“I know you did, but humor me, okay?”
She nodded, because she knew Jonas wouldn’t ask without good reason.
“You went up the stairs and you told the detective you were on the second step from the top, correct?”
She nodded again.
“I want you to try to put yourself back there. The intruder mustn’t have been that far away from you. Did you hear anything when you were on that step?”
In spite of her reluctance, Daisy tried to go back to that day in her mind. “No, I didn’t hear anything. If I had, I might have moved to the side or stepped down a step.”
“Good point. So you didn’t even hear the floor creak?”
“No. When we bought the tea garden, we refinished the floors up there. But before we did, we made sure everything was nailed down really well. I didn’t hear a sound.”
“How about smell?”
“Smell?”
“Did you smell anything? Perfume, sweat, mouthwash, gum. Anything?”
This time Daisy closed her eyes and thought about it. When she’d opened the door to go up the steps, she’d only smelled one thing. “Very much like me, Tessa bakes when she’s upset,” she explained. “I caught the scent of brownies, but that’s it. Again if I had smelled perfume, I would have thought it was odd. Tessa doesn’t wear perfume. Essential oils once in a while, but I can tell the difference. The same way with mouthwash or gum or sweat. And it all happened so fast.”
“Do you remember what the jeans looked like? Wide-leg or narrow-leg?”
“They were just ordinary,” she said with a shrug. “And they came down over the sneakers.”
“What brand of sneakers?”
“They were red and gray, and had that triangle on the side.”
Jonas took out his phone, tapped the screen, and one of the icons. He tapped in something on the keyboard and then showed her a picture. “That triangle?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“That’s a Reebok, and at least a quarter of the population probably wears them. It’s something, though.”
“It’s something,” she repeated, not thinking it was very much. “I considered the size of whoever knocked me down the steps, but I still can’t get a handle on that. I still believe it could have been a man or a woman.”
Jonas stood. “Why don’t I take you home, then I’ll visit Chloie.”
“No,” burst out of Daisy’s mouth. “I want to go with you.”
“But you said she might not talk to you.”
“She might not, but she also might, and I can always goad her a little about Tessa. That might get her talking.”
“Are you sure you feel up to it?”
“I do. All I’ve been doing is sitting in the car, and I asked the manager of the Smokey Palace a few questions. That’s all.”
“All right, let me go to the computer and find out where Chloie lives.”
“You can do that?”
“I have skills,” Jonas explained with a small smile. “Just as when I searched for Jazzi’s mom, my detective skills come in handy.”
Daisy stayed on the bench and waited.
* * *
A half hour later Jonas had driven to the edge of town where duplexes lined the road. They were small, one floor, with a one-car garage on either side of the structures.
“I wonder if these are for sale or rent,” Daisy said.
“They’re for rent, at least for now. I think the developer is thinking about building more of them.”
“You found this out too?”
“I’m good,” Jonas said with another smile, and Daisy had to smile back.
He came around to her side of the SUV and opened her door for her. Then he helped her out. “How’s the arm feel?” he asked.
“Better each day. I’m going to try it without the sling tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to ask if you think that’s wise.”
“Good, because if I’m moving around the tea garden, and the arm begins to give me trouble, I’ll put the sling back on. I’m thinking of just spending a half day there.”
“Good idea,” Jonas said blandly.
Daisy rang the doorbell. When no one answered, she said, “Chloie could have found another job already.”
“Or she could be home and not want to talk to anyone.”
Daisy rang the bell again.
She and Jonas were almost ready to walk back to his SUV when the door suddenly opened. Chloie stood there glaring at them. “What do you want?”
“We’d like to talk to you,” Jonas said.
“About Tessa?” Chloie asked with a sneer.
Jonas shook his head and extended his hand to her. “I’m Jonas Groft.”
“I know who you are,” Chloie said, a bite still in her tone. “You own Woods.”
“I do, but I’m a friend of Daisy’s and Tessa’s too, and I knew Reese.”
As Daisy looked closer at Chloie, she could now see the young woman’s eyes were red and puffy underneath. She’d been crying. Crying over Reese? Or crying over something else?
“I don’t know how I can help,” Chloie said.
Was that because she wanted to get closer to Reese but he wouldn’t let her? Was Chloie angry about that? Angry enough to kill him?
“We found out something about Reese,” Jonas started. “And it could lead to a suspect.”
“Really?” Chloie asked wide-eyed. “The police asked me all kinds of questions but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“We don’t have much to tell,” Daisy said.
When Chloie frowned, she hurried on, “But we’ve gotten a clue. We’d like you to think about anyone who came to Revelations asking for Reese on the Wednesday before he was killed.”
“Wednesday,” Chloie repeated, closing her eyes for a moment as if she were trying to rewind the tapes in her head. Then she said, “Yeah, I do remember somebody. There was a guy in a hoodie with a buzz cut.”
“How could you tell it was a buzz cut if he wore a hoodie?” Jonas asked.
Chloie gave him a glare. “The hoodie slipped to the side and I could see. His hair was brownish-gray, real close to his head.”
