When No One Was Looking (Sophie McGuire Mysteries)

by Jenny Rebecca Keech

  “It’s a start. You can question the men and find out. I don’t know. But someone’s upset. George is dead. Someone messed with my car.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he groaned.

  “But that’s one of the reasons I went out there to meet George. He said he knew something about what happened with my car. He was there that night at Marissa’s.”

  Gabe looked back at me with speculation. “He was there? Why?”

  I shrugged. “Waiting for Susan, I believe. But he was out in the parking lot in his car waiting. My vehicle was parked to the side but I’m wondering if George didn’t see something. If not the actual tampering, maybe someone who was outside that struck him as odd.”

  “You know, both places, Johanna’s shop and Marissa’s, were spots where it should mainly have been female participants. And, Chloe told me that the way that Rebekah was killed made her think of a woman as a killer.”

  “Which was another point not in Johanna’s favor,” I added, raking my hands in desperation through my hair, “this is just great. All of my suspects are male.”

  Gabe nodded. “But it looks like only a woman had the time and opportunity to frame Johanna and arrange the damage to your brakes. And, it looks like it might have been a woman who killed Rebekah.”

  “But we don’t know that for certain,” I pointed out.

  “Almost,” Gabe countered. “The ligature marks on her neck point to someone having only minor upper body strength. It’s why Chloe believes that Rebekah was struck on the head before she was strangled as a way of keeping her struggles to a minimum. And even George, who was the smallest of these men, would have been more than strong enough to do the job easily.”

  “But I don’t have any female suspects,” I muttered, slamming my hand down on the table.

  “Welcome to my world, where sometimes not everything is neat and tidy,” Gabe stated as he rose and gathered the plates. He placed them and the utensils in the sink. Gabe turned around and leaned back against the counter.

  I stood and grabbed the used napkins, throwing them with aggression into the trash. “Then where does that leave me? If Johanna is your only suspect, am I supposed to believe that she’s behind the attack on me and George’s death? I stared at Gabe incredulous. “Unless you’re saying that there are two killers?”

  He stretched his shoulders like they were tight. “The chances that there are two killers is slim but,” He held up his hand to halt my interruption, “Not impossible. I am, however, inclined to believe that Johanna might, and I mean might, be innocent with what you’ve brought me. It at least opens the door to other possibilities.”

  “Yeah, we just don’t know what they are,” I grumbled.

  Gabe turned the water on and added suds. “We will.” He looked back at me. “And I do know where this leads you – out of this, completely.”

  He pointed a sudsy finger in my direction and I suddenly wondered if I should mention that the suds up his arm and the dishtowel he had tucked in his back pocket detracted from the glare he was giving me. I shrugged.

  “I mean it, Sophie. I don’t want to see you digging anymore into who killed Rebekah. Is that clear? If it isn’t, think on this: I keep threatening about hauling you off to jail. If you don’t leave it alone, you’re going to find out how strong a threat it is. I won’t let you endanger yourself or your kids by digging up something that someone is willing to kill to protect.”

  I butted in. “I won’t let anyone threaten my kids.”

  “Exactly. And people have that same level of protection that you have about your kids when it comes to certain secrets. Some people feel that there are secrets that are worth killing over.”

  I took another sip of water and passed the glass over to him. “So you find the right secret that someone is trying to hide, it’ll trail back to your killer?”

  “And sometimes the secret is never what you think it is,” Gabe said with a shrug.

  “You’re trying to tell me that these deaths might not have anything to do with just Rebekah Peterson?”

  Gabe finished the last dish. “Oh, Rebekah Peterson coming to town was probably the catalyst.” He took the rag out of his pocket and laid it on the counter after drying his hands. “But that’s enough business talk for one evening. Go home to your kids, Sophie.”

  I walked to his back door that led out onto the deck. I looked back. “We okay?” I asked quietly.

  Gabe looked down at his feet and then back up. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, we’re good.” He walked over to the door where I was and reached around me to unlock it before giving it a shove open.

