“Mel.” His voice was soft, almost apologetic. “He’d have had a chance to sew on a new button. The button is worthless as evidence.”
Somehow I had to prove it wasn’t. How?
12
I was sitting in the café in the dark, petting Su-Jitzu in my lap and drinking cold coffee when Bill knocked. I wasn’t going to answer the door at first but, craning my neck, I saw him through the window. I realized I wanted to know exactly what he’d told Chief McCaffrey.
Because it was after hours, the café had no lights on and I’d not yet locked the doors. Rather than rise from my seat, I shouted.
Bill was tentative as he opened the door and moved into the darkness.
“Hang on a sec. I’ll turn on a light.” I roughly plopped Su-Jitzu down and got up to fumble for the switch on the wall by the display counter. When I did, I found Bill standing near the entrance to Bookmarks with his hands up like he was expecting an assailant to lash out at him.
His ninja stance was comical. I chuckled as I made my way back to my seat at the window and could almost feel his embarrassment. “Why are you here so late?” I asked without offering a greeting. Though I already knew the answer to my second question, I also asked, “Did you tell the chief?”
His nod was serious. “You were right. I should have told him sooner. He doesn’t suspect me.” Su-Jitzu had rushed to Bill’s side. With his tail wildly thrumming, he was happily bouncing on his hind legs, his forefeet beating a tattoo in the air. In an absent-minded way, Bill picked Su up in his arms and moved into the café to find a seat opposite me.
I gave him a strained smile. “But telling him hasn’t helped Barney’s case, has it?” I collapsed backwards onto my chair.
Cradled in the crook of Bill’s arm, Su Jitzu’s head bobbed from me and back to Bill as we talked.
“It’ll work out,” Bill encouraged.
“They are going to charge him,” I answered angrily. “The police think she scratched him in a fight. They don’t believe she scratched him here in The Grind the day you pushed her down, and think she did it when they fought at her house.”
“I didn’t push her,” Bill defended himself. Then he shrugged and gave me an intent look. “Do you want to work on buying books tomorrow? Maybe it will get your mind off things for a while?”
I sighed.
“I’ll come over and you can show me what to do. You don’t have to work if you don’t feel like it. I’d like the chance to help.”
I was emphatic. “I’m going to fight this! Barney is innocent and someone else out there is a murderer. Her husband probably had a motive and I don’t know about Allan, but I bet he does too. I just have to find it.”
Bill stared deeply into my eyes. “Okay,” he said with compassion. “I get how you feel. What can I do?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Podeski’s husband. Maybe you can find out what Allan was doing that night. His friends might know if he wasn’t getting along with his mother. Maybe he sneaked out for a while after supper. Can you ask around?”
He shook his head. “I don’t hang with his crowd. They won’t talk to me.”
“What about the Long Branch? Allan goes there. They must too. Maybe if you go to the bar …”
He slowly nodded and answered me half-heartedly. “Okay, okay. Whatever helps.”
Bill laid his hand on the tabletop, palm up, like he was panhandling for change. I glanced up and saw something. His blue eyes shone with a nearly palpable tenderness. I couldn’t help myself. I took his hand with one of my own and lightly squeezed. “Thank you. I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me and Barney.”
“I’ll talk to his friends. I’ll do what I can.”
“I know.” I squeezed again and released his hand.
“Mel,” he said softly. “I want to …”
“No!” I pushed my chair back from the table. “Don’t say it.” I stood up and grabbed my half-empty coffee cup. “My life is a mess and it’s too soon.”
“I want to tell you how I feel.”
“I already know, Bill. You don’t have to say it.” I moved to the display counter and quickly circled to the sink behind it. “But I need some time,” I said, gripping the sink with white-boned intensity. “I’ve been fooled by my feelings before and I can’t afford to get confused about things right now.”
Bill stood up, burying his hands in his pants pockets and staring at the floor . “I’m sorry I lied about going over there. But I want you to know how…”
“I told you I do,” I shouted angrily. I stared daggers. “I’ve been betrayed before, Bill. Betrayed by Jim and by my father and in a way I feel betrayed by Barney too. There’s no way I can get into a relationship right now. No way.”
