At that moment it occurred to me that I was treating Royce as a partner in our unofficial murder investigation, though I hadn’t eliminated him from my list of suspects. If he was playing me, trying to feed me misinformation, trying to misdirect me . . . I watched him pry the lid from his coffee cup and heard him ahh with satisfaction as he took his first sip.
He glanced up at me. “I could ask Wayne what he told Charlie.”
“Could you?”
“Sure. Neither of them would think anything of me asking. They use me as a sounding board in their domestic squabbles all the time. Royce, let me tell you what Brigit did now. Royce, you won’t believe what Anika said to me yesterday. I’m retired and I’ll be seventy soon, so they think I must be enthralled by their disagreeable lives.”
I laughed. “You sound like Julia.”
“Do I?” Grinning broadly, he flopped back in his chair, looking pleased by my comparison. “Julia is one of the good ones.”
One of the good ones? What did that mean? She’s a pal? A good woman?
Before I could get nosy and ask, he said, “Speaking of Julia, I’ve got to run. She and the rest of the crew are waiting for me at Town Hall. It’s only one more day until the dance, and we’ve lots to do yet.” He stuffed his napkin into his coat pocket, stood, and grabbed his coffee.
“It’ll be beautiful,” I said, rising along with him. “Though Julia’s a little reluctant to go.”
“Is she?” He frowned. “But she seems to be enjoying herself. Making the decorations, anyway.”
I couldn’t back out, could I? I had to explain what I meant. Just a bit. “Well, you know, she’ll be serving punch instead of dancing.”
“But she can dance. Why couldn’t she dance?”
“She’s not attending the dance.”
“She’ll be there, won’t she? She said she would.”
Royce was now competing with Gilroy for the Dense Man Award, and I feared he might win. “Yes, but she’s serving punch,” I said emphatically.
“She volunteered.” Royce dropped back into his seat, and I followed suit.
“Don’t tell Julia I said anything, okay? She just, you know . . .”
Befuddled, Royce watched me, waiting for clarification. But I wasn’t going to spell it out any better than that. Julia would kill me. “She’ll be there,” I said with a smile. “Don’t worry.”
“I hope so,” Royce said. “She didn’t say anything to me about not wanting to go.”
I thrust out a hand. “No, no. She wants to go, just not as a server.” Cut your losses, Rachel, and be quiet.
“But we need servers, and she volunteered.”
I couldn’t help myself. Royce’s sweet thickheadedness was driving me to speak. I plastered a smile on my face to minimize the sting of my words. “Well, she’s in her sixties, so she’s expected to volunteer, isn’t she? She’s got endless time, no needs of her own, and she’s enthralled by other people and their disagreeable lives.”
Recognition passed slowly over Royce’s face. Thankfully, he smiled back at me, his good humor intact. “Using my own words against me, Miss Stowe?”
“Well . . .”
“Serves me right—and I see your point. We over-sixty folks are looked on as the punch servers, not the served.”
I decided then and there that Royce Putnam was no killer. He was off my suspect list. “You stand on the sidelines and watch other people’s lives.”
“Handing them punch.”
“Julia deserves to have someone hand her a cup of punch now and then.”
“We all do.” Royce took another swig of coffee and rose once more to his feet. “I’d better get to work. I’ll ask Wayne what he said to Charlie. Maybe I’ll ask him a few other things while I’m at it. Mind a partner in your detective work?”
“Frankly, it’s just what I need. I’m getting nowhere on my own.”
“Good. I’ll pay Wayne a visit at his office later today and give you a call if I discover something.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and gave the screen a swipe. “What’s your number? And don’t look so surprised that I have a cell. I’m not fossilized. I have a DVD player too, and I know how to change the time on it.”
I gave him my number, and he swiftly added me to his contacts, working his phone like a teenage pro. “Do you think he’ll be there so soon after Brigit’s murder?” I asked.
“Wayne’s a workaholic. If I know him, he’ll cope with her death by working.”
