Rooted in Murder

by Emily James

  I forced my eyes back open.

  Stop looking for the car, someone had written in what looked like permanent marker. Even a cat only has nine lives.

  10

  My hand instinctively reached for my phone to call Mark. My fingers made contact, but I stopped before dialing. I shouldn’t be calling anyone on that phone. Mark would only hear every other word, and he’d probably think I’d crashed my car again or something even worse.

  Besides, he’d said he would be doing an autopsy today. He probably couldn’t even answer his phone right now. And what could he do about it other than comfort me and then worry about me and want me to do exactly what the message said and stop hunting for Lee Mills’ car?

  Because history had proven that people who sent threatening messages to me tended to try to carry out their threats.

  I jammed the close button for my window so forcefully that my finger ached. Anderson and my parents didn’t get threats like this. Was it because they were more intimidating? People were scared to threaten them, but they saw me as weak?

  It’s because they defend the bad guys, my logical side said. Anderson and your parents aren’t a danger to them. You are.

  Which made sense. It didn’t make me feel much better about the fact that I’d received yet another threat, but it made sense.

  I definitely wasn’t getting a new phone today. After I fulfilled my promise through a quick stop to McClanahan & Associates, I had to head to the Fair Haven police station. If Chief McTavish wasn’t taking my lead about the car seriously before, he’d have to now.

  Whoever had left that message on my window had made a serious mistake.

  I pulled up the picture I’d taken of my window and handed my phone to Chief McTavish.

  I scooted my chair closer to his desk. “Royce Allen overheard me call you about the car. It might have been him. But I was also talking to my private investigator about it while I was sitting in The Burnt Toast. Someone might have overheard me. We’ll know for sure once we find the car. There has to be something about it that points to Lee Mills’ murderer.”

  My words came out in more of a rush than I’d intended. I’d planned to come in and present the picture as a calm professional. I hadn’t counted on the fact that the fear-and-excitement cocktail surging through me would make me act a little more like I’d had a few real cocktails.

  Chief McTavish looked up from my phone. “You’re the only person I know who gets a threat and pushes harder in that direction rather than backing off.”

  Chief McTavish had often accused me of lacking common sense. I ended up in situations no normal person would.

  To me, that didn’t say I lacked common sense. It meant I cared enough to find the truth even if it put me in harm’s way. “That’s because if someone wants me to stop looking, I know I was looking in the right direction.”

  Chief McTavish’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile but wouldn’t give me the satisfaction. “I’ve always thought threatening letters were a miscalculation on the criminal’s part.” He pushed my phone back across the desk. “We’re doing what we can to find the car, but it was probably torched or broken down for parts years ago.”

  I took one more peek at the picture and then slid my phone back into my purse. McTavish had a point. And yet, if whoever killed Lee knew his car could never be found, why were they afraid of me looking for it?

  “Will you bear with me on a theory?”

  McTavish leaned back in his chair and cross his arms, but he didn’t say no.

  “They wouldn’t be this worried if they were sure the car was destroyed.” I spoke slowly. My idea was only half formed, and I needed time to bring it all together as I laid it out for Chief McTavish. If I got it wrong or sounded illogical, he’d send me away, and I didn’t have the resources to do the kind of search necessary. Hal could only find it if it were someplace fairly obvious. “That means the last time they saw the car, it was whole. When I talked to Royce Allen, he said—”

  Chief McTavish cleared his throat in that way that said You’re wrong, and I’m going to stop you there rather than letting you go on. “We know about Mr. Allen’s fight with Mills shortly before Mills’ death. But we checked his alibi. He flew to Florida two days before and didn’t return until four days after. He couldn’t have killed Mills or disposed of his car.”

  I barely kept myself from exclaiming what? I’d been sure Royce Allen was involved. He’d heard me talking about the car. He hated Lee. He could have easily written that message on my mirror while I was having coffee with Mr. Huffman.

  At least Chief McTavish saved me from wasting time and money sending Hal to verify Royce Allen’s alibi. Assuming my phone held up long enough, I’d send him a text as soon as I left, telling him not to continue looking into Royce.

  My idea didn’t hinge on Royce being the one who killed Lee, though. “I wasn’t saying Royce Allen was necessarily the one who killed Lee Mills.” At least I wasn’t saying that anymore, but McTavish didn’t need to know I’d been thinking Royce lied about his alibi. “All I was saying was he gave me the idea. He said maybe someone meant to steal Lee’s car, and Lee resisted. If they did that, they might still have sold the car whole, otherwise the murder would have been for nothing.”

  McTavish lowered his arms and straightened slightly in his chair, a dead giveaway that he was coming around to my point of view even if he didn’t want to admit it.

  “That would have been a risky move. Your husband thinks the victim died from a blow to the temple. There could have been blood involved.”

  Another point for McTavish. Not that this was a game where we were on opposite sides. In the end, we actually both wanted the same thing. McTavish and I often disagreed on who’d committed a crime, but we both wanted to see the right person—rather than the convenient person—charged with the crime.

