by Jessica Beck
“What if we don’t know if it’s important, or at least not right away? I can’t imagine you’d be interested in hearing about every wild theory and each dead end we go down.”
“No, I don’t have time for that,” she agreed. “Okay, I’ll be reasonable about it just this once, given the circumstances. You don’t have to share anything with me until you’re certain that it has something to do with what happened to Timothy. Don’t abuse my good nature. Understood?”
“Completely,” I said. She’d just given us enough leeway so I wouldn’t have to disclose our list of suspects or what Virgil Hicks had shared with me earlier. Annie and I had no real evidence at that point. Everything we believed was based on speculation, a secondhand eyewitness, and our knowledge of the key players in the case. I knew well enough that the pass she’d just given us wouldn’t cover everything we might find, but it was a good place to start.
“Well, we won’t keep you,” I told Kathleen as I started walking her up to the front of the Iron. “I know you’ve got a lot going on right now.”
Annie stayed behind to clean up from our early dinner, but Kathleen followed me, and as I began to close the door behind her, she said softly, “Look out for her, do you hear me?”
“I always do,” I said. “Thanks. It helps not feeling so powerless about everything.”
“Just be careful. Both of you.”
“You can count on it,” I said.
Kathleen smiled softly at me before she answered. “Pat, if I could believe that, I’d sleep better at night, but we both know that’s not about to happen.”
I grinned in return. “You know us too well,” I said. “Happy hunting, sis.”
“You, too,” she said, and then she was gone.
Chapter 8: Annie
“What was that all about?” I asked my brother as soon as our older sister was gone. I’d seen the two of them whispering about something, and it made me think of a saying I’d once heard: Just because you were paranoid didn’t mean that they weren’t out to get you.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your little chat with Kathleen,” I asked him.
“She’s worried about how you’re handling all of this,” Pat confessed. “To be honest with you, so am I.”
I felt like a heel, jumping to conclusions that they’d been somehow conspiring against me. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s still sinking in. The thought of him being trapped in that closet and the smoke coming in through the cracks is killing me.”
Pat put his hands on my shoulders. “So don’t think about it.”
“Sure. Okay. Sounds good. Any advice on exactly how I should go about that?”
“Hey, I’m good at giving the advice. How you apply it to your life is up to you.” He offered a soft smile, one that I returned. “How much time do you need to finish up here?”
“Give me ten minutes. Does that work for you?” We’d already sent Skip home, and Edith was off by then anyway.
“That’s perfect. I need to balance the books, get the deposit ready, and then we can go. Want to race?”
“What are we, twelve?” I asked him.
“You’re right.”
“No, I mean I’m all for it. Ready, set, go!”
I worked furiously getting the kitchen and grill back in good shape, but I didn’t cut any corners. It wasn’t worth winning just to have to come back the next day and redo something.
At least I didn’t think it was.
I noticed that Pat was done with his chores before I’d finished mine, but he was clearly dragging his feet in order to let me be first. Did I need a win that badly? I did not. “Hey, if you let me win, you have to do dishes back here for a month.”
Pat grinned at me as he answered, “Well, would you look at that? I just finished.”
“Good for you.” After my last tasks were completed, I joined him up front. “Let’s go. I take it we’re stopping off at the bank on our way, right?”
“You know me too well. I hate having too much money around here at any one time.”
“Then let’s do it,” I said.
When we got to the bank, Pat asked me, “Do you want to come in with me?”
“I thought you used the night drop,” I said.
“I usually do, but I have to check on something inside, too.”
“There isn’t a problem with our account, is there?” I asked him. The last thing I needed to deal with at the moment was a business-related emergency.
“No, it’s nothing like that. I’m just running low on deposit slips, so I thought I’d order more.”
Was that true, or was there another reason Pat wanted to go in and handle things personally? I took a wild stab and asked, “It doesn’t have anything to do with the new teller, does it? What’s her name, Clarise?”
“It’s Carly,” he supplied automatically, and then he caught on to what I’d just done. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
“I have my moments. Don’t mind me. Take all the time you need. She’s cute.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said, a little louder than he’d needed to.
“Sorry. It must have all just been in my imagination.”
Pat didn’t comment, but I could have sworn I caught a smile as he stepped inside the bank.
I was still considering the possibility that my brother was finally moving on from Jenna when I saw someone approaching from behind.
It was Robin Jenkins.
“You must be so relieved,” she said excitedly.
I had a feeling she wasn’t talking about the way Timothy had perished. No one could get excited about that. “I’m not sure if I am or not. What’s going on?”
“You should know better than anyone else. Your sister arrested Jenna Lance this morning,” she said smugly.
“What? When did this happen?” I couldn’t believe Kathleen would arrest anyone, especially Jenna, without telling us about it first.
