Downward Facing Death

by MICHELLE KELLY,

  “Logically?” Ben shook his head. “They seem very different acts. A murder and an arson attempt, followed by a nasty anonymous letter. They seem like entirely different modi operandi. Not to mention that if you didn’t know Terry Smith, there’s no reason why his killer would want to taunt you. Yet gut instinct tells me that yes, it could be the same person.”

  Keeley stabbed her pasta repeatedly with her fork, unable to face actually eating any of it. The implications of Ben’s words had been gnawing at her all night and could no longer be ignored.

  “So if the murderer wrote that letter, and they were implying it should have been me who died in the café, not Terry…” She was unable to finish the sentence, her tongue thick in her throat. Ben reached over and closed his hand around hers.

  “Then you could be in danger, Keeley.”

  His hand felt hot and heavy on hers, and Keeley found herself staring at their enjoined fingers, at the contrast between his rougher, darker skin and her own softer, paler digits. When he saw the direction of her gaze, he removed his hand and sat back. Keeley felt suddenly cold.

  “That’s why you should have contacted me last night. Whoever posted that letter may still have been lurking around.”

  She could have walked right past the killer, she thought with a stab of horror.

  “Perhaps, with your opening delayed anyway, you could stay elsewhere until this is sorted?” Ben looked at her hopefully, which made Keeley at once both more alarmed and annoyed.

  “I’m not being run out of town,” she protested. “That’s probably what they, whoever ‘they’ are, want.”

  “But why? Have you given any more thought to who in Belfrey could have reason to dislike you? Or if not you specifically, then your plans for the café?”

  Keeley went to say no, then paused. It seemed far-fetched, but there had been no mistaking the animosity from Raquel yesterday.

  “Maybe—” she began, only to be interrupted by the arrival of a dark-haired woman smelling strongly of expensive perfume, who leaned over their table with a squeal and threw her arms around Ben, her scarf trailing in Keeley’s pasta.

  Raquel.

  “Benny!” she cooed. “How lovely to see you!” Her face looked flushed. Did every woman in town turn into a simpering idiot around Ben Taylor? Keeley sat back, crossing her arms and looking pointedly at Raquel, who took no notice of her at all as she squished herself onto the seat next to Ben, her large breasts practically in his face. Although Ben wasn’t staring at Raquel with the same rapt attention paid by the other male customers, he wasn’t exactly pushing her away either, Keeley thought, with a sour taste in her mouth that immediately made her feel ashamed. She really must spend more time on her yoga mat before both Ben and Belfrey destroyed all her hard-won equilibrium.

  “What are you doing in here?” Raquel asked Ben, still ignoring Keeley. In response, Ben jerked his head across the table toward her so that Raquel had no choice but to finally acknowledge her presence.

  “Oh,” she said flatly, her perfectly made-up face a mask of disdain. “Didn’t take you long to get your claws into our last eligible bachelor, did it?” She laughed, as if to indicate her words were nothing more than a lighthearted joke, but there was nothing lighthearted about the cold flash of malice in her eyes as she looked at Keeley directly. Oblivious, Ben just looked amused, with that wry half smile that seemed to be his default expression. Other than glaring at her suspiciously, of course.

  “It’s a work lunch, actually,” he said, leaning back so that his arm was almost draped over Raquel’s shoulders. Raquel took it as an invitation, leaning into him and giggling.

  “I suppose I should leave you to it, then,” she said, making no move at all. When Ben didn’t answer but looked at Keeley, she let her breath out in barely disguised exasperation. What did he want, her permission for Raquel to join them?

  “Perhaps we should do this another day,” she said stiffly, reaching for her jacket and trying her best to ignore Raquel’s look of triumph. Ben looked puzzled.

  “We really need to talk about this, Keeley.” He turned to Raquel. “Perhaps you could join us later?”

  “I’m actually on a lunch date.” Raquel indicated a much older, nervous-looking man hovering a few feet away. He looked old enough to be their father, Keeley thought, but he also looked very well off, with a beautifully tailored suit and a watch on his wrist that had likely cost more than the entire six-month lease on Annie’s cottage.

