by Misty Simon
“Thoughts?” I asked Max when we stopped at the local diner to get a bite to eat before my stomach ate itself. I shoved a corner of my grilled cheese in my mouth, then dipped a fry in gravy while I waited for him to formulate whatever he was going to say.
“What I don’t get is what you were trying to accomplish by asking him if he’d killed Craig. It’s rare someone is going to just come out and say ‘yes I did,’ and now he knows you suspect him. Don’t you think that’s showing your hand a little early without any kind of facts?”
“Yes and no. I wanted to see his reaction to me suspecting him. I also wanted to see if he’d try to talk me out of my suspicion and what he’d offer to get me to stop thinking he was the one who had killed his partner.”
“And did you get all that? You left me out there with all those stuffed shirts so I didn’t hear what was going on.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, but I didn’t think I was going to be able to get them to leave, and I wanted to hit Drake with the questions when he was feeling out of control. I even asked him about Michelle’s brother while I had him on the hook.”
“Do you watch too many crime dramas, or do you just come up with this stuff on your own?”
Now I laughed. “Probably both. I just remember that if I wanted my brother Dylan to admit that he’d done something, I’d accuse Jeremy, and the little guy would confess right away because he didn’t want to see anyone else get in trouble. I also told Drake that many people think Michelle is guilty, and he was quick to defend her, but I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t that sure.”
More fries were dipped into more gravy. I absolutely loved the stuff, but never made it for myself. They didn’t exactly make gravy servings for one at the grocery store, and I certainly didn’t need it hanging around in my refrigerator, tempting me to keep eating it every day.
“And what did that accomplish?” He snatched one of my fries, and I let him. Now that was something I’d never done before. Maybe this really was love.
“Are you playing devil’s advocate here, or do you really think I did the wrong thing?”
“Definitely the first one.” He took another fry, and I did not stab him with my fork.
“It accomplished getting him to think about who might have done it. Also, I wanted to put him on alert in case he wants to go to the station and talk to Michelle about how we think she might have done it, too. I might have deliberately planted the notion that we’re considering the idea that maybe they did it together.”
He took another fry and I let him again. But that was going to be the last one because I was almost out of fries.
“I see where you’re going with this, hoping that one of them will rat the other one out. But what if it was neither of them? What if you’re going after the wrong people?”
“Well, it’s not like I have to deal with them on a daily basis, so I don’t see a downside as far as going on with life goes. But it also gets them to thinking and maybe coming to me, or even going to Burton, to defend themselves with facts about how it wasn’t them. Neither of them has an alibi except that they were sleeping.” Burton had told me that, and I’d scoffed at him. Michelle did have footage of her garage from a security cam that clearly showed only Craig’s car leaving at ten at night and hers resting, turned off, in the second garage. I believed she was not the one who did it, but rattling cages could be the way to go on this one.
“Any other suspects?”
“I don’t trust Lily. She has too many reasons to cut Craig’s life short. She says she wanted to come and get her half of things, but why did she wait so long? And what is she going to do with her half? She also swooped right in on Michelle’s house and refuses to let her in. At least I got Burton to close the house off and make them both get out until the issue of the marriage is settled.” And that had taken some fancy footwork and was one of the reasons Michelle was still in jail. She had nowhere else to go and the bank accounts were now frozen, so she had no money either. No matter how mean she could be, I was starting to feel just a little bit sorry for her. To lose your husband, even if he was a cheating bastard, and to lose your home and everything you thought was your life in one stumble down the stairs must be devastating. I no longer had my husband or my house, but I’d walked away from both of them in my own time.
“Anyone else?”
“I’m still not sure about Michelle’s brother. Drake said that he was going to cut him off as soon as the estate was settled, but could he? Would Drake really be able to do that if Michelle agreed to give the brother money or have him run the part of the business she thought she would own?”
“Are you going to set something up to talk with him? The brother might not be as open as Drake. Why would he kill his sister’s husband, or supposed husband, and then hurt a supposedly pregnant woman?”
One last fry. I dipped and savored before answering. “There have been coincidences before. I’m not ruling them out this time. I just can’t.”
“Well, at least you’re not keeping things back from Burton this time. And you have his blessing to bring him what you find. He did, however, ask you not to go and seek things out, and I think going after Drake today might count as seeking.”
“We just won’t tell him then.” I pushed my plate away and grabbed the check. This one was on me, even if Max had eaten several of my fries along with his own dinner. It was the least I could do since we were going to clean Mildred Forbes’s huge Victorian this evening with its fourteen cats.
* * *
“I don’t know how you do it.” Max literally toppled onto my couch at ten, scooting it a few inches across the floor with his size. “I could not do that every day. I hope you get paid well.”
After dropping my keys off on my kitchen counter, I sat on the floor near his head. “Poor baby, do you need a back rub? I get paid just fine. Mrs. Forbes pays double because I am willing to come in so late to accommodate her schedule. It’s all in the timing.”
“And you don’t want to pick up more hours here at Graver’s? Jeremy was telling me that they could really use you more around here and would love to have you full time.”
