Double Duplicity: A Shandra Higheagle Mystery #1

by Paty Jager

  Conor cleared his throat and croaked. “No one was sure how you’d take it.”

  “Shit, Conor. I’ve been in combat and I was nearly killed on American soil by gangs, did you all think I was so fragile I couldn’t take you saying you love my ex-girlfriend? What kind of an emotional dork do you think I am?”

  “I-we…”

  “I’ll be there.” He ended the conversation and slammed his palm on the steering wheel. Had his mom even kept this a secret? Did the whole family think he was an emotional time bomb?

  He whipped the SUV into a parking spot in front of the local police department and sat staring at his reflection in the building’s window. He did tend to ignore his family’s invitations. And he was lonely. Some nights he ached with need. Not just physically but mentally. He wanted a long marriage, kids, a life that he could look back on and be proud. Like his parents.

  A knock on the passenger window made him jump. His gaze focused, and he stared into the pimply face of Blane. The young officer’s eyes sparkled with glee, and he had a smirk on his face. Ryan slid the corners of his mouth into a grin. He opened the door and stepped out.

  “I need your help on this case. Let’s go visit with your chief.” He walked ahead of Blane into the station.

  Chapter Seven

  Shandra couldn’t shake the dream that spun in her head into the early morning hours. She’d walked into the lodge on the reservation where the seven drum ceremony was about to take place and found Paula on her hands and knees pleading. Shandra moved deeper into the lodge to see who the gallery owner was talking to and Ella appeared beside Paula. Her grandmother waved a feather over Paula’s head and the gallery owner dropped to the ground, red spreading around her.

  Shandra had wanted to back out of the lodge, but her feet moved her forward. Ella looked at her. The old woman’s eyes shone like two beacons on a dark night. “Greed. It is a Whiteman curse.” Then the whole scene faded as drums and chants swirled her around like Dorothy caught in the tornado in the Wizard of Oz.

  One cup of coffee did nothing to banish the sleepiness moving her through the morning chores like a zombie. Sheba nudged her hand as Shandra stood, staring into the forest, seeing nothing with her eyes but playing the dream over in her head.

  “Why are you coming to me in dreams now, Ella?” She shook her head and shoved away from the corral, heading to her studio.

  She spent the morning working up the latest batch of clay she’d brought down the mountain. Usually the process of making the clay pure and usable for throwing was exhilarating. Today, her mind kept wandering to the dream and the person Naomi said entered the gallery right before Paula was killed. There had been lots of tension between Paula and her soon to be ex. “Now he is a widower. How does Sidney feel about his wife’s murder?” Her voice rang strong and loud in the big building. Hearing the question set her to wondering who Lil had seen Paula arguing with. Lil knew Sidney, so it couldn’t have been him.

  Her hands worked less laboriously squeezing water through the clay. The angry motions became more fluid, moving into gentle kneading as her mind wandered to tonight. Sidney was half owner in the Huckleberry Lodge. He’d be at the art event as well as Juan, Paula’s assistant and part time artist. “Yes. I think tonight is going to be less of a bore than I’d previously thought.”

  “You going to the shindig at the Lodge?”

  Shandra sprung up from her stool at Lil’s voice. The woman moved as quietly as the fluffy orange cat gliding around Lil’s lower legs, tail straight in the air like a flagpole.

  “Geez, Lil. I wish you’d make a noise so I know you’re in the studio.” Shandra repositioned her butt on the padded stool and finished the cleaning process on the clay.

  “I came through the door like a normal person. What more can I do?”

  “Wear bells.”

  “Now that’s foolish. Only a lead cow or goat wears a bell so the rest of the herd can hear and follow her.”

  Shandra glanced Lil’s direction and shook her head. They’d had this unusual relationship for two years, and she still wasn’t used to the woman’s down home logic and undying devotion to animals and the ranch.

  “You didn’t answer my question. You going to the Lodge tonight?”

  “Yes. Ted and Naomi would expect me to be there since one of my pieces is in the silent auction. And there are a couple of people I need to discuss Paula’s death with.”

