Wrong Side of the Claw

by Leighann Dobbs

  “I honestly don’t know them well enough to say one way or another.” I smiled at the new arrival as he passed. “Can I help you find anything today?”

  “No, no. I’m just looking, thanks,” the older gentleman said, disappearing down another row of books.

  I turned back to Pepper. “Anyway, Duane doesn’t matter because I have a better suspect in mind.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Felicity Bates.”

  “Well, we already know she’s suspicious, but what do you have that ties her to the crimes? I know Gus seems to think she is not involved.”

  “And she claims to have an alibi… one that she will only give to Striker.”

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “She stopped by here, hoping to see him.” I took a sip of soothing tea. Just the memory of her haughty attitude when she was in here made me angry. “That’s why I think she’s up to something. She was too smug. Too insistent.”

  Pepper frowned. “So did she tell Striker what her alibi was?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. I told him about her visit, but he didn’t seem very eager to talk to her.” I was sure he would fill me in once he did. I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “But this is why I think she is more involved than she is letting on. Striker showed me photos from the crime scene the other night, and one of those photos showed a few blond hairs left behind at the lamp store break-in.”

  Pepper frowned. “Uh… news flash, Felicity isn’t blond.”

  “Right. But what if the hairs weren’t human hairs?”

  “What else would they be?” Pepper scrunched her nose.

  “Fur.” I glanced around to make sure no one was listening to our conversation. I wouldn’t put it past Felicity to have spies out in the neighborhood. “From that long-haired white cat of hers.”

  “Fluff?” Pepper stepped back, her expression thoughtful. “You really think Felicity would bring her pet to a break-in?”

  “Why not?” I shrugged. “She takes him everywhere else with her.”

  “True. And that cat does have long hair. I suppose it could look like strands from a human with short hair, but were any hairs found at the murder scene?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “But then, with my sister acting the way she’s been lately, who knows if her investigation was thorough?”

  “Wow.” Pepper said. “If you’re correct, that could change everything. But we still need to convince Gus that it’s worth pursuing.”

  “Striker said she’d sent the hairs to the lab. They’d be able to tell if the hairs are human or feline. Hopefully, Gus will drink that tea soon and be alert enough to put two and two together when those results come in.”

  The customer who had been perusing the shelves came to the register with a couple of hardcover novels, and I excused myself to ring him up. He left, and I hurried back to the sofa.

  “There’s another person we might suspect too,” Pepper said.

  “Who?”

  “Brenda McDougall.”

  “The grieving widow? But she seemed so upset, plus she has an alibi, and besides, she’s investigating it herself. Why would she do that if she were the killer?”

  “Good point. Still, if Jack was having an affair and she knew about it, that would give her a powerful motive for murder.” Pepper sipped her tea.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that, but what about her claim that she was driving Mrs. Quimby around at the time of the murder? And she had the socks from the knitting class, so we know she was there.”

  “Maybe we should double-check with Mrs. Quimby on that.” Pepper put her empty cup down and started putting the tea items back in her quilted bag. “I mean, don’t you think it’s odd Brenda was looking in the trash? Why look there?”

  “It’s almost as if she expected to find something in particular there.”

  “Or didn’t want the police to find something that had been thrown out earlier.”

  I blinked at her a few times as a new theory occurred. “What if she had a reason and just didn’t mention it to us? What if Brenda knew something was in the trash? If she didn’t find it, like she said, then it might still be there.”

  Pepper put the last saucer in the bag and zipped it up. “They haven’t picked up the trash yet this week.”

  “All righty then,” I said, pushing up from the couch and flipping the store sign to closed. “I say we get on over there and see what we can find.”

  21

  It was broad daylight, but I didn’t want anyone to see us lurking in the alley. Being a small town, Mystic Notch wasn’t exactly brimming with traffic or pedestrians, so it was easy to run across the street when no one was looking. We hugged the sides of the building all the way up to the narrow alley that led to the area behind the shops.

