‘My wife said she even ate the orange. I’ve never been able to get her to eat fruit.’
‘Aw, I’m so glad she enjoyed her lunch, Sam.’
‘Yeah, she and my wife have been reading the book that came with the lunch too. Can you believe it? My nine-year-old is reading Dickens.’
‘That’s awesome, Sam. It’s good to know the program is doing what it should.’
‘Thanks to you. You were the right person for the job, and I was wrong to give you so much guff. I want to apologize and make it up to you.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘Yes, it is. I’d like to extend an invitation to you for a free dinner.’
‘Oh, that’s—’ Tish tried to beg off the invitation.
‘You’ve never been to my restaurant, have you?’
‘Actually, my boyfriend Schuyler and I had our first date there back in August.’
‘That was before the new menu. You and your boyfriend should try it now. I put the grill back in the Grill with ten different varieties of burger. And there’s a whole section of the menu dedicated to smoked meat.’
‘Because nothing says love like a plate of burnt ends and beans,’ Jules quipped to Celestine, who shooed him away while trying to refrain from laughing.
Tish was gracious. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’ll run it past Schuyler and see when we might have some time to take you up on your offer.’
‘Excellent. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Sam Noble said goodnight as a weary Reade approached the booth.
‘You look the way I felt this morning,’ Tish remarked.
‘It’s been a long day with very little to show for it.’
‘Did you have dinner?’
‘No dinner. No lunch. Wasn’t time.’
‘I have some stew left. Beef, not root veggie,’ she offered.
‘At this point, I wouldn’t care if it were roadkill stew.’
‘Are you off duty, Sheriff?’ Jules asked.
‘Yeah, finally.’
Jules lifted a stainless-steel canteen and poured some steaming red liquid into a hot cup. ‘A little mulled wine. Most of the alcohol’s burned off by now, but I’ll refill it with coffee afterwards, so no one’s the wiser.’
‘I’m not much for bending an elbow after work, but with the day I’ve had, I’ll make an exception.’ Sheriff Reade helped himself to the wine.
‘You realize Jules is just plying you with liquor in order to get a scoop,’ Tish warned as she ladled some beef stew into a recycled paper bowl and garnished it with a sizable hunk of sourdough bread. ‘He’s covering the Inkpen case for Channel Ten news.’
‘Congratulations. That’s a nice step up from the weather desk.’
‘Thanks. If I could get an exclusive, I might be able to make the position stick.’ Jules flashed an alluring smile.
‘I’d be happy to give you an exclusive, if I actually had something to tell you.’
‘I thought you had Bailey Cassels in custody?’ Tish questioned.
Reade’s eyes slid silently toward Jules.
Tish followed his gaze. ‘There’s a picnic table a few yards from here, over near the stage. Why don’t we bring your food over there so you can eat in comfort?’
‘Good idea,’ Reade acknowledged as he grabbed his bowl and cup and bid adieu to Celestine and Jules with a nod of the head.
‘Discussing the case in private? Now that’s not right, y’all,’ Jules shouted after them. ‘Where’s the love?’
Tish took a seat upon one of the table’s attached benches, her back toward Jules. ‘He’s still watching us, isn’t he?’ she asked as Reade slid on to the bench opposite.
‘Yeah. You know, I was telling the truth about giving Jules an exclusive. I’m just not in a position to do that right now.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s sort of fun to see him foaming at the mouth.’
‘He doesn’t know how to read lips, does he?’
‘No, but if there’s someone here at the fair who can, he’ll hire them in a hot second.’
‘Fortunately, I didn’t see lip reading on the entertainment roster.’ Reade took a mouthful of stew. ‘Mmm, so good. Even better than the veggie.’
‘That’s because you’re famished.’
‘No, this is seriously good. How do you do it?’ He plunged his spoon into his bowl again.
‘Practice,’ she dismissed absently. ‘So what happened with Bailey Cassels?’
‘He’s clean. Not a trace of gunshot residue or blood on him.’ Reade took a bite of bread. ‘Mmm, did you bake this too?’
