My plans changed again when I saw Cassie Everton, smiling happily in the bright February sun, exit Town Hall and head in the direction of my car. Just before she reached me, I popped open my door and called to her. Her smile faded as she stepped from the curb and walked toward me.
“Rachel, hi. I was just talking to Julia about you. She was wondering where you were.”
“Have you got a minute?” I asked. “It’s important.”
She pointed down the street. “Walk with me? I was just going to get some coffee. We’ve got a big day of decorating ahead, and I need the fuel.”
The folks at Grove Coffee were going to think I was a serious caffeine addict. But I joined Cassie on the sidewalk and walked with her in hopes she would open up to me.
“You know I’m trying to find out who Wayne Gundersen was having an affair with, right?” Uncertain of how she would react to my question, I avoided her gaze and glanced down at my feet as we walked.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Rachel?”
I looked up. “Brigit wanted me to.” Be honest. That’s not the reason you’re pursuing this. “And I feel guilty that I turned her down when she asked me to help her.” Nope. Still not it. You just can’t leave a puzzle unsolved, especially if James tells you to back off.
“Brigit’s dead. This won’t do anything but hurt Wayne. If he really was having an affair, do you think you should open that wound? He must feel guilty enough as it is.”
I hadn’t thought about that. And if Wayne had violent tendencies, my snooping could be more dangerous than usual. But it wasn’t as if I was going to spread the mystery woman’s name around town. Truthfully, I was trying to solve Brigit’s murder, and discovering who Wayne was having an affair with was part of that search. If this mystery woman didn’t lead me to a killer, that would be the end of my interest in her.
“If I find her, I’m not telling anyone who she is,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt Wayne.” I stopped in my tracks, and so did Cassie. “Honest, Cassie, I’m trying to solve Brigit’s murder and that’s all.”
“You and my father-in-law.”
“Royce told you that?”
“He didn’t have to. He had that familiar look in his eye. He’s a mystery buff, and he’s always wanted to solve his very own real-life mystery.” She leaned my way. “From an armchair, of course.”
“You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish from an armchair. Does he read mysteries?”
“Does he? You should see his bookshelves. Right now he’s on a Robert B. Parker kick.”
“He has good taste.”
We were silent the rest of the way to Grove Coffee. It wasn’t until we were back on the sidewalk, both of us with a fresh coffee in hand, that I broached the subject of Cassie’s “shouting match” with Brigit in the Records Section. Cassie bristled a bit at the characterization.
“I never raised my voice, let alone shouted,” she said. “Brigit told you that?”
“No, Brigit told Anika Mays, and then Anika told me.”
Cassie sidestepped a woman carrying a shopping bag in each hand, nearly running into a lamp post in the process. She came to a halt and turned to me. “So word around town is that I shouted at Brigit over a stupid birth certificate?”
“I think Anika and I are the only ones who have heard about it.”
“Knowing Brigit, that’s not likely.”
“Believe me, Anika took anything Brigit had to say with a bucket of salt.”
Looking exasperated, Cassie puffed out her cheeks. “I was passing by Town Hall and decided to see if they’d found my original and made a copy. That’s it. I didn’t need it right away. I just wanted it for my records. It wasn’t a big deal to me, so why would I get into a public argument with Brigit over it?”
At a loss for words, I shrugged.
“Why would she say I shouted at her?”
“I think she said ‘screamed,’” I added unhelpfully.
“Screamed?” Cassie’s cheeks were turning pink, and it wasn’t just from the cold. “I don’t understand why she’d make that up. All I did was pop in and see if it was ready. I didn’t care that it wasn’t.”
“Anika was on a break at the time, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, I think so. Anyway, she wasn’t there. I hate to say it, but this is so Brigit. In all her dramatic tales, she was the only witness. We had to take her word for it.”
Just like we have to take Anika’s word for it that Brigit said Cassie screamed at her, I thought.
“No one could ever say she was wrong or she misheard because there was never anyone else there,” Cassie went on. “It’s not like we could go to Wayne or whoever and ask if Brigit was lying. But she got angry with Wayne. A lot. Why was she angry with me?”
I studied Cassie’s face as she spoke. She seemed genuinely bewildered by Brigit’s version of their encounter—genuinely hurt, too—and I was tempted to erase her from my short list of suspects.
“Did you always assume she was lying?” I asked. “Couldn’t she have been telling the truth about some things?”
“Some things, yes. About Wayne, maybe most of the time. She had a rough marriage. Her kids almost never called or visited. Do you know they haven’t traveled back from Indiana to see Wayne? In a way, Brigit was alone. I guess Wayne was too.”
“It sounds like you cared about her in spite of everything.”
“Yeah, but she was hard to like. She lied about people. You can ask Anika and Charlie about that too. She was so emotional, and her moods changed on a dime. You couldn’t be sure where you stood with her from moment to moment. If she thought you were her friend, great. If she got it into her head that you were suddenly her enemy, watch out. And as far as cheating goes, you want my opinion? She accused Wayne of it more than once, but I don’t think he was the only Gundersen cheating on a spouse.”
I was dumbfounded. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that Brigit too might have had an affair? “When was this?”
