The planning wasn’t exactly done, but Claudia decided she could just as well finish drawing her diagram back at the cottage, with the doors locked and the blinds closed. She was aware that there was a possibility that she was overreacting, that Rodgers was simply an astronomy enthusiast who had bumped into the telescope on his way back into the house, but she wasn’t finding herself very convincing on that point.
Nathan Rodgers. Could he be the killer? It was a crazy thought, and Claudia wondered why she hadn’t come up with it sooner. But why would he kill Lori? He had no reason to be mad at her. Except, what if he didn’t know it was her? For all their confrontations, he and Claudia had never met, and today was the first time she had even noticed the telescope. What if he had seen a woman going into the marketplace late at night and decided it was Claudia, up to something that was going to annoy him. Could he have decided that this was the right time to air his grievances and gone to confront her? And could Lori, still annoyed at having her lease revoked and already planning a revenge of her own, seen an opportunity in antagonizing him while pretending to be Claudia, and inadvertently drove him to such a rage that he hit her with the pickle jar, and strangled her with the cheese wire?
Or maybe she never got a chance to say anything to him at all. Maybe he had been planning murder all along, and it was only Lori’s ill-timed brainwave with the stink bombs that had kept Claudia from being killed in her own bed. Either way, it would have been a rude shock for him to discover he had missed his target so completely, though with the closure of the marketplace maybe he felt like he had achieved his goal regardless.
It was all the baldest sort of speculation, but suddenly Claudia’s cottage felt less cozy and more exposed. By holding the outdoor market event she had made it clear she wasn’t going to give up on the business without a fight. What if that meant it was a fight she was going to get?
For the first time in her life, Claudia wished she owned a weapon more effective than her set of department-store kitchen knives. But she didn’t, and it was probably a bad idea anyway, so she decided to arm herself with information instead. She didn’t have the time to do a deep dive, so she started with a simple search of Nathan Rodgers’ name with San Elmo, and when that didn’t turn up anything, expanded it to all of Sonoma County. That returned too many results, none of them immediately useful. She thought she could be fairly confident that none of the obituaries were relevant, though she looked through them carefully, in case one of the men was survived by a namesake son. Otherwise, she had a notable former brewery owner, a high school track champion from ten years ago, a person who had applied to register a business name for something called “Love vs. Crepes,” an optometrist in Healdsburg, and the assistant winemaker at a Russian River winery.
That was the most interesting one to Claudia, not because she was in the market for a nice pinot (though that was also, and always, true), but because that particular Nathan Rodgers had been arrested five years ago when he got into a fight with a fellow patron of a local bar, resulting in a broken nose for the other guy and forty hours of community service for him. That seemed like something she should know about, so Claudia dedicated a few more minutes of searching and came up with his arrest report.
The booking photo showed a white man in his mid-forties, looking like he had had better nights. His thinning gray hair was sticking out in all directions, and he appeared to have a black eye under development. She studied his face, trying to remember if she had seen him anywhere around, but there was nothing familiar.
Property records would narrow it down, but they weren’t searchable online for her area, and as much as Claudia would like to know who she was up against, she didn’t have time to go look through the county archives right now.
She wanted to do more searching, but the phone rang and Claudia spent the next fifteen minutes dealing with the question of how she was going to get the tables from the rental shop to the marketplace, and whether they were willing to stay open long enough for her to figure it out. Then there was another call from the corgi lady, and then the portable toilet company wanted to know what the percent grade was on the parking lot, and Claudia was forced to concede that figuring out whether or not her neighbor was trying to kill her would have to wait.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Where should I put this?”
It was three hours later and Claudia had finally gotten her plans into something resembling order, just in time for all of her helpers to show up and start disrupting them. Betty, the first arrival, didn’t bother to knock, which showed that, for all her paranoia, Claudia had failed to lock the front door. But she was too happy to see her friend to be annoyed with herself, and she greeted Betty and her cooler full of food with more than usual warmth.
“Thanks so much,” she said. “Hang on, I’ll see if I can make some room in the fridge.”
It didn’t take much time to move the bag of wilted greens, leftover pierogis, and various condiments, and even with the argument as to whether ketchup belonged in the refrigerator, they had Betty’s perishables put away before Helen showed up with Brandon trailing reluctantly behind her. No mention was made of his indiscretion, but it was clear from the way his mother was keeping a close eye on him that, if he might be forgiven, it was definitely not forgotten.
Next to arrive was Julie in the van, followed closely behind by Elias in the farm’s oversized pickup truck. Claudia went to meet them, hopeful that their arrival might have solved one of her chief remaining problems.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, mostly meaning the people, but also the vehicle. “Thanks for offering to help.”
“Of course,” Julie said. “Anything we can do. Do you want me to make some signs? I brought pens and some leftover poster board from Beryl’s science fair project.”
