“I know what you mean. I miss all the hustle and bustle myself. About now, I’m usually standing in line at the liquor store for something we forgot. It’s not a bad way to visit with people you haven’t seen in a while.…” He sat down next to his wife and put an arm around her shoulders. “Next year, we’ll do the party oursel—”
“Mom’s always telling me not to sit on the coffee table. And you’re both doing it.” Their son stood in the open doorway, a smirk on his face. “This might cause me to wonder what else you do when I’m not around.”
“Are you here for any reason other than to hassle your hardworking parents?” Jed asked.
“I need a ride to Courtney’s party this afternoon.”
“When?”
“I don’t want to be too early, and I should shower and shave. In an hour,” Chad decided.
“I’d be happy—”
“I’ll do it,” Susan interrupted her husband. “I have to go out anyway,” she added.
“And you’ll nag me the entire way,” Chad said, turning and leaving.
“What was all that about?” Jed asked his wife.
“He has a crush on Courtney Sawyer. He’s nervous.”
“Why don’t we drop him off, and then go out for lunch? We could try that new Indian restaurant downtown.”
“I was thinking that I might stop in at the party.”
“Are we planning to go? Chad might not appreciate our presence.”
“No, but …”
“I gather The Holly and Ms. Ivy are doing the catering.”
“I’m actually getting somewhere—I think.”
“You’re awfully involved in this investigation, hon.”
“But, Jed, I’m getting somewhere.”
“You know who killed Z?”
“No, but I know that something strange is going on, and I may even know what it is.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night, positive that if I knew why Brett and Kathleen were leaving me out of this investigation, I’d be a step or two ahead of the game. I mean, if you and I are right, and Kathleen and Brett aren’t romantically involved …”
“Kathleen …”
“Won’t tell me anything.”
“Brett …”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I should talk to Brett. The question is, should I talk with him before or after I check out Courtney’s sweet-sixteen?”
“Well, it sort of depends on when he’s around, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right. You drive Chad. I’ll check out the police station, and then head over there. Thanks.” Susan kissed her husband on his forehead and stood up. “You’ll walk the dog, too?”
“I’ll bet no one has ever bought a dog in the middle of a snowstorm,” Jed muttered, looking out the window at the snow.
“Probably true,” Susan agreed, leaving the room without a backward glance. She had things to do.
She had awakened early this morning and filled two pages of her ever-handy notebook with questions that she needed to answer. She ran upstairs and grabbed it, stashing it in her large purse, putting on her long wool coat, and heading out the front door. Brett Fortesque might not be in his office, but Emily Benson was bound to be around.
The roads were slushy, and Susan was thankful for four-wheel drive; she passed two fender benders before following a snowplow to the municipal center.
Emily Benson was standing in the portico by the door, scattering bread crumbs on the ground. “Hi!” she waved, and metallic stars bobbed around her head. “Where’s your dog?”
“My husband is taking care of her today. I’m here to see Brett—if he’s available.”
“You’re in luck. He’s in his office. And that’s rare these days. Go on in. Tell the guy at the desk I saw you—I’m on my coffee break.”
“Thanks. I’ll talk with you later.” Susan waved and hurried out of the cold. She was soon knocking on the door to Brett’s office.
“Who’s there?”
Susan opened the door a crack and looked in. “It’s me,” she said unnecessarily. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“No, but I could use a break. Come on in.” Brett smiled.
“How are things going?” Susan said, sitting down in the chair he indicated.
“No more murders and, so far, no recent cases of food poisoning. And I had understood that you were staying out of this investigation.”
“That’s what Kathleen thinks.”
“No, it’s not what she thinks, it’s what she knows would be best for you and your family,” Brett said seriously. “And I agree with her.”
“And does that mean that you’re not going to tell me anything?”
“Susan, you’ve helped in the past, but this investigation is different.”
“Why? Why is it different? What’s going on that no one is telling me about?” Susan’s voice rose in anger. “I thought you were my friend! And Kathleen …” She was suddenly too angry to speak.
“Susan …” Brett reached across his desk and patted her hand.
“Don’t try to calm me down. I have every right in the world to be mad.”
“Susan! Damn it! We’re protecting you!”
“No, you just think you are. I’m going ahead and asking questions and gathering information—”
The phone on Brett’s desk rang, and Susan stopped talking.
He grabbed the receiver. “Fortesque here.”
There was a long silence during which Susan looked around the room. File cabinets covered one wall and on top of them were piles of papers, falling into each other and off onto the floor. Brett’s conversation continued on its unintelligible course, and Susan stood up and stretched. She had seen a book on top of a particularly precarious pile that she wanted to look at more closely. She walked casually in the direction of the files.
“Susan, would you mind getting me a cup of coffee?”
Brett’s voice stopped her progress across the room. What could she do but agree? She smiled weakly in the direction of his desk and left the room, heading for the small coffee room just off the lobby.
“Done already?” asked Emily.
