Fatality by Firelight

by Lynn Cahoon

  Shauna took her bowl to the sink. “It’s your story; you can lie to yourself all you want.”

  The hard part was Cat wasn’t sure what bothered her most. She needed to get this Michael thing settled so if there was a future with Seth so the ghost of her past wouldn’t be living with them forever.

  The heating unit addition was just money. Money came and money went. As long as they didn’t find another one of Michael’s secret rooms while they did the installation or worse, a body, she’d be happy when it was complete. When they’d started remodeling the attic a few months ago, Seth had found a secret room where Michael had set up a home office. Or should she say a second home office. One where he could hide the work he was doing for his second job. A job, Cat still hadn’t pieced together to see if it had been the reason her ex had been killed.

  Cat walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her room. She needed to change into jeans for her excursion. She decided she’d just have to trust Seth about getting the addition done. The way her luck was going, she better count on finding another body.

  Chapter 10

  Cat made her way to the elevator leading up to the lodge’s hotel rooms. According to Christina, the room Tommy had rented was on the third floor. The elevator doors opened, and a couple in ski outfits stepped out. She took their place and quickly closed the doors before anyone else could get on.

  The doors opened on the third floor, and she walked down the hall. A maid’s cart stood abandoned about half way down. It must be break time. A few doors down, the yellow crime scene tape was flapping loose, and the door to the room stood open. She paused at the threshold and leaned inside. A large bed took up the left side of the room. The bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in, the comforter still in place. On the back wall was the fireplace, and the small table still had the room-service tray on it. Glass shards sparkled on the rug. So far, Christina’s story was holding up to the physical evidence. She made herself look to the right where the hot tub was sunk into the floor. She knew Tommy’s body had been taken to the morgue, but in her mind’s eye, she could still see him lying there. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she wasn’t learning anything new by visiting the room.

  “I’m sorry, no one is allowed in that room.” As she turned to leave, a voice came from behind her causing her to jerk. Cat turned to see the maid standing there, watching her.

  “I heard there was a murder. Did you know the guy who was killed?”

  The woman shrugged. “I talked to him that day. He said his girlfriend was coming up and he wanted extra towels since they would be spending some time in the hot tub. So I got him more towels.”

  Cat didn’t want to look at the hot tub again. “Well, I guess I should get back downstairs. My boyfriend thinks I went to the bathroom.”

  “Men are easy to fool.” The woman laughed, her cackle sounding hard. “I guess this guy didn’t get the night he’d planned either.”

  As Cat headed out of the lodge to her car, she wondered what had really happened in that condo and who had decided that Tommy wasn’t going to need to live another day.

  *

  Later that afternoon, she was back at the house waiting for the guests to appear. She expected she’d get at least a phone call from her uncle sooner or later about why she’d visited today, and since she’d forgotten to even look at a coat for Seth, she had no excuse for being at the lodge, much less on the third floor. But maybe the maid wouldn’t say anything. From her response, she had to be used to people trying to sneak a peek at the death scene.

  The phone rang and as she listened, Cat doodled on the notebook in front of her as she cradled the phone in between her ear and neck. She had been reviewing January’s retreat guest list when Miss Applebome called. The woman was ten minutes into the conversation and had just now gotten to the point. The crew was invited to an afternoon tea at the library to thank them for finding and returning the book.

  The first part of the conversation had been a not-so-subtle interrogation to make sure Cat hadn’t stolen the book herself.

  The bell over the door rang, and she looked up to find a delivery guy holding a large bouquet of purple flowers. She held up one finger asking him to wait.

  “Sorry, Miss Applebome, I need to cut this short. I’ll make sure the gang is over at the library a bit before six. They’re going to be so excited about this. Thank you for thinking of them.” Before the librarian could respond, Cat disconnected the call. She grinned at the guy. “Thank you for rescuing me. So, who are these for? Bella, Jennifer? Maybe Shauna?”

