“Care to have a dinner guest tonight?”
“We’d love it.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I bring Smoky Joe. If it’s a problem, he’ll stay in the car.”
“No problem at all. We even have an old litter box somewhere in the garage. I’ll send your uncle out for a bag of kitty litter.”
“I can bring some. There’s plenty here in the library.”
Aunt Harriet laughed. “Don’t bother, Carrie. I expect Smoky Joe will be a frequent visitor.” She lowered her voice. “Besides, it will be a good excuse to get your uncle out and about. He fell asleep in front of the TV an hour ago.”
When five o’clock arrived, I went searching for Smoky Joe. Usually he sensed when it was time to go home and came looking for me. But today I checked out every nook and cranny on the library’s main level as I called his name. I peered into the computer room, the room where we held our meetings, the children’s area. No sign of him. I hoped he hadn’t ventured downstairs or up into the attic.
When I circled the reading room for the second time, I noticed that the door to the coffee shop was closed. As I approached the closed door, I heard voices raised in anger.
“I told you, I don’t know who he is! Why can’t you believe me?”
“How can I, Jennifer? You swore you weren’t sleeping with that jeweler, didn’t you? Now he’s gone, and I catch you with some stranger!”
“Catch me? He was threatening me, Paul. I was terrified.”
“It sure didn’t look that way. I better never see you with him again.”
“I hope I never see him again!”
The Darbys were arguing. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but my feet remained glued to the floor.
Jennifer let out a deep sigh. “I’ve had enough of your badgering. I’ll move out and stay at my sister’s.”
“You can’t leave me! I need you. You’re my wife.”
“You smother me!” Jennifer cried.
There were sounds of scuffling, and then she shouted, “Let go of me!”
The door flung open and Paul Darby stormed out of the coffee shop. He glared at me as he passed. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for my—”
I heard a meow as Smoky Joe came running toward me. But instead of stopping, he raced into the coffee shop and scurried behind the counter.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” I said to Jennifer as she sank into a chair at one of the small tables, holding her head in her hands.
“It doesn’t matter. He won’t believe a word I say.” She released an unhappy bark of laughter. “That man was harassing me, and Paul thought he was my new lover.”
My pulse quickened. “What man?”
Jennifer looked up, astonished by my curiosity. “I don’t know his name, but I saw him leaving the jewelry store late one night when I was going to meet Benton. I think it was a day or two before Benton was murdered.”
“Was he older? Fierce looking?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I bet it’s the same guy who hassled me yesterday.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Where did you see him? What did he say?” I asked.
“I went home for lunch today because I wanted to take care of a few things. Paul wasn’t there. The man was waiting for me when I came out of the house to drive back to the library.”
Jennifer looked down at her feet. “He asked me if I knew where Benton kept his merchandise. I told him he kept it in the safe, of course, but that answer didn’t suit him. He got this crazy look and grabbed my arm. ‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ he said. I tried to break free, but he held on tight.” She looked up at me, fear in her eyes. “He kissed my forehead and said we’d be talking again soon. It really creeped me out. He took off when Paul came walking toward us.”
“Tom Quincy,” I said. So much for Dylan getting him to leave Clover Ridge.
“Who’s Tom Quincy?” Jennifer asked.
“A thief who was doing business with Benton,” I said more forcefully than was probably necessary. “Benton never told you about him?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know anything involving the store.”
“It turns out Benton had some illegally gotten gems in his possession. And lots of people are after them.”
“Including your father.”
I nodded. “So you know that much.”
“I don’t have any idea where they are!”
“Nobody does. Mariel hired Quincy to find the gems.”
“I suppose she’ll claim them for herself.”
I laughed. “No chance of that happening. If Quincy finds them, he’ll fence them and pocket the money.” I watched Jennifer slowly get to her feet as if she were in a daze. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m going to stay at my sister’s house for a few days. Eventually, Paul will come get me, and it will start all over again.”
“So why do you stay with him?” I realized what I’d just said and began apologizing. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any business asking you that. Your marriage is none of my business. It’s just that you seem to be under such a terrible strain.”
There were tears in her eyes when she answered. “I can’t abandon Paul now, no matter how awful things are between us. We’ve been together since high school. Losing his job did terrible things to his ego. Then Benton came along, and we fell in love. But Benton’s gone now.”
Smoky Joe suddenly appeared. I reached down to pet him. “What on earth does he find so interesting behind the counter?” I asked.
“Probably the mouse. Or mice. There’s probably more than one.”
My mouth fell open. “You’ve seen it?”
Jennifer nodded. “I’ve been so upset lately, I’ve let things slide. I’ll do a thorough cleaning tomorrow. Hopefully, the mouse family will move on.”
“I sure hope so.” I stood. “If you ever need someone to talk to, I’d be happy to be your sounding board. But right now I better get over to my aunt and uncle’s.”
Chapter Eighteen
It’s amazing how one’s mood and outlook can change in twenty-four hours, I mused as I slipped under the covers and reached for the novel I’d been reading. Last night I’d gone to sleep feeling that nothing was going right in my life. I certainly had a different slant on things tonight. I’d just spent the most wonderful evening with Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bosco, laughing and chatting over a delicious meatloaf dinner. They were my family, my go-to people who sustained me when I was feeling blue. I appreciated having them in my life, especially since I never could depend on my parents for emotional support.
