A Valentine's Kill

by Mona Marple

  Sandy felt her knees weaken at his words, and felt relief to be seated.

  “A date? Like, a date, date?”

  “A date date, me and you. What do you think?” He asked.

  “I’d like to, I really would, I’m just not sure what’s been…”

  “I know I’ve been acting strange, and I can explain, I promise. Not here, I can’t stand here and explain, but if we go out, let me take you out and make it up to you? I’ll explain then.”

  “Is it anything I should be worrying about?” Sandy asked with some trepidation.

  Tom laughed and his cheeks flushed crimson. “I hope not.”

  She realised she would get no more out of him in the public space of the bookshop. “Ok. Yes, then, I’d love to.”

  “Really?” He asked, and she realised he was nervous. Nervous about asking her on an official date. “Brill, that’s great, I’ll book a table for us. I’ll text you.”

  “Ok,” Sandy said, trying to remain a little reserved.

  He grinned and dashed out of the bookshop, taking the stairs three at a time on his way down.

  **

  As soon as he was out of sight, Coral appeared upstairs.

  “Well?” She asked.

  “He invited me out for Valentine’s Day,” Sandy admitted, with a shrug.

  “And you said no, I hope.”

  “Coral, I…”

  “I can’t believe you’ve said yes! You promised me, Sand. You promised me you’d stay safe and now you’re going out with the murderer himself.”

  An elderly woman with a foxskin draped across her shoulders turned towards the two of them and raised an eyebrow.

  “Ha! You’re such a joker, Coral!” Sandy exclaimed as she dragged her sister into the storage room and closed the door after them. “Be quiet, for goodness sake!”

  “Sorry,” Coral said, sheepish. “I just can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “I’m going on a date,” Sandy said. “I told you how I feel about him.”

  “Oh, Sandy. I already knew how you felt about him! You’ve been moping about like a teenager because he hasn’t texted you, it’s been obvious you’re in love with him. And it’s clouding your ability to see things.”

  “So, are you saying you’re adamant he’s the killer?” Sandy asked.

  “No!” Coral exclaimed. “I’ve got no idea who the killer is, but I do know he was out there around that time, and he had a motive. Not to mention how strange he’s been acting since it happened. That all adds up and makes him someone you shouldn’t be going out with alone right now, don’t you see?”

  “I’d better solve this case quick then, so we know one way or the other,” Sandy said.

  Coral shook her head as a customer pressed the service bell on the counter. Sandy opened the door and saw the foxskin woman holding a small pile of books.

  “Let’s chat later?” Coral called, flashing a false smile, as she returned downstairs.

  **

  Sandy didn’t expect DC Sullivan to see her, and wondered if the smell of a quality cup of coffee was what brought him out of his room into the police station reception area.

  “Sandy Shaw, you remembered.” He said, accepting the cup from her. Last time she had visited him at the station, he had told her that in future she should bring coffee since the station’s machine served such poor quality drinks.

  “I did indeed.” She said with a hopeful smile.

  DC Sullivan took a sip and nodded his approval. “Very nice. How can I help you?”

  “I want to have a chat about the Dick Jacobs case,” Sandy said. She expected the officer to roll his eyes or make some sarcastic remark about her sticking her nose in again, but instead, he nodded and gestured for her to follow him down the corridor into his office.

  She’d never been in the room before and wondered what it was used for when the city police weren’t in Waterfell Tweed. It was a small room, with a curved desk covered by an old computer and mounds of paperwork, with a swivel chair behind the desk and two plastic chairs stacked on top of each other in the corner. DC Sullivan lifted the top chair and placed it on the other side of his desk and gestured for Sandy to take a seat.

  “You didn’t bring yourself a coffee, I guess you don’t want to try one of ours?” He asked.

  “I didn’t think I’d be made welcome for long enough to need one,” Sandy admitted.

  “I’m always open to sensible ideas about solving cases, Ms. Shaw.” DC Sullivan said, then took a deep breath. “And, let’s face it, you’ve shown that you do know what you’re talking about sometimes.”

