Mixing Up Murder

by Emmie Lyn

  I reached for the door, but Rose gripped my arm stopping me dead in my tracks.

  “He’ll understand … but he doesn’t have this kind of money to clear up the bill on such short notice. This must be what has him in a deep depression. He couldn’t bear to tell Luke what was happening because he doesn’t have the money either.”

  I understood now. Rose was running interference for Spencer. But she was wasting time. “Lily has money,” I said, trying to restrain myself from screaming my frustration. “Ray transferred it to her account, and she’ll front it for Luke. Oh, Rose, Ray was up to his eyeballs in shady schemes, but this is the most urgent one to fix. Can you convince Spencer to come with us?”

  Understanding brightened Rose’s face. She grabbed my hand. “Come on. Together we’ll get him there even if we have to tie him up and carry him.”

  I loved Rose’s no-nonsense, quick-thinking solutions to difficult problems. They might not always be pretty, but nine times out of ten, her sharp thinking got the job done.

  I followed her through the front hallway toward Spencer’s comfortable sitting room with views that overlooked his blueberry fields. Memories of spending time here with Luke flooded my senses, but I shoved them away for now.

  Spencer, eyes closed, and with Pip in his lap, sat in an overstuffed chair. “I’ve made a bloody mess of everything, Pip. At least Luke isn’t here to witness what’s going to happen today. Maybe he’ll just stay in California. He’ll probably never want to talk to me again.”

  Rose shook him out of his stupor. “Spencer! Get up and get your shoes on.”

  I knew he couldn’t refuse that steely tone in her voice. I never could when I was younger and had to get moving so I wouldn’t be late for school.

  “Dani’s here to take you to the town offices.” Rose pulled him out of his chair before he had time to voice an argument. “She has a solution to your problem, and we don’t have a minute to spare.”

  Poor Spencer. If Rose had knocked him over the head, I don’t think he would have looked any more surprised. “But—”

  “There’s no time for but’s, Spencer. Trust me, you don’t want me to get any more upset with you than I already am. Why the heck didn’t you come to your oldest friend and tell me what was going on?”

  Spencer blinked several times. I looked away, not wanting him to know I saw the tears filling his eyes. “I can’t pay the bill, Rose. It’s hopeless.”

  Rose stopped, put her hands on her hips, and frowned at Spencer like a mother staring at a naughty child. She placed both of her hands on either side of his face and forced him to look at her. “Hopeless doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. You should never give up without a fight. Now, I’m not going to tell you again—let’s get a move on.”

  When we got to the front door, Spencer slid his feet into some old moccasins. Rose opened the door and, with her hand resting on his back, kept him moving.

  “Get in my Cadillac. I know you love riding in the MG, but Pip has the passenger seat. We’ll follow Dani and I’ll explain everything.”

  “Rose.” Spencer stopped next to the Cadillac. “You’ve been giving me orders for the last five minutes. When did you get so bossy?”

  I laughed out loud, earning a glare from my grandmother.

  “We’ve known each other for how long? Close to seventy years? I’ve always been bossy.” She pulled the door open. “Now get in before your dawdling loses you this farm that’s been in your family for generations.”

  I looked at Spencer, worried that he’d refuse to get in Rose’s car.

  He winked at me.

  I grinned. “You can come with me if you’d rather. I’m sure Pip wouldn’t mind sitting on your lap.”

  “Thanks, Dani. I’d better not. Who knows what torture Rose would have in store if I don’t follow her orders?” He saluted and settled onto the front seat of the Cadillac.

  Rose slammed the door. As she walked around the back of her car, she paused next to me. “Thanks for figuring this out, Dani. Spencer’s picking on me again, so I know he’ll be fine.” She shook her head. “That old obstinate farmer thinks it’s a sin to ask for help. Now, get going before we run out of time. I’ll follow you.”

  It was far too easy to zip along in Rose’s spiffy MG, and before I realized it, a siren pierced through my thoughts and blue lights flashed in my rearview mirror.

