Measured Mayhem

by Jessica Beck

“In her shock, Autumn inadvertently picked up the murder weapon.” I hated telling the police chief that before she even got to the scene, but I didn’t want her—or her people—to show up and hear it when she arrived at the scene.

  Her snort of disgust was obvious. “Then don’t touch anything else.”

  “No, ma’am, we won’t,” I said.

  After the police chief cut me off, I put my phone away. Autumn kept staring at the older woman’s body. “They’re going to think that I did it.” It wasn’t a question; it was more a statement of fact.

  “We’re not going to let that happen, though,” I said. “Do you know any good lawyers?”

  “What? Why? I already told you that I didn’t kill her. Why do I need a lawyer?”

  “Trust me, you’re going to want someone on your side.”

  “Tommy Henson is an attorney in the next town over,” she said.

  “Chunky Tommy from school?” I asked her, incredulous. Tommy had hung around with us every chance he got, having a massive crush on Autumn all four years, not so much for me.

  “He’s supposed to be really good,” she said. “He handles criminal cases, from what I’ve read in the papers.”

  “Then call him,” I said as I pulled my phone out and handed it to her.

  “It’s crazy to think that I even need a lawyer,” she said.

  “Autumn, we’re running out of time here. Get him here, and we can discuss why you need him later.”

  She nodded, called Information, got his number, and then she was quickly connected. Tommy was short and to the point once he found out what was going on. They spoke for less than two minutes before she handed my phone back to me. “He’s on his way. In the meantime, he told me not to say a word to the police until he gets here.”

  “That’s good advice,” I said.

  “Isn’t that going to make me look even guiltier?” Autumn asked me.

  “Not any more than having your fingerprints on the murder weapon,” I said. It was probably a little too harsh, but she needed to realize that this was going to be a difficult and dangerous situation, and she needed to take it seriously.

  “Oh, no. What a disaster,” she said.

  I wanted to disagree with her, but I couldn’t. “Don’t worry. We’ll get through this,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure how we were going to manage that.

  Less than six minutes later, the chief of police showed up. We’d left the immediate area where we’d found the body and were now waiting for her in the kitchen. Chief Seaborne led three officers to where we were standing, and after a quick greeting to us both, she and two of the other officers went into the pantry to investigate. It wasn’t lost on me that one of them stayed behind with us. The police chief was an older woman sporting a face lined with creases, no doubt from the worries that came with her job. Her dark hair was starting to show streaks of gray, and I liked her for not trying to hide it with dye. There wasn’t anything wrong with doing that; I touched mine up every now and then myself, but I had to admire a woman who owned her gray as though it was a badge of honor. The chief wasn’t necessarily a handsome woman, but her stature and presence gave her an undeniable air that here was a person of substance, one to be reckoned with.

  We were still waiting for her to rejoin us when Tommy Henson showed up. Tommy had been on the chunky side all through college, but since then, he must have lost thirty pounds and had really gotten into shape. In fact, it was almost hard to recognize him at first, but those twinkling blue eyes gave him away. “Tommy, thanks for coming so quickly,” I said.

  “Suzanne? What are you doing here?” he asked me, clearly caught off guard by my appearance.

  “I’m in town visiting Autumn,” I said.

  “It’s Tom now, in case she didn’t tell you,” he corrected me automatically.

  “Tom it is. I’m still Suzanne, by the way.”

  He shook his head for a moment, dismissing me, and then he turned to Autumn. “I need a retainer. Do you have a dollar on you?”

  “No, my billfold is in the car,” she said.

  “I have one,” I said as I dragged one out of my small wallet. “Here you go,” I said as I handed it to Tommy, er, Tom. That was going to take some getting used to.

  “She has to be the one to give it to me,” the attorney insisted.

  “Fine,” I said as I handed the single to Autumn, who in turn gave it to our old friend from college.

  He looked relieved to have the transaction completed. “The rest is just formality, but as your official attorney of record, I’m instructing you to refer any and all questions to me.”

  “I didn’t do it, Tom!” Autumn said a bit shrilly. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “You’re not going to hide anything,” he said calmly, “but if you can’t do as I’m instructing you to do, you need to find another attorney, and I mean right now. Look at me, Autumn. Does it look like I’m kidding around here?”

  Apparently the soft, happy-go-lucky version of the man had died somewhere between school and the present. There was no doubt in my mind that this man, Tom, would indeed walk away if he didn’t get what he wanted.

  “Okay, sure. I agree,” Autumn said.

  “Good,” Tom said. “Now don’t say another word until we’re alone, unless it’s something like, ‘On the advice of counsel, I refuse to answer any questions at this time.”

  “There’s something you’re forgetting. Suzanne knows everything I do,” Autumn protested.

  “Maybe so, but she can’t be in our discussions.” He turned to me. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. I was more than happy to let him step in and take over.

  The chief must have heard voices in the other room, because she came out almost as soon as she heard us chatting. “What’s going on out here?” she asked, and then she spotted Tom. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Hello, Chief Seaborne,” Tom said. After his display of authority with us, I was finding it easier to call him Tom after all, and I doubted that I’d make that mistake again.

