How disappointing. So far, all she had accomplished was getting a wet bottom and growing much, much colder. She turned to climb back up the slope to the SUV but something made her glance back over her shoulder one more time.
And that’s when she saw it.
The fire ring wasn’t just stones arranged in the shape of a heart. There were more stones. And from where she stood, they were not haphazardly arranged at all. Those stones looked like an arrow going through the heart.
Gemma stood there for a moment, looking down on what must have been Mr. Muzak’s last tribute to love, when her eye followed to where the tip of the arrow was aimed.
A tree. Maybe ten feet away and somewhat smaller than the others, with a hole in the bark about two feet off the ground.
Her cold, wet bottom forgotten now, Gemma half-ran, half-slid back down the bank, her sights on nothing but that tree. As she approached, she realized that the hole was deep and very, very dark inside. She stood there for a moment, reluctant to stick her hand into it. There might be a snake in there. She wasn’t too worried about that but she didn’t want to touch one, frozen or not. What else lived in trees? Rabbits? No. Squirrels? Did squirrels hibernate? What if one was in there sleeping with its squirrel family and she got bit? A bird would already have been alert to her presence.
She aimed the flashlight at the tree, but it was too weak to do much good. She stood there and chewed on her lip for a moment, trying to think.
Gemma knew one thing for sure; she could not leave until she was positive there was nothing of importance in that tree. While she was debating what to do next, she shoved her hands into her coat pockets. And there was her cell phone. It might be useless for making calls out here in the woods but that big screen was as bright as day.
Pressing the button on the side to active the screen, she aimed it at the hole in the tree. No birds. No snakes. No squirrels. But what she saw hidden inside there made her smile.
Chapter Ten
“Oh, Mr. Muzak,” Gemma said as she studied what had been revealed by the light of her phone. “What a hopeless romantic you were.”
She was still hesitant to reach into that tree, even though she could clearly see what was nestled in some pine needles inside there. If what she saw was evidence, and she was pretty sure it was, she didn’t want to be the one contaminating it. Still, she had to get it back to Sheriff Burton before someone else, possibly the killer, found it and destroyed it.
As that thought flew through her head, Gemma suddenly stood up and looked around. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone else would be out here, but what if someone was watching? She listened intently. An owl hooted somewhere nearby, some birds flew overhead and then she did catch sight of a rabbit scurrying through the underbrush. After standing perfectly still and making sure she was alone, Gemma knew that she was going to have to make a decision one way or another.
Reaching inside the tree with a gloved hand, she found the wide neck of the jar and carefully lifted it out. Still using her cell phone as a flashlight, she noted that it was an old fashioned Ball canning jar. Even in this bad lighting she could see the green hue from the glass. It was sealed with a metal lid, and there were two documents rolled up inside the jar. Neither of them looked old or yellowed, but Gemma shivered at the sight, possibly the last will and testament of Boris Muzak. Possibly a confession of some sort. Maybe just more love letters to his wife. Who knew?
Being careful not to drop the heavy jar, Gemma held it close to her body and used her free hand to help her climb back up the bank. It was almost completely dark by this time and she could barely spot her SUV right where she left it at the front of the shack. Once inside, she realized she was shivering uncontrollably. She started the engine and cranked up the heater. God, it felt good and she sat there for a moment, huddled down in her coat and soaking up the warmth.
When she could finally feel her toes again, she turned on the dome light and picked up the jar. Praying that her gloves would prevent her from destroying any fingerprints, she struggled for a moment with the lid. It came loose fairly easily with a little scraping sound and she caught a whiff of something sweet, like those candy valentine hearts she and Nick shared as children.
Carefully, only using two fingers, Gemma pulled out the larger of the two documents and unfolded it.
She held it carefully by the corners and read quickly through the first time and then back over it again.
My dearest Joel, it began. Gemma gasped and read that part again, then continued. If you are reading this I may be dead or in prison. Please know that I never intended to hurt you. I simply could no longer stand sharing your love with another. By the same token, I knew I couldn’t compete with the love of a woman, especially a woman as special as Natasha. When I found out that she had stolen your heart and that you were planning to run away together, I knew she had to die.
My plan was to frame you for her death, and then help you escape as a fugitive to Mexico, where you would wait for me to join you with what was left of my money and the life insurance I will collect from her untimely passing. If you need me just to survive, perhaps I can finally have you to myself.
I realize that this plan has many risks to myself as well as to you, but a life without love just is not worth living. Nevertheless, if something happens to me, I cannot risk you being left alone to pay the penalty for my own crime. This was always our special place. If you still have any love for me at all, I know you would come back here to think of me and, hopefully, follow the clues I left to your own salvation.
It was signed by Boris Muzak, that romantic flourish at the end of his name completely recognizable. And, of course, there were tiny hearts.
Gemma sat there for a moment, digesting what she had read. What a complicated man, she thought to herself. She would never have guessed that he’d been more in love with his manager than with his own wife.
Then she reached for the second, smaller document. It was typed and dated two days before the murder.
