Asking Fur Trouble

by Ally Roberts

  “You should,” she said. “First cupcake is on the house.”

  She was awfully nice, and I knew I would have a hard time disliking her, even if she turned out to be Asher’s girlfriend.

  “There’s David,” Asher said, his eyes focused on some distant spot. I looked but all I saw was a group of people I didn’t know. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

  He strode off and I was left alone with Leah.

  “So, are you new to the island?” she asked.

  “Sort of.” I explained my connection to Sweetwater.

  “How nice it must be to be back home,” she said.

  The jury was still out on that, but I just smiled and nodded.

  “I just love it here,” she said. She looked around, a dreamy expression on her pretty face as she took in her surroundings. “Everyone is so nice and welcoming.”

  “Have you been here long?” I asked.

  “Almost five years,” she said. “Moved here from San Francisco.”

  “You traded one ocean for another,” I joked.

  She laughed. “You could say that. I grew up in the Bay Area and although I love it and all of my family is still there, I was sort of done with the hustle and bustle. I wanted to slow things down a little, and I wanted the chance to open up my own business. Real estate is so expensive in the city so I knew that wasn’t an option. And I wasn’t just going to keep selling baked goods out of my parents’ little market shop.”

  “A market shop?”

  She nodded. “Down in Chinatown. My grandparents opened it shortly after immigrating to the U.S. and then my parents took it over. I think they expected me to follow in their footsteps but I never wanted to be a grocer. I wanted to be a baker.”

  “And now you are.”

  “Now I am,” she agreed.

  “That must be awesome, owning your own business,” I said. I’d just started my journey down the entrepreneurial path, so the idea of opening up a business with a storefront and everything sounded incredibly daunting.

  “It is.” She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s also a lot of work. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

  She looked at me. “How do you know Asher?”

  “We met a couple of days ago,” I said. “I’m…I’m walking his dog.”

  Leah’s face lit up. “Duke? I just love him! He and Clementine are good friends.”

  “Is Clementine your dog?”

  She nodded. “My little Maltese. We don’t manage play dates very often but when they do get together, they have a good time. He’s a gentle giant.”

  Hmm. They didn’t manage play dates very often…

  “How do you know Asher?” I asked. It felt like as safe of a time as any to find out about the nature of their relationship.

  “Oh, gosh. Who doesn’t know Asher on this island?” she said with a chuckle. “He knows everyone.”

  That did indeed seem to be the case. And it didn’t answer my question.

  Leah was holding a drink and she took a sip. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Caroline Ford,” she said, her tone turning somber.

  My spine stiffened. Did she know of my connection to Caroline?

  I offered a tentative nod.

  She sighed. “Just so sad,” she said. “She’d just finished a quilt for me. We had coffee a couple of days before…well, before she died, and everything just seemed so…normal.”

  I devoured this piece of news like a starved person. Leah had spent time with Caroline? Maybe she could shed some light on her state of mind or what had been happening in her life in the days leading up to her death.

  The problem was, how did I ask about it? Once again, I was the newcomer, and I couldn’t just go around sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong. Or where people thought it didn’t belong.

  “So sad,” I murmured, purposely not offering more information than necessary. “Did you know her well?”

  “Well enough,” she said. “We weren’t good friends or anything, but she came into the shop once or twice a month. Her husband, too.”

  “Daniel, right?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “He was a regular customer. Usually stopped in once a week for a vanilla cupcake.”

  Vanilla. Why did this not surprise me?”

  “The only time he ever bought a different flavor was the first week of March. March 2nd, I think.”

  “Oh?” I said. It seemed like an odd thing for her to remember. “Why is that?”

  Leah smiled, but it was more sad than joyful. “He told me the first time he bought it. I commented that he must be ready to branch out from vanilla but he said, no, it wasn’t for him. It was for his wife.”

  “Caroline?”

  Leah shook her head. “That’s what I thought, too. But, no, it was for his first wife. Rachel. She apparently loved red velvet cupcakes so he bought one on her birthday.”

  I frowned. “Does she live here on the island?” I thought it was weird that, despite being married to Caroline, he would still buy his first wife a cupcake.

  “She's dead,” Leah said quietly.

  I immediately felt bad. “Oh.”

  Leah sighed. “It was so tragic. I guess she died several years ago in a house fire.”

  “Here?” I asked. That sounded like something I would have heard about, at least in passing. I might not have come back to the island but my mother usually kept me apprised of things that were going on, and I was sure someone dying in a house fire would probably have made the cut of things she decided to tell me about.

  But Leah shook her head again. “No, I think it was in Savannah. I’m not sure, though.”

  That made a little more sense.

  “That must have been terrible,” I said. My sympathy for Daniel increased. He’d lost not one, but two wives.

  “I would think so,” Leah said. Her dark eyes clouded. “The fact that the case was never solved adds another layer for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that there hasn’t really been any closure,” she explained. “I think that has a lot to do with the fact that he comes in and buys her a cupcake every year.”

