Killer Deadline

by Lauren Carr

  “I didn’t see a camcorder in the crime scene photos,” Nikki told Kathleen. “What happened to the camcorder?”

  “Wyatt took it with him when he’d left after the meeting—along with the videos.”

  Nikki’s eyes narrowed. She cast a quick glance at her mother, whose right eyebrow was arched.

  “By the way, do you ever rent out Elmo?” Debra asked as she refilled their cups.

  “For parties?” Nikki asked while noting the exhausted boxer dog sleeping next to the plastic bin overflowing with toys. “I never thought of it.”

  “I was thinking for housekeeping.” Debra gestured at the back yard behind them.

  They turned to see that the yard, which had previously been littered with toys was clear.

  “He’s beginning to remind me of your father,” Kathleen told Nikki over the top of her coffee cup.

  It was with the carefree air of a mother-daughter outing that Kathleen and Nikki swung in to visit the television station. No one would have guessed that they were on a mission.

  In the reception area, the light above the door leading into the studio announced that a live broadcast was in session for Noon with Meredith. That signaled for complete quiet when entering the studio. Televisions placed strategically throughout the station showed the chef of a chic new restaurant showing Meredith how to prepare salmon with a delicate dill sauce.

  “Mmm,” Nikki said when the camera zoomed in for a close-up of the final prepared dish. “Looks delicious.”

  “Harrison hates salmon.” Kathleen pressed the call button for the elevator. “He can’t stand the smell of it. The only time I can have it is when we go out to dinner.”

  “That’s kind of dictatorial.” Nikki had never known Harrison to make such a demand. In fact, she had never known her stepfather to make any demands. He was the definition of “easy-going.”

  “It’s a small concession when you consider all of my little eccentricities that he puts up with.”

  “Like what?”

  Kathleen cocked her head. “Like never get between me and Black Friday.”

  The elevator doors swung open. Becca Cambridge hurried off so quickly that she almost knocked Kathleen off her feet.

  “Oh, Ms. Bryant! I’m so sorry.” Becca continued to apologize while Kathleen laughed off the collision.

  Nikki noticed that the journalist’s face was white. Her hands trembled. “Becca, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

  Becca’s voice trembled when she said, “Wyatt got a call this morning from Bob Wheeler’s attorney.”

  “He’s threatening to sue,” Nikki said with a roll of her eyes. “Wyatt and I both approved your report ahead of the broadcast. Your facts are solid, and you have documentation to back them up. You have nothing to worry about. It all goes with the territory.”

  “I also got a threatening phone call from a man,” Becca said. “He said that I couldn’t just go around ruining people’s lives without paying for it. Ashleigh Addison got off easy compared to what he’s going to do to me.”

  “You need to report that to the police,” Nikki said. “Did you tell Wyatt about that call?”

  “I only just got it a little bit ago.”

  “Did the call come into the studio or your personal cell phone?” Kathleen asked.

  “My cell,” Becca said. “I have the number listed on the station’s website so that I can get tips for stories.”

  “If the call was made from a disposable phone, no one will be able to trace it,” Nikki said. “Still, you need to report the threat to the police. Call Sheriff Tanya Williams. That threat indicates that Ashleigh could have been murdered to kill your board of education story.”

  “No!” Becca’s outburst was so sharp that Nikki and Kathleen were taken aback. “Ashleigh had nothing to do with my story. Why would they kill her?”

  “Maybe Bob Wheeler got wind of an investigation and when he heard about Ashleigh’s announcement, he assumed she was the one digging into his corruption.”

  “Bob Wheeler’s wife was at the party,” Kathleen said. “She could have told him.”

  “His wife?” Becca asked. “She was at your party the other night?”

  “Greta Wheeler. She is the chair of the arts council, among other non-profits in the area. Very influential woman. Also, very proud.”

  “I’m sure she’s going to spend the next several days laying low from this scandal,” Nikki said.

