by Jessica Beck
That was an image I had no problem visualizing. I knew that Angelica was fiercely protective of her girls, and I was proud that she considered Grace and me hers as well.
“What does he look like, so we’ll be able to recognize him when we see him?” I asked her.
“He’s nice enough looking in a slick kind of way. Light hair, blue eyes; kind of icy, though, if you know what I mean. He always wears a suit and tie, and he puts a white rose in his lapel like he thinks that he’s something special. It’s kind of cheesy if you ask me, but Maria seemed to like him for awhile there.”
“Thanks, we’ll be on the lookout for him. By the way, do you happen to know Amanda Moore?” Grace asked as we headed for the back door.
“She’s another real winner,” Sophia said. “That garage of hers does more than work on cars; I can tell you that much.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asked.
“Well, there are rumors that she’s running a chop shop on the side at night. Stolen cars come in whole at all hours, but they always leave in pieces.”
“Why doesn’t someone do something about it?” I asked.
“There are rumors that have been around for years that Amanda has some friends in high places, if you know what I mean,” Sophia said with a shrug. “Boy, you two are scraping the bottom of the barrel of Union Square this time. I’m just glad that we’re all not like that.”
I touched her shoulder lightly. “We never dreamed that you were. Remember, there’s darkness in even the brightest corners sometimes,” I said.
“Come on, Suzanne. It’s time to go when you start spouting fortune cookie observations,” Grace said as she nudged me.
“Maybe so,” I said with a grin. “I’ll see you later, Sophia.”
“You can bet on it. I’ll probably still be here trying to perfect this dish. Taste this, would you?”
She offered me a bite, and I couldn’t refuse. I took a nibble of the veggies, and then I tried to smile.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Suzanne, don’t lie to me.”
“There’s too much garlic for my taste,” I said honestly.
“I knew it. I just hate it when my mother is right.”
I laughed. “Don’t feel as though you’re all alone in that. It happens to the best of us.”
“Grace, do you want a taste?” Sophia asked as she offered my friend a bite.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. I’m not a big fan of garlic, myself.”
“That’s okay. You can try my next version.”
“I’m already looking forward to it,” Grace said as we headed out the back door.
“Suzanne, you need some gum,” Grace said as she dug into her purse.
“Is it that bad?”
“Let’s just say that you’ll be safe from vampires for the foreseeable future,” Grace said with a laugh as I took a stick of gum from her and popped it into my mouth.
“What can I say? I took a hit for the team. Now, how do you feel about going to a bar?”
“I’m fine with it as long as I don’t have to take a drink. I’m so stuffed I don’t think I could swallow a sip of water right now. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“We’re not going there to drink, Grace. We need to talk to Denny West.”
“Then by all means, let’s go see if he’s in his usual spot and find out what he has to say for himself.”
Chapter 10
Murphy’s Bar looked like a real dive, but it turned out that we didn’t even have to go in. We had just parked when Grace tapped my shoulder and pointed to a man leaning against a brand-new car who was talking loudly on his cellphone. I wasn’t sure why she was pointing him out to me at first, and then I saw his trademark rose, and I knew that we had our man.
“How do we do this?” I asked Grace before we got out.
“I say we come right out and confront him,” my best friend said. “I have a hunch that dancing around the issue with this guy isn’t going to do us any good.”
“Why not? After all, we can’t do any worse than we did with Amanda.”
“Let’s go for it,” Grace said, and we got out of the Jeep and walked toward Denny.
As we approached, I could hear his end of the cellphone conversation. “All I’m saying is that I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”
That sounded ominous enough, and I waited to hear more when he finally noticed us approaching him instead of the door to the bar. “We’ll talk later. I said later,” he repeated, and then he put his cellphone away. “Is there something I can do for you ladies?” he asked. His demeanor had an oily charm to it, and I could see how some women might find him attractive. I didn’t mean me, but some women. His eyes were pure, cold, and terrifying.
“We need to talk, Denny,” I said firmly, trying to show confidence that I didn’t feel at the moment. “You are Denny West, aren’t you?”
He looked intently at me for a few seconds, and then at Grace, before he spoke again. “Do I know either one of you?”
“I very much doubt it, since we don’t run in the same circles,” Grace replied. “We’re here about Rick Hastings.”
“What about him?” Denny asked, not giving anything away with his question.
“There’s no use pretending that you didn’t know him,” I said. “The real question is, did you kill him?” I was taking a chance pushing him like that, but what choice did I have? Grace and I had no way to compel the man to talk to us, and if he had anything to hide, I doubted that it would come out in our conversation unless he got angry and sloppy. I knew that it was dangerous poking him like that, but I didn’t have the slightest idea about what else we could do.
I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I was expecting, but laughter wasn’t one of them. He chuckled slightly before he said, “I’ll say this; you get a point for attitude.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather have an answer to my question,” I said, fighting down my panic and trying my best to smile, instead.
