Raspberry Revenge

by Jessica Beck

  “Then we’re both perfectly suited for our chosen occupations. Surely Grace will be more than happy to fill in for me.”

  “I’m sure she will,” I said, not wanting to share with Momma that our third partner was absent as well. If she knew that Grace was someplace else, she’d worry about me, and I wasn’t too keen on that happening.

  She must have read some subtle clue in my voice or my expression though, because she picked right up on it. “Suzanne, Grace is coming, isn’t she?”

  “After a brief delay, she’ll be here,” I admitted. Lying to her was not an option.

  “I could always cancel my meeting,” Momma said as she reached for her cellphone.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t need a babysitter around the clock.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that you did,” Momma said calmly. “I just don’t think it’s safe for any of us to work alone on this.”

  “I won’t,” I said, knowing that it was the truth. As crazy as it sounded, if I went against what I’d just promised my mother, I’d never be able to forgive myself, even if I ended up dying because of it.

  “Good. Be patient, and the answers you seek will come to you.”

  “Now you sound like a bad fortune cookie,” I said with a grin.

  “My opinion is always that any fortune cookie is better than no fortune cookie at all,” she said with a smile. “I’ll touch base with you later.”

  “Good luck with your meeting.”

  “My dear, sweet child, I can assure you that luck has nothing to do with it.”

  After I drove my deposit to the bank, I had no idea what to do next. Maybe if I drove around town, an idea would spark and I’d know where to go next once I had reinforcements. There were four activities I generally used to come up with new ideas: a walk, a drive, a shower, and a nap. Okay, the nap rarely worked, but hey, even if it didn’t, I’d still get a nap. I drove around a bit before I resorted to one of my other options when I found myself in front of Nathan’s Sport Shop. It wasn’t a place I ordinarily visited, but I remembered that I wanted another softball bat for the donut shop, so I pulled into the parking lot and went in. The owner himself was there, all dressed in camouflage and looking as though he were ready to go hunting, which he may have been, for all I knew. I didn’t participate in that particular activity, so I wouldn’t know.

  “Suzanne Hart, as I live and breathe,” Nathan said. “Or is it Bishop these days?”

  “No, it’s still Hart,” I said.

  “I should have pegged you for one of those modern women.”

  I was about to unload on him with both barrels when I noticed that he was smiling at me. “You picked a bad day to poke the bear, Nathan. I almost came after you.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t just see it in your eyes. Wow, you must be having one supremely bad day. Sorry about that crack. You know I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Before you had Evie, I might not be so sure, but I know how much having that daughter of yours has turned you into a big softy.”

  “Hey, keep it down, will you? You’ll ruin my rep around here,” he said with a grin.

  “Do you have any new pictures on you?”

  “I might be able to find one or two,” he said, his smile broadening as he pulled out his phone and brought up the latest crop of shots.

  “She’s adorable, isn’t she?”

  “You’d have to ask someone else. I’m prejudiced.”

  “As well you should be,” I said.

  “I know you didn’t come by to look at baby pictures, Suzanne. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a softball bat,” I said.

  As we walked to the sporting goods section of his shop, he asked, “What happened, did you lose the last one you bought from me?”

  “No, but I’d feel better having two at the shop.”

  He shook his head. “Suzanne, you need something a little more powerful than that for protection.”

  “I’m married to the chief of police, Nathan. How much more protection do you think I need?” I asked him.

  “Maybe more than this,” he said as he handed me the bat. There was a look in his eyes that I didn’t like.

  “Nathan, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Now I’m really concerned,” I answered. “Come on. Talk.”

  “You and Grace are looking into Harley Boggess’s murder, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not that big a secret around town,” I conceded. “Why do you ask?”

  “It might be nothing, but I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that you were butting in a little too much, and you’d better watch your step.”

  “Well, with a source as unimpeachable as that, how can I not listen?” I asked.

  “You need to take this seriously. I haven’t been able to find out who said it originally, but the word on the street is that if you don’t back off, you’re going to regret it.”

  “You know what? That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” I said as I walked to the cash register with my new bat.

  “Suzanne, did you hear me just now? This is no joke.”

  “I certainly hope not,” I said.

  “Then why are you so happy about it?” The poor man was clearly confused by my reaction to his news.

  “If someone cares enough to threaten me, then I must be getting to them,” I said.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re happy about making a killer angry with you?”

  “Let’s just say that it’s the only way I can measure my progress at this point. How much do I owe you for the bat?”

  “Let’s see, after the courtesy discount, it comes to seventeen dollars and thirty-six cents.”

  As I handed him a twenty, I asked, “What’s the courtesy discount for?”

  “You asked to see a photo of my daughter,” he said softly as he winked at me. “I’ve been doing it for a while, and nobody’s caught me at it yet. When other folks start demanding a discount as well, I’ll probably stop doing it, but for now, I’m having a little fun with it.”

