Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection)

by Belle Knudson

  “What makes you think she’ll talk to me?”

  “This new drug angle,” he said, fragmenting his point with a heavy sigh. “She doesn’t know we know. If you tell her and act like you can help protect her from me and the department finding out, who knows? Maybe she’ll start thinking she can cut a deal, give us information we want for a reduced sentence.”

  “Will you grant her that?”

  Wavering, he said, “It depends on the information. All I know is that she thinks we’re looking at murder, and we were until you stepped into this office. So she’s been holding out. But if she learns from you that she could soon be looking at drug trafficking on top of murder, she might get nervous and admit it all in exchange for a deal.”

  “You never cease to surprise me, Scott York,” she said, rising out of her chair. “What do you make of Becky’s abduction now that we know this whole new drug angle?”

  “Speculation will get me nowhere,” he said, getting to his feet, as well.

  “So she didn’t tell you that she had Tommy look into the whole Becky thing?”

  “What whole Becky thing?”

  Kate took a moment to explain to him how Becky’s old employee ID number was used to discount Clifford Green at Over the Moon and that directly after Tommy alerted Amelia to this fact he was killed.

  As stunned as he was, he kept a lid on it. “Kate, you have to stop keeping things from me.”

  “I know. Amelia asked me not to say anything because she thought it might incriminate Becky or her or...” She shrugged. “Now you know everything I do.”

  Two floors below, the jail cells were well lit, thanks to the windows that lined the upper edge of their back walls. After presenting the guard with her driver’s license, Kate walked through the empty cells and found Amelia in the last one on the left, seated on a bench. She looked stoic, more annoyed than self-pitying, which Kate had to give her credit for. But was Amelia’s self-righteous attitude evidence of her guilt in this situation?

  If it were, why kill Tommy?

  Had he discovered those drug boxes going in and out of the shed that day? Had Amelia walked in on him witnessing such a thing and impulsively killed him? If so, what had he been doing in that room in the first place? If Chucky could be trusted, then Kate had to assume Tommy knew about the operation, and that was his reason for being in room 5 in the first place.

  If Amelia and Tommy were on the same side, why would she kill him?

  Amelia lifted her chin, declaring, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I think you should reconsider.”

  She snorted a laugh and reminded Kate that the only person she would be willing to talk to is her attorney.

  “I didn’t tell Scott about Becky’s ID number,” Kate pointed out. “I was trustworthy then and you can trust me now, because I have information you’re going to want to hear.”

  She used a condescending tone to ask, “And what’s that?”

  Kate wrapped her hands around the bars, getting as close to Amelia as possible, not that it helped. The woman was sitting on the far side of the cell.

  “The drugs. I’ve known since Scott solved Clifford’s murder.”

  Amelia snapped her sharp green eyes at Kate.

  “Yeah,” said Kate, driving her point home. “I know about the drugs at the warehouse. I know they’re in the shed at the inn. And I know Tommy died, because he had something to do with it.”

  Amelia rushed to the bars, her attitude having completely shifted. Her eyes widened with fear and she seemed out of breath, not because she had hurried across the floor, but for what she was about to disclose.

  “We couldn’t stop them,” she blurted out. “I’ve been dying, just dying keeping this secret.”

  “What secret? Tell me everything.”

  “And Lance kept saying, ‘We have to tell Scott. We have to tell him this is why they’ve taken our daughter.’ But I was too afraid.” She sobbed then sucked in a deep breath, collecting herself. “He kept saying that to me,” she repeated, “and the next thing I know, Lance is in the midst of an explosion!”

  “Who? Who is behind this?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But whoever he is, whoever they are, they’re close and they’re always listening.”

  “I want to believe you, but—”

  “I didn’t kill Tommy, I swear. And the thing of it is, I don’t know why he was killed. But he had to have been involved with the higher-ups, the ones we don’t know.”

  “How did this all start?”

  “Innocently enough,” she said. “Our warehouse manager was approached by a man who offered a sizable fee in exchange for looking the other way when boxes were delivered. Lance and I didn’t even know about this arrangement until a few months back when Lance stopped in at the warehouse and discovered a set of boxes. He’s close with the warehouse manager, who said he had been accepting cash for nearly a year. Harold is his name. He was terrified. He told Lance no one could stop it, that Lance had to let them do what they wanted. You know Lance. He isn’t a brave man, so he promised not to say anything.”

  Amelia nearly broke into tears again. Her bottom lip was quivering and Kate felt terrible for her.

  But she was able to continue. “It was Becky who tried to stop it. And two days later, she was abducted.”

  “My God,” said Kate, her voice a whisper.

  “I’m sorry I suspected Jason, but I don’t trust anyone. No one in Rock Ridge is safe, and no one can be trusted. And I’m telling you, these convicts getting out of prison and taking these lowly positions around town...they’re the bottom of the same food chain. They all have something to do with it. This town is rotting from the inside out.”

  “But what role could Tommy have possibly been playing?”

  “If I knew I would tell you. All I know is that I didn’t kill him.”

  “But Amelia, you don’t have an alibi.”

