by Judy Alter
“Give me the keys. I’m going to check.”
Did he suspect Sallie of collusion or did he think someone had come in after her and stolen the money? Privately, I thought he’d find it all where it ought to be and would be bringing it back with him.
Not so. After David had been gone maybe five minutes, Chester’s phone rang.
“What? Okay. Be right there. I’ll call the ambulance.” He ended the call and said, “Come on, Doc. That little girl was conked on the head and the safe’s empty.”
“Is she okay?”
“David says yes, dazed but okay. You stay here and lock yourself in, Kate.”
“No way,” I said as I followed them out the door, telling Huggles to stay. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wynona stroll into the kitchen again, yowling as though we’d disturbed her rest.
Sallie was sitting slumped in a chair, holding a cold cloth to her head and crying fit to beat the band. When she saw me, she bawled even louder. “I’m so sorry, Kate. You trusted me, and I let you down.”
I said soothing words to her, assuring her I didn’t blame her, and her sobs subsided into occasional gulps.
Doc did a cursory exam—getting her to track his finger with her eyes, feeling her head—and finding a large goose-egg on the back. “My conclusion is she got hit on the head from behind and is lucky not to have a concussion. You live alone, young lady?”
“No. I’m married.”
“Good. Tell him not to let you fall asleep for four to six hours.”
“Oh, but I’m so sleepy,” she wailed, tears threatening to start again.
“I know, but it’s for your own good. You feel anything unusual, like nausea, you have him call me immediately. Got that?”
“Yes, sir. I need to call my husband and tell him why I’m so late. He’ll be worried.”
I gave her the phone and she called. Meantime, Chester said, “Kate, can you open late tomorrow? I need to get a team out here to dust for prints, check the place out. I can tell you what I think happened. It was an opportunistic crime, not related to anything else. After he dumped the body, and maybe watched us for a while, he came back by the café. Looked in, saw her opening the safe, and saw a chance to grab some cash. But I need to check.”
“Chester, morning’s my busiest time!” Now I felt like wailing.
“I know, sweetie, but I can’t drag that crew out here again tonight. I’ll have them here at five thirty. You can open by seven.”
I agreed. I felt like Sallie. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t get to go to sleep, badly as I wanted to. It was almost midnight by the time David and I came back to the kitchen. Chester had roped off the entire pasture behind the café, given me strict orders about the café, and finally, finally left for home. It was a good thing David was out of his splint, because I leaned on him heavily as we skirted the field between the café and the house and walked down the driveway. From inside, Huggles barked and whined.
David opened the door and let Huggles out. The dog made a beeline for the spot where the body had been, but he contented himself with sniffing. Apparently, there was no need for frantic barking any more.
“Let’s let him stay out a while,” David suggested. “Sit, and I’ll bring wine.”
I was sure wine would put me right to sleep, but somehow it perked me up. When David sat in the rocker next to mine, I looked at him and said, “Rodney.”
“Pardon me?” He said it in the tone he would have used for a perfect stranger.
“Rodney Aldridge. He’s bound to be the one behind this. James wouldn’t kill somebody, and neither would Rose. I suppose we should call and tell them what happened.”
David looked at me with astonishment. “Not at this time of night. Particularly when we don’t know that this has anything to do with them.”
Maybe the wine was talking, but I said, “I have it all figured out. This guy was some relation to Big One and John, maybe Jimmy Baldwin”—that made me shudder—“and they worked for Rodney. He found out something he shouldn’t have, or maybe talked to someone he shouldn’t have, and Rodney killed him. After all, Rodney’s the one who lies about his relationship with Edith and who really wants her money and her house.”
David took a slow sip of his wine. “Have you shared all this with Sheriff Halstead?”
“No, but I think I’ll call him in the morning.”
“Better hold off,” said the voice of experience. “But maybe you should call Rose and James…just not when you get to the café. Wait a while.” He called to Huggles, who came running.
“But it’s the only explanation that makes sense,” I said, as he took my hand and pulled me out of my chair.
“There’s always more than one explanation…and I’m still wondering why John and Big One—what’s his name anyway?—aren’t talking. But we won’t figure it out tonight. Come on, let’s lock up and go to bed.”
I guess he locked up. I remember nothing but next morning I realized I’d slept in my underwear (had David taken off my clothes? They were on the floor on my side of the bed). I hadn’t removed my makeup or brushed my teeth. There were mascara stains on my pillowcase, and my mouth tasted dry and awful. And when I woke up, it was eight thirty and David was gone. My head hurt.
I reached for my phone and called the café. Marj answered, way too cheerful. “Jesse showed David how to make sticky buns. They’ve been at it a while, and I tasted one—buns are pretty good. Chester cleared us to open at eight, so it hasn’t been much of a problem. You take your time, sweetie. I know all this has been hard on you.”
“Has anybody checked on Sallie?” I asked.
“David asked me to call her husband. He said she’s fine, nearly divorced him when he kept waking her up every hour to see how she was. Doc says he needs to do that all day today. So glad it wasn’t you, Kate.”
“Yeah, but I feel awful about Sallie. I’ll dress and be there as soon as I can.”
