“They all have alibis,” he said decisively. “I should know, I checked most of them myself. I’m sure there’s nobody else.”
She shook her head. “It all seems so unlikely.”
“We’ve seen it before, haven’t we? I have to admit that this was incredibly smart. There’s too much going on here for it to be a coincidence. I mean, going to the man’s house and cutting a pumpkin there? That takes a lot of cunning and a lot of planning.”
“Do you think Tony is up to a task like that?”
He looked very serious for a moment. “It certainly appears that he was.”
“It’s all very strange. Nothing he says adds up. Why did he go to get more stock?”
The chief shook his head. “More importantly, why did he admit to it? He wouldn’t have raised my suspicions if he hadn’t said that. And he was the last person to speak to Albie.” He groaned and massaged his temples. “Now that the other two are out of the picture, I’m wondering why I didn’t arrest him.”
“It’s not your fault, Chief. It’s a weird case. Before today it looked like any one of the three of them could have done it. He framed Jeff Morton to take the suspicion off himself. At least things have cleared up now.”
He nodded. “You’re right, Jessie. Now that we’ve narrowed it down, let’s hope it’s just a matter of dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.”
“So your story is you returned to your store to pick up stock.”
Tony nodded. He was no less hostile now than he had been before. “Yes. That’s what I said.”
“It seems strange, given that you also told us you were selling far less that day than you’d hoped.”
He shrugged. “As I told you before, that’s not exactly a crime.”
“It’s not,” Jessie said, leaning forward. “But you’ve been in business for years. You don’t stay in business that long without learning a thing or two about projecting and budgeting. I can’t believe a businessman with fifteen years’ experience would set up a stall and take less stock than he needed if he was doing it alone without a staff member to run back and forth.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t care what you believe. What are you even doing in here?”
“She’s here because I asked her to sit in. And she makes a valid point that I hadn’t considered. Why didn’t you bring enough material with you? You said you were back at the store for a half hour. Surely that ate into your profits.”
“It was unexpected.”
Chief Daly sighed. “Let’s cut through the nonsense here. You and I both know that you were one of the last people to speak to Albie. You called him the night before the parade. Your call lasted ten minutes. What were you discussing?”
“Just business,” he sniffed. “Nothing important. We have a good relationship.”
“Nothing important… why couldn’t your call wait, in that case?”
“Excuse me?”
“You called him at eight. Who makes a business call at that hour if it isn’t important?”
“I do. I eat, sleep and breathe my business.”
“Really? It doesn’t sound like running a stall at the parade was a very sound business decision.”
Tony looked offended at first but then he just sighed. “You’re right. I’ll admit it. The ice-cream business is too dependent on the weather and all sorts of other factors outside of my control. That’s why I was calling Albie Parker, as it happens.”
“Because of the weather?”
“No. I’d had dinner with a friend a few days back and we got to talking about some of my ideas to improve the business. Bob encouraged me to call Albie and arrange to speak face-to-face about increasing my line of credit. I didn’t want to at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’ll never grow the business if I don’t venture into more profitable areas.”
“So you called him and arranged to meet him the next day. And he agreed even though it was the day of the Pumpkin Parade.”
Tony laughed. “No, we arranged it days before. I just called him the night before to confirm. Not that it matters. Albie didn’t care about the parade. He only ever cared about his appearance and how powerful people thought he was. Of course he agreed to meet me. He jumped at the chance to come, knowing that he held the power to decide the future of my business. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good relationship with the guy but he’s not what I’d call a friend.”
“So he came to your store. Was that your idea? Get him into your territory?” The chief didn’t come right out and ask if Tony had arranged the meeting to murder Albie, but he didn’t need to. It was obvious what he was implying.
Tony winced, clearly not missing the implication. “Yes. Of course. It made sense to get the home advantage rather than meet him in his fancy office. I heard he had his desk chair built on a platform so he was always looking down on whoever he was meeting.”
“I see. Anyway. Back to why you lured him to the last place he went alive.”
Tony blanched. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill him.”
“Somebody happened to murder him right when he was on his way to meet you? That’s quite a coincidence.”
“But that’s what happened!”
Chief Daly produced a sheet of paper covered in different colored lines. “This is a list of Albie’s most recent cellphone calls.” He stabbed the page. “That’s when you spoke to him. You’re blue, by the way. And see all of these?” He pointed further down the page, to a cluster of five or six blue lines. “You harassed him that afternoon. Why? Did you want to make absolutely certain he was going to come and meet you?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “No! I called once to confirm. He didn’t answer.”
“And another four times to make sure?”
Tony tore the paper out of the chief’s hand. “These were after I was supposed to meet him! I was calling to see where he was! Surely you must understand that. I’d taken time out on a potentially busy day to speak to him. And he hadn’t even bothered to show up.” He hung his head. “Of course, I know now that he was murdered.”
