Murder Goes to Market

by Daisy Bateman

  Unfortunately, he was probably right about that. That left Claudia with exactly one option, and it was still about eight feet away. She took two more steps, and Derek advanced to match her. Claudia was starting to think this just might work when they were interrupted by a voice from up the hill.

  “Put down the gun,” it said. “I’ve got you covered.”

  The voice belonged to a man, tall and youngish, with an overgrown shock of black hair hanging into his eyes. He was dressed in pajama pants and a sweater, and holding a long-barreled gun, and Claudia had never seen him before.

  “Who the hell are you?” Derek said.

  “My name is Nathan Rodgers. I saw what you were doing, and I’m telling you to stop. It’s all over now.”

  Of all the ways Claudia had envisioned meeting her cantankerous neighbor, this was not one of them. He looked nervous, despite being armed, and she suspected he was about as used to these kind of heroics as she was. She wasn’t sure how this was going to affect her plans, but she certainly appreciated the help.

  Derek, not so much.

  “This is official police business, and this woman is a dangerous criminal” he said. “Now put that gun down, son, before I do something we all regret.”

  “Oh yeah? It’s official police business to threaten to kill someone and make it look like a suicide? I heard you talking, and I’ve already called 911.” He waved his gun in Derek’s general direction. “Now put the gun down and step away slowly.”

  Derek hesitated, trying to decide between keeping his own gun on Claudia or turning it on the new arrival. That inspired Nathan to press his advantage by coming closer, which was a mistake. Claudia had thought from the start that there was something wrong about the weapon he was carrying, and when the patch of fog they were in suddenly lightened, she realized what it was.

  You have got to be kidding me, Claudia thought.

  Unfortunately, Derek saw it too. His face turned bright red and his expression went from uncertainty to fury.

  “A BB gun? You thought you could threaten me with a goddamn BB gun? Do you know what happens to punks like you who try to pull something like that?” He was furious now, advancing toward the other man and ready to make good on his threat. Nathan, clearly unnerved that his plan had gone this badly, was looking for a way to make his escape, and only Claudia noticed the sound of ruffling feathers from inside the doghouse. She dodged out of the way as Derek took two more steps and crossed the invisible line and suddenly his life was a nightmare of feathers and honking.

  The geese exploded out of their house, hissing and snapping at Derek and half-jumping, half-flying up at him. After a full day of being disturbed and harassed, this latest invasion of their private space was clearly too much for them, and they expressed their displeasure as only two very large geese can.

  One of the birds was beating Derek around the arms and head with its powerful wings, while the other shot its beak out in the general direction of his inner thigh, landing several significant bites. They worked together in beautiful coordination, like they had been training for this moment all of their lives, the artistic free dance of the goose-attack Olympics.

  Derek cried out like a man who had suddenly been attacked by geese and waved his arms in a hopeless attempt to drive them off. He tried firing his gun, but at that moment a beak found a very sensitive part of his anatomy and his arm shot up involuntarily, sending the bullet to vanish into the fog.

  He probably would have kept firing but the pain had loosened his grip on the weapon, and the recoil knocked it out of his hand. Claudia and Nathan both lunged for it, with her getting there first.

  “Okay,” she said, pointing it at Derek as he extricated himself from his feathered attackers, bruised and bleeding, and stumbled down the hill with them waddling behind him, hissing like a pair of gas leaks. “Now do you believe me that this was a bad idea?”

  Derek looked at her, then at the gun, then at the geese, then back at her. He started to say something, but changed his mind. Then, with one final, fearful glance back at the geese, he ran toward the road.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘And you just let him get away?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to shoot him.”

  “I would have.”

  It was Monday, a full day and a half after the confrontation, and Betty and Claudia were sitting at Claudia’s kitchen table. After spending all of Saturday night and most of Sunday at the sheriff’s department headquarters in Santa Rosa, the last thing Claudia had wanted was to go out, or do anything other than lie in bed ever again, and that was what she had told Betty when she called at two in the afternoon. So, naturally, it had only been about fifteen minutes before Betty had showed up on her doorstep with a basket of scones, a freshly-made quiche, and a pot of hot coffee. Claudia had been about to declare this demonstration of competence too much to bear in her current state but, on the other hand, coffee.

  And she had to admit, now that she had consumed half the contents of the basket and almost all of the coffee, it hadn’t been a terrible idea. The quiche was fluffy, eggy perfection, enhanced with a generous quantity of chanterelle mushrooms from one of Roy’s forager friends, and the scones were so rich and loaded with berries it almost seemed a shame to butter them. Ever vigilant, (except, apparently, when it mattered), Teddy stood by Claudia’s chair, on high alert for any scraps that might escape, occasionally nosing her arm when she wasn’t being clumsy enough.

  “Okay, let’s see if I’ve got it,” Betty said, having taken a few minutes to digest Claudia’s attempt at explaining what happened. “This guy, Derek, was some kind of scammer who had been cheating women out of their money, and Lori was trying to get revenge on him, because she was one of his victims?”

