Exposed Negative: A Small Town Cozy Mystery (Shot & Framed Book 2)

by Nancy McGovern

  “Sure they do. This feels more like you care about the gossip, though.” He strode up to her, catching up easily.

  “I know it feels like that, but I’m actually concerned. Linda is divorced and alone. Dante’s her only son. She’ll be devastated. She will need someone there.”

  Martin looked back at the house where Caroline stood in the doorway and his half-eaten dinner lay beyond. He sighed, thinking of the lamb and the delicious garlic bread, but had to agree with Dani. “Alright,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll come with you. Always good to have a doctor on hand, right?”

  “Tell Dad where we’re going,” Dani called out to Caroline. “Take care of him, alright?”

  Caroline waved goodbye, shaking her head.

  *****

  Dante’s house looked lonely in the moonlight, standing stiff and proud on top of the hill, as though it were a soldier guarding a long-lost treasure. The police car was parked diagonally in the driveway, the lights still on. The door was open, and in the small rectangle of yellow light, Dani could make out four silhouettes, heads bent as they talked. Dani walked as fast as she could, with Martin helping her along at times.

  The figures in the doorway moved. Sheriff Darwin and his deputy were handcuffing Dante and leading him to the car. Dante turned around and shouted out a reassurance to his mother, who had collapsed slowly to her knees, her fingers clawing her cheeks.

  “Be strong, Mother,” Dante called out. “I promise this will be over soon. They have no proof. None! I’ll be out by tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Darwin said. “You better call your lawyer, Dante. These are serious allegations.”

  “I’m innocent!”

  “There’s a case of poisoned beer that was sitting around inside your house for a week. There’s a dead man and there’s a pretty hefty insurance payout. You might be innocent, but you have some explaining to do.”

  “The beer was sitting around in the kitchen for months not weeks!” Dante exclaimed. “Everybody who’s in the play knew that I was saving it and that I planned to give it to my Othello before we began rehearsals! Everyone knew that! Anybody could have poisoned it.”

  “Sure.” Darwin didn’t sound like he believed him.

  “Hey, Arthur was here because of some scandal in New York, wasn’t he?” Dante asked. “Have you thought about that at all? Someone from his past could have followed him here. There were so many people at the party that day, it would be easy to slip in unnoticed!”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Darwin began. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”

  Dani walked past them while Martin paused to talk, heading straight for the sobbing Linda. As best as she could, she maneuvered so that she sat next to her on the doorsteps and put an arm around the distraught mother.

  “My son is innocent!” she said.

  “Be brave, Linda. It’s okay. Of course, he’s innocent. We’ll have him out of jail in no time at all.”

  Linda looked as though she were in shock. Her hands were trembling and her wispy hair floated all around her face, messy and uncombed. “Why would they arrest him? He’s a good boy. He’s never been in any trouble before!”

  “Come on inside, Linda. Let’s think through this. Do you have a lawyer you can call?”

  Linda shook her head. “I have my divorce lawyer… but he wouldn’t be much help, would he? I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. Oh my...”

  “Take care of her, would you!” Dante was straining his neck out of the police car window. “Make sure she doesn’t do anything rash! Please! Mom, promise me!”

  Darwin firmly pushed his head back inside and rolled up the window. “Thanks for being here,” he said to Martin and Dani. “You’re good folk. Take care of Linda, please.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Darwin, are you really arresting Dante?” Martin’s face had disbelief all over it. “He barely knew Arthur. Why would he go to such lengths to murder him?”

  Darwin shrugged and said, “Just doing my job, Martin. It’s not always easy. Times like these are the toughest.” He stuck out his hand, shook Martin’s, and then got into the car. With a nod to his deputy, he drove off, siren lights extinguished.

  Martin stared after the car for a minute, wondering how many neighbors down the street had their curtains pulled aside and their noses pressed to the glass, watching this little drama. If they were watching, they were doing it quietly - the street remained deserted and empty long after the car had vanished. However, Martin had no doubt that the gossip was spreading already, racing like fire from phone to phone.