‘Yes, I mix and knead a large batch of dough, freeze in loaf sizes, and then bake when needed,’ Tish explained. ‘Bailey could have been wearing gloves, couldn’t he? It’s certainly cold enough to warrant them.’ Reminded of her own leather driving gloves, Tish reached into her coat pockets, extracted them, and pulled them on to her hands.
‘Sure, but there would have been some traces of residue or blood on him somewhere, especially considering the size of that blast. Hair, clothes, forearms – something – but he was totally clean. The DNA swab from Cassels’s mouth, however, wasn’t. It matches the skin underneath Jenny’s fingernails, but the preliminary coroner’s report showed no signs of sexual assault.’ He took another giant bite of bread. ‘God, this is good.’
‘So Bailey’s story checks out,’ she presumed.
‘Not completely. We still have only his word that Jenny Inkpen invited him inside her trailer. He could have pushed his way inside and forced himself on her – hence the scratches. We’re holding him on assault charges, but I doubt they’ll stick. There’s simply not enough evidence.’
‘What about a possible stalker?’
‘Jenny had her share of online admirers, many of whom made lewd comments on her Instagram posts and Tweets, but Jenny neither engaged nor blocked them. Some fans over on the theater group Facebook page could get nasty. They’d pick apart her photos – nose too wide, eyes too far apart, looks like she’d gained weight, probably had plastic surgery, that sort of thing – but none of the comments on any of her or the group’s social media pages ever threatened her with violence. Our IT people are checking her phone for emails, text messages, and DMs, but Jenny never reported anything to the police or to any of the social media sites she frequented. Of course, many victims don’t report these matters to the authorities for fear of being shamed or blamed, so we can’t rule the theory out just yet, but we can’t substantiate it either.’
‘You’re right, you did have a frustrating day,’ Tish sympathized.
‘You haven’t heard the best part. Jenny Inkpen doesn’t exist.’
‘What?’
‘I ran a search through our system, so that we could notify the victim’s next of kin, but found just two Jenny Inkpens in their twenties, one located in Alberta, Canada, the other living in Inkpen village, Berkshire, England.’
‘That’s not entirely shocking. Many actresses use a stage name.’
‘Granted, but typically there’s a paper trail leading back to the legal name associated with that stage name or pseudonym. Not this time. We searched for Jennifer Inkpen. Virginia Inkpen. Nothing. We even changed the spelling of Inkpen in case it was an Anglicized version of a foreign name. No dice.’
‘What about her driver’s license and social security card?’
‘Oh, she had them. They list her name as Jennifer Inkpen and are obvious fakes, but they allowed the victim to drive a car and open a small checking account at her local Chesapeake Bank.’
‘How could she get a job with the group with a fake social security number?’ Tish questioned.
‘Easy. Rolly Rollinson probably isn’t using a background referencing service. Not only doesn’t he hire often enough to warrant paying the monthly service fee, but when he does hire, he’s hiring based upon talent. Once Jenny was on the payroll, it could take twelve to eighteen months before the Internal Revenue Service noticed that Jenny’s number either didn’t exist or bel
onged to someone else.’
‘How long had Jenny been with the group?’
‘Just eight months.’ Reade punctuated his reply by dabbing the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
‘Jenny was probably counting on being with another group by then,’ Tish noted.
‘Even if she wasn’t, the IRS would initially conclude that the number was inaccurately reported and the onus would be on the employer to rectify the problem. If Rollinson reported the number as a fake, the IRS would then report it to the Social Security Administration, who would go after Jenny. By that time she could be long gone and living under a different alias.’
‘But why? Why, if Jenny was trying to hide, would she seek out a profession that puts her in the spotlight?’
