Two Sleuths Are Better Than One

by Elizabeth Ashby

  "So the wives are both obvious suspects," I said. "On the other hand, Eileen may have an alibi. When I saw Eileen earlier at the market, she told me she was out of town when her husband died."

  "Georgia has essentially the same alibi. That she wasn't in Danger Cove when her husband died but was at home in Seattle."

  "I assume the detectives are working on confirming their whereabouts," I said. "I'm worried, though, that they're approaching the cases as if they're unconnected, so they may be missing the big picture."

  "But what motive would apply to both men?" Keely asked. "They'd have to have something more in common than simply knowing each other."

  "Merle's already looking into that." I glanced back at the bar, where it looked like the men were almost done getting our drinks. "There's another possibility though. Maybe it's not the victims who had a connection that got them killed but it's the wives working together. It could be a Throw Momma from the Train situation, and they each killed the other's spouse. Then it wouldn't matter if they had an alibi for their own spouse's death. They'd need to also have one for the time of the other person's husband's death. And that would tie the two cases together."

  "The two women did know each other," Keely said, nodding thoughtfully. "At least in passing. I talked to Georgia this afternoon, and she mentioned something about how busy Eileen is. Georgia said that was why she didn't join her husband for the visit, that it would be too much of an imposition."

  "That could have just been an excuse. If the two women had already worked out the timetable for the murders, then Georgia stayed home specifically to establish an alibi for when Elaine was killing him."

  "It's worth considering," Keely said. "But it's just as likely that Georgia didn't particularly care for Eileen, at least not enough to skip her kids' planned activities."

  "It's never easy, is it?" I said, idly picking up a menu, although I usually ordered whatever the seafood special was. "Just once, it would be nice if the guilty person were caught in the act. Or before the act."

  "Don't give up your theory yet," Keely said. "We just need more evidence. I can tell you that Georgia didn't seem terribly shaken up by her husband's death. She was incredibly serene, like nothing bad had ever happened in her entire life. I can't imagine being that relaxed if someone I cared about had just died unexpectedly, even if it wasn't murder."

  "Eileen's reaction to the situation was odd too," I said. "She didn't seem sad at all. It was more anger, as if someone had killed her husband just to make her own life more complicated."

  "So until we know for sure that they have alibis for both times of death, they're credible suspects," Keely said.

  "Unfortunately, we'll have to leave the alibi-checking to the police."

  "I hate not being in control of a situation, but even if Ohlsen might cut me some slack, I know Marshall won't."

  "And Merle will throw legal jargon at me if I even think about doing something that overlaps with the official investigation." I checked the men's progress at the bar again. They'd picked up the drinks and started in our direction, but they'd been stopped by a middle-aged woman asking Matt to pose for a selfie with her. I turned back to Keely and nodded over my shoulder in their direction. "Does that happen all the time when you go out?"

  Keely looked past me and then shrugged. "Must be someone from out of town. I don't recognize her, and the locals generally don't notice he's a celebrity any longer."

  "I wonder if the same thing happened with Coach Andy," I said. "He was a celebrity too. When I was looking for a judge who'd entice people to come to the salsa contest, everyone said he'd be good since he was such a popular high school coach. It wasn't until after I invited him that I even heard about his pro career. I wonder if he ever missed being a big fish in a big pond, instead of just a little pond."

  Matt and Merle joined us then, carrying glasses and four bottles of Pear Stirpes perry.

  "You two look like you're planning something," Merle said, settling beside me while Matt went over to sit next to Keely.

  "Just talking," I said.

  "And brainstorming," Keely said. "We've been wondering if there's any chance that Andy's and Gabe's deaths are related. It's a long shot but worth considering, and because there are separate detectives assigned, they might miss the links between the two cases."

  The men groaned in unison.

  "Ignore them," Keely said. "We both have completely legitimate interests in wanting to be sure the two murders get resolved quickly. I need to keep the quilting guild from doing anything rash, and you need to protect the market's reputation. If we're going to get involved, we might as well have a plan to go about it sensibly."

  "I love plans," I agreed, although I'd never thought to map one out for a murder investigation. Maybe that was why I'd ended up in danger before.

  "We need to start by listing all the possible suspects for each case," Keely said. "If you'll find out who might have wanted Coach Andy dead, and whether that included his wife, I'll keep looking into who wanted Gabe dead. We can update each other whenever we have useful information for either murder."

  "That sounds good," I agreed, even though it was unsettling to be the person being told what to do instead of giving all the orders myself. My siblings would have been amused by the situation and my discomfort with following someone else's lead. I had to tamp down the urge to adjust the plan, but I could also see that Keely was right. We needed to find some credible suspects, especially ones who had links to both victims, if we wanted the police to take us seriously about a possible connection between the murders.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Keely Fairchild

  Despite the grim reason for why we'd arranged to have dinner with Maria and Merle, we had a pleasant evening after we'd agreed on the plan for dividing up the investigations and conversation turned to happier topics. The two men seemed to get along well, and they even made plans to watch some old videos from Coach Andy's professional career, purportedly in an effort to support our investigation, but I suspected it was mostly an excuse to hang out and drink more of Merle's perry.