  So I’d follow his line of reasoning. “If the killer sold the car to a person rather than for parts, that likely would have come to light by now. You’d have uncovered someone who stole and sold cars when you were investigating Chief Wilson’s cover-ups. Or someone would have talked about buying a stolen car or the police somewhere would have noticed the car when the search was on for Lee Mills when everyone thought he was missing.”

  My words came out a bit rambling, but McTavish nodded through it.

  And yet, someone was scared enough about me finding the car to try to get me to stop. It had to still be out there somewhere. “Did the reports the officers made when they first investigated mention anyone in the area who might have seen something? The officers might have originally asked them about people or about a single car, thinking Lee would have been driving off alone. They might not have thought to ask about two vehicles together.” Whoever attacked Lee likely hadn’t walked there on foot. They would have needed a partner who drove their car away after.

  “They didn’t find anyone who was in the area at the time to question, about cars or otherwise,” McTavish said.

  I wanted to stomp my foot, but McTavish would see that as childish. Wait—Mr. Huffman said something about driving around in case kids decided to make car tunnels through his crops for fun. He probably thought he hadn’t seen anything since he didn’t see what he was looking for. That didn’t mean he might not have spotted Lee’s vehicle being driven away by the killer without even realizing what he’d seen.

  I filled Chief McTavish in on what Mr. Huffman said.

  “I’ll look into it.”

  McTavish stood up, signaling that he was done discussing the situation with me. I’d only earned this much leeway because someone threatened me.

  I rose as slowly as possible, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to keep the discussion open. As soon as his office door closed behind me, we’d be back to I can’t tell you anything about an open investigation.

  “You probably hear this from everyone.” Chief McTavish opened the door for me. “And you’ll probably ignore me the way you do them, but be careful. I don’t w
ant to have to be the one to tell your husband that you were shot at again or fished out of the lake because someone ran the car you were in off the road.”

  I couldn’t rank all the near-death situations I’d experienced in order of awfulness. If I had, that one would have been near the top because I wasn’t the only one who almost drown. We’d been sitting in a car when our attacker nudged it over a bluff and into the lake. The woman I was with was knocked unconscious. The car sank almost immediately.

  I froze. “The car I was in sunk.”

  McTavish made a small shooing motion with his hand like he wanted to get on with his day and he couldn’t do that until I left. “And you were lucky to make it out alive. Whoever sent that note was right, in a way. Your luck will run out eventually.”

  I let the jab pass. I was careful. I tried to be, at least. “No, I mean if I wanted to get rid of a car and make sure no one found it, I’d push it into the lake.”

  11

  Tom McClanahan’s hello on the phone the next day sent nervous flutters up from my belly and into my throat, where they tried to choke me. It wasn’t the hello of a person who had good news that the deal was done, and that we needed to have our bank send Mr. Huffman’s lawyer the money.

  It was the hello of a man who thought he might be fired. Or sued.

  I was used to being around other criminal defense attorneys. The tone in his voice wasn’t one I was used to hearing from another lawyer.

  I sat on the floor between Toby and Velma, where they’d dropped after our long walk. Toby’s snoring barely hiccupped at my presence, but Velma moved her head into my lap. I stroked her favorite spot behind her ears. I might need their comfort if whatever Tom had to say was half as bad as it sounded.

  At least I could hear him clearly. Mark had the morning off, so we’d gone to replace my phone as soon as we’d woken up. I’d set up my fingerprint ID right away because I hated having to type in my passcode, and Mark helped me transfer everything from my old phone to my new one. It was surprisingly easy to get all my favorite apps switched over. Mark had teased me that we needed to do it right away since one of the apps was Phone Finder, and it was likely the first thing I’d do with a new phone was lose it. Considering I’d wrecked my new car shortly after buying it, I didn’t want to tempt fate by not getting Phone Finder back onto my phone immediately.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this,” Tom said. I could imagine him pushing his wire-rimmed glasses higher up on his nose. “I called Mr. Huffman’s lawyer yesterday after you were in to sign the papers, but their office was already closed. I put the signed documents into my filing cabinet and locked it. When I came back this morning, they were gone.”

  Papers didn’t spontaneously combust. They also didn’t sprout legs and walk away.

  Mr. Huffman hadn’t been right about me not being invested in his deal, but he might have been partly right. Someone didn’t want this sale to happen.

  Only two people came to mind—whoever the other buyer was and Ashley. Actually, Ashley had to have been involved either way. The other buyer wouldn’t have been able to break into McClanahan & Associates without leaving some sign of forced entry. Tom hadn’t mentioned signs of a break-in.

  Maybe the other buyer paid her to continue delaying our paperwork until they could convince Mr. Huffman to take their offer instead. On Ashley’s side, I could see her accepting money to delay us. All the plastic surgery she’d had must cost more than she could easily cover on her salary, even if she were a legal assistant rather than a secretary. I hadn’t pushed to find out her official designations. I hadn’t cared before.

  I didn’t want to believe she hated me enough to do this out of spite alone. Not booking appointments and being snotty was one thing. This was a whole other level. All I’d ever done to her was marry Mark, and that wasn’t even done directly to her. She and Mark had never even dated. It wasn’t my fault her feelings for him had never been reciprocated.

