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TOOL KIT CLUES
Chapter One
Kate Flaherty had never descended a staircase faster. Taking them two and a time and landing badly on the first floor of Over the Moon Inn, the image of Donna Kramer falling dead on the carpet in room 5 surged to the forefront of her mind.
Jason had killed her.
Kate’s very own son.
And if she didn’t catch him before he peeled out of the inn’s parking lot, she feared he might disappear forever.
After all, his fiancée had suffered that very fate, though the circumstances surrounding Becky Langley’s mysterious disappearance had been entirely different.
Or so Kate thought.
Tearing through the reception foyer and barreling past the butler who was standing post at the entrance door like a statue, Kate saw Jason yank the driver’s side door of his truck open and climb in behind the wheel.
She had every impulse to scream at him to stop, but it was bad enough she had torn through the inn. Drawing more attention to herself or Jason wouldn’t do either of them any good.
In his vehicle, Jason threw the truck into reverse, but Kate slammed her hands on the hood. He hit the brakes. In the commotion, it was only just now occurring to her that neither the Over The Moon receptionist nor the butler had reacted in any way to the gunshot.
Kate raced to the driver’s side and threw the door open.
“What the hell was that?” She realized between her heaving breaths and her pulse pounding in her ears from the adrenaline coursing through her veins that she may have been rendered temporarily deaf. She steadied her tone and hoped no one had heard her last question. After a quick glance at the inn door, she pressed, “Donna confessed to killing Tommy Barkow. You didn’t have to kill her.”
“Didn’t I?” he challenged, while appearing astonished that she could make such a claim. “She had a gun on you.”
“Damn it, Jason. What the hell is going on?”
Tight-lipped, he settled his gaze straight ahead, looking at nothing in particular. Kate had never been one to grab either of her son’s faces, demanding their attention and response, and it took every shred of decency she had not to do that now.
“I’m not going to apologize for saving your life,” he said indignantly.
“You’re going to have to explain this,” she asserted.
“Oh yeah? And how do you think that’s going to go? Hm? My new stepdad already thinks I’m the one behind Becky’s abduction. He obviously thinks I’m capable of such a thing.” Jason shifted in the driver’s seat so he could face her completely. “You really want me sticking around to explain this to Scott York?”
Kate fell silent, and life as she knew it flashed before her eyes. Did she really want her husband and son pitted against one another? She had certainly had enough of that recently, and all she had been through in that department was mere speculation. If Jason truly were connected to a crime—a murder—he would undoubtedly be arrested. Would self-defense be an acceptable plea when Jason hadn’t been in the line of fire?
“I have to go,” he told her, his eyes turning round in apology or regret, she couldn’t decide.
“Go where?”
“Relax,” he smirked crookedly, one side of his mouth curling up far more than the other, an expression he shared with his twin brother who never seemed to be in the depth of trouble that Jason found himself in. “I’m not leaving Rock Ridge. Not when Becky’s missing. But I can’t be here.”
“I can’t let you go until I understand a few things,” she stated.
“Are you sure about that?” he challenged. “Because I’d bet there are at least three employees who are wondering what the hell that gunshot was all about, if not discovering a dead body at this very moment and calling the cops.”
“I’m sure,” she said, catching the car door as he tried to shut it. “Jared told me you’ve been running off, disappearing—”
“Jared,” he snorted a laugh.
“And Scott has heard things. People have called into the station placing you in questionable places doing questionable things.”
“Really?” he asked, his brow furrowing with confidence. “And who hasn’t said that about you? Oh no, whenever Kate Flaherty goes poking around it’s for the good of Rock Ridge, but if her son does the same, it’s the mark of guilt. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Are you saying you’ve been spied at questionable places because you’re acting for the good of Rock Ridge?”
“For the good of myself and my family, of Becky. You know you act like you’re some savior—”
“I have never,” she cut in, wagging her finger at him, “acted like a savior.”
“You’ve meddled. You’ve gotten in people’s business to find out the truth. And that’s what I’m doing. These people who are behind Becky’s abduction, they’re not good people. I talk to bad people in bad places. It doesn’t mean I’m one of them. It means I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty to find the truth.”
“You’re speaking too abstractly. I need more than that, Jason.” She was leaning towards him, invading his personal space as if nearness would pop him open. “Scott is going to show up here. He has to. It’s his job. And I’m going to have to tell him something.”
Jason’s eyes widened as though he were appalled.
“I’m not going to turn you in or throw you under the bus, but the truth will set you free.”
“Not this time, Mom. I shot that woman.”
“But if you had your reason—”
“What reason justifies murder?”
Again, Kate fell silent.
“Are you going to tell him I did it?”
She didn’t have it in her to say, because she honestly didn’t know.
Jason sighed, but it didn’t release even a fraction of the tension he felt. Kate knew as much by the way his was holding his shoulders and clenching the steering wheel. It looked as if he were keeping himself together despite a universe trying to tear him apart.
“I’ve had my ear to the ground,” he began. “I’ve talked to people, the absolute bottom-feeders of this town, people you wouldn’t even notice live here. The convicts. Remember Clifford Green?”
