Grace Interrupted

by Julie Hyzy

  Rodriguez’s bloodshot eyes roved about the room before he answered me. “We have several suspects,” he said, “but nothing conclusive enough to make an arrest. That’s why we’re here. I need to ask you about two of your employees, Jack Embers and David Embers.”

  “They’re not employees,” I said. “We keep Jack on retainer. He’s our landscape consultant. Davey—er, David—is his brother. He’s Jack’s employee.”

  Rodriguez knew Jack’s status from our last encounter. Had he forgotten, or was this just the department’s way of being thorough? Tank sat up. “What do you know about bad blood between the Embers and Kincade families?”

  “Nothing,” I said. That was the truth. “Until yesterday—until the altercation out back—I hadn’t heard anything.”

  “What do you know now?”

  I held up my hands. “Still nothing. I swear.” Suddenly I was glad Bennett hadn’t shared the story with me. I felt an inexplicable need to protect Jack. Sharing a tale I’d heard secondhand wouldn’t do anyone any good. “What’s it all about? What happened between the families?”

  Rodriguez opened his mouth to speak, but Tank interrupted. “When did you first meet Zachary Kincade?”

  I knew my perplexity showed. “You know the answer to that. Yesterday, when those two women tried to Tase him.”

  “Just covering all bases, no need to get shook.”

  I wasn’t “shook,” but I was curious. “What about those two women, Rani and Tamara? Aren’t you questioning them?”

  Flynn had begun pacing. Now he stopped to listen to his partner’s response.

  Rodriguez curled his lips in distaste. “It isn’t easy to stab someone to death. Takes a lot of strength. And guts. Stabbing is messy business. I don’t see this as a woman’s crime.”

  Tank cleared her throat and sat up. “We aren’t discounting any theories yet,” she said with a pointed look at Rodriguez. To me, she added, “In a fit of anger, adrenaline can take over and even ‘women’”—another disparaging look at the older detective—“are capable of superhuman strength. My colleagues and I plan to interview both of these ladies in due course.”

  Flynn jumped in. “I can bring in the two Embers brothers while you’re talking with the women. The sooner you let me have a crack at those gardeners the quicker we’ll close this case.”

  “Not so fast,” Tank said. “We need some information from the evidence technicians first. We can’t go around accusing suspects until we have more facts.”

  “What time was Kincade killed?” I asked.

  Tank answered, “The coroner put time of death between eleven last night and one this morning. But he warned it was just an estimate.” She sniffed. “This town needs a fulltime medical examiner instead of a funeral director who plays coroner on the side. I don’t think this guy’s been called upon to establish a time of death in a murder investigation in his whole life. I caught him checking a reference manual on how to determine it.”

  “And a more accurate time frame would help you when you’re trying to establish alibis?”

  Tank scooched forward in her seat. “From what we’re hearing from all those costumed people, no one keeps track of time after dark. Establishing alibis in this situation will be almost impossible, but come on . . . they were all right there. Somebody must have seen something, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Turns out the first night of one of these encampments nobody gets any sleep,” she went on. “There’s an Irish Brigade that sings into the wee hours of the night. Drinking nonstop around the campfire is standard. People wander in and out. Nobody can say when Kincade was there or when he left. Nobody can say who was with him or who might have left the camp at the same time. Everyone is coming and going all day, all night. We got a big, fat zero.” She held up her hand, making an O with her thumb and index finger for emphasis.

  “We haven’t interviewed everyone yet,” Rodriguez reminded her.

  “We will,” she said. “Make no mistake there. We will interview every last one of those crazy playacting weirdos or my name isn’t Tank.”

  In actuality, her name wasn’t Tank, but this didn’t seem a good time to mention that. The determination blazing in her eyes made me feel sorry for the innocent folks who’d come out to our grounds for a week of camping and re-enacting fun. I’m sure none of them had expected to be part of a murder investigation. And being the Civil War, they for sure hadn’t expected a Tank.

