by Diana DuMont
I groaned. I guess Grams saw right through my attempt at pretending that bringing Sprinkles along had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t too excited about facing the divorce proceedings alone.
“Yeah. I have some, um, business to take care of in the city. But I should be back by tonight. Are you still busy at the library? If you’re not, then I’d love to go out for drinks with you.”
Molly smiled kindly at me. “Izzy, your grandma told me why you’re going to the city.”
I felt my blood starting to boil. “Why would she do that? She shouldn’t be running around town, blabbing to everyone about my business.”
“She wasn’t blabbing to everyone. She told me in confidence, because I asked her why you were going. And because she’s worried about you. She doesn’t want you to face this alone, but she doesn’t think you’ll let her go with you. She thought that if she told me what was going on, that I might step up and make the trip with you. And she was right.”
My jaw dropped. “But I thought you were super busy at the library this week. Besides, you haven’t known me very long. Why would you want to come to the city with me for such an unhappy affair? I’m sure you have better things to do with your day.”
“Better things to do than to be there for a friend? I think not. I’ve already taken the day off work. I explained to the junior librarians that it was an emergency. Don’t worry, they’ve got everything covered, and it will actually be good for them to take care of all of this by themselves. Sometimes I think that they need a bit more experience dealing with things on their own, so that I don’t always have to be there babysitting them. Now, come on. Get in my car. I’m driving.”
“But…” I tried again.
Molly shook her head at me. “No buts about it. You shouldn’t have to deal with the stress of driving into the city on a day that’s already so stressful. You just relax in the passenger seat, and let me at least take care of the driving part of today.”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but Sprinkles was already running toward Molly’s car. He took a flying leap toward her open driver’s side window, and he managed to get his head and front paws in. But the rest of his body hung awkwardly from the window. I winced when he pushed his paws against the red paint on her door as he not so gracefully wiggled into the car.
“Sprinkles! You’re going to ruin the paint on Molly’s car.”
Molly laughed. “Don’t worry about it. He wasn’t scratching that hard.”
She walked toward the car, and I shrugged and reluctantly followed. It didn’t look like Molly or Sprinkles were going to let me argue about this. A few minutes later, we were on the highway heading toward San Francisco, munching on donuts and downing coffee. Molly kept the mood light, laughing as she told me stories about the adorable children who had been attending the book fair at the library this week. Sprinkles had assumed his usual spot, sitting in the backseat with his head poking into the front seat between Molly and me. He managed to steal a donut or two, and for once I didn’t fight him about it. Today was going to be a long day. I knew I shouldn’t let him eat donuts, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to begrudge him a little bit of sugar.
As the sun rose higher into the sky, bathing the world in a brilliant orange-pink sunrise, I almost could have fooled myself into thinking that I was heading off for a fun girls’ weekend in San Francisco. My heart ached with gratitude toward Molly. She’d only known me about a week, and she was already being a better friend to me than most of my friends in San Francisco. Those friends had known me for years and yet had disappeared as soon as everything with the divorce started going down. Perhaps this was the sort of small town friendship I’d heard so much about. I’d moved to Sunshine Springs because I wanted to belong and be part of a community. Molly was treating me like I belonged, and no matter how things turned out over the next few weeks or months, I would be forever grateful to her for that.
But reality hit me hard when she dropped me off in front of the courthouse. I promised to call her as soon as I was done, and she promised not to go far. She told me she would park somewhere and go for a walk with Sprinkles, assuring me that she was always excited to see a new part of the city. Thankful for her, and for the fact that I wouldn’t have to pay someone to watch Sprinkles since she was here, I headed into the courthouse. I was early, and as I sat and waited for my assigned time to go before the judge, my mind wandered off into all kinds of horrible scenarios of what it would be like to step into a courtroom and face murder charges.
My mood did not improve when my ex-husband appeared. He tried to act like this was all some sort of mutually agreed-upon situation. But it was anything but mutual. I hadn’t asked for him to run off and cheat on me, forcing me to lose all of my friends. Although I was grateful for the chance to start over in Sunshine Springs, I would have rather started over under different circumstances. Besides, it remained to be seen whether my attempt at starting over was going to work out.
I did my best to speak as little as humanly possible to him and to his lawyer. I didn’t have a lawyer. I was acting as my own lawyer, even though I wasn’t a family law attorney. I hadn’t wanted to dip into my savings even more to pay someone to do what I’d decided I could figure out how to do for myself.
Thankfully, the whole ordeal didn’t take too long. The judge quickly approved our divorce settlement, and I watched numbly as a bored-looking law clerk took a rubber stamp with the date and the word “Filed” on it and pounded it across each copy of the divorce settlement, stamping away my former life as she did.
I called Molly, feeling surprisingly at peace. I was just glad to have this all done. Molly had been walking not far from the courthouse, and she swung by on foot to pick me up so that we could walk back to her car together. She gave me a big hug when I emerged from the courthouse.
“It’s over,” she said simply, squeezing one of my hands as she did. “What do you say we go have some ice-cream to celebrate your newfound freedom?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I wasn’t sure whether I could actually eat anything right now, but I wanted a few moments to decompress before getting back in the car for the long drive back to Sunshine Springs.
