Last Pen Standing

by Vivian Conroy

  Spud stood beside him, watching everything with his alert amber eyes. When he spotted Delta, he came to her in long bounds.

  She leaned down to rub his head. “Hey, boy. Good morning. How are you?” The feel of his soft fur under her fingertips calmed her heartbeat.

  “Hello.” Jonas grinned at her. “You are dressed exactly right. Have you done this before?”

  “Not really.” Delta glanced down at her purple sweater, jeans, and ankle boots. “I was a bit of a workaholic where I used to live.”

  “Don’t apologize for that. I was the same.” Jonas stared ahead a moment, his brows drawing together. Then he smiled at her again. “Let’s go.”

  He helped her into the boat. Spud jumped in after her and settled himself in front of her, leaning his head against her.

  “He must know you’re new to it,” Jonas said. “He wants to make you more comfortable.”

  He sat down opposite her and took the oars in hand. “I’m sorry this is not a luxury yacht. Or at least a motorboat. But I like to make as little noise as possible when I go out on the water. Then you have the biggest chance of seeing wildlife. And I don’t mind the exercise.”

  “The bike ride over here was wonderful.” Delta sighed. “I really needed that. I had a bad night with all the murder stuff. But at least Hazel is out now.”

  “I know. I have a source at the station.” Jonas winked, dipped in the oars, and away from the platform they went. The sky overhead was clear blue, and in the trees at the water’s edge, countless birds chirped their tunes.

  Shimmering bugs shot past the boat, hovering for a moment before breezing on. Dragonflies with their multifaceted wings. Some were green, others blue. Delta tried to follow them with her eyes, but they were so fast. Especially when the sunshine hit their wings. There one moment, gone the next.

  “Can you hear it?” Jonas asked.

  “What?” Delta turned her head, trying to pick up a distinctive sound.

  “The silence. No talking, no music, no car engines. Nothing. In the city, there’s always noise, you know. A constant hum in the distance. Here there’s nothing. I admit I had to get used to it in the beginning. It felt like a sort of…emptiness. A vacuum I got sucked into. But soon enough it started to grow on me. Now I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.”

  He looked her over. “You bought half of Wanted. But did you just want the shop or did you also bargain for small-town life?” Delta blinked. It was a question she hadn’t really considered when she had decided to take her leap of faith. She had just asked herself if she wanted to work for someone else or be her own boss, and whether it would be great to exchange long hours in an office for giving workshops with Hazel. Creating her own designs and seeing them come to life in her own line.

  She hadn’t really considered small-town life. And now, it seemed, she was caught up in it.

  Jonas said, “People keep an eye out for each other. That can be a good or bad thing. There’s a fine line between concern and curiosity. Or even intrusion. Especially with the murder, be careful whom you get close to.”

  Delta tilted her head. “Anyone particular you have in mind?”

  “I heard that LeDuc was at your shop yesterday.”

  “Which one?”

  “Junior. He probably promised you that his online community could help solve the crime. But all he wants is to score at his father’s expense.”

  “He didn’t mention anything about an online community,” Delta said.

  “They’re called News Hunters. They deliver him the scoops he can share. And not even for money. Just for a mention in the byline.” Jonas shook his head.

  “Concerned citizens?” Delta suggested.

  “More like sensationalist citizens. They manage to heat up the town and turn people against one another. Let’s say that to LeDuc Jr., normal journalistic practice doesn’t mean anything. He believes he can write what he wants as long as he has readers clamoring for more.”

  “So his stories are not based on fact?”

  “I doubt he understands what that word even means. He asks for people’s opinions, and he does present them like that. Mr. X said this, Mrs. Y said that… But when people read the news, they believe it’s the truth. I mean, when he has someone tell their opinion, people repeat that opinion like fact. Because they are led to believe it represents the actual situation.”

  “Well, I can assure you that I didn’t speak with Mr. LeDuc. Junior or Senior.”

  Jonas sighed. “Senior has kept the Trader alive. We owe him for that, I suppose. A local paper provides lifeblood to a community. But when his son came and started to compete with him, he completely lost his head. I can only hope things will calm down again.”

  They were on the middle of the lake now, and Jonas rested the oars.

  “Is Spud yours or just a temporary charge?” Delta asked.

  “Spud is mine. I’ll keep him for as long as he lives. But I employ him to rehome K-9 officers. When they retire, they need to go into normal homes. But that can be a challenge for them. They have a high work ethic, which means they don’t just switch off and become pets. You have to train them first and then find a home perfect for their character and needs. I do that, and Spud assists me. He can show the other dogs what their behavior is supposed to look like. We delivered a Rottweiler to his new home just last week and now we’re waiting for a new family member. Hey, Spud?” Jonas brushed the dog’s head.

  Spud shook himself and then stood, looking at the shore. Jonas followed his gaze. There was nothing to see underneath the trees, but after a minute or two, a group of children appeared. Jonas smiled. “Their senses are so much better than ours. Hearing, smell. Spud heard those kids long before we ever did.”

