Tapped Out: Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  Three full seconds passed, enough that I thought he might have hung up on me.

  Then he said, “I’ll go with you on the condition that you tell me the full story behind those statements.”

  I barely stopped myself from saying stories. After all, if he knew how many times it’d happened, he might think twice about going with me.

  19

  If Ken had murdered Sandra, not only shouldn’t I go alone, but I needed to be better prepared to talk to him.

  I texted Hal to have him run a background check on Ken, and crossed my fingers that he’d be able to get me something useful in time. If Ken secretly had some weird fetishes, a lot of past relationships that ended badly, or a criminal record, I’d know better how to approach the interview.

  Even though I’d read the medical examiner’s report myself, I also wanted Mark’s trained eyes to look it over and make sure I hadn’t missed or misunderstood any of it. I called him and told him I’d wait to eat as late as necessary to have dinner with him. It was eight o’clock before his text came saying he was on his way. He picked up our favorite fish-and-chips dinners from A Salt & Battery since our meal from there from last weekend went cold.

  The dogs met him at the door with a level of wagging and wiggling that I didn’t even get.

  Mark handed me the food and stopped to give out ear rubs to the dogs. He moved more slowly than I was used to seeing, and day-old stubble covered his chin, as if he’d been too tired this morning to get up in time to shave.

  I opened my cupboard door to grab plates for the food, but closed it again. Using plates meant washing plates. As much as it would have been nice to pretend this was a meal we’d cooked, I didn’t have the energy, either.

  “Table or the couch?” I asked.

  “Table.” Mark eased his way through the dogs, who seemed intent on blocking his path. “If we sit on the couch, I won’t stay awake long enough to go over the case files with you.”

  Mark had the same confidentiality constraints on him that I did when I worked a case and couldn’t reveal what a client told me. Because of that, I didn’t normally ask for too many details about his job, but it seemed like he was working an unusual number of hours lately. “I haven’t seen anything in the paper that would leave a lot of bodies in the morgue. What’s going on?”

  “I had a fire victim come in where the chief wanted confirmation on whether the victim had died in the fire or before. Then that consult I told you about turned out to be more complicated than I thought. There’d been a complaint against a nursing home about an unusual number of deaths, and the other ME wanted me to go over his autopsy reports to make sure we didn’t have an angel-of-death situation. Obviously, we had to do that as quickly as possible. And Chief McTavish dropped another load of old cases on my desk to look through. He’s sure now that former Chief Wilson wasn’t working alone, and he thinks he’s closing in on who his associate was.”

  He wouldn’t be allowed to tell me what he’d found out in any of those cases. Part of why we worked so well as a couple was that I understood that, and I wasn’t intimidated by the parts of his life that he had to keep from me because of his job. I knew he felt the same about what I had to keep confidential when I was working with a client.

  Mark chewed a French fry so slowly it almost seemed painful. “Other than the obvious, how was your day?”

  I’d already updated him on all the new information—at least the parts I was at liberty to share—involving Dean’s case and the situation with Anderson.

  There was one thing I hadn’t mentioned yet—our purple elephant, the one both of us seemed to be ignoring at all costs. It’d been weeks since we’d brought it up in more than passing.

  “A call came in after I talked to you earlier.” I pushed my last bite of fish around. “From DC.”

  Mark double-dipped his next fry in the ketchup. “And what did they say?”

  No question about who’d called. There’d only been one call I’d been waiting on. “The job at the DA’s office is mine if I want it. They said what put me above the other candidates in the end was my experience as a defense attorney because it’ll help me identify ways the defense counsel could cast doubt on the cases I’d be handling.”

  Mark nodded and dipped the already-saturated fry again. “How’s Stacey feeling? Has she managed to sort all the baby items?”

  Whether it was that he was too tired tonight to deal with it or whether he hadn’t had time to think about our decision with his busy week, he clearly didn’t want to go into it now. I let it slide, and we instead spent the rest of our meal talking about how Stacey set up the room she’d be using for the baby. I showed him the pictures she’d texted me the day before.

  The color came back into his cheeks by the time we finished supper. He smiled at me, his dimples peeking out. “I think I just needed time with you to recharge.”

  Maybe the research position in DC would be better for Mark than staying here in Fair Haven. He’d have regular hours.

  But I wouldn’t. Working as a prosecutor meant long hours and heavy caseloads.

  I laid a hand on top of the pile of files. “I don’t know how restful it is when I’m dropping another case on you.”

  Mark collected up the take-out containers and tossed them into the trash. “It’s not the work that tires me out. I love the work. It’s having so many cases where it seems like we’re not going to find answers.”

  That I could understand. I scooted around the island and wrapped him in a hug. He leaned into me like he could borrow some of my energy. I would have gladly given him some if it worked that way.

  He kissed my forehead. “Show me this case.”

  I laid the autopsy report out in front of him, along with the pictures. I’d slowly worked myself into being able to look at all of them.

  I gave Mark time to go through it. When he finished reading, he pulled the pile of pictures closer and flipped slowly through them.

  “No mention of defensive wounds at all, and it doesn’t look like there was a struggle. Is that part of what’s bothering you?”

