When she reached her truck, she found her cellphone in her pocket and scrolled through her contacts for Dean’s cell number. She got Josie situated in her car seat and then sent the call through as she climbed in behind the steering wheel.
“Hiya, Kate,” he said cheerfully.
“Hey, can I swing by the office and talk to you?”
“Ah...” he trailed off thinking. “I’m at home at the moment. Jessica wanted to have lunch together, but you can stop by over here if you like. What’s this about?”
“I’d rather not get into it over the phone,” she said. “I’m heading over.”
“Sure, see you soon.”
As Kate drove through town, her thoughts darted from one suspicion to the next. How could Dean afford to build a guesthouse if he had been having financial difficulties? Why hadn’t he mentioned hiring Eddie? Who had threatened Kate and Zack with notes on their windshields? Could it have been Dean? If Dean had killed Eddie, he couldn’t have done it himself since Kate was certain he hadn’t been at the inn that day, so who did he hire?
Pulling her truck along the curb across the street from Dean’s house, she noticed a dumpster that was resting at a strange angle over the sidewalk and street in front of the mayor’s house. Dean had probably asked the town to deposit the dumpster so that Eddie could legally dispose of the leftover building materials from the guesthouse. She eyed it for a moment, and then she noticed Joe Swenson and the female co-worker he had been flirting with at the Municipal Building walking down the sidewalk.
Dean’s house wasn’t that far from the center of town, but in Kate’s opinion it was further than walking distance, so why were they here?
She noticed a black garbage bag in Joe’s hand. It looked about half full. When the couple reached the dumpster, Joe glanced up and down the sidewalk, but luckily didn’t spot Kate in her idling truck. He then threw the bag into the dumpster and started back up the sidewalk in the direction he and the woman had come from. As they walked, Joe wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cheek before turning the corner.
After waiting a few moments to be sure they wouldn’t return with another trash bag, Kate pulled the key from the ignition, hopped out of her truck, and made quick work of slipping Josie into her carrier. She looked both ways before jogging across the street, and when she reached the dumpster, she peered inside, scanning for the trash bag.
She found it and had to step onto a metal rung on the side of the dumpster to reach it.
It wasn’t until she had jogged back to her truck with the garbage bag in hand that she opened it, releasing the truck’s rear door latch and setting the bag on the bed.
Amidst common household trash, she discovered photographs of Dean Wentworth, which weren’t alarming until she saw the date and time stamp printed on the lower right corner of each one. The photographs showed Dean leaving a house at nighttime. Each shot was grainy and she didn’t immediately recognize the house, but according to the printed date, she had a pretty good idea.
Dean Wentworth had left Bobbie Hamden’s house on the night she was murdered.
“Kate,” said a man approaching her from behind. “Is there a reason you’re parked outside of the mayor’s house?”
When she turned, she saw Detective Kilroy staring down at her and the look on his face wasn’t at all friendly.
Chapter Seven
Kate and Scott didn’t have much time to get ready. They had plans to eat dinner with Carly and Larry, and because spending time at their friends' house had been a compromise between going out and staying at home with Josie, each of them wanted to look nice.
Standing in front of her closet, Kate perused the options. Though it had been warm earlier in the day, the temperature had cooled off and she didn’t want to feel chilly.
“What are you going to wear?” she asked Scott, who was partially dressed in a nice pair of black jeans and an undershirt, which gave her an impression of which direction he was going.
“I’ll throw on a button-down, but I’m wearing sneakers.”
Part of her wanted to slip into her overalls, but instead she reached for a thin, green sweater and a pair of blue jeans that she had only worn twice.
As she stepped into her jeans, she hoped like hell they would zip up. She hadn’t worn them since before getting pregnant with Josie and there was just no telling what her hips had done since then. But to her surprise, she was able to zip and button the jeans easily. She stepped into a pair of black sneakers and then pulled the sweater on before walking into the living room. Josephine was in her playpen, laughing at herself in the attached baby-proof mirror.
