Bear Witness to Murder

by Meg Macy

  Surprised by his second question, I thought for a moment. “Yesterday, when my sister and I were walking the dog. We ran into her. Near her shop over there on the corner.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Oh, sometime between four thirty and five thirty. Or six. I’m not sure.”

  “What kind of shop does she have?”

  “Toy and bookstore, Through the Looking Glass. I guess she named it after Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland sequel.”

  “She sells teddy bears as well, from what Officer Sykes told me,” Mason said. “You two have been rivals, right? Since high school.”

  Resentful, I ignored that last question. “Our business has plenty of competitors in Michigan and around the whole country.”

  He cleared his throat. “Just so you’re aware, Officer Sykes believes you have the best reason to get rid of Holly Parker.”

  “Wait a minute,” I sputtered, but Mason held up a hand.

  “I know very well he may be wrong. According to him, you and Ms. Parker were ‘big-time enemies.’ Don’t bother to explain,” the detective added in a wry tone. “I’m taking what he said with a grain of salt. But Sykes mentioned how your sister ‘butted heads’ with Ms. Parker yesterday, also in his words. Officer Hillerman confirmed it.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that.” I shrugged. “Maddie and Holly disagreed on a few things, that’s all. No big deal.”

  “Good to know.” Mason flipped to a new page. “So tell me why you came here this morning. Start with last night.”

  “Are you saying Holly was killed last night?”

  He glanced up at me. “You know I can’t confirm that until the autopsy.”

  “Okay, okay. I had dinner with my sister and some friends at the Regency—”

  I stopped, hearing a shout from Bill Hillerman. Mason rushed off to rejoin the policemen and technicians. Despite my curiosity, I had no interest in seeing Holly’s body again. I sipped my coffee, surprised that Digger would blow up a minor argument into “butting heads,” and rat out one of his good friends. I inched closer to the group, but backed off when a technician gave me the stank eye. And then stumbled into someone who shrieked in my ear.

  “Yow! Get off my foot!”

  I whirled around and almost fell over in shock. Holly Parker hopped up and down on one foot, rubbing her exposed toes—she wore sandals, black jeans, and a matching sweater. Her face red with fury, she cursed under her breath. Her hot pink baseball cap had THINK PINK written on the brim. A perfect match to the hoodie on the dead body.

  “What—then who—who—” I stammered, my cheeks aflame.

  “You sound like an owl, Sasha.” Her tone dripped sarcasm. “What is going on? Why have the police blocked the whole street off? I had to park at the bank. I can’t get to my shop, and I’ve got orders to fill and deliver to the post office.”

  “Y-you’re not—not . . .” I must have garbled the word “dead.” Holly stared at me as if I’d spoken in a foreign language. “Then who’s over there?”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked crossly.

  Dodging around me, Holly stalked toward the group of technicians and policemen who conferred with Detective Mason. They didn’t pay any attention to her until Digger turned around and whooped in surprise. Mary Kate rushed back to my side, cell phone in hand.

  “I thought you said—”

  “Tell me about it. Boy, was I wrong. Big-time wrong,” I muttered.

  I also dreaded learning the victim’s identity, especially given the pink hoodie. It had to be Holly’s. Detective Mason threaded through the crowd toward us. He flipped several pages and then skewered his gaze on me.

  “I was wrong,” I said. “Holly Parker is standing over there. The brunette in the pink hat.” I waved in her direction, where she stood beside Digger with a hand on her hip. “Dig—er, Officer Sykes almost pulled the knife out of the body, and he wasn’t wearing gloves. Officer Hillerman stopped him in time, though.”

  Mason glowered at that. “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”

  He headed toward Digger, who was now yelling at Holly. “I didn’t threaten you. You were double-parked, and that’s a ticketing offense—”

  “We were moving in our stock! You could have given us more time.”

  Holly drew back when Mason interrupted to admonish the younger man, stabbing a finger into Digger’s chest. I didn’t feel any remorse for getting him into trouble. Bill Hillerman ambled over to join them and listened in silence while Digger waved his hands, his voice raised in protest. He deserved being chewed out for bumbling around the crime scene.

  “What an idiot,” I said.

