by Casey Mayes
“Harry? What’s so bad about that? He isn’t married, and neither are you. There isn’t anything embarrassing about that.”
“Perhaps not, but we thought the door was locked when she came in after hours. You knew Joanne. She could spin things so far out of control their resemblance to the truth was sometimes hard to imagine. I didn’t need the aggravation, so I gave her the coffee she asked for just to keep her quiet.”
“Is there any way to confirm this?”
She rubbed her forehead, and then said, “You can ask Harry. I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Why don’t we go there together?”
Barbara laughed. “So I won’t tip him off, is that it?”
“Something like that. Do you mind?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I? Let’s go, Savannah.”
We went out the back and got into my car.
I placed a call to warn him that we were coming, only to be told by his receptionist that Harry was working in the nursery, trimming some maple trees that were getting a little unruly.
Sure enough, that’s where we found him when we got there. He didn’t look all that surprised to see us, so I had to assume that his receptionist had told him that I had called. “Harry? Can we talk?”
“I heard you two were coming. What exactly are you up to?”
“I need to confirm something,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”
“For you? Sure.” He turned and looked at the coffee shop owner. “Hey, Barbara.”
“Harry,” she said curtly.
I couldn’t imagine the two of them together under any circumstances, but then again, sometimes love made the strangest matches. There was no way to dance around the question, so I dove right in. “Harry, did you and Barbara ever have a fling?”
He looked startled by the question, and then started to look at Barbara. I couldn’t have that. I said, “Keep your eyes on me, if you don’t mind.”
He did as I asked, but that didn’t keep him from talking. “Barbara? Should I answer her?”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I trust her. Tell her what happened.”
“Yes, it’s true,” Harry told me. “I didn’t find out about Joanne blackmailing her for coffee and scones until after we bought that land together, or I never would have made the deal. It was cruel the way she treated Barbara, and I let her know exactly how I felt more than once.”
“It was fine, Harry. I told you that.”
Harry shrugged, and then turned to her. “Barbara, would you like to have lunch sometime?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Harry just nodded, accepting it as though he was unsurprised by her answer. “If that’s it, I’ve got work to do, ladies.”
“That’s all I needed,” I said.
Once we were back in the car, I asked Barbara, “If you don’t mind me asking, why won’t you date him? Is it because of his reputation as a ladies’ man?”
“Please, I’ve been over worrying about that for too many years, and I know Harry likes women. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. As a matter of fact, it’s a trait I cherish in my husband. So, if that’s not it, what is?”
She let out a short breath of air and said, “Honestly, it wasn’t the fact that we were seen dallying by someone else,” Barbara told me. “It was the way that we were caught like a couple of teenagers. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get that moment out of my mind.”
I’d seen something in her eyes that belied her negative response to him. “You must still like him.”
“Must I? You aren’t matchmaking, are you, Savannah?”
I laughed. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it. Thank you for sharing that with me. You can trust me. I won’t tell anyone about it.”
“I’ve changed my mind. You can let your husband know,” she said. “I trust him as well.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
When we got back to the coffee shop, I stopped in front to drop her off. “Thanks for sharing that information with me.”
“It was either that, or have you digging around until you found out the truth on your own.”
I nodded, and then drove away. It was amazing to me that this strong woman would let herself be embarrassed by being caught with a man. Then again, knowing how proud Barbara was, it was probably worth a cup of coffee and a scone now and then to keep her reputation intact.
At the very least, I felt comfortable scratching Barbara’s name off my list, and that made up for learning an embarrassing secret about someone I saw just about every day of my life.
It was progress, but I wished that I could strike Harry’s name as well. That would require another form of proof, though.
I would just have to keep digging until I found it, or something that pointed out the real killer.
Chapter 18
NOW THAT I KNEW AT LEAST A PART OF HARRY’S SECRET, I decided to speak with him again. With any luck, I could catch him with his guard down.
He was exactly where I’d left him, pruning the lower limbs off a few trees in his nursery.
“Do you have another second for me?” I asked. “I don’t mind if you keep working while we talk.”
He looked up, clearly startled to see me again. “I thought you left.” Harry looked past me. “Is Barbara still with you?”
“No, I took her back to the coffee shop.”
He nodded. “Then I’ll do as you suggest and work while you talk, if you honestly don’t mind. I’ve got a lot going on right now.”
“That’s fine with me. Harry, what are the exact terms of your deal with Joanne?”
“What? Why are you asking me that?”
“I need to know if you had motive enough to kill her,” I said bluntly.
“Of course I didn’t,” he said, with the outrage clear in his voice.
“That’s why I’m asking you to your face instead of going behind your back. Harry, I wish I could believe you,” I said.
“Savannah, frankly, I don’t care what you believe.” He stopped pruning and took a step toward me with his shears. I noticed for the first time just how sharp they were. What had I gotten myself into?