“But it doesn’t have to be—”
“Come back tomorrow,” I interrupted, choking back my turmoil. “It’s a good idea. We can work on the book stuff. It will be a good break.” I smiled.
Bill nodded. He shuffled away, hands in his pockets and obviously saddened, but I couldn’t deal with that. Not now. Maybe not ever.
I hardly slept that night and woke startled on hearing Nancy stumble up the stairs and cuss as she entered my room. “Damn dog! I almost broke my neck tripping over him! Get up. The chief is here.”
“What does he want?” I asked, pulling the pillow over my head.
“He says he needs to ask you some questions.” Nancy tugged my chenille housecoat from a hook by my door and held it out. “I’ve got a bad vibe about this, Mel. I don’t know what, but something has happened.”
She pulled me out of bed and then pushed past me. I tried to ignore the worried look on her face as I clumped downstairs to the café. I stood on the last tread, not wanting to expose myself to customers just out of sight in The Grind. Bookmarks, as usual, was empty so at least that wasn’t a problem. Chief McCaffrey moved from the café door and into the bookstore towards me, his Stetson still perched on his head and his notebook in his hand.
“Sorry to wake you this way,” he apologized.
“It was time I got up anyway. How can I help you?” I tugged the edges of my housecoat tight.
“Dr. Santos’s receptionist says you went to see him yesterday.”
I nodded.
“She says it wasn’t for dental work.”
“I went there to ask him some questions. What’s the matter?”
“Was she still there when you left?”
I shook my head. “She had someplace to go. Dr. Santos said he’d meet his next patient without her. What’s this about, Chief?”
“Did you bring him anything? Like a peace offering so he’d answer your questions?”
I felt a sudden chill and tugged the edges of my housecoat tighter. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“You say you were asking him questions? About what?”
The chief’s secretive probing had gotten on my nerves. “That’s my business, Chief. Either tell me what this is about or leave. I need to change.”
“So, he was alone when you left? Did you see his next patient?”
“No.” I turned and began to climb the stairs.
“I’m only asking because his appointment book is missing so we don’t know who that might have been. His receptionist found the doc in his office. It looks like you were the last person to see him before he died.”
I froze in mid stride. Died? I turned to face the chief, who had now moved to the bottom of the stairs.
“What happened? He was fine when I left. A little angry at me maybe, but fine.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else?”
I shook my head.
“Why was he angry?”
I sat down on the stairs and tugged my housecoat around my knees. “I went to ask him why he was fighting with Mrs. Podeski. I was also trying to find out why he was lying about what he was doing that night.”
“Lying? What do you mean?”
“My friend’s daug
hter babysits his kids. He wasn’t home for supper like he said he was. Neither was his wife. That was his alibi, wasn’t it?”
“Which friend?” The chief was hastily scribbling in his notebook.
“Carol Immerman.”
The chief furrowed his brow. “Immerman?” He tapped the bannister with his pen. “Do you mean Mason? Carol Mason?”
I nodded. “Oh right. She married Billy Mason, didn’t she? Sorry.”
“Carol has a daughter about the right age for babysitting. Why didn’t you tell me this when you found out?”
“Because you’ve got it in your head that Uncle Barney killed Mrs. Podeski,” I said bluntly and angrily. “I didn’t trust you to think that was important so I decided to follow up the lead myself.”
He shook his head slowly. “I’ve told you to stay out of this, Ms. Willoughby.”
“He’s my uncle,” I barked. “Why should I stay out of it?”
The chief frowned. “What did the dentist say about coming home late?”
“Nothing.” I got up and started climbing the stairs again. “I chickened out and didn’t ask him. He got so angry with me when I asked about Mrs. Podeski that I decided not to push my luck.”
“He was poisoned,” the chief said quickly, staring at me and trying to gauge my reaction.
I froze in mid stride.
