Building Blocks of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  “That’s just a really horrible and sexist thing to say, like all women are dying to be the tragic romantic heroine of their own love stories.”

  “Aren’t they?” Keegan asked.

  “No! I didn’t want this; I wanted to live happily ever after. Now I’m here.” Her hand waved toward the window, indicating a cornfield to her right.

  “Okay, I’ll admit the town is small, but it’s not as boring as I first thought. There’s been a murder, and you’re in the middle of it. You’re the town’s go-to journalist for hard-hitting news, and you own the biggest building in town. Maybe this isn’t the life of your dreams, but it’s still your life. You have the chance to do something great here, to be something amazing.”

  Lacy sat back, thinking. “There’s a part of me that agrees with you. It’s like I can almost see the person I could be, this exciting, strong, adventurous woman who is more resilient for having suffered a heartbreaking setback. But it’s like looking through a glass darkly. I can’t quite make it out, and I have no idea how to reach it, how to be that person. All I know right now is that I’m hurt and confused, but I don’t want to be hurt and confused. I want to move on, but I don’t know how.”

  “I think you’re doing it, and you just don’t know. I mean, you’ve already established relationships with Tosh and the officer; that’s a start. Maybe you’re not where they want to be, but you’re where you should be. And you’re not wallowing; I was being hyperbolic when I said that. You’re working for the paper, and you bought a building that you’re going to renovate. That’s a huge project for anyone, let alone a twenty-six-year old. I guess my motivation for wanting you to move on is twofold: I want you and Tosh together, true, but I want you to be whole again for you. I really like you, Lacy.” He smiled at her, one of those heart-melting smiles that had probably made countless women swoon. “So what’s next in your investigation, Inspector Steele?”

  His question snapped her out of her trance, the one that had been induced by his hypnotic good looks. “I have no idea. Nothing makes sense. I can’t tell if it’s just wishful thinking that makes me want these two cases to be connected. Maybe it’s just a whole lot of coincidence that Ed McNeil and Jason are connected to two cases, both of which are connected to the Stakely building just when I start receiving threats about it.”

  “Speaking of threats, I think we’re being followed.” Keegan was looking in the rearview mirror as he spoke. Lacy turned around and saw a dark sedan.

  “I think that’s the same car that followed me last night.”

  “You have to report this,” Keegan said.

  “I can’t. I’m not exactly on the sheriff’s department’s nice list right now. They’re sort of upset over this article I wrote, and the head detective especially hates me.”

  “It’s uncanny how someone so sweet has so many enemies,” Keegan said. He swung a sharp right and glanced in the mirror. The car followed. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m about to get fancy.”

  Lacy did hold on because Keegan sped up before slamming on the brakes and jerking the wheel to the left, swinging the car in a wide arc. Thankfully the road was wide and deserted, except for the other car that was now speeding toward them. They passed the car and Lacy craned her neck, trying to see inside, but all she saw was a tall figure behind a hat and sunglasses.

  “Did you see anything?” Keegan asked.

  “It’s clearly a human.” She sat back down and buckled her safety belt. “Where did you learn to drive like that?”

  “Grand Theft Auto.” He glanced in the rearview mirror again. “I think that did it. They’re not following anymore. And I got the plate. Write this down.” He paused while she found a pen and scribbled the plate number on a piece of paper. “Obviously whoever it is knows where you live, so they’re not following you to find out that information, which means they’re following you to intimidate you.”

  “It’s working. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Why don’t you stay with me and Tosh tonight?” Keegan suggested.

  “I can’t do that. You saw what lunch was like with Rose and Gladys. Can you imagine what the gossip mill would be like if I stayed over at Tosh’s house?”

  “You can’t live your life worrying about what people say,” Keegan said.

  “I’m not worried for me—I’m worried for Tosh. It’s not my professional reputation on the line, it’s his. He’s young, and I get the sense that people are waiting for him to fail so they can run him out of town with lanterns and pitchforks at the first hint of impropriety.”

  “Tosh can take care of himself,” Keegan informed her. “It’s you I’m worried about. Speaking of which, where are we going? We’ve been driving for a half an hour, and I still don’t have a destination.”

  “Let’s go to the library so I can look up the articles about the original murder. They haven’t been converted from microfilm onto the web yet, so it’s going to take a few minutes.”

  “No problem, I’m at a good point in my book.”

  He sat in the reading room of the library while Lacy found the article and made copies. When she was finished, she invited him to her house to go over everything. Her grandmother set out plates of cookies—which Lacy studiously avoided since she didn’t feel like taking a run—and Lacy spread out the copied articles from the Pendergast murder.

  “There’s nothing more than what we already knew,” Lacy said, frustrated enough to reach for a cookie before stopping with her hand in midair. “The author’s article goes over everything in greater detail. The Stakely building had been having crime issues, and security was heightened. Susan Pendergast was working late at a shop that sold macramé artwork. Nothing was missing from the store or from Susan’s purse, and there was no sign of a struggle. Although, here’s something interesting: the person who wrote the original article was my editor, Len, and the responding officer was a young Detective Brenner. Of course he wasn’t a detective then.” She paused, frowning. “It’s hard to picture either of them young.” Looking down, she resumed skimming.

