Cast Iron Suspicion (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 5)

by Jessica Beck

  Racing through the woods toward his place would have been insanity itself in the darkness that enveloped me. I knew the forest around me better than anyone else alive, but there was just too much underbrush and other obstacles to navigate on foot in the dark. I’d considered putting in a walking path between our cabins when we’d first started dating, but naturally enough, that idea had died along with our budding relationship.

  Grabbing my keys and locking the cabin door behind me, I got into my Subaru and made my way down the twisting path that served as my driveway. Once I was out on the main road, it was a matter of driving half a mile north to get to Timothy’s turnoff.

  I didn’t get very far up it, though. His driveway was blocked by one of my sister’s deputies. I knew him on sight, as I did every other police officer in the Maple Crest force. “Hey, Hank. Could you let me past?”

  “I’m sorry, Annie, but I’ve got orders to let only emergency vehicles through. You understand, don’t you?”

  I knew my sister had given him his orders directly, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. It was time to go straight to the top.

  I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number. “Hey, Kathleen. I’m here, and Hank won’t let me by.”

  “I was just about to call you. Annie, there’s nothing you can do here, so you might as well turn around and go back home.” She sounded tired and more than a little upset.

  “Have they managed to contain the fire yet?” I asked, ignoring her advice.

  “Nearly,” she said. “Fortunately it didn’t spread very far. Don’t worry; your cabin and your land should both be safe.”

  That was good to know, but it wasn’t my main concern at the moment. “How’s Timothy? He must be really upset. I’d at least like to say hello and offer whatever I can to help him.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” she said, and I could hear a sudden deadness in her voice.

  “Is he okay?” I asked hesitantly. While the man hadn’t turned out to be the love of my life, I still didn’t wish ill of him. At least not on this epic scale.

  “Annie, I’m afraid he didn’t make it,” Kathleen said somberly.

  I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. “What? He’s dead? What happened? Kathleen, please tell Hank to let me through right now, because if you don’t, I’m going straight home, grabbing a flashlight, and crashing through the woods to get there, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  She knew better than to argue with me. “Give me one second.”

  “That’s about all of the time you’ve got before I force my way there,” I said, trying to come to grips with this new reality.

  “Pat should really be with you right now,” Kathleen said.

  “Well, he’s not, and I’m not about to wait around until he shows up. Make the call, sis.”

  The line died abruptly as Hank’s walkie-talkie jumped to life. “Let my sister through, Hank,” I heard her instruct him.

  “Yes, ma’am. You told me yourself not to let anyone past. That’s why I kept her from coming up,” he apologized.

  “And now I’m telling you to allow her in,” she answered curtly. She was clearly in no mood to be trifled with.

  Neither was I.

  The radio died, and Hank looked sheepishly at me. “You can go on up. It wasn’t personal, Annie.”

  “I know that,” I said, and then I jumped back into my car and drove up Timothy’s driveway. He had chosen a much more sensible path from the road to his place than I had mine, and his short drive led me around one corner and into the clearing where he’d built his cabin.

  My stomach dropped as I took it all in. The place was a charred mess. Half the roof was gone, and a handful of volunteer firefighters were periodically dousing what remained of it with water from their pumper trucks. Every now and then, a spark would leap upward, and they’d extinguish it before it could do any further damage. The woods immediately around the house were black and burned and also quite soggy from their efforts.

  My house, and even my land, may have been safe, but everything Timothy owned, including his life, was now gone.

  I parked my Subaru out of the way and got out of my car. As I started toward the burned-out shell of the cabin, Kathleen came striding purposefully toward me. “You can’t go in there, Annie. There’s nothing anyone could have done to save him. By the time the alarm sounded, he was most likely already gone.”

  “Why didn’t I smell smoke sooner?” I asked, unable to keep my gaze from the charred remains of what had once been a beautiful cabin. It was never going to be livable again; that much was clear.

  “The wind was coming from the opposite direction, something you should thank your lucky stars for. It kept the fire, as well as the smoke, from spreading toward you.”

  “Where is he?” I choked out. “Was he alone?”

  She pointed to a pair of EMTs zipping up a body bag, and I started toward it before my sister grabbed my arm. “Don’t do it, Annie.”

  “I want to see him,” I said, resisting her grip.

  She was too strong for me, though. “The truth of the matter is that there’s not much left to see. And yes, he was alone, at least as far as we’ve been able to determine so far. It’s barely safe in there now for the inspector, but the fire chief was able to at least determine that there was only one person inside.”

  “What’s the fire inspector doing in there?” I asked, not putting it together quite yet.

  “What I’m about to tell you is confidential,” she said. “Look at me, Annie. I mean it.”

  “I can at least tell Pat, can’t I?”

  “Yes, but no one else.”

  “Right now, as far as I’m concerned, there is no one else.”

