by Kathi Daley
“No. By the time I went over to the inn, she was in custody for trying to leave the island. I went by again on my way home this afternoon, but she didn’t answer her door. I knocked on the door of Eric’s room, and he told me that she’d taken a sleeping pill and gone to bed. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Siobhan looked at the whiteboard. “It looks like we have a starting place. I suggest we try to narrow things down a bit by the time we meet again tomorrow night. Cait has three of Sally’s friends to speak to and Cody is going to talk to his mother. I have a few ideas I want to follow up on as well, so let’s call it a night.”
Tara stood up. “The rain is starting to come down hard, so I’m going to take off. I’ll be at the bookstore tomorrow if anyone needs me to do anything.”
After Tara left, Finn, Siobhan, and Cassie went back to the big house, leaving Cody and me alone for the first time since that morning. “Are you doing okay?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“I understand that. Is there anything I can do?”
Cody shook his head. “At least nothing you aren’t already doing. I keep thinking that someone else will begin to stand out as a real suspect, but if I had to bet on the killer at this moment, I’d have no choice but to put my money on my mother. I hate that I think she might actually be guilty.”
“We’ve identified others,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“Is there something else?” I asked.
Cody hesitated before he answered. “I did hear something today I didn’t mention just now.”
I raised a brow. “What did you hear?”
“When I spoke to Eric this afternoon, he told me that he’s sure my mother is guilty. He went into her room last night to get the shampoo she’d borrowed from him because she’d forgotten hers. Mom had already taken her sleeping pill and gone to bed, but she’d left the connecting door unlocked, so he tiptoed into her bathroom. He found her clothes on the floor. Tan slacks and a pink sweater. He picked them up to toss them into a dirty clothes bag and noticed something red on them. He was sure it was blood.”
“Oh, Cody. What are you going to do?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I asked Eric for the clothes so I could evaluate the stain myself, but he said he’d already disposed of them. I told him that he could end up in trouble for disposing of evidence, and he argued that he felt he had no choice and that no one would ever know. He said he wasn’t going to tell anyone and assumed I wouldn’t tell either. When I responded that I might very well do just that, he laughed and pointed out that the clothes and therefore the evidence were gone, and if he was asked about it, he’d deny he’d ever seen them.”
“Why would Eric cover for your mom? I hardly know him, but he doesn’t seem like the sort to cover for anyone.”
“I think my mom has been supporting him. She brought him on this trip, and she mentioned at one point that he’d been living in her basement. He doesn’t have a job or a lot of prospects. He must figure if she goes to prison, that will be the end of the gravy train.”
“We need to tell Finn,” I said.
“No,” Cody responded. “Not yet. I’m going to talk to my mom in the morning. I want to hear what she has to say and then decide what to do. If she killed Sally, she’ll need to pay the cost, but now all I have is Eric’s word that Mom’s clothes had blood on them. For all I know, he’s lying.”
“Why would he lie?”
“That’s what he does. That’s what he’s done his whole life. He’s a cheat and a liar and the entire family, with the exception of my mother apparently, knows it.”
“Okay, but why would he lie about this?”
Cody shrugged. “Maybe he figured there might be something in it for him. Maybe he figured if I thought he had something damaging on my mother, I’d be willing to pay him to keep it quiet. There’s no telling why he does what he does, but he can’t be trusted.”
I supposed Cody’s theory on a potential blackmail scheme could be true, but I sort of doubted it. As I’ve said more than once since I met him, Eric is a grade-one donkey butt. He’s opinionated and annoying and seems to act impulsively, without considering the consequences. He drinks too much and appears to have zero ambition. He most certainly isn’t the sort of person I’d ever want to have a relationship with, but he did seem to care about Mrs. West. And I didn’t think it was just the gravy train thing Cody mentioned. From what I’d seen, it seemed he had a genuine affection for Cody’s mom. If the family really had shunned him with the exception of her, I supposed I could understand why he might hold her in high regard.
Chapter 5
Thursday, November 15
When Cody and I decided to get married in November, I knew the wedding was going to be somewhat hectic given the shortness of time, but I had no idea I’d be spending my last days as a single woman trying to keep my future mother-in-law out of prison.
I glanced out the window at the pouring rain. The storm had arrived as predicted, and the gloominess matched my mood. Cody had left after breakfast to see his mom. Hopefully, she’d have something to share that would shed light on what had happened on Monday afternoon. In the meantime, I planned to go into town to speak to Sally’s friends: Connie Salisman, Eve Donner, and Lisa Kinder. I hoped one of them could tell me something that could reveal who had really killed Sally. I just wanted to be pointed anywhere other than Cody’s mother.
Lisa Kinder worked at the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I arranged to meet her there. She was manning the front desk, so she couldn’t get away, but with the pouring rain, the entire town was deserted, including the library. I knew Lisa fairly well because the bookstore and the library often held events in cooperation with each other. The readathon we’d sponsored last summer was one example.
