by Jessica Beck
“What kind of business were they going to open?” I asked Momma. “Please tell me it wasn’t going to be a donut shop.”
“As a matter of fact, it was going to be a candle store,” Momma said. “They had a name picked out for it and everything: Wax, Wicks, and Us. I’m afraid that dream is gone forever.”
“What happens to the building now?” Jake asked.
Momma thought about it, and then she said, “You’ll have to ask Beatrice, but while we were finalizing the sale, I overheard them talking about having just visited their business attorney next to the yarn shop where she shops in Union Square. They arranged for a partnership agreement between them so that if one partner died, the other would inherit the entire business and all of its assets.”
“So, that would give Beatrice a motive for murder,” Jake said. “What’s the building worth?” he asked Momma.
“What did they pay for it, or how much was its value? They aren’t exactly the same questions, are they?” she asked with a slight smile.
“Let’s just deal with actual value,” Jake said.
“I put its value at one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars,” Momma said, “though they paid a tad more than that.”
“So it’s a substantial amount,” Jake said.
“I suppose two hundred thousand dollars could be considered significant in most circles, but is it enough to make someone commit murder?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” Jake said. “Do you have any suggestions as to who I should speak with in my investigation?” He turned to the chief and added, “That question is for you as well.”
“I don’t know many folks around here who really liked Evelyn besides Gabby Williams, but I can’t think of a soul who might want to see her dead,” the chief said.
“All I can say is that I suggest you speak directly with Beatrice,” Momma said.
“I’d planned on doing that soon enough,” Jake replied.
“Then I’m afraid that I’ve told you all that I can.”
“Good enough,” Jake said as he started to stand. “Thank you both for your time.” He offered his hand to the police chief, who took it. Jake added to him, “Sorry to put you through this. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”
“Just catch whoever did this so I can get my town back,” the chief said firmly.
“Hey, you’re still in charge of keeping the peace in April Springs. Don’t forget that. I’m just working one case.”
“Maybe so, but we both know that it doesn’t play out that way. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of job, and right now, I’m walking a tightrope.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Jake promised him, and then we left.
Once we were outside, I said, “Let’s go see what Beatrice has to say for herself.”
“What makes you think that you’re coming with me?” Jake asked me.
“Hey, I’m your driver, remember? Do you even know where Beatrice lives?”
“No, but I’m sure that I can find out without your help,” Jake said.
“Maybe so, but have you considered the possibility that Beatrice might speak a little freer if I’m there as well?”
“Suzanne, I’m not going to deputize you; you know that, don’t you?”
“That’s a shame, because I’d love to have my own badge, but honestly, I don’t want to be anything official. No offense, but you have too many rules that you have to follow for my taste.”
“Funny, I kind of like playing by the rules,” Jake said.
“Then you’re right where you belong,” I said. “Come on. Take me with you. What do you have to lose?”
“Suzanne, what if someone complains to my boss that I’ve got a civilian tagging along on my investigations? It’s one thing for you to go with me to see your mother, but it’s something entirely different if you accompany me to interview suspects.”
“Do you think Beatrice did it?” I asked him.
“I can think of two hundred thousand reasons that she might,” he said.
“I personally can’t imagine killing anyone for money,” I said.
Jake smiled slightly. “That’s just one of the reasons that I love you. But that doesn’t mean that you can go with me when I do my job.”
“Fine,” I said. I knew that he was right. There was no way that I was going to win this particular battle. Besides, I had a hunch that Beatrice wouldn’t give Jake the whole story, but she might tell Grace and me later, if we asked her in just the right way. “Let’s get you back to that squad car so you can go work on your investigation.”
Jake didn’t move off Momma’s porch, though. “Suzanne, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him in my most innocent manner.
“You’re giving up too easily,” he said with a frown. “I don’t like it.”
“Mister, you need to make up your mind. I can either cooperate with you, or I can fight you every step of the way, but I cannot do both.”
“You’re still not dropping this, are you?”
“I am not,” I said. “When the police chief said those vows to my mother, no matter how I felt about it, he became family, and I’m not about to see him get into trouble over this.”
“No one’s saying that he’s a suspect,” Jake said evenly.
“Does that mean that you’ve ruled him out?” I asked him.
“I can’t do that, either,” Jake admitted. “The ex-husband, especially in a case where the divorce is contentious, is always a suspect until he can be ruled out.”
“Then there you go.”
Jake sighed, and then he said, “I know I can’t stop you from nosing around, but stay out of my way, okay? And don’t take any chances you shouldn’t.”
“Who exactly is going to arbitrate that? You?”
“You know what I mean, Suzanne,” Jake said.
Momma saved me from answering when she came outside. “What are you both still doing here? I thought you had already left.”
“We were just on our way,” I told her, and then I looked at Jake. “So, are you coming, or not? I have to drive you to your squad car, remember?”
“I remember, all right,” he said.
