“Now, Colin.” Poppy wagged a finger at him. “Was that because you’d been a bad boy and she and her lawyer were going to take you for all you were worth?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice rang with false sincerity.
“From what I heard, your wife caught you in a teeny bit of a compromising position.” Poppy’s tone was still playful.
“Well . . .” Colin winked. “When you’re as awesome in bed as I am, it’s hard to turn down a lady when she begs.”
After I stopped myself from gagging, I joined the conversation in the role of bad cop and said, “So, when that lady begged you to kill your wife to protect her identity, you couldn’t say no to that, either.”
“No!” Colin opened his mouth, closed it, and repeated the process. “I would never have hurt Elise.”
“Even though she was getting rid of all your prized possessions?” Poppy prodded him. “Come on, Colin. Everyone in town knows how pissed you were.”
“But—” His face had been ruddy with good health; now it was purple with outrage.
“You told anyone who would listen that she was selling or giving away items that had been in your family for years and were irreplaceable,” I added to jog his memory. “Hell, you threatened to sue whoever bought your stuff from her for receiving stolen property.”
“Okay.” Knitting his heavy eyebrows together over his pug nose, Colin admitted, “I was mad. She was getting rid of heirlooms like my great-grandfather’s set of golf clubs, signed baseballs that my dad had given me, and chocolate molds that had been a part of my mother’s family business.”
“That does seem mean.” I felt a twinge of guilt at the mention of the molds and reminded myself to give them back if Colin turned out to be innocent.
“So you really must have been furious when Elise tried to get you fired,” Poppy chimed in, her tone sympathetic.
“Sure.” Colin shrugged. “But I knew Max would never get rid of me.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the cynicism from my voice. “That’s not what I heard. I heard that when he told you he was turning the matter over to Mr. Bourne, you became violent and broke a coffee table.”
“That’s a lie!” Colin yelped. “Who told you that?”
I shot Poppy a glance asking if she thought we should tell him. She gave a slight shake of her head, and I said, “I can’t reveal my source.”
“Well, whoever said it is a liar, and everyone at the bank will back me up.” He swung his gaze to Poppy. “The front wall of Max’s office is all glass, so if I did something like that, everyone in the place would have seen it or at least heard the noise.”
“Interesting.” As a matter of fact, now that I thought about it, the president’s office was in full view of customers and tellers.
“Be that as it may . . .” Doubt curled Poppy’s perfect rosebud mouth. “You still could have killed your wife.”
“The police cleared me.” Colin pasted on a satisfied smile. “I have an airtight alibi. I was in New York at a programmer’s convention from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. Every bit of my time the night Elise was killed is accounted for.”
“How wonderful.” Poppy recovered faster than I did.
“Why are you two so interested?” Colin narrowed his eyes. “Hey, I remember now. You’re friends with Boone St. Onge. You’re trying to pin Elise’s murder on me to help your friend wiggle off the hook.” He advanced on Poppy and roared into her face, “Go to hell.”
She raised a brow and said, “Sorry. I can’t.” Then she grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the door as she said over her shoulder, “Satan has a restraining order against me.”
We hurried down that hall, glancing behind us to make sure Colin wasn’t following us. He might have an alibi, but he also had a temper.
Once we were safely in Poppy’s Hummer, she made a call to her source at the police station, and he confirmed that the cops had investigated Colin’s alibi and it had checked out.
After she put away her cell, I said, “We are now officially out of suspects.”
“Well, we’d better find some more.” Poppy whacked me on the arm. “Boone will not look good in prison stripes.”
CHAPTER 24
* * *
Poppy promised to e-mail Tryg our report regarding Willow, Colin, and Lindsey, then hugged me good-bye and drove away in her Hummer. We were both upset. Boone had been counting on us, and we had crapped out. Why did all of our suspects have to have alibis? What were the odds that three people could verify their whereabouts on any given Saturday night? When I was under investigation, I sure hadn’t been able to prove where I’d been.