  I’d been in such a hurry that I hadn’t noticed Pandora following us out the door. Oh, well. It was too late to go back now. I could hear the grinding of the trash trucks in the distance and the boom of dumpsters as they were emptied then dropped back onto the ground. If we didn’t go through this stuff now, it would be too late. Hopefully Pandora would stick by my side, as she usually did when we walked over to Elspeth’s.

  The small area behind Jack’s store housed the dumpsters and trash bins for many of the stores on the block and had extra parking. It was set up in a square with stores on three sides. It smelled like sour milk, and the pavement around the dumpsters could only be described as greasy. Yech. I was just wondering which one of us would be tasked with jumping in the dumpster when I spied a sign for the back door to Jack’s shop. Thankfully he didn’t have a dumpster. Just four oversized trash bins.

  “Over here!” I pointed, and we scurried over, each opening a bin and starting our search.

  Pandora was more interested in the dumpster over by the fish market. I tried to shoo her away, but she just shot me one of her don’t-tell-me-what-to-do glares. I didn’t have time to mess around, so I decided to ignore her and focus on the task at hand.

  Luckily Jack’s trash bin didn’t have any food in it. Just paper. I dug deep, pawing through old photocopies of sports cards, invoices, and receipts. I didn’t find anything that even remotely resembled a clue. Pepper had already moved to her second barrel by the time I was done with my first, so I picked up the pace.

  “Look!” Pepper said, holding up a dark-blue pouch. “It’s a bank deposit pouch with the name of Jack’s store!”

  I rushed over as she unzipped it. It was empty.

  “You think the killer took the money out and then tossed the pouch in the trash?” I asked.

  Pepper’s brow creased. “Why would they do that? You’d think they’d be in a hurry and just grab the envelope and run.”

  “Maybe they didn’t want to get caught with it?” I suggested. “Or maybe they got the money from Jack before he died. They could have fought over it somehow, and Jack could have gotten killed in the process.”

  “Then how would the bag get in the trash?” Pepper asked. “Surely the police wouldn’t have just thrown it out. I’m sure that even in Gus’s current state, she would take this in as evidence.” Pepper held the bag by the corner, presumably so she wouldn’t mess up any fingerprints.

  “Meow.” Pandora sat on the trash bin next to the one Pepper had pulled the bag from watching us with those unsettling golden-green eyes.

  “Do you think that’s why his ghost is being so evasive?” I ignored the cat. “Maybe he was up to more than just an affair.”

  “Merow!” Pandora was louder this time.

  “Not sure.” Pepper went back to digging. “Maybe there is another clue.”

  We tried to get on with the search, but Pandora interrupted us by jumping from one can to the next, meowing loudly and lifting her head skyward. I glanced up to see the signs above the back doors. “Wait a minute. This isn’t Jack’s trash. It’s Duane’s.”

  “Then why is Jack’s deposit envelope in here?” Pepper made a face and waved her hand in front o
f her nose as she opened a particularly stinky bag of trash. This one had the remnants of ice cream continuers and stunk like sour milk.

  “Meow.” Pandora eyed the bag and sniffed as if it contained the most delicious aroma, which, to her, it probably did.

  The spoiling ice cream proved one thing. The trash can Pepper had produced the bag from definitely belonged to Duane’s ice cream shop. My stomach sank to my toes as I put the clues together. “There’s only one reason I can think of. Duane must be involved somehow. He tossed the bag to get rid of the evidence.”

  Pepper looked skeptical. “I don’t know. Doesn’t he have an alibi?”

  “Yeah, but it’s his wife.”

  “You think they are in it together?” Pepper whispered, glancing at Jack’s back door as if he and Anne would burst out at any minute.

  The thought made me nervous. “We better get Gus out here.” I pulled out my cell phone and started to dial, only to stop. “I’m not sure what good it would do to tell my sister, though, since she probably won’t do anything about it.” I deleted the numbers I’d typed in and entered Striker’s number instead. If anyone knew the urgency of our information, it was him. Except my call rang and rang and ended up going to his voicemail. I tried again. Same result. Crap. He must be busy on that other case he was working on.

