He has a great smile. “You know me so well,” he says.
“You know me too well.”
“If I weren’t on the clock, I’d beg to differ.”
“The chief doesn’t allow begging whilst on the clock?”
“No, he much prefers we grovel.”
Then I start crying. “I can’t believe it was Marti.” Yep, volleys of tears burst forth right there, in front of this tough yet sensitive man. I am living the cliché of the shattered victim. I feel the detective’s hand grip my shoulder. It is warm and firm and for a moment my eyes close and I imagine him massaging my neck. I must sound as bad as I look because Stax and Ruby, both of whom were giving the detective a wide berth with me, came over to offer comfort.
He quickly removes his hand from my shoulder.
“Is she gonna live?” asks Stax.
Bentley is smiling. “As long as she stops chasing criminals.”
“What’s Marti’s status?” asks Ruby. I feel selfish for not having thought to ask that myself.
“Still unconscious, pulse faint, but now that she’s got medical attention they say she’ll be fine.”
Ruby nods but betrays no emotion. “Is she under arrest?”
“Not until I can read her her rights, but that’ll be soon enough.”
“Good. Would it be possible for us to have a conversation inside?”
Bentley scratches his head and looks perplexed. “It’s not kosher for a detective to let civilians walk around a crime scene. Do you have a particular reason for wanting to go back in the store?”
“Yes, I think it might jog something loose.”
“From what?”
“From my rattled skull.”
“But you said you weren’t in the store when it all went down?”
“I think it’s a good idea,” I find myself saying. “Stax and I might benefit from seeing it with the lights on.”
I don’t think I’d see anything I hadn’t seen before, but Ruby is anxious to get in the store and I want her to know I’ve got her back. I am surprised when Detective Bentley relents. Stax rolls her eyes at me as though to say it is more my charms than my logic that persuaded Bentley. And what’s wrong with that?
“Okay, I’ll give you guys a few minutes. My men are still digging around in the back.” Bentley escorts us back into the crime scene that, up until an hour ago, was our favorite hangout.
Ruby walks into the middle of the store and stares intently at the pile of shelving stacked up between the counter and the street door. “What do you make of this, detective?”
“I’m not sure, Miss Maplethorpe. It’s on my list of questions to ask Mrs. Reynolds when she wakes up. It didn’t make the top five, though.”
“But what’s your gut tell you?”
“My gut, huh? Well, when I first saw it I thought of a dugout or barricade. Criminals will build those if they’re anticipating a shootout.”
“Did Marti have a gun on her?”
“No. No, she didn’t.”
“A barricade was my first thought, too. So why wasn’t she behind it when Lacy and Stax came in? They said she was waiting behind the door into the offices.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say. Maybe she had a change of mind.”
“After all this work? And did you notice the street door was ajar?”
“Of course, I noticed it.”
“Do have an idea as to why? It’s the furthest entrance from where she parked.”
“Well, she might have anticipated Lacy entering that way. That must be why the barricade is in front of that door. And when she saw through the window that the women would be entering by the side, she ran into the back room. This way, her bases are covered.”
“I can see why you’re a detective,” says Stax, visibly impressed.
Bentley sidles up to Ruby. “Talking out a problem is often how I’m able to reach the correct conclusions, although it’s not very common I talk out the evidence with witnesses.”
“Yes, that’s the purpose. But I don’t think you’re arriving at the correct conclusions.”
“Oh, is that right?”
Gulp.
I feel embarrassed for Ruby and offended on behalf of Detective Bentley.
“Ruby, you can’t say that,” I whisper into her ear.
Bentley waves it off in a good-humored manner. “No, it’s fine. I don’t claim to be infallible and a detective’s best asset is always an extra set of eyes. What did I miss, Ruby?”
“The barricade, for lack of a better word, was built with the supports on the inside. As you can see, the high part or ‘wall’ is on the side facing the street door, and not on the inside as you’d expect if she were planning to conceal herself from someone entering through this door.”