  After I got my change, I thanked Nathan and headed back out to my Jeep, carrying my new purchase over my shoulder like a big-league ball player. At least I thought that’s the way I was toting it, but I didn’t really know how a major leaguer would carry it, so I could have been dead wrong. All I knew was that it felt good having it on my shoulder, and if the time ever came that I had to use it to defend myself, I hoped that I’d be able to do it without hesitation.

  Chapter 20

  I didn’t feel like going back into Donut Hearts to drop off the bat, so I stowed it beside my seat for the moment. I was still no better off than I had been before. Even if I’d managed to enrage the killer, I still didn’t know who it was, so I was just as lost as I had been before. I needed to take action, and it was killing me that I had to wait for someone to go with me. Maybe if I just phoned one of my suspects, it wouldn’t count as an interrogation. I discarded the idea as quickly as I’d gotten it. I needed to see people’s reactions to the things I said, and that was something that I just couldn’t do over the phone. I was still trying to figure out what to do when Seth Lancaster tapped on my windshield. “Are you okay, Suzanne?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine. I was just lost in my thoughts for a second there,” I said. “How are you, Seth?”

  “Physically, I’m fine and dandy. Financially, well, that’s a whole other story.”

  “Is the market hitting you hard? I heard that Nathaniel Bloom was a good advisor.”

  “To give him credit, he probably is. I know it’s a bad time to be playing the stock market. I can read a newspaper as well as anyone else can, but if he can’t do better than he’s doing, I’m going to ha
ve to find somebody else.” Seth laughed a little, and then he added, “Not that I didn’t make him jump through some hoops the morning I had my appointment with him.”

  “Did your meeting last long after Grace and I left?” I asked him.

  “It wasn’t so much that as it was the times before it,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I spent most of the morning on the phone with Nathaniel changing my mind about what strategy I wanted to use for my investing. I’ve got to give him credit. He did a week’s worth of work in one morning, especially when I kept throwing him so many curveballs. If he left his desk long enough to go the bathroom all morning, it would have surprised me.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked him.

  “Well, I suppose he could have ducked out for thirty seconds, but I doubt it was a minute longer. I must have called him a dozen times, and I have to give the man credit. He picked up on the first ring every time.”

  “Did you call his cellphone number or his office?” I asked. That could be a vital piece of information.

  “I don’t have the man’s cellphone number. He’s too smart to give me that. It was the office, every time. Why do you ask?”

  “Did he ever sound out of breath, or shaken a little when you spoke?” I asked.

  “No, I expected him to get frazzled a time or two, but he answered every time just as calm and patient as always. I don’t know how he works with that opera music in the background, but I heard it playing every time I called. That would drive me nuts if I had to listen to that stuff all day, but to each his own. Say, why all the questions?”

  “Can’t I just be curious by nature?” I asked him with a smile.

  “That’s a woman’s prerogative, isn’t it?” he asked, grinning in return.

  “And a man’s, as well,” I said with a laugh.

  “Isn’t that the truth? Women get a bad rap for being gossips, but men are a dozen times worse, if you ask me. As a matter of fact, I’m doing it right now, aren’t I? See you at the donut shop soon, Suzanne.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “For what, I don’t know, but I’ll accept anyway.”

  After he was gone, I mulled over what he’d just told me. If what Seth had said was accurate, and I had no reason to believe that it hadn’t been, Nathaniel had been telling me the truth. He didn’t have time between phone calls to go to City Hall, kill Harley, and make it back to his office in time for his next phone call. Knowing that Seth could be calling again any second would have kept him chained to his desk just as effectively as if he’d literally been tethered in place. The use of his office phone, with his music playing constantly in the background, sealed that as well. Unless we learned something else that contradicted what I’d just learned, Nathaniel had just made it off of our list of suspects.

  One done and four to go.

  Something kept nagging me. We had reasonable motives for murder for the last four folks on our list, with one glaring exception. Curtis stood to inherit Harley’s half of the business without any cost to him, so that had to make him a viable suspect. If Momma’s theory that Wendy had been blackmailing Harley and it had gone bad was true, she had reasons of her own, and if Megan had killed him for humiliating her, I could see that as well. But why would Amber do it? Could Harley have been leaving her, and she couldn’t take the rejection? No, Amber seemed the type of woman who would just write him off as a lost cause and move on to the next man. What possible reason would she have to kill him? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out. The only problem was that I didn’t have a partner to go brace her with, and I’d promised Momma that I wouldn’t do it alone. Did that mean that I had to use one of them, though? I’d had another partner once upon a time before he’d first run for mayor. No one could object if George went with me, and if anyone had a stake in solving this murder, it was him. After all, suspicion would hover over him like a dark cloud until this murder was solved and he was proven innocent. Ordinarily I didn’t like to include our mayor in my investigations, but he was already all the way up to his eyebrows in this one. I considered calling him, but after a moment’s thought, I decided to see him in person, as much as it troubled me to return to the crime scene.

