Entitled to Kill

by A C F Bookens

  “Oh my gracious,” I said. “And you’re sure it wasn’t an accident.”

  “I won’t go into the details, but trust me when I say that there’s plenty of evidence that it was intentional.”

  I let out a hard sigh. “Do you know who killed him?”

  “Not yet . . . and Harvey, this really is not somewhere you should be snooping, okay?”

  I gave him a look through the tops of my eyes. “I hear you. But any particular reason you’re shooing me away this time?”

  “You mean besides the fact that you’re not a police officer?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, besides that.”

  “Because we suspect Miranda Harris-Lewis killed him.

  7

  To say the rest of that evening was restless would be akin to comparing Maryland’s affection for Old Bay to my slight preference for walnut-honey cream cheese over berry cream cheese. In other words, there was no comparison.

  I barely slept, and from the look of Mart the next morning, the same was true for her. We both could have played extras in a zombie film and wouldn’t have needed to visit the make-up trailer.

  I arrived at the store a bit before ten and was pleased to see that Marcus had already arrived for his shift and gone through the opening procedures. I had never been as glad as I was at that moment to have hired him.

  Rocky was off that day for her classes, so Mart was covering the café . . . and I hoped she didn’t scald herself with hot coffee. Sleep deprivation does not make for great coordination. Still, I was glad she was there again. We needed each other after the encounter with Rafe the day before and now this news about Miranda.

  I had spent most of the night thinking about what the sheriff said, and while I really hoped that Miranda hadn’t killed her husband, I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t understand. That man was awful, and he’d made her life and the life of her children miserable and terrifying. If she hadn’t seen another way out, I could completely see how murder might have felt like her only option.

  But somehow, I didn’t believe it. She had seemed hopeful when we talked yesterday, and even though she’d looked absolutely terrified when we left, she hadn’t tried to play off our ruse with a direct refusal. That made me think maybe she had wanted to use our ploy as a way of getting help. Maybe even getting out.

  Still, she clearly had the most motive, and I could see why the sheriff suspected her. He’d said they were going to bring her in for questioning this morning and that I shouldn’t contact her – even to check in – since that might tip her off. “For her sake, Harvey, we need this to be by the book. I only told you about our suspicions because of what happened earlier today. It was courtesy, but not permission.”

  I hadn’t called, although I’d really wanted to. But I knew the sheriff was right. She had to react honestly in order for them to get this straight. So I waited.

  Fortunately, we were busy with our new children’s story time for most of the morning. Each week, we’d had more and more preschoolers come with their parents, and I was loving the way they reacted to Marcus as he read to them from some of his favorite children’s books. This week, he had chosen Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, and as he read the story of a woman finding herself by planting flowers everywhere she went, his voice got wispy and magical. I, like the children at his feet, was swept away with the story. So swept away, in fact, that I didn’t even see Sheriff Mason come in.

  When story time ended, he was standing by the psychology bookshelf just outside the children’s section, and he looked relaxed. I was hoping this wasn’t just Marcus’s gift for reading aloud or the beauty of the story. Maybe it also indicated that Miranda hadn’t been arrested.

  I sauntered over, trying to keep the buoyant feeling I had from the story, and said, “Oh, please, oh please, have good news.”

  He turned and smiled. “It wasn’t her.”

  “Oh wow. Really. Okay, this is good news.” I did a little spin and turned back to face Mason. “I mean, I know you still have to solve the case, but this is good news, right?”

  “Yes, it’s good news.” His smile got bigger.

  “So, how did you know?”

  The smile faded quickly. “Harvey, you know I’m not going to tell you all the details. Let’s just say that it was clear from the way she talked about driving that she was not capable of the, um, focus necessary to commit this murder.”

  I had no idea what that meant, and sometime later, I’d work a little harder to get the details. But now? Now I was just really happy.

  The sheriff patted my shoulder. “I knew you’d want to know.” He put on his hat and left.

