by Sherry Lewis
Just then, George Newman came in, still clutching his Pepto-Bismol. He waved in their direction and bellied up to the counter. Fred wondered if that somebody was Janice Lacey. He wouldn’t have put it past her.
Enos lowered his chair to all four legs while Liz placed a cup and saucer before him and filled it. She’d provided free coffee to the members of the Sheriff’s department ever since her son Grady became a deputy. She refilled Fred’s cup, looked at Kate’s nearly full one and left. Enos filled his mouth as if he were gargling and swallowed loudly. “Did you find out anything interesting?”
Fred couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. “Some.” He took another swallow of now too-hot coffee and replaced his cup on the saucer with a grimace. Kate looked displeased at the idea of telling Enos what they knew, but Fred ignored her and gave Enos a brief rundown of the stories they’d heard that morning.
He’d expected some kind of reaction from Enos, but he didn’t get it. Enos lifted his shoulders and smiled without enthusiasm. “Listen, Fred, Cavanaugh’s pretty upset. He wants me to keep you—both of you—on a short leash. He asked me—no, told me to order you to stop snooping around.”
“I realize that Joan was his wife,” Kate said, “but she was my sister. He can’t tell me to stop talking to people—can he?”
Enos shrugged. “The way I see it, as long as you’re not interfering in an official investigation, I can’t keep you from talking to people. Just be careful—okay?”
“Of course,” Fred agreed. “But tell me this: is there an official investigation to interfere with?”
“Not yet,” Enos admitted.
“Then I guess we’re all right.”
Tiny lines fanned out from Enos’s mouth and eyes. “No, you’re not all right. You’re pushing a little too far here, Fred. Joan Cavanaugh’s death isn’t a topic for gossip or speculation. The two of you are stirring up talk, and that’s not good for anybody. Frankly, there isn’t anyone else in town I’d let go as far as you have, so don’t cross the line. All right?”
What did Enos expect him to do, promise he wouldn’t ask any more questions? Swear he’d stop trying to bring the truth to light? If that’s what he wanted, he was bound to be disappointed. Fred wouldn’t rest until Enos admitted that Joan had been murdered. In fact, he had a moral obligation to continue asking around. He could not—would not—allow a stone cold killer to get away with murder.
“And what about me, Sheriff?” Kate asked. “Does Brandon have the right to keep information from Joan’s family?”
Enos sighed heavily, patiently, the way he sighed when he spoke with Emma Brumbaugh on the telephone about Lora Kirkham’s chickens. “Listen, if it’ll keep you happy, I’ll tell you as much as I know right now—okay? Ivan found a pair of women’s shoes by the path on the west shore early this morning. I haven’t asked Cavanaugh to identify them yet, but chances are real good they’re Joan’s.”
Fred would have given anything for Kate to be useful in identifying the shoes, but he’d be more likely to recognize them than she was.
Enos, having secured both Fred’s and Kate’s complete attention, looked satisfied and tipped back on his chair again. “The real interesting thing is that one of ‘em’s missing a heel. It’s broken right off.”
“Did he find the heel?” Kate asked.
Enos shook his head. “No sign of it yet. It could be anywhere. She could have tried to walk without it for a ways . . .”
Fred felt obligated to point out the obvious. “Or the killer could have dropped the shoes by accident—or left them there as a decoy.”
Color burned Enos’s cheeks. “Far as I’m concerned, Fred, this sort of backs up Cavanaugh’s theory. The shoes were right there. She could have gone into the lake anywhere along that shore.”
“But she didn’t. I walked every inch of that shoreline this morning. There’s not one place she could have walked to the lake. Not one place where there’s a bare footprint along the west shore and that’s the only place she could have gone into the lake and ended up where she did. In fact—”
“You went out there again this morning?” Enos interrupted.
Fred shrugged. “For my morning constitutional. I just happened to notice while I was there—”
Enos’s chair hit the floor with a bang. “What’s the matter with you, Fred? What am I going to have to do, lock you up?”