“Score one for the old lady.”
“Stax!”
“What? When she’s right, she’s right!”
“I wasn’t reacting to that, you called her an… oh, never mind.”
“It’s all right, Lacy,” Ruby says. “I’ve been called worse by better. But we’re not trying to score points here. Detective Bentley, do you see the point I’m trying to make? If this is intended to be a barricade of any sort, it’s in the wrong location.”
“Yes, Miss Maplethorpe, I do see.”
“Please, call me Ruby.”
“Ruby, I do see. And if you have an idea what Marti’s purpose was, I’m all ears.”
“That’s just it, I don’t. Not yet. Let me have a look back here.” Ruby moseys back in our direction and walks past all three of us as though we are invisible. We are standing in front of the side entrance door and watch as Ruby pushes the swing gate and creeps inside the associates area behind the sales counter.
“Watch out for the glass,” I caution.
“That’s precisely what I’m looking at,” is her response. “How many of those strange balls did you girls throw?”
“Just one.”
“My aim is true,” Stax says, hoisting her chin into the air.
“Then can anyone explain how the glass case became broken? Look, the ball is still in the case.”
“Don’t touch that!” orders Bentley. “It’ll need to be printed.
Ruby heads back towards us. She looks me in the eye and I can see the wheels of her brain spinning and fuming. “How was it you came to be holding those balls?”
“I thought I’d mentioned it to you. There were a few of them sitting outside the entrance here when we walked up. Stax thought they might come in useful, and I’m glad she did.”
“Almost as though it were preordained, don’t you think?”
“I don’t follow your meaning.”
“And what did you see when Miss Stax threw the ball?”
“Well, Marti ran past me, stabbing me in the arm, and she ran behind the counter, right where you just were. I saw Stax’s arm go through the air and watched Marti hit the ground.”
“And the glass broke at the same time?”
“Yes, I imagine it bounced off her and hit the case. Or else her arm went through the glass as she fell.”
“No, that couldn’t be it. The ball is in the back of the case. But you’re sure you saw all of what you just described? You weren’t preoccupied with your arm?”
“I grabbed my arm when I felt the pain, but I’m telling you, my eyes were locked on that black hood. I saw the whole thing.”
“And you?” she says to Stax.
“Ditto to all the above. It was dark, but not so dark I couldn’t see what happened.”
“Did either of you happen to go behind the counter before Lacy was stabbed? Or take a look back there?”
We had not.
Ruby is pacing holes in the carpet. “It doesn’t make sense.” She twists her wedding ring back and forth on her finger so hard I fear her frail little finger will pop right off. “The broken glass, the pile of shelving facing the wrong way, the open door. Nothing is as it should be.”
“You’re right, Ruby,” I say.
“Nothing is as it should be. Marlene shouldn’t be dead and Marti shouldn’t be in a hospital on her way to prison. But that’s how it is and we’re going to have to come to terms with it.”
Stax walks over to the edge of the counter, running her hand along the rim as though for the last time. “It shouldn’t have been Marti, though. I like Marti.”
On that we can all agree. I feel the emotions in me starting to swell and I pray they won’t bubble over until I am back home in my robe and slippers.
“I hate to ask right now,” says Bentley, “but I don’t think there’ll be a better time. Can any of you tell me why you think Marti would do all this?”
My mind is a blank. Although we tentatively put Marti’s name on our suspect list, it had been for the sake of objectivity more than anything. She was never a real contender for the mantle of murderer.
“That’s just it,” whispers Ruby. “I don’t believe she did.”
The door behind us bursts open and I jump. Officer Diebold barrels into the room, waving something in the air. “Detective, I’ve got something here.”
“What’s that, officer?”
“It’s a motive, is what it is.”
Diebold looks full of his own steam and is bursting to share his news, but he sees us standing there and halts in his tracks, gripping his item close to his chest. I can see it is a thin, cardboard envelope, such as you use to ship documents. “Maybe I should show you this in private.”
