by Rickie Blair
That was the trouble with protests—everybody’s gung-ho for a day or two, but participation tends to drop off.
“How’s your hand, Derek?” I asked.
He brandished a bandage-free palm. “Great, thanks.”
Emy raised her eyebrows. “No chanting today?”
“We’re taking a break,” Sue said. “It’s so hot. Derek lined up for half an hour at the corner store to buy us cold drinks.” She took a sip of her diet Coke.
Derek looked sheepish, but pleased, at her praise. I wondered when detente had broken out and if it had anything to do with blue-haired girl. She was cute once you got past the piercings.
Emy, Lorne, and I ducked up the alley that led to the parking lot behind the hardware store. We halted at the metal fire escape that led to the second- and third-floor apartments.
“What’s our approach here?” I asked. “Should we rehearse?”
Lorne chuckled. “Can’t we just ask her if she’s offed another one? And take a look around her apartment for dead husbands?”
Emy poked him hard with her elbow. “Stop that.” She giggled, then passed a hand over her face. “That’s not funny,” she said solemnly. “We have to gain her confidence, make her like us. Then we can ask her about Lucy.”
I snorted. Gain her confidence. Sure. That was easy for Emy. Everybody liked Emy. Even a convicted killer could fall under the spell of her mesmerizing smile.
Emy gave me a bemused glance, no doubt reading my mind.
She gave my arm a squeeze. “You can do it, Verity. You’re very likable.”
“Whatever. Follow me.”
We trooped up the first flight of the fire escape stairs, walked the length of the building on the metal landing, and started up the second flight, halting outside the door to the third-floor apartment.
While Emy knocked, I scanned the rooftops and billowing trees around us. We’d been up here once before, but that was after dark. In broad daylight there were no raccoons to chide us, although squirrels chattered on nearby branches. Or maybe those were finches. I craned my neck to listen.
Emy knocked again, then bent to place her ear against the door. “I can’t hear anything. She must have gone out.”
“Wouldn’t the protesters see her?”
“Maybe not, if she came out the back. Although…” Emy frowned. “She’d have to walk past them to get onto Main Street. Unless she’s acquired a car.”
We swiveled our heads to the tiny parking lot below us. Of the two spaces reserved for tenants, one held the same rusted Toyota sedan as always. The other spot was empty.
“Knock again,” I urged.
As Emy raised her knuckles, Lorne leaned over her to prop a palm against the door with a sigh. “This is a waste of—” He drew his arm back with a sudden intake of breath. “It’s open.” He pointed to the gap where his arm had pushed the door ajar.
Emy gave us a pointed look. We nodded in unison, and she pushed it a few more inches. “Hello?” she called. “Anybody home?”
Silence, except for the chattering finches… er, squirrels.
A shiver rolled down my spine. “That’s odd. I could understand if she forgot to lock it, but it wasn’t even latched. This could be a burglary. For real, I mean.”
Emy fished in her shoulder bag for her phone. “I’ll call nine-one-one. They always say you shouldn’t go inside if you suspect a break-in. The burglar could still be in there.”
Lorne pushed the door wider. “There’s three of us. We’re not in any danger.” He held out an arm to hold back Emy. “I’ll go in first.”
I followed him in, with Emy bringing up the rear. I missed our camouflage gear—especially Lorne’s blue balaclava with its fluffy wool pompom and Maple Leafs hockey logo. Unfortunately, it was tucked away in an evidence locker at police HQ—along with Emy’s deer-head mask with yellow button nose, and a red-lace D-cup bra, which certainly hadn’t been mine.
That wasn’t all that differed from our previous visit. Last time, the apartment had been covered in clothes and knickknacks, with files and books strewn everywhere. The kitchen sink had been filled with dirty dishes and the counter laden with takeout containers.
