Pushed to the Limit (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 2)

by Karen Chester

  “I would’ve thought you deal with difficult people every day.”

  Oh yeah? If I knew how to do that, I’d be sleeping in instead of hanging out in a pancake parlor. She squashed the retort as the waitress returned to them and poured out two coffees.

  “Hi, it’s Carmel, right?” Emma said, putting on what she hoped was a bright and friendly tone.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” The waitress warily eyed her, her torpor lifting slightly. “Do I know you?”

  “Uh, not really. We—” she gestured at Faye to include her “—know Kenneth Bischoff from Greenville.”

  The change in Carmel was remarkable. Her listlessness vanished. Her face screwed up, and her shoulders began to shake. “I—I— Why are you hounding me?” The words blubbered out of her trembling lips. “Ken’s already broken my heart. Wh-what more do you people want from m-me?” Her eyes reddened, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She spun around and ran through the swing doors that led to the kitchen.

  Emma exchanged blank looks with Faye. Everyone else in the parlor was gaping at them, forks frozen in midair. Sighing, Emma hopped off her stool and followed after the waitress. As she’d assumed, the swing doors led into a hot kitchen where a cook with a hairnet was flipping pancakes.

  “Hey, no customers here,” he said half-heartedly but made no attempt to stop Emma as she scooted through the kitchen and made for the only door she could see. Stepping out, she found herself in a rear alley that ran along the back of the storefronts. A few yards away stood the waitress, fumbling in her apron pocket for a cigarette and lighter.

  “I’m sorry about all that,” Emma said as she tentatively approached.

  Carmel didn’t say a thing as she lit up a cigarette. Her eyes were still red-rimmed and her hands were a little unsteady, but she appeared to have gotten over the worst of her outburst.

  “Did that bloodless wife of his send you over?” Carmel asked bitterly between deep sucks of her cigarette. “Are you checking up that Ken and I aren’t meeting on the sly? You don’t have to worry. Ken won’t be back. He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”

  “So Kenneth has ended the…uh, the friendship?”

  “The affair, you mean.” Carmel’s lips pulled down at the corners. “Yep. As soon as the wife threatened to divorce him. She might look all sweet and daffy, but underneath the fluff she’s as hard as nails.”

  Emma wasn’t sure if that assessment of Ellen Bischoff was entirely accurate, but a strange sense of sympathy for the jilted waitress welled up in her. She hadn’t expected to feel sorry for a married woman having an affair with a married man, but Carmel seemed genuinely cut up about the end of the relationship. And Emma knew how break ups could hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing how inadequate the words were.

  Carmel puffed faster on her cigarette as if the smoke and nicotine could drown her sorrows. “I didn’t just do it because he was rich, you know. Oh, I enjoyed the champagne and the hotel rooms and the jewelry, don’t get me wrong. But I liked being with him, too. He could be so smart and charming and clever.” She sighed, her eyes growing dewy with memory.

  Emma suppressed a shudder. In her wildest dreams she couldn’t imagine herself being charmed by a snake like Kenneth Bischoff, but everyone had different tastes. Look at Ellen—the woman was besotted enough to want to keep her adulterous husband despite knowing that he’d lied and cheated on her.

  “But you know what gets my goat?” Carmel asked rhetorically. “The way he broke up with me. We’d made plans to meet last Saturday afternoon at the Tall Trees Motel. Then, an hour before, he wanted to cancel on me, but I persuaded him not to. When I got there, he had champagne and oysters waiting for me. He even gave me a beautiful diamond bracelet.” Lifting her arm, she rattled the sparkling bracelet on her wrist. “We had a wonderful time. But then, when we were dressed and ready to leave, he said his wife knew about me and was going to divorce him if he didn’t stop. And then he told me this was the last time we could meet, he would always remember me, and he hoped I’d always think fondly of him. He kissed me on the hand and then he just…just left.”

  She tossed away the cigarette butt and ground it out with her shoe. Her eyes glittered with a mixture of tears and anger. “That dirty rat fink. He let me believe everything was fine and dandy, but all the while he knew it was the last time.”

