In the Dead of Winter (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 5)

by Karen Chester

  Oscar looked a mess. His eyes were red-rimmed, his nose was pink, and his chin was trembling. In contrast, Becky was a pale statue, only the faint quiver of her lips betraying the immense stress she was under. Moving like someone defusing a bomb, she slowly lifted one hand.

  “It’s okay,” Becky murmured. “Oscar and I were just—just having a chat.”

  The cook gulped and used the hand clenching the knife to swipe at his damp brow. “You had to interfere, didn’t you?” He sniffled.

  “Me?” Emma said.

  “I heard you talking to that cop. You were going to send her my handwriting. I had to stop you!”

  Emma’s glance fell on the notepad on a nearby counter. The notepad covered in Oscar’s writing. Earlier, he’d walked into the kitchen and found her near it, and then he’d overheard her call to Sherilee and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  “No, it wasn’t your handwriting, it was someone else’s. Please, Oscar,” Emma pleaded. “Please let Becky go.”

  “No. I can’t! You don’t understand! None of you do.”

  Quiet, shy Oscar, secretly in love with Becky, always lurking in the background, watching the queue of admirers, yet never brave enough to put himself forward. Oscar, who heard everything said at the front counter, thanks to the acoustics. Oscar, who had got Abigail interested in true crime. Oscar, who had a supply of tranquilizers. Oscar, who’d been absent from the diner the afternoon Kieran O’Reilly had arrived. All the pieces were tumbling into place.

  She had to show him empathy, Emma thought. Had to talk him off the ledge.

  “All right, Oscar,” she said, playing for time. “Help us to understand. Everything. Why don’t you start by telling us about the letters you wrote to Becky’s dad?”

  Oscar sniffed a couple of times. “Okay, yeah, I did write to him. I wanted to tell him that I admired him. He didn’t let his cheating wife and some fancy dude humiliate him like my old man did. No, Becky’s dad did something about it. He took a stand. He was a somebody.”

  “And did he reply to your letters?”

  “Some of them. But later when I wanted to visit him, he wrote back saying I shouldn’t look up to him. That taking a stand wasn’t worth losing his daughter. He didn’t write back after that, sent my letters back to me, unopened.” The cook made a grimace. “But I knew he was just testing me, seeing if I really did look up to him or if I was just a time waster. That’s why I decided to track down his daughter. It cost a lot, hiring a private detective, but it was worth it in the end. I found Becky.”

  He didn’t even glance at Becky. It was as if he was discussing someone not present, his grip on reality weakened by everything that had happened.

  “Is that when things changed?” Emma asked gently. “When you met Becky?”

  Oscar let out a flubbery sigh. “Oh, yes. It didn’t take long for me to realize Becky was an angel. My angel. I loved her with all my heart. But I’d made the mistake of telling her father about her, and he said he wanted to meet her, but I couldn’t allow that. She’d run away from him, after all. And he didn’t like me much, I realized, because otherwise he wouldn’t have sent my letters back, would he? I didn’t blame him for that, but I couldn’t let him come between Becky and me. So I refused to tell him where she lived.”

  “But eventually you did.”

  “Only because he tricked me!” Oscar burst out, sweat dripping from his hair. “He wrote me saying that we could all be together, him, me, and Becky. He said I was like a son to him, and maybe he could persuade Becky to love me the way I loved her! I believed him, so I told him to come to Greenville. I told Becky I had to visit the dentist, but I was meeting him off the bus. I was so excited that afternoon. We went back to my apartment. I thought it was going to be the best day of my life, but instead he told me to keep away from Becky. He said I was mentally unstable, that I would end up hurting her. He said if I really loved her, I’d stay away from her. What a jerk. He used me. He lied to me.” Resentment twisted his face. “I had no choice. He was going to take Becky away from me. I had to stop him.”

  “What did you do? Ply him with drink?”

  “We were already drinking. Rollins Tennessee Whiskey, his favorite. Just a handful of tranquilizers crushed into his glass did the trick. I drove him to the railway tracks, left him there with the empty bottle.” He let out a smothered choke. “He was my idol. I didn’t want to kill him, but he left me no choice.”