“It was carrot cake. Someone gave him carrot cake laced with strychnine.”
Strychnine? That’s what the vet said poisoned Su! “Oh my!” I collapsed back onto a step. “Nancy says carrot cake was his favorite. You don’t think I gave it to him, do you? The receptionist saw me. I wasn’t carrying a cake.”
He moved to the stairs and kneeled a few treads below where I was sitting and shook his head. “No.” He sighed. “The doc and Utta Podeski fought over Barney’s last piece the day Bill knocked her down.”
I clenched my fists. “That’s right!” I said with relief. “And I told you! Bill barely touched her. Her fall was totally baloney.”
The chief waved a hand at me. “My guess is that it was the person who came in after you left who brought cake to the doc. You didn’t see anyone?”
I shook my head.
The chief turned away. “Listen to me, Ms. Willoughby.” He started talking to the wall and then turned back to me. “I need you to come in and sign a statement about what Carol Mason told you. And if you learn of anything else, and I mean anything at all that has any importance to this case, you have to come and tell me. Okay?”
I gave him a slow nod and watched him leave. White Jeep.
13
The rap was thick and dull sounding, like the person knocking had his hand wrapped in a towel. I barely heard it, but Su-Jitzu was keenly aware. He literally flew off my bed in his barking rush to get down the stairs to the front door. I pulled on my housecoat and stood at the top of the stairs to listen. Bump. Bump. Su-Jitzu was jumping on all fours, yapping for all he was worth with each thud.
Uncertain, I crept down until I’d reached Bookmarks and waited again. The bumps had stopped, but Su was madly scratching at the door and growling.
I shouted into the darkness, “Who’s there?” I moved to the door and pulled the curtain aside, trying to see a reason for the thumps through the beveled glass window. “Who’s there?”
“Me.” The answer sounded muffled, like the person speaking had a mouth full of cotton. “Bill.”
“Bill?” I craned to look out but saw nothing. “Bill, is that you?”
“Can you open the door?” he asked. “Hurt.”
I still couldn’t see a thing, but recognized Bill’s voice and frantically turned the lock to open the door. Bill was slumped in the doorway on his knees, blood streaming from his mouth. He hadn’t come over that day as we’d agreed and I’d figured my tirade had scared him off for good. I’d spent the day working in The Grind except for a visit to see Barney. I’d shut up for the night and gone to bed when Bill arrived.
“What happened?” I reached down and cradled his head against my legs. “Jeese, Bill! Are you okay?”
He looked up at me and tried to smile. I automatically started wiping at the blood on his chin. “Can you get up? Come in here!” I tried lifting him but he got up mostly under his own steam and stumbled into the café where he collapsed on the first chair he found.
I was shocked at what I saw when I turned on the lights. Bill’s face was cut above his left eye. His mouth was swollen and he was bleeding freely down his white T-shirt. I rushed to the coffee counter, wet a dish rag, and then began patting at his mouth. I asked again.
“Allan,” was all Bill said.
“My lord! Allan did this to you?”
Bill tried to nod. “Allan. And his friends.”
“Here.” I stuffed the dish rag into one of his hands. “I’m calling the police!”
Bill grabbed my wrist and held tight. “No! No police.”
“But he attacked you! We have to call the police.”
Bill shook his head. “No police. It was just a bar fight. I don’t want to scare him off.”
I slumped to my knees. “What do you mean? Scare who off?”
“I learned some stuff,” Bill answered, dabbing the cloth to his eye. “It’s okay. A little thumping was worth it.”
I got up and found another towel and, after wrapping some ice in it, returned to Bill’s side.
“I waited at the bar for hours before Allan got there and I talked with Jimmy Barnes. He’s afraid of Allan but he told me some stuff about Utta Podeski.”
I kneeled beside him and held the ice to Bill’s eye. “And this was worth it?”
Bill tried to smile again.
“What? Is that why Allan beat you up?”
“My fault,” Bill said with a chortle. “I called his mom a few names.”
