The Eleventh Hour

by Anina Collins

  Surprised we were driving, I asked, “We’re not walking to the restaurant?” My house wasn’t even six blocks away from Diamanti’s, so I’d assumed we would walk.

  His gaze drifted from my face down my body to my high heels and then back up to my eyes. “In those shoes? I would never expect anyone to walk in heels that high.”

  Self-conscious about my choice of footwear for the night, I began explaining how they were the right shoes for the outfit and how I’d worn them before so I knew I could handle walking even a few blocks in them. To be honest, I knew I was rambling and wanted to stop myself, but somehow I was unable to.

  Alex smiled and extended his arm toward his Mustang. “They look great, Poppy. I just don’t feel right having you walk all that way. Humor me, okay?”

  I sighed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  Whatever this night was, it wasn’t starting off well. Not for me, at least. For his part, Alex seemed perfectly relaxed in comparison to my one woman show about how uncomfortable I was in my own skin. Not five minutes after he picked me up and I already felt foolish.

  Definitely not a good start.

  We drove the few blocks to Diamanti’s and didn’t say a word. For once, I was thankful for his ability to be silent. At least that decreased the chances of my sticking my foot in my mouth again. Normally, I would have chatted about his car since I hadn’t asked him anything about it yet, but I didn’t want to risk sounding like an idiot on that topic too.

  By the time we reached the restaurant, I’d convinced myself that I was acting silly. This was Alex, after all. My partner. My friend, or at least someone who was quickly becoming a friend. And no matter what Jennie or others in town thought of him, he was just the person I worked with for this case.

  The maître d’ sat us at a table in the center of the restaurant on Alex’s request. From behind the menu, I wondered why he’d specifically asked to be seated in that particular spot, but I didn’t ask. He liked to people watch, so perhaps that was the reason.

  That would also point to the idea that this wasn’t, in fact, a date but something related to our investigation of the case. Although I couldn’t help be disappointed at that for a brief moment, the thought of this just being us working together as partners, albeit dressed to the teeth and eating at a fine restaurant, relaxed me.

  “If you love a great steak, this is the right place for it,” I said, breaking the silence between us.

  Alex peered out from behind his menu and smiled. “I could go for a good steak tonight. What about you?”

  Looking down the menu, I saw my favorite Diamanti’s dish. “I think I’m going for the bourbon pork chop.”

  “Sounds good.”

  We made small talk about what sides to get, and I told him about how I’d always found the bartenders there to be a little too heavy handed with the alcohol in the martinis. Then we ordered our food and drinks. For the first time that night, I didn’t feel like I was unsure of myself. I pushed the last of Bethany’s silliness about what this was out of my head and just let myself have a good time with someone I admired.

  And once I’d done that, we were able to get back to business about Geneva’s murder and the person who was very possibly our newest suspect.

  Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the letter I’d received at my office earlier that day. “I have something to show you. It was delivered to me at The Eagle while I was at work today.”

  I handed it to Alex and watched his eyes light up. He examined the envelope, and seeing no return address, he remarked on it, and then slipped the letter out to read it. When he finished, he looked up and asked, “What do you think of this?”

  Whether he was testing me to see if I’d noticed something he had or just wanted my opinion I couldn’t tell, but I wanted to show him I’d paid attention to the details. Pointing at the bottom of the page, I said, “It’s anonymous. No name and no return address either. I can’t tell if it’s a female’s or male’s handwriting, though.”

  Slowly, a smile crept onto his mouth. “You act like that’s something definitive.”

  “Men usually have thinner handwriting, if they write in cursive at all. Most men I know print most of what they write. Women have rounder, loopier handwriting. This, though, seems to be almost part male and part female with the thinner parts on Candy’s name and the rounder parts on some of the words toward the end. Weird.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and then nodded. “I didn’t come across too many handwritten notes in my time on the force. Very few people handwrite much of anything these days.”

  Pointing toward the letter in his hand, I looked over the writing on the page. “I know. It’s becoming a lost art. Everyone texts and emails anymore.”

  “So who do you think wrote this? And why?”

  I thought for a moment before saying, “I’m not sure about the who, but I can tell you why. Candy Skerrit had a Mount Rushmore-sized grudge against Geneva. She vowed to get revenge on her for cheating her out of tips and always being rude to her.”

  Narrowing his eyes as if to consider what I’d just said, he asked, “Is this another one of those gossip tales everyone in town but me knows?”

  I chuckled at the idea that I had become someone in Sunset Ridge who’d be in the know like that. Like I was someone in the inner circle now.

  “No. I found that out when I went to Candy’s hair salon today. She runs Candy’s Cuts on the other side of town, so I figured after I got that letter that I’d stop over and see if I could find out anything from her while she did my hair.”

  He lifted his gaze to look at my hair and smiled again. “It looks very nice. Very different from what you usually look like, in fact.”

  I had no idea if I should take that as a compliment or not, and after a second or two of wondering, I pushed it out of my mind to continue telling him about my fact-finding visit to Candy’s Cuts.

  “From what I found out, Candy and Geneva had a hate-hate relationship. Even though she insulted Candy every time she had her cut her hair, Geneva kept coming back. She refused to tip her too.”

