by Lauren Carr
“No, the earring was in the soufflé,” Jacqui said.
“But you stated that she didn’t lose her earring in the soufflé, and that’s why Sal Loughlin killed her.” Detective Taylor slapped the folder shut and rose from his seat. “Go home, ladies.”
They were stewing by the time they hit the street outside the police station.
“The only way they’re going to take us seriously is if we get a confession,” Jacqui said, “and that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” Francine asked.
Jacqui was not one to scoff. At this point, she’d had her fill. “Seriously?”
“That’s the problem with you scientific types.” Francine slipped her arm through Jacqui’s and led her to the BMW. “You never learn how to think outside the box.”
Doris had spent most of the day on an emotional roller-coaster. She had started the day thrilled about Chris and Helen’s engagement. Her mind swarmed with wedding ideas.
Then, the sweet young boy who Chris had enlisted to help set up the computer network in his barn had been shot. After hearing Sadie’s anguished cries for help, she watched Elliott run from the woods with the bloody Doberman in his arms. The police still hadn’t arrived at the scene when he tossed Sadie into the backseat of his SUV and sped off to the veterinary emergency room.
The first person the police wanted to talk to was Thomas Clarke, Helen’s ex. Sierra’s father. He was nowhere to be found.
Doris hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she couldn’t stop feeling responsible for her friend’s son lying in the hospital recovering from a bullet wound to his back. The doctors had said he’d be fine. The bullet had passed through his side without hitting any major organs. Still, the emotional trauma the lad would suffer would take years to get over.
After visitor’s hours had ended at the hospital, Doris went home and waited for Elliott to return home with Sadie. The bullet had passed through her chest and out her shoulder. She was a lucky dog.
Sitting on the front porch with Mocha at her side, Doris stroked the lab while reflecting on the day’s trauma.
What if it wasn’t Thomas? What if it was one of Christopher’s enemies from his undercover days? Doris shuddered. If that proved to be the case, it would not be out of the question for Christopher to leave to protect his family and never return. There would be no wedding. Helen and and Sierra joining their happy family. No Christopher. She couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again.
A pair of headlights pierced the darkness on the road along the river. Elliott’s SUV raced to the end of the lane.
Whining, Mocha rose to her feet. Her partner was returning home.
They met Elliott in the driveway. He only paused long enough to give Doris a hug before yanking open the rear door to reveal Sadie wearing the cone of shame. Her chest and side were shaved and heavily bandaged. He had purchased a special pet gurney that kept her stabilized for the ride home.
“We need to keep her still and quiet.” He gingerly pulled the bed from the rear seat. Doris took the other end. “How’s Matthew?”
“He’ll be out of intensive care by tomorrow,” she said. “His folks are scared to death. I don’t think he’ll be allowed to finish setting up the barn. We’ll be lucky if he’ll even be allowed to speak to us anymore.”
“Maybe Ray can finish Chris’s project. He’s good at figuring out that type of stuff. Chris and I can do the heavy physical work. When are the girls coming home?”
“After we catch Thomas and know everyone’s out of danger.”
Together, they carried the heavily drugged dog up the steps and into the house. They set the bed next to Sadie’s food bowls. Thor greeted her injured friend by climbing onto the bed to nuzzle on the Doberman’s cheek.
Doris went into the mudroom to close the door only to see Chompers scamper inside with a leather glove that was bigger than the Jack Russell puppy. “Oh, dear!” She clasped her hand over her mouth.
In all the excitement, she had forgotten about Emma’s puppy. She tried to remember the last time she had seen him.
When was it? He was outside with her when Elliott had arrived after lunch—before the shooting. Has he been outside all this time? Good thing he didn’t disappear for good.
“Whose glove is that?” Elliott asked when he saw Chompers tumble pass after tripping over his oversized prize.
The pup crouched under the kitchen table to enjoy his new toy.
Doris moved in for a closer look. The brown leather glove was too new to have been one of Chris’s work gloves. The thumb had almost been chewed off. The rest of the glove was pristine.
“That’s a shooting glove.” Elliott grasped Doris’s wrist. “Could Chompers have followed us when we went after the shooter?”
“He’s been following the big dogs everywhere. Do you think that glove belongs to the shooter?”
Elliott moved around the table. “With Sadie and me coming across that field he had to move quickly to get away. He shot Sadie to buy himself time. He probably didn’t even notice that he’d dropped his glove.”
“And Chompers picked it up.” Doris moved around to the other side of the table. “If we’re lucky, it has epidermal remnants inside. We might be able to get DNA off it to trace back to the shooter.” Slowly, she moved a chair aside.
Elliott did the same on his side of the table. Silently, he held up his fingers to count down to zero. Then, they dropped under the table to grab the pup, who shot out. Glove in his mouth, Chompers raced across the kitchen.
“Give me that, you little demon dog!” Doris followed the puppy into the living room.
“I thought you said ‘dog’ was ‘God’ spelled backwards.” Elliott chased after them.
“Lucifer used to be an angel before turning to the dark side!”
In the living room, Chompers crawled behind the sofa.
