Shades of Murder

by J A Whiting

  Whoever signed the lease was consumed with vengeance.

  Standing still and looking down at the rental car agreement, she wondered what could cause such feelings. What could have happened to make the driver of the car turn to murder? What could the driver have believed about Pepper where the only solution was to kill her?

  An icy chill ran down her back.

  Nell shoved the lease back into the evidence bag before tugging off the surgical gloves and tossing them into the trash basket near the chief’s desk. She took the bag and hurried out of the office to the conference room.

  The door was open and Chief Lambert sat at the long table working at his laptop. Nell appeared in the room with such suddenness that the man looked up quickly from his work.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Nell sank into the chair beside him, and pushing her auburn hair behind her ears and leaning her head onto her hand, she told what she saw and felt while examining the lease agreement.

  Chief Lambert tried to keep his expression even, but his eyebrows rose up his forehead as Nell talked.

  “Well. That’s amazing,” he said when she’d finished reporting what had happened.

  “It wasn’t any help though. It didn’t reveal anything about the killer … except that he had to settle a score, he had to exact revenge. It was his mission and he wouldn’t stop until he punished whoever he believed to have wronged him.”

  “It tells us more than we knew before you looked at the rental paperwork,” Chief Lambert told her. “Someone was out for revenge. Some slight or harm done had to be punished.”

  “It sort of fits with David Belk, doesn’t it?” Nell suggested. “He is enraged that Pepper gave him the bad grade. He blames her for ruining his chances of getting the jobs he wanted. To his way of thinking, Pepper ruined his life.”

  The chief gave a nod. “It also could fit in with Dr. Atkins Murray. He hasn’t come right out and stated it, but I bet he feels Pepper destroyed his chance at love and a permanent relationship. And from what you’ve told me, he harbored feelings of resentment towards Pepper. Maybe he’s careful not to verbalize any stronger feelings of anger he had for Pepper.”

  Nell looked down at the table, shaken by the experience with the car lease. “There’s something else that bothers me about all this.” She paused before going on. “Is there anyone else the killer thinks he has to snuff out? Is there someone else in danger? Or has the mission been completed with Pepper’s death?”

  21

  The three small seascape paintings were finished, carefully wrapped, and ready for delivery to William at The Sandy Rose. Nell was relieved to have completed the commissioned work on time and she carried the paintings inside to the inn.

  She was surprised to see William standing in the foyer behind the check-in desk looking frazzled. Two couples were waiting for their keys, but the rooms were still being cleaned. Another couple was ready to check out and looked impatient about having to wait.

  An older woman hurried up to William brushing aside a man and woman. “The faucet in the bathtub won’t turn off. It’s going to overflow.”

  Nell placed the paintings in William’s office and came back out front to hear what the woman had just reported.

  “I used the walkie-talkie to contact Bobby, but he isn’t answering,” William told Nell.

  “Shall I go upstairs and see if I can turn off the faucet?”

  “Would you?” William looked at the young woman with desperation. “What a day.”

  In a few minutes, Nell was back downstairs. “I got a bucket from the housekeeper and used it to drain some of the water out of the tub. I couldn’t turn off the faucet. Did Bobby respond to your call?”

  William shook his head. “I called his phone, too, and he still doesn’t answer. Will you run down to the workshop and his cottage and see if he’s there? As soon as I’m done here, I’ll go up and start bailing out the bathtub.”

  “What about a turnoff in the basement?” Nell asked.

  “It’s broken. Bobby hasn’t fixed it. I’m going to call a plumber to do it. Bobby gave his notice and is leaving in two weeks. I’m scrambling to find someone to take his place.”

  “He’s leaving? Where is he going?” Nell asked.

  “He’s moving back to the West Coast.”

  “Mr. Mathers, would you check us out, please,” a woman insisted.

  “I’ll go see if I can find him.” Nell darted from the inn and jogged down the pathway that led to Bobby’s cottage. When she reached the house, she knocked on the front door, but no one answered so she headed over to the workshop building.

  The door to the shop was open. “Bobby?” Nell called and stepped inside.

  Bobby wasn’t in the workshop and Nell noticed that a good amount of the man’s tools and many of his woodworking products had already been moved out of the space.

  The handyman’s desk was in a corner of the room near the door. Nell saw a pad of paper and a wooden pen crafted by the handyman, so she went over and wrote a short note telling Bobby about the urgent bathtub problem.

  The desk drawer was partially open and Nell couldn’t help seeing a small framed photo of Bobby and a woman at a beach, embracing one another and smiling out from the picture. The two of them looked happy and carefree.

  Nell heard the scuff of a work boot at the door’s threshold and she looked up to see Bobby coming into the workshop carrying some empty clay flowerpots.

  He stared at Nell. “What are you doing?” The color pink started to shade the man from his feet to his head, and then the color changed from pink to a deep, dark red.

  “Nothing.” Nell stammered feeling like she’d been caught doing something wrong. “I was looking for you. I left a note. A bathtub is overflowing at the inn. William couldn’t contact you. He needs you right away.”

