Even though we had been part of a group, 'we women' just seconds earlier, I felt the cold shoulder happening again. My question had made her clamp her mouth shut into a tight line. "Never got a chance," she said curtly. "I think I did my part. Besides, as you noticed, my printer was running low on ink. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get this sunset shot lined up."
I was being given the brush off, but sometimes I found persistence paid off.
"Yes, for your book deal with Ballard Publishing," I said pointedly.
"That's right." She opened her camera bag and pulled out her camera.
It seemed her book deal was a lie. Either that or she truly didn't know the name of her publisher. Only that seemed impossible. I lingered. (I was an expert at annoying people.) "I see you are finally putting the camera in the bag."
Her face popped up. "That's the usual place for it," she said rather snippily for someone who rarely used the case for her camera.
"I suppose since you read the newspaper, you've discovered that the man who was seeing multiple women was the first murder victim."
She rounded her eyes in surprise but I wasn't buying it.
"How would I know that? I didn't know his name, and they didn't have a picture of the victim in the paper." Darn her for her quick, plausible responses.
"That makes sense. Then I'll let you get to work."
"I'd appreciate that," she said coldly.
I meandered back toward the stairs. I stomped my feet to get rid of the wet sand as I climbed the steps. I glanced back one more time to the beach. Heather was looking at me. She turned away quickly and lifted her camera in front of her face.
I reached the wharf and pulled out my phone. Briggs' phone went straight to voicemail.
"Hey, call me when you have time. You poor man. There needs to be two of you. Oh! I love that idea. Two of you to love. That notion makes my head spin. Call me. I've got all kinds of theories brewing, and I think you might want to hear them. Love you. Bye." I pushed the phone back into my pocket and picked up my pace. I needed to get back to the shop to pick up my things and my bird. Then I had some research to do.
Chapter 31
The weather by the coast was so changeable. One minute, a glorious, multicolored sunset painted the horizon and the next, a surly wind carried an angry thunderstorm in from wherever thunderstorms were born. Kingston and I made it home from the shop just as things, namely the sky above, started to get ugly.
By the time we got inside, Nevermore's tail was standing straight up, letting me know static electricity was in the air and his least favorite of nature's music, roaring thunder, was rolling in. (Naturally, his favorite music was the sound of twittering birds because they provided a great deal of entertainment for easily bored cats.)
I'd heated a bowl of lentil and vegetable soup and filled the top with a mountain of salty cracker crumbs. It was the perfect meal for watching the storm roll in. There was still a chill in my bones from my walk on the beach, but the hot soup was doing the trick. The whole adventure had been worth it. My intuition flares were on fire. There was something not quite right about the photographer. With any luck, Mr. Google, an amateur investigator's best friend, would shed some light on the mysterious Heather Houston.
"Heather Houston," I muttered the name before pushing the spoon into my mouth. It was a nice name, almost too nice. Was it possible that Heather Houston was an alias too? It seemed we had a group of strangers show up in town, and all of them were using fake names. I had no proof about Heather's name, but I intended to uncover it. The main snag in all of this was motive. What possible reason could Heather have had to murder Lionel and Glenda? Was Heather seeing him too? There was no evidence to prove that either.
The phone rang as I finished my last bit of soup. "Finally," I said with glee. I answered it. "Where have you been, Detective Briggs? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were avoiding me."
"Hardly." He sounded weary. "If anything, the only bright spots in my long work day were when my mind was filled with daydreams about you."
I was all alone, but I could feel a blush from my head to my toes. "You were daydreaming about me?" I asked softly.
"I was and I'm sorry there are not two of me. Although, I'm fairly certain if there were, you'd be sick and tired of me by now."
"That is not possible." There was enough background noise that it was clear he wasn't sitting in his car or office. "Where are you? I hear glasses clinking, music and laughter."
"I'm in a restaurant. We just sent a very dangerous drug dealer to prison, and the arresting officers decided to go out for a celebratory dinner. I stepped away from the table to call you but ended up in the noisy bar area."
"Congratulations, James. You're awesome but seriously they need to find you a partner or something because—" I paused dramatically. "Oh wait, you technically have one, and while you're out eating prime rib, your partner is solving murders."
The music grew louder. "Just a second, Lacey. I'm going to move to the front of the restaurant. I'd go outside but it's raining. How about over there?"
"So far just thunder and lightning in the distance but it's coming. Nevermore's tail and my nose tell me so."
Even his deep chuckle sounded weary. "I'm interested to learn what you have on the murder cases. It's probably more than the team I have working on it."
"It's not a sure thing, but let's just say, I'm more than a touch giddy. Are you coming over tonight?" Hearing his voice made me miss him.
"Yes, I need to go home first and take Bear on a walk before it rains harder."
"Sounds good. Why don't you bring him here? We'll lock Nevermore in the bedroom." Nevermore and Bear were still not great friends, but as Bear matured, he grew less wild. And Nevermore was slowly learning not to freak out and run for the nearest tree.
"I'm sure he'd like that, but he's been playing at his buddy's house all day so he might be pooped. I've got to go. I think my food's arrived. I'll see you soon."
"Looking forward. Bye."
