Past Due for Murder

by Victoria Gilbert

  Brad scratched at the back of his neck. “Not likely. Delbert said whoever it was made too much noise for any hunter worth their salt.”

  “Maybe it was Lacey? If she was disoriented, she could’ve been stumbling around.”

  “Possibly, although I don’t know if the girl was still on her feet at that point. Of course, some of my team were out searching the general area, so perhaps Delbert heard one of them from a distance. Sound bounces off rocks and trees strangely in the mountains. Sometimes determining the origin of a noise can be next to impossible.”

  Or perhaps Delbert was being deliberately misleading to cover his own actions. “Did you ever find the gun that shot Mona?” I swung my legs to dispel some nervous energy.

  “Not yet. We checked all of Delbert’s weapons, but none matched the bullet casings we found. Bartos has a pistol registered in his name, but that’s all.”

  I leaned forward and gripped my knees with both hands. “Charles owns a gun? I would’ve never expected that.”

  “He does. But since Ms. Raymond was killed with a rifle, not a handgun, and he has a legal permit, we didn’t bother to investigate that angle any further.”

  “But I bet you questioned Delbert Frye thoroughly. He must be the most likely suspect, since he’s been known to warn people off his property with a gun.”

  “He’s definitely on the list, but we can’t tie anything to him directly yet, so we’ve just questioned him at his cabin and left it at that. Now, if we do locate the murder weapon …” Brad slapped the brim of his hat against his other palm. “Anyway, the other thing I wanted to check with you is related to your research work with Professor Raymond. I wonder if you ever heard anything from her about some sort of feud with Charles Bartos.”

  I slid off the table to face Brad standing. “I think that’s pretty common knowledge, isn’t it?”

  “At Clarion, maybe. Not around here.” Brad looked me up and down. “I was just curious if she’d shared any particulars of that story with you.”

  “She did mention it once, after I’d heard something of it from her graduate student Trisha Alexander—the one who I told you might have it in for Lacey, remember? Anyway, all Mona told me was that she thought Charles had plagiarized some of her research when he composed a successful song cycle. She was angry and seemed determined to demand compensation, or at least some acknowledgment of her contribution to the work.”

  That isn’t all. I gnawed the inside of my cheek, wondering if I should mention Mona’s warning about the “dirt” she had on Charles. But I didn’t know what she had been referring to, and it was only hearsay, and … Despite everything, you loved Charles once, and throwing him to the wolves while he’s still reeling from Marlis’s death, especially on the word of a woman who bore a grudge, seems wrong.

  “I’ve heard the same from others; I just wanted additional confirmation from someone I trusted,” Brad said. “It seems she had a serious beef with him, although he doesn’t appear to have been too troubled by it. At least not from what I can tell from talking to him and to others at the university.”

  “You may have noticed that Charles possesses plenty of self-confidence.” I gave Brad a wan smile. “I doubt he cared much what someone like Mona thought of him. I do think her constant badgering over that song cycle infuriated him, but I don’t think he’d waste a lot of time plotting revenge. He’s more the type to get angry and tell her off and then move on.”

  “That’s my impression too.” Brad stared at me with a searching look. “Sure there’s nothing else? I sense there’s something else you want to say.”

  “Should’ve known I couldn’t put anything past you. Yes, there is something. Two things, actually, although I heard them from the same person.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “Mona Raymond pulled me into the archives that Monday before she was shot. She wanted me to corroborate some information she’d apparently uncovered, but I couldn’t.”

  “What information?”

  I clutched my hands together in my lap. “She hinted around at some old scandal involving the Frye family, and some ‘dirt,’ as she called it, that she said she had on Charles. It was all very vague, which is why I didn’t share it before. Frankly, I was very put off by the way she was talking. It was like she was planning to use this information to not only force Charles to admit that he’d plagiarized her work, but also to try to blackmail old Delbert Frye into providing her with information on his family.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?” Brad tapped his booted foot against the wooden floor. “Really, Amy, I wish you’d shared this sooner.”

