Muffin But Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

We had already figured that out, but it was news that Virgil had been investigating the same avenue. Of course, what did I think he’d been doing? “Virgil, where were you when you were out of town?”

  He shifted. “I was in Cayuga, getting information on the lawsuit Davey Hooper tried to file against Pish from jail. No one there believed Hooper at the time, and they still don’t.”

  “Did you really believe Pish could have killed Hooper?”

  “That’s not how law enforcement works, Merry,” he said, meeting my gaze. “I can’t figure I like someone, so there’s no way he could be a murderer, and I won’t go into any investigation with a preset idea of the outcome.”

  “But you can’t totally shut off your feelings!” I exclaimed. “That’s inhuman.”

  “Merry, I won’t let my ‘feelings,’ as you call them, influence the direction of an investigation. That is crappy technique, though I’m not saying there aren’t cops out there who do it. I call it lazy. I don’t mind a hunch now and then, but I need to find facts to back it up, and I won’t close off other avenues of investigation while I look into it.”

  At least I knew he was passionate about something . . . his job. “I know that.” I paused, letting the heat between us subside. “Virgil, when I went out to the terrace, I noticed a bloody handprint on the wall. Whose was that?”

  “We don’t know yet. There are no ridge details.”

  “Ridge details?”

  “Sorry—fingerprints. It appears the perp wore gloves. Problem is, a lot of people wore gloves as part of their costumes. If we find a set with Hooper’s blood, we could look for the killer’s DNA on the inside.”

  “Have you tested our costumes for blood?”

  “Yes, and before you ask, there was blood on both yours and Pish’s, but that doesn’t mean much, since by your own admission you both touched the body.”

  I shuddered. “You’ve talked to a lot of people who were at the party. Did anyone see anything?” I knew the Grovers, Gogi, Doc, and all the other locals had given the police their statements, and I had heard through Zeke and Gordy that the police had tracked down and talked to the football boys and the Frobisher twins.

  “No one has admitted to seeing anything yet. I haven’t been able to question Percy Channer, in case you’re wondering, because his damned lawyer has him clammed up.” Virgil rubbed his eyes. “That concerns me but isn’t particularly damning. That’s what guys like him do, lawyer up even when they aren’t hiding anything. Nobody’s admitting anything, but that’s pretty much the usual in a murder case. We’ve searched every Dumpster in town and beyond for clues, and we’ve interviewed everyone we can think of and followed up every lead.”

  “So . . . are you at a roadblock?”

  He glanced over at me, then looked straight ahead. “I have a few ideas, but I can’t discuss them with you. I’m sorry. It wouldn’t be right. I’ll find whoever did it, Merry; I promise you that. I’m beginning to get a sense of something, but I can’t talk to you about it.”

  “Okay, I get it. I do.” I understood his point and decided to go back to the con. “What doesn’t make sense to me is: why did Cranston stop making demands? He started out pressuring me to buy him out, but lately he’s seemed completely willing to wait until the DNA test was proved. Why?”

  Virgil’s phone chimed just then, and he answered, just making noises like mhmm and okay. There was a gleam in his dark eyes as he turned to face me on the bench. “You know your friend Melanie Pritchard?”

  “Yes. She’s a real estate investor and agent in New York. Why?”

  “That was my source, a guy pretty high up in the New York City PD. Apparently, a few days ago Ms. Pritchard reported to the New York cops a phone call she got from a man who identified himself as Cranston Higgins, a fellow she met at your party. He told her that you and he, joint heirs of the Wynter estate, were going in together to develop the property as a high-end spa, but you needed investors.”

  I let it sink in for a moment, then exploded. “That jerk! I should have whacked him when I had the chance. Oooh! Last night I had the urge, but I held back, and I don’t hold back often.” I jumped up and paced back and forth in front of Virgil. “Oh my lord! How many other of my friends did he try to hit up?” I said, hands over my eyes. I dropped them and looked down at the sheriff. “How many friends am I going to lose over this one? I’ve already lost a ton of friends from that crap with Leatrice, and . . . I’m so mad I could spit!”