  Lil shuddered. “It ain’t a good idea to talk of the dead when they didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “If I’m going to find information to get the detective to look somewhere other than at Naomi, I have to talk to people about Paula.” She wiped the clay from her fingers, watching the other woman move slow and steady toward the kiln where three vases had cooled enough to be removed. “What did the man you saw quarreling with Paula look like?”

  Lil frowned and said, “He had white hair and was dressed fancy. Not like an artist, more like the people who buy your pottery.”

  Shandra put the clay in a plastic bucket and sealed the top with plastic and a wide rubber band.

  “You gonna work in here today?” Lil asked, lifting a vase out of the kiln.

  “No. I just wanted to get this bucket of clay worked up.” She placed the bucket under a shelf holding coasters with etchings of Huckleberry Mountain. She made the coasters for the souvenir shops in town.

  “I need to refine the sketches for my new design.” Her hand on the studio door, she glanced over her shoulder at Lil. “I’ll glaze those pieces tomorrow, please put them on the glazing table.”

  “Don’t get too nosy at that party tonight. You know bad things happen in threes.” Lil carried the vase into the glazing room, her comment skittered a shiver down Shandra’s back.

  ~*~

  The remainder of the day, Shandra sat in her screened-in porch sketching and erasing. Her mind wasn’t thinking creatively. Her thoughts circled around and around how to keep Naomi away from Detective Greer until the real murderer was found. She knew in her heart her friend didn’t kill anyone but there was so much that pointed to her, Shandra’s stomach pitched and ached.

  The only way to get to the bottom of it would be at the event tonight. And the way to catch a fish was to use an attractive lure. She knew just the dress to wear to catch the roving eye of Sidney Doring and persuade some information out of Juan Lida.

  ~*~

  Ryan found Juan Lida attempting to enter the back door of the Doring Gallery.

  “Didn’t you see the crime tape at the front door?” Ryan asked, holding his hand on the door latch.

  The Hispanic man sent him a scowl and didn’t say a word as Ryan motioned for him to enter the building. The suspect appeared just as Dr. Porter had described him. Anti-social, a bit insolent, and secretive.

  “Go to the office. I have some questions for you.”

  The man’s stride faltered at the mention of the office. Was that because he didn’t want to relive a murder he committed or because he had something else to hide?

  Ryan pulled the tape off the office door, glad to see it hadn’t been tampered with and walked through, watching Lida’s face.

  Juan’s gaze went to the desk chair. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Tears glistened in his eyes, before he squeezed them shut then opened them and scanned the desk.

  “When did you hear about your employer’s death?” Ryan pulled out his notepad and started to take notes. He wanted answers and hopefully information that would implicate this person. By interviewing him as a suspect he’d get nowhere, but treating the man like an aide, he might just get what he needed.

  “On the news last night.” Lida’s thick accent made Ryan strain to hear the words.

  “Why weren’t you here helping her prepare for the upcoming art event?”

  Lida tipped his head side to side like someone loosening tight neck muscles. “Mrs. Doring sent me on an errand for the event.”

  “What kind of an errand?” Ryan kept his fac
e tilted down, but he peered at the man from under his eyelashes. Lida’s skin was taking on a ruddier hue along with the tips of his ears.

  “Mrs. Doring had an inkling her soon-to-be ex-husband was trying to undermine her gallery and sent me to talk with some artists she’d heard were paid to not consign their work with her.” Lida stepped to the desk and opened the bottom drawer where Ryan had taken the ledger and brochures from. His head jerked up and he stared, wide-eyed at Ryan. “This was a robbery?”

  “What makes you think that?” He continued to watch the man rifle through the few items left in the drawer.

  “There should be a ledger, brochures, and a fi—” He reached down pulling out another drawer.

  “I have the ledger and brochures. I’ve been trying to make sense of the numbers and system used.” He walked over beside the man. “But there wasn’t a file in that drawer.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “Say file? No, but you said enough and the expression on your face said there was more missing. What was in the file? Did it have anything to do with Joyce Carter?”