Somehow Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bosco managed to make me see that dumping Dylan was the dumbest thing I could possibly do. Yes, he should have told me he was tracking my father as a suspect in the heist he’d been investigating. But, more importantly, Dylan and I cared about each other. The fact that he’d texted me to say how much he cared was proof that he was steadfast and already committed to our relationship—two qualities, they insisted, I’d appreciate more and more as time went on.
Knowing he’d been chasing after Jim still rankled. But as Aunt Harriet said when I was helping her put the kitchen back in order, in real life people sometimes hurt the person they love. The important thing is to learn from the experience and move on. I hoped to be able to do that. At least that’s what I texted Dylan. He wrote back to say he had a good feeling about us.
My concentration was shot. I found myself reading the same paragraph again and again. No surprise there. I had my own mystery to solve. Who had killed Benton and where had he hidden the gems? Wherever I turned, Tom Quincy showed his face—confronting my father, menacing Jennifer and me, searching for the gems on Mariel’s behalf, though it was clear to me he was after them for himself.
I yawned as it occurred to me that I ought to tell John Mathers that Quincy had never left Clover Ridge. I should tell Dylan as well. And my father. I sighed. He wasn’t going to be happy that Joh
n now knew Quincy had been the person who’d assaulted him. Well, I’d told John and there was no way to undo it now.
My thoughts, which were beginning to dovetail, one into another, veered to musings about the Darbys. Jennifer was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties. I had no idea if she’d attended college or had trained for a career, but she seemed content to run the library’s coffee shop. Though it couldn’t be paying much of a salary. And Paul was out of work, had been for some time. Had Jennifer tried to get a better-paying job? Was she too emotionally fragile to hold one? Did she love Paul?
Paul had a volatile temper, which was probably exacerbated by being unemployed and knowing his wife had taken a lover. Did Paul kill Benton? He’d attacked him the night Benton had presented his program. Paul knew exactly where he’d be, where to wait for him. The only thing he hadn’t counted on was my presence on the scene.
Jennifer was harder to figure out. She’d fallen for Benton in a big way and claimed that he loved her too. Was she being naïve and merely the last in a long line of adulterous affairs, or had Benton been telling her the truth about wanting to go away with her and start a new life, improbable as it sounded?
If that was so, Benton was counting on fencing the gems he and Jim had stolen to start a new life with Jennifer. Which meant he’d hidden the gems somewhere close by. Somewhere in Clover Ridge, I was willing to bet. Somewhere safe.
I turned on my side and wondered about Jennifer and Paul’s troubled marriage. If she’d been so enamored of Benton, and Paul found out and was driving her crazy as she claimed, why didn’t she leave him? Did she still love him despite their problems? Or did she feel obligated to take care of him? Not having a single answer to my many questions, I finally drifted off to sleep.
* * *
I turned away from the furry face rubbing mine. A minute later, a paw worked its way under the covers and patted my arm.
“I’m getting up,” I mumbled. I glanced at the clock. “No, I’m not, Smoky Joe. It’s not even six o’clock.”
But he was persistent. Five minutes later, after stopping in the bathroom, I fed him his breakfast. “You’re waking me up much too early,” I told him as he guzzled down his food. “If you keep it up, I’ll have to put you in the laundry room for the night.”
I showered, got dressed, and ate my own breakfast, then figured I had enough time to visit Jim before going in to work. As I drove to the hospital, I called the police station to tell John what I’d learned the day before. This time Gracie, the dispatcher, answered my call. I heard voices in the background. Surprising, I thought, for a small-town police station at seven fifteen in the morning.
“Yes, the lieutenant’s in his office. I have a feeling he’ll want to talk to you,” she said.
Why? A shiver of fear chased down my spine. What could Jim have done this time? Nothing, I told myself. He was still in the hospital. Unless Quincy had gone after him a second time and managed to—
“Carrie, can you stop by the station?” John asked. “I’d like us to have a chat.”
A chat? “Is this about my father? Is he all right?”
“Jim’s fine, Carrie. Still in the hospital, far as I know.”
“Oh, good.” I released a gallon of air. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
As soon as I walked through the station door, Gracie buzzed me into the section past the main waiting area, where several police officers were conversing in quiet tones. They stopped to watch her escort me to John’s office. What’s going on? What does it have to do with me?
Gracie knocked on the closed door. Officer Danny Brower opened it. He and John exchanged glances. Danny nodded to me as he left with Gracie. Suddenly alarmed, I wondered if I’d done something illegal, something that I wasn’t aware of.
“Carrie, thanks for coming,” John said. “Please shut the door and have a seat.”
“Sure.” I did as requested. John’s eyes were bleary, and his usually smoothly shaven face had a day’s growth. It looked as if he hadn’t been to bed at all last night.
“Carrie, Tom Quincy’s dead.”
I stared across the desk at John. “Really? When did this happen?”