  Clearly skeptical, Alex smirked. “Doesn’t really sound like enough to make someone want to kill a person, though.”

  “You have no idea how much hatred one woman can have for another.”

  “Okay. I won’t argue with you on that. As far as I can tell, women hating one another seems to be instinctual in your sex.”

  I held my hands up in front of me. “Don’t put that on me. There are many women like me who don’t work like that. Candy and Geneva aren’t two of them, though.”

  He took a drink of his scotch and thought for a moment. “I don’t understand why Geneva would keep returning to Candy to get her hair done if she hated it every time.”

  “Well, Candy is the best in town, and I can see someone like Geneva thinking she deserved the best of everything. It could have been something else, though. For what it’s worth, I’d never heard anything about a feud between them until today, but that doesn’t mean much. I’m not exactly in the know in this town.”

  Chuckling, he took another sip of his drink. “You underestimate yourself, Poppy. You know a lot about what goes on in this town. You and your father. Are you sure you never heard anything about them before?”

  I shook my head, sure I knew no more than I’d found out that afternoon. “No. All I’ve ever known is that Candy is known around town as very rude. She likes to think she’s being truthful, but as with most people who claim that, she can be quite blunt. She’s offended many a person here in Sunset Ridge.”

  Even more confused, he asked, “Then why do people continue to go back to her to get their hair done?”

  “Because she’s the best.”

  “It must be a woman thing. If the guy who cuts my hair gave me a hard time, I’d just find someone else to do it. I’m paying him. The least he can do if he decides to talk at all is be pleasant.”

  “If only the world was run by men instead of emotional and err
atic women,” I joked sarcastically.

  Now it was his turn to surrender in the conversation. “Point taken. So did you find out anything else while Candy was doing your hair this afternoon?”

  I opened my bag and took out my little notebook I’d written everything down in when I returned home. “Candy vowed to get revenge on Geneva for calling her, and I’m quoting here, ‘a ham-handed, second-rate barber’ before she stormed out last Friday. That was just two days before the murder.”

  “Did her hair look that bad when you saw her Monday morning?” Alex asked in a moment of odd curiosity about something unimportant.

  Thinking back to when I saw her lying dead on her dining room floor, I shrugged. “Not really. It looked the same as it always did, except it was on a dead woman.”

  He gave me a tiny smile as a reward for my joke that was probably in poor taste and continued to explore what I’d found out that afternoon. “Did Candy say anything else to you about Geneva? Maybe that she wanted to kill her?”

  “No such luck, but her assistant Kira told me something interesting. She said it looked like Candy wanted to wring her neck that last time she was there. She chased after her out onto the sidewalk after she insulted her.”

  The waiter brought our dinner and set our plates down in front of us as Alex remarked, “Interesting choice of words. Do you think Candy would be capable of killing her over that?”

  I looked up to see the young man who’d delivered our meal wide-eyed at Alex’s comment and smiled. “Thank you. It looks lovely.”

  He left quickly, likely frightened by our conversation, and I leaned forward toward Alex to warn him. “I think you scared our waiter with your talk of killing in front of him. Remember where you are. There are open ears everywhere, but especially here.”

  As he cut into his steak, he winked. “I’m counting on it. Let’s eat and then over dessert I can tell you what I found out this afternoon.”

  “Okay. I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I have to know. Do you think Candy is our third suspect? Can we add her to Shelley Steadman and Jefferson Girard?”

  Alex closed his eyes as he took a bite of steak and nodded. “This is great steak.”

  I hated when he played games with me like that. Frustrated, I asked him again if Candy was our third suspect, and when he opened his eyes I saw I hadn’t been wrong about her.

  “I think she can be considered a suspect. Good job checking her out. Two questions, though, and then we’ll get to this delicious meal. Did she have opportunity to commit the crime and did she have the means?”

  I didn’t have to think about the means part. I’d taken a look at Candy’s arms as she styled my hair and saw she possessed some serious upper arm strength. At the very least she could strangle someone like Geneva, who was smaller than she was. As for the opportunity, that I didn’t know, unfortunately.

  “I don’t know where she was Sunday night, but I think she could strangle a woman like Geneva, both because she hated her and she was bigger than our victim.”

  Savoring another bite of his New York Strip, he finished chewing and said, “Then we have another suspect. Now we’ll just have to find out if we can put her at Geneva’s during the time of the crime.”

  I cut into my bourbon pork chop and took a bite of the incredible food, but no matter how wonderful dinner was, it couldn’t beat how great I felt about my work that afternoon. I might not have been a detective for real yet, but I was learning.

  After the waiter cleared our dishes and offered the dessert menu, Alex and I sat at our table in the center of Diamanti’s satisfied after a wonderful dinner. The main dining room had filled up while we ate, so now we were surrounded by tables full of people whose own talking made any discussion of our case far more difficult now.

  “Are you going to get dessert?” he asked. “I hear the cheesecake is to die for.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the way he said that. “To die for? Is that some kind of inside joke because of our case?”

