by Jessica Beck
“Barton’s not a killer,” she said resolutely.
“He’s not going to be the only suspect, you know,” Grace added.
“Do you think I did it?” Emma asked her. She looked at Grace as though she didn’t recognize her.
“Of course not, but what the chief thinks I cannot even begin to guess. Your parents could also be suspects, you know.”
Clearly that particular thought hadn’t even occurred to Emma yet, but it had crossed my mind as well.
“Why would my mother or father attack Simon Reed? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Emma, your father has been known to act rashly in the past,” I reminded her, “and who knows what could have happened if Sharon had confronted Simon about what he did to you?”
“What is wrong with you two?” Emma asked shrilly with a pleading quality in her voice. “Why are you both acting this way?”
“We’re just facing the facts,” I said. “The question stands and bears repeating. Are you sure you want us digging into this, no matter what we might find?”
“I’m positive,” she said after a few moments of reflection. “The truth is all that matters.”
I just hoped Emma still believed that when this mess was all over. “Okay. We’ll do what we can,” I said, failing to mention that we’d already decided to look into the murder on our own anyway. “It’s hard to tell how long Barton is going to be tied up with the chief. Would you mind taking a walk with us in the park and telling us what you know about Simon Reed?”
Emma looked as though she’d rather talk about invasive medical procedures, but she nodded reluctantly. “If it will help, I’ll tell you everything I know, but I should warn you, it’s not much.”
“It may be more than you realize,” I said as the three of us left the crowd and headed toward the park across the street so we could have a little privacy.
A few folks were strolling along Springs Drive, but one of the benches in the park was free, so we headed for that one.
Once we were settled, I told Emma, “Tell us about Simon.”
“You mean… about what he did to me?” she asked in a mousy voice.
“That depends. Did he do anything besides grab you once?” I asked her.
“No, but wasn’t that enough? You know, I thought he was a nice guy before he did that. Simon seemed so attentive. When he asked me questions, he really seemed to listen to my answers, do you know what I mean?”
“I know the general type,” Grace said, pursing her lips for a moment. “What about his girlfriend? What can you tell us about her?”
“You mean Sherry? She’s always seemed a little harsh to me. Nothing Simon did was ever good enough for her.”
“That may be because he was so… ah… attentive to other girls,” I suggested.
“Maybe,” Emma answered. “She’s really pretty, isn’t she? I just love her hair, but she seems a little quick tempered to me.”
“Maybe she’s trying to live up to the redhead reputation,” Grace suggested.
“Maybe. I tried being friendly with her a few times, but she shut down on me pretty quickly, so I just gave up. I noticed that she paid Barton a little too much attention last night, though.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Did that start right after Simon started paying attention to you?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Why? Do you think they’re connected?” Emma asked.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her they were directly correlated to each other, but Grace obviously had no such compunctions. “Emma, I know you’re young, but you’ve got to see that was her motivation. Simon was making her jealous, so she thought she’d turn the tables on him and go after Barton.”
“I may be young, but I’m not stupid,” Emma said with a frown. After a moment, she grinned. “Barton is kind of oblivious to women when they throw themselves at him, though.”
I remembered when Ellie Nolan had bid on a lunch with Jake just to get close to Barton and how my husband had reported that Barton had been clueless about the woman’s intentions. Emma was probably right in her assessment of her boyfriend’s behavior. “How about the rest of the crew Barton brought in for the bistro’s opening?” I asked.
“Let’s see. Clint Harpold was working tonight; he’s Simon’s roommate. They all knew each other in culinary school, and Shalimar Davis was here, too. She had a history with Simon, but I never got their full story. They all live in Union Square. As for the rest of the staff, Barton and I hired a few from the college, or they were helping out from the hospital staff. As far as I know, none of them had anything to do with Simon before tonight.”
So, at least we had a working pool of suspects to begin with that didn’t include Barton or Emma. One of them might have done it, given circumstances that were trying enough, but a failed romantic pass didn’t qualify as such, at least not in my book. That also eliminated, to some extent, Emma’s parents. Ray Blake was a hothead, but I doubted that he would kill anyone over his daughter’s perceived honor, and the only way I could see Sharon stabbing the young man in the back was if he were threatening her daughter with immediate dire physical abuse or death. “Good. At least that gives us something to go on.”
“You really don’t think anyone in my family had anything to do with it, do you?” Emma asked us both, her gaze and tone of voice pleading with us.
I was about to tell her that I’d discounted the possibility when Grace spoke up. “Emma, we can’t play favorites. Surely you can see that.”
“I get it,” she said resolutely. I thought for a moment she was going to cry again, but she managed to pull herself together. “Is there anything else I can do to help? Would you like to speak with my folks? They weren’t even at the bistro yet. Maybe they can alibi each other.”