  As Matt drove us home—the cabin this time, not the renovated bank building—he asked, "What do you think of Maria?"

  "I like her," I said. "But it's strange to be working with someone else on a murder investigation."

  "Hey, I helped you before."

  "I know, and I appreciate it." Matt had definitely helped me in the past but in a clearly subordinate position. I'd been the one leading the investigation, and he'd just been doing some research. It reminded me of when I'd been a trial lawyer and I'd delegated some work to a private investigator. I still controlled exactly what they were working on and made sure it was done right. I had always been aware that if anyone made a mistake, it would be my client, not me, who'd suffer the most. Of course, being that much of a control freak had probably contributed to my developing stress-related syncope.

  "Working with Maria is different somehow."

  "You mean because you don't have the hots for her."

  I laughed. "That may be part of it, although I wasn't interested in you when we met at Tremain's shop."

  "I don't know about that," Matt said. "I saw you eying my pants."

  "I was counting the number of pockets," I told him. "I'd never seen quite so many on a single pair of pants."

  "You're just jealous," he said. "You don't have any pockets."

  "I've got my messenger bag."

  "And it's very pretty," he said. "But it's not as good as pockets."

  "You may be right." I changed the topic as we pulled into his driveway. "So, what's next for your stove hunting?"

  "I can show you."

  Matt ushered me inside the cabin and over to the kitchen table where he'd laid out information on the appliances he'd been considering. This was one project I was more than happy to delegate. I'd have been happy with the cheapest, most basic model that had a reasonably good rating, but he needed a grill and all sorts of specifications and gadgets
I'd never have thought of and wouldn't know how to use. He showed me flyers with all the high-tech options, some of which I'd originally thought were things that Matt had made up, but they did exist. The problem was that no manufacturer included all of the options he wanted in a single model.

  Around the time he suggested having a custom stove built, I decided it was bedtime.

  The next morning, I left Matt to his appliance hunting and concentrated on my part of the investigation into the two recent murders. Who would know about Gabe's enemies? The only people I could think of locally were Dee and Emma and any other quilters who'd attended the meeting the previous week when Gabe had been the guest speaker. I'd start with them before I looked into a trip to Seattle to meet with his associates there. The quilters might also have a picture of the missing Shoo-Fly quilt that I could give Detective Ohlsen when I told him it might be a motive for Gabe's murder or at least for a breakin that then led to the murder.

  I called Emma, thinking that as the person in charge of making all the arrangements for the guild's guest speakers, she would know more details about Gabe than anyone else would. She answered after several rings, apologizing that she couldn't talk right then because she was at the market setting up an impromptu quilting bee. In the background, Dee shouted, "If people are going to come out in droves to see the spot where someone got killed, they can pay for their rubbernecking by buying our raffle tickets."

  Emma shushed her friend and then spoke into the phone. "We'll be here today until the farmers' market closes if you want to talk."

  "I'll be there as soon as I can get a ride."

  Matt never minded chauffeuring me around town, but I didn't want to give him yet another excuse to avoid making a final decision on the stove. I used an app to call for a ride and then went into the kitchen to let Matt know I was leaving.

  He looked up from his laptop, which had several tabs open to various appliance dealers, just long enough to give me a quick kiss and remind me, "No finding dead bodies without me."

  "I'll try," I said, but he'd already turned back to his laptop. With a little luck—okay, a lot of luck—I might come home to news that we finally had a stove on its way. Or at least under construction from a custom builder.

  Scott Ingell picked me up a few minutes later in his SUV. I knew he worked for the market on Saturdays, delivering produce, but there wasn't so much as a bit of wilted greens or even a seed to suggest it had been a grocery store on wheels less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  "How's business?" I asked him from the back seat. "I sometimes think I'm the only person in town over the age of sixteen who doesn't drive."

  "Lots of reasons to need a ride even if you do have a car," Scott said with a glance in the rearview mirror. "The market's been a particularly good source of business for me this summer after some tough times over the winter. It's not just the deliveries I'm profiting from either. Lots of people want a ride home from the market after they buy more than they'd expected and don't want to lug it onto the trolley or on the back of their bicycle. Beyond that, Danger Cove gets a good number of tourists in the summer, and even if they get here by car, some of them like having a local driver so they can ask about places that only the locals know about."

  I couldn't think of anywhere of interest that wasn't already in the town's tourist materials. "Where do you send them?"

  He laughed. "The places they'd find on the tourist map, of course. The lighthouse, the museum, Smugglers' Tavern, Cinnamon Sugar Bakery. That sort of thing. I just tell them they have to keep the places a secret."

  "Which, of course, guarantees that they'll tell everyone."

  "Exactly," Scott said. "More tourists, more business for me."

  "There was a tourist here about a week ago from Seattle, name of Gabe Portillo, and he didn't drive. I wonder how he got around. Did you happen to give him a ride?"

  "Sounds familiar, but there are two other full-time drivers in Danger Cove, so I don't get all the business." He turned onto Cliffside Drive. "Oh, wait, I do know the name. Not from driving him, but isn't he the guy who was murdered? The first one, I mean, not the one yesterday."

