by Sherry Lewis
As if he felt himself being watched, Douglas sat back on his haunches and looked around. His face was flushed with exertion, but he smiled easily. “Maybe I’ll mow the lawn for you this afternoon.”
“That would be fine.”
“Have you serviced the mower yet?”
“Not yet.” Fred plunged the shovel back into the earth and turned another load of soil.
Douglas watched him for a moment then turned back to the weeds, speaking over his shoulder and trying to sound nonchalant. “I called Margaret this morning.”
“Oh?”
“I thought maybe we should talk.”
Fred kept working and tried to match Douglas’s easygoing tone. He didn’t want to put Douglas off the idea by sounding too eager. “Good idea. Was she home?”
“Yeah.” Douglas sat back on his heels again and rested his hands on his thighs. I feel kind of bad for the way we’ve been acting—”
Kind of bad? Well, it was better than nothing, Fred supposed. “Did you tell her that?”
“Sort of. I could hear Webb in the background and the kids were getting off to school, so we couldn’t talk long.”
Fred leaned on the handle of the shovel. “Well, it’s a start. Maybe you can talk again later.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Douglas didn’t sound convinced, and he turned back to the flowerbed too quickly to persuade his father that he was.
Well, Fred wouldn’t push it. Hard as it was to keep his opinions to himself, he wouldn’t interfere unless they started bickering again. He needed to stay focused on solving Douglas’s real problem. He mopped his brow and asked, “Do you know anything about Garrett and a woman named Paula Franklin?”
Douglas dropped a handful of weed into the pile he’d been building. “Should I?”
“Does the name sound familiar to you?”
“No.”
Fred grimaced with disappointment. “I was hoping maybe Suzanne had mentioned her to you.”
“Suzanne isn’t speaking to me, remember?” Douglas got to his feet and brushed dirt from his knees. “Who’s Paula Franklin?”
“An old flame of Garrett’s. Sounds to me like he gave her the push when Suzanne came back to town. It could be that she was upset about it.”
Even from a distance, Fred could see hope flare in Douglas’s eyes. “Have you told Enos about her?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Don’t you think you should?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?” Douglas rolled his eyes and tried to look outraged. “You really are as bad as they say, aren’t you?”
Fred opened his mouth to make an appropriate response, but the sound of rapid footsteps made him keep quiet. He didn’t want to discuss Garrett’s murder in front of anyone else.
A second or two later, Celeste Devereaux rounded the corner, waving her arms excitedly as she approached. She was dressed in a bright green pantsuit with a pink and blue scarf knotted at her neck. Her clothes clashed as violently with her too-red hair. She clutched the jacket Fred had worn to the Bluebird in one hand, and the instant she spotted him she walked faster and waggled the jacket at him.
“I saw this at the Bluebird this morning,” she cooed. “I told Lizzie I’d be happy to bring it over to you.”
Fred barely suppressed a groan. He made a mental note to discuss the proper way to return lost property with Lizzie in the very near future.
Celeste handed him the jacket, dragging her fingers along his hand as she reluctantly let go. She leaned in close, giving him an overwhelming whiff of perfume. “You have to tell me, Fred. Did you see Olivia? Was she there? What did she say? I’ve been simply dying of curiosity. In fact, I barely slept all night.” She looped her arm with his, nudging the shovel out of his hand, and smiled at him with brilliant pink lips. “You must tell me all about it. I can’t wait another minute.”
What was she doing here? Didn’t she have books to write? She tried to tug him toward the house, but Fred stood his ground. “I saw her.”
“And—?”
“And nothing. She’s upset about her brother’s death.”
“Well of course she’d say that,” Celeste argued. Her face puckered in thought but almost immediately she brightened again. “Anyway, I don’t think she’s the one you want after all. I heard that Garrett was dating some woman down in Winter Park before Suzanne came back.”
She was quick. Fred would grant her that. “I know.” He tried to pull his arm from her grasp, but she held on tight.
“So you know that Garrett dumped her for Suzanne?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“You’re going to talk to her, I guess?”
“I might.”
“Oh, we must! And we’d better get started right away.”
“We?” This time Fred managed to disentangle himself, and he took a couple of steps away for good measure.
Celeste laughed and shook a pink-tipped finger in front of his face. “You’re not leaving me behind this time, Fred Vickery.”
“I’m not going now,” Fred said firmly. “I might not even go later.”
Celeste’s finger stopped moving. She eyed him suspiciously, but broke into a pleased grin. “Oh, you tease! We have to go now if we want to catch her when her husband isn’t home.”
Douglas’s head shot up at that and Fred exchanged a surprised look with him. “Husband?” Fred said.
Celeste took advantage of the confusion to lunge at him and grab his arm again. “You didn’t know she was married? You didn’t know what kind of man Garrett was?” She shook her head and sent a soft look at Douglas. “Garrett was the worst sort, Fred. No morals, if you know what I mean.” She leered meaningfully and tugged at his arm. “Now come on, let’s get started.”
Douglas abandoned the flowerbed and strolled toward them, his smile reaching his eyes for the first time in days. Apparently, he found this all very amusing. “Go on, Dad. I’ll stay here. I promise.”