  Virgil grabbed my hand and tugged me down to sit on the bench. I turned to face him. He still held my hand, and it was enveloped in his.

  “Merry, relax. Ms. Pritchard did the right thing. She strung him along, then called the cops and gave them his cell phone number. She told the police she didn’t want to come down on you because she knew you were not involved.”

  I slumped down, and he stroked my back, sending a chill down to my cowboy boots. I felt like weeping and laughing all at once as things finally started to make sense. “I wish she had told me, though.”

  He let go of my hand and stopped stroking my back. I wished he’d kept it up, because it had felt lovely. “She thought he really was your cousin and coheir,” Virgil said, “but that he was maybe doing a little con. She didn’t want to alarm you until she checked it out.”

  “This explains a lot, and it tells me why folks aren’t getting back to me. They’ve probably all been contacted.” My face burned at what my friends must be thinking, that I’d invited them to Wynter Castle hoping to pry money from them. “Now I know what he was doing on the days he wasn’t plaguing me about the castle. But it doesn’t tell me if he was involved in Davey Hooper’s death. However . . .”

  I had a thought and stared off into space for a long moment. “So, what we surmise is: Davey Hooper set up the con and brought Cranston in as the Wynter heir. But Cranston went rogue, parting from Davey Hooper’s plan to get money out of me. Would that be why Les, Davey, and Zoey came to my party, because they knew he’d be there and they could blend in unnoticed? If that’s so, if they confronted him, Cranston could have killed Davey Hooper.” Could I picture Cranston killing anyone? No, but that was Virgil’s point, that you couldn’t just decide what you thought you knew about someone and proceed from that.

  “As soon as we figure out who Cranston is, we may have a better handle on him.” Virgil paused, then went on: “I can tell you this much: I checked out his ID, and there actually is a Cranston Higgins about his correct age and with a bit of the right backstory, but then, there would be if he’s any kind of a con man. I have questions in to other law enforcement agencies about him, and I’m waiting for word back. One of my officers is doing background checks using every bit of info Cranston gave us about his life. This is all the collection of information that will eventually let me nail him to the wall on the con, and maybe even make a murder charge stick, if he did it.”

  I nodded. Investigation for the police was a matter of following leads, coming up with theories, and checking the known facts against them. It was being picky and careful and painstaking that would get Virgil to the answer. I had to learn to be patient.

  “Right now we’re missing Cranston and Juniper, who I would also like to ask a few questions. Baxter has first dibs on Juniper, though, because of the attack on Zoey Channer. If you had called us the minute Juniper showed up at your door, we’d be further ahead.”

  “I’m sorry, Virgil. You’re right, of course.” And he was.

  He looked a little taken aback at my ready admission of fault. “Good. Next time, call me. Let me handle things like that. Now, I just put in a call to Baxter in Ridley Ridge to pick up Les Urquhart for questioning.”

  I was relieved at that. I did have one more question, though. “Virgil, tell me the truth about this, because it’s very important to me. You’ve told me all you did to check out Pish’s involvement with Hooper. Honestly . . . did you suspect him of kil
ling the guy?”

  “Merry, what can I say? It was a possibility,” he admitted. “I had to investigate it, especially when I traced a deposit Pish Lincoln made into one of Hooper’s bank accounts. He gave that guy ten thousand dollars. I know he didn’t exactly tell me he didn’t pay him off; he fudged in a very expert way. It had to be hush money, Merry. I’m sorry. I like Pish, and no, I don’t think he killed Davey Hooper, but it would have made it a hell of a lot easier if he had told me the truth. I wish he had trusted me.”

  Me, too, I thought. I sure wish Pish had trusted me enough to tell me about paying off Davey Hooper so I didn’t have to hear it from Virgil.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I DIDN’T SAY that to Virgil, though. He had been remarkably helpful and forthcoming. I opened my mouth to casually ask about his ex-wife, but he got a call just then and said he had to go. He almost ran out of the park, and I watched him leave with regret. Maybe Gogi could tell me more about his ex, but I did not want to question his mother on something so sensitive if I could avoid it. I wanted it to come from him.

