A Gift for Murder

by Capri Montgomery

  “So who do you think it was then?”

  Megan walked over to him and looked directly in his eyes to get a feel for his thoughts on her idea. “I can show you but I need you to call all the ladies in to the spa tomorrow morning to show you.” Merck’s eyebrows rose questioningly but he nodded.

  “Now this I have to see.”

  She took hold of his hand. “Watch carefully. Not every innocent is innocent.”

  She had a feeling he had his own ideas but when he had a chance to see what she thought he would be able to put everything he knew already together and make the case closed move.

  Chapter Twelve

  History Never Dies

  Megan had rearranged the café to the extent she wanted. Merck had said tomorrow could be the day they would be able to arrange things for the spa meeting. She understood why Merck was trying to saddle up on a reliable horse before officially arresting anybody. She understood because being wrong would sully his reputation and get him chewed out for the money the city could lose on the mistake.

  She kind of thought he was apprehensive because of what happened to her, too. A murder had sucked her back into bully nation and there wasn’t much of a way out.

  It was like she was destined since her birth to be Lady Justice’s archer, warrior and Atlas rolled into one. It was like she was given the weight of the world of justice and injustice with a bit of gypsy too. She always, even when she didn’t want to had to solve it all.

  Kate Hillcrest favorite vanilla birthday cupcake with her name perfectly scripted on it at her sixth year of life party and Megan just had to be the one to accuse and prove that her father’s secretary mistress hid it in the ice box. Kate’s mother filed for divorce after the mistress screamed about their affair and how much the freckled fairy lover was slowing the two of them down. Sure, it was the worst time for it all to come out but she was the one who got blamed for ruining the party simply because she found the cake and who stole it.

  Fast forward three years to when she told the cops that Paula Norris was guilty for the black paint on her sister’s white lace wedding gown because she was older and should have married first. Paula was angrier at Megan for outing her sister than she was at her sister for destroying her wedding dress two hours before the wedding. She could never explain how she figured it out when everybody was blaming her fiancé’s sister because she didn’t want her brother to marry her.

  Paula’s fiancé called off the wedding because of her hostile words to his sister yet, once again, it was all Megan’s fault.

  Why Megan thought things could be different now, she didn’t know. Same place, same trouble. Age didn’t change anybody. They all wanted a reason to blame somebody else for their bad deeds and in Forest Springs it still seemed to be her who was to blame.

  Megan thought to the same day Georgia verbally attacked her in the Retro store. That one day, after a fairly okay conversation that Bonnie came back and threw an egg at her when she went out to check the mail. Bonnie was angry because Merck had, once again, questioned her and she assumed Megan was at fault.

  “Your boyfriend showed up at my collection job to question me because of you. You said something to him that made him come back to me.” She threw another egg at her but unfortunately for her she face smacked the officer who was there to check on her.

  Megan laughed to herself because Bonnie got herself arrested even if she did blame Megan for it.

  Officer Connor, blond, tall and midnight eyes beautiful, was following the captain’s orders in checking on her. She hadn’t called him and didn’t know he was going to show up in the first place. Remembering the egg yolk sliding off his face while the egg white slowly dripped off had Megan’s mouth falling open in shock.

  Officer Connor looked beyond angry, yet, he held himself together. His uniform was a mess; he had uncooked food on his face but he didn’t pull out a gun even when he had to drag her to the precinct cuffed, kicking and screaming.

  Megan wondered how the officers and the captain reacted when Officer Connor came in with his arrest and the temper throwing brat he was dragging with him.

  This spa murder, both of them actually, proved that history never died. History was like a circle that never ended; it just went around back to base one before going the bases all over again.

  Seeing Merck again after all this time was a twist of fate, too.

  The fact Merck loved her idea for how to catch the bad guy meant a lot to her. She was trying to stay out of it all, but, just when she thought she was out the pulled her back in.

  Merck had told her about his feelings for her back in the past. She was glad he had because back then she started to like him, too. The past never really died but she couldn’t like him like that again. She just couldn’t. Love and a life with him was so far away and she had to focus on the moment now.

  Solve the murder with Merck and then see where they could go together without a murder holding them together.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Steam Room Magic

  Megan had the idea they would all sit in the waiting for spa treatment to start section but Merck had the not so fun idea to do it in the steam room. The power to the steam vent had been turned off after the body was taken out of there and the room had a professional cleaning but the comfort zone for everybody was not high. Merck had said they could make the ladies sweat because whichever one of them put the frozen body in that room would be itching to get out of it. He was good at watching people and Megan knew Merck had a good point.

  Merck had done the basic why we’re here speech before kicking it over to her, walking to a side wall and standing tall with an edge of ready to have one of you cuffed, read you rights and dragged out of this spa. Megan couldn’t believe he turned it all over to her. Maybe not all seeing as though he had five officers in is corner with guns strapped to their hips and guarding the exit out of this room like a dam holding the water back from entry into the city much like Hoover Dam that she had driven across once or twice in her life. Technically her parents had driven because she was too young to be behind the wheel back then.

