Red, White, and Blue Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  “That’s all right, we’ll just set the pie on the kitchen counter,” I said and headed into the kitchen without hesitating. Julie kept an immaculate kitchen. There wasn’t anything on the counters, and I mean nothing. I set the pie down and turned around and Bill was standing in the kitchen doorway. “I bake a lot, and I guess a pie isn’t what you really need during a time like this, but it was all I could think of to bring you.”

  “Allie makes the best pies around,” Lucy said.

  He nodded. “That’s very kind of you. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  I smiled. “I hate to keep repeating myself, but I’m so sorry about your wife. It’s such a shock. My family and I weren’t far from where your family was that night, and we didn’t hear anything. I feel so terrible about that.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. “I appreciate that. But as you can imagine, I was even closer to her, and I never heard anything either, so don’t beat yourself up for it.”

  “I don’t know what this world is coming to,” Lucy added.

  I shook my head, looking at him sadly. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through. My husband was hit by a drunk driver eight years ago, and I know how devastating that was. But I can see where your wife’s death presents other issues that you have to deal with now.”

  His eyes watered and he nodded again and looked away. “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how this could happen. How does someone just slip up on her and kill her like that? I can’t fathom how that was even possible.”

  “It was so loud that night,” Lucy said slowly. “I can see where the excitement and the noise had everyone distracted. But still, how did no one see or hear a thing?”

  “Yes, and I was less than twenty feet away from her. Twenty feet.” He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “We had a bit of an argument earlier that day. If we hadn’t had that argument, I probably would have been right next to her on the same blanket.” His bottom lip quivered. “And then nobody would have been able to slip up on her. I would have been too close and they probably wouldn’t have even tried.”

  “Twenty feet,” I said slowly. “I’m so sorry. I guess the heat got to a lot of people. You weren’t the only ones that were arguing that day.” I looked at him kindly, willing him to continue and fill us in on what the argument was about.

  His eyes got big. “So you heard? You heard our argument?”

  I glanced at Lucy, then nodded slowly. “Yes, I did. But these things happen, don’t they? Sometimes when you’ve been married a while, tensions can build up over time.”

  “You can say that again,” he said softly and looked away. “Anita, she just seemed to be angry all the time anymore. I mean, it wasn’t anything new. It had been going on for years I guess. But you don’t notice that sometimes. You just go about your day-to-day life, and I guess things build up momentum when you aren’t looking.”

  “I was married for seventeen years, so you don’t have to tell me. Sometimes things slip in, and you’re just so busy with work and the kids that you don’t even notice it,” I said. My husband, Thaddeus, and I had become very good at keeping communication open with one another in the last years of his life. But that didn’t mean that we didn’t occasionally have our disagreements. But Thaddeus was so good at being a peacekeeper, that it was almost impossible for me to stay angry about anything for long.

  “Busyness can get the best of you sometimes,” Lucy added.

  He sighed and looked at us again. “We were married for twenty-three years. Twenty-three. I just expected we would be married forever. But she became so angry the last few years that I began to question that.”

  “Did she ever tell you why she was so unhappy?” I asked carefully, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

  He gazed at me a moment. “To tell you the truth, I think it all started when she began taking her vacations here in Sandy Harbor. We’re both from here, you know. We moved away when we went to college. In the beginning, she would come for a week or two during the summer, but the past few years she stayed the entire summer. I always tried to come and visit with her, but it almost seemed like she didn’t want me here, if that makes any sense.” He shrugged. “So some years I didn’t come at all. And every year I thought, well maybe when she comes home she’ll be happier, but it never happened.”

  “Do you have any idea why she wanted to come here to Sandy Harbor every year?” I was walking a thin line here, but I needed to know.

  He looked at me and anger flashed in his eyes. “Yeah, I do know why. Because of Jack’s cousin, Dave Jones. He’s here. She would never admit to it, but I’m pretty sure they were having an affair. And if you want to know the truth, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they got into an argument and he killed her.”

  I looked at him, trying to appear surprised. “Dave Jones? He’s my mailman. I do know him, but probably not very well. Do you really think they were having an affair?”

  He nodded angrily, his cheeks going pink. “Yes, I do think they were having an affair. And I think there’s a good possibility that he killed her.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked. “I mean, if they were having an affair, why would he want to kill her? Why not just break it off if things weren’t going well?”

  He shrugged and turned away again. “The night before she died, I accused her of cheating and told her that she should just go back to her boyfriend. She got angry. Very angry. And I could just sense something had happened between the two of them. She told me to shut up, and that it was none of my business. Didn’t even deny that she had a boyfriend, just told me it was none of my business.”

  “What did you say to that?” Lucy asked.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to put up with that. I told her it was my business. I told her anything having to do with her was my business and I asked her if she was having trouble with her boyfriend.” Bill’s face was turning redder as he spoke.

  “What did she say to that?” I asked.

  He snorted. “Oh, it made her angry. She was always angry about everything I said. But she never did deny that she was with him. Can you believe it?”