I took a step backward. “Zach knows I’m here,” I said. It was the first thing that came into my mind.
“Good for him,” Harry said as he took another step toward me. I was about to scream when he kept walking and brushed past me, heading directly toward his office.
“I’m not finished here,” I said.
“Stay as long as you’d like,” he replied, “but I’ve got an appointment I can’t afford to miss.”
I’d just seen an angry side to Harry that I had never seen in him before. When he’d moved toward me with those shears, I swear that I could see the hint of a killer in his eyes.
It wasn’t proof good enough for Zach and his fellow officers, but it certainly made me realize that Harry was right where he belonged, near the top of my list of suspects.
THERE WAS SOMETHING I HAD TO DO, BUT I’D BEEN DREADING it too much to act on it. I suddenly realized that I couldn’t put it off any longer. I knew in my heart that it was time to try to talk to Rob again. I couldn’t afford to be accusatory with him anymore, but that didn’t mean I was ready to strike him off my list. The only way I could do that was to talk with him again and see if he could convince me that he didn’t belong anywhere on it.
MY NERVES WERE JANGLING WHEN I WALKED INTO THE hardware store. Generally, I hated confrontations, and having one with someone I considered a friend was the worst kind of battle there was in my book.
I scanned the sales floor, but Lee was working by himself.
“Is your boss around?” I asked as I walked to him.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure he’s going to be all that excited about you being here, Savannah. You’re not exactly his favorite person in Parson’s Valley right now, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m willing to take m
y chances.”
He shrugged. “Go ahead, then. It’s your funeral.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Hang on. That was a bad choice of words. If I can’t talk you out of it, go on. He’s back in his office.”
I found Rob going through a stack of invoices on his desk when I walked back through the narrow hallway that separated his office from the retail floor space.
He looked up when I walked in, but the second he saw it was me, the smile that had been forming quickly vanished. “Savannah, I’m not entirely certain that you’re welcome here anymore.”
“Rob, we’ve been friends too long for this to end it.”
“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you accused me of murder.”
“I never accused you of anything,” I said. “Rob, I was just confused when I found out that you didn’t tell me your wife was poisoned the same way Joanne was killed.”
“I didn’t kill Joanne,” he said. “How many times do I have to say that before you believe me?”
“So then it’s just a coincidence? Is that what you’re saying?”
Rob leaned back in his chair. “Savannah, I know it’s not something we talk about all the time around here, but what happened to Becky was no great secret. What would be the best way to frame me? I’ll tell you, because I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. If anyone in town wanted to point a finger at me as a murder suspect, what better way would there be than to duplicate my wife’s death on the anniversary of the very day she died?”
“Becky’s death wasn’t a homicide, though, was it?”
He frowned. “No, everyone involved said it was accidental, and there was no reason to dispute it, then or now.”
“This has to be incredibly difficult for you,” I said, trying to put a little sympathy in my voice.
“More than I can say,” he said.
“Then let’s try to clear your name and make it go away.” It was risky trying to enlist Rob’s help after what had happened between us, but I couldn’t question him if he continued to hold me at arm’s length.
“Thanks, but no.”
“You don’t want to be absolved?”
“Absolution is for priests,” he said. “I expect my friends to believe in me. Good-bye, Savannah.”
“What makes you think I don’t believe in you?”
He shook his head as he stared at me. “Because you have to force yourself to look me in the eye.”
I hadn’t realized that I’d been doing it, but I wasn’t all that shocked to hear it. I was going to have to get better at this if I hoped to keep investigating crime. Even though making puzzles was my first love, that didn’t mean that I was ready to turn my back on a murder if it touched my life in some way.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do,” he said as he stood up and brushed past me.
I was ready to follow him out of his office when I noticed a framed photo on his desk.
He was in winter-weather clothing, and his cheeks were red from the cold. The background was familiar, and it only took a second to realize that it was the same scenery from the photograph I’d taken from Joanne’s house.
The question was, had it been taken before Becky Hastings’s death, or sometime later? On impulse, I picked up the frame and tucked it into my bag.
“Savannah, are you coming?”
I looked up to see that Rob had come back to his office. Evidently, I’d taken too long to follow him.
“May I use the restroom?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t notice the photograph’s absence until I could take a closer look at it.
“Go on,” he said. “You know where it is.”
I walked into the ladies’ room and quickly locked the door behind me. My hands shook a little as I removed the photo from its frame.
The picture had been folded back, and I saw that there had been three people in the original version.
Looking happy and joyous, Rob and Becky Hastings were standing there with Joanne Clayton between them, their arms all locked together. If he was fine with Joanne, why had he effectively taken her out of the shot? Another question I had was why he hadn’t put his late wife’s picture forward instead of his own. The photo posed as many questions as it had answered. I couldn’t wait to see if Joanne’s photograph was a duplicate of the one I was holding, or if it hid something different from plain view.