When I arrived at the dime store, the message on the store phone didn’t improve my mood. It was the school secretary telling me that Hannah wouldn’t be at work today. There was some sort of high-stakes achievement testing associated with the No Child Left Behind law that she was required to take with the rest of her class.
After quickly changing from my exercise clothes to my jeans and sweatshirt, I got the store ready for the day, then began creating a basket for one of Oakley Panigrahi’s clients. I had already finished the other nineteen in his order and needed to deliver them on Monday morning.
As I chose the perfect luxury items and arranged them, I racked my brain trying to figure out who had murdered Elise. There had to be something we were all missing. I had been working on the basket for nearly an hour when there was a knock on the front entrance. It was still ten minutes to opening, so I normally would have ignored the early bird, but I saw that it was Bryce Grantham and he was holding a large plastic Pet Taxi.
As I let him into the store, he handed me the carrier and said, “Look who I found.”
“Tsar, I presume?” A large gray cat with striking green eyes gazed at me through the wire mesh.
“That’s the name on his collar,” Bryce affirmed. “I found him this morning while I was walking Sweetie. I noticed him coming out of the half-open door of a neighbor’s tool shed. When I investigated, I saw that he’d chewed open a bag of dry cat food that had been stored in the shed and had made himself a cozy little nest in a rag box.”
“Was he hard to catch?” I asked, relieved that the cat had been warm and well fed the whole time that he was missing.
“Not at all.” Bryce grinned. “I put a dish of tuna in Sweetie’s Pet Taxi and Tsar strolled right in.” He frowned. “Actually, he limped in. I think he hurt his foot.”
“Poor baby,” I crooned to him, then said to Bryce, “I’ll take him to the vet’s right now.”
Normally, I hated closing the store, but with Hannah AWOL and an injured cat, I had no choice. I briefly considered calling Winnie but quickly decided against it. Better to lose business than to come back to the place in utter chaos.
“What will you do with him once the vet takes care of him?” Bryce asked.
“I have no idea.” I shrugged. “I have it on good authority that Elise’s husband doesn’t want him. Would you like a cat?”
“Sorry.” Bryce shook his head. “I’m more a dog person.”
I thanked him and promised to return Sweetie’s Pet Taxi as soon as I could. Once Bryce left, I taped a note to the store’s entrance saying that I’d be back in thirty minutes; then I took Tsar to Banshee’s veterinarian.
There was already a waiting room full of patients and their humans when I arrived, but the receptionist assured me that the doctor would see Tsar as soon as there was an opening in the clinic’s schedule. She said she’d call me with the results after the cat had been examined, so I left the cat there in the Pet Taxi and hurried back to my store.
Before resuming work, I sent Poppy and Noah each a hasty text that the cat had been found. Even though I knew they hadn’t been as preoccupied with finding the animal as I had, I thought they’d want to know that he was safe and being cared for by the vet.
My cell chirped a little after twelve and since I was alone—the store was deserted—I ch
ecked the message. My heart sank when I saw that it was from Tryg. The prosecutor had filed the case against Boone, and they were now waiting to go before a judge to see if Boone would be granted bail.
Sadness overwhelmed me. My BFF was in serious trouble and I hadn’t been able to help him. According to the IQ tests I’d been given in school, I was supposed to be smart. So why couldn’t I figure out who had really killed Elise?
While I was still castigating myself, the veterinarian called. Once we had established that I would foot the bill, he said, “Overall, Tsar is in good shape—well hydrated and with no sign of malnourishment.”
“Thank goodness.” I had figured the kitty was okay, but it was nice to hear it confirmed by a professional.
“However, there is one area of concern,” the vet continued. “A claw on Tsar’s right front foot is nearly torn off. The area between the nail and the footpad is jammed with something, and the only reason the claw was still attached is that he must have stepped in some type of resin and it acted as a sort of sealant.”