  “Really?” Sandy asked. “Wow. Okay, erm, I’ve been trying to get my head around it all and something just isn’t adding up.”

  “Welcome to my world.” DC Sullivan said.

  “Can we have an off-the-record chat, and if I’m anywhere near your thoughts, can you say?”

  “It’s an active investigation, Ms. Shaw, and you’re still not a police officer to my knowledge, but we can… talk.” DC Sullivan said. He took a long sip of the coffee, gulping it down in one.

  “Okay… I have the cause of death as a blow to the head…” Sandy said and then paused to gauge the officer’s reaction. He nodded. “And an attack he didn’t see coming. I don’t think he tried to fight back or protect himself.”

  “Mm-hmm.” The officer agreed.

  “I have no idea at all about the murder weapon,” Sandy said. This point was crucial. If the police knew more than she did about the weapon, she needed to persuade DC Sullivan to share his information with her.

  “No.” DC Sullivan agreed.

  “You don’t know what it was either?” Sandy asked in surprise. It hadn’t occurred to her that she may have worked out exactly as much as the police had. “Wow.”

  “We learn to take an educated guess in these cases. A skull that’s been hit with a hammer looks different to a skull that’s been hit with a crowbar, for example. So we can quickly look, in most cases, and see it’s a hammer, it’s a crowbar, it’s a whatever. Before the reports come in and tell us what we already know.”

  “But you couldn’t do that here?” Sandy asked.

  DC Sullivan shook his head. Sandy waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing.

  “Surely that means it wasn’t any of those weapons you’re used to seeing?” Sandy asked.

  DC Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “It could mean that.”

  “OK. And in terms of witnesses, I’ve spoken to lots of people, and nobody saw anything. Early evening on a Monday, right in the village square, and nobody saw anything, isn’t that strange?”

  “Could be. Might not be. There’s a fact we try to remember in the force - nowt’s as queer as folk. Might just be me who remembers it. My dad taught me that phrase. He was in the force, and his dad before him. He’d tell me when I was younger, don’t turn everything into a clue. That’s what people do. They look too hard for the meaning. It might just be, Sandy, that on a Monday evening everyone’s too busy with their own lives to see what’s right in front of them.”

  Sandy blushed at his use of her first name, at the way he was speaking to her almost as a peer, instead of an annoying busybody trying to poke her nose into his case.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I mean, when I’m at home, I draw my curtains and turn my TV on and anything could happen outside, I guess.”

  DC Sullivan nodded. “Ok then, the million dollar question. Who are your suspects?”

  Sandy gulped. She had been dreading this question and knew she had to somehow dodge it. She couldn’t hand Tom over on a plate for DC Sullivan. “Isabelle Irons is the obvious one.”

  DC Sullivan shook his head. “Alibi.”

  “Really?” Sandy asked. If Isabelle had an alibi, why hadn’t she said that when Sandy went to speak to her?

  “Oh yes. Checked it and it holds up.”

  “I’m out of ideas then,” Sandy said.

  “You and me both.” DC Sullivan admitted. He dra
nk the last of the coffee and tossed the paper cup into the bin by the door.

  “Well, I guess that’s it then. Thank you for speaking to me, I do appreciate it and I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye.” Sandy said. She stood up to leave.

  “Thanks for the coffee.” DC Sullivan said, and walked her out.

  “Anytime,” Sandy said, trying to ignore the feeling of dread in her stomach as she realised that she had a suspect in a case with no other suspects.

  **

  She returned to Books and Bakes, which was empty apart from one straggler of a customer who nursed a long-since empty drink, and told Derrick, Coral, and Bernice to head home.

  “Are you sure?” Coral asked, eyeing her warily.

  “Yeah, just go. I’ll be fine. I won’t be long, hopefully.” She said, looking at the customer who showed no signs of being ready to leave.

  When the others had gone, she walked through to the kitchen, to find that Derrick had washed every single cup, plate, and dish. She allowed a smile. She’d expected there to be a backlog for her to get done. It was good to have him back in the kitchen.