“You move the sofa and I’ll grab him,” Doris directed.
“He’s going to tire of playing with it eventually.”
“And destroy every bit of evidence in the meantime!” She gestured at the end of the sofa. “Move it!”
With a sigh, Elliott went to the corner of the room and grabbed one end of the sofa. While Doris readied to grab the pup, Elliott lifted the heavy piece of furniture.
The glove clutched in his teeth, Chompers shot between Doris’s feet.
At the doorway, the pup stopped and turned to them.
“Chompers!” Doris ordered. “Come!”
The pup ran from the room.
“Now, he’s playing with us.” Elliott crooked his finger at her.
As they turned the corner into the formal dining room, they found Chompers sprawled out on the hall rug with his prize between his front paws. Upon seeing them, he gathered up the glove and ran back into the kitchen.
“Follow my lead.” Casually, Elliott sauntered into the kitchen with Chompers trotting ahead of him.
The puppy glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were following.
Doris whistled a little tune. In the kitchen, she picked up a sponge and pretended to turn her attention to wiping the counter.
Eventually, Chompers lay down on the floor between them.
Elliott caught Doris’s attention. Together, they counted down.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
They sprang at the pup from opposite directions. Doris snatched the pup from the floor. Elliot grabbed the glove and tugged on it. Chompers clamped his teeth down on Elliott’s fingers and locked his jaws.
Elliott howled. “He’s biting me! He’s biting me!”
“Grab the glove!” Doris clung to the squirming snarling pup chewing on Elliott’s fingers like a fur-laden piranha.
Sadie, Mocha, and Thor stared at the scene taking p
lace before them with wide disbelieving eyes.
Unable to take the pain anymore, Elliott released the glove. Clutching his throbbing thumb, he fell onto his back. Doris dropped the pup who snatched the glove and made his getaway up the back stairs.
“Why did you let go?” Doris got up and went into the mudroom.
“Because he was biting me!” Elliott slowly climbed to his feet.
“Suck it up.” Doris emerged from the mudroom with a coil of large rope and a box of dog biscuits. “We’ve got to lasso that free puppy before he destroys our evidence.”
“That’s right,” Elliot said with a groan. “He was free. Proves what my pa always told me. You get what you pay for.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The sun had set on State College when Francine and Jacqui returned to Loughlin’s book shop shortly before it was scheduled to close for the day.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Jacqui hissed to Francine in the passenger seat of her BMW while they eyed the store.
They could see Sal working behind the service desk.
Francine checked a text on her cell phone. “Of course, I did this all the time as an investigative journalist.”
“And it worked?”
“Most of the time.” Francine looked up at the roof. “About fifty percent…closer to forty percent. Degenerates are pretty savvy.”
Before Jacqui could stop her, Francine threw open the door and jumped out. She trotted through the door and into the shop. “Told you we’d be back!” she announced in a merry tone.
Sal Loughlin looked up from his laptop. They could see in his eyes that he recognized them. “The Virginia Woolf letter.”
“Actually,” Francine said, “we’re here to sell you something.”
A pleased grin crossed Sal’s face. He moved out from behind the service counter. “What have you got?”
“An original Mercedes Livingston manuscript,” Francine said.
At first, Sal’s face was blank. His eyebrows shot high on forehead. There was a long silence before he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, he stammered, “Excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean? Are you talking about a book—”
“A university professor who specializes in Mercedes Livingston’s writing brought it to our attention.” Francine extracted a thick heavy brown envelope from her bag. “He acquired it from a family cleaning out their late mother’s home. Turned out their mother was quite close to Mercedes Livingston. Close enough for Mercedes Livingston to give her this unpublished manuscript before her untimely death.”
“We thought you might be interested in it because of the subject matter,” Jacqui said.
He pasted a wide grin on his face. “Which is?”
“The true crime story behind The Last Thing She Said,” Francine said.
“You mean about how Rick Hudson got away with killing the love of my life?” Sal asked.
“No, about how you concocted a scheme to frame an innocent man for stalking and murdering a college student who threatened to expose you as a fraud.”
Sal’s laughter was much louder than necessary—over the top to make them believe their suggestion was preposterous. “Get out of here!”
“Okay.” Francine turned to the door. “As smart as everyone has been saying you are, we thought for sure that you’d want to get ahead of this scandal. Guess you’re not as smart as people say you are.”
Sal stopped her from leaving. “Lacey was the love of my life. I never got over her. That’s why I never married. Why would I ever want to kill her?”
With a shake of her head, Francine looked at the envelope in her hand. “That’s not what Mercedes wrote in her book.”
Sal went back behind the counter. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t you want to know the last thing Lacey said?” Jacqui asked.
“What was the last thing she said?” Sal asked with a laugh.
“That all these rare letters and documents that you’ve been discovering all these years have been forgeries,” Jacqui said. “Lacey was going to expose you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to believe us.” Francine held up the envelope. “It’s all in Mercedes Livingston’s manuscript. She didn’t say anything at the time of Lacey’s murder because she was afraid of you. But then, after her book became a hit, she realized the truth needed to come out—she owed it to her friend. So Mercedes did what she did best. She wrote it all down—for the world to know.”