  Mary Kate had returned with two cardboard trays of coffee cups. “Since Will Taylor’s murder, he thinks he’s an expert. It’s not funny, but I heard a few people calling him the next Barney Fife. Remember how Barney kept a bullet in his pocket instead of his pistol? No? Guess I’ve been watching too much vintage TV.”

  “I thought you preferred Sesame Street and the Disney Channel.”

  “If I hear that song ‘Let It Go’ one more time . . .” Mary Kate sighed.

  “You don’t have to wait with me.” I shooed her back toward Fresh Grounds’s back door. “Go help with customers. Oh, did you get through to Mads?”

  “I had to leave a voice mail. Sorry.”

  “No worries. Thanks for everything.”

  Once Mary Kate left to deliver coffee, I realized that Holly had also disappeared. After I finished my drink and tossed the cup, I let Rosie out of the car. She’d been barking for attention. The last thing I needed was anyone getting nipped, however. Rosie sometimes behaved badly with strangers. Now she wagged her tail, so I ruffled her curly head and gave her a smooch on the muzzle. Detective Mason soon beckoned me over to join him. I kept Rosie tight beside me on her leash, although she wriggled with joy.

  “Where did Ms. Parker go?” Mason scanned the crowd. “Hillerman, go find her. In the meantime, you’ll have to confirm the identity.”

  I noticed Uncle Ross and Cal Bloom among the group of gossiping villagers. “Election” and “candidates” drifted to my ears, but I turned away. I didn’t want to hear their opinions, either on politics or about this latest tragedy. Mason led me toward the technicians. They’d removed the knife and turned the body over, but covered it with a white sheet. One tech leaned down to reveal the face. Not that I needed to see the woman’s red hair and wide sightless blue eyes.

  “Gina Lawson. Holly’s shop assistant,” I said, choking the words out.

  Digger Sykes whooshed out a breath. “The girl Flynn Hanson’s been shacking up with? Whoa. I wonder if he stabbed her—”

  “Stop assuming things, for heaven’s sake,” I shot back.

  “Enough, you two.” Detective Mason took my elbow and led me and Rosie back to the car. “You never finished telling me how you found Ms. Lawson.”

  I started my story again, leaning against the car’s hood. Rosie sat obediently at my feet. He listened without asking questions; I watched him write in his Moleskine notebook—using the same tiny block letters, with spaces in between paragraphs. I wondered if it hurt his fingers to print so small. He also squinted at the page despite his glasses. Farsighted, maybe? Was he old enough for bifocals? I chided myself for not keeping my mind on the matter at hand.

  A woman had been killed, after all. Murdered.

  “So, Sasha,” Mason said at last. “What can you tell me about Gina Lawson?”

  “Um. Not much.” I glanced back at the crime scene. “She works for Holly Parker at Through the Looking Glass. Worked, I mean, as a shop assistant. Maddie said she also did publicity and marketing.”

  “Maddie? So she knew Gina?”

  The snippet of gossip that my sister related suddenly flashed into my head. Gina told Holly exactly what to do when she got back to Silver Hollow. But I couldn’t tell Mason all that. He was bound to learn it from Holly when he questioned her.

  “We both met Gina
yesterday for the first time, at our Cran-beary Tea Party,” I said.

  “Flynn Hanson is her lawyer.” Digger Sykes joined us, hands on his hips. “He does all those ‘Flynn Wins’ ads on TV and radio. Have you seen or heard them? I heard he hired Gina Lawson to do his publicity, too. I bet she helped him with those.”

  Mason said nothing, only wrote faster before he looked up at me. “Anything else you can add, Ms. Silverman?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know much about her.”

  “Except your ex-husband had a hot fling with Gina, a while back, when you were still married to Flynn,” Digger said with a smirk, “and plenty of people said they hooked up again.” He looked surprised when Mason glared at him. “What?”

  “Flynn and I didn’t live in Silver Hollow when we were married,” I said. “Don’t people have enough to gossip about than digging up old dirt?”

  “Oh, come on. Everyone’s been talking about Hanson since the minute he moved here. His Florida lifestyle, his big house in Ann Arbor, his commercials. I was at Quinn’s Pub when he and Gina talked about that lawsuit against Mayor Bloom. Maybe he killed—”

  “Whoa. First of all, who else was there in the pub?” Mason asked. Digger listed half a dozen names and then raced to the patrol car when the radio blared. “Great. Now I’ve got twice as many interviews than I expected.”

