by Jessica Beck
“Did you hear anything at all of what it might have been about?” Grace asked her.
“Not a word. As you probably know, the offices are all upstairs, and they are well soundproofed. I was on the main floor below in the stacks, but even if I’d been in the conference room next to Chester’s office, I wouldn’t have been able to hear a thing. Somebody needs to find out what Vince and Chester were talking about and why Vince was through with him.”
“We will, or the new chief of police will take care of that himself,” I said. “Who else did you have in mind as a potential killer?”
Zelda bit her lip for a moment, and then she said, “This is rather delicate, so I’m not exactly sure how to say it.”
“Just give us the basics, then, and we’ll fill in the blanks,” Grace said.
Zelda nodded. “Lately, Maggie Hoff has been coming by the library two or three times a week to see my boss. She even came by early this afternoon, and without so much as a wave to me, she went straight to Chester’s office with a rather determined look on her face.”
“How long did she usually stay when she visited in the past?” I asked her.
“I have no idea. Chester always sent me home as soon as she arrived.”
“Maggie’s still married to Nathan Hoff, isn’t she?” Grace asked.
“She is, but I’ve heard that he works some nights and weekends now. I’m not saying that Maggie and Chester were having an affair. I want to make that crystal clear.”
“Got it,” I said, filing that particular little tidbit away for later. I wanted to discuss what it might mean with Grace, but not in front of Zelda.
“That’s three,” I said.
Zelda looked surprised. “I’ve just mentioned two people so far.”
“Actually, you’ve talked about three of them. If Maggie and Chester were up to something, it might give Nathan a motive as well.”
Zelda frowned. “I never even considered that as a possibility.”
“Sorry, but that’s just the way my mind works sometimes,” I said. “What’s the last name on your list?”
“This one I’m sure that you’re really not going to like,” she said. “I hesitate even telling you now.”
“Remember, you don’t have anything to be afraid of from us,” Grace said.
“Well, if you’re sure that it won’t be a black mark against me, I suppose that I have to tell you.”
I was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to say the name after all when she finally admitted, “Just after Maggie left, Chester had one last visitor, and the two men had a heated argument before my boss actually threw his visitor out.”
That sounded like a real possibility to me. “This might be important. Who was it?”
“It was the mayor,” Zelda said softly.
“Hang on a second,” I said. “Are you telling us that George Morris had a fight with Chester today? What could the two of them have possibly been arguing about?”
“I don’t know, but it was pretty intense. I thought for a second that the mayor was going to snap, and it wasn’t pretty.”
I knew that George had a temper, but I couldn’t imagine him killing anyone. He’d been injured once helping me in one of my past investigations, and it had nearly destroyed me knowing that he’d been hurt because of me. Maybe I was biased, but there was no way that I could see the man as a cold-blooded killer. Still, I had to talk to him, no matter what my personal feelings might be.
“What about Shelly Graham?” I asked her, wanting to see what she had to say about the woman her boss had been dating.
“What about her?” Zelda asked, keeping her gaze on her hot chocolate.
“Would she have had any reason to kill Chester?”
Zelda looked surprised by my question. “I can’t imagine it. Why would she?”
“Think about it,” Grace said. “If Chester was fooling around with Maggie on the side, some folks might say that was motive enough.”
“Maybe if Maggie was the one who was murdered, I’d agree with you, but Shelly would never have hurt Chester. I refuse to believe that.”
The librarian sounded so sure of that fact that I decided not to push her any further about it just yet. I was about to ask another question when Zelda took one last sip of her cocoa and put the cup back on the tray. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got for you. It’s getting late, and I’m quite tired. Would you mind taking me home now?”
“We’d be happy to,” I said as Grace frowned a little. Clearly she wasn’t finished questioning the woman, either, but we couldn’t exactly hold her there against her will. “Grace, would you mind dropping me off at my Jeep on the way?”
“I’d be happy to, or we could go get it together after we take Zelda home.” The implication was clear. Grace knew that I was up to something, and she wanted to be a part of it. Ordinarily, I would have welcomed her presence, but for my talk with George, I knew that I needed to be alone.
“Thanks, but there’s something I need to do on my own,” I said.
Grace seemed to understand, even if she clearly didn’t like it. “Let’s all go, then.”
“Thanks for the lift,” I said as Grace parked near my Jeep. The crowd had finally dispersed, though it was clear that there was still a heavy police presence at the library, even at that late an hour.
“Any time. Call me when you get in tonight, no matter how late it might be.”
I glanced at my watch. It was just past eight, but I knew what she meant. It might not be late for most folks, but I was seriously cutting into my sleep. After all, I’d have to be up too soon to start making donuts again, but I was just going to have to deal with being a little sleep deprived tomorrow.
I still had something important to do tonight.