  “What are you doing here, Counselor?”

  “Autumn and Suzanne are old college friends,” he explained. “I’m representing Mrs. Marbury in this matter.”

  “I’m assuming you’re not referring to the late Mrs. Marbury in there,” she said as she gestured toward the pantry.

  “Mrs. Autumn Marbury,” he corrected.

  “Fine.” Turning to her, Chief Seaborne said, “Tell me what happened.”

  “Chief, I’d like time to confer with my client before you conduct an official interview,” Tom said.

  “Why is that? What is it you’re not telling me, Mrs. Marbury?” the chief asked her, ignoring the attorney.

  Autumn was about to answer when she just shook her head and looked at her attorney. “He told me not to talk to you.” It was quite a liberal paraphrasing of what Tom had told her to say, but it would have to be good enough.

  “Well, somebody needs to tell me what’s going on,” the chief said. She then turned to me. “How about you? Is he representing you, too?”

  “No, I don’t have an attorney,” I said, “and I don’t want one.”

  “Suzanne, you shouldn’t—” Tom started to say, but I cut him off.

  I didn’t care to hear the end of that particular sentence. “I can take care of myself.”

  The chief smiled gently, and I wondered if I was perhaps making a mistake by not having Tom represent me, too. I knew firsthand how much trouble I could get into even though I might be completely innocent. Still, the chief had a point. Someone had to tell her something if she was going to be able to do her job.

  “What happened?” she asked me.

  “We came here to talk to Cecile, but when we got to the house, she was already dead. I checked for a pulse myself, but she was cold to the touch. Clearly someone killed her long before we ever got here.”

  The chief jotted that down in a small notebook she was carrying. “Were you two together fro
m the time you arrived on the scene until the time you found the body?”

  If I answered that, I was going to get Autumn in trouble. I knew she hadn’t killed her mother-in-law, but it would look bad once the police chief knew what had really happened. “I won’t answer that, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “You can’t stonewall me like this,” she said, letting a little anger slip through. I doubted it was a tactic; I got the impression that she was honestly frustrated by our lack of cooperation.

  I just shrugged. I knew that I wasn’t under any obligation to answer every question she asked me, especially if it implicated my friend wrongly.

  “What about the murder weapon? Whose idea was it to wrap it in a dishtowel?”

  “I wanted to preserve any fingerprints that might still be on it. I told you earlier that Autumn picked it up,” I said as Tom’s face went beet red.

  “Suzanne!”

  “It’s not like they aren’t going to find her fingerprints on that rolling pin without me telling them about it,” I said. “She was in shock, for goodness’ sake! Finding a dead body will do that to you.”

  “How would you know that?” the chief asked me archly. “Found many dead bodies in the past, have you? What are you, some kind of cop?”

  “No, I’m a donutmaker,” I confessed, “but I’m married to a former state police investigator named Jake Bishop.”

  “Did you say Bishop?” she asked, staring at me for a moment as she waited for my answer.

  “Yes. Why, do you know him?”

  “We’ve met once or twice,” she said as she jotted something else down in her notebook. “Given your marital status to an investigator, I’m surprised you’re not being more cooperative with the police.”

  “Chief, she’s told you all that she’s going to say at this time,” Tom insisted.

  “I need a statement from both of them, Counselor.”

  “And you’ll get them,” Tom agreed, “but I need an hour with my client.”

  “How about Mrs. Bishop?” she asked him.

  “Actually, it’s Hart,” I said. “I only take my husband’s name for official matters.”

  “And you don’t think murder is official enough for you?” she asked me.

  I didn’t have an answer for that, so as a change of pace if nothing else, I kept my mouth shut as I came to a decision. I reached back into my wallet and pulled out a twenty, the only other bill I had at the moment. “I’m going to want change from that, Counselor,” I said as I handed it to Tom.

  He took the bill and stuffed it into his pants pocket. “Chief, I am, at this moment, representing both ladies in this matter. If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be in touch soon.”

  “Make it an hour, or I’m going to send my people out looking for you,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” Tom told us, ignoring the threat.

  As he led us out of what had been Autumn’s home until recently, I had to wonder who had taken a rolling pin and ended the matriarch of the clan’s life.

  At least I was sure it wasn’t my friend.

  She’d been with me all day, and despite the time we’d been apart, Cecile’s body hadn’t had time to get that cold if Autumn had been the one to kill her.

  At least I didn’t think so, an idea that troubled me greatly even as it popped into my head.

  Chapter 12

  “SUZANNE, WOULD YOU mind waiting out here while I speak with Autumn first?” Tom asked when we arrived at his office. Apparently he’d done rather well for himself since he’d left school. The place was directly across from the courthouse, and if the firm’s name was any indication—Strawberry, Hickock, and Henson—he’d already managed to make partner while still in his thirties. The furniture was all rich leather and quarter-sawn oak, and there was a scent of money in the place from the moment we walked in. A stylishly dressed young woman in her twenties sat at the receptionist’s desk, but the other office doors were closed.

  “Three coffees please, Lila,” he told the woman.