  “I couldn’t keep a dog in the city, but I’ve been thinking about getting a puppy now that I live here. However, a grown dog is nice too.” Delta tapped her hand on her knee to attract Spud’s attention. He was watching the children and not paying any heed to her.

  Jonas said, “He still turns into work mode every now and then. Complete focus. I just let him. It has been tough to adjust to civilian life.”

  Delta wondered if it had also been tough for Jonas. To exchange his busy life in the city, his career in the force, for the peace and quiet out here. Had he done it by choice?

  Or had something driven him away?

  Delta said, “You mentioned over the phone you knew something pertinent to the case? I have a couple of prominent blanks. Such as murder method.”

  Jonas grimaced. “Vera White was stabbed with an ice pick that came from the bar. Clean as a whistle, I heard, so no fingerprints to help West along.”

  “A weapon picked up on the spot… Meaning it wasn’t premeditated?”

  “Suggesting that it wasn’t premeditated,” Jonas corrected her. “We can’t be sure of course. Why did Vera go into the bar in the first place? Had someone asked her to come there? Was there an altercation? The doctor who looked at the body established that she had a cut on her hand. A shallow cut but made shortly before she died. Was she in an argument in that bar?”

  Jonas gestured with both hands as he continued, “That she met someone might become more likely if you consider what else I heard.”

  Delta’s heart beat fast waiting for him to go on. Would it incriminate Finn? Involve Hazel? Make everything even more complicated?

  “There was a box left in the hotel safe,” Jonas began. “It belonged to Vera White. She had it put there for safekeeping. The police took it along to have a look at it. It seemed Finn had asked the hotel clerk about it, and they were curious as to why he had done so.”

  Delta licked her lips. “And?”

  “They opened it at the station and went through the contents. Part of it was jewelry, part money and checks. Things you would normally have the hotel store for you so it can’t get stolen if you keep it
in your room.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know how that works. What else was in it?”

  “There were some purchases she had made in town, souvenirs from the museum shop, and notebooks.”

  “Notebooks? It can’t be the ones she purchased on the night she was killed. Hazel handed those to the clerk at the desk when Vera was already dead in the bar.”

  “I don’t know about the origin of the notebooks. Seems all of them were in wrapping paper, like they were gifts.”

  Like the one Ray had bought at Wanted.

  Jonas said, “There was an envelope on the bottom. It contained paperwork. From a lawyer.”

  Envelope? Delta sat up. Could that be the envelope that Mrs. White had picked up at the local post office? According to Wild Bunch Bessie of the Paper Posse, the grocer said she had been giddy with joy when she received it, right? Had almost walked right in front of a truck with apples because she hadn’t been minding her surroundings as she crossed the road… Interesting.

  Jonas said, “It was about the possibilities for divorcing her husband. The lawyer had looked into her marriage contract and was confident that she could walk away with half the guy’s fortune from that dolphin-spotting company of his.”

  “Oh. So their marriage wasn’t doing well? I wouldn’t have expected that. Friday night at the station, her husband seemed so devastated by her death.”

  “Well, it seems she had kept the idea of divorce strictly to herself. When asked about it, her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister-in-law all denied knowing anything about it. They were questioned separately, in quick succession, so they didn’t know from one another what the other had said.”

  “Unless they had agreed on their answer even before they were asked. I mean, the box was removed by the police, so they must have realized the contents would be scrutinized.”

  “But did any of them even know what was in it? It was Mrs. White’s personal property. She had the keys on her. The police took them off her dead body the night before.”

  “She had those keys with her while she was at the gold miners’ party?” Delta pursed her lips. “That does suggest she kept the secret of her upcoming divorce close to her chest. I wonder…” She stared in deep thought at the gold trees lining the lakeshore.

  “Yes?” Jonas studied her.

  “I have to write this down.” Delta turned to the back of the sketchbook with her overview and added to the washi tape connecting Vera and Herb: ‘Vera getting a divorce, not wanting anyone to know’.

  She also used a red pencil to connect the envelope to the box and added the contents Jonas had mentioned: jewelry, souvenirs, notebooks in wrapping paper.

  Jonas grinned as he watched what she was doing. “Your version of a case file?”

  “Portable case file,” Delta said cheerfully, adding the ice pick as murder weapon and noting there were no fingerprints on it. She also wrote beside the body: shallow cut on hand. “I can add to it as soon as I have another clue. Now what does this upcoming divorce tell us? I mean, often people get divorced because they have fallen in love with someone else. Does the divorce strengthen Rosalyn’s claim that Finn was having an affair with Vera?”

  Jonas shook his head. “Not likely. Vera had engaged this lawyer before she came here. His report mentioned having looked at all options, which took time. Unless we assume Finn and Vera had already been having an affair before she came here, we can exclude him as the new love interest.”

  “Ray then,” Delta mused. “Ralph White was so certain there had been an affair between Vera and Ray. Did they not come here by accident, but on purpose to allow Vera to spend time with her lover?”

  Jonas said, “I might have something for you there. I asked my fellow wildlife guides about the couple.”

  “Guides, plural? Does the hotel employ that many guides?”