“Take your time, Kate. We’re doin’ fine. ’Course everyone in town and the surrounding area has heard about that body disappearin’ and reappearin’ and so they’re all here for breakfast. But we’re managing. Don’t you worry.”
Well, of course I worried. My café was crowded with curiosity seekers, and I wasn’t there. I scrubbed yesterday’s makeup off my face, brushed my teeth until I thought they’d pop out of my head, threw on khaki pants and a white woven shirt with a collar. Then I grabbed a clean apron from the pile on the dryer, fed Wynona, let Huggles out, and sprinted to the café, cursing the roped-off field, thinking it wasn’t easy to get away from my house quickly in the morning.
As I came in the back door, David greeted me. “Hi, sunshine. Want to try the best sticky roll ever? I’m pretty proud of myself.”
A sticky bun was the last thing I wanted. Neither food nor coffee appealed to me, but I knew his feelings would be hurt. So I took the bun, took a huge bite and, in spite of myself, I grinned. “It’s really good.” I could feel my stomach quieting down with food in it.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I have talents you’ve never dreamed of,” he boasted.
“I knew you can cook, but I never thought you’d make sticky buns.”
“I had a good teacher.” He laughed, nodding at Jesse, who bowed his head shyly.
I checked the house and found almost every table full, so with a cup of green tea, seasoned with honey, I took up my station by the cash register. People wondered about the body as they paid their bills, but I simply smiled and said I wished I knew. When we found out, I’d post an announcement on the café’s web page—a new invention of mine.
Too soon Sheriff Halstead barged through the double doors, demanding loudly, “What the hell went on here last night?”
My answer was as calm as I could make it. “That’s what we’d all like to know. Have you checked with Chief Grimes and Doc Mason? They’d know more than I do.”
He gave me a withering look, and without as
much as a please, said, “Coffee. Black.”
Marj served him without comment. He drank his coffee and left, no check, no tip. I took a dollar out of the cash register and handed it to her. “Chalk it up to lessons learned.”
She pushed it back at me and said, “I don’t need to be tipped for bein’ so dumb. But, thanks, Kate.”
Presumably, Halstead was off to check with Chester and Doc Mason. I wasn’t about to share my conviction about Rodney with him. If he couldn’t figure that out himself, he wasn’t much of a sheriff. But then, I’d suspected that all along.
What I didn’t need was a surprise visit from Donna about nine in the morning. “You’re out and about early,” I said by way of greeting.
“Why wouldn’t I be? Whole town’s talking about what went on last night at my sister’s house and the café.” She could never bring herself to call it my café, even though I’d bought her out. She still felt proprietary about it, which translated into entitlement to free meals.
“I don’t know what to tell you that isn’t already all over town. There was a body in the field yesterday morning. Then it disappeared, only to reappear outside my fence last night. And while everyone was busy investigating that, someone conked my waitress on the head and stole yesterday’s cash.” Long story short.
Donna leaned across the counter, as though to talk confidentially. “You must know more than that. Tell me. Who’s the body? Who did it?”
I spread my hands helplessly. “None of us recognized the victim. He came to the door earlier the evening before, wanted in to talk about Edith Aldridge”—oops! Shouldn’t have disclosed that much—“and we said we were closing. Come back in the morning. I feel pretty guilty. If we’d let him in, he might still be alive. But we’ll never know.”
“Well, I don’t appreciate having Tom called out in the middle of the night. He’s not a deputy anymore.”
“No, but he’s the mayor, and he’s doing a great job of keeping tabs on what happens in his town.”
She stared into space, sipping her coffee. “So it all has to do with that crazy Aldridge woman who lives in that mansion.”
“Apparently so.”
“How did you get mixed up in that business? I think you should cut all ties to whatever’s going on and walk away, while you and David are safe. My children are forbidden to stay overnight until this is all settled.”
I didn’t point out she hadn’t let them stay in a while anyway, but I wondered if they’d been asking.
She got up to leave—another one with no check, no tip, but at least I’d served her so it didn’t matter. “Let me know when you find out who the body is…er, was.”
“I’m sure it will be all over town instantly,” I said, my way of saying that I wasn’t going out of my way to keep her informed.
“I better check on that Rose Middleton or Mitchum or whatever she calls herself. I hope she hasn’t stripped the Tremont House and robbed me blind as thanks for my hospitality.” She left in a huff.
Grudging hospitality at best. Not offered kindly but with a lot of strings attached.
One thing David had accomplished rather quickly in those long hours while I was at the café and wondered if he was really working was to help Charles Mitchum find another lawyer and then quickly demand a weekly allowance for Rose. It wasn’t much—Mitchum was a real close man with a penny, according to David—but it gave Rose a sense of self-confidence. And she was working as hard as she could at the B&B, which had no guests for the past two weeks, as far as I could figure. Rose was the caretaker of an empty house, but she cleaned, polished the bit of silver Donna had, even washed windows. Still, Donna found fault with everything. Rose occasionally came to the café for solace and company, and I fed her those heavy meals she should never have.
