Past Due for Murder

by Victoria Gilbert

  “I aim to please,” he said, before leaning in to kiss me.

  As he pulled me closer, Loie meowed and leapt off my lap. “Uh-oh, you just pissed off the cat,” I said.

  “The cat will get over it.”

  We didn’t talk for some time after that, but after a while, Loie’s incessant mewing forced us apart.

  “Crap, I forgot to feed her.” Richard leapt up and strode toward the kitchen. “Come on, fur ball.”

  Loie raced after him while I giggled and called out, “Bad daddy.”

  “Trust me, she’s not starving,” Richard replied.

  After he returned and settled back beside me, I considered how to broach the subject of Lacey again, finally just launching into Charles’s tale about finding her hat at the accident scene.

  “I can’t believe he’s never informed the authorities about that detail,” Richard said. “It sounds like he’s protecting Lacey, but why? He doesn’t strike me as a person who’d be concerned about some random young woman’s future.”

  “I know. That seems odd to me as well. Charles is all about self-preservation. Acting altruistic …” I shook my head. “It’s out of character, for sure.”

  “Unless he really is looking out for himself in some way,” Richard said thoughtfully.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe Lacey has something on him? Some dirt he doesn’t want exposed?” Richard straightened. “She does know him, at least in passing.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Lacey was part of a performance I choreographed to Bartos’s music. Remember, I told you about it when we were discussing Charles once. Granted, the collaboration was a one-time event. That joint project didn’t last long, and I actually made sure I never worked with him again because he was such a pain.”

  “I know. I certainly wouldn’t forget you telling me about that because it also explained exactly how you felt about Charles. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I told you that Charles Bartos was rude to all of my students, and for the most part he was. In fact, he was downright mean to most of them. They actually begged me not to allow him to play for any of our studio performances again, and I was happy to oblige that request. But now that I think of it, there was one girl he occasionally praised.”

  “Lacey?”

  “Yeah. He even held her up as an example to the other dancers. Said she didn’t seem to need the constant repetition of passages like they did, and that he wished they were all such quick studies.” Richard rubbed his jaw. “I shut that nonsense down immediately, of course, but now I wonder …”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Two summers ago. Before I was hired at Clarion full-time.”

  “So she knows him, at least a little. Enough to know who he was if she caught him doing something illegal or immoral.” I lifted Loie off my lap and gently placed her beside me on the sofa. “I didn’t tell you this before, because … well, just because of all the crazy stuff that’s been happening lately, but Mona warned me that she had some dirt on Charles. Something she thought would compel him to do what she wanted. I wonder if Lacey uncovered that information as well.”

  “Could be. But it still seems strange that Bartos would allow her to go scot-free when it comes to the accident. You do think he loved Marlis?”

  “As much as he can love anyone.” I flicked some dried mud from my slacks. “They were crazy about each other, at least from what I hear. As recently as this past November, anyway. Zelda said she and Walt were at one of Charles’s performances, and when they went backstage to see a friend, they almost fell over Charles and Marlis. Well, she actually just called her ‘a lovely blonde,’ since she had no idea who she was. But apparently Marlis was draped all over Charles to the point where it almost made Zelda blush. And that takes some doing, believe me.”

  “Yeah, embarrassing Zelda wouldn’t be that easy.” Richard sat bolt upright. “Wait a minute, when in November?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “It might.” Richard reached over and popped open his laptop. “Does Bartos post his concert schedule?”

  “On his website. At least he used to.”

  Richard handed me the computer. “Can you look that up? I’m really curious about the date of that particular concert.”

  “Okay.” I entered the address for Charles’s professional website and pulled up the page listing his performances. “This must be it—a one-shot at the Kennedy Center in DC. That’s the venue that Zelda mentioned.” I looked over at Richard. “November tenth.”

  He shook his head. “That’s impossible. Marlis couldn’t have been there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that was the weekend of Fall Dance. November tenth would’ve been the Friday dress rehearsal, since performances were Saturday and Sunday. Remember—you attended the Saturday show, on the eleventh.”

  “I remember, but …” I stared down at the computer screen. “Marlis played a violin solo as an accompaniment to one of the pieces. She even sat on the stage.”

  “Right. Deidre’s piece. And Marlis was at the dress rehearsal on the tenth too. I remember clearly because I was helping troubleshoot the lights and we had such a time trying to illuminate her while not distracting from the actual dancing.” Richard drummed his fingers against his knee. “So she couldn’t have been the blonde Zelda saw at that concert.”

  The truth rose up and swept over me like a tidal wave. “Lacey.”

  “Had to be.” Richard slumped back against the sofa cushions. “That explains a lot, including why she might’ve wanted to talk to me about something personal before she disappeared. Maybe she wanted my help to deal with her affair with a professor. Maybe she even wanted out but didn’t know how to extract herself from the situation.” He rubbed at his jaw. “And I just blew her off.”

  “You couldn’t have known she was in such a mess.”

  “No, but I should’ve asked. I should have listened.”

  I stroked his tensed arm. “None of this is your fault. Anyway, they apparently hid it well, especially if it started up a few years ago.” I made a face. “Ugh, how old was Lacey then, anyway?”

