by Dana Mentink
Bigley raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re a paralegal now, too?”
“Unofficially,” Stan and Trinidad said at the same time.
Bigley chuckled and then her smile vanished. “Believe me, this brings me no pleasure. You’ll see it in the file soon enough, and we’ll discuss it at pre-trial. Juliette admits that Kevin Heartly came to see her Wednesday morning around nine at her place of business to apologize for an argument they’d had because she’d gotten wind he was dating Tanya Grant. She became angry and told him to leave, by her own admission.”
Trinidad thought about the popcorn bit she’d found stuck to her shoe. Angry enough to hurl his popcorn offering in his face.
“All right,” Stan said. “So, Mr. Heartly was in fine fettle when he left Juliette’s at nine a.m.”
“He picked up Tanya for a ride and returned her about noon, which is when you spoke to him, Miss Jones. Correct?”
Trinidad nodded. “Yes. He went into his shop and slammed the door. I drove to Logan’s Nut Farm and returned several hours later. I took the nuts over to Kevin’s about 3:30. Warren drove up, and I entered the Popcorn Palace and…found him.”
She nodded. “Yes. We checked all that out.”
Trinidad swallowed. The chief had been looking at her as a suspect too, of course.
“There was a threatening message on Mr. Heartly’s recovered cell phone recorded on Tuesday night. Juliette admits to leaving it.”
“The phone call, the message, that’s all circumstantial,” Trinidad surprised herself by saying. It seemed to surprise Stan as well.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” he agreed. “But the chief is good at her job, so I will wager there is more coming.”
Bigley cocked her head, considering. “I could tell you to wait for the report, but, like I said, I take no joy in this. The wooden paddle found at the crime scene…”
Trinidad pictured that enormous stirring paddle, the one she’d found on the floor, smeared with Kevin’s blood.
“The supposed murder weapon,” Stan prompted.
“The soon-to-be proven murder weapon, says the coroner who extracted splinters of it out of Kevin Heartly’s cranium. He’ll make it official when he concludes. I promised him I’d share my secret trout fishing spot if he gave me his thoughts early.” She shrugged. “The benefit of small-town connections.”
Trinidad’s lungs squeezed tight. She could almost feel the grenade about to explode right there.
Bigley continued. “Kevin was kind of protective about that paddle. He never let anyone else touch it. There were only two sets of fingerprints on it: Kevin’s,” she paused, “and Juliette’s.”
Her heart fell. Juliette’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon?
The chief got up. “So you can see, we had plenty to make an arrest. That’s all I can say right now. The remainder will be in the report.”
Trinidad shot to her feet. “Is she okay?”
Bigley shrugged. “No better or worse than any other resident of county jail. If she puts you on her visitor list, you can go see for yourself.”
Trinidad could only imagine how terrified Juliette must be. She clutched her notepad and pencil to still the trembling in her fingers.
Stan, on the contrary, seemed perfectly in control, as if they were chatting about the upcoming Fourth of July festivities in Upper Sprocket. “Thank you for your time and cooperation, Chief Bigley. We are so very appreciative. By the way, do you happen to have a time of death worked out?”
“The coroner will issue his findings, of course, but he had to have been killed between the time Trinidad greeted him and Tanya and the time she returned to find his body. Juliette says she was at work during that whole window, but there’s no one to corroborate that since Vince Jr. left to deliver pizzas.”
No alibi. Fingerprints. The walls seemed to move a few feet closer, within smothering distance.
“I understand and appreciate the information, Chief Bigley. Thank you again. I will need to talk with my client.”
“You know where to find her.” The chief shrugged noncommittally, but Trinidad caught the gleam of something very much like satisfaction. Was she pleased to have made such a quick arrest? Or was it a touch of pleasure at having arrested the woman who had vociferously renounced her baby brother? Tit for tat.
“I take no pleasure in this…” Or did she?
The chief excused herself. Stan walked Trinidad to the door. She shivered in spite of the heat building. “What’s going to happen now?”
“I will read through the file when it’s released to me and see what else I can find out.”
“She didn’t do it, Stan.”
He gently squeezed her wrist. “Then we will use all the legal means at our disposal to make sure she’s released.”
“Do you think you can defend her?”
“If I can’t, I will advise her to hire a lawyer who can do better.” He walked with her through the rose-scented courtyard, which still preserved some of the morning cool.
“In the meantime, we will stay quiet about what’s gone on here, and I’ll let you know if there is anything specific you can do to help. Quinn also.”
Trinidad mulled it all over as she slung Vince’s textbook under her arm and walked back along the sidewalk. Thoughts gurgled through her like ice cream in a milkshake machine. Snippets of Juliette’s angry phone threat, her lack of alibi…
Gritting her teeth, she strode along. Up and down Main Street, preparations were being made for the upcoming Fourth of July extravaganza. The owner of Bait and Tackle Too was unfurling some red, white, and blue bunting to hang under the canvas awning. On the empty lot at the corner, three young men were constructing a fireworks booth, advertising explosive fun of the safe and sane variety. She harbored doubts. Lighting something on fire and shooting it over the dry grassy hills around Upper Sprocket did not sound safe or sane.