  Shauna had been dating a guy but had kept him away from the house. Cat hoped that Shauna’s reluctance to introduce him to Cat only meant that her friend wasn’t quite sure yet.

  The guy set the bouquet on the table. “None of the above. This is why I always confirm the delivery.” He looked at his clipboard. “So you don’t have a Catherine Latimer staying here?”

  Cat felt her skin cool. Yes, the flowers could have been from Seth, but if he’d sent them, the name would be Cat or, if he was in a teasing mood, Kitty Cat. No one sent flowers to her under Catherine. At least not since she divorced Michael. Swallowing hard, she nodded. “I’m Catherine. Who are the flowers from?”

  He looked back at the paper. “That’s funny; it doesn’t say. Someone paid a wad of cash for this bouquet, though. My designer had to order in the lilacs special. Who orders spring flowers in November?”

  She handed the guy a five she’d scrounged from the desk drawer and then waited for him to leave. When she saw the Aspen Hills Floral delivery van pull away from the curb, she reached for the card.

  “Lovely to meet you last week, even if the circumstances were less accommodating. I hope we can talk again. I enjoyed our banter. D.” No name, just an initial. What was it with men that they thought signing with an initial was cool? She put the card in the trash and moved the antique bucking bronco statue off the oak table by the stairs. Coffee, now flowers. Why did this feel like more than just a casual meeting?

  Her mind went to Seth. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” She muttered the words under her breath, but even as she said them, it felt like she had. She returned to the scheduling and setting up room assignments for each person, made a note for Shauna stating they only had room for one more registration, and closed out the registration software. Then, putting on her heavy winter coat and gloves, she headed outside for a walk to clear her head.

  As she passed by Mrs. Rice’s Thanksgiving display, she heard someone call her name. Looking up, she saw Bella making her exit off the porch. Mrs. Rice waved and then shut the door.

  Bella didn’t speak until she’d closed the gate behind her. “I’m so glad to see you. After talking to Mrs. Rice and your lecture last night about safety, I’d rather not walk to the library by myself. Are you going that way?”

  Cat put on a smile she didn’t feel and nodded. “Sure. I hope your interview was successful.” She didn’t know exactly what Bella was writing, but she thought she was relying way too much on research and not spending enough time actually putting words down on paper. The woman wrote fiction, for goodness’ sake.

  “She knows everything. Of course, she’s a little hard to keep on track.” Bella turned to look at Cat. “She’s very interested in your relationship with Mr. Howard. She just kept pumping me for gossip, but I didn’t say anything. Did you know the stories going around about the two of you? Star-crossed high-school sweethearts.”

  “That part is actually true. Seth and I did date in high school.” No use hiding that fact; it wouldn’t have even been news to Mrs. Rice, since she’d lived here as long as Cat could remember.

  Bella laughed. “When she saw the florist stop at your place, I almost had to drag her back to the couch. She wanted to know who would be getting flowers. So I lied and said my husband must have sent them for our anniversary.”

  “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “That’s because I’m not. I just wanted to get back to w
hat she knew about the mob kids attending Covington. And, man, did I get a list of names. I’m looking through the yearbooks to corroborate what she said, but if this is even partially true, my book is going to shoot up the best selling rankings. Of course, I’ve had to fictionalize the town and the college. I don’t want the boys to put me in their cross hairs. But really, they probably won’t even know I wrote the book.”

  Cat considered what she’d heard. “Are you scared they won’t like the book and how it portrays them?”

  They’d arrived at the library. “They should be the ones that are scared of being found out. Those guys are stone-cold killers for the most part. And they’d do anything to protect their family.”

  “Call the house when you’re ready to come back. I’ll send someone.” Cat wanted to avoid getting cornered by Miss Applebome again, so she didn’t follow Bella inside. Instead, she wandered through the campus and then through town before finding herself in front of Bernie’s.

  The bar looked empty, but Cat knew it opened at noon, so she pushed the wooden door open and stepped into the darkness. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but then she saw Brit at the bar, a clipboard in her hand.

