She managed to steal a quick lunch at Daisy’s Luncheonette, but didn’t eat there. She felt too rushed for time, so she ate on the drive back to the Townsend house. It wasn’t ideal, but it’d be worth it on the other end to have a few extra minutes to get ready for Carly’s party.
The paint wasn’t dry enough to roll on a second coat. She’d have to do that tomorrow, but she could paint the upstairs rooms. It took some time to move all the painting cloths and supplies to the second floor, but once she got settled the hours flew by as she painted. Since the rooms upstairs were originally white, she wouldn’t have to do two coats to cover a wild color.
It was almost six by the time she finished. The workaholic in her was tempted to hustle a second coat of paint on the walls downstairs, but she wrestled the urge down, locked up, and drove home, all the while dreaming up what she might like to wear.
After a quick shower and an honest effort at blow-drying her hair into some semblance of style, she decided on a pair of black jeans that were hiding in the back of her closet. She’d bought them a year ago and continuously felt like they were too nice to work in, which resulted in her never wearing them. Then she picked out a green sweater that wasn’t too shabby. Redheads looked good in green, she thought. She must have read that in a magazine somewhere, so she threw it on, slipped her feet into black sneakers which had also been too nice to work in, and then grabbed her coat and was out the door.
By the time she got to Carly’s house and climbed out of her truck, she could hear the party guests murmuring from the yard behind the house. With a bottle of wine in hand, she walked up the driveway and around the side of the house, letting herself in through the gate.
The party was hopping already. She spotted Scott mingling with Larry, who cooked steaks on the grill near the refreshment table, while Scott's buddies, Officers Gunther and Garrison set up speakers near the back and plugged in their instruments. Celia was perched on her husband, Ken Johnson’s arm and laughing wildly at something he must have said. A number of women Carly worked with at Sunshine Flowers were milling about and chatting, as well as Clara, the owner of Bean There, who was setting out cookies and other sweets with the help of Cookie, the woman who ran the bakery next to her coffee shop. There were tiki torches all around, casting a pleasant glow over the party, and Kate spied a table topped with presents.
For Carly’s sake, she was glad the sky was clear and that the night held a hint of the day's warmth.
Kate rounded through the crowd, set the wine on the refreshments table, and gave Carly a squeeze. She looked pretty in a long, knit dress and stylish jacket. Then she grabbed a beer from an ice bucket near the refreshments table and joined Scott, who was now strumming a chord on his electric guitar to check that it was in tune.
“Hey, Katydid,” he said with excitement she’d arrived. The look of pure bliss on his face told her it was as much his party as Carly’s. Clearly, the anticipation of playing with his new band meant the world to him, and she was eager to watch him play as well.
The party kicked off with a bang when Carly announced Scott’s band, cleverly titled The Law, would now play a set. The guys got behind their instruments, turned up their amps, and hit in with a rock rendition of the Happy Birthday song, which everyone joined in singing, following Ken’s lead as he belted out lyrics into the mic. Scott was right. Ken had a strong singing voice, but Kate’s eye was drawn to Scott, as he worked his guitar with laid-back precision that amplified his charming good looks. For a moment, she felt like she was seventeen again. They’d just started dating. Scott had invited her to check out his high school band. She felt the same thrilled jitters. Got lost in the music the same way she had all those years ago.
After their set, Carly opened her birthday presents and gave Kate an extra big squeeze for the gift certificate to Harriet’s Hairdos, which she also thanked Scott for since Kate had included his name on the card. Then they ate steaks and hotdogs and grilled vegetables, followed by drinks and a second set of The Law’s covers of classic rock songs.
Kate was much too full to have a slice of birthday cake once Carly blew out her candles and kissed Larry. But at the end of the night, she took her slice to-go and let Scott walk her to her truck out front.
“You got skills. I’ll give you that much,” she told Scott with a smile, but it immediately slid off her face when she realized someone had tucked a note under her windshield wiper.
She unfolded it.
“What’s that?”
But she didn’t respond. She was too confused by what it said, which was simply Talk to Jessica.
Chapter Nine
Kate managed to downplay the anonymous note when Scott had asked about it. He’d already warned her not to get involved with Walter’s murder investigation and had specifically forbid her to talk to Jessica in regard to Greg having helped her to find her son, which hadn’t been successful.
But the next day, once she packed up her truck and made a pit stop at Grayson’s to pick up more supplies and also gave Larry a check to clear off a chunk of her ever-growing balance, she drove over to Jessica’s apartment where she was now living with her new husband, Dean Wentworth.
Like Clem Tully, Dean was a large scale contractor, who Kate had developed a fondness for since he was always recommending her to his customers when smaller fix-it jobs cropped up.
As she suspected, Dean’s truck wasn’t parked out front of the apartment complex, which told her he’d already left for work. When Jessica had been married to the late mayor, Dudley Stuart, she’d mostly kept to the house. Dudley had had a way of putting her down, and she hadn’t felt confident enough to take a job, even part-time work, mainly because he discouraged it. Now that Jessica was happily married to Dean, she’d started a home-based business, making fashionable t-shirts and selling them online, and at the same time, she managed her late husband’s trucking company. In short, Jessica proved to be quite business savvy and had a knack for multitasking.