  “Not really,” Kathleen said. “Greta is not the type to lay low. She is more of the full-frontal assault type.”

  “Which is basically how Ashleigh was killed.” Nikki turned to the young journalist. “You need to call Sheriff Williams right away to let her know about this threat. Since Greta was at the party, that makes her a suspect in Ashleigh’s murder.”

  Her eyes wide and her face pale, Becca nodded her head.

  “Poor girl,” Kathleen murmured as they stepped onto the elevator. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “She’s tough,” Nikki said. “She reminds me of me when I first started out.”

  The accounting department was at the opposite end of the building from the executive offices.

  When the elevator doors opened, Nikki turned right to go to the accounting office only to notice Kathleen heading in the opposite direction.

  “I need to pick up my travel manicure kit,” she said while greeting her former staff employees with waves of her hand and nods of her head. “You’re certainly not going to use it. I can take it on the train.” She threw open the office door and swept inside.

  Smelling a squeaky toy that had tumbled out of his basket and rolled under a chair, Elmo attempted to belly under the furniture to retrieve it.

  Nikki waited at the door while her mother trotted across the spacious office to the desk in the corner. “You’ve changed everything.”

  “Didn’t Harrison do a fabulous job?”

  Nikki flicked her eyes around the room in silence.

  Kathleen opened the side drawer of the desk and took our a small pink manicure kit. “You’re not upset about us redecorating, are you?”

  “This was always his office,” Nikki said in a soft voice.

  “Then, it became my office, and I didn’t touch a thing for five years.” Kathleen walked toward her. “Two years after marrying Harrison, I still didn’t touch a thing.” She clasped her shoulders. “This was Ross’s office and knowing how OCD he was about his stuff—everything has a place, and everything must be in its place—I left everything as it was. But you know what, Nikki? I was miserable when I came in here. I felt like I was living with a ghost.”

  Everything has a place, and everything must be in its place. Nikki’s gaze fell on the wall where her father had kept the entertainment center.

  Kathleen released her grasp and dropped the manicure kit into her purse. “I decided to choose to be happy…” Her voice droned on as Nikki recalled the series of crime scene pictures that Ryan had shared with her.

  They were gruesome. Raw. But there was one that nagged her. It was of the entertainment center. He and Wyatt had been reviewing videos on the television and DVD player. When the meeting was over, Ross returned to working on the fall schedule. Wyatt took the videos and closed the door.

  “Your father would have agreed that it was time for me to move on and to make this space mine. Now, it is your space and you are free to do with it as you wish,” Kathleen declared with a wave of her hand.

  “The doors to the entertainment center were open!”

  Kathleen started when Nikki ran across the room to the mural on the wall. “Excuse me, dear.”

  “Everything has a place, and everything must be in its place. Dad lived by those words, right?”

  “It would drive me crazy. That’s one of the things I love about Harrison. He’s orderly but he does not go overboard.” />
  Nikki spun around. “I’m talking about Dad, Mom!”

  Her voice was so sharp that Elmo’s mouth dropped open. The toy he had finally retrieved bounced and rolled under the desk.

  “Would he have been able to work behind his desk for over an hour with the doors to the entertainment center left open?”

  “That would have driven him mad,” Kathleen said. “If he wasn’t using it, he would have closed the doors with the remotes neatly placed next to each component.”

  “Well, Ryan showed me pictures from the crime scene and the doors to the entertainment center were sitting wide open.” Nikki gestured with her arms to indicate the doors opened along the wall that had previously been home to bookshelves and a television.

  Kathleen’s mouth hung open. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Everyone tried to spare us. The thing is, us knowing Dad the way we did, we could have solved this case years ago.”

  “The only way your father would have left those doors hanging open was if he couldn’t have closed them.” Kathleen’s fingers trembled as she clutched Nikki’s hand.

  “He was already dead when Wyatt left the meeting.”

  “But why?”

  “We’ll figure that out, Mom.”