  After typing in a quick text to him, I shoved my phone back into my pocket and took the envelope from Pepper. “Let’s get this to the sheriff’s office. We have to depend on Gus now. Let’s hope she drank that tea!”

  22

  Pepper went back to her shop, and I locked Pandora in the bookstore and then rushed to the sheriff’s office, my fingers crossed that Gus would be in. Good news, she was. Bad news, she was sitting behind her desk with her feet up, listening to jazz. I walked past the receptionist’s desk without stopping and made a beeline for Gus, tossing the empty deposit envelope we’d found on her desktop.

  “What’s this?” Gus asked, frowning.

  “That’s the stolen deposit envelope from when Jack was murdered,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “Huh.” My sister picked up the envelope and looked inside it. “And you found this where?”

  “In Duane’s trash.”

  If my sister had any reaction to that news, her facial expression didn’t show it. She blinked at me. “And…”

  With an exasperated sigh, I threw my hands up. “And don’t you want to follow up with Duane and ask why this was in his trash? Seems pretty suspicious to me. It implicates him.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gus relaxed back into her chair again. “He’s got an alibi for Jack’s time of death.”

  I wanted to yank my sister out of that chair by her shirt front and make her go, but I doubted the rest of the staff in the department would appreciate that. So, I continued to argue my point. “Duane’s wife, you mean? I think there’s a good chance she might be lying.”

  “You do, huh?” Gus gave me a perturbed stare. “Look, sis. Haven’t I told you before to leave the detecting to the professionals? If I had a good lead on Jack’s killer, I’d follow it. You’re barking up the wrong tree with Duane. Besides, if that envelope was a clue, then you just messed up the chain of evidence.”

  I pursed my lips to hold back my frustration. I’ll admit I’d felt a flare of hope when she nagged me about staying out of her investigations, thinking perhaps the tea had worked and the old Gus was coming back, but now I was just more irritated than ever. “You don’t like my theory about Duane? Fine. How about this, then? There were hairs found at the lamp shop burglary crime scene, and I don’t think they’re human. I think they came from a feline.”

  This made my sister laugh out loud. “Seriously, Willa? You think they’re cat hairs?”

  “I do.” My jaw tensed. “It’s not funny. Why couldn’t they be? There’s plenty of cat owners around this town.”

  Gus slapped the top of her desk and chortled. “So, you expect me to believe all these crimes were committed by a cat burglar. Get it? Cat burglar!” She snorted. “Very funny.”

  “I don’t find it funny at all.” I squared my shoulders. “And I don’t think the cat committed the crime. The owner did. Felicity Bates, in particular. She’s involved in all this, somehow. I can feel it. And she’s always got her cat with her, so why not take it to a crime scene too?”

  Gus finally stopped laughing and gave me a flat look instead. “First Duane and now Felicity? How many more people are you going to accuse of these crimes? Who’s next?”

  With a sigh, I looked away. Ugh. I really should’ve planned out what I was going to say better than I had and not just charged over here in a hurry. My gaze snagged on the tumbler full of tea sitting on top of Gus’s file cabinet. I wandered over to check, hoping to find it empty, but no. It was still as full as when it had left my shop earlier. I picked it up and set it on the desk in front of my sister. “Don’t forget your drink.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” Gus said, grumbling.

  “C’mon. Elspeth’s been like a second grandmother to us. We’ve known her our whole lives. She made this especially for you, Augusta. The least you can do is drink it. You don’t want to hurt her feelings, do you?”

  My sister eyed the cup for a moment, and I held my breath. Then she pushed away from the desk and stood. “I’ll drink it later. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sis, I need to get ready for my gig at the Blue Moon.”

