by Jessica Beck
“No, that’s alright. Do you happen to know the name of the supply place where he went?”
“It’s nothing as fancy as all that,” he said. “He’s just picking up a hose from the hardware store. Jack keeps a few things in stock that we need from time to time.”
“I’ll go there, then. Thanks.”
As I drove to the hardware store, I had to park on the other side of the alley where Gordon was murdered. There were no spots in front of the hardware store, so I parked near A Close Knit World. There was a lovely display of yarn in the front window, and I considered the possibility of learning how to do it myself as I got out of my car. It might be something fun to do to unwind while Greg and I watched television at night.
I was in luck.
Wayne came out of the hardware store with a long thick hose in one hand.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” I said.
“What’s going on? Did you catch the killer?”
“Maybe. I’ve got a hunch that we’re getting close. That’s what I need to discuss with you. Wayne, your life could be in danger.”
“Why would anybody want to hurt me?” He looked startled by the very idea that he might be in danger.
“We think Mitchell Cobb might be knocking off rivals for Ellen’s affection. If we’re right, that puts you right in his crosshairs next.”
Wayne shook his head. “Mitchell? You’re not serious, are you?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“I’ve known Mitchell Cobb for years,” Wayne said. “He doesn’t seem the type.”
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about him. Watch your back, and if he comes within a hundred yards of you, call the police.”
“I’m not afraid of Mitchell Cobb,” Wayne said.
“Well, maybe it’s time that you were. Take this very seriously, Wayne.”
“Okay, I get it. I’ll be careful. Do the police know that he’s a threat?”
“They’re looking for him right now,” I said. “On a happier note, Crazy Betty confirmed your alibi. She saw you with Ellen having your picnic in the park. As a matter of fact, she thought you two looked as though you belonged together.”
“Maybe she can persuade Ellen of that,” Wayne said a little wistfully.
“You two didn’t break up, did you?”
“No, but she’s doing her best to put on the brakes. We’re not kids anymore, neither one of us, and I thought we were finally making some real progress, but with Gordon’s murder, she’s not even sure that she wants to be in another relationship just now.”
I patted his arm. “Be patient, Wayne. Our girl’s worth it.”
“You’re not telling me anything that I don’t already know,” he said. “It’s just tough.”
“Remember, anything worth having is worth fighting for,” I said.
“That sounds more like Moose than you,” the mechanic said with a slight smile.
“He might have said it first, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
Wayne nodded, and then he shook the hose in the air. “I’d better get this back to Rupe. He’s got a rush job that needs it.”
“Just be careful,” I reminded him once more. I was afraid that Wayne wasn’t taking the threat seriously enough, but I wasn’t sure what else I could do about it.
“Like I said, I’ve got it, Victoria.”
I watched him get into his truck and drive away, and I wondered what I should do next. When in doubt, my fallback position was to always go to The Charming Moose, so that’s where I headed.
Chapter 19
“Victoria, why did you take off like that without telling me where you were going?” Moose asked as I walked back inside the diner. “I looked away for a split second, and you were gone.”
“Take it easy, Moose. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I just needed to find Wayne to warn him about Mitchell.”
“That was smart,” my grandfather said. “If Mitchell is intent on knocking off rivals, then Wayne’s in danger.”
“That’s exactly what I told him,” I said.
“You still should have told me what you were up to,” my grandfather said worriedly. It occurred to me that he was more concerned for my safety than the fact that I might have been investigating without him.
I kissed his cheek. “I’m okay.”
“Fine. That’s just fine.” Moose paused, and then he asked, “So, where does that leave us?”
I looked around. “Is Ellen still here?”
“No, she went home with Opal and Robert. Why, do you need her?”
“I just wanted to share a little good news,” I said. “With Crazy Betty confirming her alibi, she’s off the hook with the sheriff. Wayne, too, as a matter of fact.”
“Call her, then,” Moose said.
“I don’t think so. I have to give out a fair amount of bad news in my life, so I want to deliver something good like this in person.”
“Then let’s go. We can brainstorm about ideas about where Mitchell might be hiding while we drive over there.”
I looked around the diner and saw that it was currently in Martha’s and Jenny’s most capable hands. “Why not? It sounds like a good plan to me.”
“I have a question,” I said to Moose as we drove toward Opal Hightower’s house. “It might sound stupid, but there’s something that’s been bothering me.”
“Let’s hear it,” Moose said. We often discussed new ideas when we were working on a murder case, and every street and avenue that we could come up with was always explored, no matter how crazy it might sound to the other at first.
“What if Mitchell is innocent?”
“From the description of that closet you found, I could hardly call him that,” Moose said.
“I’m not pretending that he’s not obsessed with Ellen to the point of sickness, but that doesn’t make him a killer, no matter how convenient it appears to be at first glance.”
“If it’s not Mitchell, then who should we be looking at instead?” Moose asked.