I WAS COUNTING ON ROB TO BE GONE WHEN I SLIPPED OUT of the restroom. I’d replaced the photo as it had been when I’d first found it, and now I was hoping I could return it to his desk without his being aware that it had ever been gone.
I looked down the hallway and couldn’t see anyone in the retail space, which meant that no one there could see me.
I hurried into Rob’s office, only to find him sitting at his desk.
“I thought we were finished here,” he said. “I’m not going to budge, Savannah, so don’t waste your breath.”
“I’m not going to try to change your mind.” I tried to think of something I could say to distract him, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Then it hit me. “My cell phone battery is dead. May I use your phone?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said.
“Rob, I’m still a customer here, no matter how you feel about me at the moment. I deserve at least that basic courtesy.”
“Fine,” he said angrily as he shoved his desk telephone toward me. “Make it quick.”
I picked up his phone, waiting for him to look away. When he didn’t, I knocked the cup full of pencils on his desk onto the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I made an attempt to lean down, the telephone still in my hand.
“I’ll take care of it. Just use the phone and leave me alone, Savannah.”
I dialed my home number as I slid the photo out of my bag and back onto his desk.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked.
Here I thought I’d been so clever, and now it appeared that I hadn’t gotten away with it after all.
“I KNOCKED IT OVER WITH THE CORD WHEN I REACHED down to help with the pencils,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’m not buying it. I’ve never seen you this clumsy in all of the time I’ve known you.”
“What can I say? Maybe my nerves are a little on edge.”
No one answered my phone at home, which was exactly what I’d been expecting. I hung up, and Rob asked, “What’s the matter? Can’t find your husband?”
“No worries there. If I ever lose him, I know that he’ll find me. Thanks again, Rob.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, without the slightest hint of sincerity in his voice.
I didn’t care how sarcastic he was being. I was getting out of there in one piece, and that was all that mattered to me.
OUT IN THE CAR, I COULDN’T WAIT TO DIG OUT THE PHOTOGRAPH Laura had given me at Joanne’s house. I’d been expecting a duplicate of the photo I’d just seen, and that was what I found. It was interesting that both people who had the same photograph had chosen to show only themselves, and not the late Becky Hastings. Was it too painful to look at that sunny smile of hers, a reminder of unhappier times, or was there a deeper reason?
I HAD A FEW VIABLE SUSPECTS LEFT WHO WERE STILL TALKING to me, so I decided to see if Laura had any interest in getting lunch with me somewhere. Maybe if I could get her to relax, she might tell me more than she meant to. It wasn’t exactly a master plan, but it was the best thing I had in my dwindling arsenal.
I checked at Joanne’s first, and I was relieved to see Laura’s car sitting in the driveway. The stack of Goodwill donations on the porch was quite a bit larger than it had been before, and the trash she’d taken to the back now lined the curb in front of the house.
As I walked up the steps of the porch, Laura came out of the house with two more garbage bags, barely able to contain what was inside.
“Hey there,” I said.
She was so startled by my presence that she dropped both bags in her hands. “Savannah, you s
urprised me.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you like that,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Believe it or not, this is the last load,” she said. “I’m ready to turn it over to the real estate agent this evening, and then I’m out of here.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I can’t stay in town, not with all of the tongues wagging about me. Does anyone think I don’t hear their snickers when I walk past them in the grocery store? Everyone’s talking about how I got a little too lucky with Joanne’s death, and isn’t that a little odd.”
“It’s understandable, but you can’t let them drive you away.”
She frowned at me. “Savannah, don’t you know they’re talking about you at least as much as they discuss me? Joanne might have been murdered, but we’re both victims here, too.”
“Then we need to stay here and fight for our reputations,” I said.
“You fight. I don’t have the energy anymore.”
I picked up one of the bags and put it with the other pile. “Would you like to go have lunch before you go? My treat.”
“Thanks, but no. I’ve got a long list of things to do before I leave town. If I were you, I’d take off, too. Think about it, Savannah. You’re not like most of us in Parson’s Valley. You don’t have any family here or any ties at all.”
I wasn’t about to concede her point. “It’s my home, Laura, and no one’s going to make me leave it.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. Laura threw the last bag onto the pile, and then locked the front door of the house. “That’s it. I’d say I’ll see you around, but I doubt it. At seven tonight, I’m meeting my agent here, and then I’m getting out of North Carolina just as far and as fast as my car will take me.”
As Laura drove off, I kept waiting for her to look back at me, but she never even glanced my way once.
It was clear that as far as she was concerned, we were finished.
But was she leaving because she had grown tired of being a murder suspect, or was she a killer leaving while she still had her freedom?
I just wish I knew which it was so I could act accordingly.
