Chalk Lines & Lipstick: a Maren Colepepper cozy mystery (Maren Colepepper Mysteries Book 1)

by Ophelia London

  I explained meeting Matthew and Ellen, and visiting Aaron at the county jail. He seemed entranced by my findings, nodding eagerly and angling forward, until I got to the part about the redwood poaching. Eric actually turned gray. It was unsettling to see his expression morph like that. But it also gave me encouragement that he was appalled by this info and would expect nothing less than for me to make this my number one priority.

  Which was why I was completely baffled at what he said next.

  "That's interesting—anyway, I've been thinking." He ran a hand through his hair. "I haven't seen any of the sights around town yet. You grew up here. How do you feel about giving me a tour? This afternoon, maybe?"

  "I…" What was going on? "Umm. Well, Aaron's arraignment's today. I promised I'd be there when he appears before the judge."

  "No, really?" My boss seemed so crestfallen that it rendered me speechless. "I hoped we could spend some time together. I've been thinking about you a lot lately." He leaned forward. "I told you how you remind me of someone from New York. Well, our…relationship ended very…abruptly." He paused and stared down at his desk, running a hand over it. "I should've taken my time with her, savored what I was doing, because it was over too fast. I don't want to make that mistake next time." He lifted his eyes to me, blinking back what looked like a painful memory. "Isn't that what women want?"

  My heart sputtered in my chest—though not in the same way it had when I'd been with Patrick. Eric lifted a smile, so disappointed, yet so expectant.

  "What about after work?" he asked. "When I'm determined, Maren, I do whatever it takes to get what I want."

  Clearly, I couldn't go out with my boss, but I didn't know how to give a flat-out no to that puppy dog expression. "My sister's performing in a play tonight," I said. "You're welcome to come along. Experience the local theater culture." Well, it wouldn't be an actual date, since my parents would be there.

  His lips stretched into a hardy smile. "If that's what you're doing tonight, then count me in." He stood. "Definitely."

  I stood up, too. Apparently, our conversation was over.

  "Will you be leaving from here or going home first?"

  "Here," I replied. "It's in Ferndale, a twenty-minute drive."

  "Dinner first. I know a place." He led me by the elbow toward his door. Actually, it felt like I was being muscled out.

  "Umm." I cleared my throat. "It depends on how long I'm at the courthouse. Aaron might need me there for a while."

  Eric tilted his head. "Surely you'll have time to eat."

  I forced a smile. "I'll text you, okay?"

  "Perfect. Can't wait."

  The next thing I knew, I was standing outside his closed office door.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Before I'd even sat at my desk, I called Piper to ask if she could leave an extra ticket at the box office. I didn't tell her whom I was bringing, and she didn't ask. Did she assume I had a date? I'd only been home four days. What kind of small-town hussy did she take me for?

  I swiveled around and slouched in my chair, getting comfortable to properly full-on daydream about a man. Patrick. We'd made out twice, and he'd run his sexy hand inside my sleeve in front of a pack of kids. I could still feel the tingles from both. Before I allowed myself to overheat, I tried to clear my head, tried not to think about how I was meeting Eric tonight.

  Huh. Maybe I was a hussy. I powered down my computer and headed to the courthouse early.

  Matthew was already there. I slid in next to him on a bench near the back of the courtroom where the arraignments were taking place. "I brought the checkbook," he whispered. "For bail."

  I nodded and chewed my thumbnail. The thought of a money exchange reminded me of the seriousness of the situation.

  We were there for over an hour, the court officer calling docket number after docket number. The judge, a woman about fifty, had been letting everyone off on "ROR," released on his/her own recognizance. I took this as a good sign. Aaron would be out of here in no time.

  When his number was finally called, he was ushered in by another court officer. He wore the same clothes as yesterday. Well, obviously, since he'd been there overnight. Seeing that same sad sweater made me feel for the guy and for the utter injustice of the whole thing. Logic said we wouldn't need bail—the charges would be dropped.

  When Aaron got to the defendant's table, I sent Matthew a reassuring smile. This was almost over.