But today it was pristine. Lace curtains covered the front windows. A threadbare sofa and faded rocking chair sat on the floor—which was bare, like the walls. Either Marjorie Rupert hadn’t unpacked yet, or she had nothing to unpack. A table under the window bore two pens with a hardware store logo on them, a pad of lined yellow paper, and a handful of framed photos. Two loose pages had drifted onto the floor. I walked over and pulled them from behind the table.
Justice Denied: A Widow’s Ordeal was printed in square letters at the top of the first. The “D” and the “O” had been colored in with red and blue ink. Both pages were covered with closely spaced handwriting, with the first letters of each paragraph meticulously filled in like the title. Doodles covered the margins, including crude pen-and-ink drawings of faces—a little boy, a man.
Two pages. That was all. Perhaps Marjorie Rupert suffered from writer’s block.
I placed the pages on the table and reached for the nearest framed photo. A much younger Marjorie, wearing a pink knit dress, stood outside a restaurant. Next to her was a beaming man in a full-length apron. A teenager stood to one side, hands in his pockets. Written across the photo in silvery ink were the words, Sydney’s restaurant in Strathcona.
The picture had been taken years earlier, judging from the age of the cars parked on the street. Electric street-car wires cast a shadow along the sidewalk. Strathcona, the nearest big city to Leafy Hollow, was a two-hour drive. But who was Sydney? I put the photo back, carefully aligning it between the others.
“There doesn’t seem to be much here to entice a burglar.”
Emy stepped up beside me, dropping her phone back into her purse. “I called the police.” She tilted her head toward the bedroom and raised her eyebrows. “Might as well take a look, since we’re here.”
I followed as Emy walked across the bare floor and pushed open the door. Then she jerked back, crashing into me. She whirled around with her hands clasped to her face.
Lorne swept past me to grasp her shoulders. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Emy pointed helplessly to the open door. I ducked past her and halted.
A woman lay on her back on the bed, her head lolling over the bottom edge and her vacant eyes staring straight at us. Her arms were flung out to either side.
Even from six feet away, there was no mistaking the red bruises that circled her throat.
Marjorie Rupert, the Black Widow Killer, was dead.
Chapter Sixteen
Jeff sent us over to the bakery to wait for an officer who would take our statements. I think it was more to get us away from the murder scene—and out of his hair—than because we might have something useful to say.
My teeth chattered as I paced up and down alongside the bakery’s glass-fronted counter. No matter how many homicide victims I saw—and since arriving in Leafy Hollow, I’d seen more than my share—I never got used to it. I rubbed my throat, picturing those bruises on Marjorie’s neck.
Emy slumped in a chair at the table, mumbling under her breath. Lorne sat beside her, rubbing her back and murmuring to her.
My stomach felt nauseous. I averted my eyes from the pastry display. It was the first time I’d been in the 5X Bakery and not wanted to eat.
A half hour earlier, the police had whisked Sue Unger away in a cruiser. I had no idea why, since she’d been sitting outside the hardware store all morning. It was probably routine. I stopped pacing with a start, remembering something else I’d seen in Marjorie’s apartment. In my horror over the marks on her throat, I’d forgotten. A referee whistle lay on the floor next to the bed.
Like the one Sue Unger brought to her protests.
“Who do you think killed her?” Emy asked.
Lorne gave a snort. “Lengthy list of suspects, I bet.”
They both looked at me
.
“It could have been anybody,” I said uneasily. “She made enemies.”
Had Sue’s protection campaign extended to harassing Marjorie in her home? An argument could have led to violence, even murder. Marjorie wasn’t quite… normal. What if she became enraged and attacked Sue, who had to defend herself? But if that was the case, why didn’t Sue hang around and tell the police what happened?
The bell over the front door tinkled, and Jeff walked in.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“I don’t know who you mean.”
“I saw the whistle, Jeff.”
He frowned. “Sue says she misplaced her whistle. Mrs. Rupert could have found it on the street. Maybe she was using it to call for help.”
My hand shot to my throat as I recalled the scene. “She was strangled, wasn’t she? That takes a lot of strength. Were there signs of a struggle?”