  Still, she wasn’t planning to be standing there front and center for the jackals to gorge on her body with the hate in their heart. Megan had been the one to suggest bringing them all here again even if this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. She pressed her shoulders back to good posture frame and exhaled slowly. She had, in so many ways, set herself up for this so she was going to have to own the control Merck had just given her.

  Symphony Frost rolled her eyes at Megan as if Megan were the enemy here. She always had this way of intimidating with her eyes. She was the first of the ladies to show up at her café when it wasn’t even open to the public yet. She, too, had dated Sterling Russet. She was two spaces over from Heather, Bishop, the owner, with two women, Willa Heist, the nurse and Georgia Schaefer, the slouchy breasts woman who eyed her down like a stroke of evil that day the murder was discovered the first time.

  “Bonnie was the second woman here who came to the café. I haven’t even opened, yet, to tell me that Sterling had only dated one of you, Linda, and regretted it. Bonnie said that he said none of you were with him.”

  The women snarled and gave words of she’s lying directed at Bonnie.

  “I figured he told her wrong, but I also figured she either heard him wrong or she was trying, like Symphony was, to prove they didn’t have a reason to kill him. That was their mistake because even a blind man could see both women still wanted him. But what made me wonder about Bonnie and Linda, was the lies they both told. Bonnie was in love and set to be his wife. Sterling was going to turn in his notice that evening and run off with her to be married.” The women yelled their disbelief, all of them claiming Sterling would never pick a wife. They were right. Sterling didn’t need a wife for his bed because he was getting enough from all of them.

  “Heather kept him on because she was still calling him into her office every lunch hour for their usual sex session. I cou
ld see the truth that Sterling was here for more than cleaning because of the filth behind the wooden chairs out there. A janitor would have taken the supplies he pushed around and truly cleaned with them. Then there was the conversation I overheard that day of Willa saying how something had been stolen from her locker the last time she was at the spa so she decided to go to the clinic and drop the medical supplies off first that time. “A two thousand dollar medical supply to quickly knock a patient out without needing the anesthesiologist was going to cost her part of her paycheck for the next couple months. Over all Bonnie claiming her lack of coming to the spa but once before the murder when Heather had mentioned that morning we walked into this spa and found Portia that every woman that was here that day had been here before, even you. Bonnie, told me more.”

  Megan paced to the side wall opposite the cops before pacing back to where she stood and then turning center like a gunslinger ready to take aim for the kill.

  “Bonnie, you said you came out the steam room that morning when you were supposed to be in the locker room and then bathroom, passed Linda and almost got caught when you shouldn’t have been on that side of the hall and the bathroom was two corners away from any of the rooms. Linda knew what you two had been doing.”

  Bonnie shook her head. “She’s too stupid to know he took me right where she’s sitting.”

  Linda hopped up. “I knew you spread your legs in here because he came out with his zipper down. He even made a point of making sure he zipped his pants up look at me like the cad that he was. “They’re all like you with the same parts I can use whenever I want. He shagged Heather in her office that morning before going to the hair deep conditioning room for Georgia Schaefer, married and silently cheating on a rich business genius. That explained why the stylist who put her for an hour too long under the steam conditioning dryer just so she could watch her morning soaps came back to a still wet hair customer. He was with all of you whores every day you came into the spa all day. But Bonnie was angry because when she picked up her locked away and saw me coming out the door that only leads to the fridge, freezer and extra microwave area. Since I came back with that too short and thin spa robe open she knew what and whom I was with. She was angry. She talked of killing him and I told her we should do it together when I had already plotted to do it. I just needed help moving it all.”

  Linda told how she pulled the lather, rinse and repeat move the next day. Bonnie shagged him in the steam room and she kept Miss Sinful owner for a while. Then she took Sterling down to their last shag fest area. She told how she undid his pants, pushed them down and then opened the big defreeze telling him she would let the feel of the ice give him something perky to suck. She gave him a sweet glass of wine telling him it would keep him going, put the glass away from them once he drank it, but since it seemed to be moving too slow on knocking him out she just had to go a step forward with the panties soaked with the chloroform she still had in her bag. She said the man couldn’t get enough of sex everywhere. Using her panties to help the kill was just symbolic. When she pulled off her panties to wave in his eyes she just knew what was best to do next so she moistened them with what she needed to assist in the kill. She even pulled his pants off after she pushed him head down in the big freezer, pulled his open buttoned shirt down to tie his hands behind his back and closed the freezer door.

  “I told that witch over there that Sterling said he had to pick up cleaning supplies for the tomorrow visit from the man who could shut the spa down if it lacked near perfection. She told me they were still coming just a day later. That gave me time to get Bonnie to help me move the body to the steam room.”

  Bonnie groaned. “You should have kept your mouth shut. If Holmes knew anything he would have arrested us already.”

