by Jessica Beck
“Suzanne, she told us that she practically raised James. Why would she kill him? From everything we’ve heard, he’d already given up on ever getting rid of that money.”
“Maybe so, but we can’t just cross her name off without a better reason than that.”
“Okay, we’ll keep her there.” She tapped the next name on the list. “On the other hand, I have no problem believing that Forrest could be a killer. There’s something about that man I just don’t like.”
“He doesn’t exactly come across as—”
“Human?” Grace suggested, interrupting me.
“I was going to say friendly, but that works, too.”
“So, we’re clearly not finished with either one of them, but I have a question. How are we going to get them to cooperate with us and answer any more questions? They can stonewall us all they want to, and they even have a butler to keep us away.”
“Don’t forget the fact that we have a spy working on the inside for us,” I reminded her.
“Are we really going to ask Harry to do something that might get him fired?”
“Hey, he volunteered, remember?”
Grace bit her lower lip for a moment. “Maybe so, but I still don’t like it.”
“We all do what we have to do,” I said. “Harry’s a big boy, and I’m pretty sure that he can take care of himself.”
“Okay, I get that. But before we go charging back there blindly, we need to talk to him again and see if he’s found out anything new about what the Pinerushes have been up to. They must care about James, at least a little. Why else bring a lawyer into it? It means that they want to know what happened to him. At least that’s one possibility,” Grace said.
“What’s another one?” I asked.
“What if one of them actually killed him, and they want to make sure that they covered their tracks properly? What better way to be sure that there are no loose ends than to do a little digging themselves, not to find the killer, but to be absolutely certain that the crime can’t be traced back to them.”
“You have a devious mind, my friend,” I said with a broad smile.
“I just know how the rich can behave sometimes. Most of them don’t think the rules the rest of us follow apply to them, and they do whatever they want.”
“James wasn’t like that,” I reminded her.
“No, but then again, he didn’t embrace the wealth, did he?” She looked at the list again. “Finding this mysterious cousin is beyond our limited resources, so we’ll have to leave that to Chief Martin.”
“If he even knows the man exists. I’m going to have to call him and tell him what we learned at Pinerush.”
“I’ll let you handle that,” Grace said as she smiled.
“You’re too kind.”
“I hate this. It’s so frustrating to have so many suspects we can’t talk to.”
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about that. What we have to do is interview the ones we can, get the police to handle the ones we don’t have access to, and hope that it all works out for the best. I admit that it’s not the perfect situation, but it’s the best that we can do with what we’ve got.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “That still leaves us with two suspects. Should we talk to Rebecca first, or tackle Murphy?”
“Let me make a quick call.” I looked up the convenience store phone number, and after calling them, I found out that Rebecca would be starting her shift in an hour. After I hung up, I told Grace, “We’ve got time before Rebecca will be at work, so why don’t we try to find Murphy?”
“Now it’s my turn to make a call,” Grace said as she took out her cell phone. “I tried calling him earlier, so his phone number is still in my phone’s memory.”
She held out her phone so I could hear Murphy’s answers, and I got closer so I wouldn’t miss anything.
He picked up on the fourth ring, and Grace said, “Murphy, this is Grace Gauge. How are you today?”
“Hey, Grace. It’s nice to hear from you, but I’m sorry; I can’t talk right now. I’ve got hot iron in the fire.”
Her voice turned the slightest bit girlish when she spoke again. “You’re blacksmithing right now? Would you mind some company? I just love watching a man who works with his hands.”
“I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. “It’s kind of hot and dirty in the little smithy behind my place. I don’t think you’d like it.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Stay right there. I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, that would be cool,” he said, and then hung up.
“How do you know him, Grace?” I asked. My friend never ceased to surprise me, and when she’d started sounding like a teenager on the phone, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud and ruin everything.
“I used to date his big brother, remember? Every time I was over there to see Spencer, Murphy would hang around me like a puppy dog.”
“Is there any man who can resist your charms?” I asked with a smile.
“More than can be named,” she said. Looking down at her suit, she said, “This isn’t going to do. I need to match your outfit. I’ll be back here in five minutes after I’ve changed, and then we can go.”
“That’s fine. I still have to run my reports and do a few other last-minute chores. Do you think Murphy would like a dozen donuts on the house?”
“I can’t imagine him saying no. See you soon.”
Thirty seconds after Grace left, there was a tap at my door. I was about to tell whoever it was that I was closed when I saw Max—my ex-husband—standing there with his tilted grin smiling at me.
“We’re closed,” I said as I smiled right back at him.
“Come on. Let me in,” he pleaded. “I’m starving.”
Against my better judgment, I opened the door. “You can have two donuts, but they have to be in a bag, and you have to eat them someplace else.”
“What, no coffee?” he asked. The man was as handsome as ever, but to me he was like a brightly wrapped package without much of anything inside.
“I might be able to fill half a cup with what’s left, but I’m warning you, it’s going to be strong enough to arm-wrestle you.”
