by Sammi Carter
“Try not to worry,” I said, even though we both knew that Dylan would worry himself sick. “Let me know when you hear from him.”
The news left me chilled, so after we hung up I piled on a few warm layers and clipped Max to his leash. Maybe a brisk morning walk in subzero temperatures would warm me up.
The weather seemed a little more moderate this morning than it had last night, which lightened my mood a bit. With any luck some of the dirty mounds of snow that had been piled up around town for the past two weeks would melt.
Max and I set off, deliberately walking away from the Playhouse and thoughts of death. I tried to keep my mind on other things. The recipe for the Marshmallow Caramel Pillows I’d be making later that morning. My relationship with Jawarski, and whether or not I’d be able to move past my commitment phobias. How to convince Karen that the hearts hanging all over Divinity were as hideous as I thought they were. Important things. Things I stood a chance of doing something about.
Unfortunately, I was also wondering about who else might have been in the theater when Laurence Nichols died, and whether Richie would be able to convince Nate that he was innocent. I wondered about Colleen Brannigan’s husband, and what he’d been doing when the lethal spotlight fell from the fly system. I wondered if Nate knew about Doyle Brannigan’s jealousy, and whether he planned to ask everyone involved in the production where they’d been when Laurence died. And I told myself over and over that I could trust Nate Svboda to conduct the investigation. He was a good cop. Jawarski believed in him, didn’t he? So I should, too. I just wished I could make myself believe it.
Max and I walked along Prospector Street, past Rachel’s shop, Candlewyck, and Iris Quinn’s Once Upon a Crime. I was so busy trying to find answers to the questions dancing in my head, I barely paid attention to traffic when I crossed the street.
Much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t told Nate everything I knew when he questioned me last night. In fact, I’d told him very little, really. Out of loyalty to Colleen, I hadn’t mentioned her husband’s suspicions about her relationship with Laurence. I’d also failed to mention the argument I’d overheard between Vonetta and Laurence the night of the meeting. I’d planned to tell him about both if the lab verified that the safety cable had actually been cut, but Dylan’s late-night visit had convinced me to bump up my timetable. I hated casting suspicion on anyone, but I hated knowing that the police were focusing on Richie even more.
I don’t know how long I’d been walking when the cold air finally bit through the layers of clothing I’d piled on and pulled me back to reality. We’d wandered several blocks from home, and as I got my bearings, I realized Max and I were standing across the street from the Wagon Wheel family restaurant, which had been one of my dad’s favorite places to grab a bite when Wyatt and I were kids.
Back then, life wasn’t like it is now—mothers rarely worked outside the home, and eating out had been a special occasion. A trip to the Wagon Wheel meant Sunday clothes and best behavior for my brother and me. We’d both hated wearing our Sunday best, but we’d looked forward to those rare treats with such anticipation, we’d have done anything our parents asked. For months before Mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day, we’d think about what was coming, and once in a blue moon Dad would get a hankering he just couldn’t ignore, and we’d come to town for a spontaneous dinner.
I hadn’t eaten at the Wagon Wheel since I moved back to Paradise. The years in Sacramento had dulled my appetite for greasy food. But I’d missed dinner the night before and suddenly nothing sounded better than the Wheel’s all-American breakfast, eggs over easy cooked in bacon grease, and white toast slathered with butter.
As long as I shared my leftovers with him later, Max wouldn’t mind waiting, so after a slow-moving truck passed by, we jogged across the street to the restaurant. I made Max comfortable in the vestibule and let myself inside. The aromas of bacon, sausage, and coffee filled my senses as I walked through the door, and my stomach growled with anticipation.
A harried-looking waitress poured coffee for a couple of guys seated at the counter, then glanced at me with a weary smile. “Sit anywhere, hon. I’ll bring you a menu in just a sec.”
I pondered my breakfast choices as I looked around the long, narrow dining area for a place to sit. Ham and eggs or chicken-fried steak and gravy? I couldn’t make up my mind. But when I saw two people I recognized sitting together at the far end of the room, all thoughts of food flew right out of my head.
Nate Svboda sat with his back to me, but I’d have known him anywhere. Across the table, Doyle Brannigan mopped up egg yolk with a piece of toast and laughed at something Nate said. I know it seems unreasonable, but seeing Doyle sitting there, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, made me angry. If anyone in Paradise had a motive for wanting Laurence Nichols out of the way, it was Doyle Brannigan. So why did he get to enjoy breakfast with his friendly neighborhood police detective while poor Richie agonized over his fate?
My heart slammed against my rib cage, and I backed up a couple of steps, hoping they wouldn’t notice me. I could almost hear Jawarski telling me not to jump to conclusions, but this conclusion didn’t require much of a leap.
It was pretty obvious that Nate and Doyle were friends, and I knew how the good ol’ boys network functioned. My dad had been a card-carrying member for years. Doyle could have walked down the street holding the murder weapon in plain sight, and Nate would have just come up with a way to excuse him.
My mind raced as I backed out of the door and unclipped Max’s leash. “Sorry, boy,” I said as I turned for home. “No bacon for you this morning.”