  Emma clenched her hands, fighting off the nausea that threatened her. Becky, held prisoner in front of Oscar, sent her a silent plea for help with her eyes. Hang in there, Becky.

  “But after you’d dealt with him, your attention turned to Wayne Goddard,” Emma said.

  “All these people wanted Becky,” the cook fumed. “Wayne was loud and obnoxious, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had to get rid of him.”

  Slaying the man he’d idolized had tipped Oscar into full insanity. From then on, all men who threatened to take Becky away from him had to be eliminated.

  “How did you get into his house?” Emma asked.

  “Just turned up and asked for a guitar lesson. He never realized the beer I brought was spiked. Piece of cake.”

  “That was smart of you.” If she flattered him, Emma thought, maybe she could talk him into letting Becky go. “And I guess it was you who pushed Rusty down those stairs on New Year’s Eve?”

  Oscar shrugged. “Becky was never serious about that guy, but he needed to be taught a lesson.”

  “That’s right, Becky wasn’t serious about Rusty, but she was serious about Nick Stavros.”

  At that, Oscar’s fair features darkened. “Stupid vet. I hate him.”

  Of course he hated him. Nick Stavros was a real danger, the man whom Becky seemed to be falling in love with.

  “You watched his house for several nights, didn’t you?”

  For the first time Oscar looked startled. “How do you know that?”

  “Someone saw you.”

  Using the heel of his hand clasping the knife, he rubbed his eyes. “He should’ve died in the bath tub, the stinking rat.” His voice trembled as he shifted from side to side, his agitation rising. “He doesn’t deserve to live!”

  Standing captive in his grip, Becky’s face turned even more ghostly white. She looked like she was struggling to breathe.

  “Oscar,” Emma said, trying to sound reasonable even as her alarm rose. “Please let Becky go. Everything you did was for her, only her. You can’t harm the one you love, can you?”

  The knife shook in Oscar’s hand. He blinked rapidly, tears welling up in his blue eyes. “Of course I love Becky. I would do anything for her. I have done everything for her.”

  “Yes, you’re so good to Becky. You’re a wonderful, marvelous man,” Emma rattled on, desperate to find a way to connect with this deluded and dangerous creature. “You’re the only one who truly understands her, aren’t you?”

  “Yes…yes…” Oscar choked, the knife wavering dangerously close to Becky’s chest.

  “You’re the only one who can protect her, cherish her. But look, Oscar. Look at her. She’s frightened because of your knife.”

  The cook squinted down at Becky, as if seeing her for the first time.

  “Please, Oscar,” Emma begged. “Please let Becky go.”

  For a few heart-stopping moments, Oscar stared at Becky, and then his grip on her arm loosened, and he lowered the knife.

  “I—I’m sorry—” he choked out.

  Before he’d got the words out, Emma grabbed Becky by the arm and yanked her away from Oscar.

  The rear door flew open, and Hazel charged in, brandishing a folded umbrella. She swung it at Oscar, the hooked handle caught the wrist of the hand holding the knife. Hazel jerked the umbrella, and the knife clattered to the tiled floor. Yelling like a warrior, the secretary proceeded to lay into Oscar with the umbrella, bashing him over the head until he crumpled to his knees. Finally Frank leaped into action and grappled with the man,
but the fight had gone out of the cook, and he groveled with bowed head, weeping and wailing, while Frank tied his wrists behind his back with a ball of cooking twine that Abigail handed him.

  Flushed from her exertions, Hazel tucked the umbrella under her arm and glanced at Becky, still clutched in Emma’s grip. “I saw you were already free, but I wasn’t prepared to take any chances with that knife.”

  “You knew what was going on?” Emma asked.

  The secretary nodded. “I was just outside the kitchen. I heard everything. So I grabbed my umbrella and went around to the back. I figured I could take him by surprise.”

  “Hazel, you were amazing!” Abigail exclaimed with unabashed admiration.

  Reddening, Hazel shrugged and dusted the snow off her clothes.