  I rushed over to the café to tell Mart the good news, and we did one of those jumpy, happy things that women always do on movies and that felt entirely unnatural, but also fitting.

  “Oh, that’s amazing,” Mart said as she looked me hard in the eye. “But Harvey, this does not mean you can go sleuthing to find out who the killer is. You know that, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course, I know that I’m not a trained investigator.” I really, really wanted my dodge to go unnoticed but was not surprised when Mart gave my shoulders a little shake.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it, Harvey Beckett. No snooping. No casual questioning. No studying of car bumpers. Nothing. You hear me?”

  Her grip on my shoulders was firm, but I managed to duck and spin out. “I won’t do anything dangerous. You know that.”

  “No, Harvey. No, I don’t. Danger seems to find you because you are too darn curious.”

  But I was already walking away, a smile tossed over my shoulder, to help two men in the spirituality and religion section. I knew just what my friend meant, but I also knew that I could be surreptitious in my queries. No one would know what I was looking into. By the time I pulled a copy of Kathleen Norris’s Amazing Grace off the shelf for my customers, I had almost convinced myself.

  The afternoon brought in a steady stream of customers and the delight of a visit from Daniel, who had a lull in work for a few minutes and wanted to know if I had time for a walk. Marcus was in for another hour or so, so I let him know I’d be back soon and headed out with Daniel and our two pups.

  Walking with two hounds is an exercise in arm strength and patience. I expect some people are able to train their dogs not to tug and pull while they take in the entire planet through their noses, but Daniel and I are not those people. Mayhem required all my body strength to keep her from pulling me off my feet, and Taco, while not as consistently bull-headed as his red-headed counterpart, could follow a scent right into oncoming traffic if Daniel wasn’t careful.

  The upside of this situation was that a short pass up and back down Main Street meant that the two dogs would be so exhausted when we got back that they’d sleep the rest of the day. The downside was that I would need to see a massage therapist to have the knots in my shoulders worked out. Fortunately, a certain dark-haired mechanic gave a pretty good shoulder rub.

  “You heard about Miranda,” I said after we’d wrestled the dogs around people and away from discarded trash in silence for a few minutes.

  “I did. Saw the sheriff when I dropped off a patrol car after an oil change. That’s good news.”

  “It is.” Daniel had come over the night before to sit with Mart and me for a while. He was not happy that we’d gone to her house, of course. But he was even more livid that Rafe would keep tabs on his wife with a doorbell cam.

  “I don’t wish anyone dead, but that guy, that guy makes me kind of glad he’s gone,” He had said as he scowled into his hot cocoa.

  I couldn’t disagree. But I was glad to find out that Miranda hadn’t done it. While I knew she would have been justified, maybe even in court, I didn’t know if she or those little girls would survive the travails of a court case.

  “Now, though, of course, we still have a murderer on our hands. Miranda was the easy suspect given that she stood to inherit her dad’s fortune and that she was a long-time dome
stic violence victim. With her cleared, I’m not sure where to investigate next.” As soon as the word investigate left my lips, I regretted it.

  “Harvey!”

  One day I would fully grasp that my friends did not like my new hobby and just not talk about it. But today was not that day.

  “Alright, alright, I get it. You and Mart want me to back off.”

  He put his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him. “We do. Because we care about you. You know that, right?”

  “I do.” I gave him a little squeeze and started walking again. “I do, but I’m just so fascinated with all these things. Is it okay if we just talk about ideas if I agree not to do anything ridiculous in terms of detective work?”

  I could tell that Daniel would rather have dropped the whole idea, but he nodded briskly. “I guess I’d rather be in the loop so I can help if you get into trouble than I would be shut out and have no idea what’s happening.”

  I smiled. “That’s my guy.” I winked at him and saw him blush. It was the first time I’d use a possessive to describe him. I think he liked it.

  “Okay, so who else gains from these two deaths?”