“You know me. I love a good jolt of caffeine. I’ve been up all night, so that sounds like just what I need to get me going again.”
“What’s keeping you up at night, or should I even ask?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m working on something new and exciting,” he said.
“Really? What’s her name?” I asked as I bagged a few of his favorites and poured the last dregs of coffee into a paper cup. My ex-husband was a notorious womanizer before, during, and after our marriage, and it was a rare woman who could resist his charm when he cranked it up to full blast.
“I’m writing a screenplay,” he said.
That was certainly news. My ex-husband was one of the least ambitious people I knew. “That sounds good. What’s it about?”
“I’d love to tell you, but I’m afraid I’ll kill the story if I talk about it. What do I owe you for all of this?” he asked as he held up the goodies I’d supplied.
“I’m feeling generous this morning. They’re on the house. Good luck, Max.”
“Thanks, Suzanne. I really appreciate that.”
After he was gone, I ran the reports—which thankfully balanced just fine—and made out the deposit slip. A few quick swipes at the floor and a fast wash of the few remaining trays, and I was ready to start sleuthing. I was about to call Grace to see what was holding her up when she drove up in front of the shop.
I grabbed the deposit and a dozen boxed donuts, locked the front door, and then got into Grace’s car. “What took you so long?”
“I’ve been ready for five minutes, but I drove around the block twice,” she said.
“Why didn’t you just come in?”
As she started driving, she said, “You had company, and I didn’t want to interrupt you in case it was important.”
I laughed at that as I directed her to stop off at the bank so I could make the deposit. “Are you talking about Max? Feel free to barge in when he’s around any time you’d like.”
“I don’t know; you two looked kind of cozy. Is there anything going on there that I need to know about?”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing like that. He’s writing a screenplay, and I wanted to encourage him to work on something, no matter what it was. As for being chummy, the bad things that happened between us were a long time ago. I’ve been trying to get past it, and I think I finally have.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Grace reminded me.
“Hey, it’s not my fault. I always mean it, but then he does something boneheaded and we’re back to square one again.”
When we got to Murphy’s place—an ordinary ranch where he’d grown up—Grace parked in the driveway and we walked around back. The doors to the smithy were open, and we found Murphy at the forge pumping the bellows to get his coal fire burning brighter. Like James, he embraced the old ways of blacksmithing. I’d gotten a lecture from my friend several times on how modern blowers and air hammers had robbed the subculture of its history, but my eyes mostly just glazed over when he started talking about the golden age of blacksmithing.
Murphy stopped pumping the second he saw us, and I looked at his equipment. “You’ve got a beautiful setup here. Where did you get those handsome bellows?”
“I made them myself,” he said. “James helped a little, too.”
I remembered the donuts and offered them to him. “Care for a quick break? Sorry, but I didn’t have any coffee left.”
“That’s okay. I never drink the stuff,” he said, “but I wouldn’t mind the donuts. Thanks for thinking of me.”
As he took a raspberry-filled treat from the box, Grace asked, “Can we talk for a second?”
“I guess that all depends on what you want to talk about.”
“James Settle,” she said.
His face clouded up a little. “There’s not all that much to say. He was a good teacher. I liked learning from him, but I don’t know a thing about his murder. I’m sorry. I liked him well enough, but I can’t help you.”
Grace said gently, “Murphy, we both saw the letter you wrote him, so there’s no use pretending that you two were good friends.”
The man’s face, already ruddy, took on a new shade of red. “Where did you see that? Did he show it to you?” The last bit was aimed straight at me.
“Does it really matter how we found out? That was one angry note,” I said.
He nodded. “I know, and you’d better believe that I regretted writing it the second I handed it over. James actually laughed when I gave it to him. He explained that he wouldn’t have been so hard on me if he hadn’t seen a lot of potential in me. We got past it, but it was still a mistake. I even asked for it back, but he said he wanted to keep it close to make sure he didn’t forget how he’d acted toward me.”
That was an interesting story. I just wondered how much of it, if any, was true. “Did anybody else know about it?”
“How should I know? I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done, but I can’t speak for James. If he told anybody but you, I don’t know about it.”
“Murphy, where were you at the time of the murder?” Grace asked.
“Are you asking me for an alibi?” he asked, squeezing the forgotten donut in his hand until the raspberry filling oozed out like blood.
“It would help,” I said.
“Why’s that?” he asked as he studied us both in turn. “Are you two digging into what happened to James?”
“As a matter of fact, we are. Grace and I were his friends,” I said. “Don’t you want to know who murdered him?”
“Sure, but I’m not about to start meddling in something that doesn’t concern me. All I know is that somebody stabbed him, but it wasn’t me. I wasn’t anywhere near the park when it happened.”
“Can you prove that?” Grace asked.
“What happened to you, Grace? You used to be so nice,” he said to her.
“I still am,” she said.