My name is Boris Muzak. This is my confession both to the murder of my wife and to the subsequent framing of my friend, Joel, for her murder. I acted alone in this. I purchased the crossbow in secret just for this reason. I rigged the timer to the trigger and I set it up to hit her exactly where I knew she would be standing. A life without love is not worth living, but love, to me, is the one thing that could be worth killing for.
There was that unmistakable signature again at the bottom.
Gemma tucked them neatly back into the jar just like she had found them, put the car in gear and headed down the rutted lane back to the highway. She was in tears by the time she reached the main road and she sobbed all the way back to the lodge. Knowing she was right didn’t make the situation any less sad, and it was going to be Missy’s video that proved it.
The parking lot was still full of county cars as well as that black Escalade that had brought her up here. She spotted Nick the moment she entered the lobby and smiled. He was holding what looked like a cloth to his forehead and she thought there was blood on his shirt. She was glad that he was safe but it looked like he’d put up quite a fight. He was busy talking to Jill Sargent, a pretty local news personality, who appeared to be scribbling notes as fast as she could. A man with a camera stood nearby.
Natasha was nowhere in sight. Gemma assumed that she was still in her room, possibly still sedated. Joel was suspiciously absent as well. Perhaps they had both been arrested for the blackmailing scheme. Only Missy sat behind the front desk, arms folded across her chest.
“Gemma,” Nick said, leaping to his feet when he spotted her. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was...I went...” Gemma simply couldn’t explain so she just held up the jar. She was suddenly so tired, she could barely stand.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Confession,” Gemma said. “I need to find the sheriff.”
“She’s in that first office looking at Tyler’s video. I think the media wa
nts to use some of the footage for the news but they can’t until she releases it,” Nick said, motioning to Jill who was checking her makeup and hair in a small mirror.
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she said.
“Holland figured out who I was,” Nick began explaining. “He tricked me into meeting him and...”
“Nick, we really need to get this finished so I can get back to the station and edit what video we have,” Jill said impatiently.
“It’s okay,” Gemma told him. “I need to go talk to the sheriff.”
He squeezed her hand and they parted ways.
Gemma found the sheriff and three deputies sitting at the big desk staring at a laptop.
“Well, Ms. Stone. You certainly disappeared on us,” she said, leaning back in the chair and rubbing her eyes. “We were just going over Tyler’s video for what seems like the hundredth time. It seems to be the clearest and longest one that we have. And now the media wants...”
“I had an idea and...” Gemma interrupted. She still couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. “Here,” she said, placing the jar on the desk in front of Sheriff Burton.
“What is this?”
“A letter and a confession,” Gemma said sinking into the closest chair, before she fell down. “Read it.”
The sheriff looked at her, surprise and something else showing on her face, maybe begrudging respect. Gemma couldn’t tell. But the sheriff reached a decision pretty quickly. She turned the laptop around so Gemma could see the screen.
“Hit PLAY, watch closely and tell me what you think,” she said. Pulling on plastic gloves, she reached for the jar.
“I was careful,” Gemma told her. “I only touched the corners and I was wearing my gloves.” She held up her gloved hands as if to defend herself.
The sheriff nodded.
Gemma turned her attention to the computer screen. She tapped on play and the video began, obviously taken with a cell phone. It was somewhat grainy and the sound was tinny, but there was Mr. Muzak extolling the virtues of love and his wife. Gemma was reminded of how they didn’t seem to fit together. He was short and heavy set. She was as tall as him and slender. Also, he was holding her hands oddly, as if she might try to escape.
One minute he was talking and the next there was an arrow sticking out of his chest. Natasha looked as surprised as her husband, and was almost pulled down to the floor when he fell. Gemma backed the video up until just before that and watched it again.
“Well, I’ll be,” the sheriff murmured. “Where did you find this?”
“In a very unlikely place.”
Gemma stared at the screen, watching the video again just to make sure. “His plan was to kill her but, at the last minute, he couldn’t do it. He pushed her out of the way,” she finally said.
Sheriff Burton and her deputies crowded around Gemma’s chair as she backed the video up one more time. “Look at how he’s holding both of her hands instead of just one. Now she’s looking at the floor making sure she’s standing on her X. Finally, sure she’s in the right place, she looks up and to her right. That’s where Joel was standing.”
“Their affection for each other was obvious,” the sheriff said. “It’s one of the first things everyone has mentioned to us.”
Gemma nodded. “Maybe Mr. Muzak didn’t see it until that last moment, but he knew he didn’t stand a chance. But look, right there,” Gemma touched the screen with the tip of her finger. “He takes a tiny step and places one leg in front of hers. She knows she has to stay on that X so she’s pushing back. She had no idea he was trying to save her life.”
“You’re right,” Sheriff Burton said after a few minutes. “You’re absolutely right.”
Somehow knowing she was right didn’t make Gemma feel any less sad at the loss of Mr. Muzak.
