by Jessica Beck
“Is this really the time to be doing that?” I asked her.
“I want to see if whoever delivered those flowers noticed the blade in my door. If they didn’t, we might have a timeline to see who could have done it.”
“That’s smart thinking,” I said as Kathleen picked up. “Hey, Sis. We need you out at Annie’s.”
“What is it, Pat? I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
“Okay. Get out here whenever you can make it. We just thought you’d like to see the knife sticking in her front door.”
“Hold on. Don’t hang up,” Kathleen ordered. She knew me too well, because that was exactly what I’d been about to do.
“Is there a problem?” I asked her gently.
“Don’t touch that blade, Pat. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay,” I said, and then I turned to Annie, who was still on the phone. From her end, all I heard was, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. Of course.” My twin sister wasn’t the brilliant conversationalist that I was.
“What did they say?” I asked her when she hung up.
“The knife most definitely wasn’t there,” she said.
“How could they be so sure?”
“The driver liked my door, and he studied it closely when he dropped off Timothy’s flowers. He’s a woodworker, and he wanted to see if he could replicate it in his shop.”
“Did he happen to say when he dropped them off?”
“That’s the bad part,” Annie said. “There’s a two-hour window between the delivery and our arrival.”
“And we were talking to two of our suspects in that same time period,” I finished for her.
“No one is eliminated,” she said.
“No, but Kathleen was right. We’re making someone awfully nervous. I’m glad that you’re staying with me tonight.”
“To tell you the truth, so am I,” my sister said. It was as big a confession as I’d ever gotten out of her before, so I knew that the knife’s forbidding message had been received.
Kathleen broke her own estimate and arrived even faster than she’d promised. “Where is it?” she asked as she approached, but she answered her own question when she spotted it. Taking pictures and video first, only after it was carefully documented did she take out a pair of pliers and remove it from Annie’s door.
“What are you going to do with it?” Annie asked her.
“Why, are you looking for a souvenir?” she asked her.
“Not funny, Kathleen,” I said, and Annie nodded in agreement.
“We’re going to dust it for prints, but I have a hunch that it’s going to be as clean as the note you found. In the meantime, I’ll wrap it loosely and transport it back to the office. There didn’t happen to be a note with it, by any chance?”
“Did whoever do it really need to leave one?” Annie asked. “I’d think that the knife would be message enough for anyone.”
“You’re not staying here alone tonight,” Kathleen said to her, using the most authority she could muster in her voice.
It was exactly the wrong way to handle my twin sister, and if Kathleen hadn’t been so shaken by the situation, she would have realized it herself.
“No worries on that front. She’s staying with me,” I said.
Annie was about to add something else when our older sister must have realized that she’d just stepped over a pretty big line. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’d just hate for something to happen to you on my watch.”
“How about me?” I asked, trying to defuse the situation with a little humor. “Don’t you care about my well-being, too?”
“Of course I do,” she said, not rising to the bait.
“Why don’t you grab a few things and we can get out of here,” I said to Annie. “I’ll get your flowers for you.”
Kathleen studied them and frowned. “The knife and the flowers were two different deliveries today, weren’t they?”
“I certainly hope so, or Timothy Roberts has some explaining to do,” Annie replied. She was starting to get a little spunk back, which was something I was grateful for.
“Wow, he’s got class, doesn’t he?” Kathleen asked as she smelled the bouquet.
“Okay, I didn’t know it was something that I had to do,” I said.
“Why would you send our sister flowers?” Kathleen asked me, clearly puzzled by my outburst.
“They wouldn’t be for me,” Annie said impishly. “Pat went out with Jenna Lance last night.”
Kathleen nodded but otherwise made no comment.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” I asked her.
“Good for you? I’m not sure what you’re looking for here, Pat.”
She was teasing me in her own way, and given the tension we’d all just experienced, I decided to let it slide. “Okay, Annie, pack your bag.”
“Would you like me to go inside with you?” Kathleen asked.
“No, thanks. I’ve got it.”
While Annie was inside, I asked my older sister, “This is pretty bad, isn’t it?”
“I’d say so. You both need to watch your backs. I can’t imagine what kind of greeting is waiting for you back at the Iron. Would you both like to bunk with me at my place tonight? It might get a little crowded, but I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“Thanks, but we’ll be fine.”
Kathleen frowned. “I’m pretty sure that was what Annie was thinking just before you two found the knife stuck in her door.”
“Well, if we find one in the front door at the Iron, you’ll be the first call we make.”
Kathleen nodded, and then she asked, “You really didn’t send her flowers?”
“Is it too late to do it now?” I asked worriedly. My sisters were really getting me paranoid that I’d broken some unwritten rule that I hadn’t even known about.
Kathleen glanced at her watch. “The florist closed ten minutes ago. Maybe tomorrow won’t be too late. I don’t know. I suppose it’s worth a try.”
“Seriously?”