  Flynn came around to stand between Rodriguez’s and Tank’s chairs. “Your ‘gardening consultants’ have access to the estate twenty-four hours a day, don’t they?” His dark eyes skittered over the wall behind me, as though working out a question in his mind. “Either or both Embers brothers could have returned to the property last night. Nobody would have stopped them.”

  That was true. But I again felt a peculiar compulsion to protect Jack. My gut bounced in panicked circles, warning me not to say anything that could be misconstrued. My brain reminded me that I’d only met Jack a few short months ago, and Davey less than that. Why should I protect either of them? The likelihood that either man was capable of murder, however, was too much to accept. My gut won.

  “I really doubt either of them would come back. Most of our gardening staff leave when it gets dark.”

  “Aha!” Flynn practically jumped in the air. “So if we can prove they did come back, we have them dead to rights!”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t say it wasn’t possible for Jack or Davey to come back for a valid reason, I just said it was unlikely.”

  “Would they have had to check in with anyone if they did return?” Tank asked.

  “The guard at the front gate. We close our employee entrances two hours after the residence closes to visitors. Anyone coming in or out must sign in with the guard.”

  Flynn held up both hands in a fait accompli gesture. “Then I say we check with the guard. They came back. I know they did.”

  He was getting carried away with his theory. “Don’t you think that someone intent on murder would avoid checkpoints?” I said. “That would leave a trail. Prove they’d been here.”

  Flynn would not be dissuaded. “Next stop, the guard house.”

  “By the way,” I asked, “have you questioned Pierpont? He mentioned the name of someone who found and covered the body.”

  “Pierpont. Is he that little general?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s in charge.”

  “He’s been complaining up a storm about us ruining his encampment.” Tank placed her hands on her knees and boosted herself upright. Rodriguez and Flynn also made ready to leave. “Like we care about playacting authenticity when a man has been murdered,” she said

  “You mean the Civil War people are staying? Even after this?”

  “From what we gather, they’ve had this event planned for a year. None of them want to give up their week of no electricity, no running water, no cable TV.” Rodriguez waved a hand in front of his nose. “It hasn’t gotten all that hot yet and already a couple of them are getting pretty ripe.”

  Tank was shaking her head, a disgusted look on her face. “Don’t they care that someone died?”

  “A lot of them are shook up about the murder,” Rodriguez said. “How could they not be? But these Civil War games represent routine for them. They want to get back to it as soon as possible so things feel normal again. I see this a lot.” Rodriguez offered a shy smile. “Not with war games, mind you. Just regular people. After a tragedy, they do everything in their power to get back to the mundane of their real lives. Knowing that ‘normal’ is just ahead helps them get through the dark parts.”

  Tank raised one eyebrow during Rodriguez’s speech. “Very insightful.” She rolled her eyes and walked out. Flynn followed.

  Rodriguez put his hands out and shrugged.

  “She really does roll right over people, doesn’t she?” I said.

  He stared at the empty doorway, looking as though he wanted to say something more.
<
br />   “Are you coming?” Tank shouted from the other room.

  Rodriguez ran a finger inside his shirt collar. “Yeah,” he answered, “be right there.” To me he said, “We should have brought in those two Embers brothers by now instead of pussyfooting around this place making sure all our back ends are covered. But she”—he pointed toward the outer office—“says that when we rush, we risk making mistakes. You ask me, I don’t think it’s a mistake to bring in the main suspect—or in this case, suspects—for a little Q and A. I’d call that good police work.” He shook his head solemnly. “But we gotta do what Miz Tank says.”

  Relieved for Jack’s sake that he wasn’t being hauled down for questioning, yet, I could do nothing more than nod.

  “Have a good day, Ms. Wheaton. You hear anything that sounds interesting, you let me know. Okay?”

  “You got it.”

  Five minutes after he left, Lois arrived. She and I went to work writing up a press release that referred to an “incident” on the grounds but kept details vague. “Where’s Frances?” she asked after about a half hour.