Kate was looking forward to spending time with Carly and not having to worry about cooking dinner, but she hadn’t yet gotten a chance to speak with Scott privately about her encounter with Detective Kilroy.
It had unnerved her.
Why had Kilroy been outside of Dean’s house at that particular moment? Had he met with the mayor for some reason? Had he been overseeing the strange deposit that Joe Swenson and his co-worker lover had placed in the dumpster? Or had it been a coincidence?
Why would Joe dispose of evidence that could very well link Dean to Bobbie Hamden’s murder?
What if Dean really had been behind Bobbie’s murder? What if he had made some kind of deal with Joe where the government worker had no choice but to return the evidence? And what if two seconds after Kate had gotten off the phone with Dean, he had called Kilroy to come over and make sure that Kate didn’t overstep her bounds?
Was a brand new conspiracy blossoming all around her?
She hoped not, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the way in which Detective Kilroy had stared down at her instilled the same dread in her gut as she had felt when she read the threatening note. What if Kilroy had left the note as well as the one on Zack’s car?
It was a disturbing thought.
“Ready?” Scott asked, as he entered the living room.
“You’ll drive?” she asked. “I’m too tired.”
As she crouched to pick up Josie, Scott relieved her of the task, scooping his daughter into his arms and saying, “Sure, we can take my truck. I’ll get Josephine settled in her car seat.”
Kate held the door open for him and locked up after Scott had started for his truck. As he fastened Josie into her car seat behind the passenger’s seat of his truck, Kate climbed in and rested her head back.
Detective Kilroy truly had intimidated her outside of Dean’s house. By the time he had left and Kate knocked on the front door, all resolve to question the mayor about his true relationship with Eddie Jackson had shrunk and instead of confronting him, she had merely asked for his opinion on how she was going about building Amelia’s balcony—soliciting advice she didn’t actually need.
“How are things going with Kilroy?” she asked as they drove down their long and winding driveway.
“Great,” he said easily. “He’s a good guy.”
Clearly, Scott was so concentrated on the road that he hadn’t caught Kate’s apprehension, so she asked, “Is he tight with the mayor?”
“Not as tight as you,” he pointed out. “Where is this coming from?”
“I visited Dean today at his house and Kilroy was there.”
“Okay...” he said, waiting for her to make her point.
“Did you send him over there?”
“No, but other than pursuing leads on Bobbie Hamden’s murder, of which there are literally none, there isn’t too much going on at the station. It wouldn’t surprise me if Kilroy felt like making the rounds and saying hi to the mayor, after all, Dean is the guy who signs our paychecks and approves our budgets.”
“Did you know Dean and Jessica built a new guesthouse on their property?”
The information gave Scott pause, and he glanced at her before making a left toward the center of town. “Strange timing,” he finally noted. “Dean gave the whole town the impression that no one is under worse financial constraints than he is.”
>
Kate had been grappling with telling Scott about the photographs she had come across. Unless she was sure that Dean really was guilty of Bobbie Hamden’s murder, the last thing she wanted to do was incriminate him, but the longer she thought about it, the more the pros of doing so outweighed the cons.
“I found something in the dumpster outside of Dean’s house,” she began, and of course Scott groaned. “Just hear me out. I should’ve told you before when I got home, but we were so pressed for time to get out of the house.”
“What is it?”
“I saw Joe Swenson dump a garbage bag in Dean’s dumpster, and after he left I looked inside the bag. There were photos of Dean leaving Bobbie’s house on the night of her murder.”
Scott slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel, pulling off the road and along the curb, which was so abrupt that Josephine started shrieking in the back seat. “What? Where are the photos?”
“In my office organizer in my truck,” she explained, turning and tending to her daughter. “It’s okay, Josie.”
“And you’re telling me this now? Kate, we haven’t had a single worthwhile lead. I need those photos.”