“Late last night. We found his body on the street. He’s been murdered.”
I blinked furiously as the news sank it. I disliked the man. In truth, he terrified me because I knew of his capability for violence. Still, hearing that he’d been murdered was a shock to my system.
“Why do you want to talk to me? Do you think I might have killed him because he bullied me the other night?”
John gave me a half smile. “No, Carrie. You’re not here as a person of interest. I want to hear once again what transpired between you and Quincy Saturday afternoon. I hope you don’t mind if I record it so I can go over it at my leisure.”
So much had happened since then; Saturday afternoon’s incident seemed to have occurred ages ago. “As I told you, he tailed me in a blue car when I left the hospital after visiting my father. I made a sudden turn and thought I’d lost him, but when I finished shopping in the village center, he came up to me in the library parking lot and said I needed to remember he was smarter than I was and that he and my father had a business arrangement and my father had better not forget it.”
“Anything else?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Do you know what he meant by ‘a business arrangement’ with your father?”
I decided to go for the truth. “Jim said Quincy shook him down for three thousand dollars. He told Quincy he didn’t have it, but he’d get it for him.”
“Do you know why Tom Quincy thought your father would give him the money if they had no deal going?”
“I don’t. I think Jim decided it would be the best way to get rid of him. I mean, get Quincy off his back,” I quickly added.
John’s laugh held no humor. “It seems someone else wanted to get rid of Quincy.”
“He lied to Dylan. He never left Clover Ridge.”
John’s head jerked up, suddenly at attention. “You’re right. How did you know?”
“For one thing, Angela’s mother is friendly with Benton’s widow. Mariel told Rosemary Vecchio she’d hired someone to find some missing gems. I think the person she hired was Tom Quincy.”
“Interesting,” John said calmly. But the way his eyes flashed, I gathered this was news to him. “What gems was she talking about?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t say—or how she knew Benton had hidden them.”
Oops! John will wonder how I knew Benton had hidden the gems. He didn’t press me.
Though I knew he would have loved to drill me on the subject. Time to redirect John’s attention.
“I heard Jennifer and her husband arguing in the coffee shop. He’d come upon Quincy talking to Jennifer outside their house. He thought there was something romantic going on because Quincy kissed Jennifer on the forehead, when in fact he was menacing her.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Could be he thinks she might know where Benton hid the gems that Mariel wanted him to find for her.”
John eyed me thoughtfully. “How many people are after those gems, do you think?”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. Instead of answering, I asked, “Who do you think killed Tom Quincy?”
John sat back in his chair and stretched his arms overhead. “The million-dollar question. He was found on a deserted street a few blocks from the Darbys’ home. Knifed in the back.”
“Knifed? Like Benton. Do you think he was killed by the same person?”
“Very likely, though no weapon was found, just as in Benton’s case. The medical examiner should be able to tell us if the same knife was used on both victims.”
I hesitated before asking, “Do you think Paul Darby killed Quincy?”
“We’re questioning him now.”
I left John, promising to call if I remembered anything else I’d heard when Jennifer and Paul were arguing. I climbed into my car and drove slowly t
o the hospital.
Once again, all arrows pointed to Paul Darby. He was strong enough to attack Quincy, and he had motive as well. Besides, Quincy’s body was found near his home. But wouldn’t he have moved the body to avoid suspicion?
Certainly Jennifer wasn’t strong enough to take on Quincy. But what if he’d come to her house to hassle her again? Her nerves were strung out, and she was unable to take any more stress. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, given all she’d been exposed to, she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. If Quincy had come and upset her again, she might have followed him and stabbed him in the back to be rid of him once and for all.
Chapter Nineteen
I found Jim at the nurses’ station, chatting away with an attractive nurse in her forties. Her name tag said “Vicki.”
“Here she is! My daughter’s come to visit.” He hugged me. I tried to break his hold, but he squeezed tighter.
“Hello, Carrie,” Vicki said. “Your father’s been waiting anxiously for your arrival.”
“I had to stop at the police station first,” I said.
Vicki’s eyebrows shot up, but Jim nodded. “John called. He’ll be by to talk to me sometime this afternoon.”
A buzzer sounded. “Catch you later, Jim.” Vicki waved over her shoulder as she strode off to a patient’s room. “I want to hear all about it.”
When we got to Jim’s room, I nodded to his roommate, who was watching TV, and then closed the curtain to give us some privacy. My father sat in his chair. I perched on the foot edge of his bed.
“So, Tom Quincy’s bit the dust,” he mused.
I nodded. “Knifed in the back near Benton’s girlfriend’s house.”
He guffawed. “This time they can’t try to pin it on me. I was here in the hospital. Nurses and aides come in often enough to give me an alibi for the night.”
“Speaking of which, when are they letting you out?”
“Wednesday morning. The doctor wants to make sure there’s no internal bleeding. Can you pick me up around eleven?”
“Sure. I’ll be here,” I said. “Any idea how long you’ll be staying with me?”
Jim shot me a look of exaggerated hurt. “Don’t tell me you can’t bear to put up with your old dad for a while.”
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