  I crossed my arms in front of myself and shook my head. “No, that’s hard for me to understand. I’ve never felt the need to cheat on anyone, so I don’t quite understand how someone can do that.”

  He sighed. “Me either.” He suddenly looked like a deflated balloon.

  “Do you have any idea what the issue was between Anita and Dave, if in fact there was an issue between them? I mean, why would he kill her?” I asked. It didn’t make sense that Dave would kill her if they were having an affair. What did make sense was that Bill might kill her because she was having an affair, and also because she didn’t seem to care whether he knew or not. That would be enough for a lot of people to commit murder.

  He sighed again. “Look, I guess I don’t have any proof about any of this. It’s just something I have a hunch about. I think he killed my wife. I don’t even know why I’m telling the two of you about any of this.” He looked up at the ceiling and blinked, then turned to me again. “You know what I was planning on doing when we got back to Omaha?”

  I shook my head. “No, what?”

  “Go to couples therapy. I’d been looking up therapists on the Internet and doing some research to figure out which one would be good for us. I wanted to work on my marriage. Now there’s nothing to work on.” Tears came to his eyes.

  My breath caught in my chest. “I’m so sorry, Bill. I’m just really sorry.”

  He nodded and looked away. “I don’t mean to rush you two off, but I’ve got some things that I need to take care of now.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to pry into your business,” I said apologetically. I glanced at Lucy.

  He nodded but didn’t look at me. “Thanks for the pie.”

  “You’re so welcome. Bill, if there’s anything we can help you with while you’re here in Sandy Harbor, please don’t hesitate to let u
s know. We’ll do whatever we can to help you and your son out.”

  “Yeah, anything you need,” Lucy said.

  He nodded but didn’t answer and we saw ourselves to the door. What Bill had told us hurt my heart. If he had plans to fix his broken marriage, he wouldn’t have killed his wife, would he?

  Chapter Ten

  “Mom,” Thad said, coming to the open French doors that led out to the patio. “Chicken or steak?”

  I was lying on the chaise lounge beneath the shade of the huge oak tree in my backyard. “Chicken.”

  “You got it,” he said and went back into the kitchen.

  I raised my sunglasses and turned my head to look at Alec on the chaise lounge next to me. “I love having other people cook for me.”

  He smiled. “Really? I thought you live to cook?”

  I dropped my sunglasses back down onto my nose. “I live to bake. There is a difference.”

  “Duly noted,” he said and stretched. “I could get used to laying out here under this tree. Laziness suits me.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I should take my naps out here.”

  He chuckled. “A nap? That sounds like a good idea.”

  I turned my head to look at him. “So, anything new on the case?”

  “I knew you were going to get around to that,” he said without looking at me. The smile on his face was smug.

  “Of course. I never disappoint.” I closed my eyes.

  He chuckled again and then sighed. “No, you never disappoint. The more people I talked to, the more I think the killer must have been the invisible man. How could someone be murdered with all of those people around? I get it. A lot was going on, but there were a lot of people there that night. Wouldn’t at least one person just happen to be looking in her direction when she was being murdered?”

  I turned to him. “You would think so. I wonder if there are witnesses that haven’t come forward yet. And maybe they won’t because they’re afraid.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “The police should put out a request asking people to come forward. Even if it’s just an anonymous tip. At least you’d have something to look into.”

  “I suggested it to Sam Bailey, but he doesn’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to take up all his time with some fairytale story. And that’s a direct quote.”

  I snorted. That Sam Bailey may have been the chief of police, but he was also a pain to deal with.

  “Figures.”

  “Doesn’t it though?”

  I filled Alec in on what I’d found out on everything I had learned. “Dave seems a little suspicious to me. Acting like he didn’t know who I was talking about at first, but then admitting that he did.”

  “That’s odd,” he agreed. “But her husband wasn’t far from her on that blanket. And nobody has placed Dave anywhere near her when the fireworks were going off.”

  “He said he was there on the beach but he left the minute he saw the police cars show up. Just because nobody else can place him there doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. It was dark after all, and he could have slipped up on her very easily.”

  “That’s true,” he conceded.

  “Bill Towers seems devastated that his wife is dead. He told me he was researching marriage counselors in the hopes that they could begin seeing one when they returned to Omaha.”

  “A marriage counselor?” He looked at me.

  I nodded. “Couples therapy, I guess. Seems like a man that wanted to save his marriage wouldn’t have killed his wife.”

  He was quiet a minute. “I suppose so. Or he’s lying.”

  “Hey Mom, do you have any barbecue sauce?” Thad asked as he came out onto the patio and opened the lid to the barbecue. The scent of hickory smoke wafted over to me.

  “There’s a new bottle in the cupboard. Do you need any help?”

  “No, Jennifer and Sarah are making the salads and I’m handling the grill. You and Alec just lie back and relax and don’t worry about a thing. We’ll have dinner ready in no time.”