Kate placed her cup on the table carefully, laced her fingers under her chin and looked at Enos. “Why do you say that, Sheriff? Why shouldn’t Fred take a walk? Do you believe Joan was murdered?”
Enos glared at her. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you might as well have. What do you know about Joan’s death you’re not telling me?”
Enos scowled and pushed himself to his feet. “All I know right now is that I’ve got a dead woman who may or may not have committed suicide and I’m waiting for the autopsy to tell me what happened. Beyond that, I haven’t got a blamed thing, and I don’t want either of you to start digging things up and getting folks riled up if there’s nothing to it. Now, Fred, I’m warning you to keep your nose out of it.”
Fred nodded. “I hear you, but you need to know that I found—”
Enos wasn’t listening. He tossed back the rest of his coffee and, with a last warning look, strode out the door. Almost by magic, Liz appeared with plates and pointed toward the salad bar at the back of the room.
Fred picked up his plate and slid to the edge of the bench, but Kate reached across the table and placed her hand on his arm. “So what are you going to do now?”
In spite of himself, Fred smiled. He was winning her over. He could tell. “Either we talk to Brandon or we try to find the heel to Joan’s shoe.”
Kate nodded and looked out the window. “You’re right, but I don’t want to see Brandon yet.”
Fred liked the sound of that “yet.” But she’d have to get over that before they could figure out what had happened to her sister. He wouldn’t push her now. It had sounded as if she was thinking about staying, and he didn’t want her to change her mind. If all went well, he’d get her and Brandon together later. “Then it’s the shoe?”
“There’s one other possibility,” Kate suggested. “What about the woman your grandson mentioned?”
Fred nearly choked on his coffee. “Summer?”
Kate nodded. “The one who’s afraid she’ll be the next to die?”
Fred shook his head. “She’s a strange one. Probably decided she heard something happening outside after she heard that Joan died.”
Kate slid out of the booth and looked down at Fred. “Well, I think we ought to talk to her. I want to know what she heard that night. I want to know what her relationship was with Joan through the Frame-Up. I’d like to hear what she has to say about Joan’s partnership with Winona.”
Fred fought to keep his face impassive but inside, he was dancing a little jig. Frankly, he didn’t care who Kate wanted to talk to. He’d talk to Emma Brumbaugh’s dog if that’s what it took to get Kate to stay in town.
Sooner or later, Kate would open up and tell him about Winona Fox and her mother. Understanding Joan’s past might help them figure out what had happened to her. As long as Kate stayed in Cutler, he could afford to be patient.
Kate started toward the door with long, purposeful strides and Fred followed. Halfway there, she turned and faced him. “So tell me, how are you really? Is your heart as bad as the Sheriff tells me?”
“No.”
“You’re not about to keel over with heart failure? Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
She nodded and moved on. Fred stopped at the counter and paid for the lunch they hadn’t eaten. He dropped four quarters into the jukebox and selected B-271. As he opened the door for Kate, Elvis came to life again singing his version of “My Way,” and Fred hummed along as he strolled back out into the cold.
eleven
Later that afternoon, Fred drove carefully up Lake Front
, past the bank on Main and then north on Porter to the highway. Beside him, Kate stared listlessly out the window. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet but already lengthening shadows pooled across the countryside as the sun shot weak rays of gold over the treetops. Fred loved the countryside, and the fact that Kate didn’t appreciate its beauty aggravated him.
Up here in the mountains, temperatures always dropped quickly when the sun went down. For that reason, he’d agreed to take the car to Summer Dey’s, but only because of Kate. As the crow flies, Summer lived less than two miles from Fred; by the highway, it was closer to ten. A waste of time and gas, if you asked him. But Kate still didn’t have a warm coat to wear, so Fred had no choice but to humor her.
Once he’d pulled onto the highway, he brought the speedometer up to fifty then pressed hard on the brakes. The car jerked to a stop and Kate’s head shot up.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Checking my brakes.” He accelerated again and repeated the process. Again, the car stopped, this time with a little screech of the tires.
