Saving Scott (Kobo)

by Terry Odell

  “Bring the papers,” Kovak said.

  Scott gathered the photocopies and followed Kovak down the hall.

  Ashley barely acknowledged Scott when he entered the interrogation room. Kovak motioned for him to take the second chair, the same way he had when they’d first questioned Ashley. The detective seemed to prefer being able to move around when he asked his questions. Tempted as Scott was to take Ashley’s hands, which were clasped on the table in front of her, he convinced himself that what Ashley needed now was a cop on her side.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Felicity Markham,” Kovak said.

  Ashley met Kovak’s gaze. “I already told you. Our relationship, if you could call it that, was strained at best. She seemed to think I was going to put her out of business, and nothing I said changed her mind.”

  “Do you have reason to believe she was actively trying to stop you from opening your bakery?”

  Ashley’s eyes widened. “No. Why would I?”

  “You were having trouble with your construction project, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but Carl explained everything. Mix-ups happen. Accidents happen. Delays happen.”

  “Seems you had more than your share.” Kovak moved closer. He pulled one of the photocopies from the stack. “Have you ever seen this? We found it in the tea shop.”

  Scott kept his gaze fixed on Ashley’s face as she picked up the paper. The one that said, “Those idiots can’t do anything right.” He’d bet his badge—if he still had one—that her puzzled expression was genuine.

  “You think Felicity was conspiring with Carl? I can’t believe it.” Ashley shoved the paper across the table.

  Kovak replaced it in the stack. “Not Carl, necessarily. But he had a lot of subs working for him. And from what I’ve heard about Ms. Markham, she wasn’t above using her…charms…to convince people to do what she wanted.”

  Nothing Scott had found indicated that the victim had done anything of the kind, but Kovak wasn’t obligated to tell the truth. “What about this one?” Kovak pulled out another paper, the one that said she’d regret the bakeoff. He added the flyer. “Or this? You told me that Ms. Markham was the only merchant who hadn’t agreed to hand out your flyers. But we found a stack of them torn up in her trash.”

  Ashley’s gaze moved from the papers to Kovak, to Scott, then back to Kovak. “I gave some flyers to her assistant. Paige. She said she’d put them in the customers’ bags and not tell Felicity. I guess Felicity found them.”

  “And the other one?”

  “I have no idea. Everything is running smoothly for the bakeoff.” She unclasped her hands and curled them into fists. “You can ask the committee. I gave you their names when you questioned me the first time. Maybe they know something.”

  “I will,” Kovak said. His demeanor shifted, gentled. A touch more good cop. “You understand, that if you knew about any of this, it gives you a reason to want Ms. Markham out of your way.”

  ***

  Ashley gripped the table as the room spun. Now they thought she was a suspect? This couldn’t be happening. She looked to Scott for answers, but he was pointedly avoiding her gaze. Did he know about this? It could explain his sudden shift in mood this morning. “I … I …” She cleared her throat. Drew in some air. Exhaled slowly. Shook her head. “I didn’t know any of this. I told you, Felicity was cold to me. And she had that tantrum at Elaine’s studio, but I had no idea it ran this deep. I thought that once my bakery was open, she’d see that she wasn’t losing customers to me. I would never harm her. And why would I leave her body in the bakery?”

  Kovak lowered a hip to the table, leaning into her. She fought the urge to tilt away. She had nothing to hide.

  “I agree, it would have been a stupid thing to do,” Kovak said. “Unless you were trying to make us think it had to be someone else who committed the crime because you wouldn’t point the finger at yourself. Or maybe you didn’t realize you’d given her enough of the drug to kill her.”

  “May I?” Scott interrupted.

  She tried to read him, but when he was in cop mode, he might as well be a statue. Was he trying to help, or did he have yet another argument pointing to her as a murderer?

  Scott put another piece of paper in front of her. “Can you explain what this might mean?”

  She saw me. Can’t risk that she noticed.