“That would be great,” Claudia said. “But actually, what I really need is someone to run over to the rental place and pick up the tables and things. We did it on such short notice, they were able to get us the stuff, but their truck wasn’t available.”
“I can go, but I cannot lift more than fifty pounds. That’s according to my doctor who’s a little gir—” Elias caught his daughter’s eye and corrected himself. “A little too much concerned with my back. Maybe the boy can come with me? He doesn’t want to stay here and make signs anyway.”
Brandon looked pained, but his mother nodded vigorously.
“That’s a good idea. Brandon, you go along and do whatever Mr. Muller tells you.”
Claudia watched with amusement and some amount of pity for the young man. She wasn’t exactly pleased with some of his decisions herself, but three hours in a truck cab with Elias (and his opinions) was punishment enough for anyone.
And, from the way he kept checking his phone, she suspected that there was somewhere else he would very much rather be. (Claudia briefly thought of the invitation she had gotten to be elsewhere tonight, but pushed it out of her mind. She had made her choices.)
Elias left with his reluctant assistant, and no sooner had they pulled out of the driveway than Carmen and Iryna showed up to take their place. With six people and a dog, the cottage was approaching capacity, but the women found a way to squeeze themselves in, dispensing suggestions and accepting Betty’s mascarpone-stuffed cherry peppers with enthusiasm. Claudia put them to work folding the brochures she had ordered in bulk when she opened the marketplace, and stored behind the couch ever since, because it turned out ten thousand was slightly more fliers than she was ever going to need.
Helen settled in to help Julie with the signs, and while Betty took over Claudia’s layout plans and made corrections, Claudia thought she might have a minute to gather her thoughts and strategize how she wanted to approach the next twenty-four hours, both in terms of the marketplace and the murder investigation. But no sooner had she picked up her other notepad (Betty had taken possession of the first one) than her cell and wall phones rang simultaneously and she was plunged back into a world of people who wanted
her decisions on things.
One of the calls was Emmanuelle, updating her on the progress of her social media campaign, which sounded like it was going well, and wondering if it would be possible to set up a spot with a display of marketplace goods that people could use as photo backdrops. Claudia didn’t know what the appeal would be of having a picture of yourself in front of a lot of pickles, but Emmanuelle was insistent, and she figured it couldn’t hurt. The other was the dispatcher for the delivery company that the produce market used, confirming drop off times and unsubtly angling for gossip on the murder. Then a reporter for one of the papers she had been trying to reach finally returned her call, and she was back into sales mode.
It was tiring, bouncing from one demand on her attention to another, but there was something comforting about being able to do something. Sitting there, in her cramped, crowded house, trying to carry on professional phone conversations over the sound of arguments about whether every word on the poster should be different colors, or just the nouns, she felt calmer and safer than she had for a while.
She took a deep breath and repeated her patter about the outdoor market being a special, weather-dependent event, and mentally dared the reporter to bring up the murder. She didn’t honestly believe it wasn’t going to come up in the coverage, but she hoped at least she would be able to temporarily redirect the conversation.
While Claudia was on the phone, Helen had a brainstorm about making individual packs of kimchi and sauerkraut for picnickers to add to their sausages, and hurried off to see if she could find the plastic cups she thought she had stored at her rented prep kitchen. That reminded Carmen that she might not have enough raisins for the beef empanadas and, unable to get in touch with her regular supplier, she took off for the grocery store.
Even with the reduced numbers, they were able to get a lot done, and Helen was back before Betty had to leave to put the twins to bed and Julie remembered that she was supposed to drop in to the Friends of the Library meeting she was currently skipping, to see if they would bring along the book table.
For the next hour or so it went on like this, with whoever wasn’t off running various errands being put to work on whatever needed doing. By the time Julie got back with news that the table had been secured, and Betty returned with a plate of fresh cookies, they had pretty well gotten most of the details settled, and assuming about fifty improbable things went exactly as planned, the First Possibly-Annual San Elmo Outdoor Artisan Marketplace would go off without a hitch.
The sound of another car pulling up didn’t draw much attention. By this point there had been so much coming and going that Claudia only registered it with a vague thought that she hoped whoever it was wouldn’t be too annoyed that they’d eaten all the cookies. She didn’t even bother getting up to respond to the knock, just covered the phone mouthpiece, shouted, “It’s open!” and went back to answering the question from the representative from the tourist bureau who she had manage to pull away from his dinner. It wasn’t until she had noticed that the room had gone suddenly quiet that she looked up to find the chief of police glowering back at her, with a concerned looking Derek trailing behind.
“Can I help you?” Claudia said, after ending her call. She wasn’t surprised that he had showed up, but she had been hoping for a little more time to get things moving to the point where he would have trouble disrupting them.
“That depends.” Lennox clearly hadn’t been expecting a crowd, and it was throwing him off his game. He looked around a couple of times, licked his lips, and went on.
“Where were you between five and six-thirty this evening?” he said to Claudia.
“Right here,” she replied. “Why?”