  There was something between us, I could have sworn it. I liked him more than I had any man since my husband died, liked him in that “way” every girl knows once she reaches puberty: the stomach turning over, the sense of attraction, the tingling, the wish to know more and be closer. But he was avoiding me, and it either meant he liked me, too—I remember a boy from childhood who pulled my hair and made faces at me because he liked me, and some fellows never get over that method of wooing—or he wanted nothing to do with me. There was no middle ground, I was afraid. My instincts were rusty from not paying much attention to them in the last ten years since I’d gotten married. But if those instincts were to be trusted, I suspected that he was attracted to me.

  I pushed my hands deep into my sweater coat pockets and strolled back through the park as a cool wind whipped up, gathering dead leaves and sending them into tiny tornadoes. I vividly remembered a time walking in the Volksgarten, a beautiful park in Vienna, in the autumn. Miguel had hummed snatches of Haydn and Mozart, but otherwise we were silent. It was enough just to have his arm around me, keeping me warm. I would give anything to have him back, I thought.

  But that memory took me by surprise. Why, I wondered, did I think of Miguel every time I had been with Virgil? Did my attraction toward Virgil feel like cheating, eight long years after my husband’s death? I would have to think about that . . . another day.

  Shaking off my mild depression, I strode purposefully through the wrought iron arch—I had partaken of enough nature for one day—and back along the town streets toward Jezebel. I needed to go home and talk to Pish about why he didn’t feel that he could confide in me about paying Davey Hooper off. We were better friends than that, I had thought. I wanted to weep; how could he not trust me with the truth?

  Thank goodness our miracle mechanic had old Jezebel working much better, and she started up without so much as a whimper of protest. Once again the clouds had come in to close off the celestial blue of the sky over Autumn Vale, and as I began the climb out of town, thick rain sheeted across the windshield. I tapped my thumbs on the steering wheel in time to the slap-slap-slap of the wipers and hummed “Me and Bobby McGee,” singing out the line about windshield wipers slapping time. My mother had played the guitar and sung that song, along with Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez songs.

  As far as the murder went, Virgil would take care of things. Whoever had killed Davey Hooper, it had to be among those three men: the spurious Cranston Higgins, angry hotelier Percy Channer, or drug dealer/Party Stop owner Les Urquhart. I supposed Juniper was a distant possibility, and Zoey even more distant, but both were possible. Or it could have been a combination of two or more of them.

  I climbed and climbed as the weather got nastier. What was winter going to be like at the castle? How was I going to afford to stay? What was I going to do about Pish? How should I handle Virgil? Questions and troubles raced around in my brain, zinging from one to another until I settled myself down, needing to focus on the road in the worsening weather. Little bits of the gravel road had washed away down the slope. I sure didn’t want to wreck Jezebel.

  A couple of miles before the castle I saw a car half off the road in the ditch. That was exactly what I had feared happening! I screeched to a halt on the wet gravel and flung myself from the car, racing to where a girl huddled on the gravel shoulder of the road, blood on her leg. She was soaked, makeup-smeared, and shivering. “Zoey!” I cried, as I approached her.

  She turned, her face wet with tears and rain. “Thank God someone’s here. I was coming out to talk to you, but my car went off the road!” Blood soaked the bandage on her leg, visible under a short skirt.

  “Come on, let me help you up, and I’ll get you to the castle.”

  She sobbed and shivered, holding out her hand for me to help her up. But she couldn’t put her full weight on her injured leg. “Can you take me back to the hospital? I have stitches, but I think I’ve ripped them open, and it hurts like hell!” Moaning, she bent over, touching the bandage. Her hand came away red with blood, and she began to wail.

  I thought for just one second, pulling my sweater jacket off and wrapping it around the shivering girl, but my course was obvious. I led her to Jezebel, supporting her as she limped/hopped down the road, and said, “You’re right. The hospital is the best place for you.” I worried about hypothermia and the risk of infection, and in the awful shape she was in I would rather have a doctor take care of her than us. Once she was settled into the passenger seat, I revved the motor and turned on the heater. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it was worth a try. Mr. Hayes must have performed some voodoo spell, because the heater kicked in with a stream of warmish air, probably the first time that had happened since 1989.