After we said our good-byes again to Momma, I drove Jake back to the cottage. He opened his door and started to get out, but I didn’t follow suit.
“Aren’t you going on inside?” he asked me.
“No, I thought I’d go see Grace first. Her car was in her driveway when we went past her house just now.”
I wasn’t sure how Jake was going to react to that news, but he just laughed. “Just try to stay out of trouble, okay?”
“We always try,” I replied, “but it still has a way of finding us now and then.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second. Keep in touch, okay?”
“I will,” I said, and before he closed the Jeep’s door, I said, “Be safe yourself.”
“You know it,” he replied. I watched as he got into his squad car and pulled away. I was close on his tail as he drove down the road, but not for long.
When I pulled into Grace’s driveway, I saw her heading out to her car. Where was she going? And more importantly, could she drop everything and start investigating with me? I sure hoped so, because I hated doing anything without her.
Chapter 8
“Going somewhere?” I asked Grace as I got out of the Jeep.
“As I matter of fact, I was just about to go out looking for you,” she replied with a grin. Grace was always trim and fit, whereas I tended to stay on the curvy side of things. The two of us looked nothing alike, but on the inside, we were sisters in spirit. “What’s going on?”
“Actually, I thought I’d do a little digging into Evelyn Martin’s murder,” I said.
“It was murder?” Grace asked.
I’d forgotten that she didn’t know that yet. For that matter, most of the town was probably still ignorant of that particular fact. Was there some way we could use that to our advantage? I’d hav
e to think about that possibility before it became common knowledge.
“Well, at least that’s what Jake thinks, and until I learn differently, I’m going to stick with that theory,” I said.
“Hang on a second. Back up. Why does Jake have an opinion one way or the other about what happened to Evelyn? I figured he’d be on his way back to Raleigh by now.”
“That’s right, you haven’t heard. There was a slight change of plans,” I said. “His boss assigned him to this case, since the police chief’s ex-wife is the victim.”
“Boy, that’s what I get for being so conscientious. I go and do my job for one day and the whole world changes. Is Jake at least still staying with you?”
“As far as I know,” I said. “We haven’t really gotten around to discussing that yet. Why wouldn’t he?”
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s right where he belongs,” she said. “Some tongues in town may wag about it, though.”
“Let them flap all they want to. He’s a hero, and they should never forget it. A little gossip isn’t enough to even worry about.”
“Agreed. So, he doesn’t mind the fact that we’re digging into his case?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but he knows that we’re going to do it regardless of whether he approves or not. I think he’s resigned himself to the fact that we’re going to be working on it, too.”
“I’ll bet that went over like a lead balloon,” Grace said.
“Let’s just say we need to make sure that we don’t irritate him too much,” I answered. “I’d hate to solve the case but lose Jake in the process.”
“You’re not going to lose Jake. Anybody who has ever seen him looking at you would know that.”
“I guess so, but I’m still not going to take him for granted. So, are you up for it?”
“I’m ready and raring to go,” Grace said. “Let me change out of this suit and I’ll be your sidekick in crime fighting.”
“That sounds good to me,” I said as I followed her back inside.
As Grace changed her clothes into something more casual, she asked me, “So, who should we talk to first?”
“Jake and I have already spoken with Momma about the building sale. I should catch you up on where things stand now before we get started.” I proceeded to bring Grace up to date, and by the time she was ready to go, I’d told her everything that I’d been able to learn so far. However, I’d left the details Jake had shared with me in confidence intentionally vague and hoped that Grace wouldn’t notice.
“Suzanne, what aren’t you telling me?” she asked.
So much for my attempt at subterfuge. “Jake made me promise not to be more specific about a few of the details. As a matter of fact, I might have said too much already.”
“Okay, I get that,” Grace said. “I’m just going to have to rely on you to lead the way on this case.”
“Wow, you’re taking that news better than I’d even hoped you would,” I said.
“A promise is a promise. I totally get it, Suzanne. Can you at least tell me who our suspects are at this point?”
“That I can do. If we discount the chief, so far there’s Evelyn’s business partner, Beatrice Ashe; her next-door neighbor, Robby Chastain; and her second cousin, Julie Gray.”
“That’s a pretty big list this early in the game,” Grace said.
“Knowing Evelyn, I’ve got a hunch that the parade is only going to get longer the more we investigate.”
Grace nodded. “She did have a way of making enemies the way most puppies make new friends. I’m guessing that we’re going to talk to Beatrice first, right?”
“Wrong. Sorry, but that’s where Jake is headed. We have to skirt around the edges, so I thought we’d go talk to Robby instead.”
“Why exactly would Robby want to kill her?” Grace asked as we got into my Jeep.
“Evidently they’ve been battling for quite a while over a great many things. Apparently, the current dispute involved an old oak tree that straddled their property line.”
“Let me guess. Robby wanted to keep it, and Evelyn wanted to chop it down.”
“You’re right, except it’s just the opposite of that. Robby thought it was an eyesore, but Evelyn loved it anyway.”
