“I bet he killed her because he wanted to take over her blackmail business. I think if he sees that I know about the blackmail, he’ll assume I know he killed her too.”
“How are you supposed to know about the blackmail?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll bet he’s suspicious enough to believe I do. I’m playing this by ear, Nance. Trust me, okay? You just have to sit with me. That’s all.”
She shrugged. “Okay. We can lock up. I’ll come with you.”
Nancy waited in the hotel restaurant as I went to the front desk. Using the house telephone I connected with Allan’s room and he answered on the second ring. I was trembling as I spoke. “Allan? This is Melanie Willoughby. I’m in the lobby. Can you come down and talk to me for a minute?”
“About what?”
I pressed the phone mouthpiece to my lips and spoke in a soft whisper. “I know about your mother and Dr. Santos,” I lied. “Either we talk now or I tell Chief what I know and you can talk to him.”
I waited breathlessly. Seconds passed before he spoke again. “I don’t know anything about that,” he finally said calmly.
“I know about the notebook.”
“What notebook?” he quickly replied.
I tried to sound like I was bored, and gave a heavy theatrical sigh. “Have it your way. I wanted to give you a chance to prove you had nothing to do with his death or hers. I know you have what she stole from Dr. Santos’s house now, but it’s your choice. You can pretend you don’t know anything about that and that you aren’t busy picking up her pieces. Or we can talk. Up to you. I’ll wait in the restaurant for five minutes. If you don’t show I’m going to the police.” I hung up the phone and stood there shivering for a moment. I could hardly believe I’d gotten through that conversation without going into a panic.
“I think he’s coming down,” I said to Nancy as I sat at her table.
“How did you manage that?”
“I told him I knew what his mother had stolen.”
Nancy’s eyes were saucers. She gulped air and shook her head. “And he believes do you?”
I didn’t answer as Allan had already moved into the restaurant and was quickly approaching our table. His eyes were wild, and his face pale. His obvious stress frightened me. Nancy’s hand clutched my arm and we both tensed as he sat down.
“Well?” Allan had both his hands clenched into fists on the table. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that had once been white but was now a dingy gray. His hair was mussed as if he had recently gotten out of bed and his breath smelled of yesterday’s beer. But he was enveloped in a perfumed scent of aerosol deodorant. This guy thinks spray-on hides how an unwashed body smells? Just a different stink. To me, Allan looked and smelled like the biggest loser on the planet. Maybe three or four of them.
“Want a coffee?” I asked. I waved at the waitress and made a sign as if pouring something into an imaginary cup. She nodded and made her way to the counter. Nancy still had my arm in a death grip. As I smiled at Allan, I gently peeled back her fingers and moved her hand into her lap.
“So talk,” Allan barked.
“You should be grateful to me. I could’ve gone straight to the cops about the blackmail but I don’t care about that. All I care about is my uncle Barney and proving he didn’t kill your mother.”
Allan’s stare was malevolent. “I don’t know nothin’ about that. I wasn’t there.”
“I know you were there before she died because Bill told me. You met him at the door and took his money.”
Allan smiled and nodded. “Before, sure. But then I left. I wasn’t there when your uncle showed up.” Alan accepted coffee from the waitress, tore open several packets of sugar, and filled the coffee cup to the rim with milk. As he stirred it, he looked at me with barely contained fury. “So what do you want? If you know what’s up, you also know that no one my mom fingered will admit to anything. Besides, without those pages from his notebook, you got no proof that connects me to anything anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter. Once the police are watching you, your little business falls apart.”
“So what?”
I shrugged. “It’s probably a good bit of income every month as long as you don’t get greedy.” I turned to Nancy. “Wouldn’t you say?” She returned a weak smile.
“So are you blackmailing me now? I give you a piece of the action and you keep my business to yourself? Is that it?”
I smiled. “What’s good for the goose.”
Allan didn’t understand what I meant. He furrowed his brow.
I decided to tackle the subject of his mother in a less round-about way. “Why’d you kill Dr. Santos?”
“What?” Allan flushed and coughed his coffee. “I didn’t. Why would I do that? You’re crazy.”
I sat in silence a moment and then smiled. “Okay. I don’t know anything about that and you’re right. It doesn’t make sense for you to kill him unless he was ready to take his lumps and expose your blackmail.”
“I didn’t even have a chance to talk to him,” Allan replied with glum regret. “I only talked to his wife.”
I sighed. “Well the dentist can’t pay anymore but I know there are the others.”
Allan looked up at me, waiting.
“I know your secrets, Allan. If I could figure it all out, you know the police will. I think it’s time for you to share the wealth.”
Nancy squirmed. Uncertain where this conversation was going obviously made her anxious. “Maybe I should leave,” she said.
“No,” I said, patting the table. “Our friend Allan here has to know that more than one person is it on his secret. More than one person who can talk to the cops. Right, Allan?”
“What do you want?”
“The thought of a little extra money every month is nice,” I said. I sipped my own coffee, staring over the cup at Allan’s face. “But I really care more about my uncle.”
“So?”
“So I want you to tell a police the truth.”