Pizza Heaven, a neat, stuccoed building with an enormous painting of a pizza slice on the front was not yet open. When she bent down to leave Vince’s textbook on a bench by the front step, a flush-cheeked, round woman tugged open the door.
“Good morning,” Trinidad said.
“Back atcha. I’m Virginia. My husband Vince and I run this cozy nest.”
“I’m Trinidad. I know your son, Vince Jr. He left his book, so I thought I could return it here for him.”
“That’s my youngest, all right,” she beamed. “He does deliveries for us when he isn’t in school or working at the storage place.”
“Which is practically never,” boomed a voice from inside.
Virginia offered a rueful smile and patted her bun of silver-streaked black hair. “That is Vince Sr. We have another son, Vance. He’s in medical school.”
Trinidad smiled. “All V names?”
“Yes, that way we won’t forget our names when we’re old.”
“We’re already old,” the voice shouted from the back.
She lowered her voice. “Vince Sr. is cranky today. His doctor told him to go on a diet, and he’s been off carbs for approximately fifteen minutes and change. You’d think he was being shot with arrows.”
“I need these boxes folded. Where is that kid of ours?” Vince Sr. thundered.
Virginia rolled her eyes. “Vince had some studying to do, as I already explained to my husband.” She hesitated. “Or he might be putting in more hours at the Store Some More. He is convinced that Juliette Carpenter is innocent as the sunrise.”
“And you aren’t?”
Virginia hesitated. “My son is always wanting to defend the underdog, whether they deserve it or not. I think she may not be completely innocent, but Kevin probably had other enemies.”
“Ginny,” Vince Sr. hollered from the kitchen. “Where’s the new box of sausage? I’m in the freezer, and I’m getting frostbite on my…”
Trinidad knew exactly what it felt like to fail to meet a parent’s expectations. Her mother Claudia was lovely, a Miss Chicago in her youth, a genteel hostess and jewelry designer. Unfortunately, her daughter had arrived resembling her stocky, shuffling father. It must be true that opposites really did attract, because her plumber father Manny was more at home under the sink than anywhere else.
She remembered her mother’s advice, delivered in those precise, musical tones.
“Can’t you clip your hair back, Trinidad? Stand up straight. Put on something with a waist. It’s like you’re trying to wear a disguise.”
Trinidad’s puff of hair, her short arms and legs, the chin that was somehow too wide, too square, left her far short of her mother’s beauty. Maybe she was trying to wear a disguise, something to make her invisible, since she could not make herself beautiful. When she’d announced her intention to become a court stenographer, her mother’s expression had gone from troubled to optimistic.
“Ah. I see. Lots of eligible men in the courtroom; just steer clear of the criminals.”
The irony was, she’d met and fallen for one of those eligible men while he was there giving a statement, and he’d turned out to be a criminal, and an unfaithful spouse to boot.
“Terrible what happened to Kevin.” The comment snapped Trinidad back to the present.
Trinidad nodded. “You said you thought he might have other enemies. Why would you say that?”
She flushed. “Oh, I shouldn’t talk out of school.”
Trinidad stayed quiet, a sure way to get someone to start talking, she’d heard a cop say.
Virginia lowered her voice. “Anyone who loves gambling, you know…”
“Gambling?”
“Yes. Kevin would get together with his friend, and they’d play online poker. I only know because he said as much when he picked up pizzas for him and his friend, double thick crust, one combination and one pineapple, sausage, and onion. It wasn’t just a one-time thing, either. They ordered poker pizzas at least three times a month. What do you think happens to people when they gamble? Sooner or later they lose, and they have to pay the piper.”
A noise from the back made Virginia roll her eyes again. “I have to go. Nice to meet you.”
Trinidad handed over the textbook.
“Vince will be appreciative. Thank you on his behalf.”
“No problem.” Before the door closed fully, Trinidad stopped it. “Virginia, you said Kevin used to gamble with a friend. Someone local?”
Virginia sniffed. “As local as they come. Warren Wheaton, Mr. Pineapple and Sausage himself.”
Trinidad was left alone in a waft of garlic-scented air.
So, Warren was a good buddy of Kevin’s, a gambling buddy at that. Funny how he’d neglected to mention that when he’d been waiting with her while the police examined the body. He certainly hadn’t looked too devastated to find out his friend had been murdered.
She took a frontage road that paralleled a sleepy residential area on one side and a stretch of apple orchard on the other. The scent of fruit drifted through her open window. Three blocks further she passed a house that had to be Juliette’s since it was buzzing with police activity. Two police officers carried a computer monitor and a laptop out her front door. A cluster of people were gathered there including Warren, Vince Jr., and a whip-thin woman with a chop of silver hair.
She braked to a stop, parked and hopped out.
Warren noticed her immediately. “Terrible, isn’t it?”
“News travels fast,” the woman with him said. Her black T-shirt was fringed at the edges, black beads added for flair.
“This is Cora Fieri,” Warren said. “She’s the theater manager in town.”
“Welcome to Sprocket,” she said dryly. “It’s a nice town, murders aside. Never would have thought Juliette would be accused.”