“Let’s leave that to the professionals,” he said.
“What about the bottle of pills and water glass on the nightstand? If she was groggy, she wouldn’t be able to fight back. It wouldn’t take much strength to kill her in that state.”
“You didn’t touch anything, did you?”
“Of course not,” I protested. “You can see the nightstand from the bedroom door. Anyway, the Black Widow could have taken those pills before she was attacked. Any consensus on time of death?”
“Let’s not call the victim the Black Widow, okay?”
“Sorry. Mrs. Rupert, I meant.”
“Why were you in the apartment?”
Emy, Lorne, and I exchanged glances.
“You first, Verity,” Jeff urged.
With a black look at my compatriots—who failed to meet my glare—I straightened up and adopted my most innocent expression. “We wanted to ask her about Lucy.”
“Why?”
Emy stared at the tablecloth in front of her. Lorne stared at the floor. They were throwing me to the wolves—or the lone wolf, in this case.
“When we were in Lucy’s office, we found multiple references to the Black Widow murder trial.”
“Many people in Leafy Hollow were interested in that case,” Jeff said. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“But Jeff, there’s a killer out there. You have to reopen the probe into Lucy’s death.” I started to pace again. “And another thing—”
“We have.”
“—what about the broken fence? Don’t you…” I trailed off, staring at him. “What did you say?”
“We have reopened the investigation into Lucy Carmichael’s death,” he repeated. “But that has nothing to do with today’s homicide.”
Even though I wanted to ask what it did have to do with, I refrained. Because what if he said, Lucy’s will? I kept my gaze averted from Emy.
“Could the killer be the person we surprised at Lucy’s?” I asked. “What if they think we found evidence that links them to the crime?”
“And what if they come back for it?” Emy asked, rubbing a hand across her throat.
I tilted my head back, the binoculars pressed to my eyes, and fiddled with the focusing knob.
Emy tugged on my sleeve. “Can you see anything?”
“Not yet… wait.” I slowly swept the binoculars past the main Pine Hill Peak lookout, three hundred feet above us, to scan the densely wooded section farther east. When I reached the spot I wanted, I readjusted the knob. “There it is.”
“Are you sure that’s where she went over?” Lorne asked, a hand shading his eyes as he looked up.
“No, I’m not.” My gaze swept the edge. “But I recognize the opening between the trees, and I can see the broken fence. That’s the closed trail. The one Sue showed me.” Something caught my attention, and I readjusted the knob. “I see something.”
“What?” Emy asked, tugging again. “Let me look.”
I handed her the binoculars. “Look for the gap in the foliage. See it?”
She nodded.
“Directly under that, the ledge that runs along the escarpment about twenty feet down?”
Emy tilted her head back and peered through the lenses for a moment, slowly moving the binoculars. She halted, her mouth open. “You’re right. I do see something there and it looks like…”
She lowered the binoculars, and we exchanged glances. Emy handed the binoculars to Lorne. We watched as he studied the same spot.
“Definitely pieces of wood. And they’re straight and even, not like branches. I think you’ve found the smoking gun, Verity. Those are broken fence railings.”
“But what good will it do us? We can’t identify them from down here. And Jeff doesn’t believe my theory that Lucy fell from somewhere other than the lookout. He’s not likely to send a crew up there to retrieve those railings—if that’s what they are.” My shoulders slumped. “We’re no further ahead.”
Emy let out a disappointed groan. “I was sure this would clinch it. Mom’s in such a state. I so wanted to help her.” She dropped onto the bench beside us.
“Don’t worry,” Lorne said. “We can do this.”
We swiveled our heads to gape at him.
“How?” I asked.
“By retrieving those railings ourselves.”
It was a good thing the swelling over my hornet sting had subsided because the speed with which my eyebrows rose would have hurt otherwise. I pointed to the cliff. “Those fence railings are nearly three hundred feet up. How on earth would we get to them?”
It was meant to be a hypothetical question, but Lorne took me seriously.
