Deadly Valentine (Special Releases)

by B. J Daniels

  Over it all stood the mountain that had prompted the resort town to sprout here in the first place. Even through the falling snow he could make out the lights of the grooming machines moving like caterpillars across the white slopes. Nearer, he could see the golf course—still buried under a foot of snow and crisscrossed with ski tracks, like a secret writing he’d never been able to decipher. This place had once been divided by those who skied and those who didn’t. He hadn’t skied.

  As he stood in the silence of the falling snow he wondered what the hell he was doing. There were no answers for him here. Frannie had killed herself and taken whatever her reasons with her. He’d been a fool to think that anything of her was still here.

  He walked through the snow to the motel along the highway where he was staying, telling himself he’d have to find a decent place to live if he was going to stay. On the way, he passed The Riverside and remembered Peggy’s car, a new Ford Explorer, black and shiny. He still had the keys in his pocket.

  He unlocked it and climbed behind the wheel. The seats were leather and the interior still had that brand-new smell. Wearing his winter gloves, he turned on the dome light and glanced around. No fast-food containers. No empty latte cups. Not even a scrap of paper. He opened the glove box. She hadn’t had the car long enough to even throw old mail into it. He dug out the registration. It was in her name. No bank lien against it.

  He climbed back out, locking the door after him, wondering what she’d paid for the car. More importantly, how she’d paid for the car.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Tempest’s number. ‘‘Accept the job and meet me at Peggy’s apartment,’’ he said when she answered.

  Silence. ‘‘Are you sure?’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’ As sure as he was of anything. He understood her hesitation. He had mixed feelings about working with her as well. But he also thought she’d make one hell of an undersheriff. And he needed her help. She knew these people, maybe better than he did because even though she’d felt like an outcast in high school, she’d been one of them.

  Silence. ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘By the way, she was driving a brand-new expensive SUV with leather seats and no lien against it.’’

  ‘‘Maybe she has a rich boyfriend.’’

  ‘‘My thought exactly.’’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TEMPEST LET OUT a low whistle when Jack opened the door to Peggy Kane’s apartment and they both stepped inside.

  ‘‘Get a load of this,’’ he said as he took in the place.

  From the outside, the apartment house looked like something Oliver Sanders’s secretary could afford in River’s Edge. Not too cheap. But not too expensive, either.

  Of course Peggy’s clothing, her sophisticated look and her car didn’t fit the profile. And not surprisingly, neither did the contents of the apartment.

  ‘‘Holy cow,’’ Tempest said as she moved through all the brand-new expensive furnishings. ‘‘Either this Girl Friday inherited big, is neck deep in debt or she’s gotten herself a sugar daddy.’’

  Jack agreed. ‘‘See what you can find, but keep your gloves on.’’

  She nodded and he moved through the apartment, looking for something to explain Peggy’s obviously recent windfall. Drugs. Signs of a benevolent boyfriend. A rich uncle’s will.

  They started in the kitchen. Jack searched the drawers, but found nothing more than over-the-counter diet pills. No large bags of drugs to be sold.

  ‘‘Scary diet,’’ Tempest said holding open the fridge door.

  He could see that it held little more than bottled water and celery. Tempest dug through the freezer, pulling out several frost-encrusted Lean Cuisine meals and a half-eaten pint of frozen yogurt. Nothing more.

  The cupboards were equally bare except for some rice cakes and large containers of vitamins.

  ‘‘Where did she eat?’’ Tempest said going through Peggy’s trash. The trash at least produced a couple of Chinese carry-out cartons. ‘‘Fried rice and chow mein, a girl meal,’’ Tempest said and dropped the small white containers back into the can.

  She stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the kitchen, dining room, living room. ‘‘There’s no beer, no alcohol, no mix. If she had a boyfriend, he didn’t come over here. They must have met someplace else.’’

  Jack picked up the phone book, not surprised when it fell open to the restaurant section of a town forty miles away. Several of the more expensive dinner places had the numbers circled, the pages dog-eared. He held it out for Tempest to see.

