by Sammi Carter
I was lucky, I guess. Nate and I didn’t get along, but we had known each other since we were kids, so he hadn’t taken Alexander’s accusations seriously. But I didn’t delude myself into thinking that the heat was off. I had the feeling Nate would be keeping an eye on me for the next little while.
It had been one helluva day, and I would have liked nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep for hours. But I was too wound up to sleep, too agitated even to sit still. I settled Max in the Jetta, swung past Burger King on my way out of town, and set a course for my brother’s house.
I shared my fries with Max as I drove, and I polished off the last of my Whopper with cheese as I pulled off the highway onto my brother’s gravel driveway. His truck was in front of the house, and I could see my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, framed in the kitchen window. Lights spilled from almost every window, giving the old two-story farmhouse a warm, welcoming feeling.
The house has belonged to Elizabeth’s family for four generations, a fact that I usually find interesting. Tonight it just made me sad. For the first time in a long time, I felt a pang of regret over my life. No husband. No kids. I’d turned my back on my family for so long, I still didn’t feel as if I truly belonged here. Thank God for Max. Without him, I’d have been completely alone.
Elizabeth had seen me drive up, and I realized she was watching from the window, waiting for me to get out of the car and come to the door. Shaking off the melancholy, I climbed out into the cold and made my way along the shoveled walk to the front door. I knocked once and let myself inside. My nieces and nephews were draped all over the furniture, watching something on TV. The looks on their faces when they saw me chased away the rest of the clouds.
“Aunt Abby!” Nine-year-old Caleb shot to his feet and threw his arms around my legs. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
I tousled his hair. “You didn’t know I was coming? That’s weird. Neither did I!” I waggled my fingers at Dana and Danielle, who looked pleased to see me but didn’t bother moving, and gave Brody a cool chin jerk, appropriate for even the most discerning twelve-year-old. “Is your dad around?”
Brody sat sideways in Wyatt’s favorite chair, his back propped against one of its arms, his legs draped over the other. He lifted his head slightly and pried his eyes away from the TV screen. “He’s helping Mom with something, I think. Want me to get him?”
“Thanks, but you look busy. I’ll find him.” I left the kids fighting mildly over which of them Max should sit with, and nosed my way toward the scent of bleach wafting from the kitchen. I found Elizabeth folding a huge stack of crisp white T-shirts at the kitchen table. Wearing a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, her long reddish blond hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked comfortable and relaxed.
Wyatt’s legs protruded from the cupboard under the sink. I heard a clang followed by a string of words I won’t repeat here. “How in the hell did this happen, Liz? How could you lose your wedding ring down the drain?”
He sounded angry, but Wyatt often does. It rarely means anything. I grinned at Elizabeth and nudged the bottom of my brother’s boot with my shoe. “Maybe she tried to grind it up in the garbage disposal. I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”
Wyatt lifted his head so he could see and squinted up into the overhead light. His brown hair was matted to his head in a severe case of hat hair, and whiskers stubbled his cheeks and chin. “Funny. What are you doing here?”
“Good to see you, too, Wyatt.” I sat at the table with Elizabeth and inhaled the scents of soap and bleach and fabric softener. Homey smells. Comfort smells. For a minute, I wanted my apartment to smell like that. I wanted the sounds of kids and TV floating in from the next room and a husband swearing at pipes under the sink. Could I have something like this with Jawarski? Maybe. But how much of myself was I willing to give up to find out?
Elizabeth got up and pulled a couple of Cokes out of the fridge. She filled two glasses with ice and handed me one along with a bottle. “We heard about the excitement in town. What a mess, huh?”
I poured the Coke over the ice and watched the bubbles rise. “Have you heard about all of it?”
“We heard about Laurence Nichols. Is there something else?”
“Unfortunately. Vonetta was attacked this afternoon. She wasn’t seriously hurt, but there’s something going on at the Playhouse, and I don’t like it.”
Wyatt slid out from under the sink and sat up on the floor. “Nate know about the attack on Vonetta?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I got to spend a couple of hours with him this afternoon. For some reason, Alexander Pastorelli decided to accuse me of both attacks.”
Wyatt frowned and got to his feet. “Nate didn’t take that seriously. did he?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t seem to, but he did question me for a while.”
My brother pulled a beer from the fridge and carried it to the table. He wiped his hands on a towel and straddled a chair, resting his arms on its back. “You want me to talk to him?”
“Thanks, but no. Actually, I didn’t come to whine about myself. I came to see if you know a guy named Doyle Brannigan.”
Wyatt opened his beer and took a swallow. “Sure, I know Doyle. What about him?”
“What do you know about him?”
“I don’t know. He’s a decent guy. Married that friend of yours, didn’t he? What was her name?”
“Colleen.”
“That’s the one.” Wyatt took another swig, then put the bottle on the table. “I haven’t seen much of him lately, but I used to run into him at least twice a week. Why? You think he has something to do with the stuff going on in town?”
“It’s possible.” I told them about the night I’d met Doyle and his suspicions about Colleen and Laurence. “I haven’t seen him since, but if Laurence’s death wasn’t just a horrible accident, he’d definitely be on my list of suspects.”