“I already did.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You were afraid they’d think you killed her, so you told them that you left before Barney arrived. But the truth is you didn’t leave until after he did. You were still at the house when Barney and your mother argued. You were still there when he left and your mother was still alive. Right?”
Allan’s face was frozen in a grimace.
“You’re going to tell the police your conscience has been bothering you. You can’t live with the lie. You finally decided you had to tell them the whole truth.”
“You want me to say I was still there when Barney left and she was alive? That it?”
“You’ve got a crafty head on your shoulders, Allan,” I said sweetly. I was amazed at how childish this man’s thought processes were.
“And this stuff about the blackmail is over if I do?”
I shrugged. “I told you. I don’t care about your business. I’d like the extra money but I want to have my uncle home more. It’s simple. A straight-up deal. You say that and it proves he couldn’t have killed her. You say that and I’ll keep quiet.”
Allan poured more sugar into his coffee and slowly stirred it, not looking up at me. He finally took another big gulp and, smiling, glanced at Nancy. “It sounds workable, but I need some insurance you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
“Like what?”
“I want you to have some skin in the game.”
“Something they can come after me for if I talk? That it?”
He smiled again and nodded. It was obvious he thought the tables were turned in his favor. He knew there was something he had that I wanted and now he was back in control.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at him with a stone-cold stare. “Okay. What about something that connects me to Dr. Santos’s murder?”
He squinted.
“You didn’t kill him, right? What if there was something that made it look like I might have?”
Nancy jumped from her se
at. “I’m leaving!”
“Sit down or this is over,” Allan ordered.
Nancy looked to me. I nodded and she slowly reclaimed her seat.
Allan returned his gaze to me. “What could make you look like you killed him?”
“I said could have. Those pages your mother stole aren’t worth anything now.”
Allan laughed. “Oh yes they are!” He gulped more coffee and with a devious sneer, continued. “Three hundred dollars a month. The doc’s wife doesn’t want anyone to know what’s in those pages. She’s willing to pay me every month to keep it secret. That’s how.”
I was baffled by this new information and had nothing ready to say. Nancy clasped her hands and stared into her lap.
“How would you havin’ the pages make any difference?” he asked.
I bit my lip. “If I had them and you could prove it, that would make me a suspect same as you are right now,” I offered.
“I’m not a suspect.”
“Sure you are. What if Dr. Santos had decided to expose your blackmail? That’d be a good reason to kill him, wouldn’t it? The police will put that motive together in a snap.”
Allan sucked in the last of his coffee and spun his cup in his saucer. “I’d be giving up part of my gravy train if I did that.”
“Then I’ll buy the pages so you lose nothing,” I answered with confidence. “You don’t even have to tell his wife. She’ll be not be any wiser and she’ll keep paying you. I’ll even let you make a phone video of me getting the pages from you as proof that I had them and not you. I’ll give you a year’s worth of Mrs. Santos’s blackmail as a bonus to boot.”
I hid my hands in my lap and reached over to Nancy’s clenched fists. They were trembling. This was a make-or-break proposition and if Allan decided to bail it would leave me with nothing.
He sat quietly for what seemed like an eternity and finally said, “Okay. Come to my room tomorrow and bring your money. Me telling the cops I was home when Barney left is no skin off my nose. I already proved I wasn’t at home when it happened.” Abruptly, he stood up, turned on his heel and left without looking back.
Nancy practically jumped me when Allan left the restaurant, angrily gripping my arm. “What did you do? That’s insane! Having those pages will put you in danger, Mel! What’s come over you?”
I was aware of all the implications but I felt right with my idea. “We both know Barney didn’t do it,” I said, my gaze a burning stare. “Allan speaking up gives the police a reason to let Barney go.”
“But you know what he’s going to say it isn’t true!”
“Barney didn’t do it.”
“I know, but …”
“Whoever did it it’s still out there and the same person may have killed Dr. Santos. At least this way Barney will be out of jail.”
Nancy slumped. “I can’t be part of this, Mel. It’s bad karma.”
“For heaven’s sake!” I pounded my fist on the table. “All I’m doing is getting Barney freed. That’s it! I’m keeping this whole investigation alive. If they know Barney didn’t do it, they’ll have to look for the real killer some more, won’t they?”
Nancy frowned. “If her husband didn’t do it and Alan didn’t do it and Bill didn’t do it, who did?”
“I still think Allan did it,” I said with blunt self-assurance. I put some cash on the table for our coffee and stood up. “Mrs. Olson said other cars arrived after Barney left. That’s a clue. And the white Jeep was in the lot as I was leaving Dr. Santos’s office.”
Nancy followed me out of the restaurant in silence until we were outside on the sidewalk. I started to cross the street towards The Grind and she held me back. “Do you think that white Jeep was Jean’s?”
18
I should have rolled the bottle in some fancy wrapping paper, but in the end decided it didn’t matter. Jean would rip it away without a thought to my considerate presentation. At least I dressed the brown paper bag with a bit of ribbon.
She kept me waiting at the front door for what felt like an unusually long time before appearing, all smiles. I thanked her for her crowd-building at my reading and held the bottle forward. “A little gesture of gratitude,” I said.