  The lawyers and judge said a few things I couldn't make out, and then the judge asked Aaron for a plea. He looked at his lawyer from Legal Aid, who nodded.

  "Not guilty," Aaron said.

  "Noted," the judge said, then read her computer screen for a few moments. While we waited in silence, a man approached the prosecutor's table from the back. He whispered to the ADA, handed him a slip of paper, then took a seat on the bench behind him.

  "Your Honor," the ADA said, rising to his feet, smoothing down his expensive power tie. "Some additional notices have come to the People's attention."

  "What is it, Counselor?" the judge asked, sounding weary.

  The ADA went on to recite a string of numbers. Aaron's lawyer feverishly scribbled down everything he said while Matthew huffed beside me. He didn't look happy.

  "So obviously, Your Honor," the ADA continued, "the People request remand."

  What? Oh, shiz. Aaron wouldn't get released before his trial? That was so unfair. Unjust! "How long will that be?" I asked Matthew.

  He shook his head, doing a pretty good impression of a deer in the headlights. "Could be months."

  "Months?" I looked at Aaron. He was pale and confused while he listened to what his newbie lawyer was saying.

  "Counselor?" the judge said to him. She sounded even more impatient.

  "Yes…Y-Your Honor," the lawyer said, his voice trembling. Double shiz, he had no idea what to do. "The defendant has no prior charges," he coughed out, "no connections with this illegal group as the People claim. He has a family and strong ties to the community. He is not a flight risk. Remand is overkill, to put it mildly, in my opinion, with respect, Your Honor."

  Cool. The guy had guts.

  I held my breath as the judge scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Bail, Counselor?" she asked the ADA.

  "The people request one hundred thousand."

  I felt a gasp coming up, but covered my mouth before any sound escaped.

  "Your Honor," Aaron's lawyer said. "The defendant runs a non-profit. He doesn't have that kind of money."

  "Hold on," the judge interrupted, lifting a hand. "I'll decide what kind of money he has." She gazed across the room at Aaron, hopefully taking in his innocence, and his do-gooder-ness. "Bail is set at five thousand." She banged the gavel.

  Apparently, this number was reasonable, because Matthew exhaled and nodded down at his lap. Aaron and his lawyer shook hands then Aaron was ushered out another door. The bailiff pointed Matthew in the direction to pay the bail, and within the hour, all three of us were on the sidewalk across from the courthouse. Rainy and chilly or not, it felt fabulous to be outside.

  I was dying to sit and talk with Aaron again. Since our chat yesterday, I'd come up with more questions about what he thought was going on at Sierra Pacific and why he'd been arrested for practically no reason and with no hard evidence.

  But I figured I wouldn't get anything out of him this afternoon. He was visibly exhausted and smelled funky. Matthew told us that Ellen was tracking down a new lawyer to represent Aaron at his trial. After thanking me again, Aaron invited me to meet him tomorrow, but right now he just wanted to go home.

  Instead of returning to the office, I jumped in my car and headed toward Samoa Bridge. Halfway across, I reached for my iPad, using one hand to steer and the other to search through the notes I'd transcribed yesterday. Aaron had mentioned the name of the foreman he'd been going to meet with the day of the protest. I knew I had it somewhere…

  No SPI guard manned the gate this time, so I pulled through and onto the gr
avel lot beside the blue office building. I grabbed my purse, felt for my press pass, took a deep, empowering breath, and marched to the front door.

  An older woman with a dyed-red beehive of hair sat at the reception desk. She had a bright smile, displaying lipstick on her front teeth. "Hi there."

  "Hi." I smiled back. "My name is Maren Colepepper. I work at The Standard. I wonder if it'd be possible to talk to Reg Mintey."

  "He's the foreman, honey." She said this like it was supposed to mean something to me. It probably should have.

  "Yes, I know. I was here Monday and yesterday, during the uhh…" I gestured out the window toward the other side of the fence. "One of the protesters was arrested, but he wasn't with the protesters. He was here to talk to Mr. Mintey about something else. And now, well, obviously he can't come out here until after his trial, but I wanted to follow up for him." I hesitated. "If that's okay."