Kate parked in front of the complex. She draped a large, blue tarp over the materials in the truck bed in case any of the neighborhood teens got mischievous ideas, and then rang the Wentworth’s apartment buzzer in the entryway.
Jessica’s melodic voice came tinny through the speaker. “Who is it?”
“Hi Jessica. It’s Kate Flaherty. Do you have a few minutes?”
Jessica’s response was simply the blaring ring of the door unlocking. Kate hurried through the lobby and rode the elevator, which creaked and vibrated, as it ascended to the fifth floor.
The Wentworth’s apartment was at the very end of the hall, and as shabby as the building seemed from the outside as well as the interior lobby and rickety old elevator, the apartment itself was grand. It was newly renovated and furnished with a number of pricey items that reminded Kate of a French cottage.
“Come in, come in,” said Jessica, happy and also a bit thrown by Kate’s unannounced visit. “What a party last night,” she commented. “Who knew Scott had such talent on the guitar?”
“He kept it up since high school,” Kate said easily. “But yes, I was impressed as well.”
Jessica was dressed in khakis and a cozy sweater. She led Kate into the living room, though the apartment had an open layout with an islet separating the living room from the kitchen that Jessica padded around.
“Would you like a coffee?” she asked, as she pulled two mugs from the cabinet. “I just made a pot.”
“Yes, thank you.”
As Jessica poured the coffee then returned to the living room, she asked, “So what brings you here?”
Kate took a deep breath, composing her thoughts. It was months ago that Jessica had opened up about her missing son, but it still seemed the sort of topic one wouldn’t dive into easily. She hoped by bringing Bradley up, she wouldn’t offend or upset Jessica.
“When I left Carly’s party last night, I found a note on my car,” she began. “I don’t exactly know how to say this, but speaking personally, well, I’m not s
ure you heard, but I’m in the midst of divorcing Greg.”
“Good, that’s good for you,” she said, as her eyes rounded sympathetically.
“So because of that I’ve gotten proactive with trying to understand what happened to him. You had mentioned that Greg tried to help you find your son all those years ago when he disappeared.”
“He did,” she said.
“By the way, has Scott talked to you at all?”
Kate could tell that he had by the way Jessica sighed and sank into an armchair. Kate took a seat on the couch and drank her coffee patiently.
“You want to know about those photos,” she said finally. “And so do I.”
“So you didn’t know that Walter knew your son? That they’d taken those pictures?”
“No,” she said bewildered. “I had no idea. I didn’t really know Walter, certainly not back then.” After a long thoughtful pause, she asked, “You think those photos have to do with your husband?”
“It seems possible,” she said then quickly admitted, “but at this point it's just a gut feeling I have. The fact that Bradley disappeared, and then Greg did, seems too great a coincidence to be a coincidence.”
“You’d mentioned a note?”
“I don’t know who left it on my truck, but it said to talk to you.”
“Talk to me?”
“I’m not sure if it meant in reference to Greg or Walter’s murder or any of the other bizarre things that have been going on in Rock Ridge for the past six months, but I figured I’d give it a shot.” Kate studied her expression, which appeared consistent. She was just as confused and in the dark as Kate. “Do you know if Dudley knew Walter?”
“Ah,” she sighed and shook her head. “Dudley led a life so separate from mine that towards the end of our marriage I felt like I didn’t even know him. He shared almost nothing with me, whether personal or business. He came and went as he pleased. And I didn’t complain, because the house only felt peaceful when he wasn’t there.”
Kate drank more of her coffee and wondered who had left the note.
To cover her bases, she asked, “Is it possible Bradley was taken to threaten Dudley into, I don’t know, voting a certain way on something or entering into a deal?”
Jessica’s face went long, and then her expression hardened with anger. “I really hope not. God, he was careless when it came to his family.” She shook off her anger and smiled. “I’m just grateful I have a good man now. To think, all those years wasted.”
Kate finished her coffee and got the sinking feeling that Jessica simply wouldn’t be able to help her. But then Jessica’s eyes snapped up and locked with Kate’s.
“I’m not sure if it's anything, but leading up to Bradley’s disappearance, I remember Dudley was really upset with Neil Motley.”
Neil Motley was the last chief of police, who Scott had replaced. Right around the time Greg had disappeared, Neil abruptly quit and moved down to North Carolina, and it had always given Kate a strange feeling that he had. Not to mention Kate had felt there was something off about Neil. She’d not been able to put her finger on it, but she never liked the man. He’d given her a bad feeling.
Jessica went on. “Dudley didn’t really talk about it or explain why there was sudden tension between him and Neil, but he wasn’t shy about griping at home. It was peculiar because Dudley really didn’t gripe like that about anything else. Whatever upset him, he generally kept it to himself or directed his grievances to people he worked with, never me.” She took a sip of coffee then added, “You might want to talk to Ken Johnson since he worked so closely with Neil.”
Better yet, Kate thought, I could talk to Ken’s wife, Celia. Celia was unabashedly the town gossip, and as unnerved as Ken made Kate, Ken’s relationship with Celia was close and very strong. Perhaps he’d known something and mentioned it to his wife.