I watched as Royce made his way to the door. We hadn’t resolved the important questions—not to my satisfaction, anyway. I’d wanted to know if he had any romantic feelings for Julia, and if so, what had possessed him to ask another woman to the dance. But one thing was clear to me: Royce had no idea that Julia had romantic feelings for him. Judging from our conversation, he wasn’t capable of decoding that fairly basic male-female signal, the proof being how long it took him to understand that Julia wanted to attend the Valentine’s Day dance, not be a server at it. He’d never considered the idea.
All that aside, he was keen to help me solve Brigit’s murder, and considering my lack of real progress, I was grateful. As I downed the rest of my coffee, I wondered if Royce’s job at the Records Section had given him an eye and nose for detail. Now his cell phone proficiency made perfect sense. As head of the department, he had to know how to operate a computer and navigate Town Hall’s system—at a bare minimum. Royce might be very good at sleuthing.
But though he was now off my list—Julia would tell me it’s about time—his daughter-in-law, Cassie, was not. What about Cassie’s “hissy fit,” as Anika had called it, in the Records Section over a copy of her birth certificate? I wasn’t buying that Brigit being a tad slow with it was the cause of her murder, but I needed to find out if there had been bad blood between the two women. Something that happened long before the dust-up between the two at Town Hall. Something that had made it inevitable.
CHAPTER 9
When I got to Holly’s Sweets, I ordered half a dozen different donuts and a single cream puff. Holly was so busy she couldn’t stop to talk, so I told her I’d call her later with any news on Brigit’s murder. Though I carefully avoided using the word “murder” in her crowded bakery. As I walked back down Main Street toward the police station, I wondered if Gilroy was in a better mood this morning. Good mood or not, I knew he would see right through my donut ruse and tell me once again to stop interfering in the Gundersen case.
Entering the station, I was relieved to find he wasn’t in—and that Turner was manning the front desk. Even Underhill was out, “working some angles,” I was told, so I had Turner to myself. I laid the pastry box on the desk, opened it, and invited Turner to take his pick. “Except for the cream puff. That’s mine.”
“This is just the ticket,” he said, seizing a glazed donut. “Thanks, Rachel. I didn’t have breakfast this morning.”
“It’s the most important meal of the day, you know,” I said.
“The chief wanted me in here early, and I overslept. Didn’t even have time for coffee, and I’m not the biggest fan of the stuff the chief buys.” He took a large bite of donut and wiped glaze from the corner of his mouth as he chewed. “Mmm. Holly is an amazing baker. I wonder if she’s ever thought about moving to Denver? She could clean up.”
“Have two,” I said. “Gilroy and Underhill probably have their own donuts by now.” I could resist it no longer. I latched on to the cream puff and took a somewhat smaller bite than Turner had of his donut. For a minute we stood there, two kindred souls happily devouring our pastries. When Turner reached for a second donut, I asked him, as casually as I could, if Wayne Gundersen was the prime suspect in Brigit’s murder.
“I think so,” he said. “The chief seems to be treating him that way, but he isn’t planning on arresting him yet.”
I nodded. Silence often spurred Turner toward filling it.
“Underhill is convinced Gundersen killed his wife, but I don’t think the chi
ef is. Though as far as I can see, we don’t have any other suspects. Putting a metal stake in someone’s head like that is pretty up close and personal.”
I grimaced and immediately tried to erase the mental image of Brigit on her kitchen floor. I feared it would stay with me for a long time.
“So we naturally focus on the husband,” Underhill went on. “Nine out of ten times, that’s who it is.”
“Absolutely. Plus, Brigit let the killer in—or he let himself in with a key. There were no signs of forced entry.”
“That points to Mr. Gundersen too.”
While Turner dug into his second donut, I poured us both coffee—the third cup for me. I felt I was about to get somewhere with him, and I wanted to keep his verbal wheels greased. “I’m not sure I see Wayne as the killer,” I said, handing him a cup. “And I agree about Gilroy’s choice of coffee. Maybe I can get him to switch brands.”
“I’ll drink anything but this stuff. It tastes burnt.”