  A cool breeze blew in and I shivered. Gabe seemed perfectly fine with the wind. He sighed. “Have the journal and anything else you’ve collected together in the morning. I’ll stop by and pick it up on the way into work.”

  Inwardly my muscles unclenched and I felt a buried relief rise. I realized that I didn’t like not being okay with Gabe. “Sure.” I smiled but it slipped a little when Gabe returned it without the movement meeting his eyes. Well, not completely okay was better than not okay at all. I think.

  I frowned and slipped out into the night. The door slid shut firmly behind me and I heard the lock click as I took the steps down and crossed the yard. Once on the deck by the kitchen door, I looked back.

  Gabe’s silhouette could be seen against the glass as he watched me make it safely home. His shadow against the glass disappeared. I turned, unlocked the door and slipped inside to the sound of a running television and giggles of seven year olds being allowed to stay up late.

  12

  I woke at four o’clock, slipped out of bed and dressed quietly. I had spoken to Paige the night before and told her I’d be at the shop before she woke. Paige had been a good enough sport to say that she would get Simon and Steven ready to be picked up by their grandmother before she got herself ready to go to Melissa’s party.

  I’d also dropped a reminder about the glads for mom and left the package for Gabe with the message that Paige was to tell him I’d gone in early for work because of a heavy day. That was one of the reasons I found myself moving briskly down Main Street at quarter to five on a cool April morning collecting my thoughts.

  Jane was at the shop waiting for me. I’d called her last night to fill her in on what had happened. She’d been appalled, more at my lack of including her, I think, than about George’s death. Anyway, after talking to her for an hour and a half, the time it took to calm her down, we both came to the same startling conclusion: George had wanted to show me something out at the old cistern behind the Larrinaga cottage on the edge of the waterway.

  The prospect that it might help solve the whole mysterious plot was too impossible to ignore. Jane had also agreed with me that if Gabe found either of us there that he’d string us both up on a pole.

  So a united decision had been made. Jane was hard at work finishing up the desserts Charlene Kirkwood had ordered for Melissa’s party. And with some pay to Dawson, a local girl who had agreed to open and man the shop for the morning, Jane and I were determined to be at the Larrinaga cottage no later than daybreak at seven to see if we could find what George had wanted me to see.

  I know. It was dangerous. If Gabe found out about it, we were toast. And I know, I could have mentioned it to him and trusted him to look for the truth, but this was Johanna’s future we were talking about. For that purpose, I’d lassoed Johanna in on this possible fiasco in the making.

  After calling and telling her that I had a lead on who might be Rebekah’s father, she’d agreed to wait out on Weaver road with an apparent broke down vehicle if or when she saw Pete heading toward the crime scene. Johanna would use the excuse that she’d been on her way to check on Marissa if anyone asked her.

  All she had to do was stop and loosen a few wires. Johanna had said all of this a touch too casually. I wasn’t completely enthusiastic about the idea until Johanna mentioned that she had a familiarity with this sort of thing, that the tactic had worked with
two previous guys in which she’d been interested. I had simply hung up, shaking my head as I left her to her devious machinations.

  Johanna and Jane were on the same network as Dr. Jonathan Maxwell, so we figured that no matter what happened with Pete, if Jo couldn’t stop him from coming, at least she’d be able to give us a heads-up about his location. More than enough time for Jane and I to leave the scene of the crime without being seen.

  All of this sounded good in mental planning but I was still surprised when we pulled up to the cottage, parked and turned off the engine with no interruptions to the plan. There was the slightest hint of mist across the ground that the rising sun would soon chase off. I climbed out and stretched. Jane followed me as we made our way around the back of the house and toward the cistern.

  Jane wrinkled her nose as she looked around. “So this is where you found him?” she asked.

  I nodded and pointed to the bloody M on the concrete. “Right next to that spot.”

