Framed for Murder

by Cathy Spencer

Chapter 15

  We were just in time to join the Saturday lunch crowd at The Diner. It had turned into a sunny spring day, and half a dozen motorcycles were parked out front. The Calgary motorcycle crowd liked to bike down on weekends whenever the weather was nice. Clive’s tractor, splattered with mud from ploughing, was parked in the prime spot just outside the door.

  Inside, Mary and Judy were busy hustling food with the motorcyclists taking up half the tables. Clive was sitting on a stool by the jukebox singing along to Elvis’s “Blue Suede Shoes,” getting lots of amused looks from the out-of-towners. There was one empty table left beside Mr. Andrews, so Amy and I seated ourselves there.

  Judy hurried over as soon as she was free. She had teased her long, honey-blond hair, the colour kept fresh by Amy, into an updo. Judy liked to dress western, and today she had on a green plaid shirt, jeans, and embossed leather boots. She peered at us over her reading glasses with an order pad in one hand.

  “How’re you doing, Anna? How’s it going, Amy? What are you two having?”

  “Hi, Judy. Haven’t had a chance to talk to you for a few weeks now. Busy day today,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s a beautiful day. Can’t wait to get out of here and go for a ride myself.” Frank and Judy had a handsome Harley which they used to tour the back country roads.

  We placed our order and Judy hurried away. The jukebox finished playing and conversational levels returned to normal. I looked at Amy, who was staring fixedly across the room, doing her level best to ignore me. I lay my hand over her folded ones on the table top.

  “Are you angry with me, Amy?” I asked.

  She glanced at me before dropping her eyes. “No, I guess not, but I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was when I found you under that bed this morning.”

  I shrugged. “Let’s try to put that behind us, okay? At least we can check Connie off our list of suspects. We’re making progress.” I smiled, hoping to jolly her along.

  “What do you mean ‘list of suspects?’ What progress?” Amy demanded, her face turning pink and her voice rising. I shushed her. “I thought you said that you were done with this,” she added in a low, insistent voice. “You promised not more than fifteen minutes ago that you were never going to do anything this crazy again – remember?”

  I frowned. “Well, yes I did, but I didn’t say that I’m not interested in the case anymore. Let’s not forget that it was my ex-husband who just got murdered, and that I’m the police’s favourite suspect. I can’t just walk away from it, not yet.” Amy sighed and looked away. Judy returned with our milkshakes, and we sipped them in stony silence. Our hamburgers came next, and the crowd thinned out as we ate. Mary took care of the customers lining up to pay their bills while Judy joined us at the table.

  “Did you hear the latest news about Henry?” she asked, dropping into a chair and stretching out her legs with a grunt.

  “No, what happened?” Amy asked, perking up a little.

  Judy braced her elbows on the table and leaned in toward us. “Well, Harold Gibbs eats his breakfast here every day even though he sold Henry the insurance policy for his restaurant, right?”

  “Of course,” I responded. Business was business, but you couldn’t let it interfere with your health.

  “So, Gibbs was in here yesterday morning, and he told Frank what Henry plans to do with the insurance money. Henry is going to install a drive-through window in his restaurant.” Judy grinned and sat back, looking pleased with herself.

  “No,” I uttered in amazement. “Why would he want to do that in a town this size?”

  “Well, Henry claims that his business will increase threefold once people hear he’s got a fast food window. He thinks that the commuters will stop for breakfast on their way out of town in the morning, and pick up supper on their way home. He says that the convenience of not having to get out of their cars will make a big difference to folks. He’s also counting on the bachelor farmers not wanting to cook their own supper after a hard day’s work.” Judy turned to Mr. Andrews. “Hey, Mr. Andrews, if you were still farming, would you use Henry’s fast-food window to pick up your supper?”

  “Nope,” said Mr. Andrews without raising his head from his paper. “I wouldn’t drive two minutes out of my way to purchase Henry’s swill.”

  “Hey Clive, how about you?” Judy shouted.

  Clive swivelled around on his stool and planted his soil-encrusted boots on the floor, knocking little turds of dried mud onto the linoleum. “What’s that?” he yelled.

  “Would you buy Henry’s food if he had a take-out window on the side of his restaurant?”

  “Nope. Can’t get my tractor through a take-out. Tried it once at a Dairy Queen. I wanted a crème-de-menthe milk shake, but I couldn’t make it through their little drive-through. Had to park in the lot and walk inside. Once I got to the counter, they told me they don’t make crème-de-menthe milkshakes. Imagine that. I could get banana or strawberry, but they couldn’t make me a mint milkshake. You’d think that people would prefer a mint milkshake to banana, now wouldn’t you?” We all shook our heads at people’s strange preferences in dairy beverages. “So, no,” Clive continued, “I wouldn’t use Henry’s take-out window. What take-out window?”

  Judy waved her arm at him in dismissal and turned back to us. Clive shrugged and swivelled back to his slice of lemon meringue pie. Judy said, “Pretty bizarre, eh? Well, Henry always did have some strange notions of what would go over in this town. It doesn’t bother Frank any. He’s sure that people aren’t going to eat Henry’s cooking no matter how fast they can get it. But, enough of Henry. How are things with you, Anna? Anything new in your husband’s murder investigation?”

  I glanced at Amy, trying to warn her with my eyes to keep quiet about our recent break-in. “I haven’t heard anything. Have you seen Sergeant Tremaine lately?”

  “Nope, not since the beginning of the week, although I’m sure he’s busy questioning everyone he can think of. I guess he’ll come up with the murderer sooner or later. Frank says he’s pretty sharp, even though he seems a bit young to be heading up a murder investigation.”

  “I guess so,” I said, and Amy nodded. When we didn’t have anything else to contribute, Judy got up from her chair, looking a little miffed at our reticence.

