by Sarah Fox
“I’m not?” That surprised her enough to keep her from leaving.
“Did you know that it was Ida Winkler who was blackmailing you?”
“I didn’t know, but I guessed. The place I was supposed to leave the money was her favorite spot.”
“Why was she blackmailing you?”
Chloe was still on her knees, but now she collapsed the rest of the way to sit on the blanket. “I can’t say.” Her face almost had a green tinge to it now.
“Chloe, Ida was blackmailing you and now she’s dead.”
Her eyes grew even wider. “I didn’t kill her!”
“Of course you didn’t. But if word gets out that she was blackmailing you, you could end up on the suspect list.”
She dropped her face into her hands. I waited for her to say something, or to break into sobs, but she remained still and silent.
I put a hand on her back. “Chloe…”
“I don’t know how Ida found out,” she said into her hands, her words muffled.
“Found out what?”
She finally raised her head. A single tear was trickling down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I met a guy in Port Angeles. Matthew. He was so charming and handsome.”
“But?” I prompted, knowing there had to be more.
Her shoulders sagged. “He neglected to mention he was engaged to someone else.”
“Oh, Chloe. I’m sorry.”
She drew in a deep breath. “Luckily things didn’t go far before I found out. Actually, his fiancée found out, and she told me.” Chloe shook her head. “It was a mess. He betrayed us both, and I kissed an engaged man. That’s not something I ever would have done knowingly.”
I put an arm around her shoulders. “Of course not.”
“It was so embarrassing, but at least only the three of us knew about it, or so I thought. Then one morning I found that note on my windshield.” Another tear tracked its way down her face. “I’ve been freaking out ever since, worried that Ida would keep wanting more money, that everyone would find out what happened.”
“You did what the note said and left money in the park?”
She nodded. “What else could I do?”
“Why didn’t you tell your family, or at least Ray?”
She wiped at another tear. “I couldn’t. I can’t. They’d be so disappointed in me.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Chloe.”
“Please don’t tell anyone, Marley. Not Brett, not anyone.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t be as bad as you think.”
“Please, Marley. I really don’t want them to know.” Her big blue eyes shimmered with more tears.
I hesitated, but I couldn’t bear to cause her any more distress.
“All right. I won’t tell anyone.”
Her relief was almost palpable. “Thank you, Marley.”
My heart heavy, I considered the implications of Chloe’s situation. “Do you have an alibi for the morning of Ida’s murder?”
The hint of color that had returned to her face drained away again. “I was in bed with a migraine that day. I didn’t see or talk to anyone.” She closed her hand around my wrist. “I really will be a suspect if this gets out.”
“Most likely,” I said, hating to confirm her fears.
“And since Ray’s my uncle, someone else might have to take over the investigation. It would be a mess.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
She released her grip on my wrist. “You really won’t tell anyone?”
“I promise.” I didn’t know if giving her my word on that was the right thing to do, but it was done now and I wouldn’t let her down.
She hugged me and wiped away the rest of her tears. With everything back in her purse, she got to her feet.
“You’re a good friend, Marley,” she said before giving me a tremulous smile and heading off along the beach.
As I watched her go, a fierce desire to protect her came over me. I didn’t want her to go through anything worse than she already had, and that meant I had to keep her off the official suspect list. The best way to do that was to hurry up and find the real killer before someone else discovered her secret.
—
I finished off another chapter of my book and then gathered up my things and returned to the house. I booted up my laptop and settled into a porch chair to do some research on security cameras. Half an hour later, all I’d decided was that the number of options available was overwhelming. I’d have to talk to someone who knew something about surveillance systems before I made a purchase.
Leaving Flapjack stretched out in a patch of shade on the porch, I shut down my laptop and wandered around the main floor of the house, thinking about ways to make the place feel more my own. In addition to renovating the kitchen, I was hoping to turn a second-story hall closet into a bathroom off my bedroom, creating a master suite. Those were the two biggest projects on my list, but there were smaller jobs I wanted to tackle as well. I wanted to remove the carpet in the formal living room to expose the original hardwood floors underneath, and I also planned to get some of the furniture reupholstered.
Aside from those tasks, a few rooms could do with fresh paint. I’d managed to get my bedroom painted—spring green above the white wainscoting—after moving in, but that was about the extent of my home improvements so far. Hopefully within the next year or so everything would be complete, though I was preparing myself for the fact that it might take longer.
I could do the rest of the painting myself, but I’d need help from professionals for the bigger jobs. Fortunately, Brett’s dad ran a home-renovation business, one Brett helped out with during the winter months when his own business slowed down. I’d had a few initial chats with Frank Collins about the renovations, but soon I’d have to get serious and book his team for the job.
Thinking about the Collins family brought my focus back to Chloe. I felt terrible for her, but at least she didn’t have to worry about receiving further blackmail notes from Ida. I half regretted the promise I’d made, though. The thought of keeping a secret from Brett—especially one about his sister—didn’t make me feel great.