  Inside, Linda’s hands were trembling as she sipped from a glass and Dani had her hands hovering near, just in case it should happen to slip. They looked up as Martin entered and, when he shook his head, Linda knew that Dante had been taken away.

  “I still can’t believe this,” she said.

  “Harry, that is, Dante’s father, he’s still in the hospital, isn’t he?” Martin asked. “My shift starts soon. Would you like me to inform him about this?”

  “He won’t care,” Linda said with some bitterness. Her fragility was momentarily converted into anger. “All that man cares about is his money and his own, selfish life. He won’t care two hoots about Dante’s arrest!”

  *****

  Chapter 14

  Dante’s Defense

  Martin had to leave for his shift soon after but Dani offered to stay the night. She’d expected Linda to demur but, to her surprise, her old teacher readily accepted.

  “I just can’t bear to be alone,” she said with a little shiver. “I don’t think I’ll sleep a wink, either.”

  Dante had called once to say that he’d be spending the night in a holding cell, but that he was reasonably sure he’d be out by morning. Linda had been tight-lipped and gray as she nodded along. Dani didn’t say a word, even when she saw Linda’s fists clench hard enough to leave little crescent scars on the palm of her hand.

  “I feel like you’ll understand,” Linda said. “I mean, I remember how devastated your family was after the scandal with your mother.”

  “It was a horrible time,” Dani said.

  They were sitting in the living room now with large mugs of cocoa in their hands. Dani rubbed the arm of the plush, purple sofa, wondering if this was the same one she used to play on as a child. Linda had been one of the few good people who had stayed by their side like a rock. In the confused aftermath of her mother’s disappearance, when half the town had condemned them as a family of thieves, Linda had quietly filled up their fridge with casseroles and pies and made sure that the three girls weren’t bullied in school.

  There was a little meow and Dani looked down to see a cat peering up at her from underneath the sofa. All that was visible of the cat were the pink pads of her paws and the top half of her head. Her bright blue eyes gave a sleepy wink before she crawled back under the sofa.

  “That’s Ginger!” Dani exclaimed. “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s Ginger’s son, Basil,” Linda smiled. “There’s Ginger now.” As she spoke, another cat walked into the room. This one shot Dani a look as though she still remembered old crimes, and then jumped up onto Linda’s lap.

  “They do understand, don’t they?” Linda stroked Ginger and sighed. “She knows I’m unhappy. She’d never jump on my lap otherwise.”

  “I’m sure Dante will be found innocent,” Dani said. “They’d arrested Caroline last year, remember? Nothing came of it in the end.”

  “Yes, but only because you were involved,” Linda said. “You solved that case, and everyone in town knows it. Darwin is a good officer, but sometimes…sometimes somebody who has their eyes and ears open, somebody who is one of us, can get to the truth faster than he can.”

  Dani shifted uncomfortably. “Linda, I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “I’m asking you to help,” Linda said. “I’m afraid. I’m so afraid that Dante will be set up. Before
now, I trusted this town, these people. Now, in the space of a week, a man has been murdered in my house and my son is being suspected! I don’t know who to trust anymore. But you, you’re both an outsider and an insider. You’ve been away from town for so long that I know you can’t have any ulterior motive, and yet you’re still one of us. You know this town, you know us all.”

  “I also don’t know for sure whether Dante killed Arthur,” Dani said. “I know that he was fighting with someone that day. I overheard him. And I think you overheard him, too.”

  Linda turned her face away and took a long sip from her mug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do,” Dani said. “Linda, if there are any secrets Dante is hiding, I’d advise him to come clean to the police. Right now, that’s the best way he can avoid being unjustly accused of something.”

  Linda shook her head. “You don’t understand. Dante wasn’t fighting, exactly. He was negotiating.”

  “Negotiating?” Dani frowned. “First off, who was he talking to? I didn’t see the other person...”

  Linda sighed. “He was talking to Arthur’s agent.”

