by Sharon Pape
Ellen’s breath caught in her throat. “I have been trying to be there for her,” she said, her voice threatening to crack, “but I’m afraid nothing can help the kind of pain she’s dealing with.” A frisson made her shudder. “No mother should ever have to outlive her child.” She excused herself to check on the muffins, but more likely to regain her composure. She opened the top door of the double oven, took a quick look, and then closed it again.
“Those smell heavenly,” Rory said. “I’ll have to get your recipe.”
“I can e-mail it to you. I’m sure Gil has your card.”
Rory waited until Ellen resumed her seat before continuing. “Anya doesn’t believe Matthew had an enemy in the world, much less one who would resort to murder.”
“He was a sweet boy who grew into a sweet man. I can’t imagine who would want to kill him either. But I’m sure Gil told you his theory.”
“About Greenbrier—yes. He thinks Matthew may have been getting too close to the truth, so they eliminated him.”
“Do you agree with that?”
“It’s never a good idea to investigate a case with a preformed opinion. It tends to cloud your vision. I try to give every possibility equal consideration. I promise you, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.” Rory paused to sip her coffee and change direction. “For argument’s sake,” she said, putting down the mug, “let’s say Greenbrier is behind the sabotage. Is there someone at Harper Farms who might be disgruntled enough to be helping them? Maybe by passing them information?”
Ellen shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone.”
“Then you don’t share your husband’s belief that it could be one of your children?”
Ellen looked like she’d been ambushed, which of course she had. “What?”
“It’s obvious Gil hasn’t ruled out a family member or I wouldn’t be here talking to you,” Rory said gently. “I’m sure you realize that.”
Ellen’s eyes filled with tears and her lower lip trembled. “I know he has suspicions, but I don’t understand how he can. I’ve been married to the man for thirty-eight years, and I thought I knew him, but I’m not sure anymore.” The tears spilled down her cheeks and she scrubbed them away as if she was angry with herself for shedding them. “I am so afraid . . . so afraid this witch hunt will do more to damage our family than any sabotage ever could.”
Rory regretted forcing Ellen’s distress to the surface. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t the actual cause of that distress, nor had she said anything that Ellen didn’t already know. If the marshal had been present, he would probably be whispering in her ear to toughen up and do her job—there was a killer to be found. Surprisingly just imagining Zeke’s input seemed to help restore her equilibrium. “The sooner we get this all sorted out,” she said firmly, “the sooner your family can start to heal.”
Ellen heaved a weary sigh. “Thank you for your kind words and for your efforts.” Without giving it any thought, Rory reached out and placed her hand over Ellen’s, where it rested on the table. What happened to professional distance? she scolded herself. You’re a detective. You don’t hold hands with a suspect any more than you would play footsie with one. For all you know, this woman is the killer, the saboteur or both. But since Rory couldn’t snatch her hand away without making it seem as if Ellen had suddenly developed leprosy, she let it linger a few moments longer before removing it. The relaxed, chatty atmosphere she’d been aiming for had apparently tripped her up too.
“This may seem like a ridiculous question,” she said, back in business mode, “but do you have an alibi for your whereabouts at the time of Matthew’s death?”
Ellen seemed nonplussed for an instant; then she laughed. It was a sad, angry noise that sounded more like a bark. “You want to know where I was when Matthew was killed? I was in bed asleep right next to the man who is putting me through all this.”
“Does Gil sleep soundly through the night?”
“Yes. Well, mostly. At our age, it’s not unusual for us to get up and use the bathroom.”
“Then he might have noticed if you weren’t in bed at some point?”
“Yes, just like I might have noticed if he wasn’t—wait a minute, did Gil say he woke up that night and didn’t see me there?”