  Bobby glanced at the open desk drawer and the colors he reflected began to change from red to green to orange, and back to red.

  Feeling like she’d invaded the handyman’s space, Nell moved towards the door. “William was becoming desperate. I offered to come find you. I need to get back to my store. See you later. Good luck with the tub.”

  * * *

  Sitting in the studio in the backroom of the shop, Nell and Violet sipped iced teas while Nell told her sister what had happened at the inn when she’d dropped off the artwork. Iris rested in her dog bed in the corner of the room, but she had her eyes open and her ears twitched every now and then as if she was listening to the conversation.

  “Bobby’s moving away?” Violet asked.

  “That’s what William said. It must be a sudden decision because William is desperate to find someone to take Bobby’s place before he leaves.”

  “Remember when we were in the garage getting ready for our bike ride and Bobby came in to apologize for being a little rude when you tried to talk to him?” Violet asked.

  Nell nodded.

  “He said he had some things on his mind,” Violet recalled. “This move must have been what he was debating about.”

  “You must be right. I wonder why he wants to move out west.”

  “Maybe he’s looking for a place with a milder winter. I wouldn’t blame him one bit. A move to a warmer climate sounds pretty good when it’s winter.”

  Nell told her sister how uncomfortable she felt when Bobby came into the workshop. “I felt like I had invaded his space. He seemed wary of me, like I’d been spying on him. I almost felt guilty.”

  “You were looking for him. The door was open. It was a plumbing emergency.”

  “He’d left the desk drawer open,” Nell said. “I saw a photo of him with a woman tucked away in the drawer. He looked at me like I had opened all the drawers and was snooping around.”

  “Gosh, you’d never do that,” Violet said.

  “I know that and you know that, but Bobby doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know I’d never go through someone’s things.”

  “He got angry, huh? You picke
d up on his emotions?”

  “I did. He wasn’t pleased about me being near his desk,” Nell said. “I saw red all over him. Orange, too. And green.”

  “What does green represent?” Violet asked.

  “It was really dark green, almost black.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Nell lifted her phone and checked her notes for the list of colors and their meanings that she’d saved. “Black can mean a bunch of things from life, to mystery, to death. Green can represent envy, rebirth, wisdom.” Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t have a clue what a greenish-black color could mean.”

  “You need to talk to someone who can see what you can see,” Violet suggested.

  “Yeah.” Nell rested her chin in her hand and rolled her eyes. “Good luck finding that person. I think I’m on my own here.”

  Violet said, “I can’t see the colors, but I can offer you support and be a sounding-board for you. We can put our heads together. I know I’m not that much help, but you’re never completely on your own.”

  Nell gave her sister a soft smile and a hug. “I know that, and I’m not sure what I’d do without you.”

  Iris yipped from her place on her dog bed and wagged her tail.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you either.” Violet teased, “You sure keep life interesting.”

  “Sometimes, too interesting.” Nell shook her head. “I need to apologize to Bobby next time he’s here working on the deck for barging into his work space without permission.”

  “You think that’s necessary?”

  “I do. We wouldn’t like it if someone came back here if we weren’t around.”

  “That’s true,” Violet agreed. “You’re right. I think Bobby would appreciate the apology.”

  Nell looked out the window and out to the ocean way off in the distance. “Ever since I got home from the inn, something’s been picking at me about that car rental agreement I looked at.”

  “Really? What is it that’s bothering you?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.” Nell’s mind kept returning to the document. Images of the four-page lease had been popping into her mind making her feel uneasy and anxious.

  “It might be because you know the person who signed it is a killer,” Violet said with disgust in her voice. “You saw his signature. You know he leased the car for one purpose. To run down Pepper Forrest.”

  “It’s a sickening thought,” Nell said. “The killer held that document right in his hands. If only the police could retrieve DNA from the paper.”

  Violet sat up. “Did they try to get fingerprints from it?”

  “There was nothing viable.” Nell sighed. “The person who signed that paper was careful about that.”

  “What about the pen he used? Did he leave any fingerprints on that?”

  Nell said, “The clerk at the rental company thought the guy used his own pen, and even if he didn’t, so many other people would have used the same pen that there would be no way to isolate one print from another.”

  Violet groaned. “The killer was smart. He used a disguise, he wore sunglasses and a wig. The security camera’s film is fuzzy. Things were really stacked in his favor.”

  “There has to be something,” Nell said almost in a whisper. “There has to be one little thing that will tip the scales in favor of figuring this out. All we need is that one little thing.”

  22

  Nell couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something and she’d been staring at her laptop screen for two hours since Violet and Iris had gone into the main part of the house to head to bed. She’d been searching for information about Pepper Forrest’s background and so far had come up empty.

  Nell found a minor reference of Pepper teaching at the high school in California and the more recent information about her being on staff at the university, but that was mostly it. Despite searching for news articles reporting the accident that killed her husband, Nell was striking out.

