“True. I heard Harley yelling at Mayor Frost about the microbrewery, right here, in fact, and then he said he was quitting the council because of it.”
Wendell shook his head. “The mayor told me all about their tiff, and he also said he thought you’d be a good replacement if Harley decided to leave.”
I nodded then shrugged. “Then Harley changed his mind after the mayor died. It makes you wonder.” When Wendell didn’t respond I had the feeling he felt the same. “And the other issue, the proposed factory. Mayor Frost got a funny look on his face and acted like he wanted to say something when you asked the attorney if there were any reasons the council should be concerned about the proposal.”
“Really? I didn’t see that. I guess I’ll have to take a look at the video myself.”
“When you asked your question, was it because you had a particular concern?”
“I did, frankly. Frosty was acting sheepish about the whole thing, and I think it made all of us question why that was.”
“Wendell, did you know about the mayor’s diamond pendant, the one his mother left him?”
He shook his head. “The police asked me about that. Frosty didn’t talk to me about it and I’d never noticed a pendant of any kind in his office.”
“You’ve known the mayor a number of years. Is there anyone he was having any real trouble with?”
His bushy eyebrows drew together. “You mean enough to kill him?”
“Yes.”
“No, at least not on purpose.”
“So there’s someone you suspect who could have done it accidentally, then?”
“I didn’t mean to imply that, Camryn. People get into arguments, tempers fly. Did something like that happen? I don’t know, but we need to find the son-of-a-gun who did it and put him away for life. Frosty wasn’t only my colleague, he was one of my closest friends.”
• • • • • • • •
I thought about everything Wendell Lyon had said as I went about my closing up duties. After double checking the machines in Brew Ha-Ha to be sure everything was off, I locked the door, turned down the heat, and shut off the lights. As I walked into Curio Finds, Clint startled me when he came through the entry door. He was in uniform, still on duty. “It’s well past closing time, so when I saw your lights on I thought I’d better check to be sure everything was okay,” he said.
“Everything’s fine. Wendell Lyon stopped in for a visit, and he just left.”
“Any special reason?”
“We’re all trying to figure out what happened to Mayor Frost.”
“Ah, and in my mind that translates to you were pumping Lyon for information.”
“Not exactly.”
He moved to an arm’s length away from me. “Camryn, it seems like we’ve had a discussion about that once or twice before. Probably more than that.”
Then all the shop lights went out, again. But this time, there was no light spilling over from Brew Ha-Ha. Clint slid a hand around my waist, resting his arm on my back, bringing us side by side like we were preparing for a quick getaway. “What in tarnation? It doesn’t look like the power went out, because the security night lights are on in the building across the street.”
“Pinky would tell you the place is haunted. Molly.” When I said her name, the lights came back on, almost making a believer out of me.
Clint shifted so we were face-to-face. “How did you do that?”
I lifted my hands. “I promise you I have nothing up my sleeves.”
He touched my fingers then slid his hands up my arms and rested them on my shoulders, all the while studying my face. “I believe you.”
The mystified look on his face made me smile. “Sure, now that you’ve frisked me.”
He smiled back. “That wasn’t much of a pat down. In any event, you should get the wires checked in this place.”
“The electrician did a thorough check last month. He even replaced some wires, but more as a precaution than anything else.”
“Well I think you should get it looked at again. Try a different guy.”
“I’ll talk to Dad about it. But right now, I need to close up shop for the night.”
Clint’s police radio clicked on. “Buffalo County to a Brooks Landing officer.”
“Three-oh-one, go ahead.”
“Report of a suspicious person going up the fire escape steps of the Huber Hotel.”
“Ten-four. You’ll be all right, Camryn?”
“Ten-four,” I said.
He ran out the door so fast, he’d probably get to the hotel before the guy got to the top of the fire escape steps.
It took me a few minutes to get out of the shop then another five to let the engine in my car warm up. I shivered and lifted the front of my coat so I could breathe into it and not fog up the windows as much. I wanted to get to the hotel to see if Clint had caught the suspicious character. As I drove the few blocks I realized I’d never noticed the hotel even had fire escape steps. They weren’t on the front, and as I approached the hotel, I slowed down to a crawl and glanced at the west side. No steps.
I kept going past the hotel front to the east side. Nope. I took a right at the next street and continued until I had a view of the backside. That’s where they were located. On the same side as Nicoline’s apartment. In fact, unless there was an inside landing area that separated the apartment from the exit, it seemed the emergency egress was directly outside her apartment. Had she felt threatened by someone on the steps and called 911 to report it?
I didn’t see either a suspicious character or our assistant police chief in pursuit of him, so I drove home.
• • • • • • • •
Clint called my cell phone as I was heating the last of the leftover lasagna. “Did you make it home?” he said.
“I did, and all in one piece besides.”
“I didn’t like leaving you like that, with your shop lights acting up and you blaming it on a ghost, so I needed to be sure you’re feeling okay. You’re not coming down with whatever Emmy’s got, are you?”