  She nodded. ‘‘Either she was a secret eater who took her love of food out of town or she had a boyfriend. Someone who didn’t want to be seen with her.’’

  ‘‘Maybe she didn’t want to be seen with him.’’

  Tempest shook her head. ‘‘No way. Not when he’s footing the bill for all this fancy stuff. He’d be calling the shots. This guy’s got something to hide.’’

  Jack had to agree with her as he dug through the desk drawers. No record of any rich uncle or lottery winnings. Her last month’s bill on her credit cards showed that she’d paid them off in full.

  ‘‘It looks like she’s only recently come into some money,’’ he said, tossing the bills back into the drawer. He could hear Tempest in the bedroom. He followed the sound of her opening and closing dresser drawers.

  ‘‘The drawers are full of new sexy lingerie,’’ she said mugging a face. ‘‘Some of the price tags are still attached.’’

  He opened the closet. It was packed with clothes, most with price tags still dangling from the sleeves. He moved to the night stand. Tempest went around the bed to the opposite one.

  Next to the phone on the night stand, he found an address book. He thumbed through it, looking for a boyfriend. There were only a few names and numbers. Peggy didn’t seem to have a lot of acquaintances, let alone friends. Not surprisingly, Oliver’s cell phone, home and office numbers were listed, written in a big, bold script.

  That’s when he noticed the scratchpad, its corner caught under the phone. He pulled it out. Peggy Kane was a doodler. Hearts, flowers, stars. He turned the pad to read the words doodled around the edge, his breath catching as he saw what she’d written.

  ‘‘Look at this,’’ he said and passed it across the satin comforter to Tempest. Peggy had written three little words around the edge of the paper. Mrs. Peggy Sanders.

  Tempest looked at the scratchpad for a moment, then handed him what she’d found in the opposite nightstand. A date book.

  He flipped it open to January to find small neat notations. Dentist appointment 8:30 a.m. Pick up dry cleaning. Reschedule teeth cleaning appointment. Call landlord about leak in tub.

  Spread among the mundane were small little notations: ‘‘O’’ at 8 at condo. ‘‘O’’ at Cafe´ Italiano. ‘‘O’’ weekend. ‘‘O’’ lunch.

  He looked up at Tempest. She just nodded and said, ‘‘I don’t think the ‘O’ stands for orgasm, but what do I know? Look at February first.’’

  He moved to February. ‘‘‘O’ promised, Feb. 14.’’ After that the days had been marked off with red ‘‘Xs’’ and exclamation points up to February 14.

  ‘‘Valentine’s Day,’’ Jack said, thinking about the Valentine Peggy had clutched in her hand. When he’d checked the handwriting it had been hers. ‘‘She thought Oliver was going to leave his wife.’’

  ‘‘You know, there is one other possibility,’’ Tempest said. ‘‘That this love affair with Oliver was all in Peggy’s head.’’

  ‘‘Then who’s been footing the bill for all this stuff?’’ He waved a hand at the loot packed in the apartment.

  Tempest said nothing, just glanced around, her expression one of sorrow.

  He looked down at the bright red circle Peggy had drawn around Feb. 14th. ‘‘Maybe Valentine’s wasn’t the day her lover planned to leave his wife. Maybe it was the day she and Oliver planned to kill Mitzy.’’

  Tempest regarded him for a mo
ment. ‘‘If that was the case, then what went wrong?’’

  Jack shrugged. ‘‘Maybe nothing. Maybe everything went just as Oliver planned it.’’

  ‘‘You think he double-crossed Peggy?’’ she asked, not sounding in the least bit shocked by the idea.

  ‘‘Oliver didn’t seem very broken up over Peggy’s death,’’ Jack said. ‘‘If anything, he was probably relieved.’’

  Tempest nodded. ‘‘Peggy had to have been putting pressure on him.’’

  ‘‘So they cooked up a plan to get rid of Mitzy,’’ Jack said.

  Tempest was shaking her head. ‘‘Drowning her in the river was a plan. Poisoning the chocolates would only make them both look suspicious and bring about an investigation.’’

  She had a point. ‘‘Also, it makes no sense for Peggy to eat one of the poisoned chocolates. She didn’t know they were poisoned. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.’’