He stood there in silence for a few moments, clearly getting angrier by the second. “You two need to go now,” Murphy said as he tossed the ruined donut into the trash. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Just tell us where you were, and we’ll leave you alone,” Grace said.
He reached toward the fire and pulled out an iron bar, the tip of it glowing bright yellow-orange. “Or you can just leave me alone anyway.”
He didn’t shove the hot bar toward us or make any threatening gesture with it, but the message he sent was clear just the same. Murphy was through talking with us, and there wasn’t a thing either one of us could do about it.
There was nothing we could do but leave.
Walking back to Grace’s car, we could hear the hammer strikes of metal on metal. There was an ominous pattern to the sounds, as though they were death knells from a muted bell.
“That went well, wouldn’t you say?” Grace asked.
“Just lovely. He got pretty defensive when we asked him for his alibi.”
“Imagine that,” Grace said. “Just because he didn’t give us one doesn’t make him guilty, though.”
“It doesn’t scream that he’s innocent, either, does it?”
“We’ll have to try him again when he’s not working iron,” she said.
“It did make him a little aggressive, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “Most men are still just boys inside. When they’re doing manly things, they tend to act like children.”
I didn’t know if I agreed with that or not, but I wasn’t about to debate the point with her. Grace had had her issues with men over the years, and while I’d been burned trusting Max with my heart, overall I’d had some pretty nice experiences with men. For some reason, though, Grace seemed to attract more than her fair share of trouble.
All we’d managed to do was antagonize Murphy.
I just hoped that we had better luck when we questioned Rebecca.
* * *
She was behind the counter at the convenience store when we walked in, and it was clear she had no idea who we were, or why we were there. Rebecca Link was short and slim, almost elfin in appearance. Her dark hair matched her eyes perfectly; they were a shade of brown so deep I thought they might be contact lenses.
Grace started toward her when I grabbed my friend’s arm and said loudly, “I think the sodas are back this way.”
She turned and looked at me oddly for a second, and then winked. “You’re right. What was I thinking?”
We went to the cases that had soft drinks, and as we pretended to study the multitude of choices, I said softly, “We have an advantage here we need to use since she doesn’t know either one of us. Are you up for a little playacting?”
“You know it,” she said with relish. In the past, Grace and I had pretended to be people we were not in order to get closer to our suspects, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to do it much lately. “I want to be a princess,” she said.
“Sorry, there aren’t any princesses this time.”
“Someday,” she replied. “Okay then, who should we be? Don’t tell me you want us to be reporters again. I’m so tired of that dodge; sometimes I feel as though I really do work at a newspaper.”
“Well, that kills my one idea. If you can come up with something better that’s also believable, I’ll go along with you. Just remember, April Springs is a small town, and there’s a good chance that we’re going to run into this woman later. Well, we will if she wasn’t the one who killed James.”
“Okay, we’ll be reporters. Where are we going to be from, Iron and Forge?”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea. We can tell her we’re freelancing a profile on James and see if she’ll talk to us.”
“Wow, the truth isn’t as boring as our cover story, Suzanne.”
“I know, but what are we going to do? We’ll just h
ave to make the best of it.”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work on her. We could always just come right out and ask her about James, you know.”
It was odd hearing Grace favor the direct approach, but I wasn’t about to stop her. “Okay, that sounds even better. You start asking her questions and I’ll follow your lead.”
“This is going to be fun,” she said with a grin as she grabbed a can of soda and made her way up front. What had I just gotten myself into? There was nothing to do now but follow her lead and see where it led us.
As she was paying for her soda, she looked at Rebecca and said, “Hang on a second; I know you.”
“I’m here most nights. It’s not like I’m all that hard to recognize.” Her voice had a nasal tone that would drive me crazy if I had to listen to it for very long.
“That’s not it,” Grace insisted as she held a five-dollar bill just out of Rebecca’s reach. “You were dating James Settle about a month ago, weren’t you? What a terrible thing that was.”
She stared at Grace for a moment, and then said, “Where exactly did we meet?”
“My boyfriend and I ran into you at dinner once. Don’t you remember?”
It was clear that she was struggling to, but it was obvious that she couldn’t do it, probably because it had never happened.
Grace went on. “It was crowded and noisy, so I don’t blame you for forgetting me.”
Rebecca was openly scowling now. “I know that I didn’t forget, because it never happened. James never took me anyplace fancy the entire time that we were together. Who are you, and what do you want?”
So much for Grace’s fancy story. I decided to tell the truth, but with a twist. Standing behind Grace, I said, “You’ve got some nerve, lady.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as she turned to look at me.
“If you wanted to ask this woman a question, why didn’t you just come right out and ask her? I knew James Settle myself, and if you had, you would have realized he never would have gone anyplace like that.”
“Sorry,” she said as she grabbed her change and left.
As Rebecca watched her, I reached down and picked up a random candy bar. “The nerve of some people,” I said.