  Jane shivered but leaned over to get a better view. “You think that Gabe will look into where Michael was last night?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. We just have to figure out what George wanted me to see.” I glanced around. “He brought me out here to show me something.”

  “Could have just been this place,” Jane volunteered.

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. George could have simply told me about this place if that was what he wanted to talk about, and like I mentioned, there are better places we could have met that are a whole lot closer to town.”

  Jane stood up and scanned the area. “Okay. Where do we start?”

  I studied the wall. “What would you do if you found out that you might not be able to keep an appointment later with someone?”

  Jane shrugged. “I’d call and let them know.”

  “This was twenty years ago. Cell phones weren’t everywhere, plus this is a person who you’re meeting on the side. It’s supposed to be a secret. You don’t want to take a chance someone might see.”

  “I see what you mean.” Jane’s look turned thoughtful. “If they were meeting in secret, in public they’d have to appear as if they were strangers, or at the very most, casual acquaintances.” Jane smiled, “Sounds kind of like trying to pass notes unnoticed in class.”

  It took a moment for what she said to hit me. My mouth dropped open as it clicked. “That’s it.”

  Jane glanced at me strangely. “What?”

  I looked at her with a knowing smile. “Notes. They would have used notes to pass information and they’d need an out of the way place for their ‘mailbox’ so to speak.” I gave a nod as I looked around. “This is it, somewhere no one would think to look.”

  Jane gave a spin as she glanced around. “I don’t know, sounds high schoolish. But you do have a point. This is definitely out of the way.”

  I shook my head. “Not for Seth. I’m betting there’s some path around here that used to connect to the main house. It’s probably overgrown by now.”

  “So we’re looking at –”

  I pointed. “The wall. The bricks, it has to be. The cistern’s too smooth. I don’t see where someone would have hidden anything away near it, but if one of the bricks came loose in the wall, someone might have been able to hide something small behind it—like a note.”

  Jane gave the wall a dry look. “That’s a lot of bricks. And the wall used to be a lot longer. For all you know, the hiding place, if there was one, is long gone.”

  I shook my head. “They met by the cistern. It’s got to be somewhere in this corner section of the wall that’s still standing.” I moved over to the right side of the corner and knelt. “Take the left side of the corner and I’ll look over here.”

  “What am I looking for exactly?” Jane grumbled.

  “If it’s loose, try to pull the brick out and look for a place with a hidey hole.”

  Jane was still grumbling as she knelt. “I don’t see why George wanted you to see an old hiding spot of Cindy’s. Why did it matter?”

  “Maybe we’ll discover that if we find it.”

  I was glad I had dressed for the dampness and dirt. I had no clue how I’d explain it to Gabe. He’d take one look at my mud encrusted knees and know I’d rooted in the marsh. I continued pushing on bricks. A few felt loose. One or two even came out. But on both there was no space behind them with room for a note or the like.

  I was starting to feel discouraged as I met Jane in the corner. We started at the ends again on the outside of the wall. Again we met at the corner with no results. I shook my head in frustration. Maybe Jane was right. Maybe the section had been destroyed years ago. There was no telling when the last time George had been out here. Maybe what he had wanted to show didn’t exist.

  Jane sat up and leaned back. She threw up her muddy hands in disgust. “Nothing.”

  I looked over the top. Most of the original top concrete rim that was mortared to the brick was gone, loosened by years of water and sun. Only in the crook of the wall was the top edge still there. It was concrete and heavy and covered the corner where the wall met. It was foot square flat piece. The brick wall there was two feet higher than the rest of the wall. I studied it, then stood. “Jane?”

  “What?”

  The corner part of the wall stood nearly to my waist. The concrete square that set on top of the corner bricks was about an inch and a half thick. I pointed to the corner point. “Do you think the water rises this high?”

  She looked over the complete wall, then out into the surrounding area. “I wouldn’t think so. The main part of the wall has been covered several times but the corner is higher.”