“Last month. She didn’t tell me straight out, but she hinted at it very strongly.” Cassie glanced nervously about and then lowered her voice. “What she meant was very clear to me, and it didn’t come as much of a surprise.”
Sensing Cassie wanted to confide in me—in other words, gossip—I gestured at my Forester just ahead and suggested we keep our conversation private by getting inside. Cassie readily agreed. The moment she shut the passenger-side door, she unburdened herself.
“It was at the town’s charity dinner last month. Brigit and Wayne were having another one of their cold wars. They were barely speaking to each other, and they were making a point of how much they disliked each other by being cheery and talkative with everyone else. I remember thinking that their cold wars were better than their public arguments. They had both. So anyway, Brigit caught me alone and told me Wayne was cheating on her. I pretended to be surprised, and she winked at me and said she didn’t mind, because his affairs kept him busy and blinded him. I asked what she meant, and she said she could play the game as well as he could.”
It was hard to misinterpret the meaning of Brigit’s words. Either she was having an affair or she wanted others to think she was. “Have you told the police what she said?”
“Should I? I mean, it’s awful, but it’s cheating, and it comes with the Gundersen territory. It’s not murder.”
“Maybe cheating didn’t lead to murder in the past, but it’s a different day. Brigit is dead.” Cassie hadn’t seen the fire in Brigit’s eyes when she was plastering Main Street with declarations of Wayne’s infidelity. Something had changed in their marriage. Maybe Wayne had heard about Brigit’s own affair, real or not, and had snapped when she’d had the nerve to accuse him of betrayal. “I’m convinced cheating is at the heart of Brigit’s murder.”
Cassie pried the lid from her cup and took a careful sip of steaming coffee. “Then you think Wayne killed Brigit?”
“He may have. But the police will never discover the real killer if people keep
secrets.” Cheating wasn’t the only offense at the heart of the case. So was lying. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Anika and Cassie were at the very least shading the truth, telling me things to point me in the direction they wanted me to go, and not just because they had different perspectives. But why? “Cassie, did you suspect Brigit of cheating before she spoke to you at the charity dinner? I need to know the truth.”
“The truth . . .” Cassie stared down at her cup, raised it, sipped, lowered it again. She was taking her time, deciding, I supposed, whether she should speak the unvarnished truth or spin me another version of it. After a moment, she relented. “Yeah, I knew she was having an affair.”
I set my coffee in the cup holder, shifted sideways in my seat and waited for her to look me in the eye. My next question was equally important. “That means you know who she was having the affair with.” It was a bit of a leap, but I judged Cassie to be the kind of woman who would tell you more if she thought you were one step ahead of her and the truth would come out regardless.
“I bet you can guess who it was,” she said.
“No, I can’t, and I want you to tell me. Everyone who knew Brigit needs to speak up. You included.”
“All right, then.” Cassie lowered her voice, though no one on Main Street could possibly have heard us in my car. It seemed that speaking the man’s name was serious business to her, mandating a drop in volume. “It was Charlie Mays. She was having an affair with Charlie.”
My jaw nearly hit my lap. “For how long? When did it start?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think it started in early December, so at least two months. I saw them in Town Hall in mid-December, sneaking a kiss. There were other signs, too, but the kiss was the clincher. I still can’t believe they’d risk that in Town Hall. They had to know word would go all over town if someone saw them.”
“You saw them.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Could you have misread the kiss?”
“No way. It was very romantic.”
“Did Anika suspect?”
“That’s a good question. If she did, she didn’t say anything to me. But how could Anika not know? I mean, I knew. Though lots of women pretend not to notice things. They can’t stand the thought of a cheating husband, so they ignore all the signs.” She gave me a wry smile. “I, on the other hand, keep my eyes wide open. Not that I have anything to worry about. Mark’s a good guy.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Fourteen years in June.”
“Do you have kids?”
“Two boys. Right now they’re with their father on an ice-fishing trip to Montana.” Another smile. “It’s not my idea of a good time.”
Rather clumsily, I steered the conversation back to murder. “Brigit didn’t mind the thought of a cheating husband.”
Cassie laughed ruefully. “She loved it, wouldn’t you say? I wonder if having a dramatic nature made her crave more and more drama. Bigger and bigger highs and lows. And what’s more dramatic than being betrayed by your husband?”
Cassie had an easygoing, who-cares demeanor about her, but she was more perceptive than she let on. “So why would Brigit work herself into a snit over Wayne’s affair when she was cheating too? The need for drama?”
“That would be my guess. Listen, Rachel, I need to run.”
“Sure, sure.” My thoughts were tumbling. “Thanks for stopping to talk. Tell Julia I’ll see her later.” I did not like thinking what I was thinking. Oh, what a tangled web.
Cassie headed toward Town Hall and I sat in my car, untangling the web. Wayne was cheating. Brigit was cheating with Charlie, their friend. How could Anika not know? The pieces of the puzzle began to fall unpleasantly into place.