If that was the case, I wasn’t sure what good it would do either one of them, but then again, maybe they had outside, verifiable witnesses to their presence elsewhere when Simon Reed had been murdered. “We’ll be sure to ask them when we see them,” I said. I appreciated Grace stepping up and handling the tough questions with Emma. I thought of my assistant more as a daughter than as an employee, though I wasn’t old enough for that to be true, but it still made it hard for me to question her.
Grace had no such compunctions. “Where are they right now?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I can call them. Give me one second.” Emma pulled her phone out as she stood and walked over to a nearby clump of trees as she spoke to one of her parents.
“Thanks,” I told Grace.
She smiled at me, the relief clear in her expression. “You’re welcome, for whatever it is I did. I thought you’d be angry with me for taking such a hard line with Emma. I know how you feel about her.”
“It needs to be done. I’m just not sure I can be the one who does it.”
“That’s just one more reason you have me around,” Grace said as Emma approached us.
“They’re on their way over,” she said. “They should be here in two minutes.”
That wasn’t good. If they were that close to the donut shop, they had most likely been in the proximity of the murder half an hour before. Some of the crimes we’d investigated in the past had iffy timelines that we had to work hard at discerning, but from the time Simon disappeared to the time I’d found the body was probably a matter of minutes rather than hours.
“That fast?” Grace asked, reading my mind.
“You make that question sound as though it were a bad thing,” Emma replied, and then she understood. Despite her youth, she was quicker on the uptake than Grace had given her credit for earlier. “I get it. If they were close by, then one of them could have done it. It didn’t happen that way, Grace.”
“I sincerely hope that you are right,” Grace answered.
Emma looked at me
for some kind of assurance that Grace was off base with her assertion, but I couldn’t give it to her. All I could do was shrug, which did nothing to ease her mind.
The husband and wife showed up together as promised, both of them clearly unhappy about something. Emma picked up on it immediately. “What’s going on with you two?” she asked them before Grace or I could pose our first question.
“Your father was supposed to meet me at home so we could be at the opening of your boyfriend’s café together, but he stood me up,” Sharon said.
“I did no such thing,” Ray protested.
“Oh, really?” Sharon asked. “Were you at the house half an hour ago as we’d planned? I must say, if you were there, you did a remarkable job of hiding, because I certainly couldn’t find you.”
“Sharon, I told you before, I’m sorry. I was up half the night chasing a story, and I fell asleep at my desk. It could have happened to anybody.”
“I doubt that sincerely,” Sharon said, and then she turned to Emma. “I’ll get started on those dishes right away. I’m really sorry we’re late. I hope Barton will understand.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Emma asked them in disbelief.
“Know what?” Ray asked, stepping in front of his wife. “What happened?”
“Someone stabbed one of the young men helping out in my donut shop,” I said.
Ray looked at me as though he didn’t believe me at first. “That’s not very funny, Suzanne.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said.
“Did this really happen, Emma?” Sharon asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“I don’t know. It’s always a mother’s first instinct to make sure her child is okay,” Sharon said a little messily. At the moment, I wasn’t sure I believed either Sharon or Ray. Could one of them be lying to their daughter and Grace and me as well? One thing was certain. They couldn’t alibi each other for the time of death. They’d both admitted as much to us just moments before.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Sharon said as she tried to take her daughter’s arm. “We need to get you home.”
“I’m not going anywhere until the police let Barton go,” Emma said stubbornly.
“Is there any evidence that he committed the crime?” Ray asked intently. It sounded more like he was being the newspaper owner and editor than a concerned father, which was no surprise to me, knowing the man as well as I did.
“No!” Emma said, clearly upset by the question. She turned to us. “Are we finished here?”
“For now,” I said. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”
“You’re welcome,” Emma said, and then she started off toward the jail on foot.
“Where do you think you are going, young lady?” Ray asked her in an authoritative voice.
“I’m going to be with my boyfriend,” she said petulantly. Emma was reverting to her younger self, defiant and full of rebellion.
“Come back here this instant,” Ray ordered.
Emma ignored him and kept walking.
“Ray, don’t be such a twit,” Sharon told her husband as she started after their daughter. “Emma. Wait for me.”
Ray had no choice but to follow them both, but I could see the hurt and anger in his gaze as he rushed to catch up. Evidently he’d been expecting his daughter to do exactly as he said.
Emma clearly had other plans, though.
Once they were gone, Grace looked at me and said calmly, “We may not have had dinner, but at least we got a show. We can’t rule any of them out, Suzanne. You know that, right?”
“Even Emma?” I asked her, already knowing the answer.
“Sorry, but yes, even Emma. We need to keep digging, though. If we get lucky, we’ll find out who the real killer is before it drives their family apart.”