Robin looked confused. “She took her out of the Iron in her squad car, from what I heard. Weren’t you there?”
It suddenly all made sense. “Robin, Jenna asked Kathleen for details about what happened to Timothy, and my sister offered to tell her back at her office. I’m not sure who told you that she was under arrest, but I can assure you that wasn’t the case, at least it wasn’t when she left the Iron this morning.”
Robin looked disappointed by the news. “Oh. I suppose that makes sense. Sorry. I must have gotten my facts wrong. Where was she when Timothy died, though? I for one would like to know the answer to that.”
“According to what she told us, she was at her sister’s place,” I said, immediately regretting it. I wasn’t exactly sure that fact was mine to share. I hoped that if it got back to Kathleen, she’d be in a forgiving mood.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. Do you have any idea who your sister might suspect?” Robin asked me.
“I’m certain she’s still gathering information,” I said. “These things take time.”
“Well, I know she hasn’t talked to me yet. Wouldn’t I be the logical choice to interview, given my close relationship with Timothy?”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll get around to you soon.”
“I certainly hope so,” Robin said, and then her cell phone rang. “Hello? Yes. Of course. Three minutes. Yes. Good-bye.” She looked at me smugly as she said, “Speak of the devil and he appears, or she, as it is in this case. Your sister would like me to come down to the sheriff’s office and have a chat about Timothy.”
As she turned to go, I asked, “What about your banking?”
“It can wait,” Robin said as she waved a hand in the direction of the bank. “This is important.”
I wondered wh
o was about to get tarred next as I watched her drive hurriedly away.
“Was that Robin Jenkins I just saw you speaking with?”
I nodded as my brother rejoined me. “She thought Kathleen arrested Jenna this morning.”
Pat frowned before he spoke. “Why would she think that?”
“Evidently someone saw them leave the Iron together and leapt to the wrong conclusion.”
“People in this town gossip too much,” my brother complained.
I looked hard at my brother before I replied. “Pat, are you still carrying a torch for Jenna?”
“What? No! Of course not! I just don’t think it’s right that some folks are dragging her name through the mud without cause, you know?”
“Oh, there’s a little cause,” I said.
“I thought you’d forgiven her about the breakup,” Pat said to me.
“I’ve done my best to, but forgetting is an entirely different matter. How’s Carly doing? Did you get all of your banking done?”
“Yeah, but she was on break,” he said before pursing his lips slightly. “Did Robin stop by just to tell you about Jenna?”
“No, she was heading inside the bank when Kathleen called her. That woman was absolutely tickled to be going to visit the sheriff.”
“It’s probably not as sinister as all of that. Maybe she just wants her boss’s killer caught,” Pat said. He looked around the parking lot, and I wondered if he was searching for Carly.
“Looking for someone special?” I asked him.
“No, I thought I heard someone cough.”
Okay, if that was his story, I wasn’t going to challenge him on it. “If the banking is taken care of, who’s first on our list?”
“Take your pick. If we want to start close to home, we should speak with Viv Masters at her hair salon. On the other hand, if you feel like a drive, let’s go track Gordon Freeman down in Pepper’s Landing.”
“What about our other suspects?” I asked him.
“Let’s see. You just spoke with Robin, and I have a hunch she’s going to be tied up with Kathleen for quite a while, given her propensity to gab. As for Mick, I don’t want to brace him until we have something substantial we can call him out on.”
“He had plenty of incentive to get rid of his little brother, if you ask me,” I told Pat. “That man is up to something; you mark my words.”
“Consider them marked,” Pat said with the hint of a grin. “Should we flip a coin? Would that help you decide?”
“There’s no need to,” I said. “Let’s go talk to Viv first. There are several things I’d like to discuss with her about her relationship with Timothy.”
“Do you think she’s going to be all that interested in speaking with us?”
“Why shouldn’t she be?” I asked him.
“Annie, you were Timothy’s girlfriend for quite a while. Don’t you think she might have resented that fact if she were secretly in love with him?”
“That remains to be seen, but you’re forgetting something. I’m old news. If Jenna was trying to get information out of Viv, I have a hunch that she’d be out of luck, but I plan on playing the ‘woman scorned’ card with Viv. We’ll see if she was personally invested in Timothy or not by the time I’m through with her.”
“Hey, Viv, do you have a second?” I asked the hair salon operator when my brother and I walked into her shop. I had a hunch that she did, since the three chairs in the place were all empty. Betsy and Polly, her two employees, were cleaning, while Viv sat in one of the chairs reading. Viv was a little older than Pat and I were, but the years hadn’t been quite so kind to her. Heavy makeup covered her face, and her hair had been dyed so many different colors over the years that I doubted she remembered the original shade she’d been born with. She was thin to the point of being bony, and she had an air of a woman stuck out of time. No doubt Viv would have been better suited for the 1960s, and she wasn’t all that happy that they had passed her by.
