Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 2: Books 4-6

by Emily James

  Before I could answer, Mandy scuttled into the room, bearing a tray with two cups of coffee, a handful of sweeteners, and those little plastic containers of milk and cream. “I thought you two might need some refreshment.”

  Uh huh. We might like some refreshments and she might like to try to catch a snippet of what we’d been talking about in here so long.

  She set a cup down in front of each of us and dropped the additives in the middle of the table, then bustled around by the breakfast bar as if she were cleaning things up. I made some small talk, recommending restaurants and other things the Marshalls might want to do while here.

  Finally, Mandy heaved a sigh and left. Maybe at last she’d decided my business here was boring after all and her time would be better spent on that mystery that I just had to read next. I waited an extra minute to be sure I heard her steps shuffle off down the hall.

  Mr. Marshall nodded at my cup of coffee. “I notice you’re holding it rather than drinking it.”

  “I’ve stayed here before.”

  He held up a hand as if to shield his words in case Mandy reappeared. “My wife claims it cleared her sinuses.”

  I barely held back an unladylike snort. Mandy wouldn’t be getting any five-star reviews based on the quality of her coffee, that was for sure.

  Once she finished her book, we might become more interesting than twiddling her thumbs and waiting for the phone to ring. I needed to deal with my actual reason for being here. “I did have one other reason for coming, and it’s why I asked if your wife would be joining us. I’m investigating Drew Harris’ murder on behalf of a client, and it’d be a great help if you could tell me what you remember from that day.”

  His eyebrows nearly butted heads above his eyes. “Are you a private investigator as well as working at the maple syrup farm?”

  “I’m a lawyer, actually. I’ve been retained to prepare a defense for the person the police currently believe murdered Drew.”

  The look that crossed his face was the kind of instinctive flash that people can’t always control. Because I don’t think he would have wanted to say any of what his look said. It was the what’s a lawyer doing working on a maple syrup farm at all look. Followed rapidly by the look that I’m pretty sure best translated as you must be a crappy lawyer if you have to work a second job on the side.

  “Huh,” was all he actually said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Interesting hobby you have.”

  Since I didn’t want to get lost down a rabbit trail, I decided not to launch into the whole story about how I actually co-owned Sugarwood and that being a lawyer, especially a criminal defense attorney, wasn’t all sprinkles and unicorn glitter. More often it was worms and rotten tomatoes.

  “Could you walk me through what you remember from the tour?” I asked.

  “There’s not much to tell.” He swirled the coffee around in his cup, but didn’t risk a sip. “You and Drew came back, and the young couple said their daughter was missing so we all went off to look. We didn’t find her, and when we came back to the clearing, almost everyone else was back and he was already dead.”

  That was about a ten on the unhelpful Richter scale. “Do you think your wife might be able to add anything?”

  “I don’t see how.” His hand was back on the top of his head. “Janet and I were together the whole time because I didn’t want her off in the woods by herself, but I can check with her when she wakes up.”

  Mandy appeared in the door again and held up a plate. “Anyone want a chocolate pastry fresh from the oven?”

  I thanked her, took one of the pastries to go—much to her clear chagrin—and slipped Mr. Marshall a Sugarwood business card so he could call me if anything changed.

  On the way home, I called Kristen White. She was the next least-likely suspect since she was shorter than Drew and she’d returned with Riley. She wouldn’t have had enough time to return to the clearing, kill Drew, and then go back out into the woods to find Riley and bring her back.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you or to the police,” Kristen said after basically giving me the same I didn’t see anything spiel I got from Mr. Marshall.

  A wail carried through the phone on Kristen’s end and filled my car.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, her voice now sounding like she was paying more attention to something in the background than to our conversation. “Do you want me to ask Shawn to call you when he gets home from work?”

  “Please.”

  Before she clicked off the phone, I heard, “Riley, what did I say about hitting your brother?”

  Then silence.

  The inevitable fights between siblings might have been why my parents stopped with me. I couldn’t imagine how they would have reacted to me fighting with a brother or sister.

  Children, we don’t bicker, I could almost hear my mom saying. It’s not what we do.

  Wait. I smacked my steering wheel. Kristen didn’t have their little boy with her when she came back with Riley. That must mean he went with Shawn. That crossed him off the list, too.

  Aside from Holly, the only two people remaining without an alibi were George and Amy Powers.

  10

  Trying to hold a Great Dane still enough with one hand to take a picture of her belly incision on my phone with the other hand wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Why I ever thought it would be easy now escaped me, just like my phone as Velma rolled onto her back and waggled her legs in the air, knocking my phone from my hand and sending it shooting across the floor and under the couch.

  I slapped a palm against the floor. I needed to get this picture taken and head off to the Powers’ house if I was going to be there in the small window George Powers said they had between when he got home from work and when they had to leave for Amy’s swim team practice.

  I’d planned to take the pictures of Velma’s belly earlier in the day and email them to her vet, but today had ended up being a busier day than expected with Sugarwood business—Nancy wanted me to approve some of the gift basket options she was creating for sale in the Short Stack and on the new website, I’d needed to email some new photographers for rates and availability and tell our website designer we’d hit a delay, and Stacey thought we should upgrade some of our older equipment, a big enough expense that Russ and I both needed to be involved in the decision.