  Yes, that was very callous of Bischoff. But something else had caught Emma’s attention.

  “So this happened last Saturday afternoon?” she asked, trying to keep her tone neutral. “What time did you meet him?”

  “One o’clock.” Carmel glanced sideways at her. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Uh, just trying to fix Kenneth’s whereabouts that day.” So Carmel and Bischoff had argued behind the hardware store at noon, as witnessed by Rhonda, and then met again an hour later, at about the same time that Faye had tumbled down her stairs.

  “We were at the motel until four.” Carmel lifted her chin defiantly. “I haven’t seen him since, and he won’t return my calls. You can tell that to his wife if she’s still suspicious. Ken broke up with me last Saturday afternoon. I guess he loves his wife’s money more than he loved me.” Her chin wobbled before she pulled out another cigarette and lit up.

  “Can I ask one more question?” Emma waited until Carmel shrugged before asking, “Do you know if Kenneth owns a gun?”

  “A gun?” The waitress wrinkled her brow. “No, I doubt it. Weasel words is more his style. Lying is easier than a gun.” She scowled at the bracelet on her wrist. “Now I don’t even know if these are real diamonds or just cheap rhinestones.”

  “Once again, I’m sorry.”

  So it seemed she didn’t have to worry about Bischoff having a gun, Emma thought. She murmured her thanks to Carmel, then turned and left the waitress peering at her bracelet. She returned to the pancake parlor where Faye was calmly eating the blueberry pancakes that Emma had ordered.

  “Come on, we’re leaving,” Emma said, digging into her bag for her wallet.

  With a laden fork midway to her mouth, Faye looked like she was about to argue, but something in Emma’s expression must have warned her off. She lowered the fork, dusted her hands, and reached for her crutches. Emma tucked a twenty dollar bill under the plate and exited the pancake parlor with Faye hobbling beside her.

  “Kenneth Bischoff was with Carmel last Saturday afternoon,” Emma said once they were back on the road to Greenville. “He couldn’t possibly have pushed you down the stairs.”

  “And you believe Carmel? She isn’t lying for him?”

  Emma thought back on Carmel’s red eyes, shaking hands, and bitter voice. Only an extremely accomplished actress could fake that, and Carmel was no actress. She was an unhappy, chain-smoking waitress who’d been unceremoniously dumped by her lover.

  “I believe her. Kenneth Bischoff is a scumbag, but I don’t think he’s a murderer.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  “How do we know the person who pushed me is the same person who killed Tom?” Faye asked as they neared her house. “Tom Kovacs was a very strange man. He arrived here only a few years ago. Who knows what he was up to before that? He could have been a drug smuggler or a thief. Maybe someone from his past found out where he lived and killed him out of revenge for something.”

  Emma opened her mouth to refute Faye’s argument, but then found she couldn’t. “You lived next door to him all these years,” she said. “You never found out anything personal about him? Like family?”

  Faye sighed. “When he first moved in I tried talking to him. I like to know who’s living next door to me. But he never wanted to chat. Always bolted straight into his house as soon as he caught sight of me. Very annoying. I think he let his yard go to pieces on purpose to block me out. And then that dog barks whenever I go near the property, so he can avoid me even more.”

  “What about visitors? Did he get any?”

  “None that I noticed. Sometimes someone from the
council would turn up if I reminded them often enough.” Faye half-rolled her eyes. “But they’d usually send that Greg Foster, and he’s too much of a softie to make Tom toe the line.”

  “So, no personal callers ever?” It seemed sad that someone had lived in such isolation, whether by choice or not.

  Faye shook her head. “Not that I can recall. Of course, every few months or so there’d be a couple of teenagers who dared each other to sneak into Tom’s yard. I think they must have done it the other night because I heard him yelling at them to clear off and his silly mutt was barking his head off again.”

  Emma started at the news. “When did this happen?”

  “A few nights before last Saturday. I can’t exactly remember.”

  “You should tell the chief when you go for your interview.”

  “Okay, but I doubt it’d be much help. I don’t know who it was.”