Sprinkles stuck close to my side as we walked, hovering protectively as though he understood I needed extra comfort right now. We hadn’t gone very far when he suddenly started growling.
Perhaps he was being a little bit too protective.
“Sprinkles!” I said. “Calm down. You grew up in the city. You should be used to this. Why are you so unsettled by crowds all of a sudden?”
Sprinkles ignored me, and continued growling. Then, suddenly, he jerked forward on his leash and started trying to run.
“Sprinkles!” I shouted as I jerked the leash back. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
Sprinkles ignored me and continued trying to run forward. I looked over at Molly, feeling embarrassed that my normally well-trained dog was acting like this. He wasn’t putting on a very good show today. But Molly wasn’t looking at Sprinkles. She was looking somewhere beyond him, up on the sidewalk ahead.
“Izzy! It’s Todd!”
I looked where her finger was pointing, and saw that she was right. Up ahead of us, Todd the photographer was walking quickly down the street, coming right toward us. He wore a baggy pair of jeans and an old T-shirt. His hair was disheveled, and even from here I could see the bags under his eyes. He had his large camera slung over one shoulder, and on the other shoulder he carried a canvas messenger bag that wasn’t closed properly. He looked like a total mess.
No wonder, I thought. I’m sure murdering someone and then skipping town to escape your court date would take its toll on anyone.
He seemed lost in thought, and hadn’t seen us yet. But a moment later, Sprinkles’ growls turned into an all-out barking fit. Startled by the sound, Todd looked over. When he saw Sprinkles, his brow furrowed with worry. Then his eyes moved past Sprinkles to look at first me, and then Molly. A sho
cked expression crossed his face as he recognized us, and a split-second later he turned around and started running as fast as he could, his messenger bag and camera flapping wildly behind him.
Molly had already started running. “Those are the actions of a guilty man if you ask me!” she yelled, although I barely understood her over Sprinkles’ barking.
I let go of Sprinkles’ leash so that he could run after Todd. All around me, shocked faces of passersby stared as they saw a disheveled man being chased by a woman in yoga pants, a barking Dalmatian, and a woman in a skirt suit. What a sight we must have made.
But I didn’t have time to think about how ridiculous I must look. Todd was getting away, and Molly was right: he was acting awfully guilty.
“Stop that man!” I yelled at the shocked bystanders. “Stop him now! He’s a murderer!”
Chapter Twelve
The next minute or two sped by in a blur. Molly and Sprinkles were much faster than I was. I tried to keep up, but running in a skirt suit wasn’t easy.
Unfortunately, none of the bystanders seemed interested in getting involved. Maybe they thought we were crazy, and that Todd wasn’t really a murderer. Or maybe they believed us that he was a murderer, and they figured it was better to stay far away from someone who was capable of killing. Whatever the case, Todd was proving to be much better at weaving through the crowds than Molly or Sprinkles. Sprinkles seemed to be slowly gaining on him, but in the end it wasn’t enough. I watched as Todd hailed a taxicab.
“Stop!” I yelled, as though my words might actually do something to keep him from getting away.
“I’m not stopping!” he yelled back. “I’m not going back to that god-awful town! I’m not going to let my life be ruined by some crazy old Sunshine Springs local!” With that, he disappeared into the taxi, and the taxi sped away.
I stopped, feeling dejected as I desperately tried to catch my breath. I hoped to God that my now-official ex-husband had gone the other way when he left the courthouse. I didn’t want to think about the humiliation I would feel if he’d seen me running down the streets yelling like a madwoman. And I definitely didn’t want to think about the humiliation I would feel if he discovered that I had kicked off my new life in Sunshine Springs by managing to get accused of murder.
Luckily, my ex was nowhere to be seen. I hobbled toward Molly, contemplating whether the risk of putting my bare feet directly on the dirty sidewalk was worth it to take off my dress shoes. I decided I would rather stay on the safe side and avoid some sort of horrible foot infection. I kept my uncomfortable shoes on, at least for the moment.
As I approached Molly, she looked just as dejected as I felt. Sprinkles was a few feet away, barking incessantly and spinning in small circles. The crowds of people walking down the sidewalk parted ways around him, giving him a wide berth. Many of them were muttering about irresponsible pet owners who couldn’t keep their dogs under control.
“Sprinkles!” I pleaded. “Please stop barking and come here. He got away in a taxi. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
Sprinkles ignored me, and kept barking. With a frustrated sigh, I decided I was going to have to go get him physically. I marched toward him, on the verge of losing my temper. But when I reached him, I realized that a folder of papers and photographs had fallen on the street and scattered around him. I immediately recognized some of the photographs as being taken at the Sunshine Springs Winery’s tasting room.
I bent down and picked up a few of the papers. Some of them looked like printed out account ledgers, some looked like printed out emails, and a few others were handwritten notes on sheets of notebook paper. After just a few moments of shuffling through the mess, I realized that I was looking at a whole pile of evidence. I wasn’t sure whether this evidence was all just about the winery scandal, or whether some of it had to do with the murder. Either way, I felt my excitement growing. Perhaps there was something in here that would prove helpful to me.