  “No, but there are a number of independent guides working in the area. They all offer different services. Some take people birding, others take them out at dusk to see deer or even after nightfall to study night hunting creatures like owls. I asked all of them and I heard from several that they had seen the little blond lady, meaning Vera White, walk around by herself. Over the past three weeks, she has been seen a dozen times going up the path to a birding hut that gives a view of a small pond where animals come to drink. Now I ask you: What business has a woman who is more interested in fashion and dancing than in wildlife at a birding hut? Alone, several days in a row sometimes.”

  “You think she met her secret lover there?”

  “Exactly. Question is: Who was it?”

  Delta hmmed. “Have you been to that birding hut? Is it popular? I mean, if birders walk in and out, it isn’t a very good place to meet a secret lover.”

  “On the contrary, it’s a perfect place. If you do get seen there, you can always claim you were just bird watching together.”

  “Did those nature guides you talked to mention someone else going up frequently?”

  Jonas laughed softly. “Let’s say they don’t pay as much attention to other men as they do to pretty women. They all noticed Vera because she’s the kind of woman you notice.”

  “They might not have noticed her sister-in-law either if she had gone up some time. Suppose Amanda White followed Vera and discovered she was betraying her husband, Herb. Was that the truth she referred to in the argument I overheard? But why would revealing Vera’s infidelity hurt Amanda too?” Delta toyed with her pencil. “Amanda has been completely invisible so far. I should really find a way to talk to her and gauge how she feels now that Vera is dead.”

  “Good idea,” Jonas said. “The hotel organizes a high tea starting at one. You could go there.”

  “I doubt that someone who just lost a relative is sitting at a high tea.” Delta stared down on her case overview, feeling that, despite the connecting tape stripes between the people listed, there were still far too many unconnected pieces.

  Jonas said, “You can at least try. The murder will be the talk of the day, also at the high tea, so you might hear something useful.”

  Delta had to admit he had a point there. “I think I’m going to call Mrs. Cassidy and ask her if she’ll come with me. She’s a star at extracting information.”

  Chapter Ten

  Because of the fine weather, high tea was served on the terrace, waitresses flitting to and fro between tables decked out with stylish, dark-red covers and silk napkins. Large, shiny, three-tier servers were placed on each table, filled with macarons, cakes, cupcakes, and sandwiches. Grapes dripped from the top layer while separate bowls held huckleberry jam and whipped cream. Tea flowed into cups from the porcelain teapots carefully handled by the waitresses.

  “Those handles get hot,” Mrs. Cassidy whispered from half-behind Delta. She had just gotten back from taking pumpkin soup to an elderly friend when Delta had called her, and she had agreed at once to come out for the tea. “I’ll bring my knitting to feel even more like Miss Marple.”

  As Mrs. Cassidy knew what Amanda White looked like, Delta let her take the lead and detect the object of their interest among the many ladies present at the tea. Some had persuaded their husbands to come, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. A few hid behind newspapers or worked on their phones, while others followed the waitresses around with their eyes. One man kept drumming his fingers on the table, suggesting it was already taking too long for his liking.

  “There she is.” Mrs. Cassidy motioned discreetly to a table at the edge of the terrace close to a stone railing. The woman sitting alone was working on an embroidery ring, counting the stitches with her needle. Everything about her was immaculate: from her flawless makeup to her brushed-back brown hair.

  Comparing her to the vivacious Vera, who had crashed the workshop, Delta understood immediately why Amanda had faded into the background as soon as Vera was near. Amanda was good-looking, but Vera had been striki
ng. Amanda seemed pleasant enough, but Vera had been bubbly and engaging. Amanda could probably make good conversation, but Vera had wound people, especially men, around her little finger. Amanda had a lot going for her, but Vera had always had more. That must have been very frustrating.

  While Delta hung back, observing, Mrs. Cassidy approached the target, holding her knitting bag up like a shield. Close enough to Amanda to be heard, she said, “What lovely roses. Do you mind me sitting with you?”

  Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out the unoccupied white chair opposite Amanda and sat down with a sigh. “That’s better. I’ve been on my feet all morning. We had our harvest service at church. Everyone brings something to share. Pear pie, sweet potato brownies, walnut cake. I made pumpkin soup with corn bread. Took what was left to a friend who is stuck at home with a bad ankle. She twisted it while gardening. Not broken fortunately, just needs to rest up for a day or two. I pulled out a few weeds for her while I was there. She does hate her garden looking unruly. The weather is lovely, don’t you agree?”

  She gestured to Delta, who had hovered nearby to allow her to break the ice. “My friend Delta Douglas.”

  Delta hurried over to shake Amanda’s hand. “You’ve chosen the best spot on the entire terrace. What a view.”

  Mrs. Cassidy reached out her hand as well and shook across the table. “Mrs. Cassidy. And that’s Nugget.”

  The Yorkie sat up, tilted her head, and held out a paw to Amanda White.

  Her face relaxed into a genuine smile while she leaned down to take the little paw into her hand.

  “Hello there. You’re cute. Yes, you are.” Glancing up at Mrs. Cassidy, she said, “Amanda White, pleased to meet you. My mother had a little dog just like that. She died a few years back. Mom never wanted to have another.”