“Boy, you think you know someone, and then they go and do something like that,” Grace said. “I never figured Evelyn to be a friend of nature.”
“Hey, what can I say? We’re all complicated,” I said.
As we drove to Robby’s place next door to Evelyn’s, Grace asked, “Would he really kill her over a stupid tree?”
“Probably not, but from what I’ve heard, there was a great deal more to it than that.”
“What exactly might that be?”
I grinned at her as I admitted, “I haven’t a clue. That’s why we’re going to go talk to him.”
When we got there, though, all we could hear was the loud whining noise of a chainsaw.
“Boy, he didn’t waste any time taking care of that, did he?” I asked Grace as we got out of the Jeep.
“It must have been pretty important to him,” she replied.
“Let’s go see if we can find out exactly why.”
It took us a full minute to get Robby’s attention. The tree in question was already down on the ground and was currently being cut up into fireplace-log-sized pieces.
When he finally saw us, Robby shut off his saw and set it aside. After taking off his ear protectors and his safety glasses, the older man wiped the back of his brow with his hand. “Hey, Grace. How are you doing, Suzanne? Wow, I forgot how hard it was to cut down a tree.”
“Is this the same tree that you and Evelyn were squabbling over?” I asked him.
Robby shrugged. “We were, but yesterday she gave me her blessing to cut it down.” I looked at him skeptically, and he added, “If you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself.”
Was he telling the truth? Was Robby ignorant of the fact that his neighbor was dead, or was he playing a part for our benefit? “You haven’t heard the news?”
“What news is that?” he asked as he kicked at one of the branches he’d taken off earlier.
“Evelyn’s dead, Robby.”
It didn’t register at first. After a moment, he looked hard at me. “What are you talking about, Suzanne? Have you been sniffing too much frosting in that donut shop of yours?”
“It’s true,” Grace said.
Robby slumped down on the stump where the tree had just stood. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“It’s not something that we’d joke about,” I said. “I’m guessing that you didn’t know.”
“No, I hadn’t heard a thing about it. Then again, I’ve been working with my chainsaw all day. I couldn’t get it to start, so I practically had to rebuild it before I could get it running again. What happened to her? Was it a car accident?”
“She was murdered,” I said calmly, hoping to see some kind of reaction.
He had one, and it was immediate. “Hang on one second. I sure didn’t do it, if that’s why you’re here. I had no more beefs with the woman after we resolved this thing about the tree.”
Grace asked him, “Robby, did anyone see you working on your saw today?”
“I highly doubt it. I was in the garage by myself,” Robby said. “That doesn’t mean that I killed her, though. What happened? You didn’t say?”
“Somebody pushed her through a hole in the floor and she died in the basement.”
“Over there?” Robby asked as he stared at Evelyn’s house. “That’s impossible. I would have at least seen the ambulances and heard the police sirens if that were true. I doubt my hearing protectors could have stopped those.”
“I didn’t say it was in this basement,” I said.
“It must have been at the candle shop, then,” Robby said.
“How did you know about that?” I asked him suspiciously. As far as I knew, Evelyn and Beatrice hadn’t been telling anyone abou
t their plans for their future business venture yet. If that was really the case, then how did Robby know about it?
“She told me yesterday when she came over to give me permission to cut down this tree. She didn’t care about it anymore, since she was going to buy a new place to live, anyway.”
“She was leaving her home? Do you happen to know why?” Grace asked.
“Well, it certainly wasn’t because of me. Evelyn told me that she recently came into some money, and she planned on blowing every dime she hadn’t already spent on a new house. To be honest with you, I don’t think she ever liked this tree any more than I did. Having me cut it down saved her from having to pay someone else to do it.”
“Robby, I’ve got a question for you, and it’s important. Did anyone else hear your conversation with Evelyn yesterday?” I asked him.
He looked hard at me for a few seconds before he answered. “Suzanne, you’re asking me an awful lot of questions for a donutmaker. What business is any of this of yours, anyway?”
“You know me. I’m just a concerned resident of April Springs,” I said.
“You’re more than that, and we both know it. Do you think folks in town haven’t been talking about you and Grace sticking your noses into murder investigations where they don’t belong?”
“We may have helped out the police every now and then,” I admitted. “So what?”
“You’ve done more than that, and you both know it. Well, you two aren’t going to pin this murder on me. I didn’t kill her. Evelyn and I finally patched things up between us, but if you don’t believe me, then that’s just your own bad luck. Now if you’ll excuse me, my break’s over. I have some firewood to cut while I’ve still got the energy.”
“We’re not finished talking to you,” Grace said as he slipped his ear protection back on.
Grinning at her, Robby tapped the earmuff and shouted, “Sorry, but I can’t hear a thing that either one of you are saying.”
I was about to yell loud enough for him to hear me even over the earmuff protection when he started the chainsaw back up and attacked part of the trunk of the tree again.