  “Margaret?” Dani sat up a little. “I didn’t know the two even knew each other. In fact, I didn’t even know she was in town then. She told me that she’d driven into town after the sheriff called her.”

  “Well, she was certainly in town,” Linda said. “I don’t know why she’d lie about a thing like that!”

  Neither did Dani, but she intended to find out.

  “Do you think the sheriff knows?” Linda asked, eagerly. “Perhaps he doesn’t. Perhaps he’ll rightfully start investigating her. After all, she has the most motive. She inherits all of Arthur’s wealth, doesn’t she?”

  “She does,” Dani said. “Yes, it’s certainly strange that she’d lie to the sheriff. Especially because she knew Dante had seen her and would talk.”

  Linda’s face grew troubled. “You don’t think, Dani, that she’ll do something to harm Dante, do you?”

  “He’s in the safest place he can be right now,” Dani said. But could she really say the same about them? Outside, the tree branches waved about, casting dark shadows over the grounds of the house. Was she imagining it, or was it possible that a person could be waiting in those shadows, watching the two of them?

  She shivered and told herself to get a grip. Nothing would happen to them tonight.

  “Dani!” Linda exclaimed.

  “Sorry. Drifted away,” Dani said. “Could you repeat yourself?”

  “I said that we should go down to the station immediately,” Linda said. “Darwin needs to know about this. Maybe Dante will be too distracted or just forget to tell. Darwin needs to investigate Arthur’s so-called sister carefully!”

  “It’s a little too late to do that tonight,” Dani said, with some doubt in her voice. “Linda, even if Margaret was here that night, how would she know about the beer? How would she know which one to poison?”

  Linda sighed.

  “That never sat right with me, you know,” Dani said. “How did the murderer know which beer to poison?”

  “Oh, it was obvious enough to everybody at the party,” Linda said. “Dante came back from a trip to Germany a few months ago and he specifically said that he’d brought back a case of beer reserved for his ‘Othello’.”

  “Months ago?” Dani exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Linda said. “Everybody down at Mace and Cage knew every detail, I’m sure. Dante does like to boast about his fine tastes a little too much. It would be simple enough to tamper with, too. The beer was stored in a simple cardboard box in our kitchen. Oh, we were such trusting fools! But how could we possibly have known?” Linda’s eyes started to well with tears again and Dani was quick to staunch them.

  “You had no way of knowing,” Dani said. “This is not your fault, Linda.”

  She sniffed and nodded at Dani before burying her face in the comforting warmth of Ginger’s fur. The outraged cat stiffened then shot out of her owner’s lap and ran out of the room.

  “Sorry, Ginger,” Linda said awkwardly to the space left behind. “So much for comfort!”

  Dani smiled. “Look, Linda, let’s go over this again. Tell me everything you remember from the day of the party.”

  Linda steepled her fingers under her chin and thought. “Let’s see. It was a regular day. Dante had borrowed extra grills from his friends the night before and he’d bought some tofu and mushrooms for Arthur’s grill. Allie came by to pick him up in the morning. She had breakfast with us. She even helped me wash the dishes afterwards. Margaret phoned to say she was driving in that afternoon. Dante was quite delighted. He phoned me and told me to expect her at about seven. Meanwhile, I was busy cleaning out the house from head to toe.” Linda smiled. “I’m a little old fashioned that way, I like my house to be like a well-ironed suit when someone’s coming over. Dante always said I was being silly and that I should just leave it be.”

  “Right,” Dani nodded. “When did the guests start arriving?”

  “Well, Coco and the mayor were the first to arrive,” Linda said. “They were also the first to leave, because they had to attend some other function. About 5:40pm, I remember that was. Everyone else arrived about twenty minutes later.”

  Dani nodded. “And was the kitchen open to all?”

  “The whole house was open to all our guests,” Linda said. “Honestly, anybody who was at the party could have poisoned that beer. Dante had made it clear that this particular case was off-limits, reserved for Arthur only. Poor Dante, he really wanted to impress Arthur.”

