“Because she deserved to know. Because I thought the secret was already out and that her coming forward might save you a night in jail. Or more. I was just trying to help.”
He grunted as he took his first spoonful of soup, back to ignoring me. It hurt to have him angry at me, but I’d had to do what I’d done. I hadn’t had another choice.
“Wow, this is really good, Maggie,” Matt said, taking another bite of soup.
My grandma always said the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, I was hoping that the best way to his mind was, too. “Thanks. So…” I started, all casual-like.
“Don’t you even try to use your feminine wiles on me Miss Maggie May Carver.” He tore off a hunk of bread and dunked it in his soup before taking a large enough bite to fill his mouth completely.
“Feminine wiles? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you coming down here with a nice home-cooked meal and a smile and trying to get my secrets out of me. You can stop the seduction now. It’s not going to work.”
“Please.” I opened my cheese stick. “I wouldn’t know how to seduce a man if I tried. The first time I tried batting my eyes at him he’d probably ask if I had something stuck in my eye. If I’d wanted to seduce your secrets out of you, I would’ve sent Jamie down here instead.”
My grandpa smiled slightly. “She’s not trying to lie, you know. It’s just that Maggie May has always underestimated the effect she has on men.”
“Oh, enough. I try to do something nice by bringing both of you a real meal and this is the thanks I get? Meanwhile, poor Fancy is at home alone probably thinking she’s been abandoned.” I chomped into the cheese stick and glared at both of them, but neither one was the list bit rattled.
I fixed my glare on Matt. “Are you going to release my grandpa tomorrow? He doesn’t deserve to be sitting in jail like this, even if you are going to charge him with murder.”
“Yes. He should be out by noon. I wanted to get him processed and through today, but Officer Clark is convinced your grandpa is the worst sort of person imaginable.”
“You know why, right?”
He shook his head. “No. Why?”
“I thought all small towners knew all the gossip.” I glanced at my grandpa. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“That his granddaddy is the one I shot? Yeah, I knew.”
Matt stared at my grandpa. “The abuser you did time for killing was Ben’s grandfather?”
“Yep.”
“Figures. I knew there was something more there than a normal case, but I couldn’t put a finger on it.” He nodded to himself like a bunch of little things were suddenly clicking into place.
“So does this mean you’ll let me help solve this case?” I asked. “Tell me what you know, I’ll help you brainstorm other suspects.”
My grandpa snorted. “You keep helping with this case, Maggie, I’m liable to find myself in the electric chair.”
“Grandpa!”
Matt shook his head. “Sorry, Maggie. I can’t do it. I’d love to, but…Too many people involved now. It’d cost me my badge if I let you look through those files, and rightly so.”
Ah, well. It was worth a try. And at least he’d confirmed my assessment of his character. Not that that was going to help me clear my grandpa. At least it made me confident that my grandpa really was innocent, though.
(Not that I hadn’t thought he was before. But, you know, there was a lot piled up against him—not least of which was the fact that he probably was perfectly capable of killing a person if he saw the need for it.)
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning I was no closer to figuring out who the real killer was than I’d been the night before. I’d snuck one more look at the list on Officer Clark’s desk while Matt was taking my grandpa back to his cell, but without knowing what the files contained and how important each secret was to the person being blackmailed—because I assumed that’s what the files were for—there was nothing there for me to work with.
Still, something about the list kept bugging me and my mind kept going back to it over and over again. There’s only one thing for me to do when that happens—go for a hike. The physical movement somehow focuses my brain in a way that sitting and thinking doesn’t.
So as soon as it was light enough out, I leashed up Fancy and headed for the mountain. I figured it was safe now since the cops had been all over it the day before.
I let Fancy have her way, sniffing this and that for as long as she wanted to. Part of it was guilt over how badly I’d treated her the last few days, but I’ll admit I was also secretly hoping she’d find a fresh dead body that had been killed in the last twelve hours.
(Not really. I mean, okay, maybe a little? I didn’t want anyone else to die, but it was the easiest way to clear my grandpa’s name.)
Sadly, all she found was a dead squirrel. I made sure that’s all it was before letting her do her thing since I was pretty sure the cops wouldn’t be so forgiving if I let her pee on another dead body.
Eventually, we made our way up to the robber’s cave, but the cops had cleared the place out. I could see from the clear space on the ground where the containers with all the blackmail information had been, but that was it. No incriminating footprints or signs that said, “The real killer is Joe Bob Smith.”
So that was a bust.
I went back to my rock and sat there, looking down on the sleepy little town of Creek, counting the train cars as an early morning freight train passed through town. This one had forty-two cars, not even close to my personal record count of ninety-nine.
I could see Katie on her normal morning run, arms moving with precision, red hair swishing from side to side with each step. My grandpa said she was actually pretty good with young kids—she’d helped with the t-ball team the summer before—but I couldn’t picture it. (Creek was too small for boy’s teams and girl’s teams, so boys and girls played together all the way until middle school when they started playing for their school teams.)
