Once it had become clear to him, painfully and undeniably clear that she wasn’t returning, he’d abandoned the slip of fabric just as he had tried to abandon memories of her. In a single night, he and his father and sister had found themselves on a new path, one that they had to trod without Evelyn. Their time for mourning her passed slowly, similar to her scent fading from that satin wrap.
Tully’s boat pierced a line slowly through the still water. He crawled along at less than a couple of miles an hour, his fishing line trailing behind him, occasionally signaling a fish nibble.
He thought of his father and how he should be a dutiful son and drive out to check on him, but every morning as he sat in his boat, the silence working like a cool salve on his troubled heart, he’d find a good enough reason to postpone for another day.
His mind wandered to Faith Fitzpatrick and how humiliated she’d looked at The Sandwich Board. He could spot when a person was eager to hide, and from the moment he’d talked to Faith, he could tell she was on guard. CeCe’s words, clearly intended to put Faith on the spot, helped him better understand why. He couldn’t blame her for being defensive. CeCe was difficult to take when she adored you. If she didn’t like you, he figured the fallout would put even the nicest person on edge.
His red fishing bobber jostled for a second before dancing in the boat’s wake. He waited a moment longer before jerking the line and delighting in the resistance that he met. He snagged a bass, then two bluegills. He rested his hand on the steering wheel and gazed out over the lake that had been his home for most of his life. He couldn’t imagine the ache if it no longer felt like a place where he belonged.
A common loon called from off in the distance, its warbly cry signaling a choir of birds that began singing as if on cue. The first rays of sunshine brought the first speedboats and a jostling of tourists eager to get the most out of their long holiday weekend.
Tully docked and made his way up the pier, his tackle box in hand, when he spotted Samantha stationed at his truck.
“Morning, sunshine!” she called. They were both early risers, something they valued for entirely different reasons. Tully loved the peace and quiet that came with early morning while Samantha had more energy than a classroom of schoolchildren loaded up on sugar. She couldn’t sleep a wink past 5:00 a.m. before she was tearing into another day. “Did you catch me breakfast?” She grinned.
“I’ll clean them if you fry them.”
Samantha turned up her nose. “No way. I’m already dressed for the day.”
Tully managed a chuckle when Samantha hopped into his truck without invitation.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Already went for a jog, showered, recorded a new video for my vlog—”
“Hence the full hair and makeup.”
“Naturally,” Samantha said. “I have to renew my passport and run a few other errands, but I thought I’d visit my big brother first. How’s work?”
He drove them the short jaunt back to his house. “Slow.”
“What about that vandalism case? I hear the new girl is the prime suspect. Faith, right?”
“Where did you hear that?”
Samantha considered. “Gemma Murdock, Emily Peaches—”
“Emily Peaches?” Tully said. “I didn’t know you were still running around with her.”
“I bumped into her last night at The Farmers Market.”
Tully nodded in understanding. The Farmers Market, open two evenings a week in the summer, was the place many folks in town went for homegrown produce, baked goods, floral arrangements and gossip. It made sense that news about Ray Talbert’s daughter had likely been a hot topic of discussion.
“Emily asked about you.”
“Uh-huh,” Tully muttered. Women were always asking Samantha about him, and he had long suspected Samantha of playfully stringing them along. Samantha loved the drama of life and when there wasn’t enough, she was good at kindling plenty of her own.
“I told her you weren’t dating anyone at the moment...”
“Uh-huh.”
“And she said she wasn’t dating anyone at the moment...”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I suggested you two not date anyone together.”
“As in?”
“Oh, Tully, you’re really impossible. Have you talked to Emily recently? She’s still sweet on you even after you let her down easy. You’re missing the boat, you know.”
“She’s a lovely woman.” It was true. Emily Peaches’s name had always amused him, because she’d been blessed with the prettiest peaches-and-cream complexion he’d ever seen. He also admired the single dimple in her round left cheek that punctuated her smile like a happy exclamation point. She was kind, bright, someone he could imagine settling down with one day. But even though they’d gone out on a few dates and had had a very pleasant time, he’d never wanted to take their relationship further than that.
“She has a heart of gold too,” Samantha said, going for the hard sell. Tully parked and they made their way to the porch steps. Tully got down to work cleaning the fish as Samantha leaned against a pillar and watched, silently, for a long time. “What else have you learned about Faith Talbert?”
“Faith Fitzpatrick,” he said, shooting Samantha a direct look. He didn’t want his little sister to fall into the trap other people in town might, confining Faith to a past she didn’t deserve.
“Is she divorced or still married?”
Tully considered this. He hadn’t seen or heard of a husband and quickly pushed his rising feelings of jealousy aside.
“I really don’t know, Sam. It’s not my place to ask questions like that.”
“Not your place?” Samantha chortled. “Have you stopped being a detective since I last saw you?”
“You know what I mean.” He tossed the first cleaned fish up on the porch steps dangerously close to Samantha’s designer sandals. “Heat up my cast-iron skillet with a little butter, would you?”
