by Jessica Beck
Gordon must have smelled the sausage gravy simmering on the stovetop. “That smells great.”
“Would you like a bite to eat before you go?” I asked.
Pat looked at me oddly, but hey, I ran the grill, and I hadn’t turned anyone away yet, even one of our suspects, though it seemed to me that he’d just cleared himself of suspicion.
“No, I couldn’t. Thanks for offering, though.”
After he was gone, I asked Pat, “What do you think?”
“I believe the man is honestly in fear for his life.”
“Wouldn’t that give him reason to lie to us?” I asked.
“Probably, but I’m willing to bet that Kathleen is going to find him on that security surveillance. Why else give her so much potentially damaging evidence?”
“Like he said, it wasn’t all that damaging.”
“Not unless our sister decides that she doesn’t like being messed with,” Pat answered. “Until we hear otherwise though, I think we can take Gordon off our list of suspects.”
“I’m fine with that,” I said as two customers came into the store. One headed for the section of screws in Pat’s department, while the other headed straight back to my grill. “Talk to you later,” I said, and then I started doing what I was meant to do, feed the hungry people of Maple Crest good food for a fair price.
There were worse callings I could have had, and I knew it.
Though we didn’t see any of our other suspects at the Iron for the rest of the day, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t without its own drama. Two of our senior citizen ladies got into an argument over a birdbath Pat had marked down for quick sale, each woman claiming to have seen it first. Pat, using the skills and wisdom of Solomon, figured out a way to get them to compromise. Harriet got the birdbath, but Jeanie got a feeder she’d had her eye on, for our cost as well. In the end, both women left the shop happy, something that didn’t always happen at the Iron.
By the time we were ready to close up for the day, Pat and I had come up with a solid game plan for our investigation.
We were going to do a little pot stirring and see what bubbled to the top.
After all, we still had a healthy list of suspects to consider, and fortunately, there was a little leverage for us to use on each of them now.
Chapter 17: Pat
“Are you ready to roll?” I asked Annie as I approached the grill in the back of the store.
“Just about,” she said as she put the last pot away. “How about you?”
“I’m ready,” I told her. “I sent Skip on with the deposit, so we could get going.”
That was interesting. “What, no drop-in visit?”
“For your information, I don’t plan my entire schedule around my banking needs.”
“What’s wrong, Pat, is she off today?”
It was hard to get angry with Annie, especially when she was grinning at me like she was. I found myself laughing right along with her. “Carly’s off today, but nothing’s going to happen there.”
“Why not? Have I been teasing you too much about her lately?”
“Yes,” I said as I held the front door open for her. “But that’s beside the point. I just found out that she’s got a boyfriend in Boone. He’s a professor at the college there.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie said, her smile vanishing. “That’s too bad.”
“Not really. You know, when it comes right down to it, I believe I had my shot at true love, and I blew it.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not talking about Jenna?” my twin sister asked me as I locked the door behind us after turning off the lights. I couldn’t help but glance over at where the scorch marks were on the porch, though I’d put a rug over the worst of it, and I’d replaced the burnt chair with another.
“What can I say? You always could read me like a book,” I said.
“To be fair, it’s not like it’s applied mathematics,” she answered. “It’s more like a connect-the-dots book we had as kids. Point A, that’s you, connects directly to Point B, that’s Molly. It’s the simplest puzzle in the world.”
“I wish I could say that you were full of hot air,” I told her.
“But you can’t, so you won’t,” Annie answered.
I decided that particular line of conversation wasn’t getting us anywhere. “Which of our suspects should we tackle first?”
“I think Jenna would be appropriate, don’t you?” she asked.
“Why Jenna?” I asked her. “Because this seems to be the afternoon we discuss the ghosts of girlfriends past?”
“No, it’s mainly because I’m not entirely satisfied with her story,” Annie said. “What if she killed Timothy to hide something he knew about her?”
“What could that possibly be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s hooked on horse tranquilizers. She’s a vet, isn’t she?”
“I can’t see that happening,” I said, unable to keep myself from defending her, even though she’d discarded me pretty thoroughly not that long ago.
“But it’s possible,” Annie insisted. “Say that’s not it, then. How about if she’s been defrauding the government somehow, and Timothy found out about it?”
We got into her Subaru and drove as we continued the discussion. The sooner we got to Jenna’s practice, the sooner I could get out of this onerous conversation. “I don’t think so.”
“It might be true, though. That’s the point. Pat, she was burning records and personal information when we saw her yesterday. Even you can’t deny that.”
“What do you mean, even me?” I asked her.
“Come on. Every time I bring something up, you dismiss it out of hand.”
I thought about it and realized that she was right. “Okay, I’ll admit that last one’s possible. It could explain why she felt the need to torch so many pages. If she were covering her tracks, it might make sense to her to burn it all down to ashes. What about the card we saw, though?”