  She fell silent. When she finally spoke, her voice was a thread. “Lance was in the hospital. I’ve been drinking a lot. I’m fairly certain I was either on my way to the hospital after being at the house or vice versa, but I really can’t remember.”

  “Why won’t you tell Scott any of this?”

  “Kate, I can’t! You don’t know how dangerous these people are! They could be anywhere. They’re everywhere! And I’m not afraid to tell you that I’d be safer in prison than walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight should they ever find out I spoke with the police. It’s bad enough we accepted Scott’s help for the ransom exchange, and it’s also no wonder it went badly. You have to promise me you aren’t going to tell him any of this. Not one word.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “You have to! Or it’ll be my life! Lance’s life! God only knows what they’re doing to Becky at this very moment! Please!”

  Kate didn’t have the heart to affirm she couldn’t keep a secret like this, or any secret, for that matter, from Scott...not for long, anyway. So she said nothing and offered Amelia a sad smirk, telling her it would be okay.

  To avoid lying to Scott, she walked through the back of the building rather than return to the homicide floor. Though it was hard to imagine, she actually believed every word Amelia told her. It made far more sense than assuming the Langleys were a pair of kingpins running a drug trafficking ring.

  But who was behind the ring? And what did it have to do with Tommy Barkow’s murder?

  She was shaken from the thought when she saw Becky pass along the sidewalk at the other end of the alley.

  Becky?

  Stunned, Kate took off running through the alley, desperate to catch up to the young woman who had been the center of so much controversy.

  Chapter Seven

  As Kate rounded onto the sidewalk, spying Becky eight yards up the sidewalk, she slowed her pace to a brisk walk so as not to draw attention to herself. There were a number of people about, strolling lazily down the block and pausing to glance in store windows.
>
  Weaving her way through pedestrians, Kate closed in on Becky, who she noticed was dressed differently than her usual style. Rather than wearing a sundress or skirt, which was her preference, Becky donned jean shorts and a loose-fitting, though trendy, tee shirt. Her hair looked a bit different, as well. Its brown shade wasn’t quite as dark as Kate remembered.

  Becky reached Harriet’s Hairdos and stilled on the sidewalk to glance at her wristwatch, giving Kate just enough time to catch her before she could duck inside the salon.

  Grabbing her arm from behind, Kate said, “Becky?” The young woman whipped around, startled and confused.

  “Excuse you!” she objected, yanking her arm free, just as Kate flinched at the sight of her.

  Now that she was staring at the woman—her bright blue eyes, the particular scoop of her button nose, the grimace on her face that couldn’t hide the fact that her mouth was much narrower than Becky’s—Kate realized she hadn’t found her son’s fiancée at all, but a random stranger.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kate stammered. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Well I’m not,” she snapped, put off by the interruption.

  Shifting her tone, Kate said, “I’m sorry, but you look like Becky Langley.”

  The woman stared at her a beat, as though Kate had two heads, and then reached for the salon door but didn’t yank it open. Kate was still holding her arm.

  “I’ve seen you around.”

  The woman didn’t look amused.

  Kate unhanded her, but immediately asked, “Why were you at the amusement park when that bomb went off?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m late for my hair appointment.”

  “You were there,” she pressed, holding the door closed with her palm to bar the woman’s entry. “I saw you on a surveillance monitor. You were hiding behind a stack of pipes. What were you doing there?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “It isn’t,” she countered. “And the police had cleared the entire park that night.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically. “Give the ex-con a hard time. Did it ever occur to you that all of us are staying out of trouble and turning our lives around?”

  It hadn’t, but stating as much would likely end this conversation, if Kate could call it that.

  Instead, she asked, “What’s your name?”

  Skeptically, she said, “Gillian. Gillian O’Reilly. Now let me through.”

  “Tell me what you were doing there that night.”

  “And you’ll let me in?” She snorted a laugh. “What makes you the gatekeeper?”

  Kate cringed at the thought of playing a bully, or worse, using her marriage to intimidate, but she had been spotting this Becky imposter around town for weeks. The moment was too precious to let it slip through her fingers.

  “I’m the gatekeeper, if you want to call me that,” she stated frankly. “I’m the police chief’s wife, so you can either tell me what you were doing there or you can tell Scott York. Either way, you’re not getting around this.”

  Gillian folded her arms and took a step back, sinking into her hip like a sulking child, who knew she wouldn’t get her way.

  “I didn’t have a choice, all right?”

  “Why?” Kate tried to ignore the knots that were twisting in her stomach. No choice? There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

  “I was supposed to get the cash.”

  Stunned, Kate asked, “Are you a part of the kidnapping?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she quickly interrupted. “I just do what I’m told. It wasn’t easy getting released from prison. You could say I made a back-alley deal. I just do what I’m told when I’m told. That’s it.”

  “Who tells you what to do?”

  “Anonymous notes left at my apartment.”

  “What else have you done?”

  “Nothing bad...that I know of. I don’t ask questions. It’s not like I interface with these people. Mainly I’ve been doing things for Tommy.”

  “Who was killed.”