A streak of lightning lit up the room causing Kingston, who normally slept like a rock, to pull his beak from his wing. He looked grumpy about the whole thing. I walked over and picked up the cover for his cage. He was still squinting like an angry kid who'd been woken from a nap. "I think there's going to be a lot more lightning, so let's give you artificial night a little earlier than usual. Goodnight, King." He turned his head back to his wing and crouched down as I tossed the canvas cover over his cage.
The thunder was getting louder and coming a little faster, which meant the storm was almost over us. I grabbed my laptop and sat on the couch with my wool throw over my shoulders. I opened the computer and started typing. I decided to head back to the name Heather Houston. I added in keywords like photographer and coastal scenery and several other combinations and finally got lucky. Heather Houston, a Midwest based photographer, had a blog where she posted her photos. Her last post was dated yesterday, and it was a lovely picture of the lighthouse. It seemed she had a few hundred followers. I was sure a publisher would be looking for someone with more of a following but then I didn't know that much about the publishing world.
I skimmed a few of her posts. There was no mention of a book deal. I didn't know much about the publishing world, but I was a hundred percent certain that if she had gotten a deal she would have posted about it. My guess was that there was no book deal. It was entirely possible that she was working to get one, and telling people it was already in the works made it easier for her to get access to the sites. I scrolled through some of her older posts. She'd started the blog about five years earlier. I didn't expect to find anything of note but then something caught my eye. There was a screenshot of a short article from a photographic journal. I leaned closer to get a better look. The entire article was about a fresh, young photographer named Heather Bailey. She was showing big promise in nature photography. It was quite the glowing review. I sat back with a satisfied grin. There was no doubt in my mind that Heather
Bailey was also Heather Houston.
I put my laptop on the coffee table and hopped up to grab a notepad and pen. I started writing down all the various names that had come up during this investigation. Starting, of course, with the purported names of the two victims, Lionel Dexter and Glenda Jarvis. There were the two possible but very unlikely suspects, Margaret Sherwood and Kate Yardley. I wrote down Heather Houston and Heather Bailey. I picked up the laptop and started typing in as many combinations of the names as I could but ended up with a lot of meaningless results.
"Poo." I rested back and tapped the pen against my chin. Another jolt of lighting startled me, and I managed to poke my chin with the pen. "Ouch." I rubbed my skin and thought about all the details of the murders, the old, dilapidated house, the luxury boat, the marina. The boat pushed another name into my head. I grabbed the notebook and wrote down Marco Plesser. The boat Funtasy, the site of Glenda's murder, was owned by a man named Marco Plesser, who, according to Briggs, was no longer alive. I tried a few combinations, and my last try, Plesser and Bailey typed together, proved fruitful.
I clicked on what appeared to be a three-year-old newspaper report about a woman named Greta Bailey who had tragically committed suicide after a man pretended to fall in love with her. The rotten scammer then proceeded to drain her bank accounts and max out her credit cards. He even talked her into taking all the money out of her retirement account. After the poor woman siphoned off every penny she had to the man who promised to marry her, the bum left town with a full bank account and a brand new car. The man's name was Michael Plesser. He was caught and received only a short six month sentence for wire fraud because the victim, Greta Bailey, had willingly handed over her money.
I laughed dryly. "Which gave him plenty of money for a top notch lawyer," I muttered to Nevermore, who didn't seem terribly interested.
I skimmed the rest of the article. Greta, destitute and heartbroken, hung herself in her kitchen. Her body was discovered by her daughter.
"Darn it." I sat back against the cushion. There was no mention of the daughter's name. Bailey was a fairly common surname. Plesser, however, was not and even though the first names didn't match, I was sure our first murder victim was none other than Michael Plesser or Marco Plesser or maybe neither was his real name. Maybe Marco Plesser was his dad's name and he assumed his dad's identity to buy the boat. It was possible he had dozens of identities. It made sense in his line of business, swindling women to hand over their hearts and their bank accounts.
A bolt of lightning caused a moment of power outage. For that quick second, my inexplicable, almost irrational fear of the dark sent my heartbeat into overdrive. I leaned forward to place the laptop on the table, but the follow-up clap of thunder startled me so badly I dropped the laptop the last few inches to the tabletop.
I took a few deep breaths to slow my pulse and was just starting to feel calmer when another bolt of lightning lit up my small house. I raced to the kitchen for my flashlights and candles. Knowing how badly I panicked in the dark, Briggs had brought me several industrial powered flashlights to use in case of emergency. According to my racing heart, this was an emergency.
Chapter 32
I sat on the couch with my throw wrapped around me and my flashlights at my side. I hadn't taken the time to light candles because the power was still on, and it seemed like over preparedness even for a nervous ninny like me. Nevermore had decided the storm was just a bit too much excitement for the evening, and he headed into the bedroom for the night. I closed the door so he wouldn't have to deal with Bear too. A thunderstorm and an eighty pound silly dog would definitely be too much chaos for one evening.
The power hadn't slipped on and off since I'd raced to the kitchen for my emergency lighting supply, which helped me return to a calm, only mildly terrified woman. I was certain Briggs would show up soon, then all would be fine, and if the lights went out, well, that might even be fun. (Who was I kidding? Of course it would be fun.)