I’d be beating my head against a brick wall if I tried to convince Nate to check out what Doyle was doing last night. But somebody had to make sure he hadn’t been crawling around the upper levels of the theater with a knife, cutting cables. I stepped off the curb and crossed the street, tossing a silent apology to Jawarski into the Universe. I knew how much he’d worried about me in the past, and I wouldn’t have gotten involved this time if he’d been here to investigate.
That’s the honest truth.
But Richie is a friend, and the odds were seriously stacked against him. Sure, Jawarski would be back eventually, but Nate and the boys could do a helluva lot of damage in the meantime. I wouldn’t get involved, I promised myself. I’d just ask a few questions. See if I could figure out what Doyle Brannigan had been doing last night. Make sure that if Nate left Doyle walking around free as a bird while he kept Richie boxed up in an interrogation room, there was a good reason for the difference in the way they were being treated. That’s all.
And Nate had better hope he hadn’t overlooked something. Because if he had, there would be hell to pay.
Chapter 13
“I can’t believe it. Laurence Nichols? Dead? Inside our theater?” Karen stopped polishing the glass container in her hand and shook her head in amazement. “Do you know what this is going to mean?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It means that Richie Bellieu is considered a ‘person of interest,’ and it means that we’re going to have to deal with a bunch of reporters and rotten publicity that nobody needs.” In the time it had taken me to walk from the Wagon Wheel to Divinity, I’d gone from grimly determined to furious.
While I put a pot of Chocolate Mudslide on the coffee-maker, I’d given Karen and Liberty a brief rundown of the mess at the Playhouse, leaving out almost nothing except the part where, less than twenty-four hours before Laurence died, Vonetta had threatened him with harm if he didn’t get the hell out of her theater. I just couldn’t picture Vonetta climbing around in the fly system and sawing at safety cables with a knife. If she’d wanted to kill him, she’d have been more straightforward. Besides, the first order of business was satisfying my curiosity about Doyle Brannigan.
Liberty must have found some hidden square inch of the shop she hadn’t decorated because she was carefully attaching ribbon streamers to yet another stack of hearts. “People
are going to come from all over the place to see where he died. Don’t you think that’s kind of creepy?”
I rubbed my neck, trying to get rid of the knots of tension that had started forming as I walked through town. I hated thinking about the reporters who’d try to interview Richie and Dylan, and about the negative publicity all of this would mean for the inn. And not just the inn, either. The Playhouse certainly wouldn’t benefit from the attention, and neither would Vonetta. But short of locking away the entire cast and crew until the reporters disappeared, I couldn’t see any way to avoid them.
Karen set aside the glass container and sat, putting her feet on an empty chair. She flexed one foot, then the other several times. “Do you really think Nate will try to railroad Richie into court?”
“He might not railroad him,” I said, trying to be fair, “but I don’t think he’ll go out of his way to look for other suspects.”
“But surely Richie’s not their only suspect?”
“I hope not,” I said. “But you know Nate as well as I do. Maybe better. He’s not a big fan of the alternative lifestyle.”
Karen scowled at her feet as she began rotating both at the ankles. “I know he’s not, but he wouldn’t send someone to jail just for being gay.”
“I don’t think he’d send Richie to jail for being gay,” I clarified. “But you know how some of these guys are around here. If he thinks Richie is sick and twisted—and you know he does—it’s not much of a stretch for him to believe Richie’s a murderer, too.”
Liberty held up a heart so she could admire her handiwork. “Poor Richie. He must be scared half to death. Have you heard anything yet? Is he still at the police station?”
“As far as I know.” I pulled three mugs from the cupboard and carried them to the table. “What do you know about Doyle Brannigan?” I asked Karen.
“Doyle? Colleen’s husband?” Karen stopped rotating her feet and glanced up at me. “Not a lot, but he seems like a good guy.”
Liberty set aside one heart and started working on another. “Why are you asking about him? Do you think he did it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out where he was last night.” I sat at the table and sighed with frustration. “The trouble is, a falling light seems like such a careless way to commit murder. I can’t even get to who could have done it yet, because I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it was done. There’s just no way to guarantee that that would do the job.”
Karen put her feet on the floor and straightened one leg in front of her. “You don’t know for sure that the light killed him, do you? It was there, and you say the cable was obviously cut, but do you know for sure that it’s what struck the fatal blow?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded that I hadn’t even considered that. “No, I guess I don’t know.”
“Wow,” Liberty breathed. “So somebody, like, cut the cable and dropped the light to make it look like the light was what killed Laurence?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” Karen asked.
“Yeah, it’s definitely possible.” I grabbed the coffeepot and carried it to the table. “The police will be able to say for sure when they get the coroner’s report back, but I have no idea how long that will take. I wish Jawarski was here. He’d be able to find out where things stood for me.”
“So the murder weapon could have been anything?” Liberty seemed to be enjoying herself. “He could have been shot or stabbed or anything for all we know.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” We were straying from the subject I wanted to discuss, so I tried dragging us back. “You said you don’t know Doyle well,” I said, fixing my attention on Karen. “But it seemed to me that he has a pretty bad temper. Do you know if he’s ever been in trouble before?”