  “Can’t get in touch with her,” I said. “I tried her house and her cell. No luck.”

  “I think she goes out of town most weekends. I never see her around.”

  “Maybe she has a vacation place.”

  Lois gave me a skeptical look. “I doubt that, but if she does I hope she takes early retirement and moves far away. The sooner the better. You haven’t been here all that long. All her gossip and rumormongering can really get to you.”

  Lois was wrong about that. I’d been around plenty long to let Frances get to me.

  “She has an opinion about everything and everybody,” Lois continued. “Always negative. She’s toxic and nobody likes being around her. And maybe I’m being uncharitable, but it seems unfair that she knows so much about all of us and we know so little about her.”

  “She is talented at mining gossip from just about everybody.”

  “She is that,” Lois agreed.

  I wondered what Frances had been saying about me behind my back, but Lois didn’t seem inclined to offer up any tidbits. Instead, she wrinkled her nose and apologized. “Sorry for my outburst. I just can’t stand the woman.”

  I gave a noncommittal nod and suggested we get back to work.

  Good thing, because within twenty minutes the phones started ringing. E-mails pinged in my inbox, bringing word from the front gate that the press was clamoring to get in. “Private property,” I reminded the guard on the phone when he asked what reason he should give for denying their persistent requests. “The matter is being handled and the proper authorities are involved. We will share information when it becomes available, but we are not required to allow the press access to our grounds.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  On impulse, I stopped him before he hung up. “By the way . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have a log handy of everyone who came in after hours?” It was silly of me to double-check, but Flynn’s accusations burned my brain with curiosity. “Last night, I mean.”

  “Sure, Ms. Wheaton, I have my clipboard right here.”

  I heard paper shuffling in the background as he shifted the receiver, breathing with exertion. This was Joe, a chunky, middle-aged guy who’d taken the gate guard position after retiring from his job as a high school basketball coach. “Hang on one second . . . okay. Got it.” I heard the receiver shift back. “Who you looking for?”

  “Can you just run down the list and tell me everyone who came through? After closing, that is.”

  “That’s a lot of names, Ms. Wheaton.”

  “Really?”

  “Lots of folks from the hotel go out for dinner in town because the food’s not as expensive out there. No offense.”

  Our hotel’s restaurant was known for its superior standards, but also for its equally lofty prices. “No offense taken,” I said. “How about this . . . can you go through and give me the names of anyone who came through who isn’t a hotel guest?”

  “Like people who work here?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath and mumbled to himself while I waited. I heard a page turn. Then another. This was taking too long. I fidgeted, worried he’d still be on the phone with me when the detectives arrived. How to explain my sudden interest in our gate logs? After an interminable length of time he said, “I don’t show any staffers coming through here last night. Can I ask who you were looking for? Maybe that would make it easier.”

  “Oh,” I coughed up a lie, “just asking in general. Do we usually get many workers coming back late at night?”

  “Only when they forgot to do something important. Mostly it’s just hotel guests.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” I said and hung up.

  Pleased to know that Jack and Davey had not returned to the estate last night, I focused on the tasks at hand. Lois had paid close attention to my end of the conversation and fixed me with a skeptical eye. “You weren’t really asking in general,” she said, “were you?”

  “Not really,” I said. “The detectives are planning to interview all the Civil War campers, but they’re setting their sights on staff members as well. I know the police will take copies of those logs, and I just want to be prepared and know what we’re facing in case they drag any of our employees or consultants down for questioning.”

  That seemed to satisfy her.

  At least someone was appeased. Until I knew the whole story behind Jack’s involvement with Kincade, I didn’t know whom I could trust. It didn’t help that no matter how many times I tried to reach Jack—out of the range of Lois’s eager ears—I came up empty. I left only one message on his cell phone and because it went immediately to voicemail each time I tried calling, I reasoned the device was turned off. That meant I wasn’t racking up a ridiculous number of missed calls on his phone, thank goodness. In my message I asked him to get in touch when he had a chance. So far, no word.