  "Reggie's down at the pony rig this afternoon, hon. No one but the workers are allowed there." She tilted her head. "I'm so sorry."

  She didn't seem all that sorry though. She seemed like she did this all the time, and dismissing reporters was part of her daily job.

  "Listen," I said, stalling for time until I figured out what to do next.

  Suddenly, the door I'd come through swung open, and a man entered. He was short, stocky, and muscly to the point of resembling Popeye. His jeans, flannel shirt, and orange vest were covered in sawdust.

  "Today's your lucky day," beehive-hair lady said to me. "Reggie, this young lady is waiting to talk to you. She's from The Standard." Her tone was diplomatic, yet it was pretty obvious she was trying to pass on a message to him without me understanding.

  "Maren Colepepper" I said, stepping up to him. "Mr. Mintey, do you have a few minutes? I promise it won't take long."

  "Well…" He made a play of reading his watch, but he had a nice face, jovial and kind…hopefully. "Okay. Give me a minute and I'll be right back." I thanked him profusely before he disappeared down a hallway. Beehive-hair lady hummed to herself while clacking away on her keyboard.

  The foreman returned shortly, free of mill grime and sawdust. He invited me back to his office, and—despite the distraction of mounted antlers and stuffed deer heads peering down at me from the walls—I didn't waste time but shot straight into what Aaron had told me about the old-growth redwoods being secretly cut, felled, and shipped in the middle of the night.

  He was surprisingly polite, letting me get all the way to the end before speaking. "I'm sure you realize what you're implying?" he said, planting his elbows on the desk.

  I nodded, firmly.

  "It's accusations like this that keep our industry's hands tied. We have the technology but we're unable to use it. It's the same with drilling for oil."

  "I don't—"

  His irritated sigh cut me off. "There'd be much more progress in this country if you tree-hugging liberals would lay off."

  "Mr. Mintey, I'm the furthest thing from—"

  "Look, Miss…" He sighed again. "What was your name?"

  "Cole—" I choked halfway through. "Colepepper."

  "Miss Colepepper. This company is the most by-the-book lumber mill you'll find. We don't make it a habit of poaching old-growth trees, and we certainly don't make it a habit of making these secret shipments you referred to. If anything"—he rocked forward, the distressed redwood desk creaking under his weight—"and I mean anything like that was going on at this mill, I'd know about it. Let me assure you, there's not. Period."

  "Oh." His speech left me rattled. I'd been hoping for more of a negotiation, or that maybe I'd be breaking bad news, and he'd be grateful. What I hadn't expected was to be shut down so thoroughly.

  I arranged my face back to its investigative journalist expression. "So you're claiming the accusations are false?"

  "One hundred percent," he stated, waving a finger at me. "Print that in your newspaper."

  Okay, I hadn't been doing this long, but I could tell when I'd run a source dry. To get any more out of Mintey would be like squeezing champagne from a redwood. Either he refused to say more, or there was nothing for him to say. My gut told me it was the latter. Sure, he was vehement about dismissing the accusations, but I didn't think it was because he was hiding information. It was because he didn't know.

  He wasn't in on it. Though saying that to his face might not be the shrewdest way to get him on my side.

  "Thank you for your time," I said, standing.

  We shook hands, and I left, but not before snapping a few covert pictures with my cell, two of the creepy taxidermied black bear posed like it was crawling through the wall. Yeesh.

  I drove a mile down the two-lane highway, pulled over to document everything from the meeting into my iPad then reread all my notes. Just when I decided what my next move would be, I remembered I was supposed to be somewhere. And with someone. I pulled onto the road and sped toward town.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Eric replied to my text immediately and said he'd be waiting outside the office. As I pulled up, there he stood by the door in his dark overcoat. He was on the phone but waved to me and held up a finger, signaling he'd be a second. When I waved back, he flashed that Ferris Bueller smile, causing my schizophrenic stomach to flutter about…something.

  While I waited, I sifted through texts and voicemails that I hadn't seen yet. Most were from Kim. She wanted to get together, to talk about Robby, no doubt. I smiled as I erased her last message, grateful that I had the makings of a fun girlfriend already.