Karen put both feet on the floor again and sat ramrod straight. “Not that I know of, but I’m hardly an expert on who’s done what in the past twenty years. I’ll bet you could check the archives at the Post and find out.”
“If you can’t remember anything,” I said, “there probably isn’t anything to remember.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Karen stopped rotating, flexing, and stretching, and picked up another freshly washed container to check for water spots. She knows everything about everyone, but she never seems to recognize her own ability.
“Maybe it wasn’t him,” Liberty said as she glued ribbon to yet another heart. “Maybe his wife is the killer. Didn’t you say she was at the theater when Laurence died?”
I nodded reluctantly. Much as I hated knowing that the police suspected Richie, I didn’t want to cast my old school friend in the role of cold-blooded killer either. “What about Geoffrey Manwaring? Did he say or do anything to make you think he was unhappy with Laurence when he was in here the other day?”
Karen shook her head slowly. “He didn’t say much of anything except that I should fire you.”
“Well, I’m not going to cross him off my list yet. You know what a miserable human being he is.”
“Unfortunately, being a jerk doesn’t automatically make somebody a murderer,” Karen said reasonably.
She had a point. “There’s always a chance that the killer was someone completely unrelated to the production,” I said. “When I left the theater last night, Nate was still trying to figure out whether Laurence had any family.”
Liberty finished with the hearts and sat back with her mug in her hands. “I don’t think he did,” she said. “I don’t remember ever reading about any. Isn’t that sad?”
“Family is everything,” Karen agreed.
“Well, I’m sure the police know by now,” I said. And if they hadn’t figured out how to use Google, the reporters (who were bound to show up soon) would fill them in.
We sat in silence for a minute, each of us pursuing our own line of thought until Liberty asked, “So what are you going to do?”
Cradling my cup in both hands, I inhaled the scent before treating myself to a taste. “Wait to hear from Dylan and hope the police don’t decide to arrest Richie without a lot more evidence.”
“You should go see how Dylan’s holding up,” Karen said. “He’s going to need a friend.”
“Good idea. I’ll go after work.”
She shook her head firmly. “I wouldn’t wait that long. Liberty and I can handle things for an hour or two this morning. You should go now.”
The suggestion surprised me, but I didn’t argue with her. That’s the thing about Karen. She’s one of the most compassionate people I know. Even if my leaving inconvenienced her, she was more concerned about Dylan than herself. Which is great, except that all that compassion made it even harder for me to stick to my guns on the gaudy paper heart decoration issue inside Divinity.
Ten minutes later, I had Max in the Jetta and we were chugging sluggishly toward the Silver River Inn.
The good news was that Richie was back by the time I got there. The bad news? I’d never seen him so depressed. He barely acknowledged me when he saw me, and instead of showering Max with air-kisses, he gave the poor dog a half-hearted scratch behind the ears before flopping onto a cushioned window seat that overlooked the street.
I sat beside him while Dylan turned a wingback chair away from the fireplace and perched on the edge of his seat, ready to leap up if Richie needed or wanted anything. After checking to make sure we were alone, I asked, “How are you two holding up?”
Dylan lifted one shoulder. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”
Richie sat hunch-shouldered and staring at his hands. “It was humiliating, Abby. One of the worst things I’ve ever been through, and that’s saying something.”
“They didn’t arrest you, though,” I said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“They haven’t arrested me yet.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and I was shocked by the despair I could see in them. “Give them a few more hours and they’ll probably be able to trump up enough evidence to execute me.”
“I’m
as worried as anyone about Nate’s investigation,” I said, “but I don’t think he’d manufacture evidence just to get a conviction. I’m more concerned that he’ll ignore evidence because he’s made up his mind that you’re guilty.”
Richie’s lips curved slightly. “With all due respect, Abs, I have a little more experience with homophobes than you do.”
“Yeah, but Nate’s not just prejudiced against gay people. He’s also firmly convinced that women need to be kept in their place. He’s an equal-opportunity bigot.”
Richie let out a sharp laugh, and Dylan shot me a look of gratitude. “All evidence to the contrary,” Dylan said, “we’re trying not to panic or assume the worst. It’s not easy, though. We lost three couples this morning after the police showed up and hauled Richie off. They heard the word murder and they couldn’t check out fast enough.”
I hated hearing that, but it didn’t surprise me. It was just one more reason why clearing Richie of all suspicion was so important. “What did the police want to know?” I asked Richie.
He shrugged listlessly. “The same old stuff. What was I doing at the theater last night? Somebody told them that Laurence and I had an argument, so they asked about that. They wanted to know how I felt about him. Was I interested in him romantically? As if! They’re convinced that I was trying to seduce him, and he spurned me. They’ve cast me in the role of ‘woman scorned’ and they’re determined to prove that I climbed up into the rigging and bashed his skull in.”
“With a well-placed and very lucky swing of a spotlight,” I muttered. “That’s all they asked about?”
“They asked about my relationship with Dylan,” Richie said with a scowl. “They wanted to know how the two of us were getting along and whether our relationship was in trouble. And then they asked if I’d seen anyone else hanging around the theater, and whether I knew of anyone who wanted Laurence dead.”