Then again, my grandpa had also said that Luke was an excellent coach, too, so maybe he wasn’t the best judge of character. I couldn’t picture Luke having the patience to work with little kids. He was too much of a cad for that.
Although…Coaching was probably a prime opportunity to meet all the single moms of a certain age in town. That I could see; Luke was good with the kids because he wanted an in with the moms. Now it all made sense.
I glanced back down at Katie just in time to see her abruptly turn off the street and dash to Luke’s gate. I sat forward. What the…?
She opened the gate and closed it, glancing around to make sure no one had seen her and then strode across his cluttered and cramped backyard and opened the sliding glass door.
No hesitation. Like she’d done it before.
A lot of things crashed into place in that moment. The way Luke always made sure to wink at her or kiss her cheek or flirt with her. The way she was always leaving early, usually after Luke had been by. Jamie’s comment that her parents were strict and kept her on a tight leash. The flushed cheeks but no sweat when I’d seen her returning from her jog that day I’d gone down to the ballpark.
I stared intently at Luke’s house, waiting for confirmation of what I now suspected—he and Katie were having an affair. That lying, no good, dirty dog. Actually, calling him a dog was an insult to all the wonderful canines of the world.
I should’ve known. I’d figured he’d make a move on her once she was eighteen, but before? It must’ve started when they were coaching together last summer…
The curtains on Luke’s windows were all drawn tight so I couldn’t see anything inside the house, but after about twenty minutes Luke and Katie reappeared at the sliding glass door, sharing a last passionate kiss. He didn’t even have his shirt on, the creep.
I shook my head, wanting to run down that hill and pummel him into little pieces for hurting my best friend like this. Once again he’d played
her for a fool. Not to mention how he was messing with Katie’s head, too.
“That…”
I used a word I won’t use here. And a few other words on top of that. I’d known he was a jerk. I’d known it. But I hadn’t realized he was the type of guy to break the law and mess around with a seventeen-year-old girl. And he had broken the law, hadn’t he?
What he was doing with Katie was illegal. There was way too much of an age difference between them for it not to be. Which meant…
Luke could be the killer.
That’s what had been bugging me since I’d seen that list on Officer Clark’s desk. It wasn’t the names that were on the list, it was one of the few names that wasn’t on the list. Lucas Dean. There should’ve been a folder an inch thick on him and his shenanigans, but there was nothing. Not one photo.
Because he’d killed Jack Dunner and then taken the evidence before anyone could find it.
He knew about my grandpa keeping his gun in his truck. He knew about the bat. He lived just a couple houses down from the crime scenes, so they were in his backyard, too. And he had motive.
It all fit. Lucas Dean was the killer.
I pumped my arm in the air. “I did it, Fancy. I found him.”
She looked at me with one eyebrow raised, not the least bit impressed. Probably had known all along, smart girl that she was.
But I was thrilled. I could free my grandpa now. “Come on, Fancy. Let’s go.”
I practically dragged her down the mountainside, skipping over every root and rock in my way. It was all going to be okay now. My grandpa wasn’t going to go to prison. I’d found the murderer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I dropped Fancy off at home, my hands shaking in excitement. A small part of me wanted to run straight to Luke’s door and confront him with what I’d seen and what I knew. That man deserved a good what for for what’d he done to Jamie, let alone Katie and who knew who else. I bet his blackmail file was two inches thick.
But…
Prudence won out. If I was right, Lucas Dean had killed an old man with a baseball bat and hadn’t hesitated to frame my grandpa, a man he’d worked with. Confronting someone like that was a darned good way to end up victim number three. And the only good that would come of that is they’d stop suspecting my grandpa of murder since he couldn’t possibly kill me while in jail.
I decided I’d rather live through the day, thank you very much.
I headed to the police station instead, almost jogging I was so excited. I passed right by Luke’s house on the way and made a point of not looking in his direction. He’d get his soon enough and I didn’t want to tip him off, not when we were so close.
Matt was already in and looked to be the only one there. I wondered if he’d ever left given the way his hair was slightly mussed and his eyes were bloodshot. He waved in my direction, but didn’t move to meet me. “If you’re here for your grandpa, it’s going to be another hour or two before he’s fully processed for release.”
“No. I’m here to tell you who the real killer is.” I was practically bouncing up and down.
“I’ve been up all night pouring over these files and you solved it? Without any evidence at all? Just thought it through, did you?”
I came around the counter and grabbed the list off of Officer Clark’s desk. “Look at the list.”
“I’ve looked at that list a hundred times, Maggie. What am I supposed to see?”
“It’s not what you’re supposed to see. It’s what you don’t see.” I grinned at him, too excited to contain myself.
He took the list from me and looked at it once more, rubbing at his face, the scritch-scritch of his fingers rubbing against stubble the only sound in the room.
“Think about it. Who should be on that list, but isn’t?” I asked.
He sighed. “I don’t know. Probably a few people.”
“How about Lucas Dean?”
“Luke?” He shook his head, but did scan the list to confirm his name wasn’t there. He set the list down and leaned against the desk, arms crossed. “I’ve known Luke since we were kids. He doesn’t have it in him to kill someone.”