“Let’s get cracking then, shall we?” I asked as I started back to the parking lot to see if we could get some time with the young people my assistant had just named: Sherry West, Clint Harpold, and Shalimar Davis.
Chapter 4
We didn’t even make it back to the bistro setting before we stumbled upon our next suspect. Sherry West, Simon’s girlfriend, nearly ran us over as she whipped around the building. She didn’t even pause long enough to say she was sorry, which, on second thought, I doubt she was.
“Sherry,” I said, my voice cracking in the night. “Sherry West. We need to talk.”
Using her name certainly got the young redhead’s attention. She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at Grace and me. “Do I know either one of you?”
“No. We’re friends of Barton Gleason,” I said.
She frowned at the news. “Okay, if you say so. I don’t want to talk to anybody right now.”
“We’re both sorry for your loss,” I said automatically. The truth was, the young woman didn’t appear to have been crying recently. She looked angry more than anything else.
“You were dating Simon Reed, weren’t you?” Grace asked her.
“So what if I was?”
Wow, this girl was really on the defensive.
“We just thought you might be crying, or at least a little distraught over what happened to him,” Grace said, voicing my thoughts exactly.
Sherry got up in our faces. “I’ll save my mourning and my tears for when they find out who killed him. Right now I’m just incensed. We had a fight, and before we could make up, someone killed him. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? I’ll never be able to make things right with him again now.” She looked as though she might start crying after all, but after she clenched her hands tightly together, I could hear her whisper, “No tears yet, Sherry. No tears. Be audacious.”
It suddenly struck me that this angry young woman was doing her best to hold it together. It was probably the only way she had of being brave in the face of what happened. I decided to change tactics with her and try to be more conspiratorial than sympathetic. It felt like the right chord to me, anyway, and I often had nothing to rely on but my instincts. “If it helps, we’re going to find his killer,” I said confidently.
“The two of you?” She looked at us, each in turn, in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you are in law enforcement.”
“No, we’re better than that,” Grace said, getting into the spirit of things instantly. “You see, we have our own reason to hunt down Simon’s murderer.”
“What possible reason could you have to even care about a total stranger? Simon and Barton weren’t really even all that close lately.”
“The fact is, whoever killed him did it in my donut shop,” I said, meeting her icy stare with one of my own. “What’s more, I’m the one who found him. You’d better believe I’ve got a vested interest in solving his murder. The real question is whether you’re going to help us, or if you are going to get in our way? If you’re on our side, all well and good, but if you try to stop us, we’re going to roll right over you if we have to in order to get to the truth.” It was a calculated risk, but from what I’d seen of the woman, I sincerely believed that it was one worth taking. Grace glanced over at me, but I knew better than to break eye contact with Sherry. “So you tell us. Which is it going to be?”
“I want the killer found more than you do. What can I do?”
Excellent. My ploy had worked. Now it was just a matter of pressing her further. “You can start by telling us where you were during the half hour before Simon was murdered.”
It was a direct question, and it caught her off guard. “I was on the floor serving customers,” she said. “Where else would I be?”
“For the entire time?” Grace asked her.
Sherry seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. “Yes. No. Wait a second.” Her frown deepened.
“I left my phone in my car, so I stepped away for five minutes to retrieve it. I hate not having it on me all the time.”
“Did anyone happen to go with you to get it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t usually need a chaperone to walk to my car,” she snapped. “Why do you ask? Do you think I did it?”
“Right now we’re just gathering information,” I said. I could tell that we were losing her, and I had to do something to stop it before she stormed off. This young lady apparently liked to cultivate the stereotype that redheads had tempers, and I could see her using it as an excuse for her fiery behavior. “You live in Union Square with the others who were working tonight, right?”
“Yes. Why does that matter?” Her walls were definitely coming up.
“Did you and Simon happen to live together?” Grace asked her.
“We talked about cohabitating, but in the end, it was just too complicated,” Sherry said. What was she not telling us? I had a feeling that the prospect of living together had been more her idea than his, especially if everything we’d heard about the man so far was true. The last thing he’d want was his girlfriend being able to monitor his coming and going around the clock, since her constant presence would seriously curtail his extracurricular activities.
“Did he have any roommates?” I asked her.
“He and Clint Harpold shared a place. He’s around here someplace,” she said. “You’ll know him when you see him. He’s six foot five and weighs a hundred fifty pounds. Just look for a beanpole with blond hair, and you’ll know that’s him.”
“Is he a waiter, too?” I asked her.
“Clint? No, he’s too good for that, at least according to what he thinks. Simon, Barton, and Clint were rivals in culinary school, but he never really measured up to the other two. It used to drive him crazy.”