“Could you estimate his age?” Jonas asked.
Again she thought about it. “Yeah. He was about my dad’s age—fifty, fifty-five.”
“Okay, good,” Daisy said. “Did he look around the gallery?”
“No, he didn’t want anything at the gallery. He just asked where he could find Reese. That’s why I remember him.”
“Did he say anything else?” Jonas asked.
Again Chloie thought about it, and then she snapped her fingers. “Yeah. He said they were friends from way back. I told him Reese was at the Smokey Palace taking a break.”
“Was he wearing jeans?” Jonas asked.
“Yeah, jeans and sneakers.”
“I guess you wouldn’t recall what kind of sneakers,” Jonas prompted.
“No. He was close to the counter when he was talking to me. And when he walked away, I just saw the backs. I think they were gray or maybe navy.”
“One more thing,” Jonas asked. “Was there any printing on the hoodie?”
“No, just plain black with that pouch in front. He had his hand on something in there and I think it was his phone.”
Daisy wondered if it was a phone or a gun. Then again, maybe she’d read too many mysteries lately.
Minutes later, after they had thanked Chloie, they were in Jonas’s SUV again. “I’m going to drive you home,” he said, once he’d started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “I’ll go to the police station and talk to Rappaport face-to-face. But first I want to talk to you about something. Maybe we could make a cup of tea when we get to your house.”
Daisy studied Jonas’s profile. He obviously wanted to talk to her. About their relationship? She could see from the set of his jaw and the tight line of his mouth that he wasn’t going to talk in the car. There was a reason he wanted to have a cup of tea.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Jonas added, “So we can sit down in an unhurried manner and hash things out.”
She had the feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever they hashed out.
As soon as Jonas and Daisy walked in the door to her house, Pepper and Marjoram trotted over to greet them. When Marjoram walked over the top of Jonas’s boot, then in and out of his legs, he smiled and scooped her up. “So you want some attention?” he asked her.
She gave a sweet little meow.
“She doesn’t talk much,” Daisy said. “Just when she’s playing with her toys and when she wants to eat. So you should feel honored.”
“I do,” he said. As he held the cat across his forearm near his chest, Daisy realized he’d apparently handled animals before or he wouldn’t know to hold her that way. She really didn’t know details about Jonas Groft.
So that Pepper didn’t feel unloved, Daisy carefully scooped up the cat with her good arm, rubbed her cheek against Pepper’s head, and carried her over to the deacon’s bench to set her down.
Jonas did the same thing with Marjoram, who’d started to squirm. Both cats still had plenty of kitten in them.
After Daisy shrugged out of her jacket, she laid it on the bench. Marjoram proceeded to step on it, stretch out, and snuggle into the fleece.
Jonas followed Daisy into the kitchen, then took off his coat and hung it around the back of one of the stools at the island.
“Do you want me to make the tea?” he offered.
“I’m not an invalid,” she protested, then glanced at her arm in its sling. “I’m trying not to be an invalid.”
“How about if I fill the kettle. You choose the teapot and pull out the tea.”
So that’s how they handled it. “How about green tea with a hint of almond?” she asked him.
“Sounds good.”
As Jonas reached for the teakettle on a back burner, he said, “I guess Chloie wasn’t having an affair with Reese while he was dating Tessa.”
“No, I don’t think she was either. Tessa will be glad to hear that.”
After he filled the kettle from the filtered spigot, he turned on the front burner and set the kettle on the stove. “Does it matter now whether Reese had or didn’t have an affair?”
“It will matter to Tessa. She’ll feel better knowing she wasn’t betrayed.”
“Something got him killed, Daisy. Something he was mixed up in.”
As she spooned tea into the infuser in the bone china teapot decorated with cats that Jonas had given her, she knew he was right. Maybe Tessa hadn’t really known Reese very well either.
Biding his time, Jonas asked about Portia’s visit with Jazzi and listened to Daisy’s feelings about the visit until they were sitting at the island, cups of tea before them.
Finally Jonas blew out a breath. “I want to tell you something about my partner when I was a detective in Philadelphia.”
Daisy nodded. She knew it would probably be best not to interrupt him. The serious look in his eyes told her this wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“Brenda and I were involved and I knew that was only going to lead to disaster. The flip side of that is that cops understand each other. Brenda and I had each other’s backs. At least, we thought we did.”
Daisy waited, intent on Jonas’s story.
“One night before we went on duty, Brenda and I had an argument. She told me she was pregnant. I didn’t know how that was possible since she had an IUD. But that night, she told me she’d had it removed without letting me know. She’d wanted to get pregnant, quit the force, and have a family. But that was everything I didn’t want. Not because I didn’t like kids, but because I didn’t want to leave a child fatherless as my dad had left me.”
Daisy sucked in her breath. She hadn’t known any of this.
Jonas looked down at the cup of tea as if that golden brown liquid was a reflection of the past. “My dad was a cop and he was killed in the line of duty. I knew better than to force that heartache on a woman or a child.”
Daisy had to ask, “Did you and Brenda come to any agreement?”