“If Timothy was going to turn her in to the authorities, would she keep a sentimental card she got from him? I know I wouldn’t.”
“That’s because you’re tougher than the average bear,” I told her. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right. How are we going to catch her in a lie?”
“There’s only one way I can think of short of hiring a forensic accountant, which Kathleen may have to end up doing eventually. We need to push her until she snaps and tells us something she meant to keep to herself.”
“Oh, boy. This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”
“If you’d rather skip it, you could always wait in the car,” Annie suggested.
I shook my head as I looked at my twin sister. “No thanks.”
“Good, because I need you in there with me. We’re here,” she said as we pulled into Jenna’s practice parking lot. It was empty though.
“No one’s here,” I said, fighting to keep the relief out of my voice.
“Jenna is; at least her truck is,” Annie said, pointing to the back of the building. “Maybe we’ll luck out and catch her alone.”
“Do we ever get that lucky?” I asked her.
“No, but that just means that we’re due.”
The front door to Jenna’s clinic was locked, and I was ready to give up, since I didn’t want to be there in the first place. “Nobody’s home after all.”
Annie swatted at me, and then she pointed to a sign. “For access after regular hours, ring the bell. If no one answers, call our service and leave a detailed message.” After a smug little grin, she reached over and rang the bell.
Jenna answered our summons almost immediately. Had she seen us drive up? Was she waiting by the door, hoping that we’d give up and go away? If so, then why did she answer at all?
“I was just heading out,” Jenna said, startled to see us. “I thought we were finished yesterday, so unless you have a sick pet, you’ll have to excuse me.”
There was no way we were going to be able to grill her in detail. I was going to have to take a hard, strong shot at her and hope for a reaction. Otherwise, we wouldn’t learn a thing.
“Why did you burn that card from Timothy yesterday?” I asked her point blank.
I even managed to catch Annie by surprise with the ambush. It took Jenna a moment to compose herself before she replied. “Odd. I don’t remember that being in the pile.”
“We both saw it, so there’s no use trying to deny it,” I said, refusing to move out of her way. I was being intentionally obnoxious, and I realized at that moment that even if Jenna had pled with me to take her back, I wouldn’t have been interested. I was burning the bridge and making sure there was no going back to her when this was all over, assuming that she hadn’t been the one to kill Timothy. “Don’t lie to us.”
Jenna stared at me steadily for a few seconds, and then she said in a cold, dead voice, “Patrick, I don’t care about you enough to lie to you. It was nobody’s business, and it certainly isn’t any of yours. Tell your sister that I want any correspondence she finds at Timothy’s that originated with me.”
“Did you hear that, or do I need to repeat it to you?” I asked Annie, trying to warm the air a little with a joke, and failing miserably at it.
“I meant Kathleen, and you know it. Now get out of my way. I have work to do.”
The look she gave me as she brushed past me would have frozen a lava flow in its tracks.
“Wow, that was painful to watch, even for me,” Annie said once Jenna was gone.
“You said we needed to push her,” I reminded her.
“Push, not demolish,” she said.
“Do you think I went too far?”
“No, the more I think about it, that was the only way to handle her.” Annie touched my shoulder lightly. “Pat, are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” I said as we headed back to her Subaru.
“You know you’ll never be able to repair the damage you just did, don’t you?” Annie asked me in a soft voice.
“I knew it before I opened my mouth,” I told her. “I wonder what she was talking about being at Timothy’s office. Could there be something there that might convict her?”
“It’s possible. Then again, it could have just been a set of mushy letters she didn’t want anyone else to read,” Annie countered.
“Now you tell me that. I don’t know. Has Jenna ever struck you as the type to get embarrassed by much of anything?”
“I can’t really say. After all, you know her better than I do,” Annie said.
“Quit ducking and answer the question.”
“No,” my twin sister said slowly. “There might be something to it, but how are we going to get back into Timothy’s office to find out? We can’t ask Kathleen to let us in again so soon, and we can’t exactly borrow the key from Robin.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said as a plan started to hatch in my mind.
“Do you honestly think she’d just hand it over to us?”
“No, but what if we took it and then returned it without her knowing about it?” I asked.
“You mean steal it, don’t you? Don’t get me wrong; I don’t disapprove. I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.”
“Yes, I mean steal it, if you want to put too fine a point on it.”
Annie laughed. “That’s about the only point we could use, isn’t it? I can’t think of anything better to do at the moment, so it sounds like a plan to me. Should we go after it now or wait until after we check in with Viv and then Mick?”
“I’m not in the mood to tackle Mick at the moment, and I’m going to have to figure out a way to get Robin’s key to the office without her knowing it, so I guess Viv wins by default.”