  “I know. I should have. I just didn’t know if I believed Mona, and honestly didn’t want to cast suspicion on either Charles or Mr. Frye based on Mona’s cryptic hints.”

  “I understand, but trust me next time, okay? You should know I’m not one to overreact.” Brad fixed me with a stern gaze. “I would never harass or arrest someone based on that type of limited information. But it might’ve helped me develop a better picture of the overall situation.”

  I ducked my head. “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do that again.” I looked up at him, widening my eyes as I’d often seen Sunny do when she was attempting to get out of a jam.

  Brad snorted. Obviously I wasn’t quite as adept at the innocent routine as Sunny. “I accept your apology. And, just as an aside, the doe-eyed thing doesn’t really work for you, Amy.”

  “Really? Thanks for sharing.” I shot him a cheeky grin.

  “Okay, well …” Brad’s face tensed and he twisted his hat brim to the point where I thought he might permanently crease it. “That’s all I needed from you, I guess. But I did want to tell Sunny something.”

  “I’ll ask her to come in. You need me to go?”

  “No, that’s okay. You both can hear this, I guess. I mean, you’ll find out soon enough, so you might as well.”

  My curiosity piqued, I called Sunny away from the desk.

  “What’s up?” she asked, looking from me to Brad.

  He lowered his head and stared at the mangled hat in his hands. “I just wanted to tell you, before you heard it somewhere else, that Alison Frye asked for a transfer and it’s been granted.”

  “Oh, where’s she going?” I asked, absently rearranging the pens and pencils shoved into a repurposed tin can.

  “To another sheriff’s department. Neighboring county, so she isn’t actually moving away from Taylorsford, just changing jobs.”

  “Is it because of her great-uncle being under such suspicion and scrutiny?” Sunny’s expression displayed sincere concern.

  “No. Well, as it turns out, it’s good for that reason too, but she asked for the transfer a while back.” When Brad looked up and met Sunny’s sympathetic gaze, his face was flushed as red as a tomato. “But the truth is—we’re dating. I mean, we will be, once her transfer is complete. We haven’t up to now. In all honesty, we didn’t want to get involved before, what with me being her supervisor, so …”

  Sunny cut off his rambling words with a bright smile. “I think that’s splendid.”

  Brad’s audible sigh filled the room. “Good to hear. I know we’d agreed we could date other people, but I didn’t want you to hear about this through the grapevine. Or even for Amy to hear it that way,” he added, casting me a swift glance.

  “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” Sunny flipped her shining fall of hair behind her shoulders with both hands.

  “Thanks.” Brad stared at Sunny for a moment, but when her cheery smile never faltered, he shoved his hat back over his short blond hair. “Guess I’ll be going then. Just promise me that if either of you hears anything even vaguely related to the Lacey Jacobs or Ramona Raymond cases, you’ll keep me informed.”

  “We will.”

  “See ya,” Sunny said as Brad strode away.

  I waited for a moment before circling around to look her in the face. “Are you really okay?”

  “Oh sure.” She waved me away wi
th one hand—the one that wasn’t wiping away tears from her eyes. “I am happy for him, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, wrapping my arms around her.

  Sunny allowed me to hug her for a moment before she pulled away. “I’m just sad that I couldn’t be what he wanted. It would’ve been so perfect if I could have been.”

  “You’ll be exactly what someone wants someday. Just as you are.”

  “I hope so.” Sunny fanned her flushed face with one hand. “But I have to be me, whatever happens. Even if I end up alone.”

  I made a pfft sound. “Alone? Who’s going to be alone? Not you. Not while I’m alive.”

  Sunny burst into sobs at that point. I handed her a box of tissues, told her to take the rest of the day off, and headed out to cover the circulation desk.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fortunately, the rest of the day was quiet, with few patrons and even fewer problems. I was even able to send a few funny texts to Sunny, hoping to cheer her up, until she finally responded: “Don’t worry, I have wine and the grands are looking after me. Put down the phone and get back to work!”