‘There’s something to be said for hiding in plain sight,’ Reade speculated as he used his bread to mop up the last traces of stew from his bowl. ‘You also need to keep in mind that Jenny joined an independent, traveling theater group based out of Williamsburg, Virginia, not some established Broadway company where her face might be splashed across a New York City billboard. Although she’d become quite the star on Virginia’s summer stock and festival circuit, the odds that Jenny would been seen by someone outside the Tidewater area were slim. And if someone did recognize her, she’d already be on to the next town.’
‘Do you think she might have been part of the witness protection program?’ Tish suggested.
‘As crazy as that idea might seem, I already checked. She wasn’t.’
‘Justin Dange did say that Jenny had run away from home as a girl. It’s probably as simple as that.’
‘I don’t think so. Jenny Inkpen did more than just run away. She left her entire past hanging somewhere in the ether.’
‘Well, there has to be some way to find out who she really was.’
‘There is. As soon as Jenny’s photo runs in the papers and on TV – I’m hoping Jules will help out with that – someone will step forward.’
‘Along with a whole bunch of false identifications.’
‘Now you know why I was so grumpy when I arrived. But, thanks to you and your food, I’m feeling much better.’
‘A simple matter of low blood sugar,’ Tish replied with humility.
‘What I’m not feeling better about,’ he went on as he pushed the empty bowl aside, ‘is the fact that a twenty-two-year-old woman has been shot dead.’
‘I know. It’s haunted me all day. Twenty-two. When I was that age, I had just graduated college and was preparing to get married. We all know how that panned out.’
‘I had just graduated college and was preparing to attend med school. We all know how that panned out.’
‘Jenny had so much living and learning yet to do. What on earth was she running from?’
Reade threw his hands up in the air and shook his head.
‘You know, it might be interesting to hear how Justin met Jenny,’ Tish continued.
Reade leaned forward and perched his elbows on the table. ‘You’re right. He was her entry into the group. What was she doing when their paths crossed?’
Tish mirrored Reade’s stance. ‘And where was she doing it? Did they meet in Williamsburg or somewhere else? Even if that “somewhere else” wasn’t her hometown, it would at least give us a fragment of her background and might lead to something else.’
‘It would also be interesting to learn about Rolly’s first meeting with Jenny. She never completed a formal job application – we checked – but did she mention prior theatrical experience? What companies had she performed with and where? The most successful liars often pepper their stories with factual elements and shades of the truth. More importantly, did Rolly ever suspect that she wasn’t who she claimed to be?’
‘While you’re at it, someone needs to ask Rolly how he knew Bailey Cassels wouldn’t be available for today’s performances.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that Rolly Rollinson called for an understudy before Bailey Cassels was even taken into custody.’
‘Rollinson did that?’
‘Yep, I overheard him on the phone this morning on the way to pick up my insulated coffee jug. That understudy took to the stage just forty minutes after you took Cassels to headquarters.’
‘I’ll question both Dange and Rollinson on those matters first thing tomorrow,’ Reade resolved.
‘Or …’ she started.
Reade raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘I’ll talk to Justin and Rolly, as I’ll already be at the camp delivering breakfast and might be better equipped to ask questions.’
‘Better equipped?’
‘Justin already felt comfortable enough to talk to me about Jenny. I could nonchalantly ask him how and where they met, and I doubt he’d think twice about it. As for Rolly, he was coveting your favorite breakfast sandwich today, but opted to remain healthy and order the Danielle Steel Cut Oats instead. If I brought along a slider version of that sandwich—’
‘Tish,’ Reade uncharacteristically interrupted, ‘you’re a grown woman and capable of making your own decisions, but I don’t think you should be questioning anyone in that theater group. I didn’t tell you yet, but the wound in Jenny’s chest wasn’t from some ordinary shotgun. It was from a Colonial-era rifle.’
Tish tried to wrap her mind around the significance of Reade’s statement, but words failed her.
‘The Richmond Revolutionary Re-Enactors’ fife and drum band has been storing their weapons in an equipment shed near the baseball field for the duration of the fair, so that they didn’t need to transport them here for their daily drills. The shed was deadbolted and padlocked, but someone still broke their way in and stole the murder weapon.’