I scooted back. “Jeremy needs to keep his mouth shut. And no, I don’t want to work more at the funeral home. You don’t know what it’s like to be under your parents’ thumb.”
He closed his eyes. “No, I guess I don’t.”
That had been a crappy thing for me to say. He’d been shipped off to his grandmother’s when he was a teen, the grandmother who was a tyrant and one of the reasons he had valued my parents so much. I’d had no idea that they’d gone to his graduation from high school and college and that they’d stayed in touch with him over the years. It wasn’t until he’d come back nine months ago that I even remembered him from my childhood, trying to tag along behind him and Jeremy.
And look at us now.
“I should have thought before I said that. I just don’t want to be beholden to them for everything. I already live in their building, they helped me with the move, my mom refuses to cash my rent checks, and if I also only work here and nowhere else, then everything I have and do is wrapped up in them. I love them, I do, but I have to have some independence. I hope that makes sense.”
He rolled his head so he was staring at me. “It makes complete sense. I shouldn’t have phrased it like that.”
I leaned forward to kiss him and all was right in our world even if things not so far away were in turmoil.
* * *
“Tallie, I need you.” Gina’s call came at eleven that night. The words alone would have had me moving, but the tone set me in my sneakers before I could completely comprehend what was happening.
Max and I had fallen asleep on the couch after snacking on leftover orange chicken and beef with broccoli. My quick movements woke him up.
“What’s going on?” He rubbed his eyes, pulling his T-shirt back down over his firm stomach.
“I don’t know yet, but Gina’s in trouble.” I went back to the pho
ne. “Where are you?”
“Jail.”
Good God. “With Michelle?”
“Yep. Please come down here and help me out. No one will listen to a word I say. I don’t think I need a lawyer yet because Burton hasn’t charged me with anything as of right now, but I need you here. Maybe you can talk some sense into the man.”
“I’m on it.” And if Burton didn’t like it, then he could just suck it up.
“I’ll go get ready.” Max lumbered off the couch and headed for the bathroom.
“Why don’t you just meet me down there? I have to go. Now.”
He changed directions in midstep to head for the door to the stairway. “I can just use the bathroom there, I guess.”
“Fine by me.”
By the time we got in the car, and I maneuvered my way around the hearses, then opened the gate at the front of the tunnel, then closed it again behind me, I probably could have walked there. Could have, but I didn’t want to walk home in the middle of the night.
As Max and I entered the police station I didn’t hear any yelling, so that had to be a good thing. Max headed to the restroom and I approached the desk even though I wanted to head back to the cells without any help from the man at the counter. Maybe they had put Gina and Michelle into two cells far away from each other, or at least as far as possible in our small station.
But when I was escorted back to them by the very nice deputy, I was surprised to find them talking through the bars to each other. Calmly, quietly even, and having a decent conversation. Would wonders never cease?
They both looked at me as I approached.
“We were just comparing notes,” Gina said before I could ask.
“Okay then.”
“Since we’re both in here, we thought it might be best to try to go over all the things we know about the people around us and see who we think could have killed Craig.” Michelle sat on her flat bunk with her hands between her knees and tears in her eyes.
“Have you come up with anything?”
“Not really, but I’m glad we got a chance to talk. I believe that Gina would never have gone after Craig if she’d known he was married, so that at least makes me feel better. And the evidence I said I had that could have linked her to the murder was a total lie.”
Well, that certainly made me feel better. Now to figure out how to get them both out of jail and find out who had really done this. I wanted the real killer jailed in the worst possible way so he or she could never hurt another person again.
But where to start? And how to get the information we needed to nail this person? First I was going to ask the question I’d only gotten part of the story about from Drake earlier.
“What about your brother, Michelle? He and Drake appeared to be having quite the discussion at the Bean right before your brother called me trash.”
She shook her head, a look of disgust on her face. At least this one wasn’t aimed at me or Gina for once. “We don’t talk often. He irritates me and he’s an idiot. Before Craig was even cold, my brother approached Drake about letting him come in to the business. Drake was going to allow him to think whatever he wanted until the will was read. The arrangement Drake and Craig had worked out leaves no room for a new partner. I didn’t want to get involved. I wasn’t involved from the beginning in any of the business of the firm.” Her eyes narrowed for a second and then cleared. I didn’t know what that look meant, but she was on a roll and I didn’t want to stop her. “Anyway, he was in Texas with his wife until the day before the funeral. I really thought he wouldn’t make it back in time, which was fine with me. He’s been after me for years to let him be a part of Craig’s business, but I always hid behind the fact that it wasn’t my firm, so it wasn’t my decision.”
Max joined me at last. “He had no opportunity then, but he would have had a motive to kill Craig if he wanted in and you weren’t making it happen.”
Brilliant deduction from my Taxinator.
Michelle shook her head, though. “My brother wouldn’t know motive if it jumped up and bit him in the brain. He lacks ambition. He wants everything handed to him the easy way. I think you’re looking in the wrong direction.”