  Discouraged, I walked back to my bookshop. I’d gotten nothing useful out of Gus at all. She’d disregarded all my clues and couldn’t have cared less about my theories. Shoulders slumped, I pulled out my phone, hoping for a text from Striker, but I found only a blank black screen.

  Jack’s empty deposit envelope crackled in my pocket, where I’d shoved it before leaving Gus’s office. It was clear Gus didn’t want it for evidence, and I wasn’t going to risk her throwing it out. I took it out and stared at it, replaying the moment Pepper and I had found it. I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something there. We’d been rooting through the trash cans. The same trash cans that Brenda McDougall had been searching through a few days prior.

  My posture straightened slightly. Brenda.

  It seemed odd that she wouldn’t have seen it when she’d been riffling through the garbage. Then again, she might not have looked in Duane’s trash, just Jack’s. Even if Brenda had pulled the envelope out of the trash and taken it to Gus, she most likely wouldn’t have given it any credence anyway, given the reception I got today. Maybe Brenda had found it and had called Gus about it, and when she wasn’t interested, Brenda just tossed it back away.

  Darn.

  I needed to get an explanation from Duane. Determined, I headed straight for Duane’s shop again. I saw him peek out the window at me, so I knew he was there. I walked right in and cornered him behind his counter.

  “Explain this to me, Duane.” I smacked the envelope down in front of him. “Pepper and I found this in your trash earlier. It’s the deposit from the night Jack was killed. Empty. Want to tell me how this ended up in your trash when supposedly you weren’t even here?”

  Duane glared at me, but I didn’t break eye contact, not backing down an inch. Finally, he relented, his breath escaping in a big huff. “Fine. You’re right. I was here that night. Mrs. Quimby did see me. But I didn’t kill Jack. I swear.”

  “What were you doing in your shop after closing?” I raised a brow at him.

  His face reddened, and he scowled down at the counter. “I was skulking around after Anne. She was having an affair with Jack, and I wanted to catch them in the act. Get photos with my cell phone for proof.”

  “Right.” My suspicions hit the red zone. “Well, if Jack was sleeping with your wife, that seems all the more reason for you to want to kill him. I bet you were really upset. In a jealous rage, even. Cheating drives people crazy.”

  “No!” He looked up at me then, holding his hands up in surrender. “I swear I didn’t touch him. Sure, I was angry, but I’m no killer. Besides, I wa
s long gone by the time he was shot.”

  His tone sounded earnest enough, but I wasn’t ready to buy it just yet. I hiked my chin at him. “So, if you weren’t at home at the time of Jack’s death, and you weren’t here, then where were you?”

  “At the Blue Moon,” he said. “You can ask Gus, if you don’t believe me. She was playing the piano and singing the blues that night.”

  I wanted to call him out in another lie, but darn it, I couldn’t. If Anne had been having an affair with Jack McDougall, that would certainly explain why she’d acted so strangely the first time I’d been in the shop to question Duane. It would also explain why she’d been so willing to lie for her husband. Because she’d actually been with Jack and couldn’t very well tell Duane that. She must have assumed Duane really was home and thought she’d been there too.

  I narrowed my gaze on Duane. “And what about the envelope?”

  He frowned at it. “I never touched it. If you found it in my trash, I have no idea how it got there.”

  A likely story. “Of course, you would say that if you were the killer. You already lied about where you were once. How do I know you aren’t lying now?”

  “Seriously.” He picked up his cell phone and held it out to me. “Call Gus and ask her. How dumb would it be for me to lie a second time about where I was, especially if I used the town sheriff as my alibi?”

  23

  Still reeling over what Duane had just told me, I went back to Last Chance Books. A package was waiting for me by the front door, and I carried it inside to the counter. It was the book from California I’d ordered for the bartender. After tidying up, I called her to let her know it was ready to be picked up. She said she would stop in within the hour. I told her not to hurry. I would stay open late, if she needed.

  After all, what else did I have to do? Striker must have still been busy on a case, as he hadn’t returned my messages, and my little investigating into Jack’s death was starting to get complicated.