  I smacked my hands on the steering wheel, upset with my lack of vigilance, but looking for a scapegoat. “Why didn’t you tell me to slow down, Pip?” Okay, that wasn’t fair to blame her for my problem. As far as I could tell though, she didn’t care because she looked at me and wagged her tail.

  “License and registration, please.”

  Pip jumped on my lap and snapped at Detective Crenshaw’s hand. I pulled her away from the open window before teeth met flesh, and I had a much bigger problem on my hands. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled as I searched the glove compartment for Rose’s registration.

  Rose tooted as she drove past at, what I assumed, was exactly thirty-five miles an hour. She always drove the speed limit.

  Spencer waved.

  “I’m in a hurry, AJ.” I handed him the registration.

  “No kidding. Your license, too, Dani.”

  After I managed to push Pip onto the passenger seat, I dumped my bag on the floor and fished out my license. “Here you go.” I smiled hoping it might put him in a more agreeable mood.

  It didn’t seem to have any affect. He just walked back to his car mumbling into his radio.

  “Come on. Come on.” My fingers drummed on the steering wheel, and I checked the rearview mirror every two seconds to see if AJ was done with whatever it was he was doing with my information. Checking to see if I was an escaped convict probably.

  Finally, I heard his door open and the crunch of gravel as he returned to my window. “I’m giving you a warning, Dani. Slow down on these roads. I don’t want to find you wrapped around a boulder.”

  “Thank you.” I tried to sound contrite. “Oh, I have something important to tell you.”

  He waited.

  “Lily and I overheard Rhonda say she was the one who trashed my apartment.”

  “Who was she talking to?”

  “Frank Wilde.” I couldn’t see AJ’s expression behind his sunglasses, but his eyebrows moved, and his forehead wrinkled

  “Did she say why?”

  “She thought Lily might have hidden some of Ray’s contracts there. Lily and I were standing outside the office when she was talking to Frank about all this. Then, after she left, Lily discovered a locked drawer in Ray’s desk with some interesting papers. Ray had advised Marty Fontaine to hold off on buying Blueberry Acres and just let it go into foreclosure so he could get it cheap.” I refilled my lungs with a big intake of oxygen before I blurted out the rest of my information. “That’s why I was in such a hurry. We, Rose and I, were taking Spencer to the town offices so he can pay his back taxes before it goes into foreclosure.”

  AJ stared at me as if his brain was trying to process everything I’d just told him.

  “Can I go now?”

  He smacked the top of the MG. “You’re something else, Dani. I’ll escort you.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by “something else,” but I wasn’t going to argue about a police escort. It was the only way I’d make it in time.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The big rear end of Rose’s Cadillac stuck into the street, forcing other cars in the parking lot of Misty Harbor’s town offices to swerve around it. I hoped AJ didn’t give her a ticket.

  Thinking my luck had run out when I didn’t see any parking spot, a car pulled out onto Main Street, leaving a space just big enough for the MG. I zipped into it and said, “Come on, Pip,” not sure if dogs were allowed in the town offices.

  “Mind your manners, keep a low profile, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to sneak you in. This is an emergency.”

  When I entered the building, I heard angry voi
ces coming from the tax collector’s office. “For a check of this size, it has to be certified, Mrs. Lemay. I can’t take your word for it that the funds are available.”

  “Call the bank,” I said as I entered the room. “For crying out loud, Martha, you’ve known Lily since she was a baby and you’ve known Spencer since you two went to kindergarten together. Since when does the town of Misty Harbor refuse to take a hundred grand from one of the town’s businesswomen to save a farm that everyone loves?”

  Martha’s tight, grey curls did not budge when she looked up with a grim line across her mouth. “We have rules to follow, Ms. Mackenzie, as I’ve already explained to these people.” She crossed her arms and glared at me to defy her.

  Spencer leaned on Martha’s desk. “Dani’s right,” he said in a soothing voice. “Do you want it on your conscience when my blueberry bushes are yanked out? Bulldozed under and replaced with fancy condos bringing in hordes of people who don’t really care about Misty Harbor? Is that what you want, Martha? Because, if you do, I’ll walk out of here and start packing my bags.”