  “Still, it might be important.”

  Faye worked her lips for a while. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it was Jason Wylie. That boy is running out of control. His parents should have shipped him off to military school years ago. Then he wouldn’t be such a troublemaker now.”

  Not Jason Wylie again. “I’m sure Jason wouldn’t do something like that,” Emma said with more optimism than conviction.

  “I see you’ve developed a blind spot where that young man is concerned.” Faye sniffed. “I suppose he reminds you of yourself when you were a teenager.”

  Time to change the subject, Emma thought, gritting her teeth. “Do you remember the yard sale last week?” she briskly asked.

  “Yes,” Faye asked after a pause. “What about it?”

  “You bought a whole lot of items from my stall and handed me the money, but I never got the chance to check what you’d bought. Did you happen to buy a kitchen knife?”

  “Certainly not.” Faye’s cheeks reddened. “I know why you’re asking, and I resent the implication that I somehow provided the murder weapon.”

  “Faye, I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want to track down who bought the knife.”

  “It could’ve been anyone. They might even have stolen it while you weren’t looking.” Faye shook her head sadly at Emma. “I hate to say this, but you weren’t very good at manning that stall. You didn’t take charge. You let people walk all over you.”

  Once more Emma clenched her teeth. If she spent any more time in Faye’s company, she’d have to visit the dentist soon.

  “You might not even have sold the knife,” Faye continued. “You might have brought it home with you after the yard sale.”

  Why was Faye echoing Jackie’s sentiments? “Are you saying I could have killed Tom? Why on earth would I do that?”

  Cocking her head, Faye aimed a curiously sly look at Emma. “Well, the last thing I remember after I fell down those stairs was you standing over me.”

  “I was checking if you still had a pulse,” Emma exclaimed, dismayed at how guilty Faye could make her feel. “Honestly, why would I push you down the stairs?”

  “Because I warned Debbie Scheel about your failed business in New York, which you neglected to disclose, and because of that you lost an important client. I was only doing my duty, but you can be rather hot tempered at times.”

  By now Emma’s cheeks was aching from her clamped jaw. “If I’m so hot tempered,” she ground out, “then I’m surprised you trusted me to feed your parrot and watch over your house. In fact, I’m surprised that you willing got into this car with me if I could be such a danger to you.”

  Faye drummed her fingers against her crutches. If she was nervous, she didn’t betray it by so much as a flicker of her eyelids.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” she said quite calmly. “I’m just pointing out how certain events can be construed to make the most innocent person look guilty. You might be hot tempered, and God knows your poor parents had to put up with a lot, but I don’t think you pushed me down the stairs. After all, Pepper seems to tolerate you, and he wouldn’t if you meant harm to me. He’s very prescient, you know.”

  Against that piece of weird animal logic, Emma had no answer, and the rest of the journey continued in blessed silence.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  After dropping off Faye and making sure she was safely inside, Emma returned to her dad’s house only to find an unfamiliar, dark green Jeep Wrangler parked at the curb. She pulled into the driveway, wondering whose car it was, until a familiar figure climbed out of the Jeep and walked toward her. Wesley, the gym instructor. What was he doing here? And then it hit her—they had a date for lunch today. How on earth could she have forgotten that?

  “Hey, there,” Wesley said as she got out of her car. “I thought you’d stood me up.” The puzzled vee between his brows indicated he wasn’t used to being stood up.

  “I’m sorry, I had an urgent errand to run,” Emma improvised. She gestured toward the house. “Mind waiting five or ten minutes while I freshen up?” Wesley was dressed in khaki chinos and a crisp red-and-beige plaid shirt, his hair neatly combed back, his jaw freshly shaven. She, on the other hand, had barely run a comb through her hair today. The least she could do was put on some lipstick.

  She ushered him into the living room and then dashed off to her bedroom. As she fixed her hair, slipped on a cool summery dress, and applied some make up, she wondered why she’d forgotten about the date. Was it because she wasn’t all that taken with Wesley, despite his obvious good looks? She pushed the uncomfortable thought away. Wesley was attractive, friendly, and single. What wasn’t there to like? And their lunch date had only slipped her mind because there was so much else crowding out her brain. She was looking forward to spending more time with him.