  Kathleen’s eyes blazed. “And to think I promoted him to general manager because I trusted him to help me run the station. He was supposed to be your father’s friend.”

  Gesturing for Elmo to follow, Nikki led her mother by the hand from the office. “We need evidence to prove it, Mom. A jury isn’t going to just take our word for it. We need to get to accounting and get the phone records from back then. Let’s hope it hasn’t been so long that they’ve been destroyed.”

  Together, they hurried past the elevators and turned down the hallway to take them to the accounting department. As they turned the corner, the glass doors to the accounting department opened and Wyatt Altman stepped out.

  Nikki and Kathleen stopped in unison.

  With a broad grin, Wyatt held the door open for them to pass through. “Hello, ladies. I heard you were spending the day running errands in preparation for the big trip across the Rockies.”

  “Mom, be cool,” Nikki murmured. “We need the element of surprise.”

  “But I want to kill him.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll put you in jail and Harrison won’t get the deposit back on the train trip.”

  Hand in hand, they approached him. “Mom wanted to check on a reimbursement she had put in,” Nikki said. “She wanted it taken care of it before her trip.”

  “Well, if you need someone to lean on the accounting manager, just give me a call,” Wyatt said as they passed him.

  Nikki saw a toothy grin fill Kathleen’s face. She recognized the expression. As a child, she had seen it more than once. Being the wife of a prominent business owner was a position of prestige. Nikki discovered that it was not unlike being the wife of a politician. Kathleen’s job was to work on boards for charities—make friends and influence people—all in the name of helping her husband to succeed.

  It took years for Nikki to realize that her mother had two smiles. The genuine one for her loved ones in times of pleasure, and the grin that concealed the inner muzzling of her feelings.

  That smile also covered up an impending attack in the form of her foot shooting out to hook the ankle of her husband’s killer as she strolled by. With the help of an elbow between his shoulder blades, Wyatt tumbled face first into the wall. His forehead hit the wall with such force that it dented the drywall. He slid to the floor in a stunned state.

  “Mom! What did you do?” Nikki joined the stampede of employees rushing to check on the fallen man.

  “Oh, dear.” Kathleen covered her mouth with her hands. “I tripped. Clumsy me.”

  His tail between his legs, Elmo hid behind Kathleen.

  A bump began forming on Wyatt’s forehead.

  “Should I call emergency?” a clerk asked. “He could have a concussion.”

  “No!” With effort, Wyatt climbed to his feet. “I just had the wind knocked out of me.”

  “You should be more careful, Wyatt,” Kathleen said in a cold tone. “You never can tell when something might trip you up.”

  Wyatt’s gray eyebrows furrowed with confusion.

  “That’s enough, Mother.” Nikki ushered Kathleen into the accounting department. “Why didn’t you just tell him straight out that we know?”

  “Because you told me not to say anything,” Kathleen said as Nikki yanked her into the office designated for accounts payable.

  Eric, the clerk in charge of the department, pulled himself up from his chair to meet the two women at the counter.

  In his forties, Eric was a slender man clad in an ill-fitting suit and a bow tie. His thin hair was slicked back. He wore dark framed cat-eye eyeglasses. Nikki noticed a manual typewriter and a thick hardback book next to it on the credenza behind his desk. Truly, he looked as if he had stepped out of the Victorian age.

  “Ms. Bryant, nice to see you again. You haven’t been gone very long. Miss us much?”

  “Oh, much, Eric,” Kathleen said. “I’m just showing Nikki around a bit. We have a great favor to ask of you.”

  “Ask away.”

  “We’d like a copy of the station’s phone bill, specifically the listing of calls made in April, twenty-three years ago,” Nikki explained.

  Eric’s thick eyebrows furrowed. “Whatever for?”

  “I want to see what outgoing calls were made from the station owner’s phone,” Nikki said.

  “Is that a problem, Eric?” Kathleen asked in a firm voice.

  “Those records would be stored in the archives down in the basement. I don’t know how long it will take for me to go down to find them.”

