by Rosie Sams
Mid-morning, Al stopped in for a cup of coffee. If Melody felt tired—she hadn’t slept well on the Archers’ couch—Al looked exhausted.
“I spent the morning going over Gardner’s law office,” he said. “And what did I find? Not a thing worth mentioning.”
She told him about her confrontation with Wayne. “There isn’t anything in the Gardner account books, is there?” she asked. “No signs of embezzlement or shifting funds?”
Al made a face. “Wayne didn’t tell anyone but you that he suspected either Carole or Bill of cooking the books, so I don’t know. It’s hard to tell where you are with that man. He’s a slippery one.”
“I agree,” Melody said. “But the embezzlement angle might be worth pursuing, even if he did only say it to me, and only to get my goat.”
“Fair point,” Al said.
“Any chance that either Trevor or Carole will be released soon?” Melody asked.
Al shook his head. “Trevor insists he did it. Carole insists that he didn’t do it and she didn’t do it, and that she has no idea who did. As far as we can tell, those footprints are hers. The soles match a pair of her shoes, down to the scuff marks, which we got from the dust in the back of the file room. We got a couple of good prints.”
Melody shook her head. “She must have been so scared. At least now we know why she went in at six-thirty and didn’t leave until eight, performing CPR on a man who was already dead.”
“She’s been asking for a fair amount of ibuprofen for muscle ache,” Al said. “But enough about me. How are you doing?”
“If you’re not going to release either of their parents, I’ll be staying with Leo and Mariel again,” Melody said. “I have to pick them up from school soon.”
“Closing the bakery early?” Al asked.
“A little. The deliveries for today are all done.” She looked at Al hopefully. “Any messages from their parents?”
“Trevor and Carole love them and miss them and will be home as soon as they can,” Al said.
Melody picked up Smudge from home, then checked the time. She was a little early to pick up the two children. She parked in an empty parking spot along Main Street, where she happened to be driving, then took Smudge out for a short walk. It was before school let out for the day, yet the sun was already nearing the horizon. Melody yawned, trying to remember the last time she had had a day off. It would probably be a while until she did. She wanted to let Kerry and Leslie take some days off first. After all she had put the two women through during the holiday season, they deserved it. But those three weeks off were coming up soon. Just before closing the bakery that day, she had put a sign up in the window to remind her customers of Decadently Delicious’s seasonal closure this year.
Smudge tugged on her leash, pulling Melody toward one of the shops, Sheila’s nail salon. Melody laughed. “My doggie cookies are just as good as hers are, I promise.”
But Smudge insisted on putting her paws up on the low front window ledge and peeking inside. On the other side of the Christmas decorations, Sheila was sitting at an immaculate manicurist’s table, flipping through a magazine. She seemed to have sent her other manicurists’ home for the day.
Sheila looked up hopefully, and Melody decided to go inside.
“Decided to get a manicure anyway?” Sheila asked.
“I don’t have time now,” Melody said. “I have to run an errand in a few minutes. But can we schedule something for midmorning tomorrow sometime?”
“I’m open,” Sheila said, waving an arm toward the inside of the studio.
“I thought you were busy,” Melody said.
“I’m not,” Sheila admitted. “I’m really, really not. There are a couple of new nail salons in the strip mall on the outside of town that are pulling people away from me, and business has really suffered. Tourists don’t stop to get their nails done, you know? And the locals tend to avoid Main Street when it’s particularly busy.”
Decadently Delicious was a little bit off Main Street, but Melody could understand. “Are you really going to close the nail salon and open a people and pet salon? I have to admit that I really don’t get a lot of manicures, but I would absolutely give you my haircare business—for both of us.”
“I’m making more money doing pet hair and nails than people right now,” Sheila said. “I’m seriously thinking about it. But, like I said, my potential funding fell through. I have a sneaking suspicion that the person involved was in sort of the same situation that I was: pretending to be doing better than he really was.”
Melody paused. “I know it’s a nosy question, but… your potential partner wasn’t Bill Garland, was it?”
Sheila burst out laughing. “How did you know? Did someone tell you?”
“No, I guessed,” Melody said.
“You’re a good guesser.” Sheila bent down and gave Smudge some love, talking to her in admiring baby talk. “Who wants a cookie, my lovely, my sweetie? You’re just the most adorable Frenchie I’ve ever seen, aren’t you, Smudge?”
Smudge barked, agreeing with her. She did want a cookie, and she was the most adorable Frenchie.
“I’m going to ask another terrible question,” Melody said.
“What’s that?”
“Were you the person I saw taking flight from Bill Garland’s office the morning of the murder?”
Sheila stood up. “You know I wasn’t, Melody. I’m sorry, but the person you saw had to have been Carole. Everyone’s heard the gossip by now. Who else could it have been?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Melody said.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Sheila said. “I was at home that morning with my computer and my financial software program looking over the numbers and trying to figure out how to save my business. I intended to come into the law office after it opened, just to try to beg Bill Garland one more time. But by the time I arrived, the place was surrounded by officers and crime scene tape.”
