by Kylie Logan
“But seeing Vivien yesterday might have—”
“Awakened long-suppressed hatred? Please!” I’d already rolled my eyes when I realized it was childish and that Levi probably couldn’t see me well, anyway. The light was quickly fading in Estelle’s office.
Gathering twilight.
Summer breezes.
A guy who also happened to be a terrific lover not two feet away.
I wasn’t taking any chances; I flicked on the light on the table between my chair and Levi’s, and just to be sure I could well and truly banish the romantic ambiance that was gathering, I got up and turned on the desk lamp, too.
“Chandra doesn’t suppress anything,” I reminded him. “Not for long, anyway, and certainly not for years.”
“Maybe not, but you of all people should know that there are depths to peoples’ minds that most of us will never understand.”
He was talking about the books I wrote, not about me personally, but talking about the books I wrote only served as a reminder of his treachery. No, not his treachery when he actually went out on two dates with Vivien, though come to think of it, that didn’t make me feel any more charitable toward Levi. I mean how he’d led a double life: bar owner and Bea watcher. I was talking about what a rotten, lowlife stinker he was.
All I had to do was keep reminding myself how true that was.
I plopped back down in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest.
“It’s not going to ever get better if we don’t talk about it.” His voice was as gentle as the summer night, as soothing as the breeze that flowed through the window and caressed my cheek. I hated the way he always seemed to know what I was thinking about. Especially when I was thinking about him.
“Maybe I don’t want it to get better,” I told him.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Why?” I’d already turned in my chair to look his way before I realized it wasn’t a good idea. It was the blue eyes. I’d always been a sucker for guys with blue eyes.
I stayed strong. “There’s really nothing for us to talk about,” I pointed out. It wasn’t the first time, and something told me it wouldn’t be the last. “You lied.”
“And you didn’t?”
I might have been able to handle this comment in my usual levelheaded way if he hadn’t added a tiny little click of his tongue to the end of it. Like he had every right to be offended.
Equally offended, I popped out of my chair and marched toward the door. “You can tell Hank—”
“What?” Our police chief just happened to show up with Cody Rayburn right behind him. “That you’re eager to help me out? Thanks, Bea.” The way Hank plowed into the room, I had no choice but to step back. Or get run over. Cody toed the carpeting just inside the office door, and with no place else to go, I dropped back into my chair.
There was another chair in the corner, a mahogany Chippendale with a crisply carved back and a seat upholstered in damask the color of autumn leaves, and Hank pulled it over in front of the desk and motioned to Cody to take a seat. Honest, I’m usually not obsessive about dirt but the thought of Cody’s oily jeans against that lovely fabric and I couldn’t help myself. There was a small throw pillow embroidered with violets on my chair, and I whipped it out from behind my back and plunked it on the chair just as Cody sat down.
“What are you doing here, Cody?” Hank asked.
Cody rocked back and forth, flattening the pillow to make it comfortable. “You’re the one who brought me up here, Chief. You said you wanted to talk. About—”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Hank snapped. “What are you doing here, Cody?”
There is only so long anybody can stand up to Hank’s withering glare, and though I didn’t know him, my guess was Cody had less backbone than most. He flicked his tongue across his lips. “It’s like I said . . .” In the soft glow of the lights I’d turned on around the room, Cody looked even more anemic than he’d looked out in the daylight. He had what my grandmother would call “poor skin,” pockmarked and sallow. He had what my grandmother would call “bad hair,” too. It stuck out from the back of his baseball cap in greasy clumps. I’m not sure she would have recognized sketchy when she saw it, but I sure did. From the moment I set eyes on him, I had decided Cody Rayburn was sketchy.
“I was just passing by,” he told Hank, as bold as brass. “On my way home from work. It’s like I told everybody. I mean, them . . .” He made a gesture toward me and Levi. “And those other ones, those people downstairs. I was just passing by, and sometimes Vivien, she—”
Hank leaned forward in his chair. “She what?”
It seemed a simple enough question but maybe Cody knew Hank better than I did. And maybe for all different reasons. Maybe he knew he’d never be able to hold his own beneath the flash of aggravation that sparked in Hank’s dark eyes.
Paler than ever, Cody sank back in his chair. “You know Vivien and me, you know we were friends, Hank.”
“I know you thought you were Vivien’s friend.”
Cody scrubbed a finger under his nose. “Ain’t that the same thing?”
I’d never thought of Hank as an especially patient person, but I saw now that I was wrong. A cop is part law enforcer, part social worker, and part mediator, and though he didn’t like his softer side to show, this particular cop was good at all three.
Or maybe he just knew that if he let his frustration out, he’d never be able to stop himself from blowing his cork.
Hank clutched the wooden arms of the antique desk chair, but his voice was soft and even. “She had an order of protection against you, Cody.”
This was news. To me, and to Levi, if the flash of surprise on his face meant anything.
My spirits lifted. We had a viable suspect. A viable suspect who wasn’t Chandra.
“You weren’t supposed to be within five hundred feet of Vivien,” Hank reminded Cody.
The smile that touched Cody’s lips was surprisingly sly. “I wasn’t near her. I was out in front. In front of Estelle’s house. No way I knew Vivien was here.”