“You let me ask the questions. Can anybody verify that?”
Claudia looked around at the assembled group who were watching the scene, goggle-eyed.
“Pretty much everyone. We’re setting up for an event, and people have been helping me all evening.”
Lennox, faced with a collection of eminently respectable women staring back at him, was dismayed but undaunted.
“Yeah, well, anyone who isn’t a personal friend of yours?”
Claudia was flattered that he thought she was so popular that half a dozen people might perjure themselves for her, but even for that she had an answer.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. For most of that time I’ve been on the phone, the land line, talking to a variety of people who don’t care about me at all. I can give you their contact info, and I’m sure you can get the records of the calls from the phone company. Now, would you please tell me what this is about?”
“Neil Hahn was found in Half Moon Cove. He was stabbed with a butcher knife less than an hour ago.”
“Is it bad?” Iryna asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Derek said. “He’s dead.”
Even with the entrance of the police, there had been a certain busy energy in the room, but the effect of the news was like flipping a switch. Everyone was suddenly still, and for Claudia the silence made the horror of the moment that much more vivid. Neil had been alive and well and bothering her in this very room barely more than twenty-four hours ago, and now he was gone, just like Lori. The shock of facing two murders in a row was so severe that Claudia could barely manage to be relieved that she had an unassailable alibi this time.
The rest of the gathering seemed to be working through the issue in their own ways. Unsurprisingly, it was Iryna who recovered her voice first.
“Could it have been an accident?” she asked. “What do you mean, stabbed?”
“I mean that a large knife had been plunged into his body multiple times and left several feet from the body. If you can tell me how that’s an accident, I’d like to hear it.”
To her amazement, Claudia realized that Lennox was actually shaken. She had become so accustomed to thinking of him as a sort of avatar of obnoxious officialdom that it seemed unbelievable that something like a horrible, violent death might actually be upsetting to him. She wondered what made this body so much worse for him than Lori’s. Was it the blood? The outdoor setting? The fact that the sleepy small town where he was supposed to be keeping the peace had experienced two murders in the course of the week, and he had no more ability to solve them than he did to pilot a bumper car to the moon?
Julie had other questions. “Who found him there? Not many people go to Half Moon Cove; there’s no light and the trail down those cliffs is beyond dangerous. So how can you be so sure of the time he died?”
“Because he left the Hobnob alive at five, and someone walking by spotted him from above at six-thirty. They spotted some other things, too.” He gave a look to Claudia that might have been meant to be menacing, but devolved into confusion. He seemed to be flagging, but then remembered something and rallied.
Lennox turned to Helen, accusingly. “Where’s your son?”
The question sent a jolt down Claudia’s spine, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Iryna and Carmen exchange a worried glance. She hoped this didn’t mean Iryna’s friend had gotten over her dislike of Lennox enough to pass on her information, but she couldn’t think why else he would suddenly be interested in the boy.
Helen must have been thinking the same thing, because she froze, visibly wilting under the force of the chief’s glare.
Ultimately, it was Julie who came to the rescue.
“He’s in a truck with my father, somewhere between here and Santa Rosa,” she said. “They left over two hours ago to pick up the tables. It’s a good ninety minutes each way, and they had to load everything when they got there. I’m sure the folks at the rental place will be happy to confirm when they arrived and left, unless you want to accuse them of being in on it too.”
It was obvious that this encounter was not going the way Lennox had expected it to. What Claudia was curious about was, why? There was no secret who his favorite suspect in Lori’s death was, and it was possible he knew about Brandon’s late-night visit to Lori’s house, but even given
that, he had been awfully confident when he arrived, and was awfully surprised now.
“Why did you think Brandon or I would have anything to do with killing Mr. Hahn?” Claudia asked. “I’ve only met him twice, and I don’t think Brandon ever heard of him.”
“We had received information that certain individuals had been seen in the area,” Lennox said stiffly. “It’s possible our informants were mistaken.”
“Seen in the area? How is that possible? Why would anyone think I was there?” As Claudia said it, a chill of fear gripped her stomach. She turned to Derek.
“Wait a minute. Did you—Did you, um, send me a text earlier today?”
The officer looked back at her with blank confusion.
“A text? No, of course not. Why?”
Reluctantly, Claudia picked up her phone.
“Because I got one, allegedly from you, suggesting that I meet you at Clover Beach tonight. That’s only about a mile down the coast from Half Moon Cove.” Cringing, she held up her phone as proof. Lennox reached for it, but she retained her grip.
“That’s evidence,” he protested.
“Then get a warrant,” Claudia said. “I’ll send you the relevant information, but I’m keeping the phone.”
Under other circumstances he might have thrown his weight around some more, but the chief was so discombobulated by the turn of events that he didn’t even argue.
Unlike his boss, Derek had been more focused on the content of the message.
“That’s not my number,” he said. “I don’t even know what area code that is. Is it from around here?”
Murder Goes to Market Page 17