Celeste raised a hand toward Douglas, as if she intended to pinch his cheek or something else equally inappropriate. “You dear, dear boy. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel. When all this is over—” She broke off and lowered her head, and for a moment Fred worried that she might start crying. But she recovered quickly and sent Douglas a dazzling pink smile. “Don’t you worry about your father. I’ll take good care of him.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Fred said, pulling his arm away from her grip. “I’m not going anywhere right now, Celeste. I’m busy.”
“Oh come on, Dad.” Douglas put an arm around Celeste’s dejected shoulders. “Don’t be such a spoil sport.”
“He’s right, Fred. I let you slip away yesterday. I’m not going to make the same mistake a second time. I’ll stay right here until you agree to let me go with you.”
“Stay as long as you like,” Fred said. “It won’t do you any good.” He turned back to the lilac bush just as Margaret’s car pulled into the driveway.
Celeste gave a squeal of delight and tottered across the lawn, accosting Margaret before she even got out of the car. “Maggie, you absolutely must make your father stop being so mean to me. He’s refusing to let me go.”
“Go where?” Margaret spoke to Celeste, but her eyes locked on Fred.
“To question Paula Franklin. I have the most brilliant idea about how we could handle the investigation. You know how they do it on television? Good cop, bad cop? I thought I could be the bad cop—”
With her long legs, Margaret could have outpaced Celeste easily, but she strolled toward Fred slowly. “I didn’t realize you were going to visit Paula Franklin today, Dad.”
“I’m not.”
“Then when are you going?”
Fred picked up the shovel and leaned on the handle. “I didn’t say I was going at all, did I? This is all her idea.”
“Really?” Margaret looked skeptical and she turned to her brother for confirmation. “Really?”
Douglas battled the smile that tugge
d at his mouth, managed to get it under control, and faced Margaret squarely. “It was. All Celeste’s idea. Dad and I are working in the yard.” He gestured toward the tools and the flowerbeds and looked back at her innocently.
Good boy, Fred thought.
Margaret half-turned away, tilted her head at an angle a little like a cat waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse, and took a few steps toward the house. “Good. Don’t even think about going to Winter Park,” she warned.
Fred raised his hands and put on an innocent expression. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
If he didn’t count subjects like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, this was the first time he’d ever out-and-out lied to his daughter. But sometimes, he told himself, the ends justified the means.
Later that afternoon Fred slowed the Buick for the first stoplight in Winter Park and dug out from his pocket the address for Roger and Paula Franklin. He was later getting here than he’d wanted to be, but it was still fairly early in the day. The husband should be at work so hopefully Fred could sneak in a private conversation with the wife.
He’d scrawled the address on the back of a bank deposit slip, and in the dim interior of the car he had to squint a little to see it. Unit A-51, The Overlook, on Silver Hill. With an address like that, it had to be in one of the new-fangled condominiums that seemed to be sprouting up everywhere.
Fred drove until he found the cluster of rough wood buildings crawling up the side of Silver Hill on the south end of town. They cut into the stands of aspen and spruce and tried hard to look like they belonged there. Fred knew the builders went for this look on purpose, but he didn’t like it. It seemed to him they could at least sand down the rough spots and splash on a little paint.
He followed the winding road to the top of the hill and then pulled into an unnumbered parking space in front of the building marked A. He found number 1 on the ground floor, nearly concealed behind a clump of aspen trees.
He rang the bell, and a tall, dark man of about thirty-five answered the door. The man squinted out of a pair of deep-set eyes lodged under thick black eyebrows, both of which were perched on a suspicious face. “Yeah?”
Fred had no doubt this was the husband, but he froze in place for a moment and tried hard to think of a reasonable explanation for his visit. “Is this the Franklin residence?”
“Yeah. What do you want?”
“Is Mrs. Franklin in?”
The man’s eyes narrowed a bit. “She’s at work. Why do you want her?”
That was a million-dollar question. Maybe Fred could act vague enough to throw the man off. “I was hoping to catch her. Any idea when might be a good time to find her home?”
“Why?”
Fred didn’t blame Roger Franklin for wondering. If some strange man had come looking for Phoebe, Fred would have acted the same way. Maybe vague wasn’t the best approach, but Fred didn’t think that mentioning Garrett was the way to go, either. “I just have a few questions I’d like to ask her.”
Roger’s eyebrows melded together. “For what? A survey?”
That sounded good. Fred nodded.
“Since when do they send old folks out to take surveys?”
“It’s not a survey exactly . . .”
Roger shifted his weight and leaned a little into Fred’s personal space. “Who did you say you were?”
Roger was half Fred’s age and twice his weight, and Fred thought it might be best not to make him angry. “My name’s Fred.”
“And what did you say you wanted with my wife, Fred?”
“Just a few minutes of her time,” Fred said as he turned to go. “I’ll try her again some other time.”
“What company are you with? You are one of those door-to-door salesmen, are you?”
“Nothing like that,” Fred assured him.
Roger nodded in satisfaction. “You got a business card? Maybe I could give it to her.”