  Lida swung around, his face scrunched in anger and his compact body heading toward the door. Ryan dropped his pad and grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting his arm behind his back and quickly securing a cuff.

  “What can you tell me about Joyce Carter’s overdose? Did she have some help? Was it you perhaps carrying out one of your employer’s ‘orders’.” The last time he’d had the sensation in his gut that the guy he apprehended would roll, he’d ended up in the hospital, having been lured into a trap.

  “I did not live here at that time.” The man glared over his shoulder.

  “But you know who she was and what happened to her.”

  “I saw the file Paula kept in the desk and asked her about it. She said it was her retirement fund.”

  Ryan spun the man to face him. “Was that file the reason for the large sums of money added to her ledger every month?”

  “Yes. She said it would keep us happy and healthy for a long time.”

  Staring into the man’s eyes, he saw what he’d missed before. The glistening tears had been not of remorse but of loss. “You and Paula were…more than employee and employer?”

  “She taught me the strategy of a gallery owner. I created works of art for her to sell. And together, we were building a bond that could not be broken. One stronger than money or art. One that would transcend time.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. This sucker thought Paula loved him. From what he’d learned so far about the woman, she only loved one thing. Money. He uncuffed Lida and motioned for them to leave the office. They walked five feet from the office door and the back door of the building flew open. Blane stood in the doorway, waving something in his hands.

  Chapter Eight

  Shandra pulled her Jeep up to the entrance of the lodge and slid out, handing her key over to the valet. She wanted to be a bit late and make an entrance so she’d have the attention of everyone, but especially Sidney Doring.

  She fluffed the brightly colored tiered skirt and loosened the drawstring on the peasant top enough to draw the neckline all the way to the ends of her shoulders, giving the appearance she didn’t wear a bra. She pushed upwards on the bustier under her top, forcing her girls to show themselves a bit at the neckline. If this didn’t hook the bait she was after, then she’d misread all her other encounters with Sidney Doring. Everything she’d heard and seen, he was a womanizer who couldn’t let an unattached female stay that way for long.

  Inside the lodge, she scanned the large foyer filled with artwork and people. Her nerves zinged and bunched anticipating the task she’d set out to do.

  A hand waved in the air. Her gaze followed the arm and spotted Ted and Naomi. With them was a woman who had purchased one of her etched vases the previous year. Shandra set her lips in a gracious smile and wove her way through the crowd to her friends.

  “Shandra, you remember Ethel Mayer, don’t you?” Naomi’s overenthusiastic greeting, shot Shandra’s gaze to her friend’s face.

  “Of course. It’s good to see you, Mrs. Mayer. Are you and your husband here on vacation?” Shandra wanted to hurry through the pleasantries and drag her friend into an alcove to question her. She’d never seen Naomi so falsely animated.

  “Yes, I told Harold we had to reserve our month here to coincide with this fun art event. After all, I need to add more of your work to my collection.” Mrs. Mayer slipped her arm through Shandras. “Tell me about this new look you’re working on.” She leaned close to Shandra’s ear. “I’m determined to win the silent auction piece and buy one of those fabulous gourd-shaped pieces I saw in the magazine article.”

  Shandra’s heart felt both heavy and light. “Since reconnecting with my paternal grandmother, my pieces have become more Native American. Since her passing, I have become even more emotionally tied to my work.”

  The woman nodded and gave respectful answers, but Shandra’s gaze kept returning to Naomi. Why was her friend so jumpy?

  “Mrs. Mayer, may I steal Miss Higheagle away from you for a moment?”

  Shandra couldn’t believe her luck. The lure must have worked. She turned to Sidney Doring and smiled. “Mr. Doring. Mrs. Mayer is purchasing one of my pieces what do you have to offer that could pull me away from her?”

  “I am also interested in one of your pieces.” His gaze moved leisurely down from her face and remained at the tops of her breasts at the low neckline of her top.