‘But I thought the re-enactors used blank cartridges for their drills and parades.’
‘They do, but they were also giving rifle-loading demonstrations this weekend, so there was a generous supply of both gunpowder and bullets – or, in this case, minié balls. They spin rapidly as they’re fired from the barrel and tear up everything in their path.’
‘That’s why there was so much damage to Jenny’s body,’ Tish whispered at the memory of the young woman’s wounds.
‘I’ll get you some water,’ Reade offered as he rose from his seat.
Tish drew a deep breath and forced the image from her mind. ‘No, that’s OK. I’ll be all right. So, anyone who saw that rifle-loading demonstration could have fired the fatal shot.’
Reade sat back down. ‘Yes, but not everyone would have known where the rifles were stored. The baseball field is cordoned off to the general public.’
‘The baseball field is only a few hundred yards from the campground. And the equipment shed is even closer.’
‘That’s why I’d prefer you didn’t get involved in this case. Whoever shot Jenny wasn’t taking chances. They wanted her out of the way, permanently, and they knew the rifle was the best way to do it. Whoever broke into that shed didn’t use a pair of bolt cutters and a lock pick; they broke the door down. It was as if the murderer flew into a rage and needed to get that rifle at any cost.’
‘I understand your trepidation, Clemson, but it’s not as if I’ll be alone. You and your team will be at the campground the entire time I’m delivering breakfast.’
‘Tish, everyone knows you run the café down the road. The murderer could just wait until you’re back there to strike. Look what happened to Jenny. Look what happened to you during the Sloane Shackleford case.’
‘I don’t want to risk a repeat performance of either event, but if the murderer is as angry and violent as you describe, shouldn’t we be doing everything in our power to stop him or her? We don’t know the motive behind Jenny’s murder, so we can’t say that this person won’t kill a second time.’
‘I agree, but—’
‘You said yourself that my involvement in both the Broderick and Shackleford cases made a difference. Let me make a difference again.’
Reade dr
ew a deep breath. ‘Look, I truly value your investigative skills and I would like nothing more than to have you on the case, but I need to be honest here. If something were to happen to you—’
Schuyler Thompson suddenly appeared at their table, dressed in a black overcoat and suit. ‘Jules told me I could find you two over here, talking shop.’
Tish smiled broadly before standing up and planting a kiss on the attorney’s lips. ‘Hey, you. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.’
‘I didn’t expect to be here, but I tried calling you and kept getting voicemail, so I thought I’d pop by on my way home. Hi, Clem.’
‘Hey, Schuyler,’ the sheriff returned the greeting.
Tish reached beneath her coat and pulled her phone from the back pocket of her black denim trousers. ‘I’m out of charge. Sorry about that.’
‘That’s OK. I thought it was probably something silly like that, but I still wanted to check and make sure.’ He glanced between Tish and Reade. ‘Things seemed pretty intense when I came over here. Is something going on?’
‘No,’ she nervously denied. ‘I mean, yes … a member of the theater group was murdered.’
‘Tish found the body while delivering breakfast this morning,’ Reade added.
‘You discovered the body?’ Schuyler turned to Tish, his eyes wide. ‘Are you OK? Why didn’t you call me?’
‘You were at a funeral. I didn’t want to disturb you. Nor did I think it was appropriate for your cell phone to ring, in the event you had forgotten to turn off the sound.’
‘I actually had my phone switched off.’
‘Then I wouldn’t have gotten through to you anyway.’
‘But I would have gotten your message when I checked my calls later in the day.’
‘What good would that have done? It would only have caused worry and there was no need for it. I’m tired, but fine.’
‘You need any help packing up?’
‘No, I’m going to balance out the till, take home the dirty pans, run them in the dishwasher, and take care of everything else in the morning.’
‘Well, if you don’t need me for anything, I’ll go talk to a few of the town council members – I saw them over by Sam Noble’s booth – then maybe we can leave together? I mean, that is if you and Sheriff Reade are finished.’
The Christmas Fair Killer Page 6