  “Nothing comes to mind. You’re sure this refers to me? Maybe she was paranoid and thought lots of people were out to get her. You know, looking for other people to blame for her business failures.”

  “We’ll definitely consider that,” Detective Kovak said. “But for now, let’s assume it’s you. What did you see?”

  Ashley closed her eyes, trying to remember her encounters with Felicity. She’d gone to Felicitea with her flyers. There had been nothing out of the ordinary, not that she knew what was normal in the tea shop. But Felicity hadn’t seemed nervous. And at Elaine’s? If Felicity had anything she was going to show Elaine that Ashley shouldn’t have seen, why have it in the open? That left the grocery store. She repeated her encounter to Detective Kovak, exactly as she had when he’d questioned her the first time.

  “If I show you pictures of the tea shop, do you think you could tell if something was unusual?” Detective Kovak asked. “You’re both in the food business. Maybe something will jump out at you.”

  “Sure,” Ashley said. “But I’ve only been in there a few times. I don’t know if I’d remember.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Detective Kovak asked. “Coffee, soda, water?”

  “Water would be wonderful,” she said.

  Once Detective Kovak was gone, Scott took her hands in his and squeezed. “You’re doing fine. I have to be neutral here, or they won’t let me help with the case.”

  She craned her neck toward the doorway, making sure they were still alone. “Does he really suspect me?” she whispered.

  “I don’t think so. But he’s doing the right thing, given these diary entries.”

  “Dotting Is and crossing Ts?”

  Scott smiled, and some of her tension evaporated. “Yep. Normal cop stuff.” He let go of Ashley’s hand and sat back in his cop posture.

  Kovak returned with a large stack of papers and a bottle of water. He set both on the table. “These are the pictures Connor took at the tea shop. I think he was having too much fun trying out a new lens, but tell me if you notice anything that Felicity might have thought you shouldn’t have seen.”

  Ashley took the pictures. Her brain was too busy trying to figure out if it would be a good thing or a bad thing if she saw something that might have triggered Felicity’s note to process what she was seeing. She opened the bottle of water and let the liquid counteract the dryness in her mouth.

  Calmer, she studied the images. It appeared that every inch of the front of the house had been captured. Display cases filled with salads, sandwiches and cookies. Teapots, teacups. Her heart pounded a bit as she remembered the blue-flowered mugs. Were there any here? She leafed through the pictures, scanning for the mugs, but found none.

  Shaking her head, she set them down. “Nothing unusual.” She picked up another batch, these of the kitchen and back of the house. Typical kitchen accoutrements. She continued perusing the photos, straining to see something that might provide a clue. Pantry, walk-in fridge. Pictures with the doors closed, pictures with them open.

  “Anything?” Detective Kovak’s voice broke her concentration.

  “I don’t—Wait.” Ashley went through the stack again, finding the pictures of the front of the house, zeroing in on the menu board behind the counter. “Here.” She tapped a photo. “See. It says, We use only the freshest ingredients. Organic and locally grown.”

  She set out a photo of the inside of the refrigerator. “This. I saw her buying groceries, but I don’t think I’d ever have made the connection.”

  “What?” Scott said.

  “The produce. It’s all regular grocery st
ore product, not organic. When we bumped carts, she probably thought I’d discovered her secret.”

  Detective Kovak picked up the photos and paced the small room. “Reasonable assumption. She’s losing money. She starts cutting corners. She’s on edge, thinks that someone might find out.”

  “And because she’s got this secret,” Scott added, “she’s on hyper-alert. She worries that everyone’s out to discover it. Borderline paranoia, perhaps.”

  “Typical behavior,” Kovak said. “And because she’s already pegged Ashley as the enemy, she’s convinced her secret is out, and that Ashley is going to expose her.”

  Ashley sensed where this was going. Scott and Detective Kovak had just strengthened her motive for getting rid of Felicity.