“Boris and I met in Florida....in jail.” Joel said from the doorway where he stood, his hands cuffed behind him.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“I had stolen some money from a man I worked for,” Joel continued. “We were both very lonely. We became friends, and then we became much more than friends. For him it was an emotional attachment. For me it was just needing something to help me cope. Boris loved easily and deeply.”
“Go on,” Sheriff Burton said, motioning for her deputies to step aside and let him come further into the room.
He didn’t move, but took a deep breath and then plunged on into his story. “Boris was one of those people who could say they were in love with more than one person at a time and actually believe it. I only knew how to survive.”
He hesitated and looked from Gemma to Sheriff Burton as though he expected someone to judge him, either for his bisexuality or for the lack of passion. No one stopped him. They were all listening carefully.
“Boris got out first and came up here to start this business. He wrote me love letters every week until I got out, promising me a job and a wonderful new life together. When I got here, I found out he had a wife, Natasha. He loved her very much but he still wanted me, too. I needed the job, so I let him keep believing the feeling was mutual. It really didn't matter much to me one way or another.”
Joel sagged against the door frame as if he might fall. “I never understood it was possible to feel the things he talked about until the first time Natasha kissed me. After that, I couldn't let him touch me anymore. I finally knew what it was supposed to mean to be with somebody. And we both had started to realize that there was something really wrong with Boris. He had a dark side that believed in love against all odds and any cost.”
Gemma hadn’t thought of Mr. Muzak as having a dark side but, if Joel was telling the truth, it was like he was talking about a completely different person.
“Natasha and I knew we had to get away from him, but we were making money together. We just needed a little more.”
He fell silent.
Gemma spoke up at last. “What was Boris in jail for?”
The sheriff answered her. “Fraud and embezzlement.”
“So when he found out you were going to run away together, he decided to kill her,” Gemma said, summing up what she’d read.
Joel nodded. “I guess, thinking that he could control me with the money. The blackmailing scheme was getting out of hand. This was going to be our last attempt at it before Natasha and I ran away.”
Chapter Eleven
“I think I’d just like to go to my cabin if you’re finished with me,” Gemma said, standing up. She had all the confessions she could handle for one day, and her head was spinning at Joel’s story.
“Of course. Do you want someone to walk with you?” Sheriff Burton asked, her voice kind and gentle.
“No. I’ll be fine. The fresh air will do me good and I think I just need to lie down for a while.”
“Okay,” the sheriff said, helping Gemma to her feet. “If you need anything at all, please let us know.” She waggled the jar. “And thanks for this.”
“No problem,” Gemma said, standing. She passed through the lobby where Nick was talking to yet another reporter. Evidently this whole thing was big news and he seemed to be right at the center of it. She tried to get his attention to let him know that she was headed back to the cabin, but he never saw her. She watched him for a moment, definitely in his element and right where he wanted to be. He might get a job offer out of this with a bigger paper.
But she was too tired, too emotionally drained to even think about that.
The walk to her cabin was quiet, her boots barely making a sound on the frozen walkway. The solar lights lit her way and once she was inside, she had the feeling someone had been there again. It was difficult to tell with Nick’s clothes, shoes and papers strewn everywhere, but she thought she could tell they had removed cameras from various places around the room.
One had been right over the bed. And the bed had not been made. No housekeeping staff.
Someone had been watching her sleep. Yuck!
Gathering her warm flanne
l pajamas, the white ones with the red and black stiletto heels printed on them, she went into the bathroom. Thank goodness she’d hung her towel up to dry because housekeeping certainly hadn’t brought clean ones. She ran a tub full of hot water, undressed and sank down into it with a sigh. And then she cried again for Mr. Muzak, Natasha and Joel. Love triangles almost always ended tragically, but this one had been deadly. And poor Mr. Muzak had paid the price.
Once she finally got warm, she climbed from the tub, dressed, lit the gas logs in the fireplace and crawled into bed. Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. Tomorrow they would go home.
She was more than ready to get back to the familiar safety of her little house, her little life. Nick’s gift was still there, sitting on her kitchen counter wrapped in red foil paper with a big bow. She’d bought something for Ross as well but it was out in the garage. She smiled for the first time in what seemed forever when she thought about how he was going to react to the set of tools she had purchased for him.
Gemma dozed. At one point she awoke to someone staggering around in the dark.
“Nick,” she said, sitting up and turning on the light.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying not to wake you.”
“It’s okay. How are you?” she asked as he finally settled on the foot of the bed and took off his shoes.
“Worn out and pumped at the same time,” he said and then winced when he smiled.
“Looks like you got roughed up pretty good,” she said, touching his lip, which was split and had begun to swell.
“Yeah, kind of embarrassed that Holland got the drop on me,” he confessed.
“You had no idea.”
“He didn’t believe for a minute we were who we said we were,” Nick told her. “Actually, he originally thought we were FBI but after doing some research, he discovered who I was. When he called to tell me that, he also told me he was willing to share all of the evidence of the blackmailing scheme with me if I could help him work a deal with the police,” Nick explained. “Why wouldn’t I believe him?”
Cupid's Corpse: A Cozy Mystery (Gemma Stone Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 8