  Jack nodded. ‘‘Unless she mixed up the boxes by mistake. But still, it just seems odd to me whether she knew about the poison or not, that she’d eat some of Mitzy’s chocolates.’’

  Tempest seemed to give it some thought. ‘‘After being forced to get all of that stuff for Oliver’s wife, she was probably feeling pretty resentful and jealous. Maybe she decided she deserved what she knew Mitzy wasn’t going to appreciate anyway.’’

  ‘‘You sound like you know the feeling.’’

  She smiled at that. ‘‘I know what it feels like to get the short end of the stick. But then, so do you.’’ Everyone knew about Jack being caught cheating on a test in his junior year. Few people knew the truth. That he’d gotten the blame when it had been Oliver, who’d had to take the class over, who’d been cheating. Of course, Oliver hadn’t come forward to clear Jack’s name. It had just added to the animosity between them.

  ‘‘Do you think it’s possible that Peggy came back just to seduce Oliver?’’ He was only half joking. ‘‘She lost all of that weight and if she really has always carried a torch for him....’’

  ‘‘That would make her awfully devious,’’ she noted with a smile. ‘‘And awfully bitter. It fits.’’

  ‘‘Nothing scars you quite like high school, does it?’’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘‘You get over it. Or you don’t.’’

  He felt as if they hadn’t changed, the bunch of them, just gotten older, their animosities toward each other now more deadly as adults.

  ‘‘There was a time I would have taken great satisfaction in seeing Oliver fry for this murder,’’ he had to admit.

  ‘‘And no one would have blamed you.’’

  ‘‘But now I’m a cop,’’ Jack said. ‘‘I don’t believe in personal revenge. Let the system dole out the justice.’’

  She smiled. ‘‘That’s big of you, considering sometimes the system screws up and justice isn’t served.’’

  ‘‘It’s the best system we have,’’ he said, watching her face. ‘‘Don’t you think?’’

  She smiled and shrugged, but her look said hell-no and made him nervous. ‘‘You sound as if you think Oliver killed her.’’

  ‘‘It certainly is shaping up that way, don’t you think?’’

  She shrugged. ‘‘Who knows who the intended victim even was. Kind of cliche´d, poisoning the chocolates though.’’

  ‘‘What would you have done?’’

  ‘‘Something in the roses,’’ she said. ‘‘One sniff and blam!’’

  ‘‘Except you wouldn’t know who was going to smell the roses,’’ he pointed out.

  Her gaze met his. ‘‘That’s just it, how did the killer know who was going to eat the chocolates?’’

  Good point. Especially since he didn’t know who at the Sanderses’ house wouldn’t be able to resist the chocolate—except for Peggy.

  ‘‘It’s late,’’ he said as he pocketed the date book. ‘‘I’ll get a warrant to search Oliver’s office first thing in the morning. Want to meet me there?’’

  She nodded and walked out of the apartment. He stood for a moment looking at all the expensive things Peggy had purchased, all the while believing her life was about to change for the better. It was depressing as hell.

  * * *

  JACK AND TEMPEST were waiting the next morning when Oliver walked into his office.

  Oliver looked more than surprised. ‘‘What the hell do you want now?’’

  Jack handed him the warrant. ‘‘The lab found strychnine in the chocolate Peggy Kane ingested.’’

  Oliver swore as he threw the warrant down on his desk. ‘‘What does that have to do with me?’’ He gave Tempest only a cursory glance as he shrugged out of his coat.

  ‘‘You’ve already met the new undersheriff,’’ Jack said.

  ‘‘I didn’t think you’d take the job,’’ Oliver said. ‘‘I didn’t think you’d be staying that long.’’

  Tempest didn’t comment.

  Oliver turned to Jack. ‘‘I don’t know how the poison got in the chocolates. But I can tell you one thing, there isn’t any poison in my office.’’

  Jack went around to the desk and tried the top drawer. It was locked. He looked up at Oliver who reluctantly pulled out his keys and threw them down on the desk top next to the warrant.