  “No, I meant the closure thing. How did he not get closure?”

  “Oh,” Leah said, nodding. She lowered her voice. “From what I’ve heard, the fire was set under suspicious circumstances.”

  I stared blankly at her.

  “It was arson,” she said. Her own eyes were wide. “Set intentionally. They know that for sure. But they never caught the person who did it.”

  TWENTY ONE

  All I could think about was Rachel.

  Rachel Ford, Daniel’s first wife.

  Even when Asher returned to where I was standing with Leah, and even during the rest of my time at the picnic, I mulled over what Leah had told me.

  And now, sitting back at my grandma’s house, freshly showered and with Trixie gnawing on a bone next to me, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

  Daniel Ford’s first wife was dead.

  She’d died under mysterious circumstances.

  And so had Caroline.

  Was it just a coincidence?

  Or was it something more?

  I shook my head. I was probably jumping to conclusions, trying to make connections that weren’t there. Too many hours spent watching crime dramas on television were making me turn Daniel into a criminal when instead he was a twice-bereaved widower.

  That’s what I tried telling myself.

  But it didn’t stick. I couldn’t just think of him as a guy who had suffered two unfortunate losses.

  No, there was more to this. Both of the women he’d married were now dead. It was this, coupled with what Amber had said about his relationship with Caroline, that had me convinced that the story of Daniel’s first wife was something I needed to look into.

  The question was…how?

  I sat quietly for a minute, my legs tucked underneath me, staring at the brick fireplace across
from me. When I leaped to my feet a few seconds later, Trixie startled.

  “Sorry,” I said to her. I hurried up the wooden staircase and into my bedroom to grab my laptop. My dog followed me, her nails clicking on the wood steps, and she gave me a confused look when I turned around and headed straight back into the living room.

  I opened my web browser and typed Daniel’s name into the search box. I added the words ‘house fire’ and results immediately popped up. I scrolled through the first few articles, gleaning as much information as I could. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much. Rachel Ford, age 36, had died in a house fire ten years ago. Arson was the official cause, but no arrests were ever made and no motive was discovered. There had been a serial arsonist in the Savannah area at the time, with a string of arsons left unsolved.

  I typed Rachel’s name in next and scrolled to her obituary. Daniel was listed as her husband and Oliver as her son, along with several other names of her next of kin and the cities where they lived. I took note of them, then opened a new tab and typed one name that I thought might be promising.

  Lucy Vaughn, Rachel’s sister.

  Within minutes, I’d looked at Lucy’s Facebook profile and had managed to find her phone number on one of the white pages websites.

  I stared at the ten-digit number and then, before I could change my mind, picked up my phone and punched it in.

  A woman’s voice answered on the third ring.

  “Hi, my name is Wendy, and, well, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Who?”

  “Wendy.” I cleared my throat.

  “What are you selling? I only buy Avon, and I do that through my cousin.”

  “I’m not selling Avon,” I said quickly. “I’m not selling anything. I…I have some questions about your sister, Rachel.”

  “Who are you?” Her tone was suspicious.

  “I’m…” How on earth did I explain who I was or why I was calling? I cleared my throat. “I know Daniel Ford and —”

  “Daniel?” Lucy echoed.

  “Yes. I…I have some question about your sister.”

  “I’m not interested.” She said this as if I were a telemarketer offering her a cruise to the Bahamas.

  “Wait.” I thought frantically, trying to figure out a way to keep her on the phone. I knew that if she hung up now, the chances of my getting through to her again were slim. She’d probably block my number. “Um, Daniel’s wife just died and I think he might have been responsible.”

  The line was so quiet that I was convinced Lucy had already hung up on me.

  “What did you just say?”

  I bit my lip. I couldn’t tell how my statement had registered with her.

  “His current wife just passed away,” I said. “Under mysterious circumstances. Sort of like your sister…”

  “He set another house on fire?”

  I almost dropped the phone. “What? You…you know Daniel was responsible?”

  “I don’t have evidence, if that’s what you’re asking,” she practically barked. “But I have no doubt he’s the one who torched that house. Told the cops that, too. Wanna know what they did with that? Nothing!”

  She was talking a mile a minute but I didn’t want to interrupt and I didn’t know what she’d do if I asked her to slow down. So I just listened and tried to remember everything she was saying.

  “Cops said it was the work of a serial arsonist. A professional.” Her laugh was harsh. “Not a chance. Daniel was the one who did it. I know it, and he knows it, and he will pay for his sins when he goes to meet his maker.”

  She took in a deep breath. “So, he did it again, huh? Set his new wife’s house on fire? I’ll need to let the SPD know. Not that they’ll do anything about it. Not that they’ll believe me.”

  “He didn’t set anything on fire,” I said, as soon as I was able to get a word in.

  I could hear the frown in her voice. “What? But you just said he killed his new wife.”

  “I said she died,” I clarified. “Just not in a fire.”