Elizabeth pulled a T-shirt from a pile in the basket beside her and shook it with a snap. “Do you think Colleen was having an affair with Laurence?”
“I don’t know,” I said again. “She seemed pretty upset when we found his body, but that’s not so suspicious, after all. Seeing a dead body, especially someone you know, is pretty awful. Does Doyle have a temper?”
Wyatt shrugged. “No more than any other guy. He doesn’t go around looking for trouble, but he doesn’t back down from it either.”
“Do you think he might have gone looking for trouble if he suspected his wife of being unfaithful?”
Elizabeth folded the T-shirt with a few sharp moves and sat it on a growing stack. “If he did, who could blame him?”
That response from my normally peacemaking sister-in-law should have surprised me. She’s choir director at the Shepherd of the Hills church, for Pete’s sake. Not the type you’d expect to encourage violence. But she’s also in the process of putting her marriage back together after a particularly stupid move on my brother’s part. She knew how it felt to suffer betrayal.
“She denies it,” I said, but we both knew how little that meant.
Wyatt considered my question for a minute before he gave me an answer. “I think that if Doyle caught his wife in the act, he might do something about it. But I don’t see him whacking somebody over the head with a spotlight just because of a rumor. If there was any truth to it, though, he’d find out. He wouldn’t ignore it.”
“Do you know where he works? I’d like to talk to him.”
Wyatt shook his head. “Like I said, it’s been a while. Last I heard, he was working construction for some guy over in Leadville, but I don’t know if he still is.” He gave me a stern look and added, “I don’t suppose you’d listen if I told you to keep your nose out of it?”
I shook my head and grinned. “When have I ever listened to you?”
“Never, but you should.”
“I’ll consider it,” I said, pushing to my feet. “Just as soon as Nate realizes that Richie Bellieu had nothing to do with Laurence Nichols’s death.”
“Richie.” Wyatt scratched at the stubble on his chin and I could see him trying to place the name.
“He’s one of the owners of the Silver River Inn.”
Elizabeth brightened. “That cute bed-and-breakfast on Silver River Road? I’ve always wanted to stay there. I think it would be so romantic.”
Wyatt’s reaction was far different, but predictable. “He one of those funny fellas?” See what I mean? A card-carrying member of the I’m-a-Bigot club, otherwise known as the Loyal Order of the Caribou.
“If you’re asking whether he’s gay, yes, he is. But that doesn’t make him a killer.”
Wyatt held up both hands and laughed uneasily. “Hey, I never said it did. Just be careful, Abby. There are some people in this town who aren’t real open-minded.”
I’d been ready to argue with him, but now I clamped my mouth shut in surprise. It just goes to show, you never can tell about a person. Just when you think you know somebody, they do or say something completely unexpected.
“Thanks,” I said when I’d had a chance to regroup. “Is Nate one of them?”
“He’s not the worst,” Wyatt said, “but it wouldn’t break his heart to lock one of ’em away for a few years.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. I have to make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”
Elizabeth added another folded T-shirt to the stack. “Have you thought about going over Nate’s head? There must be someone who could keep an eye on him and make sure the investigation is conducted the right way.”
“Sure,” Wyatt said with a shrug. “But you’ll have to go over more than one head to find that guy. Abby has to do business in this town. Best not to make too many waves if there’s another way around the problem.”
I polished off my Coke and carried my glass to the sink, but the conversation had left me feeling strange, as if I’d been transported back in time a couple of decades or something. Who would have thought that we’d still be tiptoeing around stupid people in the twenty-first century?
Chapter 17
I didn’t get the chance to talk to anyone about Laurence Nichols or the attack on Vonetta the next day, but I knew that things were heating up by the number of white SUVs equipped with remote television equipment I saw through my shop window. The news was out.
When I got a few minutes in the afternoon, I called Richie to see how things were going. Two more guests had checked out early, and they’d suffered a rash of cancelled reservations. If things didn’t turn around soon, they’d be in serious trouble.
Before hanging up, I warned Richie not to give any interviews. The temptation to set the record straight would be almost overwhelming for a guy like Richie, but there were too many things the press could twist into something ugly. I didn’t want that for Richie and Dylan. Besides, as far as I knew, the police still hadn’t officially labeled Laurence’s death as a murder. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure that Richie could talk about it as an accident. Best not to say anything.
At seven, I locked up, swung past Jawarski’s to take in his mail, and headed for the theater. I hadn’t seen Vonetta since the paramedics spirited her away, and I wanted to make sure she was really all right. And, okay, I had an ulterior motive for my visit. Whether Laurence’s death was an accident or not, someone had attacked Vonetta. The only thing I knew for sure was that “someone” wasn’t me.
There had been at least three other people in the building that day, and I hoped one of them had seen or heard something that might help me figure out who was responsible for the attack. Of course, there was a good chance that one of them was responsible for the attack. I couldn’t lose sight of that, either. I didn’t suspect Paisley, but both Jason and Alexander had seemed genuinely shocked to find Vonetta lying on the floor. But if the attacker wasn’t one of them, who was it?