  “On a personal note, the article does state that Susan and Sheila were sisters and that Susan was dating the mayor’s son at the time, the man who is now our current mayor. There’s a drawing of where the shooting took place in the Stakely building, but there’s no mention of Ed McNeil, and certainly no mention of Jason who was only a toddler at the time. There’s no obvious connection here, and yet my intuition tells me that there is a connection. I just can’t see what it is.”

  “Why don’t we write down everything we know about each of the cases and see what overlaps,” Keegan suggested. Lacy noted with a sigh of relief that he finished off the last of the cookies. Temptation was abated, at least for the moment.

  “Good idea,” she said. He was turning out to be as good a sounding board as Tosh who often listened when she thought aloud, offering up helpful ideas and solutions. She took out a piece of paper and made two columns, one for the old murder and one for the new.

  In the old column, she had Susan, Sheila, the mayor, Joe Anton, Ed McNeil, and the Stakely building. In the new column she had Sheila, the mayor, Ed McNeil, the Stakely building, and Jason.

  “Do you think I should put Joe Anton in the new column, too, since it was his retrial that was interrupted?” Lacy asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what should go in the new column. All we know for certain is that Ed McNeil was killed, and Jason stands accused. Everyone else is extraneous.”

  “No, I have to include the Stakely building because it’s somehow a part of all this, and if I include the Stakely building, then I have to include Sheila, who’s the head of the SAD, and the mayor who was so vehemently opposed to selling it to me. There’s too much coincidence for things to be a coincidence.”

  “Don’t forget to add whoever is sending you the threats to our current list. If the Stakely building is involved, then so is whoever doesn’t want it to be sold.”

  “That raises another interesting question:
why did Ed McNeil put a stop-work order on the building if Sheila said he was such a proponent of its preservation?” Lacy asked.

  “I have no idea. We’re missing too much information. Know where we can get some more?”

  “Maybe.” She picked up her phone, found the number she wanted, and called the mayor’s office to request an appointment. The mayor’s secretary told her an appointment was impossible until Lacy informed her it was about the Stakely building.

  “He’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning,” the secretary informed her when she came back on the line.

  “You’re going to be there, aren’t you?” Lacy asked. “You don’t have a dental appointment or anything?”

  “No, I’ll be here,” the woman said. Her tone was wary now, as if she were dealing with a nutter, but Lacy wasn’t taking any more chances of finding another dead body. One was more than enough for this lifetime.

  After she hung up with the mayor’s office, she called Travis. “How do I visit with Joe Anton?” she asked with no preamble.

  “Show up and ask to see him,” Travis said on a yawn.

  “Do you think he’ll see me?”

  “I think he’ll try, but he’s so delusional he’ll probably think he’s having a conversation with the Easter bunny. The man is a walking commercial for saying no to drugs. Talk about a fried brain.”

  “It can’t hurt to try,” Lacy said. “I’m getting a little desperate. Do me a favor and don’t mention my visit with him to Jason, okay?”

  Travis chuckled. “Lacy, I don’t mention you to Jason at all. I learned my lesson the hard way after the first time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Let’s just say Jason isn’t crazy about hearing your name on another man’s lips. Even after your article came out, the one about Detective Brenner, no one dared mention it to Jason. Everyone knew better.”

  Lacy let out a breath. “That stupid article. Was it pretty bad there? Does everyone hate me?”

  “Yes and no. There’s this code, you know, one that I am in clear violation of for talking to you about stuff that goes on here. But on the other hand ever since your article came out, Detective Brenner has been like a whole new person. He’s Mr. Professional now. I think you scared the life back into him. Rumor has it that he was a good cop once upon a time.”

  “I hope something good came from the stupid thing, and I hope everyone will eventually forgive me for writing it. I don’t believe one bad apple ruins the whole bunch. I have nothing but respect for the other deputies.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Travis said. “’Cause, see, there’s this other code where none of us is allowed to hate a fellow officer’s woman and you, Lacy, are most definitely Jason Cantor’s woman.”

  “Well, that was…archaic.”

  Travis laughed. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You’ll see me,” Lacy promised. “I’m about to become a thorn in someone’s side until this mess gets cleared up; I just haven’t figured out whose problem I’m going to be yet.”

  “I’m not sure if I pity the person or envy him,” Travis said.

  “Pity, Travis, definitely pity.”

  Chapter 15

  Lacy was groggy the next morning. Keegan had stayed for supper the previous night and left reluctantly at Lacy’s urging. It suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t spent any time with Tosh, and maybe that was why Tosh was upset with her. After Keegan left, she stayed awake long into the night, reading and rereading the articles from the Pendergast murder and going over her charts, looking for some further connection between the two cases. There was a missing link, but she had no idea what it was.

  Keegan had volunteered to come early and take her to the mayor’s office, but Lacy decided to drive herself, hoping that by doing so Keegan and Tosh would get some more time together.

  When she went into the kitchen, she heard a strange noise coming from the front porch. Opening the door, she saw her grandfather with his hand in a bucket of soapy water.

  “It’s a little late in the season to be cleaning windows,” she said. Not to mention how early in the day it was.