  Realizing his unintended pun, he shook his head and smiled. “No, but it fits, doesn’t it? I heard someone in line at the supermarket say that today, so I was mimicking her.”

  “Do you always listen to everything that’s said around you?”

  “Yes. I find out a lot of interesting tidbits of information that way. Like for example, I found out today that our police chief has recently been seen here on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and since I see our former mayor just walked in, I wonder if we’ll see anything with them tonight.”

  Suddenly, it all made sense. That’s why we were there.

  “So that’s why you invited me to dinner tonight?” I asked, hating the surprise so evident in my voice. I should have been able to figure out this whole thing had something to do with our case.

  “Yes,” he said as he scanned the restaurant before returning his gaze to me. “I thought it might be a good place to see any fireworks between Dominick and the mayor.”

  I looked around for any sign of the chief but didn’t see him. “Why would you think there would be any fireworks between them tonight?”

  “Because Dominick was clearly a bit overzealous this morning when he found out Jefferson Girard might have something to do with this case. I’m betting if he’s had a few drinks, he might say something to the mayor that could help us figure out if Jefferson Girard had a part in our murder.”

  I had no idea if the police chief was as big a drinker as Girard, but if they were both drunk we might get to see some spectacle right there. “Ah, so you’re hoping this is more like dinner and a show.”

  Nodding, he gave me a grin. “Exactly. Clearly there’s some problem between the two men, and my gut says it’s more than just the former mayor cheating on his taxes. If that’s all it was, Dominick wouldn’t have been so eager to have one of the most important people in town dragged in for questioning at the first chance. No, there’s something between them that isn’t right, and I’m hoping from what I heard at the supermarket today about the possibility that both of them would be here at the same time tonight that we might get a clue or two what that something is.”

  “So you’re thinking Dominick might unknowingly have information that would point to Jefferson Girard as Geneva’s killer?”

  Alex merely arched an eyebrow as the former mayor and his wife walked past us to their table near the bar. I didn’t want to turn around and be obvious, so I waited for him to tell me what he was watching so intently. He didn’t, making me crazy with curiosity, and finally I repositioned my chair as casually as I could to see what was going on.

  The mayor and his wife sat with their drinks as the waiter took their orders, and as soon as he walked away from the table, Dominick came storming toward them with a look of determination.

  Turning to face Alex, whose gaze was focused on the scene unfolding in front of us, I asked, “What’s going on?”

  He raised his finger to this lips to tell me to be quiet and mouthed, “Watch,” so I turned back around and listened as the police chief spoke to former Mayor Girard.

  “I knew you were a cheat, but I didn’t think you had murder in your bag of tricks, Jefferson. Once my brother and I have the proof, you’re going down.”

  And then he stomped off out of the restaurant before the former mayor could even begin to respond to his accusation. Stunned at Dominick’s outburst, I saw Alex’s expression looked anything but surprised.

  “Did you see that? I’ve never seen Dominick act like that. He seems like a man possessed. He and Derek must know something about Girard and the case, don’t you think?”

  He just smiled. “Very interesting. The more time I spend in this town, the more intrigued I am.”

  “I have a feeling our former mayor isn’t going to just get out of this with a slap on the wrist. Dominick looks like he’s out for blood.”

  Alex raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his scotch. “Interesting, but I’m not as sure of Jefferson Girard’s guilt as our police chief is.
Then again, who am I compared to the chief of police of Sunset Ridge?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I tossed and turned all night as my brain tried to wrap itself around the idea that the former mayor of Sunset Ridge, Jefferson Girard, may have murdered Geneva Woodward. Yes, he was one of our suspects, but to be honest, I’d never considered him the most likely of the three. I didn’t know why, but I found it hard to accept that he and not one of the two women had strangled poor Geneva right there in her finely appointed dining room. I had thought the killer had been a male at first, but now I wasn’t sure.

  As I lay there in bed watching the first rays of sunlight break the horizon, I wondered about something else. Was he the mystery man Shelley had seen sneaking into the back door of Geneva’s house for a midnight rendezvous?

  I instinctively twisted my face into a grimace at that rather disturbing thought. Jefferson Girard had never struck me as a sexy, clandestine meeting type of man. I’d always considered him more of a pudgy, smarmy political type most people tolerated more than liked. The idea of someone like Geneva being romantically involved with him stretched the imagination to a place I found difficult to believe, but then again, I hadn’t seen her in any sexual way before this case either.

  Stranger things had happened, though, so just because I couldn’t imagine the two of them together didn’t mean it was impossible. They said politics made strange bedfellows. Maybe it was a case of exactly that. Geneva did have the Woodward family money, and like most politicians, Jefferson Girard had always seemed like he was running for office, so perhaps he’d needed her to bankroll his campaigns and she’d needed him to…

  Again, my brain returned to the image of them together, and I cringed. I simply couldn’t imagine Geneva with her flowing blond hair and svelte body bumping up against Sunset Ridge’s former mayor and his doughy self.

  In addition to my inability to imagine them ever getting together, there was the fact that Girard had just expressed a real dislike for Geneva two nights before when Alex and I talked to him at my father’s bar. What was that he said? She was the type to always complain?