“I’m not ill. You know, Clint, there isn’t always a simple, physical explanation for things that go bump in the night.”
“I don’t like the thought of you being alone in your shop with those unexplained bump-in-the-night things going on.”
“Don’t worry about it. Really. I admit that it’s a little disconcerting at times, but I feel perfectly safe.”
“Well—”
I cut him off, “Did you catch the fire escape climber?”
“No, he was gone before I got there. Those steps lead to an apartment on the fourth floor, so I went up there to see if the people that lived there had used them, but no one answered. My guess is, if it wasn’t a Peeping Tom, it was probably some kid showing off for his friends who didn’t mind freezing half to death in the process.”
I remembered doing some goofy things with my friends when we were kids. I considered telling Clint I’d been snooping around that same apartment, but why open up another debate? “Why are you working again tonight? It seems like you’ve been putting in sixteen hour days this whole week.”
“I’m not counting. We’re short one officer, until we can get another one hired. And one called in sick, so it was either me or one of my other guys who have been putting in about as many hours as I have.”
It was moments like that when I liked Clint a lot. “How’s the investigation going?”
“You could say we’re making progress with the number of people we’ve interviewed, but we keeping hitting one brick wall after the next. Nothing seems to be adding up.”
As long as he seemed receptive to sharing information, I tried for one more answer. “Did you find out if the diamond came from the mayor’s pendant?”
“Not yet, that might take a while. But a positive thing for the fa
mily: the medical examiner’s office released the mayor’s body this afternoon, so they’ll be able to make the funeral arrangements.”
“I guess that gives them some closure, in a sad way of course. Did the medical examiner say what caused his death?”
“Yes, Mayor Frost took an initial blow to the head by a round object, but it was striking his head on the desk that caused the fatal injury.”
In a small way it gave me some comfort knowing the snow globe had likely knocked him out, but hadn’t killed him. “So the blood on the desk was from Mayor Frost?”
“Yes, the tests confirmed that it was.”
“This might sound like a strange thing for me to say, but I’m glad it was the mayor’s and not the killer’s. I didn’t want the killer’s blood on my hand.”
He let out a loud breath. “I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t either. Well, I better get back to work. Good night, Camryn.”
“Night.”
I hit the end button on the phone and shook my head. Clint had actually been decent to talk to after we’d established I was safely at home. And not suffering from an illness. My meal had cooled so I zapped it another minute then carried the plate and glass of milk into the living room. Leaning back on the couch with my feet up, using my lap as a table was more appealing than sitting at one tonight. The lasagna tasted even yummier than it had on Thursday. Lasagna had been one of my forever comfort foods and I felt a little better with each bite.
I had talked with a number of people about Frosty since he’d died. The police had the names of far more people to investigate than I had, yet Clint indicated they hadn’t gotten the information they needed to solve the murder. Of the people I knew, farmer Marvin Easterly and councilors Rosalie Gorman and Harley Creighton were still my obvious suspects, and I wanted to talk to them again. But what about the people I didn’t know? Mayor Frost had contacts galore.
When my plate was empty, I carried it to the kitchen, rinsed it out in the sink, and then picked up my notepad and pen from the table and went back to my spot in the living room. Both Gail Spindler and Wendell Lyon confirmed that Frosty had not disclosed any secret deals with bringing the children’s clothing factory to town, but my observation about Frosty’s reaction to the attorney’s comment about it had given Wendell pause.
Another Saturday night. What were Easterly, Gorman, and Creighton all up to? Was one of them toting around a burden of guilt, waiting for some damning evidence against him or her to be brought to light?
Nicoline. The person who’d left her apartment when I was creeping around in the hallway had to be her uncle. He either lived there or was paying her a visit. Nicoline had come to Brooks Landing to help him. I puzzled over what kind of assistance he needed. He wasn’t bedridden, and he was able to be alone all day while she was at work. I picked up my phone and called the number she had put on her application. It rang four times before she answered, “Hello.” I heard men’s voices in the background, likely coming from a television or radio program.
“Hello, Nicoline, it’s Camryn.”
“Hello,” she repeated. The voices got quieter and more muffled.
“I thought I’d check in to see if you’re starting to feel comfortable working in the shops.”
“I am, thank you.”
“You said you’re in town because your uncle needed your help, and I got to thinking that I hope you’ll be here for a while.”
“Oh. Well, I have no plans to leave.”
“Good. I finally got a chance to go over your application and I noticed you listed a post office box instead of your address.”
“Yes, that is my address.”
“It’s your mailing address. The reason we need your physical address is in case we can’t get a hold of you by phone.”
“It is not so you will be visiting me?”
Her question confirmed that she was not ready to let me in on what was going on in her personal life.
“No, not at all. We’re talking about an emergency situation.”
“Oh. Well, I will give you my address. It is Two-hundred, Second Avenue Northeast.”
