds so pathetic now, but I was going to bake a cake for her. She used to love things like that, so I thought it would be cute. You know, a stupid, dumb cute thing to do for her.” His words broke for a fraction of a second then became resolute.
“I saw the cake box in your office. That was for Rebecca, wasn’t it? She’s not so easily pleased, is she? Homemade cake not her thing?”
There was no answer.
“When she wants something, she wants the very best version of it. If it’s a cake, or a car, or the man she loves.”
Noyce pulled away. Something was forming behind his eyes, the pieces slotting together to form a terrible whole.
“You bought nutmeg from my store, or rather your card was used to purchase it. So much in fact that we ran out.”
“What does that mean?” Jones asked, his puzzled face switching from person to person seeking an answer.
“In sufficient doses, it can kill. It’s also easily hidden in food…”
“…or drink,” Patty added.
Noyce’s attention turned to his office. He waved weakly at Rebecca, who returned the gesture.
“She’s a jealous woman,” he said, still looking to his office, “because she loves me. I believe that she does. That day Mrs. Hamswell died, I got a call shortly before Marcie got in touch. It was from Rebecca, asking me to pick her up. She wanted to go to the mall. I didn’t think twice about it, even when she told me where she was. I never made the connection until now. When we were investigating Jane’s death—”
Noyce’s face did not falter, but he took a while to talk again. With a deep breath, he began again.
“We interviewed Bonnie Hamswell and… It was a simple slip of the tongue, but you know what Bonnie’s like, nothing escapes her. She got the truth from me that Jane was my wife. Of course, to her this was like treachery. She swore she was going to expose me, saying that I was colluding with Newmark. But I let it slide, I let her have her little fantasy that she was important. But she wouldn’t stop prying and prying. One day she came to my house, and that’s when she and Rebecca had a… I wouldn’t call it a fight, but they did not part on good terms.”
“Bonnie Hamswell figured it all out, didn’t she? She worked out that Rebecca killed Jane.”
For the longest time the room sat in complete silence, though Cassy could feel Patty practically vibrating at her side. Then, without prompting, Noyce strode across the station to his office and closed the door behind him. Shortly after, sobbing was heard, which Cassy took as her cue to leave.
“Come on, girls. Shall we go to Dempsey’s?”
“I hear they do make good cocktails,” Dot remarked.
“Yeah, and there’s a game on tonight!”
“Football?” Jones inquired. Cassy had forgotten about him. “I was promised a date,” he reminded her.
“Don’t you have work to do?” Cassy asked, worried that Noyce might be abandoned in his hour of need.
“I get the feeling that the boss is going to want to deal with this one himself. How about I meet you ladies later?”
“It’s a date,” Patty and Dot yelled.
* * *
“You forgot to buy tuna,” Herzog said when Cassy came through the door. “I checked the fridge, I checked the cupboard, and we’re all out of tuna. We have one pack of cat food and some dry biscuits, but that’s just not going to do it for me. I have certain needs, you know.”
“Can I have a minute, please? Let me hang my coat up and take my shoes off. I’ve had a busy day.”
“I’ll say. It’s nearing midnight, and it’s not even a solstice, so you can’t put it down to witch business. You know you have a shop to open in the morning—oh wait, it is the morning already. I guess what I mean is that you have to open up in a few hours.”
Cassy kicked off her shoes; they hit the wall opposite and fell to the floor. She felt envious of them, it was what she wanted to do. She could collapse right there and then. It was rare for her to go out, much less to do it with a man she liked. So what if she maybe had a couple more drinks than she was planning, and so what if the whole night was spent discussing the Newmark killings (which Cassy realized she now had to rename). And so what if the entire ‘date’ was also spent with two women she spent her entire waking life with. For Cassy, it still counted as a real grown-up night out with an attractive man.
“Don’t worry, I bought you tuna.”
“And mayo?”
“And mayo.”
She mixed up the food and put it in Herzog’s bowl. He devoured it while purring loudly.
“Are you coming to bed?” she asked, as she shuffled the short distance to her room. She collapsed face first onto the covers and didn’t move until Herzog came bouncing up next to her.
“Come on,” he said, in his smooth way of talking. “Let’s curl up and get some sleep.”
The covers were warm from where the feline had been lying all day. Cassy plumped up a pillow and let the cat snuggle up against her.
“You wouldn’t get jealous if there was someone else in my life, would you?”
Cats do not laugh; they don’t have the vocal capabilities, so the sound Herzog made was more of a strangled growl, but the effect was the same. “I don’t think that we’re going to have to face that problem anytime soon, do you?”
He was probably right, but Cassy would keep trying.
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Wendy Meadows
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About the Author
Wendy Meadows is an emerging author of cozy mysteries. She lives in “The Granite State” with her husband, two sons, two cats and lovable Labradoodle.
When she isn’t working on her stories she likes to tend to her flower garden, relax with adult coloring and play video games with her family.
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