“How could an injury like that have occurred?” I asked.
“He was probably in a fight,” the vet guessed. “The claw will have to be removed. I’ll perform the surgery after my regular hours and then call you in the morning to let you know when Tsar will be ready to go home.”
As soon as I had thanked the vet and said good-bye, I headed for the safe. I would need my emergency credit card to pay Tsar’s vet bill and didn’t want to forget to put it in my wallet. The Visa was all the way in the back, and as I reached for it, I had to push aside Colin Whitmore’s chocolate molds. Shit! Now that I knew he hadn’t killed his wife, I needed to get the molds back to him.
I tucked the credit card into my purse, then checked the front of the store. Seeing that there were still no shoppers, I decided to package up the chocolate molds to send to Colin. Since I figured it was wiser to remain anonymous, I decided to drop them at the Kansas City FedEx when I delivered Oakley’s baskets. I’d use a fake return address and send them to the bank, since I didn’t know where Colin was living.
As I gathered the five molds from the safe, stacking them in my arms, the largest one slid from the pile and crashed to the floor. Hoping that I hadn’t damaged it, I bent to pick up the foot-tall metal bunny.
It lay in two pieces, and for a minute, I was afraid it had broken. Then I realized it was supposed to open that way in order to unmold the chocolate. As I gently lifted the two halves, I saw that there was something taped inside each part of the mold. Actually, there were three somethings: an old-fashioned computer disk, a flash drive, and a tiny vial enclosed in a plastic bag.
I immediately guessed that the items belonged to Colin. After all, he was the computer wizard, and Elise wouldn’t have sold me the molds if she knew there was stuff inside them. So what was the big secret?
Maybe if his wife hadn’t been killed and my best friend hadn’t been arrested for that murder, I might have given everything back to Colin without looking at the contents of the flash drive. But probably not. I had a nosy streak, and the mystery intrigued me.
My laptop wasn’t equipped to play the disk, but the flash drive was no problem. Sliding the thumb-size white rectangle into the computer’s port, I was half afraid it would be password protected. But, clearly, Colin didn’t think anyone else would ever discover the items, because with one click, a list of files appeared. Another click and I was looking at a spreadsheet.
At first I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing. The files were Shadow Bend Savings and Guaranty Bank records from fourteen years ago, but what was the big deal? Why tape them into a metal bunny’s rear end? Finally the significance of that date hit me. These were the records from the period when my father was suspected of embezzling funds.
I sank into the desk chair and took a deep breath. This could very well be either proof of my dad’s innocence or evidence of his guilt. My stomach sank. Since I had an MBA with a specialty in finance and had worked several years in the investment field, I was confident that I could interpret the data. But did I really want to?
Reluctantly I sat forward and began to study the figures. After a couple of hours, I pushed aside the laptop aside, leapt to my feet, and started to pace. Could I trust my conclusions, or was I too emotionally involved to be objective? A few more laps around the storeroom and I returned to the desk and rechecked the numbers.
Tears poured down my cheeks as I finally allowed myself to believe what I was seeing. There was no longer any doubt in my mind; my father was innocent of the embezzlement. Along with the relief came rage. Rage at all that my family had been through. Rage at the man who should have been in prison instead of my father. Rage at Max Robinson, the man who had really embezzled the money, thereby putting into motion the whole ugly sequence of events that had ended with my dad committing vehicular homicide.
I sat there stunned until I heard the sleigh bells above the front door ring. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was three o’clock. The after-school crowd was arriving. I quickly put both the molds and their contents back into my safe, locked it, then went out to feed my customers.
Ninety minutes later, the kids headed home for supper, and I sat down at the soda fountain to think. As I drank a cup of coffee, questions ping-ponged inside my head. Why did Colin have that computer flash drive? Did the disk contain the same material? Was it the original version, since flash drives weren’t around fourteen years ago? Could the information I had just discovered help my father, or was it too late for him? Although I could now prove he didn’t embezzle, he had still killed someone while driving drunk. And what was in the vial?