Denny studied me for another moment before he answered. The man seemed to weigh everything he said and did before he acted, and I had to wonder if it was a habit he’d picked up in his line of work. “Fair enough. No, I’m not the one who killed him. Why would I do that, when he still owed me five grand from our last business transaction? Now I’ll never see that money again, and you can ask anybody. I hate to lose, period, especially when it comes to cash.”
“Can you prove that you didn’t kill him?” Grace asked him.
I could swear that he was about to answer her when the door of the bar opened and Amanda Moore, of all the people in the world, walked out. “Sorry, it took me longer than I thought it would to set her straight,” she told Denny, and then she noticed us for the first time. “Are you kidding me? What are you two doing here? Are you actually following me around Union Square?”
“As a matter of fact, they came by to speak with me,” Denny said, “but we’re finished.”
“Do you two have a death wish or something?” Amanda asked us as she walked past us and slid into the passenger seat of the car Denny had been leaning against.
“No, not even a little bit,” I said, which was the plain and unvarnished truth.
“You could have fooled me, because you’re sure acting like it,” she snapped.
Denny moved around to the driver’s side door, but he paused a moment before he got in. “I don’t want to see either one of you again, and if you’d like some free advice, I’d leave Amanda alone, too if I were you. There’s nothing but trouble if you pursue this any further.”
“Now what fun would it be if we just gave up every time someone asked us to?” Grace asked him.
“If you keep it up, nobody’s going to be having fun; you can take my word for that.”
Denny got into the car and drove away, and I noticed Amanda ignoring us as they pulled out.
“Wow, you can actually feel the love in the air, can’t you?” Grace asked me after we were standing there alon
e.
“These aren’t our usual brand of suspects, are they?” I asked as we headed back to the Jeep. “Grace, I hate to admit this, but I think we might just be out of our league on this one.”
“We’re not going to let a couple of goons scare us off, are we?” Grace asked, clearly unhappy about my observation.
“Think about it. We have until tomorrow morning at eight until we have to drop this altogether. Do you want to spend the rest of our time trying to get those two to talk to us again?”
“No, you’re right about that,” Grace said as I started driving back to April Springs. “When you look at it that way, there’s not much about this investigation that I do like. The fact that we can’t see it through is really starting to bother me. Do you think this cop Tyler is really going to try to stop us from digging into Rick’s murder? What can he do, lock us up? I don’t believe that he’d have the nerve to do that, no matter what he said to you earlier.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” I asked. “Chief Martin has threatened to do it enough over the years.”
“Maybe, but we always knew that he was just bluffing.”
“Take it from me. I don’t think this new police chief is much of a bluffer.”
We both considered that for a few moments, and then Grace said, “Well, at least we’ve still got Travis and Kyle. Neither one of them is a thug.”
“Not on the surface, at any rate,” I said.
“Suzanne, you sound as though you’re ready to give up,” Grace replied.
“It’s not that at all. It’s just that I promised Emma that I’d dig into this, and I’m not going to break that promise lightly. I’m just not sure what we should do next.”
“You could always ask Jake for advice,” she said.
“I could, but he’s got his hands full as it is. I don’t want to add any more to his current load than he already has.”
“Then where does that leave us? Are we back to square one?”
“I wouldn’t say that. At least we have four viable suspects, and nothing that we heard today changes my mind about any of them,” I answered.
“Time’s a-ticking though, Suzanne. Should we take another run at our two April Springs suspects while we have the opportunity?”
I was about to answer when my cellphone rang.
It was Jake, and all thoughts of furthering our investigation at the moment died.
“Hey, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” I said.
“Well, we got a lucky break and wrapped things up here. The bad guy is in jail, though in this case it was a bad gal. Anyway, I’m happy to report that I’m on my way back to April Springs.”
“That’s great news,” I said. “What’s your next assignment going to be? Do you think it will be the last one you have to do for your old boss?”
Jake laughed a moment before he spoke. “He was so happy that we solved this one so quickly that he’s decided to let me off the hook for the rest of my notice. He just promised me that he’s going to process my paperwork in the morning, but as of this moment, I’m officially through with the state police.”
“How do you feel about it, now that it’s a reality?” I asked him gently.
“The honest truth is that I’m so happy I can barely stand it. The real question is, why aren’t you, Suzanne?” he asked. There was a shade of hurt in his voice, and it killed me knowing that it was because of me.
I took a deep breath, and then I voiced a concern I’d been nurturing since Jake had first threatened to quit his job. “I just want to be sure that you don’t regret the decision later.”
“It’s not going to happen, Suzanne; you can take my word for it. I don’t look back, only forward, and I’ve got the entire world ahead of me now.”
“Then I’m thrilled for you,” I said. “I’m just sorry that George couldn’t wait another day before he named a new chief of police around here.”