“Just hand it over,” says Bentley, extending his hand. Diebold relinquishes the envelope and waits like a dog for a treat as his superior fishes out its contents.
I can’t see what Bentley is holding, but from the way he handles the items I imagine they are photographs.
“Is that—”
“Yep. Found this on her desk.”
Bentley sighs and excuses the uniform, with the directive to ‘keep looking’. When Diebold doesn’t leave, Bentley says “Good work” and this pleases the young man enough that he again disappears beyond the door to the bowels of the store, a big square smile on his big square face.
“Ladies, I’m going to show you these in confidence, because you are material witnesses.”
Bentley hands me the small stack of photographs and before I can glance at them, Ruby and Stax attach themselves to my side. The photos are of Chase Reynolds and Marlene Petrick walking together, all smiles, along Main Street and its side roads. Two more are of them standing outside Chase’s car in front of what appears to be her and Anderson’s office. My stomach knots when I recognize in a couple of photos the same scene Hilda witnessed in her chocolate shop and told me about.
Bentley reaches for the photographs and I gladly let them go. “Were any of you aware Chase and Marlene were seeing each other? Or that Marti had suspicions?”
I tell him of what I’d heard from Hilda and added that I never noticed any chemistry between Marlene and Chase when I’d see them at the store or at runs. I never picked up on any friction between Marti and Chase as you might expect when one thinks the other is cheating. Ruby and Stax say the same.
“I’ll be talking to Chase about this,” Bentley says, returning the photographs to the envelope. “But I think we just found our motive.”
Stax is shaking her head, looking as gobsmacked as I feel. But Ruby looks crestfallen. “No, no, no, that can’t be right,” she says, her voice cracking. I put my arm around her more to keep her from falling than for mere comfort. “I couldn’t have missed it by that much. I need sleep, Lacy. I need sleep and time to think.”
My heart breaks for Ruby. She tried her best. I know it is important to her that she help her friend—me—but the case means something more for her. It is a puzzle. A chance to pit her wits against a master criminal, just as she fantasized so many times when concocting her Inspector Butterwell tales.
I see Ruby to her house but I don’t stay. Neither of us is in the mood for company. I go home, take a long bath replete with jasmine and frankincense to help calm my nerves, and decide some peppermint chamomile tea to slow my racing mind isn’t such a bad idea, either. I stand in the kitchen in my beloved slippers and robe, waiting for my tea water to boil, and in my mind I replay all the events from the past several days.
I remember the Chicken Hill Run and how upon my arrival I saw Marlene and Chase talking together. How did I not remember that until now? Oh yeah, because there’s nothing special about seeing Chase talking with a regular customer of his. It might as well have been me as Marlene. Except it wasn’t me. It was the woman photographed in public with him. A woman now dead.
I recall how odd Chase behaved when I was alone with him in the back of the store. Was it the stress of running a business or the stress of trying to manage a love triangle? Marti never showed any outward signs of being unhappy with Chase, but what happens behind closed doors often stays behind picket fences, so who knows? Evidently there was a lot going on inside of Marti that none of us could see.
The tea does little to calm me. I lay in bed squeezing Meatball a little harder than he’s used to, resulting in his choosing the throw rug on the floor over me. I go over the Bruce’s Pit Stop surveillance video footage again and again in my head and try to imagine the figure in it as Marti. I couldn’t see the woman’s face and she was clearly wearing a wig, but she appeared taller than Marti. Could that have been a trick of the angle? And what about the limp? Marti didn’t run at Chicken Hill so she wouldn’t have a limp. But how certain of that could I really be? It’s not like I have spent much time with her since that day, and committing murder, hauling bodies around, and whatever else goes along with such nefarious pastimes, could presumably be quite taxing on one’s extremities.