  Detective Kovak seemed to sense her thoughts. He bored her with her gaze. “So, somewhere down the line, Felicity Markham confronts you. Threatens you, perhaps. Maybe she’s blackmailing you to keep your mouth shut. Or maybe you find out she was behind some of the accidents with your construction and want to get back at her. You invite her over for a quiet talk. Offer her some hot chocolate. It’s drugged, and she dies.”

  Ashley sat there, her mouth agape. How could he be saying these things? She bolted to her feet. “This is crazy. All of it. First, I did no such thing, and wouldn’t do it even if I thought Felicity was threatening me. I’d have gone to you—to the cops. And you’ve got a lot of pieces left over. Like the upstairs, and where I got the drugs, and why there was only one mug, and—”

  Both men exchanged another one of those irritating cop glances. Scott smiled.

  “What?” Ashley demanded.

  “It’s all right, Miss Eagan,” Detective Kovak said. “You’re free to go.” He picked up the pictures and left the room.

  She looked at Scott. “What happened?”

  “Dotting Is and crossing Ts,” Scott said. “You gave Kovak a nice lead—someone else might have known about the non-organic scam. And he’s a good reader of body language. Plain to see you weren’t faking your responses.”

  “And if he hadn’t believed me?” she asked, still off balance.

  Scott leaned on the table and hoisted himself to his feet. “I’d have set him straight.”

  Why wasn’t she convinced?

  Chapter 23

  Scott read doubt in Ashley’s eyes. Justifiable, perhaps, considering he’d been playing the role of cop while Kovak had peppered her with what bordered on accusations of guilt. When she stood, clutching her purse in front of her chest like a shield, he waited for her to say something.

  Instead, she narrowed her eyes, flattened her lips, and spun away from him. He watched, rooted to the floor, as she flounced out the door.

  Reluctantly, he let her go. He’d do more good searching for the real killer. He figured Ashley was near the bottom of Kovak’s list. Belinda was Scott’s priority now. But first, he needed to make sure Detweiler was alerted to what Ashley had uncovered. If Paige Haeber worked in the tea shop, surely she knew the organic angle was a ruse, even if a temporary one.

  He found Kovak in the detectives’ office. Once again, Scott preferred to use the empty silence approach. Although cops were wise to its workings, he had a feeling Kovak would fill the void.

  For a long moment, the silence was palpable. Then Kovak spoke. “You don’t think I was too hard on her, do you?”

  Scott avoided the immediate gut response of “Damn right, I think you were too harsh.” He eased himself into a chair. “No, you needed to see her reactions, and since you cut her loose, I assume she passed.”

  “Either that or she’s going to get the next Oscar for best performance by a lying murderer.” Kovak’s smile softened his words.

  “There are a lot of holes in the scenario if she’s your lead suspect.”

  “Agreed.” Kovak stepped to the white board, which they’d never returned to the break room. He hadn’t erased the X across Ashley’s name, either. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, simply staring at it. Scott recognized the behavior. He’d done it countless times himself, always hoping answers would appear. And sometimes they did, although not on the board. But he was a firm believer that they worked their way deep into his subconscious and surfaced later, when something triggered them.

  Ashley had been right. Until they uncovered more information, they had a puzzle with too many pieces. Although people killed for reasons a normal person would think trivial—like uncovering the use of non-organic vegetables—to Scott, that wasn’t a motive he was buying.

  Was the upstairs room really part of the murder scene? Where did the drugs come from, and who had access? Or did the victim have yet another secret?

  Money was a strong motivator, both for the victim and for Ashley. Her life, at the moment, revolved around the bakery’s success. And while on paper, that might be motive to kill, Ashley didn’t fit the profile.

  Kovak picked up a marker and wrote, “Non-organic food” in the column devoted to the victim. “You think the victim would have killed to keep the secret?”

  “From what I saw of her at the photography studio, she’s definitely half a bubble off center. But I couldn’t judge her based on that single outburst. And speaking of the secret, did you give Detweiler a heads up?”

  Kovak nodded. “Right after I left interrogation. He’ll push that angle.” Kovak shoved away from the desk. “And now I’m going to pay a few visits to the bakeoff committee members. Dot a few more Is, cross a few more Ts, and maybe pick up a clue along the way.”