“I could probably squeeze you in if you want a quick cut and style,” she said as she studied my hair. “I was wondering when you’d get around to changing it.”
I touched my hair defensively. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“Annie, it’s a little young for you, wouldn’t you say?”
I wasn’t in any mood to debate my hairstyle choices, certainly not with a woman who wore her hair teased to the sky and sprayed with enough hairspray to keep it from ruffling in a hurricane. “We’re not here about my hair, Viv.”
“That’s why I’m here with her,” Pat said. Though Viv had ignored him, Polly and Betsy had both noticed my brother’s presence instantly. Betsy had just gone through a nasty divorce, and Polly was notorious for being on the prowl searching for her first husband. I started to worry about bringing Pat with me, but I knew my brother could handle himself. Besides, he usually was oblivious to the attention most women paid him; even Jenna had taken a while. I suspected it was because he’d given his heart to Molly a long time ago, and he’d never quite gotten over it. Why couldn’t they work things out? The entire town knew that they belonged together; if only we could convince them of that.
“I just assumed you were keeping her company,” Viv said. “What is it you wanted to discuss with me?”
I glanced at the other women, who were watching us openly as we spoke. “Could we step outside, maybe? It’s such a beautiful day, I hate to be inside one second more than I have to.”
Say what you would about Viv, but she wasn’t slow in picking up my intention. “That’s a good idea.” She then turned to her staff and said, “Ladies, I’ll be right outside. Hold down the fort.”
“We can do that,” Polly said, and then she smiled brightly at my brother. “See you later, Pat.”
“Me, too,” Betsy added quickly, not to be outdone by her coworker.
“Sure thing,” Pat said, clearly confused by their attention. I thought about sitting him down and having a talk with him, but I’d promised not to meddle in his love life, and so far, I’d kept my word, no matter how hard it was to hold my tongue at times.
Once we were outside, Viv turned on both of us, and her usual smile was gone. “This is about Timothy, isn’t it?”
“We just need to clear a few things up with you,” I said, trying to keep my voice as cheerful as I could manage. “Were you in love with him, Viv?” I hadn’t planned on coming right out and asking her, but what better way to get to the heart of the matter than by the direct route?
“What? No. Of course not.” Her protest might have sounded real enough if it hadn’t been for her delay in answering. “Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“From more than one source, actually,” Pat said.
“Name them.”
“Viv, we’re not going to tell you what other people said any more than we would repeat anything you might tell us. You can trust us.” It was true, as far as it went, unless it turned out that she had killed Timothy.
If that were the case, all bets were off.
“What of it? We flirted back and forth, but nothing ever came of it. I don’t know why folks don’t realize that’s just the way I am. I flirt with every man I see.”
“Funny, but you’ve never flirted with me,” my brother said.
Viv smiled at him and patted his cheek gently. “My dear boy, how would you even know? You miss more signals than a blind semaphore operator.”
Pat frowned, but before he could protest, I decided to steer the conversation back to the point. “Viv, we heard that you were getting fed up with Timothy’s rejections, and you have to admit, you have quite a temper at times.”
“I won’t apologize for it. I’m passionate, like every true artist is,” she said. “And if one of you say that what I do isn’t art, then this conversation is over.”
Viv frowned for a slight second, and then she laughed. “I don’t even have to ask you who that was. Virgil is quite the gossip, isn’t he? They say women are bad, but older men are the worst. If Virgil doesn’t find drama around him, he does his best to create it. As usual, he was overexaggerating. Timothy said something about my new fragrance being a little too potent for his taste, and I defended my choice. It meant nothing to either one of us. I was his client, and he was my accountant. If something had happened to my shampoo supplier, would you have come to speak with me, too? I doubt it, unless you dated him as well, Annie. Did you, by any chance? I’d like a little warning next time if something untoward happens to Phil.”
“No, I didn’t date your shampoo supplier,” I said, fighting to keep from blowing up. “Timothy and I weren’t going out anymore either, remember?”
“Certainly, but since he and Jenna were on the outs, who knows? He may have come running back to you at any moment. Now that you’ve lost that chance, I can understand why you’re both so gung-ho about finding out what really happened to him. If you truly want to corner someone with a motive, you should speak with Gordon Freeman from Pepper’s Landing. I walked in on the two of them arguing about something last week, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“No worry there, he made our list,” Pat said, and I wanted to kick my brother. The less information we gave any of our suspects about what we were up to, the better, at least as far as I was concerned.
“Good. And there’s always Robin, his assistant. The woman was a walking cliché, falling for her boss like that. She must have not enjoyed being constantly passed over so many times.”