Soon, her thoughts turned to Clifford Green. Even though she had his driver's license information, she wasn’t entirely sure how she might put it to good use. If she passed it along to Scott, the fact of his arrival in Rock Ridge could very well go uninvestigated—since Scott was convinced he had the killer and that the killer was Clara. Who else did she know who worked in a position to dig deep and help her? All Kate needed was a current address, even if Clifford was staying at one of the motels in town.
Then it occurred to Kate, though she knew it would be a long shot, that Amelia might have an idea. Rock Ridge had few motels, and the ones here tended to be on the outskirts of town, but Amelia’s inn, Over the Moon, was situated in the heart of town. If Clifford was bold and Kate was lucky, he might be staying at Amelia’s establishment. It was certainly worth a call to find out.
Kate pulled into Meredith’s driveway, staring at the two-story monstrosity that was her art deco house. Maybe Kate was traditional or old fashioned, but she liked older architecture and didn’t quite understand the appeal of these modern styles. Meredith’s house looked more like an off-kilter stack of cubes than a home where people lived. Although she wouldn’t want to live there, she was certainly glad for the job.
Quickly, she dialed Amelia to see if she might be able to catch her, but after a number of rings, the voice mail to her inn came through so Kate left a brief message that centered mostly on how Amelia was holding up then simply asked for her to give her a call back whenever she had a chance. Then Kate stepped out of her truck and collected as much of her materials as she could hold in her arms and made her way to the front door to ring the bell.
Meredith, a woman in her early forties, who made a decent living as a periodontist and had cleaned Kate’s teeth on more than one occasion, answered the door, wearing a big smile and relaxed-fit jeans. She tossed her wavy blonde hair over her shoulder, saying, “Come on in!” She stepped back for Kate to pass through the breezy foyer that arched into an expansive living room.
“I’ve moved everything into the backyard for you,” she mentioned, as she led Kate to the sliding glass door that separated the living room from the backyard.
“Oh, you didn’t have to. I could’ve gotten it,” said Kate.
“It’s no trouble.”
Kate paused, while Meredith slid the glass door open. The backyard appeared to have been mowed recently, and the area where Kate was to lay down marble for the patio was leveled flat since the grass had been dug up. It looked like compacted soil.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said before quickly adding, “I’ve got a pot of fresh coffee. Heard a rumor it was required whenever you showed up to work.”
“Ha!” said Kate. “You heard right.”
“Cream and sugar?”
“Just black, thanks,” she said, before assessing the tiles she would be working with.
Kate organized her materials. She’d pulled out cans of putty and her measuring level, and setting those down, she began laying out the tiles she would have to lay. The patio would be fourteen feet by fourteen feet once installed, and Meredith wanted a wall of stone along its perimeter. All told, it would be a three-week job at least, but whenever Kate had a large project like this one, as daunting as it was, she felt a frenetic surge to rise to the occasion. She’d laid down only a few patios in her life, and this one would certainly be a far bigger job than the others, but she loved throwing herself into a long-term task.
As she got started, Meredith slipped through the sliding glass doorway and set a fresh mug of black coffee on top of one of the tiles, but Kate was so concentrated she barely realized.
Soon, she was in the throes of scraping down putty, laying tiles, and working in full swing. She grabbed the mug and drank down a long haul, thankful she’d spotted the mug before the dark roast could get cold. It was hot in fact and gave her just the boost to carry on with her task.
By the time her cell phone was vibrating in the front pocket of her overalls, Kate had set down six ceramic tiles, which made up precisely a tenth of the overall patio.
She startled with excitement when she saw Amelia’s name across the LCD screen. She swiped her cell fast to answer the call.
“Amelia, hi,” she said eagerly, as soon as she had her phone pressed to her ear.
She heard the woman ease out a long sigh, as she said, “Hi Kate. How are you holding up?”
“I was going to ask you the same.” When she didn’t respond except to sigh again, Kate said, “Celia is organizing a search party for Becky. And the police are on it as well. I’m planning on joining the group led by Celia if you’d like to come with, though I think you should feel no obligation to get out there. Whatever you need to do to make it through this difficult time will be understandable.”
“Yes, I heard about Celia’s effort. Honestly, Lance and I are trying not to hold our breath, but we aren’t sure we have the energy or the stomach, quite frankly, to stalk out through the woods looking for her. We’re praying she’s alive and fine, and if the search party finds evidence of the contrary...” she trailed off and her voice went thin.
“Yes, of course, I understand. There’s no need to explain.” When it seemed Amelia had calmed herself on the other end, Kate went on. “I was actually calling about your inn. Do you happen to have a handle on your guests?”
“It’s a small operation, and if I don’t check a new guest in myself, at the very least I see their name in our reports. Why?”
“I was wondering if you had a guest by the name of Clifford Green?”
“This isn’t about Becky, is it?”
Amelia’s question sounded hopeful, as though she had pitched forward into the phone, eager to hear that Kate had taken a highly personal interest in Becky’s disappearance. Though Kate was deeply concerned for Becky, and though she sensed Amelia must have heard about her incessant meddling years prior, she wasn’t sure she should give Amelia false hope, or worse, shatter the hope she might be harboring that her daughter would be found.