  Kathleen sighed heavily then hesitated another moment before she answered, “From the inspector’s preliminary findings, there’s not much doubt that the fire was deliberately set.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Someone burned Timothy to death on purpose?” I asked in anguish. It sounded like a horrible way to die, and I certainly didn’t wish that fate on my ex-boyfriend, or anyone else, for that matter.

  “That we don’t know,” she said. “Whether he was still alive or already dead at the time of the arson is yet to be determined.”

  “Why would anyone do it?”

  “One theory is that they were trying to cover up another crime. Annie, we need to explore the possibility that he very well might have already been dead before the first match was ever struck.”

  Chapter 3: Pat

  I was awakened by a phone call in the middle of the night, something that rarely meant good news in my experience. “Pat, wake up. I need you.”

  It was my older sister, Kathleen, and I couldn’t imagine the circumstances in which she would ever need me for anything, let alone in the dead of night. “What’s going on, sis?”

  “There was a fire at Timothy Roberts’s place. I’m afraid he’s dead, Pat.”

  “What happened?” I asked, trying to force myself awake. “Does Annie know?”

  “Hank’s got her sitting at the bottom of Timothy’s driveway at the moment, but we both know that’s not going to last very long. She’s going to need your strength, Pat. How soon can you get here?”

  “I’m on my way right now,” I said.

  I was starting to hang up when she said, “I’ll call Hank and tell him to let you straight through. There’s one more thing, Pat.”

  What could be added to the bad news I’d already heard? As I pulled on my jeans, I asked her, “What is it?”

  “I can’t say for sure yet, but it’s looking more and more like Timothy was murdered.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill him? Besides Annie, I mean.” I’d added the last bit without thinking, but I k
new that it would be a conclusion that some of the folks around town would no doubt be leaping to when they heard the news. After all, my sister hadn’t taken their breakup well, not that I’d been a sterling example of good manners myself with Jenna. The way they’d done it had been unfortunate, to say the least, and it had taken Annie and me some time to put it past us. “Strike that. Does Jenna know what happened?”

  “I’m not sure. We can’t seem to find her,” Kathleen said. “Now, do you want to keep talking to me, or do you want to get over here and take care of our sister?”

  “Bye,” I said as I hung up the phone and threw on a T-shirt. As I drove toward Timothy’s place, I couldn’t help but wonder how Annie was going to take the news. Before they’d dated, she and Timothy had been good friends, so he’d been in her life for quite a while. Driving through the darkness, I knew that all I could do was be there for my twin sister. I understood that there were no words of real comfort I could offer her, but my presence was probably the best thing I could give her at the moment. Annie needed me, and I was going to her. It was as simple as that, and if Kathleen neglected to tell Hank to let me pass by, then he was going to have a fight on his hands, and I didn’t care if he was armed or not, even if he was old enough to be my father.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out; Hank waved me through the second he saw me.

  I pulled my truck in beside Annie’s Subaru and got out to join her. Kathleen was saying something to her, and from Annie’s expression, I knew that she was just getting the news that Timothy’s death had been deliberate. The overpowering smells emanating from the extinguished fire were awful, and I tried not to think about what they were composed of as I approached Annie.

  “Hey, sis. I’m so sorry,” I said as I put an arm around her.

  Annie mumbled something and pulled herself into me.

  Kathleen took it all in, and then she nodded her thanks to me for coming before she spoke. “I’ll tell you more when I find out what’s going on, but right now I need to deal with this crime scene.”

  Annie nodded numbly, and Kathleen took that as permission to leave us. Our big sister might have been the sheriff in these parts, and a very important person, but it was clear she was happy about turning our sister over to me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Annie softly. “I’m having a hard time believing all of this.”

  “Someone killed him, Pat,” she said as she buried her face in my chest.

  I stroked her back. “I heard.”

  “Who would do something like that?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered.

  “They can’t find Jenna. Did you hear?”

  I pulled away for a moment. “Yes, but surely she’s not involved. Does Kathleen think she might have done it?” The idea was hard for me to even consider. Jenna was a kind person at heart, with a love for both people and animals that extended well beyond her veterinary practice and her daily life. I couldn’t imagine the circumstances that would push her to murder another human being.

  “I have no idea, but everyone in town knows how much they’ve been fighting lately,” Annie said.

  “Couples fight all of the time,” I said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Jenna had anything to do with this.” I swept an arm around the wreckage that had so recently been Timothy Roberts’s life.

  “I know, but it’s suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t even want to consider the possibility,” I said.

  Annie pulled away and looked up at me. “But we have to, don’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Pat, everyone knows that Timothy and I had a bad breakup. Not only that, but my place is just through the woods over there,” she said as she pointed toward her home.

  “Annie, that was months ago. No one’s going to think you did it. Too much time has passed.”

  “Do you honestly believe that?” she asked me intently.