She tweaked my cheek. “I’m just messing with you, Pat. You didn’t used to be that easy to tease. Getting older has made you soft.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Thanks for coming out so quickly.”
“Always. Say, what’s keeping Annie? She should have been packed by now.”
We were both starting to get concerned when the front door opened again, and she stepped out. “I forgot my slippers.”
“My place isn’t that cold.”
“You know me. My feet are always chilly. Let’s go.”
Annie had her overnight bag, Kathleen had the knife, and I took the flowers back to my car. “Do you want me to throw these on the backseat?” I asked Annie.
She looked shocked by my suggestion. “Hold them until I get buckled up, and then you can hand them to me.”
“You don’t seem the type to go soft over flowers,” I commented as we drove down her driveway, and ultimately, toward town.
“What can I say? Sometimes a girl just likes to feel appreciated.”
“Okay, that settles it. Jenna is getting a delivery tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t do it on my account,” Annie said.
“Between you and Kathleen, I don’t have any other advisors about my love life. Up until recently, I didn’t even need the two of you.”
“But that’s all about to change, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I didn’t think we were talking about our dates,” I reminded her.
“That wasn’t. It was more of a general question than a specific one.”
When we got to the Iron, I half expected to find a duplicate knife sticking in the front door.
What we found instead was much worse, though.
CHAPTER 23: ANNIE
“Is that another dead body?” I asked Pat as we approached the front porch of the Iron. I’d found one there once before, and it had been enough to shake me all the way down to my core.
“It looks like it mi
ght be,” Pat replied, his voice softening as we neared it. Why was he whispering, anyway? If our visitor was indeed dead, we could talk as loudly as we pleased without worrying about disturbing them.
My foot hit the top floorboard, which creaked under the pressure, and I almost lost my mind completely when the previously inert body shot up as though it were being catapulted out of the chair.
“Take it easy,” Pat said when he realized who it was. “Sally, we’ve been looking all over town for you.”
“So has the killer,” she said, clearly frightened by the prospect. She was nervously chewing the fingernails of her left hand, and I saw a pair of Band-Aids on her index finger and thumb.
“What happened to your hand?”
“I caught it in the car door trying to get away a little earlier,” she said. “You both have to help me! I don’t want to die!”
“Do you still think that Harriet is the killer?” I asked her, doing my best to calm her down.
“I know what I know.” She looked around in the near darkness just a few steps from the front porch light we kept on occasionally. “Can we go inside and talk about it?”
“Sure. Just let me grab my keys,” Pat said.
The world was suddenly illuminated in brightness as a car approached, hitting its high beams along the way.
“Is everything okay here?” It was Kathleen, and despite our assurances that we would be fine, she had followed us back to the Iron anyway.
“Sally came by for a chat,” I said.
“Do tell. Would you mind one more?”
We all agreed, and Kathleen soon joined us. “What’s the subject of conversation tonight, as though I even have to ask?”
“Sally is under the impression that the killer is stalking her,” Pat explained.
She looked hard at him before she spoke. “Are you mocking me?”
“No, I was just trying to explain the situation,” Pat replied.
“I don’t have to stay here and be treated like some kind of panicky boob,” Sally said as she stepped off of the porch.
“No one was treating you that way,” I said. In all honesty, I hadn’t found Pat’s comment offensive, but then again, I wasn’t a suspect in a double-murder investigation, either.
She wouldn’t even slow down though, and as she got near the road, I saw that she’d tucked her car into the shadows. That explained why I hadn’t seen it when we’d driven up.
“I’d better go see what’s going on with her,” Kathleen said.
“Keep us posted,” I called out.
Our older sister didn’t even dignify my request with a comment.
“What was that all about?” Pat asked me once we were inside.
“I have no idea. I’m kind of hungry. How about you?”
“I could eat,” he said with a grin. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about some waffles and bacon?”
“That sounds like heaven,” Pat answered. “I’ll even help, if you’d like.”
“You stay on your side of the counter, and I’ll stay on mine, Mister,” I told him.
Forty-five minutes later, our bellies full and the grill spotless once again, Pat and I said good night. I felt bad evicting him out of his own bed but not enough to trade the couch for it. It had been important to him that I be there, so I was going to at least get his comfy bed while he crashed on the couch.
The next morning I came out of the bedroom and saw Pat sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. “I slept like a baby,” I said as I served myself some breakfast. “How about you?”
“If you mean waking up every two hours crying, then about the same.”
“Hey, you were the one who wanted me to stay here last night,” I reminded him.
“I’ll take a lack of sleep over you being in danger any day of the week,” Pat said. “The bathroom is all yours. I already took my shower, so I’m going to head downstairs.”
“Fine. Just don’t open early.”
“Are you kidding? If I do that, our customers will start expecting it all of the time.”