“Lacey was the one who gave you those bruises and that black eye that night, not Rick Hudson,” Jacqui said. “We got copies of the crime scene photos. Pictures of Lacey’s and your injuries. Each bruise. Each scratch. They’re like puzzle pieces. With today’s technology, our forensics experts will be able to match them up—to create a blow by blow scenario of how it went down. They will be able to prove that your injuries came from Lacey fighting for her life.”
“Her injuries came from your hands around her neck,” Francine said. “The only reason you’ve gotten away with Lacey’s murder until now has been because the police were as sloppy as you were.”
“I was not sloppy!”
“You certainly didn’t get away with forgery and murder all these years because you were smart.” Francine laughed.
“I’m the most respected business owner in the state!”
“You’re the most respected fraud in the state.” Francine scoffed. “You’re also one of the sloppiest killers I’ve ever met.”
“Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“If you’re going to frame someone, you need to make sure he doesn’t have an airtight alibi,” Francine said. “The only reason the police didn’t zero in on you was because you had gone behind Lacey’s back and convinced her friends that you two were a secret item.”
“But you had no interest in Lacey romantically,” Jacqui said.
“You’re wrong!” Sal said. “I’ve always loved Lacey. Even back in school. That’s why I hired her to work in the shop. I thought we had a chance—until she found drafts of my work. I tried to explain how it all worked—”
“Why it was okay for you to forge rare letters from literary greats?” Jacqui asked.
“If she had just listened to me—but she decided to get all self-righteous on me.”
“She threatened to reveal the truth,” Jacqui said. “So you planted a few rumors about the two of you dating and made people think Rick Hudson was stalking her, and then you murdered her.”
“I’ll admit it was a good plan,” Francine said, “but sloppily executed.”
“If it was so sloppy, I’d be in jail!” Sal said.
“If your plan was so well-executed, then you wouldn’t have needed to kill Mary Ann White,” Francine said.
“After Mercedes Livingston’s book was released, one of your employees noticed the similarities between Lacey’s murder and Mercedes’s fictional account,” Jacqui said.
“Did she figure out that you were a fraud, too?” Francine asked.
“No,” Sal said. “After Lacey, I started doing my artwork at home. Mary Ann just wanted the reward. She had pieced enough together from the book that she knew I did it. She knew the police wouldn’t take her seriously unless she found some concrete evidence.”
“That’s why you had to get rid of her, too,” Jacqui said.
“She ended up getting killed because she got too nosey.” Sal pulled a gun out from under the counter.
“Francine, he has a gun,” Jacqui said.
Francine scoffed. “He’s not going to shoot us.”
“Don’t be so certain about that,” Sal said. “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve accomplished. I’ve gone from loser in high school to the top of the world. Lacey and I were friends, but never publicly—until I became an overnight
success—all because I found an old letter in some dusty old book. She was going to take everything away from me.”
“It wasn’t Lacey’s fault you were a fraud,” Jacqui said.
“I wasn’t going to let her ruin me!” He aimed the gun at them. “Just like I’m not going to let you ruin me. You’re going to give me that manuscript and then we’re going to go for a ride.”
“We’ve already been to the police,” Jacqui said.
“And they didn’t believe a word you said.” Sal chuckled. “That’s the advantage of being one of the most respected law-abiding citizens in the area. I’ve never even gotten a traffic ticket. No one ever suspects me. Two senile old ladies disappear? They’ll think you wandered away and got lost.”
“We are not senile!” Jacqui yelled.
“I’ll bet they’ll start asking questions after dozens of witnesses start calling them about your online confession to killing Lacey Woodhouse and Mary Ann White. At last count, we have forty-six witnesses.” Tamara Dawson stepped out from where she had been hiding behind the book stacks with her tablet held high. “Smile, Sal. We’re live. My cold case social group has been watching this live broadcast on my Justice for Lacey Woodhouse page. The police have been getting calls for the last several minutes. They’re on their way here now.”
Francine shook her head while making a ticking noise with her tongue. “Sloppy. Sloppy. Sloppy.”
It had been a long trip.
Chris held Helen in his arms and buried his face in her soft hair. Was it really only the day before that he had been looking forward to their quick day trip to Deep Creek Lake—just the two of them? Since rekindling their relationship, times when they could be alone—without family—were rare and treasured occurrences.
Since learning of the shooting, fear for his girls’ safety had him itching to get back to Harpers Ferry. Helen felt the same. They could trust Doris to make sure everyone was safe—but he needed to be there himself.
They turned in soon after eating Joshua Thornton’s spaghetti dinner to get an early start the next morning. They had learned during dinner that the grand old three-story house had been in the Thornton family for several generations—built by a great-grandfather for his bride. Over a century old, the stairs leading to the corner guest room on the second floor creaked when Joshua led them to their room. It had been converted from one of his six children’s rooms to a more adult room with a queen-size bed covered with an antique quilt that had been hand-stitched by Joshua’s grandmother.