I pressed my lips together, deflating like a popped balloon. He was supposed to believe me, not question me like this. “You know him so well, do you?”
“Maggie…”
“Do you think he has it in him to take up with a seventeen-year-old girl?”
Matt opened his mouth and then shut it again. He frowned. “Katie?”
“Yep. I just saw them together. I was up the mountain behind his house and saw her sneak in through his backyard. They came back maybe twenty minutes later, shared a passionate kiss—him without his shirt on—and then she left.”
He grunted.
“Did you see that in him?” I asked.
He shrugged one shoulder. “No. But I can see that before I can see murder.”
“But don’t you get it? If Jack Dunner found out about him and Katie and tried to blackmail him…Maybe Luke decided it was safer to just eliminate Dunner rather than pay him.”
“And Roy Jackson?”
“Maybe he saw them together, too. He was certainly on that path often enough. I know there was the one morning when I took Fancy out for a walk that I saw Katie running—towards Luke’s house, obviously—around the same time I saw Mr. Jackson headed up the mountain. If he saw what Luke was doing and confronted him about it…”
Matt thought about it for a long moment.
I wanted to grab him and shake him. It was so obvious. Finally, he pushed off of the desk. “You’re right. It all does fit. I’ll bring him in.”
I whooped and Matt leveled a steady stare at me. “He may not be the killer, Maggie. I’ll grant you he’s the best alternate suspect we’ve had so far, but it might not be him.”
I waved his concern away. I knew it was Luke. I knew it. It all fit together perfectly. And Matt would see it, too. He just needed a little time, that’s all.
Luke was going to be arrested for murder. Today. Which meant I needed to go see Jamie. She deserved to hear about this from me instead of from some gossipy busybody who happened to visit the café after word got out.
“So you’re going to bring him in?” I confirmed.
“Yes. As soon as Marlene arrives, I’ll go get him.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Should be about fifteen minutes from now.”
I flashed him a smile. “Thank you,” I shouted as I ran out the door.
Finally, everything was falling into place.
I was so excited, I ran the whole way back to my grandpa’s place. Not the best of ideas since I never run. I had to stop on the front porch and gasp for breath as I held my side against the sharp pain I felt there. I could’ve sworn I’d developed shin splints, too, but I was pretty sure that was just my middle-aged body being overly dramatic.
Fancy cried at me through the doorway until I let myself inside. As I waited for Matt to arrest Luke, I debated calling Jamie to tell her what had happened, but I knew this was the kind of news that was best delivered in person. I quickly changed instead, so I’d be ready to go as soon as it happened.
When eight o’clock rolled around I stationed myself at the kitchen window and watched for any sign of Matt or Luke. A few minutes later I saw Matt walk out of the police station—at least it looked like him, I was just far enough away to not be positive. Whoever it was walked down the street to Luke’s house and disappeared from view.
I braced myself, wondering just how dangerous Luke was. What if he tried to run? What if he pulled a gun on Matt? Or a baseball bat?
But, no. I could see him killing when trapped in a corner like he had with Jack Dunner, but killing someone he’d known since he could walk? Nah. Lucas Dean was bad, but he wasn’t that bad.
And I was right. Because a few minutes later I saw two men leave Luke’s house and walk towards the police station, chatting casually. The one that must be Luke had his hands in his pockets, completely at ease as
he walked next to the officer.
Honestly, I think Matt should’ve hauled Luke in in cuffs for the Katie thing, but I was starting to realize that just wasn’t his style. It must be hard to be a cop in a small town where you know everyone. You aren’t just arresting a perp, you’re arresting someone you played football with or whose dad coached you in baseball. I had to feel for the guy. But not too much. Not if that got in the way of him finding the real killer.
I waited until they made it back to the station and then leashed up Fancy and headed for the barkery.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The whole drive I was fidgety, going over things again and again and again. It had to be Luke. It had to be. It made so much sense. There was no blackmail file on him. He knew about the bat and the gun. He lived right there. He had a secret to hide. And it was a big enough one that people would kill for it.
But…
He was Luke. Worthless cad and flirt who’d probably sleep with anyone he could, but was he really a killer? Would he really take a baseball bat to someone?
Eh.
Maybe?
But if it wasn’t Luke then I was back at square one and my grandpa was back to being the one and only real suspect.
I so wanted it to be Luke, but the closer I got to the barkery the more I wondered if it really was. I still needed to tell Jamie about Luke and Katie, because he was going to go to jail for that…Maybe. Except the pictures were gone if they’d ever existed. And I was the only one who’d seen them together. And all I’d seen was them kissing, which I was pretty sure was not illegal.
I felt nauseous thinking that Luke might get away with that. Especially knowing Jamie and her never-ending ability to forgive people for their flaws. It wasn’t that I didn’t have flaws of my own—I had plenty—it was just that I didn’t see the point of letting anyone off the hook for it. If you were mean, you should admit you were mean. If you used others, you should admit that, too. And you should be told it was wrong and to try better next time. Not forgiven every frickin’ time.
A Dead Man and Doggie Delights Page 13