  “What better place to make as your hiding place.” I reached out, grabbed the concrete square and pushed. It slid slowly over to one side. There was a gap below. I peered inside. There were two letters near the top. The concrete top had helped seal the deep indentation in the high bricked corner.

  I reached in and pulled out the letters. They crackled as I gripped them. I turned them over in the sunlight, for the first time in who knew how long.

  Jane gasped and leaned in, “We did it. See what they say.”

  One looked older than the other by many years. It had Seth written on the front of it. I broke the seal and opened it first, tilting the paper up to the light. The lines were faded.

  It read, Dear Seth, I’m leaving this letter for you to give you a choice. I know I haven’t spoken to you in the past several weeks and that my actions have left a lot to be desired but I needed time to think about what’s been going on between us. And because of that, I’ve come to realize now that I truly do love you. It’s something I never thought I’d feel for anyone. It’s something I never thought I’d ever be willing to admit.

  A part of me is ashamed of my actions over the summer. I haven’t treated you in the way that I should have and now I no longer know if I am worthy of your love. So I am leaving that decision up to you. I’ve decided to leave Merry Hill tomorrow. I’m going to wait by the Orr Ferry from two to three tomorrow afternoon before I leave to head for Raleigh. It’ll be a good place to make a new start. If you still love me, come and meet me. Stop me from leaving. If you do, I believe I’ll have some wonderful news to share. If not, I’ll take it that you can’t forgive my actions and I won’t contact you again.

  The note was signed simply, Cindy.

  I handed it to Jane, who read it once, then again. She looked up. “I don’t get it. The letter’s here.”

  I nodded, “Which means that Seth never got it. How sad is that.”

  “Do you think the ‘news’ was about Rebekah?”

  “I’m sure of it,” I answered softly. “The question remains, why would Cindy put a letter in the box she wasn’t certain Seth was going to get after making such a dramatic show of leaving? And, why didn’t Seth get the letter?”

  “What about the other letter?”

  I looked it over. “The handwriting looks different than the first one and this one
is a lot less faded.” The flap popped open when my fingers slid under the tab. I pulled out several folded sheets and unfolded them. The letter was addressed to no one in particular. This time, I read it aloud.

  I don’t know who’s reading this. A part of me dreads that it might be you, Seth, but I doubt it. You haven’t been to the old meeting spot since Cindy left, and that’s already been several years now. A part of me doesn’t think you’ll ever come back here. Maybe that’s why I feel I can write this note. It’s a way of telling someone about the guilt I bear without ever really having to address my responsibility to the pain I’ve caused you.

  If, however, you’re reading this, Seth, you’ve probably already read the other note left there and are wondering why Cindy put it in the meeting spot so certain that you would get the message. Therein lays my culpability. After Cindy and I broke up, she would still occasionally speak to me and we remained somewhat friendly. I guess, in the end, she thought she could trust me with her future. She asked me to tell you about the note in the meeting spot as one last favor but as I listened to her rattle on about how happy and in love she was with you, it brought back all the bitterness I’d buried deep inside from how she used and hurt me, and then dropped me.

  So I said yes, no problem, I’d tell. And then I committed my sin. It didn’t take much, only the silence of less than a day. But with it, I destroyed the happiness of two people. I can’t explain my actions, Seth, and I can’t hope that you’ll ever be able to forgive me but I have to let someone know. This will be my redemption, this letter, knowing that someone, someday will at least know the truth. I’m putting it in the meeting spot with Cindy’s letter; it seems appropriate somehow. I’m sorry. George.

  I folded the letters back together. “So that explains it.”

  “Seth was Rebekah’s father.” Jane shook her head in disbelief.

  I nodded slowly, “And George wanted me to know.”

  “Well, Seth’s dead.” Jane looked at me strangely, “What was George trying to tell us about the murder? I can’t picture Seth killing his daughter. And if there aren’t two killers, then those letters still don’t explain who’s been doing the killing.”