by Morgana Best
I turned left into a parking area, although there was only one vacant spot, and it was hard to maneuver despite the fact it was a small car. The parking was free, the only free parking I had seen since we’d arrived in Newcastle.
I got out of the car and looked around. “Waterside Eatery?” I said. “Roadside, more like it. The water is over there.” I pointed to the harbor.
“At least you can see the water between the buildings,” Thyme said.
I shrugged. I was nervous now that we were here. On the one hand, we could have wasted a day, and Ruprecht and Camino would have wasted a day minding the shop for me. On the other hand, there was a chance we would find out if Dianne knew Thomas Hale more than as a realtor-client relationship. If so, that would give us something to take to the police.
I opened the big glass door for Thyme to go inside. “Let’s go and see if any of her old co-workers want to talk.”
The interior was bright and trendy. Carefully mismatched chairs sat at carefully mismatched tables. The furniture was up-cycled and chalk-painted. Equally trendy patrons lounged around, drinking green smoothies and reading newspapers.
I walked right up to the counter. “Hi, we’re looking for a friend of ours, Dianne Longley. She used to work here, but we’ve lost touch with her.”
The waitress paused for a few moments. “Wait, the lady with all the blue eye makeup?”
I looked glanced over at Thyme to see her hand over her mouth. She was doing her best not to laugh.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s Dianne. You wouldn’t happen to know any of her friends around here, would you? Or where she might be hanging out?”
“I didn’t know her that well. I only work part time, and we never did the same shifts. Every Friday night I’d relieve her, though. She always went out to that bar across the road with her friends.”
“Is anyone else working here today that knew her?”
The waitress shook her head. “Sorry.”
As we turned to leave, she called us back. “One of the girls who used to work here works over at the bar now. She was a good friend of Dianne’s.”
We thanked her and walked back outside. “You don’t want to go in there, do you?” Thyme asked.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go in,” I said. “I’m just not sure what to expect when we do.”
“Just remember our plan. I’m getting married and want to invite her to my wedding. If we find anyone that knows her, we’ll find out if they knew Thomas Hale, too.”
I nodded. “Okay, let’s do this.”
The bar was dark inside, and there were hardly any people in sight. I figured it only came alive at night.
“What can I get you?” the bored bartender asked. He didn’t look up from polishing a glass.
“We’re actually here looking for a friend,” I said. “Would you happen to know a woman named Dianne Longley who used to come here a lot?”
“I just started a few days ago,” he said with a shrug. “You could ask Charlie over there, though.” He pointed toward an old man who sat by himself at the edge of the bar. “He’s a regular here.”
“Thank you.”
As we approached the man, I was hit by the strong smell of whiskey. I hoped the man was coherent, and that his memory wasn’t fried by alcohol. “Hello, ladies, lovely day for a drink,” he murmured, fumbling with his glass.
“We’re looking for a friend,” Thyme said. “Have you ever met a woman by the name of Dianne Longley? She used to come here every Friday night.”
After the man chugged at his drink, he slammed the glass down on the counter and smiled at us. “Tom Hale’s girl? She hasn’t been in here lately. Neither has he, come to think of it,” he said with a loud burp.
Thyme and I gasped and looked at each other.
“What do you mean, she was his girl?” I asked him.
“Those two lovebirds! They used to come in here all the time together, always draped all over each other. They were supposed to be moving away together, but that was the last I heard from either of them.” He polished off the rest of his drink in one gulp.
“Excuse me, is there something I can help you two with?” a woman’s voice said from behind us. “Why are you asking so many questions about Dianne?”
“We’re old friends of hers,” Thyme said. “I’m getting married and I wanted to invite her to the wedding.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her chin. “Are you cops? They’ve been in here asking questions.”
“No, of course not,” I said. “We’re old friends of hers.”
The woman clearly did not believe us. “What are your names?” she snapped. “I’ll make sure Dianne gets in touch with you.”
“Um, we’re the Winchester sisters,” I said. “I’m Samantha and this is Deanna. Dianne has our numbers. Tell her to call us, will you?”
With that, we beat a hasty retreat. We didn’t speak again until we were in the car, and driving out of the parking lot.
Finally, Thyme spoke. “Are you nuts? Samantha and Deanna Winchester? What if Dianne’s friend is a Supernatural fan?”
I chuckled. “Well, it was the first thing I thought of, and you didn’t come up with anything better. Besides, Dianne will know it was us as soon as her friend describes us. At least we got what we came here for. We now know that Dianne and Thomas Hale were good friends—and more than just friends, by the sound of it.”
Thyme shook her head. “That man was hardly the most reliable witness.”
“Still, he knew Thomas Hale, didn’t he?”
“I don’t understand why the police didn’t figure this out,” Thyme said.
I shrugged, and slammed on the brakes when a bicycle pulled out in front of me. “No idea. Perhaps that old man wasn’t here when they went in to question people, and her friend wouldn’t tell them anything. Besides, Dianne did admit to being his client. That would throw them off the track.”
“So we’re thinking Dianne’s the murderer now?”