  “Come on in, I won’t bite.” Brit waved her over to the bar. “What can I get you?”

  Cat pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands. “I wouldn’t turn down a cup of coffee if you have some.”

  “I keep a pot on just for me during the day. At night, I keep one for the guys who think drinking coffee will get them sobered up before their wives notice they’ve been drinking.” Brit poured two cups and set them in front of Cat. Then she walked around the bar and sat on the stool next to her.

  Cat sipped the coffee. It was surprisingly good. “I’m sorry about Tommy.”

  Brit sighed. “Well, I’m not. I think I dodged a bullet on that one. How do you know if a guy is going to be a cheater?”

  Choking on her coffee, Cat wiped the liquid off the bar with a nearby napkin. “I’m not sure.”

  Brit helped clean up the mess, then shook her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up to you of all people.” She paused, twirling her hair with one finger. “You need to know that we never dated back then. I mean when you were married. I knew him and that fall he’d come into the bar, sit on that stool, and make notes in some type of journal. One beer, maybe two, then he was out of here. He didn’t pick up any of the co-eds either, if you were wondering.”

  “What Michael did or didn’t do isn’t really the point anymore, is it? He’s dead.” Cat cringed at how harsh her words sounded. “I was in a bad space when we divorced. Now I’m starting my life over.”

  “Betrayal like that kind of kicks you in the face.” Brit sipped her coffee again. “You sure I can’t get you a real drink? Maybe a shot of something?”

  “Not today, but I’ll come back in a few days and we can have that shot.” Or maybe more, Cat thought. “Christina didn’t know he was engaged. She’s a good kid.”

  “Believe me, I don’t blame her. Tommy just thought he was above rules. He told me he was celebrating some big score and to be ready to party on Monday. When I told him I was covering for Dad since he had to go see his doctor in Denver, he got ticked off.”

  “Is Bernie all right?”

  Brit nodded. “A bad ticker, he’d say. Good news is he seems to be getting better now that he’s taking care of himself. I even got him to stop smoking.”

  “That’s good to hear.” The clock chimed and a bird call echoed through the empty bar.

  Brit stood and threw back the rest of her coffee. “I’ve got to get ready to open. In an hour, this place will be jam-packed with students and people from the college.”

  Cat left a five on the counter after Brit had disappeared to the back to grab beer. She blinked at the bright light that assaulted her eyes as she left the bar. Brit had known Michael, but more importantly, the nights she’d thought he’d been shacked up in his office with the flavor of the month girl, he’d been at the bar, ignoring everyone and everything except his journal.

  As she turned the corner onto Warm Springs, she saw a white van someone had driven up on the curb. A woman’s scream came from behind the van. Cat pulled out her cell as she ran and dialed 911. When Katie answered, Cat shouted, “Something’s happening on the 200 block of Warm Springs. Send help. Guy’s in a white van.” The van had parked so closely to another car, she couldn’t see the plates. When a second scream emitted, Cat ignored the questions Katie was asking her and sprinted, hoping she wouldn’t fall on the slippery sidewalk.

  She barely heard the woman on the phone tell her to stay away from the incident.

  “AA549.” She read off the front plate into the phone as she came around the van, then stuck her phone, still connected, into her coat pocket.

  A big man had someone by the waist and was trying to push the woman into the back of the van. He wasn’t having much luck as the woman had flung her arms and legs out wide and was bracing herself on the edges of the opening. Even at a few feet away, Cat could see the woman’s arms shaking and her grip weakening.

  Looking around, she found garden gnomes someone had placed by their entry gate. She wrenched one out of the frozen ground and then ran closer, throwing it at the guy’s head as she stopped, just out of arm’s reach.

  The man let the woman go and grabbed at his head. “Damn,” he roared in pain, turning toward her. Cat could have sworn his eyes glowed red. He turned his focus back to his victim, but she’d taken advantage of being released and had grabbed a shovel out of the back of the van.