  Lois and I worked quietly, keeping the prying reporters at bay and juggling other tasks so that life would at least resemble normal when we returned to the office Monday morning. Normal. I thought about what Rodriguez had said and felt a twinge of guilt.

  It was late afternoon when I thanked Lois for her time and decided I’d accomplished enough on my day off. I arrived home to find Bruce at the sink in the kitchen, his back to me. “What are you doing here?” I asked with a glance at the clock. “Isn’t the shop open? Are you still dealing with a power outage?”

  He half-turned, grinning from ear to ear and I was able to see what he was working on. “Yummies for our little Bootsie,” he said, holding up a can of cat food. Snapping the pull-top forward and then yanking it back, he said, “This kitty is hungry. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s had a decent meal.” Next to him on the counter was a brand-new two-sided cat food dish. Bruce spooned about half the container’s contents into one side. “This is the second can I’ve opened for her today. Oops, here she comes.”

  As though already accustomed to the sound of dinner being prepared, Bootsie leaped onto the countertop next to Bruce’s arm. “Wait a second, sweetie,” he said. “Almost done.”

  “You came home to feed the cat?” I asked.

  “It’s slow at the store today.”

  I waited.

  “Okay, fine. Yes, I did. Poor little thing.” He placed the dish on a small rug on the floor. That’s when I noticed the bowl of water already there. Another brand-new bowl.

  “Where did all this stuff come from?” I asked.

  “Scott picked up a litter box. It’s in the basement. Bootsie’s already christened it, I might add. We found a few other things this morning when the pet shop opened. I just figured the little thing was lonely and I didn’t know what time you’d be back.”

  I looked at the clock again. There was still plenty of daylight and I should probably start my door-to-door canvass of the neighborhood to see who the cat b
elonged to. I was so worn out from the day’s adventure, however, that I dropped into the nearest chair instead. “It would be a shame to return her tonight after you guys bought all this great stuff. We should allow her at least one day’s use from it all.”

  Bruce gave me a funny smile. “Yeah,” he said. “You just relax and worry about all this tomorrow. By the way, what was the big emergency that had you running to work at five this morning?”

  I told him.

  Bruce’s mouth fell open and he took a seat across from me. “You aren’t kidding me, are you?”

  I’d left out some of the details, but Bruce was quick to pounce. “The dead guy is the guy who got into a fight with your boyfriend yesterday, isn’t it?”

  “Jack isn’t my boyfriend,” I corrected. “And the ‘dead guy’ is named Kincade. He attacked Jack’s brother, Davey.”

  “But only because he thought it was Jack.”

  I felt very tired all of a sudden. “Yeah.”

  “What does Jack say about all this?”

  “I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”

  Bruce said, “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just seems like something he’d want to get straightened out quickly. Especially with you.”

  “Jack may not even know about the murder yet. We’re keeping it out of the news.”

  “True, but then why isn’t he returning your calls?”

  I had no answer.

  “Be careful, Grace.”

  Chapter 8

  I WOKE SUNDAY MORNING WITH THREE IMPORTANT things on my mind: Call Jack—again—and hope to finally reach him this time; call Frances—again—and let her know everything that had happened at Marshfield and ask her to come in early Monday; and finally, find out who little Bootsie really belonged to.

  The cat had crawled into bed with me again, curled up against my chest just under my chin, where I felt her purr until we both fell asleep. I’d rubbed behind her ears for a while. She seemed to enjoy the attention, and with each stroke I’d felt my own tension begin to ease.

  She was so small, just a kitten, and I couldn’t believe how soft her fur was. Having only had dogs growing up, I didn’t realize that cats craved personal touch, too. I’d always assumed that felines were standoffish and aloof. Little Bootsie here was mighty cuddly. I already knew I’d miss her when she was finally reunited with her real family.