“You really think this is all connected?” she asked when Kate sank into deep thought.
Kate was tempted to explain the land deal, how the development had been percolating in the works for years and years, and how the string of murders seemed to trace back to it, whether incidentally or directly. But if she told Jessica, she'd risk the information spreading like wildfire, which would be terrible for Scott’s investigation, not to mention her relationship with Scott. Whenever Kate got proactive, or nosey, as he saw it, she felt like she was walking on thin ice.
“It could be,” she said vaguely. “Or maybe not. I just want to expose whatever’s really going on, so we can finally have answers and hopefully make Rock Ridge a murder-free town again.”
Jessica nodded her agreement.
“When Scott talked to me, he didn’t let on who might have killed Walter Miller,” said Jessica. “But does he know? Do you know? I mean they thought it was Justina, but was it?”
“No, I really don’t think it was Justina. But I can’t say who Scott thinks did it,” she added, which was a true statement. She really didn’t know what went on inside that head of his.
Kate thanked her for the coffee, and Jessica walked her to the door.
“Do you happen to know a man named Mike Waters?” she asked before leaving.
“Mike Waters?” she asked, saying his name as though it was familiar to her. “Yes. I mean, I don’t know him personally, but Mike was Greg’s assistant.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know that? Mike was one of Greg’s students.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because, though I never met him directly, when Greg was helping me look for Bradley he told me Mike Waters was assisting him in that effort.”
Secrets upon secrets. Greg’s life with her had been a complete lie.
Reading Kate’s shock, Jessica added, “It’ll be good once the divorce goes through. You need to put that man behind you.”
Kate couldn’t agree more.
When she got to her truck, she wasted no time and drove off to the third house on Justina’s list. She wasn’t sure how she’d concentrate on her work with so many loose ends whipping through her mind, but she couldn’t pay her bills speculating on murder motives. She needed to get through the list of repairs on Heather Dover’s house, swing by Carnegie Real Estate to pick up her check, deposit it, and then tackle the last house.
As she went about her day doing just that, Kate couldn’t help but wonder who had left the note, where the murder weapon was stashed, who had been behind the camera taking that photo of Walter with young Bradley, and what exactly had been the dynamic between Greg and Mike Waters.
It was all connected. It had to be. And still she couldn’t draw the lines, attempting to only confuse her more and sent her heartrate through the roof. It was frustrating, but strangely exciting. She was so close.
As she painted Heather Dover’s walls with artisan precision, she obsessed over her hunch that the killer had to be either Mike Waters or the mayor, Harvy Stuart—which in her mind meant that the Justina’s gun had to be in one of their possessions.
The notion that talking to Celia would be even better than talking to Ken Johnson, who Jessica had mentioned would know about the last police chief, Neil Motley, sprung to mind.
Celia also worked for the current mayor, Harvy Stuart, though part time. She’d previously worked as a nurse but took on some part-time hours for the last mayor as his receptionist then Harvy—in a sense—inherited her when he came into office.
Kate knew she’d be killing two birds with one stone if she talked to Celia. She didn’t know where Mike Waters lived, and even if she did, she couldn’t very well break in and search his home for a gun. But she might have a shot at searching Harvy’s office or perhaps his home since, according to Justina, he was set to move into Jessica’s old mansion later that day.
Suddenly, Kate got excited and realized she hadn’t been painting.
What if she could get into Harvy’s office while he was moving? If she didn’t find the gun, she could then get into the mansion once he’d moved all his belo
ngings in, because she still had the key.
She felt a sudden twinge of guilt at how her mind was working. She’d never been one to be so unethical, and she didn’t like this new impulse, but she also couldn’t fight it.
Well, she thought, first things first. She’d stop off at the mayor’s office and see what Celia might spill when prompted, and take it from there.
Kate finished painting, opened all the windows of every room she’d painted, and collected her materials, which she placed in her truck bed before she headed off to the mayor’s office on Main Street. Harvy Stuart’s office, where Celia worked, was located in the same building as the police station, so Kate kept an eye out not to run into Scott York, Ken Johnson, or any of the other officers who might question her visit to the mayor’s office, as she crossed the parking lot and made her way through the building.
It was fast approaching noon, and she hoped Celia was in the habit of taking her lunch later in the day. She didn’t want to miss the receptionist, and at the same time hoped Harvy wouldn’t be there.
Kate found Celia seated at her desk. Her posture was erect, and she held her head high though she glanced at her desk, filing out some kind of form. As always, Celia had a regal air and dressed with style, which might have contributed to her reluctance to look up and see who had stepped into the anteroom.
Kate took that moment to glimpse Harvy’s door. It was shut. Had he shut it for privacy or was it that he wasn’t even in his office? She hoped to find out.
Starting in with a bit of small talk, Kate said, “I love the dress you gave Carly last night.”
The compliment must have warmed her, because Celia brightened with a smile then popped alive when she realized Kate had said it.
“I hope she wears it,” said Celia. “She likes to resist my suggestions, you know, the eternal teenager in her who refuses to let her mother make her happy.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll wear it. It’s very stylish and also fitting for autumn.”
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