“I believe you,” Melody said.
Sheila sighed and bent over to pat Smudge on the floor again, then sat in a chair and put her head in her hands. “Oh, Melody. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Things will get better after Christmas.”
“But will they? And when? Because it might not be for a while, you know. And I don’t know how much longer I can make it.”
Smudge climbed up into the woman’s lap and pushed her way past Sheila’s hands, licking at her face.
“For what it’s worth, if you’re having more success at the pet store, maybe it’s time to sell this business and focus on that for a while, and do hair privately from home. Don’t worry too much about being on Main Street.”
Sheila sighed. “You’re probably right. I don’t know. I’ll give it until the first of the year, more to try to get my head on straight than anything else. And then I’ll decide what to do.”
Melody made sure that Sheila had put her on her schedule, then excused herself to go pick up Leo and Mariel. The two children had had enough uncertainty in their lives lately, and she didn’t want to be late.
On the way to the school, Melody thought, If Sheila is lying, I can’t see it. And Smudge is awfully sweet on her, for her to be the murderer.
Chapter Seventy-One
The two children had had a bad day at school. They had found out through their classmates that their parents weren’t just under arrest for money problems, but for murder. They were both upset, with Leo sobbing all the way home, and Mariel only not following suit because she was so worried about her little brother.
“Miss Melody,” she said, “My mommy didn’t murder Mr. Gardner. She has to get Daddy to squish spiders for her.”
The little girl had an unasked question in her eyes: Did Daddy squish Mr. Gardner, then?
“Your daddy was home with you guys when it happened. It wasn’t your mom, and it wasn’t your dad.” Melody said.
“Okay.” Mariel nodded and a slight smile came on her lips. “But when do they come ho
me? Doesn’t anyone understand?”
“I don’t think anyone else does understand,” Melody said. She was almost crying herself, out of frustration for the two children’s sake. “There just aren’t enough clues, and all the ones they have, say that either your mom or your dad might have done it.”
“That’s terrible,” Mariel announced, and turned toward her brother, petting his head as he continued to sob. “Please tell Sheriff Al that we want our parents back.”
When they got back, Melody put on some jolly Christmas music and got them all involved in putting the Christmas decorations back up. Smudge danced around with the children and picked up bits of tinsel much to everyone’s amusement.
Melody watched, it was good to see them relaxing, even if only a little. She was working on some lights. Carole had left them a tangled mess when she had pulled them down. It was understandable. She hadn’t been in the best of moods at the time. Some of the artificial tree branches had been bent as the pieces had been shoved back into the box, and Melody stopped to straighten them all out. Tinsel was untangled, lights were rehung, curtains straightened, and everything put back in order. The two children had even stopped to rewrap all the presents. She was determined to keep the children busy and to make the Archers’ house a little more festive for when they came home. They were coming home, she would make sure if it.
“There,” Mariel said. “Everything is ready for when Mommy and Daddy come home.”
“All ready,” Leo said. “Except one thing.”
“What’s that?” Melody asked.
“Mommy’s slippers. They should be right by the door. But when Sheriff Al ’rested her, he made her take her slippers with her.”
“Doesn’t your mommy wear her slippers everywhere?” Melody asked.
“Yes,” Leo said. “But if she was home, then they would be right there—” He pointed. “—right where they belong.”
Melody’s jaw dropped.
“What is it?” Mariel asked.
“I’m sorry,” Melody said. “I think…we might have to change plans suddenly.”
“Why?”
“You clever children might have helped me find a clue.”
Taking Smudge with her, Melody left the two children at Leslie’s house for the evening, promising to be back as soon as she could. She didn’t explain everything, afraid that the more that she poked at the idea, the more it would prove to be a false hope. All she told Leslie and the children were to keep their fingers crossed. Leo crossed all his fingers and held them up for her to see.
Melody thought, I’d better be right. Because I don’t know what I’m going to tell them if I’m not.
She drove to the sheriff’s office, where Trevor and Carole were being held, and asked to see Al.
“He’s in his office, just a sec,” said the receptionist.
Al appeared. “What’s up, Mel?”
“I had an idea that I’d like to check out. Would it be all right if I spoke with Carole for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” Al said. He escorted her to the women’s holding area, where Carole waited miserably, sitting on a cot and reading a worn paperback book.
“Carole?” Melody said. “Mind if I come in?”
“If it’s all right with Al,” she said.
Al unlocked the door for Melody, letting her inside, then standing in the doorway to supervise, holding Smudge’s leash as he did so.
Melody squatted on the floor next to Carole, who was dressed in orange scrubs with a white t-shirt underneath, with orange slip-ons that were barely big enough for her to wear.
Al looked at Melody looking at Carole’s shoes and said, “We should probably get you a pair of the men’s slippers. Those look awkward.”
“I have big feet,” Carole said. “It’s hard finding shoes that fit. It’s being so tall that does it. I’m five-eleven. I avoid women’s shoes as much as I can. They pinch.”