“First,” he said. “It’s not three hundred feet. That spot where Lucy fell is closer to the ground. It’s only about two hundred and ninety feet.”
“Only?” He ignored me.
“Second, we don’t go up to get those pieces. We go down. And from my reckoning, that ledge is only about twenty feet from the rim.”
Emy let out a long sigh of recognition. “Ohh,” she said, “I get it.” She looked up at the ledge with a hand on her hip. “You’re right.” She twisted around to face me with an expression of triumph. “Lorne can get them.”
“Have you both lost your minds?”
“I’ll rappel down, grab the pieces, and be back up in no time,” Lorne said. “Half an hour, start to finish. I’ll just need a little help with the ropes.”
“Won’t it take longer than that to install the pitons?” Emy asked.
“I won’t have to. They’re already there.”
“You’re not talking about the ones you used in high school? Are they still safe?”
“They’ve installed new ones since then. Some of the guys used them just last week.”
Emy gave him a suspicious look.
“That’s what I heard, anyway.”
This conversation would have alarmed me, except that in high school, I took part in an Outward Bound canoe expedition in Algonquin Park. As part of the course, we’d been taught how to rappel down a cliff face. I remembered it as being enormous fun. We didn’t go back up the cliff. And we didn’t learn anything about pitons. But it was exhilarating to slide down those ropes and arrive breathless at the bottom.
So, I raised a thumb. “Great idea.”
“We’ll do it at night,” Lorne said. “When nobody can see us.”
I glanced from him to Emy and back again with a shiver of apprehension. “Is that… safe?”
“Sure. There’s a full moon tonight, and no rain. It’s perfect. We’ll wear headlights on our helmets.”
“Won’t they be visible from the valley?”
“Not if we work fast.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lorne carried the heaviest of the ropes slung over his shoulder as we climbed up the darkened trail that led to the peak. Emy and I trudged behind with the rest of the equipment. The lights on our helmets created ghostly shadows in the undergrowth. Several times I halted, convinced I heard muttering in the trees.
“It’s the wind,” Emy hissed, giving me a poke.
“Go on.”
When we reached the lookout, Lorne strapped into his harness and attached the rope to a piton just under the rim. We did a dry run of a few feet. Everything was going well until we realized that Emy and I weren’t strong enough to pull Lorne back up the cliff. He hauled himself up, hand over hand, and stood at the top where we exchanged glances.
Lorne insisted he could grab the fence pieces one at a time and hold onto them while climbing back up with one hand.
“You’re absolutely not doing that,” Emy said. “What if you slip?”
“I’ll be tied in. Nothing can happen.”
“Yes, it can. You could slide and bang against the cliff and break your ankle. Or a wrist. Or your head. Then what would we do?” Emy shook her head decisively, which made the lamp on her helmet dance. “Absolutely not.”
“Do we have a bag that Lorne could put the pieces in?” I asked. “We could haul it up separately.” I pawed through our climbing harnesses and other gear. Nothing. “I’ll go back to the truck. I’m sure there’s a tarpaulin we could use.”
Emy looked unconvinced.
“There’s no time. We’ve been up here for fifteen minutes already, and someone in the valley may have reported us by now. Even if you run, it will take half an hour to get to the truck and back. We have to do this now, or not at all.”
“Then I’ll climb up,” Lorne said.
“No!” Emy countered. “We have to scrub the mission.”
While they bickered, I walked closer to the edge to gaze at the stars. Somehow, the Peak was less forbidding after dark. Maybe because I couldn’t see as far.
I pivoted on my hiking boots and marched over to Emy and Lorne. “I’ll do it. Suit me up.”
“That’s an even worse idea,” Emy insisted.
“No, it’s perfect. Lorne can pull me back up.”
Lorne nodded. “Verity’s right. And it’s completely safe.”
Emy bit her lip. I suspected she was weighing the chance to clear her mother’s reputation against the fear something could go wrong.