  “Of course, sir,” she said as she excused herself. The three of us were now alone.

  “Why can’t she come in with me? Suzanne knows everything I do,” Autumn protested.

  “We weren’t together the entire time,” I reminded her.

  “I was looking for Cecile,” she said firmly.

  “Autumn,” Tom chastised her. “Enough. Inside, please.” It wasn’t so much a request as it was an order.

  “It’s okay, Autumn. He wants to make sure our stories are the same without us collaborating on what we’re going to say,” I explained to her. “Go on. We don’t have anything to hide.”

  “Okay,” Autumn agreed.

  Tom nodded a quick thank-you to me, and then they disappeared into one of the offices.

  I took the coffee from Lila, but I didn’t drink it. She knocked then delivered the other two cups inside. I decided to catch Jake up on what was going on, so I took out my cell phone and stepped outside.

  “Hey, it’s me,” I said.

  He understood my tone of voice instantly. “What happened?”

  “Do you remember how I told you earlier that Autumn was about to confront her mother-in-law?”

  “Yes, what happened?” he asked.

  “Somebody killed her.”

  “Autumn?” he asked, his voice full of alarm.

  “No, her mother-in-law. Autumn is the one who found her.”

  “That’s not good,” Jake said.

  “Wait, it gets worse. Cecile was having the locks changed, and we went to confront her. Like I told you before, Autumn insisted on going in alone to speak with the woman in private, and I agreed.”

  “It’s getting worse,” Jake said.

  “Buckle up, there’s more. After a good fifteen minutes, I heard Autumn scream. When I got to the pantry where the sound had come from, I found her hunched over her mother-in-law’s body with the murder weapon in her hand.”

  After a moment’s pause, he said softly, “Okay.”

  “It was a marble rolling pin, and Autumn wanted to wipe it down to get her fingerprints off of it, but I insisted we preserve them in case the murderer’s prints were still on it as well. Jake, was that a mistake?”

  “From a forensic point of view, it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

  “How about from a friend’s perspective?” I asked.

  “Was the body still warm when you got to it? I know the first thing you did was check for a pulse, no matter what the scene looked like.”

  “She was cold to the touch,” I reported. “The woman had been dead at least an hour, in my amateur opinion.”

  “Suzanne, I’d stack your opinion up against almost anyone else’s I know,” he said. “Still, she needs a lawyer.”

  “She’s got one. We both do, as a matter of fact,” I told him.

  “Why do you need a lawyer?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to say without incriminating Autumn,” I admitted. “Tom is an old friend of ours from college, and he’s the one she called.”

  “Their relationship is strictly professional though, right?” he asked me delicately. For a man who’d faced down armed criminals in his past life, he could be downright delicate at times.

  “Yes. With Tom it is strictly business.”

  He must have heard something in my tone. “With Tom? Is there someone else?”

  “There’s a handsome young handyman named Lee who seems to be around quite a bit,” I explained. Before Jake could ask, I quickly added, “I don’t think there’s anything going on between them, but if there were, I doubt Lee would object. He clearly has a crush on her.”

  “But she hasn’t reciprocated it?” Jake asked.

  “No. I’m sure of it. Autumn would never cheat on her husband.”

  “Perhaps the woman you knew in college wouldn’t, but who knows about now? People change, Suzanne.”

  “Not her. Not that way,” I said emphatically.

  “Okay. Who’s investigating the case?�
�

  “It’s funny you should ask. The chief of police is a woman named Seaborne.”

  “I know her. She’s good, but better yet, she doesn’t rush to judgment. That buys you a little time.”

  “A little time for what?” I asked him.

  “To find out who really killed Cecile Marbury,” Jake answered. “I can be there in two hours.”

  “Hang on a second,” I said. “As much as I appreciate the offer, are you sure that’s the best course of action to take?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just wondering if your presence might be a little intimidating to some of the people who are bound to be suspects. If I ask around myself, with Autumn of course, they might not be on their guard.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Still, I don’t like you digging into a murder without me.”

  “I understand your desire to protect me, believe me, but I think it’s better if we keep this under the radar. How long do you think we have to dig into this?”

  “If I were to guess, I’d say forty-eight hours at the most, but I’m not sure you can count on having even that much time. The victim was rich and socially prominent, is that correct?”

  “Yes on both counts,” I said.

  “Then the chief will tread carefully, but trust me, she’ll be quick and thorough at the same time. I won’t come if you don’t want me there.” Before I could protest, he hastily added, “That’s not what I meant. I was talking about in an investigative capacity.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you, and I may have to call and ask you for help later, but let me see what I can come up with first on my own, okay?”

  “Okay, but I’m never more than a phone call away,” he said.

  I was about to say something when Tom poked his head out the door. “Suzanne, I need you in my office right now.”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” he said, and then I hung up.

  “That was my husband,” I explained as I put my phone away.

  “The state police inspector,” Tom said knowingly.

  “You’ve heard of Jake?”

  “Not just him, but you as well, Suzanne,” Tom said as we walked back in. Autumn was sitting out in the reception area now. “We won’t be long,” he assured her. “Don’t go anywhere.”