“Brett’s on the phone, and he wants coffee.”
“You know where it is. And there are pecan bars that someone sent in as well. Have some yourself. I have two calls on hold for him when he’s done with this one—unless you were doing something in there?”
“I was trying to get a peek at some books and papers on top of the file cabinets when Brett asked me to come down here.”
“Ah. Well, come on out and keep me company.” She looked over her shoulder to see if they were alone before continuing. “If you bring me a cookie or two, I might have some information.”
Susan hurried to do as requested, and minutes later, the two women were huddled together behind Emily’s desk, drinking coffee and chattering.
“I keep wondering why they won’t let me help out with this investigation—what’s so different about it,” Susan explained.
“I don’t know exactly, but it has something to do with the mayor’s daughter.”
“Cameo? What about? And what does that have to do with me? I don’t think I’ve even seen her since she and Chrissy graduated from high school last spring.”
“I don’t know about that. Let me tell you what happened.”
Susan nodded and leaned even closer.
“The chief and Kathleen Gordon were together in his office yesterday around noon when Mayor Logan wandered down from his end of the building.”
“Does he do that frequently?”
“Constantly. If he’s not napping in his office, he’s wandering the halls, wasting everyone’s time. Ask in any office. No one seems to know why he doesn’t just go home. He’s always talking about this big new house he has; why doesn’t he spend more time there?” She pursed her bright red lips over the mystery and continued. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it?”
> “Brett and Kathleen were together in his office,” Susan prompted.
“Well, Mayor Logan started talking to me about how noisy the snowplows are going back and forth in front of his house in the middle of the night.…”
“He should try being a private citizen—we barely get plowed in the daytime,” Susan said.
“I know. People are always calling the police department to complain about it. But the mayor’s so boring, and he’s always here, and I guess I was just in a bad mood, so I told him I was busy and sort of walked away down the hall, claiming that I had some things that needed to be distributed. But he followed me, so I went into Brett’s office. Well, what happened next was really embarrassing.…”
“What?”
“Kathleen and Brett were talking about Cameo Logan. She evidently made something of a spectacle of herself with Z last year—following him around and stuff like that. Kathleen was actually reading a report about it from a notebook when Buck followed me into the room.”
“Oh, no. I know how he feels about his daughter. What did he say?”
“He didn’t say, he roared. At first he was so furious he could only sputter. When he got his voice back, he threatened lawsuits. Then he talked about firing Brett for incompetence. I don’t think he would have ever calmed down if Kathleen hadn’t spoken up and said that everything she had read was confidential and was only being mentioned because Z had been killed.”
“But Cameo was in Switzerland when Z was murdered,” Susan protested.
“That’s what Mayor Logan said. And Brett assured him that she was certainly not being considered as a suspect. Everyone was looking at me as though I didn’t belong, so I left the room at that point. But I sort of hung around in the hallway, and no one bothered to close the door, so I heard the rest of the conversation, too.”
“And?”
“And Brett said that the only reason Kathleen had been talking about Cameo is that they didn’t want you to be involved in this particular investigation.”
“What sort of sense does that make?”
“None that I know about, but I know that’s what Brett said. Nothing else happened. The mayor muttered something about privacy and stormed out of the room. I couldn’t keep hanging around in the hallway. The phone was ringing, and besides, someone closed the door.”
“But you’re sure that’s what Brett said.”
“Definitely.”
“Then maybe I’m asking questions in the wrong office.”
Emily shrugged. “It’s probably his nap time, but go right ahead. If Brett asks, I’ll tell him you had to leave.…”
“Tell him I’m in the ladies’ room—I’ll probably want to talk with him, too,” Susan called over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway toward the rest of the municipal offices.
The holiday decorations were looking worse for wear as Susan crunched through fallen pine needles to the mayor’s office. She was prepared to knock loudly on the door jamb, but Buck Logan was awake. And pacing.
“Buck? It’s Susan Henshaw,” she continued when he looked at her with a blank expression on his face. “I wanted to talk with you for a minute or two—if you don’t mind.”
“About what?”
Susan had known Buck Logan to be boorish, but never outright rude. She didn’t know what to say so she just asked her question. “What connection does Cameo have with my family?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why would Kathleen and Brett be talking about Cameo and then connecting that with me?”
“Why would I know? All I care about is keeping the name of my little princess clean. Ask Brett if you want to know.”
“I guess I will. And maybe,” she added, spinning on one heel, “I’ll ask him to tell me if Cameo seduced Z or if Z seduced Cameo!” And she strode off down the hall, muttering curses under her breath.
Brett was out in the hallway looking for her. “Susan!” he called out.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down. “I was just going to get your coffee,” she lied.
“Why don’t you just go back to my office, and I’ll get a cup for you? I called Kathleen, and she’s on her way over. We want to talk with you.”
“About … ?”
“About why we’ve been trying to keep you out of this investigation. Obviously, it’s not working.” He smiled weakly. “Go ahead and sit down. We have a lot of talking to do.”