  “I suppose we are lucky in a way,” Dani said. “If more than one person had drunk from that case of beer, we’d have had more than one fatality.”

  “Well,” Linda said, “from what I’ve heard, there was only enough poison for the beer to be toxic when four or more bottles had been consumed.”

  Dani nodded. “Right. I remember that. A little odd, isn’t it?”

  Linda sighed. “That’s what makes the case against Dante so damning. I don’t think anybody really believes the motive, but the fact that Arthur consumed six beers and because Dante was apparently egging him on to do so, that is what Darwin is probably hung up on.”

  “But...” Dani said, “As we’ve just discussed, it’s very likely that everybody in the play knew that’s exactly what Dante would do, isn’t it?”

  Linda nodded. “Yes. Someone’s framing my baby boy!”

  Dani wasn’t quite so sure of that yet but she did have one important question for Linda. “The two of you must have been in shock the night of the murder,” Dani said. “Did you stay up late that night, too?”

  “On the contrary,” Linda said. “Dante actually gave me some valium and I was fast asleep. The events of the day were too much for me.”

  “Oh,” Dani said. “So Dante wasn’t with you that night? I mean, you can’t be sure that he was?” She remembered the fresh bruise on his face. Her suspicions about him being the thief were renewed. If Dante was the man who had broken into Arthur’s room that night, Dani was inclined to believe that he was also the murderer.

  “He was with his father all night. He’s been staying over for the last few days,” Linda said with a sniff. “Harry’s had a heart attack recently. Dante hates his father. They’ve always had a troubled relationship, you know. But, at the same time, he’s a good, dutiful son. He told me he couldn’t bear to sit around and do nothing. I didn’t really want him to go because he was always in such a terrible mood by the time he got back home. But there wasn’t much I could say to dissuade him.”

  “I see.” If Dante had been at the hospital all night, there would be some proof of it. Martin would certainly be able to find out. If it were true, that would certainly be a step towards proving his innocence.

  Dani sighed. The case was confusing and, the more she thought about it, the more confusing it got. There were far too many variables and far too little proof. Nobod
y was talking about Arthur’s scandal in New York just yet but, surely, that was worth thinking about? Then there was Paul, jealous and full of rage. Also, there was Margaret, who had lied about coming into town only after Arthur’s death.

  So what was the truth?

  There was one more thing she needed to ask Linda before she could truly find out. Margaret had said that before Arthur had come to Innocence he had mentioned “an army buddy and a girl he had been dating, Linda and Harry.”

  Dani looked at her closely, wanting to spot any signs of a lie. “Linda, did you ever know a man called Marshall Mushens?”

  Linda gave a start and spilled cocoa down her blouse. With a little yelp, she leaped up and rushed out of the room to change, leaving Dani behind with a new suspicion.

  When Linda came back downstairs wrapped up in a bathrobe, she found Dani had managed to coax Basil out from under the sofa and was gently stroking the orange cat’s ears. He was snoring away on her lap and would occasionally bat a paw as he hunted in his sleep.

  “Sorry if I startled you,” Dani said.

  “You didn’t,” Linda said. “It’s just that… I haven’t heard that name for so long.”

  “Was he your boyfriend once?” Dani asked.

  “Marshall?” Linda threw her head back and laughed. “Not a chance. I admit I initially found him attractive. But, then, I was rather boy crazy. I don’t like to admit it now, but I’d fall in love every week with someone new.”

  “So, was Marshall one of them?”

  “Well, I did date him once or twice. But then I realized I really liked his friend Harry Hofstadter.” Linda’s face tightened as she thought back to old times. “I can’t tell you what it’s like, revisiting those memories. Do you know what I’d give to have a time machine to go tell my young self, ‘this man you’re head over heels in love with will cause you more pain than you can ever imagine’?” Linda sighed. “Then again, if I hadn’t married Hof, I would never have had Dante. So, I suppose I wouldn’t tell my younger self anything at all.”