“That’s not what you told us.” So okay, Cody didn’t appreciate it when I piped up; eyes narrowed, he shot me a look. Ask me if I cared! “You told us you used to stop by and have a couple of beers with Vivien. You said that’s why you were here tonight. And you knew where Estelle kept her hide-a-key.”
That fire flared in Hank’s eyes. “Is that so?” He made note of it in his little book. “You want to explain that, Cody?”
“I didn’t . . . I mean, how could I know where that key was? I was just . . . I just guessed, that’s all. When these people here, when they said they were supposed to meet Vivien and there was no answer when they knocked, I figured there had to be a key around somewhere. And I guessed. Heck, Hank, you know it, half the people on the island keep a spare key in one of them fake rocks.”
“Half the people who own cottages on the island haven’t been stalked by you.”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who needs to stalk a woman?” Cody braced one scrawny arm along the back of his chair, leaned back, and lifted his chin. Something told me the preening was for my benefit, and I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry. “Vivien was nuts,” he said, his voice sharp. “She told you I was bothering her, following her around, showing up at all the places she used to go.”
Hank nodded. “That’s exactly what she told me. And she convinced a judge, too.”
“Well, doesn’t it figure you’d all believe her and not me?” His mouth twisted with disgust. “’Cause I tried to tell you the whole story then, Hank. I tried to tell you the truth when Vivien got that order of . . . of whatever it’s called. Me and Vivien, we used to get it on together once in a while.” He gave me a broad wink. “If you get my drift.”
I did, and it made my skin crawl.
“Then I told he
r I couldn’t see her no more,” Cody added. “My old lady was pregnant, and—”
“And you were having a relationship with Vivien and with another woman? At the same time?” Okay, so my question shouldn’t have come out sounding more like no way, no how than it did a simple request for clarification. But then, it was hard to believe one woman would be attracted to Cody. Two? At the same time?
“Hey, you don’t know what you’re missing until you give it a try,” Cody said, his smile sly.
I got the message, but then, I guess Levi did, too. A throaty growl came from that side of the room.
I guess Cody heard it, too, because he dropped the come-and-get-me act. “Vivien, she started following me,” he told us. “You know, after I dumped her. I’d stop for a beer at a place like Levi’s, and there she was.”
“True?” Hank asked Levi.
His shrug was barely noticeable. “They may have been in the bar at the same time. I can’t say.”
“I always got there first,” Cody said. “And then Vivien, she’d come in after. If you was paying attention, you would have seen that. She was following me.”
“She wasn’t following you tonight.” I felt duty bound to point this out. “You were hiding in the rhododendron when Levi and I got here.”
“I was looking for something,” Cody insisted.
So I had every right to ask, “What?”
He tugged his earlobe. “I was here helping Estelle once. Helping, you know, clean up the yard in the spring. And I lost a ring.”
I didn’t give him time to think about it and cook up some cockamamy story. “What did it look like?”
“Hank!” Cody looked toward the chief. “What’s the deal here? Why is this chick asking questions?”
“Her name is Ms. Cartwright.” The tone of Hank’s voice said all Cody needed to know. “And Ms. Cartwright is here because I asked her to be here. So is Levi. If they want to ask questions, they can ask questions.”
“And I want to know what your ring looked like,” I said.
Cody’s top lip curled. “Gold. With a silver skull in the center of it. Ask my old lady. She gave it to me last Christmas.”
“And you liked it so much, you lost it last spring and didn’t decide to look for it until today?” Levi gave Cody a level look.
“I didn’t want to bother her.” Color touched Cody’s ashy cheeks. “Estelle, I mean. I knew she was sick. Everyone on the island knew she was sick. She was a nice lady, and I didn’t want her to see me poking around in her bushes because, you know, I didn’t want her to worry. I didn’t want to bother her.”
What had Levi said about how I understood that there were depths to people’s minds that could be unfathomable?
Maybe so, but even I couldn’t tell if Cody was lying.
I suppose Hank couldn’t, either, which is why he kept pushing.
“So you were here looking for a ring. And what time was that, Cody?”
He shrugged, sniffed. “I left work around five, stopped for a shot and a beer. Not at Levi’s place,” he added just in case Levi happened to mention that he hadn’t seen Cody there. “I had one shot and one beer. And then I started for home. I’m not crazy enough to try and drive around here on a Friday night. I walked. And since I was walking right past Estelle’s and I knew there was no way I could bother her anymore”—another shrug said all he needed to say about that part of the equation—“I figured I’d look. You know, for my ring.”
“And what were you doing before that?” Hank asked.
“I told you, I had a shot and a beer.”
“Where?”
“Gordon’s. You know, over by the ice-cream shop.”
I knew Hank would be sure to check. “And before that?” he asked.
“I was at work.”
“Can someone verify that?”
I knew exactly what Hank was digging for—an alibi—but it took a moment for Cody to catch on.
“You think I killed Vivien?” His voice was tight with outrage. “Heck, why would I do a thing like that?”
Hank lowered his chin and looked Cody in the eye. “You want a list? How about because she was afraid of you? How about because you were stalking her? How about because you were obsessed with her?”