The day dragged on, the excitement of the evening before having subsided. By midafternoon, I snuck home for a break and was dismayed—envious? Upset?—to find David sound asleep. No, I wasn’t tactful.
“How can you sleep with so much going on?” I demanded.
He looked at me groggily. “What exactly would you have me do? I know, why don’t you join me here instead of worrying about what I’m not doing?”
“David, I have to go back to work. I just came to put my feet up and relax for a few minutes.”
“You don’t want to relax on the bed with me?”
“No, I don’t. Yes, I do, but I can’t. When will they identify the body?”
He swung to a seated position but stayed on the bed and patted it next to him, an invitation to join him. I sat down gingerly, a distance separating us.
“If I could predict that, I’d be a lot better lawyer than I am. Depends on DNA, fingerprints, all that stuff. I doubt anybody put a rush on it. After all, he was, as far as we know, a homeless man with no ID on him. No one else is in danger because he’s dead.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Nope. It’s an educated guess.”
“Well, I guess I’m going back to the café,” I said, deliberately mimicking his use of the word “guess.”
“Nice to have had this little visit with you, sweetheart.” And he flopped back down on the bed.
Who could resist? I bent over to kiss him and found myself entangled in a passionate embrace. Half tempted, half indignant, I let my conscience get the better of my instincts and pulled away. “Tonight,” I promised.
I swear he was asleep again before I left, and I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering when Doc or Chester or whoever would identify those remains. Patience is not one of my virtues. David came in for supper—looking well rested, darn him! He always managed to come right at the height of the dinner hour, so my meals with him were interrupted by frequent calls to the cash register. Marj had gone home, and Sallie was taking more and more evening responsibility. She had apparently completely recovered from her blow to the head.
After we finished—pot roast for David and a chef salad for me—he rose, stretched, and said he wanted to call Brian. Tomorrow they were going to the site to look at progress—apparently the framing was up, and Brian wanted to check a few details. Guilt came over me again that I hadn’t kept up with this project that was so important to David.
As he walked out the door, Gram spoke to me. “Get rid of the guilt, child. You can only do so much. You have your plate overloaded right now, and you’re handling it well.”
“Thanks, Gram.” I said it aloud.
Sallie happened to be walking by and said, “Pardon me?”
“Sorry. I was just talking to myself.”
By the time I called David to say I was headed home it was almost ten. We sat in companionable silence on the back porch in Gram’s old rockers. When his phone rang, David checked caller ID and, seeing it was Chester, put it on speakerphone, warning Chester he’d done that and I was sitting close by.
“We got lucky,” Chester said. “Least I think so. Victim’s name is Ambrose Connell.”
While I squeaked “Ambrose?” wondering who would name someone that, David turned suddenly stiff and serious. “Connell? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Drifter, grafter, string of small arrests, nothing big. Can’t trace him to any permanent place. Can’t find any next of kin.”
David answered slowly. “It’s an unusual last name. I think I know his son. I’ll get back to you ASAP.” He stood up and headed inside. “Sorry, I’ve got serious work to do.”
“Steven Connell’s father?”
“Who else could it be? And what’s his connection to Edith? I’ve got to track Steven down, at least let him know his father’s dead.”
“Maybe he already knows,” I muttered.
David gave me a long look and headed inside.
I finally went to bed only to wake about three and find David was still at his computer, still making occasional phone calls. The only people he could possibly bother at this time of night were Chester or Halstead…or maybe law enforcement people he knew in Dallas. He talked s
o softly I couldn’t make out what he said, and I soon drifted off again in spite of my curiosity. I didn’t even know what time he came to bed, but I left him sleeping when I went to the café in the morning.
He came in about ten—late for him—looking tired and upset. The sparkle that had finally returned to his eyes was gone.
I poured his coffee, black as usual, and watched in astonishment as he put cream and sugar in it. “Needs softening this morning. One egg over easy and a piece of wheat toast, please.”
“You okay?”
“No. I also need five minutes of privacy with you after I eat my breakfast.”
I brought his egg and kept myself busy with other chores, principally at the computer working on payroll. But I kept one eye on David, and when he pushed his plate away, took a last swig of coffee and put the cup on the plate, I walked over to this table.
“Want me to clear that?”
“No. I want you to come outside with me for five minutes.”
We sat on the bench on the porch. On busy days, like Sundays after church, the porch was crowded with people waiting for a table. In the middle of a weekday morning, there wasn’t a soul around.
“Steven Connell has disappeared,” David said without preamble. “Phone’s no longer in service—cell and office. Landlord said he moved out a week ago—he was living in his office, always said it was temporary. I checked with a few other people, and no one’s seen him.”
“What does this have to do with Edith? I mean how do we find out?”
“Not we. Me. I’m going to pay her a visit right now.”
“Did you call? You know she doesn’t like drop-in visitors. Besides, it might be dangerous. Who knows who’s lurking in those bushes?”
“Stop being melodramatic, Kate. No, I didn’t call. I don’t want to give her time to concoct a story. I have a feeling Edith hasn’t been telling us the truth all along. And no one’s waiting to ambush me.”
“If she’s hiding something, why ask me to look into it? And what could it have to do with burning down your cabin?”