“Damn it, Bill. You were supposed to ask his friends a few questions, not get into a fight.”
Bill folded the dish rag and held it to his lip. The bleeding had stopped but his lips were swollen. “It’s okay,” he reassured me. “I’ll be fine.” He took the ice pack from me and set it on the table.
I moved to a chair opposite him. “So Allan just got mad and started hitting you?”
“I was talking to Barnes. I don’t know him very well, but he remembered what that battleax did to me after the accident, and I guess it helped soften him up. He didn’t like her much either.”
“What did he say?”
Bill didn’t answer me, already too far into his story to switch gears. “Allan came in. He wanted to know what I was doing there. I asked him where he was when his mother died. I called her some names. He blew up at me. Started pushing me. ‘With us’ one of his friends said and I said ‘that’s convenient’ and then Allan hit me. His friends held my arms so I couldn’t hit back and Allan pounded me with a couple more. The bouncer broke it up and threw me out. I came here.” He smiled again. “Sorry.”
“Why?” I asked. “No! I’m glad you did. But we should call the police. What Allan did wasn’t right and there were witnesses!”
Bill shook his head again. “I told you. No police. Let it go as a bar fight. No big deal. I don’t want to spook Barnes.”
“I’ll make us some coffee.” I got up, tugged my housecoat tighter and moved to the counter. I brewed Bill some of the expensive Kona, thinking he deserved it.
By the time I returned with our cups, Bill had managed to wipe away most of the blood on his face. He took his cup gratefully and gingerly lifted it to his swollen lip.
“So will you tell me what this Barnes guy had to say?”
Bill sipped and nodded. “I asked him if Allan had disappeared anytime that night and he said not that he knew of, but he wasn’t with him all the time. Then I asked if he thought his mother had any enemies in town and he just laughed. He said the dentist qualified.”
“Why’s that?”
“Allan told him she had something on the dentist and she was squeezing him.”
“Squeezing hi
m?”
“Blackmailing him, I think.”
I thought hard about what Bill was saying. Is that why Dr. Santos was so angry at her? Was he angry enough to kill her? Does it have anything to do with what she may have stolen from him?
“He didn’t say what that was?”
Bill shook his head.
“That was it?”
“Basically, yeah. Then the fireworks.”
“Okay,” I said finally. “Come on. I’ll get some peroxide for those cuts and you can sleep in Barney’s bed tonight.”
I clicked through the list of websites set up for reader groups while Bill leaned over my shoulder in Bookmarks, staring at the screen. I’d moved my Mac to a small table behind the display case and hooked up to Barney’s Wi-Fi. Setting it up there, I was pretty certain we’d not be bothered by customers.
Having Bill leaning in so close over the laptop bothered me for a whole list of reasons, not the least of which was the electric thrill I got feeling his breath gently brushing my cheek. His face was a mess. His upper lip was puffy and his forehead had grown a large green blemish where he’d been cut. Despite that, I still found him ruggedly attractive. But, at the same time I wasn’t sure about him. Not sure I should be taking notice at all, or if I even wanted another man in my life after what Jim did to me. I’d gone too far with Bill at the vet’s office and on the way back, and now I felt inexplicably guilty for wanting to kiss him. I tried to shake off the confusion. I liked Bill, a lot. But I had a niggling mistrust for that feeling, which I’d have to shake before I could begin to get closer to him. Why can’t I open up? He’s a terrific guy. In all the mess going on, I was terribly confused—but I was certain about one thing. I didn’t have complete faith in any male right now.
I grunted my displeasure at my situation and tapped the keys with too much force. It must have been obvious to Bill I wasn’t happy because he put a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed. I didn’t really want to be doing any of this book buying stuff right now. Barney hadn’t given me a budget, so any books I bought for the store would have to come out of my own meagre bank funds. That scared me a little. This book-buying binge would be a certain test of my confidence that I could make Bookmarks work, even though I expected I’d be able to get some books I picked on a no-charge consignment from publishers.
Cool Demise Page 12