“What kind of agreement could we come to? She was pregnant. We hadn’t resolved anything when we went to work that night. I felt betrayed. The right thing to do was marry her. But at that time, marriage was everything I didn’t want. There was tension between us when we went on duty. A lot of tension.”
“Brenda was a detective too?”
“Yes, she was. She didn’t have the experience I did, but she was a good detective.”
Daisy kept quiet again because she suspected something terrible had happened.
“On our shift we received a notice that a witness in a murder investigation had been found. We left to question him, mostly silence between us. The man was holed up in a row house in a high-crime area of town. As soon as Brenda stepped out of the car, the witness shot her. When I ran to help, he got my shoulder. Brenda was dead and I was down. I called for backup and the paramedics, even though I suspected it was too late for that. Our witness holed up in the house with his girlfriend and our call turned into a hostage situation with SWAT. A negotiator finally talked the guy out, but Brenda was dead and I was hurt, maybe enough to end my career.”
Daisy reached out and took his hand. “Jonas, I’m so sorry.”
Not pulling away, he looked straight into Daisy’s eyes. “I felt like I let Brenda down in so many ways. I should have done everything differently—from our relationship to our approach to that house that night. I blame myself on so many levels. If I had been pleased about her pregnancy, if we hadn’t argued, if I’d asked her to marry me, if she hadn’t moved so quickly out of the car, maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I could have done something to save her.”
Now Daisy understood where Jonas had been and what he’d come from. He’d lost his father and he’d become a cop. To continue his dad’s work? To prove the same thing wouldn’t happen to him? However, it had. He’d loved someone he shouldn’t have loved. He’d had to absorb the news he was going to be a dad. As he was doing that, he’d lost his lover and a baby all in one night. She could only imagine his pain, despair, and grief.
Finally she said, “I know what it’s like to have the world crashing down on you when someone you love dies.”
She’d been holding his hand, but now he squeezed hers. “I guess you do,” he said.
Although she ached for him and for what he’d gone through, she had to know where they stood now. “What do you want from me?”
After a moment, he admitted, “Maybe I want something you can’t give.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He blew out a long breath and studied her. “I want to build the shelves in your storage closet and spend time with you without expectations. If you want to date other guys like Cade or Gavin, I’ll have to deal with that.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what to say to that, but she decided to follow her heart. “I like you, Jonas. If you want to build my shelves, feel free. If I feel the need to have a swinging social life, I’ll let you know. I also promise you that I’ll be honest with you about everything.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes for several heartbeats. When he leaned toward her, she leaned toward him. His kiss was tender and sexy and everything she wanted the kiss to be.
When they came up for air, he brushed her hair over her brow. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Just a little dizzy,” she said with a smile. “From the kiss, not from the bump on the head.”
He gently ran his fingertips over the bump. “You scared me when you passed out.”
“I scared me too. Believe me, I had to be in a weakened state to let my mom take care of me.”
At that he chuckled. “Your mom means well.”
“Sometime I’ll tell you about me and Mom and Camellia, and why Aunt Iris and I get along so much better than I do with my mother.”
“I’d like to hear about that. But for now I think you need t
o rest.”
“I’d like to go with you to see Rappaport but I know it’s not a good idea.”
Jonas pushed back his stool and stood. “You’re right. That’s not a good idea. If you’re going to take a nap, I’ll wait and call you tonight.”
“No. I won’t be able to rest until I know what he says. Call me after you talk to him, okay?”
“Okay.” Jonas picked up his leather jacket from the back of the stool and she stood too to walk him to the door. At the door he kissed her again. But then he said, “I’m not being fair to you.”
“Let me decide what’s fair and what isn’t.”
After another long look at her, he nodded and left.
As Jonas walked toward his SUV, she watched him through the window, petting her cats to give her a small measure of comfort. She just hoped Jonas wouldn’t pull away again, deciding that was for her own good.
* * *
Daisy had changed clothes into a pair of flowered leggings and a pullover tunic and was trying to rest on the sofa. Jazzi would be home soon, and she really should think about making supper. Maybe they could warm up something her mom had sent home with her. She was mentally ticking through the items in her refrigerator when her cell phone sounded. The tuba almost made her head hurt.
She answered the call quickly.
“I spoke with Detective Rappaport.” Jonas relayed his news without preamble.
“And?”
“He’s still focused on Tessa as the number one person of interest, but he said he’d look into the fight at the Smokey Palace and the video. He will, Daisy. He wouldn’t want to be accused of not following every lead.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I am. But you have to realize that he has to get a warrant first, and goodness knows how many loops of video he’ll have to sit through. So this isn’t going to be instantaneous. Don’t get impatient.”
“I’ll be impatient, but I won’t do anything about it,” she agreed.
“How are you feeling after your day out?”
“I’m fine.” As soon as she said it, she knew Jonas wouldn’t accept that alone. “My head’s throbbing a little and I’ll rest till Jazzi gets home. I’m planning something easy for supper. Mom sent food home with me.”
Murder with Cinnamon Scones Page 14