Kathleen didn’t live far, and Susan knew she wouldn’t have long to wait. The papers in Brett’s office hadn’t been hidden, and she saw that they were copies of the admission sheets from the Hancock hospital. She thumbed through the sheets. All the preliminary diagnoses were food poisoning, type to be determined by further testing. She read through the pile quickly, but the record of Dan Irving’s admission and death must be somewhere else. Hearing footsteps in the hallway, she straightened the papers and resumed her seat.
“Susan …”
Susan was surprised by Kathleen’s entrance. “Hi. How are you?” she asked politely and formally.
“Dreading this conversation,” Kathleen admitted, sitting down on a wooden bench that was fastened to the wall. “In fact, I’ve been dreading this conversation since Z died,” she added, unwinding a long orange scarf from around her neck. “Did Brett tell you anything?”
“No.” Susan leaned closer to her friend. “But you do believe that Z and I really weren’t involved romantically, don’t you?”
“Yes. I believe you.”
“And you’re not involved with Brett either, are you?” Susan whispered.
“What?” Kathleen shrieked. “How did you—? That’s what you thought?” Her large eyes opened wide. “And that’s what my mother-in-law has been worrying about, isn’t it? Oh, my god! I can’t tell you how much that explains. I’ve had such a strange week.” She flung herself against the hard seat back. “How could you think Brett and I …”
“Well, it made as much sense as Z and I,” Susan explained as Brett walked back into the room holding a tray of cookies and coffee.
“None of this makes a whole lot of sense,” Kathleen said seriously, taking the mug Brett offered.
“So you’re going to tell me what’s been going on,” Susan prodded, accepting a full mug and setting it on the desk untouched.
Brett and Kathleen exchanged serious looks. “Why don’t you …,” Brett began.
“I’ll do it,” Kathleen said reluctantly. “But you have to understand, Susan, that we never wanted you to know any of this. We didn’t think there was any reason you would have to know. We hoped …”
“Please tell me before my imagination takes over—I’ll end up thinking the worst.”
“This may be the worst,” Kathleen said so quietly that Susan almost didn’t hear her. She took a deep breath and continued. “You have to let me tell you everything without interrupting, otherwise I might end up leaving something out.”
“Fine. Just get on with it.” Susan realized that her hands were beginning to shake.
“We think …,” Kathleen began and took a deep breath before continuing. “We think Chrissy may have been involved with Z.”
“Chrissy? No,” Susan protested. “She’s in love with Klaus Hoffmann. I told you about him. Okay, I’ll let you finish, but it isn’t true.”
“First, you should know that we’ve checked and double-checked—and you can go over everything again. And our information is that Chrissy was involved with Z. It has nothing to do with her current young man—this was last year. Over the holidays last year,” Kathleen continued to explain.
Susan thought for a moment. She didn’t know that Chrissy had dated anyone seriously in her senior year. Susan had been particularly pleased with that, hoping her daughter would play the field before settling down. She certainly hadn’t been aware of anyone special in her daughter’s life at that time. And neither had her son, she remembered. “Who … ?” she began her questioning.
“Let me start at the beginning,” Kathleen said.
“We thought there was some connection with your family almost immediately after finding the body.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?” Susan asked angrily.
“He had your address in his pocket.”
“We were working together on my party tomo—”
“Susan, we’re not idiots, and you know us well enough to know that we would check this out carefully,” Brett said.
“I know. I’ll stop interrupting,” Susan promised, knowing that she had to get the entire story.
“I checked out the contents of Z’s pockets myself as soon as the body was ready to be moved,” Brett explained. “And there was a note inside that said ‘Two o’clock in the afternoon, three days after Christmas. No one will be home but us. I love you.’ That was all, except that your address was at the bottom of the page.”
“Naturally we didn’t think of Chrissy right away,” Kathleen jumped in. “To be honest, we assumed that the note was written by you. You had been working with Z on your party, and you were … Well, Z could be pretty difficult for women to resist—everyone knows that.”
“But Kathleen insisted that, if you were going to have an affair, you wouldn’t have it in your own home,” Brett added.
“Whose handwriting was it?”
“It was typed.…”
“You’re kidding!” Susan exploded, some of her pent-up energy needing to be released. “No one types notes to a lover!”
“This person did,” Brett argued. “This note is proof.”
“But we didn’t believe it at first ourselves,” Kathleen reminded her. “Initially, all we did was try to keep you out of the investigation.”
“So I wouldn’t be hurt by the information that Chrissy was involved with Z.”
“No, so we could get to the bottom of the note without anyone accusing us of trying to protect you or any member of your family. You know us better than that.”
“Okay, I do. I’m sorry I keep interrupting. I’ll shut up and listen.”
“We checked it out thoroughly—sent it off to the lab immediately. It was not written recently—the tech said nine months to a year ago. It was printed on a Hewlett-Packard laser.”
“We don’t have one,” Susan insisted.
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