  Cat heard the sound of the shovel hitting the man’s head from where she stood and she grabbed the matching gnome before stepping closer. He crumpled to the ground, and she held the cement statue over his body, waiting for him to move.

  “I think he’s out.”

  Cat turned her gaze to the woman and realized it was Christina. She still had the shovel handle in her hands, as if she was on the mound and waiting for the next pitch. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “My arms are killing me, but I think I’m fine. Thanks for the help, I couldn’t have held on much longer.”

  Neither she or Cat moved as they heard the sirens coming up the road. Katie must have sent everyone she had on patrol that day because, before Cat knew it, five black police cars surrounded the van, and soon, every vehicle had an officer crouching behind the driver’s side door with guns pointed at her and Christina.

  Uncle Pete climbed out of his car. “Holster your weapons and get this guy in cuffs.” He took the unthrown gnome out of Cat’s hands and set it back down by the gate. “You okay?”

  Another officer checked for a pulse, then gently placed cuffs on him so he’d be restrained when he awoke.

  “He’s not dead, is he?” Christina allowed a third officer to take the shovel from her. “I didn’t want to kill him, but he tried to force me into the van. Every article I’ve read about kidnappers says not to let them take you from the original abduction site.”

  “You did great.” Uncle Pete kneeled next to the prone man. He exchanged a glance with the other officer. “Call for an ambulance. He’s going to have a whopper of a headache when he wakes up.”

  Cat realized the phone was still in her pocket and connected to the police station. She pulled the cell out. “Thanks for the help, Katie. Everything’s fine here.” Not waiting for Katie’s response, she disconnected the call and put her phone away. She stood over the guy but focused her question to Christina. “Do you know him?”

  “He’s the guy who offered to buy me a drink last night.” Christina took the blanket that she’d been offered. “Why would he try to take me?”

  Cat and Uncle Pete exchanged a glance. This had to be about Tommy Neil’s death. Cat rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to stop the chill that had come over her. “He looks kind of like the guy who ran me down the other day. I can’t be for sure, but he’s the right size.”

  “We’ll run his prints and see who w
e’re dealing with.” He called over to the officer who had helped Christina. “Take these two to my niece’s place, 700 Warm Springs.”

  “Don’t you want to interview us?” Christina asked as she wavered on her feet.

  Cat stepped toward her. “Let’s get you warmed up first.”

  “I’ll be over as soon as I clean up this mess.” Uncle Pete turned toward the sound of the ambulance. “First, I want to make sure this guy is safely in custody. Then we’ll try to figure this out.”

  As Cat walked with Christina toward the waiting police car, she wondered if the answer was too easy. If this man had killed Tommy Neil, he’d had a reason. She went back to her conversation with Mrs. Colfax. This is just the kind of conspiracy theory the woman would love. Especially since it made Tommy some kind of target. Then the guy would have had to think Christina was a loose end. But she’d left the room before Tommy was killed, so how would he have even known about her?

  At least there was one good thing that would come out of the fact that this guy was the killer. The last few days of the retreat would be free of any further crime investigation.

  Cat held the car door open for the now-shaking Christina. The girl had enough problems in her life. First a stalker, then a cheater, now this. Cat wouldn’t doubt if Christina wrote off men entirely after this week.

  *

  Paul Quinn drove them home, and they went into the house through the kitchen door. He looked at Cat. “Any other entrances?”

  “The front door and a cellar door, but it’s locked.” She handed Christina off to Shauna.

  Paul pulled himself up to his full height. “Keep this door locked and I’ll be out front. Call 911 if you need me; don’t come outside.”

  “They have the guy, why are you acting like we’re still in danger?” Cat snapped out the words.

  Paul raised his eyebrows. “We caught one guy. Who knows if he’s the only person involved or if he was just working for someone.”

  Cat heard Christina’s sharp intake of breath. She moved Paul toward the door. Lowering her voice, she said, “You’re scaring her. Go watch the front if you think you need to, and I’ll keep this door locked. Just leave so I can get her calmed down.”