  I turned the car around and sped off. I knew where Ridley Ridge General Hospital was, as I had seen it in passing while looking for the Party Stop. Glancing over, I saw that Zoey had stopped shivering and looked almost asleep. I hoped that wasn’t shock. Don’t die on me, I prayed fervently. “Zoey, wake up! How did you run your car off the road? Why were you coming to see me?” I asked. “Zoey, open your eyes! Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, I think,” she said, looking over at me blearily. “It just . . . hurts.”

  “I’ll get you to the hospital. Why did you even leave in the first place? I understood that you were staying at the hospital until you worked things out legally, and until you saw a plastic surgeon.” No answer. “Zoey, honey, keep your eyes open. Why did you leave the hospital? I didn’t think you’d be allowed. You’re on parole, right?”

  I looked over at her, but she had her eyes closed again. “Zoey, the police want to talk to you about what happened the night of the party. Did you see anything? Is that what you were coming out to the castle to tell me? I hate to say it, but you’re not hanging out with the best crowd, especially not for someone on parole. Either Les or the guy posing as Cranston Higgins had to have been the one who killed Davey Hooper.” I didn’t want to mention her father as a suspect.

  She was silent, but at least she was sitting up now and looked more alert. She rummaged in her little shoulder bag, took out a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out of the pack, her slim fingers dexterous.

  I plucked it from her fingers and tossed it in the backseat. “Sorry, not in the car.” I turned onto the highway into town.

  We were silent for a long moment, and she had closed her eyes again. The bandage on her leg was a weird red, practically a fluorescent color, and there was a lot of blood, drying into a strange drippy pattern. That could not be good. But it made me think of the bloody handprint on the wall and what Virgil had said about there being no ridge detail. Whoever made the handprint had been wearing gloves. Who had been wearing gloves with their costume? Gogi was as La Dame Aux Camélias. Juniper had gloves on to serve with. My eyes widened. That was true! I wondered if she had gotten r
id of the gloves or if she had still been wearing them at the end of the evening.

  “I’m sorry, Zoey. It must have been a shock, Davey Hooper dying like that.” I thought over all I had heard. There were so many things that just didn’t add up, but one thing that stuck was the fact that Zoey Channer didn’t seem to care about Hooper’s death. That was true from what I had observed at the back of the Party Stop.

  Lots of stuff did not add up. I invited Les and had him on the guest list, but he hadn’t checked in at the door like he should have. Why not? He had come in costume, because it was clear to me at that point that he was the Sweeney Todd with the straight razor. “How much did you know about Davey’s con, the plot to make money off me?” I suddenly asked.

  She sounded drowsy as she said, “He hired some jerk, some guy who makes a living swindling old folks, to play your cousin. Usually the guy works the grandson scam, you know? Finds a mark, then makes the phone call: Grandma, I’m in trouble. Can you send me money to get out of jail? What kind of loser scams little old ladies?” She giggled, ending on a snort and a snuffle. “But the guy went off script on his own, and Davey was mad as hell.”

  That much I had already figured out. So Davey Hooper was coming to my party to have it out with Cranston. For the first time, I wondered when Cranston had left that evening, why he had left before other locals, and if he still had his lab coat from his Doctor Frankenstein costume on? Why had I not wondered about that before? “You were Davey’s girlfriend, right? You met through his mother, who you met in jail; she sent you to him with a message about me and the castle.”

  She glanced over at me, her makeup-streaked face marked by a surprised expression. I looked back, needing to keep my focus on the road. We were almost to Ridley Ridge, and I was relieved that she seemed better than she had at first, when I’d thought she was going into shock.

  “How involved were you in the plot?” I asked, slowing to go around a branch that had fallen in the road. I wove around it, waiting for her answer. Involved enough that she’d come in costume to the party . . . the Mardi Gras mask and gaudy costume, complete with gloves. She had been involved enough that she could be going back to jail, I suspected, for more than just the parole violation.