  “I thought we’d try this new place over in La Quinta,” Wesley said when they were finally in his Jeep. He’d put the top down, and a warm breeze blew through the cabin.

  “Okay.” Emma wasn’t all that fussed where they went. She would just be glad to leave her problems in Greenville behind.

  But that wasn’t so easy because the next thing Wesley said was, “Hey, did you hear the news about some old guy being stabbed yesterday? Pretty grim, huh?”

  “Yes.” Emma sighed, knowing she couldn’t keep silent on the subject as much as she wanted. “I discovered the poor man’s body.”

  The Jeep lost speed as Wesley turned to gape at her. “What! You? Oh man, that must’ve shaken you up.”

  “A little.”

  He glanced at her several times before giving her arm a brief squeeze. “Hey, I’m sorry I mentioned it. You feeling okay? We don’t have to go out for lunch, if you’re not up to it.”

  “I’m fine, really. And I don’t want to stay at home and brood.”

  He drove on in silence as though she needed time to recover. He really was a nice guy, she decided. Underneath the tattoos, the scar, and the square jaw he was a bit of a sweetie.

  “Any idea who did it?” he asked eventually.

  “Nothing but wild conjecture, I’m afraid. The police questioned me yesterday, but I haven’t heard anything since.”

  Wesley shook his head, his expression somber. “Greenville’s a nice, quiet place, but I tell you, there’re some nutters out there.”

  Something in his tone made her glance at him more closely. “What makes you say that? Have you run into some of these nutters?”

  He grimaced and shifted in his seat, clearly debating whether to continue or not. He tapped his forearm where a tattoo of a red-and-black, fire-breathing dragon writhed over his skin. “See this?”

  “Uh-huh.” No one could help noticing his colorful markings.

  “And this?” He jabbed a finger at the scar on his temple that nicked the end of his eyebrow.

  “Yep.”

  “People see the tattoo and the scar and that I keep myself in shape, and then assume things about me.”

  “What things?”

  “That I’m a member of a motorcycle club or a drug dealer or some kind of enfo
rcer.”

  Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? I’ve never thought that about you.”

  He waved a hand. “It only happens when I’m in certain bars.” He kneaded the steering wheel with fists that were like rocks. Clearly he was upset. “I just want to tell you that I’m not that kind of guy. Sure, I’ve had a few brushes with the law, but that’s all in the past. I’ve been straight for years, and I don’t need any trouble with the cops.”

  Emma chewed on her lower lip, wishing Wesley hadn’t spoken. She’d felt quite comfortable accepting his invitation to a casual Sunday lunch, but now he was revealing more of his past than she’d expected. What were these ‘brushes with the law’ that he’d mentioned? Were they serious felonies or minor misdemeanors? Had he done anything criminal in the past?

  As if realizing that in trying to reassure her he’d done the opposite, he gave her a wry smile. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. Have I frightened you off? Want me to turn around and take you home?”

  That was exactly what she wanted, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Whatever Wesley had done, she didn’t feel unsafe in his presence. Maybe that wasn’t a very logical reason, but she figured she didn’t need to get too nervous. Wesley was upset because certain people pigeonholed him as nefarious based purely on his appearance. If she terminated their date now, she’d be no better than the people who’d pre-judged him.

  “No, it’s fine. Let’s go to lunch.”

  Wesley threw her a quick smile. “I knew you were special.”

  She smiled back, hoping she appeared more confident that she felt. It was broad daylight. They’d be eating in a public place. And she was always prepared for emergencies. She slipped a hand into her capacious bag and felt around. After several attempts she located her cell phone. Now, where was that small can of Mace she’d bought in New York and never had a chance to use? A small, sharp object dug into her palm. What was that? She scrabbled past it and closed her fingers around a slim, metal cylinder. This was either the Mace or hairspray. Her bag was getting out of control. Tonight she would empty out the contents and sort everything.