  “The police will be here soon,” Frank said, ending a call on his cell phone. The tussle had left his hair sticking on end and his cheeks red, but he seemed to have relished the action. “What was all that stuff about your father?” he asked Becky, his curiosity evident.

  “Just some private family stuff,” Emma broke in, wanting to spare Becky any awkwardness. Becky nodded, still recovering from her ordeal.

  Frank gave Emma one of his trademark chilly looks. “You were acting very strange out there in the diner.”

  Emma swallowed. Oh well, best to apologize now and make a fresh start. “I’m sorry, Frank. I misjudged you. I—I saw that letter, and then when you smashed my lunch, I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusion…”

  His arched eyebrows drew together into a narrow vee. “You thought I was the killer? But why?”

  “You’re exchanging letters with someone in prison, aren’t you?”

  Frank’s mouth turned into a thin line. “If you must know, that letter was from my ex-business partner. Jake Harper and I were running a successful dental practice, until he got hooked on Oxycontin and was caught writing false prescriptions for himself. He was sent to prison, and I decided I needed a fresh start, which was why I moved to Greenville.” He shot her an annoyed glance. “Jake made a terrible mistake, but he’s clean now, and I don’t abandon my friends because of one slipup. He and I write regularly. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  Blushing, Emma shook her head. Before she could apologize again, Martinez and Polk burst into the kitchen.

  “Got here as quick as we could,” Martinez wheezed, hand on his holster, his eyes darting about. His expression altered when he saw Becky. He made a move toward her, but Frank was already gesturing at Oscar.

  “That’s the guy. He threatened Becky with a knife, tried to poison Emma with rat poison, and it sounds like he’s responsible for Wayne Goddard’s death and Nick Stavros’s electrocution.”

  The two cops absorbed this succinct account. Officer Polk had the decency to look slightly shamefaced at the news that Nick Stavros’s brush with death hadn’t been an accident, as he’d insisted.

  Emma was more concerned about Becky. “Why don’t we go sit in the diner?” she suggested, keeping her arm around Becky’s shoulders.

  Nodding, Becky started to walk, but when she drew level with Oscar, she stopped short. The cook was still sitting on the floor, his blonde head bowed as Martinez fastened handcuffs onto him.

  “Oscar…” Becky began hesitantly, but the man refused to look up at her.

  “Better to leave him alone,” Martinez said gruffly.

  Becky sighed and allowed Emma to usher her out of the kitchen. Glancing over her shoulder, Emma saw the cook take one last look at Becky, and the anguish in his eyes made her shiver. What dark and twisted past had led him to this moment, shackled and defeated before the object of his unrequited love?

  ***

  “Ah-hah, so that’s where the Jamie came from.” Emma sat back. “It’s Oscar’s middle name.”

  “Oscar James Bergen,” Becky mused, stirring her coffee. “His mother used to call him Jamie, until she abandoned the family for a rich lover when he was just a child. Apparently he became obsessed with crime and criminals when he was a teenager. Not unusual, but with Oscar it lasted into his twenties and became pathological.”

  “Which is why he started writing to your father.”

  Becky took a sip of coffee. “He wrote to dozens of murderers, but he became fixated on my father.”

  “So much so that he tracked you down, moved here and even got a job with you.” Emma rubbed her arms. It still creeped her out that Oscar/Jamie had basically been stalking Becky for years. “He did it to get your father’s attention, but then he fell in love with you, and his focus shifted. Your father sensed something wasn’t right, that you might be in danger. That’s why he arranged to meet Oscar, AKA Jamie, here.”

  “All these years my father was trying to protect me,” Becky murmured. “He didn’t try to contact me even when he was released because he knew I didn’t want any contact. He only came because he was concerned for my safety.” She paused, moisture gathering in her eyes. “But I’d never really escaped my past, had I? For so long I let it affect my happiness, but now finally I can lay it to rest, and I can do that because of my father. He committed a terrible crime, but he tried his best to atone for his sins. At least I can draw comfort from that.”

  Two days had passed since Oscar had been arrested. They were back in the diner. It was mid-morning and business was quiet, Abigail seeing to the handful of customers. Outside, snow blanketed the streetscape, sparkling under a cloudless blue sky. Everything was still and breathtakingly beautiful, the whiteness like a clean slate for the new year.