  Richard grimaced. “Eighteen or nineteen, I guess. Legal, but just. Anyway, it isn’t right, no matter the age. As a professor, Bartos held a position of authority, and he abused it.”

  “If that girl at the concert really was Lacey.”

  “You did hear that she was supposedly hooking up with some older man.”

  “At least according to her parents. Hope said they never met him, but they knew that much.”

  Richard’s expression grew thoughtful. “I’m pretty sure Lacey still lives in a dorm. Which probably means that she had to meet him somewhere off campus.”

  “At his place, I imagine.” I placed Richard’s laptop on the coffee table.

  “Maybe. But didn’t he and Marlis live together?” Richard shot me a raised-eyebrow glance. “I mean, they could’ve met there occasionally, when they knew Marlis would be away, but maybe they also hooked up when he was on the road?”

  “Based on Zelda’s memory, it seems so.” I scooted forward as Richard tapped something into the laptop’s keyboard. “What are you looking up?”

  “My gradebook. It’s on the campus integrated system. Password-protected, of course.” He shot me a glance. “Lacey missed some days in the studio here and there this fall. I want to see if there’s a pattern.”

  “You mean if it was long weekends or something?”

  “Right. And when it started. She never missed a day at the beginning of the semester but started skipping later. Come to think of it, that happened last year as well.”

  I sat back as Richard scrolled through the records. “But that won’t really confirm she was involved with Charles.”

  “No, but it’s more evidence.”

  I sat back. “So what’s the verdict?”

  “Well, when she did miss studio, at least this fal
l, it was primarily on Fridays and Mondays. A long weekend sounds about right.”

  “Wait, I have an idea.” I opened the shallow drawer under the coffee table and pulled out a notepad and pen. “Call out those dates for me.”

  As I jotted down the information, Loie padded back into the room and over to the sofa. “Watch out—kitten incoming.”

  Loie jumped onto the coffee table just as Richard pulled the computer onto his lap. “Why’d you want those dates?”

  “I want to see if they corollate with Charles’s out-of-town performances. Can you pull up his website again? Should be under the history tab.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  I handed him the piece of paper before patting my knees to draw Loie to my lap.

  “Well, look at that,” Richard said, after only a moment. “It matches up exactly.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “I doubt it.” He slid the laptop back onto the coffee table. “What do you think?”

  “I think Charles was cheating on Marlis just like he cheated on me. And here I thought he truly loved her.”

  Richard sat back and slid his arm over my shoulders. “Maybe he did. But it seems Bartos is not one for monogamy, whether he loves someone or not.” He pulled me close to his side. “If our theory is correct, that could very well be the reason he won’t implicate Lacey.”

  “Because she might confess the truth about their affair in retaliation.” I stroked Loie with one hand while I laid my other hand on Richard’s knee. “Or even if she didn’t want to hurt him, it would certainly come out when she was interrogated.”

  “Right.” Richard covered my fingers with his free hand. “And with Clarion’s new ‘no tolerance’ policy on such things, Bartos would likely be fired.”

  “So he was just looking out for himself,” I said.

  “Sounds like it.” Richard caressed my fingers. “We really do need to tell Brad Tucker or someone at the sheriff’s office about Charles finding Lacey’s hat at the scene.”

  “Yeah, but”—I twisted my neck to look up at him—“could we wait until Lacey is out of the coma? Not to spare Charles, but so she has an opportunity to confess. I mean, if she can. It seems like that might help her case in the long run, and I’d like to give her that chance.”

  “I suppose. It’s only hearsay, anyway. But if she doesn’t say anything, and Bartos doesn’t speak up either …”

  “I’ll talk to Brad, I promise.” I snuggled back against Richard and considered our new theory. If it was true, it explained a great deal—why Lacey might have finally experienced a breakdown leading to her disappearance, and even the dirt that Mona had claimed to have on Charles. It also cleared up my niggling question about why Charles wouldn’t report Lacey to the authorities after he found her hat at the scene of a crime.

  If his story was true.

  I pulled away from Richard and stood up, dislodging Loie, who slid from my lap. Landing on her feet, she arched her back and hissed.

  “Now look who’s disturbed the cat.” Richard cast me an inquiring glance. “What’s up?”

  “I just realized that part of our theory could be very wrong.” Walking over to the bookshelf, I picked up the gold brooch that lay beside a framed photo of Paul Dassin. “I should’ve known better. After everything we’ve been through, I should’ve learned that making assumptions about people is a great mistake.”

  Richard stood and crossed to stand beside me. “What’s wrong with our theory?”

  “We’ve assumed that Charles told me the truth about finding Lacey’s hat at the accident scene. But what if it came into his possession in a different way?”

  Richard’s gray eyes widened. “You mean she left it at his mountain house during one of their secret rendezvous?”

  “Or at the loft.” I tapped the brooch against my palm. “Charles mentioned something about Marlis jogging early in the morning. He said she’d grab scarves and gloves and such from the hall closet in the dark and that he often teased her about wearing mismatched things when she returned from her run.”