  Even tired, he didn’t miss a thing. “If someone put a plastic bag over my head, I’d fight them. It doesn’t seem like she put up a struggle at all. Did she have a sedative in her system?”

  “Not according to this report, and he did test for it.”

  I edged one of the pictures of Sandra closer to me. My head felt disconnected from my senses, but I forced myself to look again.

  It didn’t even seem like she’d tried to rip the bag off her face, and there weren’t any bruises on her wrists suggesting she’d been restrained.

  I shoved the picture away again. “It can’t have been some weird form of suicide. They didn’t find a roll of duct tape in the room.”

  “Let me see the police report on the scene.”

  I handed Mark the folder. He pulled out the report and ran his finger down the page, as if it were the only way he could guarantee his eyes would focus.

  If I’d ever doubted he loved me, I couldn’t after this. Only love would bring such a tired man out here tonight to read more paperwork when he was supposed to be done for the day. It’d be so nice once we were married and living in the same house.

  “Here.” Mark jabbed a finger at the page. “It doesn’t explain the lack of defensive wounds, but it’s possible her killer smothered her with a pillow until she lost consciousness and then finished with the plastic bag. There was saliva on her pillow in about the shape and size I’d expect if someone pressed the pillow over her face or her face into the pillow.”

  I leaned closer. He was right. “How did I miss the connection?”

  “I only thought of it because the ME’s report mentioned a cotton fiber in her mouth.”

  Partially smothering her with a pillow first would have been quieter. It raised another question, though. Why not finish the job with the pillow?

  “I think the report said no signs of sexual assault. Can you double-check?”


  Mark flipped back. “None.”

  I slumped in my chair. Thank goodness. This case was dark and frustrating enough without adding that element to it.

  I walked to the couch and picked up a pillow, turning it over in my hands. “The lack of defensive wounds is still a problem. How hard do you have to push a person’s face into a pillow to smother them? If she’d been asleep, could someone have done it without waking her?”

  Mark shook his head. “Doubtful. Not unless she’d taken a heavy sleeping pill, and we’ve already established she didn’t have sedatives in her system. Besides, she’s still wearing her shoes and she’s wearing jeans.”

  She still had her shoes on? I came back to Mark’s side and glanced at the picture, paying attention to her feet this time.

  He was right. Sandra still wore her shoes and jeans. I’d been so focused on the plastic bag over her face and the seeming lack of a struggle that I hadn’t paid close enough attention to her clothes. She wouldn’t have gone to bed fully clothed and wearing her shoes, especially since the knees of her jeans were stained with what looked like mud. Besides, she’d left food on the counter. No one bought groceries and then went to bed, leaving them on the counter to rot.

  I felt like I was running on a treadmill with this case, exhausting myself and getting nowhere.

  I moved the picture closer to me. It wasn’t only Sandra’s knees that were muddy. The bottoms of her shoes were as well. Had she gone out in the rain, after dark, to cut the flowers in the vase on the kitchen counter?

  I slid the pictures of the kitchen closer to me as well. If the flowers had been wet when she brought them inside, they were long dry by the time the police arrived to take pictures. Sandra had laid out the items she’d purchased on the counter next to the vase.

  To me, it looked like more than a regular grocery run. It looked almost like she’d been prepping to cook. She’d laid out strawberries, mini angel food cakes, whip cream, t-bone steaks, haricot vert beans, packages of fresh herbs, and baby red potatoes. They all rested next to a cutting board and a knife.

  A knife she could have defended herself with if someone broke in.

  I pointed out the knife. “I think she knew her attacker.”

  “It could be the man you think she was having an affair with,” Mark said. “This looks like she was preparing a special meal. Maybe this guy was into kinky foreplay and things went too far.”

  The food I’d eaten felt like it soured in my stomach. That would explain why she hadn’t fought back and why she seemed to have been face down into her pillow at first. “But if it was an accident, why wouldn’t he have stopped and waited for her to wake back up? Or why not just leave her there? He didn’t have to put a plastic bag over her head and kill her.”

  Mark shook his head and shrugged.

  I hadn’t really expected him to have an answer. But at least I had what I needed. I now had a workable theory about how Sandra died—one that I could use tomorrow when I spoke to the man she’d been cheating on Dean with.

  20

  When I pulled into Dean’s driveway, Anderson was already there, leaning against his car’s back end. It struck me as something my dad would do—be there early and choose your position for maximum possible effect. To thank him for his help, I could arrange a meeting for him with my dad when my parents came up for the wedding.

  Anderson wore khaki pants and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. I smoothed a hand over my royal blue blouse and blazer. My clothes might be why I’d gotten such strange reactions. It seemed lawyers dressed a little more casually here.

  I slid out of my car and tried not to catch my heels in the cracks in Dean’s driveway. It would have been just my luck to stumble at the worst possible moment and head butt Anderson in the stomach as I went down.

  He was one of those people whose age was hard to guess. He might have been thirty-five, but he could have been as old as forty-five. I suspected when he reached his fifties, he’d still look the same.