“No, he didn’t.” Normally Rory would not have volunteered that information to a suspect, but she could sense that Ellen was coming unraveled, that she was on the verge of abandoning any hope for her marriage. “It was a question I had to ask in order to do my job properly,” she explained. Besides, Gil had enough to apologize to his wife for, without Rory’s words misleading her. She pulled her coat off the back of the chair where she’d tossed it and stood up to leave. She’d never been so grateful an interview was over. She couldn’t imagine how much harder it must have been for Ellen. “Thank you for your time,” she said, but Ellen didn’t appear happy or relieved that this part of her ordeal was over. Her face was expressionless as she walked Rory to the front door. “One last thing,” Rory said, stopping to fiddle with the zipper as if it was giving her trouble. “Any idea who might have sent me a note telling me to drop the investigation?” She looked up in time to catch Ellen’s reaction and thought she saw a brief flicker of what might have been anxiety in her red-rimmed eyes.
***
As soon as Rory arrived home, she jotted down her impressions of the interview. They amounted to a short paragraph. Although she didn’t think Ellen was guilty, she had a hunch the woman hadn’t been completely forthcoming in their exchange. For now, she was staying on the suspect list.
Before leaving the study, Rory did a quick check of her e-mail and found the calendar alert reminding her that Thanksgiving was only three days away. She’d completely lost track of time, and she’d promised her mother she’d make the pumpkin pie this year. Leah had sent her a recipe that her mother-in-law claimed was foolproof. She found Leah’s e-mail with the recipe attached and read through it again. It didn’t sound at all complicated, but she’d learned from her friend’s baking disasters that it was always a good idea to try out new recipes before serving them to company. She printed it out and went down to the kitchen to see what ingredients she’d need to pick up. Okay—pretty much everything. She didn’t have flour or evaporated milk in the house, much less pumpkin, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. What had she expected? She hadn’t baked anything since moving in two years ago, and her uncle Mac’s culinary talents had begun and ended with throwing steak on the grill.
She was in the checkout line at the supermarket when Aaron called to invite her out for coffee. He’d found himself with two hours of unexpected freedom before the Way Off Broadway auditions, where he was hoping to snag the role of Tony in West Side Story. Rory made him a counteroffer. If he was willing to help her with the baking, they could have pumpkin pie along with their coffee. He was on her doorstep ten minutes after she returned home.
After a quick tour of the main floor and some mandatory scratching of Hobo’s belly, they were ready to begin. Hobo joined them in the kitchen, taking up a strategic position between them in case anything fell on the floor.
“In the interest of honesty,” Aaron said, when she handed him the measuring spoons and spices, “I’ve never actually baked before, unless you count s’mores over a campfire when I was a Boy Scout.”
“That fits right into my plan,” she said, trying to sound nefarious, but coming off more like Captain Kirk. “If the pie turns out awful, I’ll have someone to blame.”
“I see. So neither one of us knows what we’re doing. With those kind of credentials, it’s a good thing we haven’t given up our day jobs.” He glanced down at the recipe. “Okay, let’s have at it. Mixing spoon, please.” He held out his hand, and Rory slapped the wooden spoon into his palm the way she’d seen nurses pass surgical instruments to doctors on TV. “Hey, I’m glad that wasn’t a scalpel,” he said, feigning injury, “or I’d be missin
g half my hand.”
“Ah, fear of sharp objects—now I see why you didn’t follow the rest of your family into surgery.”
Aaron chuckled. “And here I spent all those years and thousands of dollars on therapy trying to figure that out.” Miraculously, in spite of the joking and several close brushes with disaster, the mixture seemed to be the right consistency when Rory poured it into the frozen pie shell. She popped the pie into the oven and set the timer.
“I don’t suppose you’re one of those women who insists on cleaning up while her man checks out what’s on TV?”
“You don’t suppose correctly,” she said, handing him a plastic container for the remaining flour. He was pouring the last of it when she reached around him for the mixing bowl. Her elbow clipped the container and sent it sailing off the counter to land upside down on Hobo’s head. Rory and Aaron burst into laughter at the dog’s startled expression. He jumped up and gave himself a fierce shaking that sent a floury cloud of dust onto the two bakers. Rory was doubled over, laughing so hard that she didn’t notice the high hats in the ceiling blink.