  “That a boy,” I said. Thad and Sarah were going to leave for Wisconsin in the morning and I already missed them. When Sarah had first come into Thad’s life, I wasn’t certain I wanted her around. Call me an overprotective mother, but when she said she was studying Comic Art, and that’s what she was going to college for, I was certain she wasn’t the most levelheaded person he could have found. But she had proved me wrong by being smart, sweet, and caring. And besides that, Thad loved her. How could I not want him to be happy?

  “What do you think about her son?” Alec asked me.

  I turned to him, surprised. “Mike? The kid has a tremendous chip on his shoulder, but in my heart, I want to believe that he couldn’t possibly have killed his mother. Kids killing parents? I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  “You may not have the stomach for it, but it’s a definite possibility.”

  I shuddered. I wasn’t blind to things that happened in the world today, but it was something I didn’t want to think about.

  “Would you like some more sweet tea?” I asked him. My glass had gone dry and what was a warm summer’s day without plenty of sweet tea?

  “I can always use more sweet tea,” he said and held his glass out to me.

  “Look at that. I’ll turn you into a Southerner before you know it.”

  “Not likely.”

  I chuckled and took both glasses into the kitchen for a refill. In the kitchen, Jennifer was chopping vegetables for a green salad and Sarah was cutting up fruit for the fruit salad. I had made a potato salad earlier, and for dessert, we were having red, white, and blue cupcakes.

  “That’s what I like to see, everybody helping out,” I said and went to the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of sweet tea. “Should I make more tea?” The pitcher was still over half full, but the evening had just started.

  “I’ll make it,” Jennifer said. “You hang out with Alec. I’m sure that’s what you would rather do than make sweet tea.”

  I turned and looked at my daughter suspiciously. “What’s going on around here? Why are you all also helpful this evening?”

  “Because we’re great kids,” Thad said and headed back out to the barbecue with the meat.

  “Oh, of course,” I said. “How silly of me. How could I forget?” I returned the tea pitcher to the refrigerator and turned around and looked at the girls. “Where’s Dylan?”

  “He ran to the store to get some ice cream to go with the cupcakes,” Jennifer said as she tossed chopped onions and radishes into the bowl with the mixed greens.

  “That is a great idea,” I said. “Let me know if you need any help.” I headed back out to lie on the lounge next to Alec.

  ***

  I was sitting at the patio table looking around at my family and their significant others, and my significant other. The evening was warm, but not stifling. I hated that this was the last evening we would have together, but I wasn’t going to let it get me down. Everyone was laughing and joking and having a good time, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by feeling melancholy.

  “Thad,” Alec said as he took the plate of steaks from him. “The steaks look fantastic. And I intend to eat the biggest one here if no one objects.”

  “Too late, I already took the biggest steak,” Thad told him as he picked up the bowl of fruit salad and helped himself to it. “And thanks for the compliment. I don’t get to barbecue often, but I kind of enjoy it.”

  Alec picked up a steak from the platter with his fork and put it on his plate. “It’s man’s way of showing the womenfolk that we aren’t useless at cooking.”

  “Well it all smells wonderful,” I said.

  “I’m kind of sad,” Jennifer said, looking around the table. She had just put some green salad onto her plate. “It’s going to be the holidays before we get back together like this again.”

  “Don’t make me sad,” I said and blinked. “Let’s just enjoy this evening.” She was right, of course. It would be Than
ksgiving before we were all in the same room together again. I was glad that Jennifer and Dylan went to college nearby, but I missed Thad, and I even missed Sarah.

  “So Alec, how is that investigation going?” Thad asked.

  Alec cut into his steak and nodded. “It’s going as well as can be expected, I guess. Not a lot of answers as to what happened yet, but we’ll get there.”

  “Does Sandy Harbor have a lot of murders?” Dylan asked as he took a chicken thigh from the platter.

  I glanced at Alec. “Depends.” I didn’t say anything more.

  Dylan nodded. “You know, I saw that kid when we were at the beach. The murder victim’s kid. He was arguing with another kid near the playground. He threatened to kill the other kid if he didn’t get lost.”

  I looked at him. “He threatened to kill him?”

  He nodded. “The other kid had three friends with him, and they just laughed at him. They left him alone, but his reaction to whatever was going on was kind of over the top. His face turned red and he acted like he was going to punch the other kid, but then he got ahold of himself because he was outnumbered. But for a minute there, I thought he’d try to take them all on.”

  “You didn’t hear what started it?” Alec asked.

  He shook his head. “No, I missed that part.”

  “I wonder where he was when his mother was being murdered?” Jennifer asked as she put a spoonful of fruit salad onto her plate.

  “That’s a good question,” I said, looking at Alec.

  “I saw that kid earlier that day at the snack bar,” Dylan continued. “If I’m not mistaken, he stole a candy bar.”

  Alec turned to him. “What do you mean if you’re not mistaken?”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was picking up a few snacks and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned to look, he was standing there in the candy aisle and he had a guilty look on his face. He was glancing around to see if anybody was looking at him, but he didn’t see me.”

  That was odd. The kid seemed angry and had a bad temper. And now he might be a thief? Not that any of those things meant that he would commit murder, of course, but it was good to keep an eye on him. And where was he when his mother was being murdered? That was the question of the day.