“Morning, Lisa. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“No problem. Anything I can do to help put Sally’s killer behind bars. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
I shook the rain from my slicker and walked up to the counter. “It’s been quite a shock. I just spoke to her last week about my wedding cake. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing.”
“I take it you’re helping Finn, as you often do.”
I nodded, sending moisture from my hair onto the floor. “I am. In a way. I’m mostly just talking to people who knew Sally. On the surface, it doesn’t seem there’s a clear suspect. Do you have any idea who would want to hurt Sally?”
Lisa paused and tilted her head. “I don’t know for certain, but I heard from Carla that there was a customer who wasn’t happy with her order and went all Rambo on poor Sally. Carla seemed confident it would turn out this woman was the killer. Seems ridiculous to me to get so angry over a cake.”
I decided not to mention I was about to become related to this woman. “I agree. It is ridiculous. I know both Finn and Sheriff Fowler have spoken to the customer who was so upset the afternoon Sally died. I agree she makes a good suspect, but she’s far from being the only one. I’m talking to Sally’s friends to see if anyone knows of someone who might not make quite as obvious a suspect but should still be considered. It seems to me to be a good idea to have all bases covered.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Lisa tapped her chin. “I wasn’t exactly best friends with Sally. We were really just exercise buddies. There’s a group of us who all take the same class, and sometimes we meet afterward for drinks or dinner. Sally would join us at times, but she didn’t seem to be making the effort as often lately. The popular opinion was that she hadn’t been going out with us so much because she was seeing someone on the side while her husband was away from home so often.”
“Sally was having an affair?”
“I don’t know it for a fact, but she was complaining her husband was never around. His business is in Seattle, you know. I guess when Sally first expressed a desire to move to Madrona and open up a bakery, her husband said he could work from home a good part of th
e time. According to Sally, it didn’t work out that way. She told the group on more than one occasion that things weren’t going as planned and one of them was going to have to make a change in their career if the marriage was going to last. It seemed clear it was Sally’s intention that her husband be the one to make the change. And from what she said to us, it seemed he was considering it. Then his mother got sick. He was trying to do his part in helping his siblings to care for her, so apparently, he was flying back and forth between coasts to pitch in. I think the idea of him selling his business was put on the back burner with things already so hectic.”
“So where does the affair fit into that?” I asked a bit impatiently.
“Hang on. I’m getting to that.” Lisa rested her elbows on the counter, leaned in, and lowered her voice. “Anyway, a few weeks ago, another woman in the exercise group, Beth Bennington, said she saw Sally with a man at a restaurant on San Juan Island. She’d never seen Sally’s husband and assumed from the lovey-dovey looks they were giving each other that it was him, home from taking care of his mother. When she described him to us, however, I knew immediately the man wasn’t Sally’s husband.”
“Had you ever seen Sally’s husband?”
Lisa nodded. “He picked her up from class once when her car was in the shop. He was tall, thin, and blond. Beth described this man as dark-haired with olive skin, maybe Italian. There was no way that man was the same one I saw.”
“And you’re sure he couldn’t have been a friend or a customer?”
Lisa shrugged. “I didn’t see them together, but Beth said they looked to be intimate.”
An affair made a good motive for a murder. Maybe the husband found out about it and killed his cheating wife. Or maybe the Italian lover wanted to end things and Sally wouldn’t let him go. Maybe she threatened to tell his wife, assuming he had one. There were any number of reasons an affair could lead to murder. I needed to check out this lead further. “Do you happen to know the restaurant where Beth saw them?”
“She didn’t say. I guess you can ask her. I don’t have her contact information with me now. If you aren’t able to track her down, you might ask Eve Donner. She seemed to know more about what might have been going on with Sally and this mystery guy than the rest of us. In fact, I had a feeling she suspected who he was, though she didn’t name him.”
“Do you know where I can find Eve?”
“She works at the Driftwood Café. She should be there today.”
“Okay, and thank you. Is there anything else you can think of before I go?”
Lisa drummed her nails on the counter. “Not really. Sally was an intense person. She seemed to need to be busy all the time. She had her own business, she attended exercise class at least four times a week, she was on the board of the chamber of commerce, and I’m pretty sure she was involved in community theater too. She knew a lot of people, but I didn’t have the sense she had a lot of friends. I almost felt bad for her. I hope you figure out who killed her. She didn’t deserve to die.”
No, she really didn’t. I left the library and headed toward the Driftwood Café.
The idea that Sally might have had a guy on the side intrigued me. I needed to find someone, anyone, who made a better suspect than Cody’s mother, and a secret lover provided me with a good candidate. When I arrived at the café, Cosmo was sitting near the door under the awning.
I parked, walked over, and picked him up. “What are you doing here?”
“Meow.”
“Even a better question, how did you get here in the rain? You aren’t even wet.”
“Meow.”
“I see. Well, the Driftwood doesn’t allow animals inside. Wait for me in the car. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
I deposited the cat inside, then went back toward the café. “Morning, Kimmy,” I said to the hostess after shaking the moisture from my umbrella and folding it into the dry sleeve I kept in my backpack. “Is Eve Donner working today?”