  Daniel rolled his eyes but played along. “Do we know that one person killed both of them? I mean what would be the motive? If it was the oil, then wouldn’t have someone killed Miranda instead of Rafe?

  “You make a good point. Plus, Pickle and Bear were not exactly tight-lipped that they were buying the oil rights, so they would have been the targets, right? I mean if people knew.” I gave Mayhem’s leash a good tug. “So it’s probably not the oil, unless maybe someone thought that they needed to get Rafe out of the way, too. Do you think he would have had access to Miranda’s oil fortune?”

  Daniel walked in silence for a moment or two. “That’s a good question. I think – and you’d know this better than I – that inheritance money isn’t split with a spouse. So I don’t think Rafe would have had access to the money.”

  I stopped dead in the middle of the crosswalk. “But does everybody know that? Maybe they thought they had to get Rafe and Miranda—“ I stopped walking. “Oh no, Miranda might still be in danger.”

  Daniel took my arm and led me out of the street and then waved at the grumpy woman in the red sedan who had been waiting for me to get out of the way. “Could be. But Harvey,” he turned and faced me outside of the shop, “that doesn’t mean you need to do anything.”

  “Yes, it does. I need to call Sheriff Mason.”

  Daniel sighed. “Okay, that you can do. But no snooping.”

  I gave a weak laugh. “You all must think I’m really nosy.”

  “We prefer the term curious,” he said and then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before we headed back to the shop.

  I was halfway through dialing when I realized I was doing just what bugged Sheriff Mason so much – assuming he couldn’t do his job. If I called him and told him my theory about Miranda still being in danger – a theory he had probably already considered – I’d be insulting him. I definitely didn’t want to do that.

  Instead, I decided there was no danger in doing a little research myself. I concluded that if I could figure out if Rafe stood to inherit part of the Harris fortune, I’d at least know if someone had motive to kill him specifically. I supposed that other people could be making the same assumption I had – that money in a marriage was always divided equally – but maybe they’d thought to check into that before taking the drastic step of murder.

  It was something to look into at least, and I liked having a path to go down, a goal to achieve. It made me feel purposeful.

  But my research would have to wait until tomorrow. Marcus’s shift was ending, and we had a beautifully full house in the shop. Mart was filling mugs left and right, and almost every reading chair was occupied by a person with a book open. It made my heart feel good.

  I wandered the shop and picked up books, putting them on the antique library cart I’d just added to the store’s assets. It was made of a beautiful oak that was stained a color somewhere between top soil and sunset. I loved pushing it around the shop to gather the strays from people’s shopping endeavors. I thought of all the booksellers and librarians before me who had used the cart. Their fingers had weathered the top a bit, and it felt like I was holding hands with them while I worked. A legacy of books and reading passed down on wheels.

  Once I could afford to take the bookshelves to the ceiling and store my overstock there, I planned on installing two or three library ladders in the shop, and then, it would be everything I dreamed. Just a few more big sales, and I’d be there.

  I had just finished reshelving and ringing up the day’s last customers, when the bell over the door rang. I started to say, “I’m sorry, but we’re just closing” when I heard, “Oh, HARVEY!” in the voice of a person I loved dearly.

  “Stephen Arritt-Hitchcock?! What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t forget me, gorgeous,” Walter, Stephen’s husband said. “Surprise!!”

  I couldn’t believe it. Stephen and Walter lived in San Francisco, where I had worked with Stephen back in the day. This was no casual drop by on the way home from dinner. They had flown cross-country.

  “What are you doing here?” I hugged them both at the same time and took a deep breath. More friends were here, and I was so grateful.

  “Mart has been keeping us up on what’s happening, and we wanted to be here. This is hard, Harvey.”

  I wanted to cry, but I needed to keep it together or else I was afraid I would completely fall apart. “Thank you, guys.” I gave them another hug. “You’re staying with us, right?”