  Silence settled in every nook and cranny of the old office as I held my breath. Everyone else in the busy department must have been doing the same thing, because you could have heard a pin drop. Or a ripe blueberry.

  Martha’s lip quivered and the floor creaked when she shuffled back a step. She dropped her arms; her shoulders sagged. “No, Spencer, I don’t want that. But I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “You won’t. Lily’s money is as good as gold. This check won’t bounce.” He held it out to Martha.

  She looked doubtful and checked over her shoulder as though some tax collector was ready to pounce on her. Then she gave the imaginary supervisor a defiant smirk and said, “Okay then.”

  She took the check from Spencer and stamped the overdue tax bill as paid in full. “I didn’t know about the condos. That would ruin our little town.”

  Rose, Lily, and I waited until we walked out of the office to hug and high five each other. Spencer stayed behind to chat a little longer with Martha.

  “Did you get a ticket?” Rose asked me. “I guess I’ll have to take those keys away from you for your own darn good. And, to think I was planning to give you that car.” She shook her head.

  “Really? Pip loves the MG. How about you give it to her, and I’ll just be, you know, her personal driver? Have you seen how she puts her front paws on the dash, so she doesn’t miss a thing?”

  Rose chuckled, and I knew she’d only been giving me a hard time. I pumped my fist. “Did you hear that, Pipster? We saved Blueberry Acres and we got us a sleek set of wheels.”

  “Misty Harbor is in trouble now.” I spun around to see AJ laughing at me. “You managed to save Blueberry Acres?”

  “Lily did.” I couldn’t take the credit and made sure AJ understood this was all Lily’s doing. I smiled at her. “It’s kind of ironic that Ray’s parting gift to you undermined one of his last schemes.”

  “Well congratulations, Lily,” AJ said. “Now, how about you two come to my office with those papers you told me about. I want to take a look at what you found. Dani rattled off that information so fast I couldn’t keep it all straight.”

  “I’ll wait for Spencer,” Rose said to me. “You and Lily go with AJ, and I’ll have dinner ready when you get done.”

  “You might want to move your car, Rose,” AJ said. “Just this once, I’ll pretend I didn’t see that you’re parked illegally.”

  As much as I wanted to head back to Ray’s office and go through more of his papers, I couldn’t say no to AJ’s request. It wasn’t really the kind of question that left any room for a no answer. I jumped into Lily’s car so we could talk on the way to the police station.

  Pip seemed to love all this running around lifestyle I’d dragged her into. At least, she didn’t complain, so I took that as a positive. “Did you find anything else, Lil?”

  “Nothing as earth shattering as the papers about the farm and the funeral home, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything in Ray’s office. It’s locked up nice and tight now, so no one else can snoop around.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “How does AJ know we found some papers?” she asked as she headed for the police station.

  “When he pulled me over for speeding . . .”

  “Wait, speeding?”

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” I said, “I’ll explain later. For now, it all spilled out in my explanation on why I was in such a hurry to get into town. He ended up giving me an escort once he heard about the foreclosure problem. I guess now he wants to see everything with his own eyes and not take my word that I wasn’t trying to pull something over on him.”

  “Makes sense. Did you tell him about Rhonda trashing your apartment?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lily turned into the police station parking lot, pulling into a space next to a black BMW.

  I gave it a squint. “I’ve seen that car before. It almost ran me off the road this morning.” It took me a minute to replay the moment. “Ava was driving. I wonder what she’s doing here.”

  Lily reached behind her seat for her bag. “Maybe she’s turning herself in as Ray’s killer.”

  I scoffed and came up with a more likely scenario. “Maybe that whole story she told us about buying all that stuff at Creative Designs was just that, a story. It would be easy enough to check if she has receipts.” I opened my door. “Ready, Pip?”

  “It cracks me up how you talk to that dog like she’s a person, Dani. Do you ever expect her to answer you?”

  I looked at Lily over the hood of her car. “She answers me all the time—a tail wag means she agrees with me, a lick on my chin means I’m right, and a woof means—”

  “Shut the door and let’s get this over with?” Lily said with an eye roll.