  It would be a long day for me, since we closed at eight on Mondays and I’d arrived at seven that morning. Usually whoever was scheduled to stay late arrived midmorning, but today that had been Sunny. When I’d called Aunt Lydia to inform her of the schedule change, she’d said she’d stop by around six to drop off something for my dinner, then hang out in the library until eight so she could drive me home.

  “That’s not really necessary,” I’d told her, but she’d insisted. Since I’d walked to work so she could have the car, I’d relented without much fuss. There was still the possibility that a murderer was lurking in the area. I didn’t think I was in danger but preferred not to walk home in the dark.

  Around three o’clock, when one of our volunteers showed up to cover the circulation desk, I decided to satisfy my curiosity over Fiona Muir’s statements concerning Paul Dassin’s research into the disappearance of Ada Frye and Violet Greyson. After the events of the past summer, Richard had donated all the papers he’d uncovered in his great-uncle’s attic, in addition to his mother’s collection, to the archives, so if any of Paul’s information on the missing girls existed, I should be able to find it. Of course, Paul might not have saved any of that research if he’d decided not to write the book, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look at his collected papers.

  In the archives building, I surveyed the Paul Dassin file boxes with a practiced eye. Neither Sunny nor I had yet created detailed finding aids for the collection, but I knew that the material was at least arranged by years. Based on Fiona’s comments, I assumed that anything related to a book on the missing girls would have been from a later period in Paul’s life and retrieved the three file boxes that spanned the ten years before his death in 1985.

  After pulling on a pair of white cotton gloves, I began flipping through the file boxes, sliding out the materials just far enough to check for any mention of the 1879 incident. I spied no references until I reached the box covering 1981–1985.

  Fiona was right—it was a project Paul Dassin had only embarked on late in his life. He must’ve already been in his eighties before he started gathering any research on the subject. I lifted several acid-free folders from the box and sat down at the table to peruse their contents.

  The material consisted of handwritten notes, which made reading it quickly a little more difficult. I knew that I’d probably end up carrying the boxes into the library to look through them more closely later. But curiosity drove me to continue to skim over the notes, hoping to at least narrow down my search. If I could find any references to foul play in the disappearance of the girls …

  “There it is,” I said aloud as my eyes focused on a page that appeared to be transcripts of interviews Paul Dassin had conducted with older members of the Frye clan. One of the speakers, identified only as “C. F.,” mentioned long-held, secretive rumors that had circulated at family gatherings when she was a child.

  “Didn’t understand it at the time,” the speaker had told Paul. “I was too young to catch the innuendoes. But now that I’ve lived through so much, all the changes in society and all, I think I can make sense of it. I can see why all the old folks were so anxious to keep it hushed up, especially back then.”

  I leaned in, peering at the scrawled script with a frown. That was odd. Even a child should’ve been able to understand rumors that concerned possible murders. Flipping over the page to read more of the interview, I sucked in a quick breath. There was a sticky note pasted to the paper. That was disconcerting. No one should have marked these pages in any way.

  Another secretive search, I thought. Because if Sunny or I had approved it and then refiled these documents, that sticky note would’ve been removed. I examined the note. “Important!” it said in a broad scrawl. I was not entirely surprised to discover that it matched what I’d seen of Mona Raymond’s handwriting.

  So she’d rifled through these papers without asking, as well as the other historical files. I made a huffing noise and pulled away the note to read the text beneath it.

  “I didn’t grasp what my grandmother and great-aunts meant when they said that Ada and Violet were ‘far too close,’ ” C. F. had told Paul. “And at the time I had no idea what ‘Sapphic’ meant either.”

  I sat back in my chair, staring at the page lying flat on the table in front of me.