  “I have Ashley searching the filing cabinets,” Tom was saying as if I’d missed a whole apology speech while I was lost in my thoughts. “I was tired last night. It’s possible I misfiled it.”

  His sentence ended, but in that drawn-out way that said more was coming.

  “I went to the computer to print off our standard template and start filling it in again because I know you both want this deal done. It wasn’t there.”

  I leaned forward and rested my head on top of Velma’s. Her warm doggy smell helped ease the tension in my body.

  Whoever was behind this had made certain we wouldn’t be signing the files again today.

  I straightened up. “You need to call the police.” I wasn’t comfortable telling Tom my suspicions about Ashley. I had no real proof, and my judgment could be clouded by my own negative feelings toward her. If I were wrong, I’d be planting doubt and jeopardizing her job. The only way around that was to make sure someone I knew investigated the case so I could call them before they even got there to fill them in. “Ask for Sergeant Erik Higgins or Officer Elise Scott.”

  And on the up side, I’d have something non-case-related to talk to Mark about tonight. I was tired of starting sentences only to realize I couldn’t finish them.

  12

  “I’m using up a lot of favors on you,” Chief McTavish said over the phone.

  I waved at Russ to go on ahead of me and continue checking on our saplings. I didn’t want to risk walking into a dead zone and losing Chief McTavish if he was calling about the Lee Mills case. Even a new phone couldn’t fix Fair Haven dead zones.

  Russ didn’t really need me to check the trees. It was more me trying to stay involved in Sugarwood business. With the signed paperwork still missing and the electronic copies deleted, we were coming out every other day to check the trees. Some of them looked better than others. Russ figured we were days away from losing a quarter of them.

  “I only remember one favor so far,” I said. While Mark and I were on our honeymoon, I’d accidentally ended up in the middle of a missing person’s case, and McTavish had contacted a friend at the FBI on my behalf.

  “Then this makes two. We weren’t going to be given the budget to search the lake for Mills’ missing car. Even I have people above me, and they thought it was too much of a long shot for such an old case.”

  In my opinion, the age of a case shouldn’t matter. A murderer was no less a murderer whether it happened ten days or ten years ago. Cold cases were notoriously harder to close, though, and some officials felt they shouldn’t be given much of a budget at all. Mark’s younger brother Bobby was struggling with that very problem right now. He’d recently transferred from homicide to a special cold case team, and their budget seemed smaller than any other departments’.

  Given that knowledge, I probably shouldn’t aggravate Chief McTavish. “So you called in a favor and got permission to drag the lake once the ice breaks?”

  Spring was a long time to wait for answers, especially for Daphne, who would have the possibility of arrest looming over her until this was resolved. Still, spring was better than never if Daphne was arrested because they didn’t have evidence that pointed elsewhere.

  McTavish sighed. “Why don’t you let me tell the story, Nicole?”

  I pressed my mitted hand over my mouth to stop a laugh from sneaking out. Since we’d met, Chief McTavish had tried to avoid using my first name. Now he couldn’t get around it. Calling me Cavanaugh would be too confusing since Mark also worked for the county. Calling me Fitzhenry-Dawes—or just Dawes, since he seemed to find the whole thing too much of a mouthful—would have meant acknowledging he was giving information to the lawyer of a person of interest in an open case.

  “Go ahead.” I wasn’t entirely successful in keeping the laughter out of my voice.

  “I know someone who works for the Environmental Protection Agency, and they have satellite imagery of the lake from when they did their human pollution study a few years ago. They’d identified all large foreign bodies.”


  That would include shipwrecks, but it would also include cars. “They know where to find Lee Mills’ car?”

  McTavish didn’t sigh again, but I could almost hear him thinking it. “You couldn’t help yourself.” His voice carried a hint of a smile. “We found the car, and because I could show exactly where it was, I got permission to haul it out immediately.”

  I indulged in a mini happy dance. Anyone watching would have thought I was trying to stay warm.

  “As soon as it’s back at the impound garage, we’ll tear it apart. If you’re right, the car will point us in a direction away from your client.”

  I tugged on the trunk of the dead sapling while Russ gave one final heave. The tree made it over the edge of the tailgate.

  We’d knocked as much dirt off what Russ called the rootball as we could, but the tree was still heavy enough that my shoulders ached like I’d tried to do a hundred push-ups.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  “Go ahead and get it,” Russ said, his breath coming out in white puffs. “I need a rest anyway. Might be time to hire some young muscle on a full-time basis.”

  I nodded my agreement and pulled out my phone. Every time it’d rung in the past two days since McTavish’s call about the car, I’d been hoping it was him calling back with more news. It was a futile wish. McTavish wasn’t going to share anything more about the case with me. The update on the car had been a courtesy since I helped him find it.

  “This is Nikki,” I said into my phone.

  “It’s Tom McClanahan. I got all the paperwork redone and printed off for you. I was thinking the best way to handle this would be if you, Russ, and Mr. Huffman came in and all signed at once. I have an hour open now if that works for you. It shouldn’t take much longer than that for us to finally have this deal done.”