“A lot of people in town knew Wayne was cheating on Brigit, so why risk killing her now? Especially after she plastered Main Street with her flyers? It’s too obvious.”
Turner shrugged. “A fit of anger? It happens. Not all murders are planned.”
“Did Wayne have time to kill her? Didn’t he go directly back to his real estate office after confronting Brigit about the flyers? I know Gilroy found him there when he informed him of Brigit’s death.”
“According to a co-worker, Gundersen returned to the office two minutes before Gilroy went there.”
Now that was an interesting piece of news. “Then where did he go after he confronted Brigit?”
“He says he got into his car and took a drive to cool down.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?”
“Nope. Not yet, anyway. Gundersen says he never got out of his car. Claims he drove west, in the opposite direction of Songbird Lane, right up into the foothills. He parked awhile on a pullout and then drove back downtown. Unfortunately for him, he’s got a black Ford truck—a dime a dozen around here, so it’s nothing anyone would pay special attention to. I don’t think anyone will come forward to support his story. If you leave the foothills out of it, he had more than enough time to drive home, kill his wife, and drive back to the office.”
“He would’ve had to change his clothes before coming back.”
Turner thought about that for a moment. “Blood spatter, yeah. Even one drop of Brigit’s blood on his shirt would do him in forensically. Well, he could’ve taken off his coat and suit jacket, hit her, then switched dress shirts. That’s pretty easy.”
I nodded. “He was wearing a white shirt, if I remember right.”
“Probably has a dozen of them.”
“Then what did he do with the bloody shirt?”
“Threw it out on his way back to the office?”
“That’s tricky. You stop to throw out a bloody shirt and someone might see you,” I said. “Or someone might find the shirt in a Dumpster.”
“Gilroy has Underhill checking that angle. Neighborhood trash cans, Dumpsters, office trash cans.”
“And what about the murder weapon?”
“No idea, but we’re looking for that too. Mind if I have a third donut?”
“Go for it.” I sipped my coffee slowly and tried to come up with the right words for what I wanted to ask Turner next. One false step and he’d shut down. “There’s a strong possibility that Wayne wasn’t the killer.”
“Mmm.”
“Wayne himself thought the arrangement Brigit had with Gilroy got her killed.”
“That’s nuts.”
“Gilroy would never put a citizen in danger.”
“No kidding.”
“But things might have gotten out of hand.”
“You never know with Town Hall. The place is loaded with politicians and bureaucrats.” Turner bent down and retrieved a roll of paper towels from a cubbyhole on the other side of desk.
“In my experience, they can both be dangerous.”
Turner tore a sheet from the roll and wiped his hands and mouth on it. It did my heart good to see the man was as sloppy with jelly-filled donuts as I was. “But murder someone over shifty bookkeeping?” he said. “We’re not talking Denver-level money here. Maybe ten thousand dollars, tops—and that’s if Brigit was right about the embezzlement. Gilroy isn’t ready to arrest anyone on that either.”
I had zero idea what Turner was talking about, but I played along as best I could, taking educated guesses, drawing him out. “But stealing the town’s money could mean prison time.”
“Nah. None of the suspects has a criminal record. Whoever did it would be fired, of course, and have to pay the money back, but would you kill someone over that?”
“It’s possible more than one person was involved.”
“Very possible. We’re looking at all the clerks in Town Hall, probably even the mayor and Board of Trustees.” He grinned, seemingly relishing the idea of politicians and bureaucrats getting their just desserts. “They all had the means.”
“How did Brigit discover the theft?”
“She found some discrepancies when she was doing the year-end accounting. It started when she saw a thousand-dollar charge for plumbing at Town Hall and couldn’t remember a plumber being in the place for any reason. She asked around the building, but no one knew anything. Then she dug into the books, found another suspicious charge, and reported to Gilroy.”
I couldn’t believe Turner was still talking to me. Did he think I’d found out about Brigit’s arrangement and was just asking him to fill in some insignificant details? “Then Gilroy asked Brigit to keep an eye on the books.”