Kate would never forget. Clifford had been romantically involved with the local baker, Cookie Halpert. At the time of Cookie’s murder, he had been the prime suspect, at least in Kate’s eyes. Though Officer Gunther had been the one behind her murder—a tumultuous love affair that ended badly—Kate never dropped her suspicion of Clifford. At the time, he had just been released from the prison up north. And sure enough, weeks later he was involved in a murder. But it had been his own. Gathering as much as she had during that time, she discovered an entire network of drug dealers had woven themselves through this town. Meredith Joste and Daisy Meriwether had been among them and had subsequently been arrested. Donna Kramer had been a kingpin, so to speak, but with Jason having killed her, the extent of her role would never be known. Even more disturbing was the fact that the mayor of Rock Ridge, Dean Wentworth, had been dragged into it, though this was only substantiated by rumors. The bottom line was that Becky’s abduction was the centerpiece on this dark arrangement, and because of it, Jason couldn’t simply let the police do their job.
Could she fault him? Kate had the same blood running through her veins.
Jason continued. “Clifford Green was in prison with the guy who abducted Becky.”
“How do you know this?”
“I talked to people. I got in with them.”
“What do you mean you got in with them?” she asked, horrified that her son had infiltrated a mob that could very well kill him.
“I’m going to get Becky back,” he asserted with a biting tone. “I didn’t get a real name, just the guy’s street name. Dark Donnie. He wasn’t the one at the house that morning, but he was behind it. He has affiliations with Amelia and Lance. As you know, the Langleys crossed them, or didn’t obey as per Dark Donnie’s specifi
cations. Anyway, I’m getting closer. What’s happening in Rock Ridge is that all the convicts got out of prison, they can’t find work, and they’re going into the drug business. They’ll do anything. And Dark Donnie knows it. He knows it so well that he’s using his corrupt prison contacts to get these guys out early. That way, the second they set foot in freedom, they owe him.”
“I’m worried for you, Jason.”
“I have to do this, Mom.”
“Then why the hell did you kill Donna? Do you have any idea what you’ve risked?”
“I’m not going to say it again,” he affirmed, annoyed and thrusting his hand down on the wheel. “She was going to kill you.”
“How did you even know I was here?”
Jason looked her dead in the eye and said, “The only reason I have an in with these guys is because I’m close with the Langleys. I convinced them I only wanted the mustard money. That I didn’t care about Becky at all and don’t give a crap she’s out of the picture. Well, they believed me. They took me into the fold. When I warned them that Scott got warrants to remove the drugs from the shed and the warehouse, they thanked me. They left some product behind just to throw Scott off their trail.”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “How does that work?”
“The real boxes led back to Donna Kramer. The ones we left behind will incriminate someone else.”
“Someone innocent?” She was shocked and horrified.
“Mom, there are pawns and there are queens. You have to protect the queen.” He placed his hand on her arm. “That’s what I did.”
“Jesus.”
“I had to come by to make sure Chucky knew to play it cool when the cops come for the drugs.”
“Scott already came.”
“I know that. I swung by to get the scoop on how it went after the fact.”
She was beginning to understand the timeline of events he had described.
“I’m onto something, Mom. You gotta trust me.”
“What am I supposed to tell Scott when he gets here?”
Jason sighed. “Anything but the whole and absolute truth.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Until you looked out the window, you had no idea it was me. Just tell yourself you don’t remember anything after the gunshot.”
“Then why did it take me so long to phone the police?”
“Don’t worry about that. No time went by at all.”
She screwed her face up as though there was no way that would fly.
“The butler, Chucky, the receptionist—everyone on staff has been paid off. Don’t worry. You only know what you know,” he said suggestively. “And you don’t know anything else.”
She held her breath, considering if she could do it, but she really didn’t have a clue. Whenever she looked into Scott’s big brown eyes, the truth had a way of pouring out of her.
“And what about Amelia?” she asked, not to challenge him but to plead her dilemma. “She’s on the hook for Tommy Barkow’s murder. Donna confessed, but to me, privately, and now she’s dead. How will Amelia exonerate herself?”
Jason held her gaze, but his eyes went dead. “Amelia might not have killed Donna, but she’s not innocent.”
“Christ, I’ve already been around that merry-go-round. I won’t do it again. As a family, we understood the Langleys are innocent. They were being used and threatened.”
“Wealth is corruption,” he stated, not at all sounding like the son she had raised. “If they hadn’t been so successful, they never would’ve been targeted.”
“I’ve heard enough,” she said sharply. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”
The fact of the matter was that she already had. Not in the spirit of getting her son arrested, but because Kate had always been a believer that nothing was more important than the truth. Even in sticky situations where things looked bad, as long as a person told the truth, eventually they would be believed. She had seen it time and again in Rock Ridge. Scott didn’t have the best reputation for arresting the right person, but the innocent weathered the storm, and soon enough the culprit ended up behind bars.