“She didn’t do it,” Vince said stoutly.
Warren stroked his lower lip. “The police are all over her place, though. They must think they’re gonna uncover something incriminating.”
“How did everyone find out so quickly?” Trinidad said.
Cora snorted. “This is the biggest news since the laundromat caught on fire. Folks in this town are gonna notice in a hot minute.”
“Do you both live around here?”
He pointed to a narrow house on a small lot, rich with a range of flowering plants. “Right there. It was built in the seventies. It’s got the mustard carpet and avocado-green phone to prove it.”
“He’s not lying,” Cora said. “I live in the townhome right behind him, and he resists my every effort to help him bring his decor into the next millennium.”
“Not everything has to be painted, stenciled, or repurposed, Cora,” he said.
“I could revamp that old bookshelf you got in a heartbeat. The paint’s on sale, too. I called to tell you.” She glared at him. “Why aren’t you answering your cell, anyway?”
He shrugged. “A man needs a break from his technology tether.”
“You lost it again, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Nah. Left it at the nursery over in Brighton. I’ll get it tomorrow after they open.”
Another police officer walked by with a box of what appeared to be papers. Cora’s gaze drifted over the taped yard before her attention snapped back to Trinidad. “Wagging tongues in town say you and Juliette are friends. Did she kill him?”
The bluntness of the question left Trinidad sputtering for a moment. “No,” she and Vince said at once.
“Certainly not,” Trinidad added for emphasis.
Vince’s cheeks went dark. “I mean, this is insane. Juliette had nothing to do with Kevin’s murder. He wasn’t worth her time to date, let alone kill.” His fuzzy upper lip quivered as though he might be about to cry. Warren clapped a hand on his back. “Keep steady, son. If the cops have enough evidence to arrest her…”
“Don’t say it, Warren,” Cora said severely.
He hiked up a shoulder. “My uncle Jerry was a cop, and he said he never did arrest anybody who didn’t deserve it.”
Cora sighed. “Your uncle Jerry lost his shirt betting on the ponies, like someone else I know.”
“Yeah, but he was a good cop, other than his gambling problem. Maybe Juliette had her reasons. Kevin was dallying around with her and Tanya at the same time, and, well, considering Juliette’s history with men…”
Trinidad went cold and then hot. She wanted to turn and walk away, but Juliette’s past was her past too, her reputation, her friend to defend. “Juliette and I married the wrong man,” she said. “That is not a crime.”
“Too true,” Cora chimed in.
Warren scratched at his eyebrow.
“Have the police asked you about your relationship with Kevin?” Trinidad said to him.
Warren jerked. “Me? We were pals, is all.”
She was still irate at his earlier comment. Time to put manners aside. “Weren’t you gambling buddies?”
His cheeks went rosy. “Man, you sure didn’t waste time shoveling up the town dirt. Yeah. We enjoyed some online gaming. That’s not a crime, and, if the chief asks me about it, I’m happy to fill her in, chapter and verse.”
Trinidad made a mental note to be sure the chief knew everything about another possible suspect. Warren had assumed his affable smile. “Got bigger crimes going on in this town besides some harmless gambling. Looks to be more of a love triangle thing to me.”
Vince shouldered his backpack. “Juliette wasn’t into Kevin anymore, anyway. She broke things off when she realized he was dating Tanya. I heard her. S
he said she wouldn’t go out with him anymore if he were the last man on the planet.”
“When did you hear her say that?” Trinidad pressed.
Vince shifted. “Tuesday night. I went by late to get my paycheck. She was talking on the phone, real angry. I figured she was talking to Kevin or maybe leaving him a voicemail.” He grinned. “Told him off good and proper for going to the lake with Tanya.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. Kevin showed up at the Store Some More with a peace offering the next morning that had infuriated Juliette, and then he likely called her cell while Trinidad was there.
Vince looked crestfallen. “I told the police that she broke up with him.” He sighed. “I thought it would clear her, but I don’t think it helped at all.”
“How long were you at the office the day Kevin was murdered?” Trinidad asked.
“Wednesday? Only until a few minutes after you left. Then I had to go help deliver pizzas.” He groaned. “If only I’d stayed, she might have had an alibi.”
“Easy son,” Warren said. “Don’t worry. It will all come out in the wash. I guess, though, you probably need to look for a new second job unless you can run the storage business while she’s in the clink.”
Vince colored. “I know some stuff. I can enter computer data and keep the place secure and all.”
But Warren wasn’t listening. He raised a brow at Cora. “Is there any work at the theater? Besides him advising on the props for the play, I mean?”
“We don’t need any more advice,” Cora snapped.
“Ah, let the kid use his smarts. He’s learned all that artsy stuff, right? Might as well find something to do with all that dusty, old info. For sure he’s never gonna pay the bills with it.”
Vince’s nostrils flared. “You sound like my father. Juliette is the only person around here who understands the significance of my field. For your information, the study of art history provides us with an awareness of economic, political, religious, and social history and the ability to think critically.”
“Right. Only thing that’s missing from that list is earning a paycheck.” He looked at Cora. “So, we got a job for the professor here or what?”