  Becky and Emma were seated at the table next to the kitchen doors, coffee and slices of apple pie in front of them while they tried to make sense of the week’s drama.

  “What will you do now?” Emma asked.

  Becky wiped the corners of her eyes. “I’ll bury him here, and everyone can know he was my father. I won’t hide from that anymore.” A trace of uncertainty showed in her hand as she wrapped them around her mug. “And if that’s too much for Nick, well then, too bad.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Emma exclaimed. “If anything, Nick owes you some explanations. For a start, what about him assaulting the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend?”

  Becky flapped a hand. “Oh, that. Faye had the story completely mixed up. It was the boyfriend who was charged with assault, not Nick. Sherilee confirmed it for me. Nick is not a violent man, I can assure you. I’ve spoken to Faye. Until she’s apologized to Nick and set the record straight with each and every person she told that lie to, she’s banned from the diner.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Well, she hasn’t set the record straight with me, so I guess she’s still banned?”

  “Uh-huh, and I don’t mind saying that it’s killing her. She passes by the diner several times a day, looking like a really sad basset hound.”

  Emma couldn’t help smiling at the image. “But what about Oscar’s cat? I heard Nick had killed it through negligence of spite.”

  An indignant look came over Becky. “Oscar made that all up. The cat had feline distemper and was suffering so much it had to be put down. It wouldn’t have happened if Oscar had vaccinated his cat. That’s what made Nick so angry about it. He cares so much for his patients.”

  “And then there’s the argument he had with Wayne in the supermarket that Hazel witnessed,” Emma pointed out.

  “That part is true, but Wayne started it by bragging about how he was going to reel me in. I’m sorry he’s dead, but I didn’t realize Wayne could be such an oaf at times. And Nick didn’t mention it to us because he didn’t want to embarrass me.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve cleared all that up, seeing as you’re likely to be spending more time with him.”

  Emma had popped in to visit Nick yesterday and had found Becky sitting at his bedside. Nick’s recollections of the electrocution were sketchy. All he could say was that he’d been soaking in the bath when the lights had suddenly gone out, someone had rushed into the bathroom, plugged in a radio, and thrown it into the b
ath. By the time Nick had finished recounting his story, Becky had been holding his hand.

  “I think that’s a distinct possibility.” Becky smiled dreamily. All her objections about Nick being too young for her had disappeared. “There’s just one thing that still bothers me. Who was driving that white van that almost knocked you over? It wasn’t Oscar because he was in here at the time, so who was it?”

  “Ah, I can explain that. Officer Polk came by my office this morning and told me they had CC-TV footage from a camera outside the bank that showed the same van zooming past on the morning of my near miss. They got the license plate. It was just a courier in a tearing hurry. Polk tracked him down and fined him for reckless driving.”

  Becky grinned. “So you and Polk are buddies now?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s trying to make amends after his stuff up at Nick’s.”

  “Well, I’m glad that little mystery is solved. I don’t like loose ends.”

  “Speaking of loose ends,” Emma said, glancing at Abigail across the diner. “What about Abigail? Is it true that her ex-boyfriend put a restraining order on her and that she tried to harm his new girlfriend?”

  Becky sighed. “The restraining order part is true, but Abigail denies trying to hurt the girlfriend, and I believe her. That stuff about her apartment walls being papered with true crime stories? It’s not true. Oscar made it up to throw suspicion onto her. Abigail’s really upset about him. She thought he was her friend. She never suspected he was so unstable. Well, I didn’t either. We were both duped, but we’ll get through this.”

  “Of course you will. I never doubted it.”

  Just then the door to the diner opened. Emma looked up to see Owen striding toward her, his jaw unshaven, his eyes lighting up at the sight of her.

  “Oh!”

  She jumped to her feet, all thought of mystery and murder vanishing as she ran toward him.

  ***

  Owen wolfed down the last of Emma’s apple pie, set down his fork, and let out a satisfied sigh. While he had eaten, she had filled him in on everything that had happened since their long phone conversation yesterday.