  “Well, first, tell me, do you have any bacon?” Walter had a deep love affair with the stuff and ate it almost every morning for breakfast. “You know that the absence of bacon is a deal-breaker.” He gave me a grin.

  I smirked. “I always keep a pound in the freezer just for you, sir.”

  “Alright, then, it’s settled,” Stephen said. “Also, we left our suitcases on your front stoop. The Uber dropped us off there, and then we came right over.”

  “I see you take nothing for granted.” I kissed each of them on the cheek and then finished closing up so we could all go to dinner.

  We chose to dine at Chez Cuisine because it was close and, well, open. Most of the restaurants in St. Marin’s closed at seven during the week in the off-season because of lack of customers. But Max prided himself on creating as much of a European atmosphere as possible, and apparently, the French ate late. I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t visited France, and frankly, I wasn’t sure Max really knew either. But I was grateful for the chance to drink wine and eat with my friends.

  I briefly thought about calling Cate and Lucas, but I decided I’d like a night to just be with three of my oldest friends and even texted Daniel to tell him what was up. He’d totally understood. “Sometimes, you need to reminisce without catching someone up all the time. I’ll grab Marcus and order pizza. New Roadkill on the DVR.”

  The man was obsessed with this TV show. In the episode I had watched him, they drove a car across thousands of miles and then put that car’s engine into the boat, drove the boat, before putting the engine back in the car and driving home. I had no idea why someone would do such a thing, and when I posited that question to Daniel, he said, “Because they can,” which is the reason a lot of us do the things we do, I suppose.

  As I entered Chez Cuisine, Max greeted me by, again, taking my hand and kissing it. Then, he looked back at Mart, Stephen, and Walter and said, “Oh, no Daniel. I hope nothing happened.” He held onto my hand and moved closer to me. It was creepy.

  Mart saved me by looping an arm around my waist and saying, “I’m her date tonight,” and then kissing me loudly on the cheek. “Max, we need two bottles of wine, please, one white and one red. You know what I like.”

  Max blushed, but nodded and headed off.

  “He knows what you like?” Walter teased.

  Mart smacked him playfu
lly. “What I really meant was, ‘Bring me that great bottle of white and that amazing red I just sold you.’”

  “Ah, ingesting your own products, I see. That’s a testament to how much you believe in what you sell.” Stephen pointed to a table in the back, and we slid in. Only one other couple – probably on a first date, if I was reading the body language right – was in the restaurant, so we had our choice of seats.

  I nodded and took the seat against the wall. I liked to see what was going on, and for some reason, being tucked in a corner always felt cozy and warm to me.

  Max returned with the wine and even went so far as to pour a bit of each for me – why me, I wasn’t sure – to sample. I said they were fine. I would have said that for most wine because I didn’t really know anything about it, but given that these were from the vineyard where Mart worked, I knew they were good.

  Before we even ordered, Max brought out a tray of oysters for the table and an order of the black olive tapenade for me. I loved that stuff and had to restrain myself from eating it right out of the cut-glass bowl with a spoon instead of putting it on the toast bites that Max also brought.

  “He’s giving us free appetizers?” Mart looked at me.

  “Oh, I doubt they’re free. But it is odd that he brought them out before we ordered.”

  “And a little telling that he knew you didn’t eat seafood, Harvey.” Stephen’s voice was full of innuendo.

  “What? Wait?! What?! What are you saying? No. No. Nonononono. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a small town.”

  “Uh-huh,” Stephen said as he wiggled his eyebrows. “Someone has an admirer.” The idea that Max Davies had a thing for me, oh, I didn’t like it. Not at all. I mean we got along alright now after our rough start, but he was just kind of smarmy. He always struck me as out to get what was best for him, forget everybody else.

  “All I’m saying is that in the ten minutes we’ve been here, he’s kissed your hand, brought you your favorite appetizer, and stared at you nonstop from the door by the kitchen. I think someone has a crush.” Walter dropped his voice to a pseudo-whisper. “Want me to go ask him if he likes you?”