“Sure. It could have been an attempt to make it look as if you weren’t involved. You were due to meet him at one thirty. These calls started at one forty. That was plenty of time to commit the crime and then hurry back to the stall as if nothing had happened.”
“Why would I do that? You can’t say I did it just because I was due to meet with him that day.”
“You led him to the street where he was killed.”
Tony shook his head so violently that it seemed to Jessie that it was in danger of coming off. “It’s a coincidence. Don’t you see?”
“Quite a big coincidence. Do you have CCTV footage proving you were at your store?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t have a security system? Why doesn’t that surprise me? The amount of trouble going on in this town…” Chief Daly waved his hand. “It’s a shame.”
“I do,” Tony said irritably. “But it developed a fault last week and I never got around to calling the security company. I’ve had bigger things to worry about.”
“So you stayed there alone. Albie came to you.”
“No he didn’t! Haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve said?”
“Well, put yourself in a jury’s shoes. They’re—”
“I made an appointment to meet with my bank manager! That’s hardly a crime!”
“Why the day of the parade? It’s practically a holiday around these parts. You’ve been living here long enough to know that.”
“I was acting on my friend’s advice! He’s run successful businesses before! That’s all! How was I supposed to know he’d be murdered?”
Chief Daly shook his head. “You should know that you’re the main person of interest in this case. Follow my advice, son. Get yourself a good attorney.”
“But I haven’t committed any crime!”
“That remains to be seen,” the chief said gravely.
21
“Well I haven’t yet; not until he finds representation. I suppose I’m feeling festive. Besides, it’s best if we don’t proceed any further without him having an attorney. We can’t risk being accused of making him incriminate himself.”
“But…”
Chief Daly smiled. “Don’t worry, Jessie. He’s in such a bind that I don’t think even the best legal minds could get him out of it.”
“But he just seems so…”
“Innocent? They all do at times. I can’t say I feel the same about Tony. All the evidence certainly points to him.”
Innocent wasn’t the word Jessie had been about to use. There was no doubting the fact that Tony appeared guilty as sin.
Something else was bothering her though; something she couldn’t quite land on.
“It’s not that.”
“What then?” The chief was back to his usual cheerful self and she could understand why. After all, it seemed like they had their man at last.
So why didn’t she share his glee?
Then she landed on it.
“Chief, Cassie was called away by a man she met online. Jeff was called to a supposed client’s house. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? We’ve established that they don’t know each other or have any common business interests. Plus there’s that man in black that I saw. I don’t know. It’s all…”
“A bit sinister?”
She shivered. “That wasn’t the word I was going to use. I don’t think it’s anything creepy, even though it is very close to Halloween. No, it’s just that… I don’t know. Maybe I’m looking for patterns where there are none.”
Chief Daly nodded. “It’s possible. You know, I don’t doubt Cassie’s story, but have you thought for a moment that Jeff may have invented his story?”
“But we saw him on the CCTV! He couldn’t have invented the story before the murder—he wasn’t involved.”
“No, but he might have been trying to cover something else. Suppose he needed an excuse not to go to the parade, for example. For all we know, he created that fake email address himself and contacted his business address. Then he used that as an excuse to go off and do whatever it was he was doing.”
“What do you think he was doing?”
Chief Daly threw his hands up. “I don’t have a clue! It’s just wild speculation on my part. All I’m saying is don’t read too much into it. People have their secrets. And they do some funny things to hide them.”
“I guess,” she said, wondering how there could be so much mystery and intrigue in such a small town.
“Good. Believe me. Now, you should go home and rest. Don’t even think about telling me you’re going to Lindemann’s to knock down partitions or whatever it is you’ve been doing. You need some time to yourself. I don’t see why you won’t just let us help you.”
“No,” she said forcefully. “It’s my problem. I don’t want to lumber you all with it. You advised me to sell the place. But I don’t want to. I don’t see why you should feel obliged to volunteer for hard labor just because I decided to keep it on.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You’re just as stubborn as your aunt.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you understand I’m not going to change my mind on the subject.”
Later, though, when she was at home attacking her cobwebby ceilings, she found herself thinking about the case again.
The more she thought about it, the more she failed to see why Jeff would lie about going to meet a client. Why would he have gone to the trouble of creating an entire email trail with a fake client?
It seemed unlikely. Especially since he had nobody to lie to; at least not in the traditional sense. He was single and ran his own business: he had no wife or boss. What could he have been doing that he didn’t want anybody to know about?
She chewed her lip and stirred the pot of pasta sauce. It wasn’t fancy, but she had chosen to spend her time cleaning instead of laboring over a gourmet dinner for one. There’d be time for gourmet dinners when the work was done on Lindemann’s and she could tell the staff there that they’d have all the shifts they could ever wish for.