Once Pat was gone, I hurried through breakfast, grabbed a quick shower, and then dressed. On my way down the stairs, I nearly tripped on his heavy wooden walking stick. Why did he keep it in such a dangerous place? I almost took the time to put it up in his apartment, but then I decided that I wasn’t his mother. If he wanted to put it away, he’d have to do it himself. I put it back where I’d nearly tripped over it and then joined my brother downstairs. Pat was setting up a display of sleds that we’d gotten three years ago and hadn’t managed to sell yet. “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?”
“Hey, the only time of year we have a chance to sell them is before winter actually arrives. Right now the snow is a promise hanging in the wind. Most likely we’ll just get freezing rain or sleet, but there’s a chance. Besides, these are taking up too much room in the back.”
“You should put some hot cocoa mix in the display, too, since you’re jumping the gun on the sleds.”
“That’s not a bad idea at all,” he said as he started for the back to get a case.
“I was kidding,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean that it’s not a good idea.” I saw my brother frown a little, and then he said, “I wonder what he wants?”
I turned to see Ollie Wilson standing outside our door, eager to speak with us. From the worried expression on his face, he looked more like someone being hunted than the actual hunter.
“Where are you going?” I asked Pat as he headed for the door.
“I’m going to let him in,” he said.
“Do you think that’s wise, given the fact that he’s one of our last three suspects?”
“Annie, we’re opening the door in three minutes anyway. We can’t exactly bar him from coming into the Iron, can we?”
He made a good point. “Go on. Let him in, but I’m going to grab a shovel, just in case.”
“Good. If he wants to dig a hole, you’ll be ready.”
“Don’t laugh, Pat, because the hole will be a shallow grave, if he’s the killer.”
That wiped the smile off my brother’s face. He opened the door, and Ollie came rushing in. “You two have to help me. The killer is after me.”
We’d heard the same song the night before, just from a different singer. “Sally said the same thing last night. Does that mean that you both believe that Harriet is the murderer?”
“I don’t know which one of those crazy women did it. All I know is that I found a knife sticking in my front door when I woke up this morning.”
“What did it look like?” I asked him.
“Like it would be perfectly suited for stabbing me in the heart,” he said.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Ollie,” Pat said. “Annie got a knife, too, but the killer was warning her off from her investigation.”
“Do you two honestly think that you’re the only ones digging into Albert’s murder?”
“Are you saying that you’ve been investigating, too?” I asked him. “Since when did you two become such good friends?”
“She’s right, Ollie,” Pat said. “The last time I saw you, you were trying to kill him yourself.”
“I’m no fool. I know how it looked. That’s why I’ve been trying to prove that someone else did it. It’s easier than proving that I’m innocent.”
“All you need is an alibi for both murders,” I said.
“Sure, but who can provide those?”
I wasn’t about to tell him that two of our suspects had been able to do it already, thus eliminating their names from our list. “You’d be surprised.”
“Well, I can’t do it. I can’t remember what I was doing when Mitchell died, and I can’t say a word about where I was when Albert was murdered.”
“Is whatever you’re hiding really worth going to jail for the rest of your life?” Did Ollie actually have something that would remove him from suspicion?
“No, I guess not. The tru
th is, I was rigging a bid in Charlotte the entire day and well into the night. If word gets out, I’m ruined, so what does it matter?”
“No one else has to know,” Pat said. “If you can provide us with proof, we can take it from there without mentioning what you were doing.”
“Hang on. Let me make a phone call first.”
Ollie stepped away, and after an angry conversation full of begging and threats, Ollie handed me the phone. “Go on and take it. He’ll vouch for me.”
“Not so fast,” I said, and then I turned to Pat. “How do we know this man is who he says he is? Ollie could have just called one of his friends to play out the charade.”
“Good point,” Pat said. “Give the phone back to him, Annie.”
I did as he suggested. Ollie looked distraught. “This is legit. I swear.”
“Tell him that we’ll call him right back,” I said.
Ollie did so grudgingly, and once he was off the line, I said, “Tell us this source’s name and where he works.”
“Why do you need to know that?” Ollie asked us in protest.
“If you want our help, you’ll do it,” Pat replied.
“Fine. It’s David Blackburn, and he works for the city of Charlotte.”
I turned to Pat. “Google him, and get his telephone number.”
My brother took out his phone, and after a few minutes, he nodded. “It’s legit.”
I took out my phone. “Give me his number.”
“I have his direct line,” Ollie volunteered.
“Thanks, but I don’t mind going through the switchboard.” It took three minutes, but a man finally picked up, asserting that he was David Blackburn.
“You don’t know me, but I was just speaking with a friend of yours.”
“He’s no friend of mine. If you think I’m going to admit to something over the phone, you’ve lost your mind.”
“I’m just checking to see if someone from Maple Crest had an appointment in your office three days ago. I don’t need to know any of the details. That can’t be incriminating, can it?”
“I suppose not. Sure. Why not? He was here.”
“Could I have a name, please?”