“May I come in?” I asked George as he answered the door.
“Suzanne, isn’t this kind of late for you to still be up?”
“Ordinarily it’s true, but there’s something that we need to talk about, and it can’t wait another minute,” I said as I stepped past him inside. The mayor lived alone, and it showed, with books and magazines spread out on nearly every horizontal space in the place. I was surprised it wasn’t tidier than it was, though, given the fact that he had a girlfriend he saw on a regular basis.
“Excuse the mess, but Polly’s out of town again visiting family,” George explained.
I knew that his secretary, and his love interest as well, had been spending quite a bit of time out of town with her grandchildren lately. “I’m sure that you miss her when she’s gone.”
“It’s true. Now, what can I do for you?” he asked as he shuffled a few magazines off two chairs and motioned for me to sit down.
There was no use beating around the bush. “I heard that you and Chester Martin had a huge argument this afternoon.”
George looked angry when I mentioned it, and it was clear in his tone that he wasn’t all that happy about me bringing it up now. “That blasted Zelda Marks couldn’t keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it.”
“I didn’t say that Zelda told me anything,” I said.
He looked at me sharply. “If it wasn’t her, then who could it possibly have been?”
“George, is that really what’s important right now? What I need to know is if it’s true.”
“It’s true,” the mayor admitted, clearly disgusted about something.
“What were you two fighting about?” I asked.
“Suzanne, sorry for being rude, but I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
George could be abrupt to the point of insolence, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting an answer to my question. “Maybe not, but even if you don’t tell me, what do you think the odds are of me not saying something to Jake?”
“You’d actually betray our friendship that way?” he asked me.
“Hey, if you don’t have anything to hide, you’re the one who is out of line here. If it’s innocent, tell me and I’ll drop it,
but if it’s not, then it’s fair game as far as I’m concerned.”
“Should I regret hiring Jake as our interim chief?” he asked me with a hint of steel in his voice.
“Not if you want the murderer caught,” I said. “Now, are you just being stubborn, or do you have something to hide?”
“Stubborn, I guess,” George said as he melted a little. I knew the man well enough to know that it was important to keep my mouth shut at that point. He’d tell me what I wanted to know now. It was just a matter of giving him a little time to come to grips with it. After a full minute, my instincts paid off and George began to explain. “I don’t know if you realize it, but Chester and I go way back,” he began. “We’d been friends long enough that when he was making a fool of himself, I took it upon myself to call him on it.”
“What was he doing that you didn’t approve of?” I asked the mayor.
“That was between the two of us,” George said stubbornly.
“Need I remind you that you were a cop once upon a time?” I asked him. “Do you think for one second that excuse is going to work with me?”
“Suzanne, you’re not a cop,” George said. There was a hint of a grin hiding behind his mask, but I chose to ignore it.
“No, but Jake is, and we both know that you aren’t going to be able to stonewall him. You might be able to fire him, but there’s no way that you’re going to tell him what to do.”
“That’s true enough,” George said, and then let out a sigh. “I might as well tell you, then, but it’s not going to look good on Chester or me.”
“I can deal with that if you can,” I said. “All I want is the truth.”
“That might be harder to come by than you think,” George said.
“Are you seriously trying to stall me? Just tell me,” I urged him.
“Fine,” George said. “I was there to tell him that he needed to straighten up and get his act together before something bad happened to him.”
“I’m guessing that he didn’t like you interfering in his life, did he?”
“He lost it, Suzanne. It was bad enough when I told him that he needed to quit cheating on Shelly, but when I said that pushing Vince Dade was going to be the end of him, he started yelling at me to mind my own business.”
“So you were just looking out for his best interests, is that it?” I asked the mayor. Knowing George, it was easy enough to imagine that what he was telling me was true. Unfortunately, Zelda had heard the confrontation, and she’d taken something very different from it. True or not, Jake needed to know about it. “I have to tell Jake. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I know it all too well. It’s going to make me sound like some kind of nut, though.”
I touched his shoulder gently. “I don’t think that at all. The worst it might do is make you look as though you care.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t necessarily want it to get around town that I have a sensitive side, you know what I mean?”
Thinking about how gruff the mayor could be, I didn’t think that was anything that he was going to have to worry about. “You should be safe enough. Do you have any idea what Chester’s problem with Vince Dade was?”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t know?” George asked, clearly surprised.
“No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
The mayor shrugged. “Now that I think about it, I guess that all happened before your time. Chester, Vince, and a few dozen other investors were business partners on the side about ten years ago. They put together a group that dabbled in land speculation to lure a big hotel complex that was supposed to be coming to the area, but it got too risky for Chester’s blood, so he wanted out just before the final agreement was signed. Vince took it upon himself to buy all of Chester’s shares and a couple of others too, and a month later, the main part of the land was declared unbuildable. I heard it was due to the ground being unstable or something like that. Anyway, the hotel venture pulled out, and apparently Vince ended up losing his shirt.”