“Are you doing the frying?”
“Don’t I always?” he said, barely lifting his brow. Samantha headed into the house as Tully cleaned the last two fish in quiet.
He wondered what life had been like for Faith. He wondered what kind of courage she had had that enabled her to move back to Roseley only ten years after her father’s scandal. He admired her. Liked her. But as she was a suspect in a crime he was investigating, he needed to keep those favorable feelings toward her in check. He followed the facts, and nothing could contort facts quicker than having feelings for a beautiful woman.
Tully’s cell phone vibrated as he carried the fish into the kitchen. He arranged them in the cast-iron pan already bubbling with hot butter. Thankfully, the savory aroma made him hungry for something other than a desire to see Faith again. Samantha’s mention of her had sent his thoughts spiraling down a dangerous road, one where he lost his edge or discernment.
He washed his hands and checked his phone. A text message from the station changed his plans for the morning. There had been another incident of vandalism, this time at The Sandwich Board.
Tully knew he would need to visit CeCe and Angelo before revisiting the others involved in the earlier cases. That would make for a full morning, and as he finished cooking, he’d already decided to save the best visit, the one to Heart Motorcycles, for last.
* * *
TULLY HAD FINISHED his interview with Angelo, pleasantly surprised that CeCe hadn’t been pacing beside him the entire time. He had expected CeCe to be bursting with accusations about Faith or to demand to know his next steps for solving the crime. Her absence was odd, but certainly appreciated.
Angelo offered Tully a cup of coffee and explained that CeCe had run a bulk sandwich order to the fire station. Before leaving, she had given instructions for Tully to stay put at the shop until she returned. Since Tully didn’
t take orders from CeCe Takes, he had chuckled at the demand. Angelo had joined him, laughing the loudest. Angelo seemed to know as well as everyone else how over the top his wife could be.
Angelo had explained that the glass on the front door of The Sandwich Board had been shattered, but nothing inside had been disturbed. CeCe, he had chuckled, was angrier than a steamed bag of hornets nests about it.
“I don’t know how many other ways there are to explain that our door was broken,” Angelo had said with a wide grin. “But I’m sure CeCe will track you down to tell you in her own words.”
He’d sent Tully on his way with a friendly wave and more questions than answers. Vandalism wasn’t common in town before this spate of incidents, so Tully knew the crimes would continue until he found the reason behind them and the party responsible.
The Gypsy Caravan was Tully’s next stop. Even though Dash and Ledger had reported nothing stolen and did not expect another formal visit, Tully added their store to his route that morning. He was glad he had because there had been something strange about their interview. Their answers had sounded well thought out and prepared, almost rehearsed. Once folks had had a day or two to think about events, they often later recalled a seemingly unimportant detail that proved to be helpful. Tully liked to give folks a bit of time before circling back and questioning them again. Frequently, folks didn’t even realize Tully was interviewing them a second time. He was such a consistent fixture in town, stopping by shops and restaurants for short chats, people usually thought he was around only to say hello.
The Callahan brothers, however, had seemed quite irritated by Tully’s visit, which left him perplexed. As they hadn’t been around immediately following the break-in, he had expected them to be pleased to see him that morning. He had been wrong.
Dash Callahan had been helping a crew unpack two large stone equestrian statues from crates when Tully had strolled up to the front door. A pair of large men in work overalls had been moving the second crate on a dolly through the front doors.
“Mornin’,” Tully had called, following the movers into the entryway. Dash Callahan had looked up from his clipboard and nodded as Ledger Callahan strolled out from the back of the shop. “Detective McTully.”
“Good morning, Detective,” Dash had said. He exchanged a glance with his brother and motioned for Ledger to continue working. Ledger surveyed Tully before claiming the clipboard from Dash and attending to the very large delivery.
“I’m sure I can help you with whatever you need. My brother has to get these crates unpacked as these gentlemen are on the clock.”
Tully stared up at the equestrian statues that dwarfed him by a few inches. Though Ledger turned his attention to them as well, Tully knew he was all ears.
“What are you doing with these beauties?” he asked, trying for polite. He thought the regal-looking horses were some of the ugliest pieces of artwork he’d ever seen.
Dash groaned. “We were planning on placing these two outside the doors to act as a gateway into our shop. After recent events, we decided to bring them inside. We thought Roseley was safe enough to display antiques and artwork on the street but...” He shrugged in defeat. “I guess we were wrong.”
“Roseley is safe,” Tully said, surprised at the defensiveness that stabbed him in the gut.
“We’ll see,” Dash said. “The lack of crime certainly influenced our decision to set up shop here.” Ledger harrumphed from behind his clipboard. “Hopefully,” Dash said, clearing his throat. “This break-in is only a fluke.”
“I’m only giving it to August,” Ledger mumbled.
Tully trusted his intuition when interviewing folks, but even a detective novice would have picked up on the death stare Dash instantly shot his brother.
“August?” Tully casually maneuvered himself between the brothers, directing Ledger to focus on him instead of Dash. “To do what?”