  He smiled at me with teeth so white they looked like he should be modeling for a whitening strip commercial. His sun-bronzed skin said he spent his off hours outdoors. It was such a contrast to Mark’s I-burn-from-watching-the-sun-on-TV skin that I couldn’t help but make the comparison. But Anderson’s nose was a bit too big, and noses grew until you died, so Mark still came out ahead in my estimation. Besides, I’d think Mark was the handsomest man on the planet even if he had buck teeth, a big nose, and ears that stuck out.

  “Nice to finally meet in person,” Anderson said.

  He held out a hand. His handshake felt too warm for comfort. So did the look he gave me. I didn’t linger in either.

  Hopefully, after spending a few hours with me, whatever infatuation he felt would wear off. If it didn’t, I’d have to find a way to flash my ring at him or bring Mark up in conversation that wouldn’t be blatantly obvious as a shut-down. I still wanted to work with him in a professional capacity, after all, without any weirdness.

  Anderson tilted his head in the direction of the house next door. “I’m guessing we’re planning on talking to the neighbor on this side. The other one’s been out working in his front yard, and he looks too old to be Sandra’s choice. At least, if Dean is representative of the type of men she went for.”

  I snorted softly and turned it into a sneeze. My dad would be fainting back in DC if he thought his daughter snorted in front of a colleague.

  “You guessed right,” I said when my fake sneezing fit subsided.

  Anderson’s look was a touch too amused for me to think my cover held.

  I headed for the neighbor’s house. “Do we know if he’s home?”

  “His car’s there, and someone’s moving around inside,” Anderson said from behind me.

  I tottered along in my heels to the front door. Either the heels or asking Anderson along had been a bad idea. Maybe both. Thinking about him analyzing me was making me nervous enough to wipe out and face-plant even if I was wearing flats.

  Not in an I’m-attracted-to-you nervous way. It was more that I hadn’t had another attorney judging my work for a long time. All my old insecurities pounded on the inside of my chest like they wanted to make a hole for my heart to jump out of.

  Anderson motioned for me to do the honors of ringing the doorbell.

  The ding-ding echoed through the house, but no one came.

  Before I could ring again, two cars pulled into Dean’s driveway. The women who stepped out of the first one carried a black folder. A couple in their early thirties climbed from the other car. It had to be the real estate agent showing Dean’s house. Driving up, I’d noticed the new For Sale sign on his lawn, and there’s been one of those universal padlocks on his door that real estate agents used to show people around the house when the owner wasn’t home.

  A hand brushed my shoulder and I jumped.

  “I hear the sound of a lawnmower out back,” Anderson said.

  We squeezed our way between the neighbor’s house and the one beside it and stopped at a gate.

  I wasn’t tall enough to see over the fence, but Anderson was. He waved a hand at whoever was inside. The lawnmower’s drone stopped.

  If Dean was Sandra’s type, then she hadn’t been having an affair with the man who opened the gate, either. Dean had gym-rat muscles, while this man was ropey like a runner. His hair was red, and freckles peppered his cheeks. But he was a similar age.

  And he looked like I would have expected the man matching Hal’s report to look. According to the email I’d gotten just before leaving home, Ken had no criminal record. He didn’t even have a speeding ticket. Heck, he didn’t even have a parking ticket. His credit score would have gotten him a loan from any financial institution in the country.

  Aside from what Ms. Nosy Neighbor told me, I was going in blind.

  “Are you Ken Vasel?” I asked.

  He pulled out his t-shirt sleeve and used it to mop the sweat off his forehead. He nodded, and his gaze
bouncing between us.

  I needed to set him at ease—fast—or we weren’t going to get anything useful from him.

  “We’re sorry to bother you. We’re attorneys working on the murder case of Sandra Scott, and we need to confirm some of the details you gave in your statement to the police.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “There is no right or wrong,” Anderson said. “We just want to make sure we understand the facts.”

  He was good. He’d made sure Ken wouldn’t be afraid of his answers getting him in trouble.

  Ken stepped out of the way and motioned us toward a picnic table resting on a patio of concrete pavers. His appearance wasn’t the only thing opposite of Dean. His yard and house were as well. Neither were big, but he clearly invested time in caring for them. If I had to guess, I’d say the differences in his personality compared to Dean probably outweighed the differences in his appearance. I know that, if I had to choose, I’d take a kind, responsible man over a handsome one any day. Thankfully, I hadn’t had to make that choice the way it seemed Sandra had.

  Voices floated over the fence as the real estate agent showed the couple the back yard first. The man complained about how run-down everything was for the price, and the woman responded with how they’d have a lot of work to get rid of the monkshood because it wasn’t safe for the dogs or the kids if they ate it. Presumably the monkshood was the flower I hadn’t recognized, but it was good to know they weren’t safe for pets so that I didn’t plant them at home.

  The couple moved on to talking about how much of the sagging fence needed to be replaced. With the state of the house, I’d have to check that Dean hadn’t listed it too high. I had no problem with listing higher than you expected to get to leave room for negotiation, but Dean hadn’t shown a lot of common sense. He might have put the house unreasonably high so he’d have some money left over after my fees and helping out Elise with Arielle and Cameron.