Was it Brigit’s need for drama that had pushed her to the point of publicly shaming Wayne? I didn’t think so. It seemed to me that a deep sense of betrayal, a force greater than her need for drama, had been at play. Brigit had cheated on Wayne with a friend. Had Wayne done the same? To cheat on your wife with an anonymous, dark-haired woman was one thing. To cheat on her with her friend was a treachery most women would find unbearable.
CHAPTER 11
I faced an obvious obstacle in untangling my web: Anika had light brown hair, not dark. Brigit herself had said Wayne’s mystery woman had dark hair. Then again, there were possible—that is to say, fanciful—solutions to that obstacle. Maybe Brigit had lied about the color of hair. Or the dark hair was from another woman, not Wayne’s extracurricular fling. Or Anika had worn a dark wig to disguise herself.
I sat in my car and sipped my coffee, the competing possibilities, all of them ridiculous, vying for attention in my mind. If Anika had indeed cheated on Charlie with Wayne, that would explain why she’d had no qualms about painting her friend Brigit in a bad light, or why Brigit, though cheating herself, had thought Wayne’s affair was particularly intolerable.
“Good grief,” I mumbled into my cup. I was going to need a chart to keep all the cheating and cheaters straight.
Gilroy isn’t a cheater. I smiled to myself as that thought popped unexpectedly into my head. I didn’t understand him sometimes, and on days like today he frustrated me to no end, but he was a truthful and decent man. His faithfulness was never a concern, and for that I was immensely grateful. If he ever wanted out of our relationship, he would tell me straight up. No sneaking around behind my back, keeping me on a string just in case. And I believed that if we married one day, we’d marry for life. With Gilroy, there was no back door. Same with me.
How did women like Anika and Brigit handle being married to men who didn’t possess a shred of decency? I supposed they plastered Main Street with flyers. Or they told lies about the women their husbands were cheating with.
Just as I leaned back on my headrest, I caught sight of Gilroy heading east on the sidewalk. This time I had valuable, concrete information for him. Surely he couldn’t object to me passing it along. He’d thank me, right?
When he saw me get out of my car, he hesitated, smiled—thank goodness—and walked over to me.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” he said, leaning on the Forester’s open door. “I thought you’d gone home.”
“I was just talking to Cassie Putnam.”
His eyebrows shot up, and I braced myself.
“Did she say anything interesting about Mrs. Gundersen’s murder?” he asked.
What was going on with him? Were we back to normal, just like that? “Um . . . well, yes. She didn’t think it was worth telling the police, but I disagree.”
I told him everything Cassie had told me and added a few thoughts and half-baked conclusions of my own—including solutions to the puzzle of Anika’s hair color—for good measure. He listened intently as I spoke, nodding thoughtfully now and then, and when I finished, he thanked me.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I said. “If I’d told you all this half an hour ago in the police station, you’d have shown me the door.”
He took his arm from the door and straightened. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I’ve been preoccupied, and I’ve been taking it out on you.”
Unlike most men I’ve known, Gilroy looked right at me when he said the S word. His apology was genuine. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s what Turner asked me.”
I laughed. “When Turner has the nerve to ask that, you—”
“Know you’re out of line?” Gilroy finished. “Yeah, I know I was.”
“So what’s wrong? What’s worrying you?”
“When I heard you’d found Brigit Gundersen’s body, all I could think was that I put her in that position by asking her to help me. And that put you in a position to find her.”
Gilroy went on to tell me that he’d asked Brigit to keep an eye on the town’s books and report back to him. Not wanting to get Turner in trouble, I didn’t tell him that I already knew about his arrangement with Brigit. “You didn’t do anything wrong, or even out of the ordinary,” I said.<
br />
“I got her killed, Rachel. I never should have asked her to watch the books. The moment she came to me, I should have told her to stay out of it, that I’d take it from there.”
“That’s just it, James. She came to you, not the other way around. She took the initiative. She wanted to help.”
“She was a civilian. I should have investigated without her help.”
“You’re looking at this all wrong.”
“That’s what Turner said.”
“Good for him. And you must know Wayne Gundersen made a big, loud show of blaming you in order to turn suspicion from himself. He knows darn well you’re not to blame.”
“Possibly. But Rachel, can you see why I’d rather you didn’t get involved in this case? For all I know, the mayor himself is behind both the embezzlement and Mrs. Gundersen’s murder. Or the trustees are.”
“Big guns?”
“Powerful guns.”
“But I don’t think the thefts at Town Hall have anything to do with Brigit’s murder.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I second-guessed myself. “Unless Anika Mays is the one doing the stealing. But the mayor? He’s better paid than anyone else at Town Hall.”
“No one at Town Hall is well paid. Anyone there might be tempted to embezzle. Besides, thieves doesn’t need good reasons to steal.” Gilroy rubbed his weary eyes. “Keep this under wraps, okay?”
“Absolutely. So why were you glad I hadn’t gone home?”
“I wanted to apologize.”
I leaned forward, over the top of my still-open car door, and gave him a quick kiss. “I do that at the risk of embarrassing you in public. I know you can’t get all gushy when you’re on the job.”
“I’d never call you gushy,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “You in the mood for an early dinner at Wyatt’s? In about two hours? I have to head to the station after that.”
Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Box Set 2 Page 32