  Her grandfather sighed and dropped the rag in the bucket. Straightening, he beckoned her outside. “I was trying to clean this before you woke up and saw it.”

  Lacy stepped out onto the porch and turned to face the front door. There, spray painted in large red letters, were the words “LEAVE THE STAKELY BUILDING ALONE.” Lacy sighed. “I’m so sorry about this.”

  “It’s not your fault, Lacy,” her grandfather said.

  “You don’t have to fix this. I’ll do it.” She reached for the bucket, but he intercepted her with a hand on her arm.

  “I want to do it. Go back inside and eat your breakfast. I became really adept at removing graffiti when I was a principal. This is like a walk down memory lane.” His cheerful tone and smile did little to hide his worry, and Lacy felt bad all over again, especially when she walked inside and saw that her grandmother had made cinnamon rolls—her standard I’m-too-worried-for-words-so-I’ll-stuff-you-with-cinnamon-and-sugar food.

  “Good morning,” Lucinda said. Her tone was overly bright and cheerful, too, as if the two grandparents had agreed not to mention a word about anything unpleasant. Lacy went along with them, eating her cinnamon roll—or two—in silence.

  When her grandfather came inside, though, she decided it was time for a talk. She waited until he retrieved his coffee and sat before starting. “I think it would be best if I moved out,” she said.

  Her grandfather put down his coffee, and her grandmother sank into a chair. “Because of the paint?” Lucinda said.

  “Partially. I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve put you in danger, and that’s unacceptable. But, besides that, don’t you want some time alone? You’re in a relationship now. It’s got to be uncomfortable to always have me around.”

  Her grandmother turned to her grandfather, deferring to him because she seemed at a loss for words. Mr. Middleton blew on his coffee and took a sip before answering. “Lacy, you’re viewing our relationship with the rosy glasses of youth. But Lucy and I aren’t kids anymore, and we’re not in that stage where we want to spend copious amounts of time alone together. We’re in that stage where we realize that nothing is more important than our family, and that’s you. We love spending time with you. If you want to move out, then do it because it’s what’s best for you. But this is your home, and there’s no need to move on our account.”

  Her grandmother was nodding furiously by the end of his speech, and Lacy smiled. “But I’ve put Grandma in danger. That’s unacceptable.”

  “Lacy, I’m not saying you don’t need to be careful, but in my experience, it’s a cowardly person who leaves an anonymous note like that. You can’t control or take responsibility for someone else’s bad behavior. And, besides, we’re the ones who are supposed to take care of you, and not the other way around. Don’t waste your time worrying about us; let us worry about you,” Mr. Middleton said. “We’re old, and we don’t have much else to do. Don’t take away our one hobby.”

  Lacy laughed, thinking again how glad she was that he had come into her life. “All right. I didn’t really want to move anyway,” she admitted. Lucinda smiled and stood to retrieve another cinnamon roll for Lacy, her third, but Lacy stopped her.

  “They’re delicious, Grandma, but I really can’t. I have a meeting this morning.”

  “You be careful,” Lucinda admonished. “I don’t like this business at all, Lacy.”

  “Neither do I, Grandma.” She stood and kissed her grandparents goodbye before walking to her grandmother’s car. Anger fueled her steps, and she wished that she could walk to town, not only to burn off some calories, but to burn off some of her frustration as well. How dare someone vandalize her grandmother’s house?

  She was a block away from home when she noticed the car following in her rearview mirror. All of her anger and righteous indignation returned and then exploded int
o something irrational. Instead of heading toward town and the mayor’s office, Lacy turned and headed out into the country. The car, of course, followed.

  Once she was a reasonable distance from town, she attempted Keegan’s maneuver from the day before by speeding up, slamming her foot on the brake, and jerking the wheel a hard left. Her car fishtailed and careened a few feet, but finally she had it back on track. Instead of maintaining her lane to pass the car that had been following her, she got in the opposite lane and played a game of chicken, forcing the car to come to a screeching halt.

  Lacy in a temper was a very bad thing because she lost all rational thought, including the possibility that the person in the car may be armed and dangerous. Instead of stalling and calling the police like a sane person, she erupted from her car and advanced on the driver’s side, jerking open the door and poking her head inside. There she saw a pale, trembling teenager with his hands clenched on the wheel. Beside him sat a paunchy, middle-aged man who looked equally as petrified.

  “I don’t have any money, lady,” the kid said.

  Lacy looked down at the open door in her hand and read the emblem on the side. “A-1 Driving School.” Uh-oh. “I’m so sorry,” Lacy said. She gently closed the door and took a nonthreatening step away. “I thought you were someone else.”

  The kid nodded, still staring straight ahead as if afraid to make eye contact.

  “Really,” Lacy began, trying to explain again, but her phone rang. She held up a finger for the kid to wait—the least she could do was give him some money—and pulled out her phone. It was Travis.

  “The ballistics test came back this morning.” He was whispering, so she knew he was at work.

  “What did it say?” For whatever reason, she whispered, too.

  “It’s a match, Lacy.”

  “What?” this time she yelled. Beside her, the kid and the middle-aged man jumped in terror.