  Velma came back upright and raised her “eyebrows” into a quizzical expression as if to say What? Weren’t we playing a game?

  “No game. If you don’t let me get this picture, I have to drag you back into the vet to figure out why you’re all red.” I pressed my palm to my forehead. “And now I’m trying to reason with a dog. You can’t even speak English.”

  I laid flat on my belly and fished around under the couch. Dust and fur coated my hand. Apparently, housekeeping wasn’t one of my skills, either, but who knew dogs could shed this much without going completely bald?

  My fingertips hit something cold. I wiggled it out. Rubber bone. I tossed it backward over my shoulder for the dogs. The second time I came up with my actual phone.

  But now I was definitely out of time.

  Can you stop by after work and look at Velma’s belly? I texted Mark as I maneuvered Velma and Toby back to their crates.

  You know vets and drs go to different schools, right? he wrote back. Courses on dogs weren’t required for my degree.

  I blew a raspberry at my phone. I just want your quasi-professional opinion on whether I should be worried about her incision.

  Leave the door unlocked. He followed it with a smiley face.

  The whole not-locking-the-door thing was still new to me, but I’d been told it wasn’t that unusual in small towns or rural communities.

  I grabbed my purse and jogged to my car, a little knot in my stomach. Maybe it was my big-city upbringing rearing its suspicious head, but I’d rather get one of those hide-a-key rocks than leave my door unlocked anymore. Nancy had told me that both Daisy and her husband and
the Harris’ had left their doors unlocked the morning they were robbed. Could it even be breaking and entering if your door wasn’t locked? Chief McTavish’s attempt to help the town by not putting the string of break-ins in the news was probably backfiring. People would go on leaving their doors unlocked like they always had unless the police gave them a reason not to.

  But Erik had probably had the same thought. I’d have to let him handle it. Me leaving even a friendly suggestion would only put another black mark beside my name in Chief McTavish’s mental book.

  I pulled into the Powers’ driveway at the same time as Amy came up the sidewalk with a Golden Labrador. Based on the mud part way up his legs, they were probably coming back from the dog park I’d seen on my way into their neighborhood.

  She watched me climb out of the car and her face sagged. She stroked her fingers over the top of the dog’s neck and straightened her back in a gesture that looked like a person bracing themselves to hear they needed yet another surgery or round of chemo. She hurried forward.

  When she stopped next to me, the dog dropped into an immediate sit. A little worm tendril of envy ate at the core of my heart after my battle of wills with Velma. Not that I’d ever trade Velma even for the best trained dog in the universe, but it would be nice when we got through the stage where she challenged me on everything.

  “I know we forgot to come back to pay for our tour,” Amy said before I could even greet her. “We weren’t trying to not pay. I’ve been thinking about it since you called my dad last night. Maybe I could do some work for you at Sugarwood to make up for it.”

  Before I’d called George Powers, I’d decided to use the same let-me-make-up-for-the-awful-tour-experience ploy as I used with Mr. Marshall to gain entrance. Except all I’d said on the phone was that I wanted to talk about the tour.

  Clearly they’d assumed I was coming to demand payment.

  The fact that she’d thought it through at all told me a lot. The money troubles that resulted in their credit card being declined weren’t recent, they weren’t going away any time soon, and she was willing to do what she could to help her dad. All of that fit with the idea that she’d been engaging in something illegal to ease their financial issues and Drew spotted her. She might even be the one breaking into homes around Fair Haven.

  If their problems were that desperate, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Amy told her dad what she’d been doing and that Drew knew, too. Her dad might have felt that the only way to keep Drew from exposing Amy’s activities and causing them more problems was to kill him.

  Hopefully, if their problems were that advanced, I’d also be able to suss them out by poking around their home a little.

  “Or maybe we could work out a payment plan.” Amy clamped her bottom lip between her teeth. “I know the tickets don’t cost much, and it probably seems like we should be able to pay it right away, but things are a little tight right now.”

  My parents had been emotionally unavailable and hard to please, but one thing I could say for them was that I’d always felt safe—financially and physically. Maybe too much so, since when I told Mark I’d taken Holly’s case, he accused me of thinking I was invulnerable.

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I’m not here to insist you pay.”

  She gave me a wide-eyed uh huh look but led me inside. “Dad? I’m home, and Nicole Dawes is here.”

  George Powers came down the stairs. His clothes hung on him in a way that said they’d fit him better when he bought them. His skin seemed almost translucent, like wet paper.

  He led me into a comfortable living room with furniture that was broken in but not old.

  Once we were seated, Amy brought us each a glass of water. Without being asked. Maybe she was too young to think about asking a guest if they’d like anything. Maybe she was hoping to keep my visit as short as possible and coffee would have taken time. Or maybe they didn’t have anything else in the house to serve me.

  My heart suddenly felt heavy and stiff. Each beat hurt a little. Whoever killed Drew should receive justice, but murder was never that simple. George Powers might not be a bad person. He might simply be a desperate one. A desperate one with a daughter who clearly cared about him as much as Drew and Holly’s families cared about them.