“The hairdresser’s shop it is,” Annie said. “I’m proud of you, little brother.”
“Why? Is it just in general, or is there a reason in particular?”
“It’s about Jenna. You two don’t belong together. I’m just glad you’re finally seeing it for yourself.”
“For all the good it’s going to do me. Let’s go.”
Viv was in her shop, but she was busy this time, as were her two assistants. No one was waiting though, and she was just finishing up with her customer. “You two are back again?” she asked, clearly unhappy about our presence in her shop again so soon after our last visit.
“We won’t take more than a minute,” I said.
“Sit over there and wait for me, then,” Viv instructed us, and then she turned back to her client. “Like I said, Ruth, that color makes you look ten years younger.”
If that were the case, I would have hated to see how old the woman looked upon her arrival. I decided to keep that to myself, though. Annie reached over and plucked a magazine from the nearby table, but there was nothing there I could even feign interest in, so I just sat in silence. Two minutes later, Viv pointed to us and motioned for us to go outside. Her last appointment had exited a minute earlier, and I’d been waiting on her signal.
“Let’s go,” I told Annie. “We’re up.”
“After you,” my sister said as she put the magazine back where she’d found it.
Viv was standing outside smoking a cigarette when we went out. “I have three minutes before my next appointment. If the smoke bothers you, no one asked you to be here in the first place.”
It was rude and abrupt, much like I’d been with Jenna. Apparently I wasn’t going to be able to repeat my earlier performance.
I didn’t have to. Annie stepped in before I could say a word.
“Blow us off if you want, Viv, but we’re here as a courtesy before we go speak with the sheriff.”
It was an outstanding bluff, and quite an opening line. I for one was curious about where she was going with it, and I had to wonder if she knew herself.
“What do you think you know?” Viv asked, openly glaring at both of us now.
“Timothy said you were dangerous and unbalanced and that you wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was getting ready to fire you as a client. Did you know that?”
Viv looked as though she’d just smelled something rotten. “What does it matter at this point? I don’t care anymore.”
“Why? Because he’s dead?” I asked pointedly.
“No, because he rejected me one too many times, and even if he were still alive, I did something so stupid that he would never be able to forgive me.”
“What could you have possibly done that was so bad?” Annie asked her.
“I slept with that jerk brother of his, Mick,” she confessed.
“When did this happen?” Annie asked, pushing her for more details.
“The night Timothy was murdered. I met Mick at the bar outside of town, and I let him pick me up. It was my way of showing that snob of a brother of his that I wasn’t going to wait around forever for him to come to his senses. The irony of it was that Mick was with me even while Timothy was being murdered. I did it all for nothing. He never knew what I’d done.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone this before?” Annie asked her gently. “You lied to us earlier when you said that you’d been home alone.”
“Wouldn’t you have? What alternative did I have? Could you have admitted taking Mick Roberts home?” she asked Annie pointedly.
“No, not unless it was under gunpoint,” Annie admitted. “So, why tell us now?”
“I knew that if I didn’t, yo
u two would keep hounding me until I told you the truth. Besides, like I said, what does it matter now? It’s over. All of it.” Viv looked as though she were about to cry, but she managed to snuff it out before it escaped. Driving her half-smoked cigarette into a vase filled with sand along with a dozen other butts, she brushed her hands together as if to dismiss that entire part of her life. “There’s my next appointment. You both need to go.”
I wanted to follow up with her with a few other questions, but Annie shook her head, so we left without another word.
“Do you believe her?” I asked Annie once we were out of the parking lot.
“Yes, without a doubt.”
“Why?” I was curious about why my sister had been so willing to take Viv’s word without even verifying whether it were true or not.
“She’s right. I wouldn’t have admitted I was with Mick Roberts unless someone had been holding a gun to my head. I have a feeling that if we ask him, or have Kathleen check around the bar, we’ll get confirmation. She just cleared two of our suspects, Pat. At this rate, we’ll be out of them by nightfall.”
“Assuming everyone has told us the truth, which is one big assumption, that leaves us with Jenna and Robin. Frankly, I can’t see either one of them doing it.”
“All we can do is play out the hand we’ve been dealt,” Annie said as she drove away.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re headed for Robin’s house,” my sister told me. “We need to figure out a way to get that key without her knowing it. Have you been able to come up with anything?”
“Not so far, but I’m still working on it,” I told her.
“Well, work quickly, because we’re nearly there.”
Chapter 18: Annie
I hoped Pat could come up with something on the spur of the moment. Otherwise, we were going to have to come right out and ask Robin for her key to Timothy’s office. Since she was one of our final two suspects, I wasn’t all that keen on alarming her. “Are you ready?” I asked my brother as we approached Robin’s door.