After two hours of cleaning, she had had enough. All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Mike and listen to him do impressions of the actors in whatever movie they were watching. She brushed her hair back from her sweating forehead and told herself to suck it up and keep on cleaning. After all, she didn’t want Mike to see the place in its current condition.
Who am I kidding, she thought. Before she knew it she was pulling off one of her Pepto-Bismol pink gloves and reaching for her cellphone.
Her heart fluttered with excitement. When had she last seen him? She didn’t know. He’d been busy with council business and she’d been run off her feet trying to juggle all the balls in her life.
Disappointment shot through her at the sound of his very-familiar voicemail message.
“Back to cleaning, eh Tobes?”
The pug stared up at her forlornly.
Now that she returned to it, the methodical movements of cleaning weren’t as calming as she had found them before. Now her mind raced and wandered as she wiped down the cupboard doors in the kitchen, cringing at the spills that had collected there over the past few weeks.
“Goodness, Toby. It’s a good thing I didn’t get through to Mike. Can you imagine what he’d think if he saw the state of this place? He’d break up with me.” The thought made her think of Cassie. She shuddered. “It’s different,” she whispered. “I was perfectly happy before I met Mike. Cassie seems so dissatisfied; so unhappy with her lot.”
She carried on wiping, her mind fixated on the sad woman who was so hard on herself. She had allowed herself to compromise her standards, and for what? Some guy who hadn’t had the decency to call her and cancel.
Such a strange situation, she thought. Why could he only meet her on that particular day? It must have taken a lot to convince a woman so set in her moral beliefs and so sure her stall would save her business.
She doubted Cassie would have done so for a man who was just in town for the weekend. No, it had seemed to Jessie that Cassie was interested in a long-term thing.
So what? she wondered, not even keeping up the pretense of cleaning anymore. Is he a traveling salesman? A soldier? No, surely a soldier would have had more leave than one day… and besides, most of the local soldiers who were home took part in the parade. It was a tradition, she had learned from one of the army guys who had teased her mercilessly for looking like a pumpkin.
And then Jessie got that strange feeling again. It was crazy, she knew. It wasn’t as if Jeff and Cassie had had the same experience at all. And yet, they’d both met random strangers on the internet and had been influenced by them to go and take action on the day of the parade. Why?
Her phone was still on the kitchen bench from her abortive attempt to call Mike. She debated switching her mind off the case and calling him again but thought better of it. If he wasn’t answering her calls it meant he was busy at work. She didn’t want to heap more pressure on him.
So instead of calling Mike, she called Officer Kendall and asked for Cassie’s number.
Cassie answered almost as soon as Jessie hit ‘call’.
“Hello,” Jessie said, not even thinking about what she was going to say. Because some part of her knew. “It’s Jessie Henderson.”
Cassie exhaled. It was the kind of sound a child might make if they were in a huff. “What do you want?”
Jessie sighed. “Look, I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the day of the parade. It sounds like it’s got you pretty upset.”
Cassie was silent for a few moments. “I don’t need your charity, thank you very much.”
“And you won’t get it! Look, I’m not interested in patting your hand and telling you it’s all good and he’s just a horrible man.”
“What do you want then? I feel bad enough as it is.”
Jessie
sucked in a breath. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I just have this strange feeling that there’s something important we’re missing in the murder case.”
It was the wrong thing to say—Jessie could tell immediately from the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that! Please; you’ve got to believe me. I think… There was somebody else involved in the case with a story very similar to your own.”
“What, they got charmed into going against their own moral compass?” There was no hope in her voice. Cassie wouldn’t be consoled even if twenty other women had fallen for the same man’s charm.
“Not exactly. But it was similar. Didn’t you think it was strange that he could only meet on the day of the parade?”
“Do we have to go through this again? I’ve already told you all I know.”
“Please. It might be important.” Jessie didn’t know where that confident statement had come from, but she found she believed it.
“To catch the real murderer?”
“Yes. Maybe. I can’t guarantee it.”
“Okay.” Cassie let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Well. Yes, now that you say it. It was odd. It all seemed so promising before I decided to book the stall. Now—”
“Hold on, Cassie,” Jessie interrupted. “What are you doing right now?”
“Um…nothing.” The defensive tone returned.
Jessie cursed herself for asking but it was too late to take it back now. Besides, what was the harm in asking? She lived in Springdale now—wasn’t the whole point of living in a small town that you could reach out to your neighbor and keep them company if they needed it?
“Well, you don’t have to say yes but how about I come over so we can talk? I’ll bring some pastries.”
There wasn’t a sound on the other end of the line except for the occasional faint ripple. Jessie was starting to think she’d been cut off when the other woman answered.
“Yes. Okay,” she said, sounding very uncertain indeed.
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Pumpkins are Murder Page 8