  The bell rang out; the last customer must have left.

  As she emerged from the kitchen, the sight of a man standing before her made her jump for the second time that day.

  “DC Sullivan!” She exclaimed. “You made me jump.”

  “Sorry.” He said, with a coy smile. “I’ve got a taste for that coffee, wondered if I could have a cup for the journey home. If you’re still open?”

  “Still open,” Sandy said. She turned to make the coffee.

  “It was an interesting chat we just had.” DC Sullivan said, his voice low. “I’ll admit, I was curious to hear your thoughts. See if I’d missed anything. It’s not easy, you know, having my cases solved by someone not on the force.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Sandy admitted. “Sorry. I never meant to step on anyone’s toes.”

  “I know. Doesn’t stop questions being asked, though. So, I was curious to see what you’d found out. There’s just no clues. It’s the perfect crime.” DC Sullivan joked.

  “Who’d know how to commit the perfect…?” Sandy asked, then froze. Her own words stopped her in her tracks.

  She knew who the killer was.

  15

  “Are you okay?” DC Sullivan asked. “You’ve turned white like a sheet.”

  “I know who did it,” Sandy whispered. “Follow my lead.”

  “Erm… okay.” DC Sullivan said.

  “There’s no such thing as a perfect murder, right? Everyone leaves a clue.” Sandy said. She handed the coffee to the police officer and turned to the machine to make herself a mocha. Her chest had tightened with fear and she needed time to compose herself.

  “Well, yeah.” DC Sullivan said, his voice uncertain. “It’s impossible to kill a person without leaving a trace of evidence that you were there. Whether it’s DNA, forensics, a witness, an alibi that falls apart… there’s always something.”

  “And Dick Jacobs had a lot of enemies, right?” Sandy asked. The vague shape of a plan was forming in her mind.

  “It looks that way.” DC Sullivan agreed. “You know in his office he had a framed award. Not a real one, I’m not sure if he’d mocked it up himself or if someone else did as a joke - it’s congratulating him on closing down his 250th business.”

  “You’re kidding? Well, I know he wanted to close the butcher’s, I think that was his next target.” Sandy lied. “Have you spoken to Gus Sanders?”

  “What we are doing here?” DC Sullivan hissed, his voice low.

  “Just talk to me. Make it up if you need to.” Sandy said then, seeing the doubt on his face, urged him, “Trust me, please?”

  “Gus Sanders, yes, he’s a possibility.” DC Sullivan said. His voice was stiff, his words clipped and unnatural. Sandy could feel the plan falling apart around her.

  “I think it’s him,” Sandy said, her voice bold and loud. “I think it’s Gus.”

  “Really?” DC Sullivan asked, giving her a stage wink.

  “It makes sense. His business was about to be closed down, he’s always had a temper on him and it must have got out of control. I think that’s it, I think it’s him.”

  “I need to arrest him.” DC Sullivan said. “Where do you think he’d be now?”

  “Don’t go now,” Sandy said, shaking her head the tiniest fraction at the police officer. “Go in the morning, to his shop. I bet he’s got the weapon stashed there. He wouldn’t take it home for his wife to see.”

  “Good thinking.” DC Sullivan said, but it was clear he didn’t know how to progress the conversation. Sandy needed to buy time. To continue weaving a web.

  “Can I tell you something?” She asked the officer. He nodded. “I saw a crime being committed when I was a child. It was a robbery. We’d gone to the city shopping, me and my sister with our mum, and I was loitering around sulking when I heard this shout, and I turned around and there was a man running through the streets with this bag, like a big black sports bag. And people were chasing him and telling people to call the police, it was back before mobile phones so nobody could really do anything, but I saw the man really clear. He ran right past me and he didn’t pay any attention, I was just a kid, I think he even smiled at me. And then I saw in the newspaper a week or so later that the woman who had committed the robbery had been caught. And her photo was there in the paper. I’ll never forget her face. Shocks of curly red hair, loads of freckles, bad teeth. And I’ve thought ever since, how could I have got it so wrong? I saw a man, a man with a big smile, loads of teeth, and it turns out it was a woman. Isn’t that mad?” Sandy asked, returning in her mind to the day in question when the man had run past her.