“Will you stop that?”
“Something’s wrong with the brakes,” Fred explained. “I nearly rear-ended somebody a month ago.”
“So take the car to a garage.”
He repeated the brake-check again. “I did,” he said. “Twice. The jokers claim there’s nothing wrong with it. I aim to prove them wrong.”
“I see. The experts say there’s nothing wrong, but you don’t believe them. Wonderful.” Kate rolled her eyes and turned away again. She was acting just like Margaret had when Fred complained to her.
“I know something’s wrong with them,” he said. “I’ve been driving nearly sixty years and in all that time, I’ve never rear-ended anybody. And I ought to know the way my own car works. I’ve had it long enough.”
“Right.” Kate shifted in her seat so she could face him. “Tell me something, Fred. Don’t you ever believe what somebody else tells you?”
Fred pressed the brake pedal again. “Nope.” Fred stepped on the gas again, kicked it up to sixty, and then hit the brakes. It wasn’t that he wanted the brakes to fail. He just wanted to prove that he was right. He couldn’t see why everybody else had a problem with that.
Conversation lagged a bit after that. In fact, neither of them spoke again until they reached the turnoff to Summer Dey’s. Her property fronted on Grand County Road and backed on the southwest shore of the lake. The house, a sturdy A-frame cabin, nestled in a stand of lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce and white fir. With its long, narrow deck that stretched for several feet on either side of the door, the house looked snug and comfortable. Near as Fred could remember, Summer had lived here about fifteen years and it still looked like a summer cabin.
A handful of hummingbird feeders swayed from bent nails along the deck. Two rusted lawn chairs looked out over the front drive and at the deck’s far end, a wooden table shrugged on uneven legs. A chipmunk looked up from its perch on the railing and scurried for safety, chattering angrily.
Kate climbed slowly out of the car and stood in silence as her eyes swept the landscape. Trees sighed overhead and in the distance an owl hooted. She shivered, her distaste obvious. She was a far cry from her sister, Fred thought. Joan had loved it here. Kate hated it.
He led the way up the gravel drive, past a long row of trees whose shadows stretched eerily in the half-light. As he placed his foot on the bottom step, the door squeaked open on its hinges to reveal Summer Dey.
She was a short, sturdy woman. Blonde hair hung into her face nearly obscuring her eyes and fell almost to her waist in the back, straight as a yardstick. She dressed, as always, in black. Severe. Today she wore a long skirt made of some sort of gauzy material, a faded t-shirt and a heavy denim vest that looked like she’d dyed it herself to remove any hint of color. Her face glowed pale in the light that spilled over her shoulder from the interior of the house.
“What do you want?”
Fred worked a smile to his lips. “You remember me? Fred Vickery? My grandson Ben is helping out around here in the afternoons.”
Summer nodded warily.
Fred gestured behind him, motioning Kate to his side. “This is Kate Talbot. Joan Cavanaugh’s sister.”
Kate stepped forward and extended her hand. “I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”
“What about?”
“Could we come in for a minute? It’s awfully cold out here.”
Summer looked hard at Kate, then turned to Fred and shrugged. She didn’t look pleased. “I guess.” She pushed open the screen with a paint-stained hand and stepped back to allow them to enter.
Fred had never been inside before so he looked around eagerly. They entered into a living room that she’d converted into an artist’s studio. From one end to the other canvas, frames, paint supplies, boxes and easels littered the floor and every imaginable surface. Two large paintings hung on the inside wall; two very ugly paintings. A third stood in the center of the room on a large easel. It looked like someone had thrown a bucket of dark brown paint at it and then tossed a little blood red on for good measure.
Ugly.
So ugly, they looked like the paintings he’d seen earlier in The Frame-Up. Odd, especially since Winona claimed they hadn’t done business with Summer in a while. But surely there couldn’t be two people painting such hideous pictures.