“Yeah. She’s waiting tables in the back.”
“I need to talk to her. I could use some hot tea and maybe a muffin. If you have a table in Eve’s section, you can just seat me and she can come over to talk to me when she has a minute.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. It’s been really slow today with all the rain.”
After I was seated, Kimmy grabbed me a cup of tea, then told Eve I wanted a muffin and a few minutes of her time. I watched as Eve nodded and waved at me. A few minutes later, she showed up at my table with a warm pumpkin nut muffin.
“You wanted to speak to me?” Eve asked.
“If you have a minute. I have some questions about Sally Enderling’s death. I understand you were friends.”
Eve slid into the booth across from me. “We were friends of a sort. We attended the same exercise class and went out for a meal every now and then.”
“I spoke to Lisa Kinder, who told me about Beth Bennington having seen Sally at a restaurant on San Juan Island with a man who wasn’t her husband. She suggested you might know who he was."
Eve pursed her lips, tamping down a look of annoyance. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who Sally might have been seen with. Is it important?”
“I’m just looking for clues to Sally’s murder.”
Eve tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, then leaned forward slightly and met my eyes. “I heard some old broad who was having a tantrum over a cake is the one who ended things for Sally. Several of my customers told me she was in custody. Talk about crazy. Who would kill someone over a cake? It makes no sense. Of course, a couple of people told me the woman was on some pretty powerful drugs when she confronted Sally.”
“Drugs?”
Eve nodded. “Henrietta from over at the flower shop told me the psycho was in her shop not long before she went to see Sally. She was asking about pink roses, which Henrietta didn’t have in stock. Henri said the woman was really loud and overly animated. She thought it was odd, and then she noticed her pupils were dilated and her cheeks flushed. Henri managed to get the woman out the door with a promise to order the roses and have them delivered before the weekend. She had no intention of actually ordering the flowers. She just knew it was best not to confront someone who was so strung out.”
I was pretty sure anyone who was close to me knew my least favorite color was pink. It totally fit that Cody’s mom would be trying to order flowers I’d hate. Of course, we didn’t know each other all that well, so she probably wasn’t aware of my aversion to everything pink. She did, however, know we were having a black and white wedding and that the flowers had already been ordered because I’d told her that when she’d asked. But getting worked up over flowers wasn’t going to help the situation, so I asked if anyone else had been around who might have witnessed Mrs. West’s strange behavior.
“Why don’t you ask Henrietta? She should be open today even if it’s pouring.”
I thanked Eve, took out my umbrella, and headed to the flower shop. The last thing I thought I’d be doing two days before my wedding was wandering around in a storm, looking for proof that the woman who most likely had killed the bakery shop owner actually hadn’t.
I paused after I slipped into my car. “I need you to wait here,” I said to Cosmo. “I shouldn’t be long.”
The cat began to purr. I gave him a hug and he settled down on the front seat. The rain was coming down a lot harder now. I was going to be soaked to the skin by the time I got home. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. I really needed my answers.
“Morning, Henrietta,” I greeted her after once again shaking the rain from my umbrella, then stashing it in my waterproof sleeve.
“Morning, Cait. Your black and white roses are being delivered tomorrow, although I’m not sure where to send them. Sorry about the church. When we spoke before, you were so excited about getting married there.”
“Cody and I have decided to postpone the wedding until we find out when the church will reopen. I was going to talk to you about the flowers.
If it isn’t too late to cancel them, I’d like to do that. If it’s too late to cancel, of course I’ll pay for any flowers you have.”
“I can probably resell the white roses. The black ones, maybe not. But I’ll try. I’ll let you know how it works out. I’m really hoping the church will reopen soon. Someone told me it might be closed well into December, which would be tragic for my business. The church orders a lot of flowers from me. When you take into account the flowers for the services and for weddings and funerals, you’re talking about a large percentage of my income.”
“I guess I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Most people don’t. They figure the church is insured, so being closed for a few weeks is no big deal, but for the small businesses who service it, it’s huge.”
“I’m so sorry. If it helps, Father Bartholomew told me that he hopes to open the Sunday after Thanksgiving.”
Henrietta raised an imaginary glass. “Here’s hoping. If the church is closed into December, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
Suddenly, I felt awful about all the whining I’d been doing. I hadn’t stopped to consider how it might affect others in the community. “Listen,” I said, “the main reason I came in is to ask about the woman who came in here to order pink flowers on Monday.”
Henrietta rolled her eyes. “She was totally high. I mean out-of-her-head-crazy high. I heard she’s a suspect in Sally’s murder. I guess I should be glad I decided to play along with her instead of arguing with her the way Sally did.”
“You’re sure she was on drugs?”
“Totally. Not a lot of people know this, but I used to be an emergency room nurse. I treated a lot of strung-out people, so I know one when I see one.”
I raised a brow. “You were a nurse? Really? I had no idea. Why did you give up nursing in favor of selling flowers?”