  "Yes," I said. "He came down from Seattle a week ago Friday, I believe."

  "Probably walked around town then," Scott said. "The weather's been nice enough. Cuts into my business. Nothing like a cold or rainy day for me to have a lot of passengers."

  "It has been particularly nice recently," I said. "But Gabe was staying a good distance from the center of town at Andy Zielinski's guest cottage."

  "Coach Andy?" he asked. "Now that was one nice guy."

  It was Maria's job to figure out who might have wanted the coach dead, not mine, but since Scott didn't know my victim and apparently did know hers, maybe I could help Maria out a bit.

  "I never knew Andy," I said. "Was he as much of a saint as everyone says?"

  "Oh, yes," Scott said. "He hired me regularly to ferry some of his players home from practices when their parents couldn't pick them up. The team all adored him. Losing Coach is going to be hard on them."

  "Was there anyone who wasn't a member of his fan club?"

  "Not around here." Scott signaled for the right turn into the lighthouse's parking lot. "Oh, wait. There was one guy. At a play-off game. I don't know his name, but he was drunk and made a scene on the sideline, criticizing Andy's coaching. Mayor Kallakala would know who it was. He escorted the guy out of the stadium."

  The mayor knew everyone, I thought, and better yet, he remembered all their names. It was a long shot—who would kill over a drunken episode?—but it wouldn't hurt for Maria to talk to the mayor and see if he remembered the incident. I sent a quick text to her while Scott pulled the SUV to a stop near the beginning of the Memorial Walkway.

  Scott turned to look at me over the front seat. "If you want to give me your phone number, Keely, I'll text you if I think of anyone else who might have wanted Andy dead. Least I can do, after all the business he's given me, especially right when I started out as a driver."

  "Thanks," I said. "You could just tell Maria Dolores instead. She's more interested in Coach Andy's case than I am, and you must have her number."

  "I do."

  I got out and headed for the Memorial Walkway. Behind me, I heard someone call Scott's name and ask him if he was free to take her home. I couldn't help turning to see what she was carrying. Sure enough, she was burdened down with a large tie-dyed WoodWell bag in one hand and at least three smaller canvas bags with some greenery sticking out of the tops in the other hand.

  *

  Emma had successfully overseen the setup of a quilt frame a short distance up the Memorial Walkway from the parking lot, a spot everyone would have to pass on the way to either the main market setup or the salsa contest over in front of the historical garden. A volunteer whose name I didn't know was approaching anyone who came near, hawking raffle tickets. When she started her spiel for me, I explained I'd already bought several and pretended not to hear her attempt to convince me I needed more.

  Dee, a tiny and frail eighty-something in a pale blue blouse and matching tailored pants, was ensconced at the head of the frame, while her younger and sturdier best friend, Emma, dressed in more casual jeans and a T-shirt printed with the Danger Cove Quilting Guild's logo, remained standing, walking around the frame to check on the work. She leaned down occasionally to talk to one of the women or the lone man helping stitch the layers of the quilt together. They didn't actually seem to need Emma's oversight, so I didn't feel bad about interrupting.

  Dee and Emma had never gotten around to explaining why they'd been worried that the guild might get dragged into the investigation if it was left in Marshall's hands. When they'd first asked me to get involved, all I'd needed to hear was that Dee thought I was their last hope before they took action themselves. Their interventions never worked out well for anyone.

  Emma caught sight of me and hurried over to ask, "Well? Did you figure out who killed Gabe?"

  "Not yet."


  "Did you at least get to talk to Coach Andy before he died?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Dee thinks he might have known something about Gabe's killer, and that's why he was killed."

  "Andy's death does open up some new possibilities, but it also complicates matters with two lead investigators," I said. "I've got to be careful, or I'll have both Lester Marshall and Bud Ohlsen threatening to throw me in jail for interfering with their investigations."

  Emma paled a little, probably thinking about her own brief and wrongful stint in police custody. She didn't let it faze her though. She took a centering breath and then said, "There still must be something you can do, without getting into trouble."

  "I haven't given up," I assured her. "But I'd been depending on questioning Coach Andy about his guest to get some leads on suspects. His widow might have some information, but it's not a good time to interview her right now, so I need to find someone else who knew Gabe and would know who his enemies were. Do you and Dee have any theories?"

  Emma glanced over her shoulder to where Dee was occupied, doing what she loved most, demonstrating hand quilting to a possible new recruit standing beside her and looking over her shoulder. Apparently satisfied that we wouldn't be overheard, Emma said, "Someone's bound to mention that Dee hates the way Gabe treated quilts solely as investments, no different from a bar of gold, to be locked away in a vault and not seen or used by anyone. But she hates a lot of people for that reason, and she's never tried to kill any of them."

  "Don't worry," I said. "I don't consider Dee or you top-tier suspects. Neither of you drives when it's dark out, so if you'd confronted Gabe, it would have been during daylight and you'd probably have brought half the guild as witnesses. I'm mostly wondering if there's anyone else in the guild who might have wanted Andy dead for some reason."

  Emma looked down at her sneakers-clad feet and seemed to be considering whether she should say anything or not. That wasn't like her. She never dithered.