“I’ll give them to you as soon as we get home,” she said, rocking Josie’s car seat, which helped her daughter to quiet.
Scott furrowed his brow and she could tell he was debating turning around just to see those photos.
“They’ll be there when we get home,” she argued.
“Why the hell would Joe Swenson dump evidence of his wife’s murder?”
“I was wondering the same thing, but Joe’s been canoodling with a co-worker. From the looks of it, he seems to have quickly moved on.”
“Why would he dump it in front of Dean’s house?”
“I’ve been asking all the same questions.”
Scott grumbled and there was no question he would be wrestling with this all night until he reviewed the photos for himself.
“And you’re sure they’re from the night of Bobbie’s murder?”
“They were date and time stamped.”
Decisively, Scott angled the truck into the road and started speeding. “I’ll drop you off,” he stated. “I can’t sit on this; I’ll have to go back.”
She couldn’t argue. “Understood,” she said.
When they reached Carly and Larry’s house, Scott did just that, pulling up to the front door and helping Kate unfasten Josie’s car seat from the truck so that she could carry their daughter inside. She set the car seat on the ground and fished her own keys out of her purse for Scott.
“What else was in the trash bag?” he asked, tucking her truck keys into his pocket.
“Regular trash,” she explained. “I didn’t see any other evidence.”
“Okay,” he said. “Call me when you want to be picked up.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Keep an eye on Kilroy. He’s been acting strange.”
“Noted,” he said in a tone that indicated he didn’t exactly appreciate her suspicion.
Kate watched him climb in behind the steering wheel and drive off before she neared the front door and rang the bell.
Carly threw the door open and gave Kate a big hug, exclaiming, “I’m so glad you guys found the time!” As she stepped back and glanced at Josie in the car seat and then the darkness behind Kate, she asked, “Where’s Scott.”
“He got a lead on the Bobbie Hamden murder.”
“Aww, Larry is going to be disappointed. Come in,” she said, leading Kate through the foyer and into the dining room where Larry was setting out boxes of Italian take-out on the table.
“Bad news, Babe,” said Carly, rubbing her husband’s back. “Scott had to rush off.”
“But I recorded the game. I got beer. I was counting on guy time.”
“And I was counting on an evening spent with Kate,” said Carly. “But we’ll all have to make do.”
“The food smells great,” said Kate, as she settled Josephine’s car seat at the far end of the table.
Carly began setting plates on the table and said, “I heard Marla Zook got hired at the library.”
“Oh yeah?” said Kate. “Good for her.”
“Can you drink wine or are you sticking with water and decaf?” Carly asked.
After a moment’s consideration, Kate decided she could pump and dump, so she said, “I’ll have a glass of wine.”
Carly hurried into the kitchen where a bottle of chilled Chardonnay was resting on the counter next to two long-stem glasses. As she was in the kitchen, a blindingly bright light shined through the windows from the front of the house.
“God, what is that?” asked Larry, shielding his eyes.
Carly rushed into the dining room with the bottle of wine in her hands, and then quickly crossed through the living room to peer out the window.
“What in God’s name?” she yelled angrily.
Over a PA speaker system, they all heard a man say, “And this is the home of Larry Stadt, whose father brutally murdered Jackie York, the police chief’s first wife.”
Kate rushed to the windows, and as she stood beside her friend, she saw a huge tour bus idling outside. There were at least two dozen tourists seated on top of the bus, taking pictures of the house.
Kate marveled, “Amelia thinks this house is a worthwhile stop on her murder tour?”
The tour guide continued, saying, “Residents of Rock Ridge have often wondered if Larry Stadt would turn out to be a murderer just like his demented father. But only time will tell.”
Furious, Carly charged outside, yelling and balling her fists, “Get the hell off my property!” But it only entertained the tourists who began taking rapid-fire photos.
Kate pulled Carly back inside. “We’ll call the police. They’re trespassing.”