His move was as calm and easy as an old man in the park coaxing pigeons to his outstretched hand. The Callahan brothers weren’t suspects; they were victims of a crime. Yet something about the tension between the two of them gave Tully more questions than answers. He didn’t want to leave until his detective hunch had been appeased.
“There are plenty of other towns that would serve our needs,” Ledger said, now bold. He seemed like a man who wanted to talk, wanted to complain, and Tully was all too happy to let him. “All we have to do is hire movers and packers.” He snapped his fingers. “We can be out of here in seventy-two hours.”
“Unless?”
Ledger frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“That sounded like an ultimatum,” Tully said, though he wasn’t sure what Roseley would need to do to keep The Gypsy Caravan from turning tail so quickly.
“No ultimatum, Detective,” Dash said. He stepped around Tully and jerked his head toward the back room. Ledger gave the huff of a willful child before shoving the clipboard back into his brother’s hands and storming off. “My brother and I were not in agreement about opening the store in Roseley,” Dash explained. “Being in business with family has its perks...and disadvantages, as you can see.”
“How did you come to an agreement then?” Tully asked.
“We always agree to do what’s in the best interest of our brand.”
Tully nodded, certain he’d heard almost the same comment come from Samantha whenever she talked about her social media followers.
“And that meant Roseley?”
Dash shrugged. “Roseley made us a nice offer.”
“Really? Which was what exactly?” He hadn’t known Roseley had incentivized the Callahan brothers in any way. He wondered who from the town council had courted them.
“Surely you’ve heard of tax incentives, Detective.”
Dash flipped through the sheets on his clipboard. “I really need to attend to this delivery so if there isn’t anything else—”
“Have you noticed anything else out of sorts in your shop?” Tully asked, putting his curiosity about the incentives on hold—for now.
“No. We ran an inventory list immediately, as you know, and everything was in order.”
“Was anything else damaged or misplaced?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“We took our time and dedicated several hours to double-checking.”
Tully paused. Perhaps it was the fact that Dash was distracted by the crates or maybe it was that a broken window was pretty insignificant to a pseudo-celebrity like Dash Callahan. Either way, Tully wanted a little bit more from him and if he could find a way to get him talking...“That bimmer of yours is a beauty.” Tully motioned toward the motorcycle and sidecar, still tipped to its side. He wanted Dash to let his guard down, chitchat casually so he could get a better read on him. “I have to admit I admired it the other night.”
“We thought we had a buyer lined up, but he fell through. There’s more damage to the engine than we thought.”
“Are you going to repair it or try to sell it as is?”
“Sell. It takes up too much space.”
“Moving forward,” Tully continued, “are you taking any extra precautions with security?”
“We’re having a better security system installed later today. The one we have now is a silent alarm but the new one will sound as soon as someone fiddles with a door. It’ll be loud enough to send them running for the hills.”
“Any idea when the alarm was tripped the other night?”
“7:56,” Dash said. Tully flicked an eyebrow prompting Dash to continue, “It’s one of those notifications you get on your phone to let you know someone has passed over the door threshold. The new system will have video.”
The rest of their conversation continued much the same, Tully asking questions and Dash having a clear, concise answer as if pulled from a queue.
Finally, Tully asked, “Do
you have any idea who would want to break into your antiques shop?”
“Ledger and I don’t know many people in town yet so we couldn’t have crossed anyone intentionally. I know some folks weren’t too happy about us moving in, but why would someone break in without stealing something? From what we’ve heard, our store hasn’t been the only one targeted. The whole situation is a bit unnerving.”
Tully thanked Dash and let himself out the front door, considering the man’s answers. Most people included occasional pauses when they spoke, either to recall the truth or to think of a lie. Tully noted how Dash had had none. But once he reached Grandma’s Basement and casually asked Miss Jenkins similar questions, he finally understood why. He’d been beaten to the punch, so to speak.
“Tully, dear,” Miss Jenkins said. “I’ve already told Faith everything I know.”
Tully followed Miss Jenkins to her cash register, where she plucked a peppermint stick from a giant glass canister. Her smile slipped into worry as she read his face.
“Did I do something wrong? I assumed she was helping you on your case. She certainly has a good head on her shoulders, don’t you think? Her questions sounded so...I don’t know...professional.”
“What did she ask?”
Miss Jenkins thought for a moment. “She wanted to know where I was the other night. I explained that I was here closing up my shop. She asked how I’d heard about the break-in at The Gypsy Caravan, and I told her that CeCe Takes was the first to tell me.”
“Did she ask if you’re taking any further precautions to protect your shop?”
“It’s funny. I wasn’t planning on doing much differently until she suggested it. I suppose I’ve lived in this town for so long, it’s hard to imagine anyone meaning me harm.”
“Did she ask anything else?”
“Why, yes,” Miss Jenkins said, patting her cheek softly as she recalled. “She asked if I had an idea about who broke into The Gypsy Caravan.”
“She didn’t ask about your shop?”
Her Hometown Detective Page 9