  “People make the worst witnesses.” DC Sullivan quipped. “Much rather have a nice piece of CCTV or DNA any day. What did she get?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What sentence did she get?”

  “Some kind of community work, the newspaper made a big deal about it being too soft a sentence.”

  DC Sullivan nodded and smiled. “The plan worked then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just a hunch… but I bet you were right, I bet it was a man. Her boyfriend, her pimp, her dad even maybe. Someone with a longer record than hers, someone who’d have gone straight to prison if they were caught.”

  “So she just took the blame?” Sandy asked. “Who’d do that? Who’d ask someone to do that?”

  DC Sullivan shrugged. “There’s another world out there, Sandy, nothing like Waterfell Tweed. There’s a world where, if your boyfriend tells you you’re handing yourself in, you don’t ask any questions.”

  “Is that the world you’re normally working in?” She asked.

  He grinned. “Sometimes. Sometimes I get to come here and drink good coffee and have a break from the noise at home.”

  Sandy looked at him.

  “Boys.” He explained. “A house full of boys. And I know, I’m too young. Everyone says it. Started too young, now got four of them and the missus begging for more.”

  “Wow,” Sandy said, raising her eyebrows. She had not pictured DC Sullivan as being a family man, but then, that was probably his intention. To be seen as a professional only, a police officer, not a husband or a father.

  “Are we done here?” He asked, his voice low.

  She shook her head. “But not even an unreliable witness in this case, eh. Just a motive that points towards Gus Sanders.”

  “I’ll head over in the morning with a search warrant.” DC Sullivan said. “Arrest him.”

  “Do you think he’ll confess?” Sandy asked. DC Sullivan looked at her sternly, not prepared to play the game much longer. Sandy wondered if her hunch was wrong, if she had misunderstood.

  “I’m confident I’ll get the truth out of him.” DC Sullivan said. He picked up his coffee cup and moved a step away from the counter.

  “Please.” Sandy mouthed.

  �
�We’re done here.” DC Sullivan mouthed back.

  Sandy closed her eyes, too anxious to watch her best opportunity slip out of her grasp.

  “They doesn’t know we did it.” The lone customer’s voice came from the cafe table at that moment. “They doesn’t know we killed him.”

  DC Sullivan looked at Sandy, his eyes wide in surprise. Sandy nodded and darted out from behind the counter.

  Only the click of the cafe door being locked from the inside made the customer look up and see the police officer standing before them.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Dick Jacobs… Ms…” DC Sullivan said, then turned to Sandy for help.

  “Ms. Gentry. Cherry Gentry.”

  16

  Sandy waited in the police station reception area for hours, alternating between pacing anxiously up and down and sitting on the cold hard seat feeling exhausted. Her phone buzzed repeatedly in her pocket, making her guess that the news of the arrest had broken on the news, but she refused to glance at it until she had spoken to DC Sullivan.

  He appeared, after 9 pm, looking disheveled and with a dark line of stubble across his jaw.

  He gave her a weary smile, held open the door and gestured for her to follow him down the corridor.

  She took a seat in his office again and sat awaiting his update.

  “Full confession.” He said, finally.

  “Oh thank goodness,” Sandy said, releasing a long breath that she hadn’t realised she had been holding.

  “It’s a sad, sad case.” DC Sullivan said. “How did you know she’d out herself?”

  “She talks to herself,” Sandy said.

  “Yeah, I’ve been in an interview with her for hours, I know that!” DC Sullivan said.

  “She doesn’t know she’s doing it, though. It’s like she thinks she’s thinking those words, but she says them out loud instead. I just thought if we kept talking about it, and lulled her into that false sense of security, eventually, she’d say - or think - something about it.”

  “Huh… what made you realise it was her?”