“Well, our suspect list is nearly depleted. The only other names we have left are Opal and Robert. Could it be that we don’t see the truth because we both want the killer not to be one of Ellen’s parents?”
“Or both of them, for that matter,” Moose said.
“Do you think they could have done it together?”
Moose appeared to think about it, and after thirty seconds, he said, “It’s a possibility. What if Opal distracted Gordon while Robert snuck up behind him with a pipe?”
“I suppose that it’s possible,” I said. “Would it explain the bruises on Robert’s hand?”
“He has bruises? When did this happen?”
“I didn’t tell you about that? Sorry, that’s all my fault. I was talking to him while I was waiting for you to pick me up, and I noticed that he was having a little trouble with his hand. He claimed that he hit a cinderblock wall in frustration, and I had no cause to doubt him at the time.”
“What if he swung that pipe so hard that his knuckles connected with the wall near the hardware store as he made contact with Gordon’s head? That could account for it as well.”
“It makes me sick just thinking about Ellen’s parents ambushing the man like that.”
“Remember, they were trying to protect her,” Moose said.
“By killing the threat? You know what we have to do if this is true, Moose. We are going to have to tell the sheriff.”
“I know that. But how are we going to find out for sure?”
“If they were working together, we need to split them up. When we get there, if we get the chance, I want to talk to Robert, and you can speak with Opal.”
“Why can’t I talk to Robert?” I asked.
“Victoria, we have to keep them apart. Let me do this my way. Please.”
“Okay, but I don’t like it. What if Robert decides to come after you?”
Moose shrugged. “Then I’ll take care of him myself.”
> “I’m not sure this is the best idea, Moose. Why don’t we tell Ellen the good news about her alibi, and then we can go straight to the sheriff with our alternate theory? He’s a lot better equipped to handle something like this than we are.”
“I hate to stop digging just when I feel as though we’re closing in,” he said.
“I know, but sometimes that’s what we have to do.”
When we got to Opal’s, there was a problem, though. She was alone, working on a new knitting project as she answered the door.
“Is Ellen here?” I asked.
“She took the kids out for ice cream,” Opal said. “Why? What’s going on?”
“I just need to talk to her in person,” I said.
“Well, you’re welcome to wait here,” Opal offered. “She shouldn’t be that long.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
Moose asked offhandedly, “Do you know if Robert’s home, by any chance?”
“He just went across the street. Why?” Opal asked him.
“I think I’ll go talk to him for a minute,” Moose said. He looked at me and asked, “Do you mind, Victoria?”
“Go on. It’s fine with me,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely pleased with Moose’s decision to press on without the sheriff’s consent. “Remember, I’ll be right here if you need me.”
After my grandfather walked across the street, I kept watch on Robert’s house, looking for any sign that Moose might be in trouble.
Opal must have noticed my constant vigilance. “You’re not really waiting for Ellen, are you, Victoria?” she asked.
“I admit that it’s not the only reason I’m watching outside,” I said. I glanced back at her and saw that she was knitting furiously as we spoke, her hands moving with eerie, mechanical precision.
And that’s when I got it.
One of the Hightowers had indeed killed Gordon Murphy, but I had a hunch that Robert hadn’t had anything to do with it. Gordon had been killed between the hardware store and a shop that I knew Opal visited often, A Close Knit World. She must have spotted Gordon out the window as he walked past, and seizing the moment to protect her grandchildren, Opal had grabbed a pipe and ended his life.
“So, you know after all,” she said the second she saw my face. “Are the police on their way?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying my best to feign ignorance. She’d already killed once to protect her family. What was one more homicide?
“Don’t lie to me, Victoria. You know that I did it. What gave me away?”
This was going nowhere. Maybe if I stalled her long enough, Moose would come back, and then it would be two against one. “Mostly it was the proximity of the crime scene to the yarn shop. You saw an opportunity to right a wrong, and you took it, didn’t you? Robert doesn’t know, does he?”
“I think he suspects something, but Ellen doesn’t have a clue. So, what happens next?”
“If you turn yourself in, I’ll do my best to see that it goes easier on you,” I said.
“I can’t do that, Victoria, and you know it.”
“When you confessed to killing Gordon to me before, why didn’t you admit to using the pipe on him?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said. “You pressed me, and I panicked.”
“And I discounted your confession completely.”
Opal nodded. “I realized that confessing wouldn’t do Ellen any good, so when you dismissed it, I decided to take advantage of my second chance.”
“You must have killed him close to two o'clock, because you sent your husband to pick up your grandchildren. That was out of the ordinary for you, wasn’t it?”
“As much as Robert loves those two, nobody loves them more than I do. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing them.” She frowned, and then Opal added, “And I won’t lose them now.”
Uh oh. It appeared that we were going to have a problem here. “You have to give yourself up, Opal. It’s the only way,” I said.