I nodded. “Sadly, yes. It sure looks that way.”
Chapter 22
“Are we there yet?” Thyme asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Almost,” I said. “Did all that excitement back there tire you out?”
Thyme shook her head. “I’m just worried what Dianne will do when her friend tells her we were snooping around.”
“That’s why we’re going straight to the police station.”
Thyme peered out her window. “Like I keep saying, I don’t think they’re open this late.”
“And like I keep saying,” I said, “we can just drive past and see if their lights are on. If they’re shut, we’ll just go back in the morning. With any luck, they might’ve already arrested her, since you left a message for the detectives that she’s diabetic. They didn’t call you back about that, did they?”
Thyme shook her head. “No, but the desk sergeant said he’d pass it on.”
“I just hope they don’t get mad that we went snooping around for information.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Thyme said. “It’s too late to turn back now.”
Surprisingly, there was a light shining from the windows of the Bayberry Creek police station.
I climbed out of the car and stretched. My back was sore from sitting in the car for so long.
I blinked hard when the door opened into a brightly lit foyer. I pressed the buzzer. It chimed, echoing around the empty room. After a few moments, a heavyset man in a blue uniform appeared. “What can I do for you?”
“Is Detective Harrison in?” I asked him. “Or Detective Sassafras?”
“What do you want to speak them about?” the cop asked.
I bit my lip. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “We have some information for them about Thomas Hale’s murder,” I said. “I’m Amelia Spelled. I was the one who discovered his body on my porch. The detectives were sent photos of me with the victim and they discovered they were faked. They asked me if I kn
ew who would want to frame me.”
The sergeant just looked at me. “Go on,” he said after an interval.
“Well, now I do know who framed me,” I said. “Dianne Longley. She told the detectives that Thomas Hale was only her realtor, but they were dating.”
“And you know this because?” he said gruffly.
Thyme and I exchanged glances. I took a deep breath. “Well, today we went to Newcastle to where Dianne used to work, and we were told that Dianne and Thomas Hale were always draped all over each other like lovebirds.”
The cop held up his hand and his face turned beet red. “Wait! You two went all the way to Newcastle by yourselves to ask questions about a murder suspect? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” he barked. “I could arrest you both right now for that. What do you think you are, amateur sleuths or something? This isn’t a game!”
“Of course it’s not a game,” Thyme said, “but you guys have had my friend in your sights since that poor man’s body was found. You’ve had her in for questioning twice. Now we have information to give you.”
I held my breath waiting for the cop’s response. “And the information is?”
“Like I said, Dianne and Thomas weren’t just passing acquaintances—they were in a relationship,” I said.
“Who told you that?”
“It was one of her friends from the bar that she and Thomas frequented every Friday night before moving here,” I said. “The bar is right across from where she worked, the Waterside Eatery.”
“All right. I’ll pass that information onto the detectives.”
Thyme leaned forward. “Do they already have the information that Dianne is a diabetic?”
“Detective Harrison and Defective Sassafras are in Sydney for a court hearing,” the cop said. “This information will be passed along to them. Now you two are to stay away from this investigation. There will be no more sticking your noses into this case. Let us handle it.”
“But…” Thyme began.
“I’ll let you ladies in on a secret,” the cop said. “We’re the police, and this is an ongoing investigation. To be quite honest, and this might shock you, we’re already looking into it. We’re looking into it, because that’s our job. Now, it’s not your job to go running around digging stuff up. You don’t have a badge, do you?”
When neither of us said anything, the cop asked again. “Do either of you have a badge?”
“No,” we said in unison.
“Then I suggest you leave this for us, and head on home.”
We left at that point—there was no use saying anything else. I was upset, but Thyme seemed to be in better spirits. “He really had to say that to us,” she said when we were back in my car. “The main thing is that the detectives will get the information.”
“I hope they get it in a hurry,” I said. “It’s bad timing that they’re in Sydney right now.”
Thyme shook her head. “Don’t worry. They can tell the local cops what to do. They can order them to arrest Dianne.”
“I suppose so. Anyway, why did Dianne try to frame me? I still don’t understand it.”
“Possibly because Thomas Hale was found on your porch, so you were the easiest scapegoat, I suppose, but who knows? I dare say you’ll find out, eventually.”
I dropped off Thyme before heading home. I refused her offer of dinner. I was tired and wanted a long bath, a glass of wine, and to watch something mindless and comforting on TV—if the house would let me.
I stepped inside, happy to be home. It has been a long day. The living room was bathed in shadow, and the cats were nowhere to be seen. I dropped my purse and keys onto the coffee table and then yawned and stretched.
When the knock came on the door, my first thought was that it was the police. Had I not been so tired, I likely would not have answered the door. Anyway, I did, and there was Dianne standing on my doorstep.
She had something in her hand, and for one wild moment I was sure it was a gun. The woman stepped forward and blue arcs of energy crackled at the end of the Taser I had mistaken for a firearm.
“Let’s have a little talk,” she said.