  Merck pushed off the wall. “I knew some of it but, Megan, just cleaned it up more. I did find the man in the room when Tabitha Wister was found murdered and the thing is he went inside through the back door because it was cracked open. He found the body.” Merck nodded. “Linda, since you just gave your confessions of both murders you and Bonnie are both now under arrest.” Merck waved two of the deputies over, read the women their rights and had them pulled away before having another officer put Heather in cuffs as he read Heather her rights.

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Merck snorted. “Granger Lascer ring a bell to you? You paid him two thousand dollars to scare Megan away from me. You also paid him twice as much to plant the bomb that blew the hole in the ceiling above the chair Megan was sitting in at the funeral. He got picked up because we had two adequate description drawings of him for the personal attack. We found out about the funeral because he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He caved on you to save himself. He’s being tried on all counts but the bomb you had him put in is heavier so tell on you and maybe, if the prosecutor and judge want to, he might just get a lighter sentence. Not likely, but he didn’t stop trying to get a pass of goodness on a crime, both crimes, he committed. I would have brought you in yesterday if I wasn’t so interested in seeing all this go down today.” He signaled the top bald with silky black hair officer to drag her out to the car.

  Megan and Merck left out of them dreaded steam room and let the additional officers close off the spa while those arrested were taken away and those not arrested got in their cars and rode home.

  “They are locking it all; up?” Megan observed the flick of the lock.

  “Just the front door. Last thing we need is another murder in this place. What will happen with Heather will have to wait until she is taken into see the judge. From what I hear, Judge Howard Von is on today and everybody knows he hates letting anybody go anywhere but prison before the jury either lets them off or all vote guilty. Tough guy.” He nodded. “I wouldn’t want to be in his prison grip.”

  Megan understood that because she wouldn’t either. Freedom was important to her.

  “Did you know who did it?”

  He laughed. “Just Bonnie. She was too supposedly innocent to believe.”

  Did that mean the other women were too clearly guilty to figure them out? Probably. The breath of fresh air right now was that all evil had been cage and even though every criminal would have to go to court to be sentenced at least they would be punished as they should be.

  “I have to get to the precinct on my side. What are you going to do now?” Merck tossed his jacket on the passenger seat.

  Megan shrugged. “Go back to my café next district over and clean for opening. I got a call from the city before I even left this morning, odd since they should have still been closed. I guess somebody higher up got tired of the pending paperwork sitting untouched on a desk in the city business sector. I am clear to open next month. The end of it but that still works for me.”

  “Why wait until the end of next month?”

  She shook her head on a smile. “Apparently my crime solving history haunts me. Somebody pulled the right files, especially after this murder, and they want to go all out for my opening at their cost. Basically, from what I understand, there is going to be a Forest Springs festival anyway so I guess the city doesn’t want empty business windows in any district. I guess they have to open my café and do the welcome wagon at least a week before people start coming for the festival. A bit early but a festival is a festival.” She wouldn’t complain. The city going full steam, no pun intended, ahead meant the free for her publicity could help more people know to come here. They were even posting ads through the three states east of where they were and three northern westward of them too. The cost to do that would have been too much for her to do alone but if the festival was going to make the news almost everywhere she would not complain about them adding her café to the list of pay for ads.

  Megan had high hopes. She was more of the hope for the best but prepare for the worst type woman so she wouldn’t count her chickens before the eggs hatched, but she could still hope for the best. She had worked so hard for so long and maybe she could make it al
l work for her here after all.

  Merck nodded. “It’s early because the Coast Guard two cities over is throwing a gala and vacation week for the two ships that knocked down one of the toughest child trafficking rings right here in America. Never let it be said that the CG only ride in the ocean to find passengers that fall off ships.” He smiled seriously.

  “Most of the business with benefits will be your district, and mine, technically I am right on the line of the two but the high class, ritzy district is the one that broke banks to hire me so I work there despite where I live. Both districts are planning some cookouts, horse rides, bonfires, dance shows and more. It’s set to be a money maker so it’s good your café will be open to reap the benefits of the mayor wanting to rise above the world.”

  Megan nodded. “That makes me more nervous than before.” She was excited to open her café, Sweet Sensations, but that also meant the pressure would be high out the sky. She had workers to hire and train, art she needed to hang and a pantry that needed to be stocked. Since the Italian chef she had agreed to hire changed his mind and bought a spot with the wife out in Forest Springs so they could open an Italian Dish restaurant Megan had to scrap having an assistant chef around to help.

  She was simply going to be too busy to enjoy the fun of the festival. She couldn’t regret that. A well funded café was a longer living café. She probably wouldn’t have gone out to party at the festival but she loved horses and the idea of going on a horse ride sounded good to her. Of course she wouldn’t have time to take advantage of a horseback ride while the café was open. Maybe one day, but not today. The café had to come first and horse riding had to come last. She was really opening her café. This was really going to happen.

  “Let me know of your opening day. I will be one of your first customers.” Merck gave her a promising look.