“I was glad to help,” she answered happily as she stepped back. “Come on in. We can have a taste.”
I followed her into the living room and took my seat in a now familiar tub chair.
I noticed the door to the hallway that led to her bedrooms was closed again but tried not to make my quick scan too obvious. “It went fairly well, I think,” I said.
“It was a wonderful night,” she replied, ripping at the bag. “Would have been even better with an open bar.” We both laughed. She plopped the bottle on her glass table after a cursory glance at the familiar label and got up to fetch glasses.
“What’s the news on Barney?” she asked from the kitchen.
“No news,” I answered. “I feel kind of bad because I haven’t been to Eugene yet.” I’ve got to get there soon. He must think I don’t care about him, and it’ll look like I’m still my cold-hearted teenage self.
“Well he’s not moving anywhere,” Jean said, clinking two crystal tumblers on the table and deftly unscrewing the bottle cap. “This little town of ours has sure seen a mess of things but the police will figure it all out, I’m sure.”
After she poured us both a dollop of the amber liquor, I lifted my glass and held it up in a toast. “To finding the truth,” I said before taking too large a gulp of the whiskey. My throat burned and I coughed. Jean only smiled.
“Did you sell lots?”
“A few books,” I answered. “I came over to say thanks, Jean. But I also came because I had to ask you something.”
She squinted. “Okay.”
“The chief came by with more questions about Dr. Santos,” I said.
Jean put her glass down and pulled at the folds in her clothes. She was wearing a thin navy blue sweater and black pants and tried to appear uninterested in what I’d said. “He wanted to know if I was sure I’d hadn’t seen anyone arriving as I left the office. I already told him no, but he kept asking me. Did I see anyone arrive? Did I see any cars in the little lot by the office?”
“And did you?”
“Well his questions got me thinking, and I did remember something.”
“Oh?”
I put my glass down. “I think I saw a Jeep like yours in one of Dr. Santos’s parking stalls at the side of the office.”
“My Jeep?
“Did you see Dr. Santos that afternoon? I came over a while later and you were dressed up in that lovely…”
“I saw Dr. Phillips,” she said. Her face suddenly had a stiffened look. “I told you that.”
I nodded.
“But I definitely saw a Jeep as I left his office,” I said.
“Must have been someone else’s. There are other Jeeps.”
I nodded again. “You’re right. But another new one in town? Like yours? The same color?” I leaned towards her. “Jean, if you …”
“It wasn’t her!” Pavel’s voice was angry and loud. He almost fell forward as he burst out of the bedroom hallway. “I went to see him.”
Jean looked like she’d been hit with a board. “Pavel, be quiet!” She abruptly stood and moved to him with her arms raised.
“It was me,” he repeated, leaning over to see me past her blocking body.Jean turned to me. “You better leave,” she ordered. She pushed Pavel back towards the bedrooms. “Now!”
I got up quickly and did as I was told. “Jean, Pavel has to tell the police.”
“We’re not telling anyone anything. Get out!”
“I don’t under—”
“Just go!” Jean looked to be in a panic, pushing Pavel with one hand and motioning me to hit the road with the other. Her face was a mottled red.
I reached the door and turned. “Why, Pavel?”
“Leave now, damn you! Leave us be.”
You could classify the Lee H
otel dining room as halfway between a cafeteria and a large kitchen. Small square tables filled the dining space except for a phalanx of booths on one side. The walls were plastered with enlarged black and white photos of old mines, and tired-looking miners stared back at you from their perches on clunky mining equipment. It was so typically a Glacier kind of room. There were four other couples scattered around but far enough apart to ensure conversations could be relatively private. The trouble was, no conversation was happening at our table.
Bill, trying for a little romance I suppose, had ordered us glasses of cheap red wine and some bread sticks. He crunched on one and sipped from his wine glass like he was waiting for me to break the ice and say something. It was awkward. I regretted agreeing to have dinner with him at all. Because of the books he’d bought, and the fact he’d been so darn helpful at Bookmarks for the last couple of days, I felt I had to say yes when he asked me. At first, I liked the idea of spending some time with him somewhere besides The Grind, yet once we arrived at the Lee, I’d changed my mind completely. This was a big mistake. Too many cracks—no canyons—stil in my heart after that betrayal by Jim.
I looked across the table, smiling. “This is really nice,” I lied. “But just so you know, I’m going to pay for dinner as a thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Bill shook his head. “No. I invited you,” he replied, taking another sip. “It’s my treat. Besides, there are things I need to tell you.”
An alarm began practically blaring in my ears.
“I wanted to get you away to someplace quiet where we could talk a while.”
“Bill,” I held up a hand. “I’ve already told you …”
He reached over and held my hand. “It’s okay. I know your mind is on Barney and other things. Getting to know me better is not a priority for you right now. And I know I’m not the brainy kind of guy you might be used to, you being at university and all, but I wanted a chance to show you what you were missing.”
“Stop,” I said, pulling my hand away. “Why can’t you understand what I’ve been saying? You’re a great guy and I like you but the timing is—”
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