“He could have waited for a month and my answer wouldn’t have been any different,” Jake explained. “I don’t know what my near future holds. Actually, that’s the beauty of it.”
I had a sudden, crazy thought, and before I talked myself out of it, I said, “You know, you could always help Grace and me with the case we’re working on.”
I glanced over at my friend to see how she was reacting to my offer and saw her simply shrug. What did that mean? I’d have to deal with that after I got off the phone.
“Suzanne, what makes you think for one moment that I want to dive back into another murder investigation, especially working on the other side of the badge this time?”
“Maybe it will be a breath of fresh air seeing things from our perspective,” I offered.
“I don’t see how,” Jake replied. “What other reasons can you come up with?”
“How about because I’m asking you nicely for your help? Does that change your mind?”
There was a long pause, but I knew better than to interrupt it. Jake was thinking, and if I spoke before he was ready to express his opinion, I knew that I’d blow any chance of getting him to help us.
After a few moments, he finally said, “Okay. How about this? I’ll advise you, but that’s all that I’m willing to do at this point.”
“That’s plenty,” I said, happy to have Jake in our corner. “We gladly accept your kind offer.”
“Is there anything urgent that I need to know about the case right away?” Jake asked. “If not, you can catch me up in the morning.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “Tomorrow might be too late. The new police chief starts at eight AM tomorrow morning.”
Jake whistled softly before he spoke. “That didn’t take long, did it?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t like it, either.”
“It sounds as though we need to expedite your investigation if we can,” Jake said after a few seconds.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said. “How exactly do we do that?”
Jake laughed, and then he said, “Let me make a phone call and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thanks,” I said, but it was to dead air. Jake had already disconnected the call.
“You don’t mind me asking him to give us a hand, do you?” I asked Grace as I put my phone aside.
“Why would I?” she asked me impishly. “Are you asking if I should be offended that you solicited Jake to help us without discussing it with me first?”
“What can I say? I saw an opportunity, and I took it,” I said as we neared April Springs city limits.
“Well, since I’ve been advising you to do that very thing for years, I could hardly be upset with you, now could I? As a matter of fact, now that your brilliant boyfriend is on the case, you hardly need my help anymore.”
Was she hurt by my plea to Jake for advice? I had to fix this, and quickly. “Grace, we’re a team. Jake might pitch in a little, but it’s still you and me, kiddo. Nobody’s ever going to replace you as my partner in crimesolving; is that clear?”
My best friend looked a little relieved by my declaration, though she tried hard not to show it. “Okay. That sounds good to me. I love working with you, Suzanne.”
“Me, too, with you,” I said. “As things stand right now, Jake’s just going to be acting as our advisor, and nothing more.”
“Unless we need him for something a little more direct than that,” Grace said. “Let’s not rule that possibility out just yet, either.”
“Agreed,” I replied with a smile. “We should get our notes together so we can present Jake with the complete picture of what we have so far.”
We were still trying to organize our thoughts when my cellphone rang.
“We were just talking about you,” I told Jake after I answered.
“I hope it was all good things,” he said. In a lower voice, he asked, “I didn’t think to ask you before, but is Grace okay with me helping you two?”
“She’s one hundred percent on board,” I said as I winked at her. It was sweet of Jake to
worry about offending Grace, and he scored some points with me for asking.
“Well then, I’ve got good news. We have thirty-six hours now instead of twelve,” Jake said.
“How’d you manage that?” I asked.
“I called George, explained that I was going to consult with you two, and he offered to lose Tyler’s paperwork for a day so we’d have a little more time to detect. It’s not much, but it was all that I could get him to agree to. Stephen’s going to like it, at any rate.”
“Officer Grant?” I asked, getting Grace’s attention immediately, since he was her boyfriend. “Why would he care one way or the other?”
“I thought you knew. He’s been the acting chief since three o’clock this afternoon,” Jake said. “This will give him a little more experience before Tyler takes over for good.”
“He must be thrilled with the bump,” I said. Grace kept tapping my arm, clearly asking for an update as to why her boyfriend’s name had come up in my conversation, but I wasn’t going to make Jake wait while I explained it all to her.
“If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s equal portions of elation and sheer terror,” Jake said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. I hadn’t realized just how tightly he’d been wound until I heard his relief that he was no longer on his old job. The pressure must have been constant and intense, and I was glad that he was finally out of it, once and for all. Our little investigation would be nothing compared to what he’d been dealing with on a daily basis for more years than I cared to consider. “Anyway, I’m making good time, so I should be there around two.”
“In the morning?” I asked him.
“If I’m lucky. Should I go to the cottage first, or just come by the donut shop so you can bring me up to speed while you work on tomorrow’s donuts?”
“Don’t you dare come by Donut Hearts. Your orders are to go straight to the cottage and get some sleep. That’s what I plan on doing right now, since you somehow managed to get us an extension. We both need to be at our best tomorrow.”