  “No, her best friend was,” Claudia corrected. “I had a call from the reporter I’d been working with, who talked to the friend’s family this morning. Dana, that was the friend’s name, she had hooked up with this guy she met online, thought he was the love of her life. None of her friends or family were really happy about him, but he got her to distance herself from them and she wouldn’t listen to anything about him. I guess she and Lori got in a huge fight about it, and never talked again.”

  She took a sip of her coffee and went on.

  “Dana’s family wasn’t quite sure what scam he used to get her to give him money, but his typical MO was to invent a health crisis for some fictional relative. Whatever it was, she fell for it, badly. She gave him everything she had, which was bad enough, but she embezzled some money from her employer too. So when Derek took the cash and vanished, she had nothing.”

  “And that’s the woman who committed suicide,” Betty finished for her.

  Claudia nodded. “Yeah. I guess Lori must have just about lost it, and I’ve got to say, I don’t blame her.”

  “But how did she end up here?”

  “That part’s less clear,” Claudia admitted. “Things must have gotten a little too hot for Derek back East, so he moved out here to start over. Lori obviously tracked him down somehow, and decided that setting up a shop in the marketplace was a good cover for whatever she was planning. We’ll never know exactly what that was, but from the looks of things, she didn’t just want to get back at him, she wanted to ruin him.”

  “But how?”

  “See that’s where I think her plan had some problems. I think she had some sort of vague idea of using social media, and what she could learn about his previous victims, to make it turn into a viral story, but as far as I can tell she hadn’t come up with anything more concrete than that. Or maybe she did, and Derek destroyed it when he got hold of her computer. Add that to the list of things we’ll never know.” She picked up a scone and stared at it like it might have one of those unobtainable answers hidden somewhere in it. But no, that was just a blueberry.

  “One thing’s for sure, he’s not going to tell us. When I was in the station, I heard them talk about bringing him in, and the only thing he would say to anyo
ne was that he wanted a lawyer,” she said.

  “Well, that’s smart enough, but I don’t understand why he thought a police car made a good getaway vehicle,” Betty said, while she casually organized the paperwork that was scattered across the table. “He would have made it farther in pretty much anything else.”

  That was a sentiment that had been repeated more than once by the officers at the sheriff’s department, once they had been convinced they really had a rogue cop on the run, and not just a couple of crazies who had taken their Saturday night a little too far. It had helped that one of them had recognized Nathan, though Claudia had never exactly figured out why.

  Still, it had taken nearly two hours, over Lennox’s loud protestations, from when Nathan’s second 911 call had reached the county dispatcher with his extremely confusing message, until someone was finally willing to see if they could find Officer Derek Chambers to clear this whole thing up. From there, it didn’t take long for it to become apparent that both the officer and his car had left the area, which was enough to enlist the help of some cooperating agencies to locate both, about twenty miles south of San Francisco.

  “That’s what’s crazy to me; he didn’t even think to go home and get his own car. Honestly, I’m almost more embarrassed than anything else, having been tricked by someone that dumb.”

  “It wasn’t just you,” Betty reminded her. “Tricking people was what he did. He just wasn’t very smart at anything else.”

  “I guess that’s the danger of overspecialization for you,” Claudia said absently. “Anyway, I don’t know what I’m thinking. I should be glad he wasn’t any better at killing people and getting away with it. He certainly was good enough.”

  “Do you think he always planned to kill Lori?”

  “Hard to say. It was definitely a departure from his previous behavior, but he seemed to take to it once he got started. My guess is that he didn’t know she was here until pretty recently, maybe a week or so ago. She didn’t get out much, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was intentionally avoiding him. I don’t know why he didn’t just leave when he did see her; maybe he wanted to figure out exactly how much she had on him. That would explain why he was hanging around outside her house when Brandon was there, and he followed her to the marketplace when she went to plant her stink bombs. After that, I don’t know. He might have tried to charm her into giving up her plans, and when that failed he panicked and killed her.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Betty said. “Except . . .” She trailed off, looking thoughtful.

  “What?”

  “I don’t suppose you remember, but when you mentioned that she was garroted, I was kind of taken aback by that.”

  Claudia admitted with some restraint, that she thought she had noticed something of the sort.

  “Well, I didn’t know how to bring it up without it being weird, but the crazy thing was, Roy and I had just been talking last week about garroting, and how it was different from strangulation. You know, just one of those strange conversations you have sometimes. Anyway, I didn’t think anything about it until you told me that was how Lori died.”

  “But why? I mean, I don’t know what you guys usually talk about, but that’s a pretty crazy coincidence.”

  “I know. After you told me how she died, I asked Roy why he had thought of it in the first place, and he said there was a story in the paper about a lady who had been killed that way back in the twenties. So I have to wonder, maybe Derek got the idea from the same story.”

  “That could be,” Claudia said, trying to hide her relief. “That doesn’t prove premeditation, though. He might have just seen the cheese wire after he knocked her out and been reminded of the story. But that’s a question for the lawyers.”

  “I guess so. And Neil?”

  “He and Lori were together when she had her falling out with Dana, and he must have met Derek then. Derek probably found out he was in town when Neil went to ask about Lori’s things. Once he spotted Derek, it wouldn’t take him long to put two and two together, so he had to go.”