“All right, I’ll jot that down on your application. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
If Nicoline ever showed up with another injury, I’d make sure Clint or Mark arrested her uncle so fast it would make his head spin. Maybe then she’d be able to get free of the hold he seemed to have over her.
I was staring at nothing, trying to find even one piece of a puzzle to match with another when I got a call. “Hi, Camryn, it’s Jason Frost.”
“Hi, Jason, how are you?”
“I go between feeling numb and then very sad. Sorrowful. The police called to tell me they took Dad to the funeral home earlier. We’ll be meeting with the directors tomorrow.”
“Are your cousin and aunt going with you?”
“Just Anne. My aunt is acting strange about it, and said we should take care of the arrangements. I found out there was another layer to their dispute that I had no clue about. Anne confided in me about it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Jason. You found out there was something other than your father being willed the pendant?”
“Yes, that was personal. This is business. But back to the pendant, I’ve been going through some of Dad’s papers and things, trying to figure out what he might have done with it, and I came across his bank safety box key. That’s where I would have kept it if I were him, so we’ll soon find out. I also found the insurance information on the pendant. If I’d known it was valued at over two million dollars I would have talked to Dad about it, made sure I knew what his wishes were. And that he kept it in a very secure place. I had no idea it was that valuable.”
I almost dropped the phone. “Oh my gosh. It looked huge, but wow.”
“Ten carats is a big one all right. I know my grandfather couldn’t have paid that much for it when he bought it all those years ago.”
“Still, a very generous gift to your grandmother.”
“For sure. The police told me they got two sets of fingerprints from his home safe, and I found that curious. Dad’s had the same cleaning lady for years, so the police are going to talk to her, see if she even knew about the safe. With the way it’s hidden, it’s hard to say. I’ll go to the bank on Monday to look in the safety deposit box.”
“You got so much on your plate, Jason. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to unload it on you, Camryn.”
“Not to worry. Feel free to talk to me anytime.”
“Thanks. I called to let you know about Dad.”
“I appreciate that.”
After we hung up, I contemplated what kind of business disagreement would cause a rift so deep that Frosty’s sister wasn’t willing to put it aside and help her nephew through such a difficult time. A true crying shame.
The missing pendant had even greater potential significance than I’d thought. How long would it take a diamond expert to determine if the diamond I’d seen belonged in the pendant? But if it didn’t, that opened up a whole new can of worms. It was rumored Frosty had a fair amount of wealth, but if he could afford another large diamond that meant he was extremely rich.
I got my laptop, settled back down on the couch, and logged onto an Internet search engine to read up on diamonds, and what would make one worth over $2 million. A half hour later, I’d read more technical information than I would remember. The main factors that determined the value of a diamond were its shape, its anatomy, and what was referred to as the four Cs: its color, clarity, carat weight, and cut. Frosty’s diamond must have been a fine one.
16
After a night of crazy dreams, I was out the door bright and early on Sunday morning to open Brew Ha-Ha and get it warmed up before Pinky arrived with her dozens of muffins and scones. “Have you ever thought of upgrading the co
mmercial kitchen here instead of baking at home?” I said when she came in with a box full.
“No, then I’d really be tied down here, or we’d need to hire a full-timer for sure because I’d be back there baking.” She looked worn out, a little out of sorts.
“I guess you’re right.” I took the box from her and carried it behind her counter.
“We’ll use up the ones I have in the freezer first,” she said and headed for her storeroom to get them. She came back with a few bags and gave them to me.
I visually assessed her. “Are you okay, Pinky? You’re not getting sick are you?”
She sat down on a counter stool and dropped her chin into the palms of her hands. “Holy moly, Cami. I think I am. Lovesick, that is.”
That was the first time I’d heard her say that in close to twenty years. “You fell that hard for Jake that fast?”
She nodded. “I can’t get him out of my mind. I didn’t sleep much at all last night. It’s like being a teenager again with all those crazy hormones flying around.”
I gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Oh, Pinky, I hope it works out with Jake.”
She smiled. “Thanks. He did ask me out for a bite to eat later this afternoon.”
“That’s promising.”
Pinky sighed. “Jake told Mark he thought I was captivating.”
“Captivating, huh? Well it’s nice to know he has good taste. And he seems like a really decent guy.” I gave her my best smile.
After we’d decided on the coffee special of the day, Pinky went home, hopefully to get a long winter’s nap.
It was a relief when Nicoline walked through Brew Ha-Ha’s door, all in one piece. That’s when I realized I’d become a helicopter employer. I was as concerned about her personal safety as Clint was about mine. Maybe more so. She smiled like she was happy to be there.
“Hello, and how are you doing today?” I said.
“I am well, thank you. And you?”
“I’m doing fine except I had the strangest dreams about diamonds all night.”
By the look she gave me you’d have thought I poked her in the stomach. Her eyebrows lifted and her mouth dropped open like she was gasping for air.
Frosty the Dead Man (A Snow Globe Shop Mystery) Page 17