“What did that have to do with Chester? I can understand Vince being upset, but it just sounds like bad luck to me. Did Chester or the other two investors have any idea that the land was nearly worthless when they sold their shares back to Vince?”
“Not that I ever heard, but that didn’t keep Vince from carrying a grudge all of these years. I’m kind of surprised that your mother didn’t tell you about this.”
That was an odd thing for him to say. “What does Momma have to do with it?”
“Well, she and her new husband were the other two investors Vince bought out,” George explained.
Chapter 5
“Are you serious?”
“Suzanne, you know me well enough to realize that I don’t kid around about something like that,” George said.
I wanted to rush right over to Momma’s to get her side of things, but I wasn’t done with my friend yet, so that was just going to have to wait. “George, you’ve mentioned a few folks who might have wanted Chester dead, people that I’ve already suspected might have done it. Is there anyone else you can think of that I should check out in my investigation?”
“Kevin Leeds,” George said so softly that I had to strain to hear it.
“Kevin? What beef did he have with Chester?”
“I have no idea,” the mayor admitted. “All I know is that there’s been bad blood between Kevin and Chester for years.”
I stood. “Well, thanks for your time, and the explanation.”
“There’s one more person that you should look for,” George said before I could make it out the door.
“Who might that be?” I asked.
“I don’t have a name for you, but one thing that I learned when I was a cop was to always consider who had the most to gain by the victim’s death.”
“Did Chester carry life insurance? Who gets his retirement account now that he’s dead?”
“I don’t know, but you need to ask Jake about them both.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said, not really sure whether I’d ask my boyfriend that or not. After all, it was too far into his jurisdiction and not enough in mine. I was good at getting folks to admit things they might not to the police, but when it came to seeing restricted records, that was all on Jake. Still, it gave me something to think about. Maybe if the opportunity arose, I’d ask him about it, but I had something far more pressing ahead of me at the moment.
I needed to speak with my mother and her new husband about a land deal that happened over a decade ago and try to figure out if it might have offered enough motive for murder today.
“Do you have a second, Momma?” I asked after my mother answered the door of her new place.
“For you? Always. Come in, Suzanne.”
“Thanks,” I said as I walked into the living room. The chief, er, the former chief was there, going through an old magazine about Alaska.
“I’ll just leave you two alone,” he said as he closed the magazine and started to stand.
“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around. This concerns you, too.”
“Is it about Chester? Did Jake find the killer already?” There was real hope in his voice as he asked, and I hated to disappoint him.
“Not that I know of.”
“But this is part of your investigation; am I right there?”
“You are.”
“Well, Dot and I will do whatever we can in our power to help you,” Chief Martin said. “All you have to do is ask.” I didn’t care about his change in status, or the shift in his demeanor. He’d always be the chief of police to me, even though Jake was currently doing his job, and there was a part of me that liked things the way they had been.
“I’m kind of surprised that you are being so cooperative,” I said as I took a seat near the fireplace.
“That’s because we’re on the same team now,” he said. “What can we do for you?”
“I need to know about the land speculation de
al you and Momma went in on with Chester and Vince Dade,” I said.
“Who told you about that?” my mother asked me.
“Is it important?” I asked. “What happened?”
“It was all such a long time ago,” Momma said. “Surely you don’t think it’s the reason Chester was murdered, do you?”
“Momma, you’ve seen me work. I usually don’t know which clues are significant and which ones aren’t until I’ve figured out the entire puzzle.”
She nodded, and the police chief spoke. “I don’t mind talking about it. It was going to be big for April Springs, and everyone was trying to figure out where the hotel was going to go. Vince seemed to have the inside track, though he never told us how, so Chester and I decided to invest when he approached us.”
“I came in a few days after they did,” my mother said. “Vince could be very convincing, and that was before I’d fully developed my keen business senses.” Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded a little pretentious, but from Momma, it was simply the truth. My mother frowned for a moment, and then she added, “I’m afraid that I was the cause of Chester pulling out in the first place.”
The chief looked surprised to hear that. “What do you mean?”
Momma sat beside him and patted his knee. “Chester didn’t want you to know at the time, and I saw no reason to tell you. He came to me, worried that he was going to lose his original investment, so I told him that if he wasn’t comfortable with the risk, he should pull out of the deal. I even offered to buy his share, but he told me that he’d rather get it from Vince. I was going to be his fallback plan, but I never had to come through for him. I was startled when Vince offered to buy me out as well when I started asking questions of my own, but I had enough trepidation about the project at that point to accept his offer.” She looked over at her husband as she asked, “When did you sell your portion to him?”