  I thought about it, and I knew that she was probably right. As much as I loved our fellow townsfolk, gossip seemed to be the main hobby around town, and while I knew that Jenna’s name would be taken in vain quite a bit in the coming days, Annie’s wouldn’t be left out of the mix. For that matter, I would probably be a suspect as well, given the fact that the man had stolen my girlfriend so publicly. I hated that expression. He couldn’t have stolen her if she hadn’t wanted him more than she’d wanted me. But would most folks look at it that way? I had a sinking feeling that Annie and I were both going to be involved in this up to our eyebrows soon enough, whether we liked it or not. “Kathleen’s not going to be happy about it,” I said lamely.

  “I’m sure she’ll find a way to live with her disappointment,” Annie said. “The first thing we need to do is find Jenna.”

  “Don’t you think Kathleen is going to want to handle that herself?” I asked. “After all, she has the resources to track people down. We don’t.”

  “You’re right,” Annie said, but I didn’t even get a chance to relish the minor victory before she added, “While she’s hunting Jenna down, we need to dig into Timothy’s life to see who else might want to wish him harm.”

  “If you would have asked me this morning if Timothy Roberts had any enemies, I would have been hard pressed to name names.”

  “Besides us, you mean,” Annie said.

  “You know what I mean. Who would want an accountant dead?”

  She shook her head. “You’re kidding, right? What if he was cooking the books for some bad guy? Wouldn’t that give them a motive to get rid of him? Especially if he threatened to talk?”

  “Do you honestly think Timothy would be an accountant for bullies and thugs?” I asked her.

  “Bad people can still wear suits and talk as though they are civilized. Maybe he caught someone doing something they shouldn’t have been doing, and he threatened to expose them.”

  “It’s probably worth looking into, but how are we going to find out?”

  “That part’s easy,” Annie said. “We need to go speak with Robin before Kathleen has a chance to.” Robin Jenkins was Timothy’s secretary/personal assistant, and no one alive knew Timothy’s clientele better than she did.

  “Right now?” I asked her, watching as the firemen doused another errant ember.

  “What better time is there? Besides, she has the right to know what happened to her boss.”

  “Fine,” I said, knowing that there was no use arguing with her when she’d made up her mind about something. “Let’s go. Should we take your car or my truck?”

  “Let’s get them both out of here. We’ll drop your truck off at the store, and then we can go together in my Subaru.” Annie glanced back at the gutted shell one last time. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “I can’t, either. I’m sorry. I know that you cared a great deal for him once upon a time.”

  “I did, but that’s not the only reason I want to find his killer. I can already hear the whispers behind our backs. We need to solve Timothy’s murder, and we need to do it quickly, Pat.”

  “I’m not disagreeing. I only hope that Jenna is okay.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Annie said, but I didn’t believe her, and I suspected that she doubted the words herself.

  We walked over to Kathleen. “We’re leaving,” I said.

  She looked surprised by the news. “Really?”

  Annie glanced at the burned-out structure. “You’re right. There’s nothing we can do here.”

  “Why do I have the feeling that you’re giving up entirely too easily?” Kathleen asked her.

  “What can I say? Sometimes you make sense,” Annie said, and then—whether it was for our sister’s sake or it was real—she stumbled a little, and I grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.

  “Try to get s
ome sleep,” Kathleen said gently.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but we both know that’s not going to happen,” Annie replied.

  “Pat, will you stay with her tonight?” our big sister asked me.

  “I’ll be there as long as she wants me.”

  “Good. Now if you two will excuse me, I need to get back to work. I’ll drop by the store in the morning and bring you up to speed.”

  “Thanks. That’s greatly appreciated. See you then,” I said, and then Annie and I made our way back to our vehicles. “Did you really just stumble? Are you okay?”

  “As much as I can be,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go. I’ll see you at the Iron in a few minutes.”

  Chapter 4: Annie

  I got to the Iron parking lot just behind Pat, and he climbed into my Subaru after he parked his truck off to one side. It was way too early to be out and about in Maple Crest, but I couldn’t imagine going back to sleep after what had just happened to Timothy. The town was filled with darkness, with only a few dots of light coming from scattered streetlights as we drove beneath them. As I kept driving toward Robin’s place, I saw lights on in one house, coming from the kitchen. Lester Pender was up late, if he’d even gone to bed yet. Lester had complained to me a few times at the grill about his insomnia, but I hadn’t really believed him. The lights emanating from his kitchen were more convincing than anything he could have said face to face.

  “It appears that we’re not the only ones awake,” Pat said as he pointed to Lester’s house.

  “Do you mean besides all of the volunteer firemen and police still at Timothy’s cabin?” I asked.

  “Does anyone volunteer with the police force?” Pat asked me.

  “You know what I mean. I still can’t get over what happened tonight.”

  “It can be a dark world out there, can’t it? And before you say anything, I’m not talking about the time of day or the lack of sunshine at the moment.”