  Richard’s expression grew more thoughtful. “If Lacey had tossed her knitted hat into the closet during one of her secret hookups with Charles and left it there by mistake, Marlis might have been wearing it when she was hit.”

  I placed the brooch back on the shelf and turned to face Richard. “It might also mean another thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Think about it. The hat is the only connection to Lacey and the hit-and-run at this point. I mean, she did tell Hope and Chris that she had to have repair work done on her car after hitting a deer around that time, but that could be a coincidence.”

  “True. It’s not uncommon to encounter deer around Clarion, especially out on the side roads.” Richard took two steps back and looked me up and down. “Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I imagine so. We only have Charles’s word that he was first on the scene after someone else hit Marlis and that he found Lacey’s hat there in a ditch.”

  “He could be lying.”

  “As he does, not infrequently, it seems. Which means that Lacey may not be the only one who could’ve run down Marlis Dupre and left her to die. It’s possible that Marlis’s killer was actually her cheating lover.”

  Richard whistled, causing Loie to look up at both of us with slitted eyes. “Charles Bartos.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I returned home, but not until after I promised Richard to tell no one about our suspicions until I could speak to Brad or one of his deputies face-to-face.

  “Stay away from Bartos,” Richard had said as he kissed me goodbye.

  “Trust me, I will,” I’d replied with fervor.

  I put in a call to the sheriff’s office as soon as I reached my bedroom, but of course it was late and I couldn’t speak to anyone unless it was a dire emergency. Which it wasn’t, I realized. Whatever his guilt or innocence, Charles had no idea that either Richard or I suspected his story about Lacey or his relationship with the girl. There was no logical reason for him to take any action against us. Any meeting with the authorities could wait until the next day.

  I called again the next morning and obtained a four o’clock appointment with Brad. Which was fine by me, as it would allow me to work most of my regular shift at the library.

  Not long before lunch, Chris Garver appeared at the circulation desk asking for access to the archives.

  “Trish and Hope are with me,” he said. “They’re waiting out back by my car. We’d just like to collect some of Mona’s notes we think she left in the archives. Could we take a look?”

  “Sure,” I said, glancing over at Sunny, who pointed to herself and then the desk, indicating she’d cover things inside. “I’ll escort you.”

  “Could we also have a little time to check over a few additional files?” Chris asked as we walked outside.

  “Something about a treasure?”

  He stopped short in the middle of the parking lot. “You figured that out?”

  His obvious chagrin over this disclosure, as well as his nonthreatening posture, led me to believe that of the three students, he was the least likely to have been responsible for Mona’s death. I shook my finger at him. “You didn’t file that document properly.”

  “Sorry.” Chris hung his head. “Yeah, I saw a letter that mentioned gold coins and I told Ethan about it. He decided to do some searching while he was out in the woods. It was just fun, like a game, but then when Professor Raymond got killed …”

  I lowered my voice as Hope and Trish walked toward us. “So the others also know about the coins?”

  “Not sure.” Chris’s dark eyes widened. “You don’t think they could be involved?”

  I pressed my fingers to my lips for a second before speaking. “Hi guys, I’m going to open up the archives and let you all work alone for a bit. I trust you,” I added, casting Chris a significant look.

  “Thank you, Ms. Webber,” Hope said as they follo
wed me over to the small fieldstone building. “We were talking about the professor’s research earlier and decided that we should at least compile everything she’d collected, and even take some notes on things she didn’t get a chance to look at yet. Maybe another folklore specialist can edit it into something that could eventually be published, with Professor Raymond getting some of the credit.”

  “Perhaps Trish could do that,” I said, unlocking the doors and standing to the side as the students filed past me.

  “I don’t know. Not sure that I have the proper expertise yet,” Trish said.

  I flicked on the overhead light and examined the graduate student, noting her pinched face and the dark circles beneath her eyes. “You could work with another professor. I just think it would be good to have someone who knew Mona fairly well take over her research.”

  “I doubt I’ll be able to do that,” Trish said, before turning away to stare at the shelves.

  “Okay then, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll just need one of you to come into the library and let Sunny or me know when you’re done so we can lock up.”

  “Sure thing,” Chris said as he pulled a box off one of the shelves.

  When I returned to the circulation desk, Sunny gave me a questioning look. “You left them alone in there?”

  “I don’t think they’ll do any damage. Chris, at least, knows he can’t pull another fast one on us.”

  “You really think he was our culprit?” Sunny’s bracelets jangled as she piled returned books next to the computer.

  “I do, and he just confirmed it. Not sure about the others, but he definitely saw the letter and told Ethan Payne about it. Which explains why I ran into Ethan out in the woods searching for the coins.” I met Sunny’s inquiring gaze. “Okay, I haven’t had time to tell you, but I had a little adventure after I left work yesterday.” Looking up, I noticed one of our regular patrons staring at the nonfiction shelves with a puzzled expression. “But I probably should check with Samantha first. It looks like she may need some help.”

  “Go ahead. I want to hear your story, but it will keep for later.” Sunny opened one of the books and swept a wand over its bar code to check it in. “Dawn is supposed to show up around noon today to put in her volunteer hours, so you can fill me in at lunch.”