“Obsessed.” Cody waved away the thought with one hand. “There are plenty of fish in the lake, Hank.”
“So who can tell us where you were this afternoon?”
Obviously, deep thought wasn’t Cody’s strong suit and he spent a minute getting his memories together. “Phil was off today. My boss,” he added for my and Levi’s benefit, though he didn’t have to. Since there was only one gas station on the island, I’d dealt with Phil more than a few times, and I was sure Levi had, too. “I changed the oil for some guy with a cottage over on Columbus Avenue. Big guy named . . .” Thinking hard, Cody snapped his fingers together. “Jason, maybe. Or something like that. Jason or Jackson. Yeah, that’s what it was. Jackson. Jackson Moody.”
I knew Jack. He was active in the local neighborhood association. I bet Hank knew him, too, but he made a note of the name, anyway.
“And what time was that?” he asked Cody.
“What . . . what time did Vivien die?”
Hank actually smiled. But not like it was funny. “I’m the one asking the questions. What time did you change the oil in Jack Moody’s car?”
Cody’s face screwed up with the effort of concentration. “Three. Four, maybe. Yeah, closer to four, I think.”
I had a feeling I knew what Hank would ask next so I didn’t feel guilty butting in. “And Jack waited there at the gas station while you worked on his car?” I asked Cody.
He shook his head. “He said he was going to walk downtown and see what was going on. There’s supposed to be some kind of party in the park tomorrow night. He said he was going to see, you know, what bands were playing.”
When Levi commented, he made it sound like the most natural thing in the world. “So Jack Moody can’t say if you were there at the gas station the whole time.”
“The oil in his car wasn’t changed when he left, and it was when he came back.” I had to give Cody credit—it was a remarkably on-point observation. “That proves it, don’t it, Hank? That proves I was there the whole time.”
“Maybe,” Hank conceded. “You know we’ll ask around.”
“Go right ahead.” Cody stuck out his bottom lip. “You’ll see. You’ll find out I was there. Why would I kill Vivien, Hank? I loved her.”
“Then why did you break up with her?” I asked him.
“I didn’t . . .”
That’s the problem with being a liar. Sometimes it’s hard to remember where the truth ends and the lies begin.
The three of us sat patiently and waited to see what other trouble Cody could get himself into.
“I didn’t officially break up with her,” he said.
“You told us you did,” I reminded him. “You said that’s why she started following you, why she started telling lies about how you were stalking her.”
“We talked about it.” To Cody’s ears, this sounded plausible; he nodded. “I told her I was thinking about breaking up with her. You know, on account of my old lady and the kid. But Vivien, she was pretty upset about it. And I told her . . . I told her, you know, that maybe we could talk about it. And that’s when she started following me around. You know, so she could try to convince me to change my mind. Vivien, she was nuts about me.”
Hank stood up. “I’ll be in touch, Cody.”
“Sure. Sure, Hank.” Cody stood, too, and walked out the door.
“There’s your killer,” I said, motioning toward the door as soon as Cody closed it behind himself. “You can’t possibly think it was anyone else. That guy’s a stalker and a liar. He can’t keep his own story straight.”
“And he mi
ght have an alibi,” Hank pointed out.
I knew I wasn’t going to convince Hank, but I had to try. I had to remind him, “Chandra might, too.”
5
Alex Canfield was next up, and I have to admit, as soon as he walked into the room, it was hard for me to keep an air of objectivity. Oh, I don’t mean he was some kind of handsome hunk and I couldn’t keep my mind on my work. I’m way too levelheaded for that sort of nonsense. But Alex was friendly, neatly dressed, personable. He had a good smile, an easy manner, and a sort of openness that, before I’d met my share of murderers, I would have instantly seen as a badge of honesty.
These days, I didn’t need to remind myself not to be fooled by any of it.
I knew better, right? Charming can hide cunning, and there’s often something shady going on behind a dazzling smile.
If I needed any more proof, I only had to look Levi’s way.
“I hope I can help.” Alex tossed aside the pillow I’d pitched on the chair and slipped into the seat Cody had just vacated. He looked from one of us to the other. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, what you were doing here tonight,” Hank said.
Hands flattened on his knees, Alex sat up straight. “It’s like I told these folks . . .” He glanced at me and Levi. “When I got here, I told everyone I was here to pick up some of the old tools that once belonged to Estelle’s grandfather, and her great-grandfather, too. I’m really into antique tools.”
I wasn’t sure if anyone else caught what I’d just heard. I leaned forward. “That’s exactly why we were all here,” I told Alex. “Only everyone else who came said they were here to buy things from Vivien.”
It took a few seconds for him to catch on, and when he did, Alex’s cheeks flushed. He might not be classically handsome—his chin was a little narrow and his ears were a tad big—but Alex was nice-looking enough. A broad smile added an air of little-boy sweetness to his face. “I see what you mean! I said—”
“You said you were here to pick up the tools,” I reminded him. “So you must have paid Vivien for them sometime before today.”
Alex shook his head, and a curl of nut brown hair fell onto his forehead. “I was going to buy the stuff. I mean, I offered to.”