  Nikki pointed at the book on his desk. “I see you like Edgar Poole.”

  A grin crossed his face. “Oh, he’s just marvelous.”

  “I’ve met him,” Nikki said. “I’d interviewed him when his debut novel was released—before he was famous.”

  “Before The Hands of Time!”

  “I have an autographed copy of it,” Nikki said. “Signed first edition.”

  Eric’s eyes were wide with awe.

  “It’s yours if you can get that phone bill to me before close of business today.”

  “How did you know Eric was a steampunk fan?” Kathleen asked as they sat at a picnic table in the courtyard to enjoy yogurt and fruit.

  Nikki answered between spoonfuls of yogurt. “The antique manual typewriter that didn’t appear to be for show. No sign of a cell phone on his desk. And the thick hardback, not paperback, on the credenza. He’s pretty young to be an out-of-touch senior citizen. He’s a no tech steampunk. Since he clearly likes books, I took a guess that he is a fan of the biggest steampunk novelist around.”

  “That’s my girl.” Kathleen leaned over to pat her hand. “You get it from your father. I was never that observant.”

  “Kathleen!” Meredith Norris’s voice sang across the courtyard. Freshly finished with her show, the television host sashayed across the courtyard and gave Kathleen a hug. “I was hoping to give you a proper farewell before your trip.” She told Nikki, “I couldn’t make the retirement party because it was my in-law’s seventieth wedding anniversary. You know how that is. Speaking of anniversaries—” She took a seat next to Kathleen. “—I suddenly realized that you and Harrison were going to be railing across the Canadian Rockies during the height of the leaf-peeper season, which happens to be when my little sis’s tenth anniversary falls. The B&B will still be open, won’t it? We’re so looking forward to Trudy’s world-famous breakfasts.”

  Even though she was talking to Kathleen, Meredith turned to Nikki and batted her eyes while flashing her a broad toothy grin.


  “The B&B will be open, and Karen and Drake’s standing reservations for the Queen’s Suite is set and confirmed,” Kathleen said.

  “Oh, goody.” Meredith clapped her hands. “My mouth is watering just thinking about Trudy’s apple French toast.”

  “And I’m sure you’re also looking forward to seeing your baby sister,” Kathleen said with a soft grin.

  “That, too.” Meredith took her phone from her purse and brought up her calendar. “We need to book Trudy for a cooking segment on Noon with Meredith. I’m making a note to call her ASAP.”

  “We do that every season,” Kathleen told Nikki. “Trudy prepares one of her seasonal recipes on Meredith’s show. It’s great advertising for the B&B.”

  “What’s the point of owning a television station if you can’t use it for free advertising?” Meredith set the reminder to call Trudy on her phone.

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” Nikki said. “Yesterday, I told Mom the story behind your fight with Suzanne at Sam Hill’s retirement party.”

  Meredith covered her face. “Oh, my! I wish you hadn’t told her that. Talk about your most embarrassing moment. I should have just walked away, but it was such a big deal back then. I mean, I was simply parked in my parking space—I wasn’t even there, and Suzanne rammed backwards into my car, and then she refused to take responsibility for it. It made me so mad—especially since I was going to have to submit it to my insurance and I couldn’t afford that back then.”

  “But Wyatt took care of it,” Nikki said. “Which sent Suzanne through the roof.”

  “She didn’t have any problem getting her car fixed,” Meredith said. “A few days after our fight, her car was as good as new.”

  “After Sam Hill’s retirement party?” Nikki asked.

  Meredith nodded her head. “The very next week.” She snapped her fingers. “It was before your dad was killed. I remember because he was there when I was pitching a fit about it. I had come in that morning and it like slapped me in the face. I saw her car there and her bumper was fixed. Meanwhile, my fender was still dented. I was cussing up a blue streak when Ross—your dad—came walking by and asked what was wrong. I pointed to the bumper of Suzanne’s car and told him that she could see fit to fix her own car but didn’t care squat about mine.”