I picked up the book I'd been reading and opened it to the bookmark. A clap of thunder shook the house, but I was getting used to the noise. Until a different noise startled me right back to a nervous panic. The back door, which led into a service porch and then the kitchen, rattled as if someone was shaking it.
"James, where are you?" I said it out loud, hoping somehow my plea might carry to his ears.
I determined quickly, in order to keep from freaking out, that it had been the wind shaking the door. I pushed the book aside and picked up the heavy, long handled flashlight before tiptoeing to the front window. I used the crook of my finger to slightly part my curtains. I badly wanted to see Briggs' car pulling into the driveway but badly wanting it didn't help.
The back door rattled again. I froze. There had been no gust of wind to go with it. I gripped the flashlight tighter and immediately wondered how much damage it could do to an intruder's skull. A lot, I presumed.
I pulled out my phone and was about to dial Briggs when I heard the door shake again, more violently this time. In my fright, the phone slipped from my fingers. I had no time to call anyhow. Someone was at my back door, and they were trying to get inside.
I turned on the kitchen and the service porch lights, then I aimed the beam of the flashlight right at the sheer curtains on the back door. A shadow flashed by and disappeared. I hurried to the front room. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my throat was so dry I couldn't even swallow to relieve it.
A sound outside alerted me to the terrorizing fact that my intruder had moved to the front of the house. The front door rattled. I lunged for the light switch and threw on the extremely bright porch light Briggs had installed for me. It took all my courage to walk to the peep hole and gaze out but the porch was empty.
I searched frantically around for my phone. When it slipped from my fingers, it managed to slide under the couch. I knelt down, making the pounding pulse in my head even louder. I reached blindly underneath the couch, panicking more with each second. The doors had stopped rattling, but that didn't mean I was safe. The lights might have scared the intruder back around to the dark side of the house.
My fingers finally curled around the edge of the phone. I pulled it out and picked it up. Right then, a knock landed solidly on the door. I chirped a short, dry scream, and the darn phone popped back out of my hand as if it had little rocket boosters.
"Lacey?" Briggs' deep voice pushed a sob of relief from my throat. He'd used his key to open the door. Beads of water were dripping off his raincoat as he stepped inside with a look of worry. "Lacey? Are you all right? I thought I heard you—" I plowed into him, not giving him time to finish. His coat was cold and wet, but I wrapped my arms around him, holding onto him as tightly as I could.
"I'm all wet," he said quietly as he wrapped his arms around me.
I was trembling enough that he instantly felt it. His hand caressed the back of my head as I pressed my face against him. "What on earth is going on?" he asked.
Now that I was in the safety of his strong arms, it took me only a minute to recover. Once my pulse had slowed and I could no longer feel my heart drumming against my ribs, I peeled myself reluctantly away from his embrace.
Briggs pushed my chin up to look at me. His brown eyes were brimmed with concern. "You look pale. What's happened?"
My body had recovered from the fright, but my throat was still parched. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Someone was rattling my back door." My words sent him straight to the back door. He moved fast enough that a spray of raindrops flew off his coat. I followed closely at his heels, no longer wanting to be so much as an inch away from him and also to keep explaining my ordeal.
"At first I thought it was the wind but then the person kept shaking the door, trying to get inside." He reached the back door, motioned for me to get back and unlocked and opened the door. He disappeared out into the wet darkness for a minute. For that short stretch of time, I held my breath, then released it, loudly, when he walked back inside.
He lifted a metal tire iron. "I assume this is not yours."
"No. That must have been what they were using to try and pry the door open." My throat felt dry again. I turned to the cupboard for a glass.
Briggs locked the back door. "Good thing you only have a small window near the top of the door. It would have been easy for them to break a larger window and just reach inside to open it."
"I scared them off by shining the flashlight out the window. I saw their shadow disappear, and that's when the front door was rattling. I was trying to call you but the phone slipped from my fingers and then—" I pressed my fingers to my lips to keep the first sob from slipping out because I knew once it burst free, the tears would flow. The combination of the lightning storm and the intruder had shaken me to my core.
Briggs pulled off his wet coat, tossed it on the counter and, this time, provided me with a warm, dry hug. It was just what I needed. After a blissful few minutes in his arms, I pulled myself together enough to talk.
Briggs filled my glass with water and led me to the couch. I took several gulps and put the glass down on the coffee table. "I'm sorry I'm being such a cream puff about all this." I hated to show too much vulnerability in front of him because I feared he'd keep me from investigating murders. And I absolutely didn't want that. "It's just there was the thunder and lightning and then the lights blinked on and off. That started my panic mode, then the door rattled." I took another steadying breath. He reached for my hand. It was amazing how much comfort a warm hand hold could give. "Like I said, I thought it was the wind but then it happened again and there was no gust of wind to explain it. I was armed with the big flashlight. I figured I could clobber someone pretty good with it."
The stiff concern on his face finally melted a little. "I'm sure you could. But did you get a look at the person? It'll help if I have a description when I call it in."
Lavender and Lies Page 14