“Forget to pay your electric bill?” Aaron asked between spasms of laughter.
“What?” Before he could repeat it, the lights flickered again. “Oh no,” she said, instantly sober, “I keep forgetting to have that fixed. But this is definitely not the best time to call an electrician.” She emphasized the operative words for the marshal’s benefit. But of course he already knew she had company. From his vantage point, he could see Aaron there as plain as day. He’d performed his little light trick on purpose to alarm her. Well, that might have worked back when she first met him, but at this point she knew there was no reason to worry. Zeke was dead set against outing himself. He would never actually appear when there was anyone else in the house. And then he did. He popped into view, in full 3-D glory, directly behind Aaron. His moustache was hitched up with his patented wry smile that as much as said “gotcha.”
Rory was so shocked that she realized too late she was staring straight at him. When Aaron turned to follow her gaze, her heart leapt into her throat, but Zeke vanished in the nick of time. As soon as Aaron turned back to her, Zeke reappeared behind him. “Is something wrong?” Aaron asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Worse,” she said, trying to affix a smile to her lips, but failing. “I thought there was a spider dangling from the ceiling, but it was just a dust web.” Aaron didn’t seem convinced. He was studying her, his eyebrows cinched tightly over his eyes.
“Hey,” she said, trying to recapture their lighthearted mood, “who knew baking could be so hilarious?” Great—that sounded perkier than a cheerleader at halftime. She needed to tone it down, find some middle ground before Aaron thought she suffered from multiple-personality disorder. She took a slow, measured breath. “I really don’t remember when I’ve had this much fun,” she said sincerely. Much better. She tried the smile again and this time it stuck.
“Same here,” Aaron said. “But I think we owe Hobo the snowman an apology and probably a bath.” The dog was trying to lick the flour off himself without much success, since the majority of it was on his head.
“I’ll clean him up after I clean up here and we have our pie and coffee. I’m pretty sure a slice of pie will buy back his love.”
“Tell you what—you take care of the dishes; I’ll tackle the floor,” Aaron said, bending over to retrieve the empty container. While he was in that vulnerable position, the marshal swung the refrigerator door open with enough force to knock him off his feet. Aaron went down with a grunt of surprise, arms and legs splayed. Shooting Zeke a venomous look, Rory stooped to help Aaron to his feet. But once she had a good look at him, she succumbed to a fit of giggles, in spite of herself. The entire front of his body was covered in white. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said brushing off the flour. “It’s just a pity I’m not auditioning for Casper the Friendly Ghost; I’d be a shoo-in. What the heck happened anyway?” He turned to look behind himself. At least Zeke had had the good sense to disappear.
Rory threw the refrigerator door closed. “If it’s not shut tightly enough the door swings open. Something to do with the way it’s balanced. My dad told me I had to get an appliance guy over to fix it.”
Aaron shook his head. “No offense, but that door didn’t just fall open. It felt like someone was giving it a good heave-ho on purpose. Are you sure you don’t have any poltergeists in this house?”
“You believe in ghosts?” she asked with a smidge of ridicule in her voice.
He shrugged. “I never gave the subject much thought before. When you’re raised by physicians, the supernatural doesn’t often come up in dinner conversation. But I guess I never completely discarded the possibility of things that go bump in the night. “
“So you think I have a ghost, huh?” she asked, one eyebrow arched skeptically. She really hated teasing him like this. How often did you find a nice guy with a great sense of humor, a good head on his shoulders and an open mind? If she went by the crop of men Helene had sent her way, the answer was almost never. But she couldn’t afford to have Aaron sniffing around for more evidence of the paranormal. Oh, the marshal had a lot to answer for.