  “Still chasing the dream, I see,” Keeley said, regretting her catty remark as soon as it left her lips. Raquel narrowed her eyes at her, reminding Keeley of a cobra about to strike. As Ben looked from one to the other, it finally seemed to dawn on him that not all was well between the two of them.

  “Weren’t you both friends at school?”

  “Yes,” conceded Keeley, trying to inject a note of friendliness into her voice, as Raquel said at the same time, “Not really. Not close like we were,” the last obviously referring to herself and Ben. Keeley frowned. She didn’t remember Ben and Raquel being particularly friendly at school, but judging by the way Ben averted his eyes at Raquel’s comment, she had missed something. After Raquel wriggled away to join her “date”—leaving Ben with a lingering kiss on the cheek and Keeley with a glare—Keeley sat looking down at her hands, her appetite destroyed and her self-esteem more than a little deflated. At least it had taken her mind off the murder. She took a sip of her drink and avoided Ben’s eyes.

  “She’s a bit much, isn’t she?” Ben said, surprising her into looking up.

  “She’s very pretty,” Keeley said, blushing as she heard the question in her words.

  “I suppose,” he said, which made her feel about a hundred times worse. “Anyway, where were we?”

  I was about to suggest Raquel was behind the letter—and possibly the murder, Keeley thought bitterly, thinking now that her suggestion was completely ludicrous and would only look make her look jealous. A few snide comments did not a murderer make, and if Ben and Raquel had indeed been as “close” as the other girl intimated, then he wasn’t at all likely to treat her suggestion with any seriousness. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more Keeley didn’t think it had anything to do with Raquel at all. A poison pen letter, typed and hand delivered, just didn’t feel in keeping with what she knew of Raquel—the woman would deliver any poisonous remarks to her face; she was sure of that much. And what could Raquel possibly have to do with Terry Smith?

  Unless, a thought niggled at her, she had been dating him, or leading him on, perhaps. Raquel obviously still had a penchant for older, richer men, and though no Casanova, as a business owner, Smith would hardly have been destitute. She looked at Ben, who was waiting for her to answer him, and shook her head.

  “Only that I didn’t have any idea who would want to send me something like that,” she said, unable to stop herself glancing over at Raquel, who was sitting at a table with her long-suffering date but currently draped around one of Mario’s better-looking waiters. She looked back at Ben, who was drumming his fingertips on the table.

  “Well, if it was the killer who sent that letter, then he’s showing his hand. Which is a good thing from the point of view of catching him, but not so great for you. I would be a lot happier if you could at least get someone to stay with you, Keeley.”

  Although she knew his concern was as much out of his duty as a police officer than anything else, his anxiety over her well-being touched her.

  “I’ll ask Carly if she can come and stay,” she conceded, thinking that a little company might be just what she needed.

  “Brilliant. I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, it may turn out to be no more than a nasty prank, but you can never be too careful. Are you not eating that?”

  Keeley blinked in confusion at the change of subject, then looked down at her pasta and pushed it toward Ben.

  “I’ve lost my appetite. Have it, please, or Mario will never forgive me.”

  Ben
chuckled and took the bowl, tipping the pasta onto his plate along with his lasagna and eating it quickly. He hadn’t been lying when he complained of not having eaten all day. He was probably a typical pie-and-potatoes man, she thought, glancing over toward Raquel and wondering how often Ben frequented the diner.

  “Do you think,” she said slowly, not wanting to implicate Raquel directly, “it could be a business-rivalry thing? It seems far-fetched, but”—she shrugged—“I can’t think of any reason why anyone should have a personal grudge against me.”

  Ben wiped his mouth, looking serious as he set down his cutlery. Very precisely too, Keeley noticed, thinking of her mother, who had always been a stickler for such things.

  “It’s not far-fetched at all. People go on about ‘crimes of passion’ because I suppose they’re deemed more interesting—though I doubt the victim would agree—but money is often the biggest factor in crimes of all kinds.”