“Good boy, Sprinkles,” I said patting his head. “Sorry I yelled at you when you were just trying to tell me this was here.”
Sprinkles, not one to hold a grudge, licked my hand happily and twirled around in circles a few times, evidently quite pleased with himself.
By this time, Molly had arrived next to me. She must have realized, as I had, that we were looking at some sort of evidence.
“Todd must have dropped this,” she said. “I wonder if there’s something in here that proves he killed Caitlin.”
“Maybe,” I said slowly. “Or maybe this is evidence he’s gathered trying to prove who the true murderer was. It looks like there’s a lot in here about Theo’s winery. And did you hear him yell about how he’s not going to have his life ruined for some Sunshine Springs local?”
“Yeah.” Molly frowned. “That struck me as a little bit weird. Caitlin wasn’t local, so he wasn’t referring to having his life ruined over her or her murder. Maybe he was talking about Theo.”
I started quickly making a neat pile out of all of the papers and photographs. I felt my heart starting to pound with hope and excitement. “Maybe there’s something in here—something Todd found—that will incriminate Theo. Maybe Todd is innocent, and he got so frustrated with the whole thing that he ran. I have to admit that I’ve been tempted to run a few times myself. It’s pretty disconcerting to walk around in a town where everyone knows you’re accused of murder, and where you worry constantly that you might be unfairly put in jail.”
Molly stood above me, looking down with a hand on her hip. “Don’t you dare run. I know you didn’t commit this murder, and we’re going to find a way to prove it. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure that most of the other folks in town also know that you didn’t do it. If they really thought you’d poisoned someone, do you think they’d eat the pie at your café? Your grandma’s right, you know? Everyone looks at this as some sort of hazing ritual by Mitch. They’re not taking it seriously.”
I frowned as I stood with the folder. “Well, I hope everyone is amused by this, then. Because it sure feels serious to me.”
Molly looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. “I know it’s stressful. But really, don’t worry. We’ll get this figured out. And I have a feeling that everything in this folder is going to help us. Let’s head back to my car. I’ll drive us back toward Sunshine Springs, and you can start sorting this all out on the way.”
I nodded as I started to follow her, the weight of the folder heavy and promising in my hands. Had Todd just accidentally given me the key to my freedom, and to clearing my name? I was about to find out.
My heart pounded hopefully in my chest. I couldn’t wait to start going through these papers.
Chapter Thirteen
Traffic out of San Francisco was horrendous, thanks to a multiple vehicle wreck. What should have been less than a two hour drive quickly turned into a three hour drive. Normally, I would have been beyond frustrated by this. But I hardly noticed the time passing as I sat in Molly’s passenger seat and pored over the papers and photographs.
Everything was completely disorganized, and getting it all into some semblance of order took up a good portion of the ride back to Sunshine Springs. I wasn’t sure whether the papers had been messed up because they fell out of the folder, or whether Todd had had them this disorganized in the first place. One thing, however, was clear: Todd had been gathering evidence about the scandal that Caitlin had been investigating before she died. The most obvious reason for him to be doing this was that he also thought Theo had murdered Caitlin. And if Todd was trying to solve the murder too, then he must be innocent as well.
Now I really wished that we’d caught up with him. If he was working on the same case with the same idea of bringing Theo down, then perhaps we could have worked together and gotten this solved quicker. I didn’t blame him for not trusting me, though. After all, I’d been running after him while calling him a murderer. And if he had been wrongfully accused, I knew just how he felt. I myself felt indignant and relucta
nt to trust anyone, especially when it seemed that law enforcement in Sunshine Springs was conveniently in Theo’s back pocket.
Unfortunately, I doubted we were going to be able to get a hold of Todd. He must be hiding out somewhere, and I’m sure he wasn’t answering his phone. I was also sure he was going to be livid when he realized his folder of evidence was missing. What had he been planning to do with it? Was he on his way to a coffee shop to review it? Or had he been heading toward the courthouse with plans to show it to someone there? Perhaps he’d been in contact with a lawyer, or someone from law enforcement in San Francisco. I had so many questions for Todd, but I wasn’t likely to get answers from him anytime soon. My only hope was that if he was innocent and realized that we now had all of his evidence, or at least a good chunk of his evidence, that he’d be forced to contact us in an attempt to get it back.
In the meantime, I was going to learn as much as I could from this folder of goodies that had fallen into our hands.
“There are a lot of accounting records in here,” I said as Molly guided her little sports car down the highway. Traffic had finally cleared up, and we were humming along at a nice pace now.
“Does any of it look suspicious?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know. It’s quite a mess. It looks like records from both the city and from the winery, but quite honestly nothing in the winery records looks off. There appear to be funds leaving the city’s coffers for no reason, but I don’t see those same funds showing up in the winery’s records.”
“Maybe Theo didn’t record those amounts. It would’ve made sense to try to hide them instead, don’t you think? If he was stealing money from the city, it’s not like he’d want to make a record of that for anyone to find.”