With Brett on my mind again, my heart did a nervous dance that was getting all too familiar. I fixed myself a light lunch, but had to force myself to finish it, my appetite almost non-existent. Soon after, I heard footsteps on the back porch.
“Marley?”
“In here,” I called out, happy to hear Brett’s voice, though I wasn’t without a renewed flicker of anxiety.
As soon as he stepped in the door, I met him with a kiss and a hug, determined not to let fear stop me from showing my affection for him. It felt so good to hold him that I didn’t want to let go, but after a few seconds I stepped back and asked him how he was doing.
“Good. And happy I got a chance to see you.”
“I’m happy you did too.”
“I can’t stay long, unfortunately. I’m on my lunch break at the moment.”
“Things are busy?”
“Even more than usual. Mrs. Rivers over on Heron Drive decided to have a garden party this week and wants me to whip her yard into shape in three days, on top of my regular work.”
“You’re not overworking yourself, are you?” I asked with concern.
“No, I can manage this pace for a while. And she’s paying me extra because of the short notice. The only downside is that I don’t get to see as much of you as I’d like.”
“Not as much as I’d like, either.” I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around me.
“I know, but it won’t be for long. I’m going to rearrange my schedule so I work Saturdays instead of Mondays. That way we’ll at least have one day off the same.”
I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Of course. It might take a couple weeks to get everything arranged, but I’m determined to make it happen.”
I hugged him again. “That
will be great.”
“But for now, I have to run. I don’t think I’ll even get a chance to visit Bentley today.”
I could tell he was disappointed about that. “Do you think the vet would mind if I stopped by for a minute or two?”
“I don’t think so.”
Smiling, I gave him a quick kiss. “Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll text you later to let you know how he’s doing.”
“Thanks, Marley.”
With some reluctance on both our parts, he left to get back to work. I watched him go with a mixture of affection and unease. I knew that my mom was right, that I should tell Brett about my fears, but it hadn’t been the right time. When the right time would be, I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to think about the fact that I was avoiding the subject, so instead I set off for the vet clinic.
Chapter 14
When I arrived at the vet clinic, an assistant named Veronica led me to a room at the back of the building where one full wall was lined with kennels. Bentley was resting in one of the bottom cages, but as soon as he saw me approach, he raised his head and his tail thumped against the floor of his kennel.
“You look different,” I said as I crouched down to get closer to his level. “I see you had a haircut.”
“All the mats are gone now,” Veronica said as she opened the cage.
Bentley immediately jumped up, the wagging of his tail getting wilder.
“Take it easy,” Veronica cautioned him.
He paid her no heed, practically springing out of the cage to cover my face in doggie kisses. I laughed and gave him a hug. His dirty, matted fur had been shaved off, leaving only a thin layer of fluff over his skin. The haircut highlighted how skinny he was, the shape of his ribs visible through his thin coat. His injured leg had a neat row of stitches along the incision the doctor had made, and he still wasn’t putting his full weight on it, but he seemed to be in great spirits.
“The surgery was a success, so he should make a full recovery in time,” Veronica told me as I stroked the fluff on Bentley’s head. “He just needs to stay calm and quiet so his leg can heal. And he needs to put a bit of weight on.”
“Any idea what breed he is?”
“He’s a goldendoodle,” Veronica said, confirming what I’d suspected. “About two years old.”
I kissed the top of Bentley’s head and he gazed at me with adoration. “Still no luck tracking down his owners?” I asked Veronica.
“No.”
That was good news for Brett. I wouldn’t be sorry if he brought Bentley home. Even though I’d only spent a handful of minutes with the dog so far, I knew I was already growing attached to him. I showered him with attention for another moment or two, and then Veronica coaxed him back into his kennel. As I left the room, I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder. Bentley was watching me with sad eyes, and my heart broke a little. More than ever now, I was hoping that Brett would get the chance to adopt the homeless dog.
—
As I passed a sporting goods store on the way to my car, the front door opened and a familiar figure stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Hey, Marley. How’s it going?” Tommy asked as the shop’s door fell closed behind him.
“Good. You’ve been doing some shopping?” I nodded at the bag in his hand, emblazoned with the name of the store.
“New wheels for my skateboard.”
I noticed that the next store down was devoted to cameras and related equipment. “I was looking at security camera systems online earlier, but there were so many options to choose from and I had no idea which one to pick. Do you know anything about that sort of thing?”
“Sure. I can help you out.” He gestured at the camera store with his thumb. “If you want, we can take a look in there right now. They’ve got some good stuff.”
“That would be great,” I said, relieved by his offer.
I followed him into the store and listened carefully as he pointed out various security cameras and explained the features of each. After a time, I decided on a system with two cameras for what seemed to be an average price. Once I’d made the purchase and we’d left the store, Tommy promised to help me with the installation later in the week.
“Any word on who killed Ida Winkler?” he asked as we stood on the sidewalk next to my car.
“Not yet.”
“Any guesses?”