  “You know, I’m not sure we should rule out suicide,” Scott said. “If the victim was unbalanced, killing herself in Ashley’s bakery could have been an extreme way of getting back at what she perceived as her nemesis.”

  “Like the ultimate, I’ll show you.”

  “Of course that would put us back at square one,” Scott said.

  “But since we’re hardly out of square two, that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe you can research that angle. If she shifted to non-organic food, maybe she changed her mind about her body being a temple.”

  Scott doubted it. Her personal philosophy and her business were most likely two separate animals, but it couldn’t hurt to check. Another set of Ts and Is. “Will do.”

  Kovak left, and Scott resumed his hunt for more about Belinda Nesbitt. Short of asking her why she’d changed schools, he’d hit a dead end. There wasn’t a police database that included that kind of information.

  Once again, he took a less sophisticated approach. Sure enough, Belinda had a Facebook page. Two, in fact. One for herself, and one for The Happy Cook. Scott logged on using the account he’d created under a pseudonym back in his days as an official detective. Amazing what people would reveal to an anonymous “friend.” He put in a friend request for her personal page. He clicked the “like” button on her store page, which didn’t require any approval.

  As he expected, the store page was strictly marketing. The usual. Location, directions, reviews. Lots of pictures, plus notes about products and special deals. He’d scrolled through a couple pages of comments when the idea to do the same for the victim’s store wormed its way through the muddle of his brain. He should have done it a lot sooner. Meds one, detective, zero.

  The victim didn’t have a personal page, but like Belinda Nesbitt, she did have one for her store. Scott clicked his way in and bookmarked the site. Bouncing from task to task was a sure-fire way to have something slip through the cracks. He needed to finish with The Happy Cook sites first.

  Nothing remarkable on the Facebook page. Then again, as the page owner, Belinda could have deleted any negative comments. He jotted down names of some frequent commenters to research later. Next, he checked the Internet for feedback about her store. Not a lot, which didn’t surprise him given the size of Pine Hills. A few reviews, nothing particularly negative. While he waited to see if Belinda accepted his alter-ego’s friend request, he shifted his attention to Felicitea. The Facebook page was no more rewarding than The Happy Co
ok. Felicitea had a lot more “likes”, but that could be attributed to the fact that the shop had been in business a lot longer than Belinda Nesbitt’s.

  He moved from Facebook to Google results for the tea shop. Not much different from the Facebook page, Felicitea’s official website touted her claims of only the freshest, locally grown, organic ingredients.

  Had someone discovered her substitutions? And what if they had? Scott couldn’t buy that as a motive for murder. A lawsuit was more likely.

  He rubbed his eyes and jotted a note to check the official databases for that one.

  He moved to the sites where people could leave reviews. Here, the victim wouldn’t have had the power to delete the negative ones. Ratings ran the gamut, and for a variety of reasons, many of which had no correlation with the quality of food. People would give low ratings because they’d visited on a rainy day and there was no covered parking. Overall, she had more positive than negatives, and the positives did relate to food and service. Nothing about organics or the lack thereof.

  Detweiler entered the room, covering the distance between doorway and desk in a few, long strides. He flopped a stack of paper next to Scott. “Felicitea’s shop records for the last six months. Thanks for the heads up. The assistant changed her tune when I opened the refrigerator and showed her the evidence. She claims it’s not a big deal. According to her, seasonality is a major factor in getting everything organic, that they had to fill the gaps with non-organics.”

  “You believe her?”

  Detweiler pointed at the paper, which on closer inspection was a conglomeration of receipts, computer printouts, and who knew what else. “How are your eyes?”

  “Still functioning fine.” Unlike his leg, which pounded unmercifully.

  “Then that’s your next assignment. See if you can see when the changes started, how much was organic, how much wasn’t.” He grinned. “Of course, you can always go back to phones and filing. I can recruit a uniform looking to earn points.”