Al’s eyes widened, and he traded a glance with Melody. “I see. How often do you wear women’s shoes?”
“Mostly, just at the office,” Carole said.
“To the office?” Al asked.
“No,” Carole said. “Those slippers I was wearing with the Christmas bows on them, you remember those? The clerk said something about them when he signed them in as part of my possessions.”
“I remember,” Al said.
“Those are what I wear back and forth to work and when I’m behind my desk. I wear a pair of nude pumps at work if I’m meeting people. I keep them in my office. I think they’re still there. Wayne didn’t bring my things to me before I was arrested. I suppose there’s no point in collecting them now… although there’s a photo of my family that I’d hate to lose.”
“You didn’t box everything up that morning when you found Bill?” Melody asked.
“No, why?”
“Carole, this is important,” Al said and there was a sparkle in his eyes. “You didn’t take any of your belongings with you when you left that morning? You didn’t put the shoes on for any reason, for example?”
“No,” Carole said. “Why would I do that? I was giving CPR, and then I was running out the back door to keep anyone from seeing me. I didn’t exactly have time to put on a pair of awkward dress shoes so I could stumble around in them. I would have broken an ankle. You should see me. I’m awkward in them. I’d rather just work in men’s shoes or something.”
She kicked off one of the prison slippers, then peeled off the white sock underneath, revealing her right foot and a reddened spot along the base of her pinky toe.
“See? I have a nearly permanent blister from that pair of shoes, I should have thrown them away but I use them so rarely that I keep forgetting. Unless Bill or Wayne or a client is downstairs, I spend most of my morning in my stockings and slippers.”
“You didn’t wear your dress shoes at all that morning?” Al asked again.
“No.”
“Then who left the footprints?”
Carole frowned. “What?”
“Do you remember? I told you that a set of women’s footprints were found going through the alleyway and into those trees.”
“Yes,” Carole said. “I assumed you meant me, because I’m a woman and that’s the exact same way that I went. You also mentioned…” She looked down at Melody. “…that whoever had done it was wearing a dark suit and had short, dark hair. What else was I supposed to think, except that you saw me?”
“But,” Al said, “by ‘women’s footprints,’ what I meant was ‘footprints left by someone wearing pumps or high heels.’ Your slippers didn’t leave those tracks. Someone else did.”
“And…” Melody said, looking at Al for permission to speak. He nodded. “And when I went into your office, it was because I thought I heard someone falling off a chair. I thought it was you. Bill was lying on his side with the desk chair almost lying on top of him. He wasn’t flat on his back, the way he would have been if you had just run out the door after giving him CPR.”
“Maybe he revived a little,” Carole said sadly.
Melody shook her head. “And that’s not all.”
Al nodded at her again.
Melody continued. “A box of your things was in the doorway, tipped over as if it had just been kicked. A little plant was on its side, and a photograph in a frame was leaning against the opposite wall, beside the filing room.”
“That wasn’t there when I left,” Carole said.
“Could you have missed it?” Al asked.
“No, I don’t think so. If it was in the doorway, I would have had to step over it. Plus, I was on the floor facing the doorway as I was giving CPR, and every time I looked up from giving breaths, I could see the wall on the other side of the hall. I think I would have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Someone had to have been there after I was. But who? The murderer?”
“There was something that Wayne mentioned,” Melody said, “when I ran into him at the school as I was dropping your kids off.”
; “His sister works there,” Carole said. “She’s the band teacher.”
“He said that the reason Bill wasn’t paying out bonuses this year was because the firm wasn’t doing as well as Bill claimed it was doing. You’re the bookkeeper. Is there any truth to that?”
Carole frowned and her face paled a little. “No? Not unless Bill Gardner has been deceiving me about his financial matters for years. He’s terrible at such things. If it were up to him, he would charge everyone about twice what they owed, then forget to collect his bills. He gives me receipts for everything including his golf clubs and his groceries and says, ‘I don’t know, Carole, figure it all out.’ I do all the books, as far as I know, the Gardner Law Agency is well into the black. Even if it is only because I keep it that way. Bill said he was going to ‘invest in the business,’ whatever that meant. We weren’t broke.”
“Al, I’d like to talk to you outside for a moment,” Melody said.
“Sure thing,” he said.
They both excused themselves and stepped outside, taking Smudge on a walk around the building. After the revelation, Carole had seemed stunned and shaky. As Melody and Al walked, Melody told Al about her conversation with Sheila.
“Do you think Sheila did it?” Al asked.
“Can you tell me something? I didn’t look very closely at the box full of things outside Carole’s door. Things just happened too quickly. Were her nude pumps in there?”
“No,” Al said. “I went over the evidence list myself. No shoes, that’s for sure.”
“Then I think it’s time to bring both her and Wayne in for questioning,” Melody said. “We need to know more about Wayne’s idea that the money had disappeared, when it hadn’t.”
Chapter Seventy-Two