  “George, do you have a minute?” I asked the mayor as I entered his office. I was surprised to see a card table and a folding chair where his former desk and chair had so recently been.

  “Suzanne, it’s nice to see you,” he said from the window. “You’re about the only person brave enough to visit me right now.”

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “Pretty bad.” He gestured to his new arrangements. “What do you think?”

  “What happened? Did Jake confiscate your office furniture?”

  “The chair was ruined, but I didn’t want the desk anymore, either. It was just a reminder of what happened. Suzanne, somebody tried to set me up to take the fall for murder, and the more I think about it, the angrier I get.”

  “I completely understand that,” I said. “Would you like to do something about it?”

  “Just point me in the right direction,” he said eagerly.

  “I could use a backup when I go talk to Amber North,” I said.

  He smiled. “I thought you were finished with me as a partner. Since I got hit by that car, you’ve shied away from using me.”

  Once, long ago, George had been dealing with a killer on my behalf, and to keep from being captured, she’d run him down with her car. He’d mostly recovered from the attack, but on chilly days he sometimes still walked with a slight limp, a reminder of how close he’d come to getting killed doing something for me. “What can I say? If anyone has a right to be involved in this, it’s you.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Don’t you have to tell anyone first?” I asked him.

  He laughed as he looked around the empty corridor outside his office. “Exactly who would you like me to tell?”

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  We walked out and got into my Jeep. After George was buckled in, he reached down and picked up the aluminum bat I’d bought from Nathan earlier. “Are you going out for the softball team?” he asked me with a grin.

  “It’s protection for the store,” I said.

  “Well, if you’re going to keep carrying it around in your Jeep, take my advice and throw in an old ball and glove, too.”

  “George, you do understand that I’m not going to actually use it to play softball, right?”

  “Maybe not, but a bat alone can be considered a weapon, and it can get you into trouble if you’re ever pulled over. Throw in a ball and a glove though, and you have reasonable doubt.”

  “It’s probably not a bad idea,” I said, “but I’m not planning on keeping it in my Jeep past tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m just saying,” George said, and then he trailed off.

  Once we got to Amber’s place, the mayor was raring to go. “How should we play this, good cop/bad cop? If we are, I’ve had some practice playing the bad cop.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I asked him with a smile.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I know you and love you, but you still sometimes scare me,” I said.

  “Me? Scary? I don’t believe it,” he said happily. I had a hunch that I’d just made his day. I could live to be a thousand and I still wouldn’t understand what passed as a compliment to men. Then again, I was sure that women were just as cryptic to them about a host of other topics. As far as I was concerned, that was what made life so interesting.

  “Let’s just probe her a little about her relationship with Harley and see where that leads us,” I suggested.

  “Fine. It’s your investigation,” he said. “I’m just happy to be able to do something instead of sitting back and waiting for something to ha
ppen.”

  On the drive over, I brought George up to speed on what we’d learned about Amber so far, confining my explanation to only her and not the slew of other suspects we had. I didn’t want George off his focus. I needed him to be centered on only one suspect at a time.

  I knocked on Amber’s door a few times, and I was starting to believe that she wasn’t home when George took over. My knock had been a request; his pounding was a demand. It said, “Open the door, or we’re going to break it down.”

  “What is it?” Amber said, clearly aggravated until she saw that the mayor was with me. It was pretty clear that if it had been me and Grace or even Momma, she wouldn’t have answered a single question. Somehow, purely by accident, I’d found the perfect partner for this particular situation. “Mayor, what are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk, Amber,” George said, slipping so easily back into his role as a cop that it startled me, and I’d been expecting it.

  “What about?” she asked warily.

  “What do you think? Are you going to invite us in, or do you want to do this out here in front of anybody who happens to be driving by?”

  It was an effective tactic. Amber looked up and down the road, and then she stepped aside. “You might as well come in.”

  We did as we were instructed, but instead of addressing us, she walked over to the coffee table in front of the television, picked up the remote control, and started hitting buttons. “If I don’t tape this now, I’ll forget all about it.”

  It was a wonder this woman ever did a lick of work, and if she’d had to pay her cable bill by the hour, she would have had to take out a second mortgage on the house.

  “Tell us about Harley,” I said once we had her attention again.

  “What about him? I’m sure the two of you knew him longer than I did.”

  “But not as intimately,” I said. I’d chosen that word carefully to see if I could get a reaction from her, but it failed.

  “Harley wasn’t exactly a complex man, you know? He didn’t have enough ambition to suit me, but I knew that if I worked with him, he’d eventually come around.”