  “I have to say, I feel sort of responsible for Neil. He was our guest after all. We shouldn’t have let him get himself murdered like that,” Betty said.

  “You should add that to your website,” Claudia agreed solemnly. “We will try to keep you from getting murdered, but the Tyler Ranch cannot guarantee results.”

  Betty gave her a sideways look. “I’ll consider it. Have they proved that Derek sent those texts yet?”

  “I doubt it. That’s going to take some time, though it’ll probably be easier now that they know where to look. I talked to Helen yesterday, and she mentioned that a policeman had been talking to Brandon’s friends. That probably explains where he got the information for the other fake text.”

  “Hedging his bets. It sounds like he had heard of the idea of framing people, but didn’t really get the details. How did your fitness tracker get under Lori’s body, anyway?” Betty asked.

  “It didn’t. Derek stole it from my house when he and Lennox came over to question me the first time, and then he snuck it into the evidence from the scene and claimed it was there all along. I guess one of the things Lennox wasn’t doing very well was managing security in the evidence locker.” Claudia had eaten all she could manage at this point, though she was eyeing the last scone and wondering if she had the strength to make an attempt. Betty, sensing that a bad decision was imminent, started packing up the leftovers.

  “And another was doing background checks on his new hires,” she said as she got the remainder of the quiche out of harm’s way. “So he was planning on framing you the whole time? But why?”

  Claudia shrugged. “Convenience, probably. Between my having argued with Lori and finding the body, Lennox already had me as a suspect. The sooner Derek could get me arrested, the less chance there was that the investigation would turn up his connection to Lori and her friend. That was also why he made sure to come out on his own to pick up her things from my storage. And of course, I didn’t give any of it a second thought. He was just so attractive and charming, what could possibly be wrong? He was even nice to my dog.”

  Claudia looked down at Teddy, still cheerfully begging for crumbs and scratches.

  “You, madam,” she said, “Are a terrible judge of character. Almost as bad as me.”

  “Well, you’ve got plenty of company there,” Betty said. “By the way, there’s nothing official yet, but the town council had an emergency meeting last night on the subject of how soon they can get Lennox out. There was even some talk of getting rid of the department all together and going back to having the sheriff being in charge, after this.”

  Claudia agreed that there was something to that idea, and they might have elaborated on that subject for a while longer, but there was a knock on the door. Claudia and Betty looked at each other in mild confusion.

  “Did you hear anyone drive up?” Claudia asked. “No,” said Betty.

  “Are you going to see who it is?”

  “I don’t know,” Claudia said. “I haven’t had a great record with guests lately.”

  But she went to answer the door anyway, since there didn’t seem to be any reason not to. And there, on her doorstep, was Nathan Rodgers.

  “Hi. I, um, just thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing? Are you doing okay?” He looked nervous, and slightly damp, like he had just taken a shower and not gotten his hair completely dry. He was dressed in a light sweater over a t-shirt and jeans, and carried himself with the abashed attitude of a college student who just realized he was late for dinner with his parents.

  “Oh, uh, thanks. Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, as good as could be expected.” Claudia was sure there was something else she was supposed to say at this point, but it took her a minute to think of it. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Sure, thanks.” He came through the door and took a look around, barely seeming to notice Betty.

  “Wow,” he said. “This place is small inside.�
��

  There wasn’t much Claudia could say to that.

  “Same as on the outside,” she agreed. “You hadn’t seen it before? I thought everyone in town had been through her while it was on the market.” (The number of questions she had gotten about the bathroom tile after she had moved in had been frankly unnerving.)

  “No, I was away traveling. I didn’t even realize it was seriously on the market until the place sold. But, this is really small.” He looked around like he couldn’t believe such a place could actually support human habitation, which Claudia found annoying.

  “Actually, I’d been thinking about applying for a permit to build an addition, but there seems to be some opposition on the local level to me doing anything with this property.” Nathan might be friendly enough now, as well as absolutely not what Claudia had pictured, but she wasn’t about to forget the amount of time her neighbor had spent treating her like public enemy number one.

  He clearly hadn’t forgotten either.

  “Yeah, about that.” He ran his fingers through his mop of black hair and looked to Betty for support, apparently seeing her for the first time. “I’m really sorry I gave you such a hard time. When I bought my house, obviously I knew these cottages and the market were there, but nothing seemed to be happening with them, and I figured it was all just abandoned. And then I was gone for a few months and suddenly there was all this going on and I, um, I didn’t handle it well. I’ve kind of been going through some stuff,” he added, as though that explained it.

  It didn’t, but Claudia was willing to give it a chance, considering their recent history. But it was Betty who asked the pertinent question.

  “What are you doing living all the way out here, anyway?” she asked. “Do you work nearby?”

  “No, well, not anymore. The thing is, a few years ago I got some cash together and opened a brewery, because I’ve always been kind of a beer nerd, and it ended up doing pretty well. So, eventually, this big conglomerate came along and offered me a bunch of money for it, and I’m like, that’s a lot of money, and I could do whatever I want with it, so I took it, but then I couldn’t figure out what I wanted. So that’s what I was out here trying to do, and when all the people showed up it seemed like a lot.”