  On impulse, she picked up her phone and sent off a text. Because it was so late, she didn’t expect a reply until morning, so she shut down the laptop with a yawn, and dragged herself to bed.

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, Nell was up with the sun and because the shop wouldn’t open until noon, Violet went out for a long run.

  Nell could hear Bobby outside sawing boards and pounding on the deck, and she thought he must want to get the work done as soon as possible since he was planning his move in a couple of weeks. Deciding to go out to talk to him, she called to Iris to come with her.

  “Hey,” Nell called to Bobby. “How are things going?”

  Bobby put down his hammer. “Fine.”

  “Did you get the inn’s bathtub water problem taken care of?” she asked trying to be friendly.

  “Yeah. I did.” Bobby kicked at a stray nail on the deck. His manner was awkward and strained and he made Nell feel uncomfortable.

  John and Ida were having coffee on their porch and they waved warmly to their young neighbor. Iris spotted the couple, wagged her tail, and trotted across the lawn to go and sit with them.

  “William told me you’re moving away,” Nell said. “What made you decide to leave?”

  Bobby gave a shrug. “It’s time for a change.”

  “Are you moving to California?”

  “Haven’t decided yet. Maybe Oregon.”

  “Will you able to finish the deck before you leave?”

  “It’ll get done. Don’t worry about it.”

  Nell didn’t care for Bobby’s sullen attitude and didn’t think he should be acting so rude to her just because she’d gone into his workshop when he wasn’t there, but she decided she should respect his feelings. “Listen, I’m sorry about going into the workshop when you weren’t there. I should have waited for you to come back. I shouldn’t have gone inside without permission.”

  Bobby glared at Nell and used a sarcastic tone when he asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I was looking for you,” Nell said defensively.

  Red color began to flare and pulse all over Bobby’s frame, and Nell took a step back from him.

  “I wasn’t spying on you. William needed you. He needed you right away. I left you a note.”

  Bobby balled his hand into a fist. “You shouldn’t go snooping around. I don’t appreciate it.”

  “I wasn’t snooping.” Nell wheeled around and strode away to go back inside the house, her head pounding with anger. She couldn’t believe Bobby’s reaction. She’d apologized to him. He didn’t accept it. Nell wished the man would hurry up and finish the deck so she wouldn’t have to see him ever again.

  Nell’s poor mood eased somewhat after making an omelette for breakfast and drinking a cup of tea, and while sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop, she heard her phone buzz and saw an incoming text from Chief Lambert.

  The chief answered the questions she’d asked in her text from the previous night.

  Pepper’s real name was Penelope, her surname prior to marriage was Forrest, her husband’s name was Justin Randolph. It was never clear if Pepper changed her last name after marriage, kept her maiden name, or changed it to Randolph briefly and then changed it back to Forrest. The chief suggested that when doing a search on Pepper, Nell should try using both of the last names. Chief Lambert also gave her the date of Pepper and Justin’s marriage.

  After trying different combinations of names in a search, Nell finally found the articles she’d hoped for.

  This time an obituary for Justin Randolph came up on the screen as well as a news story about the man’s fatal accident.

  The article reported that Justin Randolph died when his car crashed through a small barrier on the California coast road and plummeted off the cliffs to the rocks below, killing him instantly. He left a wife of eight months, Penelope Forrest, a local high school teacher. The cause of the accident was still being investigated, but initial reports pointed to a faulty brake line.
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  When Nell sat up straight and blinked, her heart began to race. A faulty brake line?

  She scanned the news reports for the name of the reporter.

  Bradley Pointer.

  Nell did a search for the man and discovered he was still working for the same news service, and more importantly she found his email address. After composing an email to Bradley Pointer, Nell hoped he’d be up early and at his laptop despite the time difference between the coasts.

  The next thing she wanted to find was an article about the car accident Pepper and her fiancé had been involved in that required months of recovery for both of them. Searching and scrolling for several minutes, this time with the correct names, she discovered the article she’d been hunting for.

  Penelope Forrest, 22, and her fiancé, Justin Randolph, 25, were seriously injured in a two-vehicle accident. Mr. Randolph missed a stop sign and drove through an intersection hitting a car occupied by a couple in their mid-twenties. Melinda Prince was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband, J.R. Prince, was hospitalized with serious head injuries.

  Nell leaned back and took in a long breath. The woman died. How devastating. What a terrible accident to be involved in.

  When she heard a ding from her inbox, Nell was thrilled to see a response from Bradley Pointer. He remembered the accident of over ten years ago that killed Pepper’s husband and he’d pulled up his notes on it. Justin was driving an old car and it was totaled in the crash off the cliffs. The brake line was worn through, but the investigators couldn’t be sure if the line was cut due to age, from the crash, or from someone tampering with it.

  Justin’s wife, Pepper Forrest, worried the accident might be the result of foul play because although the car was old, Justin kept everything in good working order. Ms. Forrest was devastated by the loss of her husband and she decided to give notice at her teaching job and move to the East Coast.