  “I was at the tea party when Flynn served notice about the lawsuit,” I said, “but no way would Mayor Bloom have murdered Gina Lawson. Everyone knows him. He owns the funeral home, over on Quentin Street west of the Village Green.”

  The detective kept writing in his notebook. “Okay, thanks. I’ll look into that.”

  “And he’s up for re-election next month, too.”

  Mason pointed a finger at Rosie, who’d become restless and circled my legs. “Sit.” Her butt hit the ground, and she gazed at him in adoration, head cocked, eyes bright. “High five!” She reached up a paw to meet his palm. He retrieved a treat from his pocket and held up his hand again. Rosie high-fived him a second time.

  “Good girl,” I said in delight, watching her relish the biscuit. “Peanut butter?”

  “What else?” Mason returned to his notebook. “Re-election might be a good motive for murder. Especially politics, even at the local level. You’d be surprised what people are capable of when they’re backed into a corner.”

  I had no answer for that. Mason walked back to the group of technicians, who were finishing their work. First Uncle Ross was a prime suspect last month, and now the mayor of Silver Hollow might top the list. I headed to my car. How crazy. And odd that another murder had happened here, a few short weeks after Will Taylor.

  I still felt creeped out in the factory, walking past the closed-off partition that hid our stuffing machine. Silver Hollow seemed different, too. People nodded but rarely stopped to chat, although that could be due to their hectic fall schedules.

  I gave up trying to figure it all out, glad to be heading home.

  Chapter 7

  I parked in my usual spot next to my sister’s car and led Rosie inside the house. “Mads? Are you up yet? Where are you?”

  My keys jangled when I dumped them into the pottery bowl. Rosie hopped onto the window seat, dislodging poor Onyx. My sister’s black cat snarled and hissed, but Rosie settled herself on the padded cushion. Teddy bear dog on guard, alert and ready.

  “Stop it, Nyx.” I shooed the cat away, since she was swiping Rosie’s face with her claws. “It’s her turn. You’ve had the window seat all morning.”

  The breakfast dishes were piled in the sink—wow. That wasn’t like Maddie. She always loaded the dishwasher. Or Mom took care of it, since someone might show up unexpectedly, and God forbid that anything would appear dirty or out of place. I’d hoped to ask Maddie what time she’d gotten home last night, and if she’d seen Gina wearing that pink hoodie. Low voices drifted through the hall. Mom and Maddie must be home after all, then.

  Past the double doors, I maneuvered around the plastic-wrapped furniture that cluttered the hallway, along with boxes, file cabinets, shelves, and stacks of books. In the office, the wall between two separate rooms and the alcove that I’d once used for a table and chair had been taken down, making one big area. New plank flooring had been sanded and gleamed in the sunshine, although new area rugs—Persian wool, in elaborate patterns of green, burgundy, and gold—would soon cover most of it. Given the second murder in Silver Hollow, all this chaos symbolized disorder to me.

  I forced a smile, however. “The renovation’s coming along.”

  Maddie wiped the last specks of lint from one large window with crumpled newspaper. “Wait till everything’s moved into place.”

  “It’s going to look wonderful.” Mom rubbed her lower back and groaned, half bent over a large wooden crate. “Ooh! My shoulders. My back . . .”

  “You don’t have to move furniture,” I said. “We hired a crew.”

  “I know that, but they won’t clean before they arrive.” She wore rubber gloves and dusty, paint-spattered clothes, although every strand of her auburn hair was in place. “We’ve handled pretty much everything, Sasha, although we expected that you’d help. What took you so long? I’m assuming you took the dog for a walk early this morning.”

  “Didn’t either of you listen to Mary Kate’s voice mail?” Thank goodness I hadn’t called. I wouldn’t want to hear news about a murder over the phone. “Guess not, huh.”

  “Nope.” Maddie wiped perspiration from her face and neck with a cloth and glanced down at her grubby clothing. “I don’t even know where my phone is.”

  “I was delayed—”

  “Did you bring back something from Fresh Grounds?” Mom interrupted. “Like those delicious chocolate-drizzled scones. Eve said she’d come help, too. Maybe that’s her now.”