  Inside her stomach soured, but on the outside she smiled and slipped her arm through his.

  “Mrs. Mayer, I’ll find you later to talk more. If I can persuade Sidney to buy one of my vases and place it in the foyer for his guests to see, I would consider this a very successful evening.”

  Ethel smiled and waved them off.

  Sidney drew her away from the crowd and down the hallway toward banquet rooms. She cast a look over her shoulder and locked gazes with Detective Greer.

  Damn! She wanted to question Sidney but was fearful of leaving Naomi alone with the detective.

  “Where are we going Sidney? My artwork is out there.” She pointed back toward the foyer.

  “Sweetheart, you have been teasing me since you arrived in Huckleberry. I think it’s time we see how well we could work together.” He pulled her toward him as he backed into a room. A dark room.

  “I find it a bit slimy that not twenty-four hours after your wife is found dead you’re seducing me.” Her words had the icy effect she’d hoped for.

  Sidney grabbed her arms tighter. “We were in the middle of a divorce. That woman spread her legs for any man she thought would pad her bank account or move her up in business circles. So why shouldn’t I have some fun.”

  “Her death leaves more money in your bank account doesn’t it?”

  The minute her comment slipped out she regretted it. The hand he swung came fast and with stinging accuracy, snapping her head to the side.

  “Ms. Higheagle, would you like to press assault charges?”

  The deep, calm voice she heard helped lessen the sting in her cheek. She peered around her hand pressed to her cheek. Detective Greer had Sidney’s arms pinned behind his back.

  She glanced at Sidney. More than anger sizzled in the air between them. He had the gall to think she wouldn’t press charges. She saw it in the smug glimmer in his eyes. Not only would it teach the man a lesson, it would get rid of the detective before he could talk with Naomi.

  “Yes, I would like to press charges. Mr. Doring, you may be grieving your wife but that is no reason to hit a woman.”

  The man stared daggers at her as the detective pulled out handcuffs, securing Sidney’s hands behind his back.

  “This is preposterous. You can’t haul me off in handcuffs. I own this place. I can’t be seen—”

  “You should have thought of that before hitting this woman.” Detective Greer pushed Sidney against the wall and slid a cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  Shandra kept h
er hand over her cheek, wishing this was the corridor to the kitchen and some ice. The detective’s voice drew her attention. He looked as good in a western cut suit jacket, Levis, and shiny black cowboy boots as he had the day before in working clothes.

  He finished his phone call, and Shandra realized she was staring when he peered into her eyes and grinned like a man with a winning lottery ticket.

  “You should get some ice on that.” He lowered her hand. His eyes narrowed a moment before he lifted his phone.

  “What are you doing?” She raised her hand to hide the cheek.

  “I need a photo for evidence.” He once again, only gentler, drew her hand away from her face and snapped two photos of her. “Where’s the kitchen?”

  “On the other side of the foyer.” She looked that direction and spotted Naomi and Ted. Their appearance jogged her memory of her goal. “Don’t you need to take Sidney to jail?”

  “No, I have your favorite police officer coming for him.”

  Chapter Nine

  The look of panic on Shandra’s face would have been comical if Ryan had believed it was about facing Officer Blane again. No, her gaze had flicked toward the foyer and then back toward him before she masked the emotion with a smile.

  “Did you instruct him on proper apprehending when coming upon a person?” Her smile wasn’t genuine.

  “We had a discussion about that and other things.” Ryan peered out into the crowd. “Do you have a friend I can send over to sit with you while I find ice for your cheek?”

  Her glance darted to the man who’d hit her, and then out into the crowd. “Yes. If you’ll take Sidney away, I’d like to have Naomi Norton sit with me for a bit.”

  He nodded toward the crowd. “Which one is she?”

  Shandra pointed to a tall, slender blonde who fidgeted with a button on her sweater.

  Ryan took hold of Doring and pushed him toward the foyer. Of course, hauling one of the owners through the event was going to cause chaos, but it would also divert suspicion from his investigation.