I took that under advisement and went with my next question. “Did either of you come up with a name, then?”
“Lily,” they said at the same time.
Well, at least that was somewhere to start. Maybe solving this marriage thing was step one and we’d go from there.
“Why are you in here, anyway?” I asked Gina.
“Because we found a bottle in the apothecary case, the one only Gina has a key to, and it has traces of the exact same thing that killed Craig. Hemlock.” Burton spoke from behind me. I hated when he snuck up on me like that. Why hadn’t Max warned me?
“You have got to be kidding me.” I turned around and poked my finger into his chest. “You can’t really believe she did this. Someone is working hard to make it look like she did, and you’re falling for it.”
After staring down at where my finger was still drilled into his chest, he looked back up at me and gently moved my finger out of his personal bubble. “I’m aware that someone is trying hard to get her framed for this murder. I also can’t just go on gut instinct. I have to follow the rules. With the bottle, that means Gina’s in here for the moment.”
“And are you also keeping Michelle? I thought you’d cleared her.”
“Yes, and not yet.” He moved away from the cells and waited for me to follow him. Max stayed where he was, talking with the two women. “Look, please, I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Tallie. It was one thing for me to let you help if you have any info I might need or can’t get, but it’s another for you to walk in here like you think you own the place and start bossing me around.”
“I am not.” I didn’t say anything else, though, because I had sorta done that. Not only that, I’d also made him explain himself to me when I should be letting him do his job and should be out of his hair. “Okay, then, sorry. Can I take Gina home now?”
“Yes, you can, but she can’t leave town. I’m trying here, Tallie, but my hands are tied. I need something concrete if you have it. But don’t get hurt. Your Uncle Sherman already doesn’t like me, and sometimes I get the side eye from your father, so the last thing I need is to tell them that you’ve been hurt running around town trying to play amateur detective.”
“You got it.” A giddy bubble rose in my stomach. He had called me an amateur detective again. That wasn’t exactly a compliment, and I knew that it had come out grudgingly, but I was deliberately looking on the bright side.
Max and I signed Gina out but felt bad leaving Michelle. There wasn’t much I could do about her situation. Burton wouldn’t release her to me anyway. Then a thought hit me. I should have considered it sooner. I bet I could get him to release her to Drake, or at least I could ask.
“Go on out front, Gina. Take Max with you. I’ll be right with you two.”
“Okay.” She raised an eyebrow at me and Max did the same. I just waved them on. I didn’t want Burton to feel pressured by two females and a male. I also didn’t want to lose face if he said no.
“Burton, can I have a second of your time?”
“You’ve already used up hours, Tallie. I don’t know if I can handle anymore.”
“Don’t start. I have a question I want to run by you. I even sent Gina and Max up front so you don’t feel pressured. I want points for that.”
A genuine smile broke out on his face. “I’m listening.”
“If I can get in touch with Drake Fuller and have him take custody of Michelle, can I take her with us and drop her off at Drake’s?”
His forehead crinkled. “I’d need to talk to him, too. And I don’t want you to say anything to Michelle until it’s all sewn up.”
“You got it. Can I use an office?”
He pointed me to my cousin Matt’s office and I promised myself not to touch anything.
I called the number f
or Johnson and Fuller. On the voicemail, Noreen spouted out a cell phone number for Drake in case of emergency. I figured this counted as an emergency.
I was honestly surprised that Drake wasn’t down here already, but maybe Michelle still hadn’t called him, or maybe she had and hadn’t told him the severity of the situation. But I’d told him she was in here earlier. Had he never tried to see her? That seemed strange for someone who professed to love the woman.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Drake, it’s Tallie. Before you hang up on me, or accuse me of doing anything, I have to talk to you about Michelle.”
“Do you know where she is?” Urgency made his voice vibrate with tension. “She told me she was getting out of jail hours ago. And I’ve been trying to get a hold of her ever since. I have no idea where she is. I know she can’t stay at her house, and she doesn’t have money for a hotel.”
“Actually, she’s about twenty feet from me in a jail cell.” He roared, and I held the phone away from my head long enough for him to wind down before asking if he was done.
“What is she still doing in jail? Why did she lie to me? Forget it. I’m going to nail that Burton to a wall.”
I’d like to have seen him try. “I told you before that she attacked Lily. She should be in a Harrisburg jail, but they didn’t have enough room so Burton brought her here, where it was safer. Plus, he also knows she has nowhere else to go and was going to keep her until she could make arrangements. I called you to see if I could bring her to you, but I hadn’t realized she’d already told you she was out.” Why would she have done that? What was the purpose of lying to him?
“All right, maybe I won’t nail him to a wall.”
“I think it would be best if you just let that thought go right now. I was calling to let you know I asked Burton if I could bring her to you. He agreed as long as he can talk to you first.”
“Fine then. I definitely won’t nail him to a wall. Put him on the phone.”
I did as I was asked and watched Burton talk to Drake. Burton tried to scoot me out of the room, but he was out of luck, and there wasn’t much he could do about it since he was tethered to the desk phone.