  “Well, I’ll leave you ladies to finish your meals in peace. Wouldn’t want you to get indigestion from talking about anything distasteful,” she said with a sniff.

  “Okay, nice talking with you, Judy. Say ‘hi’ to Frank for me,” I replied. Judy stalked away, obviously not happy with me.

  Amy put down her fork and bent to pick her purse up off the floor. “I’ve got customers this afternoon, so I’ve got to go,” she murmured.

  “Me, too. I’ve got laundry that needs doing,” I said, but I didn’t want to leave when she was still so obviously unhappy with me. “Amy, you were a really big help today,” I said. “You found out about the Primos’ marriage counselling, and you helped me to escape from their house without getting caught. If it hadn’t been for you, I might be in a jail cell right now with Tremaine throwing away the keys. Believe me, I’m very grateful. I hope that you’re not upset with me.”

  “I’m not really upset. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt or in trouble over this,” she replied, pushing back her chair. “But I’ve got to go, or I’ll be late for my one o’clock appointment. Call me later this week, and we’ll talk. And thanks for lunch.”

  “You’re welcome,” I called after her as she hurried out of the restaurant. Glad that things were better between Amy and me, I paid the bill, said goodbye to Mary and Judy, and went home. Wendy whined when I got there, and I felt guilty for neglecting her lately. Time for a good, long romp. Gathering up her leash and a couple of plastic bags for the inevitable clean-up, I headed out the door with Wendy dancing beside me. At least my dog still loved me.

  I hesitated before heading out Wistler Road again, but it was Wendy’s favourite walk and I wasn’t go
ing to let my squeamishness over walking past the spot where we had discovered Jack’s body deprive her of her pleasure. We set off out of town, and Wendy disappeared into bushes bursting with tender green leaves. The air was dry and smelt of newly-cut grass, and I began to relax.

  Strolling after Wendy, I thought about what I had learned in the past week. For one thing, I now knew that Jack had spent part of the afternoon and evening of his last day with Amy, leaving her just before six thirty “on business.” Amy had interpreted that to mean that he was going to see another woman, but if so, whom? I knew that the woman wasn’t Karen Quill, since she had been at a counselling session in Calgary with Connie.

  The coroner’s report said that Jack had been shot in the chest with a .45 calibre bullet between six and nine, and that his body had been moved after his death. The coroner had also confirmed that there had been no evidence of sexual activity prior to Jack’s death. I had discussed that detail with Amy, who told me that Jack had showered after they had been together. That put the kibosh on Amy’s theory that Jack had left her to be with another woman, unless the other woman had shot him before they could have sex. Maybe he had actually gone to a business meeting, but that was hard to believe. What kind of business would Jack be involved with? He had an agent and an accountant to look after him, and I had never known him to be interested in anything other than acting and women.

  Jack had called my home at seven while I was at the book club meeting. I hadn’t given him my number, but he could have found it in a telephone book or online. Why had he called? Was it something to do with his assignation that evening, or had he been calling about something entirely different? Had he wanted to talk about Ben? Maybe he wanted to see Ben to apologize for missing his graduation. It bothered me to think that I would never know the reason for his call. If only Jack had left me a message.

  As far as I knew, the police had made no headway in discovering where Jack had been murdered. Even if Jack had been shot as late as nine, the killer would have had at least half an hour to dispose of his body before I found it around nine forty-five. The murder might have taken place in Calgary, on the set in Longview, or in a multitude of other locations, including right here in Crane. Still, the location must have been pretty private since no one had reported seeing Jack after he left Amy’s house. It was as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth the moment he drove out of her driveway.

  Finally, I knew that someone was trying to set me up, someone who had been watching me and knew that I always took Wendy for a walk on Wistler Road before bed. The murderer also knew my history with my ex-husband. It had to be someone I knew, or someone intimate enough with Jack to know about me. Had the murderer also known about the insurance policy? The life insurance made me the most obvious person to profit from Jack’s death, but it didn’t make me the only one. If someone else profited from his death, either financially or personally, I was confident that Tremaine would find out about it sooner or later.

  I had learned a lot since Jack had died, but I was no closer to figuring out who had murdered him. I decided to leave it alone for a while, hoping that my subconscious would come up with something if I just let the whole thing stew. Checking my watch, I discovered that we had been walking for forty-five minutes already, with Wendy running back now and then to check on me. Here she was again with a stick in her mouth and her belly matted with mud.

  “What have you got there?” I asked. She dropped the stick at my feet and sat down, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. I threw the stick for her and we played fetch all the way back into town. When we got home, I spent an hour combing out her thick fur and giving her a bath. I dried her off with an old towel and left her out on the deck to finish drying, returning to the bathroom to clean the sand out of the tub.

  Focusing on these mundane tasks cleared my thoughts and helped me to decide what to do next. There was only one other woman in this part of the world who had any history with Jack, and that was the stuntwoman, Jessie Wick. I had nothing else to go on, so I decided to find out more about her. Unfortunately, that meant asking for Amy’s help again. It troubled me to keep involving her when she so obviously didn’t want anything more to do with Jack’s murder. Besides, the film people might get irritated if she asked too many questions about Jack, and fire her from the movie for being a nuisance. Worse, Amy’s curiosity might draw the attention of the murderer. I sure didn’t want to put her life in danger, but what else could I do?

  Then I had a brainwave. This was Jessie’s second movie in Longview. That might be a coincidence, or it might mean that she lived around here. And if she did, Erna Dombrosky might know something about her and her family. It was worth a shot.

  Tomorrow was Sunday. I would invite Erna over for lunch and see if she knew anything about Jessie Wick. If she didn’t, Amy would be my back-up plan. Determined to find out more about the third woman in Jack’s life, I reached for the phone to call Erna.