  “Hence why you thought I set the fire.”

  “Did I?” Ben looked far too innocent, then shrugged as Keeley shot him an indignant look. “I’m a police detective, Keeley. I have to consider all angles. If your alibi hadn’t checked out—”

  “I’d still be in the frame.” She finished the sentence for him. At least he was honest, but the cloud of suspicion that met her when she had arrived in Belfrey still rankled. As Raquel’s high-pitched laugh floated across the room, Keeley sighed and pushed her chair back.

  “I really am tired,” she said, rubbing her forehead, “and there’s honestly nothing I can tell you.”

  Ben nodded.

  “I’ll walk you out. In fact, I’ll take you home, if you like, maybe have a look around the outside of the cottage and see if anything has been disturbed.”

  Keeley hesitated and was about to accept when she heard Raquel calling from across the room.

  “You’re not going, are you, Benny?”

  “No thanks,” Keeley said, shrugging on her jacket and pushing her chair under the table with more force than warranted. She walked away while Ben was still protesting, waving vaguely at Mario and letting herself out into the dull afternoon light. It started to rain as she shut the door behind her, and, cursing her lack of foresight in not bringing an umbrella, Keeley pulled her jacket over her head as she hurried over to the bus stop. She prayed Ben wouldn’t follow and insist on taking her home, only to feel disappointed when he didn’t. No doubt talking to Raquel and her over-friendly breasts.

  As she stepped onto the bus, Keeley heard her name and turned, her stomach doing a treacherous flip only to sink when she saw it was Duane, emerging from the library, of all places. She gave him a small wave before hurrying to her seat, thankful when the bus driver pulled off quickly. As it meandered its way through the back streets of Belfrey, Keeley found her thoughts turning to the morbid, wondering in which of the pretty cottages or small stone houses a murderer lurked. Or the person—if they weren’t one and the same—who had pushed that awful letter through the door. As she peered out the grimy windows through the now heavy rain, a thought occurred to her. Ben was working on the assumption that the person responsible for the letter could be the same person responsible for the murder and arson. Implying, of course, either one or two culprits. But what if the initial assumption was wrong? If the murder and arson had in fact been separate events, committed by two different people? That might explain why there seemed to be no clear motive, because there was not one, but two. Keeley sat up in her seat, excited at her sudden brain wave and wondering if she should phone Ben, then deflated again as another thought occurred to her.

  The police would have been able to determine times and things like that, so the two incidents couldn’t have occurred too far apart. Even so, she was sure she had heard somewhere that establishing time of death wasn’t an exact science, so the scenario could still be possible. But then that meant the possibility of three different perpetrators, and her theory still didn’t answer that pivotal question: Just what was Terry Smith doing in her flat?

  If she wanted the answer to that, she would need to know more about the man.

  Keeley thought again about Raquel and wondered if Jack Tibbons would be up on the local gossip. He was the kind of man who knew everything about everyone, though not necessarily the kind who would be free with his information. Perhaps she should ask him a few questions. In fact, she decided that doing some sleuthing of her own could be a good idea. If Ben was right about her being in danger, then the sooner this case was solved, the better, and playing the part of the interested newcomer might help her uncover details that the police might miss. Between Ben’s official investigation and her own, the murderer could be caught and safely locked up before this whole mess derailed her plans for the café.

  Because if it wasn’t solved before the author of the letter decided to make good on their threat, then Belfrey’s first vegetarian café wouldn’t be opening at all.

  Chapter Seven

  Putting her amateur theories to rest, however, didn’t come as easily as Keeley hoped. She had scheduled a night in, planning and trying out recipes, but instead found herself thinking more about alibis and motives than marinating and seasoning. Feud or not, she was still certain Raquel had something to hide. After yet another sleepless night, Keeley had resolved to get started on her own investigations and was up early in an attempt to make notes on what she knew so far. Which, she had to admit, wasn’t a great deal. Instead, she made a list of the things she needed to know, and the people she could ask. The former was a good deal longer, but it certainly beat sitting around waiting for her own head to be bashed in with a mysterious blunt object. The police didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, so maybe a fresh pair of eyes was just what was needed.