  That feeling in my heart—maybe it was why my parents were the way they were. They couldn’t spend their lives working in the court system, where there weren’t ever any real winners, and continue to care. Their hearts would have stiffened until they shattered.

  George Powers cleared his throat. He and Amy were staring at me.

  Great. How long had I been sitting there without saying anything? They must think I had some sort of disorder. Then again, that couldn’t hurt in this case. I didn’t want them suspecting yet that I was there for any other reason than to talk about the tour.

  “I’m think we’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding.” My voice cracked, and I took a gulp of the water. “I’m not here to demand payment for your tour. I’m here to offer you a free tour to make up for how the one you booked ended up.”

  George reached for his glass of water. His hand shook slightly as he brought the glass to his lips.

  A drug addiction, perhaps? That would explain his weight loss and sickly appearance. A drug addiction would also explain their money problems, and if anyone found out, it could mean jail time. If he and Amy’s mom weren’t together anymore, it could also mean losing custody of his daughter.

  Drew wanted to be a photojournalist, so he might have been investigating drug use in Fair Haven, assuming if he broke a big story it could be a way to bypass college and get a job right away.

  George looked back at Amy where she stood behind him on the other side of the couch. “What do you think, sweetie? Did you want to go back?” He swiveled around to face me again, and the gallows expression he’d worn before had lightened. “The tour was her birthday present. She loves everything sweet, and we’ve lived here all of Amy’s life without ever touring Sugarwood.”

  Amy open her mouth, but closed it without saying anything. She nodded her head, but her arms crossed over her chest like she was closing herself off, afraid I’d pull the offer away.

  My instincts told me not to push for anything more today. It’d taken longer to get them to start relaxing with me than it had taken Mr. Marshall. If I poked around the edges of what had happened to Drew today, my training said they’d know what I was doing and close ranks.

  The next time, I needed to find a way to talk to Amy alone. The problem was how to do that in a way that wouldn’t make her suspicious. Based on what I’d seen, if she realized I was investigating her father, I’d get nowhere.

  Now, though, wasn’t the time to mull over options. Before I left, I still wanted to get a peek at more of their house to see if I could spot anything that might give me additional information.

  I stood. “Give me a call and let me know what day works for you. I’ll set it up. Would you mind if I used your bathroom before I go?”

  “It’s upstairs,” George said. “We only have the one.”

  He half rose to his feet, but Amy dropped a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll show her.”

  I trailed her up the stairs. Family pictures lined the wall that showed Amy, George, and a black woman with thick hair and a beautiful smile. That must be Amy’s mom. Even though Amy inherited her dad’s lighter skin tone, I could see her mom in her high cheekbones, curly hair, and brown eyes. She’d probably have her smile too, but I hadn’t seen Amy smile since I arrived.

  The woman in the photo hadn’t been with them on the tour, and there weren’t any other signs of her around the house, like a coat or shoes. The automatic assumption would be that she left because of the drug problem, but what kind of a mother would leave her daughter behind in that kind of situation? Besides, I’d learned from my mistake with Mark that a person could as easily be a widower. Amy’s mom could also be dead.

  “Your mom is really pretty,” I sa
id.

  Amy didn’t turn around or look back. “Yeah, she was.”

  Past tense. So she’d passed. She hadn’t left due to some issue in the marriage. Strike that theory off the list.

  Amy pointed at a door partway down the hall.

  I ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. It was a jack-and-jill, with access to the rooms on either side. I eased one of the adjoining doors open. It creaked and I flinched. Hopefully Amy had gone back downstairs. I edged into the room.

  Based on the dark brown comforter on the bed and the bare walls, the room likely belonged to George, not Amy. My feet seemed to stick to the carpet. Each step got more difficult as I moved into the room.

  I couldn’t do this. It felt wrong and invasive. I wasn’t a police officer. I couldn’t in good conscience rifle through their dresser drawers. If it turned out George Powers hadn’t done it, I’d have snooped around where I definitely didn’t belong.

  I backed up into the bathroom, and closed the door again as quietly as possible.

  To keep this from being a complete waste, I could take a look in their medicine cabinet. Everyone did that, right? I’m sure I’d read a statistic somewhere that forty percent of people snooped around while in other people’s bathrooms.

  The cabinet door opened quietly, thank goodness. If everything had fallen out into the sink and made a hideous crash, even I couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation.

  The contents looked pretty unexceptional. Aspirin, dental floss, q-tips and tweezers, tampons, some laxative, anti-nausea tablets, and a few prescription medicine bottles.

  One prescription belonged to Amy. Amoxicillin that had expired a year ago. Amoxicillin was the antibiotic I’d taken when I had my wisdom teeth out. There wasn’t anything abnormal about it. A couple of pills remained in the bottle. Someone really should have made sure she took them all, but they clearly had bigger things to think about.

  The other bottle belonged to George. Oxycodone—a highly addictive opiod painkiller. The prescription was fairly recent, only about a month ago, but the bottle was completely empty.