I sympathize with Ruby’s self-doubt, because, try as I might, I cannot associate Marti with the cold-blooded killer who stalked the forest of Chicken Hill for her prey. The bandage on my arm and the sore, mangled flesh underneath reminds me Marlene is not the only victim here. Had Stax not insisted on coming along, Detective Bentley might now be investigating my homicide. I felt so sure that Carly was the killer. To find out how wrong I was—humbling is not the right word so I’ll go with soul-crushing.
Shortly after I accept that I won’t get a wink of shuteye tonight, I fall into a deep sleep and don’t wake up until it is too late to call it morning. A hungry Meatball is nibble-kissing my cheek and chin. When that fails, I catch a fuzzy mitt in my open maw. Time to get up.
I don’t have to work today so I didn’t bother to set an alarm. I can’t imagine anything other than a natural disaster getting me to leave my house today. Then my phone rings.
“Crimes of nature, you sound like death warmed over. You go on another bender, you hapless one-armed lush, you?” It’s Stax.
“Another bender? Where do you get this stuff? No, I was up half the night crying. And you?”
“Slept like a baby. But hey, I’m calling to let you know to be at the store tonight at six o’clock.”
“What store?”
“Run For It, duh. Geez, drink some coffee or something before you drive.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. What could possibly be going on at the store?”
“It’s Thursday run night, isn’t it? It’s what we do, girl.”
“Yeah, but… I mean… how?”
“I can’t go into details, but it’s happening.”
“Will Chase be there? And what are these details you can’t go into?”
“Yes, he will be there. And ixnay on the etailsday.”
“Are you and Ruby up to something?”
“Let’s say there’s more to the story and we’re going to hear it tonight. Honestly, I don’t know what’s going to happen. She just called me with her usual cryptic talk where she hints a lot but tells you nothing.”
I know what she means. Ruby’s a sweetheart, but a frustrating sweetheart.
“Come on, I know you know something,” I say.
“Well, I know she has me running errands.”
“Reg
arding the case? But Marti is as good as convicted.”
“That’s what I thought, but who knows? I guess we’ll find out tonight. Anyway, I’ve got books to sell. See you at six!”
Not for the first time in recent days I find myself befuddled. It doesn’t surprise me that Ruby is still holding to her delusions. I don’t know the woman well enough to be surprised by it. But I’ve come to know Stax pretty well and I can’t see her wasting her time just to appease an old lady. I certainly cannot understand why Chase would be opening his store to people with his wife unconscious in the hospital and facing murder charges. Talk about capitalism at any cost!
I need to clear my head and the way I do that is to run. There’s something about the rapid inhalation of fresh air, feeling my blood pump faster, hearing the rhythm of my heartbeat in my ears, that clears the muddy waters and lets me see what I need to. Whatever is being planned at the store this evening is not a run, so I slip into my exercise garb, fill my water bottle, and head out to my favorite walking trail.
The clear sky and bright sunshine are just what I need. I’ve been so involved with group running that I almost forgot how refreshing a solitary jaunt can be. Seeing children playing, dogs running, and families enjoying picnics are just the distractions I need. I’m not tracking my pace but it feels strong. The sweat comes a mile in and with it I can feel the stresses of the week melt away and fall off my shoulders.
Two miles in I am fighting harder for my air, the drum in my chest beating harder, pounding away the self-doubt and uncertainty that has hounded me since I became a murder suspect. It is in my third and final mile that I have my epiphany as to why Ruby is summoning us all to the store tonight.
She’s going to tell us how the murder was committed.
I’ve been so preoccupied with who the murderer might be and proving it is someone other than myself that I’d lost all sight of the mystery within the mystery—how the murder was accomplished at Chicken Hill.
I recall my trek through the woods with Ruby and the confusing clues we found. She alluded at that time to having worked out how Marlene was made to disappear in a public place in front of dozens of runners, but she never revealed the secret. Understanding how Marti could have pulled this off right under his nose would explain why Chase would be willing to host a private meeting.
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