Setting aside my dad’s situation, I thought about Elise’s murder. If Colin hadn’t broken the glass coffee table in Max’s office, why had the bank president told us he had? If the table had never been broken, how did Max get those wounds on his leg? And, most important, did the answers to those first two questions have anything to do with Elise’s death and Colin’s possession of the flash drive?
While I was considering the possible answers to my questions, I heard someone enter the store. Swiveling to face the door, I was surprised to see Noah striding toward me.
As he took the stool next to me, he said, “Tryg texted me about Boone, and I came as soon as I finished with my patients for the day. How are you?”
“A few hours ago, I would have said frustrated, but now I’m not sure.” A warm feeling washed over me from Noah’s obvious concern.
“What happened?” He covered my hand with his.
I told him about what I had found in the chocolate molds, at the same time explaining how I had come to have the molds in my possession. Then I outlined the contents of the flash drive and the conflicting stories that Colin and Max had told us about the coffee table. I concluded with, “So my guess is that Colin was blackmailing Max.”
“It does seem a distinct possibility,” Noah agreed.
“But how does that fit in with Elise’s death?” I asked. “Presumably, Colin has been blackmailing Max for many years, so what’s changed now?”
Noah’s forehead wrinkled in concentration; then he announced, “The divorce proceedings. Colin was suddenly in need of more money than usual, so he might have increased his blackmail demands.”
“Okay.” I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s say that for all these years, Colin has been asking for a modest amount of money from Max. Maybe a monthly stipend or something. Then, suddenly, due to Elise’s manipulations, Colin finds himself strapped for cash and significantly ups the amount.”
“So, why wouldn’t Max kill Colin?” Noah asked.
“Because . . .” I trailed off, thinking, then snapped my fingers. “Because Max must have been willing to pay more—like a lump sum—but only if Colin handed over the evidence.”
“But computer disks and flash drives can be copied or even faked,” Noah pointed out.
“Then those weren’t what he wanted.” I bit my lip. “It must be the vial. I bet it has
his fingerprints on it.”
“But what does a glass vial have to do with the embezzlement?” Noah asked.
“No clue,” I admitted. “But I think that Colin must have told Max the evidence was in the chocolate molds and Elise had the molds and wouldn’t give them back.”
“So Max broke into the house to get them.” Noah nodded to himself. “He probably thought no one was home, since St. Onge told us all the lights were off and it looked as if Elise had been napping in the back bedroom.”
“She must have woken up and caught him.”
“And he shot her.” Noah shook his head. “Max couldn’t allow himself to be arrested for breaking and entering. He could never explain that to the bank’s owner or its board of trustees.”
“So how do we prove it? All we have is a guess.” I slumped forward, cradling my chin in my hands. “Even showing Chief Kincaid what I found in the molds doesn’t tie Max to the murder.”
Before Noah could answer, I shrieked, “The wounds on Max’s leg.”
“What about them?”
“If Colin didn’t break the coffee table—and I believe that he’s telling the truth about that, considering how public Max’s office is and how easy it would be to check with the tellers—then how did Max get hurt?”
“How?”
“Tsar scratched him.” I explained about the torn claw.
“But why would Max tell such an easily refuted lie?” Noah tapped his fingers on the counter.
“Several reasons,” I answered slowly. “First, he had to come up with a fast explanation of his injury. Second, he’s used to being the boss, and no one ever checks up on the boss—his word is law. But most important, he got away with one crime, and from what I’ve read about criminals, if they never experience consequences for their initial crime, they feel invincible.”
“Then we’d better call the vet right now,” Noah suggested. “Tell him to save the claw and the other stuff they remove from the food pad. There’s a good possibility that Max’s DNA is on that material. And if it is, we’ve got him.”
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