  A loud voice had called from the kitchen. Dread filled me. I’d recognized Flynn’s voice, so I wasn’t surprised when my ex tramped into the room. His blond hair was gelled, and he wore a tight, tailored three-piece suit. A golden arrow pin adorned the jacket’s breast pocket instead of a tucked handkerchief, and his red silk tie had a pattern of tiny fox heads. So appropriate for his sly lawyer personality, too.

  “Hey, how’s it going? Thought I’d stop in for a minute.”

  “Just an FYI,” I said, “but Detective Mason wants to talk to you.”

  Flynn raised his eyebrows and then let out a long-suffering sigh. “Now what? I’ve got enough stress. I don’t need him on my tail when I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You’re not the only one who’s stressed—”

  “Mike and Mark are over the moon about all the extra work I’ve brought in for the Legal Eagles,” he continued, ignoring me. “It’s all due to my TV and radio commercials. Some of the other lawyers in the area are so jealous, they’re trying to stab me in the back. And I’ve got to film a new commercial today, too.”

  “On a Sunday?” I shook my head when he only shrugged. “Well, he has a good reason for wanting to talk to you.”

  Maddie stopped washing another window. “What’s wrong, Sash? What happened?”

  “Gina Lawson is dead.” I noted shock on all their faces, even Flynn.

  “Wh-what?” His anger drained away along with every hint of color in his face.

  “Gina’s dead?” Maddie looked so pale that Mom slid an arm around her in concern. “How did you find that out?”

  “I found her in the parking lot, behind Fresh Grounds.”

  Flynn looked sick. “What the hell.”

  “Oh, Sasha! Not again.” Mom drew me into a fierce hug, and Maddie joined in as well. “Tell us what happened.”

  “Rosie found her first. We went to get my car, since I left it behind Fresh Grounds last night. Gina was lying on the ground by Holly’s car. She’d been stabbed,” I added faintly. “But at first I thought she was Holly Parker.”

  “Why would you think that?” Maddie looked horrified.

  “Gina was wearing a
pink hoodie. The one with ‘Think Pink’ on it.”

  “She always borrowed stuff from Holly.” Flynn sounded dazed. “Her car, the phone, even money. Caused a rift between them at times. God, I can’t believe Gina’s dead.”

  “Come on, everyone. This has been a big shock.” Mom pushed us all out of the office and toward the kitchen. “I’ll make fresh coffee. Maddie, see if you can put out cookies on a plate or something. And don’t you leave, Flynn Hanson. That police detective can wait, especially if he thinks you’re a suspect again. Last time was bad enough.”

  “Me? I wouldn’t have killed Gina! We broke up a while ago. Couple of months.”

  “I know that, Flynn,” Mom said. “No, Sasha, don’t you say a word.”

  “I need my phone.”

  Maddie rushed out of the room. I was sure my sister would call Kip or her friend Abby to hear any gossip and spread the news. Flynn slid onto a stool at the kitchen island. Mom filled the coffeepot with water and plugged it in, fetched coffee grounds from the refrigerator, and brought out the cream pitcher. She set the sugar bowl near his elbow. Always the hostess, one gene I hadn’t inherited. But I was glad. I could use more coffee.

  “I suspect Detective Mason wants to talk to you because you were her lawyer,” Mom said to Flynn. “Not because you once dated her.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense, Judith.” He rubbed his face and blew out a breath. “We just talked yesterday about her lawsuit. Oh . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Yeah, I can imagine what you’re thinking,” I said, “but I doubt Mayor Bloom would have killed Gina.”

  “Cal Bloom? A murderer?” Mom laughed. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve known him for years, he’s a big teddy bear. He wouldn’t hurt a fly or a spider. I’ve seen him catch insects inside his house and carry them outside. Even at the funeral home!”

  “Really.” Flynn looked impressed. “But Sasha’s right. The mayor doesn’t have to worry about that lawsuit anymore.”

  “So you think the police will focus on him as the primary suspect?” My mother looked annoyed. “That’s hard to believe.”

  “How long have you known Gina Lawson?” I asked Flynn, and watched him for any sign of hiding the truth. While Flynn practiced keeping a poker face, he couldn’t always keep his physical reactions in check. His face flushed pink.