  There was silence.

  “I don’t understand,” Lucy finally said.

  “His current wife was found dead in their home,” I explained. “The police are investigating it as a potential homicide.”

  “And he didn’t burn down the house?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.” She sounded perplexed.

  “He and his current wife were going through a divorce—”

  She cut me off with a gasp. “A divorce? That’s what was happening when Rachel died!”

  This news took me by surprise. “It was?”

  “Yes. He was furious. Didn’t want a divorce. And he told her—I remember this clearly—that he was never going to get a divorce. Not over his dead body.”

  My skin prickled with goose bumps.

  Those words were almost verbatim what he had allegedly said about Caroline and her desire to file for divorce.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Am I sure about what?”

  “That he said that to your sister?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “They were on the phone and I was listening in!”

  “I see.” I didn’t want to ask for details as to the how or why she’d eavesdropped on their conversation.

  It didn’t really matter.

  What mattered was that my hunch from earlier, however small it might have seemed, was paying off.

  Because I was pretty sure I now knew exactly who was responsible for Caroline Ford’s murder.

  I just had to figure out a way to prove it.

  TWENTY TWO

  Trixie stared at me expectantly.

  She was trying to figure out what we were doing.

  I didn’t exactly know.

  As soon as I hung up with Lucy, I’d grabbed Trixie’s leash and hooked her up. Even though she was in the middle of her bone, she offered no resistance. A walk was a walk, regardless of what she was doing. She never turned down walks, not even on the coldest winter days in Minneapolis, when the wind sliced through my clothes—and her fur—and icicles formed between her toe pads.

  We’d walked quickly, seemingly with purpose, but I had no destination in mind. I just knew that I needed to think about what Lucy had told me, and some of my best thinking happened when I was out walking.

  But here we were, standing on the walkway that transitioned to the boardwalk that led down to the beach, and I hadn’t figured out anything. My mind was jumbled with all kinds of thoughts, none of which seemed to fit as I tried to piece together a narrative of what had happened to Caroline.

  Lucy was convinced her ex-brother-in-law was a cold-blooded killer. And I’d hung up the phone thinking that, too.

  But there were too many things that didn’t feel like they added up.

  For one, if he was so heartless, why did he stop by a bakery every year on his first wife’s birthday and order her favorite cupcake? That didn’t seem like something a murderer would do.

  And yes, he and Caroline had been seen arguing before she died, but that didn’t mean he’d decided to kill her. And just because he’d used the same term—over my dead body—when both of his wives had decided to file for divorce, there was no proof that he’d somehow twisted those words around and instead attacked his spouses.

  The biggest thing I was struggling with, though, was this: if Daniel had been responsible for Rachel’s death, and if the cause was ruled as arson, it should have been relatively easy to prove that he was the one responsible. The stories I read about the fire made it pretty clear that the experts believed it was the work of a serial arsonist. So unless Daniel had been running around setting fires everywhere, the chances of am amateur deciding to take revenge on his soon-to-be ex-wife by lighting her house on fire seemed relatively slim.

  I got to the edge of the walkway. Tate Goodman was busy stowing umbrellas and beach chairs into his storage units. A teen was standing next to him, handin
g him some of the bulkier items.

  He looked up and smiled. “Hey, stranger.” To the kid, he said. “I can take it from here.”

  “You sure?” The teen pulled out his phone. “I can stay for another fifteen minutes but then I need to get home. I have a chem test tomorrow.”

  Tate shook his head. “Go. I’m good.”

  The kid smiled. “Thanks, man. See you next weekend.” He picked up a pair of flip flops sitting next to one of the units, gave me a quick nod, and then hustled past me as he made his way off the beach.

  “You’re a little late for tanning or swimming,” Tate said. “Although the water shouldn’t be too cold.”

  I glanced out at the water and the sky that was quickly darkening above it. The sun had shifted well west and wasn’t even visible anymore, but a rainbow of pinks and oranges still streaked the western sky.

  “I’m not here to do either of those things,” I told him.

  He grinned and pushed his hair off his forehead. It immediately flopped back into place. “No? Is your dog gonna go for a swim? Harry’s around here somewhere.”

  He put his fingers to his lips and whistled, and a few seconds later Harry came bounding toward us, tail wagging.

  “Where was he?” I asked.

  Tate shrugged. “No idea.”

  “He just…hangs out?”

  “I told you, the beach is like his second home. He has the run of the place. Everyone knows him, and he knows what time we usually head home.”

  I glanced down at Trixie. She was a good dog, and she usually minded, but there was no way I would trust her to be permanently off-leash. There were too many squirrels to chase, too many distractions that might send her on a wild goose chase…and I didn’t know if she would actually make her way back home…especially when home was now someplace new.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s impressive.”

  “He’s a good boy.” Tate ruffled Harry’s ear and then glanced at me. His gaze was speculative. “You okay?”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He shoved another umbrella into the storage unit. “I get this feeling something is bothering you.”