“I have several suspects in mind,” I said as I unlocked the rear door of my hatchback, “but I can’t seem to narrow down the list. There’s a chance Ida was blackmailing a man named Kirk Jarvis. If she was, that gives him a motive.”
“The guy who runs the junk shop?”
“That’s him.”
“I guess he and Ida were cut from the same cloth.”
I looked up from stashing my shopping bag in the back of my car. “What do you mean?”
“Ida was a known thief, right?”
I nodded. She’d stolen from The Flip Side years ago when my cousin Jimmy had employed her, and that was after she’d already spent time in jail for theft.
“I’ve heard rumors that Kirk deals in stolen goods and has his fingers in a few other dodgy schemes.”
“Really?” I said with interest.
“I don’t know any of it for sure,” Tommy said, “but I think there’s a good chance it could be true. If Ida was a thief and Kirk is a fence, maybe that’s how they knew each other.”
“It could explain the blackmail too. If Ida knew about his illegal activities, she could have held that over his head. Although, if he was moving her stolen goods, he’d have just as much over her, so maybe it doesn’t make much sense.”
“Unless she never actually dealt with him, but knew about what he was up to through the grapevine. I mean, if I’ve heard the rumors, Kirk’s fellow criminals have probably heard them too.”
“True.” It certainly gave me something to think about.
I offered Tommy a ride home, but he declined, saying he still had things to do nearby. We parted ways and I drove into the heart of Wildwood Cove to pick up some groceries. On my way home, I stopped to empty my mailbox. It took me two trips to carry everything inside the house, but soon I had my groceries put away.
With Flapjack winding figure eights around my ankles, I sorted through my small pile of mail. Aside from a couple of bills, the rest was junk. As I tossed the pile onto the kitchen table to be dealt with later, one flyer slipped free and fluttered to the floor, landing in a corner of the room. Flapjack pounced on it and proceeded to swat it with his paws, leaving tiny punctures in the colorful paper.
The sight of the flyer on the floor reminded me of the scrap of paper I’d found on Ida’s porch. If Ida was blackmailing Kirk and Chloe, there was always a possibility that she was blackmailing others as well.
Letting Flapjack continue to play with the flyer, I grabbed a notebook and pen and sat down at the kitchen table. Flipping to a fresh page, I wrote down the names of everyone I could think of who might have wanted Ida dead. By the time I’d finished, there were seven people on the list: Kirk Jarvis, Sheryl Haynes, Melinda Haynes, Mitch and Deanna Paulson, and Juliette Tran and her husband.
Next to Kirk’s name I wrote the word blackmail, but after that things became less clear. It was possible that Sheryl had wanted to increase the value of her home by getting rid of Ida so the messy front yard could get cleaned up, but that didn’t strike me as the strongest motive for murder. Surely there had to be easier ways to go about getting the junk taken away. Getting the town to enforce a bylaw, for example. Still, people had been known to kill over less than that, so I wasn’t ready to cross Sheryl’s name off my suspect list quite yet. Instead I wrote house value next to her name, followed by a question mark.
As for Melinda, I didn’t know what her motive was. I suspected it was the same as the one that sent her over to Ida’s place to pound on her front door, but she wasn’t going to tell me what was behind that, and I highly doubted that the explanation her mother had given me
was the true one.
Putting a question mark next to Melinda’s name, I moved down the list. Unfortunately, I had to add another question mark because I had no idea why the bank manager and his wife would want Ida dead. I had to keep their names there though, because I couldn’t ignore the suspicious conversation I’d overheard or the fact that Mitch Paulson had been prowling around Ida’s house.
As for Juliette Tran and her husband, they seemed like weak suspects to me. Maybe, like Sheryl, they’d wanted Ida’s yard cleaned up so they could get more money for their house while they were in Australia, but that didn’t strike me as the most incriminating motive. I left their names on the list, however. Juliette, at least, had been home at the time of Ida’s murder, giving her the opportunity to commit the crime.
Staring at my list, I sat back in my chair, letting out a frustrated sigh. I had very little to go on—several names, blackmail, and some neighborly disputes. I needed more than that if I was going to clear my name anytime soon. I didn’t even want to know what would happen if there was still a cloud of suspicion over my head when The Flip Side next opened. As much as I wanted to be as confident as Brett that everything would turn out all right for the pancake house, I couldn’t erase the concern from my mind.
I considered the blackmail angle again, and a light bulb went off in my head. Maybe Ida was blackmailing Melinda. That would explain why Melinda was so angry. But would it explain her public display of ire? If she had a secret that Ida was holding over her head, would she do something as risky as expressing her fury with Ida so publicly? Maybe. From what I’d heard about Melinda, she wasn’t the greatest at controlling her temper.
But that still left me with the question of why, in the middle of sorting through her father’s belongings, she would run next door in an attempt to confront Ida. Of course, it was always possible that she’d lied to me about what she’d been doing that morning. As I’d considered before, it was also possible that the display on Ida’s front porch was nothing more than a show, an attempt to make it seem like she didn’t know Ida was dead.
Another light bulb flared to life in my head.