  Her resolve was strengthened when Kate, the young WPC from the station, arrived just after breakfast on Ben’s request, to have a look around the exterior of the cottage.

  “Shouldn’t this have been done yesterday?” Keeley asked, somewhat annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of mastering a complicated headstand. She had gotten up so fast to answer the doorbell that the blood had rushed straight to her face.

  “Well, I believe DC Taylor attempted to talk to you yesterday, but you weren’t very forthcoming,” Kate replied, looking less than happy herself. No doubt she disapproved of Ben taking a former suspect out to lunch. Keeley was immediately apologetic, remembering the way she had rushed off yesterday and then ignored a call from him later on in the day.

  “I wasn’t feeling very well,” she muttered. The policewoman looked unconvinced, and after asking her a few questions, really just going over the same ground she had covered with Ben, asked to see the back garden.

  “Why? The letter came through the front door.”

  “I know that”—Kate looked cross at Keeley’s statement of the obvious—“but the sort of person who sends nasty anonymous letters is just the sort of person who snoops through windows.”

  Keeley tried to push away the thought of someone spying on her as she went about her daily routines. She really must stop wandering around in her yoga pants and remember to pull the curtains, she admonished herself. As she let Kate in through the back gate, she looked around at the small garden warily, half expecting an intruder to jump out of the bushes.

  “It’s funny, though,” Kate went on, her earlier hostility seemingly forgotten, “but you could say the same about the victim.”

  “Sorry?” Keeley felt confused, having a sudden mental image of Terry Smith wearing her yoga pants and wondering if she had spoken aloud.

  “Terry always struck me as that sort of person. You know, the type to go snooping through windows. He always seemed to know things about people; nasty stuff, you know. Dirty laundry.”

  “He doesn’t sound like a very nice man,” Keeley said, wondering if there was anyone in Belfrey who had something nice to say about the unfortunate Terry Smith. It seemed almost sad that the man should meet such an abrupt end and yet have no one grieve for him. “Did he h
ave a girlfriend or anything?” she asked, thinking back to her suspicions concerning Raquel.

  “Not that I know of. I don’t think he had anybody, really. Which makes things a bit harder for us, considering that people are most often killed by someone close to them. In any case—” she frowned at Keeley, looking suspicious, “—why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious.” Keeley shrugged, looking away. She sensed the other woman looking at her; then Kate turned away and finished her cursory inspection of the back door.

  “Nothing looks out of place or unusual?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I didn’t see anything by the front door either. Oh well, I suppose it was too much to expect the anonymous author to leave a calling card. And looking for things like fibers or hairs on bushes by the front door is fairly pointless; lots of people could pass by.”

  Keeley thought again of all those episodes of CSI.

  “Isn’t forensic evidence crucial, though? If you could match something to the murder scene?”

  Kate gave her a withering look and seemed on the verge of rolling her eyes.

  “This isn’t CSI.”

  Keeley blushed.

  “We have no real evidence that this is even connected to the murder as yet. Who owns the cottage—you?”

  “Annie Rowland.” Keeley hoped that the WPC wasn’t planning on telling her landlady. Although she felt sure the older woman would be concerned on Keeley’s behalf, she didn’t want her thinking that she had brought trouble with her to Rose Cottage. Although it was probably a little late for that, being that half the town seemed to think she had something to do with the murder.

  Thankfully, Kate seemed to decide there was nothing more to be gained here and took her leave, telling Keeley as she got into her car, “DC Taylor advised you to be careful, he said something about you having a friend over? And to call him—”

  “If I think of anything else,” Keeley finished for her. “Got it.” Kate smiled tightly and drove away while Keeley glanced up and down the hill, hoping none of her neighbors had seen the police car parked outside the cottage. That would hardly lift the finger of suspicion from her.