  As the next voicemail played, my smile dropped. Drats. Mom must've passed on my number.

  "Maren. It's Katie. I know I promised we'd meet up soon, but I'm just so swamped. I've got the mayor's group, the Ingomar Club, the Soroptimist club—I chair that—and, you know, I volunteer at the school. I just don't know when I can fit you in. I'm so sorry. Oh, wait…hold on a minute. I might have time for a late lunch tomorrow. Yes, that works for me. I assume it works for you. One o'clock at the Chalet. See you then."

  As the robot lady asked if I wanted to save the message, delete it, or replay, I stared into the middle distance. Lunch with Katie Cunningham. Tomorrow. I massaged the bridge of my nose. Yeah, that would totally suck.

  I jumped when the passenger door opened.

  "I don't mind taking my car," Eric said. "In fact, I'd rather drive us."

  "It's cool, hop in," I said, trying to figure out if I was still ooged from Katie's message or if it was having Eric in my car that gave me a kicked in the stomach feeling.

  "What a day," he said with a sigh, clicking his seatbelt. "How did your afternoon turn out?" The question sounded so casually intimate, like we were an old married couple.

  "Good." I swallowed. "Good."

  "Were you able to see your friend at the courthouse?"

  I pulled into the street, heading for Ferndale. "He got to go home after paying five thousand to the bondsman."

  "Five thousand's not bad."

  "But he didn't do anything." I cut a look at Eric. "Trespassing's one thing, but the desk sergeant told me disturbing the peace and resisting arrest were added later, after he'd been picked up." I turned my gaze to the road, shaking my head. "That's just weird, right? Something's wrong about this whole thing. It's like someone wants to shut him up, or stop him from confronting SPI."

  Eric chuckled into his fist.

  "What?"

  "Nothing, nothing. You're in reporter mode, so everything around you looks and smells like a scandal, the big story that'll get picked up by NBC Nightly News." He tilted his head. "It's cute."

  Cute? I exhaled slowly, his words deflating me. It wasn't the Nightly News I'd been thinking about, actually. More like, if this story turned into something—and I had the feeling it would—maybe the Times would run it, or the Post….something big enough to get me back to New York City, previous journalistic sins forgiven.

  Eric chuckled again. "Don't put all your hopes in this one." He flicked a piece of lint of
f his knee. "From what I understand, these things happen relatively often around this neck of the woods—so to speak. No one pays attention to protests anymore."

  "It's not just about the protest. It might be way more than that. And I…I keep thinking I'm being followed." I took a second glance in the rearview mirror. "I don't know. It's just a feeling, but it's a strong one. I can't shake it."

  "Okay, Maren, okay. No more shoptalk." He made a play of getting comfortable in his seat. "Tell me about growing up here? I'm finding Eureka a very interesting little town. What was it like?"

  Derailed again. Why wasn't my editor interested in the gut feeling of his newest reporter? He'd completely changed the subject. Come to think of it, Patrick had done the same thing. What was with the men in this town?

  While we drove, I told Eric about disco-skating at the Muni, the rhododendron parades every April, the Kinetic sculpture races, beach picnics at Patrick's Point, and the hiking trails behind Sequoia Park. The two last things naturally made me think of someone else…

  Every time I asked Eric a question about his life, he gave me a one-word reply, circling back to me. Another quasi-Google search coming up empty. He seemed interested and entertained by my stories, and the attention was nice. Who doesn't enjoy being asked about themselves? But there were things about him I wanted to know. After so much frustrating runaround, the investigative journalist side of my brain gave up and went to sleep.

  We arrived at the Ferndale Repertory Theater three minutes before curtain. My parents were in their seats, but Dad stood as I introduced them to Eric. When I mentioned he was my boss, Mom gave me a look that I ignored. Luckily, before she could add words to her look, the house lights dimmed.

  The orchestra played plunky, period music, and then Eric's mouth was at my ear. "What is this show about?"

  "It's The Importance of Being Earnest," I whispered.

  "What's that?"

  I peered at him through the dim light. Shouldn't the head honcho of a newspaper have some kind of literary background? "The play by Oscar Wilde."