As I opened the door into the lobby, piano music floated up from the rehearsal hall and I breathed a sigh of relief. Bad things had been happening, but usually when no one else was around.
I poked my nose into Vonetta’s office and found Paisley fussing over her and Vonetta grousing about the unnecessary attention. After asking a few harmless questions to make sure she really was fine, I trotted down to the rehearsal hall to see who was there.
Jason Dahl sat at the baby grand piano, his expression almost dreamy as his fingers moved over the keys. He played well enough, but he was no Laurence Nichols. On the other side of the room, Alexander Pastorelli sat across a small table from Geoffrey Manwaring. Both men looked tense, maybe even a little angry, and my curiosity shifted into high gear.
Thanking my lucky stars for a shot at all three of them at once, I sat in a chair close enough to pick up their conversation if they didn’t whisper, and pretended to be fascinated by Jason’s music. Unfortunately, I was too far away to pick up more than a word or two. So much for the indirect method.
Jason finished the song he was playing and looked up with a sheepish smile.
Abandoning my efforts at clandestine listening, I left my chair and walked toward the piano, clapping politely. “That was very good. I didn’t know you could play.”
“I do. A little.” He stood quickly and pulled the cover over the keys. “My mom made me and my sister take lessons when we were kids.”
“Well, it obviously paid off. But if you don’t mind me asking, why are you working as a stagehand instead of putting your talent to good use?”
A flush stained Jason’s cheeks. “It’s not easy to get a foot in the door,” he said with a shy smile. “I’m hoping that if I hang around long enough somebody will give me a chance.”
“I’m sure they will. If you have a minute, I wanted to ask you some questions about what happened the other day.”
Jason eyed me warily, but he nodded. “Okay, I guess. What do you want to know?”
Our conversation caught Alexander’s attention. He looked away from Geoffrey with a scowl. “The kid and I already told the police everything we know.”
“So did I,” I told him, “but I keep thinking there must be something else. Something one of us heard or saw that we didn’t think was important at the time.”
“The only thing I saw was you, leaning over Vonetta just the same way you were hunched over Laurence the day he died.”
“Yeah,” I snarled. “Just remember, appearances can be deceiving. How is Laurence’s family handling all of this? They must be devastated.”
Alexander glanced at Geoffrey in confusion. “Family?”
“I assume he had family somewhere,” I said.
Geoffrey crossed his legs with an air of exaggerated patience. “Well, you’d be assuming wrong, then. There’s no wife. No kids. He was an only child, and his parents are both dead. Have been for ten years or more.”
“Was he seeing anyone?”
“Laurence was always seeing someone. Usually several someones.”
“Any particular someones he left behind?”
Geoffrey regarded me through beady eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What business is it of yours?”
“A friend of mine is under suspicion. I’m trying to help him out.”
“Who are we talking about? The one who tried to put the moves on Laurence?”
“For the record, Richie did not try to put the moves on Laurence,” I snapped.
Geoffrey smirked. “Says you. I know what I know, and what I know is, your pal Richie was practically stalking Laurence.”
“Richie can be a bit overly enthusiastic,” I admitted, “but he wasn’t stalking anyone.”
“Cut the kid some slack, Geoff,” Alexander said. “He was a fan, that’s all.”
“That’s not what Laurence told me,” Manwaring argued.
Alexander barked a laugh. “Yeah, and Laurence was always such a truthful son of a bitch. Hell, Geoff, you worked for him for how many years? You ought to know better than anyone else that every word out of his mouth was a damn lie.”
This was getting interesting. I motioned for Jason to remain
quiet and clamped my own mouth shut so I could see where they would go from here.
Apparently forgetting about me, Geoffrey turned his beady eyes on Alexander. “The man’s dead, Alex. Let it go.”
“Let it go? He practically ruined me in Seattle. How am I supposed to let go of that?”
“It’s over now, that’s how.”
“It’ll be over when I get back every penny that son of a bitch took from me.”
Geoffrey shot to his feet so fast his chair teetered on two legs, then crashed to the floor with a bang. “He didn’t take anything from you. You made a bad investment. It happens. Quit blaming Laurence for your own stupidity.”
Alexander lunged out of his chair and took a swing, but Geoffrey was too quick for him. Before any of us saw it coming, Manwaring had pinned the older man’s arms behind his back. “If you ever take a swing at me again,” he growled, “it will be the last thing you ever do.” Shoving Alexander into the table, he strode from the room.
I thought about going after him, but the threat he’d just made against Alexander kept my feet glued to the floor. It might have just been big talk, but I wasn’t in the mood to find out.
Red-faced and obviously furious, Alexander regained his balance. I knew he was embarrassed at having been overpowered in front of Jason and me, but I couldn’t just pretend I hadn’t noticed.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He nodded and shot a withering glare at the door Geoffrey had disappeared through. “I’m fine. But if you’re still trying to figure out who wanted Laurence out of the way, why don’t you ask him about the money in Laurence’s estate.”
“What about it?”