“No, it’s not about Becky,” she said finally. “Just a general curiosity. With Becky having been abducted and Cookie Halpert having been killed, I think it’s fair to scrutinize anyone in town who isn’t a long-time resident of Rock Ridge.”
“I agree,” said Amelia. “Certainly. But I’m not at the inn at the moment. I can log into our online system, but it will take a little bit. You said the name is Clifford Green?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay,” she said, and Kate heard a pen scratching through the receiver, as Amelia jotted the name down. “I’ll text you if I find anything.”
“Thank you so much,” she said. “And Amelia?”
“Yes?”
“Becky’s out there. I have full faith that Scott will find her alive and well.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, sounding small and downtrodden. “But I’m so afraid you aren’t.”
Chapter Seven
The next day, Kate woke to her alarm, which was set an hour earlier than usual. Scott was fast asleep beside her, and knowing how hard he worked, she took painstaking measures not to disturb his deep sleep as she climbed out of bed and made her way into the shower. After a quick rinse to wake up, she found a fresh tin of dark roast in the kitchen and put on a pot. As far as she knew, Clara was still in the holding cell at the jail and Bean There was closed for the time being. She hoped Clara was okay, but how could she be? She had handled Cookie’s gun, the very weapon rumored to have killed the baker. That fact mounted with the one of Clara being the last person seen with Cookie alive, didn’t bode well for her release. But Kate had a few tricks up her sleeve to help Clara out, and those had everything to do with Clifford Green and the correlation between his arrival in Rock Ridge and Cookie’s untimely death. She was still waiting for Amelia to get back to her.
Jason seemed to be hanging on by a thread by the time Kate arrived at the dog park behind Jason’s house. Celia, who had organized the resident sear
ch party for Becky Langley, had decided the best place to start would be as close to Jason’s house as possible, and since he and Becky lived in the center of the suburbs, the closest location to gather the residents was the Motley Memorial Dog Park half a block away.
Jared had convinced Jason that being proactive would be the best thing for him, and as Kate strode through the grassy park towards her twin boys, she saw Jared jab his brother on the shoulder.
“We’ll find her,” Jared said to him, trying to lift his spirits.
“I’m not so sure they will.”
“Think about it, Jason. Whoever took her, didn’t take anything else in the house, and even by your account, the man was wearing a mask so it’s not like he had to take her because she saw him.”
In terms of what Jason had told Scott and her two days prior, the assailant hadn’t been wearing a mask, but the case was that Jason simply hadn’t seen his face, so Kate’s ears pricked up at the detail.
“So he has a reason for holding her,” Jared went on. “And sooner or later that reason will come to light.”
“Then what is everyone doing out here? How will searching for her help?”
Kate joined the conversation, saying, “It just will.”
Jason glared at her, as though she couldn’t possibly understand, but nothing could be further from the truth.
“I know what you’re going through,” she said, countering his furrowed eyes. “I had to keep a stiff upper lip for years when your father had gone missing.”
“Yeah?” he challenged. “If you remember, so did I. So did both of us,” he said, flicking his eyes at Jared. “I shouldn’t be going through this again.”
She couldn’t agree more, and her heart went out to him, but she could also tell she wouldn’t be able to say anything to lift his spirits. And she didn’t blame him. She had felt the exact same way after Greg had first gone missing. She’d spent weeks and months worrying each and every night that he was being harmed or worse. It was the not-knowing that had crippled her all those years ago, and it barely got easier as she had pushed herself to go on living.
Celia was wearing a bright red baseball cap, which Kate took as her way of announcing she was in charge. She was holding a clipboard firmly against her chest and began grouping the residents who had shown up to help search for Becky into groups of seven, every so often referencing her clipboard. Kate had to assume she was looking at a map. Since the dog park was situated in front of the western woods they would be searching, it was fair to assume each group would fan out into the woods beside one another to cover as much ground as possible.
Kate approached her with a grave smirk and said, “I’m here to help, Celia. Just let me know what I can do.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. I know Becky was about to marry into the family.”
“She was, and we’re eager to have her back home, safe and sound.”
“And your boys are here,” she marveled when she lifted her eyes from her clipboard, spotting Jason and Jared.
“Better to stay proactive than to sit at home letting your imagination run wild.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Why don’t you be one of our group leaders,” she suggested then indicated a cluster of six residents who were waiting patiently to get started. “Everyone, you know Kate Flaherty, our resident handywoman? Kate will be leading you through the woods directly across from this park.”
The group gave Kate a collective smile that struck her as both determined and weary. Before she set off with them, she made a discrete effort to ask Celia about all that she had heard throughout town.
“Celia,” she began, speaking in a low voice. “You heard about Cookie Halpert, I assume?”
“Of course,” she said, shaking her head and keeping her tone quiet. “I never would’ve expected something so tragic to happen to Cookie. Everyone loved her.”