Chapter 23
I knew I didn’t have a choice. If Dianne wanted to talk, that’s just what we were going to do. It was hard to argue with a crazy person who had a Taser held close to my face.
“I know you’ve figured it out,” Dianne said.
I looked at her. The portly woman was disheveled, her face red and sweaty, her clothes wrinkly. “A friend of mine from Newcastle called me and said that two women were asking questions about me. I know it was you and Thyme.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, doing my best to sound genuinely puzzled. “Please put that thing down.”
Dianne laughed. She pressed the flat red button on the side of her Taser again, and blue electricity arced between the two raised metal prongs at the end of the device. “You forget that Madam Dianne is psychic. I had a vision of Thyme driving you there in her car. You can’t lie to me. No more lies.”
I took a step backward. Clearly, she wasn’t psychic, and she had just gotten it wrong again. Nevertheless, now was not the time and place to point that out to her.
I summed up the situation. Dianne was a crazy woman who had killed a man, and probably intended to kill me, too. In fact, Dianne could come at me at any moment. On the other hand, while I didn’t know much about Tasers, I didn’t think that they were fatal. Well, I hoped not, anyway. Then there was the fact that I was much fitter than Dianne, so I should be able to overpower her in a struggle. And then there was my house. It wasn’t attacking her yet, no doubt for reasons of its own, but I was certain that it would, when crunch came to crunch. All in all, the situation probably wasn’t as bad as it looked, but that didn’t stop my heart beating out of my chest and my palms sweating.
We stood just inside the door, which Dianne had swung shut with her hip. “You two fancy yourselves as wannabe cops, solving a crime,” she snapped at me. “Go sit on the couch.”
I nodded and backed away slowly. There was no way I was going to turn my back on her. When I felt the back of my legs bump into my coffee table, I skirted around it and then sat on my couch. Dianne came forward, but remained standing.
“So you went snooping around and asking questions about me,” she said. “And you found out what exactly?”
“I found out you and Hale had a thing,” I said.
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Dianne exploded, her face contorting into a mask of rage. “A thing? A thing? It was a lot more than a thing! We were in love!”
“Okay, I’m sorry!” I said quickly. “I found out you two were in love.”
“And your friend knows this, too?”
“Thyme? Yes, she knows.”
“All right then, I guess I’ll have to pay her a visit when I’m done here.”
My stomach knotted. That certainly sounded that Dianne did indeed plan on killing me, and then Thyme.
“He was divorcing his wife,” Dianne said suddenly, the rage building on her features. “Well, so he said when we started dating. He told me he was married; he never hid it from me. Some men might have, but Tom was a good man. He had a good job. He was divorcing his wife. They didn’t have kids, but you know how divorce can be. He was sure his wife would get his money, everything he’d worked so hard for. That’s why he was taking it slowly.”
I wondered why she had killed him. Her story certainly didn’t sound as if it was leading up to murder.
Dianne was still talking. “We moved here together, but were living apart until he got a divorce. I had been driving around look to buy a Victorian house with a nice garden, and I saw this house. I knew it wasn’t for sale, but Tom suggested we go and see if the owner would be interested in selling. I didn’t know you lived here at the time.” She looked at me.
I nodded.
“Tom had been acting strange since we arrived in town,” she said. “I was living in a rental and he was st
aying in a motel. Tom had been quiet all that day. We were on your porch, and I knew something was wrong. I challenged him—I told him to tell me what was wrong. He finally said that he was sorry, but he had decided to try to make it work with his wife. He told me he loved me, but he said he loved her, too. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “Please go on.”
She shot me a strange look. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to do it. I just got very upset all of a sudden. I reached into my purse and grabbed my insulin and I just jabbed him with it. Right in the neck. I slammed the plunger down. Then I realized what I’d done and I was shocked. I didn’t realize I had done it. It all happened in slow motion. I don’t really feel like it was me doing it. I remember it all, but it’s like a movie or something. It still doesn’t feel like real life. It’s all surreal.”
“Why don’t you tell that police that?” I said in a placating tone. “I’m sure they’d go easy on you, given the circumstances.”
“Do you take me for an idiot?” she yelled. “Murder is murder! It’s not like it was self defense or anything!”
“Why did you Photoshop those photos of me and send them to the police? And put photos of me in his wallet?”
Dianne’s eyes opened wide, but she did calm down somewhat. “That’s obvious. I was their only suspect, so I had to find them another one. As he died on your porch, you were the obvious person.”
“And how did you keep the fact that you were diabetic from them?”
Dianne shot me a look. “That was easy. I simply denied that I was. They searched my house, but I knew that they would, so I took all my insulin, syringes, and my blood glucose meter to the park and hit them under a bottle brush bush.”
“So what are you going to do with me?”
Dianne sighed. “You’re the only one who knows. Well, you and Thyme. So I’ll have to make sure neither of you can ever tell anyone.”
“But we’ve already told the police,” I said. “I’ve just come from the police station. They know you and Thomas Hale were in a relationship, and they know you’re diabetic. You have the murder weapon, and you have the motive.”