Opal slipped the scarf she was knitting off the needles with great deliberation, and held one in each hand. Those things made nasty weapons when they were pointing straight at me. “I can think of another,” she said as she started to move forward.
I felt my heart tighten. I didn’t want to fight her, but in another second, I wasn’t going to have any choice. I had to think fast and come up with a way to stop her.
Instead of looking for another weapon, though, I decided to use the one thing against her that had gotten her into trouble in the first place: her heart. “Opal, what happens if you do manage to get rid of me? I’m going to fight for my life, so things are going to get ugly here, but let’s say that you succeed in killing me. Do you really want your daughter and your grandkids to walk through that door and find my body? There’s going to be blood all over the place; I can guarantee you that.”
“Of course. You’re right,” she said as the needles slipped through her fingers to the floor below. “What was I thinking?” At that instant, Opal started softly sobbing, and I knew it was crazy the moment I took that first step forward, but the woman was in pain. I hugged her, and the tears rushed out of her. “I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating. I waited until her crying lessened, and then I took out my cell phone and called the sheriff. While we were waiting for him to show up, Moose and Robert came over together. I didn’t need to explain a thing to them, because the second Opal saw Robert, she cried out, “I just wanted to save her, Robert. Will she ever forgive me?”
“Ellen loves you, Opal. She’ll find a way.”
Opal fell into his arms then, and she was still there when the sheriff showed up three minutes later to take her away to jail.
“I still can’t believe that Ellen’s mother killed Gordon,” Greg said once Moose and I were back at the diner. Ellen had heard the news, and she was at the jail now, along with her kids and her father. The family was holding a vigil for Opal, and I was proud of my friend for standing by her mother in her time of need. None of us believed that the murder Opal had committed was okay, but everyone who had ever met Gordon Murphy could understand how the end of the bad egg came to be.
I was still discussing what had happened with Moose, Martha, and Greg when my cellphone rang. It was Rebecca Davis, and I’d been hoping that she’d call. “How’s Opal holding up?”
“Surprisingly well,” Rebecca said. “She gave me more details about what happened, so we have something to work with. I can’t go into specifics, but apparently Gordon threatened her when she tried to convince him to leave Ellen and the kids alone. She says that he tried to attack her, and that she swung that pipe in self-defense.”
“I thought he got hit from behind,” I said.
“I asked her about that, and she said something distracted Gordon for a split second. When he turned his head to see if anyone was watching them, she hit him to keep him from killing her.”
“Do you think that she’s telling the truth?” I asked. I supposed that it could have been nothing but the facts, but it was all awfully convenient for Opal, and there was no one to refute her story, now that the other party in the conflict was dead.
“I don’t know, but I do know one thing; I can sell it to a jury.”
“Rebecca, aren’t you at all concerned that she might just get away with cold-blooded murder?” I asked. I didn’t know how my best friend could spend her days defending guilty people, putting them back on the streets, when they needed to be locked up behind bars.
“Who’s to say what really happened? Opal’s entitled to the best defense she can present, and I aim to do just that. Ultimately, her fate isn’t in my hands, so I don’t spend too many sleepless nights. Even if she does get off, I don’t see her killing anyone else, do you?”
“No, if I had to guess, I’d say this was a one-time crime.”
“There you go, then. Let’s face it. There aren’t any winners in this one, Victoria. Some days are like that, though. The best we
can hope for is that no one innocent goes to jail. Speaking of folks who are innocent, the sheriff said they caught up with Mitchell Cobb. Turns out he decided to leave town because he was embarrassed that you saw his little shrine to Ellen.”
“Why don’t I feel good about any part of this case?” I asked.
“Do what I do. Try to find the silver lining,” Rebecca said. “Ellen gets to keep her kids. That’s a win in my book.”
“No matter what the reason might be?” I asked.
“If it helps me get through the day, I’ll take it,” she said.
I caught everyone up with what happened, and there was a subdued feeling in the room after I was finished. Moose summed things up as he held us all close in his embrace. “We all need to take this as a sign that we should celebrate our family every chance we get. For all its flaws, we love each other, and in the end, that’s what matters the most.”
As we had a group hug, I had to wonder if Opal hadn’t felt the same way. In a very real way, she’d sacrificed her own future for her grandchildren’s, and I had to wonder if either one of my grandparents would have acted any differently than Opal if the roles had been reversed.
I quickly dismissed that thought, though.
I couldn’t stand thinking about what Ellen and her family were going through, but I was thankful that it wasn’t our clan experiencing it, whether that was a selfish way to think about things or not. Most of the people I loved were there in that room at that moment, and I was glad that each and every one of them were in my life. I knew that Ellen was going to face a difficult time ahead, but we’d all stand by her and see her through, no matter what.
After all, that was what family did, and while Ellen might not have shared any of our blood, she was just as much a part of The Charming Moose as any of us.
And in the end, that was what family was truly about, the love in our hearts, and not the blood that coursed through our veins.
GREG’S LASAGNA