“That’s right. See, the Records Section keeps financial records for all of Town Hall.”
“But it wasn’t her arrangement that got her killed.”
“See? That’s what I’m saying.”
“I think Brigit alerted the thief when she asked about the plumbing charge—before she even contacted Gilroy. When did this happen?”
Turner fixed his eyes on me. “Wait a minute.”
“Maybe a week or two ago?”
“Six days.” He scowled at me. “Rachel, have you been grilling me? Donuts and all?”
His gaze shifted suddenly to the window, and I turned to see Gilroy’s SUV pull to the curb. “I promise I won’t say a word, Turner.”
“He’d have my hide.”
I looked back to Turner. The poor guy was a newbie to the small force and I was putting his reputation with Gilroy at risk. “Honestly, I could have gotten this information from anyone. Including Anika Mays. I just didn’t know what direction to go in or what to ask. Gilroy will never know where I heard it.”
Gilroy straight-armed the door open and strode behind the front desk. “Messages, Turner?”
“The medical examiner’s report is on your desk,” Turner said.
“Good.”
“No need for a toxicology, he said.”
“I didn’t think so.” Gilroy finally acknowledged my presence. “What can I do for you, Rachel? I’m kind of busy.”
“You said that last time.”
“It still applies.” He snatched up a short stack of papers and began to flip through them. Looking for what, I had no idea. Probably nothing at all. He was avoiding me.
“Good to know,” I said.
“There’s a murder investigation going on.”
“I’m aware of that. I found the body. Remember?”
He stopped fiddling with the papers. “That’s hard to forget.”
“I brought donuts,” I said, gesturing at the half-empty pastry box.
“I’m off sugar,” he said gruffly.
“When did that happen?” I asked. Since Gilroy was tall and trim, and losing weight was the only rational reason to stop eating sugar, it made no sense to me.
Turner chuckled. “Not me, Chief. I couldn’t operate without sugar and caffeine.”
Gilroy glanced from the box to
Turner. “Yes, I see.”
“Should I not bring donuts anymore?” I said.
“Go ahead and bring them. Just not for me.”
Still hoping for a lighthearted turn in a conversation that was rapidly going downhill, Turner said, “I’d still like some now and then, Rachel. No need to, but, you know, if you find yourself walking past the bakery I wouldn’t object. Some mornings I wouldn’t get breakfast if it wasn’t for you.”
“You could try getting up on time and eating at home,” Gilroy said.
I didn’t know what bug was up Gilroy’s nose, but he was beginning to get on my nerves. More truthfully, he was beginning to worry me. He was never unkind. Never. What was going on with him? “Well, Officer Turner,” I said, “I could always bring you bacon and eggs on those mornings you get called in unexpectedly early. How about that?”
Turner cast his gaze toward the floor. I shouldn’t have involved him in my perplexing squabble. It wasn’t fair.
Gilroy glared at me, his icy blue eyes narrowing. I was meddling in personnel business now. A crime worse than trying to solve a murder because it undermined his authority. “Rachel, like I said, I’m busy. So unless you have police business, you should—”
“No, I had donut business, that’s all. Sugary donut business. Anything else you’re off of that I should know about?”
I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that it was wrong to get snippy with Gilroy in front of Turner. Now it sounded like I had a bug up my nose. What were we arguing over? I still didn’t know.
“Nothing else right now,” Gilroy said.
“Be sure to let me know.”
“I will, and you can—” Gilroy stopped cold. Not for a lack of words, I could tell, but because he thought better of what he had been about to say, and possibly because Turner was watching us with the intensity of a curious puppy.
CHAPTER 10
I wanted to run straight for Town Hall. Not to further investigate Brigit’s murder, though that had been my plan, but to tell Julia about my maddening argument with Gilroy. She was wiser than me when it came to men. But Julia’s feelings about men, and about one man in particular, were tender these days. So I got into my car, parked half a block from Town Hall, and sat there, forcing myself to calm down before going inside. Julia didn’t need my troubles on top of her own.
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