Fred shook his head and took a step away from the door. “I’ll just check back.”
Roger pulled himself back inside and almost shut the door. Before Fred had gone even half a dozen steps, Roger yanked the door open again and shouted, “I know where I’ve seen you before. Don’t you live up in Cutler?”
Fred swallowed a groan of disappointment. There was no sense trying to deny it. “Yes. That’s right.”
“So who are you, anyway?”
Fred shivered in the light breeze and returned to the front door. “My name is Fred Vickery. Please tell Mrs. Franklin—”
Roger’s posture didn’t change, but his face snapped to the alert and his eyes glinted. “Vickery? Any relation to the guy who killed Garrett Locke?”
“My son was accused of murdering Garrett, but he didn’t do it.”
“Too bad. Some people might think he did the world a favor. So what do you really want with my wife?”
“I’m trying to talk with everyone who knew Garrett—” Fred began.
“What makes you think she knew him?”
“She didn’t?”
Roger shrugged a little too casually. “No telling who she knows, but I never met him.”
“You never met him, but you didn’t like him?”
“I never said that.”
The man was starting to get on Fred’s nerves. “You said that whoever killed Garrett did the world a favor,” Fred pointed out.
Roger gave him a tight smile and leaned against the door frame. “I said some people might think so. I’ve heard about him, but I never met the man.”
Fred smiled back. “Well, then, I don’t think I need to disturb you any longer.”
“Who told you my wife knew him?”
“I don’t remember,” Fred lied.
“Well, she didn’t know him,” Roger insisted, “and I don’t want anybody spreading rumors that she did. You got that?”
Unnerved by Roger’s sudden hostility, Fred took a few more steps away. Roger gave the door a shove so it slammed shut with a bang.
Roger Franklin was an angry, hostile man. So much so that Fred couldn’t help whistling as he walked back to his car. No matter how hard Roger Franklin tried to convince him that he’d missed the target, Fred had a feeling he’d just scored a direct hit.
EIGHTEEN
When the Bluebird Café appeared in Fred’s line of vision, he decided he needed coffee—and lots of it. He pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and found a spot by a huge Englemann spruce. He didn’t see George Newman’s battered gray pickup anywhere, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t think he could handle George right now.
Inside, he claimed a seat at his favorite corner booth and signaled Lizzie. He wondered whether Roger Franklin would warn his wife that Fred had been asking about her. He hoped not. He wanted to get her honest reaction to his questions. But he couldn’t do that until he figured out some way to talk with her when her husband wasn’t around, and that might be difficult. Maybe he should have asked where she worked, but he didn’t think Roger would have divulged that information. Roger might not tell Paula that Fred had been looking for her, but he wouldn’t make it each for Fred to find her, either.
Through the window that overlooked Main Street, Fred saw Enos drive slowly past in his trip. He stopped, surveyed the parking lot, and pulled to the side of the road. After jamming his battered black cowboy had over his thinning hair, Enos climbed out of the cab, looked both ways for traffic, and jogged across the street.
He burst through the front door and headed straight for Fred’s table. His face showed creases of anxiety that weren’t normally there. Narrow slits appeared where his eyes usually were and his lips compressed to form a thin line. He slid into the seat across from Fred and leaned his arms on the table. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Clearly, Enos was in a mood. Fred ignored it and lifted his cup. “Having coffee. Want to join me?”
“I know you’ve been talking to people about the Garrett Locke case.”
Fred couldn’t deny it, so he s
hrugged and tried to look unconcerned. “One or two.”
The eye slits on Enos’s face tightened. “Didn’t I warn you about this? Didn’t I specifically say—?”
“You said you were doing everything you could to find Garrett’s killer. Instead, you’ve arrested my son and tossed him in jail. What did you do to investigate other suspects while you had him in jail? What witnesses did you talk to? None. That’s who. Somebody had to do something.”
“Even if you were right—which you aren’t—that doesn’t give you the right to take the law into your own hands.”
Fred lowered his cup to the table and glared at his old friend. “I have every right to help my son prove he’s innocent.”
“Not if it interferes with an official investigation.”
“If you were conducting an official investigation, I wouldn’t have to do it myself, would I?’
Enos snapped his gaze away and stared out the window, but his jaw worked and Fred could sense his tension. After a lengthy silence, Enos asked, “Does Douglas have an attorney yet?”
Fred didn’t answer him right away. He didn’t want to actually lie.
Enos turned back to Fred and shook his head like a parent might over an unruly child. “Do you realize how strong the case is against him? We found the murder weapon with his fingerprints on it, for tar sakes. We’ve got half a dozen witnesses who saw Douglas fighting with Garrett and heard him threaten Garrett. And we’ve got one who puts him at the murder scene. Good billy hell, Fred—”
The wind left Fred’s sails in a rush. “I know.”
“You don’t have the kind of skill it’s going to take to get Douglas out of this mess,” Enos said. “Unless he finds a miracle, he’s probably going to take the rap for this.”
“He’s not going to prison,” Fred insisted. He sounded more confident than he felt, but he refused to grant the idea any chance to take root.