By the time the pie was ready to be sampled, the kitchen had been put back to rights and the coffee poured. Rory watched Aaron’s face as he slipped the first forkful into his mouth. Words of praise were easy enough to fake, but initial reactions were a lot harder to disguise. His eyes closed for a moment and he sighed deeply. “Wow—I haven’t had pumpkin pie this good since my grandmother used to make it.” When he finished his slice and asked for seconds, Rory was convinced the recipe was a winner.
“Thanks for an interesting afternoon and some amazing pie,” Aaron said as she walked him to the door. “Now I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving.”
“I guess my pie was quite a hit then.”
“Not just the pie,” he said, bending his head to kiss her. “Now I’m off to auditions, before I’m cut for being late.”
Rory was a little flustered. It hadn’t been a long and passionate kiss, yet it had flashed across every synapse in her body. “Break a leg,” she called, as he crossed the porch to the steps. “Or is that just for a full performance?”
He looked back and smiled. “I don’t actually know, but I can use all the good luck I can get.” His head was still turned to her when he reached the top step.
Chapter 19
If Rory hadn’t yelled “watch out” at the last second, Aaron might literally have broken a leg among other things. But he’d managed to turn around in time to navigate the stairs without mishap and drive away still in one piece. Relieved, Rory closed the door and was on her way back to the kitchen when she nearly walked straight into Zeke.
“You should be ashamed to show your face,” she said, retreating a few steps. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“It was just some harmless fun,” he replied, not sounding the least apologetic. “There’s no reason to get so danged uppity about it.”
“So your idea of having fun is to give me a heart attack?”
“Did it?” he asked.
“Did it what?”
“Give you a heart attack?”
“That isn’t the point,” she said indignantly
“You just claimed it was the point. Which is it, darlin’?”
If Rory had had anything in her hand at that moment she would have thrown it at him. Although he was managing not to smile, there was a definite twinkle in his eyes that told her he was thoroughly enjoying the repartee. She took a moment to regroup and come at the issue from another angle. “Showing up when Aaron was here was totally irresponsible. Why would you take a chance like that?”
“You two seemed to be having so much fun, I wanted to join in, is all.”
“Yes, we were having a good time
, but knocking Aaron down like that was neither fun nor funny. He could have been hurt.”
“But he wasn’t,” Zeke said with a long-suffering sigh. “In fact, you laughed.”
“Only after I knew he was okay. Wait a second.” Rory frowned as a new possibility struck her. “Were you trying to hurt him?”
“Of course not. Why in tarnation would you say a thing like that?”
“Let’s see—the first time I went out with him you slashed his tires, literally and figuratively cutting our date short. And today you knocked him down with enough force to fell a redwood. Maybe you need to examine your motives.”
“Don’t you worry about my motives,” he shot back, no longer so cavalier. “They’re just fine, thank you. Now can we put this nonsense to rest and talk about the investigation?”
Rory hadn’t received an apology, but at least the marshal was no longer interested in fencing with her. That unruffled her feathers to some extent. Too bad she couldn’t shake off the rest of her irritation the way Hobo had shaken off the flour. Come to think of it, he still had a heap of the stuff matted in the fur on his head. “Give me five minutes to shampoo the dog,” she said, “and I’ll bring you up to speed.”
Five minutes later, as promised, a wet-headed Hobo bolted out of the bathroom and made a beeline for whatever part of the house was farthest from Rory or a water source. Zeke watched the action from the hallway, where he’d been waiting. When Rory exited the bathroom, he let out a whoop of laugher. “Looks like you got the worst of the deal,” he said merrily. She was dripping wet from head to toe, her feet squishing in her shoes as she walked past him to the bedroom.
“Not another word,” she warned him, “or we’re done for the rest of the day.” After she’d changed into dry clothes and done some deep breathing to restore her equilibrium, she found the marshal in the study. He was sitting in the big upholstered chair she’d named the reading chair in the days when she was a child visiting her uncle. Zeke looked up at her with a wary smile, lips still sealed.