Kate couldn’t agree more. “I heard from a few people around town that Cookie had reconnected with an old high school boyfriend.”
“Yes, I’ve seen them together a number of times, and if you ask me, that husband of yours locked up the wrong person.”
Kate didn’t want to speak ill of Scott’s police work, but she couldn’t agree more. “Did you happen to see anything that might shed light on their relationship?”
Celia’s eyes brightened as they always did when someone came to her for gossip. But Celia shied away, saying, “I wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”
“I won’t tell Scott. I’m just curious.”
“And why’s that?” she asked, intrigued.
Kate had a bit of friction with Celia years back when Celia’s husband Ken Johnson had turned up dead. He had worked as a detective and was very close with Scott, and though Scott never suspected Celia of foul play, Kate certainly had. In the end, Celia had appreciated Kate’s passion and tenacity to find Ken’s killer, but it also strained their relationship for a good number of weeks. Now that the heat was no longer on her, Celia seemed eager to learn all that Kate might be intending to do with whatever information she would fork over.
“Why’s that?” Kate echoed, as if she might stall the woman into no longer pressing her for her reason she was once again meddling. “I think what matters most to everyone is that Cookie’s killer is caught, and while Scott pursues his own suspects, I’ll be checking out others who might not be suspicious enough to warrant Scott’s time.”
“I knew it,” said Celia, pointing her finger at her.
“Oh, please.” Kate wanted to laugh it off, but they both knew Celia’s intuition was right. “Tell me what you know.”
Celia glanced at the group Kate was meant to lead into the woods. They looked impatient, even by Kate’s estimation, when she glanced over her shoulder at them, but they could wait. They would have to.
“Years ago,” she began, “way back when Greg was with us, which is probably why you don’t remember Cookie and Clifford—that’s his name, her old boyfriend is Clifford.”
“Yes, I figured that out,” she said, impatiently.
“Well,” she went on, leaning in and happy to hold court—even though it was a small one with only Kate as her audience. “Cookie and Clifford were the most popular couple in the high school. You and Carly had long since graduated, but Ken and I would still go over to the high school every fall to watch the football games and partake in a little school spirit. Granted it was more to Ken’s liking than mine.”
“Celia,” she said, implying that her best friend’s mother really ought to get to the point.
Celia frowned at the interruption then went on. “They were the couple everyone loved. Clifford was the football quarterback, and Cookie, well back then Cookie was a size two and one of the most nimble cheerleaders on the squad.”
Kate wondered where this was going.
“Then, I’m not sure you recall—”
“It’s safe to assume I don’t, Celia,” she said dryly.
“Right, well one day about five of the scales went missing from the science department. It was a big hullabaloo at the school, because the faculty knew almost instantly why someone would want to steal the scales.”
Kate hadn’t the foggiest, so she asked, and Celia’s eyes widened as if to say, “It’s a good thing you’re getting this information from me.”
“High schoolers? Missing scales? Why, how else would a young drug dealer weigh his product?”
“What?”
“That’s right. Are you kidding me? Those high tech scales are hundreds of dollars each at least. Well, that was the beginning of the end for Cookie and Clifford. Clifford had fallen in with the wrong crowd, bad influencers if you know what I mean. He was an innocent kid, but the fact of the matter was that when one of his out of town friends put him up to it, stealing the scales, he went right along with it. He was caught, of course, and he wasn’t kicked out of school though he got suspended and then spent the rest of the year on academic probatio
n, but he really didn’t learn his lesson. Cookie dumped him of course, but that only sent Clifford deeper into his new world of friends. Long story short, he ended up leaving Rock Ridge, and the last I heard, he wound up in prison.”
“On drug charges?”
“On something bad,” she offered though she didn’t know the exact crime he had committed. “Then he gets out and comes running home to Cookie as though they might pick up where they left off. And bless her heart, the poor girl must have really loved him, because she got sucked right back in.”
An older gentleman in the group sighed impatiently, and Celia shot him a curt smile.
“You better get going,” she said, handing Kate a map. “Just cut through the woods there and head straight. If you see anything,” she went on, handing Kate a walkie-talkie radio, “just press the side button and give me a holler. The police are otherwise occupied on their own search, but Scott promised that if we saw anything he’d send a squad car over right away. You know Becky well, so if you see a piece of jewelry, or a scrap of clothing, don’t hesitate. Even if you think it might not have to do with her, we’d rather rule it out than overlook it.”
“Right,” said Kate. “No problem.”
Kate’s group, which included Jason and Jared, was inching up behind her, so she crossed into the woods and her group fanned out, forming a wide line beside her.
The sun gradually rose in the sky, and as the woods thickened around them, they slowed to a snail’s pace.
“This is a waste of time,” she heard Jason mutter to Jared.
“How do you know?” he countered. “You didn’t say you heard a car. The kidnapper could’ve taken her through here on foot.”
“When she was drugged?” he asked. “He carried her? I don’t think so.”
“If you know so much about it, why haven’t you told Scott?”
Jason had nothing to say to that, but Kate could tell he was holding his tongue rather than indicating he didn’t have an answer.
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 53