He tried to hide his disgust and glanced around, hoping to find a place to sit. Summer kept walking, leading them through the studio and into a small kitchen. There, dishes formed piles on the countertops and on the table, a bowl of cat food held a place of prominence in the middle of the floor and the whole room smelled of rancid food. Fred looked wistfully over his shoulder toward the studio which looked clean and comfortable in comparison.
If Phoebe’s kitchen had ever looked like this, she certainly would not have let guests into it. Summer looked unconcerned. Fred watched Kate, surprised at her control as she gingerly accepted a chair at the cluttered table. She maintained eye contact with Summer the entire time. “I understand you may know something about my sister’s death.”
Summer shook her head. “Where’d you hear that? I don’t know anything.”
Fred took a seat and pushed at the dishes nearest him to make room for his arms. He leaned an elbow into something sticky and pulled it back at once. “Ben mentioned that you heard something the night Joan was killed. He said you were nervous.”
Summer pushed a lock of limp hair behind an ear. “I thought so at first, but it must have been the wind. There wasn’t anything out there.”
Kate’s disappointment showed. “Are you sure?” Apparently, she’d been banking on Summer to have some answers. Fred hadn’t expected a thing.
“Yeah. I’m sure.” Summer crossed to the refrigerator. When she opened the door, a wave of stale air wafted across the room. “You guys want a beer?”
“No, we don’t,” Fred answered quickly. Kate tossed an irritated look at him, which he ignored. She didn’t need to start drinking when there were so many important things to be done. “Tell us what the wind sounded like that night,” he urged Summer. “Ben got the impression it made you nervous.”
With a shrug, Summer pulled a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top and took a long drink. “Look, Ben’s a sweet kid, but he’s mixed up. I don’t know why it matters anyway. They say she killed herself, so what’s the big deal?”
Kate’s posture stiffened. “Maybe it’s no big deal to you, but I’d still appreciate your help.” Kate paused, waiting for a response.
Summer swallowed more beer.
“I understand you did business with Joan at the Frame-Up,” Kate prodded.
Summer flicked some dried paint from her skirt. “Yes. At least I used to. Not for a while, though.”
“How long ago did you stop…doing business with them?” Fred asked, looking in vain for a clean spot for his elbows.
“A few months, I guess. I don’t rememb
er exactly. Why?”
Kate waved a hand, brushing away the question. “What happened between you?”
Summer shrugged again and hitched a hip onto a stool. “Difference of opinion, I guess you could say.”
“With Joan? Or Winona?”
“I never dealt with Winona. Didn’t like her. She wasn’t like Joan, but maybe I made the wrong choice after all. Joan turned out to be the one who cheated me. She took three of my paintings and shipped them off to some art gallery in Dallas. They never came back and she never paid me. When I asked her about them, she tried to tell me she didn’t know anything about them. She tried to claim she’d given them back to me months ago.”
That didn’t sound like the Joan Fred knew. “Are you sure Joan was lying?”
Summer looked at him over the top of her beer can. She took another drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Joan’s the one I took my paintings to. She’s the one who said she didn’t know anything about them when I confronted her.” She pretended to think for a minute. “Yeah, I guess you could say I’m sure.”
“Who told you the paintings were being shipped to Dallas?” Kate interrupted.
Summer’s face settled into a frown. “Joan. I told you I never dealt with the other one.” She sat the beer can on the counter and leaned against the cupboard. “Maybe I should have worked with—what’s her name? Winona? But I’d worked with Joan for so long. You know how it is when you work with somebody for a long time. I never had any problem with her until right near the end.”
“What other kinds of problems did you have?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing, really, it’s just that a few months ago she just sort of wigged out. She started acting real strange and forgetful, you know? I finally had to pull my stuff out of the store. Not that I wanted to, but I couldn’t afford not to. I’ve been having a hell of a time since then. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent market?”
Fred glanced over his shoulder into the studio at the hideous paintings and said, “I can imagine.”