  “I haven’t figured that one out yet. But, seriously, Lil, I think she does understand me when I’m talking to her. She’s smart and a fierce little bundle of Ms. Cool.”

  “I suppose she’s coming in with us?”

  Pip looked at Lily and wagged her tail. “See? She’s telling you that there’s no way she’s missing any of this action.”

  Lily pushed her lower lip into a pretend pout. “I’ve been displaced by a white, ten-pound-terrier with brown ears, brown circles around her eyes, and a big attitude.” Lily pretended to be annoyed but I knew she loved Pip, too. Just not as much as I did.

  Ava walked out of the station and wobbled down the steps to the sidewalk. Her four-inch-heels looked deadly enough to kill someone—herself most likely when she twisted her ankle, fell, and broke her neck. If she managed to stay vertical for long enough, I might be nice to her.

  “What’s up, Ava?” Her startled reaction broke her concentration and almost made her lose her balance.

  “Oh, it’s you two.”

  I took that as a compliment.

  “You’re like a bad nightmare that keeps popping up when I least expect it. And, I don’t even have Marty here for support. He was all like, ‘I have some important stuff do in New York, but you can’t come.’ And then, that rude detective called me in to explain why Marty left.” She threw her arms up in the air. “Apparently, he thinks that I’m supposed to keep my eyes on Marty every minute. I don’t think so, is what I told him. I have my yoga, my spa, my hair appointment, and my nails to take care of. Marty had his own stuff to do.”

  She stopped in front of us but was careful to leave enough space so Pip couldn’t reach her. I thought her rant was over. I tried to wrap my head around what it really meant that Marty left town because in my opinion, it didn’t bode well for him.

  “You know what the worst part is?” she continued.

  “You broke a nail?” I couldn’t resist.

  Before she realized it was a gotcha, Ava held both hands up and checked. “No,” she snarled, snapping her hands back down, “I didn’t. The worst part is, that detective told me not to leave. What am I supposed to do
in this backwards town?”

  “Well . . .” I paused to be sure she was paying attention. “Sometimes, we like to count the wet rocks on the beach during low tide or another fun thing is to sit very quietly until a seagull poops on our head.” Somehow, I’d managed to get that out with a straight face.

  Lily sucked both lips in between her teeth, but I still heard a snort. Pip’s little tail wagged so fast her whole butt joined the party.

  Ava stared at me for so long I had to wonder if maybe I did have seagull poop on my head. “That’s disgusting,” she said, then wobbled to her car and yanked the door open.

  “Really, Dani? Was that necessary?” Lily gave me a side eye.

  “What? I can’t have a little fun with out-of-towners? She has no trouble insulting us.” I elbowed Lily. “Besides, you’re laughing. You thought it was funny.”

  We walked into the station, letting out random giggles at Ava’s expense to help ease the tension swirling around from the day’s events. Pip wiggled until I put her down, and she sniffed around the police station while we waited for AJ. The only one who seemed to mind Pip’s wandering was Trouble, the police station’s one-eyed tabby cat. He’d moved in about a year earlier taking over the job as official meet and greeter. Apparently, Trouble preferred the two-legged variety of visitors.

  When Pip put her front feet out and her rear end up in her play bow position, Trouble hissed and swatted. Pip seemed to think was a new activity. When it escalated into a game of chase, Trouble ended up at the top of the file cabinets, tail switching, hair on end, and growling.

  By the time AJ found us, I had Pip securely tucked under my arm again, both of us looking cute and innocent. The detective looked at Trouble and then at Pip before he directed his question to me. “What was that awful yowl I heard a minute ago?”

  I shrugged. “Trouble was saying hello.” From the look AJ gave me, I suspected he knew there was more to the story, but he left it at that.

  “Come on back to my office,” he said, leading the way past interrogation rooms and a heavy metal door that gave me the chills as I imagined the cells with bars behind it. AJ extended his hand for us to enter first and closed the door when we were inside. Every surface was piled with files and papers that AJ managed to shuffle around until he had uncovered two metal folding chairs for us.