She took a few hesitant steps backwards and let Jason shut the truck door, then watched him reverse out of the parking spot and drive away. It had to be well over 95 degrees, but she felt freezing. She didn’t know what she was going to do.
Never in her life had calling Scott been so hard.
Chapter Two
“So you were standing there, and Donna was standing here—”
“She had a gun aimed at me,” Kate interjected, which caused Scott to stare at her.
“Right,” he said. “You mentioned that...several times.” He took a moment to collect himself, and Kate tried not to look at the bloodstain on the wood floor. The medical team had hauled Donna’s body away, but Kate could still feel her presence tainting the room. “She stood here with a gun aimed at you, which we’ve collected into evidence, so no need to remind me a sixth time. And then, suddenly, she fell?”
“Yes, she was shot in the back,” Kate said for the sixth time.
“By someone out there in the yard,” he supplied. It wasn’t that she hadn’t explained this or that Scott didn’t understand. It was that he couldn’t fathom it, not in terms of his intimate knowledge of Kate’s personality. Kate would’ve run after the gunman. Kate knew it, and she knew that Scott knew it.
“Yes. The window was open.”
“And when you ran to it...?”
“I was stunned at first,” she said quickly, eager to escape to her truck and get on with her life so as not to be tempted to turn in her own son. “I was so shocked because she had that gun on me, I thought I had been shot. I don’t know how long I was looking at my stomach, trying to make sense of it all. When I finally looked up she was on the floor, and I was able to guess what happened, but when I ran to the window there was no one out there. And I called you.”
Officer Garrison stood at the back of the room, jotting every word down into a notepad in such a way that was driving Kate crazy. Angling her gaze over her shoulder, she glared at him, and he stilled his pen, twisting his mouth to the side in apology.
“The most important thing,” she went on, nearing Scott, “is that Donna confessed to me that she killed Tommy. And she did this because Tommy set off the explosive that night, harming Lance Langley.” She stared at him with expectant eyes, but he said nothing. “You have to believe me. Poor Amelia is staring down the long barrel of a very costly criminal trial and she didn’t do it.”
“I hear you,” he said, but he was using his cop tone. He hadn’t sounded like her husband all morning. “But you also told me that Drake of Drake’s Firing Line incriminated Dean Wentworth for the explosion at the amusement park site. I have a lot to wade through, you understand.”
“Why would Donna say that? Why would she kill Tommy, if he hadn’t done it?”
“I don’t know, Katydid, and I can’t question her because she’s dead.” Scott walked to the open window and gazed out. After a moment, he turned on his heel, facing her. “If someone wanted Donna dead, why shoot her through the window? Why shoot her in the back?”
Kate shrugged as if she were at a loss for getting inside the logic of a killer.
“Do you think the shooter saw you?”
Again, Kate shrugged. “I doubt they were aiming for me.”
“That’s not what I’m getting at,” he said impatiently. “What if they were trying to protect you?”
She let out a nervous laugh. “Honey, you know I don’t have that many close friends, and those I do are at Sunshine Florist.”
His expression softened, but she could tell the gears in his fast-thinking mind were still turning.
“You have my statement,” she pointed out. “Do you need anything else?”
“And you were in the room because...”
“Because that Becky look-alike, Gillian O’Reilly, had been instructed—”
“To get the instructions,” he supplied, glancing
at Tommy Barkow’s chemical equations for purifying cocaine, the drug that had been manufactured in the quaint town of Rock Ridge.
“I was only trying to help,” she concluded.
Scott closed the gap between them then pulled her in for a warm hug. “You have to stop doing that. What if the shooter had poor aim and got you? What would we do then?”
“Oh,” she said, brushing off his concern, “you know I have nine lives.”
“I’m afraid you’ve used them up. Haven’t there been nine murders since I’ve moved to town?”
“Maybe it’s your lives we should be worried about,” she teased, glancing up at him, but in the back of her mind, she did the math. In fact, with the killing spree two years ago during the Anarchist Freedom Network fiasco, there had been five murders. Now there had been three killings in the past month, making eight total. If Kate had nine lives, she had used nearly all of them playing with fire to catch the previous killers. She considered the possibility that she had better watch out. Donna Kramer was the ninth murder. Kate was out of lives. “So what are you going to do about Amelia?”
“It’ll take some time,” he said, urging her back so he could look at her easily. “I’ll have to file some paperwork, but I trust your account. What Donna confessed to you can be chalked up to a dying declaration, which will exonerate Amelia. Don’t say anything, though. I don’t want to get her hopes up in case I get resistance.”
“I won’t say a thing.”
Scott walked her down to the first floor of the inn, but held her back when they reached the entrance door. He waved at the butler to shut the door. The man had opened it in anticipation, but there was a wall of reporters outside that neither Scott nor Kate were eager to deal with.
“It’s going to be a long one for me,” he said, tucking a lock of her red hair behind her ear. “I might not be back until late. We recovered drugs from the shed out there, as well as in the mustard warehouse. We just got the warrant to search the amusement park site.”
“I bet Dean is going to love that.”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 76