  Jack picked up the keys without a word and opened each drawer, looking through the contents, not surprised when he found nothing of interest.

  He glanced around the office. Oliver had gone into Peggy’s office. He came back with what smelled like coffee in a glass mug. But from the looks of the tea-colored liquid, he didn’t have a clue how to make his own coffee.

  ‘‘Where’s your safe?’’ Jack asked.

  The question seemed to startle Oliver. He sloshed some of the coffee onto the carpet and let out an oath. His eyes moved to the oak liquor cabinet against the wall. He either wanted a drink badly or he’d forgotten something he wished he hadn’t. ‘‘You’d better have a warrant to open that safe.’’

  Jack motioned to the warrant still lying on the desk. ‘‘It includes all financial and personal records.’’

  Oliver swore again. ‘‘You are determined to pin this on me, aren’t you.’’

  ‘‘The safe,’’ Jack asked.

  Tempest had moved over to the bar. She opened the cabinet, pushed aside a few bottles of booze and a wooden panel to expose the safe as if she’d known it was there.

  ‘‘What’s the combination?’’ Jack asked joining her.

  ‘‘I’ll open it,’’ Oliver said and shoved them aside. It took him several tries to get the safe open. His hands were visibly shaking and Jack could see beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and upper lip.

  Jack stepped in quickly, stopping Oliver before he could remove anything from inside, the moment the door swung open. Tempest produced an evidence bag and began putting the papers he handed her inside it.

  Oliver grabbed a bottle of bourbon and retreated behind his desk, his expression like death warmed over.

  Jack dug through the safe, finding the usual stocks and bonds, insurance policies (five hundred thousand on both he and Mitzy), business papers dealing with his development plans and bank loans. He’d have Tempest go through all of it first because she had a head for numbers. While Jack didn’t think they’d find a motive for murder in the papers, he could see that something in the safe was making Oliver very nervous.

  He had almost emptied the safe when his fingers brushed a large manila envelope that had been pushed to the back.

  He drew it out and held it up as he turned to look at Oliver. He could tell that whatever the man had to fear was inside the envelope. Jack opened it slowly, watching Oliver, expecting the worst. And yet he was still surprised by the contents.

  A dozen black-and-white photos of a very young, very naked Mitzy Baxter, her barely pubescent body so pale it looked bleached, the poses awkward and embarrassed making them all the more unsavory. Strictly amateur night.

  Jack dropped the snapshots on Oliver’s desk. ‘‘Did
you take these?’’

  ‘‘Good God no,’’ Oliver said, not looking at either Jack or Tempest.

  ‘‘Then who did?’’ Jack asked. Tempest was staring at the photos spilled across the desk and frowning.

  Oliver poured a shot of bourbon into the weak coffee and took a drink. ‘‘I purchased the photos years ago from some hippie-type she’d taken up with one winter.’’

  ‘‘Are you telling me this guy blackmailed you?’’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘‘I wish I’d destroyed them.’’

  ‘‘Why didn’t you?’’

  He shook his head and poured more bourbon into his mug. And it was only a little after eight in the morning.

  ‘‘Does Mitzy know you have them?’’ Jack asked.

  Oliver shook his head without looking up. ‘‘I never wanted her to know I even knew about them.’’

  Jack closed the safe and went out to search Peggy’s part of the office. It was obvious that Peggy had been very organized and a much better secretary from the looks of things than her boss had led him to believe.

  Tempest followed him out and thumbed through the file cabinet without a word.

  He thought he heard a sound coming from Oliver’s office and stopped to listen. It sounded like crying.

  He moved to the doorway and looked in to find Oliver with his head in his hands, the dirty photos of Mitzy spread like solitaire cards across the desk, his mug empty.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BACK AT the sheriff’s department, Jack asked Tempest to look over the financial papers they’d confiscated from Oliver’s office, then he went to his own office and closed the door.

  For reasons he didn’t want to delve into, the photos of Mitzy had made him think of Frannie. Her small, dark, girllike woman’s body. So fragile. It had been a year since he’d buried her and a day hadn’t gone by that he hadn’t thought of her and agonized over why she’d left him the way she had.