“She has to be stopped, Kate,” she said with an emotional edge in her tone. “The town hall meeting is tomorrow night. I say we make the committee vote.”
Kate couldn’t agree with her more.
Chapter Eight
The next day Kate arrived with Josephine at Over the Moon just as Maxwell was pulling his Volvo into the parking lot. As soon as Kate stepped out of her truck, Mitchell and Carter, who were hanging out near the entrance, dropped their cigarettes and stomped on them to put out the smoke. She glared at them, grousing, but didn’t have the energy to lecture either of them.
After reviewing all that Maxwell and the team had accomplished the day before, Kate instructed them to get started on plastering tiles on the surface structure. With all the helping hands, it looked as though the balcony could be finished in a matter of days, though there was still quite a bit of work to be done on the second floor.
As the day unfolded, the temperature rose into the upper 80s. Maxwell kept offering the contractors sunblock and had even made a run to the local grocery store to buy a crate of Gatorade so that no one would get dehydrated.
They worked quickly, and soon the air cooled off as the sun lowered on the horizon. Kate challenged herself not to get irate over Amelia’s murder tour, which had been nagging at her. Was her deceased ex-husband, Greg, just another stop on Amelia’s tour? Was Scott’s deceased ex-wife, Jackie, also on the tour? It made her blood boil to think that Amelia was profiting by dredging up the painful pasts of so many residents. She couldn’t wait for the town hall meeting that night, but she also feared that if she stood with Carly and opposed Amelia, she might not have a contracting job much longer.
Not only was building the balcony a nice chunk of change for Kate, but in fact Amelia had been a loyal customer. Whenever the inn was in need of a small repair, she hadn’t hesitated to call Kate. If Kate took a stand against her, that aspect of her business would certainly dry up.
After helping her team tidy up behind the inn by stacking what was left of their materials and covering the piles with giant, blue tarps, Kate walked Maxwell around the building to the parking lot.
“Are you coming to the town hall meeting tonight?” she
asked, which made him screw his face up. “Carly and I are going to suggest an important vote.”
“Politics really isn’t my thing,” he said.
“It could affect you, though.”
“How’s that?”
Kate neared him and spoke quietly. “We want to shut down Amelia’s murder tour.”
“I’m not seeing how that affects me.”
“Do you want your home to be another stop on her tour?” she asked then clarified, “When Doris Chestnut was found in the basement of the old Victorian house, your name was brought up in the mix as well as your father’s. You think Amelia will spare you just because you didn’t kill anyone?”
Immediately, he asked, “What time is the meeting?”
“Eight o’clock in the town hall,” she said.
He checked the clock on his cellphone and then returned it to his pocket. “That doesn’t give me much time to wash up at home.”
“So, I’ll see you there?”
“Sure,” he said before lumbering toward his Volvo. He stretched his arms and climbed in.
Kate didn’t have much time either, but she reasoned that she wouldn’t need to shower since she had overseen the day’s work but hadn’t actually lifted a finger. As she strapped Josie into her car seat, she decided she should get something to eat before the meeting. After reversing out of her parking spot, Kate started driving into town, all the while wondering about how things might have gone for Scott last night.
By the time she had gotten home from Carly’s, Scott was still off pursuing the lead of the Dean Wentworth photos. She had waited up for her husband to return, but when the clock struck one in the morning, she couldn’t keep her eyes open. After waking and glancing around their bedroom that morning, Kate had seen signs that Scott had in fact come home and slept for a few hours, but he had already left.
She was tempted to call him as she pulled her truck into the town hall parking lot, but then decided against it. Whenever Scott had good news on a case, he generally told her about it. It would seem he was still struggling to fit the pieces of Bobbie Hamden’s murder together, and she didn’t want to put undue pressure on him. She figured that she would shoot him a text message after the town hall meeting if she still hadn’t heard from him, and she climbed out of her truck.
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