  So that’s what Mona had been referencing when she’d talked about a scandal. Considering Ethan’s words about her biases, I supposed in her mind such a thing would appear scandalous, although the notion that two young women in the late nineteenth century had fallen in love was not something that seemed particularly salacious to me.

  But think about how a conservative family member might feel if such information was shared. I slid the document back into its folder and refiled it in its proper box. I didn’t know enough about Delbert Frye to guess his reaction to such news, but given his age and hermitlike ways, it was entirely possible that he would do something drastic to keep this type of information buried.

  And perhaps “bury” anyone who threatened to expose the truth.

  I stood, cradling the box in my arms. I’d carry it inside and read through the documents more thoroughly, but even this quick perusal had turned up an additional reason for Delbert Frye to want to silence Mona Raymond.

  After closing up the archives, I walked back into the library, still considering this angle. To me, old gossip wasn’t enough to consider killing anyone, but I knew that wasn’t true for everyone. If a decades-old scandal in my own family had been enough to drive one of my older cousins to kill several people, a forbidden relationship between Ada and Violet, along with their possible murders by someone in their family, might be enough of a motive for Delbert Frye.

  It was another bit of information to tell Brad Tucker, at any rate. I set the archival box on a shelf in the workroom and called him to share this latest revelation.

  * * *

  “I would’ve asked Richard to come and get me this evening,” I told Aunt Lydia when she showed up with sandwiches, two bags of baby carrots, and bottled water, “but he has a late rehearsal at school.”

  “It’s no problem,” my aunt replied, spreading some paper towels over the worktable. “I needed to pick up some books anyway.” She glanced over at me as she unwrapped the sandwiches. “How’s Sunny doing?”

  “Like I told you, she’s pretty upset. Not really because of Brad, though.” I hovered near the workroom door so I could keep an eye on the desk. “It’s more about not ever finding anyone who can love her just as she is. It seems crazy to me, because I think she’s so amazing, but it seems her being herself is not what most men want.”

  “That’s a tricky thing.” Aunt Lydia unscrewed the lid on one of the bottles and took a long swallow of water. “I thought Andrew and I loved each other just as we were, but it turns out that wasn’t exactly the case. Well, the
error was more on my part than his, I suppose.” She set the bottle on the table and laid out the two packages of carrots. “Sometimes I think finding the right companion is really more luck than anything else. Meeting your best match seems so difficult, and yet it often happens by chance. Who would’ve thought I would find my best partner so late in life, and in such an unexpected way?”

  “You and Hugh are perfect for one another.”

  “But you have to admit that it was just luck that we met. Like you and Richard.” Aunt Lydia looked up at me from under her lowered lashes. “I like to think Sunny will experience the same good fortune one day. But it might take a while.”

  “Not too long, I hope,” I said as the bell at the desk rang. “Hold on, let me handle this.”

  I spied a tall figure with white hair as soon as I stepped behind the desk. “Hello, Kurt, what brings you here?”

  “I had a little business in town and thought I’d pop in and see if you were working this evening.” He spread his hands wide. “I would’ve called you later in any case, but since you’re here—how would you like to visit Mary Gardener tomorrow afternoon? She’s been talking about you ever since our last visit, so I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you again. Oh hello, Lydia,” he added, as my aunt stepped out of the workroom. “Volunteering tonight?”

  “No, just bringing Amy something to eat and then driving her home after work. Sunny had to leave suddenly, so Amy needed to stay later than she’d planned.”

  Kurt frowned. “I hope everything’s all right with Ms. Fields.”

  “She’s fine,” I said. “She just needed an afternoon off for … reasons. As for tomorrow, I think I can swing that. We close at five on Tuesdays now, and I’m sure Sunny will agree to handle things if I leave early. If you want to go in the afternoon like we did before, that is.”

  “That would be perfect. And Lydia, if you’re free, perhaps you’d like to join us? I think you might enjoy the visit. Mary is a wonderful storyteller and knows a great deal about local history. She may even have some tales to tell about your parents that you’ve never heard.”