  “I know he was killed. He was a slave.”

  “Stop being vague,” Kate ordered.

  Gillian stared at her for a long moment. “You might not be aware of it, but Rock Ridge has a hell of a drug problem. It gets sold elsewhere, but manufactured right here. And Tommy was making it.”

  Suddenly, Tommy’s chemical engineering degree from MIT made a great deal of sense.

  Gillian went on. “I don’t know anything, not for sure, but I would guess the higher-ups lost money on a shipment. Maybe someone storing the product got rid of it, and I would guess that someone is Becky Langley. So they took her and got nowhere. So they tried to get the money from her parents. All I know is that I was supposed to get the cash and that explosion was completely unexpected. I’ve been worried sick these past few days that they’d come after me to kill me because of it.”

  “Was Becky there that night?” Kate wasn’t sure why she needed to torture herself like this, but it was killing her that Becky could’ve been within arm’s reach, yet the police failed to grasp hold.

  Gillian frowned. “No. No one was there. As far as I could tell, whoever’s behind this, whoever is at the top of this twisted pyramid had no intention of upholding their end of the deal. Which is why I wouldn’t cross them. And if you tell your police chief husband about any of this, I’ll deny it outright. I’m not going back to prison. And I sure as hell ain’t getting killed for it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my hair dyed.”

  Gillian thrust the door open and disappeared inside the salon.

  If Tommy was the chemist making the drugs and even Gillian didn’t know who was controlling her, then it stood to reason Kate might never find out who killed him. And in the same vein, she might never find out who had taken Becky.

  Jason might never get Becky back.

  It was with a heavy heart that she walked back to her truck, opened the door, and plopped behind the wheel. Drawing her cell phone from her overalls, she considered what she might tell Scott. The only concrete information she had gotten from Gillian was that Tommy was making the drugs, which was a huge piece, but didn’t allude to who he had been working for, presumably the same person who had taken Becky.

  She composed a text message to Scott and sent it through. His response was a call and she picked up right away.

  “You left without telling me what Amelia said.”

  Kate sighed. “She’s terrified. Lance and she are being threatened. I doubt she killed Tommy.” As Kate detailed the ins and outs of her conversation with Amelia and explained Gillian O’Reilly’s role, she turned the key in the ignition and left her truck idling.

  Once during their call she heard a call-waiting beep, but ignored it in favor of listening to Scott’s take on the situation. One thing was for certain. The more they learned, the less it all made sense.

  When finally he let her go, she listened to the voice-mail message that had come in. It was Bobbi Hamden in the permits department telling her she had been cleared to put in a window at the mayor’s office.

  Kate took a deep breath, trying to shake off the mysteries that swarmed her. At least she would be able to spend a little time with Jared. The thought was just enough to keep her going, as she drove to Grayson’s Hardware, making a mental inventory of the supplies she would need to tackle the complex job of knocking out part of a wall to install a window.

  By the time she arrived at Grayson’s and noticed Larry in the gardening aisle helping a few customers decide on the best fertilizer, she knew exactly what she needed to buy. She made a beeline for the dollies beside the register and took to the window aisle.

  Larry called out, “I’ll be with you in a sec, Kate!”

  “Take your time!” she said, as she began eyeing the various window options. When she found one she liked, she eased it off the shelf, setting it gingerly on the dolly.

  Larry jogged towards her and wiped his b
row, as he came to a stop.

  “I got the go-ahead to knock out Jared’s office wall to put in a window, so I’m going to need to rent an electric saw and possibly a handheld jack.”

  “Christ, did you get the blueprints to avoid electrical wiring?”

  “They’re in Bobbi Hamden’s office.”

  Larry whistled. “It’s a big job. The municipal building is brick and mortar, literally.”

  “Hence the jackhammer.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a one-woman job to me,” he mused.

  Until he had said it out loud, she had been denying the possibility.

  “Damn,” she grumbled. “You’re right.”

  “I’d get that skilled son of yours to help.”

  “Pull him away from the amusement park? I don’t want to get him in trouble with Dean.”

  “Dean’s doing great,” he countered. “You didn’t hear?”

  Hear? No, she hadn’t. It seemed the mayor’s mood rose and fell as starkly as the roller coaster his park was attempting to build.

  “They’re back on track,” Larry went on. “They got new funding, hired three times as many laborers. That park’s going to be open by the end of the summer.”

  “Great,” she said dryly. Just what Rock Ridge needed—a booming autumn tourist season right when unknown drug lords were flooding this town with cocaine.

  “You don’t sound happy,” he observed. When she shrugged, he offered his two cents. “I decided it’ll be a good thing, having the amusement park. Happiness is a choice, you know?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Let me get you squared away with the rental equipment,” he said. “Bring your truck around back?” He took the dolly from her. “You need a window frame.”

  “Yeah, it’s higher than I can reach,” she said, indicating the frame she wanted.

  Carefully, Larry drew it off the shelf and delicately set it beside the windowpane. “I’ll get all this on your tab.”

  “Thanks, Larry,” she said, glad she didn’t have to ask.